Chapter 7 - Ron's Problem
Just past sunset, in an abandoned warehouse somewhere along the Thames, two wizards and a wizened witch were in congregation.
"Except for the old fool, I thought Gringotts went well," the woman spoke, strong and authoritative. She asked her two underlings, "Are we ready?"
"Almost," the older of the two men replied, "The first shipment is arriving tonight."
"We need everything in Toronto by the thirteenth," the witch countered, "It all better be there in time."
"Have I ever let you down?" came his reply, then, he addressed the other wizard, "I am going to need more phials."
In a somewhat nervous tone the other answered, "The phials won't be a problem. Nobody at St. Mungo's will even notice fifteen hundred missing. It's her we should be worried about."
"Why?" the woman asked.
"It doesn't look like she's going."
"That will be a problem," the other man responded, "We are going to need her expertise."
"Let's worry about Granger when we need her and she's not there. We have her shadowed; that will be an easy fix. Just make sure we get all those phials to Toronto," the woman retorted in an icy tone before breaking up the meeting.
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Just inside the main entrance of the grimy designated house, Harry stood still in the haze of disturbed filth for quite some time, in shock, still trying to convince himself that he was not dreaming. His best friend, his dead best friend, had chosen to be a ghost.
While he felt elated that he could talk with Ron again, they seemed to have picked up from where they had left off the last time they talked to each other. Rightfully so, Ron still harboured a significant amount of ill feeling towards him.
"So, how are you, Harry?" Ron's tone was filled with open hostility. "When I heard you were in Toronto, and staying here on your own volition, I had to scratch my head a few times. But wow!"
Ron was now circling and hovering around Andy, checking her out, and Merlin help him if Ron…
"Hats off, mate. You always went for the best. She's a nice piece of ass…"
"Ron…no…"
"Excuse me!? Did he just say…" Andy was getting red in the face.
"I wouldn't leave Toronto either if I got to spend all day with her and shag her every night."
Harry wished he could just close his eyes and make it all go away as Ron was making unimaginable obscene gestures. And to think he always advertised him as a 'great guy' to Andy. He was trying to intervene but there was really nothing he could do. How does one stop a ghost?
"We're not…"
"Fuck off, ghost!" she yelled at Ron then yelled at him, "Was he always this…"
Andy was so upset that she struggled mightily to find the right word.
"Insensitive?" he offered, hearing that about Ron countless times.
Ron was having a lot of fun.
"And feisty, too. Just like Hermione but with less appropriate language. I like that! She's hot! Are your hooters for real?"
"Crass!"
"Yes," Harry admitted, "Sorry, and I think it's gotten a bit worse now that he's a ghost."
Then Ron exclaimed, "I get it Harry! You finally got what you wanted. A blonde and beautiful Hermione! She'll be ecstatic about that!"
That was it!
"Stop right now or I swear I will walk out that door and never come back!"
Harry stared at Ron's ghost, toe to toe, glaring at him, meaning every word he said.
Ron smirked and floated up all the way to the ceiling, staying there, taunting, singing a little ditty in a child's small voice, repeating, "I guess I hit a sore spot, I guess I hit a sore spot, I guess I hit a sore spot…"
He turned to Andy who was still simmering, "I'm sorry about that. I think he's aged about twenty years back, too."
"I can't believe you were friends with him," she said, venting her ire at him as if it was his fault.
He could not admit to her that in the past there were times when he thought the very same thing.
"Listen, I need to talk to him. How about I meet you at the office?"
Andy nodded and left in quite a bad mood. He'll have to disperse the effects of Ron's tactlessness later as he had many times in the past. Harry had not told her everything about what happened with Hermione and Ron and him, and he was not sure what Ron was up to. If only to prevent Ron from being rude to her, he preferred the she was not in the house. The other occupants, Harry noticed, had left the scene on Ron's request.
Harry looked up to where Ron was and said to him, "So, you got me here. What do you want?"
Ron came down, eye level, and replied, ranting, "What? No 'hi' or 'hello'? No 'nice to see you'? I know you shagged my fiancée but I am still your best friend, am I not? I never thought I'd feel this considering how you betrayed my trust but I miss you. Do you not miss me at all?"
He was not prepared to see Ron like this and as he listened to him speak and ask the questions he could barely stop tears from coming as he replied, "Of course I do! But seeing you like this?! I never imagined you would choose this! This is bad! This is worse than bad! How could you…"
"Whoa!Whoa! Harry, get a hold of yourself! Don't channel Hermione, please, I don't want to have to hear that twice," Ron's animosity towards him, for now, appeared to have mellowed. He whispered, "I know, a life that's neither here nor there for all of eternity; not good, though let's not incite the whole household with the thought."
"What were you thinking?!" Harry was not done with his displeasure at Ron's current state.
Ron shrugged, "Obviously I wasn't. It seemed like a good idea at that time. And give me a break. I did die unexpectedly and the last thought I remember having while still alive was I was going to kill you with my bare hands. It was kind of hard to pass on with that in mind."
There it was. Ron had said it plainly, and with a lot of sense. He would have felt the same way and probably ended up doing the same thing had he been in his shoes. But his difficulties with accepting Ron's current state not only stemmed from the fact that he was saddened by what Ron had chosen to do, but also because he was responsible for everything that caused it to happen; from his untimely death to his unresolved inner turmoil.
There was one thing that he never had the chance to say to him.
"It was inexcusable, Ron," Harry said sombrely as his eyes welled up and sprung a leak, tears streaming down his face quietly. "I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for being such a selfish asshole. You're my best friend; my family. I didn't mean for you to get hurt. I'm really sorry; for all of this and for a lot more."
Ron listened and watched him apologize, his expression unreadable, until he finally said, "I suppose you're going to have to live with it for the rest of your life."
Harry could only nod and think how he had to deal with the consequences of his actions everyday.
"It was really dastardly," Ron continued.
He agreed, again nodding.
"Low, mean, devious. And many more things that I never thought anyone could ever say about you."
"It was unforgivable," Harry volunteered what he thought about it.
The words hung in the air forever, before Ron finally said, "When I was asked why I wanted to stay and be a ghost, do you know what I said?"
It was a rhetorical question, needing no response.
"I wanted to torment you and Hermione for as long as I could and make the rest of your lives a living hell," Ron admitted, calmly. "I should have known then that I didn't have to stay to do that."
True.
"I have to tell you, though. Seeing you choose to be a ghost because of it makes it all much worse for me," Harry replied, hoping to make Ron feel that his decision was not for naught, then, asked, curious, "It took you a year to find me?"
Ron rolled up his eyes and got all upset again, "Don't even get me started about that! I thought that as a ghost I could go anywhere I pleased and haunt anyone I wanted too. The laws ghosts are subjected to, blimey! They make Hermione's rules quite livable. Of course, it was just my luck that with this designation thing, it was hard to get to where you were to even begin to haunt you. Seriously, designating a ghost to one haunting facility is like prison. It's worse than prison. Let's not even go there because we'll be here all day."
Then they realized just how it seemed like that exchange seemed almost normal and it made them chuckle.
Harry asked, "So, how are you?"
"Hanging in there, as you can see. What about you?"
He answered truthfully, "Could be better."
"And Hermione?"
His chest tightened as he fought back tears. Seeing Ron seemed to have really touched a raw nerve about how it once was, with them, with her, "I don't know. I haven't seen her since your funeral."
Ron said wistfully, "I miss her, terribly."
I miss her, too.
"So, now that you're haunting me in the true sense of the word, what happens next?"
"Really, haunting isn't as fun as I thought it would be. It gets old doing it on Muggles, and witches and wizards don't scare at all so what's the point," Ron countered, "Just between you and me, being a phantom is kind of boring."
"Is this where you'll be for the rest of, you know," Harry couldn't say it.
"Eternity? This dump? I certainly hope not," Ron replied, "Actually, I need your help. I know you can help me with this. And you will because you owe me."
"What?" Harry asked, not able to think of anything he could possibly do for him.
"I don't want to be a ghost anymore," Ron said to him in a hushed voice.
Okay…
"I want to leave this physical world, move on. And this designation thing is definitely not for me."
Harry had heard that ghosts all over the world were in an uproar as they lost their case to abolish the law limiting the dwellings they could haunt. He was confused but he wanted to assist in any way possible, perhaps give his friend a smidgen of reality check.
"You made the choice when you died. Don't you have to live with it?"
"Well, yes, but I do have one year to reconsider and I have," this was the first time Harry had heard that ghosts had the option. He thought that was a good thing, as Ron continued, "But there appears to be something that's holding me back."
"What's holding you back?"
"That's the problem. I don't know."
"Could it be the fact that you want to haunt me and Hermione for the rest of our lives?" Harry suggested the obvious.
"I totally don't feel that way anymore, haven't for quite some time," Ron confessed. "Honestly, can you just imagine me haunting Hermione? After she get's over the initial shock of seeing me this way, you know I'm going to hear about this forever. She'll end up tormenting me! I really need your help."
Of course, Ron wouldn't have asked for him to come just to visit, be haunted, play some wizard chess maybe, talk about the old times. No. Ron had a problem. And as in the past, Ron's problem was his problem, too.
Harry had to find a ghost expert; Andy would probably know one and she would help if only to get rid of the obnoxious ghost she had the misfortune of meeting.
"I don't know much about this, Ron," he admitted, "We should get help."
"I already talked with ghost elders and the Ministry ghost liaison. They all said the same crap. Something has to be done before I can move on and I have to figure out what that something is before my year is up," Ron was trying his best to explain all the weirdness, "I feel I'm ready, I look ready, I think I'm ready. I can't seem to get a portal to open for me."
"A portal?"
"A door of light that pops up in the vicinity that leads to the other side," Ron answered.
Harry would have to take his word that he knew what he was talking about. They had to at least start with something.
"What do you think it is that's holding you back?"
"I have a few ideas," Ron seemed pensive. "In fact, now that you're here, let me try one out."
He paused, floated to and fro, seemingly concentrating about something. Harry patiently waited hoping he would be quick about this. He wondered if this wasn't it how many other ideas Ron had. They barely had two weeks to figure this out and he had his own urgent matter to deal with.
Anytime soon, Ron?
Finally, Ron came back to face him with a very serious expression.
"I was angry when I found out about you and Hermione. I was hurt; it still hurts," Ron declared. "I knew you loved her, I think even before you realized it. And I understand how you must have felt about us getting married. I never thought I would ever but, I forgive you, Harry. I can't stay pissed at you. You're my best friend."
Harry nodded back, feeling a bit lighter all of a sudden. One of three was a blessing, particularly because he didn't expect it. Ron was looking around, he guessed, for the portal.
"Do you see anything?" he asked.
"No."
"Just as I thought. It's not that simple," Ron's brows furrowed in concentration. Then, he said to him, almost reluctantly, "Hermione. As much as I want to avoid it, I need to see Hermione. But I can't go to her. By the time I'm able to cut through the red tape it will be too late. She has to come here. You have to tell her to come."
Lucky me. His palms began to sweat just thinking about it. Harry tried to imagine what that talk might sound like.
Hermione, I know you're not talking to me and I also have to likely force you to stop seeing that git Malfoy, but it gets worse. Not only is Ron dead because of me, he's a ghost…and he would like for you to come to Toronto, to help him avoid being a ghost forever. I can see why that would make you more upset…yes…not seeing you for another year seems like a reasonable punishment…
His plan (and he could only still think of one) of hexing her with binding and silencing jinxes was beginning to really look good now. Just add abduction to that, right? He suggested tackling the problem from the least impossible.
"Is there not anything on your list of ideas that we can try without her?"
"Why?"
Harry put it mildly, "Getting her here is going to be a challenge."
"Tell her whatever. Lie to her. That should be easy, you've done that before," Ron was grinning, unsympathetic to his woes.
Very funny, Ron.
"She's not talking to me."
Ron didn't understand the enormity of the problem of getting Hermione to Toronto and insisted, "I only have a few days left or I'll be a ghost forever. Not good. Please, Harry. I don't care if she Obliviated herself and she doesn't know you anymore. Just get her here!"
He did have to admit that compared to Ron's dilemma, his seemed to pale in comparison. After all, he did have to see her anyway. What was this to add to the list of things he had to talk with her about?
"Blimey! The time!" Ron suddenly exclaimed, then floated up away from him, "Got to go, Harry. Inter-House Quidditch, the only thing I still look forward to. We have a match against the designated house from Laird and they don't know yet that we have poltergeists so we can use them as Chasers. It was nice seeing you, mate."
He felt something cool on his shoulder as Ron tapped him. Then his figure quickly disappeared into the ceiling before Harry could think of anything to say.
Not a second later, his head popped back upside down and he said, "It'll be pointless to come back without her. And next time, be considerate enough to knock. We're ghosts and we have rights and all that shit, too, you know."
"Wait!"
Harry called out but Ron had already gone for good. He would have to wait a bit longer. There was an important question that Harry wanted to ask Ron and if there was someone who knew the precise answer to it, it would be him.
After all, one would think that any dead man would know exactly how he died.