|
Moving Pictures It never failed. Every time Ron had just about decided his mother was wrecking his life on purpose, she inevitably went and threw him a most-unexpected but wholly-welcome curve ball that not only broke up his pity party, but dispersed the pieces to the Four Corners of the Earth and buried them nine feet down. Take today at breakfast, for instance. “What do you mean, you're not coming with us to Diagon Alley?” he wanted to know – open-mouthed, flabbergasted, aware on a certain level that questioning this was madness but unable to help himself anyway. “You always come.” Fred sent him an evil look. George kicked him under the table. Molly, seemingly oblivious to this clandestine violence even when Ron yelped and clutched at his leg, smiled from her seat at the head of the table and replenished Percy's teacup with a flick of her wand. “Well, it was always necessary before,” she said, deftly snatching the dish of honeycomb out from under George's knife and passing it to Dudley. “But I rather think you can look after your books this afternoon and then get yourselves to King's Cross tomorrow morning on your own, this year – Ginny's going to be a fourth-year, after all, and you've got Harry and Hermione along to help sort out the Muggle subway – and besides that, I'd prefer to get Dudley his school things until after the back-to-school rush is ended. He's been very brave about it all, of course” – even as she spoke, she was piling butter onto his scone – “but Diagon Alley can be very stimulating, and your father and the Headmaster and I have decided: quieter is better, all circumstances taken into account.” Ron and Harry exchanged baffled glances. “But—“ this was Fred, who couldn't keep himself out of things any more than Ron could – “if you wait till after we've gone to get Dudley his things, how's he going to get on at Hogwarts without them?” “He's not going to Hogwarts,” Molly said briskly, and began to clear the breakfast dishes away, ignoring their looks of confusion. “Are you, Dudley dear?” Dudley, whose mouth was full of scone, shook his head. “Well,” George wanted to know, “what's he doing, then? I mean, I thought he was a wiz—ow!” Fred had just jabbed him in the ribs with a fork. “Well, it's hardly a state secret, is it?” he said, nursing his injured side; “don't see how anything can be, in this house. How's he going to learn his magic, if he doesn't go to school?” “School's coming to him,” Percy said, looking up from The Daily Prophet. “Specifically, I'm coming to him. As a private tutor.” Four heads swiveled as one. ”What?” “Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?” This from Ginny, nonchalantly nibbling toast at the end of the table. “I mean, he's got all top marks—“ here, Percy coloured slightly –“and he's ever so much more patient than the rest of you lot, when it comes to teaching things to people. I, for one, wouldn't have got through last-term Transfiguration half so well as I did, if he hadn't taken the time to help me with those Stretching Spells.” “Thank you, Ginny,” Percy said, looking rather pink, and gave his gaping brothers a regal little nod before diving back behind his newspaper. Ron finished the bite of toast he'd been about to choke on, washed it down with a swallow of milk, and set his glass down with a thud. “Er,” he said. “So he'll – sorry, you'll – you'll be staying here for the term, then? Um, Dudley?” Unspoken: where, exactly? “Your room,” his mother said, reading his mind. “I'm not putting him in that mad laboratory of the twins' – there's no telling what'll happen to him. They've got that room so booby-trapped even they can't remember what all they've done to it.” “Aw, Mum—“ “—And before you swan off to school this year, Ronald Weasley, you're going to do some serious cleaning. If you want to keep those horrid comics, they'd better be Reduced and packed away by the time I get up there this morning. How you can stand all those stacks of paper in every corner is beyond me, anyway. And the same goes for any of your personal things – if they're still sitting out by the time you leave, I'll assume they're fair game for the trash heap.” She shot the smirking twins a hard look. “And don't think you're off the hook, you two. I heard that quill-whatsit of yours go off this morning in Ginny's room, spouting all kinds of nonsense at the top of its lungs, and my garden threat stands. Wands, please.” “Aw, Mum—“ “I said, wands,” Molly Weasley said, gimlet-eyed. “Now – you'd best be off to your lecture, Percy. Ginny, some assistance with the dishes wouldn't go amiss. The rest of you have your orders.” She pocketed the wands with a flourish. “And don't dawdle. Hermione's meeting you at the Leaky Cauldron, and she's expecting you for luncheon.” They scattered. ** Cleaning his room had been mildly traumatic from an emotional standpoint, but not really difficult – though Ron could only imagine what a chore it would have been, without the help of Reducing Charms and that ever-handy old standby, the Sorting Spell. His mind was only half on the task, anyway. They were going into Diagon Alley. Without his parents. And try as he might, he couldn't stop thinking about what the sleeping arrangements at the Leaky Cauldron were likely to be. So they were meeting Hermione there, eh? That meant his mother had booked a double room for her and Ginny – he'd bet his entire collection of Chocolate Frog cards on it (with the possible exception of Ishtar, who he'd just last month managed to find for the first time). But the real question was this: had she lumped Harry and him in with the twins? Or did they (oh, gasp, oh, rush of blood to the head) have a room to themselves? “Bit of a problem with the ‘commodations,” old Tom said cheerfully, when they all got there. “Yer mum wanted one o' the big rooms, for you four lads. Seemed to think young Potter ‘ere'd keep these two rapscallions in check.” He winked at the twins. “But I got a whole pack o' witches ‘ere this week, see? From Tanzania. Wanted the group rate. So I sez to meself – why not lump ‘em all in together, and put the lads in two o' the smaller rooms?” “Oh,” said Ron faintly, and gritted his teeth against the sudden buzzing between his ears. Tom blinked at him. “You all right there, sonny?” “Fine,” Ron assured him, getting control of himself – if Serendipity wanted to intervene on his behalf, who was he to muck it up? “Just fine.” And it was the truth – though all through dinner, he had an erection so raging and intense that he saw spots in front of his eyes whenever he blinked. There was nothing he wanted more than to flee the table posthaste, dragging Harry with him – up the stairs, round the corner, fumble with the lock, in we go, turn the mirror to the wall, oh bliss oh heaven oh four walls and a door that locks … On the other hand, getting up from the table in his present condition was pretty much unthinkable. In the end, Hermione made his decision for him. “I don't know what the rest of you are doing tonight,” she said, spooning up the last of her trifle, “but there's a book launch on the schedule over at Flourish and Blotts that looks very promising.” “Oh, Lockhart put out another one?” This from an extremely sly-looking Fred. George sniggered; Hermione shot them both an extraordinarily cross look. “Hardly,” she said. “It's a book on self-Transfiguration. And the author's just a fascinating character – a Pakistani Metamorphmagus called Yogi Ohm. Supposedly he can do the most extreme self-Transfigurations.” She trailed off, looking dreamy. “I hope he does a demonstration. The whole thing's just so interesting.” Ginny considered this for a moment. “Well, I'm in,” she said. “Especially if the alternative is hanging round here all night and listening to that—“ ‘that' being the roof-rattling snores coming from a suspiciously hairy lump of Something in the far corner of the pub that had, from the looks of it, fallen asleep, face-first, in a bowl of grayish-green porridge. “How about you boys?” “We're off to Kn—“ George doubled up, clutching his stomach. “What I meant to say,” he continued, as soon as he'd recovered his breath, “is that my dearest brother and I need to procure some supplies. At the apothecary down the street.” Ginny eyed him warily. “For what?” “Seventh-year Potions, of course,” Fred supplied, grabbing his twin's arm and yanking him bodily from the seat. “Not a moment to lose. Frightfully important. See you.” Ginny rolled her eyes, then turned her attention to Ron. “And the two of you?” “Um …” Ron, who had just managed to hook his ankle with Harry's, jumped. “What about us?” His sister traded a Look with Hermione that said: Honestly. “Are you coming with us?” “Oh. Um. Well, the thing is – I don't think …” “What are you going to do, then?” “We'd love to come,” Harry said in one breath – and then, as Ron goggled at him, calmly reached across the table for the bowl of trifle and knocked a goblet of cold water squarely into Ron's lap with his elbow. “Oh – sorry!” Well, that takes care of one problem, Ron thought, even as he sprang up from the table amid a chorus of giggles from the girls, napkin clapped securely over the offending area of his person, and started to flick ineffectually at the waterlogged material of his trousers. And isn't he the sly one? For a Gryffindor, I mean. “Oh, dear,” Harry was saying. “You'd better change, hadn't you?” Out of the corner of his eye, Ron saw Hermione glance at her watch. “There really isn't time,” she said in an undertone – “we'll be late –“ “Oh, don't wait on my account,” Ron said, trying as hard as he could to tamp down wild exultant joy into something that looked like sincere resignation. “Just go on ahead. I'll catch up with the rest of you later.” “If you're sure—“ “Oh, absolutely.” “Harry? You coming?” “I'll wait,” Harry said after a moment's pause, “and come with Ron.” At that double-entendre, delivered with an outrageous, unblinking innocence that would have caused a Botticelli cherub to burst into tears of self-loathing and hand in its wings, Ron felt his cock start to stiffen again. You will, will you? he thought, as the girls shrugged, collected their respective handbags, and shouldered their way through the growing crowd and out into the street. Watch out, Potter. I just might hold you to that. “Well, come on, then,” he said over the bannister, paused on the landing of the stairs with the napkin still clutched to his sodden crotch. “If you're coming, that is.” They were up the stairs and around the corner in eight seconds flat. ** |