Excessive Use of Elbows

Sunday

Ron Weasley winced and tried to look up at the ceiling through his left eye, as his right was nearly swollen shut. The light streaming in through the window was like a brick wrapped in tinfoil, slamming down on his forehead in a rhythm that syncopated with his heartbeat.

It's too bright.

Draco Malfoy may have been a skinny, beardless little git in too-expensive robes, but he packed a very mean right hook, something that Ron had learned (to his extreme discomfort) the evening before. The rafters above him slowly started to resolve themselves into their correct configurations in his blurry vision. Part of the pounding in his head, he realized, was due to Draco's surprising strength. The other part of it was simply a big growling bulldog of a hangover, huge slobbery jaws worrying at the vulnerable meat of his brain without pause or pity.

As he shifted painfully, a protruding spring stuck into his back- the threadbare sofa wasn't quite hard and lumpy, but neither was it really cushioned enough. Years of heavy bottoms resting on it had worn it a little flat, and the cushion covers had a permanent, faded wooly nap on them. Outside the little cottage, a wren sang joyously in counterpoint to his pained groan as he hooked an arm over the sofa back and sat up, head reeling. It was a perfect morning, making it all the more miserable for someone so hung over.

After the seasick-feeling sensation between his brainpan and his belly had settled, he looked around the slightly cluttered but clean living room. Somehow he wasn't surprised to find out that Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were really rather good housekeepers. The cottage was, in any case, much cleaner than the pigsty that he called home, where long-empty butterbeer bottles kept company with discarded takeout cartons and old, yellowing Daily Prophets.

The wren outside was still singing its infuriatingly cheerful song. Ron was of a mind to point his wand out the window in its general direction and lob an Impedimentia curse at the carefully trimmed hawthorn bush outside where it was no doubt lurking, but he wasn't sure if he could muster the energy to do so. Not to mention that Sirius probably wouldn't appreciate having his well-tended shrubbery being hexed into shreds and Ron had no interest in angering someone who could take the form of a huge black dog. The idea of annoying a werewolf didn't appeal to Ron either, and one of them had to be responsible for the gardening chores.

"You're finally up. How do you feel?" A far cry from the half-starved fugitive he had been when Ron had first met him eight or nine years ago, Sirius Black's tall, rangy frame seemed somewhat hemmed-in as he stood leaning against the doorframe between the small kitchen and the living room. He was wiping his hands on the gingham-edged white apron he was wearing over his sensible grey robes. The smell of oatmeal porridge, sausages, and fried tomatoes wafted in his wake.

"Like m'skull's full of Billywigs," Ron managed weakly, letting his head sink back on the sofa back. He was starting to feel sick again, but his stomach felt much too empty for it to be more than just nausea.

Sirius must have seen Ron start to retch, because he vanished back into the kitchen with alacrity, only to return with a tall glass of what looked like tomato juice.

"Drink this. Remus is going to have my hide for a trophy rug if you throw up on the floor again."

"Wossat?" Ron asked, wrinkling his nose as he caught a whiff of alcohol beneath the salty tang of the juice. His innards churned uneasily and he could feel a cold sweat pricking up on his face.

"The only cure for a hangover there is," A large, sinewy hand pushed the cold glass insistently below his nose as he felt the room start to spin around him.

"A Bloody Mary? But I don't want to drink any more," he groaned in reply. The glass was still pressed against his stubble-covered chin, which was now damp with cold beads of condensation and nausea-sweat.

"Hair of the dog that bit you, Ron. Drink it."

Unable to protest further, he reached up and clamped his cold, shaking fingers around the wet glass before gulping half of it down convulsively in one swallow. The Bloody Mary was unnaturally spicy over the salt and sour, and the vodka in it brought tears to his eyes as it burned its way down his gullet. With another swallow, he drained the glass and managed to identify the spicy flavor in the drink.

"You put Tabasco sauce in it?" Ron protested with a grimace as Sirius let go of the glass and wiped his hands on the apron again. There was a fresh grease burn on the back of his hand, Ron saw, his vision oddly bright. He felt the warm burn in his stomach raise goose pimples on the rest of his skin, but he was feeling oddly better. Even the muted pounding in his head receded somewhat.

"Does you a world of good. Go get cleaned up. Toothbrush's on the sink. I'll go keep your breakfast warm for you." Sirius retreated into the kitchen, leaving Ron to stagger to the small bathroom barefoot, in a faded dressing gown. He dimly recalled having had his office robes chivvied off him before he had been unceremoniously deposited on the sofa somewhere in that hazy zone between very late night and painfully early morning.

The tiny bathroom was clean but threadbare, like much else of the cottage. It was mostly flagstone and sensible white porcelain, and the old claw-footed bathtub had been a relic of the cottage's original construction centuries ago. It smelled of cool dampness, and faintly beneath that, of equal parts of lavender and rust.

Ron stared into the slightly water-spotted mirror, surveying Draco's handiwork. He looked terrible. The Bloody Mary had brought some faint colour back to his cheeks, but his skin was still pasty and grayish in contrast to the ginger stubble he'd have to scrape off soon. The black eye he had gotten was a ripe eggplant purple, and his visible eye was entirely bloodshot. At least someone had fixed his teeth- he remembered them being loose enough for him to shake with his tongue the night before. No doubt he had given as good as he had gotten- he distinctly remembered Malfoy spitting teeth somewhere in the fight, but he couldn't really remember coherently in the wake of his hangover.

He brushed his teeth while staring blearily at his own reflection. The toothpaste was cinnamon-flavoured, and it reminded him of just how ravenously hungry he was now that the worst of his nausea had departed. After depositing the rest of his clothing in an empty laundry hamper and hanging the dressing gown on one of the unoccupied towel hooks, he stepped into the tub and turned one of the taps. A thin stream of cold, faintly rusty smelling water splashed from the old-fashioned shower fixture onto his head, flattening his hair against his scalp.

"Sirius," Ron managed to bellow through chattering teeth after the first few moments of shock, "why's the damned water so cold?"

"Your fault for waking up so late," came the answer, stretched thin through a few walls, "we used most of the hot water up before you woke. Warm it up yourself if you want." The thought was small comfort. Caught between apathy and exhaustion, Ron decided not to bother.

Feeling infinitely cleaner after the coldest shower of his life, and just a little bit better, Ron emerged from the bathroom into the tempting warmth of the kitchen.

"The colour's coming back to your face, at least- you looked like a panda just now. All pasty white and those dark shiners around your eyes." Sirius was stirring a nearly empty pot of porridge with a ladle and the air smelled appetisingly of fried bacon.

"Why didn't Remus just patch those up, then? Is he that angry with me throwing up on him?" Ron sat down on a wobbly stool at the table. They must have eaten earlier as there was only one place set - for him.

"You probably don't remember it through all that drink, but you had two cracked ribs when I hauled you in. I told him not to finish it up, though." Sirius said in his usual gruff way as he ladled a large bowl full of hot porridge and placed it on the table. He then sat down in his own chair, which creaked perilously under his weight as he shifted to untie his apron strings.

"Why?" Ron poked glumly at a slice of fried tomato, before reaching for the salt-shaker. Shaped like a roughly carved owl, it looked as though it had been whittled by hand from a small piece of wood.

"Because you'll remember how stupidly you were behaving last night every time you look into a mirror for the next week or so. Consider it a free lesson." Sirius reached out with a long arm and snagged a rasher of bacon from a plate as he said it. Gnawing thoughtfully, he grinned doglike at Ron. "Don't worry. Hermione'll still find you as pretty as you were before just as soon as the bruises Malfoy gave you go away."

Ron bit back a retort as he started in on breakfast. His headache had started to come back, and it felt as though his brains had turned to sloshing Bubotuber pus.

"You'd think with all those wizards who get hangovers, someone could have figured out how to fix those with a potion," he managed through a mouthful of sausage, making good headway through the contents of his plate.

Sirius rose from his chair to wash the dishes. The porridge pot clanked heavily as he placed it in the sink. With a word and a gesture with his wand, he filled it with soapy water and the scrubbing brush started to work on its own. "You're not the only one who wishes there was a proper cure. There is a preventative for hangovers, though," he mused thoughtfully over the swish of the scrubbing in the sink. At that, Ron lifted his head blearily to look.

"Don't drink." Sirius continued as he crossed the clean-swept brick floor to one of the windows. The cheeky grin in that statement was almost audible, but all Ron could see of Sirius from his vantage point was the back and shoulders of his grey robes shrouded in thick black hair.

"I don't think I ever want to again." Ron could see that Sirius was watering something growing on the windowsill with a watering can the size of a teacup. It looked ridiculously tiny in his broad-palmed hand and contained a lot more water than something its size should have.

"Hm. Hard to make good on that promise - Oh yes. Before I forget. Harry sent you a note. You were still passed out on the sofa when Hedwig arrived." He slid a folded piece of parchment across the table to Ron, who put his knife down to unfold it. Speared on the fork he held in his other hand was a half-eaten slice of tomato.

Ron, the note read in Harry's now characteristic rushed scrawl, terribly sorry I left you in the lurch like that - but I saw Rita Skeeter coming in the door and I just can't deal with my face on the front page of the Prophet again. It's bad enough that the harridan's attributing torrid liaisons to me with anything female and eligible, if I'd bailed you out the headline'd read something like "Potter And Weasley Secret Gay Lovers" or something like that and it'd be hell on the Cannons' PR team. They're already overworked as is.

Anyway, I've to go. Quidditch practice in five and I've yet to Apparate to the field.

- Harry

PS: Send my regards to Sirius- tell him I'll try to repay the favor he did getting you out of there when I've time.

PPS: You really clocked Malfoy one last night, didn't you?

There was a large inkblot on the bottom of the page, and the words were a little smudged, smeared, no doubt, by not having had enough time to dry. If Harry was having practice on Sundays, it meant that the Chudley Cannons' coach must have been gearing up in honest for the next league match. It wasn't a surprise. Selection trials for England's Quidditch World Cup squad had begun in earnest, and Harry was tipped to be picked as Seeker for the national team. It then occurred to him that it was a good thing today was a Sunday- he would at this point have been about three hours late to work had this been a workday. He held a very junior clerical position at Gringotts Wizarding Bank- what people called a parchment-pushing job. It wasn't too bad a post, if a little boring, and at least it was a reliable source of Galleons for his Gringotts vault.

Ron stirred the last of his thickening porridge around absently. Sirius had been a little liberal with the treacle spoon and it was a touch too sweet even for him. He wasn't sure if his stomach could take any more, and he'd done more than his fair share of vomiting about five or six hours ago. Shoving his bowl away for the moment, he popped the other half of the now-cold tomato slice in his mouth and chewed glumly. The scrubbing sounds in the sink had stopped, and were now being followed by the dry brushing sound of the metal being properly dried with a large dishcloth. He just was reaching for the lukewarm mug of black tea on the table when the small cowbell attached to the back door of the cottage rang out clearly as the door swung open.

No doubt Remus had returned from whatever excursion had called him out earlier this morning. Ron couldn't really comprehend waking up that early, but then he was very hung over at the moment. He turned his head sharply to look and stopped midway through the movement - moving his head too fast apparently made the jelly his brains had congealed into slam hard against his skull, and that hurt.

"Sirius?" Unexpectedly, it was a clear female voice and in recognizing it Ron felt unexpected heat rush up his neck to camp at his ears. Hermione had arrived.

"Morning. Here to collect our favorite punch-drunk fighter?" He caught sight of Sirius holding the door open as she came into the kitchen and froze in the doorway. The headache started its low throbbing again.

"Goodness," she said, blinking once before clacking across the floor in her sensible low-heeled black shoes, "Draco really did hit you hard, didn't he." It was a statement, not a question.

"I've got to trim the hedge outside- Take care of Ron for me." Sirius gave him a quick, conspiratorial wink while Hermione's back was turned, before he headed out onto the flagstone path with his wand in hand, shutting the cottage door behind him.

"Gave as good as I got," Ron said, in the quiet wake of the door slamming shut. He looked up at the white expanse of Hermione's neck and chin as she tipped his face up to examine the bruises, fingertips cool against his brow and chin. A hank of brown hair escaped the careless ponytail she had pulled it into, falling against her left cheek, and her mouth pursed the way it did when she was feeling thoughtful.

"I suppose you did," her voice came, chiding in a familiar tone, "What on earth were you thinking getting into a fight with him in a pub?" The collar of her Muggle-made men's shirt was unbuttoned low enough to give Ron a fairly good view of more than just her neck, the way she was leaning- and then it came to him numbly, through the hangover, that he was staring.

"That slimy brat. The things he was saying about my mum'n dad and you-" Ron stopped gracelessly in mid-sentence, realizing his blunder and biting off what he had wanted to say next. Letting go of his head in that moment, Hermione's expression was faintly sad as she commandeered Sirius' chair and sat, tugging at the hem of her skirt so it wouldn't wrinkle.

"What Draco says doesn't matter, Ron. You don't have to defend my honour." He could feel his hangover headache admitting defeat to the embarrassment he felt then, and it started to retreat to the base of his skull.

"But I do," he pressed on stubbornly with a faint sensation of falling. "And I want to, because-"

"Because?" She tilted her head a little like a curious bird would and pressed on. "Ron, you're turning the colour of a tomato."

"Because- you're you." Sometimes, he wished he were more eloquent- the words never seemed to come out his mouth the way he'd tried to say them. "Herm, even if I could have done it differently, I'd fight Malfoy. Again." The words came out in a giddy rush against the heat he felt in his cheeks and ears. In the beat of silence that followed his half-earnest, half-blundered statement, he could hear the dry rattle of small twigs hitting the ground outside where Sirius was presumably trimming the hedgerow.

Hermione had started to open her mouth to answer when the door swung open with a faint squeak and a tinny clatter from the cowbell. There was also some loud barking outside that tapered off to an excitable whine, apparently from the white setter mix that stuck its floppy-eared, finely fringed head in the door. Ron could hear the sound of its tail thumping against the door as it wagged, and the dog's pink tongue hung out of the side of its mouth, giving it a goofy expression. Remus Lupin stuck a lean shoulder and a grey-flecked head in the door next, his perpetually weary face breaking into a slow smile as his intent gaze scanned the kitchen before settling on Ron and Hermione at the table. They noticed that the hem of his patched, shabby robe was wet with dew and his boots were appallingly muddy as he tramped into the little kitchen with the setter dog beside him bounding up to Hermione and pressing its cold nose against her leg, tail still wagging. Oddly enough for a dog of its breed, it seemed to be pure white, without any markings.

"Good morning, Remus." Hermione smiled up even as the setter licked her outstretched hand- it seemed as though it had the personality of a small yappy dog in the body of a normally sedate medium-size one.

"Good morning, Hermione- I may have something that you might be interested in- don't mind Carlo, he's just excitable around visitors," Switching his attention briefly, he opened the catches on the battered briefcase he had placed on the small table and pulled out a small pickle jar that seemed to be covered in lacy patterns of frost.

"Feeling better now, Ron? I'd expected you to look worse considering the kind of hangover you should be having." Ron remembered that briefcase well, having seen it once or twice as a student at Hogwarts.

"Sirius forced one of his remedies down my throat. I think it worked. I dunno for sure, though." His brain felt gingerly around his cranium for the hangover headache, which was mostly gone now.

"A Bloody Mary, I suppose. Did he put Tabasco sauce in it, too?" Lupin gazed down his razor-keen nose knowingly, no doubt having had cause to try the alleged "cure", too.

"What's inside it? I can't quite see through the frost." Hermione had stood up after giving Carlo a brief scratch behind the ears, and had started to examine the jar carefully.

"Ashwinder eggs. I'd taken Carlo to the farm next to the apple orchard- they've been having problems with a Nogtail." Remus was wearing a knitted jumper and a white shirt under his robes, which were so well-worn and faded they seemed to have grown onto him- the cuffs of his shirt appeared so threadbare that they were being held together by little more than starch. Distantly Ron wondered if Remus was falling ill again- it wasn't nearly cold enough to require being dressed this warmly.

"Aren't Nogtails scared of white dogs, Remus?" Ron asked as he patted the dog on its head. He'd remembered hearing complaints about those Dark Creatures once in a while. Carlo had curled up at Ron's feet like a furry white rug with dark, lustrous eyes. On closer examination, even his whiskers were proved to be white

"Correct- if a pure white dog drives a Nogtail off the farm, it can never return to curse the place again. Hopefully this'll sort the problem out- I've been missing their apples at the market." He had handed the small jar to Hermione, and leaned down to remove his boots so as not to track mud all over the floor. His bare feet were long and knobbly-toed, looking ridiculously pale against the ruddy brick floor.

"But- how'd you get Ashwinder eggs at the farm? Aren't they supposed to be rare potion ingredients?" Hermione had unscrewed the top of the frost-encrusted jar. A puff of cold steam spilled out into the warm air as she looked at the jar's contents. Inside were several small mottled eggs the size of large olives, surrounded by large crystals of ice. They looked like dead embers now they were frozen.

"After Carlo drove the Nogtail out, we did a final check to make sure it was off the land for good. I found these in a patch of smouldering straw, in a corner of a disused henhouse- smelled the smoke from the flames." Standing in the doorway with his back to them both, Remus had taken his wand and cast a Scouring Charm on the boots held well away from the small rush-woven welcome mat. The mud dried instantly and flaked off with a good, sharp shake. "The henhouse would have burned down if the heat had dried the wood and straw in it, I think. I showed them to Old Man Gribble, but he told me to keep them as a finders' fee." He had come back in and shut his briefcase up again, setting it aside on the floor before sitting down at the table.

"What're you going to do with them, then?" Ron stretched his long legs out comfortably as Carlo crossed the floor to curl up at Remus' bare feet, jaws opened wide in a long yawn before he set his head down on his front paws. He wasn't sure why, but there was a distinct resemblance between dog and owner- probably because the way his hair fell about his face. It was unfortunately a mousy brown tinged with dishwater grey, but the way it hung around his shoulders suggested the beginning of the ruff at the shoulders and neck of a large canine.

"I don't really know. I've never been much good with potions," he shrugged easily, "I could probably just sell them to the village apothecary- there's a rather good one here in Tadde's Field. Or if you want them, Hermione, they're yours."

"Mine? But I wouldn't know what to do with them at Oxford- I only Apparated down here because Harry phoned me about Ron's fight with Draco this morning." Huh. That explained why she wasn't wearing wizard robes- she must have been in the middle of something.

"Hm. I forgot you'd gone back to finish your Muggle schooling. How is it going?" Remus glanced up at Hermione, who had screwed the jar's cover back on and gone to sit in Sirius' chair again.

"It's going fine," she said simply, but something in the set of her shoulders wasn't quite right. Schooling wasn't normally just fine for someone like her- she was consistently top of most classes and devoured books like a Crup ate, well, anything.

Ron noticed in the awkward quiet that followed that the bird outside had stopped singing, and covered his unease with a slurp at the mug of tea. It had gone quite cold, and tasted somewhere near awful but the bitter flavour of the unsweetened tea made him feel better after the porridge. He'd considered himself to have a rather sweet tooth, but Sirius apparently beat him on all counts.

"Maybe I should go now," Hermione murmured quietly, brushing her hand down her skirt in a futile effort to remove the stray white hairs on it. She stood and favored them with a smile, and it felt to Ron that he should be doing something-

"Wait. I'll walk you out? I've to get off my ar- er... bottom, anyway." He could feel the heat returning to his ears as he stood to join her. He still felt somewhat groggy, but the headache was thankfully gone.

"Your robe's been drying on the clothesline outside, Ron. It should be wearable by now." Remus got up from his own chair and crossed the floor barefoot to the small living room, ahead of both Ron and Hermione. Carlo remained on the kitchen floor like an animated rug, muzzle on paws, watching the three head further into the cottage.

"Ugh- don't remind me." Ron didn't want to remember how sick he had been. It was, frankly, humiliating. He has always considered himself a fairly decent drinker, but things had gone all to hell last night.

"Next time you're going to drink that much, have something light to eat first- it makes throwing up all over the place less likely." Remus slid his feet into a pair of very worn slippers as he crossed to the front door and opened it for them. All over me, Ron supposed he had probably meant to say, but then he had probably been too polite to do so.

At the doorstep, Hermione lingered as though unwilling to leave, even as Ron trudged over to the clothesline and retrieved his black office robes. They were still slightly damp and rather wrinkled, but in a more-or-less wearable state, and he pulled them over his normal clothes quickly.

"- take care of yourself, and send my regards to Harry," he caught Remus saying softly to Hermione, his expression gentler than usual. And then he turned to Ron and grinned the wicked little grin that Ron had associated, until then at any rate, much more with Sirius, "Make sure you win the next time, if you're going to get into a brawl. I could ask Sirius to give you lessons, if you want."

"Since when was he a champion brawler?" It wasn't surprising- he'd never heard anything about it, but Sirius being King of the Bar Brawl amused him. And it fit, oddly enough. At least, he could picture it happening.

"Before your time, young man. Long before your time," Remus looked obscurely sad then, his eyes clouded over briefly and lost in memory, "He used to have a flying motorbike in those days. Did he ever tell you about it?"

"Guess I'll have to ask about it some day," he shrugged, looking over his shoulder for Hermione.

"I suppose you do- better catch up with her before she goes off without you." Remus pointed down the small bike path leading out from the cottage- she had turned and gone halfway to the weathered, slightly tilted signpost as they had talked.

"Thanks for last night, and say bye to Sirius for me," Ron called to Remus with a last wave as he started to trot up behind Hermione, his long-legged stride eating the distance up effortlessly. He didn't quite catch the answer as he was already too far down the path, at her side.

They walked on in companionable silence for a while, and idly he wondered why she wasn't already Apparating back. Eventually, Ron finally asked the question that had been bothering him the past three years.

"Are you ever going to come back, Hermione?" Her face was very fair against her still-uncontrollable dark hair, or at least, that was how it looked to Ron in the little sideways glance he stole. For a moment she looked as though she was a ghost in the light diffused through the tree leaves.

"Come back? What to?" She looked up at him with faint surprise- she wasn't really much taller than she had been in her last year at Hogwarts. He was easily a head and a half taller than her.

"... you know. To... us." He covered his unease with a shrug.

"I don't know, Ron. I need some space." Hermione looked down at the ground as she rooted at a small tuft of white daisies, digging a rut in the dark topsoil with the toe of her shoe. He really wished she would just come out and give him an answer. It sometimes frustrated him how women assumed he could read minds and Divine their answers out of nowhere.

"That's what you told us two years ago. Are you really going to live like a Muggle your whole life?" Impulsively, Ron placed a hand on her arm as he turned to face her fully. She didn't flinch at the touch, but her shoulder was stiff with tension, and he couldn't help but notice it.

"If that's what it takes, then yes, I will." Her eyes were hard and flinty as she brushed his hand off her shoulder gently. That was the Hermione he remembered from school, with that old stubbornness.

"... All right then," he managed to say, at a loss for words, "You take care in Oxford. Owl me if you need to. Or Harry. You know we'll be here for you." Her face softened at that, and she nodded quietly once before leaning up to give him a chaste kiss on the cheek. She missed, and her lips landed closer to his chin, but it shocked him nonetheless.

"Take care of yourself, Ron. Don't go fighting Malfoy again- it's not a good thing." Leaving him gobsmacked and wide-mouthed, she took a few steps away from him, drew her wand from her skirt pocket, and Apparated away.

Ron watched her go with his hand pressed to his jaw. The spot her lips had brushed against felt oddly warm, and he couldn't help grinning as he went on his own way. Right now, he felt as though he could have fought a dozen Malfoys without assistance from Harry or Sirius.

It wasn't such a bad morning, after all.

Sirius in a gingham (edged) apron... *cackle*