Amulet of Time 3: The Wolf and The Pelican

Chapter 9: Consequences of Battle

Ron awoke with a pounding headache. Opening his eyes, he groaned as the bright light of the hospital wing hit him full in the face. He could hear excited voices all around him, but the pain in his head kept him from concentrating on any one. Fragments of conversations filtered through his tired brain, but made little sense to him.

"…a week…glad…exhausted…"

" Wish…Harry…still asleep."

" Now…awake…what…battle…"

" Do you…hear…talk…us?"

"…give…bit…time…"

" Took…out…him…."

With a groan, Ron turned over on his side away from the voices and fell into a deep natural sleep.

The next time he awoke, Ron found that the pain in his head, while still there, had considerably lessened. When he opened his eyes this time, two blurry shapes appeared above him, one taking each of his hands. He assumed the brown blob to be Hermione, and the red one to be Ginny, although he couldn't make their faces out. As he adjusted to the light, the blurring of his vision lessened until he could see his two friends clearly. Both wore relieved looks on their faces, but Ron could still detect a deep worry buried in their expressions. He needed to find out what was going on. He couldn't remember much of the battle, nor could he remember why he was in there. There was only one obvious question.

" What happened?"

Hermione exchanged a look with Ginny, and it appeared as if they were deciding who would explain it to him. As the silent conversation ended, Hermione sighed and turned to her boyfriend.

" You're in the hospital wing at Domus Corvus Corax. You've been here for the last two weeks. You woke up briefly on Monday, but went back to sleep before we had chance to talk to you. Can you remember what happened at the battle?"

Ron thought hard, coming up with very little. His memories of the last few minutes before he fell unconscious were hazy at best. The last thing he remembered clearly was…

" Harry! Harry got attacked!"

" That's right. Is that the last you remember?" Ginny prompted.

Ron concentrated on the images swimming in his head, but none became any clearer.

" That's it. Everything else is a blur. I can remember Harry being attacked by…a vampire?"

" Yes, that's right. From where I was standing, I saw you run and help him, but he got hit with some curses. You did…something…to him, but we don't know what. Then you collapsed in exhaustion," Hermione told him.

This new information filled in some of the blanks in Ron's memory and some of the details started to come back to him.

" I remember some of it, now you mention it. I did something with my hands. They started to glow. I could see he was hurt bad, and I wanted to heal him, but I didn't know how. Harry's the one that knows all of that elven healing magic, not me. I felt so helpless, and I just…willed…him to get better. I think some of the more serious injuries healed, but then I started to feel really tired, and I couldn't keep it up anymore."

" You must have worn yourself out doing…whatever it was you did. I've never heard of anything like it before, I'll have to ask Professor Dumbledore when he comes back. He's been to visit every day to check on your progress. Ginny and I have been here all the time."

" Aren't you missing school?"

" You're more important than school. We were going to have you moved to Hogwarts, but Minh thought it would do more damage to Harry if we moved him."