Chpt. 5 – And they Danced

Some say that Fate is a fickle friend…

But some have never met her…

Something about the way that Hermione fell back onto the heavy wooden door of the hospital wing and then slid slowly to the ground gave off the impression that things were not all going as well as they had originally seemed. Hermione was no stranger to strong faces and little white lies and because of that had been able to master them in even the most dire of situations, like this one. Ron had nearly died, and Harry very well would have had Ron not been there to protect him or she there to protect them both, but even that had not been enough. Sure, he had survived, but only just barely, and with all the effort that Madame Hootch and Professor McGonagall could muster. Now he lay sleeping, or rather passed out, under the cool white sheets of the Hospital wing beds that they were all to familiar with.

Her head fell to rest between her knees as something within her finally gave way and she began to sob silently to herself. Needless to say, she was sick of this.

Harry stood staring blankly at the door. There is no way that anyone can say today had been a normal day, or a normal night. Harry had his first literal run in with death, and now met a nameless woman who tells him he has one chance, and to take it. Something in the back of his mind starts to work way to fast as he suddenly comes to the conclusion that the whole world thinks that they must understand everything and that he's just demented…Well they're wrong.

"What makes you think that you even begin to know who I am?"

Harry's words reverberated off the high ceiling of the hospital wing and caused numerous bats to take flight in surprise. Across the room there was a rustling of cloth that brought Harry back to the present and caused him to turn sharply, almost tipping with the effort. Catching himself on the nearby brass of a bed, Harry realized that he had heard Ron as he shuffled fitfully beneath his sheets. Harry shuddered as he stood and watched while Ron jumped around in some sort of unseen torture, eventually throwing the sheets from his body and onto the floor. Without really thinking of what he was doing, Harry moved around the bed that had been acting as a leaning post for him and moved to retrieve the sheet from the floor. Draping it gently back over his best friend, Harry tucked each of the corners back in around him and then cautiously ran a hand through the bangs that were now plastered to Ron's forehead with sweat. He went still.

Thinking that something had gone horribly wrong Harry did the only thing that made sense in his mind at that point in time. He cried. Grabbing Ron's hand, Harry placed his forehead against the sweaty brow of his best friend and began to talk in a manner of hysterics only capable to someone who had just lost true love.

"Ron…Ron…I'm so sorry…I never meant…you weren't supposed…how could you?…why would you?..."

His voice trailed off into a string of inaudible syllables and letters that made no sense. The strange, strangled noises that were coming from Harry eventually melded together to a heavy sob that was shortly followed by,

"You ass…I loved you…How could you leave me too?"

His fist came up and was plunging back to earth with dead aim at the center of Ron's chest when he heard something that he had never hoped to hear again.

"Harry?"

The voice was raspy and sounded as if it were coming from a throat full of sawdust, but it was still his, it was still Ron's, and that's all that mattered. Harry moved quickly to respond but found there was nothing to respond to, at least nothing that would listen. The other boy was still asleep, calmly asleep, but asleep none the less. The words, as Harry surmised, must have slipped out in his sleep. Tears once again slipped out of Harry's eyes, but now for two reasons. The most obvious was that Ron was alive, and he would have given anything for that to be true. The other was that he had admitted it out loud. Obviously no one had heard, but he had, and that just proved the truth if to no one other than himself. The famous Harry Potter was in love.

High in a mountain range found somewhere in the middle of Sweden a mother called to her daughter in the kind of voice that can only imply chores are coming. Sipping gingerly on a glass of tea made from a plant that became extinct close to the year twelve A.D. The Lady Known as Fate smiled gingerly to herself as she waited for her daughter to enter the room.

A tear slipped down Harry's nose and dripped off onto Ron's face, which was still only inches away from his own, causing the red-head to flinch slightly in his sleep. Oddly enough, this caused Harry to smile, if only for a second. His world may be falling apart piece by piece, but at least he still had Ron, and at least Ron was still able to flinch. That's more than he can say for some others. It was then that he noticed the sound.

It resembled the sound of a clock…a very large clock. The sound that is made by a pendulum in a grandfather clock, only amplified a hundred times. With each swing of the invisible pendulum Harry noticed that Ron's breathing slowed and that the next swing came just a little bit later. Until,

"Tick…Tock……Tick…………..Tick…………………."

It stopped entirely. Knowing that this was not normal, Harry turned to see what exactly was going on and found himself once again face to face with a being most mortal men don't even get the chance to see once. She stood, framed by the closed doors to the room, looking at Harry with an expression that could only be described as curiosity. She wore a dress that contoured to her body with every curve. It was made of what seemed to be silver silk and shimmered as she moved in the light to show that it was also intertwined with threads of black and gold. Her pitch black hair was pulled up into a bun on the back of her perfectly oval face and held in place by a large pair of what looked like chopsticks engraved one each with a silver and golden dragon. Her eyes reflected amber and gold as well as a light that was not really present in the darkened room, but none of that really mattered to Harry. What caught his attention was what she held.

Her left arm was crooked at the elbow to allow for her hand to remain in front of her, palm up. Resting gently on that palm was a metronome that seemed to have become stuck halfway through the forward stroke.

"You did this." Harry whispered.

It was more of a statement of fact than a question, but the lady responded as if it were a question without heed.

"Yes, I did. My mother has asked that I come. She asks that I remind you what it is like…what it is like to fall in love."

The hand of Time rose more as if gravity had no real effect on it rather than it was being lifted up to point slightly beyond Harry's right ear to a now motionless figure. Her hand moved as if to beckon some invisible force to her and then, to Harry's astonishment, Ron rose from…himself. A shimmering version of the red-head seemed to step out of his injured body and stood, rather confused, in the center of the room.

"You are afraid to love, so before you can live with the love that you deserve, Harry Potter, you must first believe that you are in love, and then prove to yourself why."

The room around Harry began to distort, to twist and blur in ways that he had never experienced and could never properly explain to anyone no matter how many times he tried. The only thing that seemed to remain clear was Ron's face, but even the rest of him was blurred slightly. As the room became a wash of colors and lights, Harry heard a voice far in the distance call to him.

"Do not be afraid, Harry Potter."

The voice was calm, and carried an air of higher knowledge and for some reason that reassured him. Then he hit the ground.

Harry came back to reality in a place that he never thought could ever possibly be recreated. Standing before him was Ron, dressed in a white button down shirt covered by a black blazer. Looking down he found himself to be dressed in quite a similar fashion except that his blazer and trousers were not black, but just as white as his undershirt…and so was his bowtie. Around them the snow fell inside the great hall as the Yule Ball entered its early morning hours.

Ron turned to Harry with a look that just seemed to scream 'What the hell?' but he never actually got the chance to voice his opinion as Harry stated,

"Don't ask, I really don't know."

Looking around the room, Harry saw that it was indeed the Yule Ball, just the way it had been three years prior when the Triwizard Tournament took place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The giant snow covered trees stood in the distance, though now darkened, obviously to set the mood, and the band played gentle slow songs that are easy to dance by from a stage that could just barely be made out from where Harry stood. Just out of sight Harry knew that the few couples left at the dance were most likely dancing in the dark recesses of the room…or at least he hoped they were dancing. Harry had forgotten just how beautiful the Yule Ball had been, the snow, the music, the romance, but then there was a hand on his shoulder.

Startled back to reality, Harry looked up to see his freckle-faced best friend looking down the inch and a half into Harry's eyes as if to ask again what was going on.

"I told you, I don't know. I've just learned recently to go with whatever happens."

"That wasn't what I was going to say, Harry."

Harry's eyes snapped back to those of his friend's with a bit more shock and surprise than was probably necessary. This only seemed to cause Ron to fidget more.

"So what were you going to say?"

Harry's words were calm and reassuring, hoping to make up for the way he had looked at Ron only moments earlier, but it didn't seem to be working. After numerous seconds of total silence, a sound that oddly resembled a cry for help, only much more like a very quiet squeak, escaped Ron's lips.

"Ron, come on, I'm sorry I looked at you funny but this is really a bit of an overreaction to something so…"

"Do you want to dance?"

Harry froze. Was he hearing correctly? He couldn't be. There was no way in the world that Ron had just asked him to dance. With his mouth still half-open from his unfinished sentence, Harry managed bob his head up and down one, causing Ron to release a breath that it seemed he had been holding for a good minute or two. Holding out his hand, Harry took it without speaking, and without looking away from Ron's face.

Then something happened. Harry remembered every time he had put Ron in danger, every time his best friend had been there to try to save his sorry hide from whatever may come. He remembered how many times Ron had thrown himself in harms way in order to protect Harry, and something inside him gave way. He lunged forward into his friends arms and felt them wrap warm and tight around his waist. There was no hesitation, there was no denial, there was only them, there was only now. Harry's arms slid around Ron's neck and he seemed to all too easily find the crook in his friend's neck where his head could rest so comfortably. It seemed like everything finally made sense, this is what he had been looking for all along. There was no denying that he was in love,

'At least not to myself…' He thought.

It was then that he noticed that a hand had been removed from his waist and was now resting gently on his cheek. Looking up into the deep, ice blue depths that hovered only an inch or so away, Harry allowed himself to be drawn toward them by the warmth of that hand that now pressed so gently against his skin. Something in him wanted to scream, wanted to say that he should run, that he shouldn't let this happen, but something stopped that voice from making any difference. Silencing that voice was another, one that merely said,

"Do not be afraid, Harry Potter."

Lips touched and once again Harry was sure that this was what he had been looking for. He smiled into the kiss which caused Ron to pull back suddenly. The shocked look on Ron's face was only matched by the hurt and confusion reflected in Harry's emerald eyes.

"Harry, I'm so sorry…I never meant to…I don't know why…I wasn't thinking…"

Ron was cut off as Harry's lips once again met his. Something within both of them seemed to scream for something more, but neither could seem to react. Harry merely melted back into the arms of the slightly taller red-head who also happened to now hold his heart in the palm of his hand. They went dancing, around and around, without any cares, and his first true love was holding him close…

And just for a moment, he wasn't scared.

From somewhere in the distance Harry's subconscious made the realization that the music was slowing, but not because the song was almost over. The room once again began to swirl with colors and lights and Harry found himself suddenly pulled away from Ron.

Back in the Hospital wing, Harry landed on the hard stone floor with a loud thud.

On the outside of the Hospital wing doors Hermione was so engrossed in thought that she almost didn't notice the bright light that was suddenly coming out from the crack under the heavy oak doors. Startled into action, Hermione jumped to her feet and began to shove the door open, afraid of what she would find on the other side, but she didn't get as far as she had planned. The door wouldn't seem to budge, and she began to panic. Harry's actions had been rather self-destructive as of late and she was not going to let anything happen as long as she stood mere feet away. Whipping out her wand, Hermione shouted the first spell she could think of and watched as a bolt of red light flew out of the tip of her wand and struck the wood of the door and accomplished…absolutely nothing. The spell was meant to push obstacles out of the way, but it hadn't even effected an old wooden door, or had it. She noticed now that the door was indeed being forced back, but at a speed so ungodly slow as to be almost unnoticeable.

Pushing with all her might, Hermione forced the door to keep moving just far enough that she could get into the room and burst through to see a tall woman looking at Harry and saying things to him that Hermione could not hear. Everything in the room seemed to be moving in slow motion, including her.

After Harry landed he caught a small glimpse of the spirit Ron slip back into his body before Time began to speak.

"This will not turn out like the others…Do not be afraid, Harry Potter."

As she spoke the black and gold threads in her dress began to move of their own accord, twisting and turning in ways that did not make physical sense. Her words seemed to hover in the room, giving the air a heavy feel, weighing it down like sweet incense.

"Time stands still for no one…Remember this, Harry Potter."

With that, the threads of her dress shot out in every direction possible, unraveling the silken garment and taking her with it. All that was left was the heavy feel of her words. In the distance, Harry heard a clock begin to tick and then the sound faded away as Hermione burst through the door.

"Harry, what happened in here?"

"Hermione…I…I…"

A smile crossed the features of the bushy-haired brunette and she spoke her words softly as realization struck her what he was trying to say.

"I know, Harry…now tell him that."

Somewhere in the back of Harry's mind he questioned how she always seemed to know what he was thinking, but he figured he could leave that for another time.

A/N: That was actually LONGER than I planned on making it…which is weird cuz I normally plan long chapters…but anywho, I hope to get more writing done this weekend but I never know what kind of mood I'll be in…please keep checking back though, as in the next installment we get a slightly better glimpse into why Fate is so interested in Harry and what caused the depression that got this whole thing started…