1st March 2024

1st March 2024 and 4th January 2007 (Ron is 44 and 26, Hermione is 44, Aimez is 4 and 30)

RON: I was just sitting at the window having quite a pleasant little chat with Cavendish and Davis about who was going to take who's name when they got married in June when Fred hauled me up off my chair and crushed me with his powerful bear hug.

"Happy Birthday Ronniekins!" he said as I tried to punch him into putting me back down but he just seemed to get stronger and the massive grin on his face wider, "You're forty four!"

"Yeah Fred," I managed to say despite my chest being crushed against his own while George laughed at the shell-shocked expression on my face, "I've been keeping count over the years y'know?"

"Forty four!" he laughed and slapped me hard on the back, I really wished I had feet right now so I could give him a swift kick in the bollocks and get him to put me down.

"Um George," I asked my assailant's twin who was hysterically laughing at all of this, "d'you think you could calm your other half down and keep him off the happy juice for a while please?"

George's face was alight with unimaginable joy and his wife Verity just shook her head over his shoulder and mouthed to me that both twins were stone cold sober. I was about to accuse her of being a liar when George threw his arms around the pair of us and yelled out, right into my damn ear I might add, for the whole party to hear.

"My little brother's forty four!"

There was a collective whoop and I resigned myself to another mini celebration of the birthday we all thought would never come. It had been different with each one of them. Bill had grabbed me by the chin and looked me hard in the eye with a stern expression on his face and growled that he knew I was worrying about nothing all these years before ruffling my hair in that patronising older brother way of his and grabbing Fleur into his arms and spinning her around while she squealed to me with delight that I didn't look a day older than thirty. My scars begged to differ I informed her.

Then Charlie had sat beside me on the sofa and stared at me for an uncomfortably long time before giving me a single nod and slapping me on the shoulder. He got up and crossed the room to save his wife Krista from mum's 'when are you two going to give me a grandchild?' conversation.

I was gliding out of the bathroom on a levitation charm three inches off the ground when I bumped into Percy and apologised but he dropped to his knees and started to cry. Fortunately nobody could see as we were partially hidden behind the cloak stand and I gave him a hug and told him not to be such a soft git. I never told him the truth about the trip when I lost my feet but he had managed to work it out for himself and was sporadically begging my forgiveness for not answering the door that icy winter night ever since. I rubbed his back and enlarged my levitation charm to glide us back into the bathroom so Percy could compose himself and not upset his kids, they hate it when he's like that and they get quite emotional themselves. He wished me a happy birthday and declared to me that he never doubted this day would come for a single second.

Ginny hugged me for almost ten minutes before sighing and wiping her eyes and taking James and the twins through to the bedroom to play with all the other nephews and nieces who were running riot in there. While I had been silently reassuring my sister that I was indeed really here Harry had been chatting with mild amusement at the insane platypus hat Luna was wearing and occasionally laughing whenever it tried to start a fight with Hagrid's fur lined jacket. Once Ginny had returned from the bedroom to kiss me on the cheek and wipe her eyes again she joined mum and dad and Harry hauled me into a sudden, strong but short, one armed hug before clearing his throat and not being able to look at me for a couple of minutes. When I did see him looking my way again he raised his glass to me and wished me a happy birthday.

Cam had been typically Cam and shoved me in the back, causing his little boy Alex to chuckle as I wiped the fruit juice I had just spilled down myself from my shirt, and asked me if I would be Alex's godfather.

"...now that you've finally decided that you're sticking around to give your forty-forth year a go," he shrugged as if he'd done nothing more than ask me to pass him a pumpkin pasty.

I found myself with my jaw hanging open and a lump the size of Hagrid's fist in my throat and Cam winked at me before hauling Alex off to join his cousins in the bedroom.

"You don't have to give me your answer right now, you've got plenty of time haven't you?"

Mum had been shaking with suppressed I-don't-know-what as she pursed her lips and flushed in the face before mumbling to me that she knew her guardian angel wouldn't be leaving her so soon. My dad had smiled at me as he put his arm around mum while she sniffed and fought not to burst into tears and said a warm and understated 'happy birthday son' which made me want to kiss the old man on the lips for his ability to tell me everything I'd already heard without saying anything at all. I always thought my dad was a genius.

Frankie was making Neville blush for some bizarre reason, he always confided in me that she reminded him of his gran, something which made me laugh for several days, and he caught my eye with his own slightly intimidated ones and smiled while I snorted with laughter and almost shot pumpkin juice out of my nose. Frankie had been the first to arrive at the party to help Hermione with the preparations while I occupied Aimez in the living room where she insisted upon making decorations. I think I heard Hermione crying and Frankie saying soothing things but I didn't interrupt them. I know this past year has been nothing but fear for Hermione, fear that on this day I wouldn't be with her and Aimez, and she really did need to let all that anxiety out of herself before the party in case there was a small explosion.

Dean, Parvati and their twin boys and twin girls were enjoying the madness of the next generation of Weasleys and wondering if Hogwarts would survive all the offspring of the party guests when they became of school age. Dean predicted some kind of Weasley, Potter, Thomas joint detention that would require the great hall just to accommodate it.

"We will not rest until the Gryfindor quiddich team consists of nothing but Weasleys!" Cam had declared as he lifted his glass and Charlie and Bill nodded their approval enthusiastically.

"Oi!" Harry protested.

"We could make an exception for the Potter-Weasley kids I suppose," Percy shrugged and Ginny laughed and stood at his side while staring at Harry with a pitying shake of the head.

"He's got a point y'know Harry?" she sighed, "I'm still a Weasley after all and I want to see my name represented on the back of those quiddich robes."

Harry narrowed his eyes and pretended to be annoyed.

"I wish I'd never divorced you!" he hissed dramatically before crumpling into laughter, "You'd never have spoken to me like that when you were a Potter."

"No," I laughed, "she wouldn't have wasted her time talking to you, she'd just hit you repeatedly until you gave in."

So now we were back where we started with the two latecomers and their wives and kids.

"My baby brother's gonna be an old man!" Fred said as he continued to crush me with his powerful arms.

They were always exhibitionists but never all that emotionally outgoing, not unless it was for the purposes of a joke anyway, the twins had really surprised me with this jubilantly affectionate greeting.

"Yeah Fred," Charlie was saying from somewhere while I heard my nephews and nieces giggling from the doorway to the bedroom, "but try not to scare him eh? He's looking a little frightened of you both now."

Ginny and Hermione were laughing and Fred plonked me back down onto the chair beside a visibly amused Davis and Cavendish and stepped back while gripping both my shoulders with his hands and lowering his head to look me in the eye. He was still smiling in that insanely un-Fred like way and not the least bit ashamed of it.

"You're forty four Ron," he said, his voice at a reasonable level as he spoke and I nodded and allowed myself to smile now that Fred had calmed himself down a bit.

George was smiling too but his voice was a little lower when he leaned over Fred's shoulder and spoke to me with a slightly choked chuckle.

"There's this rule of brotherhood that you seem to have been trying to ignore Ronniekins."

Fred nodded and swallowed, still fighting to keep the smile on his face.

"Yeah you have and it's time we spelled it out for you little bro."

George was speaking in barely a whisper now as he and Fred leaned in even further and I did the same to hear him while the rest of the guests tried to make as much of their own conversations as possible to let us know our private little moment really was just between the three of us.

"You are the youngest brother y'see?" George said as his hand rested on top of Fred's where it still gripped my shoulder, I nodded, "Being the youngest means you don't die until all of us have died first."

"Thems the rules," Fred nodded sincerely.

What do you say to that? I didn't have a clue.

"I can't afford to pay for all those funerals," I blinked.

As one Fred and George roared with laughter and hugged me again.

"Bloody hell what's wrong with you?" I laughed as I patted the two of them on the back before shoving them away from me and back toward their wives.

"Nothing," George shrugged as he put his arm around Verity and she kissed him on the cheek.

"It's just that my little baby brother's forty bloody four!" Fred said as he scooped his boy Sean up and flung him over his shoulder, "Come my son, let us devour every morsel of food your uncle possesses!"

Fred carried the cackling Sean into the kitchen and I exhaled and ran my hand through my hair at this unprecedented display of affection from my demonic brothers. Hermione was beaming as she crossed the room to join me while Davis and Parker went to speak to Hagrid about the amazing job Neville had done on allowing a man his size to floo in through our fireplace without smashing up the living room.

"Well the twins seem to be happy," she said as she snaked her arms around me and rested her head on my chest.

"Oh you think so?" I said with a nonchalant shrug, "I didn't really notice."

She laughed and squeezed me a little tighter while casting a playful scowl up at me. I kissed her and she lowered her head torest upon my chest again while I settled my chin on the top of her head and watched all my friends and family relaxing for the first time all year. It was strange really, we had all be so prepared for the worst all through my forty third year that we were now on a high that we were all out of practice dealing with.

"I love you sweetheart," I heard Hermione murmuring into my chest and I kissed the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair.

"You smell like marzipan," I smiled.

"It's almond conditioner," she laughed.

"I like it," I said as I took another deep inhalation, "I always like it when you smell good enough to eat."

Her body shook with laughter and she looked back up at me and set her chin on my shoulder to render us practically nose to nose now.

"You'd have married a chocolate frog if it was legal wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," I said as if that was a stupid question for her to have asked me, "I happily spend the rest of my life as Mr Chocolate Frog."

Hermione's eyes watered and she almost fell off the chair with the jiggles of her laughter.

"Oh you do know how to make a girl feel wanted," she said as I lifted her onto my lap, "Careful, don't slip off."

"Don't worry love," I said with confidence in my footless balance, "my arse cheeks are gripping the chair as we speak."

Harry had been leaning over to pick up a handful of crisps and his expression was one of disgust and intrigue.

"Don't ask," Charlie warned him as he put an arm around Harry's shoulder and guided him away from the two cackling middle-aged old marrieds who were acting like juvenile newlyweds.

"What? That's a rare gift that is!" I called after my brother and my best friend; "I can pick up pencils if I want to."

Harry looked over his shoulder and snorted.

"Remind me never to borrow a pencil from you!"

Hermione was shaking with laughter again and Aimez skipped across the room to grin up at the two of us.

"Is daddy being silly again?" she asked.

"Me? Never!" I said as if offended by her accusation.

"He is really angel," Hermione said in a theatrical whisper as she slid down from my lap and lifted Aimez up onto me in her place, "here you listen to your silly daddy while I go and get him something to eat."

Hermione smiled at me before turning and heading out to the kitchen to see if Fred and his boys had left any food for us. Aimez gave me one of her hundred galleon cuddles and kissed me on the cheek with her lips that were sticky from sweets.

"Yeach!" I said and she giggled and rubbed at my face with her fingers, "Don't do that, they're even gooier than your mouth!"

"Stop it!" she chuckled.

"You stop it," I said as I found her ticklish spot just beneath her chin, causing her to squeal.

The doorbell rang and I let up on the tickle torture of my daughter to watch my mum open the door and let Ben in.

"Ah now Aim," I said while watching Ben being wrestled out of his jacket by both my mother and Frances while his wife Jennifer looked on in amusement, "remember all those times I warned you about the men in white coats who'll come and take you away if you act like too much of a nutter?"

Aimez nodded and I pointed across the room to Ben who was shaking his head and smirking.

"Well he's one of them!"

Aimez giggled and Ben pointed over his shoulder to his jacket, which was a tan colour, and then back at me while mouthing to Aimez that daddy was a liar.

"It's not white!" Aimez said as she turned to me with wide eyes.

"Well he's off duty isn't he?" I said as I struggled not to break into a smile, "I dunno about you Aim but I'm going to be watching him."

To my delight Aimez narrowed her eyes and nodded her head before looking back at Ben and wagging her finger at him.

"We're watching you," she warned.

Ben rolled his eyes while Bill and Fleur laughed at this little exchange. Hermione came back with a plate stacked full of food and I slid Aimez back down to the floor. She ran into the bedroom to tell all her cousins about the man in the white coat who had come in disguise as a normal person in a tan jacket and Hermione sat down beside me with a curious look on her face.

"Why do I get the feeling you've been stirring up trouble while I was gone?" she asked.

"Me?" I said and tried to look innocent.

"Oh now I know you're up to mischief, you're pulling the innocent face."

The party went on in pretty much the same way for the next three hours and I ended up sneaking out. We had a magically enchanted muggle wheelchair for me whenever I left the flat. Muggles would see nothing odd about me trundling down the street while in reality I was gliding along on a levitation charm and not having to turn the wheels or even feel the bumpy road beneath me. I know I'm supposed to stay on the pavement but there's less dog shit on the road and I hate having to clean up after I wheel through that stuff.

I had seen one of the culprits from the window a couple of weeks back and corked it's bum with a flick of my wand but Hermione had gone mental about using magic in front of a muggle and undone the spell before the dog's owner had even noticed anything amiss. I didn't see anything wrong with what I had done, the guy didn't see it after all, and grumbled asthe dog went ahead and shat on the pathway right outside our flat while the owner didn't bat an eyelid.

Our street was relatively quiet anyway; I wheeled up and down it all the time when I wanted some fresh air. I would wave to a couple of the people I used to nod to when I went running. One of them had almost run into a tree the first time I went outside the flat in my chair. He recovered and crossed the street to ask what had happened to me and tell me that they had been wondering where I had disappeared to of a morning. Hermione had told me to tell Muggles it had been a skiing accident while we were on holiday so that was what I told him. He had been mortified for me and I had told him not to worry. For the first few weeks the runners used to wave at and look away with pity for me but then they had got a little more comfortable with seeing me around and would chat when they paused for warm ups or warm downs at the gate.

"Ron!" I heard Hermione calling after me as I glided along the street.

She was running after me and I turned the chair to face her and waited for her to catch me up.

"Where are you going sweetheart?" she frowned.

"Nowhere, just up and down the street a couple of times, you know me."

She smiled and took one of my hands in hers.

"Mind if I tag along?"

I pulled at her hand and she squealed as she fell into my lap. I shoved us off down the street.

"Your carriage will take you anywhere madam," I declared in a very formal voice, "well not up or down any stairs but you know what I mean don't ya?"

She laughed and put her arms around me as we glided along the middle of the road slowly.

"I'll never understand why you don't take your chair into the park," she sighed, "the scenery's got to be a lot nicer than out here."

I shook my head and tangled my fingers in her bushy brown hair that was now streaked with a little steely grey here and there.

"The park was where I ran. I may be over the whole immobility thing but I still don't exactly want to rub my own nose in it either."

She pushed my hair back from my face and looked at me as if she was searching for signs of a dark mood coming over me but I really was fine and she soon saw that for herself.

"Still," she said with a shrug before resting her head upon my shoulder and interlacing our fingers absent-mindedly, "I don't know why you stick so rigidly to the middle of the road all the time."

I smiled and turned my head to kiss her as we glided onward.

"A very clever woman who would never waste her time doing something utterly frivolous once told me she walked in the middle of the road whenever she wanted to be found. If she walked on the pavement she was just another person on the pavement and if she walked in the park then she was another person going for a stroll in the park but if she walked up and down the middle of this road the person she was waiting for would always show up eventually."

I felt Hermione snuggle in closer to me.

"A very clever woman told you this you say?"

I nodded.

"And she was told that by a very stupid man!"

Hermione began to laugh and I spun the chair around to head back the way we had come.

"So whose advice are you taking the clever woman or the stupid man?" Hermione smiled.

"I think it's like one of my time loops actually," I pondered, "the clever woman is clever enough to know that the stupid man is so stupid he'd need to see her walking up and down in the middle of the road in order to get his attention. The stupid man is stupid enough to tell the clever woman this so whenever she's lonely now she walks up and down this bloody road until he comes."

I knew what I was talking about. I wondered if Hermione did.

"So you've seen the clever woman waiting for the stupid man then have you?" she asked me.

"I've kept her company a few times yeah," I shrugged, "just until the stupid man shows up."

"Does the stupid man ever show up?" she said as she turned on my lap and looked me in the eye.

"There are stupid men everywhere," I smiled.

Hermione batted my arm and climbed off my lap with a shake of the head.

"I hate cryptic Ron conversations I always want to beat you about the head with a pillow afterwards."

I laughed at this as Hermione looked back to the flat all the way down the other end of the street.

"Are you coming back inside now?" she said when she looked back at me.

"Yeah, I'll just glide on back and rejoin the 'Ron's an old geezer' festivities," I grinned.

Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned over to kiss me on the lips.

"Well I'll go and get the stairs to smooth out for you, they should be ready by the time you get there okay?"

I nodded and pulled her down to me again and gave her a real kiss. My chair hovered in the stationary position as we partook in a public display of affection which was very out of character for both of us. Hermione broke away from the embrace with a quizzical smile and stroked my cheek with her palm.

"What was that for?" she asked as she got up again and took a reluctant step back.

"Just 'cause I love you," I shrugged.

I watched as she flushed and began to trot back along the street to the flat and make it accessible for me and the chair to get back inside. I heard a siren behind me somewhere and turned to look over my shoulder in time to see a fire engine passing the road behind me. The blur of flashing lights hit me before my instinct to close my eyes and block it out and I felt the colours of the street merge into one big blur just as my stomach flipped and I spilled out of the chair.

I didn't hit the road though, instead I fell face down onto a bed of twigs and thorns in the dead of night.

"Oh shite," I hissed to myself as my nudity meant pointy things were sticking in places that really didn't like pointy things.

Was I in the forbidden bloody forest again?

"Everybody keep quiet. I think I heard something moving over there."

The voice was whispering from somewhere outside the thicket and I peered through to see Davis, Cavendish, Eldridge, Parker, Boyer, Harry and myself all poised and pointing wands into the woods. It felt as if I had been hollowed out and refilled with ice-cold water.

"No," I whispered as I began to drag myself along the rough ground as fast but as quietly as I could, "no this can't be the badger day."

The bushes shook as I pulled myself past them and twigs beneath me snapped noisily. I chanced a glance back through the undergrowth.

"Let's just ask Agent Weasley what it is," Parker was saying, "I mean he does have all the answers doesn't he?"

Oh Godric please don't let this happen. Not the dead badger, not Boyer and the badger please no. I tried to keep as low as I could but that made it impossible for me to move with nothing but my stumps shoving me along from behind. My only chance was to hide.

"Shut up Parker, I'm trying to listen," Davis was hissing while they all covered the woods with their wands and my younger self and Harry began to have a heated debate under their breath.

I found a thick bushy area and crawled into it, snapping and crunching beneath me sounding as loud as a thousand wet start fireworks to me right then and there. I threw myself flat to the ground and held my breath while begging whatever greater power had made my life into this cruel joke to give me a break just this once.

"Just this once let things be different, please," I whispered into the ground, "I've got a little girl, my little baby, she needs me please don't let this happen."

My eyes stung and my vision began to blur. I dared to hope, the nausea was coming too. I was going back. I had panicked enough to send me back.

"Faster!" I demanded of myself.

"It never stops!" I heard my other self roaring at Harry and a sudden flash ripped through the thicket and sliced my gut open as if it was nothing more than orange peel being torn away from the juicy flesh beneath while roosting birds left the canopy of the trees at the sudden activity below.

I let out an agonised gurgle of a scream as I felt the warmth pouring out of me at the same moment the woods were pulled out of my blurred vision and replaced by the familiar sight of my street. I was lying on my side and my blood was pouring out of me, pumping with every rapid beat of my heart but I was feeling strangely numb in that area now. The pain had gone and my fingers were like ice as they tried to put pressure to the massive wound but it was too deep and even my huge hands weren't large enough to cover it.

I saw my chair floating onward along the road without me in it and knew that Hermione was just feet away, wand out and fixing the stairs for me to go back to the party. Oh Godric the party. My family were all here, Aimez was there, she couldn't see me like this.

"Aim," I whimpered and I turned my head to face down into the black road surface, "she's just a baby. I can't leave my baby."

"Dad."

I felt a warm hand stroking my hair away from my face and blinked away the tears that flooded my eyes to look up into the face of my girl, my life, my Aimez.

"I don't want to leave you," I choked as the adult version of my daughter lifted me into her lap and smiled down at me.

"You don't dad," she said softly before holding me tightly to her.

"Badgers!" I suddenly realised that I had to do something before all the life drained out of me completely.

"What?" Aimez frowned down at me.

"You've got to tell me, the next me you see before January 2007, to stop Harry from firing that curse into the woods. You've got to promise me you'll do this Aimez," I pleaded with her.

"I promise dad I swear, January 2007, stop Uncle Harry firing a curse into the woods."

"It can't be him that kills me," I said as my whole body began to shake, "he'll work it out and he'll know. You mustn't forget to tell me this."

"Dad I won't now don't worry about the past okay, you don't have to deal with that anymore alright? Shhh," she leaned over me and kissed my tear sodden cheek before beginning to sing our time loop song with the sweetest little voice I had ever heard in my life, "If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear. For I've never known completeness like being here. Wrapped in the warmth of you, loving every breath of you. Still my heart this moment, oh it might burst."

I fumbled for her hand with my numb fingers.

"Could we stay right here," she sang on, her voice quivering as her eyes shone with unshed tears, "'till the end of time, 'till the earth stops turning? Wanna love you 'till the seas runs dry..." her angelic voice wavered.

"I'm sorry Aimez," I sniffed as I gripped her hand as hard as I could.

"You've nothing to be sorry about dad. You never let me down, you never disappointed me, and I love you now more than ever okay?"

"But I'm not there!" I yelped.

"You're everywhere!" she laughed while a tear rolled down her cheek, "You're at every one of my birthdays dad, you've yet to miss a bloody one of them, and you come every Christmas Day and I see you practically every month. You know you do. You've already done it."

My breath rattled in my chest and I couldn't shake the incredible shiver that was deep inside my bones.

"Really?" I shuddered.

"Really," Aimez nodded, "You gave me away at my wedding dad, remember that? You always know when I need you and there you are. You are the greatest dad in the word and I never get the chance to miss you because you never left me once, not for one second dad."

She was crying silently now and I heard a scream at the end of the road. It was Hermione.

"Mum's coming," Aimez smiled down at me.

"She knows I keep my promise right?" I ask Aimez.

"She knows dad, she knows."

Something stopped working inside me and the world around me began to darken just as Aimez leaned over me and kissed me again on the cheek.

"Aim?" I couldn't see her any more.

"I love you daddy," I heard her sob.

"I'm tired," I gasped.

"No more travelling dad," she was saying, he voice sounded so clear but miles away, "you've reached journey's end at last."

I only had one breath left in me so I had to make it count.

"I'll be waiting for you both."

HERMIONE: Ron was taking his time, the charm on the stairs was almost spent, and I'd have to top it up again in a second or two.

"Hermione?" Harry said as he stepped out onto the porch with Ginny at his side and Bill following them to see where everybody was disappearing to.

"Where's Ron?" Ginny frowned.

"Taking his sweet time," I huffed, "Harry do me a favour and smooth over the stairs for his chair while I go and tell him to get a move on?"

Harry pulled his wand out from his pocket and nodded.

"Sure."

Just as I was about to set off down the stairs Ginny looked horrified and pointed over my shoulder. I spun around to see Ron's empty chair gliding along past the front gate.

"Oh no," I gasped and I ran down the steps hoping he hadn't fallen out or gone travelling.

It was then I saw them. My husband covered in blood at the far end of the street cradled in the arms of the unmistakeable adult version of my little girl Aimez.

"No!" I screamed as I began to run to them.

This couldn't be happening. He had survived, he was forty-four for Merlin's sake, we had beaten time. We had outsmarted it; we had won. I couldn't run fast enough to get to him. There was so much blood, I could see it now, and Aimez was crying and kissing him on the cheek.

"No Ron no!" I screamed again as I kicked my impractical party shoes from my feet to get there faster.

Aimez looked up at me and began to break down just as the clothes she was wearing crumpled into a heap at Ron's side and I dropped to my knees, grazing them both slightly in the process, and put both my hands to the bloody wound that exposed Ron's insides to the world outside.

"Ron please don't do this to me. You can't, you promised me remember?" I said to his still face.

I heard pounding footsteps behind me but couldn't tear my eyes away from the sickeningly white face and the glassy blue eyes that stared skywards, unblinking. There was no pain registered in his expression. No breath lifting his chest up and down. I lowered my head to put my ear against his chest and listened. There was no heartbeat.

Where was my beautiful lullaby, where had my lullaby gone?

"Why did you stop playing my lullaby Ron?" I sobbed.

I pulled his limp body up to cradle him in my arms just as I seen Aimez doing such a little while ago and held him to me. He was so cold and heavy. Where was the warm strong body that I had been holding just a minute earlier? How could he be so cold and empty now? How could he have left me so suddenly? How could he have left me at all?

Harry was on his knees at my side now and flicking his wand at Ron's stomach but he knew as well as I did that it was too late.

"Sano!" Harry yelled, "Sano, sano, sano! Please Ron don't let this be it, please. SANO!"

"Oh Godric," Bill's voice sounded as small and lost as his little grandson Alex when he was woken from a nap.

"Somebody get Ben!" Harry bellowed at the top of his lungs down the street where other Weasley's and friends were pouring out, no doubt after hearing my screams.

"Harry it's t-too," Ginny was shaking and almost grey in the face as she staggered and Bill caught her and eased them both down to the ground, "it's too late," she managed to say before dropping her face into her hands and crying loudly."

I could hear all the different screams and cries and yells but all I could do was rock the lifeless body in my arms and whisper pleas not to leave me into his vivid red hair.

"Uncle Ron?" Cam's voice was an echo of Bill's own.

"Cam no!" Bill was roaring while clinging to Ginny, "I don't want you to see this."

Cam was already there; he was already seeing it. Harry got to his unsteady feet and shoved Cam back as he tried to kneel beside his uncle and his best friend in the world while straining to hold in his own emotions.

"Cam your dad's right go back inside."

"I'm not a kid!" Cam snapped while his eyes flooded with tears.

"But your cousins are Cam," Bill said firmly, "your cousins and Alex, he needs his dad, you don't want Alex to see this do you?"

Cam seemed to shudder and pulled back from Harry's hold, shaking his head furiously.

"And Aimez," Harry was saying, "you can't let Aimez come out here Cam you've got to go back to the flat and keep them all away please."

Cam looked as if he was about to explode with several emotions at once but instead he swallowed them all down and nodded before turning on his heel and running back to the flat at top speed.

Harry took Ginny from Bill and the two of them broke down on each others shoulders while Bill staggered away to be caught in Fleur's embrace. Others had gathered now but their words and their cries weren't needed or noticed by me. Ben arrived but hadn't even taken out his wand. The damage was not only irreparable but over and done with. He placed his hand upon Ron's forehead and began to move it downwards. I yanked Ron's body away from him and screamed, rendering the weeping gathering silent.

"Don't you dare close his eyes!"

Ben fell backwards at the force of my voice and sat, somewhat shaken, on the road and stared at me.

There was silence for ten seconds or so while I held my husband to me undisturbed and blocked out the sounds of Molly wailing into Arthur's chest about her baby being taken from her. I was shaken out of my little universe that included only Ron and me by the sound of a huge skip being thrown across the street and crashing into the metal railings of the park followed by a colossal roar. Hagrid was panting and looking around for something else to take his grief out on but Percy grabbed him and tried to calm him down. In the end Hagrid had to calm down in order to hold Percy up as his whole body shook and fell against Hagrid's huge stomach.

Charlie was sitting on the kerb with his head in his hands in total silence while his wife Krista held onto Verity and Pippa as they shared a three-way hug. Fred's wife Claire struggled to console her husband who was beyond devastation and George was in a similar state being comforted by Neville and Luna. Somewhere Cavendish and Davis were doing their best to keep the muggles out of this whole awful mess.

"Hermione you've a little one who needs that hug more than Ron does right now," I heard Frances saying softly as her firm but gentle hand settled upon my shoulder.

"No I can't leave him," I said as my grip on his ice-cold torso tightened and my tear-streaked cheek pressed against his clammy pale one.

"He's not there any more dear," Frances said in the kindest but most clinical voice I had ever heard her use, "this isn't our chap. This is that beaten old body that held him back."

"No!" I shook my head and stroked his soft red hair; it seemed so intense against his porcelain skin.

"Hermione my dear, he let it go and now it's time for you to do the same. Isn't that what he would say?" Frances persisted.

I felt her other hand resting upon my arm, not pulling me away from Ron but simply suggesting I let go with a firm stroke of her hand.

"He promised me," I whimpered at such a low tone I was surprised anybody had even heard me.

"I know dear and he never told you a lie did he?" Frances said as she eased my grip on him just a little so I was now looking down upon his face as his head rested in my lap.

"But he promised me he'd never leave me," I said, anger flowing through my veins now as I looked into his wide blue eyes.

"And who are we to say he has?" Frances soothed, her own voice sounding slightly shaken now.

I put my hand upon his cheek and moved it up to slide his messy hair back from his face. Had he just told me that lie to get me to shut up all those years ago? His face when he had come back to me that night, I could see it now, he was so happy. He told me he had seen it. He told me he never left me and never would.

"You promised me!" I screamed down at him and my voice echoed around the empty street, "You promised me you'd never leave me, how could you do this to me Ron? How could you leave me?"

Frances grabbed me and held me in her arms while Ben moved to close Ron's eyes once more. I watched as he did and crumpled into the old woman's arms at the finality of it. That was it; his eyes were closed and would never open again. He'd never look at me with that amazing light of mischief or glow of love or fire of passion. I'd never see that stunning deep blue again, not even in Aimez's eyes. I cursed that she had my eyes and then screamed another wave of tears that my little girl had lost her daddy.

"Aimez, what do I tell her?" I wailed, "She's only four years old Frankie. How do you tell a four year old who worships her daddy that he's never coming back?"

Molly was screaming again and Arthur was trying to guide her away from everybody.

"Hermione don't worry about that just now alright?" Harry was saying while clutching a trembling Ginny to him as if he was terrified to let her go, "We'll tell her what she knows and that's that her daddy goes travelling for weeks sometimes doesn't he?"

I looked at my best friend and saw the complete and total devastation in his eyes, framed by the rims of his glasses, and managed to nod.

"We'll just tell Aimez and all the kids that Ron's travelling until we can all get our heads around handling this," Harry said, seeming to direct this to everybody around but still staring into my eyes.

"He..." I shuddered involuntarily before continuing, "...left me."

Frances was pulling me up to my feet and forcibly guiding me back along the street. I turned and saw Ben covering Ron up with an item he had just summoned from the overturned skip, it looked like curtain or something, and I felt my legs crumple beneath me. Frances struggled to hold me up and then strong arms lifted me off my feet and Charlie was carrying me. His eyes were swollen and his face was set in a mask of detachment. He didn't seem able to look down at me as he spoke.

"When Ron's feet died we didn't go around declaring part of him was dead too did we?" he said stiffly, "Don't look back at that body Hermione, that's not our boy."

"Then where is my boy Charlie?" I said with a broken voice.

There was no answer to that.

A/N Okay so I cried writing that! It might not be that it's that great a piece of writing but that I'm a complete and utter daddy's girl and my dad's name is Ron. Either way I was a mess writing this and I hope that doesn't show in a detrimental way.

Much credit goes to the band Lamb for my third round of quoting their beautiful song Gorecki.

So I've finally done it...after ten fics and all sorts of nasty devices I have finally killed off Ron. I hope the next chapter makes you all understand how I could have done it and not feel dreadful for doing so.

Shari