A Fighting Spirit

A/N: Thank you so much for reviewing! Like I said in the last chapter, Ron's going to freak. Not entirely sure if I'll let Hermione live or not. We'll just have to see ;)

RON'S POV:

I burst through the glass doors of the hospital with all the strength I had and ran right up to the woman sitting behind a tall desk. I think she was some kind of healer, I'm not entirely sure.

Without meaning to, I screamed at her, "WHERE IS MY WIFE?" She paused for a moment and looked up at me with almost no enthusiasm. I swear I was about to slap her. How dare she act like this? She could've at least acted the slightest bit concerned.

Clearing her throat, she put on her glasses and said, "Name?"

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. "Her-Hermione Weasley," She looked through her papers with no rush at all. "She's a gunshot victim." I said offering some kind of help. She pointed to a pair of large double doors.

Muttering a quick thank you, I darted through those double doors only to be greeted by my sobbing mother. She wrapped me into one of her bone crushing hugs and began to sob into my chest. I held her for a while, but when I looked over her head, I could see a sobbing, blood soaked Harry Potter. That was when my heart sank. That's when I realized that this was all real. That my sweet, beautiful Hermione was so close to death, and could have very well be dying at that moment without me by her side.

Harry looked up at me with eyes glistening with tears, his shirt soaked through with Hermione's blood. He rose from his chair and embraced me. That's when it all came crashing down. My reason for living, my reason to come home happy everyday, the reason my heart still beats was struggling to survive beyond those white double doors.

I was brought out of my thoughts by a man's voice behind me. "Is the husband of Hermione Weasley here?" My heart gave a leap. I ran to him.

"I'm her husband! Me! Right here! Her husband! Me!" I babbled, my excitement becoming overwhelming. When he looked at me my heart dropped to its home at the pit of my stomach.

"She's alive. But only just. We had to perform intensive surgeries on her, and we lost her four times." My heart stopped. Four times? Including when she was first attacked, that's five times. His voice brought me back out of my thoughts. "She has several life threatening injuries. Let's start with her spine. The bullet completely severed the lower half of her spinal chord. The spinal chord controls whether we're able to walk or not. I've managed to repair it only slightly. I've re-attached the ends together. The way it looks right now, she will never walk again. I'm so sorry." My heart broke at those words. I didn't even have time to think about this before he started talking again.

"Her heart was easy to repair. The bullet only passed through the surface level tissue of her heart. It didn't get any deeper than the surface, thank God. For extra precautions, we've hooked her heart up to a machine that will keep it beating." He waited a bit before continuing. "Her brain is a major problem though." My heart sunk. "The bullet passed through the part of her brain that controls her ability to hear, and hit the part of her brain that determines whether she can read and write. The bullet was buried deep within that portion of her brain, which means she probably will have to re-learn how to read."

Oh no. Not reading. Hermione was known for her brain, for her amazingly brilliant mind. And for her to just suddenly lose all of it would be absolutely tragic.

"We've put her in intensive care. You're allowed to see her. But I must warn you, it may be a bit of a shock. She still can't breathe on her own, so we have a machine breathing for her."

"Where is she?" I asked, ignoring everything he had just said. My voice cracked without me meaning to. This was a lot to take in. I would've appreciated it if he had been a bit gentler with the way he told me.

"Room 219." And with that he left me. I motioned for Harry and my mum to follow me. I was numb. I couldn't believe that this could happen to such a good person, someone who didn't deserve any kind of pain or suffering. Hermione didn't deserve this.

I stopped in front of Room 219 and mentally prepared myself for what I was about to see. I opened the door and walked slowly into the small white room. I immediately looked to the bed and gasped in horror.

Lying helpless and still, buried in blue blankets was my beautiful wife. My jaw dropped as I looked over her. There were so many tubes. So many noises. There was one tube that went down her throat and I could tell that it was controlling her breathing. Her chest was moving steadily up and down, and the machine that was controlling her breathing made a slight wheezing sound with every breath she took.

It was too much. I wanted to throw up. I went into a fit of rage immediately, knocking over chairs and tables, yelling unintelligible things.

"RON! STOP!" Mum screamed at me. "HERMIONE WOULDN'T WANT YOU TO ACT LIKE THIS!"

I turned to her, glaring daggers at her. "HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?" Tears were streaming down both of our faces. I couldn't believe the next thing that came out of my mouth. "I'D RATHER HER BE DEAD RIGHT NOW!"

My mother and Harry looked at me, absolutely shocked at what I had just said. The only noise in the room was the beeping noise of the machine connected to Hermione's heart.

"I- I didn't mean that." I stuttered. My mother turned out of the room and left. I turned to Harry. "Harry, I-"

"Ron, just shut up." He said quietly, shaking his head as he pushed past me and sat down by Hermione's bed and took her hand. "You know she probably heard that." I felt so guilty. "I would NEVER say that about Ginny. You should be so proud of Hermione." I sat down by her bed and took her hand, tears threatening to fall.

"I am proud of her. So proud." I said in a quiet voice. The voice a child would have after being scolded by his mother.

"Well apparently not. You just said it. You'd rather have her just give up and die than fight."

"Harry, I did not say that." I said in a voice so low that even I could barely hear it. This was pushing it. I was getting angry at him.

"You implied it, and that's good enough. Good enough for Hermione to hear you and give up. Do you know how much she's fighting to stay alive right now? Do you know how hard it is to come back from such a peaceful place to a world of pain? I've been there. Trust me, I think she'd much rather be up there than back here, but she's fighting to come back to us. To come back to you."

I shook my head as I let the tears loose. I started sobbing uncontrollably. I stroked Hermione's hair and spoke directly to her.

"Hermione, I'm so sorry. I love you so much and I am so proud of you. Please don't give up. If there were any way I could take the pain away-" It was at that moment that something happened that I will never forget.

"Ron, did you feel that?" Harry asked. I nodded quickly. Hermione gave a loud moan arched her back ever so slightly.

Wow. How's that for a cliffy?