A/N: Thanks to Sinkingboat, kittydemon18, SomeGuyFawkes, Jimbocous, lycus, and even the thisaintaflame-flamer fuujin no mai for their reviews.
Ron sat in a corner of the Muggle bar in Leicester, meditating on the nature of hops. And gin and tonic and sex on the beach and fish and chips.
It was her fault. He didn't know how, but she had popped up at the same time as the bottom had dropped out of his life. Logically, or whatever, Hermione Granger was responsible. He wished he'd never gone to rescue her from the troll. His life would have been so much simpler.
And shorter, but he conveniently ignored that minor qualification.
He'd lost his reputation and his best friend. The rest of his treacherous family was against him - they had always been, he reminded himself. He was the one who had befriended Harry, who had brought Harry into the Weasley clan, and this was how they rewarded him? By keeping Harry close and casting him away?
At least he had money. Quite a bit of it, actually, with his job, decently-invested award money that came with his Order of Merlin, and free rent at one of Harry's houses - a house he didn't dare return to.
He'd been following the news, so he was quite aware of the way his baby sister had been taken to the cleaners by Hermione. The news reports had been very descriptive. It was clear that Hermione's aim had been to humiliate, not merely win. She toyed with Ginny like a cat playing with its food.
Ronald Weasley did not like getting humiliated.
She'd challenged him to a duel, and if any of his brothers got hold of him, he'd be forced to accept.
And now he'd clearly drunk too much, because Harry Sodding Potter was standing right in front of him.
Unlike the previous duel, this was well and truly public. Betting was heavy, and mostly in Ron's favour. After all, he was a Dark Wizard catcher and not a socialite hostess and housewife like his sister. On the other hand, the press had been on Hermione's side this time, printing biographies of her that were actually close to the truth. She'd been surprised at that, but figured they'd get over their Grangerphilia soon enough.
The Weasley twins had - after appropriate consultation with Hermione and arrangement of royalties - done a roaring trade selling souveniers and gimmicks. Buttons with "Weasley Sucks!" and "Welcome Back Hermione!" were quite popular, as were the placards that said "Ban Love Potions!" and the bushy-haired dolls with a heavy book under one arm and a wand held menacingly in the other. There were also fireworks that exploded into an animation of a Hogwarts uniform-clad Hermione bashing an equally young Ron over the head with a thick tome.
The duel was on the Quidditch Pitch of, by Hermione's request, the Chudley Cannons. She hoped that if Ron associated his favourite team's home ground with bad memories in future, he might give up his addiction to anything orange.
There was a contest for Most Interesting Placard, which was won by a group of recently graduated Hogwarts Muggleborns. Theirs simply read "Mudbloods Rule!". In their well publicized acceptance speech, they said that they were all planning to leave Magical Britain because of the discrimination against Muggleborns, and that they didn't expect the current Granger hysteria sweeping the land to translate into long term cessation of such discrimination. That said, they were very proud of her and hoped to meet her later.
It was a straightforward duel, no Unforgivables, no physical damage that lasted longer than a week. The winner was the one who was conscious at the end of it.
Ron turned up in impressive Auror Battle robes. Ever since Harry had tracked him down and slapped an anti-Apparating collar on him, he'd actually knuckled down and prepared for the duel. Now he was brimming with confidence.
Hermione turned up in a yellow Muggle tracksuit. She wasn't too thrilled about her attire, but she'd lost a bet to Alyx. She hoped Ms Thurman would approve if she ever heard of it. Her sons were with her, stony faced and with heads held high. They didn't mind the spotlight, though they were getting tired of the questions about being the Potter Heirs. ("What's so special about Potter hair? We know all about it - it's hell to comb!", "Change our names? Why? Unless it's to Granger-Evans, we might consider that -")
Harry was surprised to see Brian and Chris there, seeing as their half-siblings had been made to stay at home. He thought Hermione had said that she would be doing the same with her boys. Perhaps they'd won a bet with her or something
He could see Ron scratching his head, as he always did when nervous. Hermione was biting her lower lip as well.
Even if Ginny and Molly had been the ones who were most responsible for the Lust Potions plot, he knew that Hermione had reserved most of her ire for Ron. He had broken the most important covenant of their lives - the Trio. Even if it was childish to expect that that triad of friendship could have survived unchanged into their adult years, it was a memory of a simpler time, when it was them against the world, where no-one came between them. Time had made them forget the bad times (which were mostly Ron's fault, come to think of it) and remember the good times.
The knowledge that Ron had used Potions on her cut deep. She told Harry it was practically rape. And unlike Harry's situation with Ginny, she had no reason to treat her rapist with any leniency due to kids or shared family.
Now the two faced each other, both only half listening to the rules as described by some Ministry duelling referee. They knew the rules; they were on the alert for either of them pulling off an early move. Mutual trust was in short supply.
The match started soon as soon as the referee Apparated out. There were two other referee assistants - or duelwatchers as they were called - watching to see that nothing happened in the fraction of a second after which the referee left the arena before he could actively begin his job. Each was assigned to watching one contestant, to see that they were remaining within the limits of the duel.
Hermione threw up a shield immediately, followed by a mass Transfiguration of hundreds of grass in front of her into a tall three metre high wall. She could hear several Hexes from Ron blast into it.
The audience cheered wildly, watching the giant three dimensional projections of Ron and Hermione above the pitch.
Apparation wasn't allowed in this duel, by Ron's request. She was fine with that, and had modified her tactics appropriately.
Ron finally blasted through the wall - a quadruple spurt of Reductos took care of that - only to see a crowd of yellow-tracksuited Hermione simulacrums staring at him. They all waved coyly in unison, causing a huge guffaw to erupt among the crowd. Ron looked at them, then around him. Hermione was impressed at how quickly he cottoned on to the fact that she was more likely to be disillusioned than be one of the crowd.
She had only created half a dozen simulacrums while Ron was behind the wall. The rest were illusions. She dropped the illusions and transfigured the Hermione clones into a flock of hawks that flew noisily towards Ron.
He responded with a huge fireball that fried half of them. It was an impressive fireball actually, and several oohs and aahs could be heard.
She Transfigured several more and sent them towards him from other directions. While he frantically created more fireballs to swipe them off - and the birds were definitely aiming to wrest his wand from him - she Transfigured the ground around him to quicksand. This was a rather difficult move since it involved a change of state; half the sand had to be changed into water.
She kept moving, maintaining shields as best as she could in case a stray Hex from him headed in her direction. She was surprised that none of her birds had yet managed to take his wand.
Then one of the birds gave a triumphant shriek and flew upwards, clutching a thin stick in its beak ... before it was enveloped in a well aimed fireball from Ron. He had also managed to get around the quicksand by conjuring a plank that was levitating just above the ground. If that was a plank - Hermione couldn't quite see - he also could have self-levitating shoes.
Well, Hermione thought, raising her eyebrows. She'd definitely destroyed his wand - so either Won Won had developed wandless magic or he had a hidden wand.... what a magnificent opportunity to get in some more practice.
For his part, Ron Weasley was tired. Only ten minutes into the duel and he was surprised he hadn't run out of sweat. He'd done quite a bit of research into the duelling styles of other Transfiguration Masters and Mistresses, so he wasn't entirely surprised by some of the moves Hermione had pulled, but he hadn't expected her to be so damn fast. Or for her birds to have talons that sharp and beaks that foul.
He'd stretched the rules of the duel quite a bit by bringing in some of the stuff he had. They normally allowed battle robes - but they were archaic enough to not take into consideration some recent developments in battle robes. The duelwatcher who had inspected him was, fortunately, one of those old Pureblood types who wasn't thrilled to see a Mudblood beat a Pureblood. Or so Ron suspected; he didn't particularly care.
He'd been on the defensive long enough. It was time to make use of some of the surprises in his robes.
Hermione saw the two balls as soon as they left Ron's armour. She recognized them immediately as the Magical equivalent of hear seeker missiles, and swore loudly. How on earth had they been allowed in the duel? Unfortunately, they were probably keyed in to the source of the magic that had created the birds - her. If she was correct, they would explode on contact, and that kind of explosion would get through her best shields. She didn't have the raw power of, say, Harry Potter.
The first task was to keep Ron busy, as he was busy firing a series of Hexes at her. His aim was annoyingly good. She had all her remaining birds fly up, and Transfigured them into a huge flat cylindrical slab of concrete above Ron's head. The shield he would undoubtedly put up would protect him from serious injury. And she'd get time to deal with the bloody missiles.
As she had with the birds before her, she pointed her wand to the ground, dug out some of the pitch with a quick nonverbal digging spell, and then Transfigured the clods of earth and grass into small dragons that she then sent after the missiles. With any luck, they would be faster, and who cared if dragons exploded? It would be dust to dust, after all.
Ron was still under the slab of concrete, trying to get out. She had, by her estimate, about a minute before he'd get out, considering that it was steel-reinforced concrete.
She began placing wards around him. They were designed to strip the clothes off anyone who passed through them. They were normally used in Japanese bath houses, and she hadn't heard of anyone using them in a duel before. Then again, most duellists didn't bother stripping their opponents.
After another five minutes, Ron was still under the slab. She - and much of the audience, though she couldn't hear them thanks to the silencing wards around her and Ron - wondered if perhaps he hadn't got a shield up in time after all. But he must have, since the duel was still in progress. The ref and his team would know if either of the contestants were knocked out or otherwise incapacitated.
She heard a soft hum behind her as a spell approached, but before she could dodge, it hit, and all she knew was pain.
Ron was pleased. He had spent the past several minutes burrowing under the pitch of his favourite Quidditch team in Hermione's direction, using various location spells to ensure that he would emerge behind her. The burrowing was thanks to some interesting devices he'd picked up in Borneo and secreted in his cloak.
And now she was at the end of one of his favourite pain curses, the Nervatus curse. It was an Unforgivable in most South American countries where it was better known, as well as Spain, where he had learnt it the hard way. It was not as painful as the Cruciatus, but its effects lasted longer.
He hadn't realized Hermione could scream so well. It was small payback for what she had done to him, but still good to hear.
After a couple of minutes of screaming (and the horrified silence of most of the crowd and much discussion in the referees' booth) he stopped the curse. Only up to a week's damage was allowed, after all.
He walked over to her and kicked her in the side. Her face was still kissing the ground, so he turned her over with his feet.
A basic rule of Auror training is never to write off an opponent too early.
The most basic rules are the easiest to break.
Ron realized this shortly after she swept his feet from under him with a flash of an arm that was far stronger than he had expected.
The first Hex he felt was a bone breaker that shattered most of the bones in his left arm.
The second Hex threw him several feet into the air. An Arithmancy teacher in the audience would later use the fine parabolic arc Ron traced out as a teaching guide in his lessons.
The third Hex missed.
The fourth Hex caught him by surprise - it hit his pelvic area but broke no bones. Had he been in a less pained state, he might have recognized it.
The fifth Hex broke all the bones in his lower left leg.
The sixth Hex missed.
The seventh Hex caused him to fly through the air again, this time through the wards that Hermione had created for him earlier. By the time he hit the ground, his battle armour was separated from his body (and quickly banished by Hermione). The rest of his clothes weren't present either.
The only reason he still had a wand was because it was part of his arm. He'd placed it there in a special (and painful and expensive) operation three years earlier. It was one of his most closely guarded secrets.
It was probably a good thing he couldn't hear the crowd baying. Ron Weasley was an A List Celebrity in Britain, and much of Europe for that matter, and the photographers were loving his naked self... particularly as he appeared a lot less well endowed than his playboy reputation had suggested.
No, it was definitely a good thing that he hadn't recognized Hex Number Four as a penis shrinking curse.
He had enough presence of mind to conjure a pair of orange shorts for himself. The Chudley Cannons board members and die-hard fans were impressed, though few else were.
Hermione could still feel the effects of the Nervatus, and knew she had to end the duel quickly. She had planned to cast a Lust Charm on Ron and have him f--k a Transfigured sheep, but it looked like that wouldn't be happening. Bugger, she thought, followed by a 'No Pun Intended' thought.
She had considered using her tiger form. After all, she could always write off as being her Animagus form since her Felician self was still banned in Britain. But she'd decided against that prior to the duel.
Ouch... her nerves still hurt. She was angry now, very, very angry.
She was going to get drunk, once she had Transfigured Ronald Weasley into a bottle of single malt.
She cast a few more bone breakers at him, at his remaining arm and leg. This also had the effect of breaking his interior wand. Surprisingly, the referees still didn't declare the match over, even though they must have - like Hermione - realized that he had had one of those wand-in-arm operations and would now need a new one.
She debated whether chopping his arm off would fall in the 'one week damage' category.
She settled for transfiguring the grass around him to spiders and then, after a disappointing realization that he'd gotten over his most of his arachnophobia, transfigured his shorts into a chloroform-filled cloth and moved it to cover his nose. A final 'Stupefy' did the trick.
The referees finally ended the duel.
She considered going over and stamping on his exposed groin, but decided against it. One, he wasn't conscious to notice. Two, she'd left her stilettos at home.