Never Jump Off a Flying Broomstick

That night after they all scrambled to complete the simple first night of school's assignments, they gathered on the third floor as Lindsay directed in front of what Elizabeth took to be a hideous statue of a severely humpbacked witch. A small gasped escaped her lips when Harry muttered a spell that caused it to move, revealing an opening in the floor with stairs. "Lumos," he said, the end of his wand lighting the dark stairwell as he descended. The others followed, muttering the same spell so they could see their way.

They must have walked at least two miles by the time they made it to Hogsmeade and emerged in the cellar of Honeydukes. Already, the sun was setting and stars were filling the night sky as they walked down the main street towards Lindsay's now semi-secret destination. The Three Broomsticks was filled with noise and smoke, a fire blazing in the fireplace despite the fact it was only the beginning of September. Apparently, Madame Rosmerta was a friend of Draco's dad, and the group got a private room in the back. A variety of drinks were ordered and passed around, and after the first hour all six of them were incredibly drunk.

"My hair is not like a girl's!" cried a highly offended (and drunk) Draco.

"Of course not," said Lindsay soothingly, stroking his hair back. "We're just saying it's as pretty as one's." Everyone else burst into laughter.

"Well at least you can tell mine's hair instead of looking like an animal crawled on my head and died," he retorted, looking meaningfully at Harry.

"Hey!" Harry cried right before a massive hiccup escaped his lips. "At least I don't taste like a pretzel!" At this, everyone roared with laughter, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. "Besides," he continued, dumbly unaware of the continuing laughter. "I don't care about my dead animal because I can twist like a pretzel." Standing up he proclaimed, "Look!" Raising his arms over his head and twisting them, and trying to twist his right leg around his left leg as he balanced on it, proved too much for Harry as he toppled over and landed on the ground.

Another hour or two of this continuing insanity went by before Elizabeth looked around with her glazed eyes and realized Ron had left the room. When she stepped into the main room, leaving the others to their laughter, she saw him sitting at a booth with a half empty (or was it half full, she thought) pint of beer in front of him. Plopping down onto the bench next to him she said, "You looked depressed."

A waitress came by and set down a cup of coffee on the table. Taking a sip Ron said, "You don't look too hot yourself. Here," he said, sliding the cup towards her.

Waving it away with an exaggerated gesture of her hand, she continued on her quest for answers. "Not a big fan of drinking?" she asked him, trying to sober up a bit.

He shook his head. "No, not really. My mum's brother became an alcoholic so when she once caught Bill drinking at the pub back home with his mates she got really mad. She wouldn't talk to him for a week and if you meet my mum you'll know that's as bad as it gets."

Elizabeth saw the way his face lit up when he talked about his family and she liked it. "I can only imagine what your mom must be like. Don't you have a lot of brothers?"

"You must be really drunk if you're asking about my family already," Ron said with a laugh and those gorgeous dimples.

"No," Elizabeth said earnestly. "This is me really wanting to know."

"You really want to know?" Ron asked looking at her suspiciously.

"Yes!" she said. "I promise I really want to know about your family."

"All right," he said, still doubtful. "Well there's Bill who's the oldest and he works for Gringotts," he explained, speaking slowly as he was still unsure of how much she wanted to know. "Charlie works with dragons in Romania and Percy works for the Ministry now like my dad but he's a lot more stuck up about it. He's always been a bit of a prat to tell you the truth. Fred and George are twins. They just opened a shop called Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. Oh, and there's Ginny my little sister. She transferred to Beauxbatons this year or else you would have met her."

"Are you one of those overprotective older brothers?" Elizabeth asked with a smile, trying to imagine anyone being afraid of him. "Or do you let her fend for herself?"

Ron just laughed. "I think we're too close in age for that. She's just a year younger than I am. Growing up in the Burrow I think I was the main thing she had to be afraid of, apart from Fred and George's room. They were always doing mad experiments up there."

As she laughed she let out a large hiccup and quickly placed a hand over her mouth and held her breath. Curse beer, Elizabeth thought, her face burning as she tried to laugh it off. Seeing her shocked and embarrassed expression, Ron laughed as well.

Once her hiccups were under control, Elizabeth caught Ron moping into his coffee cup as she had first found him. "So what's up?" she asked. When he just looked back at her uncomprehending she elaborated, "Your expression, your moping. What's the deal?"

"I'm not moping," he said defensively.

"Oh yes you were, and you're going to tell me why," she said.

Looking defeated he said, "Fine. Well, the truth is, with the famous Harry Potter around, it's a little hard to get girls to notice you. The entire time I've been at Hogwarts the girls always look past me and go straight to him." Seeing she was still paying attention he continued, "And I know that we're both pissed out of our minds right now but you're really great, and Harry's going out with Hermione so I know this time there's no way you can have him instead. All night, the only thing I've wanted to do is kiss you and I know that I can't."

Lifting her head off the table she looked up at him. "And why not?" she asked.

Obviously not the response he was expecting he asked, "What?" raising a startled eyebrow.

"Why did you say that you can't kiss me?" she repeated.

"Well, because," he stammered. "I guess I just thought.....I really have no idea," he conceded. "Do you do have this affect on a lot of people?" he asked with a laugh.

"Only on guys I really like," she said, smiling coyly. "So what are you going to do about this kissing thing?" she asked him, folding her arms on the table.

"You are just unbelievable," he said with a laugh.

"The way I see it you have two options. You can not kiss me and regret it for the rest of your life," she said.

"The rest of my life, really?" he scoffed jokingly.

"Yes the rest of your life. Or you can just kiss me and see what happens once you've taken the risk." She could hardly believe it when he chose the latter option. His kiss was sweet, his lips still tasting like coffee. She could feel the stubble on his chin brush against her own face.

Later, at the sound of "I get knocked down" by Chumbawumba blaring from the private room Elizabeth and Ron sat up, Ron wiping her lip gloss off of his lips with the back of his hand.

"Do you think we should go in there?" Elizabeth asked. Ron paused, listening to Draco sing, "Pissing the night away. Pissing the night away," in a high falsetto. "Yeah," he said, nodding fervently. "I think we have to go."

When they finally made it back to the castle that night, unable to even maintain a simple lumos charm except for Ron, Lindsay and Draco were still singing "R-E-S-P-E-E-T", the "C" completely lost in their drunken stupor. The two of them stumbled off in the direction of the Slytherin common room as they supported each other's weight and the rest went up to the Gryffindor Tower.

Closing her eyes against the blinding sunlight the next morning, Elizabeth felt like a train had hit her. Looking around, an ever familiar stairwell greeted her, along with the quiet snoring coming from a nearby Hermione. The door to their room was only three steps away. We must have passed out, Elizabeth thought, sitting up and holding onto her head.

"Holy shit!" she shouted, seeing what time it was on her watch. Racing into her room she didn't care if she woke Parvati or Lavender up. She grabbed her broom and a pair of jeans. Nearly killing herself as she ran downstairs, Elizabeth tried to pull her pants on and eventually managed to pull them up under her skirt, which she then removed.

Crying out in agony as she stepped into the sunlight she continued running towards the quidditch pitch. It wasn't until she tripped over her broom and tore a whole on the knee of her jeans that she realized what she could be doing. Now she flew through the air towards the pitch, landing next to the stands along with all of the other people hoping to make it onto the team. Draco and Lindsay were sitting together with their other Slytherin cronies, their ensembles complete for hangovers with sunglasses and earmuffs to block out both light and sound.

"We've come to see the misfits Gryffindor thinks can beat us," Lindsay whispered to her hoarsely, removing an earmuff.

"Is your voice still sore from all that singing?" Elizabeth asked playfully.

"What singing?" Lindsay asked skeptically.

The Gryffindor team landed, and Harry walked over to the students hoping to try out. Harry gave the typical captain's speech on teamwork and all that other bullshit Elizabeth had heard about a billion times. However, the whole time the only thing Elizabeth thought about was the fact that Ron never once looked at her as he stood on the pitch with his teammates. So that's how it's going to be, she thought angrily.

She waited her turn to try out, giving her enough time to at least see clearly with her hangover. When it was her turn, she was told to try and score against one of the Gryffindor chasers whose name she didn't catch and Ron the keeper. Weaving her way through the flying bludgers and past the other chaser, she threw the quaffle through one of the three hoops, and she did this all six times. On the seventh and final time, she aimed at Ron's head. The quaffle ricocheted off and flew threw the hoop. When the team started to laugh, Elizabeth had to admit to herself that she did feel a little bad as Ron turned a bright shade of red. But then she remembered his rejection and recovered from her guilt.

Afterwards, as she was walking back towards the school, Ron caught up with her. "What the bloody hell was that about?"

"You know what that was for! You gave me all this bullshit about being some sweet guy who never gets the girl and how much you liked me and then back there you didn't even look at me." Elizabeth stopped walking and glared at him.

"First of all, I am ridiculously hung over right now. Second, you and I were both smashed and I realized this morning that you might not remember a lot of last night. I didn't want to just start being all sentimental holding hands if you didn't even like me!" It was at this point that Elizabeth started laughing. His face was the exact color of his hair and he seemed so genuinely concerned. He looked the worst of anyone she had seen that morning without having time to shave or brush his hair down. Locking her arms around his neck, she kissed him, cutting off whatever it was he planned on saying next. When she finally let go, he took a step back. "So you do like me?"

Laughing she said, "Yeah. Now you can do all that 'sentimental holding hands' stuff."

Taking her hand in his he said, "Good," as they started walking up the hill towards the castle. "Because I just got whacked in the head by some crazy woman with a quaffle and I need someone to lead me to the medical wing."

"I do feel really bad about that now," she said as sweetly as possible.

"Yeah," Ron scoffed. "I'm sure you do."

"Would it make you feel better if I told you that I passed out on the stairs to my room last night?" she asked looking up at him.

He laughed. "Yeah, only I never even made it to the common room. I took a wrong turn on one of the changing staircases and passed out in front of a girls' bathroom on the fourth floor." Elizabeth laughed. "So you think that's funny? Well it wasn't so great when two first year girls found me lying on the floor on their way to the loo." After a moment he added, "You know, I think I've thought of something that might help me feel better."

"Oh really?" Elizabeth asked, eyeing him skeptically.

"Yes," Ron said. "Tradition states that a kiss infinitely helps injuries."

Laughing, Elizabeth kissed his forehead. "Any better?" she asked.

"Quite, but you know, my lips are hurting a lot too. Do you think there's anything we could do about that?" He smiled at her impishly. Whether by accident or on purpose the two never made it to the medical wing that day, nor did anyone ask where they'd been when they showed up at lunch together.