So I was reading the seventh book again...for the third time I think and when I came across the Malfoy manor scene the thought popped in my head to write a little something highlighting what the heck was going on in Ron's mind with regards to Hermione. I own nothing...at all. The great J.K. does...sadly.
He couldn't get the image out of his head. He squinted his eyes tight to the sight, but it was tattooed in his mind and refused to leave him in peace. The trail of crimson trickling down the fair skin of her neck, down to the delicate structure of her collarbone as the cackling monster of a woman held the gleaming blade to his best friend. It seemed like a game to her. The more reaction Ron exhibited following Hermione's heart-wrenching screams, the more enjoyment Bellatrix gained from it, her ebony locks floating more wildly around her sallow face by the minute. He knew that his protesting screams would help nothing, but he felt so helpless. He couldn't reach her, he couldn't pry the woman's bony fingers from their firm grasp at her purple bruised arm, but he could stand there and watch her either.
He would have rather taken her place than have to hear her shouts of pain as she was put under the cruciatus curse. He would have rather suffered the pain first hand than hear, and later see, her writhing in agony on the floor in the room above where he was bound, to imagine how much she was hurting only to know that it was far more pain than he knew he could even fathom. He couldn't take it anymore. He just wanted it to stop, and now even after they had escaped, the memory continued to haunt him.
Even as they landed with a thud against the lawn of the Shell cottage in a heap of bodies, he knew since they left that she was injured far beyond what he had seen from across the room through veil of chaos and fear. He scurried worriedly off of her form as his landed on top of her during their sloppy landing. He feared instantly that his extra weight had exaggerated the damage the death eater had already caused upon her frail fragile frame. He was useless to fight back the tears that had formed at the rims of his blue eyes, turned more electric by the redness of the rest of his face.
She was lying in a near lifeless heap below him. Her chest just barely showed signs that she was breathing; though shallow, he could hear each breath louder than he could see them. Her eyes looked up weakly at him, only half open as if she was trying to squint out the nonexistent sun. Her face had since grown to be painted in shades from yellow-green to deep purple. Her lips were forced into a permanent frown, apart from the occasions she winced in pain from breathing too deeply. All he wanted to go was to take up her crumpled body in his arms, hold her tightly and assure her that everything was going to be alright, but alas, he couldn't. He couldn't if he wanted to be truthful, as he knew she would want him to be. He couldn't if he wanted to keep her fragile ribs in one piece.
He knelt down at her side and held out his arms, badly gouged and scathed just like Hermione, though at this time he couldn't have cared less about his own wounds. He helped her sit up, supporting her fully by the arm that was fully braced at her back. The other, he placed under her knees, failing to realize that his arm had begun to bleed. He carefully hoisted her up into his arms, though she was far lighter than he imagined she would be. It wasn't until then that he had noticed just how much thinner she had begun, living off of terrible tasting mushrooms and occasional stolen eggs. It was like she had been wasting away under his nose and he had been oblivious to it all. Had he known, he would have handed over a portion of his meals to her, as he had needed it far less than she did. The old pants that Hermione had packed for him by accident had felt looser around his waist and his wand was much easier to obtain from his pockets, but they weren't hanging off of them at as much of a degree as Hermione's attire had become.
He cradled her in his arms as he escaped the commotion that still surrounded him on the lawn. He didn't care what was going on around him, he didn't care if he too should have taken it easy for his own health. Nothing else mattered in that moment except for him to get her safely within the house's boundaries. He knew nothing about anatomy, about the medical field. He could diagnose nothing specifically. But he knew that she had lost a large amount of blood and that only a miracle had stopped the gash on her neck. Though death eaters frowned upon her ancestry, Ron wanted no more of her precious blood to be spilled tonight. He knew by the pain in her face that something was wrong because of Hermione's usual strength. Over the years she had gained a high tolerance for pain and the mind set that if she showed otherwise it revealed a weakness that she'd rather the rest of the world not distinguish. He knew his brother, unlike himself, would know what to do. He had more experience with these kinds of accidents and had acquired clever little spells to, hopefully, make her every little pain vanish.
If he could just get her to his brother everything would be okay. He couldn't run there for fear of injuring her far further than she could handle at that point, but having to stay at a steady slow place drove him insane. The house never seemed to come any closer to him, as if it knew how badly he wanted to reach it and took a step backward for each that he took forward. He looked down at her every few steps as if he was looking for some kind of improvement, but every time he did he found that nothing changed from one time to the next. Her eyes remained closed, her lashes pressed gently against her cheek, her body completely limp in his arms. He could see the way she tried her hardest to force her eyes open, curious as usual to what was going on around her, wanting desperately to help herself like she always did. It killed him to think of how bad it had to be for Hermione to forfeit, to give up the fight and leave her fate in the hands of anyone other than her.
As he finally drew closer to the small cottage, he could see his brother, his scarred face looking unscathed through the distance, tread through the doorway on to the rustically fashioned back porch. As soon as Bill had spotted the two, he had forgotten the steps that led to solid ground and sailed off the ledge landing in a sprint directed towards them. Bill was more fit than him, even Ron was willing to admit. He was taller, stronger, and could cover ground far more gracefully than could Ron. Normally he would feel dreadfully jealous of his older brother, but this time it was the farthest thing from his mind.
It seemed as if the older man had caught up with them in a mere matter of seconds and a certain wave of relief broke over Ron as his brother fell in at Ron's side, accompanying the pair at their safer pace rather than his. Ron still kept Hermione safely in his arms, afraid of harming her or wasting time if he was to hand her off to him like some kind of strange relay baton, even though he was sure that in all reality she would have been more sheltered from harm with Bill rather than the accident prone boy that clutched her so dearly to his chest at the moment. He braced himself as he began to scale the three steps that stood as an obstacle in front of him hidden from his eyes by the girl's crumpled body.
He followed his brother into the house. Ron hadn't yet had time to visit the newlywed's house since they had made a narrow escape during their wedding, and therefore knew nothing of which room to take her. Bill headed down a hallway to his right and Ron followed anxiously at his heels and Fleur, who had been sitting peacefully in the living room before they had barged in to her home uninvited, caught up behind all three of them. Bill led the way into the guest room, as Ron had only guessed. He crouched beside the smaller bed and gently positioned Hermione's body upon the still made sheets, slipping his arms out from underneath her so carefully as if she had been a piece of Fleur's flowered fine china. As soon as he had his hand's grasp escape her, his fingers had found themselves tangled in the dirty mess of red locks upon his head for a lack of anyone else on to which they could hang.
"What happened?" Bill questioned in his worried older brother tone of voice in which Ron tried his darnedest to find some kind of comfort. Ron continued to pace the floor at the bedside as Bill and Fleur hovered over their broken visitor.
Ron had paused his rapid fire explanation and nervous footsteps to take up Hermione's beaded bag that still lay at her side on the bed. Hermione watched carefully as he did so; had she been in perfect health, he was sure he would have received some kind of speech about how rude it was to rummage through a girl's handbag, but she instead remained silent. He opened it up, wand in hand, and summoned a small bottle from its depths and handed it over to Bill. "Dittany…" He didn't know too much about it, apart from the fact it had worked wonders on his splinchings. He was unsure of how effective it was on manually given knife wounds like the one Hermione wore upon her neck, but he knew that it couldn't help but to try it.
He would have trusted Bill with his own life, so he left her healing up to him. Despite how much he wanted to be able to fix up all by his own powers, he didn't trust himself enough. It would be his luck that he'd garble one of the words in a spell he had only heard and had never actually used and she'd end up losing all the bones in her arm as had Harry when Lockhart had been too sure of himself. The older Weasley uncorked the small bottle and let what little was left after Ron's last mishap dribble on to the scarlet gouge in her neck. As soon as the liquid met with her damaged porcelain skin the redness fizzled away and a week old looking scar appeared in its place.
Hermione lifted a shaking hand to feel the temporarily raised area of skin that had appeared there and was about to speak when Bill addressed her. "What else hurts?" He asked, pressing his fingers gently against her rib cage hoping to pin point something in the process. He continued and her face winced not.
Her pain was more of a dull throbbing, just got punched in the stomach kind of feeling rather than a sharp stabbing sting, like that of Bella's beloved recently sharpened knife. She didn't know how to describe it to any one else or how to point out its origin as her whole body ached in unison, no one place more so than another. She was about to push herself up in a sitting position when the older man advised her not to do it.
"I think you just need to take it easy for a while. The cruciatus takes a lot out of a person." A frown appeared on her face as she felt his words come out as if he had known such a thing from experience.
A noise from the living room, which had to have been Harry, Luna and the rest of them just reaching the house at a more leisurely pace, prompted Bill to slip out, though unnoticed to see if there was anyone else in need of help as Hermione had been. Ron had been too occupied by his attempts to pull back the bed linens for her while she still lay on top of them. He pulled away those on the side opposite her and returned to her side to keep her from too much of the job for herself. She had been told to stay in bed, to not be moving around, yet she still insisted on helping him as best she was able. A smile finally broke on his face as she wiggled to move the layers of blankets beneath her while still managing to being laying down just as she was told. He found humor in her stubborn nature; she'd wince in agony, but still insist on finishing off the task that had caused it all in the first place. Once the sheets were free from her bottom, he tugged them down from underneath her legs where he could then pull them up and comfortably over her body, enveloping her safely in bed. He knew that she hated the idea of having to stay there, prisoner of a bedroom, but he ambled over across the room to Fleur's extra dining room chair, left in there perhaps because two of them hadn't yet found a use for it, and began dragging it across the small room to the side of her bed as Hermione tried to speak.
Her voice was frail; he had to strain his ears to hear it. "Come here…" She gasped. He left his chair where it was, a few feet where he had meant for it to be. As his steps carried him to her, she motioned to the other side of the bed, feeling too weak to use words.
He sat down at the edge of the mattress on her other side, but she still continued to gesture to that side of the bed. He swung his feet up off the floor and on to the bed as he reclined his head to rest against the pillows that lay adjacent to hers. The bed was small; his feet nearly found themselves hanging off the end and his left side was hovering slightly over the side to make up for the space he had left vacant between them. It was a single bed, meaning meant for only one person, but he wasn't about to argue with her. "Happy?" He didn't need her to speak to know the answer. As he turned his head over to look in her direction, he caught the first smile to be seen on her face in some time. He caressed her cheek between his finger and thumb as he turned on his side, finding that he had more room for his larger frame when positioned as such. "You're okay now…" He spoke softly as he detected tears still residing in her eyes as she looked back at him. "But if you ever scare me like that again…" He laughed, negating the threat he was proposing.
The more he looked at her in this dismantled condition, the more he felt his jaw clench in opposition of the tears that wanted to present themselves. He hated to see the people he loved hurting, in pain that he had no power to take away. He felt more helpless than he would have been had he been broken and disposed of as Bellatrix had done to her. He didn't want to cry in front of her, the one girl that he already expected to be stronger than himself, at least when it came to mind set rather than physical strength. He wanted to be there for her if she needed him, not be too occupied by his own girly blubbering to be any help. He never expected himself to easily fit the hero card anyway, not as Harry had even without trying. He carefully wiped away a tear as it rolled down her cheek heading for a soft landing on her pillow, though he forgot completely about the one that his eye had shed at the same time. "I'm okay…remember?" She piped up in a raspy breath, still humor floating in her voice despite everything.
He quickly wiped away the moisture from his eyes. "Oh…I forgot…" He splashed on a fake smile to appease her, but he found it hard to keep his honesty from showing. "I was just so sure that I was going to lose you back there."
She offered up a weak smile as she tried her best to speak audibly. "Well, I'm not going anywhere now…" He wanted to believe her so badly, but he knew better. He knew how much of their journey still laid ahead of them, how many chances he had for something to go wrong, how many chances he had to lose her for good. He had tried not to think about it since it had first popped into his thoughts after their fortunate escape from the restaurant bombardment and he had found it impossible to forget ever since. All he could hope for now was that the end was near and that when it came, they were side by side, still alive.
She was still watching him intently, even if out of the corner of her eye. "You should be sleeping…getting some rest…getting better…" He scolded, not noticing that she had no intent to listen to him. He could see her roll her eyes before closing them.
No sooner had she, did Harry and Bill burst through the doorway, both taking a moment to raise and eyebrow each at the two and how they had found them both conveniently in the same place before speaking. "Dobby is dead!" Harry shouted getting Hermione's attention as well before the two promptly left.
As Ron jumped out of bed, she tried to follow but was stopped instantly by Ron's words of protest. An annoyed look plagued her face as she settled back down into bed as she was told. She watched as he scurried out the door without her. She had just closed her eyes to the daylight when she heard someone enter her room once again. It was Ron, out of breath, as if he had sprinted outside and back just within the last few seconds, most likely because he had.
He floated over to the bed and bent down towards her. "I'll be back…don't worry." He quickly before he dipped to abandon a light peck upon her lips before he left once again.