Lessons

Lessons

At the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts, Ron Weasley was attacked by a brain in the Department of Mysteries-- not really attacked, actually. It was hard to explain. Not many had seen what happened to him. Harry was the important one, and everyone knew it. He lived through the ordeal, and that was what mattered-- not that Sirius was dead or Hermione was sore for weeks after, not that Ron's head began hurting, and his memories all blurred together. Harry continued to live, if constant moping could be called a life, and Snape got nastier than ever, and Neville, somehow, made top marks in Potions and Defense.

Sixth year was when the word bitten first came up. It was then Harry began saying that the Ravenclaws should be careful, because every full moon Ron might actually start doing homework and taking his own notes. Sixth year was also when Ron realized he didn't like Harry all that much, anymore. He still laughed, though, because he was best at laughing and joking and not taking things at all seriously, and Ron wanted to stay best at something.

The only one who didn't laugh was Professor Lupin. He just stood there looking weak and tired and very old. Sometimes he would absently brush his fingers against a gold ring he wore on a chain around his neck, and just once he looked angry, truly angry at Harry. For a few moments, Ron thought he might punish him for his loud comments, but then Malfoy stood up and declared that Lupin was a danger to the school and might start attacking students. Everyone rolled their eyes at him, and everything Harry said was forgotten-- forgotten because it was about Ron, who was wholly forgettable and because what Harry said didn't matter, just that he lived.

~*~

It was hot out then, a dry sparkling type of heat that smelled of raw magic and tasted almost like fizzing wizbees. The start of his last year at Hogwarts was marked by flashes of shapeless lightning off in the distance and one violent storm that split the whomping willow down its center, scattering branches all over the grounds and sending them to float in the still waters of the lake. Occasionally, the squid would bob to the surface and use a few tentacles to toss them away. Ron watched it happen from the open window of the charms classroom and the wavy glass frame of the transfiguration classroom and the tiny, ground level vent of the potions classroom until one too many potions blew up under his hands, and Snape told him to leave and not come back.

Walking slowly down the hallway, Ron rubbed his arms, once scarred by the remnants of a thousand terrible thoughts, with the calloused tips of his fingers. The scars were gone, faded to thin white lines and then covered by the freckles the sun brought out of hiding, but the thoughts were still there, still swimming somewhere in the back of his mind and mixing themselves with endless scrolls he was trying to memorize and the quills he stole from Hedwig's tail.

The Gryffindors were celebrating their Quidditch victory-- Harry's victory. No one else did anything, really. Ron had barely gotten into position in front of the center hoop when their captain, Harry, caught the snitch, and Malfoy flew off in a fit silent of outrage.

Ron was a mad too, though he would never admit to it. It was the Slytherin game, the first game of the year. He'd been running drills all summer, and for what? Nothing he did ever made a difference. It was with that thought fixed unmoving in his mind that he volunteered to go get food from the kitchens. The growing distance between him and his friends was far less noticeable when they weren't in the same room, and he saw nothing to be celebrating. Anyone could beat Malfoy these days.

It took him fifteen tries tickling the pear to get it to laugh. After the first five, he was ready to punch a hole through the canvass. Then he reminded himself that he had nowhere better to be, and the longer he was held up the longer he could be away from the party upstairs. Finally, he pictured the look of indignation on Malfoy's pinched face as he heard Justin's voice announce the end of the game, and the pear started squirming helplessly beneath his fingers. He had to hold back a laugh of his own.

"Mister Harry Potter's Wheezy is here!" A voice screamed, and steeping into the kitchens, Ron was surprised to be jumped on by an excited mob of house elves.

"Hello, Dobby," he said, picking out a familiar face amongst the tangle of knobby limbs.

"You will be wanting cakes, yes?" Dobby asked, growing more excited with each word, "and biscuits? And candies? And apples? And spiced pumpkin seeds?"

"I guess."

"Mister Harry Potter played ever so well today!"

"Yeah, sure."

"Yes, yes he is a very good filer," said an elf Ron hadn't met before. "Very, very good, isn't he?"

"Yeah, Harry's good."

"He is kind and generous and brave," said Dobby, rocking back and forth on his heels. "And he gives us clothes. Doesn't he, Wheezy?"

Ron looked down at the robe he picked up from a heap on the floor, to find that Harry's head boy pin sitting just above the Gryffindor crest. "Uh huh," he mumbled, taking the pin off and shoving it in his pocket. If the elves were so excited about serving Harry Potter, he didn't understand why they hadn't been bothered to clean the seventh year boy's dorm for over a month.

"You must be wanting to get his treats back to him, yes?"

"Right now, I just want to sit down," Ron said, falling unceremoniously into one of the wooden chairs at the small corner table.

He jumped and nearly toppled over onto the floor when Dobby rapped on his knuckles with a rubber spatula. "Bad Wheezy!

"Argg! What was that for?"

"You is being lazy."

"So?" he asked with a shrug.

"Master gives you work to do and you is-- you is s-s-sitting down!" Dobby hit him again.

"Stop that!"

"Bad Wheezy!" exclaimed Winky, trying to shake him out of his chair. "Get up! Get Up! Get up!"

"My name is Ron!" He screamed, but to that, the bustling elves didn't seem to take any notice.

He did get up out of the chair after a few moments, and he left Harry's feast sitting on the table when he walked back into the hall.

~*~

The moon was huge and orange when it first rose. On the nights it was full, it would sit low over the mountains, like one of Hagrid's giant pumpkins for hours before struggling further upwards and disappearing amongst the thick grey clouds.

Summer passed quickly in a swirl of sharp sunlight and pale blue skies. Out on the grounds, the trees were undressing their leaves onto the grass, leaving jagged patchwork quilts of yellow and red, standing out sharply against the green.

As the lingering heat faded from the air and autumn settled in, Ron found himself, for the first time, on a different schedule than Harry. Early in the morning, he would walk alone to Care of Magical Creatures, while fog hung thick just above the lake, and the thinning vapors rolled out over the grass, never quite reaching the castle. Once, he spotted a family of unicorns on the edge of the forbidden forest. He stood still for a few minutes, just watching as they drilled their horns into the softened ground in search of truffles, and the morning mists collected in the cuffs and folds of his too-big trousers.

He was the only Gryffindor in the class. The others had far more important things to learn, and failing out of advanced potions left a hole in his schedule that needed to be filled. It was only him, Crabbe, Goyle and a few Hufflepuffs, whose names he could never remember.

Hagrid sat on a large wooden crate with the word 'caution' painted in bold letters on each side and ran thick fingers through his dew-spotted beard as he tried to explain that fire crabs weren't crabs at all and that, for all their claw and stingers, manticores still had their place in the world-- that they still deserved to exist.

After each class, Hagrid would tell Ron how glad he was that he stayed-- how proud he was that, even with the war coming, one of the Gryffindors still cared that animals would need to be protected just as much as humans. Ron could never bring himself to tell him the truth.

Sometimes, he felt his legs would ache if they weren't kept constantly moving, even if he never got anywhere in the end. His prefect patrols became another way for him to stretch out when the dorm and the common room began to feel far too small. He felt as if he would keep growing and growing until soon there would be no space left for him anymore, like a tree with nowhere for its roots to spread. Other times, he felt tiny, as insignificant as a blade of grass.

"I don't know why you couldn't just have Ron do it." He heard Harry scream one night, walking through the hallways.

"You are the one most deserving, Harry," a voice-- Dumbledore's voice replied. "You should have been made prefect youe fifth year, not Mr. Weasley. Soon you will see this as the honor it is."

"I don't want to be head boy. All it is, is too much bloody work and I have more important things--"

"Have your nightmares returned?" Dumbledore asked, sounding concerned. "Have you seen anything?"

"No, I don't dream any more, not in pictures-- just black. I hear things, sometimes, just rain or talking. I don't like it. I think I'd rather see Voldemort than nothing. He's still out there. I know he is, and you're just keeping me blind to him."

"We are keeping him blind to you, Harry."

"There's no difference!" Harry screamed, and Ron peeked around the doorway of the classroom they were in to see him rip the head boy pin from his robes and throw it onto the ground before stalking off out the door without noticing him standing there.

Ron turned to walk away himself, but was stopped by a hand placed, firmly on his shoulder. "I trust this will find its way back to its proper owner," Dumbledore said, placing the pin in his hand. Ron nodded and put it in his pocket before walking off.

Not wanting to go back and face a fuming Harry just yet, Ron made his way towards the kitchens.

"Wheezy is not doing as Miss Hermione told him to," said a disappointed looking Winky, the moment he came through the portrait hole.

"No, I'm not."

She tried to push the handle of a mop into his hands, but he refused to take it.

"Oh, Wheezy is bad," said another elf. "Miss Hermione tells him to patrol the dungeons, and he doesn't. Wheezy must listen! Wheezy must do as he is being told!"

"If Hermione wants someone to patrol the dungeons," he said. "She can do it herself, or she can get Harry to. He's the head boy, after all, and it's not like he's done anything so far this year."

"Mister Harry Potter must learn his Occlumency," Dobby said.

Ron shrugged. "Whatever."

"It is very important. He is needing to be protecting himself if he is attacked by a--."

"By a what?!" Ron snapped, leaning against the counter, "By someone elses mind? Oh yes, Harry's the only one who might need that!"

Dobby slammed a cupboard door shut just below him, nearly catching his fingers. "Bad Wheezy!"

He shoved his hands into the safety of his pockets and found his fingers brushing Harry's pin. His mouth suddenly went very dry. "Winky," He said. "Can you get me a pumpkin juice?"

"Wheezy, you is being worse than Dobby," she snapped. "You must be patrolling the Slytherins."

"Just a glass of water then?"

"You must be stopping their pranks."

"Oh, come on. What's the worst Malfoy can do?"

Dobby's eyes seemed to get just a bit larger. "Wheezy must be stopping--"

"Ron!" he screamed at Winky and at Dobby and at all the other elves, who had gathered around, finally taking notice. "My name is Ron. Ron Weasley. Not Wheezy. And I'm a person, not a house elf. I don't have to mop the floor, and I don't have to slam my hands in a cupboard for being disobedient. I don't have to listen to you, Dobby, and I most certainly don't have to run around serving Mister Harry Potter!"

"Wheezy is being--" Dobby began.

"No," Ron stammered. "I is-- I am--I . . ."

"You is being wrong," he finished, but Ron was used to being wrong by then, and he didn't say anything as he walked out.

~*~

The rains and mists found their way into the tiny cracks and crevices of the castle walls, and when the temperature dropped below freezing, and the water turned to ice, the stones began to sing with the dull ache of unrelenting cold. Winter came then with snow and sleet and hail the size of snitches. There was a stretch of three weeks that the weather became so violent, no one was allowed outside, and Ron found himself desperate for the feel of fresh air in his lungs and on his skin.

He would open the tower windows, sometimes, but his dorm-mates always closed them immediately and gave him odd looks. That year, he was glad to be going home to the Burrow for winter holiday without Harry or Hermione or Ginny, but when he got there, he found the upstairs rooms were caving in and packed tight with snow.

He spent his Christmas sitting on the kitchen floor with his back resting against the oven to keep warm, while his father cast weak heating charms, and his mother fretted over how withdrawn he was becoming. By the time he had to return to school, he was thankful that no one there worried after him.

Sleeping became difficult. The strong winds kept him awake long into the night, and when he did manage to drift off, he would dream of winning the final Quidditch game for Gryffindor, or traveling far away, or finding treasure buried in caves beneath the stone floor of the kitchen. Sometimes, he would dream of saving the world, and he could never quite understand why he woke up shaking and cold from sweat-- why he began to envy the blindness Harry complained of.

In the common room, Ron busied himself plucking up cushions from the overstuffed lounge chairs and putting them in one of the sacks Dobby had given him.

"Ron?" Hermione asked, looking up from a large book. "What on earth are you doing?

"Laundry," he said.

She curiously raised an eyebrow at him. "Why?"

"Because," he shrugged.

She didn't appear overly amused with his answer. "Because, why?"

"Needs to get done."

"Leave it for the house elves."

"No."

"Don't you have more important things to be doing?" She asked. "You should be studying, and you haven't been patrolling outside the prefect's bathroom like I told you to. I think Malfoy's stealing all the towels."

For all they said he was clueless, sometimes Ron thought Hermione and Harry could do with a bit of common sense. "Malfoy's rich." He said. "Why would he need to steal towels?"

"Oh, never mind. There's no explaining things to you, Ron."

"Good. Fine." He said, dragging the bag towards the portrait hole. "I is going to the laundry room."

"Will be."

"What?"

"You will be going to the laundry room," she corrected. "Honestly, you're not going to be able to get a job at the ministry if you keep speaking like that."

"Who says I want to work for the ministry?"

"Well, that's where your father works. I just thought--"

"Never mind."

"Make sure to stop by the prefect's bathroom," she called after him, and he waited for her to finish before letting the portrait swing shut behind him.

The laundry rooms were thick with steam and the strong smell of soap, but they were a good bit colder than the rest of the castle. On the floor, by a vent a few of the house elves were sleeping huddled together to keep out the cold, and using a few familiar looking towels as blankets. He stifled a laugh.

"Wheezy, you must be giving us the robes, now," said Dobby. "We is not doing the pillows until tonight."

Ron held the bag out to him, dropping it when something caught his eye. "I remember this," he said walking over to a large mirror only half covered by a bed sheet.

"It is being just a mirror, Wheezy," said Winky, who had pulled up behind Dobby. "It is just reflecting."

"No-- no, it's not just a mirror it shows what you wish for-- I think-- what you want most . . ." He pulled the sheet aside so they could have a better view. "What do you see in it?"

"I is seeing Winky," she said, "and Dobby and Wheezy, who is not doing laundry as he should be."

"I is seeing myself," Dobby said, "and socks."

Ron wondered if that was because Dobby wanted socks or because they were in a laundry room, and there was a large pile of socks sitting just behind him. He stepped closer to the mirror, studying his reflection. "Funny," he said. "I used to-- but I just see me-- now. I thought it showed . . ."

"There is no whishing, Wheezy," Winky said, grabbing his hand and leading him away. "There is work. There is what you must be doing. There is no wishing." She gently shook the netted bag he had given her and something fell out the bottom, not any article of clothing but a pin-- Harry's head boy pin. She picked it up and gave it to him with a nod. He held it in his hands and studied it only for a moment before shoving it in his pocket again.

"No wishing?" he asked.

"No," she repeated. "We is not being allowed that."

~*~

Unwittingly, and indeed against his every intention, Ron had achieved what Hermione, for all her brilliance, never could. The house elves were treating him as one of them-- as an equal. Maybe it was because his ears were too big, and his nose was too long, and his clothes looked like they had been stolen from a rubbish pile, rather than gifted. Or maybe, it was because Hermione's natural inclination had always been to boss people around, and the elves recognized it, no mater how polite she tried to be. Whatever it was, Ron told himself that these strange meetings were a secret to be kept out of embarrassment and nothing more.

By the end of the year it was harder for him to get into the kitchens-- harder to think of funny things and harder to force a smile when people slapped him on the back and told him how amazing it was that Hermione published her first report on werewolf rights and Harry was already being scouted by professional Quidditch teams.

Spring was filled with soft rains and unnaturally bright flowers growing under the light of an unnaturally bright sun. That same light poured in through the widening cracks of the castle walls and cast strange, undulating patterns and shadows along the hallways. For many, it was the beginning of a hope that he-who-must-not-be-named might truly be gone. Harry didn't believe it, but even he allowed himself relax a bit.

The final Quidditch game was played by Slytherin and Ravenclaw, and all the Gryffindors watched, cheering as Malfoy got thoroughly trounced by a muggle-born second year and then as he took a rather large fall and was levitated off to the infirmary in a stretcher. No one was too surprised.

The final points were tallied, and Gryffindor was announced the winner of the cup, and Ron was stunned when Harry pulled him into a rough hug-- stunned that Harry was hugging him and stunned by how much it hurt, a sharp stab like a needle digging into his chest, and he tried to wiggle out of it, as Harry smiled and told him how brilliant he'd been.

He agreed, again, to get the food for their celebration. He didn't need to say anything to Dobby or Winky this time. They knew why he was there, and he wiped of the counter while he was waiting for them to get all the treats ready. When he left and Dobby said, "Bye, Wheezy," he never thought to correct him.

"Ronald!" he heard called as he walked up the stairs, arms full of sweet smelling packages, and it took him a few seconds to recognize it as his name. "Ronald, you dropped this." Looking behind him, he saw Luna Lovegood waving the dust rag he unwitting brought with him from the kitchens as if it were pennant and not just some scrap of an old shirt. She was still wearing her giant eagle hat from the game, and he noticed that she added a charmed snake to writhe pathetically in its talons.

"Oh-uh, thanks," he said, setting the food down one stair up.

She held the rag directly in front of her face and went cross-eyed to examine it. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Well it's obviously not nothing," she said. "You just haven't given it a proper name.

"It's a--"

"Shhh." She pressed a finger over his lips. "Not out loud. It will lose meaning if you share it too much, even with me."

"It's a dust rag, Luna," he said brushing her finger away. "I got it from the house elves."

"We need them, the elves, I mean, dust rags too, I suppose. We need them, but we refuse to recognize it, because that would make them far too strong."

"Okay." He shrugged, not wanting to waste anymore time now that all the Gryffindor's were waiting for him.

"So we boss them around until they lose all sense of the future-- and then they begin talking the way they do. And we don't let them have proper clothes or proper homes or free reign over their own talents because the truth is they don't need us at all. Only, no one seems to realize--"

"Hermione wants them to get paid," he cut her off, turning back around to start picking up the food, but she grabbed him by the shoulder and held him in place.

"Maybe that's not enough," she whispered. "They say you have the most marvelous ears."

The size of Ron's ears was highlighted by the haircut his mother gave him while he was home for spring holiday. He had been self conscious about it lately, that and the fact that, his latest growth spurt made his trousers so short they barely managed to skim the tops of his shoes. He raised his hands to cover his ears, but Luna quickly snatched them away. "Do they talk to you?" he asked.

She smiled. "Not like they talk to you. They're not supposed to, actually-- not like that. They even have rules against it. I wonder why you're the exception."

"I don't know." He said, but she didn't seem to notice.

"You would hear so much, if only you would listen."

"To what?"

She looked down at her hands and began folding the dust rag, as if it were a fancy handkerchief. "They think they need us," she whispered, "but they don't. It's the other way around."

"So?"

"They're so afraid, Ronald, so afraid of freedom, that they don't have any idea how powerful they really are."

"So what?" he shrugged. "They're only house elves."

"No, you don't--"

"Listen," He said. "This is being-- this is--I have to be getting to Harry's party. They need me to bring the snacks."

"Yes," she said. "They do." Once his hands were full again, she put the folded rag in his front pocket and gently flicked the head boy pin that was dangling just below with her fingernails. He looked down at it, puzzled, but she only smiled. "They need you."

And as he continued up the stairs and she started down, he could hear her humming a familiar tune, and it meant something-- he knew it meat something, and he stood still for a few seconds trying to remember the words. But they never came, and he had to keep walking. He was needed.

~*~

Ron still couldn't be sure what happened in the department of mysteries. He didn't know if it could be called an attack, if in some way, it was invited. Even through all his apathy and resignation he still could have wanted, needed something for when he felt like he didn't belong in his own head. Or he may have had the desire to prove that he too could be tested and not lose himself like Harry almost had. Or maybe, something in him always knew that Harry would be the one to save the world, and Hermione would be the one to show him how, and he would be the one to make a sacrifice.

He could feel it sometimes, when he wasn't trying to think of anything in particular. He could feel little pieces of who he was slipping away, and it was easy, so damnably easy, to let them. He couldn't rush in to fight head on the way Harry always had (he wasn't that sure of himself) and he couldn't research thoroughly and come up with any clever plans like Hermione always had (he wasn't that smart or that hopeful). But there were other ways.

He went home to the Burrow after leaving school and leaving his friends to their glorious futures. He went straight to his room, still creaky and wet and stained by water, and he began to mop.

The End