Love and a Kumquat War

Love and a Kumquat War

Ronald Weasley thought something was rather wrong when Draco Malfoy got little brown spots tatooed onto his porcelain skin.

"Honestly Ron," Hermione snapped. "They're freckles. You're so dense sometimes."

"Uh?" said Ron, scratching the side of his nose. "Why'd he do that?"

"Like I said, Ron. You're dense," Hermione said irritably and burried her head in her Astronomy textbook.

The freckles looked odd on Draco anyway, Ron thought. They seemed unnaturally dark on his milky skin and his halo of white-gold hair shone even more than usual. Not that he'd been looking of course.

Ron was early to Transfiguration that next day and thus was one of the first to see Draco's latest transformation. It looked as if he had tried to dye his hair red but the dye had blended with his hair and turned pink.

"What do you think you're looking at, Weasel?" Draco said, but without his usual smear of malice.

"Nothing," said Ron, ogling Draco's new hairdo. It clashed quite atrociously with his cold grey eyes but annunciated his delicate cheekbones and pale fluttery eyelashes. Not an altogether bad effect, Ron mused. Although he wouldn't have chosen pink himself.

"Why is he doing these stupid things?" Ron asked Hermione as they were walking back to the Gryffindor Common Room. Class had been cancelled because Draco's hair had annoyed Professor McGonagall.

"Isn't it obvious?" Hermione said, sniffing. "He likes you."

"Yeah, well I like Harry but..." Ron blinked. "Whaddaya mean, likes me?"

"If you don't know, I'm not about to tell you," Hermione said crossly and stormed off to the lake, her bushy, rope-like plait swinging to knock over a first year scuttling down the corridor.

Ron decided to confront the rat-bastard.

He found Malfoy in the kitchens, forcing himself to eat a tray of Cream Puffs. It was the sort of behaviour Ron usually partook in. But for then he was too inscenced to care.

"What do you mean, imitating me?" He yelled.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "What? I chose to dye my hair pink. I think it's pretty." Despite Malfoy's earnest expression, Ron was fairly certain that he was lying.

"Bull!" Ron exclaimed. And at that moment, he wanted to throw something at Malfoy to wipe the smirk of his pointed freckly face. He groped around on a large bench and grabbed a kumquat.

It made a very satisfying THUNK when it hit Malfoy square in the nose and Ron was pleased to note that Malfoy did in no way look sophisticated with sticky juice running down his cheeks.

"Bastard!" Malfoy shrieked as he felt the damage the kumquat had done to his nose.

Soon the kitchen was thick with flying kumquats. The House Elves were most distressed.

After he had vented enough anger, Ron ran down to the lake, leaving Draco to apologise to the House Elves. He sad idly on its shores, skipping stones and jinxing small animals. The giant squid waved its tentacles lazily in the clear blue sky and Ron felt strangely serene.

From the other side of the tree he was leaning against, he heard sniffing. He looked around curiously. "Hermione! What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Hermione said, her brown eyes thick with tears.

"Yes there is," Ron said. "I'm not that thick." He grinned in what he supposed was a beguiling manner.

"Fine," said Hermione, blowing her nose. "I love you, Ron."

Ron started to laugh and Hermione hit him with her wand. "Don't mock me. I've been in love with you since I saw you on the train and you had the spot of dirt on your nose. But you're in love with Draco Malfoy." She buried her head in her Charms book and sobbed uncontrollably.

"Oi," Ron yelped. "I'm not in love...Oh shit." He sat silent for a moment, deep in thought. "I am."

"You are what?" said a voice. Ron twisted around. Draco Malfoy was standing behind him, casually playing with a Bishop from the library chess set.

"What are you doing with that Bishop?" Ron said, momentarilly distracted.

"Stole it," Malfoy said, with some satisfaction.

"So the library set has half its pieces missing?" Ron snapped. "Oh how Slytherin-ish."

"And that's so not a word, Weasel."

"Because you'd know, you rat."

"Granger, can you leave?" Malfoy said in response to what Ron had considered a fine insult.

Hermione looked at him, her eyes red with tears. "Fine! I'll go. Don't worry about me. Maybe I'll just have an hot horny shag with Zacharias Smith in the Lecture Theatre. You wouldn't care!" Her voice was bordering on hysteria.

"Spare me the details of your sordid love life, Granger," Malfoy said, waving his hand at her dismissively.

Hermione ran up to the castle, an emotional wreck.

"Now Weasley," Malfoy said. "Where were we?"

"Arguing, I think," Ron said, and to his own surprise, as well as Malfoy's, he reached out and kissed him. Malfoy wasted no time, ripping Ron's robes open and leaving a trail of kisses along Ron's stomach that made him shiver. They got rather involved, and by the time they pulled apart, it was twighlight.

"I've spent years trying to get your attention," Draco said, stroking Ron's hair as they lay half-naked at the base of the tree.

"So the origami crane..." Ron asked.

"Meant for you," Draco said. "Potter looked a little confused when he read You send shivers down my spine. I wish you were mine. Lots of kisses, Draco-baby."

"Could you teach me how to do that?"

"What? Confuse Potter? It's not very hard."

"Fuck you, Malfoy," Ron said affectionately. "I mean the origami."

"Sure," Draco said, looking surprised but pleased.

"First though," Ron said grinning. "Promise me that you'll dye your hair back to blond. It's just not right anymore."

"It's a deal," said Draco, kissing Ron demurely on the lips.

And so it came to be that Ron, instead of shagging Draco again, spent much of his evening learning the delicate Japanese art of paper folding.

Finis