~*Midsummer's Night*~

Chapter 1: Don't let them see you cry

Author: Chibi Ron Weasley

Rating: PG (for mild violence)

Memorandum: Eeey. I do not own the Potter gang. So there. Sue me....hey, wait. On second thought, don't. I'm a poor-ass who dives on nickles in the hallway.

This story focuses more on Ron and Harry's feelings and lives, rather than in my other story ButterMellow (since I got kicked off FF.net for how damn NC-17 that story was...*grumble*...), where the point was to get through all that junk and to the all out porn-fest as soon as possible. This is a much more tame (and sweet ) version of their relationship. It may take a while to progress...you know we always have to have our little R rated section...Be patient. This story is also a bit old...I typed it up out of an old journal I used to wirte in when I was bored during school. Please enjoy, and review for me! pretty please...^_^

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~Don't let them see you cry~

Ron lay awake in his bed, his hands resting comfortably on the palms of his hands. He stared at the ceiling dully with a detached air of disinterest. It had been the fifth time he'd woken up that night, for about the seventh day in a row.

Ron sighed and rolled over again, tangling his blankets further around his form, and stared out his bedroom window. The velvety sky was already dotted with the first blue-grey hues of daybreak. That meant it was probably close to 6AM, he thought to himself. He pressed his hands against his face in an irritable manner, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, then turned his over to a small nightstand that sat next to his bed. Sitting next to his lamp was a small framed photo. Upon closer look, it was of three smiling Gryffindors, about the age of 15, all waving merrily. Ron smiled. The boy on the far left, with the brilliantly red hair, was infact himself, Ronald Weasley.

Next to him proudly stood one of his best friends, a girl, Hermione Granger. Her bushy brown hair had been brushed into silky waves that gently swayed with the wind and shone with bright highlights of sunshine. She smiled a broad cheerful smile, waving with one hand, while the other was draped around the shoulders of an extremely handsome boy that was standing beside her.

Harry Potter. Unruly locks of raven colored hair fell about his face in an untidy manner. It was sort of sticking up in places on his head as if he had tried to comb it with a toilet brush, and failed miserably. Nevertheless, he seemed as pleasant as ever, sporting a wide grin and a cheerful expression. His brilliant green eyes shone with pure happiness behind his round glasses. He was also waving merrily, and once and a while, a small breeze came along which ruffled his untidy bangs so the slight lightning bolt scar on his forehead became visible.

Ron slid his head down his pillow to bring the picture into better focus through the opaque darkness, as he continued to stare at the framed moment of happiness.

Harry and Hermione were beginning to laugh and carry on in the picture as a large gust of wind blew the glasses off Harry's face. Ron laughed quietly as he watched the photo Harry blush and quickly duck below the picture frame to retrieve his glasses, and then pop back up, grinning stupidly.

"Stupid git..." Ron chuckled softly to himself, watching his best friend fumble with his glasses and slide them back on, then just smile carelessly and run a hand through his windswept hair, in another futile attempt to tame it. "Oh Harry, you're hopeless," grinned Ron. But he actually quite liked Harry's hair the way it was, always all wild and messy...and it was such a pretty color, giving him such character in contrast to those bright emerald eyes...

Ron snorted and buried his face into his pillow. "Why am I staring at Harry like that? That's disgusting." He rolled over again, glowering at the lamp post as if it had been saying rude things to him. He had always been insanely jealous of Harry's looks, and about 50 other things, but to just stare at him like that...Ron shuddered.

"Ah. I'm worried. That must be it," he assured himself, "Harry hasn't written me back yet..."

And indeed Harry hadn't. His letters had just stopped coming about halfway through the summer. At first, Ron had ignored it. Harry must have been busy with chores, or something that his stupid uncle was making him do. And he didn't want to sound desperate by constantly sending Harry an owl to ask what was up (if 3 owls a day didn't seem desperate enough...).

But as the weeks carried on, he began to worry a little more, and every morning he would rush downstairs to see if Harry had sent him anything. But it always ended the same way...a minisrty letter for his dad...a letter for his mum...an occasional howler for Fred or George, (Lately they had been stealing their mother's underwear and randomly sending them out by owl post for the fun of it...) but never anything from Harry. And Ron would trudge back to his room and lay down on his bed, and wonder what in the world was happening.

He lifted his head from the pillow once more to stare at Harry's smiling picture, once more giving him that feeling of butterflies in his stomach that he didn't quite understand...

"Harry, please write me back..."

*****

Harry Potter awoke slowly, turning over in the tattered sheets of his bed. The house shook as the sound of an elephant stampede sounded from the hallway outside his bedroom, and Harry guessed that Dudley must have caught the scent of breakfast being cooked and had immediately rushed downstairs.

Blinking, he reached over to his dresser for his glasses and put them on, ans slowly got up to stretch, walking over to his window.

It was a cool summer morning on Privet drive, not like Harry was able to enjoy the beautiful weather, but it was nice out nonetheless. Everything on the street appeared as it always had; normal. Nothing out of the ordinary, especially no owls during daylight.

Harry sighed, his hopes shot down for the fourth week in a row. Why wasn't Ron replying to any of his letters? Harry didn't want to seen pushy, but he had expected Ron to invite him over to the Burrow for part of the summer, and if he didn't get out of this Dursley hellhole soon, he would probably go insane. He hadn't planned on being here for the summer, but Sirius, his godfather, was still conviniantly on the run from the Ministry of Magic, and wasn't able to take him in. So the Dursleys had been landed with the burdened of keeping him again for yet another miserable summer. Harry stopped scanning the skies for any sign of owls, and rested his head upon his folded arms on the window sill. Why wasn't Ron writing back...

"Petunia!!" barked Uncle Vernon's voice from downstairs. Harry detected the faint smell of burnt toast reach his room.

"Mmm. Breakfast must be ready." He rose from his seat next the window and opened his bedroom door. Reluctantly, he slowly decended the staircase and made his way to the kitchen. Uncle Vernon was reading the morning paper at the breakfast table, an annoyed look on his face. Harry assumed that there was a frown underneath his large mustache.

Aunt Petunia was wafting a cloud of smoke out the window, and Dudley was standing next to her with burnt fingers, staring unhappily at five slices of now charred bread stuffed into the two slot toaster. He must have been unsatisfied with the quantity of his breakfast, and tried to make more. Wow, thought Harry, that was quite impressive, trying to do it himself, although Harry highly doubted Dudley's brain was ready for the high intensity stimulation of working the buttons on a toaster.

Dudley turned his piggy face toward Harry and scowled. Harry stared boredly back at him as he took his seat at the table. Nobody else seemed to notice he had entered the room at all.

"Oh my poor little Duddy-kins..." Aunt Petunia fussed as she ran cool water over Dudley's fat fingers, "If you wanted more, you should have just asked mommy!" She hastily pulled the mangled toast from the toaster and, careful as to not get as much as a speck of it on her pristine floor, carried it across the kitchen and deposited it in the trash. Dudley skulked over and flopped into his seat, shaking the table, causing a bit of Harry's orange juice to slosh over the rim of his glass onto his lap. Harry stared at it, and then up to his plate, which presented him with three delightfully burnt, unbuttered pieces of toast. He noticed Dudley was eyeing them gluttonously. He sat there and whimpered, flashing his eyes to his own empty plate, and then back to Harry's toast, in a desperate attempt to hint to his mother that he still wanted more.

Harry rolled his eyes. Of course Aunt Petunia picked up ont the obvious hints her precious 'Duddy-kins' was giving.

"Don't worry Duddy, I'll make you some more toast."

Unfortunately, when she opened the fridge, she pulled out an empty bread bag. Upon seeing it, Dudley's face twisted into the expression resembling a child whos dog has just been run over by an oil tanker.

Petunia rushed over to comfort her son. "Don't worry, Duddy," she said, desperately trying to surpress the rising tantrum, "Look, see? We still have some more for schnookums."

Harry blinked, and two of his toast pieces were snatched away from his plate, and set infront of his gloating cousin. Those pieces were all burned, obviously meant for Harry, Petunia observed, so she had to upgrade them for Dudley.

"There we go, Dudley." She heaped on a blob of butter, and spread it over the toast generously. Dudley still seemed unsatisfies, even though he had just stolen more than half of Harry's breakfast.

"I want jam...and peanut butter and syrup on it!" he demanded. Harry watched his aunt flounce across the kitchen, collecting everything on the mere whim of Dudley.

"Here we go, just for my Dudley." Dudley's face lit up with glee as he watched the jam and syrup gobs pile on top of his breakfast.

Uncle Vernon set aside his paper to take a sip of coffee. "Healthy appetite, our Dudley," he said approvingly as Dudley was having a pig-out frenzy, "A growing boy needs a nice big breakfast every morning."

Harry rolled his eyes again, turning away from his piggy cousin in disgust, and began to nibble on the corner of his own dry piece of toast. Dudley sure was growing alright, although more horizontally than vertically. Harry often amused himself by thinking about the fact that he could probably pass Dudley off as a small beluga whale in a blonde wig. He pictured Dudley swimming around an aquarium somewhere and held back a snigger.

After he had finished his poor excuse for a breakfast, Harry slunk back into his room and quietly shut the door. He sat down on his bed, staring at the calendar on his wall with which he liked to mark off the days until his return to Hogwarts. There was still about a month left. He was going to have to wait that long...and was he going to have to wait that long to see his friends? Harry had begun to feel a mass of sadness fighting with the mass of anger in the pit of his stomach. Were his friends trying to ignore him? No, they wouldn't do that...would they? Harry flopped down on the bed feeling unsure of himself. He wanted to get their attention so badly...Then he remembered his emergency wizarding kit Hermione had gotten him one year ( you can never be too safe in the wizarding world, you know! ) which was hidden under one of the loose floor boards in his room. He slid off his bed into a kneeling position on the floor, and lifted the board, sorting through his many spellbooks until he found his kit.

He distinctly remembered something in the handbook about attracting attention to yourself for help or something. If he couldn't use magic to contact his friends, then he would use this.

"Hmm...healing tape...Anti-vomit pills...aha!" he muttered to himself as he spotted the small purple cylinders. They had bright green labels reading 'Use to attract attention'. Harry wondered, as he held the small device in his hand, how to attract the attention of the people you wanted to? Shrugging, he found a pull string on the bottom.

"Ok...sure hope this works--" He pulled the string. And waited. Nothing was happening...what exactly was this thing supposed to do? He brought it in close to stare into the top of it, and then--KABOOM.

With a whiz of sparks, it exploded with a loud whistling sound. Harry dropped it in shock, suddenly feeling very stupid for not consulting the manuel before. It suddenly began to emit a thick cloud of smoke and shot into the air like a rocket, clear through the roof, and exploded into a giant sparking violet firework.

Harry stood, dumbstruck, staring at the new gaping hole in his ceiling as the sound of many pairs of feet came thumping up the stairs and down the hallway. Oh God...Obviously the Dursleys heard. Who was he kidding? Probably the whole street heard...He sure had attracted attention to himself, but not quite the way he had wanted. The purple sparkling blob stayed stationary in the air. Harry cursed his stupidity; it was the equivalent of a muggle flare used in emergencies, only more powerful.

His door flew open and Uncle Vernon thundered in looking harassed, followed closely by Aunt Petunia and Dudley. Dudley still had bits of toast and syrup dripping down his chin.

"What the bloody hell are you doing in here boy!?--" he suddenly cut his tirade short as his angry little eyes moved from the petrified Harry to the hole in the ceiling, to the brilliant purple firework sparkling up in the sky, and his face contorted into something past anger.

All Harry could do was stare, his words failing him as he stood rooted to the spot. Uncle Vernon stomped over to him, already shaking with fury, he struck Harry hard with the palm of his hand, sending him crashing to the floor.

"I...I'm sorry..." was all Harry could get out of his constricted throat at the moment.

Uncle Vernon huffed angrily above him. He looked as if he wanted to scream at Harry but was beyond words. Finally, he seemed to have found his voice. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO!!?" he boomed, and Harry knew what was coming. Before he could react, his glasses were slapped off his face as his uncle continued to physically and verbally abuse him. "What have I told you about using those...those bloody spells inside this house!?"

"I wasn't casting spells, I was--" Harry choked out a gasp of pain as he recieved a swift kick to his side, and fell heavily on the floor.

"Do I look stupid, boy!?" Vernon thundered, his large face purpling further, and his foot connected with Harry's stomach. "Do you think I don't know something UNNATURAL when I see it!?" Harry saw stars as a fist was slammed into his face. He winced, covering his face, feeling a trickle of blood run out of his nose. Uncle Vernon didn't let up on his barrage of kicks and continued to buffet Harry's now bruised body. Dudley was laughing with sheer amusement at his cousin's torture.

Harry continue to endure it, trying desperately to shield himself from the painful blows. He wouldn't give in...and he wouldn't let them see him cry.

Uncle Vernon kicked him hard in the side, causing him to roll over, and cast a look of disgust down upon his nephews battered form. "That's what you get, you little freak!" he bellowed. Harry winced, expecting another slap or kick. "Your aunt and I allow you to live under our roof, even with your abnormality, and you go about trashing our home! Don't you even think for a second that this will be the end of this!!" Here he pointed a menacing finger at Harry, "You're going to fix this mess YOURSELF!!" And with that, they left, slamming the door, and leaving Harry bruised and battered, lying in a puddle of his own misery.

He lay completely silent for a couple of seconds, breathing eratically, his ear pressed against the floor boards. The pound of footsteps grew softer, moving away from him. They were gone.

Painstakingly, Harry dragged his body across the floor to lock his door. Grabbing the edge of his nightstand, he tried to raise himself up, and let out a whimper as a sharp pain shot through his side and he slid back down and lay motionless. He picked up a framed photo off the floor, one that his uncle had carelessly knocked over on his rampage, and held it close.

The three Gryffindors within the frame cast a sympathetic glance to him, and as Harry tried to blink back his tears, he noticed the boy with the flaming red hair in the picture. His eyes reflected the sympathy and understanding that he felt for harry, and even though Harry couldn't hear what he was saying, he was still able to tell. "It's ok, Harry. Don't let them see you cry..."

"Thanks, Ron..." Harry whispered. He hugged the picture close to him, and eventually fell asleep where he was on the floor.

*****