Still sore from the explosion, Ron stands, and approaches Hermione. She looks down upon him, with a menacing glare that won't fatigue.
He tries to apologize. He reminds her of how demanding his work is, and how he wouldn't have to go to the Three Broomsticks every night if only Britain's dark wizards would cut him and Harry more slack...
She screams like a banshee, and knocks him backwards again. She spins in circles, and creates a whirlwind around her...
Ron reaches for his wand. It's broken in two...with only a few splinters holding it together. Ah, he remembers those times... And yet, this hardly seems the time or place for such reminiscence.
At the time he thought the Womping Willow was the worst thing that'd ever happened to him. But by the time this night is over-if it ever ends-he'll prefer the Womping Willow's wrath.
A bright light shoots out of the whirlwind, and knocks Ron backwards again. And the chase is on.
The Minister has found her gavel. And she's about to pound it with the force of fifty mountain trolls' clubs...
Ron lands among Fluffy's front legs. The dog wakes, and glares down at him with his three heads. Ron whimpers. They start barking; one head bares its fangs and charges him.
Ron rolls away, and falls. He lands among a patch of devil's snare. The vines swarm from all over, suffocating him. He panics, and thrashes. The vines constrict tighter. This could be the endgame...
Hermione conjures a flaming serpent. It takes Ron in its jaws, saving him from the plant. It stands high, on its belly, and simulates chewing Ron. Ron cries out for help each time the serpent opens its mouth to chew.
The serpent belches. Ron is shot across the sky, and lands on an anvil. He's surrounded by a hoard of mountain trolls. They take their clubs, and start pounding the shite out of him.
He tries to apologize to Hermione. But nothing will dare sway the Muggle-born Minister's appetite for husband-torture...
One troll pounds on an end of the anvil too hard. It becomes a catapault, and shoots Ron across the sky again. He lands in a lake. Grindylows swarm from all around, creating a bait ball around him.
They squeeze him. They pull his hairs out. They bite him. If only Ron's wand worked...
They swim away. At first Ron thinks he's been saved. Alas, he gets an eerie feeling. He looks around him, while submerged...
He sees two big bright yellow eyes. And just like that, he's petrified.
He sinks to bottom. A merman finds him. He arches his brows, gathers it, and takes it to his village. Apparently there are stores in merfolk villages that sell petrified wizards and witches.
He's put on display in the store next to Dennis Creevey. Interesting; it seems that getting attacked by basilisks runs in the Creevey family, for some reason...
A mermaid comes along. She sees Ron. She smiles, and squeezes her camel toe with her hand... She gathers Ron in her arms and swims to the cashier.
Ron's getting some great shots of her low-cut. He didn't get nearly as good footage that time the Triwizard Tournament put a spell on him that would keep him alive for as long as it took Harry to salvage him from the bottom of the Great Lake, with only gillyweed to keep him from drowning...
She pays for him, and tries to swim out of the store with him. She doesn't get far.
A bolt of fire shoots through the lake, and hits the mermaid in the chest. Herimone has pounced on her, and is now using Crucio on Ron's buyer.
Now Ron KNOWS Hermione's not sane. The Hermione he knows loves all magical creatures too much to hurt them-even though merfolk would be classified as beings by the Ministry along with wizards, if only they weren't racist against hags and vampires, who're hopelessly classified as beings, despite both races' beastly habits...
Around Ron, all the merfolk panic and swim back into their homes. In a few, he finds out why.
Inferi have come. They collect Ron, and swim away with him. Hermione's still torturing the mermaid. Ron's still petrified...and doesn't see if she sees him get taken away.
He hopes she didn't. He still loves her, but he hopes she didn't...
They take him to shore. Ron's hearing is nearly spent to the noises of a ton of recently-uprooted mandrakes, screaming like babies in a pile near the shore. Some of the Inferi cover their ears. His bringers cover their ears as soon as they're ashore.
Other Inferi arrive, take Ron from them, carry him across the shore, and throw him into the mandrake pile. It's noisy. Ron thinks he's going to go deaf. But as soon as he can move again, he crawls away.
The Inferi are on a dogpile atop the mandrake pile. Ron crawls beneath their legs and feet, and starts running. None of them see him leave. He runs for his life through a scary forest.
He doesn't get far. He runs into a giant spider web, and gets stuck. Now he's screaming like a girl. He's about to get reunited with his worst nightmare.
Acromantulas come from clicks around. They sense his fear. They swarm all over him, covering him in a cocoon of themselves. Ron's screams are muffled.
Good, Ron thinks for a moment; at least Hermione won't follow me out here if she can't hear me scream. If only I didn't have to die by my worst nightmares' appetites instead...
The acromantulas scatter. Ron's relieved. He's still stuck in the web, but at least things aren't so bad anymore. But of course, if they're running away, they're about to get worse...
Their mother's here, of course. He knows it's not Aragog, because he died when he and Harry were sixteen. Although Ron himself might've been seventeen at the time... Did he get poisoned by Professor Slughorn's mead before or after Aragog's funeral?
Or technically, it was DRACO'S mead, but... O dear Merlin, what in the name of Azkaban is going to save Mr. Hermione Granger from that gigantic spider that looks like it's hungry enough to eat a Hungarian Horntail?
"Weasley arachnophobe," the acromantula mother says, scarier than when Aragog spoke to him and Harry that one time in the Forbidden Forest, "long have my kind awaited your foolish return to our hunting grounds!"
Ron screams like a girl, louder than ever. The acromantula approaches him slowly...
With another airborne ball of fire, Hermione arrives, just in time, and sets the monster aflame. Ron's relieved; with some luck, Hermione's finally sober.
The noise stops. The smoke has cleared. Hermione's back is still turned to Ron. Ron plays his luck, and tries to nourish her.
He admits that he's not perfect. And he's more than committed to helping her and himself get couples' counselling, if she's still just as committed to him as he knows he'll always be to...
She whirls, and bares her fangs. Her eyes are still glowing bright blue.
Bloody hell, Ron thinks...
Hermione screams like a banshee again. Ron gets blasted through the forest like a projectile.
He's in a clearing in a Chinese cherry forest. He looks around. He's surrounded by four very big, and very hungry-looking Chinese Fireballs. And Ron knows-based on how much Hermione probably stared at Viktor Krum during the Triwizard Tournament when he wasn't looking-that those dragons are VERY passionate wizard-eaters.
Hermione apparates, and lands atop a giant wireless. She points her wand at it, and for this, it plays Nelly Furtado's "Maneater."
All the dragons take snaps at Ron. Ron screams, rolls, ducks, limps, and does everything in his ability to avoid getting eaten. He'd sure love to tape up his wand now... But then he'd remember what happened to Gilderoy Lockhart in the Chamber of Secrets that one time, and would remember that old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat is something that the wizarding world has somehow been taught to underrate throughout the years...
He looks around. To his dismay, Viktor Krum is mounted atop each dragon. Apparently he's learned a self-duplication spell since the Triwizard Tournament...assuming he didn't know it at the time. But of course, Ron didn't know that Krum was still in school at the time of the 422nd Quidditch World Cup...
Krum raises his arm, and grunts like a beast as the dragons torture Ron-all of him. Ron can't always see Hermione...but he can tell she's enjoying this. She still likes Viktor; he always knew it. And yet, here he is, down here, getting punished for looking down the blouses of older witches...
One of the dragons inhales. Ron dreads what follows. It roasts him, of course. He screams like a baby as his body sears with pain.
Now he's atop a frozen lake. Everywhere above him, Dementors fly. They're all swarming around him. One dive-bombs him...
They come from everywhere, and start feasting on his soul. This whole ordeal starts to hurt Ron all at once, and he screams, and cries, and begs for mercy...
Hermione apparates into a forest nearby, and watches. She's smiling.
Before her, a family of otter/patronuses play in the water. Patronuses are intangible; they phase through the ice, and swim in it, as if it weren't frozen. They all seem happy. They don't seem to miss a certain Jack Russell terrier/patronus that used to bark and chase them, like the groom that could never love an otter...or another, even...
At this, Ron would be surprised if Hermione's patronus hadn't transformed into a wolverine, or a basilisk, or... Or hell, even a damned Chinese Fireball, if she doesn't love him anymore...
She can tell her beloved husband's not having fun. And it's about to get worse...