Harry and Ginny held hands as Harry reached up to bang his fist on the door to the remote, dilapidated cottage they had apparated to on a tip.
"Please be here, please be here, please be here," Ginny muttered under her breath, in time with Harry's fist on the door.
"I think I hear something inside, thank Merlin," Harry said. Their hope and nervous anticipation and the cold wind blowing around them made them both jumpy, anxious, and they pressed their bodies nearer together as they listened to the sounds inside the cottage grow closer to the door.
They had all been looking for Ron for a long time.
The door creaked open as it slid from its fame, the slip of wood on wood making an unsettling sound, and Ginny flinched while gripping Harry's hand tighter, digging into his skin with nails kept short.
A shaggy ginger head appeared as the door opened more widely, atop a face covered by a wild, unkempt beard, with eyes unfocused and bloodshot.
"Ron, mate?" Harry asked and Ron's eyes focused slightly in Harry's direction.
"Good to see you, man. What are you doing here?" Ron pulled back the door and gestured sharply for Harry and Ginny to enter.
"Ron!" Ginny admonished, before crushing him in a hug. "We've been looking for you for so long! Why are you here? Where have you been? How dare you just go away without telling anyone, you know what mum and dad have been…"
Harry interrupted and pulled her back, "Let him breathe, Gin. I'm sure he'll have answers for us if we give him a chance to answer them." Harry pressed the door closed after them, and turned as his eyes began to adjust to the low light of the cottage.
Dusty and damp and dim, Harry thought. There wasn't much clutter around in the kitchen and living space, apart from a small pile of empty bottles of different sizes in the corner by the small metal dining table. No lights were on, but the limited late afternoon sun filtered through the dirty windows and drew Harry's eyes toward the corners where dingy ceiling and flowered wallpaper covered wall met. The faded rose pattern of the wallpaper and the cracks in the plaster of the ceiling were not very visible under the crush of gossamer webs drifting down.
The back of Harry's neck began to itch.
Ginny's constant stream of chatter and questions towards her brother continued, and it was clear from the relief in her voice that she was paying more attention to Ron than their surroundings.
Harry's legs shifted at the feeling, real or imagined, he almost did not want to know, of something crawling up his calves. His left hand met his wand in his pocket, and Harry felt better for the contact.
"Hey mate," Harry interrupted, the urgency within him telling him to flee growing by the second. "Will you come back to The Burrow with us? Your family wants to see you, and we all want to make sure you're okay."
"Okay?" Ron asked, stepping backwards, a skeptical and dark look falling over his face. "Why wouldn't I be okay, mate?"
"It's just that you've been gone for over a year, Ron" Ginny said as gently as she could manage.
"Over a year?" Ron asked, puzzled. "No, you're barking. It's been a few weeks at most. Not like you to exaggerate so much, Gin." He walked over to the sink in the kitchen to stare out the streaked glass. "Want a drink? Seems like you need one, Ginny."
"No, we're fine, Ron," Harry said quickly, going against every instinct he had to step closer to Ron in the kitchen. "Will you come with us, though? Everyone would love to see you."
"Will Hermione and her new husband be there?" Ron spat. "I don't want to see any fucking ferrets."
"Not if you don't want them to be," Ginny replied diplomatically. "Please, Ron, just come home."
"But, Gin, this is my home now," Ron insisted. "I have everything I need. Food, firewhiskey, and my pets."
Harry and Ginny began to look around the small cottage for evidence of Ron's familiars. "Pets?" Ginny asked. "What kind?"
A strange gleam came into Ron's eye and he turned back to the cabinets, pulling out a crumpled paper sack from an upper door with a loose handle. "It's time to feed them anyway. You'll meet them all now, my dear Gin."
"Them?" Harry's voice cracked uncharacteristically. "Feed them, and we'll go," Harry insisted, the need to leave crushing at his thoughts.
Ron brought the sack to the middle of the living space and tipped the contents out on the floor. Thousands of dead flies descended to the carpet, and Harry and Ginny backed away from the insect pile closer to the door.
"Them?" Harry whispered, to Ginny, again crushing her hand. They stood together near the door as the floor and walls of the dingy cottage became covered, saturated, with thousands, hundreds of thousands, of spiders of different sizes and types, all rushing toward Ron and the flies.
"Hello, my pretties, come get your food" he cackled unnaturally, increasingly covered himself with the arachnids, laughing as they swarmed his body. "Oh, my beautiful babies, yes. Come get your flies, my loves." Ron seemed to lose himself in the appreciative crush of his pets, constantly cooing over them as he directed them to their food.
Harry and Ginny pressed back towards the door in horror, recoiling as spiders ran over their feet on their way to Ron.
"Fucking hell, he hates spiders. What the hell is this?" Harry screamed once they were outside with the cottage door slammed shut. Harry pulled Ginny to him, and held her as she cried, choking down his own tears as they waited for his mate, his best mate, to emerge.