Chapter Twenty: Interlude
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Ron had never been so tired in his life.
Two days after his return to his own time, he was well enough to be out of the Hospital Wing and resting in Gryffindor Tower, but he felt nowhere close to truly recovered. Everything seemed to be going at a dizzyingly fast pace. Everyone around him was constantly moving – passing information, consolidating resources, caring for injuries, communicating with the house-elves, always going somewhere or talking in hushed, tense voices. Just watching them made him exhausted. Thinking about the situation outside the castle, and what he would have to do to end it, rather made him want to go to sleep and never wake up.
Unfortunately, his current circumstances couldn't seem to stop reminding him that that was not an option.
"Just look at him," Ginny was whispering to Hermione. The two of them were talking several feet away from him, apparently under the impression that he was asleep. "You can't tell me you really think it's a good idea to send him back all by himself. He can barely walk on his own. There's no way he'd be able to take on Riddle in this condition." Ron narrowed his eyes at the wall and barely resisted blowing his cover by rolling over to shoot his little sister a look. He didn't much want to be walking around right now, but that didn't mean he couldn't.
"He doesn't necessarily need to take on Riddle," Hermione argued back softly. "There are a lot of ways to do what needs to be done, and he has the element of surprise. Ron's very capable when he needs to be, Ginny, you should know that." Ron almost smiled at that, but then remembered what it was she was talking about. Luna wouldn't have been pleased to be listening to this conversation. As it stood, Neville had already asked that they try not to discuss any of the concrete plans for the... assassination? murder? – in front of him, even though he was still ready to help wherever he was needed.
Ginny made a noise of frustration and Ron could practically hear her grinding her teeth. "You can't be serious, Hermione. Are you really trying to tell me that you think sending him back again is a better idea than just sending me? You've seen me fight. You know I can do it. Ron can't, not now." She paused and took a long, slow breath. "And Luna's my best friend," she added, more quietly. "I'm worried about her. I'd – I'd really like to see she's okay for myself." That was worrying, because it was both true and noticeably more manipulative than he would ordinarily expect from his habitually genuine sister. She could have brought up Harry again, or pointed out that Ron had already buggered his first attempt and argued that he wasn't reliable, but she'd zeroed in on Hermione's own concern for Luna and the fact that it was the one relationship in the equation Hermione didn't have extensive knowledge of.
Hermione was silent a long moment before responding again. "I'll think about it," she said at last. Ron's brows came down, and he fidgeted and struggled to lie still until Ginny had muttered something about checking in with Neville and left the room.
"She's right, you know," Hermione said at the same volume, and Ron turned over to stare at her. She looked haggard, disheveled and worryingly pale, the same as she had for days. He could almost see the cogs turning as she worked the matter over in her head. "You're taking a while to recover, and we don't want to send you back if you can't get the job done. It would make more sense to send Ginny."
"You are sending Ginny back there," said Ron, very firmly and clearly, "over my dead body." He knew Hermione understood why. This was far too personal for Ginny, and if she killed Riddle he suspected it would make things even worse for her. True, he was putting his soul at risk trying to carry out the act himself; but at least, when it came down to it, he was only doing it because he thought it was necessary. He didn't think Ginny would be able to say the same.
Hermione sighed and covered her face. "I know." She shook her head slightly, and her hands fell down again. "She's just getting persistent, is all. I think she might be thinking of trying the spell by herself if I don't agree soon."
"Then we'll just have to send me back a bit earlier," Ron replied with a yawn, and closed his eyes again.
"Tomorrow?" Hermione asked. No, he knew Ginny. Sharp as a tack, but impulsive, and once she'd fully got an idea into her head she'd never let it go. Ron shook his head slightly, his range of motion limited by the loveseat cushion under his chin.
"Better do… tonight." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he slipped back into oblivion.
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At an hour past midnight that evening, Ron was leaning against a bookshelf in the darkened library and trying not to tap his feet while Hermione drew the proper sigils on the floor. He had been pacing between the stacks and doing everything he could to keep himself moving, too tense to stand still and a little afraid he'd fall asleep on his feet if he stopped. Hermione had snapped at him that he was breaking her concentration sometime around the two-hour mark.
They had met in the library earlier that evening, following a current of steadily worsening news. The information had been garbled at first, indicating only that one of the younger Slytherin students had vanished and had not been seen for several hours. Then they had heard that the student had not only left the castle but defected, seeking safety among Voldemort's forces as resources and morale in the castle steadily dwindled.
The story that eventually emerged was that the student had attempted to defect, and had seemed to change her mind at the last minute, leaving the castle and heading for the forest before suddenly stopping and making a run for it from somewhere out on the grounds. Professor Sprout, who had been outside at the time in the course of moving some medicines from the greenhouses to the castle and had run toward the girl's screams, had been killed in an effort to protect her as she fled the Death Eaters. The student herself had vanished, her survival unconfirmed. Somebody had mentioned to Ron that her name was Claire.
Hermione had been working for close to an hour in near-complete silence, both of them too worn down to be much for conversation, when she finally leaned back. "Done. I think."
Ron came over to examine at them for a moment, although he didn't really know what he was looking for. "Looks fine to me," he offered. Hermione smiled wanly at him, aware that he had no idea what he was talking about, and took one more look at the floor.
"Let's get you off, then," she stated, standing and refusing to meet his eyes.
"Hermione," said Ron quietly, reaching for her hand. She grimaced and flinched away, but then leaned forward and kissed him softly before pulling away again.
"Just be safe, please," she begged. "Please. I don't want to be doing this again. This was already a last resort, and –" Her voice cracked, but she took a breath and then said sharply, "Don't make me regret it."
Uneasy with the prospect of making promises he couldn't keep, Ron just nodded and stepped into his circle.
The sound of her voice saying the incantation was lost in the flash-bang of the spell, and after a split second her face fell out of his vision in a flurry of sparks that left spots still dancing in his eyes when he stumbled out of the Forbidden Forest on February 29th, 1944.
His first unavoidable observation was that it was cold. Really, really cold. And snowing. Why he hadn't thought to bring a jacket was beyond him, but he and Hermione had been in a hurry and had apparently both forgotten that Hogwarts would be well into the Scottish winter at the time he arrived. Ron closed his eyes against the biting wind and muttered a quick warming charm, which helped a little but didn't quite stop him sorely regretting his lack of foresight. At least now he was well and truly awake.
Once he was able to blink a bit, take a couple of breaths and get his bearings, Ron judged that it looked to be around midday. He had at least remembered that wearing uniform robes would be a good idea, so hopefully he wouldn't have too rough a time navigating the castle undercover once he found Voldemort. Riddle. Whatever. Ron felt his adrenalin spike with the reminder that he was here to take down the Dark Lord, and he forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly. He could do this. He had to do it for Harry. And it really couldn't be any worse than the spiders, anyway, and he'd done that when he was twelve.
Ron blew on his numbing fingers and whipped out the Marauder's Map (which he thankfully had managed to hang onto through his time-travelling nightmare), looking around briefly to be absolutely sure nobody was nearby before activating it with the incantation.
Riddle, Riddle, Riddle. He scanned the map feverishly, but the name did not appear. He looked it over again, to no results.
Frowning, Ron looked for Luna. Dungeons, library, Astronomy Tower, Ravenclaw Tower, Hospital Wing, even the Headmaster's office. Nothing.
He suppressed an initial surge of panic. There could easily be a very simple explanation. Trips to Hogsmeade on weekends had been going on at Hogwarts since forever – well, not forever, Hermione would know the exact date, but definitely before 1944. He hadn't checked a calendar for what day of the week it would be when he arrived, so maybe he'd accidentally popped in on a Saturday and Luna had taken Riddle for sweets as a last-ditch effort to get him to make friends.
Ron decided he would have to try and get more information. He'd wanted to avoid interacting with any students or staff as much as possible since his cover could be blown the instant someone realised he was unfamiliar, and he was about ninety-nine point nine per cent sure that Dumbledore would not be in a helpful mood this time round given the nature of his mission, but it didn't seem like he had any other options. He deactivated the map and started trudging through the deepening snow toward the castle, steadily ignoring the urge to speculate on what might have happened to Luna. He did not have enough information to start guessing, and spiralling into hysteria wouldn't help him or anybody else.
When he was nearing the front of the castle, a pair of Gryffindors came tramping up the path that led toward the village. Ron considered hiding from them and finding somebody else to question, as Gryffindors knew their own and would be the most likely to clock him as an intruder, but Gryffindors also had (he hated to admit) something of a habit of being a bit too trusting of other Gryffindors. He also could be short on time, for all he knew, and he felt he had better find out what was going on as soon as possible rather than stand around thinking it over and maybe miss his best chance. This wasn't chess; somewhat ironically, he lacked the luxury of time. Ron briefly wished he'd come back earlier, but he'd promised Luna her chance with the six-month mark.
He cleared his throat and approached them, doing his best to act natural. "Er, hello there," he tried, with a little wave. "Don't suppose you lot could let me know what day it is?"
One of the Gryffindors, a sharp-eyed little fifth year (Ron guessed), took out a pocket watch and checked. "It's the 29th," he said.
"Right," Ron mumbled awkwardly. "And, um… what day of the week?"
"Tuesday," said the girl standing next to the probably-fifth year, and Ron's heart sank. It had been a long shot, but that pretty much killed the Hogsmeade theory. The girl stared at him, a little rudely. "You all right?"
"Are either of you friends with a girl called Luna?" he asked, trying to keep his voice even.
"Lovegood?" said the sharp-eyed boy. "She's a friend of a friend, I suppose. She used to spend a lot of time with a couple of the Gryffindor prefects, Weasley and Crinsey-Abbott." He looked at Ron thoughtfully for a moment. "You look a bit like Weasley, actually. Are you a cousin or something? I don't remember seeing you before."
"Cousin," Ron confirmed quickly. He opened his mouth to trot out some made-up explanation of why he was looking for Luna, but nothing came to mind. Neither of the Gryffindors seemed to notice, however, and the girl chimed in before he had time to organise his scrambled thoughts.
"Well, anyway, nobody's seen Lovegood all week," she said conspiratorially. "I thought she might be sick, but then my friend Quintus in Slytherin told me she hasn't been in the dungeons at all either. It's like she's just disappeared. Bit mysterious, isn't it?"
Ron's mind ground to a halt.
"It's been known to happen," he said dully.
The boy was frowning. "It's just a bit queerer than usual, you know, because of the expulsion. It was maybe five days before whatever happened to Lovegood, wasn't it?"
"Lots of people getting expelled this year," the girl commented. "Bright people, too. Perpetua Fancourt's mum invented the Lunascope, you know, Zacharias."
Zacharias' lips quirked. "Well, she didn't have the whole school thinking she was God's gift to wizardry," he said dryly, and his companion elbowed him in the ribs.
"Don't be so horrible! Tom was always lovely to everyone. I don't know why those Ministry goons came and arrested him, but it's got to be some kind of mix-up, I'm sure of it. All the professors think so too."
"No, they don't," said Zacharias under his breath, rubbing the spot where she'd jabbed him.
Ron, realising he had just been standing there mutely while they bickered, leaned forward and waved a hand to get their attention. "Hang on – Tom – Tom Riddle?"
"Yes, of course," said the girl, looking at him like he'd grown a second head. "Where have you been?"
"Sorry," Ron muttered, barely paying attention to her. Tom Riddle is expelled and arrested, and five days later Luna vanishes. He'd kept his expectations open as to what situations he thought he might encounter upon coming back, but Tom Riddle unseated from his impregnable Slytherin throne had absolutely not been among them. What had Voldemort done? What could he have done? The thought chilled him. This actually seemed somehow worse than a worst-case scenario. The timeline might be ruined beyond repair already without his having accomplished his mission, Luna was unaccounted for with no means of contact, and he was stuck on Hogwarts grounds by himself fifty-some years in the past without an alias or an ally in sight. "Do you know if they've, um – if they've sent him to Azkaban?"
"No idea," answered Zacharias shortly. "Seems as though the whole thing's been kept under wraps. He's underage, but I suppose that isn't unheard of."
"Who are you again?" the girl demanded, beginning to look suspicious. "Did you say you were Everett Weasley's cousin? Why haven't I ever seen you before?"
"Err, dunno," Ron deflected. "I've been around. Had to spend some time in St. Mungo's a while back, though." That actually was true, although he'd only been there to see his dad after the snake bite. He hoped it sounded like the truth. Given by the way the girl was pursing her lips and squinting at him, though, he didn't want to lean too hard on that assumption.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, leave him alone, Jane," groaned Zacharias. "He's clearly a Weasley, just look at him. Not everything is a conspiracy." Jane batted his arm and glared at him before narrowing her eyes at Ron again, but didn't press the issue.
"We'd better get to class, anyway," Jane conceded finally. "And you probably should too, Whoever-You-Are Weasley."
"Right," agreed Ron. "See you." He stared her down until she huffed and walked away, yanking Zacharias along behind her. She reminded him a little of Hermione, and he found himself suppressing a smile.
Once they were out of view, though, reality began creeping back up on him. He really wasn't sure how things could possibly get any worse. Should he focus on finding Luna or learning more about what had happened with Riddle? It didn't seem unlikely that the two were connected, but his priorities were suddenly confused. He wasn't even sure that he could go home now, given that his actions might already be affecting the future from which he'd come. Ron rubbed a hand over his face. Merlin, he felt like the walking dead.
After several minutes of standing in front of the castle and thinking, Ron noticed his fingers were losing feeling again and recast his warming charm. When it came down to it, he realised, he had no option but to keep on looking for Riddle. It was no use worrying about Luna; broadly speaking, she could take care of herself, but if something had already happened to her there was nothing he could do about it at this point. In any case, if she was under any kind of significant threat that she couldn't deal with alone, it was almost certainly from Riddle himself. Who knew what her presence might have led to him doing or becoming, but Voldemort was a danger at any age. He needed to figure out what happened and then deal with Riddle. He just had to figure out where to start.
Where to start as a time-travelling assassin from the future, navigating the world of five decades ago by himself, with no family, no friends, no resources other than his own magic to fall back on, no knowledge of how his actions could affect his own timeline and the future of the world, and almost no information to go on.
Ron had never been so tired in his life.
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A/N: After nearly seven months – here we are again at last! :) I am sorry for the long wait and I so appreciate you guys' patience and support as always. Life took some turns and getting the chapter out took a lot longer than planned, but I am so happy to be starting arc two with you all and I hope that you enjoy it!