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It wasn’t meant to happen like this.
Harry stood on one side of Ron’s unconscious body, his hand gripping Ron’s arm, while Hermione stood on the other side, in a similar position.
Ron’s pallor was quickly fading and Harry shot an urgent look to Remus who stood at the end of the bed.
Remus sighed and raised his wand, the tip beginning to glow an ominous red.
The war was meant to be over, but as Harry took in the still form of one of the most important people in his life, he knew there were some things you just couldn’t heal from. And some people were always going to take their own hurt out on others.
“Brace yourselves.”
*
Ron stared in confusion at the shelves lining the muggle supermarket he’d entered in search of a particular treat Hermione and Harry had requested. He wasn’t sure why he was the one who was selected to go, but he had the feeling his partners were betting on how well he would fare.
He’d show them. He would find whatever it was they wanted, if only he could figure out what a ‘Count Chocolate-ah’ was.
Muggles passed him from either side as he scanned the shelves, frowning at the multitude of cans and jars. Ron was deeply out of his element, but he knew he would never live it down if he returned without the item. He sighed, shaking his head and began to move to look in another aisle, when he was stopped by a green aproned muggle.
“Hi! Is there anything I can help you find?” He smiled in a forced way that had Ron considering taking a step back, but he held his ground.
Ron pursed his lips. “Yea, actually, I was wondering if you knew what a ‘Count Chocolate-ah’ is?”
The muggle stifled a snort, and his smile became much more genuine. “I believe you mean ‘Count Chocula’, and as a matter of fact, I just finished stocking those shelves, let me show you.”
Ron followed the worker a few aisles over and stared in astonishment at the brightly colored boxes with characters on them eating...strangely shaped…things.
He didn't even know what to call them.
The muggle world was weird.
The worker gestured to a chaotic purple box with a grinning, bucktoothed, man in a cloak on the cover. Ron took it down and couldn't help but think of the unflattering caricatures of Snape he used to draw in class.
"Is there anything else?"
Ron jerked and looked back at the worker. "Ah, no. I'll just go...pay for this."
His mind wandered as he went through the now familiar transaction of muggle money, and he thought of the past few months with Harry and Hermione.
They'd ended the war and it had made them realize that they didn't want to be separated. After spending seven years in each other’s company, and going through everything they’d been through together, well. There wasn’t anyone else who understood them the same way.
And they didn't want to be with anyone else.
To be honest, Ron was surprised the first time Harry kissed him, but in hindsight he shouldn't have been. They'd been dancing around each other for two months, and Hermione had been giving him rather pointed looks the whole time.
Besides, people who are just mates don't daydream about their mates lips as often as Ron dreamt about Harry's.
The thought of Hermione's small arms wrapped around his waist, and his own draped over Harry's strong shoulders filled him with warmth, and a soft smile came over his face as he walked out of the supermarket, weird purple Snape box in hand.
There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for them. He was theirs and they were his. Truly, it had been that way since they were eleven, though none of them knew just how much the feeling would grow.
If Harry beating old snake face had taught Ron anything, it was that Fate played a very real role in their lives. It was just up to them how to interpret it.
He made his way down the street to the apparition point, when he was stopped by the familiar flap of a cloak behind him.
"Is that you, Weasley ?" A snide voice called.
Ron slowly turned to the familiar face of Antonin Dolohov, a Death Eater who had attacked them in the Department of Mysteries and who Ron had been sure had died in the Battle of Hogwarts.
The older man grinned and twirled his wand between his fingers, bringing it up to point at Ron. "I thought so. You know, you and Potter have made life very difficult for me and mine."
Ron silently released his wand from its holster on his forearm, keeping it at his side. "Funny. Almost like that was the point."
The Death Eater growled, "Your friend took something important to me, so I'm going to take something important to him. "
People along the street were beginning to take notice of the two men, mostly muggles with the random wizard or witch thrown in. They all looked between Ron and Dolohov, frightened.
Ron tightened his grip on his wand. It didn't seem like the wizards who were there were going to help him at all if this got ugly.
Typical.
He took a small step back. "Well, good luck with that, Dolohov, but I'm afraid I have to get going."
"You're not going anywhere, Weasley."
The voice came from behind him again, in the way of the apparition point, and Ron felt his heart sink.
Two Death Eaters on his own? If he was Harry he wouldn't bat an eye, but Ron had never been as good at Defense. And besides, he was out of practice. They'd fought for their peace, and hadn't had cause to fight for months.
Ron risked a glance over his shoulder and was met with the scowling face of Thorfin Rowle.
Fuck.
In the next second Ron had his wand up and casting a Stunner towards Rowle, hoping it hit as he swung around to deal with Dolohov. At the same time he reached into his pocket, searching for the emergency portkey Hermione had made him take.
Muggles on the street screamed and ran, and he belatedly realized he should probably be protecting the Statute of Secrecy, but as a curse flew past his shoulder, Ron figured he didn't really care.
Ron blocked Dolohov's next spell with a shield charm, but as Ron lowered it to go back on the offensive, the other man shouted something he didn't catch.
A streak of violent purple flew towards him and Ron hastily got his shield back up.
But it didn't matter.
The spell shattered his shield charm and hit him in the center of his chest, knocking him to the ground.
Every atom of his body felt like it was on fire, and Ron fought back a scream.
He had to get to Harry and Hermione, he couldn't die here, he had to get to them. His fingers twitched in his pocket, grasping the small key portkey.
Dolohov and Rowle walked up on either side of him, grinning sneers on their faces.
"Not so tough now, eh Weasley?" Rowle jeered.
Ron looked up at them, his vision blurring around the edges. He had to get home. He had to.
He sucked in a ragged breath and choked out, "Home.", activating the portkey. Ron's eyes slipped closed and he let the magic sweep him away.
*
Harry jerked out of his very comfortable seat in the sitting room of Grimmauld Place, as a very unconscious Ron portkeyed in.
“Ron!” Harry fell to the ground beside him, weaving his wand in complicated diagnostic charms. “Ron, Ron, wake up.” He watched the spell with results that made no sense, and felt a terror grip his heart.
“HERMIONE!” Harry screamed, knowing she was up in the library. A series of thuds, followed pounding footsteps let him know she was on her way. He continued to run diagnostic spells, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of the results.
“Harry?” Hermione’s frantic voice sounded from the top of the stairs. “What is- oh my god, Ron!”
“He just portkeyed in, he’s been unconscious the whole time, I don’t know what happened, and the diagnostic-” He babbled as she fell to her knees beside him, pushing his wand out of the way so she could run her own spells.
A choked gasp left her mouth as she got the results, and her eyes began to fill with tears.
“Hermione? Hermione, what is it?” Harry had one hand on his wand, and the other pressed firmly to Ron’s chest, needing to feel the rise and fall of his shallow breaths.
“He’s-” She choked and tears began to stream down her face. She shook her head. ‘We have to wake him up, we have to know what happened before we can do anything.”
Harry stared at her, his heart sinking as he watched the tears slip down her cheeks. Hermione lifted her wand and cast Reenervate.
Ron heaved a gasp, his body convulsing as he came to. His eyes fluttered open into a pained squint and he seemed to have trouble focusing.
"Ha…rry?" Ron gasped, his whole body heaving. "'Mione?"
"Ron!" Hermione sobbed, her hands framing his face, trying to get him to focus on her. "Ron, what happened?"
The blood seemed gone from his face, he was too pale and his lips were turning blue. "Was…Dolo…h…" Ron gasped out, pain cutting his voice off and he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Dolo…Dolohov?" Harry said, gripping Ron's hand tightly. "Antonin Dolohov? He did this to you?"
"I thought he died," Hermione said, meeting Harry's eyes. "But what could…"
Harry watched as comprehension dawned on her and she pressed a hand to her own chest.
"That curse…the one Dolohov hit me with in the Department of Mysteries. He was silenced so it was nonverbal, which Madame Pomfrey said made it not as potent." Her own face drained of blood and she whipped out her wand, summoning her Patronus. "Go to Remus Lupin. Tell him it's urgent and we need his help, Ron is hurt. Hurry."
"Hermione?" Harry said, fear pulsing in his chest.
She didn't look at him, waving her wand again and a vial of potion flew from the kitchen into her waiting hand. "Ron, I need you to drink this. You need to be asleep for us to heal you."
Ron's breathing was unsteady, his eyes still unfocused, but he managed a nod. He opened his mouth and Hermione poured the potion in.
Harry watched as Ron went limp, and turned back to Hermione. "What's your plan?"
“I need you to stay with Ron.” she said, standing up. “There’s a book I need from the library, I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on him.”
And with that, Harry was left alone with an unconscious Ron. He reached out and brushed Ron’s hair off his forehead. The redhead’s face was tense with pain, even in sleep, and Harry’s heart clenched with worry. That curse Hermione was hit with when they were kids…she’d been in the hospital wing longer than any of them.
And she said that wasn’t even the curse’s full power.
Harry looked down at Ron’s hand in his, and noticed something strange. Small scars Ron had on the back of his hand were inflamed, and deepening. They seemed to sink even farther into his skin, and Harry’s heart leapt to his throat. Hurriedly, he pushed Ron’s sleeve up his arm, and felt his stomach lurch.
Ron’s own scars from the Department of Mysteries, winding around his arms like the tentacles of the brains that caused them, were red raw. The scars seemed to throb and settle even deeper into Ron’s skin, like the tentacles were still there, still wrapping ever tighter around his arm. Harry pulled down Ron’s collar and saw the same for the scars at his throat.
“Oh Hermione, hurry up.” Harry whispered, clutching Ron’s hand even tighter.
Ron’s breathing was ragged, and Harry was afraid. He didn’t know what he would do if he lost him. Ron had been by his side for the best and worst times of his life. He was his first friend, and if Harry was honest with himself, his first love. There was no one else, besides Hermione, who knew all they had gone through together.
He couldn’t lose him.
Hermione’s footsteps on the stairs echoed the pounding of the front door. A voice echoed through the wood, and Harry lifted his head in relief.
The door opened and Hermione’s frantic voice floated through the hall to him.
“Remus! Thank god, please, hurry. It’s Ron. I don’t know what you remember of the fight in the Department of Mysteries, but there was this curse I was hit with-”
“Yes, I remember, Hermione, what is this about?” The familiar voice of Remus Lupin answered her, as they entered the sitting room. “Dear Merlin, Ron.”
Harry met Hermione’s eyes and pushed up Ron’s sleeve. “Hermione, look.”
Her eyes caught on the scars, and all the blood that was left in her face vanished, and a look of stricken horror came over her.
“We have to hurry.” Hermione said, flipping open the book in her hands. “Remus, we don’t have a lot of time, but we need you to perform this spell for us.”
She thrust the book into Remus’ hands and moved to kneel on Ron’s other side. Ron was still between them, and Harry felt as if his heart was going to stop any moment.
Remus glanced over the page, and his eyes widened. “Hermione, this is…borderline dark magic.”
Harry looked at her, but Hermione’s face was resolute. “I’ve researched this, ever since it happened to me. This is the best solution. We need you to cast the spell.”
“Alright.” The older man said, shrugging off his outer robe. “If we’re doing this, we should bring him to one of the larger bedrooms. We won’t want to move him, or truthfully, either of you, once the spell is done.”
Harry stood at once, and Ron was levitated gently towards the stairs. His mind tumbled over itself as he tried to think of what could be so awful about this spell, but as he looked between Ron and Hermione, Harry knew it didn’t matter.
He would do anything for them.
*
“Brace yourselves.”
Remus’ wand waved in a complicated motion over the three of them, and Harry felt something roil in his blood. His hand where it clutched Ron’s arm began to heat, and Harry felt his own magic and his blood begin to flow into the other wizard.
Harry gasped, the feeling intense, and locked his knees so he wouldn’t collapse. Remus chanted through the spell, and Harry looked to Hermione. Her hand also clutched at Ron’s arm, but Harry watched as something seemed to move across the back of her hand.
It was hard, through the haze of pain and the draining of his blood and magic, to understand what was happening. His vision swam and he stumbled against the edge of the bed. Every bit of him was screaming in agony, and Harry hoped this was enough. Hoped this was enough to save Ron.
The edges of Harry’s vision began to go dark, as Remus waved his wand one last time, the last words of the spell dropping from his mouth with a reverent finality.
Ron’s breathing steadied, and his eyes began to flutter open.
“Harry? Hermione?” Ron’s voice rasped.
Both Harry and Hermione swayed on their feet, and one after the other, collapsed onto the bed next to Ron, unconscious.
*
Hermione woke, her body aching and sore, to the dim light of the upper bedroom. Her eyes adjusted and she raised her head, looking around. Ron lay where she had left him, in a peaceful sleep, looking much better than she’d last seen him. Harry lay not much farther, pale and unmoving, but for the subtle rise and fall of his chest.
Remus stood over him, his face tight in concentration as he waved his wand, casting what Hermione recognized as the blood replenishing spell. Though she knew a potion would be easier, Remus probably hadn’t wanted to leave them unattended.
Hermione knew she had a few in her potions store, and groaned as she began to roll off the bed. Remus looked over at her in alarm as her feet hit the floor.
“Hermione, you shouldn’t be up, the spell took a great toll on both of you-”
“I know.” Hermione said, her voice low. One of her hands pushed up the sleeve of her sweater, revealing deep, winding scars traveling up her arm. The same scars that Ron had had earlier that day. “I knew the consequences of the spell, Remus. I’d never have suggested it otherwise.”
Remus helped her as she continued to stand. “Then why-”
“Harry needs more than just the spell. I have blood replenishing potion in my stores.” She said, holding his arm for balance as the new scars for wounds that were never hers ached and pulled at her skin. “It won’t do much for his magic but…well that will come back with rest.”
“If it does.” Remus said, casting a concerned glance over to Harry’s unconscious form. “You must know the sources that say the one who’s magic is taken, rarely ever gets it back the same.”
Hermione sighed, transferring her weight from Remus to the door frame. “I know. But you have to admit, if anyone is going to, it’ll be Harry.” They shared a look full of doubt, before Hermione shook herself. “Besides, Harry has always had more magic than he knew what to do with. At worst, he’ll just be a regular wizard now.”
She moved through the doorway, and looked over her shoulder at Remus. “Watch over them. I’ll be right back.”
Remus tried to protest again, but Hermione was already carefully picking her way down the stairs.
All of her energy was gone, and it was all Hermione could do not to tumble head first down the stairs. Luckily, she only had to make it one floor down. She entered a temperature charmed room, and made her way over to a shelf thinly lined with potions. As she gathered the blood replenishing potions in her hands, she knew once she was up to it, she would have to restock. Harry was going to need them for a while.
Her heart tightened in her chest as she thought of him. She felt bad for not telling him, but they didn’t have time. And she knew he would have agreed to it. They had enough trust in each other for her to know that, and Harry would have done the same.
They had saved Ron. That’s what mattered.
Hermione knew she was lost without them, her boys. Harry and Ron were everything to her. They’d all lost so much in the war, and been through things only the others could hope to understand. She felt connected to them, in a way she had never felt connected to anyone before.
It had felt a bit strange, in the beginning, learning that she had the room in her heart for both of them. After a month or two of trying to be with Ron alone, they both realized there was a significantly Harry shaped hole in their lives. And when they’d gone to Harry with their proposal, the relief on his face wasn’t imagined.
“Oh, Merlin, you don’t have to-”
“We want to.”
“You’re all we want.”
They’d embraced and just spent the night in each other’s arms, and that was that. It had been the three of them for as long as they could remember, and it would be the three of them until they died.
Ron had come close to dying.
Harry and Hermione weren’t going to let that happen.
Voices reached her ears as she crested the landing, hobbling back into the room. Ron sat up in the bed with Harry’s head pulled into his lap. His hand stroked steadily through the other man’s hair, as he looked at Remus with a furrowed brow.
Remus stood at the foot of the bed, the book Hermione had found the spell in open in his hands as he described to Ron what they’d done.
Her steps were loud as she entered, and Ron’s eyes leaped to her, concern drenching his face.
“Hermione…” Ron said, his voice choked with emotion. “Why did you…”
She staggered to the bed, dropping heavily onto the cushioned surface and setting the potion bottles beside her. “It was the only way to save you, Ron. That curse…it is not one that is taken down easily, and even the best Healers only beat it half the time. This was fool-proof.”
“But you and Harry, ‘Mione, I would never ask you to hurt yourselves.” Ron said, reaching a hand out for her.
Hermione took it. “And you didn’t. It was a choice we made. Well, I made really, but it was to save your life.”
Ron looked down at their joined hands, tilting them back and forth with a pained expression. “Remus told me…you took on my scars.” Ron met her eyes, and Hermione felt as if he were staring straight to her soul.
She sighed, taking her other hand and sliding up her sleeve a little, just enough to see the bottom of some very familiar scars. “I’d do it again. And I know Harry would too.”
A low groaning answered her, and Harry shifted from his place in Ron’s lap. “I would.” He rasped. His bright green eyes looked up at the pair of them, and Hermione knew he would be all right.
Harry slowly sat up, and Hermione handed him a potion. “Drink this, it’ll help.”
As he downed the potion, Remus moved around the bed, the book still clutched in his hands. The look on their ex-teacher’s face was one of fatherly concern, and Hermione was glad it was him she had called.
“Are you three all right? This was quite an ordeal.” Remus asked, looking between the three of them.
Harry nodded, confident. “We’ll be okay. Thank you for everything, Remus.”
He laughed. “Oh, I’m not leaving. I’ll at least be here for the next few hours, as I get into contact with the others to help me track down Dolohov. Right now though, I wonder if I wouldn’t do better going and getting us all some dinner, yes?”
Ron groaned, sinking back down into the pillows. “Merlin yes, you’re a life saver, Remus.”
Remus grinned and made for the door. “I’d say that’s Harry and Hermione in this situation, actually. I’ll be back soon, get some rest.” And with that, he vanished out the door and down the stairs.
Hermione looked at Harry and Ron, and smiled. She shuffled closer until she was close enough to wrap her arms around both of them.
“I’m so glad you’re both okay.” She whispered, tears burning at the back of her eyes.
Harry slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her close and pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “I’m happy it worked.”
Ron’s long arms engulfed both of them, pulling them down to lay next to him, and his lips found each of theirs in a tender, loving kiss. “Thank you, both, for everything. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to make it up to you.” He whispered.
Hermione snuggled down into his side, his and Harry’s warmth sinking into her and dulling the bone deep ache she’d felt since the spell. “You don’t have to. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Well,” Harry said, as he laid his head down on Ron’s shoulder, getting comfortable. “The two of you have done things like this for me enough times. I might as well repay the favor.”
Ron laughed, holding them close as they drifted off. “I’m sure this won’t be the last time. We’ll have plenty of time to do this again.”
Harry held Hermione’s hand atop Ron’s chest, and together the three of the drifted off into a gentle sleep.
“Forever.”