Grief and Away

Just a little thing from a writing exercise, inspired by the movie. Any canon errors are entirely my fault, it's been forever since I read the books and I don't particularly care for the movies. Obligatory disclaimer. Should there be jarring issues, especially factual problems, please, please let me know. Read and review, if you will.

Ron landed roughly against the ground, almost immediately falling to his knees, even before everything stopped spinning. He heaved a juddering breath, cold snaking through his veins.

An appropriate metaphor, he thought. Considering Harry's ability to talk to snakes, the basilisk second year and Vold— He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—he had a snake. Snakes were evil; Harry wasn't evil, but he sure as hell wasn't—

Ron staggered to his feet, completely unfocused on his surroundings.

How could he? Harry knew... Harry knew everything, everything, including about how much Hermione meant to him. Somehow. Somehow he didn't blame her. After all Harry was a much better catch than he was. Ron knew that intellectually, though he tried to distract himself when he thought of it. Telling himself that if Hermione was choosing him it wasn't out of pity.

But Harry encouraged her. He reached out and—and—

And he comforted her, because they were in a middle of the war. Hermione reached out because she loved Harry. She'd always loved Harry and never the way she loved Ron.

Ron swallowed convulsively. He realized he stood in the field outside his house. His jeans were soaked up to the knees, with the dew or rain from the night before. God, what had he done? Suddenly nothing made sense. What had he been saying? And yeah, he remembered Harry retaliating, but isn't that always what happened? They fought all the time—but not like that.

If it hadn't been now, with everyone dying and Harry feeling like he owned it all, as if he could have stopped it before, as if he hadn't tried.

But Ron wasn't supposed to be the one who kept piling it on. Ron had been his friend before. Friends didn't say things like that. Wasn't it Hermione who told them to share the responsibility of wearing the locket, keeping it safe? How could Ron help from here, when he left like that? Now it would be just the two of them, and what would it do to them. Harry was already so tense without it; Hermione said that he had fallen to its influence so quickly it was the only reason she suspected anything at all.

Ron saw the door to the house opening. The sliver of yellow light from the door, gradually opening, threw the shadow of someone so tall onto the trail up to the front door…

Ron dropped to the ground, suddenly convinced he couldn't even let his family let see him.

He couldn't even remember how he'd chosen to come here. What, even subconsciously, made him think it would be okay to endanger his family? What sort of person was he? He had the locket, however evil, and he'd barely managed to stand it for a few hours or days...it was weird, but he couldn't even remember. Everything was blurry and red-tinged and black and white.

The door closed, almost to his anger. What could they be thinking, not even investigating what was out here? They shouldn't trust 'nothing' ever.

All he did was endanger the people he cared about. Ron apparated.

...

Ron wondered, through the haze in his thoughts, what Harry and Hermione were doing. As always, his imagination conjured them both dead, dying, injured. Because he'd left and they didn't have the extra pair of eyes, however useless they were.

He remembered when he managed to apparate back to where they'd been. He'd found Hermione's scarf tied to the tree.

Ron had untied it from the tree, roughly, his hands shaking. Maybe there was a clue. Of course there hadn't been. Hermione had never been careless, and would never have endangered Harry's quest like that. And he'd apparated as often as he could around the countryside, usually having to spend at least overnight just to recover from the strain and getting farther and farther behind. For awhile, he'd even tried to figure out the clues on his own. But he didn't have anything left.

Now he was trapped from his last trip, where he hadn't found a single clue and hadn't talked to anyone for days. He didn't even have access to a radio.

A sudden snap nearby had his head coming up from the pillow, and automatically threw his body to the side—just in time.

He heard a voice swear from behind the light of the spell thrown at his bedroll and the clang of its passing. He through a curse in that direction, just as he felt at least two more coming up from behind. Ron managed to avoid the spells, but had to run straight into the first attacker. Snatchers, he thought. Must be. They're the only ones who bother to try for capture.

Fortunately, his hasty stun had well-stunned the snatcher, and as Ron bowled over him, he had just enough foresight to grab his wand—at least that was one less to worry about.

Despite his exhaustion, Ron managed another apparition. Who cared if he spliced himself this time? Not like there was anyone depending on him now.