AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews. It makes me happy how many of you like this.
Disclaimer: I do not owe any of HP- characters.
BARON RÖNNSKÄR
CHAPTER 4 LEARNING AND ESCAPING
Five years. Five long years had been from that day when Ron lost everything except his life. Five years this little cell had been his whole world. Five years he had not set a foot outside the walls of Azkaban. Five years he had been alone. Five years he had wished the courage to kill himself, but every time he tried he backed away. Five years he had prayed to hear Honestly, Ron coming from Hermione's mouth, though usually it would have irritated him. Five years of silence. But that changed.
As Ron lay on the stone floor waiting for another cursed day in this hell to pass he heard a sound, a sound that he hadn't heard during the past five years. It sounded like someone was clapping two stones to each others. First Ron thought that it was maybe a bored guard behind his door but soon he noticed that sound was coming more clearly from the left wall from the door. Ron putted his ear to the wall trying to hear more clearly.
Surely I must have finally gone mad. How on Earth could anyone or anything clap stones there?
What surprised Ron more was that the sound was most clearly heard from the floors level. Ron tried to hear more clearly but then it was quiet. Ron was sure now that his imagination must have played tricks to him but a couple of hours later the sound returned. Except this time it was clearer. Ron again put his ear to the wall and this time heard clearly like someone, or –thing, was moving there. Ron wasn't sure why he decided to talk to the sound but he figured he had nothing to lose.
"Hallo" Ron said very carefully. Sound stopped immediately. "Can you hear me?" No answer. "Are you a prisoner?" Ron asked but still received no answer. Ron was getting desperate. This was the first change in his life for five years and he wasn't about to let it go away. To his relief and excitement he soon heard a man's voice.
"Who are you?" asked a deep voice. Ron almost jumped as he heard how close it came. Dear Merlin, he must be just other side of this wall!
"A prisoner" Ron answered truthfully, realising that Azkaban was full of Death Eaters and giving his name would probably be a bad idea.
"How long have you been here?" the voice asked now.
"About five years, I think" Ron said.
"Why are you here?" the voice asked.
"I don't know. My examiner said I was free to go and next thing I know I'm here".
There was a moment of silence.
"When was your plate filled and bucket emptied last time?" the voice asked.
"About an hour ago" Ron said.
"So nobody will catch us" voice muttered to himself now. Then it said clearly again; "I will push the stone from this side".
Ron instantly pulled away from the wall, waiting to see what would happen. Soon he heard a sound of something heavy being moved. And very soon he clearly saw one of the stones on the wall that he had learn to see only there, slowly moved. When stone was enough out of the wall Ron crabbed his side of it and started to pull it out. It took only a minute or two to get the stone off. Ron went back again and looked at his wall now: it had a black hole in it. And soon something came out of that hole. Ron couldn't see much first. Man had a black dirty hair and prisoner's uniform. He slowly crawled from the hole and then stood up in front of Ron. Man was thin and very long. He raised his head up and removed with his hand the black hair from his face, revealing black eyes and a long nose. Ron gasped at the sight greeting him. Never in the million years had Ron expected to one day meet this man again.
"Snape?" asked bewildered Ron.
Severus Snape bored his eyes to the man in front of him. It took him only a moment to recognise him and he also was surprised. His voice was calm when he spoke. "Well, I never would have expected to see you here, Weasley".
Ron looked at the man in front of him. Years before, he had hated and despised this man. Now Snape was the first man in five years Ron had seen. He almost felt like hugging him. It was then when Ron remembered how this man had got to his cell and he felt a hope born in his chest.
"Planning an escape?" Ron asked.
Snape looked at Ron. "No, Weasley, I just happened to get stuck between walls" he said.
Ron walked past him and looked in to the whole. From what he could see Snape had been digging a tunnel. "How have you done this?" he asked from his former teacher.
"Through hard work" he replied harshly.
Ron felt angry because of that. Is he too blind to see that we're in this together? "Has it been harder than killing Dumbledore?" Ron asked.
Snape flinched at the words. He seemed right he was about to break Ron's neck but then thought better of it. Defeated he said only one word: "No". Ron looked guessingly the elder man, but Snape decided to change the subject. "I've been here almost six years. After two I decided to escape. I made necessary plans for a year, tool the other and I've been digging for almost two years now". Then he suddenly crawled back to hole. "Come" he said to Ron.
It was almost surreal, Ron thought. After five years of living in one cell he was crawling in a narrow tunnel behind Severus Snape. They reached to Snape's cell. It was almost complete replica of Ron's cell, except Snape had some codes written on the wall.
"What are those?" Ron asked.
"Mathematics codes" Snape said. "They are my calendar and sun clock. And these are my tools" he said, showing them. He had a chisel, a knife and a hammer.
"Where did you get them" Ron asked.
"I made them" Snape said. His face was stern but his voice held a pride of his handiwork. "And this is my lamp" he said, holding a very primitive oil lamp in his hands.
Ron had seen light in the lamp when they were in the tunnel but couldn't figure out how he had lightened it. "Lamp needs oil" he decided to state instead of asking.
"Am I the only one or doesn't they serve that horrible fish to you also every Sunday?" Snape asked. Ron felt almost blushing for not realising it sooner. Fish did hold little oil, didn't it?
"How do you light the oil?" Ron asked, honestly interested.
"I cut little of my hair and I rub it against the stone until it will burn" he said in a matter-of-factly tone. Then he let a deep sight. "And this all has been for nothing! Two years I have been digging in hope to get to seawall, but I only ended up in another man's cell".
Ron was quiet for a moment as he took everything Snape has said in. He was heading to the seawall? But of course, once in water you can apparate from here!
"Your tunnel is almost leading to the right direction" Ron surprised them both by saying that. "I can see the seawall from my window. Your tunnel hasn't that far from the right course".
Snape was quiet for a moment. "So I would need to find where it starts to go wrong and continue there" he muttered to himself.
Ron looked at him intensively. "How long would it take?" he asked.
Snape noticed the excited glee from his eyes. "Two of us?" he asked.
"Unless you truly want to continue alone" Ron said. "I personally have nothing better to do".
"Two years" Snape said.
For the need to have some sort of human contact, Ron raised his hand towards Snape. The elder man looked at it first and then shook it.
"While we dig, will you teach me?" Ron asked very eagerly.
To Snape this truly seemed to be a day of surprises. "Teach you…what?" he asked.
"Anything…everything…everything you know! I need to be ready when we are out of here! Ready to face the world, no matter what I will face" Ron said.
Snape looked Ron's eyes and recognised the eagerness he had once felt also: eagerness to learn caused by being insecure of what will happen and wanting to be ready for anything. Snape felt strange satisfaction seeing this in one of those he in school called "bumble heads". Though he would have never admitted it to anybody Snape had always enjoyed teaching and nothing made his mood better than seeing someone truly eager to learn. Not that he would ever admit this aloud.
"Very well" he said.
One would have probably thought that Ron and Snape working together would be extremely awkward. But it turned out to be nothing of that sort. In Azkaban they no longer were the feared traitor and the best friend of Boy-Who-Lived. They were two desperate men fighting for their freedom. Day after day they dig, went to their cells only when food was brought or bucket was emptied. They hid the dirt of the tunnel to the buckets as well as they could.
Ron learned much and surprisingly quickly. He figured it must be because unlike in Hogwarts here you didn't have anything else to do than learning. No friends and no quidditch. In Azkaban they also didn't have any potions or wands so Snape teach Ron to remember things. He repeated and asked them from him over and over again. After a year of digging he could ask a name of some potion from Ron and Ron was able to tell what ingredients it needed, how much, how long did one have to boil it and so on…in French. Snape also thought him history and languages. It might be difficult to imagine Ron so eagerly learn these things but they were now the reason that kept him alive and sane. Snape thought him how some governments were build and how financial world worked. Ron was also thought some spells. Of course without wands it was hard to say if he learned them, but Ron remembered how to use a wrist and spell had to be said when you wanted something to happen.
"I guess all it needed to make you learn was to tear your eyes off from Miss. Granger" Snape had once said, little amused by the fact that Ron Weasley could actually learn something.
Ron also learned things about his former potion professor. According to him it had been Dumbledore's plan to kill him, so that Snape could continue as a spy in Death Eater circles. All the evidence of this was however destroyed during the final battle in Hogwarts. The attack and fire had destroyed not only Dumbledore's hidden pensive but also his portrait. So Snape was send here. At the time he didn't object, he felt he deserved this and much more. But, after couple of years in Azkaban once mind can easily change. Ron didn't know was this true or a lie, he didn't really care. The only thing he knew for sure was that Snape seem to need redemption of his sins, which might explain why he was so helpful of teaching Ron.
But probably the most important lesson he gave to Ron was when they cracked the mystery of Ron's case.
"Weasley" Snape once said in the tunnel, when it was his turn to rest and Ron's to dig. "I have tried my best to teach you how think logically. Let's now put your skills to test. You said that you had been arrested because you took Oliver Wood's letter. Did anyone see you took it?"
"I don't think so" Ron said while digging with the self-made chisel.
"Did you see anyone in the ministry while you were there?"
"My brother Percy was there" Ron said, stopping for a while to think. "Surely he wouldn't have…" Ron muttered.
"If I remember anything about Percy Weasley when he was my student, he was ambitious and selfish. He didn't like the fact if someone close to him did something better than he did. I would say that after the fall of the Dark Lord he must have been very bitter for all the publicity you got" Snape said calmly. Ron was shocked.
Snape continued. "So we have a suspect number one. You also told me that you and Granger had become quite close. Was there anyone who might not have liked this? "
"Krum!" the red haired almost yelled.
"Victor Krum?" Snape asked. "It doesn't suit for a hot blooded Bulgarian's nature to plot behind ones back. I'd think he would more likely have cursed you. Did Percy and Krum know each others well?"
"No…" Ron was about to say when an image, long buried in his memory, came to him. "Oh Merlin…I saw them. The day before I was arrested, after I had returned to the Burrow from ministry…I saw them. Percy and Krum, they were talking. Percy even waved hand to me!" Ron spat angrily. "He was showing some parchment to Krum!"
"Maybe the same parchment that was later on sent to ministry?" Snape asked. "I doubt your brother would have sent it, he has a reputation to think. So he would show it to someone who would be more than willing to get you into a trouble".
Ron had to stop digging. After so many years of living in the dark and now light had suddenly come. His enemies hold now faces and names; Percy Weasley and Victor Krum!
"It still doesn't explain why you were brought here though" Snape said. "Who examined you, the prosecutor?"
"His assistant: Draco Malfoy" Ron said, still shocked by the sudden revelations to him. He was pulled out of his thoughts by Snape's laugh. "What's so funny?" Ron asked.
"The whole mystery is solved!" Snape said. "You did tell me Wood's letter was addressed to someone named Elisabeth, right?" Ron nodded. "To minimise the risk of get caught we Death Eaters had an alias, that we could use while sending orders and information to others. And I know for certain that this Elisabeth was really a Death Eater named Narcissa Black Malfoy!"
Ron tried to say something but nothing came out.
"Lucius was always so fanatical, giving all his time to the Dark Lord. I'm sure that Narcissa must have felt rather lonely so it would make sense for her to take a young lover" Snape said.
"So Malfoy protected his mother" Ron finally whispered.
"And himself, most likely it wouldn't have done well for his credibility if his mother would have been questioned. Not after Lucius was killed, anyway".
But Ron wasn't listening Snape anymore. All he could see was the faces of Percy, Krum and Draco Malfoy. And all he could feel was the need to get revenged.
AN: Reviews are always welcomed.