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Ronald Weasley's Strategies	By : AidaLily Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 19723 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything associated with Harry Potter. I do not make any money off of this fic.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
I apologize that this took so long. I had the entire chapter finished, but the cooking contest was very tricky. I am very sorry, but now that it is done, I will be updating much sooner. Thank you to all who have read it in the meantime whether you've reviewed or not. I truly and sincerely appreciate it. Please enjoy.   I will work on reviews later this evening.

Pansy was staring into space as Hermione was reading over her part of their Defense assignment. They had agreed to research and write separate parts in order to get the project done much faster. It had been a couple of months which meant the contest and then the Yule Ball. However, the Slytherin girl was currently focused on other things. Those things had to do with the glimpses of Draco looking at Harry and Blaise’s seeming interest in the second to youngest Weasley.
The war had been over for a while and honestly she could care less about the ideals it was fought for. Hell, most of the time she was trying to get the world’s smartest and yet most oblivious brunette, female, muggleborn Gryffindor to notice that she was flirting with her. One would think with all those brains that Hermione would have guessed it but it didn’t seem she could.
As for her male best friends, she wasn’t too worried about Draco and Harry potentially ending up together. After all, it would be rather hot to see them together. Oh, she could just imagine going to visit Draco and seeing Draco all sweet and submissive to the savior. It most certainly wouldn’t be that way, but perhaps someone could trick Draco into that bet. She would try to get them together herself, but really she was focused on someone else right now.
It would be amusing, she decided, if someone did get them together. She might laugh if Blaise’s lovely partner did, but while he seemed calmer and doing better in school, she could not imagine for one moment that Ronald Weasley would ever try or be able to think of something like that. It would be quite hilarious though. The wizarding world would have a huge fit and probably beg for Ronald Weasley’s strategies on how to hook up with their partners or get their friend’s together. Blaise would probably be by his side the entire time.
Now that was the real enigma of everything. Was Blaise actually attracted to the redheaded Gryffindor? She didn’t even know Blaise’s type of partner and perhaps they were just best friends as well. They had been in school for years and Blaise’s attentions were strongly sought after for many though the dreams of dating the dark-skinned Slytherin were usually slim to none. It brought out other questions as well. Blaise had no trouble telling someone when he wasn’t interested in them. In fact, he had made plenty of people upset with his usual blank and impassive rejections of their feelings.
So… why hadn’t he done so with Hermione yet? Sure, he had told her time and again that he wasn’t quite interested, but the way and tones that it was said in were highly suggestive. It sounded like Blaise didn’t want to rush into a relationship or that he just had a passing fancy for someone. Pansy knew that Blaise wasn’t like that, but he had never given so many seemingly mixed signals before. He was being nice with Hermione and he usually wasn’t very nice to any of those who had crushes on him before this.
Did Blaise actually like Hermione? Or was he being sweet to her to show off or impress his class partner? She could just ask Blaise, but that would be pointless if Blaise decided to not answer her questions on what was going on. He could just say that it wasn’t any of her business whom he was interested in and rightfully so. Friends or not, she would hate someone prying into every aspect of her personal life. There were just some things that she would prefer to keep quiet about.
“Pansy… are you ok?” Hermione asked checking her partner for a fever. It had been a strange bit of time and Pansy had been thinking over something for a few months. When Hermione asked her about it, the Slytherin girl usually just shook her head and gave her a very generalized answer as to what she was thinking about.
If she was being honest, it didn’t quite sit well with her when she really thought about it. Hermione felt that both she and Pansy had been getting along great and she would hope by now they could talk to each other more than about Hermione’s attempts at trying to date Blaise. Maybe she should invite Pansy to visit for the upcoming holiday or something. They could take a break from boys for a while and just do some fun things like go shopping or go to a spa that her mother took her to once. It might be amusing to see pureblood girl in a completely muggle spa.
If she was being honest, she was kind of curious to see Pansy in her natural element. Was the Slytherin girl only so reserved at school? Would Pansy be a bit more wild and crazy when she was in the safety of her own home and surrounded by close friends and family? It was something that Hermione had found herself wondering more often than not.
Hermione was a bookworm and she wasn’t afraid to admit that. These past few months with these new clothes and such didn’t quite feel like her, but it did make her feel a bit more dangerous and attractive, but in a good way. She hadn’t focused on normal teenage things, but more or less her career once she left Hogwarts. It was great, but she should take the time to really enjoy life and that was yet another reason that she kept pursuing Blaise. Was this how girl’s felt when they found a guy that had the world’s biggest crush on?
Pansy just gave Hermione a bit of a sheepish smile. “I spaced out again, didn’t I? It is probably because the contest is later today and I am hoping our dishes are good enough to win one of the prizes.” she said not even sure why she was lying. If Blaise wasn’t interested in Hermione, then she could just tell her and end the craziness now, but she hadn’t. Whether or not she was just afraid of losing Hermione as a friend and seeing the brunette in various stages of undress, she really had no idea.
Hermione smiled. “It would be nice to have two very nice dinners or something. Let’s go do a last minute trial run. It wouldn’t hurt to make sure that everything will go properly. As for the paper, I will add it to mine and check the length of the assignment later tonight.” she said and then packed up her things.
Once both girls were packed up, they went to the Great Hall to begin their practice.
~In the Great Hall~
Ron and Blaise were working together in complete harmony. For their meal, they had hashed out specific assignments such as Ron baking the cake and Blaise working on the presentation of the meal they had come up with. It had been an interesting couple of months since the cooking contest had been first announced, but nothing too noteworthy. It was almost Christmas time and Blaise had already invited Ron over for the holidays. The redhead agreed to it easily but he was more nervous than he let on. He would get to meet Blaise’s mother this holiday and he wasn’t too sure about that.   It also meant that he wouldn’t see if Harry and Draco were still getting along at least as friends, but Blaise had found a charm to ensure he could follow along with his plan from afar.
There were some successes and failures to his brilliant plan in this time though. They weren’t necessarily large successes or failures, but minor setbacks at best. The first was the argument the two had over their project last month. Draco had suggested that Harry focus a bit more anger into each and every spell to see how emotions could affect the power and malice behind ‘light’ spells. It had been a good experiment in theory, but Harry sadly did have a problem with being a bit unpredictable at times.
Instead of adding a bit of emotions, Harry had cast the spell with his full amount of frustration at what he was supposed to do in regards to his strange, upcoming feelings for Draco. This led to Harry casting a simple lumos and essentially blinding them all for 24hours. Draco became frustrated and refused to speak to Harry at all for four days. It probably would have been longer had Blaise not reminded Draco that his grade depended on him working with Harry.
Harry’s cause for frustration almost had Ron wanting to strangle the raven haired male and demand he go and beg for Draco’s forgiveness like a good little submissive, but thank Merlin he had kept his calm. During those four days, Ron was constantly bombarded with random rants from Harry about Draco not talking to him. According to Harry, it just didn’t go with what Draco talked about dealing with friendships and relationships. Therefore, he was questioning Draco again until Ron threw a pillow at him.
It was then that Ron explained that Draco was probably just upset because he had to miss an entire day of class and had to deal with that awful headache. Perhaps, he felt that Harry hadn’t listened to him again and it was something that could have seriously hurt someone. Ron realized he probably shouldn’t have phrased it exactly that way, but Harry seemed to accept what Ron was saying.
The failure of the spell incident seemed to be a success with Harry accepting the subtle hints at being submissive to Draco. Ron could just hear the wedding bells already followed by Draco having to punish Harry for forgetting his place at the reception. It was going to be wonderful. Another minor success he could count was how well they were working together for the contest. A few hints of flirting could be seen since that one day and Ron was just hoping Draco would crack and realize that Harry would be good for him. He had realized that he was focusing way too much on Harry and not enough on the Draco aspect.   It was yet another reason he was so thankful to have Blaise at his side.
Blaise for his part had his own successes and failures that had nothing to do with the platinum blonde and his soon to be raven. No, his successes and failures all had to do with the gorgeous red haired, blue eyed beauty next to him. There were just times it trickled over to Harry and Draco. In the past couple of months, he had managed to get Ron to smile at least once per day and had failed several times at getting Hermione to stop her flirting without alienating Ron completely.
On one hand, after being on the other end of one of his boyfriend’s surprising anti-muggleborn rants; he felt he could be a bit harsher when dealing with her. Apparently words just didn’t seem like they were getting through to Hermione at all.   On the other hand, he really couldn’t be much harsher with her. Breaking her self-esteem or attracting any true anger from the brunette would not only upset his darling redhead, but it would hurt the Harry and Draco plans as well as bring upon his head the wrath of Pansy.
Blaise could tell that Pansy had a thing for the oblivious muggleborn, and that meant just flat out hurting her would not be in his best interest. Having been friends with Pansy for years, he was pretty sure that he’d lose all reproductive capabilities if he hexed the girl or let her down too harshly. His failures over the past month included failing time and again to get Hermione off of his case and accidentally brushing it off as no big deal to Ron.
Oh that one had been painful.
The redhead, for all Ron’s calm exterior recently, still had a fiery temper that could spell a man’s doom almost instantly. Adding insult to the accidental injury, this happened during Harry and Draco’s minor falling out over Harry blinding them for 24 hours. Ron had absolutely refused to talk to him anymore until Blaise apologized for discounting his feelings. He hadn’t even meant to, but when it came to Hermione’s unwanted advances, he knew he had to be more delicate about the situation.
Anyway, Ron had decided that Blaise needed to feel his pain and thus cast a curse he didn’t think anyone on the light side would have ever used. It wasn’t illegal, but he got to feel Ron’s usually hidden frustration about the whole affair. Not only did he apologize to Ron, but he gave him another gift that was to stay hidden until they came out with their relationship and he managed to get Draco thinking about Harry until they talked for four days and even gave advice that he knew his redhead would love.   Blaise had told Draco that if he was upset about what Harry did, then rather than avoid the former Savior and give him the silent treatment, he should just asset his dominance.

He was pretty sure that he had never heard a girl squeal as loudly as Ron did when he told him. It had led to a rather nice make-out session and mutually pleasuring each other like they had before during that one day in the practice room together. He realized that he needed to make sure Ron knew that he had no plans on replacing the redhead and that Ron was a pureblood as well and knew some of the intricacies of pureblood witches and wizards.
“How is the rest of the food looking?” Ron asked Blaise after noticing his boyfriend sneaking glances in his direction. It made him feel really good about everything between them especially after that fight they had.
Blaise flashed him a bit of a smile before schooling his features once more. “Everything looks perfect love… everything.” Blaise couldn’t help but smile again when he seen the smile and blush on Ron’s face.
~The Cooking Contest~
Bleachers had been set up in the Great Hall for students as the judging teachers took their places at a long table. Charms were placed so that none of the contests could hear the deliberation of the dishes nor could they see the reactions of the teachers in case that gave it away. The people who remained in the contest without giving up due to one reason or another were currently at their posts waiting for the first half of the timer to begin. The names of each pair were listed in the air with everyone currently being in first place.
They would have to make their appetizers first as soon as the buzzer rang. Some of the other professors were on standby to help with any minor medical issue and to give out penalties for anyone caught cheating. Many people were anxious to get started and nervous at the same time. Ron felt confident after the last minute practice that both he and Blaise had earlier today. Now all he needed was to hope that they at least came into second place.
A soft song began playing and Dumbledore rose for the announcement. “Now, we are about to begin Hogwarts’ first ever muggle cooking contest. The judges for this event will be myself along with Professors McGonagall, Lupin, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick. You will be judge on your presentation of your meal, how well it fits with each aspect of your meal, the taste of your meals and how well you work together throughout the process.”
“The prizes are 200 galleons, two free trips to Hogsmeade at any time, two get out of detention free cards, and two trophies that will be created by Professors McGonagall and Flitwick for the first place winners.  For second place, the prizes will be 100 galleons, a free trip to Hogsmeade at any time, and two trophies denoting the place.  For those who get third place, they will get 50 galleons and two trophies denoting their place in the contest.  I shall also add in a prize of my own and allow for the two students in 1^st and 2^nd place to go out to an all-expense paid dinner with their friend to get to know them better. There is no reason that friendship only needs to last for the contest.” Dumbledore said with a smile.
Madam Hooch stood off to the side. “You may begin now.” she said and blew her whistle. The pairs immediately went towards preparing the ingredients from their stations. Everyone was working as quickly as possible, but there were noticeable meltdowns from the beginning.   A few of the younger years had caved under pressure and some of the other teams were arguing.
Pansy and Hermione couldn’t find an ingredient and were searching for it before deciding to change up their original appetizer a little so they didn’t need the ingredient. The two women worked almost flawlessly together until it came time for the arrangement of their plate. Since the missing item was also needed for garnishment, they quickly tried to figure out something to make it look much better.
The clock was ticking down and the two girls worked harder on making it look perfect before the sound of the whistle. “Alright hands in the air.” Madam Hooch said and dishes were taken by all the house elves and brought to the front. Everyone watched and waited while the judges taste the food. A couple people were disqualified in the first round due to a use of potions in their food to change or enhance the tastes.
Slowly, but surely, names began to appear on the leaderboard. Ron wasn’t too happy that Harry and Draco were in third place, but the discrete squeeze to his hand from Blaise made him remember that it was only the first round. Blaise was probably happy as well because they managed to come in second place with a pairing coming in first.
Pansy and Hermione were in fifth place, but they weren’t too worried about it. After all, they couldn’t find the ingredient that they were looking for and the change from their original recipe was probably the reason for the lower scores. Each group was given a couple minutes to discuss their entrée before it was time to begin again. The moment that Madam Hooch blew her whistle, the groups set to work on their entrees.
Draco was watching Harry as he worked on the fish for their entrée dish. Harry didn’t seem to be focused on anything else, but the side dishes and even with the time limit seemed to be completely calm under pressure. It was a nice change from Harry during the war and from the Harry who blinded them all for 24 hours.   He was curious as to if cooking was something that calmed his dear friend down.
‘Friend’ that word had been mulling around in Draco’s head for some time now. The fact that they had to work together for defense meant they spent more time together at first, but the time they spent outside of working on their projects had increased and even included this contest. Draco realized they had both matured since the battle and their early years at Hogwarts. It was a bit absurd to think that they would stay completely the same through so many trials and tribulations.
However, it wasn’t their maturity or closeness; well actually it was their closeness that he was focusing on lately. There were ups and downs, fights and laughter, from them both over the months. It wasn’t a perfect friendship and Harry did things that left him wondering if the green-eyed male hadn’t matured at all and then things that shocked him.   Draco supposed that it could be something akin to him not being used to the more forward emotional displays, but he sincerely doubted that.
In the time that they’ve managed to begin working together, they were trapped in a kissing prank that no one has been able to duplicate yet even though many have tried. They have become friends, had question and answer sessions to truly start over, comforting one another, had very strange accidents like in the Hogsmeade trip, kissed again, and worked on this contest together. It was a foundation which was something Draco was keen on having in a relationship.
He brushed off the kisses, because they weren’t supposed to mean much of anything. A simple kiss could not tell a person whether or not they wanted to be in a relationship with another. A kiss could end up happening between teammates or even best friends after winning a competition or in a moment of extreme excitement.   The kiss due to the prank had been interesting and he had written it off as something that would never happen again. They didn’t even know each other as well as they do now and so potentially pursuing that would have been a fool’s errand.
Since that first kiss, they had kissed again. There was the time after Harry had broken up with his girlfriend. Draco had felt bad for the girl. Sure, there were some people who would have felt that she deserved it, but Draco felt that it shouldn’t have been as harshly.   Of course, he knew about the pressure of having to or trying to fit in more with everyone’s perfect expectation of what should happen or what someone should try to be. There were always pressures and no one rose about them, not even him. When he started this school, he was a daddy’s boy but he didn’t want sympathy for that.
He was a complete bastard and hated people for no reason. Draco knew he had been a bully, mean-spirited, and had more prejudices than one could probably count. It wasn’t until his third and fourth year that he had started in secret to research more about different types of people and really took notice of magical abilities. This was part of the reason that he had stopped Harry on his emotional tirade and asked him to see that Ginevra had been hurting and under just as much pressure as he was.
Still, the kiss after the break-up had nearly broken all of his composure. Their fight had almost driven them apart, but Blaise reminded him that he should probably just assert his dominance or something. Draco also realized that no matter how much he fought with Harry, they always seemed to come back together for some reason or another.   He didn’t believe in fate, but he did think that both he and Harry truly knew one another.
He glanced up at the timer a moment and finished up the food before working on the plating the moment that Harry was done with the vegetables that accompanied it. “Perfect.” Draco said as he looked at the beautiful meal they had created. This had come out better than a lot of their practices considering they had both felt something was always a bit off, but this time everything had come out the way that they had wanted it to. Perhaps they would manage to get up into at least second place for the contest as they were only behind Ron and Blaise by ten points.
Harry looked at Draco with a soft smile and nodded. “This is definitely perfect.” he said before raising his hands in the air at the sound of whistle.
The dishes were taken up to the front and everyone watched the judges tasting and judging the food. When Professor Snape tasted their dish, he looked up at them both. Harry and Draco shared a worried look before a small, barely noticeable smile appeared on Snape’s face. Harry looked at Draco questioningly and Draco just shrugged and shook his head. He had no idea why Snape had that look on his face.
As the leaderboard went up to show the rankings, they were tied in second place with Ron and Blaise. Harry smiled a bit more because he loved making desserts and if they could just make sure that it was perfect then they might be able to win this. He would like to spend more time with Draco outside of school where they wouldn’t have to worry about too many people trying to speculate what was going on.   The moment the whistle blew to start the last part of the competition; Harry and Draco were in complete sync to make their dessert.
Pansy and Hermione were working on their beautiful presentation with sugar roses. They had decided to dress up their dessert a bit more and try to move up into third place. The girls were trailing behind Ginny and her partner by three points.   The pairing at the top of the leaderboard were lightly torching their cake though it seems like they were burning parts of the edges. Ron and Blaise nearly cried when their cake came out perfect and they started decorating it and adding little touches here and there.
It seemed like the whistle blew much too soon, but everyone had finished.   Their food was taken to the front and their stations disappeared. The students stood around waiting for the results of the contest. It was more nerve-wracking than the exams and everyone had worked so hard to put together the best menu of food that they could cook.   When Dumbledore stood up, it was silent.
“I would like to say that I love how everyone came together to make these dishes. I believe that this will continue to promote house unity. All of the dishes were quite tasty and yes there were a few mistakes, but consider this a learning experience.” he said as he looked over all of them. “Now what you are all probably waiting for… the results!”
Professors McGonagall and Flitwick came to the front with the prizes and the envelopes for each place winner as decided by the teachers.
Dumbledore took the third place envelope and opened it up. “The third place winners, who will receive they will get 50 galleons and two trophies denoting their place in the contest, are Miss Hermione Granger and her partner Miss Pansy Parkinson. Everyone please give them a round of applause.” he said to the crowd.
Pansy and Hermione hugged each other and went up to get their prize. They held up the trophies and took a picture with one another before standing to the side of the teachers and waited to hear the other results.
Dumbledore took the second envelope. “The winners of second place are Mr. Ronald Weasley and Mr. Blaise Zabini. They have both won 100 galleons, a free trip to Hogsmeade at any time, and two trophies denoting their place. They also get to go out to dinner on me.” he said to them.
Ron and Blaise came up smiling and accepted their prize. “Sorry about your Gringotts account, headmaster.” Ron said jokingly to Dumbledore in which everyone just chuckled a bit. Ron and Blaise posed for their picture holding up the trophies with smiles on their faces.
“Thank you for the concern, Mr. Weasley.”, Dumbledore said with a smile and then took the first place envelope. “The winners of the first place prize consisting of 200 galleons, two free trips to Hogsmeade at any time, two get out of detention free cards, two trophies, and the dinner on me are… Mr. Draco Malfoy and Mr. Harry Potter.”
Harry smiled and walked up there with Draco. “We did it. I told you that you didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to the dessert.” he said smiling a bit at Draco as they took their trophies. He couldn’t help the bright smile he gave Draco. When they worked together, they could be a pretty amazing team. It made him think back to his conversation with Ron. Should he try to date Draco?
Draco smiled. “You did tell me that.” he said as he looked at the smile that Harry was giving him. He wasn’t sure if this was the best idea that he has ever had, but he had made his decision on whether he would give them a shot while cooking. He looked at Harry after they took their picture as the first place winners.
“You know Harry I’ve been thinking…” Draco started out. Harry was about to say something, but seeing Draco seem both nervous and serious, he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to start another fight at the moment. “I’ve been thinking that we should try dating.”
Harry looked shocked and happy at the same time. He didn’t say anything to Draco, but he nodded yes. It may seem a bit rushed to some people, but they had known each other for a long time and have gotten closer as time went on. “I would like that Draco.” he said.
Draco moved closer to Harry and looked at him. Everyone was silent as not too many people had heard Draco ask Harry out or understood Harry’s enthusiastic nod. Draco just smiled and shook his head before kissing Harry gently in the middle of the Great Hall.
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Ronald Weasley's Strategies