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Step ;)

Chapter 4

'Bollocks!' Ron exclaimed, jumping to his feet and frantically looking around. The words he knew he had to write down were fading from his mind. 'Quill…Pencil…anything!' His eyes landed on the other person in the room. 'Hermione!'

He frantically searched for Hermione's robes, shaking off the thought that they were covered in her own blood, if there was something that Hermione would always have on her person, it was something to write with.

He screwed up his eyes in concentration, trying to visualise the words engraved on the stone once more. He didn't know why they were important, but he knew that he had to remember them.

He crouched down and found Hermione's robes under the bed, neatly folded despite the rips and blood covering them. He shook them loose and fumbled through the pockets. His hand closed around something long, thin and cold. He wrenched it out the pocket and stared at it. It was a muggle pen.

'Parchment, parchment…' he growled in frustration before remembering Hermione write on her hand with the thing he was holding. He pulled the top off the pen and dropped it on the bed.

Closing his eyes he concentrated on the words he saw forming on the stone. Still with his eyes closed he started to write on the back of his hand.

He opened his eyes and was relieved to see the scrawled writing on his hand looked like what he had seen in his dreams.

He sighed in relief and landed heavily back in the chair.

The door opened and Charles arrived back in the room carrying two mugs of tea.

'I must say I do like the fact that you get your tea in proper cups, Ron. In our hospitals you get them in plastic or, God forbid polystyrene things!'

He held Ron's mug out to him and Ron took it with a nod.

'You okay, Ron? You're looking a bit pale. Drink your tea, you look like you need the sugar.'

Ron nodded and swallowed a mouthful of the tea, ignoring the burning in his mouth. Charles sat opposite him on the other chair and took a small sip from his mug.

After a few minutes, during which Ron only moved his eyes from his hand to the bed, Charles broke the silence.

'Ron? You're awfully quiet, you're not about to have a panic attack on me, are you?'

Ron nodded. 'I'm fine. Really. I just…had a strange dream.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah.' Ron thought for a second before looking at Charles. 'You wouldn't happen to know Latin would you Mister Granger?'

He didn't know what the words scrawled untidily on his hand meant, but he had been with Hermione for long enough during their research, or rather Hermione's research during their Horcrux hunt to know that the words had a grounding in, or were Latin.

'Latin?' Charles asked confused. 'As it happens I studied it at school, but that was a long time ago, I'm probably a bit rusty. Why do you ask?'

'You don't happen to know what this says, do you?'

Ron leaned over Hermione and showed Charles the back of his hand.

Charles squinted at the writing then leaned back and took a pair of glasses out of the inside pocket of his jacket and balanced them on his nose.

'Memor nos una, memor nostrum pretiritus,' he said quietly.

Ron nodded his head, telling Charles he had read the words correctly.

'Well, the 'nos' and 'nostrum' are pretty easy, us and our. 'Memor' I always used to think was memory, but it isn't, it's remember, so that makes remember us and remember our. So that leaves us with 'una', which, if I'm not mistaken means one, alone. But, wait…no, that can't be right that doesn't make sense, remember us alone? Let me think for a minute, actually can I have your pen?'

'What? Oh, yeah, of course, it's Hermione's anyway. Apparently you need a pen when going into battle with the most evil bastard who ever lived!'

Charles laughed out loud as he took the pen from Ron. Ron watched as Charles took a small diary out of his jacket and turned to the back pages. He wrote what Ron presumed was a long list of words, but he couldn't be sure.

'Aha! Gotcha. 'Unus' means alone and all that, 'una' means together, which, does seem to make more sense. Another thing that used to confuse me, I didn't understand why they'd have two words, which are so similar, when they mean the total opposite of each other. Anyway, if I'm right that first bit now reads, remember us together, and then remember our, and that last word is past.'

'Oh, right, thanks!' Ron said, trying to think about what this meant, if it meant anything at all, or whether his brain was just coming up with random Latin phrases for the fun of it.

'Can I ask where that came from, Ron?'

'Er, yeah, I er…this may seem a little strange, but that was the last thing I saw in my dream before I woke up. Those words engraved on a stone.'

Charles nodded his head. 'Is that all you remember?'

Ron screwed up his eyes in concentration but couldn't remember anything else as much as he tried. He shook his head.

'Nothing, nothing at all, just these words.'

'Do you…do you normally dream of Latin phrases?'

Ron sniggered. 'Hardly. Hermione may have me recognising language forms, but she has yet to get me dreaming them. Up until now, that is.'

Charles laughed.

'Remember us together, remember our past,' he said quietly. 'The phrase doesn't mean anything to you, nothing from school, none of your lessons?'

Ron frowned and shook his head. 'Nothing at all. I don't even know who it's referring to, 'us' can mean a lot of people. I suppose the first 'us' I think of is me and Hermione, but I remember our past, all the time we were at school, and all the stuff we've been through afterwards.'

'Nothing happened when you were—' Charles' eyes widened. 'You remember all the time you were at school, Ron. Even a certain month in your sixth year?'

Ron looked confused for a second, before his eyes widened like Charles' had and he sat up in his seat.

'That time that neither of can remember! After we swallowed Harry's dodgy Amortentia! But…' he tried to concentrate on his thoughts, but his tiredness was making it hard. 'Merlin, I wish I wasn't so tired! I wish I knew what this meant!'

'Ron, it might not mean anything at all! You said it yourself, you're tired and you've been through a lot in the last twelve hours. I think you need to get some sleep. Why don't you go home and come back in a few hours.'

'No! I can't leave her!'

Charles smiled kindly. 'Ron, as much as I'd love to see her wake up and walk out of here, I don't think it's going to happen in the next few hours. Even if it does, I will make sure you are the first to know about it, I promise you. You never know, you might have the same dream again and be able to make more sense of it.'

Ron looked at Charles for a bit longer. The last thing he wanted to do was leave Hermione here, but she wouldn't be on her own. Charles wasn't going anywhere and he was pretty sure Veronica would be the same.

'You promise you'll tell me if there's any change, I mean, even the smallest thing?'

'You have my word, Ron.'

'Thanks.'

'Finish your tea before you go though, I don't put three sugars in tea often you know, Ron. Enjoy it while you can!'

Ron laughed and drank his tea with Charles. They talked about things that didn't need a lot of concentration, but at the back of his mind were the words he had found in his dream.

Remember us together, remember our past.

…oooOOOooo…

'Hello?'

There was a shuffling and Ginny hurtled into the room, wand drawn and ready to hex whoever had just arrived into oblivion.

'Oh, thank Merlin it's you!'

'Who else would it be?' Ron asked a smirk on his face as he sat heavily on one of the many chairs around the kitchen table.

'Look, just because Snake Face is dead, doesn't mean there aren't some really pissed of dark wizards out there ready to take revenge!' she shrieked.

'And some pissed off dark wizard is gonna walk into the house and shout 'hello' is he?'

Ginny opened her mouth to argue, but dropped her wand arm and fell into the chair opposite Ron.

'Where's Harry?' he asked.

'Dead to the world upstairs. He took some dreamless sleep potion. The Ministry has been owling him constantly, but Dad insisted he sleep before he does anything about it. After what you went through—, well, let's just say he needs some sleep. How come you're back? I thought we'd never get you away from the hospital.'

'Charles convinced me I needed to rest, but I only went on the promise he'd tell me if anything at all changed. I won't be here for long, just long enough to get my head straight. What about you? Have you had any sleep yet?'

Ginny shook her head. 'I've tried but I can't sleep.'

'But you're okay now Gin, we're safe now, it's all over!'

To his surprise Ginny burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. Ron stood and walked round to her side of the table. He effortlessly lifted her to her feet and hugged her.

'Come on, Gin, what's all this for?'

'I was so…so scared, R-Ron! I knew w…what you were doing, but…but I couldn't be there to h…help! You could have died! All of y-you.'

'Hey! Stop this now, Gin. We're here, we're safe and we're fine!'

'But…Her…Hermione—'

'Hermione will wake up when her body has recovered from what happened to her. She needs time to recover, that's why she's…how she is, okay?'

The squirming in his stomach started once again and he closed his eyes to stop tears forming.

It's not your fault! He said to himself over and over again.

Ginny's sobs subsided and she pulled back from Ron.

'You gonna be okay?' he asked, his voice rough with emotion.

Ginny nodded. 'Yeah, I think I'll try and sleep now.'

'You gonna take some potion?'

Ginny shook her head and whipped her nose on her sleeve. 'No, I want to wake up if there's anything untoward going on.'

'You mean if any extremely polite dark wizards arrive and make sure there's no one in before going about their usual destruction routine?'

'Precisely!' she replied with a watery smile.

'Well, I'm gonna go and lie down for a bit too, I'll be up in my room, give me a shout if you need anything, okay?'

Ginny nodded. She preceded Ron out of the kitchen and they both made their way into their rooms.

Ron slumped down on his bed and pulled his boots off. They landed heavily on the floor and made no attempt to straighten them. He lay down and stared at his ceiling before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

---

He woke with a start, eyes searching his surroundings for familiarity. When he realised he was safe in his bedroom he calmed down a little, but then his heart sank as he remembered why he was lying in his room in the middle of the afternoon. The sun streaming through his window didn't so much to help his mood, but he was glad it wasn't raining nonetheless.

He closed his eyes and remembered the dream that had awoken him. Unlike his last one, this one came back to him in full force. He had been happy when the Hermione in his dream had woken up, but when she didn't speak anything but Latin to him and kept shouting the phrase he had scribbled on his hand over and over at him (interspersed only with cries of 'You left me!') he got angry and upset. His dream had ended with one last shriek of yell from Hermione and then he had woken up.

He didn't need his third year Divination textbook to help him interpret that dream, his guilt and lack of understanding of his Latin musings obviously weighing on his mind as he slept.

He sat up and decided to give up on the sleep idea. He pulled his boots back on and went down to the kitchen. He was surprised to see both Harry and Ginny sitting at the kitchen table.

'I thought you were going to get some sleep,' he said to Ginny as he squeezed Harry's shoulder silently asking if he was okay.

'I did, all of half an hour, which, if you went to sleep right away, is only quarter of an hour less than you!'

Ron smiled. 'Is that a subtle way of telling me not to go on at you for not sleeping?'

'Absolutely!' she said with a grin.

Ron nodded and sat down opposite Harry.

'How are you, mate? Okay?'

Harry nodded. 'Better than I was. Sleeping helped. I just couldn't organise all the stuff that's gone on in my head properly. I couldn't see past last night and that freaked me out a little. I'm sorry for abandoning you at the hospital.'

'You hardly abandoned me, Harry. After what you had to do last night I think you deserve to have a small flip out!'

Harry smiled. 'I take it there's no change with Hermione.'

Ron shook his head. 'No, unless anyone flooed or owled whilst I was asleep.'

He tried to keep his tone casual, but his sentence had sped up as it reached its end and he stared at Ginny.

Ginny sighed. 'Did I, or did I not promise you I would wake you if there was any news?'

'Sorry,' Ron mumbled. 'Then no, Harry. No change.'

'What's that on your hand?' Ginny asked grabbing Ron's hand from her side of the table and pulling as close to him as she could.

'That's one of the reasons why I couldn't sleep properly.'

'It's Latin isn't it?' Ginny asked, her brow furrowed.

'Yeah it is.'

'So what is it?' Harry asked.

'Okay, this may sound a bit weird, but…well…I dreamed it.'

Both Harry's and Ginny's brows furrowed. Before they could ask him anything else he carried on talking.

'I don't remember anything else of the dream, nothing whatsoever, but I woke up knowing I had to write it down.'

'Do you know what it means?' Harry asked.

'Yeah, I asked Charles and he translated it for me.'

Harry smiled. 'Like father, like daughter!'

Ron chuckled. 'Yeah, something like that. Anyway it means, 'Remember us together, remember our past'.'

Neither Harry nor Ginny answered for a minute.

'And you don't remember anything else about the dream?'

'I know I saw the words on a rock, but that's all. Actually…' he screwed his eyes up in concentration. 'There might have been grass around it. Yeah, there was longish grass around the rock.'

'Green grass?' Ginny asked.

'Course it was bloody green! What other colour would it be?'

'Ron, I think I'm entitled to question the colour of the grass when you've had a dream about Latin phrases!'

Ron scowled. 'Okay, you may have a point.'

'Try this,' Harry said coming out of his thoughts. 'Don't think too much,' Ginny sniggered, 'and just say what comes into your head, okay?'

Ron nodded, but looked a little sceptical.

'What colour was the grass?'

Ron raised his eyebrows.

'Just answer the question!' Harry said with a grin. 'And shut your eyes, it'll help you not concentrate!'

'Fine. Green.'

'What colour was the rock?'

'Grey.'

'What colour were the words?'

'A darker grey.'

'What colour was the sky?'

'Blue.'

'Was it warm?'

'Yep.'

'No breeze?'

'Small breeze.'

'Peaceful?'

'Yep.'

'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

'How the hell would I know?'

'Not you, Ginny!'

Ron opened his eyes and saw his sister and her boyfriend looking intently at each other.

'Hermione described it pretty much how Ron did then, except the rock of course,' Ginny said to Harry

'So did Ron.'

'Er, hello! Is this a private party or is anyone allowed in?'

'Only if you bring your own booze,' Harry retorted but before Ron had chance to make any sort of reply Harry spoke again.

'Is there nothing about your dream that's familiar to you, at all?'

'Well, not really, I suppose it has a resemblance to the calm place Hermione made me make up for when I'm uptight and stressed.'

'It's where you both went when you shared dreams.'

Ron stared at his sister after her announcement, and didn't really know what to think about it.

'Not just your dreams, you told me that when you were ill, you went to that place and stayed with each other, doing the head thing you did until you woke up.'

'I…we…what?'

'After you'd helped each other heal that time – when you collapsed in the hospital wing in front of Lavender – all we could see was you holding hands and transferring your pain to and from each other to level it out, but you told me and I think Hermione told Gin, that you were in a huge field with blue sky above you and a nice breeze that calmed you down and made you feel safe. It was your…sanctuary if you like.'

Ron shook his head, all the information that had just been thrown at him rattling round it and not making sense to him at all. 'And you think that's where I was in my dream last night?'

Ginny shrugged. 'It makes sense, doesn't it, even more so if you can't remember it.'

'How does me not remembering it make more sense?'

'Because if it was somewhere that you went together and only when you had that connection, and you can't remember any of that time, then visiting it in your dreams when you don't have that connection with Hermione fits into you not remembering it. Did that make sense at all?'

'No!' Ron said as Harry said 'Yes!'

'Luckily for you I'm used to your ramblings, so I managed to put it into some sort of logical order!' Ron said with a smirk.

'But that still doesn't explain why he dreamt it, or why he remembers nothing but a complex Latin sentence!'

'Well I'm glad you two were here to help me, I don't know what I would have done if after all that I still didn't understand it or know what to do from here!'

Harry laughed and Ginny gave a reluctant chuckle.

'Sorry, that really didn't help you, did it?' said Ginny.

'Hang on!' Harry exclaimed, making both Ron and Ginny jump a little. 'There is one person who might be able to shed some light on this whole thing.'

'Who?' Both Ginny and Ron asked.

'Madam Pomfrey. She took so many notes on your condition, partly because she'd never seen anything like it before, but mainly because she was, of course, concerned for your welfare!'

'Yeah, but I can't bother her with this now, won't she have enough to deal with after yesterday.'

'I doubt whether there are many people in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, most people were apparated to St. Mungo's as and when they were injured. I suppose the only people who might be in there are the staff who were fighting. They live in the castle after all.'

'Yeah but still…'

'You do want Hermione to wake up, don't you?' Ginny asked.

Ron's eyes widened and his ears went pink.

'Sorry,' Ginny mumbled before Ron retaliated. 'I didn't…I didn't think before I spoke. Of course you do.'

Ron took a deep breath. 'I just don't want to get my hopes up finding a solution after the tail end of a dream and a place that I have no idea actually exists, that doesn't even exist! It's just some weird place in my subconscious!'

'It is pretty weird, I suppose,' Ginny said, trying to make amends with her brother. 'But, no one would think it strange if you talked to her. It's something, isn't it? You won't be happy until you've made sure.'

Ron nodded. 'I suppose. Do you reckon it'd be okay if I went this afternoon?'

'I don't see why not, do you want me to come with you?' Harry asked.

'Do you want to risk being mobbed by half the Wizarding world?' Ron replied.

'I still have my invisibility cloak, if we apparate, then fly up to the gates we should be okay.'

'Well, only if you're sure. Gin, would you mind staying with Hermione while we're gone?'

'Are you ever going to take me with you anywhere?'

Both Ron and Harry went to argue but she shushed them with a laugh. 'I'm joking, you go and investigate and I'll go to the hospital and be the first to tell you if anything changes.'

Ron smiled. 'Thanks Gin.'

'Just don't fall asleep on your brooms, St Mungo's have enough to deal with and don't need you two falling a hundred feet from a broom!'

'Ah, I've done that before, it's not so bad.'

'Yes, but how embarrassing would it be if you survive a face off with the most evil wizard of all time, to end up in hospital because you fell off your broom!'

Ron turned and looked at Harry.

'She has a point!'