Damage Control

Title: Damage Control
Author: quite_grey
Rating: PG for some language
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Trio friendship, budding H/Hr
Length: One-shot (3448 words)
Genre: Humour
Warnings: None that I can think of
Summary: Ron does some damage control, times two.
Notes: I'm an American writer, so please feel free to let me know if I've slipped in any glaring Americanisms or the like. Thanks to shellydkitty for looking this over.
Website: http://community.livejournal.com/greykitty_fic/2485.html
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Damage Control

“Uh, Hermione...what happened to you?”

“I don't know!” Hermione wailed. “I just put some Sleekeazy's in my hair, and then—” She gestured wildly at her head. “This!”

Ron let loose a sudden, hacking cough, doing a bad job of covering up a laugh that he just couldn't keep back. Hermione's hair, which was pretty unruly to begin with, was practically exploding out from her head, rising almost to the ceiling, a wall of frizz the likes of which he'd never seen.

Not to mention the fact that it was blue.

“It's not funny!” she screeched, her voice so high-pitched that Ron shuddered involuntarily, his laughter dying an abrupt death.

“Sorry,” Ron cut in before she could start. “Sorry, it's not funny, it's just...”

He held both hands up in front of himself in surrender and tried to keep his gaze away from her hair; despite his words it was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen.

“What was I thinking?” Hermione half-sobbed, burying her face in her hands.

“Don't cry, Hermione,” Ron sputtered, stricken. He'd only come over to Hermione's to drop off a few books that she'd asked him to pick up in Diagon Alley on his way home for work; he hadn't expected to find her in hysterics. He was not good with hysterical women, especially when he could hardly look at them for fear of laughing. “You can always—wear a hat!”

“Gee, thanks.” Hermione sniffed loudly, scrubbing her palms against her eyes. Ron set the pile of books in his arms down on a nearby table and conjured her up a handkerchief, handing it to her warily.

“Do you want me to firecall my mum?” he asked, giving her an awkward pat on the shoulder. “I'm sure she can help—I remember one time Ginny accidentally spelled all her hair right off—”

“Ron, what was I thinking?” Hermione repeated, looking up at him with watery, pleading brown eyes, and the huge blue abomination atop her head didn't seem quite so funny any more.

“There's nothing wrong with wanting your hair to look nice,” Ron replied, bracingly, with a light squeeze of her shoulder. “Really, I can call my mum right now, I know she'll be able to do something.”

With another loud sniff, Hermione dabbed her nose with the handkerchief. “I can't believe I thought it was a good idea to ask Harry to go to dinner with me.”

“What's the big deal?” Ron asked, wrinkling his brow in confusion. “You guys go out to eat all the time, we all do...”

Trailing off, he cocked his head and looked a bit more carefully at Hermione. It wasn't like her to get worked up about her hair, even if it was enormous and blue, but it really wasn't like her to try to do anything with it in the first place, especially just for a quick bite with him or Harry. “Oh...you asked him out to dinner.” He cleared his throat. “Like, a date.”

Hermione nodded miserably and blew her nose. “I don't even know why I did it. We were just sitting around the other night while you were visiting Ginny in London, and I kept thinking how nice it was, spending time together, and it just popped out.”

She sighed, dropping her eyes to the floor. “I don't even know if he knows that I meant...you know. A date.”

“Well, did you, er, tell him it was a date?”

Hermione met his eyes rather sheepishly. “Not exactly.”

Blowing out a long breath, Ron rubbed his hand against his forehead. “When are you going to understand that blokes aren't bloody mind-readers?”

Hermione pursed her lips stubbornly, looking like an utter mad woman with her face red from bawling and her massive blueberry hair. “I asked him to come to dinner with me at a fancy Muggle restaurant, and we never do that—he should be able to figure it out.”

“Not everyone analyzes every little thing half to death.” Ron rolled his eyes. Trust Hermione to assume everyone around her spent as much time thinking as she did. “You did the same thing to me when we were together, you know. Always expected me to puzzle you out.”

“Oh, so it's my fault that we broke up, is it?” Hermione shot back, clearly gearing up, and though Ron loved Hermione very much, he was relieved (not for the first time) that they weren't dating anymore.

He wondered if maybe it was her time of the month, but he wasn't thick enough to ask.

“Listen, Hermione, if you start going mental like this on Harry, you're going to scare the crap out of him,” Ron told her matter-of-factly, and Hermione's face crumpled up like she was going to start crying again.

“I'm just saying,” he added hastily, squeezing her shoulder once more because he didn't know what else to do. It was rare that she got herself worked up into this much of a state.

“What if I mess everything up?” she asked forlornly, swiping a tear off her face. “I didn't plan any of this, it just went and happened—”

“I know you like to plan,” Ron replied, the slightest hint of amused experience in his voice, “but...no offense, okay, but you were trying to plan out every little bit of our relationship from the beginning, and that didn't turn out so well, did it?”

Hermione worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Do you think we might have worked, if I'd been...different?”

“Well, yeah,” Ron said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world, but when Hermione's eyes glinted (with anger or more tears, he wasn't sure), he was quick to add, “but I would have had to be different, too, I mean, it takes two people to muck things up.”

She released her lip as she leaned up to give him a peck on the cheek. “Ronald Weasley, I had no idea you could be so insightful.”

Ron went red about the ears, rather pleased with himself. It wasn't every day a person got to explain something to Hermione Granger.

“You're not the only one in the world with brains, you know,” he replied, smiling broadly. Hermione rolled her eyes, but they were sparkling, and definitely not with tears this time.

“So do you want me to firecall my mum?” Ron asked, his attention once again returning to (more like assaulted by) the thing lurking atop Hermione's head.

She sighed and tried to pat her hair down, but to no avail. “She's going to want to know all about why I put this in my hair...I'd really rather not. But thanks.”

Ron could see where she was coming from. His mum was wonderful, but nosy.

“Maybe there was something wrong with the Sleekeazy's?” he offered helpfully.

“Obviously,” Hermione replied, and Ron gave her a dirty look.

“Well, little miss know-it-all, have you got any shampoo?”

***

Ron arrived home to the flat he and Harry shared ready for a drink.

It had taken nearly an hour to tame Hermione's hair down from it's monstrous heights, and though she hadn't done any more crying or screeching, she'd rambled on and on about friendships versus relationships, and spent at least twenty minutes comparing Harry to some complicated Arithmancy problem. Ron had come very close to snapping, and closer still when it turned out the reason Hermione's Sleekeazy's was no good was because it was the same bottle she'd used to gussy herself up for the Yule Ball their fourth year.

He had to wonder about that girl sometimes; bright as a Snitch about most things, dumb as a Bludger about others.

In the end, though, her hair had turned out so smooth and shiny, he'd wanted to pet it.

She gave him a quick hug at the door before he apparated away. “Thanks for everything. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” he replied easily, finally giving in to the urge to run his fingers through her now-brown hair just once. It was softer than even his sister's, and he was impressed with what a job they'd done on it.

“Is it okay?” she asked, anxiously fidgeting with a thick lock.

“It looks great,” Ron said, “and if he can't figure out that you're on a date when he sees that hair, he's a bloody prat.”

Of course, Ron had his doubts about his best mate actually figuring out anything of the sort.

“Harry!” he shouted as he let the door slam shut behind him and took the stairs two at a time up to their flat. “You still home?”

“In the bathroom, come on back!” Harry shouted in return, and Ron loped in to find him in front of the mirror, trying to flatten out his perpetually messy hair.

“Hermione wants to go to some fancy Muggle restaurant for dinner tonight,” he explained, meeting Ron's eyes in the mirror, which said loudly, “Just give up, will you, Potter? That hair is hopeless.”

Ron was in no mood to deal with another hair crisis, so he ignored the mirror completely. “Yeah, she told me.”

“You wanna come?”

With a firm shake of his head, Ron replied, “Nope.”

“You don't have to worry about dealing with Muggle money, I went to Gringott's and exchanged enough for all of us to go—”

“Hermione thinks you're going on a date.”

Harry's mouth fell open, and the mirror cackled. “A date?”

“A date,” Ron confirmed, and Harry turned around to face him, narrowing his eyes.

“You're taking the piss, right? If you don't want to come, just say so.”

“Harry, mate.” Ron tried to think of a good way to put it. “Hermione...well, I think she likes you.”

Harry went even paler than normal, and Ron was glad he'd caught him before he'd left; it would not have done for him to have this reaction in front of Hermione. He didn't even want to imagine.

“She...Hermione...but...why?”

“I don't know,” Ron snorted, “I'm not the one who likes you.”

Harry slumped back against the sink and ran a hand through his hair, so it was sticking up even worse than it had been.

“Just thought I should tell you,” Ron offered, trying to fill the silence echoing off the tile floor.

“Yeah, thanks,” Harry replied absently, before giving Ron a sharp look. “How do you know all this?”

Ron had to crack a smile at the question. “I stopped by her place to drop off some books that she had me pick up, and she was in a right state.”

Harry half-laughed, a bit disbelievingly, as he shook his head. “A right state? Over me?”

“Over the date. And, oh, she was trying to fix her hair, and I've never seen it—” Ron broke down laughing. “Harry, it was blue!”

Harry was starting to grin despite his obvious shock. “Blue?”

“And huge! I swear, it went almost to the ceiling, I've never seen anything like it. And get this, the bloody Sleekeazy's she used—”

“Sleekeazy's?” A strange expression came over Harry's face, almost like he was brooding, but not quite. “She went through all that trouble with her hair for our dinner?”

“Yeah.” Ron nodded, his laughter fading. “And she looked really nice when she finally got it all sorted.”

Harry's eyes were thoughtful and his voice far-off as he mumbled, “Yeah...I remember the Yule Ball...she did look really nice...”

“Not that she doesn't look nice anyway,” Ron said, loudly, which seemed to snap Harry back to attention.

“Er, yeah,” he replied, looking askance at Ron. “I guess I just never really thought about Hermione like that.”

“Well, you just—remember that I know where you sleep.” Ron put on his foreboding big brother face, which he so rarely got to use on Ginny's boyfriends.

“You did not seriously just say that to me,” Harry laughed, straightening up to give Ron a light shove.

“You know what I mean.” Ron shoved Harry back playfully, then turned to head out of the bathroom. “And you should probably bring her some flowers or something, so she knows you know it's a date,” he said over his shoulder. “She likes yellow tulips.”

“Ron.” Harry stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and Ron turned slowly.

“Are you—”

“It's fine,” Ron interrupted. “It's just dinner. And if something else...well,” he shrugged, “we'll see.”

“How touching,” the mirror drawled.

***

They must have been having a good time, because Harry still wasn't home when Ron woke up to use the loo at one in the morning. He yawned as he gave his cock a shake and tucked it into his shorts, and he had just stepped out of the bathroom into the dark flat when he heard the front door open.

Two people were making their way up the stairs; one of them was giggling, but they were trying to be quiet about it and Ron couldn't tell if it was Harry or Hermione. He stayed right where he was, not exactly wanting to spy, but not exactly wanting to go back to his room, either.

“Thanks for letting me use your Floo.” That was definitely Hermione's whisper at the top of the stairs. “I could probably apparate home, but I don't usually drink...that wine was so good...”

“Don't want to go splinching yourself.” Harry's voice was a tad deeper than normal, and Ron realised that his best friends were both a bit pissed. He smiled to himself in the dark. “Not a good way to end a first date.”

They were creeping into the dark flat now, the floor creaking beneath their shoes, and they walked right past the hallway where Ron was standing without noticing him on their way to the living room, which Ron had a perfect view of.

He stayed put.

The two of them were silhouetted in the red light of the embers burning low in the fireplace, facing each other, close.

“I had...a really good time tonight,” Harry murmured, so quietly that Ron could barely make the words out.

“Me, too.” Hermione tucked a stray bit of sleek hair behind one ear, and Harry lifted his hand to follow her movement, needlessly brushing his fingertips over her ear before letting his hand come to rest on the side of her neck, just where it met her shoulder. He murmured something else, something Ron couldn't hear this time, and he was leaning down and Hermione was tipping her face up and Ron turned and tiptoed quietly back to his room.

So the three of them would be seeing about that, then.

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