Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series or anything affiliated with Harry Potter. It's all J.K Rowling, guys.

So I really liked this chapter, and I decided to manipulate it so that Ron never came back and Hermione had to rescue Harry. Many things are similar, but this is Hermione's story not Harry's - at least for the moment.

Dramatic and angsty! Please review on your way out :)

Harry, Hermione, and the Deathly Hallows

Chapter Nineteen:

The Silver Doe

"Oh, Harry," Hermione breathed, "you must be freezing!" She was shivering from head to foot, pale as a sheet. The water seemed to permeate through her skin and was now rushing, ice-cold, through her veins.

Harry was getting to his feet, sword in his hands after he had picked it up from the ground beside Hermione. "Never mind that," he said roughly, and handed her the sword. "I'm going to open the locket, and you're going to kill it."

Hermione looked stunned. "W-what? Me? Are you sure? You're the one who tried to -"

"That doesn't matter, you're the one who got it in the end," said Harry. He dropped to his knees and fingered the locket over his chest. He ripped it off and laid it against the rock before him.

"But -"

"Dumbledore may have left me without telling me a lot of stuff," Harry said slowly, examining the locket with mild revulsion, "but he did teach me a lot about certain types of magic."

"How are you going to open it?" whispered Hermione, her eyes widening slightly at the prospect of facing abstract torture once the locket was opened. She gripped the sword tighter, and appreciated its immense weight upon her cold and weak hands. She stuck the sword in the ground and held its thick hilt.

"Do you – do you need the sword?"

Harry looked at the large S engraved on the locket."No, not the sword."

Hermione paused. "Snake," she said quietly, her eyes never leaving Harry's.

Harry gave her a stiff nod and, green eyes blazing with weariness and fierce determination, said, "Open."

Before it could dawn on Hermione that Parseltongue had been the most obvious choice for opening the locket, she jumped at the dark, living eye that was peeking out at her from the glass window.

"Riddle's eye," said Harry grimly, and then much more urgently, "stab it now, Hermione, before the thing starts to put up a fight."

But Hermione was frozen, feeling quite drowsy, and the eye was blinking back at her…a human eye.

Harry pressed the locket more firmly down on the rock. "Hermione, do it now!"

"I have seen your blood, and you wish you had mine."

"Hermione, ignore it! Stab it now!"

"Mudblood," the voice from within the Horcrux breathed, "always trying hard to make herself belong in a world in which she will never belong too…she will be alone, living in a world where all her friends have perished, and she will be alone…"

"HERMIONE!"

She was shaking now, not out of cold. Her fingers tightened around the hilt and made to take it out of the ground, but the voice spoke again, and her resolve collapsed.

"Unworthy of a pureblood…"

"Hermione, don't listen to it -" Harry began and the locket began shaking violently, and then two figures began to sprout from the windows of the locket, one with messy hair, the other long and curly.

Though dark, it was unmistakable who the shadows represented.

Hermione mustered enough strength to pull the sword out of the wet soil, but then it fell on its side as she wilted. She looked into Riddle-Ron's face with silent misery. But it was Riddle-Lavender that spoke first.

"He never seriously considered fancying you, Granger!" she shrieked, and giggled. Riddle-Ron put an arm around her. "Why would he ever love an ugly thing like you? If you don't have the blood, at least have the looks, not books!"

Hermione's knees felt very weak, and she ignored Harry's desperate cries. She sank down, her knees digging into the damp soil. The Riddle figures looked down upon her.

"That is where you belong," Riddle-Ron said softly, dangerously. "On your knees, beneath a pureblood! You do not belong here, mudblood!" He was not smiling.

The air had gone out of her lungs. Her eyes were filling with tears, and in surrender, they fell hot and fast. Like witnessing a horrific accident, she could not tear her eyes away from Ron.

"The sword!" said Harry loudly, and yet not loudly enough to propel her to her feet and get rid of the terrible shade of Ron.

"Ron," Hermione whispered in a voice that sounded far, far away. She ran her hand lightly around the ground, stroking it absently. "Please…"

"Look at her! Blubbering like the filth she is!" Riddle-Lavender cried, and gave Riddle-Ron a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Hermione recoiled and felt all the blood gush to her face. She groped around until she felt the blade. She grabbed the sword.

"Hermione, hurry!"

"You never paid me any mind, not that I would have taken it," Riddle-Ron said indifferently. "Harry was your only true friend."

Hermione stood up numbly, and with all the strength she could muster, she looked into the eyes of the locket, staring defiantly back at her. She raised the sword over her head, knowing that she could drop it at any moment. She must kill it. Her arms were shaking horribly.

Riddle-Ron, for the first time, curved his mouth into a smile, and it was a breathtaking and heartbreaking smile that for the first time, Hermione felt like she had him back. Then, Riddle-Ron turned to direct his smile at Riddle-Lavender.

Her eyes flashing a brief hue of red, Hermione plunged the sword into the locket...a drawn-out scream, and then all was silent. The act had drained all the energy from Hermione and she dropped onto the ground once more, not caring if the locket had one last plan of attack before its end.

She could not cry; crying was for when you feel strong emotions, when you feel like too much had been taken from you. But she felt nothing.

She vaguely sensed Harry's presence beside her. She fell into his arms, feeling as though a strong gust of wind would send her heart flying, looking for a home.

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