Shadow Walks
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
--Green Day, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
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Chapter Four:
"And I can't explain what happened. And I can't erase the things that I've done."
--Simple Plan, "Untitled"
Harry just stared at Ron for a long moment, the flat shrouded in absolute silence save for the crackling of the fire. Finally he said,
"You don't mean that."
"I do mean it," Ron said, lifting his eyes to look at Harry again, as if the orbital muscles had enormous weights attached. "You'd gone to fight him, and Hermione and I were together. We were almost in the Forbidden Forest, and were trying to stay out of sight and work our way towards Dumbledore's tomb, hoping to be able to help you." He steepled his fingers underneath his chin, and continued, speaking mechanically. "Then I - I asked her if there was anything going on between the two of you - the whole good-bye thing got me wondering…"
"Ron, you didn't," Harry said in a strangled kind of half-groan, dropping his face into his hands. "In the middle of the bloody battle with Voldemort?" Ron and Hermione had broken up nearly eight months before the battle took place, but Ron had remained as over-protective and overreacting as he'd always been. At Harry's words, Ron flushed crimson, but attempted to continue speaking evenly.
"She insisted that nothing was going on, and we - we started arguing, and - " The regret plastered across Ron's face would be evident to anyone. Harry just stared at him, as Ron tried to finish the story that he'd begun relating. "Some of the things I said to her - and I didn't mean them, I really didn't mean them… We were so angry - we weren't exactly shouting, but it was just like always - and so we - I - I left her there…oh, Merlin, Harry, I left her there…"
"You what?" Harry said hoarsely. He felt his throat closing up painfully, threatening to cut off his airway forever. Ron's words had become heavy mallets, and the inside of his skull was a gong. This is why I don't talk about her to anyone! Anyone! He wasn't sure if he was going to throw up or pass out.
"I - I stalked off ahead of her. It really wasn't far, and I thought she was right behind me, but…" Harry's eyes flickered down to Ron's long legs, folded up as he sat on the sofa. He would've left her behind very quickly, his strides carrying him rapidly along the edge of the forest. "I heard a scuffle, some raised voices, and - and Hermione screamed." Harry flinched visibly. "I turned around and ran back towards her, but I stepped in a bloody hole or something. I fell… my leg…When I finally got my bearings again, she was gone." Ron was speaking mechanically, not even seeming to remember that Harry was in the room.
"I could hear the sounds of the battle, and I tried to - tried to get out of the forest. I heard someone say something - in Latin - a curse I'd never heard before, and then - that was all. The next thing I heard was Remus shouting, and then you were back, and …"
"Who was it? Who spoke the curse?" That took away the woman I love, rang in Harry's head, though he did not speak it.
"Bellatrix Lestrange." Ron said, the name plunging into the silence and seeming to echo around the room. Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry's lips pressed into a grim line. At least this explained why Ron had been mumbling her name in his drunken state.
When Harry had returned from Dumbledore's tomb, looking like nothing more than a dead man walking, he had seen Ron, all but dragging himself from the low undergrowth on the very outer edge of the forest, obviously in pain. Harry had cast a somewhat elementary healing charm, and then stiffened the leg of Ron's trousers to act as a splint on his broken bone. He'd helped him to stand.
"Where's Hermione?" Ron had asked in a panicked voice, clutching at Harry's sleeve, watching the alarm suddenly seep into Harry's eyes. They'd both turned to look across the wide green grounds of Hogwarts, and had seen Remus standing, wavering on his feet, blood streaming down one side of his face from a laceration above his eye, looking at them sadly, so sadly that they'd known … without Remus having to say anything at all. But he had said something…two words that would tear Harry's life apart and leave ruins strewn in their wake. And then his own furious, impotent, despairing cry,
What do you mean she's gone?
"I - Merlin, Harry, there were so many times I wanted to tell you… when you kept insisting that she was alive somewhere, and I - I - but I didn't know how you'd react, and I didn't - I'd already lost her; I didn't want to lose you too."
We started arguing.
I asked her if there was anything going on between the two of you.
I left her there.
The pain grasped Harry in two impersonal fists and twisted. It was too much. It was too much to handle, too much to grasp, too much to accept. If there was anything going on… Not then, not ever, Harry thought, and wondered when his eyes had grown damp.
I left her…
"You didn't want to - you - oh God," Harry rambled wildly, feeling dizzy and sick with dread and grief. Ron still sat on the sofa, elbows on knees, looking the perfect picture of utter misery.
"Harry, I'm sorry," Ron flinched over the inadequacy of the words. He moved as if to stand, and Harry backpedaled away from him as if he had some sort of contagion.
"It was Bellatrix, Ron, not you," he mumbled, feeling the need to absolve his friend a little, even as his heart contorted into painful knots. "It was Bellatrix who - who - who k- " He couldn't finish, and he felt his throat tightening, clenching with such tension that it could only be abated with a sob. He swallowed it noisily. Malfoy's words were jarring in his mind.
Do they haunt you…her eyes?
Yes, they do. Every single second of my life. No matter how much I try to pretend otherwise.
His throat was closing up again. Lost, bewildered, confused…
He suddenly latched onto his earlier train of thought. Not dead. Not in pain. Malfoy described her as lost, bewildered, confused…but not dead.
"Wouldn't Malfoy have wanted to taunt me with the gruesome details of what happened? But he didn't talk about her death - not about her death… he…" Harry trailed off, a seed of suspicion germinating in his mind.
"What're you on about, Harry?" Ron asked in confusion.
"And how would he know the details of the moment she disappeared?" he asked quickly. "How'd he know enough to mock you with? He wasn't there. He was in France - the entire Ministry practically verified his alibi. It helped him stay out of prison." He had begun pacing back and forth across the small living room, his arms locked behind his back, his eyes ablaze with green flame. "Who was there, Ron? Which Death Eaters attacked you?"
Ron looked at him with skeptical worry, his eyes clearly communicating that he did not want to talk about this any more, and he couldn't understand Harry's sudden reversal on the topic.
"They're all in Azkaban, Harry - or were killed during the fighting. But I guess Malfoy could have visited…talked to any one of them." Harry was frowning.
"I'm not sure he'd risk it. He was this close to going there himself, and he knows it." Harry held up his thumb and forefinger with only a tiny fraction of space between them. "He's hung onto his family's money, so people in high places still listen to him, but I think even they'd draw the line at association with convicted Death Eaters." He stopped and thought again for a moment. "But Bellatrix - Bellatrix Lestrange, now…"
"Harry, she's dead." Ron's voice was desperate and pleading now. "Remus killed her - completely vaporized her. Right after she killed Hermione…" The words tore from his throat as if they physically caused him pain. Harry turned his head so sharply as to nearly wrench his neck, and regarded Ron, the kinetic fury beginning to ebb from his bright eyes. His face was white to the lips.
"You said her name - Bellatrix - last night, when we put you to bed. You said - " Harry faltered, visibly trying to clutch at the shreds of his theory. "And Malfoy - he asked me if her eyes haunted me. Lost, bewildered…lost….oh, God, Ron…I was thinking - I thought… maybe he meant she wasn't dead. That she wasn't dead after all, and it was - it was…" He pressed the pads of his fingers to his burning eyes, and the pain threatened to rip open his chest like a living thing - a wild beast with a mind of its own. Ron sat motionless on the sofa, a muscle working in his jaw, his eyes mirroring the pain his best mate felt - and yet…and yet unable to comprehend the depth to which it extended. "I - I - " Harry groped desperately for words, for a purpose, for something to do, something to fix the horrid thing that happened five years ago, that never should have happened…that surely wasn't meant to happen… "I could go talk to Remus. Maybe - maybe he…"
"Harry, mate… for the love of Merlin, don't do this. Don't dredge this up again. You've done everything you could do - looked everywhere. The Ministry had its best people on it, and they never found a trace of her. It's over."
"Ogden tell you that?" Harry said cruelly, and Ron flinched.
"P'raps you've got a valid point," the redhead finally said. "Look what it's done to me. I'm a disgrace, an - an embarrassment to my family and to my team, to anybody who ever looked up to me, anybody who ever thought I was worth anything at all."
"That happened because of your drinking, not because you - " Harry was beginning to feel bad for his comment. I would have thought that you of all people would understand what he's going through, Luna's soft chastisement rang in his mind.
"I drink because I can't handle the fact that she's gone - the fact that she died because of me," Ron said stolidly, looking away from Harry and staring mournfully into the fire.
She died because of me…she died because of me… she died because of me…because of me.
Harry wanted to argue with him, to point out that it wasn't Ron who was the instigator, the cornerstone, the linchpin of the entire conflict. It was Voldemort's vendetta against Harry that had propelled them all to this point, as if they were all plastered to the front of the runaway train of destiny, with no hope of jumping off in time to prevent disaster. If only I'd died when I should have, twenty-two years ago… he thought, not for the first time.
"All I'm saying is - is that - " Ron struggled for a moment, and seemed to choose the words very carefully. "You still have a career, dignity, respect. Don't throw it away for a pipe dream, Harry. She wouldn't want you to do that." Harry's green eyes met Ron's blue ones squarely. Something hung in the air between them for just a moment, something viscous and bittersweet: regretful camaraderie, a bond that came with experiencing something life-altering and awful that nobody else could understand.
We started arguing… I left her there. The tiniest flicker of anger licked in the corners of Harry's mind and began to grow, feeding on itself, but he struggled to push it away. Hating Ron for a mistake seen in hindsight wouldn't bring her back. Ron had been thoughtless, irresponsible, even negligent, but he had not been willfully cruel, abandoning Hermione with malice aforethought. Even so, he found he could barely look at the miserable man slumped on the sofa
He turned awkwardly to the door.
"Reckon I'll get back to the office," he said, doing a double take when Ron stood too. "Where are you going?" he asked. Ron shoved a hand through his vivid, rumpled hair, and shrugged self-consciously.
"Ah… you know. Just thought I might drop round the pub."
"Right," Harry said in a weary voice. He briefly thought of encouraging Ron against the idea, but couldn't work up the energy to do so. I left her there. Let Ron do himself in with drink, if he so wished. Some trace of disapproval must have flickered in his eyes anyway though, for Ron answered,
"Harry, I no longer have a job, and it's mostly my own damn fault. If this isn't a situation that calls for drinking, I don't know what is," he said; the words were jovial in context, but the tone of his voice was faint and somber, quite failing to cover up how upset he really was. "Besides, I don't want to be here when the Howlers start arriving."
"Stay here, Ron," Harry finally blurted, after several seconds of internal debate. "Luna's been really worried about you. You know you ought - just - be here when she gets home. You could talk…" Ron stared at him for a long moment, and Harry just stood by the door, his hand on the knob. Finally, Ron let out a sudden, loud bark of laughter, though it wasn't exactly mirthful.
"We're a fine lot, aren't we? Sitting around giving each other advice on how to properly live each other's lives, when our own are just - just - " Going down the toilet, Harry mentally supplied for him, when he didn't seem able to finish his sentence.
"It's what you would call ironic, isn't it?" Harry returned the smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'll see you later." He looked at Ron one last time, and felt nausea welling up within him. I left her there.
In another moment, he was out the door, closing it softly. Ron didn't hear him Apparate, but knew that he was gone.
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Harry hadn't been in his cramped, messy excuse for an office for thirty seconds, when Kingsley Shacklebolt strode in, with a set, serious look on his face.
"Not you too, Potter," he said, without preamble.
"What are you talking about?" Harry mumbled, not looking at him and shuffling some papers around on his desk to look busy.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about," his superior officer returned, and when Harry looked up, Kingsley was slanting a sideways, all-knowing look at him. Damn, Harry thought, and jerked backwards, knocking a whole sheaf of parchment to the floor, where it rustled into stillness like a settling flock of birds.
"I'm talking about your little run-in with Malfoy, this morning," Shacklebolt said, sitting in the only other chair in the tiny space, and bouncing back up again, as he crushed several accordion folders flat. "Don't you ever file anything?" He asked, pulling the files out from under himself, and setting them on an already promising stack perched crookedly on a cabinet.
"I'm just a little behind," Harry muttered defensively.
"Malfoy went running to Percy Weasley," Shacklebolt said simply, and Harry swore wrathfully.
"I'm sure Percy went straight to the Minister," Harry said, "damn him to hell." Kingsley raised one eyebrow.
"Who? Percy or the Minister?"
"Both," Harry snarled, and disappeared behind his desk to retrieve the pile of parchment that he'd knocked over.
"The Minister was not very happy," Kingsley said, understatedly.
"What else is new?" Harry retorted. His boss theatrically unfurled a memo, and began to read.
"Head Auror Shacklebolt: It has come to our attention - "
("Our!" Harry snorted under his breath. "Who does he think he is - the bloody Queen of England?")
"It has come to our attention," Shacklebolt resumed, after a quelling look at Harry, "that one of your Aurors threatened a Mr. Draco Malfoy (Lord of Malfoy Manor, member of the board of governors of Hogwarts, vice chairman of the International Wizarding Council, honorary member of the Wizengamot, and recipient of the Order of Merlin, fourth class) on Ministry property this morning, with insulting diatribe and promises of physical assault. Mr. Malfoy has most graciously declined to insist upon Auror Potter's immediate termination at this time. (Harry rolled his eyes.) There has been a warning attached to Auror Potter's permanent record, and if there are any further `incidents', he will be immediately released from active duty with dishonor and without severance. We trust that you, Head Auror Shacklebolt, will bring this matter to Auror Potter's attention in an expedient manner. Disciplinary action may be taken as you see fit.
Respectful regards,
Rufus Scrimgeour, Minister of Magic."
"I hate that man," Harry said, doodling distractedly on the protruding margin of some random scroll.
"Yes, I know. I believe you've told him so to his face on a number of occasions," Kingsley said dryly. "What happened with Malfoy this morning?" He watched Harry slump inward on himself. Clearly, the younger man did not want to discuss it.
"Does it really matter?" Harry asked. "I consider myself officially reprimanded. It won't happen again."
"That's what you said last time there was a warning put on your record. You've four now, you know," Kingsley replied coolly, and Harry looked at him curiously, wondering at his sudden change in demeanor.
"What's going on, sir?" Harry wondered.
"I know you've had a rough go of it, Harry. You were dealt a sorry hand to begin with, and it's only gotten worse. I've stepped up for you a number of times, and I don't regret it," he spoke the last phrase quickly, as Harry opened his mouth to protest. "The political climate is changing - I know you know it - and the public is already starting to forget what happened five years ago. Unless you find a way to pose for their photo shoots, and give happy lip service to the Minister, then they will find a way to get rid of you," he said emphatically, "and there won't be a damn thing I can do about it."
"They can take their adulation and their so-called gratitude, and shove it up their arses, for all I care," Harry said hotly. "I don't need this damn job, and I certainly don't live for Scrimgeour's approval - or Malfoy's… or yours."
"You're a good Auror, Harry," Kingsley said. "A damn good one - you've got spot on instincts. I don't want to lose you." He took a deep breath. "And I don't think she'd want you to chuck it all and run either." Harry turned to his boss with a venomous look that would have had lesser men quaking where they sat. "Malfoy brought her up, didn't he?" Shacklebolt did not miss the tremors in Harry's hands, as the younger Auror brought them down slowly to grip the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white.
"Yes, he did. And I think you know that Hermione," his voice quavered only slightly over the syllables of her name, "would be the last person who would advocate licking someone else's boots in the name of political conformity or to keep a job!" His voice had risen in volume as he spoke. The tense silence fairly crackled in the small room, but it was abruptly dispelled when a junior Auror trainee, barely out of Hogwarts, burst into the room, red-faced, breathing heavily, and looking frantic.
"Head Auror Sha - Shacklebolt," he said, panting. "You need to come - there's an urgent Floo call from - from Auror Longbottom in - in - "
"Spit it out, MacKie," Shacklebolt instructed.
"They've got him - they've got Dolohov."
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