Sunlight's bright through the windows here. Dust on the wooden desks of the Aurors--unused, most of them, because no one here thinks the quill mightier than the wand. Stand. Walls cracked, Ministry walls yellowed with age--not the smooth cream white of the walls he'd known before. The carpets under his shoes now mangy and torn, not the velvet green that had crushed so deliciously beneath his knees. Kneel. The noisy flitting of letters overhead; the laughter of young Aurors-in-training, the terse commands of the senior ones. Suck. Of course, none of this bustle seems strange to Ron. Why should it? He'd worked here for three years, after all. As Auror-in-Command under Shacklebolt. Before... before...

'Weasley, take a look at Nott's file, would you?' Shacklebolt again, voice deep, eyes watchful.

So Ron grins--as he always does--and takes the sheaf of parchment from Shacklebolt's hands, as he always does. Manages to flirt with Tonks when she walks past him to join them in Kingsley's office--because he's fine, of course he's fine, and he cares nothing about where he's been before.

Tonks only flips him the finger, as usual, and the younger Aurors outside seem amazed at it. They all look up at Ron--literally speaking, because he's taller than everyone here, with the exception of Shacklebolt--and they all look up to him too, because he's the War Hero, after all, the one who survived six months in a Death Eater stronghold before his rescue. Funny; now that Ron has fame, he realizes why Harry had hated having it so much. Except that Harry had deserved his fame, and Ron doesn't deserve his.

He doesn't deserve any fame for getting fucked for six months.

For enjoying it.

No one knows, of course, how Ron had survived. He hasn't told them anything but acceptable lies. No one would think it of him--their tall, strapping Auror-in-Command--their Gryffindor, the one who'd nearly lost his life protecting Harry Potter. No one would think him capable of what he's done--at first under Imperius, and then without--with the taste of absinthe and come in his mouth, the feel of silk under his rough, undeserving fingers--with a cock sliding in and out of him in slick, even strokes, with pale hair cascading across his trembling back, smoother than the silk beneath.

No.

He hands Nott's file back to Shacklebolt, who looks up in surprise.

'Give me Malfoy's file,' he says calmly. 'Lucius Malfoy.'

Shacklebolt's eyes narrow--and his earring glints in the sunlight, like a knife. 'Why would you want his case, Weasley?'

I've got a score to settle. I want to fuck him again. I want him to fuck me. I don't know what to do when he's not fucking me. I want to kill him claw his face until it tears fuck him kill him kill him kill him. 'He owes me,' Ron says. He owned me. 'And I think I know how to make him pay.'