Seamus watched, helpless as Harry fell to his knees by his cousin's body. He felt Harry's pain and for one long moment it paralyzed him. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he crouched down beside him, reached for him.
Harry flinched. "Don't!" he barked, without turning his head. He couldn't bare the thought of being touched.
Seamus snatched back his hand, devastated. He rose to his feet but didn't turn and leave.
Dudley was resting on his side, face turned towards the wall. Harry could almost make himself believe that his cousin had curled up and was at this very moment taking a nap under the stars. Except there were no stars to speak of, only flat monotonous grey as far as the eye could see and the biting cold, always the hellish cold. Not even the Dementor could rival the ice that had cored out his heart.
He'd failed him. He was to blame for this, for not getting there quick enough. It was ridiculous because he hadn't asked for this life. He hadn't any choice in the matter that his parents were killed, that he was fobbed off to relatives who despised him and then spent his teenage years being pursued by a psychopath. Still, he couldn't help feeling he was to blame for this. Somehow he should have expected it. Voldemort rattling around in his brain, he probably watched with monstrous glee as he and Dudley became friends and then waited for his chance to taint him, to turn him against him. The grin that transformed Harry's face was positively macabre. He laid odds Dudley failed to be corrupted, that he held tight to his new beliefs and suffered greatly for it.
He had to know- to own his failure completely he had to see the extent of his loss. Harry gently began to roll Dudley's body toward him.
Seamus seized him by the shoulders, but Harry shrugged them off violently. No one would stop him from seeing.
"Harry please, you don't..." Seamus bolted from the room.
Harry stared, horrified. He drew in frigid air in great racking sobs, not once taking his eyes off the savage condition of Dudley's body.
In the background he was aware that Seamus was ridding his stomach of dinner all over Aunt Petunia's pristine carpet and wouldn't she be pleased.
Harry ghosted his fingers down Dudley's arms, curling them around his cousin's hands. They were frozen in death as if he'd been desperately clawing his way out of whatever torment they had thrust upon him.
I'll kill you for this.
The terror forever petrified in those sightless eyes, his mouth twisted, stretched into a hideous scream, eternally muted. His flesh had been torn from his cheek, gouged out by what Harry could only imagine were someone's fingernails. Those thin lips that had once laughed out loud at Harry's school yard antics were now in ribbons, bitten viciously by the thing that defiled him beyond reason.
He mewled at the desecration, he couldn't stop the pitiful sound from coming out of his mouth, and it was too much, too fucking much. How could they do this to an innocent boy?
This wasn't right, this wasn't happening. No! He wouldn't believe it; he'd refuse to believe. He could see it, all of it, but it wasn't real. It was a dream. Yes, that's what it was, just a nightmare he'd conjured up in his sleep deprived mind. Nothing more...
"Harry?"
"No," he whispered, chanting the one word until he was screaming, and screaming it.
The pain sliced into his heart with agonizing precision.
Ron spent the rest of the evening avoiding Malfoy. After storming out of the bedroom, he had hidden away in the attic. As a small child he'd hated it up there. Wardrobes full of old mouldy clothes, trunks stacked to the roof containing odd trinkets that had always given him the creeps. He'd imagined that they were dark art objects, passed down from his ancestors, forgotten amongst the dust and the cobwebs. That of course had been the main reason he had recoiled away from ever entering the attic: the possibility of spiders, lots of them.
Shiny dark eyes watching him from the corners, their small furry bodies and all those legs scuttling towards him caused Ron to shiver violently in dread of such an attack. He could feel those fragile tendrils over his face, and he'd freeze, terrified as to where the spider was that had spun the web...in his hair, crawling down his arm or worst of all, scurrying down the back of his robes, inside his clothing, trapped against his flesh. Goosebumps rose on his skin at the very thought of tiny alien legs touching him.
As he'd gotten older and the need to find a place where he could be alone became more urgent, he sought out the merits of the attic once more. Of course the first thing he did was banish the spiders. Now, it was his bolt hole, his haven away from his parents and siblings, a place where he could think without being disturbed by a nosey family member.
Ron had arranged the eclectic mix of furniture into a maze, placing several simple muggle traps just in case the twins got curious and went looking for him. He had stacked three old mattresses on top of each other against the back wall of the house, erecting a makeshift bookcase and writing table out of a couple of decrepit suitcases that had been the proud owner of hundreds of marbles. Those same small glass balls were now an intricate part of one of his traps. To compliment the muggle traps, he'd practised his warding skills on the enclosed space, to the point where he was secure in the knowledge that no one would disturb his sanctuary.
Exhausted, Harry slumped forward wrapping his arms around Dudley's limp form and tugging the boy to his chest. He simply rocked Dudley in his arms, his own throat raw from screaming.
Pressing his face into his cousins matted hair he swore. "I promise to get them all for this...I'm sorry, I'm so damn sorry." His tears soaked into Dudley's hair. "I should have known he'd target you and I bet you fought him didn't you? I'll finish this for you, I promise you."
Seamus almost made the mistake of touching him, but he remembered all too painfully his rejection and his arm dropped before he could come in contact with the back of Harry's robes.
"Harry? Harry we have to leave." Seamus knew this was his family, but he couldn't bare it, those sightless eyes almost glaring at him accusingly from over Harry's shoulder, his head lolling obscenely. Besides, they'd made enough noise to alert the neighbours of their presence and he just knew it would not be long till the police were knocking down the front door.
Hunger eventually drew Ron from his hiding place. As he closed the trapdoor and made his way downstairs, he could hear his family below gathered around the dinner table. He must have been so preoccupied with thoughts of Malfoy that it was later then he had believed it to be.
The frame meant everything to him. It had been gifted to him alone, not his brothers or Ginny but him and now it was gone, destroyed by a goddamn Malfoy. That wasn't something new, the Malfoys, he was certain, were used to destroying everything in their path. It could be said that to annihilate your opposition was a right of passage in the Malfoy household. He was probably one of those four year olds who practised the killing curse on helpless critters and torched his toys for fun, just to watch them burn.
Ron heard footsteps behind him, he turned to see Draco hovering two steps above him. They connected for an instant before Ron whirled back around and fled down the stairs, the last thing he needed was to be alone with the Slytherin.
"I don't...." Draco hesitated, he was almost going to apologise. What in the heck was wrong with him lately?
Harry ignored Seamus as he placed Dudley back on his side, sweeping his blood caked hair out of his eyes. Reaching back, Harry pulled the blanket from the end of Dudley's bed and laid it over his cousin's body, tucking it neatly under him. The glass from the open window had been shattered and the storm outside was increasing. Slowly rising to his feet, Harry took one last sweeping look at Dudley before taking his wand and apparating from the house.
Seamus rushed to the window to witness Harry reappear on the front lawn. He tried to scream at him, but either his words were lost in the wind or Harry chose not to listen. Either way, Seamus watched powerless as a dark figure launched into the air and disappeared out of sight without once looking back at him.
A police car emerged from around the corner and parked in front of the Dursley's. Seamus flattened himself against the wall next to the window frame.
"Oh Fuck!"
Somehow he'd misplaced his wand and he suspected he knew just who it had vanished with.
So far, Ron hadn't tried to decapitate Draco with the bread knife. He'd made sure not to even glance in the boy's direction, just in case his mere presence incited violence. The blond on his part had remained blissfully silent in return. He hadn't even scowled at anyone, not once.
Okay, so maybe he'd sneaked a peak at him one time, maybe two...
Draco wasn't the only one who wasn't speaking. Conversation around the old table was being stifled to a bare minimum. This was extremely odd as all meals in the Weasley home were without exception, a huge, noisy affair. Usually there was a great deal to be said, even with a stranger amongst them. Not so it appeared with a certain Slytherin sharing their evening meal. Apparently Malfoys were the anomaly...what a shocker!
That was about to change.
The dish of butter that Ron wanted, badly, was located next to one Draco Malfoy; he didn't think he could eat his potatoes without a little butter to improve the texture and enhance the taste. For the past two minutes he'd contemplated asking Ginny if she could pass it to him. He felt so silly, he knew he was being childish but he really didn't want to ask Malfoy for anything.
Draco had watched Ron do everything to avoid eye contact with him, pushing peas and carrots around and around his plate that he was positively exhausted and seriously peeved. Scooping up a dollop of butter onto his fork he proceeded to fling it at the Ron's head.
"You... are an imbecile Weasley!"
Thunder rolled over Ron's expression as the butter hit him on the cheek and slid down to cling to his shirt. Every inch of his face and hands stained to a vibrant red as he glared murderously at Draco seated directly across from him. He was tempted to kick him under the table but couldn't be sure he'd strike Ginny by mistake, as she was seated next to the blond.
Molly looked horrified but quickly found her fingers being squeezed under the table by her husband. Despite Arthur's restraint, she knew only to well the temperament of her youngest son and kept a close eye for any signs that surely meant war between the two.
The twins were laughing, whispering in each other's ear. Ron didn't even want to speculate on just what it was they were sniggering about.
With a fierce grip on his knife, Ron scraped off the butter meticulously till no fragment remained to soil the cotton. He devoted this time to calming his temper, soothing the boiling rage within. Discarding nothing, Ron transferred the butter missile to the potatoes on his plate.
What he really wanted to do was swing the plate at Malfoys neck and hope the impact sliced it clear off his shoulders. He had seen that in a muggle movie once and thought it rather wicked. A bit gruesome for his taste though. He could just stab the retched beast in the heart, but he was certain Malfoy didn't have one. In reality he took a forkful of potato dripping in butter and stuck it in his mouth, making a great deal of noise as he licked every particle of the vegetable off his fork- savouring the taste- his eyes challenging Malfoy from across the breadth of the dining table.
The smirk on Draco's face vanished and he visibly swallowed, his head dipping towards his plate. All of a sudden his half-eaten meal had become incredibly fascinating.
It was Ron's turn to smirk. Score one for the weasel. He paled though when he realized that the fork that had flung the butter at him had been in Draco's mouth. Internally, he groaned.