Emotional range of a teaspoon.
The words are like a broken record. They play unwanted, again and again. They have since she had said them. The memory of a warm yellow glow of a fire in a common room that was too familiar, too much like home. Home . He has not seen it in months now, neither Hogwarts nor the Burrow. His only home now was the empty forest around him.
Two days.
He has been trying for two days.
He has not slept. He has not moved from this vicinity. This eerily quiet, still place in the world. Far away from anything familiar.
He has exhausted his magic, trying. Trying every single incantation he knew. Every random reference, every uttered spell he had heard, every long written study material he had dismissed in his youth. How he wished he was smarter. Brighter. More like her. Hell, he wishes he was more like a lot of people these days.
Maybe if he was more like Ginny, he could just blast the no-detection spell with such a powerful Bombarda it would splinter and crack and he would be able to see the undetectable shields that were up.
Maybe if he was more like Fred he could just invent a new spell that would take back the last seventy-two hours. Just rewind it. Time, they say it's ill advised to shift it, to change it - but they had done it. He could, should, can’t.
If he were like George or Bill he could just crack the spell. He could break it. He would be able to find the magic in the air and tinker, tailor and shift until it undid itself at the tip of his wand. Sure, it would take hours - he would be sweaty and depleted, but he would be back. He could be back. He needed to be back.
Had he been like Percy - actually, he probably wouldn’t even be needing to do any of this. He wouldn't have gotten in this position in the first place. Percy was practical, pragmatic, polished. He would have been able to handle - well everything. He wouldn’t have let his emotions bottle up and explode and he certainly … well, perhaps not . Percy had turned his back on his family after all, who knew he and Percy had that in common?
He certainly was no Charlie. Charlie would definitely not be in this predicament. The man had a way with handling every volatile situation ever thrown at him. He could calm dragons. He would have stood in the face of the impending doom and laughed. Made some quick witted, perfect bloody remark and the tension - that fight - would have bursted in a fit of awkward chuckles and airy giggles.
He wasn’t though was he? He was just him. Just Ronald Bilius Weasley. With his emotional range of a teaspoon and his inability to retain any useful information. His stupidity. His limited knowledge base. His laziness . His bloody limits.
Two days. He was stuck here alone. They certainly hadn’t come after him.
There he goes again. Why would they need to? Why would they put themselves in danger because of a bloody temper tantrum? He shook his head, dirty hands pushing up into tangled red hair as he looked around the empty space. All trees and dirt and leaves and cold.
The fog was clearing, the slow creep of another day was tickling sunbeams through the canopy and he knew - he knew that this was a sign. The stillness of the area slowly shifted. Sounds returned. He could hear the rustling of the wind, soft and toying with the branches above him. In the distance one of the forest’s birds began to sing to the sun - it's morning call. It's a greeting to a new day.
And he knew.
They were gone. They had left.
He wouldn’t have noticed had the sudden shift of sound not assaulted him.
He would have to tell her about that.
They would have to adjust the wards when he got back.
He would get back .
A snap of a twig behind him caught his attention and he turned to look over his shoulder just as an angry red hit him. The spell knocked him off his feet and he landed hard on his side, twisting through the air as if he weighed nothing.
Another stunner hit him in his stomach and he grunted in pain as he glared upward towards the man that was prowling towards him. “Look what we have here,” he sneered, the man’s boot coming down hard on his hand as he tried to grab for his wand. “A runaway are you? Good. We’ll add you with the others.” And just before the man’s boot connected with the side of his face - he thought…
She would be so pissed if he didn’t figure out his way back.
And then the world went black.