Beware of the Fat Muggle In Love

---------------Beware of the fat Muggle in love part 8. "Who let the cat out of the bag?"--------------

"Get up, you git!"

"No way! I'm not showing my face in public after yesterday!!"

Harry was tugging at Ron's bed sheet, trying to get him to come with him and Neville down to breakfast.

"Well, you can't stay up here the rest of the year. You'll have to leave eventually and then they'll see your face..."

"..But I'm guessing they'll want to see more of you're other end!!" Neville cut in, laughing. Ron shot a look of death at him.

He let go of the bed sheet and sent Harry flying to the floor, hitting his elbow in that electric, nasty way.

"Don't you go and get all clever with me, Longbottom," Ron said and got out of his bed, completely forgetting that he'd spent the night in the buff. The other boys, however, noticed that right away. Ron was standing very close to Neville with a lecturing look on his face.

"You would have done the exact same thing if you were in my clothes, wouldn't you?!?" he said angrily.

"Erh, you might want to cover yourself," Neville said while looking down at Ron's pride, pointing.

Ron looked down, blushed and immediately shot off towards the bathroom, grabbing some clothes that were hanging on a chair next to his bed.

Neville felt strange.

When seeing Ron's pride, a weird sensation, that reminded him of getting a mild electric shock, had jolted through him

He'd felt...aroused? No! I didn't just think that!! he told himself, sharply.

"What did you want to talk about anyway?" Harry said while rubbing his elbow.

"What?" Neville asked, being a bit in lost thought.

"Yesterday, after the party, you said you wanted to talk to me? Ring a bell?" Harry said.

"Oh yeah!" Neville remembered now. He was going to ask Harry about his feelings for Hermione and see if it was even the slightest hint of romance between them as a favour for Ron.

"Well, it's more of a question, really," he said looking a bit nervous; scratching his neck even though it wasn't itching.

"About what?" Harry asked.

"It's about you and Hermione,"

"What about us?"

"Well, are you guys...like...together?" Harry's eyebrows rose very high on his forehead. Neville thought he looked like he was about to attack him or something.

Instead he laughed. Hard.

"Me and Hermione?!?! Are you serious?!" he asked after a few minutes of laughing.

"Well, yeah. You two kind of look like a couple and after yesterday....Well, you were getting looks from people," Neville said, being relieved at Harry's reaction. That meant they weren't an item and Ron would get a clear shot at Hermione.

"What do you mean 'after yesterday'? Who were giving us looks?" Harry frowned.

"With all of the dancing and laughing, and how she hugged you after seeing Hagrid bend over and all,"

Harry laughed again. He sat down on Ron's bed, holding his stomach.

"Oh my, I guess we succeeded a little too good," Harry said in a low voice to himself really, but Neville heard him.

"Succeeded? At what?" he asked. Harry looked mortified. He obviously wasn't supposed to say anything.

"Erh...Nothing," he tried to squirm out of it.

"Oh no you don't! Tell me, I'm you're friend, aren't I?" Neville almost shouted. Harry put his finger over his mouth to quiet him down. He looked toward the bathroom to make sure Ron was still in there. They could both hear the shower on. Harry waved his hand at Neville to come and sit next to him at the bed. Looking suspicious, Neville did.

"Promise you won't tell a soul?" Harry whispered. Neville nodded.

"Well, me and Hermione have each a secret and, to make a long story short, we found them out,"

"What are they?"

"Hermione is sneaking down to McGonagalls office every night to train in becoming an Animagus!"

Neville was really surprised and looked at Harry with his mouth open.

"You're shitting me?!?" he said. Harry shook his head.

"She's training into becoming a black panther," Harry continued.

"And my secret is that I've been sneaking out almost every night to the Astronomy Tower, and you know what that is famous for, don't you?"

"Snogging!!" Neville gasped and was now the most curious boy in Hogwarts. "Who is it, then?" he demanded Harry tell him.

"Well, it's more than one, actually,"

Neville gasped again.

"It seems you've earned that song Peeves sang in second year. 'Potter you Rotter'," Neville giggled.

Harry giggled too.

"So who is it then?"

"First it was just a certain black haired asian Ravenclaw," Harry said with a meaning look.

"Cho Chang!!" Neville exclaimed.

''Yep!" Harry smiled.

"And the other?" Neville was as anxious as an eight-year-old kid on Christmas morning.

"The second is a certain blond haired caucasian Hufflepuff,"

Neville couldn't pin that one as easy as he pinned Cho. It seemed that every other Hufflepuff was blond to him, most where white too.

Harry looked at him waitingly.

But then Ron walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

"Oh my! Don't we look sweet together," he said to them. Neville immediately rose from the bed and flushed at Ron's implication.

Harry, however, stayed on the bed as if he wasn't a bit bothered.

"And on my bed and all, really!" Ron continued and laughed.

Neville suddenly got the same electric feeling again when Ron dropped the towel and quickly showed himself again while he slid into a pair of black silk boxers.

What the hell was this? he asked himself. Why am I feeling almost like I'd like to bone him?

But it's just when he's nude. I couldn't care less when he's even slightly dressed as he is now. Weird.

They walked downstairs and joined Hermione and Ginny and and had breakfast.

There was nothing but happy thoughts running through his mind as Dudley skipped up the stairs towards the Great Hall together with Malfoy, who was looking at him a bit embarrassed.

"You know, you could always act like you did NOT get laid last night," he drawled.

Dudley stopped jumping around and looked like he had no idea what he was talking about.

"Does it really show that much?"

"It would be less obvious if you started screaming it out loud, really," Malfoy said as he pulled out a rectangular box out of his side pocket.

"What's that?" Dudley asked curiously.

"These are smokes. Do you want one?" Malfoy said as he offered him a cigarette. Dudley was a bit unsure about it. If a teacher or his parents or even Harry would find out he'd been smoking, he'd be killed.

"I don't know, really," he said.

"Oh come on! You deserve one after your adventure yesterday,"

"Yeah but if anyone would..."

"Don't be such a wimp! Now come on," Malfoy cut in and shoved a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with his wand. Dudley started coughing immediately, trying to give it back to Malfoy but not succeeding.

"That's a bit better! You'll get the hang of it in no time," Malfoy said and slapped Dudley's back, which didn't make the smoking easier, to say the least.

They put out the cigarettes just before entering the Great Hall and Dudley caught Neville's eye and smiled at him in the same erotic way as he'd done the previous evening.

Neville had no idea why Dudley did this but as he earlier in the year would have put his tongue out or do anything else to insult Dudley, this time he did nothing.

He felt the same electric feeling as when he'd seen Ron's thingy again. And for a short second he thought that Dudley looked an awful lot like a certain blond, sexy girl.

He tried to put it out of his mind and continue his meal.

But he wasn't quite successful in doing so.

The first class of the day was Potions with the Gryffindors down in the dungeons.

Both the Gryffindors and the Slytherins were sitting impatiently, waiting for Snape who was unusually late.

Malfoy tried to have a conversation with Dudley about what the best way to steal candy from first year Hufflepuffs was.

He couldn't be more unsuccessful as Dudley kept eyeing Neville from top to bottom; he was sitting with his robes opened in the front and leaned over talking to Hermione and Padma Patil, who looked a bit taken with Neville.

Dudley did not like the way she was faking laughter at his, probably not so funny, jokes.

"Are you in there or has a Hobgoblin taken over your mind, leaving you an empty husk?" Dudley snapped out of his googling.

"Huh? What?" Malfoy looked very put off.

"Thanks for noticing me. Now can't you get your mind off Longbottom for a minute?"

"I wasn't thinking of him. My mind was somewhere completely different," Dudley lied.

"Yeah, In the gutter, that's where," Malfoy smiled. He looked over at Neville and back at Dudley, who yet again was looking at Neville.

"Oh for fucks sake!" Malfoy sighed and turned towards Neville.

"Oi! Longbottom!" he shouted. Dudley's face turned into one of complete horror.

Neville turned around looking at Malfoy as if he'd had an incurable and particularly nasty disease.

"What?" he asked as surly as he could.

"I just wanted to know if you have a thing for guys, really?" Everyone's jaws dropped.

Neville's ears turned bright red. Two days ago he'd answered 'No' without even blinking, but now something stopped him from answering Malfoy's question.

He just turned around and tried to ignore him and everyone else's looks of curiosity.

Shit, he thought, I should have answered. Now everyone thinks he's right.

Even Hermione was looking at him funny, not to mention Ron; Harry didn't seem to mind or even be surprised. Instead he gave Neville a smile and turned around.

What the hell did that mean? Neville thought to himself.

Dudley was almost just as red as Neville's ears.

"Why the hell did you do that?" he whispered to Malfoy.

"Well, now we know he's running in the wrong direction, don't we?"

"You forget that he shagged me in my female form and he was more than anxious to do it," Dudley reminded him.

"But he was a virgin then, and we all know that teenage virgin boys will jump anything to get some, don't we?" Malfoy drawled.

"You're generalising! You can't be sure that's why he did it with my female shape, can you?"

"That silence says it all! Anyone who wasn't would say 'sod off' immediately. He didn't. That means he must have been thinking about whether he fancied guys or not, and if you have to think about it that makes a very strong case in favour of being a flaming queer, doesn't it?"

Dudley couldn't argue. It was a good point.

He smiled widely.

Then the dungeon door suddenly flew open and Snape came rushing in looking very strange. He almost looked scared, Neville noticed.

Hermione also noticed and started to write something down, giving Snape observing looks now and then.

"Keep your bacon to yourself, Weasley! Unless you want it stuffed someplace dark and hairy!!"

Malfoy was steaming mad when Ron had levitated a third piece of bacon, hitting Malfoy square between the eyes, leaving big grease stains in his forehead.

"No no no! With your skinny body you need all the fat you can get or you'll be mistaken for a white Ethiopian in the future!!" Only Hermione and Dean Thomas laughed at Harry's joke, as the others didn't even know what an Ethiopian was.

They all looked at the three laughing Gryffindors like question marks. Harry just waved with his hand as if to say 'Never mind'.

"I am not starving!!!" Dudley had explained to Malfoy what Harry had said to him.

"Then you must be the most successful case of anorexia since time began!" Ron shouted back at him.

"Shut up you poverty-stricken piece of crap!!!!" Malfoy screamed at the top of his voice.

This was the only part of the 'conversation' that McGonagall heard when she entered the Great Hall.

"Draco Malfoy! You have been told time and again not to bully other students! That will be twenty points from Slytherin and detention. You will report to my office after your classes today. Is that understood?"

Malfoy gaped and pointed to the Gryffindors but had a great loss for words. He sighed and nodded.

Later that evening, Neville caught Ron alone in the dormitory reading one of Dean Thomas's Muggle nudey-magasines.

"Oh, so this is what you do in your free time?" Ron immediately tossed the magazine under his bed and tried to look innocent. It didn't work as his ears where flashing red.

"Whu..What do you mean?" he stuttered.

"It's ok. I've had a look in those myself," Neville smiled and sat on the bed.

"I've talked to Harry," he said. Ron's eyebrows shot up very high.

"You have? What did he say? Are they together?" he asked in one breath.

"They are not together. You have a green light," Neville said.

"But what about the Halloween party? Did you ask him about that?"

"Yes, and they were only..." Neville remembered the reason why Harry and Hermione had put on this act and he actually hadn't really understood why. And he'd told Harry to keep it a secret. How was he supposed to tell Ron the truth now?

"What?"

"They're not a couple. Harry said it was just dancing, nothing more," Neville eluded.

Ron smiled and sank back onto his back in his bed in joy.

"So. Are you going to ask Hermione out to the next Hogsmeade trip?" Neville asked.

"Yeah! I'll ask her tomorrow at breakfast,"

Ron suddenly looked down and seemed lost in thought. Then he looked Neville in the eye, looking very serious.

"Can I ask you a question, Neville? A personal one?" Neville nodded.

"Is what Malfoy asked you in the dungeons this morning true?"

Neville was completely surprised by the question and had no idea what to answer. He'd hardly had any time to think about it himself.

"I..I..I don't know" he stuttered. Now it was Ron's turn to look surprised. He hadn't really thought it would be true but now...

"You don't know?" he asked.

"No. I think I'm straight, but lately I've had this feeling," Neville said and lowered his head.

"A feeling? Explain," Ron said curiously and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands at his cheeks.

"Well. Yesterday I had sex for the very first time, as you know. But even though that was a very successful turn on for my part, I still got that weird feeling this morning when..." He stopped. If he knew Ron as well as he thought he did, he knew that the following words could mean a premature death for Neville's part.

"What? What about this morning?" Ron asked even more curiously.

"When You jumped at me in the buff and I saw your...manhood," Neville said the words very low, trying in vain to soften the impact they would have on Ron.

Ron sat up straight looking a bit uncomfortable.

"Oh." he said simply.

"But it's just when I saw your thing! When you've got even a pair of boxers on, I couldn't be the least interested!" Neville explained.

Ron looked surprised yet again but then he started thinking.

"So...You got off without a problem when you boned that chick yesterday, but...when you see a guys...thing, you get a bit aroused?" Ron asked as if he was on to something.

"Yeah! I guess that's one way to put it. So what are you saying?"

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious, really" Ron exclaimed.

"You're bisexual!! You have to be!" he continued.

The more he thought about it the more Neville felt completely comfortable with this answer to the question that had plagued him all day.

But he still wasn't sure whether or not it was true; he had felt like this only one single day in his life and he'd just lost his virginity so there was absolutely no way of knowing at this particular time.

"Ooh, do you think this means that you have one of those 'gaydars' too?" Ron asked.

"What?" Neville said with his brow furrowed.

"You know. It's like a sixth sense that gays and bis have that helps them spot another queer when out in public!"

"I...I don't know. I haven't really tried to find out about other gay people,"

"Try to spot if Malfoy is one tomorrow during Care of magical creatures, will you?" Ron was positively jumping about in his bed from anticipation and reminded Neville of a snickering little girl who was talking to her friend about her most recent crush.

"Erh...I'll see if it works," was all Neville could say.

They played Exploding Snap and talked for about an hour before Harry came in followed by Seamus, Dean and Lee.

They went to bed and soon Neville found himself thinking about who the hell that blond girl was and whether or not he really cared about her. He wondered who that other girl Harry was snogging might be. Will Ron start dating Hermione? He thought about the gaydar, about the possibilities of any gay relationships in school. Then he thought of the only other gay person he knew; Dudley.

He knew that was one guy that was in love with him for sure. Is he really that bad? he thought to himself. And to his surprise, his brain didn't answer with a long list of flaws.

That scared Neville a bit.

---------To be continued in chapter 9. "The two Animaguses"-----------