(~(~)~)
Ron,
Thank you so much for the "Quidditch Today." Fantastic interview with
Oliver. It was really sweet, what he said about Percy. Honest, now:
how many copies is your mum having framed? And, gods, yes, please
keep sending me issues. I don't care how far behind they are; at
this point I'm so sodding bored I'd teach myself to play the ukulele
if I had one.
I suppose I'm selfish to say so, but I'm glad your wizarding camp's
over. I didn't hear from you much while you were gone. You and
Hermione know your letters are the only things that get me through
the summers. You'll have to tell me everything about camp when I
get to the Burrow. And no, I'm not surprised Hermione's signed on
for the next session.
Sorry about Hannah; she's not too terribly sick, is she?
Write back soon, please! I'm going nutters, here.
-Harry
(~)
Ron,
Finally, some excitement at the Dursley house! Dudley's got a
girlfriend. How he's done it, I don't know. The girl's no great
prize, what I've seen of her. Half again as ugly as Crabbe and twice
as stupid as Goyle. And her name's Deirdre. Can you picture, if
they got married? Dudley and Deirdre Dursley. Dreadful. On second
thought, I hope they do get married; it's no worse than either of
them deserve.
Anyway, Aunt Petunia's about to blow a gasket; Deirdre's not the
Right Sort of Girl for Dudley (I say any girl who's nutters enough to
date him is the Right Sort of Girl). Uncle Vernon won't let her say
a thing; he's so relieved Dudley's not...you know. Like me.
Yes, insults based on my sexual orientation continue to be the
invectives of choice here, up 14% from last week. That's accompanied
by a 12% decline in other forms of name-calling, so on the whole, not
bad. I still can't figure out how Aunt Petunia knew about the pink
octagon being a wizarding gay pride symbol.
Aaargh! Sirius needs to get his name cleared, now, so I can get
the hell out of here and live with him, where I belong. Cornelius
Fudge nearly gave himself an aneurysm when he found out about Remus
inviting me to stay. "Totally unacceptable...children staying alone
with Dark Creatures..." blah, blah, blah. You'd think I'd asked to
spend the rest of my holiday with You-Know-Who. But,
congratulations, you're an adult; I haven't heard anyone complain
about the time you spend with Remus. I just have to hold out 'til
August, then I'll get my two weeks at the Burrow, and everything will
be right again.
There's Uncle Vernon hollering for me. Thank you for your letters;
Hermione's aren't making sense lately. I think she's working too
hard at camp. That'd be shocking, yeah?
-Harry
(~)
Ron,
This is too much. Dudley's started complaining about how we didn't
do anything for his birthday. Not that his parents didn't buy him
half of Harrods. He's showing off for Deirdre; proving how tight
he's wound them 'round his finger. Anyway, he's demanding a 'summer
birthday.' And they're going to give it to him.
But I haven't told you the best part: he wants to go to the zoo! Can
you imagine? He just turned 17, and he wants to go to the
zoo! It was fun when we were 10 - actually, it was a lot of fun
when we were 10. That was the first time I spoke Parseltongue,
though I had no idea I was doing it at the time. Anyway, what self-
respecting seventeen-year-old cons an extra birthday out of his
parents and uses it to be taken to the zoo? The boy's not right in
the head, I tell you.
Any rate, it'll be nice for me. Staying at Mrs. Figg's is great now
I know who Mrs. Figg really is. She's dropped the crazy old lady
act - though she's still plenty crazy - got rid of that awful cabbage
smell, and most of the cats are nice once you know to treat them with
the respect due a familiar. Best of all, it's a day without the
Dursleys. They're going the day before my birthday; it's the best
present they've ever given me.
What do you mean, Fudge doesn't know you're training with Remus? Are
you mad?
-Harry
(~)
Ron,
Bollocks! Bloody Order's bloody sent Arabella on a bloody mission!
She told Aunt Petunia she's visiting her great-grand niece on the
Isle of Wight, but you know what that means. Stupid sodding war.
'But, Harry, what's it to you?' I hear you ask. Well, let me tell
you. What it is to me is that I have to go along on the Dursleys'
daft trip to the zoo. Vernon, Petunia, Dudley, Deirdre, and Piers.
I bloody hate the Order.
Unless, of course, you could manage a crisis at the Burrow that I
have to be there for?
Ever hopeful,
(~)
Ron,
Of course I'm not angry you couldn't manufacture an emergency on such
short notice! It was an idle dream. Though I wish Charlie and
Maureen were coming earlier; I could've made up fantastic lies once
a baby was involved. But I'm resigned to my fate. I have to go to
the zoo; there's nothing I can do about it. At least I'll be
outside the bars for a while.
I heard that Seamus's mum went to see Neville's gran last week to get
some herbs for Seamus. D'you suppose he has the same thing Hannah
had? She is better, isn't she?
Utterly hopeless,
(~(~)~)
Harry had thought that his day at the zoo with the Dursleys was going
to be painful, but he soon reassessed this thought.
It was going to be excruciating.
Deirdre had wispy blond hair like Dudley's and looked as though her
face had been the victim of some terrible accident with a tennis
racquet when it was young and squishy. She was so little, too.
Harry wasn't sure of the logistics of her relationship with Dudley;
how could she date someone who might one day accidentally sit on her
and squash her flat? Deirdre's pants were fluorescent orange; her
shirt was hot pink, sleeveless, and barely covered anything. She
wore those jelly sandals with flimsy cork soles that meant she'd be
whingeing about her feet ten minutes in. When she arrived at the
house, she was rude to Aunt Petunia, flirted with Uncle Dudley until
he was so red Harry thought he was going to pop, and peered at Harry
as though he were a strange bug under glass. Then she spent five
minutes wandering around the living room, touching things like she
wanted to slip them into her pockets, while Aunt Petunia followed her
like the pet bloodhound you wish you'd drowned as a pup.
Before shoving him into the car, Uncle Vernon yanked Harry aside and
growled, "Don't think I've forgotten your last trip to the zoo, boy,
don't ever think it." He tapped the side of his head. "I've a
memory of steel (A steel cheese grater, maybe, Harry thought),
and I recall that trick you pulled with the glass and that hideous
viper." Well, it had been a boa constrictor, but what mattered was
that Uncle Vernon was making an effort. "If anything odd happens
this time, your precious school won't have to snap your wand; I'll do
it myself. And you'll come to think of your years with bars on the
windows as my benevolent phase."
The back seat of Uncle Vernon's car was no place for four teenagers,
especially when one took enough room for two and a half, so Harry
rode between the front seats, sharing space with the gear shift.
This was fine by him, as it put him out of Piers' and Dudley's
range. Dudley, engaged in the arduous process of putting himself
under Deirdre's thumb, had eyes only for her (she was hard not to
look at, the way a major train derailment was hard not to look at),
which put Piers out, as it left no attention for Piers and their old
games of Harry-Punching, Harry-Pinching, and Harry-Mocking.
Aunt Petunia kept looking up to glance in the rearview, checking what
her precious Diddykins was getting up to with that 'no-good trollop'
(which was never anything; even Dudley wasn't stupid enough to do
more than hold Deirdre's hand with his parents in the car) and every
time she did, her eyes lit on Harry, and she gave a start as though
she'd seen a mess in the kitchen she'd thought she'd already cleaned
up. Harry smiled sweetly each time, which made her scowl deepen.
Piers, obliged to make up for his friend's lack of malice, pinched
Harry three times and punched him twice before everyone was out of
the car. Sighing, Harry rubbed his arm and glanced around the
parking lot, curious to see what kind of crowd was out today.
For the most part, it was your usual zoo-going crowd. Parents with
prams. Bored adolescents who couldn't afford anything more
interesting. Gangs of nerdy animal-lovers with binoculars, notepads,
and field guides. School field trips by the busload.
And, bafflingly, a gaggle of girls about his age crowded around
someone parked at the front of the lot. Harry craned his neck to try
to see, and as if by magic (though he hadn't done anything -
honestly), the girls parted as the Dursleys' party passed the most
wickedly gorgeous, glittering motorbike Harry had ever seen. And
seen. And seen again.
He knew that bike well. Without a doubt, it was Sirius's. But who
on Earth was--
"Hoodlums," Uncle Vernon muttered, herding the non-Harry members of
his party towards the ticket window.
"Motorcyclists frighten me so," Aunt Petunia said, too
breathlessly. "All that metal, and leather, reckless disregard for
personal safety--" She was breathing quite fast now. The rider of
the bike sauntered in their direction. Aunt Petunia eeped and
clutched Vernon's arm. "Vernon!" she hissed, "he's coming this way."
Deirdre put several feet of space between herself and Dudley and
puffed out her nonexistent chest. Piers elbowed Harry savagely in
the ribs. "You're staring, homo." Well, that answered the question
of whether Dudley'd outed him to anyone. Still, Harry could spare
his tormentor only the scantest attention; he was trying to work out
who the swaggering rider of his godfather's motorbike was.
A pale hand languidly reached up and pulled off the gleaming silver
helmet, letting the sun strike over-dramatically on a head of wild
red hair. Deirdre's breath caught, and Harry burst out laughing.
"Hey there, Harry!"
Harry raced across the lot and caught his savior in a crushing
grip. "Merlin, Ron! I'd never have recognized you. What are you
doing here?"
"Meeting you, of course. And hopefully driving your relatives 'round
the bend."
Harry took a step back. "Damn. Don't think I'm coming on to you or
anything, but you look fantastic."
Ron blushed faintly. "You like? I wasn't sure it suited me."
Harry did his best wolf-whistle (which wasn't great, as he hadn't had
a lot of opportunities to practice it). "It suits. It definitely
suits."
'It' consisted of silver mirrored sunglasses, a chest-hugging black t-
shirt practically bragging about Ron's Chaser's physique, black vinyl
pants he must've been poured into, and mid-calf boots that seemed to
change color depending on how the light hit them. They looked like
dragon hide. And glittering in his ear - no, he wouldn't have, not
when he had to live with Molly for the rest of the summer - "Ron, did
you get your ear pierced?"
Ron laughed and slung a companionable arm around Harry's
shoulder. "Do I seem insane to you? Just a little glamour Re cast
for me."
"Remus?" Harry's eyes widened in shock.
"He did this," Ron said, encompassing the ensemble, the fang-shaped
earring, and Sirius's bike. "Consider it his birthday present to
you."
Harry raised his finger to the silver dragon-claw pendant hung from a
leather cord around Ron's neck. "He didn't do this, surely."
Ron winked. "It's not real silver."
"Ah." Harry nodded. "That's all right, then."
The rest of Harry's party had gotten over the shock of discovering
that this...this creature was here for their most despised member
and had shuffled forward en masse to accuse them of...of something,
surely. "Who is this?" Vernon demanded.
Returning Ron's wink, Harry turned to his relatives. "This is my
best friend, Ron Weasley."
Behind Dudley, Piers snickered. "Weasley," he whispered.
Harry's green eyes flashed. "Something wrong back there, Polkiss?"
he snapped. Piers snorted but fell silent.
"You arranged this!" Petunia shrilled from her safe spot behind
Vernon's arm. "As soon as you found out we were letting you come
along, you contacted one of your...kind and told him to meet you
here!" Her eyes raked up and down Ron's body a shade too hungrily.
"Honestly, Mrs Dursley," Ron said, smiling winningly (Ron had a
very good smile for winning over mother-types; you didn't grow up
under Molly Weasley's roof and not develop one), "Harry had no idea.
I knew he would be here today and decided to surprise him." Harry
was surprised, all right, but nowhere near as much as the Dursleys,
if Vernon's face was anything to go by.
"Your kind?" asked Deirdre, who of course believed Harry was a
student at St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal
Boys. "Is this your boyfriend, Potter?"
Harry surged forward to defend his friend's honor, but Ron's hand
tightened on his shoulder, impeding his lunge. As calmly as if he
were asking about the weather, Ron returned, "And if I were?
Jealous? You're Deirdre, right?"
"He's not coming with us," Vernon declared.
"Sure I am, Mr D.," Ron said with a familiarity that Vernon didn't
know how to handle. Secretly, he'd always seen himself as a genial
type loved and respected by Dudley's friends, who would, in fact,
call him by some familiar but respectful nickname and wish their
fathers could be like him. None of Dudley's few friends had ever
called him anything other than 'Mr Dursley, sir,' and they had never
indicated that they wanted their fathers to be anything other than
however they already were. For someone to finally treat him with
this sort of ease, but for that someone to be a friend of Potter's -
it was more than Vernon's small brain could process. Ron waved a
piece of paper in the air. "I already bought my ticket."
Harry fought a laugh; he was sorry he'd missed Ron negotiating a
purchase with Muggle money. "Or," he said thoughtfully, "we could
stay outside. Meet you back at the gate in a few hours."
"That's right," Ron said, catching on instantly. "I don't have to
have Sirius's bike back 'til eleven or so. We could grab a bite to
eat, ride for a bit--"
"All right, all right!" Vernon snapped. He looked like he'd eaten a
plateful of spoiled cheese. He could hardly be blamed; he'd just
figured out that his options for what had been intended to be a
pleasant day included either letting two young wizards roam the
English countryside on a motorcycle, or letting them walk around the
zoo with his family. "I guess he can come. But nothing...funny," he
said, mindful of Piers and Deirdre.
"Yeah, perverts," Piers muttered. Ron and Harry laughed as they
followed the group towards the gate.
Aunt Petunia stopped again, staring at Ron. "Did you...did you
say 'Sirius's bike'?"
Ron let go of Harry's shoulder and flexed his hand with casual
menace. "Yes, I did. You remember Harry's godfather, Sirius Black.
The murderer." Harry was proud of himself for keeping a straight
face. Petunia blanched and hurried away after Vernon, no doubt to
tell him the new bad news.
It was too much for Deirdre. She was the kind of girl who gravitated
towards trouble, and she gravitated herself right up to Ron's side.
He peered down at her; he'd hit that last Weasley growth spurt and
was nearly a foot taller than she was. "Did you really borrow that
motorcycle from a murderer?"
"Yeah," Ron said moodily. "And he's awfully protective of it, you
know. It's all he's had to call his own since he escaped from the
maximum security prison he was in. I put a ding in it earlier; who
knows what he'll do when he sees it." He shrugged. "Eh.
Whatever."
Deirdre's pale eyelashes were fluttering pretty fast. Dudley, who'd
been hovering behind her elbow, cleared his throat with as much
threat as he could muster and glared at Ron.
"And that thing," Ron added, glaring back, "has theft deterrents all
over it. So anybody who got any ideas about tampering with it
should really think twice."
Realizing that Ron meant magic, and remembering that his previous
encounters with magic had ended badly, Dudley paled, and then
flushed, and then grabbed Deirdre's arm and stomped after his
parents. No longer sure what was going on, Piers hustled along
behind him, pausing to throw another disgusted "Faggots" over his
shoulder.
As alone as they were going to be for the rest of the day, Ron's self-
assured swagger lapsed back into his usual easy slouch. "Ready or
not," he said, grinning at Harry.
"This is awfully good of you, Ron," Harry said.
Ron shrugged. "You get the good day you deserve; Dudley gets the bad
one he deserves; I get to watch it unfold. It's a win-win
situation."
"Here," Uncle Vernon said, shoving a ticket into Harry's hand. "Stay
close. Don't even think of pulling anything funny." He glared at
Ron, with his vinyl, and his fake earring, and his quite real
ponytail. "Either of you."
"Best behavior, Mr D.," Ron promised sunnily. "By the way, Harry,"
he murmured with a smirk as they entered the zoo proper, "nice shirt."
Reflexively, Harry looked down. When he remembered what he was
wearing, he laughed. "I'm very proud of this shirt. Sirius bought
it for me." His expression took on the light of a wounded
innocent. "Aunt Petunia doesn't seem to like it much."
Ron laughed so loudly that Uncle Vernon turned to glare, and Dudley
and his compatriots to gawk.
Outside the wizarding world, Harry's shirt didn't warrant a second
glance. On a bright red background, a heraldic lion like the
Gryffindor house symbol stood rampant, wearing a golden collar with a
pink octagon pendant. A pair of Quidditch brooms crossed beneath
it. That pink octagon was the most common gay pride symbol in the
wizarding world, adopted after World War II in memory of the gay
Muggles who'd died. Anyone inside the wizarding world instantly
recognized the lion and brooms as the insignia of the Kingdom
Rampant, England's team in the Queer Quidditch League, a team that
once boasted the great Sirius Black as a first-string Beater.
"Which reminds me," Ron said once he could speak again, "I solved
your mystery."
"What mystery?" Harry pointed towards the rhinoceros pen, where
their party was making its first stop.
"How your aunt knew the symbol."
Harry perked up instantly. "Go on, then. Don't keep me in suspense."
Grinning, Ron leaned on the wall, staring at the rhinoceros. "I feel
awful for them, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do, rather." Harry leaned on the wall beside Ron, but he
ignored the animals and stared pointedly at his friend.
"Oh, right," Ron said, laughing. "I was going to tell you a story or
something, wasn't I?" Harry glared, which made Ron laugh
harder. "Okay. It was the lion that got her, not the octagon. When
your parents got married, your Grandmother Evans had to order Petunia
to be nice to the witches and wizards. That ruffled her feathers so
much she decided to pick and choose which ones she'd be treat well.
She was cool to Re, downright cold to Peter, and acted like your dad
wasn't there. But because she was maid of honor, and Sirius was best
man, they got stuck at a lot of things together, and he was so good-
looking she decided there were worse people in the world to be nice
to.
"So when they were standing around the rehearsal, Petunia tried to
make nice. She made a couple horrific attempts at flirting, then
switched to small-talk. Sirius was wearing a shirt like yours, and
Petunia asked him what it was about, and he said it was the logo of
the Kingdom Rampant.
"'Some sort of sports team for your set, then?' Petunia says.
"And Sirius was peeved because of the way she'd been treating his
friends, so he pulled Re onto his lap and said, 'In our set, this
pink octagon means you're queer, and the Rampant are the queerest
queers of the whole lot of queers!' And then gave Re a huge kiss -
with a dip on the end!"
Ron and Harry dissolved. They could barely stand. The group turned
toward them, the warning in Uncle Vernon's eyes unmistakable. Ron
grabbed Harry's wrist and dragged him toward the zebra pen, where
they could laugh in peace.
"Fairies," Piers sneered as they passed.
"Closet case," Ron shot back and pulled Harry harder.
At the zebra pen, they lost it again, pressed against the railing for
support, holding their aching sides. "Gods," Harry gasped, "no
wonder the shirt hit her so hard."
"Sirius likes to leave people with something to remember him by."
Harry gave another spluttering laugh and turned to watch the zebras,
roaming their small enclosure listlessly, eating grass with great
resignation. "Poor bastards," he murmured.
"Yeah," Ron said, nodding. He took a step closer to Harry. "You all
right? All things considered, I mean."
Harry sighed and looked at his friend. "I'm really sorry about Piers
and Deirdre. I mean, thinking you're gay."
"Harry." Ron shook his head. "It's okay. Don't apologize for their
being utter shits." He shrugged. "Besides, it's no worse than
anything Malfoy's called me. Better, really."
"But, Ron--"
"Plus," Ron said, grinning down at him, "my best friend, Harry
Potter, is gay, and if my best friend, Harry Potter, is gay, there
must be something to it."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine. But I mean, you're the straightest of
the lot. You have a girlfriend and everything."
Nervously, Ron's fingers brushed at his fake earring. Harry
predicted that, within ten minutes of moving out of the Burrow after
graduation, he'd have a real one. "Harry, I don't want you to think -
Hannah's not really my girlfriend, you know."
Harry blinked at him in surprise. "She's not? But your letters--"
"It's hard to explain to someone who's never been," Ron said, raising
the hand holding his borrowed motorcycle helmet to point where the
Dursleys were moving on to the wildebeests, "but that's what
wizarding camp is. We work on magic all day; we eat awful food in
the dining hall; and then at night, we sneak away from evening
activity and make out like crazed weasels in the forest."
Harry tripped over his foot. "For real? You're not messing with my
mind, here?"
"Well," Ron mused, a faint smile tugging the corners of his lips, "I
probably am, but that doesn't make it less true. I happened to snog
Hannah more than most anybody else, but we're not a couple. She has
a boyfriend; some Muggle she grew up with." He tried to stuff his
hands into his pockets, then remembered that skin-tight vinyl pants
don't have pockets. "She's not my type, anyway."
"Wow." Harry shook his head. "Rampant snogging in the woods. I
miss everything."
"You two!" Vernon bellowed. The wildebeests hadn't been able to hold
Dudley's interest, and the party had moved on to the
kangaroos. "Keep up! I want the both of you where I can see you."
Sighing, Ron and Harry went to catch up. Dudley was trying to sneak
his hand down the back of Deirdre's fluorescent pants, and she was
batting him away. "Wait a minute," Harry said. "Everybody does
this? Even Hermione?"
Now Ron grinned full out. "I would never reveal a secret that wasn't
my own. I can neither confirm nor deny that our illustrious Miss
Granger was spotted on a fallen log with Justin Finch-Fletchley,
looking rather dazed."
"Justin?" Harry demanded. "What is it with you two and the
Hufflepuffs?"
"Don't be fooled. Hufflepuffs are excellent kissers. Besides,
Hermione didn't have much choice."
"What does that mean?"
"Here's the other interesting thing I've learned this summer." Ron
sidled up to Piers at the bars of the antelope pen but spoke so that
only Harry could hear. "One out of ten Muggles, about, is gay. In
the wizarding world, that figure goes up to one in five, and when
you're talking about Gryffindor men, it's more like forty or fifty
percent." Piers tried to sidle away.
"You're kidding me!" Harry said.
"Not a bit of it." Ron shook his head. "Why d'you think the
Rampant's lion looks so much like our house's? The whole league was
founded by old Gryffindors. Some people think Salazar Slytherin left
Hogwarts because of a lovers' quarrel with Godric Gryffindor."
"Wow," Harry said, at a loss for anything better. "I had no idea.
But it makes sense, doesn't it? The Marauders were dead split, and
so are the Weasley boys." Ron shifted next to him, but Harry was
still thinking aloud. "Our year is three of five, so we're more than
fifty percent." He looked at Ron and grinned. "How very queer!"
Ron laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, and he avoided looking at
Harry as the group shuffled on to the prairie dogs. "Your math's
off."
"Really?" Harry thought for a minute. "Um, no. You and Nev against
me, Dean, and Seamus. Sixty percent."
"Yeah." The word was barely more than a rushing exhalation, and
Harry looked up to see Ron running his fingers incessantly over the
cool surface of his helmet.
"Ron?"
"See, Harry, here's the thing," Ron said, taking Harry's arm and
pulling him into a small alcove between the prairie dogs and the
platypus. "When I say everyone at wizarding camp makes out with
everyone, I mean everyone. And, well, I was kind of bored when
Hannah got sick, and Dean had been low the whole time because Seamus
couldn't be there, and..."
Harry's hand flew to his mouth. "Ron, you don't mean - you and Dean
didn't--"
Nodding, Ron released Harry's arm. "We did. And the thing is, I
liked it. A lot. As much as Hannah. Maybe more." Harry could only
stare at him, and he grew increasingly fidgety. "Aren't you going to
say something, Harry?" he blurted at last.
A huge grin split Harry's face, and he threw his arms around his best
friend. "Ron Weasley! Welcome to the tribe!"
Laughing, Ron returned the hug, slapping Harry on the back. "Thanks,
I think."
Harry dragged Ron out of the alcove and after the Dursleys. His
green eyes glowed, and he was talking a mile a second. "You got
Seamus sick!"
"I did no such thing!" Ron said indignantly.
Harry nodded fervently. "You did. You caught whatever Hannah had
and gave it to Dean, and then he gave it to Seamus."
Ron frowned. "I might've done that."
But Harry had moved on. "This term is going to be the best! We'll
go cruising in Hogsmead on the weekends. I bet Remus told you where
the best clubs are. You'll have to dress like that; the boys'll be
all over you!"
Ron laughed. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Harry. I am still in
training."
"Training? I don't know what Dean told you, but none of us took
classes for this."
Pulling his hand free, Ron used it to whack Harry lightly on the back
of the head. "I meant my training with Remus. That's my weekends,
at least 'til Christmas."
"Oh." Harry's face fell, but then he brightened again. "In that
case, I'll go cruising in Hogsmead and tell you all about it!"
"Harry, be careful, would you?" Stopping in the middle of the
pathway, Ron gripped Harry's shoulder and forced the smaller boy to
look him in the eye. "There's a lot of unscrupulous people out there
who'd love to say they'd shagged the Boy Who Lived."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Maybe the Boy Who Lived would love to say
he'd been shagged."
"Harry," Ron practically growled.
Relenting, Harry touched Ron's shoulder. "I promise I'll be careful,
Dad."
"Ugh." Ron released Harry's arm. "Please don't say that."
Harry laughed and ran ahead. "Keep up, Ron! Reptile House!"
Unsurprisingly, Uncle Vernon was waiting for them beneath the archway
to the Reptile House. He tapped his head again. "Memory like
steel, boy," he hissed, shoving Harry into the cool, dark space.
Ron stalked up to Vernon and stared at him, his brown eyes dark with
suppressed fury. Vernon drew himself up to say something, but Ron
had a good four inches on him and was dressed all in black besides.
Whatever was on Vernon's mind, he thought better of it, preferring to
glare at the back of Ron's head as he followed, looking not so unlike
a snake himself, after his best friend.
Deirdre was captivated by the snakes and lizards, but Piers and
Dudley, starting to recall what happened to them the last time they
were here with Harry, moved through the room very fast, sticking
close together in the middle of the pathway, well away from the
glass. In vain Deirdre tried to get the boys interested in one
serpent after another, and when she pointed to the Brazilian boa
constrictor, they started shaking, and only a great exertion of
effort kept them from running for the exit.
Laughing, Harry and Ron lagged behind the others, their arms brushing
companionably from time to time. "You ever try to figure out what
happened last time?" Ron asked, peering into the cage of an Egyptian
cobra. "Now that you know about magic, I mean."
"Once or twice." Harry scratched the back of his neck. He could do
with a haircut again. "But I've never come up with anything. That
just happened to me a lot, when I was young, before I was trained in
magic. I'd get angry, or scared, or something, and things would
just...happen." He shrugged. "Uncle Vernon was banging on the
glass; Dudley and Piers were being idiots, and the snake seemed so
dejected, stuck behind the glass. And then, all of a sudden, it
wasn't."
"Wasn't what?"
"Stuck behind the glass. Because there was no glass."
"I have to say, Harry," Ron said, pressing his fingers against the
glass holding a fer-de-lance, careful not to disturb the
pane, "that's pretty advanced magic for somebody who didn't have any
idea he was doing it."
Harry smiled shyly and walked on.
Up ahead, Piers and Dudley were over their fear and torturing the new
Brazilian boa constrictor. Too stupid to realize that this couldn't
be the one they had traumatized last time, they were out to exact
some sort of revenge. For Dudley, any act of cruelty had the extra
value of impressing Deirdre, who clapped her hands and swooned closer
to him with every bang of his meaty fist against the glass.
Harry wasn't going to stand for it a second time. Striding forward,
he stepped up to Dudley and said, calmly but firmly, "Cut it out,
Dudley."
"Or you'll what?" Dudley shot back, his fist poised so that he could
turn it against Harry or the window with equal ease. "You're not
allowed to do...anything outside of school."
Unfazed, Harry said, "I could if it were an accident, like last time."
"You couldn't." But Dudley didn't seem all that convinced.
Probably not. But there was that snake, looking as depressed as its
predecessor, and Dudley and Piers were as unbearable as ever, and
Harry was as mad as he'd been that day six years earlier. Smirking,
Dudley turned away from Harry and smashed his hand against the glass.
Only, the glass wasn't there.
The momentum of his punch carried Dudley, with an ear-splitting
shriek, over the low wall and into the snake's pit. Ron and Harry
rushed forward. Behind them, they could hear Uncle Vernon
roaring, "I warned you, boy!"
This time, Harry wasn't going to take it. He spun to face his red-
faced, bellowing uncle, his eyes flashing the fire that was so well
known at Hogwarts and utterly unheard of on Privet Drive. "I didn't
do anything. It's Dudley's fault for being such a thundering
plank. What's he thinking, beating the cage of a helpless animal?
If you ask me, he should be the one locked up!"
"Well, nobody did ask you, boy!" Vernon hollered, reaching out to
grasp Harry by the collar. Harry sidestepped, and Vernon teetered at
the edge of the walkway, his gut balanced on the edge of the wall.
He was about to fall in with his son. Harry's eyes widened in horror
and fascination.
"Vernon!" Suddenly, Aunt Petunia was there, rushing to drag Vernon's
bulk from the wall.
Back on his feet, he tottered for a moment before regaining his
balance. "You are in for it now, boy," he said, and Harry couldn't
remember him ever being that quiet before. "Just you wait."
"Harry."
Ron's voice was low, strangled, and utterly terrified.
Harry turned very slowly.
The snake, instead of slithering away from the room as the first one
had, had reared itself up as though preparing to strike - and it was
hovering inches from Ron's face.
"Ron?" Harry whispered.
"If you've anything to say to this snake, now would be a good time to
do it."
"Say?" Aunt Petunia shrieked. "What's he talking about?"
"Shush," Harry said impatiently, walking ever so slowly towards Ron
and the snake. Gently, he lay his hand on Ron's shoulder. Ron
jumped, then relaxed, his eyes never leaving the boa. Harry doubted
he could've looked away. The snake barely wavered.
So, it was to be Parseltongue today, was it? Strange to have to
carry on a conversation in a language he'd never actually learned.
"Hi." That seemed like a safe place to start. He was dimly aware
of his aunt and uncle drawing back in revulsion.
"Vernon!" Petunia wailed. "What is he doing?"
"Petunia," Vernon said quietly, "help Dudley over the wall. We're
getting out of here. Let the freaks find their own way home."
"Greetingssss," the snake said, its eyes still glued to Ron. Petunia
helped Dudley scramble over the wall, and the party disappeared,
though Dierdre looked far more interested in what Harry was doing
than in whether her boyfriend had survived his ordeal.
"Look, I don't mean to interfere with your life, but would you mind
awfully much leaving Ron alone? He's my best friend, see, and--"
"Sssso warm," the boa hissed. "Sssso dark."
Oh, Merlin. The snake was drawn to Ron because he was wearing all
black? Great.
"Ron's pretty special to me, so I'd appreciate it if you'd--"
"We will keep thisss one with ussss."
Harry looked around for anyone else who could constitute 'us,' but
maybe he didn't understand the conjugation of verbs in Parseltongue.
Oh, for heaven's sake. Verbs, Potter? "You're not staying here?
The glass is gone; you can leave. Go anywhere you want. Go to
Brazil."
"Then we will take him with ussss."
"You will not!" The vehemence in Harry's voice caught the snake's
attention, and Ron flinched. "Look, there's plenty of warm, dark
things out there. Leave this one. Leave Ron alone. He's--" Harry
broke off with a choked sob, panic stealing his words.
At last, the boa turned from Ron to consider Harry. "Thissss one
issss yourssss?"
'Yours'? Did the snake think he and Ron were - well, if it got him
away from Ron, Harry could lie. Only, the instant he opened his
mouth, he knew it wasn't a lie. "Yes," he said, almost sobbing in
his relief, "this one is mine."
The boa seemed to sigh. "We will leave thissss one, then. A
sssshame...." And with a nod to Ron, the snake lowered itself to the
ground and slid away across the floor.
As though snapped from a trance, Ron blinked and sagged against
Harry's side. "Harry--"
"Ron! Oh, gods, Ron, are you all right?" Frantically, Harry eased
them both to the ground. Ron pressed his back against the wall,
finally allowing himself to shake. Kneeling in front of him, Harry
touched Ron's cheeks, his shoulders, his hands, trying to assure Ron -
and himself - that everything was all right.
"I'm fine, Harry," he said weakly, catching Harry's hands in his own
to stop their ceaseless wandering. "You saved me. You called him
off."
"If I hadn't vanished the glass, he'd never have gotten near you in
the first place."
Ron's head fell forward. "Honestly, I'm not sure you did that with
the glass."
Harry blinked. "You?"
"Maybe." He shrugged, then looked at Harry. "What did you say to
make it leave me alone?"
Harry blushed. "I'm so sorry, Ron."
"Sorry?" Ron frowned in confusion. "Sorry for what?"
"I...I had to tell him, I mean, I sort of implied that you and I
are...y'know. Together."
Ron blinked fast. "You...huh." His head hit the wall, and he stared
idly at the ceiling. "You called off a dangerous snake by telling
him we're involved, and you're apologizing for that?" He lowered
his head. "You're weird, Harry Potter."
"Don't worry," Harry hurried to assure him, though something inside
of him was twisting itself in knots. "I won't hold you to anything."
"No?" Ron tilted his head slightly, considering Harry.
Harry shut his eyes. "No."
"You're a rotten liar, Harry," Ron said softly. "How'd you get him
to believe it?"
"I--" Harry squeezed his eyes shut tighter. "I don't know."
"Harry, look at me." When Harry kept his eyes closed, Ron reached
out and put his fingers under Harry's chin, tilting his head
up. "Please, Harry, look at me."
Harry opened his eyes. And saw a truth reflected on Ron's face that
was so startling and yet so...right that he had to close them again.
The feel of Ron's lips against his own was not as unexpected as it
would've been at any other time. And Harry's response, desperate,
relieved, swept away, had a heat that surprised them both.
When the kiss ended, and they pulled apart, Ron smiled and raised a
hand to Harry's face. Harry rested his cheek against Ron's palm but
could not return the smile. "I almost lost you."
"Nah." Ron shook his head. "I happened to have one of the wizarding
world's foremost Parselmouths ready to leap to my defense."
"Yeah." He grimaced. "Who'd have guessd I'd ever have a reason to
be grateful for Voldemort?"
Ron held out his hands. "Help me up?"
After Harry hauled them to their feet, they took a minute to find out
what kissing standing up was like, and they decided it was every bit
as acceptable as kissing on the floor.
"Well," Ron said when the experiment ended, "where will you stay now?"
"I can't go back to the Dursleys', obviously," Harry said as they
walked hand-in-hand towards the Reptile House's exit, oblivious to
the zoo-goers giving them very odd looks indeed. "I can't imagine
what kind of punishment Uncle Vernon's got for me this time."
"But all of your stuff's there," Ron countered. "And Hedwig."
Harry shrugged. "I'll go back tomorrow night or something. It's not
as though I've never snuck anything out of the house before."
"Okay, then. That doesn't answer the question of where you're going
to stay for the rest of the holiday." He grinned. "You could come
to the Burrow."
"Thanks for the offer, but, no. You're crowded enough with Percy and
Oliver, and once Charlie and Maureen show up with the baby, there'll
hardly be room for the lot of you that belongs there."
"Whoa." Ron stopped in the path and grabbed Harry's shoulders
again. "Don't say things like that. You belong at the Burrow,
Harry."
Harry smiled shyly. "Thank you. But I still think I'm right. Not
the Burrow." He thought for a minute and then grinned. "I'll go to
Remus's. I know his invitation still stands. If Fudge doesn't like
it, he can sit on it and spin."
"That's a risky thing to say about the Minister of Magic, Harry."
"That's not all I'd like to say about him, frankly." Harry shook his
head. "But I'm not going to ruin such a magnificent afternoon
thinking about him. What do we want to do next?"
Ron looked around at the caged animals. "What do you say we get out
of this zoo?"
"That's a brilliant idea, Ron," Harry said happily. "Where will we
go instead?"
Ron freed his hand from Harry's to drop it around the other boy's
shoulders, smiling when Harry wrapped his arm around Ron's waist and
hooked a finger over the waistband of the vinyl pants. "I have full
use of Sirius's flying motorcycle for the next ten hours and a spare
helmet. Will you ride with me, Harry?"
Harry's laugh was joyous and carefree. "Anywhere, Ron. Anywhere at
all."
(~(~)~)
Dear Ron,
Yes, thank you, Hedwig and I are nicely settled at Remus's. Which
you'll see in two days when you get here for your lessons, impatient
boy. And, yes, I fully intend to have my two weeks at the Burrow in
August. Those are my favorite weeks of the summer, and there's
something I need to ask Percy and Oliver (no, I'm not telling you
what, so you might as well forget about worming it out of me).
Remus is impressed with the good care we took of Sirius's bike - both
times. I almost, almost wish I'd been able to see Uncle Vernon's
face when he realized I'd gotten away again. For good, this time.
I'm not going back; I don't care who orders me to.
You know perfectly well what Remus got me for my birthday. I've no
doubt the ukulele was your suggestion. Very funny, Ron. Still, it
was the best birthday I've ever had. But of course you already knew
that, too.
Love,
Harry
Harry
Harry