Miles Apart

-~| Chapter 3 - Too Sick to Party |~-

"Ron, darling! So good to see you!" Parvati Patil crooned in his ear, as she air-kissed him. Her shocking-pink robe caught the light and almost blinded him with its lurid gleam.

"Hullo, Parvati," Ron greeted, quite uncomfortably, shielding his eyes.

Ron had to repeat the whole air-kissing with Parvati's sister Padma, and again with Lavender's other girlfriends. He was sick of all this really; he had come to hate these high society parties. He yearned for a Weasley get-together; where food was aplenty, not this low-cal, zero-taste trash, but real food; comfortable clothes, not shiny and in dress-robes; back-slapping and loads of jokes, not this upright, etiquette ridden riffraff who backbit those who made it big. He didn't even realize that there hadn't been many family gatherings the way they used to before.

Bill, Percy, Fred and George, had all moved out to their separate houses after getting married. Charlie had gone back to Romania after the war and married a local girl named Rukhsana. Only Ginny and he were left in tying the nuptial knot, while unofficially it was only him. Harry and Ginny were a married couple already, the way they behaved. They were in the process of planning their marriage anyway, so that left him: Ron, the Weasley bachelor.

Percy was happily living with Penelope and jubilantly expecting a baby. Fred and George had married Angelina Johnson and Tara Johnson; how appropriate for them to fall for sisters. They now lived above their shop at Diagon Alley.

He sighed at nothing in particular. Could he, Ron Weasley, marry this Lavender Brown? He looked over towards her and was shocked to see her flirting with a tanned muscle-mountain. Ron was actually getting used to this trait of hers; always doing what made him angry and then smile about it as if she had done nothing at all.

Disgruntled, he went towards the bar and ordered a straight firewhiskey. He was just gulping it down when someone called his name.

"Ron Wealsey?"

He swiveled around to spot the source when he was blinded by a flash. After blinking repeatedly he at last faced the ever bouncy Colin Creevey, one of Daily Prophet's Photographers.

"Harry Potter's best friend! How are you?!" Colin gushed at him, while Ron groaned. "How's Manticoras? How's Harry? How many Death Eaters you've captured? Can I have your autograph? Can you sign it for Harry? Will you stand for a snap--"

"Colin!" Ron's head spun, from firewhiskey or Colin's questions, he didn't know.

"He'll be just in. Why don't you ask him yourself?" Ron lied, but in short notice he couldn't really think of anything else.

Colin's eyes dilated the size of dinner plates. "An exclusive for Daily Prophet! Wow! Thanks, Ron!" He scampered towards the main entrance.

"Mention not," he whispered, dryly.

Ron was sick of all these people who used him for information. Even being a part of the elite Manticoras, he was still the sidekick of the Boy-Who-Lived. 'Course, Harry never let him feel inferior to him. He even went to the limits that he let him lead some of their raids, and it was not even special treatment. Harry liked to be a team-player, so he picked out Manticores at random and let them lead the group.

Still, Ron had felt shadowed all his life. Sometimes he too wished prominence, away from the shadows above his head.

Before anyone could spot him again, he looked around for a dark corner. The party was being held at a ballroom of an expensive hotel. The circular ballroom had four further corners, and the farthest spot was furnished with small round tables. Ron trudged towards that area, dodging all the happy couples waltzing with the music.

Look at them idiots, dancing like a bunch of drugged dolls. He never liked to dance much. The last time he danced was in his Graduation Ball at Hogwarts. He still remembered the few stolen moments when he had danced with Hermione--how her perfume had wafted all over him and how her skin had felt smooth as silk in his arms.

Ron closed his eyes to regain perspective. You're at it again. Stop it!

He sidled into one of the round tables and ordered a bottle of firewhiskey. He'd drown his sorrows in booze if he had to.

He reflected on the last three years that had left his life burdened for some reason. He had been there but he hadn't. He had looked fine but he wasn't. Since Hermione had left England for Merlin knew where, he felt as if a part of him had gone with her.

Do I still miss you, Hermione? Do I--

"... don't you remember that Gryffindor Head Girl?" A voice flitted across to him. "That bushy-haired 'un, who hung out with Potter and that stupid Weasley?"

Suddenly, all the intoxication that he was feeling coursed its way into his brain, as many cells fired and an excess amount of blood was pumped all over his body. He felt as if smoldering in rage.

"Are ya talking abou' dat know-it-all? She was sooo proud, hanging about da famous Potter. Ya know? She refused me straight on; she don't wanna go out with me! Da little--"

"Yeah, Missy Goody-Two-Shoes, that tight-arsed b--"

Ron's blood was boiling inside him; he could almost feel smoke issuing from his ears as he stood up unsteadily and turned around to make for the drunken voices. At the same time, the voices around him seemed to magnify as the pulsating beats coming from the enchanted speakers hovering above the dance floor sang directly inside his head.

"TOO SICK TO PARTY!
Don't call the Healer.
I'm gonna get better;
I'll be fiiiiiine in my own time...."

The rest of the words mixed with the sudden magnified noise of chatter. Ron wasn't sober himself but the sudden anger somehow cleared his head, because he could see the group in question quite clearly. It was the old Ravenclaw Quidditch Team from his year.

He couldn't distinguish the faces but he vaguely remembered that one of them dated Ginny for some time. That seemed to enrage him even more.

He marched towards them, his eyes and face red with rage. "You bloody son of pigs!" he burst at them, his wand dangerously pointed towards their midsection. "How could you talk about Hermione like that! How dare you!!!

"She was NOT proud! She was--she was--"

All of them cowered in a corner; however, one of them had enough guts to shoot a Disarming Spell at him.

Ron's wand shot above in air but he caught it again swiftly, and roared, "What d' you reckon, I can't beat you without this?" He waved his wand at them. "Guess again!"

He stashed away his wand and plunged at them, hands punching furiously. The three blokes in question tried to close in on him with a circle but his flying hands seemed to catch one or another.

"I'll show you who's t--" He was still screaming at the top of his lungs and swinging his fists when some people finally got the courage to break up the fight. It took four undistinguished blokes to subdue him.

The commotion obviously caused quite a stir in the party as the crowd gathered around the brawling men. Ron, by that time, sported a black eye and few bruises. He was quite pleased to see the three ex-Ravenclaws' faces, which looked like swollen, protruding meat.

"Ron!" Lavender was beyond herself, her eyes jutting out of their sockets at his predicament. "What do you think you are doing?" She was vacillating in her pencil heels and glittery dress.

"These sodding gits were--"

Lavender fluttered her eyelashes in dismay as her eyes popped out even more with Ron's open swearing. "Ron, you are drunk!"

"Now you're tellin' me!" Ron was already losing the thread of conversation as he stopped to hear what Lavender was exactly screaming to his face. He could not even make out the faces in the crowd that was pressing closer by the second.

I didn't see any giants in the party... How come there's a hoard of 'em now? This was the last concrete thought that his mind transmitted before he passed out completely--from drunkenness or brawling, could be anybody's guess.

-*-

"Stop it. Stop it, Lavender! I don't like it that way."

Ron was only trying to ward off Lavender, when he was splashed with a bucket of very cold water. The result it produced: he finally awoke.

"What in the bloody--" he faltered. It took him some time to take in the surroundings. He was not in his flat, but at the Burrow.

Bugger!!! His heart did a somersault out of fear in his chest.

He closed his eyes just to make it all go away. He was not lying like a discarded lump on the living room couch at his old home.

No!

I'm dreaming! I'm in my house. I'm just a bit hung over, that's all. This is all a dream. I'm--

"Ronald Weasley!" Molly Weasley's crackling voice forced him to open his eyes. His mother was towering over him in her supreme motherly anger. He could only peek at Ginny's red and Harry's unruly black hair behind her shoulders.

When he was tired of blinking stupidly and staring at everything else in the room, he finally looked at his mum, who seemed to throw daggers at him with her glare, as she placed her arms on either side of her waist.

"Mum..." he tried to plead.

"Are you aware of the scene you made last night?" she asked him, furiously.

"Uh..." Ron tried to catch Harry's, or even Ginny's, eye for some help, but couldn't because of the fuming figure blocking his view.

Molly Weasley slapped a piece of raw-meat on his right eye. If it weren't for the circumstances, Ron would have griped aloud.

She turned away from him and started stirring in a pot feverishly. "Oh! All grown up. Don't want to live with his family. 'I want to be independent,' he says. Well, look at what it did to you!" She waved the spoon she had been stirring with at his face.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Mum.... And why in the bloody hell am I soaking wet?!" He tried his best to sound genuinely puzzled, when in reality he only wanted the topic of brawling to drop.

Molly Weasley's wand came out in a flash. "Scourgify!" She directed the spell right at Ron's mouth. "This will teach you a lesson on how to talk in front of your mother! I've had it with your sneaky ways and cutting yourself from your own family!"

Ron had the expression of disbelief as the soapy suds spewed from his mouth and he gurgled over them. Not able to defend himself at all.

"Mum, that's enough." Ginny finally came to his rescue. "Evanesco!"

A rush of love shot from his heart for his sister as the soapy suds reduced to only a sour taste in his mouth. She's my little Ginny after all!

"Why don't you use Veritas on him and really know what he's up to?" Ginny suggested, fighting back a smirk.

"WHAT!" All the love that he had been feeling towards his sister shriveled up to a red hot charcoal. Bloody menace to the family!

"C'mon, it wouldn't be spontaneous, Ginny..." Harry reasoned, pretending not to hear Ron. "Why don't we tie him up here and go through his flat to uncover the mystery?"

Ron's eyes dilated in shock, as he was rendered speechless. He couldn't believe what was happening to his family and best mate!

"Decoys!" he shouted. "You three are Death Eaters and want me to hand you Ministry secrets. Over my dead body!"

Ginny rolled her eyes and exchanged looks with Harry and her mum. Molly Weasley kept on pouting whilst Harry could only shake his head.

"Really, Ron, hung over doesn't mean that you start spewing out nonsense," said Ginny, irately.

Ron blinked disbelievingly, as Ginny pushed a mug full of coffee in his face. Harry started to issue hot air out of his wand at Ron's clothes.

"It burns!" Ron said, annoyed, as steam issued from his clothes.

"Drink it!" Ginny demanded, turning a deaf ear to his plea.

"You promise it doesn't have Veritaserum in it?"

"NO," Ginny sighed, as if losing patience with her brother.

"Will someone tell me how did I get here?" Ron finally asked, after drinking half of the black-coffee that somehow cleared his mind, quite a bit.

"I have a question for you before that," Harry said. "Look at yourself in the mirror and tell us how could you lose your head? What about Manticoras honor and discipline? You promised, you would never repeat what you did--"

"Harry!" Ron interrupted him, before he could go any further.

"You drank yourself silly after Hermione left England, didn't you?" Ginny boomed.

"You told her!" Ron looked wounded at Harry's slip.

"Er..." Harry hunched his shoulders. "She's my soon-to-be-wife. I can't keep secrets from her," he reasoned.

"What about Best-Mate honor?"

"Ron, I--"

"Will you two shut up already?" Ginny dived in.

Ron looked at his mum for some reprimand at Ginny's language but she seemed too engrossed in what they were revealing that she didn't even bat an eyelash at his little sister.

"Why are you even dating Lavender, Ron?" Ginny asked, candidly. "Anybody could see that she's using you for popularity. She's being quoted all over the press that after Harry gets married; it's your turn with her."

"I would never marry her!" Wasn't one shock about him getting drunk enough?

His mum and sister shared a pleased smile.

"We know that, dear," Molly Weasley said, soothingly. "That's why we are worried that you are wasting your time with Lavender. It's time to move on."

"We know, you still miss her," Ginny said, delicately.

Ron bowed his head and remembered the reason why he had lost control in the bar: Hermione. The raw-meat slid from his fingers and flopped to the table. Looking at the fleshy meat, he remembered the Ex-Ravenclaw blokes from last night, and the way he had lost it.

As a Manticore, he had gone through grueling exercises to curb his anger and use it as a weapon. He had lost control, only once before this. The day she had left London was one of the worst days of his life. It came right with the day Hermione gave preference to that grouch Vicky over him.

But still, he missed her. However he tried, he couldn't get her off his mind.

"Okay! I do miss her. Happy?" He looked at his family with hurt eyes. "Moreover, I know this as well: she never loved me. Never even thought of me that way. She's living with Vicky somewhere and that's why she left all of us, TO LIVE WITH VICKY, AWAY FROM US. Do all of you understand?"

"But, Ron--"

"Please, Harry!" Ron held up his hands. "I've had enough. I don't want any further talk about her in this house and NEVER in my presence. I know you all care about me. But I'm all right. My life's fine." He swallowed the rest of the coffee and did a job of looking at his clock.

"Oh. Already late," he said, and Apparated to his flat, leaving behind a saddened crowd.

"He doesn't even know, it's Sunday," Molly Weasley said, sniffing.

~*~