Dumbledore, Please Explain Your Twisted Logic!

Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.

Chapter Five

Complaints From the Cast

"My four Founders?" It was Dumbledore, and his voice had the most annoying lilt to it. "Come here, please. Miss Patil and Miss Brown need to do your measurements."

As always, Dumbledore had impeccably horrible timing. Draco and Neville were on the verge of another fight, and having them stand side-by-side for measurements was a rather bad idea at the moment.

"You don't play Slytherin right!" Draco sneered at Neville as they stalked up to Lavender and Parvati, who stood glumly at the edge of the impromptu stage set up in the Great Hall. "You keep stumbling over your lines, and you get all my cues wrong. How the hell am I supposed to know when to speak if you can't memorize your part?"

"I--I--at least I'm not the one playing the man slut," Neville managed to shoot back. "All I can say is, uh, that you're doing a perfect job at playing the whore."

"I agree," Luna put in calmly. "Draco, you're fantastic in the role of Gryffindor. Keep it up."

"Now stand to be measured," Dumbledore said. The four actors hardly acknowledged the command, but they did as he said anyway.

"But you agree with me, too," Draco snarled at the blonde Ravenclaw. "You agree that Longbottom sucks a gangrene-infested arse at playing Slytherin."

"Not quite gangrene-infested," Luna said fairly. "But he's going to get better, aren't you Neville?"

From Dumbledore: "Miss Patil, Miss Brown, remember to take all the measurements necessary."

"I heard something about a gangrene-infested arse... sounds kinky!" This was Seamus, who skipped randomly into the conversation to muck it up with his icky pervertedness.

"Go away, Finnegan!" Draco shouted at him. "Me and Long-arse are having a private discussion!" He wriggled a little as Parvati slipped her tape measure around his chest.

"And me, too," Luna corrected him gently.

"Chest: 31 inches," Parvati read, making a note of the measurement on a neat little chart that Dumbledore had made for her.

"Pull it tighter," Dumbledore advised her.

Shaking her head, she did as he requested. "30.5 inches."

"Tighter."

"What the shit? She's squeezing me already!" Malfoy whined.

"30 inches, and that's as tight as I can get it," Parvati said, scratching out the original measurement with a sigh.

"That'll do. Now the waist. Miss Brown, start measuring Miss Lovegood."

"I'm getting 28 for the waist," Parvati put in.

"Tighter, my dear," Dumbledore sighed.

"35 inches for Luna's bust," Lavender announced.

"Tighter, Lav-lav," Luna instructed. Dumbledore beamed at her, and she beamed back.

"27 for Malfoy's waist, then," Parvati said. "And that's as tight as I can get it, too."

"Why so tight?" Draco wailed. "Just because Gryffindor's a slut doesn't mean he has to dress like one!"

"Don't be silly, everyone dressed like that back in those days," Dumbledore said. "What are you getting for Miss Lovegood's waist?"

"25."

"Good, good. And Master Malfoy's hips?"

"32 inches."

"Tighter, Miss Patil. How many times must I tell you?"

"Not fucking tighter!" Draco bitched. "I swear--this play is going to be torture!"

"I've got 34.5 for Luna's hips," Lavender announced.

"I'm a wee bit top-heavy, aren't I?" Luna said modestly. She peeked over at Lavender's chart and said, "Now for the ankle-to-knee."

"What, we've got to sit through that, too?" Draco put in.

"Yes," Luna said. "And the hip-to-top-of-the-foot, hip-to-neck, armpit-to-armpit across the back, shoulder-to-elbow, elbow-to-fingertip, around the head--"

"Is it really that much?" Parvati cried, snatching up her chart. "Holy sexing Merlin! Dumbledore, can't we, like, charm the tape measure and the quill?"

"No," Dumbledore said. "We're only doing that for the groin and buttock measurements."

There was a few moments of stunned silence as the words "groin and buttock" reverberated in the air around them. Then: "I hate you, Dumbledore." This was from Draco.

Dumbledore only chuckled. "Of course, my dear boy." He turned to Ron and started in surprise. "Mr. Weasley, where is your fat suit? We can't take any accurate measurements without your fat suit."

"Aw, Professor, can't Hufflepuff get by with less body fat?" Ron complained. "I hate wearing the body suit."

"But the fat suit includes the breasts," Dumbledore scolded him. "How do you expect to play a convincing woman without breasts?"

This was still a delicate subject for Ron, bordering on torture, and he went slightly green. "Uh... maybe she's an A-cup?" he said, hardly daring to trust a hope.

Dumbledore giggled, as if Ron had been telling a joke. "No, dear boy. Hufflepuff was a portly being--very much the earthy, motherly type with a pleasantly plump frame. I've already stretched her character enough by adding in that kissing scene with Slytherin."

Ron started and goggled at Dumbledore; so did Neville, and he also tripped over himself and nearly sprained his ankle.

"What kissing scene?" Ron said quickly, the panic clear in his trembling voice and wringing hands.

"Yeah, we don't have any kissing scene in our script," Neville added, clutching his leg.

"Sorry, I'll have to get you all new copies," Dumbledore apologized. "I wrote it last night. I felt that Act II needed a bit more material to it, so in it went."

"What--how could you--?" Ron spluttered. "Dumble--I--!" How could Dumbledore be doing this to him? He, Ronald Weasley, had worked seventeen long years on cultivating and maintaining his macho image, and in the course of one measly play production Dumbledore was intent on ruining it! Distress had never been so acute in his roiling stomach as it was now!

"Sorry, my dear?"

"I--motherf--I can't do that scene! I don't want to kiss Neville."

"What?" Neville said, hurt. "Are you implying--?"

"No offense, of course!" Ron lashed out at his timid roommate. "Jeez! Merlin's fucking beard! Stop being an oversensitive twat." He shut up after this and brooded all throughout the rest of his measuring ordeal.

It took another fifteen minutes for Lavender and Parvati to take the Founders' measurements. Then Dumbledore sent them into the backstage dressing rooms to take their groin and buttock measurements. Then he called over some other cast members.

"Remember what I told you about medieval fashion," Dumbledore reminded his two seamstresses. "For the males: the tighter, the better. For the females: tight around the bust, but let their dresses flow outward at the hips. Take the measurements accordingly." Then he went off to coach Seamus and Eloise through a scene that involved their two characters: the evil sorcerer Xaxis and his unfaithful wife Karina.

Parvati turned to Lavender, her sculpted eyebrows turned inward in fury, and seethed, "I could kill that bastard right now. Really, I could."

~~~~~

So... measurements, measurements, measurements. And at the same time Dumbledore kept up a rigorous schedule with the blocking of Act I. After the four stars stumbled out of the dressing rooms (Draco moaning about his squeezed testicles), Dumbledore put them through their paces with Scene 1. Neville and Draco spatted a bit more, reminding Dumbledore strongly of an old married couple. He pointed this out to the pair, and Draco gave him the finger with both hands.

"Ah, but no time to talk about that now," Dumbledore said quickly. "It looks like we have another few actors who have just finished being measured." He gestured to Susan, Edmund, Harry, and Loser, who were all gently massaging their mishandled privates. "Master Malfoy, Master Longbottom, Master Weasley, Miss Lovegood..." He addressed each in turn with a slight inclination of his head... "I must leave you now. If you would get to work on memorizing your lines for Act II, that would be fantastic."

"I've memorized all my lines already," Luna said, vaguely proud of herself.

"What a smart young lady you are," Dumbledore said, giving his favorite actress a special grin. "Perhaps you can help Harry with his lines, then."

"Gladly," Luna said, and it was obvious she meant it. By the way she was surveying Harry right now, one would assume he was a slab of tender rump roast instead of a disgruntled actor.

"Can you sue a tape measure for sexual abuse?" he complained as Luna took him by the arm.

"I don't know, dear, I've never tried," Luna said, steering him off towards a group of finished backdrops that leaned against the wall near the back corner of the stage, which was set up where the teachers' table normally stood. "Perhaps what we should do instead is to teach it to handle our genitals gently."

Harry blushed a fetching red. "Er, yeah... or maybe we should just, like, practice our lines..."

"That, too," Luna said. "Have you gotten to Act IV yet?" Their voices faded away as they left the crowd of actors and crewmembers in the center of the stage. Ginny, who was still getting measured by Lavender and Parvati, glared in her boyfriend's general direction and spat bitterly on the ground. A young house-elf popped into view and wiped up the glob of saliva before disappearing.

"Ah, our battle hero Olivier," Dumbledore addressed Loser fondly after the Founders had left. "Come, let's get started on your lines. You appear first in Act I, Scene 4--"

"--The bloody whorehouse scene," Susan interjected disgustedly.

"Yes, the Whorehouse Scene, if you must call it that," Dumbledore sighed. "Wait, you and Master Daramont are in it, too! I forgot for a moment--sorry about that. You know how it is: your roles are so small, only singing roles, so it slips my mind all too easily."

"Rub it in, why don't you," Edmund growled.

"Yes, well... I could use your help, anyway," Dumbledore told the irate couple. "Do the singing lines when they come up. Meanwhile, I'm going to give the cues for our renowned battle hero. Does that sound okay?"

However okay it sounded, it certainly didn't turn out as such. Taking the part of Gryffindor, Dumbledore gave Loser his first cue by crying out: "Why, list'! What banging shakes the double doors?"

At which Olivier was to burst into the brothel with:

"Lay down your swords of flesh, you cunt-fucked whores,

And join my army! Let us on to fight

The evil Xaxis and his fucking fiends.

Man-sluts, bitch-sluts: iron, not flesh, makes might!

So join my force--we'll turn the fucked aright!"

With a shaking voice, Loser managed to squeeze out: "Lay down your swords of flesh, you cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh..." He stopped and tried again, his voice shaking even worse than before. "L-lay down your swords of fuh-fuh-flesh, you... you... you... cuh-cuh-cuh... cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh... You cuh-cuh-cuh..." He began to blubber uncontrollably. "I can't do it, Pruh-Professor! I cuh-cuh-can't say those bad words! My muh-muh-muh-muh-mum would kill me!"

If there was one thing of which Loser was aware, it was that Susan and Edmund were sniggering into their fists and whispering about him behind Dumbledore's back. He heard the phrase "what a fucking loser" more than once, though it hurt the most when his beloved Susan said it. Her words were like an intense blow to the kidneys, a punishment for his incredible stupidity, and it pained him in the worst places of his intestines to know that it was all his fault.

"Forget about her," Dumbledore said patiently. "She'll forgive you. And if she doesn't, then she's a bigger bitch than she was back in her own school days."

Loser thought that perhaps he should protest Dumbledore calling his dear mum a bitch, but he didn't. Firstly, because he was too frightened to stand up to the headmaster, and secondly because his mum was a bitch. A scary bitch at that. "I know she won't f-forgive me, though," he whimpered. "Sh-she'll hate me and ground me and... and... oh, I don't know what she'll do!"

"Once more, forget about her," Dumbledore instructed him gently, "and say the line over again."

So Loser wiped his tears for half-a-minute before straightening his body the best he could. "Lay down your swords of flesh, you cuh..." Edmund pulled a blubbery face behind the headmaster's shoulder, then stuttered silently in a perfect imitation of Loser. Susan let out a shriek of laughter, which she quickly stifled behind her hand. "You cuh... cuh...cuh..." The two whorehouse extras sniggered at him, making him feel like crap. Why didn't Dumbledore get them to stop? "Cuh... cuh..." Why did he have to have a role with so many swear words? "Cuh... cuh... cuh..." Why the heck did he have to play the part of a battle hero when he wasn't in the least bit brave or awe-inspiring?? "I can't do this, Professor!" he wailed. "Please, please, puh-puh-lease don't make me be Olivier! I can't, I cuh-can't, I cuh-cuh-cuhn't!"

Dumbledore, Susan, and Edmund all fell rigidly silent. From behind them the background noises filtered about their little world--the stuttering of cast members who hadn't quite memorized their lines, the swearing of a stagehand who accidentally drove a nail into his hand instead of the backdrop, the moaning from another pair of actors who had fallen victim to the molesting tape measures--but they didn't hear it. They were too busy staring at Loser.

"What did he say?" Susan whispered, hushed and awed.

Loser looked up at her, hardly daring to hope that he read the tone in her voice correctly. Had he actually impressed her, or was he imagining it? "I said 'I can't'..."

"No, my dear boy," Dumbledore corrected him, "you clearly said: 'I cuhn't.' Do you realize how close you were to saying cunt?"

Loser shook his head, horrified that his tongue had made a slip like that. "Buh-but I'm not a potty mouth!"

"No, you're an actor," Dumbledore said.

"At least, he's pretending to be one," Susan sniggered. Whether or not she was impressed, she certainly wasn't pleased with him. Loser's heart thudded a bit lower at this depressing thought. Perhaps, he figured, if he swore again it'd impress her, and then maybe--maybe--she'd stop treating him like the puddle of shit he really was. Then--just perhaps!--he could win her heart and get her to leave Edmund for him. Of course, that relied on him having at least a pinch of bravery, and he didn't think that was anywhere to be found in his entire body.

"Try it again," Dumbledore asked of Loser, placing his hands gently on the timid actor's shoulders. "Say cunt."

"C-c-cuh..." Loser managed. "Cuh... cuh..."

"Cunt," Dumbledore said clearly and cleanly. "Cunt."

"Cuh."

"Cunt."

"Cuh. Cuh."

"Cunt."

"Cuh."

"Er, am I interrupting something here?" Parvati butted into the coaching session, making Loser flinched spasmodically where he stood.

"Patience, Miss Patil, I'm giving a lesson in pronunciation," Dumbledore said with a wave of his hand. So Parvati stood uncomfortably by his side as he continued to guide Loser through the intricate world of curse words. "Perhaps that word is too much to begin with. How about fuck? Can you say: 'Fuck'?"

"Fuh... fuh..."

"Fuck."

"Fuh."

"Or shit, even?"

"Sh. Sh. Sh-sh-sh-sh."

"Holy Merlin, do you even say damn?" Dumbledore exclaimed wonderingly. "What has that mother of yours done this time? Look, just try it, just once."

"Dh... Dah... Dumbledore, why d-do I hafta do this?! Please let me just qu-qu-quit!" And how he wanted to quit, more than anything in the world! Loser knew more than anyone else how much of a loser he really was, and he knew that he didn't have it in him to do anything that might anger his mum even the tiniest bit. Not to mention the fact that he had stage fright already, and he could barely get his mouth around one of his lines, let alone a couple hundred.

"Never, my dear boy," Dumbledore said shortly. "I chose you as Olivier for a reason, and I'm not going to back down now. You are going to play our battle hero, and you're going to play him to perfection. No excuses. Now just say one swear word. Say damn. Or hell. Or bloody Merlin, if you can't say anything else."

"Dh-dh-dh-dh. Bl-bl-bl. H-h-h-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh... hell." It was painful, it really was. For that moment and for many moments afterwards, all Loser could see was his mum yelling in his face for being a foul young boy. Then he tried not to imagine his mum pulling out the wooden paddle and slapping it across his bare rear end, as she still did even at his current age. Oh, how terrifying it was to say that one swear word, to go against Mum's cookie-cutter ideologies and ramrod-straight rules!

But that one word--"hell"--was also his first taste of freedom. It was the first time he willfully disobeyed his dear mum's rules, the very first time he had ever shown any sort of bravery in his pathetic life. It was his first chance to prove himself--to who, it wasn't clear, but he was actually becoming his own person! And he didn't even know it... not yet.

But more about that later. Let's get back to Dumbledore, who said with all seriousness: "Good job."

But Edmund butted in with: "Now say, 'I'm a fucking loser who sucks You-Know-Who's tiny prick.' "

Susan guffawed sycophantically and cried, "No, say: 'I like to lick my arsehole when I go to bed because I can't get my one-inch dick erect!' "

Loser covered his ears with his hands while at the same time trying to behind his elbows forward to cover his face. His tears returned anew, and he blushed in humiliation as his crush ridiculed him. Oh, why did love have to be so cruel? Why did he have an obsession over someone who hated him, someone who saw him as something lower than dirt? Why did he have to be such a pathetic loser when the world chewed up losers and spat them on the ground for the dogs? Why, cruel fate, why?

"That will do, Master Daramont and Miss Bones," Dumbledore said calmly. He turned to Loser and pulled a scroll of parchment from his robes. "Here I have a list of curses and vulgar words for you to practice. When we get back on Friday, I want you to say every single word to me twice without stuttering. Can you do that?"

"I... I don't--"

"Of course you can," Dumbledore interrupted him gently. "And you'll memorize all your lines for Act I. Otherwise I'll have to take off points again, like I did on Monday. But next time it won't be a mere ten points, so study hard."

Loser looked down at his list with horror. It stretched on forever, and it had every single swear word he'd ever heard, then twice as many more! Not only were the basics on there (like "shit" and "fuck" and "hell"), but there were also sections for vulgar anatomical terms (what the heck was "poontang?"), slurs (even the word "Mudblood"), sexual phrases (like "suck my arse" and "blow me"), and even some useful combos (who the heck had thought up "donkey-raping shit eater"?).

"Have fun," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. And Loser stumbled off, feeling downtrodden and abused by life. "Now what did you want, Parvati?"

Parvati blinked a couple times, as if expecting to wake from a surreal dream. It was only when she realized that the scene she had just witnessed was actually real that she began to talk. "We, uh, that is to say, Lavender and me--"

"--Lavender and I--" Dumbledore corrected her.

"Yeah... whatever. We finished the measurements."

"Wonderful," Dumbledore said. "Now you and Miss Brown can start making the costumes. Let's see, today is Wednesday, and we're blocking for Act I until Friday. That means Act II blocking starts Monday. Hmm, yes..."

"And that means...?" Parvati ventured.

"Can we go now, Professor?" Susan butted in impatiently. "We didn't even get to practice our dumb singing lines."

"Have all the Act I and Act II costumes ready not by this Friday, but the next," Dumbledore said, ignoring Susan's question. "Yes, that sounds reasonable."

Parvati gaped at him unflatteringly. She blinked a couple more times, as if hoping that she had been hallucinating when she heard Dumbledore's pronouncement "By... did you say next Friday? Professor Dumbledore, that's nine days from now! And we have... like, one hundred costumes to make!"

"A hundred and twenty-five," Dumbledore corrected her lightly. "You'll figure it out."

"Professor, please be more reasonable!" Parvati gasped hurriedly. "Please, please, please, we can't do it so soon!"

"Make sure that Edmund and Susan's costumes are extremely tight and revealing," Dumbledore added. "Make them look like real whores."

Susan and Edmund started in horror, hardly daring to believe that their headmaster said something like that. Susan's mouth flapped like a house-elf's ears, and Edmund's fists curled inward on themselves.

"You can't do that to us!" Susan cried weakly once she had gotten over the shock. "We don't deserve to be treated like that!"

"Come now, I'm just helping you get deeper into your role," Dumbledore said calmly. But inside he was grinning vengefully; after all, the way they treated Loser entitled them to every bit of humiliation they could get. "So be grateful and stop moaning. You should be practicing singing instead."

"Dumbledore--!" Parvati cried plaintively.

"Next Friday, Miss Patil," Dumbledore repeated. "You and Miss Brown stay after practice, and I'll do a bit of sketching with you." And he swept off to help with the backdrops.

The three abandoned students bristled with unbridled anger. Susan and Edmund left the Great Hall, deeply offended, and Parvati stalked over to Lavender.

"Something the matter?" Lavender asked as she arranged her measurement sheets in perfect order.

Parvati fumed, her nostrils flaring nearly as wide as McGonagall's. "You know how I said I could kill Dumbledore? Like, really?"

"Yeah," Lavender said. "Me, too."

"Yeah, only I didn't mean it," Parvati countered. "I really didn't mean it then. But I do now. Fucking Merlin, I do!"

**********

Susan considered it a chore to write home to her parents, and she normally waited until they wrote themselves before dredging out a few sentences in reply. That night, however, she went out of her way to pull out a sheet of parchment, fill up her inkbottle, and scribble down a lengthy diatribe.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I hope everything's fine back at home, because it certainly isn't fine here! Remember how I told you that Dumbledore is putting on the Founders Play at school, and that I tried out and got a part? Remember how excited I was? Remember my childhood dream to be an actress and perform onstage? Remember the hours I'd spend in front of the mirror in my princess costume, imagining myself as the regal, awe-inspiring Helga Hufflepuff? Draw up those childhood dreams until they fill your consciousness, then spend a full minute thinking about them before you continue with this letter...

Okay, now that you've spent a minute imagining that scene, let me continue. As I was saying, do you remember all those dreams? Well, Dumbledore has dashed them to the ground. Every single last one of them. I am not to play Hufflepuff. I am not to be a regal princess OR an actress. No, Dumbledore has chosen to make a laughingstock of me in front of the entire school. He has cast me as a [Here the words "dirty slut in a whorehouse scene" kept scribbling themselves out by magic, no matter how many times Susan rewrote them, causing her no end of frustration. Her hand shook with rage as she continued.]

Damn Darn that old coot! Darn him to freaking heck! Obviously there was more to that spell of his than he told us. What a supreme pus-head! We all signed some parchment during the auditions, and he put a spell on the paper so that we couldn't back out of the play once he finished casting it. And now I can't tell you which part he gave me! [At this point Susan dotted the exclamation mark so hard that it put a hole through the paper.] Suffice it to say that it is the worst part ever, and it's so embarrassing I think I'm going to be sick before I go up on that stage. To think that Ron Weasley, of ALL people, got the part of [scribble, scribble]... DARN it! I can't even write what parts the other students are playing?! What the hell heck does that spell of his include?

Mum and Dad, I expect you to do something about this. Sue the rotten bastard old man if you have to. Just GET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Susan

She added a few more exclamation marks onto the unnecessary string that followed her last sentence. It didn't look pretty. Not that she was going for pretty, anyway; she felt so rotten and so mad at the world that she wanted everything to look just as shitty as she felt. She grabbed her owl out of its cage--a bit roughly, too, because it gave an indignant squawk as she tied the letter to its leg. Once the note was secure, she threw it unceremoniously out the window and slammed it shut, then went off to find Edmund so that she could bitch and moan a bit more.

**********

Sore--that was the best way to describe the students that lounged around the Gryffindor common room that evening. Each one of them was as sore as a leprous mosquito slurping at a blood blister. Hermione had once again missed meeting with Professor Vector, and she was sucking her quill so hard that it was in danger of exploding in her mouth. Lavender and Parvati made a great show of moaning over a sewing machine and three enormous piles of cloth that drowned the three tables they had drawn together. Harry chewed tremendously on his thumb in one armchair while Ginny huffed in the seat next to him. They all looked extremely put out--in other words, sore.

Ron liked to think he was the sorest of the lot. Helga bleeding Hufflepuff and the makeup director--what macho man wouldn't be sore at such a double-whammy? Oh, he couldn't complain about it enough! There was nothing else in the whole Wizarding world or the next that could damage his reputation as much as this play. Why didn't Dumbledore force him into a lesser torment, like letting Charlie set a dragon on him or sleeping with Wormtail's rotting corpse? Wouldn't those keep his masculinity intact more so than a fat-suit and a panel of face paint?

"Get up, Harry," Ginny snapped, disturbing Ron's train of thought. The redhead looked over at his sister, who was now standing. "We're going for a walk."

"Don't feel like it," Harry mumbled, sinking deeper into his armchair. "It's cold, and I'm tired."

"Or maybe you're just too busy daydreaming about that Lovegood loony!" Ginny hissed at him. She tried to keep her voice low, but the whole room was eavesdropping attentively.

"Whatever," Harry replied in the same tone of voice.

Ginny leaned in until she was mere inches away from her boyfriend's dour face. "You're mine, you got that? Now get off your sorry arse and take me on a romantic moonlight stroll so we can snog or something!"

If he knows what's good for him, he's gonna get out of that armchair and go on that walk, Ron thought. Thankfully, Harry did know what was good for him, and he stood up (though with a bit of grumbling) and took Ginny in his arms.

"Come on, then, honey," Harry said, though his tone of voice more clearly meant: "Let's get this over with, you psycho-bitch."

They are going to break up, Ron told himself with conviction as he watched the couple leave the common room. They are SO going to break up! A few weeks, and they're history.

So how did this happen? I would've never guessed it before You-Know-Who's defeat. They were passionate lovers back then, always swearing eternal loyalty and all that soggy sentimental crap. They were the school's golden couple, the perfect paragon that all us boys and girls aspired to imitate. To think that for the longest time I felt like crap because I couldn't find a good girlfriend. In fact, it's their fault that me and Hermione tried to put together a boyfriend-girlfriend thing; thank Merlin we didn't ruin our friendship because of it!

Ron sunk deeper into the couch as he began to mentally process the situation. So they were all happy before Voldy's defeat, but afterwards they fell apart. It's like... all that urgency that fueled their passion just melted away when they realized they had nothing to worry about.

Good Merlin, was that all their love was based on--urgency? Yikes, what a relationship! Eh, but maybe I'm wrong; maybe there was some other strong feeling--yes, there must have been. Their lovey-dovey eyes couldn't have been created entirely out of fear for each others' lives ... Gosh, what a confusing matter...!

Sex!!--they rushed into sex! She was afraid that they'd never get the chance, and he wanted to "enjoy life to the fullest, or otherwise Voldemort would have already won." M'eh, well isn't ole You-Know-Who getting his last laugh from across the grave. He rushed them into sex, and now they're rushing the rest of the relationship to its destruction.

WAIT! Did I beat up Harry after I found out? Oh yes, now I remember--gave him a black eye and a bloody nose, too. Good. I didn't enjoy it, but it had to be done. Imagine if a macho man didn't beat up his sister's boyfriend after he debauched her! Oh, the shame he'd face!

Back to Harry and Ginny's relationship. So obviously they're going to break up, and I'll have to beat him up again. Now exactly how soon will it be? I have get back on my workout schedule at least two weeks before so that my punches pack the proper amount of wallop. Maybe I should run around the lake, too.

Hey, the lake... I've always wanted to skinny dip in the lake...

HOLD IT! Where the hell did that thought come from? Erase that, it's so not macho! Back to my workout schedule.

So I'm lazy, just like any macho man, so I can't start working out more than three weeks before the actual breakup, or otherwise I'll seem too obsessed about my body. It has to look like a casual exercise fling, something that I just can't bring myself to care about enough to continue it. But it needs to be set up properly so that my punches are delivered at the moment when my muscles are the biggest from exercising. After that, I have to drop the regime and act all cool about it.

Which brings me back to the question: When are Harry and Ginny going to break up? I predict it'll be in three to four weeks, because Luna's flirting is going to wear Harry down until he finally starts crushing on her, at which time he'll have some huge fight with Ginny and grab at the chance to let her down easy. Yes, that sounds--

TIME THE FUCK OUT!! Ron suddenly started panicking. What was he doing here, actually thinking about this? He was analyzing the fucking situation, for crying out loud, and what's more, he was understanding it! That was so unmacho it wasn't even funny! Macho men never understand anything--never ever ever! But here he was, going in-depth into Ginny and Harry's relationship and psychoanalyzing the entire thing and thereby predicting its future course. Holy Merlin, was there any way he could erase the last five minutes' thought from his mind and remain as oblivious to the situation as any proper macho man would?

"Ugh, I can't stand this!" Lavender wailed as she pounded her pile of measurements with her fist. "Nine days to make a hundred bleeding costumes--"

"--a hundred and twenty-five bleeding costumes--" Parvati corrected--

"--argh, and I can't even sew! How the fuck are we supposed to do this?"

"One costume at a time!" Hermione snapped over from her own table, which was blanketed in Arithmantic texts all written in ancient runes and weird, scribbly diagrams.

"And what's got your knickers in a knot, Granger?" Lavender shot at her. "You sure are sore--is it crotch rot?"

"Look, I've got work, too, you know," Hermione returned just as furiously. "It's not like the rest of us are lazing on our behinds as you slave away on those silly costumes. Believe it or not, but we've got problems of our own! So I'd appreciate it if you'd shut up and suffer in silence!"

Now, most men would have known that a cat-fight was brewing, but Ron decided that a macho man would have been oblivious, and that a macho man would also insert unhelpful comments. So he said: "Geez, you girls don't need to go mad over it. It's just a bit of work."

"Shut the hell up, Ronald!" Hermione shouted at him. "And go away--you're not doing us any good!"

Even a macho man should have taken this hint. But Ron decided, once again, to go for super-macho by saying: "I was just trying to help. You don't need to take it all personal."

"GET OUT!!" Lavender, Parvati, and Hermione all screamed in unison. They each knocked over a stack of their paper/books/fabric in their fury, and Ron decided that it was now time to bow out; he had taken the macho man far enough.

Oh, but could he take it further? He asked himself this question as he scampered up to his dormitory, meanwhile reflecting on how supremely confusing the whole matter was. Why did he have to think through all this machoism--shouldn't it come naturally, like it did for his brothers?

His brothers... gosh, if he didn't want to be overshadowed by them, he'd have to act doubly macho, so as to put them all to shame. But was all this effort even worth it? It ran him ragged, trying to keep up the mindset day in and day out, trying to avoid the gay and sticking to the manly. Oftentimes he fell into bed exhausted and ready to cry--in fact, he felt like letting go and crying now.

But of course he didn't, because that would be so not macho.

**********

Harry and Ginny meandered over to the Astronomy Tower and kissed. There's no better way to describe it--it was so unromantic and not at all interesting. Harry put in the obligatory grope, and Ginny fondled him gently through his jeans. He said half-heartedly that perhaps they should have sex, and she answered listlessly that perhaps the Astronomy Tower was much too public a place to do it, and that they should find a broom cupboard. So they found a broom cupboard. Harry took off his shirt and let Ginny squeeze his nipples. Then she took off her own shirt and removed her bra and allowed him to lick her breasts.

Oddly enough, the entire experience was utterly unarousing. Harry pointed out that the prefects enjoyed throwing open every broom cupboard in the castle in search of fornicating couples, and that perhaps the broom cupboard wasn't the best place for sex, either. Ginny put in, half-heartedly, that she didn't care and that they should have sex right then and there. This was Harry's cue to feel her a bit more before saying that yes, Ginny was right and that they should have sex. At which he put his hand against her bare stomach, right above her panties, at which she pulled it away and said, wait, she didn't feel like having sex just yet. So they snogged a bit more. Harry asked her if she would like to have sex now, and she said a little more kissing would be fine for her. They kissed a bit more before Ginny confessed, with more conviction than she had possessed in the last hour, that she actually didn't feel like having sex. Harry agreed wholeheartedly, though he made sure to add in a pinch of disappointment to flavor the end of their romantic charade.

Within minutes, Harry was in his dormitory with the curtains drawn tightly around his four-poster bed. He reached under his mattress and pulled out a crusty towel and a stained copy of Playwizard. Then, peeking around the room to make sure no one had entered it in the last thirty seconds, he laid the towel in his lap and opened the magazine to its centerfold.

It was odd that just minutes before he had been in a closet, half-naked, and entirely flaccid in the presence of a half-naked, flesh-and-blood female, when right now he was fully clothed and staring, completely aroused, at an inked page that depicted a carbon copy of a nude witch. Shouldn't Ginny have turned him on more and the paper-witch less? She'd be more than willing to put her wand in that position, just as the centerfold model was doing, but Harry would rather spend his time gazing at the model. Why was this?

Maybe it was because this unnamed witch was always grinning seductively at him. Ginny had had her seductive moments in the past, but now she was just as likely to scowl as smile during sex. She also complained a lot during the afterglow, which put quite a damper on his post-coital contentment. Maybe if they got some counseling they could work things out...?

What the heck, it was time to stop thinking about it! Harry found it so much easier to masturbate, anyway. So he did.

He moaned as quietly as he could, and he caught all the pumpage in the towel. Then he fell against his pillow with a sigh, at which he heard: "Are you done yet?"

Harry jumped a mile in the air. Within the flurried space of one second, he crammed the sticky towel and the magazine back under the mattress and crammed his sticky penis into his jeans. He pulled up his zipper (in his nervous state it sounded like an iron gate screeching shut) and cried out: "Wh-who is that?"

"It's me, Hermione." And she pulled back the curtains to reveal her big brown eyes and her bushy hairdo.

"What the--fucking Merlin, don't do that to me!" Harry cried, his face a brilliant red. "Can't a guy have some privacy once in a while?"

"There's no need to be ashamed about the occasional masturbation," Hermione said clinically as she pushed her way through the curtains. "It's an urge that everybody gets once they go through puberty. Wait, are these sheets clean?" she added hesitantly before she sat down.

"Yes," Harry said, blushing spectacularly. "I... uh, catch in it a towel."

Hermione did her best to stifle a giggle. "You're so funny sometimes, Harry, catching your semen in a towel like a fastidious little raccoon!"

"I resent that!" Harry said, offended. "I'm not like a raccoon. They don't even masturbate ... I don't think. Fuck it, why are we even talking about this? Why can't we talk about all the embarrassing stuff you do?"

"It's not embarrassing, Harry, how many times do I have to tell you?" Hermione told him gently. "I do it, too. I'll bet Ron does it, and Seamus and Dean. Even Neville."

Harry snorted. "Oh, I know Seamus does it. And you should take a look at some of the things that turn him on."

"Oh, I availed myself to a peek last time I came in here," Hermione said. "Let's just say that I'll never think of a Puffskein in the same way again..."

Harry started. "You nosed through his porn collection!" he gasped, shocked. "What else do you nose through?"

"Everything," Hermione confessed willingly. "It doesn't hurt to learn a bit more, does it?"

"It does when it's someone's jerk-off stash!" Harry countered.

"Speaking of which, what do you read?" She didn't wait for an answer, but dug gingerly under his mattress before she pulled out Harry's magazine. "Oooh, Playwizard! This is the best magazine ever!"

There was a deafening silence. It took Harry a good few seconds of gaping before he could recover himself enough to ask, "Uh, Hermione, is there something you should be telling me?"

"What? Oh no, no, no, no, no, I just read it for the articles," Hermione explained quickly.

Another silence. "...The articles?" Harry said at last.

"Yes, Harry, that's what you call the small writing in between the nude photos," Hermione said patiently.

"What?" Harry said, grabbing the magazine and staring at it. "I thought those were... I dunno... like sexy porn stories and stuff. The writing in Seamus's magazines is like: 'This hippogriff needs some lovin'!' and 'Imagine those centaur haunches around YOUR backside!' "

"Centaur haunches?" Hermione said skeptically. "I'll bet that photo's pieced together; no centaur would ever pose with a human, even if they weren't naked. But back to the articles--you've never read any of them?"

"Er..." Harry suddenly felt stupid, like he was still in primary school. But he always felt that way around Hermione, so he was used to it by now.

"They're really very fascinating!" Hermione said, her eyes glowing. "There was this neat piece on the endangerment of the Lethifold, then another about the mysterious death of Wendolyn the Weird. The short stories, too, are of the utmost quality. It's really a high-end porn magazine."

"I..." Harry felt even stupider.

Hermione laughed at his dumbfounded expression. "Just imagine how awkward this would be if we had any romantic feelings for each other."

Harry rubbed his eyes and sighed. "If you think it's any less awkward, Hermy, you're sadly mistaken. And I'd be careful with that magazine; it, uh, has some stains on it."

She looked down and saw that he spoke the truth. So she returned the magazine back to its position under the mattress and said, "I'll wash my hands, then."

"Why are you even up here?" Harry called out to her as she traipsed towards the bathroom.

"I thought you, as my best friend, needed counseling," she called back over the sound of the running tap.

Harry sighed and slumped even further into his pillow. "Yeah, it's not every day that Hogwarts' dream couple falls into such a state of... bored dissatisfaction."

"What?" The tap was very loud.

"I said," Harry said, raising his voice, "It's not every day that Hogwarts' dream couple falls into such a state of bored dissatisfaction!"

"Oh." The tap turned off, and Hermione entered the dormitory again. "Yeah, that. But forget about that; what I really wanted to talk about was you and Luna."

Harry gaped at her. "About... Luna, did you say? Don't you have, like, a huge Arithmancy project you're supposed to be working on right now?"

"That can wait," Hermione said, uncharacteristically. "You're more important."

"Oh... well... I'm touched, but, er, there isn't really anything between me and Luna."

"Luna and me," Hermione corrected his grammar. "And what do you mean by 'there isn't really'? Obviously it's something that wants to pretend that it's not something."

Harry shook his head to clear it. "What? That doesn't even make sense."

"Yes it does," Hermione said calmly. She plopped herself back down on Harry's bed and said, "Now tell me what you think about her."

"Er... she's, uh, Luna. And she's pretty cool, 'cause she's brave and knows how to fight and stuff. And she's pretty crazy, too."

"And she isn't boring," Hermione prompted him.

"No," Harry said, grinning a little, "that she most definitely is not."

Hermione smirked slightly and said slyly, "Are you in any boring relationships right now?"

"Merlin, Hermione, do you actually want me to keep going with Ginny or not?" Harry exclaimed, shocked at the sudden line of questioning. "I thought, when you said counseling, that you'd... like..."

"Try to make my friends happy?" Hermione finished for him.

"Yeah!"

She stifled a chuckle and stood up. "You think about what makes you happy, then," she said as she headed for the door. "I'll be back later to talk about it. Sweet dreams."

And she strolled out the door, leaving Harry in a daze of thought.

A/N: A note to all aspiring fanfic authors: don't submit to harrypotterfanfiction.com. They are very strict in their TOS, and they not only reject stuff like student/teacher romance and incest, but also mere mentions of rape, violence towards children, milder sexual terms, and anything that anyone could possibly be "offended" over. Not only that, but they send you rude rejections: and I mean RUDE. I managed to get the first two chapters of this story onto their database, but with Chapter 3, the validator told me to cut out ridiculous stuff like "everything pertaining to the play" and "the mention of dead baby jokes" and "the line that goes: 'that would be gay, not macho.' " They said I was "crass and disgusting" and "not welcome on our family-friendly site." My brother came over and looked at the epithets and said, "Don't edit the story down for them. It's not worth it." And he was right. The story only gets more graphic from there, and I'm not sorry for it one bit. The worst thing is, it's not the first rude rejection I got: when I submitted a G-rated one-shot they accused me of being a liar because I wrote in my author's notes that their site was strict. Thanks to my beta, Lisa725, for being a lot more open-minded!

A few extra disclaiming items. I don't own "donkey-raping shit eater"--that belongs to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, courtesy of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Best animated film ever! And one of my top three musicals, too. Also, I don't really own the joke about reading Playboy for the articles. I have no idea who actually owns it, though; I think it's been making its rounds about society for quite some time now. I learned it from my Mom, which would be the height of awkwardness if it wasn't me we were talking about. She didn't give any name to which I can connect this disclaimer, so just keep in mind that it isn't mine and I'm not making any money off it, etc. You know the deal.

For all those who love Ron: next chapter is especially for you. His character is always mistreated in fanon: he's twisted into someone who's either clueless, annoying, jealous, or just plain stupid. Or all four. And it's accepted as canon! Even great authors like Jeconais are guilty of this sin (though I do love him still)! I'm going more in the direction of Melindaleo and giving Ron the attention he deserves. I refuse to insult his intelligence as countless others have done before me.

Oh, and don't forget to review. Do it now, before you forget. ;)