Disclaimer: I don't own HP :(

A/N: Here's a longer chapter, because it's Christmas! I hope everybody had a great holiday... and THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for the reviews. I can't believe how many there were!! I was so excited. So, thank you.

Anyway, here's the third chapter. Be careful of the swearing. :)

The mattress was creaky. It moaned and groused at slight movements, simply screamed at rolling over or getting up. Ron cursed loudly as the springs shrilled at his perturbation of their stillness. His eyes opened wearily, squinting in the mid-afternoon light. He had slept for countless hours, lulled by the brandy and sheer exhaustion. He tried to rub his face, but his shoulder – and the mattress beneath him – voiced its lamentation at his decision. Pain spread through his chest and his headache came back full-force.

Rolling over, he groaned. Only the cool, winter air across his face soothed him. Ron stumbled out of bed, wondering what had happened… and where the hell he was. He wasn't fully awake enough to realize that he had slept in the configured 'guest room' and that this room was a coat closet, not his bedroom.

"Shit," he whispered, straightening himself and stretching. His fingers brushed the craggy surface of the ceiling. The closet was not the roomiest of spaces.

Ron decided to discard the notion of showering or dressing and went simply to make himself a Sheppard's pie. Chewing slowly, he remembered the list that sat in the living room. He shuffled down the hallway and found it under the coffee table.

Hermione needed eight draughts in the day and two in the night. She had to be bathed in essence of murtlap once – preferably twice – a week. She also needed her limbs exercised once in a while to prevent muscle shrinkage and needed her bandages replaced twice a week to prevent infection. A pang of fear exploded in Ron's chest as his eyes fluttered over the parchment – Hermione had already gone several hours without her sleeping draught.

Without thinking, he bolted down the hallway in bare feet, taking the stairs four at a time. He threw open the bedroom door and stopped, searching frantically for Hermione.

She was lying in the same position the nurses had laid her in the day before, her face still set the same way. Ron breathed a sigh of relief that seemed to rid him of the pressure lying in the bottom of his chest. He prepared the draught and brought it to her, his hands shaking. He was unsure of how, exactly, to feed it to her.

Ron held it to her mouth, letting the red liquid stain her lips. He was in a trance, touching the rough skin on her face, opening her jaw slightly. He could hear his breath in his ears; feel the blood throbbing in his veins.

Suddenly, her lips trembled. A scratchy breath – something like a faraway creaking door – sounded. Ron flew back from her, as if possessed. The noise came from her throat again. He crouched on the floor, frozen. The whimper continued.

"Hermione…?" Ron croaked; eyes wide in amazement.

When Ron saw her lids flutter lightly, he regained his senses fast enough to dart forward and pour the rest of the draught in her opened, crying mouth. He massaged her throat slowly, softly. She swallowed. The rasping ceased.

"Shit, Hermione," he snapped, unable to control himself. "You can't just do that." Annoyed, he set the empty container on the floor and walked briskly from the room. He reveled darkly in the fact that he had several hours to enjoy before having to dote on his new guest again.

He spent the afternoon staring at his paperwork. He tried to fill in the spaces with number and names, but the information evaded him. His mind wandered aimlessly with each passing hour. The room grew dark, but the fire remained unlit. Finally, in complete frustration, Ron threw down his quill and returned to his bedroom.

"You think this is funny?" he asked the corpse lying in the bed. "You think that you can just do this to me? You think that you can just come back and everything's going to be okay?" He flung out his hands and furrowed his brow. "Well, it's not, Hermione. That's not the way it's going to work."

Ron paced the room, unsure of what, exactly, he was doing. He pressed his hands against his bald scalp. "I don't know how this is going to work, Hermione," he said, turning to her from across the rug, "but I sure as hell know that when you get better, you are going to pay for what you did."

He turned and peered out the window, watching the moonlight play across the backyard scene. "I'm not forgiving you," he said loudly, "you couldn't beg me enough." Ron felt anger well in his chest, burning and twisting. "You think that you could just leave me with no explanation?" He whirled around, facing her. "You left me – you said you had to go to the market, not headquarters – and you never came back." Abhorrence and despair quickened his blood, making him feel appallingly powerful.

"You left me with nothing, Hermione," he spat, feeling the tears again. "And you are not going to make me cry over this bullshit again! I did that already!" His fists clenched.

Ron crossed the room and came inches from her face, wanting to be intimidating, fearful. He was so close he could see the scars on her chin that healed over months ago, the scars lining her cheeks that still bled. "I waited for you!" he screamed at her, rage shaking his limbs. "I waited for you for two fucking years!"

He waited, wanting her to do something – anything – to give him justification. He was right and sound in his anger and he wanted her to acknowledge it. When she didn't, Ron felt himself tremble with uneasiness.

What was he doing?

He shook his head, ridding himself of the angry thoughts still trapped in his throat. He gasped, feeling strangely defeated. Even in an argument where she wasn't a participant, Hermione seemed to prevail as the victor.

"You ruined my life," Ron whispered, backing away from her. "You shouldn't have come back."

---

Ron spent the rest of the evening fuming in the kitchen, making himself supper. The fact he had to go back and see her day after day after day hounded him, making him feel guilty for yelling, but vindicated at the same time. He convinced himself that somehow, someway, Hermione could hear him. It had happened numerous times before – coma patients able to hear their loved ones, but unable to reply – and Hermione was extraordinary to begin with. He hoped she felt the repulsion that haunted him.

As he cleaned the dishes, wiping them gently and rhythmically, Ron sighed. He glanced out the window over the sink and watched the neighborhood kids playing in the park across the street. They were shrieking and laughing, their arms thrown open as wide as their smiles. It had been two weeks since Christmas and the snow hadn't stopped falling since then. That meant that the kids hadn't been in public school for a while. He wondered what kind of torture Hermione had endured on Christmas day.

Shaking his head, Ron blew out the candle and went upstairs to feed his companion her necessary calming draught. He did it swiftly, barely even glancing at her in the complete darkness he had left the room in. Why bother to waste the oil when all she did was sleep?

That night, Ron took all the directions to bed with him. He read them late into the night, a single candle burning on his nightstand. Apparently, Hermione had endured several of the standard curses: Crucio, Imperio, Stupefy. They had performed the regular types of torture including Anti-Disapparation jinxes and Impediment hexes. However, they had used all kinds of off-kilter methods, utilizing the Confundus Charm to confuse her, Deprimo hexes to hold her down, Incarcerous Jinxes to bind her, Silencio to shut her up, and the Obscuro spell to blind her. Her skin was badly burned and gouged by blasting curses and the Defodio Charm respectively. There were still welts covering her stomach from multiple uses of the Stinging Hex and burns plastering her legs from the Flagrante Curse.

The list went on and on and Ron grew weary with each page he finished. They used charms he didn't even know existed – even went to the point of poisoning her with homemade potions. They had done just about everything but Avada Kedavra. There was paragraph at the bottom of injury reports simply stating that whoever tormented Hermione intentionally let her remember it. There was no evidence of Memory Charm anywhere in the three weeks she had been kidnapped. She was bound to have massive psychological trauma, possibly including nightmares, hallucinations, and fits. There was no telling who she may wake up to be.

Pausing, Ron tilted his head back against the wall, his neck cracking and straightening. He felt a gruesome sort of hope surge through some little part of him. Maybe Hermione wouldn't remember the reasons she left – maybe this would be a chance to start over. The coldness of the wall overtook him and brought him back to his senses, his mouth twisting into a pressed line. Did he really want to start over with her? If she left the first time, what was to say she wouldn't given a second chance?

Ron cast aside his dwindling hope and continued reading, afraid of the thoughts that were to come.

There were lists of possible treatments after the injury reports stopped. Procedure after procedure drilled complicated potions, charms, and complex spells into Ron's head. He knew each and every one of them by heart, but the sheer mass of the numbers and quantities needed took him by surprise. He wondered if a small woman like Hermione could even handle that much medication. He also wondered if he had enough stock of all the materials kept in his basement.

Instead of choosing one specific treatment scheme, Ron pulled out a notebook and quill and began concocting his own approach. He poured over his own lists of supplies. Conveniently enough, he had a laboratory in his basement: cauldrons, bottles, shelves and shelves of ingredients. There was a library of recipes kept on a wall down there. He had spent the past months supplying various hospitals with remedies for a small profit – enough to live comfortably with what he had.

When the light of morning crept through the curtains in the front hall and under the crack in his door, Ron was propped up on his headboard. His head lolled to the side, his eyes closed. He was surrounded by fifty-plus sheets of crumpled paper. A quill dangled on the edge of the bed. A thin notebook lay open on his lap. There was a slanted scrawl of directions on the paper. He had finally decided on a technique somewhere between two and three that morning.

---

Ron awoke to a piercing scream that afternoon. Falling out of bed and through the door, he heard the shrieks ring throughout the house. Cursing and fumbling up the stairs, Ron feared for Hermione. The screeching became incredibly voluble as he neared the bedroom door. Opening it, Ron darted towards the bed.

It was empty. The covers had been dragged across the floor. The curtains had been flung open to fully expose the room to the light of the moon. The window nearest the bed was half-way open.

Ron whirled around, the rasp shrill filling his ears again. Hermione was crouched in the opposite corner, staring out at him in complete and total horror. Her hands were gripping the walls, clawing and digging at the wallpaper. Her nails were bloody and black. Some of her bandages were falling off, exposing long gouges on her arms and neck. She looked like a monster, like something escaped from a nightmare.

"Shit!" Ron yelled, taken by surprise. It took a couple of seconds for his mind to register that this was the same, tranquil-faced girl that lay in his bed hours before. He stood completely still, pouring over things to do.

Hermione seemed to gain another burst of energy when he swore. Her brassy voice increased into a thunderous commotion. She tore at the short, raggedy strands of her hair, pulling out small sections with her slick fists.

"Hermione!" Ron tried to yell over her, his arms spread out in a 'just hold on' motion. "Hermione, stop it!"

Her hands gripped at her face, breaking apart scabs and letting dark blood run. Her screams were deafening.

Ron's heart began to pound, realizing that no matter what he said, she wouldn't stop. It was clear she didn't recognize him or her surroundings. To her, it must've been another round of persecution. Fear crept through chest when he remembered that his wand was in yesterday's jean's pocket… downstairs in the laundry bin.

"Shit!" he told her again, plainly.

Hermione screamed, curling into the corner.

"Hermione!" Ron yelled at her, "This is not funny!"

She wailed, shutting her eyes tightly.

Ron closed his eyes. He summoned up all the mental strength he could and then burst open his hands. "Immotus" he yelled, pushing his arms toward her. He felt part of his soul leaving him through his palms and sailing across the room, slipping delicately into Hermione.

She slumped against the wall. Her hands dragged down the paper and her legs spread out in front of her. Her eyes closed halfway, her mouth still gaping open.

Ron slumped forward as well, feeling his release take its toll. Wandless magic needed constant practice to keep the user up to the challenge. He breathed heavily on his knees. "Shit, Hermione," he whispered, glaring at her.

Hermione's wrist twitched.

Ron quickly scrambled to his feet and grabbed the sleeping draught off the table next to him. He poured it into her mouth and forced her to swallow. He sat next to her and watched as her breathing evening and her lids closed fully to stain her bloody cheeks with their dark fringe. He sat next to her for a while, clutching the empty container in his shaking hands.

Finally, Ron climbed to his feet and gathered her into his lanky arms. Her hair felt coarse against the crook of his elbow, her neck cold and clammy. Her cheek drooped onto his chest, staining his shirt with tiny tattoos of her blood.

"Oh, Hermione," he whispered, struggling. If only he were able to smooth her hair, brush her cheek with the tips of his fingers, kiss her forehead. Instead, he kicked away the covers strewn off the bed and laid her on the mattress. He left her to gather bottles and rags and when he came back, he carefully dressed her wounds. His fingers shook as he tore off bandages and revealed scars that seemed to get deeper and darker. He winced every time he accidentally brushed against her skin. She was so cold, it seemed impossible the blood still flowed in her veins, thoughts in her mind. He wiped away the blood from each finger carefully, cradling her hands in his while his heart pounded.

When Ron finished, he gave her an extra healing draught and carefully laid each sheet on her until the heavy quilt was tucked meticulously beneath her. He stood and went to close the curtains, shutting the window as well. He stood with his back to the glass and felt the cold seep through his shirt and caress his back. It felt strangely soothing.

Did he really want to start over? Did he really want to have lost Hermione already, without at least trying to come to terms with what had happened? And did he really want to begin anew with this stranger – one who didn't even recognize his face or the sound of his voice, one who didn't know his likes and dislikes, one who didn't understand the way he acted was for deep-running reasons?

He watched Hermione sleep until he was too tired to stand.

A/N: Yeah, this chapter was more dark, but Ron is struggling. Wouldn't you?

Anyway, have a great break, everyone... and leave a review!

Love, Katie