Chapter 9: Birthdays, Brokenness and Betrayals

The next few weeks at Number 12 passed without any major incidence- unless you count Harry locking Ron in a dusty wardrobe for his shameless attacks on the raven-haired boy's atrocious chess skills. Surprisingly enough, Mrs. Weasley sided with Harry.

"Ronald, dear, stop shaking the wardrobe, or it will tip over!" she hooted, doubling up with laughter when Hermione dragged her into the room, pleading for the older woman to unlock the door.

"You can't deny that you deserved it the way you've been antagonizing him lately! Honestly, I surprised he didn't do worse from the things you've been saying to him."

Mrs. Weasley did unlock the wardrobe, though, and out stepped a cursing Ron, mumbling something along the lines of 'get you for this… foul, evil, loathsome little… means WAR'. At this, Harry chuckled.

"No problem, Ron. I'd be more than happy to wage an ongoing battle with you. It will give us something to do other than homework!"

The group laughed, and headed down to the kitchen for supper. Once again, Dobby had cooked up a fantastic meal and everyone enjoyed themselves. Even Ron began to chuckle about Harry locking him in the wardrobe, admitting that it was a good prank.

"Seriously, Ron," choked Ginny, attempting to speak in between gales of laughter, "I can't believe you FELL for that! Did you honestly think that Dobby would have put your clean robes in an unused wardrobe on the THIRD floor!"

Ron's ears began to flush, "Well, I uh, I mean, I um thought that he- um- oh forget it. Can we talk about something else now?"

Even Hermione was laughing now. "Sure, Ron. So, Harry, what did you want to do for your birthday tomorrow?"

Harry choked, splattering his milk on the table. "Is my birthday really tomorrow? Whoa. I honestly didn't remember."

Ginny shook her head, smiling to herself about how selfless her boyfriend could be sometimes, and Mrs. Weasley gasped in motherly outrage.

"Harry James Potter! Are you telling me that you have never had a proper enough birthday to even bother REMEMBERING that it's coming up!"

He blushed in embarrassment. "Um, well Mrs. Weasley, no. I guess I haven't, really."

"Well, I NEVER!" she sniffed. "That settles it then. You lot- OUT. Go finish your homework or something, but you had best not set foot in this kitchen again until tomorrow morning."

Confused, the group rose and retreated to the drawing room.

"What in the WORLD was that about?" asked Harry, shocked by the display of emotions that his adoptive motherly figure had just shown.

"I've never seen her so upset- not even after Fred and George left Hogwarts- and it's just a stupid birthday! Honestly, I never liked them much anyway. I don't see what the all the fuss is about."

Ron smiled, shaking his head. "Harry, you may be smart with girls and everything, but when it comes to mums, you've got a lot to learn. You're completely oblivious as to how mums think."

Harry turned, and glared at his best friend, his green eyes flashing with anger comparable to that of Albus Dumbledore. The torches in the room began to flicker unnaturally, and ruby sparks seemed to discharge from the emerald-eyed boy. His hair (which was more on end than normal), and each of his fingertips shot off heated flashes of magical discharge at a continuous rate.

Instantaneously, the room was silent and its occupants braced themselves for the explosion- but what came, was far worse than they could have imagined. When Harry spoke, his voice was quiet- no more than a whisper. Harry's eyes flashed almost black with the anger of betrayal, and his words were cold and cackling with malevolent energy.

"Well, Ronald, I may not know a lot about mothers, but I can assure you that I at least have a valid excuse for that. YOU, on the other hand, have no excuse for your tactlessness."

With that, Harry rounded on his heels, stomped out of the drawing room and all the way up the stairs, leaving his three best friends with their jaws nearly hitting the floor.

" Oh shit," mumbled Ron, smacking himself in the forehead and dropping frustratedly into the desk chair.

"I cannot BELIEVE I just said that."

"Neither can I, Ron," whispered Hermione, horror-struck at the events she had just witnessed.

"I just wasn't thinking. God, Harry was right about me. I just don't pay attention enough. I mean, I didn't MEAN anything by it! You know that, don't- don't you, 'Mione?"

Hermione just stared, unable to speak.

"Ginny?" cried Ron, desperately. "You know I didn't! I just- I-"

By now, Ron was close to tears. Hermione didn't know what to do. She had never seen her boyfriend as broken as he was now, and she had been with him through nearly every altercation of his life. The Sorcerer's Stone, when Ginny had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets, when everyone had thought that Sirius Black had nearly murdered him in his sleep, The Triwizard Tournament and even the Department of Mysteries Room of Knowledge, where he had nearly been strangled to death by a human brain. Hermione secretly knew (reluctantly, she had finally broken down and promised that she wouldn't tell Harry) that although her boyfriend had severe scarring all over his chest and arms from the brain, that the emotional pain of betraying his best friend would hurt far worse than any of the scars from the Department of Mysteries. Ginny, on the other hand, had grown up with Ron, and knew exactly what to do to comfort him. Walking over to her older (and favorite) brother, she hugged him and lowered his face to hers with her hands.

"Yes, Ron," she whispered consolingly. "I know you didn't mea it. I know you just wanted Harry to realize that mums tend to think that their baby's birthdays are among the most important things in the world.

"In a way, yes, you were right- Harry does have a lot to learn about mums. He's never had one, and so he doesn't understand why things like birthdays would be so important to them.

"I think he feels sometimes that it's his fault that he has no parents, and I'm sure that losing Sirius- the closest thing he's had to one- doesn't make it any easier."

Ron pulled away, and hung his head once again into his hands. Hermione cautiously approached him and sat on the arm of the leather desk chair. Stroking his back, she attempted to soothe him. A few silent minutes passed, and the broken redhead raised a tear-stained face to two of the women that he cared most about in the world.

"What am I going to DO?" he whispered, his voice cracking as the tears continued to fall. "I can't believe I hurt him like that. And so soon after Sirius and the Department of Mysteries and just- EVERYTHING that he's been through. I don't deserve to be his friend. Not after that. He has every right to never speak to me again."

"Talk to him," supplied Ginny simply, as if it were as effortless as breathing.

"How CAN I?" moaned Ron. "He has every right to hate me."

"But he WON'T," assured Hermione. "He knows you didn't mean it like that, Ron. Sure, it hurt, but deep down, he knows that you meant the best."

"Look, Ron," interjected Ginny, glancing at her wristwatch, "he's been gone for almost forty-five minutes. I'm sure he's had time to cool down. Just go upstairs and talk to him."

"But-"

"Go, Ronald," urged Hermione. "We'll be right outside the door if you need us."

Sighing, Ron stood up shakily and headed for the stairs, followed by his girlfriend and sister. Grabbing their hands for support, he ascended, feeling as though each step would be his last, and rightfully so. Timidly, he knocked on the door to his and Harry's bedroom before opening it. The sight that met his eyes seemed to stop time in its tracks. The vision that he witnessed upon opening the door was just as surprising as the reaction Harry had given in the drawing room.

Ron knew that he would have much rather been screamed at, hexed, or beaten up physically than hearing the hurt whisper that Harry had confronted him with. Ron had never seen his best friend so angry. In fact, he had never seen ANYONE so angry- angry, being the understatement of the century. The only person that had come close was his Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Shivering, he recalled that particular Quidditch match in his third year when the Dementors of Azkaban had entered the grounds against the orders of the greatest wizard alive. Ron remembered the way Dumbledore seemed to radiate an energy that was powerful enough to send even the Dementors packing without a Patronus. Now that he had thought about it, he noticed that the energy that had been searing through his best mate had been equivalent, if not greater than that of his Headmaster, which was something to be noted.

Shaking his head out of his nostalgia, Ron focused on the pitiful site that lay before him. Coughing slightly to announce his presence, he apprehensively approached Harry's bedside. Forgetting to close the door behind him, he left Ginny and Hermione standing fearfully in its frame.

"Harry?" he whispered, nervously, dreading a repeat of what had happened in the drawing room.

Harry barely twitched. The only movement that showed Ron that Harry wasn't comatose was his left hand, which was absentmindedly stroking Tonic. He had never seen his friend look so disgraceful. Harry's normally gleaming eyes were dim and dark with pain, and seemed to be shrinking back into the depths of his skull. His hair, which usually was disheveled to an unimitatable perfection, seemed to have lost its unruliness. Not knowing what to do, and barely able to remain upright out of devastation of what he had done, Ron fell to his knees at Harry's bedside. Once again, the tears began to fall; only this time he did nothing to hold them back.

"Oh, God, Harry. I don't even know HOW to say I'm sorry for what I said. It would never be enough. I don't deserve to have your friendship after being so thoughtless. I understand if you want to hate me forever. I would deserve it. I deserve to die for what I-"

Harry's limp form bolted upright, frightening Tonic. She jumped off the bed with a reproachful look at the boy who had removed her from the travesty that Diagon Alley called a Pet Shop and into her calmer, female owner's arms.

"Don't."

"Don't what, Harry?" wailed Ron, now openly sobbing, not caring how childish he looked. "I mean every word. I don't deserve your friendship. I deserve to die for hurting you like that."

"Don't ever say that you deserve to die, Ron. EVER."

His voice cracked, but he forced himself to go on, knowing that if he stopped he would never continue.

"Everyone I've loved in my life has died so far- you would be willing to hurt me even MORE by wishing death upon yourself?"

Even Harry was beginning to tear up now, but he was no match for the sobbing of the two girls, still standing silently in the doorframe. In one movement, Ginny and Hermione rushed over to the bed and threw their arms around the two boys. For what seemed like hours, the group sat there, wrapped in each other's arms, Ron and Harry sniffling and the girls weeping outright. At long last, Harry pulled away and rose from the bed.

"Harry, mate," Ron stuttered, "please- yell at me. Hex me. Do SOMETHING. Just please forgive me. You're the first friend I ever made, and I don't want to be without you."

Harry smiled sadly, and reached into his bedside cupboard for the Pensieve he had bought at Madam Amanda's.

"Ron, of course I forgive you. There's nothing to forgive. Consider it forgotten. All I ask now is that you three, in turn, forgive me for what I'm about to show you, and what I've kept from you all this time."

"Harry," breathed Hermione, startled at the sudden change in subject, "is that a PENSIEVE? How did you get one? They're really rare! I wonder if even Dumbledore has one?"

Harry laughed, but even he could hear how hollow and forced it sounded.

"Never miss a trick, do you, 'Mione? Yes, it's a Pensieve, and I bought it from 'Amanda's Antiques and Amour' when we went to Diagon Alley for our school things a few weeks ago."

"Wow. Just, WOW. Do you know how to work it?"

Sheepishly, he smiled once again. "Yeah. I couldn't sleep one night so I asked Dobby to show me the library. He helped me find a book on "How to Operate Complex Magical Objects", and it showed me how to do it. Professor Lupin wanted me to wait and have Dumbledore show me, but I couldn't wait that long. I have way too much stuff on my mind right now to wait for term to begin."

"I was a little curious when you said you needed to 'show' us something you've kept from us," said Ginny, fingering the carvings on the stone basin inquisitively.

"So I take it Professor Dumbledore does have one, doesn't he?" inquired Hermione, getting back to the point.

"Yeah, he does. I've seen way more than I care to from that thing. I'm sure you'll feel the same way after this."

"What's going on, Harry? What are you trying to tell us?" asked Ron, unable to discern the anxious feeling in his stomach.

"You know you don't have to tell us anything you don't want to," he added, wisely. "I'll understand. I'm sure the girls will, too."

The Boy Who Lived just shook his head and sighed.

"You know Ron, it's statements like that that make me realize you're ready to hear it. You're going to know eventually, and I know if I were in your shoes I would want to hear it this way over the other."

Hermione's voice quivered when she spoke.

"What's the… the other way, Harry?"

He shook his head profusely. "No. This way is better. Just trust me on that one."

Ginny reached over her brother's lap and grabbed Harry's hand.

"It's ok, Har. You know what's best."

"I hope so, Gin. I hope so."

"What is it, Harry? I know a Pensieve holds memories," interpolated Hermione, knowledgably, "but…"

Her voice trailed off. His best girlfriend, for once in her life, seemed unable to finish a thought. The boy with green eyes, who had prematurely been through more than they could have ever imagined, bit his lip and whispered,

"The Prophecy."