Chapter Twenty One - Back From the Dead
"Stop protecting me from everything!"
It was Ginny's voice, she was shouting at somebody but it wasn't her frightened scream, or even her angry scream, it was the scream she used when she was throwing a mini tantrum. It had woken Ron from his sleep.
He fidgeted and winced as the unpleasant sensation of partially healed flesh wounds broke open again and the agonising cramp in both arms sent an alarm ringing inside his head insisting he wake up and put a stop to all of this discomfort immediately.
"I can't be with you because you're protecting me, I can't come on the quest with you because it's too dangerous for me, I can't know what the quest is because I'm just some silly little blabbermouth who will risk all your lives just so I can have a gossip..."
Yes that was definitely Ginny, he had heard that whole rant earlier in the summer, she was pissed and she wasn't shy about letting anybody know about it.
"I didn't say that," Harry's voice was struggling to defend himself.
Ron opened his eyes and looked up at the unfolding scene before his bleary eyes. Ginny was, yet again, shouting at Harry for keeping her out of the loop and Harry was defending his need to protect those he loved. Ron had seen it all before and he was sick of it. It was such a waste of their time. There was no compromise, there was no solution that would ever make them both happy, there was only more hurt and anger and none of them really needed any more of that.
"Then I find out that the three of you had to go back to the Burrow for a few days and mum won't tell me why, Fred and George are taking it in turns to run the shop while the other one goes to the house and they won't tell me why, Ron shows up at Hogwarts and doesn't tell me why and now Hermione's bitten by a snake and Ron's a bloody prisoner and I'm still in the bloody dark! I won't have it anymore Harry, I won't, this is my family and how dare you keep me out of the loop. I should know...I should know more than...more than..."
"Don't you dare," Ron found his voice as he realised exactly what kind of mistake his sister was about to make in her blind rage.
"Ron?" Ginny turned to look at him, her face on the verge of tears and her voice meek as it had been when she was a shy little girl.
Ron couldn't let her get away with that though, no matter how sad she looked right then, she had been about to cross a line and that was unacceptable to Ron.
"Don't you dare finish that sentence you spoiled little brat," he warned.
The blood is thicker than water excuse became void as soon as Percy was crowned king prick and turned his back on the family. Harry had been there when their dad had been in hospital. Harry had been there when Ron had been poisoned. Harry had been there at Bill and Fleur's wedding. Harry had been there for Ron when he was slowly going insane. Percy was blood and Harry was water and at that moment in time Ron would have been happy if he never saw a drop of blood again.
"But I was just..." Ginny's trembling voice broke the tense silence as she tried to defend herself.
"You were just the centre of your own bloody universe yet again, that's what you were," Ron hissed, too much of him hurt and his mind was too occupied with worry to have to sugar coat what aggravated him most about his sister this last couple of years, "you might be able to play that game in the family but in the real world you're not the only girl."
"Ron..." Harry tried to interject some calm into this volatile situation.
Ron's fuse had been lit and it was shorted than usual. He didn't have the patience to hold back anymore. He had watched his little sister evolve into a confident charismatic young woman and been incredibly proud of her for doing so. Then he had watched as that newfound popularity went to her head and she occasionally dropped into arrogance once in a while. That wasn't the sister he remembered and that wasn't the sister he needed right now. And he did need her; he needed her to make him feel normal again.
"In the real world Ginny you are not always right, you are not always popular, and you are not always entitled to know every-bloody-thing you want," he seethed as her face fell almost as fast as the tears from her eyes did.
He didn't want to hurt her, he didn't want to push her away, but keeping this oracle thing a secret was his only hope at ever having a normal life once this whole thing was over.
"I love you Gin but you can be really full of yourself sometimes," he muttered as he looked away from her sadly.
"Why...why are you angry with me? What have I done?" she squeaked in a fragile sounding voice.
She was almost as bad as Hermione had become.
"You're pissed off that I'm being controlled while you're trying to do the exact same bloody thing," he explained with exasperation.
Would she really risk his sanity just to know the truth? Couldn't she just trust him and follow his advice, just for once? He knew that it was unprecedented in their family for anybody to accept that maybe Ron knew better than them about the proper course of action regarding something but he had hoped that at least Ginny might just have enough faith in him to leave him be to handle this alone.
"I have to have a secret otherwise my life is over do you understand me Gin? Over. Do you really want to know everything that much that you're willing to ruin the rest of my life just so you don't feel left out?"
Ginny shook her head and burst into floods of tears. She flung herself at Ron and tried to hug him despite his inconvenient position with his arms locked around Hermione. He sighed and looked from Harry to Neville for some help; he figured that Harry might not be the best person to call upon to comfort his sister for him so he opted for Neville instead.
"Neville could you cuddle my sister for me please? I...can't right now."
Neville grabbed Ginny and hugged her tightly while she gripped handfuls of his robes and cried into them. Ron looked away at the scene of yet more pain he had caused somebody he loved and stared at the silver hoop encircling Hermione's arm.
"I'm...sorry...Ron," Ginny said between sobs.
He had never felt more tired in his whole life, not physically but mentally, he was tired of people crying over him.
"No I'm sorry, it's been a rough night, I didn't mean it," he said it as he shifted in his seat and realised that there was no more comfortable way for him to sit.
Ginny pulled away from Neville and sniffed.
"No you're right, I do think I have the right to know everything, and I'm sorry. It's just that I worry, I'm my mother's daughter what can I say?"
Ron laughed and Ginny smiled a watery smile before looking at Harry with her bloodshot eyes.
"I'm sorry Harry, you are family of course you're family, I never meant it to come out that way."
"I know, I'd be out of my mind if Ron was going through all this without me, I totally understand. It's ok."
Ron cast a glance at Harry as he said this and smiled at his almost brother.
"Does mum know?" Ginny asked as Neville pulled up a chair for her to sit on beside Ron.
Harry nodded and Ron blinked in horror. How did his mum know they'd been hurt again? Whose stupid idea was it to tell her? There was no need for her to worry more.
"What?" he snapped.
"McGonagall went off to send an owl, don't you remember?" Harry shrugged apologetically.
Ron huffed so deeply that it seemed to weaken his resolve to stay awake and continue with this conversation. He lay his head back down and tried not to close his eyes.
"Are you sure you're alright Ron?" Harry moved forward and looked down at him with concern.
Ron's eyes met Harry's and he scrunched up his face.
"This isn't exactly the most comfortable position to be in."
At least Neville found the situation somewhat amusing and let out a slight chuckle before chatting with Harry about life at Hogwarts without the Boy-Who-lived attending anymore. It was only when Ron idly commented on his having been thrown through a window that Ginny involved herself in the conversation once more.
"Who threw you through a window?" Ginny demanded before looking down and busying her hands self consciously, "If I'm allowed to ask."
Ron smiled at his sister's caution and nodded down to Hermione.
"No way!" Neville gasped.
"Why did she do that?" Ginny asked, Ron couldn't quite tell if she was amazed or angry with her friend.
"She didn't mean to do it," Harry shrugged, "she was unconscious at the time."
"Who did what?"
Ron looked down to see Hermione stirring as she mumbled her question. She wriggled in his arms and her eyes opened very slightly to peer up at him. She smiled and seemed to snuggle back into him contentedly before closing her eyes to drift back to sleep again.
"Good morning Ron," she mumbled as she did.
Ron looked up quite self aware that Harry, Neville and Ginny were all registering Hermione's familiarity of waking up with Ron and struggled not to blush. He looked back down at Hermione and cleared his throat before breathing softly into her ear.
"Hermione can you let me go please?"
Hermione opened her eyes again and looked back at him with confusion, she didn't think she was holding on to him after all, and then she registered the bruises and cuts upon his face and gasped with alarm.
"Ron what happened to your face?"
"You did," Ron sniggered, "Can you please let me put you down now?"
"What are you talking about?" Hermione frowned before looking at Ron's arms tightly wound around her and the hoop on his arm, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to."
Ron smiled and rolled his eyes, they would have to have words about that but not right now he thought.
"Yeah you keep saying that," he nodded.
Then something wonderful happened, his arms relaxed beneath her body and he found that as Hermione tried to wriggle out of his embrace he was able to pull away from her and slide his aching limbs out from under her. As he freed the arm that had been taking most of the weight and curled in the most uncomfortable position and shook it out at his side he felt as if it was so light it was going to float away without him.
"Oh Godric that feels good," he sighed.
He sat back in his chair and revelled in the luxury of sitting in another position. As he reclined ever so slowly he closed his eyes and wondered if there would ever be another time when leaning backwards would ever feel as good as it did right then. Hermione sat up and looked over at him with what was getting to be a permanent frown crinkling her brow.
"How long were you like that?" she said.
"Only all night," Harry answered.
Ron recognised that tone, it was the same one he had used when Hermione had accidentally let slip about him hexing them to escape and rob Gringots, it was the tone of Harry Potter being protective of him and he knew that something was definitely wrong with those hoops now. Ron dreaded to think what it could be.
"I think it's time to take off the hoops don't you?" Harry said as if he was attempting to disarm an unstable wizard.
Well whatever it was he was in full agreement that the hoops needed to go and he let out another sigh of relief at his new sitting position while raising his arm for Hermione to release him from the magical binding. He noticed that she was looking at him with genuine fear in her eyes before grabbing the hoop and sliding it down the length of his arm and then doing the same with hers.
"I think we should get these to Fred and George, we don't need them anymore," Hermione said as she looked down at the two silver hoops nestling in her lap.
Harry seemed to warm to her again after this and extended his hand to take them away from Hermione. Ron took another deep inhalation in and felt the cracked rib merrily reminding him of its existence and curled his fingers around the hem of his jumper to lift it up and finally see just how badly Pettigrew had beaten him the night before. He drew a sharp intake of breath as he saw the multitude of different coloured bruises that covered the swollen skin around his stomach against the stark contrast of the two slashes that tore across his flesh and bled freshly through the dried blood from last night. On the bottom of his rib cage, where the intermittent but painful reminder of a cracked rib seemed to be coming from, he saw a dark purple bruise in the shape of a beater's bat had formed. He winced as he tried to examine his wounds tenderly and Ginny jumped up from her chair as if it was electrified.
"I'll get Madame Pomfrey," she said as she began to depart with haste.
Ron looked up at Ginny as she glanced at him, almost daring him to tell her that he was 'fine' this time and he didn't have the will or even the desire to argue with her, and he nodded for her to go.
"Thanks Gin," he said gratefully.
"Wow," Harry said.
"What?" Ron asked, looking puzzled while Hermione leaned over to caress the area around the slash just above his belly button with her soft hands.
"It's just so unlike you that's all, first you let me help you with your back and now you let Ginny get you some help for your war-wounds, what did Wormtail do to my best friend 'cause you don't seem to be the same guy!"
Ron let himself laugh at this, he was acting a little too much like an obedient patient for him but he really wanted to talk to Madame Pomfrey now that he was able to have a full examination and he was at no risk of being overheard by Hermione. As Harry chuckled to himself about Ron's newfound compliance to medical treatment Hermione smiled and took his head in her hand and seemed to be looking at the injuries to his face. He hadn't seen it but apparently there were several lacerations from his sojourn through the window pane and the last of the bruising that Madame Pomfrey hadn't been able to access comfortably around his eye where Pettigrew had landed his first metallic punch of the night.
"What happened with Pettigrew anyway," Hermione said while she examined him, almost as if reading his mind, "did you get him sent to Azkaban where he belongs?"
Ginny was returning with Madame Pomfrey and Ron didn't want to have to think about the remains he had left behind outside the shrieking shack, animals had probably run off with most of him by now, and he sprung to his feet and moved across to let himself be guided into one of the free beds across the ward. Harry could tell her that he was dead. Neither of them could know just how exactly, not yet at least, and they could never know what he was about to confide in Madame Pomfrey.
"Oh dear me, this is even nastier than I imagined it from what you told me," the medi-witch winced with distain for the now hours old wounds, "but don't fret, I can heal these cuts easily and dull the discomfort in the bruises at the same time."
Ron leaned forward, not a wise choice as his cracked rib sent another spasm of pain through him, and lowered his voice.
"There's something else Madame Pomfrey," he began.
"Yes yes, the rib will be fixed too, don't worry, I can't forget it what with that nasty reminder you've got there," she said, gesturing to the long dark bruise at his rib cage, "Now lay back and let me work there's a good fellow."
Ron glanced over at the group around Hermione's bed, all in serious discussion, and wondered what they thought of his being involved in Pettigrew's death. It was obvious that Harry had now told them. He looked back up at Pomfrey when he saw Ginny turn to look over at him with her hand to her mouth.
"It's not that, there's something else you need to treat, I didn't want to say in front of the others and please don't tell them. You've got to promise me you won't tell anyone, they can't find out and neither can my mum."
Madame Pomfrey looked greatly concerned at his state of determined panic and pushed him back down onto the pillow, leaning over him so he didn't have to pass on his secret in such a painful position.
"You are of age Mr Weasley, if you want something kept confidential it is my duty to do so of course, what on earth is it? What else did that vile man do to you?"
Ron took a deep and shuddering breath in before whispering so quietly that he could barely hear the word himself.
"Cruciatus."
The woman gasped and jerked back in alarm, he hand covering her mouth and her eyes wide.
"It was only for a second or two, he couldn't hold it, I can't even feel it now but I..."
"You should have told me about that the second you walked through that door," Madame Pomfrey hissed at him, leaning back in and struggling to keep her calm demeanour so as not to alert the group across the ward that something had alarmed her so, "you could be bleeding internally you stupid boy!"
So much for him being treated like an adult.
"It really was just a second, if that even, I wouldn't have said anything about it but I remember from defence against the dark arts class that it can do hidden damage and I just wanted to get it checked out."
The medi witch leaned back and performed several quick pain relieving spells on his cuts and bruises before summoning a potion as discreetly as she could from her office and pouring it down his throat while Harry picked up the dead body of Nagini and carried her out of the ward, no doubt to floo to Fred and George's place to take care of her disposal properly, and Ginny wandered over to his bedside with a smile.
Madame Pomfrey took the empty potion bottle and shoved it into her pocket so his sister couldn't see and continued with the healing spells on his stomach.
"Everything ok?" Ginny said cautiously, not wanting to get in the way or be accused to sticking her nose in other people's business again.
Madame Pomfrey looked down at Ron, fixing his gaze with her own steely glare of authority, and gave Ginny her answer while answering Ron's own silent query at the same time.
"You're brother's very lucky Miss Weasley, lucky I'm as good as I am and lucky that he's only been hurt on the outside, this mess I can fix up in no time."
Ginny grinned and took another step forward to sit at Ron's side and watch him get healed while he said a very clear but non-verbal thank you to the witch that was now healing his cracked rib with a slight smile on her lips.
"Bollocks to it!" Ron snapped.
He slammed the book closed and spluttered on the layer of dust that billowed up into his face. He was getting very frustrated, as ever, with this research lark and after six hours in the library he had just about enough.
"I don't think I'm even processing the words anymore, I'm just seeing blurred shapes that look familiar on every page, I don't think we're going to get very far without Hermione," Harry grumbled.
"Hermione," Ron suddenly gasped, eyes wide, "Oh Merlin, she's going to kill us!"
They had left her in the hospital wing while she was in a side room having the last of her treatment for the puncture wounds on her leg and hand and not bothered to leave a not telling her where they were going. They hadn't anticipated being gone quite as long as they had been.
Ron and Harry began to hurriedly stack all the weighty texts that were strewn all over the large wooden table before Ron bent over to make a start on the one's they had already worked through from the floor. He stacked them back on the shelves in near enough the correct places and bent to grab another arm full of weighty texts when something struck him on the back of the head, sending a blinding pain through his skull and bursting out through his eyeballs as he was swallowed up in rapid shroud of darkness.
Ron's eyes opened and he sat up, rubbing the back of his head. It felt like he had an axe buried into it.
"You really do re-define the meaning of the phrase accident prone don't you Ronald?"
Ron thought that he had brain damage or something because Dumbledore was standing in front of him, silver and large as life, despite the fact that he happened to know for a fact that the man was dead. He shook his head and remembered that Hermione had suspected that his spirit guide was Professor Dumbledore. He looked up at the man who didn't seem to have the time for introductions. Well he wouldn't need to would he? They had been doing daring deeds together for weeks now, Ron just couldn't remember them.
"There is nothing to help you in these books; you must come with me if you wish to deal with Fawkes."
"Where?" Ron asked.
Dumbledore looked at him with an expression of apology.
"We need to go to my tomb."
Ron felt his greatest fear rippling up to the surface of his psyche with immediate effect. He couldn't be serious could he?
"No, you can't do this to me, not another grave."
The same juddering he had almost lost himself to after Pettigrew had been killed began to rattle him from the inside out. He felt his throat constricting and his breath shortening, the fear was building and accelerating inside him and he couldn't fight it off this time. He couldn't go back into the ground.
"This won't be like last time Ronald; you just need to perform a ritual upon my tomb."
"On your body?" he shuddered, "I don't want to see your body, you can't make me. You can't make me do it."
He could feel the hyperventilation returning and getting out of his control. He couldn't face another body, he'd seen too many already, his head began to spin and his heart was pounding like a humming bird's.
"Please you know me Ron, you know I would never do that to you without being honest about it and I can tell you now Ronald, my ghost of a hand upon my ghost of a heart promises to you this is not going to be like before," Dumbledore said as he placed his hand on his chest and smiled at him sadly.
Could he trust him? Could he trust anybody? Would this never stop?
"No more dead people," Ron whimpered.
"Just my tomb, my sealed tomb Ronald, a brief ceremony on my closed tomb. You will be on the outside the entire time," Dumbledore said, he sounded as if he meant it as he raised the hand from his heart and held it up to swear to Ron, "I give you my word."
Ron's breath was getting away from him now and his arms were shaking as they held the weight of his trembling body up. He looked away from the spectre and tried to compose himself. This was getting worse, it was worse than the attack outside the Shrieking Shack, worse than the attack in his sleep, this was out of his hands and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He couldn't think or meditate or make himself sick to purge the fear from his body along with the nausea. There was nothing he could do.
"I can't, not another grave I can't."
Ron shuddered as he felt the cold dead hand of Regulus Black snaking along his back and the parasites crawling beneath his flesh where they had been sleeping dormant until this moment, this moment when they woke to finish the job. He was going to be eviscerated after all, just like Wormtail wanted, only slower. He couldn't bare it.
"You must," Dumbledore said as he crouched down before Ron with a pained look upon his face.
He could smell him now, taste him at the back of his throat, Regulus Black was inside him and fighting to get out. Black and Wormtail and all those dead people who wanted his life for their own, they were all crawling beneath his flesh and stirring his stomach, fighting their way out to take him over. Dumbledore was just another one of them. He was just another rotting corpse who wanted living flesh to consume. His head filled with a thousand screams and his breath became a dry wheeze. He forced his eyes closed but all he saw was more death so he opened them again and saw nothing but spots before his eyes and the silver ghost of his headmaster reaching out to lay his dead hands on him.
"Why don't you just kill me if that's what you want?" he choked.
Dumbledore rested his hands upon Ron's shoulders and it sent a shiver down his spine as if he had just been leaning on an icicle.
"How could you possibly think that would be my aim Ronald?" Dumbledore said with a tremor in his own voice, "I would do anything in my power to protect you from harm, especially after what we had to do that night."
We?
There was no 'we' in that coffin as far as Ron was concerned. It was just him, alone, slowly suffocating and being digested by a whole other kind of death eater. His head dropped and he felt his emotion from that night, the raw despair and hopelessness hit him as if the moment was as fresh in his mind as the night it happened. He began to cry like he had done that night. His head was back in that graveyard and he couldn't go through it all again. Not even for Harry, not for anyone, he didn't have the nerve.
"I can't do this anymore, I want to go home," he sobbed and his chest heaved to drag an unwilling breath in, "I want my mum."
Dumbledore looked devastated as he pulled Ron into him and wrapped his arms around him in a solid hug. Ron shook and choked on more tears as they came, burying his face into the wizard's warm shoulder and feeling the hug that didn't seem to be an illusion or a ghostly sensation, it was really happening. Dumbledore was really there cradling him and comforting him and making him feel something other than revulsion at his own internal decay.
"If Voldemort isn't stopped there won't be a home for much longer, or a family for you," Dumbledore whispered to him as they rocked very slightly and Ron felt the warmth of Dumbledore's body thawing the chill that had set into his bones on the news that he would be facing another grave in the name of victory, "the Weasley's are targets. You are blood traitors. You have to keep fighting for them Ron, for all of them."
The thought of Voldemort blasting the Burrow apart and murdering his entire family was too much for Ron to take. As he heard his mother's agonised screams inside his head and the sound of the deadly mutilation spell being spoken he felt his back arching and his stomach churning as it had done last night.
My wand, I need to get this out, I need to let the fear out otherwise I'll choke on it, where's my wand?
Dumbledore suddenly released his hold on Ron and put an icy hand upon his throat while shouting the spell that Ron desperately wanted to perform on himself.
"Eructo!"
The surge of his stomach contents being purged caused Ron to drop back forward onto his hands and knees as he vomited with incredible ferocity, making him feel both dreadful and enormously relieved.
"That's right Ronald, let the anxiety go, let it all go and come back to yourself," Dumbledore was saying soothingly, "Come back to me dear friend."
Ron retched once again and another wave of vomiting began while Ron's mind began to clear itself and his judders were lessening. It had been too much too soon after seeing Wormtail being butchered. He was on top of the fear again, he could feel it, and he knew what he had to do.
"Ok," he said; voice husky from his raw throat, "you're right, I'll do it."
"Thank you Ronald," Dumbledore said with a relieved smile, "you conquer your demons yet again and that is admirable, especially when one considers just how many demons this quest has given you. Your bravery is beyond measure."
Ron got to his feet unsteadily and looked at the wizard as he glanced around the darkened space around them.
"Harry and Hermione are with you, you have frightened them quite a bit and they are extremely angry with me as well. You might want to put their minds at ease."
He nodded and spoke aloud into the darkness.
"Harry, Hermione, I know you're there somewhere."
He felt a pressure around his arm and continued.
"I was overreacting, I'm fine now. It's just the mention of anything to do with graves, I panicked, but it's ok."
Dumbledore smiled at him and stepped forward, hand rising to rest upon Ron's forehead, and he sent a wave of power into him. Ron blinked and saw the library come into focus, he could see, and he peered around to find his friends but they were still nowhere to be seen. He did see several dark shadows a little way ahead of him, they were moving around slightly and he tried to make out a familiar shape in the crowd but they were too close together.
"So many shadows," he sighed.
"It is Minerva and Poppy, your sister and Mr Longbottom are here too."
"More people," Ron said sadly, "more people to come find me just like you did."
"I don't believe they know Ronald, Minerva may suspect, but none of them know."
Did it really matter if his secret was out anymore?
"What the hell, I've got nothing to lose, let's go dance on your grave professor."