Title: True Serpent
Summary: Shortly after sixth year, Ron changes. Trust will turn out to be fatal. How will people around him cope with his actions? And how will he?
Disclaimer: I own the plot, which makes me very happy. I just wish I'd own a lot of reviews too...
A/N: Hermione's perspective, once again.
A/N: The song is called "Collide" by Howie Day
A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, my wrist hurts a LOT
You're barely waking…
I still feel guilty for yelling at them. They are practically family. It's not like I don't understand. I do. I know that they are only trying to protect me, that they don't want me to suffer through hours of watching him, hearing him speak. I know that they want to help, but how can they? How can anything make me feel better? I feel like I'm ripped in two, like there is a void in me. I'm so scared of feeling, of not feeling. I don't want to be like this, I want everything to turn back to normal, but how can they when life has been altered beyond repair?
I know that they couldn't have stopped me if I had really wanted to be there. I know that I am an adult, but still I allowed them to make the decision for me. Did I not want to go? Did I believe he was guilty? He had admitted to the crime, had he not? Why would he do something like that, if he wasn't the murderer? Why would he kill Harry, if he had? I don't know what to believe. I don't know what to do.
My room is still as sunny as it has always been, but I feel cold. Pictures of happy people, of me, are scattered across the floor. I can't stand to look at him anymore, but I keep picking up that one picture of us. We look happy. Careless. Why can't I believe that he is innocent? We've been friends for such a long time. I feel guilty for not being there for him.
They promised to call me after the hearing, but I have heard nothing. I wish I would know whether or not that's a good sign. I keep flipping channels, even though the muggle TV has hardly spent any time discussing the murder. To them it's just another sixteen-year-old boy. Another tragedy. They don't know about the darkness, about the fear. The whispers about Voldemort, about the prophecy that has somehow become common knowledge. They don't hear the rumours. They don't feel the fear. If only Harry could kill Voldemort, are we doomed? Neither can live while the other survives. Some people think Ron is innocent because they believe the prophecy says only Voldemort could kill Harry. I've tried to fathom the exact meaning of the prophecy ever since he told us, and I've come to the conclusion that they are wrong. We've been outsmarted. Voldemort would never be able to come close to us, not with the Order around. So instead, he chose someone already close to us, so we would never see it coming. And he was right. We didn't see it coming.
There's just one thing. I don't know if that's what really happened. I don't know if Ron has been chosen, if he was acting on orders. I had hoped, god yes. I wanted him to be under the Imperius curse because maybe, just maybe, he would be released from Azkaban. But maybe he's better off in there. I heard it's not so bad anymore, with the Dementors gone. Maybe it's better this way. Even if...he'd still be a murderer. He'd still have killed hope. No matter how we twist it, Harry won't come back.
I know that Molly and Arthur are as confused as I am. They want to believe he is innocent, as innocent as someone who killed can be, but there's a problem. He confessed. He knew what he was doing. Shouldn't he have walked away, had he been Imperiused? Shouldn't he have done something, killed someone else perhaps? Why did he stay there? Why did he tell the Ministry that he had done it?
Some days I want to talk to him, want to ask him all those questions. Scream at him, perhaps. I am torn between wanting to punch him and wanting to hug him at the same time. I don't know what to do, what to say, if I ever saw him again. I don't even know if I want to see him.
And yet when the Daily Prophet arrives I tremble in anticipation. I hardly pay any attention to the owl delivering it, absentmindedly handing it money. There it is. On the front page.
Murderer Harry Potter to be released later on today
My eyes skip past the summary to the actual story.
Yesterday at 11.00 a.m. Ronald Bilius Weasley, better known as the murderer of The Boy Who Lived, was called to court once again. Due to new evidence, that has up until now not been disclosed to the community, he is to be released later on today.
I feel...disappointed somehow. The headlines are screaming at me, but my vision is blurred. Questions are whirling in my head, each one trying to linger long enough for me to notice, to consciously ask myself what, why and more importantly how. How did this happen? What was this new evidence they were talking about? Why had they not come across this information before?
I don't know what to do now. I don't know what to feel. Should I be happy? Should I call the Weasleys? Did they know already? Of course they did. They had to. What were they feeling? What was going to happen? Were we going to let Ron back into our lives? Was I?
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