Shadow Walks |h.p/h.g|

ch. 4

Harry just stared at Ron for a long moment, the flat shrouded in absolute silence save for the crackling of the fire. Finally he said,

"You don't mean that."

"I do mean it," Ron said, lifting his eyes to look at Harry again, as if the orbital muscles had enormous weights attached. "You'd gone to fight him, and Hermione and I were together. We were almost in the Forbidden Forest, and were trying to stay out of sight and work our way towards Dumbledore's tomb, hoping to be able to help you." He steepled his fingers underneath his chin, and continued, speaking mechanically. "Then I - I asked her if there was anything going on between the two of you - the whole good-bye thing got me wondering..."

"Ron, you didn't," Harry said in a strangled kind of half-groan, dropping his face into his hands. "In the middle of the bloody battle with Voldemort?" Ron and Hermione had broken up nearly eight months before the battle took place, but Ron had remained as over-protective and overreacting as he'd always been. At Harry's words, Ron flushed crimson, but attempted to continue speaking evenly.

"She insisted that nothing was going on, and we - we started arguing, and - " The regret plastered across Ron's face would be evident to anyone. Harry just stared at him, as Ron tried to finish the story that he'd begun relating. "Some of the things I said to her - and I didn't mean them, I really didn't mean them... We were so angry - we weren't exactly shouting, but it was just like always - and so we - I - I left her there...oh, Merlin, Harry, I left her there..."

"You what?" Harry said hoarsely. He felt his throat closing up painfully, threatening to cut off his airway forever. Ron's words had become heavy mallets, and the inside of his skull was a gong. This is why I don't talk about her to anyone! Anyone! He wasn't sure if he was going to throw up or pass out.

"I - I stalked off ahead of her. It really wasn't far, and I thought she was right behind me, but..." Harry's eyes flickered down to Ron's long legs, folded up as he sat on the sofa. He would've left her behind very quickly, his strides carrying him rapidly along the edge of the forest. "I heard a scuffle, some raised voices, and - and Hermione screamed." Harry flinched visibly. "I turned around and ran back towards her, but I stepped in a bloody hole or something. I fell... my leg...When I finally got my bearings again, she was gone." Ron was speaking mechanically, not even seeming to remember that Harry was in the room.

"I could hear the sounds of the battle, and I tried to - tried to get out of the forest. I heard someone say something - in Latin - a curse I'd never heard before, and then - that was all. The next thing I heard was Remus shouting, and then you were back, and ..."

"Who was it? Who spoke the curse?" That took away the woman I love, rang in Harry's head, though he did not speak it.

"Bellatrix Lestrange." Ron said, the name plunging into the silence and seeming to echo around the room. Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry's lips pressed into a grim line. At least this explained why Ron had been mumbling her name in his drunken state.

When Harry had returned from Dumbledore's tomb, looking like nothing more than a dead man walking, he had seen Ron, all but dragging himself from the low undergrowth on the very outer edge of the forest, obviously in pain. Harry had cast a somewhat elementary healing charm, and then stiffened the leg of Ron's trousers to act as a splint on his broken bone. He'd helped him to stand.

"Where's Hermione?" Ron had asked in a panicked voice, clutching at Harry's sleeve, watching the alarm suddenly seep into Harry's eyes. They'd both turned to look across the wide green grounds of Hogwarts, and had seen Remus standing, wavering on his feet, blood streaming down one side of his face from a laceration above his eye, looking at them sadly, so sadly that they'd known ... without Remus having to say anything at all. But he had said something...two words that would tear Harry's life apart and leave ruins strewn in their wake. And then his own furious, impotent, despairing cry,