I know this part has taken a long while, and I'm sorry... I was
stuck somehow, until inspiration hit me in the middle of the night a few days
ago. I hope you enjoy this chapter, anyway. I had a wonderful time in Sydney -
thanks to all of you who wished me happy holidays! Again, this part is terrible,
but the plot is beginning to unfold quite a bit in its own twisted way. Ron's
time to shine... and it's wrenched away again. I'd still love feedback, even if
it's to say how disturbing the ending is...
A thousand thanks to Tinkerbell, Kaitou Jeanne, metal mouth,
Tigerfairy, Aht, Elaina, Rebekah, Julius, Mystic Madzy and Helmione Nightingranger,
Veralidaine, BeautifulAsCho, Ayleeandra, ~*Megnha*~, Emily, Dracaenas,
RonWeasleyFan, Mrs. Weasley, KristinPoe, Carly, jen, Rin Berry, HPRules, nadia,
Cassandra Claire, Winky and Dobby, Fred Weasley's Girlfriend, College Girl, B,
lwbush, Blue Butterfly, Keith Fraser and Zsenya for reviewing part four and
giving me incentive through my lazy-bones period...
All characters and places except strange hooded girl belong to
J. K. Rowling.
Although
the whispering of their footsteps down the forbidding stone resembled the
guilty, shuffling silence in the library, Ron didn't feel this time as though
there were any silence at all. Now it had become a dreadful, silence-breaking
spear of sound, travelling in his mind's eye all the way down the corridor and
into the candlelit space. His fingers touched her elbow, the gesture half
protectiveness and half unexplainable need for reassurance.
They reached the candlelit room, not saying a word, standing outside the
door with breath coming fast and shallow and unwanted. Ron peered round the edge
of the door at last.
The candles still stood burning inexorably, giving out an energy that was
cold and terrifying and reminded him of icicles and Draco's eyes – but the
spell-worker himself was gone. Startled and more than a little shaken, Ron
looked around, but did not go in; he felt as though there was something in there
that ought not to be touched, that was full of malice and glittered like the air
before a thunderstorm.
'Ron?' Her voice seemed to creep out of her mouth to rest in the air
around his ears. 'I can feel something. Is he still in there?'
'No,' Ron whispered back, 'but don't go in.'
She looked inside the dim-lit classroom, then turned back to stare
curiously at him.
'Ron, there's nothing in that classroom.'
'What?' He stared into the room. The candles were still there,
burning like miniature stars, filling the room with cloudy malice. 'Yes, there
is, Hermione – can't you see the candles?'
'No.' One of her hands came up to clasp him by the wrist. 'But
there's something in the air that just… isn't good.'
'It's the candles,' said Ron incredulously. 'Are you sure you
can't see them?'
'Are you sure you're seeing them?' she countered.
'I am!' he said, torn between feeling stung at her doubt and feeling
strange at the touch of her hand. 'They're there – you can feel
them.'
'All right.' She sighed quietly. 'Ron, we can't go to a
teacher.'
'Why not?'
'Because they might not be able to see the candles, either. I think
–' She broke off the sentence abruptly. He recognised that look of intrinsic
logic, recognised her expression, her eyes thoughtful. 'Wait. Ron – how many
brothers have you got?'
'Er – five,' he said. 'Why?'
Hermione looked momentarily thrown. 'You're the sixth?'
'Yes.'
'Are you sure they're your only brothers?'
He was silent. For some reason, he was remembering the dream-child, the
child who had looked at him with bright blue eyes quite like his and yet unlike
his own that seemed to see him.
'Ron?'
She was looking worried now. Ron tore himself away from his thoughts and
looked at her, trying to give a reassuring smile. To his annoyance he could feel
his mouth twisting into the lopsided, wry smile that had haunted his mouth for
the past few days. 'I don't know, Hermione,' he said honestly. 'If you
really want to know, I'll write home and ask. Maybe Percy has a twin or
something.' He paused to consider this. 'Percy, having a twin? No wonder
the twin ran away…'
Hermione laughed nervously. 'Could you? Please?'
'All right. Why d'you want to know anyway?' He was beginning to
feel less uneasy about the candles and Malfoy's ritual, but he couldn't
shake the tiny little voice in the back of his head that was screaming at him: There's
something bad in there!
I'll come back, he told the voice as firmly as he could.
The voice subsided, leaving a simmering uncertainty.
Ron realised that Hermione was looking at him worriedly again, and that
she looked rather shaken; feeling half-guilty for taking her there he walked her
back up to the library, their arms close, almost touching.
Transfiguration
was forgotten again. His textbooks lay in a pile by the side of their table,
looking somehow dark in the lamplight. Instead they were bent over the book
Hermione had been reading, or pretending to read, when they had sat down at the
library earlier – The Second Sight.
As far as Ron was concerned, he had six brothers. And yet the dream-child
with bright eyes kept creeping back into his mind, with its intelligent stare
and wave. Six. Six. Seven…
'The seventh son of a seventh son,' Hermione said. 'Is your father
a seventh son, Ron?' She looked tired, but in her element: research. Her eyes
shone dully with weariness and persistence.
He thought for a moment. 'Yes, actually – I have six uncles and three
aunts.'
'I think you might have the second sight, Ron.' She had taken her
eyes off the page and was looking up at him. He looked down at her, his mouth
sliding lopsided almost affectionately. He had become so used to her of late
that he had barely noticed what she looked like and what she did, but it was as
though his eyes had been pried open. With a start he realised that she was
thinner about the face and she looked pale and rather cold.
'Are you all right?' he asked, feeling terrible. 'You look pale.'
If it was the energy from that desolate room filled with candles that burnt cold
inexorably…
She didn't answer him. 'If you get any paler your freckles are
going to disappear,' she said, brushing her fingers over the dusting of
freckles on his nose. He shivered, grinning at her and feeling slightly less
terrible.
'Is that bad or good?' he asked her, half in jest.
'My mother always said freckles were the devil in boys,' she said,
her face unreadable.
He countered, 'That's not really an answer,' and smiled down at
her, watching her eyes dart from his face to the side of his head and back.
Somehow he enjoyed looking at the way her face curved downwards to her
slightly-pointed chin and the curls that floated onto her cheeks and forehead.
'It all depends on your interpretation,' she said with a grin, and
shook a curl out of her eye.
At that moment he wanted to kiss her again, really kiss her this
time, take her face in his hands and run his fingers through her hair, but
somehow he knew he wouldn't. Instead he reached for her hand on the table and
took it in his, linking his fingers with hers.
She flushed slightly, looking down at the book again, but kept her hand
in his.
'I think you can see and feel things some of us can't,' she said,
after a brief pause. 'The second sight – it's an old term. And I think
your being able to see the candles means that something is wrong. This
has something to do with your being frozen, Ron.'
He was silent, thinking about his dreams and the night he had been frozen
stiff in the dormitory.
'I think we should wait before reporting any of this,' she went on.
'Besides, we'll have to find out if you're a seventh son, won't we?'
Ron found his thoughts wandering alarmingly from her words. He felt as
though he was under the Imperius curse again; he felt relaxed, amazingly
relaxed, almost floating. His eyes, still trained on the side of her face, were
swimming out of focus.
'Ron… Ron?'
He tried to bring himself back to what she was saying, but couldn't.
And then, like a Bludger to the head, a chorus of silent voices seemed to
scream in his ear. Something's wrong! Something's wrong, you dolt!
Be careful! Blinding pain filled his head for a second, then dissipated
as though it had never been there. Vaguely he felt cool hands on his shoulders,
pulling him upright. 'Ron?'
'Head – hurts,' he said indistinctly, then realised that it
didn't any more.
Hermione was still holding him upright. 'Ron, what happened?'
Shaking his head to clear it, he turned back to her. 'Hermione,
something's going to happen. Something very bad.'
The
air in the common room was filled with tension, crackling like faint lightning.
Harry had not yet been informed of this latest discovery, and Neville was
sitting by the fire, its light dappling his body with shadows. Ron knew there
was something wrong, that something was going to happen – and his fear was
spreading to Hermione, whose face was tense and worried.
Yet through all the worry and tension Ron felt almost happy at the
discovery, at the knowledge that he was different. Finally he had a trait that
distinguished him from everyone else – for a long while, even though he had
not allowed himself to think about it – he had been bitter towards Harry, who
shone out without even trying. Harry was special, and he wasn't. He had
always been that red-headed kid who was always hanging around with famous Harry
Potter. A faint hope was tugging at him, the hope that he would indeed prove to
be different, to have 'the second sight'.
Stop it, he told himself. You're being ridiculous.
And as he was telling himself that, what had been about to happen really
happened.
There was a flicker in the air, as though the fabric of the air had been
plucked and was vibrating back into place, and he felt the glittering malice of
the thunderstorm swirling everywhere. There was a swirl of white mist like the
faraway clouds on a sunny day, and a feeling of bone-breaking cold that swept
the room and broke the lull of the fire-warmth. All four started as out of the
mist appeared a tall, hooded figure, robed in white, one hand holding a glinting
dagger that sparked in the firelight. The image tugged at Ron's memory.
He had seen this before.
Cold, always cold… his face pressed against cold glass, painful,
invading cold entering…
The dormitory window, the night he had been frozen.
Neville was still, eyes flickering over the figure, into the fire.
Hermione was clutching Ron's arm with fingers that gripped like steel. Harry,
as usual, stood up to confront the figure, but Ron could see that he was shaking
all over.
'What do you want?' Harry asked, looking small and cold with the
light glinting off his glasses. Hermione clutched at him with her other hand to
try and pull him back into his seat, and succeeded in tugging him backwards so
that he fell against the back of the sofa and sat down.
The figure reached up two surprisingly delicate yet strong-looking hands
and threw back the hood.
It was a girl – if this was possible.
Ron rather thought it wasn't.
She was taller than even him, perhaps seven feet, and impossibly
beautiful – long blonde hair loose on her shoulders, and cold, assessing, icy
grey eyes not unlike Malfoy's. The three boys stared at her with amazement,
Hermione with disgust. The girl raised the dagger.
Neville scrambled abruptly to his feet and stood staring at her as though
his feet were rooted to the floor. His eyes were wide with terror. The girl's
head was raised, searching. Her dagger drew symbols on the air. Hermione's
grip on Ron's arm was like a vice. Ron himself was shivering with the
knowledge that she was after something, and after him…
She turned towards Neville.
The brown-haired boy looked stunned, slowly backing away as she advanced
upon him, her grey eyes like burning coals in her head. Her skin was pale, and
the hair that tumbled down her back was silver-tinged. The glittering malice was
crackling now; the thunder was arriving.
Neville backed slowly, and Ron noticed that he was holding on tightly to
something in his hand. He looked horrified. It was unnatural, this mask of
terror set on Neville's sweet face, turning him to ice. Ron couldn't stand
it. 'Leave him alone,' he cried, and he realised that Hermione had all this
time been muttering spells with her hand on her wand, but nothing had come of
it. The dagger moved inexorably. Harry was tingling with suppressed energy,
ready to spring up. The hero, always ready to fight, and Ron was as usual the
unimportant sidekick.
Partly this and partly something else, something nameless made Ron spring
up, shaking Hermione's hand off his arm, face pale with the familiar
exclamation-mark freckles standing out clearly across his nose. He took a few
hesitant steps towards Neville, then stopped dead behind the figure as she
reached out towards the boy.
'What do you want from me?' Neville was saying in a low moan, still
backing.
She pointed at his clenched fist.
Ron saw the familiar ball, its wisps of white smoke gone as a cloudy red
pervaded the inside. The Remembrall? Neville was holding it out to her now,
offering it up to make it go away… Without thinking, he dived for
Neville and pushed him out of the way, rolling on the floor behind one of the
sofas.
Neville, fighting for breath, propped himself up on one elbow, staring,
as Ron reached out a long arm to halt the Remembrall in its slow progress across
the floor.
Hermione and Harry, both of whom had sprung up the moment Ron had dived,
were staring at the portrait hole, which swung open; at Professor Minerva
McGonagall, who was pointing her wand at the tall cloaked girl with the
blackness of rage in her eyes.
The cloaked girl turned around to stare at her. 'Give us the Aelin,'
she said, her voice icy and sweet and musical.
'It's useless in his hands,' cried Professor McGonagall. 'He's
only a boy!'
Ron caught the Remembrall in his fingers.
The movement of the dagger halted.
The very air around them seemed to throb and glow for a moment with an
unnatural light, red as the light of the fire and crackling with tension. Ron
felt the Remembrall grow warm, then hot, burning his fingers, but somehow he
knew he must not let go of it, he must never let go of it…
Collective gasps, like the wind through the leaves, and stares; Ron could
focus on nothing but the glowing red of Neville's Remembrall as he scrambled
to his feet, Neville holding on to his arm as he scrambled up as well. The
ice-eyed girl trained her blazing grey gaze on him, but they were no longer the
eyes of a person who is so fixed on a desired object that she has nothing to
fear; there was doubting fury in those eyes that now burnt like coals in her
pale face.
Behind him Ron felt a tense support; Harry and Hermione, both at his
side, wands raised. Professor McGonagall was gasping out spells and flashes of
light sparked from her wand like a burst of falling stars, yet none of this had
any effect on the cloaked girl, who was drawing herself taller and taller and
spreading her long arms wide. Ron looked up at her.
'Go away.' The rebellious part of him forced the words out of his
mouth. 'Go away,' another part of him shrieked.
The girl began to scream.
It, Ron's hazy mind told him, was more like a thousand violins playing
a single high note at the same time; more like the keening cry of kestrels over
the trees in autumn. She was taking violently swift steps towards him now,
dagger upraised, drawing symbols in the air that glowed faintly before
disappearing. He found himself rooted to the floor. Struggling feebly to take a
step forward, he realised that his feet were rooted to the ground.
Neville made a harsh sort of whimpering noise beside him.
'Neville,' Hermione whispered, her eyes wide with terror, 'why does
she want your Remembrall? What's happening to it?' She was looking at Ron,
in whose hands the Remembrall was beginning to glow and spin.
'That's no Remembrall,' Professor McGonagall cried from her
position at the other end of the room; evidently she had been rooted to the
floor as well. 'Neville, you foolish boy, how on earth did you come to have it
fall into your hands?'
The girl paused in mid-step. 'The Aelin,' she said in that musical,
cold voice that liquefied bones. The voice of the predator, Ron realised. 'But
he has not the power.'
'Of course he doesn't,' the professor snapped, for a moment
sounding quite like her old self. 'He's only a child.'
The girl directed her freezing gaze on Ron again. 'But he
does,' she said, and as she lunged forwards with her dagger Ron just managed
to swing wildly sideways, Neville and Harry swaying with him.
He was not swift enough; the tip of the dagger ripped a gash in his robes
and nicked him on the shoulder.
The cut stung like ice.
Ron, clutching his arm, nearly dropped the Remembrall.
As his fingers fumbled for a hold on the glowing ball, he realised
something. All this while the Remembrall had been exuding a kind of warmth that
glowed its way into him, and it was changing him. Warmth and something almost
like power were building him up and making him stronger. He felt an
indescribable comfort just holding on to it.
And there was power, there, that he could seize.
He gripped the Remembrall tight in his good hand and took it. And pushed,
too, pushed through his mind with all his might.
It felt as though he was holding an ocean in his hands – an ocean that
was flowing out of him. He directed it almost malevolently at the girl in front
of him, caught up in a secure fury that swept the ocean out of his hands and
into her.
The air began to throb again, the miasma of red crackling around them. He
felt the subconscious support of the others at his side, and felt the icy power
of the tall cloaked figure diminishing. The scream died slowly to a long thin
noise that keened out once and then died. The others found themselves able to
move their feet again. With a swirl of mist and one last freezing gust of cold,
the girl disappeared.
Clouds of wispy white smoke rushed into the Remembrall, and it lay
docilely in Ron's hand. The miasma faded and the tension eased, leaving the
Gryffindor common room the same as it had ever been before the cold.
The cut on Ron's shoulder burned like fire and ice.
Later
he had a confused impression of people rushing into the common room and filling
it with gasps and stares and spells; he realised that they were the professors.
Dumbledore was away in London. Professor McGonagall had made sure there was no
trace left of the cold and sent them all up to the dormitories straight away –
except for Ron. She had pulled him out of the common room and told him, kindly
but firmly, to stay out of it.
And this had, for some reason, devastated him.
He had felt the power in his hands for those crucial moments when it had
filled the room, made the air throb and crackle with it, and somehow he knew
that he was the only one who could make it work. Finally he had done something
worthy of Harry, something hero-worthy – and they were taking it away.
Professor McGonagall had explained that she was taking away the
Remembrall until Dumbledore came, and locking it away; the girl had come to take
it, and there might be others. But Ron wanted it. He wanted to feel again the
secure fury, the strange throbbing warmth that was comfort in itself. And a part
deep down inside him wanted the power too, the part of Ron that had been worn
out by poverty and squashed by the shining achievements of his brothers and was
always longing to prove himself, although he would never have confessed that to
anyone. A tiny, angry, unrecognisable part of his mind was furious at it all,
but the fury was distorted, strange.
Professor McGonagall finished her speech and motioned him back into the
room, ignoring his protests.
The unrecognisable part of his mind was growing larger and more furious.
For a second Ron shook himself, trying to get rid of the alien sensation
– he had been angry before, furious even, but never this feeling of cold
anger, this need for cold revenge. Usually his bouts of temper were hot and
impetuous, ending as fast as they began.
And then it took over.
He went up the stairs to the dormitory quite calmly, but took the wrong
flight of stairs.
Inside the girls' dormitory Hermione was sitting, quite calmly, on her
own bed; she looked up and smiled wanly as Ron entered the dormitory, his eyes
blazing with some implacable emotion. 'Hello, Ron. You look tired; why don't
you sit down?'
He sat down next to her, and the not-so-tiny-now angry part of his mind
said, She's something they can't have.
But you can.
And Ron reached over, took Hermione roughly in his arms, and kissed her,
despite having known earlier that he wouldn't; something had changed. She
protested, her fingers pushing against his shoulders, then relaxed into him,
strangely passive as he crushed her fingers in his own. His lips traced the
lines of her face, her eyes, and she drew a long shuddering breath as his hands
tangled in her hair.
In a brief moment of sanity as his fingers toyed with her collar and he
stared over her head at the rising moon through the window, he wondered whether
he would stay in control, because although one part of his mind knew full well
that this was wrong, the other part knew equally well that, at least now,
he didn't care.
The cut on his shoulder, somehow unnoticed in the confusion, still burnt
like fire and ice.
