Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

No, I didn't die. But my computer did! Argh! No Internet access for nearly two weeks – I attempted writing out the chapter on paper, so it would be ready to go when my computer was fixed, but it turns out I'm lazy, and when faced with hand cramps, I write incredibly shorter chapters.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ron
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'Oh, bugger,' said Ginny when Harry collapsed.

'What happened to him?' asked Hermione. She felt her heart catch in her throat. Was he okay? She had just gotten Ron back. She couldn't lose Harry.

She knew that she was overreacting, and that Harry had probably just fainted, but she obviously wasn't thinking clearly. Ron was back. She'd been talking about it for weeks. She'd insisted for weeks that he was alive, and nobody had believed her. It was only now, as she stood beside him, that she began to realize that a part of her hadn't believed everything she'd said.

But she had been RIGHT. Of course. She was always right. It was no surprise. She didn't plan on rubbing it in anyone's face or anything like that, but it was good to know that she hadn't gone crazy. Even if everyone around her thought she had. She felt triumphant in a way she hadn't before – this beat out anything she'd felt in the past, even when she'd become a prefect or when she'd received eleven OWLs.

'He passed out, of course,' Ginny said with a small smile. 'He wouldn't be Harry if he didn't.' She looked at Ron and sniffed. 'Are – are you going to hug me now, or what?'

Ron laughed softly and then pulled his sister toward him. 'I love you,' he said. 'C'mon, don't cry. I'm no good with girls who cry.'

'I'm not crying,' Ginny insisted, even as her shoulder shook from the force of her sobs.

'Of course you aren't,' he said. He held her tightly and Hermione thought the sight of them together – Ron comforting Ginny just as he had after the Chamber of Secrets and the Department of Mysteries and the Battle at Hogwarts – was one of the sweetest things she'd ever seen.

'I missed you, you git,' she said. 'Mum's going to lose it.'

'I'm so sorry,' he said. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine. You're here,' said Ginny.

'No,' said Ron. 'Really, are you okay? I mean – nothing happened at Malfoy Manor? And you haven't gone searching for Horcruxes without me? And – and Harry, he treats you okay?'

Ginny nodded against him. 'I –'

'What in the world is going on here?'

Hermione jumped and her eyes flew from Ron and Ginny. Professor McGonagall stood there with her wand pointed out. Her mouth was a stern, thin line. Her eyes were wide with shock, and when she spotted Ron, she gave a rather audible gasp.

'Mr Weasley?'

'Professor,' Ron said, letting go of Ginny and straightening out. Hermione took a moment to admire him. He had a rather nasty black eye and a large gash on the side of his head. He'd been Stunned by Harry and tied up on his kitchen floor like an idiot. He'd been dragged to Hogwarts and questioned by his friends. Though the things they'd done had been quite necessary, Hermione knew that she'd be feeling somewhat humiliated if she were in his situation.

Ron was a proud person – how had he not snapped? Had he grown up? When had that happened?

'Miss Weasley, Miss Granger,' said McGonagall. She glanced down at Harry's unconscious form and then trained her wand on Ron. 'Come away from there.'

'What?' asked Ginny. 'Professor … you don't understand! This is my brother!'

McGonagall's eyes nearly bulged out of her head. 'What happened to Mr Potter?'

'He passed out,' said Ginny.

'We brought Ron here,' Hermione said, trying to explain. She knew that she would have to present a logical argument if there was ever any hope of McGonagall believing them. 'He showed up at The Burrow tonight. Harry and Ginny didn't believe it was him at first. We waited an hour, to see if someone had just been Polyjuiced. After that, Harry thought that maybe this person was a Metamorphmagus. We brought him here and gave him some Veritaserum. It's Ron. He answered all of our questions correctly. And they were things that nobody except for him would know.' Ginny nodded in agreement.

McGonagall appeared to consider this for a moment. 'Did you think to use a Recording Charm on the conversation?'

Hermione frowned. 'No,' she said honestly. 'We didn't even think of it.'

'Mr Weasley is aware that we held a funeral for him?' asked McGonagall, and Ron stiffened just a bit. 'Is he aware that we have not seen hide nor hair of him in over a month?'

Ron spoke up. 'I know,' he said. 'But I have an explanation for everything. I was in America. The Death Eaters were holding me there. Look, you have no reason to believe me, but –'

McGonagall nodded, and went to say something, but stopped. 'Miss Weasley, please help me escort Harry to the Hospital Wing. I believe he would be most comfortable in a bed.'

A look of confusion crossed Ginny's features, but she nodded and followed behind McGonagall and a levitating Harry.

For the first time since he'd come back, Hermione was alone with Ron. She turned to look at him, feeling incredibly awkward. What was going on? This was Ron. Since when did she get nervous around him? Okay, so she had been nervous around him many times. But she was never this … scared of him before.

'Hermione,' he said.

She bit her lip. Something occurred to her. 'Is the Veritaserum still working?' she asked. Ron nodded. 'Do you mind if I ask you something?'

'No,' he said. 'You can ask me anything. I'd tell the truth even if I hadn't taken the potion.'

Hermione knew this, and it was what she was scared of. Still, she had to ask. It was better to be shot down than to be led on, yeah?

'Did you mean it?' asked Hermione, her voice barely above a whisper.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' he said softly.

'What you said to – to me. Just before you left to go to Malfoy Manor,' she said. 'Did you mean it? Because I –'

'Yes,' he said, looking at her intently. 'I – of course I did. I do. I always have.'

'So why did you date Lavender?'

'Because I was in love with you,' he said.

Hermione frowned. 'That doesn't make any sense,' she said slowly.

'I'm not the brightest person in the world,' Ron said seriously.

'You'll have to do better than that,' she said, even though it didn't even matter to her right now. All she wanted to do was let Ron take her into his arms. But she needed answers, and it was better to get them sooner, rather than later.

'I – I know I teased you about Vicky all the time, but – but that was just to get you riled up. Anyone who knows us knows that we fight constantly … but I like that about us. So I set you off sometimes, and I'm a git for doing it, and I know that, but I can't help it,' he said. 'Then Ginny said that you snogged Vicky and – and I knew that it was fourth year, and that it was my fault for not asking you to go to the Ball with me in the first place, but it still felt like someone kicked me in the gut. I don't know why I thought that dating Lavender would be a good idea … I guess I just figured that you had no real reason to like me in the first place, but I thought maybe you did anyway, and – and if you knew that I was rubbish when it came to girls and kissing and all that other shite, I thought maybe you'd realize that I wasn't worth it at all.' He sighed. 'And then you started up with McLaggen and I figured you never fancied me at all. But that's stupid, and I'm not blaming you for anything. If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have even looked twice at that git. Like I said, I'm not the brightest. Lavender … at the time, she seemed like the answer. It was only after she started calling herself my girlfriend, and you wouldn't even look at me, that I figured out the only reason you and I weren't together was because of her.'

She felt him grab her hand.

'Lavender isn't my girlfriend anymore,' he said. 'Hell, she never really was.'

Hermione smiled. 'What are you saying?' she asked, though she thought maybe she already knew.

'I'm saying that I'm not smart like you –'

'Ron.'

'– and I'm not funny like Ginny, or brave like Harry, or anything else, really. I'm just me,' he told her. 'I have stupid red hair and I'm too tall. I have too many family members and not enough money. I act like an arse without even realizing it.'

'No, you –'

'Let me finish,' he said. 'The moment I met you, I told myself I hated you. I told myself that you were bossy and annoying and just too bloody perfect at everything. And I still couldn't get you out of my head,' he said. 'You infuriate me. You're too smart and too proper and too stubborn. You always lecture me. In school, you made me do my homework when all I wanted to do was play chess or go flying or sleep. You made me do patrols. You never let me take House points away from Slytherin just because they were Slytherins. You have a ridiculous passion about house elves that I will never, ever understand. But you're all I think about – even when I didn't know my name, I knew you. And I am so hopelessly in love with you that I'm actually standing here, saying all this, acting like some stupid wanker in those romance books my mum reads.'

Hermione felt her heart catch in her throat. 'I – I don't really know what to say,' she confessed.

Ron grinned and shrugged. 'Talking isn't everything,' he said, and then pulled her to him. He kissed her softly, slowly, and it was so long overdue that Hermione wasn't even embarrassed when McGonagall came back and interrupted them.

'Come with me,' she said.

'Where are we going?' asked Hermione.

The answer turned out to be Dumbledore's office. Hermione was unsurprised to see Professor Dumbledore's portrait mounted on the wall, along with the other former Headmasters'.

She was surprised, however, at what he had to say.

'Ronald Weasley,' Dumbledore said brightly. 'I was beginning to wonder if you would show up.'

……………………………………………………………

When Harry awoke, he was immediately greeted with an inexplicable gnawing sense of nervousness in the pit of his stomach.

He groaned and sat up. He was in the Hospital Wing – he'd woken up here enough times to be able to identify the room with just a glance. He looked around for Madam Pomfrey, not realizing at first that she, like the rest of the Hogwarts staff, was no longer at Hogwarts.

He swallowed thickly and rubbed his eyes. What happened? Why did he pass out?

Ron.

Ron was alive. Ron was back. Ron was alive and back and here, at Hogwarts, right now.

How long had he been out? Was it the next day? Did the Weasleys already know that Ron was back? Or had it merely been a few minutes? How had he gotten to the Hospital Wing, then? Was McGonagall back? Where was Ginny?

Harry found himself on his feet and felt around for his glasses until his fingers made contact and he put them on. Suddenly, the nervousness was gone, replaced with a quick rush of relief, followed by excitement.

'Harry?'

He spun around and saw Ginny behind him. He wasn't surprised. It was almost as if he'd sensed her coming up behind him. 'Gin?'

'You're up,' she said. 'Good. Come on, we've got to go.'

'Where are we going?'

'McGonagall's got Ron and Hermione in Dumbledore's office,' she said. 'The Order's up there, too. We have to meet them.'

'What did McGonagall say?' asked Harry.

'She nearly had kittens!' said Ginny. 'She walked in right after you passed out. She saw you on the floor and Ron standing over you, and she nearly hexed him into next week.'

Oh, no … Harry hadn't even considered the thought that the adults – other than the Weasleys – wouldn't believe them. Would they have to do the Veritaserum again? Wouldn't they have to wait until the last batch wore off? How long would that take? And how long would a second questioning take? Harry didn't want Ron to spend another night away from The Burrow.

'Can we go now?' he asked.

Ginny nodded. 'Yeah,' she said. 'McGonagall brought you down here after we explained everything to her. You've been out about a half hour.'

They began walking; the only sound was that of their footsteps echoing off the stone walls. To his right, he heard Ginny sniff, and when he looked at her, he could see through the faint lighting of the moon that she was crying.

'Is everything okay?'

She sniffed again. 'I just don't understand,' she said. 'How could this have happen? We held a funeral. We mourned. We were in emotional hell. And we were wrong? Kingsley said he saw –'

'Kingsley saw wrong, obviously,' said Harry. 'They could've Polyjuiced some random person – Muggle, probably – and just killed them. Maybe they knew we were doing the Wandering Spell, so they did it, because they knew we'd see. There are a million different possibilities. I don't know why this happened … but it did. And we need to just be thankful that everything turned out all right, yeah?'

She nodded. 'My brother's back,' she said. 'I don't know how but … Hermione was right all along. What else is new?' She bit her lip. 'I'm nervous. I mean, what's going to happen next? What if Mum reacts badly? What if nobody believes Ron? I can't lose my brother again, Harry.'

'You won't,' he said. 'We'll make them believe.' He kissed her and took her hand. 'Isn't your mum going to panic when she gets home and sees that we aren't there?'

'McGonagall spoke to her right after she found us here. She told Mum we had to talk to her about something and that we'd be back soon … Mum's probably worried sick, of course, but she knows that we're safe here.'

'Okay,' Harry said. 'Let's go find Ron and Hermione.'

……………………………………………………………

'Finally up, are you?' asked Ron, once Ginny had returned to Dumbledore's office with Harry in tow. 'For a minute there, I thought you'd died, or something.'

Hermione smacked his arm in reprimand, but she was biting her lip against a smile. Harry let out a surprised, scandalized laugh. Ginny couldn't help but grin. It was so unexpected and inappropriate. It was such a Ron thing to say, and she could hardly take it.

'Mr Weasley,' McGonagall scolded.

'Let them have their fun, Minerva,' came Dumbledore's voice. Ginny jumped. She still wasn't used to the idea that Professor Dumbledore was living in one of those portraits. 'There are so few reasons to laugh in today's world.'

'What did I miss?" asked Harry.

'We questioned him,' said Lupin. 'As far as we can tell, everything checks out.'

'What does that mean, exactly?' Ginny asked. 'I mean, what do we do now? Go home and get a good night's sleep?'

'Your family will need to be alerted of this immediately,' Kingsley piped up. 'It's the middle of the night now, though. Perhaps it would be best if you –'

'My mum will skin us alive if we wait until tomorrow to tell her this!'

Kingsley smiled. 'Of course,' he said. 'What I meant to say was perhaps it would be best if you went home and told your parents now, and let them decide how to tell your brothers, Ginny.'

'You – you mean I have to be the one to tell them?' she asked. Her parents would never believe her! They'd just think she'd gone as crazy as Hermione. Of course, she deserved it. She'd spent weeks treated Hermione the same way. 'Can't one of you tell them? They'll believe it if it comes from one of you.'

Tonks nodded sympathetically. 'Who would you rather hear this sort of news from?' she asked. 'A member of the Order or a member of your family?'

The answer was, of course, that Ginny would rather hear the news from a family member. But wasn't the Order just extended family?

There was no way around this one, and she knew it. Nobody else could tell her mum and dad. They wouldn't believe Hermione, and they'd both have heart attacks if Ron suddenly walked into the kitchen and announced that he was home. 'Okay,' said Ginny.

'I'll go with you,' Harry offered. He grinned at her and Ginny thought that he'd better wipe that look off his face soon, or it'd be more than clear what they'd been up to.

'Thanks,' she said, and then she felt her face break out into the same expression Harry's held.

'Well,' said McGonagall. 'If everyone is satisfied here, it would be best for Mr Weasley to be shown to the Hospital Wing.'

'I'm fine,' Ron said.

'You don't want a potion to fix that black eye of yours?' asked Tonks. 'You've got some nasty cuts, too.'

'Oh,' Ron said. 'Yeah, I guess that would be okay.' He looked at Hermione. 'You, uh, want to come with me?'

'No,' Hermione declared. 'Nobody is going anywhere until Professor Dumbledore explains himself.'

'Hermione,' Lupin said. 'What are you talking about?'

Yes, Ginny was rather curious herself. Why was Hermione glaring at Dumbledore? It wasn't like her at all to disrespect authority.

'Miss Granger, perhaps you should –'

'It is quite all right, Minerva,' said Dumbledore benevolently. 'You are curious, I presume, at my reaction toward Mr Weasley's return?'

'Yes,' Hermione said. 'You weren't shocked at all. And you didn't even question whether or not it was really Ron. You defended him to the Order. It was almost as if you'd known that Ron was coming back.' The wheels were clearly turning in Hermione's head now. 'But if that was true, surely you would have told someone that he was still alive, instead of letting us all suffer for so long, wouldn't you? Which can only mean that you had no idea Ron was still alive. In which case, why would you be so quick to believe me when I said Ron was back? Everyone else wrote me off as crazy. Harry and Ginny didn't believe at first, and Ron had been standing right in front of them!' She paused for a moment. 'You must have known something was up,' she concluded. 'You must have been informed that something was going on with the other side … and when you saw Ron, the pieces just came together.'

Ginny's eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling. How could Hermione do that? Figuring everything out so easily, as if someone was whispering the answers in her ear.

'I have always said you are one of the brightest minds to ever attend this school,' Dumbledore said.

When he said nothing more, Hermione prompted: 'Does that mean I'm right? Someone told you? Who? A spy for our side, pretending to be a Death Eater?'

'I am afraid I cannot allow this discuss to go any further,' Dumbledore said, looking around at them all, but Ginny could've sworn he'd winked when his eyes landed on her.

Snape.

She felt Harry grab her hand. 'We should get back to The Burrow,' he said. 'Your mum is probably waiting up for us, worried sick.'

Ginny nodded and prepared herself for what was no doubt going to be an emotional next few hours.

'Where have you been?' Mrs Weasley demanded when Ginny and Harry entered the kitchen. Harry had been correct. She was sitting at the table with a cup of tea. Ginny was relieved to see that her father was also awake. This way, at least, they wouldn't have to waste time trying to get him out of bed. 'And where is Hermione?'

'Hermione's still at Hogwarts,' Harry said.

'Oi, Mum, can we go now?'

For the first time since coming into the room, Ginny realized that Fred and George were present.

'What're you doing here?' Ginny asked.

'Mum showed up at our flat –'

'In the middle of the bloody night –'

'And started going off about how the three of you were missing,' finished George.

'So,' Fred said, turning back to Mrs Weasley. 'You know that they're all in one piece. Can we go now?'

'No!' said Ginny. It would be much easier to tell everyone the news if Fred and George were there. At least they would help control the situation – and Mrs Weasley, when she went insane.

'No?' asked George. 'C'mon, Ginny. We're tired! Big day at the shop tomorrow. We're introducing a new line of –'

'It doesn't matter,' Ginny said. 'You should stay. We – Harry and I – have something to tell you all. It's kind of important. And, um, it's probably best if you all sit down.'

'Bugger,' said Fred. 'Harry's gone and knocked you up, hasn't he?'

'FRED! That isn't funny,' scolded Mrs Weasley. She turned back to Ginny with wide eyes. 'You – you're not pregnant, are you?'

'P-pregnant?' Harry squeaked, at the same time as Ginny yelled, 'No!'

'Ignore them,' Mr Weasley said, though he was blushing scarlet. 'What do you need to tell us?'

……………………………………………………………

'WHERE IS MY SON?'

Before Ron even had the opportunity to register the voice as his mum's, he was nearly tackled from behind. He was then spun around and kissed, pinched, and prodded until he was beginning to wonder why he'd been so anxious to see his mum.

'RONNIE!' was the only thing he made out before Mrs Weasley buried her face in his shoulder and dissolved into sobs.

'Mum,' he said, and then awkwardly wrapped his arms around her. It wasn't as though he wasn't happy to see her. No, that was hardly the case. But she was hugging him so tightly that he – quite literally – couldn't breathe.

Ron looked over the top of his mum's head and saw his father, looking weary and still a little shocked by the revelation that his son was alive. He came over and the three of them embraced, and Ron was glad that Hermione had stayed in the Great Hall with Tonks to "give him a personal moment with his parents", because he was quite sure he was crying harder than he'd done before.

When his head was throbbing and his throat was sore, he let go of his parents and wiped his eye. 'Can we go home now?' he asked, and the thought of falling asleep in his bed tonight – in his tiny room, in his tiny house, the one that was held up by magic and had a ghoul and so many other things that had always embarrassed him in the past – was appealing in a way it had never been before.

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Review! Hopefully, with March Break upon me, the next chapter will be out sooner.