Ron Weasley

It wasn't something he'd decided to do on a whim, Ron was sure of at least that much. It'd been a stray thought for ages back home, though he'd never thought that the time was right. Both he and Hermione were nearly always busy, him with Auror assignments and her with Ministry work, and he couldn't imagine either of them would have the time for it just yet.

Though, it'd been a long time since Ron had realized that, inevitably, this was in the cards for them. He couldn't imagine himself with anyone else, and didn't ever want anyone else. It'd been Hermione from the start, really, and it always would be.

He'd found a muggle shop on the day he'd graduated Darrow's police academy, sometime before the ceremony, before Hermione had turned up. Months now, and Ron thought he'd finally worked out how the muggle money worked, but that didn't mean he had much of it. The bit he'd saved since arriving in Darrow wasn't enough, and he wasn't really being paid well. But the shopkeeper had given him the brilliant option to take a ring now and pay it off later, and Ron had taken him up on it.

Because now there was time, wasn't there? At least, right now there was. He couldn't know how long it'd be until one of them disappeared or got sent home or whatever happened to people when they weren't in Darrow anymore.

This was the moment, wasn't it?

Only, once Ron had the ring in his pocket, he hadn't been able to pluck up the nerve to do what he'd been dead set on once he'd bought it. And now it'd been over a week with it, barely managing to keep Hermione from finding it in the pocket of his trousers.

It was stew for dinner tonight, which Ron managed to have mostly done before Hermione came home from The Lamplight. It reminded him of potions back at Hogwarts no matter how many times they had it, though at least there wasn't much of a chance he'd accidentally poison either of them.

But waiting for her to come home, Ron suddenly wished he'd done something more special.

Tonight felt like it might be the night.

Ron would never admit to being bored on the island. After what they'd all gone through back home, and then again as the island had convinced them that they were all back at Hogwarts through it's own special kind of magic, it seemed wrong to think at all. Most of the time, he was glad for how dull things were; Voldemort was gone, there were no more Horcruxes to find and in the end, he'd never even had to worry about N.E.W.T.s.

On the other hand though, there was no magic on the island, no Quidditch, and though Bill was around, he missed the rest of his family.

Ron was still trying not to think about what'd happened to Fred.

That day, he'd mostly been wandering when he came upon the waterfall, where he bent over grabbed a stone and skipped it across the surface of the water. It likely wouldn't do much to help his boredom, but it was something.

"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All that you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible..."

He was chilled to the bone, hair still wet from the pond and plastered to his forehead, still dripping in his face from where it hadn't had a chance to properly dry yet. He'd started shaking without realizing it, and while it was partially from the cold, there was no mistaking that it wasn't the only reason. The sword shook in his hands and he tried to steady it, tried to focus. The sword had come to him, Harry had said he was the one who was supposed to do this... so why was it so bloody difficult? Why hadn't he so much as moved yet?

The locket hissed at him, was talking to him, and he couldn't take his eyes off it. Somewhere in the background, Harry was shouting, but it was muted, like his ears were filled with cotton and only the voice from the locket was powerful enough to penetrate.

Two ghostly, familiar figures emerged from the locket, only vapor at first, but very quickly taking form as something else. As someone else. Harry. Hermione. Together. Better without him. Maybe he shouldn't have come back at all. They hadn't come looking for him, had they? They'd been fine without him around. She was the cleverest person he'd ever met and he was Harry Potter. What would they ever need him for?

"Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence... We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption--"

"Your mother confessed that she would have preferred me as a son. Would be glad to exchange..."

Ron's arms dropped at his sides, the point of the sword hitting the hard earth with a quiet thump that he didn't even notice. They were laughing at him now, both of them. His best friends. No. Not his best friends. It was harder to remember that now than it should have been, that the two figures from the locket weren't them. Ron's grip tightened around the sword as he tried to muster up the strength to raise it over his head again. He couldn't take his eyes off the locket. He couldn't will his arms to move.

"Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman could take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him," the false Hermione said, in a voice not like Hermione's at all, and suddenly she and the false Harry were embracing, kissing, a visible recreation of some of Ron's worse thoughts. He'd never told either of them what he suspected, not until that night he'd left them, but the locket had put an end to all that. And now those thoughts that he'd pushed away and told himself were bollocks were right there in front of him. Real and horrible, solid and awful and he couldn't take his eyes off of it.

Ron's heart dropped in his chest then, and he felt an even worse chill run through him, if that was at all possible. No. This wasn't them. It wasn't them at all. Ron wasn't sure what it was that finally pulled him out of whatever trance the locket put him in-- maybe it was the snake-like way the false Harry and false Hermione's arms embraced each other, maybe it was Harry shouting his name finally sounding as clear as it should-- but in an instant, the sword was over his head again and he lunged, striking the locket as hard as he could. The force of the blow, or perhaps, the force of the thing inside the locket, pushed him back, and Ron fell onto the hard Earth with enough force that he shut his eyes.

When Ron opened them again, he didn't recognize the patch of woods he was in anymore. He'd fallen back into snow and all his things had scattered. He came to his feet, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand, though he didn't remember crying in the first place. He must've disapparated somehow when he destroyed the locket, because it was sitting in the snow a few feet away from him, blackened and broken, silent again.

"Blimey," Ron breathed, catching his breath and feeling his heart finally slow down, "Alright, Harry?"

But there was no answer. The woods were silent again now, and he was alone, just like before he'd found Harry. Ron reached into his pocket and pulled out the Deluminator, clicking it once and hoping for the ball of light again. When nothing happened, he clicked it twice more and then eventually stuffed it back into his pocket. Bloody thing must have broken somehow, or maybe the pond had ruined it.

Ron set about gathering his scattered things in the snow. He put the broken locket in the pocket of his coat, his rucksack on his back and held the sword in one hand, his wand at the ready in the other.

He'd lost Harry and Hermione once before and he wasn't about to lose them again.