Unofficial Portkey Archive

Disclaimer: The characters of this fiction are borrowed and used as a tribute to the wonderful world created by J.K. Rowling. They're not mine, never was and never will be. No money is being made on this either.

Summary: Driven by jealousy of Hermione Granger's obvious crush for The Boy Who Lived, Ron Weasley makes the biggest mistake of his life that puts the whole Hogwarts school in peril. As Harry Potter suddenly finds himself trapped in a different world, it is now up to him to set things right.

(Author's notes: Thank you those who rewieved my first chapter. I hope that you all will find the rest of my story to be just as satisfying as that one…)

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It wasn't Nearly Headless Nick, but neither was it any of the other ghost's that Harry had seen around Hogwarts.

It was Ron.

'Harry!' the ghost of Ron cried out. 'You… You're out of the mirror!'
'Ron?' Harry's voice was strained as it was held back with shock. 'Ron? You… you're… you're…'
'Dead, Harry.' Ron finished the sentence in a low tone. 'Yes, I'm dead.'
'But how…? Who? Who did this to you, Ron?' Ron looked down on the floor as if he didn't want to look Harry in the eyes.
'I did.' He finally said. 'I'm the reason for that I'm dead. I and everybody else.'

'What about everybody else?' Harry whispered. He couldn't find the strength to raise his voice as he was still in shock. 'Ron, what're you talking about?'
'They're dead, Harry.' Ron was still looking down on the floor.
'Who is?'
'Everybody is, Harry.'
'Everybody is… dead? Who… who killed them?'
'I did. I just told you so, I'm the reason to why everybody is dead, Harry.'

'B… but…' Harry tried to get a grip on himself. None of what he heard made any sense to him. 'Ron, I don't understand how all this could be. How can you say that you killed the entire school in just twenty minutes? It wasn't even an hour ago we decided to skip divination and go upstairs to the third floor. You were with me all the way to the mirror before you disappeared. You can't…' Harry stooped in mid-sentence as he saw that the ghost of Ron was actually chuckling.

'You'd better stay on the floor, Harry. What I am about to say will be quite some extra shock for you.'
'What do you mean? Harry asked. Ron seemed to brace as he forced himself to finally look Harry in his eyes.
'Harry. You… have been trapped in the Mirror of Erised… for three hundred years.'
'THREE HUNDRED YEARS?!!' Harry cried out. The news hit Harry as if he was hit with three hundred brick-stones.
He then recalled the strange mumbling he'd heard before the mirror pulled him into it. Someone cast a curse that made the mirror suck him inside it and trapping him. That must be it.
'Who did it?' he asked. 'You must have seen him, Ron. Who cast the curse to trap me in the mirror?' Ron didn't answer. Instead he looked at the floor again, only this time he was sobbing.

'No Ron.' Harry whispered as the horrible realization hit him. 'No, it couldn't have been…'
'Yes, Harry.' Ron cried, his shoulders shaking. 'It was I who did it...'
'Why? How could you do this to me, Ron? We're friends and…' Harry then thought of something.
'Ron, this better not have anything to do with the incident the last year. Just because I was forced into the Triwizard tournament…'
'No Harry, it had nothing to do with that.' the ghost of Ron interrupted. 'I did it because… Hermione was in love with you. And not with me.'
'…What? Hermione? In love with… me?'
Ron let out a heavy sigh. 'I better start from the beginning. This was three hundred years ago but from your point of view, it all began last week while you served detention…'

**********************************************Flashback*****************************************************

Ron was quite bored. He wouldn't have mind a game of wizards chess right now, but the only one who still would play against him despite of constant losing was right now serving detention under Argus Filch's supervision. Harry had once again fallen for a provoce from Draco Malfoy, and they had both thrown curses against each other in a corridor. The caretaker Mr. Filch had caught them and had them brought to Professor Snape. Like the damn ferret Malfoy was, (and the fact that Snape favoured the Slytherins) he'd managed to put all the blame on Harry. That was why Ron was alone in the Gryffindor Common-room right now, all the other students spent their time doing studying outside since it was such a beautiful day. Ron knew that he should be studying too, but he didn't feel up to it without Harry to help him. And he thought it would be better to stay out of Hermione's sight during that time, otherwise she was most likely going to scowl him for being lazy when he had plenty of time to catch up with his work.

Ron thought that it was too bad that Hermione still would be such a bossy know-it-all sometimes, it had flared up again when she'd become a prefect. (How typical.) She was quite okay otherwise, heck, she even become more beautiful over the past years. Okay, she was his best friend, but Ron would love to spend maybe a little more romantic or even passionate time with her as well. He actually had tried to get nearer to her, but he didn't get any real responses from her, and he still hadn't figured out why. Maybe it was her bossy nature that held her back, and it would be a challenge to tame that side.

He then heard the door to the common room open, and speaking of the devil, it was Hermione, together with his sister Ginny. The armchair he was sitting in was turned with its back to the girls and Ron ducked his head to be completely hidden as he strained his ears to listen to their conversation.

'For being a story written by muggles, it was quite romantic.' Ginny told Hermione, holding a book with fairy-tales the older girl had lent her.
'That story of the 'Sleeping Beauty' has always been my favorite since I was little, I'd thought you'd appreciate it as well.'
'I especially loved it when the prince woke her up with the kiss. That was beautiful. I kind of wish that the Prince of my dreams will someday come and wake me up like that. Wouldn't you?'
'Well… sure it would be nice but…' Ron couldn't see it but he was sure Hermione was blushing. '…I doubt that will happen to me.'
'What makes you say that?' Ginny asked. 'There's a lot of guys who's been looking after you, I bet one of them would love to do that to you.'
Yeah, like me. Ron thought to himself.
'Them? They're only looking at my features, not at my person. I want my prince to look at me for the one I am, not just for what I look like.'
'Oh. I see your point. I suppose no one likes you for your brains, huh?'
'No.' Hermione sighed. 'No one except for…' she hesitated.

'Who?' Ginny asked.
'Never mind.'
'Who?'
'Ginny, forget that I said anything.'
'No, c'mon Hermione, there's someone you like. Who is it?'
Yeah, tell her who you like Herms. Ron thought to himself.
'It doesn't matter. For all I know, he doesn't like me that way.'
'How can you be so sure about that? Is it Victor Krum?'
'KRUM? Definantly NOT! After I realized what kind of a diva he really is, I quickly broke up the very little relationship we had. I don't like divas.'
'So who ever it is that you like, he must be a very sensetive guy. Who is it?'
'Stop it, Ginny.'
'Whoooo iiiss iiit?' Ginny teased.
'Not gonna tell you.' Hermione quickly retreated up the stairs towards her dormitary.
'And I'm not gonna give up until I get to know who it is.' Ginny giggled and rushed after her. 'Tell me who it is, Hermione.'
'NO!'

Ron heard a door slam shut, only to be opened and closed again as Ginny followed her friend inside. Curiosity now overwhelmed his mind; he didn't want to miss the rest of this conversation. Ron quickly rushed up towards his own dormitory to fetch Harry's invisibility cloak. Once he got it he silently tiptoed up towards the girl's dormitory and opened the door slightly ajar. Peeking inside he saw his sister and best friend sitting on the edge of one of the four poster beds. Hermione was blushing all over as Ginny bombarded her with questions.

'Why won't you tell me, Hermione?' Ginny asked. 'You can tell me anything, you know that I'll keep it a secret if you really want to.'
'I know Ginny. It's just that in this case things are a little complicated.'
'Well, he must be really special then.'
'Uuh… kind of.'
'So who could this guy be?' Ginny continued teasing. 'If he can charm Hermione Granger's heart which otherwise is reserved for books, then he must be really special, right?'
'Ginny, please… just because I love to read doesn't mean I'm not human. I can fall in love too.'
'Does he like to read?'
'I wish he could find a little more interest in that actually…' Hermione grumbled.
'Okay, that means he does not spend that much time in the library. Then we can rule out Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ernie Macmillan.'
'You won't give up, will you?' Hermione sighed.
'No.' Ginny said with a grin. 'So, how does he feel about you reading all the time?'
'He doesn't care. He knows I like to read and he respects it.'
Ron felt a knot forming in his stomach. He didn't like Hermione spending all her time with books. That means that who ever Hermione fancied, he was just ruled out.

'Is he goodlooking?'
Hermione gave her friend a smile. 'It wasn't his looks I fell for in the first place, it was his personality that caught me. But I can tell you, he has this smile that could just melt me on the spot.'
'Ok, a melting smile. What else?'
'His eyes.' Hermione laid her chin in her palm, whose arm was supported atop on her knee. Her own eyes caught a dreamy look as she stared into the wall. 'Everytime I look into his green eyes… I feel like I could drown in them.'
'Did you say: green eyes?'
'Wha…' Hermione's face jerked up from her hand. 'D-did I say…?'
'You sure did, Hermione!' Ginny said triumphily. 'I only know one boy around here with green eyes!'
'…Oh no…' Hermione buried her scarlet face in her hands. 'No no no…'
'Harry Potter! It must be Harry Potter!' Ginny's face then caught on an odd expression. 'Really? I didn't know you liked him that way? I'm mean, sure you're close friends but… You love him?'
'Y-yes.' Hermione said, still with her face buried in her hands.
'But… I thought you detested people who fall for celebrities just 'cause they're famous. (Especially after the Gilderoy Lockhart incident.) But yet you…'

'I don't love him for his fame!' Hermione exclaimed. 'It's his… person. He's so nice and really cares about people. And I can't just stop admire how well he handles every tough situation that crosses him and still can be the so unselfish afterwards.'
'True. I still remember when he saved me from the Chamber of Secrets in my first year. And he hasn't bragged about it a single time since then.'
'Then you see what I mean? He has no desire to be a hero and yet he does that sort of things. That's the kind of persons I admire and that's why…'
'Now I understand. It's the true person underneath the famous shell you fell for.' Ginny began smiling again. 'Good one, Hermione. That's exactly the thing what true love is suppose to be all about, Mum's trying very hard to teach us all that.'
Hemione finally looked up from her hands. 'You're… not angry?'
'Should I be?' Ginny's smile was replaced with confusion.
'Don't you love him too? I mean, in your first grade…'
'Ooh, so that's why you didn't want to tell me?' Ginny put a hand on Hermione's shoulder. 'That's nothing to worry about. You see, I fell in love with the legend. But once I got to know him and got to learn whom the true Harry Potter was, that crush died. Don't get me wrong, I really like him, but he became more of another brother to me rather than a potential lover.'
'You don't mind then?' Hermione said hopefully.
'No. In fact, I think that you two would be great together.'

Well I don't! Thought Ron who managed to supress his blossomed anger enough to close the door quietly, but then he stormed back to the boy's dormatory, shutted the door with a bang and furiously threw back the invisibility cloak into harry's trunk which he afterwards gave a hard kick. That blasted git! He always gets everything. Like it wasn't enough that he got a popular reputation and was taken into the Quidditch team during first year, now he would get the brightest girl in school as a girlfriend as well. Almost every girl in Hogwarts was trying to hook up a date with him to twirl him around their fingers, but there was no doubt what would happen once Harry finds out that his other best friend had also fallen for him. Hermione didn't love him for his fame; she loved him for his kindness and selflessness. There was no doubt which girl that in the end would win, not giving a second thought about Ron who also happened to love her! Frustrated, he kicked Harry's trunk again, resulting in an aching toe. As he sat down to rub away the pain from his foot, he dwelled on what he had heard.

A strange calm then came over Ron, as he thought about some possibilities. Not this time, Harry. All right, harry had his fame and would continuingly get everything served on a silver platter. He could have that, since there was nothing Ron could do about that, but he would not get Hermione.
Ron had a plan. He would win Hermione's heart and he knew just how to do it, there was just one thing he would have to do first:

Get Rid of Harry!

******************************************End_Flashback********************************************************

'Get rid of me?' Harry looked at his dead friend with disbelif and with building anger. 'So Hermione had this thing for me and just for that you had to trap me in a mirror for three hundred years?'
'Harry, I swear: I never meant to trap you for that long. Only until after I got Hermione as a girlfriend. After that I was planning to get you out of there again, you must believe me!'
'How can I believe that now that I am stuck three hundred years into the future? You didn't get me out of there like you claim that you would, where you planning on releasing me at all?'

The ghost of Ron sighed. 'You know, in the past I would've punched you in the face and scolded you for letting out an outburst like that at me. But I've been waiting a long time actually longing to hear it; it's a kind of relief. But let me continue. I managed to (unfortunately) get rid of you. I saw this spell on how to do it in a book stashed in the restricted section. I looked up the Mirror of Erised when I wrote an essay over magical artifacts for Prof. Binns two weeks ago. (From your point of view.) And after that I went on with my plan to get Hermione to like me. I thought of an easy way to do that: a love potion! One that would be activated when the girl got kissed, so she would fall over the head in love with the one she did it with.'
'Did it work?' Harry asked.
'Don't know. Because that's where I started to screw up. You see, I thought about what Hermione and Ginny had discussed about being awakened with a kiss. I was planning to fulfill that dream of hers. That's why I also along with the love potion secretely whipped up another potion to give her: namely The Draught of Living Death. You know that one don't you harry?'
Harry did. He still remembered Prof. Snape asking him that question on his very first potion lesson. What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood? That was not a pleasent memory.

'I thought that since love was such a powerful thing, it would most likely overpower the Sleeping Draught so that she would awaken. So a week afterwards I had trapped you I got the potions finished. All I had to do was to make Hermione drink them without her being suspicious. It was actually quite easy. She was so devastated by your disappearence that she refused to leave her dormitory, I had to bring food up to her. And then came that faithful evening when I put the potions in her pumpkin juice: both of them.'
Harry nearly sprang to his feet. 'You mixed the potions? RON! Snape warned us never to mix potions that weren't meant to be mixed, the qonsequenses could be disastrous!'
'And they did become disastrous.' Ron shook his head from the memory.
'What did you do to her, Ron? What did you do to Hermione?'
'At first everything seemed to work: she fell asleep. And since she had lately slept so badly because of your absence, I left her to let her rest for a while. I went back to the Great Hall to continue my dinner. Can you imagine my surprise when I came down?'
The ghost of Ron shivered. As did his voice when he spoke again.

'Everyone was asleep down there Harry! And not just the students and teachers, the ghosts were asleep to! Even the paintings and house elves were asleep! Everyone except me!'
'How did that happen?' Harry asked with a tight throat.
'That's what I wanted to find out as well that moment. I knew it had something to do with the potions. I went straight down to the dungeons to search Snape's books to see what I'd done wrong. And I found it. By mixing those two potions, I accidently put together the ingredients to make a contamination spell. Dark wizards in the distant past used it to spread plagues among the muggles from a human carrier. The carrier in this case was Hermione, and the sleeping spell spread along the magical energy over the whole Hogwarts grounds; affecting everybody! I was the only one unaffected because I had inhaled the fumes from the cauldron when I brewed them, making me immune.'
'Oh my God.' Whispered Harry.

'I read that the curse I'd made would be broken if the carrier was cured, in other words: I had to kiss Hermione to break the spell. So I went straight back to the tower where I'd left her and I kissed her.'
'It didn't work.' Harry stated rather than asked.
'Correct, Harry. It didn't. No matter how many times I tried the kiss, she wouldn't wake up. I got desperate after that and maybe that's what made me think more clearly. Harry, I'm quite positive that I couldn't wake her because it wasn't me she loved, it was you! She was waiting for you to kiss her!'
Harry didn't answer Ron's statement; instead he waited for him to continue.
'Trust me Harry, I really did decide to swallow my pride by then. I never intended to put the whole school to sleep just for Hermione. I went straight back to the mirror to get you out of there so that you could wake her up.' Harry noticed how Ron's voice began to crack here. Despite Ron's jealousy over Harry, he was sure that his now dead friend's words were the truth.

'That…' Ron croaked. 'That didn't work either! I tried, but… I couldn't get you out! I swear: I don't know why! I really wanted to get you out of there Harry, believe me!'
'I… believe you, Ron.'
'T-thank you Harry. Anyway… I panicked by then. I couldn't wake Hermione and I couldn't get you out of the mirror. And none of the teachers were awake so they couldn't help me; I was on my own. I went back to Snape's books. And I found two other possible ways to break this spell. Either to brew an antidote for the Draft of the Living Death, or to kill the carrier. There was no way that I would do the latter, that's why I went straight to work to do the antidote. It took one week to do it, and during that time I neither ate nor slept. And I was nearly done when… when…' Ron gulped. '…When the worst happened.'
'What?' Harry felt a stain of fear hit his heart. 'What happened Ron?'
Ron shivered. Harry was almost certain that the ghostly face paled even more.
'…Voldemort.' Ron finally said.

For once, it was actually Harry who flinched. 'Voldemort?' he gasped.
'S-suddenly h-he just stood there, watching me.' Ron's lips trembled. 'I swear; I almost died on the spot when I saw him. And when he raised his wand I… I was sure that he was going to kill me. But he didn't. Instead he used the Imperius curse on me. He asked me what had happened… and I told him. I told him everything. And after that… he laughed. (Oh, that laugh still haunts me today.) He said it was a fitting fate for all his enemies. You forever trapped in the mirror and Dumbledore and his staff forever asleep.
And… he was to make sure that it would stay that way.'
'H-how?' Again, Harry had almost lost his voice. Ron began to cry.
'He took her, Harry!' Ron whimpered. 'H-he took Hermione and… he put her into his blasted secret chamber… where no one would reach her!'
'No one who hasn't the ability to speak parcel.' Harry said slowly to himself. The only way to open the passage to The Chamber of Secrets was to give it a voice-command in parcel-tongue, the language of snakes. And the only known ones who actually could do it were Voldemort and himself.

'I thought he would kill me after that…' Ron went on with a broken voice. '…I actually wish he had! But he didn't. Instead… he must've read that muggle story as well. 'Cause he used some kind of spell to grow magical thorn-bushes that's impervious to spells all over the Hogwarts castle… to keep unwanted visitors out… and to keep me inside. He wanted no one to ever find out what had happened here… and then he left. And I was left behind all alone with a sleeping school.' Ron shook his head in grief as he resumed the last part of his story to Harry, whimpering, crying.
'I went back to the mirror again afterwards, and I never left there alive. I pounded my fists on the mirror, screaming your name, pleading for days for it to release you as a desperate last hope, 'til I died. And to my surprise and despair, I became a ghost. The only thing I could do afterwards was to float around the castle watching my victims… watching them die. The spell wasn't perfect. Eventually they all starved to death, and I watched as the years passed as they crumbled, mouldered away to dust until there was nothing left. Even the paintings died, they bleached into nothingness and the ghosts just dissolved until they too were completely gone. I've been alone here since then; cursed to haunt this castle forever, to be reminded everyday of my shame and my guilt. Probably 'til the end of time.'

Silence followed; the only thing that disturbed it was Ron's sobbing. Harry, still sitting on the floor, was stunned. He thought about everything that the ghost of Ron Weasley just told him, thinking this has somehow got to be a bad dream. But he could only in despair shake his own head, saying to Ron the only thing that kept popping into his mind.

'Ron, what have you done? What have you done?'

Next: Taking action.

(Authors Notes: I honestly have no idea how long a time nature needs to decompose a dead body, skeletons and all. So I'll just claim that the magical energy around Hogwarts helped consume them a lot faster. I hope no one minds...)