Tangled
by Rsuth
DISCLAIMER: As the author of this fanfiction story I do not, in any way, profit from the story or claim any rights to the 'Harry Potter' universe. All creative rights to the 'Harry Potter' universe belong to J.K. Rowling. Thank you for letting me play in this amazing world.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ron could hear, or more rather feel, mumbling voices nearby. A deep baritone seemed to make the buzzing in his head grow louder, a higher voice pierced painfully through his forehead. Although he was still asleep enough that his body was heavy and lifeless, his hands felt swollen and raw. His muscles were tight and strained. It hurt to swallow. His eyelids felt heavy and dry. He struggled to wake up and open his eyes, trying to pull his body away from the deep sleep it was trying to force him back into.
He didn't know where he was. He could feel something soft under his head, warmth above him, hardness under his back. He needed to wake up, make sure they were safe, make sure Harry and Hermione were safe. He felt scared, the remnants of a bad dream pushing at his subconscious. He tried to remember what the bad dream had been about, and started to remember bits and pieces. In his dream they had been captured, forced to go to Malfoy Manor, threatened by Greyback and Bellatrix…Hermione had been tortured…Hermione had been tortured…
Ron fought with his body to wake up, trying to force his heavy eyes open. He was successful for a moment as he managed to crack his eyelids open, but shut them again quickly as the dark room spun around him. He must be back in the tent, that would explain the uncomfortable bed. If he was in the tent that meant they were okay, they had been okay enough to apparate and set up the tent.
Someone must have seen him open his eyes because he felt a warm hand on his arm. "Ron, are you awake?" Harry. He blinked his eyes open and closed for a while until the room stopped spinning around him. His body reluctantly woke up, and he was able to move his sore hands under the blanket, wiggle his toes. He opened his eyes fully to see a fuzz- looking Harry looking down at him.
"How do you feel? Can you hear me?" Harry's voice sounded panicked, strained.
Ron struggled to form words, his mouth almost too dry to move, his throat filled with shards of glass.
A cup of water was at his lips. He took a long draw, letting the water linger in his mouth before he swallowed it slowly. Harry was still with him, holding the cup as he drank.
"Did Hermione splinch me, again?" He mumbled, trying half-heartedly to make a joke.
Harry sat in silence above him, causing an uneasy feeling to settle over Ron. He eventually spoke.
"Ron…do you know where you are?"
"Well, seeing as I'm laying on this god-awful hard bunk…the tent. Where's 'Mione, keeping watch?" he croaked out, feeling exhausted by simply speaking. He let his eyes close to gather some strength.
"Ron…" Harry voice sounded quietly desperate, worried. Ron forced his eyes open again, trying to focus them on Harry in the swirling darkness. "Ron, we're at Shell Cottage, with Bill and Fleur, don't you remember? Please tell me you do, please, not you too…" Harry trailed off, mumbling to himself.
Something triggered in Ron, jolting his memory, freeing him from his stupor. That wasn't a dream. That wasn't a dream. Dear Merlin, that wasn't a dream. They'd been captured…Bellatrix LeStrange…he'd brought them to Bill's…Hermione…
"Hermione!" He croaked, struggling to push his aching body up. Strong arms supported him behind his back, helping him sit up. Once he had his breathing under control, and the spots cleared from his eyes, he turned his head slightly to see who he was leaning against. Bill. His older brother was watching him with concerned eyes, holding him in a way that, for some reason, triggered a memory of being a small child, leaning against the older Bill as he read him a bedtime story. He wasn't embarrassed by the contact, but rather was comforted by the closeness of his brother.
"Hermione is…okay for now. She's sleeping, healing. We won't know anything for a while. Right now I'm concerned about you." Ron felt his anxiety lessen a bit. Hermione was okay. Bill was taking care of her.
"Wha-"
"You brought her here, Ron, you made sure she was safe. You got her out alive… You were in shock…passed out. You've been out of it for a while now…I'm relieved you're awake. I was afraid to move you, so just left you on the floor…Harry's been watching over you, and Hermione." A squeeze to his shin let him know where Harry was, and Ron moved his head slowly to look at his best friend.
"Thanks mate." Harry looked terrible. Pale. Large black bruises under his eyes. Blood and rips all over his dirty clothing. He smiled, relieved, back at Ron. "You okay?"
Harry nodded and looked down, his smile leaving his face quickly. "Yeah, I'm fine, can't say the same for everyone else though…"
"Never mind that now, Harry, everyone is fine." Bill interjected quietly, before Ron could question him. Ron thought he saw a look pass between Harry and his brother, but was too worn out to care.
" Hermione," Ron finally interrupted the silence. Bill nodded sadly, holding Ron steady as he stood up from where he had been kneeling behind him. He bent down to thread his arm behind Ron's back and slowly hoisted him up, holding on patiently as Ron's legs refused to stopped wobbling, and the room kept spinning. Ron placed his forehead down on his brother's shoulder as Bill shuffled him a few steps and helped him sit down on something soft. Ron finally opened his eyes, the dizziness and nausea having left him for a moment. He was sitting on the edge of a bed. Hermione was laying quietly in the middle, hardly noticeable for the amount of blankets that were wrapped around her, her chest barely rising with her quietly rasping breaths. Her ashen skin nearly blended into the bandages that were wrapped thickly about her neck; the only colour on her body was the red soaking through the bandages, and her limp dark hair pooled around her face. With shaking hands Ron moved aside the edge of the blankets and saw similar bandages covering her upper body and legs.
Ron could feel his heartbeat speed up, thumping so hard in his chest that it was making it hard to take a breath, hard to swallow.
"Bill-" he finally spit out, "Bill, why haven't you healed her? Why is she like this?" He was shaking, not understanding what was going on, confused over what had happened when he hadn't been awake. Terrified of the sight of Hermione, so fragile, so limp, so broken.
Bill looked at him and then Harry beside him, and slowly shook his head. "Ron…Ron, I told you before…With the extent that Hermione was tortured, the dark magic has left a sort of residue in her. It's preventing me from healing her with magic, it's why Crucio is one of the unforgivables. We're going to have to let her heal naturally, there's nothing else that can be done for now…"
Ron suddenly had a faint memory of Bill having told him this, bits and pieces. There was something else, though. She had woken, he remembered, and was ranting about…Fifth Year, Harry, and Sirius. She hadn't known where or even when she was, what had happened.
"Bill…her mind…do we know-…" Ron almost couldn't bring himself to say it, as though saying it would make the worst become reality.
Bill just shook his head again, "We can't tell yet, you need to give it time, give her time to heal. There's nothing we can do, just wait. And not lose hope. Hermione is one of the smartest witches I have ever met, if anyone has a fighting chance it's her." Bill gave him a tentative smile, and Ron knew he really meant it. Bill had never been a good liar.
Ron looked down to his hands, clenched together in his lap, and suddenly felt nauseas. He was covered in dark dried blood, his shirt and pants dry and sticking to his skin. Hermione's blood. He closed his eyes and covered his mouth, trying not to allow himself to gag, to fall back into the horror of his memories.
Someone must have noticed he was about to be sick because suddenly they were hauling him off the edge of the bed, supporting him as they walked quickly into the hallway, down to the little bathroom. Ron awkwardly felt down to his knees in front of the toilet and began throwing up bile, the memories of Malfoy Manor slamming into his mind at his vulnerability. Of their almost failed escape.
He was finally able to stop and rested his head on his knees, his body still shaking. A cup of water was handed to him once again and he gratefully took it and drank it down, not caring that his shaking hands were sloshing water down him.
"Ron, I'm so sorry, it took so long to clean up and bandage Hermione and everybody else that we didn't get around to switching your clothes yet. I'm so sorry…" Bill's remorseful voice spoke softly behind him.
Ron couldn't bring himself to speak just yet, so just turned and shrugged his shoulders at his brother, trying to tell him that it didn't matter, it wasn't his fault.
"Maybe you should take a shower…Harry is keeping an eye on Hermione, I'll bring you some clean clothes. Are you up to that?"
Ron shook his head. He just wanted to wash it all away, the dirt, the blood, the dark memories. Bill wordlessly helped him off the floor to sit on the edge of the antique tub. Ron tried to pull his arms out of the sleeves but gasped as a burning pain shot through his chest and back at the movement.
"Put your head down, Ron" Bill murmured to him, helping to unstuck and pull his jumper off without moving too much. Ron knew without looking that his skin was covered in dried stains of red, confirmed by Bill's quick intake of breath. He felt his brother squeeze his shoulder with a warm hand.
"You okay from here?" Ron nodded his head and Bill squeezed his shoulder again before moving out the bathroom door, shutting it quietly behind him.
Ron slowly peeled his worn jeans off his legs, trying to ignore the flakes of red that fell to the floor. He suddenly remembered that these were the jeans that Hermione had packed for him, that he had complained were too tight all those months ago. They were soaked in her blood now. He felt sick again.
He dropped his head to hang, leaning his elbows on his knees, waiting for the sick feeling to pass. None of this made sense. None of this should have happened. How could they have possibly thought they could take down Voldemort. And live to tell the tale. Believe that everything would be fine, everything would go back to normal once they had finished their task. They were no closer to finished than they had been last summer, and now…
Ron wiped at his wet face with his hand and shakily pushed himself up enough to crawl into the tub. Feeling too drained to stand up, Ron reached behind him to turn the creaky taps on, and let the hot water wash over him. He couldn't help but stare horrified at the red water pooling in the tub underneath him, slowly running down the drain. It kept coming as the water poured down him, bright red. He didn't know how long he sat there, staring, before the water turned clear again, but he eventually heard banging on the door, probably someone calling in to see if he was alright. He must have been there for a while. He found a bar of soap sitting on the edge of the tub and quickly scrubbed his skin and hair, wanting to get back to Hermione. She might need him. He needed to be near her.
Ron carefully got out of the tub on wobbly legs, feeling like a baby taking its first steps, for lack of a better comparison. A fluffy towel sat on the edge of the sink, on top of a pile of fresh clothes that Ron guessed were probably Bill's. After he had pulled the clothes on, using the sink for support, Ron walked back down the hall with his hand against the wall.
Harry was sitting on the edge of the bed, Hermione's limp hand in his, looking down at her with a strange surprised look on his face. He must have heard the floor creak because he suddenly looked up at Ron, trying to force a smile onto his face.
"Alright?" Harry asked him, his voice slightly hoarse and shaky. Ron just nodded his head, reaching for a chair sitting beside the bed and carefully lowering himself into it. He leaned his forearms on the bed in front of him, resting his head against one arm as the other stretched to hesitantly brush the hair off Hermione's forehead, his fingers lingering to trace the edge of her still face. He knew Harry was watching, but didn't care.
"Any change?" he asked, hopefully. Harry just shook his head, looking down at Hermione's hand, squeezing it gently. He considered it for a while before speaking.
"Ron…there's something I need to tell you. When Dobby apparated the two of us away from the Manor, after…Bellatrix threw her knife at us…the same one she had to Hermione's kneck," Ron could see Harry tearing up, " It apparated with us…it killed Dobby…Dobby's dead Ron, he saved us, and now he's dead." Harry broke down at this, his grimy hand covering his face as his shoulders shook.
Ron couldn't respond at first. He had been sure they had all made it out, at least with their lives. It was because of Dobby that they had made it out of the dungeon. That they had been able to get Hermione out of there. That they had escaped once again.
He felt his own tears welling in his eyes, considering all this little creature had done for them. He wondered if Dobby had known the peril they had been in, how close they had been to failing their mission, losing this war. Then again, Dobby had always known everything, was always trying to keep Harry out of danger.
Harry continued after taking a few deep breaths. "I know Hermione would want to be there when-…when we bury Dobby…I asked Bill about it, he used a spell on Dobby so we could…wait…until Hermione wakes up."
Ron felt relieved that Harry had thought of this. Hermione would be devastated if she missed Dobby's funeral, after everything he had done for them. He knew this without a doubt.
"And Ron…Hermione will wake up. She will. She has to…"
Harry's voice wavered slightly as he spoke, removing any hope of assurance. Ron continued to watch Hermione's face, looking for any change, any sign of movement. She was still and vacant, lost in a pile of bandages and blankets, the only sign of life the slight slow rise of her chest. He could feel doubt start to grow in the back of his mind.
Eventually Harry left to clean up, and Ron continued waiting by Hermione's bedside, his hand placed lightly on her stomache to feel any change in movement. He must have drifted off after a while because suddenly something was jostling his arm, and the room around him was becoming light again. It took him a few moments to realize why he had woken up until he lifted his head and saw Hermione's eyes open.
A/N: Sorry, but I had to leave this on a bit of a cliffhanger! Next part of the story should be posted quite soon. Thanks to everyone who is continuing to read this story! Let me know what you think.
