Pulse

Saturday 23rd November

Voldemort retracted his hand quickly. It was all too... Human for him. He couldn't- didn't want to- understand it.
Ron fully collapsed, heaving in the snow, holding his broken arm close to his chest and his other hand over his face, bloody seeping through his fingers.

Voldemort stepped lightly out of Ron's body and looked down at him. He scoffed at how pathetic the sight of it was.

"Well, weasel... I'm done with you," he said. "I hope I never see you alive again-" Voldemort noticed the growing stain of crimson around Ron's head- "and I do not think I will. Ta-ta!"

And he Disapperated.

Ron just lay. Cold. Hurt. Tired. So, so cold. Cold and tired. Tired enough to go to sleep and never have to wake...

"Where's he gone?"

"I swear he was waiting for us right here."

"Ron?"

"Ron, mate where are you?"

"Oh my god, Harry, what's that over there?"

"Where?"

"Over there, lying on the fl-- oh, oh my GOD, Harry, it's him, that's Ron-"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm bloody sure! Come on!"

Ron didn't actually hear the footfalls approaching him through the snow.

He didn't feel a cloak being wrapped around him, or the groping on his wrists and behind his ears for a--

"Pulse! I've found one, Hermione, he's got a pulse!"

He didn't hear Hermione sobbing, or Harry whispering over and over to himself:

"It'll be okay. He'll he okay. He has to be okay."

He couldn't hear the fear in their voices.

He didn't hear or feel Hagrid carrying him up to the castle, or the double doors of the hospital wing swing open. He didn't feel a thing when his arm was mended and splinted. He didn't see Hermione sat by his bed nor did he feel her hand grasping his. 
All Ron Weasley knew was swirling, deepening, crushing blackness. Darker than an inky sky, colder than a cruel winter, but not quite as suffocating as Lord Voldemort inside his mind.