Rejuvenation
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I make any profits from posting this fanfiction.
Summary: Epilogue compliant. Set 2019. Harry and Ron fall into the hands of a mad 'scientist' hell bent on eternal youth. Naturally, something goes wrong in the experimental stage. His test subjects weren't too pleased about their new roles as guinea pigs. Unfortunately for all involved, there were many casualties along the way; the most important of which being the death of their former lives.
Warnings: Gender change. OC character deaths. Kidnapping. Experimentation on human; adults and children. Swearing.
Pairings: HP/OC, RW/?
Authors Note: Rather short chapter, only 2000words, but at least we are moving on!
Rejuvenation - Chapter 4
Ron helped Harry spread the sheet down over the pile of dead bodies. As awful as it was to have to move the sheet at all and see those other decaying, grotesque bodies, they needed to cover up the bodies of the two newest editions to the mass grave.
Oddly, unexpectedly, it wasn't Cameron. It was poor Jimmy and Eloise. Bath time had revealed to them that Jimmy's balls were red and swollen as well as some of the skin around his genitals being slightly red with sprouting hair. Harry had been plagued by guilt ridden and horror filled nightmares that night and from the tired looks on all the other adult's faces they hadn't slept well either.
The next day Harry, Ron, Eloise and Honora had said and waited in silence. Time had dragged by slowly as they waited to see who would be chosen. They had said their goodbyes with silent gazes, trying to hide from the children what they knew would happen. At seven o'clock exactly, Wollaston had walked in and cast his horrible jellyfish spell on the ward rendering them all useless to fight or move while the ward was down.
Eloise and Jimmy had floated out. Tears flowed silently from Eloise's eyes. Jimmy made low panicked sounds but was too weak because of the spell to actually fight it.
Harry had fought the exhaustion and weakness caused by the spell and had managed to force his body to crawl forwards but he made it to the edge of the ward just as it sprung back into place. He had been flung back and impacted the wall behind. Pained, limp, winded and exhausted he could only sit there and watch and wait.
And now Eloise and Jimmy were dead. The adult selected randomly, the child because he had hit puberty.
But the truly horrible thing was that the ritual had worked.
It had worked.
Wollaston had exclaimed and danced about with victory shouting that he had succeeded and that why the answer didn't occur to him before was so stupid because the answer was so simple!
Apparently two souls could not exist inside the same host at the same time. By extracting two souls and placing the adult soul into the child's body, leaving the child's soul to disperse, Wollaston had succeeded in his experiment to become young again.
Of course that meant had had to check whether the soul in the child's body had all the adult's memories. Illegally using veritaserum on the body of Jimmy everyone had heard that indeed Eloise's soul did retain all the memories of her time as Eloise. Shockingly though, Eloise also had all of Jimmy's memories. Wollaston rationalised that then dismissed it as memories being imbedded in the body but also carried in the soul so even without one there was the other. Apparently that didn't matter to him as long as his experiment worked and the adult could retain their memories.
He had then killed Eloise's empty husk of a body to check whether her soul could live on without its original body being alive.
That was confirmed too. Eloise screamed as she watched herself get murdered. Harry supposed seeing oneself could drive you insane. That was why when you played with time turners you could not be seen.
The experiment ended when Jimmy, or Eloise, jumped up and ran over to the potions desk. Without warning and without being stopped Eloise grabbed a knife and slit her own throat.
Wollaston's roars of anger were deafening. When he calmed down he flicked his wand to send both bodies to the mass grave and grumbled to himself about finding the perfect host for his soul so that, once he had conducted a few more tests to make sure the results of the last ritual hadn't been a fluke, he could make himself young once more.
"I don't know what to say." Ron murmured. "In all our time together, facing Death Eaters and Voldemort and Merlin-knows-what-else, we have never faced anything like this."
"No we haven't." Harry whispered. His throat was scratchy and dry. He tried licking his lips and swallowing a few times, but it was hard to swallow past the lump in his throat.
"I…ahem." Ron coughed and looked skyward. Harry could see the tears in his friend's eyes.
"It'll be okay Ron."
"Aha." Ron laughed humourlessly. "No it won't. You and I both know that."
"It's not over yet."
"No, not yet. But it will be soon won't it?! It's been weeks Harry. Weeks! When we got taken it was June. We know the end of July came and went because of Cameron and Daniel coming here. It's been weeks since then. Nobody has found us yet and I doubt they will either. There's no way for us to get out either. We are stuck here."
"There's got to be a way Ron. Wollaston will make a mistake. Something will happen. One of us will get quicker recovering from that jellyfish spell and get through the ward before he puts it up…" Harry listed, trying to look at possible options that could help.
"Or we get put into little kids and killed as part of his grand scheme."
"Don't be so defeatist Ron, it won't help. You know that."
"It's hard not to. I know it's only been a few weeks for us but it feels like it's been an eternity." Ron whispered, nearly whimpering come the end of his words. He hung his head and squashed his fingers into his eyes. "I wish…"
"I know Ron. Me too." Harry said, not letting Ron continue that sentence. Oh they could spend hours on wishes.
Ron sniffed and nodded. He rubbed his eyes once more and then stood up straight squaring his shoulders. He pressed his lips together and with steely determination in every millimetre of his expression he stared at Harry. That gaze pierced Harry to his soul.
"If you survive this, tell Hermione and my kids that I love them. You look after my kids, help 'Mione take care of them as if they are your own kids. You make sure they know I loved them, no matter what. Okay? And my family. You let my family know."
"Of course Ron. And if you…"
"I will." Ron sniffed again and it took all of Harry's steel and fortitude to not let his tears form and give into the storm inside of him. Ron licked his lips and wiped his nose messily on his sleeve. "You know mate…you know you are my best friend right? You are my best friend and I love you. You know that right?"
"Yes I know Ron. You are my best friend too." Ron nodded and fell silent again.
Harry felt choked up but wouldn't give in, couldn't give in. It might all be an act but they couldn't be seen to be breaking down in front of the others. Cameron, Mafalda, Winnifred and Honora didn't need to see them break down too. They were the strong ones, Harry especially was the rock. The others came to him and Ron for comfort. They had to be strong and hide their true emotions.
"Hey Ron?" Harry said at last and clamped Ron on the shoulder with his hand. Ron quirked an eyebrow and the side of his mouth enquiringly. Harry swallowed painfully and tried to force the words out. Sentimentality, soppiness…but the truth and the words came from the place soul deep inside of him. "I'm glad that here at the end it's you who is with me."
"Yeah. Wouldn't have it any other way mate. Wouldn't have it any other way."
Wollaston had taken Ron.
Harry fought with every measly bit of energy he had to get through the ward before Wollaston put it back up. He tried with all his might to stop everything, to save Ron and Cameron! He tried! He tried!
But he failed.
Helpless and crying in earnest, determination thrown out of the window, Harry watched as Wollaston conducted his ritual.
Ron's blue eyes stared helplessly at Harry's. They looked calm, Ron looked calm. Bone tired, hopeless, hurting, and sad…but calm. Harry supposed Ron had entered into the same state he himself had entered when walking to meet his death at Voldemort's hands. The patience that came with knowing what was coming. The acceptance.
As Ron's soul was taken his eyes slipped shut. The light in them diminished and then blocked out. The little light floated above Ron's crumpled form then slowly crossed the short distance between Ron and Cameron. Cameron had been the most vocal, somehow screaming and yelling despite the exhaustion caused by the jellyfish spell. There were no words, only inarticulate yells and screams of anger and fear. So much anger. Then as the little light of Cameron's soul floated up the cries fell silent. Cameron's soul floated higher and higher, leaving more than enough distance for Ron's soul to float into the youth's body. As the Ritual ended there the light that was Cameron's soul vanished, like a candle being snuffed out.
Harry couldn't even bare to watch as Cameron's body was lifted and Wollaston carried out his diagnostic spells to make sure everything had worked.
Ron was in Cameron's body.
Ron was now a fully functioning teenager with two sets of memories.
Ron's actual body was little more than a lifeless shell, a vegetable…a dementor victim.
Wollaston forced both Cameron and Ron inside a newly created warded area. Apparently he had designed it as a place to store his triumphs until he could announce his research to the world and give the world proof that it worked.
"Harry?" Cameron called across the large room that evening when Wollaston had left. Harry groaned as he stood up and walked around the warded area to get closer to Cameron.
"Yeah?"
"Will you stay close to me?" Cameron asked.
"Sure." Harry muttered and settled himself as close as he could without touching the ward.
"Thank you."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah just stay close." Cameron whispered. Harry sighed and tried to hold it together.
"Harry?" Harry twisted his head at the little girl's voice and saw Winnifred had crawled over. Behind her was Honora and Mafalda.
"Yeah?"
"You left." Winnifred whimpered and crawled right up to Harry so she could lay down next to him.
"I'm sorry, Cameron wanted some company." Harry explained and Honora nodded even as she encouraged Mafalda to lie down there too.
"We thought we'd come and join you and Cameron. Stay together." Honora explained with a reasonably calm voice. Her underlying emotions were given away with the trembling across her whole body. The Owl Post employee had developed that near constant trembling a while ago but had nearly always managed to keep her emotional distress limited to just the trembling. Honora lay down on the other side of Mafalda sandwiching the girls in between her and Harry. Harry turned so he was laid on his back so he wasn't excluding either the girls and Honora or Ron and Cameron.
Everyone laid quietly for what felt like ages. Mafalda and Winnifred slipped off to sleep quite quickly, drained from yet another day of emotional upheavals, fear and torture. Harry couldn't sleep though. His mind was racing and his eyes itched, feeling incredibly dry. Harry kept resisting the tears though. Even ones for the purpose of moistening his dry eyes Harry pushed down because he knew if he gave in to that then the flood gates would open.
"Harry?" Cameron whispered, breaking the silence.
"Yeah?" Harry muttered back, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on one elbow to look at Cameron directly. Those dark blue eyes, a different shade to Ron's, stared back at him with tears in them.
"I can't sleep."
"Me either." Harry confessed. "But we need to try."
"Don't patronise me Harry." Cameron growled angrily. "I might be a kid but I'm not! I'm a grown man!"
"Okay, okay I'm sorry." Harry back tracked quickly at the anger that had flared up behind the tears. Cameron's jaw clenched and unclenched for a few moments as the emotions battled away. Anger or tears?
The tears won.
"I…I hate this!" Cameron cried out, tears welling up and falling in rapid succession. "I hate what Wollaston's done to me! I hate it! I know I'm Ron, I know it! I am Ron! But I'm Cameron too! I have memories as Cameron, I have Cameron's body I have…I hate it! I don't know who the hell I am because I've got two people here! It might not be two souls but it's two people!"
"I'm sorry Ron. I'm so sorry!"
"Yeah I am too! Thanks to that arsehole I can never go home! Never! Merlin! Even thinking about where my home is I remember the large stone house in Port William. It has a crap garden but it was right in front of the beach and I'd play Quidditch there with Niall, Dad and Mam and…no!" Cameron wailed plaintively and started sobbing. "Noooo…my Dad and Mum are Arthur and Molly Weasley! How can I think of anybody else as my Mum and Dad? How?! I don't want to forget my family! Not my mum, not my dad, not my wife and Hugo and Rose. I don't want them replaced!"
Cameron descended into angry tears, hitting the ground and raging through the tidal wave of tears.
Harry didn't know what to do. He couldn't comfort Cameron, the ward separated them. There was nothing to say either, certainly not anything that would help. It would be a long night.