For Love

London, England - Dusk

“Ron!”

“Hermione, don’t you dare wait for me! Go find Harry and Ginny!” I reach out my hand to Ron, but he refuses to take it.

“Ron, please! You’ll die!”

“We’ll all die if you don’t get to You-Know-Who and stop him! Now go!” I bite my lip. Ron hangs helplessly on the fire escape of a building in London, his right hand bloody. I can’t help him up any longer.

“Ron, I can’t leave you!”

“Yes, you can Hermione! Go!” Tears are pouring down my face as I stand on the top of the building. “Be careful! And tell Ginny that I love her.” His sister will be heartbroken if he dies, but so will I. He can’t tell me that he loves me, if only as a friend?

“I will Ron, but don’t do anything brave, okay?”

“GO!” I run from the top of the fire escape to the door leading inside the building to the sounds of Ron trying to use his broken hand to climb. He hurts, and I hurt. He cries, and I cry. I feel all of his pain as I open the heavy metal door and throw myself inside. As it shuts behind me, all sounds of Ron are eliminated.

I hurry down the stairs, trying to keep as quiet as I can, when I hear the wicked voice of Bellatrix Lestrange in a room close by. “What should I do with her, my Lord?”

“She may be of use to me. An element of torture for my enemy, I suppose.”

“Yes, my Lord, but what to do with her?” Voldemort. I have heard him and I have heard the Devil himself. “Shall I lock her up?”

“No,” he says, cruelly. “Give her to Lucius. I’m sure he’ll find something to do with her.” I cover my mouth to keep from gasping or screaming. Ginny, oh Ginny. What would Lucius Malfoy do to her? Would he dare to…but I can’t think that way. Not now, when Harry, Ginny, and Ron need my help.

Ron, up there on the fire escape. Ron with the broken hand. Ron who forgot to tell me he loves me.

My heart stops cold when I hear the door behind me creak open. I whirl around, raise my wand, and prepare to stun the intruder when I feel a familiar hand on my arm. “It’s me,” he whispers. He’s safe. I breathe easier.

I don’t say anything, but I’m sure that my heart rate will give me away. He takes my hand in his uninjured one, but I stop him. “No, Ron, just follow me. You’ll need a good hand to use to cast spells.”

“Right,” he responds, letting go. But I really don’t want him to let go. I want him to keep holding my hand like nothing else matters, though I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way about me.

“EXPELLIARMUS!” I hear the spell before I can even turn around. Ron and I are sent crashing down the stairs as our wands fly back towards the roof of the building. “Ah, what do we have here?” Lucius Malfoy’s voice comes harshly to my ears. “A Weasley and a Mudblood? The Dark Lord would love to see this!”

“What would he love to see, Lucius?” Bellatrix Lestrange opens one of the doors on the landing and I see her for the first time up close since she killed Sirius. Her left hand is clenched tightly around the collar of a shirt I recognize as Ginny’s.

“Ginny!” Ron shouts, without thinking.

“Ron,” she manages to say, though her voice is hoarse and raspy. I move, attempting to hold out my hand to her, when I cry out. It is my ankle- in the fall it’s been twisted. Bellatrix moves to stand in front of Ginny as Ron puts his arms around me, trying to soothe me and help me be rid of my pain.

For the moment, the embrace is sweet, but I remember where we are and what we’re here for, and all semblances of sweetness are lost. “My dear Bellatrix, I do believe that we’ve caught a few eavesdroppers. Allow me to introduce you to Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger.”

“Weasley? We’ve caught another one!” Lucius nods maliciously. “I don’t recall a wizard named Granger…”

“Exactly. She’s a Mudblood, my dear. Not a drop of wizard blood is in her unworthy veins,” he says as he kicks me right where my ankle has been twisted. Ron holds me tighter.

“What’d you do that for? Can’t you see she’s hurt?”

“Ron, don’t,” I whisper as I curl up against him, my face in his shirt. Lucius and Bellatrix ignore Ron and I cling to him, wishing it all to be over. I see Bellatrix hand Ginny over to Lucius.

“Make the Dark Lord proud, Lucius,” she says as he departs, dragging Ginny behind him.

“Ginny,” Ron whispers, defeat in his voice.

“Now, you two,” sneers Bellatrix, let’s see what the Dark Lord would like done with you.” She takes my arm and shoves me into the room from which she came, followed by Ron. He falls beside me and somehow I find my way into his arms. He holds me close as Bellatrix comes into the room and closes the door.

I take a look at our surroundings; the room is made of pure concrete with no windows, and I wonder why anyone in their right mind would build a structure like this in the middle of London, but these are wizards- they can transfigure. Ron buries his face in my hair and I feel his bloodied hand soaking the sleeve of my shirt. I don’t mind. At least I’m enduring this with someone I love, even if he doesn’t love me the way I do him.

“My Lord, I’ve found two eavesdroppers. They’re friends of Potter’s.”

“Don’t you DARE say that vile name around me, Lestrange, you hear?” I see Voldemort turn around, his hollow face full of malice.

“Yes, my Lord,” she says, and leaves the room through a back door.

“Well, well, well, what have we here? A Weasley and a Mudblood, I’ve heard. Very nice. And friends of my enemy as well? Even better.”

“Let us go, you bastard!” Ron shouts. Damn that Gryffindor daring.

“CRUCIO!” Voldemort cries, his wand pointed at Ron. My friend cripples on the floor, shaking.

“Ron!”

“Do you want it too?” The Dark Lord asks me. I shake my head and recoil from Ron’s limp body. “Don’t you worry, Granger. You’re little boyfriend will wake up soon enough.” He turns away from me and I look at Ron, his eyes closed, his body still twitching a little. Tears run down my cheeks in hot streams. Visions of Ron being hit with the curse cloud my mind that I barely notice when I’m hit with it myself.

I lie helpless on the floor, dreading what could come next. Would he kill us this quickly? When my eyes finally open, Voldemort is nowhere to be found. Ron is just getting up as well, and I crawl across the floor into his awaiting arms. “Hermione,” he says. My name sounds so beautiful in his deep voice. “Hermione,” he says again, pulling me tighter against him.

“Yes, Ron?”

“No, I just needed to hear the sound of your voice, to make sure you’re alright.” I appreciate his caring. But I am still to him just Hermione Granger, the friend. If only I could be more. We stand and Ron helps me over to one of the walls of the room, where he sits down and welcomes me into his lap. I sit there, his arms around me and my head on his shoulder, until we both fall asleep.

I don’t know how long it has been when I wake up, but I’m still tightly locked in Ron’s embrace. He is still sleeping, so I don’t move much, savoring the closeness and staying in his arms.

That does not last long, for I suddenly hear shouts from another room. “Tell me where Potter is!”

“No! I’ll never tell!” A girl is crying, but it isn’t Ginny as I’d previously thought.

“TELL ME!”

“Never!” Cho Chang. They’ve captured Cho Chang.

I shake Ron out of his slumber. “Ron, wake up! They’ve got Cho!”

“Huh? What?”

“Ron, don’t be an idiot. They’ve got Cho Chang and they’re trying to make her tell them where Harry is!”

“Does she know?” I don’t know if Cho knows, but I certainly do. Harry is far away with Professor McGonagall and Mad-Eye Moody. They’re taking care of him, I know. But Ron doesn’t. I’m certain he has no idea where Harry is. For all he knows, Harry’s dead. God forbid.

“I don’t think so. I don’t even know,” I lie. Ron doesn’t have to know that I know. Harry only told me because he trusts me to keep it safe- somebody would need to know where he is in times of great trouble. Ron leans back against the wall and I sit beside him, running my fingers through his hair. “It’ll be alright, Ron. We’re going to get out of here and Harry and Ginny and Cho are all going to be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

“Yes.” But I’m not sure or positive. The chances, in fact, are slim. Any idiot off of the street could see that. Well, Ron isn’t just any idiot off of the street.

“Hermione, look at us!” He says to me suddenly, and he sounds like his speech is headed down a very pessimistic road. “We’re scratched up, we’re weak from the Cruciatus Curse, and in a concrete hell with locked doors and enemies at all sides. What makes you think we’re going to be okay?”

“Ron,” I say soothingly, “we have each other. If you work to keep me alive and I work to keep you alive we’ll be alright.”

“That sounds so cliché, Hermione, but it can’t hurt.” We’re a team, like I know we always have been, but this time, it’s just me and Ron. No Harry Potter, just Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

We hear more of Cho’s screams, and Ron holds me against his chest as I cry. The room grows dark as one of the two torches flickers out and I shiver in the cold. Neither Ron nor I brought a jacket- who’d need one in the middle of June?

“Tell me where he is, you whore!”

“No! I will NOT tell you where Harry is because I don’t know!” She shrieks as I hear something kicking her. “Stop torturing me, please! I can’t help you!”

“Yes you can! I know you know where he is, you cruel little scumbag!”

“NO!” She screams and cries and I hold Ron tighter.

“Ron, let it be over,” I cry into his shirt.

“No, Hermione! Don’t give up now. Harry’s going to find us, Hermione, and then everything’s going to be okay. We’ll find Ginny and Cho and we’ll go back to Hogwarts. It’ll all be okay,” he says to me, his voice soft and calming.

Ron then leans down and kisses me on the lips. I hold back for a second, then give in to the moment. He pulls away from me. “What was that for, Ron?”

“Love.”

“What?”

“Well, what I meant to say was…that kiss was for love. I love you, Hermione Granger, and I always have.” I’m stunned. Ron Weasley, in love with me?

“You do?”

“Why, you don’t love me back?”

“Ron,” I laugh, “don’t be so oblivious! Of course I love you!” I reply, pushing him to the ground and kissing him hard. He puts his unbroken hand at the back of my head, encouraging me to kiss him deeper, his broken one resting lightly on my back.

We broke apart for a second, to catch our breath, and Ron says, “You really do?”

“Uh huh,” I reply as he rolls over on top of me. “Always have, always will.” Ron kisses me again and I find his hands at the buttons of my shirt, fumbling with them, undoing them. He is halfway done when the door crashes open and Lucius Malfoy, accompanied by a weeping Ginny, storms in.

“Ronald Weasley,” he says coolly as I try to button my shirt, “shame on you. Turned on by a Mudblood.” I look at Ron, who is trying to sit down in a way so that his arousal can’t be seen. I laugh as Lucius leaves the room and closes the door.

But I can’t laugh any longer when I see Ginny Weasley. She is curled up in a mass of ripped fabric as I limp over to her, Ron still trying to avoid embarrassment. “Ginny!”

“Hermione,” she says, her voice coarse and shaky. I fall to the floor beside her, encircling her quaking body in my arms. “He t-t-touched m-me. He s-said that he’d k-k-kill Mum and D-dad if I d-d-didn’t let him.”

“Oh, Ginny,” I pull her up against my half-bare chest like a mother and I feel her tears against my skin. Ron walks over to us and puts his arms around the two of us, resting his head on my shoulder.

“Wh-where’s Harry?”

“Ginny, we don’t know where he is,” I reply sadly.

“But he’ll find us,” Ron adds, a little too optimistically. I have little hope now that Harry will be able to find us and save us. Lie for Ginny’s sake. “He’d never let the three of us down.”

“The three of us? Cho’s in there too, Ron!” Ginny shouts at her brother. “And Colin and Neville too.”

“They’ve got Colin and Neville?” Ron and I reply in unison. Now I have really lost my hope. How could Harry save the three of us as well as Cho, Colin, and Neville? I have to believe in him, that he can make it, but what if he doesn’t even know we’ve all been captured? What if nobody knows?

I try hard not to think about that as I hold Ginny against me. She needs us now and my fears can’t get in the way of that. We sit there for quite a long time, until we hear voices outside the door. “The Weasleys are in there, and the Mudblood too,” I cringe as I hear Lucius Malfoy’s voice; why do they all insist on calling me “the Mudblood?”

“Good, Lucius, very good. Go fetch the others. We’ll need to see which is the best bait.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Bellatrix and Lucius say together. Bait?

“Hermione,” Ron says to me, “what now? They’ve obviously not found anything out so they’re using us to reel him in! If only we could contact him!” Ron slams his hand on the ground, his broken hand, and shouts in pain. I wish momentarily that he hadn’t fallen on it in an attempt to jump a broken step on the fire escape, but I forget my wishes and move to help him.

I cradle his hand in my own and rest it in my lap as I rip a piece of my skirt off. I tie the fabric tightly around the cuts and swelling, hoping that the tension will keep it from getting any more broken than it already is. Ginny has drifted off to sleep, and I find it the right time to kiss her brother again. “Hermione,” he says, pulling away, “not now. If we’re not alert when You-Know-Who comes…”

“But how do we know how he’ll choose, Ron? He could choose any of us!”

“Well, except for Colin and Neville…”

“Even them! They’re people too, Ronald.” I know how he hates when I call him by his full name. “He’d come for them just as easily as he’d come for us.”

Ron pulls me up into his arms and kisses me gently, then resting my head on his shoulder. “You’re right, Hermione. You’re always right.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!” We are fighting again, like we always have, and I suppose that’s never going to go away, whether we’re safe at Hogwarts or in a concrete prison in the middle of London. I sigh mournfully and go back to resting peacefully. Ron’s arms hold me strongly but softly and tenderly, like he’s been preparing his whole life for this one moment; come to think of it, he probably has.

I don’t believe that I used to think that he didn’t love me. The way he’s acted toward me in the last few hours points completely otherwise. The door is shoved open again and Colin Creevey, Neville Longbottom, and Cho Chang are tossed rather roughly into the room with us. I try to get up, but Ron forces me down and gets up himself.

Being rather chivalrous, Ron, even with his broken hand and severe cuts from the fall down the stairs, helps Cho, the most shaken of the three, over to where Ginny and I sit, and the two boys help each other. I smile at Ron for being so kind to people who he doesn’t particularly like or appreciate. Maybe that Gryffindor courage shouldn’t be damned after all; it’s part of the Ron I love so much.

Cho is a crying heap on the floor, and Ginny wakes up. I watch as she takes the older girl in her shaking arms and whispers words of consolation to her. Neville and Colin seem to be shell-shocked. “Hermione,” says Neville, his voice cracking over my name, “what’re they going to do to us?”

Should I tell him? “He’s using us as bait to lure Harry here, Neville. But we don’t know who or how he’s going to choose.” Neville’s eyes show pure fear and he sits down, completely silent with his eyes wide.

Ron walks over to him and pats him on the back. “C’mon Neville, be strong. You’ll be alright.” I somewhat hate how Ron is saying that everything will be alright, when the current circumstances say that it won’t be.

Everyone calms down considerably in the next few minutes, and Cho finds her way over to me. “Hermione?” she asks, her voice quiet.

“Yes?”

“Is Harry really going to find us?” she says, wiping some of the tears from her cheeks. “Tell me the truth, Hermione.” I can’t lie to her.

“I’m really not sure, Cho. We’d like to think he will. That’s the best I can do.” For once I’ve told someone the truth about Harry. Not his whereabouts, of course, but what he’ll do.

I shudder as I hear the door opening and see Voldemort, followed by Lucius and Bellatrix, enter the room. Ron offers me his hand, and I raise myself off of the floor followed by the others. Using Ron’s shoulders as support, I stare at the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, anger in my eyes. “If you’ve not been properly welcomed, I’d like to welcome you to my secret headquarters. By day, it is a normal office, but by night,” Voldemort says, sneering, “it is a lair better equipped for torture than any man or wizard has ever seen.”

I don’t want to know what lies in the other rooms of this fortress, and I am glad that Ron and I were locked away before they could question us. Voldemort turns to his two allies and they converse in whispers. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I nearly fall dead when they talk to us again. “Miss Granger,” Bellatrix says cruelly, “come here.”

“Her ankle’s twisted!” shouts Ron. I wish to have stopped him, but Bellatrix looks all the merrier.

“You can come too, then.” Ron starts forward, and I walk with him. We hobble along like children in a three-legged race. Our walking ceases when we reach a position about two feet in front of the Dark Lord.

“Pity I’ve never had the chance to speak to you personally, Miss Granger,” says Voldemort, “because I have the oddest feeling that you know where our dear Mister Potter is.” I say nothing. If I deny it, he’ll assume I’m lying. And if I say I do, well, that’s obvious. “Have you ever been under the Imperius Curse, Miss Granger?”

“No.”

“Allow me to demonstrate,” he says, drawing his wand from his cloak pocket. I cry out as he points his wand to Ron. “Imperio!”

Ron lurches backward and falls to the ground. “Ron!” I don’t move, knowing that I’ll fall if I try to walk.

“Now, Mister Weasley, would you be so kind as to kiss Miz Lestrange’s ass?”

“Ron, no,” I whisper, but he does it anyway.

“So cruel, my Lord,” says Lucius, a wicked smile moving across his face.

“How deliciously wicked you are, my Lord,” Bellatrix adds.

“Aren’t I?” Voldemort responds to his cronies. He turns back to me. “Miss Granger, would you like any more of a demonstration?” I shake my head, and he mutters a few words that relieve Ron of the spell. I long to run to him, but Ginny gets there first and motions for me to stay. I swallow hard- I am now alone in front of these three vile beings. What will they do to me?

Bellatrix comes forward and binds my hands together, Lucius my feet. I wince in pain as my twisted ankle is bound tightly with the rope. “Now, Miss Granger, this is your last chance to tell me where Potter is without the effects of our dear friend the Imperius.”

Should I tell him? If I did, what would he do to Harry? To me?

I stall as long as I can, but the Dark Lord grows impatient. “Answer me, you damn Mudblood!”

“I don’t know!” I shriek as the door from which we all entered this room crashes open. On the threshold stands Harry, Moody, Lupin, McGonagall, and Dumbledore.

I close my eyes as somebody shouts “AVADA KEDAVRA!” and I fall to the floor in a heap.

◊

I don’t know who was hit. Everything is blurry and my body is racked with cold. My hand is touching cold concrete- I’m still here in this wicked prison. My eyes flutter open to the sight of Mad-Eye Moody’s face. So it wasn’t him who was hit. “She’s alive, Minerva!” So it wasn’t McGonagall either.

“Miss Granger!” She runs over to me and puts her hand on my forehead. “Are you alright, Miss Granger? The blast nearly killed you!”

“Blast?”

“Yes, Hermione,” a familiar voice says from behind McGonagall. Relief washes over me as I see Harry’s face appear. “The curse was so powerful, you were knocked off your feet. You hit the floor with such a crash…” he trails off as we hear grunts from the doorway.

“Remus!” Moody shouts as he runs to help Lupin. He’s not dead either. That leaves Dumbledore, Bellatrix, Lucius, and Voldemort.

“Yes, Alastor?”

“Don’t you try and pick him up on your own, now!” Who is he trying to pick up? “It’s all dead weight, Remus. You’ll break yourself in two.”

“Nah. I just need to get him to Saint Mungo’s. They’ll be able to revive him there.”

“Who?” I shout, but my voice is raspy.

“Dumbledore,” I hear Ron’s voice reply, and I look up to see his face. I realize that I’ve been resting with my head in his lap, his hand stroking my hair.

“He’s alive?”

“Yes,” Ron responds, but his voice is solemn. “He’s been knocked out by the blast too.”

“But what about Voldemort and Bellatrix and Lucius?”

“Dead,” Moody replies solemnly. “Killed in the blast.”

“But who…” Harry points to Dumbledore’s limp form draped over Lupin’s shoulders.

“He meant the spell for Voldemort but the power of it that threw you to the floor killed the Death Eaters too.”

I turn back to McGonagall. “Will Professor Dumbledore be alright, Professor?” She nods. “And everyone else is okay?” She nods again, pointing to a place beyond my peripheral vision. I turn over in Ron’s lap and see Ginny, Cho, Neville, and Colin talking with Harry in hushed tones.

Ron’s hand is still running itself through my hair and the sensation is soothing. I reach my hand up to his cheek. “Thanks for sticking up for me.”

“No problem,” he responds, like it really is nothing.

“Really, Ronald, do you have to be so humble? It was quite a brave thing of you to do, speaking up against Voldemort like that.” We smile at each other and I ask McGonagall, “Why’d he do it, Professor? It’s illegal to cast one of the Unforgivable Curses! He’ll be thrown in jail.”

“Love.”

“What?”

“Well, what I meant to say was…he did it for love of humanity, for love of all of you. Miss Granger, Albus Dumbledore loves seeing people free more than he loves life itself. He’d have done anything to be rid of the Dark Lord.”

“But…what about Harry? Doesn’t he have to die now too?” I ask, tears welling up in my eyes.

“Well, Miss Granger, that is one of those mysteries we’ll have to ask Sibyl Trelawney about.” I sigh- not another encounter with Professor Trelawney. But, for the moment I am willing to ignore that fact. I’ll face her when she comes, even though it’ll take a bit of bravery on my part. Damn that Gryffindor daring.