Warning: I have rated the story a PG-13 because of a Draco/ Ron slash pairing. So please avoid this fic if you do not like the idea of a same sex romantic pairing.
Disclaimer: They belong to J.K. Rowling. I just like to hurt them.
Consider this a missing scene from His Belongings.
Corridors and stairs.
There are in-between times like there are in-between spaces. Like corridors and stairs, whose only purpose is to lead you from one brightly lit room to another, from the Transfigurations classroom to the Gryffindor common room. They don't count. Minutes in parenthesis, time within time, and while the clocks keep ticking whatever you do or think or say then makes no difference, no addition or subtraction.
The moments you spend staring at the white spaces between lines, chewing the edge of your quill, before you remember to turn the page of your book. The moments between closing your eyes and falling asleep, renaming and recounting your deeds of the day, your words and actions and finding them lacking. The moments between opening the door of an empty room, thinking he might be there, and then closing it again quietly, expectation building into nothing.
Interludes, intervals, your life is put on hold.
It's been thirty-nine days since you saw Harry kissing that creep, Malfoy.
He knows that you know and he knows that you won't tell. Because this is the only connection you have left, the dark threat of the secret binding the two of you against the rest of the world.
But sometimes the limits of time stretch and moments become hours, days, weeks. This is your season in parenthesis, a winter hollow and white like bone without marrow.
You've started taking long walks by the lake, all alone, listening to the sound of ice cracking as pale tentacles rise to the surface, breaking free only to sink back in the waters again. The frozen grass dances to the rhythmless motion of the wind and the muddy ground swallows the sound of your footsteps as if you aren't there, as if you don't really exist. Behind the blue haze of the horizon the mountains have grown taller.
You examine your reflection in the mirror. Your hair is getting in a worse state than Harry's and you've lost so much weight it looks as if you're made of elbows and knees. Oddly enough, your grades have started to improve, probably because you spend so much time with Hermione. Last week Professor Snape congratulated you on the texture Veritaserum and you almost fell off your chair in surprise. Fred thinks you have a good chance of getting into the Quidditch team this year, but you know you can't be the Seeker, and that's all you ever wanted to be.
You don't talk that much these days and you won't play chess with anyone else, only against yourself. You've started spending time in empty storerooms, sitting on the floor with your legs tucked up, knees to ribs, head to knees, letting spiders crawl over your fingertips. You're not afraid of them any more. Or perhaps you're not yourself any more.
Because you were always just Ron, Harry's friend. He's not around at all these days.
It's strange, because on the other hand Malfoy seems to be everywhere.
You just can't get rid of him.
Before History of Magic, after Quidditch practice, when you open a door, when you turn around, when you think you're alone, across the hall, at the end of the corridor, under the stairs, behind your shoulder, he's always there. Whispering, whispering, his breath hot and moist against your ear, licking inside your mind.
How does it feel Weasley, tell me how, you saw us together, didn't you? I'm sure you liked it, you liked watching us, you're sick Weasley, you're jealous Weasley, you're worthless Weasley, you'll never have what you want, you'll always want what you can't get, your hair needs cutting, your robes need mending, your shoes need polishing, you'll never be good enough, you'll never be worthy, your life is a mistake, are you going to cry now Weasley? Is that a tear? Tell me Weasley, tell me. Is that a tear?
You clench your fists; nails digging deep into the flesh, hate like a jagged stone inside your mouth. You squeeze your eyes shut; you can't afford another detention.
Professor Flitwick asked you to help him decorate the Christmas tree at the Great Hall. You found a carton of glittering ornaments in one of the storerooms; moths have made their nests in the spools of gold, orange-red and mauve thread.
On the way to the hall you turn round a corner and see him, leaning against a wall, waiting for you. You try to squeeze past his shoulders but he blocks your way, spreading a palm over your heart, stopping you. The sleeves of his robes are rolled up to the elbow and you see it for the first time, a glimpse of the Dark mark, black and swollen on his thin wrist.
"One day Harry will see right through you, Malfoy."
"Really, Weasley? And what is he going to see *in* you then?"
And you suddenly notice how much weight he has lost too, how his hair is twisted into knots; you notice the purple shadows under his eyes, moon-shaped sleepless bruises. If you can't be yourself if you aren't Harry's friend, then perhaps Malfoy can't be anything if he isn't his enemy. You almost feel sorry for him, for his Dark Mark and the terrored air he breathes and the way everything seems to happen by default to both of you, without chance for appeal, defence or justification.
"But I can see you. " he says. "I can see you."
You don't know how the fight started. You only remember your elbow cracking against his ribs; his fingers tangled in your hair, yanking hard until stinging tears start to flow. The carton crashes on the floor and its little golden and silver treasures jingle and roll away.
All that blood in your mouth, where did it come from?
He bites your shoulder, your jaw, tries to kiss you and you let him and you kiss him back because this is just an interlude, life in parenthesis, this is motion in borrowed time and what happens now can make no difference. Malfoy tastes sweet, sweet and faintly rotten, like an overripe fruit.
When he pulls away he is breathless, panting, his hand still spread over your heart and his cheeks stained purple.
Is this the one you hated? The one you were jealous of and despised, for all these stupid years? You look over your shoulder as you start walking away. The dim corridor aligned with candles, the red carpet strewn with pieces of silver and gold, the pale boy with the bitten lips and the arms hanging limp at his sides, his figure diminishing with every step you take, they have all already turned into the past tense. Your time starts ticking again as you move away from him.
Then: "You bastard!"
Hands fall heavily on your shoulders, a warm and hard body presses against your back, shoves you down and then you both fall, fall, fall, descending forever until you hit the ground. Scattered around you, small silver bells, stripped glass marbles, colorful cardboard harlequins and those little white angels, with wings propped up with wire.