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Chapter 6

Tumbling After

Arsenius Jigger folded his long, thin fingers before his face. "Of course not," he said. "This simply isn't possible."

Percy heard Snape sputtering beside him. He bit his own lip, trying not to turn red with anger and frustration. Could this be all? Had the Board listened to the story of Professor Binns' tragic collapse, and their desperate need for another teacher, only to turn them away? "Would you explain your reasoning, sir?" Percy asked, trying to buy time. Snape could come up with a marvellous idea, a way to save Hogwarts from the brink of ruin; he just needed time to calm down.

"It's simply not financially feasible," said Chairman Jigger. "Even wizards are bound by the laws of economics." He paused for the expected laughter; Percy provided it, along with one or two of the lesser members of the Board. "You've had so many disasters in recent years-- to say nothing of the expenses of the Triwizard Tournament-- that our emergency fund is entirely depleted. And I simply can't ask the Board members to find more money on such short notice."

Percy looked at the other Board members, wondering if they agreed with their chair. Most were nodding (Lucius Malfoy practically smirked), but Albert Ackerley looked doubtful, and the round, pink-cheeked Mrs. Spore seemed positively alarmed.

"The students can't go a year without History of Magic!" Snape insisted. "The suggestion is absurd."

Chairman Jigger frowned. "Can't you find another ghost?"

"No, that isn't possible. Binns was a professor of History of Magic while he was alive; the other ghosts don't have that sort of broad knowledge. Besides," Snape explained, "as ghosts grow older, their personalities fade. Since Binns died only a few decades ago, he was still relatively versatile, able to perform diverse tasks such as grading papers and appearing for lecture on time. A sixteenth- or eighteenth-century ghost would no longer retain such powers of concentration. He might never appear at all, and if he did, he would only moan and complain about his untimely end."

"You're out of modern ghosts, then?" Jigger asked.

"The only other ghost less than a hundred years old appears to be seventeen and spends her days in the girls' lavatory," Snape replied.

Chairman Jigger appeared somewhat nonplussed. "Be that as it may, Headmaster, we still can't give you the funds."

Snape drew his dark eyebrows together. A storm was brewing, Percy knew-- but if the Board learned the true extent of Snape's righteous wrath, they would never give him the money he needed. "Perhaps there is another solution," Percy said hastily.

Mr. Stoat, a portly gentleman, shook his head. "We've been wrangling for hours, young Weasley," he said. "Give it up, and we'll ring for luncheon."

"With so many great minds at the table, we can hardly fail," Percy answered. "There are no ghosts at Hogwarts who can teach . . . But what about the portraits?"

"Portraits are even less reliable than ghosts!" Snape declared. "Ghosts have a degree of mobility that allows them to retain varied aspects of their former personalities much longer. Portraits must forget, or they'd all go gibbering mad from boredom."

"But I'm certain that the Board can find the funding for a more permanent solution by Christmas," Percy said brightly. "There must be at least one portrait at Hogwarts made recently enough to remember a few lectures?"

Snape frowned, as if in thought. For a moment Percy was afraid that all the portraits in the school were certified antiques, and he had just exposed terminal ignorance. But no . . . Were the Headmaster's lips actually tilting upwards?

"There is one portrait which might suit," said Snape. "That of the late, lamented Professor Dumbledore. It currently hangs in my office; I would be loath to lose his advice, but what must be done must be done."

Lucius Malfoy was suddenly alert. "I believe Professor Snape would benefit greatly from the peaceful, quiet atmosphere of an office without Dumbledore. Though even in life he did gibber, occasionally. The Board supports this solution, of course?"

Mrs. Spore still looked nervous, but the rest of the Board mumbled approvingly, like so many sheep.

"You are promising a real professor by Christmas," Snape reminded them.

"To see Dumbledore forced to lecture from beyond the grave, I could almost endow a professorship," Malfoy gloated.

Malfoy's glee made Percy uneasy, but he was hardly going to look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were. "I'm so glad you can help us!" he told the Board.

"Well, well," said Albert Ackerley. "Shall we vote, first?"

But the Board was unanimously in favor of the solution. This was his solution, Percy thought. Without him to smooth the way, they would never have listened to Professor Snape, despite his genius.

And as they left, Snape said, "You did well, young Weasley. Better than I would have thought." Percy felt warmth spread through him, from the tips of his toes to his ears. Snape recognized his usefulness. Everything good would follow.

***

Harry stood in the Owlery, listening to the fluttering of wings. Ginny had told him it was a good idea. Hermione had told him it was a good idea. Probably if Dumbledore and Sirius were still alive, they would be telling him it was a good idea. But he still wasn't convinced that apologizing to Ron would do any good at all.

Hedwig hooted at him softly. "I'm sorry," Harry said. "I don't have any treats for you. I need somebody else to carry this letter, somebody less conspicuous."

Hedwig turned up her beak in disdain, and Harry turned to a small grayish owl, one of several the school kept for various errands. "Please, could you take this letter to Ron at breakfast tomorrow?"

The gray owl clicked its beak. Harry imagined it saying, "Deliver it yourself!"

"It can't be me," he told the owl. "He isn't talking to me. Just . . . Use this as an excuse for a bit of a holiday, all right?"

The owl took the letter, grudgingly. Harry thought again of its contents:

Dear Ron,

I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about this summer.

Sincerely,

Harry Potter.

It was so bare, so meaningless, so doomed. But what else could he say? Dear Ron, I miss you. Dear Ron, please can we just play Quidditch again? Dear Ron, How the hell could you do that with Viktor, I thought you were my friend. Dear Ron, what the fuck did I do. Dear Ron . . .

Dear Ron, I've been trying to jack off to the image of your little sister, but I keep thinking of you instead.

"Go on!" Harry told the little gray owl. "Fly around the lake or something!"

It stood on one leg and then the other, doubtfully.

Somebody was coming up the stairs. "Go, dammit!" Harry hissed at the owl. But it waited, looking as skeptical as a ball of feathers could look, as the person climbed the last flight of stairs.

It was Ron. He was holding a smudged bit of parchment in his right hand. "Oh, uh, Harry," he said. "I have something for you."

This was inevitable, Harry thought. Life never let him off easily. "Yeah, I have something for you too, actually," he told Ron. The gray owl gleefully surrendered his letter again.

They stood for a moment. Hedwig hooted derisively, but Harry ignored her. If he looked straight ahead, he realized, he ended up with his eyes just below Ron's shoulders. When did Ron become the tall, strong one? Finally Harry said, "Look, we can just trade. It can't be that hard."

Ron clutched his parchment more tightly. "Hermione told you to do this, didn't she?"

"It was Ginny, really, but . . . Yeah."

"Girls always have to run everything."

"Ruin everything," said Harry.

"Yeah."

Another long silence. Then Ron said, "It's OK, really. We don't have to be friends."

"But . . ." said Harry. Of course, if he'd known what to say after the "but," he'd have written a genuinely acceptable letter in the first place. One that he could just hand to Ron, and walk away, and know Ron would understand eventually.

"No, I'm serious," Ron said. "If you think I'm queer. That's your right."

"But . . ."

"I suppose you can still have the letter, though." Ron shoved the crumpled bit of parchment at him.

Harry took it, and pressed his own letter into Ron's left hand. Like a secret handshake in one of the spy games Dudley tried to play. Except that they were saying goodbye.

Ron turned toward the stairs.

"Wait!" said Harry.

"What?"

"I miss you, you bastard! You can't just stop talking to me again!"

"I can do whatever I like!" Ron shouted over his shoulder.

"No you fucking can't! You were my friend and you never even asked what I really thought, did you, you went off all summer without me and you never cared to know how miserable I was, or whether I missed you or anything, and now you decide fucking Viktor the incredible knock-kneed Quidditch star is better than me when you can't even block a fucking Quaffle!"

As Ron turned, Harry realized what an utter idiot he had been. You couldn't insult Ron's Quidditch. Not ever. Not if you were his friend at all. Ron's face was perfectly calm, but he was advancing on Harry with blank, brown, unreadable eyes. Harry was doomed, he knew . . . But best to go out fighting. "You might have fucking kissed me instead!"

Ron had been about to punch Harry. He froze. "You want me to kiss you?"

"Well . . . Not kissing necessarily, but we could, well, you know."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"You never asked."

"Harry Potter, you are completely fucking daft." Ron did punch him, but it was an ordinary friendly sort of punch. Harry sighed. It felt so damn good to be talking again.

"So . . ." said Ron. "Do you think anyone else is going to be sending letters this morning?"

"You're a prefect, can't you keep them out?"

"Oh, right." Ron opened Harry's letter, glared at the contents a minute, and muttered "Iussum Prefecti!" The letters rearranged themselves to spell "Leave Immediately" in Gothic script, and a heavy red wax seal appeared, with an imprint of the Gryffindor lion. "I'll just prop this on the door below, shall I?" said Ron.

Harry waited impatiently for his friend to run downstairs, and back up again. But when Ron did clatter up the stairs, he found he could do nothing but stand stupidly. He knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to push Ron up against the stone wall and tear his robes off and pull open his trousers and . . . Harry knew just what Ron's cock looked like, you couldn't live with someone for years and play Quidditch with them and not know, it was long and sturdy, you could tell even with a flap of skin falling over the head, and his balls were a deep, dark pink . . .

Ron strode toward a bale of straw which had been pushed against the wall. Probably in a while somebody would come to spread it across the floor. Vole bones crunched under his feet as he walked. "Shall we sit down?"

Harry followed him, and they sat on the bale together, not quite touching, not quite managing to speak. Harry's hands rested in his lap, it was so close, he didn't know if he could stand the waiting, and yet another part of him was so overjoyed to be near Ron again he didn't care if nothing else happened, ever.

"You don't really think I'm a bad Keeper, do you?" Ron asked at last.

"Of course not!" Harry said.

"Because in that last practice, when we were trying out the Triplicate Feint, and even when I knew what they were doing I still edged toward the right . . ."

"But all you have to do is bend like so, I saw you, it's just a simple tilt," Harry said. It was hard to talk about Quidditch without brooms, but you could illustrate with your hands a bit, a slant and a curve through the air, and so on for hours.

They were talking again. It was all entirely all right. They did talk, for hours, about Quidditch mostly, and when eventually they were demonstrating some play or other and leaned up and twisted and their mouths met for a hot, sweaty kiss . . . That was all right, too.