Fic: A Free World (The Lies in the World Remix) [Harry Potter; Ron; R]
Title: A Free World (The Lies in the World Remix)
Author: fryadvocate
Summary: This isn't a just war.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character(s): Ron, Hermione, Harry, Zacharias
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Rowling's, not mine
Original story: A Free World by marseverlasting
Notes: Thanks to my beta antheia, who's a miracle.
War left a taste in Ron's mouth like water gone stale.
The day after they arrived at the hideout, someone had poisoned their water, a nasty hex that Hermione was untangling with books and botched solutions. Two people had already gone crazy, drinking from the well, laughing even as the water melted through their throats, exposing raw, rotten flesh to the air.
The rest of them drank from the water they had, saving each drop. They couldn't move until they were sure the front was clear, they couldn't retreat because there was nowhere to retreat to.
It rained in Scotland the year of the war. It rained and rained and rained and Ron would sit at his post and wish he was at home. He wished that he was a child again before Ginny, when he was the youngest. He wished that his mother was darning socks and yelling at the twins.
He retched violently onto the ground.
There were six of them left in the unit: him, Zach Smith, Ben Knight, Hermione, Tim Jones, and Harry. Always Harry.
Jones came to relieve him while he was covering the bile with dirt, his hand dark with soil and his wand tucked up his sleeve.
"You want to see something?" Jones was a Ravenclaw, his eyes sparking bright when Hermione suggested new ideas. He had a girlfriend who was a Hufflepuff and who owled him packages with useless things in them. Chocolate frogs and ugly socks. Jones said he wanted to marry her, that they'd get a flat in Muggle London and he'd do something with numbers and she'd get pregnant and pop out babies.
Her picture always looked worried for him, her hand up like she was trying to reach through it to him. She'd bite her lip and then smile bravely once before it started over again.
"Sure," Ron said. He spit on the ground.
Reaching into his robes, Jones pulled out a small uneven piece of something brown. It was stiff and when Ron reached out to touch it he found it was textured oddly, like badly stretched hide. It smelled rank - a rotten, sweet scent, overwhelming.
Frowning, Ron turned it over in his hand, confused. When he held it up, closer to his face, he realized what it was. The skull and snake were still on the piece of skin, lifeless without anyone to call to their master.
Wordless, he handed it back, watched it disappear back into Jones's robes.
"Scraped it off that cocky bastard we did in a few days ago. You know any better tanning spells? This one's gone to hell on me."
Shaking his head, Ron said, "'could ask Hermione."
"Naw, that bird doesn't seem like she'd be into it much. More worried about the water, yeah?" Jones reached into his robes and Ron imagined him stroking the piece of Deatheater skin, rubbing the rough edges with his thumb like it was his girlfriend's picture.
Bile rose in his throat again and he choked it down.
"I'm off," Ron said. He had a piece of a sweater that his mother had knitted before she was called away by the Order. He'd fought Fred for it, ending up with half a sleeve while Fred wore the body of the sweater under his robes.
The house they were using for shelter had been used before. The widows were blown out from some previous battle, the door hung off its hinges. Harry sat inside on the stairs, his glasses crooked and cracked.
"Who's with the prisoners?" Ron asked.
For a second, there was a blankness to Harry's eyes. Then he wet his lips and said, "Knight."
Ron sat next to him and poked his wand into a mess of charred papers at the bottom step. It was a book, but he could only tell by the binding. The house shifted and upstairs he heard crying.
There wasn't enough water for the prisoners, but they managed, rationing smaller amounts.
The next day, Hermione would say that she had fixed the hex and Ron would carry up a bowl of water to the tied Deatheaters and pour it down their throats, then wait to see if they died.
*****
When he got home to the Burrow, he was filthy: they'd been in the field for two weeks. Two weeks of walking through deserted villages, rooting for the Deatheaters' hideout.
His foot had been healed when they'd talked to Lupin, the mediwitch tsking at his broken ankle. He'd had to pause when she set the bones right. Compared to some of the basic healing spells they used in the field, a real mediwitch setting it together the way it was supposed to be was almost an extravagance.
No one was home and so he set about looking for his own food and making his own tea. The kettle was just screaming when he opened the letter that Lupin had pressed into his hand, one for him, one for Hermione, one for Harry. It was the look in Lupin's eyes that made Ron pause before tearing it open in front of him.
"The ministry," Lupin had said. "Has made some regrettable decisions recently."
There hadn't been time for more than that, because then someone else had needed his attention and Hermione didn't even look at him before Apparating out. Harry had at least said, "See you, Ron."
The sound of bone crunching sang in his ears like the sound of laughter used to.
She'd forgive him, he knew that like he knew that they'd be together until the end of it all.
News wasn't good when they got back: Ernie was dead, Hannah was insane, Neville was missing. It was a laundry list of things that Ron knew too much about. When he said it all in one long paragraph, like he was reading, Justin looked down at his hands.
"Things aren't so good, are they, Ron?" Justin's voice was soft, and other conversations murmured through the walls.
The mediwitch had put her palm to the bottom of Ron's foot and rotated his ankle. It was healed and she nodded at Ron before packing her stuff.
"They killed those Deatheaters, the ones we've had a few months. Said their information had gone bad." Justin stayed and held down the fort in Hogwarts. He'd grown up a lot in a few years and Ron struggled to see the boy he used to know.
War tasted like stale water in the back of Ron's throat, even when bile hit him so hard he had to swallow twice to keep it down.
"No trial?"
"Said there wasn't anyone to try them in front of," Justin coughed, pitifully.
"Things've gone pretty bad," Ron agreed.
Justin stood up and said, "Don't forget your letter."
Later, the tea steeping, Ron turned the letter over again in his hands, then opened it swiftly, the wax cracking as he broke it.
It said that because of the war, the illegal status of Unforgivable curses was being temporarily suspended for members of the Order who were being specifically given permission. Ron's name was third from last, set at the beginning of the three people he knew the letter was written for.
...Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Harry Potter.
Always Harry.
He'd let the tea steep too long and took a bitter swallow of it, imagining that by the time he'd said the curse, it was already legal for him to use it. The Order didn't need another Deatheater lackey anyway, their jails were full, their veritaserum was drawn dry.
What new news could there be from people who moved quickly to new hiding spots, from people whose leader was more than insane.
He tripped when he heard the knock on the door, his feet clumsily trying to get him into cover, under the counter, around a corner, somewhere safe. The tea tipped over in his desperation and he felt it drip warm onto his shoulder where he sat on the ground.
Finally, a long time after, he stood up and went to the door, trying to dry his shirt with a kitchen towel.
It was Hermione, her hair damp and her cheeks flushed.
"You blocked the floo," she said.
"Mum did a while ago." He held the towel on his shoulder and asked, "What happened?"
"Your dad-" it wasn't even out of her mouth all the way, like a curse he'd said a day ago. He yanked his robe up off the floor where he'd dropped it and pulled out his wand, one arm in his robe, the other ready to Apparate.
"Where?" he asked, breathless.
She was crying a little, tears on her cheeks, "They said no one'd told you."
"Where?"
Together they Apparated to Hogwarts, but Arthur Weasley was already dead.
*****
When the real killing started, Ron began to wonder if there would be a single wizard left when the war was over. It was a small battle, maybe ten on each side when it began. Two sides, one field.
Ken Macarthur died choking on his own vomit, Ben Knight lost an arm, Tim Jones was bleeding down the side of his face. Penelope was on her hands and knees, looking for her tongue, spitting blood every time she tried to speak. Burns was checking for Deatheater survivors and killing the ones he found. Every time he found a new one, he'd make a little tic mark on a sheet of paper that he kept in his pocket. There was a fingerprint of dried blood in the corner of it and no one asked about it. No one cared.
Sam looked fine, but he was holding his wand between his hands like he wanted to snap it. Beside him, Carol was talking softly. Ron didn't need to listen to know what she was saying.
This is a good war. This is a just war. They want to kill us, they want to kill everyone who isn't like them and we're saving the world.
Carol was nice enough, but she was crazier than a bat if she still believed that. Maybe she just said it, though, because she was good during the nights, when it was cold and raining and everyone could ignore the sounds of comfort. Sam was in good hands, Ron thought.
Hermione had a flame up, a lit kerosene lamp. She reported the situation to Justin. Behind her, Harry rubbed at his scar and spoke quietly to himself.
Ron knelt down next to Penelope, said, "Where'd you lose it?"
She pointed to the ground and he started looking, shoving over Deatheater bodies. His hands slipped against their cloaks and he thought how nice it would to be to have one of those thick warm ones, so he helped himself to one, slinging it over his shoulders.
He'd put it on later after they found her tongue. Without it, she'd have to be sent home, to do things that didn't need magic.
They'd already lost two people to curses like that, two good wizards who now spoke in shapeless words, long groaning sounds that felt like noises ghouls would make. The bodies would have to be burned: couldn't risk someone bringing them back from the dead.
*****
They told stories to keep each other sane. Ron told about family holidays and the tricks that the twins used to play before they started making their toys into weapons, before they started dancing between Deatheater lines, laying down trip wires and hexes.
But he listened, too.
Afterwards, he remembered Zach's stories, the ones he told before killing himself.
Zach grew up in a little cottage in Wales, and if you asked him, he'd speak Welsh, funny sounding words that made the darkness seem less enveloping.
When Zach was a little boy, his mother had used to take him to see her sister, Crabbe's mother. Zach said that that was before Crabbe knew Malfoy and that he was an alright bloke. They used to play in enchanted castles, things built by house elves that had tiny dragons and little people running around inside.
The Crabbe family lived in a giant house on a giant lawn and the room that they used to play in was an unused sitting room, white sheets were draped over the furniture, hiding it from view. Around them, the coverings made the room seem magical and formless.
Zach played the giant, and Crabbe played the governor of the town, their wars were epic. Whenever Zach accidentally crushed one of the townsfolk, Crabbe would cry wet, bitter tears and his whole fat face would scrunch up until a house elf fixed the little person.
One day, though, Crabbe came downstairs and pushed at Justin, saying, "I want to play the giant today."
That was the last day that Justin ever went over, because Crabbe didn't send threats to the small townspeople, Crabbe stood up and stepped down in the middle of the square, flattening the marketplace. Beneath his feet, people ran and screamed. He crushed houses and flattened a tavern, the wood splintered under his feet.
High pitched and tiny, the people screamed, desperately at Zach, "Help us!" One of the tiny women had a baby and Crabbe ground her under his heel.
The room was a little bit dark, the afternoon light hit the other side of the house and Zach backed away, hiding under a covered sofa, flattening his body against the wall. He remembered biting his lip, he said, so that he wouldn't cry.
Crabbe had been so big and Zach had known that he was going to be next, that Crabbe was going to step down on his hand, step down on his throat, and grin when Zach stopped breathing.
The story changed each time that Zach told it, Crabbe enjoyed it more each time it was retold. The woman with her baby became more of a person each time, she developed a birthmark on her cheek, her hair became blonde.
Once, Ron got sick of it, the way that Zach knew all the details of the massacre. "How'd you know if you were hiding?"
Zach had shrugged and looked away, his arms curling around himself, shoulders hunching into his robe. "Dunno. I was there, maybe."
"Watching?" Penelope asked.
"A little, yeah," Zach glared at them, asked them to challenge him again.
In his head, Ron knew that he'd always see Zach standing over the castle, his boots heavy on market square.
*****
The graves were all dug in the hard, black soil near the coast. It wasn't good to leave them at the battle site and no town wanted to have them nearby. Most of the bodies were burned, though. The first graves had been found and bodies had been stolen only to be seen later on the battlefield: animated corpses that wouldn't die until everything had been torn apart at the joints.
Hermione still went out into the field to help, she said, but Ron knew it was because the field was where Harry was. They traveled together, the three of them, even though it meant that they were always a high profile target. Someone wanted to bag Harry Potter.
Ron's fingers were caked with dirt, his arms were streaked with blood and gore and he said curses one after another, like he was in practice with Harry again.
Once, only once, Harry had hit him, slapped him across the face and said, "You have to say them so fast that you'll kill them before they kill you."
Hermione was at Ron's side when he shouted off his last curse, something that sliced through the air like knives to remove a Deatheater's arms.
"Ron," she said. "I was just talking with Justin."
"'n the middle of battle?" he scanned for his team: five of six were standing. Then he started picking his way over to the Deatheater line, checking for the living.
"Lupin and Tonks are dead." She picked her way behind him, careful to not step on a corpse
Ron ground his teeth and muttered an unforgivable over a Deatheater's body, watching the green snap out the dim light in the Deatheater's eyes. After a moment, he realized it was Goyle.
"Percy and Bill were with them," Ron said. He moved on to the next body, shivering in the rain.
"The whole unit's dead," Hermione said.
His wand paused and he nodded, a stuttered moment that left him standing ankle deep in corpses, watching the rain fall into puddles of blood.
*****
Battles melded together, years melded together. Everything felt the same after a while.
One night while they were camped out in a forest cottage, he fell asleep on watch, leaning against an oak tree. One hand crept inside his robes to rub at the scrap of his mother's sweater. He dreamed of screams and when he woke up, people were dying.
Penelope was next to him, her eyes wide, blown out, her replaced tongue caught between her teeth.
The forest was dark, the only light came from spells and curses: someone had kicked over their fire and in the damp, it quickly died.
He got his hands around a Deatheater's neck, squeezing the life out, squeezing until there weren't any more curses for the Deatheater to gasp, squeezing until his hands were bloody, nails dug deep into the man's neck.
They lost two people the Deatheaters lost three. They were ahead by one.
*****
There was blood in his mouth when he got hit, and he swallowed it, spitting out a curse as he lost consciousness. He thought he was dying and he couldn't believe what a relief that was.
Ron slept because he was tired, but Hermione's sobbing woke him so he struggled up and clenched his wand, waiting for someone to come at him again. He was still alive, his family was still dead.
Everyone was tired and this wasn't justice any more than it was humane. It was war on English soil and he was certain that no one had ever spilled this much of it. The first war couldn't have smelled this sour, bowels yanked from bodies, skin giving way to spells.
Harry was screaming and his wand flew in intricate patters that made Ron flinch to look at. On his forehead, Harry's scar glowed.
"Can you stand?" Hermione was screaming, her face close to his.
"Yeah," Ron nodded and let her reach down for him.
They were face to face when Harry fell. Hermione dropped him back into the mud churned up by their fight and he tasted foul water in the back of his throat, looking at Harry gone still and peaceful.
One handed, he reached out for Harry's face, putting his own next to it. He kissed his best friend, lips chapped with cold.
Then Hermione was there, shoving him off and slamming a fist down on Harry's heart. Once. Twice. Three times.
Harry gasped, his eyes open.
And the war continued.
*****
End
Author: fryadvocate
Summary: This isn't a just war.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character(s): Ron, Hermione, Harry, Zacharias
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Rowling's, not mine
Original story: A Free World by marseverlasting
Notes: Thanks to my beta antheia, who's a miracle.
War left a taste in Ron's mouth like water gone stale.
The day after they arrived at the hideout, someone had poisoned their water, a nasty hex that Hermione was untangling with books and botched solutions. Two people had already gone crazy, drinking from the well, laughing even as the water melted through their throats, exposing raw, rotten flesh to the air.
The rest of them drank from the water they had, saving each drop. They couldn't move until they were sure the front was clear, they couldn't retreat because there was nowhere to retreat to.
It rained in Scotland the year of the war. It rained and rained and rained and Ron would sit at his post and wish he was at home. He wished that he was a child again before Ginny, when he was the youngest. He wished that his mother was darning socks and yelling at the twins.
He retched violently onto the ground.
There were six of them left in the unit: him, Zach Smith, Ben Knight, Hermione, Tim Jones, and Harry. Always Harry.
Jones came to relieve him while he was covering the bile with dirt, his hand dark with soil and his wand tucked up his sleeve.
"You want to see something?" Jones was a Ravenclaw, his eyes sparking bright when Hermione suggested new ideas. He had a girlfriend who was a Hufflepuff and who owled him packages with useless things in them. Chocolate frogs and ugly socks. Jones said he wanted to marry her, that they'd get a flat in Muggle London and he'd do something with numbers and she'd get pregnant and pop out babies.
Her picture always looked worried for him, her hand up like she was trying to reach through it to him. She'd bite her lip and then smile bravely once before it started over again.
"Sure," Ron said. He spit on the ground.
Reaching into his robes, Jones pulled out a small uneven piece of something brown. It was stiff and when Ron reached out to touch it he found it was textured oddly, like badly stretched hide. It smelled rank - a rotten, sweet scent, overwhelming.
Frowning, Ron turned it over in his hand, confused. When he held it up, closer to his face, he realized what it was. The skull and snake were still on the piece of skin, lifeless without anyone to call to their master.
Wordless, he handed it back, watched it disappear back into Jones's robes.
"Scraped it off that cocky bastard we did in a few days ago. You know any better tanning spells? This one's gone to hell on me."
Shaking his head, Ron said, "'could ask Hermione."
"Naw, that bird doesn't seem like she'd be into it much. More worried about the water, yeah?" Jones reached into his robes and Ron imagined him stroking the piece of Deatheater skin, rubbing the rough edges with his thumb like it was his girlfriend's picture.
Bile rose in his throat again and he choked it down.
"I'm off," Ron said. He had a piece of a sweater that his mother had knitted before she was called away by the Order. He'd fought Fred for it, ending up with half a sleeve while Fred wore the body of the sweater under his robes.
The house they were using for shelter had been used before. The widows were blown out from some previous battle, the door hung off its hinges. Harry sat inside on the stairs, his glasses crooked and cracked.
"Who's with the prisoners?" Ron asked.
For a second, there was a blankness to Harry's eyes. Then he wet his lips and said, "Knight."
Ron sat next to him and poked his wand into a mess of charred papers at the bottom step. It was a book, but he could only tell by the binding. The house shifted and upstairs he heard crying.
There wasn't enough water for the prisoners, but they managed, rationing smaller amounts.
The next day, Hermione would say that she had fixed the hex and Ron would carry up a bowl of water to the tied Deatheaters and pour it down their throats, then wait to see if they died.
*****
When he got home to the Burrow, he was filthy: they'd been in the field for two weeks. Two weeks of walking through deserted villages, rooting for the Deatheaters' hideout.
His foot had been healed when they'd talked to Lupin, the mediwitch tsking at his broken ankle. He'd had to pause when she set the bones right. Compared to some of the basic healing spells they used in the field, a real mediwitch setting it together the way it was supposed to be was almost an extravagance.
No one was home and so he set about looking for his own food and making his own tea. The kettle was just screaming when he opened the letter that Lupin had pressed into his hand, one for him, one for Hermione, one for Harry. It was the look in Lupin's eyes that made Ron pause before tearing it open in front of him.
"The ministry," Lupin had said. "Has made some regrettable decisions recently."
There hadn't been time for more than that, because then someone else had needed his attention and Hermione didn't even look at him before Apparating out. Harry had at least said, "See you, Ron."
The sound of bone crunching sang in his ears like the sound of laughter used to.
She'd forgive him, he knew that like he knew that they'd be together until the end of it all.
News wasn't good when they got back: Ernie was dead, Hannah was insane, Neville was missing. It was a laundry list of things that Ron knew too much about. When he said it all in one long paragraph, like he was reading, Justin looked down at his hands.
"Things aren't so good, are they, Ron?" Justin's voice was soft, and other conversations murmured through the walls.
The mediwitch had put her palm to the bottom of Ron's foot and rotated his ankle. It was healed and she nodded at Ron before packing her stuff.
"They killed those Deatheaters, the ones we've had a few months. Said their information had gone bad." Justin stayed and held down the fort in Hogwarts. He'd grown up a lot in a few years and Ron struggled to see the boy he used to know.
War tasted like stale water in the back of Ron's throat, even when bile hit him so hard he had to swallow twice to keep it down.
"No trial?"
"Said there wasn't anyone to try them in front of," Justin coughed, pitifully.
"Things've gone pretty bad," Ron agreed.
Justin stood up and said, "Don't forget your letter."
Later, the tea steeping, Ron turned the letter over again in his hands, then opened it swiftly, the wax cracking as he broke it.
It said that because of the war, the illegal status of Unforgivable curses was being temporarily suspended for members of the Order who were being specifically given permission. Ron's name was third from last, set at the beginning of the three people he knew the letter was written for.
...Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Harry Potter.
Always Harry.
He'd let the tea steep too long and took a bitter swallow of it, imagining that by the time he'd said the curse, it was already legal for him to use it. The Order didn't need another Deatheater lackey anyway, their jails were full, their veritaserum was drawn dry.
What new news could there be from people who moved quickly to new hiding spots, from people whose leader was more than insane.
He tripped when he heard the knock on the door, his feet clumsily trying to get him into cover, under the counter, around a corner, somewhere safe. The tea tipped over in his desperation and he felt it drip warm onto his shoulder where he sat on the ground.
Finally, a long time after, he stood up and went to the door, trying to dry his shirt with a kitchen towel.
It was Hermione, her hair damp and her cheeks flushed.
"You blocked the floo," she said.
"Mum did a while ago." He held the towel on his shoulder and asked, "What happened?"
"Your dad-" it wasn't even out of her mouth all the way, like a curse he'd said a day ago. He yanked his robe up off the floor where he'd dropped it and pulled out his wand, one arm in his robe, the other ready to Apparate.
"Where?" he asked, breathless.
She was crying a little, tears on her cheeks, "They said no one'd told you."
"Where?"
Together they Apparated to Hogwarts, but Arthur Weasley was already dead.
*****
When the real killing started, Ron began to wonder if there would be a single wizard left when the war was over. It was a small battle, maybe ten on each side when it began. Two sides, one field.
Ken Macarthur died choking on his own vomit, Ben Knight lost an arm, Tim Jones was bleeding down the side of his face. Penelope was on her hands and knees, looking for her tongue, spitting blood every time she tried to speak. Burns was checking for Deatheater survivors and killing the ones he found. Every time he found a new one, he'd make a little tic mark on a sheet of paper that he kept in his pocket. There was a fingerprint of dried blood in the corner of it and no one asked about it. No one cared.
Sam looked fine, but he was holding his wand between his hands like he wanted to snap it. Beside him, Carol was talking softly. Ron didn't need to listen to know what she was saying.
This is a good war. This is a just war. They want to kill us, they want to kill everyone who isn't like them and we're saving the world.
Carol was nice enough, but she was crazier than a bat if she still believed that. Maybe she just said it, though, because she was good during the nights, when it was cold and raining and everyone could ignore the sounds of comfort. Sam was in good hands, Ron thought.
Hermione had a flame up, a lit kerosene lamp. She reported the situation to Justin. Behind her, Harry rubbed at his scar and spoke quietly to himself.
Ron knelt down next to Penelope, said, "Where'd you lose it?"
She pointed to the ground and he started looking, shoving over Deatheater bodies. His hands slipped against their cloaks and he thought how nice it would to be to have one of those thick warm ones, so he helped himself to one, slinging it over his shoulders.
He'd put it on later after they found her tongue. Without it, she'd have to be sent home, to do things that didn't need magic.
They'd already lost two people to curses like that, two good wizards who now spoke in shapeless words, long groaning sounds that felt like noises ghouls would make. The bodies would have to be burned: couldn't risk someone bringing them back from the dead.
*****
They told stories to keep each other sane. Ron told about family holidays and the tricks that the twins used to play before they started making their toys into weapons, before they started dancing between Deatheater lines, laying down trip wires and hexes.
But he listened, too.
Afterwards, he remembered Zach's stories, the ones he told before killing himself.
Zach grew up in a little cottage in Wales, and if you asked him, he'd speak Welsh, funny sounding words that made the darkness seem less enveloping.
When Zach was a little boy, his mother had used to take him to see her sister, Crabbe's mother. Zach said that that was before Crabbe knew Malfoy and that he was an alright bloke. They used to play in enchanted castles, things built by house elves that had tiny dragons and little people running around inside.
The Crabbe family lived in a giant house on a giant lawn and the room that they used to play in was an unused sitting room, white sheets were draped over the furniture, hiding it from view. Around them, the coverings made the room seem magical and formless.
Zach played the giant, and Crabbe played the governor of the town, their wars were epic. Whenever Zach accidentally crushed one of the townsfolk, Crabbe would cry wet, bitter tears and his whole fat face would scrunch up until a house elf fixed the little person.
One day, though, Crabbe came downstairs and pushed at Justin, saying, "I want to play the giant today."
That was the last day that Justin ever went over, because Crabbe didn't send threats to the small townspeople, Crabbe stood up and stepped down in the middle of the square, flattening the marketplace. Beneath his feet, people ran and screamed. He crushed houses and flattened a tavern, the wood splintered under his feet.
High pitched and tiny, the people screamed, desperately at Zach, "Help us!" One of the tiny women had a baby and Crabbe ground her under his heel.
The room was a little bit dark, the afternoon light hit the other side of the house and Zach backed away, hiding under a covered sofa, flattening his body against the wall. He remembered biting his lip, he said, so that he wouldn't cry.
Crabbe had been so big and Zach had known that he was going to be next, that Crabbe was going to step down on his hand, step down on his throat, and grin when Zach stopped breathing.
The story changed each time that Zach told it, Crabbe enjoyed it more each time it was retold. The woman with her baby became more of a person each time, she developed a birthmark on her cheek, her hair became blonde.
Once, Ron got sick of it, the way that Zach knew all the details of the massacre. "How'd you know if you were hiding?"
Zach had shrugged and looked away, his arms curling around himself, shoulders hunching into his robe. "Dunno. I was there, maybe."
"Watching?" Penelope asked.
"A little, yeah," Zach glared at them, asked them to challenge him again.
In his head, Ron knew that he'd always see Zach standing over the castle, his boots heavy on market square.
*****
The graves were all dug in the hard, black soil near the coast. It wasn't good to leave them at the battle site and no town wanted to have them nearby. Most of the bodies were burned, though. The first graves had been found and bodies had been stolen only to be seen later on the battlefield: animated corpses that wouldn't die until everything had been torn apart at the joints.
Hermione still went out into the field to help, she said, but Ron knew it was because the field was where Harry was. They traveled together, the three of them, even though it meant that they were always a high profile target. Someone wanted to bag Harry Potter.
Ron's fingers were caked with dirt, his arms were streaked with blood and gore and he said curses one after another, like he was in practice with Harry again.
Once, only once, Harry had hit him, slapped him across the face and said, "You have to say them so fast that you'll kill them before they kill you."
Hermione was at Ron's side when he shouted off his last curse, something that sliced through the air like knives to remove a Deatheater's arms.
"Ron," she said. "I was just talking with Justin."
"'n the middle of battle?" he scanned for his team: five of six were standing. Then he started picking his way over to the Deatheater line, checking for the living.
"Lupin and Tonks are dead." She picked her way behind him, careful to not step on a corpse
Ron ground his teeth and muttered an unforgivable over a Deatheater's body, watching the green snap out the dim light in the Deatheater's eyes. After a moment, he realized it was Goyle.
"Percy and Bill were with them," Ron said. He moved on to the next body, shivering in the rain.
"The whole unit's dead," Hermione said.
His wand paused and he nodded, a stuttered moment that left him standing ankle deep in corpses, watching the rain fall into puddles of blood.
*****
Battles melded together, years melded together. Everything felt the same after a while.
One night while they were camped out in a forest cottage, he fell asleep on watch, leaning against an oak tree. One hand crept inside his robes to rub at the scrap of his mother's sweater. He dreamed of screams and when he woke up, people were dying.
Penelope was next to him, her eyes wide, blown out, her replaced tongue caught between her teeth.
The forest was dark, the only light came from spells and curses: someone had kicked over their fire and in the damp, it quickly died.
He got his hands around a Deatheater's neck, squeezing the life out, squeezing until there weren't any more curses for the Deatheater to gasp, squeezing until his hands were bloody, nails dug deep into the man's neck.
They lost two people the Deatheaters lost three. They were ahead by one.
*****
There was blood in his mouth when he got hit, and he swallowed it, spitting out a curse as he lost consciousness. He thought he was dying and he couldn't believe what a relief that was.
Ron slept because he was tired, but Hermione's sobbing woke him so he struggled up and clenched his wand, waiting for someone to come at him again. He was still alive, his family was still dead.
Everyone was tired and this wasn't justice any more than it was humane. It was war on English soil and he was certain that no one had ever spilled this much of it. The first war couldn't have smelled this sour, bowels yanked from bodies, skin giving way to spells.
Harry was screaming and his wand flew in intricate patters that made Ron flinch to look at. On his forehead, Harry's scar glowed.
"Can you stand?" Hermione was screaming, her face close to his.
"Yeah," Ron nodded and let her reach down for him.
They were face to face when Harry fell. Hermione dropped him back into the mud churned up by their fight and he tasted foul water in the back of his throat, looking at Harry gone still and peaceful.
One handed, he reached out for Harry's face, putting his own next to it. He kissed his best friend, lips chapped with cold.
Then Hermione was there, shoving him off and slamming a fist down on Harry's heart. Once. Twice. Three times.
Harry gasped, his eyes open.
And the war continued.
*****
End