Naga's Shadow

Falling for your Best Friend 5/24/06

Disclamer: The characters used bellow are the sole property of J.K. Rowling and Scholastic books. The plot is mine though, no stealing.

A/N : A warning to all potential readers this is my first, and only attempt at writing a Slash, Mpreg piece. As such will contain Slash elements, sorry anyone looking for steamy guy on guy action has come to the wrong place, and obviously Mpreg. So no that my warning has given away the big secret on with the show. : A/N

This isn't a departure from my other work in progress, still writing and plan to update soon.

Chapter 1

The End of Summer

Ron raised his head and looked around, the train station was full to the brink with students and parents. Students who would, like himself, be returning to Hogwarts today. Ronald Weasley stood at a respectable six foot one, he wasn't as tall as his older brother Bill but he was certainly on his way. That said he towered over his younger sister Ginny and his mother. He'd already spotted and greeted his friends Hermione, Neville, Dean, and Seamus. The only one of the guys missing from his dorm was Harry. Harry, Ron really did feel sorry for Harry at times, the summer was one of those times. He had heard all the horror stories about the Dursleys and of all the summers to send him back to those muggles. Harry's godfather Sirius Black had died towards the end of last year and Harry had been hurting. Ron knew, he had no idea of what to say as he'd never lost anyone close to him and was not good at talking about feelings and stuff. That was a job for Ginny or Hermione.

It hadn't mattered though, Dumbledore had insisted that Harry returned to his relatives, at first Dumbledore had told Ron and the rest of Harry's friends that he needed time to grieve. Somehow that didn't seem right but after Dumbledore had forbidden them to send owls to Harry for fear of one of you-know-who's people intercepting them no one argued about it. Ron had sent him letters anyway, he couldn't use his owl but he trekked into the muggle village nearby and used their post to send letters. It had been harder when they spent those two weeks at Gimmauld Place. Harry hadn't responded but he hoped that he got them. After all he could still remember just how angry Harry had been last year when they avoided speaking with him over the summer on Dumbledore's orders. He had owled Hermione about this but she had assured him that Dumbledore was right and Harry was going to get over this like he had gotten over everything else. Hermione, now she was a difficult subject. He liked her; at first it had just been a mild crush. Even if he blew things out of proportion and he was certain there were bets going around about when they would get together, it had just been a crush. But over the last year it had changed, he really liked her. He also knew that she liked him, but not the way he wanted. She didn't see him as any more than a good friend, for all her intelligence she was oblivious when it came to her. She was the person best suited for helping Harry if he had any issues, but he really didn't want her to. He didn't want her to fall for Harry rather than himself. He'd rather Ginny do that, even if she so wasn't the right girl for that. Ginny had wanted in to Harry's pants since before she even met him.

It was uncomplimentary of his sister but sometimes, she was horribly transparent and completely immature. Thank Merlin for Harry's ineptitude in the area of human relations, he really didn't want to end up pounding the crap out of his best mate for knocking up his sister. No Ginny wasn't a good consular until she grew up, if she ever did. That of course left him as the best person, but as he thought before he had no idea what to say.

Maybe I'm worrying about nothing, surely Dumbledore had someone talk to Harry over the summer, right?

Wrong. As Ron completed his full turn he spotted Harry stepping into out of the barrier. If anything he looked worse than when he had left, his robes were frayed and wrinkled. Actually they were the same robes that he'd worn last year. He had made no effort with his Hair and the dark circles under his eyes belayed his lack of sleep.

"HARRY!" Hermione spotted him and rushed up to him, engulfing him in a hug. Harry made a feeble attempt to hug or back and after she let go his mother and Ginny both hugged him. Ron frowned slightly at Ginny's hug.

"You all right mate?" Ron asked in way of a greeting as he patted Harry on the back, Harry flinched.

"Yeah I'm alright Ron, how was your summer?" Ron didn't say anything but frowned slightly when Ginny stepped up to answer the question. He wasn't able to say anything else though because the whistle of the Hogwarts express alerted him it was time to board the train. Saying goodbye to his mother Ron pulled his and Ginny's trunks aboard and walked with the others as the found a compartment. As soon as they were in the train was off and Hermione pulled him and Ginny, who had been made a prefect this year, to the forward carriage.

"Don't worry Harry, I'm sure Neville or Luna will keep you company right?"

"Yeah." Harry gave his usual sheepish smile. Shutting the compartment behind him Ron followed Hermione and Ginny to the prefects carriage.

This years meeting was much longer than usual, a host of new regulations had been enacted, and was expected to be memorized and enforced by the prefects. Ron hadn't bothered paying attention to every single regulation, perfect memory Hermione could probably recite the whole thing anyway, but the gist was that the prefects were supposed to be the informers for the teachers against any suspicious student activity. They had labeled suspicious as anything from spending large amounts of time wandering the halls to studying alone late at night. Ron planed on obeying this set of rules about as much he obeyed the prefect's duties. Which was to say none at all if Hermione allowed it.

When the meeting finally let out Dumbledore asked that Hermione, Ginny and himself say behind.

"I trust that you've noticed that Harry hasn't been as cheerful as usual?" The wizened mage asked when the four were alone.

"Yes professor. Is something wrong? Is it you-know-who? Will Harry be alright…" Ron just nodded, Ginny followed along but seemed surprised.

"No Ms. Granger, nothing is wrong with Harry, that I know off. I just wanted to ask you to keep an eye out for him, as his friends of course."

"Of course professor." Again Ron just nodded.

Of course they would watch out for Harry, that's what friends did after all.

"That's good to hear. Now I'm sure Mr. Potter would like to talk to you now, remember I'll be in my office if you every need to tell me anything."

When the three got back to the compartment that they had left Harry in a rather unwelcome site greeted them, Crabb and Golye blocking the entrance. Of course if tweddle-dum and tweddle-dee were here it meant the albino ferret was around.

"Mafloy!" Ron bellowed as he pushed past the two of them and opened the door of the compartment. Said ferret whirled around jamming his wand at Ron. Taking this break before the ferret opened up with his usual taunts Ron surveyed the compartment, no spell damage and Neville was here so that was good, Harry looked rather shaken up but unharmed, not so good.

"Come to save your precious scarhead weasel?"

Hmm. Sarcastic comeback or immediate threat of violence? Ron looked the pale boy over, he was still on the scrawny side and was shorter than himself. Definitely threat of violence.

"If you don't get that wand out of my face right now I'm going to break it, your hand and your arm right off." Ron growled in a low threatening voice. The thick arms of Crabb and Golye grabbed him from both sides, pulling him back out of the compartment. Ron flexed his fingers, he was certain he could break free if it came to blows.

"Stop this right this instant Mafloy." Hermione said. She and Ginny had their wands trained on Crabb and Goyle. With Neville still aiming at himself and his minions wandless Draco suddenly had a change of heart.

"You'll get yours Potter. You'll all get yours very soon." The two oafs released Ron and the three of them stalked off to their compartments.

"Ohh. The nerve of those three." Hermione complained as the three of them joined Neville and Harry inside the compartment. Ron sat next to the window across from Harry, Ginny sat next to Harry and Hermione Next to Ron. He smiled at that, she had chosen that seat without any prompting from him or Neville who was sitting on he other side.

"Harry what happened?" He shrugged.

"Oh nothing, Mafloy came in here and made some threats as usual and then he left."

"Harry." Hermione was using her nagging tone that she used when she knew she was being lied to.

"I was just tired that's all." She accepted it but had that glint in her eye that Ron had learned to back off when he saw it. It was that same glint that left them in the library studying things until she had solved the particular mystery. Then Harry, in a testament to his weariness, closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. He was asleep in a few minutes. It was only two hours latter when Ginny had gone to change her robes and Hermione, who had been wearing her robes since this morning, went with her that Ron asked Neville what had happened.

"It was weird, Malfoy comes in and threatens Harry with some hokey saying like 'the dark lord knows who you value most and we're going to take them away.' It was the same empty threat against us that the ferret uses every year. Except this time Harry goes white as a sheet ands starts to sweat, that's when I stepped in. If I hadn't been here or you hadn't showed up I'd hate to see what have happened. Harry looked seconds away from cursing Malfoy or fainting."

"Passing out Neville. Real men don't faint, they pass out." Ron corrected.

"Yeah pass out right." Neville had a look on his face that clearly came across as 'it looked like fainting to me.' Ron shot his sleeping friend a look.

Harry what happened to you over the summer?