Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Top of the morning to you all. Hope you're all doing well…for all you students, the end is in sight! What a great feeling =) So I've had an idea of this sort for the past like 2 weeks but I haven't been able to write anything until last night and when this came out, I was pretty pleased. I hope you enjoy another one of my cute, fluffy friendship 'flu-fics', this time starring Ron Weasley!
It had been raining for exactly 4 days, 3 hours and 52 minutes straight. How did Harry, Ron and Hermione know this? Well, when you're on the run and confined to the small space of a tent, you run out of things to do pretty quickly. One night they had even been so bored that they put the rising figure into seconds (it had been something like 187 000 seconds at the time).
Days and nights blended together, although time seemed to crawl by. Not much was spoken about besides the next step to their plan, the next destination. The locket/horcrux was passed from person to person. On average, it was downright depressing.
Tuesday morning dawned grey and misting. Harry found Hermione looking out the front flap of the tent, starring out at the endless grey.
"At least the rain's let up." Harry said encouragingly.
"I suppose."
Hermione turned and left Harry at the tent flap. She sat near the fire and held out her hands.
"We should move today."
Harry joined her. Ron was still sleeping and it was his turn with the horcrux, so that suited Harry and Hermione just fine.
"Where to this time?"
"I don't know. Got any place you want to visit?"
A small smile crept across her lips and Harry burst out laughing. It wasn't that funny but somehow, the laughter was contagious and soon Hermione was laughing so hard she had tears streaming down her face. Their laughter woke Ron, who sat up and glared at them from his bunk. He did not appreciate being woken up.
"What's so funny?"
Harry managed to gasp enough of a breath to say, "Nothing. Sorry for waking you." before another fit of laughter came over him. Ron glared at them for a few more seconds and then rolled over grumpily.
"Can't even get a bit of peace and quiet, the stupid gits."
Hermione and Harry finally got control of their laughter and Hermione sighed happily. It had felt so good to laugh…if only Ron had joined in.
"Seriously, though. Where should we go?" Hermione asked, still trying to catch her breath. Harry shrugged.
"Preferably somewhere it's not raining."
"I second that!" Ron called from his bed.
"How about Dover? I've always wanted to see the white cliffs."
"Sounds good to me."
"So do you want to get Ron up or should I?" Hermione had lowered her voice and leaned closer to Harry.
"I'll do it. You start getting everything ready."
Hermione was relieved that Harry was going to get Ron and endure his wrath and she got up and began sorting through her beaded bag.
"Ron." Harry approached the bed. "Ron, get up. I know you're awake."
Ron rolled over and glared at Harry again.
"We're moving."
"Again? I don't get why we're doing all of this. We have protective charms, don't we?"
Harry ignored Ron's protests and threw him a sweatshirt.
"It's cold out. Come on, I bet Hermione's just about ready to pack the tent."
Harry walked away from the bunk and left Ron glowering at his retreating form. Rolling his eyes, Ron pulled on the sweatshirt and got out of bed. He joined Harry and Hermione outside the tent and watched silently as Hermione collapsed the tent and stowed it in the bag. They joined arms and spun away into the darkness.
-HARRY POTTER-
When they appeared on a grassy hilltop, the first thing Ron did was complain.
"It's raining here too! Honestly Hermione, you couldn't have brought us somewhere dry?"
Ignoring Ron's outburst, Hermione walked in a circle, chanting the spells off one by one. Harry saw her eyes were brimming with tears as she did so and he turned to Ron.
"Lay off, okay? Just because you're wearing that thing, doesn't give you the right to hurt everyone's feelings. Hermione has no control over the weather."
"And I bet you have no control over anything else that's going wrong, do you?"
Harry stepped back as if he had been slapped in the face. He set his jaw firm.
"It's my turn to wear the horcrux."
Ron took off the chain and dropped the locket into his Harry's outstretched hand.
Harry put the necklace on and tucked it under his sweatshirt, immediately feeling like a weight had been put on his shoulders. Not wanting to speak with Ron, Harry found the tent and with a wave of his wand put it up.
"Home sweet home." Ron muttered, retreating inside and out of the rain, which was falling harder. Dumping his sweatshirt back on the ground, Ron flopped on his bed.
"What are we going to do today?" he asked, starring at the patterns that the rain was leaving on the canvas. Harry and Hermione stood in the doorway and looked at each other.
"We could talk about our next step again."
"We could. But we'd just end where we started. No where."
Obviously, the effects of the horcrux had not worn off Ron just yet.
"Are you hungry, Ron?" Hermione tried to coax the process along.
"I'm always hungry."
"We have a few fish that Harry caught yesterday."
Hermione hurried off to cook the fish and Harry sat down by the fire. He and Ron starred at each other.
"What?" Ron asked after a few minutes.
"Nothing."
An awkward and tense silence filled the tent and sounds of Hermione cooking could be heard. A few moments later, she had set the table with three small helpings of fish.
"Lunch." she said cheerfully, trying to improve the ambiance. Harry and Ron sat on the same side of the table but Hermione noticed the nicely spaced gap they left between themselves. Harry and Hermione picked at their fish but Ron practically swallowed his whole.
"How are you not hungry?" Ron demanded, seeing the mostly untouched fish.
Harry shrugged.
"I'm used to it."
Ron looked at Hermione.
"I lose my appetite when I get yelled at."
Ron hung his face in shame.
"About that…" his voice trailed off for a minute. "Hermione, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean what I said to you. Same to you, Harry."
Ron raised his head and looked Hermione in the eyes and then Harry.
"I don't know why I say those things. It's the bloody horcrux. It takes hold of me and it doesn't let go. It controls me."
"It's okay, Ron." Hermione said quietly. "Nobody likes wearing it."
"But," Harry looked Ron stern in the eye. "You do need to learn to not let it get the better of you."
"I'll work on it, mate. I promise."
"Alright then. Moving on." Harry's voice clearly said the conversation was over.
"You want this?" Harry asked, pushing his plate towards Ron. Ron protested that he couldn't take Harry's meal but Harry insisted and Ron had soon polished off Harry's plate. Hermione had finished off her fish quickly as soon as Ron had apologized. It wasn't long before the table was clear of all specs of food and the dishes had been washed.
"So what now?" Ron asked. "Want to play cards?"
"Sure."
"Hermione?"
"No thanks. I think I'm going to take a nap. Your snoring kept me up last night, Ron."
Hermione left the table and retreated to her bed. Crawling under the blanket, she let her eyes drift in and out of focus and the soft pattering of rain on canvas dulled her to sleep.
Ron and Harry played cards for over two hours. They had just finished their ninth game when they decided it was time to end the marathon for now. They went and sat near the fire and Harry let his eyes be entranced by the dancing flames. He only broke out of his dazed state when Ron's chair shoved back and Ron made a dash outside.
"Ron?" Harry ran after his friend. Within a minute, he was soaked to the bone and he walked around the tent to find Ron on his knees with a pool of vomit in front of him.
"Are you okay?"
Ron's response was to kneel over again. Harry ran into the tent and shook Hermione's shoulder.
"Hermione! Wake up!"
"What? What's wrong?" Hermione shot up with her wand poised and ready. She saw Harry's panicked face.
"Harry, what's wrong? Why are you wet?"
"It's Ron. Quick!"
Harry grabbed Hermione's hand and pulled her outside into the rain and around the tent. Hermione's eyes grew large at the sight of Ron and she immediately dropped to her knees next to him.
"Ron, what's wrong?"
"Don't know." Ron murmured. "Started feeling sick and all of a sudden - "
Ron threw up again. Hermione turned to look at Harry, who looked panicked.
"Come on. We need to get him inside."
Harry waited until Ron was through before going to his other side and together, he and Hermione pulled him to his feet and slowly led him into the tent. They sat him on the chair by the fire. Harry found a towel and Hermione summoned a basin from the kitchen, which she placed in Ron's hands.
"What's wrong with him?" Harry asked quietly.
"I don't know. Where's my bag?"
"Accio bag."
The bag flew into Harry's hands and he handed it to Hermione, who began pawing through it while Ron was sick again. She snapped the bag closed in frustration.
"Why didn't I think to pack things for potions?" she demanded of herself.
"Well, we didn't exactly have advanced warning of departure." Harry reminded her.
"Yes, but why did I think to even consider that one of us might get sick out here? Potion ingredients should've been one of the first things in!"
Harry stepped in front of Hermione.
"You can't blame yourself. It won't do anyone any good, Ron especially. We need to figure out what we can do to help him with what we have. Okay?"
Hermione nodded; Harry's reality check had calmed her down and she pulled up a chair next to Ron.
"Okay, Ron. You need to tell me exactly what's wrong if we're going to figure this out."
Ron drew in a shaky breath.
"I started feeling sick about an hour ago. We were playing cards."
Ron looked up at Harry, who nodded.
"My stomach started feeling really tight and well, you know what happened."
"Does anything else hurt, besides your stomach?"
"My head."
"Anything else?"
Ron shook his head miserably. Hermione laid her hand on Ron's cheek.
"He's burning up." she murmured to Harry. "He should be in bed."
"I'll help Ron; you go see if you can find anything that'll help him."
Hermione nodded and stood up. While Harry helped Ron into dry clothes and bed, Hermione emptied everything from her beaded bag and began looking at each item before tossing it back in. Harry came in a few moments later to see the huge pile of stuff on the table.
"No wonder that bag sounded so heavy." he said, picking up what appeared to be a brick and studying it.
"What were we going to use this for?"
Hermione glanced up from the book she was paging through.
"Oh, don't you remember McGonagall telling us that a brick is one of the best things to transform into hand tools?"
Harry didn't remember and put the brick down.
"What's Ron doing?"
"Trying to fall asleep. How can I help?"
Hermione put her book down and buried her head in her hands and to Harry's surprise, she burst out crying.
"I…I dunno…what to do…" she sobbed.
Harry sat next to her and put her arm around her shoulder, rubbing her arm soothingly.
"It's okay, Hermione. We'll figure something out."
These words did little to comfort Hermione and she cried until she was exhausted. Harry took control and stood up, the pile of junk on the table almost as tall as him.
"The first step in helping Ron is figuring out why this happened, right?"
Hermione nodded and rubbed her eyes.
"Okay, let's go through all the books we have here and write down anything we can find about anything that sounds like Ron's got."
Hermione, glad that Harry was keeping his head, nodded and accepted the book he handed her. Together they hunkered down and began reading.
I know, 'tis rather fluffy but hey, I like it. Do you?
