Indelibility
When Ron Weasley was 11, he defeated a giant, vicious, enchanted chess set, and saved the Sorcerer's Stone. He won the field by sacrificing himself. And when the granite queen raised her mace to knock him from his perch, Ron didn't beg, or plead, or try to change his mind. He took the hit, indelible to the end.
The bruises he sustained from tumbling across the tiles and remnants of marble pieces lasted for weeks, because he refused to let Madam Pomfrey heal them.
The whole thing made him an even better chess player, because from that time on, he challenged himself to construct games around the idea of never sacrificing a single piece, or experimented with openings and combinations that would allow him to leave specific pieces safely in the back row. Sometimes, he would try to play a game without touching his queen; sometimes he made the capture of his opponent's queen the whole point of the game. His chess games increased in sophistication and depth, and even Hermione conceded that Ron, with the emotional range of a teaspoon, could see every nuance of the whole board.
And, for the first time in a whole year, Ron Weasley finally felt like he deserved to be Harry Potter's friend.
In their first year, Ron Weasley got bit by a fussy, teething dragon and missed a whole evening of adventure and terror, and detention. Third year, his leg got broken as Padfoot dragged him into the Whomping Willow, and he missed traveling back in time with Harry and Hermione to save Sirius and Buckbeak. Fifth year, he foolishly stuck his hands in a tank full of brains in the Department of Mysteries, and missed the rest of the battle, having lost control of his magic and his mind. In what would have been their 7th year, Ron wore a locket that was actually a Horocrux for too long, and stormed away from their campsite. He missed Hermione and Harry immediately, and he tried to come back, but they had gone on without him, as they had so many times before.
And they always welcomed him back, after all of his injuries and mishaps and foolish decisions; they welcomed him back and they told him what they had done in his absence and they said they wished he had been there, with them.
And always, he wondered: what is it about me, that allows this shit to happen? Why am I always the one passed out in the Hospital Wing, or sprawled in a corner, or (and this was the worst) running away from the task at hand?
Obviously, there's nothing pulling the strings of his own life; there's no-one deciding that Ron Weasley simply won't be there for his best friends when they need him, but it really does seem like it's always him.
The injuries that kept him out of commission-they're whatever. That's not what left the scars.
In 6th year, when Ron was dating Lavender Brown (and if by dating, he meant snogging her and letting her finger-comb his hair and not bothering to hide the fact that no matter how close Lavender held him, his eyes always, helplessly, followed Hermione) he got attacked by a flock of yellow-feathered birds.
They left two deep scars in the backs of his hands, and the scars never went away. Now that he's older, the woman who sent the flock of birds after him will sometimes, when they are tangled up together in bed, or standing on Platform 9 and 3/4 waving goodbye to their children, or simply drying dishes, raise his scarred hand to her mouth, and kiss the punctures her birds left in his skin. But Hermione has never apologized, and Ron never wants her to.
A/N: Reviews are love!
