The Dreams of Reality

Co-Authors: Jelisee and Obscene Maureen


Chapter 8: Friendly Fire

After about 10 minutes of keeping to himself, Harry rose out of the bathtub. Who knew that you could be on top of the world one moment, and at the bottom in literally 10 seconds later?

After Harry dressed himself, he looked at his face on the fogged up mirror, and realized how depressed he looked. He rubbed at the mirror for a bit with his thumb to clear the away a bit of the steam, and ended up making the mirror even less clear with larger droplets of water on it, which appeared to distort his face even more.


He then left the Prefects bathroom and walked down the empty staircase, looking for any sign of visible human life.

Nothing.

Harry finally walked by the greenhouses when he started to hear voices.

"COME ON! SOCK IT TO HIM!" A Ravenclaw 3rd year boy hollered, clinging onto a branch of a tree, as if he were looking at something.

Harry followed the gaze of the boy, and noticed where all the shouts were coming from. There seemed to be a ring of Hogwarts students, standing in a large circle, and Harry could hear the voice of a girl, shrieking "STOP IT! STOP IT RON!"

Hermione's voice.


Harry immediately took off at a run and pushed himself through the large crowd of students in order to see what was going on.

In the middle of the circle was Draco, who looked like he had fallen backwards. He was sitting up, but his legs were sprawled on the ground, while he kept himself up with his arms. He looked like a mess: he had a dark circle around his left eye, his robes were torn and messed, and his usually carefully-combed mane was messy and in disarray.

Above Draco stood Ron. Ron had both fists in the air, and his nose was bleeding and looked almost broken, for it was somewhat purple and green at the same time. Other than that, however, Ron looked unharmed, though he was so angry that his usually somewhat-red hair now looked like it was completely on fire.

"Come on!" Ron challenged, his fists in front of him. "Afraid to fight me?"

"Ron! Ron! Stop it this instant!" Hermione shrieked, as her arms were wrapped around Ron, struggling to keep him from running forward and kicking Malfoy. Her efforts were working, but Harry didn't know how long they would work, for Ron was a good 7 inches taller than she.

"I won't hit you." Draco groaned, as he struggled to sit up, then gave a hiss of pain as he reached over and clutched his side.

"COWARD!" Ron yelled. "FILTHY COWARD! Hermione—let go!"

"No!" Hermione yelped, and Ron then put one hand on each of her wrists and pried her off. "RON!" Hermione yelled as he wrestled her off, "you're making a huge mistake!"

After Ron succeeded in wrestling himself out of Hermione's grasp, he started toward Draco, who was still down on the ground, and unable to pick himself up.

Harry couldn't take it anymore—he had to do something. Immediately, he pushed himself past the two other students standing in front of him, and charged at Ron.

"ARGH!" Harry grunted, as he jumped, wrapped his arms around Ron's waist, and they both tumbled onto the ground.

Harry was probably the only person in that entire group of people who had the common sense of getting out his wand, but he shouted "IMPEDIMENTA!" and Ron stopped trying to resist him, for the spell caused him to move only a tenth as fast as he could.

The students watching the scruffle, at first loud and noisy, were now completely silent.

"Show's over, people." Harry muttered.

The people still continued standing there, watching Harry, Ron, and Draco, who had all fallen on the floor.

"Well you heard him," Hermione added, "SCRAM, DAMN IT!"


Everyone else start going away, andleft, one-by-one.Hermione leaned over to Harry and whispered quietly to him.

"I don't know what's going on here, Harry, but for some reason, I'm quite certain that it involves you. Now, it's not my place to ask you what you are doing, but whatever it is, it's up to you to fix." Hermione then turned and looked at both Ron and Draco, and added, "but whatever it is, it sure is serious."

"Thanks." Harry replied, not knowing what else to say, and Hermione gave him a polite nod, and then departed.

Ron slowly got back on his feet as the spell wore off, and he glared at Harry. Without saying anything, he started to walk away, and then ran the rest of the direction back into the castle.


Harry sighed as he turned back to Draco.

"Are you alright?"

Draco scoffed. "Does it LOOK like I'm alright?"

"Well, I just meant if you are able to get up—there's nothing serious, is there? Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey."

Draco tilted his chin upwards, in order to redeem any bit of dignity left in his body. "I don't need Madam Pomfrey to—ah…ah…" He let out a small moan as he clutched his stomach.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked immediately.

"Your little friend kicked me right in the stomach. Twice." Draco let out another hiss of pain as he stood up straight again. "Okay, fine, I'll go see Madam Pomfrey."

Harry let Draco lean one arm over his shoulder, and helped Draco slowly to the Hospital Wing.

When they got to the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey almost through a hissy fit over "Mr. Malfoy's condition" and the "improper conducts of post adolescent teens". When Draco was finally in bed and being pampered by Madam Pomfrey, Harry left in search of Ron.


Harry didn't have to search for Ron; for the redhead was at the first place which Harry looked, in the Gryffindor Common Room. Ron was sitting on a couch, elbows on his knees, and the palms of his hands covering his eyes and his forehead.

Cautiously, Harry walked up to Ron and sat down next to him. "Ron?"

Ron raised his head slightly, and turned to Harry with bloodshot eyes. "Malfoy…he was telling the truth, wasn't he?"

"I don't know, I didn't see what happened."

"He said that he didn't do any sort of binding curse on you, and he didn't force you to do anything you didn't want to. In other words, he said that you befriended him of your own free will."

Harry didn't say anything, so Ron continued. "So basically, when I burst in on you two in the bathroom, you were naked, with him, in that tub, giving him…giving him a blowjob…"

"What?" Harry said. "Who ever said I gave him a blowjob?"

"Then what the hell WERE you doing?"

"We were just relaxing, we haven't done anything sexual!"

"But you would have, wouldn't you? You were about to, weren't you?"

Harry lowered his head without talking, and Ron gave a shuddering gasp, as tears started to stream from his eyes. "By god, Harry, what happened to you? I don't—I don't even think I know you any more." Ron's lip started to quiver, and he turned away.

"Ron, you don't know the whole story—it wasn't something out of the blue, you don't understand the…the psychological feelings that came along with it. You just can't see it, because you don't know the whole story! Why do you care, anyway! I can look out for myself, why does it even matter to you what I do? Hermione wouldn't do anything other than offer her congratulations, why would you, my best friend, the one who knows me best, be upset by this?"

Ron didn't say anything, but Harry could read the look off his face.

"Oh bloody hell—that's the reason, isn't it? You…like me yourself."

Ron sat as still as stone, without saying anything.

"So that is the reason!" Harry exclaimed. "Oh, Ron, I'm so sorry—I truly am. But please, please understand, I really care about Draco. It's not some ridiculous flirtation I have, or that I'm curious about sexual experiences, or I'm experimenting, or any of that sort. I love Draco Malfoy, I really do." Harry said, surprising even himself. But as he said it, he became even more confident that he really cared for Draco.

Ron sat quietly; while Harry couldn't do anything other than sit by him, waiting. After several minutes of silence, Ron finally responded. "I…I understand."

"You do?"

"I don't know, I don't know what to think. But Harry, are you sure, are you sure you like him?"

"I am."

Ron sighed. "Then I…I guess that whatever is important to you, I'll support." He gave a smile, though the smile looked forced and it didn't reach his eyes.

Harry gave Ron a hug. "Thanks, Mate." Harry said, and then turned and exited the Gryffindor Common Room, feeling much lighter-hearted.


When Harry was walking down the Gryffindor tower, he saw Hermione walking up the stairs, ready to meet him.

"Harry! How's Ron?" Hermione asked, concerned.

"I spoke to him." Harry glanced back in the direction of the Fat Lady's portrait, and then back to Hermione. "I think he'll be alright."

Hermione sighed. "I can cheer him up."

"I hope so too…" Harry said thoughtfully. He then thought of an idea. "Hermione!"

"Yeah?"

"Ron used to like you, didn't he? I mean—fourth year, fifth year, maybe even now, maybe you can—"

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, shocked. "Have you gone mad? You want me to lead Ron on and play with him just to get his mind away from whatever is bothering him?"

Harry made a sly smile. "If you could."

Hermione uttered a noise of frustration, then stomped off into the Gryffindor Tower.


Author's Note: See? Maureen and I can get things done if we stopped being lazy :P And in case you were wondering, this fanfic is going to have 10 chapters overall, unless we squeeze it into 9 chapters. Then the 10th will be the epilogue, or if there are 10 chapters, we'll squeeze the epilogue into the end of the 10th chapter..-Jelisee

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, (and yes, princesspepper, it did) and sand3, thanks for the info. I was going to put blood pudding, but it sounded too nasty. I should have just put vanilla custard.