A/N: This is Chaser 1 of the Chudley Cannons checking in for Season 8 Round 1 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.
Chaser 1: The Lover- Fear: isolation
Optional Prompts: 4. (dialogue) "You don't understand."/"No. But I want to."; 5. (emotion) hopeful; 12. (word) blaze
Word count (before A/N): 1,585 words
I am not JK. This is her world, I merely dabble in it.
Special thanks to my teammates for betaing - Ash (Fire The Canon), Hannah (hannahsoapy), and Arty (The Lady Arturia)!
Ron landed so suddenly, he fell to his knees. He threw his hands out to stop himself from face-planting into the muddy ground. At least it wasn't raining here.
He stretched out his fingers, feeling the gritty soil beneath his palms. They'd been here just last week, he realized, as he rolled clods of dirt in his hands. It wasn't soft. There were little pebbles laced throughout the mud, as if this forgotten patch of earth didn't know if it should be a dirt road or a pebbled path. Ron remembered playing with the stones while on watch—which, at the time, he'd found comforting.
It was a wonder he remembered this place at all.
Ron dropped the dirt and sat back on the balls of his feet. His heart was racing beneath his chest, a caged animal wanting release. He blinked once. Twice. He still tasted the sour words he screamed at Harry on his tongue. He could still see the hurt etched on Hermione's face as the tent flap closed behind him.
He could hear her calling for him… the rain thick against his skin.
"Oh, fu—"
In a flash, he was on his feet, his wand extended in front of him. Destination, determination, deliberation… and suddenly he was sucked into nothing, as if he'd never even set foot on the pebbled earth in the first place.
The sun was cresting over the tips of the trees. He'd lost them. He knew it in his heart. He'd spent the whole night scouring the grounds, but the forest Harry, Hermione, and he had found this time was large and looming. Ron didn't know how to track down a tent cloaked behind nearly thirty different spells. The moment he left those protections, it was always going to be lost to him.
Always.
Lost.
Ron sank down to his knees, the reality of it all hitting him. The Horcrux hunt, the locket's poisonous words, fighting with Harry, hurting Hermione. He'd lost them both, in more ways than one, and there was a very real threat he'd never get either back.
Every muscle in his body ached. Every movement felt like a stab in the heart. Ron balled his hands up into fists, his wand still clutched in his fingers. He pushed his knuckles against his eyes and cried silently. When that didn't feel like enough, he opened his mouth and sobbed, loudly, letting the pain out as best he could.
What felt like hours later, spent and splayed out on the forest floor, Ron watched as a pair of blue jays flitted across the canopy of trees above. It was a peaceful morning after last night's storm, and the place could almost pass for beautiful. Almost. Ron sighed, embarrassed by his outburst. But now there was only a dull ache in his chest instead of the undeniable grief of a broken heart.
Ron shook his head, the little birds already out of focus. He was in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the clothes on his back. He had to leave. He had to go somewhere, anywhere that wasn't here.
He'd wait till sunset. It was safer that way.
Stupid, bloody gang of… what was it they called themselves? Snatchers?
Ron nursed the finger on his left hand, the one that no longer had a nail thanks to his quick getaway from You-Know-Who's cronies.
"Bloody Snatchers," he grumbled.
He'd waited like he planned, and once the sun set, Ron had Disapparated to the same place with the pebbled soil he had escaped to the night before. It was the only place he could think of, considering his other option was going back to his parents' home. That felt monumentally worse than mucking about in the forest for a few more hours.
But the Snatchers were waiting for him there. Five of them to be exact, and one who smelled like he hadn't showered in months, had jumped Ron from all sides and attempted to tie him up with a feeble Incarcerous, but had missed. Then they proceeded to argue about what to do with him for so long that Ron had been able to punch two, grab their wands, and vanish.
Ron fingered the stolen wands in his pocket, unsure of what to do with them now. Unsure of where to go next.
"Bloody hell," he sighed. If adrenaline wasn't blazing through his body like Felix Felicis, he'd likely be a puddle again, wailing into the night like a wounded animal.
If his parents' home was out of the question, where else could he go?
Hermione would know. She knows everything.
Ron shook his head, not willing to let his thoughts get the better of him. He needed to find someplace safe. Those Snatchers were nothing, sure, but that's not to say all Snatchers were dumb as rocks.
Where would he be welcomed?
"Ron?"
Bill didn't wait for a response, instead poking his head into the guest room at Shell Cottage. Ron wasn't proud of how he'd come to his eldest brother. He wasn't proud of anything at the moment, really, but Bill was kind. He was steady.
He wouldn't tell.
"How'd you sleep?"
Horribly. But Bill didn't need to know.
"Fine," Ron said instead. He was seated by the window overlooking the beach. He was lucky that the whole family got a chance to see the house Bill and Fleur had found during his Easter holiday, or Ron would have never made it back there. He watched the waves wash over the sandy shore, and his heart began to ache again.
Or maybe it had never stopped.
"Fleur wants to know if you'll join us this morning."
Ron shook his head. He couldn't bear it, sitting at the table, eating breakfast with them, their eyes raking over his whole face, desperate for information. He'd been there for a full week, now, but Ron was painfully aware of the fact that he had yet to look either his brother or his sister-in-law in the eye.
It was too much.
"Ron?"
He glanced over at Bill briefly, before dropping his gaze to the floor.
"You know you can talk to me," Bill said, earnestly. Pleadingly. His voice was so sincere that for a moment, Ron did want to tell his brother everything. When Ron had first arrived at Shell Cottage, he told Bill three things. First, Harry and Hermione were fine. Second, he wasn't hurt physically. And third, he didn't want to say anymore. But maybe now...
Ron swallowed the bezoar-sized lump rising in his throat. He couldn't admit the shame he felt.
"You don't understand," he said weakly. Ron turned his back on his brother, his eyes taking in the ebb and flow of the water. It was another grey day, storm clouds already bundling together in the desolate sky.
"No, but..." Bill started. Ron could hear the hurt in his voice, and a pang of guilt hit the younger Weasley squarely in the chest.
"But I want to."
The door closed with a soft click, leaving Ron alone once again.
"Rrr…"
Ron brushed the hair away from his ear. He kept hearing something soft, almost like a whisper, and he was starting to wonder if he was going mad. Maybe it was a bug?
Weeks had passed since he'd last seen his best friends. The shame from abandoning them quickly changed to fear. What was going on with them? Where were they? Did the Snatchers get them, too? They didn't know about the Snatchers. One false move...
He dared not think about it. Instead, he'd taken to listening to Potterwatch to see if they'd heard any news. Bill and Fleur would listen after dinner sometimes, and while Ron still refused to eat any meals with his gracious hosts, he couldn't stop himself from sitting at the top of the stairs while they had the radio playing.
Tonight, River and Rapier—Lee and Fred, to be exact—didn't have much to report on. But just hearing their voices dulled the ache in his chest, even just for a moment.
"Oh, Ron…"
Ron sat up in his bed where he'd been getting ready to sleep, his eyes as round as saucers. That definitely was not a bug.
Across the room, a pale blue light emanated from his jeans pocket.
"Hullo?" His voice sounded silly in the dark. Quickly, Ron crept out of bed and made his way toward the light. Tentatively, he reached into the pocket, his hand wrapping around a long cylindrical tube.
It was the deluminator.
It was glowing.
"Rrrr…"
There it was again, that noise, like a whisper. It was so close to him, he felt it against his neck. Yet, nothing was there. Just the glowing deluminator.
The gift from Dumbledore made his skin tingle, like a fire blazed up and down his arm. Ron felt like his whole being was igniting with something, he just couldn't determine what. So, as if his mind had already decided, Ron began to dress. The ache that had taken residence in his chest since the moment he left Harry and Hermione was leaving. Not dulling, not hiding or biding its time. Leaving.
Once he laced up his last trainer, Ron reached into his pocket and held the deluminator in his hand.
The time was now. Whatever was about to happen, he was ready. He had to know what came next. He clung to that hope.
Then, he clicked it on.