Hello everyone! I wrote this for a contest over at hallowedmoments, a Livejournal community featuring missing moment fics from Deathly Hallows. This has been beta-read, of course, so if this is wonderful as compared to my normal stuff, base it on that.
The dialogue is nearly all taken from the book, as well as the action, as it's not really a missing moment, but another point of view. That being said, read and review!
He's wearing the locket, Ron thought, rolling his eyes. Of course.
He could still feel the sting of the cold water against his face. His lungs ached from the cold and from going without air for so long. He coughed and sputtered before stepping closer to Harry. I'm going to have to get it off.
Ron couldn't bring himself to let go of Gryffindor's sword as he yanked viciously at the locket around Harry's neck. The chain broke easily, but Ron was certain that the locket could not be destroyed in a similar fashion. Standing up, he let out another cough before pacing around Harry. When Ron noted that Harry was indeed conscious (he raised a shaky hand to his neck and rubbed it slightly), he asked the inevitable question.
"Are—you—mental?"
It was surprising how quickly Harry managed to stand up. Ron was taken aback, but stood his ground. Harry seriously had some mental health issues, jumping into the pool like that with the locket around his neck. Ron was not going to let Harry get away with doing such an insane thing. Harry had certainly never let him get away with doing anything stupid, had he? Or had that been Hermione? Not seeing his two best friends for so many weeks had certainly made his memory of them a bit fuzzy.
Regardless, Ron wanted to give Harry a piece of his mind. When he went to speak, he was surprised that he was still gasping for air. "Why the hell," Ron spat out before taking a deep breath and lifting the locket in his hand, "didn't you take this thing off before you dived?"
Harry did not answer Ron immediately. He just stood there and stared at him for a bit before picking up his clothes and getting dressed again. He must hate me, Ron thought ruefully, dropping his arm so that he held both the Horcrux and Gryffindor's sword at his side. Hermione must hate me even more.
Although Ron's eyes remained on Harry, his mind was elsewhere. All of these weeks…this is going to be ten times worse than the canaries…she'll never forgive me. And yet, Ron somehow doubted that seeing Hermione again could be that bad, even if she did hate him. Even if Harry hated him, just seeing his face, red from the cold, brought some joy to Ron's heart.
Ron was pulled from his thoughts by Harry's voice. "It was y-you?" he stuttered. His teeth were chattering and his voice was not like Ron had remembered it. It was hoarse and husky. Perhaps his throat just hurt from nearly being choked, but Ron couldn't be sure.
And what exactly did Harry mean? Was there anyone else around that could have just saved his life? "Well, yeah," Ron said, sure that his confusion was showing on his face.
Harry's next question confused Ron even more. "Y-you cast that doe?" Harry asked.
"What?" Ron immediately asked. This made little sense to him. Wasn't Harry's Patronus a deer? Ron had just assumed that Harry was casting it. Didn't Harry know that Ron's Patronus was a terrier? Or had his memory grown fuzzy over these past few weeks as well? "No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!"
"My Patronus is a stag."
So that's why it looked funny, Ron thought. He'd noticed that something was different about the Patronus. "Oh yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers." He felt incredibly stupid, especially when he moved to gesture towards his head, but realized that both of his hands were occupied. He was fairly certain that Harry didn't notice, though.
Harry continued to dress himself, and when he picked up his wand, Ron felt his heartbeat quicken. For some reason, the wand made him think of Hermione, but he wasn't sure why. She probably remembers everything, Ron thought, reflecting on his own faulty memory as well as Harry's. She probably remembers how I made a total arse of myself. She'd probably enjoyed the past few weeks with just Harry. They'd probably gotten along just fine. Harry had always looked like a god in comparison to Ron, and if Hermione hadn't noticed that before, Ron was sure she knew it now.
"How come you're here?"
The question hurt Ron, and he felt himself gazing at the ground before raising his eyes to Harry's. "Well, I've—you know—I've come back. If—." Ron cleared his throat, pausing to think with regret, They don't need me here. They don't want me here at all. "You know. You still want me."
And so they stood there, staring at one another, or rather at the wall between them. In leaving Harry and Hermione, Ron had built a wall between himself and his two best friends, and he was fairly certain that demolishing it would take quite some time.
He desperately needed to change the subject, especially since Harry wasn't saying anything. Ron looked at his hands, and then back up at Harry. "Oh yeah, I got it out," he said, holding up the sword. It was very heavy, but he still managed to hold it properly with one hand, since the locket was dangling from the other. "That's why you jumped in, right?"
"Yeah," Harry said, a skeptical look on his face. "But I don't understand. How did you get here? How did you find us?"
Ron was tired, and he was sopping wet, which he just realized. He shivered before saying, "Long story. I've been looking for you for hours; it's a big forest, isn't it?" What was the point in explaining the Deluminator now? Harry would probably just think he was crazy, anyway. Ron was fairly certain that he'd never heard of a talking Deluminator. "And I was just thinking I'd have to kip under a tree and wait for morning when I saw that deer coming and you following." It was true, mostly. He'd just left out the part about the Snatchers and Bill and Fleur and Potterwatch and the Deluminator and the hill.
"You didn't see anyone else?" Harry asked.
Suddenly, Ron became paranoid. He had seen someone else. Or had he? It was probably just a trick of his imagination. "No," he said, glancing towards the trees. "I—I did think I saw something move over there, but I was running to the pool at the time, because you'd gone in and you hadn't come up, so I wasn't going to make a detour to…" Harry wasn't listening to Ron anymore. He was running off towards the trees, where Ron had just been looking. "Hey!" Ron exclaimed, standing his ground and watching Harry from afar as he inspected the area. "Doesn't even appreciate that I saved his life, bloody git," Ron couldn't help but mutter to himself. But by the time Harry had walked back to where Ron stood again, Ron realized that he was the bloody git, for leaving his two best friends like that, all over some bad cooking.
"Anything there?" Ron asked, realizing that there were more important matters to consider than who was the bigger idiot of the two.
"No," said Harry.
Now that Ron thought about it, he knew what was coming next. They'd been led to the sword by someone who knew they needed to destroy the locket. Therefore, Harry would probably want to get rid of the Horcrux, and then go back to the tent. This is going to be a long night, Ron thought. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Destroying the Horcrux would certainly be difficult, although it would be Harry's job. But Harry hadn't even showed anything more than awe at seeing Ron. If Ron's presence was bothering him, then perhaps Ron wouldn't be coming back to the tent to face an angry Hermione and a warm bed. In that case, he was going to make this take as long as possible. "So how did the sword get in that pool?" Ron asked, hoping to stump Harry just for the sake of prolonging their meeting for just a few more minutes.
Harry's response was immediate, to Ron's displeasure. "Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there."
Harry's words didn't make much sense to Ron, but then again, nothing had made much sense to him during the past few months. He noticed that Harry was now looking at the sword, his wand pointed at it, the Lumos spell cast. Again, a strange feeling came over Ron has he looked at Harry's wand. He didn't say anything, though. Instead, he followed Harry's gaze and stared intently at the ruby-hilted sword. Remembering that there was a double, Ron asked, "You reckon this is the real one?"
"One way to find out, isn't there?"
Ron shot a glance at the Horcrux dangling from his hand. The locket was twitching, but that didn't surprise Ron. He hated it, really. He couldn't blame his actions on the locket, but it had certainly filled him with a certain feeling of dislike and malice that he'd never felt for Hermione or Harry before. It had changed his thoughts—distorted them so that the slightest feeling of displeasure felt like the most supreme kind of hate. He felt himself squeezing the broken chain harder. The metal dug into his flesh.
"Come here." Harry's voice pulled Ron from his thoughts and caused him to loosen his grip on the chain. He was walking somewhere, and Ron followed him. When Harry stopped, it was to brush some snow off of an almost completely flat rock.
This was where the Horcrux was to be destroyed.
And so, Ron prepared to do what he thought was expected of him. When Harry stuck out his hand, Ron instinctively held the sword out. He would hold the locket down as Harry stabbed it. But Harry apparently had a different idea. "No, you should do it."
Shocked, Ron looked from Harry to the sword and back again. "Me?" he asked, incredulous. Since when was Ron the hero? "Why?"
"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you." He said it with such confidence and with such belief in his voice. Ron stood there, open-mouthed. He'd do it, but that was only because he trusted Harry, and he hated the locket. Now that he had his decision made, he dropped the locket without a second thought onto the rock.
Harry's next words, though, made Ron wish that he'd never let the locket out of his grip. "I'm going to open it." Ron's jaw dropped once more. "You stab it. Straightaway, okay? Because whatever's in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the diary tried to kill me."
No! Ron thought. He can't open it up! That thing…whatever's in there…! His troubled thoughts faded, though, although he still was a bit scared, when he realized that the locket was impossible to open. Or at least, in those troubled days when he'd worn it, it had never opened for him. "How are you going to open it?" he asked, hoping that Harry wouldn't have an answer.
Harry's next words held the same confidence as they had before, as if he'd known what to do all along. "I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," he said, looking down at the locket.
A wave of panic came over Ron. He was by no means going to be within touching distance of the Horcrux while it was open. It was bad for him. It had twisted around his thoughts and feelings until they weren't his own anymore—until he made Hermione and Harry resent him, even if Harry was acting perfectly civil now. "No!" Ron shouted. "No, don't open it, I'm serious!"
"Why not?" asked Harry. His voice was calm, if not a bit aggravated. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months—."
It had been months. Months of pure and utter hell, for Ron, and he supposed that Harry hadn't enjoyed the past few months much, either. Nor had Hermione—Ron knew that. But there was still that lingering feeling of hatred within Ron's body. He felt angry and weak just looking at the locket, its chain curled up on the rock. "I can't, Harry, I'm serious—you do it—."
"But why?" Harry interrupted.
"Because that thing's bad for me!" It was the only logical thing Ron could say, and he took a step backwards, as if the locket was going to jump off of the rock and latch itself around his throat. "I can't handle it!" He looked over at Harry, and saw the look on his face. He surely thought that Ron was pathetic, but what he said was true. If Harry opened the locket, whatever being was inside of it would surely do something terrible to Ron, or worse yet—cause him to do something terrible to those he loved. "I'm not making excuses, Harry, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affected you and Hermione, it made me think stuff…" He trailed off, not sure how to explain it. Yes, Ron had been aggravated by Hermione's sub par cooking and the constant moving and the sleeping in tents, but the locket had only amplified his irritation. "Stuff I was thinking anyway," he said, wanting to be honest with his best friend, "but it made everything worse, I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd get my head straight again, and then I'd have to put the effing thing back on—I can't do it, Harry!" Ron took a deep breath and shook his head. He felt like crying. Why had he come back? Sure, he'd saved Harry's life, but otherwise he was being completely useless. And he was just going to have to leave again, after the locket caused him to say or do some horrible thing or another.
"You can do it," Harry said, and the faith in his voice startled Ron. "You can!" The words Harry said reminded Ron of Hermione telling him that he'd do just fine at the next Quidditch match or that if he studied hard enough he could pass his Potions exam. "You've just got the sword; I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please, just get rid of it, Ron."
Ron took a step forward, his breathing still out of control. He wasn't sure if it was from talking so long just a few minutes before or from how scared he was. He had to do this, Harry was right. And it wasn't just because he'd gotten the sword out of the pool. Anyone could have done that. Harry could have, had the locket not been tied around his neck. Hermione could have, too, probably without even diving into the water. It wasn't the fact that he'd gotten the sword out of the pool that meant Ron had to destroy the Horcrux. He had to destroy it because there was no other way to destroy the wall that was currently standing between himself and his two best friends.
"Tell me when."
"On three," said Harry. Ron stood there, staring intently at the Horcrux, and heard Harry begin to count, "One…two…three…" And then, it came, a strange sort of hissing noise that filled Ron with dread. It was a sound that he would never forget.
The golden doors of the locket swung open with a little click to show two eyes staring back at Ron. They were dark and handsome and almost alluring. Ron found himself staring at them, entranced.
Harry's voice was sobering. "Stab," he said, and Ron saw that he was holding the locket steady on the rock. He raised the sword, embarrassed to find his hands shaking, and balanced the point over the eyes, which were rolling around and quickly glancing from right to left. He was about to thrust the sword into the eyes when he heard the voice.
"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."
"Don't listen to it!" Harry yelled. "Stab it!" Ron intended to follow his advice when the voice spoke again.
"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible…"
"Stab!" The voice came from Harry, but it was faint and distant. The only things that Ron could see were the two handsome eyes and Gryffindor's sword dangling above them.
Ron felt the sword tremble in his hands, but he knew that he was not holding it. He was sitting there, watching the scene before him, like it was on a Muggle television. He could feel his heart pumping wildly, and yet, he felt calm and relaxed. And he could sense that something was in his mind, dissecting every thought and urge and feeling that he'd ever had, but he felt neutral, thoughtless.
"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter…"
He was back in his body again, the sword shaking due to his tight grip on it. He felt small and weak, like a child again.
"Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend…"
He remembered now, what it was like to be sixteen again and to have Hermione not talking to him. What it was like to see her laughing with other friends. What it was like to be listening to the wireless in Shell Cottage and thinking, Where…where is she?
"Second best, always, eternally overshadowed…" But that was the least of it. He'd be overshadowed and loved any day.
"RON, STAB IT NOW!" Ron heard Harry's voice as if he were right next to him now, and raised the sword higher. And in that single movement, the eyes in the locket turned from a handsome brown-black to a terrifying, all too familiar crimson hue.
Out of the eyes grew two familiar-looking bubbles. Ron squinted in the darkness, trying to make them out. When he saw what they were, he yelled and jumped back, the sword falling to his side.
They were the heads of Harry and Hermione, grotesquely distorted. He stood there, watching their forms grow. Their necks appeared, and then their torsos and legs, until they stood there in the locket, beside one another and joined at the bottom.
The voice that came from Harry was the same as the voice that had come from the locket, except it felt so much more human and real to Ron. "Why return?" Harry asked. "We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence…"
So it's true! Ron thought, tears stinging his eyes. Why did I ever come back?! He meant to voice the words aloud, but they were trapped somewhere in his throat, dead before they were even formed.
Harry continued, growing more human-looking by the second. There was the scar, the glasses… "We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption—."
"Presumption!" Ron pulled his eyes from Harry and looked at Hermione. He felt a pull in his chest and in the pit of his stomach. She was so beautiful, but there was something evil about her and a cackle that he didn't recognize in her voice. Yet perhaps this was how she was now. He hadn't seen her in weeks, after all. She probably hated him, and he knew from experience that hate could turn someone evil. "Who could look at you?" she asked. "Who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you compared with the Boy Who Lived?"
The words hurt Ron more than any physical pain that he had ever endured. She's right. It's true. He'd lived his entire life being second best—to a more valued sister, to smarter, braver, better brothers. What made him think he could live up to his best friend? What made him think that being loved was more important than being the best, especially when no one would ever love him, let alone this beautiful, terrible Hermione?
Harry seemed to read Ron's thoughts. "Your mother confessed," he sneered, "that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange…" But he trailed off. Hermione continued for him.
"Who would prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him." She said it with a cold laugh before entwining herself with Harry and kissing him on the lips.
Ron felt like screaming. Of course this would happen to him! Why hadn't he seen it coming all of those years ago? There had been dirt on his nose, and he hadn't gotten on well with her cat, and she'd snogged that pompous Quidditch star, and he hadn't asked her to the ball on time or in the right way—he never did things in the right way, for her, and she'd gone to that stupid party with that stupid git who was ten times better than him…
But no. There was something about this scene—about this picture, that was wrong. There was something about the way Hermione and Harry stood there, embracing and kissing one another as if they'd done this every single day of their entire lives.
And that was when Ron remembered where he was. Harry was sitting on the ground near him, his bare hands touching the snow, yelling at him, urging him to destroy the locket. Even if the scene before Ron held some semblance of the truth, which it no doubt did, it was not real. It was a trick of Voldemort's—a last resort, and a pathetic one at that. Did Voldemort have to resort to taunting Ron like a twelve-year-old Draco Malfoy would in order to stop him from destroying the Horcrux?
Did it really matter if Hermione was in love with Harry? If Ron's mother preferred Harry over Ron? Ron let out an anguished scream, raised the sword, ran forward, and plunged.
The image was gone. There was only the shattered locket beneath the sword and the answer. It didn't matter. Harry and Hermione were still the best friends that he had ever had, whether they hated him now or not. His family, however little or much they loved him and however better or worse they were than him, was his family.
The feeling was overwhelming. It's over, Ron thought, dropping the sword with a clang that he did not hear and falling to his knees. He covered his head in his arms, shaking with the tears that would not stop coming. It's over. The war wasn't over, but this horrible moment was. The search for his friends had ended, and it had led to this—this foreseeable truth, what he should have expected all along.
He felt Harry's hand on his shoulder, and suddenly was embarrassed that he was crying. "After you left," Harry murmured, "she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone…"
Ron wasn't sure if the words were meant to be reassuring or criticizing. Either way, they both stung him and made him happy at the same time. Perhaps Harry and Hermione had missed him, after all. Perhaps they did need him. Perhaps they'd forgive him and perhaps they already had. They might not have needed him to destroy the Horcrux, but he had. They would have thought of something eventually, though. Just like they had eventually, somewhere along the long road these past few years had taken them down, fallen in love.
"She's like my sister," Harry continued. Just like the Harry that had come from the locket, he seemed able to read Ron's thoughts. "I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It's always been like that. I thought you knew."
Ron lifted his head, turning it away from Harry, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Now that he heard it, he immediately knew what Harry said was true. He'd believe Harry in a second. Why had he allowed himself to listen to Voldemort in such a fashion? He felt Harry's hand leave his shoulder and heard him walk away. Minutes before, Ron would have thought that Harry was leaving him—headed back to Hermione. Now, though, Ron knew that Harry was just allowing him to save some face.
When Ron approached Harry, he immediately said what needed to be said. "I'm sorry," he murmured, and was embarrassed to find that his voice was still thick with tears. "I'm sorry I left. I know I was a—a—."
He knew no words that could possibly describe what he had been. Out of all of the showy words that Hermione had taught him and all of the profane ones that his brothers had, there wasn't a single one that defined how he had acted.
Harry didn't seem to think that any word was needed, though.
"You've sort of made up for it tonight," he said. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."
Ron shook his head. He felt damp droplets flying off of his hair and realized that he was still wet from jumping into the pool. "That make me sound a lot cooler than I was," he admitted.
"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was," Harry answered. There was no humor in his voice, but Ron felt it there—a hint of laughter buried deep down. "I've been trying to tell you that for years."
They seemed to both be thinking the same thing, and walked forward and hugged. Thank you, Ron thought, but he didn't say it.
They broke apart, and Harry said, "And now all we've got to do is find the tent again."
The tent, Ron thought. Hermione is in the tent. The thought made him feel warm despite the cold and his damp clothing.
With Harry, finding the tent was not so difficult. Ron couldn't believe that he'd missed it before—he'd passed the spot where it was at least twice in his search for it. When the tent came into view, Ron felt his heartbeat quicken. Harry entered it eagerly, but Ron made sure to stay a few paces behind.
Ron gasped at the warmth of the tent. He stood there at the entrance, gazing at the cot in the back. A girl with bushy hair rested there, curled up in various blankets. Ron wanted to cry out—to run to Hermione. But he couldn't bring himself to do so. How would she react? He let Harry call to her instead.
When Harry said her name the first time, it startled Ron, but not Hermione. He said it again and again, and finally, she sat up, looking at Harry over the small blue flame sitting on the floor. "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice concerned, worried. "Harry? Are you alright?"
"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine. I'm great. There's someone here." There was a certain happiness to Harry's voice that Ron hadn't heard in ages, and he was glad that he was the cause of it.
"What do you mean? Who—?"
Ron caught himself smiling at the recognition in her voice when she saw him. He was holding the sword still and dripping on the carpet. He expected her to scold him for coming inside when he was such a mess. He heard Harry drop the rucksack that he'd been carrying for Ron, but after that it was as if the room was void of anything but Hermione.
She slipped out of her bed, more graceful than Ron remembered her. She was even more beautiful than the Hermione from the locket had been. Her eyes were small from sleep and her hair was messier than normal. He wanted to reach out and stroke it, but she was half a room away, heading towards him slowly. When she stopped, she stood in front of him, her lips parted. He resisted the urge to kiss her, wanting to let Hermione react as she wished. He gave her a weak smile, the sword still in his hands, and lifted his arms, expecting at least a hug. She hadn't seen him in weeks, after all.
But what he got was even better, if not painful.
"Ouch! Ow! Gerroff! What the—? Hermione—OW!"
"You—complete—arse—Ronald—Weasley!"
And there it was: the word to define what he'd been in leaving them. It was much simpler than he'd expected and only slightly foul. He could only think of three people who would scold him for using it: his mother and McGonagall and Hermione herself.
He tolerated the punches, listened to her yelling, and felt terrible about everything, and also slightly scared by her actions.
But there was one thought that comforted Ron.
He'd be sleeping in the same tent as Hermione tonight, and he'd never leave her or Harry again.