Disclaimer: Yeah, we all know I don't own any of it.
Summary: Sequel to Sinking Sun, a short ficlet. After the battle, Ron wakes up to a changed world.
The sun had risen and fallen eight times before the redheaded young man in the hospital bed began to stir. His consciousness flooded back to him in jolts and starts, serving him a confused jumble of memories that made very little sense. The Healer that had been hovering over him checking vitals and statistics subtly left the boy to his own thoughts, shutting the door against the world and plunging the hospital room into the darkness of the early hours of the morning. The first signs of light were filtering in through the gaps in the blinds of the window, and Ron turned his head towards it, coughing painfully as he sucked in deep gulps of air. He felt as if he had forgotten something important; for that matter, how he had managed to get from the battlefield to some hospital bed alone, but there was something else as well, something big, and it was just out of his grasp…
"Ron?"
He had been so caught up in trying to unsuccessfully gather the lost memory that he had never heard the door open again; she was standing in the doorway, looking like she hadn't slept in weeks. He let out a long sigh of relief that she was alright, and welcomed her into his embrace, hugging her tightly against his chest despite his bruised ribs screaming in protest. The sight of her shocked him to the very core; her clothes were practically falling off her, she had lost so much weight, and her beautiful curls hung damp and listless around her sunken face. She was sobbing into his chest, and crying girls were something he wasn't that good at, so he awkwardly patted her on the back for several moments before pushing her away.
"I have to say," he found himself saying jokily, desperate to lighten the mood. "That I was rather disappointed to wake up alone – I mean, we've never let Harry wake up alone, and he's unconscious so much I'm surprised he's not permanently in the Hospital Wing." He looked over her shoulder, past the open door and into the empty corridor. "So where is the lazy bugger? I want to congratulate him."
Hermione sucked in a painful breath. "C-congratulate him?" She asked in a tone that he couldn't quite decipher. She could no longer meet his eyes, instead focusing her gaze on a spot on the wall above Ron's head.
"Well, yeah, he defeated bloody You-Know-Who, didn't he?"
"Y-yes, he did."
"Right, so where is he? Being a lazy sod and still sleeping, I'll bet." Ron was aware that his voice was much higher than usual, and there was a spot of anxiety in his stomach that was rapidly growing. Hermione began to cry again, silently this time, pressing her fists against her eyes in a vain attempt to stop the tears from spilling down her cheeks. "Hey… Hermione!"
"You have no idea what this week has been like, Ron." She said, to his utmost surprise, and when she took her hands from her face her eyes were blazing. "How worried we've all been about you, and how you'd react when you – there has been so much to do there's been no time to think let alone sleep or eat…and I'm so, so tired, so you can understand that I'm not in the best of moods to tend to those jokes you keep cracking – just say what you're thinking, for crying out loud!"
Ron gaped at her, unused to seeing such vibrancy in his best friend. "I – I don't understand." He stammered out, frowning. "Hermione, You-Know-Who is dead… isn't he?"
The brunette nodded hesitantly, offering a tearful, weak smile. "Yes, he is." She murmured something else then, so quietly that he had to strain to hear her, and her words made the lost memory come flooding back to him with such force he almost gagged.
Harry writhed with pain in the dirt at Voldemort's feet, fingers scrabbling at his scar, a brilliant red against his white skin, while a petite redheaded girl stood tall and proud next to him, head held high with such determination he didn't recognise her at first, and then he caught a glimpse of her face and was shouting her name and running towards her, desperate to get her away from that monster… and then… nothing.
"Ginny! Ginny was – right in front of You-Know-Who… she was facing him!" He began to understand why Hermione was so devastated and unlike herself. "Merlin, Hermione... she's dead, isn't she?"
Hermione let out a small cry of distress, and his heart plummeted to his feet. Ginny was dead. His little, annoying sister, who tagged onto him because she thought he understood her, who always ran to him when the twins were picking on her, who when she grew into a young, amazing woman thought of him as not just a brother but a friend too… how could she be gone?
"No. Ginny's alive."
Furious, Ron threw himself out of the bed, only stopping himself from crumpling by grabbing hold of the bedpost. His unused muscles screeched in protest but he found that he didn't care, overwhelmed by such bewilderment and anger that he wanted to lash out and it terrified him.
"Why the hell would you let me think that? Do you have any idea how I felt, then?"
"I've got a pretty good idea, actually." Hermione retorted, sliding off the bed and standing opposite him, hands on her hips. "Please, Ron, will you just listen?"
"I will when you stop skipping around the bloody subject!" Ron bellowed, kicking at the leg of the bed and cursing vividly as his toe throbbed angrily.
"Stop picking a fight and just… listen. Please."
Sucking in a deep breath, Ron struggled to calm himself, perching himself on the chair next to his bed and staring up at her expectantly. "Go on, then." He said harshly. "What's so damned important?"
She lowered her head then, her curls falling over her face, and he could see the blankets dampening with her tears. And then she said two words that were so impossible he didn't want to believe her, but the look on her face told him different, because she would never joke about something like that.
"Harry's dead."
Ron laughed before he could stop himself, a choked laugh that sounded nothing like him, and though Hermione was looking at him in utmost horror and betrayal he couldn't stop, and soon he was laughing so hard that his sides ached and the tears of mirth were spilling down his face. Hermione continued to stare at him as if he were crazy, and he began to wonder if maybe he had lost it because after all he had just been told that his best friend was dead, Harry Potter was dead, and here he was laughing…
"You're wrong." The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. She stumbled slightly, frowning at him. "This is Harry we're talking about. Harry isn't dead, don't be stupid. He faced off Voldemort almost every damn year and survived with not much more than a scratch. Why should this be any different?" He continued to chuckle, shaking his head. Then Hermione was kneeling before him, taking his hands in hers and staring him in the face.
"Because, Ron," she said softly, squeezing his fingers. "Because whether we want to believe it or not, it won't change the fact that Harry – Harry's dead. He's gone, and he's not coming back, ever."
Then Ron's tears of laughter turned to something so much worse and it was Hermione holding him and comforting him as he soaked her shoulder as he cried for the brother he should have had, the person that had helped him find who he was, and he cried for Harry Potter, the boy who had had the world pushed onto his shoulders at the age of one and the boy who had never been given a chance to live a life as he wanted it.
But most of all, he cried for himself, because he no longer knew how to live without Harry.