Chapter Eight
Elated to get away and keen on discovering Fred and George’s secret gift, Harry led Ron to the bedroom door. Just as he turned the handle, and barely cracked the door open, the twins yanked them in by their shirts and shoved them down on the bed. The room was as black as the hours before dawn and Harry’s eyes hadn’t yet adjusted enough to make out shapes. He heard George put an Imperturbable Charm on the door. Anxiety hung thick in the air until a great flame leapt up in front of Harry.
“Firewhiskey!” shouted Ron. “I’ve always wanted to try firewhiskey!”
“Try it, you will, dear brother,” said Fred. “But first, a toast.” George ignited three other cups, and handed one to each person.
“To Harry Potter. May he always come out on top.”
Harry felt the familiar, unwelcome anger rising to the surface. He didn't want it to happen, but he didn't want this war, or his life or destiny trivialized. They made it sound like child's play!
“Is it just a game to you lot, then? Somehow, the bad die and the good come out on top. Is that right? Well, Sirius died, and he was one of us. Bloody Hell, I have Voldemort in my brain all the time! Does that make me good, or bad? Why the hell does it always have to be me? It’s not a game!”
“We know, Harry,” said George seriously. “We’re dealing with it too, just-“
“In our own way.”
“We weren’t trying to make a game out of it-“
“Just shed a bit of light.”
Harry knew this as guilt gnawed at him. The twins were born to create laughter. This is one of the few times Harry had seen them be serious. “Sorry,” he said as he remembered how their knack for jokes had proved a blessing in the past. “You’re right. Get on with it then,” he smiled reassuringly.
Ron, having successfully avoided the argument altogether, continued. “To Harry, may he always enjoy being on top,” which won hearty laughter from the group.
They all took a sip, and Harry noticeably jolted. It burned his throat in a way butterbeer never did.
“It goes down better after you’ve drunk a glass,” advised Fred.
“Bottoms up?” asked George.
“Bottoms up!” they chorused.
“So I said, ‘Nuh-uh! He just thought your arse was your face!’” laughed Ron.
Surprisingly, Ron made better jokes when he was a bit tipsy. He wasn’t the only one that had had more than a couple of glasses. They all lost count somewhere around two, and couldn’t count anyway, because their fingers weren’t cooperating and were all blurry. As happens so often, the drinks softened the boys’ inhibitions, and they were keener on talking about things they normally wouldn’t.
“Remember wh’n I was Alum'num Man for Halloween?" asked Ron with a bitter tone. “I know ‘f I bought a cos’ume, I would’n have got in a fight.”
“You got in a fight?” guffawed Harry.
“’E’s a feisty one (hiccup), our Ronny ‘ere. ‘Tis how ‘e knew ‘e wouldn’ be a prat like P- ercy,” said George with a sleepy grin.
“Why you always call'n me a prat, Arse?”
Everyone laughed. “’E jus’ called me a Arse. Ha ha-“
“Yeah, we on’y did that to ‘muse ourselves,” said George.
“Gee, thanks-“ Just then, Ron turned pale. “Oh, I don’ feel so good-“ said he, and vomited into his cup.
Fred laughed. “Well, ‘e’s done. Shall we go to our room, George?”
“Sound’s good to me. ‘Ope you two enjoyed the ‘freshments. ‘Night,” he said, and they Disapparated.
“G’night,” said Harry to the closed door. His best friend looked nearly out of it. He helped pull him to a stand, let Ron lean on him, and moved slowly toward Ron’s bed. He plopped him down on the bed without grace, as he was quite inebriated himself. Ron settled down onto his pillow. “’Arry?” he exhaled with rotten breath.
“Uh?” was all Harry managed to respond with.
“Quilt . . .” he said as his fingers fruitlessly reached toward the foot of his bed.
“Get it yourself,” said Harry, as he stumbled towards his own bed. Harry immediately fell asleep. What felt like hours later, he awoke to a repeated, “’Arry?”
“What?” he asked, annoyed.
“Can I talk about what happened to me in the Department of Mysteries?”
Somewhere in Harry’s semi-drunken mind, something clicked, and he suddenly became very aware that Ron had suffered in the supposed rescue mission last year. His stomach sank through the bed to the floor. So this was what Ron had been trying to talk about. Harry felt horrible for avoiding the subject for so long. Why had Harry assumed it was about him? “I’m a shit friend,” he mumbled.
“Huh?”
“Yeah, Ron, tell me.”
Ron's mind seemed to have cleared, because his speech became more enunciated as he spoke. “At first, they looked funny, and I wanted to see them, so I fetched them. Then they latched all over my arms,” (he subconsciously rubbed his hands over his arms), “and my legs, my head. They were scary. They . . . it was like they were talking to me-“
“Talking?” asked Harry.
“Yeah. Dumbledore said they were ‘The Evils of Human Intelligence’. I’d rather be stupid . . .”
“What were they saying?” Harry asked, as he thought he saw the moonlight catch a glint of something wet on Ron’s face.
“They- they used my mind against me, you know? Things I’ve thought before. They were haunting me with horrible things I’ve thought. The first one, it kept telling me how worthless I am, and how I’d grow up to be a brown-nosing prat, just like Percy.”
Harry chose to stay silent. He didn’t know what to say. Ron had never opened up to Harry in such a way. They never talked about feelings, aside from who fancied who. Ron continued after a pause.
“They said I’d never be as good as you. That I was your lap dog-“
“That’s not true!”
“And that I would betray you, because I couldn’t stand being second best. It said things like that over and over, and I started to believe it, because I was the one who thought it in the first place. But I didn’t want to believe it, but I did, because they just kept saying it, and everyone else says it. It hurt so bad, I thought I must have hated you. But you’re my best friend!”
Harry heard a sniffle, but didn’t look over to confirm his suspicions. Ron just needed him to listen, because now, he wasn’t pausing anymore. He kept talking, seemingly trying to purge himself of his self-hatred as quickly as possible; to suck the poison out.
“The second one told me that I was going to do all these horrible things! Just for money! It talked about how I never had anything. It talked about all those times other people got things I wanted. It said I would k- kill. I wouldn’t kill, would I Harry? I don’t want to-“
“You won’t, Ron,” Harry said as sternly as possible. Ron was shaking rather badly, and his voice wavered with anxiety. “You’re a good person, and a good friend.”
“No I’m not. I’m going to hurt you, and Hermione, and Gin-“
“No you won’t.”
“There were so many more . . . I’m such a bad . . . should go away, before . . .” Harry felt truly uncomfortable, but knew he had to deal with it. But he really just wanted to end the scene. Harry also needed time to process all these things Ron said he had been thinking.
“Have you told anyone about this?”
“Yeah,” Ron recovered slightly. “Hermione was here for a while at the beginning of holiday. We- we talked. And Lupin. He talks to me a lot about it. He says talking will help. He tries to help, but he doesn’t understand. It was me that hurt me, you know?” Ron paused for a moment. “I’m a monster.”
Harry didn’t know what to do. It was too late to try to fix a Calming Drought, and they would surely get caught with their alcohol-infused breath. Harry was fully sober now, though. “Ron? Listen to me for a moment. I trust you. I trust you like my dad trusted Sirius, like we trust Dumbledore. You are my best friend, and I know you will never betray me. Maybe you’ve thought things about me before, and about other people, but everyone does. That doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you human.”
Silence came from Ron's direction.
“Listen. We’ll always be best mates. Tell you what. If you ever start acting like a prat, I’ll punch you. Deal?”
Ron was calm. He could make out his chest rising and falling with his breath. He wasn’t sure if he was asleep, or if his words had the desired effect, but he wouldn’t spoil Ron’s sleep just in case.
As Harry tucked himself into bed, he realized he was glad Ron told him. Maybe he didn’t know all of what the brains told him, but what he heard was enough. He furthermore realized that he wasn’t exaggerating for Ron’s benefit. He did trust him with his life.
Harry figured that the brains worked in a similar way as dementors. The only difference was that there were bad memories versus bad thoughts. Harry smiled. The only way to combat them is to remember the happy things in your life.
As he drifted off to sleep, a small voice in the back of his mind spoke in a vindictive tone. “Our rescue mission gave him a little taste of what the limelight feels like, just like he wanted.”