Chapter Text
When Ronald Weasley, Auror and part of the so-called golden Trio, woke up the morning of September 3rd it took him some time to register where he was - let alone how he had gotten there.
His head felt as if it had been split open in the middle, leaving his brain out in the open, vulnerable and far too sensitive to any sound or other stimulus. He felt sick and why, oh why could the world not stop turning… Ron was pretty sure that he hadn’t had such a bad hangover in a very, very long time - probably not since he had caught his baby sister having sex with his best mate on the sofa at his parents place.
Thinking about that particular incident he'd rather have been able to forget made his hangover considerably worse - if that was at all possible - and he groaned. Ron slowly, oh so slowly turned onto his back and blinked up towards the ceiling.
The room was dimly lit, probably curtains drawn somewhere over windows he didn’t care to look for. He was just glad the sun was blocked out of this little piece of hell he was currently occupying. Cause nothing but hell could be as bad as the hangover he was suffering from now. Hell, he was a grown up man, he should know better than to get this drunk. Then again….
A pained groan from his left made him look to his side, then down to the floor. There, on the plush carpet, lay his best friend dash brother in law. The reason he got into more trouble that he cared to remember, and apparently still, after over a decade of legal drinking age, the guy to get drunk with (except, mind you, when the guy was the reason you needed to get drunk). Harry seemed to be able to handle his hangover better, as he sat up and slowly looked around the room. “Where are we?”, he asked, only to flinch (same as Ron) at the too loud sound of his own voice. “No idea…” murmured the Weasley and dropped back onto his back.
Before either of them could muster the will to get up and actually investigate where they were, a third voice joined their groaning, and Ron was pretty sure he would have fallen flat on his ass had he not been laying on his back already. “Shut ‘p”, the all too familiar voice muttered from somewhere across the room. Somewhere neither Ron nor Harry could see because for that they would have had to lift their heads from their pillows and that was just.. No.
“What in Merlin’s name are you doing here, Malfoy?” Ron silently congratulated Harry for forming such a clear and pointed sentence. He himself didn’t feel like communicating in more than grunts at the moment, grunts and maybe two word sentences.
“‘S my stupid flat you idiot.”, came the reply that had Ron bolt upright on his bed. Sofa, not bed, he realised a few moments later, as soon as the headache had ebbed away enough that he could see beyond the blinding pain. Harry had apparently had more sense and only very slowly and carefully raised himself up on his elbows to look around.
Now that he was paying attention (a little at least, the rest of him was busy with not embarrassing himself further in front of his arch enemy by puking all over his jeans), he noticed that the dominating colours in the room were various shades of green, and a dark, shining brown from the wooden furniture. Looked like Malfoy indeed.
It seemed the blond had finally registered that something was very, very wrong. He carefully sat up in his makeshift bed of cushions and looked at them. “What are you two still doing here?” He asked very carefully. Ron was sure Malfoy was suffering from a hangover as well, cause that was the only explanation why he wouldn’t use this very clear advantage to mock Harry and Ron mercilessly - and loudly. “No idea.”, Harry offered as an answer.
Malfoy stared at him with an annoyed, almost pitting look in his eyes. “You Gryffindor’s really don’t know how to handle your liquor, hm?” Ron just shrugged. He was in desperate need of a glass of water and some proper breakfast to get rid of the nauseating feeling in his stomach. He would bother to remember the reason for his hangover when he didn’t think he was going to throw up any minute. “We got the letters with the Sorting results into the office yesterday."
The three men worked together at the Ministry and had - almost at the same time - received a late-night owl from their children (in Ron’s case Hermione Weasly, cause Rose had not dared to upset her father so). Right… Sorting. His pretty little baby had been sorted into Slytherin. “I’ll burn that stupid Sorting hat”, Ron cursed, as soon as he remembered. Malfoy snorted. “That was the first thing you said yesterday. Once you could breath again, of course.”
“Oh shut up, you.”, Ron growled back, but there was no real bite behind it. Apparently, if you collectively drank yourself into a stupor in the hope to forget about your children’s decisions in Hogwarts house and of friends, you stopped being all that nasty towards each other. Or maybe it would all be back to normal as soon as the morning-after-hangover passed because, honestly, Ron didn’t think he could handle being on friendly terms with Draco Malfoy in addition to his beloved daughter being a Slytherin.
For this was indeed the reason the three men - once arch enemies - were now laying groggily around in a darkened flat in London and groaning about their individual hangovers. Rose Weasley and Albus Severus Potter, both part of traditional Gryffindor families, had been sorted into Slytherin. Why? That Ron could not tell, but he was very sure Harry had an idea. He would ask him about it (again?), as soon as the world stopped turning around him.
That was obviously not the reason Draco Malfoy had joined their merry little drinking misery, nooo.. It got worse. Because would you guess, Rose and Albus had decided to become best friends with one Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy on the train ride to Hogwarts.
Ron vaguely remembered having received a memo from his brother informing him that he was betting 5 galeons on Albus-Rose-Scorpius being the new Golden Trio before he completely drowned his senses in Fire Whiskey.
“Why would they do this to us?”, Ron asked no one in particular. Harry gave a hollow laugh. “Because they can. The Sorting Hat lets you choose, remember?” “But why would they want to be in Slytherin?”
“Cause they made a friend on the train, and if there is one thing Slytherin is known for - other than being the house that spawned dozens of Death Eather and the Dark Lord - then it’s for the friendships.”, Draco piped up. Ron briefly wondered when he had switched to call the man Draco in his head. Probably somewhere between the second and third bottle of Fire Whiskey…
“So they decided to befriend your son, and collectively came to the conclusion that this would give their fathers the most grey hair?”, Ron wanted to know. “Probably…”, Draco replied with a empty voice - he was obviously not over the shock yet either. Good.
“And if you ever needed a proof that all three of them belong to Slytherin, that was it.”, Harry muttered finally and sunk back onto the pillow.
They had very, very long seven years coming, Ron just knew it.