Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Beginning Notes (yes there's endnotes too): This idea sprung from two sources. One was a badfic I wrote for my MST, which had the scene of Ron the Janitor. The other was a thread on Diagon Alley's PB, 'what if they were muggles?' So what if they were *turned* into muggles? How would poor Draco deal? Or Ron? This takes place 4 years after Hogwarts, when the characters are 21.

Disclaimer: (I am supposed to be putting these on here, aren't I? *g*) The Harry Potter 'verse and characters belong to JK Rowling. I'm just borrowing them, but I can't promise they will be intact when I am done.

Part 1

Coming back from the shower Ron opened the door to his room and closed it again. "Percy, Neville. You have your own room, use it," he spoke through the door. "And wash my sheets!"

Percy and Neville appeared a moment later. Ron, grateful that they had put on boxers at least, frowned at them. "Sorry," Neville muttered squeakily.

After they had vacated he went in and dug under his bed for a bag holding a little bottle and a syringe. He felt around on his arm for a good vein...

The drug was actually an illegal potion; the street name was simply 'The Drug.' Highly addictive and dangerous in large amounts. But it was the only way Ron could get through his day anymore, and was thankful for his supplier, no matter how greedy he became.

he thought to himself as the potion flowed through his veins.

The two Weasley women were in the kitchen, Molly at the sink, Ginny finishing her breakfast as she read the Daily Prophet. Ginny turned to the 'Possible Untruths' section of the paper. "That bloody Skeeter woman is at it again. This is the fifth 'possible disappearance' she's reported."

"Just trying to scare people. After all that's happened." Mrs. Weasley flipped her dishtowel angrily. "Well, at least that paper finally had the sense to put her stories where they belong.

He went downstairs, grabbed a piece of toast, and walked out the door. "Bye mum. I'm going to work."

The door slammed before Mrs. Weasley could reply. "I don't know what I'm going to do with that boy," she sighed.

"I wish I could help you," Ginny said. "Honestly, I don't know what to make of him. Maybe you should search his room."

Molly Weasley shook her head. "Maybe he'll tell me when he gets home."

Ron got into his beat up Citroen, the early 60's make nearly an extinct species and indistinguishable colour. It clunked and sputtered all the way to the Muggle high school the next town over.

***

Ron made coffee in his office, and picked up his mop, ready for another day.

"Mr. Weasley," a voice said from the doorway of the office. He turned to see one of the students. "There's a clogged toilet in the ground floor girl's bathroom. It's over flowing."

Ron leaned against the mop heavily, running a hand over the thinning spot on the back of his head. "I'm coming."

The halls were flooded with Muggle teenagers, which Ron had to navigate through with a plunger and mop bucket. But he did it with a smile on his face. The Drug had taken effect, giving him a sense of euphoria, and his problems disappeared. His love life was again perfect, he had a great job, he still had his friends, he again had a full head of hair. And he still had his magic.

He shoed the students out of the way as the puddle grew out from under the door. His worn boots splashed across the floor. The water was flowing from the last stall in a dark corner and was, in result, rarely used. He approached it with the plunger.

The clog was a grey mass of some sort. Before he could start, however, it flew up out of the toilet. "Myrtle!" He jumped back in surprise. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry," she sniffed. "I just wanted to visit. Thought I'd have a little fun. I was going to scare one of those little Muggle girls, but I got stuck and had to work myself free."

Ron grinned. "Glad to see you." He started mopping up with no complaints.

"You're high again, aren't you?" She floated around to face him. "I told you to cut it out. You don't want to be dead, like me."

"Ah, but I might as well be," he said loudly. "I mean, what have I got to live for?" He wrung out the mop. "I've got no friends. I have no magic. My girlfriend is a ghost." He said these things merrily, but Myrtle could still hear the tone of madness in his voice brought on by the Drug.

"Rub it in."

"But I'm in a really good mood now, so don't spoil it for me."

"You're also going bald."

"Excuse me, I'm mopping." Myrtle continued to rattle off his shortcomings, including his inability to put out, but the second stage of The Drug had come on, and he was in a dream state where he was back at Hogwarts with Harry and Hermione.

He went through the morning as such, doing but not seeing, speaking but not hearing the words. By lunchtime he had started to come down from the high, and the inevitable state of depression had set in. He sat in his grubby little office next to the boiler room with a corned beef sandwich.

Coming down was the depressing part. He used the most dangerous element of the drugs affects to reminisce about the night that changed him forever. He couldn't remember all of it...he didn't want to. The spell, a powerful spell that took away their magic abilities. To render Harry harmless. To kill...

Harry was dead, and if it hadn't been for Dumbledore, Ron knew he would be too. But even with the final fall of the Dark Lord, there was nothing in the magical world that could bring their powers back. The three of them were squibs, but worse than squibs, because they knew what it had been like.

***

Ron found himself passed out on the couch in his office. Glancing with bleary at the clock, he saw that it was nearly six o' clock. He had been out since noon. The black out periods were getting longer and longer, but at the same time they were blissful. He struggled to get up.

The second shift man entered the office. "Ronnie, man. You gotta' stop doing this before you get fired."

"I know." he moaned, clutching his head.

"What have you been taking, anyway?"

Ron started out the door. "Jim, you don't want to know."

His mother was waiting for him when he got home. "Ron," she said stiffly, "We have to talk."

"Can't this wait till morning?" he asked.

"No." Her face was set solid and unmoving in a grim frown. "Ron, come here."

He trudged over to her. "Yes?"

"Explain." She waved a plastic bag in his face, holding two syringes and a small green bottle. Ron stood silent. "Well."

"You just don't understand."

"Oh, honey, I do. You're not the only one in pain around here. I know what you've gone through, but you cannot drown it all in Drugs. It doesn't work that way."

"Look, mum, if you don't like it, that's just fine. I'll leave. I don't have to stay here."

"Then maybe you should go."

"Fine, I will then." He stomped up the stairs. Ginny, Percy, and Neville were staring at him from their bedrooms, but wisely, they didn't speak, even as tears were running down Ginny's face.

He threw a couple sets of clothing into the bag, and as a last thought, his useless wand.

It wasn't until he had tossed his pack into the passenger seat of the car and had taken off that he realized he had no place to go.

*A/N: I have gotten off on a gloomy start. Sorry about the Percy/Neville at the beginning...Well, *I* thought it was funny. Next chapter includes leather trousers and our favourite blond.