Hello dear readers! A couple weeks ago, JKR came out saying that she nearly killed Ron. As an adamant Ron/Hermione fan (the ship was my gateway drug to Fanfiction so to say) I was shocked and appalled and was in as rough a shape as when I read Fred's death. So my friends (who are big Potterheads like me) started talking about what would've been the reaction if Ron had died. How it would have happened, how the remaining trio would take it—etc. etc.
So, here's a brief (literally, two hours on the train between my aunts and my university dorm's brief) tale of how I would imagine Ron's death. Mind you, this is a fanfiction. A ghastly depressing Fanfic that should only be approached with Chocolate and other comfort fods, but a fanfic nonetheless. Please, no howlers.
If Ron had died...
"Look Harry, they're brains! Accio Brains" Ron started, waving his wand as a sudden onslaught of brains headed towards him. Harry had half supposed that these brains would rise out of their tanks and then fall down at Ron's feet. But that wasn't happening. Rather than hitting the floor tentacles seemed to rise up from them as they wrapped themselves around Ron's arms and legs. Twisting, violently constricting his movements. "Harry-Harry!" His friend started crying out. His carefree nature was gone and replaced with a sense of genuine fear. What ever had distracted his mind in the other room had left him. Uranus was no longer occupying his thoughts. Ron was fully aware of his senses, and that he was in danger.
"Harry-get em off-get them off me-" he tried, wrestling for the wand that was tucked in his pocket. "Diffindo!" Harry cried at one of the brains, "Come on Neville-some help-" Harry motioned as Neville wiped away the blood from his nose and echoed Harry's incantation.
Ginny looked up from where Luna was mending her ankle. "Harry-what's wrong with Ron? Ron-" Harry couldn't reply "Luna get her out of here," he ordered. GInny gave him a look and a few words of defiance, but Luna gave a pale look at Ron and whisked her friend away, mumbling about Muggwuggs or something along those lines. There didn't seem to be time for replying. Ron was wiggling around trying to swat back the brains moving up his arms. Each movement he weaker than the ones before.
"Its blot working 'Arry," Neville blubblered. Harry didn't need the words verbalized. Why had Hermione been injured, she would've known what to do. She was going to kill him if something happened to their best friend, but there was no time to worry about that. He had to get the brains off Ron. They were wrapping themselves deeper into Ron's skin, his cries starting to get louder and more vulgar. And then he started screaming.
"No!" Ron cried, his upper body twitching violently. "She didn't—take me—"his breath became shorter, his eyes rolling in the back of his head. "Ron hold still," Harry cried, dropping his wand as he tried to remove the brains himself, taking swats and trying to remove they're vine like grasp.
"Don't touch them Harry," Neville started, "They'll get you-"
"They're killing him Neville, we've got to try-"
"Kill me-I'll never tell-" Ron's eyes grew wide like saucers.
Neville took up a stone and started whacking the brains like Harry had started doing, but he shook his head in defeat. "'Arry, I dink the brains-dheir memories are going to him. 'dheir effecting him."
"But what does that even mean, come on Neville, try diffindo again," This couldn't be happening. They had come together fighting, trying to save Sirius. If any of the rescue party was allowed to die, Harry had always assumed it would be him. But no, he couldn't lose Sirius and Ron. If he had to choose between the two of them, he would choose his best friend. Harry loved Sirius, and the connection he was between Harry and his father, but Ron—Ron was his very best friend, his first connection with Hogwarts and the Wizarding World...to lose Ron...
"Har-Harry," Ron struggled; his throat now covered the brains ties. "Hermi-, I 'ove -Er-mion-ee"
"She's fine Ron," Harry said, tears filling from the corners of his eyes as he spoke the lie, "She's on her way, she'll know how to get these off, just keep-"
But there was no more Harry could say, nothing he could do for Ron. His face was eschewed in a painful relax only the dead could hold. his eyes now rolled back, his face a shade of suffocation's blue.
"No-" Harry struggled, looking at his friend. The brains finally releasing their grasps, showing the deep cuts up his freckled, limp limbs, his friends fingers twisted in their death grasp as an echo of their former struggle.
Harry cleared the brains from Ron's neck- "Ron-breath. I need you to breath."
"He's gone 'Arry," Neville said in sadness, "He's gone-"
No! The shock bellowed from Harry's chest. He couldn't be dead. Madam Pomfery could fix him. She'd resuscitated him his first year with the stone. She could save Ron. If anything he was passed out, maybe they'd need to take him to St. Mungos...but there was no way the skin growing cold would never again flush when Hermione praised him, or Draco harassed him.
"Reviverate!" Harry bellowed, pointing his wand at Ron's chest. "Reviverate! Reviverate!" a shock of blue light went to the chest, but nothing happened except the lifeless head rolling to the shoulder and the body cavity being lifted from the ground before falling again. "Reviverate! Reviverate!"
Neville took Harry by his shoulder and lifted him up, carrying him towards the door "'Arry, we need to go-the Death Eaters-"
But Harry could hear Neville's warning. All he could see was the body of his best friend, spread eagle across the floor, his mind flashing back to the night in Grimwauld place when he had seen Mrs. Weasley's boggart. His lungs seemed vacuumed of air, his knees longed to collapse as the cries of Mrs. Weasley echoed in his ears. "It's my fault, it's all my fault..."
"No its not," Neville argued, trying to lift Harry through a doorframe and towards the atrium.
"It was a trap-" Harry cried, A trap that cost his Best Friend, and who knew who else would become victims of this ill conceived evening. "It's all my fault…"
((*))
"When are they going to tell her?" a voice grumbled next to Hermione's bed. She new that voice, she could have recognized it anywhere. But what she couldn't recognize was that painful tint to it. The bitter edge and the heavy load in it. She kept her eyes closed. She could've opened them, but they seemed heavy, almost like the aching in the words Fred Weasley had just said.
"Freddie it's a miracle she survived," George muttered, "You heard McGonagall, she doesn't get to know a thing till the people from St. Mungos say she's stable."
"So they're going to stabilize her before they make her worse," the bitter edge cut the air again, "That makes all the sense in the world. Hermione's strong, but she's not that strong George-this is going to destroy her."
Hermione's mind flew back to what memories she had leading up to this place. She had been to the Ministry. They had traveled from Hogwarts to London on Threstals to save Sirius. She had gotten separated from Ron, Luna and Ginny and ran with Harry and Neville. There was a Death Eater who was about to jinx Harry when she dueled him instead. She had almost been out of the woods, and then she remembered passing out as he cast a jinx in his silent state. What had happened between the past and the present?
There had to be a death, Hermione reasoned. Or a situation that left someone in critical, probably fatal condition. It was only logical. In the medical field, you never told a patient that their loved ones had died while they themselves were healing. Hermione's uncle was a surgeon in York, she couldn't remember how many times she had been to a family get together and he tell of patients who lost the will to live after hearing a loved one didn't make it. But who had it been?
It had to have been someone who had been close to both her and the twins. That alarmed her. She could assume Luna was alive. Although they had all spent time together in the DA, Hermione wasn't under the impression that either Fred or George would be this bitter at learning of Luna's death. They would have been sad, they would have desired vengeance for the death of the girl that believed in Nargles and Thumble-Whatsits, but they would not have been so upset, so not Fred or George.
Perhaps they had a soft spot for Neville, but Neville ranked only a little higher than Luna for the twins. House loyalty ran deep. Hermione knew it was awful, but she almost wished it was Neville or Luna that had been involved in some dangerous accident that left them fighting for their lives. Because if anything had happened to any of the other three in the rescue party, Hermione knew that would shatter her.
Harry, Ginny or Ron. Two Weasley siblings and one who was practically seen as the eighth Weasley. She knew if Harry had died, they probably would not have been able to get her and the others out of the Ministry. If Harry had died, there would be more commotion in the Hospital Wing, more open crying in the corridors. If Harry had died it would be more obvious . . .
It had to be a Weasley. Ginny's death would have the two brother bitter, depressed even, vying for vengeance. But why would they be sitting by her bed. Just as if Ron had-if something had happened to Ron—they would be with their family. With Mrs. Weasley. Comforting her, telling her that it would be ok, that vengeance would occur. A heavy feeling, like a Quaffle, sat on her stomach. It was unsettling, she felt as though any happy thought she could have once held was quickly vanishing from her memory.
No—Harry wouldn't have let this happened. Harry wouldn't have brought them into a situation if he knew this was a probable outcome. Harry would not have just stood idly by as his one friend was unconscious and his other friend near dead or dying. Harry wouldn't have let Ron die….He couldn't have….
"Has—Has Mum and Dad gotten here yet?" Fred asked, his voice now a bit softer than before. She refused to open her eyes, they all had to be a dream, there was no logical, no possible way that this had happened. This was a nightmare. One of her worst.
"McGonagall's with them now, but Mum already knew," George echoed, a faint laugh audible in his voice, "That bloody clock-she was at the school a good hour before they all got back..."
"Has Harry said anything-do we know any more than what Longbottom told them?" Fred asked, "Surely there was something more, some detail that could help the Healers know-"
"Fred, he's gone. There's no detail that can bring him back," his twin sounded; Hermione could feel a warm wet teardrop hit her hand and then she felt her own heart breaking. Her eyes flew open and she looked at the two twins sitting at her bedside, Fred's hand in her own and George at the foot of her bed.
"Where's Ron?" she asked, her voice groggy, the same bitter edge now in her words. Her eyes darted from Fred to George, and then Fred again, "Tell me Fred, where's Ron?"
His face was pained and his voice even heavier than before, "Hermione-"
"Ron!" Hermione called out, turning to the other beds in the infirmary. She could see what must be Luna's limp golden locks, Ginny who had a twisted expression in sleep, but she couldn't see the boy who was her greatest supporter and oft times most critical critic. She couldn't seen those freckles that tended to pop out in the infirmary sheets, that red matted hair—
She got out of bed and started running the length of the room looking from bed to bed for that boy. When she finally reached the end of the room to the bed that had dividers blocking the student from sight.
George had caught up with her and placed a firm grip on her shoulder, "Hermione, you aren't allowed to see him yet till he's better, he looks even more ghastly than you do at the moment."
"George," Fred started disapprovingly as Hermione broke free of his grasp and parted the dividers. On a bed lay a body that seemed longer than the bed frame itself. Hermione could see from the ankles what looked to have been deep welting cuts in the skin. A white sheet covered the body, but it couldn't reach past the head, and a mop of ginger curls lay stationary on the infirmary pillow.
No—she could never, would never forgive Harry—never.
"Ron? RON!"
All Hermione could feel was one of the twin's catching her after her knees gave out. The heavy quaffle replaced with what seemed like a Bludger to the heart. Ron...Ron...
((*))
Ron woke up with a start, his eyes turning to his surroundings. He was lying on a soft bed with butter cream colored sheets, a thick comforter mopping up the sweat that drenched his body. He looked at his arms to see the now fading welt that had burned during the night. Shaking his head, he sat up from the bed and looked at his surroundings. On the walls, painted an even softer yellow, he saw framed photographs litter the walls. A little girl holding roses as she grinned in Hermione's arms, One of him and Harry on the Quidditch pitch. What looked like a wedding picture, and another picture with him and Hermione holding a redheaded baby. The two of them looking at each other with a looking that could only be expressed through secret kisses.
On his night table, there was a book accumulating dust, one Hermione had probably assigned him to read, and a final picture held in a frame made of popsicle sticks with macaroni edging. Two little redhead imps he loved, one sitting snuggly in his lap while the other helped him blow out his birthday candles…
A soft knock jarred him from the picture. Carrying a basket full of clean laundry Hermione entered the room and noticed his confusion. "Are you alright Ron?" she asked, setting down the basket and casting a concerned look at her Husband, "You didn't sleep well last night—I felt like it was our Seventh Year all over again and we were sleeping in a forest floor…"
"Seventh Year—"He said absent mindedly, as though trying to remind himself he had lifted to experience his Seventh Year. "I was just a dream—bad dream that's all."
Hermione's eyebrows knitted together as she crossed the room and joined her husband on the bed, "Was it the brains again?"
"You could say that," Ron said weakly, looking at his wife as though he realized how close he had come to loosing this moment and every other moment and memory that filled the walls of the room.
"Memories do cause greater harm that jinxes and curses," she said, her fingers stroking the welts that never seemed to fade amongst the freckles. "But that doesn't mean the bad memories must out weigh the good ones" she sighed as she kissed the welt on his shoulder.
A loud crash from down stairs and what sounded like the howl of a cat was quickly accompanied by the sounds of little feet pounding up the stairs and down the hall.
"Damn it, I just finished cleaning the kitchen," Hermione mumbled, leaning her head in his shoulder.
"Mummy, Daddy, Hugo sent a fanged Frisbee after Crookshanks!" a little girl of five with long wavy hair cried, pointing at her brother who gave a deviant "No, Rosie did!"
"See Ron, how can any memory out weigh this?" Hermione asked, bending down and picking up the three year old Hugo who was going into great detail on how the Frisbee was Rosie's doing.
Ron sat on his bed with a smile, looking at Hermione and Hugo disappearing down the stairs. The gentle touch of a small hand on his called him back. "Are you alright daddy?" Rosie asked looking up at him with her mother's eyes.
Lifting her up on his shoulders he followed his wife down the stairs, "I'm more than alright Rosie." Her hands tightly wrapped around his head, and the gentle kiss he felt on his crown, as though a second thought he nearly added the two precious words he cherished after every nightmare that had followed him from the Department of Mysteries, I'm alive.
((*))
AN: So really, just some prattle written on a train as I wait for the next part of Dried Lilies to be returned from the Beta. As always, please let me know what you think—good bad and ugly—via review or a personal message.
Also, I just wanted to make it noted how It's Fred who's all concerned about how Hermione is going to take to Ron's death, as according to another one of the internet/pinterest rumors that JKR also flirted with the idea of Hermione and Fred being matched together in the end. While this made me chuckle ( I am a die hard fan of ~omens: look her up on my Fav. Authors page…Hr/F is my dirty little pleasure) I had to draw that in there somehow.
Thank you Jo for not killing Ron.
-KH.