Thanks to everyone reading and to Hpgrl95, Kathryn, and Black4minister for the kind reviews. Enjoy.
Harry started the next day completely exhausted. Barely able to even keep his eyes open at breakfast from his late night with Ginny and more memories, even Ron could notice the tired expression on Harry's face. He had to swallow his meal quickly as Arthur pushed for him to get back to the Ministry for more meetings and monotony- hardly something that would help him stave off sleep.
The next thing he remembered was Arthur and Kingsley Shacklebot standing over him, Arthur with a worried expression and Kingsley's lips drawn into a straight line. Concerned for the gap in memory, Harry tried to remember what exactly had just happened, but found everything groggy and unclear.
"Whazzgoinon?" He slurred quickly jumping up. Arthur tried to hide some amusement as Kingsley remained emotionless.
"Harry, you fell asleep." Arthur explained.
"I did?" Harry asked, shame and blood rushing to his face.
"I think perhaps you should sit out the rest of the meetings this morning." Shacklebot suggested.
"I-I, no-" Harry tried to protest as Arthur gently guided him out of the room.
"Why don't you get some more rest, Harry? No one should have to suffer through these meetings. Any oppurtunity to skip out should be grasped." Arthur coerced.
"But I wanted to help at Hogwarts later." Harry pleaded. It had been too long since he had been on the school grounds.
"Maybe tomorrow." Arthur suggested, handing Harry floo powder.
Embarrassed and upset, Harry's drooping eyelids won and he flooed back to Grimmauld place. He found Sirius' room, the one he always took, and lay across the bed, closing his eyes. The darkness enveloped his eyes and felt himself drifting, drifting, drifting absolutely nowhere.
Sitting in bed he could not sleep. Not only could he not sleep, he was itching to be elsewhere now. Falling asleep in the morning meetings and making a fool of himself was apparently no problem, but sleeping when instructed to? Apparently no such luck.
Sighing to himself, realizing the task at hand was impossible, Harry rose again and paced for a few moments, pretending to contemplate doing something else other than what he knew he would eventually decide to do. Reaching beneath Sirius' bed Harry groped air. Panicked, he stuck his entire head underneath the dusty bed in search of the pensieve. It was gone.
Harry tried to remain calm as he retraced his steps from the night before, though he knew he rarely left the room with the basin. After unsuccessfully searching the rooms upstairs and failing to calm himself Harry came barreling down the stairs, forgetting his guard for a moment, even. That guard was what would have had him, wand ready, in the case of an intruder. Luckily for him, the intruder was none other than Ron, arm casually slung around the pensieve, his wand in his hand.
"What are you doing here" Harry asked as casually as possible, despite his frantic pace the moment before and their current fight, which still loomed thick in the air whenever they were in the same room.
"S'posed to make sure you sleep." Ron mumbled back in response, tone unreadable.
"Your father sent you." Harry realized, though he missed the small look of confusion on Ron's face, "Well, I tried, and I'm having some trouble. I was just going to take a look-"
"No." Ron cut off.
"What?"
"Go to sleep. No more pensieve for a while."
Harry's anger rose at the nerve of him. After days of silence because of Malfoy he was telling him now what he could and could not do? Ever since his talk with Ginny, Harry had felt guilty, knowing Ron had a reason to hate him, but this was ridiculous.
"You can't tell me-"
"I'm not really concerned with how you spend your time at the moment. I'm just supposed to make sure-"
"Who, then? Hermione?"
"Ginny." Ron responded with finality in his tone.
Harry stood, shocked for a moment. The two of them had a wonderful evening the night before. It was half the reason he was so tired this morning. Was that the reason they had even spent that night together? Was she trying to get him away from the pensieve? Away from learning more about his parents? Anger flared at her, and at Ron, who stood defensively between him and the pensieve. It was the one place he felt he could escape to. He could live there without worrying about the state of Hogwarts or who's trial he would have to attend. They wanted to take it from him?
"Why?"
"She's concerned. You're spending too much time away from reality."
"Why you?" Ron merely shrugged.
"She probably figures I'm angry enough at you to physically stop you if it comes to it. I may actually like that a bit, to be honest." Ron said, half joking as he granted Harry mock access to the basin, prepared to jump him the moment he took a step towards it.
"You guys can't stop me from using the pensieve. Those are my parents,"Harry began, anger flaring.
"Just for one night. Go without it." Ron tried to clarify.
"And do what? Hang out with you and Hermione?" he spat back, anger not settling down.
"Don't really care what you do at the moment," Ron replied airily, "Why don't you hang out with your dear friend Malfoy?"
"Oh, come off it!" Harry shouted, "I'm not going to send someone to Azkaban-" he started, before waving his friend off, "You know what? Forget it, I've explained this a million times, if you don't get it by now there's no point."
"Good."
"Good."
"Fine."
"Fine."
Harry was not exactly sure what it was that made him do it. It could have been the argument they'd been having for days over, of all people, Draco Malfoy, finally boiling over past the point of return. It could have been the fact that Ron was physically between himself and his pensive, the last vestiges of his parents. There was years of possible indiscretions that may have also just made him snap from abandoning him and Hermione in the forest to his snoring in the dorms year after year. It could have had nothing to do with Ron with the exception of his unfortunate proximity to Harry's rage.
For whatever reason, Harry's anger would not subside. It would not bury itself any longer to accommodate the situation. He didn't care how ridiculous it was or how, without wands he was probably outmatched by his friend. Harry launched himself towards Ron with the full intent of landing the first punch.
Sorry it's kind of short and probably mostly filler since the next few are kind of dense with material on both sides- Harry and the Marauders. Comments? Suggestions? Review!