I Will Remember You

Prologue

It was the end of the Christmas holidays and the specter of Lord Voldemort loomed like some great big shadow, casting his gloom over the wizarding world. The day started off as usual with the soft warm glow of the rising sun creeping in. It filled cracks and crevices, stroked cheeks and faces until Ron woke up in the early morning light, his face creased against the pillow. Later, the world would slowly awaken; rumble to life and then the day would really begin. Life with all its chaos and problems, You-Know-Who and love.

Outside the clouds began to gather, obscuring the rays of light from the sun. Ron lay there, watching the clouds form and rain begin to drizzle down. For some reason, there was a strange bubbly feeling in the pit of Ron's stomach. It wasn't a bad feeling. In fact, he felt happy. Lying there on the bed as outside, the sun frowned down making criss cross patterns of pale light through gray clouds, he suddenly felt like he had been lit up inside. Every cell in his body seemed to be singing a song - a song that was really just one sentence said over and over again in his head until he felt like his mind would explode. I'm going to London to see Hermione. Somehow, just thinking those words made a funny feeling settle in the pit of his stomach. More of a warm glow actually. Ron did not normally feel warm glows. Ron normally associated mornings with complaining and bad accidents like falling out of bed and yet there he was, feeling strangely like hugging the pillow in sheer delight.

As the light grew, the silence became punctuated with shouts and yells and the grumbling of people roused out of bed. Later, Ron stood in the mess of his room, trying to find his other sock. "Harry, have you seen my sock?" he asked, scrambling around frantically while Harry sat calmly on the bed watching him amidst the clutter.

"What colour is it?" Harry asked as he leaned back lazily on the bed, a smile in his eyes. Harry doesn't smile with his mouth, Ron thought abruptly. When Harry is truly happy, he smiles with his eyes.

Rain pattered on the windowpanes outside the Burrow, scattering leaves in the yard like a sign of the storm that was brewing in the wizarding world. Lately, the weeks had been filled with nothing but quiet whispers about You-Know-Who. His name was like a plague that if uttered would mean that you were cursed. That seemed the general consensus among everyone anyway. Well except for Fred and George who insisted on going around saying it backwards.

"Maroon," he said hastily. "I don't bloody wear anything else but maroon, do I?"

"You wear red and gold too," Harry pointed out placidly. "Gryffindor colours."

"Be bloody right all the time, why don't you?" he grumbled as he looked around the room with what was quickly becoming desperation and much misery. "Brilliant, we'll be late!" he muttered anxiously, pawing through the mounds of clothes that lined the floor of the room. "If I'm so poor, why do I own so many things?"

"Hermione's not going to die of waiting, you know," Harry said and was it just Ron, or did he look faintly amused?

"Well good for her then," he said as he managed to find everything but the sock. "Harry," he said, giving up and feeling somehow close to tears. "I CAN'T FIND THE SOCK".

This time, Harry sat up. It was a bloody miracle, really, Ron thought. These last few months, he had taken to sitting in bed, twirling his wand around and around between his fingers as if it would hold the key to all the problems in the world.

Now, there Harry was, with that same look in his eyes as he had had in those moments Ron saw him in bed, twirling his wand distractedly. Wand-twirling Harry - sometimes it made Ron shudder. After Sirius had died, Harry had seemed so distant sometimes and in those times, Ron didn't know what to do or say. "You can't expect to know how to do everything, you know, Ron. No one can be all good," he remembered Hermione saying once after they had gotten together at the start of Sixth Year. "No one is". You are, he had thought but no, he hadn't said it of course. She was right as she most usually was (although he didn't often like admitting it), but then didn't he have a duty as a best friend to help Harry?

"Do you love her, Ron?" Harry asked suddenly, out of the blue. Ron jumped, startled and nearly tripped over a scarf lying on the ground.

"Do I?" he echoed stupidly.

"Do you?" The question hung in the air before he answered. He knew whom Harry was talking about of course - Hermione. "Yes, I do."

"Does she know?" Harry asked, looking at him with that curious gaze.

"No." How could he bring himself to tell Harry of that fear that choked him up inside whenever he tried to tell her? "What do you think, Harry?" he asked finally.

"I think you should tell her before it's too late."

"Sure," he scoffed. "Like that will be anytime soon." And yet he wondered what he would do if he never did tell her before...before what? Before she died? Left? If anything happened though, it would hurt too much to breathe. Ron was sure of that.

"Accio sock!" Harry said and the sock miraculously lifted itself from underneath a mound of clothes. Outside, the morning light had all but gone. Instead it was replaced by a gray mist and light falling rain.

*

"Harry, Ron!" Ron heard his mother's loud voice the minute he entered the kitchen. He cringed in embarrassment. That was her 'Do-This-Or-Else' voice.

"Yes, Mum?" he asked, rolling his eyes at Harry.

Harry shrugged, managing to look clueless. Ron never knew how Harry quite managed it considering he wasn't.

"Remember, stick together. There are going to be a lot of people in London. I don't want anyone getting hurt or lost." Ron saw that she was serious. She was even handing out toast and marmalade, which she always did when she was worried.

"Oooh, are you sure you can manage alone, Ron?" Fred asked as he glanced up from his toast. "Sure you won't get...lost?"

"Sure," Ron muttered as Fred and George burst into laughter. Ron wondered for a minute if he should be worried considering Mum had made toast and marmalade.

"Is everything fine, Mum?" he asked suddenly.

"Of course," she said as she bustled about the kitchen distractedly. "What a question, Ron."

"Fine," he muttered, trying to appear nonchalant although his insides felt like they were twisting together in a knot.

"So, who are you so anxious to meet, Ron?" George asked mockingly. "Could it be...Hermione?" Ron felt himself turning red in embarrassment.

"No!" he snapped. "I really don't care. Sod off, George."

"Yeah right, Ron," Fred joined in. "I think you do. It's written all over your face in red. What I really don't get is why you're too much of an idiot to tell her so."

"Right," Ron said, even more embarrassed. Harry gave him a strange look over his toast and Ron wondered if maybe Fred was right...

"Come to our shop, won't you?" George asked suddenly.

"Yeah!" Harry said enthusiastically at the same time Ron said, "No," very adamantly. Ron was not bringing Hermione to the shop, so that they could make fun of him, even if his life depended on it.

"Suit yourself," Fred said. "But who knows? Might be a good idea to come today."

"Oooh," George joked. "Something scary's going to happen today."

"Shut UP," Ron snapped, fuming. He couldn't take it a minute longer. He stormed over to Harry and dragged him up and out the door despite Harry's mumbled sounds of protest. To his great relief the door slammed shut and they were out of there, standing in the cold gray mist outside.

"You made me drop my toast!" Harry protested as both Ron and Harry stared down at Harry's toast lying face down on the wet grass. There it lay - a broken, soggy mess, the marmalade leaking out.

My god, my heart is toast and my blood's marmalade, he thought. My head is spinning.

*

It was a cold gray drizzly day in London as both he and Harry stood under an umbrella waiting for Hermione.

"Why does it have to rain today?" Ron asked exasperatedly, glaring up at the sky.

"Sometimes it rains," Harry shrugged. Ron was about to say something in response but there she was then, walking towards them, her eyes misty and all aglow and Ron immediately felt the cold driven out of his body.

"Ron! Harry!" she called, waving excitedly at them. She hugged them both. "Gosh, it's so good to see you! It's been ages". Ron noted that Harry was looking especially pleased as she hugged him. Ron was pleased that she held him tighter.

"Isn't London such a wonderful place? It's so steeped in history, you can practically smell it in the air," Hermione pronounced as she breathed in deeply.

"No. Actually I just smell rotten leaves and rain," Ron said choking on a lungful of disgusting air.

"And sweaty people," Harry put in.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Not that of course," she said. Ron suddenly felt the urge to laugh at the exasperated look on her face. "Come on," she said, grabbing his hand, "let's go look at some shops."

"Oh no. Not shops," Harry groaned. "I hate Muggle shops. Can't we go to Fred's and George's shop in Diagon Alley?"

"No!" Ron protested, "it's really boring. I've been there a dozen times. I swear if I have to see Fred eat Puking Pastilles again, I will personally spew slugs all over him".

"Sure, why don't you go and leave me and Ron alone?" Hermione teased, rolling her eyes.

"Hmmm...that's an idea," Harry said and he walked off, disappearing into the crowd before they could say another word, leaving them standing together, elbows nearly touching. Ron's heartbeat quickened in his chest.

"What's gotten into him? I didn't really mean that,' Hermione said puzzled.

"I don't mind," Ron said. "As long as...we're here," he said though what he really meant to say was 'as long as I'm here with you'. They stood together as if suspended in time as the mist rose over the streets fogging up mirrors and hanging densely in the air.

"Ron,' she said, an odd expression on her face. 'Do you-?"

"I-," he began, the words suddenly on the tip of his tongue.

It was then that he noticed the silence. It crept up like a blanket, suffocating until there were no words left. Just a terror inside his soul. What had he meant to say? I love you. I want you here. I've loved you since forever. But now, here was that blank empty silence eating away at him.

Suddenly, he felt her hand on his and he looked up to see the fear in her eyes. "What is it?" he said at the same time not wanting to know the answer.

"Death Eaters," she whispered, the words, tearing up his heart.

He turned and it was then that he saw them. They sauntered through the crowd as if they owned the world. They were black as crows but there was no grace to them. Only desire and hate. They spoke a chant but it was really just one word - spoken over and over again until it became a litany, a death knell chiming in the wind, ringing in his ears. Mudblood.

The last sound Ron heard before they brought out their wands and cast their curses was a cry escaping Hermione's lips. He held on to her as the light streaked towards them as if that would save them both. As if just that gentle touch would carry them on wings to safety.

The next thing he saw was a blinding light that seemed to tear up half the sky and he heard a scream that shook him to the core. He turned to see Hermione, collapsing like a rag doll on the ground beneath them. And suddenly the Death Eaters were gone.

The rain ran in rivulets down his face, as the same words rang in his head over and over again. Please let her be okay. Soon the words blurred together until they no longer made sense, forming a rhythm of their own.