Chapter Text
Yule break reaches its end, and the drafty old corridors grow marginally warmer with the influx of returning students. The tedium of academia resumes in the form of droning lectures from Binns and stern reprimands from McGonagall. Ron does his work as diligently as he knows how, and despite the easy material and monotony, he finds himself falling into a peaceful sort of rhythm. Unfortunately, Harry slips into his most dangerous state of being.
Boredom.
A bored Harry Potter is great cause for concern, because when Harry is bored, he turns into a little chaos demon and Ron fears what untold havoc could be caused with all the knowledge and skill Harry has, hidden from their peers and professor’s behind the veneer of innocent eleven-year-old naivety.
The growing alarm in Hermione’s eyes indicates that she’s also noticing Harry’s twitchy decline into irritation, and when Harry starts eyeing Fred and George with considering looks, they know they have to intervene. Harry’s last prank with the Nimbus was harmless, and seeing Oliver Wood’s absolute horror and outraged dismay as Filch used a racing broom to sweep up owl shit and feathers from the owlery stairs was hilarious, but the novelty wore off within days.
It’s not easy, but mostly they just appeal to Harry’s need for adrenaline. Their mock duels and training have mostly consisted of using dummies or having harmless target practice against each other using spells like disarming and stunning. Hermione adds so many training sessions into the schedule that they barely have free moments between classes and homework, though they both agree to never let Harry skip a meal. Then, once Harry starts to get a little too complacent with even the new schedule, Ron steels his resolve and enacts the plan that he and Hermione had, very reluctantly, decided upon.
Having grown too used to Ron and Hermione’s dueling styles, Harry’s growing a little sloppy. Oh, he still wins every duel hands down, but he’s relying less on actual fighting and more on just batting the spells away using sheer force. With a little smirk and a squick of guilt, Ron disguises a malicious spell behind the red of a stunner. When the bone breaking hex snaps Harry’s wrist, he doesn’t even shout. His eyes dart up to Ron's in shock, and when he sees both he and Hermione looking back with hard faces, a grin slips over his face. He surprises the both of them by switching his wand to his left hand, splinting his wrist with a hastily cast ferula! and begins to rain hexes and curses on them so fast that it’s only Hermione’s quick shield that saves them both from nasty consequences.
The following duel is painful, though even then they’re holding their punches a bit in an attempt to not cause any serious harm.
Not literally of course, because it turns out that, when cornered, Harry doesn’t even hesitate to throw a punch or a sharp elbow. Ron decidedly refuses to consider where he’s learned such skills, even when a well-aimed elbow jab nearly breaks his nose. Hermione herself shocks the both of them when she nearly sets them both on fire as they tussle, but she only raises an unimpressed eyebrow, illuminated beautifully in blue fire, and they all continue on.
By the end of it, Harry fuckin Potter still manages to take them both down in one spell chain, blinding them with his patronus, icing over the floor so they slip and crack their heads right onto the floor, then summoning their wands.
Ron’s sore as fuck, bruised and bleeding, and Hermione looks just as bad next to them, but Harry comes over with a jar of bruise balm and a sheepish, sweet smile. There’s blood in his mouth, on his teeth, so the rush of warmth through him seems misplaced, but Hermione looks as much in awed fondness as he is so he lets it go.
They don’t duel like this more than once every week or two, but for awhile it seems to do the trick. Harry has a way to expend his riled up energy, although perhaps it’s not exactly the most healthy coping mechanism. It’s lucky that the Room of Requirement can shift into a decent potions lab for brewing, because they go through so much bruise balm, dittany and essence if murtlap that going to Snape for it all would raise some serious red flags.
Ron and Hermione are so smug about their success that they fail to notice when he begins to decline once again at the end of January.
Until he shows up in the RoR looking as guilty as a niffler with it’s hand in some old lady’s purse.
“Shit,” sighs Ron, throwing down his quill and abandoning his Charms essay.
Hermione glances up at Harry as well, then closes her eyes in weary resignation at the shifty look on Harry’s face.
“What have you done now, Harry? Last time you looked like that, Malfoy turned up nearly dead in a bathroom.”
Biting his bottom lip furiously, Harry reaches slowly into his pocket and pulls out a small, blood red stone. Ron can literally feel all the blood leave his face. Hermione gasps.
“Merlin be damned, Harry,” she breathes, “is that…?”
“The Philosopher’s Stone,” says Harry. When all Ron and Hermione do is gape at him in shock, he throws his hands up and wiggles his fingers. “Ta da!”