I'm not JKR, therefore Harry Potter isn't mine. If he was, do you think I'd be here? :-)


In the Rain

What happens after Ron abandons his friends? Mild swearing. Ron's POV.


It was raining, hard. He was wet and cold and he couldn't see properly.

Bloody hell! What did I just do??

"Hello there! What's this then?" A coarse voice yelped in glee from behind him. Rough hands grabbed his arms and he felt a wand being pressed to his temple. "Looks like we're in luck tonight, boys!"

Shit.

Blinking the rain from his eyes, Ron counted four of them. Ragged and dirty – smelly too, even in the downpour.

Ministry?

"What's your name then, boy?" One of them leered at him obnoxiously as another twirled Ron's wand around his fingers.

"Uh." Bloody hell, think! "Stan," he lied, thankful that it was dark enough to hide the tips of his burning ears. "Stan Shunpike."

"Is that right?"

Ron tried hard not to gag as he received a face full of fetid breath. "Yeah, that's right."

"Stan Shunpike's in Azkaban," someone else piped up, "it was in the Prophet."

"Oh yeah, so it was ... so, Stan. Why aint you in Azkaban, then?"

Ron shivered. "Broke out. Me and some others. Malfoy, Knott, Rockwood." He could hear muttering behind him and his eyes slid to the one directly in front of him. If I can just grab those wands ... I have to get back.

"But I seen Rockwood at the Ministry last week!" One of them was protesting angrily, "if we really got Stan –"

"Don't be stupid!"

"Who you calling stupid?"

There was a scuffle; Ron heard the sound of bone meeting flesh and someone bellowed in rage. Come on, come on! The grip on his arms loosened and Ron thrust his elbow back, hard, and then heard the immensely satisfying grunt of pain. GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE! GOT TO GET BACK! Grabbing his captors' wand, he directed it at the one in front of him. "STUPEFY!" and he turned around "STUPEFY! STUPEFY! STUPEFY!"

It took but a moment for him to reach down and take the wands held in the frozen hand on the ground before he turned into the crushing darkness, hoping like hell he could find Harry and Hermione again.

***

He had to face facts. They were gone. They'd moved on without him – hardly surprising, really, all things considered ... and he had no clue where they were planning to go next.

Hermione always took charge of that and he cursed himself for not taking a more active interest.

Maybe if you'd actually DONE SOMETHING instead of just sitting around bitching all day this would never have happened.

So what to do now? He sat on the riverbank, staring moodily into space.

Back to the Burrow? Not likely.

He certainly couldn't stay with Fred and George – they'd give him hell, and as much as he knew he deserved it ... well ... just no, that's all.

He couldn't to go to Hogwarts; too many questions, and he didn't want to run the risk of inadvertently putting Harry and Hermione in more danger.

I can't stay here.

Then it came to him. Bill and Fleur. Bill would probably give him a hard time, but he was in the Order ... he'd know not to ask too many questions, at least.