This was written for someone who liked ronmione and it's entirely too dark, so I hope it doesn't scare her XD I felt a bit under pressure but well my mind goes to dark places. I was intending to write some kind of fluffy and cute ronmione to impress her, and this is what came out instead. A PTSD story and probably one of the darker ronmiones out there. I'm sorry :'( Trigger warnings for war, torture, implied sexual abuse and victim!Ron. Deathly Hallows AU.

About the title "Tiny Ball of Light": In Deathly Hallows, when Harry and Hermione asked Ron how he returned to them in the Forest using the Deluminator, Ron said he didn't know exactly but that he heard her speaking his name and then "a tiny ball of light" appeared from the Deluminator and he somehow knew he had to follow it to find their untraceable location in the forest again.

~O~

A Tiny Ball of Light

.

[Innocence: How do you break a person?]

[Guilt: Easy. You leave them alone in a room with three people total and watch each destroy the other.]

[Thorfinn Rowle. Ron Weasley. Hermione Granger.]

~O~

"Why do you love Hermione?" the Death Eater asked him, staring down at the redhead behind his cold, silver mask.

Ronald Weasley was tied up—his hands behind his back, his face bloodied, the red of his hair mixed and darkened with the coppery red of blood—as he bent on his knees before the Death Eater.

The torture had been going on for 48 hours straight. Enough to break anyone.

Except Ron had absolutely no intention of giving the whereabouts of either Hermione or Harry.

They'd been lucky enough to get away, and the redhead intended to keep it that way.

He would just have to stay behind and endure it.

He'd left the camp, and Hermione, voluntarily once; perhaps this was his payback for that foolish move from months ago. He wasn't sure—fate had strange ways of coming back to you, and he'd learned to appreciate Hermione more since then. He'd never have intentionally left her now.

Death itself would have to clutch Hermione Granger or her whereabouts, from his heart—and oddly, that was what this Death Eater seemed to be trying to do. He kept questioning him about her. As if he were more interested in the muggleborn than in the boy-who-lived.

The Death Eater lifted his head by his chin so that Ron was forced to stare into the killer's cold, grey eyes. The older man tightened his grip on Ron's face, nearly breaking the bones of his chin.

"I asked you a question, boy. Why do you keep on protecting the mudblood, you don't really want me to break your arse over her, do you?"

Ron bit down the bile, and cursive words he wanted to say, down his throat. He'd learn 24 hours ago that he could only be so snarky or rude to them before they made before they made him wish he hadn't spoken at all. So now he mostly kept it polite and quiet, despite how much he seethed to strangle and attack them back. He was hopeless without his wand.

Yet he couldn't quite take the disrespect and passive use of "mudblood" either.

"Don't call me boy." He bit his already broken lip.

He winced, waiting for the Death Eater to use his metal-steel boots to kick him again or break his face again. To burn his freckled skin with his wand.

Instead, the Death Eater chuckled and sat even more comfortably in the chair facing him.

"No, you're right. I shouldn't call you a boy. You're much worse, you're a blood traitor."

Ron counted the lines in the stone floor beneath him, trying to drown out the man's mocking voice.

Piss off, he wanted to say.

The Death Eater stepped closer, however, and instead of hitting him, leaned towards him, so that he was close enough that his grubby breath blew directly upon his bruised, bleeding face.

"I can make this easier Ron," he spoke quietly, intimately, as if trying to strike a deal just between them. "We know you don't know where Harry Potter is because we used imperio and occlumens on you. But you can get us to the mudblood, can't you, by using the Deluminator again?"

Piss off.

The Death Eater smiled and tapped at Ron's red, blood covered, hair. "That's how you found them before, isn't it? We know your memories."

Piss off. Piss off. PISS OFF.

The Death Eater held up the Deluminator in his gloved hands. Ron never felt so furious that they'd taken the Deluminator Dumbledore had given to him.

"Now just tell us how the Deluminator works, boy. So I can use it myself to find her."

He didn't answer and the man kicked him with his steel boots.

Ron laughed bitterly, the mix of blood and iron in his mouth making him cough. "You'd have to love her."

The man grinned. "Now...I'm not sure I would have a problem with that," the man said with a pop of his tongue. "There are worse looking mudbloods..."

Ron screamed. "If you—"

"If I what?" he taunted.

Ron shook his head. His whole body shaking. "It won't work," Ron said quietly. "You don't love her. You won't find her."

It was the one comfort, warming thought, to him in this cold isolation. They would never find Harry and Hermione.

The Deluminator only worked by light and love. He loved Hermione, so a ball of light from the Deluminator had descended and led him to her.

It worked because of love.

It was so ironic.

The Deluminator would never work in the hands of someone so dark as a Death Eater. Dumbledore must have thought of everything.

"You'll never find her," he repeated almost happily. Because whatever happened to him here, he cared more for her. Harry was his blood brother, but Hermione was his soul mate...actually he was probably in love with her, his dear, sweet muggleborn friend. And it was so ironic and stupid that it had taken distance and torture to make him realize just how much he loved her. Just how much he was willing to endure for her. Even death, possibly. Because he could die happy knowing that nothing had ever harmed her or the gentle smile on her face, when she was just reading her books and off into her own world. To know that Hermione's smile had never been marred by horrors or her innocence ruined. Ron knew he'd rather die a thousand deaths than let one wizard or Death Eater take her innocence.

"You'll never find her."

The Death Eater let out an enraged shout before Ron felt his whole body dragged across the floor.

There was a moment before Ron Weasley blacked out when he felt his poor, sorry 18-year-old body smash towards the wall.

~O~

When he awoke again, Ron wasn't particularly aware of his surroundings, only that he wasn't in pain or grief anymore.

There were balls of light everywhere and Hermione's voice leading him through a dark forest. Then he realized it was a dream and when he woke again, he was in his cell.

His body and mind slowly ruined and battered. Like a wasting disease but one created out of cruelty as each crucio slowly and surely sucked the life out of his young body.

Each blow making him less and less certain he would ever get out of here.

~O~

"Why do you love her?"

The Death Eater had interrogated his mind and body. The Death Eater knew every moment of his life, every secret. Yet the bloodless, heartless monster still couldn't figure out why he loved Hermione. Some things were so obvious that only the blind could see them.

This Death Eater, Rowle he learned his name was, may have had the wand, the mask and all the power in the situation, but he was still clueless if he couldn't figure out why he loved Hermione Granger.

"Why do you think?!" Ron spat, flecks of blood mixing with his saliva. Earlier, Rowle, in his typical cruelty, had made him lick his own blood off the floor. So that it didn't stain the wood 'the colour of blood traitor.' To Rowle anyone who was a blood traitor might as well be dead or a muggle.

Rowle tightened the straps around his gloves. He never took off his gloves or mask, as if that could keep it impersonal.

"I don't think you're thinking at all. Otherwise, you would have realized long ago that all this pain, torture, you're going through is not worth it for her."

"You don't know what's worth living for." Ron laughed at the man's stupidity.

Rowle seemed to get angrier and he twisted his wand in his hands, little shots of venomous green light sparking out of the twisted wand. "Then why don't you tell me?"

Ron shrugged, the bruises and ties on his limbs prevented him from full mobility. "I sure as hell know it's not serving your precious Dark Lord."

He barely got to finish that sentence before Rowle knocked him with a vicious thud, splintering his nose.

~O~

The interrogation continued for days. Days that he would never remember or never entirely forget because they bleached themselves onto his memory and somewhere deep down in his subconscious he knew he'd heard himself scream raw as Rowle took every last bit of innocence from him.

He didn't even know it was possible for one man to do that to another. But then Ron blanked out and he knew that he would obliviate this memory if he ever got out of here.

He didn't want to remember that he'd been abused by another man.

~O~

Rowle was desperate. He hated the redhead Weasley and did that one thing to humiliate him because nothing else would break him.

~O~

He was near death. The copper in his hair had seemed to become permanently dark and bloodied, the glimmer of hope and happiness he once had in his eyes was completely extinguished and he barely had the strength, or desire, to move anymore. Anyone else would have given up by now and departed their body.

But he kept on hearing her voice. A tiny ball of light.

"You are my life. Just call out my name."

~O~

It was Neville who finally dragged him out of there. He wasn't even really aware of what was happening anymore, but Neville's strong arms suddenly grabbed him around the shoulders and told him "We have to get out of here, Ron please just wake up."

He barely blinked, there was really no strength in his body left. But then Nevile shook his around the shoulders again and pressed something cold and metallic
into his hand.

"C'mon Ron, you're the only one that can help us find them. She's waiting."

He looked down at his hands, Neville had pressed the Deluminator into his hand. He'd gotten his Deluminator back. He could go, he could have a chance again.

His scarred hands held onto the Deluminator.

~o~

Ron followed the ball of light through the forest, Neville and Luna trailing behind him. It was leading him home.

"Don't worry." Ron smiled tiredly, sore and so homesick to be by her side again. "It's leading us home. I can hear her voice again."

The warm glow of the Deluminator was the only light in the forest.

It bathed him in a light, and he could feel her love already. "I'm waiting."

.

"And when I look into your eyes I'm free. It's all I know, it's all I need." -Nemesea

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author's note: This was written for Fairtytales classroom and also siriusmarauderfan's Hamilton prompt challenge, thank you to them for running these writing challenges :) Prompts: Fairytales Assignment #5 Task #1: Write about someone who sacrifices a lot only to save another person. Prompts used: (song prompt) Nemesea - I live; (word) blood brother] Hamilton prompts: 16. MEET ME INSIDE [lyric] "Don't call me son."; [scenario] Write about someone disobeying; [character] Neville Longbottom; [object] knife

Thank you to my beta Valerian candidate :) for helping me rewrite this xx I wish you the best and sorry if I wasn't as good a beta for you, but I really feel grateful for the way you helped me and gave thoughtful, kind feedback :) I learned a lot from your different style of writing.