School: Ilvermorny- Look at horror and fear in the wizarding world.
Year: 4
Special Rule: Incorporate the colour white and the meaning behind it in your story: Innocence
Word count: 2223
Main prompt: [Word] Revenge
Optional prompts:
[Character] Lavender Brown
[Genre] Romance
Ron woke up with a start. The nightmare was absolutely horrible. He didn't remember much of it, except that there was so much anger. And pain. And blood.
He sat up on his bed, taking deep breaths to let the panic subside. In his excitement, he almost missed the woman sitting beside his bed, cross-legged on the floor.
He jumped when he saw her face. "Lavender?" he asked, barely able to even form words. It couldn't be her, could it? She was...well she was dead. He had seen her body with his own eyes. She had looked bruised and broken. And gone.
Yet here she was, sitting beside his bed, looking up at him with a devious smirk, looking very much alive.
"I'm not dead, Ron," she said simply. "Sometimes you have put on a show for your own safety…"
Was she implying that her death had been an act? He felt his head whirl. He grabbed his wand from beside his bed and lit up the room as best as he could. She was still there, solid and very much present, not the feverish remnant of some nightmare.
"What are you— How did you get in, and why... why are you here?" he asked, still disoriented and disbelieving.
"Your door was unlocked and I suppose I wanted to see you. I wanted to talk to you."
Thoughts that he had buried for far too long rose back up to the surface. The months he had spent with her, all those years ago, had been some of the best in his life.
Only, he hadn't realised how much they had meant until he'd seen her body after the war, and felt like someone had robbed him of air. Too little, too late.
Evidently, though, it wasn't.
"Does anyone else know?" he asked, hoping his voice wasn't shaking. He was questioning his own sanity, and hoping that if someone else knew, he would know it wasn't a delusion.
"No, Won-won. I wanted to hide from them, like I told you."
Something about the way she said her old nickname for him sent a pang straight to his heart.
"Why me?" he asked. His mind came up with a scenario where the reply was one of longing and long lost could-have-beens, but he knew that was just daydreaming.
"Because," she replied, getting off the floor "I still love you."
Before he had time to process the implications, she was on him, kissing him more passionately than he had ever been kissed before, her weight pinning him to the bed.
He felt a strange chill run down his spine, but it was overwhelmed with the warmth and sensation of her, for him to pay any attention to it.
"I want you, Won-won."
Oh.
"I don't know about this Lav," he muttered, playing with the white ribbon tied to his finger. For some reason, she had insisted on it. 'A token of his trust', she had called it, tying a matching red one on her own finger.
She snaked her arm around his waist and pulled him closer, and he suppressed the strange fear the way he always did when she touched him. "Trust me, love. It needs to be done."
Ron nodded hesitantly, still unconvinced.
"Do you need a reminder of how he humiliated me? You know how much it hurt me, Won-Won." Her voice was starting to choke up. "This means a lot to me, getting my revenge on him."
The thought of the incidents that she had told him about, that had gotten imprinted into his mind, angered him, and alleviated his uncertainty. However, he was still scared. "Must we...kill? Wouldn't just making sure he's hurt, do?"
"No!" She said it so vehemently, Ron jerked back for a second. "What if he survives and tells the authorities? He might be able to counterspell your glamour if there is a fight. What then? How will I ever forgive myself?"
Ron took a deep breath. She was right, of course. Killing was the only way to fix this. A man as filthy as Blaise Zabini deserved to die.
"I love you," Lavender whispered as they walked up to the Slytherin's door.
"I love you too," he said, gripping his wand tighter.
Moments later, he burst into the house, the wards not being strong enough, and his Auror training having prepared him for such a situation.
"Weasley?" Blaise gasped, when he saw the intruder. The glass from his hand fell to the ground and shattered, but his other hand flew to his wand.
Ron was pointing his own wand straight at his former classmate, but his hands were shaking slightly. "Drop your wand, Zabini."
As the latter complied, knowing his wand was charmed to not fight back against an Auror, he also began to defend himself. "I didn't do anything. Why would the Aurors be-"
He didn't even get to finish his sentence before the blast of green light hit him. His look of horror as he fell, burned itself into Ron's mind.
"You've done enough," Ron muttered, as he cast the spells that Lavender had taught him to disguise his magical signature. "I should never have let you roam free after the war." He walked away, casting one last spell at the door for extra protection.
Lavender was waiting outside.
"It's done," he told her with a smile.
Her eyes lit up, as she nodded. Ron's heart skipped a beat at her expression. He could live to see that expression on her face, every day of his life, and everything else would be worth it.
"Thank you. I love you," she repeated, when they had Apparated back to his home. She was, of course, more than welcome.
The next few kills got easier on his conscience. Every time he faltered he'd remind himself what they'd done to deserve it. He'd think about the smile on her face and the tears they'd caused. He'd tell himself that he'd done it before, and now it was just another name to cross off from a list. He almost had a mental collection now, of all the terrified expressions on their faces as they died for their sins.
The thing that did get harder, was hiding his acts from the other Aurors as they were investigating the case. For this, Lavender had a surprising amount of resources. Spells, potions, runes. Sometimes, he felt a tiny twinge of guilt. But he was doing it for her, and that was enough.
Lavender had bewitched him, in the best sense of the word. All he could think about all day was her smile, her touch, her love. He felt like the luckiest man in the world. She was his everything.
"There are only two names left on the list, Ron," she told him one day. "Two names until our happiness. We can disappear after that. Nothing to stop us from being who we want to be."
Ron nodded. Just two more, that was nothing. Then he'd have her, all of her, and they could truly be happy. No more grudges.
"Who are they," he asked nonchalantly. He wanted to get it over with.
"Harry and Hermione."
His heart stopped at her words. Those two...they were his friends. His mind vaguely recalled memories of the three of them, happy and young, but she walked closer to him, and the images were quickly replaced by the ones he associated with the scent of her.
"I know, it will be hard." She placed her hand on his chest, and caressed his hair with her other hand, making him shiver slightly, the way he always did at her touch. "But think about it. Hasn't all of my, and even your, suffering been because of them? Hermione, who always made everyone feel lesser than her, and Harry, because of whom the whole wizarding world nearly burned to the ground. They don't deserve happiness, like we do. They deserve pain, before they die of it."
Ron closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. She was right. If it hadn't been for those two, his life would have been much simpler and happier. He could not even imagine the way living with Hermione for years would have been. He had grown annoyed in just a few months and how it must feel for Lavender, who barely even cared about Harry, to have been dragged into a war created by him… he shuddered. "Okay," he said.
And so she made the plans. She was extra careful this time, because Harry and Hermione would be by far the most well known and respected among the ones he had killed, most of whom were former Death Eaters, or otherwise insignificant.
He found himself standing in front of the Unplottable Potter home. He knew Hermione would be there too. In fact, Harry had invited all three of them for an old-fashioned get together. It would, of course, be their last.
"Ron!" Harry greeted him jovially and ushered him inside.
Ron walked in, fake smiles and all. Hermione was already there, of course, always punctual. Ginny had left for the night, according to Harry. So it was just the three of them, conveniently.
Harry was just pouring out the glasses of wine, and he and Hermione were making small talk, when Ron took out his wand.
"Ron… What are you doing?" Harry's face was the epitome of confusion which quickly morphed into fear. Both his and Hermione's hands were at their wands, but a glare from Ron kept them from pulling them out or making any other movements.
"Something that should have been done long ago, for everything you put us through. Crucio!"
Harry crumpled in pain, and dropped his wand. Hermione began to rush to his side, but with another spell from Ron, she too, was on the ground.
"Why?" she asked, managing to speak through the pain.
Ron shrugged, not deigning to respond. He was thinking about how free he and Lavender would feel after all of it was over.
"Ron, please!" Hermione shrieked.
Something about that, broke something in Ron. He remembered Hermione. She was a friend, wasn't she? He thought...he knew she had been more, once. He loved her and Harry too, if in a different way. They had been his family as much as his brothers, as he had grown up. They had meant something.
How had Lavender convinced him to do this? How had she made him forget?
The wand dropped to the ground, just as he heard a voice behind him.
"Caving in, Won-won?" Her voice was far from the kind and loving one it had been, just a while ago.
"Lavender?" Hermione asked, confused and gasping. Harry was still on the ground, unconscious beside her.
Lavender smirked at Ron, ignoring the other two.
"Why?" he asked, his voice breaking as he slowly realised what he had been tricked into doing.
"Because you were right there. You were still the exact same person as when I died. The sidekick. The stupid one. The one who didn't even have the ability to stand up for the one he liked, and went along with whatever everyone else wanted instead." She gestured towards Hermione. "You broke my heart for her, Ron. And then, I fought a war because I thought it would make me good enough for you."
When she paused, Ron took the chance to pick up his wand again. He had only one thought in his head. He had to stop her. He didn't know how she was controlling him, but she could do it to others too, and he didn't want to take that chance.
"Do you know what happened then, Ron? Do you know why that wand won't even hurt a hair on my head? I died. I died for you."
Ron felt his head grow fuzzy with the weight of her words. If she was dead, then how? How was she here? How had he listened to her, touched her, and not realised? But before he could ask her those questions, he felt a horror building in his chest as he looked at her.
She was...shedding, for the lack of a better word. Her skin, falling away, revealing a mottled skeleton underneath. She looked (and smelled) like she was rotting. Her hair fell away, her hands looked like claws, and her smile grew disturbing. She was dead, certainly.
The only things alive about her were her eyes. Glowing balls of light, far too bright to stare at for too long.
"Convinced yet, darling?" she asked, her voice hollow and ear piercing.
"What do you want?" he screamed at her, through his tears.
"Nothing, anymore. I'm done. I wanted revenge, like I said, and I've got it, now. You were just too foolish to figure it out."
And just like that, she was gone. Ron looked down at his hands. The ribbon on his finger had turned a deep red, just like the blood of all those he had killed.
He had been too foolish to figure it out, but he wasn't anymore. He knew who her victim had been.
He knew he would have blood on his hands and the crushing guilt on his chest for the rest of his life.
And somewhere, she would be laughing in true happiness.