Author Notes: Thank you to aigooism for the beta. The summary refers to the movie Full Metal Jacket. Themes from this were drawn from various movies, but mostly Full Metal Jacket and V for Vendetta.

The Muggles didn't start the war; they didn't need to. The war had been brewing for years already, bubbling quietly beneath the facade of peace and happiness. After the death of Voldemort, wizarding England vacillated. Those who had predicted peace found themselves sadly mistaken. Reason was corrupted in the atmosphere of fear and riots. And when the Minister of Magic, the man who had promised peace, order and security, turned around and pointed the finger at the Muggles, the people believed him.

With the sudden revelation of the existence of magic, the Muggle world collectively panicked. Cries of "witch!" were heard in the streets and several unfortunate Muggles found themselves tied to stakes with flames licking at their shoes.

And Ron Weasley found himself drafted to fight the new war, against the new enemy who fired bullets, not spells.

"This is a gun," the instructor said crisply, holding it up. "It contains bullets, which are made of metal. It can kill more efficiently than a wand."

Ron fingered his gun dubiously. It was heavy and not particularly scary. As he looked around the room, he could tell that the other purebloods holding guns were equally distasteful of this new weapon.

"Give me my wand any day," Draco said quietly as he sidled up.

Ron nodded grimly; war was no time to nurture childhood enmity. Draco was on their side now and there was nothing he could do about it. The Muggles were the enemy, and Muggle-borns were forced to choose between the world they were born into and the world they grew up in. Some, like Hermione, refused the choice. Ron still got letters from her; she had settled in quite well in New Zealand and was now married with a young child.

"Me too," Ron said.

He ended up in the same unit as Draco. The day that was announced, Ron had to resist the urge to bang his head against the wall. He didn't have the self-control, but fortunately, the wall was magical and his head just bounced off.

Ron had accepted that Draco was on their side and that he wasn't the enemy, but it didn't mean Ron had to like him. He just didn't expect Draco to be useful. He expected the other man to be a poncy git and to prance around, possibly wearing a fedora. What he didn't expect was that Draco was better at Muggle weapons training than he was. Not only did Draco end up being a crack shot, he also finished the knife training much faster than the rest of them.

"You will not use magic!" the instructor barked at them. "The Muggles are working on a device to block magical energies. You must learn how to fight without magic."

Ron fingered his knife and resisted the urge to leap forward and thrust it into the instructor's stomach. The only thing that stopped him was the overwhelming knowledge that he would fail miserably and be sent to Azkaban for attacking a superior officer. He could run away, of course, but then he'd probably be caught and sent to Azkaban for being a deserter. It was galling that Draco somehow was better at this Muggle stuff than he was.

They ended up being friends. Well, not exactly friends, Ron reflected, but close. It was the kind of friendship that grew out of months of having to rely on each other and a shared understanding of the world. It was different to the relatively easy friendship he'd had with Harry, which had grown out of childhood innocence. Then again, nothing with Draco was easy.

Ron realised early on that Draco was a poncy git after all. A poncy git who could shoot a rifle like the best of them and whose offensive spells blasted Muggles into little bloody splats on the footpath. Yet, every morning, Draco moaned about his coffee being too burnt and his toast being too soggy and insisted that it wasn't too much of a risk to use their magic to transform the sheets on his bed into silk ones.

Still, according to their unit leader, they were the best and that was why they ended up being assigned to infiltrate the Muggle world. To learn what the Muggles were up to.

They ended up being more spies than soldiers, and every day, Ron lived in fear of getting caught. He wanted to put wards up at the doors, but knew that it was too dangerous with the magic sensors. They ended up learning how to use burglar alarms, fridges, washing machines and CD players. Ron even grew to like watching DVDs on their television (telly as the Muggles called it).

Ron wasn't sure how they ended up in bed together. It was definitely not something he had predicted, but then again, the war wasn't something he'd predicted either. It wasn't even something that he wanted until Draco's lips enclosed around his cock. Draco had a gleam in his eyes as he licked the length of Ron's cock, making Ron gasp and twine his fingers in Draco's pale blonde hair. Now that they were on the bed, it felt like this was inevitable. It was something that had to happen and Ron felt like he had known this ever since the day they were both assigned to the 78th Unit.

It was torture as Draco slowly sucked him off. It was wrong, completely wrong that they were doing this here as the sound of air raid sirens wailed outside. Yet it was bloody right as well and it was the most right thing that Ron had ever done.

Afterwards, Ron reflected that it really wasn't all that different from when girls did it, except Draco seemed to know all of his sensitive spots. As Ron wrapped his fingers around Draco's cock, he realised that this was going to be much easier than it was with girls. Draco was already panting in his arms and Ron knew exactly what to do.

The war raged and bubbled for years. Ron found that he almost forgot what it was like to live in peace, to not wonder if Muggles were going to storm in when he was sleeping. Draco had taken to sleeping with a gun under his pillow, but Ron still preferred his wand. The gaping, red, ragged holes created by guns haunted his nightmares.

"Can't you put it in the dresser?" he pleaded.

Draco frowned. "You sleep with your wand," he pointed out. "If you sleep-talked then it would be equally dangerous."

Ron snorted. "I'd better not wake up with it under my pillow," he warned, punching Draco on the arm. "And you'd better hide it when the inspectors come around."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Of course, I'm not stupid."

"Could've had me fooled," Ron said with a grin.

They'd gotten into a routine. A simple routine of surveying their neighbours and reporting back to their true bosses. Word on the street was that the war was winding down but Ron knew the truth. The fighting may have been ending, but the war was never over. There would always be tensions; these tensions were just more apparent during wartime.

Peace was just a facade, war was another.

The Muggles didn't start the war; the magical folk of England didn't either. It was inevitable. The bloodshed, tears, pain and death; the tears of parents who had lost children drowned the streets of Hogsmeade. When the truce was declared, it was already too late. Everybody had already lost too much, and childhood innocence couldn't be bought back.

Ron Weasley stood there and watched as they signed the Magi-Muggle Peace Accords. He saw the Minister of Magic shaking hands with the Muggle Prime Minister in the midst of flashes from cameras and cheers from the crowd.

But he didn't cheer.

He couldn't.

And, standing beside him, Draco didn't cheer either. Together, they stood silently and watched as the aura of peace settled over their world, and Ron wondered how long it would be until the next war.

-fin