a/n: right. forgot to post it here.
Disclaimer: Ha, ha, no.
Title: while rome burns
Word Count: 1K
Summary: Five moments during the hunt for the Horcruxes that changed their relationship. [Gender AU – M/M]
i.
Hector was sitting on the piano bench, his head haloed by the soft light emitting from the blown-glass lamp. His hands flew over the keys as he strung together an unfamiliar melody to Rom's ears. He stood by the doorway and listened before it spluttered to a choppy end.
"Is that all there is?" Ron asked. His eyes snapped open. It was nothing like the music he had heard from the wireless or from the small record collection his parents had.
Hector's back went ramrod straight. "You should be asleep!" he chastised as if he also wasn't up at such a late hour.
Ron joined him on the piano bench. "Halley is pacing a hole in the wall above my room. Aren't you going to play the rest?" The music had been the only good thing so far about being on the run.
Hector tapped a random key. "I used to play a little before Hogwarts." A furrowed line appeared between his eyes as he flipped through an ancient songbook. "Oh, these are all terrible!"
Ron looked over his shoulder. There were songs titled Mordred's Midnight Lament, The Adlerking's Last Waltz, and all with lyrics full of Pureblood woe and miserable events about lost lovers and cursed families. They seemed like something some of his distant relatives would play. "Ew. You should play whatever you were doing earlier."
"I can't remember the rest." A delicate blush stained Hector's cheeks. His fingers tapped the keys, much like the way he tapped the spine of a book.
Ron leaned into his side. He was seized with the uncontrollable urge to take Hector's hands in his own, to lovingly trace the familiar slim wrists and elegant fingers. Instead, he asked: "Then teach me." He placed his hands over Hector's, and they tried to complete the melody together, the tune light and airy.
ii.
They trekked through the moors in the gray light of the early morning. They hadn't spoken much between their Apparating between dark forests, not since Hector had healed Ron's splinched shoulder and that their stay at Grimmauld Place had been compromised. Hector felt the creeping sensation that they were still being followed despite the charms he kept weaving for their protection.
The small radio attached to Ron's rucksack blared depressive news in a monotone. A Muggle family in Cromwell has been declared missing…Dementor sightings all over England…Loyalty Oaths are now mandated for all Ministry personal…An explosion in the Midlands has left several dead, two presumed missing…Ministry employee Arthur Weasley has been missing since Wednesday…
Halley seemed to turn more into a shadow, her shoulders hunched as she marched ahead. Ron, however, had turned still. The dull surface of the Locket around his neck reflected a sliver of sunshine.
Hector's squeezed Ron's strong bicep. "He's gone into hiding with your family," he assured in a murmur. He hand slid down Ron's arm and their fingers tangled together.
"But how do you stand it?" Ron asked in a low voice. "Just leaving your parents?"
Hector pushed down the guilt festering in his heart. In the back of his mind, he saw the vapid expression on his parents as the charm settled over their minds, the growing separating between them since his Hogwarts letter. He had been the obedient son, their quiet child who cared more for books than for other people, and now he was on the run with his best friends in an effort to save their world from collapsing
Walking away had been almost a relief to all of the lies Hector had told them.
But he looked and saw the tormented expression on Ron's face. The Weasley family was different from his, a messy, complicated group of people who stood by each other and would fight to their last breath. Hector tried not to imagine was horrors kind-hearted Mr Weasley was facing, Mrs Weasleys anxious looks at the door… He couldn't bear to think of a world without them, Ron without his family as an anchor…
Hold on, Hector silently urged Ron. We'll get through this together.
He held tight onto Ron's hand and they marched in the quiet morning.
iii.
"Ron," a voice said in the night.
"Wha—" Ron woke suddenly from the memory drowning in the Black Lake, surrounded by the bloated bodies of his family, a voice whispering in the water…let me in….let me in…. He turned in his camp bed and saw Hector's worried face. He sat up and felt the Locker around his neck stir. "Wazzon?"
"You need to take the Locket off," Hector said. "Ron, it's dangerous."
"M'fine," he mumbled sleepily, unconsciously reaching to touch tone of the twinkling emeralds. They reminded him of the moonlight in the lake.
(I have seen your heart, Ronald Weasley, came a soft voice from somewhere in the back of his mind. Let me in.)
"Ron." There was a hand on the side of his face, guiding him to look directly into Hector's light brown eyes. Hector traced the edge of Ron's jaw and coaxed him further from the Locket's strong pull. This was real. It wasn't an illusion from the Locket, but truly Hector's flesh-and-blood touching him and reminding him of a yearning that went beyond their usual friendship. "It's okay. You can take it off."
This is a lie, the voice whispered again. He'll never want this with you.
iv.
Ron's reunion brought a collision of emotions as they entered the tent and onto the nearest camp bed. Halley had already dried herself off with the borrowed wand and said that she was going to remain on the look-out and had said this with an awkward expression as Hector fought the urge to beat Ron over the head with his textbook. Or maybe kiss him senseless.
He was still trying to decide as he checked Ron over for any injuries while Ron wouldn't stop making annoying quips about them.
"Shut up," Hector hissed. He tugged on the hemline of Ron's soaked maroon jumper, rising on his knees so he could pull it over Ron's head. "You do not get to leave me and expect everything to be sunshine and roses."
Ron stumbled forwards, falling atop of Hector on the creaky camp bed. They'd seen each other naked before, times Hector had accidentally walked in on Ron in the changing room, the tight quarters they shared at Hogwarts and the Burrow. But never had Hector pressed his body against Ron's, readjusting themselves in the bed as Ron's scarred arms came around him. Only in guilty dreams had he ever considered this.
"What are we doing?" Hector gasped. He touched Ron's back and he shivered. He was so angry but the relief of seeing Ron out there in the snow with the sword of Gryffindor hoisted above his broad shoulder, dripping with cold water and a satisfied smile on his face, the Locket in charred remains—
"I don't know." Ron's eyes were the color of hot flames.
Then Halley entered the tent with her new wand in hand, and Ron threw himself back from Hector and made a valiant effort to cover himself up with the sheets.
"Is everything all right?" she asked. "Were you two just fighting?"
v.
Fat raindrops struck against the window and Ron busied himself with fixing Hector a cup of lukewarm tea.
"Do you need anything else?" he asked, hating how thin his voice was. He knocked over one of Fleur's silver teaspoons, causing the tea to slosh over the thin rim and onto his wrist. He hissed in pain and transferred the tray to his other hand, begging for the tea and biscuits to not fall.
"Vengeance," Hector said from the guest bed. He had one of Mum's homemade quilts tucked up to his chin, keeping him warm as the storm outside threw wet leaves and heavy rain across the coast. He didn't complain much, it wasn't like Hector to moan about every miserable thing, but even he had his limits after being tortured at Malfoy Manor, each request coming through clenched teeth.
Ron set the tray down on the bedside table. "I can get you more blankets—"
"And be smothered?" Hector said. "I didn't survive Bellatrix Lestrange's curses just to die from under a pile of quilts." He forced himself to sit up despite his gasp of pain and reached for the bedpost to help himself up. "No, I am not going to sit here and waste more time. We are going to plan our next move, we are going to destroy the next piece of You-Know-Who's soul, and then Halley will—" He doubled over and Ron immediately came to his side.
"I'll stay here with you," Ron said. He ran his fingers through Hector's curly hair. "The whole night if you need me to."
"Please," said Hector. "Stay longer."