Warm But Tainted Blood (Drarry)

chapter nine

Harry held a hand to his bleeding nose. His other was at his side, broken and in very much agonizing pain. His fingernails marked half moons into his palm as he clenched his fist. He is not heavy with remorse as he glared over at Ronald, as he should be, but, rather, pride. Ron was a whole head taller than him, and yet he is in worse condition.

Our loveable protagonist and the second youngest Weasley's stay in the hospital wing was caused by an incident that happened earlier that evening, on Halloween.

Harry was hiding in the Gryffindor common room, away from the celebration. The wizarding world and Wiccan traditions do not overlap often, but Halloween was one of the incidents that they do. The castle was celebrating the holiday with estatic energy, Dead Man Fires were littered about, the feast rivaling the first one they've ever had. Even muggleborns and prejudice purebloods got along for the rituals.

Harry Potter, however, was not celebrating.

He is wrapped in several blankets (his, Fred's and George's, and Hermione's, as all were willing to donate. Percy, who Harry had the pleasure of meeting, would've, too, except he didn't trust Harry not to dirty them. It was alright, though. He had enough.) He is hidden and one would not be able to recognize the pile as a person unless they looked closely. Harry was scribbling away on parchment possibilities for new potions (he found the art rather enchanting and wanted to add to it. No luck yet, I'm afraid, but he was well on his away), and trying to ignore the fact that it was, in fact, Halloween.

It is ten minutes past supper that Ron burst into the common room and screamed for Harry. Harry considers not answering at first, to keep hiding in his little bubble of potions and Not Halloween. But Ron is his friend and it just seems cruel to ignore him. Sighing internally, he says, "Yes, Ron?"

He snaps his head toward the pile of blankets that in no way could be a human until he notices Harry's face and arms poking out of them. "What're you doing, mate?"

'Hiding from my problems,' was a truthful response but probably not an acceptable one. "Avoiding the celebration," Harry settles on.

"Well that just won't do!" Ron exclaims and marched over to Harry. He began to remove the blankets off the boy.

"Hey! HEY!" Harry yelled. "Back off! I'm not celebrating!"

"You're not?" he sounded sad.

"I've never celebrated Halloween." The Dursley's certianly had— though not traditionally. They'd never let Dudley trick or treat or dress up, because they thought anything even vaguely relating to the devil and magic was Bad and Evil. Instead, they'd celebrate the death of Harry's parents. It was very cruel. Harry didn't celebrate the day personally– it was the day his parents died and he was left to the Dursley's. So many in the wizarding world loved the day because it represented the death of Lord Voldemort, but Harry was not like them.

"But it's Halloween," Ron persisted. "You can't just not celebrate Halloween."

"I can and I will," Harry tried for a smile. "You go party with everyone else, okay? I'm better off here."

Ron's expression shifted. "What, you think you're special?"

Harry startled. "What?"

"C'mon man, it's just a holiday. Come celebrate with your friends like everyone else!"

"My parents died–"

"Like ten years ago. Don't be such a freak—"

Harry stiffened. "Do not call me that. What's got your knickers in a twist? I just don't celebrate Halloween. It's not a big deal." Harry got the sense that this distaste of him was building up, made from jealousy, most likely. Little things building up, and now Ron is exploding.

Harry didn't like it one bit.

"Freak, freak, freak," Ron mocked. "You're always so closed off– even Hermione barely talks around you."

"I'm more low energy than most—"

"What a stupid way to say you don't like your friends—"

"I like my friends plenty–"

Ron snorted. "And you assume they like you?"

"If you don't stop, I will pummel you," Harry promised.

"I'd like to see you try," Ron snarled. "You're such an overdramatic attention whore–"

He was cut off by a fist connecting with his nose. He stumbled backwards. Harry had shrugged off his collection of blankets and now stood in a fighting stance. Ron gained his footing once again and lunged forward.

He aimed for Harry's nose— an eye for an eye and a nose for a nose— but Harry moved backwards and dodged it. Unfortunately, he moved too quickly and fell backwards. He put out an arm to break his fall and landed on it wrong, breaking both the fall and his wrist. He grit his teeth in pain but quickly stood again.

He was very glad that neither of them had thier wands on them.

Ron kicked at him. Harry grabbed his leg midair and pushed him backwards, where he stumbled. Harry took this opportunity to push him onto the ground. He started stomping on his ribs.

He'd never been this angry before. Any emotions expressed at his home always got him in trouble. Acting on this much rage made him feel so guilty but he couldn't stop.

Ron grabbed his legs and swung them to the side. Harry hit the ground with a thud.

It was twelve more minutes of muggle fighting later before a Prefect happened upon the pair and immediately seperated them.

Harry spat out a thing of blood on the floor. "Suck it, Weasley." Ron glared– to the best of his ability, anyway. He had two swelling blackeyes.

They were both deducted twenty house points each and dragged to the infirmary, where they'd both be staying overnight for their numerous injuries. Harry suspects the Prefect had told people of the fight, because when he woke up in the morning he had a pile of "Get Well" cards in front of his bed. He noted with no small amount of satisfaction that Ron had only two.

Harry had told the Prefect why exactly he has snapped, which is probably why so many people took his side. Probably had something to do with him being the boy who lived and the two times dragon slayer, but still. It was nice to have people on his side.

He noticed he had a letter from Mrs. Weasley, who was apologizing for her son's behavior and giving him a box of homemade fudge to "help along the healing process." Ron, later, would receive a howler from the lady, asking him why he thought it was necessary to say such vile things.

He also had a letter from Fred and George, who said they'd be pranking their brother big time for this one. Harry was excited to see what they came up with. Hermione scolded him for fighting– classic Hermione– but said she and Ron had a talk and they're no longer friends. She told him only a few Gryffindors wanted to be associated with him at this point— apperantly, everyone was very overprotective of their one and only golden boy.

(Of course, given time, people would forgive or forget Ron's misgivings and he would gain back many of his lost friends, but it was nice to see him face the consequences of his actions while it lasted.)

The most notable of gifts was a large box of chocolates with the Malfoy crest symbol on them.