Only Human

Chapter Two: Barriers

"Ron, hurry up, would you?"

"Coming," Ron called back, struggling with his trolley. Pig was making ten times his usual amount of noise, excited by the crowds in the train station, and was making it difficult to be unobtrusive. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny had disappeared up ahead, and Ron assumed they'd made it through the barrier already. Normally he would have been annoyed that they'd gone through without him, but he knew that the train was going to leave any minute and they had to go as quickly as possible.

His mother waved agitatedly at him before disappearing through the barrier at Platform 9¾ herself. Struggling with Pig and his overly-large trunk, Ron shoved his way through a crowd of Muggles in over-priced suits and paused to catch his breath. Then looking over his shoulder, Ron decided it was best to take the barrier at run, as he was running out of time.

There wasn't much distance to build up speed, which was for the best since as soon as he hit the wall, he stopped. Rather painfully.

The trolley was wrecked, and toppled over with a screeching Pig inside. The sudden commotion that surrounded him reminded Ron rather forcibly of second year.

"What do you think you're doing, lad?" asked one of the ticket agents.

"Uh, the trolley got away from me," Ron said quickly, getting slowly to his feet. Oh, he was not well enough for this. His mind was racing, trying desperately to figure out why he couldn't get through to the platform. Was this Dobby's doing again? That was ridiculous, what possible reason could the house-elf have for wanting to keep him out of Hogwarts?

What reason could anyone have?

He started to panic, taking Pig's cage away from the crush of people. The train would be gone in seconds, and he couldn't get through. His mum was on the other side, but she might Apparate straight home after since they didn't have a car anymore. He was stuck, but not stupid enough to leave the station. When his mum noticed that he never made it on the train, she'd probably tear King's Cross apart for him, so it was best to stay put.

"Are you all right, young man?" one older woman asked him. "I saw you fall."

"Just clumsy," Ron replied with as charming a smile as he could muster.

"Are your parents about?" she asked suspiciously. Then she must have realised how odd she sounded, and amended her question. "Not to imply anything, of course, but you seem to be looking for someone."

Ron was more amused by her than annoyed; he was seventeen and extremely tall, not to mention decently developed after two years as Keeper. Why she would assume he needed his parents was beyond him.

"I'm just waiting," he answered noncommittally. The woman looked like she was about to ask something, when his mother appeared and took him firmly by the arm.

"Ronald Weasley!" she shrieked. "What are you doing? What were you thinking! You've missed your train!"

Ron turned to excuse himself from the woman, but she had excused herself in the face of his mother's rage. Fortunately Molly knew better than to lay into her son in the middle of a crowd of Muggles, and waited until they were outside the station before her voice reached its highest volume.

"How could you be so foolish?" His mother's voice was almost unintelligible, though several dogs looked in her direction and whimpered. "Of all the idiotic things to do--what were you doing? Why didn't you go through the barrier?"

She paused long enough for him to interject a few words.

"I tried, I couldn't."

This stopped her in her tracks. "What do you mean you couldn't? That's nonsense."

"Seriously, Mum, it wouldn't let me though, it was blocked!"

But she wouldn't take him seriously. "Now I suppose we'll have to Floo to Hogsmeade. Come on, then, let's get a move on."

Ron stood there, gaping. "Mum, if we Floo now I'll be there hours before the train! What do you expect me to do all that time at the train station?"

She didn't pause. "Well you should have thought about that while you wasted time outside the barrier. What could you possibly be thinking? Don't you want to go back to Hogwarts?"

He didn't waste his breath again explaining that it wasn't his fault, but her second question raised an interesting point. It couldn't possibly have been some sort of subconscious decision, could it? What possible reason could he have for not wanting to return to school? His accident hadn't left him disfigured, or with a tail or anything, so what was the problem?

His mother apparently had realised Ron's complaint about the train station was legitimate, so they took the Underground back towards the Burrow. Pig went batty, causing several people to stare unabashedly, until most of them left the compartment all together.

When they arrived back home Ron was put to work.

"If I can't take you up to Hogwarts yet," said his mother, "then you'll have to do chores in the mean time."

He weeded and de-gnomed the garden for a time, washed plates in the kitchen, and was made to clean his room like he said he'd already done. Clothing had to be collected, and floors had to be swept. He found his much maligned Prefect's Badge under the bed.

After an exhausting afternoon, he gathered up his things once more and went to stand before the fireplace.

"Why don't we just do this in the first place?" Ron asked his mother, who was straightening his school robes.

"Well, that wouldn't be very considerate of the Muggleborn students, would it? Besides, the train is a part of the experience. Now hand me Pig, dear."

"What? Why?"

His mother did not look pleased with him. "You know perfectly well we can't take owls through the Floo. Leave him here and I'll send him with a note to you tomorrow."

"Just brilliant," Ron muttered under his breath, handing over the cage. "First the barrier, now this."

"Serves you right," his mother said, and the shooed him into the fireplace. "Quickly now."

With a deep, injured sigh, Ron called out, "The Three Broomsticks!" and disappeared with his trunk.

They made it to the train station shortly before the scarlet steam engine pulled in, and after a quick, somewhat annoyed, peck on the forehead, his mother Disapparated. Ron allowed himself to be swallowed by the crowd of students that poured off the train, searching for Harry and Hermione. He found Luna Lovegood instead.

"Hello, Ronald," she said politely as if he were on her list of people to be nice to that day. "Snozzberry?"

"What's a snozzberry?" Ron asked cautiously, keeping his distance from the bag Luna held out to him.

"Muggles thought them up, rather clever. I adore Muggles, they have the most ingenious ways of surviving without magic."

"What's it taste like?" Ron asked as she popped one of the berries in her mouth.

Her wide eyes opened wider. "Why, like snozzberries, of course," as if it couldn't be more obvious. Fortunately, Ginny came to his rescue, followed shortly by Hermione and Harry who had his usual dark cloud overhead.

"There you are!" Hermione said, huffing as she reached him from at a run. She sounded annoyingly like his mother. "We were so worried! Where were you? Why weren't you on the train? What happened? Are you alright?"

Under the bombardment of questions, Ron took the opportunity to glance around and realised it was a bit too crowded for this conversation. Motioning them over to the thestrel-pulled carriages, they all squeezed in and were joined by Neville Longbottom who'd managed to find them in the crowd.

The six of them had been thick as thieves since the Department of Mysteries, and although a part of Ron resented the intrusion into what had been a trio, he also knew that Ginny, Luna, and Neville could reach a part of Harry that he and Hermione had no connection to. It was weird to think that Harry, Ginny, Luna, and Neville shared dark pasts and death experiences. One would never think of it just to look at them--well, except Harry.

Ron tried not to stare at the extremely disturbing winged-horses as he got in the carriage, severely regretting the day he had started to see them.

"I couldn't get through the barrier," Ron told them finally, as they made their way up to the castle.

There was a confused silence. Then Harry said, "What, again?"

Ron nodded. "Just like second year. Trolley smashed right into it, it was a right mess. Mum chewed me out for hours, it seemed."

No one appeared to be interested in the fact that Ron had got yelled at for something beyond his control, but they all had pensive looks, except for Luna who was staring into space and humming under her breath, as usual.

"You don't suppose it was Dobby?" Harry asked, with a odd note to his voice that suggested he hoped the answer was no.

Ron shook his head. "You can ask him, but I doubt it. Why would he want to keep me from Hogwarts?"

"But who besides a house-elf would have enough power to block the barrier?" Hermione asked, with a slight frown. "And why--"

She cut herself off abruptly, her cheeks turning pink. But Ron knew her well enough to finish the question with one of his patented 'For-Hermione-When-She's-Being-A-Know-It-All' grins.

"Why me?" Ron shrugged. "Not a clue. It's not as if my marks are something to be afraid of."

"Oh, Ron," Hermione sighed, "I wish you'd stop being disparaging about your scores. You could have been Head Boy, you know, if you'd just given it a bit more effort."

"Prefecture was bad enough," Ron replied, absent-mindedly taking from the bag that Luna held out to him. "Can you imagine what Fred and George would have done to me if I'd got the Humongous Bighead badge, too? Blech!"

'Blech' was not his reaction to the thought of being Head Boy, but to the snozzberry which he'd just bitten into. Not wanting to insult Luna any further, he summoned a weak smile, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Who's Head Boy anyway?" Neville asked, breaking into the conversation for the first time. No one bothered to ask who Head Girl was, as Hermione's badge gleamed with attention. The fact that the initials for Head Girl were identical to her own did not escape Ron's notice, and he made a note to give her grief over that at a later date. At the moment, however, he was concerned with figuring out why he hadn't been able to get to Platform 9¾

"It's not Malfoy," Hermione said quickly, and Neville relaxed a bit. Scary to think of what Malfoy would do with that kind of power; making him a prefect had been bad enough. "It's Ernie Macmillan. I'm sure he'll do fine."

Something in Ron burned a bit, prompting his next comment. "You and Macmillan will have to spend a lot of time together, then, I reckon."

Hermione was completely nonplussed. "Well, of course. There are all sorts of regulations we're expected to put in place, and Dumbledore mentioned something in the letter about us putting on some sort of feast for the seventh years."

Brilliant. Ron refused to let his subconscious explain why the idea of Hermione spending time alone with Ernie Macmillan bothered him so much. He had an inkling, and suppressed it. He was almost getting to be as good as Harry at repression. Six years of friendship would do that for you.

"We ought to be discussing Ronald's inability to pass through the barrier," Luna interjected, startling Neville who still hadn't got used to her non-sequiturs. This was barely a non-sequitur; in fact, for Luna, this was downright sequitur. "Do you suppose it was Voldemort?"

Many years of practice had stopped the violent flinch that used to attack him any time he heard that name, and he could even say it himself without stuttering, but Ron never could seem to prevent the wave of nausea and ice that washed through him following 'Voldemort'.

"What reason could Voldemort have for wanting to keep Ron out of Hogwarts?" Harry asked sensibly. "I mean, if it were me...but I was already on the platform."

It irked Ron just a bit that Harry automatically assumed the barrier blockage was somehow meant for him. The entire flipping world didn't revolve around Harry! Okay, so it irked him a lot.

"Perhaps Voldemort knows about Ron being the person you'd miss most," Ginny suggested, and Ron wondered how she could bear to say the name; next to Harry, she'd had the most personal contact with him, or at least a version of him. "And is planning to use him to get to you."

That was one of the most arse-backwards things Ron had ever heard, and would have said so if Harry hadn't interrupted.

"That was almost three years ago," he said, shaking his head. "If he was going to use Ron against me, he would have tried it already."

Inwardly, trying not to clench his jaw, Ron seethed. Why were they talking about him as if he wasn't there? Why did they think he would ever allow himself to be used by Voldemort? Had he not just taken an unknown hex to the chest for Harry? Did six years of loyalty count for nothing? And was Harry somehow insinuating that he'd no longer miss Ron the most?

Hermione noticed something, damn her. She was far too observant--observant of him, at any rate. She read him like a bloody book. With a glare at Ginny for even suggesting such a thing, Hermione piped up.

"That's ridiculous. Even if Voldemort recognised Ron as someone valuable to Harry, he'd never be able to get to Ron. We're practically as well guarded as Harry is. Besides, do you really think Voldemort is as foolish as to attack Ron in a crowded train station full of Muggle witnesses? He's not that obvious, he prefers subtlety."

Ron really appreciated her use of the word 'we'. It made him feel like someone was actually on his side, though his side of what, he wasn't quite sure.

"I suppose not," Ginny said, closing her eyes and shaking slightly. "That's not his style."

Concerned, Ron held his hand out to his sister, and was slightly annoyed to see that Harry had got there first. But then again, Harry was sitting right next to her whereas Ron was further away, and there was that whole 'shared-experience-of-possession' thing. Still, it annoyed him.

"Carriage has stopped," announced Luna like that sky was falling. She and Neville climbed out, followed by Harry, then Ginny, and then Hermione. As Ron's feet touched the ground and he looked up at the great castle, expecting to feel a sense of relief, he had the nagging feeling that he'd forgot something important.

"Ron," Hermione said when he didn't move, "aren't you coming?"

"You go on ahead," he replied indistinctly. "I've forgotten something."

"What?" she asked. "Your trunk's been sent on ahead...where's Pig?"

"With Mum," he said, trying to figure out what the proverbial itch between his shoulder blades was telling him. "Owls can't be sent through the Floo."

"Then what's the matter? Come on, you don't want to miss the Sorting!"

The others had stopped short in front of the door.

"Come on, Ron, hurry up!" called Harry.

"Go on in without me," Ron called back. "I'll be there soon!"

Harry only shrugged and lead the way in. Ginny and Neville followed quickly, as did Luna after staring at him in her distracted way for a moment. Hermione lingered, obviously concerned.

"Something's wrong," she said, placing her small hand on his shoulder. She had to stand several steps above him to be able to look in his eyes. "What is it?"

"I've..." Ron began, unsure how to finish, "...got to be somewhere. Yes, I've got to go."

"Go?" Hermione shook him slightly. She'd gone completely white, and had taken out her wand. "Go where? What's going on, Ron?"

He blinked several times. He felt very odd, like someone was tugging on his sleeve and pounding his forehead with a hippogriff. "I'm not sure. I just know that I can't stay here. I've got somewhere to be. I've got...a dentist's appointment. That's it. I've got an appointment with a dentist."

"But you don't see a dentist!" Hermione almost screeched, tears welling in her eyes at her friend's strange behaviour. "I know, I'm always trying to convince you to see my parents for a check-up, but you insist that wizards don't need dentists and that your mum performs anti-cavity charms at least twice a year. What's the matter with you?"

"I'll see you around, Hermione," Ron replied, studiously keeping his gaze away from Hogwarts; it was beginning to give him the willies.

"Oh, Ron," Hermione said like her heart was breaking. She looked around, panicked, and then seemed to come to a decision though every inch of her trembled against it. "I'm so sorry for this. Stupefy!"

Before he could get away, everything went dark.

He woke up again in the Hospital Wing, which was not that great a surprise, all things considered. Hermione was fluttering about at his bedside, her face pale and her hands wringing themselves into knots. When what had just occurred came back to him, Ron could understand her agitation; she had used magic outside of class! For Hermione this was a top-level offence. The fact that she had used this magic to knock one of her best friends unconscious was definitely a secondary point as far as she was concerned.

"Will he be alright?" Ron could hear her asking Madam Pomfrey.

"I'm fine," Ron muttered, struggling into a sitting position. "And I'd be better if someone hadn't knocked me unconscious."

Madam Pomfrey was all over him in a flash, shining lights in his eyes, prodding him in most uncomfortable places, and shoving chocolate in his mouth.

"Any idea who it was, Mr. Weasley? Miss Granger says she didn't see anyone."

Ron turned to Hermione with wide eyes, unable to form words around the large piece of nougat lodged in his throat. Good grief, what had he and Harry done to her? Lying to the school nurse, using magic outside of class, stupefy-ing people...they'd created a monster.

"Er, no, Madam Pomfrey," he said, to Hermione's obvious relief. They would really have to teach her how to keep a straight face if she insisted on causing trouble. "I probably hit my head on something, but I'm fine, really."

"Miss Granger mentioned that you were having difficulty entering the school."

"Everything's fine now, Madam Pomfrey," he said, shooting Hermione a glare to keep her quiet. He was lying quite boldly; the itch between his shoulderblades was still quite present, and his head hurt worse than before, though that may have had something to do with Hermione's stupefy hex.

"Just to be safe, Mr. Weasley, I'd like you to remain overnight." She tutted. "Honestly, between the two of you and Mr. Potter, my Hospital Wing is rarely empty."

She was softening, and Ron poured on the guilt with his best smile and a pathetic look. Eventually, with Hermione hovering like a firefly in the background, she gave in.

"Oh, very well, but don't come crying to me if you suddenly don't feel well, Mr. Weasley. I won't be at all sympathetic, and I might just let Professor Snape test a few of his potions on you."

That was all the threat he needed. Taking Hermione by the hand, he pulled her out of the Hospital Wing, tossing a thank you over his shoulder in the nurse's direction. It wasn't until they were half-way to the Great Hall that he realised he wasn't wearing his robes and came to a sudden halt.

"Who undressed me?" he asked, looking for a place to hide. At least he wasn't stark naked.

"Er, Madam Pomfrey. You weren't out long, but she insisted. I was just going to wait until you came around. She really was determined to keep you overnight, how did you manage to get out of it?"

"Never underestimate the power of my charms," Ron replied, trying to figure out someway to get some proper clothing.

"Magical or human?"

"With a wit like yours, you should write for Witch Weekly."

"As if I'd ever stoop that low, I'd write for the Quibbler first. Oh, stop fidgeting, let me." She took out her wand and after a moment's heavy consideration transfigured Ron's hospital gown into, if not robes, then at least something black and billowy. "No one will be able to tell in the crowd, and you'll change into your pyjamas when you get back to the Tower anyway."

"Spend a lot of time thinking about me in my pyjamas, do you?" replied Ron with a grin. "Then I suppose all the times I came down to breakfast this summer without changing was a right dream come true."

Hermione went scarlet. "I ought to send you in there naked for that."

Then she seemed to realise what she was suggesting, and turned, if possible, even redder, shoving herself ahead of him and entering the Great Hall. She took a seat between Seamus Finnegan and Dennis Creevy, opposite Harry, as if to punish him, but knowing how little she liked either Seamus or Dennis, Ron rather thought she was punishing herself.

"There you two are," Harry said through a mouth full of potatoes. They had missed the Sorting and the feast had begun. "I can't keep track of either of you anymore."

"Sneak off for a little quality snogging time, did you?" Seamus snickered.

It was Ron's turn to go red, and Hermione, who'd had a head start, was right there with him. They both denied the accusation, and, presumably to cover her tracks, Hermione burst out:

"Ron wouldn't come in the school."

Fully half the table of Gryffindors turned to stare at him as if he'd just acquired some interesting non-communicable disease. Ron moaned to himself and sank down in his seat, avoiding the stares as best he could.

"It's nothing, I just felt a bit off, that's all."

Harry actually looked concerned, and Ron felt that was somehow a minor victory.

"You've been off for weeks," Harry said, frowning at Ron as if he had just done something naughty. The victory faded into a tie. "Ever since--"

Thankfully he cut himself off, realising that he had an audience and it was not the sort of story he wanted to share. Ron didn't particularly want anyone knowing about the hex; he didn't know why. Normally he enjoyed the stories that made him out to be a hero, but given that he didn't know what hex it was, he wanted to keep it to just those who had been present, or already knew.

"You're not possessed, are you, Ron?" asked fourth-year Natalie MacDonald with a saucy grin. She fancied herself to follow in Fred and George's enormous footsteps. " 'Cause it's a rotten time, what with Quidditch and all."

Everyone laughed, except Harry and Hermione. Harry was still frowning, until Dean distracted him with a bowl of pudding, and Hermione, still pink, looked as if she wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words. Ron ignored them both and concentrated on eating. Funny thing was, he wasn't hungry. This had never happened to him before, except before important Quidditch matches. Even then he could usually be convinced to eat a bit of toast or something.

Something was definitely wrong.