Um, so. This is so long overdue, I don't quite know what to say here. Except, 2011 is the first time in three years I didn't make a new year's resolution to finish this story, so of course this is the year I finish it. It's been sitting in my head for years and years and years and I guess the words were finally ready to come out. Hopefully, if anyone is still interested, they'll find it a satisfactory resolution.

Thank you to everyone who commented over the years! I really did appreciate each and every one of them!

~sceneii

Invisible Circus: The end!

Three days later, Ron still has no answer for him, because Malfoy is right. Malfoy is right, and Ron has no idea how to go about changing the status quo. Not without totally stepping off script, which is—

Which is—

Ron doesn't even know.

What he does know is that if he screws this up, if he does something wrong, this whole thing could very well blow up in their faces. They might not be able to do anything about Nott before it's too late, and then it won't just be Ron who suffers, it'll be the entire Wizarding world.

These are the sorts of thoughts he thinks for two days, while he's been working at the bookshop, or sipping his ale at the Snitch, or lying in his room, staring up at the ceiling. Nott hasn't been back to the Snitch—or at least back downstairs—since the night of the Town Hall, and on day three, Ron doesn't know whether to be frustrated at the constant one step forward, two steps back cycle he seems to be engaged in, or glad that he doesn't have to truly acknowledge that he has taken two steps back. There is still a small sliver of possibility, after all, that the next time Nott holds court at the front table, his seat will still be there. There's a chance that this could be the time that Nott invites him upstairs.

It could happen.

After three days of waiting, though, Ron knows that it's not going to happen.

If Ron truly was in the inner circle, holding the spot that he'd foolishly thought would be his just because of his name, his misdeeds, he would know where Nott had been for the last three days. He would have been invited up to the room that night for the council of war, or more drinks, or the opportunity to laugh at the eager masses that were falling for Nott's shtick, or whatever it was that they'd ended up discussing.

So, on night three, his cider growing cold on the table in front of him, he pulls out a sheet of parchment and writes Dear Mum. Among the halting apologies, the crossed out phrases, he hides the necessary coded words: Nott still doesn't trust me. I have an idea, but it could go to shit. Meet?

He crumples the note up as he leaves the Snitch and drops it in the same rubbish pile that he did before, and it's late, dark, but he hears a scurrying and sees a flash of disapparation out of the corner of his eye.

The next morning, when he wakes up, he finds a folded sheet of parchment on his chair. It takes him a quarter of an hour to decode the message, but when he does, he sees that it reads: Seven o'clock. You know the place. He throws it in his fireplace and burns it, stirring the ashes with his wand to make sure that nothing remains.

He thinks that it's going to be a long day. He thinks that it's going to be all he can do to get through eight hours of shelving books, but shortly after lunch a dotty old witch comes in, wanting recommendations on everything from spell books to the latest cozy mysteries, and Chubbs is sending Ron up ladders and into boxes in the back of the shop, and by the time six o'clock rolls around, he's exhausted.

Still, he has places to go, people to see, so he counts out his sickles and buys a kabob from the cart down the street, then heads to the designated safe house. He takes the long way, glancing in every window he passes to make sure he isn't being followed. It's a pain, yes, but the day that he doesn't take these precautions is the day that someone will follow him, and the game will be up. And who knows what will happen then.

At 7:01, he lets himself in through the rickety back door, and walks down a filthy hallway, until he finally reaches the innermost room. There's a fire burning, an old man with a beard sitting at the table.

"Ron," he says, and Ron nods. "Inspector."

The Inspector almost smiles, or at least Ron thinks he does, but then he motions for Ron to take a seat.

"So," he says. "Tell me this plan of yours, and maybe we can stop it from going to shit."

Ron starts at the beginning. How hard he's been working, how he was feeling as if he was making progress. How Nott actually asked him to join the head table that night, after the town hall. The Inspector nods at that, and Ron thinks that it's probably a pleased nod, but that sliver of approval seems to fade when he tells the Inspector that he thinks Malfoy might be right.

Because, the more he thinks about it, the more he knows that Malfoy is.

He tells the Inspector what he would like to do—the plan that could very well go to shit, or at the very least make Ron a non-player—and after he's done, the Inspector is silent for what feels like ages, but is probably only a minute or so, and then he nods.

"Okay," he says, and Ron doesn't know whether he should feel the giddy rush that comes with the Inspector's approval or scared out of his mind.

Five days ago, if Malfoy hadn't come up to Ron in his moment of humiliation, Ron imagines that this scene would have gone differently. That, if he'd come into the Snitch and found Nott back at his usual table, Ron would have sidled on up to them, ready to claim his spot and hope against hope that this would be the night the he took two steps forward and only one step back.

Instead, the Inspector's 'okay' still ringing in his years, Ron walks into the Snitch, sees Nott and company at their usual table, and then looks around to see whom else he knows. Torrence and Marietta aren't there, but Alex and Ash and Ro are, and so, with what feels like the eyes of the entire establishment resting heavily on his back, he walks towards them, gestures at the empty seat, and asks if he can sit down.

Ron is pretty sure that Alex has never met anyone he doesn't immediately consider a friend, so he tells Ron in no uncertain terms that the seat is his. Ron sits, and only then does he allow himself to look towards the front of the room. At the empty seat that is, indeed, at Nott's table, which presumably might have been waiting for him.

At McNair, who's glowering in his direction.

At Malfoy, sitting off in one corner with Goyle, looking at Ron like he's a puzzle to be figured out. Ron raises an eyebrow at Malfoy, and other man has the grace to look away. Ron can see that he's frowning, but it doesn't look like an unfriendly frown.

Ron only gives it a few moments of thought, though, because Alex is drawing him into the conversation, wanting to hear tales of the antics Ron's brothers got up to. "We've grown up hearing tales of the terror of the Weasley twins," Ash says, interrupting his brother. "He just wants to hear them straight from the source."

Ron obliges.

And if he makes himself laugh a little louder than he normally would, or pay more attention to the stories that everyone else tells… If, truly, for the first time since he arrived in Knockturn Alley that fateful day nearly four weeks ago, he makes an effort to be as friendly as he can, well.

Well.

It's only because Malfoy was right.

But he wasn't just right about the fact that Ron has been acting like a pathetic little lapdog, eager for any attention he can get. No, he was also right about the fact that Ron's name, his connections, make him the second most powerful man in the room. And if Ron is going to be an asset to Nott—which he now realizes he needs to be, to make it into the inner circle—Nott needs to see that Ron can wield some weight of his own.

He needed to see that Ron is Percy's brother, in more than just name.

The next time Ron lets himself look at Nott's table, he sees that Nott is looking back at him. It's a casual glance, not one that makes Ron think Nott has been staring at him, but there's a look on Nott's face that Ron can't read—perhaps one of faint amusement?—and so, Ron does the only thing he can think of. He nods in Nott's direction.

Nott nods in return.

Time passes.

A day, a week, two. When Ron thinks about it in those terms, it feels as if time is moving far too quickly. Like it's just streaming away, sand through an hourglass, each second bringing him closer to the inevitable endgame, which they are not even close to being ready for. Which Ron doesn't see how they can be ready for, not at the rate he's moving.

But then he looks back at how much has happened in the six weeks since the Aurors showed up at his desk at the ministry and told him to stand up and come with them, please, that they had some questions for him. Since Harry had looked at them and said, "What? Ron, what are they—?" At that moment, Ron had wanted nothing more than to call for the Inspector, to tell him to forget this whole thing, because Ron was the wrong wizard for this job, Ron was the wrong wizard, but he hadn't.

And look how far he's come.

So, six weeks into this new life of his, he goes to work at the shop five days out of seven; lets Torrence, or Alex, or one of their other friends talk him into going out for dinner at other favorite holes in the wall three times; and he goes to hear Ash and Ro's band play in a rickety old flat another two. He spends the rest of his evenings at the Snitch.

Holding court.

He doesn't call it that, not even very quietly in the back of his head, but Malfoy does, on day three of this new plan, when he caught Ron as he was coming in, saying, "So this is your grand solution? You holding court at one end of the room while Nott courts them on the other?"

"I'm not holding court," Ron had said, because he wasn't, he's not, not in the way that Nott does. Nott is still the one to bring in the crowds, after all, and when he talks, people listen.

Ron doesn't ask anyone to listen to him.

But.

But Nott's table is reserved for his inner circle, and anyone can sit at Ron's. And whereas most people can't get within three tables of the one reserved for Nott, Ron's group's table keeps expanding, until they've got a line of them snaking through the room. And while Ron prefers to sit with Torrence, Marietta, or Alex, since he knows them best, he meets a few new people every day, welcoming them as they tell him how glad they are to see him, how much they admired his brother.

It gets easier for Ron to say, "Me too," and "Thank you."

On day five, Pansy drags Malfoy over to their table.

On day seven, Malfoy sits down by himself, and the look that he gives Ron is – it doesn't quite say, 'okay, I give up, you win,' but it's not as speculative as it once had been. Ron's not sure that he'll ever truly convince Malfoy that he belongs here, but Malfoy also probably doesn't believe that Ron is a good enough actor to have kept the game going this long, if there wasn't some truth to it.

On day ten of The New Plan, Ron looks up to see that their cluster of tables is taking up more than half the room. Nott isn't there, but up until this point, his cronies, his hangers on, have had a significant pull of their own, with people wanting to get close to them, in hopes of getting close to Nott.

That night there are empty seats around them.

There are no empty seats around Ron.

Instead, it's Ron asking about a shopkeeper's day, about a woman's children, agreeing that yes, the hope for the future does rest with Nott, with wizards taking their place in history, subject to no one, living in fear of no one.

It's Ron that has to announce he's leaving half an hour before he actually wants to, since that's how long it takes him to get to the door, with people wanting to tell him just one more thing.

Day eleven and Nott is back, holding court, and this time, when he catches Ron's eye, the look he gives him isn't so friendly. Because Ron is the second most powerful man in the room. Because Nott knows that Ron now knows it. Because, over the last week and a half, Ron has started to wield his power, and suddenly, Ron is no longer a lapdog, but is in fact competition.

Ron nods at Nott again, forming as genuine and friendly a smile on his face as he can, trying to convey 'I'm not competition, I'm not,' but inside his heart is dancing a jig. For the first time since arriving in Knockturn Alley, he feels like he's taken two steps forward – onto shaky, competitive ground, yes, but so far, he hasn't had to take any steps back.

It's on day fourteen of the new plan—seventeen days after the last Town Hall—that Malfoy sits down in the chair next to Ron, one that Ash has just vacated, and says, "So."

"So?" Ron asks after a moment, when it becomes apparent that Malfoy isn't going to continue.

"I didn't think you'd last this long," Malfoy says, finally. "You've never been able to act for shit."

"Maybe I'm not acting," Ron says. "Maybe one day you will actually believe that."

Malfoy stares at him for a long moment, then nods, almost looking defeated. "Maybe," he says, which from Malfoy might as well be a 'yes, I believe.' Then he gestures for a barmaid and says, "One of whatever Weasley's having."

The barmaid hurries away, and Ron is left sitting next to a Malfoy who isn't radiating hostility or disbelief or even very much cunning. Instead, Malfoy is leaning across the table to ask Ro a question about her and Ash's band, is making small talk with Marietta and Torrence, is letting Alex welcome him into the fold.

Maybe he's been lonely, Ron thinks. After all, it's no secret that Nott has not welcomed Malfoy into the inner circle the way everyone might have expected him to. Or maybe, Ron thinks, Malfoy is continuing to embrace his opportunistic tendencies. Maybe, just maybe, Malfoy thinks that Ron may not end up as an independent number two with leverage, but instead might end up being the most important man in the room. Maybe he wants to ally himself with the winner.

Which, if that's the case… If that's the case, maybe Ron's plan is working a little bit too well.

Whatever Malfoy's reasons, Ron sits back and watches the people at his table, listens to the happy hum of voices, and thinks, if only Harry could see me now.

Nott has not just been sitting idly by, letting his followers warm up to Ron, though. No, he's been traveling all around the country, holding Town Hall meetings, small informal gatherings, giving street corner sermons, anything to get his word out, and the sad, scary thing is: his spiel, his shtick, is working.

No longer is he just speaking to the malcontents and those that prefer to operate on the darker side of the magical spectrum; no, during the meetings that have been projected into the Snitch, Ron has noticed new faces in the audience. Motherly looking sorts, grandfathers, teenagers. People, Ron thinks, who should really know better. Who should be able to see that Nott is not the wave of the future. That he's trying to make history repeat itself.

Some of these new faces are even showing up at the Snitch, looking just as out of place as Ron knows he must have looked those first few days, before Knockturn Alley started to seep into his bones, to wear him down around the edges. Mostly it's people he doesn't know, although Alex—in true Alex fashion—welcomes them all and makes sure to introduce each and every one of them to Ron.

Most of the new faces gravitate towards Nott's end of the room during their first few visits, but then they start shifting down towards Ron's end of the room, too, and—

And Ron doesn't even really know what to think about any of this. He doesn't know whether this new plan is working or whether it's already most of the way towards blowing the whole operation. Nott's cronies don't look pleased with him, that is true, but whether it's because in their eyes he is still Ron Weasley, Gryffindor, or because he is creating his own circle of friends, Ron doesn't know.

What he does know is that after two weeks of rare visits to the main room of the pub, Nott spends three straight nights there, laughing loudly, toasting the room at large, standing up on tables to welcome their new brothers and sisters in the Cause.

On the fourth night after Nott's return, Ron can feel something different in the air, and he knows he's not the only one. Malfoy, sitting next to Ron, in the spot he almost seems to have adopted as his own, is radiating a tension that he hasn't seemed to in quite a few days, and Ron wishes he could ask why.

He wishes that he had a reason to ask.

Perhaps sensing the question, Malfoy says, "Rumor has it we're going to get another round of speeches tonight. Somehow I'm betting he doesn't make this speech with his arm around your shoulder, yeah?"

Ron snorts into his drink.

Indeed, not ten minutes later, Nott steps from the floor, to a chair, to his table, and hoists his mug of ale into the air.

"My brothers and sisters," he says, pitching his voice to carry. "Tonight, my friends, tonight I have exciting news." He pauses, letting the anticipation build. "Tonight our campaign has gained a measure of legitimacy that few thought we could ever achieve." Another pause, another breath. "I will admit that I myself had doubts when I embarked upon this journey, as to whether our world was ready to hear what we had to say. But it is through your support in the face of our opposition that we are standing here today. That we have reached this point."

He takes a swig of his ale, and Ron tries to imagine what words will come out of his mouth next.

"My friends, it is my great pleasure to announce that I challenged our esteemed Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, to debate me in a public forum, and he has agreed. Even a month ago, we all know that he would not have done so. A month ago, we were just a band of radicals out of touch with the common wizard.

"But, my friends, you have proven to the world that this is not so. You have shown that it is our Minister himself who is out of touch. You have proven that we will not sit quietly back and let the Ministry dictate how we live our lives. You have shown me that I am not the only one who is proud to be a Wizard."

Another swig from his mug. He licks the foam from his upper lip.

"So in two weeks, my brothers and sisters, Minister Fudge and I shall meet in a yet to be determined location and pitch our ideas to the world. In two weeks, we shall show the world that we are not simply a collection of crackpots and radicals, but that we are, in fact, the future.

"In two weeks, my friends, we will state our case to the world, and they will see how much we believe. And then, my brothers, my sisters, they shall come to believe, too."

It's a faster speech than Ron is used to hearing Nott give—not as much give and take with the audience—but it doesn't stop the clapping and hollering, the excited energy that fills the room. Because Nott is right: a month ago, Fudge would have laughed Nott out of the room. It scares Ron that Fudge didn't do so now.

So, he plasters a smile on his face, raises his glass to toast Nott, to toast Percy, and tries to figure out how long he can wait before excusing himself to go back to his flat and pace.

When he lowers his glass after the fifth toast, he sees that Malfoy is looking at him, and Ron can't deal with his suspicions any longer, so he just says, "To the cause."

"To the cause," Draco says in return, and then Alex and Ash and Ro pick it up, and there's toast number six, echoing around the room.

To the cause.

What Ron wants to do is write another letter to the Inspector, to ask why? Why did Fudge agree to the debate? Why are they going to allow Nott to be legitimized in this way, exposed to the masses? Why?

He can't, though. The more often he contacts the Inspector, the more likely someone is to catch on, blow his cover. So, he bites his tongue and smiles as genuinely as he can anytime that he's not locked in the privacy of his own room. Because indeed, the whole population of Knockturn Alley appears to be smiling. And with every day that passes, they look less like Nott's self-described crackpots and radicals and more like a unified movement, touching all spectrums. Gaining mainstream legitimacy.

He's afraid to think that some of these people—the grandparents, the mothers, the teenagers just barely out of Hogwarts or Beauxbaton—are here because of him. Because he made people take a second look at Nott's cause, Percy's cause. He almost wants to voice this thought so he can hear Malfoy say, 'You have far too high an opinion of yourself, Weasley. Why in the world would anyone follow you?'

He wants to believe that that is the case. He almost does.

Except for the fact that he can't walk down the streets of Knockturn Alley now without being stopped at least three times by people who want to chat.

And when customers leave the bookshop, they say things like, "See you tonight at the Snitch, yeah?"

He has his own spot at his own table now, Malfoy on one side, Alex on the other, and when Ron makes a toast— a spontaneous 'To the cause!', or to announce that Ash and Ro have booked a gig beyond their ramshackle flat, or to congratulate Marietta on the rather large diamond that Torrence gave her, making predictions as to their future happiness—three-quarters of the increasingly full room joins in.

A week before the scheduled debate, Ron leaves the Snitch, walks back to his room as quickly as he can, and sits down on the chair in front of the fire and lets himself hyperventilate. Twenty minutes to work himself into a complete and utter panic, an hour to work himself down from it, and when he's breathing normally again, he tells himself that that's it.

No more worrying.

For better or for worse, it's too late to turn back now.

The morning of the debate dawns too bright, too clear.

It should be gray, Ron thinks, and cloudy. Rainy. Possibly with added thunder and lightening. Ron has never been one to look too far beneath the surface of anything, trying to read things into events that are almost surely random, but if there was ever an event that deserved to be seeped in as much symbolism as possible, he's pretty sure that this is it.

But, no. There's no dark and foreboding weather, nothing that signifies the political storm that they all know is gathering on the horizon. Instead, it's sunny and cold, and to Ron, at least, it feels as if the whole population of Knockturn Alley is out, filling the streets, ready to cheer their hero on.

It's a bit after noon when Ron joins the throng that's making its way to the designated venue for the debate, a circle that's at the center of six streets: three wending their way out of the bowels of Knockturn Alley, another three cutting their way down from Diagon Alley. The streets in this part of the Alley have always been cleaner than those that Ron has grown used to, but today the cobblestones almost appear to have been magically scrubbed; boarded up windows have been replaced with glass; the signs above shops look to have been repainted.

The Alley, trying to show off.

He's only just entered the circle when he feels a tap on the shoulder, and turns to see Marietta and Ro, with Torrence, Alex, Ash, and Malfoy right behind. Goyle and Pansy are trailing even farther back. Ron's smile is genuine, and Marietta gives him a hug, Torrence and Alex clapping him on the back. Malfoy nods and falls into step beside Ron. Because that's the way things work now.

Their group works their way into the crowd, and Alex and Ash are the ones to push, getting Ron far closer than he wants to be, but not as close as the Inspector would probably tell him that he should be. He's close enough, though. He doesn't need to be right up front.

Now that they've stopped, Ron turns to scan the crowd. The Inspector must be here, he thinks, but he's not the one that Ron finds first. Instead, standing all of the way across the circle, he sees Harry and Hermione. They aren't alone. They're huddled together with Neville, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Seamus and Dean, other people from the Aurors, the Ministry.

He doesn't realize that he's gone tense until Malfoy, standing at Ron's elbow, says, "Well. Look who's decided to join us. Think they've seen the proverbial light?"

Ron snorts, which makes Alex look at him, and then follow Malfoy's gaze. "Ah, the fair-weather friends," he says, sounding unbearably prim and proper, and it almost seems to be a cue for the rest of Ron's group to huddle around him even more tightly. To insulate him from his former life. Ron has a moment of wanting to protest, to say that he was the one— He was the betrayer. He—

But then Alex starts telling one of his stories—something about his and Ash's first attempts at riding their father's broom, without their father's permission, and, because he's Alex, the retelling is rife with sound effects and flailing arms and immediately draws the ears of those surrounding them, drawing attention to who exactly is standing in their midst.

Ron can hear the whispers start: Ron Weasley, look it's Weasley, Ron, Ron, Percy's brother. He's almost immune to it now, almost, and he makes himself focus on Ash's version of events, which involves far less flailing and a far longer description of the three broken windows on the top floor of their house and their two-month grounding. Literally.

"Pshaw," Alex says. "It was two days, tops."

"Because two days later we got grounded for the thing with the garden gnomes," Ash says, which makes Alex laugh and say, "Yes! I'd forgotten all about that!"

So then he starts telling about the garden gnomes, and Ron has had enough experience with garden gnomes that he laughs just as loudly as everyone else who's listening.

Until he glances to his right and sees, across the crowd, that Harry and Hermione and company have also worked their way up towards the stage, far enough forward that they're standing even with Ron and his group. Until he sees that both Harry and Hermione are glaring at him, the rest of their group huddled around them. Just as Ron's group is doing for him.

"Ignore them," Malfoy says, like it should be the simplest thing in the world to do. Perhaps, for him, it is; he did spend seven years practicing, after all.

"Right," Ron says. "Right."

It's ingrained habit to nod a greeting, though, and Ron finds himself doing it even as he turns away. He catches himself midway through, and quickly turns his attention back to Alex and Ash, so he doesn't have to see Harry and Hermione fail to respond.

Because they no longer consider him to be their friend.

Because they think he betrayed them.

He's saved—if one wants to call it being saved—by the first apparation onto the stage that's been set up on the north side of the circle. It's Kingsley Shacklebolt, the moderator for the day's event, and he's followed closely by McNair and a witch from Fudge's cabinet, then more of Nott's inner circle, equally matched in numbers by those from the Ministry.

Finally, finally, there are two final snaps and Nott and Fudge appear on the stage, applause echoing off the buildings that line the circle. Nott and Fudge both stride towards each other to shake the other's hand, then move to their lecterns. As the candidates test the sound on the stage, to make sure that they can be each be plainly heard, Ron takes the opportunity to look over his shoulder again. He looks at Harry and Hermione first—how can he not?—and sees that they are both staring pointedly and deliberately at the stage. They might be the only ones in their group, though: Neville is looking at him with a sad expression; Justin is gnawing on the tip of his quill, a bad journalistic habit; and both Seamus and Dean are staring at him with unreadable looks on their faces.

Ron looks beyond them and sees that the circle is packed to capacity, with hundreds of other faces lining the streets leading into impromptu arena. The Alley denizens telling the world that they deserve to have a voice, too.

Finally, there's the sound of a throat clearing, and Ron focuses his attention back on the stage, sees Kingsley standing at the edge, saying, "Your attention! Your attention, please. We are ready to begin. We are ready to begin today's debate."

Slowly, the volume in the circle drops.

And so it begins.

The questions are, of course, ones that Ron has heard before: What is your vision of the future? What will you do to make this happen? What can we learn from the past?

Ron knows that for Nott, at least, it's not the questions that matter. It's the chance for him to present himself as logical, sane, pro-Wizard (but not anti-Muggle) and not at all like Voldemort, he promises, to a much larger audience than he's ever had in the past. And the problem is: he does sound logical and sane, not at all like a crackpot radical. He's taken Percy's ravings and turned them into a logical argument that even Ron, if he didn't know better, would find persuasive.

It is persuasive.

And Fudge, who has been Minister of Magic for so long that everyone is able to repeat almost all his positions verbatim, doesn't have as much luck piercing cracks in Nott's stances as Ron wishes he would. Because Nott is not Voldemort. Because Nott is able to say that he has espoused peace—which publically, at least, he has. Because Nott is a fantastic public speaker, and Fudge is… Fudge, trying to use logic in the face of charisma.

Nott, as always, engages in a back and forth with the crowd, calls them his friends, his brothers and sisters, and speaks of a world where witches and wizards embrace their heritage, where there are less restrictions on the magic they can perform, where they don't let Muggles dictate how they run their lives, but learn to live with Muggles in harmony. His half of the crowd shouts their encouragement, applauds as loudly as they can. Ron tries to tell himself that he's imagining things, but he's rather sure that the noise gets louder, the further into the debate they get.

Because Fudge—Lord help them all—does not have his people's confidence. Because lying low, preserving the fragile balance they've built with the Muggles thus far, maintaining the status quo doesn't sound nearly as exciting as Nott's vision.

Because they are all proud to be witches and wizards.

Because they don't want to hide.

But they must.

To do otherwise would be to court war with the Muggles, because no matter what Nott promises, the Wizarding world no longer—and with good reason—has the trust of the Muggle establishment.

Because Nott—or so Ron and the Inspector really and truly believe—has never planned on winning this election. It's what will happen afterwards, when he loses, that he's been building towards.

So, Ron listens. He listens, puts on the act that he's supposed to put on, and tries to ignore his best friends standing only a few hundred meters away.

He can't ignore them forever, though, because indeed, after the debate has wrapped up—Fudge's people claiming victory through logic, Nott's associates claiming that he carried the crowd—Ron finds himself once again the focus of Harry's glare. He wants to apparate, because Ron has a sinking sensation that he knows where this is going, but he makes himself stand his ground, listening to Alex and Ro deconstruct the goings on.

He doesn't watch Harry draw closer, but he does hear Seamus say, "Harry, perhaps this is a bad idea." That's all the warning he gets before a fist connects with his cheek and nose, and he finds himself pulling a blood-red hand away from his face.

"You bastard," Harry says. "You right fucking bastard. You utter prick. You— Let me go. Let me go!" When Ron looks up from the blood, he sees that Neville and Seamus are holding Harry back, because Harry is spitting mad, as mad Ron has ever seen him. Ron's group has gathered around him, all of them looking balefully at Harry, and Alex is pushing up his sleeves, preparing for a fight.

"I see you've still maintained your impeccable manners," Malfoy sneers, and that seems to be the next final straw, that Ron is hanging out with Malfoy, because Harry lunges again, and this time, it takes both Dean and Justin adding their weight to the pile to hold him back.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" Harry asks. "Don't I at least deserve a reason why you threw away twelve years of friendship to come here?"

I didn't, Ron wants to say. I haven't. You just don't know it yet.

"It was a matter of principle," Ron says instead, and he notices that they're starting to attract a crowd of their own. Not as big a crowd as the one still surrounding Nott—and not all of them are people who were originally standing on Nott's side. Bugger. Fuck it all to fucking hell. "You actually think the status quo is working? You actually want to spend the rest of your life hiding?"

"That's not—" Hermione starts, and Ron knows that she's going to launch into one of her speeches about right and wrong, pointing out everything that's wrong with Nott's platform (as if Ron doesn't know Nott's list of sins better than anyone else in the Ministry) and everything that's right with Fudge's.

"It is," Ron says. "That is exactly what it's about. It's about acknowledging that we are Wizards, that the Muggles should be thanking us for sharing our talents with them, that—"

And then he stops, because the problem is, Ron's still an Auror. The problem is, his training is too ingrained, and so when he catches sight of a red-cloaked figure with a bared knife in his hand, starting to push his way through the crowd towards Nott, he reacts before he can think.

As he's been trained to do.

He shoves his hand into his pocket, grips his wand, and pictures himself standing in the small space next to Nott. He apparates, and then he's there, next to Nott, shoving him to the ground even as Red Cloak pushes his way past the last few people, the knife already coming down, right where Nott had been standing. Into space that Ron's bicep is currently occupying.

It takes Red Cloak a moment to realize that he has missed Nott entirely, and has, instead, sliced Ron.

He lets out a barely coherent scream of rage, something about his sister's death being on all of their heads, and brings the knife back down, aiming for Nott again, or possibly Ron, but this time Nott's security detail is on top of it, and tackles the man. Fudge's Aurors come running, and as the man is taken into custody, Ron wonders if they're going to grab him, too. He is still a wanted man, after all. He ducks his head, but it's impossible to hide who he is—his height, his ginger hair is too distinctive—but the Aurors pay him no mind.

Perhaps it's the Inspector's doing.

Or perhaps what Ron heard that first day in Knockturn Alley is true: no one in the Alley is caught unless Nott wants them to be caught. And he doesn't want Ron to be caught.

That's when he registers the pain in his arm and realizes that now he's got two wounds spouting blood, and he should probably do something about that, except Nott beats him to it, casting two spells in quick succession, healing Ron right up.

He stares at Ron for a long moment then, and all Ron can do is stare back. Finally Nott nods and says, "My brother, please join us tonight. I have, perhaps, been remiss in not inviting you up to my private rooms thus far."

All Ron can do is nod in return. And try not to let out too heavy a breath of relief. Because this.

This.

This.

His moment of triumph is short lived, however, as he turns around to find Harry and all of their friends staring at him, like they don't know him. Hermione looks to be on the verge of tears, and Neville is pale, but Harry's eyes are flashing green, furious. He stares at Ron for another long moment, takes a determined step forward, and then seems to change his mind, apparating away. Hermione gives Ron another sad look, then follows suit.

And Ron has a moment to think: if he'd let Red Cloak get to Nott, this could have been over. If he'd let Red Cloak do his worst, he might have been able to go home tonight, show up at Harry's door and explain everything. He could have told Hermione that he was sorry. That he still— That—

He could have told his mum that he was— That he hadn't—

But.

But the Inspector's voice echoes in his head.

We can't let Nott become a martyr to the Cause, he'd said many months ago. Percy's Kiss at the hands of the Dementors had done more for the Cause than anything else had, and the last thing anyone needed was for Nott's death to add more fuel to the flames. Nott and his Cause are dangerous enough as it is.

Malfoy is the first of Ron's group to reach him, and he looks a little bit shocked with Ron's act of heroism. He narrows his eyes, studying Ron. Again. Like maybe a small piece of him still thought Ron had been faking it this whole time. Just a sliver. Ron's given up trying to decipher Malfoy's motives, though, so he says, "I'm going upstairs tonight."

Malfoy raises an eyebrow.

"So the lapdog gets his reward in the end," he says finally.

A month ago, he wouldn't have done this. A week ago, he probably wouldn't even have done this. Maybe. But now, in this moment, he flips Malfoy off, a friendly, teasing gesture. Malfoy laughs.

"So this is where I tell you that I'm going to ride your coattails to the top, yeah?"

"I'm only going up," Ron says.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ron sees a whisper of black fur running away. He probably imagines hearing the small snap of apparation.

Ron's contact, on his way to see the Inspector. No coded message required.

The shock that night is not how much more crowded the Snitch seems to be. No, the shock is that Ron sees four more Hufflepuffs, five more Ravenclaws, and ten more Slytherins.

And also Seamus.

He grins sheepishly at Ron, like he's not quite sure what he's doing there, and when he says, "I think I heard some things today… And, I mean, if you're here…" Ron feels his blood run cold. Literally.

Icy sweat prickles in his armpits, on the palms of his hands.

He thinks: Bloody buggering fuck.

He thinks: Fuck Nott, fuck Percy, and fuck the fucking Inspector all the fucking way to America and fucking back.

Instead, he says what he should say: "It's good to see you, mate. Bloody hell." If he sounds just a little bit too empathetic, he's sure it can be written off as happiness over seeing his friend. Not the fact that what he really wants to do is go back outside and scream until his throat is bloody and raw.

After all, a Ron Weasley who truly supported the cause would be gleeful at getting his friends to finally see the light. To see his side. To see that he hadn't truly thrown his whole life away for nothing.

"Join us," he says, and Ash and Ro make room for Seamus on the other side of the table from Ron. Malfoy is glaring at Seamus in the same way that he's spent the last several weeks glaring at Ron, and Ron can't actually figure out if Seamus' arrival is a good thing or a bad thing.

"Things are not good," Seamus says after Alex has ordered him a drink, after Malfoy has proposed an only slightly sarcastic toast to the Gryffindor reunion. "They aren't good out there. Fudge is—he's desperate. His numbers are falling, and Justin's saying that the Prime Minister—of the Muggles, yeah. My dad's people—that he wants more concessions and—"

"And none of the things that happened are our fault," Alex says.

Which is true for nearly everyone at their table – Seamus and Ron most of all, given that they were fighting with Harry.

"We're not the Death Eaters," Ash adds. Then, after looking at Malfoy, he says, "Well, not anymore."

"And so I thought," Seamus continues, "you know, that maybe I'd come hear more. That maybe Nott is saying some things which are worth listening to."

"He is," Ron says, and he—

He wants to break cover and tell Seamus that this is all bullocks, that Nott is a megalomaniac in training, that he may not be Voldemort, but that there should probably be a yet tacked onto the end of that sentence. But, he can't. Just like he couldn't tell Harry or Hermione the truth. Or his parents.

Just like he has to live this lie until the moment comes when it's over with, done with.

Just.

Just.

Fuck.

He drinks his first cider too quickly, then sips his second one slowly, and it's only when he sees Nott rise at the far end of the room that Ron remembers he received the coveted invitation earlier this afternoon. He wants to say, forget it. He doesn't want to leave Seamus with these people who will fill his head with reasons he should join them. He wants to make Seamus leave, to rewind life an hour and a half, to rewind life two years. He just wants—

He stands up.

Torrence and Alex slap Ron on the back as he passes them by; Malfoy and Seamus just stare: Malfoy with an eyebrow raised, an almost challenge, and Seamus in a confused manner. Alex, Ron sees, wastes no time on filling him in.

"He got invited upstairs," Ron hears Alex say as he weaves his way through the tables and chairs, forcing his feet to move just a little more quickly than they seem to want to, so he can follow McNair and DuPré up the staircase. It's curved, rickety, and Ron knows that his heart is pounding too loudly in his chest as he climbs, tired and frustrated and not wanting to do this at all anymore.

It's not until he's at the first curve in the staircase that another thought enters his brain. It's possible that Nott didn't invite him upstairs tonight just because Ron quite possibly saved his life this afternoon. There could be ulterior motives.

He could know that this has all been a set up.

Or maybe Ron has played his hand too far, is gathering too much of a following of his own, and Nott's going to do whatever he needs to do to eliminate the threat.

Maybe—

Maybe—

He takes a deep breath as he steps into Nott's room, and finds it dark, the walls covered with thick rugs, the furniture done in dark woods and forest green. Because you can take the Slytherin out of Hogwarts, Ron thinks, but in the end, he'll always be a Slytherin.

"Welcome, Brother Weasley, to my humble abode," Nott says, and Ron wonders if his voice truly sounds slightly mocking, or if Ron is being paranoid. "Please, make yourself at home."

Ron takes one of the straight-backed chairs near the kitchenette and watches as Holden pours them all a round of drinks. Firewhiskey.

Strong firewhiskey.

"To Brother Weasley," Nott says, "who has proven to be as loyal as his brother was."

"Brother Weasley," the rest of the assemblage says, raising their glasses to him, and Ron ducks his head. He can't think of any other way to respond.

They all drink, Ron trying not to cough at the sharp bite of it in his throat.

They rehash the debate, with McNair and Holden doing imitations of a bumbling Fudge, and DuPré mentioning some points that Nott could have been clearer on, some holes in Fudge's arguments. After, when the group is starting to break up, Nott comes to sit beside Ron.

"I saw that Finnegan was sitting at your table downstairs," he says. "Did he come to try to woo you back to the side of the light?"

Again, Ron wants to lie, to say yes, yes, that's exactly what Seamus was trying to do, but a lie at this point could be catastrophic, especially if Seamus keeps showing up, again and again.

"He heard some things today," Ron says, each word feeling heavy on his tongue. "His dad is a Muggle, you know. He liked what you said today."

Nott nods, as if this is his due, and Ron thinks that he looks pleased. Too pleased.

Bugger. Bugger. Fuck.

"Then perhaps," he says, "I should spend more time emphasizing those points. Perhaps, brother, we may just win this thing yet."

The next day, Malfoy stops by the shop. Goyle stands by the door, glowering in Ron's direction for too many moments, before being distracted by a witch, waving on the front cover of her biography.

"So was it illuminating?" he asks. "Life changing?"

"They spent an hour insulting Fudge," Ron says, and Malfoy nods, as if that was to be expected.

"But was it everything you'd hoped for?" he asks. "You did spend oh-so-long working for your reward, after all."

If Ron hadn't had ulterior motives, he would have given up wanting to go upstairs over a month ago, when it became obvious that an invitation was not going to be forthcoming. If he'd been in this only to raise his own profile, after the last few weeks he would have preferred to stay downstairs, letting his own ever-growing group of hangers on buoy him up. Truly, there was no good reason for him to have waited so long for that elusive invite. So, he gives the only answer that he can: "I want to see my brother's vision become reality."

Malfoy nods again.

"Someday you'll stop being suspicious of me," Ron says, because he's tired. Because he's counting down the hours until five o'clock. Until he can see if Seamus appears again.

"I'm not—" Malfoy starts, then stops, and it's that that makes Ron actually believe him, because Malfoy would have no issue telling Ron that he still didn't believe. Which is—

Well.

Ron doesn't actually know what that means.

For about twenty seconds, Ron stands in the middle of the street and debates whether or not he should go into the Snitch for drinks. He could go home. No one would think it odd; he has spent the last five nights in a row there, after all. Everyone needs a night to themselves every once in awhile. And if he doesn't go into the Snitch he doesn't have to deal with Seamus being there. Or not being there. Or. Anything, really.

But to not be there the night after going up to Nott's rooms, when Alex and Torrence and Marietta and their whole crew will be expecting to hear all about it… When Nott might look for him… When he he's finally, finally made progress of the sort that the Inspector is wanting… He can't skip out now.

So, he goes in.

And feels his heart sink to his knees when yes, Seamus is sitting at their table. When he sees that he's laughing at something that Malfoy is saying. When they all look up and wave at him, and Ron has to wave, smile back, make his way over to them.

Second verse, same as the first: bloody buggering fuck.

Still: the selfish part of his brain, the part that doesn't want to think about Meaning and The Future, is glad that Seamus is here. Is glad that there's now someone who knows him, who's lived with him, who hasn't always associated him with The Cause. With whom he can be Ron, and not Percy's little brother.

So, he lets himself laugh at the stories Seamus tells of their days at Hogwarts, defends himself against Malfoy's own—amazingly enough friendly—barbs and, when the time comes to go upstairs with Nott, he tries to pretend that all is right with his world.

That night, before he leaves the Snitch, he takes a napkin from the bar, borrows a quill from the register, and writes two words, the ink seeping and blotching across the paper.

He doesn't code them, because they aren't for the Inspector. Because they don't say anything he hasn't put to parchment before.

I'm sorry.

Because he knows what it's like to lose your best friend.

He crumples the ball and sticks it in his pocket and when he passes the rubbish heap, he throws it away. He doesn't stick around to listen for rustling, or for apparation. He just… walks away.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Some days, he thinks that when this is over, he won't ever be able to say it enough.

The fourth night after the debate, Nott joins Ron's table.

It's—

Ron's not actually sure what to think, because one moment Malfoy is regaling them with a story about house elves, and the next, Nott is saying, "That doesn't sound anything like the Linty I remember, and I feel as if I knew Linty pretty well," as he takes an empty chair from the next table over and pulls it up to Ron's own.

Ash and Alex immediately make room.

For once, Alex does not seem to know what to say.

"Linty was on her best behavior whenever we had company," Malfoy says, his words clipped. "I think that I would know."

"Yes, you would," Nott says. Then he nods at the table at large, and says, "Forgive my intrusion. I thought I would try to experience the Snitch from this side of the room tonight."

Why? Ron wants to ask, because changes in routine make him nervous. Because he honestly doesn't know why Nott would be here. He can't think of one good reason. Unless Ron's star is still shining brightly and Nott wants to make it fade, just a little.

At the other end of the room, McNair and Holden glower. DuPré looks thoughtful.

There is a moment of awkward silence, as the rest of Ron's table appears to be too star-struck to know what to say, and Ron is too confounded to think up a way to start the conversation.

"So in other words, you needed a break from fawning sycophants?" Malfoy asks.

Nott snorts. "Something like that. Or perhaps I realized that I have been remiss in meeting all of these new faces that have come to join our Cause. Finnegan, I cannot tell you how happy I am that you have seen fit to listen to our words. You always struck me as among the more open-minded of the Gryffindors."

"I—" Seamus starts. "Well, I— As I was telling Ron, things are rather a mess out there right now. But I'm sure you know that."

"I know that our numbers grow every day," Nott says. "I know that people are beginning to listen."

"Sometimes people need a choice," Seamus says.

"And not between the lesser of two evils," Alex adds. "And people are starting to realize that there is but one evil in this race, and that evil is not sitting here in this room."

"I will toast to that," Nott says, and—

And Nott is smart, Ron thinks. Because Ron is the second most powerful man in the room, yes, but Nott is the most powerful, and Ron's group, perhaps, needed to be reminded of that. They needed to be reminded that they are here for him, not for Ron.

So, Ron listens as Nott sits and talks: reiterating the talking points that had brought Seamus through the front door, the points had brought so many others to his side. Because sitting here, like this, gives him a chance to interact with his people in a way that he hasn't in quite awhile.

Malfoy—being Malfoy—interjects wry comments every few minutes, and then he, Goyle and Nott mention some in Slytherin joke of some sort, which sets them all off. Ron finds himself glancing at Seamus, trying to share the Gryffindor exasperation regarding Slytherins with someone who understands and for a few minutes, at least, it's as if they're all back at Hogwarts, living a simpler life.

Where the person Ron trusts most in this new life of his isn't his best friend's sworn enemy; where the people he cares about aren't falling for Nott's shtick; where he hasn't spent two years of his life working to make sure that he is in the right place at the right time, trusting that the Inspector is right.

After two hours of talk, when Nott finally gets up to go upstairs, he looks at Ron, as if to ask if he's coming. Ron shakes his head. "Not tonight," he says.

If he had to defend the choice, he'd say that if Nott is choosing to reassert his importance to Ron's group, it's just as important for Ron to remind everyone that he is not Nott's lapdog.

In reality, though, he's tired.

In reality, with Seamus sitting across from him, and memories of Hogwarts so close to the surface of his brain, he wants to let himself revel in them for just a little bit longer. He's not quite yet ready to return to the real world.

"Draco?" Nott asks, and that makes both Malfoy and Ron snap their heads up, because that was… unexpected. Because Malfoy had, perchance, been even more of an outcast from Nott's group than Ron had been.

Malfoy looks at Ron, then back at Nott.

"Not tonight," he echoes, and Nott nods, looking… unsurprised, and as he leaves, all Ron can do is look at Malfoy, and think, what the—? From the look on Malfoy's face, Ron is pretty sure that he isn't the only one wondering the same thing.

When Ron gets back to his flat that night, there's a black cat sitting on his bed.

Ron's wand is raised and pointed before the door shuts behind him, but before he can say anything, the creature shimmers and unfolds into a man.

Dean Thomas stands, walks over to Ron, and punches him in the face.

"You're sorry?" he asks.

"I am," Ron says. "Fuck, Dean, you have to know that I am."

"He's my best bloody friend," Dean says, "and at the rate you're adopting him, I'm going to have to be the one to put him behind bars."

"And how am I supposed to get him out of the Snitch?" Ron asks. "If you have any bright ideas for ways to do it without blowing my cover, I'd love to hear them. I'm not the one who's actually in the position to talk any sense into him."

"I can't—" Dean starts, and then his shoulders slump, and he sits down on the end of Ron's bed. He closes his eyes. "I tried. I fucking— Harry fucking— But no, he just wanted to listen, he just wanted to—" He looks up at Ron again. "I hate Nott. I hate your brother, and a little bit of me even hates you right now, for being so damn convincing. For making people take another look at this bloody Cause."

"I know," Ron says. "But if the Inspector is right—and you and I both know that he is—the alternative will be so much worse."

Dean nods. There's not much else he can do.

"Hanging out with Malfoy was a nice touch," Dean says, staring at the floor again. "Harry spent four hours at the dueling range after we left. I'm pretty sure he might have swished and flicked so much that he strained something."

"Nott invited Malfoy upstairs tonight," Ron says, and Dean raises his head at that. Something new to tell the Inspector. "I don't know why. Malfoy didn't know why. Unless he's trying to consolidate the power in the room. Because the Malfoy name still holds some sway."

"Not as much as Weasley," Dean says.

"No, not as much as Weasely," Ron says. Then he snorts, because even four years ago, that sentence would have never been something anyone would have believed.

Dean nods, then stands.

"I'm sorry," he says, gesturing at Ron's nose. Ron will fix it after he leaves.

"I'm sorry," Ron says. Because he is. Because he'd honestly thought that his reputation was going to be the only casualty of this mess. He swallows. "I'll try to keep him safe, though. If I can. I'll try."

"That's all I ask," Dean says. Then, with a shimmer, his body folds into its cat shape, and he apparates out of Ron's room. On his way to the Inspector, probably. Back to the life that he still gets to lead, the life Ron wishes were his own.

The next night, Nott isn't there.

Ron has a brief moment of kicking himself for not going upstairs the night before, because then he'd know where Nott was, he wouldn't feel out of the loop. But then one of the barmaids stokes the fire, and Nott's voice fills the room. Brothers. Sisters. Friends. The same lilting tones; a new emphasis on his warm, happy, fuzzy feelings towards Muggles. In fact, he is proud to number half-bloods among his followers. It doesn't matter to him if you've descended from Godric Gryffindor or woke up yesterday and discovered that you had these powers that you just didn't understand, what mattered to him is that you were Wizard.

Next to Ron, Seamus nods. Malfoy grows more and more tense. Down the table, Goyle glowers.

When Ron gets up to leave that night, Malfoy rises too. Goyle starts to stand, but Malfoy says, "I'll meet up with you tomorrow, Greg, yeah?" and Goyle has no choice but to nod. He sits back down and says something to Pansy that Ron wishes he could hear.

Which is how Malfoy and Ron leave the Snitch together.

Which is how Malfoy ends up back in Ron's room, his lip curling as he takes in the shabby nature of it all.

"Ladies and gents, Knockturn Alley's five-star accommodations."

"Fuck off," Ron says. Then, "So? I know that after two and a half months, you didn't just decide you wanted to come back to my room for a nightcap. Especially since I am sadly lacking in the alcohol department."

Malfoy grimaces, then surveys the room one more time, before walking over to the armchair and gingerly perching on its edge. Ron moves over to the window that edges his sitting area and leans against the sill.

"He's up to something," Malfoy says. "First he asks you upstairs, then me, and I want to know why. I want to know what he's thinking."

Ron can't say, 'I was just discussing this with Dean Thomas yesterday, and this is what we thought...' He can't say, 'Well, the Inspector and I think…' He can't wait too long, but he takes the moments he has and weighs what he wants to say with what he should say.

"Everyone thought it would be you," he says finally. It's risky, talking about the past, before he defected. It's so easy to misstep, to say the wrong thing.

Malfoy raises one perfectly arched eyebrow.

"You might have chosen the right side at the end of the war, but… You're a Malfoy. And Malfoys like the spotlight, everyone knows that, and… We thought it would be you, rallying the troops, leading the charge."

"So, what. Nott thought I was a challenge?" He sounds almost a little bit hysterical as he says it, like it's the funniest thing in the world.

"I think, before I arrived, your name had the second largest pull in the room. I think, after Nott and I, it still does."

And Malfoy's thoughts apparently go to the same place that Ron and Dean's had, because he says, "So this is Nott trying to consolidate his following." A pause, then, "Is he planning something else? Do you know if he has anything else that he's planning?"

"If he does, he hasn't told me," Ron says, realizing just how slippery this slope is that he's on. He feels like he's walking a tightrope, in ice skates. "I just—I want my brother's dream to become reality. I want—"

"For Percy's sacrifice to have not been in vain. Yes, Weasely, we get it. We all get it. Your familial dedication will be the stuff of legends."

Ron flips Malfoy off again, and then they sit there in silence, until Malfoy finally gets up to leave.

When Ron entered Knockturn Alley that terrible, awful day so many weeks ago, he and the Inspector had only had a vague idea as to what Nott was planning. Namely, they knew that Nott he was sowing dissent, and no one—but especially not a Slytherin—would go around sowing dissent without planning to reap something in the end.

The Inspector, knowing Slytherins, knowing something of the darker edge of the magical world, was relatively sure that he knew what that something was.

Enter Ron.

Enter years of planning, months of lying to everyone that he cares about, weeks of being deep under cover, all building towards the endgame that Ron knows is on the horizon, even if he can't discern how they're going to get there yet.

Two nights after their conversation in Ron's room, Malfoy is sitting next to Ron on a far-too-comfortable sofa in Nott's room, drinking firewhiskey and acting as if he hasn't spent the last several months, possibly years, excluded downstairs. He's the one to toast Nott's latest returns—because The Prophet shows that Nott's approval numbers are steadily rising. Enough so, and quickly enough, that Ron is beginning to wonder if the Inspector has a contingency plan in place, for what to do if Nott's Plan B succeeds before Plan A does.

Because he is still absolutely sure that Nott's decision to enter this race had nothing to do with actually winning.

Except: even in the close confines of his room, to his inner circle, Nott is saying things like: when we win this and that will be first on my agenda when I become Minister and Ron can't help but think that maybe, possibly, Nott is actually starting to believe his own hype.

Which.

Which is just—

But Ron isn't here to help Nott win this election; he's here to limit the fallout when Nott takes that inevitable final step, the one that Nott's been moving towards ever since Percy arrived at the Snitch that first night.

Which is why, late that same night, with only two weeks to go before the actual election, Ron says, "What happens if we don't win?"

It's just him and Malfoy and Nott and DuPré and a few fingers of firewiskey left in the bottle, and Ron hopes, hopes that he's not being as obvious as he feels like he's being. That he's acting like a concerned brother, and not someone who's pointedly trying to gather information.

Malfoy looks at him just a bit too sharply, but Nott just pours himself another drink, sips at it, swallows. "We're going to win," Nott finally says, his voice lazy. "We're already winning. Our numbers our growing, our support is growing. The tides are changing, and our time is almost here."

"But what happens if we don't win," Ron asks again. "Some of us have given up our lives for the Cause and if we don't win, if we don't—"

"Do not fear, Brother Weasley," Nott says again, an edge to his voice that wasn't there before. "We will win. In the end, we will win."

And that—

That was more than Ron was expecting. It was more than he'd let himself hope for.

Check, he thinks. Now all he has to do is figure out a way to get to checkmate.

While Ron may not feel as if he's stuck in the one step forward-two steps back dance any longer, for every step forward that he takes now, he seems to stand still for five times as long. Because Nott is too focused on these last days of the campaign. Because despite Nott's hints, no one is talking about the next step.

And the longer Ron spends with them, in Nott's company, the more he realizes that they all might actually believe Nott's hype, too.

Perhaps it's because they spend all day surrounded by the sycophants, by the people who do believe. Perhaps it's because when you aren't faced with any dissenting opinions, it's too easy to forget that such opinions exist.

But Ron has to believe that the rest of the Wizarding world is seeing through Nott's façade. He has to believe that what is right will triumph in the end.

And then it does.

Because election day comes, and each witch and wizard casts their ballot, and half an hour after the polls close, Fudge is declared the winner, receiving 64% of the vote, which is 33% less than Ron wishes he'd received.

"Fraud," Ron hears a witch on the street say. "Rigged. I'd like to see those ballots, count them myself."

Tensions are running high; The Alley, Ron thinks, feels almost like a powder keg, waiting to explode. And this, Ron thinks. This is what the Inspector foresaw. This is what Nott was waiting for.

Even Malfoy seems to feel it, because when he pulls a chair up to Ron's table in the Snitch, displacing a disheartened Seamus from Ron's side, he says, "Was it worth it, Weasley?" He says it quietly, but before Ron can respond, he feels a hand come down on his shoulder, squeeze.

"It will be worth it," Nott says. "It will be, because the fight, my brothers, has only just begun." There is a wild quality to his gaze that hasn't been there before—whether he's been careful to keep it masked, or whether this loss has pushed him over an unseen ledge, Ron doesn't know.

He sees that Malfoy is looking at him closely, though; this time, Ron is the one to look away.

Nott concedes.

He thanks his followers for his support.

He adds his voice to those casting doubt on the validity of the results. Wonders if their Esteemed Minister Fudge will listen to the call of a full third of his people who wanted to embrace change, who believed that they, as wizards, could be something more.

He says everything that he's supposed to, and manages to fan the flames that are edging their way towards the proverbial powder keg at the same time.

If Ron's role in this whole ordeal hadn't just kicked into high gear, he'd be impressed. As it is, he just writes a letter to the Inspector that says, coded, Be prepared.

Ron expects a council of war that first night.

He expects it the second night, then the third.

By the fourth night, the Snitch filled to the brim with new faces, disheartened faces, he's almost to the point of not caring whether he's even worthy of being in the inner circle anymore, because all Nott has to do is announce his plans, and then Ron can finally make a move.

On day five, he realizes that Nott's silence is deliberate.

The Alley isn't so much a powder keg as it is a pot, simmering, just approaching a boil. Nott has left his people feeling as if their voices have been ignored, as if their one chance to make themselves heard has been pushed aside by a majority in which they do not approve. In his speeches, he's always been a fan of give and take, of his crowds working themselves into a frenzy, and now he's letting his training pay off.

The frenzy is building and all it will take is one spark, one sign that they don't have to be silent any longer, and the Alley will explode.

Ron barely sleeps at all that night.

On day six, Nott breaks the impasse.

He drops by the bookshop an hour before closing time, looking—well, not at all like the Nott that Ron has grown accustomed to. His hair is unkempt, his robe done up with the buttons in the wrong holes. He still looks as wild eyed as he did during his concession speech, and Ron is really, truly starting to think that Nott had actually believed.

"My brother," Nott says. "My brother, the time has come to talk of the future. Will you join us? Will you help us bring your brother's vision to fruition?"

There is only one response that Ron can make to that: "I will," he says.

On the way to the Snitch that night, he drops another ball of paper into the rubbish pile. On it, he's written, Beginning? As he leaves, he sees a black cat sitting on the balcony above, grooming its ears.

So once again, Ron finds himself climbing the stairs to Nott's rooms. He's the fifth to arrive: DuPré and Nott sitting closest to the fire, Holden and McNair on the couch. Ron takes one of the straight-backed chairs, and when Malfoy arrives, he takes the other. The look he gives Ron is unreadable.

Once the rest of Nott's hangers on arrive, Nott pours them all a drink and says, "My brothers, my sisters, the time has come. I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. I had prayed that it wouldn't come to this. But our prayers, our hopes, were not answered. There remains but one avenue open to us. Are you with me?"

"Yes," Ron says, echoed by everyone in the room but Malfoy. Because Malfoy has the luxury of not being a lapdog.

"I believed, I truly wanted to believe that we could achieve our goals through peaceful actions," he says. "But that was not to be. So this is what I propose, my friends. This is my proposal to you. Tomorrow we will hold a rally. We will rally our brothers and sisters to our cause, and we will offer them a choice. A choice between the status quo and a new future, a future where they would not have submit to the indignities of hiding from the Muggles. Where they would not be forced to live in hiding, in fear. I am willing to fight for that choice, my brothers, my sisters. Are you?"

And as the rest of the room nods, Ron thinks, oh thank Merlin.

He thinks, check and mate.

It's about bloody fucking time.

He stays until the end of the meeting.

He stays until he is the only one left.

He stays, drinks one finger of firewhiskey as slowly as he can, so that he can say, "My brother would be proud."

"I think he would be," Nott says, and he says it fondly enough that Ron has a moment of wondering if Nott truly did like Percy. Wondering if maybe Nott hadn't just been using Percy and Percy's vision to achieve his own goals.

A small part of him hopes so.

He might have thought that Percy had completely lost it, there before the end, but Ron still loved—loves—him. He still misses him.

After he leaves, a clock in Diagon Alley striking three, Ron takes the roundabout way to the safe house, looking over his shoulder every half block to see if he's being followed. He doesn't see any sign that he is.

Once he lets himself in through the rickety door, he apparates to another safe house, then floos into the Inspector's office. Once he stumbles out of the fireplace, brushes the soot off of his robes, he sits down on a couch and waits for the alarm he tripped at his entrance to summon the Inspector to him.

The Inspector arrives less than five minutes later, looking as worn around the edges as Ron feels.

"It's time," Ron says, before the Inspector can ask any of the inevitable questions: Has it all gone to shit? Has your cover been blown? Other things that Ron is probably not thinking of.

"Okay," the Inspector says, suddenly looking far more alert. "Okay. Let's hear it then."

Ron tells him.

Together, they make a plan.

It's close to six when Ron finally apparates back to the original safe house, and he's so tired that he can barely stand, his third, fourth, and fifth winds having come and gone.

So of course, because nothing in his life can ever go smoothly, the safe house is no longer quite as safe as when he left it. Because when he lands, see, he finds himself in a room with Malfoy and Goyle and Dean Thomas, no longer in cat form, tied to a chair.

Goyle is pointing his wand at Ron, and Malfoy looks as if he wants to, but that he's managed to resist so far.

"I told you," Goyle hisses. "I told you that a Weasley never changes his spots. I told you—"

"Enough," Malfoy says. "Perhaps Weasley didn't know. Not everyone is as allergic to cats as you are, after all. Perhaps our esteemed Aurors planted a shadow on him without his knowledge. Is that what happened, Weasley? Did you know that Thomas has been following you for who knows how long? Did you, like Goyle, notice that the same cat seemed to follow you wherever you went?"

He does raise his wand now, pointing it at Dean's head, and Ron doesn't know what to do. If he was truly the Ron Weasley he's been purporting to be, he should be outraged. He should be ready to curse Dean himself. If he was truly ready to follow Nott tomorrow, when he announced his call to arms, Ron should be willing to accept that there will be casualties of war.

He apparently waits too long to answer, because Malfoy continues, "Give me one good reason that I shouldn't turn you both over to Nott right now."

Dean is staring at Ron, hard, obviously trying to communicate something—probably some selfless rubbish, such as 'the Cause is more important than I am,' and perhaps, Ron thinks, if he's thinking thoughts like that, Malfoy had rubbed off on him more than he'd like to admit.

He should throw Dean to the wolves.

He should, he should, he's going to, he will, but—

"Do you want to go to war?" he asks. "Are you willing to fight for this cause? Are you willing to lay your life down for it—ask your friends to lay their lives down for it—when you weren't even willing to fight for Voldemort in the end?"

He sidesteps the curse that Malfoy shoots at him.

"You know that Nott has been planning this since the beginning. Everything: from my brother's attack on the ministry, to watering the seeds of hatred that led to those shopkeepers killing those Aurors—" His voice catches on the words, the guilt still so close to the surface. "He's let those things happen, he's encouraged them, and he— Tomorrow he's going to take us to war."

Malfoy stares at him for a long moment, then snorts. "Well it bloody well might be better than this shit hole we're living in now."

"You don't mean that," Ron says. He knows Malfoy doesn't. He was at the center of the action in the war against Voldemort; Ron's sure that he wants to return to those days just as little as Ron does.

Malfoy is still eying him, and Goyle looks like he just wishes Malfoy would take Ron down already, or at the very least that he'd take Dean down, but then Malfoy drops his wand.

Ron should stop here. He should offer to take charge of Dean, to get him back to the Ministry without anyone having to be the wiser. A last favor for an old friend. He should stop before he makes this any worse than it already is, but—

But, Malfoy's the closest thing he's had to an ally since he arrived—the only one who's seemed as truly unsure of Nott as Ron himself has been. So, he breaks. He does the one thing he shouldn't do.

"We're going to stop it," Ron says. "We're going to stop it tomorrow. I would suggest not being at the rally tomorrow. If you can keep Torrence and Marietta and the rest away too, that would be good."

From his chair, Dean makes a pained sound. "Ron—"

It's too late, though.

"Tell me why I should believe a word you say," Malfoy says.

"You shouldn't," Ron says, and he lets his shoulders slump. "After all, you've been right this whole time. I am a traitor; just not to the side that everyone else thinks I betrayed."

Malfoy raises his wand again, and for a moment, Ron is sure that a jinx is going to be flying his way, knocking him unconscious. He's sure that he's going to end up in Nott's clutches, and that he won't actually see the showdown the next day.

Then he hears two cracks and when he opens his eyes, he and Dean are alone in the room.

"Ron," Dean says as Ron unties him. "We have to go tell the Inspector. If Malfoy tells Nott—"

He won't, Ron thinks. But what he says is: "It doesn't matter now. With or without me, with or without Malfoy, tomorrow this ends."

Witches and wizards start gathering in the circle two hours before time Nott has asked them to arrive, and Ron can feel the excitement in the air. The what ifs. The possibility.

Ron is standing on the stage this time, between Holden and DuPré, and he can feel the tension radiating off of them. They, after all, are on the verge of achieving what their parents and Voldemort never could: a free Wizarding state, where they would have free reign.

"We aren't asking for the whole world, just our piece of it," Nott had said the night before. "The rest will follow. You know it will. Because we will use any means at our disposal to ensure our success."

Ron wonders if he'll say the same thing today.

By four o'clock, the circle is full to bursting. Ron doesn't see Malfoy or Goyle – or Torrence, Marietta, or Seamus, or any of the rest of his friends. It's possible he's just missing them—there are too many people here for him to be sure of anything—but.

He hopes.

He hopes.

Two minutes after the time that Nott had asked everyone to assemble, he apparates onto the stage. DuPré, Ron thinks, is probably the one responsible for the coordinated flash of light and fire that accompany his appearance.

"My friends," Nott says. "My friends, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining me here this afternoon. This has not been an easy week for any of us: a bitter defeat at the hands of an unworthy opponent; our voices silenced just as we were on the verge of being heard. I have heard from so many of you over these last seven days about your dashed hopes, your dreams that were torn from your grasp, and I want you to know, my friends, that you are not alone. Everything you have been feeling, I have been feeling, too. Everything that you wished for, I wanted for all of you. You have been my strength, my rock in these difficult days, and for that, I want to thank you.

"But while I wanted to tell you this, this is not the reason that I asked you to join me here today. No, no, today I asked you here todays so that I could tell you a story. You all know that I like my stories, don't you?"

There's an appreciative laugh from the crowd.

"Today, once again, I'm going to tell you about Percy Weasley. Many of you have heard his story before, yes, but most of you have not heard the full story, the complete story. So listen, my friends, and learn.

"After Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort, Percy Weasley saw what so few of the rest of us could. He saw that instead of moving towards the world without fear that had been promised to us, as soon as Voldemort was gone, we were moving away from it. He saw that we were growing afraid of our own shadows. He saw that we were being forced to take responsibility for actions that were not our own, and that in the name of peace, we were becoming ashamed to be called Wizards.

"My friends, my friends, I am not ashamed to call myself Wizard. None of you are ashamed to call yourselves Wizard. Over one-third of the Wizarding population is not ashamed to call themselves Wizards either, and do you know what that means? It means that we have something to keep fighting for.

"And see, Percy knew that it would be a fight. He knew that our world needed a wake up call, and when he led the attack on the ministry those many months ago, he knew that he was sacrificing himself for the betterment of the world. He told me, before he left that fateful day, that he would be but the first of many who would lay down their lives, their very souls for this cause.

"I wanted to tell him that he was more important, that surely there was another way, but we both knew that he was right. We both knew and I wished him well, and today, my friends, it is my turn to announce that I am ready to lay down my life, my soul for this fight.

"Because, my friends, we may have lost a battle this week, but we have not lost the war. The war is still to be fought. The war is how we will show the world that we will bow down to no one; that we are Wizard, and that we are not ashamed.

"We, my brothers and sisters, are the members of our society with a clear vision of what the future should hold, and so today, my friends, I come before you to ask you a question: Do you think we should be bound by a set of pathetic laws that we do not believe in? Do you think we should be forced to be ashamed? No?"

The response, "NO!" echoes through the square, loudly enough that Ron has to stop a wince.

"No," Nott says firmly. "No. Not when there's a whole world out there for the taking. Not when there is so much more we can accomplish." His eyes have gone wild again, in that way that chills through Ron. "Today, right here, I am asking you to join me in my call to arms. Today I am going to ask you to take what rightfully belongs to us. It will not be easy, and not all of us will survive to see our dreams become reality, but my friends, my brothers and sisters, I truly believe that together we can triumph. Are you with me?"

"YES!"

"Are you with me?"

"YES!"

"Are you willing to lay down your lives for our Cause, just as Percy Weasley laid down his life?"

"YES!"

"Then, my brothers and sisters, I do believe that this is war."

And that, right there, is what Ron has been waiting for.

Ron steps forward, wand gripped tightly in his hand, his Auror credentials slipping out of his sleeves and into his other, and says, "You forgot one part of the story, Nott. My brother was arrested for treason, just like I am arresting you."

As Nott looks at Ron, his face goes maroon with anger, his eyes as wild as Ron has ever seen them, and as he takes a step towards Ron, all Hell breaks loose.

The Inspector, true to his word, has Aurors stationed throughout the crowd, and more at every exit. A cluster converges on the stage, arresting everyone on it as a conspirator towards treason. Ron gets spit on five times, kicked another three, and all he can really do is stand there and take it.

Because that was what the Inspector had said in his office, all those months and years ago: "If we're going to cut the head off the snake, Ron, we need to do it on our terms. We need to make sure that we separate the head so far from the body that it will never grow back."

As he watches Nott kicking, screaming, lashing out at the Aurors surrounding him, as he watches the pandemonium unfold in the circle around them, Ron just hopes that this was far enough.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it's over.

Ron is standing in the middle of a nearly empty square, watching the Aurors do their jobs and…

And then his mother's there, running across the square, his father and Ginny and the twins just behind. Harry and Hermione even farther back.

"Oh, Ronald," his mum is saying, and when she throws her arms around him, he thinks that nothing has ever felt quite so good. "Oh, Ronald," she says again, and again. His father's shaking his hand, and Ron thinks he's never looked quite so proud.

Harry and Hermione approach him rather more hesitantly, and—

And see, Ron's been waiting for this, his moment of redemption, where everyone apologizes for ever doubting him. He's been expecting it to taste sweet, so sweet, to feel like relief.

What he's not expecting is for it to feel so awkward. His mother's weeping against his shoulder, the twins are poking at his arms, and all he can do is stare at his best friends.

"I don't know what to say," Harry says finally. "I said some horrible things."

"You did," Ron says, because it's true. Because part of him still feels like Harry should have known. "But the Inspector said it was a sign that I was doing a good job."

"And that you did," Remus says, coming up beside Ron.

"Hullo, Inspector," Ron says, and Remus claps him on the back.

"You knew," Molly Weasley says and her face goes tight with anger. "This whole time, you knew that Ron was—" and it's habit that makes Ron look at Harry and Hermione, sharing a look of grateful commiseration that this time, at least, they are not the ones on the wrong side of his mother's tongue lashing. Harry and Hermione are both grinning right back at him, all of them on the same page once again.

Nothing's okay yet, Ron thinks. He's not the same person he was when he apparated into Knockturn Alley all those weeks ago. He's sure that he's entitled to at least one big blow up where he asks them how they could have really thought he'd abandon them like that, but for now.

For now he can get by.

So, with his mum's voice echoing off of the buildings, berating Remus for letting her think that her youngest son had turned traitor, damn you, Ron follows his family, his friends, out of the circle.

Only, as he steps onto one of the paths heading up towards Diagon Alley, he turns around to take one last look at the place he's called home for the last few months, scanning the buildings, the once-again dirty cobblestones. And it's with this last glance that he notices the blond man standing on top of one of the far buildings. He's looking directly at Ron, and for a long moment, Ron looks back.

He nods.

Malfoy nods back.

And with that, Ron turns back towards home.