Author Announcement – Hello there! This is the long awaited third chapter. I'm sorry this has taken a while to be produced; my life has been absolutely manic lately.

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters used in the story (damn), but the plotline is entirely my own creation.

Enjoy!

Inner Strength

Chapter 3 –Only Hermione

Everything was deadly silent. It wasn't an awkward silence. More a... peaceful silence. Ron remained perfectly still. He was more relaxed than he had ever been in his life.

This was a nice place, wherever he was. Ron couldn't quite make out the shapes and images that swirled around him, but he knew they would do him no harm. Nothing could hurt Ron anymore.

Ron began to hum quietly to himself. The noise echoed eerily around him. He stopped rather quickly. This place was actually beginning to freak him out now. He wished some of the shadows would move forward into the light. He even tried shouting at them, telling them to "show themselves!" But nothing would come forth from his mouth.

This place wasn't just eerie now, it was downright scary. This wasn't right, wasn't natural! But Ron could think of nothing to do, nothing that would make it stop. He tried to move, but he found that he was literally trapped within his own body.

He began to feel incredibly sleepy and could feel his eyelids beginning to droop. He wanted nothing more right now than to curl up in a tight ball and let his spirit fly...

Ron allowed his eyes to slowly slide shut. Finally, the good nap that he had been waiting for, for days...

Everything was deadly silent. It was a terrible, awkward silence. No one knew what to say or do. They stood there, waiting, waiting for what seemed absolutely impossible. But they waited, none the less, wanting their friend to awake from his deep, peaceful sleep.

After a while, the head healer looked down at his watch and gave a great sigh. He looked up again and looked into Harry's, then Hermione's eyes. He gave a small cough, and began to speak.

"I'm... terribly sorry. Mr Weasley has -"

"No!" screamed Hermione as she threw herself at Ron's limp body before Harry had time to even take in what had been said.

Suddenly, an image appeared in front of Ron. It was perfectly clear. The lines were bold and solid. Not smudged into the background like they had been for days and days... The colours were oddly startling, and it made Ron's eyes hurt just to watch. What was even more painful was of who the images were of.

It was Hermione. She was draped across a lifeless human form across the floor, sobbing her heart out. Tears were streaming against her scarlet cheeks which made a stark contrast to her deathly pale white skin. Ron's chest was in agony just looking at the terrible image before him. That was when he realised something. Hermione was crying over his own dead body. Not wanting to see himself lying there, in that state, and refusing to watch one of his best friends in so much agonising pain, he tried to turn his head away, but found once again that he couldn't.

It was Ron's fault. All Ron's fault. Hermione was in terrible agony and he had caused it. He felt terrible; he knew that this was surely the end. He could not live anymore... nothing mattered to him. Even if Harry wasn't dead, this was so real. This was happening, he knew it. This was the first real thing he had seen in days, Ron knew somehow. Ron deserved to die.

He tried to reach up to her, but he couldn't move. His body was absolutely rigid. He looked into Hermione's eyes. He would never see those beautiful hazel eyes ever again, the lovely caramel colour that he had gazed mesmerized into for so many years. He had to wake up. He needed to see those eyes, her face again.

He tried. He desperately tried. But he couldn't.

Ron looked at Hermione again. She was in terrible agony. Ron wanted it to end, wanted his pain to end, wanted to die, but if he died... his pain would end, but Hermione's never would. He felt a small, cold tear run down the side of his face.

"I'm so sorry…" He called out before coming to his realisation of what he had to do.

This wasn't for Ron; he could never manage it if it was for himself. This was for Hermione.

He took a deep breath. Once again, he looked deep inside his soul.

Ron's eyes flew open as he took a shuddering gasp of breath.

I know that wasn't a particularly long chapter, in fact it is my shortest chapter yet, but it seemed a good place to end and I really didn't want to pad out the story any more than that. The next chapter is probably going to be a hell of a lot longer.

Thank you so much to all my reviewers. I am so eternally grateful. I have again left you all a little comment. They aren't massively long, but at least it shows you guys that I really do appreciate you!

MadRoswellFan – Thanks for reviewing again. Sorry it took so long.

RandomSmrif13 – Glad you liked it :)

Gag Hafrunt – Ok, I have got no idea what the hell your problem is. There is no need to attack my writing like that. This story can not be that bad as it written in word first then thoroughly spellchecked. I see you have not written any stories of your own. Write one and see how hard it is before your criticize everyone else, hey?

Stuf – Thanks for reviewing again. Glad you liked it. I'm not sure about Harry/Ginny... perhaps.

Acinonyxjubatus – Hey! Thanks for reviewing. I'm glad someone has finally said that my spelling isn't that bad, I agree I make the odd slip here and there, but it isn't as bad as that Gag dude was making out!

Hippielover459 – Hey. Well, now you know what happened to Ron:)

Psychopenguin16 – I'm glad you like it Jessie. And cookies! How thoughtful! I love cookies!

(:) eats cookies noisily (:)

I would also like to say an incredibly big thank you to my fantastic friend, Kadie. She actually read this chapter before I published it, she changed my spelling and grammar (thank the lord!) and she added the odd word in here and there. She is an absolute angel and I love her to bits. Thank you!

Well, what did you think? Please R&R