Ron had never seen Fred so silent.

'We'll be deployed in a few weeks. France, probably.' he was saying. The year was 1940. Beside him, George gave a slight grin, a stark contrast to his brother. Fred had already been for training for a week, while George had yet to go. It was because Papa had tried to get George into some resemblance of civil services but it hadn't really worked. Percy, had, as expected got a job as an accountant.

'I suppose we'll win this time,'

'Of course we will. We should. Poland's already fallen, Denmark, barely a few more weeks.'

'You're all leaving me alone, tossers,'' said Ginny, from where she was playing with the football, spinning it around. Fred ruffled her hair fondly. 'The girls will have work too. Hopefully this one will end quickly.'

'We've never been that interested in these sort of things, you know,'

'Ja, your life's ambition is to start a joke shop, we know, brother,' said Ginny, grinning.

'And we'll do it someday,' said George firmly. 'When all this is over.'

'Would you want to fight, though?' asked Ron, as he looked at his name, Ronald Bilius Weasley printed in black and white, the ink long since dried. A confirmation that now it had really started, it was hitting home, and now he would be going. Away. He could almost see the worried yet proud expression on his mother's face. But she wasn't proud not really, she didn't want him to go like the rest of his brothers, because she could still remember the brothers she'd lost in the great war, whose laugh haunted her to this day. 'Would you kill?'

Ginny didn't meet his eyes. Blue eyes, he thought all of a sudden. Blue eyes, while hers were brown. He had the sudden impulse to vomit. She shrugged.

'I suppose I would.'

The things he remembered about his first few days, is only the feeling of do or die, blood rushing in his ears, the tenous grip of his gun, and pop pop pop , just that. He didn't know if the bullets hit, he didn't know what he was doing, only the earsplitting sound of destruction and the adrenalin surging. Shrapnel struck, and he bent lower, and he didn't dare bat an eye, as the man beside him fell, his eyes staring at something he hadn't seen yet. Something he would not see, he vowed, thinking about the look on his mother's face when he left, and the faded black and white of his uncles' last memories. He did not smile, because he couldn't feel anything yet, only the sound of destruction and victory all together in a confused mesh, and for now, he supposed it was enough. Ron Weasley would survive this.

It was 1941, and they were winning.

When he had been young, and he'd seen all those pictures of airplanes flying in perfect formation and all those men with guns, and those trenches, with stories of valour and bravery and legendary martyrs echoing in his ears, he had supposed that was war. Maybe it had once been, but now, staring up at the shoddy canvas, and not feeling his fingers from the cold, all he could think of was the bleeding girl he'd seen on the street, her face blue.

That was War.

He supposed he was lucky he hadn't been deported to the more colder areas of the warfront; that he wasn't lying alone on some beach in France or the freezing grounds of Leningrad. He supposed he was lucky for actually lying here breathing, when the rest of them were lying blue in coffins.

Ron thought of Bill in the Luftwaffe, flying somewhere above. Where you could see the whole world, and realise how small you really were. He wondered if they ever knew how the destruction they left behind looked when you were below and the sky had its limits. The sky rained, but it wasn't water.

The smallest sliver, the tiniest speck of light...

22 June 1941

He was sitting beside Erik, and all of them were eating, a rare day of peace, before the next orders took place and they were laughing, the air filled with crude jokes and the blurred cacophany of footsteps outside camp when the news of Unternehmen Barbarossa came.

The radio blared and it was all quiet for a moment. The laughter had disappeared as the voice of Soviet Army's inevitable defeated reverberated across. He was suddenly aware of Erik breathing beside him, as the broadcast continued.

'Filthy Slavs,' came Franz's loud voice, and Ron pressed his lips together tight so he would not protest. The laughter returned, and he was reminded of training at camp, of standing in a rally, and saluting, together, vowing that they would die for their country, that this was their land, their place. He supposed that was the unity he was supposed to feel among his "Aryan" brothers. He didn't feel it for now.

'We'll beat them,'

'Bolshevik Jews, of course we will,'

'Gott mit uns,'

He desperately hoped so, because something cold was building in his chest and it did not feel like victory at all,

Most of his comrades were from rural areas, villages and small towns, and unlike the city boys, who always seemed to know, who spoke the cruelest slurs and sharpest remarks, Ron decided they seemed to have something in common. He watched, as bullets tore through, as blood spurted and they fell in graceless arcs, in forgotten graveyards, as some of them just disappeared, as the skies were filled with smoke, the streets with death.

Through all this, the radio blared only victory.

They had been successful then. Then he had felt it, known it, there was success, there was home, there was his family waiting, there would be football with Ginny once again, and he would be happy, but now he really didn't feel so.

'There's talks of sending our troops against the Red army,' said Erik. 'The US has joined now.'

Ron barely shrugged, but on the inside he knew what Erik was fighting to say, that defeat didn't sound so far away. The Balkans, and most of east Europe might be occupied, but there were still talks of huge losses at Moscow. The thing was that; they didn't know anything. They continued to walk through the open fields, where some of them were going to be sent to their deaths. Winter was starting, and the cold seemed to seep in his bones, in his heart, and it didn't seem to have any idea of leaving. Hadn't Ginny mentioned she was learning to type in her last letter? That her exams seemed to have gone really good? That now they could have second helpings of dessert? That was something happy, that was good, that was a home he wanted to return to.

(Don't think of George. Not him.)

'Gott mit uns,' he said softly, a silent prayer, and gripped his gun tighter as they continued. This was a cold he couldn't stand, and with all the talks of defeat, he didn't know what to do at all.

It was hard to escape the rumours now. Maybe Ron had known it was inevitable, but it was hard to not imagine Hermione in one of those camps with barbed wire. He had heard the stories, piles and piles of skeletons, Jews suffocating to death with corpses in trenches, Soviet POW's being starved to death, it wasn't difficult for his brain to concoct sick images.

("'I thought you were better.")

Was he better? What was he doing? Here he was, fighting for his so called Fuhrer, for his country. Had he ever had the courage to probe further, to try to prove that the stories were just that- stories? He supposed he really had loved Hermione, he supposed that was what it was called. Her absence had been like a rotting wound he couldn't face himself to look at. The pain was excruciating, but he didn't have the heart to look. He supposed this was where he should feel disgusted with himself about having tarnished his self by talking and even kissing a Jew, but he wasn't. He never had been.

He could still remember what Frau Hoffman next door had said about Mr. Granger. And then she'd immediately gone red, and disappeared into her home.

("He saved my daughter's life.")

1938, that was when he had last seen Hermione. More than four years. Did he remember her voice? Her face? Those goddamn eyes?The feel of her lips on his-

He remembered, because it was one more thing that kept him awake at night.

('The Luftwaffe. Weasley, Franz, Miller, you too. You will be transferred from the Heer to the Luftwaffe.')

And here they were now, walking across no-man's land. Ron looked straight above. The war had finally come home, Koln was raged, so was Hamburg, and even Berlin; that the radio itself could not hide. He was worried, worried sick, because he wanted to go home, and just stay, he wanted his home to be the one that he had left behind, but his brain betrayed him all day. Images of Ginny dead, the house shattered, no, don't...

They waited at the end of the open stretch, looking on. The woods were barely two hundred metres away, and the land was dug up with empty trenches. But none of them had missed the jets flying overhead. Soviet jets.

'We will go one by one. Swift.' ordered Franz, and they watched as he was nothing more than a fast blur disappearing in the woods. Then Erik was gone, and so was Dieter, and Ren, and now it was Ron's chance. He took a deep breath, the smell of acid and mud hitting his nostrils.

And it was like those first days, all over again, only the blood rushing in his ears, the harsh wind. All he would be was a small speck, forgotten, ignored. The woods were nearing, he willed his legs to move faster...

A bullet grazed.

He didn't need to look up to know, but instantly rolled down, hitting the ground of the ditch with a sharp thud. Another bullet. He supposed it was raining bullets. Ron's face was half buried in mud, as he feigned, and rolled even inside, only to come face to face with a rotting corpse.

He didn't dare to breathe.

The world seemed to slow, as Ron tried to fake death, his hand and leg immobile. This time the bullet hit its mark. He didn't dare move.

Ron survived.

When they reached the supposed air base, there was nothing left. It had been razed to the ground, obliterated, completely, completely gone. There was only shrapnel and torn flags, only dead bodies and blood. His leg throbbed.

("The bone will never set right. You'll have to walk with a little limp for the rest of your life.")

He braced himself, as the whole of them looked on, silent. The war had come home for them. The bitter taste in his tongue, and the memories of a home ravaged by bombs, this, standing here, breathing for nothing, was defeat.

And then they were caught by the Soviets.