Ron and Hermione lay, spread-eagled, in the valley. Ron had lost his mask on the way down.
"Can you move at all?" he asked, concerned.
"Move?" repeated Hermione. "You're alive! If you want, I can fly, without a broom or a carpet or a Hippogriff or –"
"I told you I would always come for you," Ron reminded her. "Why didn't you wait for me?"
They said up and edged towards each other. "Well, you were dead," Hermione replied, still dazed from her tumble and the knowledge that Ron was not, in fact, dead.
"Death cannot stop True Love. All it can do is delay it for a while."
"I will never doubt again," Hermione promised him.
"There will never be a need," Ron said quietly.
They fell into each other's arms.
I have three points I'd like to make. Firstly, I can't write scenes like these explicitly. Secondly, even if I could, the scene would appear totally flat and dull on paper/your computer screen/however you're reading this. And thirdly, all creatures on the planet, from euglenae up, are entitled to some privacy. You're not going to get a reunion scene from me. (Or S. Morgenstern, or JK Rowling for that matter…) Suffice it to say that both parties were pleased to see other again.
After a while, they began to walk along the ravine floor. Ron told Hermione a highly edited version of his adventures on the airways.
What he had said before, about saying, 'Please,' was true. It had stayed the sword of Longbottom. Ron had been allowed to become part of the ship – I mean, part of the crew. After about a year, Longbottom had stopped at an obscure port, and discharged all his crew. It was then that he revealed to Ron that he was not, in fact the real Dread Pirate Neville Longbottom. His name was Seamus Finnegan, and had inherited the title from a man named Dean Thomas. Thomas in his turn had inherited the title from the real Neville Longbottom, who had been retied for several years and was cultivating Mimbulus mimbletoniae at his leisure. It was the name that inspired fear. Who would surrender to the Dread Pirate Ronald Weasley? Finnegan discharged the old crew and took on an utterly new one, calling Ron, Longbottom, all the while. Once the crew believed, Finnegan left and, according to a letter, found a wench named Lavender in his native Ireland. So Ron became the Dread Pirate Neville Longbottom.
As Ron finished his tale, Hermione gasped and stopped walking. "That's the Forbidden Forest! We'll never survive!"
"Nonsense," declared Ron bracingly. "You're just saying that because no one ever has."
In Hermione's opinion, it was a very good reason to stay out of it, but Ron tugged on her arm and she had no choice but to follow him. She wasn't about to leave him; not when she had just found him again after so long.
They had walked but a short distance into the Forest before darkness enveloped them; the canopy was so thick. About a hundred yards after this, an arrow whizzed past Hermione's ear, nearly nicking it. Lucky it didn't, since ears bleed profusely from the smallest cuts, and it wasn't as though either she or Ron had a first aid kit. (This was before first aid kits).
"Centaurs!" Ron hissed, and pulled her to one side. Something scuttled past (Hermione didn't want to think about what it might have been) and then the herd of Centaurs that resided in the Forest, thundered past.
"They won't be back for a while, will they?" Hermione asked.
Ron gently prised her fingers off his arm; she was cutting off his circulation. "I doubt it."
They continued to walk, and the scenery (not that they could see much) became much denser, and somewhat cooler. It was a pity that they couldn't see the wonderful trees of the Forbidden Forest, because they are absolutely spectacular. When wand-lore becomes widespread in Florin, whole tours could be taken there to view those most extraordinary plants.
In fact, one of the plants that they passed is what's known as the Whomping Willow. As the name would suggest, it is a willow that whomps. Sensing the presence of mobile creatures near it, the Willow flexed its trunk and snaked out its branches, coiling one around Hermione's ankle before wrenching her off her feet and dangling her in the air.
Hermione screamed as the Willow's branches flailed her around. Ron sighed. The incident with the village playboys had just been the start of the saving-Hermione thing. It wasn't that he minded; in fact, he quite liked Hermione thinking of him as her hero, her knight in shining armour. (Or maybe just orange clothing.) It was just that she seemed to have a knack for getting into trouble. Like now, for instance.
Ron had come across two other Whomping Willows in America, so he knew to look for a knot at the base of the trunk. "Ron! Help!" Hermione shrieked.
"I'm trying," Ron yelled back, keeping his distance as he searched in the half-light (or rather, one-sixteenth light) for the knot, so that he wasn't knocked off his feet or swung up in the air like Hermione, because that would really land them in a pickle. Finally, he found the knot. Unsheathing his sword, he glanced up at Hermione. Her skirt was so stiff that, amazingly, it had not fallen over her head. Ron poked the knot with the tip of his sword and the tree froze. He climbed it quickly, grabbed Hermione's hand and slashed at the branch that held Hermione's ankle. Before she slipped out of his grasp, he swung her onto the branch beside him, slithered down to the leaf-strewn ground, and bade her to jump into his ready arms. (He knew that the grass was leaf-strewn, because the leaves rustled under his feet. And, of course, there can't be leaves without trees. It was such a pity that this was the only Heritage-listed forest in Florin.) Hermione jumped.
Ron lay her gently on the ground, the leaves making a semi-bed. Hermione began to sob – and why shouldn't she? She had been kidnapped, she had found her true love again after believing him dead for months, they had almost been stampeded by centaurs on the hunt, and she had just been attacked by a Heritage-listed tree. She had every right to weep her eyes out, although Ron would prefer that she didn't, because he quite liked them where they were.
When Hermione had recovered, Ron helped her up. He tried to lead her on, but Hermione wouldn't budge. "We'll never succeed," she said plaintively. "We may as well die here."
"Oh, don't say that," Ron deferred. "We have already succeeded." Or rather, he had succeeded in making her walk again. "What are the three terrors of the Forbidden Forest? One; the Centaurs. Now that I know what their arrows sound like, we can dodge out of the way long before they rush past. Two, the Whomping Willow. That was the only one in the country."
"But Ron, what about the Acromantulae?"
"Spiders Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist," Ron shrugged, right before something scuttled past them and another something grabbed Ron with two of its eight legs. "BLOODY HELL!" Ron yelled as the Acromantula sank its pincers into his leg.
Hermione stood there, frozen, until something dark and red started to trickle down Ron's leg. That was enough to startle her into action. She took off her slipper and threw it at the Acromantula, not unlike Clara in the Nutcracker. (Except that Hermione couldn't have known that, because this was before Tchaikovsky.) The Spider Of Unusual Size whimpered, and then scuttled off.
Ron lay there panting in agony for a while, as more and more blood trickled down his leg, until Hermione had the bright idea to tear off a strip of fabric from her skirt to make a bandage. (Like I said above, neither of them had a first-aid kit.)
"That was nothing like when that dog attacked me," Ron said, getting to his feet with difficulty, referencing the time a large black dog had run through the village market, straight at Ron, who had just dropped a steak. He tried to walk. "Oh, no. It's ruined. It'll have to be chopped off."
Hermione pulled a face. "Lean on me," she suggested. It was the least she could do to repay him for all the times she had relied on him.
Ron limped forwards, and then began to walk normally, just very slowly. "I think it'll be all right."
"No amputation necessary, then? Good," Hermione said under her breath, and took his hand in hers as they walked (or in Ron's case, minced) forwards. They could see more of the wonderful trees that make up the Forbidden Forest, which must have meant that they were nearing the other side, as well as being a metaphor for the adage, 'The darkest part comes before the dawn.'
Eventually, and with no further mishaps, they reached the far side of the spectacular Forest.
"We did it," said Hermione in wonder.
"Now, was that so terrible?" asked Ron, who was about ready to pass out from the pain in his leg.
They walked a few paces further, before realising that They Were Not Alone. Prince Viktor, Count Snape and half-a-dozen soldiers stood before them.
Bugger, thought Ron.
Oh, dear, thought Hermione.
"Surrender!" exclaimed Prince Viktor.
"You mean you wish to surrender to me?" Ron said, bowing slightly. "Very well, I accept."
"I give you full points for bravery," Prince Viktor said bravely. "Don't be a fool."
"Ah, but how will you capture us?" said Ron, before Hermione could get a word in. "We know the secrets of the Forbidden Forest; we can live there quite happily for some time, so whenever you feel like a lawsuit, burn it down."
"I tell you once again, surrender!" Prince Viktor snarled.
"It will not happen," said Ron, with the air of one commenting on the weather.
"For the last time, surrender!" Prince Viktor yelled.
"Death first!" Ron spat.
"Will you promise not to hurt him?" Hermione demanded before either of the men could say another word.
"What was that?" Prince Viktor said, wrong-footed.
"What was that?" Ron echoed, equally bemused.
"If we surrender, and I return with you, will you promise not to hurt this man?" Hermione asked.
Prince Viktor sighed. "May I live a thousand years and never hunt again."
"He is a member of the gang of the Dread Pirate Neville Longbottom," Hermione said. "See to it that he is returned to his comrades."
"I swear, it will be done," Prince Viktor promised her, before making an aside to Count Snape, "Once we're out of sight, take him back to Florin and throw him into the Pit of Despair."
"I swear, it will be done," Count Snape assured him, smirking slightly.
While this exchange was taking place, Hermione was explaining her reasoning to Ron. "I thought you were dead once, and it nearly destroyed me. I couldn't stand it if you died again, when it was in my power to prevent it."
Without further ado, Prince Viktor swept Hermione onto his broom behind him. Ron scowled after them. She'd left him, again. Why did she keep doing that???
"Come, sir, we must get you back to your comrades," Count Snape said to him, his black eyes glinting malevolently.
There was a pause. "We are men of action," Ron reminded the Count. "Lies do not become us."
"Well spoken, sir."
It was then that Ron noticed something rather peculiar about the count's left arm. It had a rather interesting tattoo inked onto it.
"What is it?" Snape snapped, noticing Ron's gaze.
"You have a tattoo of a skull with a snake for a mouth on your left arm," Ron remarked. "Someone was looking for you."
Snape raised his hand and, just liked Hagrid did to Hermione a few chapters back, the world faded to black for Ron.
A.N: As you may know if you reviewed a previous chapter, the notebook I wrote this in went AWOL which is my excuse for taking so long, as I had to re-write it.
I'd like to thank regular reviewers books4evah and avanell – your kind words give me warm fuzzies and inspire me to write the next chapters. Speaking of which, the next chapter (which should be up in a week now that school's back) of this: Snape tortures Ron while Hermione has nightmares.
OK, funny story time. I started this fic two years ago to peeve off my friends in the Drama Club at school, because they had just done a play version of The Princess Bride, and all my friend wiccabookworm and I talked about was Harry Potter. That's not the funny part, though. Drama Club actually had an on-stage reunion scene.
Did I mention that I go to an all-girls' school?
'Westley' and 'Buttercup' froze on stage in an Eskimo kiss (the nose-touching one), the girl who played Vizzini (she's the one who inspired Percy/Vizzini's death-call inconceivable) ran out of the wings – yes, we have a theatre on-campus – with a cardboard sign and held it in front of their heads. The sign said in red pen, 'CENSORED!'
Well, it was funny at the time. Reviews are always appreciated!