Yay a new chapter! Ok see you guys next time in 3 years *sobs*
"Hold on a second!"
Hermione's yell was so loud Harry practically jumped away from her, thinking he had somehow offended her. She was however looking with narrowed eyes at the… nothing that had swallowed up the Dursley's living room, the nothing that showcased Ron's mind to them.
"You've been showing us whatever we ask of you. You're actually conscious, aren't you? This isn't your subconscious."
Harry gaped. Huh. He hadn't realized that.
The nothing around them didn't react. Well, it had to be difficult for nothing to emote. Then again, he'd seen fire blink…
"Ronald Weasley," Hermione said dangerously, and there something shifted in the atmosphere – some sort of weird hot feeling that made Harry want to look anywhere but at Hermione and rub his suddenly warm neck. Embarrassment. Shame. A bit of anger at being caught.
Harry shook his head and glared at the nothing. "Mate, if you're trying to get me to argue for you, it's not going to work." He crossed his arms on his chest.
The foreign feelings retreated, but not before Harry could catch a whiff of… sadness? Dejection?
"This isn't going to work if you're in control of what we see," Hermione said in her lecturing tone, before her voice softened into something tender that made Harry squirm in embarrassment entirely his own. "It must be scary to lose control, but please, Ron… We need to bring you back. We need to see what's bothering you."
Vague, blurry shapes and feelings whizzed past them. Nothing, it's nothing, multiple thoughts whispered as they flew by. Hermione gritted her teeth and was about to tell them off, but an odd sense of longing filled her next. Longing for the girl he loved, the one he truly wanted; guilt at the way he'd treated her and Lavender who was… nice, sweet even, but try as he might he hadn't managed to love her like he'd loved Hermione and now he was just sick of her; more guilt because he really was an asshole, wasn't he, to Hermione, to Lav, to Ginny, to everyone, and he was sick of it, so, so much guilt…
Hermione futilely reached out, trying to grasp something, hoping to cup Ron's cheek, but the feelings shied away from her touch and disappeared like shooting stars.
She made a noise of pure frustration. "Don't be a child! Let us in!"
Her voice echoed in the darkness of Ron's mind.
"Come on mate," Harry said. "Please, let's… let's get it over with. Then we can just… pretend it never happened, alright? We'll forget about all this."
"Don't talk rubbish Harry, of course we should-"
Harry shot Hermione a glare so fierce a tiger would have ran for its life. Hermione wasn't a tiger, so she bit down on her lip instead, then she made an exasperated noise and turned away from Harry, crossing her arms and muttering something about boys and being bad at feelings.
"Please, Ron, just show us what's the matter, then we never speak of this again. We just… go back to where we were before."
That wasn't the right thing to say, Harry realized belatedly as a sharp stab of pain made his heart feel like it was caving in on itself. He missed her, damnit! He missed her so much but he'd screwed it all up by going ahead and dating Lavender and now Hermione hates him and she was right to hate him. And Lavender, Merlin, Lavender…
"Won-won!"
Hermione and Harry almost jumped out of their skin with that one. Hermione whirled around with her teeth bare and her hand twitching, probably in search of her wand; she looked like she was ready to commit murder. Harry just cringed and silently asked Ron to take him somewhere else.
The void moved. Shifted. Warbled.
A beautiful girl, smiling. Full lips attaching themselves to his, kissing, so warm. She wants to kiss him. She actually wants to.
He lifted her off her feet, feeling the strain on his muscles. But when she squealed and laughed, saying "you're so strong, Won-won!"… he felt like he could've moved mountains.
Lavender, uncharacteristically shy. "You remember this DA meeting when I disarmed you and you smiled at me? I got so flustered I couldn't land a hit on you next, so you kept beating me, so you got all worried and asked if I was feeling well… that was so sweet."
He could vaguely remember it, not in such vivid detail but he recalled asking Lavender if she needed to go to the hospital wing. He didn't know something like that could be sweet. He didn't know he could be sweet.
The warmth of the common room on his carefully-dried cheeks after that awful, awful meeting in the changing rooms, where Hermione all but told him he was a worthless lump. The cries of "Weasley is our king" aren't enough of a balm to soothe his shattered heart but it will have to do… until suddenly her lips are on his, she's kissing him in front of the whole common room, she's just up and jumped on him in front of everyone and now he hears catcalls and whistles, she's come back, she's claiming him as her own in front of everyone. He can feel the looks on them, he can feel what they're all thinking, and for once it's not about how stupid or awful he is, it's all about how Ron Weasley is now property of…
"I knew you could do it, Won-won!"
It's not Hermione's voice, it's Lavender's. Her eyes are blue, not brown, and she has gloss on her lips.
He doesn't know what to think. Doesn't know what to do. He just sits there, panting, holding her, because it's what you do when someone kisses you, right?
Harry's triumphant grin as he displays the still-filled vial of Felix Felicis…
Hermione saying they cheated and that's why Ron saved everything…
Lavender's big blue eyes, shining bright. Like a spotlight. On him.
He's never seen anyone look at him like that before. Sometimes Hermione will have a soft look on her face that disappears when he looks at her, probably because he's breaking her out of whatever fantasy she was immersed in. Sometimes Harry will clap him on the back and say encouraging stuff to him with those weird puppy dog-eyes that are halfway between pity and sympathy. But Lavender has that soft look mixed with heat in it, and her puppy dog-eyes seem to beg for him.
It's crazy. He knew, well he suspected, given the way she was giggling and winking at him, that she liked him, but it's still crazy. And now she kissed him, right in front of everyone. If it's a prank, she's seriously dedicated to it.
Lavender's smile falters a bit. The spark in her eyes dims. She looks like she's wilting.
"Won-won?" Her lip trembles.
Fuck it.
Harry had to make him think he was high on Felix to get him to play halfway decently. Hermione just admitted she thought he wasn't capable of saving anything, and she may be right as always. After all, you've ever seen a professional Quidditch player who sucks so hard he needs his friend to hatch a harebrained scheme to give him the guts to play?
Everything is already ruined. He doesn't want Lavender, the only one who's willing to goddamn kiss him in front of everyone, to be ruined too.
So he kisses her. And when he hears her squeal into his mouth and wrap her arms around his neck in a death grip, he thinks that finally, maybe he's doing something right.
His arms, small beads of blood collecting near the scratches of Hermione's canaries. He tries to fix them himself with Episkey. Lavender insists he go to the hospital wing but he refuses. Her lip trembles, but she looks at him with the look he sees directed at Harry sometimes. His neck heats up under her gaze.
"Won-won, you're so brave," she murmurs, and his face feels like it's on fire.
He opens the present. He didn't at all expect her to send him one; he knows he hasn't sent her anything, and it makes him feel pretty awful already. He finds a little chain in the box and lifts it out of it… sees the gaudy heart-shaped pendant… and he has no idea what do think.
My sweetheart
It's… it's something. He supposes Ginny would find it cute, if she was still five years-old that is. A necklace with something written on it, isn't that kind of like a dog collar? It feels kinda degrading… at the same time, the idea that he's spoken for, that he belongs with someone, it's like Bill and Fleur's upcoming wedding… is that scary? He felt like he should be scared, but it just makes him feel happy, to think about those things. About what it would be like, if he was to have a wedding… the radiant bride in her beautiful dress, waiting for him, for Ron, at the end of the aisle, and all his family watching and her, waiting, her appearance ever-changing but always lingering a second too much on one with bushy hair and brown eyes –
Harry laughs from the corner of the bedroom and Ron is yanked out of his reverie. The laughter, tinged with mockery, makes his stomach curl. He opens a drawer on his desk and throws the necklace inside. He should think about what to get Lavender in return, it's only polite… but he's not feeling very charitable right now.
My sweetheart… so strong… so brave… so sweet…
Can you believe he's managed to get a girl who'd say things like that to him, the overgrown ginger idiot that hangs around Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, a girl who believes those things about him, all those things he wishes so badly to hear, and he's not even managed to love her? That no matter how much they kiss, no matter what she's given him, there's still a part of him longing for someone else who has stopped talking to him long ago, and that every time he tries to chase off those intruding thoughts with more kisses – prompting Lav to giggle out a "Won-won, you horndog!" – he feels only lonelier.
What does that say about him, that this girl thinks so highly of him and he… he can't even think highly of her back? She's nice… she's great… she loves Divination, which is really stupid but if it makes her happy to read his palm she can do it all she wants… she loves fashion and stuff… and that's all. What else is she? Does he even know her that well?
Merlin. He's such an asshole. Hermione was right about him. She's usually right about everything, anyway… so it shouldn't really surprise him.
"No! I didn't mean it! I never meant it!" Hermione screamed, her hands clawing at her scalp.
Harry was brutally thrown back into his own body and its familiar feelings, and all that is Ron disappears as if he's been washed ashore, back to a more familiar place. One moment he was acutely aware of how little he has to offer, how insignificant he is compared to his greater, better friends; the next those thoughts and the suffocating existential nothingness they bring are gone; trying to recall them, to bring them back to analyse them further is like trying to hold water in his hands. Try as he might, he can't remember exactly how it felt…
But he got the gist.
After all, Harry is familiar with despair.
Maybe it's a different form of despair than the one Ron lives with. But it cuts them both the same.
All that despair, all that rage, all that hate, directed at Ron. Himself, yet not himself. That hatred became cold fury as Harry sat there, impotent, incapable of helping, incapable of anything… after all, there was no Dark Lord here. No one to fight, no danger to face. No enemy. Ron made sure of it.
This place is safe. This place is awfully, horribly, hideously safe.
If only there was an enemy, something that could be fought to save the day.
If only there was an enemy other than his stupid fucking loving best friend who's not even fighting, just obediently showing them things like he's little more than a glorified TV.
His stupid fucking best friend who's just there, standing like a lemon in his childhood bedroom in a mundane moment Harry had completely forgotten about until he was forcibly reminded of it, a mundane moment that clearly affected his best friend a lot more than he had let on. And Harry hates it, hates Ron for being so stupidly sensitive he's bothered by a mere laugh, hates himself for laughing at Ron like Fred and George always do, hates Ron's mind for reminding him of that -
"When does this end?" Harry asked, rhetorically, at the silent memory in front of him.
Harry's voice is dangerous and low, and there's such a tension in the air – well, as much air as there is in a mind anyway – that Hermione gets out of her own head. She had never realized, never considered what sort of things Ron could wish for; all this time, she alternated between thinking that either he was oblivious to her feelings, or that he knew and wanted to let her down gently, or in the worst moments (and in the past few months) that he was well-aware and just laughed at her foolish, stupid crush that she tried, tried so hard to squash. She hadn't realized how those attempts to squash her crush had effectively succeeded in only squashing Ron's hopes and spirits instead. She was so focused on herself… on how she felt… she had never even thought of how Ron felt.
"When are you going to stop?" Harry ground out, coming closer to the motionless figure of the memory Ron. "We get it now. You're sad, and angry, and all that. We're all sad and angry and all that. There's a war going on, if you hadn't noticed."
"Harry!" Hermione cried out.
"We're all suffering, Ron!" Harry yelled as Hermione futilely reached for him to… what exactly? Stop him? Shut him up? "You made us come here for a reason, right? What do you have to say that's so important? What's wrong with you?"
And just like that the storm was unleashed.
Memory Ron's mouth opened and a cascade of words poured out, from him and from all around the three of them as passing thoughts and feelings exploded in a myriad of colours and sensations.
nothing nothing nothing everything hate hate nothing me
The walls cracked and splintered, and "Ron" screamed on.
love you hate you hate me hate me hate you hate me love love you love her love
The world was crumbling.
don't not shouldn't can't nothing nothing matters I don't matter
Debris of inane thoughts and feelings filled the air.
you me hate me love you hate me me me hate me love me hate you hate me
In the middle of it all Harry and Hermione struggled to hold on in this storm of discordant emotions that poured out of their best friend. So many powerful, destructive feelings. So much hatred, resentment, helplessness, and all-consuming regret.
Then time stopped.
It seemed like that at least. The debris of Ron's room and thoughts, carried away by an impossible wind, were stopped cleaned in mid-air. "Ron" himself was motionless, mouth still open in a terrible yet silent scream.
Hermione was too transfixed by the image of her best friend suspended in an agony of his own, to notice Harry carefully looking around them, trying to assess the danger of their situation. Trying to gauge their environment, daring it to rebel against them.
It wasn't really necessary, but better be certain…
"Wow. You just up and broke him. Congrats I guess, you lunatics."
The voice was so achingly familiar, sounded so normal, like they were back in front of the common room fire playing chess and discussing homework and just… living their lives as mundane Hogwarts students. That voice that made jokes, laughed heartily and just accompanied their every moment outside.
But it sounded wrong, too. It sounded… like Fred and George's voices if you siphoned the affability out. It wasn't the friendly ribbing or teasing banter Harry or Hermione were accustomed to from Ron. This was mocking, mean.
Ron's ruined room was suddenly overrun by long, thin ribbons of various, shifting colours. Harry felt his blood run cold: they looked the exact same as the tentacles that scarred Ron, that fateful night at the Department of Mysteries.
And then, one of those thought-tentacles went rigid, and Ron slid down its length like an expert gymnast, landing on his two feet and bowing to them as if welcoming them to a theatre performance.
The look in his blue eyes when he lifted his head was nothing short of bone-chilling. To say nothing of that cruel smile that looked entirely out of place on Ron's friendly face.
"Well! Well, well, well! How's it going for you two? Life's good? Birds singing, world's loving, Ron's missing, all's smashing, much kissing?"
At the same time, other thought-tentacles went rigid and still, and more Ron(s?) came sliding down from them.
Hermione wasn't sure whether this was one of her dirty dreams come true or a nightmare in the making. Harry had no idea how to react.
One thing they knew was certain: this Ron looking at them with a glint of mocking, dark something in his eye looked like bad news.
