HARRY POTTER & THE SECRET ENEMY
Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.
CHAPTER 6: Ron's Day
Just after nine o'clock, Harry and Percy returned to the Burrow. Harry had made a point of introducing Percy to Artemus Podmore, and the two actually compared a few "war stories" during their brief conversation, Artie having been a prefect himself during his Hogwarts days. When they passed through the Floo, Molly was there to greet them both with a late night snack. Ron was also reading on the couch, but almost immediately, he slammed his book closed and stalked up the stairs. Harry sighed and decided it was finally time for him to do something about Ron's hostility.
A bit later, Harry knocked softly on Ron's door.
"Who is it?" Ron asked.
"It's Harry. Can I come in for a second?"
There was a long pause before Ron finally opened the door. "What do you want?"
"Just to talk. I come in peace, I promise."
Ron didn't say anything. Instead, he left the door open as he went to lie down on his bed. Harry came in and looked around, closing the door behind him. He'd been joking with Snape about a room decorated in Gryffindor colors and Chudley posters, but apparently his words had been prophetic as they described Ron's room to a T. Harry sat down in a chair next to the door while Ron just stared up at the ceiling over his bed.
"Ron, I know you're ... not happy that I've been staying here. Honestly, it wasn't my preferred option either. Not that your family isn't wonderful. They are, and I'm honestly a bit jealous of you for having them. But I didn't have any other options, and I'm here for the rest of the week, so I'd really like for us to at least try to get along instead of feeling like you're mad at me for breathing too loudly or something. Now, have I actually done anything to you for you to dislike me as much as you do? Or is it still just that I'm in Slytherin? Because, you know, we did all team up to fight Voldemort just last month. I think that ought to earn me at least a little credit, don't you?"
Ron closed his eyes and was silent for a few seconds before he spoke. "We didn't fight ... You-Know-Who."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"We didn't. You fought him, and then Jim fought him and drove him off. In the meantime, Zabini and Nott freed the rest of us from our bonds, Neville nearly killed himself taking down the flame trap, Hermione was the one who figured out how Neville could take down the flame trap, and I ... stood around like a great useless lump. My best friend was fighting You-Know-Who, and I ran like a coward."
"Ron, you ran like a sensible person. I was trying to get Jim to follow your lead and run up the stairs when Voldemort blasted us. We were all First Years. None of us should have been trying to fight Quirrell, let alone Voldemort. You can't blame yourself for not fighting against a much more powerful enemy when the Boy-Who-Lived only beat him through some weird Dark-Lord-Slaying power that he doesn't even understand himself. And anyway, if that's what you're upset about, why are you taking it out on me?"
"Because you're the one flashing all your galleons with summer tutoring that my family couldn't afford in a million years!" Ron said hotly.
"Ah! Well, I am sorry about that. No, wait a minute! I'm not sorry at all! I spent ten years being treated like a house elf by a family of Muggles so awful that they make Draco Malfoy look like a Hufflepuff prefect! I'm not going to apologize to you or anyone else for finding out at the age of eleven that I'm not a penniless orphan but instead a trust fund baby who'd been abandoned by neglectful parents! Particularly not when I'm using that money to better myself instead of blowing it on Quidditch brooms and chocolate frogs!"
Ron shrank back from Harry's tirade, and he had no response.
"Now then," continued Harry more calmly, "you're upset that I'm trying to better myself and am spending money to do so. Well, you don't need money to better yourself as a wizard, though I admit it does help. But what have you been doing this summer to improve yourself that doesn't require money? Have you even finished your homework?"
"It's not due till September!?" Ron said, horrified.
"So? I've finished mine. Hermione's finished hers. I'll bet you another galleon that Lily Potter made sure that Jim has finished his by now. The people who are at the top of their class don't get there by making excuses or procrastinating. If you're so worried that you can't properly help Jim on his little adventures, then you either work to improve yourself until you can help him or else you find another friend. Because while it pains me to say this, Jim is the Boy-Who-Lived, so he's probably going to have insane lunatics coming after him for the rest of his life."
Ron glared at Harry, but as the boy's harsh words sank in, he leaned back and resumed staring at the ceiling. "Whatever. It looks like it'll be the second option anyway. Jim doesn't want to have anything to do with me."
"Oh, come on! I saw you two at the train station, and you were thick as thieves."
"Well, that was before we got home. Since then, I've sent a half-dozen owl posts, and he hasn't responded to even one. I figure that after I ran from You-Know-Who, he doesn't think he can count on me and he cut ties. I can hardly blame him, really."
Harry thought on that. "Has he sent you an invitation to his birthday party?"
"His mom sent an invite for me and the Twins. I gather they invited our whole Gryffindor class and the whole Quidditch team and the children of any influential Ministry officials who might possibly have met Jim somewhere. It's not exactly Jim and his close friends or anything."
Harry rubbed his temples for a few seconds. "So you're invited to his party, but no personal communications. I see. Tell me, Ron, has anyone mentioned anything to you about my run-in with the crazy house elf?"
"The crazy ... what?!"
"The night I was attacked by that doxy swarm, I had an encounter with a strange, mentally-addled house elf who tried to warn me that one or both of the Potter Twins would be in terrible danger at Hogwarts this year. And out of a twisted, poorly conceived attempt to discourage me from returning to school in the fall, he had been intercepting my incoming and outgoing owl posts. And I assume he's been doing the same thing to Jim."
Ron sat up excitedly. "You mean ..."
"I mean that Jim has probably spent the past several weeks brooding over the fact that none of his friends have sent him any owl posts or responded to any that he'd sent out. Now, you do what you want, but my recommendation is that tomorrow morning you have your Mum contact Potter Manor via Floo, talk with Lily, and see if Jim has tried to send owl posts that weren't answered. If the answer is yes, maybe they'll even let you go over and visit Jim personally."
"Wow! I will! Um, and ... thanks ... Harry."
"No problem, Ron. I'll see you tomorrow." Harry sighed, wondering how he had become the Gryffindor House agony aunt and how long it would be before distraught Lions came to him for romantic advice.
11 June 1992
The next morning, at Ron's request, Molly Floo-called Potter Manor and spoke to Lily. Apparently, Harry's theory had been correct: Jim had not gotten any owl posts from any of his friends so far that summer. Lily was quite pleased at the thought of Ron coming over as Jim "really needed to have some friends around." Harry overheard that bit from the kitchen table and filed the comment away for future consideration. A half-hour later, Ron stepped through the fireplace to visit Jim for the rest of the day.
For his own part, Harry spent most of the morning going over Occlumency exercises, reviewing notes from various tutors on areas of improvement, and preparing a preliminary list of friends and associates who he thought the Potters might allow to come to the party. He spent the afternoon flying with the Twins and later talking with them about some of their more interesting pranking ideas. They had a good laugh over the prank Harry had pulled on Jim during the previous Easter Break involving the Potter invisibility cloak. While they disagreed with the sentiment, they both thought that "Slytherins Rule! Gryffindors Drool!" was hilarious. Ron returned at 5:30, just before dinner (and just in time to hear Harry's story), and he seemed oddly subdued. After dinner, Harry pulled him aside and asked if everything was okay with Jim.
"Huh? Oh ... yeah, everything's fine. It was like you said. He just hadn't gotten any of my owl messages. He asked his... your ... anyway, he asked Mrs. Potter if I could start going over there more often – two or three times a week if Mom will allow it, or maybe a few weekend sleepovers."
"That's ... good, right?" asked Harry.
"Yeah, it's just... well, you were right about how I need to be a better wizard if I'm going to stay friends with Jim. He's gotten a really ... focused since we left King's Cross. Anyway, I'm about to head upstairs. Jim gave me a book to start reading." Ron held the book up, and Harry recognized it as an old DADA text – the same edition, in fact, that Tonks was using to teach him. He said nothing about that, though, as Ron walked away to speak with the Twins about whether he could join them in their Quidditch weight-training sessions.
"Why do I suddenly feel an sense of impending doom?" Harry muttered to himself as he watched the boy head up the stairs.
Earlier that morning...
The main fireplace in Potter Manor was situated in its Great Hall, so that as a visitor steps out of the Floo Network, he is confronted by a large wall sporting scores of paintings of past Potter Lords and Ladies, all of whom stare down imposingly upon any new arrivals. In the center was a truly enormous portrait of Guy du Poitier who had been the first of his line to sit on the Wizengamot in its earliest iteration and who founded what would become the Ancient and Noble House of Dupoitier (which was renamed House Potter centuries later once the last vestige of the family's French roots were excised). Sir Guy's portrait was a good fifteen feet tall and eight feet wide and would not have fit in any room in Potter Manor smaller than the Great Hall. Like most of the pictures facing the fireplace, du Poitier's painting predated the creation of moving portraits by centuries, so the legendary figure was both silent and still, but that did nothing to reduce his prominence. And so it was that when Ron Weasley stepped out of the fireplace and looked around, his very first impression was of the legendary Potter founder looking down on him in judgment.
Almost instantly, Lily Potter swept into the room. "Hello Ron! So glad you could make it. Come on, I'll show you up to Jim's rooms." Lily's smile relaxed Ron a bit, but he was still nervous. It was one thing to know that Jim Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was also a son of the illustrious House Potter. It was another to actually come into a home with such pedigree, an ancestral manse only a few centuries younger than Hogwarts itself. Out of reflex, he looked down at the orange Chudley Cannons jersey he was wearing, the one with the persistent grease stain his mother could not remove, and for a second, he actually wished he'd followed Molly's wish that he "dress up" to meet the Potters. Granted, Lily herself was wearing comfortable Muggle clothing, but Ron still felt overwhelmed by the Manor's grandeur.
"Jim has rooms? Like, more than one?"
"Well, he has his bedroom, of course. But over the past few weeks, he's taken over the room next door and, well, converted it into a sort of training room."
"For spell training?"
"Physical training," Lily said in an odd voice. "He's been working really hard." She led Ron out of the hall and up a flight of stairs. "So, Molly said that the problem was some house elf stealing owl posts. What was that all about?"
"I don't rightly know, Mrs., um, Lady Potter. It's just what Harry said. There was a house elf who told him either he or Jim or maybe both would be in danger at Hogwarts, and it stole all their mail to make them feel like they wouldn't be wanted at school."
"An odd strategy. But then, house elves can be odd creatures. Honestly, I've never been completely comfortable with them, not even with the ones we have here, but they've assured me that they are capable of keeping out any foreign house elves. Oh, and Mrs. Potter is fine. I'm not big into the whole 'your Ladyship' thing when I can avoid it." She hesitated. "How is Harry?"
"He seems fine to me, Mrs. Potter. He's been getting along well with my family, and he was the one who gave me the advice to get Mum to call you about the mail. He spends his days studying and flying with the Twins, and he's started getting special tutoring in Diagon Alley. My brother Percy is escorting him to make sure he's safe."
"Good, I'm glad to hear he's being looked after," she replied with a bit of sadness in her voice. By that point, they'd gotten to the top of the stairs, and Ron noticed an odd rhythmic "thump-thump" sound coming from farther down the hall. Lily sighed.
"From the sound of things," Lily said, "I don't think Jim has quite finished his morning work-out. He may ask you to wait for a few minutes."
She hesitated and then looked at Ron intently. There was something in her expression that Ron was too young to understand. Mostly parental concern such as he might recognize in his own mother's eyes, but Lily's emotions were tinged with deeper subtleties that were beyond his experience.
"Ron," she said, "be patient with him. What happened at the end of last term with Quirrell and ... well, it affected him. More than I thought it had at first. I don't think the changes he's going through are ... necessarily bad, but he may be a bit ... intense, possibly to a degree that might worry you. But regardless, I know he considers you to be his best friend. And I think he really needs a best friend right now, so please remember that if he acts a little ... difficult at any point. Okay?'
Ron wasn't really sure what Lily Potter was talking about, but he knew that Jim was his best friend too, so he nodded solemnly at her. They continued on down the hall, and the rhythmic thumping grew louder. As they approached the door, Ron noticed that the thumping sound was accompanied by a loud grunting in Jim's voice.
Lily opened the door and led Ron into "the gym." It was a thirty-by-thirty room with a big bay window that had heavy curtains to block out the sun. The only illumination came from magical orbs hanging from the ceiling which left the room rather dim and gloomy. It also smelled strongly of sweat. There was a brand new set of free weights and other exercise equipment near the door. The Twins had a similar setup, albeit smaller and second-hand, as Beaters were expected to have more upper body strength than the average Quidditch player. Just past the weights, Ron was disturbed to see what looked like a darts board ... except that instead of darts, it had what looked like small throwing knives embedded into it. Well, into it and all around it – Jim wasn't a very good shot with a knife yet. Speaking of whom, the Boy-Who-Lived was in the far corner in cut-off black sweat pants and a grey tank-top. He was barefooted and had tape around his hands, which he was using to assault a heavy leather punching bag that looked almost as big as himself. He was also utterly drenched with a few seconds, he noticed Ron and Lily's presence, and acknowledged his friend's arrival with a breathless smile.
"Ron! pant It's great to see you, pant buddy! Give me just pant thirty more seconds to finish this set of reps, okay?"
Ron, who had no idea what "reps" were, nodded. Lily watched her son for a few seconds and then said tightly, "I'll leave you boys to talk. Send a house elf for me if you need me for anything. Lunch is at noon." Then, she left, stopping only to look back at Jim with an unreadable expression. For his part, Jim nodded without even taking his eyes off the punching bag. Then, he took a step back and began targeting the bag with a series of side kicks that came up high enough to strike a man in the stomach or even the solar plexus. He did a total of twenty kicks with each leg, each accompanied with a fierce guttural "Kai!" before he finally took a break and came over to Ron, pausing to pick up a towel and a bottle of water off a nearby table. He gave Ron a warm smile and stuck out his hand.
"I'd give you a hug but I'm kinda sweaty," he said still somewhat breathlessly.
Ron happily shook Jim's hand. "That's okay. What was that you were doing over there anyway?"
"It's called Taekwondo. It's a Muggle style of hand-to-hand combat. Korean originally. There's a squib my Mom found who runs a dojang – that's a Taekwondo training center – in London. We Floo him in two days a week for training. I started it a few years ago, basically just fooling around, but I've gotten a bit more serious this year after ... well, after what happened. I'm limited in how much time I have for wand magic during the summer, and also I've learned the hard way that a wizard still needs to be able to take care of himself unarmed since you never know when a bad guy can steal your wand away."
"Oh," said Ron quietly. He was surprised to learn that wand-magic was allowed at all during the summer but said nothing about that. The two boys looked at one another uneasily as if neither knew what to say. Finally, Jim sat down at the table and gestured for Ron to sit opposite him.
"Okay, first things first, I guess. Mom said that there's some crazy house elf that's been stealing everybody's mail. What's the story there?"
"Well," said Ron tentatively, "all I really know is what Harry told me last night."
"Harry was at your house last night?" interrupted Jim, almost suspiciously.
"Yeah, he's staying with us till next week when he moves in full-time with Neville. Anyway, last week, while Harry was outside at his relatives' place, he had some kind of encounter with a house elf. The elf told him that either he, or you, or both of you maybe, would be in danger at Hogwarts this year. So to discourage you both from returning, it had been stealing any letters your friends had sent to you so far this summer." Ron hesitated. "As well as, you know, any letters you might have sent out to your friends."
Jim said nothing but took another sip from his water bottle, so Ron continued.
"Anyway, the elf gave Harry his letters back and left, but then this huge doxy swarm showed up and attacked Harry before he could get inside the house. After that, they decided to move him away from those Muggles. The Burrow is warded against house elves. Bill ... that's my oldest brother, the curse-breaker ... anyway, when he was at Hogwarts, there was some Slytherin he'd gotten into a feud with during Seventh Year, and the Slytherin sent a house elf to do some pranks around the Burrow during the Summer. So he made sure we had wards against house elf intruders. That's why they sent Harry to us."
Jim nodded at that. "How badly was Harry hurt?"
"I don't know really. He seems fine now."
"Do they know who the house elf belonged to? Who it is that's plotting to kill us?"
Ron was startled at that. He hadn't really thought about things in terms of possible murder plots, and it was disturbing to him that such ideas were the very first place Jim's mind seemed to go. "I, uh, don't know anything about that. I don't think Harry knows either."
"Probably not," said Jim. Then, he looked away, frustrated. "Not that they'd tell us if they did know. Better that we never know anything important so we can pretend that the world is all sunshine and roses."
The bitterness in Jim's voice troubled Ron. During First Year, Jim had always been openly hostile to Slytherins, especially Harry, and he'd come to Hogwarts with a huge ego that exploded messily the first week of school after that first Potions class. But after that, he'd gradually calmed down and developed both self-discipline and social skills. By the end of the year, he was basically a likeable if hot-tempered boy with a lot of friends, albeit few outside his house and none in Slytherin. This Jim, on the other hand, looked like he was on the verge of developing nervous tics.
"Jim, you're kind of scaring me a bit. What's been going on the last few weeks?"
Jim rubbed his hand across his mouth as he tried to decide how much to reveal to Ron. "I've ... learned things this summer. Things I wasn't supposed to know." He laughed nervously. "It's funny. I used to get so mad at my parents and at Dumbledore for keeping things from me. For treating me like I was a child. And now, I understand why they did and part of me wishes that I could go back to being that ignorant child."
He looked at Ron intently. "And, I'm also sorry, but a lot of it is stuff I can't tell you. Not yet. Maybe not ever. You know that Voldemort," Ron twitched, "read our minds last year, and the things he learned from us ... from me, nearly led to his full resurrection. If he or one of his servants learns what I've learned, it could be a disaster. I want to learn Occlumency, but my parents are fighting me on it. Mom has said that I need more self-discipline and that she'll talk to Dad again once I get my blue belt."
Ron didn't even know what Occlumency was, let alone how Taekwondo belt rankings worked, so he had difficulty in processing what Jim had said. "So, you received some secret information about ... You-Know-Who that your parents didn't want you to have. Do they know that you know?"
"No, and honestly I'm afraid to tell them. I don't think they'd try to Obliviate it out of me, but I can't take the chance. I can't go back to just ... stupid blithering ignorance."
"How can I help?" Ron said earnestly.
Jim hesitated. "Before I answer that ,.. I have a confession to make. You said that a house elf had been intercepting any owl posts I sent out. That's a good thing actually, because I only sent you one letter, just a few days after ... after I learned the truth. I'm glad you didn't get it. It was ... cowardly for me to say what I said in a letter instead of to your face. You deserve better. I assumed you'd actually gotten the letter and that was why you never wrote back to me."
Ron's stomach clenched. This was it. This was when Jim would cut ties with him because the Boy-Who-Lived couldn't be saddled with a coward who ran at the first sign of trouble.
"I said a lot of things in that letter. About how sorry I was that you were put into danger just for being my friend. About how sorry I was that I'd been a jerk all year to so many people. About how I finally understood for the very first time that being 'the Boy-Who-Lived' was about more than going to society events and having children's adventure books written about me. Being 'the Boy-Who-Lived' necessarily implies that other people die. One of the things I learned this summer that I can tell you is that all four of my grandparents died before I was born. I already knew that, of course, but I never knew that they'd all been murdered by Death Eaters as revenge for my parents standing up to Voldemort. I also learned the real reason that my parents sent Harry away – they were both afraid he'd be killed just for being around me."
He took another swig of water and then looked back up at Ron. "So, after everything I just said, do you still want to be my friend? Knowing what the cost might be? Knowing that someday Death Eaters might come after you or your loved ones just because of our connection? You're already one of a handful of people alive today who've seen Voldemort's face and lived to tell about it. I remember how incredibly brave you were during the chess game on the way to the Philosopher's Stone – how you were willing to sacrifice yourself to ensure that I would make it to face Voldemort. Are you sure you want to press your luck again?"
Ron was rendered nearly speechless by what Jim had said. He'd been so ashamed of what he considered a moment of weakness in the Mirror Room that he'd forgotten about the chess game, about how he'd deliberately sacrificed his own piece to allow Jim to advance more quickly, and how he might have died but for Neville's quick thinking. And now, after weeks of self-doubt, Ron finally started to feel his Gryffindor courage stir once more. "Like I said, what do you need me to do?"
Jim grinned and exhaled the breath he didn't even notice he was holding. Ron was stunned to realize how afraid Jim had been of being rejected. Of being rejected by Ron Weasley. No one in the world had ever cared that much about being Ron's friend.
"Well, we won't be doing much today. We'll have some lunch, maybe fly for a while later. And then we'll make plans and schedules. We both have a lot of training ahead of us."
Ron nodded. "Right. Training to fight ... Voldemort." He shuddered at the name, but he was still proud to be able to say it, as Jim was proud for him. Despite that, the other boy shook his head.
"No, Ron. We're not training to fight Voldemort." Jim's expression hardened. "We're training to kill Voldemort."
The next chapter will be uploaded on September 14, 2015. "Countdown to a Birthday Party." Neville! Augusta! Quiche Lorraine! Musical Theater! All this PLUS James apologizes!
RE: Jim's current attitude. A significant portion of HP fandom was openly appalled by the scene in Dumbledore's office at the end of OotP, the one where the old man reveals (among other things) that he concealed the Prophecy from Harry for years for the stated reason of allowing Harry to hold onto his "childhood" for as long as possible. It seems to me that most fans are wholly unpersuaded by Dumbledore's reasoning, particularly in light of what his childhood with the Dursleys was like. It's a common trope in HP fiction for Harry to learn the Prophecy early and to spend years preparing himself to fight Voldemort. But since this story is frequently about subverting the standard tropes, I wondered: What if Dumbledore was right? What if telling an already traumatized 11-year-old child that he has to be the one to kill Voldemort and no one else can do it is a terrible idea almost certain to instill deep psychological problems in that child? Problems like paranoia, depression and an obsessive interest in nearly anything, from Taekwando to the Dark Arts, that might give him an edge against the greatest dark lord in living memory. Thus, Jim Potter, who learned nearly all of the Prophecy in the last chapter of Year One, has basically gone all Bruce Wayne and decided at the age of 11 that he shall train like mad until he is a match for Voldemort. The problem, of course, is that, unlike Bruce Wayne, Jim's not the protagonist.:)