𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆

Part 4

Friends and family

Ron sat back against the couch when Harry had finished talking. He watched Harry take off his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. So. Voldemort was back and seemed to be haunting Harry. Dumbledore was apprised of the situation, and the Ministry would probably be stepping up their efforts against the Death Eaters shortly. There was a team tracing the origins of the spell that pulled Voldemort's prison out of Hogwarts. Malfoy was not trying to kill Harry. Well, not yet at least. Well, what was I supposed to think, Harry screaming with a knife in his hand and Malfoy shoving him up against a wall like that? Ron rubbed absent-mindedly at his sore scalp, trying to think of what to say. He pulled out quite a lot of my hair. I bet he's going to use it to make a polyjuice potion and trick Harry into— aw, bloody hell. I'll never get used to this.

Harry looked dreadful. Ron studied that big purple lump on his head, his blackening eyes. When he hadn't turned up at work, Ron had talked to their supervisor, who had told him the story that Draco had relayed. Harry had fallen and hurt himself, and Draco was going to keep an eye on him. He hinted that it might have something to do with Harry's scar, but didn't go into any details. Ron hadn't even talked to anyone; he had just headed straight home. And thought he had found exactly what he had expected to find; Malfoy taking another shot at destroying Harry. Ron sighed. He knew that Harry had worked a few things out with Malfoy, and was even spending time with him these days. More and more as time went on, so it seemed. He realized, with a heavy heart, that they were probably becoming an item, though he had yet to have a real conversation with Harry about it (Other than one late night discussion, when Harry's entrance had woken him, which went like this: "Where've you been?" "I was out with Draco." "Oh. Did you snog the bastard?" "What do you think?"). Ron felt sure Harry would tell him the if anything became more official. Ron cringed. Perhaps things were farther along than he thought.

He had noticed that Harry had stopped seeing Susan Goldsmith, a pretty Ravenclaw girl who had come to work in their department last year. Granted, that had never been terribly serious, though she mooned over Harry something fierce, and was still glancing over at him with that look on her face. She was too stuck up for Ron's taste (She had, after all, treated Ron as the resident server the last time she had received an invite to one of their get-togethers. "Ron, be a dear and get me another glass of the red, would you?" Ick.), but Malfoy! From the frying pan into the fire. Harry pulled his legs up onto the couch, rubbing his scar, his eyes half-closed. Ron couldn't remember the last time he had seen Harry so drained. "Have you gotten any sleep, Harry? You look really...tired."

Draco stalked over to the couch and handed a glass to Harry. It was steaming purple. Harry looked up at him and smiled weakly, bringing the glass to his lips. "Harry!" Ron jumped up and put his hand on the glass, spilling a little of it on Harry's shirt. "What the hell is that?" He looked suspiciously at Draco, whose lips curled into a snarl.

"It's a Polyjuice potion, made with your hair, you wormy little nimrod. I'm banking on Harry taking one look at himself afterwards and immediately committing suicide."

Harry winced. "Okay, enough! Ron, I told you, Dumbledore gave us a recipe for a potion to help me get some control over these...these....delusions I'm having. Remember?" He sighed loudly. "For God's sake. Can you at least give ME a little credit?" He sounded extremely annoyed. He shoved Ron's hand away and drank the potion in one gulp, clapping the glass on the coffee table, and looked up at Draco, who was trading simmering stares with Ron. "'Wormy little nimrod' was a bit weak, coming from you. How long do you think this stuff will take to start working?"

Draco snorted, and after narrowing his eyes at Ron, refocused his attentions on Harry. "Are you still...seeing things?" Draco asked. Ron was a bit surprised to hear him speak without scorn or malice in his voice. He actually sounded concerned, and it even seemed genuine. Heh. So that's the bedroom voice. Sure, sounds innocuous. I'm sure all snakes speak nicely before they strike. "It never really stops. It just gets more or less overwhelming. Which seems to happen at random."