Holy reviews, Batman!
Guys, I love you all so much. My mind has been blown by how much feedback I've gotten. I promise I'm taking notes for the rewrite, and some things are actually pestering me enough that they might get in before then, so fingers crossed on that, but I just- wow. I'm so happy every time I get a review, it's actually increasing my productivity. Like, I get tired or frustrated, and then I just go and reread reviews people have written, and suddenly I can write more; no joke. I just- wow.
Thank you.
Now on to the actual notes on the chapter:
This started as an omake and turned into an actual chapter.
If you guys haven't noticed, I write mostly in (probably rather badly done) third person omniscient. This means that you see several characters' thoughts at a time, rather than just one, like Rowling does with her third person limited throughout all of the HP canon (cursed child is a lie which broke too many already-established rules to be counted as in-universe). So here we have a side thing, outside of our normal characters' POVs, in which Ron is a little more responsible and a little more patient and goes and confronts Seamus about what happened with Harry. I could give you a rant about Rowling's handling of not-Harry characters, but I'll spare you guys that.
(It'll probably show up somewhere later, maybe in another fic, or possibly on Tumblr or AO3 instead of here. We'll see.)
Sorry-not-sorry for once, because I stand by a lot of things said in this chapter, but I feel like the delivery is weak and rambly, so I do apologize for that.
Disclaimer: Nope. I got nothing. Sorry. This would be so different if I had written it, it's not even funny.
Ron sighed as he looked at his best friend's bed hangings still swinging from the force they'd been drawn with. He didn't know how to help Harry; what could he say to someone who was literally being turned against on every side?
Seamus had stormed downstairs, closely followed by Dean as he tried to get his friend to calm down. After deliberating a moment, Ron followed.
Dean was speaking quietly to Seamus, who had his arms crossed, clearly still fuming. Ron hesitated, then knocked on the wall beside the stairs to get the pair's attention. Seamus looked up at him, glared, and looked away again, back toward the fire, crossing his arms tighter. Dean sighed and gestured for Ron to sit down.
Easing himself into the chair across from them, Ron took a deep breath and let it out. Then he started speaking.
"Look, mate, I'm sorry about what happened up there. I don't like the way it ended, and I want to try and understand your side of it, and maybe help you understand Harry's side as well. I know—" he added as Seamus opened his mouth angrily to let out what Ron know was going to be a biting retort— " I know you're upset. I wasn't there at the start of it, but I can guess that you feel like he jumped on you or something you said without considering your part of it. Actually, I'm betting that's exactly what he did. But I want to hear your side of it from you, without any ever.accusations or angry words, because I think there' been enough of that tonight, yeah?"
Seamus shifted, appearing to struggle with himself for a moment, before taking a few deep breaths to calm himself.
"Yeah, okay."
Ron mentally sighed with relief before shifting his attention back to Seamus; maybe he could get ahold of this prefect thing after all.
"We were talking about how our holidays were, and I mentioned that me mam didn't want me to come back to Hogwarts. He guessed— well, I mean, why else? O' course it was because of what he an' Dumbledore've been sayin'. An', you know, I was jes' curious, 'cause I don' want me mam to be right about this— Harry's been a mostly decent fellow, you know, and so I asked— an' he jes' shut down! Blew up about the whole thing and wouldn't answer me at all! An' then you showed up and ended it, but it was— well, I just wanted to know!"
Ron nodded, listening patiently. When seamus had finished he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Now came the hard part.
"That was pretty much what I expected. You said you were talking about how your holidays went; what did he say?"
Seamus and Dean exchanged a curious glance.
"He said it wasn't bad... but he kind of looked more like he didn't want to talk about it," Dean said.
"Yeah..." Ron sighed again. "He probably didn't. Harry never has a good summer holiday— ever. My mum gets him to ours as soon as she can every year, but this time it was almost half August before he could come."
"What d'you mean?" Seamus looked baffled.
Some of Ron's impatience slipped out against his control. "Look, before this year, what was Harry famous for?"
After a moment's hesitation, Dean answered, "You-Know-Who tried to kill him when he was a baby, right? But for some reason, the spell rebounded and destroyed You-Know-Who instead."
Ron nodded. "Yeah, but did you ever really think about how You-Know-Who got to where he could try to kill him?"
It took a moment, but the two of them looked stunned as they made the connection.
"You mean—" Seamus broke off as it truly dawned on him for the first time.
"You-Know-Who killed Harry's parents." Ron finished Seamus' thought for him. "You probably had heard it before, but it's hard to make the connection to where you actually realize it because he never talks about it. He lives with his mum's muggle sister and her muggle family, and they hate magic. In fact, the only thing they hate more than magic is Harry himself." Seeing their alarmed but comprehending expressions, Ron knew the thought had never occurred to them that the most famous person in school besides the Headmaster himself might have an unhappy home life. Still, he could tell they weren't quite getting the scope of it. "Here, let me put it this way: before first year, his bedroom was a closet a bit smaller than that couch." He gestured to the furniture the two were seated on. "His cousin— who's huge by the way; I'm talking bigger than Crabbe and Goyle combined—" Seamus and Dean's eyes widened in astonishment— "Used to beat him, and his aunt and uncle actually encouraged it. Last I heard he still does beat him, any time he can catch him without his wand." Seeing they were about to interrupt, Ron plowed ahead, "Summer before second year I got worried 'cause I didn't hear from him all summer, and Hermione said she hadn't either, so Fred, George and I stole my dad's care that he'd enchanted to fly and flew it all the way to his aunt and uncle's house. When we got there, we found bars on his window. They'd locked him in his room and only let him out to use the toilet twice a day. Summer after second, " he pressed through their questions, "he actually tried to run away— and managed it, for a little while. But then third year came and went and he got sent right back. Summer after third was probably harry's only "not bad" summer holiday ever— they mostly left him alone, even if he had to do his summer homework i the middle of the night if he didn't want them to tear it up— but then last summer... well, this was probably the worst yet, if that's even possible."
Seamus and Dean had given up on trying to speak over him, too disturbed for words. Now, Dean had to swallow before speaking.
"...What happened?"
Ron sighed. "Dementors. Dementors showed up in his neighborhood, Which means that either the Ministry can't control them, or someone within the Ministry sent them, and they've denied it ever happened, so I know what I'd lay my money on. They've already got a smear campaign going, why not make him sound even more like a raving lunatic?"
There was silence for a moment as they processed, then Seamus spoke.
"And you believe him about all this?"
Ron shook his head. "I don't have to. I saw the bars on the window, and watched him pull his school stuff out of the loose floorboard he keeps it in over summers. He doesn't even know I know most of this stuff, but when I surprise him, he lets some things slip. He's really reluctant for anyone to know, but he doesn't keep track of who he's told what at all. I don't think anyone noticed, but at the beginning of first year, he was covered in bruises and thrings. And Hermione has to fix his glasses literally every year because his cousin breaks them so often. Besides, people always seem to forget: I've seen Harry in stressful situations. I know how he acts, and I can honestly say that it's the after-effects that hit him hardest."
"What do you—"
The tenuous hold Ron was holding on his temper burst, and with it came the words— the ones he'd choked on so many times since first year, the ones that had made him lose track of what was most important to him last year:
"I was with him! Why does everyone always forget that? Hermione and I were always there, by his side, fighting the same things he fought as long as we could! I beat the chess pieces in first year! I went down to the Chamber with him in second to save my sister— it wasn't some random, idiotic hero-sacrifice from him for no reason! I was with him when everything went down in third year— that's why I was in the hospital wing with a bloody broken leg! I was even part of the bloody second task last year if you'll recall, and even if I was out of it for most of that one— I bloody well know what he's like under pressure, because I'm one of the only two who have seen him there, instead of hearing about it from bloody rumors because somebody happens to listen in at the Hospital wing we wind up in every. damn. year." Finally cutting himself off to breathe, Ron snagged control of his ever-explosive temper and got back to his actual point. His eternal place in the background wasn't the issue here, Harry's position as Butt-Monkey of the Universe was. "So I can tell you what he's like, okay? He's stressed when the shite's actually happening, yeah, but he's pretty coolheaded overall. He thinks fast. Honestly spends most of it looking like he's really confused over why it's always him all the bloody damn time even as he's being all determined and heroic, and sometimes blowing his top at whoever the bad guy of the year is. But after? When we're spending the night in the hospital wing, or even when we get back to the dorms after it's all over? He gets nightmares, all. The damn. Time. And I don't blame him— I've gotten plenty of my fair share after all the shite we've seen.
"But last year, it was different. Because this time we weren't there; not Hermione, not me, and last year for the first time somebody bloody died, right in front of him. And he could do nothing to stop it. Even if it was half August when we got him out this summer, I still spent the last week and a half sleeping in the same room as him, listening to him wake up in the middle of trying to rescue Cedric every night. Seamus—" he met the other boy's eyes, trying to make this point hit home. "What you said hurt Harry. Really hurt him, deeper than you'd ever guess. Me? I go home every summer to a mum who's busy, sure, with all the trouble the twins get into and trying to keep an eye on Ginny and everything, but she cares that I get nightmares. She takes time to wake up in the middle of the night and help me feel safe. Harry doesn't have that, and even when he's with us, he wouldn't let mum find out he was awake if he was going to die in the next hour. He figures what she doesn't know won't hurt either of them. Our world— the Wizarding world— is the best thing that's ever happened to him, and even though he's nearly died every year here, at least somebody cares that he's hurt. Somebody notices without him having to say anything, which is important. The muggle world is so messed up for him, and this was the only place he could feel safe and cared for, even with the near-death experiences. Now, that's just gone. Do you understand that?" He couldn't know it, but there was a slightly lost, hopeless look in Ron's eyes. "Can you understand that?"
Seamus was looking at the ground, all the anger gone out of him, having been replaced with a sense of regret he couldn't fully have put into words. Dean watched his friend, willing him to try to make it better somehow. Ron watched anxiously, feeling drained.
Finally, Seamus said, "What should I do?"
Ron sagged slightly with relief. "Honestly, right now the best thing would be to back off for a little while. When we finally got him to our house this summer, he'd already started this... short tempered kick. It's kind of been building since third year, mum would probably say it's a hormonal thing— mostly I'm just surprised it's taken this long. Anyone else with his life probably would have given up on a lot of things, even before getting to Hogwarts. Until he calms down a bit, you know, reconnects with people he's forgotten actually care about what happens to him, it's probably best that you try to stay a little bit back and work on your apology."
Seamus nodded. Thoughtful, he bade them a good night and vanished up the common room stairs. As they moved to follow him, Dean asked Ron one last question.
"How'd you know?"
"What?"
"Where'd you get all that stuff about the... what he's thinking and such?"
Ron looked a little embarrassed as he answered. "I've read a bit about psychology and human trauma response, is all. Hermione lets me borrow some of her muggle texts over the summer, and once she found out I was interested, well... I've been able to connect some things, is all."*1
Dean raised his eyebrows slightly in only somewhat sceptical surprise before shrugging it off, and exited the common room.
Ron sighed, staring dully at the fire in the grate for a moment.
"Why can't I be good at something I'm interested in?" he asked the fading light. "Or am I not supposed to be interested in smart, complicated things?"
The dying embers didn't answer him, so he shook the dark thoughts away and marched up the stairs to find his cozy four-poster and its best mate the pillow.
Eheheh. Yeah.
Do I actually think Canon!Ron is into psychology?
Heck no. It was just a random thing my brain came up with in the middle of a "But how can we actually make them all more mentally and emotionally stable?" because as much as I love torturing all my characters, I really do it with the end goal of making their lives better eventually, so this made things work a little better. It's clunky and awkward, I know, but it's what I got for now. Most of what he will say in this story are my own rambling non-professional conjectures based on my own experience with emotional abuse and trauma, although some of it can be found in various child, teen, and trauma psychology books I read before my car accident wiped things like titles and time from my brain. If you'd like to read them, I'm afraid I really can't help a lot, but they do exist somewhere. (so helpful, I know.)
I'm doing a lot of this because I think Ron (and most other characters, actually) were a little weirdly handled throughout the books. It's pretty well explainable by the limited-perspective nature of them, but still kind of frustrating to deal with. We see everyone from Harry's point of view, and he doesn't understand a lot of peoples' reasonings and/or actions. In fact, he very rarely tries to get inside someone's head and think about what their motivations might be. It's understandable, since he's a teenager and not an author, but still. Things like—
Chess. You have to be at least fairly intelligent to be that good at chess at eleven years old. And yet Ron is treated as kind of below-average and ignorant.
Dumbledore chose him as a Prefect. Now, yes, Dumbledore is another mess all his own in the way he's dealt with both in canon and by the fandom, but still. This is a man renowned for his brilliance and coolheadedness, who tells Harry that he didn't choose him as Prefect because he had too much on his plate already. But throughout the entire series, Harry actually shows very little responsibility? Like, he's a typical teenager in regards to homework and things, but he actually doesn't take any kind of responsibility for his actions most of the time, and that's just fine with people, I get it, but Harry would not have been my first choice as Prefect for Harry's year. In fact, I kind of think Ron makes sense as Prefect, given that he obviously has some ability to take responsibility for his own actions and resolve conflicts, as we can see every freaking time he puts up with Harry's temper tantrums. And even though Ron is very human and gives in to his overwhelming feelings of eternal damnation to the Background Of Everything on several occasions, he also tries to fix whatever has happened and concludes everything with reunification as soon as possible after he gets his head out of his ass. Which is (excuse my language) a lot fucking sooner than Harry ever does. I don't think we see a single example of his extending the metaphorical olive branch before the other party in any situation. In fact, he seems more likely to hold grudges than I think just about anyone else in the books. (granted, I haven't read through the books since my accident, but still. If I'm wrong, please correct me.)
Aaand I'm going to stop there, because I don't actually want this to get longer than the chapter itself. Like I say, I'll probably post the full rant somewhere else if anyone cares, but whatever, it may never happen too. Long story short, though, I wanted him to be a more forefrontal part of this story, because as weirdly handled as he is in the books (and don't let me start on the movies), he's still a pretty major plot-player. I hope to do the same thing with Hermione- and even some other more minor characters- in some way, I just haven't quite worked out how yet.
Meh. It'll come to me eventually, I'm sure.
It'll probably be a little while to the next chapter because it's my final semester of Senior year and I still need half a credit of science, a credit of history, a CTE credit, and two credits of math... I'm going to be drowning in packets for a while. I'll update as soon as I can, and the next chapter or so will start getting into actual plot instead of just background and setup stuff, so at least you have that to look forward to? I'll try to keep it under two months though...
Ramblings from the Notebook Margins:
*1
Me: R o n . . .
Ron: Yes?
Me: You hate reading.
Ron: Not about psychology, I don't ;)
Me: rOnALd...
Kakashi: *shunshins in, snatches Ron, and disappears again*
Me: Kakashi! [ (VVVV) ]/
