Chapter Six: Eight Seconds

I'm on a road
I'm on a road, and I can't go back

– "Knight of Noir," Susanne Sundfør

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Later that afternoon, Luna wandered into the Forbidden Forest to spend some time with the spectral creatures known as Thestrals. As she was now totally unfamiliar to them, it was sort of half-disappointing and half-gratifying to go through the process of earning their trust from scratch all over again, and she went through about four pounds of meat (scavenged from the kitchens with the help of some of the house-elves, all of whom grew almost heartbreakingly eager to please as soon as she opened her mouth and spoke politely to them, and who listened with interest to her briefly waxing poetic on the eminence of pudding as the queen of foods) before she was finally able to get near the runt of the lot, a skittish little grey thing with bulbous eyes which was always pattering around to stand behind its mother, unaccustomed as it was to having anybody or anything that was not a Thestral look directly at it. By the time it had grown used to her presence and was allowing her to gently pat its head, the sky was beginning to darken and Luna turned back towards the castle with a sigh, before abruptly remembering what Dumbledore had said toward the end of their meeting.

Oops. Luna briefly considered sending a Patronus to inform Ron of Dumbledore's message, but that would likely raise questions if a teacher were to notice the little silver hare on its way to find him, as a Patronus Charm was far beyond the capabilities of any normal student and would draw too much attention to her. She instead broke into an uneven run, heedless of the protruding roots that occasionally threatened to send her sprawling onto the forest floor.

After several minutes, Luna began to grow more anxious. Her breath was coming hard and her throat felt dry as a bone, and she had noticed a stitch in her side that was beginning to trouble her. She hadn't thought she'd gone that far into the forest, but then again it evidently extended somewhat farther into the grounds than she remembered.

At last she saw the edge of the forest and redoubled her speed as the castle came into view. In one of the open windows, a flash of red hair caught her eye, and Luna cried as loudly as she could, "Ron!"

Ron turned to peer outside and noticed her jogging toward the castle. "Luna?" he answered back in a slightly befuddled yell.

"Yes, sorry," Luna shouted back. "There's something I forgot to tell you!"

"What?" bellowed Ron, a little more loudly, and rose in the frame of the window abruptly as he stepped up close to the narrow stone wall and rested his knee on the windowsill, leaning out slightly to hear her better. As he did so, his other foot seemed somehow to lose its purchase on the stone steps; Ron, sensing his loss of balance, overcorrected backwards, his hands scrabbling for the sill and pushing off so that his entire frame jerked suddenly away.

The events of the next few seconds seemed to occur in slow motion.

Luna saw him stumble as both of his feet hit the stone steps behind the window and he regained his balance. At the same time, she saw a small, round object tumble from his breast pocket and hurtle — almostslowly, with a kind of bizarre laziness that struck Luna, in the unfrozen back corners of her mind, as funny — towards the ground.

As she would reflect with some irony later, in that moment the only thought that registered in her mind with any clarity at all was There's no time.

Luna watched, frozen, hand half-grasping her wand, as the object landed with a small cracking noise on the stone below. Her eyes flicked back up to Ron automatically, although she already knew with horrible certainty what would inevitably happen next.

He, with an almost comical expression of surprise, looked at the ground, and then back at Luna. In an instant, his expression changed to one of single-minded, white-faced resolve.

"Luna, I'll — " he started to say, and then was suddenly gone from the window.

She was running before she even understood what she was doing, sprinting for the place beneath the window where the object had fallen, ignoring the burning dryness of her throat and the stitch in her side and her painfully pounding heartbeat. A continuous chant was running through her mind, no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no, and she realised vaguely that at some point her lips and throat had involuntarily begun to voice the words aloud. Her pale eyes were unblinking as she ran, frozen so wide open that they were beginning to water with discomfort.

Luna reached the spot beneath the window and nearly collapsed, her chest heaving and her hair stuck uncomfortably to the back of her sweat-covered neck.

She looked down and, with a soft, broken sound of fury and despair, laid eyes on the shattered remains of a bezoar.

Whether it was by her own foolishness, or Ron's carelessness, or simply by the pure and terrible chance of a ridiculous accident… to Luna, it hardly mattered. There was only one thing now that she knew to be true, one reality that had bloomed in front of her eyes like a hideous and many-petaled flower and was now staring her in the face.

She was now completely and unequivocally alone.

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Back in 1998, the students of Hogwarts had managed to fight off Voldemort's forces once more, and Luna and Ron's determined pursuit of their mission had raised morale enough that everyone seemed to be holding up a little better, although those who had been on the front lines had been injured more severely than the last time; with the singular exception of Ginny, nearly all of the Weasley siblings who had survived the first attack were now in hospital, although Molly and Arthur seemed to be nearing full enough recovery to rejoin the fight. Meanwhile, Hermione, Ginny and Neville were not prepared to take Luna and Ron's success for granted and were refocusing on trying to defeat Voldemort themselves with the resources available. Given the somewhat restrictive nature of basilisk fangs, swords and Fiendfyre — the first two of which required close combat to utilise, and the latter of which all were reluctant to try given its infamous unpredictability — they were now hoping to find other options.

Hermione was in the library with Neville, researching this topic, when Ginny bolted white-faced into the room looking as though she'd seen a ghost.

"Ron," said Ginny. "Hermione, Ron. I saw him in the corridor, just now. He was there and then — and then he wasn't."

Hermione rose from her chair in alarm. "What?"

Neville looked between the both of them. "… Hermione? What's going on?"

Hermione had grown tight-lipped and pale. "If Ron was… here and then wasn't, it means something happened to his bezoar."

"Couldn't he have just said the counterspell?" prompted Ginny breathlessly, but Neville was shaking his head.

"I don't think that's how the counterspell was supposed to work," he murmured. "I didn't understand some of the theoretical bits, but saying the counterspell was supposed to bring them back… you know, normally. To stay."

"Neville's right," confirmed Hermione. "My first guess would be that Ron's temporal stability has been compromised, which would imply — like I said — he's somehow damaged or lost his bezoar. If that's the case, his cellular temporal affiliation would draw him back to this time, but without the counterspell he has no anchor."

Ginny grimaced. "So he's… floating."

Hermione nodded, looking disturbed. "Let's not take too much time to think about what this means. We can talk to him when we've anchored him properly in this time."

Over the next week, Ron appeared in the castle three times — once two days after Ginny had first seen him in the corridor, and twice two days after that. On his third appearance Ginny and Neville were both present, and Hermione was at last summoned in time and managed to perform the proper counterspell to stabilise his temporal anchoring.

Ron, when he was finally rescued, swayed and nearly fell to the floor in exhaustion before Neville caught him. "I'll tell you," he managed, speaking to all three of them, "that time travel stuff… really takes a lot out of a bloke. Think I need to… sleep for a week." He then slumped against Neville's shoulder and promptly collapsed.

Ron, tucked safely into bed in the Hospital Wing (which was now shelled over with more defensive spells than the Ministry and dangerously close to full), slept for nineteen hours before he finally awoke to find Hermione sitting at his bedside.

"Hey," he said softly, touching her hand.

Hermione, who had been dozing slightly, started awake and intertwined her fingers with his. "Ron!"

"Morning," he replied with a grin. "Or — is it?" His brow furrowed. "Sort of hard to tell, all the clouds over the sky these days and all."

"It's mid-afternoon," Hermione said softly. "You've been sleeping a while."

Ron was silent for a moment. "Doesn't seem like… much has changed. I suppose that means we failed."

"We don't know that," Hermione pointed out. "No use jumping to conclusions, Ron. Time magic is totally unpredictable. It might not have worked yet because you're here now and… you haven't killed Voldemort yet, have you?"

Ron shook his head, lips twisting slightly at the reminder. He wasn't as eager to do it as Ginny was, but the idea of having to go back in time again and finish the job because he hadn't managed it the first time round was extremely unappealing.

"What's that you were saying?" he asked a little absently. "I haven't gone back yet and done it, you mean? … So if I do… maybe the changes'll take effect?"

Hermione nodded tiredly, a wan smile fixed on her lips. "That's what I'm thinking, anyway. At this point, you still have the option of not going back. So the present determined by your past actions is still undefined."

"Gotta go back, then," Ron muttered in a resigned tone. He met Hermione's eyes then, looking just as exhausted as she was. "Luna and I… set a time limit. For her bit. Six months, and if she didn't have him on a better track by then, we agreed I'd do it. Do you think I could… go back a bit later?"

Hermione nodded, her eyes somber. "It's a shame," she whispered. "Part of me… sort of hoped she could really do it. But I suppose if you're here and nothing's different, she can't have succeeded."

Ron processed this quietly for a moment, his eyes wandering about the infirmary. "Yeah," he said finally. "That would have been ideal."

Hermione's lips turned down. "I still don't want you to do it, you know," she said softly. "No matter why you're doing it… it'll hurt you. I don't want that for you, Ron."

"I've got to, Hermione," he reminded her, looking nevertheless deeply troubled. "Luna won't do it. And even if she would, I'm not sure she'd be able to."

The brown-haired girl's mouth quirked. "I don't know. She's not as… soft as she used to be." This observation was made distantly, sadly, as if she had just read the end of a tragic story and didn't particularly feel like talking about it. After a moment Hermione shook her head and squeezed Ron's hand. "Anyway… let's not talk about it right now. You need to rest before you can think about going back. If and when you feel ready… I'll send you back to the six-month mark, and you can do it then."

"Okay," Ron said in a slow exhale, and squeezed her hand back before releasing it and turning over so that his back was to her.

Hermione rose slowly and made her way back to the library.

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Dumbledore sat back, blue eyes flashing. "What do you mean, Mr. Granger is gone?" he inquired sharply. "Did something happen?"

Luna shook her head miserably, an almost involuntary movement that was not a reply so much as an expression of frustration. "Yes. His temporal anchor was broken." She pulled her bezoar out of her shoe and held it up for him to see. "We were using these."

For a moment, Dumbledore was distracted from his consternation enough to look with genuine interest at the bezoar. "Very… clever idea, Miss Lovegood, using a demimagical substance for an anchor. Did you enchant them yourselves as well?" Before Luna could open her mouth to reply, however, he had himself back to task. "But that's beside the point. Do you know if he will be able to return to this time, or might I begin formulating a sufficiently distracting cover story?"

Luna thought about this for a minute. "I… don't think he will try to come straight back and get here before term starts. We set a six-month time limit on my side of things." She looked up. "My guess would be that he'll try to return around then, if he decides to at all. He was technically supposed to be my backup, but he knows I can take care of myself when need be. And it's not as though Hogwarts is especially dangerous… these days." Luna fell silent, her expression bland but with an echo of pain behind it.

"I see." Dumbledore looked equally troubled. "Well… I shall make his excuses to the other professors, of course, although his name should be kept on the registry so that he has some reason to be here in the event of his return. Are you sure you'll be all right by yourself, Miss Lovegood?"

Luna tried to smile and failed, accomplishing only a slight twitching of lips which quickly faded back into her former despondent expression.

"I'm certain I'll manage perfectly well on my own," she said. It was not exactly a lie; she had been unthinkingly independent for many years of her life, as friends had never offered themselves as an option until she was fourteen. But she had since then grown used to their presence, and suddenly having to be alone again reminded her unpleasantly of her three-month stay in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor. At the thought she felt her heart wrench suddenly and realised that she missed Harry desperately. What a joy it had been to see his face, that day he'd shown up out of the blue and rescued her.

None of these thoughts or emotions made it onto her face, but Dumbledore seemed to observe them anyway, watching her calmly but for the concerned light in his eyes. "If you should require assistance of any kind, Miss Lovegood," he said gently, "I trust you know that you need only ask."

Luna nodded and tried to smile again, succeeding a little more this time. She stood, Vanished her chair with her usual vague gesture, and walked out of his office.

That night, she slept poorly, and dreamed of her dead friends, and of snakes that twined themselves about her arms and legs until she was no longer able to move to save anybody.

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A/N: Yeah, so... that happened. I know a lot of you were excited to see how Ron would handle things, and I would have loved to keep him around for a bit longer, but he just wouldn't cooperate. Looks like Luna's on her own for now.

Thanks again for sticking with me, and please leave comments if you have any thoughts on the story so far. :) Look for the next chapter in a week or so! Somebody special might finally decide to make an appearance... xo shai