Wish: Prologue
AN: This story originally begun very differently, as a Titanic AU. Since discovering writing fanfiction at the same time as keeping a plot historically accurate is very difficult, I've decided to take the story in an entirely now direction. The characters of Ron Weasley, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger among others belong strictly to JK Rowling and no copyright infringement is intended.
Neighbours clustered at slightly ajar doors and at their own front gates to watch him as he ran, huddling their children behind their bodies. He jumped up to the wall, down to the pavement and bent down at the gutter. His perfectly timed landing gave way for a millisecond's worth of inward breath.
"You come back here right now!"
He turned at the voice. There she was, running up the path whilst simultaneously peering at the audience that had formed along the street. She reached for the gate, only to give up at the last hurdle when the crusted paint around the edges forced the lock to remain fixed. By the time she'd abandoned her efforts, Ron was well more than a few houses down the road in the opposite direction.
"Come back!" she screeched, the hiss at the back of her throat echoing through each syllable. Her call was not powered by self-interest or hatred, but by sheer love and desperation.
He'd been out of sight for a long while before he considered where exactly he was headed to, and even though it was still raining and the sky was as grey as soot, he did not dare to stop. When the moment at which Ron was certain his mother had closed the front door right behind her and the search party she'd never think of gathering had found themselves lost in their tracks, he pressed his hands to his knees and panted long and hard.
He looked over his shoulder before slowing to a walk. He still gasped for breath, but he didn't dare stop to rest. He continued to walk slowly down the middle of the road. There was little traffic about, and when a car did come on the odd occasion, Ron stepped aside momentarily to let it pass. He raised his arm and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. He moved onto a kerb and stopped under a low lamp for breath. He walked until he reached the end of each road and turned right into the next, clueless as to where he was headed as well as how long the walk was intended to last.
The rain begun to pour more heavily and his clothes were soaked through against his body. The cold chill of each gust of wind was magnified against his skin with each turn of direction. He waited for a gap in pavement and crossed over the dimly lit road. He passed the newsagents and the new block of flats, the doctor's office and the church he'd used to visit every Sunday. Everything was as dull as it always had been.
Ron eagerly anticipated these nights from the moment the ideas fell into his mind. It was the night all four of them would take another break away from the ever-decaying streets of London and set foot upon streets they'd never dared to venture down. There weren't many kids at school who liked the sorts of adventures they anticipated so greatly. If anything, late night road trips were more of an American fantasy the majority of his classmates had only witnessed in films and late night television programmes. If there was anything Ron strived for, it was not know what it was like to live a life without a half-collapsed home and screeching set of tables and chairs with barely a penny to spare.
They'd been planning for months. He and Harry had been working down in the local sweet shop and Evan and Aaron in Evan's parents' garage. The hours were long and gruelling, but doing as was expected of you and turning up on time seemed to work a charm when it came to getting through the day as easily as possible. Of course, there were always those who found it difficult to obey the commands of those in charge. Evan had thought it suitable to attempt to replace the tyres of one car with those of a much smaller vehicle and ended up costing his parents a few hundred for damage to the bodywork. Aaron had laughed and encouraged him on before he realised he was putting his job, and consequently the trip, on the line. If there was one thing they were serious about, it was driving away from London for a few nights and having the time of their lives.
By the time the hands of the church tower clock fell to eleven, Ron had reached Harry's house and begun to peel the hardly-waterproof coat from his arms and take off his gloves. Tufts of black smoke rose from above the chimney, the tell-tale sign of life. As he got closer, he could see the frozen dew last night's hailstones had left beginning to melt, trickling down over the windowpane and falling to the ground to welt in the snow. His footfall suddenly grew silent as he fell just metres away from the entrance to the cottage, the sharp chime of the pavement now gone. He begun to follow the footsteps of strangers, each one a different shape and size, over the mud and sparks of sprouting grass as he made his way to the door.
Ron shivered as he stepped beneath the cover of the trees and pushed open the iron gate, which didn't creak like his own or need a good push to break the lock. He pressed his knuckles to the door in three swift motions before pressing his arms to his side.
A frail and huddled over lady opened the door, her eyes wild and gleaming emerald. They were a cyclic almond shape, complete with misty grey ovals in the centre. She wore a well-used grey-brown tunic over a pale blue shirt, her outfit complete with a pair of ancient looking mustard yellow slippers.
"Yes?" she asked, her voice croaky and in need of repair. Her lips batted together in a nervous jitter.
"Harry, is he in?" He returned her question with another, hoping for a positive answer. Harry had spoken of his aunt many a time, though he hadn't portrayed her in a positive light. As far as Ron knew, she was still the same woman who'd hidden Harry's birthday presents when he was ten years old.
"'E's in 'is bedroom, you are?" She spoke with a strong cockney accent and a dwindling air of hatred fused with curiosity.
"Ron," he answered, extending his arm, "I'm Harry's friend."
She took his hand and shook it firmly, squeezing so hard she pressed his fingers together and forced them to intertwine.
"Do ya want me to get 'im, then?"
Ron nodded.
Harry's aunt disappeared behind the shadow of the ajar front door, leaving behind a faintly traceable sound of disappearing footsteps as she wandered up the stairs, presumably to invite Harry down to talk to Ron. He spent the next minute or so preparing what he was going to say and how exactly he was planning on keeping himself together with all of the excitement. This was it. Tonight was the night they'd been planning for.
"Ron!" Harry beamed, cascading down the stairs in an awkward rush forward. His smile lay tangent to the curved edge of his chin and was seemingly a now permanent feature of his facial depiction. He wore a sodden navy t-shirt complimented by an apparently new pair of cotton blue jeans. It seemed Harry had worked so hard earning the money to make sure tonight was the night he wanted it to be that he'd even generated enough to spare and had managed to buy himself a new pair of trousers for the first time in months.
"It's today. I can't believe it's today, Harry. Goodbye London!" Ron half-yelled, the fear of Harry's aunt overhearing him overshadowing the few remaining decibels. "I haven't been this excited since my mam announced she was going to buy us that games console when I was , Harry!" Ron threw his hands up in the air like an ecstatic child. His facial expression now mimicked Harry's. His teeth were yellow and stained with the remains of old food.
"Know where Aaron and Evan are? They're still coming, right?"
"Right," Ron nodded, "they weren't at home when I knocked this afternoon. Told Aaron's grandma they were working late tonight. She didn't suspect a thing, you know. Grabbed her 'little boys' by the cheeks and squeezed them as hard as she could before wishing them good night and smiling at their attempt to work hard for once in their lives. She was half right at least – they have been working bloody hard. Aaron, at least."
Harry snorted. "I never expected Evan to take work seriously anyway. He's not the type."
"Ah well," Ron sighed, raising his eyebrows, "at least we've got enough cash to last us a good few nights, right?"
The two chucked, their grins growing ever wider.
"Tonight's the day, Ronald," Harry begun, breaking the laughter, "tonight's the night we leave London."
The church bell rung twelve times as the clock stuck midnight. Tonight was the night.
They rode at a steady forty miles per hour along the empty motorway, Harry glancing in the side mirrors as he turned to check on the nonexistent cars. The streetlamps provided little source of light, their amber radiation bounding back off the car's wing mirror's and into their eyes. Ron leaned in to turn on the radio, hoping it would ease the argument between Aaron and Evan as Alice concentrated on the road. The high way stretched far beyond the glare of the headlights and the blackness of the surrounds made him feel uneasy.
"Why so uptight, Ron?" Aaron asked, "this is supposed to be the night of our lives. Don't worry about what the old folks back home will say when you return, think of the present. You're with your three best friends on an empty road in the middle of the morning with nothing but the sound of the tyres screeching against the tarmac to distract you. Loosen up, mate."
"Shut up, Aaron." Ron muttered. This was supposed to be the night of their lives, though their planning had been of no worth so far. Aaron and Evan's backseat argument had put everything on edge. Aaron had sacrificed the family business and now Evan's parents were worrying about whether they'd be able to pay the bills in time this month. Evan was the one who didn't take work down in the garage seriously and he was the real reason his parents were in such a situation. They'd always fought, but Ron had convinced himself that tonight wasn't the night for such quarrels.
"Yeah, shut up, Aaron. You know what everybody's thinking. You're ruining tonight with your petty little argumentative attitude. You didn't have to come along." The bickering begun once more, Evan's comment fuelling Aaron's anger.
Harry rolled his eyes; the lack of sleep starting to get to him. He was only an hour into the time scheduled for his turn to drive. His foot ached as it pressed against the wheel and his finger jerked on the wheel. "Shut it, both of you!"
His vision grew cold and empty. Swear dripped down from his forehead and an almighty sound echoed in each of their ears. A hand flew in his direction, desperate to grab the wheel. Seconds lay frozen on the clock as not one of them dared to blink. Ron crashed against the side door window. Evan and Aaron lunged forwards in their seats and smashed their heads against the chairs in front of them. Harry fell forward, his head landing on the wheel, his body crying in pain. But the tears were not crystalline or transparent. Their viscosity and colour gave everything away. Harry's eyes rolled back into his head and his breaths fell silent.
Nobody but the almighty power had planned this.
