The Space Between

"Harry?" Hermione asks, uncertainty in her voice.

I close my eyes and reply, "Just keep an eye on Malfoy."

I sense her nod. Telling myself she'll be fine - uselessly trying to convince myself is more like it - I open my eyes and make my way into the living room.

Despite Hermione's fortification and reassurance, I'm still terrified to walk through that doorway. I don't want to see Ron injured, bleeding or unconscious.

I don't mind riding to Hermione's rescue. Some part of me feels it's required - those antiquated gender roles or my "hero complex" she tells me - and it doesn't bother me.

But having to come to Ron's rescue shakes me to my core. Ron is strong and vibrant, he shouldn't need rescuing.

Nothing he does is on a small scale. When he's injured, it always seems to me as if someone has clipped his wings so he can't soar anymore. He makes an awful patient. Not that I'm any better, but I've come to understand some time in Hospital is necessary in my life. Ron hasn't been injured as often as I and hasn't learned to accept it yet.

Clutching my wand, I turn the corner into the living room. As gut-wrenching as seeing Malfoy atop Hermione intending rape was, what I see now twists my mind almost as if I can't accept what my eyes are seeing.

Horror and anger surge within me. When the mix has almost bubbled to the top, I notice that faint green glow again.

My eyes. I have to forcibly remind myself that it is not Avada Kedavra I'm seeing. The color and shadow are uncomfortably similar, though.

That glow is cast upon the scene in front of me.

Ron is laid flat on his back on the rug, arms and legs manacled to the floor. The bleeding abrasions at his wrists and ankles remind me uncomfortably of Voldemort's dungeon.

Then he turns his head and I meet his eyes. Those blue eyes are bloodshot, his nose bleeding profusely and there is a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

It's all I can do to keep myself together. If I were to find Hermione in this condition, I'd want to kill the bastard who did it, then help her. But for Ron...for Ron, I want to gather him in my arms and not let go.

Then I notice the man standing above him and am not surprised.

Lucius Malfoy.

Malfoy Senior looks up, meeting my glowing gaze with a cool stare.

"Potter," he spits, using my name as an epithet.

I say nothing. Actually, I expect him to Apparate out at any moment like he usually does. I'm surprised he's stayed this long.

"Your lovers are in a bit of a bind," he drawls. A flick of his wand elicits a moan of pain from Ron as little cuts appear on his arms.

"A lovely little curse I found," Malfoy continues conversationally. "I'm so glad to be testing it this evening." I'm not sure if he thinks he's impressing me or if he's taunting me.

Whichever it is, I killed Voldemort with the help of the two people he's trying to destroy. I'm not intimidated by Lucius Malfoy any more than I was by his son. I continue to say nothing, merely watch.

Though the glow from my eyes doesn't affect my sight, it does cast a sickly pallor over the two men before me. But no one has made comment - can they even see it?

Malfoy flicks his wand again and in the periphery of my vision I see Ron arch off the floor, grimacing in pain. The sight of Ron in such agony does nothing to calm the butterflies my stomach.

But, as I look at Malfoy, there is something strange about him. While I see his pale skin and eyes, so pale as to almost be translucent, I see darkness. When he casts the curse on Ron, it's almost as if there are shadows or smoke moving across his face.

I blink. Am I losing my mind? What the hell am I seeing?

"Going to do anything, Potter?" Malfoy says in a sugary-sweet tone that reminds me uncomfortably of Dolores Umbridge.

I can feel something building within me, something monstrous. Anger laced with magic. The pathway to the Dark side, a voice inside my head tells me - and it sounds a lot like Frank Oz as Yoda.

I close my eyes and duck my head, listening to Malfoy Senior laugh, a sound at once amused and bitter.

"Do you know what this curse does, Potter?"

I have to remind myself that I shouldn't kill either Malfoy, but especially Senior. I want to. I want to give into the darkness and kill them, torture them, pay them back for all they've done.

I open my eyes and glare, otherwise unresponsive to his question. His face is now nearly hidden behind a layer of shadow.

How can he see?

Then he smiles and the darkness around him seems to leap in delight.

What I'm seeing isn't real, I say slowly to myself. It's covering him but he can't see it.

My thoughts are interrupted by Ron.

"Harry," Ron rasps. Before I can reply, Malfoy whips his wand down, slashing Ron's chest with the same laceration curse as he was using earlier. Blood wells against his white shirt as he arches against his bonds.

That shadow around Malfoy becomes almost opaque when he casts the curse. I shift my gaze to Ron. He has a faint shimmer around him, an iridescent red.

As he struggles against his bonds and the curse, it fades, leaving me more puzzled than before.

I will figure this out.

I let my mind wander a bit, hoping I can make some connections. Unfortunately when I do, it's not about what I'm seeing, but about what I'm feeling.

Since our survival against Voldemort last year, there has been a tension between the three of us, a barrier of space we won't cross. I first noticed it with Hermione - the way she holds herself aloof from Ron and I, especially in the bedroom. But with Ron, it's so much more subtle that I didn't notice it until now.

Love. All the nonverbal ways we would show love have been absent. A cruel irony considering it was our love that destroyed Voldemort. I didn't notice its absence until he rasped my name. Hermione must have realized it was missing as well when she leapt into my arms. I would swear I felt a "click" as I held her, as if we'd locked together again.

Warmth floods me, love fills me. The scar on my chest burns, but in a good way this time.

The green glow intensifies. I drop to my knees from the force of it.

"Surrendering already, Potter?" Malfoy asks, delight threading through his voice. I ignore him for now.

I crawl next to Ron so I can place what I hope is a reassuring hand on his shoulder. When I touch him, it's as if a rainbow of color floods over him. He opens his eyes, but doesn't see the colors. The despair I had seen in them, the despair that rips me to the bone, slowly lifts.

His face, however, underneath the fading rainbow, is still cast in sickly relief by the green glow from my eyes.

I wonder...if my eyes were blue like Ron's, would the glow be blue? Or is it the color of the curse that's glowing? I pause. Or maybe it's not my eyes at all, but a glow around me as well.

Slowly, I redirect my gaze to Lucius Malfoy. That monstrous thing leaps within me again. It wants to kill him. It wants to rip him limb from limb and feed him to a Hippogriff. He is now completely shrouded in black, sometimes shot through with silver.

Auras? Am I seeing auras? It would explain why Malfoy is now covered by darkness and why Ron flashes brightly when struck with a Dark curse.

Great, something else to make me different.

"No surrender unless it's yours," I finally reply to Malfoy's question.

He grins, obviously delighted. "The tamed lion has teeth," he muses aloud, flicking his wand over Ron.

I sense Ron's pain and can see it in the way the light dims where the curse cuts him. He's lacerating internal organs now, a voice tells me. I'm inclined to believe it since it sounds like Hermione's.

I turn, bend and brush a kiss over Ron's forehead. Something flashes through me again at the additional skin contact, making me shudder from head to toe. From Ron's groan, I would suspect he felt something, too, since his aura briefly flashes green.

Standing unsteadily, I face Malfoy. By the combination of lascivious delight and disgusted horror on his face - which I can barely see for the darkness - he didn't miss my easy, familiar kiss to Ron's forehead.

"So the stories are true," he coos. "How decadent." His tone of voice suggests that if it were anyone but Ron, Hermione and I, he'd ask to watch. My stomach twitches in revulsion. Silver threads dance around him.

I force myself to take three steps toward him. Unnoticed by Malfoy, I slip my ankle in Ron's hand and he grasps it tightly, allowing his scar direct contact with my skin. While not as powerful as Hermione's scar connecting with mine, this sensation still is powerful enough to nearly drive me to my knees. The resulting physical connection makes Ron's aura shine so brightly, it hurts my eyes. It also changes from an iridescent red to a pale green.

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes then reopen them slowly. I wonder what Malfoy sees in them. Does he see death? Does he see the Darkness I see surrounding him?

Ron can't take much more without immediate medical attention, so I have to stop taunting Malfoy.

With the son, I used brute force. With the father, I need to use my mind.

Using Ron to increase my own power, I let our combined magic feed that monstrous darkness within me. Were it physical, it would be leaping and snarling with joy. However, it's contained within me and just grows.

"You know," Malfoy begins. "I'm growing tired of this game." He raises his wand and points it directly at me. "I don't know how you defeated the Dark Lord, but you're still nothing."

Years ago, I would have believed that. Thanks to Ron and Hermione, I know better now.

He whispers something under his breath and waves his wand in a tight arc. Fire burns across my bare chest as Malfoy's laceration curse cuts me from one bicep to the other.

Fuck this.

I raise my wand and shout, "Serpentsortia!"

A python slithers from the end of my wand. Before Malfoy can destroy it, I direct the snake to coil around him. It does, immobilizing Malfoy's arms and forcing his wand to drop harmlessly on the floor.

"Do you wisssh to kill him, massster?" the python asks.

"No, but you can sssqueeze him unconsssiousss," I respond in Parseltongue. Malfoy's protestations gradually end as he loses consciousness. The darkness around him fades from opaque to smoky, but stays. The python has the same shadowy aura.

Bugger. Dark magic.

In the silence that follows, I hear Ron's weak laugh.

Pulling my ankle from his grasp, I scramble to lean down next to him. He smiles, meeting my eyes warmly. A quick scan of his body tells me he's in worse shape than he's letting on. As I look on, the light surrounding him is dimming.

"Did I ever tell you how sexy Parseltongue is?"

"No, you haven't," I reply. How can I heal him? Can Hermione and I do it like they did for me? "It is?"

"Hell yes. All that hissing or something."

I grin. "Then we'll have to make use of it sometime, won't we?"

Ron laughs weakly, then moans in pain. Rattling his bonds, he asks, "Hey, Harry, can you get me free?"

"I'm sure Malfoy used some complicated spell," I hedge. I'm afraid of hurting him if I attempt to free him.

"Please try," he pleads. "I can't stand to be restrained anymore."

This was true. Before our time with Voldemort, we'd played at a few bondage games. Ron tolerated being tied up, I learned to enjoy it, but Hermione loved it. Since our experiences in the dungeon, however, Ron can't stand being restrained by anything. He says it gives him flashbacks.

The manacles are shrouded in both darkness and Dark. That beast within me rises to attention, whispering seductively that it can remove the restraints. It wants to destroy.

Taking a deep breath to drive that need back, I wave my wand over one manacle and utter the standard unlocking spell. It gets me nowhere - as I suspected. I try all the Light spells I know and none work. Glancing at Ron's face, I see that he's noticeably paler. Bleeding.

I could ask Hermione to bring the junior Death Eater in and try her hand at the manacles, but I don't think she could deal with seeing Ron like this.

I give in as a last resort. Let's see what this power inside me does. The darkness within me unleashes itself.

Kneeling next to Ron's wrist, I hold my hands above the manacle. Then I let the beast within me loose. Green light flashes between my palms and the iron band, a light so bright I have to close my eyes.