Ron’s 17th birthday was rapidly approaching and his friends had planned a party for him at the 3 Broomsticks on Saturday night. Lucky for them, Ron’s birthday coincided with their next Hogsmeade trip. Hermione had reserved a few tables for Ron and his guests while Harry convinced Madame Rosemerta to allow an up-and-coming band to perform during the party. The band was called “Shady Groove,” and half of their members were Muggle-born. (A/N Sorry about the band’s name, it’s just that there’s this band at my high school and they call themselves “Shady Groove” It’s a school-wide joke, so bear with me.) They had just finished a tour in America and were now playing small venues all over Great Britain.

***

When Saturday finally came, Ron was unbelievably anxious; he had been looking forward to this party, but he hadn’t told anyone that this would be the night he confessed his love for Hermione. He had put on his best robes and was fixing his hair in his dorm when Harry walked in and said “Hey dude, looking sharp!”

“Thanks,” he replied edgily. He hoped he looked nice, his main goal of the night was to impress Hermione.

“Pretty big night, huh?” said Harry, completely oblivious to his best friend’s nervous state.

“Yeah,” Ron’s voice cracked as he said this.

“It’s the kinda night that turns out to be either the best night or worst night of your life, am I right?” Harry said with a grin, still unaware of the effect it was having on Ron.

“Umm hmm,” Ron’s nerves were so shot he couldn’t utter a coherent word; his entire body had begun to tremble with stress while his friend stood in the doorway, unintentionally worsening his condition.

“It’s sorta like you have something really pure deep inside you that you need to show someone, but you just know they’re gonna stomp all over it because you’re the most revolting human being on Earth, you know what I mean?” Harry thought aloud, with the nonchalant air of someone talking about the weather. Ron could only answer with a squeak, why was Harry torturing him like this?

“Hey, by the way, do you know what time it is?” Harry asked innocently.

This sent Ron careening over the edge of sanity; he gripped his hair roared, “Damnit Harry, I’m NOT a clock!!!!! STOP TORMENTING MEEEEEEEE!!!!” His outburst caused Harry to back slowly away from the dorm, eyes wide and hands raised in alarm. “Okay, dude, just simmer down now.” Harry turned and descended the stairs, leaving Ron to repair the damage he had done to his hair.

**(Change of POV, Slytherin common room.)**

“Did you get it?” an evilly excited Draco Malfoy said to his thuggish lackies, Crabbe and Goyle.

”Duh, uh huh.” said Crabbe stupidly, showing his superior the box he had stolen from the shed near the Quidditch pitch. He opened it, and a huge black sphere flew out, straight at Draco’s face.

“DAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” he screamed, trying to duck out of the Bludger’s path. Goyle, being bigger than a baby giant, easily grabbed the Bludger out of the air and returned it to its box.

“Crabbe, you stupid pig, you don’t OPEN a box with a Bludger in it! You could have killed me, or worse, we could have lost it- I have plans for this Bludger and I will not tolerate any more screwing up, do you understand me?” Draco said icily to his crony, malice glittering in his eyes. Crabbe hung his head in shame and slumped into the emerald green armchair he was in.

“So, Weasley and his band of merry thieves are planning a party at our hang-out? I’ll teach them to trespass on our territory!” He lifted the lid of the box only enough for him to stick the tip of his wand inside.

“Dementium!” he murmured, and the Bludger inside the box began banging more ferociously against the sides of the box.

“This is going to be fun.” He whispered dramatically to his friends.

“My foot itches.” Goyle replied stupidly (A/N Oh wait, wrong challenge, my bad!)

***

Later, Ron followed Harry down to the common room. They met Hermione, Ginny and several other friends and proceeded to the 3 Broomsticks. The band had already started to play and Ron and his party began to dance, trying to impress each other with their agile dance moves. The band’s music was very loud and raucous ; the band members were all wearing torn jeans and tee shirts with strange words written on them like “Deftones,” “Midtown,” and “Limp Bizkit.” Ron assumed these were magic words for spells he’d never heard of, and didn’t pay too much attention to them. Ron had been practicing for days and had mastered several difficult splits and flips and other semi-acrobatic movements. After the band had played 5 or 6 songs, they announced to the pub that they were officially on their break, and that they would resume playing in a while. A wizard wireless turned on out of nowhere to replace the band. Ron and his friends sat down at the reserved tables, and to their surprise, all 5 members of “Shady Groove” followed suit.

“So,” said the lead singer to Ron, “You’re the guy who has his birthday today, eh?”

Ron nodded, “Yep, that’s me.”

“Well, as a birthday present, I’m treating you and your friends to drinks! A gallon of mead over here, doll face!” he directed at Madame Rosemerta, who giggled and walked over to the bar to get his order.

“Uh, that’s really nice of you, but we’re all under-aged. We’re not supposed to drink.” Ron said timidly.

The lead singer scoffed, “Blimey, mate, it’s your birthday! Live a little!” he replied, pouring a glass of mead for each of them and passing them around the tables. Ron picked his up, but didn’t drink it; instead, he was glaring at the scene on the opposite side of their table. The drummer of “Shady Grove” was introducing himself to Hermione. He had spiky bleached hair and an amazing set of abs. His tee shirt read “Metallica.”

“I’m Travis, and they are Adam, John, Chuck and Scott.” he said to Hermione while pointing out his band mates; eyeing her with interest the entire time. Hermione felt herself blush as she told him who she was and who her friends were. When a flagon of mead was passed her way, Hermione looked dubiously at it. Travis took his in his right hand and raised it to toast with Hermione.

“To tonight.” he said in a mock-serious voice. Hermione chuckled and raised her glass to bang against his.

“To tonight.” she repeated before taking her first ever sip off alcohol.

**(2 hours and 5 gallons of mead later…)**

“WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!!” Hermione squealed as Travis ran around the pub with her on his back. She had succeeded in becoming quite drunk, and had become rather amorous toward Travis. She wasn’t the only intoxicated one; Harry and Ginny had gotten so polluted that they started kissing right in the middle of the tavern. Also, Travis’s fellow band members had started dancing on the table tops, making so much noise that many of Madame Rosmerta’s customers left in a huff, muttering things about “lousy hooligans” and such. At one point, the hammered lead singer, John, climbed back onto the stage and pointed his wand at his throat, increasing the VOLUME OF HIS VOICE!!! (A/N sorry yet again, if y’all haven’t seen Austin Powers, you won’t understand why I just wrote that in all caps. I suggest you rent it, it’s a hilarious movie.)

“Attention, attention all my faithful viewers, I’m Johnny Springer and welcome to the show. Today’s show is about dirty secrets we keep from our lovers.” (A/N I dunno if Jerry Springer counts as a talk show, but oh well, I’m using it anyway. Also, I know that most British wizards will not have heard of Jerry Springer, but since I put that ½ of them are Muggle-born and have just come back from an American tour, we’ll just assume that they watched it while they were there.) John was slurring most of his words and he could barely stand up straight. This spectacle caused everyone to explode with laughter.

“My first guest is Travis! Come on out! of the closet!” he added in an undertone to the audience. Travis, playing along, staggered onto the stage along side his friend and bowed to the people in the crowd.

“Now, Travis, I understand that you have a secret to announce to your girlfriend, Hermione.” Ron involuntarily clenched his fists and glowered at Travis.

“That’s right, Johnny, I have a bomb to drop on her.” He wobbled and began to fall over, amid tumultuous laughter from the audience.

“Well, let’s bring her on out! Hermione girl, come on down!”

Hermione , with a leg-up from Scott and Adam, scrambled onto the stage, biting her lip to prevent her from bursting out laughing.

“Now, Hermione,” John said with a wink to the audience, “Your boyfriend has something to tell you. Do you have any idea what that might be?”

Hermione thought a moment and shouted “Oh, I know! Z'yanta parah!”

“What?” the audience said in unison.

“It’s Hebrew for ‘he f***ed a cow!’” she fell over, sniggering uncontrollably along with everyone else in the pub. (That is, except for Ron, who was rather disgusted with the whole thing.)

“Well, that may be true,” said John through a wave of giggles that had consumed him, “But he had something else in mind, didn’t you Travis?”

“Yeah, I wanted to tell you that I have-” he rolled up the left leg of his jeans and removed “-A prosthetic leg!” He swung the artificial limb around as if it were a bat, nearly hitting John flat across the face with it. Everyone was rolling on the floor, howling with mirth. Hermione stared at Travis in shock.

“Ewwwwwww! How did you lose your leg?” she said, losing all respect for him.

“I-I don’t remember, I guess it just fell off!” More rowdy laughter ensued. Travis, in the heat of the drunken moment, ripped off his “Metallica” tee shirt and pulled it over Hermione’s head. Hermione grimaced with disgust, then glanced over at Ron, who was standing alone in the corner, looking sour. Hermione was just about to go over to him when the door of the pub burst open with a loud BANG!

“Hello, boys and girls, ready for the party to really begin?” came a voice as cold as ice from underneath a black hooded cloak. The cloaked figure opened the wooden box he was holding and out shot a crazy Bludger that began slamming into chairs, tables, walls, and human heads. The cloaked figure ran, leaving the pub in total disarray. 3 out of the 5 members of “Shady Groove” were lying unconscious on the floor, Ginny was cowering behind the bar with Madame Rosemerta and John had dived off the stage to get more mead. Ron, the only really sober person there, realized that the crazy Bludger was about to kill them all, so he whipped out his want and yelled:

“Impedimenta! Stupify!” but his spells had no effect- the cloaked person must have charmed the Bludger to resist all spells. Suddenly, he saw the Bludger change directions completely, and watched as if in slow motion as it pelted toward Hermione.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!" he yelled as he leaped on stage with her and doing some quick thinking, grabbed Travis’s prosthesis and swung it blindly at the Bludger, knocking it off course. As he watched it spiral out of control, he noticed that it had lost velocity and was actually slowly falling to the floor. By some miracle, hitting the Bludger with Travis’s leg caused it to loss its startling energy.

“Yay!” Hermione cheered as she realized that Ron had saved the day, “Ron killed the Bludger! We’re all safe now!”

“YAY!” everyone cheered. “GO RON!” said Harry from under the bar where he was occupied with Ginny. “I LOVE VOLDEMORT!” shouted John, who was in a drunken reverie, swinging a half empty flagon of mead from side to side.

“Okay, simmer down now, dude.” Said Ginny from underneath Harry.

“You’re my hero, Ron Weasley!” Hermione exclaimed proudly, hugging him close to her.

“Well, uh, thanks Hermione,” he said, going red, “Actually, there’s something I have to tell you. I-”

Ron was cut off as Hermione suddenly pulled away and vomited on the floor, soiling her Metallica tee shirt.