Ronarry One Shots

One Thing Left to Give

Four days.

Harry had left at around eight o'clock on Friday evening. It was now Tuesday night and the castle seemed dead. Ron found himself aimlessly wandering the hallways again, not really thinking about much. He dared not to think about much these days, apart from chess, how quiet the castle seemed, and how at least he didn't get shouted at for not doing his homework. Not that he'd been given much homework to do. Since McGonagall, Snape, Hagrid, Dumbledore and most of the other staff members weren't around, it was quite apparent that Flitwick and Madam Pince hadn't a clue how to co-run Hogwarts. With classes diminishing by the day, it seemed to Ron that they had almost given up bothering.

Which was good.

Sort of.

He found it so frustrating sitting in the Charms classroom for an entire hour with such a wide range of students, since each individual year didn't have enough people left for separate lessons.

First, Flitwick, mustering as much enthusiasm as he could, would show the seventh years how to do their charm, but before they could start practicing, he'd show the sixth years their charm, then the fifth years theirs, and so on. By the time the dithering idiot got around to the first years and their 'Wingardium Leviosa', most of the remaining sixth and seventh years had lost interest and forgotten their spells, or, in a couple incidents, fallen asleep.

It wasn't like Charms was the most important thing on people's minds anyway, Ron thought as he headed towards the library with his hands stuffed in his pockets to keep them from getting cold. He reached the door and quickly changed his mind, continuing past the library towards the stairs. There wouldn't be anyone in there anyway. He didn't think he could face that heavy, stifling silence and musty book smell tonight.

Hermione would have scolded him. Or perhaps not. Come to think of it, if she were still around she'd have probably volunteered to teach classes, and would be busy drawing up timetables and lesson plans. Ron smiled despite his dark mood, forcing it for his own sake.

"Hey, Weasley!" called a familiar voice from behind. Ron let the false smile slip from his face.

"Townsend," he said, not bothering to stop or turn around.

"Where are you going?"

"To bed."

"But it's only half-seven!"

"Exactly."

Ron headed up the stairs quickly, not feeling particularly bad about being curt with Townsend. The kid had two of his own third year Hufflepuff friends around. Why the hell he'd taken a shine to Ron he had no idea. Probably because he was older. Quite a lot of the younger students had latched onto the remaining sixth and seventh years, obviously in need of some degree of parental comfort - age serving as reason enough - but Ron was in no mood to have a tag-along and avoided talking to the lower years. It didn't matter; let Townsend find someone else to take him under their wing. Ron didn't think his wings were big enough for two at the moment.

Grateful to be back in Gryffindor Tower - until he wandered into the empty common room - Ron collapsed onto one of the squashy sofas. At first the silence hadn't bothered him that much. But now the dead quiet seemed to be tainted by a low ringing sound that Ron heard every time he thought about it. It was annoying, because he couldn't make it stop unless he found something to do. And there was precious little to do.

He eyed his chess set from across the room; it had been sitting stationary on the table in the corner since Saturday night, right before the Creeveys had been picked up by McGonagall and taken back to their parents. Just like all the others, one by one. Hermione had gone into hiding with her parents very early on, straight after a snide threat from Malfoy. His mother had arrived to collect him the next day, much to Ron's annoyance - he hadn't been able to get down into the Slytherin common room in time to kill the smarmy fucker. He imagined that Malfoy would probably be with the Death Eaters by now, helping them figure out a way to break his father out of prison. Now the Creeveys were gone too, and the only Gryffindors left were Ron, Ginny and an extremely scared second year who only seemed to surface from his dorm room at meal times.