Five Beginnings

Five Beginnings

*

i. To my surprise and my delight
I saw sunrise, I saw sunlight.

Ron Apparated to the coordinates that Luna had owled him. It was the middle of a forest. He looked around and quickly spotted the long-haired blonde girl crouched close to the ground, digging around in the leaves.

He waited for a moment, thinking she would have heard the crack when he arrived and would turn around and acknowledge him, but she continued her search through the leaves without any indication that she wasn't still alone.

"Hi," he said finally. "Odd place for a first date."

"Date?" she asked without looking up. "Is this a date, Ronald?"

Ron shifted awkwardly, his face suddenly feeling very warm. "Well, I thought it was, I mean, that's what Ginny said...."

Luna stood and turned to face him. "Doesn't matter to me," she said with a small smile. "You can call it a date if you'd like."

"It's not that I want to call it a date," Ron stammered, "that was just my understanding -- Ginny said --"

"Yes, we covered the Ginny said part," Luna interrupted. She handed Ron a wizarding camera. "You can take the pictures," she said excitedly.

She turned and set off down an overgrown path through the woods at a quick pace.

"Pictures? Pictures of what?" Ron asked, hurrying after her.

"The Heffalump!" she called. "I told Daddy I'd write an article and get a picture for the Quibbler. Why else would we be here?"

"I have no idea," Ron said as a branch caught his cloak and tore it. "You've been in such a rut, Ron. Go on a date with Luna," Ginny had said, "you'll have fun!"

Why did I listen to her?

"OOH!" Luna exclaimed, turning and grasping Ron's hand, tugging on it fervently. "Over there, I'm sure I saw something!"

Then they were running through the woods and Ron wasn't quite sure if he was having fun yet, but it was definitely a change from the ordinary.

ii. You were an island to discover.

He ordered a lager, she ordered a vodka martini, and Ron knew there and then that the evening was a mistake. Possibly ranking somewhat lower down the scale of massive failures than their once-upon-a-time first date, but a mistake nonetheless.

He took a sip, tried not to lick foam off his lip, and struggled to remember exactly why he'd listened to Harry's mad girlfriend and her out-of-nowhere, "I know the perfect place for you to take Padma, Ronald. Thursday at eight all right?"

He did recall blinking, saying Padma? Padma Patil? but from there on out things were fuzzy.

Ron searched for conversation. That was the point, wasn't it, and what else was there to do in a bar but drink and talk? He'd already lost style-points on the first, so this, this had to be good. "Well. . ." why'd you agree to this? what's in a regular martini, anyway? ". . . I read that thing you wrote about the vampires with no fangs. You, ah. You know lots of words."

Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. I should've just asked if she wanted me to pass the nuts. Everybody likes nuts. We could've picked out our favourites and maybe we both like cashews best and it could've been great.

"It helps," she said, flashing a smile. "But I'll tell you a secret, old man Lovegood likes the ones I make up best of all."

Ron grinned, and for a brief shining moment things were all right. His shoulders relaxed, his pulse slowed, his hands didn't shake.

Then he realised: it was his turn to talk, now.

He raised his glass again. When he lowered it, he discovered Padma's chair had been moved and his personal space had been cut in half. She looked like perfection, smelled like - like something wonderful and sweet, and Ron tingled.

"So," she said, her voice low and close, "you're an Auror, right? I bet you have some good stories to tell."

"Oh, yeah," Ron said, and he leaned in just a tad - couldn't let the Muggles hear, after all. "Where do you want me to start?"

iii. When am I going to see that pretty face again?
Meet me by the road, meet me where I said.

She came to every match, home and away. She sat quietly in the bleachers, never cheering nor jeering. Ron Weasley had assumed at first she came to watch Malfoy play, but he had never seen the two of them together either before or after a match. Several times Ron's eyes had met hers, and he could have sworn her eyes glittered and her lips twitched into an almost smile, but this was Pansy Parkinson. The Ice Princess of Slytherin House. She was cruel and cold and...yet he found himself intrigued. He could not stop looking for cracks in her icy exterior.

"It is not as if I need to go looking for complications in my life," he muttered under his breath once when he found his thoughts drifting to the solitary figure in the stands.

Yet one day after winning a bout against Puddlemere United he decided to talk to her. He swooped down and landed his broom in front of her as she was exiting the stands. Once there, he immediately realised he had no idea what he was going to say to her.

She said nothing to him. Ron shifted uncomfortably as she stared at him using her best Ice Princess expression.

He opened and closed his mouth and he seemed to notice a slight melting around her eyes as she finally spoke and said, "Good match today."

"Uh, yeah, we won," he said. Brilliant rapport.

A smile flitted across her face. "Yes, I know. I watched the match."

"I hope you enjoyed the game," he said, hoping it didn't sound as lame out loud as it did in his head, but knowing that it probably did.

Pansy nodded, her features refreezing as she moved forward, brushing past him without another word.

He turned, his eyes glued to the small icicle of a girl, her dark short hair blowing in the wind as she grew even tinier as she retreated further. "Wait," he called after her, jogging to catch up with her.

She stopped and turned to face Ron, her face was frozen and undecipherable. "Yes?" she asked.

"Wouldyouliketohavetea?"

"With you?" she asked imperiously, but her eyes glowed with a warmth Ron was sure he was not imagining.

"Yes," he said, straightening up to his full height and sticking out his chin slightly.

"Perhaps," she said with a small, crisp smile.

"Okay," he said with a nod and a small step closer to her. "How about next Tuesday?"

She gave a slight shrug, but didn't say anything, her gaze drifting downward to apparently study her own petite, gloved hands.

Ron exhaled. Heavily. "Okay, next Tuesday. Meet me at Thistle's Tea Room at three o'clock."

"Perhaps," she said, her smile now teasing.

"I see you still take pleasure in tormenting Gryffindors."

Pansy's eyes danced with sparks. "Perhaps, but you've always made it so very easy. You just beg to be teased with your every hesitant look and every stunted and stuttered word out of your mouth."

"Fine, I don't know what I was thinking in the first place," he said, losing both his nerve and his patience. He stormed away from her, not looking back.

He was almost to the changing rooms when he heard her voice call out behind him. "Wait, Weasley!"

He spun around, his face flushed with heat despite the chill of the wind. "What, Parkinson? Not finished plying your tortures on me?"

"No, I'm not," she said matter-of-factly. "I thought Gryffindors were brave, yet you run so easily!"

"I realise that this is a popular Slytherin misconception, but bravery is NOT the same as stupidity," he answered resolutely. "And I would be stupid to stand around and let you insult me."

"Ah," Pansy said, a genuine smile spoiling the iciness of her expression. "Perhaps when we have tea, we can discuss bravery and stupidity."

"Perhaps," Ron answered, the corners of his lips twitching slightly. Why aren't I just turning around and walking away again? Oh, but the game is afoot now, isn't it?

"We can save Quidditch and the meaning of life for our second date."

"Quidditch is the meaning of life," Ron answered, his brow rising.

"Perhaps."

"I'm going to go change now," he said, gesturing toward the changing room. "If you want to wait, we can go out for dinner." I AM stupid. This will be a disaster.

"I'll wait."

"Really? And do NOT answer, 'perhaps'!"

"Yes, I'll wait. I can hardly torment you properly if I'm not with you, can I?"

Ron met her gaze and saw flames flickering behind the cold blueness of her eyes. "Why?" he asked, wondering if she'd know what he was asking about.

"Don't ask why, just storm ahead like the brave Gryffindor you are."

"Okay," he answered simply. It may be stupidity and bravery combined, but I can't leave the game before it's over.

iv. Start as you mean to go on.

Ron was walking down the street and thinking of a sandwich when he ran into her. Or over her, more like; with feet like his she was lucky not to have been flattened.

"Sorry," he said, steadying her automatically; after a second look, he dropped his arm. "Really, sorry."

"It's all right," Cho said, with a polite sort of smile. Witches and wizards pushed by on a hundred ordinary errands while the two of them stood on the pavement and stared at each other. Just when Ron opened his mouth to venture a well, bye then, she added, "It's been a while."

"It has." Ron tried to decide if he disliked her, if he'd ever disliked her. He didn't think so. Seemed like she'd just been out of her depth when it came to Harry and his world, and Ron couldn't fault her for that.

But still, still, the next thing he said was, "Harry's dead, you know."

She didn't even flinch. She'd been waiting for that, and he was ashamed.

"I know," Cho said. Quietly, matter-of-factly. Her pretty dark eyes searched his face, and Ron looked away in case there was anything there to be found.

A hand squeezed his arm, small but strong. "I was just going to lunch," she said, "are you hungry?"

"Always," Ron said, and he smiled.

v. As my head just aches when I think of the things that I shouldn't have done
But life is for the living, we all know and I don´t want to live it alone.

Ron walked into the Leaky Cauldron and his eyes automatically scanned the bare-boarded room, a testament to his constant vigilance of an Auror who had seen enough things in the last five years to know he was never safe. His eyes stopped on a blond man sitting at a corner table by himself.

It can't be.

Ron walked over to the table, pulling out his wand as he approached the table. The sitting man glanced at Ron for a second and then turned his attention back to the glass of red liquid before him, picking it up and taking a sip.

"You're dead," Ron said.

A smirk flitted across Draco Malfoy's face. "Am I? That is a relief, because I would hate to think I would be caught alive in a dump such as this."

Ron frowned, his wand still out. "We found...pieces...of you at Malfoy Manor."

"You of all people should realise body parts do not always add up to a whole corpse," Draco said, an amused gleam in his eyes.

Ron looked closely at Draco, noticing that his left hand was gloved and resting very still on the table and his hair was long now, cascading down his shoulders. They had found his left hand and his right ear in a pile of debris when Malfoy Manor had been raided for the last time a year before what Ron always thought of as The End. The End was when Voldemort had been finally and absolutely defeated. As had Harry Potter. If only....

"I can still arrest you for being a suspected Death Eater," Ron said, but the words didn't come out as vehemently as he'd meant them to. Ron was remembering Harry's funeral and Hermione's tears as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Remembering how people had stared at him. Why was he still alive, while the hero was being buried? He tried to turn the feelings of guilt and loss into aggression and anger toward the slight man sitting calmly at the table drinking a glass of Merlot, but the anger would not materialise.

Draco took another sip of his wine. "You're going to arrest me for cutting off my own limbs?" he asked nonchalantly.

Ron exhaled slowly and slumped down into the chair opposite of Draco. "You cut them off yourself? How could you do that to yourself?" Ron asked, morbid curiosity taking over. A finger is one thing, but half an arm and an ear?

Draco spun the wine glass in his hand, watching the red liquid swirl about. "You're still such a Gryffindor, understanding sacrifice but not survival."

Ron stared blankly at Draco for a long moment and then laughed harshly. "I'm alive, aren't I?" And Harry isn't. And so many others aren't. But I am.

Draco nodded. "Yes, you are, aren't you?"

Maybe this was a new beginning.

*