A Means of Survival – Chapter 14 – Chaos Breaks Out

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Chapter 14 – Chaos Breaks Out

Neville had been horrified by the chain of events in that afternoon’s potion’s class. True, Draco Malfoy had made many people’s lives miserable in the short time he had been on earth, but that didn’t give anyone the right to take away his life.

And the look on Ron’s face while he had been doing it, while he had been killing him, had been far too much to bear. It had been pure unadulterated glee. He was quite sure that he would have nightmares about that look from then on. In fact, it would probably take the place of the faceless figures who often visited him in his sleep, the ones who tortured his parents in the past and who continued to do so his nightmares still.

Draco hadn’t been the only one retching following Ron’s actions that afternoon. Neville had vomited shortly thereafter, followed shortly by Millicent Bulstrode. It was far too much to bear after all that they had experienced just there in that classroom, so far that year.

Christmas was almost upon them, just little more than a week to go, but Neville had never felt less in the spirit than in that moment when Ron Weasley had almost taken a life with his bare hands in front of a crowd of indifferent witnesses.

It was the sound of Harry’s quiet voice that had really pushed him over the edge into sickness. Harry knew about pain and death, and he knew what kinds of consequences occurred as a result. In some ways, they were a lot alike.

And when Harry had spoken, he had heard the unvoiced pain that had often kept him awake at night when he was just a little boy. It was the loss of what might have been that beckoned to him mournfully when he was at his lowest.

Neville’s Gran was a formidable woman, to be sure, but from what he had picked up from the conversations around him, largely in terms of what wasn’t said, he had to suspect that Harry’s relatives were a much worse kind of folk than his Gran had ever tried to be.

There were just some sorts of things that shouldn’t happen, and watching a trusted friend almost commit murder before your eyes was one of them.

Neville knew that Ron and Harry had been tight from the very beginning of the previous year. Neville didn’t have any friends of that caliber, but he knew that it was hard to stand up to the friends that he did have. He had done it the previous year and had gotten the full body-bind in return. Likewise, he had also won them the House Cup as a result, but really that had only been superfluous thanks. He had done what he had thought was right, because he couldn’t have lived with himself very well otherwise.

He suspected very much that Harry was likely feeling that now, only much amplified.

…

Harry felt awful.

On one hand, Draco had hurt Hermione very badly, subsequently causing a schism to occur between him and his two closest friends.

On the other hand, he and the rest of his classmates had watched in horror as Ron nearly killed Draco in a relatively unprovoked attack. And they had just stood by and watched it nearly happen.

And Hermione, gods the look on her face had been hideous. He knew that what Draco had done to her was slowly eating her alive. He knew because he felt the same way about Lucius. He would like to see the bastard die slowly for what he had done to him and his life. But, Lucius was a full grown man and had already made his choices for how he was going to live his life. Malfoy was a boy, really. It pained him to think of him that way, but it was true, at some level.

Plus, somehow he kind of felt like the curse that Hermione had thrown at Draco had, at least in part, made up for some of what he had done against her.

Besides, this was Ron they were talking about. Ron did not go around killing people. He hexed people. He punched people. He did not kill for the sheer hell of it.

Afterwards, he had realized that the entire sordid affair must have only taken up three or four minutes of real time. In contrast, it felt like they had stared at Draco’s twisting form for more than an hour.

After Snape had gotten back in and had tended to Draco, Harry had sat down hard, staring off into nothingness as he had tried to make some kind of sense out of what was going on in his life. He ran his hands through his hair once, and then twice, before belatedly realizing that he was crying. He looked around for Hermione, but she was nowhere to be seen, even her stuff was gone.

He had curled up in a ball on his chair and had hugged himself to keep his tremors down to a bare minimum. Snape had already taken off down the hallway with Draco moments before, and the class was mostly just drifting away—mentally and physically.

The only difference was Ron and Zabini; they were in the back, laughing about something—laughing!

Ron almost kills someone and then he goes and laughs about it with a Slytherin!?!

He knew that one or two of his classmates had thrown up following the conclusion of—what, the Ron-Draco fiasco? What was going on here?

Somehow he couldn’t get himself to leave the dungeons, even though he knew that the coldness sinking into his bones certainly wasn’t making him feel any better.

He shuddered to himself and watched his few remaining classmates as they milled about, obviously unsure about whether they could or should leave.

And still, Ron and Zabini laughed. It made him think of Dudley and his friends laughing after soundly thrashing him. He would be bleeding, and they would be laughing.

Without even realizing it, he stood up, all tremors suddenly gone from his muscles.

The few who saw his face as he stood up left the room quickly thereafter; they had seen enough for the day, and had no desire to add anything else into the nightmares they would probably be experiencing later.

Harry didn’t even notice them leave; he could only see his own small form lying broken on the ground, a result of Dudley’s administrations. And truly, he wouldn’t have even been forced to deal with Dudley had Voldemort not killed his parents.

As he got closer to the laughing pair, he could hear them openly making fun of the look that had been on Draco’s face when he had been gasping for air. Apparently they thought it was almost as good as the furious face that Snape had set upon them shortly afterwards.

Briefly, Harry wondered what they would make of his face. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes were leaking tears again. Neville was one of the few still there, but this time had no thoughts about stopping anything from happening. It was likely that in that moment, his thoughts were in the same place as Harry’s.

“Ron,” Harry gave a warning as his fist came flying in from nowhere to bloody his best mate’s lip.

Ron stared at him in obvious confusion.

Harry decided to clear things up for him.

After throwing another punch, this one connected with Ron’s nose, he started yelling at the other boy.

“What the FUCK is wrong with you!?! You nearly killed Draco in front of the whole class! And I look back here and I see you two just laughing it up like it’s no big deal???”

He grabbed the front of Ron’s shirt and shoved him into the stone wall just behind him. Ron was bigger than him, but as of yet was not fighting back, giving Harry a definite advantage.

“How can you just laugh about it?” Harry whispered, still crying. “I hate him too, and I would love to see him pay, but not like this,” he said, looking into his best friend’s eyes, trying to comprehend the person that the taller boy seemed to be turning into.

Suddenly Neville yelled a warning yell and Harry flung himself around only to be faced with a flying chair that was coming straight at his head. Thanks to his instincts that had been cultivated from many years of living with the Dursleys, he threw himself to the ground and out of the way, unscathed.

He looked up and saw Zabini on the other side of the room from them, with another chair that he had levitating beside him. Then smaller boy magically flung it towards him, and Harry was forced to desperately roll out of the way.

“Whatcha gonna do Harry?” Ron laughed from somewhere about him. “Sweep the whole floor!??” he laughed again and Harry saw red.

From his point on the ground, Harry managed to get himself into a crouch, before springing himself at the offending boy.

Following this, several things happened nearly simultaneously that only added to the mess between the boys.

First, Zabini tossed another chair, which Neville reacted to by dousing all of the lights in the room in an effort to wreck the other boy’s aiming abilities. Harry, the chair and Ron all hit the floor in a bloody, but conscious heap. Harry, still wildly angry, started throwing punches as soon as he had a viable target.

And then Ron opened his eyes and Harry suddenly found himself scrambling backwards as fast as possible.