Brain Damage (2)

[magicicada]

Part two

~*~*~
You play against Slytherin in the first game of the season, and Malfoy slips right off his broom only minutes in and lands on the grass with an unpleasant squish. “He’s completely out of shape,” Harry says, laughing as he flies around you in circles, weaving in and out of the goal hoops so fast it makes your head spin just to watch. “He probably sat around all summer moaning about his father and eating nothing but jelly slugs.” And you don’t care why Malfoy fell, just that Harry’s smiling again and not just smiling but smiling at you and talking to you, and for a few seconds, you can let yourself think that everything is normal again, but those seconds pass as quick as any others, and Malfoy gets up again, and Malfoy plays harder and better than you’ve ever seen him play before or at least better than you can remember him playing. He has no songs for you and tries none of his tricks, which were never really clever anyway, but he’s faster than he was and more focused, and he glares at Harry as if he wishes nothing more than for him to drop dead.

You watch him catch the snitch twice- or nearly catch it, but he can never hold on long enough, and it slips easily away, so he tries a feint or a wild dive to detract Harry’s attention and wipes his hands frantically on his robes, and the game goes on, and the sun sets fast, and in the stands, wands are lit and magical lanterns are summoned and Hermione tries a spell that makes it as bright as a summer afternoon, but it doesn’t last long- no longer than the summer afternoons in your rushed memories, and the flashing makes you dizzy. So you turn your head up and look at the stars and watch the snitch dancing between them, but you know it’s not yours to catch, and Malfoy is too close for you to point it out to Harry, so you listen to the fading roar of the crowd and the nighttime sounds of the forest that grow louder with every passing minute, and you count the goals that are scored until too many of them are against you and then focus your attention back on keeping.

The game ends just after midnight and just before Madame Hooch would have called a break. Malfoy was just about to grab the snitch again when Harry darted in front of him and caught it without any struggle and darted again to easily avoid Malfoy trying to push him off his broom, and you laughed as you lowered your broom and as you put it with the others in the shed and as you joined Harry and Hermione on the walk back to the castle, and you kept laughing until Malfoy gave you an odd look that you think was trying to say something, but it was too dark out to tell what.

There is a party that night, and because it’s a weekend and because there was a late start to it, the celebrating lasts well into the next morning. While Harry’s passed out on the sofa after a few too many cups of pumpkin juice mixed with goblin vodka courtesy of Seamus Finnigan, you sneak the book on Occlumency out of his trunk and fall asleep halfway through the first paragraph, and when you wake up, Dean’s almost finished painting a mural of a lion clawing a snake to death on the common room wall and a few seventh years are setting off some of the twins’ fireworks.

You head towards the portrait hole with your bag and Harry’s book inside it, and you nearly trip over Ginny and Luna Lovegood, who are standing over a sleeping Neville and changing his hair color from pink to brighter pink, even though they seem to be trying for red. “Hello,” Luna says, turning to you, and she pauses with a dreamy look on her face and laughs behind her hands. “I was about to call you Ronald,” she whispers as if she’s imparting some great secret. “That would have been silly, wouldn’t it?”

“Why?”

She blinks, eyes going even rounder than before. “Well, you’re not anymore, are you?”

“Not what?” you ask, wondering how she even found her way to a Gryffindor party, but Ginny laughs and the boy behind her, who isn’t really there looks angry, and you think that might be a good thing.

“Not yourself, of course,” Luna says, putting her wand back behind her ear as Ginny manages to turn Neville’s hair as red as the carpet and begins sprinkling gold glitter over it.

“I was just leaving.”

“Oh,” she says. “Goodbye then.” They both wave, Ginny swaying a bit on her feet and trying to take another sip from an empty bottle of Ogden’s, and you tell yourself you should remember this if you ever need blackmail material on her, but you know there’s nothing you can do to stop it from slipping away, and you think that you and Malfoy might have the same problem, neither of you can hold on long enough to what you need to keep, and both of you end up falling.

You go to the library, and Malfoy’s there, because he always seems to be where you are and where you don’t want him, but he’s busily reading a book, titled The Flobber Worm Not a Worm at all: Magical Gastropods and Ceolomates, though you have no idea why, because your class has only been studying sphinxes in Care of Magical Creatures, and you’re as hopeless at solving their riddles as you are at everything else. You sit down at the table farthest from him, and you try to concentrate, but there are strange screams in your head and odd shapes in the clouds, outside, and the faint outline of Hermione is chatting excitedly with the Gray Lady just behind you.

You read the words, but none of them make any sense, and your eyes glaze over until you hear the first sentence of the page you’re on being read from just over your shoulder by a familiar, unwelcome voice. “There is magic in the secret, both in the keeping of your own and the finding of another’s. The Fidelius charm best uses these powers . . . and it goes on like this- should a Secret Keeper prove treacherous. . . the art of concealing your secrets and yourself . . . the hidden depths of the soul . . . Have any secrets, do you, Weasley?” You look up to see Malfoy sneering down at you, and you shrug. “What on earth are you reading?” he asks, bending over you to see the book’s title. “Advanced Occlumency and Legilimency- stole this from Potter, hmmm? I should have known someone so poor would take to thievery sooner or later.” His sneer turns to something that for him must be considered a smile, and you think that seeing things stolen from Harry probably would make him happy.

“What do you want, Malfoy?”

“To talk to you, actually.” He reaches out to grab your arm but pulls back fast. “Not here.”

You put Harry’s book away and head into the Applied Arithmancy section, hoping no one will find you there, and Malfoy follows, leaving a trail of ooze behind him.

“I want to show you something,” Malfoy whispers and pulls up the sleeve of his robe to reveal a rough picture of a skull and serpent on his arm.

You swallow hard and lean back into books behind you, and you want to laugh and tell him he’s so pathetic he can’t even get a decent looking Dark Mark, but all you say is, “Bloody hell.”

“I’ve been doing research,” he says. “Unlike you, I’ve actually been in here reading, looking a few things up. Professor Snape gave me a pass to the restricted section back in fifth year, and I still have it.”

“Congratulations.”

“Whatever did this to you is dark- really dark.” He waves a hand to indicate your arms and gives a brief shudder. “But it’s mentioned in some places- in the restricted section, the brains, I mean. Magic black as midnight, the books say. The human brain has an amazing ability to hold memories, but some are so bad a brain can only hold them when it’s no longer bound to a body.”

“Why are you telling me this?” you ask and point to his arm and his still rolled up robe sleeve. “Why are you showing me that?”

He takes a step back and leans against the rows of books opposite you. “Because you should know.”

“Know what?”

“That you won’t get better,” he says, swallowing hard and rubbing his hands on his robe. “That you’ll stay like this until you’re driven completely mad or until- until . . .”

“Until what?”

“Until it kills you,” Malfoy says, nearly whispering, and he doesn’t look as happy as you would expect.

You let more of your weight fall back against the bookshelves, because standing would make you dizzy, and you hope Malfoy can’t tell that your heart is beating faster and the tentacles are trying to push down further, through your muscles, and you take a deep breath. “Well, you’ve said that before.”

“I didn’t really think-” Malfoy begins, but you’re quick to stop him from finishing.

“What then? Were you just hoping?”

“They’re just going about it wrong,” he says, taking a short step towards you. “You’ll need something dark to remove it.”

You shake your head fast and find your wand in your pocket. “I’m not letting you-”

“I can’t,” he says, shaking his head along with yours, “not yet, anyway. That’s why I showed you. The Dark Lord he-”

“No, not Vol-Volde- not him. No bloody way.” You wonder if you should draw your wand on Malfoy, and you wonder if you should tell a professor about his mark or his offer, and you wonder if you should tell Harry about both as soon as you can, but you think of the way Harry smiled at you the day before and the way he couldn’t stop smiling after winning the match, and you don’t want to be the one to ruin that.

Malfoy keeps talking as if he hasn’t heard a word you’ve said or tried to say. “You don’t even have to mean it,” he whispers. “Just kiss his robe, say a few words, he’ll fix you up, and you can run back to Potter. He can even teach you that secret rubbish you were trying to read about so it won’t happen again.”

“No,” you say, louder than before. “No, I’m not stupid.”

“Yes, Weasley,” Malfoy says. “Yes, you really are. Your brain is turning to mush inside your very stupid head, and you’re refusing to do a thing about it.” Malfoy takes another step forward, and when he talks next, you can barely make out the words. “He can set you back to normal. You’ll be fine. You might even be able to get some inside information to help Potter off him.”

You shake your head and roll your eyes and tell yourself that Malfoy and his ideas and the strange things you see and think and feel will never be worth bothering Harry over. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“What other choice do you have, Weasley?” Malfoy rubs a pale, puffy hand over his Dark Mark, and looks at you as if he’s never seen anyone so stupid, and you think a bit of black comes off onto his finger, but that can’t be possible, and you know that your eyes can’t be trusted anymore, and he keeps talking as you turn to walk away. “What choice do I have?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s getting harder to concentrate and to pretend to concentrate and to pretend to pretend to concentrate, if that’s something you’ve ever done. You imagine it might be, but you can’t quite remember. Sometimes you think of warm fires and chocolate frogs and chess, and sometimes you think of battlefields and dark caves and black smoke rising fast, and the words of your professors echo in you head until they loose all meaning. You once thought there would be a chance if you could learn to tell the difference between your thoughts and the others, but you don’t know what’s real anymore, and you are too tired to even pretend to keep up a struggle, especially when Malfoy is the only one to notice. You think of him and the things he said, and you think of his Dark Mark and the strange, slimy stains that were left on your robe and your shirt where he touched you, but the house elves washed them away easy enough, so you can’t be sure they were ever there, not really.

You follow Harry when he slips out of bed at night, and you know he at least must be real, because you don’t have it in you to think up something as bright as he is, but he gets away from you quickly, even if he never notices you there behind him, and you’re caught quickly by Filch and Mrs. Norris and three ghosts who may or may not really be dead. You get detention, but it’s with Professor Sprout, this time, and when you pass out and start coughing up blood, she thinks you’re having an allergic reaction to the Itch Weed you were supposed to be repotting and sends you to the hospital wing.

You pass Neville on his way into the greenhouse, and you wonder when his hair turned red and if he might not be himself anymore either, but he just gives you a concerned look and holds the door open for you as you leave, and if he’s any different, it’s not because of anything new inside him, just something he didn’t realize was there before. “You okay, Ron?” he asks, and you try to nod but don’t quite manage it and keep walking towards the castle.

“You’re jealous of him,” Malfoy, says slipping up beside you from some dark corner or from behind some damp and dingy tapestry. “I know you get jealous of him.”

You know he’s talking about Harry, even if you don’t know where in the castle you are or whether it’s morning or night or how to spell your own name, you know Malfoy’s voice, and you know he’s talking about Harry. “No,” you say. “I’m not jealous- no, that’s you.”

“No, that’s everyone.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and slides along the floor on the soles of his feet.

“Leave me alone,” you say. “I have to get to the bloody hospital wing.”

“Well, you’re going the wrong way.” Malfoy’s walking slowly, and you think that if you pick up your pace just a bit you could lose him easily enough, but you don’t.

“Is it getting better?” he asks, giving you an odd look and slowing down even more.

“I have to get to the hospital wing.”

“Yeah, you said that.” Malfoy’s acting strange and sluggish, and you wonder if he’s just walking slow to annoy you or if there might be something wrong with him, and you wonder if that’s why he thinks about Harry or why he’s jealous, but the tentacles twist under your arms, and the pressure on your head increases, and you remind yourself that you don’t care.

“I’m not taking some Death Eater cure.”

“It’s not a Death Eater cure,” Malfoy says. “It’s a cure that will work.”

You keep walking, and he stays beside you, even when you speed up just a bit. “I won’t do it. I won’t- no matter what, you understand! Harry’s more important than any of that!”

“More important than your life?” he asks with a sneer that drips with scorn and sarcasm and something that looks like slime. “You’re talking like you’re in love with him. You are, though, aren’t you? You always have been- in a way.”

“Shut up!”

“In a way he doesn’t even care about- a way he hardly even notices. Do you really think he realizes you’re there when you follow him around like you do?”

“Of course,” you say, without thinking, because thinking hurts, and talking hurts, and listening to Malfoy hurts worse than anything else, but that doesn’t mean what he says is true. “Of course he notices me.”

“Then why doesn’t he wait for you when you slow him down? Why does he never look at you and always partner with that cow Granger? Why did he leave you to the brains? You remember that. I know you remember that,” he says, wincing and shuddering and showing that he remembers well enough for the both of you. “He did this. Potter did this to you.”

The tentacles move faster, and you want to let yourself fall and let yourself rest, but you can’t, so you swallow hard, and you glare harder at Malfoy’s stupid, slimy face. “Shut up!”

“Do you think he’d want you dead?” Malfoy asks, and his voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s angry- it’s as angry as you’ve ever heard it, and he stops walking, and you stop walking, and his sneer falls away. “Even if he never realized anything else, do you think he’d want you dead? He’d blame himself- you know that, don’t you? He’d be completely useless at everything, and he would make a huge deal of it like it was all his fault, which it would be, really- which it is, but he’d want everyone to convince him it wasn’t, and no one would even care that you were dead or they’d be mad at you because it upset their precious boy-who-lived. Do you want that, Weasley?”

“I want you to leave me alone,” you say, starting to walk again as fast as you can despite the pain and all the dizziness. “I need to get to the hospital wing.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” Malfoy calls from where he still stands unmoving, but that doesn’t matter, because you only walk far enough down the hall so that you’re out of his sight, and then you let yourself fall back against the stone wall and slowly slide down it. The wind is blowing hard against the castle, and some Ravenclaws have snuck into the library to get in a few extra hours of studying, and you can hear their quills scratching against parchment and pages being turned fast, and high above in the headmaster’s office, Dumbledore’s phoenix sings but not for you.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

You lay on the ground with your back to the wall, and you start to laugh, and then you start to cough, and then blood starts to spill out of your mouth and down the front of your robes. You don’t know where you are in the castle. It’s dark, and there are no torches lit along the walls, and if Malfoy was right about anything, it’s that you’re as far from the hospital wing as you can get. Crookshanks comes and stands by you for a while and then leaves to chase away a rat that started to nibble at your ear. You watch the shadows lengthen until you can see nothing but black, and then you close your eyes and slide the rest of the way down the wall, because that won’t make you see any less and because you’re tired.

You feel a rush of air as Harry walks by, and you catch a glimpse of his trainers beneath his invisibility cloak, but you didn’t need to see anything or even open your eyes to know it was him. You can tell by the change in the air and the way he shines and the red after-burn streaks running across your vision, even when the hallway stays black as a starless sky. You know it’s him- you know, because a part of you knew Harry before you ever met, and because a part of you will always know, even when all else is forgotten, but he doesn’t notice you, and it’s so dark, and it’s so cold with your face pressed against the floor, and you want to scream for him to look at you and to see you and to prove what Malfoy said wrong once and for all, but you don’t, and he doesn’t- he doesn’t stop or slow his pace or glance down even for a second- he just keeps walking, and you laugh, because you don’t know what else to do.

Cedric walks by afterwards with his wand lit in front of him and his prefect pin gleaming solid and bright on the front of his robes. He has a smile on his stupid, perfect face that speaks of duty and pride and impossible hope. “She doesn’t even see you!” you scream, pushing yourself up on your elbows, but the words are lost amidst the wet, garbled sound of blood rising in your throat, and you start to laugh at the stupid, perfect, confused look he gives you. “Chang, I mean,” you choke out, still laughing. “Bloody hell, she doesn’t even know you're there!” And he smiles, and he shrugs, and for a second, his eyes look as dead as he really is, but the seconds fly by as fast as the days, and he squares his shoulders and sticks out his chin, and his smile weakens a bit but manages to look more sincere for it, and then he shrugs again, because maybe that wasn’t ever the point. Maybe Harry doesn’t need to look to know you’re there, or maybe he doesn’t need to know at all, because you know, and that’s all that matters, but you don’t think that’s enough anymore, and you think Cedric might understand that better than anyone. He stands there and watches with you as ghosts drift through the walls, and by the light of his wand, you see the silent, fanatic movements in the portraits of furtive nighttime dealings and of the painted people struggling to rouse themselves from bad dreams, and he gives you a sad sort of nod before walking away.

You don’t remember falling asleep, but you remember the hours that passed before you managed to, and you remember waking up when you felt something dripping down from somewhere just above you, but that just made you roll over and close your eyes against the faint daylight pouring in from a nearby window, and you stay like that until you hear a familiar, disgusted voice that you know from an imprint made when your mind was first changed and the part that remained your own was strong enough to hold whatever it found real, no matter how it tried to slip away. “Ug, Weasley, did you sleep here all night?”

“Well,” you say, blinking up at Malfoy, and for a second, he looks like he might offer you a hand up but then wipes it hard against his robes as if even the thought of touching you is enough to make it dirty. “Well, I didn’t sleep much.”

“Hmmm,” you hear him murmur. “Well, I suppose even a floor is better than that weasel hole you live in. I say, can you even afford beds there?”

“I’ll do it,” you say, without raising your head from the floor, and your voice is broken, and your mouth tastes like blood. “I’ll do it.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Weasel?”

“You know what,” you say with a laugh that tears at you throat and rouses the tentacles under your skin.

“I-” Malfoy begins, still confused, and you roll over just a bit so you can see him better.

“I’ll do- I’ll do what we were talking about earlier.”

His eyes go wide, and his mouth falls open, and his pale face goes just a bit paler. “You will?” he says a few moments later. “Of course you will- Potter would have wanted- he can’t blame you-”

“No,” you whisper, because your voice is fading and because you’re afraid someone else might hear you and because you have to be honest with yourself about this much, at least, “not for him.”

“What?”

“I’ll do it, Malfoy,” you say, trying to use the wall to prop yourself up. “Not for him, I . . .”

“Your mouth,” Malfoy says, wrinkling his nose and narrowing his eyes. “Are you bleeding?”

“No . . . maybe . . . yes-” you say before cutting yourself off with another fit of coughs, and you can hear the fabric of your robe sleeves shift as the tentacles move under your skin.

“Oh hell, Weasel,” Malfoy says, taking a step back and shaking his head so fast that drops of something wet fall across the floor.

“Is that you dripping?” you ask, blinking again and thinking that he looks like he’s covered in slime and that he might have looked this way before. “Are you wet?”

“It hurts at first,” he says fast, face turning slightly pink. “I mean, I hear it hurts at first- no, it does, I mean. It hurts a lot.”

“What? You hear . . .” you begin to question, but then you shake your head and rub your arms and swallow whatever it is that rises in your throat. “It couldn’t hurt any more than this.”

You don’t know how long you stay there on the floor or how many days rush past until Malfoy finds you again and starts asking you if you’re sure, and you think, just for a second, that he might want you to say no, and he might never have expected you to say yes. But you just sigh and nod, and when he asks again minutes or hours or days later, you do the same. For all the ways time’s speeding beyond your reach, nothing’s really changed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Winter comes with all its furious, cold winds and delicate frost paintings left on every stone and window, and it’s snowing on the night Malfoy finds you alone in the hallway and puts a portkey in your hand in the shape of a tiny, sea-green button, whispering something that could be an apology and could be advice, and you can hear the giant squid moving beneath the lake’s frozen surface and the Whomping Willow shaking the ice from it’s branches and a hundred fires crackling in a hundred different rooms, but you can’t make out a single word he says over the screaming of your thoughts as you’re yanked away.

Wherever you land, you can hardly see a thing, but the floor is carpeted, and the air is warmer than you’re used to, and you can make out glowing lanterns hanging high overhead and flash of silver in the dark and a soft, nervous voice. “Draco- Draco, have you come?”

“I’m not-” you begin before hearing Malfoy crash down behind you and struggle to get up.

“Here I am,” he says.

“Good,” the voice says with a shaky sigh. “Good- very good. He will be pleased.” And it’s a voice you think you’ve heard before or maybe one you would know without ever hearing- twitchy and tentative but so accustomed to fear that it’s learned to turn terrible things to comfort and grown used to dark places. Beside you, Malfoy mumbles the beginning of a Lumos spell, but you put your hand over his wand to stifle it and push it down to his side, trying to ignore the strange wetness of his hand.

“I- I know who you are,” you whisper.

“Another one,” the voice says. “Yes- yes, it’s only natural. They tell you that you should die for them- they say it like your life means nothing compared to theirs. And they tell you they would do the same for you, but you know that’s not true, and you never expected they would anyway. You never expect anything from them after being disappointed, because they’ve always looked at you as a step below- less money, fewer brains, hardly worth an thing compared to them. And they never see that you make up for it by giving everything you have, when there’s so much they’ll always hold back. I know who you are too, Ron- Master.”

“Scabbers,” you say with a short nod.

“Yes,” you hear the voice- Scabbers’ voice whisper. “You are on my side, Ron, even if you didn’t realize it then.”

“You know Wormtail?” Malfoy asks, taking a deep breath. “How do you-”

“I would do anything for Harry,” you say as Malfoy’s voice dies on his lips, and the tentacles crack down like whips against your muscles, and the pain in your head grows steadily worse, and you know it’s true. You know you would follow him anywhere, even though you also know that he goes with his destiny and all the magic woven into it stronger than anything you could understand and with all the extra knowledge he was considered worthy of, and you go only as yourself, trusting in something, some magic that you can't look at or hear or feel to see you through, and you think maybe that’s what you trust in now, and maybe that’s why you’re not as afraid as Malfoy and Scabbers seem to be, or maybe you don’t trust anything anymore, and you’re really as off as everyone who notices seems to think.

“Yes,” Scabers says, and you imagine him flinching and his whiskers giving a nervous twitch, “yes, but you’re here now, and what is there to gain be refusing?

“Not much,” Malfoy says, and you hear him breathing fast and wiping his hands on his robes.

“Not much,” you echo, “but there’s a whole bloody lot to lose in saying no.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Scabbers whispers. “What is it that you’re so frightened of losing?”

Myself, you think. I don’t want to lose myself, and you think about the brains and the Occlumency you were never taught and being left behind over and over again, but you say, “Harry, I can’t lose Harry.”

“Weasley-” Malfoy begins, but he never finishes. Whatever he was thinking is interrupted by awkward, shuffling footsteps and the loud creak of a door being opened.

“Scabbers!” you say, as you follow him outside into a night brighter than the room you’re leaving. “Scabbers, you’ve become a man!” And your mum taught you not to be rude, so you don’t tell him that he looked a lot better as a rat.

It all passes in a blur, and for once, you’re glad at how fast time slips away from you. You kneel in the snow and Malfoy kneels beside you, and your surprise lasts only for a second, and there are robes kissed and words said and promises made. Sparks rise from the wands of all in the black-robed circle around you, and the Dark Lord whispers a curse that makes you hurt worse than you ever have before and worse than you think you could ever hurt again, but it ends soon enough, and you stare at the Dark Lord- at Voldemort, dull and dim against the night, thinking, you’re nothing- compared to Harry, you’re nothing, and you think maybe you say it out loud because he turns his wand away from Malfoy and back to you.

“The- the boy doesn’t know what he says!” you hear Scabbers shout, and you know you did mean it. You know you can see better and think better here than you have in a long time, and the look Scabbers gives you from behind his white mask with his very human eyes tells you he knows this, too. “My Lord,” he continues. “Young Ron is confused. Remember how useful he can be. You are just so great- your curse is so powerful that-”

“No,” Voldemort hisses, pressing his wand to your neck, and you mumble a soft goodbye to the snow beneath you and the stars above and Harry, wherever he is, just incase. “No,” Voldemort says again, sounding a bit less like a snake. “He was confused long before. Show me you arm, boy.” You pull up your left sleeve, because you know that’s the arm he was speaking of, and you pull back the bandages that cover the crisscrossing burns and scars and ugly black sores edged in traces of new blood and the strange, ropey tentacles moving fast under your skin, and the sparks rise again, this time followed by stifled gasps and a few exclamations of shock. “The other is the same?” he asks, and you nod.

“It’s worse,” Malfoy whispers, scared and shaking beside you. “Oh hell, it’s worse.” And Voldemort withdraws his wand and gives him a look of loathing and turns himself to give the same look to all his followers before fixing his red eyes on you once more.

“My mark will not be put upon something so disgusting,” he says with a wave of his hand, and you think you hear Malfoy breathe a short sigh of relief, but it’s swallowed quickly as Voldemort puts his wand to each of your arms whispering concealments and glamour charms, slowly making each of your scars and sores disappear from sight with a shock of pain, but they don’t heal, you know that, even if you can’t see them, and you can feel that the tentacles are still moving, even if they’re hidden. When he vanishes the final purple-green bruise, Voldemort shouts, “Morsmordre!” And you watch as the image of a skull and serpent blooms across your skin. Then he turns to Malfoy and does the same.

You’ve heard that Cruciatus could make people insane afterwards, and it did hurt. It hurt so much it made your arms feel like they had just a dull ache in comparison, but now you feel better than you can ever remember feeling, and you look at Malfoy as he cradles his arm and shivers and bites his bottom lip to keep from screaming, and you keep watching him as sparks rise again and more words are spoken and the sharp pops of disapparation erupt all around you, shattering the silence and the stillness of the night. “Ron,” you hear Scabbers’ voice say as a cold, trembling hand squeezes your shoulder. “He- he doesn’t know- he doesn’t know how you really feel. B-but you- you must be careful what you say.”

“Yeah,” you say, glancing up at him as he rubs his grubby human hand through his grubby hair.

“I- I’ll keep your secret, Ron- Master- I promise. I promise I will.”

“Don’t believe him,” Malfoy hisses. “I know you’re stupid, Weasel, but don’t you dare believe that turncoat.”

You don’t turn back to look at Malfoy, but you nod to Scabbers and give him a pat on his silver hand, because he was a good rat once, and your knees are still frozen and soaked from the melting snow, and you don’t think you could manage to stand, even if you tried, and Malfoy keeps talking, but you don’t listen to him. “Okay,” you say, and Scabbers’ eyes water as if he’s very happy or very sad. “Okay good.” He nods once, and when you blink, all that’s left of him are a few clumps of grubby fur and tiny footprints in the snow.

“Well that was stupid,” Malfoy says, “not that I’m surprised. Everyone knows Wormtail is a liar and-”

“A liar like you are, you mean?” you say, cutting him off and glaring down at the sharp, black mark on his arm. “So you weren’t really . . . when you said . . . How?”

“I-I drew it- with a quill. I drew it on.”

“What?” you ask, but you don’t know if he can hear you, because a dry wind steals your breath away and leaves your mouth tasting like new snow and old blood and hopelessness.

“I had to,” he says. “I would have had to do this anyway- because of my father, he was- I would have had to anyway. I just did a little earlier than they expected.” He takes a deep breath and rubs a handful of snow over his mark as if that might be enough to erase it or at least ease the pain, but it only leaves his skin a blotched, angry red.

“Why? Is this because of Harry?”

“No- yes. It’s because you’re what I was jealous of. You, Weasley, not that he’s famous or Dumbledore’s pet or better than me- better than everyone at everything that matters. I was jealous that he could have someone so stupidly loyal- someone who would do anything for him- die for him. I wanted that.” He tries to wipe the snow off his arm and lowers his sleeve, but from his wince and pained gasp, you don’t think that it makes anything better. “I lost my father,” he says. “I lost my father because of him- because of Potter, and because of Potter’s friends and his stupid club I- and you lost something too. But I can’t break my father out of Azkaban, and I can’t put myself back to normal- so I . . .”

You blink. Malfoy talking about his father hardly surprises you, but he was talking about something else too, something that didn’t quite come together or maybe something that he didn’t want you to know. You sigh, and you wonder if whatever brief clarity you had is leaving you. “Well,” you say, “now we’ve both sworn our loyalty to Vo- Volde- to the Dark Lord.”

“I know,” he whispers, “but Potter didn’t even care. You were going crazy- you were going crazy, and I didn’t want you to have to go alone.”

“You think Vo-Vol- the Dark Lord cares?”

“It’ll be okay,” Malfoy says, wringing his puffy hands together as if he’s really trying to squeeze something out of them, and for a second, you think he actually does.

“No,” you say. “No, it won’t.”

“Yeah.” Malfoy sighs and wipes his hands hard against his robes. “Yeah, I guess not. I guess I messed up.”

What’s wrong?” you ask, and he looks down at your arms as if he can see through your cloak and your robes and your shirt and through the glamour charms and concealment spells the Dark Lord put over them, and he winces.

“This was all a mistake,” he says. “I thought he would make you better.”

“He didn’t,” you say, and he winces again.

“I know. I messed up, and now you’re going to get killed because of me.”

“No Malfoy,” you say, shaking your head. “Why would I get killed?”

“When you try to get out he’ll-”

“Why would I try to get out?”

“You’re joking,” Malfoy says, but he knows you’re not, and you stay there, kneeling in the snow beside him without speaking until his watch gives an odd series of beeps and he presses another button, a black one this time, into your hands, and you feel the familiar tug and the familiar dizziness and an entirely new feeling of sick apprehension, and then you feel stone beneath you and hear Malfoy land a few feet away.

“Sod off,” you say to him, but he only sneers and leans his back against the wall and closes his eyes. Eventually you close your eyes too, and when you wake up with him asleep next to you, you think of pretending to be disgusted and asking if he slept there all night, and you think of going straight to Harry or Hermione or even Dumbledore and telling them everything, but instead you struggle to stand up, and you kick Malfoy hard in the stomach, and you keep walking as he shouts and complains, and the tentacles twist invisibly under you skin, and your head aches worse than it ever has before, and you laugh.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There are meetings you go to now and chants to memorize that leave a sour taste in your mouth. Your life has become a strange dream, and all your dreams have become nightmares, and you can’t scream, because Harry’s the only one who’s allowed to scream, the only one who has nightmares that really matter, and he tells you this over and over again when you wake him up and pull him back from whatever it was that made him thrash about helplessly. He tells you how lucky you are you not to have Voldemort in your head, and you just nod and listen, and for a few short moments, you can think of yourself as the hero, as saving Harry from whatever horrors his sleeping mind can’t protect against, but then you look down at your arm with the Dark Mark, burning and black and the invisible tentacles underneath, coiling and constricting, and you don’t know what you are anymore.

And you never tell Harry that what’s in your head is far worse than what’s in his. Because he knows that the Dark Lord is evil and that he’s not, and he knows how very separate they are, and you search for a way to find where you end and the strange memories begin, but it’s too hard now, everything’s been going on too long, and you’re too tired to fight the way you did in the beginning. So you smile down at Harry through the building pain in your head, and you tell him to go back to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scabbers dies. He was caught in a rat trap, Malfoy says with a sharp laugh, but you know it was really an ambush of Aurors, and Malfoy keeps wincing and shuddering and talking about him like he was just a rat, but you know that he was a person too, and you know that he kept your secret, and you’re not really sure who Malfoy’s trying to fool. It makes Harry happy, though, and that makes you happy until you start to think of the bald man with the watery eyes, who looked at you like he understood when no one else did, and after that you start to think that maybe Harry being happy shouldn’t make you happy anymore, because things are different now.

“He deserved it,” Harry says when he notices your frown from across the table, and you’re glad that he’s eating breakfast with everyone else again, and you’re upset that it took him so long, and you’re confused and dizzy and tired. “He deserved it for betraying them. I hope it hurt.”

“I’m sure it did,” you say, suppressing a shiver, and you think you can feel something moving by your feet and hear soft scratches against the stone floor, but across the hall, Crabbe slips on something and drops all the plates of pastries and sausages he was carrying, and you can hear nothing but the clattering of silverware and the breaking of glass and the scraping of china on stone, and when Goyle tries to help him salvage a few Danishes, they both fall onto the floor and somehow end up dragging Malfoy down with them.

The great hall erupts with laughter, and you think this might be one of the times you really should be laughing, but instead you try to hear the faint noises you may have only imagined. The owls come with the post and with the Daily Prophets that everyone seems to follow so closely, and the owls leave, hooting and squawking after they’ve had their fill of toast crusts and muffin stumps. Neville’s rememberall lights up, humming, and an odd alarm on Luna’s even odder watch goes off, playing last year’s sorting song, and Hermione and Harry start to talk about their new defense assignments, and you listen and listen and strain your ears to keep listening.

“Are you okay, Ron?” Harry asks out loud and Hermione asks with the concerned look she gives. “Is everything okay?”

You nod and sigh and take a deep breath, looking down through the table to your too-small, second-hand shoes and the old rat with the missing front claw that scurries across the floor and tries to climb up the leg of your trousers, and you pick it up and set it on the table and let it eat off your plate, but no one seems to notice. “There you go,” you whisper, and Malfoy winces and shudders from across the room as he watches you pouring salt over your eggs.

“Are you talking to yourself?” Hermione asks, looking from you to Ginny, who shrugs like it doesn’t really matter and goes back to doing the Quibbler crossword, because no one can grow up in a house like the Burrow without getting a little funny in the head.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Harry says, narrowing his eyes. “I’ve been worried about you all year.”

“You’ve got more important things to worry about than me, mate,” you say, and you wonder if he notices how your voice breaks or how you can’t meet his eyes, and when you look down at your plate, the rat is gone and the eggs are uneaten.

“What?” Harry asks. “What’s more important? Voldemort?”

You bite your lip and try not to shudder, and the tentacles beneath your Dark Mark coil tighter. “Don’t say his name.”

“Why? Why shouldn’t I? What does Voldemort matter?” Harry rakes a hand through his hair and plants his elbows firmly on the table. “I can’t let him mean anything, because he doesn’t- not compared to you- not compared to what’s really important, and that’s what I was doing. I know something’s been off with you- it has been all year, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to make everything worse, because that’s what I do, isn’t it? I always make everything worse.” You shake your head, but he doesn’t notice, and your head hurts, and your arms hurt, and the world before your eyes is fading to black, but you keep looking at Harry, and the noises of the great hall- the excited shouts and enthusiastic declarations fade to nothing against the sound of Harry’s whispers. “I do and- and I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine,” you say, but you’re not sure if he’s listening or if you’re even loud enough for him to hear. You can think of the Dark Lord by his name sometimes, but only when your mind is clear enough of fear and second guesses and all other clutter- only when he stands over you and you can see just what he really is.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says “I’m sorry, because whatever’s wrong is probably my fault, and I don’t want to rush in- I didn’t, because that always destroys things, and I don’t want to ignore you, and I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Harry.”

He shakes his head, fast and firm. “Something’s always wrong.”

You force a weak smile, and the twisting of the tentacles slows, and the pain in your head eases. “It doesn’t matter.” You’re quick to leave after that. Harry’s looking at you, and he’s much too close, and you don’t want to think about what he might find if he keeps looking, but you make sure your smile stays in place, no matter how it starts hurting and no matter how it feels like lying, and you don’t let it fall until the doors of the great hall swing shut behind you.

You hear the door open again only seconds later, and you hear a voice, strained and scared and shaking, just as it was the first time you can remember hearing it. “I messed up,” Malfoy says, catching up to you as you walk towards the towers, and you’ve had this conversation with him a hundred times before.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, just as you always have.

“This was all a mistake. I thought he would make you better.”

“He didn’t.”

“I know. I messed up, and now you’re going to get killed because of me.”

“No Malfoy,” you say, but you can’t shake your head the way you once did- the way Harry did just moments ago. You can’t be that sure. “Why would I get killed?” you ask, and you already know how he’ll answer.

“When you try to get out he’ll-”

“Why would I try to get out?”

“You’re joking,” Malfoy says again, and again you shake your head, and again you falter. “You’re joking. You have to be joking.” But this isn’t a joke, not even the twins’ pranks have went on as long, and even the worst of them were funnier, but you laugh anyway. Your laughter is cracked and shaky and makes your throat hurt terribly, and you can’t stop, even after you’ve forgotten why you began laughing in the first place, and Malfoy looks concerned and shakes his head and gives a half-defeated sigh, and you hear an odd wet sound as he rubs a hand across his forehead, and you hear wing-beats in the owlery and the creaking of stairways moving above you and the click of a door being opened.

“Ron?” you hear another voice say- Harry’s voice. “Ron, you left, and I . . .” You turn and you look at Harry and Hermione, standing just a few feet away “Ron, what are you laughing at? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” you say, swallowing your laughter fast and swallowing the blood that rises in your throat. “Nothing’s funny.” You rush back to Gryffindor tower faster than they can follow you, and you breathe deep, trying to slow the racing of your thoughts and the beating of your heart. You don’t go to any classes that day or the next, and when you begin going again, you don’t pay attention, but the professors don’t seem to notice. Harry looks at you more often now, as if he’s trying to ask what’s wrong but can’t find the words, but you shrug, and you smile, and you laugh when you can manage it, and eventually he looks away.

In the hallways, Malfoy slips in front of you or slides up behind or walks slowly at your side and tells you that he messed up and waits until you ask him what’s wrong, and it always goes the same way. The days are still dark, and they pass all in a rush of white masks and black robes and snow falling fast and a thousand concerned glances in your direction. At night, you dream of horrible things- of rats and blood and secrets and songs you’ve heard long ago and can hardly remember and of Harry- always of Harry.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Part three