(no subject)
Written for: aniwde first posted here at bestmates_xmas
Title: Visiting Christmas
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: NC-17
Words: 9088
Summary: Ron visits his past, present and future with Harry.
Warnings: EWE, Angsty (with happy ending)
Author's Note: Many thanks to my mrsquizzical, shocolate and gwen1170 for the betaing!
:/:
Sense memory is always more powerful than conscious memory; a smell, sound, taste … a touch.
Ron flinched at the touch of the chain as it was draped around his neck, dredging up memories buried deep in his conscience; the echoes of the battles he fought within himself back then rebounded on him still.
Not again, please. I can’t stand it.
I know it’s my turn, but it’s doing something to me.
… I’ll do it. I’ll do it for Harry.
But even as these shameful recollections haunted his muddled mind he noticed that this chain wasn’t heavy, nor was it cold. It was as gentle as a string of velvet on his skin.
“This should help you, Ron,” Harry said, hugging him around the shoulders from behind. “I’ve been looking for something that’ll work. But if this doesn’t, I’ll just find something else that will. I won’t give up on you.”
Ron wanted to reach up and put his arms around Harry, but he just couldn’t beckon the will to do it. Harry’s scent reached him and Ron remembered burying his nose in the thick hair at the base of Harry’s neck. He’d give anything to be free of the mental encumbrances to do that again.
“Uh-huh,” was the muttered acknowledgement he gave instead.
He was trapped, an immovable in the oppressive fog of his own mind. Fleeting moments of lucid happiness flitted passed on occasion, teasing and tempting him of the life he once had. Of the man he once was.
Brick by brick, the invisible walls had gone up after battling Voldemort. The torment from the Horcrux locket remained in his dreams and subconscious. Every mistake, every infraction, every small inadequacy grew out of proportion until he was hopeless against shame. Feelings of incompetence overpowered all else until he until he just didn’t care anymore.
“Don’t take this off, ok?” Harry spoke into his ear, squeezing Ron, placing a brisk kiss to the side of his head.
If only he could summon the strength to turn his and reach for Harry, ask him not to go. He’d ask him to not to give up on him … to hold him a while longer.
But the moment was lost, like so many others, when Harry let go of him with a sigh and began putting on his coat and gloves. Ron knew he was meeting someone, A date?, he wondered.
“So.” Harry cleared his throat, trying to shake the emotion out of his voice. “George and - George will collect you tomorrow morning to go to Percy’s, yeah? Wear your warm coat, ok? It’s the brown one, right here, Ron. See?”
“Warm coat,” he repeated. And he meant to nod. He hoped it showed.
“Right, then,” Harry faltered. Ron recognized the false cheer in his voice. “Thanks for letting me crash your Christmas Eve. I’m sure you had more exciting plans.” Harry flinched at his inappropriate attempt at humor. “Take care of yourself. … See ya, mate.”
With a few lingering steps, Harry opened the door. “Happy Christmas.”
Ron closed his eyes, listening to Harry’s footsteps as they echoed down the stairwell. When the outer door shut with a slam, Ron was alone again. He imagined Harry’s walk for as long as he could. How Harry would have his coat collar up turned up, hands shoved deep into his pockets with his head bent into the wind.
With every step Harry took along the pavement, Ron felt himself a sinking a little deeper into the quicksand of his mind.
He opened his eyes and watched the fairy lights sparkle on the tree. Ginny and his mum had brought it a few days earlier. Three days? Four? He lost track of things like that anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time Hermione had come. It didn’t matter, day and night was all the same to him.
He slept it all away anyhow.
:/:
A warm light flickered in the room and went out. It shone again and then a great burst of light beamed in all directions from the medallion that lay against Ron’s chest. The light pulsed, flooding the dingy flat above George’s joke shop with a prism of colors that faded into a soft yellow glow and sputtered out.
Ron mumbled something and reached out in his sleep, but then turned his head without waking.
:/:
It was the crisp ‘clink’ of metal on metal, like a rattling chain, which tugged Ron awake.
The tinny cling chinked again and he raised his head with a start.
“Wassat? Someone there?”
There was a great clatter, as if a clap of thunder had struck the ceiling, causing a collapse. Ron cowered over, yelping in fright and threw his hands over his head to protect himself against the unseen barrage.
“W-who’s there?” he asked, stuttering into once more silent room. The fire had died down and the glow of orange-red coals cast the room into long shadows.
“Ron …” A voice called as if from some distance.
“L-Lumos!” Ron shouted by instinct, though he had no wand. It had been taken from him a long time ago.
There was another crash like stone on metal, causing him to jump back against the headboard and the voice spoke again. “I’ve come for you, Ron …”
The implication of the words was frightening enough, but it was the voice itself that terrified him. One Ron thought was long gone from his memory and had never held hope of hearing again.
“Fred?” Ron whispered into the darkness. “Is that you?” His voice was raw from disuse and he rubbed his face, trying to focus beyond his confusion. “George? Are you fucking with me?”
These were the most words he’d spoken in an age. If he weren’t so confused and anxious he might have noticed the clarity of mind he had.
“Ron …” The haunted voice of his dead brother called again.
The sound of metal chains scraping along the wooden floor towards him made him scramble backwards in a tangle of blankets.
At that moment the spectral image of the departed twin appeared, walking through the wall. He - it, was gray and transparent, with ghostly chains draped around his body, dragging behind him. He didn’t have the chiseled features and fine lines that George bore in maturity now, but instead, Fred retained the boyish softness he had when his life ended.
Ron’s heart pounded and his brain was running in circles to catch up with itself. He made a frightened squeal as he toppled over the back edge of the bed, his feet catching in the blankets, and landed in a cyclone of quilting before popping his face over the bed again.
Fred’s zombie-eyed face went slack and though still transparent, he broke into a grin. He flung himself back into the armchair by the fire in peels of laughter that had an odd hint of echo.
Ron gaped at the sight.
“Ronnie, you should see yourself!” Fred wheezed, holding his stomach and rocking from side to side with laughter. “You look like you’ve never seen a ghost before!”
“Blimey, Fred.” Ron wiped at the cold sweat from his brow. “Is it really you? You’re a ghost?”
Fred wiped the iridescent tears off his faded face and sniffed, recovering from his mirth. “That was completely worth it, I gotta say,” he sighed.
“Are you joking?” Ron gasped. His adrenal glands were confused, still making his heart race and he took several deep breaths. “You came back from the dead just to take the piss outta me?”
“No. Not just for that.” Fred waved him away. “But I reckoned since I had to come back, why not have a little fun with it? Look, chains of bondage and everything!” He held up the translucent clinking chain and chuckled.
“Merlin’s Balls! You’re dead, you bastard! I’ve spent years missing you and you come back just to torment me? Have I finally died, am I in hell now?”
Fred sobered and frowned at this.
“No, Ron. You’re not in hell. At least not y -” Fred sat up abruptly, his false chains falling away. “Now see here, I’m the one who gets to be hacked off. I’m having this perfectly pleasant afterlife and I get called up to intercede. It seems you are having some issues, little brother.”
“I’ve missed you, Fred.” Ron walked, still astonished, towards his phantom sibling. “And all this time you’ve been a ghost? I’m sorry.”
“No, you berk! This ghosty gig is just long enough to put you through your paces. There’s word that you’re in trouble, Ronnie. I’ve been sent to help set you right again.”
Ron shook his head and rubbed over his face, trying to make sense of this. His mind had long since confused reality with dreams; sleep conjured terrors that felt real and let him relive pleasures only long enough to wake into despair.
“What do you mean?” Ron asked. “What can you do for me?”
“Well, notice how you’re already talking easier now? Some of those cobwebs in that thick lump of lead on your shoulders cleared up, yeah?” Ron shivered at the thought of spiders in his head. He’d had that nightmare, too.
But what Fred said was true enough. He was moving and talking with more ease than he had in over a year. Maybe it was just the shock?
“It’s not the shock, knob head. I’ve got a job to do and I can’t do it if you’re addlebrained. So some of its been done for you already. Lazy git, just like you to let someone else do the hard part.”
“What are you on about?” Ron slumped onto his bed, feeling overwhelmed.
“See that bauble you’ve got ‘round your neck? Powerful magic, that.”
“This thing?” He reached for the medallion that hung on his chest. “Harry gave it to me.”
“I know he did. Went through a hellava lot of trouble to get it, too.”
“Really?” Ron gazed at the metal. It looked ancient and should have been heavy for as thick it was, but Ron barely felt it. It also seemed to emanate a sense of lightness.
“Yeah, powerful little thing-gummy. It’s supposed to pull out the Darkness that seeped into your heart and mind from carrying the Voldie-Locket of Evil.”
“But that was years ago. Do you even know how long it’s been?”
“You never quite got over it though, did ya? Still a whiney fool who thinks everyone’s out to get you?”
Ron stomach dropped and he hung his head.
“Listen you. Harry did you a huge favor getting that gaudy bit of flash you’re wearing. It’d done most of the work, I reckon, but you’ve got to get your head ‘round a few things.”
“Can you help me?” Ron asked, knowing his sounded like a boy again, entreating his big brother. “I reckon everyone has tried but nothing works. They’ve given up.”
“I can do.” Fred leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking as though he were going to let Ron in on a secret ingredient. “They haven’t given up on you. You just have to let yourself be loved.”
“Tch! I know I’m loved,” Ron sighed, rolling his eyes. “Mum and Dad, big family, blah, blah. I get it. People love me.”
“Huh. Well, it’s being loved by someone that isn’t obligated to you by family blood that makes a difference here.”
Ron slumped even lower. “Good luck with that.”
“Bugger me, you’re pleasant now, aren’t you? But there’s nothing for it, come on then, let’s go!” Fred stood up.
“What? I can’t go anywhere with you. You’re not even real!”
“I take exception to that!” Fred said and Ron felt himself tugged to his feet as surely as if Fred had dragged him by hand.
“Wait, I don’t have a broom. I don’t have a wand. I’m not dressed.” Ron clutched at his thin sweatshirt, and hitched up his sagging pajama bottoms, nothing but tatty socks on his feet.
“Out we go.” The window, burst open before them. “None of that matters now. Trust me, Ronnie. You need to see this.”
:/:
Time passed in an indistinguishable manner. Snatches of familiar landscape flew by like they did through the window of the Hogwarts Express. He sensed there was cold and wind but it didn’t reach him. He wondered if it was traveling through space with Fred - or was it time? - that kept him safe and warm?
When his feet had touched ground, Ron knew in an instant that they were in the round dormitory at the top of the spiral stairs. The five beds trimmed in red velvet stood tall around them, though not quite as tall as he remembered them. He sniffed the air, expecting to get catch a whiff of dirty socks.
“Why’re we here? The nephews are here at school now. ‘Course they’ll be home for hols right now.” He could hear the soft sounds of snoring from his old bed, the sole slumbering occupant of the room, as the rest of the four posters curtains were open and empty.
“Ah, but this isn’t Gryffindor tower as it is now. You’re seeing it as it was many Christmases ago.”
Ron heard a tiny sniff behind him. He whirled around to see Harry, little first year Harry, just pulling his invisibility cloak off his head.
“Oh, blimey, look at him!” Ron exclaimed with amused fondness. “He’s always looked small to me but I forgot how much he actually grew.”
The eleven year old Harry in the past tucked his Invisibility Cloak into his trunk, and sniffed again, taking his glasses and wiping fiercely at his face before replacing them.
“Aww, what’s the matter, little mate?” Ron asked, putting his hands on his knees, bending to look at Harry.
Harry pulled his green sweater off over his head.
“Look at it, it’s his first Weasley jumper!” Ron said. His face felt odd to him and he realized he was grinning.
Little Harry ran his hands over the knobby sweater, clutching it like a teddy, and walked towards Ron’s bed.
Ron realized now that he himself was under the heap of jumbled blankets. Harry stood near the head of the bed; he reached out to Ron, and then stopped. He took a breath as if to say something, and then let it out slowly.
Kneeling down, Ron looked at Harry’s small face, which was drawn with concern, as he looked the sleeping boy.
“Ron?” Harry said, his child’s voice yet untouched by maturity. “This has been the best Christmas of my life. I …” he halted. “Iloveyou!” he whispered.
As soon as he said the words Harry ran away, leapt onto his bed, dove under the blankets and covered his head with his bum in air.
Ron chuckled and shook his head.
“The sappy little git. What was that for?” he mused.
“Seems your barmy little mate here discovered something that Christmas,” said Fred, standing next to the lump of Harry in his bed. “He’d never shared the holiday with a family who loved him, and he felt it for first time in his life that night. Pure love, too. Not the dodgy kind that gets mucked up with lust.”
“I didn’t know he cared so much … then,” Ron said, looking at Harry as he settled onto his pillow. A tiny hand stretched out from the blanket and set his glasses on the table.
“Yeah, well, you had to see it with your own eyes, didn’t ya? Hear it with your own ears that you were the first person he loved. … Come along now, brother, we’re not nearly through with this.”
“Wait, I want to stay awhile.”
Ron looked at Harry, wishing he could impart some comfort to him for all the trouble that was still to come.
But he felt himself being tugged aside and he once more joined Fred as they tumbled into the dark blur of night and time.
:/:
Ron spun around, his hands open and raised at his sides, taking in the room that had materialized in front of them. The carriage clock over the mantle read one o’clock am. Candles floating in the large and lavishly decorated Christmas tree lit the room.
“Where? … This is Auntie Muriel’s, er, well it’s really Percy’s place now. And everyone is here for Christmas, I reckon.” Ron observed the many pairs of shoes and coats by the front door and then looked at Fred. “Mum and dad were getting on in years, it was just too much to impose the whole lot at the Burrow, so when Percy inherited this old place, everyone came here instead.”
The house was quiet at the moment, but still held the tangible thrum of numerous bodies within.
There was a distant shout and maniacal laughter outside and Ron went to the window.
It was Harry and his past self, now well into adulthood, playing outside in the snow. The pregnant moon shone in the clear winter sky, reflecting in the shimmering snow so that it was nearly as light as day.
“I remember this!” Ron said, his belly rushing with excitement. “Fred, this is a few years ago. It’s the night … oh shit, this is the night!” he gasped.
The pair outside ran in opposite directions, shouting threats and warnings of dire consequences at each other.
“It just wouldn’t stop snowing that year. It was so thick. Harry had been gone on assignment for a month and he came back just in time for Christmas. … God, I was so happy to see him.”
Harry crouched behind a poplar tree. He looked around, peering into the nighttime shadows, before making a dash for cover behind the next tree. Halfway there, Ron jumped out from the other side and lambasted Harry with not one but several snowballs in the chest.
“No wands, you cheater!” Harry shouted, holding his arms over his face as he fell backwards in a hail of snow.
The Ron outside walked over and put his foot on Harry’s chest and ‘posed’, proclaiming victory.
Ron chuckled where he watched, pressing his nose closer to the glass, feeling a renewed sense of pride for the assault.
“Oh, watch this, Fred!” he said.
Harry reached up and hit Ron in the back of his knee and he yelped, falling forward. Harry scrambled up to climb onto Ron’s back and shoved his face into the snow. Then he grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it down the back of Ron’s collar.
“Aaahhh!”
Ron chuckled as listened to his own scream.
“Cold! Cold! You, bloody wanker! Argh - I surrender!”
Harry stood and did a little victory dance, waggling his arse, which earned him a swift kick from Ron. They continued shoving each other and laughing all the way up the path and into the house.
“Shh!”
“Shh! Shhhh!” They hissed at each other, causing more noise with their shushing.
Ron felt morose all of sudden, while he watched them.
“I know what happens next. I don’t need to see this,” he said.
“There’s a reason we’re here, little brother. You have to watch.”
Ron sighed and ignoring the prickle of apprehension dancing up his spine, he was drawn towards the two younger men at the door. They’d found room to hang their coats and scarves, batted each other in the face with their gloves, and kicked off their shoes. Ron stumbled over his boot and fell into Harry’s chest.
“Ooph!” Harry caught Ron under the arms and they broke into silent giggles again. “Steady there, ya big troll,” Harry said, still holding Ron against him.
“Just, hang on, trying to …” Ron struggled to toe off his remaining boot. “There!”
With his foot finally free, Ron tried to regain balance. He raised his head and he and Harry were only an inch apart.
“Harry looked so amazing,” Ron said, more to himself than to Fred where they stood a few feet away. “His nose and lips were so red and his eyes were bright.”
Harry was looking at Ron still leaning against him, and he began to get uncomfortable at Ron’s gaze.
“Heh …” Harry let out a nervous chuckle. “Er, what?”
“Couldn’t help myself,” Ron said as he watched, remembering what happened next. “I just had to.”
Ron leaned in and kissed him. He stood up taller and moved closer to Harry, while Harry tilted his head up, reaching up into the kiss.
“Blimey.” Ron pulled back, touching Harry’s lips.
“God!” Ron groaned, his hand on his forehead, both dismayed and awed at what he was witnessing. “I’d just started getting ill then, or whatever it is. I hadn’t felt right about anything for so long, but I’d wanted Harry forever.”
Harry and Ron began ascending the stairs with dozy grins, stopping to kiss, breaking off into giggles and racing up a few more steps, before stopping to kiss again.
“Go on,” Fred instructed. “You’re not intruding here, you know? It is just you, after all.”
The curtain over the bedroom window was still open and the moonlit snow kept the room bright, though everything was saturated in a silver-blue nocturnal glow.
Ron tore off his jumper, bunching his t-shirt up under his arms. After throwing it to the floor, he grabbed Harry and pulled him to his chest, kissing him again.
“I kept grabbing him. Every time we paused to take our clothes off, I clutched at him again. I must have bruised him with my fingertips. I just didn’t want him to get away.”
It did look bruising, the way Ron held him, squeezing and clutching with his large hands, holding Harry’s face in his palms while they kissed. Harry’s hands moved over Ron’s back with gentler ease, exploring with tentative effort and merely hanging on.
“Do you really want to?” Harry asked, while sliding back onto the bed as Ron climbed over him, like a Nundu stalking a Niffler.
“Let’s not think about it,” Ron said, and lowered himself over onto Harry, covering him, his golden freckled limbs twining with Harry’s porcelain.
“I knew he’d been with other blokes by then, we were grown men but we didn’t talk about that sort of thing, really. I just sort of knew, and I reckon he knew that.” Ron sighed sadly. “I’d been with all sorts, myself, but I wanted Harry. … Only Harry.”
He watched as they clung to each other. The playful, clumsy snogs from earlier gave way to slower, more sure and committed kissing.
“I remember his nose was cold,” Ron said, watching himself arch back while Harry kissed his neck. “Funny thing is, there we were, stark bollock naked, me lying on top of him, feeling what each other had, but it was more than just the shagging.” Ron was babbling now, losing himself in the recollection. “It was the little things that really felt personal. Like the way he rubbed the sole of his foot up the back of my thigh. And I ran my thumb over the crease of his elbows, and sucked on his earlobe. Merlin - why was that so sexy?”
Ron realized he was talking, more or less, to his brother. He turned to see Fred’s ghostly image lounging against the fireplace, watching the lovers with good-humored amusement, as if he were watching toddlers play tiggy.
“I reckon you shouldn’t be watching this, huh? Kinda weird?” Ron asked. Weird being a relative state considering the situation.
“There’s not a thing in this plane of existence that could shock me, Ronnie. I’m over it. We’re just here because there’s something you need to see.”
Ron looked back to the bed. The nervous clutching between himself and Harry was now deliberate touching; exploring parts that had previously been off limits to best mates. Hands, made long, sure strokes, learning curves and dips. Lips tasted and caressed everyplace that a pulse beat; the neck, the groin, and Harry rolled over, letting out soft sighs while Ron kissed in the bend of his knees and then lay over his back, mimicking the imminent act before them as he pressed his cock over Harry’s backside, sucking on the back of Harry’s neck.
“He tasted good. Makes no sense, I know, just skin, right? A little salty, but I liked it. I still dream about it.”
It was impossible to tell how long he watched himself make love to Harry. They progressed from cautious touching to desperate stroking, with Harry finally coming as they frotted against each other. Ron lay over him, kissing and rubbing, until - with Harry’s pulling his arse, raising his knees with non-verbal instruction - Ron thrust into Harry’s body, a bit too roughly, but with Harry urging him on.
“I just took what I wanted,” Ron winced, rubbing his face and clutching a handful of hair. “Everything we did was because I wanted it. ‘M such a selfish bastard …” Ron admonished himself as he watched himself pull away from Harry long enough to urge him to roll onto his belly before availing himself of Harry’s upturned backside. Harry expelled short, breathy whimpers with every thrust.
“Give yourself a Galleon’s worth of credit, Ronnie,” Fred said. “Romance wasn’t my area of expertise, but Harry seems to be enjoying himself. Looks like a happy shag face to me, and listen to what he’s saying to you …”
“… That’s … perfect, Ron. Yes! Oh, love…”
Ron scratched his head, trying to reconcile this scene before him with his mixed up memory of it. He just knew that he’d been too rough and forceful and that he’d sent Harry running away from him, but Harry did appear to be enjoying this it.
The precept of time here didn’t seem to work in a normal fashion. Ron and Harry continued through the night, shifting through positions, coaxing each other through climaxes and finally negotiated comfortable sleeping arrangements; with Ron draped over Harry just as possessively in sleep as he’d claimed his body before.
When morning came, after too little sleep, Harry opened his eyes, smiled, and leaned up to kiss Ron’s shoulder. He chuckled as he slipped out of bed, pausing for a few seconds to make sure he hadn’t woken Ron.
“I don’t want to see this,” Ron said, a feeling of dread bubbling inside of him. “Can’t we leave now?”
“Not, yet, Ron,” Fred answered.
“Please,” he pleaded. “Don’t make me watch this.”
Harry dressed quickly, peeked at Ron once more to ensure he was still sleeping and then tiptoed out of the room.
“So what’s left to see now, Fred?” he shouted, finally broken. “I’ve seen it, right? I just relived it, as though it weren’t already burned into my memory as the most perfect fucking moment in my pathetic life, which I utterly bollocked up, just like everything else I’ve ever done! Harry was just humoring me, keeping me warm for the night, but he left!”
Ron was nearly in tears now, but he turned with a start when the movement of his sleeping self in the bed caught his attention.
“Oh, that’s right, you great, stupid oaf! Wake up now. Time to get your bleedin’ heart ripped out!”
Ron pushed himself up his elbows and looked at the empty bed where he expected Harry to be.
“Harry?” he called out in a sleepy voice.
“He’s not here!” Ron yelled at himself. “Time to face it, man. He’s just not into you!”
Ron sat up, looking around the room, and saw that Harry’s clothes were gone. He let out a small groan, pressed the heels of his palms over his eyes and fell onto his back. “Oh, Harry. … no,” he groaned into the seemingly empty room.
“Yes, you flaming idiot. He didn’t want you! Not in the daylight anyway. He’s just like everyone else who ever fucked you,” the distain in Ron’s voice to his own image could have melted metal. “He only wanted you for a ride - ‘cos what other use are you good for?”
As if the past Ron had heard his own hateful self-inflicted words, he sat up, his eyes red and cheeks splotchy with restrained emotion. Muttering and cursing under his breath, he dressed.
He paused to look at the bed once more.
“Idiot,” he muttered and left the room.
“Fine. The end. I’ve lived it again, now, thank you ever so much for that!” Ron shouted at the unwavering smoky image of his brother. “Can we leave now?”
Fred appeared uncharacteristically somber and turned his head to the door, which then opened. Harry was carrying an open packet of Bourbons, taking a final bite of one in his hand, while he levitated a tray of breakfast things behind him.
Ron choked on an intake of breath at Harry’s unexpected arrival. “But … he, he left!”
“It appears, he came back,” Fred said. “All he did was nick some food before all the kiddies woke up and ate the lot.”
Harry set the Bourbons aside and wiped the crumbs from his lips.
“’Morning, mate,” Harry said, his voice full of playful tenderness. “Happy Chris-” Harry stopped short. “Ron?” He glanced around the room. “Oh, no. No,” he said under his breath as he rushed to the bed, and yanked the duvet down as if Ron might be hiding from him.
The floating tray of breakfast dropped to the floor, shattering as hot coffee soaked into the carpet.
Ron’s mouth hung open as he watched Harry. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I thought you’d left!” he said, a wild manic tone in his voice rising in his voice.
“Ron, no.” Harry sat on the bed where Ron had slept and pulled the pillow into his face, inhaling in great gulps as his breathing became ragged with emotion. “Come back. Ah, Ron, come back …” Harry whispered. “God, I’m sorry.”
Ron stood in front of Harry, feeling utterly sick, as if he were watching someone be tortured. He wanted to reach out, to act, to do something, but he was helpless to comfort Harry. The pain had already been inflicted.
Ron kneeled on the floor in front of Harry where he rocked, hugging Ron’s pillow and looked up into his face.
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered into the empty room. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He squeezed his eyes tight.
“I thought you left me,” Ron tried to explain, knowing that Harry couldn’t hear him. “You were gone when I woke up. I didn’t know, Harry!”
“Ok, hang on,” Harry said, setting the pillow down, scrubbing his hands over his face and hopelessly attempting to smooth his hair. “You can’t have very gone far.”
“Yes!” Ron shouted, jumping to his feet, thinking fast. “I’m … I’m just in the back garden. God it was freezing out there, I remember. Go get me, Harry!”
Harry stood and took a calming breath, fixing his face into a less emotional expression.
Ron became excited as he followed Harry out of the room, gaining a vague sense that his illusory presence was somehow influencing Harry’s actions.
His late Aunt Muriel’s auspicious country home had a grandiose stairway in the center of the entrance hall, so that he had a view from the upper landing of the lounge and dining room on both sides down below.
Just as Harry descended to the first floor Ron entered through the front door, his face splotchy with cold.
“Ron!”
“Hey, Harry,” Ron grumbled, looking at his feet while he stamped off the snow. His ears and nose were red, while the rest of him looked pale.
“Ron, I just came down to -”
“Listen, it’s fine. It’s all kind of embarrassing, innit?”
Ron could see from where he stood frozen that Harry shook his head, but the Ron downstairs wasn’t looking.
“Please, just don’t try to say anything to fix it,” Ron said, still not making eye contact with Harry, fiddling with his hands in his pocket. “It was just … just a bit of mad holiday fun, yeah?”
“No! That’s not - ” Harry tried to say, but Ron interrupted him again.
“ - Look, it didn’t mean anything! You have to believe that!” Ron snapped at him, giving him a cold glare. “Just don’t ever mention it again and we’ll be fine.”
Ron remembered with painful regret how readily Harry agreed to this.
“O-ok.” Harry nodded but there was a catch in Harry’s voice that Ron hadn’t heard the first time around. “If that’s what you want; it never happened. I won’t ever mention it again,” Harry promised.
Ron remembered Harry’s words as having an edge of sarcasm to them, but now, Harry was breathless and promising with sincerity. He reached his hands out to Ron but then pulled them back again, able to decide what to do while Ron stood icy and removed.
“My god … it was my fault!”
“’Fraid so,” Fred agreed. “That nasty bit of Riddle wormed its way into you and really did a number, didn’t he? Couldn’t even see how much Harry wanted you, could you?”
Harry and Ron were shuffling with obvious discomfort and Harry appeared to be bursting to say something, but Fleur shuffled by in her dressing gown, holding two small children by the hands, followed by two more that didn’t belong to her.
“I’ll see ya later, then,” Ron mumbled.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” Harry agreed, in a high, strained voice.
“Fred!” Ron turned to his brother, who had a somber look on his diaphanous face. “Fred, can I change this? Is this what we’re here for, so I can change it?”
“I’m sorry, little brother,” Fred shook his head. “Nobody can do that. Nothing can change what’s already happened.”
“But then why?!” Ron wailed with despair, grasping onto the stair rail as he watched Harry and himself walk away from each other. He would go out the door and punch the side of the shed, fracturing his little finger, which ached even at this very moment.
But he watched Harry, now. He walked around to the lounge and leaned a shoulder against the wall. Handfuls of his dark hair showed through his fingers where he gripped at his head and sank to the floor.
Just then, Hermione came out of the kitchen.
“Harry? What on earth has happened?” She kneeled in front of him, touching his face. He reached out and pressed his anguished face into her shoulder. “Oh, Harry,” she held him, stroking his hair. “What’s he done now?”
:/:
Ron wanted to collapse with the weight of the grief he felt. He thought perhaps he’d blacked out into one of the many dark chasms in his mind that he’d grown accustomed to slipping into, when he became aware he was with Fred falling through time again.
When the sensation of vertigo faded, Ron discovered they were now in the city, on a street he didn’t know. Multi-colored Christmas lights glowed in the windows and the bitter wind rattled an evergreen wreath hanging on a nearby door, in the darkness.
“Are we seeing more of the past, Fred? Honestly, I don’t think I can handle anymore of this Christmas cheer.”
Ron fingered the medal that Harry had placed around his neck.
Harry.
He had just seen how very wrong he’d been about Harry’s feelings regarding their one and only night together. Harry had remained true to his promise from that morning, a promise Ron had demanded of him, and never mentioned their intimacy again.
He’d also never left Ron. He continued caring for him, long after his own family grew too frustrated to keep after him.
“So why are here?”
“You need to see someone coming along here, any second now.”
Just then, Harry turned the corner, the wind blowing his hair in a fury around his face.
“Is this…?” Ron hesitated, trying to get his head around the leap in time. “This is now,” he said observing the clothes Harry wore.
Harry pushed up his glasses and bent against the blustery weather, taking a hurried pace up the pavement as he passed Ron and Fred. They followed him, weaving through straggling Christmas revelers, until he stopped abruptly and knocked on a door that had a Disillusionment charm on it.
Harry didn’t wait for anyone to answer but opened the door and entered.
Intrigued, Ron followed him.
“Who are you visiting, Harry?” Ron asked, as they passed through the lounge. “Is this your date?”
Upon entering the kitchen, Ron chuckled. Hermione sat the table and she stood, with great effort, to greet Harry. He kissed her cheek and put an affectionate hand on her very pregnant belly.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. You should be up in bed, resting.”
“Nonsense. George gives me more rest than I can tolerate. Besides, I wouldn’t miss Christmas Eve hot cocoa with you for anything.”
Ron gasped, unprepared for the rush of emotions; guilt and annoyance that he had no idea Hermione and George were together and enormous affection towards seeing his childhood friend in such a state.
Harry gave her a cheerless smile and put his coat on the back of the chair. “No, no - you sit, I’ll get it. Where is George, anyway? Doesn’t he want some cocoa?”
Hermione gave him a sharp look. “He knows Christmas Eve is our thing, he’s gone to bed.”
Ron slipped into an empty chair at the table, feeling bereft that he wasn’t really there to share a mug with them.
Hermione put her hand on Harry’s arm as he poured hot water. “How was he today?”
Harry sniffed and didn’t meet her eye while he took a seat next her. “Same.”
“Did you put the Sanctus Menas medal on him?”
Ron reached for the charm dangling around his neck.
Harry nodded and blew on his cocoa before sipping it. “I know you think its rubbish.”
“I don’t,” she insisted and even Ron could tell she wasn’t being honest. “It’s just that even if it does counteract the Dark magic, I think he needs more than a charm. He has to choose to work his way out of the trap his mind is in. You know more than anyone, Harry, that it’s our choices that determine what happens to us, not just random magic.”
Harry cleared his throat in subtle warning of his waning patience. Hermione understood and sighed, sitting back. They sipped their cocoa in silence for a moment before Hermione couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.
“You can’t keep on like this forever, Harry. You’re exhausted. You have to start living your own life.”
“I wouldn’t even have a life if it weren’t for him.”
“I understand this time of year is nothing but a reminder of how he broke your heart,” Harry frowned into his mug, “but its time to move on. How many men have you even been with since him?”
Harry choked on his cocoa and chuckled, wiping his lips. “You can’t ask me questions like that!”
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be intrusive. But look at me; you know what I’ve been doing.”
“And how,” Ron muttered.
“ - But you’re a good man, you deserve to be with someone who can love you.”
“I think that option is well and truly in the cauldron, Hermione. I’m meant to love everyone, but no one will love me in return, isn’t that what we learned?”
“No! I love you! Ron loves you, too, he just …”
“Just couldn’t tolerate sleeping with me without spiraling into depression, eh?”
“No!” Ron interjected, unable to keep quiet.
“I’m sure that wasn’t it.” She shifted awkwardly around her large belly to lean forward and put her hand on Harry’s shoulder. “He’s just lost.”
“Yeah, well … I’m going to find him.”
“You’re such a good friend to him and he doesn’t even know it,” Hermione said with sympathy, taking Harry’s hand. “Oh - feel!” She took his hand and placed it on her belly and they huddled together, giggling.
Ron ached with how much he was missing of their lives.
:/:
He stumbled over uneven ground. It was misty in the dark woods and Ron looked around to see Fred’s ghost accompanying him.
“Are you going to show me a future Christmas now? Something that hasn’t happened yet?”
Fred didn’t answer but continued walking.
“What is this place?” he asked, when he couldn’t stand the lonely silence any longer.
The mist cleared and the ominous forms of tombs and headstones marked the landscape around them.
Ron followed Fred’s line of sight and saw a figure huddled on the ground before a head stone that looked new and crisp compared to the others. A light snow was falling and a flurry obscured his vision, but Ron would have known the man anywhere.
“Harry.”
Ron felt a foreboding anxiousness as he left his brother’s side and sunk onto his knees near Harry.
Harry shivered, leaning against the cold marble, his purpling hand shaking where it rest on the gravestone. He was only wearing an old green jumper and a touch of frost was developing on the lenses of his glasses.
“What are you doing?” Ron exclaimed. “You’re freezing, you idiot. It’s the middle of the night. Go home! Where’s your wand?”
“I - I - I’m,” Harry’s voice cracked in staccato as he shook from the cold. “I’m s-sorry … let - you - down.”
“What? But you didn’t, you …” Ron tried to answered, but then Harry collapsed, crumpling onto the hard, frozen ground. “No!”
With Harry’s falling, the name etched into the marble stone became visible.
RONALD WEASLEY
Ron jumped to his feet and stumbled backwards next to Fred, staring with mild horror at the words.
It was quite unnerving to see the place of his burial, to see his own name marking the spot where his body lay, in spite of the fact that he’d actually been hoping for death to make the misery in his head vanish.
Ron had always imagined his eventual death would free Harry of him, not claim him too.
“Fred,” Ron whispered, swallowing hard. “Is this what absolutely will be? Or just, what may be?” He looked at his brother’s ghost and still Fred said nothing.
“Don’t do this, Harry! I’m not worth it!” He moved back to Harry’s side, leaning against his own tombstone. Harry even wasn’t shaking anymore, just lying there, his lips moving as he muttering soundless words under his breath.
Harry let out a wheeze and his body gave a slight jerk and then went still.
Ron banged the back of his head on the tombstone.
“No! Harry, no, you’re stronger than this. You can’t do this to yourself! Fred, why do you show me these things, if nothing can be done?”
When Ron looked up Fred was walking away, fading back into the wood.
“Wait! Don’t go!”
He started to get up and chase after Fred, but couldn’t leave Harry.
“Please, Fred, I’ll change, I promise! Why show me this if I can’t fix it? Come back!” Ron dropped onto his stomach in the snow, inches from Harry’s face. “Please, mate, don’t do this, not because of me.”
A gust of wind blew snow onto Harry’s face and hair but he didn’t move.
“No,” Ron cried, feebly attempting to brush Harry clean, wanting to pick him up and warm him. “I can’t do it this time. I can’t jump into the water after you, Harry. You have to get up!”
He lay on the ground, a hand stretched out towards Harry.
“Help me,” he whispered, clutching his other hand on the medal Harry had given him. He closed his eyes, focusing on determination and deliberation. “I want to change! … Let me live … Let me help Harry. Let him live …”
:/:
Ron repeated his pleas; over and over he asked for a second chance, focusing on the positive magic he felt in Harry’s medal and on the hope of the opportunity Fred said he had to change things.
Realizing that the sound of the bitter wind through leafless tree branches had ebbed away, Ron peeked through a slit of open eyes, fearful of seeing Harry’s body in the snow.
Instead, he found himself face to face with the bedpost. He sat up on his haunches and looked around the disheveled room.
The pale of dawn shone around the edges of the drapes.
“Have I made it to morning?” Ron wondered aloud. “Have I missed it?” He rushed to the window, tripping over a blanket tangled around his feet. Tearing open the curtains, the stale flat was flooded with morning light and he battled with the old window latch. He pushed it open with some effort and breathed in the fresh, cold air.
“Oi, you there!” Ron shouted at a boy below who was just about to mount a shiny new broomstick. “You, titch!”
The boy looked up, startled. “Sir?”
“Have I missed it? What day is this?”
“It’s Christmas day, isn’t it, Mr. Weasley?”
“Is it? Ha!” Ron let out a manic laugh, his ragged voice cackled. “It is! I haven’t missed it, then!”
“No, sir.” The boy looked as though he very much wanted to get away from the madman.
“I can make it better, then,” Ron said to himself. “I’m not too late. -Happy Christmas, mate!”
“Happy Christmas, Mr. Weasley.”
Ron ran towards the door but remembered he wasn’t properly dressed, and then ran to the wardrobe.
“I don’t know what to do first!” he exclaimed happily at his reflection in mirror before opening the door. Then he promptly shut the door and looked at himself again, shocked at the pale, scruffy face that looked back. “Whoa! I think I’ll clean up first, that’s what!”
He showered and shaved, grateful for the nick-less magical razor as he sang Good King Wenceslas all the while. He dressed in a hurry and set off at a run towards the Leaky Cauldron, hoping that Harry still took a room there.
It took considerable restraint to knock rather than pound on Harry’s door.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” he muttered under his breath.
“Come in,” Harry called in a bored voice, sounding as if he expected housekeeping.
Ron opened the door slowly and there he was, his Harry, healthy and handsome, standing at the end of the bed. He was getting ready to leave, stuffing a bag of gold and his wand into his pockets, gathering a stack of presents.
“I’ll be gone in mo - ” he started to say without looking up and then caught sight of Ron. He took a startled breath and froze.
Ron tilted his head in what he hoped was a somewhat charming way and grinned.
“Hey ya, Harry.”
“God, Ron …”
“No, just regular Ron.”
Harry let out a constricted whimper at the lame jest.
“What? Wha …? Are you alright?” He tossed his packages onto the bed and came towards Ron looking at him with such a bewildered expression it made Ron squirm and his ears burned. “You’ve gone out without your coat - and George was going to come for you, did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget my coat, see?” He held it up, but then moved closer to Harry. “I’m fine, really I am.”
“You are?”
“Brilliant, as a matter a fact.”
“Brilliant?”
“Yeah, the medal thing. I think … it fixed me. I’m better.”
“Better?”
“Harry, stop repeating me.”
“Oh! Sorry, I …” He searched Ron’s eyes with his lips parted in mid-speech and Ron saw the very moment when Harry realized that the Darkness was gone from him. “Oh, Ron!” Harry launched himself at him, hugging and clutching the back of his jumper with both fists.
Then Harry pushed him away, this time clutching the front of his jumper, glaring at him again.
“You’re certain? Absolutely certain?”
Ron nodded, overwhelmed at the emotion on Harry’s face.
“Merlin …” Harry crumpled just a little, pulling on Ron and they ended forehead to forehead. Ron gazed at the deep vertical line between Harry’s brows and slowly put his hands on Harry’s back.
“I’m so sorry,” Ron spoke carefully. “I’ve been so fucked in the head, I couldn’t get out of it. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Make it up to me?” Harry opened his eyes and looked up at him from under dark lashes.
“… Let me, kiss you.”
“Kiss me?” Harry squeaked.
“There you go repeating me again.”
“Oh!” Harry stepped back, crossing his arms over himself, looking guilty for holding Ron so closely. “But you haven’t got to make anything up to me - and not like that!”
“I do though! And I know that you really do want to be with me!”
Ron felt very mature about expressing his feelings, but Harry looked down and shrunk away a little more.
“I just wanted you better again,” Harry said. “I promised that I wouldn’t mention it … what happened. I didn’t do this because I wanted you to love me, honestly!”
“But, Harry I …” He advanced on Harry, prying a white knuckled hand from its grip on his crossed arm and held it. “I do love you. I always did.”
Harry gratefully leaned into Ron’s chest, he could feel Harry breath on his neck.
“Love me?”
He silently chuckled at the repeated word and was getting lightheaded at the intensity coming off of Harry in waves. But he nodded, caressing Harry’s hair with his cheek.
Harry opened his hands on Ron’s chest, sliding slowly upwards, up the back of his neck and into his hair. Harry nuzzled into Ron’s neck, pressing a small, cautious kiss against his pulse.
Then pressed another to his jaw.
Then pulled Ron’s face down and looked at his lips while he leaned in and kissed him.
It was full of feeling but so very gentle.
When Ron returned the kiss in earnest, something broke free in Harry, causing a desperate sounding moan and the tentative touch and kiss turned into clinging and an open mouthed demand.
“I love you!” Harry said fiercely, as if the words were a threat, kissing him again.
“I know,” Ron gasped, taking a breath. “I love you, too.”
He reveled in the feeling of Harry’s hands grasping at him, and Harry’s warm, strong mouth on his. How he boldly pressed his groin against Ron. He’d never felt somebody want and take of him with such passion.
“Wait, if I … if we, do this …” Harry stepped back, “this is it. No going back.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Ron said simply. It was no longer complicated for him.
Harry unclasped his robe and tore lose a button on his shirt as though it were choking him. He took off his glasses, rubbing a hand over his eyes and through his hair, making him look positively unhinged - and beautiful.
Ron didn’t speak a work, afraid of throwing Harry into further shock and he edged slowly onto Harry’s bed still unmade bed.
Harry took out his wand, concentrated, and cast an Expecto Patronum.
“Told George not to collect you and that we’d make it to Percy’s for dinner with everyone,” Harry explained in answer to Ron’s questioning look.
“You mean George and Hermione?”
“How did you know?”
Ron shrugged, figuring the full story could wait for another time.
“C’mere,” Ron urged, holding a hand out to him.
Harry looked down and seemed to consider for a moment, at odds with himself over this sudden turn of events, and then with a steadying breath, he kicked off his shoes and dropped his robe aside.
Ron got a fluttering in his belly when Harry looked at him, dark and meditative, as he stalked towards him on hands and knees across the bed.
Harry took his hand and they both stared down at their twined fingers.
“So, you wanna … talk or something?” Ron asked.
Harry’s solemn expression cracked for the first time and he chuckled which seemed to unstop a flood of emotion as he squeezed Ron’s hand, leaned down and kissed it and then flopped onto him.
They lay together kissing, getting off like a couple of teenagers, with Ron stroking up and down Harry’s back, eventually braving his hands to caress Harry’s arse, squeezing. Harry let out a breathy moan and arched into him, while Ron dragged his hand back up, catching the bare skin under Harry’s shirt.
They parted long enough to free their torsos of clothing and came together again, bare chests hot against each other in the cool air of the room.
Just when he thought he couldn’t bear the pressure in his constricted trousers any longer, Harry slid down his body, licking over his nipples while unzipping his trousers, freeing him at last.
Harry pushed his own pants past his thighs, lying over Ron to take both their cocks in his hand.
“Oh, happy, bloody Christmas!” Ron gasped. He opened his legs wider, letting Harry settle over him, half propped on one elbow and knee while he stroked them together.
“Didn’t think I’d get you at the end of my bed this morning,” Harry said, straining to achieve his goal, thrusting together. They both knew there’d be opportunity again. Time for romance and conversation, time for rolling around naked, on top and underneath, for sucking on, and sinking down from above, but right now there was just Harry’s hand holding them together.
Ron let the haunts of the past and fears of the future drift away and clung to Harry, tasting his skin in licks and bites and breathing in the smell of his freshly washed hair.
“Please …” Ron begged, of himself or of Harry he didn’t know.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t let me go …” Ron closed his eyes tightly and held Harry even tighter.
“I won’t.”
His whole body shuddered and came to a sudden, stiff halt. He flexed, his cock throbbing against Harry’s and came, spattering between them.
Harry let him go, stroking himself while Ron breathlessly kissed his head and stroked his hip, and then he let loose the sweetest hushed grunt into Ron’s neck when he came.
“We’ve got hours before we need to leave,” Ron said, eventually kicking off his tangled trousers. “Shall we get more comfortable?”
“Wait.” Harry straightened his glasses and sat up, gazing into Ron’s eyes with a worried expression. Then he smiled with relief at what he saw in them, leaning in for another kiss.
Yes, sense memory is always more powerful than conscious memory; a smell, sound, taste … a touch.
:/:
Title: Visiting Christmas
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: NC-17
Words: 9088
Summary: Ron visits his past, present and future with Harry.
Warnings: EWE, Angsty (with happy ending)
Author's Note: Many thanks to my mrsquizzical, shocolate and gwen1170 for the betaing!
:/:
Sense memory is always more powerful than conscious memory; a smell, sound, taste … a touch.
Ron flinched at the touch of the chain as it was draped around his neck, dredging up memories buried deep in his conscience; the echoes of the battles he fought within himself back then rebounded on him still.
Not again, please. I can’t stand it.
I know it’s my turn, but it’s doing something to me.
… I’ll do it. I’ll do it for Harry.
But even as these shameful recollections haunted his muddled mind he noticed that this chain wasn’t heavy, nor was it cold. It was as gentle as a string of velvet on his skin.
“This should help you, Ron,” Harry said, hugging him around the shoulders from behind. “I’ve been looking for something that’ll work. But if this doesn’t, I’ll just find something else that will. I won’t give up on you.”
Ron wanted to reach up and put his arms around Harry, but he just couldn’t beckon the will to do it. Harry’s scent reached him and Ron remembered burying his nose in the thick hair at the base of Harry’s neck. He’d give anything to be free of the mental encumbrances to do that again.
“Uh-huh,” was the muttered acknowledgement he gave instead.
He was trapped, an immovable in the oppressive fog of his own mind. Fleeting moments of lucid happiness flitted passed on occasion, teasing and tempting him of the life he once had. Of the man he once was.
Brick by brick, the invisible walls had gone up after battling Voldemort. The torment from the Horcrux locket remained in his dreams and subconscious. Every mistake, every infraction, every small inadequacy grew out of proportion until he was hopeless against shame. Feelings of incompetence overpowered all else until he until he just didn’t care anymore.
“Don’t take this off, ok?” Harry spoke into his ear, squeezing Ron, placing a brisk kiss to the side of his head.
If only he could summon the strength to turn his and reach for Harry, ask him not to go. He’d ask him to not to give up on him … to hold him a while longer.
But the moment was lost, like so many others, when Harry let go of him with a sigh and began putting on his coat and gloves. Ron knew he was meeting someone, A date?, he wondered.
“So.” Harry cleared his throat, trying to shake the emotion out of his voice. “George and - George will collect you tomorrow morning to go to Percy’s, yeah? Wear your warm coat, ok? It’s the brown one, right here, Ron. See?”
“Warm coat,” he repeated. And he meant to nod. He hoped it showed.
“Right, then,” Harry faltered. Ron recognized the false cheer in his voice. “Thanks for letting me crash your Christmas Eve. I’m sure you had more exciting plans.” Harry flinched at his inappropriate attempt at humor. “Take care of yourself. … See ya, mate.”
With a few lingering steps, Harry opened the door. “Happy Christmas.”
Ron closed his eyes, listening to Harry’s footsteps as they echoed down the stairwell. When the outer door shut with a slam, Ron was alone again. He imagined Harry’s walk for as long as he could. How Harry would have his coat collar up turned up, hands shoved deep into his pockets with his head bent into the wind.
With every step Harry took along the pavement, Ron felt himself a sinking a little deeper into the quicksand of his mind.
He opened his eyes and watched the fairy lights sparkle on the tree. Ginny and his mum had brought it a few days earlier. Three days? Four? He lost track of things like that anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time Hermione had come. It didn’t matter, day and night was all the same to him.
He slept it all away anyhow.
:/:
A warm light flickered in the room and went out. It shone again and then a great burst of light beamed in all directions from the medallion that lay against Ron’s chest. The light pulsed, flooding the dingy flat above George’s joke shop with a prism of colors that faded into a soft yellow glow and sputtered out.
Ron mumbled something and reached out in his sleep, but then turned his head without waking.
:/:
It was the crisp ‘clink’ of metal on metal, like a rattling chain, which tugged Ron awake.
The tinny cling chinked again and he raised his head with a start.
“Wassat? Someone there?”
There was a great clatter, as if a clap of thunder had struck the ceiling, causing a collapse. Ron cowered over, yelping in fright and threw his hands over his head to protect himself against the unseen barrage.
“W-who’s there?” he asked, stuttering into once more silent room. The fire had died down and the glow of orange-red coals cast the room into long shadows.
“Ron …” A voice called as if from some distance.
“L-Lumos!” Ron shouted by instinct, though he had no wand. It had been taken from him a long time ago.
There was another crash like stone on metal, causing him to jump back against the headboard and the voice spoke again. “I’ve come for you, Ron …”
The implication of the words was frightening enough, but it was the voice itself that terrified him. One Ron thought was long gone from his memory and had never held hope of hearing again.
“Fred?” Ron whispered into the darkness. “Is that you?” His voice was raw from disuse and he rubbed his face, trying to focus beyond his confusion. “George? Are you fucking with me?”
These were the most words he’d spoken in an age. If he weren’t so confused and anxious he might have noticed the clarity of mind he had.
“Ron …” The haunted voice of his dead brother called again.
The sound of metal chains scraping along the wooden floor towards him made him scramble backwards in a tangle of blankets.
At that moment the spectral image of the departed twin appeared, walking through the wall. He - it, was gray and transparent, with ghostly chains draped around his body, dragging behind him. He didn’t have the chiseled features and fine lines that George bore in maturity now, but instead, Fred retained the boyish softness he had when his life ended.
Ron’s heart pounded and his brain was running in circles to catch up with itself. He made a frightened squeal as he toppled over the back edge of the bed, his feet catching in the blankets, and landed in a cyclone of quilting before popping his face over the bed again.
Fred’s zombie-eyed face went slack and though still transparent, he broke into a grin. He flung himself back into the armchair by the fire in peels of laughter that had an odd hint of echo.
Ron gaped at the sight.
“Ronnie, you should see yourself!” Fred wheezed, holding his stomach and rocking from side to side with laughter. “You look like you’ve never seen a ghost before!”
“Blimey, Fred.” Ron wiped at the cold sweat from his brow. “Is it really you? You’re a ghost?”
Fred wiped the iridescent tears off his faded face and sniffed, recovering from his mirth. “That was completely worth it, I gotta say,” he sighed.
“Are you joking?” Ron gasped. His adrenal glands were confused, still making his heart race and he took several deep breaths. “You came back from the dead just to take the piss outta me?”
“No. Not just for that.” Fred waved him away. “But I reckoned since I had to come back, why not have a little fun with it? Look, chains of bondage and everything!” He held up the translucent clinking chain and chuckled.
“Merlin’s Balls! You’re dead, you bastard! I’ve spent years missing you and you come back just to torment me? Have I finally died, am I in hell now?”
Fred sobered and frowned at this.
“No, Ron. You’re not in hell. At least not y -” Fred sat up abruptly, his false chains falling away. “Now see here, I’m the one who gets to be hacked off. I’m having this perfectly pleasant afterlife and I get called up to intercede. It seems you are having some issues, little brother.”
“I’ve missed you, Fred.” Ron walked, still astonished, towards his phantom sibling. “And all this time you’ve been a ghost? I’m sorry.”
“No, you berk! This ghosty gig is just long enough to put you through your paces. There’s word that you’re in trouble, Ronnie. I’ve been sent to help set you right again.”
Ron shook his head and rubbed over his face, trying to make sense of this. His mind had long since confused reality with dreams; sleep conjured terrors that felt real and let him relive pleasures only long enough to wake into despair.
“What do you mean?” Ron asked. “What can you do for me?”
“Well, notice how you’re already talking easier now? Some of those cobwebs in that thick lump of lead on your shoulders cleared up, yeah?” Ron shivered at the thought of spiders in his head. He’d had that nightmare, too.
But what Fred said was true enough. He was moving and talking with more ease than he had in over a year. Maybe it was just the shock?
“It’s not the shock, knob head. I’ve got a job to do and I can’t do it if you’re addlebrained. So some of its been done for you already. Lazy git, just like you to let someone else do the hard part.”
“What are you on about?” Ron slumped onto his bed, feeling overwhelmed.
“See that bauble you’ve got ‘round your neck? Powerful magic, that.”
“This thing?” He reached for the medallion that hung on his chest. “Harry gave it to me.”
“I know he did. Went through a hellava lot of trouble to get it, too.”
“Really?” Ron gazed at the metal. It looked ancient and should have been heavy for as thick it was, but Ron barely felt it. It also seemed to emanate a sense of lightness.
“Yeah, powerful little thing-gummy. It’s supposed to pull out the Darkness that seeped into your heart and mind from carrying the Voldie-Locket of Evil.”
“But that was years ago. Do you even know how long it’s been?”
“You never quite got over it though, did ya? Still a whiney fool who thinks everyone’s out to get you?”
Ron stomach dropped and he hung his head.
“Listen you. Harry did you a huge favor getting that gaudy bit of flash you’re wearing. It’d done most of the work, I reckon, but you’ve got to get your head ‘round a few things.”
“Can you help me?” Ron asked, knowing his sounded like a boy again, entreating his big brother. “I reckon everyone has tried but nothing works. They’ve given up.”
“I can do.” Fred leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking as though he were going to let Ron in on a secret ingredient. “They haven’t given up on you. You just have to let yourself be loved.”
“Tch! I know I’m loved,” Ron sighed, rolling his eyes. “Mum and Dad, big family, blah, blah. I get it. People love me.”
“Huh. Well, it’s being loved by someone that isn’t obligated to you by family blood that makes a difference here.”
Ron slumped even lower. “Good luck with that.”
“Bugger me, you’re pleasant now, aren’t you? But there’s nothing for it, come on then, let’s go!” Fred stood up.
“What? I can’t go anywhere with you. You’re not even real!”
“I take exception to that!” Fred said and Ron felt himself tugged to his feet as surely as if Fred had dragged him by hand.
“Wait, I don’t have a broom. I don’t have a wand. I’m not dressed.” Ron clutched at his thin sweatshirt, and hitched up his sagging pajama bottoms, nothing but tatty socks on his feet.
“Out we go.” The window, burst open before them. “None of that matters now. Trust me, Ronnie. You need to see this.”
:/:
Time passed in an indistinguishable manner. Snatches of familiar landscape flew by like they did through the window of the Hogwarts Express. He sensed there was cold and wind but it didn’t reach him. He wondered if it was traveling through space with Fred - or was it time? - that kept him safe and warm?
When his feet had touched ground, Ron knew in an instant that they were in the round dormitory at the top of the spiral stairs. The five beds trimmed in red velvet stood tall around them, though not quite as tall as he remembered them. He sniffed the air, expecting to get catch a whiff of dirty socks.
“Why’re we here? The nephews are here at school now. ‘Course they’ll be home for hols right now.” He could hear the soft sounds of snoring from his old bed, the sole slumbering occupant of the room, as the rest of the four posters curtains were open and empty.
“Ah, but this isn’t Gryffindor tower as it is now. You’re seeing it as it was many Christmases ago.”
Ron heard a tiny sniff behind him. He whirled around to see Harry, little first year Harry, just pulling his invisibility cloak off his head.
“Oh, blimey, look at him!” Ron exclaimed with amused fondness. “He’s always looked small to me but I forgot how much he actually grew.”
The eleven year old Harry in the past tucked his Invisibility Cloak into his trunk, and sniffed again, taking his glasses and wiping fiercely at his face before replacing them.
“Aww, what’s the matter, little mate?” Ron asked, putting his hands on his knees, bending to look at Harry.
Harry pulled his green sweater off over his head.
“Look at it, it’s his first Weasley jumper!” Ron said. His face felt odd to him and he realized he was grinning.
Little Harry ran his hands over the knobby sweater, clutching it like a teddy, and walked towards Ron’s bed.
Ron realized now that he himself was under the heap of jumbled blankets. Harry stood near the head of the bed; he reached out to Ron, and then stopped. He took a breath as if to say something, and then let it out slowly.
Kneeling down, Ron looked at Harry’s small face, which was drawn with concern, as he looked the sleeping boy.
“Ron?” Harry said, his child’s voice yet untouched by maturity. “This has been the best Christmas of my life. I …” he halted. “Iloveyou!” he whispered.
As soon as he said the words Harry ran away, leapt onto his bed, dove under the blankets and covered his head with his bum in air.
Ron chuckled and shook his head.
“The sappy little git. What was that for?” he mused.
“Seems your barmy little mate here discovered something that Christmas,” said Fred, standing next to the lump of Harry in his bed. “He’d never shared the holiday with a family who loved him, and he felt it for first time in his life that night. Pure love, too. Not the dodgy kind that gets mucked up with lust.”
“I didn’t know he cared so much … then,” Ron said, looking at Harry as he settled onto his pillow. A tiny hand stretched out from the blanket and set his glasses on the table.
“Yeah, well, you had to see it with your own eyes, didn’t ya? Hear it with your own ears that you were the first person he loved. … Come along now, brother, we’re not nearly through with this.”
“Wait, I want to stay awhile.”
Ron looked at Harry, wishing he could impart some comfort to him for all the trouble that was still to come.
But he felt himself being tugged aside and he once more joined Fred as they tumbled into the dark blur of night and time.
:/:
Ron spun around, his hands open and raised at his sides, taking in the room that had materialized in front of them. The carriage clock over the mantle read one o’clock am. Candles floating in the large and lavishly decorated Christmas tree lit the room.
“Where? … This is Auntie Muriel’s, er, well it’s really Percy’s place now. And everyone is here for Christmas, I reckon.” Ron observed the many pairs of shoes and coats by the front door and then looked at Fred. “Mum and dad were getting on in years, it was just too much to impose the whole lot at the Burrow, so when Percy inherited this old place, everyone came here instead.”
The house was quiet at the moment, but still held the tangible thrum of numerous bodies within.
There was a distant shout and maniacal laughter outside and Ron went to the window.
It was Harry and his past self, now well into adulthood, playing outside in the snow. The pregnant moon shone in the clear winter sky, reflecting in the shimmering snow so that it was nearly as light as day.
“I remember this!” Ron said, his belly rushing with excitement. “Fred, this is a few years ago. It’s the night … oh shit, this is the night!” he gasped.
The pair outside ran in opposite directions, shouting threats and warnings of dire consequences at each other.
“It just wouldn’t stop snowing that year. It was so thick. Harry had been gone on assignment for a month and he came back just in time for Christmas. … God, I was so happy to see him.”
Harry crouched behind a poplar tree. He looked around, peering into the nighttime shadows, before making a dash for cover behind the next tree. Halfway there, Ron jumped out from the other side and lambasted Harry with not one but several snowballs in the chest.
“No wands, you cheater!” Harry shouted, holding his arms over his face as he fell backwards in a hail of snow.
The Ron outside walked over and put his foot on Harry’s chest and ‘posed’, proclaiming victory.
Ron chuckled where he watched, pressing his nose closer to the glass, feeling a renewed sense of pride for the assault.
“Oh, watch this, Fred!” he said.
Harry reached up and hit Ron in the back of his knee and he yelped, falling forward. Harry scrambled up to climb onto Ron’s back and shoved his face into the snow. Then he grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it down the back of Ron’s collar.
“Aaahhh!”
Ron chuckled as listened to his own scream.
“Cold! Cold! You, bloody wanker! Argh - I surrender!”
Harry stood and did a little victory dance, waggling his arse, which earned him a swift kick from Ron. They continued shoving each other and laughing all the way up the path and into the house.
“Shh!”
“Shh! Shhhh!” They hissed at each other, causing more noise with their shushing.
Ron felt morose all of sudden, while he watched them.
“I know what happens next. I don’t need to see this,” he said.
“There’s a reason we’re here, little brother. You have to watch.”
Ron sighed and ignoring the prickle of apprehension dancing up his spine, he was drawn towards the two younger men at the door. They’d found room to hang their coats and scarves, batted each other in the face with their gloves, and kicked off their shoes. Ron stumbled over his boot and fell into Harry’s chest.
“Ooph!” Harry caught Ron under the arms and they broke into silent giggles again. “Steady there, ya big troll,” Harry said, still holding Ron against him.
“Just, hang on, trying to …” Ron struggled to toe off his remaining boot. “There!”
With his foot finally free, Ron tried to regain balance. He raised his head and he and Harry were only an inch apart.
“Harry looked so amazing,” Ron said, more to himself than to Fred where they stood a few feet away. “His nose and lips were so red and his eyes were bright.”
Harry was looking at Ron still leaning against him, and he began to get uncomfortable at Ron’s gaze.
“Heh …” Harry let out a nervous chuckle. “Er, what?”
“Couldn’t help myself,” Ron said as he watched, remembering what happened next. “I just had to.”
Ron leaned in and kissed him. He stood up taller and moved closer to Harry, while Harry tilted his head up, reaching up into the kiss.
“Blimey.” Ron pulled back, touching Harry’s lips.
“God!” Ron groaned, his hand on his forehead, both dismayed and awed at what he was witnessing. “I’d just started getting ill then, or whatever it is. I hadn’t felt right about anything for so long, but I’d wanted Harry forever.”
Harry and Ron began ascending the stairs with dozy grins, stopping to kiss, breaking off into giggles and racing up a few more steps, before stopping to kiss again.
“Go on,” Fred instructed. “You’re not intruding here, you know? It is just you, after all.”
The curtain over the bedroom window was still open and the moonlit snow kept the room bright, though everything was saturated in a silver-blue nocturnal glow.
Ron tore off his jumper, bunching his t-shirt up under his arms. After throwing it to the floor, he grabbed Harry and pulled him to his chest, kissing him again.
“I kept grabbing him. Every time we paused to take our clothes off, I clutched at him again. I must have bruised him with my fingertips. I just didn’t want him to get away.”
It did look bruising, the way Ron held him, squeezing and clutching with his large hands, holding Harry’s face in his palms while they kissed. Harry’s hands moved over Ron’s back with gentler ease, exploring with tentative effort and merely hanging on.
“Do you really want to?” Harry asked, while sliding back onto the bed as Ron climbed over him, like a Nundu stalking a Niffler.
“Let’s not think about it,” Ron said, and lowered himself over onto Harry, covering him, his golden freckled limbs twining with Harry’s porcelain.
“I knew he’d been with other blokes by then, we were grown men but we didn’t talk about that sort of thing, really. I just sort of knew, and I reckon he knew that.” Ron sighed sadly. “I’d been with all sorts, myself, but I wanted Harry. … Only Harry.”
He watched as they clung to each other. The playful, clumsy snogs from earlier gave way to slower, more sure and committed kissing.
“I remember his nose was cold,” Ron said, watching himself arch back while Harry kissed his neck. “Funny thing is, there we were, stark bollock naked, me lying on top of him, feeling what each other had, but it was more than just the shagging.” Ron was babbling now, losing himself in the recollection. “It was the little things that really felt personal. Like the way he rubbed the sole of his foot up the back of my thigh. And I ran my thumb over the crease of his elbows, and sucked on his earlobe. Merlin - why was that so sexy?”
Ron realized he was talking, more or less, to his brother. He turned to see Fred’s ghostly image lounging against the fireplace, watching the lovers with good-humored amusement, as if he were watching toddlers play tiggy.
“I reckon you shouldn’t be watching this, huh? Kinda weird?” Ron asked. Weird being a relative state considering the situation.
“There’s not a thing in this plane of existence that could shock me, Ronnie. I’m over it. We’re just here because there’s something you need to see.”
Ron looked back to the bed. The nervous clutching between himself and Harry was now deliberate touching; exploring parts that had previously been off limits to best mates. Hands, made long, sure strokes, learning curves and dips. Lips tasted and caressed everyplace that a pulse beat; the neck, the groin, and Harry rolled over, letting out soft sighs while Ron kissed in the bend of his knees and then lay over his back, mimicking the imminent act before them as he pressed his cock over Harry’s backside, sucking on the back of Harry’s neck.
“He tasted good. Makes no sense, I know, just skin, right? A little salty, but I liked it. I still dream about it.”
It was impossible to tell how long he watched himself make love to Harry. They progressed from cautious touching to desperate stroking, with Harry finally coming as they frotted against each other. Ron lay over him, kissing and rubbing, until - with Harry’s pulling his arse, raising his knees with non-verbal instruction - Ron thrust into Harry’s body, a bit too roughly, but with Harry urging him on.
“I just took what I wanted,” Ron winced, rubbing his face and clutching a handful of hair. “Everything we did was because I wanted it. ‘M such a selfish bastard …” Ron admonished himself as he watched himself pull away from Harry long enough to urge him to roll onto his belly before availing himself of Harry’s upturned backside. Harry expelled short, breathy whimpers with every thrust.
“Give yourself a Galleon’s worth of credit, Ronnie,” Fred said. “Romance wasn’t my area of expertise, but Harry seems to be enjoying himself. Looks like a happy shag face to me, and listen to what he’s saying to you …”
“… That’s … perfect, Ron. Yes! Oh, love…”
Ron scratched his head, trying to reconcile this scene before him with his mixed up memory of it. He just knew that he’d been too rough and forceful and that he’d sent Harry running away from him, but Harry did appear to be enjoying this it.
The precept of time here didn’t seem to work in a normal fashion. Ron and Harry continued through the night, shifting through positions, coaxing each other through climaxes and finally negotiated comfortable sleeping arrangements; with Ron draped over Harry just as possessively in sleep as he’d claimed his body before.
When morning came, after too little sleep, Harry opened his eyes, smiled, and leaned up to kiss Ron’s shoulder. He chuckled as he slipped out of bed, pausing for a few seconds to make sure he hadn’t woken Ron.
“I don’t want to see this,” Ron said, a feeling of dread bubbling inside of him. “Can’t we leave now?”
“Not, yet, Ron,” Fred answered.
“Please,” he pleaded. “Don’t make me watch this.”
Harry dressed quickly, peeked at Ron once more to ensure he was still sleeping and then tiptoed out of the room.
“So what’s left to see now, Fred?” he shouted, finally broken. “I’ve seen it, right? I just relived it, as though it weren’t already burned into my memory as the most perfect fucking moment in my pathetic life, which I utterly bollocked up, just like everything else I’ve ever done! Harry was just humoring me, keeping me warm for the night, but he left!”
Ron was nearly in tears now, but he turned with a start when the movement of his sleeping self in the bed caught his attention.
“Oh, that’s right, you great, stupid oaf! Wake up now. Time to get your bleedin’ heart ripped out!”
Ron pushed himself up his elbows and looked at the empty bed where he expected Harry to be.
“Harry?” he called out in a sleepy voice.
“He’s not here!” Ron yelled at himself. “Time to face it, man. He’s just not into you!”
Ron sat up, looking around the room, and saw that Harry’s clothes were gone. He let out a small groan, pressed the heels of his palms over his eyes and fell onto his back. “Oh, Harry. … no,” he groaned into the seemingly empty room.
“Yes, you flaming idiot. He didn’t want you! Not in the daylight anyway. He’s just like everyone else who ever fucked you,” the distain in Ron’s voice to his own image could have melted metal. “He only wanted you for a ride - ‘cos what other use are you good for?”
As if the past Ron had heard his own hateful self-inflicted words, he sat up, his eyes red and cheeks splotchy with restrained emotion. Muttering and cursing under his breath, he dressed.
He paused to look at the bed once more.
“Idiot,” he muttered and left the room.
“Fine. The end. I’ve lived it again, now, thank you ever so much for that!” Ron shouted at the unwavering smoky image of his brother. “Can we leave now?”
Fred appeared uncharacteristically somber and turned his head to the door, which then opened. Harry was carrying an open packet of Bourbons, taking a final bite of one in his hand, while he levitated a tray of breakfast things behind him.
Ron choked on an intake of breath at Harry’s unexpected arrival. “But … he, he left!”
“It appears, he came back,” Fred said. “All he did was nick some food before all the kiddies woke up and ate the lot.”
Harry set the Bourbons aside and wiped the crumbs from his lips.
“’Morning, mate,” Harry said, his voice full of playful tenderness. “Happy Chris-” Harry stopped short. “Ron?” He glanced around the room. “Oh, no. No,” he said under his breath as he rushed to the bed, and yanked the duvet down as if Ron might be hiding from him.
The floating tray of breakfast dropped to the floor, shattering as hot coffee soaked into the carpet.
Ron’s mouth hung open as he watched Harry. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I thought you’d left!” he said, a wild manic tone in his voice rising in his voice.
“Ron, no.” Harry sat on the bed where Ron had slept and pulled the pillow into his face, inhaling in great gulps as his breathing became ragged with emotion. “Come back. Ah, Ron, come back …” Harry whispered. “God, I’m sorry.”
Ron stood in front of Harry, feeling utterly sick, as if he were watching someone be tortured. He wanted to reach out, to act, to do something, but he was helpless to comfort Harry. The pain had already been inflicted.
Ron kneeled on the floor in front of Harry where he rocked, hugging Ron’s pillow and looked up into his face.
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered into the empty room. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He squeezed his eyes tight.
“I thought you left me,” Ron tried to explain, knowing that Harry couldn’t hear him. “You were gone when I woke up. I didn’t know, Harry!”
“Ok, hang on,” Harry said, setting the pillow down, scrubbing his hands over his face and hopelessly attempting to smooth his hair. “You can’t have very gone far.”
“Yes!” Ron shouted, jumping to his feet, thinking fast. “I’m … I’m just in the back garden. God it was freezing out there, I remember. Go get me, Harry!”
Harry stood and took a calming breath, fixing his face into a less emotional expression.
Ron became excited as he followed Harry out of the room, gaining a vague sense that his illusory presence was somehow influencing Harry’s actions.
His late Aunt Muriel’s auspicious country home had a grandiose stairway in the center of the entrance hall, so that he had a view from the upper landing of the lounge and dining room on both sides down below.
Just as Harry descended to the first floor Ron entered through the front door, his face splotchy with cold.
“Ron!”
“Hey, Harry,” Ron grumbled, looking at his feet while he stamped off the snow. His ears and nose were red, while the rest of him looked pale.
“Ron, I just came down to -”
“Listen, it’s fine. It’s all kind of embarrassing, innit?”
Ron could see from where he stood frozen that Harry shook his head, but the Ron downstairs wasn’t looking.
“Please, just don’t try to say anything to fix it,” Ron said, still not making eye contact with Harry, fiddling with his hands in his pocket. “It was just … just a bit of mad holiday fun, yeah?”
“No! That’s not - ” Harry tried to say, but Ron interrupted him again.
“ - Look, it didn’t mean anything! You have to believe that!” Ron snapped at him, giving him a cold glare. “Just don’t ever mention it again and we’ll be fine.”
Ron remembered with painful regret how readily Harry agreed to this.
“O-ok.” Harry nodded but there was a catch in Harry’s voice that Ron hadn’t heard the first time around. “If that’s what you want; it never happened. I won’t ever mention it again,” Harry promised.
Ron remembered Harry’s words as having an edge of sarcasm to them, but now, Harry was breathless and promising with sincerity. He reached his hands out to Ron but then pulled them back again, able to decide what to do while Ron stood icy and removed.
“My god … it was my fault!”
“’Fraid so,” Fred agreed. “That nasty bit of Riddle wormed its way into you and really did a number, didn’t he? Couldn’t even see how much Harry wanted you, could you?”
Harry and Ron were shuffling with obvious discomfort and Harry appeared to be bursting to say something, but Fleur shuffled by in her dressing gown, holding two small children by the hands, followed by two more that didn’t belong to her.
“I’ll see ya later, then,” Ron mumbled.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” Harry agreed, in a high, strained voice.
“Fred!” Ron turned to his brother, who had a somber look on his diaphanous face. “Fred, can I change this? Is this what we’re here for, so I can change it?”
“I’m sorry, little brother,” Fred shook his head. “Nobody can do that. Nothing can change what’s already happened.”
“But then why?!” Ron wailed with despair, grasping onto the stair rail as he watched Harry and himself walk away from each other. He would go out the door and punch the side of the shed, fracturing his little finger, which ached even at this very moment.
But he watched Harry, now. He walked around to the lounge and leaned a shoulder against the wall. Handfuls of his dark hair showed through his fingers where he gripped at his head and sank to the floor.
Just then, Hermione came out of the kitchen.
“Harry? What on earth has happened?” She kneeled in front of him, touching his face. He reached out and pressed his anguished face into her shoulder. “Oh, Harry,” she held him, stroking his hair. “What’s he done now?”
:/:
Ron wanted to collapse with the weight of the grief he felt. He thought perhaps he’d blacked out into one of the many dark chasms in his mind that he’d grown accustomed to slipping into, when he became aware he was with Fred falling through time again.
When the sensation of vertigo faded, Ron discovered they were now in the city, on a street he didn’t know. Multi-colored Christmas lights glowed in the windows and the bitter wind rattled an evergreen wreath hanging on a nearby door, in the darkness.
“Are we seeing more of the past, Fred? Honestly, I don’t think I can handle anymore of this Christmas cheer.”
Ron fingered the medal that Harry had placed around his neck.
Harry.
He had just seen how very wrong he’d been about Harry’s feelings regarding their one and only night together. Harry had remained true to his promise from that morning, a promise Ron had demanded of him, and never mentioned their intimacy again.
He’d also never left Ron. He continued caring for him, long after his own family grew too frustrated to keep after him.
“So why are here?”
“You need to see someone coming along here, any second now.”
Just then, Harry turned the corner, the wind blowing his hair in a fury around his face.
“Is this…?” Ron hesitated, trying to get his head around the leap in time. “This is now,” he said observing the clothes Harry wore.
Harry pushed up his glasses and bent against the blustery weather, taking a hurried pace up the pavement as he passed Ron and Fred. They followed him, weaving through straggling Christmas revelers, until he stopped abruptly and knocked on a door that had a Disillusionment charm on it.
Harry didn’t wait for anyone to answer but opened the door and entered.
Intrigued, Ron followed him.
“Who are you visiting, Harry?” Ron asked, as they passed through the lounge. “Is this your date?”
Upon entering the kitchen, Ron chuckled. Hermione sat the table and she stood, with great effort, to greet Harry. He kissed her cheek and put an affectionate hand on her very pregnant belly.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. You should be up in bed, resting.”
“Nonsense. George gives me more rest than I can tolerate. Besides, I wouldn’t miss Christmas Eve hot cocoa with you for anything.”
Ron gasped, unprepared for the rush of emotions; guilt and annoyance that he had no idea Hermione and George were together and enormous affection towards seeing his childhood friend in such a state.
Harry gave her a cheerless smile and put his coat on the back of the chair. “No, no - you sit, I’ll get it. Where is George, anyway? Doesn’t he want some cocoa?”
Hermione gave him a sharp look. “He knows Christmas Eve is our thing, he’s gone to bed.”
Ron slipped into an empty chair at the table, feeling bereft that he wasn’t really there to share a mug with them.
Hermione put her hand on Harry’s arm as he poured hot water. “How was he today?”
Harry sniffed and didn’t meet her eye while he took a seat next her. “Same.”
“Did you put the Sanctus Menas medal on him?”
Ron reached for the charm dangling around his neck.
Harry nodded and blew on his cocoa before sipping it. “I know you think its rubbish.”
“I don’t,” she insisted and even Ron could tell she wasn’t being honest. “It’s just that even if it does counteract the Dark magic, I think he needs more than a charm. He has to choose to work his way out of the trap his mind is in. You know more than anyone, Harry, that it’s our choices that determine what happens to us, not just random magic.”
Harry cleared his throat in subtle warning of his waning patience. Hermione understood and sighed, sitting back. They sipped their cocoa in silence for a moment before Hermione couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.
“You can’t keep on like this forever, Harry. You’re exhausted. You have to start living your own life.”
“I wouldn’t even have a life if it weren’t for him.”
“I understand this time of year is nothing but a reminder of how he broke your heart,” Harry frowned into his mug, “but its time to move on. How many men have you even been with since him?”
Harry choked on his cocoa and chuckled, wiping his lips. “You can’t ask me questions like that!”
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be intrusive. But look at me; you know what I’ve been doing.”
“And how,” Ron muttered.
“ - But you’re a good man, you deserve to be with someone who can love you.”
“I think that option is well and truly in the cauldron, Hermione. I’m meant to love everyone, but no one will love me in return, isn’t that what we learned?”
“No! I love you! Ron loves you, too, he just …”
“Just couldn’t tolerate sleeping with me without spiraling into depression, eh?”
“No!” Ron interjected, unable to keep quiet.
“I’m sure that wasn’t it.” She shifted awkwardly around her large belly to lean forward and put her hand on Harry’s shoulder. “He’s just lost.”
“Yeah, well … I’m going to find him.”
“You’re such a good friend to him and he doesn’t even know it,” Hermione said with sympathy, taking Harry’s hand. “Oh - feel!” She took his hand and placed it on her belly and they huddled together, giggling.
Ron ached with how much he was missing of their lives.
:/:
He stumbled over uneven ground. It was misty in the dark woods and Ron looked around to see Fred’s ghost accompanying him.
“Are you going to show me a future Christmas now? Something that hasn’t happened yet?”
Fred didn’t answer but continued walking.
“What is this place?” he asked, when he couldn’t stand the lonely silence any longer.
The mist cleared and the ominous forms of tombs and headstones marked the landscape around them.
Ron followed Fred’s line of sight and saw a figure huddled on the ground before a head stone that looked new and crisp compared to the others. A light snow was falling and a flurry obscured his vision, but Ron would have known the man anywhere.
“Harry.”
Ron felt a foreboding anxiousness as he left his brother’s side and sunk onto his knees near Harry.
Harry shivered, leaning against the cold marble, his purpling hand shaking where it rest on the gravestone. He was only wearing an old green jumper and a touch of frost was developing on the lenses of his glasses.
“What are you doing?” Ron exclaimed. “You’re freezing, you idiot. It’s the middle of the night. Go home! Where’s your wand?”
“I - I - I’m,” Harry’s voice cracked in staccato as he shook from the cold. “I’m s-sorry … let - you - down.”
“What? But you didn’t, you …” Ron tried to answered, but then Harry collapsed, crumpling onto the hard, frozen ground. “No!”
With Harry’s falling, the name etched into the marble stone became visible.
RONALD WEASLEY
Ron jumped to his feet and stumbled backwards next to Fred, staring with mild horror at the words.
It was quite unnerving to see the place of his burial, to see his own name marking the spot where his body lay, in spite of the fact that he’d actually been hoping for death to make the misery in his head vanish.
Ron had always imagined his eventual death would free Harry of him, not claim him too.
“Fred,” Ron whispered, swallowing hard. “Is this what absolutely will be? Or just, what may be?” He looked at his brother’s ghost and still Fred said nothing.
“Don’t do this, Harry! I’m not worth it!” He moved back to Harry’s side, leaning against his own tombstone. Harry even wasn’t shaking anymore, just lying there, his lips moving as he muttering soundless words under his breath.
Harry let out a wheeze and his body gave a slight jerk and then went still.
Ron banged the back of his head on the tombstone.
“No! Harry, no, you’re stronger than this. You can’t do this to yourself! Fred, why do you show me these things, if nothing can be done?”
When Ron looked up Fred was walking away, fading back into the wood.
“Wait! Don’t go!”
He started to get up and chase after Fred, but couldn’t leave Harry.
“Please, Fred, I’ll change, I promise! Why show me this if I can’t fix it? Come back!” Ron dropped onto his stomach in the snow, inches from Harry’s face. “Please, mate, don’t do this, not because of me.”
A gust of wind blew snow onto Harry’s face and hair but he didn’t move.
“No,” Ron cried, feebly attempting to brush Harry clean, wanting to pick him up and warm him. “I can’t do it this time. I can’t jump into the water after you, Harry. You have to get up!”
He lay on the ground, a hand stretched out towards Harry.
“Help me,” he whispered, clutching his other hand on the medal Harry had given him. He closed his eyes, focusing on determination and deliberation. “I want to change! … Let me live … Let me help Harry. Let him live …”
:/:
Ron repeated his pleas; over and over he asked for a second chance, focusing on the positive magic he felt in Harry’s medal and on the hope of the opportunity Fred said he had to change things.
Realizing that the sound of the bitter wind through leafless tree branches had ebbed away, Ron peeked through a slit of open eyes, fearful of seeing Harry’s body in the snow.
Instead, he found himself face to face with the bedpost. He sat up on his haunches and looked around the disheveled room.
The pale of dawn shone around the edges of the drapes.
“Have I made it to morning?” Ron wondered aloud. “Have I missed it?” He rushed to the window, tripping over a blanket tangled around his feet. Tearing open the curtains, the stale flat was flooded with morning light and he battled with the old window latch. He pushed it open with some effort and breathed in the fresh, cold air.
“Oi, you there!” Ron shouted at a boy below who was just about to mount a shiny new broomstick. “You, titch!”
The boy looked up, startled. “Sir?”
“Have I missed it? What day is this?”
“It’s Christmas day, isn’t it, Mr. Weasley?”
“Is it? Ha!” Ron let out a manic laugh, his ragged voice cackled. “It is! I haven’t missed it, then!”
“No, sir.” The boy looked as though he very much wanted to get away from the madman.
“I can make it better, then,” Ron said to himself. “I’m not too late. -Happy Christmas, mate!”
“Happy Christmas, Mr. Weasley.”
Ron ran towards the door but remembered he wasn’t properly dressed, and then ran to the wardrobe.
“I don’t know what to do first!” he exclaimed happily at his reflection in mirror before opening the door. Then he promptly shut the door and looked at himself again, shocked at the pale, scruffy face that looked back. “Whoa! I think I’ll clean up first, that’s what!”
He showered and shaved, grateful for the nick-less magical razor as he sang Good King Wenceslas all the while. He dressed in a hurry and set off at a run towards the Leaky Cauldron, hoping that Harry still took a room there.
It took considerable restraint to knock rather than pound on Harry’s door.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” he muttered under his breath.
“Come in,” Harry called in a bored voice, sounding as if he expected housekeeping.
Ron opened the door slowly and there he was, his Harry, healthy and handsome, standing at the end of the bed. He was getting ready to leave, stuffing a bag of gold and his wand into his pockets, gathering a stack of presents.
“I’ll be gone in mo - ” he started to say without looking up and then caught sight of Ron. He took a startled breath and froze.
Ron tilted his head in what he hoped was a somewhat charming way and grinned.
“Hey ya, Harry.”
“God, Ron …”
“No, just regular Ron.”
Harry let out a constricted whimper at the lame jest.
“What? Wha …? Are you alright?” He tossed his packages onto the bed and came towards Ron looking at him with such a bewildered expression it made Ron squirm and his ears burned. “You’ve gone out without your coat - and George was going to come for you, did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget my coat, see?” He held it up, but then moved closer to Harry. “I’m fine, really I am.”
“You are?”
“Brilliant, as a matter a fact.”
“Brilliant?”
“Yeah, the medal thing. I think … it fixed me. I’m better.”
“Better?”
“Harry, stop repeating me.”
“Oh! Sorry, I …” He searched Ron’s eyes with his lips parted in mid-speech and Ron saw the very moment when Harry realized that the Darkness was gone from him. “Oh, Ron!” Harry launched himself at him, hugging and clutching the back of his jumper with both fists.
Then Harry pushed him away, this time clutching the front of his jumper, glaring at him again.
“You’re certain? Absolutely certain?”
Ron nodded, overwhelmed at the emotion on Harry’s face.
“Merlin …” Harry crumpled just a little, pulling on Ron and they ended forehead to forehead. Ron gazed at the deep vertical line between Harry’s brows and slowly put his hands on Harry’s back.
“I’m so sorry,” Ron spoke carefully. “I’ve been so fucked in the head, I couldn’t get out of it. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Make it up to me?” Harry opened his eyes and looked up at him from under dark lashes.
“… Let me, kiss you.”
“Kiss me?” Harry squeaked.
“There you go repeating me again.”
“Oh!” Harry stepped back, crossing his arms over himself, looking guilty for holding Ron so closely. “But you haven’t got to make anything up to me - and not like that!”
“I do though! And I know that you really do want to be with me!”
Ron felt very mature about expressing his feelings, but Harry looked down and shrunk away a little more.
“I just wanted you better again,” Harry said. “I promised that I wouldn’t mention it … what happened. I didn’t do this because I wanted you to love me, honestly!”
“But, Harry I …” He advanced on Harry, prying a white knuckled hand from its grip on his crossed arm and held it. “I do love you. I always did.”
Harry gratefully leaned into Ron’s chest, he could feel Harry breath on his neck.
“Love me?”
He silently chuckled at the repeated word and was getting lightheaded at the intensity coming off of Harry in waves. But he nodded, caressing Harry’s hair with his cheek.
Harry opened his hands on Ron’s chest, sliding slowly upwards, up the back of his neck and into his hair. Harry nuzzled into Ron’s neck, pressing a small, cautious kiss against his pulse.
Then pressed another to his jaw.
Then pulled Ron’s face down and looked at his lips while he leaned in and kissed him.
It was full of feeling but so very gentle.
When Ron returned the kiss in earnest, something broke free in Harry, causing a desperate sounding moan and the tentative touch and kiss turned into clinging and an open mouthed demand.
“I love you!” Harry said fiercely, as if the words were a threat, kissing him again.
“I know,” Ron gasped, taking a breath. “I love you, too.”
He reveled in the feeling of Harry’s hands grasping at him, and Harry’s warm, strong mouth on his. How he boldly pressed his groin against Ron. He’d never felt somebody want and take of him with such passion.
“Wait, if I … if we, do this …” Harry stepped back, “this is it. No going back.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Ron said simply. It was no longer complicated for him.
Harry unclasped his robe and tore lose a button on his shirt as though it were choking him. He took off his glasses, rubbing a hand over his eyes and through his hair, making him look positively unhinged - and beautiful.
Ron didn’t speak a work, afraid of throwing Harry into further shock and he edged slowly onto Harry’s bed still unmade bed.
Harry took out his wand, concentrated, and cast an Expecto Patronum.
“Told George not to collect you and that we’d make it to Percy’s for dinner with everyone,” Harry explained in answer to Ron’s questioning look.
“You mean George and Hermione?”
“How did you know?”
Ron shrugged, figuring the full story could wait for another time.
“C’mere,” Ron urged, holding a hand out to him.
Harry looked down and seemed to consider for a moment, at odds with himself over this sudden turn of events, and then with a steadying breath, he kicked off his shoes and dropped his robe aside.
Ron got a fluttering in his belly when Harry looked at him, dark and meditative, as he stalked towards him on hands and knees across the bed.
Harry took his hand and they both stared down at their twined fingers.
“So, you wanna … talk or something?” Ron asked.
Harry’s solemn expression cracked for the first time and he chuckled which seemed to unstop a flood of emotion as he squeezed Ron’s hand, leaned down and kissed it and then flopped onto him.
They lay together kissing, getting off like a couple of teenagers, with Ron stroking up and down Harry’s back, eventually braving his hands to caress Harry’s arse, squeezing. Harry let out a breathy moan and arched into him, while Ron dragged his hand back up, catching the bare skin under Harry’s shirt.
They parted long enough to free their torsos of clothing and came together again, bare chests hot against each other in the cool air of the room.
Just when he thought he couldn’t bear the pressure in his constricted trousers any longer, Harry slid down his body, licking over his nipples while unzipping his trousers, freeing him at last.
Harry pushed his own pants past his thighs, lying over Ron to take both their cocks in his hand.
“Oh, happy, bloody Christmas!” Ron gasped. He opened his legs wider, letting Harry settle over him, half propped on one elbow and knee while he stroked them together.
“Didn’t think I’d get you at the end of my bed this morning,” Harry said, straining to achieve his goal, thrusting together. They both knew there’d be opportunity again. Time for romance and conversation, time for rolling around naked, on top and underneath, for sucking on, and sinking down from above, but right now there was just Harry’s hand holding them together.
Ron let the haunts of the past and fears of the future drift away and clung to Harry, tasting his skin in licks and bites and breathing in the smell of his freshly washed hair.
“Please …” Ron begged, of himself or of Harry he didn’t know.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t let me go …” Ron closed his eyes tightly and held Harry even tighter.
“I won’t.”
His whole body shuddered and came to a sudden, stiff halt. He flexed, his cock throbbing against Harry’s and came, spattering between them.
Harry let him go, stroking himself while Ron breathlessly kissed his head and stroked his hip, and then he let loose the sweetest hushed grunt into Ron’s neck when he came.
“We’ve got hours before we need to leave,” Ron said, eventually kicking off his tangled trousers. “Shall we get more comfortable?”
“Wait.” Harry straightened his glasses and sat up, gazing into Ron’s eyes with a worried expression. Then he smiled with relief at what he saw in them, leaning in for another kiss.
Yes, sense memory is always more powerful than conscious memory; a smell, sound, taste … a touch.
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