Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

WARNINGS: This story will include the following things: foul language, violence, discussion of child abuse, character death, OOC-ness, slash, and a badass Ron who intends to take no prisoners. I reserve the right to add warnings if necessary. If any of these things aren't your cuppa tea, no harm in hitting the back button.

Phoenix Rising

Prologue-

Ron didn't bother trying to be quiet as he entered the room.

"You're going to kill yourself, too, you know," came the soft, dreamy voice from the window. He was lit by the light of the full moon, though his face was dipped in shadows.

"I know," Ron said. "I"m going to do this anyway."

Draco laughed, a light and tinkling sound. "I know." He turned, then, and offered Ron a bittersweet smile. "You don't have to."

"I do."

Draco's head dipped in a shallow nod. "You do." The room fell into darkness as a cloud drifted over the moon, and when the light came back, Draco was standing in front of Ron, close enough to touch. "Shall I oppose you?" he asked.

"I'd probably lose if you did," Ron admitted. "You're more powerful than I am."

Draco hummed softly but said nothing in regards to that. "You really think you can save the world?" he asked instead. There was a gently disbelieving expression on his face.

"I think that it's time that I try," Ron said. "I've stood by for too long. I can't… He can't be allowed to continue. I won't let him continue."

"If you're certain, I suppose I'm not going to be able to stop you." Draco shrugged, spread his arms, and smiled at Ron. "Go on, then. I don't want to know for even the second it would take what it would feel like to live without him."

"I don't want to kill you," Ron said finally. "You could leave, quickly, and be out of range before the backlash starts."

Draco laughed again, but there was no joy in the sound. "I could. But then I would live without him, and living without him is no way of living at all, is it?" He dropped his arms, then, and shifted a bit. "I could attack you, you know. If it would make you feel better. I wouldn't be trying to stop you, because I can't, but I could make it easier."

Ron laughed softly, unwillingly amused. "It doesn't work if you tell me that's what you're doing, you know."

Draco's smile softened. "I know," he said.

"You've been a good friend, Draco. I'm sorry it came to this."

"You've been the best friend that either Harry or myself could have ever wished for. I hope that you are prepared for the path that you're taking," Draco answered.

"I'll be dead soon enough, so I don't imagine that it matters," Ron said.

Draco laughed, and there was something so strange and knowing about that laugh that Ron wondered what Draco knew that he didn't. Other than just about anything about the future, that is. Ron wasn't going to have a future. Not with the decision that he made. But it was the right decision.

He lifted his wand, pointed it at Draco's heart, summoned up his courage, and whispered, "Avada Kedavra." The Killing Curse hit his friend and Draco fell to the ground, all the life gone from him in the blink of an eye.

He heard Harry scream as Draco's body fell, and it took only moments for him to arrive in the room. "What have you done?" Harry snarled, his red eyes burning in his fury.

"What I had to," Ron responded, even as he lifted his wand once more. "What I should have done years ago, but never could."

"He was mine," Harry hissed, advancing angrily on Ron. "He was my Soulmate, and you've gone and killed him! I should… I will… I'll destroy you for this, you filthy little blood traitor!"

"Neither one of us will live long enough for that," Ron said. This wasn't his friend. He had to remember that this wasn't his friend anymore. He didn't know what this was, who this was, or when he'd lost Harry to this thing, but this wasn't Harry.

"I am immortal. I am unkillable! There is nothing you can do to destroy me!" Harry snarled. He was angry, and wasn't thinking, and that made him far less dangerous than he should be.

His grief over Draco's death would make this simple. "Then this shouldn't affect you at all," Ron answered. "Avada Kedavra!"

The spell struck Harry and the Dark Lord's eyes widened before he fell to the ground in a heap. Ron stood there, and had only a breath to wait before Harry's body started to glow, white hot and burning like a star. The glow grew brighter and brighter, and Ron should be running. He knew that he should be running. But why should he run, when he had nothing more to live for?

Magic exploded from Harry's body, white hot and burning and fierce and free and Ron knew only darkness.

The darkness was warm. It was warm in a way that nothing had been warm for Ron since… since Harry had managed it. The warmth soaked into Ron, soothing him, comforting him, revitalizing him. Ron couldn't have said how long he drifted, alone in the dark, when he felt something new. Something strange.

A brush against him, almost solid but not quite. It felt like curiosity, and he smiled. Or would have smiled. He was pretty sure he didn't actually have a physical form here. He couldn't see himself, at any rate, though that could have just been because of the all encompassing darkness.

But Ron didn't mind the darkness. It felt safe, peaceful, and above all else, warm. Ron had never been so warm. Not in the last five decades, ten decades, whenever it had been at any rate, if not longer. When had Harry managed to cast that spell? It didn't matter, he supposed. It was all over. Harry and Draco were dead, and he was dead too. He only hoped that something had survived.

"Nothing much did," a soft voice whispered in his ear, in his head, all around him. There was a small light, now, a pinprick in the limitless expanse of darkness that surrounded him.

Ron supposed he should be sorry that nothing much had survived his last act among the living, but he couldn't find it in himself to be. He'd done what he had to. He should have done it years ago, then maybe the world might have had a chance to recover.

"It wouldn't have," the voice whispered. "The world was doomed to end long before Harry performed that ritual. Freezing time only sped up the process."

Ron shouldn't find that funny, but it seemed ironic that freezing time had only sped things up.

"We are amused too, not just you." The prick of light had grown, now, and it was slowly taking shape. Ron found himself standing in a room, before an unspeakably beautiful person with long hair the color of the universe and wide, glowing black eyes. "Do you know who we are?" the person whispered.

The answer came to Ron and his breath, if the dead even had breath, left him. "Magic," he answered.

"We are Magic," the being confirmed, "and we are here with an option for you. A choice."

"I'm dead. I wasn't aware that I would get many choices about that," Ron said, then regretted it. Sassing Magic could only be a terrible idea.

"You amuse us," the being said, in what was probably meant to be reassuring. It wasn't. "The choice is simple. Do you want to have the chance to put things right, or do you want to remain adrift forever in the darkness?"

Ron's eyes narrowed. He'd lived for so long with such dangerous people that he could feel the walls of the trap closing around him. It wasn't a particularly happy feeling. "That's no choice at all. Anybody would take the chance to get it right."

Magic nodded. "This is true," the being whispered. "And somebody else already has. In the interest of being fair, of course."

In the interest of being fair… that meant that somebody who had believed in the Dark Lord Potter would have already taken the chance to go back. One of those… monsters was already back in the past, presumably wreaking havoc to bring Harry to power that much sooner. Ron couldn't… he couldn't let that happen. Harry deserved to live a happy life, unencumbered by the monster he'd become.

He opened his mouth to accept, then closed it with a frown. "Why give us this chance?" he asked, suspicious.

"We find ourselves unhappy with the way things turned out in your original timeline. We would fix this, but we cannot. We must give you a chance to fix things for yourself."

"If that's the case, why send somebody else back at all, if they're working for the same future I just came from? The one where I… died..." And wasn't that odd, to be standing here talking about his death. He wasn't sure what he'd expected in death, but he was relatively sure this wasn't it.

"It was not just you that died, by the end. When you killed the Dark Lord, you killed the entire planet. He froze time, and with his death it unfroze and the world was destroyed. The other we have sent back believes that, so long as that ritual is never completed, the world will not end. We are willing to give the other a chance, as we are willing to give you a chance. At least we already know that you are ruthless enough to kill your friend should it become necessary once more."

Ron shuddered at the thought of killing Harry a second time. It had been hard, harder than anyone could possibly know, killing him the first time. Ron had let so much go, too much, because he couldn't face the idea of killing… of killing him. Harry was… Harry was not his. He knew that. Harry was Draco's, Magic had decreed as much. But that didn't mean that Ron didn't…

The monster he had killed was not Harry. Ron had a chance to make sure that the monster who had taken his beloved's form would never have the chance to do so again. He had the chance to get Draco away from his father entirely much sooner than Harry's killing him. He might never be able to be happy, but he could give his beloved the chance at happiness that he'd never had before.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'll do it," he said.

Magic smiled, leaned forward, and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. He could feel something burning within him, changing, shifting, and Magic whispered, "Our gifts to you." Then, as the world began to fade into darkness once more, he heard only one more thing, "We like your vision better."

ooOOooOOoo

When Ron opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the familiar ceiling above his bed in Grimmauld Place. When he rolled onto his side, there was Harry, fifteen years old, fast asleep.

He had a chance to fix everything. He wouldn't waste it.

A/N: Oh, hey look, it's another new story. I know, I know, I have like fifty in progress right now. Okay, bit of an exaggeration. I only have five. And this makes six. The good news is, this is my NaNoWriMo story, and I'm trying to write a chapter every day. This does not mean that you will get a chapter every day, because editing before posting is a good thing. Chapters should be at roughly this length, and hopefully I'll finish the whole thing this month. Hopefully.

Anyway, if you're still reading, sit back and enjoy the ride! It's gonna be a wild one.