Yes, this is an update. Enjoy the Romione while I'll enjoy Forever Alone's Day \o/
That's right, I heard the story over and over again
Gee, it's swell to finally meet her other friends
That's right, I heard the story, don't really like how it ends
Gee, it's swell to finally meet her other friends
Other Friends, by Rebecca Sugar
"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.
Harry expected that seeing his best mate again after all that ordeal inside Ron's mind would have brought him immense joy, comfort, and a good heap of relief.
Showed what he knew: here he'd found a hundred copies of his best mate and he only felt a creeping, awkward sort of dread. He wasn't really in danger, he knew that. But… he had a feeling he wasn't going to like whatever happened next.
The first Ron, the one who'd bowed to them, who bore a sarcastic, odd grin on his face, straightened up, running his hands down his back as he stretched. Then he looked straight at Harry. Then at Hermione. Then again at Harry. Again at Hermione.
And then he laughed.
"Wow, no need to look so surprised. Yes, there are things inside my brain. I know, I know, it must be such a big shock. Especially to you, Hermione."
Harry had never played Chaser but he had the feeling of having fumbled the Quaffle all the same. Hermione visibly recoiled in shock, before she bristled. "And what is that supposed to m-"
She was immediately silenced as a sort of horrifying hydra wearing of dozen different Hermione faces, from the first year little girl to the sixth year prefect, sprouted from the ground. With identical scowls on their faces and in the exasperated tone everyone who liked Hermione hated, they chorused:
"Don't be stupid, Ron!"
Then they disappeared, just as fast as they'd shown up.
Hermione looked shell-shocked. Harry hesitated, then gave her an awkward pat on the back.
Bad idea. The weird Ron's eyes flashed with… something. For the briefest moment, Harry thought he was back in that terrifying first encounter with his best friend's mind, suspended in a forest of brambles as a roaring, scorching inferno hurled itself towards him, full of rage and pain…
And then nothing. The ginger boy just looked away, jaw and fists clenched, and Harry was back, awkwardly patting Hermione and surrounded by his best mate's mental clones.
Said clones, by the way, were not at all passive either. One had somehow found on a family-sized bag of chocolate frogs and was gobbling them up like no tomorrow, one had managed to grab some of the thought-tentacles that hung from the ceiling and had woven them into a makeshift hammock, a few were engrossed in a game of Gobstones… with chess pieces… and cards? And one was looking at Harry like he'd like nothing more than to tear his head off and play basketball with it. He even had a bit of foam around the mouth.
Harry gulped nervously and removed his hand from Hermione's back. This caught the attention of the Weird Ron though. A quick glance in the direction Harry was looking and his wicked, sarcastic grin widened.
"Don't tell me you're afraid of him?" he scoffed, making his way to the angry Ron whose face suddenly contorted in fear. "You, Harry Potter, slayer of Dark Lords and Chosen One extraordinaire, afraid of this jealous, insecure little prat?"
With two fingers the Weird Ron pinched his doppelganger's cheek. All the Rons in the room were silent, looking just as terrified for their so-called jealous comrade as he was himself.
"Bad, bad Ron," the Weird Ron hissed with so much venom Hermione jolted out of her catatonia. "Bad Ron, mean Ron, effing Ron, who can't be happy for his friends without feeling sorry for himself first, what a terrible, terrible fucking friend."
And then he threw the 'jealous prat' to the ground where he burst into a fine mist of silvery, shiny powder, his thoughts and feelings screaming as they scattered up and back into the ceiling.
Harry sprung into action. "What did you do that for, you arsehole?! He's you!" he roared, raring to beat this twisted parody of his best mate to a pulp.
Yet his fist never connected with the Weird Ron's face. Harry could have crossed the distance between them in two strides, yet he wasn't. He was moving, but Weird Ron was somehow still out of his reach.
Weird Ron just watched as Harry kept running for nothing, trying to give a punch that couldn't connect, took in the furious flush in his cheeks, the determined emerald eyes, his awkward fighting stance that spoke of experience without technique.
Everything became soft and tender for a flickering moment.
Then Weird Ron sighed.
"Oh, Harry, don't insult me that way. I have nothing in common with this petty, jealous crybaby. I'd appreciate it if you didn't confuse me with Piggy either," he jerked his head towards the Ron that had been eating chocolate frogs who was now clutching his bag to his chest with his eyes downwards, "and don't compare me to that lazy slob," the snores of the Ron in his improvised hammock stuttered to a halt before coming back, louder and faker-sounding, "really, please, don't, that'd really vex me."
"What the fuck?" Hermione whispered, for she had really nothing else to declare to such a statement. All the Rons in the room looked virtually identical, their individuality reduced to their current activity. How could one hope to differenciate them?
"Hermione, come on, you're not that stupid," the Weird Ron waved off. "Though you know…" His demeanour completely changed all of a sudden: his smile grew into a sadistic, twisted version of the Ron smile reserved for the funniest occasions, his pupils shrunk giving the impression that his eyes turned paler, and he tilted his head back and forth on his shoulders, his gaze never leaving her.
"You do seem pretty clueless to me. That's hilarious. Turns out it's hard to exist without a library to tell you what to do, huh Hermione?"
Hermione gasped, tears springing to her eyes. Weird Ron walked slowly up to her, while Harry, now with double the determination to throw that punch but none of the actual punching to show for it, pushed himself to run faster, wildly hoping that maybe if he ran fast enough he'd manage to cross some sort of threshold and finally land that punch in the arsehole's face.
Weird Ron delicately took Hermione's hand like it was made of porcelain, before seizing her wrist. Hermione's heart was just about to beat out of her chest with fear… fear of her own lack of reaction. His grip was lax. She could've, should've, gotten herself out of it in an instant. Maybe slapped him for good measure, too. But she… didn't. Why didn't she? She would never let herself be bullied like this - especially not by Ron. So why now, why… why didn't she even want to fight back?
"That's right", he whispered with some sort of morbid satisfaction. "Cry all you want. I'm not taking that back. They say only the truth hurts, right? I guess that's the sole reason I'm here. To hurt your feelings to bring you back among us mere mortals."
"What are you playing at, Ron?!" Harry shouted, now abandoning the idea of punching altogether and reaching out with his fingers curved into makeshift claws.
Ron's curious blue eyes peered over at Harry while keeping hold of Hermione's wrist. Chills went down Harry's spine. That wasn't Ron. It couldn't be…
"I'm just being Ron. You know, the guy who drags you down with his mediocrity and slows you down with his laziness and does nothing but complain, the tactless wanker who wouldn't know emotions if they punched him in the face. Hello!" he concluded cheerfully as he waved Hermione's hand like she was a mock puppet.
He turned back to her, ignoring Harry's grunts of renewed effort behind.
"Perfect Hermione," he murmured, and his eyes grew soft and sad in a way that made Hermione's breath leave her. "Brilliant, beautiful Hermione."
She thought he was going to kiss her. Maybe she should kiss him. Even though he was a weird byproduct of Ron's mind and not the real Ron at all. Who, what even was he? A swinging maniac, a cackling lunatic, probably both. Why? Ron could occasionally be mean, even cruel at times, but… not like this.
"Why," she whispered, and he seemed to shake off his contemplation, "are you doing this? Who are you?"
"Because I have to," he said, loud enough for Harry to hear, and he let go of her hand as he began to laugh, a hoarse, mirthless sound. "I have to, otherwise I'd bloody explode."
Then he smiled again. Tender, like he was reciting the words to a beautiful poem, he said:
"After all, I'm the most insensitive wart you've ever had the misfortune to meet."
Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have, a voice echoed nastily, resonating through the vast chamber of Ron's mind. Hermione cringed. She recognized this. After all, she'd been the one to say it.
A stupid, exasperated thing she'd said out of frustration, because she was angry at how Ron failed to notice what was to her the very obvious parallel between her and Cho Chang's situations, Cho torn between Harry and Cedric, Hermione between Ron and Viktor… well, maybe the parallel wasn't that evident. Cho's feelings for Cedric were probably much more intense than Hermione's for Viktor ever had been.
Viktor had been… a first. The first boy to take interest in her, to compliment her, to act the perfect gentleman for her. It had made her head spin, to imagine she, plain Hermione Granger, could be the sort to make a boy - and not just any boy, a famous athlete at that - swoon… until it had grown worrisome, when she'd become Viktor's most precious thing after merely weeks of knowing each other, and he'd wanted her to come to Bulgaria, and she'd actually been a bit relieved to see him go… even though he sent her letters, and she replied. It was only polite; and on that fateful night she'd just been trying to compose a letter to explain to Viktor how she didn't really like him that way and she was terribly sorry and then Harry just had to barge in with his own romantic idiocy and Ron had acted so immature and… and now she knew he'd just been excited and happy for Harry and she'd known only to be angry and hurtful because that was what she did best.
Idiot. Stupid. Dumb.
Hide behind words, whether they came from a book or her own mouth.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said, because there was nothing else to say.
"Why? You're just telling the truth," Wart shrugged, an echo of his twisted grin on his face. "And the truth hurts."
"It wasn't the truth," Hermione said, blinking back tears, "and I should never have said it."
"I shouldn't have said a lot of things either," he replied, "but I said them all the same, didn't I?"
"Stop acting like this! Please, just, let's have… a normal conversation, we can unpack all this, I promise I'll listen, I-"
"No can do, love. Not right now." He turned away from her, but not without giving her a little wink.
He was back to facing Harry.
"So," he drawled in a way that made him sound like an actually threatening Draco Malfoy, "can I take you out of time-out now or are you still gonna punch me?"
Harry had stopped running, hands on his knees and catching his breath; as he glanced up at Wart with a look that promised pain.
"Oh well," the redhead shrugged. "Have it your way."
And he closed the distance between him and Harry before spreading his arms wide. The bespectacled brunette looked appalled.
"What the fuck?" Harry whispered, because it really was the most appropriate way of summing up the situation.
"Go on. You want it. Punch me."
"The- no! I'm not going to," Harry said, recoiling in a mixture of outrage, horror, and perhaps slight disgust.
"I'm an arsehole who made Hermione cry, you're Harry Potter, defender of the bullied and the downtrodden. Punch me."
"What the fuck are you playing at, Ron?!"
"You're the goddamn hero, you gotta take down the villain, punch me."
"I'm NOT a hero, you're not a villain, and this isn't a fucking fairytale!"
"Didn't you wish for a villain to defeat so we could kiss and make up? Now's your chance."
"What the- you're not making any sense!" Harry howled, and at last he broke. "Stop fucking speaking in riddles!"
He shoved Wart away from him.
"Harry, no!" Hermione screamed, arms outstretched towards the redhead. Harry remembered just in this instant how easily the 'jealous prat' had shattered into pieces.
But Wart didn't explode when he touched the ground. He fell flat on his back, looked at the ceiling, and smiled.
It was, again, a weird sort of smile. A smile that didn't know if it was trying to be a laugh or a sob.
"A mind doesn't hesitate or lie," Wart spoke softly. "Finally, you listen to everything I have to say for once. I've been thinking about it for so long. Some sort of great big show where I get to lay the smackdown and be the smart guy for once."
Hermione, whose relief over Wart's safety had given way to anger at Harry's once-again poorly thought-out life choices, turned away from her Chosen Git of a best friend in confusion.
"What do you mean?"
A small hiccup was her answer. Followed by another, and another, and another. The hiccups turned into full-blown laughter as tears streamed down Wart's face.
"Ron!" Hermione cried out in a panic, falling to her knees next to him. Harry followed suit.
"I had so many ideas," he cried. "I finally had the spotlight. I thought, I thought I could come up with something. Why can't I do it? Why do I still feel so bad… why do I feel so bad over this?"
Harry and Hermione traded befuddled looks over Wart's prone body, before they jumped out of their skin as the mass of thoughts hanging on the ceiling took on the distorted shape of Ron, grotesquely exaggerated as he smiled cruelly.
You two… Sometimes, I just want to tear my ears off, just hearing you saying the name… Hearing people say how lucky you are… how far you'll go… how amazing…You don't see, do you? The way it feels…
Hermione could see Harry bristle already, so she slapped her hand onto his arm and motioned for him to keep his goddamn mouth shut. She was NOT in the mood for Harry ruining this further than he already had. They'd come here for Ron, they were not about to lose him to another tantrum.
Maybe I'm tired of being laughed at. Maybe I'm tired of being blamed for everything that goes to crap. Maybe I'm tired of being insulted right to my face by the people who are supposed to be my fucking best friends! Maybe I'm tired of hearing Hermione sigh whenever I say something stupid! Maybe I'm tired of seeing Harry roll his eyes when I flinch at the name! I'm tired of you two never listening to what I have to say, never looking at me without being condescending as shit! I know I deserve it but I'm sick of it!
The mask of thoughts contorted in furious anguish as he howled the words, memories zipping by faster than snowflakes in a hail storm.
Shut up Ron. Don't be stupid Ron. Honestly Ron. Right foul git.
Wanting to tear your heart out for being stupid, stupid, stupid, taking all those little words so personally when it was just all in good fun, all in good fun, it's always just all in good fun so why do you have to be. So. STUPID?! It's all in good fun when Ginny hexes him, when Hermione has him pecked by canaries, when Harry throws stuff at him. It's all in good fun when they laugh at him, when they roll their eyes, when they seem to expect him to disappoint them because ain't that just what he does? Why him? Why always him?
… Was this his punishment? For feeling jealous? For resenting his friends?
Hermione shook her head, her tears falling down and onto Wart's face. The prone doppelganger twitched.
"Heh, listen to this arsehole," he said as a small smile made its way upon his face. "Boo-hoo-hoo, everyone insults me and nobody believes in me. Can you believe it? Pathetic."
"No!" Hermione cried, at the same time Harry yelled "Shut up!"
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Wart said and closed his eyes. It made him look strangely at peace.
"Harry, think before you-" Hermione hissed, but the looming thought-monster above roared again.
I don't know if it's you two who don't deserve to put up with a prat like me or if it's me who don't deserve you… Because how are you two so bloody great, just how do you do it? How do you always win, always get the praise, always do it better? Why can't I do something right, even when I try? You two are so damn perfect, it's not fair!
Harry clenched his fists, but he seemed to be taking a steadying breath. Good. Good.
I'm a right wreck with words so I needed to have you somewhere I could actually talk. I'm not saying I wanted you to come in there… Maybe I did, actually. Am I conscious or subconscious? I don't even know anymore.
Hermione let her hand fall on top of Wart's in a poor attempt at comfort.
Then she heard him laugh.
He was laughing.
He was laughing as if his simple presence, his confession of pain, this entire situation was the funniest thing he had ever seen, as if this whole ordeal was nothing more than a joke, as if it was some sort of twisted punchline. No joy in the laughter, only painful disgust.
"Look at that", he said through his chuckling. "Isn't that the best friend everyone dreams of? A bastard that only thinks about himself? A sad little fuck who thinks he's got problems when he's got a cosy house and a happy family and no reason at all to be fucking sad?"
Harry bit down on his lip. Hard. Within his own mind pictures were flashing: pictures of an enchanted chess set, of gigantic man-eating spiders, of a lean gangly body jumping in the way of a ferocious dog, of eyes closed at the bottom of a lake, of elusive silver strands curling around a pale, freckled neck… Ron endlessly taking the blows, be them friendly yet hurtful words; be them Quaffles on a Quidditch pitch; be them disinterest from teachers; be them Hermione's disdainful glares or Harry's indifference; be them curses from Death Eaters…
If only he could take them out of his own stupid head where they just sat there doing nothing, so he could dump them inside Ron's and his friend could finally pull his head out of his own arse, finally realize how stupidly, stupidly good he was, and how Harry cursed himself for being such a clueless git about his best friend. Ron was great. Ron was great and had no reason to think this sort of bullshit was true. Ron… why, how dare Ron think this of himself, how fucking dare he, when Harry needed him so much, when Voldemort was outside and lurking in the shadows…
"You two are here to wake me from a ruddy coma and what do I do? I complain! Always, always bloody whining about crap like not getting attention or enough hugs or whatever! Just… it's pathetic. You should leave."
"And how do we do that?" Harry spoke, finally.
Hermione looked scandalized. "We're not leaving! We're going to fix this! We're right there at the source of Ron's problems, we can fix-"
"Yeah," Harry said dully, "but the problem is that Ron's the problem."
Now she was apoplectic. "What?!"
"Isn't that what he just said? That he was just… making it all up? That he's got no reason to feel sad, just… does?"
"You don't need a reason to feel anything, Harry! Sometimes you just do!"
"Yeah, like you've been feeling sad for no reason at all over the past months."
"We are not making this about me," Hermione said menacingly, her hair seeming to grow wilder and bigger with her rising temper. "This is about Ron. This is about Ron, your best mate, who risked his life for you, and who'd lose life and limb for you-"
"SO WOULD I!" Harry yelled. "But the thick git doesn't seem to get it!"
"Because you never told him!"
The words seemed to echo on, forever and ever, in the empty darkness.
"You never told him," Hermione murmured to herself, "you didn't tell him, you kept… pushing him away and insulting him and the one time you actually got to ask him you didn't even actually ask and just screwed it up even more."
Harry turned away from her with a resigned sigh and gazed into the inky abyss with a frown.
So they were back here now. Again. Did Ron have more stuff to show them, or were they here because it was some sort of… default?
"Ron?" Harry spoke. "Are you awake now? Do we leave?"
"Ron!" Hermione cried out in horror. "Harry, he's gone! Ron's gone!"
"Hermione, we've already established he's everywhere here-"
"The Ron we've met back in the thought-place! He's gone!"
Harry had to stop himself from saying "good riddance". He might've been a part of Ron and Harry loved Ron, but that part of Ron was one he didn't want to even acknowledge existed.
Voldemort was out there. Voldemort was out there and here they were, he, Hermione and Ron, having a stupid wacky adventure in Legilimency, Hermione moaning about Ron dating someone else and being upset that Harry was beating her in Potions for once, Ron crying about how his life was hard…
Yeah, and how about Voldemort, huh. No, that came in second position compared to the amorous woes of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. That had no importance compared to how much Ron suffered due to Harry laughing at him a few times, right..
"How dare you?" came Hermione's trembling voice, and Harry whirled around in shock. Had she read his mind or… he'd actually said all that out loud, hadn't he.
Of course he had. He could never catch a break. Not even in Ron's mind.
"Harry…"
"Oh don't fucking Harry me! This is, all of this is just stupid. We've been running around for hours, trying to find the way to bring back Ron to consciousness, but apparently you're plenty conscious enough huh mate? Enough to have a whole fucking speech prepared even!"
"Harry-"
"You know, next time I end up comatose in the hospital wing feel free to drop into my mind, too. I'll make sure I can give you a good tour of the place. Tell you all about how it's so nice to have to hear you two constantly bicker and moan about the other and make it seem like the two of you are the biggest problems in my life-"
"HARRY!"
"WHAT, HERMIONE?!" Harry bellowed, glaring at her with a fury that could've melted steel.
Hermione wordlessly pointed behind him, mute in horror.
Annoyed, Harry turned around.
His blood froze in his veins.
It was another of Ron's doppelgangers, but this one was nothing like the others.
This Ron was wearing nothing but the tattered veil from the Department of Mysteries draped on his skeletal frame. One of the tears in it allowed the two friends to see a gaping wound, bleeding profusely, on the right side of his freckled torso – it was a copy of Hermione's own, the one Dolohov had inflicted upon her… But it all paled in comparison to what was protruding from the side of Ron's head: a brain, like a giant leech, was slipping a thin, horrible tentacle made of flickering pictures under one of Ron's eyelids… More thoughts treaded down the redhead's face, two of them prying his lips open, others making their way through his nose…
"R-Ron?" Harry whispered. Inside him something was screaming to act. Move. Do something. Rip that bulbous mass of neurons away from his best mate's face and stomp it into the ground. But he was helpless. His arms were burning. His chest hurt, hurt, hurt so much…
"Don… leev… Ha-ree… Er-my-nee…"
Harry took a step backward. This was a nightmare. Just another nightmare. Just a bad, awful dream. Was that what Ron dreamed about? Was this the creature that haunted Ron's sleep the way Voldemort loomed over Harry's?
"N'ver… leev… Ha-ree… 'n Er-my-nee. N'ver, ev'r leev 'em… a'ways 'ay wi' Ha-ree 'n Er-my-nee."
Harry's heart was pounding, his breath was coming up short.
Next to him, Hermione, a hand over her mouth, reached out to the nightmare Ron. It recoiled in horror, clawing at the brain on his face and at the open wound on his chest.
"'m sorree," it cried, "'m sorree, wasn' heer, 'm sorree, can't save Er-my-knee -"
"Don't go!" Hermione sobbed as the creature retreated, further and further away, into the darkness. "Ron, don't go-"
"I'm sorry, Hermione," a small, youthful voice said from behind.
Harry and Hermione whipped around. Neither of them managed to hold back their scream.
It was a younger Ron, covered in squirming grey lumps of fur. His head was bowed down as a live rat was fiercely plunging its claws in his scalp, another was gnawing on his pale neck, one was scratching one of his ears off; and so many rats were busy climbing up and down his robes, disappearing inside his sleeves and biting off cloth to ravage his defenceless, lanky body.
"I'm sorry I didn't believe you. You're right. You're always right. I was so stupid."
"You're not stupid," Hermione whimpered, but Harry had enough.
"Stop this," he said, his voice trembling. "I'm sorry, Ron, I'm so sorry, I didn't-" Didn't what? Didn't realize his friend had been so affected by their adventures together? There was no way to this without sounding like the worst friend in the world.
"You're right too, Harry, you know," another voice said, sounding less youthful and much more broken by puberty.
Harry cast a wild glance around and there he was: a soaked Ron, head bowed, trembling from imaginary cold. His hands were firmly grasping something the both of them would have gladly never looked at again: the Goblet of Fire itself, its flame ignited, not wavering for a second despite the droplets – or were those tears? – that fell from Ron's face. Upon closer inspection, Harry realized with horror that the Goblet's fire had caused it to melt in the redhead's hands, and his long fingers were burned into the red-hot artefact…
"I'm sorry I didn't believe you," he cried, "I should never have doubted you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-"
"Don't- I- Ron-" Harry had no idea what to say, no idea how to formulate the wild thoughts spinning in his mind. Not for the first time that day he wished he could crack open his head to pour his own thoughts into Ron's, so he would know…
"I'm sorry I wasted your time," the young redhead whispered and his wrists cracked horribly as he upended the Goblet, its flame flaring a bright silver as it fell.
A brilliant, radiant, silver light.
Then nothing.
