WHO: Ron Weasley and OPEN. WHAT: He's venting. WHEN: Late afternoon. WHERE: Outside of the apartments. RATING: PG-13.
Hermione was gone. Gone. For a while, Ron thought that he had accidentally done something to annoy her again that he didn't know about. It was sort of a habit of his, one that he didn't quite know how to break. He'd say something that she didn't like or he'd do something offensive and that'd be it. Hermione would clamp her mouth shut, put on her avoidance shoes, and clear out of his way until he realized that he screwed up somehow. But when Ron discovered that no one else had appeared to have seen Hermione either, he panicked. What if those demonic things had gotten hold of her? Wasn't that what they wanted? To take them all away? Caught up in a whirlwind of fear, Ron immediately gathered up anyone who was willing to lend a hand and went off searching the city for any sign of her. Hermione was a tough witch, but those demons were something else entirely and Ron worried that they'd be too much for even her to handle. He searched city street to city street until the realization that Hermione wasn't going to turn up struck him. She was gone.
But where? Did they have her or not? Would he someday meet her again, only to find those brown eyes of hers filled with black? Or did the seal suck her back in, sending her to the middle of the wildnerness to rejoin Harry?
He hoped that she was with Harry. Selfishly, he'd have preferred her here with him, but the alternative was that she was taken off and potentially possessed. Ron would gladly settle for Hermione being back where she belonged. Harry could use all the help he could have gotten, anyway.
That didn't stop him from worrying, of course. He didn't know what had happened. And that was probably the worst part of it all. Growling in frustration, Ron delivered a sharp kick to the bin at his right. It banged to the ground, it's filthy contents scattering out all across the ground. A few people in passing shot him dirty looks. Ron considered hexing them.
"What are you looking at?" He glared, hand slipping into his pocket. His wand was there, but he didn't pull it out. Ron could hear Hermione already, lecturing him for even thinking about using his magic on 'innocent' muggles. It almost made him want to give it a go. Maybe she'd turn up just to yell at him for it.