Fic: It's All so Pink, R/L PG-13 (original) (raw)

Fic: It’s All So Pink
Pairing: Ron Weasley/Luna Lovegood
Rating: PG-13 for a bit of dodgy language
Author: Kell, a.k.a. Broi
Prompt: Seamus and Dean dare Ron to ask Luna to Hogsmeade one weekend.
Warnings: None
Word Count: 4364
A/N: For the rwll_ficathon, of course. Apologies for this being late. I’ve had numerous problems with internet access and various other things, and thanks to everyone that helped me get this online! This is a little mini R/L fic that is a sort of pre-romance, and has turned into as much of a ‘Seamus and Dean being idiots’ fic as it is R/L, but hope you like it all the same. I'm so sorry not to be able to comment on other people's fic, but the library filters out most of LJ and will probably filter this the minute it loads! I hate losing home net connection...

It’s All So Pink

Ron loved Quidditch more than pretty much anything. He’d just played Slytherin and absolutely caned them; the look on that git Malfoy’s face was absolutely priceless as Ron saved one goal after another and Harry had eventually caught the Snitch. He was enjoying a long and leisurely shower in the Gryffindor changing rooms, wishing the Slytherins were about so he could taunt them a bit, until he realised that all his teammates were gone and he was alone.

Ron was about to step out of the jet of water when a movement in the corner of the room caught his eye. Gasping in terror, he snatched wildly for his towel and struggled to get it around his slender waist as he stumbled in desperation behind a stack of nearby Quidditch padding.

“Hermione!” he cried indignantly, “You can’t be in here! This is the blokes’ room! It’s…well, it’s private!!”

Hermione waved a hand dismissively and perched herself on the end of a bench. “Do get dressed, Ron,” she said, terribly matter-of-factly given the situation. “I came in here to tell you that Seamus and Dean are causing rather an upset in your dormitory. I couldn’t gather what it was about, Harry was laughing too much…”

Ron narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Hermione,” he said, “What exactly is going on?”

“All I managed to catch was ‘he’ll be sorry he even saw those bloody cakes’ from Seamus…” Hermione began, but before she could finish, Ron had shrieked in terror and had dashed from the shower room, towel still clutched to his waist. With a roll of her eyes that gave away her familiarity with situations such as these, Hermione followed Ron through the wooden door and up towards the dormitories.

Ron found Seamus with a Slytherin tie tied around his forehead, perched innocently on the end of Dean’s bed. Dean, upon hearing the crashing and banging that Ron made coming up the staircase, had hastily slammed Ron’s trunk shut and leapt onto the bed next to his friend. As Ron burst in, all he was greeted with was two identical innocent smiles.

“What have you two done?!” Ron cried angrily, pointing an accusatory finger at his classmates before him. Seamus looked affronted.

“Done?” he said, mouth widening in mock surprise. “Ron, I am appalled you’d think such things of us.”

“Absolutely gutted, mate,” Dean confirmed, shaking his head reproachfully. Ron’s eyes narrowed.

“Where’d you get that from?” he asked suspiciously, jabbing a finger towards Seamus’ Slytherin tie. Looking up, Seamus snatched the tie from around his head in a flash and sat on it.

“Nowhere, mate,” he said easily. “Nicked it, thass’ all. Malfoy was in the shower after Quidditch and I thieved it, didn’t I?”

“What’s with all the questions, mate?” Dean added, getting to his feet. “Got something to be wary of, have you?”

Seamus chuckled devilishly, joining Dean at Ron’s side. “Been up to some tricks, have you, boyo?” he grinned, poking Ron in the ribs. Ron’s hand tightened at his towel and he gulped.

“Been playing some little practical jokes, have you, eh?” Dean said with a nod to Seamus. Ron’s face was starting to match his hair as it turned redder and redder. “He has, hasn’t he?”

“He’s played a little trick on his old mates here and now he’s weeing himself that someone’s gonna get him back for it…”

“Fred and George sent me those to test!” Ron exploded suddenly, scampering forward to hide behind the relative safely of Dean’s bed. “They gave them to me to test and they said that if I didn’t they’d write to mum and tell her about that Firewhisky last term, as well as that time with those toads, and they said that they wanted to see results and I couldn’t give them to Harry cos he’s got all that crap going on and you were the only two left cos Neville probably would’ve died…”

Seamus shook his head, an evil grin playing at his lips. “Leaving those cakes out for us to find, cos you knew we’d eat them.” Seamus’ eyes darkened. “We ate those, Ron. Do you know what they did to us? Do you know?”

Ron shook his head dumbly, his mouth hanging open in fear and his hand still clutched at his precarious towel.

“Mate, you don’t want to know,” Dean muttered with a shudder. “It was the worst hour of my life. I thought I’d be stuck that way…like, like _that_…forever…”

“Don’t talk about it!” Seamus sobbed, clutching at Dean’s shoulders for support.

“It’s alright, mate, it’s over, it’s over…” Dean soothed, patting Seamus on the back. Ron, who was still half naked and still hiding behind Dean’s bed, frowned.

“Clearly you’ve had something terrible happen to you in relation to those fairy cakes that the Twins sent, but let’s just say that you got a great male bonding experience out of it all and you wouldn’t have it any other way. Agreed? Agreed. Great, now I reckon I’m just going to get some clothes on and then we can…”

“Ah, no,” Seamus said with a smile, apparently recovered from his trauma. “Ah, I’m afraid not. You see, what we went through was far too awful to simply forget about.”

“Far too terrible to let go, mate,” Dean added with a shrug, moving around the back of his bed to slap a hand on Ron’s bare shoulder.

“We’ve arranged a little surprise for you as repayment,” Seamus continued, also patting Ron’s shoulder. “I won’t tell you too much about it as it’ll spoil it…”

“…but we will tell you it involves Malfoy, a pair of Hermione’s knickers, and us in the showers with that Zabini fellow, delicately implying (for him to tell the rest of Slytherin house) that you planted them there as you know that Malfoy _enjoys the sensation of silk on his skin…_”

Ron dropped his towel in terror.

“MALFOY IS GOING TO KILL ME!”

**

As it turned out, Seamus and Dean couldn’t bring themselves to be that cruel. I mean, being an unknowing subject of one of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes was one thing; being Avada Kedavra’d by Malfoy was another thing entirely. See, Seamus and Dean could be reasonable, really. They’d found a nice little alternative and promised him that, if Ron did as they instructed, they’d fix it so that Malfoy would blame that Finch-Fletchley twat instead and Ron would be safe. Alright, Ron had said, sounds good to me. He’d never liked Finch Fletchley much, anyway. So, what did he have to do? Anything’d be better than that.

Ah. Well, that’s the problem.

Compared to Malfoy it is nothing. Well, that’s not strictly true…Ron would have enjoyed a bit of a fight with Malfoy; he’d been dying to punch the smug little idiot in the mouth ever since he found out that he’d snogged Ginny for a bet last term. Bit of a punch, that’s all; he’d have got away with it…but then, he wouldn’t have enjoyed the aftermath with McGonagall. Not one bit. Whichever way you look at it, this option was better. It is better. IT IS BETTER. It is…

Oh God, Ron thought. It is shite. That’s what it is. Complete and utter shite.

“You have to take Loony Luna Lovegood to Hogsmeade, and you have to enjoy it.”

“And you have to make her enjoy it. None of your usual crapness, Weasley. Show the girl a good time.”

“A trip to Puddifoot’s is in order, methinks…”

“As well as a romantic stroll in the snow…”

“And if you can get a bit of hand-holding in there too, that’d be grand…”

“…yeah, if you hold her hand, we might just forget about the fairy incident…”

“Fairy CAKES, Dean! God, fairy CAKES, we were never fairies, never…”

“…not in a million years, mate…”

“…especially not ones with tutus and…oh God…BOOBS…”

“Shut the shite up, Dean! Ron, just take Luna to Hogsmeade and don’t screw it up.”

**

Ron felt as though his collar was strangling him. Everything was so…pink.

Opposite him on the impossibly small, round table, sat a girl with long blonde hair. She picked delicately at the pumpkin pasty she’d ordered and nibbled at the crust, staring at Ron intently as she did so. She hadn’t stopped staring since they’d sat down in here exactly three minutes and thirty-four seconds ago. God, had they only been in there that long?! It felt like a bloody lifetime.

She looked at him expectantly. Ron supposed that he was meant to make conversation, so he did.

“It’s very pink,” he said, his voice squeaking a little. He coughed loudly; a horribly deafening sound above the light tinkling of the charmed piano in the corner. The tips of Ron’s ears turned the same shade of pink as the tablecloth and Luna smiled softly.

“You have a pink jumper,” she replied, placing the crust of her pasty on her plate.

Ron spluttered, having taken a mouthful of pasty himself. “It’s maroon!” he managed to choke. “It’s maroon, and mum makes them for me for Christmas. It’s more red than pink.”

Luna nodded knowingly and took another small bite of her pasty.

“It’s more red than pink!” Ron said again. There was a pause. “It’s not pink,” he muttered defiantly.

This was definitely not going well. His choking had startled the cherub hovering above the next table, and it was now glaring at him with a rather threatening look in its eye. If it dared prod Ron anywhere with that bloody arrow…

“You’re friends with Dean Thomas,” Luna said suddenly, as more of a statement than a question. Ron nodded slowly, unsure of where the conversation was going. “Your sister’s going out with him.”

“I know,” Ron said, through gritted teeth.

“I don’t think I’d like Dean Thomas as a boyfriend,” Luna mused, taking another nibble of her pasty.

Ron waited for some elaboration on this evaluation, but when none came he raised his eyebrows and said, “Riiiight.”

“Do you like being the Gryffindor Keeper?” Luna asked, finishing off her pumpkin pasty.

“I like it more than being the Ravenclaw Keeper, if that’s what you mean,” Ron said rather indignantly, rather thinking the comment about Dean had been aimed at all the Gryffindor boys in general.

“I like you being the Gryffindor Keeper,” Luna said. “You’re funny!”

Ron snorted. “Thanks,” he grumped in reply. “Look, do you want to go somewhere else? That cherub is making faces at me…”

“Alright,” Luna replied, getting to her feet as the cherub blew a startlingly loud raspberry in Ron’s direction. “Daddy’s told me about a shop in Hogsmeade that I’ve always wanted to visit. Do you know, they sell real fossilized Borogroves?”

“I didn’t know,” Ron said, though thought it best not to mention he had no idea what the bloody Borogroves were in the first place.

As they walked along through the fresh snow, Ron took the time to contemplate a few things. He could tick bloody Puddifoot’s off Seamus and Dean’s list right now; same goes for walking in the sodding snow. He considered trying the hand-holding for a moment, before remembering their conversation had so far included Luna’s apparent dislike of a member of his dormitory, his general ineptitude at Quidditch and some random fossil in some random shop which Ron generally doubted the existence of. Ron’s track record with girls wasn’t great, but even he knew that wasn’t the best way to get a girl to hold your hand.

In that case, what the hell was?

“What else is in this shop, then?” Ron ventured. Couldn’t go wrong with that.

“Oh, lots of things,” Luna replied. “Daddy interviewed the owner for his magazine last year. He was a very interesting man.”

“Shall we go there, then?” Ron suggested, thinking that if they did, Luna would do most of the talking and Ron could go over the scheme of play for Tuesday’s Quidditch match against Hufflepuff in his head until this dreadful Hogsmeade visit was at an end.

“Alright,” Luna agreed, “Let’s!”

Luna wasn’t exactly bad to look at, Ron thought as they crunched their way through the snow. She had a sort of scary look about her with her staring great eyes and wild hair and everyone knew she was a bit mental, but she was no Eloise Midgeon. All Ron had to do was wander round with her for a bit; they’d done the hard stuff already…apart from the hand holding, but Ron wasn’t at all convinced he would actually do that anyway. He glanced backwards anxiously, knowing full well that Seamus and Dean were probably following them round all day armed with Colin Creevy’s bloody camera. Urgh, Ron thought with a shudder.

“Daddy says that this shop is the best in Hogsmeade,” Luna was saying as they walked, and Ron couldn’t help noticing that they were getting rather far away from the bustle of the main shops and houses. He couldn’t even see the Shrieking Shack any more.

“Luna,” he interrupted, “Where exactly is this shop of yours?”

“Just over this hill,” she replied happily, striding so quickly now that Ron had to jog slightly to catch up.

“Into the forest?” Ron asked dubiously. “What sort of shop is hidden away in the forest? No-one would ever go there…”

“Oh, people go there,” Luna replied knowingly, the bobble on the end of her stripy hat jiggling furiously from side to side as she walked. “It’s just that not many people know where it is.”

“Right,” Ron said, entirely unsure as to what on earth he was doing here and where in Merlin’s beard they were going. At least Seamus and Dean’ll get bloody cold tracking us all the way, he thought with delight. Suddenly, he didn’t feel as chilly anymore.

Ron noticed Luna slowing down a few feet ahead of him, before coming to a slow stop next to a large tree stump. Ron narrowed his eyes.

“Luna, I don’t see any shop…” he began, but Luna had already shrugged her shoulders and sat down.

“I must have walked the wrong way,” she said happily. “Oh well, never mind. Plenty more Hogsmeade visits in the year. Daddy says…”

“Oh, never mind what your Dad says!” Ron snapped, sounding a little more angry than he’d intended, “I’ll bet that shop doesn’t even exist! Who puts a shop in the forest anyway?”

“It does exist,” Luna replied simply, collecting a small pile of snow on the tree stump and patting it into a mound. Ron merely snorted in reply. “Your Dad collects Muggle things, doesn’t he?” Luna asked.

“Yeah,” Ron replied flippantly, kicking at the snow at his feet. “So what?”

“I think it’s cool,” Luna replied. “How come you don’t collect Muggle things?”

Ron frowned. “Er, I get enough of it at home, thanks,” he said. “Look, maybe we should walk back, it’s getting a bit cold out he…”

“I couldn’t imagine doing anything different to what Daddy does,” Luna mused, patting her little snow-pile thoughtfully. “I’d like to write for the Quibbler as a travel writer…you know, wandering all over the world looking for rare creatures and mythological beasts…”

“What, like those Crumple Horned Wotsits you’re always talking about?” Ron said with a sneer, and then immediately realised that he sounded dreadfully like Draco Malfoy. “Er, they sound interesting,” he added swiftly. He didn’t fancy making Luna cry or anything; crying girls were worse than shouting girls. At least if they yell at you, you can yell back.

“You really think so?” Luna said, her eyes lighting up. “The other Ravenclaws think I’m mad, you know.” She paused, her gaze fixed on the base of a distant tree. “I do know what people call me.”

“What’s…what’s that?” Ron said, swallowing slightly.

“Loony Luna,” Luna replied, with a short laugh. “They only mean it as a joke, of course.”

“Course,” Ron supplied quickly. “You couldn’t be that thick; the Sorting Hat put you in Ravenclaw.”

“Mmm,” Luna said distractedly.

“Harry told me that people hide your stuff,” Ron said, sitting down next to her on the tree stump, carefully minding the small pile of snow she’d made. “That’s not nice, you know.”

Luna shrugged. “I get it all back. I put up a list,” she said.

“They shouldn’t nick your stuff though,” Ron replied, surprising himself at his own genuineness, “If anyone nicked my stuff, they’d get a good hexing.”

Luna let out a burst of delighted laughter that made Ron jump a bit, but she looked so happy all of a sudden compared to before that Ron smiled despite himself.

“What do you want to do?” Luna asked suddenly, the laughter stopping as abruptly as it began.

“What, now?” Ron replied, but Luna shook her head.

“I want to be a travel writer,” she stated. “And what do you want to do?”

“Er…” Ron began, scratching the back of his neck. He’d thought about this tons of times in the past year or so; they’d had career chats with McGonagall about it all and he’d thought for a while that he’d quite like to be an Auror. It didn’t look like he’d ever get the grades for it though, and he was hating his NEWT with Snape so much that he was considering dropping Potions at the end of the year anyway. Of course he’d thought about doing Quidditch until he’d actually had to play in a team last year and discovered he was abysmal. Well, he was a lot better this year, really, but he’d seen Oliver Wood play many times before and therefore didn’t need telling that he wasn’t anywhere near the standard of any of the professional Keepers. Harry was the Quidditch star, not him. Come to think of it, Harry was the chap best suited to being an Auror, too. No-one had cause to hunt down Death Eaters more than Harry did.

“I don’t really know,” Ron admitted finally. “I did the NEWTs to get into Auror training, but I don’t think it’s going to happen now.”

“Why not?”

Ron shrugged. “Gonna fail Potions,” he said dispiritedly, “And Charms isn’t much better. My Dark Arts is pretty good, but that’s only cos Harry taught me…” Ron trailed off and slumped forward, his head in his hands.

“Harry teaches you a lot,” Luna stated, which made Ron snort into his hands crossly.

“Yeah, he does.”

“Did he teach you how to play Quidditch?”

Ron snorted again. “Ha! No. If he’d taught me how to play Quidditch, I’d be a pro by now. Or at least, the second-rate sort of pro with no real talent.”

“Just a lot of hard work and determination,” Luna said simply. Ron glanced up to see her smiling that Luna-smile of hers; sort of a plain and uncomplicated smile with nothing hidden behind it like arrogance or pain. Ron smiled back.

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging his shoulders again, but this time with a strange sort of sat-down swagger that appeared out of absolutely nowhere, “I do work pretty hard.” That was a bit of a lie, but he had been known to stay up all night finishing Snape’s essays when he’d left them all to the last minute.

“Harry is nice,” Luna said thoughtfully. “It must be fun to have a best friend.”

Ron frowned. “I thought you were mates with Ginny.”

“I am,” Luna replied, “But we’re in different Houses. The Ravenclaws hardly do anything with the Gryffindors.”

“Who’d you sit next to and stuff?”

“Nobody.”

“Oh.”

Ron looked up at Luna again with one eye closed in terrified anticipation. He half expected her to be crying, but instead she was looking around the forest interestedly, humming softly under her breath. Ron sighed in relief.

“What d’you want to do now?” he asked. “No offence, but I’m getting a bit nippy sat out here and I don’t think we’re going to find that shop…”

“I don’t think we will either,” Luna mused. “Never mind, it will be something to do another day. I shall have to check with Daddy where he said it was…”

“…yeah, and I don’t mind coming along…you know…if you want to look for it another day.” Ron swallowed, feeling his ears turning red under his grey hat. For some reason he didn’t like the thought of Luna sitting by herself in class, or looking for her belongings under people’s beds and in their trunks as her classmates laughed at her behind her back. I mean, being someone’s mate didn’t take much effort; you just had to meet up once in a while and have some trips to Hogsmeade together and stuff. Send a card on their birthday. Maybe you could get a card with those Snor-things on them…

Luna let out another burst of delighted laughter. “I’m glad you believe that shop exists,” she said sincerely. “It sells the most interesting things. Did I tell you about the Borogroves?”

“You did, yeah,” Ron grinned, thinking how nice it was to make someone…well, you know…happy. “Sounds great.”

Luna got to her feet and shook out her hair from where it fell under her hat. “It is a little cold,” she agreed. She began to stride back the way they’d come, making Ron jog to catch up again. He’d been walking along next to her for about five minutes when they came to the edge of the forest and looked down on Hogsmeade. It had begun to get dark, and the houses were lit up like hundreds of little candles nestled in the small valley. Together they began to walk down the hill through the snow, and it took Ron a good few minutes to realise that Luna was holding his hand.

**

The way Seamus eats his dinner is bloody rank. I mean, Ron wasn’t exactly known for his table manners, but Seamus practically inhales his food. Ron wasn’t enjoying having to watch him the following night at dinner, snarfing up his pumpkin soup and eating his potatoes whole.

“D’yadoitvnn?” Seamus said indecipherably, making Ron curl a lip in disgust.

“Beg your pardon?”

Seamus swallowed. “Did you do it then?” he replied.

“Do what?”

“Take Loony Luna to Hogsmeade,” Dean supplied, helping himself to another portion of peas. Ron stiffened.

“I’d have thought you already know,” he replied sneeringly. “Didn’t you follow me?”

“Nope,” Seamus said happily. “No need. You were shitting yourself so badly about the Malfoy thing, we figured you’d be too dumb not to do all the stuff we told you to do.”

Ron bristled, his fists tightening around his cutlery. “If you mean Puddifoots, then yes. If you mean walking in the snow, we did that too. Alright?”

“Super,” Dean said. “And did you hold her hand?”

“Better still, did you snog her?”

“Seamus, don’t be rancid,” Dean said with a shudder. “Imagine snogging Luna! It would be like…I dunno, snogging something really weird!”

Ron frowned angrily, opening and shutting his mouth like a goldfish. He knew he wanted to say something but he didn’t know what, and he didn’t know if he did want to say anything but he sort of did. And why in Merlin’s beard would he want to say anything? Because you don’t want to be the same as Luna’s horrible friends, said a small voice in his head.

“Shut up,” Ron muttered. “Stop being a twat.”

Seamus’ eyes lit up and he grinned as though all of his Christmases had come at once.

“Did you snog her, Weasley?” he whooped. “You snogged her! Ha, Weasley snogged Loony Luna Lovegood!”

“I did not snog her,” Ron replied coolly. “I just went to Hogsmeade with a girl and had a nice time. Is there a crime in that?”

“No, mate!” Dean replied, the same smug grin on his face. “We always reckoned you fancied Hermione. That’ll show us!”

Ron narrowed his eyes at Seamus and Dean, who had already resumed eating. They kept giggling into their food and making little comments to each other that Ron couldn’t hear but resulted in bursts of uncontrollable laughter, making McGonagall stare rather pointedly in their general direction. Ron gritted his teeth and smiled sweetly.

“Neville’s eating all the pudding,” Ron said. “Better get in there boys, there won’t be any left.”

Seamus looked horrified, and immediately grabbed one of the small pink cakes from the gigantic plate in front of him. Dean did the same and Ron watched as they peeled off the little paper case from the base of the cake and took a big bite.

“I could eat these forever,” Seamus said with his mouth full, spraying cake crumbs onto the table in front of him.

“I reckon I’m getting full up, mate,” Dean said suddenly, his voice wavering. “I feel a bit funny.”

“So do I, mate,” Seamus said, his face falling. He looked at Dean, who’d turned the same shade of sickly grey that Seamus could just feel he himself was, and together they turned to look at Ron. Ron smiled sweetly back and gave them a little wave as they both clutched their stomachs in fear.

“Weasley…you didn’t…”

Ron smiled a bit more, cos he was enjoying this.

“Weasley! Please…please tell me you didn’t…not in the Great Hall in front of the Slytherins, please…”

Ron winked, getting to his feet. “I’m off,” he said with a nod to Harry. “It’s getting very pink in here.”

He began to walk down the length of the Gryffindor table grinning to himself, allowing a chuckle as he heard the Slytherins behind him explode with whoops of sneering laughter.

“Finnigan and Thomas are FAIRIES!” Ron heard Malfoy screech in delight. As he turned through the huge wooden doorway, Ron caught sight of Luna sitting alone at the end of the Ravenclaw table. She looked up and gave him a little bit of a wave, so he waved back and felt all sort of warm when she beamed at him. Yeah, it was definitely nice to make people happy, Ron thought. He headed back up towards Gryffindor Tower, finding himself wondering when Luna’s birthday was and whether he would ever be able to find that bloody shop.