One True Pairing (PG)
Title: One True Pairing
Author: Mad Maudlin
Rating: PG
Pairing: Just you wait.
Warnings: CRACK.
Summary: Ron and Hermione are worried about Harry. They probably should be.
A/N: This doesn't make sense. I don't pretend it does. But ever since I read HBP I've had this percolating in my mind.
By the end of the fic, you'll know who it's dedicated to. :-)
One True Love
by Mad Maudlin
Hermione marched briskly down the London streets, so briskly that Ron actually had trouble keeping up. "Why don't we just whack him over the head and drag him back to the Burrow?" he asked.
She hissed. "You are about as sensitive as a doorknob."
"Doorknobs can be sensitive! Fred and George make one--"
Hermione stopped and turned on him; he immediately fell silent. "Harry is in a very dark emotional and mental place right now," she said sternly. "He needs gentle handling and a compassionate ear."
"I'm compassionate," Ron protested.
"We have to go in there," Hermione proceeded, "and let him know we're there for him, and that we support him, and that we understand how he feels and, and that the pain and angst will go away if he just gets on with living his life and learns not to blame himself for the cost of the war."
She turned on her heel and kept walking. Ron, after a moment, jogged to catch up with her. "Wait a second," he said. "Who says he's feeling pain and angst?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"I don't even know what angst is."
She sighed dramatically. "Ron. Harry just killed another wizard in cold blood after two years of open bloody conflict for which he probably blames himself at least in part. But now that the war is over, he's lost all purpose and meaning in his life and his pain is being ignored by the public now that he's fulfilled his Dark Lord-slaying duties. He is traumatized and depressed and he needs our support."
"And you know all this how?" Ron asked suspiciously.
"Well, he wouldn't have shut himself up in that awful house if everything were sunshine and daisies, would he?"
They turned a corner and found themselves on Grimmauld Place, which had managed to become even less friendly and inviting over the years. Number Twelve had lost much of its magical protections during the war and was now plainly visible as they approached; Ron noted with approval that the nasty snake knocker had been replaced by a much more friendly-looking bronze hippogriff one. Hermione pounded it, and they stood on the stoop to await the friend they hadn't seen for weeks.
After a few moments, she knocked again.
And again.
"Hermione, I think he hears you," Ron mumbled, eyeing the twitching curtains on the houses across the square.
"He's got to come down eventually," she said through gritted teeth as she continued to pound.
She kept knocking. Ron sighed and began to time her.
--/--
Seven and a half minutes later, Hermione's arm was beginning to show the strain.
"Maybe he's not actually here," Ron suggested.
"Of course he's here," Hermione said with a bit of a pant. "He hasn't left for weeks, has he?"
"Maybe he skipped out--"
The door swung open so abruptly that Hermione was nearly knocked off the front step. Harry stood in the doorway, looking neither particularly pained nor angsty: he had the pale, underfed look of someone who hadn't seen sunlight in a bit, and his eyes were bloodshot, but he smiled when he saw who his visitors were. "Hello, Ron. Hello, Hermione," he said. "What brings you here?"
Hermione opened her mouth, probably to launch into her Pained and Angsty speech. Ron covered her mouth. "Oh, we were just in the neighborhood and want to make sure you were all riIIAAAHHH!"
As he clutched his bitten hand, Hermione pushed him aside and planted herself in the doorway. "Harry, we need to talk to you. We want you to know that we understand how you're feeling and we support you and--hey!"
Ron lifted Hermione under the armpits and moved her aside. "Harry," he said, "can we come in?"
"Er...sure." Harry glanced at his watch. "Yeah, for a bit."
They entered the house, which seemed relatively unchanged from their last unpleasant visit--most of the furniture had gone, as had the elf heads, and where old Mrs. Black's portrait had once hung there was now a large and ragged hole. "So how've you been, mate?" Ron said bracingly, and ignored Hermione's withering glare.
"Oh...I'm fine," Harry said with a strange little smile. "Been a bit busy lately."
Hermione and Ron exchanged worried glances. "Er...busy with what?"
"I'll show you." Harry bounded across the hall and began to climb the many stairs of the old house. His friends followed, slightly uneasy.
Hermione cleared he throat. "I expect it's been a bit rough this past few weeks, hasn't it?"
"Hmmm? Oh, not really." Harry practically bounced around a corner landing. "How have you been? I know I haven't been in the loop very much."
"Oh, we're just fine," Ron said, adding with a significant little cough, "Ginny's been a bit down, though."
"That's good," Harry said vaguely. Ron scowled.
They came to the top floor of the house, where a trap door to the attic was normally concealed in the ceiling. This hung open, and a steep wooden staircase made of plywood and two-by-fours was positioned underneath. Harry showed no trepidation about mounting this two risers at a time. Ron and Hermione followed a bit more gingerly, and found themselves in the old house's attic, which had been emptied but not well-cleaned: except for a streak Harry had seemingly tracked clean, the floor was still thick with dust and pocked with the strange outlines of antique furniture.
The shiny streak lead to a fantastic old oaken desk. On the desk sat a laptop computer. "Is that what you've been up to all this time?" Hermione asked warily.
Harry nodded and dropped into the squashy armchair at the desk. "Yeah, I went out and bought it right after the battle. Reckoned I had the money and time to use as I like, you know, and anyway I've always been sort of curious about what Dudley sees in these things..."
Ron was looking at the slim silver machine with the deeply suspicious expression that he usually reserved for escalators and sliding doors. "What, er, what's that do?" he asked, peering from an arm's length away.
"Well, I mainly use it to connect to the Internet," Harry said, keeping eyes glued to the screen as he tapped away at the touchpad. "Although Dudley used it to blow up aliens...imaginary aliens, Ron," he added, when Ron squeaked.
"How did you make it work?" Hermione asked. "I would've thought there was too much magic in the air around here."
"There is," Harry said. "It goes haywire if I take it to any other room in the house. And even up here it sometimes goes funny--just before you got here it restarted itself and demanded a memory upgrade and a biscuit."
"You laptop wanted a biscuit?"
"And then it called me names when I wouldn't give it either."
Hermione shook her head violently and tried to return the conversation to topic. "Harry. Is this why you've been hiding in here? You're playing on the Internet?"
"What's an innaninet?" Ron asked.
"No," Harry insisted, then shrugged. "Well, sort of."
"Define 'sort of.'"
Harry turned around in the armchair and beamed at them both for a second before blurting, "I'm in love."
"Yeah," Ron said after a moment. "With Ginny, remember?"
"No," Harry said, and at Ron's expression quickly added, "well, I was, and I still like her...look, I have to tell you the whole story." He turned back to the laptop and selected a site from the address bar. "When I set up the laptop I just started playing with it--looking up random shite, you know, just being stupid--and that's how I found her."
Hermione's heart plummeted. "You've started a relationship with a woman you met on the Internet?" she demanded.
Harry hesitated. "Well...it's not so much a relationship...I've been too nervous to comment on her blog, and I think the laptop goes through my email..."
"Mate, if you've never talked to her, how can you be in love?" Ron demanded.
Harry got a glassy, pop-eyed expression that rivaled Luna Lovegood's. "You don't understand," he said feverishly. "She's amazing, she's perfect...funny, beautiful, intelligent...she's a writer, you know, she's really very good..."
"What's she write about?" Ron asked.
Harry hesitated. "Um. Men buggering each other, mostly."
"What?"
"But that's not important," Harry said desperately, "the point is, she's everything I've ever wanted in a woman."
Hermione rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Harry. Do you know where this woman lives? Do you know what she looks like? People on the Internet can be anyone, you know."
"She's not like that!" he said. "Look, it's all over her blog...she lives in the States, in Boston, with...er..."
"With who, Harry?"
"Herhusbandandkid."
Ron's eyes bugged out. "You're perving on somebody's mum?"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Ron," Hermione snapped, but then rounded on Harry. "You're obsessing over a married woman? On another continent? Who doesn't know you exist?"
"See, I knew you'd be like this!" Harry snapped, leaping to his feet. "That's why I hadn't told you earlier! I knew you'd try to talk me out of it! Well, you can't! Because this is true love, Hermione, this was meant to be--I've loved her before I even met her--when I'm around a cauldron of Amortentia, what do you think I smell?"
He stabbed his finger at the computer screen. Hermione and Ron leaned forward to peer at the tiny page address.
www.livejournal.com/users/thetreacletart/
Hermione cleared her throat, very loudly, several times as she straightened up. "Well," she said. "Well. Um."
"I think you're mental, mate," Ron said earnestly.
Harry pouted and flopped down in the chair. "I knew you wouldn't understand."
"It's not that we don't understand," Hermione said, "it's just...well...this is all very sudden, and....and maybe you need to...I mean, maybe we need to--"
The laptop cut her off by beeping loudly, and the screen flashed blue. Harry began to swear loudly as a message appeared in white text: Error 29B. User is heartless bastard. I want a pony. Hermione quietly waved Ron over to her, behind Harry's chair, and conjured a cricket bat. She pressed this into Ron's hands. He blinked once, twice, at the bat and then at her, and his lit up when comprehension dawned.
"Harry?" Hermione said.
"Eh?" The screen now read Error. Error. I won't and you can't make me.
"We're really very sorry about this." She stepped out of the way as Ron raised the bat over his head.
Author: Mad Maudlin
Rating: PG
Pairing: Just you wait.
Warnings: CRACK.
Summary: Ron and Hermione are worried about Harry. They probably should be.
A/N: This doesn't make sense. I don't pretend it does. But ever since I read HBP I've had this percolating in my mind.
By the end of the fic, you'll know who it's dedicated to. :-)
One True Love
by Mad Maudlin
Hermione marched briskly down the London streets, so briskly that Ron actually had trouble keeping up. "Why don't we just whack him over the head and drag him back to the Burrow?" he asked.
She hissed. "You are about as sensitive as a doorknob."
"Doorknobs can be sensitive! Fred and George make one--"
Hermione stopped and turned on him; he immediately fell silent. "Harry is in a very dark emotional and mental place right now," she said sternly. "He needs gentle handling and a compassionate ear."
"I'm compassionate," Ron protested.
"We have to go in there," Hermione proceeded, "and let him know we're there for him, and that we support him, and that we understand how he feels and, and that the pain and angst will go away if he just gets on with living his life and learns not to blame himself for the cost of the war."
She turned on her heel and kept walking. Ron, after a moment, jogged to catch up with her. "Wait a second," he said. "Who says he's feeling pain and angst?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"I don't even know what angst is."
She sighed dramatically. "Ron. Harry just killed another wizard in cold blood after two years of open bloody conflict for which he probably blames himself at least in part. But now that the war is over, he's lost all purpose and meaning in his life and his pain is being ignored by the public now that he's fulfilled his Dark Lord-slaying duties. He is traumatized and depressed and he needs our support."
"And you know all this how?" Ron asked suspiciously.
"Well, he wouldn't have shut himself up in that awful house if everything were sunshine and daisies, would he?"
They turned a corner and found themselves on Grimmauld Place, which had managed to become even less friendly and inviting over the years. Number Twelve had lost much of its magical protections during the war and was now plainly visible as they approached; Ron noted with approval that the nasty snake knocker had been replaced by a much more friendly-looking bronze hippogriff one. Hermione pounded it, and they stood on the stoop to await the friend they hadn't seen for weeks.
After a few moments, she knocked again.
And again.
"Hermione, I think he hears you," Ron mumbled, eyeing the twitching curtains on the houses across the square.
"He's got to come down eventually," she said through gritted teeth as she continued to pound.
She kept knocking. Ron sighed and began to time her.
--/--
Seven and a half minutes later, Hermione's arm was beginning to show the strain.
"Maybe he's not actually here," Ron suggested.
"Of course he's here," Hermione said with a bit of a pant. "He hasn't left for weeks, has he?"
"Maybe he skipped out--"
The door swung open so abruptly that Hermione was nearly knocked off the front step. Harry stood in the doorway, looking neither particularly pained nor angsty: he had the pale, underfed look of someone who hadn't seen sunlight in a bit, and his eyes were bloodshot, but he smiled when he saw who his visitors were. "Hello, Ron. Hello, Hermione," he said. "What brings you here?"
Hermione opened her mouth, probably to launch into her Pained and Angsty speech. Ron covered her mouth. "Oh, we were just in the neighborhood and want to make sure you were all riIIAAAHHH!"
As he clutched his bitten hand, Hermione pushed him aside and planted herself in the doorway. "Harry, we need to talk to you. We want you to know that we understand how you're feeling and we support you and--hey!"
Ron lifted Hermione under the armpits and moved her aside. "Harry," he said, "can we come in?"
"Er...sure." Harry glanced at his watch. "Yeah, for a bit."
They entered the house, which seemed relatively unchanged from their last unpleasant visit--most of the furniture had gone, as had the elf heads, and where old Mrs. Black's portrait had once hung there was now a large and ragged hole. "So how've you been, mate?" Ron said bracingly, and ignored Hermione's withering glare.
"Oh...I'm fine," Harry said with a strange little smile. "Been a bit busy lately."
Hermione and Ron exchanged worried glances. "Er...busy with what?"
"I'll show you." Harry bounded across the hall and began to climb the many stairs of the old house. His friends followed, slightly uneasy.
Hermione cleared he throat. "I expect it's been a bit rough this past few weeks, hasn't it?"
"Hmmm? Oh, not really." Harry practically bounced around a corner landing. "How have you been? I know I haven't been in the loop very much."
"Oh, we're just fine," Ron said, adding with a significant little cough, "Ginny's been a bit down, though."
"That's good," Harry said vaguely. Ron scowled.
They came to the top floor of the house, where a trap door to the attic was normally concealed in the ceiling. This hung open, and a steep wooden staircase made of plywood and two-by-fours was positioned underneath. Harry showed no trepidation about mounting this two risers at a time. Ron and Hermione followed a bit more gingerly, and found themselves in the old house's attic, which had been emptied but not well-cleaned: except for a streak Harry had seemingly tracked clean, the floor was still thick with dust and pocked with the strange outlines of antique furniture.
The shiny streak lead to a fantastic old oaken desk. On the desk sat a laptop computer. "Is that what you've been up to all this time?" Hermione asked warily.
Harry nodded and dropped into the squashy armchair at the desk. "Yeah, I went out and bought it right after the battle. Reckoned I had the money and time to use as I like, you know, and anyway I've always been sort of curious about what Dudley sees in these things..."
Ron was looking at the slim silver machine with the deeply suspicious expression that he usually reserved for escalators and sliding doors. "What, er, what's that do?" he asked, peering from an arm's length away.
"Well, I mainly use it to connect to the Internet," Harry said, keeping eyes glued to the screen as he tapped away at the touchpad. "Although Dudley used it to blow up aliens...imaginary aliens, Ron," he added, when Ron squeaked.
"How did you make it work?" Hermione asked. "I would've thought there was too much magic in the air around here."
"There is," Harry said. "It goes haywire if I take it to any other room in the house. And even up here it sometimes goes funny--just before you got here it restarted itself and demanded a memory upgrade and a biscuit."
"You laptop wanted a biscuit?"
"And then it called me names when I wouldn't give it either."
Hermione shook her head violently and tried to return the conversation to topic. "Harry. Is this why you've been hiding in here? You're playing on the Internet?"
"What's an innaninet?" Ron asked.
"No," Harry insisted, then shrugged. "Well, sort of."
"Define 'sort of.'"
Harry turned around in the armchair and beamed at them both for a second before blurting, "I'm in love."
"Yeah," Ron said after a moment. "With Ginny, remember?"
"No," Harry said, and at Ron's expression quickly added, "well, I was, and I still like her...look, I have to tell you the whole story." He turned back to the laptop and selected a site from the address bar. "When I set up the laptop I just started playing with it--looking up random shite, you know, just being stupid--and that's how I found her."
Hermione's heart plummeted. "You've started a relationship with a woman you met on the Internet?" she demanded.
Harry hesitated. "Well...it's not so much a relationship...I've been too nervous to comment on her blog, and I think the laptop goes through my email..."
"Mate, if you've never talked to her, how can you be in love?" Ron demanded.
Harry got a glassy, pop-eyed expression that rivaled Luna Lovegood's. "You don't understand," he said feverishly. "She's amazing, she's perfect...funny, beautiful, intelligent...she's a writer, you know, she's really very good..."
"What's she write about?" Ron asked.
Harry hesitated. "Um. Men buggering each other, mostly."
"What?"
"But that's not important," Harry said desperately, "the point is, she's everything I've ever wanted in a woman."
Hermione rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Harry. Do you know where this woman lives? Do you know what she looks like? People on the Internet can be anyone, you know."
"She's not like that!" he said. "Look, it's all over her blog...she lives in the States, in Boston, with...er..."
"With who, Harry?"
"Herhusbandandkid."
Ron's eyes bugged out. "You're perving on somebody's mum?"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Ron," Hermione snapped, but then rounded on Harry. "You're obsessing over a married woman? On another continent? Who doesn't know you exist?"
"See, I knew you'd be like this!" Harry snapped, leaping to his feet. "That's why I hadn't told you earlier! I knew you'd try to talk me out of it! Well, you can't! Because this is true love, Hermione, this was meant to be--I've loved her before I even met her--when I'm around a cauldron of Amortentia, what do you think I smell?"
He stabbed his finger at the computer screen. Hermione and Ron leaned forward to peer at the tiny page address.
www.livejournal.com/users/thetreacletart/
Hermione cleared her throat, very loudly, several times as she straightened up. "Well," she said. "Well. Um."
"I think you're mental, mate," Ron said earnestly.
Harry pouted and flopped down in the chair. "I knew you wouldn't understand."
"It's not that we don't understand," Hermione said, "it's just...well...this is all very sudden, and....and maybe you need to...I mean, maybe we need to--"
The laptop cut her off by beeping loudly, and the screen flashed blue. Harry began to swear loudly as a message appeared in white text: Error 29B. User is heartless bastard. I want a pony. Hermione quietly waved Ron over to her, behind Harry's chair, and conjured a cricket bat. She pressed this into Ron's hands. He blinked once, twice, at the bat and then at her, and his lit up when comprehension dawned.
"Harry?" Hermione said.
"Eh?" The screen now read Error. Error. I won't and you can't make me.
"We're really very sorry about this." She stepped out of the way as Ron raised the bat over his head.