A Christmas Story

1.

"So, who is the lucky bird, mate?"

Ron looked over at Harry, puzzled. Harry had stopped in to his flat earlier to help Ron set up the annual Christmas party. Currently, Ron was standing high up on a ladder trying to get the tinsel placed just so on the highest branches. Harry was crouched at the bottom of the tree affixing the skirt around its trunk.

"What are you on about?" Ron said around teeth clenched on the package of the silvery mess. It came out more like "Whuchu nbout," but Harry paid no mind, they had been best mates for a decade, and what's a few dropped consonants between friends?

"Well, you've been all sorts of secretive lately, and you only get that way when there's a girl involved."

Ron attempted to transfer his tinsel package from his mouth to his hand, but only succeeded in scattering the silver strands all over his jumper.

"There's no girl."

Harry heaved a great sigh, "Oh, come off it, you can't tell your best mate? You don't have to lie to me."

Some of the tinsel had gotten down the front of his shirt and was sticking uncomfortably to his skin. Trying to scratch his chest and hopefully retrieve some of the decorations, he only succeeded in driving the itchy tinsel farther down his shirtfront. Ron took one arm off of the ladder to better get at it; and, in doing so, overbalanced and fell a full four feet down the ladder directly on top of his raven-haired friend. The two of them collapsed in a moaning, squirming heap.

Ron finally managed to disentangle himself from Harry's long limbs, grunting, "Trust me, there's no girl."

2.

"Listen, Draco, it's only for a little while. They're coming into town for the party and Harry was already suspicious the last time, Ginny is sure to know something is up too! Oh, and Mum, dear god, what'll I do about Mum?" Ron is exasperated now, his cheeks all blotchy and flushed, "Draco, I can't have my Mum thinking her son is a great sodding poofer!"

"Ronald, dear, you are a great sodding poofer."

Draco is exasperated, they've had this argument countless times; but, the closer the holidays approach on the horizon, the more frequent the blow-ups. Not even Ron's steadily purpling face could console him at these times. No, not even the way Ron looked when he was anxious, as if his freckles would pop off as his face steadily inflated. Okay, maybe that is a funny image, but still.

He suppresses his age-old smirk, as he knows Ron is so put off by it and he is a charitable old chap, after all. Draco rises from his position on the sofa and crosses to the counter. He deliberates over the array of inebriates before selecting his old standby, Firewhisky. He pours himself a rather overlarge portion, downs it in one go, and helps himself to a second. Times like this require even the most solid of blokes to fortify themselves, he thought sullenly.

"Ronald, are you absolutely certain that this is our only recourse?"

"Positive. I just, I couldn't have Harry know about this. I mean, you know how he feels about you!"

Draco sighs and wishes one of his brilliant ideas would materialize right about now. None were forthcoming.

"All right, but only because it's Christmas...." Draco agrees finally, and Ron's rush of gratitude made it almost worthwhile.

As he felt his clothes hurriedly disappear from his wiry frame, Draco thinks wickedly: At least I can take my revenge out on you somehow. You won't be able to sit down for a week after I'm through with you!

3.

Ron was surprised at how little time the potion took to be made. I suppose I shouldn't be, he was the head of our class in Potions, after all. Still, he marveled at how Draco deftly wove the ingredients together without even a recipe to guide him. Draco had tried to explain the complex Potions theories he had worked with to create this particular brew, but it was all too confusing for him. It was all plodding patience and maddening discipline. He didn't know how Draco could ever stand sitting at his workbench for hours on end, stirring and blending, Ron would have gone mad! Cursebreaking, now there's something a bloke can understand, this Potions nonsense is much too ponderous for me.

"It's ready then?"

Draco looked up at him, his long face drawn and pale. Ron felt a stab of guilt at being the cause of this, but waves it away. It has to be done.

"Yes, it's ready. Ronald -- Ronald, you are sure that this is what you want?"

His eyes look at him pleadingly, but Ron forces himself to be stern. "Yes, it's the only way."

Draco sighs, defeat imminent, "Alright then, but you must know that there is no going back. The effects will be, well -- long-lived. If I had more time, I could work out the antidote, but the party is in an hour. You must know, this -- this could be irreversible."

Ron gulps, considering the implications. Suddenly there is a knock at the door and Ron can hear Harry's voice calling from the hallway outside their flat.

There is nothing left to consider. Ron knows what must be done.

"Do it."

4.

Draco quietly closes the door behind Ron. In the front hall, he can hear the friendly chatter of the holiday guests arriving. He casts another reluctant look back at the bubbling cauldron, thinking bitterly to himself, I told my family, why can't he? I got thrown out of my home, rejected as a muggle-lover and a disgrace, all because I love him.

He crosses to the cauldron, and with only a moment's hesitation, dips in a flask and knocks it back in one gulp.

Draco worries for a moment that it hasn't worked, that there wasn't enough belladonna, too much witch hazel. Then he begins to feel a slow, creeping heat running through his veins, down his arms and into his fingertips. Thinning and thickening, heating and cooling, the potion takes effect. His hips and chest swell, his waist, already impossibly thin is drawn still tighter. His hair lengthens and his fingers taper at the ends. Other unpleasant sensations are centering in his groin, but he doesn't want to think about those just yet.

This is for you, Ronald.

5.

Ron scans the room nervously. He doesn't understand why his head hasn't exploded yet, but he thanks whatever powers may be for saving him the embarrassment. He is looking somewhere over the top of Harry's head, blatantly ignoring yet another story about some exhilarating play made by the Chudley Cannon's seeker, when everything stops. Silence falls over the room like a thunderclap, and even oblivious Harry couldn't continue his blather in the face of such deafening quiet. Now it is Harry looking over the top of Ron's head in the direction of Ron's bedroom. He turns slowly, terrified of what his eyes will find.

"Wow, mate. You really've bagged yourself a good one this time." Harry whispers, awestruck.

There stands Draco, or rather not Draco. There stands the most gorgeous woman Ron thinks he has ever seen. Ron's always had a thing for blonds, dating back to that half-veela girl back at Hogwarts, but even he has never fallen for a blonde quite like this one.

Silver-white hair flows over her shoulders in a glorious waterfall. Oh, and those legs! Ron doesn't think he's ever seen legs like those before, muscular yet still feminine, and going on for years past the bottom of her extremely revealing skirt. Ron's eyes devoured the cream-colored thighs and extremely fit waist, finally locking eyes with the man that had become this ridiculously good-looking woman.

Draco flashed Ron a dazzling smile and strode confidently toward him, parting the crowd like the Red Sea. "What do you think of my outfit?" Draco asked, his voice now higher but still with a husky undertone. "I picked it out especially for the occasion."

Ron stared back, dumbfounded. "The -- the occasion?" he stammered finally.

"Our engagement, darling Ronald. Weren't you going to tell them?"

Oh, shit.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley!" screeched a voice from the corner of the room, "When were you planning on telling your Mum that you are to be married?"

A rather red-faced and dowdy woman is pushing her way through the crowd, in no way parting them in the same decorous manner as Draco had.

"Mum, I --" Ron stutters.

"Mum nothing! Weren't you ever going to let us meet the girl before you ran off and married her?"

Draco is grinning wickedly now, watching Ron cower under the wrath of his mother's fury.

"It's alright, Mrs. Weasley," he cuts in, voice as smooth as silk as he takes her arm, "Ronald was saving it as a surprise Christmas present for you."

Mrs. Weasley's mouth has stopped moving mid-sentence and is now hanging open dumbly as she looks at Draco, down to her arm and back to Draco's face again. She allows herself to be led away from her still-trembling son, mouth opening and closing soundlessly as she tries to work out what has just happened to her.

Harry laughs, "I don't blame you for not wanting to tell us about him, I bet you're afraid one of us dashing young lads would steal his heart away from you, you great nancy."

"His -- who? What?"

"Oh come on, Ron! You didn't think we were all stupid, did you?" Harry is laughing still harder, "It isn't as if Justin Finch-Fletchy could ever keep a secret, and after that incident with Dean in the showers after practice that one time? It wasn't too hard to put the pieces together. Though, I must admit, Draco does make a mighty fine bird."

Ron's mouth is now mirroring his mother's, looking somewhat like a fish gasping for air. The throng of people surrounding him are all laughing now, mirth rising from every corner of the room. He can see Fred and George sniggering in the corner and Hermione is doing her best to keep from snorting from the hilarity of it all.

It is too much for Ron. The strain of two decades of repressed embarrassment and feelings has taken its toll.

His head, rather unelegantly, explodes.