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December 25th, 1997
Static came out of the radio’s speakers when Ron twiddled the modulator. He closed his eyes, just as Bill did when he was looking for the correct frequency, and focussed on sensing the correct sound. Now and then, he could make out a few tones of music or snippets of conversation, but that wasn’t what he was looking for. The usual programmes wouldn’t give him the information he craved.
The floor squeaked and Ron was startled, hand in his pocket where he kept his wand.
But it was only Bill, the oldest son of the Weasleys, covered in a thick winter cloak to which rests of snow were sticking. He raised his eyebrows as he saw his brother standing there alerted.
A little more than two months ago, when Ron had suddenly stood in front of his door, begging for accommodation, Bill had tried to find out what had happened. Only after he had insisted, Ron had told him, that he’d left Hermione and Harry after a fight and wasn’t able to find them anymore. Bill hadn’t liked this story, but didn’t bring it up anymore after, and Ron was glad about that. Thinking about his friends hurt too much.
Thinking about Harry, with whom he’d gone through thick and thin. He thought they’d always rely on each other.
And thinking about Hermione, especially about Hermione. Marvellously smart, beautiful and stubborn Hermione, who had begged him not to go.
Ron relaxed again when he realised that Bill wasn’t a threat. “Hello”, he said as calm as possible, but couldn’t prevent his voice from trembling. “It’s only six in the morning, the sun hasn’t even risen yet. Where have you been?”
Bill took off his cloak and hung it on a hook next to the door. “I was going for a walk. Woke up early and…” He shrugged. “I can’t believe it’s Christmas today. It’s far too quiet, not like the Burrow at all.”
Ron nodded. The crackling fireplace and the small Christmas tree in a corner were the only things which reminded him about the festivity. No Christmas decorations, no smell of freshly baked cookies and no Christmas songs by Celestina Warbeck. Thinking about all the Christmas parties he’d celebrated with Hermione and Harry made him melancholic.
“Is Fleur awake already?”, Bill asked and Ron was grateful for the change of topic.
“I don’t think so. Haven’t heard her, at least.”
Bill tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear and stepped next to Ron. “Did you try tuning in Potterwatch?”
Ron looked at his feet, a little embarrassed, and nodded. It had always been Bill’s responsibility to tune in the frequency of the only anti-Voldemort programme, but there had been a broadcast announced for this morning and since Ron hadn’t wanted to wake Bill that early, he’d tried it himself.
Without a comment, Bill sat down on the worn sofa, took the radio and closed his eyes while adjusting the modulator. Ron didn’t dare breathing too loud and watched in fascination as his brother listened concentratedly and weighed his head, before turning the modulator a few millimetres.
After a few minutes, he smiled triumphantly.
“Are you hearing that?”, he whispered and Ron only noticed after a moment that he’d spoken to him.
He listened hard, but the static didn’t sound any different than from the other frequencies Ron had tried this morning. He shook his head.
“Hm”, Bill said, closing his eyes again. “That probably wasn’t the correct question. Are you feeling that? A tiny vibration in the tips of your fingers, almost a tickle. That’s magic, just a tiny little bit, so you can just notice it when you know that it’s there.”
Ron looked at his hands. “Nothing’s tickling me.”
Bill opened his eyes and beckoned him over.
Feeling a little anxious, he sat down next to his brother. Bill handed him the radio. Ron trembled a little and worried that he’d drop it. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. And then … then he could sense it, too. It was neither a vibration nor a tickle, like Bill had described it, but rather a tingle, as if his fingers had fallen asleep, but it was there, undoubtedly.
“So”, Bill said, “which password is it?”
“I don’t know”, Ron admitted. “I missed the ending of the last broadcast.”
“Do you think it might be something about Christmas?”
“No, that’d be too obvious”, Ron said, his mind racing. “Something mundane, I reckon. What was the last password again?”
“Fawkes. The one before we missed. And the one before that was Alice.”
“Neville’s mum’s called Alice”, Ron remembered.
“Yeah, they chose that password in her memory.”, Bill said. “I never met her, but Mum and Dad said that she was a kind woman.”
Ron, however, had already met Alice Longbottom. But ‘met’ might be an exaggeration, he’d seen her at St. Mungo’s, in Janus Thickey ward for patients with permanent spell damage.
He pushed that memory aside. It only made him sad. “What about Frank? He’s Neville’s dad.”
Bill thought for a while. “We haven’t had Frank yet. It’s possible that it was the password when we missed the broadcast, but we can give it a try.”
Ron wanted to hand Bill the radio, but his brother simply shook his head and looked at him encouragingly.
“Me?” Ron almost choked.
“There’s no spell. Just tap the radio and say the password.”, Bill explained.
“’kay”, Ron mumbled and drew his wand. He took a deep breath, tapped it with the tip of his wand and said clearly: “Frank”.
Nothing happened.
“Wasn’t the right one, apparently”, Ron stated.
The brothers spent the following hour trying out one password after another. In between, Fleur had entered the room and guessed with them, before she convinced them to help her prepare breakfast. Ron was insisting on taking the radio into the kitchen and when he thought of another possible password, tried it out immediately. None of them were correct, but the smell of Ham and Eggs lifted his spirits anyway.
“Have you tried your own name?”, Fleur asked suddenly, when they were setting the table. “Or your girlfriend’s? Hermione, right? Harry Potter’s closest friends…”
Ron blushed furiously. “Hermione’s not my girlfriend!”
“Really?” Fleur seemed to be honestly surprised. “You seem to miss her a lot.”
“But that doesn’t mean…” If that was even possible, Ron blushed even more, and he shot Bill a desperate look.
His brother eyed him amusedly. “It’d be worth a shot.”
For a moment, Ron thought Bill meant the thing about Hermione being his girlfriend, but then decided that he was referring to the password. Still bright red, he tapped the radio and muttered: “Hermione Granger”. When nothing happened, he tried: “Hermione”. The static disappeared and was replaced by silence, which was only interrupted by the consistent sound of the ocean.
Ron looked at the radio in disbelief for a moment. Then he let out a cheer. “Fleur, you’re a genius!”
“Don’t”, Fleur said, but did look very pleased with herself when Bill kissed her.
They quickly finished setting the table and Ron solemnly placed the radio on the counter.
“Merry Christmas!”, Bill declared, when they sat down, and rose his glass of orange juice in celebration.
Fleur and Ron returned the congratulations and started eating. For the first time in weeks Ron had regained his appetite. Having tuned in the programme correctly seemed like a victory synonymous to winning the Quidditch cup for Gryffindor.
But the longer the radio stayed silent, the bigger his doubts grew.
“Did we already miss the broadcast?”, he asked anxiously and looked at the radio.
“I don’t think so.” Bill tried to sound reassuring, but Ron could hear the insecurity in his voice. “They know it’s Christmas. Many will want to sleep in. They’ll wait a little.”
Ron threw a look at the kitchen clock. “When will they start, do you think?”
“Not until half past seven”, Bill said and smiled in amusement.
Ron didn’t say much for the remaining breakfast, and only stared at the clock hand, hoping they’d move faster. He helped putting away the dirty dishes and cleaning the kitchen, but when Bill and Fleur suggested to go into the sitting room to open the presents, he declined and his brother and sister-in-law went alone. Ron, however, placed a kitchen chair in front of the counter and waited.
Waiting didn’t do him any good. He was letting his mind wander, and that fuelled his worst fears. He was cursing himself for letting Hermione and Harry down, during the times they probably needed him most. And, who was he trying to fool, it was also the times Ron needed his two best friends most. Without them, he was unable to do anything, sat inactively in his brother’s kitchen, who was kind enough to not tell their mother that he’d betrayed his friends, and slowly drowned in self-hatred and misery.
What would Harry say if he could see him now? And Hermione? Oh, Hermione…
Without noticing, Ron had fetched his deluminator and twisted it between his fingers. It calmed his nerves a little.
Suddenly the radio clicked and a familiar voice started to talk. “Welcome back to Potterwatch! My name is River and today we’re having a very special guest with us!”
Ron blinked, then got up and shouted: “Bill! Fleur! They’re on air now!”
“Hello everyone!” A vaguely familiar voice came out of the radio.
“So, Tinkerer, as a member of the Order, you have some insider information for our listeners, am I correct?”
“That’s Dedalus. Dedalus Diggle.”, Bill stated, standing in the doorframe.
The image of a short wizard wearing a purple hat popped up in Ron’s head. He’d seem him a couple of times in 12 Grimmauld Place, but couldn’t remember if he’d ever talked to him.
“Sure!”, Diggle said enthusiastically, and a muffled sound could be heard in the background. “Pardon, that was my top hat.” It was silent for another few seconds, but then the wizard continued chattering. “So … there have been sightings of Death Eaters and Dementors in a small muggle village near London yesterday. They attacked the home of the Finch-Fletchley family. ‘Cause they have a muggle-born son called Justin, who didn’t show up to the Registration Commission. No one knows where he is at the moment, not even his own parents. Luckily, no one was at home during the attack, but the Dementors have cast depression and misery over the village and are most likely responsible for the heart attack of the Finch-Fletchley’s elderly neighbour. The Finch-Fletchley family was informed about the happenings and is probably at the moment preparing for a longer lasting trip to their relatives abroad.”
After a short pause Diggle added: “Was that good? I hesitated a bit at the beginning, we could start over if you’d like…”
“That was brilliant, Tinkerer, thank you. We wish the Finch-Fletchley’s a safe trip and hope Justin is in good health.”
Ron’s mouth became dry and he pocketed his deliuminator again. “I knew Justin”, he said to no one in particular. “He was in my year, in Hufflepuff. We rarely talked, but I didn’t even know he was wanted.”
Bill stepped next to him and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Many good people are wanted. Kingsley, Dirk, Ted, Dean Thomas, Harry, Hermione…”
“Bill’s right.”, Fleur affirmed, still standing in the doorframe. “But isn’t that one of the reasons why we’re still here to fight? To protect those who can’t protect themselves?”
Ron wanted to say that Hermione and Harry were able to look after themselves very well, but didn’t feel like starting a fight with his brother’s wife, especially since he was living in the house said wife co-owned. So he simply nodded and acted as if he was listening to the broadcast, even though he wasn’t able to concentrate anymore.
He longed into his pocket and started playing around with his deluminator again, and eventually clicked the switch to suck the kitchen lamp’s light into the magical gadget. When he activated it, he immediately regretted doing so. Fleur hated it when it suddenly became dark, something to do with the Triwizard Tournament, even though she didn’t elaborate. So he quickly sent the light back to the lamp, hoping she wouldn’t be too mad.
And then he heard it.
For a moment he thought, he’d only imagined her voice, or it had come out of the radio.
“…Remember … remember Ron? When he broke his wand…”
He blinked in confusion and looked to Bill and Fleur, but his brother only watched Fleur worriedly, who looked a little pale.
“I’m fine!”, she assured him.
“Did you hear that, too?”, Ron asked.
“Heard what?” Bill seemed confused. “Do you mean the radio?”
“No, it…” He was struggling to find words to explain the voice. He gave up and activated the switch again, hoping that voice would appear once more.
But it didn’t. The room was pitch-black, only the faint light from outside was shining through a window.
Wait a moment, not only the sun shone. A small light orb, of maybe the size of a fist, was floating in Bill and Fleur’s garden and bathing the snow in golden light.
“Ghost Light!”, Fleur screamed and backed off.
Ron stared at the deluminator in his hand and slowly a hunch formed in his head. “That’s not a Ghost Light, Fleur.”, he disagreed. “That’s…”
He leapt up abruptly, without finishing his sentence.
“Ron, Ron, Ron”, a voice in his head whispered. Hermione’s voice. It was so beautiful and he had yearned for it so much that he started to tear up.
“I’ve got to go. Packing!”, he said, much more to himself than to Bill and Fleur.
He rushed to the stairs leading to his room, when Bill shouted: “Hey, where are you going, you can’t just…”
“I know now where I have to look for them!”, Ron shouted back and a grin spread across his face. He laughed. He hadn’t laughed in such a long time that his cheeks hurt. “Thank you, Bill, thank you, Fleur, for letting me stay with you. But now I have to go. I have to find Hermione, and Harry. We’re going to save the world together!”
He left his brother and sister-in-law in the kitchen and ran up to his room, taking two steps at once, while thinking about everything he had to take with him.
And the most beautiful voice in the entire world kept whispering his name in his head.
Ron, Ron, Ron