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lomonaaeren) wrote2023-06-25 05:03 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2023-06-25 05:03 pm
Entry tags:
[Songs of Summer]: Deny Thy Despair and Refuse Thy Drama, Harry/Draco/Ron, PG-13, 1/2
Title: Deny Thy Despair and Refuse They Drama
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Ron/Harry/Draco, Ron/Draco
Content Notes: Ignores the epilogue, angst, drama, humor, present tense
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 8200 (total)
Summary: After the war, Draco and Ron are desperately attracted to each other, but are also obsessed with baiting each other and reenacting the feud between their families. Harry mediates between them, because otherwise the drama will never end and the dating will never begin. He also is ignoring his own attraction both of them, because that doesn’t matter, surely.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” short stories being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It’s for Kyatnixx, who graciously allowed me to use her prompt for ridiculousness. The title is a twist on a Romeo and Juliet quote.
Deny Thy Despair and Refuse Thy Drama
“Do you know what Malfoy did?”
Harry sighs and peers over the top of the history book about the Grindelwald era that he’s attempting to read. Hermione thinks he would be nice if he took a NEWT in History eventually. At the moment, it’s Ron more than Harry’s own lack of interest that’s going to prevent him from taking it. “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Ron flings himself into a chair across from Harry, his face so red that it looks uncomfortable. Harry thinks about drawing his wand to splash Ron with Aguamenti, but there’s too much chance that Ron will take that the wrong way. “He’s ridiculous!”
“What did he do?”
“Be ridiculous!”
“That’s not descriptive, Ron.”
Harry’s deliberately imitating Hermione’s tone, and Ron’s flush deepens, but he leans back and takes a deep breath. “Yeah, all right. He—he said that Cedrella Black deserved to be killed by her own parents.”
Harry frowns in perplexity. He hasn’t spent enough time staring at the Black family tapestry like an inbred wanker to know the name. “Who’s Cedrella Black?”
Ron whips his head up to stare at him. “My grandmother, Harry. She married Septimus Weasley, my grandfather?”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Malfoy is saying that she should have been killed and I should never have been born, and all you can say about it is oh?”
Harry conceals a sigh behind the book. Obviously, he wants Ron to admit that he fancies Malfoy, and Malfoy to admit the same, because it would end this endless back-and-forth. But he thinks that they’re about as far from that as they were in first year.
Although maybe they didn’t fancy each other then. Harry supposes he wouldn’t know. He broke up with Ginny before the Horcrux hunt, and they’ve gone on a few dates and kissed since then, but he has to admit the spark is gone and he doesn’t know how to rekindle it. Ginny kindly told him as much yesterday and said they should call it off until Harry knows what he wants.
“Can you talk to him?”
The request is so unexpected that Harry has to blink for long seconds. “Me? Talk to Malfoy?”
“Yeah.” Ron is leaning forwards in his chair, his eyes shining with hope. “It’s just—it’s difficult, you know? Really difficult. I know that he can be gentle and good when he wants. You saw what he was like in the Great Hall right after Voldemort got killed, right? But his ego gets in the way.”
“And you think he’d talk to me? The only one he despises more than me is you.”
“He hasn’t been that bad to you since the war!”
Well, no, Harry can admit that, but it’s because Malfoy’s been obsessed with Ron. He sighs. “If you really think it would help.”
“I think he respects you, I really do,” Ron says, in the kind of painfully earnest voice that would make Harry do anything for him. “I mean, he flushes when he sees you, and he lowers his eyes. It’s like—I don’t know, like he finds it hard to come up with any insults for you since he saw you defeat Voldemort.”
Harry has sort of noticed that. He nods. “If you really think it would help,” he repeats.
Ron gives him a brilliant smile and lunges across the short distance between their chairs to grab hold of Harry’s hand. “Mate, you don’t know—”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Harry says, flushing for a reason that he can’t tell Ron about, and smiling, and pulling his hand back. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow after Potions and see what he says about it.”
Ron looks as if Harry has promised to bring down Voldemort a second time. Harry smiles and slaps him on the shoulder and goes up to bed.
He’ll spend time thinking about Ron’s smile, but those are thoughts that he has no business thinking. Ron’s heart belongs to Malfoy—or the person he thinks Malfoy can become. There’s no room for Harry there as anything other than a best friend.
*
“Malfoy, wait up.”
Malfoy’s cheeks immediately turn pink and his eyes dart to the floor as Harry jogs up to where he’s standing just outside Slughorn’s classroom. Huh, interesting. Harry reckons Ron is right and Malfoy does have some kind of respect for him. Or maybe that’s based on the trials where Harry testified about Malfoy and his mum both lying for Harry.
“Uh. Yeah, Potter?”
Malfoy’s voice is deeper than normal, and he looks almost cute with pink cheeks. Harry can see the appeal he has for Ron. “Ron wanted me to talk to you about that insult you offered his grandmother the other day.”
Malfoy darts his gaze up and then focuses it on the floor again. “What about it?”
Harry smiles, pleased. This is already going better than the shouting match he imagined Malfoy would get into with him. “Ron was really upset about it. He thought you were saying he shouldn’t have been born. Look, I know that you fancy him, and he fancies you, and just because you’re a Malfoy and he’s a Weasley, and you’re a Slytherin and he’s a Gryffindor, and you have an ugly tattoo on your arm and he doesn’t, that doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. Does it?”
He’s proud of himself for getting through a sentence that long without losing his place.
Malfoy blinks at him for a long moment. Then he says, “I wasn’t saying that I wished Weasley didn’t exist.”
“But what about trying to talk to him? Like a normal person? What about asking him on a date to Hogsmeade, or getting him—tickets to a Chudley Cannons games, or something?” That’s the only thing Harry can think of as a good romantic present. Then again, he never managed to get Ginny one she liked.
Malfoy stomps his foot a little. Harry cocks his head, wondering if Malfoy actually expects him to feel threatened. He saw a lot worse than a little foot-stomping during the war. “I was saying that he should pay more attention to me! Less to his family!”
That sort of makes sense, Harry supposes, in twisted Malfoy logic. “Well, can’t you say that? And stop insulting them?”
“But they deserve to be insulted.”
“It sounds like you’re saying Ron should be fine with insults to his family—”
“Well, yes.” Malfoy gives him a strange look. “I’m certainly not going to change for Weasley, so he’s going to have to change for me.”
Harry sighs, long and hard, and says something that he knows Malfoy already knows, because Ron shouted it at him in the corridor one day. “Your dad slipped that diary into Ginny’s cauldron and had her walking around Petrifying people. It was pure luck that she didn’t die. Don’t you think that you’re the one who has to be all right with insults to your family? At least a little?”
“That wasn’t it.”
“What? It wasn’t an insult to Ron’s family? That’s the way he took it—”
“No, I mean, Weasley’s sister didn’t survive because of luck. She survived because of you.”
Malfoy’s voice has gone all heated, and he’s leaning forwards like he’s about to dash up and smack Harry in the face. Harry twitches and very carefully doesn’t let himself raise a Shield Charm. “You ought to know that Ron won’t take it well if you have so little regard for Ginny’s life, either.”
“Why? She’s not the one I want to date. I want to date Weasley and—” Malfoy breaks off, flushing.
Harry nods. He doesn’t really need Malfoy to describe what he’d like to do with Ron. It’s obvious enough.
And if Harry feels a little jealous, wishing he could experience that kind of emotion about someone and someone could feel that way about him both at the same time, he doesn’t need to discuss it.
“You might dislike Ron’s family, but if you go around saying that, you’re going to drive him away,” Harry explains. It feels like he’s trying to talk about maths to Dudley, and Malfoy certainly gives him a blank look that would do justice to Dudley with that particular subject. “So don’t talk about it.”
“But I have to talk about it!”
“Why?”
“They’re terrible, and I don’t want Weasley to be like them!”
Harry doesn’t massage his forehead, but it’s a close thing. “You can—I don’t know, work to change Ron or whatever. Just don’t talk like that about his family.”
Personally, Harry doesn’t think Malfoy should try to change Ron at all, but then, he is not getting in the middle of this. His own feelings are enough of a problem when he’s just thinking about them in the dead of night. Neither Ron nor Malfoy will thank him for interfering.
“But what if I have to?”
“You don’t,” Harry says, and stomps away before Malfoy can protest again about the necessity of insulting the Weasleys. Honestly, what drama.
*
“Weasley!”
“Malfoy!”
Harry turns around with what feels like most of the school when Ron and Malfoy start yelling at each other across the width of the Great Hall. At this point, regardless of what he feels or doesn’t feel or might want, Harry is rooting for them to start snogging in front of everyone. He has a theory that it would be much harder for them to act like gits once they’ve tasted each other’s tonsils.
But instead, they have their wands pointed at each other. Harry wishes he could pound his head on the table without Hermione asking him what’s wrong.
“You insulted my family!”
“You insulted my family!”
“Posh pretty ponce!”
“Unwashed unruly—”
Malfoy doesn’t look as if he knows how to end that sentence, which is the only reason that Harry is grateful to see Ron cast a spell a second later. It hits Malfoy, and he sprouts freckles and, for some reason, a pig snout.
“Mr. Weasley!”
Headmistress McGonagall is descending on them like the wrath of a Nundu, and Hermione shakes her head wearily next to Harry. “Honestly. Why is this so hard for them? They both agree that Mr. Malfoy is a git, Malfoy wasn’t actually a loyal Death Eater, and I overheard him admitting to other Slytherins that the Weasleys are the best example of a decent family he’s ever seen. Why do they do this?”
“I don’t know,” Harry says, shaking his head in turn as he watches McGonagall sweep both Ron and Malfoy out of the Great Hall in front of her. “I’m kind of surprised this is the first time that it’s turned into a duel, honestly.”
“I think I’ll talk to Ron,” Hermione says meaningfully, and thumps a dangerous hand on the table.
*
Harry pauses as he steps into the common room. He stayed late after Charms class discussing pointers for the NEWT with Professor Flitwick, and it was only partially because he wanted to give Hermione privacy to talk with Ron.
But it doesn’t seem to have worked. Hermione is sitting by the fire with her arms folded, scowling, and Ron is nowhere in sight. The chairs and couches around Hermione are deserted, too.
Harry sits down next to her. She turns around with a sharp exclamation, then sighs and relaxes when she sees it’s him. “He’s awful,” she mutters.
“Surprised to hear you say that about Ron and not about Malfoy,” Harry teases a little, trying to make her smile.
Hermione just scowls harder. “He’s utterly irrational about Malfoy. Even I can see that Ron’s gone on him, which is one reason that I didn’t keep up trying to date him after we came back to school. But every time he talks about how attractive Malfoy is, it’s like he panics and thinks he needs an insult to balance it out.”
“What did he say when you told him that?”
“That he would have listened to you if you were the one saying it, but I had no right to talk, given the way that I sent birds after him in sixth year.”
Harry shakes his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I think he’s wrong about listening to me, and he shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“But you don’t think he’s wrong about the birds?”
Harry hesitates a moment too long.
“I’m going to bed,” Hermione says, and rises to her feet with dignity. Her hands are shaking a little, and Harry feels bad.
“Hermione—”
“There’s no need to say anything, Harry. But I noticed that you didn’t get back together with Ginny, either, so it’s not like you can brag about having a perfect romantic life.”
“I didn’t get back together with her because it wouldn’t be fair, after not feeling strongly for her!”
“So you think that wasn’t wrong, but the birds I sent after Ron were?”
“I think they’re both wrong!”
“I’m going to bed,” Hermione repeats, and all but stomps up the stairs to the girls’ dorm.
Harry falls back against the couch and stares at the ceiling. Why is everyone so dramatic all the time? He remembers being dramatic himself during fifth year, and people staring at him and being upset because he was upset, but now it feels like the whole world has gone mental.
*
“Look at him, the great git.”
“I’d rather look at my potion,” Harry says, staring into the bubbling cauldron in front of him and scooping up a handful of crushed lacewings to add them. “You should, too,” he hints broadly, when Ron just keeps staring across the tables at Malfoy.
“He got the freckles removed,” Ron mutters, and begins to dump a handful of lacewings into the potion. Harry stops him with a grip on his wrist and a shake of his head. A slow blush wells across Ron’s cheeks, and he mutters something that might be an apology. But he doesn’t stop staring at Malfoy. “He was handsomer with them.”
“Oh? So you’d want to date someone who looked like your brother?”
Ron stares at him in what seems like horror. Hermione opens her mouth in the corner of Harry’s vision and then closes it, shaking her head at him in a way that says You can deal with this mess you made yourself.
“What did you say?” Ron’s voice is very faint.
Harry sighs. He probably shouldn’t have said it, true, but at least this way it’s out there and no one can wave their arms and pretend they didn’t hear it. “If you think he’s handsomer with freckles, then—”
“No, no, not that! Why did you think I want to date Malfoy at all?”
“Oh, come on, Ron!” Harry’s voice rises enough that he attracts Slughorn’s attention, and he ends up ducking his head and murmuring an apology. Slughorn wags a finger at him and goes back to examining Theodore Nott’s potion. “Anyone can see it,” Harry continues in a slightly softer tone of voice. “It’s bloody obvious, all right?”
“I don’t like him!”
“Maybe not,” Harry has to agree, because some of the insults that Malfoy and Ron hurl at each other imply that. “But you want to date him anyway.”
“I do not!”
“Boys, boys, now settle down,” Slughorn says, sailing over to them and clucking his tongue at them. “Such subjects are appropriate for, ah, a different room, yes?”
Harry has to duck his head, his face flaming. He doesn’t want to even think about Slughorn and innuendo in the same sentence.
Of course, that’s what his disobedient mind immediately does. Harry grimaces, shakes his head, and turns to Ron, whispering, “Look what you made me think about!”
“You’re the one who brought it up!”
“I wouldn’t have had to if you would just snog Malfoy instead of—”
Harry’s voice fades, and he blinks. It takes him a long moment to realize that Hermione’s hit him with a Silencing Charm. He turns and gives her a wounded look.
Hermione rolls her eyes at him—at them, Harry hopes, given that she also hit Ron with one—and goes back to her potion. Harry decides to give up and do the same thing, hoping that maybe he can talk to Ron after the class and explain what he meant. Ron’s staring longingly at Malfoy across the room, anyway, so maybe he’ll be more prone to talking about it.
*
“I don’t want to date him,” Ron says a few seconds after they walk into the common room, making several people turn around and stare, and then stand up and leave the room. Harry can’t really blame them. He would do the same thing himself if he could. “I just want to…how can I want to do anything with someone who insults my family?”
“Snog him?” Hermione suggests from the corner where she’s sitting with her wand resting on the chair next to her. Harry thinks she’s probably getting ready to silence them again if they get bad enough. She didn’t remove the charm she had on them earlier until the end of Potions.
“No! Not that, either!”
“Hold his hand?” Harry asks. “Stare dreamily at the moon off the Astronomy Tower?” He pushes away the memory of the dream that he had the other night when he was doing that with Ron. This isn’t about him.
“No!”
“Then what do you want Malfoy for?” Hermione asks coolly. “Based on the amount of time you spend staring at him, if it’s not for snogging or shagging or acting like a couple, then you’re planning to murder him and bury his body in the Forbidden Forest, and I’d have to tell Professor McGonagall about that.”
Ron stares at her with an open mouth. Harry nods a little, impressed. Hermione speaking like that is the only thing that might make Ron admit what he wants Malfoy for, if teasing and directly asking and being sensible won’t.
“I—you don’t understand!”
“No, I certainly don’t,” Hermione says, and nods at Harry. Harry remembers a second later to fold his arms the way Hermione’s doing in support of her.
“Then how can you say—”
“I don’t understand how you can act like this when everyone knows that you want him, and he wants you. Neither of you has a boyfriend or girlfriend. Neither of you is on the opposite side of a war anymore. Why aren’t you already flat on your back next to him, Ron?”
Harry blinks a little, but then nods.
“Neither of you has to face the prospect of wanting someone who’s your family’s hereditary enemy!”
Hermione puts her hand over her face. “Seriously?” she asks. “It’s not even that you’re worried about what Malfoy did to you personally, it’s that you’re worried about this supposed feud?”
“You don’t understand!”
“Clearly,” Hermione snaps, and then turns around and flounces up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory.
Ron stares after her for a second, then sits down in the middle of the rug near the fireplace. “You understand, right, mate?” he asks Harry plaintively. “How it’s not just as easy as rushing into Malfoy’s arms?”
Harry sighs, thinks of reminding Ron that he just said Harry wouldn’t understand, and then decides he doesn’t want another argument. “Sort of,” he says, sitting down next to Ron. “I mean, if I was attracted to Malfoy…” He blushes and shoves the blush down as best he can. “Then it would be hard for me to just go up to him and say I want to date him because he’s tried to bully me and been an arse to you and Hermione.”
“See!”
“But I would do it eventually.”
“You—would?”
“Sure.” Harry smiles a little, wondering if calmness and patience is the way to break through to Ron after all. “I mean, I’d have to think about why I was attracted to him, and wonder if he had really changed. And it wouldn’t help at all if he kept insulting me. But sooner or later, I’d decide to stop dithering, because then I’d lose the chance to really see if he’d changed. I’d ask him on a date.”
“And then?” Ron sounds breathless.
Harry shrugs a little. “I’d watch how he behaves on the date. If he was annoying and still a blood purist, it would be easier to convince myself that it would never work out. But maybe he wouldn’t be,” he adds encouragingly, because Ron is slumping a bit. “You don’t know until go on a date with him.”
“That’s what you would do. If you were attracted to Malfoy.”
The way I am.
Harry holds back the thought, because it really isn’t Ron’s fault or business that Harry has some unresolved issues with people who snarl at him. It’s as if his brain misses the challenge of facing Voldemort but also knows Malfoy was never as dangerous as Voldemort, so it’s trying to fill in the gaps.
And in the process, coming up with some weird ideas.
“I’ll think about it,” Ron says.
His jaw is jutting a little, the way it does when he has a plan. Harry reaches out and squeezes his arm. “You never know,” he says, gently, encouragingly. “Maybe Malfoy is more attracted than you think and only goes around spouting blood purist ideas because he thinks that you’ll never actually go on a date with him. And everything will change when he sees that you will.”
“Or you would.”
“If it were me in that situation, sure.”
Ron stares off into the distance, and then nods. “Thanks, mate. I’m going to think about it,” he repeats, and then goes and sits on the couch in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames. The set of his shoulders says he doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Harry shakes his head a little and goes to fetch his Potions textbook. He can only hope that Ron will think about it and take the chance of going on a date with Malfoy. Harry isn’t sure how much more drama he can put up with.
And if part of him aches to think of Ron and Malfoy kissing, if part of him thinks of watching…
That’s probably the same part of him that’s attracted to Malfoy in the screwed-up way he is, and therefore not worth listening to.
*
“Potter.”
Harry turns around. Malfoy is standing outside the Great Hall, in a corner back near the wall where fewer people are likely to see him. His face is set in something that resembles a confused scowl.
Harry steps over towards him, trying to respect the way that Malfoy seemingly doesn’t want anyone to look at him. “What is it, Malfoy?”
“I understand that you’ll be accompanying us on a date to Hogsmeade.”
Harry’s first thought is, Ron finally made a move. Good.
His second thought is, What?
“I—what?”
“Yes. I heard you suggested it to Weasley.” Malfoy inclines his head a little, a faint frown on his face now. Maybe he thinks Harry should be more outraged. “And, well, I am glad that you persuaded him to find his courage.”
“But—I never intended to go with you,” Harry says, a little bewildered. “I just told Ron why I would date you, and I meant—”
“Why you would date me?” Malfoy interrupts sharply.
Harry winces before he thinks about it. Malfoy is staring at him with eyes that look as if they could pierce under his skin like blades. Can he see Harry’s weird, messed-up attraction to him? Does he resent it?
“I—was just saying what I would do in his situation,” Harry mumbles. “I apologize if that offends you.”
“Offends me?”
Great. It’s worse than just offending Malfoy, then. Harry sighs and wishes he knew some way to apologize that wouldn’t also get twisted. “Sorry, Malfoy.”
Malfoy stares off into the distance, as if reading giant words written on the wall, and then abruptly nods. “I believe I see what Weasley is doing. Very well. You will come with us to Hogsmeade, Potter. Be ready at nine-o’clock.” And he whirls and strides into the Great Hall while Harry is still opening his mouth to protest.
What the hell. Why do Ron and Malfoy want me to come along on their date?
But an obvious answer occurs to Harry, and he sighs again. To keep them from killing each other, of course.
Harry sighs aloud and turns around to go back to Gryffindor Tower. Honestly, it’s still an hour and a half until he has to meet Malfoy and Ron, and he thinks he needs sleep more than he needs breakfast.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Ron/Harry/Draco, Ron/Draco
Content Notes: Ignores the epilogue, angst, drama, humor, present tense
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 8200 (total)
Summary: After the war, Draco and Ron are desperately attracted to each other, but are also obsessed with baiting each other and reenacting the feud between their families. Harry mediates between them, because otherwise the drama will never end and the dating will never begin. He also is ignoring his own attraction both of them, because that doesn’t matter, surely.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” short stories being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It’s for Kyatnixx, who graciously allowed me to use her prompt for ridiculousness. The title is a twist on a Romeo and Juliet quote.
Deny Thy Despair and Refuse Thy Drama
“Do you know what Malfoy did?”
Harry sighs and peers over the top of the history book about the Grindelwald era that he’s attempting to read. Hermione thinks he would be nice if he took a NEWT in History eventually. At the moment, it’s Ron more than Harry’s own lack of interest that’s going to prevent him from taking it. “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Ron flings himself into a chair across from Harry, his face so red that it looks uncomfortable. Harry thinks about drawing his wand to splash Ron with Aguamenti, but there’s too much chance that Ron will take that the wrong way. “He’s ridiculous!”
“What did he do?”
“Be ridiculous!”
“That’s not descriptive, Ron.”
Harry’s deliberately imitating Hermione’s tone, and Ron’s flush deepens, but he leans back and takes a deep breath. “Yeah, all right. He—he said that Cedrella Black deserved to be killed by her own parents.”
Harry frowns in perplexity. He hasn’t spent enough time staring at the Black family tapestry like an inbred wanker to know the name. “Who’s Cedrella Black?”
Ron whips his head up to stare at him. “My grandmother, Harry. She married Septimus Weasley, my grandfather?”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Malfoy is saying that she should have been killed and I should never have been born, and all you can say about it is oh?”
Harry conceals a sigh behind the book. Obviously, he wants Ron to admit that he fancies Malfoy, and Malfoy to admit the same, because it would end this endless back-and-forth. But he thinks that they’re about as far from that as they were in first year.
Although maybe they didn’t fancy each other then. Harry supposes he wouldn’t know. He broke up with Ginny before the Horcrux hunt, and they’ve gone on a few dates and kissed since then, but he has to admit the spark is gone and he doesn’t know how to rekindle it. Ginny kindly told him as much yesterday and said they should call it off until Harry knows what he wants.
“Can you talk to him?”
The request is so unexpected that Harry has to blink for long seconds. “Me? Talk to Malfoy?”
“Yeah.” Ron is leaning forwards in his chair, his eyes shining with hope. “It’s just—it’s difficult, you know? Really difficult. I know that he can be gentle and good when he wants. You saw what he was like in the Great Hall right after Voldemort got killed, right? But his ego gets in the way.”
“And you think he’d talk to me? The only one he despises more than me is you.”
“He hasn’t been that bad to you since the war!”
Well, no, Harry can admit that, but it’s because Malfoy’s been obsessed with Ron. He sighs. “If you really think it would help.”
“I think he respects you, I really do,” Ron says, in the kind of painfully earnest voice that would make Harry do anything for him. “I mean, he flushes when he sees you, and he lowers his eyes. It’s like—I don’t know, like he finds it hard to come up with any insults for you since he saw you defeat Voldemort.”
Harry has sort of noticed that. He nods. “If you really think it would help,” he repeats.
Ron gives him a brilliant smile and lunges across the short distance between their chairs to grab hold of Harry’s hand. “Mate, you don’t know—”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Harry says, flushing for a reason that he can’t tell Ron about, and smiling, and pulling his hand back. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow after Potions and see what he says about it.”
Ron looks as if Harry has promised to bring down Voldemort a second time. Harry smiles and slaps him on the shoulder and goes up to bed.
He’ll spend time thinking about Ron’s smile, but those are thoughts that he has no business thinking. Ron’s heart belongs to Malfoy—or the person he thinks Malfoy can become. There’s no room for Harry there as anything other than a best friend.
*
“Malfoy, wait up.”
Malfoy’s cheeks immediately turn pink and his eyes dart to the floor as Harry jogs up to where he’s standing just outside Slughorn’s classroom. Huh, interesting. Harry reckons Ron is right and Malfoy does have some kind of respect for him. Or maybe that’s based on the trials where Harry testified about Malfoy and his mum both lying for Harry.
“Uh. Yeah, Potter?”
Malfoy’s voice is deeper than normal, and he looks almost cute with pink cheeks. Harry can see the appeal he has for Ron. “Ron wanted me to talk to you about that insult you offered his grandmother the other day.”
Malfoy darts his gaze up and then focuses it on the floor again. “What about it?”
Harry smiles, pleased. This is already going better than the shouting match he imagined Malfoy would get into with him. “Ron was really upset about it. He thought you were saying he shouldn’t have been born. Look, I know that you fancy him, and he fancies you, and just because you’re a Malfoy and he’s a Weasley, and you’re a Slytherin and he’s a Gryffindor, and you have an ugly tattoo on your arm and he doesn’t, that doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. Does it?”
He’s proud of himself for getting through a sentence that long without losing his place.
Malfoy blinks at him for a long moment. Then he says, “I wasn’t saying that I wished Weasley didn’t exist.”
“But what about trying to talk to him? Like a normal person? What about asking him on a date to Hogsmeade, or getting him—tickets to a Chudley Cannons games, or something?” That’s the only thing Harry can think of as a good romantic present. Then again, he never managed to get Ginny one she liked.
Malfoy stomps his foot a little. Harry cocks his head, wondering if Malfoy actually expects him to feel threatened. He saw a lot worse than a little foot-stomping during the war. “I was saying that he should pay more attention to me! Less to his family!”
That sort of makes sense, Harry supposes, in twisted Malfoy logic. “Well, can’t you say that? And stop insulting them?”
“But they deserve to be insulted.”
“It sounds like you’re saying Ron should be fine with insults to his family—”
“Well, yes.” Malfoy gives him a strange look. “I’m certainly not going to change for Weasley, so he’s going to have to change for me.”
Harry sighs, long and hard, and says something that he knows Malfoy already knows, because Ron shouted it at him in the corridor one day. “Your dad slipped that diary into Ginny’s cauldron and had her walking around Petrifying people. It was pure luck that she didn’t die. Don’t you think that you’re the one who has to be all right with insults to your family? At least a little?”
“That wasn’t it.”
“What? It wasn’t an insult to Ron’s family? That’s the way he took it—”
“No, I mean, Weasley’s sister didn’t survive because of luck. She survived because of you.”
Malfoy’s voice has gone all heated, and he’s leaning forwards like he’s about to dash up and smack Harry in the face. Harry twitches and very carefully doesn’t let himself raise a Shield Charm. “You ought to know that Ron won’t take it well if you have so little regard for Ginny’s life, either.”
“Why? She’s not the one I want to date. I want to date Weasley and—” Malfoy breaks off, flushing.
Harry nods. He doesn’t really need Malfoy to describe what he’d like to do with Ron. It’s obvious enough.
And if Harry feels a little jealous, wishing he could experience that kind of emotion about someone and someone could feel that way about him both at the same time, he doesn’t need to discuss it.
“You might dislike Ron’s family, but if you go around saying that, you’re going to drive him away,” Harry explains. It feels like he’s trying to talk about maths to Dudley, and Malfoy certainly gives him a blank look that would do justice to Dudley with that particular subject. “So don’t talk about it.”
“But I have to talk about it!”
“Why?”
“They’re terrible, and I don’t want Weasley to be like them!”
Harry doesn’t massage his forehead, but it’s a close thing. “You can—I don’t know, work to change Ron or whatever. Just don’t talk like that about his family.”
Personally, Harry doesn’t think Malfoy should try to change Ron at all, but then, he is not getting in the middle of this. His own feelings are enough of a problem when he’s just thinking about them in the dead of night. Neither Ron nor Malfoy will thank him for interfering.
“But what if I have to?”
“You don’t,” Harry says, and stomps away before Malfoy can protest again about the necessity of insulting the Weasleys. Honestly, what drama.
*
“Weasley!”
“Malfoy!”
Harry turns around with what feels like most of the school when Ron and Malfoy start yelling at each other across the width of the Great Hall. At this point, regardless of what he feels or doesn’t feel or might want, Harry is rooting for them to start snogging in front of everyone. He has a theory that it would be much harder for them to act like gits once they’ve tasted each other’s tonsils.
But instead, they have their wands pointed at each other. Harry wishes he could pound his head on the table without Hermione asking him what’s wrong.
“You insulted my family!”
“You insulted my family!”
“Posh pretty ponce!”
“Unwashed unruly—”
Malfoy doesn’t look as if he knows how to end that sentence, which is the only reason that Harry is grateful to see Ron cast a spell a second later. It hits Malfoy, and he sprouts freckles and, for some reason, a pig snout.
“Mr. Weasley!”
Headmistress McGonagall is descending on them like the wrath of a Nundu, and Hermione shakes her head wearily next to Harry. “Honestly. Why is this so hard for them? They both agree that Mr. Malfoy is a git, Malfoy wasn’t actually a loyal Death Eater, and I overheard him admitting to other Slytherins that the Weasleys are the best example of a decent family he’s ever seen. Why do they do this?”
“I don’t know,” Harry says, shaking his head in turn as he watches McGonagall sweep both Ron and Malfoy out of the Great Hall in front of her. “I’m kind of surprised this is the first time that it’s turned into a duel, honestly.”
“I think I’ll talk to Ron,” Hermione says meaningfully, and thumps a dangerous hand on the table.
*
Harry pauses as he steps into the common room. He stayed late after Charms class discussing pointers for the NEWT with Professor Flitwick, and it was only partially because he wanted to give Hermione privacy to talk with Ron.
But it doesn’t seem to have worked. Hermione is sitting by the fire with her arms folded, scowling, and Ron is nowhere in sight. The chairs and couches around Hermione are deserted, too.
Harry sits down next to her. She turns around with a sharp exclamation, then sighs and relaxes when she sees it’s him. “He’s awful,” she mutters.
“Surprised to hear you say that about Ron and not about Malfoy,” Harry teases a little, trying to make her smile.
Hermione just scowls harder. “He’s utterly irrational about Malfoy. Even I can see that Ron’s gone on him, which is one reason that I didn’t keep up trying to date him after we came back to school. But every time he talks about how attractive Malfoy is, it’s like he panics and thinks he needs an insult to balance it out.”
“What did he say when you told him that?”
“That he would have listened to you if you were the one saying it, but I had no right to talk, given the way that I sent birds after him in sixth year.”
Harry shakes his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I think he’s wrong about listening to me, and he shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“But you don’t think he’s wrong about the birds?”
Harry hesitates a moment too long.
“I’m going to bed,” Hermione says, and rises to her feet with dignity. Her hands are shaking a little, and Harry feels bad.
“Hermione—”
“There’s no need to say anything, Harry. But I noticed that you didn’t get back together with Ginny, either, so it’s not like you can brag about having a perfect romantic life.”
“I didn’t get back together with her because it wouldn’t be fair, after not feeling strongly for her!”
“So you think that wasn’t wrong, but the birds I sent after Ron were?”
“I think they’re both wrong!”
“I’m going to bed,” Hermione repeats, and all but stomps up the stairs to the girls’ dorm.
Harry falls back against the couch and stares at the ceiling. Why is everyone so dramatic all the time? He remembers being dramatic himself during fifth year, and people staring at him and being upset because he was upset, but now it feels like the whole world has gone mental.
*
“Look at him, the great git.”
“I’d rather look at my potion,” Harry says, staring into the bubbling cauldron in front of him and scooping up a handful of crushed lacewings to add them. “You should, too,” he hints broadly, when Ron just keeps staring across the tables at Malfoy.
“He got the freckles removed,” Ron mutters, and begins to dump a handful of lacewings into the potion. Harry stops him with a grip on his wrist and a shake of his head. A slow blush wells across Ron’s cheeks, and he mutters something that might be an apology. But he doesn’t stop staring at Malfoy. “He was handsomer with them.”
“Oh? So you’d want to date someone who looked like your brother?”
Ron stares at him in what seems like horror. Hermione opens her mouth in the corner of Harry’s vision and then closes it, shaking her head at him in a way that says You can deal with this mess you made yourself.
“What did you say?” Ron’s voice is very faint.
Harry sighs. He probably shouldn’t have said it, true, but at least this way it’s out there and no one can wave their arms and pretend they didn’t hear it. “If you think he’s handsomer with freckles, then—”
“No, no, not that! Why did you think I want to date Malfoy at all?”
“Oh, come on, Ron!” Harry’s voice rises enough that he attracts Slughorn’s attention, and he ends up ducking his head and murmuring an apology. Slughorn wags a finger at him and goes back to examining Theodore Nott’s potion. “Anyone can see it,” Harry continues in a slightly softer tone of voice. “It’s bloody obvious, all right?”
“I don’t like him!”
“Maybe not,” Harry has to agree, because some of the insults that Malfoy and Ron hurl at each other imply that. “But you want to date him anyway.”
“I do not!”
“Boys, boys, now settle down,” Slughorn says, sailing over to them and clucking his tongue at them. “Such subjects are appropriate for, ah, a different room, yes?”
Harry has to duck his head, his face flaming. He doesn’t want to even think about Slughorn and innuendo in the same sentence.
Of course, that’s what his disobedient mind immediately does. Harry grimaces, shakes his head, and turns to Ron, whispering, “Look what you made me think about!”
“You’re the one who brought it up!”
“I wouldn’t have had to if you would just snog Malfoy instead of—”
Harry’s voice fades, and he blinks. It takes him a long moment to realize that Hermione’s hit him with a Silencing Charm. He turns and gives her a wounded look.
Hermione rolls her eyes at him—at them, Harry hopes, given that she also hit Ron with one—and goes back to her potion. Harry decides to give up and do the same thing, hoping that maybe he can talk to Ron after the class and explain what he meant. Ron’s staring longingly at Malfoy across the room, anyway, so maybe he’ll be more prone to talking about it.
*
“I don’t want to date him,” Ron says a few seconds after they walk into the common room, making several people turn around and stare, and then stand up and leave the room. Harry can’t really blame them. He would do the same thing himself if he could. “I just want to…how can I want to do anything with someone who insults my family?”
“Snog him?” Hermione suggests from the corner where she’s sitting with her wand resting on the chair next to her. Harry thinks she’s probably getting ready to silence them again if they get bad enough. She didn’t remove the charm she had on them earlier until the end of Potions.
“No! Not that, either!”
“Hold his hand?” Harry asks. “Stare dreamily at the moon off the Astronomy Tower?” He pushes away the memory of the dream that he had the other night when he was doing that with Ron. This isn’t about him.
“No!”
“Then what do you want Malfoy for?” Hermione asks coolly. “Based on the amount of time you spend staring at him, if it’s not for snogging or shagging or acting like a couple, then you’re planning to murder him and bury his body in the Forbidden Forest, and I’d have to tell Professor McGonagall about that.”
Ron stares at her with an open mouth. Harry nods a little, impressed. Hermione speaking like that is the only thing that might make Ron admit what he wants Malfoy for, if teasing and directly asking and being sensible won’t.
“I—you don’t understand!”
“No, I certainly don’t,” Hermione says, and nods at Harry. Harry remembers a second later to fold his arms the way Hermione’s doing in support of her.
“Then how can you say—”
“I don’t understand how you can act like this when everyone knows that you want him, and he wants you. Neither of you has a boyfriend or girlfriend. Neither of you is on the opposite side of a war anymore. Why aren’t you already flat on your back next to him, Ron?”
Harry blinks a little, but then nods.
“Neither of you has to face the prospect of wanting someone who’s your family’s hereditary enemy!”
Hermione puts her hand over her face. “Seriously?” she asks. “It’s not even that you’re worried about what Malfoy did to you personally, it’s that you’re worried about this supposed feud?”
“You don’t understand!”
“Clearly,” Hermione snaps, and then turns around and flounces up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory.
Ron stares after her for a second, then sits down in the middle of the rug near the fireplace. “You understand, right, mate?” he asks Harry plaintively. “How it’s not just as easy as rushing into Malfoy’s arms?”
Harry sighs, thinks of reminding Ron that he just said Harry wouldn’t understand, and then decides he doesn’t want another argument. “Sort of,” he says, sitting down next to Ron. “I mean, if I was attracted to Malfoy…” He blushes and shoves the blush down as best he can. “Then it would be hard for me to just go up to him and say I want to date him because he’s tried to bully me and been an arse to you and Hermione.”
“See!”
“But I would do it eventually.”
“You—would?”
“Sure.” Harry smiles a little, wondering if calmness and patience is the way to break through to Ron after all. “I mean, I’d have to think about why I was attracted to him, and wonder if he had really changed. And it wouldn’t help at all if he kept insulting me. But sooner or later, I’d decide to stop dithering, because then I’d lose the chance to really see if he’d changed. I’d ask him on a date.”
“And then?” Ron sounds breathless.
Harry shrugs a little. “I’d watch how he behaves on the date. If he was annoying and still a blood purist, it would be easier to convince myself that it would never work out. But maybe he wouldn’t be,” he adds encouragingly, because Ron is slumping a bit. “You don’t know until go on a date with him.”
“That’s what you would do. If you were attracted to Malfoy.”
The way I am.
Harry holds back the thought, because it really isn’t Ron’s fault or business that Harry has some unresolved issues with people who snarl at him. It’s as if his brain misses the challenge of facing Voldemort but also knows Malfoy was never as dangerous as Voldemort, so it’s trying to fill in the gaps.
And in the process, coming up with some weird ideas.
“I’ll think about it,” Ron says.
His jaw is jutting a little, the way it does when he has a plan. Harry reaches out and squeezes his arm. “You never know,” he says, gently, encouragingly. “Maybe Malfoy is more attracted than you think and only goes around spouting blood purist ideas because he thinks that you’ll never actually go on a date with him. And everything will change when he sees that you will.”
“Or you would.”
“If it were me in that situation, sure.”
Ron stares off into the distance, and then nods. “Thanks, mate. I’m going to think about it,” he repeats, and then goes and sits on the couch in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames. The set of his shoulders says he doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Harry shakes his head a little and goes to fetch his Potions textbook. He can only hope that Ron will think about it and take the chance of going on a date with Malfoy. Harry isn’t sure how much more drama he can put up with.
And if part of him aches to think of Ron and Malfoy kissing, if part of him thinks of watching…
That’s probably the same part of him that’s attracted to Malfoy in the screwed-up way he is, and therefore not worth listening to.
*
“Potter.”
Harry turns around. Malfoy is standing outside the Great Hall, in a corner back near the wall where fewer people are likely to see him. His face is set in something that resembles a confused scowl.
Harry steps over towards him, trying to respect the way that Malfoy seemingly doesn’t want anyone to look at him. “What is it, Malfoy?”
“I understand that you’ll be accompanying us on a date to Hogsmeade.”
Harry’s first thought is, Ron finally made a move. Good.
His second thought is, What?
“I—what?”
“Yes. I heard you suggested it to Weasley.” Malfoy inclines his head a little, a faint frown on his face now. Maybe he thinks Harry should be more outraged. “And, well, I am glad that you persuaded him to find his courage.”
“But—I never intended to go with you,” Harry says, a little bewildered. “I just told Ron why I would date you, and I meant—”
“Why you would date me?” Malfoy interrupts sharply.
Harry winces before he thinks about it. Malfoy is staring at him with eyes that look as if they could pierce under his skin like blades. Can he see Harry’s weird, messed-up attraction to him? Does he resent it?
“I—was just saying what I would do in his situation,” Harry mumbles. “I apologize if that offends you.”
“Offends me?”
Great. It’s worse than just offending Malfoy, then. Harry sighs and wishes he knew some way to apologize that wouldn’t also get twisted. “Sorry, Malfoy.”
Malfoy stares off into the distance, as if reading giant words written on the wall, and then abruptly nods. “I believe I see what Weasley is doing. Very well. You will come with us to Hogsmeade, Potter. Be ready at nine-o’clock.” And he whirls and strides into the Great Hall while Harry is still opening his mouth to protest.
What the hell. Why do Ron and Malfoy want me to come along on their date?
But an obvious answer occurs to Harry, and he sighs again. To keep them from killing each other, of course.
Harry sighs aloud and turns around to go back to Gryffindor Tower. Honestly, it’s still an hour and a half until he has to meet Malfoy and Ron, and he thinks he needs sleep more than he needs breakfast.