A/n: This could arguably be the fluffiest chapter to date. If you killed all the puppies in the world and stuffed them with the fluff in this chapter, no one would complain because they would be the most ridiculously cuddly things ever. And it's little kid fluff, too. How terrible is that? I'm losing all cool points after writing this.
Also, expect a new twist to this chapter. I'm sure it will be enjoyed by all.
Dedication: Dedicated as a celebration to the book that influenced the title of this fic, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I haven't gotten my copy yet, but I hope to soon and I hope to read it fast!
Also dedicated to my wonderful sister, akaccino. She's officially 16 and not a brat, and that's why she gets her own chapter.
The Tales of Weasley the Father
By dieselwriter
Chapter Fourteen: The Tale(s) of Boys
This was wrong. This was very wrong.
"He didn't!"
"It's true! He did!"
Ron winced as the giggles rained down on him, as painful to his ears as Harry's wailing egg back in fourth year.
"That's so sweet!"
More giggles. This was so very wrong.
"Hey Dad, what're you…"
Hugo stopped a few feet away from Ron, who was pressing his ear to Rosie's closed bedroom door. Hugo raised an eyebrow in suspicion as Ron's ears hastily turned pink, but as more giggles escaped from the closed door, Hugo turned around abruptly, shaking his head.
"Never mind, I don't want to know."
Ron shook his own head in embarrassment, but he couldn't help it; this was a matter of greatest importance, and he would suffer through another half hour of giggling if he got the information he was eavesdropping for.
"S-so he complimented you on your dress…then what?" little Lily asked amidst her laughter.
"Well I told him that I still wouldn't teach him the Weasley Smasher, no matter how many compliments he gave me."
"The what?"
"The Weasley Smasher! It's a Beater's move Uncle George taught me. See, first you grab the bat with both hands…"
Oh, thank Merlin. Thank Merlin and Godric and Dumbledore and, most of all, thank his little Rosie, who finally hit a topic that Ron could listen to and not cringe in pain.
"And if it works right, the Bludger should whack the guy right in the face—"
"Wouldn't that hurt?"
"Lily, that's the point!"
Ron stiffened as he thought he heard someone ascending the stairs. He had just seen Hugo return to his room, so it could only be…
He dove for the bathroom on the opposite side of the hallway and hid behind the door just in time; Hermione's bushy hair came into view a moment later as she knocked smartly on Rosie's bedroom door, unaware of Ron's covert spying attempts.
"Hey girls, I was just wondering if you'd like some hot chocolate?"
Ron could barely see the tray Hermione was holding before the door closed behind her, and he remained in his hiding spot, waiting for Hermione to reemerge and return back downstairs, no doubt to a thick bedtime book.
But five minutes passed and Hermione had yet to return, so he surreptitiously leaned around the door, as if anticipating Hermione's imminent return. Rosie's bedroom door remained closed, though, so he left the safety of the darkened bathroom and once again pressed his ear to the door.
"He didn't!" Hermione's incredulous voice rang out.
"He did!"
Ron fought the strong urge to pull out his hair as the giggle fest continued.
"But then Jeffrey O'Donnell came over and started poking fun at him. Boys can be such jerks sometimes. Even Bobby was when I first met him."
Ron's ears perked up, finally getting to the topic of conversation he was most keen to listen to, no matter the giggles.
"But Al's not like that," Lily piped up.
Ron grimaced, displeased that his adorable little niece had changed the subject.
"Well, Al's a special case," Hermione said. "He takes after his father."
"Just like Hugo takes after his," Rosie grumbled, and all three broke into a fit of laughter once more.
Ron scowled.
"But Uncle Ronnie wasn't like that, was he?"
Ron scowl became far more pronounced as he could practically see the smirk forming on Hermione's face.
"He was worse," Hermione replied, confirming Ron's suspicion. "He called me names and said I had no friends."
"But…but Uncle Ron loves you!" Lily said, obviously trying to process how her uncle could have been so mean to her aunt.
"Yes he does," she said, and Ron's deep frown softened a bit. "But I suppose some of the names had some truth to them…and Harry and your father were the first friends I ever made at school. Well, apart from Moaning Myrtle at least."
"Who's Moaning Myrtle?"
Ron had to place his fist in his mouth to hold in his laughter at knowing that Hermione had become so lonely as to attempt making friends with Moaning Myrtle during her early weeks at Hogwarts.
"She's a ghost that haunts a loo at Hogwarts. I used to visit her when I was lonesome. But after the troll fiasco, I needn't see her again, as your father and Uncle Harry and I became best friends."
"Oh, please don't tell that story again," Rosie whined. "Dad tells that one at least once a week!"
Ron's scowl returned in full force.
"I won't. But you'll just have to believe me when I say that, even though boys can be quite nasty, they can always…surprise you."
"How so?"
"Well," Hermione hesitated, and Ron had trouble trying to discern what she was doing now. "I've told your father that I started liking him in third year…but that's not really true."
Ron's brow furrowed in confusion. Hermione never lied to him.
"I had a bit of a crush on him since first year, only he doesn't remember the reason."
Embarrassment…that's what it was. She sounded embarrassed, so she must be blushing a bit.
"Mom, your face is as red as Hugo's hair!"
More than a bit, apparently.
"Well, I've never…told anyone this."
"Tell us!"
"Yes, please Auntie Hermione!"
Ron's scowl would become permanent this time as he ground his teeth; how come when he told a story, everyone ran away, but when Hermione started one, Rosie and Lily were all for it?!
"Well, I had just helped your Uncle Harry get through to go after Professor Quirrell and the Sorcerer's Stone, and I had to go back and get help…."
Hermione clambered her way back through the room with the troll in it, her eyes stinging from the smell of it.
It groaned or snored, she couldn't tell which, but didn't want to take any chances as she hastened her steps and opened the door to escape the awful smell.
She ran as fast as her feet would carry her down the passage and threw her weight at the door she knew led into the chess room, where they had abandoned Ron.
She scanned quickly through the remains and rubble of the chess board, which resembled a battlefield more than anything else, as she spotted Ron lying facedown on the board, right where the white queen had left him.
"RON!"
She ran forward, nearly tripping over a fragmented stone arm, before sliding on the floor next to her friend.
She carefully turned him so that he was lying on his back and felt a lump rise in her throat as she took in his pale complexion and the spectacular bruise by his left temple.
"Ron, wake up! Harry needs our help!"
She shook him but to no avail; he remained completely unresponsive as she decided on a new tactic and rose to her feet.
"C'mon, Ron, rise and shine!"
She grabbed his shoulders and heaved him into a sitting position, his head lolling onto his chest and his eyes still remaining resolutely closed.
"Ron, let's go!" she struggled to keep him from falling back down, but it was no use with his dead weight. She tried as carefully as she could to rest him down on the cold ground and lent back, debating a new plan.
She clenched her fists in frustration when none came immediately to mind, but her eyes went wide with a new kind of fear that slithered coldly down into the pit of her stomach.
She looked down at her sticky red hands with a rising panic. She stared back down at Ron, and only now noticed the matted blood in his hair. She reached shaking hands to his head and turned him so she could see several scratches as well as a deeper cut behind his ear.
"Oh my…Ron! Ron, wake up, please!"
He was going to die; she hadn't even bothered to check his pulse yet…he could already be dead. What could have possessed them to continue on, when their friend was hurt this bad?!
"RON!"
Hermione jumped back in fright as Ron's eyes snapped open and he sat up abruptly, which must have been a mistake as his eyelids fluttered and he fell back.
Hermione's initial shock fled and she shouted as she darted forward, reaching to catch his head before it hit the ground again.
"Easy, Ron; she really hit you hard."
It was by no means what she was feeling at the moment, but it was the first thing that popped up in her head to say.
"Who?" Ron shook his head, clearly disoriented as he glanced around the room with a confused expression on his face.
"C'mon, Ron," her relief at realizing he wasn't dead was short-lived, as she remembered that another friend of hers could be in a worse predicament at the moment. "We have to go send an owl to Dumbledore! Harry went on ahead to fight Snape off himself, but there's no way he'll last for long—we need to get help!"
Something in Ron's blue eyes seemed to click as he tried again to get up. Hermione hovered by his side but he succeeded at least in sitting up.
"Let's…let's go and save him then," Ron garbled, and she felt the lump rise in her throat again at seeing his struggle.
"We can't get to him, Ron; we need to send for help," she said, watching nervously as Ron shook his head a few more times, most likely an effort to clear it. "It's what we should have done in the first place, really, I can't believe we were stupid enough to think—"
"Help me up."
"—That we cou…what?"
Ron reached blindly to the right, and Hermione grasped onto his hand as he tried to use her as support in order to stand up.
"Ron, I think we should wait a little while," Hermione grunted as Ron leaned on her heavily, his arm going around her shoulder in an effort to stay on his feet. She felt her cheeks flush as he momentarily rested his head quite close to hers. "Y-you can rest for a bit…or I can go up and get help and then come back for you—"
"No, it's fine…I'm fine," he replied, picking his head back up and relinquishing his hold on her.
He somehow stumbled about three steps forward before he teetered. Hermione was at his side, but her attempt to catch him failed abysmally as she fell on the floor hard, with Ron's body falling bonelessly on top of her.
"Ron, are you okay?" she gasped, struggling with his weight on her chest.
"Mmph," was the noncommittal reply she received.
She somehow extricated herself, sitting back as she laid his head on her lap. From this angle his face looked even more worryingly pale than before.
"Ron, I think I'll just go up and get help by myself, how's that?"
His eyes opened, and he stared out at her through glazed blue eyes.
"Help for Harry?"
Something in her stomach fluttered, kind of like the way it did before opening the first page of an exam, replacing the cold dread that had been there moments before.
"Yes," she said, and she felt some strange surprise at hearing how breathless her voice sounded. "I'll get help for Harry. He'll be okay."
Ron gave her a dopey sort of grin as his eyes attempted to focus on her face.
"He's got you looking after him; he'll be fine."
The lump was back, and it was a good thing Ron had fallen unconscious again, otherwise he would have seen the tears pooling in her eyes.
"I'll look after you too, Ron."
Ron sat, stock-still, floundering for a coherent thought. He hadn't the slightest recollection of this story at all.
"Aww," Lily cooed, and a thought to at least grimace crossed his mind. "That's so sweet!"
"Dad never told us that story. And he tells us every story."
Ron's thought of a grimace turned into an action. Really, were his stories that bad?
"I doubt he remembers it," Hermione replied thoughtfully. "He was hit pretty hard, and Madam Pomfrey—"
"Who's she?"
"The Hogwarts Healer," Rosie answered automatically, no doubt a habit inherited from her mother.
"Right, well," Hermione continued, "she helped Ron out, but I've asked him about it and he says he doesn't remember. Probably a result of the concussion."
"That's so romantic."
The squeals from the room made him want to grind his forehead into the door, but he resisted the urge with barely repressed disgust. It was some terrible, awful form of punishment to have his eight-year-old niece think his boyish actions romantic when he didn't even remember doing them.
"Well, I think that's as good of a bedtime story you'll get from me tonight, girls. Let's get your teeth brushed and tuck you in bed—Ron!"
Ron, who had not recognized the vibrations of Hermione's footsteps coming towards the bedroom door fast enough, was faced with a clearly startled Hermione.
"What are you doing?"
Ron's eyes shot from one end of the hallway to the other before returning to his wife.
"Er, I was…looking…umm…"
As Ron's ears turned pink, Hermione's eyes narrowed.
"What were you doing?"
Ron recognized the change of tone immediately and bit his lip fearfully.
"It's not what it looks like—"
"Well that's good, because it looks like you were spying on us."
Rosie and Lily appeared at her side suddenly, eyes wide and curious, and Ron stood up, not willing to let them watch their father and uncle go down without a fight.
"You…you didn't tell me about all that mushy crap from before."
"Ron," Hermione chastised for his language, casting furtive looks at their niece to make sure there was no lasting damage before continuing. "What was I supposed to say? What would you have wanted me to say? 'You sort of writhed on the floor for a bit and then I fell in love with you?' Mind, I didn't know it was love at the time, but still, is that what you would have wanted to hear?"
A frown of shame and a smile of amusement fought for dominance on his face, and judging from Hermione's own efforts to fight off a smile, he must have been making an interesting expression.
"Uncle Ronnie," Lily asked, coming up to him and tugging his shirt, "were you okay? What happened next?"
"Yeah, Dad," Rosie said, going over to stand next to her mother, "what do you remember?"
Ron's frown versus smile fight was won by neither, as both were soundly defeated by the blank face that he was succumbed to after his daughter's question.
"You…you want to hear a story?"
Rosie rolled her eyes and held an amused grin similar to her mother's.
"Sure, Dad."
"I must be dreaming…" Ron said as a faraway smile floated across his face. "HUGO! HUGO, COME HERE NOW!"
Hermione and Rosie's smiles vanished as they jumped at Ron's shouts. Hugo stuck his head out of his room at his father's cries and then walked over to them.
"What is it? Are you finished spying now?"
Ron grinned in a slightly maniacal way and Hugo retreated a few steps nervously.
"Rosie wants to hear a story!"
Hugo swapped confused, worried-for-his-father's-sanity looks with his sister and mother before looking back at Ron.
"Oh…kay…."
"Oh, come on…when's the last time that's happened?!"
"Umm…never?"
"Exactly! And now you're here for it, so now I can tell it!"
Hugo continued to look bewildered, but Lily had startled giggling and it was music to Ron's ears as he scooped her up in his arms and continued with his own rendition of the story.
"C'mon, Ron, up you get!"
There was a ringing in his ears, but a voice was trying to get his attention. His head was throbbing painfully, and all he wanted was to go back to sleep, but he was suddenly being maneuvered, and the awful, nauseous sense of vertigo forced his eyes opened as he tried to orient himself.
Hermione, who had somehow been trying to roll him onto the broom next to her, shrieked and jumped back as Ron rolled over out of her grasp, panting and gasping with the exertion of not being sick.
"What're you…what're you doing?" he asked, trying to control his breathing.
"Ron, we have to send an owl to Dumbledore, and then I have to get you to the Hospital Wing," Hermione said in a rush of breath.
Ron's head throbbed as he tried to take this information in.
"Wha…why?"
"We have to get help for Harry," Hermione answered, coming over to him with a broom held tightly in both hands. "He went after Snape, remember? He needs help."
Ron tried to focus on her and the broom, but his vision was blurring. He blinked a few times to try to shake it off.
"Right…okay," he said, holding out his hand for the broom.
Hermione misunderstood him as she came forward and placed the broom on the side beside her. It floated a few inches above the ground, obediently waiting for its passengers to climb on.
"Come here," she said, holding her arms out to him.
He glanced at them in confusion.
"What're those for?"
Hermione smiled gently before crawling next to him and grabbing his arm.
"Last time you tried getting up on your own, you didn't make it very far."
This made absolutely no sense to Ron, but he didn't complain about her help as he stumbled forward towards the broom, his head pounding in defiance to the movement.
Hermione somehow helped him onto the broom before getting on herself in the front.
"Ron, just hang tight and I'll get us out of here."
He wasn't sure if she meant it literally or figuratively, but it was easier to grab her round the waist for support and she didn't complain.
If Ron weren't trying to desperately not be sick all over her back at the broom's movements, he would have been quite impressed with her flying. The few lessons they had had with Madam Hooch hadn't helped her much, but she didn't crash into anything, as to which Ron was extremely grateful.
"Ron, could you play this for me, please? I don't want to take my hands off the broom."
Ron opened his eyes, not quite remembering when he had closed them to begin with, and reached out for the wooden flute Hagrid had made for Harry for Christmas.
"What's this for?" he asked, glancing at the instrument through half-lidded eyes.
"For Fluffy," Hermione answered shortly. "Just start playing it and I'll tell you when you can stop."
Ron put the flute to his lips and blew in a rather pathetic attempt at music. But Hermione didn't reprimand him, so he must have been doing the job well enough.
His eyes were falling closed but he continued playing, hoping Hermione would tell him to stop soon so he could fall asleep. His headache was past throbbing and closer to stabbing pains, and after a particularly sharp one, the flute left his lips and he rested his head against Hermione's back, his breathing labored.
"Ron! Keep playing!" Hermione shouted fearfully in front of him as a new sound joined hers and the ringing that was already playing in his ears.
"Whassat?" Ron asked, trying to decipher the loud, booming barks that echoed painfully in his head.
"Ron, play, please!"
Ron dutifully put the flute back up to his lips and played, and the growls and snarls died down. It seemed only a few seconds later that Hermione spoke up again, in a much calmer voice.
"Ron, you can stop playing now. Thank you."
Ron dropped the flute abruptly, but Hermione did not complain, nor did she when he wrapped both his hands around her waist tighter as his headache reached threshold.
"Are you okay?"
He shook his head in pain and confusion.
"What're we doin'?" he slurred into her back.
She didn't speak for a while, and he didn't realize he was nodding off until her voice brought him back from the edge of sleep.
"Ron, I think you need to try to stay awake. Do you remember why we went down the trapdoor?"
"What door?" he asked, not really caring for the answer even as he asked the question.
"Come on, Ron. Snape's trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, remember?"
Ron gave a noncommittal grunt, trying to lift his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. He noticed they seemed to be going faster, for his clothes were now whipping around his frame, making him shiver.
But they stopped abruptly, and Hermione tensed under him. Finally, they were there…wherever they were supposed to be.
"P-Professor Dumbledore!" she squeaked, but her voice seemed to be coming from down a long tunnel.
"Harry's gone after him, hasn't he?" a new voice penetrated Ron's thick mind, and he vaguely recognized it as the Headmaster of Hogwarts. He cracked his eyes open and picked his head off Hermione's back, finding the blurry outline of his hero.
"Yes, sir—"
Ron watched the blur that was Dumbledore disappear as he raced down the hall, not quite sure why he was in such a hurry. He blinked heavily as the Headmaster's shout became a distant echo.
"Hospital wing, Ms. Granger!"
Ron's eyes fell closed as slumped forward on Hermione again, worried as much as his current state would allow for her. Why did she need the hospital wing?
"You a' right?" he asked as his grip on her waist went lax.
She gave an answer but he didn't hear it as everything went dark.
"You never told me what happened to you, actually, for Dumbledore telling you to get to the hospital wing," Ron said in sudden confusion, staring pointedly at his wife.
"It was for you, Ron!" Hermione replied with an amused shake of her head.
"Oh, right," Ron said, ears tingeing pink. "I knew that."
"How do you remember a story where all you did was forget everything?" Rosie asked humorously. "What sense does that make?"
"None whatsoever," Ron replied. "But in my defense any time I acted out of the ordinary that night was a result of getting whacked over the head with a stone arm."
"So all that stuff mum said about falling in love with you was actually meant to be with a concussed version of you?"
Ron's self-satisfied smile disappeared as Hermione laughed. He looked down morosely at his niece, hoping to find comfort in her understanding smile, only to find her asleep in his arms.
"I'm sorry, but why exactly did I have to come listen to this for?" Hugo demanded, staring at the lot of them in a way that suggested he thought they were all mad.
"Because it was sweet," Rosie said, coming over to frog-march her brother to the bathroom. "Come on, mum wants us to brush our teeth."
"But I already did!"
But Hugo's complaints fell on deaf ears as Rosie led him into the bathroom and shut the door behind them.
"You know," Ron said, turning to his wife. "I'm not quite sure my story had much of a moral."
"Well, I think it did," Hermione said with a smile, as she came forward with her arms held out expectantly.
"What're those for?" Ron asked, holding onto his niece and staring at her arms in confusion. "I can't really cuddle when I'm holding her.
"I was going to take her from you, you git," Hermione fought off a grin, putting her arms down as she realized Ron was unwilling to relinquish his hold on Lily. "Let's put her to bed."
Hermione opened the door to the bedroom and Ron walked in, carrying his niece to the cot set up for her in Rosie's bedroom.
"So what did you learn from my story?" Ron asked, laying Lily down carefully and smiling as she slept on angelically.
"Something about boys. They can say one thing to make a girl's entire day, and they don't even know it."
"That can't be true," Ron said with a frown. "What did I say to make your day?"
"You asked me if I was all right. You didn't even consider, even now, that Dumbledore was referring to you instead of me."
"Oh," Ron said, quite unsure of how to respond to that.
"Don't you remember when you told me you loved me in sixth year?"
Ron made sure the bathroom door was still shut before nodding.
"I couldn't think straight for a week. I didn't even reprimand Harry like I should have for wasting all that time trying to get to Malfoy in the Room of Requirement. I only put my head on straight in time for the Apparition Exam. Which was good, because then you started flirting with Rosmerta, but then you mentioned me obviously being perfect for the exam, and, well…you were a very irritating person to be around most of the time, Ron Weasley."
This was all said rather fast, and Ron wasn't sure exactly why he was at fault for all the crazy thoughts she held back at Hogwarts.
But he had learned long ago not to tell her that.
"Most of the time?"
"There were those rare moments that I knew, with all the clarity in the world, that I wanted to deal with your inane behavior for the rest of my life."
"Oh yeah?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Like right now?"
"Like whenever you're concussed," she replied with a smirk, and he lent down for a kiss that she gladly reciprocated.
But they were interrupted as the bathroom door slammed open, and a peeved but clean teethed Hugo exited, staring at his parents from the doorway a moment before shaking his head and heading back to his room, mumbling about having to listen to stories that didn't pertain to him, how he'd have clean teeth for a week now, and that he'd be having nightmares as a result of what he had just seen.
Rosie stepped out behind him, perhaps with teeth not quite as clean as her brother's, and shook her head at Hugo's retreating form.
"Boys."
A/n: Well, folks, a Christmas chapter is already in the works. Since finals are starting up, I doubt I'll be able to get anything out prior to the Christmas chappie. I'll do the best I can, though.
I used more creator's licensing with this chapter, and I'm all right with it. Hermione's phrase: "we were dashing up to the owlery" in Sorcerer's Stone I think could be taken into many contexts, and really, why would Hermione abandon a broom and run anyway? Riding a broom would be so much faster…if the girl were thinking then she would've stuck to the broom (especially since Ron was holding her from behind…oh wait, that's just in this story).
As always, a massive pre-Christmas thank you to all of my lovely reviewers! Massive amounts of candy canes and gingerbread men (or ginger haired men...whichever you prefer) for you all!
And again as always, reviews are appreciated! It's that cute little button right underneath; you can't miss it!
~dieselwriter