Cleo Chestra and the wizards of America: Chapter 17

Not quite dead

Cleo felt something wet on her right leg, and twitched slightly at the feeling. Her eyes opened on the starch white sheets (All was white besides the flower petals that had wilted onto the carpeting floor.) where Ron had his head laid. She blinked for a long while before she released that he was crying. Cleo lifted her arm and stroked his hair, how ever difficult it was to do so. He stopped slowly and turned his head. He was shaking with veneration, when he looked back up to see what exactly was touching his head. When his eyes focussed on her, he looked ready to jump out of his skin.

"That the HECK! AHHHHH!"

"AHHH! WHAT IS IT!" He pulled back in his seat and knocked against the curtains.

"Ron! Stop it! Ron what is it!"

"You're supposed to be DEAD!"

"DEAD!"

"WHAT THE HECK?"

"WHAT THE HECK RON!" He was breathing heavily; gradually he crept up on the bed and touched her face, up her shoulder, to her neck and on her face. Cleo allowed him to do this; it actually felt good on her sweating face.

"Oh my gosh. Cleo your alive!" She smiled softly and stroked his hair. He rapped his arms around her neck and they simply held each other for a long while.

"I missed you." He murmured. Cleo squeezed tighter to him.

"What happened Hun?" He didn't seem to wont to tell her. His pause was long but Cleo begged him.

"In the dimension, You-know-how tricked us. You killed Charon instead of him and he…he…ki-kil…" He trailed off and shook his head. Cleo gripped on to him.

"But he didn't kill me, I'm still here!" She assured him.

"But Cleo, he did Avada Kedavra on you!"

"But… that doesn't make sense!" She said, least to say baffled. "Harry, he was the only one to survive it! How could I have?"

"NO! Harry Please!" Cleo stayed frozen with her hand on Ron's and looked threw the crack in the curtains. Ron did the same.

"Hermione, they're going to…bury her tomorrow. Come on." Gosh! How dead could I have been? Hermione was to the point of sobbing now.

"Please Harry, anything else! I can't bear to look at her knowing she can't look back!" She was reduced to nothing but a founding of tears. Harry lead her threw the curtains because her eyes were shut tight. He turned to look sweetly at Cleo, expecting to find her dead but was sadly mistaken. His eyes grew so large that Cleo could practically see herself in them.

"What the bloody hell!" Hermione whimpered and initiated to cry even harder.

"Oh Hermione!" Cleo said automatically. Hermione stopped halfway threw a breath and opened her eyes to Cleo, she started to choke. Gasping for breath with a hand on her chest. After she gained her breath again she cried hard.

"Hermione! Its ok, everything is ok!" Hermione shook her head so hard that she turned into a large brown blur for a trice.

"No, no you're dead! You can't be alive your dead! Oh gosh!"

"No Hermione, I'm quite alive! Please stop crying I can't bear to see you cry, you know that!" Hermione completely leapt on her and squeezed around her neck.

"Never, never, never, never leave! Never, ever again. Oh Cleo it was killing me, absolutely killing me!" She gasped.

"I didn't mean kill! No not kill! He killed you!" Finally she excepted it and looked at her. "But you're alive. Everything's ok!" Cleo sighed and smiled.

"That's right, everything's ok. All ok." She hugged her and stroked her hair. Cleo whispered "its ok" to her for a long while as far as Harry spoke up.

"Everyone in the school was morning. Second year in a row someone's died! Everyone was really scared too."

"But I'm not dead!"

"Madam Pomfrey had to tell Dumbledore over and over again 'cause he wouldn't believe it! He declared your death last night." Ron told her.

"It was really sad." Hermione added.

"But I'm alive!" Cleo growled.

"How?" Harry thought suddenly. Cleo rolled her eyes and sighed.

"No idea! You're the only one ever to have survived Voldemort's curse Harry! And yours made sense, or more than now. Your Mum saved you from dying, but me…" Before anyone replied Cleo gasped. "What happened to Voldimort?" Harry looked at the other two and back at her.

"We'll have to start at the beginning." Cleo made an inclination, not really caring; she was rather interested in that as well.

"Hermione saw that you were being attacked and got us." Ron started "We got the Andswarian and asked it how to get to you."

"We said this chant thing and got into the dimension." Hermione broke thew.

"We fought for a while," Harry continued, "but just as we were going to leave you to Voldimort he…well we thought…" Cleo stopped him.

"I know that part. But what happened after that?" Cleo said before everyone got sentimental again.

"Well…then Ron…er…he…" Ron threw his arms up into the air.

"Honestly! Just spit it out! Fine!" He said at the sunned looks on his friends. "When I saw what happened, I ran up to you to see if you were ok. When I found out you," He cleared his throat "Anyway…I tried to…er…beat up Voldimort." Cleo tried with all her might to not laugh at Ron's idiocy.

"Shut up!" he snapped when she let some form of a snicker out. She gave him a loving look and motioned for him to come closer so she could kiss him for his efforts. (She couldn't move herself.)

"Well anyway," Hermione's quavering voice interrupted the romance. "Voldemort knocked him unconscious and we tried to kill him with Avada Kedavra but he just kept pushing us back!" Harry sneered.

"I think he was enjoying it. But then this… force just pulled us back here and, I don't know what happened next."

"We thought it might have all been a dream the next day…but you weren't there." Ron said. Cleo touched his face and clutched the hands of her other two friends.

"Oh goodness. What was the force that brought 'yall back?" She asked as an after thought.

"I think the teachers got us 'cause we were back in bed when we woke up." They sat silent a while.

"Oh my gosh!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed.

"What?"

"Your Mum and Dad! Dumbledore got them today to talk, if anyone they should know you're alive!" Hermione exclaimed with an infinitesimal chuckle

"One of us should stay here to look after Cleo, who will do it?" Harry volunteered. Hermione grinned and took Ron's hand to dash out of the room. Harry waited until they had gone before he talked again.

"I still can't believe you're alive! What happened in the dimension? I just don't understand!" Cleo licked her lips.

"Charon…"

"Before you killed him?"

"Yeah, he said that you, I and Hermione could easily over rule Voldimort." She said this fleetly; she had been wanting to say it for a while now.

"The three of us?" He frowned and looked down at his feet, as he often did when he was thinking. "What about Ron." Cleo bit the inside of her lip.

"I'm worried about that…you know that Ron would do anything for us." Harry's head snapped up.

"Cleo you don't think he'll…"

"Oh! I hope not!" Cleo started to tear up but held them back. "But it still seems that he might be hurt…killed." She stopped. She had said the word that they had tried to avoid. How cold it sounded! With its added chill down her spine and thundering in her head. She clutched her hands. Swiftly she took a breath and looked up at Harry who had danger in his eyes.

"It won't happen!" He plighted. "I won't let it! Why should he suffer? Why us anyway!" He shook his head and scowled. "I hate it! I wished none of this had ever happened to us!" Cleo squeezed his hand so hard it turned purple.

"Don't say that Harry! We've done so much already! Can't you see we have a purpose?"

"What purpose!" He demanded "To have the people we love killed for our sake!"

"And save the lives of a million people after!"

"I've already lost my parents, I'm not going to loose my best friend! Don't you even care about him?" Cleo turned bright red.

"Never, ever even suggest that I don't care about Ron again." She said this so low and stern that Harry waited until the original color of her face returned. "I love Ron so much. I don't think you even know how much." Harry gave her a heathen look. "And I will do all I can In my power to save him, god Harry I wont to Marry that boy! But we must keep our mural up, if not we'll all die." Harry stayed silent for a long while. The anger in his face had died down and turned into reflection. Cleo got uneasy and shattered the quite thinking.

"Are you alright Harry?" He hesitated but nodded.

"Sure about that?" He nodded again when the sound of a swinging door rung threw the tinny room and the pitter patter of scurrying feet ran across the floor to Cleo. Expeditiously the curtains flew open and her mother dove on her. Cleo's father, Dumbledore, Ron and Hermione stood behind her and watched joyfully.

"Oh my goodness! You're alive! Ohh!" Her rapid chatter turned to bitter crying in an instant and Cleo understandably stroked her hair.

"But…how can she be alive?" Her father asked Dumbledore who was standing beside him with dancing eyes.

"I'm sure you're aware of Mr. Weasly and Miss. Chestra's relationship." He said delicately. Mr. Chestra swallowed loudly and glared over at Ron who decided to find the floor interesting. "Ron was the one who saved her." Cleo's mother let go, Ron stopped looking at the floor, Cleo's father stopped his glaring and all eyes met Dumbledore's.

"I did?" Ron said with a tremble.

"Indeed. You did very nearly the same as Harry's mother." He posed to be dramatic "Of Course it wasn't all that strong. I was simply his love for her that allowed her to live." Cleo looked up at Ron who was now blurring. Right then she said a silent prayer that Ron wouldn't die, ever.

"How did you do it Ron?" Hermione asked. Her voice was piercing; she was obviously enjoying the romance.

"I saw that she was gonna get killed. The first thing I thought of was to chant love will save over and over again. I saw it in this text book while we researching about America." He stopped to add "But it was just an accident." Cleo didn't mind that he had said this. It seemed that he didn't won't people to think he would look up such things on purpose. Cleo gasped.

"Its that voice again!" She bellowed. Mrs. Chestra's eyes were wide.

"What voice?"

"I don't know! It instructed me while I was fighting with Charon! It just told me something else!"

"It's the earrings Sirius gave you." Dumbledore said simply. "He had expected that you might get in a strife with Charon." Cleo took the earrings off to look at them. They winked red and Cleo smiled.