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“HERMIONE!”
The girl in question winced, head snapping up. She’d been comfortably reading at the breakfast table, the Great Hall slowly filling up: it was about 8 am on a random Thursday morning, which meant that most of Hogwarts was now at the tables. Harry and Ron were late and she had been enjoying the unexpected, blissful moments of peace.
She should’ve known the silence was suspicious.
Her best friend came barreling through the doors, dragging her boyfriend by the wrist; while the former looked enraged, the latter looked absolutely confused. She raised an eyebrow as The Boy Who Did Not Know What A Brush Was came to an abrupt halt in front of her, slamming his palms on the table and making a few heads turn.
“Mione, I think he’s finally gone crazy” Ron started to say, but was interrupted by a very offended Harry.
“Shut the fuck up. You don’t get to have a say in this. You said I was crazy!”
Hermione frowned. “What are you saying? What happened, Ron?“
“I haven’t got the faintest idea!”
“I said shut up!“
“Okay, now, both of you sit down. Harry, take a piece of toast and while you calm down he'll tell me what happened.” She said, nodding towards a very cautious looking Ron. “You only get to talk after your piece of toast.” She added then, cutting short whatever Harry was about to say.
“I did not defeat Voldemort to be bossed around by you” Harry grumbled, but sat down anyway. Ron warily sat next to him, a bit farther than usual.
“Alright.” She said, once Harry had bit his toast and was chewing around a big piece of bread. “Now will you please explain why Harry looks as if he’s about to spontaneously combust?”
“Wouldn’t be the craziest thing he’s done, but I have no idea. I was brushing my teeth, when Harry comes into the bathroom moving his hands around. I said bloody hell, mate, are you trying to summon something or what?, and he stops in his tracks, turns his head slowly and looks at me as if I had killed his dad. So then I start to get worried, right?, and I ask him what’s happened, except all the explanation I get is him repeating the weird gestures and singing some strange song in another language, repeating “heeeeey maccheroni'' every few seconds. So then I ask him what the hell had he been drinking at 7am to be this out of it and in response he grabs my wrist and drags me through half of Hogwarts.” Ron finished talking, looking a bit miserable with the toothbrush still in hand and the gryffindor tie hanging loosely around his neck.
Hermione looks at him bewildered for a second. Then she turned around to meet Harry’s gaze, who had by now finished his toast.
“Harry, why the hell were you doing the macarena in the middle of your bathroom at 7am?”
“The what?” Ron asked.
“I don’t know” Harry answered, paying no attention to his best friend, visibly calmer and sounding almost desperate. “I woke up with it stuck in my head and it won't bloody go away. I almost prefer the nightmares at this point. Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena” he added, looking defeated.
Hermione winced sympathetically. She remembered all the summer camps, the endless nights of group dances and how the songs would not get out of your head for days. “Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena” she replied sadly, patting his arm and looking at him with pity in her understanding eyes.
Ron’s gaze was darting between the two of them, looking possibly even more confused than when he first entered the Great Hall. “What the…”
“Don’t worry about it, Ron. It’s a muggle thing.” Hermione said, shrugging, pouring herself a glass of orange juice and slowly drinking it. “Although…”
Harry, who had been banging his head on the table along the notes that were on repeat in his head, raised his head with a wicked grin, matching Hermione’s slowly spreading one.
“Okay, come here” she said, suddenly standing up and climbing on the bench.
“Herm, do you remember the words?”
“No, but I do have something that could be useful” She grinned, before extracting from her pocket a MP3.
Harry gaped at her. “Where did you get that from?”
“Well, Hogwarts only messes with the signal. I figured if I’d get an offline working one, everything would be fine” She explained, turning it on and starting to scroll among the infinite little lines of texts, Harry peering at it and occasionally commenting on something. As soon as she found it, her grin spread wider and she murmured a quick sonoro directly at the little mechanical device, setting it in the center of the table and watching as Harry scrambled to climb up the bench, mirroring her position.
“Pay close attention, Ron. We’re about to show you one of the most important rituals of the muggle world.” She said solemnly, before pressing play. Upbeat notes invaded the Great Hall, and the effect was immediate: multiple heads snapped up from every house, immediately zeroing on the two teenagers standing on the benches. After a few seconds every single muggleborn student was soon scrambling to get up and position themself, before the voice of a man started singing.
“Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena, que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena. Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena, hey Macarena!”
The entire muggle part of the Great Hall moved their hands perfectly on beat. Right hand, left hand, palm down, palm down; right hand, left hand, palm up, palm up; arm, arm, temple, temple; shoulder, shoulder, side, side, and the fundamental ass jiggle. Then, as if they were only one mind divided into countless bodies, all the students turned left by 90 degrees and started again. By the second round, the Muggle Arts teacher had jumped up on the teachers’ table in front of a baffled professor Sprout; by the third one, Snape had managed to recover from the shock and had started searching for the source of noise, but it was of no use now.
All the students were singing, every word engraved into their brains. By the fourth repetition, Hagrid was happily bouncing on beat even if he was terribly uncoordinated, and every single half-blood was up on their bench, sometimes dragging their pureblood friends with them. Hermione was pretty sure that at least half the Slytherins were dancing, and Harry cackled when he spotted the absolutely dumbfounded expression that Malfoy was showing, panicky looking around him, trying to not get butt-slapped by Blaise who had by now picked up on the dance and was never one to say no to some fun.
“Hey Granger!” Someone from Hufflepuff shouted. “Great idea! Now I know what to use for my Muggle Arts paper on fundamental cultural elements!”
“Whenever, Luke!” She yelled back, grinning, right before her MP3 gave a dying beep and turned itself off.
When they realized the music stopped, the students snapped out of the macarena-induced zombie mode they had all collectively slipped in and sheepishly sat back down. The excited chattering filled up the hall in no time, and Harry grinned at Ron.
“Told you, mate. Not crazy.”
“Well forgive me for being a bit wary, seeing as you’ve lived with the Dark Lord in your head for the past 7 years“ he retorted, finally closing the jaw that had been hanging open for the past three minutes.
“Nah, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the thing that messed the most with my brain” The-Boy-Who-Macarenad shrugged easily.
“So you do agree that something’s wrong!”
“I’ve never said the contrary. Actually, I’ve been gaslighted by the Dursleys into thinking I was crazy so many times that even after finding out that I was a wizard I thought “there surely must be something else”. Anyway, that was the macarena” He replied in a dry tone, finishing his second toast and getting up.
“And my last - albeit not very strong - faith in the fact that you aren’t completely bonkers” Ron muttered, before standing up to follow him anyway, because they were like that. Ron and Harry, Harry and Ron, always together, always up to something. Hermione smiled, and let them go, returning to her book as she felt a quick kiss being pressed to her cheek, by Ron, and her forehead immediately after, by Harry.
“Bye, Mione! See you later” Ron said, running off to catch up with Harry. “What do we have?”
“Double potions with the Slytherins” Harry said, in a resigned tone. “Oh, fuck me.” Ron replied, groaning. “I almost want to ask you to teach me that stupid maccherena just to skip. Almost” He warily added just after, seeing the way Harry perked up at his words, reaching the doors of the dungeon and stopping in front of them.
Harry took a deep breath, then grabbed the handle and looked at his best friend. “Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena?” he asked, seriously.
“Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena.” Ron answered solemnly, pocketing his toothbrush and straightening his tie, before reaching for the other handle to open the doors.