Finding the Way Home

Dear Hermione,

I was in Paignton. I'm leaving as soon as I send Pig off with this letter. I'm going to get some help now I promise. I'll sort myself out and come straight home I promise you.

I'm sorry I scared you Hermione. I didn't mean to really. I was confused and in a lot of pain at first and then I spent quite some time unconscious right up until the owl arrived from mum. I'm glad you understand what I did after that and why. I'm glad you don't hate me.

I hope Charlie doesn't hate me either. I'm glad that Bill's come around and taken in what you've been telling them but I'm not the least bit surprised about Charlie's feelings about this whole thing. Tell him it's not the bump on my head that's the problem, it's what's inside the head that's messing with me. I may not have 'psychological' problems as he puts it but I do have a little more depth than he maybe gives me credit for.

Oh and Fred and George, tell them they're a pair of bastards for waking me up that night in Paignton and I will make them pay for it when I see them... and tell them I miss them too.

Merlin Hermione I could really use a hug right now but it'll have to wait. I'll do what you asked me, I'll get myself fixed up properly and I'll make sure that there's nothing wrong with my head I swear. Well, nothing more than what's always been wrong with my head obviously, the fact that my brain is still inside it is against me!

Sorry, I know that made you cross, I'll try to stop doing that stuff in future. I mean it.

So anyway, tell mum and dad that I had some people kind of looking after me here and I think I'm a bit better now. I'll see them soon enough and, you never know; I might even have some answers to all those questions. You never know eh?

I know that you will probably pass this letter around Harry and the family to set their minds at ease and I'm okay with that but if you could do me a favour a tear this last part off and keep it to yourself I will love you forever...

Huh...

Well that came out accidentally to be honest but that was essentially what I was going to tell you. I guess I needn't bother now though.

I promise to see you soon; I'll come to you first when I come back, and I know this is redundant but please don't worry about me.

Ron.

PS I do y'know? Love you that is, in case you were wondering.

I stared at what I had just written and had to fight with all my will power not to rip it into shreds and rewrite it with a different ending. I shouldn't be saying stuff like that, not right now when we're both as confused as each other. I shouldn't inflict myself on Hermione.

Pig twittered around the room impatiently and I found that I was directing my frown up at him. He seemed to feel subdued all of a sudden and landed on my knee, looking up at me with his eyes that were almost bigger than his entire face, and I wondered if Pig was as wise as Hedwig was.

"Hey Pig," I sighed and stroked his soft head with my forefinger, "can I ask you a question?"

He blinked at me and shuffled up my leg a little more to rest upon my thigh. I knew I was a hopeless case now, I was confiding in a mental ball of feathers and really expecting something in return.

"I'm a grumpy got to you and yet you're always so pleased to see me. Why do you bother with me?"

Pig blinked his massive eye at me again and extended his leg for me to attach the parchment. I shook my head and smiled at my own stupidity before rolling up the parchment and tying it to the tiny owl's leg. Pig hooted proudly and fluttered over to the windowsill. I got up off the bed and crossed the room to open the window for him. he flapped his wings rapidly and zoomed away in the blink of an eye.

I turned and looked around the room. I didn't really have anything to pack now that I was leaving this place. Only what I was wearing and a purple velvet snake pillow. I tried to shove it into my pocket as best I could and made sure for the fifth time that morning that I had no-legged Jim's address on me. I turned to close the window and jumped as I saw Pig was back already.

"What are you doing back so soon?" I blurted rather loudly.

Pig spat something out of his mouth and gave a merry hoot before whizzing around my head and flying away again. I watched him go for good this time before looking down at the window ledge to see a small chocolate egg.

"He laid me a chocolate egg!" I practically screamed with mirth before losing my subdued demeanour to the raucous wave of laughter that I was now riding into the sunset.

I picked up the foil wrapped egg, which I could only have assumed my owl had flown into a nearby shop and stolen for me in true 'pet mirrors owner' fashion, and laughed even louder than before. We were both felons in Paignton now.

I leaned out of the open window and hollered at the skies.

"I love you too!"

"Excuse me...hello?" I felt something patting the side of my face and squinted into the brilliant sunlight before looking away from the window of the train carriage, "Wakey-wakey!" a grinning man in a British Rail uniform said to me cheerily.

"Oh sorry!" I said as I sat up in my seat and winced at the shot of discomfort ripped through my back and plunged my hand into my pocket to find my ticket to show him.

"No, I'm not the ticket inspector," the man chuckled, "I'm the driver! I just need to take my train back and in order to do that you kind of have to get off it first."

I turned and looked out of the window I had been leaning against with a barely stifled yawn.

"We're here already?" I just about managed to say.

"Yup," the train driver nodded, "end of the line. Welcome to London."

I rubbed my face roughly and hauled myself out of the seat i had somehow managed to make myself so comfortable in and thanked the driver for waking me.

"No problem," the man laughed as he went on his way up the carriages to check that the rest of them were clear, "I didn't think you fancied going all the way back to Devon again."

"No," I said as I stretched my still joints and made for the open doors that led onto the platform, "not just yet."

I had spent everything I had been given by no-legged Jim on the train fare and now didn't even have enough to get me to St Mungo's on the tube so I had to walk it. I glanced at the map of London outside the station to get my bearings before setting off and feeling both exhausted and utterly well rested at the same time.

London, even muggle London, was a very busy city for wizards and witches and the like. I was on edge a little as I bumped my way through oncoming pedestrians along the dirty streets and hoped that I didn't get spotted by anybody who knew me or my family. The nearer I got to the ministry the edgier I got, however, one of dad's colleagues was bound to spot me in an instant.

That was just generally. The likelihood was quadrupled now that I had gone missing after being part of the demise of the dark lord. Something made me shudder inside. Harry mentioned something about being hounded by the Prophet; I really hoped they weren't showing any interest in whatever happened to the Potter sidekicks. If the Prophet had printed my picture and declared me as missing in action then I may as well just floo home from the Leaky Cauldron right now and sod being ready or not.

"Oof, sorry!" I mumbled as a pickpocket deliberately slammed into me while their accomplice found themselves trying to remove a long velvet bean bag from my pocket before rushing away when he saw me snorting with amusement at them.

If they found anything of any value on me today then they were a better wizard then I was!

"Teach you to rob somebody with nothing but a wheat pillow," I muttered under my breath before darting through the crowds to stand and stare into a murky old window.

It was a closed department store with grotty bald mannequins posed in unnatural angles while wearing very out-of-date clothes in the window display. I waited for a couple of seconds before one of the mannequins turned and looked at me and I leaned forward and spoke as quietly as I could.

"Ron...um Ron James," I hesitated again not knowing if I was on any kind of wanted list and finding that the only name I could think of was no-legged Jim's, "I got knocked down by a muggle car a week or so ago and my back is still hurting. I need to see someone."

The mannequin blinked as its lifeless eyes travelled over my body and then back up to my face.

"You didn't come for treatment when the accident occurred?"

I cleared my throat and leaned in further.

"Hit by a muggle in a muggle car and taken to a muggle hospital. I couldn't really get away until now."

I leaned back and waited for the receptionist to consider me. She was taking her sweet time about it and I was beginning to feel a little self conscious to be staring so intently at these ugly fake women in the window for so long.

"They put a needle in me and took all my clothes away!" I hissed into the window.

The mannequin blinked again and her voice sounded loud and clear.

"Oh my word, come on in I'll get you see by one of out emergency healers on stand-by."

"Thank you," I said as I heaved a weighty sigh and stepped through the glass window as if it was nothing more than the thin layer of soap around a bubble.

I crossed the bustling reception area to meet the owner of the voice at her desk. She smiled up at me sympathetically before waving over a young man in blue robes and pointing me out to him.

"You're Ron James right?" she asked as she scribbled something on a form.

"Yeah that's me," I nodded.

"Any allergies we should know about?"

"Bat fur and aquatic dragon blood, that last one's a tiny bit...fatal."

The woman laughed at this and I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. It felt good to be talking to somebody who didn't get frightened by my answers.

"Ah Mr James, I hear you've been subjected to muggle treatment," a friendly but tired sounding voice said and I suddenly jumped on realising that he was talking to me.

"Oh yeah I was, bit scary actually," I said as I was guided away towards a treatment room while a mediwitch looked on with great interest.

The healer shook his head with mild annoyance at her and followed me into the room and closed the door behind us.

"Sorry about that," he smiled, "but Sheila had a thing about muggle healing methods. She wants to learn them all for some ludicrous reason. Now Ron, what did they do to you exactly?"

As I spoke the healer motioned for me to hop up onto a bed and he felt along my vertebrae with his finger, nodding all the while to let me know he was still listening.

"Well um, a spambulance came for me, I was lying in the middle of the road and nobody would let me get up until it came. They put a big plastic thing around my neck and strapped me down onto a board. Then I passed out for a bit I think. When I woke up I was in a room and the collar thingy was gone and this nurse woman was telling me I had a scan and said lots of letters to me that didn't make any sense. Then she gave me these things called pills, they were like potions in bean form..."

"Yes I've heard of pills," the healed nodded as if he had a bad taste in his mouth, "they didn't happen to mention the letters I.V. did they?"

I concentrated for a moment before shaking my head.

"Good, nasty things those, they bore a hole into your arm and thread a tube into it before filling you up with all sorts of muggle drugs."

"Oh well I did have a needle, a doctor woman came in and said something about me being a hippy and treated with leeches on a commune and then she stabbed me in the arm until I passed out. I think they thought I was a bit mental."

The healer smiled at me and rolled his eyes.

"Muggles eh? Dear me they drugged you did they? Very nasty. As far as I can see this could have been handled with the flick of a wand. How long did you say you've been suffering with it?"

I swallowed.

"'Bout a week."

The healer's face darkened and he gave a tut.

"That's terrible. Well don't you worry, I'll get you fixed right up now and then we'll take a look at your head just to be safe okay?"

I nodded and followed the healer's directions to lie face down on the bed while he cast a healing charm over my back that felt as welcoming as if the steaming hot snake pillow had come alive and wound its way around my spine for all eternity. I let out a groan of satisfaction and the healer laughed.

"If only I could get my girlfriend to make that noise!"

I began to laugh and found it hard to remain still for the tests on my head for quite some time. The healer didn't seem to mind though. He seemed to be enjoying the break from being the on-call emergency healer.

"So what's your name?" I asked him when I had composed myself a little more.

"Samuel Saxena at your service and you are?" he smiled merrily.

I frowned and tried to recall whether or not the receptionist had introduced me or not and he seemed to see me back peddling internally and leaned I close to whisper.

"I know who you are Mr Weasley, I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me yourself."

I sat up quickly, sidetracked momentarily by the sensation of being able to do so without any pain in my back, and started at the healer in shock.

"How do you...?"

"Front page of the Prophet I'm afraid Ron," he answered my question before I'd even been able to ask it.

My shoulders slumped.

"Oh crap!"

Healer Saxena put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and stared at me until I met his gaze.

"Listen it was only a list of missing persons, there were a few of you on there but you got a picture printed because of...well...who you are."

"And who's that then?" I said with a little annoyance.

"You're the wizard who helped to recover and destroy You-Know-Who's horcruxes and it you who was to strategise the final confrontation. You're going to make one hell of an Auror."

My heart sank and I shook my head while averting my eyes.

"No...No I won't."

"What? Of course you will. The department's already got you Potter and Granger on the list for next year after you take your N.E.W.T's. The things you three did this year were way outside what most first year Aurors can achieve."

I walked to the far side of the treatment room and realised that there weren't going to be any questions about what I was going to do with my life from now on after all. It was much worse than that. It was being pre-arranged for me. I had no say at all.

"I don't want to learn how to kill people," I said with a smaller voice than I had ever used before.

"Well," Healer Saxena seemed to be knocked for six at this news and struggled for words of reassurance, "you could...you could be a teacher. You could train the Aurors in..."

"I don't want to teach people how to kill either!" I said as I spun around on the spot to face him with livid eyes.

"Well what is it you do want to do then?" he asked me.

And there it was; the million galleon question that I had no answer to.

"I'd like it if I could get my head checked out right now if you don't mind Healer Saxena," I said coolly.

He nodded sadly and patted the bed beside him again. I walked back across the room and hopped up onto it. We didn't talk anymore after that. The only things we did speak about were the facts of my injury and the absence of any detectable head trauma as far as he could tell. I thanked him and hopped down off the bed before heading for the door to the reception area.

"I wouldn't if I were you," the healer warned me, I turned and hesitated with my hand on the door handle and an quizzical expression on my face, "I reckon that my muggle medicine friend out there probably recognised you too and there just might be a certain minister for magic waiting to greet you in front of certain cameras from a certain newspaper."

Are you certain about that?" I said with a single raised eyebrow and Healer Saxena laughed.

"Pretty certain yeah," he smiled before getting serious again and grabbing my arm to pull me over to the far corner of the room, "this wall is false, you can pass right through it all the way to the kitchen's at the other end of the building and there's a way out onto Diagon Alley there."

I nodded both my understanding and my gratitude to him before moving to step through the false area of wall at the rear of the room.

"Oh and Ron," the healer said, "It won't be long before somebody in Diagon Alley spots you as well. Do you have somewhere you can go?"

I thought of the colourful shop front of Weasley Wizarding Wheezes and grinned.

"Yeah I've got a place I can go anytime," I nodded.

Healer Saxena seemed pleased with that news and waved me off.

"Well go on then, get out of here."

I stepped through the wall and passed soundlessly through several other empty treatment rooms before stumbling into a long corridor. I started to run until I came upon another seemingly solid wall and pressed my hands against it to find that they passed through it and followed them myself.

"Oh you made me jump!" a voice said from the far end of a large room bathed in yellow sunlight.

"Um sorry," I said.

The woman who had spoken was tapping what looked like an extended version of her wand along the floor as she moved across the room towards me. The floor was scattered with cushions and stumpy three-legged stools and she didn't appear to be focusing on any of them. Her white wispy hair was almost floating as her claw like hand gripped the wand-cum-walking stick as it tapped along the carpet towards me.

"No wait there, you'll trip," I said with some alarm as I realised that the old woman was partially blind and about to go arse-over-tit any second now.

I jumped over several cluttered stacks on the floor until I reached her and offered her my elbow.

"What are you doing in her all by yourself?" I asked her as I guided her through the obstacles and back to a less cluttered area of floor space.

"Well I left the wing just to be a rebel to be honest but when it came to finding my way back I got into a bit of difficulty. I came in here by mistake!"

I chuckled with her about this and thought of another old bird who was intending to grow old with anarchy and the odd secret cigarette or so along the way.

"What wing is it you were trying to get back to then?"

"Oh it's just where they keep all of us old goats that don't have any family to take care of us and can't be trusted to look after ourselves anymore. I call us the bat's in the belfry."

I opened the door and peered outside but saw no commotion, in fact nobody at all anywhere, and led the old dear out so we could find our way to her belfry.

"There are a lot of you are there?" I asked as I made my way as slowly as I could with the old witch, called Iris I soon learned, while she explained exactly where we were in St Mungo's to me.

"It's really called the grey wing for the frail, elderly and eternally befuddled."

I snorted at this.

"I must have a room here then 'cause I'm befuddled as hell!"

Iris gave a wicked little chuckle and continued.

"Well there are about twenty of us in all and we keep each other occupied day after day. Mind you there's not a lot to do in the same room once you've been sitting in it for three years," she said with a hint of bitterness.

"Don't you have like...activities or something?" I asked as we reached five steps leading up and I picked Iris up and carried her up them, to which she made a schoolgirl type squeal of joy.

"Oh I haven't been in a young man's arms since my Leslie!" she said wistfully as I set her back down again, "Now where was I? Oh yes, activities you said didn't you? Well who's to run them may I ask? We don't have family, all our friends outside the hospital have passed away, it's just us."

"But you must have a healer or a medi wizard or something looking after you all," I said with alarm at what I was hearing, "Surely they don't just shove you in a big room to bore each other to death!"

She laughed at that.

"It does feel like that most days dear but no, we have a chief mediwitch who supervises the two or three medi witches and wizards that rotate in shifts around the clock."

"So they just spin around do they?" I couldn't stop myself from saying and Iris laughed that schoolgirl laugh again.

"Oh Merlin's beard you're like a breath of fresh air in a stifling room you are boy, please don't tell me you're just passing through. Are you a new healer or something?"

"Um no I was a patient until a little while ago, got run over by a muggle car would you believe?"

"Oh how very exciting, what was it like?"

I blinked and looked down at her enthusiastic face as her eyes gazed off into the wall beside me.

"What?"

"The car, what kind of car was it? Oh my Leslie had a Hillman Minx years and years ago, red it was, we'd drive in the countryside for hours."

I smiled at her as we reached a bettered old door with a sign on it reading 'Grey Wing for the frail, elderly and befuddled'.

"Well i didn't really get a chance to look at the car; I was too busy bouncing off it to be honest."

Iris laughed again and the doors swung open and a round mediwitch stood before us with her hands on her hips and a face like thunder.

"Iris where on earth have you been?" she boomed while a medi wizard huffed and almost pulled rather then guided the old witch inside with the others, the medi witch turned to face me and her face melted into a relieved smile, "Thank you for bringing her back. She's a bit of a wanderer that one."

"Yeah, no problem," I said distractedly as I looked past the burly medi witch to see the stuffy but large room full of very bored and sleepy looking old people.

Most of them were sitting at windows and watching life passing them by outside, some were slumped in armchairs fast asleep and a few were rushing in their incredibly slow way to greet Iris and congratulate her on her prison break.

The medi witch saw my attention was elsewhere and turned to face the same way I was. I must have had a set of very deep frown lines on my forehead as she was reading my thoughts perfectly.

"I know, it's dreadful isn't it?" she sighed, "St Mungo's won't send me any medi witches or wizards who have any kind of interest in this sort of care. These ones are sent here as a punishment and when they've done their time they get to go back to the proper care and treatment facilities of the hospital."

"That's terrible," I gasped while still not being able to tear my eyes away from the sunny but drab room where lonely old witches and wizards were essentially sent to die out of sight and mind of the rest of the wizarding world, "so all your staff resent being here do they?"

She nodded sadly before turning to me and shrugging.

"What can you do though?"

I turned on the demoralised chief medi witch with livid eyes.

"Sack 'em!"

"And who will take their place?" she asked me with almost as much exasperation I was displaying.

I looked back over at the surly medi wizard who had all but dragged Iris into the room on her return to the wing and pointed at him with a scowl.

"Well sack him and I'll do it!" I snapped.

The room fell silent and Iris let out another girlish squeal while the medi wizard glared at me with arms folded.

"Come on now, I know it's upsetting to see how things are at this end of the hospital but really you can't joke about things like that," the medi witch began.

"I'm not joking. I've just spent a week looking after a muggle pensioner with two false legs; this is a magical crowd, so this'll be easy."

She laughed very briefly and pulled me into a side office and closed the door behind us.

"Look you're obviously a very enthusiastic young man but I can't afford to lose a qualified medi wizard to take you on and then have you get tired of it after a couple of months and desert us. They won't replace you when you go and then our residents will be even worse off then they are now."

"I won't get sick of them after a couple of months. After a couple of months with me they'll be different to the way they are now. They'll be as fun as Iris is!"

The medi witch shook her head wearily again.

"Iris is an exception, she's a lively old bird that one but most of the others..."

"Iris is a lively old bird because she stimulates herself and manages to get out of that bloody room once in a while she told me. I bet you they'd all be different people if you just gave them something to do other than stare out of the windows."

"Well they have books to read," the chief medi witch said, knowing that was no substitute for a decent quality of life.

"And Iris gets a lot out of reading does she?" I said with both my eyebrows raised in sarcasm.

The medi witch chuckled reluctantly.

"Godric I like you," she said with equal reluctance.

I smiled at her before thinking to myself for several seconds. Then I jumped to my feet and yanked the door open again. Taking a step outside I called down to the residents on the Grey wing.

"Hey you lot, I'm coming back on Saturday and I'll take whoever wants to go to the park for the afternoon. Who's up for it?"

Iris raised her hand so fast she almost fell over. The small gathering around her also raised their hands happily and gradually more and more people put their hands into the air. One man who was slumped in a squidgy armchair grunted at me and waggled his index finger at me.

"Oh that's Ralf, he can't speak or move his arms but he's telling you that he want to come too," a four foot tall woman with silver hair and a wobbly voice informed me before raising her own hand shakily.

I looked to Ralf and grinned at him.

"That's okay mate, I can put you in a group with the women, an old mate of mine once told me that they never let you get a word in anyway."

To my utter delight Ralf cracked a smile. I turned and looked back into the office at the chief medi witch who was fighting to suppress a smile.

"I'll do it for free on a three month trial and if you want rid of me or if I get sick of 'em I'll pack it in. If not you get rid of the git over there and put me on the payroll. Do we have a deal?" I asked hopefully.

The impressive looking woman took a step towards me and extended her hand to me.

"We have a deal."

I shook her hand and chuckled as I heard Iris yelp a celebratory squeal over my shoulder.

"So what's your name then?" the chief medi witch asked me with a warm smile.

I stared at her and examined her face for a giveaway sign that she was just being polite.

"You mean you don't...You don't know who I am?" I asked her cautiously.

"Should I?" she said with a blank expression of her face and a confused shrug of the shoulders.

I couldn't keep the beam from spreading across my face as I shook my head.

"No, not at all."