The Boy Who Lived

'RON WEASLEY HAS QUIT THE GAME!'

All news of the arrest of Justin Finch-Fletchley was knocked off out of the news by the shock headliner that 'RON WEASLEY, STAR KEEPER WITH THE CHUDLEY CANNONS, HAS QUIT THE GAME!'

'Bloody hell!' Ron moaned as he stepped through the Floo into Grimmauld Place. 'The Press are a bloody nightmare. I swear they're watching our Floo network at home to try and catch me. I've had to make five detours to get here. Hello Malfoy. Have you got any butterbeers, Harry?'

Harry smiled to himself at Ron's lack of awareness and at Draco's pale and shaken expression. They hadn't yet been reintroduced to one another and Ron just seemed to accept that Draco was a presence in Harry's life by simply failing to register it.

Ron and Harry went down to the kitchen, leaving Draco reading in the sitting room.

Ron popped the top off his butterbeer and slumped at the table. 'I can't fucking go anywhere. I mean, it's been like this since the war but that was when it was needed, now I want them all to fuck off.'

'Welcome to my life, Ron.'

Ron looked at Harry, as if properly realising for the first-time what Harry had always gone through. Clearly, he was aware but he never fully understood. Not until he was on the receiving end could he could begin to comprehend the invasiveness and the bollocks that people thought and wrote about him. 'Sorry, mate,' he said. That was all that was needed to be said, they both understood.

'So, what's happening with you, outside of being plagued by the press?' Harry asked.

'Mostly a lot of therapy.'

'And...'

'Can't say it's a bundle of laughs trawling over the fucktacular mess of the last six years and beyond but I'm sticking with it. The Cannons wanted to pay for it; think I'm having a nervous breakdown and they'll get me healed and back in the game but I've severed the ties and moved out of the accommodation they provide.'

'Where are you living now?'

'Back home. Mum insisted. I told her everything and it helps, you know, coming home after the therapy and having her there to listen or what-have-you...' Ron's voice went quiet, he didn't want to admit that therapy made him want to cry but he could see that Harry understood and that was enough. He guessed Harry had been through this journey already and he wished he'd stuck with it instead of running away. He was supposed to be one of the Golden Trio. He was so utterly ashamed of his behaviour.

'And Mione?'

'I wrote...'

'She said.'

'I asked if I could keep writing. I started to write down stuff we talk about in my therapy, I want to share it with her one day. The stuff about why I did what I did. It's hard to face, Harry. I'm such a smelly lump of knobcheese!'

'Don't be that hard on yourself, Ron. Have you got a plan?'

'I - no. Not beyond deciding to just give Mione space and keep communicating with her regularly and I'm keeping a diary of my therapy sessions, to remember what we've talked about and to deal with why I run away when things don't go the way I want them to. Mum suggested it, to try to help me sort through my problems. I'm pretty aware that I keep doing this, that I run away.' He took a long pull on his drink. 'I think it's because I always believe that I'm never enough. In the fourth year, when I thought you'd put your name in the Goblet, I didn't listen. I think that's part of the problem too. I stopped listening if what's happening doesn't fit with the narrative that I want. So, I thought you and I would have a fabulous year spectating and we would be as thick as thieves having minor adventures and watching the Triwizard Tournament and just doing everything together. And suddenly we weren't; you were a Champion, you had all this attention again, I was jealous and didn't see you didn't want it because it was something I secretly craved. I wanted to be beside you too, your equal, and there was no way I do that. How could I ever compete with you?'