By: HF
Site: www.ontheqt.org
Pairings: Ron/Harry -- so if you don't like slash, you should know to turn right back around.
Warnings: UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension)
Notes: This is a more-or-less ongoing series of one-shot fics revolving around a few central characters -- namely, Ron, Harry, and a third you'll have to read to find out. I promise on my soul that it's not a cute, shy, yet incredibly powerful Muggle-born fifth-year witch on an exchange program from America who is fleeing her past connection to her uncle Voldemort... No, no. Nothing like that. Do read and review, yes?
MAN'S BEST FRIEND
Ron pulled on his black cape, cursing the fact that his friendship with Harry kept him from stealing his best friend's invisibility cloak. A glance out the dormitory window showed him that, thankfully, the sky was overcast, hiding the stars, and there was no moon out. It would make skulking through the Hogwarts grounds and corridors so much easier, even though... Ron's gaze drifted longingly to Harry's trunk, where the invisibility cloak rested, neatly folded, and his fingers itched to take it. /Harry'll go *mental*/ he told himself sternly. /Don't even think about it./
/But, but.../ sputtered the rebellious, covetous voice in his head.
/NO./ he told it firmly. /MENTAL, I tell you./
/Oh, *fine*./
Ron made himself slip quietly out of the room without looking back, although he could hear Harry tossing and turning in his bed. A soft shuff-shuff told him he'd kicked his blankets off. And Ron didn't dare go back and fix them -- that'd wake Harry up, he'd see Ron standing in his cloak and pajamas like some crazy vampire, want to know what was going on... and that would lead to all sorts of awkward questions Ron didn't feel like answering. So, he left, shutting the door soundlessly behind him.
The common room was deserted, with only the great fire burning to light the place. Ron suppressed a shiver despite the warmth as he slipped out the portrait hole, ignoring the Fat Lady's demands to know where he was off to this time of night. He prayed she wouldn't tell Filch anything if he came around. Speaking of Filch... keeping an eye out for Mrs. Norris, Ron stole through the empty corridors, trying his best to keep to the shadows.
Hogwarts at night still held some fear for him, although he figured that he, Harry, and Hermione had between the three of them spent more time prowling the corridors after-hours than the rest of the students for the past hundred years. It was the statues and the shadows, he decided, and the fact that everything was so *silent*, the kind of silence that means someone -- or something -- is watching. Sometimes, he would see a painting move out of the corner of his eye, and he thought he'd have a heart attack. Trying to keep a lid on the impulse to scream and run back to the Gryffindor tower, Ron kept walking at a careful, sedate pace until he got to the main door leading to the grounds. He opened that, closed it soundlessly, turned, and then ran like hell across the lawn to the Forbidden Forest.
Partly, he ran because he knew if he just walked, he'd end up turning around and running straight back inside. He'd heard of the centaurs, unicorns, and creepy cloaked things that inhabited the Forest from Harry, and about the werewolves and lamias from the rumor mill. He'd experienced the Acromantulas for himself. Unicorns, he decided, would be alright. Acromantulas... he tried very, *very* hard not to think about them.
The giant spiders were part of the reason for his visit. Not that he was planning on seeing them -- it would take a bribe of phenomenal proportions to get him to find Aragog's lair again, and even then, he probably wouldn't take it -- but rather, something else. It was a vague sense of guilt and responsibility that drove him out here... after all, it was his fault things ended up the way they did.
Shaking a little bit, and not entirely from the cool night air, Ron pulled out his wand and murmured 'Lumos.' The bit of white light that sprang from the end of his wand was not terribly comforting, as it made the forest into a place where shadows became even darker and more complex, and made the near distance so impenetrably black it seemed that Ron was just about to fall into a gaping abyss every ten steps or so. The forest rustled and echoed with dim calls, both near and far, and however much Ron tried to convince himself that they were just owls and insects (not spiders -- harmless insects, like ladybugs and crickets), he knew that they weren't.
As long as there wasn't a howl or the clicking sound of pincers snapping together, he could deal with it. /You didn't go to the Chamber of Secrets and face down Sirius Black for nothing/ he told himself. /You didn't beat McGonagall's chess set for nothing. Keep walking, you pansy./
Ron wasn't entirely sure how far he walked, or how long. It felt like he'd spent hours roaming around the forest, trying to keep to the clearer paths and trying not to think of what he would do if he got lost. Surely he was about ten miles or so away from the forest's edge -- he'd been out there half the night, it seemed. He'd have to turn around, he decided bleakly, but with a certain thanks. He'd try again soon. Maybe.
Just as he turned to go back, Ron heard a creaking sound somewhere off to his left, and the sharp snapping of twigs being broken -- or ground underfoot. He tensed and whispered 'nox' to black out the light from his wand, and there was *real* darkness this time, absolutely unbroken. He crouched down behind a tree, wand at the ready, breath caught in his lungs. /You shouldn't have come out here, you idiot/ said the little voice. /Not without Harry's cloak, anyway. Harry's *invisibility cloak*, did we say? Moron./
The snapping sound came closer, and as it did, Ron could discern a light filtering through the trees. It wasn't lantern light or torchlight, and it was nowhere near being dawn, so it was either something incredibly monstrous and hostile... or, no! Yes! It was! The light increased to a blazing brightness, and it was his Ford Anglia (well, his dad's) lumbering placidly towards him.
"Car!" Ron said happily, unfolding himself from the very difficult crouch he'd been in, and stepping up to greet the car, whose engine purred happily at seeing him. "Hey, car," he said again, touching the dented and chipped hood with gentle fingers.
The wilds had not treated the Anglia very well at all, Ron thought with dismay, looking at the dings in the formerly shiny blue paint and the flat tires. Dirt and mud smeared the windshield and it looked like a bird had tried to build a nest where the passenger's side rearview mirror had been busted out. Peering inside the broken window, Ron saw that the upholstery was mostly torn out and a wealth of -- shudder -- spiderwebs decorated the dashboard and gearshift.
"Have you been taking care of yourself?" he asked, feeling a bit stupid for asking that of a *car* of all things. Surprisingly, though, the car's engine buzzed in something that sounded satisfied. "My dad still misses you, you know, but he's not going to get another car. Partly it's because Mum would kill him if he did, but I know he really liked you. And you came in handy when we went to get Harry from the Burrow. Remember that?"
He didn't get an answer, but he imagined that yes, the car did remember.
"Lots of things have changed since that summer," he told it, wondering if he could open the door and slip inside. He didn't know if the car would let him -- it might decide to really go wild and plow him down or eject him. "You remember the Acromantulas, of course -- thanks for the save on that, by the way -- but there's been tons else." He went through the whole list of third and fourth year adventures, glossing painfully over the fact that he and Harry hadn't spoken for a good part of fourth year.
"And now... well, it's fifth year and it's going okay. No one's tried to kill us yet."
The car must have noticed something in his voice, because the driver's side door swung open on its creaky, rusted hinges. Carefully, trying to ignore the silvery presence of the spiderwebs, Ron slipped inside and closed the door. With a gentle whirring, the car came to life around him, the dashboard lighting up and the gears adjusting automatically. There was a low, difficult whine, a clunk, and then a long-lost-but-familiar sensation of weightlessness as the car rose. He and the car flickered into invisibility as they broke through the treetops and began to move a little faster.
/This is the life/ Ron thought as he and the car flew through the sky. The wind coming through the window was cold on his face and invigorating, but he felt strangely peaceful. Stretching full-length on the seat, contorted a bit uncomfortably around the gearshift, Ron decided he could live the rest of his life like this -- just drifting through infinite space, his mind as free and open as the sky around him. Nowhere to go, nothing to do... just flying.
"I'm sorry about the Whomping Willow," he told the car, which hummed invisibly around him. "That was really great of you, to get us out like that, and I don't blame you for dumping us out, either -- I mean, if I was in your place, that's what I would have done, too. You know, I don't think I could have been more surprised when Harry and I saw you show up in the Forest that time and saved us from those spiders. Even after everything we put you through, you still came in and got us out okay, and I guess I owe you huge thanks for that, too."
It was as if some switch went off in Ron's brain, because he found himself just rambling as the car banked and headed north to fly past the school and over the lake. "It sort of reminds me of last year, when I wasn't speaking to Harry because of the whole Triwizard mess. Honestly, I couldn't believe it when Dumbledore told me that he wanted me for, well... you know." His voice automatically lowered to a whisper. "That I would be the thing Harry would miss most in the world.
"There isn't any way I can say what happened, but it was like... whoa. I mean, he'd still miss me even after I was being a total git? He'd still miss me even after I managed to do everything I could to muck up our relationship?" Ron turned over on his stomach, and through some artful squirming and rearrangement of limbs, managed to sit up and lean against the door, head out the window. "And all I thought the entire time was 'I'm definitely not worth it.' I mean, when am I ever worth anything? You know what I mean?"
/You're saying 'I mean' entirely too much/ said a tiny Hermione-like voice in the back of his head. Ron groaned and winced. Did he never have any privacy? Was he doomed to have his two better halves (or better thirds, whatever) following him around, making corrections and getting him out of scrapes?
"And then -- believe me, car, you don't *ever* want to go this way -- I started thinking that maybe... well, maybe things are changing. It's like, the lower I go, the better he gets, or -- oh, hell I don't know what I'm saying. I guess it's the more I drive him crazy or resent him, the better I like him. It's even worse because I *can't* hate him, not really. I was thinking about it tonight, before I came out here. If anything, I hate myself for trying to hate him, and I end up liking him even more. See?"
He didn't know if the car 'saw' anything, other than whatever it saw through its headlights, but Ron felt much better for talking to something, anything. Once, he'd come across Percy confiding something low and completely confidential to Hermes the screech owl, who had listened with a calm and unruffled dignity to Percy's laments over Penelope and Oliver. Ron, though, didn't have a trusty animal companion; he couldn't talk to Pig because the wretched owl wouldn't sit still for more than ten seconds at a time, and Errol spent most of his time asleep. Scabbers had slept a lot too, come to think about it, and Ron didn't even want to *think* about Scabbers right now.
"How can you tell someone you like them too much when you can't even really admit it to yourself? I mean" -- here the Hermione-voice interrupted with a smug correction -- "that'll just screw *everything* up, you know? Everything and *everything*. And it's not like I have the time to worry about it, between everything else that's going on." He paused reflectively, then amended: "Well, maybe I do. It's just Ron Weasley, after all, who spends all his time procrastinating on homework and tagging along after Potter and Granger."
Ron shook his head, surprised at his own bitterness. He usually wasn't given to self-reflection, but in a moment of brutal honesty, which the car seemed to accept, he said, "No... it's not that. I can't ever hate Harry; I liked him from the moment I saw him. And I think I'm getting too old to get all worked up over stupid stuff, like last year. I mean, I'm fifteen after all. Practically a grown-up."
/That's disputable/ said Hermione.
/Oh, shut up/ he told the voice firmly. Hermione subsided and Ron stayed quiet for a while, watching the cloud deck as they circled slowly beneath it. It was very peaceful up here, he thought again, feeling his concerns and insecurities slip away from him into thin air. The car hummed comfortingly all around him, urging him to quit talking and just relax. Ron slipped a bit deeper into the seat, ignoring the broken spring pressing into his tailbone. "Thank you, car," he told it, stroking the invisible dashboard a few times before slipping off to sleep.
* * *
When Ron opened his eyes again, he panicked for a moment when he saw that he had no body. Reason reasserted itself quickly, though, and he came to: he was still in the car, still in the air with the invisibility booster turned on, and hovering outside of the window to his dormitory. The sky around him was softly purple as the sun came up behind the clouds that still shrouded the horizon. Birds had started to sing, and there were the faintest beginnings of shadows on the ground.
Ron straightened and winced at the stiffness in his neck. He felt strangely rested, as if he'd spent a long, dreamless night in his own bed rather than a few hours curled up in the very uncomfortable seat of a flying car. Thinking back to his awkward, stumbling confessions and pathetic, circular arguments, he blushed a bit. /It's not like the car is going to *tell* anyone, for crying out loud/ he told himself with some asperity.
It was getting late, though -- or early, depending on one's point of view -- and he had to figure out a way to get inside. He realized with a start that the car had pulled up right next to the Gryffindor dorm window; he could see his bed with its covers in disarray, and Harry's right next to it, with Harry curled up right in the middle of it and the covers on the floor.
"Car," Ron whispered even as he wondered *why* he was whispering, "go down now. Down!"
The car stayed where it was, engine humming.
"Down!" Ron pulled out his wand and tapped the steering wheel a few times, cursing to himself. The last thing he needed was to spend the rest of the day floating up here. No, no -- the last thing he needed was to be found out of bed and missing. McGonagall would go *postal*. "Car," he hissed, "I *swear* I'll send you to the scrapyard if you don't get down *right now*."
Instead of descending, the car flickered into visiblity around him.
"Oh, God," Ron moaned, staring at his all-too-visible hand in horror. He was going to get it for sure. He pictured Filch or Hagrid -- please, God, let it be Hagrid -- poking around in the shrubbery outside the tower and looking up at the car's undercarriage. "Car, please, I'm sorry about the scrapyard thing, just turn invisible and get me down! Please!"
The car did nothing of the sort. Instead, it seemed to tilt into the stone wall and gently bump against it. As it did so, the rearview mirror scraped against the window. It wasn't very loud, but in the predawn stillness and with Ron's anxiety, it sounded like thunder.
Breathless and frozen with terror, Ron watched as Harry stirred on his bed, blinking groggily and fumbling for his glasses. Harry's head turned suddenly and his lips moved -- someone else had woken up, too. His hands locked in a deathgrip on the edge of the window, Ron stayed perfectly still -- maybe if he didn't move, Harry wouldn't see him. But no... no, that wasn't happening (should have taken the invisibility cloak, trilled the little envious voice), because Harry was now staring at the window in complete and utter shock.
Ron managed to free one hand to gesture to the lock on the window. Apparently recovering, Harry stood up and stumbled over to the window, unlocked its latch, and pulled it open.
"What izzit?" Neville Longbottom's voice drifted sleepily through the window.
"Nothing," Harry said quickly. "It's... ummm... it's Hedwig."
"Oh, okay." Neville fell silent.
Harry turned back to Ron. "What are you doing?" he hissed.
"Bloody floating here," Ron replied, pulling the window open the rest of the way. "What's it look like?" /Thank you, car./ he thought spitefully. /See if I ever come to check up on you again./
Harry's cold hand was on his, steadying him as he came through the window. The contact nearly made Ron jump, despite his obviously precarious position, and he felt giddy for a moment before manfully suppressing the sensation.
/Thank you car/ he thought, creeping inside. /Really, thank you./
"Do you mind telling me what you were doing?" Harry whispered, glaring at him.
"I was out for a ride," Ron answered as blithely as he could under the circumstances -- which was not very blithe, but it was flip enough to make Harry glower in a fairly good Hermione impersonation. He pulled off his cloak and set it on his trunk. "Why?"
Surprisingly, Harry stepped back a bit and shrugged. "No reason... it's just... I mean, if you wanted, you could have borrowed my cloak." He added something else that sounded like 'and I would have come with you, if you wanted', but Ron wasn't entirely sure and wasn't in the mood to push his luck.
"Just wanted to see how it was doing, if it was running okay," Ron assured him, flopping down on his bed. His back and neck still hurt, and he figured he'd gotten away lucky. Between McGonagall, Filch, Snape, and the Acromantulas, a lot worse could have happened than having Harry find him and hold his hand to help pull him back inside.
"Is it?"
"Yeah, runs great. I think it's happy out there." Ron gestured to the forest in the distance.
"Oh." Harry blinked and sat down on Ron's bed, right next to him. "Good." He fidgeted wordlessly for a moment as if something were scratching him, then said, his face quite red: "You didn't tell me anything about it."
Ron carefully kept his face very, very straight. "Oh... well, um, I sort of had to work a few things, out, too. You know -- communing with nature and all that."
"I see." Something flickered through Harry's voice. Wistfulness? Concern? Ron was a moment trying to identify it before he gave up. "Well..." Harry trailed off uncertainly, then peered down at Ron through his spectacles, his eyes very, very green. The same unidentified sentiment in his voice echoed itself in his eyes. "You're okay, aren't you?" There was desperation there, Ron thought, wondering what to make of it. "You'd tell me if you weren't okay." Insistence.
"Yeah," Ron said. He touched Harry's hand very gently, the tips of his fingers drifting over the sensitive skin, the tendons and slender bones of it. "I'd tell you if I wasn't... But Harry, I *am*." He realized that he was, even as he said it, and it was with a smile that he said, "I'm okay."
"Great." Harry beamed down at him, and Ron had to smile back.
"You can come with me next time," he offered, pretty sure that the car had gone back to the forest. "I have something else I have to thank it for."
"What?" Harry asked curiously. "Thank it?" Something in his tone suggested Ron had been up a bit too late.
"Oh..." Ron knew he didn't have the nerve *quite* yet to tell Harry, but it didn't stop him from grinning and saying in the best mysterious tone he could muster, deepening his voice portentously: "Something. Everything."
Harry had the grace to look confused, and Ron decided with a bit of private laughter that it was a good look for him.
Site: www.ontheqt.org
Pairings: Ron/Harry -- so if you don't like slash, you should know to turn right back around.
Warnings: UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension)
Notes: This is a more-or-less ongoing series of one-shot fics revolving around a few central characters -- namely, Ron, Harry, and a third you'll have to read to find out. I promise on my soul that it's not a cute, shy, yet incredibly powerful Muggle-born fifth-year witch on an exchange program from America who is fleeing her past connection to her uncle Voldemort... No, no. Nothing like that. Do read and review, yes?
MAN'S BEST FRIEND
Ron pulled on his black cape, cursing the fact that his friendship with Harry kept him from stealing his best friend's invisibility cloak. A glance out the dormitory window showed him that, thankfully, the sky was overcast, hiding the stars, and there was no moon out. It would make skulking through the Hogwarts grounds and corridors so much easier, even though... Ron's gaze drifted longingly to Harry's trunk, where the invisibility cloak rested, neatly folded, and his fingers itched to take it. /Harry'll go *mental*/ he told himself sternly. /Don't even think about it./
/But, but.../ sputtered the rebellious, covetous voice in his head.
/NO./ he told it firmly. /MENTAL, I tell you./
/Oh, *fine*./
Ron made himself slip quietly out of the room without looking back, although he could hear Harry tossing and turning in his bed. A soft shuff-shuff told him he'd kicked his blankets off. And Ron didn't dare go back and fix them -- that'd wake Harry up, he'd see Ron standing in his cloak and pajamas like some crazy vampire, want to know what was going on... and that would lead to all sorts of awkward questions Ron didn't feel like answering. So, he left, shutting the door soundlessly behind him.
The common room was deserted, with only the great fire burning to light the place. Ron suppressed a shiver despite the warmth as he slipped out the portrait hole, ignoring the Fat Lady's demands to know where he was off to this time of night. He prayed she wouldn't tell Filch anything if he came around. Speaking of Filch... keeping an eye out for Mrs. Norris, Ron stole through the empty corridors, trying his best to keep to the shadows.
Hogwarts at night still held some fear for him, although he figured that he, Harry, and Hermione had between the three of them spent more time prowling the corridors after-hours than the rest of the students for the past hundred years. It was the statues and the shadows, he decided, and the fact that everything was so *silent*, the kind of silence that means someone -- or something -- is watching. Sometimes, he would see a painting move out of the corner of his eye, and he thought he'd have a heart attack. Trying to keep a lid on the impulse to scream and run back to the Gryffindor tower, Ron kept walking at a careful, sedate pace until he got to the main door leading to the grounds. He opened that, closed it soundlessly, turned, and then ran like hell across the lawn to the Forbidden Forest.
Partly, he ran because he knew if he just walked, he'd end up turning around and running straight back inside. He'd heard of the centaurs, unicorns, and creepy cloaked things that inhabited the Forest from Harry, and about the werewolves and lamias from the rumor mill. He'd experienced the Acromantulas for himself. Unicorns, he decided, would be alright. Acromantulas... he tried very, *very* hard not to think about them.
The giant spiders were part of the reason for his visit. Not that he was planning on seeing them -- it would take a bribe of phenomenal proportions to get him to find Aragog's lair again, and even then, he probably wouldn't take it -- but rather, something else. It was a vague sense of guilt and responsibility that drove him out here... after all, it was his fault things ended up the way they did.
Shaking a little bit, and not entirely from the cool night air, Ron pulled out his wand and murmured 'Lumos.' The bit of white light that sprang from the end of his wand was not terribly comforting, as it made the forest into a place where shadows became even darker and more complex, and made the near distance so impenetrably black it seemed that Ron was just about to fall into a gaping abyss every ten steps or so. The forest rustled and echoed with dim calls, both near and far, and however much Ron tried to convince himself that they were just owls and insects (not spiders -- harmless insects, like ladybugs and crickets), he knew that they weren't.
As long as there wasn't a howl or the clicking sound of pincers snapping together, he could deal with it. /You didn't go to the Chamber of Secrets and face down Sirius Black for nothing/ he told himself. /You didn't beat McGonagall's chess set for nothing. Keep walking, you pansy./
Ron wasn't entirely sure how far he walked, or how long. It felt like he'd spent hours roaming around the forest, trying to keep to the clearer paths and trying not to think of what he would do if he got lost. Surely he was about ten miles or so away from the forest's edge -- he'd been out there half the night, it seemed. He'd have to turn around, he decided bleakly, but with a certain thanks. He'd try again soon. Maybe.
Just as he turned to go back, Ron heard a creaking sound somewhere off to his left, and the sharp snapping of twigs being broken -- or ground underfoot. He tensed and whispered 'nox' to black out the light from his wand, and there was *real* darkness this time, absolutely unbroken. He crouched down behind a tree, wand at the ready, breath caught in his lungs. /You shouldn't have come out here, you idiot/ said the little voice. /Not without Harry's cloak, anyway. Harry's *invisibility cloak*, did we say? Moron./
The snapping sound came closer, and as it did, Ron could discern a light filtering through the trees. It wasn't lantern light or torchlight, and it was nowhere near being dawn, so it was either something incredibly monstrous and hostile... or, no! Yes! It was! The light increased to a blazing brightness, and it was his Ford Anglia (well, his dad's) lumbering placidly towards him.
"Car!" Ron said happily, unfolding himself from the very difficult crouch he'd been in, and stepping up to greet the car, whose engine purred happily at seeing him. "Hey, car," he said again, touching the dented and chipped hood with gentle fingers.
The wilds had not treated the Anglia very well at all, Ron thought with dismay, looking at the dings in the formerly shiny blue paint and the flat tires. Dirt and mud smeared the windshield and it looked like a bird had tried to build a nest where the passenger's side rearview mirror had been busted out. Peering inside the broken window, Ron saw that the upholstery was mostly torn out and a wealth of -- shudder -- spiderwebs decorated the dashboard and gearshift.
"Have you been taking care of yourself?" he asked, feeling a bit stupid for asking that of a *car* of all things. Surprisingly, though, the car's engine buzzed in something that sounded satisfied. "My dad still misses you, you know, but he's not going to get another car. Partly it's because Mum would kill him if he did, but I know he really liked you. And you came in handy when we went to get Harry from the Burrow. Remember that?"
He didn't get an answer, but he imagined that yes, the car did remember.
"Lots of things have changed since that summer," he told it, wondering if he could open the door and slip inside. He didn't know if the car would let him -- it might decide to really go wild and plow him down or eject him. "You remember the Acromantulas, of course -- thanks for the save on that, by the way -- but there's been tons else." He went through the whole list of third and fourth year adventures, glossing painfully over the fact that he and Harry hadn't spoken for a good part of fourth year.
"And now... well, it's fifth year and it's going okay. No one's tried to kill us yet."
The car must have noticed something in his voice, because the driver's side door swung open on its creaky, rusted hinges. Carefully, trying to ignore the silvery presence of the spiderwebs, Ron slipped inside and closed the door. With a gentle whirring, the car came to life around him, the dashboard lighting up and the gears adjusting automatically. There was a low, difficult whine, a clunk, and then a long-lost-but-familiar sensation of weightlessness as the car rose. He and the car flickered into invisibility as they broke through the treetops and began to move a little faster.
/This is the life/ Ron thought as he and the car flew through the sky. The wind coming through the window was cold on his face and invigorating, but he felt strangely peaceful. Stretching full-length on the seat, contorted a bit uncomfortably around the gearshift, Ron decided he could live the rest of his life like this -- just drifting through infinite space, his mind as free and open as the sky around him. Nowhere to go, nothing to do... just flying.
"I'm sorry about the Whomping Willow," he told the car, which hummed invisibly around him. "That was really great of you, to get us out like that, and I don't blame you for dumping us out, either -- I mean, if I was in your place, that's what I would have done, too. You know, I don't think I could have been more surprised when Harry and I saw you show up in the Forest that time and saved us from those spiders. Even after everything we put you through, you still came in and got us out okay, and I guess I owe you huge thanks for that, too."
It was as if some switch went off in Ron's brain, because he found himself just rambling as the car banked and headed north to fly past the school and over the lake. "It sort of reminds me of last year, when I wasn't speaking to Harry because of the whole Triwizard mess. Honestly, I couldn't believe it when Dumbledore told me that he wanted me for, well... you know." His voice automatically lowered to a whisper. "That I would be the thing Harry would miss most in the world.
"There isn't any way I can say what happened, but it was like... whoa. I mean, he'd still miss me even after I was being a total git? He'd still miss me even after I managed to do everything I could to muck up our relationship?" Ron turned over on his stomach, and through some artful squirming and rearrangement of limbs, managed to sit up and lean against the door, head out the window. "And all I thought the entire time was 'I'm definitely not worth it.' I mean, when am I ever worth anything? You know what I mean?"
/You're saying 'I mean' entirely too much/ said a tiny Hermione-like voice in the back of his head. Ron groaned and winced. Did he never have any privacy? Was he doomed to have his two better halves (or better thirds, whatever) following him around, making corrections and getting him out of scrapes?
"And then -- believe me, car, you don't *ever* want to go this way -- I started thinking that maybe... well, maybe things are changing. It's like, the lower I go, the better he gets, or -- oh, hell I don't know what I'm saying. I guess it's the more I drive him crazy or resent him, the better I like him. It's even worse because I *can't* hate him, not really. I was thinking about it tonight, before I came out here. If anything, I hate myself for trying to hate him, and I end up liking him even more. See?"
He didn't know if the car 'saw' anything, other than whatever it saw through its headlights, but Ron felt much better for talking to something, anything. Once, he'd come across Percy confiding something low and completely confidential to Hermes the screech owl, who had listened with a calm and unruffled dignity to Percy's laments over Penelope and Oliver. Ron, though, didn't have a trusty animal companion; he couldn't talk to Pig because the wretched owl wouldn't sit still for more than ten seconds at a time, and Errol spent most of his time asleep. Scabbers had slept a lot too, come to think about it, and Ron didn't even want to *think* about Scabbers right now.
"How can you tell someone you like them too much when you can't even really admit it to yourself? I mean" -- here the Hermione-voice interrupted with a smug correction -- "that'll just screw *everything* up, you know? Everything and *everything*. And it's not like I have the time to worry about it, between everything else that's going on." He paused reflectively, then amended: "Well, maybe I do. It's just Ron Weasley, after all, who spends all his time procrastinating on homework and tagging along after Potter and Granger."
Ron shook his head, surprised at his own bitterness. He usually wasn't given to self-reflection, but in a moment of brutal honesty, which the car seemed to accept, he said, "No... it's not that. I can't ever hate Harry; I liked him from the moment I saw him. And I think I'm getting too old to get all worked up over stupid stuff, like last year. I mean, I'm fifteen after all. Practically a grown-up."
/That's disputable/ said Hermione.
/Oh, shut up/ he told the voice firmly. Hermione subsided and Ron stayed quiet for a while, watching the cloud deck as they circled slowly beneath it. It was very peaceful up here, he thought again, feeling his concerns and insecurities slip away from him into thin air. The car hummed comfortingly all around him, urging him to quit talking and just relax. Ron slipped a bit deeper into the seat, ignoring the broken spring pressing into his tailbone. "Thank you, car," he told it, stroking the invisible dashboard a few times before slipping off to sleep.
* * *
When Ron opened his eyes again, he panicked for a moment when he saw that he had no body. Reason reasserted itself quickly, though, and he came to: he was still in the car, still in the air with the invisibility booster turned on, and hovering outside of the window to his dormitory. The sky around him was softly purple as the sun came up behind the clouds that still shrouded the horizon. Birds had started to sing, and there were the faintest beginnings of shadows on the ground.
Ron straightened and winced at the stiffness in his neck. He felt strangely rested, as if he'd spent a long, dreamless night in his own bed rather than a few hours curled up in the very uncomfortable seat of a flying car. Thinking back to his awkward, stumbling confessions and pathetic, circular arguments, he blushed a bit. /It's not like the car is going to *tell* anyone, for crying out loud/ he told himself with some asperity.
It was getting late, though -- or early, depending on one's point of view -- and he had to figure out a way to get inside. He realized with a start that the car had pulled up right next to the Gryffindor dorm window; he could see his bed with its covers in disarray, and Harry's right next to it, with Harry curled up right in the middle of it and the covers on the floor.
"Car," Ron whispered even as he wondered *why* he was whispering, "go down now. Down!"
The car stayed where it was, engine humming.
"Down!" Ron pulled out his wand and tapped the steering wheel a few times, cursing to himself. The last thing he needed was to spend the rest of the day floating up here. No, no -- the last thing he needed was to be found out of bed and missing. McGonagall would go *postal*. "Car," he hissed, "I *swear* I'll send you to the scrapyard if you don't get down *right now*."
Instead of descending, the car flickered into visiblity around him.
"Oh, God," Ron moaned, staring at his all-too-visible hand in horror. He was going to get it for sure. He pictured Filch or Hagrid -- please, God, let it be Hagrid -- poking around in the shrubbery outside the tower and looking up at the car's undercarriage. "Car, please, I'm sorry about the scrapyard thing, just turn invisible and get me down! Please!"
The car did nothing of the sort. Instead, it seemed to tilt into the stone wall and gently bump against it. As it did so, the rearview mirror scraped against the window. It wasn't very loud, but in the predawn stillness and with Ron's anxiety, it sounded like thunder.
Breathless and frozen with terror, Ron watched as Harry stirred on his bed, blinking groggily and fumbling for his glasses. Harry's head turned suddenly and his lips moved -- someone else had woken up, too. His hands locked in a deathgrip on the edge of the window, Ron stayed perfectly still -- maybe if he didn't move, Harry wouldn't see him. But no... no, that wasn't happening (should have taken the invisibility cloak, trilled the little envious voice), because Harry was now staring at the window in complete and utter shock.
Ron managed to free one hand to gesture to the lock on the window. Apparently recovering, Harry stood up and stumbled over to the window, unlocked its latch, and pulled it open.
"What izzit?" Neville Longbottom's voice drifted sleepily through the window.
"Nothing," Harry said quickly. "It's... ummm... it's Hedwig."
"Oh, okay." Neville fell silent.
Harry turned back to Ron. "What are you doing?" he hissed.
"Bloody floating here," Ron replied, pulling the window open the rest of the way. "What's it look like?" /Thank you, car./ he thought spitefully. /See if I ever come to check up on you again./
Harry's cold hand was on his, steadying him as he came through the window. The contact nearly made Ron jump, despite his obviously precarious position, and he felt giddy for a moment before manfully suppressing the sensation.
/Thank you car/ he thought, creeping inside. /Really, thank you./
"Do you mind telling me what you were doing?" Harry whispered, glaring at him.
"I was out for a ride," Ron answered as blithely as he could under the circumstances -- which was not very blithe, but it was flip enough to make Harry glower in a fairly good Hermione impersonation. He pulled off his cloak and set it on his trunk. "Why?"
Surprisingly, Harry stepped back a bit and shrugged. "No reason... it's just... I mean, if you wanted, you could have borrowed my cloak." He added something else that sounded like 'and I would have come with you, if you wanted', but Ron wasn't entirely sure and wasn't in the mood to push his luck.
"Just wanted to see how it was doing, if it was running okay," Ron assured him, flopping down on his bed. His back and neck still hurt, and he figured he'd gotten away lucky. Between McGonagall, Filch, Snape, and the Acromantulas, a lot worse could have happened than having Harry find him and hold his hand to help pull him back inside.
"Is it?"
"Yeah, runs great. I think it's happy out there." Ron gestured to the forest in the distance.
"Oh." Harry blinked and sat down on Ron's bed, right next to him. "Good." He fidgeted wordlessly for a moment as if something were scratching him, then said, his face quite red: "You didn't tell me anything about it."
Ron carefully kept his face very, very straight. "Oh... well, um, I sort of had to work a few things, out, too. You know -- communing with nature and all that."
"I see." Something flickered through Harry's voice. Wistfulness? Concern? Ron was a moment trying to identify it before he gave up. "Well..." Harry trailed off uncertainly, then peered down at Ron through his spectacles, his eyes very, very green. The same unidentified sentiment in his voice echoed itself in his eyes. "You're okay, aren't you?" There was desperation there, Ron thought, wondering what to make of it. "You'd tell me if you weren't okay." Insistence.
"Yeah," Ron said. He touched Harry's hand very gently, the tips of his fingers drifting over the sensitive skin, the tendons and slender bones of it. "I'd tell you if I wasn't... But Harry, I *am*." He realized that he was, even as he said it, and it was with a smile that he said, "I'm okay."
"Great." Harry beamed down at him, and Ron had to smile back.
"You can come with me next time," he offered, pretty sure that the car had gone back to the forest. "I have something else I have to thank it for."
"What?" Harry asked curiously. "Thank it?" Something in his tone suggested Ron had been up a bit too late.
"Oh..." Ron knew he didn't have the nerve *quite* yet to tell Harry, but it didn't stop him from grinning and saying in the best mysterious tone he could muster, deepening his voice portentously: "Something. Everything."
Harry had the grace to look confused, and Ron decided with a bit of private laughter that it was a good look for him.