Broken

Title Broken
Author
Genre Dark/Drama/Angst/Slash-ish
Rating NC-17
Disclaimer I don\'t own anything.
Summary In Goblet of Fire, everyone found out that above all else, Ron was the person Harry cared most about. Voldemort uses this to his advantage. Set summer before seventh-year and beyond.
Warnings Slash-ish, Paediophilia, Rape, and Death. NO Lemon. Oh and Longfic.
Notes I was thinking about slash fanfiction and did write an essay about the lack of such a fic in which the consequences of a homosexual encounter were discussed (like HIV or AIDS). The article is called The Darker Side of Slash and is on Freedom of Speech Fanfiction.net and SkyeHawke if you are interested. So I decided to write such a fic, which was slow-going and it was starting to get muddy the more I learned about HIV and AIDS, so I was a bit frustrated with that, and then walking home in the pouring rain after getting school books, this idea came to me. I will admit it\'s a bit disturbing, but I think it\'s much better than my original plan.

This is also going to be a rather long fic. It\'s going to be a one-shot because it just shouldn\'t be broken into chapters.

Broken

They stood together shoulder to shoulder, rain steadily coming down around them. It was so cold for early summer and the wind blew every so often as though it was mid-fall. The rain wasn\'t coming down in sheets but the three and the others around them had been there so long that the slight drizzel could have been a torential downpour by how they looked. The tallest of them was pale, his hands folded in front of him and his sky blue eyes were closed. To his left stood a petite girl, tears streaming down her cheeks, mixing with the rain until they made the same smoth tracks from her clear-caramel eyes. The boy to her left was just between the other two teenager\'s height and his emerald eyes were wide and no tears could fall. He looked as though he was about to choke or simply stop breathing, the shock too great.

An elderly woman a little over average height walked over to them, she met each of their eyes and then put a reassuring hand on the shoulder of the boy with emerald eyes. He could only stare off at the same spot again. The woman cast a sympathetic and sorrowful smile before accepting a hug from the girl, and shaking hands with the tallest boy. She opened her mouth to say something, but merely nodded and left the three to join a few other adults several yards away.

\"How did this happen?\" the green-eyed boy whispered hoarsely. \"I could have - \"

\"No.\" The girl shook her head, continuing in a firm voice, \"Harry, don\'t. You couldn\'t help this.\"

\"I - \"

\"She\'s right.\" The taller one nodded and glanced over the girl at their friend. \"You can\'t stop old age, Harry. Everyone dies, and not always through war.\"

Harry gritted his teeth, his face controting into bitterness. \"I still can\'t believe this! I mean.... How could he?!\"

The girl bit her lip worriedly, looking between the two of them. Finally she sighed and spoke with a forced voice, \"Come on, we can\'t stay here.\"

\"You both can go ahead,\" Harry replied. \"I want to visit Sirius.\"

Hermione bit her lip so blood almost ran, but the tallest boy put a hand on her shoulder and led her away as Harry went over to a grave a few rows away.

\"I can\'t believe that Dumbledore is gone,\" the boy whispered after they were far enough away from Harry.

\"He\'s taking it so hard,\" the girl cast a worried look over her shoulder at Harry as she spoke. \"Oh, Ron, I\'m so.... I don\'t know. You saw him last summer after Sirius died.... What is going to happen this summer?\"

Ron shifted his weight and stopped, both of them looking out over the graveyard filled with wizards and witches of the purest blood. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair so that the water didn\'t drip in his eyes. \"I don\'t know, Hermione. We\'ll have to watch him again.\"

Hermione held her fist to her chin as she pulled at her bottom lip with her thumb. Ron looked at her then back at the graveyard and then ever so slowly he put an arm over her shoulder and then hugged her, his ears going bright flaming red.

~*~

\"I can\'t believe this! Head Girl!\" Hermione beamed proudly and held up a badge for her mother to see.

Mrs. Granger smiled from where she was preparing a dinner of pork chops in mushroom sauce with mashed sweet potatoes and corn. \"That\'s wonderful, dear. You know I was Head Girl when I was in school.\"

Hermione nodded. \"I\'m so glad! I think I\'ll owl Ron and Harry and - \"

The doorbell interrupted her as Mr. Granger\'s voice sounded from the front room. Soon the women in the kitchen could hear two male voices talking.

\"Ron...?\" Hermione frowned as her mother glanced at her. \"I think that\'s Ron\'s voice.\" The girl, still clutching her Hogwarts\' letter and badge slowly approached the foyer, her mother following. As she rounded the corner, a hesitant \"Is that you Ron...?\" Soon turned into, \"Ron!\"

The boy turned and looked to Mr. and Mrs. Granger before looking at Hermione. His posture began to waiver and he shifted his weight as though he was a tree leaning in a storm breeze. \"Uh...hi...\"

\"What are you doing here?\" Hermione stared. \"What\'s happened?! Has Harry done someth - \"

\"No, I just came by to tell you something,\" Ron replied nervously, then visibly calmed when Hermione\'s parents silently retreated into the kitchen.

\"Tell me what?\" Hermione eyed him suspiciously.

\"I see you\'re Head Girl.\" Ron pointed to her badge then, shifting the focus of the conversation. \"That\'s great.\"

\"Ron, what\'s going on?\"

\"You know I got my badge. Mum went all mental and - \"

\"Ron!\" Hermione got his attention with that. \"Ron, why are you here? Somehow I don\'t think that you came to my house to personally tell me that you\'re Head Boy.\"

Ron studied her a moment then nodded. \"Can I talk to you...?\" He eyed the kitchen door suspiciously, and then added, \"Somewhere other than here?\"

Hermione nodded, then called out to her parents, \"Mum, Dad, I\'m going for a walk with Ron.\" She heard an \"Okay, Love, have fun\" and then Hermione turned to Ron and led him out the door. The instant it closed, she spoke slowly, trying to meet his eyes, \"Ron, what is going on?\"

Ron took a few steps onto the walkway leading towards the front door, and then looked over at her. \"You\'re coming, right?\"

\"Of course I am!\" Hermione joined him then. \"What is all this about?\"

Ron reached into his pants\' pocket then as they started down the street. \"Read this.\"

Hermione\'s clear caramel eyes scanned the note and then her brows furrowed as she began to read more critically. \"Ron, this...\" she gazed up at him as she tried to find the right words.

\"I know. It makes no sense, but I\'m going to do it.\"

\"Ron, you just can\'t - ! Malfoy cannot be trusted!\"

\"I know,\" Ron spoke a bit off-handedly most likely for his own benefit.

\"Then you\'re certainly not - \"

\"I will,\" Ron interrupted.

\"Ron, you\'re mental!\" Hermione averted her eyes to the sidewalk and sighed, opening her mouth to ask something but she merely sighed again and kicked a rock with her foot, having gone off with Ron barefoot. Sucking in a breath as she scraped her toe against the pavement, she couldn\'t think of anything more to say. To answer Malfoy\'s challenge was insanity, nothing more and nothing less.

\"Look, Harry can\'t bother with Malfoy. There isn\'t going to be a huge final battle, and our little battles all through last year showed us that,\" Ron pointed out as they walked.

\"Then why not wait for one of these battles, Ron?\"

\"I don\'t know. The oprotunity to get rid of Malfoy is here, and I want to do it.\"

\"I thought so. You just want to settle it with Malofy. This isn\'t about Harry, it\'s about you.\"

\"And you? I doubt that you\'re thinking about Harry when you told me to wait for a battle.\"

Hermione fell silent. She hadn\'t realized what she had said when she had said it. It just came out like a warning flag. She rarely spoke impulsively, and she always tried to choose the right words, but that sentence had come out on its own.

Then all too soon they had walked the block and were back at Hermione\'s house.

\"Can you go to Headquarters? I want someone to be with Harry,\" Ron spoke as they walked up the walkway to her door.

\"Sure, I was planning to next week like always - \"

\"No, I mean tomorrow if not tonight.\"

Hermione stared. \"You can\'t mean you\'re going off now?!\"

\"Yes, I\'m going off now! You read the note, it\'s tonight! I told Harry I was going to visit you and maybe check in with Seamus, and since Harry\'s under house arrest at Headquarters, you know that he can\'t go anywhere with me. Also Seamus\' parents always puts members up for the night when they come whether they really want to be put up for the night. I\'ll be back soon, don\'t worry.\"

\"How can you tell me not to worry?! You\'re going to go to the enemy and expect me to be calm?!\"

\"No, I expect you to be calm around Harry,\" Ron shot right back. \"I want you to make him think I\'m out on Order business - which I am - but I want you to keep up pretenses that I am doing something not-so-dangerous.\"

\"Ron, don\'t ask me to do this. I won\'t - \"

\"What do you think is going to happen if Harry finds out? He\'s going to come after me, and you know that. I can\'t afford him to escape and go straight to the last place he needs to be - \"

\"Ron - \"

\"I\'m going.\"

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn\'t. There was one question she wanted to ask, but luckily held back. It was much too selfish and in the end it was all about Harry and not about anyone else. Hermione pursed her lips and sighed.

\"Hermione - \" Ron began then quieted and started towards the walk. \"See you later.\"

Hermione stared and watched as he turned away and ducked behind a tree before apparating where no muggle could see him.

~*~

After Sirius Black\'s death, the Order was forced to move operations. Number 12 Grimmauld Place came to the Malfoy\'s since Narcissa was the oldest of the surviving realatives to the Black family. The idea that Draco Malfoy could roam where they had once plotted against him repulsed Harry. Sitting up in his room in their new headquarters in Liverpool, he sighed.

\"Harry, come sit with me.\"

Harry eyed Sirius with apprehension. Sirius was beginning to scare the fifteen-year-old. The man seemed unstable and when he likened Harry to James, it made Harry want to run away. He knew that Sirius didn\'t mean anything creepy by it, but as Harry stared at Sirius, he also wanted to sit with him.

Yet, he replied, \"I promised Hermione and Ron I\'d do something.\"

\"Oh,\" Sirius had nodded, speaking in a rather unnervingly calm tone, \"go then. Perhaps we can talk later.\"

\"Okay.\"

\"Promise?\"

\"Y - Yeah.\"

Harry bolted then and hid in a room, Hermione and Ron on the other side of the house from him.

\'I should have talked to him, sat with him,\' Harry thought as he stared out the window at the world he could not explore. \'I should have unwrapped my present. I shouldn\'t have been so selfish. I\'m always so selfish...\'

A soft knock came at the door and Harry slowly turned to look at the girl standing in it. \"Ron sent you here, didn\'t he?\"

Hermione blinked, a bit startled and then she nodded. \"Yes, he did.\"

\"What is he about? I know when he\'s lying to me,\" Harry\'s eyes averted back to the window with longing as he spoke. Then they took on a bitter tone as he continued, looking back at Hermione, \"I also know when you\'re lying to me too. Are you going to do it? What is Ron about? Where is he really? Because they deemed the Finnegan\'s home too dangerous last winter.\"

Hermione held Harry\'s gaze for the longest time, then spoke quietly, \"May I sit with you?\"

Harry went pale and then focussed his eyes to the floor. \"S - Sure.\" It was barely audible.

Hermione came and sat down beside him, smoothing out her summer dress as she sat close to him. She had always wanted siblings and if anything Harry was like a brother. He didn\'t make her heart race like Ron and Viktor, but she knew she loved him like family. She didn\'t know if he felt the same, so she kept it to herself. \"I\'m sorry.\"

\"Aren\'t we all?\"

Hermione frowned. She hated how snippy he\'d become, but she brushed it beside with a sigh. \"I promised not to tell you.\"

Harry snorted. \"What is a promise? They\'re so empty now...\" his voice trailed as he finished barely in a whisper, \"especially mine.\"

\"Oh Harry...\" Hermione put an arm around his shoulders.

Harry went to shake her off, but couldn\'t. He had barely anyone left. So many times had the almost seventeen-year-old wanted to push eveyrone away. He was the harbinger of death. He had caused this war, and he would bring it to an end with his death.

And Voldemort\'s death as well. Harry knew that was why Voldemort had yet to show his face again. After that revelation at the end of their fifth-year, Voldemort all but disappeared, and all the Order faced were merely Death Eaters or puppets. \"Wormtail told us in third-year that Voldemort possesses weapons we can\'t dream of. I\'ve been wondering what they are, and why he\'s so quiet.\"

Hermione licked her dry lips. Ron was always on her mind. She hadn\'t seen him in a week, but somehow she couldn\'t believe he was dead. Sometimes she wondered if he had been taken prisoner, but she tried to vanish those thoughts as well. She couldnt\' let Harry know her fears.

\"I can only begin to imagine,\" Hermione offered distantly.

\"It would have to be something that could wipe out muggles. He\'s probably planning some sort of cleansing or something,\" Harry spoke hurriedly, spouting out the thoughts that he hadn\'t told anyone yet. \"I tried to enter his mind a few nights ago. I caught just a glimpse of him when he was our age before he pushed me ou - \"

\"Wait.\" Hermione stared at her friend. \"You did what?\"

\"I tried to go into his mind,\" Harry replied. \"I thought that if I used what I know about Occulmency, I could reverse it.\"

Hermione frowned again, her worry lines appearing. She went to reprimand him, but decided against it. She didn\'t want to fight Harry. He could be so volitable now. Smiling, she decided to try to coax him out of his tower that he\'d confined himself to. \"Harry, your birthday is tomorrow. Let\'s celebrate it.\"

That caught Harry off guard. \"Wha...?\"

\"You heard me,\" Hermione coaxed again. \"I mean it\'s your seventeenth birthday, you\'ll be legal.\"

Harry snorted and Hermione laughed at his expression. He then studied her. \"You\'re serious, aren\'t you?\"

Hermione blinked, her eyes widening. \"Of - of course I\'m serious, Harry! It\'s your birthday. We\'re always celebrating mine and Ron - it would be, yes, wrong it would be to not celebrate yours.\"

If Harry noticed the slip, he ignored it. \"What would we do?\"

Hermione, glad for the distraction, instantly began rattling off possibilities excitedly, \"Well we\'d bake a cake naturally. We could also do so many things Harry - whatever you want to do. It\'ll be your day, and so you will get to decide what goes on.\"

Harry half-smiled at the idea, but the smile didn\'t reach his eyes. \"I\'d like that.\"

Hermione smiled and made the effor to make it reach into her eyes. \"Me too.\"

~*~

\"Defecting from the gender, Harry?\"

Hermione and Harry turned from where they were busy mixing up the cake batter. They looked much younger than seventeen. Hermione had flour streaks in her hair and a bit of batter on her nose and Harry had batter streaked across one cheek and smeared on his hand in the print of the mixing spoon. They both wore white aprons now dirtied by their venture into baking, and had showercaps over their hair to keep it out of the cake.

\"Or flirting?\" Fred Weasley added to what his twin brother, George, asked. They both wore identical mischivious grins and dragon-hide jackets.

Hermione rolled her eyes and returned the batter as Harry decided to bypass the questions. \"What are you two doing here?\"

\"What are we doing here?\" Fred jokingly looked at George, who returned the amused laugh.

\"Why, Harry, certainly you\'re making a cake other than the fact you\'re utterly bored?\"

Then Fred and George handed him a package. \"For you,\" they spoke in unison. \"Open it.\"

Harry licked the batter from his fingers so not to smudge the brightly coloured paper as Hermione gave him a rather dark look for doing so. She had told him countless times that morning not to eat the uncooked batter. That was when Harry had tapped her nose with a battered finger.

Opening the package, he looked at the object and then to the twins. \"What is it?\"

\"A new experiment,\" George answered.

\"Try it,\" Fred added.

\"In a pool of water preferably,\" they both finished.

Harry nodded and put it back in its box. \"It\'s great. I can\'t wait to try it,\" he smiled another smile that didn\'t go to his eyes, but the twins were happy that at least Harry was doing some version of smiling.

\"I\'m going to put the cake in the oven now,\" Hermione spoke up then. \"What time is it?\"

\"Ten-oh-five,\" Harry responded looking at his watch. It was one of Dudley\'s old ones that he had a wizarding clock shop fix so that it also functioned much like any other magical watch as well as tell the time. He sighed then and placed a finger over Ron\'s hand. It was still said he was alive, and for now it was enough for Harry. He hadn\'t asked for this function on the watch, but the man had done it anyway and Harry couldn\'t bring himself to ask the man to take it off. He wasn\'t keen on knowing if his friends were alive or not. The man though had spelled it so that when someone died, their hand disappeared after Harry saw it on the half of the watch that read \"death.\"

\"The cake will come out in about twenty or so minutes,\" Hermione explained as she began to soak the pan, cups, and other things they had used in hot soapy water. She had a way of doing things the muggle way instead of simply waving her wand to make the cake or wash the dishes. Looking to Harry, she surveyed him, then made a critical face. \"Harry, you might want to cha - \"

\"Hello! Hello! Someone - \" then there was a rather nasty crashing noise and a mumble of \"Sorry\" before they voice began again, \"Come quick! Is anybody....?\"

Nymphadora Tonks looked up at the four young adults who skidded into the foyer. Her hair was short and black, her eyes a very dark grey like larger and more feminine version of Sirius\'. \"Don\'t just stand there, help me!\"

Harry was first to act, soon George followed, but Fred and Hermione simply stared, both rooted to the floor. Finally, as Harry and George along with Tonks rose from the floor, Hermione screeched, \"RON!\"

~*~

\"What happened to him?!\" Harry demanded as a slightly pudgy woman closed a door quietly behind her. She had white-blonde hair up on top of her head in a fluffy and curly bun, and her middle-aged face seemed to have aged ten years.

The woman surveyed him with her blue eyes and then looked away, speaking very quietly, \"I need to speak to you,\" then she gazed about the crowded hallway in the headquarter\'s house. \"I can\'t be away of him for too long, but I need to tell you.\"

\"What is it, Madam Pomfrey...?\" someone asked quietly, no one sure who voiced their question.

\"Follow me, the hallway isn\'t the place for conversation.\" The Hogwarts\' nurse ushered the into the bedroom across the hallway, keeping both doors cracked just in case. \"Sit down, all of you.\"

Hermione gladly did since she had felt like her legs would betray her at any moment when they were in the hallway. Tonks sat down next beside her so Hermione could have another woman beside her. Harry and the twins stayed standing.

Madam Pomfrey eyed the boys, debating whether or not to make them sit, but then sighed. She didn\'t have the energy to argue with three teenage boys with macho men complexes.

\"Perhaps Tonks should start by telling you how she found him,\" Madam Pomfrey suggested, looking to the woman who now had sky blue hair and bright pink eyes and Hermione\'s nose.

Tonks nodded and then sighed. \"Early this morning someone from our intelligence networks picked up that Ron went off to reply to this letter.\" Tonks took a piece of parchment out of her pocket. \"It was found in the fire ashes, but they managed to put it back together.

Tonks unfolded the letter carefully, and then spoke, \"I won\'t read this, but I\'ll tell you what it says. Basically this note is from Draco Malfoy to Ron. It is authentic. Our analysis tell us that the origin of the letter isn\'t the problem, it\'s what happened once Ron got to the place specified in it that is.\"

\"Where did Ron go?\" Harry asked. He didn\'t even know why he asked. He had a feeling he didn\'t want to know, but normal human curiocity forced the question out.

\"He went somewhere that I can\'t tell you as of yet,\" Tonks put the letter away. \"I was on the mission to go after him, and,\" Tonks took a deep and audible breath, \"we found him in an empty room. We don\'t know quite yet how long he was there, but there are some theories floating around - \"

\"But what happened?!\" Harry cut in, standing up. \"What is wrong with him?! Why won\'t you just tell us and get it over with?! He\'s not in whatever building he was in! He\'s not missing anymore! Just tell me what is going on! Stop treating me like I\'m fragile!\"

\"Sit down,\" Fred grouched and pulled Harry down by his shirt hem.

\"And be quiet,\" George added.

\"I think it\'s your turn, Madam Pomfrey,\" Tonks said quietly, smoothing out her jean jacket pocket where she had placed the letter. \"You can exaplain what I can only say \'I saw.\'\"

Madam Pomfrey resittuated herself and then cleared her throat. \"I haven\'t seen anything like this before. I have seen this in girls, but this is the first time I\'ve ever seen this in a boy.\" Then she paused before shaking her head before continuing, keeping her voice even. It wasn\'t aparent if Madam Pomfrey wanted to cry or speak bitterly or perhaps curse tell someone off, but she kept her voice calm as she spoke the next line, \"I want you to understand before I say this that it might be some time before any of you see Ron.\"

It looked as though Harry was about to lose it again, but Tonks grabbed his hand and kept him put; an anchor in a stormy sea.

\"Ron...\" Madam Pomfrey paused and then seemed to summon something from within as she opened her mouth, her voice sounding detached from her body as she spoke, not even registering her own words, \"was raped.\"

The group stared at her. Tonks hung her head, having heard that prognosis from Kingsley Shacklebolt when the pair found Ron. He was lying in the centre of a barren room, eyes closed, stretched out, and naked. \"They wanted us to find him,\" Tonks voiced her suspicions that Kingsley shared with her.

\"Why?\" Hermione stared, again speaking without thinking. \"Why leave him where we could find him? Why not just kill him?\"

\"Because of me.\"

The group turned to Harry who had his fingers intertwined as he leaned forward, arms on his thighs as he stared down at his feet. \"This is all my fault.\"

\"Harry - \"

\"Don\'t tell me it isn\'t, Hermione,\" Harry growled. \"We both know it is. This message was meant for me, whether I sound like an egotistical pratt or not. They could have killed him, they could have made me burry him like with Sirius and Dumbledore, but this was deliberate. This is meant as a message to me.\"

The room feel silent and none dared argue. The twins were staring off at nothing, Hermione looked very pale and rather greenish, Tonks had her eyes closed and head bowed, and Harry looked to Madam Pomfrey who was watching the group. \"Can I see him?\"

Madam Pomfrey studied Harry, then nodded. \"If he is sleeping. I must warn you though, I don\'t know what he\'ll be like if he is awake.\" She rose from the rocking chair before looking at Tonks. \"He wouldn\'t let Shacklebolt touch him, would he, Tonks?\"

Tonks looked up, her eyes back to their natural charcoal grey color, her hair fading back to its natural black color as well. How Harry could tell that this was how Tonks naturally should look, he didn\'t know, but it was comforting. It was most likely because when she chose to look like what she was supposed to, she looked like a feminine version of Sirius from the pictures in his parents\' album. \"I think so - it was rather unexpected.\" Tonks stood up, dropping Harry\'s hand. \"His eyes snapped open when when we touched him, and he lashed out as best he could at Kingsley. We tried to tell him that it was okay, but he wasn\'t all there, so I had to carry him because he wouldn\'t let Kingsley even get in sight of him. He also tried to fight me off at first, but then gave up after it exhausted him and he passed out.\"

Madam Pomfrey stared hard at Tonks and then looked at Hermione. \"I think it would be best if you were the first to see him. I think I have an idea of what\'s going on, but I think it would be best he have no male visitors for a bit.\" When Harry rose off the bed, her light blue eyes latched onto him immediatly, \"No exceptions.\"

Hermione was still sitting on the bed, her hands folded in her lap. Her hair still had flour streaks through it, her nose had dried cake batter on it, and she still wore her hairnet and apron.

\"You don\'t have to if you don\'t want to,\" Madam Pomfrey looked to Hermione.

\"I do,\" Hermione\'s voice was barely above a whisper. \"I do.\" Then she rose from the bed and smoothed out her skirt and apron.

\"All right then, follow me.\" Madam Pomfrey quietly ushered Hermione across the hall and pushed the door to Ron\'s room open just a bit farther. \"Don\'t be long, I\'ll be in the hall if you need me.\"

Hermione nodded and took a deep breath, swallowing. She braced herself for something gruesome, and went through the door, closing it quietly behind. Taking a few calming breaths, Hermione slowly worked her fingers off the door, screeching at a small noise from behind her. Whipping around, she faced the bed, Ron watching her. He was pale, worn, and looked like he hadn\'t eaten or slept in days. His sky blue eyes were clouded in pain, but he was offering her a proud smile, something to spare her from the pain her was in, spare her the worry.

It only made her worry more.

\"How are you feeling?\" she placed her hands at her sides, then in front of her, and then behind her trying to find a good place to keep them.

\"I\'ve been better,\" Ron offered, looking away.

Hermione nodded and shifted her weight. She wanted to say something to him, but she didn\'t know what to say. Then an idea came to her. \"Harry and I made a cake.\"

Ron\'s eyes looked over at her again. He didn\'t seem impressed, but he responded regardless, \"Yeah?\"

\"Yes,\" Hermione smiled, hoping that it was reaching her eyes. She figured Ron needed someone to smile, show him it will all be all right. She had read so many books on magic and wizards and such that she had never really bothered to read many books that would help her deal with this situation. It was always magic theory or history books or books about Arithmancy, but nothing that could help her here. She felt so helpless. \"We can bring you a piece.\"

\"No, it\'s okay.\" Ron looked away again. \"I\'m fine.\"

Hermione nodded. \"Okay.\"

Silence descended then and Hermione compulsively brought her hands out from behind her and began to wring them, a motion to comfort her as she watched Ron helplessly. \"Is there anything I can - \"

\"NO!\"

Hermione stumbled back at the enraged shout. Her face was even paler than when she entered. She opened her mouth to say something, but could only make a squeaking noise. She tried again to say something, but all seh could do was fight the pain to cry, fight the overwhelming urge to touch him. After hearing how he\'d reacted to Kingsley touching Ron, Hermione didn\'t think it would be the right thing to do even if she was a girl.

Finally she opened her mouth to say something more, but gave up and opened the door, running past everyone in the hall and locking herself in the bathroom.

~*~

The rest of the Weasleys were in the house now, a week after Ron\'s return. It was so oddly quiet. Harry gazed around the dining table as Mrs. Weasley began setting down that night\'s supper. Looking around, Harry wet his dry lips. He hadn\'t been able to say anything coherent yet to any of them. The day after Tonks brought Ron, the owls went out. They didn\'t say what exactly what was wrong with Ron, but carried enough urgency that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley along with Ginny were there in mere seconds after reading theirs, soon followed by Bill the next day, then Percy and Penelope (his fiancée) came the day after, and finally Charlie had arrived that morning. No one spoke as they all tucked into chicken, fried potatoes, green beans, and fresh yeast rolls. The meal was over rather quickly for a Weasley meal as well. Normally everyone was talking, laughing, or joking, and the meals went on for over an hour. Now Mrs. Weasley was clearing the dishes after only having started the meal a half an hour ago.

Hermione and Ginny rose and began to help Mrs. Weasley silently. Harry stared for a moment and then looked at the kitchen stairs. There were three staircases in the house. There was the main staircase to the upstairs that was near the front door, then there was a staircase leading from beside the pantry to the root cellar, and a third servants\' staircase that led upstairs from the kitchen. It had been a week and Harry had yet to see Ron. Madam Pomfrey said he was stable enough that she neededn\'t keep watch over him all night, but there was a system rigged that if an emergency occured, she would know and floo to the room immediatly. She had planning for the new year at Hogwarts to do.

\"Don\'t, Harry.\" Hermione grasped the sleeve of his button-up shirt as he took two steps towards the servants\' steps.

Harry looked over at her. \"And why not?! He\'s my best mate!\"

\"Harry, he isn\'t fit to see anyone yet!\" Hermione held a cooking pan in a non-menacing fashion as she studied him. They were out of sight of anyone else in the kitchen, and it was unlikely anyone would go looking for them back here.

\"How do you know that? No one else has seen him since you went in there. It\'s been a week.\"

\"Harry, what happened to Ron - \"

\" - is my fault! I don\'t see why I can\'t see him. It\'s like I don\'t deserve to.\" Harry leaned against the wall near the door to the staircase that was hidden in a sham wall.

Hermione still held a firm grip on his sleeve. \"Harry, listen to me. You don\'t want to go in there, you really don\'t. Not only that, but we don\'t know how Ron would react, and - \"

\"Hermione, he knows I won\'t hurt him. Ron\'s not stupid.\"

\"Harry, he knows I wouldn\'t either, and he would barely look at me.\"

Harry searched her eyes a moment. \"But - \"

\"No.\" Hermione gripped his shirt a little tighter. \"I don\'t want that brought upon you, Harry.\"

\"What brought upon me?\" Harry frowned. \"I\'m not fragile.\"

\"I\'m not saying you are, but listen to me, Harry. Ron isn\'t ready to see anyone - \"

\"Then when will he be?! He sees Madam Pomfrey every bloody day!\" Harry shouted.

They stared at each other for the longest moment and then Hermione let go of Harry\'s sleeve, speaking darkly, \"Then go up there. I\'m only warning you for your own good, Harry.\" Then she turned on her heels and went off to help Mrs. Weasley and Ginny with the last of the dishes.

~*~

Harry silently entered the hallway, his heart echoing in his ears. He knew that he shouldn\'t be doing it, but he wanted to see Ron. Every night since he helped the twins carry Ron up to this room, he had dreampt about him. Sometimes the dreams were good dreams, like when Ron became his first ever friend, and sometimes they were bad like when Harry thought Ron would be killed when he challenged Sirius in the Shrieking Shack, but whether good or bad, they all ended with his last memory of Ron, battered, broken, bleeding, wrapped up in a rather ratty blanket.

He had to know Ron was all right. Harry knew that Madam Pomfrey left after forcing Ron to eat his supper, and since her slicker was no longer by the front door, Harry knew she had left for the night.

Harry reached Ron\'s door sooner than he had expected.

\"I\'m only warning you for your own good, Harry.\"

Again Harry wet his dry lips and swallowed. He wasn\'t sure if he wanted to see Ron. What if Ron was worse? \'No, if he\'s worse, Madam Pomfrey would still be with him,\' Harry\'s mind reasoned. Taking a deep breath, Harry slowly opened the door, and poked his head in.

Ron lay on the bed much in the same position that Hermione found him in when she had stepped in a week earlier. His face was a bit more flushed, but was still much paler than Harry had ever seen Ron before this. Ron\'s eyes were open and they fixed on Harry instantly.

\"What do you want?\"

Harry wasn\'t sure if he should enter or not, but if he had come so far as to stick his head in the door, he might as well step in and close it. As he went to shut the door, Ron hurriedly spoke despite the hoarseness of his voice, \"Keep it open...at least a little bit.\"

Harry gave him a curious look, but kept the door cracked slightly as per request.

\"I won\'t ask how you feel,\" Harry offerred and came to stand by the foot of Ron\'s bed.

Ron kept his eyes firmly locked on Harry as the younger boy moved. \"That\'s nice of you,\" the redhead replied a bit coolly.

\"Ron, I\'m not going to hurt you.\" Harry wet his lips again. The way Ron\'s eyes stayed on him was very unnerving, almost as though Ron didn\'t trust Harry any longer.

\"That remains to be seen.\"

\"Really, I won\'t.\"

Ron regarded him, but didn\'t look away though it was aparent that he wanted to. \"Why did you come in here? Didn\'t Madam Pomfrey tell you not to?\"

\"No, actually Hermione did,\" Harry replied in the same tone.

\"You should listen to her.\"

\"Look, I came because I was worried. What more do you want from me?!\" Harry raised his voice. He had only wanted to make sure Ron was all right.

\"TO GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!\" and with that said, Ron threw the covers over his head.

Harry stared and then stood a step forward. \"Ron...\"

The figure under the blankets quivered. Harry gently reached out to lift the blanket down, but found himself shot across the room, his back smacking the wall facing Ron\'s bed forcefully. Taking in a few painful breaths, Harry looked over at Ron, then grabbed his glasses off the floor where they had fallen when he hit the wall. Observing the figure under the covers again, he pursed his lips and then left the room, slamming the door behind him.

~*~

Hermione hadn\'t spoken to Harry in several days. She knew him well enough to know he had aggrivated Ron. She had told him not to go to Ron\'s room, but naturally Harry had to. Sitting up in her room, she sighed and looked down at the parchment, re-reading what she was writing.

Dear Viktor,

Things are fine over here in Britain. I\'m sorry that I had to skip out on Bulgaria again. I\'m not sure if I can make Christmas holidays either. I will come out there someday, I promise. I wish you were here. It\'s rather lonely during the summer - everyone\'s off doing their own thing.

Guess what though! I\'m Head Girl this year. I don\'t know if they have a Head Girl and a Head Boy in your school, but I\'m very happy to have this honour.

I read about you in The Daily Prophet. That\'s so exciting! I bet that Bulgaria will make it to the World Cup next year as well. I\'m wishing you the best of luck for the game this week. Perhaps you can tell me about it when you write back.

Hermione set down her quill and sighed. She wished she could tell Viktor the whole truth, but somehow it didn\'t seem owl appropriate. Picking it back up, she closed her letter.

Anyway, I hope to see you soon. I feel so bad about not coming to see you again. I\'m glad I did get to see you last summer even if it was for only a day.

Best Wishes,

Hermione Granger

Looking over at the owl to her left, she patted its head. \"Oh, Pig, you\'re so quiet.\" She sighed and then tied the note to its leg. \"You know the route, right?\"

The owl hooted. Nodding, Hermione oepend her window, addressing the small owl, \"Then go take it to the first stop.\"

Pig hooted again and then took off following part of the intricate mailing route for the members of the Order.

~*~

The school year would begin in only a few weeks. Headmistress McGonagall came one day bringing Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny\'s schoolbooks along with some food, which Mrs. Weasley accepted as she invited McGonagall into the kitchen. The elderly woman closed the door behind her as Molly busied herself with making the tea she insisted McGonagall have.

\"It\'s worse than when you were here last,\" Molly handed her former professor some tea. \"Harry also didn\'t help things at all.\"

\"He went to see him then?\"

\"Yes,\" Mrs. Weasley sighed and sunk into the chair across from McGonagall at the kitchen table. \"You know how he is - blaming himself for it all.\"

McGonagall nodded and sipped at her tea.

\"Have you gotten everything ready for this year?\" Mrs. Weasley changed the subject.

\"Yes,\" McGonagall nodded, \"we have everything in order. The new Deputy Headmaster is Filius, and we have a line of succession planned out from there.\"

\"Did you hear what Arthur\'s been saying?\"

\"Yes, and we\'re still working on a way to bring the muggle born wizard anad witches to Hogwarts safely. I\'m considering keeping the students in HOgwarts over the holidays if it gets too bad. The last thing I want is to let them out for two weeks and have barely any of them return to me after the new year.\"

Mrs. Weasley nodded understandingly. Voldemort wouldn\'t have attempted anything so forward, but with Dumbledore gone, anything seemed a possibility, and Ron merely seemed to accentuate that point. McGonagall set down her teacup and then looked to Mrs. Weasley. \"We\'re expecting something ghastly soon.\"

Mrs. Weasley studied the older woman, but before she could ask what, there was a pop! and Percy appeared. \"Oh!\" Blinking, the twenty-one-year-old cleared his throat. \"Sorry if I\'m distrubing you.\"

\"It\'s all right, Percy,\" Mrs. Weasley replied.

\"I came to see,\" Percy glanced at McGonagall then looked back to his mother, dropping his voice, \"how Ron\'s doing. Can I see him yet?\"

Mrs. Weasley looked at her middle son, and then shook her head. \"No, not yet.\"

Percy nodded, then gave McGonagall a brief smile. \"It was good to see you, Headmisstress. Good luck this year. Sorry I have to go so soon. Just checking in,\" and at the end of that sentence, Percy disapperated before their eyes.

\"He rarely stays long,\" Mrs. Weasley explained, but still looked a bit put out.

\"I\'ve seen the looks they give him,\" McGonagall acknowleged what Mrs. Weasley wouldn\'t say.

\"I\'m just glad that \'they\' were wrong,\" Mrs. Weasley sighed as she and McGonagall rose from the table. \"You have to go now, don\'t you?\"

\"Yes, I merely decided to stop in and check on things before returning to work. There\'s much left to do yet,\" McGonagall sighed.

\"Best of luck,\" Mrs. Weasley offered as she opened the door for McGonagall.

\"And to you,\" McGonagall paused at the door and gave her a reassuring, sympathetic smile, \"the best of luck.\" Then she disappeared down the street and out into the world.

~*~

Hermione snapped awake and then looked around her wildly. Reminding herself that she was in one of the rooms in the new Order headquarters, Hermione flopped back into a lying position on her bed and glanced out the window, Ginny snoring very lightly in the bed to her left.

Sighing, she simply stared up at the stars. One time Sirius had been talking to Harry and her, and pointed out to a fairly bright star in the sky. Of course both she and Harry knew the star was Sirius, but they humoured the man regardless as he told them that like they were young children he could teach the world to.

Feeling rather guilty, Hermione went to close her eyes and try to vanish the thoughts so she could go asleep when her eyes snapped open again and she leaned over to the window, looking out into the night.

\"Hermione...?\" Ginny asked, but recieved a \"hush\" gesture from Hermione. Getting out from her sheets, Ginny soon joined Hermione on the bed nearest the window, both teenagers peering out into the night. Then they froze.

\"Did you hear...?\"

\"Y - Yes...\"

Exchanging glances, both girls raced into the hallway, rising the whole house.

~*~

\"We expected this,\" Arthur Weasley frowned at the group gathered around the table.

\"We should have stopped it,\" Kingsley whispered, staring bitterly down at the table where he picked at the edge of it.

\"We didn\'t know when it was going to happen,\" Tonks offered him. \"We never did, and even if we had, could we have stopped it?\"

\"No,\" Alistair \"Mad-Eye\" Moody shook his head in agreement. \"We couldn\'t have stopped it.\"

\"Is it world-wide?\" Sturgis Podmore inquired then. \"Or was it local?\"

\"World-wide,\" Remus Lupin confirmed quietly.

\"How many of our own did we lose?\" Mrs. Weasley asked quietly, her voice shaking slightly.

\"Of those not at Hogwarts or another secure place, we lost fifty-two members,\" Remus scanned a sheet in front of him as he reported. \"Those in the local group of the Order that were lost was Arabella Figg, Emmeline Vance, and Mundungus Fletcher.\"

The Order fell to silence as Remus read off the names of those lost and then after he was done, the first to break the silence was Eliphias Dodge, rather elderly wizard, \"What exactly did this thing do? Can it do it again?\"

\"As far as we know,\" Mr. Weasley spoke evenly, \"it killed millions of muggles on all continents, but was not strong enough to kill them all. It was loosed in several large cities, but most rual areas and majorities of sparsely populated countries were nearly untouched. Only where crowding was a problem was this weapon at its worst.

\"Not only did it wipe out any muggle in the areas that it was in, but also it killed all squibs, and many muggle-born wizards and witches are in countless hospitals - both muggle and magical - badly injured. We\'ve never seen anything quite like it before, but our intelligence thinks that it could come again.\"

\"What of the children then?\" Sturges asked then. \"You know, the muggle-borns who are too little to come to their respective schools.\"

\"That\'s for each country to decide,\" McGonagall spoke then. \"Hogwarts is too small to house all of the orphaned muggle-borns that are not of age. Those who are have already been gathered up and taken there. However, if they did have a younger sibling, they too were allowed to come.

\"Wizarding orphanages in London, Edinbergh, and Shropshire are over capacity. Right now everything is in chaos, and all I know is that by all accounts every Hogwarts student expected to arrive this year is alive so far.\"

The \"so far\" reverberated throughout the group around the table.

\"Another part of the chaos is that not all muggles in all cities were affected by this weapon, but we don\'t think that they have magical abilities, they most likely skirted the weapon somehow. That is another reason why Hogwarts can\'t take in any children that shouldn\'t be in it as of yet, we don\'t know which children have magic and which children do not.\"

\"So what do we do?\" came a feeble question.

\"Start trying to figure out what Voldemort let loose on the muggles.\"

~*~

\"Are you sure?\"

\"Yes.\"

\"You can always - \"

\"No, really, I\'m ready.\"

\"Very well then.\"

Madam Pomfrey left Ron and stepped into the hall. \"I want to start this out slowly. We can\'t go too fast. I don\'t even know if he\'s ready, but if he has an averse reaction, we will stop immediatly. Understand?\"

Ginny nodded.

\"All right then,\" Madam Pomfrey smiled at the sixth-year, \"you can go in.\"

Ginny nodded and followed Madam Pomfrey into the room. \"Hi, Ron.\"

Ron was sitting up, but was still pale and had lost much of his muscle tone, but was still rather skinny. \"Hi.\"

Ginny nervously looked to Madam Pomfrey, who nodded.

\"I\'ve missed you,\" Ginny clasped one hand around her other elbow behind her back as she spoke slowly. She wanted to hug him, to touch him, to make sure he was truely real and not just something he was making up. He looked horrible, and she just wanted to hug him and tell him it would be all right. Yet, Madam Pomfrey said not to touch him in any way, so Ginny simply stood behind the foot board of the bed and gave him an awkward smile.

\"I missed you too,\" Ron gave her a forced smile, but his eyes were still cloudy with thought.

Ginny opened her mouth to say something, but couldn\'t think of a thing to say. She wanted to hug him and cry and tell him she loved him and she was so happy he was okay, but she had to stay put. She couldn\'t even reach out and gently touch his toe for even a nanosecond. Madam Pomfrey told her that Ron just wasn\'t ready for that, and that Ginny should try to act as normally as possible around him.

Somehow she just couldn\'t, but she had volunteered, so Ginny tried to do the best she could. \"Hermione\'s Head Girl.\"

\"I know.\"

\"Oh...er...uh...\"

\"What did Harry get for his birthday?\"

Ginny blinked. It was a few weeks into August and she hadn\'t been present when Harry had opened most his gifts and when she had come to the headquarters, the last thing on her mind was what Harry got on his birthday.

\"Well...I think that he and Hermione made a cake - but they burnt it,\" Ginny wrinkled her nose at the thought of the smell of burnt cake, \"and Fred and George gave him something that he won\'t show me.\"

\"He probably doesn\'t want to open the box,\" Ron offered.

Ginny studied him a moment and resisted sighing visibly. He was merely going through the motions. It was as though he was trying to prove to Madam Pomfrey that indeed he could go to school with the others. Secretly, Ginny hoped Ron would be forced to stay at the Headquarters. He easily could study his subjects here and graduate, but Ron wanted to go back on the first day of school. It had to be some sort of manly Gryffindor pride complex was all Ginny could think of to explain it. She knew Ron wasn\'t ready, but didn\'t voice it.

\"Professor McGonagall came by and brought our books.\"

\"I know, that was last week, Gin.\"

\"Oh...right,\" Ginny laughed nervously, and Ron merely watched her. Blinking, Ginny noted that he always had his eyes on her or Pomfrey as though watching them. Dismissing it as her own nervousness playing tricks on her, Ginny smiled for him, but it didn\'t reach her eyes like Harry\'s smile.

\"That\'s enough!\" Ron looked away from her. \"I\'ve had enough! No more!\"

\"Alright,\" Madam Pomfrey nodded. \"You did well, Ron.\"

\"JUST GO!\"

The nurse nodded and ushered Ginny out of the room, leaving the door slightly cracked so that Ron couldn\'t see out, but he could always be assured that he wasn\'t locked in the room with no escape.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry Potter\'s final year in Hogwarts went as any could guess. There of course was a new Defence teacher and Voldemort moblized a weapon unlike any known to recordered history. The Purging of the Muggles during the summer of 1997 was only the beginning. As the year progressed, the weapon evolved until finally the Order discovered that it was near its finalization.

Teams assembled and an elaborate plan concocted. At the centere of if was Harry Potter naturally, and he fought Voldemort, but was only able to force him back, and then the rest is speculation. Voldemort and Harry were now alone and finished their final battle, both disentigrating, leaving two identical burn marks, a phoenixfeather resting in the middle of each.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

\"You look beautiful, love.\"

Hermione turned around and smiled. \"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley.\"

Mrs. Weasley appraised the twenty-two-year-old woman and then smiled. \"He is a very lucky young man that Viktor Krum.\"

\"I know what you think,\" Hermione met Mrs. Weasley\'s eyes, \"and I\'m glad that you are still speaking to me.\"

\"Why wouldn\'t I speak to you? I can\'t choose who my children love or who they choose to let go,\" she put an arm over Hermione\'s shoulder, leading the girl in the long white dress to the floor-length mirror. \"Besides, it isn\'t worth being anything but happy over.\"

Hermione nodded in appreciation and then examined herself. She was still petite with stubborn bushy hair that was now crowned with small white and pink flowers. Her dress was pure white and a princess-cut, the collar thick and draped over as though it was paper folded up and over. The dress was flattering and the veil even more.

Hermione gave Mrs. Weasley a nervous smile. \"I\'m so nervous. I keep thinking, \'What if I trip? What if the twins set off something? What if? What if? What if?\'\" She sighed as Mrs. Weasley helped her put on the finishing touches. \"Did you feel like this when you married Mr. Weasley?\"

Mrs. Weasley smiled. \"Yes, I was, very much so.\" She laughed then and continued, \"I kept dropping my flowers, but luckily I didn\'t when I walked the asile.\"

\"Do you think I could - \"

\"Hermione, don\'t worry,\" Mrs. Weasley spoke gently. If anything she saw Hermione as another daughter. \"It will all be fine.\"

Hermione nodded and swallowed. \"I don\'t want to cry, but...\"

\"It\'ll be all right,\" Mrs. Weasley began handing Hermione tissues. \"They\'re watching and smiling, I bet you.\"

Hermione nodded. \"It\'s just...Oh dear...\" Blotting at her eyes, Hermione took in a few deep breaths as Ginny appeared at the door.

\"They\'re lined up!\"

\"Already?!\" Hermione gasped and soon she and Mrs. Weasley were in a rush of action.

\"I\'ve come to get you, Mum - \"

\"Ronald Weasley, how dare you just walk in here - \"

\"I have to seat you before Gin can come out, you know,\" Ron leaned against the door frame, his ears bright red. Looking to Hermione, he gave her a small smile.

She smiled back, and then Ron looked away at his mother, speaking wearily, \"Mum, they\'re lined up.\"

\"Don\'t rush me, Ronald,\" Mrs. Weasley quipped, then gave Hermione, a hug and kiss on the cheek. \"Arthur will be down here shortly. Best of luck, love.\" Then she took Ron\'s arm and they left Ginny and Hermione to wait for Mr. Weasley to come to walk Hermione down the asile as Ginny, Luna, and two of Viktor\'s cousins could lead the way for her to walk the asile.

~*~

They were all lined up now. Hermione had kissed Mr. Weasley goodbye on the cheek and now was standing along with her Maid of Honour (Ginny), and her three other brides\' maids (Luna, Alanna, and Nadia). Viktor stood with his Best Man and fellow Quidditch teammate Anton and his other grooms\' men (Ron, and Viktor\'s brothers Ivan and Nicholi). Ron stood as straight as he could. He was just as tall as Anton merely because Anton had slight heels on his dress shoes. Ron resisted the urge to look around. It was a custom in the Krum family to symbolize the blending of families by having people of both families be brides\' maids and gromms\' men. Ron closed his eyes, but forced them back open. When he woke up that morning, he\'d feel light-headed, but figured it was due to the bachelor party from the night before. For a while he\'d always believed that if he was at Hermione\'s wedding, he would be the groom, but now, he could barely think straight to remember that. He could have asked ehr to marry him, but everytime he tried, he couldn\'t. It was as though something inside of him told him not to ask her, that it wouldn\'t end well.

He gritted his teeth and sighed inwardly. He had hoped that it was simply a twelve hour bug, or a cold, or the flu, but he knew he had a fever. He had to keep going though, he had to give a toast - though he wasn\'t looking forward to it - at the reception, and do a myriad of other things that grooms\' men were expected to do, even if at times the other grooms\' men\'s accents were too thick to understand.

\"...take this...\"

Ron stood as straight as possible as the reverend continued. The words kept coming in and out of his ears like he was sloshing through water, sometimes under it, sometimes above it. He also wondered if the snipets he heard wasn\'t just his mind remembering the speech that everyone knows by elementary school.

\"I do,\" came Hermione\'s soft voice and Ron struggled to keep his face straight. He glanced out into the crowd and noticed none were noticing the fact that they seemed to be spinning. Yet, people didn\'t spin, did they?

\"...be your wife?\"

\"I do,\" Viktor answered and Ron took in a breath, not realizing he\'d been holding his. Yet the room wouldn\'t stop spinning, and it seemed to be getting closer. As he felt arms encircle him, he heard a high screech of \"RON!\" before his eyes shut and it all went black.

~*~

He\'d heard these noises before. He\'d felt these clothes and blankets before. He knew where he was.

Slowly Ron opened his eyes and then squinted before turning away from the bright lights overhead. \"Urgh....\"

\"Ron!\" he heard someone exclaim.

\"What?\" Irritably, Ron opened his eyes and allowed them to adjust to the blazing lights of a local hospital. He\'d once been in a hospital before during the end of the war when he fought Draco Malfoy and won.

\"I\'m just glad you\'re all right, don\'t bite my head off,\" Ginny mumbled.

\"Welcome back to the world of the living, Ron. We missed you,\" Luna smiled her dreamy smile as she spoke in an ethereal voice.

Ron ignored her and looked around, before groaning. He felt so cold. \"What happened?\"

\"You fainted, and are burning with fever,\" a man\'s voice explained.

\"You should have said something, Ron!\" a woman\'s voice reprimanded.

Ron opened his eyes and then felt like crawling up and dying. Not only was Ginny and Luna there, but also Viktor, Hermione, and the rest of the wedding procession along with the rest of the Weasleys. To his relief, however, the procession weren\'t still in their wedding clothes. If they were, he would have felt much worse.

\"Excuse us. Comming through.\" Two medi-witches appeared, parting the seas of Bulgarians to Ron\'s left. \"Mr. Weasley, we\'re going to need to draw some blood.\"

Ron groaned. He hated this. Grumbling, he thrust out his left arm begrudgingly and gritted his teeth when the pricked him with the needle. Blood drawing always made him nervous. He could feel the blood going up the needle, and resisted the urge to grab it and throw it across the room. The lead medi-witch nodded to the intern, who took the blood away and the older medi-witch pressed a cloth on the wound, taping it up and putting a spell on it to make it clot easier. in the area of the puncture wound. \"There you go, Mr. Weasley. You\'re one of the better patients we\'ve had go through that. You didn\'t break our syringe.\" Then she wandered off, the Bulgarians filling the space they had let her through as soon as she cleared it.

\"You guys don\'t have to stick around,\" Ron looked to Hermione and Viktor pointedly. \"I mean it\'s just a fever - \"

\"That was dangerously high,\" Charlie spoke on the tail of Ron\'s sentence. \"You should have said something, we could have used a spell or potion.\"

\"I felt fine,\" Ron lied. \"If I had known I would pass out, I would have said something.\"

No one believed it, but they accepted the statement.

\"Sorry.\"

\"Don\'t be,\" Viktor spoke, making a motion with his hand as though he was litterally pushing the matter aside. \"It\'s okay.\"

\"Yes,\" Hermione nodded. \"It\'s fine.\"

Ron eyed them skeptically, but merely nodded. \"Thanks.\"

\"We\'re going to leave tonight,\" Hermione told him. \"We\'re going to France for our honeymoon, and then we\'re going to Bulgaria. I don\'t know when we\'ll be back up here yet.\"

Ron nodded again. \"It\'s okay.\"

Hermione gave him a dubious look then nodded. Viktor looked around and then stood, the others filing out with him.

\"You\'re lucky.\"

\"Don\'t start, Ron.\"

\"I\'m not,\" Ron looked over at her. \"I\'m just saying that you are, and I\'m sorry.\"

\"For what?\"

\"Being a tosser.\"

\"Ron, you are not a tosser!\"

Ron gave her a weak smile, and shivered. \"I don\'t want you to catch this.\"

Hermione pursed her lips and merely nodded. \"I think I\'ll chance it.\"

Ron sighed, \"Well if you say so...I think it\'s probably a really bad flu or something.\"

Hermione studied him, then nodded. \"Anyway, I should get going. I\'ll see you later.\"

Ron nodded, then Hermione leaned over and kissed his cheek and smiled. \"Get better.\" Then she walked out of the room, Ron watching her as she left.

~*~

\"Are you doing all right?\"

Ron looked over his shoulder at the young man behind him. \"Yes, and be quiet. I can\'t think straight.\"

The young man ran a hand through his wavy brown hair, and sighed. He looked no more than sixteen, but was much older and very gifted. \"I was just - \"

\"Shush.\" Ron glanced at him. \"Are you ready?\"

\"Yeah.\"

Ron exchanged glances with the nineteen-year-old and then they disapparated. The instant they apparated at their location, Ron covered his mouth, coughing. The younger auor frowned. \"You need to get that cough looked at.\"

Ron waved a hand as the fit paused. \"It\'s not too bad, just a bit annoying. Let\'s go, Dennis.\"

Dennis Creevy nodded and followed, glancing at Ron as the older man coughed twice more dryly before clearing his throat and recovering enough to stand straight. They had a job to do.

~*~

\"I\'m worried about Ron.\"

The secretary behind the desk looked up Dennis curiously from where her Quick Writing Quill was scrawling a report for her boss. \"Dear, we all are. He\'s been worrying me since I first met him.\"

\"No, I mean...\" Denis sighed and brushed his brown hair out of his eyes. \"I mean something just seems wrong.\"

\"Well I wouldn\'t know,\" the woman tutted. \"He was like that in school.\"

~*~

Ron stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. Stepping onto the scale he frowned. Sighing, he ran his hand over his face and then shook the water out of his head, making a rather frustrated noise. Standing in front of the mirror, he gingerly touched his neck and winced before pausing.

\"Damn,\" gritting his teeth, Ron ran his finger over a raised scratch on the back of his neck. \"Not another one...\" Opening the second drawer under his sink in the very small flat bathroom, Ron took out a skin toner and gently applied it to to the abrasion. Sighing, he lifted up his arm and poked at another one like it. Frowning, he parted the curtains of his bathroom and checked the temperature gauge before murming, \"Finally.\"

Putting the concealer back into its drawer, Ron stepped out of the bathroom, put on a long sleeved shirt and pants. It was a day in the office, which meant paperwork, but it also meant a slow day. He could take a break and relax. He was so tired, but he had to keep going. It wasn\'t that bad being an auor.

Checking that he had everything, Ron disapparated and then apparated inside his office, before starting. \"Dennis! Don\'t do that!\"

\"Do what?\" Dennis glanced at him. \"Ron, do you even know what we\'re doing today?\"

\"It\'s an office day, unless we got a call.\"

\"Yes, we did last night. We even talked about it.\" Dennis folded his arms, casting a critical eye over his senior. \"Ron, you look terrible. Have you been sleeping?\"

\"Of course I have,\" Ron sighed.

Dennis opened his mouth and then shut it, \"Come on, we\'re late.\"

Ron nodded absently, and prepared to apparate when Dennis grabbed his arm. \"We\'re going to Liverpool.\"

Ron nodded again and the pair disapparated.

~*~

\"You look like Death.\"

\"No, Fred, I think Death is beautiful compared to this.\"

Ron glowered darkly from where he sat at the kitchen table. The twins exchanged looks and then as one they flipped two chairs around and sat so that their arms drapped over the backs of them. \"You need some rest,\" Fred noted.

Ron looked away from him. They were all sitting in the Weasley kitchen. Fred and Angelina would be married next spring and the twins and Ron were at the Weasley house waiting for the bride-to-be to arrive so that she and Fred could announce their engagement offically, even though it wasn\'t a big secret.

\"You\'re also wearing makeup,\" Fred reached out to touch a caked on patch on Ron\'s neck but the younger Weasley recoiled.

\"I\'m not wearing makeup.\"

\"Then let me touch it.\"

Ron opened his mouth but before a retort could come out, Mrs. Weasley came in from the front room. \"What are you three doing down here?\"

\"Nothing,\" the three sons chourused.

Mrs. Weasley eyed Ron a moment and then looked to the twins. \"Well if you\'re going to sit around here, the least you can do is set the table.\"

Groaning, the three men got up and began to set the table much as they had as young children. Ron reached into the drawer to grab out enough forks for the Weasley family plus Angelina, Penelope, and Percy\'s two kids, though they were toddlers when Mrs. Weasley grabbed his hand.

\"Mum - \" Ron tried to free his hand, but Mrs. Weasley held it tightly.

\"Ronald, I\'m taking your temperature.\"

\"Mum - \"

\"Don\'t argue with me,\" Mrs. Weasley quipped and shoved the thermometer in her son\'s mouth.

Fred and George glanced at Ron and then slowly slipped out of the room. Ron watched them and then took the thermometer out of his mouth. \"Mum, they put you up to this, didn\'t they? I feel fine! I - \" Mrs. Weasley put the thermometer back in his mouth.

\"I just wanat to see if you have a fever. I\'d suggest you not touch Kate or Nick with a rash like that either.

Ron looked down at his left hand and then shrugged. \"I\'m oasf.\"

Mrs. Weasley narrowed her eyes. \"Then why are you wearing makeup.\" Reaching out, Mrs. Weasley\'s finger got dangerously close to the patch on Ron\'s neck, but he evaded her.

\"I\'f nof.\"

\"Ronald Weasley, I am not stupid.\" She snatched the termometer from his mouth and sighed. \"You\'ve got a slight fever. You\'ve been overworking yourself. You need your rest.

\"So, you\'re going straight to your room and going to sleep.\"

Ron goggled her. \"You\'re not serious - \"

\"Ronald, you don\'t expect me to let you sit by two small children. They won\'t stay away, especially Kate. I can\'t risk you giving them whatever you have.\"

Ron sighed, and ran a hand down his face, looking over at his mother. \"I can\'t believe you\'re sending me to bed.\"

\"I am, and if you know what\'s good for you, you\'ll see the doctor.\"

Ron opened his mouth then closed it, looking away. \"I\'ll go home then.\" He stopped when his mother grabbed his clear hand.

\"Ron, stay the night. You\'re worrying me. I think I\'d feel better if you stayed. Tomorrow is Sunday, you don\'t have work.\"

Ron looked over at her, then nodded. \"Alright, I\'ll stay.\"

Mrs. Weasley smiled. \"I\'ll bring something up before they get here.\"

Ron nodded and then retired to his room, falling instantly asleep on his old bed.

~*~

He got up and looked down at his pillow before cursing under his breath. There was skin tone smudged all over his pillow and sheets. This of course meant that there was none on him, nor had he brought any of it with him since he hadn\'t expected to spend the night. Ron thought about apparating to his flat to get some, but then shook his head. His mother would know he had. She always knew these things.

He didn\'t have a clean change of clothes either except for some fairly old clothes in his dresser. Eyeing it, he opened the dresser and pulled out a turtle neck that was a hand-me-down from Percy, and some pants he knew were rather short in the legs and tight, but it was that or smell.

Pulling ont he pants, he sucked in his stomach to button them and then paused. Letting out his breath, Ron frowned as he easily buttoned the pants, which fit him so that they hung low, resting on his hips, and hung loosely against his legs. The shirt was similar, but it was still too short in the arms whether it fit loosely or not. Groaning, he checked the small mirror and sighed in relief that the abrasion was covered by the neck.

Slowly he walked down the stairs and stopped short in the kitchen. It was odd for Sunday morning for only Mrs. Weasley to be sitting at the table. \"Morning, Mum.\"

\"Good morning.\"

\"Where\'s Dad?\" Ron reached into the refrigerator and retrived some orange juice.

\"At work.\"

Ron almost dropped the bottle, but managed to set it down on the counter instead. \"But...isn\'t it Sunday?\"

Mrs. Weasley shook her head. \"I tried to wake you earlier, but you were out cold.\"

Ron frowned. \"I should get to work then. What time is it?\"

\"It\'s almost three o\'clock in the afternoon.\"

Ron sighed, his stomach growling rather loudly. Pouring his glass one-third of the way full with juice, he came and sat down by his mother, sighing. \"I\'m still tired. I\'m always tired.\"

\"You are twenty-three-years-old, Ron, and I\'m going to say something that is very hard for me to say, but I have said it to Bill, Charlie, Percy, the twins, and now it is your turn,\" Mrs. Weasley spoke quietly as Ron set his glass down. \"I am your mother, and I know that what I want to do right now is tell you exactly what to do and force you to do it. However, you are your own man, you have grown up and made something of yourself and I cannot - and do not have the right to - tell you what to do.\"

Ron nodded for her to continue.

Mrs. Weasley took a deep breath and then took his clear hand. \"So, as an adult to an adult, a mother to her grown child, this is what I\'m suggesting you do. You don\'t have to do it, but it\'s just what I would make you do if you were younger and still under my care.\" She paused then and studied him before continuing, \"If I were you, I would go and seek out a doctor before this flu gets worse, because I\'m beginning to wonder if it is \'just a really bad flu.\'\"

Ron held her gaze and nodded. \"I\'ve been thinking about that. I really don\'t like doctors, but I\'m planning on going.\"

Mrs. Weasley smiled and then rose from the table. \"If you want anything, just tell me and I\'ll get it for you in case this is \'a really bad flu.\'\"

~*~

Ron walked into the room and glanced around. It\'d been a while since he had actually gone to the family doctor. Once he turned seventeen he never ever made appointments or did much of anything that had to do with them. He had seen Madam Pomfrey for Quidditch-related injuries, and there was the time in the hospital the year before, but other than that, he had been doctor free for six years. He went up to the receptionist and got a set of annoying forms to fill out and sat down in one of the waiting room chairs, coughing dryly a few times before picking up the pen she gave him and started to fill out the form.

After it was all completed and he had double-checked everything, he went back up to the witch at the counter and handed it over. She smiled and told him the doctor would be with him in a second, and then she spelled the pen clean.

A few moments later a medi-witch appeared and escorted Ron to an empty room and instructed him to sit up on the bed and wait for the doctor. Watching her leave, Ron looked around the room. The last time he went to see the family doctor he was sixteen and had to renew his shots for Hogwarts. Wizards couldn\'t spell sickness away, and just like all muggle children shots were very important for even wizards to take during their school years.

After ten minutes that felt like twenty, the door opened and a man of about medium height walked into the room. He looked at Ron and offered him a kind smile. \"Well if isn\'t Ronald Weasley. I hope you\'re doing well.\" The doctor began to gather what he thought he would need as Ron watched him, thinking sarcastic thoughts. Finally the doctor turned to him and appraised him. \"I heard that you have been having a bad flu lately.\"

\"Yeah,\" Ron affirmed. In the area where The Burrow was located despite the distance between houses, everyone knew everybody else\'s business in the area it seemed, and they all went to the same doctor.

\"And how long has this been going on?\" the docotor asked as he walked over to Ron, glancing into his eyes with an ophthalmoscope.

\"I\'ve had it off and on for a while now, but it\'s been really bad since about a year or so, since June,\" Ron replied. He hated this and felt like cattle or some other prized livestock.

The doctor nodded and stepped back, apraising his patient. \"Take your shirt off.\"

Ron sighed and pulled off his turtleneck, and then blinked as the doctor put a wet cloth in his hands.

\"I need you to wash off that makeup you\'re wearing.\"

Ron blinked. \"But - \"

\"Ronald, how can I give you a check up if you\'re covering up things I need to see?\"

Ron eyed him then nodded, washing off the concealer on his neck and off a small spot on his forehead. The doctor watched and then took back the cloth, sterlizing it with a flick of his wand. \"Alright,\" the doctor took a deep breath before continuing, \"I\'m going to ask you something that is going to probably make you a bit angry.\"

Again Ron wanted to say something sarcastic, but held his tongue. \"Okay...\"

\"Have you ever done drugs or carried on a homosexual relationship?\"

Ron stared and moved his mouth but no sound came out, his ears going bright red.

\"I\'ll take that as a no,\" the doctor spoke in a business-like fashion, writing something down on a piece of paper. \"Although, I have seen this before, but usually in patients that can answer yes to one or both of those questions.

\"Now, have you had a blood transfusion ever? Perchance during the time that wizards were also using muggle hospitals since ours were overflowing?\"

Ron shook his head. \"Not that I know of.\"

\"Peculiar,\" the doctor mumured as he eyed Ron. \"Well, Mrs. Weasley, I have an inkling as to what you might have, but not as to how you contracted it.\"

\"Which would be?\" Ron hated how his doctor always strung things out. All he wanted was answers and then to go home.

\"I won\'t say yet, but go and see my collegue down at a muggle clinic not far from here.\" His doctor scribbled an address down on a piece of paper and then handed it to Ron. \"Go and see him and ask for an HIV test.\"

Ron dropped the paper. \"A what?!\"

\"You heard me,\" the doctor replied. \"Now go and get it done.\"

~*~

\"Ron, what are you doing?\"

Ron looked up from where he was rummaging through his desk putting files and such into a large box. \"What does it look like I\'m doing?\"

\"Putting your work in a box to take home,\" Dennis replied, \"but that\'s not the answer I was hoping for.\" The twenty-year-old stepped aside as his senior walked past him to grab something important off a file cabinent not far away. \"I got a note that said I\'m switching over to somebody else for an indefinite ammount of time - what\'s going on?\"

\"I\'m taking a vacation,\" Ron responded.

\"A what?! It\'s October! It\'s the busiest time of the year! All the muggle loons will be out and about doing \'magic\' and those who had latent magical abilities that made them too old for school are going to do stupid things like always! You can\'t leave us right now, we need the most people we can get.\"

\"I know and I\'m sorry, but trust me, if I could stay, I would stay.\"

\"What does that mean? Did they lay you off or something?\" Dennis watched as Ron stopped mid-stride.

\"You could say that,\" Ron murmured, tucking one last thing into his box. \"I decided to do some work from home.\"

Dennis sighed. \"What is going on? I heard you shouting with the Minister this morning, so I came down after my meeting with O\'Reilly only to find you packing up a quarter of your office!\"

\"You know I can\'t tell you what we talked about in that meeting,\" Ron glanced at Dennis.

\"But...\"

\"I\'m sorry,\" Ron spoke quietly. \"I don\'t know when I\'ll be back - if I\'ll be back, but if you ever need the files, you know where to find me.\"

Dennis nodded. \"I\'ll stop by every so often, tell you what\'s going on here.\"

Ron nodded absently then picked up the box, testing its weight. \"Excuse me.\" He pushed past Dennis who was blocking the door and started off to the Floo Network.

\"Ron, where are you going? Aren\'t you going to apparate?\"

\"No, I\'m going to floo to the nearest Floo Network near my flat.\"

Dennis eyed him worriedly. \"You always complain about flooing though,\" the younger man pointed out. \"What\'s going on?\"

\"Nothing,\" was all Ron said before walking into one of the fireplaces and flooing to the branch of the Floo Network nearest his flat.

~*~

He was lying on the floor of his flat, a few bottles lined up beside him, a discarded instruction sheet on the floor. There were so many vitamin pills and so man rules about how to eat. He had to keep a well-ballanced diet going and had to keep making sure he got enough of all the vitamins in the various jars. He glanced off at the ceiling after taking the bottle of Vitamin C out of his site, placing it on the floor. The test results had come in over the weekend. His life was ending, and his boss was so very close to firing him.

Ron had heard that those with HIV could live for years after it showed up, that they weren\'t going to go spreading the disease around by touching and such, but he remembered the fear in his boss\' eyes when he told him. He remembered their shouting match that allowed Ron only to keep his job because he brought up the non-discriminatory policy that the Ministry loosely followed and rarely people challenged. He told his boss he would be the first, and his boss told him to go work at home and stay there until further notice. HIV and AIDS had been in the world for for about or maybe over twenty-years, and even after proof, people still feared getting it from simple contact with an infected person.

Ron stared blankly up at the ceiling. He didn\'t know how many more years he had to live, if that. He was sure it was years. It was 2003 after all, and medical advancements in the muggle world which had been adopted by wizards made it possible to live longer. Although he wondered if he even wanted to live longer now. He had asked what would happen if he was positive, and the doctor had said, \"Your immune system is deteriorating. Eventually you will succumb to AIDS or a simple disease that your body can\'t fight off because your immune system is that weak.\"

Ron threw the vitamin bottle near his hand across the apartment, hearing it ricochet off the door. He hadn\'t told anyone except for his boss. He knew that he couldn\'t hide it from the man, also he figured there was some law somewhere that said he had to. He didn\'t have to tell Dennis or his family, but by legal obligation, he had to tell his boss.

\"And why would I keep you around? You\'re just going to infect the rest of us if you haven\'t already.\"

\"You can\'t get what I have just by being in the same room as me.\"

\"Weasley, your fired!\"

\"You can\'t fire me!\"

\"Why not?!\"

\"Because of the non-discriminatory policy.\"

Ron snorted. He doubt that there was such a thing, but he had to think of something so he could keep his job. Without a job there was no insurance or money. He wouldn\'t be able to do what the sheet said and things would start to spiral out of his control sooner than they would if he followed the sheet.

Again he wondered if he even wanted to. Waiting for death wasn\'t something he was too keen on, but he wondered if it was even worth getting there. Lying in a hospital someday dying wasn\'t that appealing either. He could end it now. He could just take his wand and die right there, but Ron wasn\'t one for suicide, even if it sounded rather tantalizing at that moment. He also knew that he had to tell others. He couldn\'t keep this to himself, and he couldn\'t hide from them either. Yet the most puzzling thing was how he contracted it. He wasn\'t a drug user, he wasn\'t gay, and he certainly hadn\'t had a blood transfusion from muggles. Although his boss had called him a poof and acted like the ugly side of the Ministry, but somehow Ron had kept his job, but he feared that reaction from everyone else.

He wondered who would ostracize who. If he voluntarily stepped away from eveyrone, they wouldn\'t have the chance to tell him things he\'d rather not hear. They would ask or accuse him of being queer, they would never touch him again, or invite him over. He knew that he was probably going to be alone in this hell. Even though science proved that you couldn\'t contract the disease through everyday contact, that didn\'t mean people believed it, especially in the wizarding community since muggles had announced it. If anything, HIV and AIDS were virtually ignored by wizards since so few of them came down with the disease. There was no magical cure, but just by luck had it not spread through them yet.

He wanted to end it now for other reasons as well. When he went to get his tests done, they asked for a list of people he had sex with over his lifetime. He went to write none and then he froze.

He had hid it away from himself, he truely had. He had pushed it to the back of his mind, locked it away, and only let it flash if someone made any unwanted advancement. It took so long for him to overcome the incident. He knew that it hadn\'t been good to suppress it, but it was what he had to do to move on from the experience. Yet, when they asked for a \"list of partners\" Ron scrawled so fast that it was almost illegible You-Know-Who before giving them the paper. He hated the looks he recieved or how the nurse paled and the doctor did as well.

Closing his eyes, Ron felt nausea was over him. Opening his eyes, he fought the feelings away. They were all too real, all too unforgettable in the bad sort of way. He remembered far too easy what it felt like to be dominated, to have his hands tied up and his feet as well. He remembered the entire experience until he let out a scream and sat up. He had gotten over this, he had moved on, he had not really done any of that. That\'s why he had to give up on Hermione, that\'s why he couldn\'t ask her to be with him. He wondered if he would ever be able to handle anything ever again, and then his eyes darkened. He had HIV. He was marked. He would be lucky to keep from killing himself, to keep going through each day.

Standing up, Ron grabbed his coat and walked out into the late October afternoon, trying to vanish memories away.

~*~

He knew that if he stayed away too long, didn\'t owl them ever again, his family would come to him. Ron looked at the photographs on his desk that was built into the wall and shook his head. Picking up one of them, he watched as Harry zoomed past him looking for the Snitch as Ron had his eyes trained off somewhere, most likely on the Quaffle. Setting the picture down, he heard a knock at his door. Going over to it, Ron opened it, seeing Fred standing on his doorstep. It was odd to see Fred without George, but as the twins grew these types of times grew more frequent.

\"Well you look cheery.\"

Ron eyed Fred. \"What do you want?\"

\"Aren\'t you going to invite me in first?\"

Ron sighed, and opened the door, letting the twenty-five-year-old step through before Ron closed and latched it. \"So, what do you want?\"

\"To see how you\'re doing,\" Fred set his coat on the rack near the door. \"We haven\'t heard from you in weeks. You don\'t go to your job, your boss is shirty if I ask about you...What are you about?\"

Ron looked away, and put his hands into his pockets. Even if the rash on his left hand and arm was getting better due to a potion the doctor had given him, his right hand now had a rash on it too. \"I\'m just having a holiday.\"

Fred glanced at him. \"Which is why you look like Death is it?\"

Ron kept his back to Fred and then asked, \"Do you want some tea? Anything?\"

\"I want you to tell me what the bloody hell is going on,\" Fred walked over to his taller brother. \"I want to know why you aren\'t going to work, aren\'t owling us back, and...\" Fred paused and then walked deeper into the room, picking up one of the bottles scattered on the floor. \"Ron, what are these?\"

Ron closed his eyes and kept his back to Fred.

\"Multi-Vitamin without extra iron, Vitamin C, Vitamin, E, Trace Elements...\" Fred looked up from the pill bottles and frowned. \"Ron - \" Then he heard a crunhing noise under his shoe. Bending down, Fred picked up the paper on the floor and glanced over it before freezing up and reading it very slowly, his eyes visibly scanning each line of the document carefully. \"Ron - \"

Ron stiffened, holding his breath. This wasn\'t how he wanted anyone to find out - not that he wanted someone in his family to at least.

\"Ron, this - \" Fred went pale and then stared at his little brother. \"Ron, why haven\'t you told us?\"

Ron didn\'t open his mouth, he didn\'t even look at Fred. He couldn\'t think or speak, all he was now was numb. Fred knew. Fred knew.

Fred took a frew steps towards Ron, speaking as he walked, \"Ron, when were you going to tell us? When were you going to at least tell Mum and Dad? They\'re worried about you, you know.\"

\"I - I - \"

\"If you say \'I\'m fine\' or something of the like, I\'ll hex you,\" Fred threatened and set the paper down on the small countertop in front of Ron. \"George and I had our suspicions but we said nothing. This is why we asked Mum to order you to bed. We thought either you were not sleeping or something was wrong. You know that wizards have no medicine or anything for this. To wizards this is a muggle disease - you\'re lucky you got out of the Ministry without anyone putting you in quarantine in St. Muglo\'s!\"

Ron couldn\'t say anything. Fred was right. Unlike the muggle world who had come to accept and start to combat HIV and AIDS, the wizarding world was very much in denial. Most mythical creatures such as vampires and werewolves were immune to the disease and Voldemort carried the disease. If a wizard were to come down with it, either they were shunned for contracting it from most likely Voldemort or a Death Eater or a muggle. The pure-blooded wizards who were left were close to passing a law that, much like the Magical Creature act, would keep wizards with \"strictly muggle diseases\" out of any wizarding job anywhere.

\"Ron, we can\'t catch this from you. The muggles say it and personally I don\'t believe they\'d say it so all the wizards would die out from this like the papers make it sound. You - \" Fred paused as Ron started coughing. Standing there, Fred watched helplessly. When the coughing subsided, Fred spoke again, \"Ron, I\'m not going to keep this a secret for you. George has you all figured out, and soon the others will as well. No one blames y - \"

\"Fred,\" Ron spoke rather hoarsely, \"don\'t tell them. Let me.\"

\"When? When you\'re in the hospital dying?!\" Fred threw his arms up. \"Ron, you can\'t disappear from us only resurface in the hospital! Think of Mum and Dad at least!\"

Ron sighed and groaned. \"I have. I don\'t want to worry them - \"

\"You already are. I suggest you tell them as soon as posible, or I will.\" Then Fred left Ron\'s flat, snatching his coat from the rack as he passed it.

~*~

\'I can\'t pay for this.\' Ron looked at the estimation, and sighed. \'Bloody insurance company - both of them.\'

Tearing up the papers, muggle and wizard, he threw them into the rubbish can and flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

\"Right now, if you start up on these medications, you can extend your life by a few years perhaps.\"

Ron closed his eyes as the doctor\'s voice reverberated in his mind.

\"I\'ll give you the prescription, and see what payment estimates I can get for you.\"

Opening his eyes, Ron stared up at the ceiling and then sighed. He promised Fred he would talk to at least their parents, but he couldn\'t. He wanted to talk to them, he wanted to talk to Fred, but he couldn\'t do it. He was suffering so much from the thought of dying, he didn\'t want to bring on the mental fatigue to those he loved.

He also was about to lose his job at the Ministry. He was worthless to them now. If he got in the wrong place at the wrong time, even if the Ministry understood his position, he would get sick or an infection that would blow up due to his declining immune system. He had to get a new job, better insurance, but even the muggle agencies didn\'t have the right ammount of money to cover the medications.

He wasn\'t going to make it. That was far too clear now. Or, at least, that\'s what his mind screamed at him. It told him how worthless he was, how this was so hopeless, how with a flick of his wand he could end it, he could save himself and others the pain, but at the same time he couldn\'t. He had put his wand where he couldn\'t get it. He was too depressed to even look at it, fearing what he might do to himself if he touched it.

It had been two weeks since Fred had visited him for a second time. Ron had chased him out and promised Fred that he would tell Mrs. and Mrs. Weasley before the new year, which was in just a few days. He was in a much smaller flat now and a muggle flat at that. They were much cheaper than the ones in the wizarding district. Moving over to the window, Ron watched the people on the sidewalk then shut the blinds as he bundled up and went out into the snow to catch a bus to the nearest Floo Network.

He of course had told them that he was coming. As he entered the Floo Network station, he watched as several wizards crowded the floo, shouts going out amonst the throng.

\"Liverpool, over here!\"

\"Anyone going to Cambridge?\"

\"If you\'re going to Edinbergh - \"

Ron rubbed the bridge of his nose and got into a line made for people who fit none of the cities being called out. He felt worse. He hadn\'t seen a doctor in a long while and had no money to buy the medication or appointments that he needed. He was having trouble finding a muggle job with decent insurance, and wizarding insurance for such medications and treatments was non-existent since it involved going to muggle physiscians, who naturally didn\'t accept wizarding insurance companies mostly because they had heard of them. He hated how he was wearing so much makeup as well. He had so many things to cover up, and he couldn\'t let his mouth hang too far open to hide a white spot that he found inside that morning.

Yet, he had to look as best as possible for the sake of his family. Fred was getting married that spring and he didn\'t want to get in the way of that. He had to downplay it as best he could and hope that nothing too extreme happened.

\"Just get out of my office, I don\'t want to catch this!\"

\"Ron, we can\'t catch this from you.\"

\"You\'re lucky I haven\'t fired your arse - OUT!\"

\"Ron, I\'m not going to keep this a secret for you.\"

Ron stepped into the floo and took a pinch of the floo powder the witch handed to him and then spoke clearly, \"The Burrow!\" before he disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

He stepped out of the Weasley fireplace moments later as Mrs. Weasley instantly intercepted him. \"Ron, you\'re late!\"

\"There was a crowd,\" Ron explained. \"They were splitting us into groups and sending several people into the floos at once. I of course wound up in the longest li - \"

\"Uncle Ron!\" a voice cheered and then a curly haired girl flew at him from the front room, hugging his leg as Percy appeared in the doorway, pushing his bifocals up his nose, he looked at Ron, and then appraised him.

Ron met his eyes then looked away, keeping his hands in his pockets. \"Hi, Kate.\"

\"Look!\" she pulled on his pantleg and led Ron into the front room where Penelope, Mr. Weasley, and George were sitting. Then she stopped and picked up a pad of paper from the floor and ripped off a page, handing it to him. \"For you!\"

Ron took it and then smiled down at her. \"It\'s pretty, Kate. I\'m going to hang it up in my flat, but I\'ll put it here for now, okay?\" Ron set the scribbled picture by the coat rack. \"Where\'s Nick?\" Ron sat down on the sofa on the empty seat by George.

Percy and Penelope exchanged looks. \"Weren\'t you watching him?\" Percy looked at her.

\"I thought you were.\"

Then they stood up as one, and excused themselves to search the house for their missing son.

\"What\'s that all about?\" Ron looked at George and Mr. Weasley curiously.

\"Well Nick is quite like his uncles,\" George smiled proudly as he explained. \"Two-years-old but very proficient in most forms of trouble-making.\" Studying Ron, George glanced at their father and then lowered his voice, \"You\'re going to tell us, right?\"

\"Did Fred - \"

\"No,\" George shook his head, \"I\'m the one who figured it out.\"

~*~

\"So the first male visitor who comes through that door now brings us good luck.\"

\"That doesn\'t have red hair, so don\'t get any ideas.\"

There was laughter. The first footing had no place in the Weasley home. Never once had the first person through the door after midnight fit the description of a lucky sort. They were either female or had red hair.

\"Well for two who put up such a fight, they\'re out cold,\" Fred motioned with his foot at the two small children on the floor, sleeping under a blanket and on almost all the pillows in the house. Fred had a drink in one hand and the other over the back of the chair he and Angelina were crammed into. George and Ron had been joined on the sofa by Percy and Penelope, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had taken the two chairs nearest each other.

They sat in silence and then Penelope rose. \"I think it\'s time that these two went to bed.\" She put a hand on Percy\'s arm as he went to get out of the sofa. \"You\'ll help me, won\'t you, Angelina?\"

The dark-skinned twenty-five-year-old got up and out of the chair, and picked up the larger of the children. When Molly offered to help them, the women shook their heads and with a glance exchanced between Angelina and Fred, Ron knew what was coming. Ron uncrossed then crossed his legs so that they switched positions. Fred looked at him, George looked at him, and then Fred spoke.

\"Ron promised me that he was going to say something before the end of last year,\" Fred began, \"and he hasn\'t.\"

\"I w - \"

\"When?\" Fred cut him off. \"How many times will you say \'I wil tell them\' before you can\'t anymore? We\'ve had this conversation a lot. Now are you going to say it or am I?\"

Ron and Fred held each other\'s gazes as Mrs. Weasley spoke, \"What is going on?\"

Fred didn\'t look away from Ron who didn\'t look away from him. \"Are you going to tell her or am I? Your choice.\"

Ron kept his gaze. \"I\'ll tell her and everyone else.\" Ron\'s sky blue eyes scanned the room and he swallowed. Glancing at Fred, he found assurance rather than the mischivious grin he expected.

\"What is it, Ron?\" Percy met his gaze only to lose it when Ron looked down at his hand, his fingers intertwined and resting on his lap.

\"I - I know why I\'m sick,\" Ron began. He had never thought about how to tell them. He still hadn\'t decided if he even wanted to live yet. \"I know why I get so tired and I get fevers and everything..... You see...\" Ron paused, but no one coaxed him, or if they were he didn\'t know. \"I have,\" he paused and then finished, \"HIV.\"

The silence was deafening. Ron didn\'t dare look at them - any of them. This was why he wasn\'t going to tell them. This was why he knew he couldn\'t live much longer. He couldn\'t do this to them. The sooner it was over, the sooner they would be free of his burden.

Standing, Ron kept his eyes from any person around him. \"I have to go back to the flat.\" Taking a few steps forward, he felt a hand reach out and grab his and then his mother hugged him tightly.

\"We still love you.\"

\"That\'s right,\" his father added and hugged Ron as well, soon followed by Fred, George, and Percy.

Ron stared a moment and then blinked. \"Don\'t you fear me?\"

\"\'Fear you?\'\" Percy glanced at him. \"Muggles can be trusted in some things, and one of them is medicine.\"

\"We know you aren\'t going to kill us,\" George added as the group broke away.

Ron glanced at him over the choice of words, but before he could remark, someone knocked on the door. He watched as Mrs. Weasley went to get the door, before stepping back and smiling as a slightly embarrassed Dennis Creevy walked in with her.

\"Hey, I thought I could find you here,\" the brown-haired young man smiled nervously. \"Er...sorry for intruding of course,\" he looked to the Weasleys, \"but, Ron, I need your help - if you\'re up to it of course.\"

Ron raised an eyebrow. \"With what?\"

\"Well if you\'re up to it, I need a partner to work with me for the Ministry as an auror.\"

Ron stared and Dennis gave him another nervous smile. \"I talked to some people and I think I got your job back.\"

~*~

\"And this is where your mother grew up.\"

A little girl with bright and inquisitive brown eyes stared at the streets around her. Her hair was dark and wavy, frizzing out in the British summer weather. A boy beside her had his fingers in his mouth and his light brown eyes were watching his parents in the front of the car from behind dark wavy locks. He was no more than three and his sister was about seven or eight.

\"In a few more hours we will be at our destination,\" the father continued.

\"What are they like again, Mum?\" the girl looked to the woman in the passenger seat of the car. The children were built much like their father - tall with tanned skin and dark hair, but they had their mother\'s wide and curious eyes along with her thick and wavy hair in the colour of their father\'s hair.

\"They\'re very much like your Uncle Ivan\'s family,\" Hermione Krum explained. \"You\'ll like them I\'m sure.\"

\"It\'s very nice that they offered to care for you too,\" Viktor added, \"so be on your best behaviour.\"

\"That\'s right,\" Hermione nodded. \"We have some business here and we will be gone for long periods of time. You will be staying in The Burrow with people who I consider family. I want you to consider them a bit above.\"

The siblings exchanged looks, the boy\'s fingers still in his mouth.

~*~

\"Hermione!\" a woman of about thirty-one ran out of The Burrow, waving. She was tall and thin with thin straight red hair and freckles that had yet to go away.

\"Ginny!\" Hermione returned and smiled brightly as her younger friend hugged her tightly. \"It\'s been too long.\"

\"I know!\" Ginny nodded, then looked over Hermione\'s shoulder. \"Anna, I haven\'t seen you in so long,\" she approached the girl a bit slower. \"I bet you don\'t even remember me.\"

\"I\'ve seen you in pictures, and you look familiar,\" Anna offered, turning a bit shy.

\"The last time you saw me you were three and I was getting married,\" Ginny reminded the girl, then looked at the boy who had his head burried in Viktor\'s shoulder. \"This must be Erik,\" Ginny glanced at the boy. \"I\'ll let him come to me.\" Turning back to Hermione, she kept her voice chipper, \"How was your trip?\"

\"It was good,\" Hermione replied as the group made their way to the burrow. \"We did well. It\'s too bad that Erik is too young to floo yet. They say that the recomended age is five.\"

\"Mum had us flooing by three,\" Ginny noted, \"but of course they hadn\'t put up the safety warning yet.\"

Hermione nodded as they entered the kitchen. Looking around, she lowered her tone, speaking covertly as best she could given the six-inch difference between she and Ginny, \"How\'s he doing?\"

\"Not good,\" Ginny sighed, biting her lip. \"Everyone is over there except for Dad, Fred, George, and Percy - they went to work.\"

Hermione nodded. \"When do you think I should go over?\"

Ginny hesitated, then put a hand on Hermione\'s shoulder. \"How about we talk about this alone?\"

~*~

Ron stared up at the white ceiling and groaned inwardly. He had never felt so bad in all his life. Years ago he had made the choice to live and now he was lying in a hospital bed having caught a flu that was wrecking havoc on his system. He had never remembered a flu being so bad. He should have known though. It was only a matter of time before one of his nieces or nephews would give him something. He knew his system was weakening, the doctors had even told him so. Yet he had played with Fred and Percy\'s children when they gathered to celebrate Angelina\'s birthday only a few days ago, and it turned out that Emily (Fred\'s daughter) was carrying a harmless flu - for her that was.

He and Dennis were on a job when it happened. They were investigating a boggart in a sewer when he collapsed. He hadn\'t been doing well since he woke, but he kept working. He had to keep working to pay his bills not only for his flat and basic comodities, but also for the pills and the doctor appointments. For the first time he knew of, the first footing for the Weasleys was a man with brown hair, nothing unlucky about him, but Ron supposed that luck did run out. It had been ten years since he passed out at Hermione\'s wedding. It was so surreal to be thirty-two now. When he was younger, he would have thought he would have a family, be a lot like his father with perhaps a better job. He had never imagined this, never could have comprehended this at all.

Then he felt two small hands pick up his. Turning his head slowly, he looked up into two worried caramel-coloured eyes. \"Hermione...?\"

She was so much older than he remembered. This of course made sense, but it still seemed surreal, but that could be his fever thinking again. \"I\'m here. I got in an hour or so ago.\"

\"You didn\'t have - \"

\"Don\'t say that, Ron. You\'re my best friend, remember?\" She held his hand tightly, but not tight enough to hurt him.

\"Did you bring them?\" Ron asked quietly. \"You know, your family.\"

Hermione nodded, speaking quietly, \"The kids are with Ginny right now and Viktor is outside.\"

\"Where\'s Mum?\"

\"Your Dad and brothers just took her home for a rest,\" Hermione explained.

\"Good. I told her to go,\" Ron murmured tiredly. \"She\'s been here a lot.\"

\"Well, she\'s your mother. It\'d be strange if a mother wasn\'t by her son like this.\"

Ron nodded. \"Can I tell you something?\"

Hermione blinked then nodded. \"You can tell me anything, Ron.\"

He nodded and then opened his mouth before closing it. \"Never mind.\"

Hermione stared as he looked away. Her first reaction was to ask what it was, but she kept quiet, both falling into silence.

~*~

\"Krum.\"

The thirty-five-year-old looked up from where he sat reading a book in the waiting room. Bill Weasley walked over and waved before taking a seat nearby. \"Weasley.\"

\"I\'m glad that you came with Hermione,\" Bill spoke quietly. \"I think it\'s good that she has you here.\"

\"It\'s that bad, isn\'t it?\"

\"I don\'t think you can begin to imagine,\" Bill replied. \"They said that he most likely won\'t come out of this. His immune system is almost non-existent. To catch the flu at this stage is death. There are countless suppressors now, but there is still no cure.\"

Viktor nodded. \"That\'s one of the things I can\'t stand about magic. We cannot cure sickness.\"

\"Sometimes I\'m glad we can\'t,\" Bill murmured. \"Think of what would happen. Wizard and witches would be exploited if we could.\"

Viktor nodded. \"We\'ve talked about what would happen when this came many times. She\'s always worrying over him, always concerned.\"

Bill nodded. \"It would be strange if she wasn\'t. He\'s her connection to everything in a way. They and Harry were a team, and once Ron goes, there won\'t be a team ever again.\"

~*~

\"When\'s Mum and Dad coming back?\"

Mrs. Weasley set a spiced meatloaf down on the table, Anna watching her intently.

\"I\'m not sure,\" the woman replied as she went to retrive the bowl of corn from the counter.

\"I\'m going to go and get them soon,\" Ginny told the girl.

\"Can I come?\"

\"You can\'t.\" Ginny shook her head as she put some mashed potatoes on Erik\'s plate. \"It\'s adults only hours now.\"

Anna sighed rather loudly but accepted it as she helped herself to a slice of spiced meatloaf.

~*~

\"You can\'t stay up forever, Hermione.\"

Hermione sighed as Charlie Weasley sat down beside her, neither looking away from Ron. He was thinner and pale with bruises and other skin abnomalities all over him.

\"I\'m afraid that if I go, I\'ll wake up in the middle of the night and be told he\'s dead,\" she whimpered slightly. \"I\'ve always dreaded this. I\'ve always tried to prepare myself. I read everything I could about coping with someone, but I haven\'t seen him in so long that it\'s shocking.\"

Charlie put a hand on her shoulder. \"It\'s shocking to everyone, even Mum and Dad who have seen him more than you and I have.\"

Hermione sniffed slightly. \"I promised not to cry. I don\'t want to cry.\"

\"You need rest. I\'m sure that if you look away and look back, he\'ll still be here.\"

Hermione pursed her lips and then nodded slowly. \"Alright, but I\'ll hold you to this if he dies and I\'m not here, Charlie Weasley.\"

~*~

\"No change.\"

Dennis frowned at Fred\'s statement then sighed. \"I\'m just stopping in, I\'ve got a job to go to in a bit.\"

Fred nodded absently.

\"Where\'s everybody?\" Dennis looked around. He didn\'t want to look at Ron, he knew that he should, but after taking a glance at him, Dennis felt it best if he didn\'t look. He had to keep his wits about him for his job.

\"Work or home,\" Fred murmured. \"I\'m going to floo them soon though.\"

Dennis stared.

\"I think he\'s got today, if that. If I were you, I would call in sick or whatever you want. I think Ron\'s going to die today.\"

~*~

It was crowded much like it had been on Hermione and Viktor\'s wedding day. The people stood closer now, all watching the man in the bed, the man whose breathing was laboured and life draining. All of the children were being watched by a neighbour of the Weasley\'s and everyone was crammed into the small hospital room around Ron\'s bed.

\"I wonder if he can still hear us,\" Ginny commented stupidly. She had never been good with saying things during serious moments.

\"I\'m sure he can,\" Dennis offered.

\"Now I can\'t think of a thing to say.\" Ginny laughed nervously then fell silent.

\"This can\'t be good,\" Hermione spoke then. \"It really can\'t. I mean, we\'re all standing here waiting for him to die. It\'s so wrong, but I can\'t seem to leave.\"

Viktor put an arm around her as she trembled, speaking the thoughts of all in the room.

\"Perhaps we should.\"

Everyone turned to Mrs. Weasley, who cleared her throat. \"As much as I hate to say it, there can\'t be anything gained by standing here. That and,\" she added, \"I don\'t think he will go if we\'re watching.\"

There was a pregnant silence as the group looked away from her to Ron and then they cleared the room to take a break from the vigil.

~*~

The wind was blowing, but it was warmer than when they burried Dumbledore. Hermione clutched the boquet of flowers tightly as though if she let them go before she should, she would lose everything. People said words but no one was listening, everyone was numb, thinking of how this was just too soon and why Ron and so many other things like that.

The priest nodded to those holding flowers and in unison the boquets were tossed onto the casket as a final prayer was said. Then the gravedigger began to throw dirt onto the casket, and it all seemed final. After the casket was gone, the dirt freshly piled on top, people began to turn away and head off to other graves or back to where they had come from.

Hermione stood there longest of all then turned and looked out about the graveyard. She could see Dumbledore\'s grave, McGonagall\'s, other Order members, and Harry\'s. Harry\'s was only a row and three sites down from Ron. Somehow it didn\'t seem right. Then she walked over to a grassy patch where no grave stood. It was a space between two stones as though it had never even be claimed. As the wind picked up, she noted the V. From where she stood the trio was momentarily reunited, Harry at the centre as always.

The End