A/N: My first "serious" work. Fine, maybe not my first one- a year ago I did a serious one, almost on the same subject; however it was very OOC, and lost forever on my other computer, so it can never be read or worked on again. Warning: Angst galore. Reviews bring smiles to my eyes and chocolate chip cookies to my soul. Muchas gracias to Liz who finally pushed me to publish this after months of debating whether it was good enough; I started humming the song 'Now or Never' as I was uploading this- too much turkey ain't good.
Disclaimer: I am not the creator of Harry Potter; I'm merely the evil girl who sends the characters up a tree and throws multiple jagged stones at them.
Splinter in Thy Heart
Her eyes.
That's what stood out to him the most, her brown eyes. They glistened with tears as they suddenly slit to a scarlet red. And then, of course, the birds came. But then the eyes were gone as the girl whisked herself away through the...
"What the bloody hell was that about?" mumbled Ron as he awoke in the dark, safe room. Turning over in his bed, he noticed that fat raindrops streaked the window. It's raining? he thought. He had become accustomed to hearing the pitter patter of the drops on the roof of a canvas tent for so long that the muffled pings of rain on the cottage weren't noticeable. The rain always had a calming appearance on him; no matter how lousy the weather. Now it just caused him agony.
"Why is the sky crying?" he had asked his mother when he was a child.
"Well, when the clouds get really sad, they cry," his mother told him.
"But why are the clouds sad?"
"For the same reasons that people get sad, sweetie."
Crying. She was everywhere. They were her tears.
I've really lost it now, he thought to himself. He had tried to tune her out of his mind, but her image seemed to be burned in his retinas; every time he blinked, he just saw her for that split second. And whenever he had a moment alone, he saw an apparition of her across the room, looking at him with those big, brown eyes, shining with tears of disgrace.
He took the pillow from under his head and put it over his eyes, trying to block her out. No use: she was still there. Damn the world, he thought. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to sleep again.
"Go back to him, why don't you?" the boy snarled at the girl, his eyes ablaze.
"I never said whom I chose. I was never even asked!" the girl cried, hoping he got her point.
"Your choice is clear," the boy shot at her, and she swore that she saw him shaking not from cold, but from frustration.
"How exactly, Ron? Tell me how I chose without knowing. I want to know."
"You're staying! That's what! Don't pretend you don't know a damn about why you chose him!"
"I made a promise to stay. You did, too! We told him 'Whatever happens.' What happened to that?"
"Oh here we go again, reminiscing back to the past and bringing him up!"
"He's your best friend! He's also been the one to save you, your sister, your father-."
"Yeah, and he's also had you next in line ever since he and Ginny broke up!" Immediately the boy wanted to take back what he said, but he felt as though he had said the truth. It wasn't supposed to be like this, but he all he saw was the present.
"How dare you! We're friends, just friends, Harry and I. He's just like a brother to me. That's all, I swear!"
"Then what are we!" the boy roared. Then his voice became an almost inaudible whisper. "What were we?"
Silence fell upon the two like a giant boulder. The tension increased every second, a thin, frail glass coating on the whole relationship, whatever they were.
"I…don't… know, anymore," the girl sighed, tears beginning to fall down faster than the rain did.
"Nothing." The caustic tongue of the boy hissed his last remark as he disappeared into the night, catching a glimpse of the girl's big brown eyes before departing.
It was too much, reliving the nightmare. In anger he took the pillow off his face and threw it as hard as he could across the room, and into a lamp. Crash! It shattered into many shards as it collided with the wall and floor.
Ron swore under his breath. "Lumos." The tip of his wand lit up, and he found his way to a safe distance away from the broken glass. With the whisper of "Reparo", the lamp's shards jumped off the ground and recollected themselves neatly. Maybe no one else heard the crash.
"Ron, what the hell are you doing?"
Perhaps not.
Bill came in through the door of the spare bedroom, disgruntled and alert.
"Trying to sleep."
"How does that include throwing pillows at lamps, exactly?"
"Nightmare. I was, was back in the, the-."
"Where?" Bill raised an eyebrow into a perfect arch.
"It was back when the fight happened," he mumbled almost inaudibly.
"Ron, this is the third time this week this has happened, and it's only Tuesday, or technically Wednesday now. It's been going on for a couple weeks."
"Sorry."
"No, don't be sorry to me. Be sorry for your friends for abandoning them."
"Shut up," hissed Ron.
"I still don't understand why you did that, Ron. Harry has not only saved your arse, but-."
"Shut UP."
"Our sister too! Not to mention our father-." The dream seemed to be recreating itself before his very eyes.
"SHUT UP!"
"Not only have you single-handedly torn yourself apart, think of Hermione you idiot! How do you think she feels about this whole thing? You mentioned about her going after you in the rain, calling for you. She's on the run right now, and has less of a security blanket to help her!"
Ron gave a snarl as he raised his wand, ready to hex Bill to the Arctic Tundra and beyond.
"Hate to tell you Ron, but I think she did like you, a lot." The last six words hung there, suspended in mid-air.
"You're wrong. It was Harry."
"Ron, you're talking nonsense. Why do you think that?"
"Bill, if you were a girl-."
"Bad mental picture, very bad mental picture, Ron," Bill laughed, trying to ease a bit of the tension.
"Who would you rather pick, the git who can't hold onto anything he has and gets horribly jealous, or the hero who defeated Vol-." In an instant Bill clapped his hand over Ron's mouth.
"Are you mad? You'll give us away!"
"What did I do?"
"You-Know-Who's name is tabooed- anyone who says the name is caught by Deatheaters!"
"This is the first I've heard of it."
"Right; you were on the run. I apologize for overreacting, but these are dangerous times we live in."
"Yeah, I know," said Ron, kicking the bottom of his pyjama pants while looking at the floor.
"So, want the answer to your question?"
"It was hypothetical; you don't have to answer it."
"I'd want the person who liked me as more than a friend."
"So you'd want Harry then."
"No, I'm saying that it wouldn't be the person that I viewed like a brother."
"Those were her words," Ron said in a distant voice, similar to Loony, pardon, Luna Lovegood.
"Maybe she had a point."
"It's too late; they probably both hate me."
"Although they have a right to, they probably are just experiencing anger and frustration; that will heal over time. Hate's a strong word, you know."
"After what I did, I'm surprised if none of them want me back. I'd be surprised if they didn't offer me up first if we were caught."
"You know they wouldn't do that."
"I would do that to myself if I got the chance myself."
"Maybe you should just give it a chance."
"They don't want me! What exactly do I add that would benefit them?"
"Street knowledge; Harry grew up with the Dursleys and Hermione hasn't even tasted a chocolate frog until she turned eleven. You know more street smarts than they do put together."
"They still aren't going to take me back, I know it, I-."
"Listen to yourself. Instead of thinking about all the things you can't change, worrying about all the things that don't matter, why don't you just try? Time flies by, and once it's gone you never get it back."
"Beel? Are you ok?" Fleur called out from their bedroom.
"I'm coming," he said, and then he turned to face his younger brother. "Just… think about what I said, alright? Night."
"Night," mumbled Ron as Bill left. The door was shut, and he collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to the solemn sounds of rain.
So easy to get lost inside
A problem that seems so big at the time
It's like a river that's so wide
It swallows you whole
Why you sittin' round thinking about what you can't change
And worrying about all the wrong things
Time's flying by, moving so fast
You better make it count cause you can't get it back
~~~Carrie Underwood- So Small
A/N: I actually continued this right after finishing the He-said part. Yup- this has been written since August, but finally uploaded. Random fact- the dream was from a previous fanfic I wrote this past July but never took off. I was like "This fits- cool I'll use that." Please review- I love them more than you'll ever know.
