A/N: If you haven't read Chapter 3 of Looking Glass you should read that first:
http://fanfiction.portkey.org/story/6766/4 This part is where Ron and Luna first make it across to the alternate
universe. The protections in Rowena's ring, along with the sentience of Hogwarts itself worked to save them. There
were hints that they were alive in Circle and several people did get them. Thanks as usual to Lady Starlight for her
great beta work.
During the final battle
***************************Hogwarts?*********************************
May 24, 1998.
A long corridor sat empty and lifeless, the cracked windows along the corridor filled with the morning sunshine shining in from a cloudless sky. Cobwebs sat unheeded in the eaves, as if no elf or caretaker had cleaned in months. The skitter of claws broke the silence, as a mangy-looking black cat sprinted past, running down the hall in pursuit of some rodent.
The hall grew silent once more, and the sun fell on dusty floors, floors that should have been spotless and filled with half-asleep students on their way to Sunday breakfast. A brief shower of dust fell down through a beam of sunshine, sparkling as it fell from the rafters as the castle shifted slightly.
A soft hissing slowly broke the quiet, as the air in the center of the hall leading to the Great Hall shimmered and seemed to fold in on itself. A loud, popping CRACK snapped out, and several of the windows shattered, as a monochromatic swirl of light spread from nothing. It hung in the air for a moment, and then alarms blared, as the sound of running feet slapped the stones.
A bright light flared, and the vortex collapsed with a loud, ear shattering SNAP and as the light faded, a pair of crumpled bodies remained on the dusty floor. Red pooled underneath them, spreading rapidly from open wounds on both. The smaller of the two, was on top, her long, blonde hair at least half red, and partially escaping the tail it had been pulled back into. Her black skirt was almost totally ripped away in the back, revealing a long gash in her side, exposing the stark white of a rib. She moved, just barely and fell off the second arrival below her, a thin wand and a silver dagger falling to the floor beside them with a clatter.
The second arrival was covered in blood, his leg, side, and face almost completely red. The left side of his face was shattered, with a long jagged slice coming down from his hair through the left eye socket.
The sound of bootsteps came closer, and stopped suddenly. "Oh my fucking Merlin," a voice drawled quietly, disbelievingly, and footsteps approached cautiously.
"Oh, my God, Ron," Ginny whispered as she knelt next to him, and slowly reached for a pulse. Her fingers were instantly covered in blood as she felt at his neck, and her head fell limply as she found a pulse. "Get Poppy, Draco," she said quietly. She took a breath as she heard no movement, "GET HER," she screamed, and Draco sprinted off, yelling for Poppy.
"Hold on, Ron," Ginny murmured, tears in her eyes as she shifted over to check on Luna, "hold on."
'*********************************************************************
Two hours later, a tired, careworn Madame Pomfrey looked down at the pair in two hospital beds. The beds were pushed together, Pomfrey having learned her lesson long ago, with another pair. Crisp white sheets covered them to their chins, covering heavily bandaged torsos. A half dozen potion drips fed to each of them, as a pair of slowly pulsing orbs hovered over the head of the beds recording their heartbeats. Ron's face was half hidden behind bloodstained bandages, and fallen to one side towards Luna's.
Poppy had cleaned her hair; it gleamed softly in the early afternoon light streaming in through the Hospital windows. Her breathing was shallow, but unconsciously in time with her husbands' as Poppy frowned over a clipboard that slowly filled in with their vitals. She gasped softly as a line appeared on Luna's chart, she tapped it again, and it rewrote itself. She murmured something; a curse perhaps, then quickly went to the potions dripping into Luna and pulled several of the bags. She flicked her wand at a cabinet across the room and a new pair of potion bags these of a totally different color than any of the ones that had been hooked to her, started to feed into the blonde Ravenclaw.
"How are they, Poppy?" Ginny whispered, as if she were afraid that would wake them.
"They are not good, childe, but they should survive...though it was a close run thing." Poppy took a breath, gathering her thoughts, "They are not your brother and his wife, Ginevra."
"I know, Poppy, somehow, I knew when they arrived," Ginny replied, she brought her left hand to her face and scrubbed at her eyes, the gold of a simple ring, glinting.
Pomfrey walked back to Luna, and checked the drip of the new potions, "There is one other thing...She's pregnant, just barely...my standard diagnostic spells wouldn't have caught it, I just happened to be using higher-level incantations to look for internal trauma, of which there is entirely too much." Ginny took a breath, her face ashen behind her freckles. "Whatever magic brought them here, that kept them alive until I could get to them, protected the pregnancy as well, I have never seen anything like it. There was damage to organs next to her womb, but it escaped totally unharmed...I have seldom seen the like..."
"She always was impossible," Ginny frowned and moved to the head of the bed. She slowly ran her hand across Luna's forehead, sweeping lank strands of dirty blonde hair away from her face. "What happened to them, Poppy? How did they end up like this?"
Madame Pomfrey frowned, and looked down at her charges, "They both have extreme spell damage, Cruciatus, several different classes of cutting and piercing curses....That was before they seem to have been hit with several hundred pounds of stone...Then they seem to have severe transport trauma...I have managed to stabilize the psychic displacement shock, though I have been able to determine that the displacement is not that severe from our time line."
"When will they wake up?"
"She should wake up in the next day or two," Poppy replied without looking up towards the tiny redhead. "Her injuries were less severe, several of Ronald's appear to be from protecting her...he seems to have taken the fall of a large block of stone directly on his spine, I was able to repair the damage, but he will need rehabilitation. His left eye is gone, however, Luna had several of the Osiris eyes; I have started to prepare one for implantation. However I do not yet know when he will wake." Poppy nodded as if answering an unspoken question, made a final notation on the chart she held and straightened. "I need to look into supplies, are going to stay with them, Ginerva?"
"Yeah," Ginny nodded and sat in a chair next to the beds. She reached up and brushed aside Luna's hair again, "I will...even though they aren't from here, besides Draco, they are all that I have left."
August 1, 1998....Somewhere else.
2:20 pm
Ron limped slowly along the abandoned corridors of the ancient school, similar and yet at the same time so disparate from the castle at which he had spent almost half of his life. The halls were nearly abandoned, with only the occasional school-age child or periodic wizard moving furtively through the halls.
He continued on, moving through the bits of light and shadow cast by the sun streaming in through the ground floor windows, trekking towards the enclosed center courtyard of the school. The clack of the cane he was still forced to use since his waking a month ago sounded oddly in the almost empty castle, echoing off the stones. He swayed slightly as he came to a stop at the edge of the courtyard; he was still unused to the loss of his left eye, and the loss of depth perception that entailed.
A black patch with a yellow sunflower painted on it, courtesy of the person he was looking for, covered the gap, until he was deemed ready for the implantation of an magical eye. The damage to his body was almost healed; only the weakness of his left leg mandated the cane, which he ignored half the time anyway.
Ron shook of the thoughts of damage to himself as he paused a moment, and watched the woman sitting in the center of the courtyard, next to a round fountain that she had repaired a month ago. She was sitting, facing away from him, and looking down into the clear water, watching as several fish swam next to her bare feet dangling in the water. Blonde hair hung loosely down the back of the bright yellow sundress she was wearing, and he smiled faintly as she moved in it a touch, allowing the sun to paint her outline through the thin fabric.
He took a breath and started towards her, only to have her turn before he had made three steps and look back at him. A soft, mysterious smile danced for a moment across grey eyes, before she stood from the fountain and skipped over to him, to take his free hand in hers. "Lean on me, love," she murmured, taking his weight without complaint even though he almost doubled her own.
She eased them across the grass to sit on a broad stone bench under a willow tree, isolated from casual viewing. She let him settle to the bench, before she curled up in his lap; not bothering to fix the skirt of her dress as it almost rode up to her bum. She sighed contently as he brought one hand up to cup her bum and hold her against him. Ron looked down at her as she dropped her head on his shoulder.
Luna smiled contently, nuzzling his neck as his other hand rubbed slowly over her still flat stomach, "She doing alright?" Ron murmured, his voice softly choked. Luna nodded, and closed her eyes. He took a slow breath, as she burrowed back, his eyes tightening around her automatically. "I wanted you to have a home, love...not have you stranded a universe away from home and pregnant..."
She smiled and reached up, cupping his cheek and pulling his face down to hers. "I'm with you, Ronald," she whispered against his lips, letting her fingers move up to run through his hair, "we'll get through this..." she kissed his nose, "we will get home...I promise you."
"Our little girl will have to grow up here...she should be playing with Harry and Hermione's sprogs, causing mischief..." Ron whispered darkly, shaking in hidden rage.
He calmed at her touch. "She will have you and she will have me, Ronnie...And some day, she will get to play with them."
"Did you see that?" Ron replied quietly, "did you?" he murmured urgently.
Luna shook her head and held tight to him until there was no space between them, "No...but I know us...you are rather stubborn, Ronald, there is nothing I would not do for you, for us. We will be home, some day..."