Perspectiveen-us9A9603122A

Perspective

by Solstice Muse

Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter 1: My Condition
Chapter 2: Wide Eyed and Legless
Chapter 3: War Wounds
Chapter 4: I Ain't Got Nobody
Chapter 5: Marching Orders
Chapter 6: Finding the Way Home
Epilogue

Prologue

"They will see us waving from such great heights,
'Come down now,' they'll say.
But everything looks perfect from far away,
'Come down now,' but we'll stay..."

The Postal Service

Even though the evil bastard was finally dead he was still wreaking havoc and killing innocent people.

The explosion that had occurred when his body was destroyed had shaken the very foundations of the Riddle House and the roof was now crashing down around me, Harry and Hermione while Aurors and Death Eaters fled and members of the Order yelled at us to run or stay perfectly still or whatever else it was they were all trying to advise us to do while they struggled to get to us before the rubble buried us completely.

Hermione, as ever, was the one with the best plan though.

"He's fixed it so nobody can disapparate, not even his own people and if we run we'll just make it more likely that we're hit by debris," she yelled as a large oak beam crashed to the ground, killing three Death eaters instantly and crushing Shaklebolt's leg, "We're going to have to make a portkey out of here!"

I nodded to let her know I understood, there was no point in yelling, the falling roof and the screams of dad, Bill and Charlie for me to run to them were too loud to drown out. Harry limped over to lump of rubble and pointed his wand at it, uttering the spell to create a portkey. Something that sounded like a tree falling caught my attention while a woman's scream that sounded like Tonks pierced my eardrums.

"Move!" she was hollering at us as the great chimneystack fell, almost in slow motion, towards us.

Harry dove for the portkey, seeming to think that Hermione and myself were going to do the same but bricks and soot were already falling between the two of us and him and the portkey on the floor just feet away. Our only option was to run. In our typical way we didn't share the same way of thinking about this and while Hermione ran sideways to escape I, fool that I am, tried to outrun the falling chimney and was already halfway across the room before the stupidity of that idea sunk in. I dove underneath a dining table and grabbed a fallen goblet in my left hand.

"Portus!" I shouted while more screams let me know that the chimney was about to flatten the dining table on top of me and I was instantaneously transported who knows where with that all too familiar tug behind the navel.

I hadn't even been thinking of a destination at the time I created the portkey, I just wanted out of that bloody house, and hoped that I was actually heading somewhere and not just stuck travelling for all eternity.

I heard something that sounded like a car horn as I slammed down onto something smooth and metallic before rolling off and hitting the rough, black surface that was the ground and heard another scream. Everything went black after that.

"He just came out of nowhere officer, I swear."

Somebody was speaking in a shaky voice and I felt a sharp pain shooting down my spine that made me groan and grimace as I forced my eyes open to squint in the brilliant sunlight.

"He's coming round!" a woman's voice was shouting way too loudly, "Don't move, the ambulance is on it's way okay?"

I felt a hand on shoulder and tried to lift my head to look around for anybody or anything familiar but a pair of strong hands gripped my skull and held it still.

"No don't move!" he said forcefully, "Just lie still until help gets here. It won't be too long now. Just don't try to move your head."

What the hell was going on? I was in the most uncomfortable position I had ever been in my life and now I was being told to hold it? A face lowered down in front of my eyes and a sandy haired woman smiled anxiously at me.

"You're going to be fine alright? The car barely even hit you, I don't know how you did it but you seemed to have fallen on top of it just as it stopped. You must have jumped up or something."

"I swear to you I was barely even moving and I looked on both sides of the road and he wasn't there I swear to you!" the man's shaking voice was desperately explaining to this officer person he had been speaking to before.

"I'm a witness," somebody was shouting from some way away, "he must have been running or something because one minute he wasn't there and the next he was, "hit the bonnet of the car flat on his back and just rolled off."

"Where..." I tried to ask the woman who was maintaining her strained smile and seeming to feel my head for bumps or something, "...Where is everybody?"

"Shhh," the woman said before turning to look up at someone.

A man in dark official looking clothing crouched down at looked at me with concern.

"Are you with somebody son?" the man didn't wait for a response before getting to his feet and shouting around himself, "Is anybody with this young man? Do any of you know this lad?"

My back suddenly went into an agonising spasm and I had to force my eyes shut and ride out the pain. Somebody took my hand and I heard the woman's voice again.

"Please try not to move, I know it must hurt but spinal injuries can be very tricky y'know?" she was saying while the officer bloke started talking to somebody I couldn't hear.

"Can we get an ETA on that ambulance, this kid's in a bad way?"

I opened my eyes again and blinked the woman's face back into focus again and gasped the breath I had been holding in during the spasm.

"Godric make it stop," I whimpered and the woman's grip on my hand tightened.

"Godric? Is that who you're looking for? Is that who you were with?" the woman said before glancing around herself and calling out, "Godric? Is there anybody called Godric around?"

"What's this?" the officer's voice was saying as he crouched again.

"He's asking for somebody called Godric," the woman was saying, "it sounds like an old guys name don't you think?"

The officer nodded and looked at me.

"The ambulance is almost here, don't panic alright? Now is Godric your dad, your granddad, your uncle? Where was he when you last saw him son?"

I forced my eyes closed and desperately wanted to move. I needed to kick out or curl up or just lay flat on my back rather than on my side like this. My back was killing me and I couldn't explain who bloody Godric was to this bunch of muggles. My back sent another shot of pain directly to my brain and I let out an involuntary yelp.

"Shit he is going to be alright isn't he?" the other man's voice was saying, it was shaking more than ever now, "I couldn't have been going more than five miles per hour, I'd only just pulled out. I barely hit him."

This poor guy was beating himself up over my falling out of nowhere and onto his car but I couldn't reassure him that he was in the clear. I couldn't tell any of them anything. Right then and there I couldn't speak at all as another exclamation of discomfort escaped my throat and I opened my eyes again.

"I'm so sorry," the man was saying weakly.

"Not your fault," I tried to say through gritted teeth.

"What was that son?" the officer was saying as he leaned in closer to me while a siren sounded somewhere.

"My fault, I fell..." I said before another spasm made me think 'sod it' and tried to roll over to get into a different position.

"No don't move!" the woman squealed while holding me firm.

"It kills!" I whimpered.

"I know but they're here now, they can lay you flat and make sure your neck's okay, just please don't try to move, please."

I then did something supremely stupid and nodded.

"Don't do that either!" the officer yelled.

"What did I just say?" the woman was exclaiming in a state of panic.

I apologised and tried to keep still for them.

"My neck doesn't hurt," I tried to explain but they were busy telling the men in bright yellow coats what they thought had happened.

One of the men, a friendly looking guy with bags under his eyes and thinning hair knelt before me and smiled reassuringly.

"I hear you just nodded, try not to do that okay?"

I really am a moron. I nodded again.

"Well that didn't seem to cause you any pain but please try to say yes in future," the man chuckled, "Now what's your name?"

"Ron."

"Ron what?"

"Ron Weasley."

The man looked up to see that the officer was writing something down.

"And were you looking for a Godric Weasley just now son?" the officer was asking from above me.

"No," I grimaced and somebody began to examine my back from behind me, "there is no Godric, I mean there is, there was..."

I was really digging myself a hole here.

"Ron," the yellow-jacketed man was saying as he rested his hand on my head and began to feel around in my hair with his fingers, "did you hit your head?"

"I think so," I said as I closed my eyes and tried to remember exactly how I had landed when I appeared in what I had to assume was a muggle road.

"And did you black out?"

"Yes he did," the woman was saying as she squatted beside me again and smiled worriedly down at me.

"Right, do you remember losing consciousness Ron?" the yellow jacketed man asked as he looked me in the eye and somebody tried to put something around my neck from behind.

"Yeah I think so. I mean I woke up so..." Something hard and flat was being pressed into me from behind and a strong hand settled upon my arm, "...What's that?"

"We're going to roll you over and lay you down flat in a second okay Ron?"

"Uh huh," I grimaced as I found myself unable to nod now that I had this weird thing around my neck.

"Ron how old are you?"

"Eighteen," I said, my eyes still closed and my back spasm threatening never to dull down again.

"Where do you live?"

"Devon," I said as I forced my eyes open.

The man in the yellow jacket smiled.

"Yeah well I guessed that, we're in Devon. What street? What house number?"

I was in Devon. I'd porkeyed home without even thinking about it. This relieved me a little bit until I heard somebody counting to three behind me and felt myself being rolled onto my back and gave an involuntary scream of pain.

"Sorry about that Ron but you'll be fine now, just lie still for us alright?" the other yellow-jacketed man was saying as his face hovered above me.

I was being strapped down onto something so I couldn't move even if I wanted to. My back had never hurt so much in all my life and I just wanted to be at St Mungo's now. I just wanted wands and potions and magic and anything but this long agonising muggle treatment.

"Ron, where is it you live?" the friendly man who was strapping down my other side was asking again.

"Ottery St Catchpole, I gasped and swallowed as my head began to spin.

"That's a fair way away, are you in Paignton on your own?"

I frowned and tried to focus on the faces that were all looming above me now.

"Paignton?" I winced.

The two men in yellow shared a glance and then looked back down at me.

"Ron what's your telephone number? We need to call your family."

"Don't...have a...fellytone," I said as my head seemed to spin away from the rest of me and the faces all blurred.

"We've got head trauma here, radio ahead and warn them," one of the yellow blurs said before the other disappeared from view, "Ron what's your mum and dad's names?"

"Molly and Arthur," I said and closed my eyes to try and stop the spinning.

"No Ron look at me!" the man said sharply and I felt him gripping my arm firmly, "Look at me Ron, don't fall asleep."

I blinked several times and tried to focus upon the pink smudge that was the man's face.

"What's your address?"

"Burrow," I said drowsily.

"Burrow," the man said, sounding confused and looking at the dark blur that I assumed was the officer guy, "you heard of a Burrow street or Burrow Lane or something?"

"No but I'll look into it right now and meet you at the hospital."

The dark figure went away as well.

"He's not brain damaged is he?" that shaky voice was back again, "I didn't...I barely hit him."

The woman's blur moved away and I heard her saying comforting words to him while the yellow blur moved around to my feet and another to my head. I felt myself being lifted.

"Any next of kin yet?" one asked the other.

"No he seems a little disorientated for the time being, we got names and a town though, shouldn't be too hard to track them down."

One of the yellow shapes moved over my face as I was carried inside something.

"We'll find your folks, don't worry, just stay awake for us until we get to the hospital okay?"

I hadn't realised my eyes were closing until he had said that and I tried to force my eyelids wide again but they wouldn't do what I told them to do.

"Ron?" the other voice was calling to me. He sounded as if he had his head in a big caldron, his voice echoing around my skull.

"Wand? Where's wand?" I realised that it wasn't in my hand.

"Wanda? Who's Wanda Ron?"

Stupid bloody muggles I thought to myself as the blurs darkened and my eyes fell closed again.

Chapter 1: My Condition

At first I thought it was the crappy bed. Then, with every new sleeping position I tried and rejected, I realised that it was an increasingly painful aching in my back that was the problem.

As I thrashed about, desperately striving for a comfortable way to lie, I wondered if my random portkey journey into oncoming traffic was the worst thing that had happened to me since Voldemort was defeated once and for all. I had thought, from the way I had fallen, my neck and shoulder area would've been the expected place for discomfort but no. This was lower-back agony with a dash of 'ouch' along the bottom of the ribs.

I sat up in bed. Nothing. I tried to lie back down again and there it was once more. I started to get frustrated at this, the only thing that caused me pain was the one thing I desperately wanted to do. I attempted to lie on my side, while remaining in the sitting position, and it worked for about a second and a half. I let out a huffy growl and beat the mattress with my fists. It was 1:17AM and I was wide awake, with no hope of getting to sleep any time soon, and I still had to find some way of contacting Harry and Hermione to see if they had got out okay. Then there was mum and dad; mum would be worrying herself silly in front of the family clock no doubt. Bill, Charlie and the twins would probably be looking for me right now.

I rolled over and looked to the darkened window and hoped that one of them had thought to send me an owl. It was the only way I could contact the magical world right now. I was wandless and my back wouldn't allow me to disapparate safely. I didn't know where to get hold of a post owl myself so my only chance would be using one that might come to me. Surely the twins would think to send an owl. The twins would think of something. I also recalled that somebody mentioned looking in Ottery St Catchpole for a Molly and Arthur Weasley. They were bound to come for me. They'd be here in the morning. They'd all know I was safe.

I hoped Harry and Hermione were safe too.

Hermione was running to the side, out of range of the collapsing chimneystack, she was probably fine. Harry was a different matter though. He was right over the portkey he had made but he was the type of person not to save his own skin while we were still in danger. I hoped that he had portkeyed out of there as soon as he lost sight of us. I hoped he didn't try to save us.

I tried, for a fourth time, to get comfortable on my stomach but my spinal chord then felt like a spring being pulled out of shape.

I started to feel as if I was going to cry. Not something I do a hell of a lot but I do tend to lose my handle on things when I'm frustrated. I remembered how I had handled all sorts of crap in my time, without a single tear being shed, and yet my frustration at not being able to get comfortable for the night was threatening to reduce me to a blubbering wreck. I was like a six year old having a hissy fit. I saw a red button hanging to one side of my bed on a wire chord and I had been told that I was to push it if I needed anything but I just felt too pathetic to complain about something as lame as this so I persevered alone with my sleepless night.

I had last looked at the clock on the wall at 3:40AM and had found myself waking up from what sleep had eventually come my way at 6:30AM. Strangely enough, I was incredibly comfortable laying down by then and began to resent the fact that I was expected to get up for breakfast soon.

"Hello Mr Weasley," the cheerful nurse said as she came into my room and pulled the curtains back to let the morning sunlight in.

I squinted and rolled away from the light source with a groan.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked me chirpily.

"Not until about a half hour ago no," I mumbled into my pillow.

"Oh dear, well maybe this will make you feel a little better," she said and I lifted my head to see what she was talking about.

"Did you find my mum and dad?" I asked her hopefully.

Her face fell and she shook her head.

"Ah no, the night nurse mentioned something about that. The police in Ottery St Catchpole can't find a Weasley family anywhere in town. She wanted me to ask you if that bump on your head might have confused you a little bit. Do you remember your address or telephone number yet Ron?"

I realised that the Burrow was hidden from muggles and unplottable as well. If my father had concealed the place from anybody he would have hidden it from the muggle authorities first and foremost.

"We don't have a foam number," I said with a shake of the head.

The nurse frowned at me and leaned in close to pull up my eyelids and shine a tiny light into each of them in turn.

"You're still slurring your words? Are you experiencing any pain in your head?"

"Well a bit of a headache," I shrugged.

Who wouldn't have a headache after portkeying into an oncoming car?

"I might suggest an MRI scan," she muttered as she picked up a clipboard from the foot of my bed and flipped through the pages attached to it, "Your brain scan last night came out clear. It says here that you just have a mild concussion."

I heaved myself to sit up in bed and something at the window caught my eye and caused me to freeze. An owl had just landed on the windowsill.

"Well anyway, I'll speak to the consultant about that, in the meantime I've got to give you these."

My eyes snapped back to the nurse and she extended a small plastic cup to me with three brightly coloured beads in the bottom of it.

"Um, thanks?" I said with a confused frown.

The nurse looked at me with great concern.

"Ron do you know where you are?" she said in a low slow voice.

"Yeah, I'm in the hospital."

"And do you know what it is I'm giving you here?" she rattled the beads in the cup.

I leaned forward and peered closer. Maybe they were some kind of muggle thing. I tried to remember everything Hermione had ever told me about muggle treatments. I knew about the mental people sewing cuts up rather than just healing the damn things with the tap of a wand but she'd never mentioned anything about beads or beans or...what the hell was I supposed to do with these bloody things?

"Ron?" she was lifting my head and making me look into her eyes, "Follow my finger would you?" she said as she gripped my chin so I couldn't move my head and waved her finger very slowly back and forth in front of my face.

I watched the finger glide two and fro a couple of times before frowning at the nurse and looking her in the eyes again.

"What's going on?"

She let go of my chin and stood back to consider me as if I was an oddity before placing the plastic cup into my hand and stepping towards the door.

"You swallow those for me and I'll go and get somebody to check you over okay? Don't move."

She left in something of a hurry and I looked back down at the brightly coloured things rolling around in the bottom of the plastic cup. I guessed that this must be the muggle equivalent of potion. I tipped the cup into my mouth and swallowed them. Then I gagged and choked one of them back up again. I picked up a plastic cup of water from the small table beside me and washed the rebelling potion bean thing down with a gulp. I heard a tapping sound and suddenly remembered the owl at the window and threw back the covers to open the window and let the bird inside.

Something felt cold behind me as the barn owl fluttered in and perched upon my bed with an impatient hoot. I saw that the door was closed and wondered where the draught was coming from. I still felt it behind me and turned again but the window was closed once again. It was then I realised why I was feeling a chill at my back. I was wearing nothing but a flimsy back to front shirt thing that didn't go all the way around me.

"Oh shit!" I hissed as I pulled the edges of the shirt thing around the back of me and hopped back into bed to pull the covers up over myself.

The owl bobbed along my bed until it settled on my lap and held out its leg for me to untie the roll of parchment it was delivering. As I untied it I heard the nurse's voice and the clip clop of two pairs of shoes outside my room.

"...something's not right. The boy was looking at his medication as if he'd never seen a pill in his life and one second he's articulate and the next he's talking like a sleepy toddler."

I shoved the note under my pillow and shooed the owl with my free hand.

"Quick hide somewhere and don't go anywhere until I give you a reply to take back okay?"

The door opened and the nurse and an older woman with a white coat on were staring at him with suspicious expressions on their faces.

"Mr Weasley?" the older woman said cautiously.

"Yeah," I smiled and sat up straight.

"Ron who were you just talking to?" the nurse asked me as she walked inside and looked around the empty room.

"Talking?" I said, not just lying but lying really badly.

"Mr Weasley, Ron?" the older woman was saying as she approached me and put down the clipboard she had been examining, "Are you having problems with your head this morning?"

"No my head's fine," I rubbed my hand through my hair and felt where I had hit it on the road the afternoon before and winced involuntarily, "well it is a bit sore from where I bumped it but not big deal."

"Right," the woman said with a slow nod and she turned a page on the clipboard and wrote something down quickly, "and the nurse tells me that you had trouble sleeping."

With this I decided to tell the truth, I really wanted this eternal ache to stop, so I nodded.

"My back it's...It just really hurt no matter what position I tried to sleep in. It only gave me a break when the sun came up again."

The white coat clad woman frowned and glanced to the nurse.

"Yes doctor he seems to have been suffering from whiplash at the scene and then reoccurring spasms ever since in his lower back. The X-ray's came back clear, it seems to be entirely muscular."

"Maybe a herniated disc," the doctor said thoughtfully.

"Well the tests last night didn't indicate..." the nurse began but the doctor interrupted her.

"Well I'd like to run some new tests for my own piece of mind," she handed the nurse the clip board and turned to beam a false smile at me, "did you take your pills Ron?"

"My?" I blinked before realising that that was what the potion beans were, "Oh yeah those. I took them."

The doctor seemed to find my momentary confusion over the 'pills' slightly suspicious and shared a glance with the nurse before smiling back at me again.

"Ron do you know if you have any allergies?"

"Um..." I knew I couldn't touch bat fur without coming out in a rash and that aquatic dragon blood was potentially fatal to all Weasley's, a fact mum refused to let Charlie ever forget for one second since he became a specialist in the dragon world, but I was pretty sure that these things weren't what the doctor wanted to hear about.

"Ron do you know what an allergy is?" the doctor said as she took a step towards me and put her hand on my shoulder gently.

"Yeah, of course I do!" I said; feeling very patronised indeed!

The doctor became defensive and took a step back again.

"Well do you know, for example, if you are allergic to penicillin?"

I swallowed and hoped that my not knowing what the hell penicillin was would be considered odd.

"Well I've never had it before so..." I tailed off and tried not to meet either the doctor or the nurse's eyes.

"Ron," the nurse said with an intrigued tone as she sat at the foot of my bed and rested her hand upon my knee, "have you ever been treated with...modern medicines before. I see you don't have a BCG scar on your left arm."

"A...what?" I said fearfully.

Why on earth would it be considered bad not to have a scar?

"Ron have you never been inoculated against disease?" the doctor said fearfully.

"I-I've never had a disease to get binoculated against."

Both the women shared another glance and they definitely seemed worried about something now.

"Mr Weasley," the doctor began with a serious look on her face, "have you ever been treated by a doctor at all during your life?"

I heaved a sigh, I must have been so obvious, and there was nothing I could do. If I lied they'd catch me out right away, I didn't know a thing about muggle medicine.

"I've been treated by healers before, it's the same thing isn't it?" I shrugged.

The doctor huffed and nodded for the nurse to join her as she stepped outside the room. I listened carefully and overheard their frantic conversation, the doctor woman sounded quite cross.

"Bloody new age hippy rubbish. The poor kid probably grew up in a commune or something I bet that's why they can't find his family. They're running through the fields naked or hugging trees or something!"

"Now we don't know what kind of 'healer' he's been seeing, he's a healthy enough boy isn't he? The people looking after him all his life have obviously done a pretty good job."

"Did you not see the burns on his arms? For all we know the stupid people use leeches and chanting to exorcise the common cold!"

"Hey!" I found myself saying, slightly annoyed that the muggles thought their medical ways were the best and only way to treat people.

The nurse flushed and stepped back into the room with a smile and gently pushed me back to lay back down flat onto the bed.

"Don't you worry about anything. The painkillers should be working their magic on you soon enough and I'll go and get you a sedative so you can get some more sleep if you like."

No I needed to get out of here. I didn't want to sleep.

"No it's fine. I think I should go home now actually."

"No Mr Weasley," the doctor was saying as she rushed into the room to join the nurse in getting me to settle, "you really do need to get some more rest and we've got to run some more tests. I really am concerned about your head injury."

"But it's barely even a bump!" I protested.

The nurse had rushed out of the room and I felt the doctors surprisingly strong arms holding me down flat on the bed while speaking to me in a calm even tone.

"I think you should let us worry about you for the time being and you just try to remember some kind of contact number or address for your...people."

"My people?" I tried not to raise my voice as the nurse rushed back followed by a very large man who took over from the doctor in the holding me down duties.

The nurse was fiddling with a small bottle of something before handing what looked like a transparent pen to the doctor. She leaned over me and I saw that there was a needle sticking out of the end of the plastic thing.

"What the hell do you think you're doing with that?" I snapped fearfully.

"Hold him still Kevin," the doctor said before plunging the needle into my arm.

"Help!" I screamed out to the passers by in the corridor outside my room, "Help me she's stabbing me! They're trying to kill me!"

"Ron come on now, calm down," the nurse was saying in a calming voice while I struggled against the powerful arms of the man Kevin as he pinned my down while the needle was pulled out of my arm, "Shh now, it's just an injection. There's nothing to be scared of. It's all over now."

I felt sick and the doctor was throwing the needle into a plastic tub beside the wall and looking back at me. As she spoke to me her voice seemed to slow down and the room was darkening around me.

"We don't hurt people here Mr Weasley. Just get some sleep and we'll try to find out what's going on with you."

My eyelids were heavy and the weight of Kevin left me along with every other kind of awareness of my surroundings I had.

Something was patting my face gently and a cool breeze blew my fringe across my forehead, tickling me a little. I opened my eyes and let out a startled cry as the face of the owl looked down at me and it's soft wing batted me across the face again and it hooted at me.

I felt as if I had slept for a week and could sleep for another two on top of it. My head was heavy and I didn't feel as if I had the energy to even sit up in the bed at all but I knew that I had to tell the others where I was and that I was okay. I had no idea how long I'd been out already.

I looked at the owl's leg for the parchment and frowned when I saw that both the bird's feet were bare. I rubbed my spinning head before remembering that I had hidden the message underneath my pillow and I twisted around to reach for it. My spine seemed to contract and short stabs of pain pierced through my lower back causing me to sharply inhale through my teeth and give an involuntary whimper that caused the owl on my bed to flutter away to perch on the back of a chair on the other side of the room with its feathers ruffled.

"Bloody hell why does this still hurt so much?" I whined to myself and heard the door opening with a creak. This made me jump and turn back towards the door sharply, causing the pain to sear through my muscles in a whole new way.

"Are you alright Mr Weasley?" the nurse said with a frown as she rushed over to me and my eyes darted over to the owl and silently pleaded with it to keep quiet.

"Get away from me!" I grimaced while trying to massage some of the discomfort away from my back.

"Look I'm sorry about the needle but you needed to be sedated, it was the only way I'm afraid. We're still looking for your parents or anybody else who knows you but there's still no news yet."

The nurse was shifting my pillow up and helping me to lean against it while lowering her free hand to burry her fingers into my lower back. I flinched immediately before suddenly feeling some of the pain easing away and relaxed with a sigh.

"Oh keep doing that please," I sighed as I let myself lay back on the pillow with my eyes closed, "I feel as if I've slept on a pointy rock all night."

"Its okay Ron," the nurse said soothingly, "it'll fade soon enough. You pulled a few muscles back there that's all."

I felt myself drifting off into sleep again. I smiled and closed my eyes again. I hoped that Hermione and Harry were alright. I heard the door close and saw that the nurse was gone. I looked over to the owl as it perched fast asleep now and realised that I still had to send word to them myself just in case. I reached behind me to grab the crumpled parchment and unfurled it.

Ron,

I hope this finds you safe and well. If you have found this message and you are not Ronald Weasley please write some information about where you discovered this note and send it back with the owl, we have ordered it to wait for a reply.

Oh Ronnie please send word that you got out of there alright. We searched the rubble and you weren't there so we know you managed to portkey out but when you didn't apparate home to us we thought you might be injured.

The clock says you are in hospital. We checked St Mungo's and nothing so now we have Aurors looking in every muggle hospital in London for you.

Harry and Hermione are fine; they both got themselves out of the way in time. All the family survived the fight. Can you believe that? We're all safe and whole and home. We're just waiting for you to join us Ronnie.

Please come home as soon as you can dear and if you can't let us come to you.

It's all over now. There's no more war and Death Eaters. There's no more pain and fear. It's time to leave all that behind you and start your new life now.

My new life, I had to have a new life? Of course I did, my whole life had been about helping Harry defeat Voldemort and now he was gone for good and Harry was victorious. I had to find something else to with myself now but what the hell could I do?

I know you're alright and I know you're being looked after, I watch the clock religiously I have to admit, but I really need to know where you are Ron.

There are muggle police snooping around so we are still warded, don't try to apparate if you can, and there is a concealment charm over the house so they can't find it. Just warning you that it's still there, still in one piece, and I hope you are too.

Your loving but very worried mother,

Molly.

PS Fred and George wanted me to tell you that you can apparate or floo directly into their flat at any time, they've lowered all their security jinxes for you. Don't keep us waiting long.

I let out a sigh. Everybody was alright.

Nobody had died. It didn't sound as if anyone had been badly hurt either. The wizarding world was safe again and all I had to do now was get back to it.

That was when this strange feeling came over me. I knew there was nothing to worry about, nobody to grieve or return to comfort or save. I didn't have anywhere to be or any quest I had to do. I just had to go home and start living a normal life. That was beginning to scare me though. I didn't know what a normal life was. I didn't know how to acquire one or what I was supposed to do with it when I did. Who was I supposed to be now that the war was over?

I had no NEWTs. I hadn't completed school. I didn't want to be an Auror anymore. What did I want? I didn't know. What would happen when I got home? We'd have parties to celebrate the nightmare being over. We'd watch Harry becoming a wizarding legend and do our best to help him cope with it, of course we all would, but what was I to do now? What was expected of me and did I want to live up to those expectations?

Everybody was okay. I was okay. We had won.

I felt my eyes burning and my throat going dry as I drew my knees up to my chest and forced my eyes closed. I didn't feel anything. Apart from a dull ache in my spine there was nothing.

I was empty.

Chapter 2: Wide Eyed and Legless

After my tortuous night of back pain the night before I told the nurse I wanted an early night that evening and flung myself, face down, onto the bed. I had managed a good couple of hours kip before rolling onto my side and waking suddenly with a wince. I swore quite loudly and sat up in annoyance. As it had done the previous night, the pain subsided in the sitting position.

Well that was bloody marvellous wasn't it? I can't sleep sitting-up, not unless I'm on the Hogwarts Express or in History of Magic class, and I glanced around the room as if it was to blame.

The owl hooted at me from across the room. I couldn't see it but I knew it was still there waiting patiently for me to tie my reply to its leg and open the window to let it out. I picked up the parchment and read what I had scrawled on the back of mum's letter in my cobweb like handwriting.

I'm fine mum. It is a muggle hospital in Devon, I guess I was subconsciously trying to come home but didn't make it all the way.

Or maybe I subconsciously didn't want to come home yet I thought to myself before reading on.

The falling roof didn't hurt me. The portkey dropped me in front of a car and I kind of hurt my back and banged my head a bit. The nurse says that it's not serious and that I'll be okay. They keep saying different letters to me though. MRI, ASAP and BCG. Oh and they think you and dad are hippies who cuddle trees at a commune. If any of that means anything to you remember to let me know when I see you next.

When, I don't know why that 'when' made me feel so strange.

They had to stick a needle in me and I went to sleep for a while. I don't know how long I've been gone; I hope you haven't been too worried not to hear from me. I'm glad it's all over and everybody's okay. I'm glad Harry and Hermione got out alright too, I was worried about them, tell them I'll see them soon.

I suddenly knew what my brain was thinking, it was thinking for me without my consent or approval of its plans again, I hate it when my brain does that. I was going to leave the hospital, but not for home. I wasn't ready to go back just yet. I wasn't...done yet.

I didn't even know what it was I needed to do myself. I thought that something might be wrong with me. Maybe that bump on the head had done more than the tests had managed to find just like the doctor had said. I picked up the pen I had stolen from the nurse's pocket when she was massaging my back and began to scribble more on my note back to the family. This was to be my explanation for what I was about to do after all, I owed them something better than an empty bed when they came to get me after all.

But how do you explain doing something when you don't know why you're doing it yourself?

I'm not going to be at the hospital anymore by the time you get this owl mum. I'm going to go and take a break for a while. I'm going to be on my own for a while.

Please try not to fret about me. I really am okay. There's just something...

I don't know what the reason is mum, dad, everyone. I just know I'm not ready to come home just yet but that I will do soon and I really don't want any of you to worry about me or come looking for me.

Oh and I lost my wand so if you find it would you keep it safe for me?

I know this doesn't make any sense. It doesn't to me either but I just know that I've got something I need to sort out for myself and I need to be on my own to do it.

Love to you all, I'm so glad you all came through okay, and don't let Harry and Hermione go crazy and tear Devon apart trying to find me. They're not going to find me until I manage to and I'm more than a little lost right now.

Sorry to spoil the party, go ahead and have it without me, I don't mind,

Ron.

I re read the letter and decided that I sounded equal parts insane and self absorbed and hoped that they would forgive me for being a selfish bastard about this. I rolled up the parchment and the owl seemed to know that it's time had finally come as it fluttered over to my bed and settled upon my lap. I tied the note to its leg and shifted to get out of bed and open the window.

"I'm sorry I took so long to give you your answer," I mumbled to the owl, "thanks for behaving so well. Bye."

The own flapped away and was soon swallowed up by the night. I closed the window again and crawled back into bed. I looked at the clock. It was 10:08PM. I tried to lie down but the rock in the mattress feeling came right back with a vengeance and I sat up with a growl and then went a little potty. I pounded the bed with my fists in a very immature tantrum before resigning myself to another night of dull torture until I woke in the morning in such a state of comfort that I resented the fact that I couldn't stay there and get the eight hours I was entitled to.

I was so annoyed. My back had been fine since I got up but then, as soon as I needed to sleep, it felt like it had corrugated just to spite me.

'Ha, this'll teach you; fight the most evil wizard in history, almost get squished by a falling chimney, portkey into an oncoming car and spend a couple of days on an uncomfortable bed being stabbed with needles by muggles who think you're crazy and expect to get a good night do ya? Well I'll show you...'

My back was a malicious git. If it had been a separate entity I would have punched it.

I managed to last until just after three in the morning before my back pain drove me to hurl myself out of the bed and ransack the room for my clothes. I was getting out of here now.

I clamped the open back-to-front shirt thingy closed over my bare arse and tip toed out of my room in search of clothing and a way out of the place. My bare feet slapped on the cold smooth floor and I saw the night nurse sitting in her room and ducked underneath the window as I passed by. I tried several doors before finding one unlocked and stepped inside.

It was lit by the bright moon outside and I could see a series of small metal doors, they must be muggle lockers, and I wished I had my wand with me. I could open them up in a jiffy with that. Instead I had to search for some kind of wire and hope I remembered what Fred taught me about picking muggle locks.

I eventually found jeans and a t-shirt that were just about my size and, thankfully, underwear too before slapping my barefoot way along the corridors and trying to find the stairs. I kept my eye open for any shoes that might just happen to be laying around but funnily enough muggles don't leave shoes here and there randomly any more than wizards do so I just had to stay barefoot for the time being.

I found something called a fire escape. I thought that this might be a code word for a floo network connected fireplace but no such luck. All that happened was that I was now outside at the top of a metal ladder with an alarm bell ringing in my ears at a deafening volume. I descended the ladder as fast as I could, catching my feet and hands on loose flakes of peeling paint as I went, before landing heavily on the gravel below and hobbling into some bushes to hide.

As some kind of building evacuation was set into motion and then overridden by an angry looking man in a suit I closed my eyes and leaned against the brick wall behind me, still safely concealed by the bushes, and plunged my hands into my jean pockets to keep my fingers warm. I felt something papery and pulled it out. I had two pieces of paper, one saying twenty pounds and another saying five pounds. This was money? What the hell? This stuff would blow away in the wind. Surely any old body could just make this stuff at home. I shoved the money back into my pocket and noticed that the people were all milling back inside again.

I got up and, keeping to the shadows, walked out onto the street and into the town.

I had sat on a bench and watched the sun rise over the ocean and then watched as the shops on the seafront began opening up for another days trading. I saw one man carrying several buckets of seaside attire out from inside and setting up a small display for passers by to browse amongst during the course of the day. I looked along the other shop fronts and saw that they too were going about their early morning set up of stock.

None of them were really paying attention to the empty street and most were going around the back or into stockrooms for long periods of time. I knew this was immoral but I took my chance. I got up and walked quietly across the street and into a shoe store just as the manager stepped into a storeroom full of boxes. I grabbed a trainer and pulled it onto my foot and then searched for it's other half. I couldn't see it anywhere. Then I realised that all the shoes on display were left ones.

"Shit!" I cursed under my breath and heard the voice of the manager calling out.

"Is somebody there?"

I ran out of the store with my one trainer on my left foot and wondered what the hell I was going to do. I found myself laughing as I ducked into an alleyway to hide.

"I s'pose I could always hop from now on," I said as I shook my sore head with amusement.

"Need a right shoe?" a gruff voice sounded from the darkened alleyway.

I jumped and stared back down towards the sound of the voice butI couldn't make out a person anywhere. Maybe it was a wizard with a invisibility cloak I thought.

"Um hello?" I said cautiously.

Something under a cardboard box shifted slightly and I jumped backwards and found myself raising my fists instinctively, I really had been in too much peril recently to react any other way. A dirty face, deep lines and a greeny-yellow beard, looked up at me and grunted while pointing behind me.

"The shoe shop further down do all right shoes," he growled again, "You probably won't get a match for that one but it'll be near enough I bet."

I froze and swallowed.

"Err...thanks," I said quietly.

The man who looked more like the ground than the real ground settled back down into the cardboard and I couldn't make him out anymore. I backed out of the alleyway and glanced around the still empty street. I set off further down the street to look for the other shoe shop for people who only had one right leg, muggles were weird, and waited for the young girl who was tapping something into the till and removing the ream of paper that churned out of it to go back out the back.

I dashed inside, grabbed a similar looking trainer to the one I had on and yanked it onto my foot, not pausing to tie either shoelace before running for it as far from the two crime scene as I could before my back reminded me that it hated me and I was forced to stop.

I looked up and saw that I was at a junction between the seafront and Beach Road. I saw lots of neon signs for bed and breakfast and guessed that this was a good time to find somewhere to stay. I walked a little way down and rang the doorbell of one of the places with a vacancy sign in the window. There was also a sign stating that one night stays and long-term tenancy were welcomed. I like a place as vague as I am!

The landlord was a friendly-enough man who asked me for payment for the first night in advance and informed me I could tell him how long I intended to stay at breakfast the following morning. I handed over the two pieces of paper that I had found in my pocket and he showed me up to my room and began explaining what key opened what door.

I sat on the bed and sighed when he left me alone and fell back onto the soft mattress before wincing and making a tired whimpering sound as an invisible club slammed me in the small of the back and I sat up again.

"Bugger!" I grumbled.

Sleep wasn't going to be an option for me obviously so I decided to go out exploring after first having a very satisfying pee. At the foot of the stairs I tripped over something that clattered to the floor, taking me with it.

"Ow!" called a voice from the room to my left, the lounge I was to find out later, followed by a wicked chuckle.

I struggled to my feet, my back reminding me that it was still my enemy and my legs caught on whatever it was I had fallen over. A flustered old lady rushed out of the room and tried to help me up. She was repeatedly apologising to me in a softly troubled tone of voice while snapping at the jovial old man who had called over to me when I fell.

"I warned you about just throwing your legs aside when you get comfortable, you could've broken this poor boy's neck," the woman hissed.

Throwing his legs? Yes I had heard her correctly and yes I had fallen over a pair of legs, false legs, belonging to the old man who had said 'Ow!'. I laughed and picked up the pair of prosthetics, carrying them into the lounge and resting them against the side of the armchair.

"Sorry about that," I said as I looked around the room and saw it was full of pensioners, either laughing or tutting at the old man.

"I'm gonna get a bruise now," he grinned, rubbing the synthetic shin of the right leg.

"Me too!" I laughed.

The man was introduced to me as Jim, the woman fussing over me was Dolly and there was a long list of other names reeled-off to me as each pensioner nodded on hearing their name.

They were on holiday, organised by their community centre, for a week and had been in Paignton for a couple of days already. A very friendly woman with no teeth told me that the other half of their group were lodging a couple of places down the road from us and that they were waiting for the coordinator to come and tell them the plan for the day.

As it turned out their day was an easy one, they were told that they could have a wander wherever they wanted to go today. Some planned to hire deckchairs and sit on the beach, some declared they were going to the pier for the afternoon, and Jim, Dolly and the jolly toothless woman I was to come to know as Rosie were going to go along with the majority and descend upon the arcades in the high street.

I was about to make my excuses and go on my way when Jim re-attached his legs, shuffled into his wheelchair and instructed me to get pushing.

"The poor boy's probably got plans of her own..." a flustered Dolly said with an apologetic look thrown my way as she spoke.

Rosie wasn't nearly as sensitive to my plans.

"All right; it's me, Dolly and no-legged Jim for the fruit machines too. Come on red, you've got to set the ramp up on the steps before you can wheel him out."

Was she speaking to me? She was. Where was this person who was supposed to be running the show? Surely someone's been employed to do this sort of thing. That someone was called Marie. She was rushing along Beach road, waving her gratitude over her shoulder at me, and trying to catch-up with the runaway old biddy who was disappearing around the corner and off down the esplanade.

Falling over false limbs: volunteering to chaperone the elderly. I don't see any connection.

The thing is I didn't have any plans for the day, there wasn't any real reason to say no to what I was informed was called the Last of the Summer Wine day trippers, so I picked up the portable ramp and got to work.

After that afternoon I came to the conclusion that most old people have a gambling problem. Maybe it's revenge against their next of kin. They don't take you to the seaside with them so you spend their inheritance on slot machines and novelty tea towels. Fair's fair I suppose.

While on an errand to get change of a fiver an old man passed me by and gave me a wave. The woman with him asked who he was waving at, to which he replied.

"That's no-legged Jim's boy."

So I had skipped out of the hospital to find myself and found that I was a no-legged man's adopted grandson. This was getting slightly surreal.

At breakfast the following morning the landlord apologised to me for not having a single table and asked if I minded being seated at one of the pensioners' tables. No-legged Jim answered on my behalf.

"He's sitting with us mate. I've saved him a seat."

I sat down at the table with Jim, Dolly and Rosie who told me that we were going on the steam railway today, the train, there's a nice change for me, and the zoo tomorrow.

"We've cleared it for you to have a seat on the minibus," Dolly said reassuringly.

I was a tad startled. I didn't even know if I was going to be here tomorrow and the Summer Wine crew were making excursion commitments on my behalf.

"I haven't even sorted another night here yet," I sputtered as my orange juice went the wrong way down my throat.

"That's sorted," Jim said nonchalantly as he buttered his toast.

I looked to Dolly, the sane yin to Jim's loopy yang, and spelled out the phrase 'huh?' with my eyebrows.

"Jim paid for your room tonight with his winnings," she smiled, showing a degree of sympathy for my hijack status.

At the arcade Jim had won the jackpot on three different machines, causing the management to regret giving him a stool to sit on after he got up from his wheelchair and balanced precariously upon his false limbs to play the granddaddy of the arcade, and they spitefully refused to change all the pound coins into notes as he left.

"You should've seen the fella's face when Jim paid him twenty-five pounds all in change," Rosie chuckled.

I laughed at this before feeling incredibly uncomfortable about freeloading from a retired legless gentleman.

"Listen it's not that I'm not grateful Jim but..." I began.

"You wheeled me around all day yesterday for free and I won't have a single complaint from you young red."

I rolled my eyes and decided that protesting wouldn't get me anywhere so I shrugged and nodded. Dolly looked happy enough and I turned to see Rosie shovelling food into her toothless mouth. I wondered if it was painful to eat toast with your gums just as my full English breakfast arrived at our table.

"They've given us ice hockey pucks," Jim muttered, staring down at his plate.

"It's black pudding," Dolly corrected, though with some suspicion at the rock hard disc on her own plate.

"It doesn't matter where I put it on my plate, it keeps skidding back into the middle," Jim stabbed at it a couple of times, "Shouldn't you be able to pierce it with a fork?"

I tucked in to my breakfast and watched as everybody in the dining room examined the black pudding as if it was a petrified dog turd. No-legged Jim lifted the black pudding off his plate and placed it on the dining room table, and then he rested his cup of tea on it and sat back in his chair with a satisfied look on his face.

"Jim!" Dolly hissed as she took the black pudding and wrapped it up in her napkin, "You're like a kid you are."

After breakfast was over with, not one black pudding eaten I might add, the summer Wine crew gathered in the lobby. There was a lengthy discussion about the bringing of coats, as the weather was overcast in a very intimidating way, and while I set up Jim's ramp an old lady with what sounded like a South African accent struck-up a conversation with me.

"It's so nice of you to help out with no-legged Jim for the week, it was such hard work on poor Dolly the last couple of days you know?"

The week? The week! How did this happen? When was this agreed to? I fell over the guy's legs for crying out loud, now I'm a caregiver?

"Dolly, I can't afford to do that," I yammered to the poor woman when I found her, "this place is twenty five quid a night. I'd need to take a job."

"It's all right dear," Rosie interrupted, "no-legged Jim's a devil with those slot machines, he'll earn your twenty-five pounds on them. All you have to do is find him a place that'll let him take their jackpots."

Well it was a plan, a plan that didn't cost me anything. I still didn't get it though. What the hell was my appeal to these people? They only met me twenty-four hours ago and we'd gone gambling, played crazy golf, eaten dinner, complained about our restless nights sleep and our aching bones, and now we had just had breakfast together.

They had asked me if I was on holiday and why I was on my own; blah, blah, blah... I had vagued it up for them until they finally accepted the fact that I was just hanging around at the seaside. I don't know, maybe they felt sorry for me more than they needed me around. Either way you don't look a legless gift horse in the mouth.

Speaking of no-legged Jim, I had noticed that everybody called him no-legged Jim when they were talking about him, except for Dolly, and Jim when talking to him.

I decided to clear the matter up to avoid any confusion.

"Hey Rosie, does everybody call him no-legged Jim because there's another Jim that people confuse him with?"

Rosie looked at me as if I'd just asked her the world's stupidest question.

"No," she said at last, "we call him that because he doesn't have any legs."

She stared at me momentarily before cracking up, her gummy grin spread wide across her face, and called me a daft sod. I took my position behind no-legged Jim and started to manoeuvre him toward the door.

"Mush, mush!" he yelled, cracking an invisible whip.

I tried not to think of my back and how much I was aggravating it with all this and set off down the ramp. I'm sure nervous breakdowns aren't supposed to be like this.

I can't even go insane the right way.

Chapter 3: War Wounds

It looked as gloomy as a winter afternoon but I felt as if I was wearing eighteen robes in a sauna. I had managed to acquire a sweatshirt, feeling a little self-consious about exposing my arms in public, but it was melting me from within.

No-legged Jim was talking me through our journey to the train station as if he was a driving instructor with a particularly troublesome student at the wheel. Except for one thing, he kept encouraging me to be more reckless.

I can be reckless I thought to myself. I've run out of a hospital in the middle of the night and gone into hiding from my loved ones without really understanding why I've done it. I've faced one of the darkest wizards in history; that felt pretty reckless. One time I took a pee in one of the spare caldrons in Snape's dungeon because Moaning Myrtle was stalking me through all the bathrooms for her own amusement. Surely that was anarchy, alright not anarchy but pretty disgusting when you think about it. Disgusting people must be reckless mustn't they?

I will not, however, be reckless while responsible for a legless elderly gentleman's safety no matter how much the demonic sod encourages me.

On the steam train I left him and the Summer Wine crew to themselves and pulled down a window to take in the breeze. I looked up at the miserable sky and wished that it looked as sweltering as it felt. What was I doing? I still had no plan, no aim, and no end in sight. When the Summer Wine crew went home and stopped covering my board I'd probably move on; where to, who knows; and I still wouldn't have a clue what I was doing.

I couldn't write to Harry and Hermione or any of my family and give them any kind of reassurance when that owl had come. I wouldn't be able to do it if another owl came again. The first thing they'd all want to know was what I was doing, what was I planning and when I'd be back. I hadn't had my wand since I portkeyed out of the Riddle house and I didn't even miss it. Something about being unreachable, untraceable, made me feel safe. I couldn't be found unless I wanted to be and I still didn't feel like communicating with anybody who might be missing me.

There was still that unrealistic demon in my head who made me hope that nobody had noticed anything was up and that I could come home whenever I wanted without a single person batting an eyelid or expecting an explanation.

Ridiculous isn't it?

Maybe I thought that, coming from a big family, my absence would go unnoticed. In fact, it's worse. You end up with loads of people wondering where you are, trying to get hold of you, and increasing their degree of concern by talking amongst themselves about it.

No-legged Jim walked his unnatural walk over to me, something I thought very unwise on a moving train, and gave me a nudge in the ribs.

"You look like my daughter used to when she was potty-training and had just pooped in her knickers."

How do you not laugh at that?

"Oh thanks!"

No-legged Jim cackled in his mischievous little way before nudging me in the side once more.

"So what's up then?"

I chewed my lip for half a second before I answered.

"I'm just worried that my family might have put a bounty on my head."

Jim looked at the top of my head.

"You'd have noticed by now, especially in this weather, it'd melt."

I gave him a gentle dig back. He over-dramatically faked losing his balance before deliberately dropping himself onto a seat.

"If there is a price on your head you don't have to worry about any of us turning you in."

I raised my eyebrows.

"No?"

"Nah," no-legged Jim sighed as he gazed through the window, "it's not worth splitting two quid between us is it?"

Fred and George would love this bloke.

After the train ride we got a ferry over to Dartmouth; where no-legged Jim emptied three fruit machines of their jackpots and loaded me up with twenty-five pounds worth of change; then we found a place for lunch.

No-legged Jim had tried to teach me the trick of winning of the big machines but I have a head like a sieve for useful information. It involved something to do with not holding when you had two in a row and your next spin always producing the same two and their matching third. I was too busy concentrating on hitching my jeans back up over my hips, the weight of all the coins in my pockets dragging them down as I walked, as I was not only carrying my Summer Wine wages but also my own winnings. Though the jackpot I had hit was on the two pence roulette wheel and I had ended up with thirty-two pence in coppers. The truly sad thing was that when my number came up I actually punched the air and whooped while Dolly and Rosie applauded. Meanwhile thirty pound coins were pumping out of no-legged Jim's machine and he didn't make a sound, you can tell I don't win at a hell of a lot can't you?

As we sat in the cafe having lunch; Jim and the Summer Wine crew seemingly eating exactly the same thing they'd had for breakfast and me ripping into a jacket spud; I noticed an elderly couple from our group, who were staying at the other bed and breakfast, sitting down at a nearby table. I also noticed the filthy look that no-legged Jim threw their way as they did.

"What's up Jim?" I asked, never yet having seen him be unpleasant to anybody since we met.

"Those two..." he jerked his head in the couple's direction, "...I'm glad they're away from us this time."

Rosie explained.

"The last outing we had was at a self-catering place. Marie and a couple of people from the centre would buy the food and prepare it for us all, some of us would offer to wash-up afterwards, it was like a little community wasn't it Dolly?"

Dolly nodded.

"Anyway," Rosie went on, "no-legged Jim is very particular about his bacon, he doesn't like that cheap stuff from the supermarket so he went out to the butcher and bought his own. Real good quality stuff wasn't it Jim?"

"I wouldn't know," Jim answered gruffly and purposefully loud enough to get the old couple's attention.

Rosie went on.

"Well everybody had access to the fridge there, if you brought anything as a special treat for yourself you could put it in there and nobody would touch it."

"If you hadn't put it in the fridge," Dolly added, "you knew it wasn't yours to take out."

"Exactly," Rosie nodded, "So no-legged Jim put his bacon in the fridge to have at breakfast and those two over there had bought some cheapie-rubbish from the supermarket and put that in the fridge too."

No-legged Jim scowled over to their table again and grumbled something under his breath. Dolly shushed him and Rosie revealed the couple's heinous crime.

"Well when he went to the fridge to get his bacon, it was gone. Their 'orrible bacon was still there but his was all gone. He went out to the breakfast room to ask after what had happened to it and that old bat..." Rosie pointed right at the elderly woman sitting across the room and looking very uncomfortable at how loudly this story was being told, "...said she'd had it for them because she'd mistaken it for their bacon."

Rosie sat back in her chair and folded her arms, a look on her face that reminded me of Mad-Eye Moody after telling us a long-winded story about how he foiled a murderous Death Eater and brought him to justice, and the shape her gummy mouth formed upon her face reminded me of Umbridge when she wasn't getting her own way. In fact that's a great way to describe Rosie to you, Umbridge doing a Mad-Eye Moody impersonation!

Realising that Rosie was looking for a reaction to the scandal from me I tried to look suitably outraged.

"How can you mistake bacon freshly carved at the butcher shop and wrapped by hand for that plastic stuff from the supermarket?" Jim said, "Thought it was theirs my legless arse!"

On the journey back to Paignton I asked no-legged Jim how he came to be no legged. He told me that he'd lost both legs at the knee from a combination of bad circulation diabetes and gangrene during the war.

"So did you meet Dolly with legs or without legs?" I asked, not realising until much later on just how blunt a question it was.

"I've only known Dolly for a couple of years," Jim said with a confused look on his face, "since I started going to the community centre."

"Oh I'm sorry, I thought she was your missus!" I said before turning to Rosie, "So you..."

"NO!" both no-legged Jim and Rosie barked as one.

"My wife didn't come. She doesn't like socialising or going to different places or meeting new people or anything stimulating in general."

No-legged Jim read my expression of confusion and addressed what I was clearly thinking.

"She didn't used to be like that, she just grew old before her time, once the kids left home she started acting like one of those miserable old bats you see on the bus all the time. I think she likes it when I go away on these outings; it gives her a break from me. Cheerful people annoy her."

I laughed at this. He had just described Argus Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker.

"And young people, noisy people, different-looking people..." Jim added.

This was definitely a relation of the Filch family.

"She'd hate you," Rosie said to me.

"Rosie, don't say that!" Dolly gasped.

"It's true, you look like one of those scary young people who rob us old ladies in the street, what with your 'hoodie' and everything," Rosie said, without any malice at all, as if it was a fact of my life that I'd always been aware of.

"I do not!"

"You do, all that messy hair..." Rosie didn't feel any more needed to be said.

"Messy hair doesn't make you a granny-basher," I said in my defence.

"Oh I know that but when we see the likes of you with your scruffy hair and baggy clothes, metal in your faces..."

"I don't have metal in my face!"

"...and your gang of hooligans..."

"I'm on my own!"

"...and your tattoos..."

Rosie had paused for me to protest again. I didn't.

"You've got tattoos?" no-legged Jim yelled, "Show us."

"No!" I snapped, "They're not tattoos anyway they're..." I knew Dolly had spotted my arms the day before and not said anything about them and I didn't want to have to come up with a lie to explain how I got the snake-like marks all the way up both arms, "...decorative scars and I'm not flashing them to a group of old people."

No-legged Jim raised his eyebrows.

"Why where are they?"

I gave him a gentle punch in the arm.

"Nowhere dirty. I just don't want to expose them that's all."

"Yes Jim," Dolly said firmly, "you leave him be."

I gave Dolly a grateful smile and she leaned in to whisper into my ear.

"Although I don't know why a handsome young lad like you would do that to such beautiful skin. When I first saw them I thought you'd had some dreadful accident."

She moved away from me without meeting my eyes and I stared at her before lowering my head and staring at the tiny scar still visible around my right wrist. I tugged at my sleeve and saw that Jim and Rosie had noticed my change in demeanour. I tried to give them a cheerful smile.

"War wounds are funny things aren't they red?" he smiled as he patted his own thighs.

"Sorry?" I blinked as I looked up at him again.

"Do we let them define us or do we just shrug them off and go on living as if they are of no consequence at all? I know I don't want to stop dancing and walking and when death comes for me I plan to go out kicking and screaming." Jim was looking me hard in the eye now, "Just 'cause I ain't got any legs doesn't mean I intend to stop kicking."

I stared at the old man and swallowed before Rosie took one of my hands and patted it gently.

"It's a humid old day today isn't it young'un?" she smiled as she got up from the table and manoeuvred no-legged Jim's wheelchair over to his seat so he could shuffle into it, "You might want to take that sweatshirt off and cool down. You've a bit of a hill to get ol' Jim up to get us back to the coach after all haven't you?"

I felt Jim's false leg kick me under the table and let out a laugh before getting up from the table myself.

"Yeah, I am a bit hot as it goes," I nodded before pulling the sweatshirt over my head and tying it around my waist while feeling a lot more comfortable in just the t shirt I had on now.

Dolly drew a silent gasp as she saw my arms in all their scarred glory for a second time and Rosie beamed at me and went to pay the bill while I moved to help Jim into his chair and push him back outside. As I was leaning over him he tugged at my elbow and pulled me down so my ear was at the same level as his mouth.

"Don't you be ashamed of them son," he mumbled so only I could hear him, "Scars don't make the man y'know? It's how the man bears the scars."

I tried to speak but my voice wavered and I had to stop and clear my throat before trying again.

"I must remember to tell my brother Bill that when I see him next," I said hoarsely, "I think he'll like it."

Chapter 4: I Ain't Got Nobody

Ok so what don't you need when you're already sleep-deprived and suffering nighttime back spasms? Yes that is correct, a firework display.

Well not so much a display seeing as it was ten past two in the morning, more a bunch of drunks with access to a lot of fireworks but the result is much the same. Once the first explosion went off every seagull in Devon woke up and started screeching. I began to wonder if seagulls were equipped for nighttime flying and imagined them hammering into the side of the tall hotel buildings or the multi-storey car park. I looked to my window and readied myself for a seagull impact.

It didn't come. The noise persisted though. The 'gulls just could not settle again and would break out in squawks every once-in-a-while. None of this bothered me, however. What bothered me was my evil nemesis...my spine!

How is it possible to be pain-free all day and all evening but the second you lay down to sleep you feel as if you're laying on the latest batch of Hagrid's stone-like scones? I don't know if it was sleep deprivation, frustration or the fact that I'm just plain bonkers; but I started to snivel. Snivel, pace up and down and talk to myself out loud. To be honest, I wasn't really talking, I was swearing a lot. I ended up working myself up so much that I grabbed my keys and went downstairs. I went through the front door and sat on the garden furniture on the patio outside the lounge window.

The cool breeze blew against my face and dried the tears on my cheeks. I wiped my eyes and began to do that deep breathing thing that Hermione does when she's just stopped crying.

"You alright red?" a voice from my left asked from the darkness.

I swore and nearly fell off my plastic seat as I grabbed my chest and spun around to see Rosie's face illuminated by the lighter she was holding to the cigarette in her mouth.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" I snapped at her in shock.

Rosie held up her cigarette and smiled.

"I didn't know you smoked."

"As far as they all know," she nodded up to the windows of the B&B, "I don't anymore. I've given up."

"I can see it's going well," I said in the way us judgemental non-smokers always do.

"I only cheat once in a while. I'm having a bad night tonight..." Rosie held out the box of cigarettes to me, "...and I can see I'm not the only one."

I shook my head at her offer before confirming my bad night status.

"I still can't lay down to sleep."

"Still?"

I nodded.

"It gets to about this time and I throw a wobbly. I'm just tired and frustrated that's all."

Rosie frowned and took a drag.

"How long ago did you do it?"

"A couplea days ago," I shrugged.

"You've been here a couplea days and you were complaining about it then, it must be longer than that."

"Alright," I huffed, "a few days. A week...maybe."

Rosie exhaled a cloud of smoke toward me.

"Oh sorry," she fanned it away with her free hand, "and it's only at night eh? It shouldn't still be giving you trouble after all this time. What was it you said you did to it again?"

I quickly rewound my brain and checked my story.

"I fell on it awkwardly. It didn't even bruise though."

"Hmmm..." Rosie said, her eyebrows knitting together in thought as she took another drag.

After a couple of minutes of silence we were interrupted by another flock of seagulls creating a fresh racket. Rosie extinguished her cigarette and flicked it over the wall and onto the street.

"I've never known seagulls to be so active this time of night," she sighed, looking to the dark sky, "and you," she looked right at me, "you didn't see me smoking."

I held up my hands and shook my head.

"Of course I didn't. You don't smoke."

She smiled back at me.

"See you at breakfast red. Don't stay out here too long, the cold air won't help your back."

"I'm coming back inside in a bit," I nodded.

Rosie went back inside and I looked up at the stars to see if I recognised any of the constellations from all those classes I didn't pay any attention to. I could still hear the seagulls overhead. I stood up and fumbled with the keys, trying to find the one for the front door. It would be just my luck, I had thought, if I managed to get shat on by a seagull the one time they're all supposed to be asleep.

I didn't remember falling asleep but I must have done as a tapping at my window woke me. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and sat up with a start on seeing Hedwig perched on the ledge outside, looking very impatient with me, and suppressed the wince of discomfort my sudden jerking movement had caused.

I slipped out of bed and made my way over to the window to let the owl inside.

"Hey Hedwig," I said cautiously, remembering how Harry liked to instruct her to bite me when he was angry with me.

The snowy owl extended her leg and I untied the parchment before apologising to her for not having any owl treats around for her. She puffed out her feathers and turned her back on me. I sat down on the bed and unfurled the parchment, wondering whether it was an instruction to return home immediately or an order not to bother coming back at all.

Ron,

Screw you and what you said. I'll tear Devon apart if I bloody well want to and I am doing. If you can't face your family for whatever reason, well I don't understand it but I'll respect it, that's fine but I really need to talk to you properly mate. We just spent the best part of a year with each other and I can't just switch off my need to care how you are and want to talk things out when they are on either of our minds.

Your mother is going crazy. She practically sleeps in front of that damn clock of hers. Bill and Charlie are kind of pissed off with you truth be told. Ginny keeps questioning Hermione and me about what your 'mood' was before the final battle. She seems to think that you've had a total mental breakdown or something. I told her she was being stupid.

She was being stupid wasn't she Ron?

Fred and George are coming up with different plans every day. The latest one is to go to a different Devonshire town every night and set off a load of their fireworks to get your attention.

My blood ran cold. That had been Fred and George last night? They were here?

Hermione keeps reading all these books about stress and anxiety in post-war soldiers and is forever explaining to us all how you must be feeling and how we should all understand and give you time and not pressure you or anything.

I smiled; trust Hermione to understand me better than I do.

She cries on her own in her room every single night and refuses to go home to her parents until she knows you're alright.

My smile faded. I felt like a bastard.

Then there's me Ron.

The Daily Prophet wants to speak to me every other day. The ministry want to give me some kind of award. Lots of important people want me to do lots of important things and side with them in political debates and I'm apparently endorsing umpteen different products without my knowledge. While all of this is happening I'm being asked what it is I plan to do with my life now and I don't bloody know Ron. I didn't ever plan to have a life after the final battle.

Do I finish school? Do I still want to become an Auror without you; I remember that you changed your mind after we saw all those people die...after you had to kill somebody to save me.

I refused to remember that. I refused to learn the Death Eater's name, refused to remove their hood; I couldn't know the real human being I had struck down with the sectus sempra curse during the retrieval of Hufflepuff's cup. I needed it not to be real.

I know what you mean about trying to find out who you are and who you're meant to be from now on but why do you have to do it on your own Ron? I can't figure that stuff out by myself. I need you and Hermione. I need you mate. Why don't you need me?

I cursed myself under my breath and forced myself to keep on reading.

If you're not ready to face the wizarding world I don't blame you. If you don't want to have to answer all the questions your family will have for you then fine, I can just about understand that. If the thought of talking to Ginny is too much then I'll back you up and face her terrifying wrath to keep her from you.

I let out a sad chuckle at this.

If you can't talk to Hermione... Well that hurts me inside to imagine to be honest Ron. There's never been a time when you two haven't been able to communicate, even when you weren't talking to each other, and she needs to help you just as much as she needs you to help her. Well anyway, if you can't face her just yet then I'll keep a secret from her that could break her heart and potentially ruin our friendship and I'd do it for you mate.

I'll shut them all out if you'd just agree to meet me and talk to me.

You don't have to come back with me. You don't have to have all the answers, hell I won't even ask you a single question I promise you, and I won't try to follow you when we're done. I give you my word Ron. Just apparate to an agreed meeting place and we'll talk. Fred found your wand. I could get it back to you if you want it.

It's all over now and all we have to cling to is each other. Hermione and I really need you Ron. We have each other until you get back. I don't like to think of you dealing with all this on your own.

Please meet me.

Harry.

PS I will punch you in the arm when I see you, no matter what, just warning you ahead of time.

I laughed and wiped my welling eyes as I set the parchment down on my bed and looked over at Hedwig. She was facing me again and looking at me almost sadly.

"I'm sorry I don't have any food for you girl."

She gave a soft hoot and fluttered over to my side and nipped my finger gently.

"Okay then I'll let you get back to the Burrow and a proper reward," I sighed before picking up a pen and looking down at the parchment, "Just give me a minute will you?"

Hedwig clicked her beak and hopped up onto the bedpost to wait for me to scribble out a reply.

Hi Harry.

That just felt so inadequate but I had to start somewhere.

I'm sorry; I'm a stupid selfish bastard okay? I don't blame you if you hated me right now. I don't want to upset any of the family. I don't want to hurt Hermione or Ginny and I really don't want to abandon you while you're feeling...like I'm feeling I guess.

The thing is, as much as you need Hermione and me to get through it, I just can't deal with this in front of you guys. I can't relax with everybody watching me and wondering what I'm thinking all the time. You know me and my self esteem well enough by now don't you Harry? What do I do when things get past a certain point? I storm off don't I?

I fume or I get embarrassed or...

Remember when we were waiting to hear about dad when that snake bit him? Fred and George were all for knocking Sirius' block off they were so wound up. Ginny was insisting we all go straight to the hospital in our pyjamas and getting teary-eyed. You were just freaking out about your vision and Sirius was playing the part of our mother while she wasn't there. Remember me that night Harry? I don't suppose you do. I made myself invisible didn't I?

I just went into my own head until we got the news that he was going to be okay and then I just let a little bit of relief go, just a little remember? Then we went to bed without saying a word to each other.

I can't handle stuff, big stuff, in front of people. I don't work that way. I wish I did sometimes. I wish I could agree to meet you Harry but I can't, not until I've let it all out and got a good night's sleep.

I haven't let anything go just yet and I can't sleep for the same reason I can't apparate to meet you right now. My back is still killing me.

Don't worry about it. I swear to you on my family's lives it's nothing serious but it is a problem at the moment. Yet another one I have to deal with by myself.

I'm sorry people are trying to use you already back in the wizarding world. We both knew something like that would happen didn't we?

I'll get back to you as soon as I can I promise. I want to help you Harry, I really do, but I can't help anyone until I help myself.

I'm no good to anybody right now.

Sorry,

Ron.

PS Tell Hermione she's right.

At breakfast Dolly revealed that she hadn't got any sleep either.

"I've never heard of seagulls creating such a racket at two in the morning," she had said to Rosie, "they're supposed to be sleeping like the rest of us."

"I think they were being disturbed by some drunks," I said as I tried to stifle the blush creeping onto my ears, "I heard some fireworks being let-off just before they started squawking."

Dolly revealed that she had eventually gone to sleep with a pillow bent over the top of her head to cover both ears and a pair of tights knotted around it to hold it in place.

"What'd ya take it off for?" no-legged Jim had asked her.

Dolly had ignored him, her sleepless night had dulled her tolerance for Jim's usual routine, but no-legged Jim is not a man to be ignored easily. He removed both legs, threw them into a corner and began to sing.

"I ain't got nobody..."

The Summer Wine crew had an easy morning planned. Everybody was going to split up and do their own thing before meeting up again at one o'clock to get the mini bus to Torquay, have lunch and see a show. I had figured that no-legged Jim would drag us all back to the arcades to empty a few more machines so I bought all the two pences I had won the previous day, I needed to get rid of them 'cause I didn't have room for them all in my pockets anymore.

I soon got the feeling that, although I had kept Rosie's secret for her, the tale of my back ache grizzle in the early hours of the morning had reached no-legged Jim. I hadn't sworn Rosie to secrecy so she hadn't done anything wrong, but I did wish she had taken my promise to keep her secret as a two-way thing. What tipped me off that no-legged Jim knew was his repeated insistence that he push me in the wheelchair that morning.

Something struck me as I was wheeled along the road, other than the guilt of letting an amputee haul my carcass around the streets of Paignton, it was the fact that nobody looks you in the eye when you're sitting in a wheelchair. Then I realised that I don't make eye contact when I see somebody in a wheelchair approaching. The thing is, I don't make eye contact with anybody who passes me in general so I would be purposely looking at the wheelchair-bound person just to prove a point. I tend to treat everybody with the same attitude, the 'please ignore me as if I am completely invisible to you' attitude. I think that makes me more prejudiced against myself than anybody else now that I think about it.

I had been complaining to no-legged Jim about my not yet having had the opportunity to even set foot on the beach. This was my first real chance to do something seasidey but I hadn't had the chance because of my being hijacked by the Summer Wine crew.

As we cruised along the sea front I took my trainers off in preparation. It was then that no-legged Jim had seen it. The slope ahead that plunged down into the sand from the promenade. He sped up as he pushed me toward it excitedly. I tried to put my feet on the ground to slow us down enough for me to get out but my bare foot status wouldn't let me. I curled-up in the seat and prepared myself for the worst. I was in an out-of-control wheelchair, a no legged man standing on the back of it on a pair of false legs like a little kid on the back of their mother's shopping trolley, and a steep ramp looming ahead of us.

"We're gonna die!" I screamed in an unmanly way.

"Well we've had a good life," Jim said, still enjoying himself to the fullest.

"Speak for yourself!" I exclaimed in a high-pitched voice before we hit the slope and hurtled down toward the sand.

Do you have any idea how painful sand burns are?

No-legged Jim got a mouthful of sand and his eyes went all bloodshot from some of the grit that had gone under his eyelids. How he hadn't done himself a serious injury I'll never know. He still found the time to get in a laugh at my expense.

I had hit the sand with a thud and the chair and Jim had rolled over me, him slamming down beside me, and the chair upside down over my back, giving me the look of a robotic snail, and in true comedy fashion the wheels were still spinning. Dotted all around me were thirty-two pence worth of two pences, the shrapnel of the crash, well it was one way to get rid of my change.

Some people rushed over to help thinking it had been a genuine accident, thinking that I was a disabled person who couldn't get up, and worrying about the old man who had gone flying. Rosie and Dolly, the legless groupies, were going through the motions of telling no-legged Jim off. They seemed to be doing it out of obligation considering the circumstances. Pretty soon everybody was finding it funny.

I could imagine the postcards home these people would send.

Dear mum and dad,

The weather's hot but not always sunny. Our hotel is really nice. Went to the beach today and saw an old geezer with two false legs push a boy off the promenade in his wheelchair.

See you soon,

Your family.

This was not what my back needed right now.

Torquay wasn't all that eventful after all the drama of the morning. A wheelchair crash is a hell of an adrenaline rush and Torquay was the comedown. No-legged Jim remained on form, despite his tumble, and was thudding his way up and down the aisle of the mini bus talking to everybody along the way.

I complained to Rosie and Dolly that even though I had been face down on Paignton beach I still hadn't really had the proper beach experience, as I would describe it. There's taking a stroll along the sand and dipping your toe in the water and then there's inhaling sand, which to me isn't the same thing. We had left Torquay as soon as the old folk style entertainment had ended. I wondered why people were expected to find sub-standard sing-alongs and comedy acts entertaining as soon as they were past a certain age.

Dolly was becoming suspicious of no-legged Jim's level of activity on the journey back to the B&B and asked one of the old ladies he had just been talking to what was going on. She informed Dolly that he was doing a collection for Irene's husband.

"Who's Irene's husband?" I asked Rosie, on seeing Dolly's furious expression.

"He is!" Rosie chuckled, pointing to no-legged Jim as he held the big bag of change aloft and jangled its contents above his head.

As we all got off the mini bus on Beach Road Jim threw himself into his wheelchair and grabbed Rosie's arm, pulling her down low enough to whisper into her ear. Rosie nodded and no-legged Jim gave her the collection money he had gathered, minus five pound coins he had asked her to take out for him, and instructed me to push him to the nearest arcade.

No-legged Jim multiplied his five pound coins five times over before heaping all the coins onto me and telling me we could go back to the B&B now.

"Almost forgot to sort you out with your board money didn't I? You should have reminded me."

Can you believe that? How cheeky would I have been if I'd done that? I wasn't going to take it as read that he was going to pay for my room. I told him so as we made our tired way back to our lodgings.

I hadn't noticed before but some of the other places on our street had made some unusual, some might say ill-advised, lighting choices for night-time illumination of their buildings. One place was bathed in red light, making it look like a brothel, and another had some eerie green spotlights shining against the walls. No-legged Jim called it 'The Munster Inn'.

I was knackered and made my excuses to get to bed for another, fun-filled, crippling night. I wondered if I'd hurt any new places in the crash that had yet to make their agony known.

"Here, wait..." Rosie called after me as I climbed the stairs up to the first floor, "...I've got something for you to try."

I followed her through to the staff only door where she made me wait, in some confusion, while she bounced on the balls of her feet impatiently. Then there was the ping of something called a microwave timer going off. The staff only door burst open and the overwhelmingly comforting smell of porridge wafted through with the landlord. He was juggling what appeared to be a red-hot, purple velvet snake.

"It's a wheat pillow!" Rosie said as if awarding me the house cup.

The red-hot snake pillow thing was dropped into my hands, and dropped onto the floor as it burned me, and I was instructed to lay my spine on it when I got into bed. I asked how I was to go about removing my spine to do this before being sent to bed with a sweaty, porridge-scented, velvet snake thing. If only my life were fiction, it would be so much funnier.

I ended up lying naked on my bed; face down, balancing a steaming snake pillow on my back. Would you believe it though I was comfortable?

For the first time in ages I fell asleep before midnight. I'm not saying it was a miracle cure, I woke up with a spasm at four AM but at least I'd got a decent deep sleep. I made a mental note to buy Rosie a doughnut from the pier the next day. I also thought that a doughnut would be the perfect accompaniment to a proper stroll along the bloody beach.

Chapter 5: Marching Orders

Nine AM the next morning. It was bloody raining!

I still got Rosie, Dolly, No-legged Jim and myself a hot doughnut each. We ate them in the arcade where Jim's winning streak finally ended. He put thirty-five pounds into the Goldrush machine and got seven pounds ninety back.

The Summer Wine crew were going home the next day so when the rain thinned-out into a fine drizzle we went for a walk down to Goodrington Sands. I parked no-legged Jim under a shelter that looked out to the sea and went to get chips for everyone. Then I went back to get Jim a saveloy. After that Jim and me had an argument when I refused to peel the skin off his saveloy for him.

"You're supposed to eat the skin anyway."

"I don't like it. Besides, you've got longer fingernails than I have, you can peel it easier than I can."

"I don't want meat under my fingernails thank you very much. What about hygiene anyway? I just licked my finger clean of doughnut sugar didn't I?"

No-legged Jim was laughing at me.

"Saliva's surprisingly hygienic actually red. Why d'you think the first thing a person does when they cut their finger is put it in their mouth?"

I thought about this for a second before responding.

"Well I do it because I don't want to see the blood," I shrugged.

Jim chuckled and waggled the saveloy at me.

"Jim!" Rosie snapped, "You can get arrested for that kind of thing these days."

Dolly took the saveloy and set about peeling it, while muttering her disapproval at Jim. After the furore had died down the rain started to come down a little harder. A middle-aged couple rushed under our shelter, a woman pushing a man in a wheelchair, we all moved along the bench so the woman could sit down and the man's chair was parked beside no-legged Jim's. They were called Roy and Linda and soon we were sharing our life stories, mine being abridged of course.

"He woke up in the morning and he couldn't speak..." Linda explained, regarding Roy's condition, "...all he could get out was grunts and moans. He couldn't get any words out at all. He tried to get out of bed but only made it half way before falling onto the floor. I knew something was wrong immediately."

No-legged Jim laughed and said to Roy.

"She's very quick ain't she? You're bloody lucky she was around."

The man finally spoke for himself.

"I am sixty...twenty...forty...that one...fifty...and two years old."

No-legged Jim chuckled again.

"You'd be a good bingo caller."

Dolly slapped Jim's shoulder with the back of her hand and told him to stop being so insensitive but Roy was clearly amused, a grin trying to fight its way onto his partially paralysed face.

"Nobody normally talks...not usually talk to me..." Roy said, "...like I'm not here...with her...they talk to her...about me...and I'm here!"

"Nothin' to do with the stroke mate," no-legged Jim smirked, "that's just women."

I laughed out loud at that. Dolly was becoming increasingly exasperated with no-legged Jim but I thought he was brilliant. He was looking this poor man in the eye and making jokes with him about his missus. You could see the fifty-two year old man inside, starving for stimulation and frustrated as hell, and it sunk in to me just how young fifty-two really was.

Roy had a new lease of life in his mind but his body had reduced him to being treated like one of the frail and elderly. I think the two things that prove the hardest to tolerate in yourself or a loved-one are a stroke or Alzheimer's disease; yet another reason for me to feel like a whiny crybaby about my life crisis right now.

I remember when I was little and mum had sat me on my grandfather's knee and he had been staring at me as if he'd never seen me before in his life. His face used to light up when Ginny and I would floo to their house on Saturday afternoons and haul me up onto his lap to hear all about my adventures in the yard and fights with the twins. The last memory I had of him was of his blank eyes and his frowning face as he asked me what my name was. Ginny and I cried for days after that and mum didn't take us to visit him again.

I looked at no-legged Jim. It takes special people to see the person trapped inside the facade of the body presented to them, someone who talks to them on the level of the person's mental state rather than the physical.

I suddenly panicked. Could no-legged Jim see through the reverse of that too? Did he suss me out the moment he met me? Did he know? Here I was, on the outside looking perfectly healthy but not doing too well inside my head, and there was Jim who was making me laugh all the time and never wanting to leave me on my own.

I had finally met the most elusive person on the planet. I had met the person who gets me; who understands my problem, who can deal with it so discreetly that not even I notice he's doing it. I could very possibly have met my soul mate and he was in his eighties, legless, married and more importantly than anything else...a he!

I was wide-awake.

The Summer Wine crew had all turned-in for an early night as they had to leave promptly at nine the following morning. I couldn't think about what I was going to do without my cronies tomorrow. I pulled on my stolen trainers and grabbed my keys.

I was going to walk on the beach dammit and I was going to do it now. Who cares if it was gone ten o'clock in the evening? What did I care that I'd look like a nut job, paddling into the ocean in the dark? It wasn't that chilly outside, the wheat pillow had gradually worked it's muggle magic on my back, and I was going to check-out after breakfast so I would never see any of the people who might judge me ever again.

I headed out.

I passed the brothel B&B, the Munster Inn, a big fancy hotel on the promenade, a pub that rents out rooms that I couldn't believe I'd missed when I was looking for somewhere to stay, and crossed the street. There were a lot of people around, loud music was playing somewhere, and the sea looked black.

I sat on the wall by the side of the beach, took off my shoes, and dropped myself down onto the sand. The sand of Paignton beach feels so much nicer when you gently sink your feet into it as opposed to when you dive head-first into it at forty miles-per-hour! Cold sand is a surprisingly nice feeling when you experience it for the first time. I walked toward the sea.

On my way I stepped over what was either a beached jellyfish or a pile of disturbingly clear vomit and scanned the sand for crabs. The first wave reached my toes and the second covered my feet entirely. I began to paddle along the beach.

"Yay," I whispered to myself in half-hearted celebration at finally getting my feet wet.

I wandered a little way before sitting down on the sand and looking out at the tiny twinkling lights along the coastline to my left and right. I wondered where Fred and George were letting off their fireworks tonight. I wondered if they had given up on me. I wondered what on earth had just landed on top of my head.

"Bloody hell!" I said as I grabbed the ball of feathers and yelped as it tore out a few of my hairs with its claws and stared at the tiny owl as it wriggled excitedly in my hands, "Pig?"

My owl made a happy but strangled hooting sound and I yanked the parchment from his leg before letting him go. He fluttered right into my face and I had to grab him again.

"Yeah okay, I missed you too you nutter!" I laughed as I stroked Pig's feathers and set him down beside me, "Clam down though yeah?"

The owl hooted and nipped at my sleeve before whizzing off to make friends with the massive seagulls.

"Oh Pig mate, they're gonna kill you," I said aloud as I watched him zoom away and attempt to scavenge some fish from his unwilling hosts.

I looked down at the scroll and unrolled it, wondering if this was another telling off from Harry or a begging letter from my mum. It was neither. I knew that perfect handwriting anywhere.

Dear Ron,

I don't know what to say to you that Harry and your mother haven't already said.

I know you won't believe me but I understand what you're going through, I really do, and I want to help you. Please let me come and see you. Please tell me where you are.

I'm also very scared about you leaving the hospital before you were ready Ron. You told Harry you couldn't sleep or apparate because of your back. In the letter to your mother you said you had been hit by a car and mentioned something about an MRI and having to have an injection that put you to sleep. Ron I know something about muggle healthcare and I beg of you to please, if you do nothing else I ask of you in this letter, please go back to the hospital to get your head checked out.

Please...for me?

Oh great, she thinks I'm brain damaged.

Don't you go thinking that I'm putting your need to find yourself down to brain damage or anything like that Ron...

Shit, how did she know I was thinking that?

...I know you well enough by now to read you like a book even when you're not right in front of me. I know you cover-to-cover Ron, better than I know Hogwarts: A History.

I laughed at that part.

Don't laugh!

I found myself looking over my shoulder. This was getting scary now.

If you're in physical pain I want it to stop Ron. I want you to go back to the muggle doctors. I know that, from a wizard's point of view, their methods can be quite frightening but they do know what they're doing and they only want to help.

As for them thinking your mum and dad are hippies, well that's not such a bad thing really, it's a good explanation for why you're unfamiliar with needles and scans and x-rays. If you want I could come with you to the hospital. If you can't trust me to keep it from Harry and your family or if you can't trust...me...well maybe I could ask Neville or Lupin to go with you. I'm sure they wouldn't put you under any pressure to come home before you're ready.

Pig was making a panicy squeaking sound and flapping frantically back to me with a fish head in his beak and a flock of angry seagulls in hot pursuit. My eyes widened in alarm.

"Don't bring them over here you stupid bird!" I yelled while covering my head defensively.

Pig veered off into another direction and the 'gulls followed. I heaved a deep sigh and turned my attention back to the parchment.

When you didn't apparate back outside the Riddle house after portkeying out of there I was so scared. We had to search the rubble for you did you know that? That was the worst couple of hours of my life Ron. Then we got word from Ginny that your hand on the family clock had moved from mortal peril to travelling and then to lost before settling on hospital and we knew you had escaped and that something had gone wrong but you were being looked after.

Then your mother got your letter. Oh Ron you should have seen her, well no, I'm glad you didn't actually. I've been trying to explain it to your brothers and your father. Bill isn't cross with you anymore, he just wants me to tell you that he misses you and that you shouldn't worry about what people expect from you. Ginny says the same, she wants nothing more than her big brother back safe and well. Well you know how Harry feels and how he needs you but he'll wait. He'll wait as long as you need, he asked me to tell you that. Charlie...well he still gets angry when we talk about you. He thinks you're ashamed of yourself or something, for killing that Death Eater maybe, I don't know but he only asked me to put one thing in this letter.

I held my breath and read on.

Get back here now!

Don't feel bad Ron, he just loves you and he's scared that you've not been taken proper care of and...well I think he thinks that bump on your head didn't get healed properly. He keeps telling me that you don't have psychological problems and issues. He keeps telling me I'm wrong and that you just need a good medi wizard. He just needs to talk to you face to face Ron. You are the only one I think could ever make him understand.

Fred and George are still looking for you. They've recruited Lee Jordan and a few people from the DA to help search. They're doing it for the sake of having something to do I think. They miss you even if they'll never tell you that.

Your mum watches the clock and your dad just tries to hold everybody together.

I just sit around waiting for you. I told my mum and dad I would stay at the Burrow until you look me in the eye and tell me to go home. Until you look me in the eye and tell me everything's going to be fine. I'm just waiting for you Ron.

Please answer my letter and please go and see a doctor, I'm begging you, I can't stand to think of you in any pain.

Sorry if Pig's causing you trouble but he's being going loopy seeing owls come and go to his master while he was stuck at home. If he had arms I think he would hug you when he arrived, don't be took mean to him okay?

I scowled at that sentence and was about to protest that I wasn't ever mean to Pig when I saw his fishy face staring up at me from the sand at my feet. He had clearly managed to eat quite a bit of that fish head before being scared off by the much bigger birds. I chuckled at his messy but slightly proud expression. I don't know if Owls' really did have expressions but I could always swear that I could read Hedwig's and Pig's faces just as well as I could any human being's.

"It's good to see you titch," I smiled and he hopped up onto my shin and began to clean his feathers merrily.

I turned my attention back to the letter in my hands again.

Speaking of hugging you, I wish I could right now. I feel like I've lost my wand arm or something. It's like I'm not whole.

Okay well I'm getting soppy now, don't roll your eyes and tut at me, I know I'm a total girl!

This was the first time she had been wrong. I wasn't rolling my eyes and scoffing at all.

I'd better go. Please come home soon, it isn't the same without you. Nothing's the same without you.

Love Hermione.

PS You ended your last letter with the sentiment that you didn't think you were any good to anybody right now...I just wanted to leave you with one last thing.

STOP TALKING BOLLOCKS RONALD WEASLEY!

I laughed so loudly that it made Pig fall off my shin onto his back with fright. That made me laugh even more. I laughed like a lunatic until my sides ached and my eyes watered.

I got to my feet and patted my shoulder. Pig fluttered up and landed his stinky self upon it and I shoved the parchment into my pocket before setting off back to Beach Road.

As me and no-legged Jim watched the coach driver struggle to put away Jim's wheelchair, with conflicting advice being given from both Rosie and Dolly, we said our goodbyes.

"Thanks for paying my way all week," I said.

"Thank you for pushing me around Devon all week."

We paused to watch the coach driver biting his tongue while Dolly and Rosie had a disagreement around him over the correct way to collapse the wheelchair so it could fit inside with the luggage. No-legged Jim stifled a chuckle.

"What?" I asked.

"That chair, since the crash it won't fold-down even if either one of them knew the right way to do it anyway!"

We chuckled.

"So," no-legged Jim said in an unprecedented display of seriousness, "Are you going to go home now?"

I did that thing thatI do which annoys Harry and Hermione the most, I didn't say anything in response to the question I was asked, leaving my silence to answer the question, while I pondered whether I should explain myself with a lie that would make me sound sane or the loony truth.

"So where to now then?" he pushed.

I shrugged in my best 'I don't mean to be difficult' way. No-legged Jim sighed and the corners of his mouth curled upwards a fraction.

"Well do you have any idea where you're not going?"

I laughed and nodded.

"Oh there's plenty of places you won't be seeing me that's for sure."

The wheelchair was tipped onto its side and slid into the luggage hold of the coach. Dolly and Rosie were scowling at each other and the driver's head looked like it should have been steaming.

"You're not in trouble are you?" no-legged Jim asked me, still looking at the pensioners gathering around the coach.

"No," I said rather too quickly to be convincing before frowning at the old man and leaning in to whisper into his ear, "you don't mean 'trouble' in the way old people mean 'did you get somebody pregnant' do you?"

"Nah..." no-legged Jim said with a wave of his hand before his head snapped around to look at me, "...you didn't did you?"

"Definitely not," I snapped, pretending to be offended, "I'm pure I am."

No-legged Jim laughed so hard at that he nearly fell off his legs. After the chuckles died down no-legged Jim kept his focus on me. He wanted an answer.

"I don't have to be anywhere," I said, taken aback with my own honesty, "I don't have anything to do and I don't have anybody to look after or depend on me. The only reason I have for going home is that's where people expect to find me."

Jim stared for a while. He said nothing.

"It doesn't sound like it makes much sense, I know, but it makes sense to me," I shrugged.

"I agree," no-legged Jim nodded, "it makes no sense at all, but if it makes you unhappy to sit at home and wait for life to happen to you then you're right, you shouldn't. If you wait for something interesting to happen to you it never will, that's what I always say. You finish your little adventure and find something that stimulates you."

I held out my arm to my wise and mischievous old friend and he took it. I led him towards the coach with a sad sigh.

"Well you stimulated me but you're going home now. Any idea when the next coach load of senile old codgers is due?"

Jim cackled and grinned up at me.

"You go wherever you want red," we stopped walking and he put an arm over my shoulder, "you do whatever you like and be as selfish as you can. I can see that you're the type that's put a lot of other people first for a very long time, maybe by choice and maybe not, but now it's time for you to be a little selfish don't you think?"

I looked him in the eyes, they were a little cloudy but they still twinkled with mischief all the same.

"I dunno Jim, I kinda like looking after people."

He gave me a pat on the back with his wrinkled old hand and smiled at me almost proudly.

"You just be sure to send me a postcard from wherever you end up," he pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and rested it on the wall beside me, "'cause I'm intrigued, I wanna know what becomes of you my boy. My address is on that envelope."

With that no-legged Jim gave me an unsteady hug while balancing on his legs to reach up to me before shoving me away with a muttered, 'good luck red', and hammered his way over to the doors of the coach on his stiff fake legs. I waved him off, him and Rosie and Dolly, and the coach pulled out of Beach Road.

I picked up the envelope. It was heavy...and it jingled as its contents slid into the bottom corner. I knew what was inside before I even opened it. Twenty-five pound coins and a note, which read:

Red

For the next place you lay your head that isn't home. Don't be running away from anything. Be going toward something better.

Grandpa Jim

I almost choked on the lump in my throat and leaned against the wall, forcing my burning eyes closed for several seconds.

Now I had another male ideal to live up to, my dad, my brothers, my grandfathers, my uncles, Dumbledore and Harry and now no-legged Jim; my grandpa Jim.

My standards were already high. When it came to the men in my life I had a lot to live up to. But the people who have to love me, my relations, a bloke could be excused for not coming up to scratch in comparison to all of them because you always hold family members in higher esteem than anyone else you may meet in life. No-legged Jim was one of those people I had met outside the family, in real life; he was a stranger who had made the transition to family member. He had done what only Harry had ever done before him. He had joined the limited rank of men who are not related to me whom I could really talk to and be myself, flaws and all, around.

I wandered back inside the B&B to answer Hermione's letter and decide what I was going to do with my future and myself once and for all.

Chapter 6: Finding the Way Home

Dear Hermione,

I was in Paignton. I'm leaving as soon as I send Pig off with this letter. I'm going to get some help now I promise. I'll sort myself out and come straight home I promise you.

I'm sorry I scared you Hermione. I didn't mean to really. I was confused and in a lot of pain at first and then I spent quite some time unconscious right up until the owl arrived from mum. I'm glad you understand what I did after that and why. I'm glad you don't hate me.

I hope Charlie doesn't hate me either. I'm glad that Bill's come around and taken in what you've been telling them but I'm not the least bit surprised about Charlie's feelings about this whole thing. Tell him it's not the bump on my head that's the problem, it's what's inside the head that's messing with me. I may not have 'psychological' problems as he puts it but I do have a little more depth than he maybe gives me credit for.

Oh and Fred and George, tell them they're a pair of bastards for waking me up that night in Paignton and I will make them pay for it when I see them... and tell them I miss them too.

Merlin Hermione I could really use a hug right now but it'll have to wait. I'll do what you asked me, I'll get myself fixed up properly and I'll make sure that there's nothing wrong with my head I swear. Well, nothing more than what's always been wrong with my head obviously, the fact that my brain is still inside it is against me!

Sorry, I know that made you cross, I'll try to stop doing that stuff in future. I mean it.

So anyway, tell mum and dad that I had some people kind of looking after me here and I think I'm a bit better now. I'll see them soon enough and, you never know; I might even have some answers to all those questions. You never know eh?

I know that you will probably pass this letter around Harry and the family to set their minds at ease and I'm okay with that but if you could do me a favour a tear this last part off and keep it to yourself I will love you forever...

Huh...

Well that came out accidentally to be honest but that was essentially what I was going to tell you. I guess I needn't bother now though.

I promise to see you soon; I'll come to you first when I come back, and I know this is redundant but please don't worry about me.

Ron.

PS I do y'know? Love you that is, in case you were wondering.

I stared at what I had just written and had to fight with all my will power not to rip it into shreds and rewrite it with a different ending. I shouldn't be saying stuff like that, not right now when we're both as confused as each other. I shouldn't inflict myself on Hermione.

Pig twittered around the room impatiently and I found that I was directing my frown up at him. He seemed to feel subdued all of a sudden and landed on my knee, looking up at me with his eyes that were almost bigger than his entire face, and I wondered if Pig was as wise as Hedwig was.

"Hey Pig," I sighed and stroked his soft head with my forefinger, "can I ask you a question?"

He blinked at me and shuffled up my leg a little more to rest upon my thigh. I knew I was a hopeless case now, I was confiding in a mental ball of feathers and really expecting something in return.

"I'm a grumpy got to you and yet you're always so pleased to see me. Why do you bother with me?"

Pig blinked his massive eye at me again and extended his leg for me to attach the parchment. I shook my head and smiled at my own stupidity before rolling up the parchment and tying it to the tiny owl's leg. Pig hooted proudly and fluttered over to the windowsill. I got up off the bed and crossed the room to open the window for him. he flapped his wings rapidly and zoomed away in the blink of an eye.

I turned and looked around the room. I didn't really have anything to pack now that I was leaving this place. Only what I was wearing and a purple velvet snake pillow. I tried to shove it into my pocket as best I could and made sure for the fifth time that morning that I had no-legged Jim's address on me. I turned to close the window and jumped as I saw Pig was back already.

"What are you doing back so soon?" I blurted rather loudly.

Pig spat something out of his mouth and gave a merry hoot before whizzing around my head and flying away again. I watched him go for good this time before looking down at the window ledge to see a small chocolate egg.

"He laid me a chocolate egg!" I practically screamed with mirth before losing my subdued demeanour to the raucous wave of laughter that I was now riding into the sunset.

I picked up the foil wrapped egg, which I could only have assumed my owl had flown into a nearby shop and stolen for me in true 'pet mirrors owner' fashion, and laughed even louder than before. We were both felons in Paignton now.

I leaned out of the open window and hollered at the skies.

"I love you too!"

"Excuse me...hello?" I felt something patting the side of my face and squinted into the brilliant sunlight before looking away from the window of the train carriage, "Wakey-wakey!" a grinning man in a British Rail uniform said to me cheerily.

"Oh sorry!" I said as I sat up in my seat and winced at the shot of discomfort ripped through my back and plunged my hand into my pocket to find my ticket to show him.

"No, I'm not the ticket inspector," the man chuckled, "I'm the driver! I just need to take my train back and in order to do that you kind of have to get off it first."

I turned and looked out of the window I had been leaning against with a barely stifled yawn.

"We're here already?" I just about managed to say.

"Yup," the train driver nodded, "end of the line. Welcome to London."

I rubbed my face roughly and hauled myself out of the seat i had somehow managed to make myself so comfortable in and thanked the driver for waking me.

"No problem," the man laughed as he went on his way up the carriages to check that the rest of them were clear, "I didn't think you fancied going all the way back to Devon again."

"No," I said as I stretched my still joints and made for the open doors that led onto the platform, "not just yet."

I had spent everything I had been given by no-legged Jim on the train fare and now didn't even have enough to get me to St Mungo's on the tube so I had to walk it. I glanced at the map of London outside the station to get my bearings before setting off and feeling both exhausted and utterly well rested at the same time.

London, even muggle London, was a very busy city for wizards and witches and the like. I was on edge a little as I bumped my way through oncoming pedestrians along the dirty streets and hoped that I didn't get spotted by anybody who knew me or my family. The nearer I got to the ministry the edgier I got, however, one of dad's colleagues was bound to spot me in an instant.

That was just generally. The likelihood was quadrupled now that I had gone missing after being part of the demise of the dark lord. Something made me shudder inside. Harry mentioned something about being hounded by the Prophet; I really hoped they weren't showing any interest in whatever happened to the Potter sidekicks. If the Prophet had printed my picture and declared me as missing in action then I may as well just floo home from the Leaky Cauldron right now and sod being ready or not.

"Oof, sorry!" I mumbled as a pickpocket deliberately slammed into me while their accomplice found themselves trying to remove a long velvet bean bag from my pocket before rushing away when he saw me snorting with amusement at them.

If they found anything of any value on me today then they were a better wizard then I was!

"Teach you to rob somebody with nothing but a wheat pillow," I muttered under my breath before darting through the crowds to stand and stare into a murky old window.

It was a closed department store with grotty bald mannequins posed in unnatural angles while wearing very out-of-date clothes in the window display. I waited for a couple of seconds before one of the mannequins turned and looked at me and I leaned forward and spoke as quietly as I could.

"Ron...um Ron James," I hesitated again not knowing if I was on any kind of wanted list and finding that the only name I could think of was no-legged Jim's, "I got knocked down by a muggle car a week or so ago and my back is still hurting. I need to see someone."

The mannequin blinked as its lifeless eyes travelled over my body and then back up to my face.

"You didn't come for treatment when the accident occurred?"

I cleared my throat and leaned in further.

"Hit by a muggle in a muggle car and taken to a muggle hospital. I couldn't really get away until now."

I leaned back and waited for the receptionist to consider me. She was taking her sweet time about it and I was beginning to feel a little self conscious to be staring so intently at these ugly fake women in the window for so long.

"They put a needle in me and took all my clothes away!" I hissed into the window.

The mannequin blinked again and her voice sounded loud and clear.

"Oh my word, come on in I'll get you see by one of out emergency healers on stand-by."

"Thank you," I said as I heaved a weighty sigh and stepped through the glass window as if it was nothing more than the thin layer of soap around a bubble.

I crossed the bustling reception area to meet the owner of the voice at her desk. She smiled up at me sympathetically before waving over a young man in blue robes and pointing me out to him.

"You're Ron James right?" she asked as she scribbled something on a form.

"Yeah that's me," I nodded.

"Any allergies we should know about?"

"Bat fur and aquatic dragon blood, that last one's a tiny bit...fatal."

The woman laughed at this and I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. It felt good to be talking to somebody who didn't get frightened by my answers.

"Ah Mr James, I hear you've been subjected to muggle treatment," a friendly but tired sounding voice said and I suddenly jumped on realising that he was talking to me.

"Oh yeah I was, bit scary actually," I said as I was guided away towards a treatment room while a mediwitch looked on with great interest.

The healer shook his head with mild annoyance at her and followed me into the room and closed the door behind us.

"Sorry about that," he smiled, "but Sheila had a thing about muggle healing methods. She wants to learn them all for some ludicrous reason. Now Ron, what did they do to you exactly?"

As I spoke the healer motioned for me to hop up onto a bed and he felt along my vertebrae with his finger, nodding all the while to let me know he was still listening.

"Well um, a spambulance came for me, I was lying in the middle of the road and nobody would let me get up until it came. They put a big plastic thing around my neck and strapped me down onto a board. Then I passed out for a bit I think. When I woke up I was in a room and the collar thingy was gone and this nurse woman was telling me I had a scan and said lots of letters to me that didn't make any sense. Then she gave me these things called pills, they were like potions in bean form..."

"Yes I've heard of pills," the healed nodded as if he had a bad taste in his mouth, "they didn't happen to mention the letters I.V. did they?"

I concentrated for a moment before shaking my head.

"Good, nasty things those, they bore a hole into your arm and thread a tube into it before filling you up with all sorts of muggle drugs."

"Oh well I did have a needle, a doctor woman came in and said something about me being a hippy and treated with leeches on a commune and then she stabbed me in the arm until I passed out. I think they thought I was a bit mental."

The healer smiled at me and rolled his eyes.

"Muggles eh? Dear me they drugged you did they? Very nasty. As far as I can see this could have been handled with the flick of a wand. How long did you say you've been suffering with it?"

I swallowed.

"'Bout a week."

The healer's face darkened and he gave a tut.

"That's terrible. Well don't you worry, I'll get you fixed right up now and then we'll take a look at your head just to be safe okay?"

I nodded and followed the healer's directions to lie face down on the bed while he cast a healing charm over my back that felt as welcoming as if the steaming hot snake pillow had come alive and wound its way around my spine for all eternity. I let out a groan of satisfaction and the healer laughed.

"If only I could get my girlfriend to make that noise!"

I began to laugh and found it hard to remain still for the tests on my head for quite some time. The healer didn't seem to mind though. He seemed to be enjoying the break from being the on-call emergency healer.

"So what's your name?" I asked him when I had composed myself a little more.

"Samuel Saxena at your service and you are?" he smiled merrily.

I frowned and tried to recall whether or not the receptionist had introduced me or not and he seemed to see me back peddling internally and leaned I close to whisper.

"I know who you are Mr Weasley, I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me yourself."

I sat up quickly, sidetracked momentarily by the sensation of being able to do so without any pain in my back, and started at the healer in shock.

"How do you...?"

"Front page of the Prophet I'm afraid Ron," he answered my question before I'd even been able to ask it.

My shoulders slumped.

"Oh crap!"

Healer Saxena put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and stared at me until I met his gaze.

"Listen it was only a list of missing persons, there were a few of you on there but you got a picture printed because of...well...who you are."

"And who's that then?" I said with a little annoyance.

"You're the wizard who helped to recover and destroy You-Know-Who's horcruxes and it you who was to strategise the final confrontation. You're going to make one hell of an Auror."

My heart sank and I shook my head while averting my eyes.

"No...No I won't."

"What? Of course you will. The department's already got you Potter and Granger on the list for next year after you take your N.E.W.T's. The things you three did this year were way outside what most first year Aurors can achieve."

I walked to the far side of the treatment room and realised that there weren't going to be any questions about what I was going to do with my life from now on after all. It was much worse than that. It was being pre-arranged for me. I had no say at all.

"I don't want to learn how to kill people," I said with a smaller voice than I had ever used before.

"Well," Healer Saxena seemed to be knocked for six at this news and struggled for words of reassurance, "you could...you could be a teacher. You could train the Aurors in..."

"I don't want to teach people how to kill either!" I said as I spun around on the spot to face him with livid eyes.

"Well what is it you do want to do then?" he asked me.

And there it was; the million galleon question that I had no answer to.

"I'd like it if I could get my head checked out right now if you don't mind Healer Saxena," I said coolly.

He nodded sadly and patted the bed beside him again. I walked back across the room and hopped up onto it. We didn't talk anymore after that. The only things we did speak about were the facts of my injury and the absence of any detectable head trauma as far as he could tell. I thanked him and hopped down off the bed before heading for the door to the reception area.

"I wouldn't if I were you," the healer warned me, I turned and hesitated with my hand on the door handle and an quizzical expression on my face, "I reckon that my muggle medicine friend out there probably recognised you too and there just might be a certain minister for magic waiting to greet you in front of certain cameras from a certain newspaper."

Are you certain about that?" I said with a single raised eyebrow and Healer Saxena laughed.

"Pretty certain yeah," he smiled before getting serious again and grabbing my arm to pull me over to the far corner of the room, "this wall is false, you can pass right through it all the way to the kitchen's at the other end of the building and there's a way out onto Diagon Alley there."

I nodded both my understanding and my gratitude to him before moving to step through the false area of wall at the rear of the room.

"Oh and Ron," the healer said, "It won't be long before somebody in Diagon Alley spots you as well. Do you have somewhere you can go?"

I thought of the colourful shop front of Weasley Wizarding Wheezes and grinned.

"Yeah I've got a place I can go anytime," I nodded.

Healer Saxena seemed pleased with that news and waved me off.

"Well go on then, get out of here."

I stepped through the wall and passed soundlessly through several other empty treatment rooms before stumbling into a long corridor. I started to run until I came upon another seemingly solid wall and pressed my hands against it to find that they passed through it and followed them myself.

"Oh you made me jump!" a voice said from the far end of a large room bathed in yellow sunlight.

"Um sorry," I said.

The woman who had spoken was tapping what looked like an extended version of her wand along the floor as she moved across the room towards me. The floor was scattered with cushions and stumpy three-legged stools and she didn't appear to be focusing on any of them. Her white wispy hair was almost floating as her claw like hand gripped the wand-cum-walking stick as it tapped along the carpet towards me.

"No wait there, you'll trip," I said with some alarm as I realised that the old woman was partially blind and about to go arse-over-tit any second now.

I jumped over several cluttered stacks on the floor until I reached her and offered her my elbow.

"What are you doing in her all by yourself?" I asked her as I guided her through the obstacles and back to a less cluttered area of floor space.

"Well I left the wing just to be a rebel to be honest but when it came to finding my way back I got into a bit of difficulty. I came in here by mistake!"

I chuckled with her about this and thought of another old bird who was intending to grow old with anarchy and the odd secret cigarette or so along the way.

"What wing is it you were trying to get back to then?"

"Oh it's just where they keep all of us old goats that don't have any family to take care of us and can't be trusted to look after ourselves anymore. I call us the bat's in the belfry."

I opened the door and peered outside but saw no commotion, in fact nobody at all anywhere, and led the old dear out so we could find our way to her belfry.

"There are a lot of you are there?" I asked as I made my way as slowly as I could with the old witch, called Iris I soon learned, while she explained exactly where we were in St Mungo's to me.

"It's really called the grey wing for the frail, elderly and eternally befuddled."

I snorted at this.

"I must have a room here then 'cause I'm befuddled as hell!"

Iris gave a wicked little chuckle and continued.

"Well there are about twenty of us in all and we keep each other occupied day after day. Mind you there's not a lot to do in the same room once you've been sitting in it for three years," she said with a hint of bitterness.

"Don't you have like...activities or something?" I asked as we reached five steps leading up and I picked Iris up and carried her up them, to which she made a schoolgirl type squeal of joy.

"Oh I haven't been in a young man's arms since my Leslie!" she said wistfully as I set her back down again, "Now where was I? Oh yes, activities you said didn't you? Well who's to run them may I ask? We don't have family, all our friends outside the hospital have passed away, it's just us."

"But you must have a healer or a medi wizard or something looking after you all," I said with alarm at what I was hearing, "Surely they don't just shove you in a big room to bore each other to death!"

She laughed at that.

"It does feel like that most days dear but no, we have a chief mediwitch who supervises the two or three medi witches and wizards that rotate in shifts around the clock."

"So they just spin around do they?" I couldn't stop myself from saying and Iris laughed that schoolgirl laugh again.

"Oh Merlin's beard you're like a breath of fresh air in a stifling room you are boy, please don't tell me you're just passing through. Are you a new healer or something?"

"Um no I was a patient until a little while ago, got run over by a muggle car would you believe?"

"Oh how very exciting, what was it like?"

I blinked and looked down at her enthusiastic face as her eyes gazed off into the wall beside me.

"What?"

"The car, what kind of car was it? Oh my Leslie had a Hillman Minx years and years ago, red it was, we'd drive in the countryside for hours."

I smiled at her as we reached a bettered old door with a sign on it reading 'Grey Wing for the frail, elderly and befuddled'.

"Well i didn't really get a chance to look at the car; I was too busy bouncing off it to be honest."

Iris laughed again and the doors swung open and a round mediwitch stood before us with her hands on her hips and a face like thunder.

"Iris where on earth have you been?" she boomed while a medi wizard huffed and almost pulled rather then guided the old witch inside with the others, the medi witch turned to face me and her face melted into a relieved smile, "Thank you for bringing her back. She's a bit of a wanderer that one."

"Yeah, no problem," I said distractedly as I looked past the burly medi witch to see the stuffy but large room full of very bored and sleepy looking old people.

Most of them were sitting at windows and watching life passing them by outside, some were slumped in armchairs fast asleep and a few were rushing in their incredibly slow way to greet Iris and congratulate her on her prison break.

The medi witch saw my attention was elsewhere and turned to face the same way I was. I must have had a set of very deep frown lines on my forehead as she was reading my thoughts perfectly.

"I know, it's dreadful isn't it?" she sighed, "St Mungo's won't send me any medi witches or wizards who have any kind of interest in this sort of care. These ones are sent here as a punishment and when they've done their time they get to go back to the proper care and treatment facilities of the hospital."

"That's terrible," I gasped while still not being able to tear my eyes away from the sunny but drab room where lonely old witches and wizards were essentially sent to die out of sight and mind of the rest of the wizarding world, "so all your staff resent being here do they?"

She nodded sadly before turning to me and shrugging.

"What can you do though?"

I turned on the demoralised chief medi witch with livid eyes.

"Sack 'em!"

"And who will take their place?" she asked me with almost as much exasperation I was displaying.

I looked back over at the surly medi wizard who had all but dragged Iris into the room on her return to the wing and pointed at him with a scowl.

"Well sack him and I'll do it!" I snapped.

The room fell silent and Iris let out another girlish squeal while the medi wizard glared at me with arms folded.

"Come on now, I know it's upsetting to see how things are at this end of the hospital but really you can't joke about things like that," the medi witch began.

"I'm not joking. I've just spent a week looking after a muggle pensioner with two false legs; this is a magical crowd, so this'll be easy."

She laughed very briefly and pulled me into a side office and closed the door behind us.

"Look you're obviously a very enthusiastic young man but I can't afford to lose a qualified medi wizard to take you on and then have you get tired of it after a couple of months and desert us. They won't replace you when you go and then our residents will be even worse off then they are now."

"I won't get sick of them after a couple of months. After a couple of months with me they'll be different to the way they are now. They'll be as fun as Iris is!"

The medi witch shook her head wearily again.

"Iris is an exception, she's a lively old bird that one but most of the others..."

"Iris is a lively old bird because she stimulates herself and manages to get out of that bloody room once in a while she told me. I bet you they'd all be different people if you just gave them something to do other than stare out of the windows."

"Well they have books to read," the chief medi witch said, knowing that was no substitute for a decent quality of life.

"And Iris gets a lot out of reading does she?" I said with both my eyebrows raised in sarcasm.

The medi witch chuckled reluctantly.

"Godric I like you," she said with equal reluctance.

I smiled at her before thinking to myself for several seconds. Then I jumped to my feet and yanked the door open again. Taking a step outside I called down to the residents on the Grey wing.

"Hey you lot, I'm coming back on Saturday and I'll take whoever wants to go to the park for the afternoon. Who's up for it?"

Iris raised her hand so fast she almost fell over. The small gathering around her also raised their hands happily and gradually more and more people put their hands into the air. One man who was slumped in a squidgy armchair grunted at me and waggled his index finger at me.

"Oh that's Ralf, he can't speak or move his arms but he's telling you that he want to come too," a four foot tall woman with silver hair and a wobbly voice informed me before raising her own hand shakily.

I looked to Ralf and grinned at him.

"That's okay mate, I can put you in a group with the women, an old mate of mine once told me that they never let you get a word in anyway."

To my utter delight Ralf cracked a smile. I turned and looked back into the office at the chief medi witch who was fighting to suppress a smile.

"I'll do it for free on a three month trial and if you want rid of me or if I get sick of 'em I'll pack it in. If not you get rid of the git over there and put me on the payroll. Do we have a deal?" I asked hopefully.

The impressive looking woman took a step towards me and extended her hand to me.

"We have a deal."

I shook her hand and chuckled as I heard Iris yelp a celebratory squeal over my shoulder.

"So what's your name then?" the chief medi witch asked me with a warm smile.

I stared at her and examined her face for a giveaway sign that she was just being polite.

"You mean you don't...You don't know who I am?" I asked her cautiously.

"Should I?" she said with a blank expression of her face and a confused shrug of the shoulders.

I couldn't keep the beam from spreading across my face as I shook my head.

"No, not at all."

Epilogue

"Shit!"

I had been standing outside the back door of the Burrow for about a quarter of an hour now and still hadn't plucked up the courage to step inside and face the music. I took in a couple of deep breaths and let them out in an attempt to calm myself before inhaling for a third time and holding it as I reached for the door handle and gripping it tightly. I still didn't open the door.

"Shit!" I hissed as I let go of the door handle and began pacing up and down again.

Why was being such a chicken about this? They were my family not a firing squad after all. Harry and Hermione would be in there too. My back-up, they'd help me out and defend me if it got too much. Well maybe Harry wouldn't, maybe he was still a bit angry about me neglecting him in his time of need and worrying him unnecessarily and...

"Oh Godric they all hate me!"

I ran both hands through my hair and tried the calming breathing technique again.

"You can do this, you can do this, you can do this," I chanted as my hand reached for the door handle again before I yanked it back as if an electrical charge was threatening to zap me on contact, "No you can't!"

I paced back and forth once again.

Why was I so scared to face them all? I had faced Death Eaters, I had faced Lord Voldemort, I had killed...

I swallowed involuntarily and froze on the spot. Maybe that was why I couldn't face them. I had killed somebody. I had murdered somebody with a flick of my wand and never even bothered to look at their face or learn their name. True, that person was about to kill Harry and would have killed me and Hermione without a second thought for what our names were but that wasn't the point was it? Killing so clinically like that was what made them an evil Death Eater. How was I any different?

I looked back to the closed door and tried to imagine Jim giving me a pep-talk.

"You didn't get those scars waiting outside closed doors did ya red?"

"No but I got them going through a door into a place I wasn't welcome," I mumbled to myself and squatted down on the doorstep to think.

I had gone to the twins' shop but they were apparently out 'looking for their brother' so the sales assistant informed me without once looking up from what he was doing to see that it was me. I left the shop and kept my head down all the way to the Leaky Caldron where I found a dark corner to apparate right here and now I was a gibbering mess who couldn't even set foot inside his own house.

It wasn't my future that scared me anymore. I had a future now. I was going to work in the grey wing of St Mungo's where nobody ever visits or volunteers to take a shift and my back was finally cured once and for all. I had plans and aspirations and I'd talked out some of my crap with Jim and Rosie while I was away. Why was I so scared of? What could they say to me?

"I'm going to kill you ya selfish bastard!"

Well yeah, there was that.

I got to my feet again and took another deep breath as I put my hand on the door handle and gripped it tightly.

"Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it..." I ordered myself, "Just fucking do it you pathetic whiny bastard! Open the sodding door."

I almost turned the handle, almost, before spinning away and letting the deep inhalation out as I deflated totally.

"Godric what the hell is wrong with me?" I asked the heavens with a shake of the head, "They'll understand, they will."

I nodded to try and convince myself that I believed this statement and turned around to face the door again and I jumped to see Fred and George standing at the open door with amused grins on their faces. My voice caught in the back of my throat and all I could do was let out a strangled yelp.

"Twenty minutes you've been out here swearing little bro," George smirked.

"I was beginning to think that maybe the door was stuck or something," Fred said with a similar expression of amusement on his face as he swung the door back and forth before looking back to me and shrugging, "Nope seems to be fine."

"So what's the problem then ickle Ronniekins?" George said with an arched eyebrow.

My jaw was hanging open but my voice still wouldn't come. Had they been watching me this whole time? Were they going to put me away with Lockheart? None of them would ever believe there was nothing wrong with my head now, not after that little display.

"Will you two stop it?" an impatient voice snapped as the twins were shoved apart and Hermione forced her way between them to stand and smile at me despite her frown lines and worried looking eyes, "We heard you apparate and were waiting until you were ready to come in but..."

"But you seemed to think you weren't going to be welcome so somebody had to open the door to point out that you were," Harry said over Hermione's shoulder, "You're more than welcome Ron. You're stupid but welcome."

I almost managed to smile at that.

"Well are you coming in Ronnie?" I heard my mother's watery voice calling from within the crowded kitchen somewhere and I looked back to Harry, Hermione and the twins.

"Whenever you're ready Ron," Hermione said with a more natural smile this time around.

"Yeah," I nodded but my feet didn't move an inch from where they were rooted.

The twins moved to one side and Harry and Hermione to the other so I could pass through the door. I saw Ginny worrying her hands in that very 'mum' like way of hers and tried to give her a nod or a smile or something. I don't think anything I tried to do actually happened though. Ginny took a step forward and held out her hand for me to take with a pained smile at my degree of caution.

I looked Ginny in the eye and managed to speak, barely a whisper but it was there.

"Sorry."

"It's okay Ron. As long as you're okay now we don't mind. We forgive you," Ginny said before being blocked by the huge form of my brother Charlie.

I held my breath as he took a step outside and leaned forward to look me directly in the eye.

"Did you go to the hospital like Hermione told you to?" he said firmly.

I nodded.

"Magical or muggle?" Charlie said without blinking.

"Magical, I went to St Mungo's. My back's fine now I promise."

Charlie lowered his head and moved even closer towards me, I braced myself to get shouted at.

"And your head?"

I looked at the ground and mumbled my response.

"Healer said there's nothing wrong with it."

"Look at me Ron," Charlie said firmly but calmly and I looked up and met his piercing eyes, "Tell me you're going to be alright."

I stared right into him and said loudly and clearly for everyone inside the kitchen to hear as well.

"I'm going to be alright Charlie. Everything is better."

Before I could flinch he had grabbed me and hugged me with such ferocity that all the air was knocked out of my lungs and the twins laughed before jumping onto Charlie's back and attempting to hug the pair of us.

I don't remember walking into the Burrow. I was just hugging outside and when the hug ended we were all inside and everybody was either laughing or wiping their eyes. My dad winked at me and Bill and Fleur hugged each other and laughed as I was ambushed by my mother and her determination that I looked on the brink of starvation despite the fact that all that fried food at the hotel had actually fattened me up quite a bit. I braved it enough to look over to where Harry stood, leaning against the pantry door with his arms folded and a slight smile on his face and we seemed to silently agree that it was his turn next.

Harry needed to work through his own post war issues and he needed to do it with me and Hermione at his side. I sent a smile of understanding his way and he nodded before heading upstairs to our room. He would be waiting for me. I would go to him as soon as I could get away from the homecoming celebration that I felt I didn't really deserve.

Hermione sat beside me and I felt her hand slide into my own under the table. She squeezed tightly and didn't say a word. When most of the family were distracted in one way or the other I leaned over and whispered into her ear.

"I'm sorry I..."

"Don't," she said quietly but with fierce determination, "you didn't do anything wrong Ron."

I felt her other hand rest on top of the one she already clasped in her own and she leaned in so close that her lips brushed against my earlobe.

"You came back and that's all I ever wanted."

I sat at the foot of the war memorial in the town square at Ottery St Catchpole and scribbled onto the paper Hermione had given me after she had explained all about stamps and letterboxes and postmen to me. She and Harry were waiting over at the cafe for me to finish up and join them. I could feel their eyes boring into my back the whole time I was writing.

It's not that they don't trust me to stick around. Harry had told me that he thought it was because he needed to reassure himself that we were all really there. We had all survived. That was part of his problem with my absence that week, he couldn't see me to confirm that I was okay and I had come through it all with him.

I shuffled the pages of my letter back into the correct order and re-read what I had written.

Hey Grandpa Jim!

Well I'm back at home now and my mum and dad asked me to thank you, Rosie and Dolly for looking after me. My brothers also wanted to thank you for the mental image in their heads they all have of me hurtling off the promenade in an out of control wheelchair, they did like that story.

Well I've got a job now. Don't laugh but it's working with the frail and elderly, can you believe it Jim? You crazy old geezers have turned out to be my vocation. It was just that I saw how neglected the folks were in my local hospital and I remembered how lively you all were and all the things you told me you did and I sort of thought that I could help these guys to have some fun. My girlfriend's found this book about speech therapy and I'm trying to help this one guy to make words again.

Oh yeah, and I have a girlfriend now. She's nice; you'd like winding her up!

She wants to meet you actually and I thought that maybe if you weren't off on another adventure next bank holiday Monday we could stop by for tea or saveloys or something? We'd be in that area so it wouldn't be a bother getting there. Anyway, let me know.

My back is all better now, tell Rosie I owe her for that porridge snake pillow thing, and somebody at the hospital asked me if I would drop in on the permanent scar damage ward to talk to the patients seeing as I was 'so comfortable with my own deformity'. They didn't mean to be rude and my family went spare when I told them but I thought it was kind of funny. I didn't even realise that I hadn't been covering my arms up as much as I used to.

It's all thanks to you y'know Jim?

My best mate has quite a nasty scar on his head and one of my brothers, I think I told you about him, well he has some all over his face from an accident a couple of years ago and I've got them to come along with me. I'm quite proud of Harry, my mate, as he has always covered his scar up with his hair but after we talked for a few weeks he just cut all his hair really short and keeps saying he doesn't care if anybody stares at it anymore. The three of us do look like we've been through the wars...

...well we kind of have.

So anyway I get paid at the end of the month and I'm going to but a car, a Hillman Minx came highly recommended, and I thought that maybe you could give me some lessons or something. You don't have to if you don't want to, it's just an idea.

I just wanted to let you know that I found my way home and ask if it was okay for me to come and see you sometime.

Keep causing trouble!

Ron

(Sorry, I forgot!)

Red

I frowned, I thought it was a pretty crappy letter to be honest but it said what I wanted it to say so I folded it and stuffed the pages into the envelope and liked the vile tasting glue before sealing it and getting to my feet.

"All done?" Hermione said from behind me.

She had obviously got up and crossed the square to see if I was ready to join them yet, Harry was still sitting at the table sipping his tea and making some kind of bird shape out of his paper napkin.

"Yeah I just need to post it," I smiled.

"Did you ask him?" she asked me nervously.

I laughed and gave her a short peck on the lips before putting my arm around her shoulders and walking with her to the post box.

"Don't worry, he's gonna love you."

End