Every Little Thing

Though I've tried before to tell her
Of the feelings I have for her in my heart
Every time that I come near her
I just lose my nerve
As I've done from the start

Every little thing she does is magic
Everything she do just turns me on
Even though my life before was tragic
Now I know my love for her goes on

--Sting

Part One

Mrs. Weasley hugged Harry very tightly and whispered in his ear, “I think Dumbledore will let you come to us later in the summer. Keep in touch, Harry.”

“See you, Harry,” said Ron, clapping him on the back. There was more he wanted to say. A lot more. He wanted to tell Harry how much his friendship meant, how he’d hated it when they weren’t speaking, and how worried he was over the fact that Harry would be spending at least part of the summer with people who didn’t know magic--who feared and denied magic--now that You-Know-Who was back. But before he could come up with the words something happened that wiped every concern for Harry from his mind.

Hermione cried, “’Bye, Harry!” and kissed him on the cheek.

And kissed him on the cheek.

Ron did not hear Harry’s mumbled farewell to George and Fred, did not see the conspiratorial wink they exchanged. He heard, but did not see his best friend drag his heavy trunk across the station floor to where his uncle stood glowering, did not see Vernon Dursley scowl and stomp off, leaving Harry to follow, awkwardly, in his wake.

“Well?” snapped Hermione, at whom he had been gawping.

“Well, you--you kissed him!” Ron spluttered and felt his face go red.

Hermione blushed, too, and looked at her feet. “I guess I did,” she mumbled.

You guess? Ron wanted to yell. He stopped himself, though; his mum, twin brothers, and younger sister were standing close by, gathering trunks together and saying farewell to the other Hogwarts students who had disembarked at King’s Cross station. “It’s just…” He couldn’t make himself look at her directly, even though her gaze never lifted. He concentrated on the top of her head. “It’s just…you’ve never done that before,” (right??) he muttered finally.

Her voice wobbled uncertainly: “I’m worried about him…”

“So am I, you don’t see me kissing him.”

She lifted her head, but the laughter seemed to freeze on her lips when she saw the look on his face. “Well, you’re a guy,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m a girl--as you finally figured out after two and a half years.”

Ron’s cheeks burned hotter. He opened his mouth to tell her she’d missed the point--as usual--but just then a man’s voice called out,

“Hermione! Over here, honey.”

“My dad,” Hermione said unnecessarily. There was an awkward pause. Then-- “Take care of yourself, Ron.” She bent and lifted Crookshanks’ wickerwork basket with one hand, and the handle of her trunk with the other. She straightened, blew a few wisps of frizzy brown hair out of her eyes, and grinned tentatively. “Write to me. I don’t know what I’ll be doing this summer, if I’ll be in England the whole time, but--Pig’ll find me. Or,” her grin broadened slightly, “call me if you can manage a felly-tone.” She took a faltering half-step toward him. He didn’t move. She smiled again, then turned and hurried away.

He watched her go.

“Oi, Ron! Yo, Ronny-kins! You wanna stay here that’s fine with us…”

Ron blinked and turned. Fred and George were waving at him and grinning. Mrs. Weasley stood a few metres behind him, a slightly impatient look on her face. Ginny was fussing with Pigwidgeon’s cage.

Coming, Ron mouthed. He turned to scan the crowd, briefly, for Hermione, but she had disappeared. He grabbed up his own trunk and hastened to join his family.

The taxi ride back to the Burrow was long and uncomfortable. Maybe it was the hissing rain obscuring his view, or the fact that there were six people and one noisily hooting owl crowded into one car, or the fact that Fred couldn’t seem to stop pointing out that “Ickle Ronny’s still all red”. Quite possibly it was all three together. In any case, he felt ill the entire ride. He kept seeing Hermione, kept hearing her voice.

“Take care of yourself, Ron. Call me, if you can manage a felly-tone.”

She’d smiled.

And kissed Harry.

He crossed his arms tightly over his belly and closed his eyes.

“Are you all right, dear?” his mother asked at one point. “Fred, be quiet, he’s not red, he’s really rather green. Are you feeling all right?”

“Mmfine,” he grunted.

“Ron’s in l--” George began in a singsong voice, but Ron cut him off with a furious shout that made the driver jump in surprise.

“Shut up,” he said again, more quietly, through gritted teeth.

Mrs. Weasley leaned across the taxi’s backseat--almost squashing Fred and Ginny in the process--and patted her youngest son’s shoulder. “It’s been a rough year. You can just go lie down once we get home, dear. I’ll fix you some hot chocolate…”

But the thought of food made Ron’s stomach churn even more. He clenched his jaw and kept his eyes shut. What was wrong with him?

* * * *

Ron lay awake for a long time that night, listening to the crickets outside and the ghoul moaning and rattling the pipes in the attic above his bedroom. He wondered what Harry was doing. Probably he was barricaded in his own small room, avoiding his horrible relatives. Was Dudley Dursley still on his diet? Ron wondered. If he were, what had Harry eaten for dinner? Probably a single lettuce leaf.

He knew it was very wrong, but for some reason the thought made Ron smile just a little.

In the posters on the shadowed walls and ceiling, the Chudley Cannons swooped and dived. He stared at them without really seeing them, though he found their familiar presence comforting. It was good to be back in his room; good to know his mum and dad and brothers were nearby even though he was fourteen and a half and had been through quite a bit more than most kids his age; good even to hear the ruddy ghoul banging away as usual.

It wasn’t that he enjoyed the idea that somewhere not too far away (only a second away by Floo Powder) Harry was suffering at the hands of his Muggle relatives, or that he wished the other boy ill in the slightest. It was just another perfectly normal thing to add to his list. If Harry was being kicked around by the idiot Dursleys it meant he wasn’t being murdered by You-Know-Who or Wormtail or the Death Eaters.

Oh, say the name, Ron, he thought, angrily, at himself. Just say it. If Harry can do it, so can you.

He swallowed, stared hard at the Cannons, opened his mouth to say the name--and managed to choke out the first syllable before clamping his jaws shut. Voldemort. Voldemort, he thought, but he could not bring himself to say it.

He was back.

Harry had seen him, had barely managed to get away from him. Dumbledore had said so, and Dumbledore…well, when had he ever been wrong? Not once in Ron’s admittedly biased memory.

Voldemort was back and he had tried to kill Harry.

He had killed Cedric Diggory.

Cedric Diggory died. He wasn’t at home with his folks, lying in his bed, staring uselessly at a ceiling. He wasn’t doing anything except lying in a coffin somewhere.

It came to Ron, not for the first time since the end of the Triwizard Tournament, that he too could die just as easily. He hadn’t seen Cedric die, but he’d been right there when Moody (Barty Crouch, he reminded himself forcefully) performed the Avada Kedavra curse on that spider. It hadn’t meant much to him, watching the spider die, although he’d been impressed and chilled by the very quickness of it. It only took one word. Someone just had to say the words and that was it. Had Cedric even been given time to realize what was happening? He shuddered to think about it, shuddered to think there could come a time when he too lay in a coffin (providing there was anything left of him) not breathing, not thinking, not seeing or doing anything at all ever again.

That it could have been him instead of Cedric occurred to him as well. If Crouch had been just a little less obsessed with the elaborate cleverness of his scheme… He’d been there the entire year. Right there in front of them in the classroom, behind them in the corridors… And how many times had Ron and Harry reached a door at the same moment, or reached for the same plate of mashed potatoes at supper, or for the same Exploding Snap deck?

In a way, he should have been there instead of Cedric, he reasoned. Before this past year, except at Quidditch matches, Cedric and Harry had had nothing to do with each other. It was Ron--well, Ron and Hermione--who’d helped Harry get through the obstacles to the Philosophers’ Stone; who’d helped find the Chamber of Secrets and entered it with him; who’d gone to visit Hagrid on the night of Buckbeak’s execution and consequently been there when Harry found out the truth about what happened the night his parents died.

So it should have been Ron at his side when he faced Voldemort again. Instead it had been Cedric, a truly innocent bystander, who’d been there in his place. Who’d died in his place.

Ron knew there were at least a few basic fallacies with that reasoning, but he also knew right then that he wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep.

What was he going to do, though? He tilted his head to see the clock on his wall, but it said only GO TO SLEEP. Bloody useless. He’d come up to his room immediately after reaching the Burrow early in the evening. He’d lain in bed for an hour or so, his stomach roiling, barely responding when his mum came by to offer him dinner. That was a long time ago. His insides felt calmer now. He could probably get up if he tried…

Cautiously, he placed his palms on either side of him on the bedspread and pushed himself up. His head throbbed slightly, but he didn’t feel queasy.

A letter, he thought. That would be the smart thing to do. Write to Harry and find out how he was doing. Write to Hermione, too, maybe. He half-wanted to call her, just to show her, but as the Weasleys did not own a telephone that would necessitate a walk into town, something he had no desire to do at that hour, even if he thought there was a chance she might still be awake.

What could he say in a letter?

Dear Harry, hope you made it home all right. Hope the Muggles aren’t being too terrible to you. Hope you can come visit us, soon. All I can think about is death. Help.

Yeah, that one would cheer Harry straight up…

Dear Hermione…

He drew in a deep, ragged breath, and stared at the ceiling.

…You said you kissed him because you’re worried about him. Guess you’re not too worried about me.

He could imagine her reply already:

Ron, that’s not fair and you know it. Harry went through so much this year. Nothing really terrible happened to you…

Nothing except almost losing my best friend twice. Once because I was a great stupid git, and again because the most evil Dark Wizard in the world is after his blood.

But he wouldn’t say that. Instead he’d probably make her angrier and everything worse by responding:

Well, take care of yourself in Bulgaria. Don’t forget to look out for Dark Wizards while you’re visiting Vicky.

Probably best not to write to Hermione until he’d gotten himself sorted out. Because clearly, he needed some sorting.

So what else could he do? He was damned if he was going to crack a book the first night of summer holidays and anyway, that was solitary work. He didn’t want to be completely alone. Midnight Quidditch was out because he actually was quite tired, and his brothers were all asleep.

And then it hit him. Percy, George, Fred, and Ginny were not his only siblings. He had two more, and one of them had actually witnessed the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament, had been there when Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge parted ways. Bill hadn’t been directly involved in anything--he hadn’t known Cedric and he’d only met Harry twice--but he knew what was going on. Now that he thought about it, it had usually been Bill--and sometimes Charlie--who’d rescued him from the twins when they picked on him when they were younger. Bill who’d let him hang out in his room, who’d made up stuff for him to do (“Professor Bodley says we need to have ten pictures of dragons drawn by the end of holidays and I swear I don’t have time--bet you can do it, eh, Ronny?”). Who’d actually acted as though it were kind of cool to have a kid brother hanging around him. Charlie’d been good, too, but mostly he remembered Bill.

A letter was already taking shape in his head:

Dear Bill,

How’s it going? The rest of the term wasn’t too bad. I mean, considering. I did okay in History of Magic. Turns out there WAS a bloke called Urg the Unclean. Maybe I’m cut out for Divination after all. Or maybe I’ve just got brains AND looks.

I’m worried about what happened. I wish there was something I could do. Hey, you were my age when You-Know-Who was in power. What did you do?

--Ron

That was a letter he could send. As he pushed himself off the bed he remembered that no one had brought his trunk up. His quill, ink, and parchment were all inside. And Pig was downstairs, too, annoying Hermes and Errol for once, instead of him. Thinking there was something to being taken suddenly ill after all, he slid his feet into his slippers, grabbed his robe, and went downstairs.

He’d have known his way in the dark, but when the lights that lined the walls flickered on he was glad of the warm glow that filled the dark corners and guided him down the rickety staircase to the first floor.

His trunk was in the front hallway, where the twins had left it. He inspected it carefully from a metre’s distance. Once he was satisfied his brothers hadn’t left any surprises for him, he got out his writing implements and went to sit in the overstuffed armchair by the fireplace.

“Incendio”, he muttered, and with the warmth of a crackling flame on his cheek, began to pen his letter. He included a few things he hadn’t thought of upstairs, such as how cool it had been to meet Viktor Krum, and how much cooler it had been to watch Harry trounce him three times (well, maybe not that third time…) How relieved he was that it would be Quidditch again next year and not another Triwizard Tournament. How he was actually thinking of trying out for the team, now they’d be needing new players. In twenty minutes he had nearly an entire side written. He’d never written this much, not to anyone--certainly not to one of his brothers. This was easy, he found. And calming. He felt better than he had all day.

He was just debating telling Bill about Hermione (he was leaning toward not) when the stairs creaked and he knew someone was coming. For probably the first time in his life he hoped it would be Percy. Percy would say something pompous and annoying, but he’d leave him alone after that; he wouldn’t ask any questions other than “What are you doing down here?”

It wasn’t Percy, though.

It was Ginny.

“Oh, hi.” Ron’s only sister sounded startled as she stepped into the living room, blinking in the firelight, although she had to have known there was someone downstairs.

“Hi,” said Ron. He put the letter down quickly, though there was no chance of her seeing what he’d written from where she stood. “What’re you doing down here?”

“Didn’t feel well. I was just going to get a drink. I wish I could just Accio. I mean, I saw you and Harry and Hermione practice it enough times.”

“Yeah, too bad we can’t use magic at home, eh?”

“Yeah, too bad,” she echoed and smiled limply.

Ron eyed his sister narrowly. It was hard to tell because of the firelight and the fact that she wouldn’t come into the room completely but just wavered hesitantly in the doorway, but he thought she was pale. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Ginny tossed her hair and rolled her eyes, giving Ron a small jolt because those were Hermione’s gestures. He remembered a second later that Ginny and Hermione were friends, so it made sense for the younger girl to mimic the older one, unconsciously or not. Still, it was a little disconcerting.

“I just told you,” said Ginny with a touch of asperity that also put Ron in mind of Hermione. “I don’t feel well. My stomach hurts. I’m going to get some water.”

She turned and walked away, and Ron, squinting after her, saw something on her nightgown that made his heart stagger.

“Er, Gin--” he called, his mouth dry. “Is that--there’s something on your--is that blood?”

Ginny, who’d turned when he’d called, gave a little shriek of dismay and went even paler. “Did it--oh, no it didn’t soak through--oh.” Small fists clenched at her sides, she said quickly, “I’m okay. It’s nothing.” She turned again and ran for the kitchen.

Ron put his letter and quill down and went after her. She was already pouring water into a large glass when he found her, and it was impossible to miss the way her hands trembled. Water splashed onto the counter.

“Give me that.” He took the pitcher and the glass from her, shouldered her out of the way, and poured. “Here.”

She clutched the glass tightly and took small sips, her long bright lashes shadowing her eyes. “Mmmokay,” she mumbled around the glass’s rim.

“I know.” Ron sighed and leaned against the counter. He looked away from his sister. His face was burning and he didn’t want her to see. “I, er, realized… Madam Pomfrey gave us the lesson our second year. Guess you got the same one. Do you, ah, want me to go?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her head shake. “I mean, if you want to…”

He did, but he couldn’t seem to make himself.

“It’s not the first time,” she said hurriedly. “It’s not so bad usually, but right now it’s just…” She gestured helplessly. “I don’t really need this on top of everything else!” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Ron, I knew him.”

“Who?” He thought, Cedric? How had Ginny known Cedric?

She sighed with exasperation. “You know who. I mean--You-Know-Who. Before he was--when he was Tom Riddle. I met him, remember?”

He didn’t want to say it, but he had to because he wasn’t sure where this was leading. “And?” he prompted.

“And--” She was trembling again.

He took the glass from her hand and put it on the counter.

“And,” she said without looking at him, “I don’t know. I knew him. He was--horrible, but he seemed nice at first. He killed someone. I mean, I know he killed lots of people, but… He killed that boy and he tried to kill Harry.”

Ron looked at her, saw that her shoulders were bowed and that her cheeks were wet with tears. Something opened inside him, some well of compassion and protectiveness he’d never really felt for his sister, and before he’d had a chance to think about it, his hands were on her shoulders and he was guiding her back to the living room. She tried to cling to him when he pushed her, not terribly gently, into the chair by the fireplace, but he made her let go.

He sat on the floor, tucked his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, rather hoping she didn’t, but willing to listen if she did, though what he could say to make her feel better he had not the slightest idea.

To his relief she shook her head. But then she plunged, “It’s just so weird! And awful. To think that I knew--that I talked to, I mean wrote to, sort of… I don’t want anything to do with--him, it, whatever!” She shook her head again, violently. Her hair gleamed in the firelight.

Ron dropped his chin onto his knee. “I guess we all sort of met him, since he was stuck to Quirrell our first year…well, I guess you weren’t there. But Moody, I mean Crouch, taught you, too. He’s the one who set Harry up. He’d’ve killed him, too, if Dumbledore hadn’t gotten there in time. I can’t believe I was jealous of Harry. That’s what Hermione said, you know. I told her she was wrong, but she wasn’t.”

“I know,” Ginny whispered. “She told me, too.”

It occurred to him--through his confusion and his concern for his sister and his friend and himself--that maybe Hermione had confided to Ginny about him and Harry and Krum. He half-wanted to ask her, but he knew now wasn’t a good time, and doubted she’d tell him, anyway. She hadn’t told him Hermione was going with Krum to the Yule Ball, even though she’d known--although that might have been because he’d laughed at Neville.

Ginny said, quietly, “I’m scared and I don’t want to be a part of it.”

He didn’t need to ask her what it was. Me too, he thought and felt shame burn from his hairline to his throat. But it wasn’t as though he wanted Harry to have to face You-Know-Who (Voldemort, he reminded himself bitterly) on his own. He didn’t want Harry to have to be involved at all. He didn’t want anyone he knew involved.

“It’s so weird that this is happening again,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I mean, you’d think… You’d think enough people’d died by now. How can he be back? I mean, I know he is, but…why? If I lost my body I’d be barking mad, I guess, but if it took me thirteen years to get it back--I dunno. What’s so great about power that it’s worth so many lives?”

“He talked about revenge a lot,” said Ginny. “At least, toward the end. Tom Riddle, I mean. He said his father abandoned him and his mother died and that they treated him horribly at the orphanage. I felt bad for him. I actually felt bad for him, for a little while. Before he started talking about revenge.”

“Yeah, well. You’re better than he is, I guess.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Ginny sarcastically, sounding a little more like herself.

They both heard footsteps on the stairs, then--two sets, so they knew who it was. Thinking he should have done it much sooner, Ron took off his robe and handed it Ginny, who accepted it gratefully and was just wrapping it around herself when Fred and George stumbled into the living room looking rumpled and bleary-eyed.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were having a party?” demanded Fred with mock-indignation.

“We weren’t,” said Ron.

“What’s that?” asked George, spotting the roll of parchment, which lay on the carpet by Ginny’s chair.

Ron grabbed it up quickly. “Nothing.”

“It’s not a luurve letter by any chance, is it?” said Fred, smirking.

Ron rolled his eyes. “It’s a letter to Bill.”

“Is it, then?” said George mildly. “Well--tell the old boy he owes us, won’t you?”

“Why does Bill owe you?”

George grinned. “He doesn’t. Just let him puzzle it over, though.”

“Any ice cream, I wonder?” said Fred, turning and walking into the kitchen. They heard him curse as he bumped into a chair, then fumble through the freezer. “Ah, so there is! Now we can have a proper party.”

“Are we having a party?” said Ron, somewhat bewildered. He glanced at Ginny, who gave a little shrug.

“Sure we are,” said Fred, returning with two tubs of ice cream--triple mocha fudge swirl and currants ‘n cream--and four spoons, which he distributed before settling down, cross-legged, on the floor by the fire. “What else would we be doing at three in the morning? Tuck in.”

They did. And after only a few minutes of eating and talking (his stomach didn’t seem to have a problem with ice cream) he began to feel better. It was hard to stay depressed when the twins were around--provided he wasn’t the brunt of their banter--and a quick glance at Ginny, curled up in her chair and slowly licking ice cream off her spoon, told him she probably felt the same.

They had finished the triple mocha fudge swirl and George had just gone to get hot chocolate when Percy showed up, yawning, his glasses askew. “You’re making too much noise; what are you all doing?” he mumbled with only a shred of his accustomed pomposity.

Fred jumped to his feet at once. “We were waiting for you, of course. And now you’re here. The man of the hour! This is your hour, Perce--er, half-three in the morning!”

Ron smirked; Percy looked drowsily confused.

With a flourish, Fred presented his elder brother with his own spoon, snatched it back almost immediately, wiped it on his pyjama sleeve, and handed it back with a grin.

Percy eyed them all suspiciously.

“’Lo, Perce,” said George, pleasantly, returning, with mugs, cocoa powder, milk, and tea kettle on a tray. “Nice of you to squeeze us into your busy schedule.” He set the tray on the carpet.

Percy scratched his stubbly chin and yawned again and did not look very dignified. “What are you all doing?” he asked again.

“We’re…” Fred, who’d bent to appropriate a mug and shovel cocoa powder into it, waved a hand at his younger brother and sister. “Verb, somebody.”

“Conspiring,” of all people, Ginny, supplied.

“Conspiring,” said Fred approvingly. “Good one. We’re conspiring, Percy. To what end we have not yet determined, but we’d be honoured by your presence.”

He sounded deeply serious, but George snickered, spoiling the effect.

Percy walked out of the living room, but they didn’t hear his footsteps on the stairs. To their great surprise they heard him in the kitchen, opening and closing a cabinet. He returned a minute later with a mug and a clean spoon, which he kept, and handed Fred back his used one. They all stared in silence as he sat down on the rug, took the tub of currants ‘n cream from Ron’s limp hands and stuck his spoon in.

“What?” he said, looking up.

“Who are you?” said Fred palely. “And where’s Percy Weasley?”

“If he’s using a Polyjuice Potion it’ll wear off in an hour and we’ll see who he really is,” said Ron knowledgeably.

“S’pose it’s some kind of curse?” George ventured. “Every night at half-three he turns into a human being?”

Percy stood up, taking the ice cream with him, and started to leave.

The twins hurried to stop him, George scrambling to his feet and barring his exit, and Fred, still on his knees, grabbing him by the pyjama pants and not letting go.

“C’mon, Perce, we were kidding…”

“…A little...”

“We’ll be good…”

“…Or at the very least entertaining…”

Ginny giggled. Ron turned and their eyes met. She smiled. So that was all right, for the moment anyway, he thought, and felt a small rush of relief.

Through cajolement and earnest entreaties and appeals to brotherly love, the twins succeeded in luring Percy back to the fireplace. He spent a fair portion of the next hour glowering and reminding them to be quiet lest they wake Mother and Father, but he stayed, and the twins held to their vow and were entertaining--if not exactly good.

When Mr and Mrs Weasley came down the stairs a few hours later they found their offspring sprawled on the chair and on the floor in a pool of dawn light, fast asleep, the ice cream tubs forgotten beside them. Fortunately, all the ice cream had been eaten.

When he awoke much later in the day, Ron finished his letter to Bill (without the twins’ input) and sent it off with Pigwidgeon. A week later an owl arrived at the Burrow with a letter for Ron, but the owl wasn’t Pig, and the letter wasn’t from Bill.

It was from Hermione.

He tucked it into his jeans pocket, ignoring his brothers’ sniggers, and after breakfast he made a great show of being in no hurry at all to get up to his room so he could read it in private. But he was anxious.

Dear Ron, she'd written,

Please call me. A letter really isn’t the same. I’ll be home all day this Saturday. Send me an owl if that’s not all right. I’m very worried about Harry.

Yours,
Hermione