"How was it Harry?"

"Did you bring us something?"

"Were there lots of muggles?"

The questions spring up eagerly, quickly, and the overwhelmed boy smiles in surprise and bewilderment as they flow over him. He laughs slightly, the sound happy despite the tautness of his muscles and the strain of tension in his spine. Harry blushes, looking at the floor, and runs a hand through his messy black hair.

The Burrow, home of the Weasley family, is filled with clutter and chaos, with most of the children strewn about the warm living room, eyes trained on the newly arrived guest.

"London? It was fun. There were a lot of people, and excellent toffee."

"What does it do?" George, one of the twins, leans forward on his knees, expecting some ingenious prank from the muggles but he is to be disappointed.

"Muggle candy doesn't do anything, George. It just tastes nice."

The redhead leans back, disappointed, and shares an aggrieved look with his brother, Fred. Harry glances around the Burrow, but there is still no sudden appearance of

the youngest Weasley.

"I'm sure our Gin is off doing something within the warded forest, Harry. If she knew you were coming to surprise her, she would have been here for sure."

This comes from Molly Weasley, mother to the red haired brood surrounding him, and where they lacked in money they gained in love from the plump and stubborn witch. Smiling, Harry turns to his best friend Ron and punches him lightly in the shoulder.

"And you Ron, what have you been up too?"

His friend smiles, but it is weak and strained, and he can barely meet Harry's dark green eyes.

"Nothing special, Harry. Just hanging around this old place."

"Ron, I know you wanted to come… But instead I brought London to you."

Reaching into his suitcase, Harry lifts a crumpled brown bag and hands it to Ron. While he unwraps it, Harry proceeds to retrieve another bag from his case, and hands out toffee to the Weasley's.

"I thought you would like a bit of a taste," he murmurs, and the fascinated wizards bite, suck and chew on the treat hesitantly.

Behind him, Ron swears softly and his mother rebukes him.

"Harry!" says Ron, smiling, and the Boy-Who-Lived returns to his seat and watches his best friend look his present up and down.

It is a remote controlled mini, a bright red emblazoned with the Union Jack.

"It's a car! What does it do?" he asks excitedly, and Harry shows him how to put batteries in the remote case and the car itself.

In a minute it is up and running, careening about the tables and chairs and bumping into

feet as Ron laughs.

"No magic at all! How does it do it?" Arthur demands, astonished, and Harry

just smiles.

Let them wonder; it is more exciting that way.

Soon Ron allows his brothers to have a go with the coupe, but when he turns back to his friend again his eyes are glum. Harry frowns, perturbed, and drags his suitcase up the stairs to the bedroom he shares with Ron. He releases a relieved sigh when he gets to

the room and throws himself down on the bed.

For a moment he is silent, content within the moment, before another issue presses forth in his mind and sends a bubble of apprehension with it. Sitting up and tilting his head, Harry focuses on the other.

"Alright Ron, what is it? You've been shifty eyed and moping ever since I came."

Shaking his head, Ron sits down on his own bed, but his insides are twisting into painful burning knots.

For he knows where Ginny is. And it is not in town.

"Harry, why did you come back so soon?" he asks instead, and Harry sighs.

"London was boring. Hermione had her own things to do, and she'd been there before…"

Irritation surges within the Weasley, and he shoves it away before his honest nature demands he speak of it. For Harry could have invited him, and he hadn't.

"So when do you expect Ginny in?"

Harry's voice is hesitant and excited, and Ron feels sick inside, and weak…And angry.

Fury suddenly makes his hands clench when he remembers seeing Ginny smiling excitedly at them that morning, and the way her smile glowed with a happiness that had been missing as of late. She had left, saying that she was off to the village to visit a friend, but Molly had sent Ron after her for Gin had forgotten her scarf. He had ran to catch up to her, the well worn brown wool a chocolaty flag trailing behind him, but when

he reached the edge of their property she had been there; speaking softly to someone he could not see.

Curious, he had taken a step closer, hidden slightly behind a crop of trees, and made to call out to her. But when he had moved forward, his life had fallen before beneath him, for Ginny was being drawn into the arms of Draco Malfoy. The blonde had whispered

to her, an expression on intense concentration tracing a path across his pale and handsome face, and his sister had touched his cheek softly, her fingers trailing down his chin.

There was something so fragile about seeing them together, as if he had stumbled along the edge of a precipice and they stood on the other side; fire and ice wrapped within the kind of beauty meant to be broken.

Ginny had smiled, and Draco had nodded once. Taking her hand, he led her into the forest and by the time Ron had regrouped and chased after them they were gone. It was strange, but he felt no fear for Ginny, his little sister who had just wandered off in the arms of the boy last seen running off with Snape, murderer of Albus Dumbledore. He knew she would be okay. He knew it. And now, here he was with his baby sister's beau, and his best mate.

"Ron?"

He has been silent for too long, and he shakes his head, feeling tears burn behind his eyelids, because he hates his life as it stands now. All there is, is fear and death, and deception.

"I don't know, Harry. I don't know."

A lie. Honest Ron, telling a lie… But he couldn't… He had to talk to Gin first, and get it straight. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps she was a spy for the Order. Perhaps she was under the Imperius curse. Perhaps he was grasping at straws that broke, coarse and brittle within his grip...

"Is everything alright with Ginny?" Harry whispers, seriousness etching a mask of age onto the youth of his features.

It is wrong to put it there, but if Ron tells him the truth it might crack any and all masks Harry has to keep him sane.

"Why wouldn't she be?" he asks instead, slowly and carefully and the other boy

nods, subsiding.

Ron is perversely pleased that he managed not to lie again, instead merely twisting the truth. Again he feels sick.

"So, Hermione has a new guy," Harry sighs, and Ron's attention is snared.

A pang in his chest informs him rudely that his feelings for their other friend have not yet faded, and he pushes it away.

"Anyone we know?"

"She wouldn't say. She seemed rather obsessed about the whole lot of it, and she kept

sneaking out at night to see him."

Hermione had also been staying in London, on holiday with her dentist parents, where they could attend a dental conference, a last break before the storm. Ron is glad he had not been there to see her off to her nightly trysts.

A sudden clambering of feet on stairs meets their ears, and Ron turns weary eyes to the door.

"Ron!" Ginny bursts into the room, eyes alight with excitement and a warm content that had not been there that morning.

Ron refuses to accept its meaning.

"Mom told me there was something up here for me…"

She trails off when Harry stands and greets her quietly. Her eyes widen, and her creamy skin blanches until she seems like a spectre.

"Harry," she whispers, and her eyes tear up.

"I came early, Gin. I wanted to surprise you."

Ron watches the two hollowly, feeling as if the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. For a moment he hates Ginny for her dishonesty. Then he hates Harry, for being so tragic Ginny cannot stand to let him go else he break. But mostly he hates Malfoy, for the clear and utter love Ron had seen written on his hateful, cowardly, aristocratic face that morning. Malfoy's didn't love, they only destroyed… Now Draco had shifted the balance of perception and he could not be forgiven.

"You shouldn't have, Harry," she chokes brokenly, and the light inside her flickers and gutters out, leaving the empty shell girl Ron has come to fear for in its place.

Harry notices the change immediately, and backs away.

"I'm sorry Ginny. I didn't know. I thought you wanted to…"

He trails off, and Ginny spins, her hair a curtain of red, and flees the room. Turning to Ron, Harry is stricken.

"Something's changed Ron. Ginny…It's over, isn't it?"

Saying nothing, Ron looks away. He couldn't bare to look, think or see.

"I knew it. I mean…She's been acting out of sorts…She wouldn't speak to me like she used to. I thought she was just upset about Dumbledore and so I…But…"

He swallows, and squeezes his eyes shut forcefully. Ron can't stand to see his best friend's face and he covers his own with his hands.

Damn Ginny. Damn Malfoy.

If he ever saw him again, he'd strangle the pasty blonde git.

They hurt Harry. They hurt his best mate.

"This is the way of things, I think," Harry whispers distantly, bitterly, and Ron doesn't look up from his hands.