herumtreiber

Title: The Lord Appellant 10/37
Chapter: Ron's true colors
Author:

herumtreiber
Genre: Slash, romance, adventure, dark!fic
Pairing: Draco/Blaise, one sided Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17 for violence
Warnings for the fic: It's a dark fic, rape is mentioned several times. Dementors appear and not for show. Character death (not Harry, Draco or Blaise). Evil!Ron, powerful Hermione, Pansy and Bellatrix. Sympathetic to Slytherins.
Epilogue compliant? No
Chapter length: ~2,552 words
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or related characters. Nor do I make any money from writing these stories.
Summary: After the events of HBP, the Minister of Magic wants to finish the Malfoys but Draco uses a Wizengamot procedure to fight back. Veelas and Siddhe appear in the story as Draco uses political means to contest the pureblood's allegiance to Voldemort.
Notes: I wrote this before DH was published, so please no picayune comments about canon.

Table of contents

9. Dobby's true calling

While this was going on, the most cunning member of the Golden Trio was researching about the Horcruxes; and it wasn't Hermione, it was Ron.

Where Harry relied on his bravery to get him out of trouble, and Hermione relied on her intelligence, Ron counted on his cunning, playing on Harry's nerves till he solved the problem for him, playing on Hermione's vanity and/or compassion to help a friend in need.

If there was one person who could be considered the creator of the Harry/Draco enmity, it would be Ron. Already in their first meeting he'd snickered at Draco's name with good effect, ruffling his feathers and making him forget his manners, and causing Harry to defend him. His father often told at home about his feud with Lucius Malfoy, and the elder Malfoy's character quirks, among which was a strong sense of family honor which was easy to awaken. And anger at being ridiculed.

Ron had put this knowledge to good use, covertly, of course. It wouldn't do for Harry to realize that the boy he was defending was quite capable of holding his own.

When it came to his Sorting, the Hat tried to put him in Slytherin House. This would not do, for he had already seen that his enemy Malfoy had been sent there and his ticket to fame Potter was in Gryffindor. The Hat futilely argued that with his cunning and desire to prove himself, he was Slytherin material. Ron fought back cunningly, pointing out that all his family was in Gryffindor, if he followed the Hat's wishes, he'd be an outcast.

Finally the Hat relented and sent him to Gryffindor.

So that cinched his friendship with the Boy Who Lived. When it came to shrewdness, Ron could run rings around Harry, and also around Malfoy. Ron had 6 siblings and was quite used to the give and take of close relationships, whereas Harry only had his wretched relatives who despised him, he was closed off emotionally and easy prey; and Draco was an only child to the madman Lucius Malfoy, hardly a very nurturing environment.

And yet those two were very much alike. They exuded a raw kind of power. Whenever Malfoy entered a room, heads turned to follow him. Whenever Harry came in, people just automatically noticed him. No such attention for Ron. It made him jealous of them.

Actually, there were a few moments during those first years when Harry considered offering Draco a truce, some kind of understanding. Fortunately Harry was naïve enough to trust Ron with this, and Ron nipped these proposals in the bud.

Also there were three times when Draco came up to Ron, gave him a message and told him to give it to Potter. The letter had instructions for a meeting. Of course Ron delighted in burning it before Harry could read it.

Ron could be quite the underhanded sneak. Skulking around Malfoy, mumbling "Your mother is a whore!" loud enough for Malfoy to hear but taking care that Harry didn't listen. This was always good for a fight, with Malfoy trying to curse Ron and Harry magnificently stepping in to help the red-headed boy.

Those first years were good. It felt fine to be Harry Potter's best friend and share in the spotlight.

But later, he started feeling left out. People celebrated Harry's bravery, Hermione's intelligence and his brawn. Yet Ron wanted to be acknowledged for more. If he had been more introspective or more truthful, he'd recognize the problem was of his own devising.

He started to resent Harry, his fame, his wealth, his looks, his magical prowess, his fights with Voldemort and the miraculous escapes.

For the sake of that resentment he'd done things he couldn't, wouldn't think about. Things he'd take to the grave with him.

Still, Ron being Ron, cunning self-preservation won. He continued being friends with the four-eyed freak. It was so easy to read him! He nudged him towards Ginny, intimating the family wished it so. As if that set of loonies were concerned about the future!

All that the Weasleys cared about, it seems, was courage and playing hero. He could see that plainly in Bill and Charlie, Fred and George were Harry's men, and would do what Harry wanted done; Ginny also liked playing the heroine from time to time. Completely impractical siblings who didn't care about the family's fortunes at this time of need!

Percy was the only one who showed a modicum of ambition! Though it was completely tragic that he had joined his destiny to that of Scrimgeour.

So it came to pass that after a Quidditch game, Harry looked up to Ron, silently asking for permission so that he could kiss Ginny.

And Ron graciously consented, of course. What can one expect from Potter's best friend?

That day it seemed that all of Ron's schemes came true, he was at the top of the world; which only made his downfall the more jarring.

He hadn't counted with Harry stopping seeing Ginny under the pretext of preserving her security. At any rate, the Dark Lord probably knew right now about their cute affair, and if he wanted to kidnap Ginny, he would, irrespective of whether she was his girlfriend or not. Harry apparently had not thought in depth about this, maybe he could just remind him of it, and then he'd see the right way.

The tumultuous end of Sixth Year seemed to ensure one of Ron's dreams: the destruction of Draco Malfoy. The blond would be stripped of his fortune and thrown into Azkaban, killed by the Dark Lord, or even killed by the Ministry. At any rate, no more Malfoy parading around his wealth and his breeding.

Then they were all invited to the Wizengamot to discuss an important matter, and who should turn up but that bastard Malfoy! He managed to reverse the death sentence, recover his estate and kill Scrimgeour. He's also apparently the Child of Dark of prophecy, "his will commands battlefields, even though he does not fight!"

What's the meaning of this dribble? You either fight and command, or do not fight and do not command. There's not one without the other. This whole prophecy is crap!

Harry was more taut than ever. Ron had made a living out of reading Harry's moods, and he could tell the whole situation was heading for a showdown; which was why he made himself scarce later on, he didn't want to be dragged on to another ill-timed Harry adventure.

And this morning the twins had shown up, quite disheveled and contemplative, even moody. When his mother asked them how they were, they answered succinctly and asked about Harry's whereabouts. They were told that Harry was apparently at the department with Hermione, and they calmed down considerably and started on their breakfasts.

oOoOo

After the Slytherins had gone, Harry pondered for a while. He'd followed Zabini's advice and talked with Hermione, and it had been truly exhilarating. He would keep following his advice and talk to Ron about all this stuff.

He scribbled a message in a parchment and gave it to Hermione, saying, "When you go back to the Burrow, could you give that message to Ron? I'd like to speak to him."

Hermione took the parchment and said, "I'm going now, I'll give him the message."

She left for the Burrow and Harry sat down in the couch, reflecting about the day.

Presently he heard footsteps and saw Ron arriving. They smiled at each other, and with the ease of old friends, got down to business. Harry was relieved to hear that the twins had made it unscathed to the Burrow, and proceeded to bare his soul to Ron.

He told him all, about his obsession with Draco, with hurting him, with his body; about his plans and securing the help of the Twins, Seamus and Dean to rape Draco. He told about the attempted rape and how it ended. How Draco issued his orders to protect his friends, and later how he used Crucio and Legilimens on him. He kept silent and didn't tell Ron about the Imperio, like he had kept silent from Hermione. Later he would think that silence was providential.

He waited trepidantly for Ron's reactions. Ron said, "You should have succeeded, Harry. Your plan was good, and it's nothing less than the deserving spineless Death Eater bastard deserves. He deserves to suffer pain like that inflicted on Dumbledore, on Katie, on me! What about Bill and his scars? He's really earned hell, and he's going to get it sometime."

He continued, "Scrimgeour had the right idea, but he was too snotty and let himself be hoodwinked. Hell, he should have prevented Bones and Diggory from taking his side and we would have won!"

Harry answered, "How could he do that?"

Ron replied, "Just say that they're under some kind of surveillance or whatever and can't participate. That would have nipped this affair in the bud!"

Harry said indignantly, "That would have been downright tyrannical, and we're a democracy!"

Ron commented smugly, "Yes, tyrannical but efficient. If Malfoy couldn't find 2 others to replace them, he deserved to lose."

Harry pondered; this was a side of Ron, a very cynical side, that he hadn't ever seen. And if he hadn't seen that, then what else had he missed?

He focused on Draco and what he seemed to be trying to say by acts and words: "They have lied to you concerning your godfather and the Lord Appellant's trial. Your friend Weasley is very resentful of you." Now he remembered the Imperio and one key factor, Draco could have cast the curse so it acted for a number of years. In fact he could have made him his puppet, but he didn't. Draco wanted him to be aware that he has the power, but he won't use it.

He also remembered that Draco had started talking about how they kept the Lord Appellant's trial secret when Ron had already left the chamber, and found thus a way to find out if Ron was lying to him.

He asked, "Did you know about the Lord Appellant's trial when we were at school, like in Second Year?"

Ron answered, "No, Harry. It seems to be very specialized knowledge."

Harry fought to control his temper as he said, "Yeah, you're right. You've given me a lot to think about Ron. I think I'm going to lay down."

As Harry laid down and listened very carefully for Ron's footsteps leading him to the Floo and then to the Burrow, he reflected on his relationship with the redhead. He realized that in the last two years, whenever he had calmed down from attacking Draco, Ron had been right there, offering support and snide commentary about the Ferret, repeating things Draco had purportedly said, pointing out ways in which Malfoy slighted them. In a few words, he kept the fire of hate burning in his heart. So long as Ron was there, there had been no opportunity for any kind of truce. The pitiful thing now was that, even if Ron's interference was recognized and neutralized, he himself had permanently burned any possible bridges of friendship between them.

Harry sighed and then thought about calling one of the only two persons he trusted right now. Having made up his mind, he stood up and whistled to get Hedwig. When the magnificent snowy owl approached, hooting her pleasure, he gave her a small piece of parchment, telling her it was for Blaise Zabini.

She swept out of the window, as he went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. While he was an accomplished cook, he usually didn't like to cook, except when there were special circumstances. He prepared roast beef, bread and salad. He set the plates for two and waited for Zabini to appear. He made a mental note to himself to watch what he said around Ron, and to acquaint Hermione of this fact. He congratulated himself that he kept the fact of Draco being a Veela secret.

The bell rang, and he went to the door and opened it to admit Zabini. Harry said, "I'm a little conflicted right now, and could do with a little bit of advice. In fact, I'm following your advice to talk about my feelings. I've also made a nice dinner. Interested?"

Blaise said, "Of course, I'll be glad to help. When we were here earlier you seemed OK. I gathered that you talked to Granger about what happened, and I'm glad that it apparently went OK. So what happened later?"

Harry made another mental note to himself to tread carefully around Slytherins, it seems they were pretty good sleuths. He said, "I called Ron and he came. I told him pretty much the same things I told Hermione, but he reacted completely different. He was gleeful about the whole thing, was sad only because it failed. It scares me that he wants to hurt Draco so much. He also has very cynical and tyrannical views about Wizengamot procedure." "What cinched it for me was when I asked him if he knew about the Appellant's trials in Second Year and he said he didn't, that it was very hush-hush, when I asked Hermione she said she knew about it, but had been told not to tell me."

"I realized that Ron may not be looking out for me." "I also remembered what Draco told me, that Ron was very resentful of me. Do you think he was telling the truth?"

Zabini replied, "Draco has always told you the truth, although I must admit in a rather standoffish, snobbish way, even designed to hurt, it has been the truth. I can count with the fingers of my hands the number of times he's lied to you."

"I can tell you that Draco loathes Weasley. In his mind he was a giant stepping stone on the road to becoming your mate. One he never mastered. To an outside observer, this is true. Weasley used Draco faultlessly to curry favor with you, presenting himself as the weaker wizard who needed the protection of his best friend. Weasley is not weak, he is as proficient as you, but he was shrewd enough to see your need to provide shelter. You two bonded over your shared hatred of Draco."

"You acted very naively. With your home in Gryffindor secure, you should have ventured to make alliances with other houses. Slytherin was ideal for this. An alliance with Draco would have been beneficial to both sides. But you were too busy hating him to care."

Harry asked, "So what do I do with him now?"

Blaise answered, "Whatever you do, don't make the mistake of doing it the Gryffindor way of confronting him with the truth and wanting him to apologize! That's the worst you could do."

"There's a saying: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. You need to keep a tight reign on yonder Weasel. Don't feed him any more sensitive information, but listen to what he says like you've always had, like it was manna from heaven itself." At this Harry blushed profusely, thinking about his innocent younger self.

"We'll make a Slytherin out of you yet, my lad. Yeah, sharpen your cunning skills!"

11. The first kiss