Harry Potter and the Brotherhood of the Besotted

Chapter 3: How Are You Feeling Today?

When Ron awoke on Saturday morning, the winter sun was already feebly shining through his dormitory window. He'd overslept, but, to his surprise, so had the other fifth year Gryffindor boys. Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan were buried under their blankets. Neville slept with the curtains of his four poster bed closed, but Ron could tell by the snoring that somebody was in there. Harry slept in the bed beside Ron's, his glasses still perched upon his nose even though his eyes were closed tight.

They'd all been really tired last night. I suppose we're all just exhausted after three hours with that vampire, thought Ron (although he dimly recollected that Snape had mentioned something about drowsiness). Ron wondered what the other consequences of taking the potion were going to be. Nervously, he stood in front of the mirror to check, but thankfully saw only a lanky, freckly teenage boy with a mop of orange hair, wearing threadbare maroon pyjamas that were now at least six inches too short. He didn't feel any different either, just hungry. He checked the clock on the mantelpiece, which scolded him, "Get a move on, sleepy head, or you'll miss breakfast." Quickly he threw on his robes.

Launching a pillow at his best friend's head, Ron shouted, "Wake up Harry, we're going to be late!"

Harry's typical response to this treatment would be to yell and throw something back, but to Ron's surprise his friend's reaction this morning was quite different. Still asleep, Harry clutched Ron's pillow to his chest and murmured, "Hold me tight, ye bonnie lassie." Ron knew that Harry had peculiar dreams at times, but that just about took the cake. He made a mental note to tease Harry about it mercilessly whenever the lazy git woke up. Then Ron galloped down to the Great Hall.

Hardly anybody was still eating breakfast. Ron was pleased to notice Draco Malfoy leaving in the direction of the main quadrangle just as Ron arrived. The Gryffindor prefects were huddled at the far end of their house table, talking earnestly among themselves. At the centre of the table, Ron's older brothers were joking and laughing with Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson. Fred Weasley caught sight of his little brother coming through the door, and, holding his pumpkin juice aloft, called to Ron in a gleeful voice, "Ronald Bilius Weasley! How are you feeling today?" The prefects at the end of the table glared at Fred, so Ron sat down next to his other brother, George Weasley, with some trepidation.

"I feel fine, thanks," Ron honestly replied as bacon and eggs appeared before him.

"You feel fine?" asked George, in a voice that was much quieter than his twin's.

"Yeah, pass the juice," Ron mumbled with a full mouth.

"Well, really you disappoint us!" said Fred "What, no pining? No sighing? No stirring of manly urges? Here I was, just explaining to Angelina here how we Weasleys are the most romantic of men, and you come in here feeling fine?"

Ron looked at Fred with suspicion. His brothers were barking mad, nothing unusual there, but it was becoming apparent that they knew something that Ron didn't. Just then, one of the prefects stood up and began to walk towards the middle of the table.

Fred and George quickly jumped to their feet. "Tell you what, Ronniekins," said Fred, "come and have a fly with us after breakfast."

"We'll let you know something interesting if you do," whispered George. Both twins then hurried from the hall, followed by their amused friends.

Ron didn't know whether it was his brothers' strange behaviour, or the fact that the entire prefect huddle was now staring at him, but he quickly lost his appetite. After a few more mouthfuls, he drained his juice and left the Great Hall through a door that lead to Hogwarts Castle's main quadrangle. A cloister, with imposing Norman arches, surrounded the main quadrangle and many doors lead from the castle to this covered walkway. The Bell Tower looked down on the lawns of the quadrangle from the side opposite to the Great Hall. Ron made his way along the cloister to the utility room below the Bell Tower, to fetch a school broom from the rack.

Stepping into the sunlight, Ron noticed with distaste that Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were in the quadrangle. But what the devil were they doing? If Ron didn't know better, he could have sworn that Crabbe was playing some weird Muggle musical instrument. He was blowing into pipes and squeezing a tartan bag that he had tucked under his elbow. The instrument made exactly the same sound as Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, made when you trod on its tail. Goyle was dancing about on the spot, pointing his toes and hopping in the way that a person would dance if they wanted to do a highland fling, but didn't know how, and also happened to be an ugly, fat Neanderthal. Malfoy's hands were clapped over his ears as he shrieked at them both in his high-pitched whiny voice, telling them to, "Stop it at once, you stupid oafs."

Ron had just turned the corner of the cloister, keeping his eyes on the peculiar trio, when he was knocked flat by a tall person bursting out of a doorway carrying a large, quivering St Vitus' Bean plant. Rising to his knees and brushing potting mix from his robes, Ron said in irritation, "Why don't you look where you're going?"

He looked up to meet the dark eyes of Professor Snape. However, there was something very strange about Ron's least favourite professor's facial expression. If Ron didn't know better, he'd have said Snape was scared out of his wits. His eyes were darting backwards and forwards along the cloisters, as though he was trying to work out whether some hidden enemy was lurking in the shadows. Ron hadn't seen the professor this jittery since he and Harry had overheard him talking to Karkaroff during the Yule Ball more than a year ago.

Trying to compose himself, Snape said hurriedly, "Oh, Weasley, it's you. Five points from Gryffindor, clean up that mess and take the plant to the south greenhouse at once." He then turned quickly and swept back in the direction of the teacher's common room. Ron remained on his knees, putting the spilt dirt back in the pot.

Crabbe's playing seemed to be getting louder and even more awful. Which was a shame, because if Ron had been able to hear anything, he would have heard the delighted shrieks of a group of Slytherin girls as they came into the cloisters. And if Ron had looked up to see anything, he would have been rewarded with a view of Severus Snape running through the archway to the teachers' common room, dragging Pansy Parkinson, who was clutching at the hem of his robes.

It was a long walk to the south greenhouse, especially when you made the trek carrying a manically shaking plant and a school broom. Ron eventually completed his chore and was able to hop on the broom and fly back to the Quidditch pitch. He could see Fred and George in the distance, going through some energetic flying exercises.

The Weasley twins were Beaters on Gryffindor's house Quidditch team, a position which required a rugged and fearless approach to flying. Ron had hoped to make the team this year as well, but his mum forbade it until his O.W.L.s were completed. Ron had argued that this was completely unfair, given that Fred and George were allowed to keep playing even though they were in seventh year and sitting for their N.E.W.Ts. His mum had merely replied with a small sigh and a shake of her head that said, "Well dear, its not as though they'll be passing anything anyway."

It was true that the twins had never approached their studies with anything like the enthusiasm they applied to flying. Their Quidditch warm up exercises included finding the oldest, grumpiest Bludgers they could lay their hands on and lobbing them at each other's heads. They also liked to joust, which created an interesting optical illusion. George and Fred Weasley were identical twins to the last freckle, they wore the same sorts of shabby robes and rode the same type of aging Cleansweep Five brooms. A casual observer who spotted the twins jousting could be forgiven for thinking that some deranged rider with flaming red hair had decided to fly his broom at full speed into a mirror.

Fred noticed Ron's approach first, and batted a growling Bludger at his littlest brother's head. "Still feeling fine are we?" he called.

"It's not fair you know," complained George as he rode his broom up to Ron's side. "Not after the hell they put us through with Skele-Gro."

The twins had been required to concoct Skele-Gro for their O.W.L.s Practical Assessment Task two years ago. Because the potion caused new bones to grow, Professor Snape had walked around the dungeon dematerialising various bones from his students as they brewed their potions. As always, Slytherin's housemaster favoured his own students, and each student from Slytherin was required to regrow the smallest bone in his or her little toe. When he stopped at the twins' desks, he dematerialised their jaws. This made it very difficult for the Weasleys to drink the potion they had made, and neither twin was able to eat or talk for a full four days afterwards. Needless to say, Potions was one of the many subjects that the twins failed when they took their O.W.Ls.

"So you haven't noticed anything strange at all?" asked Fred pointedly, as he too pulled his broom up alongside Ron.

"Only that the Slytherins have been acting loopy," said Ron, remembering Crabbe and Goyle.

"Well that's just blooming marvellous!" Fred exclaimed. "Who would believe that lowly Slytherins would be able to give into temptation more easily than my own flesh and blood? Really Ron, when I think of all the time and effort I've wasted on educating you in the ways of sin -"

"What temptation?" cried Ron. "What sin? What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

"I'm not sure he's figured it out yet, Fred," observed George, sparing a pitying look for his youngest brother.

"What's to figure out?" demanded Fred loudly, his face reddening to match his hair. "It's a love potion. You drink it. You fall in love. You act like a goose. End of story."

"Love potion?" Now it was Ron's turn to shout, his voice breaking the way it always seemed to do lately when he was under stress. "But that's gross, that's foul, that's... it's... against school rules!"

"Nevertheless," George explained evenly, "we distinctly overheard Professor McGonagall warning the prefects to expect the worst when she met with them after dinner last night. She seemed to be anticipating hanky panky of the highest order. As for flouting school rules, I suppose the Magical Educational Standards Board doesn't give a Jarvey's arse about the school rules of some snooty public boarding school."

"Unfortunately," continued Fred, who by now had calmed down, "the one thing we didn't overhear was who was going to fall in love with whom. The potion should be at adequate strength in you now. So come on, fill us in, who do you fancy?"

Ron was stunned. Fall in love? He'd never heard of anything more disgusting. "Nobody," he insisted.

"Well, we can work it out from the ingredients," suggested George. "They didn't by any chance tell you to bring along some girl's ear wax to the exam room did they? Toenails or hair work too, I think."

"No, not ear wax, but right at the end Snape gave me a bit of hair," Ron recalled.

"Just like I told you," Fred said to George. "They're in damage control mode. They're using teachers as the Objective d'Couer." Noticing the confused expression on Ron's face, Fred explained, "That means your little heart's desire, Ronniekins."

Now Ron was truly revolted. Fall in love with a teacher! He hoped to Merlin on high it wasn't going to be Professor Trelawney. But then again, maybe his brothers were just playing some monumental practical joke on him. He asked them suspiciously, "How do you two know so much about love potions anyway?"

"Our mother's recipe books," George advised knowledgably, "are an endless source of fascinating information."

"We even concocted one last year," Fred continued. "We thought it might be a useful sideline for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. But then Katie Bell gave George a black eye and we realised it would all be more trouble than it was worth."

"Mind you," George reflected wistfully, "before the black eye I enjoyed one of the most exhilarating two days of my short life. I do envy you, Ron."

"But I'm not in love with anybody," Ron said through gritted teeth. "I don't ever want to be in love with anybody. So it can't be a love potion, can it?"

"Well, yes and no," said George. "You might simply have mucked it up, in which case welcome to the Potions failures club. You can always tell if you get it right because it tastes like watermelon, and the stronger it is the sweeter it tastes."

Ron's heart sank. "And not everybody has a reaction to a love potion," advised Fred. "They don't work on children, obviously. But at a glance I'd say you were no longer a child, little brother. Your feet are nearly as big as Hagrid's."

"They also tend not to work very well if you're insane," George offered helpfully. "You don't hear voices in your head, do you? Any delusions? Have you ever thought you might be Godric Gryffindor?"

Ron fumed. With brothers like these, it was a small wonder he hadn't been driven insane a long time ago.

"Also," chuckled Fred, "they can't make you fall in love with someone of a gender or a species that you wouldn't ordinarily desire. You haven't developed any inclinations to ride your broom side-saddle have you?"

Ron ignored this smut, which unfortunately only made Fred's musings worse. The twins had been studying animal husbandry in their Care of Magical Creatures classes this year, and their conversations always seemed to work their way around to the more alarming aspects of different beasts' sex lives. "You're not into Blast-ended Skrewts, are you? Do you hanker after Acromantula?"

Ron winced. He was firmly of the belief that, the less said about giant, man-eating, talking spiders, the better.

"Now," said George, "falling in love with an Acromantula would be a terrible mistake, because, if I correctly recall, the female always tends to devour the male after mating. But I think a centaur would be OK. They'd be quite nice to kiss at least, but you probably couldn't take them dancing."

Ron had heard enough. "You're both really sick. I'm off," he said dismissively. As he turned back to the castle, he shouted to George over his shoulder, "And that bit about the Acromantula is dead wrong!"

He flew over Neville Longbottom, who was walking down to the shores of the lake carrying a scythe. Ron called out to him, but Neville appeared to be in some sort of a daydream. Ron's own thoughts turned inwards, as he tried to figure out the puzzle the twins had posed. Who did he fancy? He supposed he'd fancied Fleur Delacour a bit once, but who didn't? She was part Veela. He thought of the women at Hogwarts, and asked himself the question several more times, but each time he had to admit that the only answer could be that he didn't fancy anybody. The only girl, other than Ginny, that he could even talk to without feeling self conscious, bored, or annoyed was Hermione. But that was just because he chose to forget about her being a girl most of the time. Of course, sometimes he remembered, like before the Yule Ball the year before last. That was an emergency, he'd needed a partner. Thankfully last year he'd gotten around that problem by going home for Christmas.

Hermione's the one who'll figure this out, thought Ron. She might be a girl, but she was also bloody brilliant. It was a bright, crisp Saturday morning. No homework had been set because of the potions assessment task. It would be a crime not to be outside enjoying your freedom on such a day. So, Ron knew exactly where Hermione would be. He landed the broom and headed straight for the library.