Disclaimer – I don't own this world… or any other.
Warnings and notes – Harry/Ron pairing of course, which may also mean slash, or pre-slash at the very least. Mention of torture, abuse and general nastiness. For those that insist on fitting things into a cannon timeline this takes place on the train ride to London at the end of the boys fourth year, and events diverge rapidly from there.
A word about ages – I am assuming for the sake of this fic that the twins are already of age. They were in seventh year when Harry hit his fifth and had their apparation license already in the summer holidays, so I am going off the idea that they turned 17 at school and did the apparation training before they went home to the Burrow. That's my theory, and I need it for the story (so there…)
This was written for the person who asked. (Repeatedly… one could almost say badgered… almost)
The Invisible Boys
Curse Me Baby One More Time
Although he had felt the Cruciatus at the end of Voldemort's own wand, for some reason the pain that was currently ripping through his body was more than he had ever felt before. Had he been able to do more than scream and writhe, Harry probably would have reasoned that being under the Cruciatus cast by three separate and strong adults was the cause of his extreme discomfort. As it was, he spared no thought to his dignity, to bearing the pain silently and stoically. Living with the Dursley's had taught him that sometimes it was better to just give in and give voice to the pain. Sometimes hearing Harry's pain had been the only thing that had appeased his uncle enough to stop. Unfortunately in this case, it seemed to be spurring his tormentors on.
Harry's wand lay on the ground beside him, scant inches from his hand. The distance may as well have been a mile, for all the good it did him. Harry was rapidly losing control of his body, even thrashing from side to side to relieve the pain was becoming too difficult a task to complete. Nerve damage was setting in, and he didn't even have the solace of unconsciousness to flee to. Whoever had come up with the Cruciatus had been very careful to ensure that their victim didn't deny the pain by escaping into the realms of sleep. There was no rest for the victim of the pain curse save madness, and that alone was enough to justify its status as an Unforgivable Curse. Harry would have endured a thousand times worse pain though, to prevent what happened next.
A familiar well loved voice shouted in the distance and the pain decreased abruptly. Two of the casters had ceased acting upon Harry's feebly twitching body and had turned to meet the wrath of Arthur Weasley's youngest son. At the age of fifteen, Ron had almost as much experience duelling Dark Wizards as an apprentice Auror, something that he had gained at Harry's side. In his heart of hearts Harry wished it otherwise, though he was wise enough not to air such a sentiment. Ron was stalwart in his support of Harry, and had been ever since the shock of the first task had shown him a little of what it was like to be placed under impossible expectations. He no longer envied Harry's fame, and was even more supportive of Harry than ever.
Harry was no longer sure how they had become separated from each other, or where the rest of the students going home for the summer were, or even where the Hogwarts Express was for that matter. All he was sure of was that one moment they'd all been sitting quietly together, each trying to distract the other from their own morbid and worried thoughts, and the next the train was shuddering to a messy halt, while grey robed attackers, their faces hidden by bone white masks, stormed the train and began casting spells.
"Crabbe, Goyle! Leave him!" the annoyed aristocratic tones of Lucius Malfoy signalled an end to the pain spell, and Harry forced himself to move his hand, which weighed an inordinate amount, to grasp his forgotten wand, "Our Master will not be interested in a mere Weasley!"
Living with the Dursley's had taught Harry an awful lot about pain, and one of those lessons had been to move quickly whenever respite presented itself. Ignoring his very real wish to simply pass out and escape the pain, or at the very least stay still, thus giving ragged nerve endings time to recover, he lifted his wand slightly from the ground, listening intently to the battle that was taking place outside of his very limited field of vision. Ron was giving the adults a much harder duel than they'd thought, but Harry knew that it was only a matter of time before his friend was overcome by the grown men he was facing.
Harry forced himself to roll onto his side, grateful that Malfoy was easily distracted, and squinted blearily through his glasses at the scene before him. Crabbe and Goyle were tripping over their own robes – it looked as if Ron had got them with a version of the enlarging charm that mothers used on the clothes of their growing children – and one of them was also trying to fight off Ginny's dreaded bat bogey hex. As Harry watched Malfoy made an impatient noise and raised his own wand, beginning an incantation in time with his two companions. All three different spells converged on Ron and a small explosion buffeted the clearing that Harry was lying in.
Mr Crabbe, or Mr Goyle, Harry couldn't tell them apart, laughed nastily, and Harry stared with a sort of bleak horror at the small boy that had replaced his gangly best friend. The child, for that was what Ron had somehow been reduced to, was unconscious, and still wore the casual clothes and ratty summer robe that Ron had changed into once out of sight of the Hogsmede station.
"Kill him and be done with it," Malfoy ordered. The words lit a fuse in Harry. He could bear pain, deprivation and humiliation easily if it only affected him but there was no way that he was going to allow his friend to be killed while he stood by. He'd been too slow to save Cedric, but he'd vowed that would not happen again.
"No!" he screamed, and something exploded out of him. The world became a very noisy and bright place before dwindling abruptly to black.
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