My Condition

At first I thought it was the crappy bed. Then, with every new sleeping position I tried and rejected, I realised that it was an increasingly painful aching in my back that was the problem.

As I thrashed about, desperately striving for a comfortable way to lie, I wondered if my random portkey journey into oncoming traffic was the worst thing that had happened to me since Voldemort was defeated once and for all. I had thought, from the way I had fallen, my neck and shoulder area would've been the expected place for discomfort but no. This was lower-back agony with a dash of 'ouch' along the bottom of the ribs.

I sat up in bed. Nothing. I tried to lie back down again and there it was once more. I started to get frustrated at this, the only thing that caused me pain was the one thing I desperately wanted to do. I attempted to lie on my side, while remaining in the sitting position, and it worked for about a second and a half. I let out a huffy growl and beat the mattress with my fists. It was 1:17AM and I was wide awake, with no hope of getting to sleep any time soon, and I still had to find some way of contacting Harry and Hermione to see if they had got out okay. Then there was mum and dad; mum would be worrying herself silly in front of the family clock no doubt. Bill, Charlie and the twins would probably be looking for me right now.

I rolled over and looked to the darkened window and hoped that one of them had thought to send me an owl. It was the only way I could contact the magical world right now. I was wandless and my back wouldn't allow me to disapparate safely. I didn't know where to get hold of a post owl myself so my only chance would be using one that might come to me. Surely the twins would think to send an owl. The twins would think of something. I also recalled that somebody mentioned looking in Ottery St Catchpole for a Molly and Arthur Weasley. They were bound to come for me. They'd be here in the morning. They'd all know I was safe.

I hoped Harry and Hermione were safe too.

Hermione was running to the side, out of range of the collapsing chimneystack, she was probably fine. Harry was a different matter though. He was right over the portkey he had made but he was the type of person not to save his own skin while we were still in danger. I hoped that he had portkeyed out of there as soon as he lost sight of us. I hoped he didn't try to save us.

I tried, for a fourth time, to get comfortable on my stomach but my spinal chord then felt like a spring being pulled out of shape.

I started to feel as if I was going to cry. Not something I do a hell of a lot but I do tend to lose my handle on things when I'm frustrated. I remembered how I had handled all sorts of crap in my time, without a single tear being shed, and yet my frustration at not being able to get comfortable for the night was threatening to reduce me to a blubbering wreck. I was like a six year old having a hissy fit. I saw a red button hanging to one side of my bed on a wire chord and I had been told that I was to push it if I needed anything but I just felt too pathetic to complain about something as lame as this so I persevered alone with my sleepless night.

I had last looked at the clock on the wall at 3:40AM and had found myself waking up from what sleep had eventually come my way at 6:30AM. Strangely enough, I was incredibly comfortable laying down by then and began to resent the fact that I was expected to get up for breakfast soon.

"Hello Mr Weasley," the cheerful nurse said as she came into my room and pulled the curtains back to let the morning sunlight in.

I squinted and rolled away from the light source with a groan.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked me chirpily.

"Not until about a half hour ago no," I mumbled into my pillow.

"Oh dear, well maybe this will make you feel a little better," she said and I lifted my head to see what she was talking about.

"Did you find my mum and dad?" I asked her hopefully.

Her face fell and she shook her head.

"Ah no, the night nurse mentioned something about that. The police in Ottery St Catchpole can't find a Weasley family anywhere in town. She wanted me to ask you if that bump on your head might have confused you a little bit. Do you remember your address or telephone number yet Ron?"

I realised that the Burrow was hidden from muggles and unplottable as well. If my father had concealed the place from anybody he would have hidden it from the muggle authorities first and foremost.

"We don't have a foam number," I said with a shake of the head.

The nurse frowned at me and leaned in close to pull up my eyelids and shine a tiny light into each of them in turn.

"You're still slurring your words? Are you experiencing any pain in your head?"

"Well a bit of a headache," I shrugged.

Who wouldn't have a headache after portkeying into an oncoming car?

"I might suggest an MRI scan," she muttered as she picked up a clipboard from the foot of my bed and flipped through the pages attached to it, "Your brain scan last night came out clear. It says here that you just have a mild concussion."

I heaved myself to sit up in bed and something at the window caught my eye and caused me to freeze. An owl had just landed on the windowsill.

"Well anyway, I'll speak to the consultant about that, in the meantime I've got to give you these."

My eyes snapped back to the nurse and she extended a small plastic cup to me with three brightly coloured beads in the bottom of it.

"Um, thanks?" I said with a confused frown.

The nurse looked at me with great concern.

"Ron do you know where you are?" she said in a low slow voice.

"Yeah, I'm in the hospital."

"And do you know what it is I'm giving you here?" she rattled the beads in the cup.

I leaned forward and peered closer. Maybe they were some kind of muggle thing. I tried to remember everything Hermione had ever told me about muggle treatments. I knew about the mental people sewing cuts up rather than just healing the damn things with the tap of a wand but she'd never mentioned anything about beads or beans or...what the hell was I supposed to do with these bloody things?

"Ron?" she was lifting my head and making me look into her eyes, "Follow my finger would you?" she said as she gripped my chin so I couldn't move my head and waved her finger very slowly back and forth in front of my face.

I watched the finger glide two and fro a couple of times before frowning at the nurse and looking her in the eyes again.

"What's going on?"

She let go of my chin and stood back to consider me as if I was an oddity before placing the plastic cup into my hand and stepping towards the door.

"You swallow those for me and I'll go and get somebody to check you over okay? Don't move."

She left in something of a hurry and I looked back down at the brightly coloured things rolling around in the bottom of the plastic cup. I guessed that this must be the muggle equivalent of potion. I tipped the cup into my mouth and swallowed them. Then I gagged and choked one of them back up again. I picked up a plastic cup of water from the small table beside me and washed the rebelling potion bean thing down with a gulp. I heard a tapping sound and suddenly remembered the owl at the window and threw back the covers to open the window and let the bird inside.

Something felt cold behind me as the barn owl fluttered in and perched upon my bed with an impatient hoot. I saw that the door was closed and wondered where the draught was coming from. I still felt it behind me and turned again but the window was closed once again. It was then I realised why I was feeling a chill at my back. I was wearing nothing but a flimsy back to front shirt thing that didn't go all the way around me.

"Oh shit!" I hissed as I pulled the edges of the shirt thing around the back of me and hopped back into bed to pull the covers up over myself.

The owl bobbed along my bed until it settled on my lap and held out its leg for me to untie the roll of parchment it was delivering. As I untied it I heard the nurse's voice and the clip clop of two pairs of shoes outside my room.

"...something's not right. The boy was looking at his medication as if he'd never seen a pill in his life and one second he's articulate and the next he's talking like a sleepy toddler."

I shoved the note under my pillow and shooed the owl with my free hand.

"Quick hide somewhere and don't go anywhere until I give you a reply to take back okay?"

The door opened and the nurse and an older woman with a white coat on were staring at him with suspicious expressions on their faces.

"Mr Weasley?" the older woman said cautiously.

"Yeah," I smiled and sat up straight.

"Ron who were you just talking to?" the nurse asked me as she walked inside and looked around the empty room.

"Talking?" I said, not just lying but lying really badly.

"Mr Weasley, Ron?" the older woman was saying as she approached me and put down the clipboard she had been examining, "Are you having problems with your head this morning?"

"No my head's fine," I rubbed my hand through my hair and felt where I had hit it on the road the afternoon before and winced involuntarily, "well it is a bit sore from where I bumped it but not big deal."

"Right," the woman said with a slow nod and she turned a page on the clipboard and wrote something down quickly, "and the nurse tells me that you had trouble sleeping."

With this I decided to tell the truth, I really wanted this eternal ache to stop, so I nodded.

"My back it's...It just really hurt no matter what position I tried to sleep in. It only gave me a break when the sun came up again."

The white coat clad woman frowned and glanced to the nurse.

"Yes doctor he seems to have been suffering from whiplash at the scene and then reoccurring spasms ever since in his lower back. The X-ray's came back clear, it seems to be entirely muscular."

"Maybe a herniated disc," the doctor said thoughtfully.

"Well the tests last night didn't indicate..." the nurse began but the doctor interrupted her.

"Well I'd like to run some new tests for my own piece of mind," she handed the nurse the clip board and turned to beam a false smile at me, "did you take your pills Ron?"

"My?" I blinked before realising that that was what the potion beans were, "Oh yeah those. I took them."

The doctor seemed to find my momentary confusion over the 'pills' slightly suspicious and shared a glance with the nurse before smiling back at me again.

"Ron do you know if you have any allergies?"

"Um..." I knew I couldn't touch bat fur without coming out in a rash and that aquatic dragon blood was potentially fatal to all Weasley's, a fact mum refused to let Charlie ever forget for one second since he became a specialist in the dragon world, but I was pretty sure that these things weren't what the doctor wanted to hear about.

"Ron do you know what an allergy is?" the doctor said as she took a step towards me and put her hand on my shoulder gently.

"Yeah, of course I do!" I said; feeling very patronised indeed!

The doctor became defensive and took a step back again.

"Well do you know, for example, if you are allergic to penicillin?"

I swallowed and hoped that my not knowing what the hell penicillin was would be considered odd.

"Well I've never had it before so..." I tailed off and tried not to meet either the doctor or the nurse's eyes.

"Ron," the nurse said with an intrigued tone as she sat at the foot of my bed and rested her hand upon my knee, "have you ever been treated with...modern medicines before. I see you don't have a BCG scar on your left arm."

"A...what?" I said fearfully.

Why on earth would it be considered bad not to have a scar?

"Ron have you never been inoculated against disease?" the doctor said fearfully.

"I-I've never had a disease to get binoculated against."

Both the women shared another glance and they definitely seemed worried about something now.

"Mr Weasley," the doctor began with a serious look on her face, "have you ever been treated by a doctor at all during your life?"

I heaved a sigh, I must have been so obvious, and there was nothing I could do. If I lied they'd catch me out right away, I didn't know a thing about muggle medicine.

"I've been treated by healers before, it's the same thing isn't it?" I shrugged.

The doctor huffed and nodded for the nurse to join her as she stepped outside the room. I listened carefully and overheard their frantic conversation, the doctor woman sounded quite cross.

"Bloody new age hippy rubbish. The poor kid probably grew up in a commune or something I bet that's why they can't find his family. They're running through the fields naked or hugging trees or something!"

"Now we don't know what kind of 'healer' he's been seeing, he's a healthy enough boy isn't he? The people looking after him all his life have obviously done a pretty good job."

"Did you not see the burns on his arms? For all we know the stupid people use leeches and chanting to exorcise the common cold!"

"Hey!" I found myself saying, slightly annoyed that the muggles thought their medical ways were the best and only way to treat people.

The nurse flushed and stepped back into the room with a smile and gently pushed me back to lay back down flat onto the bed.

"Don't you worry about anything. The painkillers should be working their magic on you soon enough and I'll go and get you a sedative so you can get some more sleep if you like."

No I needed to get out of here. I didn't want to sleep.

"No it's fine. I think I should go home now actually."

"No Mr Weasley," the doctor was saying as she rushed into the room to join the nurse in getting me to settle, "you really do need to get some more rest and we've got to run some more tests. I really am concerned about your head injury."

"But it's barely even a bump!" I protested.

The nurse had rushed out of the room and I felt the doctors surprisingly strong arms holding me down flat on the bed while speaking to me in a calm even tone.

"I think you should let us worry about you for the time being and you just try to remember some kind of contact number or address for your...people."

"My people?" I tried not to raise my voice as the nurse rushed back followed by a very large man who took over from the doctor in the holding me down duties.

The nurse was fiddling with a small bottle of something before handing what looked like a transparent pen to the doctor. She leaned over me and I saw that there was a needle sticking out of the end of the plastic thing.

"What the hell do you think you're doing with that?" I snapped fearfully.

"Hold him still Kevin," the doctor said before plunging the needle into my arm.

"Help!" I screamed out to the passers by in the corridor outside my room, "Help me she's stabbing me! They're trying to kill me!"

"Ron come on now, calm down," the nurse was saying in a calming voice while I struggled against the powerful arms of the man Kevin as he pinned my down while the needle was pulled out of my arm, "Shh now, it's just an injection. There's nothing to be scared of. It's all over now."

I felt sick and the doctor was throwing the needle into a plastic tub beside the wall and looking back at me. As she spoke to me her voice seemed to slow down and the room was darkening around me.

"We don't hurt people here Mr Weasley. Just get some sleep and we'll try to find out what's going on with you."

My eyelids were heavy and the weight of Kevin left me along with every other kind of awareness of my surroundings I had.

Something was patting my face gently and a cool breeze blew my fringe across my forehead, tickling me a little. I opened my eyes and let out a startled cry as the face of the owl looked down at me and it's soft wing batted me across the face again and it hooted at me.

I felt as if I had slept for a week and could sleep for another two on top of it. My head was heavy and I didn't feel as if I had the energy to even sit up in the bed at all but I knew that I had to tell the others where I was and that I was okay. I had no idea how long I'd been out already.

I looked at the owl's leg for the parchment and frowned when I saw that both the bird's feet were bare. I rubbed my spinning head before remembering that I had hidden the message underneath my pillow and I twisted around to reach for it. My spine seemed to contract and short stabs of pain pierced through my lower back causing me to sharply inhale through my teeth and give an involuntary whimper that caused the owl on my bed to flutter away to perch on the back of a chair on the other side of the room with its feathers ruffled.

"Bloody hell why does this still hurt so much?" I whined to myself and heard the door opening with a creak. This made me jump and turn back towards the door sharply, causing the pain to sear through my muscles in a whole new way.

"Are you alright Mr Weasley?" the nurse said with a frown as she rushed over to me and my eyes darted over to the owl and silently pleaded with it to keep quiet.

"Get away from me!" I grimaced while trying to massage some of the discomfort away from my back.

"Look I'm sorry about the needle but you needed to be sedated, it was the only way I'm afraid. We're still looking for your parents or anybody else who knows you but there's still no news yet."

The nurse was shifting my pillow up and helping me to lean against it while lowering her free hand to burry her fingers into my lower back. I flinched immediately before suddenly feeling some of the pain easing away and relaxed with a sigh.

"Oh keep doing that please," I sighed as I let myself lay back on the pillow with my eyes closed, "I feel as if I've slept on a pointy rock all night."

"Its okay Ron," the nurse said soothingly, "it'll fade soon enough. You pulled a few muscles back there that's all."

I felt myself drifting off into sleep again. I smiled and closed my eyes again. I hoped that Hermione and Harry were alright. I heard the door close and saw that the nurse was gone. I looked over to the owl as it perched fast asleep now and realised that I still had to send word to them myself just in case. I reached behind me to grab the crumpled parchment and unfurled it.

Ron,

I hope this finds you safe and well. If you have found this message and you are not Ronald Weasley please write some information about where you discovered this note and send it back with the owl, we have ordered it to wait for a reply.

Oh Ronnie please send word that you got out of there alright. We searched the rubble and you weren't there so we know you managed to portkey out but when you didn't apparate home to us we thought you might be injured.

The clock says you are in hospital. We checked St Mungo's and nothing so now we have Aurors looking in every muggle hospital in London for you.

Harry and Hermione are fine; they both got themselves out of the way in time. All the family survived the fight. Can you believe that? We're all safe and whole and home. We're just waiting for you to join us Ronnie.

Please come home as soon as you can dear and if you can't let us come to you.

It's all over now. There's no more war and Death Eaters. There's no more pain and fear. It's time to leave all that behind you and start your new life now.

My new life, I had to have a new life? Of course I did, my whole life had been about helping Harry defeat Voldemort and now he was gone for good and Harry was victorious. I had to find something else to with myself now but what the hell could I do?

I know you're alright and I know you're being looked after, I watch the clock religiously I have to admit, but I really need to know where you are Ron.

There are muggle police snooping around so we are still warded, don't try to apparate if you can, and there is a concealment charm over the house so they can't find it. Just warning you that it's still there, still in one piece, and I hope you are too.

Your loving but very worried mother,

Molly.

PS Fred and George wanted me to tell you that you can apparate or floo directly into their flat at any time, they've lowered all their security jinxes for you. Don't keep us waiting long.

I let out a sigh. Everybody was alright.

Nobody had died. It didn't sound as if anyone had been badly hurt either. The wizarding world was safe again and all I had to do now was get back to it.

That was when this strange feeling came over me. I knew there was nothing to worry about, nobody to grieve or return to comfort or save. I didn't have anywhere to be or any quest I had to do. I just had to go home and start living a normal life. That was beginning to scare me though. I didn't know what a normal life was. I didn't know how to acquire one or what I was supposed to do with it when I did. Who was I supposed to be now that the war was over?

I had no NEWTs. I hadn't completed school. I didn't want to be an Auror anymore. What did I want? I didn't know. What would happen when I got home? We'd have parties to celebrate the nightmare being over. We'd watch Harry becoming a wizarding legend and do our best to help him cope with it, of course we all would, but what was I to do now? What was expected of me and did I want to live up to those expectations?

Everybody was okay. I was okay. We had won.

I felt my eyes burning and my throat going dry as I drew my knees up to my chest and forced my eyes closed. I didn't feel anything. Apart from a dull ache in my spine there was nothing.

I was empty.