Title: Ice Chips and Rain
Author: Unscathed
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I just knock them over and play with them, and dress them up in funny clothing and make them talk in high-pitched accents. They belong to J.K. Rowling and her gang of heartless publishers. (and lawyers…)
Warnings: Draco Malfoy/Ronald Weasley. That line between their names is a slash. It means they are together. They might hug, they might kiss, they might have hot, wild screaming monkey sex (Just not on FFN!). If this thought nauseates or sickens you…go away. If you chose not to heed my warning and send me nasty letters, all the more fool you are.
.*.*.*.
Snow, but it wasn't, it was moving too fast. Too quick, too damp. Slush. Ron glanced back across the room. The soft fluttering of gaze, Harry's dark lashes rising, his form leaning ever so slightly. The black silhouette of Snape, leaning, ever so slightly; his features softened, expression gentled. The careful precision of form, the placing of their chairs. Ron looked back out the window, checking to white fall, his heart stuttering in his chest. Slush.
"Oh yay, it's slushing!" The phrase came out before he could stop it, and he smiled at his own naivete. Enough of a smile that Harry's eyes, confused by the phrasing, were amused. "I'm going for a walk," Ron finished, already on his feet, heading for the door. He felt a little unsteady, but it didn't translate to motion. Thankfully.
He had to get out before it killed him.
"You want company?" Hermione offered, glancing over at him.
Ron was shaking his head before the actual words hit. No. Hell no. He didn't want her following him; he really didn't want her to follow him. Her lips were pursed, and he could read prude in her eyes. Homophobic prude. Right, Herm. Exactly. Ron was still shaking his head as he slipped out of the Great Hall and into the corridor. He didn't want her to follow him. The only person he could stand was…was leaning, ever so slightly, with the faintest of smiles in his green eyes, toward Snape. Gah.
He'd smiled, almost like that, for Ron. Happy and happy, and just freaking happy. Now it was Snape's. He was happy, and it wasn't for, with, or even near Ron. Ronald Weasley. Ron would've done a lot of things for that kind of look from Harry Potter, but the race was over before he'd even entered. He'd done a lot of things for Harry, but it was Snape, Severus Snape, who won the race to Harry's heart.
To tell the absolute truth, they deserved each other. They matched like a freaken set, and it hurt because once, once upon a time, a long time ago, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley had been a set. Friends, yes, but friends. Now it was Severus Snape, and although Harry did try to keep the friendship going it just wasn't the same. Because Harry had gone to the other side, the Slytheren side. Mutual hate had turned into Ron's one-sided game. Even Snape, for crying out loud, was being…well, at least civil, and from Snape that meant the highest honors. He'd preferred the man cruel, preferred the worst of him, if it meant that Ron had Harry.
Ron sighed, trudging along the corridor, listening the echo of his boots. Prude, Hermione's eyes said, dark and irritated. Not hateful, not yet. But she was so off the mark that Ron ached. No book learning had prepared her for that. He'd lost them both, almost, and completely. Homophobic? Hardly. Jealous, hell yes. Severus Snape was not his type at all; he'd assumed that Harry had the same… But Snape and Harry were so freaking perfect together it was absolutely, deliriously irritating. Made him sick. They were forever. For. Ever.
Fuck you anyway, Harry, Ron thought, without acidity, for going to the other side. For changing from the naïve innocent to the war-stricken dark thing that needed Snape. Fuck the goddamn scar, the goddamn untouchable hero's face that only Severus Snape could see past. Even Ron had gotten caught up in it, just a little, and it had ripped Harry from him. Enmity, at that time, had been better than blind love. Fuck Harry Potter, the legend, for existing. Taking away Harry, just-Harry.
Ron had reached the outer doors, feeling the hard wood under his palm. His red hair spilled across his cheeks as he leaned forward, not pushing them open, feeling the tears threaten and the chill seep from under the sill. Who was he anyway? Ronald Weasley, sixth child of seven. Sixth boy, a Weasley. A nothing. A nobody. Who was Ronald Weasley, that he should be vying for Harry goddamn freaking scar Potter? The legend? The best friend. Tell me that, Harry, Ron thought to himself, angry. Tell me who I am, without you?
The door opened almost silently, but the shock of cold was almost audible. It woke Ron out of his stupor, and he stood in the door, staring out at the white rainfall, the slush, and the black-green grass of late night. Two thirty in the morning, he remembered with a jolt.
Slush. Ron sighed, smiled sadly to himself and stepped out into the damp wilderness. The moon glowed warmly, a hole in the clouds giving him a gentle view of a quarter of the near-full bulk. Ron opened his arms and let the chill slush seep into him. Better, perhaps, than the heat of jealousy. Deserved it, a nasty voice sang in his head. What did you ever do for Harry?
The door closed with a thump.
Ron turned, looking back, expecting nothing. He nearly jumped out of his skin.
Draco Malfoy raised an eyebrow, his sneer cutting to the very heart of the issue. Ron felt suddenly, obscurely vulnerable. Here he was, soaked and sopping, standing in the goddamn sleet, and there was Draco Malfoy, chill and dry, under a black umbrella.
The silver-haired boy smirked somewhat harder, a tad nastier, and drew out a red and gold scarf. "Your friends," and the emphasis he put on the word made Ron's heart tremble, "thought you ought to have this." And Draco tossed it out of the umbrella's island of dry into the downpour, where it tumbled to the ground, like a felled snake. "Wouldn't want you to freeze to death, there, Weasley."
Weasley? That was an improvement to 'weasel'. Sort of. Draco's sharp tone turned it into an insult, despite. Apparently Harry, via Snape, had told Draco to be nice to Harry's friends. Friends, with emphasis. Ron felt cold, all the way down to his bones. Fuck you anyway, Harry. Ron left the scarf where it lay, feeling the slush seep through his hair, down to his scalp. Ice chips and rain.
Draco stepped out from under the eaves, the full brunt of the downpour stuttering against the black of his umbrella, his silver eyes finally leaving Ron's to look out at the damp expanse of ground around them. The falling sleet. "Slush?" Draco quipped, his tone mocking Ron's outburst in the Great Hall. He held out one gloved hand, caught a single flake-drop on the palm of his gray gloves, and drew it back into the dry island of the umbrella. "Slush," he admitted, his voice turning the repetition of one word into an entire conversation. A mocking, cruel conversation.
"Well," Draco went on, somewhat softer, "you'll never hear people singing 'Let it slush, let it slush, let it slush.'" He looked up, and Ron suddenly, like lightning striking, remembered that Draco had lost, as well. Lost Snape. And Draco was only just as old as Ron, just as naïve to the obscure workings of the heart. Was perhaps, as broken as Ron felt. "You know," Draco was still talking, "nobody ever dreams of a wet and somewhat mushy Christmas." His smile was almost conspiratory.
"Where are your lackeys?" Ron snapped, and broke off before the rest of the insult could come to his lips. Draco looked away. Victims to chance and circumstance, victims of the war that had claimed Ron's Harry. Not Harry Potter, not this new Harry that was Snape's, but Ron's Harry. Just-Harry. And Crabbe and Goyle, and too many others. Crabbe and Goyle, down for the count, a long, long count of eternity. "Sorry."
"No need, Weasley." Silver eyes met his for an instant, looked away again. Draco looked uncomfortable. "You going to put that on?" A gray-gloved hand gestured delicately at the scarf, trodden by the downpour, on the ground.
Ron snorted at the absurdity of the idea, picking up the wet article. It was absolutely, completely, utterly soaked through. Water dripped over his hands as he held it. "Right." He tugged his wand out of his damp sleeve and preformed a quick drying spell. Just long enough to wrap it around his neck, smell that it was Hermione's, before the water dampened scent and scarf. Ron smiled vaguely, knowing that the smile would never have fooled Harry. Probably never fool anyone with half a brain.
"Weasley," Draco snorted, looking half amused, half horrified. He stepped closer, reaching for the scarf, bringing Ron under the umbrella's dry island. Well, that worked, too.
Ron blinked, not really missing the feel of rain-snow-sleet pressing on his skull. It was bizarre, just bizarre, to be under Draco Malfoy's umbrella. So what if the boy had been on their side in the war, he was still…well, Slytheren.
Not that that had stopped Harry.
Draco blinked back, his face a play of unreadable expression. Anger? No, it wasn't that sharp. Confusion? No, that was just Ron's interpretation. The redhead blinked as the gray gloved hand touched the scarf, gently. "Um."
Draco cleared his throat, drawing back, looking faintly amused. He pulled out a slim, ash wand, and before Ron could muster the energy to get wary or defensive, preformed the same drying spell—over all of Ronald Weasley.
Dry and somewhat warmer, safe from the sleet downpour, Ron felt all the more vulnerable. The Wizard's Bonds that hung between the survivors were thick and hot, but for some reason, owing his dry-ness was…more intimate. More immediate.
"Thanks." Ron ground the word out, trying not to hate the circumstances that made it necessary.
"Of course, Weasley." The sarcasm dissipated the compulsion, translated the sudden sensitivity back into their normal enmity. "Wouldn't want your friends to get worried."
Friends, without emphasis. Offhand. As if Draco Malfoy, who saw everything and used everything to his own advantage, couldn't see the look in Hermione's eyes or the way that Harry forgot Ron's existence as soon as the redhead stopped talking. Ron turned away, a swivel that kept him under the umbrella's confines, kept him dry and owing it to Draco Malfoy.
"Of course not." Ron fingered the edge of his robe. He'd turned his back on Draco Malfoy…while under the man's umbrella. The silver-haired Slytheren had every right to step away, leave Ron to the mercy of the sleet and the cold and the blackness of nighttime despair. But the umbrella was still there, over his head.
"Fuck Harry Potter anyway."
The face, the name, the legend. The bizarre alter-ego that had always covered up Harry, just-Harry, so thoroughly that sometimes Ron lost track of which was who. Sure, Harry, just-Harry, defeated evil over and over. So did the legend. But that was all the legend did. Defeat evil. Just-Harry, Ron's Harry had slept and eaten, been grumpy and caustic, laughed and been happy. Snape's Harry. Fuck you, Harry Potter.
"what?"
Ron turned back again, and the force of Draco's shock was like a slap. It was a physical affront that nearly made him step out of the umbrella to get back, get away from the other man's pain. To relieve the burden of comfort, of condolence. But it was sleeting, slushing, all things wet and dark and cold, and the umbrella was dry. Ron stood his ground.
Draco had believed in their friendship—Ron and Harry's. Something beyond his obscure master-lackey relationship with Crabbe and Goyle. A give and take relationship, friendship. Ron almost wanted to laugh. Another one suckered into an impossible legend, but this time it wasn't the Harry Potter legend—it was the Ron and Harry legend, that knew no sleep or fluctuation, that knew only laughter and happiness. The Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter legend. Goddamn it, Harry. Ron felt the dampened laugh chipping at him, hysterical and pained. What am I, without you?
"Not that way," Ron found himself saying. He looked away, looked comfortingly at a spot just over Draco's shoulder. The doors, etched and detailed. "It's just that…" He'd been abandoned, and it ached to even think about it in Draco's presence. To admit, even to himself, something that would be fodder for more abuse. "Never mind, Malfoy. Never mind."
A gloved hand touched the edge of his arm, and Ron looked back, surprised. Grey eyes were clouded, but the idea was simple. Something he'd never have expected from Draco Malfoy, of all people. True, the boy had known much pain. But to show it to one's worst enemy…
"Don't you dare," Ron hissed, pulling his arm away. "Don't you dare fucking pity me, Draco."
"Draco?" The eyebrow was up in a flash, the facade of sleek enmity back, the hate. "We on a first name basis, now, Weasley? Or should I say…Ron?"
Ron turned away, contemplated running, walking. 'I'm going for a walk,' he'd said. Felt like hours ago. The dry under the umbrella pinned him in like a physical cage. He was liking being dry, the heat of anger better than the chill of despair.
"I thought you were going for a walk, Ron," Draco sniped, word mirroring Ron's thoughts. "Lost your way?"
Ron rolled his eyes. The absurdity of the situation. The entirety of the situation. Enmity, perhaps, was more than failed friendship. Yeah, I've lost my way. Somewhere, somewhere. Ron stepped away, toward the sleet and the darkness, toward the slush and the damp.
The dryness stayed with him, the umbrella stayed over his head. Ron looked back, surprised, and found Draco at his shoulder, looking out over the damp and glistening night.
"I was thinking of taking a walk, myself, Weasley." Draco's tone was warning. Don't fuck this up, Weasley. The umbrella was slim holding power, especially when it was Draco's. When the silver-haired man could, at any time, walk back into the warmth. Back to the silent pain of watching Snape and Harry inch ever so closer together.
"Don't worry, Draco," Ron said, his tone sarcastically sweet. "I know the way."
Silver eyes met blue, surprised at the insinuation. Ron sneered, a passable imitation of something he'd picked up in Potions. Draco's eyes widened, narrowed, and he turned back to the night. "I see," he whispered. "Well then, Ron. Lead the way."