Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever
Chapter One:
The Most Secret Hiding Place
Summary:
Ron accidentally ingests Veritaserum. What happens now?
Disclaimer:
This story is written by a fan, for the fans. I make no profit from this story and I am totally fine with that. Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling and I make no claims of ownership regarding him or any other characters, situations, locations or plot points that are part of the Harry Potter universe.
I do however claim ownership of any original characters, situations, locations or plot points that are NOT part of the Harry Potter universe.
Rating:
PG-13
Author's Note:
The title is taken from Explosions in the Sky's album "Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever".
• • •
"Hey, Weasley!"
Ron groaned. He knew that voice, and it wasn't welcome. He really didn't have time to deal with the spoilt idiot right now. He and Hermione had just left the library, and they were already late for class as it was. Hermione had, as usual, been too engrossed in a book to notice the time, while he had fallen asleep at the table trying to write an essay for Trelawney. Where Harry had gone, they had no idea. They hadn't noticed when he left them. He was probably already at transfiguration.
"Weasel! I'm talking to you!"
Ron was just about to turn around and tell the little ferret to shut up and mind his own business, when he felt a small hand grab his arm.
"Just ignore him, Ron," Hermione said from beside him. "Whatever he wants, it won't be good, and I don't want you doing something rash."
Ron nodded reluctantly and followed her towards the transfiguration classroom. It wasn't long before Malfoy yelled again, however.
"Following a mudblood's advice, are you? Weasel king?" the infuriating bastard spat at him. "Disgraceful. And you weasleys' call yourselves purebloods?"
Ron turned and drew his wand before Hermione could stop him. He moved quickly down the hall until he was standing directly in front of the pale faced wanker.
"Don't you ever call her that," he growled threateningly.
"Why not?" asked Malfoy, matching Ron's tone. "I hope she's worth it Weasley. Personally, I wouldn't touch that piece of filth with a fifteen foot long pole, but you weasleys never did have a sense of dignity, did you?"
By the time the evil git had finished his speech, Ron's whole head had taken on a deep red colour, while his knuckles had become whiter than Malfoy's nose, clenching tightly around his wand, which was now pointing straight into his opponent's face, almost touching said nose.
"You're begging for it," he whispered, as he stepped back enough to cast his spell. He waved his wand, and seconds later, Malfoy had been knocked backwards clutching his nose as Hermione's Transfiguration textbook hit him squarely in the face.
"Miss Granger! Mr Weasley!" came another cold, unwelcome voice, and they turned to find Snape standing behind them sporting a look that clearly said trouble.
"Go wait for me in my office while I take Mr Malfoy to the hospital wing. I will deal with you soon."
Snape pushed past them and conjured a handkerchief, which he handed to the crybaby, who began drying the blood that was gushing from his nose. He then took Malfoy by the arm and pulled him down the hall towards the hospital wing. Before they turned the corner however, Malfoy turned and gave them a gleeful smirk
• • •
They didn't speak one word while they were walking towards Snape's office, and when they arrived, Ron sat down on the only chair in front of the desk, while Hermione started pacing the room.
"Come on Hermione," he said. "You make me nervous running around like that."
"What do you suggest I do Ron? There's nowhere else to sit!" she retaliated, sounding rather annoyed.
"Well, can you just stand still for a moment and let me think? We have to come up with something to defend ourselves! If we tell him the truth we will be out of Hogwarts before our bags are packed!"
Hermione moved to stand right in front of him, arms crossed and jaw set. Ron recognized her battle position immediately.
"If you could just keep Malfoy from getting to you, we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with," she hissed. "I told you not to listen to him."
Great, Ron thought. Now she's gotten started on the 'told you so' thing. Now she won't shut up until I've admitted she's right, which she's not by the way. But perhaps I can distract her until we're out of here at least.
"Hermione, now is not the time to argue. You can yell at me later, but right now we really have to work together! Remember working together?"
"Oh, fine! But don't expect you're off the hook!"
"I won't. Not what's the plan?"
There was an awkward silence as they looked away from each other. None of them had any idea of how to deal with the situation.
Unfortunately, none of them had time to come up with anything either, for seconds later, the door flew open with a crash.
"Granger, Weasley, explain yourselves!" Snape bellowed as he entered the room. Hermione whipped around to face the door, and Ron groaned under his breath.
"It wasn't our fault, professor," Hermione said quickly. "Malfoy was insulting us, and he went too far!"
"And what exactly, did Mr Malfoy say that justified the breaking of his nose, Miss Granger?" Snape said, turning his eyes on her. But it was Ron who answered.
"He called Hermione a mudblood, and he was implying that she's some kind of scarlet woman!"
"Is this true?" Snape inquired, keeping his eyes on Hermione.
"Well, yes. But he also insulted Ron and his family."
"Whatever your reasons, assaulting a fellow student is against the rules, and you will both..."
Before he could finish the sentence, Snape was cut off by a whooshing sound from the grate, and everyone turned to stare at Dumbledore's head in the fire.
"Severus, I require your assistance immediately," he said looking at Snape, sounding rather worried, then he disappeared.
"You two," Snape said, turning back to Ron and Hermione, fixing them with a murderous glare. "Stay here until I come back, I'm not done with you." Then he turned around and headed to the fireplace and threw some floo powder into the fire. Before he went into the fire he turned back and spat, "And don't you dare touch anything!" Then he stepped inside, yelled, "Headmaster's office!" and spun out of sight.
Ron stared at the fire for a moment, which had turned back to its original red and yellow, then turned back at Hermione with a mischievous grin on his face.
"I know that look, Ronald Weasley," she said warningly. "Don't you dare doing what I think you're about to do."
Damn, he thought. She's using my full name. That's never a good sign.
"And what exactly is it you think I'm about to do?" he asked defiantly, folding his arms across his chest.
"You're going to go poking around in Snape's office," she said, daring him to contradict her. Ron wasn't stupid enough to do that. Instead, he turned and walked around the room a few times. When he looked back at Hermione, she had sat down on the chair, arms crossed, looking at him with a severely disapproving stare that could rival McGonagall on a bad hair day. In one stare she told him that whatever happened, he would take full responsibility for it. He couldn't help smiling. She looked absolutely gorgeous with her eyes blazing, jaw set stubbornly and bushy hair all over the place. This seemed only to infuriate her more though, because she snapped, "You laugh now, but don't expect me to help you when you're lying on the floor covered in who-knows-what because you knocked over one of those jars." She pointed at a row of jars containing some sinister looking substances sitting on a shelf just above his head. He gave a little chuckle. He knew that she wouldn't leave him if something happened. At least not if that something was serious, like being covered in Bubotuber pus. At least, he hoped she wouldn't.
He turned away from her again, looking at the shelves that lined the walls of the room. there must be something interesting here somewhere, he thought, eyeing the jars at random. There were jars filled with dried herbs, fine powders, thick, muddy concoctions and some with what looked like conserved animals, floating around in some undoubtedly acidic liquid. He was moving towards one of the latter jars, which seemed to contain the head of a small ferret. He was just about to point it out to Hermione and make some smart comment referring to Malfoy, when an odd shimmer in the corner of his eye caught his attention.
He turned around to face whatever it was, and saw a small box with a metal loop at the top, which attached it to a cupboard, standing just to the right of the fireplace. He looked confusedly at the strange box-like object for a while before recognizing what it was. It was some kind of muggle locking mechanism. A Pollock? No, that's not right... Doesn't look remotely like a fish. It's obviously a lock though. But what is it called? I could swear it starts with a P... Pillock? Pallock? Peacock? No... Podlock? Yes, that makes sense! Podlock, that must be it!
"Hey, Hermione!" he called. "Why do you think Snape has put a podlock on this door?"
"A what?" she asked, seeming to forget that she was supposed to be angry with him.
She walked over to him and too stared at the lock in confusion. "First of all it's called a padlock Ron. Second, one usually locks doors one doesn't want people to poking around in, she said," apparently remembering to be angry again. "Besides, I doubt that you would get that cupboard open if you tried. He obviously has something secret, important or dangerous in there, because not many wizards would even recognize a padlock. And I can assure you that it will undoubtedly have been treated with an unbreakable charm, as well as charms to prevent it from being affected by ordinary unlocking spells," she said, and Ron couldn't help agreeing to everything she said. Most wizards wouldn't have a clue how to open a Muggle lock. But then again, most wizards don't have Fred and George for brothers.
"You underestimate me," he said, grinning at her. He conjured two short, thin metal sticks, bent them into shape and stuck them into the keyhole at the bottom of the pod... padlock, sorry. After some twisting, turning, experimenting and some aggravated poking with his wand, the lock suddenly clicked and the loop swung around to allow them to remove the lock. The door still didn't open though.
"Damn," he said, poking at the door with his wand. "Alohomora," he said, without really expecting anything to happen. To his surprise the door swung open.
He looked at Hermione, who looked back with an adventurous grin matching his own. Apparently her curiosity had overcome her temper; for now at least.
They turned around as one and looked inside. It was quite empty, apart from five tiny, unlabelled vials standing in a row on the middle shelf, approximately at Snape's eye level. He looked back at Hermione, whose expression clearly said, 'don't touch anything'. He didn't listen though. He reached for the first vial. It contained a solid, deep black substance. He shook it, and then turned it upside down, but it didn't budge. He put it back and picked up the next one. This vial had only a small amount of maroon liquid splashing around at the bottom. He gave it a shake, making a small cloud of steam rise from the surface, eliciting a hissing noise, not unlike the one you hear when you put water on a fire. He looked at the steam for a while, watching it evaporate, and then put it back.
"I don't think you should play with that stuff, Ron," Hermione said as he picked up the middle vial. "It could be dangerous."
"Come on, Hermione," he said, eyeing the vial in his hand. "Nothing is gonna happen."
This vial contained a clear liquid, which, like the first, did nothing at all. He shook it in Hermione's face to prove his point. "See? Nothing. It's probably just water. I wouldn't put it past Snape to keep water in a small vial just to make it look intimidating."
"Stop it, Ronald," she snapped, attempting to take the vial from him, but he was too quick for her. He turned away and unstoppered it, bringing it up to his nose; Again, nothing. He shook it again, but as he did so, a little of the potion spilled over the top, and some of it fell on his index finger. Without thinking about what he was doing, he put his finger in his mouth and licked it up. It was completely tasteless too.
When he realized that he had just tasted an unknown potion from Snape's office he froze in shock. He Prayed to God and Merlin that his water theory was correct, but at the same time he put the stopper back and began to feel his own body, making sure everything was still the correct size and in the right place. When he found that at least the most important bits, like his head, arms, legs and bits were unharmed, he began to relax.
He turned his head, intending to ask Hermione if she recognized the potion, and if she could tell him what it was for, but she wasn't there. Panicking, he whirled around and spotted her back at the chair. He walked over, intending to ask her, but as he was halfway across the room, the fireplace roared again. He quickly stuffed the vial in his robes and turned around to face Snape.
"This may take longer than I anticipated," he snapped, clearly annoyed at the situation. "Get out of my office; I'll deal with you later." Then he disappeared again.
"Let's get out of here," Ron said, hurrying back to the cupboard and closing it. When he had finished locking it however, he remembered that he hadn't yet put the vial of clear liquid back in its place. It was still in his robes. Pushing away the thought of going through the work of unlocking it again, and ignoring the disapproving mental voice that told him to do it anyway (a voice that sounded annoyingly like Hermione by the way,) he walked to the door and left Snape's office, the real Hermione right behind him.
• • •
They had made it halfway toward the Gryffindor common room when Hermione suddenly stepped in front of him, effectively blocking his path.
"You did put that vial back, right?" she asked. "Because I saw you put it in your robes when Snape flooed."
Ron looked down at his feet guiltily. When he looked up at her face again, she was wearing an incredulous expression. "You didn't? You've still got it on you, don't you?" she asked angrily.
He wanted to tell her that no, he didn't have it on him, and that he had put it back, but the words that came out of his mouth seemed out of his control, and instead he said, "Yes, I do," and as if he had suddenly lost control of his tongue, he continued, "I had already closed the door when I realized that I still had it, and I couldn't be bothered to open it again."
He looked at her in shock. What had just happened? He put his hand over his mouth, and then over his pocket where he kept the vial.
"Oh, Ron! How could you be so reckless?"
"Hermione..."
"You know Snape will notice it's gone!"
"Hermione!"
"And the only people that were there was us!"
"Hermione, please!"
"You know that we could get expelled for this!"
"HERMIONE!"
"WHAT?"
"Will you please just listen for a moment?"
"Okay. But then we go and return the vial."
"Alright, just..." he reached into his robes and pulled out the tiny glass vial and handed it to Hermione, "...please tell me this isn't what I think it is," he said in a small, trembling voice. Hermione took it from him and eyed it carefully. Then she pulled the stopper out and brought it to her nose, just like he had.
"You tasted it, didn't you?" she asked. He knew there was no point in trying to lie now, so he simply told her, "Yes, I did."
"This is Veritaserum," she informed him. And just like that, his worst fears were confirmed.
"So I can't lie? To anyone?"
"No," she said firmly. "Is that a practice you employ often?" she asked. He didn't want to answer her. He tried desperately to keep his mouth shut, but it was no use. The Veritaserum didn't only force him to tell the truth, it also seemed to force him to answer any question he was given. How convenient, he thought miserably before opening his mouth.
"Not really," he said, and he wanted to stop there, but the potion pressed him on. He averted his eyes. "Just about some things," he finished. Please don't ask me any more, he thought, but he was unable to say it. Of course, Hermione was no legilimens, so she asked just the thing he was terrified she would ask.
"Things like what?" Her voice was beginning to rise, and he could sense that she didn't like that he was keeping secrets from her. He tried desperately to ignore the building desire to spill his heart. His head began to hurt and he put his fingers to his temples, as if trying to keep his thoughts inside his head.
"Things to do with you," he croaked, but his head was screaming at him to continue. He shoved his fist in his mouth and Looked up at his friend, who was watching him with terror in her eyes. Just tell me you don't want to know, he thought desperately as saltwater began to accumulate behind his eyes from the pain in his hand, but it was no use. She wasn't more of a legilimens now than ten seconds ago.
Suddenly his head gave great throb and he couldn't take it anymore. He removed his fist and spoke quickly, hoping she wouldn't catch what he was saying.
"I'minlovewithyou."
His face turned crimson, and he watched her as her face transformed from the terror it had worn before, to confusion, to surprise and finally settling on shock. She was revolted, he knew it. She couldn't stand the thought of her best friend having the world's biggest crush on her, and now she would run away. He had destroyed their friendship completely.
He looked away from her and sank onto the floor, leaning against the wall. A tear trickled down his cheek. He wanted to tell her that it was okay. That he didn't care if he liked her back or not. That she could just leave him there, but it wasn't true, so he couldn't say it.
"Please, Hermione. Don't leave me," he said. When he looked up she was sitting on her knees in front of him.
"I won't leave you Ron," she said, smiling faintly.
"You sure?" he asked, not daring to let his hopes up.
"Why would I leave you?" she asked, reaching out to dry the tears that were now streaming down his face.
"Because you find me revolting and can't stand the thought of me being in love with you," he said between sobs.
Hermione looked at him In surprise. Then she smiled, and soon she started laughing out loud. Big hearty laughs. He couldn't do anything but stare at her.
"Some truth potion!" she exclaimed between guffaws. "Do you know you just told a big fat lie?" She asked. Her laughter began to die out now. "I find you far from revolting." Her face had moved closer as she spoke, and was now terrifyingly close to his. "And I thoroughly enjoy the thought of you being in love with me." Her voice was much softer now, and he could feel the small rush of air from her breathing caressing his lips. If he would just lean a little forward, their lips would connect. She was practically begging for it, wasn't she?
Quickly deciding that nothing could make the situation more awkward than it already was, he leaned forward, lightly pressing his lips against hers.
This must be what heaven feels like, he thought, as he tentatively moved his lips against hers. He had never kissed anyone before, and neither had she, judging by the awkward way their noses kept bumping into each other as they both tried to find a suitable position that benefited them both.
After a little trial and error they seemed to find a solution that worked for them, and Ron found that one of his hands had travelled to her neck. The other one had somehow managed to snake it's way around her waist. He also found that her arms were around his neck.
She felt good under his hands. Her skin was soft under his palms, and the thin neck hair that had curled around his fingers was like fine silk. Her waist had a fine curve that felt natural under his hand as he stroked along it. Her Hogwarts robes, coupled with a sweater and a T-shirt, meant that there were several thick layers of clothes between them, but he knew, without a trace of doubt, that she had an amazing body underneath.
He moved his hand around to her back, stroking it gently before letting it rest on her lower back. He began to feel a little strain on his own neck and back from the awkward position, so he gathered some courage and slid both his hands down just under her buttocks, pulling on her until she became seated on his lap. Hermione gave a surprised squeak, which was mostly muffled by his mouth, at which point he quickly moved his hands up to her lower back again.
God she feels good, he thought, as a moan of pleasure escaped him. I could kiss her all day.
He moved his lips from her mouth to her cheek, trailing around to her ear, and finally nibbling on her earlobe. She sighed, and buried her hands in his hair, pushed her chest against his. It was the single most erotic moment of his life, and he found, to his horror, that a lot of blood had a sudden inclination to move south.
He pulled back from her slowly and tightened his grip around her body. She did the same. He held her tightly to him and whispered in her ear.
"Thank you."
He could feel her shudder in his arms, and his desire for her increased.
"What for?" came a voice close by his own ear.
"For staying with me. For letting me love you."
"I will stay as long as you like," she replied.
"Forever?"
"If that's what you want."
"It is. I can't lie to you, remember?"