Author Announcement – Well, here we go. Your next little Harry Potter fix. I was quite a bit quick posting this chapter up, you should all be very proud of me.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters used in the story (damn), but the plotline is entirely my own creation.
Enjoy!
Inner Strength
Chapter 4 - Different
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This wasn't for Ron; he could never manage it if it was for himself. This was for Hermione.
He took a deep breath. Once again, he looked deep inside his soul.
Ron's eyes flew open as he took a shuddering gasp of breath.
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"RON!"
The healer's gasped. Harry gave a throaty cry and slumped against the side of the bed for support. Hermione screamed hysterically as Ron sat bolt upright taking in shuddering gasps of air.
Within seconds, the healers were circling Ron and trying to perform hundreds of different spells upon him, determined to check his status. Harry and Hermione were once again being forced away, but they stood their ground.
Ron's body seemed to relax slightly and some of the tension was released from his shoulders. He slowly looked up, his eyes slightly unfocussed.
"Where... where am I?"
He looked blearily around at the strangers that were circling him. 'Please god,' he thought 'not this again'.
That was until he found two familiar faces in the crowd who were staring directly at him, their eyes brimming with tears of joy.
Harry and Hermione.
Ron took one last look at them and promptly collapsed.
There was a moment of panic as everyone believed that Ron had once again fallen into another deadly coma. However, they were happily mistaken. Ron had fainted. 'The great prat,' Hermione thought affectionately.
The healers begged Hermione and Harry to give them half an hour of peace to check Ron over. They turned their head to each other, and point blank refused. Finally, the healers proved to them that Ron's condition was now stable and he could come to no more harm – he just needed rest. They consented and were lead outside to a room across the hall. The staff tried to force food and drink into their hands before leaving the pair in peace.
Harry and Hermione felt completely overwhelmed. Within the space of five minutes, their best friend had collapsed, stopped breathing and appeared to have come back from the dead. It was an awful lot for anyone take in, especially two teenagers who had their whole lives ahead of them.
The duo sat in silence for a while just thinking. After that they began to chat awkwardly. They didn't discus what had just happened, that could jinx it, they just spoke about the future and what they would do once Ron was out of St Mungo's.
After almost forty minutes, a dumpy witch in a pinafore informed them that they could now go back and see Ron. Hermione and Harry leapt from their seats and hurtled back to Ron's private room. Hermione tried to once again throw herself at him, but an aurora restrained her.
"Oh no you don't, young lady. If you are going to be in here, there will be conditions!"
Hermione rolled her eyes and extracted herself from the healer's tight grip. She and Harry grabbed two rickety wooden chairs and pulled them as close to Ron's sleeping body as they could. The healer, who had finally introduced himself as Priestley, began to lecture them on what they could and couldn't do. Apparently they couldn't disturb him, touch him, so much as breath on him, but neither of them was really listening. They were staring in wonder at Ron and the gash that now permanently etched across his forehead.
Priestley began to walk towards the door, calling over his shoulder "I would normally not allow anyone to be in the room at this stage... but... as it's you…"
As he reached the door, he suddenly stopped. He slowly turned on the spot and faced the three people in the room.
"I would just like to say..." he mumbled, "thank you." He blushed and quickly disappeared through the door.
Harry guessed that they would be getting a lot of that from now on.
As soon as Hermione heard the door click shut, she leapt from her seat and strode the length of the room. Hermione picked up a glass of water and did something that she had been meaning to do for the last 40 minutes...
She walked over to Ron and tipped the ice cold water over his head.
Ron jumped and his eyes sprung open at once. He had always hated cold showers.
"Why the hell did you do that?" he demanded. He looked up at the obvious moron in front of him, only to discover it was Hermione.
"Never, EVER do that again Ronald!"
"Do what?" he asked incredulously.
"Scare the living daylights out of me, that's what!"
"Only if you stop tipping water over me," Ron grumbled.
"Ron," Harry said in a very throaty voice.
"Harry, mate! How you doing?"
"Oh... not so bad, you know... You seem remarkably perky Ron, considering."
"I feel absolutely fine!" beamed Ron. He tried to get out of bed, but Hermione forced him back down.
"No, you mustn't move. Not after..."
"After what?" demanded Ron, "What the hell is going on here? No one has told me anything! You haven't told me where I am yet!"
Hermione and Harry exchanged a sad but meaningful look before turning back to Ron.
"I'm guessing this isn't the Burrow."
"No, Ron, it's not," answered Hermione sadly.
"You're in St Mungo's."
"I am?" asked Ron, "But why? I feel fine!"
Nobody answered him straight away, and Ron began to get frustrated.
"TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!"
Finally, Harry answered him.
"I think you had better look at this, mate."
Harry walked across the room and picked up a small mirror. He slowly walked back and handed it to Ron. Ron held the looking glass up to his eyes and stared into it.
It was the same old Ron he had seen every day of his life. Same blue eyes, same scattered freckles, same long nose... apart from one thing. Across his forehead was a scarlet gash in the shape of a star.
"Bloody hell!" Ron muttered under his breath, "It looks like - "
" - Mine, I know," interrupted Harry before Ron could continue.
"So... what happened? Where did... this come from?" Ron asked, gesturing wildly to his head.
"Ron, how much do you remember?"
"Oh, I can remember being all peaceful and Dumbledore telling me all this stuff and..."
Ron tailed off as he saw the look or Harry and Hermione's face.
"Ron... Dumbledore died, remember?" Harry said gently.
"Oh yeah!" Said Ron, smacking his palm against his forehead. He gave a little yelp of pain as he accidentally caught that awful scar.
"But how did I talk to him then?" asked Ron, beginning to get slightly worried now.
"I... I don't know," Hermione replied.
Ron thought for a moment. So everything that had happened in the last few days had been just a dream. None of it was real! 'Thank god for that!' Ron thought. 'I didn't attack my best friend!' Still, he thought better not mention it... ever. What would his friends THINK of him? But right now, he was too concerned in finding out about the truth.
"The thing is, Ron, for the past week, you have been in..." Hermione's voiced trailed off into a whisper, "a coma."
"What!" Ron cried out, "Why?"
Harry sighed.
"You see, there was the final battle with Voldemort."
"Of course! The one we have been working towards for years! Did we win?"
"Well, yes I suppose. Voldemort's dead."
"Excellent!" said Ron, rubbing his hands together, "I guess we are pretty famous then, are we? Is that what happened to me? I got mobbed by fans?" he said, hopefully. Having fans had always been a dream of Ron's.
"No. You got smacked in the head with Voldemort's wand," Harry said simply.
"What? HUH?"
Harry repeated himself.
"My god... so... that's why..." Ron gestured towards both Harry's and his own scars.
"I guess," said Ron sadly.
Hermione shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as if she was stealing herself up to do something.
"The thing is... we are not sure what the after effects are going to be. Nothing like this has ever happened before."
"Ah."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"So what you're saying is... what are you saying? I could be... different?" Ron asked Harry.
"I...I don't know Ron"
Harry turned his back to Ron and started to pace the room.
This chapter is a better length than the last one, so hope you're proud of me for that as well. I wasn't sure how to end this chapter though, so it seems to end fairly abruptly. Ah well.
Thank you so much to all my reviewers. I have SIXTEEN of them now! How cool is that! I am so eternally grateful. I have again left you all a little comment. They aren't massively long, but at least it shows you guys that I really do appreciate you!
MadRoswellFan – Wahoo! A long review! Thanks a lot! So someone did notice my whole use of silences then. I see my talent is not going to waste! ;-) Indeed, "Ronny" is very much alive. Did you honestly think I could kill him off? Hopefully this story is going to have a happy ending, but my characters will probably not live in "bunny land" as you put it. And please do not steal my cookies. They are very sacred to me.
Chubby Redburn – Yay! Thanks for the luck as well. I think I am going to need it.
Hogwartsgirl52 – I'm glad you liked it, and I hoped this is a soon enough update!
Psychopenguin16 – Hey Jessie. Did I really nearly have you in tears, or are you just saying that? If I did, that is so cool! I'm happy now. And I can't believe you left me cookies. AGAIN! I think I may share them with Kadie, or I might just be greedy and eat them all myself. Hehehe! My nickname at school used to be "Cookie". Are you psychic or something?
(:) eats second warm batch of cookies (:)
Well, what did you think? Please R&R