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CHAPTER V - LENTO

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The light filtered through his eyelids. Slowly Ron blinked once, then twice, until his blurred vision gradually adjusted to the brightness. The first thing he saw was the white ceiling above him, with the rays of the late afternoon sun painted on it. He was lying in a comfortable bed, a warm feeling surrounding his right arm. When he turned his head, he saw that Hermione was sitting next to the bed with her head resting on it. Feeling him move, she stood up abruptly. Her eyes were red and puffy, her features tired.

"Ron?"

Without giving her time to react, the young man hugged her.

"What happened?" he asked hoarsely, releasing her. "What are you doing here? Why are we in St. Mungo's?"

"You had a panic attack," his companion replied hastily, clearly upset. "They... The healers told me that you had to be put to sleep... That you…"

Ron shook his head. He tried to shake off the last effects of the sedation spells that were clouding his mind. Gradually, the events of the previous night came back to him. He sat up quickly in bed.

"Harry?!" he exclaimed in panic as he turned to Hermione. "Do you know what happened to him?"

"He's... He's here too, at St. Mungo's, in the Spell Damage Department," she answered without looking at him, fidgeting with the blanket between her fingers. "I know that he's in a coma, but that's it. No one would tell me anything else."

She paused for a moment to let out a shaky sigh, then looked up at her partner. "Is it true what they say? Harry... Your mission last night…"

Ron didn't answer immediately. He looked at her face, where he could see her pain and confusion, a mirror of what he was feeling himself. Hiding the truth from her was not an option, she had a right to know. After all, Harry was like her own brother too. The young man grabbed his wand from the bedside table and cast a Muffliato around them. In a monotone voice, he then told her everything from the beginning of the investigation to the interrogation and its tragic conclusion. When he finally stopped talking, a heavy silence settled in the room. Hermione finally broke it after several minutes.

"I don't understand. He must have had a good reason to be there, to do what he did, to say what he said. There must be an explanation. Something we don't understand…"

After the shock of the revelations, her Cartesian mind was taking over and Ron could see her determination to find answers in her body language.

"I'm sure the situation is more complicated than it seems," she said confidently.

"There's only one person who could explain it to us, and that's Harry himself and he's in no condition to do so at the moment," Ron sighed.

Ron couldn't help but feel anger at Harry, coupled with a deep sense of betrayal. If he had indeed had a logical reason — and it had better be a very justified one — for siding with a criminal like Vasilyev, why hadn't he seen fit to tell Ron? Had their friendship deteriorated so much over the years? His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the loud clacking of shoes on the tiled floor of the hallway announcing the arrival of a visitor.

Of medium height, his blond hair generously slicked back, a grey three-piece tailor-made dress, Claudius Sternwood made his entrance. He was a man in his forties, but he looked younger. His clear gaze seemed constantly filled with disdain. The detail that horrified Ron the most was the little blonde moustache he sported; it reminded him of a little hairy caterpillar resting on his upper lip and he just wanted to rip it off whenever he saw it. Harry had once said, "If you look up 'son of a bitch' in the dictionary, there is no definition, just his picture." That summed up the man's personality quite well.

He was the under-secretary to the Director of the Justice Department, David Hammond. The latter was a legend in the Ministry, a former officer in the International Division, he had spent most of his career abroad, mainly in Eastern Europe and Egypt. He had returned to the UK shortly before the end of the war against Voldemort and had since risen through the ranks. Ron had only met him once in the past, he remembered his impressive aura. Sternwood could never hope to measure up to him.

"Weasley," the latter greeted him while ignoring Hermione completely.

The young Auror turned to his companion and gave her a look and a slight nod.

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave you for a moment," she said, getting his message, before murmuring, "I'll be back soon."

Ron watched her leave and then turned his attention back to his visitor. Sternwood strode into the room with an obviously feigned nonchalance, his hands crossed behind his back, and came to stand by the window. He let his gaze wander outside with a disinterested air.

"Potter," he finally said curtly without preamble. "You spoke to him yesterday. What did he tell you?"

Straight to the point then. Ron wondered what that had to do with him; he didn't usually interfere with ongoing investigations.

"I spoke to him, yes," the Auror replied carefully. "But he wouldn't tell me anything."

Sternwood turned his head towards him and scanned him carefully. Merlin, that moustache.

"You know this is a matter of the utmost importance. You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Weasley?"

The condescension with which he'd spoken the words made Ron's temper flare, but he didn't let it show and just clenched his fist on his blanket.

"Of course not," he replied through gritted teeth.

"If your friend wakes up, you know what awaits him. Either he gives us Bogdan Vasilyev, or…" The under-secretary left his sentence hanging and his thin lips stretched into a sardonic sneer. He moved away from the window and approached Ron's bed. "Let's just say that even his celebrity status won't save him," he concluded.

Then he turned on his heels and pretended to head for the exit before suddenly changing his mind. "Oh, I forgot," he said, pulling a newspaper from one of his inside pockets. "I brought you some reading material."

He unceremoniously threw it on the table at the foot of the bed and left the room. Ron waited until the sound of his footsteps had faded completely before bending down and picking up the paper. On the front page of the Daily Prophet, a photograph taken that night showed Harry in the middle of his Auror escort, with Ron leading the way and holding his arm. The young man began to read.

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"HARRY POTTER UNDER ARREST!"

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"It was at the end of an investigation to expose corruption within the Department of Justice that Harry Potter, Hero of the Wizarding World, was taken into custody tonight. The overwhelming evidence accumulated by the Aurors leaves little doubt that Potter and his team were involved with the infamous criminal Bogdan Vasilyev (see our edition of March 6, 2008). Unfortunately, after a fierce battle, his accomplices managed to escape before they could be captured. Mr Potter was arrested by none other than his best friend, Auror Ronald Weasley, who was in charge of the investigation.

However, in an unprecedented turn of events, an attempt on the suspect's life landed him in a critical condition at St. Mungo's before he could be questioned. At a press conference early this morning, Kingsley Shacklebolt announced [ ...]"

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The article went on, but Ron let the paper fall back onto the bed, a bitter taste in his mouth accompanied by a wave of nausea. At the same moment, Hermione entered the room again, accompanied by Rose and Ron's parents. Molly Weasley ran up to her son and hugged him almost to the point of suffocation while sniffling loudly. When she finally released him, Arthur stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of comfort. Rose, too young to understand the situation, climbed onto the bed excitedly to sit on his lap. As she did so, she knocked the newspaper from the covers to the floor.

"What's this trash doing here?!" Molly cried, picking it up with a look of fury. "It's all a pack of lies! Isn't it, Ron? None of it's true! Harry was on a mission with you last night, they must have made a mistake! They'll stop at nothing to sell their horrible newspaper!"

What could he say to her? The Auror could see that she was in total denial and that it was absolutely useless to try to contradict her. He watched her silently as she began to take several dishes out of her bag and place them on the table.

"These are for Harry," she said, separating them into two separate piles. "Visits are not allowed at the moment, so I couldn't bring them to him. This is ridiculous," she muttered. "He's like my own son, why can't I see him…"

Then she turned to Ron and began to rearrange his pillows. "I'm counting on you to take them to him when he wakes up," she continued. "There's nothing like home cooking."

At these words, his heart sank painfully in his chest. If only it were all a nightmare, if only he could wake up, if only everything could be as it was before… But it wasn't, and he couldn't say anything, especially not to his mother, who was firmly convinced of Harry's innocence. So he kept quiet and enjoyed the presence of his loved ones as best he could.

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When his parents finally left, followed by Hermione and Rose, it was Olivia's turn to visit him. She told him that Desmond had been sent home earlier in the day, healthy and all, and also informed him of the latest developments in the investigation.

"Potter was hit by an unidentified spell in the interrogation room," she told him. "The Auror who was on guard was found unconscious in the toilet, she couldn't remember anything when she woke up."

"Do we have any idea who the attacker was?"

"We think that it could be an accomplice of Vasilyev who wanted to prevent the prisoner from talking, but at the moment there are no viable leads. A team searched Potter's home, but nothing was found."

"They searched Grimmauld Place? Who went there?"

The thought that strangers might have searched his friend's house made Ron sick. This should have been his and his team's job.

"Williamson and his men," Olivia replied. "They had a nasty surprise when his dog attacked them, though. The animal managed to bite one of the Aurors, and rather seriously. It was taken to one of the kennels of the Department of Regulation of Magical Creatures."

Keats, loyal Keats. Even he hadn't been spared.

"Robards has ordered you to take a few days off," Olivia continued, handing him a letter. "He doesn't want you back at the Ministry until next week."

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A few hours later, the ward fell silent as the last of the day's visitors were invited to go home by a slightly grumpy healer. Ron, left alone after Olivia's departure, stood up and poked his head through the doorway. The long, bright corridors were deserted. From the surrounding rooms came snatches of conversation, the metallic sound of a cutlery piece falling to the floor or the music of an enchanted transistor.

Satisfied, he slipped on his shoes and, wearing the sweatpants and T-shirt that Hermione had brought him, went outside. The young man made his way to the fourth floor and quietly entered the ward. He found the room he was looking for without difficulty, next to the door was an empty chair; the Auror who should have been there was nowhere in sight. He opened the door of the room and slipped inside.

In the twilight darkness Ron slowly approached the bed. Harry laid there, his peaceful face gently lit by the luminescent trail of his heartbeat floating above him. All traces of blood had been washed away and the way his hair fell back over his forehead made him look younger than he was. Apart from the steady rise of his chest with each breath he took, he was perfectly still. Potter's condition was stable, or so Olivia had told him a few hours earlier. Physically he was fine, but for some unknown reason he wasn't waking up.

"Why?" Ron whispered to his sleeping friend. "Why? Why?" he repeated like a mantra.

With tears in his eyes, the young man reached out to touch his hand, but changed his mind at the last moment and turned abruptly away. He took one last look at Harry and then left. Back in his room, Ron laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Without realising it, he finally fell into a restless sleep.

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The next morning, the healers allowed Ron to leave St. Mungo's. Back home, he made himself a cup of coffee and wandered around the living room, idle, not knowing what to do with his time. His thoughts kept plaguing him and if he didn't find something to do soon, he felt he would go mad. At eleven o'clock, he couldn't stand it any longer and decided to go to Grimmauld Place.

The young man checked that the chimney access had not been condemned by the Ministry, then threw a handful of floo powder into the hearth and went in. He emerged into the large living room of the old London building. While dusting off his clothes, he looked around the room. It was a mess; the cupboards and furniture drawers had all been opened, their contents spilled onto the floor. Objects of all kinds and papers were strewn about the floor. He moved forward, avoiding them as best he could. As he crossed the corridor towards the stairs, something hit him in the small of his back.

Kreacher, with a broom in his hand, was about to strike him a second time, but Ron caught the handle before it could hit him again.

"Nasty wizard who dares to come back and disturb the master's things...," the house elf muttered angrily.

"Kreacher, stop it!" the Auror exclaimed. "It's me, Ron."

The creature squinted at him with a scowl more pronounced than ever. "It's the Master's friend," he croaked. "Maybe he knows where the Master is?"

"I'm sorry, Kreacher. Harry won't be able to go home just yet."

"Is Master Potter in trouble? Oh, Kreacher told him. Oh yes, he told him," he grumbled.

Ron barely had time to open his mouth to question him before the elf had already disappeared with a small, sharp crack. Finding himself alone, with the broom in his hand, he shook his head and then started moving again. The stairs creaked under his feet and, once upstairs, he made his way to the study. There he found a chaos similar to that on the ground floor.

The Auror's gaze was drawn to an overturned metal box, lit by a ray of sunlight, from which photographs were spilling out. He bent down and picked up some of them. Happy faces smiled at him; his own, Hermione's, Ginny's, Harry's… Moments of life immortalised, at Hogwarts or at his parents' house. In this one, Harry was carrying Teddy on his shoulders and running on the beach, accompanied by Keats who was jumping around them. They looked happy. In this one, he, Harry and Hermione were sitting on the grass in the Burrow's garden, in the middle of a game of exploding snap. At the sight of these memories, a feeling of intense nostalgia came over him, accompanied by a painful twinge of sorrow.

Ron paused at the next picture. It was a man he didn't know, young, maybe twenty or twenty-two years old. He had a long nose, brown eyes and thick eyebrows. Lying on a wooden floor among books and clothes, he seemed to be deep in reading and absent-mindedly ran his hand through his short chestnut hair. The Auror found two other photos with the same man, obviously from the same period. Disturbed without really knowing why, he put them back in the box.

For the next hour, he inspected every room in the house, accompanied by Kreacher, who, while pretending to ignore him, was roughly tidying up the mess left by the Aurors. There was nothing out of the ordinary until he opened the wardrobe. Inside, the clothes were still neatly arranged. There weren't many; Harry wasn't known for his taste in fashion. Ron pushed them aside one by one and stopped his hand on the official Auror uniform. His fingers ran over the gold buttons that adorned the crimson sleeves. The suit had last been worn at the ten-year anniversary ceremony of the Battle of Hogwarts, just over a month before.

The young man was about to close the wardrobe doors when he spotted a black coat, obviously very elegant, far from the style favoured by his friend. He took it out and examined it; one hundred percent cashmere, in perfect condition. Tucked behind it were several dark three-piece robes. As far as he could remember, he had never seen Harry wearing them. It was strange, but then again maybe he had needed them for work or a special occasion that didn't include Ron. The latter continued his investigation but found nothing else of note. After a final attempt to question Kreacher, he decided to go home.

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"I thought Robards had ordered you to rest," Hermione commented that night, when Ron told her about his visit to Grimmauld Place.

"I couldn't just sit here and wait," he replied, helping himself to a piece of shepherds pie. "This situation... It's just so frustrating!"

"I know. I did think you wouldn't just sit around." The young woman paused briefly to take a sip of her glass of water and then turned back to her partner. "Do you remember Parvati Patil?" she asked suddenly.

"Yes, I remember her well. Why?"

"She works on the same floor as me at the Ministry. At lunchtime she came to see me to talk about Harry. I thought she was going to ask me questions, she was pretty well known as the gossip queen at Hogwarts."

"So what did she want?"

"She told me about her twin sister, Padma."

"She was in Ravenclaw, wasn't she?"

"That she was. Apparently she became a healer, and she's extremely famous for her work on the unconscious mind of patients in a coma…"

Ron was beginning to understand what the young woman was getting at.

"Maybe she could take a look at Harry's case...," she suggested. "She could help you find out what spell was used on him?"

"I'd have to talk to Robards," he nodded, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Anything that affects Harry falls under the jurisdiction of the Aurors' Office… Where does she work?"

"Parvati told me that she lives in Johannesburg, but that she's coming to London soon. She's already told him about Harry's condition, of course."

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The next day, despite Robards' orders, Ron strode through the corridors of the Ministry. He found his supervisor in the middle of the files scattered on his desk, his head in his hands. The young man announced his presence by knocking on the open door.

"I told you to leave me—," Robards began, before pausing as he caught sight of his visitor. "Ronald?! I ordered you to stay home! What in Merlin's name are you doing here?"

"I know, I know, but this is urgent," the Auror replied hastily as he sat down.

He immediately reported the discussion he had had with Hermione the day before to his superior. The latter listened attentively and then, once the story was finished, rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"That could be a solution, yes," he said. "However, a healer wouldn't give us any information about what he saw in Potter's mind, due to medical confidentiality. An Auror would have to accompany them, if at all possible." He then turned to Ron. "All right, I'll contact Miss Patil and see if she'll agree to treat Harry Potter," he said decisively. "For the time being, let's not tell anyone else. We'll keep this between us."

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Padma Patil had been surprised to be contacted by the head of the Auror office. Of course, she was aware that Harry Potter had been arrested before he ended up in a coma at St. Mungo. Her sister had told her all the details on the day of the event. Moreover, in the wizarding medical community, Potter's case raised questions. What spell could have been used? She herself had to admit that she was curious.

For several years, she had been concentrating on research and had developed a revolutionary technique that could plunge into the memories of comatose patients and awaken them from their deep sleep. Called a genius by her peers, she was not a Ravenclaw for nothing. She was often criticised for not being empathetic enough with her patients; she saw this as an advantage: delving into someone's unconscious could lead to unpleasant side effects, such as emotional transference. The stronger the connection with the subject, the greater the chance of transference.

A week after the call from Gawain Robards, a meeting was arranged at the Ministry between the latter, Ronald Weasley and Padma. Together they could discuss the details of her work. When they asked her if it was possible for Weasley to take part in the dive, she flatly refused.

"No way," she said. "With your relationship, the risk of transference is far too high."

Padma tried to suggest bringing in another Auror, to which Ron firmly objected. "It'll be me or no one," the young man argued. "I won't let a stranger into Harry's mind, he wouldn't forgive me. Just teach me how to deal with the side effects."

After a bitter discussion, she finally let herself be convinced. "You have to understand that I don't decide what memories we're going to see," she warned. "His unconscious will guide us, but I can't guarantee a hundred percent success."

The healer explained the procedure to them and patiently answered their questions. At the end of the meeting, Robards made her sign a strict confidentiality agreement and the three of them agreed on a date for the first session. In two days' time, Padma and Ron would dive into the mind of Harry Potter.