So This Is How It Ends
By inxanity
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley/Tom Riddle
Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Tom Riddle/Voldemort, Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley
Summary: Some call them the blessed, they were gifted with extraordinary grace. They were born to be set apart, yet some may call them the cursed. They were born to save us, to die young so we could continue to live. See their final year through their eyes and discover to what fate they were born.
Rating: R
Chapter Three – Grasping For Light – Ron
Ron opened his eyes to complete darkness. He reached around for the light, found it, and clicked it on but the room remained dark. He sighed. Everyday he hoped and prayed that it would be the day he got his vision back, but fate had decided that today it would not be so. He removed his wand from where he kept it strapped to his ankle so as to keep from loosing it. With a muttered spell "Vestio" he dressed himself and slipped his wand back into place before stepping into the hallway, the door magically locking behind him.
He didn't know the place they were staying, no one had told him for safety's sake, he knew for sure that they weren't in number 12 Gimmauld Place. It seemed to be more of a crossroads, a staging post for the ambassadors from innumerable foreign variations of the Order. Just walking through the hallways never once heard English, mainly because it seemed they had related to ancient times and the common tongue here was Latin. Ron had walked these hallways long enough to know his way to the kitchen and the bathroom, the majority of his needs could be found here and most days he had taken to withdrawing to his room for days at a time. Dumbledore visited infrequently which was excusable because after all he did have a school to run and an uprising to stop, but the only way he could have any contact with Harry and Hermione was through him because it now had become too dangerous to send owls.
He entered the kitchen and waited at the door until he felt his mother approach him. "Morning honey, have a good sleep?" she asked cheerfully, taking hold of his arm and leading him over to a table. "Are you hungry? I made kippers," she sat him down and Ron heard her push a plate in front of him. He picked up the fork and knife and set them against the plate, wincing when they scraped against the plate. "You want me to cut that for you dear?" his mother questioned. He nodded his head and pushed his plate in her general direction. Or so he thought. There was a large shattering sound as the plate crashed to the ground.
"Aw, dammit! Mum I'm so sorry." He swore, getting up to try to pick up the pieces.
"That's ok honey, don't swear." She replied, pushing him back down and cleaned the pieces of the broken plate away with a flick of her wand. "How about some cereal instead?"
"Sounds good." He said, and leaned forward on the table, putting his head in his hands. It just wasn't fair. Why did it have to be him? He was supposed to fight side by side with Harry in the final battle; he was supposed to go down in the history books as one of the few who helped to defeat Lord Voldemort. He wasn't supposed to be here as helpless as an infant, and standing by as Harry and Hermione swiftly approached their doom.
All of a sudden his attention was caught by a small prick of light. Were his useless eyes deceiving him? No, the light grew stronger and bigger as if it were moving towards him. He reached out a hand to see if he could touch it, and closed his fingers around the orb.
His world exploded. After being in the dark for so long, the sudden burst of light stung his eyes to no end, but this was not where he just was. He was in what seemed like an old-fashioned muggle movie, the scene in front of him kept flickering and the sound seemed distorted somehow.
"Did you really think that you could come in here and just kill me?" Voldemort said with mocking in his voice. Harry clenched his fist around his wand as Voldemort laughed. A girl moaned in the background. Harry took his eyes off of his arch – nemesis and saw Ginny writing in pain. She was chained to the wall by gold handcuffs and it seemed that they were burning through her skin, the dark blood contrasting greatly from her snow white skin.
"What have you done to her?" Harry hissed, turning his attention back to Voldemort.
"Nothing actually, she came on her own free will." He said smirking.
"You expect me to believe that?" Harry said. "I'll ask you one more time, what did you do to her?" but before he could get a reply, he heard the crack of bones behind him. Harry spun around to see Peter Pettigrew standing there, wincing at his fatal mistake and holding a knife dripping with poison.
"You fool! Kill him!" Voldemort shouted at Pettigrew, who raised the knife and took a swing at Harry, who ducked and grabbed the hand that was holding the knife and plunged it into the short man standing before him. The look on both of their faces was filled with nothing but shock, as Harry let go of him, and Pettigrew collapsed to the ground.
"Well done Potter. You managed to kill an annoyance. My turn now," he said, raising his wand casually. Harry ducked and picked up the now dead form of Peter Pettigrew and held it up before him. He was thrown backwards as the force of the spell hit the cadaver. Voldemort, let out a frustrated sigh, "Why must you make this so hard for yourself Potter? You're going to die one way or another, let's just get it over with ok?" Voldemort was slowly moving towards Harry, he cast a spell on Pettigrew's body as he passed it, and the flesh immediately disintegrated, leaving only bones. Harry shuddered to think how many people had suffered the same fate. "I've grown bored of this, good bye Harry."
A green light filled Ron's vision and then everything returned to the usual black. He realized that he was on the ground, and people all around him were shouting his name.
He shouted back, "Mom? MOM!!! Where are you?"
"I'm right here Ron, Merlin's beard, what was that about?" he felt his mother grasp his hand and pull him up, dusting him off.
"I need to talk to Dumbledore, now." He said, brushing her hand away.
"Now Ron, I've told you before, you have to wait."
"No, mom, it can't wait. This is really important-"
"Of course it is, honey-"
"No mom. Listen to me! I saw something and I need to tell Dumbledore RIGHT NOW!" he shouted. All of a sudden the room went quiet, save for a few people whispering in different languages.
"Come with me," his mother muttered and led him by the arm out of the room. "Sit down," he was pushed down into a plush chair, and stayed still. He could hear his mother bustling around and was met with sudden warmth; she had made a fire.
"Dumbledore, yes, can you get over here quickly? Yes, it's Ron. Okay. He'll be here in an hour."
"Sorry?" Ron said, not realizing that he was being spoken to.
"Dumbledore will be here in an hour and you can tell him what you saw."
"Oh," he said, and didn't speak for the following hour until he heard a soft knock at the door and his mother got up to open it. She and Dumbledore talked in hushed voices for a while before coming over to sit by Ron.
"OK Ron, please tell me everything that happened."
It took over an hour for Ron to tell the full account of it because his mother and Dumbledore continuously interrupted him. Once he was done however, they remained silent. Ron thought it best to stay that way as well until Dumbledore broke the silence.
"Ron I want to know immediately if this ever happens again. For the moment I will begin to make arrangements for you to start training with a diviner. No it's not Professor Trelawney," Dumbledore smiled at the look of protest that set upon his former student's face. "Professor Snape is also working on a potion that may help you recover your eyesight. He thinks it may be ready in a fortnight or two."
"Thank you so much professor." Ron said, feeling happier than he had since the attack.
"One more question though. Is this the first time something like this has happened?" Ron thought back to all those times when he played Harry in chess, all those times when he was able to see the moves before they happened. All those times he had known when something was about to happen the moment before it did.
"Not really," he said slowly, "not something this big. I mean, it was just minor stuff."
"May I ask why you told no one of these visions?"
"Well, I did once, when I was younger. Fred and George were planning something and I got this vision that they were going to get hurt, so I told them but they just laughed at me. So I decided that it was just nothing." Ron shrugged.
"Very well. Molly, thank you for the tea, I must take my leave of you. I will return in the near future." And he was gone.
The two Weasley's sat in silence. "Mom . . ." Ron began.
"Oh my baby," exclaimed Mrs. Weasley and drew Ron into a crushing hug. Stroking his hair and rocking back and forth she murmured "Why my family? Why?"
