As I approach England, I can't remember much of my flight from America. Dropping below the clouds, I finally see the coast ahead of me and want to breathe a sigh of relief but cannot. Instead, I push my broomstick to go even faster, though it's been at the limits of its power the entire time. Funny, I can hardly remember my hurried trip, but at the same time it feels as if it will never end.

The fact that I've never made the flight from New England back home in such a short amount of time isn't the reason it's a blur. The repetition of flying over the endless Atlantic isn't why I don't remember. Neither is it some odd curse or spell.

The reason is simply that my mind stopped thinking in the moment an owl -- beaten and battered from its journey -- reached me. Dark wizards have staged an attack on the Ministry, the note said.

If I were to search deeper, I would admit the reason that I jumped on my broom with hardly a goodbye, is a man with red hair. He's the closest person in the world to me, and has been for far too many years to count.

That there's trouble back home isn't a new concept. Hogwarts and the Ministry have been at the heart of chaos for so long, it's hardly a surprise when something happens. But things have been quiet the past few years. Maybe we've gotten soft. At the time the owl was dispatched, a handful of wizards and witches were staging a last stand in hopes of saving the rest. No news since then, only the dull gray monotony of ocean and clouds.

Ron. My best friend. The other half of me, in a way. He's a link to sanity when the burden of being the "great" Harry Potter becomes too much. He's the reason I'm scared and growing more so with every minute that passes. Ron works for the Ministry. He's there.

The queasy feeling I've had in the pit of my stomach since reading the letter intensifies. A rogue thought that I might lose him causes my heart to recoil and my head to spin. I can't lose him. I can't. I won't. A half-desperate laugh pulls from my throat, as if I might have any say in the matter. The "famous" Harry Potter is not so great as to order the universe around.

Wind whips through my hair and my desire to be there -- home -- only gets worse the closer I actually am. "Please..." The thought somehow finds its way to my lips, and I have no idea who I am imploring to help me. Somebody. Anybody. He has to be okay, no matter what the stone in the bottom of my stomach is trying to tell me.

Ron is at the heart of the trouble. That scares me more than the mere thought of dark wizards could ever worry me. Ron has always had a nose for trouble, we both have. Luckily his mind for strategy has always kept him safe. Saved both our necks a time or two in the past, in fact.

Something in my heart is screaming that nothing good could come of an attack. The doubt that haunts that voice, lingering on Ron, is what has been tearing at me bit by bit the longer I'm stuck in the air.

Pushing a hand through my hair, I struggle to see through my rain-splattered glasses. The weather over the ocean was horrible, but over England it is little better. There's nothing less to be expected this time of year. I'd planned to stay abroad on business long enough to avoid the last dredges of winter, but I couldn't.

Even if I'm not needed in the defense, I need to do something. I have to be there -- for Ron if not myself.

Soaked and tired, I finally see the Ministry building ahead of me. There are patches of smoke rising from above it and livid marks across the ground. Even from the air I can see people running about.

The closer I get, the harder it is to breathe. Something is wrong. I can feel it. It's in the way those outside are moving. We didn't escape unscathed; of this I am certain.

Landing on the grounds, I barely have time to step off of my broomstick before a witch, not two years out of Hogwarts by the looks of her, runs up to me. In that moment I feel very old, even though I'm not quite thirty-five.

I'm holding my broom in one hand and she pulls on the other, leading us toward the building. I'm looking around for Ron, eager to have my feelings of doom proven wrong when she speaks quickly. "We have to hurry."

I blink, recognizing the shine in her eyes as tears. The knot in my stomach twists tighter. Swallowing hard, I look around, managing to ask, "What's happened?"

Not slowing down, she speaks in a rush. "A group of five attacked suddenly. Most of us were ushered downstairs while the others remained above to fight."

"Who?" The word isn't even truly that. It is more the air rushing from my lungs as I finally see inside the Ministry building. It's been gutted, one might think. The walls are singed black; the floors are missing complete sections of stone. Glancing about, the roof is missing; someone's erected a transparent shield to block the rain.

"Please hurry." She looks over her shoulder at me, a plea on her face and words fail me. "Please, just come with me." The whispered words seem to echo, even among the noise as the other witches and wizards struggle to repair the building. A few spare long looks in our direction and I clench my fist tighter around my broom.

We walk down a series of steps I've never seen and enter a large room lit by floating spheres of glowing orange. It's surprisingly bright and I have to blink before I am able to see anything. The girl beside me gasps softly, her hand flying up to cover her mouth and my anxiety increases.

When I finally am able to see, everything slams to a halt. My broom falls from nerveless fingers and clatters to the floor. I want to close my eyes again and run from the room. Instead, I can't move. I can't blink, can't breathe. I can only stare and hope that my heart doesn't actually hammer through my chest.

Not Ron. Not. Ron. No. No, damn it.

"I'm sorry, Harry. We just lost him," a man in healer's robes says, laying a long-fingered hand on my shoulder. I should probably recognize him. I don't. I don't care, either. His lips keep moving, but I don't hear what he's saying. My ears might as well be packed with cotton -- it's like I'm standing in a soundless void all of a sudden.

I do hear the low pitiful wail that escapes my lips, but I can't feel it. I dare say I don't feel anything, even when my legs give way and I collapse onto my knees on the stone floor. Wrenching my hand free of the girl's grasp and my glasses from my face, I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes.

Gasping for breath, I force the glasses back onto my face. I look up desperately, hoping for something... some change. He hasn't moved. He hasn't sat up saying, "Got you, Harry!" Nothing's changed.

Everything's changed.

Nothing makes sense and I can't breathe, the tears in the back of my throat choking me when I try. The healer is still beside me, but I hardly realize it. I barely feel his hands as I pull away from them.

My eyes never leave Ron's face -- his utterly still face. Somehow I manage to stand and begin the shaking steps that will take me to him. I need to be near him. Walking across the room, I feel like the Earth herself is trying to buck me off, each halting step a fight to stay upright. I refuse to stop until I reach him. I can't stop until I reach him.

As if by its own volition, my hand reaches out and touches his face. Hair, brow and cheek. Nose, lips and chin. He looks as if he's only asleep. Why isn't he only asleep?

Couldn't he only be asleep? The healers could be wrong. They could all be wrong. All he has to do is open his eyes. Just let me see his eyes. He always had the brightest green eyes, like the emerald fire of floo powder. I never doubted how alive he was when he laughed, his eyes glowing.

He isn't laughing anymore. He won't ever laugh, his eyes bright, ever again.

I blink quickly, but it's no use against the tears. I can imagine what I look like -- a grown man, sobbing hysterically -- but I don't care. What does it matter, anyway? Ron matters. Mattered. If I could think straight maybe my mind would stop rambling. But I stopped thinking the moment I saw him.

Shaking so badly I can't stand, I half-fall, half-drop onto the bed next to my beloved friend. Arms stretched across him, ear pressed to his chest, I strain for any sign that they might be wrong. What my mind might have accepted, my heart rages in its denial against.

I press my face into the sheet that covers him. Barely recognizing the sounds of my sobs as the echo off the damp walls, I fall into the grief that surrounds me. I shake my head against the utter silence that fills his chest and in turn, my own.

He's gone.

End