A/N: I don't own nothing! It all belongs to the great JKR…

I've borrowed heavily from the chapter 'The Silver Doe' for obvious reasons. Enjoi!

Back Where I Belong

Ron had been traveling for two days now, searching more and more futilely for any sign of Harry and Hermione. You have to give it to Hermione, he thought with fierce pride, when she doesn't want to be found, there's not much that can come close. In fact, if it wasn't for the miraculous Deluminator residing in his pocket, he would still be stuck at Bill and Fleur's, feeling miserable.

He had just decided to give up for the night and try again the next day when he saw a silvery glow from towards his left, growing steadily brighter. He quickly took refuge behind an oak tree and watched cautiously as a massive, four-legged, silvery creature floated out of
the trees.

A Patronus! Was it Harry's?

Yes, he could see Harry's thin figure following behind. The patronus' light danced across Harry's face and he could see the wonder and hunger reflected there as he followed behind the Stag.

Something's wrong, Ron thought worriedly, hurrying behind his friend, but not willing to show himself just yet. He followed Harry to a clearing with a frozen pond but, as Harry hurried forward, the patronus vanished. He saw Harry's wand tip flare up and saw the fear and panic on his face.

Not good, Ron thought once more.

He was just about to reveal himself when Harry became fascinated by something inside the pond. He walked around the pond a couple of times, apparently deep in thought.

''Accio sword!'' he murmured, his voice carrying easily in the silent forest.

Sword? Not the Sword of Gryffindor!

''Help!'' Harry next said and Ron suppressed a snort with difficulty.

Harry stood motionless for a few more seconds before he started stripping hurriedly. It was after sun-down just after Christmas! Ron didn't fancy finding out just how frigid the water must be.

Harry split the frozen surface of the pond with his wand and the noise echoed disconcertingly. Harry walked to the edge of the lake and jumped in; Ron could see him shivering from his spot. He seemed to be trying to reach the sword but couldn't manage it. Then, without warning, he submerged himself completely and Ron's heart constricted.

The seconds passed agonizingly slowly as Ron waited for his friend to re-emerge. A minute passed and Harry had still not surfaced. Ron could see that the surface of the pond was now choppy, as though a struggle was taking place beneath it.

In a panic, Ron ran forward, divesting himself of his rucksack as he went; he could hardly breathe as his heart felt twice the normal size. He thought he saw a slight movement in a clump of trees but put it out of his mind.

He jumped into the pond, fully clothed and could still feel the ice-cold water seizing up his limbs. He took a deep breath and went under. He spotted Harry at once, gasping and struggling, as the
horcrux choked him.

Idiot, Ron thought angrily.

He took out his wand and cut Harry free of the horcrux, which was twitching as if in pain. He stuffed the locket in his pocket and, grabbing Harry around the chest, he kicked off for the surface.

He laid Harry down by the side of the pond, coughing and retching, and dived back in for the sword. He surfaced with the sword to see Harry on his knees coughing up water and pulled himself up, breathing heavily.

Seeing Harry recover from the near drowning reminded him of another frigidly cold underwater rescue in another part of the world. He recalled the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament and how he'd let his friend down that year too.

''Are-you-mental?'' he asked fiercely, more to take his mind off the unpleasant thoughts than anything else.

Harry staggered to his feet, shivering uncontrollably. Ron saw the shock and wonder shining in his eyes as he looked at Ron and the knot in his stomach dissolved slightly.

''Why the hell didn't you take the thing off before you dived?'' he finished, holding up the horcrux and shaking it.

Harry did not reply and Ron wondered whether the wonderment that his arrival had caused had turned to bitterness. It's nothing more than I deserve, he thought, bracing himself for the rejection.

Harry quietly gathered up his clothes and pulled them on haphazardly. He looked over at Ron constantly, an unreadable expression crossing his face each time he saw him.

''It was y-you?'' he asked at last, his teeth chattering against the cold.

''Well, yeah,'' Ron said, thinking he was talking about the pond and wondering why he needed to ask.

''You cast that doe?''

Doe? The Patronus?

''What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!''

''My patronus is a stag,'' Harry pointed out, slightly more calmly.

''Oh, yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers.'' He felt stupid, making such an obvious mistake.

Harry finished dressing, held up his wand and turned to Ron, his face grim. ''So, how come you're here?''

Ron flinched at the question. He'd been expecting it, but it still made his heart stop.

''Well, I've-you know-I've come back. If-'' he cleared his throat uncertainly. ''If, you know. You still want me.''

Harry didn't reply for the longest time and Ron saw the hurt inside his eyes; his heart felt as if it would break. He cursed the day he'd ever set eyes on the horcrux, still dangling from his left hand. He looked down and saw the sword in his right. ''Oh yeah, I got it out,'' he said to break the uncomfortable silence, holding up the sword to show Harry. ''That's why you jumped in, right?''

''Yeah,'' said Harry, moving forward to inspect the ruby encrusted sword, shining in the wand light. ''But I don't understand. How did you find us?''

''Long story,'' Ron replied, not feeling like going through the entire tale just now. ''I've been looking for you for hours, it's a big forest, isn't it?'' he said, recounting his night's wanderings. ''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.''

''You didn't see anyone else?''

''No,'' Ron hesitated, recalling the movement he saw as he was running towards the pond. ''I did think I saw something move over there,'' he pointed towards the trees growing close by, ''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-hey!'' he called surprised, for Harry had gone running off to examine the trees and the ground around it. He eventually walked back to where Ron still stood waiting.

''Anything there?'' he asked.

''No,'' said Harry shortly.

''So how did the sword get in that pool?"

"Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there." Harry whispered, almost to himself.

Ron glanced at the sword he still held and, suddenly, it felt a hundred times heavier. He'd dreamed of being rid of the vile horcrux ever since they'd obtained it and now the time was neigh.

''You reckon this is the real one?" he asked in a hushed voice.

''One way to find out, isn't there?" said Harry and Ron could see the determined set of his jaw as he stared at the horcrux in Ron's hand, now twitching as though trying to escape. Harry looked around, probably looking for a place to destroy the locket.

''Come here,'' he said, leading the way to a flattish rock lying in the shadow of a sycamore tree. Ron offered him the sword when he held out a hand but Harry shook his head.

''You should do it,'' he said, shocking Ron.

''Me,'' he said disbelievingly. ''Why?''

"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."

Ron saw the certainty in his eyes. Harry didn't understand. He couldn't do it. He couldn't face the horcrux, not when it affected him so badly.

"I'm going to open it," Harry continued, "and you will 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."

"How are you going to open it?" he was terrified at the prospect of the horcrux being opened. He couldn't even handle it when it was closed.

"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Harry simply, surprising Ron even more with his certainty. Harry was staring at the horcrux fixedly, gearing himself to open it.

"No!" Ron burst out. He couldn't hold in his fear any longer. "Don't open it! I'm serious!"

"Why not?" asked Harry looking surprised. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months -"

"I can't, Harry, I'm serious - you do it -"

"But why?"

Ron had vowed not to speak of it. Not to use it as an excuse for his behavior and his betrayal. But he found the words rushing out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"Because that thing's bad for me! I can't handle it! I'm not making excuses, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affects you and Hermione, it made me think stuff - stuff that I was thinking anyway, 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!" he backed away from the locket shaking his head, the sword heavy in his hand.

"You can do it," said Harry fiercely, "you can! You've just got the sword, I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please just get rid of it Ron."

The sound of his name jolted him. Harry needed him and, Merlin help him, he wasn't going to let his friends down again! He swallowed his fear and dragged himself back to the rock.

''Tell me when,'' his voice was rough, not his own.

''On three,'' said Harry and he was once again staring at the locket, preparing himself to speak Parseltongue, while the locket shook and rattled as though it too were shivering.

"One . . . two . . . three . . ." and then he let out a sound halfway between a hiss and a strangled cry, the doors of the locket swung open with a click.

Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome, and Ron couldn't imagine that they'd once belonged to the most terrible Dark wizard to ever walk the earth.

"Stab," said Harry, holding the still quaking locket.

Ron raised the sword in his arms, his entire frame shaking. He paused with the point inches from the madly shaking locket, trying to master himself. Then the locket spoke with a hissing voice.

''I have seen your heart, and it is mine.'' it said, terrifying Ron more than anything else had done that night, perhaps his entire life.

"Don't listen to it!" Harry said harshly. "Stab it!"

But the locket was speaking again, its voice hypnotic. "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!'' Harry shouted, but his voice was echoing strangely, as though coming from a great distance. Ron stared at the unblinking eyes, mesmerized.

"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter . . . Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend . . . Second best, always, eternally overshadowed. . ."

The locket was confirming his worst nightmares. He'd told himself that it wasn't so, he'd convinced himself otherwise but the locket was right. How could he have been so blind?

"Ron, stab it now!" someone said, distracting him from his thoughts. He raised the sword in his quivering hands to obey, but the eyes flashed scarlet and Ron paused again. Out of the locket's twin windows, out of the eyes, bloomed the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted. He yelled, shocked and terrified, and backed away, as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root, looking down on him in contempt and ridicule.

Harry spoke in a hypnotic voice, his words tearing into Ron's heart.

"Why return?'' he sneered. ''We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence... We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption-"

"Presumption!" echoed Hermione, and her contempt was a malediction. ''Who could look at you, 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?"

But it wasn't Hermione, it wasn't his Hermione. Her eyes were too cold, her features too perfect, with none of the warmth and the imperfections he'd come to adore.

"Your mother confessed," sneered Harry, Hermione jeering at his side, "that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange..."

And that wasn't Harry. His eyes were vivid scarlet, his voice devoid of any warmth. This wasn't the friend who'd give up his own life to save Ron's little sister.

"Who wouldn't prefer him,'' the not-Hermione continued, ''what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him," she finished, entwining herself around not-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace; their lips met and Ron felt an intense fury rise up within him. He raised the sword once more in both his hands-

''Do it, Ron!'' came another voice, from where he did not know.

He brought the sword down with all his might and, as the blade punctured the velvet compartments of the locket, it gave out a terrible scream and the images of Harry and Hermione vanished.

He became aware of himself staring down at the remains of the locket, the sword slack in his hands. His eyes stung with tears but he wasn't aware of having cried. Harry was standing a little way away, wand at the ready. He lowered his wand and walked over to Ron. He stopped to pick up the broken, useless locket and Ron was thankful for his distraction; he went to hurriedly wipe his eyes but dropped the sword and fell to his knees, unable to keep his grief in any longer.

We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence... the horcrux's voice echoed inside his head. It had been everything he had feared during all those long nights at Shell Cottage.

He felt a comforting hand on his shoulder and heard Harry's voice, strangely low and soft after the horcrux's shrill screams.

"After you left, 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..." His voice trailed away and Ron's heart broke yet again. He had made his Hermione cry, he had caused her unendurable agony. He didn't deserve Harry's comfort.

"She's like my sister," Harry continued and Ron felt shame well up inside him. "I love her like a sister and I reckon that she feels the same way about me. It's always been like
that. I thought you knew."

He could think of nothing to say to this. To delay the moment when he would have to look at Harry, he wiped his nose on his sleeve and dried his eyes. When he looked up and labored to his feet, he saw that Harry had retrieved his rucksack, which he had discarded some
yards away.

''I'm sorry,'' he apologized, his voice thick with his recent grief. ''I'm sorry I left. I know I was a-a''

A prick. A selfish git. A jealous prat. A million insults sprang to mind and, as he decided how best to put his idiotic actions into words, Harry spoke up.

"You've sort of made up for it tonight," he said smiling slightly. "Getting the sword. Finishing
off the Horcrux. Saving my life."

I hardly deserve that praise, Ron thought miserably. ''That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was,'' he mumbled.

"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was" said Harry seriously. "I've been trying to tell you that for years."

Ron looked up and saw the understanding and forgiveness in his eyes. They walked forward simultaneously and hugged and Ron's heart felt lighter than it had done in months.

"And now," said Harry as they broke apart, "all we've got to do is find that tent again." And they set off together, waking in silence, reveling in each other's company. But, as they neared the tent, Ron started dreading the soon-to-be confrontation with Hermione and lagged behind, even as Harry sped up.

The tent was just as Ron had remembered it, though it felt a hundred times warmer with little bluebell flames (Hermione's creation, no doubt) shimmering in a bowl on the floor, throwing light on the sparse furnishings and the bunk beds, with a blanketed figure sound asleep in one of them.

He braced himself as she jerked awake after Harry had called her name several times.

"What's wrong? Harry? Are you all right?" she asked quickly, brushing her hair off her face.

"It's okay, everything's fine.'' Harry said quickly. ''More than fine, I'm great. There's someone here."

Not the best words, a detached part of Ron's brain noted wryly.

"What do you mean? Who -?" she stopped abruptly as she noticed Ron, still dripping wet, standing motionless. Ron noticed Harry slip off into a shadowy corner and steeled himself for the explosion.

Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved towards him as if in a trance, her eyes taking in his face. Her eyes looked bloodshot, there were dark circles under her eyes and her face looked pale. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. For a split second Ron thought everything was OK and that he would be forgiven. He raised his arms hopefully and gave a weak smile, hardly believing his good fortune.

Without warning, Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.

"Ouch - ow - gerroff! What the -?'' he yelled in surprise, ''Hermione - OW!"

"You - complete - arse - Ronald - Weasley!" she punctuated each word with a blow and it was only the hurt beneath her anger that stopped Ron from defending himself. He backed away, trying to protect his head as she advanced, fearing he was in for some painful curses.

"You - crawl - back - here - after - weeks - and - weeks - oh, where's my wand?"

What? She doesn't keep her wand on her? he thought concerned.

She looked to Harry and Ron saw that Harry held her wand. He was confused, but there were more immediate concerns to occupy him.

"Protego!" Harry cried and an invisible shield erupted between himself and Hermione. The force of it knocked her backward onto the floor. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she leapt up again. She looked ready to attack him with her bare hands again.

"Hermione!" said Harry. "Calm -"

"I will not calm down!" she yelled and Ron flinched at the anger and hurt. "Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!"

"Hermione, will you please -"

"Don't you tell me what do, Harry Potter!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!"

Ron flinched and backed away as she pointed at him with raw anger in her eyes. He wished he was still battling the horcrux. "I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back," she said and Ron felt infinitely worse than at any point during the night.

"I know," Ron said contritely, "Hermione, I'm sorry, I'm really -" But that seemed quite the wrong thing to say.

"Oh, you're sorry!" she laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound. Ron threw a scared look at Harry, silently asking for help, but Harry shrugged his shoulders in helplessness.

"You came back after weeks - weeks - and you think it's all going to be all right if you just say sorry?" she yelled.

''Well, what else can I say?'' he yelled back, trying to be heard above her own shouts.

"Oh, I don't know!" yelled Hermione her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds -"

Ron was shocked into speechlessness but, thankfully, Harry came to his aid.

"Hermione," he interjected firmly, "he just saved my-"

"I don't care!" she screamed, beyond reason now. "I don't care what he's done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew-''

At this Ron saw red. She had no idea how much the idea had tormented him, imagining them oing through all sorts of horrors just because he had abandoned them out of his petty mindedness. How much time he'd spent listening to the Wizarding Wireless and combing the
Daily Prophet, convincing himself that no news of his two best friends was the best news.

"I knew you weren't dead!" he bellowed, shouting over her. He approached as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. "Harry's all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they're looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories, I knew I'd hear straight off if you were dead, you don't know what it's been like-''

''What it's been like for you?'' she shrieked and he realized, a moment too late, that he'd said the wrong thing again.

"I wanted to come back the minute I'd Disapparated,'' he continued hurriedly, ''but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I
couldn't go anywhere!"

"A gang of what?" asked Harry looking bewildered, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed tightly, as if unwilling to listen to any defense Ron might have.

"Snatchers," Ron hastened to explain. "They're everywhere – gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the Ministry for everyone
captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry."

"What did you say to them?"

"Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of."

"And they believed that?"

"They weren't the brightest.'' Ron replied, smirking as he remembered their pathetic bickering. ''One of them was definitely part troll, the smell of him..."

He half glanced at Hermione, hopeful that this mention of a troll would elicit a smile. But no such luck; her expression remained as stony as ever.

"Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me, and they'd taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and, while the others were distracted, I managed to hit the one holding me in the
stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated.'' he said feeling a sense of pride. ''I didn't do it so well. Splinched myself again" - he winced holding up his right hand to show the two missing fingernails. Hermione merely raised her eyebrows coldly and he gave up- "and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we'd been... you were gone."

"Gosh, what a gripping story," Hermione said loftily and Ron's heart sank further. "You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric's Hollow and, let's think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who's snake turned up, it nearly killed both of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second."

''What?'' he said blankly not able to process that his friends had fought You-Know-Who's familiar and nearly confronted the monster himself and he hadn't been there to protect them. He realized he'd been gaping at them and closed his mouth.

"Imagine losing fingernails, Harry!'' she continued remorselessly, oblivious to his growing horror
and shame. ''That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?"

"Hermione," said Harry again, "Ron just saved my life."

She ignored him, too. "One thing I would like to know, though," she appeared determined not to look at Ron and instead fixed her eyes on a spot a foot over his head. "How exactly did you find us tonight? That's important. Once we know, we'll be able to make sure we're not visited by anyone else we don't want to see."

This angered him again, though he felt he probably deserved all the barbs she threw at him. He glared at her and drew out the still-warm Deluminator from his jeans pocket, the little miracle that had made this reunion possible.

"This." he said shortly, holding it up, making sure she'd have to look at him to see what he was talking about.

''The Deluminator?'' she asked and Ron was relieved to hear the curiosity breaking through her anger.

"It doesn't just turn the lights on and off," said Ron quickly, while he had her attention. "I don't know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I've been wanting to
come back ever since I left. But I was listening to the radio really early on Christmas morning and I heard,'' he paused, hoping they weren't about to think him crazy, ''I heard you." he finished, looking at Hermione.

"You heard me on the radio?" she asked incredulously.

"No,'' he said, shaking his head. ''I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice, came out of this." he said holding up the tiny silver object again.

"And what exactly did I say?" she asked, trying, but failing, to sound skeptical.

"My name. 'Ron,''' he said simply. ''And you said... something about a wand..."

Hermione turned scarlet and Ron fought a smile. Harry looked thoughtful. Personally, Ron believed that it was because they wanted him to return that the Deluminator had led him to them. He thanked Dumbledore's foresight for about the millionth time.

"So I took it out," he went on, thinking about the bizarre morning, "and it didn't seem different or anything, but I was sure I'd heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window."

He raised his hand in front of him attempting to recreate the scene for them. "It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?" struggling to describe the otherworldly occurrence.

"Yeah," said Harry and Hermione together and he felt heartened. "I knew this was it," he continued, his voice stronger. "I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden. The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it... well, it went inside me." he finished rather lamely.

"Sorry?" said Harry, sounding incredulous.

"It sort of floated toward me," he illustrated with his free index finger, "right to my chest, and then - it just went straight through. It was here," he said indicating where he'd felt the warmth, as it had penetrated his chest and settled over his heart. "I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me, I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere..."

"We were there," Harry interrupted him, sounding awed. "We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!"

"Yeah, well, that would've been me," said Ron, smiling as he remembered blundering through the forest hoping against hope that he'd stumble across their camp. "Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn't see you and I couldn't hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you'd have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent."

"No, actually," said Hermione. "We've been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an
extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we'd heard somebody blundering around."

Ah, so that's why I didn't spot them, he thought, smiling at her choice of terms.

"Well, I stayed on that hill all day," he continued recounting his adventure, "I kept hoping you'd
appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here, in these woods. I still couldn't see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show
yourselves in the end - and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously."

"You saw the what?" Hermione interrupted sharply.

Harry explained how the doe had approached him and he'd followed it right to the lake where the sword had been placed and, as she listened, intrigued, Ron was thankful that her posture had relaxed and the hard look left her face.

"But it must have been a Patronus!" she exclaimed when they described the silver doe. "Couldn't you see who was casting it? Didn't you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can't believe this! Then what happened?"

Ron took up the narration and explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated,
thinking how easily the horcrux had poisoned his mind. Thankfully, and Harry cut in at this point.

"- and Ron stabbed it with the sword." he finished simply.

"And ... and it went? Just like that?" she whispered.

"Well, it - it screamed," said Harry with half a glance at him and Ron was thankful that he'd spared Hermione the details. "Here." He threw he the destroyed locket and they watched as she cautiously picked it up and examined the punctured windows. Ron started as Harry removed the Shield Charm separating him from Hermione; he had quite forgotten about it.

"Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?" Harry asked him.

"What?" said he said, thrown by the sudden question. He had been watching Hermione, wondering whether she would deign to speak to him yet. "Oh - oh yeah."

He walked over to his rucksack and removed the short wand he'd stashed away for emergencies. "Here, I figured it's always handy to have a backup."

"You were right," said Harry grimly, holding out his hand. "Mine's broken."

''You're kidding!'' Ron said shocked, but at that moment Hermione had got to her feet and he subsided, eyeing her apprehensively.

Hermione gave no indication that she saw him, however. She put the destroyed locket into her beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word. Ron passed Harry the stolen wand, disappointed and relieved at the same time.

"About the best you could hope for, I think," murmured Harry.

"Yeah," he replied smiling. "Could've been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?"

"I still haven't ruled it out," came her voice from beneath the blankets, and he smiled in earnest as he pulled his pajamas out of his rucksack.

He was back where he belonged.

A/N: I hope I stayed true to Ron's character. I'd love some feedback on this, guys.

Thanks for reading...