Ok, I can't promise anything, but I made a resolution to at least TRY and finish this fic this year. So let's get started right now shall we?
Nothing.
It was good. It felt good, nothing. Peaceful. Safe. Warm.
Just nothing. Not even thoughts. Just floating, drifting along. No fear, no stress, no wrath. Maybe a bit of happy. But mostly nothing. And nothing was good.
Good until something tried to enter Nothing.
"…ry…"
Nothing was perturbed. Nothing was not safe anymore. Thought happened: what was that? What am I doing? Where am I? What is happening? Nothing was gone, along with it the peace and the safety.
Soon the warmth of Nothing was changing. It became cold somewhere, and warm somewhere else. It occurred that those places were part of him.
He was cold on top, warmer on the bottom. He was a something. He was not Nothing.
"…ake up… arry…"
There was I, and there was He, and there was Him and he was all three of them; he was the I in his head and he was he – naturally – and he was the him that owned the body. His body.
And he was called. He had something. A name. He. He was I, He, Him, and…
"Harry!"
Harry. I, He, Him, Harry!
He blinked. Nothing disappeared entirely, but what he could see was blurred and unclear by the wetness in his eyes. He realized that his whole body was tingling quite badly. Wow, he had so many limbs! What was he supposed to do with them?
"Come on, my boy. Up you go."
Something touched his forehead. At that moment, everything cleared: it was like his brain was plunged in ice cold water and shocked out of its torpor.
Harry would have jumped to his feet but he was on a bed so he settled for merely sitting up. He looked wildly around and breathed only when he noticed the head full of red hair in the bed next to him.
First came relief. Then everything else.
Anger. Why? Why, Ron? Why do this… do this to me, why, of all times? As if I was up to dealing with other people's problems when Voldemort shadows my every step?
Fear. What will you do, Ron? It's so lonely in your mind. Have you lost hope? How am I supposed to help you when you're tearing yourself apart inside? Should I have stayed behind and fought harder against your inner demons? Could I even fight them or would they suffocate me, the way they did you?
Loathing. How long has this been going on? How long have you pretended not to care, smiled it off or raged over silly inconsequential things, all so we wouldn't notice? And how did I never notice? How could I be more aware of fucking Malfoy than of you, Ron? Some best friend I am.
Harry felt light-headed.
"Breathe, my boy. Breathe."
It was too much. It was the sort of realisation that needed one to fall back into a chair as they heave a hurricane-sized sigh as the weigh of all the implications squeeze all the air out of their lungs.
But Harry was already sitting in a hospital bed. Aside from fainting, there was not much more he could do.
There was nothing he could do.
He slapped his hand to his mouth to muffle a scream of impotence. Probably didn't muffle much, given that the hospital wing was so silent you could've heard a pin drop.
Dumbledore's soft, sad gaze wasn't helping.
Nothing was helping and there was nothing to be done.
Nothing except to listen to Hermione's quiet sobs. Oh, she was awake too, then. He'd failed to notice that. Like he failed to notice everything that mattered apparently.
"Ronald?"
Harry turned his head so fast the crack of his bones echoed in the room.
Dumbledore was looking down at Ron's bed, right between Harry's and Hermione's, where the redhead was moving slightly.
Harry only got to see red hair as Ron turned his head towards Hermione's bed. There was a soft rasp of a whisper, and Hermione gave a loud sob.
Ron's head then slowly, painfully turned towards Harry. Same old Ron, freckles, long nose, blue eyes, perfectly identical to all the doppelgangers that populated his mental space where one specific Ron, one that called himself a Wart, dedicated his existence to tearing himself apart so the outside world wouldn't do it first.
Same old Ron, but pale and shaky and with eyes that looked so, so exhausted.
"… hey," came the raspy whisper.
And because Harry didn't know what to say, he said:
"Hey."
And Ron smiled, almost a true Ron smile. Almost a smile that would bring to Harry's lips a sigh of relief; a smile of absolution, a smile that promised no further mention of that incident, a smile to move forward and let go with no hard feelings.
But Harry knew now. Harry knew now what Ron looked like when he was forcing himself to be strong, when he was pretending everything was fine so he could break down later. Harry could see it in the slight creases on Ron's forehead, the smile that didn't quite manage to reach his eyes, the tenseness of his jaw.
Was Ron clenching his teeth because he was afraid that if he opened his mouth, Wart's bile would pour out and never stop?
Their fragile eye contact was broken by Madam Pomfrey bustling into the room.
"I do believe that's enough emotions for now," the matron said, shooing Dumbledore away from Ron's bed. "Mr Weasley will remain here for the next weeks to come." At Harry's scandalized look, she took on a more severe one. "Need I remind you he has barely recovered from his poisoning? The bezoar got the worst of it out, but there's still been some damage to his internal organs."
"Can we stay with him?" Hermione pleaded. From the sound of her voice, Harry imagined she felt as bad as he did in that moment. Maybe even worse.
"I'm afraid you aren't in dire need of medical attention," Pomfrey said with a marginally softer tone. "And should you try to get yourselves hurt in order to spend more time with your friend I'll have you stay in separate rooms," she added with a pointed look at Harry.
Harry levelly maintained eye contact. He certainly hadn't entertained the unfortunate possibility of missing a few steps down the staircase as soon as he'd left, that was ridiculous. How annoying really, the way people assumed he was always up to something… besides, being hit by a stray Bludger during a boring average Quidditch practice made for a much better way to get into the hospital wing.
"I shall see them to their dorms, Poppy," Dumbledore said with a nod of assurance. He then looked at Ron, who averted his gaze. "I wish you a swift recovery, Ronald."
And as if closing a chapter of a book, Madam Pomfrey drew the curtains around Ron and herself, leaving the silent hospital wing a blank page.
Dumbledore waved his wand to bring Hermione's bed closer to Harry's and as such, to the door. "We'll be taking our leave. However, I urge you to be cautious when standing up."
Harry wondered why Dumbledore would say that, and got his answer as soon as he tried to get up: his legs felt almost jelly-jinxed. Only the Headmaster's timely intervention prevented him from faceplanting on the stone floor.
It took Harry and Hermione a few minutes to remember how to walk in the manner of those subject to gravity; even then, Hermione decided to play it safe and walked close to the wall.
Returning to the Gryffindor dorms was a solemn, quiet affair. Dumbledore seemed to want to respect Harry's need for silence or something, and Hermione wasn't about to start a conversation either. It allowed Harry ample time to ponder about the logistics of punching his own face in, or kicking his own crotch, or all sorts of things he wanted to do after this whole disaster.
Ron wasn't invincible, Harry had been painfully reminded of that – the foam at the mouth, the blue eyes rolling back, the glass shattering. But Ron always was… fine. At least he did a very good job pretending he was. Life-threatening situations aside, it was all so… mundane. Simple words, simple gestures, simple acts of everyday life turned daggers to the heart. Even a mere "idiot" fondly uttered became a little more sinister: like a bee's sting, it's such a tiny little thing, who would take it seriously? People with allergies, that's who. Calling Ron an idiot was like… metaphorically putting bee stings in an allergic person's arm. If the arm was a heart. Or something. Harry didn't really know about metaphors.
"I wish you a good night," Dumbledore murmured. Oh, they were here already.
Right, into the dorms then.
"Harry, miss Granger," the old Headmaster added. They looked back at his concerned face. "Do not blame yourselves for this."
Harry couldn't help it. He actually snorted. To Dumbledore's face. He was too sick of it to keep up the pretence.
"Harry!" Hermione called as he disappeared into the portrait hole and into the common room.
"Not now Hermione. Just not now," he growled.
"We have to talk about this!" she cried, and she really was crying, and Harry was just done with all the tears and crying and lamenting. No more. He couldn't handle any more of that tonight.
"What's there to talk about? Our best friend being depressed and none of us having noticed? The fact that he thinks he's a burden and that we'd be better off without him? How he's mad about you but you still won't tell him you feel the same when even I can see it? Or how all this shit is happening while we're having a fucking war?!"
Hermione, stunned, covered her mouth as tears fell from her eyes. Just like with Cho, Harry felt it difficult to feel sympathy. Why did girls always insist on talking things out? What if he didn't have anything to say? What if he had no words to describe the numb feeling inside?
"Goodnight, Hermione," he said and didn't let her the opportunity to catch up. He climbed the stairs to the dormitory without looking back.
That night, Harry did not talk to Hermione about what they'd witnessed in Ron's mind. It was just too soon, too painful to consider.
But Harry's subconscious seemed to have missed the message.
That is how Harry found himself in the Forbidden Forest, except the forest's floor was painted black and white: a giant chessboard, and ahead of him stood Voldemort, clad in a sinister white shroud and bearing a crown atop his head.
Harry tried to take a step forward.
"Oh, no, no, no," that voice, so familiar yet so twisted at the same time, Ron's voice but full of a mocking, almost bored undertone, came from right next to him. "No, Harry, no, you know you suck at chess. This isn't a place for you."
A hand – big, warm, but wrong – fell on his shoulder. Harry shook it off. "I'm the only one who can defeat Voldemort," he spoke through gritted teeth.
"Yes yes, we know," Wart said, rolling his eyes, "but right here right now you're not gonna defeat him. If you move now, you'll walk right into his trap like you did last year, like an idiot."
Harry closed his fist. Wart wasn't that far away, maybe he could punch him without it counting as a move…
"Watch and learn, Harry," the Ron-alike said with a smile that made Harry's inside clench for how Ron it was. "It's the only thing I'm good at, you know? "
Harry knew what was going to happen before it even did.
Wart, Ron, whoever he was, walked right in Voldemort's path. Right in front of Harry. With that same kind, gentle smile on his face like he was trying to say it would be okay.
A scream; Hermione's. A bright green light. And –
Harry's eyes flew open and he bolted up, casting wild glances around himself and only meeting his bed's curtains; he threw them open, immediately sawRon's bed –
It was empty – it was empty, Ron had gone, Ron had disappeared –
Harry was just about to scream for everyone to wake up so they could find Ron, but then remembered –
The hospital wing. The glowing scars. Ron was… okay. As much as he could be when he had Wart whispering in his ear…
But Wart was Ron, wasn't he? A Ron that wanted to be heard… that wanted someone to listen… that thought all he was good for was –
Harry wiped at his eyes with his fist, choked down a sob.
He couldn't even count on his idiot subconscious to leave well enough alone.