First Harry/Ron story! Uwah! It's a lot different to anything I've written before, really, so I'm a bit nervous about it. I've had good feedback so far, though, so I figured it must be share-worthy. Let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: Oh come on. Harry Potter owns me, people.
[EDIT] So apparently when I posted this, my computer was all 'hell no' to the idea of dividers. I only just realised. My bad. All fixed.
.: Solidarity :.
Sometimes Harry's just had enough. Sometimes he doesn't care anymore. Sometimes he wants it all to stop, and to hell with the consequences. He kicks himself for it later, but he just can't help it.
'It's natural,' Hermione says. It's natural to feel overwhelmed. It's natural to feel like the world is waiting for him to save it - which it is, and that's the depressing thing. It's natural to want to give up and let someone else to it.
Dumbledore didn't give him an option. Dumbledore dumped it on him and just trusted - always trusted - him to get on with it. Dumbledore played cryptic games to intrigue him, keep him. He's sure of it. But there was never an option presented. Not really.
But Ron - Ron's different.
Ron sits, a silent presence beside him. The only tangible thing since they left the solidarity of Hogwarts, of the Burrow, of any sense of normality. The silence is comforting in a world that won't - stop - talking. Whispering. Hissing. Asking. Pressuring.
Ron's silence takes that away, and Harry doesn't know where he would be without it.
Sometimes, Harry wants to leave. He wants to leave all those questioning eyes behind. He wants to leave the expectations, probably more so than before. He wants to leave the people who think they know him. He wants to leave the sea of grieving.
'It's natural,' Hermione says. Soon they'll just accept what he did as historical fact and it will be ink on paper, raised letters on plaques. It's natural to want to run - 'It's a survival instinct, Harry.'
George says he understands. Says. Says a lot of things. Sometimes he wants to run, too, because all those pitying looks can get you down. The knowledge of someone - a part of you - not coming back can eat at you. Harry thinks of everyone who has left him and just feels bitter.
But Ron - Ron's different.
Ron tilts his head to the side, and grins. He plans. He asks. He offers. He throws around wild ideas and makes jokes - not all of them tasteful, but they're jokes all the same. He doesn't pretend, doesn't assume, doesn't say. He accepts him in a world that's trying to mould Harry into something he doesn't understand.
It's an acceptance that grounds him. That Harry finds himself relying on just as much as the solid silence.
Sometimes Harry is angry at them - at them all. Sometimes he wants to shout that it's not what they think. Sometimes he wants to throw them against the nearest solid surface and beat some sense into them, wants them to know that he's gone, so what are they fighting for? Sometimes he's too emotional, too involved, too confused - and he loses it all'.
It's natural,' Hermione says. That straggling followers are bound to crop up here and there. It's natural to want to make them see reason, to be angry like that. But the history books dictate it will all pass. And then it will repeat.
Molly hands him a plate filled to the edges and twice as far upwards, says that anger is another way of dealing with grief, and has he been getting enough sleep? Molly says that she knows it's tough - she lost a son - but that everyone will persevere in the end. Molly says that everything has its natural course, and it's just awful that Harry has to fight his way through at such a young age.
But Ron - Ron's different.
Ron will let his ears turn pink and conjure a bottle of firewhiskey to share. Ron will join him in levitating various object high into the air until they can barely be seen, then let them crash to the ground, satisfyingly shattered. Ron will listen - and interject with his own scathing comments - and rage. Rage, break, curse - until Harry can't help but smile at the ridiculous picture the two of them must make.
Harry thinks that maybe he's relying on Ron a little too much, but he can't bring himself to care.
Sometimes, Harry just feels lost. Sometimes he stares outside his window, and doesn't know where he is. Sometimes he sits in the dark, unable to find his own thoughts. Sometimes, he walks until he's made at least three turns in every possible direction and has no way of finding himself.
'It's natural,' Hermione says. He had a direction for his entire wizarding life, and now he chases fakes. Pretenders. Liars. Dreamers. 'You need a purpose, Harry'.
Professor McGonagall gives him options, offers, ideas. Hands him suggestion after suggestion that he doesn't want. He doesn't know what he wants. She purses her lips, unable to shake the teacher within as Harry answers back, but 'there's a difference between wanting direction and wanting to find or be found, Mr Potter'.
But Ron - Ron's different.
Ron stares at him long and hard, puts a hand on his arm and steers him outside. Ron pushes him down to the ground - raining, muddy, midnight, sweltering hot - and lies down beside him. He makes pictures from the clouds and tries to tie pieces of grass into knots. He squelches in the mud and wrinkles his nose. He puts a hand on his shoulder - strong, soft, comforting, real.
It's a reality, something to hold on to, that Harry needs more than anything else. And it should scare him, but it doesn't.
Sometimes, Harry wants to forget. Sometimes he closes his eyes and sees the faces he doesn't want to see. Sometimes he wakes and those faces are burned into his retinas - blank, staring, white, gone. Sometimes he just wants to forget what they looked like, wants to forget the ruler-straight rows, wants to forget the cold shells. He makes himself sick, but there isn't a distinct shift into the feeling.
'It's natural,' Hermione says. It's natural to want to put it behind him, to want to let everything go. It's natural to feel scared or resentful - either towards himself or the dead. It's natural to be torn.
Luna explodes another cauldron and says that forgetting isn't that hard. Her radish earrings swing against her cheeks as she turns to smile serenely at him, and says that saying goodbye is the hardest thing, but time forgets for us. Luna tells him to wait, and to focus. Focusing on those close to us, focusing on those most important to us now, smoothes the bumps in the road. Luna hands him a basket full of suspiciously noisy twigs, and assures him that dreams don't like them, and it will help.
But Ron - Ron's different.
Ron sits next to him in bed when Harry wakes up, sweating and cold and frantic. Ron puts a hand on Harry's shoulder and doesn't pity, doesn't force talk, doesn't ask. He doesn't flinch when Harry tells him what he wants - forget, forget, forget - and sets his jaw firm as he pushes Harry back into the mattress. His eyes, his hands, his intentions, are filled with the need to make Harry forget. Ron's lips, Ron's tongue - they don't question why he wants to forget, they know. The heat pushes away the cold, the sweat is not from fear, the frantically scrabbling hands reach skin, hair, sheets - no more empty air. The scream, the cry, the gasp is not from a nameless emptiness. Ron.
Harry can't even remember what he wanted to forget in the first place, but he knows what he wants to remember.
Sometimes, Harry wants to feel. Sometimes he's sick of the monotony of every day. Sometimes he's sick of fake. Sometimes he want to reassure himself that he's alive - that he breathes, thinks, bleeds, feels.
He doesn't give a damn about what's natural and what's not anymore, but he knows that it's something time won't - can't fix. Time has no place in its future, only in the development of its past. He doesn't care what advice people have. He doesn't care what anyone else has to offer. He doesn't want to be asked questions and expected to explain and understand and be sighed at and just told.
He wants to feel short, scruffy red hair falling into his eyes. He wants to feel strong, rough, confident hands on his body. He wants lips and tongue and teeth and proof. He wants to know that what he feels is real, that what he breathes is the same air as another, what he bleeds is his blood or Ron's and wants to revel in the fact that he doesn't care whose it is. He wants to know that what he thinks about, what he believes in and what he loves, will be here in the morning to make him feel all over again.
He wants, and for the first time in his life he isn't guilty.
.: END :.
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