Quidditch League FanFiction Competition Round 9, Beater 1
Prompt: After the Battle of Hogwarts, one of the three has a mental disorder.
Optional Prompts:
"...the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters." – Sirius Black
Dialogue: "Look, it doesn't matter – forget it, okay?"
"Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle." ― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
All rights are JK Rowling's and I will not be making any money from this fic or any of her characters.
1045 words in total without title stuff. Possibly the most depressing 1045 words I have ever written. Enjoy!
Ron was hopeless. Yes, Ron who laughed, Ron who comforted, was hopeless. Ron who fought, Ron who won, Ron who stayed strong and made mistakes but did the right thing. Ron who now saw no point in life, who saw only a tunnel with no end and no escape. Ron who did not believe he will make it through. Ron who kept quiet, who kept comforting, who said empty words to empty people in the knowledge that whatever he does, he cannot help them. Ron who hid himself from his friends and family. Just Ron. Just normal, old Ron.
When asked about it at St. Mungoe's, Ron was congratulated. Well done, they told him. Most people didn't escape the battle with such a strong mental attitude. You're one of the lucky ones. The lucky ones. He tended to disagree. There were no lucky ones. Every person was scarred in some way. His brother whose twin died, his friend who accepted his own death. Death. It came for everybody eventually, did it not? Even in the three brother's tale, death came. What was the point with waiting a whole, hopeless life until then? What was the point in living with a broken family, in a broken country and a broken world, giving all of himself into attempts to piece it back together when, in fact, he could not fix himself? He could not stand it.
He gave up. Every word, every sentence, it broke him further. Empty lives entwined in each other in empty love and he could not take it any more. The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters, Sirius said. Sirius probably meant a different thing than what Ron understood, but he knew, there were no good people. Just bad and less-bad ones. However well intending, he could do no good. He was just in an endless tunnel, reaching nowhere, making almost no impact. He was no good person. He didn't even help. Harry was the one who helped. Harry, possibly the last good person on Earth. Ron could never be half of what Harry was. He wasn't helping. He knew that.
He wasn't even good at the one thing he wanted, at hiding himself. At masking his fears. Even in that, he was bested, his attempts not strong enough to stand even the slightest prod from Hermione's part. She knew he was hiding, she knew he wasn't him. Was she her? He wasn't even good enough to check. What kind of a friend was he? Their conversations focused around him, his life, his dreams, in Hermione's efforts to unravel the disguise, but he would not let her see the shattered Ron he had become. He could not take her disappointment. Conversations with her continued, he fighting and she prodding gently:
"How was work?"
"Good. Not that questioning Malfoy for the thousandth time will do any help, though."
"What? Ron..."
"Look, it doesn't matter - forget it, okay?"
And she would leave it at that, because she was gentle and kind and kindled the spirit of every person who saw her just by smiling her big, hopeful smile. Everything Ron could never be, could never do. Maybe Harry wasn't the last good person. Hermione was right up there with him.
He talked to some people about it. He did. He tried, but the words were meaningless. He tried to explain, and they insisted, that just because he can explain something does not mean it's not still a miracle, but where was that miracle he was meant to hang on to found? Everywhere he looked, there was just him, his disappointments, his failures and his emptiness, meeting with others' emptiness to form one big emptiness which was their world now, lit by two good people who were his friends and supposedly his equals, but constantly proved themselves to be better, more worthy. He never helped, because he was in a tunnel and how could he help from a secluded tunnel, never ending and seeing the word from far, far away? There was no ending, no opening, no hope to lift him out, just the tunnel, sucking him in, walking him through an empty day to another empty day in the cycle of meaninglessness. Empty step to empty step to empty dialogue, to empty fears and empty hopes and empty lives.
He was sinking lower and lower. It was a down spiral, every day more hopeless than the last, every word harder and every encouragement more bitter. It wasn't getting better, not improving, his life still broken, but now it was broken alone, as others gathered the pieces of their broken lives and mended themselves, the crack slowly mending where those people used to be broken. All but him, his mind still in shatters, still doing no good and no help, masked behind a picture of the unbroken thing, hiding from everybody, behind a fake smile and fake words and fake excitement about an empty job and an empty life and an empty afternoon in the Quidditch pitch with people whose lives were as meaningless as his and who were filled only with false dreams and false hopes and did they not understand? Did they not see how empty it all was? That they couldn't do anything to help?
So here he was, at an empty room just right for his purpose, with a last effort that finally could do some good, even only to him, even just to lift him out of an empty tunnel and an endless cycle. Even if this was selfish, even if he was good, even if his life could have meant something, once. But it didn't any more. He couldn't take it any more. He wasn't helping anyway, so what would be the difference? The shatters of his life would be revealed, and they would be disappointed, but it would not matter any more because he would not be here and he would not have to stand through this.
Hermione held back a sob. Who could have known that Ron, strong Ron, Ron who cheered her up and made her smile and lit her every day, who could have known he would be so desperate to do something such as this? Who could have known, except for her...