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A/N; Aha ha ha…. Oops? Not only has it nearly been a year (a year? How did time go by so quickly? I could have sworn it was only five months ago that I last updated…) but I completely forgot to read my own summary for this chapter and it turned out a little differently than what I said it would. Though it has the essentials! Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and I offer you all my heartfelt apologies for taking so long.
Chapter Twenty-Five; Slitherin' Nonsense
If you were to ask Ron Weasley he would say that he had put up with a lot while he was with Harry Potter, and that wasn't only talking about his more... diminutive stature these last few months. No, in all the time Ron had known and was friends with Harry each situation that they got involved in was wilder, wackier and more intense than the last.
Ron would also say that he liked to think that he had handled most of these things quite calmly. After all, it wasn't every eleven year old that would sacrifice himself in a game of chess against giant stone people. Nor would just any twelve year old bravely (or foolishly, depending on your way of looking at it) attempt to follow their best friend into the Chamber of Secrets where a deadly basilisk was waiting so they could rescue their sister.
Naturally there were moments he weren't proud of. Fourth year stood out the most in his mind, but Ron tended to make an active effort to forget about that. It had been a moment of very poor judgement on his part, and that was all he was willing to say about it.
Even this year, when Harry had turned into a toddler and things had turned just plain weird, he felt he had handled it quite well. He had kept a level head even when Hermione lost it, he had put up with his wand being stolen, with sugar rushes, child angst, their potions professor seeming to hold a dire wish to murder his small charge, and, just the other day, even being caught playing Hide and Seek by the headmaster of Hogwarts.
Yes, he had put up with a lot. And if he could put up with all that then surely there was nothing else that could surprise/shock/dismay him now. They had to be due for a break at some point, right?
Unfortunately for Ron the world had not yet finished with Harry and where the black-haired wizard went the red-head would also be dragged.
This particular day started out normal (or, as normal as it could get with a toddler who used to be a teenager underfoot) in that Ron opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, mentally going over all the things that he had to do today. They had Transfiguration first up, didn't they? That's right, he had done his homework last night.
'Wait...'
Ron turned his head and looked at the watch Harry had given him for his birthday last year. It was eight o'clock in the morning and today they were due back at classes. He blinked and sat up... where was Harry?
It took him a moment to remember that, since the potion had turned him eight, Harry had stopped jumping on him in the mornings. On one hand he was glad, but that had been during the holidays. Somehow, on the school day, he couldn't help but miss it.
With a yawn he pulled open his curtain and started upon seeing Harry sitting in bed, a book open on his lap. It was one of the picture books he had been given at Christmas, and he seemed perfectly content to sit there and read quietly, though he was frowning this morning for some reason and his eyes were focused on one spot on the page.
"Morning, Harry," he said.
"Morning, Ron," Harry said distantly.
Ron's heart jumped. That simple greeting sound so much like the sixteen year old Harry that, for a brief moment, he could almost pretend that his best friend was back to normal...
But, no, Harry was still eight, and the sight before him wouldn't tell him anything different. Ron shook his head and slipped out of bed, rubbing his eyes.
"School goes back today," he said flippantly.
"I know; 'Mione said so," Harry said, looking up at him and smiling. "I'm ready."
Ron took a second look and realised it was true. Harry was already dressed and ready to leave; evidently he had only been waiting for Ron to get up and go with him downstairs.
Yet another similarity. More times than Ron could count Harry had been up before him and dressed, waiting for him. Each time Hermione scolded them about being late, and not once did Harry ever tell her what really happened.
Ron frowned as he reached for his clothes. Perhaps Harry was starting to remember some of those instincts? Perhaps he was doing things that he used to do without realising why. Hadn't Dumbledore mentioned that the sixteen year old Harry was still in there, just locked away and waiting to be broken out?
Wait, did that mean that sixteen year old Harry was actually aware of everything that was happening? Had he simply gone to sleep or was he watching it all, helpless to do anything because he couldn't get himself out?
Ron shuddered and shoved that train of thought away. It was too terrible to even contemplate, and he hoped that it most definitely wasn't true.
"Ron?"
Ron blinked and turned around, his tie hanging off his arm. Harry was frowning at him now and, for a heart-stopping moment, Ron thought he was going to tell him to stop thinking so hard, as he often had when he noticed the red head was deep in unpleasant thoughts.
"Ron, my eyes hurt," he said, pouting.
Ron blinked, processed the sentence and then his whole body relaxed. Right, right, dealing with eight year old Harry. Wait... eyes hurt?
"Your eyes hurt?" he asked dumbly.
"Yeah, they're all itchy," Harry complained, rubbing at both eyes.
"Oh," Ron said, thinking. And then... "OH! Right, I think I can fix that, Harry." He frowned. "Just wait until I get dressed and we'll go talk to Hermione."
Ron didn't think he had ever gotten changed faster. After all, if Harry really did need his glasses again then they needed to give Hermione time to go get them so they could have breakfast before class started.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked the moment they entered the common room, a little worried by Ron's grim expression.
"Harry's eyes hurt," Ron explained.
Hermione sighed and put her book aside. "Well, we knew it was coming. Give me a second, I'll be right back."
Harry scrambled up onto the lounge and looked curiously at the large Ancient Runes book Hermione had been reading as his bushy-haired friend rushed upstairs. Ron sighed and flopped down in an armchair.
"Your eyes will be better in a minute," he told Harry. "Are they blurry?"
"A little," Harry admitted.
"Here we go!" Hermione exclaimed, rushing back down the stairs; Ron thought, amazed, that that had to be a record she was so quick. She held out the round glasses. "Here, Harry, try these on."
"Glasses?" Harry asked, making a face. "Do I have to?"
It was almost cute, the childish disdain on his face. Hermione giggled and nodded her head.
"Sorry, Harry, you definitely need these," she said.
Harry pouted but took them, sliding them onto his face. For a long moment everything was silent between the three and then Harry frowned.
"Still blurry," he announced.
Ron and Hermione looked at each other in shock. But... those were Harry's glasses! How were they still causing his vision to be blurred? They had to work!
Suddenly Hermione hit her forehead with her palm in exasperation.
"Harry isn't sixteen anymore," she groaned. "His prescription probably changed between eight and sixteen."
Ron felt incredibly stupid; they should have thought about that. But they had just assumed that Harry would be able to have the same glasses and be done with it.
"Right, we need to get him down to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said, plucking the glasses off Harry's face and tucking them into her pocket. "She'll know what to do."
"What about class?" Ron asked, not that he cared; if this got him out of some of class then he was all for it. Then again, this would also mean missing breakfast...
His stomach growled slightly at the thought.
"Well, we'll try to be quick, but there's no helping it if we can't," Hermione said reluctantly. It was, after all, the first day back at class and she didn't really want to miss anything. "Come on, let's go."
Ron's stomach growled again miserably as though it realised it wasn't going to get food any time soon. With a sigh he followed. Maybe he would be able to snatch something quickly before class...
The trip to Madam Pomfrey's did one thing, though, apart from making them miss out on breakfast. It showed them just how fast and quickly Harry's sight had degenerated, and seemingly overnight.
At first they let Harry walk unaided as he had started doing since he turned eight. After the third close call with a wall, the fifth almost tumble with another student, and the heart-stopping moment when he had almost walked straight into thin air at the top of the magically moving staircase, though, Hermione and Ron firmly grabbed his hands.
"How did his eyesight get so bad so quickly?" Hermione asked, frustrated. "He was fine yesterday! Wasn't he?"
"He wasn't running into things yesterday," Ron said with a shrug.
"Which is worrying," Hermione said, turning her head to glare at him. "It means that something could have gone seriously wrong with the potion!"
"Or it could just mean that Scarhead was always meant to be a four-eyed freak."
Ron knew he shouldn't stop, knew that the most important thing right now was to get Harry to the hospital and then hurry to what was left of class, but he couldn't help it. The voice grated on his nerves the moment it sounded and he froze in his tracks, causing Harry and Hermione to be pulled up short since they were all connected by their hands.
His free hand plunged into his robes and grasped his wand as he turned and faced the smirking wizard who was leaning casually against a nearby wall. Had he been there when they passed and they had been too preoccupied to notice?
"Say that again, Malfoy," he growled.
"Ron!" Hermione hissed. "We have to go!"
"Yes, Weasel, follow your girlfriend," Draco Malfoy sneered, pushing off the wall. "She obviously knows better."
Ron saw red, though he didn't know whether it was from anger or embarrassment. His wand was in his hand and pointing at the Slytherin, despite Hermione's exasperated cry. Malfoy's followed barely a second later.
"Remember the last time?" Malfoy asked unpleasantly. "Didn't it send your girlfriend to the hospital wing? Oh, wait, I forgot, that was only because you relied on Potter to help you."
Out of the corner of his eye Ron saw Harry's head turn curiously at the sound of his own last name. Green eyes blinked owlishly at them and he tilted his head slightly.
"Green?" he asked, tugging on Ron's hand.
It was enough to distract him from his fury. Ron paused for a second and then looked down at Harry. Even Malfoy seemed to have paused.
"What's green?" he asked, confused.
"His robes," Harry said impatiently, giving Ron's hand another hard tug. "His robes have green on them!"
"I... well, yes, but what's that got to do with anything?"
Harry looked up at Ron seriously. "He's Slytherin. Like Mason."
Ron looked at Hermione, who shrugged. Then, before he could stop himself, he looked at Malfoy, who looked equally non-plussed. Seeing that he was only getting blank stares for his troubles Harry scowled at the three of them.
"Mason is a good Slytherin," he said, and then he turned toward Malfoy. "Are you?"
Malfoy almost dropped his wand in surprise at the sudden question. But he didn't have any time to answer because two others suddenly rounded the corner.
"Draco, what's keeping you?" demanded Pansy Parkinson, her voice high and unpleasant. "You were supposed..." She stopped and sneered. "Oh, it's Potter and the mudblood and her weasel boyfriend."
Blaise Zabini simply rolled his eyes and yawned slightly, evidently not wanting to get into a fight. Malfoy looked at them, still seeming a bit startled.
"You take that back!" Ron snarled, lifting his wand again.
"Oh, honestly, Ron!" Hermione huffed. "Ignore them!"
But Ron couldn't ignore them, he just couldn't. He hated insults to himself, but nor would he stand for those that would insult his friends as well. It just depended, now, on who made the first move.
Wait...
Realisation hit Ron in a flash. They couldn't duel here. Even ignoring the school rules they had a child with them, and it would not be good to let him caught up with it all. Slowly, reluctantly, Ron lowered his wand slightly.
"What's going on here?"
Ron almost had a heart attack as another figure rounded a corner. It was not anyone he knew, but he was a tall seventh year in Slytherin robes. He and Malfoy both still had their wands out, but how could he expect any Slytherin to be biased against their own house?
"Mason!"
In a blur of motion Harry released his friends' hands and dashed toward the tall Slytherin. Because they hadn't expected it Hermione and Ron hadn't had a very good grip on his hands, so they could only watch dumbly as he raced past Malfoy, Parkinson and Zabini and threw his arms around the knees of this 'Mason'.
Mason looked surprised for a second and then he smiled and laughed, leaning down to ruffle Harry's messy hair. The child pulled back and beamed at him.
"You're looking a bit bigger, Harry," Mason observed. "How old are you now?"
"Eight!" Harry declared proudly. "I'm closer to your age now, Mason!"
"I see," Mason said, chuckling. He looked up at the five dumb-struck teenagers. "Any trouble to report here, Harry?"
"Ron and Blondie pulled out their wands, and that girl said bad words," Harry replied, hushed, and then he smiled. "But it's all okay now!"
"I see," Mason said, nodding. "Well, I would thank those two to put their wands away-" From the way it was said it was definitely not a request, and Malfoy and Ron hastily shoved their wands in their pockets "-and for the young lady to watch her language around young children."
He smiled at them all, but it was not a nice smile and Parkinson could do more then nod back at him silently. The quiet was only broken when Blaise covered his mouth and coughed – Ron could have sworn he saw a slight smile.
"If that's all," Mason said, gently detaching himself from Harry. "I have to be off. Be good in class, Harry."
"Sure!" Harry chirped.
As quickly as he had appeared Mason disappeared, leaving five shocked sixth years and one cheerful eight year old in his wake. Malfoy was the first to wake up.
"That's... that's the 'good' Slytherin, Potter?" he asked.
"Yep!" Harry said happily, turning and running back to his best friends. "See you, Blondie!"
He grabbed Hermione and Ron's hands again and tugged them along, which wasn't difficult because the two teenagers were still in too much shock to really do anything but follow. Within moments there were gone, leaving behind the three Slytherins.
Malfoy blinked after them.
"Blondie?" he asked, half-shocked, half-scandalised.
Zabini finally left out a snicker that had been building, though it went unnoticed by the other male who was still mouthing the one word to himself.
HPHGRWHPHGRW
"Slytherins, Harry, really?"
It was the first thing out of Ron's mouth when he regained his senses moments before the hospital wing was in sight. Hermione, who had sighed and decided that it was just one of those odd moments that surrounded Harry seconds after they had disappeared from the Slytherins' sight, just glared at him.
"So what?" she said. "Mason seemed nice. He was probably one of those people that helped Harry get up to Professor Dumbledore's office on New Years."
"What do you mean 'so what'?" Ron yelped, staring at her as if she had gone crazy. "Slytherins are anything but nice! Or have you forgotten what the lot of them have done over the years?"
"I hardly think a small ground of people around our age should help us form our opinion of Slytherin as a whole," Hermione said dryly.
"What about Snape, then?" Ron asked stubbornly. "And You-Know-Who? And all his Death Eaters?"
"Still a minority, Ron. Grow up."
Ron shot her a glare for this comment. He was plenty grown up! It was hardly his fault that Slytherins were all a bunch of evil gits.
"Mason's my friend," Harry said, glaring up at him.
"Not you too," Ron groaned, barely realising that they had stopped. "Look, Harry, Slytherins do some really nasty things, so you shouldn't be friends with them."
"Ron!" Hermione cried, horrified. "Don't tell him that!"
But she needn't have worried. Harry, furious over the slight to his friend, pulled his hand out of Ron's grasp and stamped his foot down on Ron's.
Hard.
"OW! What the hell, Harry?" Ron howled, jumping away.
"Leave Mason alone!" Harry shouted at him. "He's my friend!"
Ron might have said something back, if only because he was caught into the argument and it was all too easy to pretend that he was arguing with an older Harry. But Hermione's hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up at her, grimacing.
"Maybe you should get some breakfast and go to class," she said. "I'll take Harry to Madam Pomfrey."
Ron stared at her and then frowned. That hadn't sounded like a casual suggestion.
"You might need..." he began.
"I don't think so," Hermione said somewhat coolly. "Madam Pomfrey and I can handle it. Go to class, Ron."
That one was definitely a demand. Ron paused for a moment and then deflated. Perhaps it would be a good idea to go and cool down before he started yelling at an eight year old. On top of that a niggling point of logic was attempting to point out that Harry, who was currently eight years younger, was actually showing more maturity over this matter than he was.
"I... fine," he sighed. "I'll find out what happened later. See you, Hermione, Harry."
"We'll be in class soon," Hermione promised.
Harry simply turned his head away, stubbornly giving him the silent treatment. Ron couldn't help but smile slightly at this; Harry always had been incredibly stubborn when he was sure he was in the right.
"Mason is my friend," he heard the little boy say to Hermione as he walked away.
"I know," Hermione replied. "And Ron knows it too."
'Really?' Ron thought. He had a lot of thinking to do before he saw Harry again, and he had to do it quickly.
And foremost would be on how, exactly, to apologise to his small charge.
Next Chapter; Harry and Hermione visit Madam Pomfrey and finds out something odd about his fast deteriorating eyesight. Meanwhile Ron, in a bad mood, runs into Professor McGonagall.
Thanks to;
Stefunny2010, Teufel1987, Wonderbee31, Casse01, Bruder-aus-Osten-und-Westen, Lientjuhh, allora123, USA-Jeanette, snapes wife to be, Pince Raistlin, moony-as-a-girl, charming2drew, The Lady Reaper of the Shadows, gauravmittal2, missny1, Leah, Credo-Spero-Fides, JNottle, .Angel, Obsessed-With-HarryandDraco, E., Sanity is for losers, MaraudersNumber1Far, Peltra, Crazy909, lmill123, Karou WindStalker, Danyael Prince, Tony WildRiver, FallenHope-Angel, shiftyless, lunathevamp, Nerds will rule the world, Mrs. Kisa Black, Memory25, L'uke-chan, and NCIS-CSI-SVU
Wow, so many people; all of you, as well as everyone who is just reading, have contributed to where this story is now, and I'm sorry for making so many of you wait for so long. The rest of the story is entirely planned out now, though so updates should come quicker! Thank you for being so patient with me.