Whoring at Hogwarts

This is an abandoned story, keeping it because it's funny.

Harry once saw an episode of this show called "The Twilight Zone". It had been a Sunday afternoon and Dudley had been channel surfing, and that was the only thing of interest on. It – the show, that is- was really weird, for lack of a better word. From what Harry could tell of it, its entire premise was to show stories of something known as the "Twilight Zone", people were thrown into strange situations and anything was possible. It was right at this moment that Harry felt he must be in an episode of this show, because if this wasn't a strange situation, he didn't know what was. Never, ever, in a thousand hundred years, could Harry have dreamed that he would be having a conversation like this with Hermione, of all people. And he had been thrown into it, submerged into its depths without having even been allowed time for a last gulp of air.

"You think I'm what?" Harry stammered in disbelief.

"Oh, come now, Harry," Hermione coaxed. "It's quite obvious that you're in deep denial. You're queer, you're here, get used to it."

It had all started out so innocently! How could it ever have culminated to this point Harry wasn't sure, but here they were, discussing his…his…orientation.

"Honestly, Hermione, you don't know what you're talking about," Harry said.

"Isn't it dark in there?" Hermione asked. "Not to mention dusty, too?"

"Dark in where?"

"The closet, of course," Hermione replied matter-of-factly.

"I don't know where you're getting this from! Read my lips: I_am_not_a_pouf."

"Read my lips, Harry: Ri-ver_in_E-gypt."

"What?" What did a river in Egypt have to do with anything? Well, other than the fact that he felt like drowning himself in it at this point of conversation.

"Look, Harry, I'm just trying to help you out. Of the closet."

"Which I am not in, in the first place!"

"You'd be a lot happier, you know, if you just embraced your sexuality! I only want you to be happy!" Hermione insisted, suddenly claiming for herself the role of Harry's personal therapist. Well, he certainly wasn't paying her.

"You mean gay," Harry corrected.

"Exactly."

"No!"

"Why not?"

"What gave you the idea that I'm a...a...that way in the first place?" Harry grasped for words, for a coherent thought, even, and found none.

" One: you haven't shown any interest in a single girl for about a year now..." Hermione began to list.

"That's because Cho graduated! I just haven't found the right girl, that's all..." Harry trailed off.

"Two: All that time you spend polishing your broom. Freudian much?"

"Well, I don't know about you, Hermione, but I don't particularly fancy splinters in my crotch." Honestly! It was common sense! Plus, one had to keep his equipment in good condition.

"Excuses, excuses. Three: I think Malfoy fancies you."

Now that was a shock, if he ever felt one. "You what?"

"Malfoy fancies you. Has for a while, actually," Hermione explained. Harry wondered at her composure, that certain something that could allow her to say the most preposterous things without even batting an eyelash.

"Hermione, I'm pretty sure he's straight."

"As straight as you are."

"Exactly."

Hermione wore the same infuriating, self-satisfied smile that she did when she aced an exam. "So you admit it?"

It took Harry a little while to process her meaning. "Wha...No! That's not what I meant and you know it!"

"Ri-ver in E-gypt, Harry. River in Egypt."

There was no convincing her! "Okay, supposing…and this is a very big supposition here," said Harry, "supposing that Malfoy does butter his bread on that side, and, venturing even further into the depths of the Twilight Zone, supposing that he really does fancy me like you say, what does any of this have to do with my sexual orientation?"

"Oh, that's an easy one. You fancy him, too. Next question, please," Hermione responded, the way she would to anything asked her in class.

Harry nearly choked on air. "I what?"

"You fancy him."

"No, I don't!"

"Yes, you do. I can read you like a book, Harry."

"Well, I don't know what sort of book you've been reading lately, Hermione, but that is really, really perverted." Se perverted that his mind refused to even wrap itself around the idea. It was just…unthinkable.

"It's nowhere near as outlandish as you're trying to make it sound. You quite obviously fancy him, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were having some sort of sordid, secret affair with him but didn't want Ron and me to find out for fear of our reactions."

"Hermione, I would think that I would know if I fancy someone or not," Harry pointed out to her.

"Yes, you would think so, wouldn't you?" Hermione pondered. "Funny how that doesn't really work."

"Do you mind giving some supporting evidence? I'm really at a loss here."

"Please, Harry, if you two flirted any more shamelessly I'd have to complain to the administration for indecent activity in public."

"What? And just how do we flirt, may I ask?"

"Well, i.e., there are all those heated, lust-filled looks you seem so fond of throwing at each other."

"You mean, our looks of Mutual Hate and Disdain™?"

"Well, you certainly have the mutual part right, although 'hate and disdain' isn't exactly the diction I would use, personally. Unless, of course, you're into BDSM, which is an option I'm not entirely eliminating, by the by."

Harry sighed, exasperated. "Hermione, you're reading far too much into matters. Anything else?"

"How about all those tongue-in-cheek invectives you throw at each other? 'Sod off', or 'You suck', or 'Bite me', or 'Blow me', or 'Screw you', or 'Throw me down on the floor and shag me rotten', just to name a few."

Harry coloured crimson. "That's slander, Hermione! When did either of us ever say…th-that?"

"Okay, admittedly, I made up the last one. But you could have said it is my point."

"Right. And my point is that I didn't."

"Oh, but you could have."

"Hermione, if this is all your evidence, you've a sorry case."

"Oh, don't you fret, I'm far from done. How about all the time you spend chasing each other during the Gryffindor/Slytherin matches?"

"That's because we're both after the Snitch!"

"As the actress said to the bishop, oh, is that what they're calling it these days?"

"Hermione!" Harry deplored.

"Not to mention that most recent incident where you got into that scuffle with him in the halls."

"May I remind you that I was defending your honour?" Harry recalled the situation all too well.

"That's a very convenient and noble excuse to tackle the object of one's affections and get on top of things, so to speak. I'm a big girl, now, Harry -I can take care of myself and you bloody well know it," Hermione pointed out.

"Fine! See if I ever try and defend you again," Harry huffed.

"I wasn't aware that ripping Malfoy's clothes off was essential to defending my honour."

"That was an accident and you know it! Besides, you're exaggerating…that was nowhere near a rip. It was a tiny tear, at the most."

"In a most convenient place," Hermione saw it of necessity to remind him.

"Hermione! You're absolutely balmy! It was an accident! As in unintentional?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps you would like to believe so. Perhaps you even do believe so, and perhaps it is your repressed, subconscious desires surfacing and screaming to be released."

Harry tried to express his distress and confusion one more tie, "Since when did you fancy yourself a psychologist? I don't even know why we're having this conversation."

"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it. Imagine putting all that energy that you spend rolling around with him into…well, rolling around with him. Putting all the passion you spend going for his throat into…well, going for his throat. Among other, nicer, body parts."

The images that that turn of phrase inspired were not what Harry needed directly after eating. "Eeww! Ick, Hermione, just…ick!"

"Oh, come on. At first the tension was kind of cute, now I just have this overwhelming urge to mash the two of you together and scream, 'Just snog already!'"

With a sigh, Harry walked over to the wall and began thumping his head against it in a regular rhythm. Thud. Thud. Thud.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. It kills brain cells," Hermione advised. "Besides, if it's banging up against a wall that you're looking for, I'm sure Malfoy would happily oblige you."

Harry stopped abruptly and twirled around to fix Hermione with the most shocked, scandalised look he could possibly muster. "Hermione, please tell me that I hit my head one too many times and damaged my hearing, because I knowthat you did not just say what I think you said."

"If what you think I said inspires rather graphic visuals of hot, sweaty, rabid boysex, then I probably did actually say it," Hermione calmly informed him.

"Waugh!" Harry cried in despair, returning to his sanctuary of pain, brought to him by the friendly neighbourhood supplier –Mr. Wall.

"Are you quite done yet?" Hermione calmly asked her friend. "All that banging can't be good for your wits, you know."

"You seem to be functioning fine without yours," Harry retorted.

"I'm just trying to help, Harry."

"You know, just forget it. Where is Ron?" Harry asked. "I think I really need to talk to him."

"Ron? Well, he's upstairs…" Hermione began.

"Thanks," said Harry breezily as he headed up the stairs to the boys' dormitory.

"…but I wouldn't go up there if I were you," Hermione finished. Of course, by then, it was too late.

"Oh, Professor, I've been a bad boy."

"Indeed you have, Mr. Finnigan. What am I ever going to do with you?"

"I think I deserve to be punished," the Irish boy said, with no small amount of shame.

"Indeed. Proper disciplinary measures ought to be taken…"

And the good Professor was just about to initiate what would have been a most intriguing detention session involving Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and the Giant Squid when, at that precise moment, Harry Potter walked into the Gryffindor boys' dormitory.

"Ron?"

"Harry!" Ron squeaked, his voice cracking in a manner that it had not done for about three years.

"Seamus?" said Harry.

"Harry!" said Seamus, pulling a pillow over his lap. "Ron…" said Seamus.

"Seamus?" said Ron.

"Harry!" said Seamus, indicating the handcuffs next to Ron. Ron gasped and quickly thrust them under the covers.

"Ron?" said Harry, thoroughly confused.

"Harry," said Ron.

"Seamus?" said Harry.

"Harry," said Seamus.

"Mind telling me what's going on here?" Harry asked.

"Ah, there's a very simple explanation for that, actually," said Ron. "We were…um…er…"

"Doing homework!" interjected Seamus. "Reviewing Quidditch strategies!" said Ron, at the exact same time. They looked at each other.

"Reviewing Quidditch strategies," said Seamus. "Doing homework," said Ron simultaneously.

They looked at each other once again.

"Reviewing Quidditch strategies," the two said in unison.

"I…see…" said Harry.

"Yes," said Ron. "A perfectly innocent, platonic, non-sexual way for two friends to spend a quiet Wednesday afternoon together."

"Aye," agreed Seamus, "Not suspicious or sexual or kinky-role-play-bondage-related in the very least."

"You're reviewing Quidditch strategies?"

"Yes."

"In bed."

"Yes."

"Together."

"Yes."

"Naked."

"Yes."

"Oh, okay," said Harry. "Just wondering, is all."

"I think better when I'm sans clothing," explained Seamus. Ron looked at him oddly. "Ron thinks better that way, too."

"Um…yeah…" said Ron, shifting uncomfortably.

"Wait, when you're unclothed, or when he is?" Harry asked.

"A little from column A, a little from column B," Seamus replied.

"…Quidditch, huh?" inquired Harry.

"Oh, yes," said Seamus. "We've got broomsticks and balls and the whole nine yards over here."

"Nine yards is an exaggeration, Seamus," scoffed Ron. "Inches, maybe, but even that's a bit of a stretch…"

"Damn right it's a stretch," said Seamus wickedly, his hand moving…somewhere beneath the covers. Ron looked flushed, as if with fever.

"Are we still talking Quidditch?" asked Harry.

"Of course we are," answered Seamus. His hand reappeared from the mysterious Somewhere Under the Covers, this time producing a Quaffle and a broomstick.

"See? Everything," said Ron, clearing his throat.

"I can see ev'rything," Seamus supplied helpfully, tilting his head back a bit. Ron glared at him.

"Umm…is that my bottle of linseed oil?" Harry interrupted, pointing to the half-empty vial that sat innocently upon the dresser. Through the glass, one could see that it read YRRAH in black ink, at least from Harry's viewpoint.

"I was out," said Ron apologetically. "I'll replace it this weekend."

"You had a new bottle!" Harry exclaimed. "How do you use it up so quickly?"

"Polishing my broomstick," Seamus explained.

"Why don't you do that yourself?" Harry asked Seamus, puzzled.

"Well, Ron does a much better job than I could alone," Seamus replied, matter-of-factly. Ron coloured scarlet.

"Ah," said Harry with comprehension, "I understand completely. Ron does take very good care of his things."

"Very good care," echoed Seamus. Ron looked more than a little embarrassed.

"So how far have you gotten?" Harry queried in complete innocence.

Seamus looked at him, "Do you really want to know?"

"It's nothing, Harry," Ron quickly assured him. "Er…what I mean is, we haven't gotten a whole lot done."

"We tried out some new positions!' Seamus interjected. Ron hit him. "What? He asked!"

"Harry, this isn't a very good time right now," Ron tried to explain. "perhaps you could come back later…?"

"Aye, we're practising the Starfish-and-Stick right now," Seamus helpfully supplied.

"The Starfish-and-Stick?"

"Yes."

"Without a stick?"

"Oh, there's a stick all right," Seamus said, rather suggestively. Ron coughed.

"Umm…maybe this isn't a very good time," Harry said, feeling even more awkward.

"Yes, later would be good," Ron suggested, his voice wavering a bit. Seamus snorted. "Very good."

"Catch ye later!" Seamus punctuated with a saucy wink.

Harry decided to edge out of the room slowly before things became even more…weird. He didn't exactly have a limited vocabulary, but that was the best word that he could think of.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," was the first thing that Hermione said the minute she saw him again.

"Warn me about what?" asked Harry.

"Ron and Seamus…" Hermione answered him, voice dripping with suggestion.

"They were only discussing Quidditch strategies, Hermione." And maybe if he said it to himself enough times, he could believe that it was true.

"Oh, Harry, you're not a stupid boy, but sometimes-" Hermione began.

"Actually, Hermione, I think I might need some air right now," Harry interrupted.

Desperately.