"A Place Like Tomorrow," part five
Continued from here
Coming to, Ron wondered why he was curled up in a foetal position on the living room floor. His joints felt full of crunching glass shards as he gingerly rose up on his elbows. Memory came flooding back and with effort, he looked around. When his gaze lit on Hashmal, sitting near the fireplace, his thin legs hugged to his chest, Ron groaned.
"Why would you do such a thing?" Hashmal asked, his tone heavy like tolling bells.
Ron could see he wasn't at his regular condition, but it wouldn't be long. Fucking Merlin, he was going to have to Crucio himself again.
"Because you won't go away," Ron said thickly. "I thought that was obvious."
He sat up, murmuring a string of invectives. Even though he felt as though anvils had attacked him, he stood up and limped into the kitchen. Two shots of firewhiskey later, he didn't tremble or hurt as much and it allowed him to get on with what he had to do next. Supporting himself against the counter as he hobbled back to the living room, he retrieved the mirror and his wand.
"Ronald, no!" the entity cried out. He seemed overcome by ineffable dismay, which provided the fuel Ron needed to ramp up his anger, and to mean it when he cast the next Unforgivable.
"I'm not spending the rest of my life with you around," Ron promised, letting his fury and his injustice build again.
Hashmal looked horrified.
"Leave me alone!" Ron yelled hoarsely.
"I can't! By the Unnameable, I can't!" Hashmal was the epitome of wretched, but Ron didn't care.
"Then you can watch. CRUCIO! " Ron shouted as light shot from his wand, hit the mirror and crashed into his body.
Pain knifed through him and he slumped to the floor, gasping and moaning. Blistering sores seemed to well up all inside of him; breathing and moving made him feel he was cocooned in razor wire. Finally his anguish began to subside and he turned his head, hoping Hashmal would have been rendered incapacitated and insubstantial.
The spot was empty.
With a rusty bark of triumph, Ron slowly turned his head, feeling dagger-points in his neck. As he rolled to the other side, hoping his arms would hold his weight, he saw the hem of Hashmal's tunic and let out a cry of distress. He fumbled for his wand, hindered by residual pain and shaking with the desperate need to make this creature leave forever. What if Draco found him like this? He'd be sent to the incurable ward at St. Mungo's for sure! He let out a wounded, inarticulate yell as he grasped his wand. Hashmal, too, let out an unearthly noise. Hashmal's ululation changed in pitch while Ron screamed in rage, a wave of untamed magic pouring out of him. A series of tinkling sounds tore at Ron's comprehension before there was a huge crash from their bedroom. Panicked, Ron threw his arm over his head, afraid the ceiling would fall, or the whole house would cave in.
Eerie silence drifted around them like snow. Ron was still shaking but got himself together enough to grab a hold of the edge of the coffee table and pull into a hunched, seated position. Hashmal hovered as close as he could, curved forward as though a protective cape would spring from his back.
"I couldn't let you harm yourself any more," he murmured, one hand tentatively reaching out as though he were going to brush Ron's hair from his face.
"What did you do?" Ron asked, his eyes glancing to the crescent-shaped mirror. It was cracked, fissures running haywire across the surface. "You broke it? Or did I?" he whimpered. "They're all shattered, aren't they? All the mirrors " His voice trailed off as a part far inside of him snapped, helplessly. He couldn't fight this, he couldn't win.
Defeated, Ron considered his options. Draco loved him and wouldn't want to put him put away, but he'd demand that Ron go in for more tests. Maybe if he could talk to Bill-
"I'm going to figure out what it'll take to convince my lover and brother that I've not lost my fucking mind," he said to Hashmal, proud that his voice didn't shake very much. "I'll be taking the scotch, what's left of the cigarettes and my gimpy leg out to the porch. I really, really hope you won't follow me. But who's to stop you?" Ron let out a harsh laugh. "No one. No more Crucios, and contrary to what this mess looks like, I'm not suicidal. Oh, Pan. There you are, poor thing."
Pandemonium looked straight at Hashmal; her fur rose and she hissed, bristling at his presence. After a brief standoff, she made a plaintive meow to Ron and followed at his feet, even sitting in his lap once he was situated in his chair on the porch. Ron spent the next couple of hours getting drunk out of his mind, escaping his situation the way he knew best. Aside from an awkward and painful excursion to the bathroom, he sat, drinking and engaging in a dialogue of sorts with Hashmal, who asked Ron how he could possibly live the rest of his life with the guilt of not speaking up.
The more intoxicated Ron got, the more belligerent he became in telling Hashmal he was a shitty messenger and shouldn't have chosen him in the first place.
"Why the fuck would you choose me as an oracle?" Ron slurred before losing his line of thought.
"Because they would have listened to you," Hashmal said morosely.
Ron snorted, tried to light a cigarette, and failed, cursing the cigarette and matches alike. He only realised he must have passed out around then when he came to and found he was in a bed that wasn't his. Well, it was, but it wasn't his bed anymore, and hadn't been since he'd left the Burrow. One of Draco's handcrafted hangover potions was within arm's length, but before Ron reached for it, he lolled his pounding head to see who was looking at him. He knew he wasn't alone, but he didn't dare guess who might be in the room. They were both fuzzy, and halos of light seemed to glow around them due to Ron's crap eyesight when hung over.
"Ron. I'm " Draco's voice faltered. "I don't know what to say." He sat next to the bed, his hands gripped together, using one thumb to scrape under the other thumbnail. "Bill owled me- you were passed out on the deck, your ankle bandaged up, every mirror shattered. I don't scare easily, you know that," he went on, his voice measured. "Bill did a basic auralic, and picked up on the Crucio patterns. What the fuck is going on, and why haven't you been honest with me?" Draco's voice was the lone, piercing cry that causes the first snow to slide and cause an avalanche.
"He's not real!" Ron said, his jelly-like arms protesting as he got up to a sitting position. "I figured out he would go away, sort of, if I was in pain. So I cast the Crucios on myself. I'm not crazy. You've got to believe me." Despair began plucking apart the threads holding together Ron's thin fabric of hope. "If you don't, who will?"
"Bill," Hashmal replied acerbically, scowling at Ron from beneath a decade-old Cannons poster.
Draco looked at him for several long minutes. "Drink the hangover potion," he said at last.
Ron did, and felt immensely better physically, but in all other ways, he was unsteady, the ground beneath him like sand being inexorably reclaimed by the tide.
"They want me to go to a conference in London for a few days," Draco said, studying his fingers. "I'm of two minds about it, and I hate that." He turned his gaze to Ron, who feebly opened his arms, hoping Draco would sit on the bed, join him, have any kind of physical contact, but Draco remained stoically in his seat.
"I don't want to leave you. But part of me wants to get away, let you talk to Bill. Dark Magic I understand, but what you're experiencing, I don't." Draco made a soft fist, propping his folded fingers against his cheekbone. "You didn't write down anything else with that person you said you saw in the paper, did you?"
"No," Ron admitted.
"But it didn't stop." It was a statement; there was no question in Draco's tone.
Ron closed his eyes. "Draco, I promise I'm not a nutter. Please, just let me explain. Hashmal's all wrong, I'm no prophet, no messenger, I'm just me. But he's-"
"I'll be back in two days," Draco said, standing fluidly and looking down at Ron, who felt he'd just been caught in a riptide. "If you weren't with Bill I wouldn't go, but I trust him. Fuck." He gave Ron a searing look, sank down to Ron's side and kissed him savagely. "We'll figure this out, I promise. I want you back," he murmured. "You tell this Hashmal that you're mine and I'll be back to claim you. Got it?"
Ron threw his arms around Draco, knowing his voice would betray his brokenness and gratitude. "He's here. He knows," he said, the words gluey on his tongue. "Don't go," he begged. "What if Hashmal's right? What if there is an attack? Just stay."
"No, Ron. I'll see you soon. Be well," Draco admonished, pressing his lips to Ron's a last time before leaving the room.
"So you're finally conceding that I might actually have a message worth heeding?" Hashmal bloviated as he stood up from the floor. "Once your precious lover is going to be in London? Think of how many other lives you could save!"
"No! I don't really believe you." Ron curled up on his side, pulling the covers to his chin. "Because if you really wanted to save us, you'd go to the Minister yourself. Not tell me I have to do it."
Hashmal looked as though he wanted to throttle him. "You were the one selected. The Unnameable has reasons for all decisions made."
"Bet this Unnameable of your regrets the choice he made now!"
"Not half as much as I do!"
Ron thought he could see Hashmal's fury and exasperation; the room glowed red-ochre and Ron's jaw clenched as he braced himself against another magical onslaught.
No, this is part of you! he said to himself, his fingernails pressing painful half-moons into his palms. "He's not real, he's not real," he chanted, the three words serving as a mantra until the room settled back into its usual shade of maroon and the dull headache lingering from his hangover reasserted itself.
"At any point you can take a break from babysitting me, especially since I obviously make you want to throw things," Ron said, not feeling nearly as cocky as his commentary.
"I'm going to have to admit defeat and consult with the Glorious One," Hashmal said with a laboured sigh. "I wouldn't dare to second-guess why the decision was made for you to be our oracle. From yours and my too brief time together, I can tell you're too fragile to believe I am who and what I say I am. For you to be in a place to listen to my portends, you truly would force yourself to insanity. I'm not a dark one; this is too much to ask of me."
Hashmal's expression had cleared like a freshly washed sky after a storm. There was nothing turbulent about him: he was despondency, a clear ringing tone of lament.
"Good-bye, Ron. I don't expect I'll ever see you again, at least not in our respective forms."
He stood over Ron and gestured fluidly with his hand. It seemed like a protection spell, but Ron couldn't find the energy to ask. He was suddenly unable to keep his eyes open, and with a heavy heart, he sank into sleep.
Continue to part six, the end!!
Coming to, Ron wondered why he was curled up in a foetal position on the living room floor. His joints felt full of crunching glass shards as he gingerly rose up on his elbows. Memory came flooding back and with effort, he looked around. When his gaze lit on Hashmal, sitting near the fireplace, his thin legs hugged to his chest, Ron groaned.
"Why would you do such a thing?" Hashmal asked, his tone heavy like tolling bells.
Ron could see he wasn't at his regular condition, but it wouldn't be long. Fucking Merlin, he was going to have to Crucio himself again.
"Because you won't go away," Ron said thickly. "I thought that was obvious."
He sat up, murmuring a string of invectives. Even though he felt as though anvils had attacked him, he stood up and limped into the kitchen. Two shots of firewhiskey later, he didn't tremble or hurt as much and it allowed him to get on with what he had to do next. Supporting himself against the counter as he hobbled back to the living room, he retrieved the mirror and his wand.
"Ronald, no!" the entity cried out. He seemed overcome by ineffable dismay, which provided the fuel Ron needed to ramp up his anger, and to mean it when he cast the next Unforgivable.
"I'm not spending the rest of my life with you around," Ron promised, letting his fury and his injustice build again.
Hashmal looked horrified.
"Leave me alone!" Ron yelled hoarsely.
"I can't! By the Unnameable, I can't!" Hashmal was the epitome of wretched, but Ron didn't care.
"Then you can watch. CRUCIO! " Ron shouted as light shot from his wand, hit the mirror and crashed into his body.
Pain knifed through him and he slumped to the floor, gasping and moaning. Blistering sores seemed to well up all inside of him; breathing and moving made him feel he was cocooned in razor wire. Finally his anguish began to subside and he turned his head, hoping Hashmal would have been rendered incapacitated and insubstantial.
The spot was empty.
With a rusty bark of triumph, Ron slowly turned his head, feeling dagger-points in his neck. As he rolled to the other side, hoping his arms would hold his weight, he saw the hem of Hashmal's tunic and let out a cry of distress. He fumbled for his wand, hindered by residual pain and shaking with the desperate need to make this creature leave forever. What if Draco found him like this? He'd be sent to the incurable ward at St. Mungo's for sure! He let out a wounded, inarticulate yell as he grasped his wand. Hashmal, too, let out an unearthly noise. Hashmal's ululation changed in pitch while Ron screamed in rage, a wave of untamed magic pouring out of him. A series of tinkling sounds tore at Ron's comprehension before there was a huge crash from their bedroom. Panicked, Ron threw his arm over his head, afraid the ceiling would fall, or the whole house would cave in.
Eerie silence drifted around them like snow. Ron was still shaking but got himself together enough to grab a hold of the edge of the coffee table and pull into a hunched, seated position. Hashmal hovered as close as he could, curved forward as though a protective cape would spring from his back.
"I couldn't let you harm yourself any more," he murmured, one hand tentatively reaching out as though he were going to brush Ron's hair from his face.
"What did you do?" Ron asked, his eyes glancing to the crescent-shaped mirror. It was cracked, fissures running haywire across the surface. "You broke it? Or did I?" he whimpered. "They're all shattered, aren't they? All the mirrors " His voice trailed off as a part far inside of him snapped, helplessly. He couldn't fight this, he couldn't win.
Defeated, Ron considered his options. Draco loved him and wouldn't want to put him put away, but he'd demand that Ron go in for more tests. Maybe if he could talk to Bill-
"I'm going to figure out what it'll take to convince my lover and brother that I've not lost my fucking mind," he said to Hashmal, proud that his voice didn't shake very much. "I'll be taking the scotch, what's left of the cigarettes and my gimpy leg out to the porch. I really, really hope you won't follow me. But who's to stop you?" Ron let out a harsh laugh. "No one. No more Crucios, and contrary to what this mess looks like, I'm not suicidal. Oh, Pan. There you are, poor thing."
Pandemonium looked straight at Hashmal; her fur rose and she hissed, bristling at his presence. After a brief standoff, she made a plaintive meow to Ron and followed at his feet, even sitting in his lap once he was situated in his chair on the porch. Ron spent the next couple of hours getting drunk out of his mind, escaping his situation the way he knew best. Aside from an awkward and painful excursion to the bathroom, he sat, drinking and engaging in a dialogue of sorts with Hashmal, who asked Ron how he could possibly live the rest of his life with the guilt of not speaking up.
The more intoxicated Ron got, the more belligerent he became in telling Hashmal he was a shitty messenger and shouldn't have chosen him in the first place.
"Why the fuck would you choose me as an oracle?" Ron slurred before losing his line of thought.
"Because they would have listened to you," Hashmal said morosely.
Ron snorted, tried to light a cigarette, and failed, cursing the cigarette and matches alike. He only realised he must have passed out around then when he came to and found he was in a bed that wasn't his. Well, it was, but it wasn't his bed anymore, and hadn't been since he'd left the Burrow. One of Draco's handcrafted hangover potions was within arm's length, but before Ron reached for it, he lolled his pounding head to see who was looking at him. He knew he wasn't alone, but he didn't dare guess who might be in the room. They were both fuzzy, and halos of light seemed to glow around them due to Ron's crap eyesight when hung over.
"Ron. I'm " Draco's voice faltered. "I don't know what to say." He sat next to the bed, his hands gripped together, using one thumb to scrape under the other thumbnail. "Bill owled me- you were passed out on the deck, your ankle bandaged up, every mirror shattered. I don't scare easily, you know that," he went on, his voice measured. "Bill did a basic auralic, and picked up on the Crucio patterns. What the fuck is going on, and why haven't you been honest with me?" Draco's voice was the lone, piercing cry that causes the first snow to slide and cause an avalanche.
"He's not real!" Ron said, his jelly-like arms protesting as he got up to a sitting position. "I figured out he would go away, sort of, if I was in pain. So I cast the Crucios on myself. I'm not crazy. You've got to believe me." Despair began plucking apart the threads holding together Ron's thin fabric of hope. "If you don't, who will?"
"Bill," Hashmal replied acerbically, scowling at Ron from beneath a decade-old Cannons poster.
Draco looked at him for several long minutes. "Drink the hangover potion," he said at last.
Ron did, and felt immensely better physically, but in all other ways, he was unsteady, the ground beneath him like sand being inexorably reclaimed by the tide.
"They want me to go to a conference in London for a few days," Draco said, studying his fingers. "I'm of two minds about it, and I hate that." He turned his gaze to Ron, who feebly opened his arms, hoping Draco would sit on the bed, join him, have any kind of physical contact, but Draco remained stoically in his seat.
"I don't want to leave you. But part of me wants to get away, let you talk to Bill. Dark Magic I understand, but what you're experiencing, I don't." Draco made a soft fist, propping his folded fingers against his cheekbone. "You didn't write down anything else with that person you said you saw in the paper, did you?"
"No," Ron admitted.
"But it didn't stop." It was a statement; there was no question in Draco's tone.
Ron closed his eyes. "Draco, I promise I'm not a nutter. Please, just let me explain. Hashmal's all wrong, I'm no prophet, no messenger, I'm just me. But he's-"
"I'll be back in two days," Draco said, standing fluidly and looking down at Ron, who felt he'd just been caught in a riptide. "If you weren't with Bill I wouldn't go, but I trust him. Fuck." He gave Ron a searing look, sank down to Ron's side and kissed him savagely. "We'll figure this out, I promise. I want you back," he murmured. "You tell this Hashmal that you're mine and I'll be back to claim you. Got it?"
Ron threw his arms around Draco, knowing his voice would betray his brokenness and gratitude. "He's here. He knows," he said, the words gluey on his tongue. "Don't go," he begged. "What if Hashmal's right? What if there is an attack? Just stay."
"No, Ron. I'll see you soon. Be well," Draco admonished, pressing his lips to Ron's a last time before leaving the room.
"So you're finally conceding that I might actually have a message worth heeding?" Hashmal bloviated as he stood up from the floor. "Once your precious lover is going to be in London? Think of how many other lives you could save!"
"No! I don't really believe you." Ron curled up on his side, pulling the covers to his chin. "Because if you really wanted to save us, you'd go to the Minister yourself. Not tell me I have to do it."
Hashmal looked as though he wanted to throttle him. "You were the one selected. The Unnameable has reasons for all decisions made."
"Bet this Unnameable of your regrets the choice he made now!"
"Not half as much as I do!"
Ron thought he could see Hashmal's fury and exasperation; the room glowed red-ochre and Ron's jaw clenched as he braced himself against another magical onslaught.
No, this is part of you! he said to himself, his fingernails pressing painful half-moons into his palms. "He's not real, he's not real," he chanted, the three words serving as a mantra until the room settled back into its usual shade of maroon and the dull headache lingering from his hangover reasserted itself.
"At any point you can take a break from babysitting me, especially since I obviously make you want to throw things," Ron said, not feeling nearly as cocky as his commentary.
"I'm going to have to admit defeat and consult with the Glorious One," Hashmal said with a laboured sigh. "I wouldn't dare to second-guess why the decision was made for you to be our oracle. From yours and my too brief time together, I can tell you're too fragile to believe I am who and what I say I am. For you to be in a place to listen to my portends, you truly would force yourself to insanity. I'm not a dark one; this is too much to ask of me."
Hashmal's expression had cleared like a freshly washed sky after a storm. There was nothing turbulent about him: he was despondency, a clear ringing tone of lament.
"Good-bye, Ron. I don't expect I'll ever see you again, at least not in our respective forms."
He stood over Ron and gestured fluidly with his hand. It seemed like a protection spell, but Ron couldn't find the energy to ask. He was suddenly unable to keep his eyes open, and with a heavy heart, he sank into sleep.
Continue to part six, the end!!