Here was my little contribution to Shellfest, as mentioned by @callieskye in her post here! It’s a bit angsty, but ends on a hopeful note - hope you enjoy and are inspired to write your own #shellfest fic :)
The water was black, black and unrelenting as it surged against him.
The bitter wind whipped in his hair, hazy images from the recent past flitting in front of his eyes. The abrupt, heart-stopping twist of Apparation… his feet churning the sand, the weight of the figure in his arms barely registering… brokenly shouting for help, the pale and frightened faces of his brother and sister-in-law. He must have stumbled up the stairs as he clutched her to his body, placing her on a bed as Bill and Fleur rushed around him.
“Ron, what ‘appened? What ‘appened to ‘er?” Fleur had demanded insistently even as she began to examine her. Ron gripped the sides of his head, blood pounding in his ears.
“Cruciatus, Cruciatus,” he answered wildly. “You’ve got to help her,” he sobbed.
“She is breathing,” Fleur murmured, almost to herself, as she continued to run her wand over Hermione’s prostrate form. “But ‘er pulse is weak. Broken ribs, zhertainly… internal bleeding, maybe ‘er lungs,” she muttered quickly as Ron looked on helplessly. “Bill, ze Skelegrow, the ‘aemapotion, maintenant! ‘Elp me,” she instructed Ron sharply as Bill darted out the door behind him. “Lift her ‘ead and shoulders, gently.” Ron did as he was told, easing her upper body up slightly so that Fleur could remove her blood-soaked jacket. His hands shook as they threaded through her hair, matted and damp but still soft under his fingers. The pads of his fingers dragged along the nape of her neck as he lowered her back down, reluctant to lose contact with her chilled skin.
Fleur had lifted Hermione’s soiled shirt, revealing mottled bruises and angry red welts lacing across her sides and abdomen. Ron distantly heard Fleur suck in her breath, but a dull roaring began to take over his senses as his eyes followed the marks as they disappeared underneath her bunched-up jumper and the waistband of her denims.
“Ron, you must go now,” Fleur said as she bent over Hermione’s torso, wand working quickly. She turned her head to look at him as she realized that he hadn’t moved a muscle. “Out, now!”
“No, no…” he muttered, gripping the brass of the bed frame, “‘m’not leaving her…”
“Ron, zere is no time!” Fleur warned, nerves frayed.
“I CAN’T, I CAN’T!” he exploded, his head pounding in pain.
Suddenly he was moving backwards, jerked off his feet and dragged sharply away from the bedside. If he had been in his right mind he might have wondered if Bill had hexed him, but the eldest Weasley brothers had never needed magic to subdue their younger siblings and Ron was standing outside the closed bedroom door before he fully realized what was happening. He shifted his weight forward to push past his brother, vision blurring around the edges, but Bill already had his wand between them.
“Stop moving, I’m healing you,” he said shortly, murmuring under his breath as he circled his wand around the left side of Ron’s forehead and down to his hands. Ron looked down as he felt a prickling sensation, mildly surprised to see the many cuts left by the unforgiving cellar walls and shards of chandelier before Bill’s spells sealed them.
Bill looked him over sharply. “Your legs…” he started, eyeing his bloody, tattered trousers, but Ron growled and made to push past him again. It didn’t matter, didn’t he realize that none of it mattered….
Bill roughly hooked his arm and forced him back into the corridor.
“Fleur’s doing all she can,” he growled. He gripped Ron’s shoulders, his expression softening. “Look, I know what she means to you, but you have to give her a minute. If you won’t let me help you, at least wash the blood off yourself before you go back in,” he finished, steering him to the doorway of the small bathroom before disappearing down the hall.
The roaring in his head was growing louder as he staggered against the doorway. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror and recoiled at the hunted, helpless expression he wore, backing a few steps down the hall until his hand caught on the newel post. He turned and pitched down the stairs, the treads seeming to fall away under his feet. He barely registered the figures of Luna and Dean standing in the kitchen as he reeled through the entryway and out the door with nothing in his head but thumping white noise and the sound of her screams.
He had lurched down the sandy stretch of shore and plunged into the implacable dark of the ocean.
The water pushed back against him, plastering his hair to his face and stinging his eyes. He tasted salt, and the briny water that he unconsciously swallowed burned his raw throat as he thrashed deeper into the waves.
The image of her body, so small and battered, was seared into his mind. He had seen her unconscious; seen her petrified, lying in a hospital bed recovering from life-threatening curses, but this - this was so much worse, so much more terrifying. Her mind, her brilliant mind… if it was gone he knew, in some deep, unfathomable part of himself, that his would be gone as well. If this most fundamental piece of her was lost to him, to the world, he might as well keep walking, letting the raging waters close over his head and erasing every trace of his cursed existence…
He screamed, for her, for a bloody universe that would let this happen, for a million things he never said and chances he never took until it was too late.
Ron…
The word cut softly through the tumultuous wind and surf and wound its way inside him, stilling his wounded howls. He stopped, chest heaving, afraid to turn. Would he see an apparition, a pale and heartbreaking imitation of her vibrancy? The voice that had called him home in his lowest moments - would it reverberate inside his body when it had left this physical earth?
Finally he twisted to look back at the shore. Behind Shell Cottage it was just beginning to lighten, the sky above the hills painted in pale peach and rose gold, periwinkle fading to deeper blue as the impending dawn pushed back against the inky black of night. His eyes searched the gabled facade, his heart homing in on her window before his conscious mind could place it by logic. A soft glow pulsed steadily behind the curtain.
She was alive, and she couldn’t, would not ever give up. Which meant that he couldn’t, either - his place was at her side, for as long as she would let him.
He wrenched a foot up from the wet, sucking sand and took the first step back toward the house and the whole of his heart.
For the first time he could feel the frigid salt water stinging the slashes on his legs left by the broken glass he knelt in as he pulled her from the wreckage of the chandelier. He swiped the back of his hand over his eyes as he waded to the shallower waters, the rough, gritty cuff of his jacket raking against his skin. His mind quieted and focused as he walked over his own chaotic footprints in the sand back to the blue painted door.
This time the kitchen was empty as he passed through the entryway and strode up the stairs, pausing outside the still-closed door. He knocked softly, not intending to wait for an answer. “Fleur, I’m coming in,” he warned, but the door swung inward before he could twist the handle. His sister-in-law stood framed in the doorway, looking at him appraisingly but not without sympathy. He held her eyes and she seemed satisfied with what she saw there, stepping back into the room to allow Ron to enter.
“She is resting, but she ‘as not come back to ‘erself yet,” Fleur cautioned him in a low voice. “I do not know ‘ow long it will take,” she added, anticipating his question. “Her body ‘as suffered much, you know zis more zan I. ‘Er mind…” Fleur trailed off, glancing behind her to the small figure motionless on the bed. Hermione looked tiny against the broad expanse of soft white linen.
“She won’t,” Ron swore quietly, his voice firm. “It won’t be like that.”
Fleur studied him intently. “She is very strong. We must ‘ope,” she agreed. “Now I must go check on ‘arry and zee ozzers,” she murmured as she slipped out of the room, softly closing the door behind her.
Concern for Harry and his friends flared in his chest, but that and every other thought seemed to fly out of the quiet bedroom at the sight of Hermione. He walked the few steps to her side, hooking a wooden chair from where it sat underneath the window and drawing it up to the bed, angling it so that he was looking back at her face. The indirect early morning light leant a rosy color to her skin, masking the freshly-healed scars and complexion dulled by stress and malnutrition. He watched her chest rise and fall gently as he sat, that minuscule movement a balm to his soul.
He gently enclosed the hand lying on the coverlet between his own rough palms, curling his body forward with a shaky exhale to touch them with his forehead.
“Ron…”
Ron’s head shot up in disbelief. “Hermione! Gods, Hermione,” he choked, emotion crowding his throat. He watched her blink heavily and groan, relief flooding his body.
Her eyes darted around the room in the dim light. “Where…”
“Shell Cottage, Bill’s place,” he explained hurriedly, searching her face for recognition. “Bill and Fleur. She took care of you, after… everything. Are you in pain? I’ll get her, just hang on…”
“Wait!” she croaked, clutching his hand. “Harry?”
“He’s here, he’s OK,” Ron reassured her, hoping to Merlin it was true. “And Dean and Luna and a few others.” He could see her brow furrow as she tried to piece together this new information, and the familiar inquisitive gleam in her eye was enough to make his throat tighten and eyes burn in relief and joy. “I promise I’ll tell you everything, let me just get Fleur so she can look you over.”
Reluctantly he moved to stand, but she squeezed his hand with surprising strength. Her eyes flicked down his body hunched over in the small chair. “You’re soaked,” she said hoarsely, frowning in concern.
“‘M fine,” he reassured her, suppressing an almost hysterical laugh as he realized that he was actually telling the truth. The happiness and gratitude he felt in just talking to her was overwhelming, making him feel lightheaded. “Really.”
She looked at him intently. “Stay, please,” she whispered. The crash of the ocean was a distant thrum in the hushed room. “If we’re really safe here… stay, just a few minutes.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, finding without surprise that he couldn’t refuse any request she made of him. “Yeah, of course.”
To his astonishment she slowly shifted over, rolling onto her side with a grimace. She silenced his protest with a look, holding his gaze with a strange mix of challenge and plea. Unable to believe what she was offering, Ron sat stock still until she finally tugged on their enjoined hands, drawing him closer. Slowly, hesitantly, he slid off the chair and lowered himself onto the space she had left on the bed. He pulled up his sandy, trainer-clad feet and reclined on top of the covers to rest his head facing hers on the pillow.
He was so close to her that he hardly dared breathe, hardly dared believe that he was lying by her side, that she was going to be OK. He watched her close her eyes and lean her forehead forward slightly to touch his, the warmth of her skin bringing tears to his eyes. He lifted a shaky hand and wrapped his free arm around her gently, the fingers of his other hand still tangled with hers and pressed between them. He let his eyes slip shut, and for a few precious moments they lay connected, hearts beating, each drawing strength from the other in the peace of the early morning.
