It looked funny, it smelled funny, it was probably going to taste funny, and Harry was starting to think this wasn't such a good idea.
"Honestly, Harry, how else are we going to know if it worked? You know we have to be prepared, and Snape hasn't taught a decent Potions lesson since, well, since he's been, you know, busy, and I've certainly helped you out with your curses often enough, so just get on with it!" Hermione rolled her eyes impatiently. "Didn't the Celeritiserum turn out just fine? And the Igniimpunitas Potion? And everything else I've brewed lately? I don't ask you to try them anymore if I'm not sure I've gotten them right."
"But, um, even if nothing's happened again like that time..." he trailed off at Hermione's glare. "Those recent ones were perfect, but they were supposed to be for me, or for us, I haven't tried any of the offensive ones. You didn't make me try the Pacification Elixir, or the Reparinitor..."
"Harry, you would have glowed for a week, and we couldn't hide that from the teachers, and the Pacification Elixir wouldn't have done anything unless you were angry or excited or out of control," and these days, Hermione added silently, you don't let anything past your control. "Now would you get on with it? It's just a simple truth potion, all that will happen is that you'll have to answer honestly if anyone asks you a direct question, and if you take it now it should have worn off by our first class."
"You're sure you can't do it?" asked Harry feebly, and a bit desperately.
"Harry, I am the one who got up four hours ago to brew it! I'd be happy to sleep in and be the guinea pig if you want to get up and do the work next time!"
Harry conceded defeat. He had no idea how Hermione could think before sunrise, let alone do magic, but he knew he couldn't pull it off. He glanced suspiciously at the potion. While they argued, it had mellowed from a nasty pink to a rather pleasant orange, and the sharp smell was now closer to spicy.
"Now just be sure to face due East, right towards the rising sun like I've got it marked on the table here, I suspect it's nonsense but they say it's for the astral -"
Hermione's explanation was interrupted as the door across from Harry banged open. "Oi!" Ron called out as he burst into the room, "What on earth are you two doing up so early? You're not making Harry study at this hour, are you, Hermione? The OWLs aren't for ages yet!"
He tossed his Quidditch gear carelessly onto a pile of Hermione's scrolls, missing seeing her cringe. "Was just out for an early practice, you know, can't practice too much now that I've made Chaser." He visibly swelled with pride. "Say, is that pumpkin juice? Now that's just the thing!"
And before Harry or Hermione could move he had grabbed the potion and drained it down.
His eyes popped open. "What the -?!" He took in Harry and Hermione's goggled expressions. "That didn't taste like pumpkin juice... and you two are staring at me... oh, skrewt, that was one of Hermione's potions again, wasn't it."
He sighed. "Ok, what's it going to be this time?" He looked at his hands. "I don't seem to be shrinking... still the same color... don't feel any different..." He crossed his arms in a familiar and resigned gesture. "Come on, don't leave me wondering."
Hermione still looked stunned. "It was a truth potion," said Harry. "Only works in response to direct questions."
Ron looked a bit queasy. "Well, I didn't volunteer for this, so you'd better not ask me any."
Hermione sighed. "Look, Ron, I just want to see if it's working properly. Just try to answer something else and see if you can, ok? Let's see... what position do you play in Quidditch?"
"Beater," answered Ron promptly.
"I'd say it's not working," Harry pointed out helpfully. "Let's get this stuff cleaned up and go to breakfast." He began gathering up Hermione's potion-making supplies, joined by a puzzled and annoyed Hermione muttering how she was sure she had done everything correctly. Both of them ignored Ron, standing in the middle of the room, not sure whether he should mention that he had meant to say "Seeker."
***
Dean and Seamus met them at breakfast, coming from a direction that Harry could not help notice did not correspond to the dormitory. They - where "they" was "Seamus" - immediately managed to dominate the conversation, chattering away about homework and the latest gossip while tucking away impressive quantities of food. Seamus was very excited by the unusual appearance of American Muggle sugared breakfast cereals.
"Ooh, Cocoa Puffs!" he cooed. "Wasn't it great growing up with Muggle food, Hermione? What about you, Ron, do you eat this stuff?"
Hermione was opening her mouth to mention, once again, that both of her parents were dentists, and she had never so much as seen a sugared cereal, when Ron answered "Yes."
"Really, Ron, do tell, because I wouldn't have thought your mum would go in for Muggle food," chattered on Seamus. "Although one never knows about mums, mine has a secret passion for train sets, and it was so unfair as a child because she wouldn't let me play with it, and..."
Hermione rolled her eyes. It was like having breakfast with... with something very talky and distractable.
"Has anyone finished their History of Magic report on the Anticrusades yet?" she asked, peering around the table in hopes that someone would join here in a worthy conversation topic. "I've been trying to find one of the references from Aelfrith and someone has it out, and it just won't be complete without it."
"Wasn't that one of the optional references anyways, Herm?" asked Harry. "I'm about half-done although I haven't gotten in any of the Moorish wizards yet."
Hermione glared a how-can-you-be-half-done-without-even-addressing-the-Moorish-wizards glare at him, which Harry brushed off with a smile. "How 'bout you, Ron?" he asked. "Finished up yet?"
"Yes," said Ron to everyone's surprise.
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Well, you can't have done a very good job, I haven't seen you once in the library. Did you put in any work at all?"
"Yes, tons," answered Ron.
Hermione tossed her hair. "Well, I don't suppose you used any of the references from Aelfrith, did you?" She was feeling a bit put out that someone had finished an assignment before she had.
"All of them," answered Ron.
Seamus changed the subject again to cover Hermione's apoplectic fit. A careful observer might have noticed Ron wearing a rather dazed expression. However, it being breakfast, no one was carefully observing anything other than Seamus's elbows, which had a knack of catching your drinking glass when you had just refilled it.
"So anyways," Seamus went on, "Mortimer and Eileen were actually kissing on the stairs when Snape caught them there, according to Laura at least."
"Eileen Jamison?" Harry put in. "I wouldn't risk Snape to kiss her." He ignored another one of Hermione's glares.
"Well then who would you risk Snape to kiss?" Seamus taunted.
Harry blushed.
"Fell right into that one!" crowed Dean.
"Well, who would you risk Snape to kiss?" Harry returned.
"I would think that would be obvious," Dean answered, looking at the table and carefully not at Seamus. "How about you, Ron? Who would you risk Snape to kiss?"
"Draco Malfoy," blurted Ron, who then clapped his hand over his mouth.
There was dead silence, then Harry and Hermione looked at each other, at Ron, and at each other again. "Right then," said Harry, and they rose as one, grabbed Ron by the arms, and dragged him off to an unused classroom, as gales of laughter began to ring out behind them.
***
"Okay," said Harry. "You've been acting funny all morning, you've hardly said a word. But something must be wrong, unless you meant that to be funny?"
"No," said Ron, who had turned white and was starting to shake.
"So you really want to kiss Draco Malfoy," Harry said skeptically.
Ron shook his head violently.
"You wouldn't kiss Draco Malfoy?" Harry said slowly.
"I would." Ron answered immediately, then looked at Harry in desperation. "Harry... help! I don't know what's wrong with me!"
Harry tried to put on his most comforting face, although he felt anything but. "Ron, er, I know it comes as a shock to me, and it must have to you too, but there's nothing wrong with you, and you should just feel comfortable with who you are, they say one in ten... er, right, Hermione?"
He looked at her pleadingly but she was just staring hard at Ron, who was staring blankly at Harry.
Harry blundered on. "So if you are, um, stirring the cauldron the other way these days..."
Realization dawned in Ron's eyes. "Harry, I am not gay!" he shouted. "I just keep saying these things and I didn't even mean to, all morning..."
Ron's little sun of realization was faint beside the blaze of Hermione's supernova of comprehension.
"It's the truth potion, Harry! It's gone all backwards somehow. Ron, is your name Ronald Weasley?"
"No," he answered instantly, and grinned with relief. "Harry, you idiot, did you really think I would ever want to kiss Draco Malfoy? Come on, Herm, take it off, and we might still make it to class on time, and I won't even tease you for botching it, much."
But she was shaking her head worriedly. "It should have worn off on its own by now, Ron," she told him slowly. "And there's nothing I could have "botched" that could make it an untruth potion; if it didn't work, it shouldn't have done anything, and besides I know I did it right." She regained her usual confidence. "Ron, we'll have to keep you from talking... let's see, I'll cast a laryngitis charm on you, Harry has all your classes, right, and he can explain you caught cold practicing Quidditch too much." When Ron looked about to protest, she frowned at him. "Well, do you want to go around proclaiming your love for Draco Malfoy-ahem-no you don't do you," she said. It had almost been a question.
Ron shuddered and offered her his throat invitingly to Hermione's wand.
"I have some time between Arithmancy and my Medimagic study group, I'll look over my books and try to figure out what went wrong," went on Hermione. "It's probably a good exercise to have to undo it, it's really almost a stroke of good fortune and I'm sure we'll learn much more from it than if it had worked right in the first place."
Ron looked like he was screaming behind the laryngitis.
***
"You misgalvanized the veridionity," Hermione announced. "The orientation was necessary to fluoriminize properly with the astral harmonication."
Ron and Harry stared at her.
"You were facing west instead of east," she said bluntly. "Honestly, hasn't anyone else read any metamagiphysics?"
They shook their heads.
"Well, that's why it's backwards," said Hermione. "Your answers were all the direct opposite of the truth, and I must say it doesn't surprise me you haven't done much work on that report given how much time you spend practicing Quidditch these days."
"So how do you fix it?" asked Harry.
Hermione, unexpectedly, looked very uncomfortable. "It's a conditional spell, see, so it only works as long as it's still working, and as long as it's been working, so, well..."
"Well?" asked Harry, rather impatiently. "I could have told you it's only going to work if it's still working. I bet even Ron could have told you that." He grinned at Ron, who scowled, still laryngitisized.
"Well," said Hermione, all in one breath, "In-order-to-undo-the-spell-we-have-to-ask-him-all-the-same-questions-again -and-he-has-to-give-the-same-answers-only-this-time-they-have-to-be-true."
Harry and Ron got it approximately simultaneously and in approximately half a millisecond.
"Shit!" they both yelled, Ron still silently of course.
Ron made agitated hand motions at his throat, and as soon as Harry dispelled the laryngitis - "There is no way, Hermione! You're just going to have to figure out something else!"
"Besides, it won't work," Harry said more thoughtfully. "I'm pretty sure Seamus asked who Ron would want to kiss, and we can't make him want to kiss Malfoy, and don't even think about it!" he snapped at Hermione, who was getting a speculative look in her eye. "There will be no love potions. None. No."
Ron nodded vigorously. "You'd have to Imperio me to get me to drink it, and even you have more sense than that."
Hermione sniffed. "No one is suggesting Unforgivable Curses, Ron. But Harry, you're right what if someone had asked him who won the Battle of Hastings? It's not like we could make the false answer to that be true."
"So it can't work," said Harry. "I'm sure you'll find something else if you just look."
Hermione twitched, once. "Harry" she growled. "Why is it always. My. JOB!" She took a deep breath. "I've been through all of my books and notes, including all of the most reliable references, and this is all I've come up with. Apparently it takes the Ron Weasley touch to foul up this potion because I can't find any references to a miscasting at all! I had to work out this reversal procedure in analogy to a method to find lost objects and I missed my Medimagic group to do it. We don't know that it couldn't work," she went on. "I can cast a Retroconversicus on Ron and find out what questions he was asked at least."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "You can cast Retroconversicus?" he said in surprise. "That's tough magic, Herm."
She managed to surpress the blush. "Only on a willing subject, and only for the same day," she said a bit shyly. "But I figured it might come in handy sometime."
Ron rolled his eyes. "Will you two stop batting your eyelashes and get on with it? Some of us are still cursed, here."
Hermione cast the Retroconversicus and Harry took careful notes of the disembodied voices around Ron's head. At the end, he read off the list: "First off there was "What position do you play in Quidditch?" and you said "Beater." Then you said yes, you did eat Cocoa Puffs, and then when I asked if you were finished up yet with the Anticrusades report you said you were, and you told Hermione you had done tons of work, and - " Harry suppressed a laugh " - that you had used all of the references from Aelfrith."
Hermione nodded smugly as Ron groaned. "Well, if one good thing comes of this, Ron, you'll have to write a decent essay for once."
Harry cleared his throat. "The next three questions all had to do with, er, Malfoy. Specifically, Ron, you were asked who you would risk Snape to kiss, then you told me you didn't mean to be funny, then you said you would kiss Draco Malfoy when I asked if you wouldn't. And no one ever said "want to" as a question!"
"There!" said Hermione triumphantly. "That's one problem solved already."
"We're not done," said Harry. "Hermione, you asked Ron if his name was Ronald Weasley and he said no. And then fortunately he didn't get called on once in class and we've been careful" or lucky, he thought to himself, "so that's the last of them."
Ron laughed nervously. "See, Hermione, there's no way. I can't very well change my name."
"Sure you can," answered Hermione cheerfully. "You don't have a middle name. Just get them to write one in in the school records and it'll be official and your name won't be Ronald Weasley."
"So we can kind of cheat around them?" Ron asked hopefully.
"You'll still have to use all those references, " Hermione said sternly. "Then, let's see the Cocoa Puffs should be easy, and, Harry, do you think Ron could practice as a Beater a few times?"
Harry nodded.
No one wanted to speak next, but eventually Harry made himself. "And, Ron, I suppose we had better figure out a way for you to risk Snape to kiss Draco."
Ron looked ill.
"Look, you don't actually have to do it, I don't think," Harry went on. "All you have to do is be willing to do it."
"Hey, okay then!" Ron said loudly at the ceiling. "I'm willing, I'm willing, there's that done!"
"You have to mean it," Hermione said. "And I don't think there's any way to be sure you mean it except, well, going through with it."
Harry looked at Hermione. "And just how do you suggest he do that? Walk up to Malfoy and suggest that he meet him near Snape's office for a nice snog?"
Hermione smiled brightly. "I think you're getting the hang of this, Harry!"
Ron fainted.
***
For once in his life, Ron desperately wanted to be paying attention to a teacher.
But he couldn't stop looking at Malfoy. It was like gawking at an accident, like mangled bodies, the blond boy's slouched figure had the same sort of horrible fascination. Like the way you couldn't help but inhale when someone said "Eugh, what's that smell"... Ron wrinkled his nose like he had smelled something, but he still couldn't look away. Malfoy. Like an irritating song stuck in his head, or maybe something stuck in his teeth, and he kept picking at it...
Okay, he really didn't want to think about Malfoy in his teeth.
He forced himself to look at Binns (who, at least, could be counted on to not ask any questions), then down at his notes. He had written one word: Malfoy.
He looked up again. Malfoy had shifted slightly, leaning back, and as Ron stared helplessly he leaned back further, looked around, and caught Ron's eye.
Malfoy's eyebrows contracted, for a moment, as he looked confused, then his eyes narrowed and he looked at Ron suspiciously.
Ron hastily looked back down at his paper and started crossing out the name. He wished he could blot out the person so easily... he looked at him again. The slicked-back hair, the odious set of his shoulders. It wasn't *that* bad a curse, Ron thought, better than the other options, really, probably get used to it in no time... Malfoy looked back and returned his gaze again, and smirked at him.
Ron felt an instant of terror that he had blushed. He scowled and looked away. Stupid Malfoy. Why couldn't he just pay attention to the lesson for once? Because I don't really have any options, he answered himself. Not to avoid... this... or even, it appeared, to look away. Why couldn't I have just shrunk again? he thought. Why couldn't I shrink right now and just vanish out of here? He looked at Malfoy. Malfoy, who seemed to have eyes between his shoulderblades, turned and met his eyes evenly. He looked at Ron thoughtfully, and Ron felt nausea roll in his stomach, and, oddly, the back of his neck felt just a little shivery.
I'm feverish, Ron thought. I'm cracking up under the strain. Hermione's cleverness has finally managed to kill me.
Just when he might have started beating his head against the desk, Harry nudged him and passed him a note. I can't wait until you're fixed and we can talk, it said. Hermione keeps wanting to *talk*. Ron rolled his eyes at Harry, his spirits temporarily lifted.
***
They met before dinner the next day. "Check off Cocoa Puffs," said Ron. "And I told the genie in records I wanted to take the middle name "Arthur", just in case it gets back to my parents."
"They could hardly object to that," agreed Hermione. "And the report - would be the next thing I would need to ask you about," she recovered.
"Worked on it all afternoon," he said, "And I've got all but one of the references from Aelfrith, and when I do I'll be done, so that's that."
Hermione frowned. "I was hoping someone would have returned it by now... but go on."
"Well, I'm flying Beater tonight, and, well, that's that."
"And now I ask whether you've talked to Malfoy."
Ron groaned. "Dammit, Hermione, can't I just take on a blast-ended skrewt or something? I'll wear Neville's magenta undershorts, I'll do detention with Snape, I'll even eat a spider, I just can't ask Ferret-boy to kiss me!"
"Neville has magenta undershorts?" Hermione asked curiously, grinning.
"No. Dammit, Hermione! I suppose now Harry will have to nick them..."
Hermione was looking repentant for the slip. Harry was looking seriously annoyed.
"Er, too bad I can't ask you why you know so much about Neville's undershorts," Hermione attempted, looking at Harry out of the corner of her eye and hoping for a smile.
Ron grimaced.
"Shut up, that's not the point, the point is eternal humiliation and unbearable disgust."
"Oh, come off it," said Hermione. "If you just imagine he's someone else in disguise, he's not actually bad looking. And he's got a girly sort of mouth, just think of that. Be a man and get it over with."
***
Ron caught Draco Malfoy as he was leaving dinner.
"I thought you might be looking for me," Draco said snidely. "But I'm afraid I'm too busy at the moment. Wait by the dungeon stairs at ten and I *might* be able to fit you into my busy social schedule." He tossed his head (which was probably supposed to look debonair but came off as more of a twitch).
Ron gaped at him.
"I - but - we're not supposed to be out of dorm after nine," he said weakly.
Draco raised an eyebrow.
"For every gain a risk, Weasley. How rich a main sets on the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? You'll just have to hope I don't squeal to Snape, won't you." He smirked, spun neatly, and strode off.
Ron wasn't sure if Malfoy had gone barmy or he himself was completely off his rocker. Somebody was. Maybe the entire world. Malfoy? Had thought Ron was looking for him? And wanted to meet him by the dungeon stairs? And... was quoting *poetry* at him? Ron had no more than a passing acquaintance with poetry, but he rather thought it had been. It certainly didn't sound like normal talk.
He thought about it. For every gain a risk... Unspeakable *Name*, was Malfoy coming on to him?
Ron cursed again and punched the wall. Had Malfoy somehow heard what he had said yesterday at breakfast? Or maybe noticed the staring? And now he was, ack, going to give Ron a chance, and, ack, probably planning on exacting some horrendous price, and, ack, it was either this or spend the rest of his life avoiding direct questions.
Ron thought he might go find somewhere warm and dark to hide until ten.
***
Draco was an agonizing twelve minutes late.
He smiled with acid sweetness at Ron.
"Hope you weren't waiting too long," he cooed. "And that you're ready to get what you came for."
Ron screwed his eyes shut and took a step forward. And waited.
He opened his eyes. Draco was waving a slim leatherbound book at him, trying to hide the fact that he looked vaguely puzzled.
"I knew your little swot would want this," he taunted, "And I'm not at all surprised she sent you to fetch it for her. I wonder what you get for bringing it back, a pat on the head, I'd think. Or perhaps a snog," he said, watching Ron intently.
Ron craned his head and got a look at the cover. It was, of course, the last reference from Aelfrith.
"Right," said Ron firmly, praying inside that it had been enough that he had believed that he was about to kiss Malfoy and was going to go through with it. "I'll just have that then, thanks for finishing up with it."
"Not so fast," said Draco condescendingly. "You can't really think I bothered getting you down here to just hand it over."
Ron whipped his head around, looking for Snape. No Snape. He thought about just trying to Accio the book, but he knew Malfoy wouldn't hesitate to hit him with the nastiest hexes he knew if wands came out.
He inclined his head at Draco and raised his eyebrows, inquiring.
Draco smiled. "I think it would only be fair to demand what you'll be getting upon delivery," he said disdainfully.
Ron hesitated a moment, then walked over to him and patted him on the head.
Draco permitted himself a chuckle.
Then Draco's right hand lashed up to catch him by the chin and his left hand clamped on to the back of Ron's head and his mouth mashed down on Ron's.
Ron felt his lips part quite involuntarily.
There was some unpleasant banging of teeth, and then Draco's tongue was sort of stroking the insides of his lips, and Ron felt the set of his jaw soften. Draco's hands eased off a little in their grip, and his tongue plunged into Ron's mouth with a vengeance.
Draco's mouth was slick against Ron's, and very hot. He felt his own lips wrap themselves around Draco's, and his own tongue probe tentatively. His hands floated up to wrap around Draco's upper arms.
Draco sighed and melted into the kiss, and they sucked sweetly at each other's mouths, and Draco's hand stroked the back of Ron's neck. And Ron heard his own breathing fast and harsh in his ears, and pulled Draco closer, and kissed him determinedly, knowing that when he stopped he was going to have to think about what the hell he was doing.
It was Draco that pulled away first.
"Damn," said Draco appreciatively. "I really didn't think that would work. I actually had been just using it for my essay, and I just thought I'd give you a bit of a hard time, until you puckered up like that..."
"I did not pucker up!" said Ron indignantly. Draco laughed.
"You practically had "kiss me" painted on your forehead," he said, but it lacked the vicious edge it might have.
"And so you kissed me?" Ron said incredulously.
"Yes, well, I wanted to see how far you'd go for your little Mudblood," Draco said, managing a sneer by the end.
Ron looked at him skeptically. "So you didn't enjoy that at all. Sure, Malfoy. You tell yourself that."
Draco was actually at a loss for words.
"Unlike some people, I'm not a habitual liar," Ron went on. "And as much as it pains me to say anything nice about your foul mouth, you kiss like a demon, Malfoy."
"You wouldn't say that if you had ever seen a demon," Malfoy returned. "But. Um. While it was not, of course, anything to rival even the middling kisses of in my extensive kissing experience, I suppose it had a certain plebeian appeal."
He looked at Ron expectantly. Ron just looked back. "You don't even know when I've insulted you, do you Weasley," he said crossly.
Ron grinned. "It's because I can tell when you're lying," he said cheerfully. "Has anyone ever pointed out that you try too hard?"
Draco sighed. "One has to write big for the dull to read it," he said. But he couldn't quite manage to curl his lip.
"Are you always like this when you've just been kissed?" Ron asked curiously. "You know... nice?"
Draco snorted. "If that's your idea of nice I pity your pathetic existence." He paused. "But as I recall you hate me too."
"Not so much," Ron said. "It's just that you're usually an insufferable git."
"And you're a crawling wanker," Draco replied. "Hope you didn't have a point, I think it wandered off."
Silence.
"Well then," said Ron. "I'll just be leaving then, thanks for the book..." he looked around and spotted the book fallen open over his own foot.
"Thanks for the snog," said Draco unexpectedly.
Their eyes met.
"You know," said Ron thoughtfully, "I've been having a devil of a time finding those medieval star charts for the astro report."
Draco smiled slowly. "I have a certain talent for library research," he said. "But there would have to be some sort of fee."
"Purely business," said Ron.
"Purely extortion," said Draco.
"Right then," said Ron, picking up the book. "Good night."
He was back to Gryffindor Tower by the time he remembered to be glad Draco hadn't asked him any direct questions.
***
The actual reversal was anticlimactic - Hermione had figured out that they could temporarily nullify the antitruth effect long enough for Ron to answer the questions truthfully, a problem Ron hadn't even thought of, by putting Ron's head in a sort of cage she had kludged together out of kitchen utensils, toothbrushes, and about ten different inhibition spells. Even Ron knew that toothbrushes were among the least magical items one could find in a wizard's house, and it was practically impossible to get a spell to stick to one, although Fred had once put a doozy of a hex on George's after weeks of trying. So the cage thing was probably pretty impressive. He was mostly just glad it wasn't a permanent solution, as he had a metal spatula jammed under his chin and the end of a toothbrush in his ear.
"What position do you play in Quidditch?" Hermione asked, when she had fussed with the cage to her satisfaction, and Ron was overjoyed to be able to freely follow the script and say "Beater."
"What about you, Ron, do you eat this stuff?" she asked, and Ron noticed she had a bowl of Cocoa Puffs on hand. Trust Hermione for attention to detail. "Yes."
"Regarding the Anticrusades report. How 'bout you, Ron? Finished up yet?" Good grief, she even had Harry's intonation. "Yes."
"Did you put in any work at all?"
"Yes, tons," answered Ron. And god, had he ever.
"Well, I don't suppose you used any of the references from Aelfrith, did you?"
"All of them," answered Ron. If he was coming away from this experience with one thing... well, if he was coming away with two things, one was a determination to never, never spend that much time on an essay again. He didn't see how Hermione could stand it, let alone enjoy it. She had been delighted that he had acquired the missing book and had fortunately been too caught up in it as they finished their essays to ask where he had found it.
Hermione and Harry traded glances.
"Almost there, Ron," said Harry, in what was probably supposed to be a bracing manner.
"How about you, Ron? Who would you risk Snape to kiss?"
He paused. "Draco Malfoy," he said slowly.
"But something must be wrong, unless you meant that to be funny?"
"No," said Ron earnestly. It was many things, but funny was not one of them.
"You wouldn't kiss Draco Malfoy?"
He thought of hot tongues and urgent hands, of the way Draco's lips had clung to his lower lip as he pulled away. He thought of star charts and smiled to himself.
"I would."
Hermione bustled on with her list.
"Ron, is your name Ronald Weasley?"
"No," he said.
"Neville has magenta undershorts?" Harry made a big flourish with his hands.
"No," and as he answered he felt *something* uncoil from around his throat and drain away.
"Well, that should be it then," Hermione said. "Let's just get you out of the parabjuralethic field and make sure."
She efficiently dismantled the construct, stowing away the pieces carefully "just in case." It was a very Hermione thing to do.
"Ok," said Harry, grinning. "What do you think of Draco Malfoy?"
Ron choked, and then realized, with blessed, blessed relief, that he didn't have to tell the truth. And he didn't have to lie. He didn't *have* to say anything at all.
But Harry was looking worried.
"Oh golly," said Ron, clasping his hands and fluttering his eyelashes, "I think he's the most handsome, wonderful love - of a ferret's life."
Harry laughed. "Chess?" he asked Ron. On their way out the door he dropped Neville's magenta undershorts into Hermione's lap.
"Hey, you're *welcome*," she called after Ron's retreating back.
Hermione sighed. So much for truth potions. It had been a good plan. Harry's stubborn refusal to have a real conversation with her was starting to drive her mad. Maybe an inhibition-lifting potion? Not that she could come up with a reason *that* would help them fight Death Eaters. Maybe she could mix up a Babelfish and a Babblefish? Now *that* was an idea...
::End:: Back