Disclaimer: Hermione and Ron belong to JKR. So does Voldemort, thank goodness. For Romione shipweeks. Warning: this is angsty and features a little graphic violence, and some strong language. Something fluffier is coming later in the week :)
"We have a problem," Ron said seriously, and she almost laughed. With Voldemort heading towards the castle, outnumbering their fighters by who knew how many to one, terrified children to evacuate and Horcruxes still to locate, there wasn't much that wasn't a problem right now. "Look," he said, pulling her further back into a corner, noticing Ginny eyeing them curiously. "Say Harry finds it. That's great and all—but how to we kill it? We don't have Gryffindor's sword anymore, and we don't have time to start a hunt for that, too."
Hermione pursed her lips. "There are other ways, but..."
"What other ways?" Ron asked eagerly. She didn't share his enthusiasm.
"We couldn't do it," she said. "If you...do you know what Fiendfyre is?" He turned pale, and nodded. "Yeah," she said grimly. "I read about it in those awful books. But I mean...I wouldn't dare risk that if we were on some deserted island in the middle of nowhere. In a castle filled with innocent people? No chance."
"Agreed," Ron said. "But there must be something else. Should we—don't laugh—have we got time to go to the library and—"
Hermione was already shaking her head. "The books on Horcruxes aren't there anymore, remember? And even if they get the slightest mention in another book, we'd never find it in time. Plus, Madam Pince is busy helping with the defences. We can't even ask her..." Ron swore angrily under his breath, and she felt like joining him. They had one Horcrux ready to be destroyed, and possibly a second.
And no way of actually destroying it.
She frantically wracked her brains for something, any hint that she'd once read that might possibly help. "Gryffindor's sword only worked because it had been impregnated with Basilisk venom," she said slowly. "That was the power of the sword. So, technically, all we need is some Basilisk venom, but I don't know where we'd get it. Even Hagrid's not stupid enough to keep one as a pet, though I suppose we might find some in the Potions storerooms...have you seen Professor Slughorn?"
"No, but—Merlin," Ron said, looking genuinely pleased for the first time in a long, long while. "I know where we can get some, now." Hermione looked at him expectantly. "The Chamber of Secrets."
She felt like she could have kissed him. "You," she said, "are a genius."
He tried for a modest smile, and almost made it. "Got the Cup?" he asked. She swallowed, then nodded. This was it. They'd have to do this, whilst Harry was busy. There was no time to lose. "Then let's go."
"Oi!" Ginny shouted, as they scrambled for the door. "Where are you off to?"
"Just have to go to the bathroom!" Hermione called, hoping that, if something went wrong, this would be a cryptic enough hint for Harry to decipher. She didn't want to mention the Chamber in front of Ginny unless she absolutely had to.
"This is no time to be powdering your nose!" she heard Ginny call back, as she disappeared. She let out a giggle, running after Ron, and he turned back and gave her the thumbs up over his shoulder.
"How are we going to get in?" she panted as they hurtled through the Transfiguration corridor.
"I remember what Harry said to the locket, and the Chamber," Ron said. "'Open', but in Parseltongue. I'll just mimic it."
They reached Myrtle's bathroom. It was flooded, but empty. Ron stood before the sink, looking nervous. "You can do it," Hermione said, encouragingly. "I'm right here."
He turned back and gave her a weak grin. "Thanks," he said. And then, he made an awful hissing sound. It sounded grim enough to Hermione, but they both stared expectantly at the sink, and watched...as nothing at all happened.
"Maybe it was more like..." Ron said, then cleared his throat before attempting the sound again.
Again, nothing happened. For nearly five minutes this went on—not long, but long enough to Hermione that she began to despair that they'd ever get in. She was just about to suggest waiting until Harry was back, and able to help them when there was a grinding noise and they both leapt back in alarm.
"That's it! Hermione! We're in!" Hermione jumped up and down on the spot, laughing with glee, until she saw the drop down to the Chamber, and realised what they were about to do.
"Is it safe?" she wondered aloud.
Ron gave her a look. "It's about as safe as living wild in a tent in woods filled with Snatchers for months on end," he said sardonically.
"Oh ha ha," she said. "I just meant—it would be stupid for us to get this far and then die falling down a sewer."
"Last time, it was sort of like...the most disgusting slide you can imagine," Ron said. "I don't think we'll die. I hope..."
Hermione thought for a moment. His slide comment had reminded her of a holiday she'd once had with her parents to Blackpool; at the Pleasure Beach, her Dad had gone with her on the Helter Skelter. She conjured a mat, and explained the plan to Ron. He waited as she sat on it, gripping the top of the entrance with both hands as he clambered on behind her, wrapping his hands around her waist. She tried not to think too hard about the feel of his chest and stomach pressing tightly against her back. She could not afford to get distracted.
"I'm going to release the sticking charm now," she said, letting go of the entrance with one hand to reach for her wand. She tried not to let her voice shake too much as she cast the charm, then made sure her wand was secured firmly in her jacket pocket. "On three, I'll let go, you shove."
"Got it," said Ron. He held her even tighter.
"One," she said, and he joined in her countdown, "two, three!"
She let go of the entrance just as he gave them an almighty push off, and at once they were hurtling down the pipe. Almost straight away, the mat slid out from underneath them, and she shrieked, then found she couldn't stop. Ron was yelling along with her, his voice a pitch lower but just as loud as they twisted around corners, sliding, sliding, sliding down. About halfway down, she hit something slimy and slipped out of his grasp; at the last second she grabbed hold of his ankle and clutched it like her life depended on it, screaming and screaming. "It's okay!" he yelled. "It's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay!" He continued to yell it the rest of the way down, and even though it was about as far from okay as it was possible to be, she found it strangely reassuring.
At long last, the slide seemed to level off and they slowed down. Hermione let go of Ron's leg and managed to roll slightly out of the way when she finished sliding, crashing only slightly into the side of the Chamber. Ron wasn't so lucky and hit the pile of rocks from several years ago. Two dislodged, narrowly missing falling on him, and they both held their breath, but the rest stayed where they were.
Hermione let out a shaky breath. She could feel panic rising in her, and they hadn't even done what they had set out to do yet. But she would defy anyone to sit where she was sitting, having done what she'd just done, and not feel sheer terror.
"Hermione? You okay?" Ron had half risen, and was kneeling in front of her, looking concerned. Clearly, okay was a relative term.
"I-I-I think so," she managed.
"Anything broken? Hurt?" he asked, giving her a once over. He'd lit his wand, and it was casting an eerie shadow on his face. She checked out her body carefully. Her knee hurt, where she'd banged it on a stone that was jutting out, and her elbow was grazed, but—
"I'm fine," she said, making an effort to control her voice. "You?"
"Nothing major," he replied. "Ready to go forward?"
"Wait a moment," Hermione said. She'd lit her wand, too, using Lumos, but once they were in the Chamber, who knew what they'd need to use their wands for? And they'd also need to be able to see. She conjured a jam jar, then expanded it, so it was almost the size of a beer barrel, and then filled it to the brim with flames. The burned blue, but bright and warm, filling the place with heat and light. If she, with her dirty blood, had to enter Slytherin's Chamber, she would take a bit of Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff with her.
"Ready?" Ron asked. He had been peering through the hole in the fallen rocks, and she'd heard him muttering the sort of defensive spells she'd been using all year, checking for other humans, for traps... She suspected that no one had been down there since he and Ron had gone with Lockheart to rescue Ginny half a decade ago, but she felt like nothing could be taken for granted these days, and was reassured that he was performing the necessary checks.
"Is it clear?"
"There's no one in there," he said. "And the Basilisk died years ago."
"Ron?"
"Yes?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. At least, I'm pretty sure it couldn't survive being stabbed, but..."
"Let me think," Hermione said. "I could modify the spell that shows if there's any humans in there, to tell us if there's anything living in there..."
"Do it," Ron said, sounding incredibly relieved.
She cast the spell. A few small flashes of light came back and Ron paled still further, but she shook her head. "Just rats," she said, "or maybe mice. Nothing bigger."
"As long as it's not spiders," he said.
"If they are, they'd have to be really big ones," she replied unthinkingly, then hastily added, "but I'm pretty sure that spell only works on vertebrates."
"Oh good," he said faintly. He insisted on climbing through first, and she took one long, lingering look at the barrel of flames before joining him. It's glow had been cosy and soothing in the little ante-chamber, almost like the firelight in the Common Room, but the hole in the bricks, combined with the sheer size of the Chamber overall meant that its capacity to light the place was limited. The Chamber seemed to glow eerily, the scuttling noise or rats or mice ("Please, please let them be rats and mice," she thought over and over) amplified several times over. And there, in the middle of the Chamber: the rotting carcass of a giant, lethal snake.
She immediately reached out to hold Ron's hand on seeing the remains of the basilisk, not for any other reason than just desperately needing the touch of another human and the knowledge that she wasn't alone. She'd have held Draco Malfoy's hand, if it had come to it, just to know there was someone there.
"Big, isn't it?" she squeaked. She found herself with a new respect for Ginny: to have faced that alone, at the age of eleven, not knowing if anyone would ever come to rescue her. Or had she not seen that, had Harry arrived by the time it appeared? But Harry himself had only been twelve: how had he coped? He hadn't known that this story would have a happy ending, hadn't known that not only he, but Ginny too, would get out alive. Had they ever both spoken about the moment the snake arrived?
She suspected that they had, and that she had heard the details of this story before, but right now the last thing she wanted to do was relive it.
Ron grunted in response to her question, and squeezed her hand tighter. She didn't know what he was thinking, but she could guess. "I'm—" Her mouth was so dry, she could barely get the words out. She swallowed. "I'm going to use a charm to release the fang that's in its mouth," she said, speaking slowly and carefully more for her own benefit than his. "I'm not going to summon it; that might be dangerous."
"Yes, that would be the only dangerous thing about this whole situation," Ron said seriously, and Hermione let out a terrified squeak of laughter.
"It should just drop, but...stand back. Just in case." She waved her wand, and the fang fell out as she had described. There was one tiny instant of relief, then the carcass wobbled slightly and collapsed further in on itself, making a terrible noise that echoed right around the chamber.
Abandoning all pretext, Hermione screamed and buried her face in Ron's chest. His arms twisted around her but she felt him trembling and shaking. He was back to repeating "it's okay" over and over, but it sounded more like he was begging for it to be true than believing it.
The noise stopped, and gradually, she moved away from him.
There was a part of her that was aware of how long they'd been down here—not long in the scheme of things, but long enough for Merlin only knew what to be going on above—and the sooner, she realised, they completed their mission, the sooner they would be back up in the Castle, where they would be needed. And the sooner they would be out of here. She moved away from him slightly, and pulled the Cup out of the beaded bag that had come so far with her. She set it on the ground, and stood a few metres back from it. She had half expected a reaction from the Cup, some kind of resistance, as though it could know what she was going to do, and try to resist. But, of course, nothing happened. It just looked very small, in the cavernous Chamber.
Ron had gone to pick up the fang and carefully carried it over, placing it next to the Cup. They stood back and watched both for a moment. "Aren't you going to..." she began, looking up at him.
"I think," he said carefully, looking her directly in the eye, "that this is something you need to do."
"I can't," she said at once. "I'm so scared." A single tear inched its way down her face at the admission. She had held back most of her terror for so long, but saying that aloud had made it somehow much more real, and the hysteria she had been on the edge of threatened to take over.
Ron nodded, then reached over and brushed it away. "I know," he said. "But I'm right here. And—I've just got this feeling. It needs to be you who does it. You should have the pleasure of killing one, given all the awful camping, and running away, and fighting, and organising and just everything we had to do go through to find the damn things. It just feels right."
She hated instinct, feelings and guesswork. She needed logic, sound reasoning, facts. Ron was stronger, physically, than she was, and he'd also done this once before. It made total, logical sense that he should be the one to kill it. And yet, she found herself picking up the fang, turning it over in her fingers.
"Okay," she nodded.
"It's okay," he said again, and they exchanged smiles.
And then she reached forward, hesitated for one moment, and plunged the fang into the Cup.
Immediately, something rose up out of it, and Hermione recoiled, expecting Voldemort. It wasn't him. Instead, Hermione found herself faced with...herself. This was the person she looked like at her weakest moments, the person she thought she was when she stared in the mirror hating her body. Her face was spotty, scabby, her hair wild and crazy. She was boyish in all the wrong places, totally flat-chested with no waist to speak of, and heavy in others, weight clinging to her thighs and arms. Her lips were too thin, her eyes too close together, her feet too large and flat-footed. Her posture was hunched, and her fingernails bitten raw. This Hermione was wearing makeup, but it looked like it had been applied by a five year old, or possibly someone who couldn't see: it was what she feared she looked like every time she picked up one of the colourful sticks that seemed to be so easy to use if you were Ginny or Lavender or any other woman.
"Take a good look at yourself," this Hermione said. "Take a good, long look. This is who you are. This is as good as you can ever hope to be. And how will you ever, ever make him love you when you look like this?" This Hermione's voice was shrill and shrewish—and the worst part was, it wasn't even an exaggeration. That was what she sounded like, in her worst moments. She knew it.
"You will fail," this Hermione said. "You will fail at making him love you, like you failed to make him stay. You will fail at destroying me, and you will fail to win this war. You think it is possible that you won't? You think anyone will ever accept you, with your dirty blood, into this world? It doesn't matter how clever you think you are, how many books you read. You will never, ever be good enough!"
She trembled and shook, watching this shrieking, twisted hag—this person that she was, and not even that deep down—as she poured out everything she knew to be true. "You will fail at this like you have failed at everything else you have tried," this Hermione said.
"You have never been able to make friends. You have never been able to make anyone love you, or to make anyone stay. And when you did, think of the number of times you've managed to lose them. If you think that anyone will stay around to watch you fail, you are wrong. Your parents didn't, did they? That relationship was broken long before you sent them away. You are unloveable. Do you think, if that weren't true, they would have been so easily susceptible to the Memory Charm? Do you think it's because you're clever, that it worked so easily first time? Of course it's not. It's because they were easy victims, these people who are supposed to love you above all else. They don't. Even if you survive this, if you make it to Australia, what's the point of bringing them back? They're happier without you in their lives. They never needed you, those stupid Muggles, even when you brought magic into their lives."
"Hermione! Hermione!" Ron appeared to be shouting at her, all but bellowing, growing redder and redder in the face. He was standing so close she should have been deafened, but his voice seemed to be coming from down a long tunnel, far far away. "Don't listen to him, Hermione! He's trying to trick you, he's using your fears. Don't listen!" It was like she was listening to something on a radio that was only half-tuned to the station. Where his words weren't fuzzy, she couldn't absorb them. He had to be lying.
The spectral Hermione cackled. "Listen to him! He thinks this is some figment of Voldemort, the idiot. He doesn't know, does he? This isn't some Dark Lord—it is you. There's no evil forces at play here—unless, oh yes. You're evil, deep down, aren't you? Some Gryffindor. And what about him?! You can't even get someone that stupid to fall in love with you. There really is no hope, is there?"
Something stirred in her, a buried need to defend Ron against this...this creature. If she could not save herself, she would save him. "He isn't stupid!" she protested. She had meant to sound brave, defiant, but she sounded unsteady and unsure, like a child whose favourite toy had been removed.
The other Hermione screeched with laughter again.
"He is stupid! Not for leaving, but for coming back to you—what do you have to give him? Nothing, that's what. You don't have anything to offer anyone, do you? Harry's only using you for your brains. And what about when they fail? Ron's only your friend because Harry needs you. And the rest of your friends only put up with you for their sake. No one will ever love you here because of your dirty, stinking blood, and you think you're too good for the Muggle world now. You can't fit in anywhere, can you?
"You've got to give up, Hermione. You can't stop this. You will fail, just like you have already, and just like you are going to for the rest of your life. Just give up now. Who knows? It will probably be less painful than waiting around to die when the Dark Lord appears. His Death Eaters will kill you, but they will torture you, and you couldn't stop that before, could you? You certainly won't be able to do it now. Just do it. Stop this. End it. On your own terms. And this can be the one thing that you don't fail at, yes?"
Hermione turned the Basilisk fang over in her hands, feeling its smoothness. She closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of the spectre who was now listing every mistake, every bad decision, every failure she could remember, dredging up long forgotten memories that only added to her list of regrets. It had begun with her Muggle life, primary school and the friend's she'd failed to make there; all the times she'd disappointed her parents before listing the blunders she'd made at Hogwarts. These were so much worse, because they showed how she would never, ever truly belong in this world, no matter how hard she worked. Now this Hermione was describing Ron, his injuries that she had caused when they escaped from the Ministry, how he'd left, her fault, of course, for not understanding and helping him... And Harry too: how she hadn't killed him in Godric's Hollow was a miracle she didn't deserve, and what if she had? Ginny would stop at nothing to end her, too, joined by Molly Weasley for daring to endanger her two favourite sons.
And the longer she lived, the more failures she would have. There was no point in pretending otherwise.
"Hermione!" Sheer terror in Ron's voice, stronger than any she'd ever heard in him before, made her open her eyes and look at him again. Without realising, she had lifted the Basilisk fang so that it was level with her Jugular. "Don't you fucking dare."
He'd never sworn at her before. He'd sworn in her presence, yes, daily, but that was just Ron, and he'd directed a few 'bloodies' and 'shites' her way, but he had never directed that word at her before, and it stopped her. "Kill it!" he commanded, and he nodded at her, encouraging her forwards as she lowered the fang slightly. "I believe in you. You are not a failure."
"Don't listen to him, he knows nothing! How could anyone know you better than yourself?" the other Hermione shrieked. "If you can't love yourself, no one else will love you."
Hermione gripped the Basilisk fang, and met Ron's eye. He still looked absolutely petrified, but still managed to give her the tiniest of smiles. "That," she said, her voice shaking, "is not true."
"You don't deserve life!" this Hermione screeched, and she smiled. This, finally, was proof that it was not really her, behind that mask. She did not believe that.
She picked up the fang and stabbed the Cup again, over and over and over. It tried to resist, rolling this way and that, but each time she lowered the fang it hit it, her coordination—never something to be proud of—suddenly spot on. She hit the right spot again and again and again, and something—she didn't know, or want to know, what—spurted out of the Cup like blood.
The spectral Hermione screamed and cried and yelled, sounding like she had when she was being tortured, and the memories that brought back were almost too much, she almost had to stop. But she looked across the chamber at her barrel of flames, and remembered how that was the first spell she had attempted that had worked straight away. She remembered that that had been the first time she had thought that she might be really, really good at this magic thing, and it steadied her.
By her side, Ron was whooping and cheering her on, and for one bizarre moment it was like she was back at a Quidditch match with her friends, shouting Go Gryffindor and you can do it and a thousand other things, enjoying the feeling of being surrounded by people she loved, and who loved her, more than the actual game itself. She listened to his voice calling out encouragement and tried to block out her own screams, stabbing the Cup again and again and again until the spectral Hermione disappeared and the Cup was just a slightly smoking, twisted piece of metal on the ground.
With shaking hands, she dropped the Basilisk fang and it clattered on the stone floor for a brief moment and then—silence.
Ron had stopped cheering, but his voice was slightly hoarse when he said, "Hermione? I...I think you did it." She wanted to say something—anything—but it was like her spectral self had taken her real voice with her, because she could not think of any words, and did not remember how to put them into a sentence, anyway. "Hermione?" he pressed again. He sounded nearer now, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the twisted mess of metal on the ground. "Are you okay?"
She started to tremble, her body shaking so hard that her teeth were chattering; her heart was beating so fast that it hurt, and breathing was becoming impossible—she was gulping in huge gasps of air but still felt like she was drowning, unable to get enough air in her lungs, and there was a roaring noise in her ears but—
And then Ron's arms were around her, and she leaned into him and shook and shook as he held her. They were sat on the floor of the Chamber but he had pulled her half onto his lap and he kept his arms around her as she began to sob as well as shake and gasp, but he did not let go. He squeezed her tightly, and gradually, she became aware of other things, too: the slime on her hands, the coldness of the stone floor on through her jeans, the smell of Ron's jacket.
In the distance, she could see her flames, still burning bright.
And, here, she could hear Ron: "...all going to be okay, you know? I'm so proud of you. You're so brave. You did that all yourself, and now it's gone. And you're gonna be okay, okay? Just stay here with me, and—" He was speaking slowly and carefully, his voice low and soothing, and it reminded her of being read a bedtime story as a child.
"Ron?" she whispered. Her voice croaked; her mouth was dry, and had a slightly metallic tang. She realised she had been gritting her teeth so hard she had almost managed to draw blood.
He stopped talking at once, but if anything, tightened the hold of his arms around her. "Yeah?"
"I want my Mum." It wasn't what she had thought she was going to say at all: the words fell out before she could stop them, but they were the truth. "I...I just really, really want my Mummy." A tear slid down her cheek, followed slowly by another, but this was not the panicked sobbing of a moment ago, this was months of pent up sadness and she leaned into his chest as he stroked her hair.
"I know," he said carefully. "But. We're going to get out of here now. And then we're going to...we're gonna do what we have to do, then d'you know what we're going to do?" He sounded so serious that she sat up, looking him in the eye, and he held her gaze. "We're gonna go to Australia. We'll get a Portkey, loads of 'em or we'll fly or we'll swim the goddamn ocean if we have to and we will get them back."
There was no question that he wouldn't be coming with her. "We'll...I'll even go on one of those hairy planes if I have to!" he said, and she gave a quick little gasp of a laugh, one that was accompanied by tears but was still more of a laugh than a sob.
Her voice shook, still, as she said, "Aeroplane," but he just nodded. "We'll do that," she said, and then let out a very long, slow breath.
"Hermione," he said. "You did it."
"I almost couldn't," she replied, but he shook his head.
"You did it," he repeated.
"It said—"
"No!" he said. "Don't listen to it. When I...the Locket...it said worse."
She blinked over at him. "What did it say?"
Ron took a deep breath, and almost said something, then shook his head. "I'll tell you," he said. "I will. But not down here. I...I can't say it down here."
She nodded at this, understanding. "One day," she said lightly, like the future was something that might actually happen to them, and he reached down and squeezed her hand quickly.
"One day," he agreed. "But for now we need to think about getting out of here, because we're—oh. Oh! Hermione!"
"What?!" she asked, instantly alert. She struggled out of his grip, reaching for her wand, then realised his tone had been happy, not scared. More than happy—he sounded delighted. Ecstatic. Overjoyed. "What is it?"
He was pointing to a pile in the corner, but she could quite see what it was, but he was scrambling to his feet and she got up too, clinging on to him because her legs were still a little shaky. "Oh yes," he was saying, whooping. "Oh, yes yes yes! Get in!"
"What is it, what is it?" she asked, half-laughing. She was still holding his hand, and he led her over to the pile.
"Basilisk fangs!" he sound proudly, but she had seen and understood what he meant, and she matched his delighted grin. "It must've...shed its fangs? Is that how it works?"
"I don't know," Hermione said. "I suggest we bring Hagrid down here and ask him immediately."
Ron laughed. "But seriously—they'll have the venom on them, right?"
"Yes," Hermione said. "I should think so. Hang on..." A bit of rummaging in the cavernous clutch bag bought out a sheet. "It's the groundsheet, I charmed it to be impermeable. So, we can gather the fangs onto here, tie it up, and carry them safely up with us—"
"And it won't matter that we don't have the sword anymore," he finished excitedly, already helping her to spread the sheet on the ground. "Hermione, you're a genius!"
She shrugged. "You're the one who spotted them," she replied, as they began to accio the fangs onto the sheet.
"By the light of your flames," he said, nodding towards the barrel.
"Between us, then," she said.
"I'll be your eyes, and you can be my brain," he said.
"No," said Hermione firmly. He looked up. "You don't need me to be your brain. You're more than good enough."
He gave her the tiniest of smiles, then fumbled summoning a fang, sending it shooting into the far wall. "Maybe I won't ask you to be my brain when I play Chess, then," he said, and she giggled.
"I think we might have enough, now," she said after a moment. Ron agreed, and the two of them worked together to gather all four corners of the sheet together, then secure it with a rope.
"I don't think we should let this out of our sight," Ron said, once it was done. "We'll take it back to the Room of Requirement, meet Harry there, but we should destroy the sheet once we're up there, in case it's got any of the venom on it, and if it looks even remotely like all these will fall into the wrong hands—"
"They need to be got rid of at once," she nodded. "There's still some down here, so if we had to we could come back to destroy another Horcrux. Though I'd really rather not," she shuddered.
"I know," Ron said with feeling. Hermione looked at the floor, remembering the spectre of herself. Barely five minutes could have passed since she'd destroyed it, and yet she somehow felt as though she'd grown a foot since then. She had survived that, she thought, so she could probably survive anything else that the night would throw at her. And she had a feeling that there would be a lot.
"Hey, Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"I'm really, really proud of you," Ron said seriously, and she felt her eyes fill with tears again. This time, though, they felt soft and comforting, and she gave him a wobbly smile. "And I'm really, really glad you're my best friend."
His voice cracked slightly on the word 'best', and she realised with a jump that this was probably the first time he'd ever said that she was his best friend over Harry. And it wasn't like she'd ever minded, before, coming "second" to Harry, because she loved him too much to feel resentful. And besides, ranking your friends was ridiculous. They were your friends, they didn't need to be rated.
But, in that moment, it was just what she needed to hear.
"Thanks," she said shyly. "And...I couldn't have done it without you."
"Well, obviously," he said, going for levity and almost managing it. "You would never have remembered the existence of the Chamber like I did, and as for my ability to slide down that pipe, well you've got nothing on me..."
Hermione shook her head, and took a step forward. They were standing very close now, and she reached out and put a hand on his arm. "I'm glad that you were with me. I couldn't have done it with Harry—or anyone else."
"Hermione..." He met her gaze, reaching out tentatively to brush a strand of her disgusting, wet hair off her cheek. "You would have managed it. You're amazing, you are..."
"Maybe," she shrugged. "But...I'm glad I didn't have to."
His lips parted ever so slightly. They were so close now that, had she been as tall as him, their noses would have been touching...he bent down and she tilted her head back...her eyes were closing...
A tremendous crash from somewhere far above them made them both spring apart, and Hermione looked away, needing a moment to collect herself. She was gripped her wand again, her body already in fight mode, and a quick glance at Ron saw him doing the same, though the tips of his ears were pink. "Wh-what do you think that was?" she said, her shaking voice betraying not just her nerves.
"Don't know," Ron said shortly. "But something loud enough that we can hear it down here can't be good. We should get back."
"You're right," she nodded. "Hang on a moment." She waved her wand at the pile of fangs. "Featherlight Charm," she explained, indicating the pile. Ron picked it up, nodded once, then pointed at the Cup.
"We need to bring it with us," he said. "I can take it, if you want, but—"
"No," she said. "It's okay. I've got it." And she picked it up. It held no fear for her now, and felt normal—just a twisted, squashed piece of metal. Ron grinned.
He indicated for her to climb back through the hole. She did so, shrinking the barrel of flames to its usual jam jar size as he followed her. "Still got your bag?" he grunted, pulling the bundle through.
"I never let it out of my sight," she confirmed.
"If there's anything going on up there, you should take the fangs up to the Room of Requirement to meet Harry," he said. "You can shove them in your bag, if you need to, and I'll stay and hold off anyone...unwanted."
"No!" Hermione said at once. "You should take them, you're a faster runner than me and—"
"Hermione," he said. "I will stay and hold them off." She didn't like it, but she sensed that she'd get nowhere arguing with him, and they'd only waste precious time.
"Okay," she said reluctantly. "I'll take them and find Harry as quickly as I can. Hopefully, he and Luna have had some success in finding the Diadem."
"Hopefully," Ron agreed. "Though—hey. Guess what?"
"What?" Hermione frowned.
"Diary, gone. Ring, gone," he said, a grin forming on his face. "The Locket, gone."
"The Cup, gone," Hermione said proudly, her smile matching his.
"That's four things," Ron said. "Five—Nagini. If Voldemort's coming to Hogwarts, we're at least gonna be able to get our hands on the snake. We can give a few people fangs—not just me, you and Harry, but Neville or Lupin or Bill, or anyone we trust, tell 'em to kill the snake, with one of these. We don't have to say why, but—"
"But with enough people looking out for it, it will happen. We'll say it's part of the mission from Dumbledore, that it has to happen," Hermione said excitedly. "That just leaves the Diadem, which Harry's pretty convinced is somewhere in the castle, and again, we can get the DA, the Order looking for it, give them a fang again, or just tell them to bring it straight to us and we can destroy it—"
"Which means that he can be killed!" Ron finished triumphantly. "Christ, Hermione. This could be over."
"It's not over yet, though," she warned. "We can't get cocky. You're right though, we need to spread the word about Nagini to as many people as we can trust, to increase our chances. If Voldemort realises what's going on, he's not going to let it out of his sight. But Harry is confident about the Diadem, and if—" She was cut off by another loud bang from upstairs, and the both looked up, even though there was nothing to see.
"We need to get back up there," Ron said, and she nodded.
"Yes. But—how? What did you do last time? We can't exactly climb, it's too slippery... Is there another exit?"
"Last time, we all held onto each other, and you know Fawkes had arrived? Well, Harry held onto his...tail feather things, and he pulled us up. So we flew," explained Ron. "But we don't have any brooms, but...Ginny!
"Pardon?"
"Ginny's got a broom in the broomshed," he explained. "It'll take a moment for it to get here to us, but...do you have any other ideas?"
"Nothing as straightforward," Hermione said. "Go for it." Ron summoned the broom and they waited. And waited.
"Christ," Ron said, pacing up and down. "It's all the way over the other side of the castle, so it'll take a moment for it to get here, but that's only if it worked—what if she took it home at Easter? Or someone might see it—even someone on our side—and try to stop it. And what if—"
"Shut up!" Hermione said. Ron stopped pacing, and she felt immediately guilty. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't meant to snap. But please don't talk like that. I can't stand the thought of being stuck down here!"
"We won't be stuck," Ron assured her. "You said you had an idea, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but it's not great," she admitted. "I'd thought I might transfigure one of our guideropes from the tent into something we should use to climb up the pipe with, use a sticking charm to attach it to the wall of the bathroom up there, and..."
"No offence, but that is a bit rubbish," Ron said.
"It's awful!" Hermoine agreed. "Or one of us could stay down here, and charm the other one to fly and send them up the pipe, but..."
"Wingardium Leviosa," grinned Ron.
"Something like that," she replied. "But we'd better hope Ginny's broom—" She broke off hearing a slight scraping noise, then a small thud and then—
"Thank you Ginny's broom!" Ron shouted at the top of his voice. "Okay. Let's do this."
He helped her onto the broom, then hopped on in front. "I've got the fangs," he said, indicating the pile.
"And I've got the Cup," she said. "And my bag. We're ready. I'm going to get rid of the flames now." Immediately, the Chamber was turned into almost total blackness. There probably was some light filtering down from the pipe above, but it was so far away, and so little, that neither of them could see anything. "Ready to get going?" she asked, her voice quavering. It seemed silly to be afraid of the broom, after everything else that had happened, but she had never truly enjoyed the experience, and it was bringing back horrible memories of flying on the dragon. Had that only been a few hours ago?
"More than," Ron replied with feeling.
"Okay," Hermione said. With her right hand, she reached out, groping blindly, and met his fingers and hand, doing the same thing. Without saying anything, their fingers locked together, his warm, calloused hand providing more comfort than anything ever had. She smiled into the darkness.
He squeezed her hand tightly, then let go "On three, I'll kick off," he said. "We won't go too fast; I don't want to crash us into a wall but remember to keep your head down low, okay?"
"Okay," she said again. She wrapped her hands around his waist, clinging tightly to his jacket. "I'm ready," she said.
"One...two...three!" Like before, she counted with him, and as they lifted upwards—at a much gentler pace than how they'd come down—he leaned back into her ever so slightly.
She knew, logically, that she should have been scared: there were the immediate dangers of sliding off the broom, or her hitting her head on the wall of the pipe and concussing herself or worse, and there was the possibility that, when they arrived in Myrtle's bathroom, it might be occupied—and not by Myrtle herself. But even if none of that happened, and they arrived safely and got back to the Room of Requirement without incident, there was still the incredible danger that they, and everyone else would be in, given that the Castle was under attack. Would Voldemort sense that another Horcrux had been destroyed, would that worsen his anger? Could he know who had done it, and would he come after her?
She could think of a million other reasons to be scared, too, but in that moment, she did not feel fear. She had conquered some of her own demons in killing the thing living inside of the Cup, and she also felt like she had killed part of what had turned inside her, when she had worn the Locket for so long. One day, she knew, she would have to talk to Ron about that, she would have to let him know that he was not the only person tempted towards malevolence by the charms of what had lived inside it.
Against all the odds, she hoped that they were both around to have that conversation. Because she also did not feel scared because she knew now what she had suspected for a long time: that as long as they were both still living, she would never be without Ron's support. He might not always be able to hold her hand or stand by her side physically, but he would always, always be there for her—as she would be for him.
She tightened her own grip on his jacket as they neared the entrance back into the bathroom. Once they were back on solid ground, they would need both their hands free, ready to fight. But for one more tiny moment, she could feel his body intertwined with hers, and know that they could not be separated.
She might fail at more things, in the future—she almost certainly would, if she lived through the coming night—but she would not fail him.
A/N: I really, really wanted them to kiss. But then I remembered the kiss scene, which is—and will probably always remain—my favourite first kiss scene ever, so I had to leave it. I'm sure Ron and Hermione really, really wanted to kiss, too, but I bet they've made up for it loads by now :)