Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own, anything associated with Harry Potter.
Warnings: Slash, violence, swearing (all pretty mild)
A/ns: No idea where this angsty little number came from, this was definitely not what I set out to do. Oh well, tell me what you think.
"'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life." –The Verve
The air seemed to sit on his shoulders, thick and heavy, weighing him down with a stifling, unbearable heat. He closed his eyes, leaning back in his padded desk chair and raising a hand to his forehead, pressing firmly, trying to alleviate the headache that pounded behind his temples.
If he could just get a decent night's sleep for once, then maybe he wouldn't have this constant pain. If only the weather would break. The muggy London summer was killing him. His t-shirt stuck to his back in seconds of leaving the apartment, his robes heavy and confining, his skin flushed and sweaty.
It was late. He knew that without looking at a clock. He was expected home. He was expected to leave. Any second now, Dawson would stick his head round the door and joke that his desk wasn't made for sleeping on.
Just five more minutes…
He opened his eyes, focussing on the report in front of him, ignoring the way the words blurred for a moment. Just five more minutes finishing off the paperwork. Then he would go home.
He heard the door open, and a resonant chuckle filled the room.
"You know they don't make those desks for us to sleep on, Weasley. Go home, get some rest. You look like you could use it."
Ron forced himself to turn around, the movement taking all the energy he possessed, and stared at Dawson, his expression carefully blank.
"I'm just finishing these reports," he said, relieved, as always, that his voice didn't shake when he spoke. "It'll only take five minutes."
Dawson smiled and nodded; Ron turned his back on the doubt and concern in his colleague's eyes.
He waited until the door was closed, then counted to twenty in his head. Only then did he allow his face to crumple, his head drooping towards the desk, the reports pushed carelessly aside.
It was the same routine every evening.
Ron had to admit, he was impressed by Dawson's tenacity. Everyone else had given up long ago, after receiving one cold look too many, one curt reply over the mark. It was almost as if Dawson was immune to his open hostility.
He would have to go home sometime. He couldn't live in his office.
Yet he worked late into the night, only giving up on his reports when the words were blurred so badly he could no longer read them, when the pounding in his head could no longer be ignored.
He sighed, reaching out to lower the lantern on his desk, and his eyes fell on the photograph he kept there, as they did every evening.
He both loved and hated that photograph.
Loved how happy he looked, the memories it evoked.
Hated that it was no longer anything like it was then.
That photograph had been taken in a better, now long gone, time, when his work friends didn't shun him, when he knew how to interact with them, when he wasn't cold and distant and so fucking tired.
Before.
He turned the lantern off and the image vanished, swallowed into darkness.
He thought he preferred it that way.
Ron always walked home.
He didn't like the muggle tube or buses, found them crowded and complicated, and had never been over keen on apparating. He avoided the floo, instead turning a five second journey into a twenty five minute walk. He liked the time alone.
When he reached the apartment, he felt a shadow cross his features, looking up at the fifth floor window, the one he'd gained permission to have cast iron bars attached to. Harder to jump out of that way, he reckoned.
It was a muggle building, and he waited tiredly for the lift, listening to it groaning as it travelled down to him, the door shuddering open. He squeezed himself inside, and pressed a button that had long ago stopped glowing.
The flat door wasn't locked. It was never locked these days. Ron tried, in vain, to impress the importance of safety, but his pleas, his reasoning, went unnoticed. Like most things he tried to say.
Harry was asleep on the sofa, an old Hogwarts blanket thrown haphazardly over him, almost as an after thought. One of his legs dangled off the edge. He still wore his glasses.
Ron smiled sadly, the lines on his face becoming more pronounced, and carefully bent over the still figure, removing the glasses and smoothing back the messy hair in a gentle gesture.
"It's been a pig of a day," he said softly. "Some idiot from accounting came to audit all our expenses without checking first, and set our paperwork back about three weeks. Shacklebolt was furious. I thought he was going to cast an unforgivable then and there. Dawson was nice again. He's the only one that bothers anymore."
He sat on the edge of the sofa, stroking Harry's hair.
"I was looking at that picture of us again, you know, the one at the Christmas party. It was a good night, wasn't it?" He laughed quietly. "I remember you got so pissed you tripped over the edge of the table cloth and brought half the desserts down. Everyone was taking the mick for weeks after."
He sighed, threading his fingers in the black strands, greasy because Harry hadn't bothered to shower again.
"Love you," he whispered.
Harry remained motionless, just as he always did.
Ron had long ago stopped expecting any reaction. There was a time, once, when Harry would have opened his eyes, his lovely green eyes, and whispered "Love you too.", but those day were past now. And Ron hadn't heard those words for a long time.
Ron was good at healing.
He had to do a basic course anyway, during his auror training, but he had gotten a lot better since. Nothing substantial, just hiding a bruise here or there, sometimes a cut. The worst ones were on his face. They were harder to cover up.
It wasn't Harry's fault. Ron knew this. Harry was disturbed. He was hurting. He just needed something to take it out on. Someone.
Ron had learned to duck.
He was fast, but not always fast enough. Once it had been a cast iron frying pan. It could have killed him, but Harry no longer ate anything much, so there wasn't any real strength behind it. Ron caught the edge of it with his face, and it dislocated his jaw.
Afterwards, Harry cried and Ron held him, and Ron knew that no matter how many times Harry said he was sorry, that it wouldn't happen again, it would.
And Ron would keep forgiving him.
He didn't wake Harry.
He went to their bedroom, to the bed they hadn't slept in together for months, and crawled under the covers, fully dressed, then lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.
He didn't dare sleep.
Sometimes Harry had nightmares. Sometimes he woke.
Ron was scared to sleep.
"This can't go on."
Ron held his breath, pressing himself back against the wall, shrinking from detection.
"He looks like he's about to fall asleep on his feet, sir. He stays late every night, yet doesn't actually seem to be getting anything done." Dawson lowered his voice slightly. "I don't think he's fit to be here, Kingsley."
Ron closed his eyes.
Please don't send me away.
He heard Shacklebolt sigh.
"Perhaps a bit of time off would be good for him. I think he's having troubles at home. He probably needs to be there right now."
Ron clenched his hand into a tight fist. He willed himself not to make a sound.
"I'll talk to him," said Shacklebolt.
It turned out he didn't need to be talked to.
He was suspended for two weeks anyway, after he punched Dawson in the jaw.
Ron ducked, and the glass shattered on the wall above his head, splinters tangling in his hair.
"It's your fault!" Harry screamed. "It's your fucking fault."
Ron closed his eyes, and tried not to feel the kick to his ribs.
Harry cried.
Ron held him.
"Everything will be alright," he said.
No it wouldn't.
It was at the end of the second week that they reached the edge.
Harry didn't mean to do it.
Ron was tired, irritated. Harry's presence was suffocating. He snapped.
"What the hell has happened to you? Who the fuck are you? Where's Harry?"
Harry didn't respond, pushing his uneaten food around his plate, eyes downcast.
"Are you fucking listening to me?"
Ron leaned over and grasped him hard by the shoulders, shaking him violently.
Harry screamed and plunged the bread knife into his chest.
Ron stared, blankly, at the knife buried in his shirt, the pain registering dimly, a trail of crimson blossoming from that steel point.
He looked at Harry, whose eyes, for the first time Ron could remember in months, were no longer cloudy, unreal. They were bright, afraid, vibrant. They were alive.
"Harry," he whispered, mouth stretching into a stiff, quivering smile.
Harry stared at him, eyes so, so green, and Ron could remember the good things, the days when those eyes were always so green.
"Harry," he whispered again, then blinked and slumped forward across the table, his own eyes open yet lifeless, the blood blotting his white shirt in a grotesque imitation of a child's painting.
And the silence was never ending.