Autumn 1990
Ronald Weasley
Ron's head pounded, not as it usually did but instead with an achy dullness. His eyes seemed heavy and his lips dry as he struggled to find his way back to the world. When he finally pushed himself awake and his eyes latched onto the white walls of the unfamiliar room his heart began to race. Alive, the word rushed through his head.
"He's awake!" A voice said from his left. Ron tilted his head slightly to see his sister's face. His lips rose at the corners into a small smile. Then they dropped again.
Charlie is dead, he thought. He had seen his brother die right before his eyes. When he blinked he saw the body again and the way it crumpled. He visualised the flames that scorched through the tents, and the smoke that clung like powder. He heard the muffled sounds of his father's scream. He shivered. Charlie was dead, he took a deep gasp of air, my brother is dead. He nearly threw up.
A healer entered the room followed closely by his mother. The healer carried a small box of vials in an array of different colours. His mother's eyes latched to his. She wasn't sad, Ron found himself thinking. She had a smile on her face that seemed to want to reassure him. It seemed to ask for a smile in return, or for something, anything. Only tears poured from the corners of his eyes.
His mother's arms were around him immediately, Ginny's hand grasped his left. "It's okay Ron, it's okay," Molly Weasley said.
"He's dead?" Ron asked with a whisper. Hardly a question at all.
"Dead?" His mother backed away from him briefly and shook her head. "No one's dead dear."
"I saw him die." Ron's tongue felt strange in his mouth, it was swollen and scared.
"You fell," Ginny said.
Ron opened his eyes a little wider. He remembered the air around him and the painful jolt when he hit the group. His mouth had filled with blood, and he could still taste the iron. But that was where his normal memories ended and the others began. A green serpent flashed before his eyes.
"You were foaming at the mouth, lots of blood." His sister continued. "I thought you were dead but you had just bitten open your tongue."
"Ginevra!" His mother scolded.
"Nobody died?" He asked again. His voice wavered in strength.
His mother shook her head. "Nearly gave me a heart attack, and I'm sure your father wasn't pleased either but everyone's okay."
"The twins aren't," Ginny giggled.
Ron flicked his eyes in her direction. Please?
"Your brother's will be spending the next week scrubbing the house," Molly said with a nod. "How dare they have you two up there with no helmets or pads."
Ron took a deep gasp of air. Charlie wasn't dead? An unseen weight lifted off his chest only to reappear a second later. I had seen him die, his stomach twisted with anxiety. He could still see it so clearly, beyond where his mother stood. He imagined the dullness in Charlie's eyes, stronger then a memory, as if he was there again. He blinked harshly. A sob escaped his lips.
The healer took that moment to step forward, she was a younger witch with pale blue hair. She uncorked a small blue vial and placed it against Ron's lips. He welcomed the coolness of the potion, unsure of what it was. It tasted vaguely of peppermint and felt like ice on the back of his throat.
"Calming drought," the healer said with a smile. "It will help you feel better Mr Weasley. I know that you must be scared. To wake up somewhere else with little to no idea of what happened to you. But you must also be brave. Bravery is very important for healing."
Had anything happened at all? Ron found himself questioning. Everything seemed to have been almost instantaneous, one event flowing to the next with no time to even think in between. The rush of air, the breathlessness of the crash, the humming of the void, all of it had happened so fast.
The calmness of the potion raced over the edges of Ron's mind. The coolness spread to his entire body all at once. He found his chest feeling suddenly weightless and his worries evaporated. What happened to me? He found the question analytical, like a problem that needed to be solved.
It seemed so real that he had a hard time believing it wasn't. A dream maybe? No, I hurt myself. He bit his lip and considered the issue.
The room seemed more comfortable, Ron wasn't sure if it was the potion or the relaxed looks on the three faces he could see but something had changed. Not something about them, he thought, something about me. He looked down at his hands, they were paler then he remembered which he found not surprising given he had probably been in the hospital for some time. The air smelt of fresh cotton. That's why, he realised. He couldn't smell the smoke anymore. Ginny smiled at him and he just blinked back.
"When will he be able to go home? He won't be like this for a long time will he?" His mother asked. She had a habit of worrying, or so Ron thought. What was there to worry about now? Charlie was alive!
"The potion will last a few hours at most, probably less." The healer took out her wand and waved it in the air. Ron regarded it as being a pretty wand given the sapphires laid into its handle. "His temperature is perfectly normal, his internal injuries have healed, and he otherwise seems fine." The healer smiled. "He will have some swelling maybe, especially where he served his tongue. We don't think it will be a problem, usually those things are taken care of rather easily. But... It's strange really, it's almost as if his wounds carried trace amounts of dark magic. Not like a curse mind you, but something else. Nothing we've seen before."
His mother wore a panicked look.
The healer grimaced. "Sorry, I'm just talking out loud. He will be perfectly fine Missus Weasley."
Dark magic? Ron mauled the words in his head. He had never heard of dream magic before, only of visions and seers. His heart stopped. The coolness in his chest was replaced by a sudden burning warmth. Seers, the word felt like dirt in his mind. No, it couldn't be. He swallowed hard. A prophecy.
- SS -
Winter 1990
Ronald Weasley
Ron stared at the sky and the snow fell around him. A thin sheet had coated his winter robes which left the patchwork black to blend into the ground beneath him. Maybe I can fade away, he thought. Had he stayed still long enough, held his breath, maybe the snow would cover him entirely and he would simply cease to exist. Peaceful.
Christmas had been its usual affair, not peaceful but jolly and well enjoyed. Or so everyone believed and for the most part they believed correctly. Only Ron found it hard to enjoy the day, his mind reached elsewhere and wandered off to darker places. The snow helped in that regard, it was cold, grounded, real, not something that existed only on the edges of his mind. It reminded him that he wasn't entirely insane.
Ron could still smell the smoke, two months later and he couldn't stop smelling the bloody smoke. He couldn't stop seeing Charlie's death either which crept into his eyes and his imagination. He wasn't even sure that imagination was the right word, what he had seen was as real as anything else, but not cold. Snow is cold. Ron closed his eyes. The darkness lasted only for a moment before it was shattered by an emerald snake. He sighed and opened them again, the sky flushed away his thoughts.
The idea of being a Seer wasn't a bad thing in itself, Ron would have liked the idea in other circumstances. It was the magical equivalent of natural talent. Seers had started wars or had their hands in the ministry. It was an innate position of power and it was well known that lord Grindlewald had been an exceptionally powerful seer. It was a guaranteed path to the circle of power that pulsed through Britain's veins. But his brother's death? Ron shivered. Merlin I hope I'm not a seer.
The alternative, however, terrified him too. He saw things that didn't happen, snakes slithered on the edges of his vision, and every smell was undercut with smoke. Azkaban, crazy Wizards went to Azkaban.
A set of feet trudged through the snow beside him and Ron glimpsed a brief flash of long red hair as the girl fell onto her back next to him. Ron took a deep breath. He felt uneasy for a moment, what if I start to have nightmares about Ginny?
"You're spacing out again," she said. "You've been doing it all day… maybe all week."
Ron turned his head to the side to face his sister. "Sorry," he mumbled.
Ginny squinted at him. "No, you're not."
Ron felt his stomach twist and turn in uncomfortable ways. "I'm just thinking about things."
"About the accident?" She asked and he nodded. "You've just been weird. Or maybe you've always been weird and you've just forgotten how to hide it, but it worries me."
Ron frowned, it was the worst thing to hear. He didn't want to worry her, he already worried his parents. But he was worried too, and he didn't know how to make it stop. He wished he knew how.
"I'm sorry," he said more sincerely. "I've just been thinking about it a lot."
"I know," Ginny shrugged. "But maybe you need to stop thinking about it?" He couldn't. "Or at least try to make it better."
He nodded. Ginny pulled herself back up off the ground and trudged away back through the layers of snow. Ron turned his head back towards the sky.
His mind was like a whirlwind of scattering pieces that seemed to shift and morph with every thought. All of them danced around something, whatever relief he might find, but never quite reached it. He thought for a moment about what Ginny had said. Ron could be better, he knew that more than anything, he wanted to be better. He just didn't— there was more than one way to be better. The thought slammed all others aside. He felt his heart thump harder, warmth returned to the tips of his fingers. I'll kill them first, the thought shattered the knots in his stomach. He had to kill the masked men before they could kill his brother.
Ron peeled himself out of the snow like a whale breaching through the ocean's surface. He patted himself off as best he could, his coat filled with cold dampness, and he moved back towards the house. He felt about as normal as he had been in months.
Ron marched up the stairs but not to his own room, instead he stopped short on the landing that held Percy's bedroom. He considered if he was making the right choice and found that he had no clear answer. He needed to do something to prepare for the moment and he had no idea how many years or months he had. He had been a lot taller in the vision, but a few months of heavy growth might have been enough to close the distance. He shivered slightly, the thought made his stomach a little queasy.
Ron knocked on Percy's door and swallowed whatever hesitations he still held.
Percy opened the door with a strange look on his face. A look that melted to confusion as he peered down into his younger brother's eyes. "Ron?"
"Can I ask you some questions, Perce?" Ron said politely. Percy seemed frozen unsure of what to say. Ron had, guiltily, never asked for Percy's help before. "I just thought that maybe you could tell me about some magic."
Percy's lips shifted into a smile. "Of course, I just didn't expect you to ask. I know you've been recovering."
Yeah," Ron admitted and held a hand to the back of his neck. "I haven't been feeling the same since, but I'm trying to be better."
Percy nodded and ushered Ron inside. The bedroom was different from Ron's in so many ways. While Ron's was messy, small, and disorganised, Percy's was clean, orderly, and easily had enough room for a full-sized bed. Everything seemed to have a particular place with not a single spec of dust out of order. Percy sat down in the chair beside the desk and motioned for Ron to sit on the bed.
"Are you alright Ron?" Percy asked. "I know you say you are but you don't seem the same. It's like we all left for Hogwarts and came back to a different brother."
"I'm fine," he lied. He couldn't tell the truth, he was afraid of what Percy might think. It wasn't normal to see things that weren't real. "I just wanted some advice."
"Of course," Percy sat a little straighter.
"I- I want to know how to defend myself." Ron muttered. He could feel his cheeks turn red. Percy's eyes widened slightly but Ron continued, "I had a nightmare where some masked men killed Charlie and I don't want that to ever happen, I don't want anyone to hurt any of you. I want to know how to protect myself and to protect everyone else too. I want to hurt anyone who hurts us, Perce."
His brother took a few shallow breaths. "I'm sorry," he crossed the room to sit beside Ron. "But nothing is going to happen, Ron. Everyone is safe."
Ron rolled his eyes. "I just need to learn how."
Percy shifted his eyes away. "We all get worried about things Ron, but you can't chase nightmares. It's unhealthy, you have to learn to forget about them."
No, I can't forget. "No, I know that, Perce. I was just- I meant that I wanted to protect Charlie. I want to protect you, Fred, George, Ginny, Bill, Mum, Dad, all of you. I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Isn't that okay? Not because of the nightmare but just because I need you all to be safe? I almost died, and I bet most of you would have wanted to protect me."
"I appreciate it Ron, but we're your big brothers. We're supposed to protect you, not the other way around." Percy said a little uncomfortably. "You shouldn't worry about us, we should worry about you."
"But I do worry, I worry every minute I'm awake. I'm terrified that one of you will get hurt and I won't be able to do a thing about it." He said truthfully. He was terrified of Charlie dying. He was terrified of any of them dying.
"Ron, it's really not healthy to worry so much."
"And what about Ginny?" He asked. "I'm her big brother aren't I?"
You are," Percy admitted.
"So you'll teach me how to protect her? How can we defend ourselves from bad people?" He asked with a thick layer of hope in his voice.
Percy took a moment. "No, I can't."
"But I need to know Percy, I need to be sure that I can help you if anything happens." He could feel fresh tears in the corners of his eyes. I just need to know how.
"It's not that Ron, it's just that you're too young. I'm glad you came to me, I really am, but I can't help you. You don't even have your own wand yet. You haven't even learned your first spell." Percy shifted uncomfortably. Ron could feel the heat return to his cheeks, he felt suddenly embarrassed like he was a child throwing a tantrum.
"But," Percy continued. "After you get to Hogwarts I can help you with your studying, if you want. If it'll make you feel better."
Ron smiled and felt relief wash through his body. It wasn't exactly what he wanted, but it was better than nothing. It was a place to start and a start was all he needed. Hogwarts was a few months away and Charlie's death was probably at least a year. His heart swelled and he wrapped both his arms around Percy's chest and hugged him tightly. Percy froze a little awkwardly.
"I have some drawings," Percy shifted away from Ron's hug. "You can't do magic but you can still understand the basics, maybe you'll find something to make you feel better." Ron nodded, not daring to speak.
Percy pulled himself away and reached under his bed. He found a box filled with small leather-bound journals. He flicked through them all until he found a small black one with a silver ribbon. He placed the book in Ron's hands. Ron couldn't do anything but smile.
