This was not working out. They'd been hunting horcruxes for months now with no luck. Harry could sense it, could feel it in Ron's brooding silences; he was getting fed up. Half of Harry agreed with him, wanted to chalk it up to a bad job and head back to the Burrow to see Ginny and Mrs. Weasley and all those other people who now seemed a galaxy away…but the other half of Harry was growing just as resentful of Ron as Ron was of him. He'd known what he was getting into when he'd decided to skip his 7th year at Hogwarts in lieu of a horcrux hunt, and with every grumpy mumble or roll of his eyes, Ron was inching closer to getting punched in the mouth. Accompanied with having to wear the locket and a lack of sufficient food, tensions were reaching a paramount in the tent that was, for the evening, standing near a lake somewhere in Wales.
"I've told you, Ron, I'm not going near that village. Have you forgotten the café after the wedding? Nowhere is safe, and I'm not sticking my neck out just so you can have a doughnut instead of wild mushrooms. Either eat it or shut it." Hermione, who was normally so even-tempered, had had enough of Ron's whining about her latest culinary experiment. It probably didn't help that she'd been wearing the horcrux for the past six hours. Not wanting to listen to a full-scale verbal brawl between the two, Harry got up from his place at the table and made his way to the stove where Hermione was clearly trying to hide her anger by assaulting the remaining mushrooms with a kitchen knife. After deftly sliding the locket over her head, he then placed it around his own and tucked the offending item into his sweater. She managed a small smile at him. He just gently touched her shoulder in understanding before heading back to his dinner.
Several hours later, after Ron had settled into a disgruntled slumber on the top bunk, Harry found himself outside the tent. It wasn't his turn to keep watch, but something in him felt like Hermione could use a break from everything. He couldn't help but admire her attitude. Ron was hard to be around sometimes, and on some occasions he simply had to take a walk…but Hermione handled it better. Her earlier outburst was a rare occurrence, and he would bet his entire vault at Gringotts that she was beating herself up about it.
Harry looked up quickly, a sound of rustling having startled him out of his thoughts. He drew his wand and moved his left foot underneath him, ready to jump up at the first sign of trouble.
"Relax, Harry. It's only me." Hermione spoke through the door of the tent. She poked her head out and cast a wary glance at Harry, assessing his state. She couldn't help the small giggle that escaped her when she noticed his expression. "Expecting a sneak attack out here in the middle of nowhere?"
"You say that like it's unlikely…have you forgotten that I'm Undesirable Number One?"
"Always with the humility, Harry. Ever think that maybe, just maybe, you could relax for five minutes? You're going to damper the cheery mood around here with all that talk of conflict." The sarcasm in her voice made Harry laugh, really laugh for the first time in a while. Humor was hard to maintain out here in…wherever they were, and Harry appreciated her attempt to lighten the mood.
"Wouldn't want that, would we?" The joke was short-lived as they both thought of Ron, his unpleasantness having been like a sickness these past few days. They'd taken to passing the horcrux between the two of them instead of including him in the rotation in an effort to better his mood, but it had made little difference.
"I just don't know how to help him, Harry." Hermione admitted in a pained voice. She looked up at Harry, her face full of despair, and his heart nearly broke. "He's so miserable. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to do this has a hobby…but it feels like we're losing him, Harry. It feels like he's slipping away into this…this anger. He's so angry. All the time. And I don't know what to do." She finished in a whisper, and Harry could see the moonlight reflecting off her tearstained cheeks. He had no idea what to do either, but he figured saying that would do more harm than good. Instead, he simply raised his right arm and allowed Hermione to snuggle against him, sensing that she needed the comfort of a friend. Inside, he felt just as hopeless as she sounded.