A Bit of Potter and Weasley

A Frank Talk

Harry is getting out a couple of glasses and a bottle of Firewhiskey in the kitchen of his house. Ron is sitting at the table looking faintly embarrassed.

Harry: We'll wait for the ladies to get back from the theatre shall we?

Ron: Yes, yes -good idea.

Harry: I don't know what they see in it myself. Sitting there in the dark watching a lot of old nonsense.

Ron: Oh well, they seem to enjoy it.

Harry: I don't know about you, but I go to the theatre to be entertained.

Ron: Well, I think they do too.

Harry: If I want to see a lot of swearing and pretentious drivel I can stay at home.

Ron: Still, anyway. They've been looking forward to it for a long time.

Harry: (Pouring out drinks) Right. Right.

Ron: I've been looking forward to this, as a matter of fact, Harry: this opportunity for a frank talk. Mm, how long have I known you and Luna now?

Harry: Must be nigh on ...

Ron: More I should think.

Harry: Right. Possibly even more.

Ron: You and Luna are quite a couple.

Harry: Well, I'll tell you this, Ron. I don't know where I'd be without Luna.

Ron: Ah.

Harry: Amazing woman. I think I love her more now than when I first met her. Be nothing without her. Lost. A shadow. Nothing. A blank. A zero.

Ron: Mm.

Harry: Merlin I love her.

Ron: Right. Thing is. Mm. Well, you know Hermione and I have been going through a sticky patch lately?

Harry: (Surprised) No. No, I didn't know that. A sticky patch?

Ron: Yes.

Harry: What sort of sticky patch?

Ron: Well, just a general sort of, you know, sticky patch really.

Harry: Oh dear. Nasty things sticky patches.

Ron: They can be, certainly. You and Luna have never?

Harry: What? No. Not us. We're a team. Never had a sticky patch between us. Do you know in the fifteen years we've been married, I've never so much as looked at another woman.

Ron: Really?

Harry: Well, except for Professor McGonagall of course.

Ron: Um ...

Harry: But then again you've got to look at Professor McGonagall when she's talking to you, rude not to. And I know Luna's the same.

Ron: She's never?

Harry: No. She'd never betray me.

Ron: She'd never, for instance, have a ten-year love affair with, say, your best friend, for the sake of argument, say?

Harry: Luna? No. She'd rather cut the legs off her favourite table. Faithful as Fudge is an idiot.

Ron: Right.

Harry: Anyway. This frank talk.

Ron: Ah.

Harry: You had something you wanted to say?

Ron: Right. Yes.

Harry: Fire away then.

Ron: This isn't easy. It's just that -well, that ten year-old love affair I mentioned ...

Harry: Hermione.

Ron: What?

Harry: Oh no. Don't tell me. You've discovered that your wife Hermione has been having an affair. Ron, I don't know what to say.

Ron: No, no. Hermione wouldn't betray me; I know that -that's what makes it all so difficult.

Harry: I was going to say. I was pretty sure Hermione and I had kept it pretty discreet.

Ron: It's the other way round, I ...what?

Harry: What?

Ron: What did you say just now?

Harry: Oh nothing. Just I was sure Hermione and I had been far too discreet for you to notice that we've been having a wild affair under your very nose for the last -twelve years I should say. At the very least.

Ron: You and Hermione have been ...

Harry: Oh Merlin yes.

Ron: But you said you would never look at another woman apart from Luna and Professor McGonagall.

Harry: And Hermione, obviously. That goes without saying.

Ron: Well, that makes what I was going to say a lot easier then.

Harry: Oh yes?

Ron: It may interest you to know that your beloved Luna and I have also been having an affair for ...well for eleven years anyway.

Harry: I beg your pardon? You and Luna?

Ron: Yes, I thought that might shake you up a bit.

Harry: You pair of deceitful, two -timing ...

Enter Luna and Hermione.

Hermione: Hello, you two.

Luna: Look at them both, up with the Firewhiskey bottle. I don't know.

Ron: Hermione, darling, is it true that you and, that the pair of you have been ...

Harry: Luna, tell me. It isn't true that the two of you have ...is it? Tell me it isn't.

Luna and Hermione look at each other and sigh.

Luna: We were going to tell you anyway, weren't we darling?

Hermione: Yes, we were. Tonight in fact.

Luna: Hermione and I have been having an affair for the last fourteen years.

Hermione: A very passionate affair.

Luna: Strikingly passionate.

Ron: You what?

Hermione: I don't know how you found out.

Luna: (To Hermione) You didn't leave the 'you know what' lying around did you?

Harry: No, I meant you and Ron. You and Ron have been having an affair for the last eleven years at least.

Ron: And you and Harry, Hermione.

Luna: Oh that. Well that was just a diversion really.

Harry: Oh was it? Well, Harry, it makes it a lot easier for us to tell them, doesn't it?

Ron: It certainly does. It may interest you to know that Harry and I have been -how shall I phrase it?

Harry: Bed mates?

Luna: Lovers?

Hermione: Sex friends?

Harry: Joy-partners?

Luna: Bliss buddies?

Ron: Yes, well, any one of those for the past -what?

Harry: It's got to be at least eighteen or twenty hasn't it?

Ron: Yes, for the last eighteen or twenty years.

Luna: Well.

Hermione: Frankly.

Luna: So. You're saying that we have all been to bed with each other.

Harry: That seems to be the size of it, yes.

Hermione: Though separately.

Ron: Yes, separately, obviously.

Harry: In every possible combination.

Luna: Well, what a business.

Hermione: I don't know what to say.

Harry: It's something of a how-do-you-do, isn't it?

Ron: Well, what do we do?

Harry: I should have thought that was obvious.

Hermione: You mean ...?

Luna: Only thing to do.

Ron: What?

Luna: Let's all go to bed.

Ron: Oh. Right.

They all trot off to bed.

Critics

Hello, it's swivel chair time again.

Ron: Harry, you saw that. What do you think was happening there?

Harry: Well you see, again this was a rather trite, rather predictable - I don't know what the word is I'd use to describe it really. A sort of cod spoof guying take-off pastiche parody.

Ron: What did you make of the two central performances?

Harry: I'd have welcomed them.

Ron: (Laughing obnoxiously) Right, right. I liked the clever and original use of words.

Harry: Oh thank you very much.

Ron: Not at all. Your clever and original use of words has been collected into book form recently, I understand.

Harry: That's right.

Ron: Well received?

Harry: Well, you know what critics are like. What do they know about the work we do?

Ron: Quite so, but to return to that spoof cod guying of conventions. My main worry was that it told us nothing of the relationship between the two central characters.

Harry: That's right. Some people may have been mildly amused by thus kind of grotesquerie, but where were the truths about relationships in Hogwarts today, now, this evening, this afternoon?

Ron: You certainly couldn't see them from where I was lying.

Harry: No, I hated it.

Ron: That's right. Two out of ten for trying, then.

Harry: It just wasn't your cup of tea?

Ron: No. (Picking up a teacup.) This is my cup of tea, in fact.

Harry: Actually, I think you'll find it's mine.