A/N: Is there anything better than frequent updates? Well, maybe they're not that great if you're a really slow reader. Well anyways, thank you again to everyone following, favourite-ing, and reviewing. You guys keep the muse alive.

Hermione's POV

I can't quite describe the terror that grips me, claws its way up my throat, latches onto my lungs and seizes the air straight out of them. The vision is so vivid, so realistic, and so, so close to what almost actually happened; it hits too close to home. I can see the fear and horror on George's face, but it's nowhere near the level of mine. The idea of losing everything I've fought and suffered and bled for, the concept of a world ruled by Voldemort is so incomprehensibly horrifying that I don't even want to try to wrap my head around it.

Voldemort's cold, maniacal cackle fills the ruined area of Hogwarts as he announces that anyone who aided Harry will have to answer to him. I see all the Weasleys, myself, Luna, Neville, and several others being grabbed by Death Eaters, who no longer need their masks to conceal their twisted, inhuman smiles, and being dragged away.

George slams the drawer shut, eyes huge with fear. His chest heaves visibly. I feel like crying, like screaming, like hugging George and never letting go, because in a world ruled like Voldemort, there would be no emotion but constant, ubiquitous fear, and I'm assuming there wouldn't be a whole lot of hugging either. But I restrain myself, dig my nails into my forearms, plant my feet to the ground.

"How could that only be third?" George exclaims. "How could he possibly think of anything worse?"

The snake hisses, the sound coming out like a strange, serpentine attempt at a laugh. "One is due to circumstance. I know that you share the first fear with him, only with the roles reversed. You aren't aware of its important standing in your mind because you're currently living a version of it."

"What are you talking about?" George demands.

"You'll see. But first, look at the second fear."

I nod, opening the drawer and peering into what appears to be endless white fog, similar to the Veil. I watch curiously as a stocky figure meanders in, obscured by the swirling clouds of white. Slowly, his face comes into view. Fred, looking tired and haggard, worn out and exhausted. He wanders through aimlessly, occasionally encountering dogs, snakes, small children, family members. They have nothing to say to him.

"Please," he gasps. His voice is raspy and gravelly, like the voice of a man who hasn't seen a drop of water in days. "Please, tell me how I can get out of here."

Mournfully, the child he was addressing looks down, shaking his head. His eyes are brown, wide and sad. His hair is scraggly and red, and he doesn't appear to be any older than five or six.

"Please?"

"I don't know how."

Fred groans and sits down, his head in his hands. More figures pass by. I see Arthur, Ron, and Fleur walk through. None even look his way. They don't even appear to be solid; maybe they're just fog, as inconsistent as the white surrounding Fred.

"Where is that place? What is it?" I ask.

"That's his subconscious."

"His…wait what?"

"That's why he can't get himself out of this comatose mess, because he can't find a way out of his own mind. It's constantly shifting and changing. Those figures are just figments from various parts of his mind, but they don't know any more than he does."

"So that's why the spell is so dangerous?" I realise. "Because people would get lost in the target's subconscious?"

"Exactly. Once you're in your own subconscious, you've got three options: you can wait, you can try to find your way out, but it's extraordinarily difficult, or you can pass over to the other side. You can choose to die."

"How do you do that?" George asks.

"All you have to do is ask one of the figures you encounter. They can get you out that way. The things that kept Fred here was hearing you guys talking to or about him."

"He could hear us?"

"Not directly. Again, it's all the figures. He would ask if they had any new information. That's how he found out you cast the spell. He knows you smashed the mirror, George. He knows Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Ginny would spend hours at a time filling him in on various happenings. He's heard of everything said in earshot of his body."

"That's unbelievable," I breathe.

"Indeed it is. But like I said, there's no guide for that part of his mind. It can be dangerous work."

"We'll manage."

Ron's POV

"He's lost?" I ask, horrified. Ginny nods solemnly.

"What do you mean 'lost'?" Harry wonders.

She shakes her head. "I don't know. Maybe we'll find out later."

A tear rolls down her cheek. "I'm sorry. I'm just…it's late and I'm scared and-and I found this photo George took, of us, Ron. When we were kids and you taught me how to tie my shoes, remember?" she laughs half-heartedly.

I nod, recalling my six-year-old self's attempts to keep my frustration under wraps. I've never been a particularly patient person. I remember considering asking one of the twins to teach her, but then deciding that, no, as her closest-in-age older brother, I was going to teach her to tie her shoelaces if it took me all day and night because I enjoyed the idea of teaching someone something useful. I wanted my baby sister to have a memory of me doing something helpful for her.

Eight-year-old George had come in with Dad's camera, as he and Fred had insisted they wanted to learn to use it. He had chuckled at Ginny, sitting on the floor with her legs out and her shoelaces tangled together in an awful knot, with her head cocked to the side and her expression somewhere between awed and hopelessly lost. And then he had taken the photograph, which for some reason never ended up on the ceiling.

Harry grins at it and sets in on the bedside table. Photo-me unties my shoelaces and starts again, slowly explaining how to loop the strings around each other.

"Two more hours, then you can go in," Harry reminds me.

"A lot could happen in two hours," I say.

"They're going to be fine," Ginny insists.

"How do you know?" I demand.

"I just do!" she answers stubbornly. She kneels on the floor next to Fred, cradling his free hand in both of hers. Of course, he doesn't react.