The Ron Identity

CHAPTER TWO

And perhaps stories are like threads, different colours of the same weave, connecting and intertwining in the fabric that is reality. And perhaps there are many cuts of fabric, rough and smooth, thick and light, and it is up to us to choose the one we clothe ourselves in. One thing, however, is certain - no matter the weave, no matter the thread, they are all grown, and plucked, and woven by the same hands, so that in the end, they might all just be the same story.

***

They were on Platform 9-and-3/4 hugging Mrs Weasley goodbye. "Ron, tuck in your shirt, you look like you just woke up... Hermione dear, I'll be fine, I recover well... Oh Ginny, your hair! Harry dear, do look after yourself, and remember we're just an owl away."

"MUM," Ginny said, annoyed at the imbalance in attention given. "The train's going to leave us here with you if you don't let Harry go soon."

Molly Weasley released Harry so suddenly he almost fell over. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry, love," she said apologetically, pushing the four of them up the carriage. Arthur Weasley waved as she stepped back to stand with him, and the whistle blew.

"Bye Mum, bye Dad," Ginny and Ron called. Hermione and Harry waved energetically as the train pulled itself sluggishly out of the station and began trundling the long distance to Hogsmeade station.

"Come on, we can take a seat near the back," Ginny said, carrying Pigwidgeon's cage and pulling Harry's hand. Hermione carried Crookshanks in her arms while Ron struggled with Hedwig's cage.

"I can carry it, Ron," Harry protested, but Hermione shook her head.

"You go and sit," she commanded. Harry and Ron looked mutinous. "It's alright mate, I'm fine," Ron said, almost dropping Hedwig's cage. The owl gave an aggrieved shriek, and the door of the nearest compartment opened to reveal the head of a chubby boy with an exasperated look.

"Can you keep it down? Oh," he said, recognizing them, "hallo, Harry, Ginny. Ron, Hermione, come on, we're on duty."

"Hallo, Ernie," Ron said, and regained control of Hedwig's cage. "Where are the fifth-years?"

Ernie looked grouchy. "They're at the front of the train, with the Head Boy and Girl. Anyway we have to take attendance, you and Hermione for Gryffindor."

"Go on," Hermione said to Harry and Ginny. "We'll be there soon."

She went into Ernie's compartment with Ron, wondering why there was a whiny voice in her head that wanted to pretend she wasn't a prefect, wanting instead to go down the train with Harry and Ginny and just relax for the whole journey. It wasn't as though she actually disliked being a prefect. Hermione disliked instead people who shirked responsibility, almost as much as she disliked Draco Malfoy. There were very few things she disliked as much as Draco Malfoy. He was, quite possibly, the most evil, disgusting, tiresome little toad she had ever met.

Unfortunately he was also in Ernie's compartment, not with his usual bosom buddies Crabbe and Goyle, but with a simpering Pansy Parkinson, who shot Hermione a vicious look once she and Ron stepped in. Hermione returned the glare with equal venom, and glanced at Malfoy. He looked decidedly thinner and more haggard than he had at the end of fifth year. She guessed his father's incarceration would have had something to do with that.

"Right," Ernie said, ignoring the Slytherin prefects who were draped all across the seat facing them. He pulled out two clipboards and handed them to Ron and Hermione. "Ron, boys, Hermione, girls. Just walk down the whole train and check for them in every carriage, and when you're done bring these back to me, alright?"

"Macmillan," Malfoy drawled insolently, "since when did you become Head Boy?"

Ernie bristled. "I am not Head Boy, I am merely acting under orders from Professor Sprout."

"Sprout?" said Ron. "She's on the train, then?"

"Yes," Ernie said shortly. "Malfoy, you have work to do. Go do it."

Malfoy gave him an arrogantly lazy smile. "Macmillan, you have a brain to grow. Go plant it."

Ron had to grab both Ernie's wrists to keep him from lunging at Malfoy. "Leave it, Ernie," Ron muttered under his breath.

"Oh look, Weasley protecting Macmillan from big scary Malfoy," Pansy sneered.

Hermione gave her a look of pure loathing. She didn't think it was possible to hate the girl any more than she did at that moment. Before she realized it her hand was on her wand in her right pocket, just as Ron's was on his. "Aren't you jealous, Granger? Someone's going to steal your ugly dirt-poor boyfriend from you."

"He's not -" Hermione began. But Ron got there first.

"Je sais oú tu dormi à soir," he said in a low voice. Hermione couldn't tell whether he was speaking to Malfoy or Pansy, but the surprise registered on both their pale faces. Malfoy swung his long legs down from the seat and stood up, staring Ron right in the eyes. This close up, Hermione could see the grey of his eyes hardened and cold like steel under ice, and the dark shadows under them.

"So do I, Weasley," he whispered. Then he snatched the green clipboards from Ernie's arms and stalked out, Pansy following him with a furtive glance back at Ron.

*

Severus Snape was in a very bad mood. Considering the school term hadn't yet begun and thus his annual cycle of bad moods was not due to start till two days later, his annoyance had blossomed into a full-blown wrath that smoked his breath as he worked. The good thing was that he never let his anger interfere with the tenacity of his work, but the bad thing was he had really been looking forward to a nice quiet morning in his living room, eating strawberry tarts and hopefully falling asleep to that new jazz album he had bought last week. Bloody hell. This was going to be another bad start to the school year.

The set-up in front of him was the most complex he had ever constructed in his home laboratory, but its very existence had won him Dumbledore's praise. Dumbledore was the only reason he had consented to trying his hand at this potion. It was Dumbledore who had told him how time-consuming it was to make, and how fatal it could be when something went wrong. Today Snape was supposed to have obtained a final strain that just needed a bit more boiling, but - and he felt the most pristine fury at himself thinking about it - the fire that he had meant to keep burning had inadvertently died out, and the potion that had been prepared so far would have to be discarded.

"Aargh," he muttered, scraping off the remnants of the useless gunk. A small bit of it flicked into his eye, and Snape surprised himself by the fluency and imagination with which he cursed the gunk, the spatula, himself and all around him. Disgruntled, he tossed the entire beaker into the bin and went to wash his hands in the sink by the window.

It was a bleary day by anyone's standards, and Snape remembered with loathing that he was due to leave for Hogwarts in two hours' time. He lived alone in his parents' house, on the brow of a hill in an empty town called Tuning Fork. There were a lot of factors contributing to his warped childhood, Snape thought darkly, letting the water run over his tired fingers. There was a distant fleck against the insecure white of the sky, slowly growing larger, until he noticed it was headed for his home. Great, it was time for mail.

The bird that landed on the windowsill was a large vulture, which eyed him beadily as he removed the letter tied to its leg. Vultures were the usual in Tuning Fork, because the post office didn't have enough dignity to use owls. Snape dug around in his pocket for a Knut, tucked it into the bird's leg pouch and began to read his letter.

After a moment he realized the bird hadn't moved, and was in fact watching him very intently, the way a person would when wondering if someone would recognize them.

"Yes?" Snape said coldly. He was, if anything, polite, especially to animals. "I believe I have already paid you."

The bird blinked at him.

Snape raised an eyebrow, then continued reading his letter. It was from Dumbledore.

My good Severus [it read],

I hope the potion is not driving you insane. I have faith in your skill and trust you will do your best to produce a workable solution.

It would be extremely gracious of you to assist Viktor when he arrives at Hogwarts. I would suggest mentoring him, but you are hardly one to take to personal tutoring, are you Severus?

I wish you luck in your new school year. Again, I have faith in your skill - whether in teaching Potions or outside it.

Yours faithfully,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Snape was beaming by the end of the letter. Dumbledore's words had reminded him of the reason why this school year would be a very special one for him. It made him forget completely his previous irritations. He rolled up the letter and was about to go when he noticed the vulture was still perched like a feathery statue on the windowsill, peering intently at him.

"Oh for heaven's sake," Snape snapped, "what is it? Do I smell of raw beef? Do I look like your long-lost sister? What?"

The bird stretched its neck, ruffled its feathers and blinked in a most offended manner.

"Bloody bird," Snape muttered.

The vulture gave him an injured look, and took off with a swish of its wings. Snape watched it go with a disdainful curiosity. Animals tended to stay away from him, mostly because he had a constant smell of belladonna on his hands. It was a good thing because he didn't like animals anyway, dogs in particular.

The thought of Sirius stabbed him sharply with guilt. He had no reason to feel guilty, he had told himself over and over, but the years of wishing grievous bodily harm on Sirius and his actual demise had combined to depress Snape with great effect. It was one thing to hate a person and wish he were dead. It was an entirely different thing to hate the person when he was actually dead. At least, Snape thought bitterly, it meant Sirius would never piss him off again. And yet, perhaps even there he would be proven wrong.

He cursed again, and stalked off to pack the last of his belongings for school.

***

Harry had managed to ignore the looks and stares from the students while they had walked down the length of the train, mainly because Ginny was talking at high speed and throwing dagger eyes at anyone who dared glance their way. He found it was much easier when he just focused on the people who mattered. Mr Weasley had told him, just before they left, that there would always be those who never understood him, or any of the major catastrophes he had become used to calling part of his life. "But," he had added, "there will be those who don't understand, but accept it anyway."

"Like you and Mrs Weasley?" Harry had asked, although he already knew.

Arthur Weasley had smiled then. It was a painful thing to love Harry, because of the things he went through, and every time he saw Harry's melancholy face he felt weak and useless. But he said none of this to Harry. "Yes," he said instead. "People like me and Molly. We love you, Harry. Don't forget that."

The sky was turning rapidly from an indecisive bleariness to a darker blue when Ron and Hermione finally returned from their duties. The tea trolley had already been by, and Harry had saved as much as he could for them. He was guessing they hadn't had much to eat, and knowing Ron, this could result in severe grumpiness.

He was tossing a fourth Chocolate Frog at Neville, who had managed to find them just after they got an empty compartment to themselves. Neville caught the Frog just as Trevor hopped out of his pocket, sat on the seat woefully eyeing him for a moment, then disappeared out the compartment door, which was slightly ajar.

"Trevor!" Neville wailed. Harry grinned.

"I'll go find him for you," Ginny said, putting down the pack of Exploding Snap. "He always goes to the same places, doesn't he?"

"Er," said Neville, looking forlorn. "I dunno, really."

"Well he's a toad," Ginny said in a somewhat strident tone. Harry looked at her for a moment, trying to think who she reminded him of when she was being all bossy like that. Oh... Hermione. "He should do what all toads do."

"Which is?" Neville asked.

But they never found out, because that was the moment the door slammed open to its maximum width and a furious Ron stormed in, followed by an equally furious Hermione.

"Er," said Neville, inching away from them towards Ginny, who looked uneasy. "Hi, Ron, hi Hermione."

Ron grunted at him, but Hermione managed a weak smile before turning her full anger on Ron. "Ronald Weasley, if you haven't got anything to hide you're going to tell me right now what that was about!"

It was difficult to tell, with the way they were glaring at each other, who was angrier with whom.

"Wow," Ginny mumbled. "She sounds like Mum, she does."

"What what was about?" Harry asked. In contrast to their wrathful faces he felt rather light-headed, happy even. Possibly it was the effect of eating so many Cauldron Cakes at one go. "Ron, Hermione, please don't fight. Why don't you tell us what's going on?"

Harry didn't understand why everyone swiveled around to gape at him. "What?" he asked. "Is it so hard to just talk calmly for once?"

"Harry," Neville said, "you've never sounded so... so..."

"Level-headed?" Ron suggested.

Harry frowned. "Really? Damn."

Ron relaxed visibly, and sat down next to Harry, burying his head in his hands. Hermione sat opposite, next to Ginny. Neville meekly offered her a Chocolate Frog, which she accepted and began violently tearing apart, glaring at Ron all the while.

"What happened?" Ginny asked again.

"He threatened Malfoy," Hermione said through gritted teeth.

Harry beamed. "That's brilliant! But Hermione... what's so bad about that?"

Hermione turned her glare on Harry, who shrank back. It was like being under a high-energy spotlight, being glared at by Hermione. It made him feel unbearably, unreasonably guilty. "He threatened Malfoy," she continued, "in French."

There was a pause in which everyone considered the implications of this event.

"So?" Harry said, after a while.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Ronald doesn't speak French, do you Ronald?"

"STOP CALLING ME RONALD!"

The pristine silence that followed this shout could have been sliced with a steak knife. Hermione's eyes were wide, her hands frozen in mid-tear. Ron's face had gone past flushed and splotchily livid, to a ghostly white. Harry had never seen Ron so angry. It was as unnerving as seeing Lupin transform into his werewolf self.

"I told you," Ron continued, the anger in his voice struggling to bubble to the surface, "I SAID it in ENGLISH. I DON'T speak French, and I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT."

He looked at Harry for support, but Harry was contemplating him intently. "You know," he said, "I reckon you've been a bit strange lately, Ron."

Ron stared.

"What did you say to him?" Neville asked, anxious to prevent another explosion.

"Je sais oú tu dormi à soir," Hermione said. She appeared to have got over the shock of being shouted at, and of not being apologized to, but her hands were shaking somewhat. Ginny had to help her open the Chocolate Frog box.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means," Hermione said, her voice wavering unsteadily, "I know where you sleep at night."

"'I know where you sleep at night?' What kind of a threat is that? Shouldn't it have been something more on the lines of 'I want to tear out your spleen and use it to play tennis with'? Or 'I'll rip out your ribcage and play it like a piano'?"

"Eew, Harry," Neville said, grimacing.

Ron put his face back in his hands. Harry handed him a Chocolate Frog.

"That song," Ginny said suddenly. "The song that was playing in the Thingy... Was that French?"

Ron shook his head.

"What thingy?" Harry asked. Neville looked confused as well.

"It's a Discman, Harry," Hermione said. She had finished her Chocolate Frog and was now eyeing Ron with elegant disdain. "Tonks found it and gave it to his" - Harry noticed she wouldn't say Ron's name - "father. And the song wasn't in French, it was in Spanish. And that's a perfectly good threat, because you don't want your enemies knowing they could kill you in your sleep."

Harry goggled. "You read too much, Hermione," he said finally.

Hermione looked serene. "I read enough," she said, and turned to stare out the window. The sky was already darkening, with only a faint hint of light on the horizon. There were no stars, she noticed, and the waning moon was barely visible as a faint sliver, like the sickle-shaped smile of a lunatic. The darkness is upon us all. It comes, and it goes, but ever and always it is there.

They lapsed into uncertain silence as the train chugged onwards.

***

Remus Lupin was very glad at the moment. He was lying reclined on a comfortable chaise lounge, sipping an exotic cocktail, and there was a very attractive person sitting on his lap. Best of all there was no moon! This was the life.

"Would you care to take it somewhere more comfortable?" he said to the person, who simply beamed at him. He struggled to focus on the person's face, which was blurring at the edges and around the middle. Also the place where the person was sitting was really getting uncomfortably hot. How could one person emanate such heat? And from only one place...

"OUCH," Lupin yelped, and woke up.

The hot-water bottle had slid from his queasy stomach to his nether regions, which explained the horrible pain. He put down the glass of milk and shifted about on the armchair, heaving a huge sigh of disappointment. His stomach was still in agony after having to suffer its regular battle with the Wolfsbane potion, and it wasn't a bright idea for him to leave the house unless it was urgent. Remus Lupin, he said to himself, it's about time you realized you don't have a life.

It was almost eight in the evening, according to the clock that hung on the wall opposite, which meant the children would be in school soon. Well they were all sixteen by now, excluding Ginny who was only a year younger, but he still thought of them as children. He remembered what it had been like teaching when Harry, Ron and Hermione had reached third year. It had been three years, but he still missed Hogwarts with an ache. It was the only place besides his own home that he had been accepted, and the only place he had ever had friends.

He got up and went over to the table where his Defence Against the Dark Arts books had been spread out, over a copious number of ancient texts Dumbledore had lent him. "Find it," Dumbledore had told him grimly. "It is there, and it must be found."

Lupin knew what Dumbledore had been talking about, of course. He had agreed immediately to plough through all the texts given to find what Dumbledore wanted, and he was currently about halfway through. He sat down now at the table and stared at the book that lay open on it. There was a gruesome picture of a wizard sticking his hand into his chest, and another next to it of another wizard who lay on the ground holding his own heart in his hand. The page said: The Life-Giving Curse.

Lupin looked at it for a moment, and peeled off an orange flag to mark the page. He would come back to it later. Right now it was time for him to check in at the Burrow.

He went over to the fireplace, in which a small fire had been trying very hard to emulate crackling, but gave up shortly after. There was a box of Floo powder on the mantelpiece, out of which he took a small pinch and dropped it into the cold logs. "The Burrow," he said in his clear baritone, and after a moment the Weasley's kitchen became visible at the opposite side of the fireplace. The room was devoid of people, but Lupin could see a pot bubbling on the stove.

"Molly?" he called. "Arthur?"

There was no response. The pot gave a loud belching sound and began to overflow. Lupin pulled his wand out of his pocket and pointed at it. "Exstinguere!" The flames under the pot obediently vanished, and the Weasley kitchen became still and quiet.

"Arthur?" he called again. "It's Lupin."

A shadow appeared on the floor in the doorway leading out of the kitchen, and it paused for a moment, the person just out of sight. Lupin blinked. "Arthur?"

It was not Arthur Weasley who stepped out of the shadows, but Percy.

"Percy?" Lupin exclaimed, then flushed. "I mean, hello, Percy. What... what are you doing here?"

Percy appeared to have an uncharacteristically dreamy look on his face. He swiveled around and beamed at Lupin in the manner of a rather dim toddler.

"Why hello, Professor Lupin. I live here, you know," he said, as though this was a perfectly normal thing to say under the circumstances. "Is there something wrong with that?"

Lupin was surprised, and for reasons unknown to himself, afraid. "No, there isn't. It's just that I thought you lived in London."

"Oh," Percy said agreeably. "Perhaps I did."

Lupin stared at him in disbelief. He was vaguely aware of his knees getting numb from his position on the floor, and his head uncomfortably hot in the Floo fire, but he kept his gaze on Percy, who had begun to potter about the kitchen like a busy housewife, giving the pot on the stove a dismayed poke.

"Percy," he said carefully, knowing this could provoke a sensitive reaction, "where are your parents?"

Percy turned back, and the smile on his face seemed to cement the fear in Lupin's heart. "Dunno, really." He looked bemused at Lupin's shock, but only for a second, before the disturbing smile reappeared. "Is something the matter, Professor?"

"Percy," Lupin said calmly, "I'm not a professor anymore."

Percy's smile widened. "Really. Not surprising, that."

Lupin ignored the barb. "When did you get back?"

The young man came around the table to kneel at the fireplace, so close Lupin could feel the proximity of his nose to his own. "Today," Percy whispered, and there was a distant, empty look in his eyes, like a house with the lights off and no one home. Lupin's feeling of foreboding increased steadily. "When my parents were out."

Lupin took a deep breath and pulled his head out of the fire. The emerald green flames took a moment to flicker and die, but Lupin was already at his table searching hurriedly through the texts and papers. He pulled out a single sheet, folded it into his pocket, and Disapparated with a flustered pop.

***

By the time they were herding the first-years toward the castle with Hagrid, Ron was beginning to feel the strain of being annoyed with Hermione. He had no clue where the threat had come from - he should have said something like "Shove off, dung-brain," given his experiences with Fred and George - but whatever he had said, he had most certainly said it in English. What was she getting on his case about?

"Excuse me," said a very small dark-haired girl. Ron looked up at her. "I need the toilet."

"We're almost there," Ron said irritably. "You're eleven, not five. Hang on a bit."

The girl was silent for approximately five minutes, and then she said, "Excuse me," again, without a trace of timidity.

"What?"

"Is Hagrid a teacher?"

Ron looked nettled. "He's Professor Hagrid to you, midget." He caught Hermione's eye, but instead of giving him a chiding look, she averted her gaze.

The huge front doors of Hogwarts opened slowly to reveal the school caretaker, Argus Filch, giving the first-years his usual lopsided grin. As the first-years followed Hagrid's call of, "First-years, left into that room with Professor McGonagall, there yeh go," Ron waited for Hermione to fall back, and then pulled her out onto the front steps of the castle.

"What are you - " She turned to rebuke, but fell silent when she saw it was him.

"Hermione," he said quickly, in case he lost the nerve to apologise, "look, Hermione, I don't know about just now, I just shouted something at Malfoy, and it was English to me, all right? I don't know why it's French to you, but..."

"Ron," Hermione interrupted. Her eyes were bright with worry. "You heard English. I heard French. Who knows what Malfoy heard, but don't you remember what it was like when Harry discovered he was a Parselmouth? He didn't know he was speaking a different language... What if this is like that?"

Ron was so surprised for a moment he burst out laughing. "Hermione, it's French, not Parseltongue," he pointed out. "I reckon you're a bit too worried, with everything that's been happening. You worry too much, you really do."

"I most certainly do not," Hermione said hotly.

Ron grinned. "Do too."

They looked at each other for a moment, and the tension flowed from them in a collective sigh.

"Besides," he added, "things don't happen to me, they happen to Harry."

Hermione nodded nervously and stared at the floor, wondering if she should apologise, when Ron touched her arm and jerked his chin in the direction of the entrance, where Malfoy was strolling up the stairs.

"My, my," Malfoy said, more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "What a touching scene. The Weasel and the Mudblood. Should have known you were meant for each other, really, seeing as you're both equally pathetic."

"We don't have parents who work for the most evil wizard on the planet," Hermione said sweetly. "That's hardly as pathetic as you, is it?"

Malfoy narrowed his eyes till they became two slivers of shining steel. "What do your parents do, Granger?" he asked, his voice soft and stroking. It made Hermione shudder. "You might want to keep an eye on them. You know it's the Muggles he wants."

"Get stuffed, Malfoy," Ron snarled. Hermione felt a distant sense of relief at the characteristically Ron line. In that moment, she realized why it had been so important to her what Ron said, or in some cases, did not say. Ron was the most steady, dependable person she knew. Harry had mood swings, and Harry grew and changed in his opinions, but Ron was always just Ron, and if there was no Ron there would be something seriously wrong with her world.

Malfoy sneered at them. "Is that all you can say? 'Get stuffed, Malfoy'? Where were you when God was giving out witty comeback lines?"

"Getting in line for 'an honest life'," Ron shot back.

"Not much of a deal there, Weasley," Malfoy replied, his thin lips curving into a lazy smile. He looked so much like his mother, Ron thought, and then wondered where the hell that had sprung from. He was about to say something in defence of his sorry repartee when he felt a warm sensation in the centre of his stomach, spreading out like a flower of pain to encompass his upper body. He wanted to tell Hermione that he couldn't breathe, but he couldn't see her. His vision was beginning to blur into fuzzy images he couldn't recognize, and he felt his head turn toward a black boulder with a blonde peak. He felt a voice rise from his throat - not his own, he didn't have that kind of bass in his voice - and it spoke something to the blonde boulder, angry words. And as quickly as it had seized him it threw him to the floor, forcing him into violent convulsions, so that the last thing he heard was the sound of a girl bursting into tears, and her feet as she ran into the castle, away from him.

No, he wanted to call, come back, but the agony was too great, and he fell into darkness.