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“Petey and Ronnikins, sitting on a log, ready to S.N.O.G. snog!”
“Sod oooff.” Ron glowered at the twins and their devious grins.
The first time they’d taunted him about Peter was first year. Ron hadn't any idea who they were talking about, but sensed what they were accusing him of—“Snuggling up to Petey Pet all night long”—was something shameful. Two boys shouldn’t share a bed; Fred and George’s gleeful teasing made that clear.
The twins had wheedled him for months, acting as if there was a secret to uncover. They'd been curious how a non-Gryffindor boy could be sneaked into the dorms past curfew.
None of it'd made a mote of sense; they had to be making it up for laughs. No one but old Scabbers hung about his bed all night.
The twins got bored of asking after 'Peter the Hufflepuff' (who they’d made up!), but occasionally still needled Ron about him. This dredged up a squirming, unnameable discomfort in Ron’s gut. But like all of Fred and George’s teasing, Ron was determined to ignore it. He knew they didn't mean any harm.
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14 December, 1993.
After Fred and George had handed down the Marauders Map (Harry insisted the twins had given it to the three of them), it occurred to Ron that his brothers had been using it to spy on him; well, on everyone.
That revelation didn’t immediately solve the mystery of who Peter was. And it didn’t solve the horrible ball of self-doubt and the knowledge that Ron was different.
The feeling lived in his stomach for months, making itself known with a sharp twinge—sometimes daily, other times laying dormant for weeks. The feeling arose when he glimpsed Dean changing, noticing his stronger shoulders or deepening voice. The feeling nagged when he caught himself staring at that Ravenclaw prefect; a tall, serious looking boy with dark hair. Ron wasn’t even sure of his name; he was too nervous to find out.
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7 June, 1994.
Well, the mystery was solved, all right.
Peter Pettigrew—that disgusting, hateful traitor—was who Fred and George had spotted in his bed. And they thought... they knew, but they were wrong when they thought—
The day after all the Time Turner madness, Ron lay curled up in his four-poster, with the curtains drawn. The shame and muddled thoughts clung to him like mud. He couldn’t settle; irrational thoughts clawed at him like a... like a rat:
They know you like boys, men; they thought you liked Peter fucking Pettigrew.
Harry came back from Professor Lupin’s office, mumbling that he’d got the Map back. When Ron asked to borrow it, Harry assented with a distracted, far-off look.
Ron was grateful to have it. He had the lurking sense that Pettigrew might still be nearby. It was late, but there was time to walk off his anxiety before curfew.
Stumbling from the Fat Lady's portrait, Ron unfolded the Map, and whispered the password. No sign of Pettigrew; but Fred and George’s dots were a few corridors away, heading towards him.
Ron’s stomach clenched. He couldn’t face any taunting, not when his eyes were already stinging. Ron darted away in the opposite direction, eyes on the Map.
Fred and George had turned; were they giving chase?! His footfalls must have made them curious.
There! Ron knew that short corridor; as far as he remembered, it held nothing but a few dusty sofas. Yet there on the Map, was a semi-circular alcove in the wall, and, yes—
Ron skidded into the space, relieved to see it devoid of students. Darting his eyes at the Map and then around the walls, he clambered over a sofa, pushed aside a tapestry, and slipped behind it.
Frozen in the dim alcove, Ron listened as the twins' footsteps rushed past and then faded. He sighed in relief, about to untense, when suddenly he sensed a presence in the darkness.
“Lumos!” Ron gasped, adrenaline ratcheting up again, sure he would see a half-bald, cringing man staring at him with watery eyes—
Instead, as light flooded the stone-walled space, Ron found a wand tip an inch from his nose, and the sharp scowling face of a boy.
“Who’re you?” Ron exclaimed. The kid couldn’t’ve been much older than Ron, with stringy dark hair around his thin features, and a nose like a beak. He was wearing his Slytherin school robes.
"Get out,” Beaky-Nose hissed.
The arrogance rattled Ron. “Why?
“I was here first.”
“So? Hasn’t got your name on it, has it?”
Beaky-Nose huffed in exasperation. “You’re acting like a first year.”
“Shh, keep it down. And get that wand out of my face."
To Ron's surprise, Beaky-Nose did lower his wand, and then leaned against the wall, eying Ron.
“I’m Ron Weasley. What's your name? Haven’t noticed you around, but I don’t care much for watching the snakes.”
Beaky-Nose sneered. “Weasley? You needn’t’ve said so, it’s obvious.” His eyes were pure black in the gloom, with a keen glint that was not only from the amber shine of the Lumos. “Fourth-year?”
“Third. And if you don’t tell me what to call you, I’ll come up with something.” Like Beaky-Nose.
“You don’t have to call me anything.”
“Oh, are you leaving, then?”
Beaky-Nose frowned, and then slid to the floor, which didn’t look as dusty as Ron would have expected. “No," he replied.
Ron shoved the Map into his back pocket before flopping to the floor.
There was a pause before Beaky-Nose gave up being stubborn. “Eli.”
Eli. What a defensive prat, doesn’t even want to give his full name. Maybe he’s a Crabbe, or something equally awful. Ron sighed. “So who are you hiding from, then?”
Eli bristled. “No one.”
Definitely someone, then. Ron assessed Eli from the corner of his eye; in the wandlight, Ron noted that his worn robes had that stiff look of one too many Reparo. Eli was the opposite of well-groomed. Ron suspected his family didn’t have much, and that wouldn’t go down well in Slytherin. No wonder Ron had never noticed him; he probably spent a lot of his time hiding in here.
“Stop that,” Eli snapped, edging away from Ron. His glower was defiant, his jaw clenched.
“Stop what?”
“I’m not interested in whatever you’re schemeing.” Eli raised his wand again. “Don’t think that just because we’re in a secret alcove, and you’re heftier, that you can put your hands on me.”
Put your hands on me. Heat swept through him, instantly followed by an icy chill. Ron fumbled his wand in shock, and it clattered to the floor, the light jumping.
“What? I wasn’t doing anything!” Ron protested, scrambling to retrieve his wand, face burning. “I’m not!” His eyes met Eli’s again, the nebulous grey shame in his stomach surging up towards his heart.
Aren’t you? How pretty his eyes are, how elegantly he holds himself... Whispered something inside him.
“I mean, we’re both blokes!” Ron babbled, still caught in the deep obsidian stare.
Eli coolly met his eyes. “Obviously.”
There was something steadying and open in Eli’s face that hadn't been there before; like a pause in his defensive bristling, shielded sentries on a battlement hovering, assessing whether an attack was truly imminent.
Something shining and bright escaped the clutches of the shame in Ron's gut: curiosity.
Swallowing, Ron murmured, “So we’re both that sort of bloke, then?” His voice sounded strained and pleading, even to his own ears.
Eli shrugged. Turning away, his posture slackened. He didn’t confirm or deny anything, but the air between them changed, making the tangles around Ron’s heart loosen.
Ron fiddled with his fringe. The weight of the silence gnawed at him until he blurted, “I thought I was the only boy at Hogwarts. I mean, I’ve heard people mention... um... but, you know, everyone’s... no one else seemed...” His throat closed up, and the corner of his lips tugged down as emotion swelled. Ron scrunched his eyes closed.
There was a long-suffering sigh. “It would be statistically unlikely that we were the only ones among hundreds of students. Never mind the teachers.”
We. The confirmation had his heart soaring, and Ron opened his eyes. They stared at each other again. Eli had an elbow on his knee, his chin in his palm.
“Yeah?” Ron asked.
In the shuddering light, Ron saw Eli's lips quirk; a thin, stripped twig of a smile, or maybe a trick of the shadows.
“I must get back to the dungeons,” Eli said.
Ron opened his mouth to say something that might keep Eli here a little longer, but before he could speak, Eli was leaning over and—
His nose pressed against Ron’s cheek, and his lips pressed and moved for long enough to be called a—
Eli stood like a bird taking flight. The orange candlelight from the room beyond flooded in as Eli pulled the tapestry aside and hauled himself over the sofa. The fabric fell back in place, leaving Ron in a pool of Lumos light.
“Wait!” Ron lurched to his feet, and tugged the tapestry aside. The sofa area was empty, and he scrambled over furniture and looked up and down the corridor: it was empty.
Ron yanked the Map from his back pocket. It was still activated. He found his own dot, and scanned around for who else was in the vicinity, but—
The corridors were empty, the closest dot nowhere near him.
Overcome by the strangeness of it, Ron’s heart sank.
Would he ever run into Eli again? He wouldn't be able to wait until autumn. Ron spotted an abandoned pen and parchment, and scratched out: Meet me here again at 8 PM? I’ll come every night to check. R.W.
Ron planned to leave it in the hidden alcove. He pulled open the tapestry...
A huge, rusted set of armour slumped where they had been hiding minutes ago, taking up most of the space. Ron stared at it, clutching the note. In the end, confused but still foolishly hopeful, he slid the note into the grating of the armour’s helmet, and went back to his dorm.
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Days passed, and Ron didn’t see Eli among the Slytherins. The Hogwarts Express took everyone home.
Ron wondered if it had been a fantasy borne of stress—had he dreamed his first kiss? But it was so real. And, it had real consequences.
Ron stopped thinking about that disgusting rat. Pettigrew had nothing to do with how he felt about boys.
He steeled himself, and that summer, he caught Charlie alone while the dragontamer was home on holiday. For the first time, Ron told someone about his attraction to boys. Charlie hugged him, and reassured him that of course, there were lots of blokes who liked blokes, whether
they liked them exclusively or not. And there were people who didn’t like anyone like that, which was how Charlie himself felt.
Charlie made things seem simpler—and more nuanced—than Ron expected.
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Little did Ron know he would one day meet Eli again; more precisely, he would recognise the cruel Potions Master as the boy who had helped him understand that he wasn’t alone.
2 May 1998.
For the second time, the Map would unfurl not only spatial secrets, but destiny-driven temporal miracles.
In the aftermath of the battle, Ron would open the Map, and see that no one was in the Shack. The Map didn’t show corpses; Snape would already be dead.
Yet Ron wouldn’t be able to accept that.
He’d step into the Shack, and unbeknown to him, time would flicker. Not decades, but just enough—hours earlier.
An inky dot would bloom back into existence. Three dots would hurry away, and Ron would race to his fallen hero's side just in time.