Chapter 1: Castles of Sand
Ron was sitting on the littered beach of an unknown river in a crowded and quaint little town. His left leg was folded in front of him while he rested his chin on the knee of his right leg. A small boy with the most startling clear green eyes and the messiest black hair that Ron had ever seen, was sitting in front of him. The boy's dirty, uncombed hair stuck out in all directions from under an equally dirty, backwards worn cap.
Both, Ron and the boy, were busy heaping some more sand on Ron's right foot, already buried under a small hill of sand.
"Well, how much time more do we keep up with this?" Ron asked the boy, patting the sand to set it down.
"It's supposed to set in, you know," the boy gave the same answer for the nth time. "The sand should fill in all the small spaces in between. It should be absolutely compact so that when you remove your foot, it does not get any space to move and fall."
Ron flicked a glance at the boy, whom the Professor had introduced as Harry Potter. Ron would have flatly refused to believe it, but for the famous lightning bolt-shaped scar on the boy's forehead.
The-Boy-Who-Lived was supposed to be strong and big and a hero dressed in fancy, sparkling new red and gold robes with lots of elves and people all around him, bending to all his whims and fancies. He was supposed to have flying ponies and flying carpets and the best and the latest of brooms in the market and lots of chocolates and jokes and magical toys.
This boy, although the same age as Ron, was smaller than Ginny and his big, round, black-rimmed glasses made his face look even smaller. He wore t-shirts and shorts and a cap that was always askew and his clothes could not be dirtier if he had rolled in the mud. Well, to be fair, they were always spic and span when he wore them in the morning but would get dirty quicker than even the twins' clothes got dirty. He lived alone with the Professor with not even a ghoul in the attic or gnomes in the garden for company, and Ron had yet to see any elf, though Harry had told him that Nifsy came in every day in the morning to help in the garden and Dilly came once every week to help with cleaning the house. There were no flying carpets or ponies, or for that matter, even a flying broom that Ron had seen in the house.
"I think you can remove your foot now," Harry whispered to Ron. "Slowly. You must not let the sand know that you are going to pull your foot out."
Ron looked at Harry as if he had gone mad. "Sand can't hear you, Harry."
"How do you know? May be, it can."
"No, it can't!" Ron insisted. To prove his point, Ron announced loudly and clearly, "I am now about to take my foot out of the heap of sand."
He started to pull out his foot slowly, oh-so-carefully, holding his breath. Harry held his breath as well. Ron's foot was now 3 quarters in the clear. Ron stopped for a brief moment to shift his position and then, once again, began to pull it out, holding his breath all the time.
Finally, after another minute, it was out completely.
"We did it!" Harry exulted jumping up and throwing his arms up in victory.
Ron beamed.
There was a small hollow under the heaped sand now, where Ron's foot had been. The structure looked like a small over bridge.
"We can dig in a canal under it and fill it with water, you know," Ron said.
"Like a moat around a castle?" Harry asked, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
"Yeah, that would be cool, wouldn't it?"
"Alright, let's do it," Harry replied, slumping back down on the sand. Both the boys took positions on either side of the bridge and started digging a narrow canal to pass under the bridge.
Ron put his right foot's toe under the bridge carefully and tried to scrounge some sand out.
"Ssss..," Ron hissed, freezing when his foot hit a side of the bridge. Harry froze as well, breath held in. When the bridge did not fall down, both the boys looked at each other and let out a breath slowly.
"I think you should do it with your hand," Harry advised gravely, once again in a whisper.
Ron held his right leg with both his hands and carefully, dragged out his toe, taking care not to hit the sand-bridge again. When his foot was safely out, he looked up at Harry and grinned.
Harry grinned back and both the boys went back to work, digging a canal from under the bridge.
Ron put in his right hand next and tried to dig using his fingers but his knuckles kept hitting the bridge and some sand would fall off.
"Let me do it before you knock the entire structure down," Harry spoke up suddenly.
"No, I can do it," Ron replied. This was important work and he was the one who had had his foot under all that itchy sand for the bridge. Well, plain and simple, he wanted to do it.
"You keep hitting the bridge," Harry argued.
"No, I don't. The sand keeps falling down on its own. It has to. It's not going to remain stuck there forever, hanging from the belly of the bridge."
"Belly of the bridge?"
"Well, yeah. Doesn't it look like the bridge was kneeling down on the ground?"
"And when the bridge is drawn up, it actually stands back up?" .
Ron looked up at Harry and both the boys smiled.
"Exactly."
"If you don't let me do it though, the bridge would soon have collapsed flat on its belly, tired of waiting for us to complete our castle."
"Why don't you complete the rest of the canal? Dig a circle and start with the castle placed in the centre?" Ron suggested instead.
Harry did not like the boy's obstinacy but decided to concede for now.
"Ok."
Ron set back on digging his canal with a satisfied smile. Harry, in the meantime, started with the castle. He brought in handfuls of sand, cupped in his palms and dumped it behind the bridge. Once he had had a good amount of sand dumped, he started to shape the heap into a hollow cylindrical shape.
"Your castle is going to be smaller than my bridge with so little sand."
"No, it won't. I'll get more sand, and it's not your bridge. It's ours'."
"Well, it was made on my foot and I'm the one digging the canal under it."
"I am the one who had the idea in the first place. I am the one who taught you how to build it and anyway, what is your bridge going to protect without the castle? If the castle is mine, the bridge has to be mine," Harry pointed out, indignant.
"Maybe, I've won the bridge over so now you're under a siege in the castle," Ron replied.
"My castle has other ways to get out other than your stupid over bridge which can't even be drawn up. It's got tunnels and secret paths that come out on the other side of the river. So, we can get as much food, clothes, chocolates, milk and bombs to keep us going forever. Who needs the stupid bridge?" Harry could feel his anger simmering within him.
"My bridge is so much higher than your castle that we can bomb and destroy your castle just standing here on the bridge. What will you do with your tunnels then if there's no castle?"
"Your bridge is so weak that it's going to fall the moment someone stands on it. It's about to collapse any moment."
"No, it's not. It is strong and you're just upset because it's the only way out of your dumb castle and I own it. So, I own your castle as well."
"We would destroy the bridge before anyone could attack from the bridge. Let's see how strong it is." With that, Harry angrily swiped his hand at the sand bridge, which promptly collapsed.
"There goes your bridge. Not so strong after all," he taunted a shocked Ron.
"How dare you?" Ron screamed and pushing Harry to the ground, he destroyed the half made castle.
Harry got back up and gripped Ron's shirt to pull him forward and push his face into the sand but Ron had anticipated the move and ducking, pushed Harry sideway. Harry did not relinquish his hold on Ron's shirt and both the boys went down sideways, tumbling in the sand and throwing punches, kicks and sand at each other without restraint.
Ron did not have five older brothers for nothing. He had a far longer experience of such roughhousing than Harry, who mostly preferred defensive tactics to straight out attacking. Soon, Ron was sitting on top of Harry. He plucked off Harry's glasses and threw them away but seeing the brief opening, Harry covered Ron's face with his hand and scratched with all his might.
"Arghh!" Ron shrieked, "You scratched me."
Harry threw Ron off himself and shouted, "You hid by bose a-b-d th-ew abay by gladded!"
Ron stilled for a moment, recognising from the nasal tone that Harry's nose had some problem. It was bleeding a little.
"You nose is bleeding! You need to get home," he said, worried a little about the injury.
"Whad do you cade?" Harry replied hotly.
"I just don't want to get into any trouble for hurting the precious little boy-who-lived," Ron replied nastily.
Harry scowled and pushing Ron half-heartedly one final time, got up. He picked up his shoes and put them on. They prickled due to the sand stuck on his feet but he stalked off with them on his feet and his bleeding and broken nose up in the air.
Ron looked on at the boy's retreating shape silently and sullenly. He was going to get it when he returned to the house. Why should he return anyway? Who the hell was Snape? He just wanted to go back home. His eyes teared up as he looked forlornly into the wilderness on the other side of the river.
By the time Harry had reached home, his entire face was scrunched up in an attempt to not scrunch it up and cause more pain. He had covered his face by his one hand. Once he had been clear of Ron's line of sight, he had taken off his shoes, picked them up in his other hand and taken off at full speed. Soon, he realized that it hurt more when running so he began to walk. But a couple of worried and stunned glances thrown at him on the short stretch of street to home had sent him running one again. He really did not want to stop and explain or be subjected to muggle methods right now. He just wanted his Uncle right now. He would right his nose in a jiffy. He was trying to come up with a good story that led up to the broken nose. His Uncle was not going to be happy but at least he would heal his nose and the pain would be gone.
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By the time Harry had reached home, Ron had fallen deep into depression over the state of affairs that he was in.
Earlier last week, his twin brothers had got hold of some muggle gunpowder and mixed it with some floo powder and gnome bogies (or so they claimed) to get an extremely explosive mixture. They had waited till the Burrow was empty when their mother had taken Ron and Ginny along for grocery shopping and then, had set the mixture off.
Ron and Ginny returned home with their Mum a couple of hours later, carrying several grocery bags in their hands, to find the entire Burrow disappeared. There was nothing there – no house, no yard, no back garden, not even any gnomes. Nothing but a big, fat empty space that looked very… empty… without the Burrow and smelled like floo powder.
Ginny giggled and asked Mum if she had forgotten her way home while Ron panicked that the quidditch poster and bat that his dad had got him just last Christmas were gone too.
Their mother, frantic with worry, immediately picked both of them up and took off to the Ministry to notify the aurors and their father of the problem. After that, she dropped off Ron and Ginny at Aunt Muriel's, where they remained for two whole days during which Ginny cried and cried, Aunt Muriel scolded and scolded and Terry, her equally crazy cat, almost scratched Ginny when she tried to pet her. Ron had somehow managed to push the cat away at the last instant, only to set Aunt Muriel off – cruelty on animals! He had just been protecting Ginny, who, instead of explaining it to Aunt Muriel, cried even louder.
His Dad returned on the third day and took both of them along with Aunt Muriel to 'Endeavour Research & Healing Centre'. Ron had never been to any hospital other than the St. Mungo's but realised very soon that this was not a regular hospital. It was extremely big and located on an island. Dad told them that the entire island was used for various research and healing facilities. They portkeyed to a building and were provided with a flying vehicle to take them to the Special Healers' section. The vehicle had nice seats from which you could dangle your legs into the air below.
"Look Dad! It's Burrow!" Ginny cried out.
There it was - a little skewed but Burrow nonetheless, complete with its garden and gnomes and the swings in the backyard and Dad's tools shed and Mum's pumpkin patch, looking lost amidst the urban buildings and carefully landscaped surroundings of the hospital.
"Yes, Princess. We have got it back."
"Back from where?" Ron had asked.
"Wherever your brothers had managed to squeeze it to."
"What do you mean? Fred and George had made the entire Burrow disappear?"
Their Dad sighed and said, "They behaved extremely foolish, mixing up potent powders that they had no knowledge about and then exploding the mixture. The expert researchers' team here was somehow able to get them back from the intra-space that they had reached and only because of your mother's timely action to report this to the aurors and the Department of Mysteries. The house is still reeling under some strange effects, as are your brothers. You will see them in a minute. Here we are."
Ron and Ginny had innumerable questions but an attendant came forward and guided them to a room, all the time telling their Dad about how the twins had got a little better.
"Oh Ginny, Ron! Are the two of you all right?" Mum spoke up the moment they entered the room.
Ginny rushed straight into her mother's arms to bawl her eyes out while Ron stared at the bed that their mother had been sitting besides. It had a life-size picture of Fred in it.
"I am so sorry, my dears, that I had to drop both of you off at Aunt Muriel's like that. I hope you behaved well." Mum continued, picking up Ginny and coming forward to hug Ron as well. "Well, you can see your brothers," Mum said, her eyes wet.
"Molly, Molly, you must not." Dad shushed her.
Lying on the other side of Mom, on another bed, was a life-size cutout picture of George. The picture George moved his arms and Ron jumped.
He came to understand later that their brothers had been squeezed, literally, in the space between the spaces, which was used to floo/apparate/portkey and in general, travel by magical means. They had been flattened, completely, just like Burrow. The house had progressed much better than Fred and George who seemed to have inhaled quite a lot of the powder.
Portions of their internal organs were still suspended in the space between the spaces. The experimenters were still getting them. They would have to remain at the facility until it was done. The scientists were using his parents' magic to find the left behind organs, hook them and reel them in. The twins were not 11 years old yet and their own magic was not strong enough to do it.
His Mother had to stay in the facility all the time and Ginny refused to leave Mum, shrieking like a banshee the moment anyone other than Mum tried to hold her. Finally, the Hospital Administration had agreed to let her stay since she was not 8 yet.
Bill, Charlie and Percy were off at Hogwarts. That left Ron. Dad arranged for Ron to stay with the head of the Research Centre, Professor Snape, for the summer since Uncle Bilius and Aunt Muriel were too old to take care of a 9-year old.
Ron hated it. Why could Ginny stay but not he? No. He had to be sent away to live in a big old house on the side of a dirty river in a stupid muggle town. He hated it.
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