Cake (PG-13, Trio)

[wideworldsend]

TITLE: Cake
AUTHOR: Mad Maudlin
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Harry/Ron/Hermione
SPOILERS: Through OotP
SUMMARY: Hermione is a greedy girl.

A/N: This was for the Alphabet Challenge at menage_a_trio. Callie gave me the word "queen," and...well, you can see what I did with it. There are very vague references to Ghostbuster and the song "Unemployed Boyfriend" by Everclear.

"Cake"
by Mad Maudlin
for the menage_a_trio Alphabet Challenge

Hermione first heard the song echoing through the corridors after lunch, but she spared it very little thought. Gryffindor's next Quidditch match was weeks away, and Ron had improved loads this year, and honestly, how immature could the Slytherins be about this sort of thing? Didn't they realize there were more important things going on than some silly sport? She took her seat in Transfiguration and was so absorbed in her notes that she didn't notice for twenty minutes that neither Ron nor Harry were sitting next to her.

She holed up in the library after class, intending to research her paper on Memory Charms, but she could still hear the song coming in blurts and waves every time the doors opened. The noise distracted her; so did Harry and Ron, who had vanished so quickly after class that the might as well have never been there. But surely they had been—surely they wouldn't skip, no matter how lazy (Ron) or distraught (Harry) they might be. Unless they had somehow landed in the hospital wing...

When Hermione finally went down to dinner, she had barely made it out of the library before Pansy Parkinson and several Slytherin girls intercepted her with malicious grins. "Oi, Granger! Where's your boyfriend?" Pansy called in a sing-song voice that sent the whole gang giggling.

Hermione, who had just been wondering that herself, thrust her chin into the air. "Probably down eating dinner with everyone else."

The gang giggled harder, and Parkinson smirked. "Only probably? You mean you don't know?"

"I'm not Ron's keeper," she snapped. Mostly.

"That's a shame," Parkinson said with a grotesquely exaggerated frown. "It seems like he could use one. Seems like he's been getting up to no good."

The Slytherin girls positively howled, and Hermione's patience began to fray. "Parkinson, if you don't care to let me in the joke, I have better things to do than talk to you."

"Oh, it's no joke, Granger," Parkinson said. "Bet you'll wish it was, though...seems like Weasley's been having a bit of fun behind your back."

"Ron wouldn't do that," Hermione answered automatically.

All the girls laughed, and Daphne Greengrass brayed from the back of the group, "That's not what Eloise Midgen says!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "And why would I care what Eloise Midgen has to say?"

"Maybe because Midgen saw your boyfriend behind the greenhouses, snogging another bloke?"

Hermione's mind went briefly and absolutely blank. The first word out of her mouth was, "No."

"It's true," Parkinson said. "Midgen saw the whole thing—ask her if you don't believe us."

"Ron wouldn't do that," she said again, choking on the words, clinging to them.

"He would and he did," Parkinson said. "Only question is who he's been blowing while you're off with your books."

Hermione's fingers clamped around her wand, and she was hardly aware of bringing it up to point at Pansy's throat. She was definitely not aware of Ginny coming through the hidden passage on her right until two firms hands clamped down on her wrist and hauled it down. "Don't bother," Ginny hissed in her ear, "it's not worth it—"

"Oh, look who it is!" one of the Slytherins said—a fifth-year girl Hermione didn't know. "How's it feel to have a queer for a brother, Weaselette?"

Now it was Hermione's turn to hold Ginny back; she dragged her down the hallway, half-tempted herself to turn back and fight. When Parkinson realized that the entertainment was over, she broke into a chorus of That Song, backed up by her friends, and Hermione finally realized what they'd been singing all day.

Weasley will do anything
for something hard stuck through his ring
He's always open for a fling
Weasley is a queen

Weasley likes it on his knees
He is eager just to please
He can swallow it with ease
Weasley is a queen

She was shaking by the time they made it out of earshot, thought she couldn't have said why—there was anger and there was outrage and there was fear and she couldn't put her finger on any of them. Ginny finally dragged her to a halt near a trick staircase. "Hermione, are you--?"

"Ridiculous," Hermione said—the first word her mind could latch onto. "They're absolutely ridiculuous, aren't they?"

"Hermione—"

"You would think they hard better things to do that go around spreading ridiculous rumors—"

"Oh, Hermione..."

"They could come up with something better!" Hermione shrieked at a landscape, and sent a cloud of painted birds flying. "Because nobody could possibly ever believe...that Ron...it's just ludicrous..."

Ginny bit her lip and here eyes were sad.

"...isn't it?"

"He won't talk to me," Ginny said, sounding desperate. "He won't talk to anybody, he's been hiding all day."

"Is it true?"

"...Hermione, I'm sorry."

Hermione shook her head, steeled herself. "No. No, this is some kind of—it's all a big—who on earth would he even do it with, anyway?"

"Ask him," Ginny said. "Maybe he'll explain it to you—he's hiding in his dormitory, Neville says he won't get out of bed."

Yes. She would talk to him. There had to be some rational, reasonable explanation for this that would all come out in the end, and then everything would be fine and she could shove her wand right up Pansy Parkinson's stupid pug nose. Hermione turned on her heel and raced towards Gryffindor Tower, Ginny trotted a pace or so behind her.

People whispered when she walked in, people stared and smirked behind hands. She could've sworn she heard a bit of that bloody song under somebody's breath. She didn't care. She made her was straight to the boy's staircase, weaving between the chairs, eyes fixed on her goal—

"Hermione!" Neville suddenly popped up. "You, er, are you—I mean, have you heard—?"

"I told you to keep an eye on Ron!" Ginny said.

Neville flinched. "I did! But then Harry went up—"

Hermione felt her stomach settled back into its usually position, just a bit. Harry would help her sort this out. Ron always listened to him, even when he wouldn't listen to anyone else. Everything would be just fine. "I'm going up to talk to him," she told Ginny and Neville. "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this."

She ignored the way they looked at each other and headed towards the boy's stairs. There was a clatter of feet, and then Harry came down just as she was about to go up. He flinched when he saw her. "Er—hey."

"Is he all right?"

Harry sighed. "Hermione, I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't start," she said. "I would think you of all people would know better than to believe a stupid rumor, especially one so...so outrageous—"

Harry grabbed her arm; his fingers curled nearly all the way around her bicep, silencing her. "Hermione," he said softly, "it's not a rumor."

She stared into his anguished eyes and forgot how to breathe. Who would he even do it with...?

"I'm so sorry," Harry whispered.

Hermione was scarcely aware of her hand pulling back until she had already slapped him, hard—she had just a moment to register the resigned cringe on his face before her feet carried her away, up the girl's stairs, into her dormitory, just in time to get into her bed before somebody saw her cry.

-x-X-x-X-x-

Ginny came up after her in the middle of the morning. All of Hermione's roommates had gone to breakfast after only half-hearted attempts at consoling her; they probably thought it was far more entertaining to laugh at her behind her back, now that the whole story was out. Ginny came up and wrenched the bedcurtains aside, then folded her arms across her chest with a scowl that would've done her mother proud. "You are pathetic."

"Leave me alone," Hermione sighed, and hugged Crookshanks closer to her chest. He, at least, was one male she could count on.

Ginny sat down and tossed Crookshanks on the floor, where he hissed at her. "Hermione, you're not making things any better by hiding up here feeling sorry for yourself!"

"I don't want to see them," Hermione informed her. "I don't want to see any of them. Parkinson and the rest. I couldn't stand it."

"What, like you've never had half the school making fun of you before—"

"This is different."

"How?"

Hermione tried to burrow under the bedcovers; Ginny yanked them off the bed completely and on top of Crookshanks, who yowled and fled the room. "Look, Ginny, when you've been betrayed by your boyfriend, I will welcome your advice on the situation."

"Oh, don't get all angstier-than-thou on me," she said, rolling her eyes. "Hermione, this isn't like you, you don't get this worked up over boys."

"I do over these boys," Hermione told her.

That hushed Ginny up for a moment, but then she tried a new track. "Look, I know Ron and Harry as well as you do, and this isn't—I mean, they wouldn't do something like this on purpose."

"Yes," Hermione said, "I expect that Ron tripped and fell on Harry's mouth."

Ginny growled. "I mean they've got to have a reason—Harry was trying to apologize yesterday before you hit him, wasn't he?"

Hermione sighed and buried her head under the pillows. "I know there's a reason," she said. "I'm just not sure I want to hear it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ginny demanded. When Hermione didn't respond right away, she said. "You don't...I mean, Ron's not really gay."

"He hasn't denied it, has he?"

"He hasn't said anything," Ginny grumbled. "He's been hiding out in the library all day and he won't talk to anyone."

"Still..." Hermione resigned herself to sitting up and explaining. "If he is—if he and Harry are—I can't just step aside, Ginny. I wouldn't be able to stand it."

"Stand what? Seeing your friends happy?"

"Seeing them without me." She pulled her knees up to her chest. "I'm a wretched person and I can't do the noble thing because then they'd be together and I'd be alone and I couldn't bloody stand it."

Ginny didn't seem to have an answer for that, and Hermione was glad. There was so much more that she couldn't put into words—how desperately she needed those boys, her boys, her first and closest friends. They had kept her sane and human, when she knew quite well she might've spiralled off into academic delerium by herself. They had stayed by her—two constants, like a pair of North Stars, coming to her and being with her through thick and thin without any effort on her part, just because they were themselves and she was herself and it worked that way. She belonged with them—both of them—she couldn't imagine life otherwise.

But there had always been a tiny niggling voice in the back of her mind, one that reminded her that Harry and Ron had been each other's before they had been hers. She had always ignored it; they had always included her, relied on her, stayed with her in spite of everything. And she might be able to handle it if Ron were gay—though knowing that she couldn't compete, that nothing she could do would ever really be enough, it would hurt. Badly. It would hurt but she could survive, though, she was sure. But if Ron and Harry were gay and together, that would be the ultimate rejection, the final statement. It would mean that however important she was to them, she wasn't quite important enough.

This was irrational thinking and Hermione knew it. She didn't care. She wanted her boys—both of them—and perhaps that made her a greedy bitch but she couldn't help it. And now that it seemed she might lose them both, she wasn't Gryffindor enough to face them and find out.

Eventually Ginny reached out and squeezed Hermione's hand. "Look," she said. "I think you're forgetting one important thing here."

"What?"

"Ron is desperately, madly, pathetically in love with you." Hermione must've looked skeptical, because Ginny squeezed her hand again. "It's true. He doesn't say it because he's stupid, but I can tell—you know he tried to write you a poem during the hols?"

"He what?"

Ginny smiled, knowing she had Hermione's attention now. "He tried to write you a poem. Only made it about four lines before he gave up—the twins kept trying to see what he was scribbling at—but I got to see it before he tore it up." She cleared her throat as if preparing for a weighty declamation. "'If Hermione was my girlfriend / I would treat her like a queen / I would love her more than anyone / she has ever seen.'"

Hermione wanted to smile, but wasn't sure she dared. "You must be joking."

"On my honor as a Weasley, I'm not."

A little flicker of hope formed in Hermione's heart, one the cruel little voice couldn't quite whisper down. She squared her shoulders. "I'll...we'll talk. We'll see. I don't know."

"But you're going to talk to them?"

"I suppose I have to." She got up and opened her trunk. "Where did you say Harry was?"

"He and Neville went flying."

Hermione stared.

"Yes," Ginny said, "d'you see what happens when you hide up here and pout? Neville on a broomstick, Ron in the library of his own free will, dog and cats living together, mass hysteria...."

That did make Hermione smile, though it also prompted her to hurry dressing. She didn't want Neville to end up in the hospital wing in her account.

-x-X-x-X-x-

She sat in the stands for the longest time, watching Harry and Neville fly. Well, Harry was flying; Neville was sort of drifting vaguely along on a school broom, clinging to the handle for dear life. Harry kept trying to show him some minutiae of proper flying, and Neville kept nodding without moving a muscle, or, from what Hermione could see, even breathing. That didn't stop Harry from continuing to patiently explain it, even demonstrating a few little turns and dips. It made Hermione's heart swell uncomfortably to watch—he was such a wonderful teacher, she had known he would be even before the DA, and she didn't want to interrupt this lesson. It was a weak excuse to put off the inevitable and she welcomed it.

They eventually noticed her, however; Neville waved and wobbled, and Harry swooped straight down to her, right into the stands. "Hey," he said, dismounting.

"Hey."

She couldn't look at him; she hoped he wasn't looking straight at her.

"Erm...I'm sorry," she finally blurted. "For last night."

Harry sighed. "I'm sorry, too. For...everything."

He shuffled his feet a bit and leaned on his broom; Hermione ran her fingers across the fraying seams inside her pocket. "What, er, what happened?"

"I reckon you heard—"

"I mean, Harry...why?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I didn't...I mean, I was there, obviously, but...he just sort of jumped on me."

"He jumped on you?" Hermione's stomach did a funny flip-flop, and the small fierce flame in her heart guttered a bit.

"We were talking..." Harry swallowed hard. "I had asked him what wizards think of, of wizards who do stuff with other wizards."

Stuff. Hermione wasn't sure whether to curse Harry's vagueness or be thankful for it. "I suppose you've got your answer now, don't you?"

"More than I wanted, yeah."

She tried to gauge his mood, but he seemed blank, closed-off, as he had ever since Sirius died. She had to ask this question. "Why exactly were you discussing that?"

Harry's windburned face got a little pinker. "It was just something I'd been thinking about," he said too quickly.

"Harry, you're not..."

"I don't know."

She would've forced the issue, but she didn't want to row, not when she could already see their friendship crumbling in front of her. Instead she asked, "So you asked him and he...jumped on you?"

"Well, he got sort of twitchy, and then he asked me why I wanted to know...and then he jumped, yeah."

"Doesn't sound like you've got much to apologize for, then."

There was a long stretch of silence, and Hermione waited for Harry to agree, so that they could make up and then go talk to Ron and maybe salvage something—at least friendship, at least an echo of what they'd had before. But Harry looked down at his shoes and cleared his throat. "I didn't...I didn't exactly fight him off, Hermione."

She swallowed, braced herself, and asked the last question she wanted to hear. "Do you fancy him, then?"

He glanced up from behind his fringe, and she saw all the answer she needed in his expression. But out loud, he said, "It doesn't matter. He chose—you both chose each other. I don't want to mess that up for you."

"It's too late for that," Hermione said. Harry would do the noble thing, Harry would stand aside and let her have Ron—for a moment she hated him a little bit, hated his bloody hero complex and the earnest need in his eyes.

"No—listen," he said desperately, "I'll talk to him, I'll straighten him out—"

They both flinched.

"Bad choice of words," Harry admitted.

Hermione grabbed Harry's wrist and pulled him towards the stairs. "Come on. Ginny says he's in the library."

"Hermione, no—" He pulled back, nearly pulled her off her feet. "Listen. You're my friend, too, I don't want to hurt you—I'd rather stay friends with you both than drive one of you off—"

"Stop being such a drama queen," Hermione snapped. She wouldn't let herself be warmed by those words, wouldn't dare to hope, because there are three sides to a triangle. "It's Ron's choice, isn't it?"

Harry nodded, looking resigned.

A loud thump from the pitch made them both jump; some yards away, Neville was sprawled on the grass, broom drifting away without him. He sat up and waved. "It's all right! I'm okay!"

Harry waved half-heartedly, and Hermione tugged his wrist again. They walked side-by-side to the castle, without speaking or looking at one another.

-x-X-x-X-x-

It wasn't hard to find Ron in the library; Ginny and Luna had camped out in front of the nook where he'd hidden himself, pretending to study and chasing off any unwelcome visitors. When they saw Hermione and Harry approach, Ginny smiled in a half-hopeful sort of way while Luna continued to fill in the Quibbler's crossword puzzle. "Are you—I mean, how are you?" she asked.

"We need to talk to him," Hermione said stonily, and the smile slid right off Ginny's face. Luna pointed helpfully at a corner where Hermione knew a small table and several chairs were concealed from sight by the shelves.

They found Ron sitting with his feet on the windowsill, rocking his chair back on two legs and staring moodily out at the grounds. When Hermione cleared her throat, he nearly flipped his chair over backwards. "We need to talk," she said.

"I've got nothing to say," he replied, planting his feet and turning away from them.

Hermione took the chair on Ron's left, and Harry leaned on the back of the one to the right but didn't sit. "Yes, you do. We all do."

Ron looked at them both warily. "Wouldn't have thought you'd want anything to do with me."

"Yes, well, you thought wrong." Hermione took a deep breath when he flinched at her tone. There was no reason to take out her own hurt on her boys, not yet, maybe not ever. "Ron, what happened yesterday?"

"Ask him," Ron said, tossing his chin in Harry's direction. "He started it."

"I didn't either!" Harry said indignantly.

"You were the one who brought it up!"

"You were the one who jumped on me!"

"You made me think about it!" Ron snapped. "I wouldn't have done anything if you hadn't told me you were a pouf!"

Harry's face went alarmingly white. "I never said—"

"You might as well have." Ron suddenly found the battered table-top interesting. "I might be an idiot, but I'm not that thick, Harry. You've been all weird and jumpy around me for ages and then you start asking questions like that? I reckon even Neville'd have figured it out."

Hermione felt helpless as Harry's indignation crumpled. He ran his fingernail through a deep groove in the woodwork. "I'm not, though," he said softly. "Not really."

"Yeah," Ron said after a beat. "Me too."

They looked at one another, and Hermione's heart skipped a beat. This, she thought, was when they ought to kiss—this was the moment in the movies when the background music swelled and the camera zoomed in. And she didn't belong here. She swallowed hard and stood up. "I'll just, um, I'll just be going—"

"What? No," Ron grabbed her hand then, tight enough to hurt. "Hermione, don't—please don't be mad—"

"I'm not mad," she said, "I'm just—I'm sure you two want a bit of privacy, that's all—"

"Why would we want that?" Harry asked, looking faintly panicky.

"You just said you fancy one another." She could do the noble thing, she thought, if she left now—she could let them have each other, she could find her other friends, she could change. But she had to leave, now, or she never would.

Ron wouldn't let go. "Just because I—we—look, I just found out I was a pervert yesterday," he said, fast and low and desperate. "It's not like we're running off and getting married or something. You're still my girlfriend."

"Yeah," Harry said, coming around the edge of the table to push her into her seat. "Nothing's changing, not if it's going to hurt you. You're still our friend."

"So you're going to keep me around out of pity, are you?" she said fiercely.

"No, we're going to stay with you because we love you!"

Hermione blinked.

Ron said, softly, "'We?'"

Harry's blush would've done any of the Weasleys proud, but he met Ron's eyes. "Yeah. We."

Ron released Hermione's hand, and leaned back in his chair. For a moment Hermione held her breath, waiting to see who would cast the first hex—but then Ron looked away, out the window again, and didn't react when Harry sat down on Hermione's other side. "Could've said something," he mumbled.

"Didn't want to," Harry said. "Besides, you two were already together and all..."

"I would've...y'know, stepped back. If you'd asked."

Hermione growled at them both, for being so noble and for being such boys. "We're not...not trophies you can pass around to one another," she snapped. "We don't own each other, we can't just...just hand each other off. We're human beings and we can choose for ourselves."

"And I don't want to," Harry said. "Choose, I mean. I can't pick between you. It'd be like...like choosing between having to be deaf or blind."

"Or between drowning and burning to death," Ron said.

They looked to one another, then to her.

Hermione's heart constricted. She'd already chosen, hadn't she? She'd picked Ron, dated Ron, and now it was she who had to decide—to come between them or walk away. Either way, she would shatter this little web, and because of her things would never be the same, because she had chosen...

But, no, that wasn't right—Ron had sought her out, chosen her, and she had simply sort of gone along. She loved Ron, yes, desperately, but that didn't mean she didn't love Harry, too. In fact, when they had first told Harry they were together, she had been relieved beyond words when his only reaction had been a crack about whethet they'd be bickering more or less. She'd been relieved, because it had felt like benediction—because it meant she could still have both her boys, could kiss one without losing the love of the other.

She could have both...

It made her laugh, when she finally understood. Rather hard, in fact. She pulled her hands from the grips of her boys and wrapped them around her middle and belly-laughed while they stared as if she had gone mad. And maybe she had; maybe she was mad to consider it, mad to think it could work, mad to propose it like a rational solution to the dilemma. But madness had never stopped them before. She looked at Harry, and then at Ron, and she was careful to wipe the tears of mirth from her face before she reached across the table and kissed Harry full on the lips.

It was brief and dry and clumsy; he didn't move and she was all too conscious of Ron watching but not breathing. When she leg go of his robes and sank back into her chair, she was able to smile at Ron's horrified, wounded expression. "I think we're even now, then," she told him.

"...even?"

They didn't understand yet; she grabbed their hands and pulled them across the table, holding them together with both of hers. "I'm willing to share if you are."

Blue and green eyes blinked. Hermione ever so briefly panicked.

Then Ron's hand turned under hers, and his long knobby fingers curled up, holding Harry's in place. "I...er...I mean, you...if you..." He cleared his throat, and Hermione noted his voice had risen about an octave. "Could you, er, do that again?"

She glanced at Harry. He pulled off his glasses. This time it was softer and wetter, the good sort of wet, and her heart thrilled when Ron slipped around to kneel next to them with one hand on each of their necks.

"Yeah," he whispered in her ear. "I can definitely share."

Ron planted a dry kiss on the side of her face; she pulled back and locked eyes with Harry, who nodded once before diving back in. But then Ron pushed between them and Hermione was kissing him while Harry nuzzled his neck; and then suddenly Harry was kissing Ron, and Hermione watched, and the arms wrapped around her saved her heart from breaking.

Maybe she could have her cake and still get to eat it, if she shared.