Saturday, November 8
"This one?" Ron asked, holding up an orange canons shirt.
"With your hair? God no," Draco laughed. "Do you have brown or dark blue?"
"Er..." Ron flipped through the shirts in his wardrobe. "No!" he wailed. "Why don't I have any good clothes?!"
He knew he should have bought some new clothes when he went shopping with everyone over the summer. But nooo... he just had to have a bloody expensive chess set, boots, and a new trunk instead.
"Quit being dramatic," Draco scoffed, which was awfully rich considering he was the most dramatic bloke Ron had ever met. "I've got a blue one that'll be perfect."
Ron sagged with relief as Draco went to his own wardrobe and began digging through it. Draco might be a dramatic prat, but he was his dramatic prat who had good taste in clothes.
"Here," Draco handed him a smart blue shirt. "It'll look perfect."
"Brill, Ron, now put on some damn trousers," Harry muttered from the door of the loo. Harry was already fully dressed, in a pair of jeans and Fred's yellow knitted jumper with the blue 'F' on the front. Harry didn't look like he was concerned with his appearance at all, which was fine, because Harry was only going to see Fred, wasn't he? And Fred wasn't really all that great, no matter what Harry thought.
Not like Daphne.
Daphne Greengrass was, hands down, the prettiest girl in their school.
In the world, maybe.
Prettier than even Bill's fiancé, Fleur.
And she played chess, quidditch, and could apparently kick arse at cards too.
So Ron couldn't just wear a Weasley sweater and a pair of jeans, like Harry was. He had to look perfect and cross his fingers that this wasn't some cruel prank.
Harry's hair was also wet and shaggy and dripped on the floor as he stalked past and pointedly didn't look at Ron's half-dressed state.
Or... mostly naked state.
He was standing in the middle of the room in just his pants and socks.
"Right," Ron mumbled, "trousers..."
Blaise snorted and tossed Ron a pair of his own expensive trousers. "Don't ruin them," he said with a grin. "No drool or other bodily fluids, Weasley."
"Cheers, mate," Ron grinned and slid them on.
This was exactly why he didn't think to buy a new set of clothes over the summer, his roommates were always there for him when he needed something. Sometimes he thought about when he got sorted and thought he wanted to be in Gryffindor, what a mad idea. He couldn't imagine having to share a dorm with Thomas and Finnigan. Heck, most of the time he felt bad for poor Neville for not coming to Slytherin with them.
"Oh, did you guys hear about Neville?" Ron grinned, pausing the other boys' conversations.
"What happened to Neville?" Harry asked quickly, his hand already flying to his pocket.
"He's fine," Ron said hastily. Merlin, for someone who hated most people, Harry was a protective son of a bitch. "He's just got a date today too."
"I already knew that," Trent mumbled as he pulled on what looked like Harry's hooded jumper. "Sapphire told me."
"With who?" Theo asked.
"Hannah Abbott," Ron said. "Apparently Susan saw her giggling at something dumb Neville said and thought Hannah liked him, so she told Neville to ask her on a date and he did and she said yes!"
"Pft," Blaise scoffed and shook his head incredulously. "How on Earth did you and Neville end up with two of the hottest girls in school?"
Ron puffed his chest out and preened. If this wasn't some big joke, then Blaise wasn't wrong. Daphne was the hottest girl in their school.
Hannah Abbott, with her rosy cheeks and curly blonde hair, wasn't ugly, he supposed, but nowhere near Daphne's league.
...not that Ron was in her league either.
"You don't think this is a joke, do you?" Ron said, deflating and sounding a bit desperate.
"Could be," Harry murmured absently while he dug through his trunk. "Who knows?"
And since that wasn't what he wanted to hear, Ron ignored him and turned to Draco.
"I don't think Daphne would have asked you out through the mail as a joke," Draco said bracingly. "If it was meant to be a joke then she would have made it much more public, that's what I would do anyway."
"Only one way to know," Blaise smirked. "Go find your girl, Weasley."
Ron squared his shoulders and took a few falsely confident steps towards the door when Trent suddenly stopped him.
"Wait!" Trent ran over and handed Ron a little glass bottle of cologne. "Here, spray some of this on. Sirius swears witches love this cologne."
"Sirius is gay," Theo said bluntly, "how would he know what witches like?"
"He dated a ton of witches when he was 'in denial about his sexuality'," Trent said stubbornly. "He told me so himself and he wouldn't lie about it."
Ron shrugged, couldn't hurt any. He sprayed a bit on his neck and thought it did smell nice. Kind of clean, and manly?
Could cologne smell manly?
"How do I smell?" Ron stretched his neck out.
Trent gave him a peculiar look. "I'm not sniffing you, you fucking creep."
Ron scowled.
Trent really was turning in to Potter Junior.
"You smell fine," Draco laughed. He slung his arm over Ron's shoulder and gave him a bright smile. "Let's go find your gal."
Ron and Draco barely made it to the first landing before Harry came rushing out to them with a bouquet of colorful flowers in his hands.
"Here," he thrust them at Ron with a crooked grin.
"Er..." Ron looked between the flowers and Harry for a moment. "You're a bit engaged, aren't you mate?"
And Ron wasn't really in to blokes.
Not that Harry would be a bad bloke to be with, if he were into them, Harry had brooding and charismatic down to a science. Ron just didn't much fancy always fearing for his life if he accidentally hurt him in a relationship.
No wonder Fred was a Gryffindor. Nobody that wasn't brave to the point of stupid could ever be with Harry.
"Idiot," Harry scoffed. "They're for you to give Daphne."
Oh.
Oh.
Ron gave Harry a warm and appreciative smile. "When you and Fred get married, you're going to be my favorite brother."
"Ta," Harry drawled with a roll of his eyes. Ron saw his little pleased smile before he went back to their room though, so he figured he'd said the right thing.
Now he had to do that all day with a smart, funny, gorgeous witch.
"I'm doomed," Ron whispered to Draco.
"Yeah, but what a way to go," Draco winked.
Draco ran off to go meet up with Luna, leaving Ron to stand nervously in the common room, with a bouquet of flowers, looking and feeling like a prat.
She probably isn't coming... She's probably in her dorm right now laughing with Astoria and Parkinson about the whole thing. 'That idiot Ron thought I'd want to go with him?!' I bet they're all giggling about it now... It's fine. It's fine. If it was just a joke, then I'll just go hang out with...
Ron paused his pacing as he realized all of his friends had dates today.
Harry and Fred. Theo and Hermione. Draco and Luna. Neville and Hannah. Blaise and some Ravenclaw seventh year bloke. Even Trent was going to take Sapphire to meet the girl he saved last May and have lunch with her family.
Susan probably didn't have a date.
Or, if she did, she probably wouldn't care if Ron crashed it. Susan didn't take dates very seriously, not for long anyway.
"Are we going to Hogsmeade or pacing? Because I'd much rather go to Hogsmeade if you're taking votes."
Ron looked up and saw that Daphne was standing in the doorway to the girls dorm, smirking at him.
Slytherins were all so smirky.
She looked gorgeous. Gorgeous enough to make Ron's mouth go dry for a minute. Even if Ron thought he might prefer her in her quidditch gear, he could appreciate the skirt and jumper look too.
"Right." Ron went to run his hand through his hair, a nervous habit, and paused when he realized he was still holding the flowers Harry gave him. He held them out to her with a strained smile, "Er, these are for you?"
Daphne smiled, Merlin her smile was perfect, and took the flowers from Ron. "Thank you," she said. "These are lovely. I'm just going to go put them in my dorm real quick, I'll be right back. Don't go without me!"
Ron shook his head as Daphne waltzed right back up the staircase.
As if he would go without her.
He did smile a bit more genuinely when she came back down the stairs and gave him a sweet smile and shyly held out her hand.
"Are you ready?"
Was he ever.
Even though the first few minutes were a bit quiet and uncomfortable, Daphne cleared her throat after they left the castle and brought up an easy topic.
"How do you like our odds next weekend?"
Ron relaxed with the easy talk of quidditch and the two of them got in to a heated debate about the chasers strategies on the Gryffindor team for a while.
"Pincer's Prance isn't a bad move, necessarily," Ron said. "It's just that it's a bit expected, isn't it? It's so popular that it's one of the first moves chasers learn."
"There's a reason it's so popular though- because it works," Daphne argued. "Weasley, Thomas, and Bell have been using it a lot in their practices. I just think we should too."
Ron imagined telling Harry he wanted them to try out the worlds oldest play from the playbook and laughed. "If a move was invented before we were born, Harry won't use it," he said.
Daphne rolled their eyes, but waited to say anything else until they were done being prodded by Filch at the gates.
"Then you should step in as assistant captain and tell him we should try it," she said, easily reclaiming Ron's hand in hers as they continued their walk. "I'm not saying Harry's not a brilliant captain, but he made you his assistant for a reason."
Ron shook his head and gave her a wry smile. "I don't want to start an argument with him, it's just not worth it."
"Why not?"
Ron considered the month after his dad died, when he was miserable and wanted someone else to feel as miserable as he did. And what did he do? Pissed Harry off for no good reason. He went and accused him of being the reason his dad died, when it hadn't been true at all. Just as Harry tried telling him from the start, because Harry was usually right about most things.
Not all things, mind you, because Harry could be a right git when he wanted to be, but big stuff he usually was.
And nothing was really bigger than quidditch.
"It just isn't," he shrugged. They came up to the main strip of Hogsmeade and Ron faltered. They hadn't even talked about where they would go.
Would she want to go to that weird little tea shop? Should he take her to the Three Broomsticks?
Why didn't he ask anyone where to take her before they got here?! Hermione, at least, would have had some ideas for him!
"Well... what do you wanna do?" he asked Daphne.
Daphne smiled and shrugged, a casual movement that she made look effortless and beautiful. "What do you usually do?"
Ron had a sudden memory of borrowing Harry's invisibility cloak last year and going with Neville to the Shrieking Shack to scare students as they took turns sneaking up behind them and screaming in their ears.
That didn't sound like the sort of thing you admit to someone as graceful and mature as Daphne.
"Er, just hang out," he said sheepishly. "We can just walk for a bit, if you want?"
"Sure," Daphne said agreeably.
They were walking past Honeydukes, when Ron spotted Trent inside and let out a quiet snicker.
"Did you hear about Trent?" he asked her.
Daphne glanced over at where Ron had been looking and shook her head, her blonde hair catching the sunshine and glimmering as she did. "You mean how PJ saved a little girls life?" she grinned.
"PJ?"
"Potter Junior, that's what Astoria and I call him."
Ron laughed, his first real laugh since their date started, and unknowingly squeezed her hand for an instant. "That's perfect," he told her. "'PJ', I'll have to start calling him that."
Daphne looked pleased with herself and tilted her head conspiratorially towards Ron's as they walked. He got a whiff of the nicest perfume he'd ever smelled before, it was somehow flowery and smelled a bit like the Burrow did around Christmas time.
"Astoria is in some classes with him and she said that Harry's been teaching him wandless magic," she whispered. "I think she has a little crush on PJ."
"Poor girl, Trent's gone for a bir- er- girl from Gryffindor. Sapphire, that girl that played cards with us on Halloween."
"Really?" Daphne tapped one of her nails to her pink lips, drawing Ron's attention to the black paint on her perfectly polished nails. "Well, I might have to kill Sapphire then. Astoria talks about PJ all the time."
Ron chuckled again. "Are you and Astoria close then?"
Ron wasn't really close to any of his siblings, but they had all been in Gryffindor and didn't really like the same things he did. Bill was alright, decent at chess when he sat down to play, and the Twins were mad about quidditch, but that was it.
"Very," Daphne said emphatically. "Astoria's my very best friend. Astoria and my mother are really the only two people I have in my life."
"Not your dad?" Ron asked.
Daphne frowned and ducked her head a bit. "No," she said softly. "He died the year before I started Hogwarts."
"Oh." Ron gave her a sympathetic look and squeezed her hand. "Mine died last year."
"I know, I heard about it." Daphne gave him a sad smile. "It's hard, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Ron agreed quietly. "It is."
The air felt heavy between them for a minute so Ron cleared his throat and looked around quickly for a distraction. "Do you want to get a drink? We can pop in to the Hog's Head if you want."
"The Hogs Head?" Daphne laughed, dispelling the heavy air around them. "Not the Three Broomsticks?"
"We can go there, if you'd rather," Ron said quickly. "It's just that Abeforth, the bloke that runs the Hog's Head, is our friend, so we all try and give him some business when we're in the village."
Otherwise, he probably wouldn't be so careless about serving them lager. And he might start reporting them when they showed up at times they weren't supposed to.
"I've never been in there before." Daphne eyed the rundown pub curiously. "Let's see what it's all about then, Weasley," she winked.
Ugh.
Ron was going to be replaying that wink for the rest of the day.
The two of them entered the Hog's Head, and Ron almost turned right back around to leave.
Okay, so, Daphne didn't ask him out as a joke, apparently, but that didn't mean the universe wasn't working against him. Because the very last person Ron wanted to see when he was hand-in-hand with a gorgeous girl on his first real date, was sitting in a booth and immediately spotted him.
"Ronnikins!" Fred waved at him with a shit eating grin that reminded Ron of every time he'd ever grinned and offered him a treat right before Ron's skin broke out in boils or some other horrifying thing. "Yoohoo! Ronnie!"
"Kill me now," Ron mumbled, his ears already turning a hot red.
"Isn't that your brother and Harry?" Daphne asked, giving Ron an odd look when he didn't step any further in the pub.
"It isn't if we pretend he's not here," Ron whispered. "I think if we don't move, he might forget we're here."
Daphne gave him an incredulous look and stepped towards Fred and Harry, pulling Ron along since he refused to let go of her hand.
"Don't you want to sit with your brother?"
There was no good way to explain how Ron was positive that Fred would go out of his way to embarrass him without admitting that Ron was a rather embarrassing bloke in the first place, so he just sighed and let her lead him to the table.
"Hello," Daphne said brightly to Fred and Harry. "Mind if we join you?"
"Abso-fucking-lutely," Fred grinned. "Here," he ducked beneath the table and popped back up next to Harry. "Have a seat."
Daphne slid in the booth, leaving Ron to sit across from Harry.
"What are you guys up to?" Harry asked as he hastily put away a parchment he'd been scribbling on.
Ron would have to ask him about it later.
It was probably something illegal and brilliant and fun.
"We were just walking around," Ron shrugged. "What about you two?"
"Harry and I were just here, having a drink, on our date," Fred said airily. "And I had just been thinking to myself, what could make this day even better? And then, tada! Here you are!"
"Riiiight," Ron said disbelievingly. If his appearance made Fred's day better, it meant he was about to embarrass the hell out of him.
He should probably get Daphne a drink before Fred could get started.
"Do you want a drink?" Ron asked her politely.
"I'd love one," Daphne smiled. "Whatever you're having is fine, thank you."
Ron glanced at Fred and Harry's full glasses and got to his feet. "I'll be right back," he said threateningly to Fred. "Two minutes."
Then Ron practically sprinted to the bar counter where he quickly asked Abeforth for two bottles of butterbeer while he kept looking over his shoulder at their booth.
Fred could ruin his whole date in less than a minute, he was certain of it.
Ron fished a few coins out for Abeforth, overpaying for the drinks just a tad, and rushed back to the table with the bottles.
"What'd you talk about while I was gone?" Ron immediately asked Fred, his eyes narrow and his tone suspicious.
"In the whole ninety seconds you were gone? Not much," Harry said.
"That does remind me though..." Fred gave Daphne a charming grin that Ron bristled at. "Did Ron ever tell you about his love of spiders?"
"Ugh," Daphne shuddered and gave Ron a pinched look. "Do you really love spiders? They creep me out."
By Merlin, she was perfect.
Fred tried a few more times to embarrass Ron, but Harry thankfully stepped in.
"Knock it off," Harry scowled at Fred. "Ron's been thinking this date was a joke to start with."
Did Ron say thankfully? Because he'd rather have had Harry say nothing actually.
"This was a joke?" Daphne asked quietly. Her face went hard, a cold mask overcoming her previously soft and friendly features. "I'll just be going then."
"No, wait!" Ron grabbed her hand and blocked her from leaving the booth. "I thought you were joking, about wanting to come with me. Not that I was joking. I just- er- well I didn't think you'd really want to go out with me."
Daphne gave him a considering look before slowly sitting back down. "Why would I ask you out as a joke? I thought-" her cheeks turned a little pink, "I thought you liked me last year, but you never said anything."
"I was going to!" Ron protested, ignoring his brother and Harry who were shamelessly gawking at the two of them. "I planned on sending you a box of chocolates and asking if you wanted to meet up over the summer, but- er- I got a bit distracted at the end of the year and forgot."
"Really?"
"He's not lying," Harry said coolly from his spot. "He said he needed to buy something from Honeydukes, but we got attacked by death eaters, didn't we? Not much time for romance, to be honest."
"If there had been, I would have found it," Fred added, actually helpfully.
For possibly the first time in Ron's entire life ever.
"I'm sorry," Daphne frowned at Ron. "I'm really messing up our date, aren't I?"
"Not at all," Ron said with a quick and easy smile. "I think we've already established the most important part: neither of us are here as a joke, eh?"
Daphne gave him a cheery (perfect) smile and nodded timidly. "Neither of us are here as a joke," she agreed. Then she raised one of her brows and her smile turned in to more of a playful smirk, "Were you really going to buy me chocolates? I thought you wouldn't prescribe to those old pureblood courting rituals."
"That's our cue to leave, darlin," Fred laughed. "C'mon, we have a man to see about some firearms. Toodles Ronnie, the girl Ronnie tricked in to going out with him."
Ron lifted his hand in farewell as Harry and Fred dropped a handful of gold in Abeforth's jar and took off.
All in all, Fred could have done much more damage. He probably would have, if Harry hadn't been with him.
"Firearms?" Daphne asked curiously. "What's that mean?"
"It means there's about to be a bloody big row in our dorm," Ron sighed as he considered Theo's well-known, and well-deserved, aversion to guns.
Harry had been going on a bit lately about buying a bunch of guns 'for the gang', but Ron thought he'd just been taking the mickey out of Theo.
Theo was going to lose his mind when he realized Harry was bloody serious.
Daphne looked curious, but she let it drop and they changed the subject to something more light-hearted.
Even without Harry and Fred as a buffer, the conversation flowed easily between them. It was almost like hanging out with Draco or Neville really. They talked about their classes, commiserating over the difficulty of nonverbal spells. They laughed about the way Slughorn fawned over Harry in potions ('he'll be popping the question any day now' Daphne said). They argued over the best team in the quidditch league, Daphne said it was the Wimbourne Wasps, and Ron realized that nobody could be absolutely perfect. And, at some point, Ron hesitantly described the battle from May.
"Wow," Daphne sighed when Ron was done. "No wonder you forgot to ask me out. You guys were very brave!"
Ron was still preening over that comment when they finished their second drink and were walking slowly back up to the castle.
"This was nice," Daphne said softly as they lingered on the steps of the castle. The sun was setting behind her, causing her hair to glow a warm orange color, and Ron was so distracted by it that he nearly missed the next words out of her mouth. "Would you like to go out again sometime?"
It took him an embarrassingly long moment to realize she was waiting for an answer.
"God yes," he breathed. Then he blushed and cleared his throat. "I mean, er, if you want to?"
Daphne laughed, as if Ron had been funny instead of mortifyingly dense. She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed the edge of his mouth gently. "I'd love to," she whispered.
By the time Ron walked Daphne down to the dungeons and escaped to his dorm, he flopped on his bed and touched the spot on his mouth where her lips had actually touched his.
Blaise's bed curtains were pulled tight around his bed, but he peeked his head out and grinned at Ron. "Good date, then?"
"A perfect date," Ron sighed with a goofy smile.
"Excellent. Piss off though, would you? I've only got about an hour before everyone else gets back and I have unfinished business I'm dealing with."
Ron sat up and lost his smile as he realized he could hear someone else whispering behind Blaise's curtains.
"Bloody hell!" he yelped. Ron tripped over his own feet in his haste to leave the dorm, and nearly knocked Draco and Theo over as they came up the stairs. "Don't go in there!" he warned them.
Theo scowled and rubbed a weary hand down his face. "Blaise or Harry?"
"Blaise."
Draco sighed and tossed the shopping bag he had in his hands in front of the dorm door. "We'll give him thirty more minutes, then I'm throwing stink pellets in the room."
"We have one damn rule, no sex in our dorm, how hard is it to go to the Ravenclaw rooms?" Theo grumbled as they trooped down the stairs together. "Harry's going to be livid if he gets back and Blaise's flavor of the week is still there."
"Speaking of which..." Ron gave Theo a nervous smile as the three of them settled on a sofa in front of the fire. "I ran in to Harry today, with Fred..."
Theo already looked irritated, his brown eyes were flashing dangerously as Ron hesitated. "Spit it out, Ron."
"Guns," Ron blurted. "I think they're buying guns."
Ron had never heard Theo curse so vehemently, or so creatively before, but he listened to him with wide eyes and made little hums of agreement even as his hand kept reaching up to touch the spot where Daphne kissed him.