If one were to try to describe Ronald Bilius Weasley, the first two things that would come to their mind would be that he was the youngest son of the Weasley family and that he had been the best friend of Harry Potter—not anymore.
And that was one of his biggest regrets.
The fact that he mindlessly pushed his only good friend away, and by extension his other friend—which he had high hopes for— hurt.
At one moment, he was sitting at the Gryffindor table with his two mates, Harry and Hermione, and the next, Harry was being heralded as a Tri-Wizard champion.
He saw red.
All of his petty jealousy and insecurities, honed by years and years of watching his siblings rise one by one and escape their pitiful fate—the one that was still in store for him—had gotten the better of him during the champion selection.
And after his first outburst, the rest came naturally.
He lashed out at Harry at any given opportunity—just like Malfoy—spewing venom and hatred that he didn't truly feel.
The result?
Not only did Harry and Hermione abandon him, but the whole world did so as well.
It started with the rest of the houses who started whispering behind his back about Merlin knew what.
Then followed the Gryffindors… his housemates—and even his year-mates—started avoiding him, treating him like a pariah.
The whispers and sideways glances that followed him through every corridor were a harsh and constant reminder of his fuck-up.
Even his own sister, Ginny, looked at him with disappointment in her eyes.
That's why when Ron saw Harry jump out of the water together with the rest of the champions and the hostages, he didn't run away in fear, even though he felt like it.
He stayed back.
Ron watched with growing horror as shield after shield broke after coming in contact with the monstrosity that followed them from the depths of the lake.
He watched as Krum's—the last shield— shattered and the snake moved to strike, ready to deliver what could only be a fatal blow.
He didn't know what he was doing until he acted.
Ron raised his wand and started firing any spells that came to mind.
Of course at that range, and with Ron's mediocre magical strength and knowledge, nothing he cast could damage the ginormous snake.
However, things changed…
Harry managed to redirect the serpent's path with a surge of water, but the abomination could somehow "swim" through the air and moved to attack again.
A distant part of the ginger screamed at him to run, to let Harry handle it—after all, Harry always did.
But the louder voice, the one Ron was ignoring for his whole life, told him that he couldn't fuck up again—not this time.
This was his chance to stop being the coward, the jealous friend, the liability.
"Stupefy! Expulso! Reducto!" Ron's spells shot through the air like a fireworks display.
They did nothing to the serpent-lethifold hybrid except perhaps irritate it.
Thankfully, Harry came through again.
He cast a spell.
A single, world-bending spell.
Harry's magic called the sun itself and the ancient star answered the chosen one's call.
Descending from above in a brilliant shaft of light, one of the sun's beams pierced through the world.
The serpent was instantly incinerated as the divine radiance washed over its shadowy form, and then the light flickered away, just as suddenly as it came.
However, there was still something that lingered in the air, a faint, warm glow that felt out of place against the mortal world…
The monster was gone, its serpent form obliterated by the power Harry had summoned.
'Yet, the battle isn't over. The queen still lives.'
From above, the remains of the abomination descended like drifting smoke, curling ominously toward the ground.
Toward Dumbledore.
The old wizard stood unmoving at first, his long beard swaying slightly in the breeze generated by Harry's spell.
His piercing blue eyes followed the wisps as they spiralled closer, calculating.
"Everyone go back," he commanded, his voice calm.
The few students and staff members that remained behind, heeded the old wizard's words and quickly began to retreat.
Alas, many lingered at the edges of the scene, unable to tear their eyes away from the mythical scene.
Dumbledore was already moving, his wand carving elegant arcs through the air as he began an incantation in an unknown—to Ron—language.
The very ground seemed to tremble underfoot as the headmaster's magic coalesced, forming a glowing orb of incandescent energy at the tip of his wand.
"Arx Lumina Sancta!" he bellowed, his voice breaking the eery silence that had encompassed the world.
The orb immediately shot upward, streaking toward the descending lethifold with blinding speed, the air around it shimmering with heat and light.
The raw power emanating from the spell was enough to distort even the space…
But the lethifold wasn't a mundane beast.
As the orb neared, the shadowy remnants dispersed, splitting into countless smaller wisps that swirled unpredictably.
However, the abomination didn't think that the orb of light would detonate mid-air, but that's exactly what it did.
The radiant explosion vaporised many of the tendrils—not all of them—and sent them flying in a random direction.
The handful of the remaining dark wisps shot downward, faster than anyone could react, toward the nearest prey.
Toward Ron.
Ron was still standing, wand raised, panting from the exertion of his earlier spells.
He was the only one who remained still and watched Dumbledore work, caught between awe, fear, and exhaustion.
When the shadowy remnants of the lethifold turned their attention to him, Ron had no chance.
It happened too quickly for almost anyone to process.
The tendrils flashed towards him and coiled around his legs, then his arms, faster than he could blink.
The last thing Ron remembered was an unbearable cold, sinking into his very bones, freezing his breath in his lungs.
"Ron!" Hermione screamed from amidst the retreating crowd.
She raised her wand, but there was no point—she was too far away to do anything…
Not that she knew how to deal with the dark creature anyway.
Harry who only remained conscious to see the beast's end, raised his wand again despite his drained magic. "No, no, no, NO—!"
And before either could act, Dumbledore's voice cut through the chaos like a knife.
His wand was already trained on Ron.
His face betrayed no emotion, only steely resolve.
"You can't—"
Dumbledore ignored the voice.
His wand tip glowed once more, this time with a cold, silver-blue light.
"Glacialis Lux Aeternum."
The spell surged forward.
It was a concentrated cloud of frozen space meant to encase and destroy anything it passed through.
It was precise.
Perfect.
Sensing the mortal danger, the lethifold attempted to flee.
At the last moment, it shifted Ron's body into the spell's path, forcing him to take the full brunt of the icy blast.
Time seemed to slow—and perhaps it did.
The freezing light hit Ron squarely in the chest.
His mouth was opened in shock, but no sound came out.
Ron's entire body was enveloped in frost and for a moment, he became a human popsicle...
A harrowing sound of shattering glass pierced through the shocked silence.
At last, the lethifold let out an inhuman scream of agony as its physical form was torn apart by the spell and shattered obsidian, fragments of the dark creature scattered across the ground, each piece dissolving into nothingness as it touched the earth.
You could hear a pin drop in the deafening silence that followed.
"Why?" a raw voice croaked.
"Why Dumbledore? Why didn't you stop? Why didn't you wait?"
Fred Weasley collapsed to his knees, his wand slipping from his grasp.
He stared at Ron's still form, his mind unable to process what had just happened.
Dumbledore lowered his wand slowly, his expression unreadable.
"The creature was a threat that could not be allowed to persist. Your brother… was caught in the crossfire."
"Caught in the crossfire?" George shouted, his voice cracking with rage. "That's all you have to say?"
Dumbledore's gaze flicked to the standing twin, his blue eyes cold.
"A difficult choice, Mr. Weasley. But one that had to be made."
Ginny, who had been further back and run back as soon as she heard one of her older brothers shouting, started sobbing quietly.
"You—you could have saved him. You could have saved him!"
But Dumbledore didn't respond.
Instead, he turned and walked away, his robes billowing behind him.
Above them, the sun began to set, casting long shadows over the battlefield as the weight of their loss sank in.
.
.
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Death… it connects people.
He didn't realise that until that day.
It was a sorrowful, eye-opening experience, one that he didn't want to live through again.
'That's just wishful thinking,' he thought, knowing that there would be plenty of other funerals to attend.
And he would have to attend to a lot of them, whether it'd be his friends' parents dying, or even the friends themselves…
'Is this something people wish for? To die before their loved ones did.
Was that not selfish though?
'It probably is.'
And then there was the family of the deceased one…
How could one begin to express how sorry they felt for the now broken people who still lived?
Definitely not by saying something as simple as 'My condolences', right?
What good could some fancy words do for a person in such pain?
'So what should I do? I can't even look straight at their faces, it makes me want to cry. Should I look then, regardless of whether I cry?'
'I don't know what to do…'
In the end, the young man simply payed his respects during the ceremony and kept an eye for his friends…
He also, for the first time in a long while, prayed that there was an afterlife.
After the body was buried, the young man took a long walk, heading to the family's house.
'Should I go? I probably won't know anyone in there except the family... I can't not go though,' he pondered while on his walk.
He concluded that he simply had to at least pass by—it was his responsibility to do so—and pay his respects personally, even if they were quick.
And that was exactly what he did.
He passed by people he didn't know and entered the house.
The young man immediately noticed his friend's mum and went to hug her, before moving away, leaving her with her relatives.
He then moved to walk upstairs and stumbled upon his friend's brother while climbing the stairs.
He didn't know what to say.
The person in front of him looked so close and yet so far away from him.
The young man did all he could…
He climbed another step and hugged the other boy, because there were simply no words that could express his feelings, the empathy and sadness he felt for him.
After a short while, they broke the hug and proceeded to have a small, and understandably awkward small talk.
The young man departed shortly after, leaving the other boy alongside his family, not knowing if the other boy understood how he felt.
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.
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I would have added a small warning about a death in the beginning of the chapter, but I didn't want to spoil it. I'm sorry if the death bothered anyone.
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NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE LONGER THAN USUALLY.
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After reading this small chapter, I'd guess you are confused, and rightly so.
To make this short, my best friend's father suddenly died a couple of days ago (the day I wrote this chapter, not published).
It was the first funeral I've ever attended and as you can see, it had an impact on me.
There are some inconsistencies with the people in the chapter because I wrote about what really happened to me that day, not Harry.
I tried leaving the details off and making the interpretation ambiguous so that it could be mistaken for Harry's point of view after Ron's death.
I know it's not perfect, but if you don't think too much about it, I'd say it gets the job done.
Now that is probably 'unprofessional' and possibly not right, but oh well.
I felt like writing this and I did.
That's all.
For all it's worth, I'm sorry if you didn't like the chapter.
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[p=atreon=.=c=o=m/Mr_0ne] : Chapter 29 - Wings Clipped
Or do a Google search of'p=atreon Fake Violinist'.
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