Charlie opened his eyes and was dazzled by gold and green; he had no idea what had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs. Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realized that the gaudy glare was sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves far above him.
Then, an object twitched close to his face. Charlie pushed himself onto his hands and knees, ready to face some small, fierce creature, but saw that the object was Harry's foot. Looking around, Charlie saw that they were lying on a forest floor, alone.
Charlie's first thought was of the Forbidden Forest, and for a moment, even though he knew how foolish and dangerous it would be for them to appear in the grounds of Hogwarts, his heart leapt at the thought of sneaking through the trees to Hagrid's hut. However, in the few moments it took for Harry to give a low groan and Charlie to start crawling toward him, he realized that this was not the Forbidden Forest. The trees looked younger, they were more widely spaced, the ground clearer.
He looked around frantically, yelling, "Hermione?"
"H-Here," came her shaky reply, but Charlie knew from the inflection of her voice that something was wrong... something was terribly wrong.
He quickly scrambled to his feet, shaking the fallen leaves from his hair. Five yards away, Hermione was bowed over Ron, who had fully transformed back into himself and was whimpering and writhing in pain. After ensuring Hermione was relatively unscathed, Charlie's eyes fell upon Ron, and all other concerns fled his mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron's left side and his face stood out, grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth.
"What's happened to him?"
"S-Splinched," stuttered Hermione, her fingers already busy at Ron's sleeve, where the blood was wettest and darkest.
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Charlie watched, horrified, as she tore open Ron's shirt. He had always thought of Splinching as something comical, but this was something far unworthy of a laugh. Charlie's insides crawled unpleasantly as Hermione laid bare Ron's upper arm, where a great chunk of flesh was missing, scooped cleanly away as though by a knife.
"Charlie, quickly, in my bag, there's a small bottle labeled 'Essence of Dittany' —"
Charlie was vaguely aware of how easy it was for he and Hermione to work in sync during situations like these, including the one they had just narrowly escaped. He sped to the place where she had landed, seized the tiny beaded bag, and thrust his hand inside it. At once, object after object began presenting itself to his touch; he felt the leather spines of books, woolly sleeves of jumpers, glass bottles, heels of shoes —
