(a/n: back again I return. Rejoice. Yeah. Right. I know, I'm laughing at me, too. Anyway, welcome back to yet another chapter of Unexpected Losses. I'm proud to say that finally something that I've come up with is actually appreciated. Don't mind me as I have a heart attack. . You guys just wouldn't believe how happy I am when I check my Inbox, and I have a "Review Alert" in there. I just...eep! I dunno. I just love feedback. I even love bad feedback, because...well, I'm demented or something. It's all I've managed to come up with in any case. It kinda makes me sad that I used to get a lot more than I get now, and I know it's my fault for taking so long with the updates, but I honestly do the best that I can. I hope that you enjoy it and uhm...yeah. Oh...and IsiwaruOfCkaloatia...please, please, please resume breathing. . Your review was definitely one of my favorites. Made me feel all warm and tingly and stuff. Yeah. I'm drugged. Don't mind me.
(Cardboard Moon: Forgive me, please, for first reading that as Cardboard Mom and then typing Cardboard Moo. It's four in the morning, and I randomly woke up. I have an exam in a couple hours, and I just checked my e-mail before falling back into unconsciousness. Over the months, I have gotten some really random and frightening threats to continue my work. I'm proud to announce that yours is one of the most original. . The only flaw is that I am already insane, so I'd probably be with the dead fish for a while...though that may actually be your intention. I shall have to reconsider that being a flaw. And thanks for the comment about the babbles. I never know if I'm taking it too far or if I'm really capturing the character as well as I mean to. . Thanks for the lovely review. And please don't hate me. It makes me sniffle.)
Chapter 12 of Unexpected Losses
Ronald Arthur Weasley suppressed a groan. His head was throbbing in agony, and a great deal of his right side was numb. Cracking one eye open before slamming it shut again, all he managed to gather was that he was lying down on his right side and someone in the décor department was overly fond of stone and the color gray. Slowly bringing up his left hand to his temples, he rubbed at them, feeling a sudden stab of empathy for the Boy-Who-Lived and the headaches that plagued him.
Deciding that no matter how inviting falling back asleep seemed, he needed to wake up completely and figure out what, exactly, was going on. Everything was fuzzy, literally (the edges of his vision seemed to blur, what he assumed was a lingering affect of his headache) and mentally, as he had no idea how he ended up in what he dubbed "The Gray Room." Slowly managing to open his eyes again, firelight from torches on the wall flickered at him, and he blinked back at them in surprise. Last place he'd seem that actually used torches as the only means of lighting was Hogwarts.
Mentally shrugging away the thought, he glanced around the room again. He was lying on a stone floor. Sitting up made the world spin violently around him, and Ron was forced to lean over and retch at the strength of the motion. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he shivered in disgust. Looking away from the spot where he'd lost whatever meal it was he'd last eaten, he leaned heavily on the wall so that he wouldn't have to sit up by his own right. He wasn't sure he could manage.
A soft snuffling sound took place somewhere off to his left, Ron slowly managed to turn in the designated direction. Every few seconds, a painful wave took over his mind before receding slightly. Finally facing in the direction of the odd noise, he noticed a slim figure curled up, a girl. She was resting her face in her knees, her arms over her head, and she was obviously sobbing something fierce. It wasn't the pose or the sound that told Ron who it was. It was the clothing she was wearing.
Because the sight of the red turtleneck sweater and dark blue jeans reminded him of exactly where he was when he was last conscious, and who he was with. "Her—" he broke away coughing. The single syllable had seared his throat, and the coughing was worse. Swallowing spit and bile thickly, he shivered again, and wished for a toothbrush. "Herm." He managed, and the sniffling stopped.
Cobalt blue eyes, bright with tears, inched above her knees until she spotted Ron looking back at her. "Ron." She whispered in a relieved voice. "You-You're okay?"
"What happened, Herm?" Ron managed in a croaky tone, unable to answer her question with anything positive. He wanted to lie back down again, but that wouldn't get them anywhere. And this time, whatever it was that they got into, it was up to them to get out of it. Because Harry was in the Muggle world with his family, and no one would tell him what was going on.
"You don't remember?" Hermione answered softly, swiftly whisking tears away from her cheeks with a brush of her fingers.
"I remember..." He paused, attempting to recall what, exactly, had happened. "You." He glanced at her, running his eyes over her once, attempting to see if she was hurt. Unsure of exactly why, he knew that something had happened to her. "You came to the Burrow. It...Our parents." He finally cut it as shortly as he could. She nodded once in response. Their parents had decided to let them visit on Christmas as a surprise, and it had been a good one. For a while.
"We...we went out?" He asked her, verifying what the fuzzy pictures in his head insisted had happened. Hermione nodded in agreement. "You...You took me to the veedo shop?"
"Video." Hermione corrected absently.
"That." Ron agreed. "And we were coming back. The...We saw Professor Kehoe." Ron said with a smidge more enthusiasm. He was rather proud of his remembering, but the enthusiasm itself was difficult to muster in his current mood. "She was running?"
"Yes. From Death Eaters." Hermione nodded in agreement. "Do you remember what happened?" She pressed, but Ron merely shrugged one shoulder in response. Talking was starting to hurt too badly, and the taste of blood had started edging up his throat, and he couldn't bear to say another word, even if he had remembered anything else. "We tried to help her." Hermione answered.
"She had her wand taken away from her. She was defenseless. So I took her with me, and you tried to figure out how many of them there were. Strategizing." She said the last word with a hint of pride to her voice, and Ron wondered why he couldn't remember what she was talking about. He could see the image in his mind perfectly, but it was created, not memory. "We tried to help her, but she didn't need our help." The brunette's voice was a trifled strained at that, and Ron wished for nothing more than the ability to walk over and hold his girlfriend. Not even that toothbrush.
"She grabbed me. My hair." Hermione tugged at the offending locks with her fingers, as if displaying them. "She took my wand. She-she held it to me, and used the disarming charm to retrieve yours. And then she told us to go with her." Hermione paused to wipe at the more stubborn tears that continued to fall down her cheeks. "At first, you wouldn't go. You stood up to her. But she cast an Unforgivable." Hermione's voice broke, and there were several moments of silence.
"Who, Herm?" Ron asked, rage simmering under his words. He knew already. Kehoe had cursed Hermione.
The whispered "me" was almost unheard, but he was waiting for it, and his anger boiled over, and without the ability to do much else, he raised one leg and slammed it angrily into the ground beneath him and winced at the pain resulting of the action. "After that...you couldn't. I mean..."
"I went with her." Ron finished, wishing desperately for the memory of the account to come back to him. Praying that for once Hermione was wrong. And it was some kind of dream or something.
"Yes." Hermione affirmed in a pained tone. "You came. She used a Portkey to get here. He was there." Fear filled her tone, and Hermione Granger had to suppress the urge to curl up further into herself and whimper.
"He?" Ron asked, confused. There were a lot of 'He's out there. But he did have a guess as to whom, exactly, He was. A "He" that she wouldn't name. A "He" that almost no one was brave enough to name. The one that they knew they risked capture from just because they were Harry's friends.
"He." Hermione agreed, knowing that Ron would come to the most logical conclusion, and the correct one. "He...I was scared, Ron." She admitted in a small voice. "I mean...if you hadn't...I--" Her voice cracked horribly, and a broken sob escaped her. "I would've told him anything." She managed to regroup herself. "You wouldn't. He forgot me. You—He. He hurt..." She drifted off softly, unable to say another word.
"Did he hurt you?" Ron asked, attempting to figure out what had happened. Hermione let out another of her half-sobs, and straightened up a bit, shaking her head firmly. "What happened, then?"
"You." Hermione corrected softly, ignoring his second question. "He...He tried, but you pushed me. The same spell." She finished in an injured tone, thinking of Kehoe's attack on her. "But...but more."
A remembrance of the feel of knives on his skin made Ron blanch. And it was only the start of a flood. "He didn't want Hare." He answered her softly, even as the memories returned to him. "He wanted to know why he was with the other one. The...American witch?"
"Yes. He was looking for some girl, Willow." Hermione agreed. "From America. He wanted to know how Harry found her. Who she was. But...but—."
"We don't know." Ron finished, remembering the terrifying look in Voldemort's eyes whenever he cast a curse. It explained, anyway, the lack of feeling he had in most of his right side and the pain in his head. He glanced over his apparel, and noticed that there were a great number of cuts in his clothing. Underneath them was a fine work of fresh cuts, though they didn't seem to be bleeding – sluggishly if at all. He couldn't feel most of them, though, and took the small blessing for what it was. "He doesn't believe."
"No." Hermione answered. "He said that he was looking for Harry's new ally. He was...angry."
"Who's Willow?" He managed, confused, glancing to Hermione. "I don't...remember?"
"You didn't forget." She reassured him softly. "I don't know who she is either."
"So...He wants to find someone that we don't know that apparently says she's an ally of Harry?" Ron summarized, still very much confused.
"I guess so." Hermione replied. "But something doesn't add up. If Harry knew any witches from America, you'd think he'd tell us. Like He apparently does. If there was someone...we should know about it. What if He's wrong? What if there isn't even--."
"That's enough chatting." Came the cold, calm voice from the doorway of the Gray Room. A very collected Kehoe entered the room, flicking her ash-blonde braid behind her shoulder. "Glad to see you made it, Weasley." She grinned darkly at the redheaded boy, who glared darkly at her in return. "Oh, be careful or you'll hurt my feelings."
"Wouldn't that just be a horrid thing?" Ron asked coldly, wishing he had the ability to get up and bodily attack the woman.
"Very." She answered seriously. "Oh, and thank you for the wand. It works much more easily for me than your girlfriend's. Such a pain. Rather like its owner really."
"Shut up." Ron glared again, seeing as it was the only way he could really do anything to her. Regardless of the situation he was in, he didn't like anyone talking about Hermione like that.
"No wonder you're a Gryffindor." Kehoe said, in such a manner that the word "Gryffindor" was spat out like the most disgusting insult she could manage. "Now, Weasley, I think that someone wants a word with you."
"Bugger off." Ron replied easily, unwilling to display the fact that fear was creeping up inside him, a feeling like a snake slithering around his gut.
"Well, I could do that, but it's either you or your girlfriend who goes and talks to him. I managed to convince him to talk to you first. I mean...you he might even tolerate for a moment. But wanting to send your Mudblood girlfriend to the Dark Lord? Not the most wise of decisions."
"Don't call her that." Ron nearly snarled when the word "Mudblood" slipped easily past one of his once favorite teacher's lips.
"I assume you're coming then." Kehoe answered with a half shrug. "Oh, and Finite Incantatum." She swished Ron's wand in his direction, and the spell that had apparently been placed on him was lifted. He noticed that his right side was no longer numb, but was instead alive with pain. Every one of the bleeding wounds was burning with fresh agony. He managed, after several long moments, to stumble to his feet without much more than a cry of pain. Without so much as looking to see if he was able to keep up, Caitriona Kehoe led Ronald Weasley to Voldemort.
OoOoOoO
"Okay. So...let me get this straight. She re-souled a vampire?" Lupin glanced at Willow in blatant disbelief. No way had this little redheaded slip of a girl preformed such awesome magic. It just didn't seem possible.
"Yes." Giles replied, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. It was the third time that Lupin had repeated the same question, and it was getting annoying. He'd already said so four times, and even Willow seemed a bit insulted. "I assume that we caught some unwanted attention when we did so." He said "unwanted" delicately, stressing its importance.
"Death Eaters." Lupin reiterated.
"Yes." Giles repeated.
"Meaning?" Buffy asked. "What do you do with them? Stake them? Beheading? What's the what?"
"You go home." Giles replied sternly. "You and Xander both. Death Eaters aren't demons, they're people. And there is absolutely no reason for you to be here if they are. It will only cause more trouble."
"They're after Willow!" Buffy protested. "I can't go home."
"You can and you will. Both of you." He shared his stern glare at Xander, who glanced back innocently. "You're needed more at home, and there's someone I can speak with here about Willow's protection if that's what you're worried about."
"You surely don't intend to speak with Dumbledore!" Lupin protested.
"Why ever not?" Giles asked mildly. "He offered me his support if ever I should need it. I cannot think of a time better than this in which I should take advantage of his offer."
"Dumbledore?" Lupin repeated dumbly. "Why would he—you were expelled."
"Indeed I was." Giles nodded in response. "Was not Rubeus Hagrid also expelled? You certainly trust him well enough."
"He didn't summon demons at school." Lupin replied coldly.
"I cannot excuse my actions, and I will not ask for your forgiveness. Dumbledore trusts me. If that isn't enough for you, then I don't know what else to tell you. But I refuse your old grudge against me to put Willow in danger." Giles seemed to grow larger as he spoke and Lupin finally jerked his head in a nod of agreement.
"Fine." Lupin replied sullenly, sensing Giles's true concern for Willow. "But I need to speak with Harry for a moment."
"Something's wrong, Professor?" Harry turned his attention to the older man, noting the serious tone.
"How many times must I ask you not to call me Professor, Harry? I haven't taught you for three years." Lupin lightly admonished him, to Harry's amusement.
"Yes, well, you two may have free reign of the kitchen. I will speak to these three in my room in the back." Giles indicated the Scoobies, and nodded his head in a leading gesture, so the three piled out of the kitchen. Once in Giles' room, the man sat on his bed and glanced at the three teenagers lined up by the door.
"What's all that about?" Buffy asked bluntly.
"Remus Lupin. He was a year lower than I in school. He had three best friends at school. James Potter, Harry's father, Peter Pettigrew, who is now dead, and Sirius Black, a murderer that has recently escaped from prison. He was in Gryffindor, and I was in Slytherin. They were houses at my school; somewhat like...dorms in college I suppose. My best friends at school were Ethan Rayne, Lucius Malfoy, and Severus Snape." He paused to glare at Buffy, who giggled at the names.
"Slytherin and Gryffindor were opposing houses and I imagine that they still are. The members of the houses were not to...harmonize. We hated each other with quite a passion, Lupin's group and mine. Lucius and Black hated each other almost as much as Snape and Potter. I, as you can imagine, hated just about everyone. One year Snape was almost killed by Black and Lupin. They tricked him into following Lupin on the night of a full moon. He was attacked by Lupin while he was a werewolf. That very well may have cemented our hatred for one another.
"To put it lightly, none of us could so much as tolerate each other. And it really only got worse. When Ethan, the others, and I were expelled...it was a celebration to those bloody Gryffindors. Of the five of us, three of us were Slytherin and two Ravenclaw, which is a somewhat neutral house for the two. There is also a house called Hufflepuff, but Slytherins generally despise Hufflepuffs as much as they do Gryffindors. Almost."
"So...there's much with the bad blood." Buffy surmised. "And I take it that Mr. Werewolf and you really don't get along well?"
"No. But I can probably speak to Dumbledore about some protection for Willow. He's quite the powerful wizard. Really, he's an amazing man. He has an understanding of people that's quite beyond more of the thinking capabilities of most people. He understood me in a way even I did not. He was the one who saved my wand for me when I was expelled. I fear he understood me long before I understood myself. He gave me my wand back on my graduation from Oxford. How he knew, I don't know. But I do owe him a lot."
"You trust this guy, Giles?" Buffy asked somewhat protectively, her arm draped over her redheaded best friend's shoulders.
"I would trust him with your life." Giles answered her dead seriously and Buffy jerked her head in a nod. If Giles trusted him that much, she could put Willow's fate in his hands. Buffy reached out to the older man, and hugged him.
"Then Xander and I will go home and do the save-the-world thing from there. We've got to finish getting everything ready. We've got to go in a bit if we're going to be there on time. If you need us..." Buffy drifted off meaningfully.
"You will be the first I call if I need any help whatsoever." Giles responded, pride sounding strongly in his voice, and Buffy did a mental self-congratulations. Giles was an open book to her on some things, and anything that called up the "that's my Slayer, I'm proud" look was officially of the good in her book.
"Good." Buffy answered firmly, and she leaned back into Willow, who grinned at Buffy, knowing that Buffy was rather proud of herself.
"So long as she's okay, I'm okay." Xander added from his spot on Willow's other side upon Giles' enquiring look, earning himself a nod and similar look to Buffy's.
"It's decided then, Buffy and Xander will go home, and Willow and myself will see Dumbledore about whatever protection he feels will be best for Will—"
"WHAT!" The outraged shout was easily heard from the kitchen. The four occupants glanced at one another before sprinting into the other room. Harry was at one side of the kitchen, glaring darkly at Lupin, who looked both guilty and anxious. "Why are you here? Why aren't you out looking for them? What—How!"
"What's wrong Harry?" Willow asked nervously, approaching her roommate almost nervously. She laid a hand on his shoulder, drawing all his attention to her. The bright green eyes were as expressive as ever, and seemed somewhere between furious and ill.
Harry broke away from the contact, despite its somewhat calming presence. "Hermione and Ron are missing." Harry answered her, before pinning Lupin in an angry glare. "They were caught on their way home yesterday." Harry expanded, despite the glare Lupin shot him (obviously the werewolf didn't wish for Harry to continue telling Willow what was going on).
"Caught by whom?" Willow asked automatically, approaching the black-haired boy again.
"Death Eaters." Harry answered, glaring darkly at Lupin, as if their capture was Lupin's fault. "Lupin decided to let me know that they're missing, so I can feel extra useless as I hang about the Dursleys."
"Oh my." Willow answered somewhat uselessly, unable to imagine how she would feel if someone told her Xander and Buffy were in trouble without any way to help them whatsoever. Rather like the look on Harry's said he felt, she imagined. "I'm sure that they're not going to keep you with the Dursley's if your best friends are in trouble?" She gave Lupin a pleading look, and his features shifted to guilty again, and he looked away.
"Harry's safest with the Dursley's. There's protection there that he doesn't have anywhere else." Lupin managed in response, a familiar defense.
"What!" Buffy asked with her bright eyes narrowed dangerously. "That is probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard before, and trust me I've heard some stupid ideas in my time. He's safe? Who cares if he's safe if his best friends are in trouble? He's the guy you want fighting these Death Muncher guys, isn't he? Gods, imagine if the Council got any bright ideas about keeping me safe and let Wills and Xan just get in trouble. Like them being dead is going to help me at all." Buffy ranted angrily, ignoring the glare she was earning herself from Lupin, and the look of honest interest from Harry.
"Death Munchers." Xander grinned in response, a note of pride in his voice. He would've added "Go Buffster" but that might've somehow taken away from her lecture.
"Well, whatever." Buffy answered, slightly amused and unwilling to show it. "I mean...sure I can do the whole Fight-the-Good-Fight without you guys, but...it's better with you guys around. It helps not having to do it all alone...you know. Except the whole Giles part." She offered Giles a bright grin at that, who just chuckled in response. Sometimes he was simply astonished by the wisdom Buffy had to offer, and this was no exception. She was a passionate girl, and sometimes that passion was intercepted by knowledge, producing the girl before him. Someone he was inordinately fond of. "Seriously, though, get my best friends killed...then why bother to save the world? They're the people I do it for."
"Aww, Buff." Willow wormed herself a hug out of Buffy, who was only too glad to share the aforementioned hug, "You're such a softie."
"Yeah, well, don't let it get around. I have a reputation to protect you know." Buffy grinned in return, glancing over to catch Lupin's considering stare.
"We'll go with you to speak with Dumbledore. We can see what he has to say about all of this." Lupin replied, giving Harry permission to come along without expressly stating it. It would've been impossible to miss the grin that lit up Harry's face. "I'm not promising anything, Harry, but I'll do everything I can." Harry gripped the older man in a tight hug, which Lupin returned fondly. "When are you planning to go and talk to the Headmaster, Ripper?"
"Please, Lupin, call me Giles. I haven't been Ripper for a great many years." Giles answered, pointedly ignoring Buffy and Xander turn to one another and mouth "Chocolate!" Willow smothered a smile at that, Buffy and Xander had e-mailed her about the band candy incident, and how Snyder had acted. Buffy had been rather mournful about her mother's behavior, and Willow had found a lot of humor where the Slayer missed it.
"Very well, then. When?"
"I have to take Buffy and Xander to the airport in a few hours, and then they will go back home. Your mother will be picking you up there. (This he directed at Buffy). Tomorrow, with the permission of Willow and Harry's guardians, we will go to see Dumbledore." Giles replied, thinking as he spoke.
"I don't think Aunt Petunia—."
As if proving a spark of Ripper was still in Giles, he glared at Harry over the rim of his glasses. "Then you'll tell her you're coming here. This is more important than what your Aunt wants." Harry grinned again at that. Despite anything that may have existed between his father and Giles, he couldn't help but be pleased that someone seemed to be on his side for once.
"So, are they going to be here today?" Buffy questioned in her usually blunt manner.
"I believe that that is for the best, Buffy." Giles answered softly.
"Well, that's all well and good, but I'm still spending time with Will today." Buffy shrugged, and slung her arm around Willow's shoulders, hugging the redhead close to her. "I came for my Willow quality time, and I'm getting it."
"Hey! Me, too!" Xander answered, smirking at his best friends, both of whom grinned back.
Harry glanced at Lupin. "Can you try and get everyone to try and help Ron and Hermione? I think I'll be okay here?"
"Of course, Harry." Lupin nodded in response, and with a nod to Giles, he promptly Disapparated.
"So...what now?" Willow asked softly, glancing between Xander and Buffy, who shared a mischievous grin. Willow grew nervous. They were plotting. That could never be a good thing.
(a/n: ugh. I absolutely hate this chapter. I like the Ron and Hermione bit okay, but everything dealing with the Scoobies is just...awful. I am so sorry for the sub-standard chapter, but no matter what I did, it only got worse. I wrote and rewrote this about ten times, and I went in three or four entirely different directions and no matter what I did, it was just...horrid. I swear I'll do better on my next chapter...so...please be gentle with me. I know how bad this is. )