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Title: The Abomination of Desolation
Author: ikyrian
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairings: Ron/Snape (maaaybe), Harry/Ginny, George/Hermione
Summary: There is no escaping the past - it always catches up in the end.
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue.
Notes: Will this ever be finished? No, probably not. Mostly because it has been sitting on my hard drive for two years and not much has ever come out of it. However, I still like the idea behind it, so who knows. Maybe I'll pick it up again someday.

*******

It was when a person felt that they had all the time in the world to get something done that nothing got done, Ron finally decided. Though there were many books and papers strewn around his cell, the odd bottle of ink along with some fountain pens, there was no discernable dent in the amount of work that he had to do. Although, I don't really know how much time I have left. It really wouldn't hurt to start some of this up again. Yet he found he couldn't drum up the will to actually work some more. It was hard when you didn't really know when you would die and what insignificant act could hasten the process.

It was a bitter thought. But it was hard to escape the reality that he lived in. It had been easier at the beginning, denying what had happened to him by burying himself in the work that his captors had forced upon him. At first, he was a little bewildered at the thought that someone wanted whatever limited skills that he had. Ron was smart enough to realize that he wasn't smart enough for the work that he had been given to do. He'd protested, but all that was said had boiled down to, "Learn, or die." It had been a simple choice at the time.

But that simple choice was rather hard to put into practice. He'd struggled through the most basic texts during Hogwarts, the material that they were giving him now were totally over his head. And this time, he didn't have a Hermione stashed away to do all the hard work for him. Ron found that he rather regretted not doing the work himself during his time in school before he got captured, but there was little to be done about it now.

Eventually he did learn all that he needed to know to start on the experiments that were required of him. But when he gained that knowledge, he found that he was unable to actually perform the experiments. In many ways, he was rather grateful for it meant that he didn't have to actually test them on human experiments, and in others he was secretly disappointed, for he had done the leg work and wanted to be able to figure out what the results were to be on his own.

Over time, he gained his jailers rather grudging�if not respect, then something close to it. They weren't friends, and could never be given the situation, but they did get a long well enough. Ron allowed them to do things without ever ratting on them to their boss, the warden, whenever he deemed to visit, and for his silence they brought him random contraband. Mostly candy or a book or two, maybe a fancy new pen, or a decent meal every once and a while. Bits of news from the muggle world (never the Wizarding world because that could prove dangerous), various things like that would be given to him while Ron would gulp them down like a starving man at a feast.

And yet, over time, Ron began to feel restless. When he finally began to pull his head out of his work, he realized that he couldn't stick it back in. He was a little disgruntled to realize that he had absolutely no idea how long he'd been kept prisoner. He was fairly sure the time frame spanned years, maybe even a decade, if his hair was to be believed, for he had only managed to get it cut once since he'd been placed in the jail, and now it was back down to his butt, the red locks braided as neatly as possible to make sitting a bit more comfortable. At least he got to shave everyday, and he was pathetically grateful for the rather nice razors that they gave him to shave with. Dealing with long hair and a beard would have been hell.

Ron glanced around his tiny cell again. He thought it looked a bit like what he fancied Professor Snape's work office to be like, except without random potion experiments littering the long tables, standing up amongst the other debris of papers and books like castle spires. But the walls were the same, roughly hewn stone blocks that were lightly mildewing. A single porcelain sink, gleaming in the dull light, with some soap, a toothbrush and a razor kit. A little curtained off area where he could shower in relative privacy (not that it really matted, as he had lost his body-shyness long ago). Crude long tables with rough wood that made it hard to write neatly on (and prompting him to ask for a smallish polished piece of wood to put underneath his paper as he was writing) taking up the front right hand corner of his cell. Dark book shelves of all shapes and sizes crammed into every available space, with a small cot situated to the back of the cell underneath a teeny tiny barred window that never let in enough light or air.

As much as he hated it, it was home, just as it had been since he was snatched away from Hogwarts all those years ago. Over time, he began to forget what his real home was like, forgot the smells of his mother�s kitchen, the sound of his brothers fighting, laughing, crying, forgot his father�s cluttered garage. Forgot everything and it was soon replaced with the sights, sounds and smell of his prison.

****

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Of everything that Ronald Weasley had ever learned, this phrase stuck out the most in his mind. He remembered watching that Muggle movie The Usual Suspects in a common room with other POWs like himself many years ago. It was one of the best days of his life that he could remember after his capture. This was mostly because the warden had abandoned them for a day of leisure. With him gone, all of the prisoners within the warden�s walls had a day of leisure as well � and all of those who were on good behavior and doing what they were told, were allowed to watch this �movie.� The warden called it their 'Christmas present' � the asshole managed to sound magnanimous when he said it, too. Either way, it was a day without work and without the master hovering over them - in other words, complete bliss. It was a shame that it didn't last � couldn�t last, really. That was the line he remembered best from that movie, the only thing that he could honestly say he took from it and kept it close to his heart for the rest of his life.

The greatest trick that Ron Weasley ever pulled was convincing the world that he was dead.

He truly liked the sound of that. Because being dead meant he didn't have to face up to his past. It also meant that he didn't have to face an uncertain future, or a future behind locked doors either. No, instead he was now James Gregory MacArthur, a good Scotsman and a better Potions Master. Not an entirely inspired Potions Master (as you would never find him trying to figure out new potions just for fun), but it got him where he needed to go. No one ever connected the cranky potion's 'master' to Ronald Weasley, and why should they? Not only did most people believe him dead, but back in his time during Hogwarts he had been abysmal in potions - Snape had been constantly on his back to try to get him to get better. Not that it worked, of course. No, the only thing that made him get better at potions was when his life was actually threatened if he didn't make them right. That made him a whole lot better real quick!

It was also that working on potions, and only potions, for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week tended to do that to a man. If nothing else, you'd get better through sheer repetition and practice of the potion. It had taken him many years to get to the level that he was currently at, and that was partially because of sheer stubbornness on his part, his unwillingness to learn. That was quickly beaten out of him, however, and then it just became a matter of not really having any ambition or any sort of skill at it. But he eventually learned, even learned enough to be called a Potion's Master within his own right, and wasn't that a laugh? He knew Snape would die of the shock if he ever found out.

So he lived alone and quite well on the island of Hoy, in the small Scotland city of Stromness. It was a charming little town, and a place where wizards and Muggles lived on together without much hassle. Oh, there were times when the wizards felt repressed by the ignorant Muggles and times when Muggles were sure the wizards were poisoning the water or what have you, but it all blew over quickly enough and for the most part the two got along fine by ignoring one another. He managed to set up a potion's shop that doubled as an herb shop (needed ingredients for his potions mostly) and eked out a living quietly by being grumpy yet helpful to those who wandered in. He wasn�t the most loved person in this town, but neither was he the most hated. No, he was safely mediocre in the people�s minds. Funny how something that he tried so hard not to be during his time at Hogwarts, he was actively pursuing now.

Since he was originally captured to work on potions (something he had never understood, even to this day) for Voldemort, almost everything that he learned had to do with harming another living being. Poisons, mind altering drugs, killing potions, you name it, he could make it. He never learned the antidotes to the potions that he created, even to this day. He found that he neither had the time nor the inclination to learn such trivial things, when he could work on healing potions instead.

Now, obviously, it hadn't originally been his specialty to do healing potions, so he had to learn those by scratch once the wounded started flooding in during the war. He wasn't at that long before the Master's prison was raided and they were all transferred to the 'side of good' where they were treated about the same and given the same sort of tasks that they had had under the master - making potions to kill other people. So, all in all they didn�t learn much in the way of healing, just in the way of killing. The prisoners had gotten lucky when Voldemort's forces attacked their new prison in an attempt to get them back (however unwillingly, they were essential to the war for both sides), and they were accidentally freed. Few had gotten away, but he managed to, something he thanked God for everyday.

Normally, he wouldn�t have thought much of it, as the young woman he employed to man the register was available to help anyone who happened to wander in. He couldn�t explain it, but when he heard that bell, a shiver ran down his spine � something big was going to happen. Somehow, he just knew that his life was going to be thrown upside down, and everything would change. He just hoped that in the end he wouldn�t be dead or locked up again.

Abandoning the potion he was working on, he strode out into the front of his little shop, Often trailing behind. Lavinia glanced up from her book, wary at his presence in her domain. Ron didn�t often make visits to the front of the shop when he wasn�t asked for specifically, mostly because the two couldn�t stand each other unless they were pissed beyond all recognition. If Lavinia didn�t practically run the whole store, he probably would have fired her long ago. She made it possible for him to sneak away and wander the island without any guilt, Often trailing behind faithfully.

The person he found standing somewhat diffidently in his doorway was the last person he expected to see ever. Then was struck by the thought that he was suddenly exceedingly grateful he didn�t look anything like what he used to back in his years at Hogwarts. For in his doorway stood Severus Snape Potions Master extraordinaire and all around asshole.

He hadn�t changed much in the interim that they had last seen each other. His hair was still greasy, his skin was still sallow. And yet, Snape in some way looked younger, healthier. Perhaps it was the fact that he was no longer a hunted man, in fact, he was a hero. Or, as Ron would later find out, it could be gratitude that he wouldn�t be teaching incompetent young students who seemed hell bent on destroying his lab anymore.

At the moment, however, Ron couldn�t imagine what would bring his cantankerous old professor to his shop. In his mind he was imagining all sorts of horrors, and making a quick list of everything he would take with him should he have to leave. As he ran over his lists in his head the only things that he thought of taking were some clothes and his loveable mutt, Often.

A/N: The next paragraph was written by a friend when she read it. I keep it in because it amuses me very muchly.

Often growled at the hawk-faced appearance of Snape, hackles rising. Then he leapt through the air. He mauled Snape. Often killed Snape! Often killed Snape! Good Often!

02/08/2006
by heather h.

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