A/N: This drabble is for IWSC season 3 round 1 Writing School

School: Mahoutokoro

Year: 7

Prompt: (action) fleeing

Word count: 981

Title: The Wrong Kind of Sacrifice

Rating: T

"Hermione, stop!"

She heard his panicked voice from afar but didn't heed the command.

"No, no, no," she whispered.

Hermione rucked up her skirt a little higher, ignoring the soreness in her arm. The tulle and crinoline were difficult to carry. The second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts was long over but this was not how she had imagined her day would end.

She stumbled across a few wrangled roots and almost fell face down. Her chest felt constricted and she could feel the onset of a panic attack if she didn't calm down.

She could hear Ron's footsteps nearing—there was no time to waste.

"Hermione!"

She continued running. She had transfigured her heels into running shoes long ago, but didn't want to waste any time or energy to do the same on her ballgown.

She knew she was losing her pace.

"Hermione, be reasonable! Don't you want this?"

"No, Ron. No!" she almost wailed.

He was blinded by grief. He didn't understand the consequences. She clutched her beaded bag to her chest and pulled up the last few vestiges of strength to run faster.

"Be reasonable, Hermione!"

He was very close.

"Dammit! Hermione Granger, don't make me do this! Petrificus Totalus!"

He kept casting the spell at random. She could see red beams of light striking against tree trunks, some missing her narrowly. Until one hit her from behind.

She fell to the ground with a heavy thud, her bag still clutched to her chest.

"Hermione?" She heard him approaching her.

She felt a lump in her throat. She wasn't scared of Ron, she just wanted life to go back to normal for them. She thought they'd be happy once the war ended.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered as he knelt down next to her.

Hermione felt a wave of exhaustion come over her. His hand reached out for her arm in the dark.

"Are you okay?" He traced his hand down to her palms which were still holding on to the beaded bag. Her grip was stony—he couldn't pry it out of her. It worried her how his sweet words were a contradiction to his dark actions.

"Fuck," he muttered. "I'm sorry, Hermione. Finite Incantatem." And in the next breath, "Incarcerous"

"Ron, don't do this," she pleaded with him. "It's not right."

He snatched the bag out of her grip.

"You shouldn't have stolen it," he muttered but his focus was on finding the goods that she had nicked earlier that evening from him. Before they had left for Hogwarts to attend the Second Year Battle Anniversary.

He stopped his search once he found what he was looking for.

"Come, I'm already late." Even though she was bound, he managed to tug her up with one hand.

"Have you even thought this through?"

"You are acting like you don't care!" He pointed his finger at her, his face furious.

"He won't want this Ron," she said, her voice firm. She could see his face from the faint moonlight. All the grief and stress had not been kind to him.

"He will. He'll have us, Hermione." And with that he apparated them away.

As soon as they landed, Hermione tried to get away from Ron's grip, but he was quicker than her.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"You think I'm going to stay here and help you?" Hermione yelled in his face.

"I know you want this as much as I do. You're just frightened. But it's alright. I'll be strong enough for both of us."

He dragged her towards a tree that stood at the edge of the property and secured her against it.

He then held her face gently between his hands. "I know you're uncomfortable—you can stay here. I'll bring him back."

Horror dawned on her when she realised just how far gone Ron was.

At the end of the day, killing Vodemort had killed Harry as well. After everything, Ron and Hermione had been too wrung out to look out for each other and decided that some space would be the best option for them. They hadn't strayed that far, but she never realised how bad it was for him.

"He'll not be the same, you know that," she said. He had moved to the centre of the yard that once was the Potters residence in Godric's Hollow. He dug out the Philosopher's Stone and the vial of Unicorn Blood she had nicked from him earlier that evening. "The most you'll get will be an Inferi."

"Then we'll love him the same!"

"Ron, listen to me, Voldemort and Harry were linked. What if you bring him back as well?"

"Then I'll kill him with my own bare hands," he said as he lit the fire at the centre of an already traced pentagon in the ground.

"There is no record of anyone bringing back anything other than spirits or Inferi from the dead. You want Harry to go through that?" Hermione pleaded with him, straining against the bonds.

"We have the Stone."

She could see that the pentagon was nearly ready for the ritual.

Before she knew he had begun chanting from an ancient script.

Hermione put all of her focus and energy into doing a wandless and non-verbal Accio to summon her spare wand strapped to her calf. She had never told anyone that she had held on to Bellatrix's wand.

By now she could feel the dark magic thick in the air. She feared for Ron's magical core—it seemed this wasn't his first time practising dark magic.

She made sure that Ron was engrossed in the ritual when she cast her spell. A simple disruption would be enough to put a stop.

A swift Aguimenti washed away a part of the pentagon and most of the sacrificial blood.

Ron went ballistic when he realised. "Hermione, how dare y—"

"Petrificus Totalus," she muttered.