The sounding of a horn woke King Ronald from a deep slumber with a jolt. As the King of Gryffindoria tumbled out of bed, taking his ruby red silk sheets with him, his best friend and Seeker of Security for Gryffindoria threw open the door. “Harry!” croaked the king, with his ginger hair falling into his ice blue eyes. “What is going on?”
Harry, all messy black hair, green eyes, and glasses, looked anxious. “Well, Your Majesty, five or six Quaffles have breached our line of security. The king of Muggledon refuses to allow his daughter to venture into lands teeming with Quaffles. He says he will await you in a carriage at the Stream of Dumbledore. If you do not get there by the cover of darkness, he will accept another’s offer for the princess’ hand in marriage.”
His Royal Highness jumped up, though he looked excited rather than worried. “Cut it out with that ‘Your Majesty’ crap. You are married to Princess Ginerva, and my best mate, I am King Ron to you!” he said with a smirk. “But, Quaffles did you say? Well what are we waiting for? On to the soon to be Queen of Gryffindoria!” exclaimed Ron slicing the air with an imaginary sword.
Harry left the room with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Quaffles were giant, scaly, red monsters with great black eyes. They could eat through an entire field of crops within a few short hours, and when they were through they would search for more food, killing anything that crossed its path. Quaffles were Harry and Ron’s favorite monster to hunt. They were so much more fun than Bludgers or Crumpled Horned Snorkacks.
Harry headed up to his own quarters to change and inform his wife where he was going. That was not something he looked forward to. The slightest thing could set off Ginny’s temper these days, and Harry didn’t really fancy being on the receiving end of that one. He pushed open the ornate gold door and stepped into the red hued library of his suite. “Ginny, darling. Um… I have something to tell you,” he called from the doorway. It was safer to stay as far back as possible.
“Harry James Potter!” shrieked a brown-eyed beauty with wild red hair. “I heard the warning bells; what happened? What does my insolent brother have you doing this time?”
“Well Ginny, we are going to rid Gryffindoria of Quaffles, so Ron can finally marry the princess of Muggledon,” Harry nearly whispered.
“What?” Ginny demanded. “Dang! Quaffles got in? Aww, man! I wish I could go with you. You had better be careful, Harry, because if you die and leave me to raise these two alone,” she pointed at her heavily pregnant midsection, “I swear I will dig you up and kill you all over again.” She inhaled deeply and moved to sit in her favorite armchair. Harry felt it was safe enough to enter farther into the room, but he was careful not to come within an arms length, just in case. Pregnancy hormones did strange things to women, especially women who were expecting twins, in Harry’s opinion. “We’ll be lucky,” sighed Ginny closing her eyes, “if these two don’t end up like the Court Jesters Gred and Forge.”
While Ginny was still lost in thought, Harry chanced a trip to their bedroom. Half way through changing from his formal wear into his hunting clothes he heard soft snores from the library. Harry smiled to himself, he had kept her up late last night. Careful to be extremely quiet, he finished dressing and tiptoed out of the door, though not before covering his lovely wife with a quilt.
A few minutes later he re-entered the King’s suite just in time to see Ron muss up his hair in a fashion that made him resemble the exceedingly arrogant village idiot, Gildory Lockhart. Harry slammed the door a little harder than necessary, hoping to embarrass his mate, if only just a bit.
Ron jumped at the sound of the slamming door. He turned to see Harry standing in the entrance, snickering into the back of his hand, and trying to look completely innocent. Harry couldn’t pull it off. “What are you doing standing there? Are we ready to go?”
“Well I am. But are you sure you don’t want to fix your hair a bit more? It might look lovely in a nice up-do.”
“Oh, shove off, Harry,” he grinned, the tips of his ears turning slightly pink. “Let’s get going. Six Quaffles to capture before the cover of darkness.” Ron led the way out of the castle and down to the Carpet Stables, where all of the flying carpets were stored.
“Pick your poison,” Ron offered when he entered. Harry peered into the stable and chose Hedwig, a fair tempered pure white rug. Ron however chose Pigwidgeon, a smaller gray rug. Not such a good idea as it was extremely excited and a bit jumpy.
The duo jumped onto their rugs and flew high over the kingdom, a giant levitating floating lazily behind them. Quaffles themselves were easy to capture, however there wasn’t much you could do with them afterwards. “So which ones have been stupid enough to infiltrate Gryffindoria this time?” asked Ron.
Before Harry could answer there was a squeak from the floating prison behind them. Both men turned to see a house elf with huge green eyes and dressed in a multitude of socks, hats, and scarves despite the hot weather. “Dobby knows sirs,” the house elf said in a very high-pitched voice. “Dobby knows who has dared to enter this great kingdom. And Dobby say to himself, he say ‘King Wheezy is going to need Dobby’s help. Even if he has Princess Wheezy’s husband, they will need Dobby to defeat Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, Dudley, Malfoy, and Snape, the evil Quaffles.’ Dobby knows King Wheezy would take all day to find the Quaffles on the Longbottom farm.”
Ron and Harry looked at each other after the speech was finished. This was the day they had been waiting for since Ron has taken the throne. As hated as all Quaffles were these six were the worst! Capturing them would have all of the Gryffindors singing.
“Dobby, thank you. You have been a tremendous help,” admonished Ron. “But right now I need you to go help Winky in the kitchens. We are going to have a large feast tonight.” A resigned looking Dobby snapped his fingers and disappeared. The duo and prison headed to the east, where the Longbottom farm was located.
Upon arrival at the farm they noticed that Neville’s usually plentiful fields were now empty, every last crop having been eaten by the Quaffles. “I hope he wasn’t stupid enough to try to ward them off,” Harry sighed. Ron silently agreed, Quaffles were one thing but when they killed a fellow Gryffindor it was quite another. They landed their carpets and walked up to the elaborate farmhouse. They knocked at the door, wanting to be courteous, in case Neville and his wife, Rosalynn, were in fact alive.
And they were. Neville with his long, silky, chestnut brown hair and striking features answered the door. He smiled showing off his perfect teeth, and welcomed them inside. “Do come in, won't you.” When his wife saw whom the visitors were she stooped into a hasty bow. Neville felt no need for these formalities because he had been a close friend with the king for a very long time, however his Muggle wife had known nothing else, having been a scullery maid at the Muggledon Castle before she married him.
Neville who had guessed why they were there, a knack due to being part Seer and such, told them that the Quaffles had headed to the north and would be approaching the Lovegood farm in nearly 15 minutes. Harry and Ron thanked him but as they were about to exit Neville pulled Harry aside and whispered something into his ear. The black haired man grinned wildly and patted Neville on the back in a strange one-armed hug.
Ron noticed the huge grin and asked, “What is it? What did Neville tell you?”
“Oh, just that there will be more to celebrate than just the capture of Quaffles and a pending marriage before the night is through.”
Ron thought for a second. There wasn’t anything else he was doing today that would bring about another celebration. At least not for about nine months. Nine months? That gave him an idea. “Ginny?” he asked. “Is Gin gonna have her babies today?”
“Wow, I didn’t realize you were that dense. It took you a while to get that!” Harry said with an about-to-be-a-new-daddy grin. Ron returned the grin, excited to be an uncle, as he returned to Pigwidgeon and Harry followed suit, getting himself comfortable on Hedwig. They flew over Neville’s farmhouse and off to the north following a large strip of unusually vacant land.
About five minutes into the journey Ron could see the edges of the Lovegood’s fields on the horizon. This was one visit he was not looking forward to. Luna Lovegood, the owner in question, was a bit eccentric and to top it off she fancied Ron. The whole kingdom knew this, which was probably why Harry kept glancing him out of the corner of his eye and was grinning again. “Stop it!” commanded Ron in his I-am-royal-you-must-obey-me voice.
Harry wasn’t fazed in the least bit. “Hey, can’t a man be happy that his children are going to be born on this fabulous evening?” That made Harry start. “We need to hurry or I am going to miss their birth… and I really don’t want to give Ginny anymore reason to be mad at me.”
Ron agreed, he knew if this excursion made Harry miss such an important moment, not only would Harry be skinned alive, but Ron had no doubt that his sister would kill him as well; seeing as it was all his fault. He leaned forward and urged Pigwidgeon into a faster sail; Hedwig sensed this and sped up as well. They arrived at the farm just a few minutes later. The Quaffles having eaten through half of the crops had decided to wash that down with the rest of them.
Ron and Harry moved toward the woman with long blonde hair and dreamy blue eyes. She stood in the middle of one of her empty fields surveying the damage as though it were an interesting landmark and not the food and income that was just eaten. She looked at the approaching men and said with a low and distant voice, “They’ve gone over there,” she pointed at the backs of the gathered Quaffles, her radish earrings swaying with the movement. “ I think they are eating my squashes, they must not taste very good; they aren’t ripe this time of year.”
The men just looked at each other, shocked that she seemed to care more about how her food tasted to a bunch of monsters than the fact the monsters were eating her food. They shook their heads and headed after the Quaffles. Three of them, Dudley, Crabbe and Goyle, were huge not only in height but also in width. Pansy was tall, think and make a strange sound, somewhere between a high-pitched shriek and a laugh, ever once in a while; it had Ron covering his ears in pain. Now Malfoy and Snape were another story altogether. Malfoy was tall and goggle-eyed, stuffing huge fistfuls of food into his mouth; Snape, however was the only one with hair. It was black and stuck to his head like it had been forced there with axle grease; he was stooped over and a hump in the middle of his back. None of them could speak English, they just grunted and pointed to each other.
Ron and Harry grinned at each other. This was going to be impossibly easy. All they had to do was position the levitating prison behind the Quaffle in question and take a broomstick and sweep the Quaffle inside. The rest of the Quaffles wouldn’t notice a thing since they were all too busy stuffing their faces. Harry moved around behind Dudley taking the prison with him; Ron however, Went and asked Luna for a broom. When he returned Harry was in place. Ron ran straight at Dudley, giving a silent war cry, and swung the broom at the towering red monster who gracefully rolled into the awaiting prison. They continued the procedure with the remaining five Quaffles. When the disgruntled monsters were all firmly squished inside the prison Ron called out, “Dobby!”
With a great green flash the house elf appeared, white flour smeared on the tops of his ears. When he saw the full prison he gave a loud cry of joy, “King Wheezy, you are the greatest King we have ever had. You are more than any house elf could hope for in a master.” With that Dobby through himself at Ron’s feet and began to sob on his shoes.
Ron’s ears turned a deep shade of red. “Dobby, get up, please.” When the house elf obeyed he said, “Will you take these back to the castle for me? Put them in the dungeon.”
“Dobby will do, sir,” said the house elf standing with a straight back. With a salute he and the prison were gone.
“RON!” Harry yelled. He was pointing at the setting sun. If they didn’t hurry Ron was going to miss his chance to marry the princess of Muggledon. Good thing he had learned to Apparate when he turned 17.
He looked at Harry and Harry nodded; they both turned on the spot. Ron felt the familiar sensation of being sucked through a small rubber tube and when his feet hit solid ground again he found himself in front of a plain wooden carriage with no outstanding markings. Since it was the only carriage around he knew it belong to the King of Muggledon, but he hope it was a bit more richly decorated inside otherwise the princess was in for a huge shock. He knocked on the door and Harry waited a polite distance away whistling and examining his shoes.
A small blonde haired boy who beckoned Ron inside opened the door. “Thank you, Creevey,” Came a deep voice from the corner. Ron looked around the inside of the carriage and noticed that the inside was as a shabby as the out. Besides himself and the boy who opened the door there were two other people in the carriage a man whose face was in shadows and a brown-eyed bushy hair young woman with very pretty teeth.
Ron opened his mouth to explain but he was cut off. “Ronald, I was very worried that you wouldn’t get here in time. That would not have been a good thing. But seeing as you are here, you must have captured all of the Quaffles.” Ron gave a startled half nod and the man continued. “Well then every thing else seems to be in order. Meet my daughter Hermione.” The woman looked up from the book in her hands and smiled. Ron wondered how she was reading it in the almost dark carriage. Maybe she was just absorbing the words by osmosis. “ The wedding will be tonight I presume?” continued the man.
“Erm, yes,” chocked Ron.
“Well what are you waiting for?” the man demanded. Hermione hastily got up and Ron followed her out into the night his head still spinning for the strange encounter.
Ron turned to Hermione, “Is your father always so strange?”
Hermione nodded earnestly, “Yes, he has been that way for as long as I can remember. Did you really battle Quaffles today? I wish I could have been there, I have read about them. Are they as easy to capture as the books say?” Hermione stopped to take a breath here. Ron took advantage of the distraction to introduce her to Harry, who had finished examining his shoe and was looking at the couple curiously.
“Hi,” Harry said with an intrigued smile. “Do you know how to Apparate? Because I need to get home soon, my wife I having our children tonight.”
“Oh, really how interesting! I know how to Apparate. That was something I couldn’t learn out of a book, sort of daunting. But I did pass on my first try, which made mother happy.”
“Aaaaaaaargh!” Suddenly Ron was upside down in his dorm room at Hogwarts. He seemed to be levitating by his ankle. From across the room Harry yelled “Sorry!” and someone else was laughing. Soon Ron was face first in his sheets.
As he called out to Harry “Tomorrow, I’d rather you set the alarm clock,” he thought It was all a dream? What a strange, strange dream. Thank God I don’t have Divination this year, with my luck a dream journal would be due! Hmmm, I wonder what it meant?”
Weasel King- Quest of the Quaffles by secret_lover
Chapter Notes: Anything you recognize belongs to Jo or else you have been reading my diary, Naughty Naughty. Yes, there is a bit of AU but that is explained in the end. NO READING AHEAD! This story is deticated to Tommy, MSN Messenger and my faulty computer, without those components all together this story would not have been written!!! Lather Rinse & Review!