Training Camp One, Round Two: Spider!
A/N: For the Quidditch League. Enjoy!
Disclaimers and Warnings:
- I don't own Harry Potter.
- I'm actually not sure whether the books outright say that Ron has arachnophobia, so I'm going to pretend that Harry and Hermione think that Ron just has a regular old fear of them.
- I mention a book, "Arachnophobia, the Fear of Spiders: Symptoms of Arachnophobia and Treatment for Arachnophobia to Aid in Your Phobia of Spiders", which was published in 2012, and this story takes place about a year after the second war.
- I've never read the book — I just looked up books on arachnophobia — so I'm just making up the contents that Ron and Hermione talk about. As far as I know, the book never said anything about what they say it does.
Team: Portsmouth Plovers
Position: Chaser 2
Position Prompt: Write about your OTP dealing with a mental illness.
Optional Prompts:
2. (word) accept
8. (word) inkling
9. (phrase) crystal clear
Word Count (Minus A/N): 1166
"HERMIONE!"
Hermione jumped. Rushing upstairs, memories of the recent war flashing in her mind, she yelled back, "What is it?"
When she got to their bedroom, she paused, and re-assessed the situation. Ron, her husband, was pressed up against the wall to her right, looking terrified, and in the corner of the wall opposite, a spider was resting in its web.
"Kill it!" he said, backing further away and pressing his back into the wall.
"Oh, honestly, Ron, are you a wizard or not?" Rolling her eyes, she pointed her wand at the spider, and with a flick of her wrist, Hermione opened the window of the apartment they shared, set the spider on the windowsill, and shut the window. The spider crawled away, and Hermione turned to Ron, who was now sitting down on their bed and staring at the corner where the spider's web remained.
"Are you okay? I know you're scared of spiders, but you've got to accept that they can't hurt you. And anyways, you're a full-grown wizard; you can easily just get rid of them," Hermione said, sitting next to Ron and wrapping an arm around his shoulder.
"I know," said Ron, "But when I see them I just freak out and my mouth goes all dry and —"
As Ron listed off his symptoms, something niggled at the back of her mind. She had an inkling that she had read something about this before. And then it hit her. After all this time, she — how had she been so thick? — had thought that Ron just had a fear of spiders. But it had been so obvious! Ron had arachnophobia!
Ron had tapered off into silence. "What?" he asked.
"If I'm correct —"
"Which you always are."
"— then you have arachnophobia."
"I have what?" said Ron, staring at her with a perplexed expression. "I can't tell whether that's what you said or if you sneezed," he added, making a poker-face that would've fooled anyone but her or Harry.
"You know perfectly well that I didn't sneeze!" snapped Hermione. "And arachnophobia is a fear of spiders."
Ron snorted. "No sh—"
"Ronald! Language!"
"It's just us here," said Ron, rolling his eyes.
"Yes, but still," said Hermione, sniffing haughtily. "Anyways, a phobia — which is what you have — is more than just a regular fear. I'll have to go to the library to learn more, but you basically have a very extreme fear of spiders."
"Here," said Hermione, dropping her new book — "Arachnophobia, the Fear of Spiders: Symptoms of Arachnophobia and Treatment for Arachnophobia to Aid in Your Phobia of Spiders" — on the table, where Ron was having breakfast.
"Er, why are you giving this to me?" asked Ron, putting down his fork with a sausage speared on it and looking down at the book.
"So you can read it?" said Hermione. She patted the book. "It's pretty good, though not as in-depth as I'd like — it'll work for now, and besides, you don't need it to be too deep."
"Er — alright," said Ron, staring at the book.
Hermione left him to his reading.
"So… what am I supposed to do with this information?" said Ron a week later, after finally finishing the book.
"Isn't it obvious?" said Hermione. "After all you've read?"
"I think your definition of crystal clear is different than mine," said Ron.
"We're going to try graduated exposure therapy," said Hermione finally, after holding Ron's gaze for a moment.
"We're going to what?" Ron squawked. "Nononononono," he said, backing away, as if the spiders were already in her hand. "I think I'm going to visit Harry and Ginny."
And before Hermione could say a word, he had tossed Floo powder into the fireplace, shouted "the Potter House!" and left in a whirl of flames.
"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY!" Hermione screeched, even though she knew Ron couldn't hear her. She followed him through the fireplace, and landed in her best friends' living room, where a very bewildered-looking Harry was shielding a terrified-looking Ron.
"What is going on?" asked Harry, looking between his best friends. "Can someone explain to me why you two just randomly pop into my house, with Ron looking like you had just shoved a spider in his face?"
"Um…"
"That's exactly what she's trying to do!" Ron shrieked, ducking once more behind Harry.
"What is he talking about?" asked Harry.
"Well, I discovered that Ron has arachnophobia, so I'm trying a plan to desensitize him by exposing him to what he's afraid of," Hermione explained.
There was a pause as Harry took this in.
"So you are going to shove a bunch of spiders into his face?" said Harry finally.
"Not right away!" Hermione protested, but she went ignored by Harry.
"Maybe you should wait until Ginny gets back from Quidditch practice," said Harry thoughtfully. "I mean, she might laugh a bit, but she's still his brother —"
"I'm right here, you know!" said Ron from behind Harry.
"— and he could use all of the support he could get."
"Erm, what's going on?" asked Ginny, appearing in the middle of the living room. Hermione wondered what was going through her mind right now; her husband and good friend were standing in the middle of the room, casually chatting, while her brother was cowering behind her husband looking scared out of his wits.
"Speak of the devil," said Harry, smiling at his wife. "Hi, Ginny. Er, basically, Ron is arachnophobic — his fear of spiders isn't just a regular one; it's more intense — and we're going to make him less scared by, well, giving him a ton of them."
"Ha, ha, very funny," said Ginny, looking around at them all, scepticism in her eyes. "That's definitely going to help Ron get over his fear, dropping a bunch in his hand."
"It's going to be controlled, of course," said Hermione. "We're going to start showing him pictures of spiders, and then, we can put a spider on the other side of the room, and finally, we can put a real spider in his hand. And of course we're going to have him use calming techniques —"
"Okay," interrupted Ginny, smirking wickedly. "Well, there's no time better than the present!" And she promptly Conjured up a tiny spider and Banished it into Ron's palm.
Ron began to hyperventilate, and attempted to shake it off onto Harry's shoulder, but the spider didn't budge.
"Ginny!" Hermione shrieked. "You can't just shove a spider in his hand without going through all the steps!"
"Okay, okay!" said Ginny. She went over to Ron and attempted to Vanish the spider, but Ron was shaking his hand too much for her to aim. "Stop moving, Ron!"
Finally, Ron began to slow down enough for Ginny to hit the spider instead of Vanishing his hand. His eyes were still wide open, however, when he sank onto the Potters' couch.
"I think maybe we can start his therapy later…"