So...yeah. I just reread the entire Harry Potter series and I was in a DON'T WANT IT TO END mood. A couple more might follow this if anyone likes it.

The tunnel was no less dark or slimy than the last time he had looked into its depths. It definitely smelled worse.

"R-Ron…" Her voice was higher than normal, and a tremor made her stutter. "Are you sure…maybe this isn't…what if Harry needs us?"

"What if he manages to find the diadem and off the snake and there's still one Horcrux left?" Ron answered, staring into the inky blackness of the tunnel's mouth. The feeling of triumph that had flared when he'd managed the Parseltongue moments ago was fading, to be replaced by a growing sense of cold unease. The girls' bathroom was dank and dim, its floor covered with a light mold from Myrtle's constant flooding. Outside, voices and footsteps echoed through the corridors, strangely distorted through the tiled walls: Harry must have rallied the school, people were starting to move. Ron's heart beat slightly faster as the gravity of the situation hit him yet again. Voldemort was coming. The Death Eaters were coming. To Hogwarts.

Hermione, still clutching the broom they had summoned from the Quidditch locker rooms, was standing close to Ron's shoulder, biting her lower lip anxiously. His eyes lingered for a moment on her face: it was ridiculous, but she looked even better than usual in the pale glow of the white bathroom tiling. Ron shook himself and tried to complete the thought he'd been speaking aloud. "We have to get rid of it now, before anything else happens. And the way to do that is down there."

"And you're sure it's…dead?" she asked timidly. Ron looked up with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, I'm not a basilisk expert, exactly, but getting stabbed in the head and then rotting for a good five years probably means it's well and truly done a bunk."

"Okay, okay," she said, hitting him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry that I'm not madly excited about jumping down a great dirty hole in a bathroom sink."

"I'll go first," he volunteered, sliding both legs into the pipe. Hermione's eyes widened and she grabbed his shoulder.

"Ron—Ron, be careful!"

"I'll be fine," he said with a confidence he didn't feel, and pushed off hard against the back of the pipe. The ride down was just as unpleasant as it had been when he was twelve, and the exit was even more abrasive to the back end. Picking himself up off the stony ground and swearing loudly, Ron nearly missed Hermione's call from above.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah! Come on down!"

There was a slight thunk as she climbed into the mouth of the tunnel. Remembering only just in time to get out of the way, he heard her go sailing off down the dark passage and land about as hard as he had—the result was a much louder and more vulgar swear word. Ron stifled a laugh and, lighting his wand, went to go help her up.

"That was…interesting," she said faintly, trying in vain to brush the muck and dirt of the floor off of her robes. Ron snorted and pulled an animal bone out of her hair. His fingers accidentally brushed her face, and a small charge ran through him. The darkness of the passage, only barely broken by the glow from his wand, seemed suddenly to be pressing them closer together, the warmth of her almost tangible. Ron felt his thoughts going slightly fuzzy as she turned to look at him, her brown eyes shining in the wandlight.

"Is it near here?"

"Is…what?"

"The basilisk?" she asked, looking slightly confused. Ron wrenched himself back to the present and cleared his throat: there was a war beginning above them, and the Horcrux cup was heavy and lead-like in his pocket.

"Yeah…just down here a bit…come on."

They began to walk down the corridor. It was even more damp and cave-like than Ron remembered, though he had been somewhat preoccupied with guarding the errant Professor Lockhart last time. Now, however, the fear that had settled in his stomach like a rock before, that Ginny might be gone forever, was replaced by a burning sense of purpose: destroy the Horcrux. They were so close, after all this time…Ron felt as though an invisible line was drawing him forward, pulling him towards the inevitable conclusion of a long, somewhat fragmented story. There didn't seem to be room inside of him for much beside the will that this be done: down here, in the dark and gloom, it seemed rather impossible that battle was drawing near overhead. Beside him, Hermione was glancing side to side, her shoulders hunched against the chill of the underground tunnel. Suddenly, Ron felt her hand clutching at his, sliding in between his fingers and squeezing hard. He squeezed back and quickened his pace.

Something suddenly entered into the small sphere of wandlight: a jumble of rocks, some scattered across the ground where they had fallen, others piled methodically by a small hole in the much larger mound that blocked the entire passage. Hermione gasped.

"What happened here?"

"Oh yeah…when Harry and I came down here with Lockhart, the smarmy git tackled us the second we let our guard down. Tried to wipe our memories with my bunged-up wand and blew a hole in the ceiling. What a credit he was to the Wizarding world, in the end," Ron added with a glance at Hermione. She ignored him pointedly, releasing his hand to pull her wand out and wave it at the boulders. They began to shift slowly, a great rumbling noise filling the cavern. After a minute or so, a sufficient gap had widened between the ceiling and the wall of rocks for the two of them to pass through. They scaled the boulders, slipping and sliding on the wet rocks, and then went down the other side just as precariously. Ron took the opportunity to touch Hermione again as he brushed algae off her shoulders.

The passage ahead was just as dark as the one behind the rocks, if not darker. Grasping hands again without looking at each other, they set off into the blackness, silvery light illuminating four or five feet in front of them. Long, silent minutes passed as they walked, pulses racing, the Horcrux bouncing off Ron's thigh and growing heavier by the second.

Hermione gasped again when they reached the giant stone snakes, their emerald eyes glittering, their smoothly carved bodies entwined around the open entrance to the Chamber. Ron felt an involuntary shiver go down his spine: Harry had never mentioned just how unnerving those snakes were. It was almost as if their dancing eyes were…shaking the thought off, he squared his shoulders and pulled a reluctant Hermione through the doorway.

The Chamber was gigantic, the size of a cathedral, and stoically watched over by the towering form of Salazar Slytherin at the farthest end. A faint greenish light seemed to emanate from the walls. A tingling whiff of ugly death seemed to linger in the air, and for a moment Ron's stomach clenched as he imagined Ginny, small and pale and dying, lying alone in this room…but no, Ginny was alive and well and if he pulled himself together, she might stay that way.

Ron and Hermione's gazes were drawn to the tremendous carcass in the middle of the room. The shining green skin sagged in decomposing folds over the great skeleton, and the smell of desiccated flesh made their eyes water. The basilisk's head lay beside the right wall: its mouth was wide open, razor-sharp fangs glinting in the light of Ron's wand. The ground beside the mouth was rather darker than the rest of the stone floor.

"Ink," Ron said softly, moving closer. Hermione followed, revulsion evident in her expression.

"Ink? What does that mean?"

"When Harry came back from the Camber…with Ginny…he was covered in blood and stuff, but ink as well. Remember what he said about the diary dying when he stabbed it? I bet this is where it happened…" He dropped to his knees, running his fingers over the black stain on the ground. Hermione stood behind him, gazing at the skull that was almost as wide as she was tall.

"Ron…the fangs," she whispered anxiously. Ron laid his wand on the ground, where it continued to glow, then stood and cautiously touched a fang near the front of the skull: Hermione squeaked and shuddered. It felt dry and cool beneath his hand, rather like the stone floor…with sudden determination, Ron wrapped his hand around the tooth and wrenched it from its socket. It came away with a dusty cracking noise. Hermione shrieked and jumped a foot in the air.

"Be careful!" she hissed, wringing her hands. "There's no phoenix here, in case you hadn't noticed, if you even prick yourself with that—"

"Hermione, will you be quiet and get down here?" Ron said angrily as he kneeled on the black patch of ground. Hermione fell silent, and when he looked up at her he saw that her face was stark-white.

"What…what do you want me to do?"

"You're going to destroy this one." He took the cup from his pocket and set it on the ground. It was trembling now, clinking in an almost comical way on the stone floor. The sound echoed in the chamber, magnified many times in volume and pitch. Ron offered her the fang, keeping the tip pointing towards the Horcrux, but Hermione stood frozen, her eyes wide as she stared at the long white tooth.

"What's keeping you? Come on!" Ron implored, trying to keep the urgency in his voice at bay. They were so close, so very close…why didn't she understand that this was how it was supposed to be? He hadn't known until he'd seen the cup squirming and shivering on the ground that Hermione had to be the one to destroy it, but the conviction had seized him firmly and kept him focused, his hands steady, his mind resolutely neglecting all but this final goal.

"W-why don't you do it?" Hermione stuttered, avoiding his gaze. "You've done it already with Harry, you know how, I just…I'll watch…"

"Damn it, Hermione, it has to be you!" It burst out of him, much angrier than he had meant to sound. "I did the locket, Harry did the diary, you need to do this one! We're in this together, all three of us, and if it hadn't been for you Harry and I would both be dead by now, that's the truth, but when it comes to this, we all have to go through it." She was still staring at him, her mouth half-open, her eyes pleading with him. He felt his resolve melting, and for a moment he considered…it would be so easy to plunge it into the cup now and end it, bring one chapter of this nightmare to a close. But that wasn't how it worked, Ron realized grimly. He remembered the assurance with which Harry had told him he had to destroy the locket. Now he understood…it was right that Hermione, like he and Harry, should erase the evidence of something so evil from the world. Outside, chaos was mounting, people might start getting hurt, even dying, who knows if any of them would come out alive, but it was important that whatever happened, Hermione had to feel the power and weakness of confronting the darkness they were fighting so directly. Ron ached with guilt as he gently took her wrist and pulled her to her knees beside him.

"Here," he whispered, wrapping her hand around the fang and withdrawing his own. "Just do it quick…before it has a chance to fight back."

"Fight back?" Her voice, though barely above a whisper, was steady.

"It might…say things. Really bad…cruel things. Just ignore it…kill it quick," he said softly, and before he could stop himself he touched her cheek again very softly, just brushing it with the tips of his fingers. Her eyes met his and they looked at each other for what might have been seconds, minutes, hours—time seemed to slow to a wonderful crawl, and if the Horcrux had not been angrily rattling on the floor and the basilisk had not been slowly falling apart behind them and their loved ones hadn't been gathering to fight to the death in the castle above, Ron would have kissed her, right then and there. His heart was beating painfully fast, and a new kind of fear began to spread through him as her brown eyes held him captive. Please…don't let anything happen to her…not after all of this…I can't lose her now…there's not a world I can live in if she's not there…

A sudden hissing noise made them both jump and turn back to the cup. The Horcrux was jumping about even worse now, and something like mist seemed to be pouring out of it: for a wild moment it reminded Ron of a particularly insistent tea kettle. But instead of steam, the mist seemed to move like smoke, living smoke that grew thick and opaque and coiled itself into a slim green snake with jewel-like red eyes. Its tail was still attached to the cup, but most of the snake hovered in midair like a horrible parlor trick: it hissed and spit, its eyes locked on Hermione. She began to shake as she stared at it, her knuckles whitening around the basilisk fang .

"Kill it, Hermione. Do it now." Ron tried to speak calmly, but he could hear terror in his own voice. It had happened like that before…a moment of hesitation, then Riddle's soul struck at the most tender spot…

"Hermione Granger…"

"NO!" Ron struck at the cup convulsively, a blind desperation to silence it dulling his mind: it didn't clatter away across the floor, but stood fast as if welded to the spot. It burned red hot when Ron's hand hit it, and he fell backwards with a yell.

"You wish to destroy me…you wish to prove that you have not acted in vain all this long time…but in your heart, you know…you know how you have failed…"

And Ron's stomach twisted as his own voice echoed from the snake's mouth, and suddenly it was not a snake, but his face, eyes crackling with red fire. It was the same kind of apparition that had appeared to him from the locket, that still cropped up in his dreams and made him wake in a cold sweat. The Horcrux-Ron grinned nastily at Hermione, who was frozen like a statue, the basilisk fang seemingly glued to her hand.

"How many times must I rebuff you before you realize how your delusions make you act the fool? How many times must I make it clear that the woman I want is strong and understanding and beautiful…everything that you are not, will never be, so frightened and unsure and judgmental…how could you ever imagine that you are more than someone to be merely tolerated?"

"Hermione, it's not real." Ron's voice crackedm but he spoke softly, trying to force some soothing steadiness into his words. Hermione was starting to shake violently, her eyes riveted upon the Horcrux-Ron's face. Ron swallowed through a bone-dry throat and leaned close to her. "That thing is trying to hurt you, just kill it and it will end, please Hermione, just finish it…"

"You have no power to finish anything," sneered Horcrux-Ron, and suddenly his face was changing, the red hair becoming black, glasses blooming from nowhere, a lightning scar slithering down his forehead…

"Months of failure, months of weakness when he left," Horcrux-Harry jeered, red eyes glinting madly. "First you could not keep him, he cared nothing for you, if he had he would not have left…and then you led me to folly time and again, always miscalculating…does it bother you to try so hard and fail so often? The real world is not tests and school…you should give up now, lay down the burden of failure while you can, let The Boy Who Lived finally succeed without your mistakes to hold him back…"

"Harry wouldn't say that," Ron said desperately, a tattoo of fear pounding in his ears. The Horcrux-Harry was laughing now, dissolving again into the vaguely familiar face of Hermione's mother, the eyes that in reality were so like her daughter's now a deep crimson.

"So ugly…so bookish…so different from other girls…is it any wonder I was glad when you proved a freak and I could shuffle you off to a school where no one would blame me for you?" said her mother's face, fire crackling in her mouth and in her words. "You shame us, your father and I, we are happy not to have a daughter, happy to be free of a daughter like you…"

"DON'T LISTEN TO HER!" Ron roared, his panic taking over. "That's not your mum, she isn't real—HERMIONE, COME ON, CAN YOU DO THIS OR NOT?"

Sudden rage split the blank horror on Hermione's face. She swung her arm so violently that Ron was knocked aside: the same moment his head smacked the black stone of the floor, Ron heard a loud metallic crunch and a scream that echoed throughout the Chamber before finally dying away with a raspy death rattle. Heart hammering, stars erupting before his eyes from the collision with the floor, Ron slowly sat up and looked down at where the cup had been. The basilisk fang had twisted it beyond all repair, its intricate working scarred and ripped. The fang itself clattered to the floor next to the cup: Hermione had dropped it. Her face was bloodless and shiny with tears. She was dry-heaving, trying to sob but finding nothing, her entire body shivering as though with terrible cold. Without thinking, Ron wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly against his chest. She shook violently for several minutes, her gasps eventually fading into real cries and then to silence and occasional hiccups.

"It's okay," he said quietly, at a loss for anything else to say. She whimpered a little and twisted her fingers in the folds of his robes. Ron lowered his nose to the top of her head and nuzzled her brown hair very gently. It was so strange: he'd dreamed about this, about being so close to her, for months, years really, but when they finally held onto each other without reservation or embarrassment…it was Voldemort who brought them together this way.

But no, it's not him, Ron realized as Hermione took a deep, slow breath and wrapped her arms around him more firmly. It's fighting him…it's risking our lives because it's worth it. That's why I can be with her now. We both know what might happen. And we both know it doesn't matter if we're scared.

But as Hermione's breathing matched his and she let her head rest on his shoulder, her breath warming the side of his neck, Ron felt a lurch of terrpr he could do nothing to control. It was one thing to be willing to die for the people you loved. But if the people you loved died…He tightened his embrace and stopped thinking. If this moment was the most he ever got, no one—not Voldemort, not a Horcrux, not his own fear—could stop him from enjoying it.