Chapter 8: Come.

Hermione Granger turned around with her hands on her hips. "The forest ends here. Where are we going now?"

For the past weeks, they had been moving through the woods, hoping that they would be hidden from any Auror that might be searching for them, but that was over. Only a few trees remained from the huge forest. In front of them lay a meadow of grass and bushes. In the distance, a small Muggle village could be seen.

They could still move through the open countryside, but any Auror could easily see them from a broom. They could also try to blend in with the Muggles, but with Hermione by their side, it would be suicidal. She would only have to cry for help and it would all be over for him.

"Well, what do you decide?" Hermione waited impatiently for his answer.

Ron was exhausted, as usual, and had no idea what to do, and no desire to think about it. "It looks like it's going to start raining, let's find a place to spend the night. Tomorrow we'll decide."

They ended up camping next to a huge tree that was growing near a half-ruined stone wall. There they would be protected from the rain and wind, and hidden from anyone looking for them from the air.

Ron lit a small fire and leaned against the wall. Hermione, as always, stood on the other side of the fire, wrapped in her blanket.

Ron stared at the fire. He could barely keep his eyes open from exhaustion. Accustomed to the silence of his cell, he now found it difficult to fall asleep in the middle of the fields, and when he finally did, it was no more than a couple of hours before he woke up to some horrible nightmare. The flames of the campfire danced before his eyes, mesmerizing him with their sinuous movements. His eyelids got heavier and heavier.

The fire was burning brightly in the Hogwarts Headmaster's fireplace. He looked away and saw Dumbledore pointing his wand at him.

Ron smiled bitterly. "I guess my time is up."

"Believe me, this is not something I want to do, Mr Weasley. He looked him straight in the eyes. A dazzling purple glow extended from his wand. Ron tried to avert his eyes but was paralyzed with his gaze fixed on Dumbledore's. An unbearable pain exploded in his head.

"... All the envy, the meanness, the cruelty, the evil that dwells in your heart..."

He woke up abruptly. Hermione was talking to him.

"...stiff as a statue and suddenly you're panting like a dog. What the hell is wrong with you?"

He rubbed his face with his hands as he tried to clear his head. He had fallen asleep for a moment and had a dream. It was just that, a stupid dream.

"Nothing. There's nothing wrong with me." He replied irritably.

Why didn't she let him rest in peace? He couldn't understand it. While he was totally exhausted, Hermione seemed to have endless energy.

It seemed that Hermione had finally fallen silent, but now she was watching him with an inquisitive look that he had seen many times while she was doing some assignment, or reading some particularly interesting book. He knew that the silence would not last long.

"Why did you save me?" She asked abruptly.

"What?

"It's not logical. You threw yourself at me to catch me. Why? You'd already escaped from Azkaban. You didn't need me at all. It would have been much better to have gone your way with the Firebolt."

Ron remembered her cry of terror as she fell from the broom. Hermione was scared of heights, he couldn't imagine what she must have felt as she plunged to her death. "Would you have preferred to die crushed against the ground?"

"What do you care what happened to me? Now you could be thousands of miles away from here."

"Yes. I would be thousands of miles away and you would be dead. Thank you, but no."

"Why? It doesn't make sense."

Why bother telling her the truth? "I have my reasons."

"Your reasons?! Weeks walking in the rain with mud to our knees, sleeping on the floor and only a few hard buns to eat... and you tell me you have your reasons!?"

"I didn't ask you to exchange yourself for Ginny. If you're here, it's because you can't stop sticking your nose in..." He stopped abruptly and bent down with a grunt, pressing his right arm against his body.

Hermione was puzzled until she saw the blood on his shirt. She turned sharply around looking for a possible attacker, but all seemed calm.

Ron seemed to have recovered quickly from the attack, but his shirt sleeve was stained with blood. He unbuttoned it and carefully pulled it aside. A dozen still-bleeding cuts crossed his forearm.

"What the hell...? How is that possible?" Ron lifted his shirt. The sleeve was intact. Bloodstained, but intact.

"The first thing is to heal them. They don't look very deep, so it should be easy." Hermione went over to take a closer look. "They are very clean. It's as if they were made of something very sharp... or a spell."

Ron looked around. "Do you think anyone...?"

"If the Aurors had found us, you would be incapacitated or dead by now. Plus the shirt is intact. Any attack spell would have cut it off too... Honestly, I have no idea what could be the cause. Maybe the side effect of some curse, or a badly treated spell... I guess the only thing you can do is to heal it and hope it doesn't happen again."

"Yeah... There's only one problem. The cuts are on my right arm. I don't think I'll do a healing spell very well if I have to do it with the wand in my left hand."

"Then give it to me and I'll do it."

"Thanks, but I'd rather bleed out."

"What?" It took her a moment to realize. She was his prisoner. Ron couldn't give her the wand. "Well, at least wipe the blood off your wound and bandage your arm. You can do that, can't you?"

Ron carefully cleaned the cuts. "I don't think they needed bandaging. Look. It's hardly bleeding anymore. I'm sure in a minute..."

Ron looked up. Hermione had grown strangely quiet. She was gaping at his arm with her eyes wide open, and pale as a ghost.

"What's wrong?" Ron inspected his arm, but all he could see were the cuts. Nothing to warrant her reaction.

"Ron, turn your arm." She spoke as if in a trance, looking at his arm as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Turn it?"

"Put it in a horizontal position."

Then he saw it. The cuts weren't random. They formed letters.

Four letters written in blood: Come.

Instants later the cuts disappeared without leaving any trace or scar, as if they had never existed.

Things will change very fast in the next chapters. As always, reviews and critics will be gratefully received.