**Finally, the chapter that this whole fic was written for in the first place. So if you don't like it, too bad, it's a keystone. Thanks to everyone who helped me get up to the reviews I have now, even if most were reactions to my disastrous author's notes (don't ask).
ANNOUCING: Fifth year? I haven't done my homework! Is now posted in French! Thank you nanouk! You can read it at
Ok, ok, already! It SO has not been more than two weeks! It's only my first day back! But I am spending the whole day writing this chapter just for you ungrateful lot, so there.
It is very hard to write, and I'm making so many references to the books that they are now even more dog-eared than before. My cut and paste tools are also smoking from overuse.
**
Harry lay still in bad, running his right forefinger across his left palm. His mind was too full, too busy, and too excited to shut down.
He could hear Ron tossing and turning in the next bad. Harry wouldn't be surprised if neither one of them got a wink of sleep that night.
He ran over the events of the evening in his mind, savouring every moment to keep in his memory forever.
~
"Look out!" Ron hissed as he opened the door to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. "There's water all over the floor again. Looks like Myrtle's had a bad day."
"Tell me about it," said Harry, talking off his shoes and socks to avoid soaking them. He noticed his hand were shaking, and stuffed the in his pockets so Ron wouldn't see.
"That one'll do," said Ron, pointing at a basin halfway down the room. "It's the biggest."
They were lucky perhaps, that the basins were near the floor. This meant that they could kneel on the floor beside it, after hanging their robes up on pegs and rolling their trousers to above their knees.
Ron had balanced the book on the sink, propped up by the taps, and had just opened it to the right page, when Harry felt an icy touch in the back of his head.
He spun around and came face to face with-
"Myrtle!" Harry choked, remembering at the last second not to shout. "Don't do that!"
Myrtle giggled uncharacteristically.
"Fun though, wasn't it?" she said. "What are you two doing?"
Harry shot a quick look at Ron, who evidently decided that changing the subject was preferable to lying.
"Where'd all the water come from, Myrtle?" he asked her.
"How should I know?" said Myrtle, her cheerful attitude evaporating in an instant. "Everyone always makes such a big deal out of water. It's not like the water has feelings."
"Well, it is a little hard to wade through," Harry admitted, showing her the wet patches in his new jeans from kneeling down in the inch deep water.
"Well, it's you problem what you do with you own clothes," said Myrtle, looking at them slyly out of the corner of her eye.
"Yes," said Ron, taking the bait. "You don't have to worry about getting wet, do you?"
Myrtle glared at him for a second, then burst into tears and zoomed back into her favourite cubicle.
There was a sound like the loo flushing and Harry and Ron got even wetter as a fresh wave of cold water swamped the floor.
"That was mean," Harry told Ron. He couldn't help feeling just a little sorry for Myrtle. It wasn't her fault she was dead, after all.
"It got her out of the way, didn't it?" Ron pointed out. "Besides, she wanted us to say it so we'd feel sorry for her. Right then."
He looked up at the book. "Wash hands thoroughly," he read.
They did so, carefully not meeting each other's eyes.
"Make the cut using the following charm," Ron carried on. He drew his wand and looked up at Harry. "Last chance," he said.
Harry nodded. "Let's do it."
Ron took a deep breath, held his hand out in front of him and whispered.
"Cretus Cruor Duo Fraternis." *
Nothing seemed to happen at first, but when Ron tentatively touched the tip of his wand to his hand, he hissed in pain as a bright red drop of blood appeared.
Despite the pain, Ron drew a straight line on his palm with his wand, the skin breaking apart in its wake. Blood poured as he held his hand out over the sink.
Harry looked at his own hand. Now or never.
"Cretus Cruor Duo Fraternis."
It didn't really hurt all that much. Certainly not as much as the Cruciatus curse, for example. Harry had had worse.
All the same, it was the fact that he was doing it to himself that made it hurt. The fact that he could stop any second now, but he wasn't doing it…
The straight line of bright red blood streamed as Harry offered his hand to his friend.
Ron looked up. Neither of them said a word, but at that point, an age-old power long forgotten through the centuries took over their will.
Their eyes locked, they slowly clasped hands.
**Ohhh, this would be such a good place to leave it. Hmmm. Nah.**
It was the most extraordinary feeling. It was at first like being torn apart into small pieces, and then like being compressed together, squashed into a tiny space all in one.
The bathroom disappeared, and they were looking at endless, never ending blackness, they own hearts and mind spaced far apart as though they had never been one.
~
And then, all of a sudden, they found themselves alone.
~
Ron was standing by himself in a room with blue walls. The walls themselves, and all the furniture and things within it, were blurred, and seemed to lack life somehow, as if he was in a painting long since faded.
But he could hear quite clearly.
"No, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl, stand aside now…"
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead – Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"
The woman speaking suddenly dissolved into screams, and a strange, evil, shrill, voice was laughing. There was a flash of green light, and the scene disappeared.
His eyesight seemed to have improved, somewhat. Certain aspects of this new scene, a lavishly decorated and completely spotless living room, were still blurred, but there was one thing that was in absolute focus.
The woman standing before him.
She was thin, blonde, and seemed to have a rather extended neck. She was about three times Ron's size. She certainly didn't look like the sort of woman you would usually want to meet.
She was scowling impatiently, and she was looking straight at him.
And yet, not at him.
Ron tried to figure this out. It was as if he was inside another's body, for he could feel that he had arms legs, eyes and the usual bits and pieces that made up a person, but it was not his own.
The actions he made were completely controlled by the one whose body he was occupying. It also wasn't hard to guess whose body it was, as a long black fringe was coming down over his eyes, and he felt the cold metal of glasses upon his nose.
He was, unmistakeably, a younger Harry Potter.
"What do you want, boy?" snapped the woman, towering above him.
"Where did I get this scar, Aunt Petunia?" The little boy asked, pushing up his fringe to show her the lightning shaped mark on his forehead.
The woman (Harry's aunt, Ron now realised) flinched, not a little noticeably.
"In the car crash when your parents died," she said stiffly. "And don't ask questions."
Ron felt a surge of anger at this, but the scene had already gone, and replaced by another, yet again a little less blurry than the last, as Harry's memory became clearer.
A man, so fat that he blocked the kitchen table almost from view, faced him. Somehow, Ron knew that he was angry because his hair, which had been shorn off the night before, was now as long and annoyingly messy as it has been before. Harry was scared and worried.
Ron recognised this man as the one he had met coming off the train each year. This was Harry's uncle Vernon.
As Ron struggled to extract the young Harry's feelings from his own, the large man grabbed him by the front of his too large shirt. "How did you do it, boy?" he demanded.
Without giving the boy time to answer, Vernon pulled him out into the hall and threw him into the cupboard under the stairs, which was full of spiders, several of which falling onto Harry's head as the door slammed.
Ron felt no fear from Harry about the spiders, but he himself was certainly not comfortable with them around. In fact, he was about to faint right away, when the scene changed yet again.
Something horrid, brown and bobbly was being forced onto his head. He felt revulsion, and annoyance.
The brown thing, which Ron knew to be an old jumper of Harry's cousin Dudley, was shrinking as Aunt Petunia continued to try and make it fit Harry.
Puzzlement and relief flooded Harry's part of Ron's brain as the blonde woman announced that it had most probably shrunk in the wash.
And so it went on. As the memories became more frequent, they flew by faster, in such rapid succession that Ron had difficulty separating that weird sense of Harry's thoughts and feelings from his own.
When some event of importance or a particularly memorable one occurred, Harry's life conveniently slowed down.
Ron watched, listened, and felt as Harry worked his way steadily but painfully through Muggle primary school.
The incident with the roof of the school kitchens did nothing to improve his mood; neither did the accident with the Brazilian Boar constrictor, just before the end of Harry's last term.
But finally, ten years were over. Ron was pleased that he was going to Stonewall High Comprehensive next year.
This meant that he would be able to get away from Dudley and his gang.
Unfortunately, Ron also knew that Harry would be going to Hogwarts in September.
This made him very confused, and he let Harry walk him to the doormat to get the post as he tried to straighten out his mind.
Then confusion washed over him like a tidal wave, and he looked down. His letter to Hogwarts.
Harry's memory of the next few days was painstakingly slow. Ron was very pleased indeed when Hagrid finally came to get his friend, and annoyed that he hadn't done sooner.
Eleven year old Harry, on the other hand, was full of such happiness that it made Ron's head ache.
However, this was peanuts compared to what it felt like when he met himself.
Harry, to be fair, had not had very much luck getting onto platform nine and three quarters. What his Uncle had done there had not made Ron like him any more.
Harry heard a stranger's voice, but Ron recognised it as his own mother's.
"-packed with Muggles, of course-"
They both saw her then, the plump kindly woman with many red headed children. They all looked very much younger, especially Ron himself, who had a rather noticeable black mark on his nose.
"Now, what's the platform number?" asked Ron's mother.
"Nine and three quarters," said ten year old Ginny, minus the womanly body parts she had recently gained. "Mum, can't I go…"
There followed a sickly and embarrassing meeting between Harry and the Weasleys, after three of the boys had passed through the barrier between platforms nine and ten.
Ron saw younger versions of all the people he knew so well now, all getting onto the train and waving goodbye to all their parents.
He heard helped Fred and George load Harry's trunk onto the train, then listened to them telling his mother who he was.
(Ron could not believe Harry had heard that conversation. What utter weirdoes he must have thought them!)
And then finally…
"Anybody sitting there? Everywhere else is full."
Eleven year old Ron entered the compartment at Harry's nod. Ron watched himself pretend not to keep glancing at the other boy. He realised that he really was not all that good an actor.
The twins came and went yet again.
"Are you really Harry Potter?" the other Ron blurted out. Ron felt like punching him.
"Oh – well, I thought it might be on of Fed and George's jokes. And have you really got – you know…"
He pointed at Harry's forehead, and Harry pulled back his fringe to show the scar.
"So that's where You-Know-Who -?"
"Yes," Harry said. "But I can't remember it. "
"Nothing?"
"Well – I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else."
What a complete berk you are, Ronald Weasley.
There was a lot of boring conversations, and plenty of self-pity from the young Ron, before Neville, and then Hermione came in.
A brief encounter with the blond snail they'd all come to know and love, and finally the train stopped.
The first year at Hogwarts flashed by. Revelations, ideas, feelings, all flew in and out of Harry's head, making Ron frequently dizzy so that he found himself wishing for something to make it slow down, even if it meant something unpleasant.
This did happen a number of times, giving Ron an uncomfortable rest.
The sorting, for instance, was interesting, as was the incident with the remembrall in their first week.
The first meeting with Fluffy passed, as did the thing with the troll in the bathroom and Harry's first Quidditch practice.
The first match of the year, Ron saw from a completely different point of view. He had always liked Quidditch, as would any normal teenage wizard, but Harry enjoyed it in a different kind of way.
He'd been born to play since James Potter had sired him, and it was a part of him.
Ron saw Harry's whole family in the Mirror of Erised, and met Dumbledore two days later in the same room. They all rediscovered the Philosophers stone and Nicholas Flamel.
Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback was freed, and then Ron watched in horror as Harry met Quirrel first in the Forbidden Forest, and again in the chamber under the corridor on the third floor.
He was quite flattered at Harry's true feelings about his house during that first summer, until the second year started, and Ron started getting headaches again.
It had seemed at the time that the only really bad parts that year were the spiders and Riddle, but then Ron hadn't been the one whom everyone thought was the heir of Slytherin.
The Quidditch cup, and the Third year zoomed past in a flash, except the last part, which Ron watched with definite interest. He knew however, what was coming, and he waited with apprehension.
At last, Ron was wandering around the maze used in the third task. He had passed the Sphinx, and the cup was just around the corner…
Cedric was there. Cedric was going to get there first…
Ron had since gotten over the shock of seeing Cedric Diggory alive and well, and watched with numbed admiration has Cedric made the ultimate offer.
"Both of us," said Harry, after a lot of confused rambling thoughts, which were,
Ron knew by now, rather trademark of his best friend.
"What?"
"We'll take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. We'll tie for it."
Cedric was staring at Harry as he unfolded his arms. "You – you sure?"
"Yeah. Yeah… we've helped each other out, haven't we? We both got here. Let's just take it together."
A pause, and then... "You're on."
When they both grabbed the cup at the same time, Ron felt the familiar tug of the portkey.
If he had had a stomach, Ron knew there would be no butterflies, but seagulls in it.
Wormtail, whom Ron remembered with no great kindness, restored the Dark Lord by cutting off his own hand and taking Harry's blood.
His blood is of a different use now, thought Ron, even as the tall thin body of Tom Riddle arose from the cauldron.
He examined his body with bony fingers. Ron's own feeling of fear was drowned out only by Harry's. Ron knew what would happen, the Harry of nine weeks ago did not.
The net of golden light emitting from Harry's and Voldemort's wands gave him a shock to tell the truth, as did the shades of Cedric, the old man, Bertha Jorkins and Harry's parents.
The whole event passed with Ron's mind practically frozen in abject terror. When they were finally back at Hogwarts, it was almost even worse.
Finally, it was Harry's first summer away from Hogwarts. That first day was a blur, as was most of the rest of the time.
Harry's memories of that summer were so full of pain, hunger, hurt and dejection, that they were hardly recognizable as real life.
Ron felt anger, sadness, and ultimately fear for his friend as he endured endless days, nights and weeks of pain and ridicule. The dreams made him feel as though he would be sick, until finally Hermione was there.
And a wand.
"That's better," said Hermione, her tone icy. "Now let him go."
Dudley was usually terrified of wizards of all shapes and sizes. His summer spent with a broken Harry, however, seemed to have softened his fear.
He motioned to Malcolm, who stood up, keeping a tight hold on Harry's right arm, which was bleeding from some old wound, which had opened.
Dudley strolled over and grabbed Harry's other arm. Before Hermione could open her mouth to stun him (or worse) Dudley had whipped out his Britannia penknife and placed the blade at his cousin's throat.
"Make a move," he told Hermione. "And I kill him."
Hermione shook a little, but kept her wand level. All Harry and Ron both could think was, 'what the hell is she doing here?'
"You wouldn't," said Hermione. No one missed the uncertainty in her voice. "He's your own flesh and blood."
"I've killed before, you know," said Dudley playfully. "Mice and birds. Cats sometimes. Small dogs. He's one of you. That makes him an animal. Why shouldn't I just… put him to sleep…?"
Harry yelped as the knife made a shallow cut across his neck. He didn't realize his eyes were pleading.
Slowly, defeated, Hermione lowered her wand. Dudley nodded to his stunned friends. "Wake them up."
With a tiny sob that no one could hear, Hermione raised the wand again.
"Enervate." All four boys sat up slowly.
"Come on," said Dudley. His gang followed him down the street, Harry still being towed along by Malcolm.
Dudley waited until they were on the next street, then he signalled Malcolm to put Harry down.
The next few minutes passed in a blurry haze, in the midst of which his arm was broken, and his glasses smashed.
The next thing Ron knew, he was in hospital, Sirius and Hermione watching over him.
Sirius chuckled grimly. Were there tears in his eyes?
"Remus found a paper. I gave him a black eye when he tried to stop me charging out after those…" he paused for lack of a word suitable enough. "He managed to convince me you were more important. Well, I knew you were anyway, I was only thinking that I ought to… I mean…" and stopped again because he was simply tying himself up in knots.
Harry shifted his and Ron's head as far as it would go without hurting, and looked at Hermione.
"What happened?"
"You tell us," said Hermione. She looked a little angry now. "Harry, he was going to kill you!"
"Hermione, you haven't – "
"I told them everything. But more happened after didn't it? Your arm can't have been broken before, because your cousin and that other boy were holding onto you. And before… how long has this been going on for?"
Harry closed his eyes and ignored the question. Before anyone could prompt him he asked suddenly,
"How did you know that was Dudley?" Ron remembered Hermione's words.
You wouldn't. He's your own flesh and blood.
"From your description," said Hermione simply. The way she said it somehow made Harry and Ron both think that she had only just managed to convince herself of how she had known.
There was no point in hiding what had happened with Hermione. They already knew. Great.
"He wouldn't really have killed me," said Harry, not meeting either of their eyes. "He was just really afraid of you, was all. And you needn't have cursed the others. I was fine on my own, really."
"Dragon dung. He cut your neck."
That was true. Sirius hissed as Harry raised a hand slowly to his throat and felt the mark that had hardened overnight.
At that moment there was a knock on the door. There were two doors, Ron realised, but before he had time to fathom questions like 'why isn't he in a proper ward?' Sirius had transformed into the huge black dog and was hiding under the bed.
Harry groaned again when the door opened and Dumbledore entered his room. Behind him was a portly doctor in a white coat and black trousers.
Ron wasn't in a very good position to see anything lower than waist height, so his usual plan of staring at the floor would not work. He stared at the ceiling instead.
"So we are agreed," Dumbledore was saying to the Doctor.
And now Ron was very confused, and settled his attention on trying not to look at him, but look at the interesting pattern of white and white stripes on the hospital ceiling.
"He'll stay at school for the remainder of the summer and I send anymore information to this address," said the not-quite-a-doctor in a monotonous voice of someone who was under influence to say it.
Harry didn't think it was a spell, just awe at being in the presence of his headmaster, who could be very awe-inspiring when he put his mind to it.
"Yes indeed," said Dumbledore.
"And you confirm that a Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Dursely are responsible for these injuries?"
Of course they are! thought Ron. Convict them already!
"And their son!" put in Hermione. "Don't you dare forget him!"
Grunning nodded. "Ah, I see Harry is awake," he said jovially. "Your picture's in every household in England, young man. Nasty eye you've got there," he remarked, nodding at a spot just above Ron's view.
Harry raised his and Ron's hand, and realised immediately why half his vision was blurred. The left lens of his glasses was missing.
Remember to duck the stick when in comes round, you don't want your other arm broken. Whack! Whoops, not quick enough. There's another pair of glasses to add to the endless list of things Dudley's always breaking.
"It's honestly not that bad…" Harry tried. Ron realised that his friend was an idiot.
Hermione jumped up and said something that she would never normally allowed Ron to say in public. "Harry, your arm was broken!"
"Dudley got a bit overexcited."
"He was threatening me with killing you! That's illegal!"
"Give it up miss," said the not-quite-a-doctor man. "He's not telling." He turned to Dumbledore. "I suppose you'll update me if he comes clean? It is rather hard to construct a full trial without the witness."
"But of course, Mr. Grunning," said the Headmaster.
The man ran fingers through tousled hair. "Vernon Dursley eh… my brother sponsors his company, you know, great carpenter, my brother, I'm sure Mr. Dursley will be very excited to hear about that…"
"And very talkative too, I should imagine," said Dumbledore. "Hermione, your mother's waiting."
It was a dismissal, albeit a polite one. "Goodbye Harry. I'll see you when term starts. See you in a week." And she was gone, with a distressed look over her shoulder as she exited through the opposite door.
As Dumbledore extended a hand towards him, Ron realised that Harry was fully clothed in what appeared to be hospital sweatshirt and trousers. They reeked of disinfectant. Ron supposed his other clothes must have been blood soiled.
He let Dumbledore drag him to his feet. He shook a little, but remained standing. He managed a weak smile. "Right then," said Dumbledore. "No need to see us out, Mr. Grunning, I'm sure you have a lot of work to do."
Grunning left with an awkward "thanks," and Sirius crawled out from under the bed.
Dumbledore pulled out a glasses case from his deep robe pocket. It was shaped to fit exactly the outline of his half-moon spectacles.
"This will get us back to Hogwarts."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked tentatively, as he placed a finger over the case.
Sirius grunted as he transformed and touched the thing as well, not meeting Harry's eyes. Ron barely had time to hear him say, "You'll have to trust us on that one," before the familiar tug at his navel bore them back to Hogwarts.
The meeting between Harry and Wendy was an annoyingly short one. Ron was a little hurt that Harry had not told him about his abilities when it came to wandless spells.
The rest of the week was a complete revelation to Ron. It passed slowly, the clearest of Harry's memories so far, as they were the most recent.
He learned of new spells and curses, of Harry's learning work far beyond the seventh year.
He learned of Sleeve, and he understood the words the snake spoke as clearly as they had been in his own language.
He discovered that Harry was an unregistered, fully-fledged animuchos.
Ron felt the different, yet equally glorious feelings of being cat, snake and owl, and felt Harry's urging to try more.
He dreamed the plot to kill Snape, and warned the potions master of it.
But the most astonishing thing of all was yet another matter. Ron watched all with utter perplexity and fear, until he arrived, at last back in the bathroom, looking straight into Harry's emerald green eyes.
~
It had all been so happy so far.
Harry, who had long since realised what was going on despite them being different from the other memories he had entered, sat back and let Ron's life flash before his eyes.
He got over the initial strange feeling of seeing himself remarkably quickly, and then watched first, second and third year comfortably from inside Ron's head, not even bothering to separate Ron's thoughts and feelings from his own.
This turned out to be a problem when in came to the night after he, Harry, had been chosen as the forth champion of the Triwizard Tournament.
The resentment, jealously and anger was so penetrating that Harry thought he might stop breathing right then and there.
It got no better once he and Ron had made up and those feelings were mostly gone, because Harry knew they had been there and could so easily be there again.
And then it was the summer holidays and Ron read up on magical ties. He had Harry in his mind all along while he did this.
He felt awful about what had happened at the forth task, and wanted somehow to rectify it.
They returned to school, where Harry listened to his own sarcastic comments aimed at Voldemort for the sake of the school, and truly realised how stupid they had sounded.
He sat through the lesson Professor Little had given the fifth years about shields, and only just had time to realise what the colour of his own shield truly meant. He decided to have a long talk with Wendy about that.
He saw Wendy herself in a whole new light. Her long raven hair and bright blue eyes were now astonishingly attractive.
But over the whole time, ever since Ron and Hermione had sat, holding each other's hands at Harry's bedside after the forth task, there was a different feeling.
One, not of jealousy, but of something different altogether. Something that made Harry start to bear some of Ron's ill feeling.
And then he was back in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Ron's face still only a few inches away from his, their hands clasped tight over the blood filled basin.
"You're in love with Hermione," Harry told him.
"You're a silver wizard," Ron said at the same time.
There was a long moment of silence as both Harry and Ron tried to take in all they had learned in goodness knew how long.
"And now we are one," said Ron quietly.
"Blood brothers," said Harry, scarcely able to believe it.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"About what?" Harry looked Ron straight in the eyes, and realised that he looked even more tired out than he himself did. He could guess why.
"Everything. This summer. Sirius and Remus, you being animagi…"
"Animuchos," Harry corrected him.
"Whatever. About you being a silver wizard – Harry, those are rarer than dogs that talk!"
"I know that now," said Harry. "But Wendy never told me before."
"I know," said Ron. "This is going to confuse me after a while."
"There's no point in asking 'why didn't you tell me?' anymore, is there?" Harry said. "Because you've been in my head. You know why already."
"Yeah…."
"Are you two quite finished?" It was Myrtle, leaning over the top of the cubicle and watching with interest. "You've been sitting there for ages."
~
Harry had no idea how he and Ron had got back to Gryffindor tower. Every muscle in his body ached, and his head was still pounding. He ran his finger over the cut in his palm even as he rolled over for the hundredth time.
Already, as the book had warned, it was no longer a cut, but a long thin scar, reaching from the base of his thumb to his little finger.
And on top of everything, Ron fancied Hermione. Harry wasn't all too sure how he felt about that. Maybe he understood why so little people had become blood brothers. Ron's feelings kept trickling into his, and it was decidedly uncomfortable.
Harry turned over, and tried at last, in vain, to get to sleep.
**
*Roughly – 'From Blood Two Brothers'
Oh yes! Well done me! A whole chapter in one day. Not much of a chapter, I know. 1st prize to the one who actually read all of that gibberish.
I'd love to do a thanks list, but, well, lots of people have been complaining they want an update, and I have loads of people who have reviewed two or three times, and oh yeah, I can't be bothered.
Easter hols are still on, so I hope you can look forward to a new chapter soon, with Tuesday's lessons which are:
Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology and Astronomy.
Hagrid has a surprise for you all!
Love Laterose.