Basilisk

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, places, etc. they all belong to J.K. Rowling and her people.

Chapter Four: Laverne de Montmorency

Ron was the first to arrive at the restaurant and was shown to his seat by a middle-aged looking waiter in a typical white and black uniform. The restaurant was beautiful; it was gently lit by softly flickering candles and was decorated in a warm red colour. The tablecloths were a brilliant white and lined with beautifully sewn red roses. The place looked every bit romantic and Ron felt as if it may have been a little over the top for a first date. His mother was really trying to tell him something,

He ordered himself a glass of Firewhiskey as he waited for his date to arrive. The liquid burnt his throat slightly as he began to drink, but it left a warm feeling in his belly so he didn’t bother much. He looked around at all the couples in the restaurant. They were all heterosexual couples and they all looked very much in love. He was about to order a second Firewhiskey when a waiter approached the table followed by a nervous looking man. Ron stood as they approached feeling awkward and not really knowing what he should do. Should he shake the man’s hand or something?

“Mr. Cannonbolt,” the waiter introduced.

“Hi,” Ron greeted him, as they both sat down and took the menus that the waiter handed them.

Ron took in the appearance of the young man before him. He had short jet-black hair that was neatly styled, not messy like Harry’s. He had a long nose, as oppose to Harry who had a short cute button nose. The man was slightly taller than Ron was, perhaps by about an inch or two. Harry was shorter. Hunter noticed Ron looking and smiled at him. His eyes were filled with warmth and on closer inspection where deep brown colours, not green like Harry’s.

“So, your mother tells me you’re in a band?” Hunter asked, lowering his menu to look at Ron better.

“Yeah, it’s a Muggle rock band called Basilisk. Named after the monster that’s meant to live in the Chamber of Secrets,” replied Ron.

“The Chamber of Secrets?” Hunter asked, with a look of utter confusion on his face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t go to Hogwarts, did you?” said Ron. Hunter shook his head, so Ron explained about the Chamber. “One of the founders of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin, was meant to have locked a monster away in The Chamber of Secrets somewhere within the castle. Nobody knows where, though the castle has been searched many times, just to be on the safe side. According to legend, if the heir of Slytherin one day returns to Hogwarts, they will be able to unleash the monster, which is apparently, trained to kill all Muggle-born and Half-blood withes and wizards. Nobody really believes that its true though, it‘s just a story the older students used to tell the first years to scare them,” he explained.

“It sure would have scared me at the age of eleven, especially seen as I’m a half-blood,” Hunter replied.

“To be honest, it did scare me the first time I heard it. Nobody told me the monster was meant to be a giant snake, so I immediately assumed it would be a spider and I hate spiders,” Ron said.

Hunter chuckled softly; Ron found his laugh infectious and began chuckling gently himself. Soon they were eating their meals and chatting admirably. They discovered that they had a lot in common. For instance, they were both fans of the Quidditch team, The Chudley Cannons. Throughout the night, the two flirted shamelessly and complemented each other at every opportunity that they got. Ron found himself blushing on several occasions. They talked about many things throughout the meal, from music, to school.

“So, do you live far from here?” Hunter asked when they were nearing the end of their meal.

“No, I share a flat with my best friend, Harry, in Muggle London. It’s about twenty minutes away if you walk it,” Ron replied. He had been trying to avoid mentioning Harry, which had been a struggle when the other boy had been on is mind for the best part of the night.

“Can I ask to walk you home? It’s a nice night and I don’t want the evening to end yet,” Hunter said, a small smile on is lips.

“I think I’d like that,” Ron replied.

They paid for their meal, splitting the price equally, and set off down Diagon Alley to the entrance to the Muggle world. Every so often, one of the two would cast a sidelong glance at the other, quickly removing their gaze before they were caught. They quickly fell into conversation again.

“Did you find it hard… coming out to everybody?” Hunter suddenly asked.

“No,” he replied simply. “I knew my family would love me no matter what. As for my friends, if they could not accept me for whom I am; then they were not really my friends. Everybody was fine with it when I eventually did come out. Harry said he had known for a long time, longer than I’d known myself apparently.”

“You’re friends and family must all be great people,” Hunter commented.

“They are,” Ron replied, smiling at how lucky he was to have them all. “What about you? I heard you only came out recently. Was it difficult for you?”

“My parents were okay with it and so were most of my friends. Except my best friend, he won’t even talk to me anymore,” his face dropped and he looked sad for a moment.

“That must be awful. I don’t know what I would do if Harry stopped speaking to me. I mean we’ve had our arguments, but I always know he’ll be there if I need him,” Ron felt bad for Hunter. He remembered what it was like when he and Harry were not speaking properly during the tour. It had been dreadful.

“That’s what I thought about Marlon, but I guess I was wrong,” Ron placed his hand softly onto Hunter’s arm, trying to provide comfort to the other young man. Hunter smiled at him, causing his stomach to flutter slightly. Ron was quickly beginning to like Hunter; the more they talked the more he realized how nice Hunter was. Ron slid his hand down Hunter’s arm, keeping eye contact with the other man, and laced his fingers through Hunter’s. Hunter smiled at him again and Ron gave his hand a gentle squeeze, which was returned. They carried on towards the edge of Diagon Alley, but Ron stopped them when they reached The Leaky Cauldron.

“Umm, we’re going to look a little out of place in the Muggle world wearing robes,” Ron said, as they stood at the entrance to the small pub.

“Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. Well we could transfigure our clothes?” suggested Hunter, earning him a sheepish look from Ron.

“I don’t know the spell for that. It’s not exactly something they teach you at Hogwarts,” Ron’s cheeks had started to turn a deep red colour, which was slowly spreading to the rest of his face. Hunter chuckled softly.

“You look cute when you blush,” he said, dropping his head slightly and looking up at Ron through his eyelashes. The complement made Ron blush even more and Hunter gave his hand another gentle squeeze. Ron looked up at Hunter, who was staring back at him intensely. Their eyes locked for a moment and Ron felt like he was drowning, except it wasn’t Hunter’s brown eyes he was seeing. It was a pair of deep emerald coloured ones that belong to someone else. Ron quickly averted his gaze, sending Hunter a small fleeting smile.

“We should get going. I need to get home, early start tomorrow,” Ron said.

“I thought you had three months off?” Hunter questioned, looking confused things had been going well.

“I do, I just have some things to do tomorrow,” lied Ron. Hunter uttered the spell to change their robes into Muggle clothes and they set off towards Ron’s flat.

They were still holding hands as they walked through the streets of Muggle London, but nobody seemed to care. The two didn’t talk as Ron led them through the streets towards his flat.

“Well here we are,” Ron said, stopping in front of a posh apartment block.

“Ron, did I do something wrong?” Hunter asked cautiously. Ron looked shocked for a moment. He hadn’t meant to make Hunter feel as if he had ruined the date.

“No. No of course not,” Ron began caressing the hand in his with his thumb. “You’ve been great; I’ve really enjoyed myself tonight. If I’m honest, I didn’t really want to go on a blind date, especially one my mum had picked, but for once, I think she made a good choice,” Ron stepped closer to Hunter, tugging the other man nearer by their clasped hands.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, I did too,” Hunter leaned closer to Ron, their faces almost touching.

“Good,” Ron whispered, as he lightly placed his lips to Hunter’s. They stayed like that for a few short seconds, before Ron pulled away.

“I should…,” he pointed towards the door indicating that he really should be getting inside. Hunter nodded.

“Call me sometime, I’m on the Floo,” he said.

“I will. Goodnight,” said Ron.

“Night,” Hunter replied. Ron slipped his hand out of the embrace and headed into the entrance hall of his apartment block. When he got to the door, he looked back to see Hunter watching him. He smiled and disappeared through the door.

Ron slumped into the elevator. Hunter was a nice guy and Ron really had had a good time, but he wasn’t Harry. Ron rested his head on the back of the elevator, which stopped on the third floor and an old lady got in. She gave him a curious look as the doors shut and the elevator began going up once more.

“Are you okay, dear?” she asked.

He smiled at her. “Yes, I’m fine,” he replied.

“You look troubled,” she said. “Whoever the girl is, go for it. Life’s too short to not go for what you want.” Ron smiled once more at her; he hadn’t known he was that easy to read. Her words rolled around in his head, he wanted Harry, more than he’d ever wanted anything, but things were so complicated and Harry would never love him that way. Then Ron thought about the tone of Harry’s voice before he had left for his date. It d been sad, there was no mistaking that. The elevator stopped on the eleventh floor and Ron went to get out, but as he was stepping out the door, he felt the old lady grab his arm.

“Don’t waste the time you have, tell her. You’ll regret it if you don’t,” she let go of his arm, allowing him to step out into the hallway. He turned back to look at her, but the elevator doors were closing once more.

He had a surreal feeling as he walked towards his front door, the incident had been weird, but he knew the old lady was right. He would regret it if he never told Harry, but what was the point of ruining their friendship, Harry didn’t love him back. He lent his back against the front door, not knowing what to do. He had been sure Harry was in love with Hermione, but it didn’t seem to add up anymore. Why had Harry sounded so sad about Ron going out on a date? Shouldn’t he have been happy for his friend? Ron took a few deep breaths, wishing everything would stop going round in his head. He needed to talk to Harry and he needed to do it now.

Getting up, he opened the door to find the apartment in darkness, except the glare from the television that shone from the living room. Ron could hear people on the television laughing, as he opened the door to the sitting room. Harry was sat on the sofa and an almost empty bottle of Firewhiskey was open on the coffee table.

“Harry?” Ron said, making the smaller boy jump and then turn to look at him.

“Ronniekinns, how did your date go? Was he nice?” Harry slurred, trying to stand up, but only managing to get half way before falling back down onto the sofa. Harry began giggling to himself as he rolled around on the sofa and tried once more to stand up. When he was successfully on his feet he stumbled towards the doorway were Ron was standing. Harry’s green eyes were glazed from the alcohol and he could barley stand. Harry was almost in front of Ron when he tripped over his own feet. Ron shot forward, catching Harry in his arms before he hit the floor.

“Come on, I think you need your bed,” Ron said, pulling Harry back up onto his feet. Ron hooked his arm around Harry’s waist and began guiding the smaller boy towards his bedroom. He kicked open Harry’s door, steering him towards the bed.

“I’m sorry,” Harry mumbled, holding onto Ron as the redhead tried to sit him down on the bed.

“Don’t worry about it, Harry, it’s not like I haven’t hauled your drunken ass to bed before,” Ron finally got Harry to sit down and pulled off his t-shirt.

“No, not for that, for being stupid. I’m really stupid do you know that?” slurred Harry. Ron stood him up again to pull the covers back and then tried to get Harry to lie down.

“You’re not stupid Harry, now come on, get into bed. You’re going to feel like hell in the morning,” Ron said, as he tried again to get Harry to get into bed.

“I always feel like hell, because I’m stupid and I let you get away, cause I’m stupid,” Harry kept muttering the word ‘stupid’ to himself, as Ron tried to process what his drunken friend was saying.

“Harry, you’re not making sense. Just go to sleep,” Ron said. Harry finally obeyed, lying down on his bed and facing away from Ron.

Ron left the room, returning a couple of minutes later with a bucket, which he placed beside Harry’s bed. He looked at Harry who was now snoring softly. He was sure he had heard him right, Harry had said, ‘I let you get away’. Ron shook his head, he must have heard wrong, or maybe Harry thought he was talking to someone else. Ron sighed, leaving Harry’s room, wishing he knew what was going on in his friends head.