Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.
Author's Note: Set after book five, actually, I guess it could be after six, too. So...you pick. Post-hogwarts.
As He Lay Dying
"As he lay dying, this is what he remembers."
If Ron had heard Hermione right, he only had three minutes before the spell disintegrated his heart and arteries to ash.
As he lay dying upon the dewy grass of the battlefield, the mist of the early morning still grey with the arrival of the first beams of dawn, Ron realized he was breathing his last moments.
He was sprawled out on the field, his wand still held limply in his hand as he watched the light, foggy sky above him. Shouts and screeches and the burning of magic upon the air as spells flew about the field dwindled down until he could barely recognize the sounds as background noise, his ears filled with his shallow, rapid breathing.
They had gone into this battle knowing that every shred of hope they had rested on this one victory, this one chance that could turn the tide. At some point in the fray he had separated from Harry and Hermione, running and dodging and charging at whoever he could, whizzing spells out in all directions. There were brief moments in which he would catch the sight of a comrade down, but they had prepared for this, they had trained themselves to focus. To tear everything from their minds but tactics and maneuvers and quick reflexes.
He had tried. He honestly tried. And it worked for a while, before he realized he had lost sight of Harry and Hermione, and that more Order members were dropping to the ground than Death Eaters, and that it was Ginny's scream he heard somewhere in the skirmish.
That was all it took for some nondescript, unmarked Death Eater to throw a devastating curse at him and shout in triumph that he had killed Ronald Weaseley.
The Death Eater was gone shortly after Ron's knees hit the floor and his body dropped to lay limp upon the ground. There was a moment when Ron thought he heard a scream of anguish answer the thud of his form as it hit the grass below him. After that, it was dim awareness of his surroundings. He saw men and women still dashing around frantically, wands firing light and smoke as spells sprinted for their targets, and then the Death Eaters as they answered with dodges and counter-spells of their own.
No one seemed to notice Ronald Weaseley dying upon the wet grass of that battlefield.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember what Hermione had told him about this particular spell.
"It's one of the more obscure dark arts spells that are still in existence, so I highly doubt that anyone on that field tomorrow will have it mastered, but regardless, I need you to be prepared Ron. You need to know what you may face."
Her words seemed foreign to him now, but he tried to concentrate, school his breathing into deeper, steadier breaths.
"Once it hits the body, the magic fuses with your bloodstream and begins to infiltrate your organs. It needs to take a full trip through your arteries to start working, but once it does, which is only a matter of minutes, possibly three or four, it reverses the charges of your atoms, which will cause them to self-destruct. The magic then changes the molecular make-up of your cells to that of ash, so that your blood literally disintegrates within your body and your brain can no longer receive the blood-input it needs to function. As the magic has invaded all your blood cells, it is able to travel to all chambers of your heart which in turn is also molecularly redesigned and collapses."
Well, at least it wasn't painful, just slow, and odd feeling, like being turned inside out.
"Blimey, Hermione," he remembers saying, "Who even came up with that bloody spell? You know what, don't answer that. I just need to watch out for it, right? Easy-peasy."
He had laughed after that. He had laughed.
Ron realizes that he only has about a minute left and he tries to focus his hearing on the battle, see if he can pick out anyone's voice to see who's still alive and who still stands a chance. But he can't hear anybody's voice, just vague, dim shouts and curses and scuffles. He strains his ears harder.
And suddenly he's back at Ottery St. Catchpole, the Burrow leaning precariously over the hill far behind him. He's at the lake a few miles away from home and Harry and Hermione are with him.
He doesn't remember what summer this is. He doesn't even remember how they had gotten there. But there they sat, along the wooden pier stretched out over the edge of the lake, their legs dangling over the dock's edge. He had Hermione to his left and Harry to his right. They were all leaning back, their palms pressed against the wood to support them. Hermione was wearing some sort of smart blue swimsuit, and Harry had fairly worn deep green trunks on.
Ron also doesn't remember what he's wearing, just that it's some kind of swimming trunks. It's a little after noon he knows, but he doesn't remember how he knows that either.
He sees that Hermione's hair is still fairly damp, and laughs at how it seems to frizz out more now than ever. She scowls at him, and that only makes Ron laugh harder at her, and even cracks a muffled snicker from Harry.
"Hey," Harry suddenly says, "How come we never came to this lake before?"
Hermione stops glaring at Ron and he in turn manages to stop snorting.
Ron looks out over at the lake, the hot summer sun beating a bright reflection into the waters and he shields his eyes from the glare. He shrugs. "Dunno. I guess 'cause I was always afraid Ginny would secretly follow us and it wouldn't be our thing anymore."
Hermione closes her eyes against the sun and let it's orange warmth glide across her skin. "Ginny would not follow us. She respects our privacy too much to do that."
Harry and Ron turn to her, eyebrows raised. She peeks open one eye to look at them, and when she sees their incredulous faces, smirks slightly, answering, "Well, alright, maybe she doesn't, but still, we should have come here ages ago."
Harry leans farther back against his palms. "I agree."
"Mm-hmm," was all Ron manages to come up with as he too closes his eyes to the sun and feels it warm his skin.
There was a moment in which they all lounged there silently, at ease with the calm waters before them and the open, distant sky around them, holding a sun within it's grasp that illuminated far below it's place in the clouds. Ron was hesitant to disrupt it.
But then, there was a subtle shifting to his left, and he opens one eye to peer at Hermione, swinging her legs nervously, her eyes upon the water below them. Before he could ask her anything, she was speaking.
"Are you content?"
Ron saw Harry lean forward a bit next to him so he could peer at Hermione quizzically.
She looks up at them and blinks, seeming to come out of some fog she was in. "I mean…right here. Right now…With just us. Are you happy?" She was looking between Ron and Harry.
Ron cracks a smile and cocks his head to look at her. "Yeah, Hermione." He looks at Harry and then back to her. "Yeah, I'm happy. Right here. With you two."
And there wasn't even anything he had to read into that. There wasn't some sentimental psycho-babble that he had to analyze and rectify. He was happy.
And it wasn't about being away from school. And it wasn't about being away from Voldemort. And it wasn't about being away from everything else. It was just there. Being there. With them. With Harry and Hermione. Being on that dock and listening to them breathe.
Content.
From beside him, Ron hears Harry speak. "I am."
Harry lets out a breath, raises his face to the sky, closes his eyes and smiles. "I am, I am."
The breath expelled on those words, the steady, slow rhythm as they seemed to chant inside his head, a way to prove he felt alive. There was music in those words.
Hermione beams.
And as Ron lay dying on that grass, on that battlefield, on that misty morning, he didn't know how he remembered that time from so long ago, or how he had ever lost the memory. He wondered how it had returned to him now, to release itself upon him like a gasp from cold water.
And as he registered the dimming of the sun, and the silence of the air, and the vague image of a figure dropping before him, he felt his blood turning quickly.
As the ash filled his veins, those words still echoed their way through his brain and into his words, washing him away in clear waters and bright sun. And he heard music.
"I am, I am, I am…"