31. PERSECUTION (R) BY IAMSHADOW
Title: Persecution
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Ron/Harry
Word Count: 2,361 + graphic by kath_ballantyne (inclusive)
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst. Boysex. More angst. Revenge.
Summary: The Weasleys and Harry weather the storm.
A/N: May be a little confusing. Sorry about that. Begins immediately following Commemoration, but from Ron's POV. It's about twice as long as the chapters normally are, too, because I couldn't work out a way to break it up.
If you CANNOT see or read the graphic because of your computer or internet speed, firewall settings or visual impairment, you can read the article in plain, large Verdana font by CLICKING HERE or going to http://www.angelfire.com/ia/mshadow/skeeter2.html . I apologise in advance for the popups.
The Teapot 'verse Series
Chapter List HERE
Future Fics HERE
Teapot Cookie Fics HERE
“I want to go home,” Harry mumbled miserably into my ear, and I felt an ache glow in my chest. I wished more than anything that I could just say yes and Apparate us both out of there without hesitation.
“Just a little longer, love,” I whispered into his hair, holding him gently.
In the end, it was closer to an hour before we successfully made our apologies, extricated ourselves from the crowd and Flooed back to the Burrow. Harry fell out of the grate clumsily behind me, and I dove to catch him before he landed flat on his face.
Silently, we walked up the stairs to the bedroom. Harry was pale and vague, stumbling like a sleepwalker, but the moment the door was closed, his hands were all over me, his kisses desperate and insistent.
“Wait,” I said gently, trying to hold him back a little. “Maybe we should…talk or something.”
Harry shook his head firmly, his fingers working feverishly to undo the buttons on my shirt. “No. Not now. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think. I want to forget.” He slid his hands across the bare skin of my chest before working the shirt over my shoulders. “Make me forget, Ron,” he pleaded, his eyes huge and wild.
I hesitated for a long moment. It seemed somehow like taking advantage. I had a protective urge to wrap myself around him, barely touching him, as though he was something infinitely precious made of glass. But Harry’s eyes, his hands, the press of his body against me, were all demanding something different, something primal.
“Please, Ron,” he begged, and that despairing edge to his voice broke through my resistance. I bent down to meet his mouth in a searing kiss.
“Okay,” I murmured against his velvet lips, and he let out a sigh of relief, of release.
I cast a hasty series of charms and we made short work of our clothes, discarding them thoughtlessly every-which-where. Harry was clinging to me, kissing me frantically, and when I lifted him up to kiss him harder he wrapped his legs around my waist tightly. I walked awkwardly over to my bed, almost tripping over my jeans and a shoe, and laid us both down, still entwined. Harry was beneath me, his kisses clumsy, whimpering softly, pressing his pelvis up hard into mine. He looked so young, so vulnerable.
“I love you,” I whispered, my voice husky and raw. “I love you, and you’re mine, and you’re safe.” Then, before I could change my mind, I ground down against him.
It was intense, and it was quick, and there was no gentle teasing, no holding back or drawing out the moment. It was all ragged breaths, rough thrusts, little grunts and moans, and Harry’s hands splayed across my back, his short nails digging sharply into my skin. When he came it was with a cry like he was in pain, and tears streaming down his cheeks, his kisses salty.
I cradled him in my arms until he sobbed and sniffled himself into exhausted sleep. It took me a long time to follow him. I was too busy watching over him, as if my vigilance could keep any nightmares at bay.
I only managed to snatch a few hours fitful rest before we were woken at six o’clock by the arrival of the first Howler.
*******************************
The days following the exposé were indescribably bad. After the first Howler, Harry appeared stunned and sick. After the dozen or so that followed over the next hour, he just looked resigned, his face lined and grey like a man ten years his senior.
The Daily Prophet delivery showed up somewhere in the middle, although by that point we all had some idea of what it would say. Still, seeing those words printed like that…
“Mum - we didn’t! I swear -” I began in a rush, my face flushing with shame.
“We believe you, Ron,” Dad said, his lips tight.
“That woman is an amoral harpy!” Mum snapped, making a pot of tea with unnecessary aggression. “Always was! She should have been drowned at birth!”
“Molly, love, sit down,” Dad soothed.
“For goodness sake, Arthur, I have to do something with my hands,” she sniped back, virtually crackling with fury, “or I’ll end up marching down there and strangling her myself!”
For the next twenty four hours, Mum baked herself almost into exhaustion. At dinnertime the table groaned under the weight of dozens of dishes that Harry picked disconsolately at.
Bill took the day off work to help ward the Burrow after we evicted one too many unwanted visitors.
“One of them Flooed into the kitchen first thing this morning,” he spat as his wand moved in intricate patterns. “I was in the shower. He frightened Fleur.” Fleur was heavily pregnant, and hadn’t been performing anything but the most essential of magics for the last month.
Bill’s lip curled with distaste, and the expression plus his scarred visage made him appear quite feral. “He won’t be doing that again. Nobody threatens my wife and child,” he concluded, just as the matrix was completed with a pulse of light.
“Blood wards,” he said conversationally to us as a group. “Best form of security short of a Fidelius.” One at a time, we stepped up for him to draw a curiously shaped silver knife across our hands and press our bloody palms to the door. “Now anyone not keyed in will be stuck outside the gate, unless you choose to let them in. I’ve fixed your Floo as well, so you can screen who comes through.”
Harry threw himself into work. I was worried that the Ministry would be the worst place for him to be. It turned out it was the safest option short of locking himself in a vault at Gringotts. None but the most ruthless journalists seemed willing to try to sneak into the Auror Department, and any who did found themselves repulsed by a clever warding.
The evening of the first day, Harry came out of the Floo struggling with a glassy black object the size and shape of a shoebox.
“Careful,” he warned as I stepped forward to take it.
“Bloody hell, Harry!” I exclaimed, nearly dropping the box, which was evidently made of stone, or lined with lead. Or possibly both. “What on earth is this thing?”
I set it safely on the kitchen table with an effort, and Harry gave me a tired smile. “It’s got some fancy magical name, but at work we just call it a Trap,” he said, giving it a little pat. “We use it to make cursed or Dark items safe to handle, but basically it deactivates magical objects.”
“Wow!” I peered at the Trap with renewed interest. “How did you get it?”
“Campester gave it to me.”
I boggled at him. “He just gave it to you?”
“Loaned it to me,” Harry clarified. “It’s for the mail, until things quiet down a bit. When we get any more Howlers or letters from people we don’t know, put them straight in here and say ‘Exarmo’. The Trap sends a pulse through that’ll render them harmless. Much safer than trying to Banish them or throwing them on the fire.”
I whistled appreciatively, running my hand over the glossy surfaces, and lifting the dense lid to peer at its identically black and shiny interior. Then I thought of the rather stern and seemingly humourless demeanour of Harry’s boss. “How in Merlin’s name did you have the balls to ask for it?”
Harry’s face fell a little, and he looked sheepish. “Didn’t have to,” he admitted. “There were three Howlers in my inbox by the time I got to work, and they all went off at once when I sat down at my desk. Campester brought the Trap over when the next batch turned up, because no one could get any work done while they were being forced to listen to people screaming about how unnatural I was in my affections.”
He gave me a bitter smile. “When I was leaving, he told me to take it home with me. Said the last thing he needed was for me to get cursed opening a letter from someone with nothing better to do than send some poor sod hate mail.”
“But won’t they need it?” I asked, still baffled at the no doubt highly expensive and potentially dangerous item sitting so innocently on our kitchen table.
Harry flapped a casual hand. “We’ve got about half a dozen in storage. Unless there’s a really big case on, we only ever seem to use one or two at a time.”
From then on, all unknown post went straight in the Trap. Howlers were reduced almost immediately to small piles of ash. Booby-trapped letters tended to disintegrate, the parchment turning dry and crumbly. An unspelled letter wouldn’t be unaffected, so long as the writer hadn’t used a magical ink.
“You can see why we still need Curse Breakers,” Harry commented, dusting out the interior of the Trap after yet another powdered missive. “It’s just too powerful for anything delicate like paper or fabric. And it’s no good if you want something to stay magical and just remove a curse, because it wipes everything.”
Wheezes was a very different matter to the Auror Department. I only lasted half an hour on the first day before the press of reporters, hecklers and nosy parkers got too much. Any genuine customers had escaped the chaos long before.
George said he was right to manage it on his own. “Without you here, they should all just piss off,” he said with a venomous glare behind him as he pushed me towards the fireplace. I didn’t think I should hold my breath, and I was proven right.
Halfway through the second day, Harry Floocalled to tell us that George had been arrested by the MLEs for getting into a brawl with a customer who got mouthy. Because of the circumstances, and the closeness to the anniversary of the Battle, Harry and Dad were able to get them to release George without charge, on the condition that he kept his head down.
Mum fussed over George’s black eye and swollen face when Dad Side-Along Apparated him home. He was slightly dazed from the concussion, but he refused to elaborate on exactly what had been said to set him off.
“Bastard deserved it,” George mumbled through thick lips. “Nobody says that about my baby brother. Or Harry. Nobody.”
The next day, George was firmly ordered to stay put at the Burrow, and Mum took over at Wheezes in the absence of both of us. She glared so ferociously at anyone who entered that shoplifting was nonexistent, half the potential customers left without buying anything, and those who did make a purchase were careful to pay in exact change, down to the very last Knut.
George and I were virtually under house arrest and at a bit of a loose end. We ended up playing a lot of chess, talking Quidditch, planning some new Wheezes, drinking far too much Firewhiskey before noon on the anniversary of the Battle, and making some very valiant attempts to cook dinner for everybody that didn’t turn out half bad.
We also got twitchy, very bored, and had some rip-roaring arguments that on one occasion came to blows. There wasn’t much else to do, after all.
**********************************
It is around midday on the fifth day that a Barn Owl swoops in through the kitchen window. I stand up and untie the letter from its outstretched leg, and it takes flight without waiting for a reply.
“Oh, bloody hell,” George says irritably, tossing down his hand of Exploding Snap cards and scorching the tabletop. “Not another one!”
I start peel up the seal immediately, and George blanches slightly pale. “The Trap!” he babbles hastily. “Use the Trap, for fuck’s sake!”
“It’s alright,” I reassure him, “I recognise the handwriting.”
Inside is a clipping from the Daily Prophet and a short note.
Thought you had most likely stopped your subscription, and might like to see the latest news.
I love you both,
Hermione.
“I don’t believe it,” I mumble numbly, looking down at the article. “She bloody well did it! She’s a fucking genius!”
“Who did what?” asks George, completely confused.
Wordlessly, I hold out the piece of newspaper so that he can read the story.
CLICK HERE if you can't see/read the article
I am grinning so hard my face hurts. George reads through the piece of paper once…twice…then looks at me, his face blank and stunned.
I give him the note.
“She did this? Hermione?!” He seems entirely disbelieving.
I nod.
“But…but how?”
I smirk. “Let’s just say that you and Fred weren’t the only ones doing a bit of blackmail the year of the Triwizard Tournament.”
A slow smile breaks across his careworn face, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. “Bloody brilliant!”
Author's Afterword
Blood wards aren't my creation, as most of you who've read widely in fandom will know. For my wards I wasn't very original. I took inspiration mainly from mad_martha's wards for the Rose House in Two Households and aniwde's wards for Harry's house in Translation of Light, so any appreciation of the wards should be directed to them and the umpteen others who have used blood wards in their fic before me.
The Trap, however, is wholly my idea.
EDIT: But in a quirk of fate, a week after I wrote this, I found out that solstice_muse had a artefact virtually identical to the Trap in one of her fics, but I couldn't have copied it, because I hadn't read the story before. Nothing new under the sun, indeed.
<- 30. Commemoration c@r 32. Presumption ->
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Ron/Harry
Word Count: 2,361 + graphic by kath_ballantyne (inclusive)
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst. Boysex. More angst. Revenge.
Summary: The Weasleys and Harry weather the storm.
A/N: May be a little confusing. Sorry about that. Begins immediately following Commemoration, but from Ron's POV. It's about twice as long as the chapters normally are, too, because I couldn't work out a way to break it up.
If you CANNOT see or read the graphic because of your computer or internet speed, firewall settings or visual impairment, you can read the article in plain, large Verdana font by CLICKING HERE or going to http://www.angelfire.com/ia/mshadow/skeeter2.html . I apologise in advance for the popups.
The Teapot 'verse Series
Chapter List HERE
Future Fics HERE
Teapot Cookie Fics HERE
“I want to go home,” Harry mumbled miserably into my ear, and I felt an ache glow in my chest. I wished more than anything that I could just say yes and Apparate us both out of there without hesitation.
“Just a little longer, love,” I whispered into his hair, holding him gently.
In the end, it was closer to an hour before we successfully made our apologies, extricated ourselves from the crowd and Flooed back to the Burrow. Harry fell out of the grate clumsily behind me, and I dove to catch him before he landed flat on his face.
Silently, we walked up the stairs to the bedroom. Harry was pale and vague, stumbling like a sleepwalker, but the moment the door was closed, his hands were all over me, his kisses desperate and insistent.
“Wait,” I said gently, trying to hold him back a little. “Maybe we should…talk or something.”
Harry shook his head firmly, his fingers working feverishly to undo the buttons on my shirt. “No. Not now. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think. I want to forget.” He slid his hands across the bare skin of my chest before working the shirt over my shoulders. “Make me forget, Ron,” he pleaded, his eyes huge and wild.
I hesitated for a long moment. It seemed somehow like taking advantage. I had a protective urge to wrap myself around him, barely touching him, as though he was something infinitely precious made of glass. But Harry’s eyes, his hands, the press of his body against me, were all demanding something different, something primal.
“Please, Ron,” he begged, and that despairing edge to his voice broke through my resistance. I bent down to meet his mouth in a searing kiss.
“Okay,” I murmured against his velvet lips, and he let out a sigh of relief, of release.
I cast a hasty series of charms and we made short work of our clothes, discarding them thoughtlessly every-which-where. Harry was clinging to me, kissing me frantically, and when I lifted him up to kiss him harder he wrapped his legs around my waist tightly. I walked awkwardly over to my bed, almost tripping over my jeans and a shoe, and laid us both down, still entwined. Harry was beneath me, his kisses clumsy, whimpering softly, pressing his pelvis up hard into mine. He looked so young, so vulnerable.
“I love you,” I whispered, my voice husky and raw. “I love you, and you’re mine, and you’re safe.” Then, before I could change my mind, I ground down against him.
It was intense, and it was quick, and there was no gentle teasing, no holding back or drawing out the moment. It was all ragged breaths, rough thrusts, little grunts and moans, and Harry’s hands splayed across my back, his short nails digging sharply into my skin. When he came it was with a cry like he was in pain, and tears streaming down his cheeks, his kisses salty.
I cradled him in my arms until he sobbed and sniffled himself into exhausted sleep. It took me a long time to follow him. I was too busy watching over him, as if my vigilance could keep any nightmares at bay.
I only managed to snatch a few hours fitful rest before we were woken at six o’clock by the arrival of the first Howler.
*******************************
The days following the exposé were indescribably bad. After the first Howler, Harry appeared stunned and sick. After the dozen or so that followed over the next hour, he just looked resigned, his face lined and grey like a man ten years his senior.
The Daily Prophet delivery showed up somewhere in the middle, although by that point we all had some idea of what it would say. Still, seeing those words printed like that…
“Mum - we didn’t! I swear -” I began in a rush, my face flushing with shame.
“We believe you, Ron,” Dad said, his lips tight.
“That woman is an amoral harpy!” Mum snapped, making a pot of tea with unnecessary aggression. “Always was! She should have been drowned at birth!”
“Molly, love, sit down,” Dad soothed.
“For goodness sake, Arthur, I have to do something with my hands,” she sniped back, virtually crackling with fury, “or I’ll end up marching down there and strangling her myself!”
For the next twenty four hours, Mum baked herself almost into exhaustion. At dinnertime the table groaned under the weight of dozens of dishes that Harry picked disconsolately at.
Bill took the day off work to help ward the Burrow after we evicted one too many unwanted visitors.
“One of them Flooed into the kitchen first thing this morning,” he spat as his wand moved in intricate patterns. “I was in the shower. He frightened Fleur.” Fleur was heavily pregnant, and hadn’t been performing anything but the most essential of magics for the last month.
Bill’s lip curled with distaste, and the expression plus his scarred visage made him appear quite feral. “He won’t be doing that again. Nobody threatens my wife and child,” he concluded, just as the matrix was completed with a pulse of light.
“Blood wards,” he said conversationally to us as a group. “Best form of security short of a Fidelius.” One at a time, we stepped up for him to draw a curiously shaped silver knife across our hands and press our bloody palms to the door. “Now anyone not keyed in will be stuck outside the gate, unless you choose to let them in. I’ve fixed your Floo as well, so you can screen who comes through.”
Harry threw himself into work. I was worried that the Ministry would be the worst place for him to be. It turned out it was the safest option short of locking himself in a vault at Gringotts. None but the most ruthless journalists seemed willing to try to sneak into the Auror Department, and any who did found themselves repulsed by a clever warding.
The evening of the first day, Harry came out of the Floo struggling with a glassy black object the size and shape of a shoebox.
“Careful,” he warned as I stepped forward to take it.
“Bloody hell, Harry!” I exclaimed, nearly dropping the box, which was evidently made of stone, or lined with lead. Or possibly both. “What on earth is this thing?”
I set it safely on the kitchen table with an effort, and Harry gave me a tired smile. “It’s got some fancy magical name, but at work we just call it a Trap,” he said, giving it a little pat. “We use it to make cursed or Dark items safe to handle, but basically it deactivates magical objects.”
“Wow!” I peered at the Trap with renewed interest. “How did you get it?”
“Campester gave it to me.”
I boggled at him. “He just gave it to you?”
“Loaned it to me,” Harry clarified. “It’s for the mail, until things quiet down a bit. When we get any more Howlers or letters from people we don’t know, put them straight in here and say ‘Exarmo’. The Trap sends a pulse through that’ll render them harmless. Much safer than trying to Banish them or throwing them on the fire.”
I whistled appreciatively, running my hand over the glossy surfaces, and lifting the dense lid to peer at its identically black and shiny interior. Then I thought of the rather stern and seemingly humourless demeanour of Harry’s boss. “How in Merlin’s name did you have the balls to ask for it?”
Harry’s face fell a little, and he looked sheepish. “Didn’t have to,” he admitted. “There were three Howlers in my inbox by the time I got to work, and they all went off at once when I sat down at my desk. Campester brought the Trap over when the next batch turned up, because no one could get any work done while they were being forced to listen to people screaming about how unnatural I was in my affections.”
He gave me a bitter smile. “When I was leaving, he told me to take it home with me. Said the last thing he needed was for me to get cursed opening a letter from someone with nothing better to do than send some poor sod hate mail.”
“But won’t they need it?” I asked, still baffled at the no doubt highly expensive and potentially dangerous item sitting so innocently on our kitchen table.
Harry flapped a casual hand. “We’ve got about half a dozen in storage. Unless there’s a really big case on, we only ever seem to use one or two at a time.”
From then on, all unknown post went straight in the Trap. Howlers were reduced almost immediately to small piles of ash. Booby-trapped letters tended to disintegrate, the parchment turning dry and crumbly. An unspelled letter wouldn’t be unaffected, so long as the writer hadn’t used a magical ink.
“You can see why we still need Curse Breakers,” Harry commented, dusting out the interior of the Trap after yet another powdered missive. “It’s just too powerful for anything delicate like paper or fabric. And it’s no good if you want something to stay magical and just remove a curse, because it wipes everything.”
Wheezes was a very different matter to the Auror Department. I only lasted half an hour on the first day before the press of reporters, hecklers and nosy parkers got too much. Any genuine customers had escaped the chaos long before.
George said he was right to manage it on his own. “Without you here, they should all just piss off,” he said with a venomous glare behind him as he pushed me towards the fireplace. I didn’t think I should hold my breath, and I was proven right.
Halfway through the second day, Harry Floocalled to tell us that George had been arrested by the MLEs for getting into a brawl with a customer who got mouthy. Because of the circumstances, and the closeness to the anniversary of the Battle, Harry and Dad were able to get them to release George without charge, on the condition that he kept his head down.
Mum fussed over George’s black eye and swollen face when Dad Side-Along Apparated him home. He was slightly dazed from the concussion, but he refused to elaborate on exactly what had been said to set him off.
“Bastard deserved it,” George mumbled through thick lips. “Nobody says that about my baby brother. Or Harry. Nobody.”
The next day, George was firmly ordered to stay put at the Burrow, and Mum took over at Wheezes in the absence of both of us. She glared so ferociously at anyone who entered that shoplifting was nonexistent, half the potential customers left without buying anything, and those who did make a purchase were careful to pay in exact change, down to the very last Knut.
George and I were virtually under house arrest and at a bit of a loose end. We ended up playing a lot of chess, talking Quidditch, planning some new Wheezes, drinking far too much Firewhiskey before noon on the anniversary of the Battle, and making some very valiant attempts to cook dinner for everybody that didn’t turn out half bad.
We also got twitchy, very bored, and had some rip-roaring arguments that on one occasion came to blows. There wasn’t much else to do, after all.
**********************************
It is around midday on the fifth day that a Barn Owl swoops in through the kitchen window. I stand up and untie the letter from its outstretched leg, and it takes flight without waiting for a reply.
“Oh, bloody hell,” George says irritably, tossing down his hand of Exploding Snap cards and scorching the tabletop. “Not another one!”
I start peel up the seal immediately, and George blanches slightly pale. “The Trap!” he babbles hastily. “Use the Trap, for fuck’s sake!”
“It’s alright,” I reassure him, “I recognise the handwriting.”
Inside is a clipping from the Daily Prophet and a short note.
Thought you had most likely stopped your subscription, and might like to see the latest news.
I love you both,
Hermione.
“I don’t believe it,” I mumble numbly, looking down at the article. “She bloody well did it! She’s a fucking genius!”
“Who did what?” asks George, completely confused.
Wordlessly, I hold out the piece of newspaper so that he can read the story.
CLICK HERE if you can't see/read the article
I am grinning so hard my face hurts. George reads through the piece of paper once…twice…then looks at me, his face blank and stunned.
I give him the note.
“She did this? Hermione?!” He seems entirely disbelieving.
I nod.
“But…but how?”
I smirk. “Let’s just say that you and Fred weren’t the only ones doing a bit of blackmail the year of the Triwizard Tournament.”
A slow smile breaks across his careworn face, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. “Bloody brilliant!”
Author's Afterword
Blood wards aren't my creation, as most of you who've read widely in fandom will know. For my wards I wasn't very original. I took inspiration mainly from mad_martha's wards for the Rose House in Two Households and aniwde's wards for Harry's house in Translation of Light, so any appreciation of the wards should be directed to them and the umpteen others who have used blood wards in their fic before me.
The Trap, however, is wholly my idea.
EDIT: But in a quirk of fate, a week after I wrote this, I found out that solstice_muse had a artefact virtually identical to the Trap in one of her fics, but I couldn't have copied it, because I hadn't read the story before. Nothing new under the sun, indeed.
<- 30. Commemoration c@r 32. Presumption ->