1

They all landed in a mess of limbs, sprawled across the grass in front of Shell Cottage. Shaking his head distractedly like a dog getting water out of his ears, Ron rose onto his elbows and crawled immediately over to Hermione. Shoving the injured goblin rather unceremoniously aside, he got to her and began shaking her gently.

"Hermione…Hermione…"

When she didn't awaken to his gentle shakes, Ron took out his wand…no, not his wand, he didn't know whose it was, and softly said, "Ennervate,".

She still did not stir. A feeling of frightened desperation rose in Ron like bile, threatening to take over his senses. In one swift movement he jumped up and swept the unconscious Hermione up into his arms and began running towards the house.

"BILL! BILL! Bill!"

His shouts were tinged with an edge of hysteria, he himself could hear it. But that didn't matter…Hermione wasn't waking up, there was something wrong, something very wrong. She was supposed to be okay. He noticed now that she was bleeding steadily onto him from a deep cut on her arm she must have sustained when the gigantic crystal chandelier fell on top of her. He yelled all the more frantically in the direction of the house.

His cries were suddenly answered by a wild eyed Bill bursting open the front door, followed in hot pursuit by a scared-looking Fleur. Bill stopped dead at the sight of Ron, looking as though he had never seen him in his life; his eyes traveled from a bleeding and unconscious Hermione in his arms to the stirring disorder of people just down the gently sloping hill.

At first he looked completely lost for words and actions, but suddenly gave a strange lurching movement as though steeling himself and said quickly, "I'll go help the others. Fleur, help Ron tend to Hermione. We're going to need a blood-replenishing potion; it looks like she's losing a lot of blood. Has…she been tortured?"

Ron gave a jerky nod, closing his eyes very briefly at the heart-wrenching memory of her screams. "She… she won't wake up." He surprised himself at how wretched his voice sounded, cracked and pitiful from screaming down in the dungeon. Bill looked slightly horrified for a moment, then ran down the hill towards Harry, who was saying something… Ron couldn't hear, it didn't matter. He could feel her warm blood flowing onto his bare arm, and it frightened him more than anything in the world.

Fleur led him through the house, white-faced and silent, till they reached what Ron recognized as one of the spare bedrooms, spacious and inviting with a soft warm glow overlooking the sea. Laying her down as gently as he could on the fluffy white blankets, he turned quickly to Fleur and asked, "Why won't she wake up? I tried waking her up by magic and it's not working."

Fleur nodded. "When someone has been tortured like zees by Dark Magic, ze usual spells will not revive a person. She will awake when her mind can acknowledge ze trauma she has been through. Zere is no need to grab my arm."

Ron didn't realize that he had been gripping her arm until she told him. Releasing her with a quick "sorry" as she bustled around, he looked helplessly down at Hermione's face for the first time. She was paler than he had ever seen her, and without the usual life in her face she seemed frail, as if she might break. As Fleur went into the next room to get towels and bandages, Ron took her small hand in his and stationed himself near her head. She was so cold…she couldn't die, not Hermione. This was all his stupid fault… he didn't know how, but it was. Screwing up his eyes and blinking rapidly once Fleur came back in the room, he took a deep breath and asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

She looked up for the briefest of moments from staunching the flow of blood on Hermione's arm, her eyes resting on his hand folded protectively around hers and said softly; "I theenk….you are right where you need to be."

She worked silently and frantically for several minutes, leaving only twice: once to get a blood-replenishing potion, once to see how the others had fared in injuries. The second time she came back she said, "Ze house-elf ees dead."

"Dobby?"

Fleur nodded and continued working. Before Ron had any time to bask in this shocking new revelation, Fleur suddenly said, "You need to leave now."

"I'm not going anyw—"

I need to 'elp her get into a dressing gown, eet would not be appropriate in your presence. Why don't you go wash off? You are covered een blood."

Unable to fight this argument and blushing slightly, Ron gently released Hermione's hand and walked rapidly through the house till he got to the bedroom he had occupied for a time when he had turned his back on Harry. Swiftly shutting the door and walking to the bathroom, he looked into the mirror and saw his face, pale and scared, and his shirt and arms spattered in blood. Her blood. He barely had time to react before a wave of nausea hit him, bringing him to his knees. He gripped his head, and the tears for her that had threatened to come for what seemed like hours finally surfaced as he was wracked with fierce sobs that shook his whole body.

This was all his fault. It was his job to protect her, and not only had he failed, but she had been tortured and, in his mind, he hadn't done anything about it. She had been screaming, right above him and he couldn't get to her. Every time she had cried out he had felt like a part of him was being physically tortured as well. There must have been some trapdoor, some secret passageway in that dungeon that could have gotten him sooner to her, to have kept that from happening to her. He just hadn't tried hard enough. And then… Bellatrix would have just given her to that monster, Frenir Greyback. He would have done… the most awful things to her…

At the thought of this Ron rose to his feet, his eyes still screwed up and blurred from hot tears, and threw the first thing he saw, a crystal cup. It shattered against the opposite wall with a magnificent crash, and before the shards had even hit the ground he was throwing something else, anything and everything he could get his hands on. Piece by piece he mutilated the whole bathroom, as though through some bizarre burst of adrenaline he could undo everything that had happened to her at the hands of their enemies. He punched a hole in the wall…

"Ron! RON!"

He didn't realize Bill was wrestling him out of the bathroom until he had called out his name several times. Through his demented trance, he saw his older brother in front of him holding his bleeding knuckles and dragging him into the bedroom.

"Ron! Stop, its okay! She's going to be okay, alright? She's going to be fine..!"

Bill steered him to the bed and sat him down onto it. Then sitting down next to him, he finally released Ron's hand, who folded them compulsively. With a slight start, as if waking up from a dream, Ron realized that he was still sobbing and tears were falling from his eyes and into his lap. All at once very he was very aware that he was crying in front of his older brother, and he turned away slightly to wipe his face on his sleeve. After taking a few deep breaths, he suddenly felt very embarrassed and slightly childish for wreaking havoc in the bathroom, which was now quite unrecognizable.

"Sorry about…you know, your bathroom…I didn't mean—"

"It's alright mate," said Bill quietly, "I can fix it."

An uncomfortable silence followed for a few moments before Ron finally asked, "So…how are the others?"

Bill said, "Luna and Dean are in the best shape, they just seem a little malnourished. Ollivander's in a bit of a bad way, seems as he's been…wherever you were, the longest of anyone. The goblin…I take it he was tortured too? Is going to need some healthy doses of Skele-Gro for a while, but he should be okay. And the house-elf…"

"Dobby," Ron interjected.

"—yeah, Dobby. Dobby's dead. Stabbed through the chest with a dagger. I was going to go get something to cover him with when I…heard crashing coming from down here."

So Bellatrix's knife found a mark, thought Ron. He felt a twinge of grief for the small house-elf, he had always been so eager to help, and Ron knew that Harry had been very fond of him. And he had saved all their lives.

"Where's his body?'

"Harry's out digging a grave for him."

Physical work with no magic. That's just what Ron needed right now.

"I think I'm going to go out and dig too," he heard himself saying. "Harry could use the help, and it'll take my mind off Hermi…" his voice trailed away into nothingness.

Bill gave Ron a long penetrating stare. Then his eyes softened, and he nodded. "Okay, there's a spade outside behind the garden shed."

"Thanks," grunted Ron. He first walked over to the closet and pulled the closest clean t-shirt he could find from the shelves, and then with the new unfamiliar wand siphoned away the drying blood on his arms as Bill watched without a sound. Taking a deep breath, he nodded at Bill and put his hand on the doorknob, ready to walk out of the room.

"You love her, don't you?"

He said the words quietly, almost inaudibly, but Ron heard them as clearly as if Bill had said them right into his ear. He froze for a moment, his hand still on the doorknob. Bill speaking it out loud made it so much more real to him, this deep-seated love for her that he had had for —well, as long as he could remember at this point. He cared for her more than anyone else in the world, and he had never even told her. And for those terrifying few moments in the mansion, he thought he would never be able to. He was going to make sure that didn't happen.

"Yes."

And he strode out of the room to go help Harry in the garden.