Heart Stopped Breathing (And Beating Too)
Remix Author: losselen
Original Story: Heart Stopped Breathing by eleveninches
Summary: Sand and blood and the earthen prayer.
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Downwards his dreams all went, down towards the ground and cloud. Spiraling like something unfeeling, something misty-
-or sandy like the golden dust that surged through the bloodstreams of Cairo, between the red-roofed buildings and the wide domes on pendentives; in the banks of Nile where the sun went down blood-red. There went about barefoot children with curly-hair who mumbled whispers into each other's ears. Islamic churches arched skywards, swathed in the desert's air-Ron breathed in the scent and thought of village traffics.Blasted sand, getting everywhere into eyes and mouths and pockets, dry between his tongue and cheek.
No, that is something else; it is blood that is thick in his mouth, tart and so profuse and pouring forth from the torn cracks of skins, not sand-far from the parched feeling of sand-but not unlike. All dull and with a terrifying and bland sort of sense, being so very biting, numbing.
Or jarring like the gravel that covered his sweaty (now dusty) thins, where he would try to scratch the skin but instead leave annoying little bruises with his stumpy nails-
There are fresh bruises on the fleshy palms of his hands where he'd crawled frantically down from an anonymous flight of stairs, knees gravel-black and hands red, thigh bleeding-
Percy had read something about bloodsucking insects in one of his books, talking about the kind of sand-nest it digs that's insusceptible to desert storms. When bitten, he had said, the flesh would swell purple and then rot if not treated with charm that would stop the venom-
Where is Percy anyway, Ron doesn't know where he is-
-and he yelled at Ron because he wasn't listening and one of these days he'd be bitten and he won't help him then.
"That's just too bloody bad, isn't it?" Ron had said without any regret.
Percy snorted and went back to tell Bill about the history of the living-rock wizard-tombs in Beni-hasan and the temples of wizard Pharaohs in the Necropolis just east of the Nile. Ron didn't care. Ron didn't care.
But he hears Hermione's screams and someone else's crying and he sees out of seam of his swollen eyelid pale arms and legs and hands and wandpoints, and he can't imagine why he is remembering Egypt that is so afar from where he is now, whose ancient rulers' power of the sacred ben-ben won't help one bit now. He swallows because he knows his left thigh is hit and he can't get up, he can't see but hears someone's running steps approaching, and he can only hope that it's not a-
"Best not to trust the merchants," Bill had said, and Ron didn't listen because it was Harry's birthday and he really, really wanted to get him something special.
-not a Death Eater.
"American?"
The dirt road had snaked into a darker alleyway where a raspy-voiced woman had sat by her store door, black-eyed, black-robed, soulless and unblinking. Ron couldn't see past her hooded brows that threw deep, deep shadows around her eyes. He couldn't decide whether he should trust the old woman or not, but heard himself answering no.
Ron doesn't move, but grips his wand tighter and feels the blood flow down his right index finger onto the ash-grains. Heartbeats rings in his ears and his stomach is in his mouth and he thinks he felt something move-his limbs freaze-he can't breathe-
-"Are you sure we should trust her?" He heard Percy say to Bill and wondered if he really knows what he's doing. But he liked the place-it might have been the air that deceived his senses, the floating, smoky air-it might even have been the sun that made him temporarily mad with its hypnotic rays-
But somehow when his hands landed on and picked up a metallic object, he wrapped his fingers around it. Wide-eyed kids stared at its light and whispered more things. He couldn't imagine, he couldn't imagine, he couldn't believe it when-
"Oh Ron get up, get up! They're coming...someone from the inside was.working for them-" He remembers Hermione's voice whispering that to him but he can't remember if it was Ginny's voice that screeched then in terror.
But the voice now in front of him is completely different and cold as it hoarsely commanded, "Get up." Ron doesn't, can't, and sweat drops down his chin, landing and burning a hole onto his shirt.
And he remembers why Egypt now.
The Sneakoscope was spinning-
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Heart Stopped Breathing (And Beating Too)
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