Harry Potter and the Slow Bloom Chapter 9:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The chapter title is borrowed from the John Le Carre book of the same name. Usual disclaimer applies.

A dawn came, and it found Luna Lovegood cradling Ron's head softly on her lap up on the south Tower terrace. Clear amber light spilled over them, illuminating the texture of their blankets, throwing the folds and creases of the heavy wool into sharp relief as Luna's hair curled and swayed in the slight morning breeze that cascaded in off the mountains. They both shifted as the new coolness washed over the terrace, and Luna found herself looking back into his eyes, his gaze steady.

She ran her hands through his dishevelled hair as he stretched and stifled a yawn.

"Huuuat time izzt?" He grinned up at her.

She gently but firmly placed her hand over his mouth, ignoring the "Mmmph!" of surprise from him as she did so. She whispered smoothly, "If you don't learn to speak properly, Ronald Weasley, you'll never get what you want. Now tell me what you want."

"I want breakfast" he said petulantly.

"That's better." She caught his sudden grin.

"Just breakfast?"

"Well…for now."

She led him down the stairs, blankets trailing over the dew-soaked moss growing between the cracks in the mellow stone.

Their relationship was one of the sudden ones. It had been like throwing a brick through a greenhouse door, a shot in the dark on the blackest of nights. One moment Ron had been alone in the Hospital wing, the next, Luna had been there, looking after him between classes. When he'd finally asked why, she'd given him the first line of last year's Quidditch song.

Weasley is our King.

It had eventually snapped into place.

"I like you, Ron. You're strong, dependable and you love your friends."

He lay there, stunned. This was Loon – no, Luna talking to him. She likes me? Merlin, what the heck do I say to that? And what does she mean by that Weasley is our King thing?

Hey, wait. She was…humming…it…all…last……term……………Damn!

He blinked. She kissed him, her bottlecap earrings bouncing off his cheek.

"Be with me, Ronald?"

Utterly disorientated, totally confused, Ron Weasley thought why not?

And now, a few days later, he followed her down the stairs and through the corridors to breakfast.

Suddenly she hurried ahead of him. Sensing mischief in the air, he matched her pace, only to be left behind as she broke into a full-blown sprint. Startled, he tried to follow but lost her around a bend in the stonework. He hurtled round the corner, wondering what was wrong, and ran smack into her embrace.

"You really are quite predictable, you know."

She released him, and they walked the rest of the way, their hearts high and their laughter clear. Breakfast was a leisurely affair, as it was a Sunday. His work lay in his folders, done the previous night.

He knew he was changing, and the change was not all bad.

He was in a dark place, and despair was thick upon the heavy, cloying air. There was no light to see by, and for the first time in his life he was afraid. The stone floor had given him no comfort – not that there was any of that here.

There was a scrape of metal upon metal, and a rectangle of light opened in the wall. He whimpered in fear. It was finally time. They were going to take his life away. His LIFE! He knew it as sheer certainty. There could be no mistake.

Unable to resist, he found himself walking between two spectral, black shapes. He tried not to look at them, and failed. Which one would it be? What would they do to him afterwards? How much would he suffer? What did it take to destroy a soul? The awful questions sleeted through his mind as he and his guards approached a door. Beyond here, then? Or was it the next door, or the one after that? He found himself praying for an endless succession of doors, stretching on for eternity, keeping him safe and alive.

He was through it now, and into another place, a place of gleaming steel and tile lined with instruments both magical and muggle. A small tank full of green liquid rested on a pedestal in the middle of the room. Behind it, a line of eight people stood clad in white robes with a purple M embroidered onto the left lapel. Their eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking, uncaring. His terrified mind noticed the bisecting wand and bone superimposed on the engram. Ministry Healers, then. What unspeakable things were they going to do to him?

He stared at the tank, feeling sick. It looked to be slightly larger than a Penseive and was as deep as it was wide, a perfect cube. Within, there seemed to be a slight roiling of the liquid, and for a moment, it seemed inviting, almost friendly. A tiny piece of the fear died away. A second later, though, his subconscious prompted him into realising that it was exactly the right size for…something?

He finally realised his fate, and his mind bucked as he fainted at the horror.

Within the memory of the condemned man, Ron awoke. Blind – for his host was unconscious - he felt the dull terror coursing through the man's mind and panicked. If this was going to end the way he thought it was… He had to stay calm. There might just be something important here and if he didn't let the maelstrom of emotions get in the way he might be able to pick it up. And yet, every time…the horror…

"Revive him." The voice was male, cold and clinical to the sharpest point of efficiency. "The interface spells will not work unless he is awake."

Another voice spoke in the blankness. "Evanesco."

The room faded into view. He was flat on his back and try as he might, he couldn't move. His wrists were strapped into the floor, as were his ankles. Even his head was restrained. His eyes came to rest on the line of men in white, and caught another pair looking straight back at him. They looked familiar, somehow.

It's begun, he thought. It all ends here. Right here.

I'm so scared.

But….

"He is ready, Senior Healer."

"Begin."

One of the healers, a middle-aged man with oiled black hair walked towards him, wand out. "Caput petrifico", he intoned.

Now even his eyes couldn't move. He was looking straight up at the white ceiling tiles and the brightness of it all was starting to hurt. He wanted to blink so badly… he didn't want to die here. He was afraid.

But, he thought, but somehow, the Master will save me.

We are not called Death Eaters for nothing.

With that, some of the fear passed away. It did not last long. As the man started casting light began to flow between the wand, him, and the tank, and with each spell he began to feel more and more panicked. There was a constant beam of cyan light coming from the wand now, and his hair was straining at the roots. The pain in his skull was not intolerable, but there was something in his head that just wouldn't go away…

The spells stopped. The light faded.

"His mind is bound, Senior Healer."

There was silence.

Two more men came and stood by his head. They looked down at him with ice in their eyes.

Then there was hope. There was a familiar face there… but something was wrong, it was smiling at him… This wasn't how it was supposed to go…

"Cranium Incisio, Memoriae et Anima Evacuo." The familiar face backed away and remained silent.

Finally, there was pain. A slitting, searing pain from the nape of his neck around to his brow, a line of fire from the back of his skull to the front, and through it all he could see the familiar face, and it was cold and closed, a final condemnation even as the memories of the rapes and murders and tortures that he had performed and locked away somewhere in his mind came flooding out in a stream of horror.

He had no time left at all. Through the hazy memories and the crushing pain he tried to pray again, pray for a quick death to end the agony.

There was another pain now, in the base of his skull, as if he'd cricked his neck one too many times. He knew what it was even as he felt the slow stretching of his spine, the cartilage cracking and popping in a torrent of explosions along his back. There was a crack from somewhere deep within himself as his nerves snapped in a blaze of agony, and then he only had time to scream deep within his shattered mind as his brain was torn from his skull and he was hurled into the blackness.

He sat up so fast that he knocked her off the makeshift bed. The next second she was wrapped around him tightly, stroking his hair, whispering calm words into his ear even as he cradled his skull in his hands, trying to forget, trying to remember that his brain was still intact and his mind was sound.

She hushed him, holding him to her chest. The mixture of smooth, warm skin and soft hair quietened him.

She cradled him. "What did you dream, my love?"

"It was…one of those ones." He buried himself more deeply into her sweet flesh in an attempt to drown out the memories. Overhead, the moonlight filtered through the slits in the top walls of the Owlery, bathing the floor in silver patches and highlighting the small skeletons left there by the feathered messengers, making them gleam.

"My poor Ronald", she sighed as she stretched upwards. "My poor knight." She was magnificent in the moonlight, an ethereal creature, flaxen hair falling to her waist and coiling around her small breasts, her skin ivory in the cold and lifeless blaze. She covered him with strands of her hair, arranging the threads over his neck and chest. For some reason, it always seemed to calm him, no matter how agitated he might be. She cradled him to her again as her hands rewrapped the charmed, heated blankets around them.

At length, his breathing slowed, becoming even and deep. He was on the verge of drifting off again when he recalled the face of the man in the Death Eater's last thoughts.

A face that, in spite of everything, he knew well.

One that had sat at the table at home in the Burrow countless times amidst the family dinners, talking of electricity and plugs with his dad.

One that looked older and greyer now, but one that he could still recognise perfectly.

Perkins.