Ron swallowed past the sudden lump at his throat, as he and Ginny instinctively clutched for each other.
"You – what?" Ginny stammered. "You can – what?"
Draco scoffed. "This isn't just about Harry-bloody-Potter."
"Yes, it is," Dobby said very, very solemnly.
Draco ignored him. "It's about all of us! We could –"
Ginny cut him off with a violent wave of her hand. She strode up to Dobby and knelt in front of him. "How, Dobby?" she demanded. "How could we get Harry back?"
Dobby twisted his own small hands together in joy and then clasped hers between his own. "Miss Geenie, Miss Hermione is coming up with very clever, very strong magics."
Ron swallowed past his daze and spoke, voice trembling: "the potion – it would bring Harry back to life?"
Draco shook his head. "The potion confers the ability to go back in time." He took a deep breath, though he was long past needing oxygen. "When I say your girl's clever like Einstein, Weasley, I mean just like him. She's used some of his equations in the Arithmancy, and used that to layer the runes. It's incredible."
Ron had left school when he was sixteen, before he ever had a chance to sit his NEWTs, and he hadn't just kept on studying like Hermione, even if he had learned a number of useful skills in the name of the War. Still, for Harry's sake, he would stand here puzzling all day, if he had to. "Explain what would happen if the potion were taken and all of the Arithmancy and runes and chants and all that worked the way Hermione intended."
Dobby squirmed happily and bounced on his toes. "It would take you back, sir! Back right to Harry Potter, sir! When he most needed you!"
Ron's lips parted in surprise, and he felt Ginny's fingernails digging deep gouges into his palms.
"W-would it?" she managed. "Would it really?"
Draco's eyes cleared of his fevered excitement when his gaze lit on the pair. "It certainly seems that way," he offered.
Ron stared at Ginny, feeling numb and dazed.
The Slytherin's uncharacteristic mercy seemed to hold. "I admit I can't be perfectly certain," he continued. "I'm not as clever as your Missus Snape, I don't mind telling you. If what I've read is correct, however… and my interpretation of it is also correct… then there may be a chance."
Ginny quietly detached herself from Ron's side and moved, dazed, to sink into one of the dusty classroom chairs, staring blankly at a nameless spot on the floor.
"That's more 'if's and 'may be's than I like," Ron finally managed.
"It's as much as I can give you," Draco said, still watching Ginny. After a moment, though, he straightened, glaring at Ron. "Or any of us. I know you Gryffindors tend to think in Pottercentric circles, but this could be more important than just having a friend back."
"He was my best friend, and Ginny's fiancé," Ron snapped, suddenly cut to the bone by the hope that Draco was presenting. "Of course he's the person we'd want to help. Not to mention that Dobby here first said that–"
"Dobby apologizes!" the tiny elf exclaimed. "Dobby will go shut his fingers in the ovens, sir, right away –!"
"Oh, no, Dobby, don't do that!" Ginny said, then dropped her head into her hands.
"Gin –"
Ginny winced, wiping at her eyes. "So – so the question is: how do we do this?"
"And who goes?" Draco tacked on.
"All of us go," Ginny stated promptly. "Neither of you can pull this 'girl stays behind' business on me," she warned. "Malfoy, you're too pureblooded to think my life is worth more than a knut with a hole in it, and Ron, you wouldn't last a day without me."
"But we might need someone here, to pull us back in case things go wrong," Ron pointed out.
Malfoy glanced sharply between the two Weasleys. "Fine, then – if you won't say it, Weasley, I will. There is no going back. There's nothing to come back to."
Ron paused just a beat too long, acutely aware of Ginny's eyes on them. "It can feel that way, on bad days," he said.
"Look, it wasn't a bad idea, setting up camp at Hogwarts," Malfoy grudgingly admitted, including Dobby with a jerk of his head. "The Castle's always had a reputation for catching strays. But the other few who've straggled in came here to hide, not to start another army. They're tired and they're sick of war. That's why they're avoiding you, Weasley – they keep expecting you to turn recruiter and they're too ashamed to tell you no." Malfoy's lips thinned. "It's a matter of time before their guilt turns to anger against you, your people, for not saving them. I hear whispers of it already."
Ginny's next breath was shaky with suppressed emotion. "Percy –"
"Are you really that slow, Weasley?" Draco demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Malfoy," Ron hissed.
"What are you planning on doing to me, then?" Draco inquired, not unkindly. He turned to Ginny. "Ronald here has been writing those letters himself, of course."
Ginny turned to Ron, lips parted and dead-white.
"He's lying, Gin," Ron said firmly, staring into her eyes, needing her to believe with every ounce of big brother left in him. "He's just being Malfoy – he wants us all to go for some reason, that's all, and doesn't want to tell us why -"
Ginny stood, gaze uncomfortably faraway. "I – I have to go," she said, and her eyes latched onto Ron's for one brief moment, the gaze almost apologetic. "…to the garden, I'm going to go sit in the garden." She slipped past Ron and ran.
"Dobby –" Ron began, but the elf anticipated him and took off to follow Ginny. Ron rounded on Draco, so furious he could barely speak. "You… you Death Eater scum –"
Draco stood and growled at him. "Grow a pair, Weasley, why don't you? She needed to know."
"Why?" Ron felt dismayed and despairing, which only made sense, but he hadn't expected to feel hurt, or betrayed. He supposed he'd confused Draco for Harry one time too many.
Draco stared him down. "You knew you were going to have to stop writing them at some point. You said so yourself."
Ron watched as Hyde slid once more into Jekyll, the friend who'd shortened the long hours between one sunrise and the next. "Right, but –"
"…and now she's angry with me instead of you. Besides, it got her out of the way."
Ron stared at Malfoy, agape. "What – why do you –?"
"Well, because someone – a human being – has to stay with Granger," Draco said, grey eyes clear and steady. "Maybe it is hopeless, maybe there isn't anything to come back to but I…" He shrugged, avoiding Ron's eyes. "I don't like the idea of her all alone, here. Rotting away with no one real to speak to, in that lab all the time… maybe I don't like abandoning anyone any more than I already have…"
Ron couldn't reply past the sudden lump in his throat.
"Besides," Draco went on, nodding towards the papers scattered about, "Snape's work is clear on one thing: a living being as the focus. Potter in this case. The more divergent the wizards doing the work, the more divergent the connections to the past, the less likely we'll be to end up where we want to go. That means the fewer people involved, the better. I'm a ghost so I don't count." He looked up at Ron again, his eyes flint-hard with determination.
Draco's words seemed to kick up a storm in Ron's gut, hope and fear churning there in equal measure. "We really are going to do this," he said.
"Yes," Draco replied, "and quickly. Ward the lab so no one can interrupt."
Ron stared.
"Now, Weasley!" Malfoy ordered, and there was an instant in which they stared at one another, terror and excitement pinging through Ron, before he nodded and cast the strongest wards he knew.
"Take that piece of chalk, by the board –"
Ron fumbled for the white cylinder and gulped.
"Now, start by drawing a large diamond – no, not on the board, you idiot, on the floor!"
Ron obeyed, not even wasting the time it would take for a glare. He knelt on the hard, potion-stained floor, knees smarting, and drew – and drew, as morning dragged into afternoon. Five diamond shapes that touched but did not intersect. A circle that touched them all without intersecting them. A rune shaped like an angled 'R' in the centre, one he vaguely recalled meant 'travel'; this was crossed with naubiz, an angled cross, drawn heavily atop it with four equal strokes. By the time an astrolabe had been employed, the rune jera sketched in thirteen places according to the position of the stars, Ron's natural scepticism had begun to re-emerge. "It can't be this easy," he protested when they'd finished the runes, resting back on his haunches and eyeing Draco. "Everybody would've tried it. To ask out that girl who got away – to save their favourite bloody dog, for Merlin's sake."
"Don't be ridiculous," Draco scoffed. "Quantum physics and Arithmancy aren't exactly common cross-disciplines." He frowned at one of the symbols scratched into the floor. "Uruz should be more slanted. You've an awful hand at this. Now: draw the curve according to the equations."
Ron had to push the lab tables back against the wall in order to make room for the expanding graphical pattern; and, when that failed, they too were covered with the chalk-runes, which now glimmered faintly as the rest of the room dimmed, as though they were drawing the light, gathering strength as Ron scratched until his eyes grew bright and his fingers ached, until the chalk was a stub and then gone again and again and again. The runes grew to cover the walls, then, symbols and formulae climbing them like ivy. And at last Ron stood in the centre and brewed a deceptively simple potion.
The flame was low as Ron's hands deftly sliced withania root into two-millimetre rounds, sinking them into the brew at one, three, five seconds. When the last slipped beneath the gently roiling surface, he waited, breathless, for it to turn red-gold.
"Ron –"
Ron looked up to see Draco Malfoy staring at him, an odd expression painted across his translucent features. "What is it? Did I do something wrong?"
"I want you to understand I'm doing this for the right reasons," Draco said earnestly.
"I know you are," Ron said; and he believed it. "You're an arse, Malfoy, but…"
Draco frowned in determination. His silvery ghost leaned towards the redhead, and for one, cold moment, Ron was certain Malfoy was attempting to kiss him.
Then, the ghost was touching him, sinking into him; and it was as though Ron had been drenched in the Lake in the heart of winter, or that was the closest that Ron could come to understanding the feeling that suddenly came over him. The small hairs on his arms stood up and he shook uncontrollably.
And then Malfoy was with him.
Draco?
A raw burst of apology, certainty, smugness and accomplishment assaulted Ron. Sorry, Weasley. But I can't trust you not to fumble this chance. Our one chance.
Ron watched as his own arm reached for the cup of potion completely without his consent, lifted it to his lips – caused the potion to slosh a bit out as he missed – and finally, as it raised the goblet to his lips and tipped the contents down his gullet in one, long draught.
Malfoy – what are you doing?
I've got to. A watery stream of reluctance and regret. The things I've done…
Ron couldn't allow this: it was unconscionable, that Malfoy could have brought the idea of Harry back to him, only to withdraw it… but the runes were glowing with power, the arithmancy lighting up under his feet, and control of his own body had tipped out of reach.
"I have to," Malfoy said suddenly, as though he were able to hear Ron's every thought – and if that wasn't the creepiest part of the whole business, Draco Malfoy using his voice to comment on a sentiment he'd seen in Ron's mind… There was a small pause as Draco pushed down Ron's fumbling, desperate attempts to regain control, his mental touch firm and incontrovertible as the runes lit gold and silver around them, their power spiralling outwards from the centre of the room. "You would have meant well, Weasley, but you wouldn't have gotten the job done. Pottercentric, remember? You'd have saved him and let the rest of the world rot…"
Control was now so far gone as to be a distant memory. Thinking horrible thoughts about Malfoy was his only recourse.
Draco's mental touch on his own turned discomfitingly soothing. "But me… I'll fix it all. You'll see."
Ron gathered his power into a ball of heat and light at the core of him, making one final effort at controlling the direction of the spell. He thought he heard a rough, rasping sound like metal on wood, the high notes of a woman's voice, but they were stolen by the wind-like rush that plugged his ears.
Then the runes flared to a sun-white brightness, and the world left Ron's senses behind.
A/N: Continuing our meta-discussion; feel free to skip if that breaks the vibe for you!
Problematic trope number two: a post-apocalyptic trope, also known as post-war fic.
These are problematic, at least to me, because they are often dripping with pathos. They can be so dark that they border on funny, which - unless you're writing a crack!fic or parody, is NOT the desired result.
After working and re-working these early scenes, I came to a few conclusions about this trope:
Successful post-apocalyptic hellscapes have to be detailed and must hold up a dark mirror to ordinary life.
Detailed because you don't want fridge logic tapping on the reader's shoulder and asking how Ron and Ginny are feeding themselves ("did the latest shipment arrive?" and more on this later), where the rest of the Wizarding World went (a lot of them are dead, but there are people hiding out at Hogwarts who aren't Ron, Ginny, Hermione or Dobby), or why our main characters aren't rocking in a corner (Ron has invented letters from Percy to keep Gin's spirits up, make-work tasks to keep them both occupied, and an ultimate goal: to re-open Hogwarts).
Show ordinary life: Ginny declaring it's Ron's birthday and attempting to make crackers from scratch packs more quiet desperation - and feels more real - than beating her fists against Harry's grave would. New writers especially feel that they must bang their reader about the head with the tragedy stick. Trust your reader to be smart enough to 'get it'.
Without detail and attention to ordinary life, post-apocalyptic hellscapes feel lazy as well as overdramatic, especially if you plan on leaving that setting right away for some better, happier past.
Luckily I had ten years to let it all percolate, so details accumulated naturally. Worldbuilding more swiftly is something I have yet to learn!
