Helpless Rage...
Claim: 117 Chapter 23, Malfoy Manor. Ron’s thoughts and feelings while Hermione is being tortured.
Rating: PG
Pairings (if any): Ron/Hermione
Summary: While Ron is still being held captive at Malfoy Manor, he is forced to not only listen while Hermione is being tortured, but to face his own feelings about her.
Author's Notes: Special thanks to Amightypenguin for her lightening fast beta, and for Minnie, who believed I could write this thing even while I was beating my head against the proverbial ‘writers block wall’. Thanks, love. You have no idea how much you helped! Oh, and Jo’s words are italicized, because I’ve borrowed rather heavily from the text. Mine are not.
Word Count: 2,700
Helpless Rage…
Narcissa hesitated for a moment, then addressed the werewolf.
“Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback.”
“Wait,” said Bellatrix sharply. “All except…except for the Mudblood.”
Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure.
Panic roared along Ron Weasley’s nerve endings, his heart jerked hard in his chest, and his mouth went abruptly dry. “No!” he shouted. “You can have me, keep me!”
He heard Hermione gasp even as Lestrange’s hand snapped sharply across his face, jerking his head to the side, and he tasted blood in his mouth. He winced when the dark-haired woman sank her long, talon-like fingers into his hair and yanked his head back, hard.
“If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” she spat into his face. “Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they are secure, but do nothing more to them - yet.”
Ron watched in horror as Lestrange cut Hermione free from the rest of them, then sank her boney hand into Hermione’s thick hair and dragged her to the middle of the room. Ron craned his neck around and tried to see her, tried to tell her…something, with his eyes, but Hermione’s were closed and she was trembling, trying so hard to be brave but clearly so frightened, and something in Ron’s gut twisted hard to see strong, stalwart Hermione so terrified…
He lost sight of her as Greyback forced them across the floor into a dark passageway, using his wand and some unspoken spell to propel them along.
“Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?” the filthy werewolf crooned near Ron’s ear. "I’d say I’ll get a bite or two, wouldn’t you, ginger?”
Ron began to shake then, so hard he knew that Harry could feel it at his back, and the werewolf laughed, horrid yellow canine teeth flashing because he thought that it was fear that made him tremble. But it wasn’t; it was fury, so full, so thick, so all consuming that his body was shaking with it. They were forced down a set of stairs, and were in danger at any moment of falling and breaking their necks, tied back to back as they were, but Ron scarcely noticed. His mind was still upstairs, in that drawing room, and he was trying to send strength to Hermione, while trying to think of something, anything to get them out of this mess. They were shoved into a dank and musty enclosed space, dark as pitch, and a door was slammed with horrible finality, and the only sound was their own tortured breathing.
And then, from above their heads, there was a spine tingling, agonized scream, and Ron felt as if his skin were being pealed from his body. Hermione; Hermione was screaming, and something inside of him snapped.
He knew he was screaming; he knew it, and could do nothing about it. His mind simply would not function clearly enough to stop it. His impotence enraged him, and he fought against his bonds to no avail. He was fighting, fighting the bonds, fighting the helplessness, desperate to get to Hermione before they could hurt her anymore…He jerked hard on the ropes at his back, knew that Harry was staggering, could hear his friend trying to talk to him, telling him to be quiet, that they needed to think, but he couldn’t because they were hurting her, and he should be protecting her…
And then there was a voice coming to them through the darkness, not Harry’s, but feminine, and frail, and suddenly recognizable, and the sound of it startled Ron into silence. He heard a shuffling near by, like a mouse scurrying on a straw strewn floor…
“Luna?” Harry said in startled wonder.
“Yes, it’s me! Oh no, I didn’t want you to be caught…”
Ron lost the thread of the conversation as they begin to talk about ropes and nails…he stared blindly at the ceiling, and Hermione screamed again, a sound of such agony that Ron felt tears welling even as he was struggling and screaming again, and someone was telling him that he was going to have to be still, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, it was too much…Lestrange was screaming questions, and he heard Hermione’s voice, even from the dungeon he could hear it shaking, and she was saying something about finding something, and then she was begging, begging and then that horrible, high pitched scream…
Ron lurched hard at his bonds, and he heard Harry curse colorfully at his back, and Luna begging him to be still, something about the darkness, and for the first time since they’d been thrown into the horrible, stuffy room a sliver of rationality returned to Ron’s mind.
“My pocket!” he gasped. “In my pocket, there’s a Deluminator, and it’s full of light!”
A few seconds later, there was a click, and the luminescent spheres the Deluminator had sucked from the lamps in the tent flew into the cellar. Unable to rejoin their sources, they simply hung there, like tiny suns, flooding the underground room with light. Ron saw Luna standing there, disheveled and filthy and terribly thin, and an old man curled up on the floor, his hands lifted to cover his eyes, and Dean and Griphook, bloodied but still standing.
“Oh, that’s much easier, thanks, Ron,” Luna said, as casually as if she were thanking him for passing the butter. And then Lestrange’s voice sounded again, maniacal in its fury.
“You are lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth, tell the truth!”
The scream that sounded this time was so horrible that Ron screamed with her, not even knowing that it was her name that he was screaming. Suddenly, the ropes were gone, falling away to the floor, and Ron ran for the wall, hands spread, searching, scrambling over the smooth stones…there had to be a way out; they’d just been put in, hadn’t they? There had to a trapdoor, or an opening, or something, something…
Wait, wait, he thought desperately. He could Apparate back upstairs! He turned on the spot once, to no effect. Fighting tears of frustration, he did it again, and then again, and still he stood in the middle of the dungeon room, his hands clenched impotently into fists at his side.
“There’s no way out, Ron,” Luna said, her voice for once not dreamy but achingly gentle. “The cellar is completely escape proof. I tried, at first. Mr. Ollivander has been here for a long time, and he’s tried everything.”
But he didn’t hear anything else she might have said, because Hermione was screaming again, and he lifted his hands to his hair, gripping it hard, then rushed the walls, hitting them with his hands, his feet, anything as the screaming seemed to go on and on.
“Oh, God,” was all he could think. “I never told her. I was such an arse sixth year, and I left them out there in the middle of nowhere, and I never told her, and now it’s too late and that vicious bitch is going to kill her and she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know…”
Tears stung his eyes as he pounded impotently against the unforgiving wall, sobs tore through his chest, and there was absolutely nothing he could do, and he felt as if he were running mad, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He screamed each time she screamed, beat at the walls until his knuckles were split and he left blood on the stone, and still, all he could think was, “No, I haven’t told her. I haven’t told her…”
And then Malfoy’s voice was right outside the room, ordering them back against the wall, and Ron had another fleeting moment of sanity and returned the balls of light to the Deluminator just as a portion of the wall swung open. The ferret marched inside, grim and shaking but determined, dragging the goblin away with him, slamming the door. He’d just clicked the Deluminator and sent the lights back into the air when a mighty crack of apparition rent the air, and there stood Dobby, the house-elf, in the midst. He started to cry out his name, and stopped with a hiss when Harry hit him, hard on his arm and it dawned on him with horror what he’d nearly done. He had to get a hold of himself; here was the potential for rescue and in his hysteria, he’d almost bollixed up the whole thing.
Dobby said something about coming to rescue them, and Harry was talking to him, but then Hermione was screaming again, and Ron curled his hands into fists and bit the inside of his lip until it bled in an effort not to scream again. Harry was asking about Disapparting humans, Dobby was nodding, and then Harry was telling him to take them away…Ron fought to keep his mind on what was happening before him, and not on the ongoing, gut-wrenching screams that were coming from upstairs…
“…grab Luna, Dean and Mr. Ollivander, and take them - take them to-“
“Bill and Fleur’s,” Ron said emphatically, his voice resolute and full of sanity for the first time in minutes. He had to get it together, he had to, or he’d be no help at all. “Shell cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth!”
Harry sent Ron a look of gratitude as the small elf nodded, bat-like ears flapping.
“And then come back,” Harry said emphatically. “Can you do that, Dobby?”
The little elf assured him that he could, and then Luna and Dean were arguing that they wanted to stay, but Harry was adamant that they go. And then Ron saw Harry stagger, one hand coming to his forehead, his eyes screwed up in pain, even as he was telling them to go, that they would follow. Ron reached out, curling his hand around Harry’s arm to steady him, knowing he’d seen something in his head, something horrible, something to do with You Know Who, because he was white as death and a sheen of sweat had broken out on the distorted skin of his face. And Ron knew, in that moment, that he had to get himself under control, had to help Harry if there was any hope of getting them out of there at all.
Dobby took the others and Disapparated with a ‘crack’, and from upstairs came the voice of Lucius Malfoy. “What was that?” he shouted. “Did you hear that? What was that noise in the cellar?”
Harry looked into Ron’s eyes, his frightened gaze reflecting Ron’s fear.
“Draco,” the elder Malfoy said urgently, “No, call Wormtail! Make him go and check!”
Footsteps shuffled overhead, and then there was an ominous silence. Ron knew that the people upstairs were listening for sounds below as carefully as they were listening for sounds from above.
“We’re going to have to try and tackle him,” Harry whispered insistently. Ron nodded in response. “Leave the lights on,” Harry said firmly, and he nodded, and when Harry gestured for him to take the other side of the door, he nodded again, and backed against the wall, mirroring Harry’s position on the reverse side.
“Stand back,” came the thready voice of Wormtail from outside the door, and Ron’s lips curled in a sneer. “Stand away from the door. I’m coming in.”
The door between them flew open, and for a split second, nothing happened. Then Wormtail stepped tentatively into the room, his watery gaze fixed on the tiny suns floating near the ceiling, and the two boys moved as one, launching themselves from the wall, Ron grabbing Wormtail's wand arm and wrenching it behind his back, Harry slapping a hand over his mouth. The wand belched sparks, and his silver hand reached to curl around Harry’s throat.
“What is it, Wormtail?” Lucius Malfoy called from the top of the stairs.
Ron fought his panic as Harry fought for air. “Nothing!” he called, forcing his voice to steady, to a passable impersonation of Wormtail’s weak, breathy voice. “All fine!”
Harry sounded as if he could scarcely breathe when he turned those green eyes onto Wormtail’s ugly, filthy, sneering face. “You’re going to kill me?” Harry choked, attempting to prise off the metal fingers. “After I saved your life? You owe me, Wormtail!”
Harry looked as stunned as Wormtail did when the silver fingers slackened and he released the crushing grip, and he began to struggle even more frantically within their hold.
“And we’ll have that,” Ron panted as he plucked the wand from his other hand. Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew’s pupils dilated in terror. His eyes slid from Harry’s face to something else. His own silver fingers were moving inexorably to his own throat.
“No,” Harry gasped, suddenly seeming to realize what was happening. It took Ron a moment longer, but the horror of what they were witnessing was inescapable, and then both of them were struggling with him, trying to pull the crushing metal fingers from around his windpipe . “Relashio,” Ron said frantically, pointing his wand at the silver hand, but it couldn’t be stopped; Pettigrew fell to his knees, both of the young men still struggling with his silver hand, as Hermione gave another gut-wrenching scream from above their heads. As Ron watched in horror, Wormtail gave one last twitch, his eyes rolling sightlessly upwards, and was still.
Harry and Ron’s eyes lifted to one another, and they stared, green into blue, horrified for a moment by what they’d witnessed, their chests heaving as they fought for air. And then with an unspoken agreement, their true mission recalled, they moved towards the door, leaving the curled body of Peter Pettigrew behind them. They took the stairs rapidly, as silently as they could, then crept carefully along the narrow hallway that let to the drawing room door, which was ajar. Harry leaned forward and peaked through the opening, then turned back to Ron, and they stared at one another for a long, breathless moment. Ron peaked over Harry’s square shoulder and saw Hermione lying on the carpet, scarcely moving, and his jaw tightened as he pressed himself back against the wall.
Lestrange was questioning the Goblin, but Ron couldn’t follow the conversation. His mind was frantically searching for a way to get them out of this. There had to be something; there had to be. Because he knew, with a certainty and a resolve that he’d never felt before, that this was not the end for them. Harry would prevail, Hermione would be safe, and finally, finally, Ron would tell her that he loved her. There was too much left unsaid, too much left undone, and he wasn’t ready to die. Not now, not like this…they were not done. And they would finish it. He knew it with everything in him. They would finish it. Resolve firmed his spine, and his hand tightened on Wormtail’s wand.
Harry gasped beside him, his hand pressing, trembling against his scar, and then Lestrange’s twisted voice was saying something about…Him, and then she was going to let Greyback have Hermione, and Ron surged past Harry into the room with feral, animalistic cry. He screamed “Expelliarmus” and Lestange's wand was flying into Harry’s waiting hand, and he knew, he knew in a moment of absolute clarity, even as Lestrange held Hermione, boneless, in her evil grip with a knife to her throat, that whatever the next few moments held, they would prevail. There was simply no other choice….
Rating: PG
Pairings (if any): Ron/Hermione
Summary: While Ron is still being held captive at Malfoy Manor, he is forced to not only listen while Hermione is being tortured, but to face his own feelings about her.
Author's Notes: Special thanks to Amightypenguin for her lightening fast beta, and for Minnie, who believed I could write this thing even while I was beating my head against the proverbial ‘writers block wall’. Thanks, love. You have no idea how much you helped! Oh, and Jo’s words are italicized, because I’ve borrowed rather heavily from the text. Mine are not.
Word Count: 2,700
Helpless Rage…
Narcissa hesitated for a moment, then addressed the werewolf.
“Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback.”
“Wait,” said Bellatrix sharply. “All except…except for the Mudblood.”
Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure.
Panic roared along Ron Weasley’s nerve endings, his heart jerked hard in his chest, and his mouth went abruptly dry. “No!” he shouted. “You can have me, keep me!”
He heard Hermione gasp even as Lestrange’s hand snapped sharply across his face, jerking his head to the side, and he tasted blood in his mouth. He winced when the dark-haired woman sank her long, talon-like fingers into his hair and yanked his head back, hard.
“If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” she spat into his face. “Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they are secure, but do nothing more to them - yet.”
Ron watched in horror as Lestrange cut Hermione free from the rest of them, then sank her boney hand into Hermione’s thick hair and dragged her to the middle of the room. Ron craned his neck around and tried to see her, tried to tell her…something, with his eyes, but Hermione’s were closed and she was trembling, trying so hard to be brave but clearly so frightened, and something in Ron’s gut twisted hard to see strong, stalwart Hermione so terrified…
He lost sight of her as Greyback forced them across the floor into a dark passageway, using his wand and some unspoken spell to propel them along.
“Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?” the filthy werewolf crooned near Ron’s ear. "I’d say I’ll get a bite or two, wouldn’t you, ginger?”
Ron began to shake then, so hard he knew that Harry could feel it at his back, and the werewolf laughed, horrid yellow canine teeth flashing because he thought that it was fear that made him tremble. But it wasn’t; it was fury, so full, so thick, so all consuming that his body was shaking with it. They were forced down a set of stairs, and were in danger at any moment of falling and breaking their necks, tied back to back as they were, but Ron scarcely noticed. His mind was still upstairs, in that drawing room, and he was trying to send strength to Hermione, while trying to think of something, anything to get them out of this mess. They were shoved into a dank and musty enclosed space, dark as pitch, and a door was slammed with horrible finality, and the only sound was their own tortured breathing.
And then, from above their heads, there was a spine tingling, agonized scream, and Ron felt as if his skin were being pealed from his body. Hermione; Hermione was screaming, and something inside of him snapped.
He knew he was screaming; he knew it, and could do nothing about it. His mind simply would not function clearly enough to stop it. His impotence enraged him, and he fought against his bonds to no avail. He was fighting, fighting the bonds, fighting the helplessness, desperate to get to Hermione before they could hurt her anymore…He jerked hard on the ropes at his back, knew that Harry was staggering, could hear his friend trying to talk to him, telling him to be quiet, that they needed to think, but he couldn’t because they were hurting her, and he should be protecting her…
And then there was a voice coming to them through the darkness, not Harry’s, but feminine, and frail, and suddenly recognizable, and the sound of it startled Ron into silence. He heard a shuffling near by, like a mouse scurrying on a straw strewn floor…
“Luna?” Harry said in startled wonder.
“Yes, it’s me! Oh no, I didn’t want you to be caught…”
Ron lost the thread of the conversation as they begin to talk about ropes and nails…he stared blindly at the ceiling, and Hermione screamed again, a sound of such agony that Ron felt tears welling even as he was struggling and screaming again, and someone was telling him that he was going to have to be still, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, it was too much…Lestrange was screaming questions, and he heard Hermione’s voice, even from the dungeon he could hear it shaking, and she was saying something about finding something, and then she was begging, begging and then that horrible, high pitched scream…
Ron lurched hard at his bonds, and he heard Harry curse colorfully at his back, and Luna begging him to be still, something about the darkness, and for the first time since they’d been thrown into the horrible, stuffy room a sliver of rationality returned to Ron’s mind.
“My pocket!” he gasped. “In my pocket, there’s a Deluminator, and it’s full of light!”
A few seconds later, there was a click, and the luminescent spheres the Deluminator had sucked from the lamps in the tent flew into the cellar. Unable to rejoin their sources, they simply hung there, like tiny suns, flooding the underground room with light. Ron saw Luna standing there, disheveled and filthy and terribly thin, and an old man curled up on the floor, his hands lifted to cover his eyes, and Dean and Griphook, bloodied but still standing.
“Oh, that’s much easier, thanks, Ron,” Luna said, as casually as if she were thanking him for passing the butter. And then Lestrange’s voice sounded again, maniacal in its fury.
“You are lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth, tell the truth!”
The scream that sounded this time was so horrible that Ron screamed with her, not even knowing that it was her name that he was screaming. Suddenly, the ropes were gone, falling away to the floor, and Ron ran for the wall, hands spread, searching, scrambling over the smooth stones…there had to be a way out; they’d just been put in, hadn’t they? There had to a trapdoor, or an opening, or something, something…
Wait, wait, he thought desperately. He could Apparate back upstairs! He turned on the spot once, to no effect. Fighting tears of frustration, he did it again, and then again, and still he stood in the middle of the dungeon room, his hands clenched impotently into fists at his side.
“There’s no way out, Ron,” Luna said, her voice for once not dreamy but achingly gentle. “The cellar is completely escape proof. I tried, at first. Mr. Ollivander has been here for a long time, and he’s tried everything.”
But he didn’t hear anything else she might have said, because Hermione was screaming again, and he lifted his hands to his hair, gripping it hard, then rushed the walls, hitting them with his hands, his feet, anything as the screaming seemed to go on and on.
“Oh, God,” was all he could think. “I never told her. I was such an arse sixth year, and I left them out there in the middle of nowhere, and I never told her, and now it’s too late and that vicious bitch is going to kill her and she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know…”
Tears stung his eyes as he pounded impotently against the unforgiving wall, sobs tore through his chest, and there was absolutely nothing he could do, and he felt as if he were running mad, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He screamed each time she screamed, beat at the walls until his knuckles were split and he left blood on the stone, and still, all he could think was, “No, I haven’t told her. I haven’t told her…”
And then Malfoy’s voice was right outside the room, ordering them back against the wall, and Ron had another fleeting moment of sanity and returned the balls of light to the Deluminator just as a portion of the wall swung open. The ferret marched inside, grim and shaking but determined, dragging the goblin away with him, slamming the door. He’d just clicked the Deluminator and sent the lights back into the air when a mighty crack of apparition rent the air, and there stood Dobby, the house-elf, in the midst. He started to cry out his name, and stopped with a hiss when Harry hit him, hard on his arm and it dawned on him with horror what he’d nearly done. He had to get a hold of himself; here was the potential for rescue and in his hysteria, he’d almost bollixed up the whole thing.
Dobby said something about coming to rescue them, and Harry was talking to him, but then Hermione was screaming again, and Ron curled his hands into fists and bit the inside of his lip until it bled in an effort not to scream again. Harry was asking about Disapparting humans, Dobby was nodding, and then Harry was telling him to take them away…Ron fought to keep his mind on what was happening before him, and not on the ongoing, gut-wrenching screams that were coming from upstairs…
“…grab Luna, Dean and Mr. Ollivander, and take them - take them to-“
“Bill and Fleur’s,” Ron said emphatically, his voice resolute and full of sanity for the first time in minutes. He had to get it together, he had to, or he’d be no help at all. “Shell cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth!”
Harry sent Ron a look of gratitude as the small elf nodded, bat-like ears flapping.
“And then come back,” Harry said emphatically. “Can you do that, Dobby?”
The little elf assured him that he could, and then Luna and Dean were arguing that they wanted to stay, but Harry was adamant that they go. And then Ron saw Harry stagger, one hand coming to his forehead, his eyes screwed up in pain, even as he was telling them to go, that they would follow. Ron reached out, curling his hand around Harry’s arm to steady him, knowing he’d seen something in his head, something horrible, something to do with You Know Who, because he was white as death and a sheen of sweat had broken out on the distorted skin of his face. And Ron knew, in that moment, that he had to get himself under control, had to help Harry if there was any hope of getting them out of there at all.
Dobby took the others and Disapparated with a ‘crack’, and from upstairs came the voice of Lucius Malfoy. “What was that?” he shouted. “Did you hear that? What was that noise in the cellar?”
Harry looked into Ron’s eyes, his frightened gaze reflecting Ron’s fear.
“Draco,” the elder Malfoy said urgently, “No, call Wormtail! Make him go and check!”
Footsteps shuffled overhead, and then there was an ominous silence. Ron knew that the people upstairs were listening for sounds below as carefully as they were listening for sounds from above.
“We’re going to have to try and tackle him,” Harry whispered insistently. Ron nodded in response. “Leave the lights on,” Harry said firmly, and he nodded, and when Harry gestured for him to take the other side of the door, he nodded again, and backed against the wall, mirroring Harry’s position on the reverse side.
“Stand back,” came the thready voice of Wormtail from outside the door, and Ron’s lips curled in a sneer. “Stand away from the door. I’m coming in.”
The door between them flew open, and for a split second, nothing happened. Then Wormtail stepped tentatively into the room, his watery gaze fixed on the tiny suns floating near the ceiling, and the two boys moved as one, launching themselves from the wall, Ron grabbing Wormtail's wand arm and wrenching it behind his back, Harry slapping a hand over his mouth. The wand belched sparks, and his silver hand reached to curl around Harry’s throat.
“What is it, Wormtail?” Lucius Malfoy called from the top of the stairs.
Ron fought his panic as Harry fought for air. “Nothing!” he called, forcing his voice to steady, to a passable impersonation of Wormtail’s weak, breathy voice. “All fine!”
Harry sounded as if he could scarcely breathe when he turned those green eyes onto Wormtail’s ugly, filthy, sneering face. “You’re going to kill me?” Harry choked, attempting to prise off the metal fingers. “After I saved your life? You owe me, Wormtail!”
Harry looked as stunned as Wormtail did when the silver fingers slackened and he released the crushing grip, and he began to struggle even more frantically within their hold.
“And we’ll have that,” Ron panted as he plucked the wand from his other hand. Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew’s pupils dilated in terror. His eyes slid from Harry’s face to something else. His own silver fingers were moving inexorably to his own throat.
“No,” Harry gasped, suddenly seeming to realize what was happening. It took Ron a moment longer, but the horror of what they were witnessing was inescapable, and then both of them were struggling with him, trying to pull the crushing metal fingers from around his windpipe . “Relashio,” Ron said frantically, pointing his wand at the silver hand, but it couldn’t be stopped; Pettigrew fell to his knees, both of the young men still struggling with his silver hand, as Hermione gave another gut-wrenching scream from above their heads. As Ron watched in horror, Wormtail gave one last twitch, his eyes rolling sightlessly upwards, and was still.
Harry and Ron’s eyes lifted to one another, and they stared, green into blue, horrified for a moment by what they’d witnessed, their chests heaving as they fought for air. And then with an unspoken agreement, their true mission recalled, they moved towards the door, leaving the curled body of Peter Pettigrew behind them. They took the stairs rapidly, as silently as they could, then crept carefully along the narrow hallway that let to the drawing room door, which was ajar. Harry leaned forward and peaked through the opening, then turned back to Ron, and they stared at one another for a long, breathless moment. Ron peaked over Harry’s square shoulder and saw Hermione lying on the carpet, scarcely moving, and his jaw tightened as he pressed himself back against the wall.
Lestrange was questioning the Goblin, but Ron couldn’t follow the conversation. His mind was frantically searching for a way to get them out of this. There had to be something; there had to be. Because he knew, with a certainty and a resolve that he’d never felt before, that this was not the end for them. Harry would prevail, Hermione would be safe, and finally, finally, Ron would tell her that he loved her. There was too much left unsaid, too much left undone, and he wasn’t ready to die. Not now, not like this…they were not done. And they would finish it. He knew it with everything in him. They would finish it. Resolve firmed his spine, and his hand tightened on Wormtail’s wand.
Harry gasped beside him, his hand pressing, trembling against his scar, and then Lestrange’s twisted voice was saying something about…Him, and then she was going to let Greyback have Hermione, and Ron surged past Harry into the room with feral, animalistic cry. He screamed “Expelliarmus” and Lestange's wand was flying into Harry’s waiting hand, and he knew, he knew in a moment of absolute clarity, even as Lestrange held Hermione, boneless, in her evil grip with a knife to her throat, that whatever the next few moments held, they would prevail. There was simply no other choice….