DAY 10

Ron : Roman

Game Day (Part 2)

Ron grinned against the pain in his shoulder, swinging wildly in front of him as they raced through the forest.

It was happening.

The time was now.

And they were headed in exactly the right direction.

It felt almost insane, this world, with its lack of magic and its blood sports and its technology, but this—as horrible as it was to admit—this he knew.

He'd been on the run before.

Been chased before.

Been the chaser before.

And, well, and he'd had to trust before.

He hadn't been particularly good at that—at trusting—as a teenager, still remembered with more than a little shame his angry blow-ups at his friends and family when he thought they were lying to him.

Sometimes, most times with regard to Fred and George, he'd be right. They really would have put something in his drink, or his sister really would have gotten an extra present on Christmas because she was the baby, or something like that.

Often, though, he was wrong.

He still remembered the look on Harry's face when the other boy had realized Ron didn't believe him, had realized that his best friend had really thought he put his name in that goblet.

It wasn't his only blow-up—far from it—but it stuck out to him as one of the worst, one of the ones where he was so obviously wrong, and he knew he was wrong so quickly, and yet he clung to his hotheaded decision out of misguided pride.

So trust, that wasn't something that had come naturally to him.

And then the war had come.

And it still hadn't come naturally.

But, over and over again, Ron was put in a position in which he had to trust, had to trust his family, his friends, acquaintances, strangers, and even former enemies to do the right thing.

And so, through fire, he'd learned.

And now he grinned against the pain and the blood and the fury coursing through him of everything he'd endured, everything his friends and family had endured, in this life and the last, and he sprinted ahead of the beginning of his army.

In a mere hour, if that, they would be at the barrier.

And Ron would be faced with a choice to trust Draco to do the right thing, to be both capable and willing to put down the barrier.

Once, that would have been a difficult decision, something he'd avoid by rashly making the wrong one.

Now he knew.

He knew that Draco had no reason to be unwilling, had no reason to lie about his capability to Hermione, had no reason not to take down the barriers. He knew, too, that he had no reason not to trust Draco—if he did and he was wrong it would be bad, yes, but it would be no worse than if they remained here.

To his left Herve—the oldest of District Four, and an ardent member of the alliance—caved in the head of District 1's sixteen-year-old Phenom as the younger boy turned to try to go out swinging.

Everyone else, thankfully, was too busy running.

The more people that lived, the longer they lived, the closer they got to the border, the better.

Because this—this was the point of no return.

And Ron knew he'd made the right decision.