::dances:: Check me out! lol

I did intend to have this chapter take things a bit further on but it didn't pan out that way. This is a bit plotty and might be a tad confusing in places, but it's not supposed to be incredibly clinically clear, because it's theories bouncing around and three confused people doing the bouncing.

Again, not betaed so there may be the odd mistake even though I've tried to catch them all.

If you could be wonderful readers and review for me it'd be much appreciated.

Still no promises with the updates, I'm afraid. To be honest I'm quite surprised myself, that this appeared. That said, I do know how I want the next chapter to go. Oh and there's maybe 4 chapters left and I shall - hopefully - be inspired to keep going until the very end!

Love and cookies ;)

Chapter 13 On the Other Side

...

'Ignore her, Harry. Wake her up. Wake her up now.' Charles demanded.

Harry took two steps forward and just stared at Hermione.

'Harry, I'm serious. I'm her father and her next of kin. Wake her up, now!'

Harry ignored him, still standing and staring at Ron and Hermione on the bed. Hermione was still holding on to Ron's hand, her other by her side. Her brow was furrowed ever so slightly as if concentrating hard on something. Harry couldn't help but smile.

'HARRY!'

Harry jumped at the eruption from Charles.

'Oh, um...'

'Don't you dare, Harry.' Percy said in a low voice.

'I-...what?' Harry replied.

'What did you just say?' Charles growled as he strode next to Percy and glared down at him.

'I said...' Percy said as he looked up at Charles, 'no.'

Percy watched as Charles bristled. Before Charles had chance to reply he started talking, he had to get him to understand what was happening.

'Firstly, we don't know how much damage we'll do. She's determined to stay in there and help Ron. With their minds connected and hers focused so much, she'll probably be protected from the spell, but if she's not, it could damage her brain. Secondly, there's a chance she might actually work this out, so she gives Ron what he needs but doesn't hurt herself in the process.'

'We don't know that!' Charles responded. 'Ron could wake up and Hermione'll be right back where she was and we'll be back to square one.'

'And then Ron will insist he does all this again,' Harry mumbled.

'We won't let him this time! We'll put up more security, we'll ban him from the hospital, I'll have him put in prison because of this if that's what it takes!'

Percy took a deep calming breath. 'No, you won't Charles, and chances are, anything we do to stop Ron repeating all this, won't be enough.'

'He's done things these past year that have astonished both Hermione and me. If he sets his mind to something, he'll do it no matter what.'

'Not that it'll come to any of this, because I have confidence that Hermione will bring them both back,' Percy said with a little more confidence than his expression implied. 'I just wish there was more we could do at this end.'

'Maybe there is...' Harry said, trailing off and leaving Percy wondering if there was a conclusion to that statement.

'Percy, Harry, please, I am begging you to wake her up. I'll do anything, anything, to bring her back to me,' Charles begged, his voice breaking with emotion.

'All we can do is have faith in Hermione's ability, and make them comfortable,' Percy replied.

'Wait, maybe we can do more than that,' Harry said as he walked over to the desk. He picked up a bottle of Blood Replenishing Potion and turned it around in his hand.

'We know that Hermione and Ron can't produce the potion remnant they have, naturally, but they can't have a finite amount or else neither of them would've survived this last year!'

'What do you mean?' Charles asked instantly alarmed.

'I'm not going to go into detail of what we've done, but we've been hurt, and bled more than I care to think about. Hermione and me were hurt badly one time. Really badly. Ron managed to get us out of where we were and back to safety, and we always had some of this stuff' he raised the bottle he was holding, 'on hand just in case.'

Harry swallowed and took a deep breath.

'I recovered quite quickly, but I was weak for a few days so I kept taking this stuff until I felt strong again. But Hermione... well, we were worried about her. Really worried. It took her a couple more days to come round properly and then a few more before she was strong enough to carry on as we had been.'

'So, you think that her body was... what? We know they can't produce it.'

'No, they can't, but what if, when inside their blood where it should be, it can duplicate itself, or... something...'

He trailed off, realisation dawning on him, that if this was the case, then surely Hermione would have improved on her own when in her coma. Charles voiced his thoughts.

'Surely she would've woken up on her own then.'

'Look the losing blood thing is only a theory, and it might have been that Hermione lost more blood than me so took longer to recover.'

'No, I think you're right, Harry,' Percy said, walking over to Healer Watson's notes on Hermione. 'It's not logical to think there's a finite amount of this stuff, as you said, they've been injured enough over the past year for this thing to do some damage in the sense that if they had literally lost all their 'original' blood, then they would be dead. But that doesn't explain why Hermione didn't over time get better. Maybe there was something...'

'It was the infection!' Charles exclaimed. 'We know that the infection wiped this stuff out of her system, maybe it damaged the rest that it didn't manage to wipe out and that's why it couldn't replicate and duplicate itself to the right amount she needed! That makes sense!'

Harry, Percy and Charles looked at each other, hoping that they had finally solved all the mysteries about Hermione's coma.

'Then it still might work,' Harry said simply.

'What might work?' Percy asked.

'Giving Hermione some blood replenishing potion. I'm completely staggering around in the dark here, but if we give her some of this, maybe – when this has transformed itself into the same type of blood cells Hermione has – it'll encourage the remnant to produce more of it and convert the new blood to their weird type of blood. If Hermione starts off with more of it than she needs to stay awake, then she'll be able to give Ron what he needs, but keep her own levels the same.'

The three of them stood in silence, each going over Harry's theory and wondering if it would indeed work.

'Surely giving her the potion won't do her any harm, regardless of whether all that works. I mean, it's just like giving her more blood isn't it?' Charles asked, unsure of what the potion actually did.

'I don't reckon it'll harm her at all; it's just like her having a blood transfusion.

'So...' Charles said, walking over to the desk next to Harry and picking up on of the potion bottles off the desk, 'it doesn't expand or double in volume or anything, does it? If we gave her one bottle she would effectively get one bottle of her own blood once it's stopped transforming. So it's not like it's going to give her extra volume that her arteries and veins can't cope with.'

'No, I don't think so. I've never heard of anyone becoming ill from too much of this potion,' Percy replied.

'And I've never actually heard of anyone in the Muggle world becoming ill or dying because of too much blood,' added Charles. 'The wrong type of blood, of course, can be fatal, but as far as I'm aware no one's died from too much. I take it the potion responds to what type of blood the patient already has in their veins, yes?'

Percy nodded.

'Right, that settles it then, we'll give her the potion. Just one small problem, how the hell do we get her to drink it?

...

She was sitting down.

She wasn't overly comfortable, but she wasn't uncomfortable. She was the sort of comfortable you could be when sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Grass. Definitely grass, not a hard floor.

She presumed the grass was green, only because she knew that grass was green and she had no reason to suspect that this grass would be coloured in another way. But she wasn't sure because she hadn't opened her eyes yet.

She had felt the individual touches of the blades with her right hand, and she'd recognise that sensation anywhere, so she was pretty confident that she was definitely sitting on grass.

Still she kept her eyes closed and concentrated on the image in her mind, which, at the minute, was a white room. She was happy she had managed to keep her concentration through the pain that had invaded her temples. She was lying down and had refused to open her eyes while she arranged herself in the sitting position she was now currently in.

Still she managed to keep her eyes closed when images started to invade her mind, but she couldn't stop her breathing from speeding up or her heart rate from increasing when she remembered everything they had been through together. It had taken her a while to compose herself after that, slowly bringing her breathing back to normal and closing her mind to the images that had invaded her head with no warning.

She knew in detail what had happened to Ron when he had come here to save her. Emotion had overwhelmed her when she had seen him crouched on the ground, in obvious pain, clutching onto her hands as if his life depended on it. What had disturbed her was the fact that he had been clinging on to her, helping her, but she just stared right through him.

She remembered coming through what can only be described as a fog in her mind, and then saw Ron, collapsed in front of her on the grass. That was when she had woken up.

She couldn't let that happen to her. She wasn't being selfish, if it meant that Ron could live on without her, she'd do anything that she needed to, but if it happened that Ron woke up without her, she knew he'd just come straight back like she had. But somehow she knew that it wouldn't work again.

She had no way of explaining it, but things felt different. In their previous visits to this secret and private place of theirs, the sun had been shining, with only a slight summer breeze that cooled their skin when needed. This time the air was cooler, the wind harsher and something just felt off.

It was like the environment that they both thought of as a sanctuary, was turning against them, telling them they had outstayed their welcome, telling them to go back to where they belonged.

Which was why she knew that she had to get things right this time, and for the minute, that meant keeping her eyes closed to what was around her, because she needed to concentrate, and feeling Ron's hand in hers, she knew he was close by, and he would be one distraction too many.

She was here to help them both, and getting dragged in too deep, too soon, would not be good for either of them.

She had to think about this logically and coolly, and for the minute, Ron Weasley couldn't have any emotional hold on her. Emotions had no place where logic needed to rule.

...

'Please tell me we never have to do that again,' Charles said, his voice shaking.

Percy had told him that what he was about to witness wasn't going to be at all pleasant, but that still hadn't prepared him for watching his daughter being magically forced to swallow the potion.

They had reluctantly put her under the spell, but it had to be done, there was no other way. That was why the spell had been invented in the first place.

They had to time it correctly, had to wait until she had breathed in, before casting the spell. The top of her windpipe had then been forced to close and she had started to swallow, once every second. Harry had poured the potion into her mouth and had apologised to Hermione over and over again until she had swallowed it all.

At that point Percy had lifted the spell and Hermione had gasped for air.

At least she started breathing again! Charles thought to himself as he looked out the window, onto the street below them.

All he had done during the whole thing was hold Hermione's head so it was easier for Harry to pour the potion into her mouth. They had decided against moving her in any other way; they had no idea what was going on inside Ron and Hermione's minds but they didn't want to disturb them.

Hermione's breathing had returned to normal and she went back to looking as if she was working something out, quicker than Charles had expected. But then again, this was his daughter, and when she set her mind to something there wasn't a great deal anyone could do to get her off track.

His attention was brought from his daughter when he thought he saw someone disappear into thin air. Instantly he started to panic, but he wasn't exactly sure why.

'People are expecting us back at the hospital to tell them Hermione and Ron aren't here. I have no idea who it was, but I just saw someone apparate away outside.'

'Shit! I totally forgot we were supposed to report back regardless of whether we had news or not!' Harry exclaimed. 'I'll go and tell them… okay, what do I tell them?'

'Tell them…' Percy began, before standing up and pacing back and forth. 'Tell them what they expect to hear, that they're not here and maybe throw them off the scent a bit by saying… by saying you had a safe house or two that you've used over the past year. No one knows where you've been, Harry, Maybe you can give them a couple of locations to look at that'll keep hem busy.'

Harry nodded. 'Yeah, there's a few places I can send them, I'll do that. But they might not let me come back; I can't look as if I'm not searching for them, can I?'

'Probably a god thing, you can hardly be accused on sending the search party on a wild goose chase if you're on it with them, can you?'

'Fair point. Charles, they'll ask where you are. What do you want me to tell them?'

'Um, can you just tell them it all got too much for me and I went home? I'm not leaving this room until they're back, Harry.'

'What do you want me to tell Veronica?'

'Can you bring her here? I won't let her interfere, not that she would anyway, she'll probably take this whole thing a lot better than I did, if I'm honest.'

'Well, I'll probably be dragged off somewhere pretty sharpish, but I'll get Kreacher to bring her here. Kreacher?'

The house elf arrived with a crack, and then a loud clang filled the room. Kreacher was hitting himself on the head with a saucepan, and swaying dangerously.

'Kreacher, I order you to stop punishing yourself!' Harry shouted above the din. The elf lowered the pan to the floor and blinked, obviously dazed.

'Kreacher, I'm sorry I made you disobey Hermione's orders, I'll never have you contradict Hermione or Ron again, but I had to come up here and see what Ron had done, okay?'

Kreacher nodded slowly, causing him to wobble.

'Y…yes, Mas…Master Harry.'

'I'm sorry to do this to you, Kreacher, but I need to ask another favour of you.'

'Of…of course, Master Harry,' he said with a nod.

'I need you to bring Hermione's mum here, her name is Veronica Granger and she should still be at the hospital with Mrs Weasley.'

'That's a point,' Percy said looking a little concerned. 'How are we going to let her know what's going on without mum finding out? I know this is going to sound very harsh, but I really don't think mum should be brought here just yet. She'll demand they're taken back to the hospital and I don't want to be the one to tell her that she can't try and help them.'

'Kreacher, could you tell her that I've gone home because… because I needed to be away from it all, or something, and tell her I've asked her to come home too. Then again she may not want to see me, I was hardly in the most receptive of moods earlier when she was telling me to calm down.'

Charles looked at the desk and saw Hermione's pendant.

'Wait, she knows Ron took Hermione's pendant.' He walked over to the desk and picked it up. 'If you give this to her – subtly of course – then she'll know we've found them and agree to apparate with you.'

He walked over to the elf and the elf nodded. Kreacher took the pendant from Charles and bowed his head.

'Thanks, Kreacher,' Harry said. 'When you come back, please make sure no one else comes in the house until Percy, Ron or Hermione tell you. Is that understood?'

Kreacher nodded and bowed before Harry before apparating away with a crack.

'If anything happens, or you need my help, Percy, send me word via your patronus.'

'I will.'

Harry turned and looked at his two best friends lying on the bed. He hated having to leave them, but there was no other option. Staying here would bring interest from the search parties and that was something Grimmauld Place didn't need.

'Look after each other, okay? I need you two to help me through all the press bollocks that they've been putting off until Hermione's better. Just, stay safe, okay?'

He looked at Charles and Percy and then left the room.

…

She had no idea what had caused her to be unable to breath for what seemed like eternity, but it had passed and for some reason she knew that someone had intended for it to happen. It was as if she was floating between two different worlds, sitting in one but refusing to open her eyes to it, but knowing she was actually in a bedroom in Grimmauld Place.

Although she had panicked when she stopped being able to breath, she could hear Harry apologising to her over and over again. Knowing Harry would heed her words and not bring her back against her will, she knew he wasn't doing anything to harm her. However, that didn't stop her being very relieved when she was able to breathe normally again.

She was sure it would seem bizarre to some that she instantly got back to concentrating on what she had to do, but she didn't have any other option.

She allowed her mental image of a white room to now include the green grass she knew she was sitting on; she then allowed the walls to fade into a light blue and she acknowledged the cooling breeze she could feel all around her.

She didn't know how she knew, but she knew she couldn't take her time in helping Ron. She had to get on with it. Things were changing and not for the better. She took a couple of deep breaths and opened her eyes.

On seeing their environment changed, the sky darker and with clouds in the sky, her stomach clenched in worry.

The pain in her head took her by surprise, and then she saw Ron lying next to her. She fought he compulsion to reach out and take Ron's other hand in hers. Thoughts raced through her mind, desperately seeking a way to share what he needed so badly, but without harming herself in the process. She went over the memories in her mind, which she supposed weren't new, but had only been familiar to her for however long she had been with Ron, and again and again saw her and Ron sitting or standing with their foreheads touching.

She could feel the pain increasing, so she acted on impulse.

She lay down next to Ron and let go of his hand, she took his head in her hands and slowly brought his forehead to hers.

Instantly the pain disappeared, but then everything went black.

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