[HP FIC] "Kamikaze"

Title: Kamikaze
By: naatz
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/character: Main character - Ron. Pairing: gen, but if you squint, Ron/Hermione or Ron/Harry. If you really squint, Ron/Snape.
Warnings: Off-screen character death
Length: ~1,900 words
Summary: Stopping a war in the middle isn't easy when one of the sides isn't as enthusiastic as the other. Ron-centric.
Disclaimer: Belongs to JKR and co..
Beta: sesshiyuki, unrequitedangst {for some scenes}, and medawyn {who just went and noted random problems while reading. Yay!}. Thank you!
A/N: Gut reaction after studying some upsetting history. This has been sitting finished on my HD ever since April.

Fic's commentary: Here.

---

The remote field made the perfect place to meet. There was hardly any risk of people who were uninvolved walking into this exchange.

From one side of it, Ron stared straight ahead to the other. He was painfully aware of the two people behind him, looking at him with eyes that burnt holes into his back.

On the other side of the field there were Snape and two other Death Eaters. They all wore black robes that snapped back and forth along with the wind. Snape was the only one who wore no mask. Ron wasn't sure he'd be able to recognise Snape if he'd worn his own Death Eater mask.

Snape was studying him. Ron inclined his head in recognition, and perhaps a shred of respect.

Then one of the Death Eaters shouted, "It is time!"

Ron turned around and grinned nervously at his friends. He couldn't see their facial expressions and for that he was glad. Who'd know that adopting masks from the Death Eaters could be so useful, even though Harry and Hermione's were black instead of white, creating a sick parody to the Death Eaters'.

He told them, "Bye." His voice sounded hollow in his ears. Before they could reply, he squared his shoulders and turned back, meeting Snape's gaze.

Snape's thin lips twisted in a smile.

Too late, Ron remembered that Snape could use Legilimency. His heart skipped a beat.

Then, Snape began walking forward as if nothing had happened. After a short pause, Ron also moved to the other side in small, measured steps.

They both stopped in front of one another. Ron allowed his eyes to meet Snape's freely, searching. Wondering.

Surprising Ron, Snape said, "You fought well."

Ron nodded. "So did you."

Snape offered his hand, and Ron shook it. It felt warn and firm under Ron's skin, slightly dry and callused. It could've been any man's hand. It was Snape's.

"Farewell," said Snape once they let go of each other.

Swallowing with difficulty, Ron said with a firmness he did not feel, "See you."

They parted with no other words uttered between them. All that had to be told has already been, if only by doing what was expected. Snape was expected to go to Harry and Hermione, two of the people that Ron loved the most in the world. Ron was expected to go to the Death Eaters, and that was what he did.


o0o


Hermione had refused to leave him and Harry ignorant of Muggle warfare and war-history.

Wars only rarely made sense, she claimed. They tended to begin boiling somewhere below the surface until the pressure couldn't be handled any longer, and then burst over the smallest matters.

Once, rebellious Japanese soldiers had blown up their own railway in China and then blamed the Chinese. They took action and conquered the district, soon forcing their own government to accept it despite its reluctance.

Wars only rarely made sense when they began. It was when they were underway that you had to extract any piece of information and use every tool you had. You had to think. You had to study. You had to fight.

Once, a German dictator put willing, patriotic children at the frontlines in a war Hermione called World War one. Ron hadn't been aware that there was a first world war.

Fighting wasn't Ron's job. Neither was studying. Ron's part in this war was to think, assign people to study, and plan the battles. Ron was for strategy, not combat or information. A boy-strategist, just like Harry was a boy-soldier and Hermione a girl-academic.

During one of their war-room meetings, Hermione, ever the logical one, had tried reasoning with him. She had a frown plastered on her face. "We're not losing," she said.

Ron, standing and leaning on the room's table with both his hands, had hissed, "But we aren't winning, either!"

"Neither are they!"

That wasn't what fighting was about. You fought to win and not to lose. You fought in order to exact revenge or gain some sort of profit. You didn't fight in order to find yourself tied with the other side.

It was time that the children of the Wizarding World took a stance, because adults didn't seem to be fighting well.

So it was Harry who would be the saviour and Ron who would be the strategist, and Hermione who would be the one who stopped them from making stupid mistakes.

"We need to win," Ron had insisted, his voice rising. "We need to crush them so completely that they won't rise again!"

Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance nervously. Ron wondered what it was with Muggle-raised Wizardry folk that made them resent the word 'crushing' as much as they did.

"And how do we do that?" Harry finally intervened.

Ron plopped down into his comfortable chair and admitted, "I haven't thought that far yet."

Because, prior to planning, he needed permission to plan. Now that he had it, he could do whatever he wanted.


o0o


It had been Ron's desk that was used to studying of the Death Eater's letter. Hermione had pulled an extra chair close and immediately took control over the situation.

"This can't be real," she told him, incredulous. "They're asking to negotiate so we can reach some sort of understanding. I don't think they'd ever do that."

But Hermione wasn't thinking right. The offer was real and sincere, but she thought about how it couldn't be happening more than how to deal with it now that it had.

Aside from being real and sincere, it was also Ron's chance to secure a victory to their side. Without thinking he blurted, "I've got an idea."

Hermione looked at him, her eyebrows raised.

Ron shook his head and then realised what he'd been thinking. He averted his face away. Hermione went back to the letter.


o0o


Ron asked Harry, "You remember what you should do, right?" He couldn't stop fidgetting with his wand under the desk, hidden from Harry's eyes. He couldn't stop twirling it.

Harry nodded, his face pale and drawn. "I don't think we should do that."

"We do," insisted Ron, sitting straight and stopping to twirl the bloody wand. "Just -- don't tell Hermione yet. She'll flip."

"I'm not that far gone from that," Harry pointed out dryly.

"Yeah, but you're Harry. You know what has to be done."

"I don't want to do it. There has got to be another way."

Ron sighed. "There isn't. Tell me what you'll be doing."

"I'm not stupid," snapped Harry. "We take Snape, we get information out of him, we kill him."


o0o


Behind him, Snape is walking to two of the people that Ron loves most in the world. Ron restrains the urge to look back for as long as he can, but once he reaches the Death Eaters he cannot stand it any longer and gives in.

One of the black-masked people trains his eyes on Snape. Harry.

The other black-masked person trains hers on Ron. Hermione.

Ron smiles, encouraging.

The only reaction he notices is how Hermione's hands clench tightly at her side.

Snape turns back to look at Ron and the accompanying Death Eaters. His gaze meets Ron's over the stretch of land. For a time, neither of them moves, but the understanding that they must soon arrives.

They break their silent communication with difficulty, because they both know they'll never meet each other again.


o0o


The only reason Ron allows this to happen is because he knows how it will play out:

Snape will be led by Harry and Hermione to the Order's headquarters. There, he shall be tortured for information and then killed, once he stops being useful.


o0o


Ron is taken to the Death Eaters' -- place. He had never known where their headquarters was, and not just because they frequently changed location as a matter of course. He doesn't know whether this place is temporary or not. Whether it's their headquarters or not.

He never will know. Hermione might, after today, but Ron will never know the name of this place. This, he knows.

The Death Eaters lead him to a cell, dark and dank, but he isn't abused in any way. They think they'll need him later for negotiation, once they hear about Snape's well-being. Ron simply sits where he stands and then hears the door being shut.

In the dark, his heart hammers terrifyingly fast. His palms are so sweaty that even though he wipes them on his clothes, they remain damp. He reckons he can hear a clock ticking, in the distance. He wishes he could sleep, but he can't.

At long last, there is a light. The door has been opened. Ron looks up.

He sees the tip of a wand.


o0o


Once, in a rare flash of brilliance, Harry had said that the Death Eaters would be nothing without Snape, who had become one of the highest-ranked Death Eaters since Dumbledore's death.

That had given Ron the idea.

While explaining his plan, he said, twisting Hermione's history lessons, "A plane for a ship, eh?"

Harry stiffened. Ron pushed on, because really, Harry needed to get used to the idea.

"A strategist for another."

"Ron--" warned Harry.

"Harry," Ron interrupted him. "I've got to do this. That's the only way the war will end with us winning."

Harry shook his head vehemently and said, "We can negotiate, we can win some other way! You don't have to do this!"

"If we get Snape, we can get his Death Eaters."

Harry wet his lips.

Ron stepped forward and caught his best friend's shoulders, shaking them forcefully. "Listen to me. It's better if only one person dies instead of many others."

"I don't want you to die," whispered Harry.

Ron's throat constricted. He let go of Harry quickly and turned back to seem busy with something -- he didn't know what. "If we want to win, I have to." He was proud that his voice didn't crack.


o0o


There is silence for a moment while Ron sits frozen on the ground, but then his jailor speaks in a seething hiss, muffled by the mask, "Snape's dead."

Rom pales even though he knew what would be said. He knows what Snape's death means, because he'd signed on the terms himself, fully aware of what they meant and what breaking them would mean.

"According to our people-exchange agreement, we're allowed to kill you for that."

Ron closes his eyes, and waits.


o0o


The wind blew over the field, enveloping the people who stood there, waiting for the other side to make the first move.

"Farewell," Snape had said, and Ron replied, "See you."

Their gazes locked, and that meant that Snape knew, yet still went along with everything. Ron didn't know why. All he cared about was that Snape knew.

Hermione had taught Ron some Muggle history, so he knew that back in World War Two, the Japanese had launched a desperate method of attack, the Kamikaze: a divine wind, godly and powerful enough to end any war, or so they hoped. Pilots flew in big, clumsy metal machines, and crashed themselves into unsuspecting ships. One airplane for one ship.

One strategist for another.

If Ron wanted Snape gone, then he had to remove himself as well.

"See you," he had told Snape after shaking hands.

He very well might.


End.

---

|Meduza|