Her lip was quivering it was so cold. She and Harry had just switched positions for patrol, but the chill had already reached her bones. Still, her wand was good company. She hadn't thought of the simple wood as a luxury to her since she received it first year. Now that it was taken from her every few hours she treated it like the pleasure it truly was. Holding it in her palm was an indulgence, not a right.

It was an indulgence no muggle in the world would ever enjoy. She'd nearly forgotten that, but the quiet she sat in with Harry had left her time to remember. It was remember her past, or get shoved roughly into the stress that was her present. That or sleep, and honestly though her sleep had become more restful than ever before, she was terrified of doing so.

Every time she had closed her eyes there were two options. The bloodied faces of her family and friends, or Fred's arms holding her closely as they swayed in the center of the Burrows Garden. She never knew which she would get, and while one would leave her shaking in her bunk with silent cries, the other made her wake up warm and lazy- wanting nothing more than to lie in bed all day.

Not to mention the acheing that sat in her chest when she did choose to get up from her lazy stupors. A week ago she would have killed half the hufflepuff class just to see Fred's face one last time, but now that she was seeing it constantly she just wanted to burn the image from her mind. Seeing him, but never quite reaching him just left her upset and with higher cravings.

It didn't help that she was practically alone out here now. Between Ron's absence, their turns taking watch, and that damn book Harry had picked up from Bathilda's home, she had few chances throughout the day to speak to anyone.

The boy had become engrossed over the week. She had read the first chapter with Grindlewald alongside Harry, but that had only ended up in an argument. Since she had allowed her best friend to fall through the pages on his own. It seemed each time he looked up from it he was angrier than before, but she could do nothing to stop him.

Still, she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach, that if he kept on like this, she would be forced to begin another fight with him. Perhaps she would have to get rid of the thing herself before Harry tore himself apart over it.

She bit her lip to stop the chattering and looked out over the clearing. The witch was about to go on inside seeing that it was nearly daylight and she was practically covered in snow- despite the continuous warming charms- but something in the tree line caught her eye. A few minutes later she spotted another movement. It was still dark enough that she couldn't tell if it was an animal or not, but they hadn't seen any little creatures since the heavy snows began a few weeks ago.

Her breath hitched as she caught sight of it again, this time it looked scarily like the movement of a cloak in wind. It took only a small twitch of her wand to summon the Sneakoscope. The thing did little good to her. The clearing looked just the same as it had before. After twenty minutes looked out with it pressed to her eye she sighed and set the thing down.

Harry came out not long after that and wrapped his cloak around her shoulders. Daybreak had washed over them now, and she hadn't seen anything since before retrieving the Sneakoscope, but when her friend suggested they go on and pack up to leave, she jumped at the chance.

Less than an hour later they had everything packed away in her bag and he was taking her hand to apparate under the invisibility cloak. She knew the second they landed that she hadn't been truly thinking about where they were going, and neither had Harry, because they were back in the Forest of Dean.

At first Harry said nothing to her about their location. The two unpacked as quietly as they did everything else nowadays. It got to a point where she was sure he had either not noticed or not cared. After all this wasn't the first time they had camped in the same area twice. It might not mean anything to Harry, where it meant everything to her. If her years of friendship with him had taught her anything about the chosen one, it was that he was not too observant when it came to emotions.

But then again he was always surprising her wasn't he. As they finished setting up the fire, and he placed a pot of water with chicken stock to boil, he spoke.

"You miss them?" Her friend was looking around at the woods and she knew who he was speaking about before he continued "Your family"

It took her a moment to gather the breath for the words "Of course, you miss yours don't you?"

"Yeah, I suppose your right" he leaned over and stirred in the few edible herbs she had gathered before they left the last area.

The sun had just began rising, if she remembered correctly they had gone west of where they had been before, so it made sense for daylight to just then be hitting them. Still it felt strange. Like they were in another universe completely. A universe where Harry Potter and Hermione Granger could simply take a stroll through the woods, or go on a weekend camping trip as friends.

"Did you tell them much about us" She wasn't expecting more questions, having already reached their average daily conversation time, and it took her a few seconds to process what he had asked her.

"Oh, no not really," she murmured "Wizarding things have a tendency to confuse muggles, I suppose you wouldn't know, I doubt you ever tried to explain to the Dursley's"

"No I didn't, I never thought it was worth my time"

"Well I tried for the first couple summers. It just doesn't work. They simply don't understand even the concepts of it, and my parents aren't stupid…."

"Of course" Harry laughed and hearing it felt like she was back in the common room with him talking about Dumbledore or his latest talk with Cho Chang. "They gave birth to the smartest Witch of her age, I don't think they're anything less than brilliant."

She gave him a weak smile for the compliment. "But they'll never understand Magic. Its wasn't made for their minds, I've tried everything. I used to give mum my schoolbooks so I could talk to her about my subjects but she only ended up further confused. I once tried to explain the floo network to my dad, and he looked utterly bewildered by the time I was done" She gave a sniffle thinking about it and continued "By fourth year I gave up completely, it's why I always came to Ron's house before summer was even half over. They would ask me questions about school and I just couldn't keep lying to them."

"Did you ever tell them about the war?"

She shook her head and reached up to wipe the stray tear caused by both the cold and the discussion. "I told them about the first war, and how you were famous, but I didn't tell them anything about us getting into the thick of it. Last time I was home I had to have McGonagall do a concealment charm on me, for the scars on my stomach that were left after we broke into the ministry."

"I always figured you didn't let them in on much" Harry spoke softly looking down at her "I never knew you went that far though. I'm sorry I've managed to drag you into the thick of it all these years."

"No Harry it's my world too, my life. I have every right to fight for it."

"But it's not theirs"

"No it's not"

His relationship with Ron had always been shaky to say the least. They had never quite gotten along, even as small children. Of course everyone had issues with Ron once and a while since he was the youngest brother, and was blamed for every broken toy. Not to mention he had all of mum's favoritism as her 'baby boy'.

But he and Fred had been a particularly nasty pair. It might not have been weird had George not liked him either, but he had always loved on their younger brother. When Fred had jumped around corners to scare him, George had handed over his last chocolate frog to stop him from crying. Maybe that's why Fred didn't like him, he was so used to his twin going along with whatever he did, but he broke that cycle with Ron. That's what he had thought when he was younger, but the past year had taught him otherwise.

All the Weasleys were competitive, and most (save Percy) were extremely possessive. It was a mere side-effect of growing up in a family that was so large you had to fight for your peas at supper. He and Ron though, were by far the worst two in their family. They had argued over the smallest things, and butt heads worse than a pair of bulls.

That had been made clear to him this past year. Perhaps they were too different to get along, perhaps they were too similar. Either way the they didn't mix well, and having the other male, once again, living with him was making him go mental. It got to the point where he considered packing up his old Hogwarts trunk and telling Mum and Dad that for the rest of his time off he would be staying with them.

In fact just as he walked in the door to the apartment and set down his bags, ready to voice this idea to George, his twin had something else to tell him.

"He's gone"

Fred's brow furrowed. "What do you mean he's gone?"

"I found the couch empty this morning, and this was in the blankets." George reached out with a scrap of parchment in his fingers.

Fred took it and read in Ron's awful handwriting 'I found them'.

"I already checked with all the relatives to make sure he didn't stop by there. No one's seen him since we did last night"

His hand curled around the parchment into a fist. "Do you really think he found them?"

"It's possible, he did know exactly what spells they were using to cover themselves."

"Then why wouldn't that bastard tell us? He knows that I was trying to get to them just as much as he was."

George shrugged "Why would he tell you mate, the three of them all decided to leave together, why would he want you to tag along now."

He knew it was true, and it made sense, but it didn't stop him from gritting his teeth and hoping that the fool was wandering the woods, wondering what he had done wrong.

And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver-white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoofprints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped toward him, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high.

Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but at her inexplicable familiarity. He felt that he had been waiting for her to come, but that he had forgotten, until this moment, that they had arranged to meet. His impulse to shout for Hermione, which had been so strong a moment ago, had gone. He knew, he would have staked his life on it, that she had come for him, and him alone. They gazed at each other for several long moments and then she turned and walked away.

"No," he said, and his voice was cracked with lack of use. "Come back!"

She made no movement as though she had heard him and began to leave just the way she had appeared, and it didn't take Harry but seconds to jump up from the snow covered ground and run after her. She was twisting through the trees now, a graciously as if it were a flat quidditch pitch, meanwhile Harry was fumbling after her. He pushed through branches and bushes, fell over rocks and roots in his pursuit. A few times he thought he had lost her, but that light always hit his eyes just as he thought she was gone. It was so blinding he was sure that he could have seen it in another country altogether.

By the time she began to slow down his chest was heaving, he was sure he had run for a mile at the very least, and was far past Hermione's wards. Just as he began to contemplate how in Merlin's pants he would get back the doe caught his eye again, and all concerns were lost with it. She looked at him with a tilted head, and began walking forward. Harry felt the deep longing to ask her something, but he didn't know quite what. Still he opened his mouth, and just like that, she vanished.

The pitch black of the night returned, but her image still bore in the back of his mind.

"Lumos" Hermione's wand tip lit and he spun, his eyes searching everything within the light's reach. He'd expected someone, perhaps an ambush- but no figures emerged from the darkness, and no spells hit him in the back. As his breathing began to even he looked around once more. Nothing, she was gone and there was no one in sight to tell him why he was there.

It looked like she had led him to a rather large clearing for a moment, there were no trees for at least 20 yards all around him, and as he looked down he saw why. A muddled black surface stared up at him, glimmering in the light of the wand. It was a lake, frozen over in the dead of winter. He was nearly in its center.

The chosen one started to lift his head back up, to see if there was anything else here, any reason for him to have been brought, but then his eyes caught on a glimmer under the ice. Just a few feet away from him something shimmered beneath the grey slush. He stepped closer and got on his knees. It looked like it was in the shape of a cross, and something red glinted on one end…

Harry's breath hitched and he sat up just as realization dawned upon him. The sword, it was there, and he was meant to retrieve it. For a moment he sat on his knees, staring down at it wondering why it was there, but that didn't matter to him for very long.

He stood, and spoke a weak 'accio sword', but he had known it would not work. The sword came to Gryffindors, those who needed it and deserved it. He would have to earn it.

After casting a spell to break a hole in the ice just large enough, he began pulling off the countless layers he had pulled on that morning. When he stood in nothing left but his underwear and the locket that Hermione had not yet noticed he kept on, he glanced down. The hilt was not far at all, but not close enough that he could avoid submerging himself.

The airs chill was really beginning to get to him, so he dropped Hermione's wand onto the pile of his clothes, prepared himself for just a moment, and then he dove.

The cold hit like a brick wall and his entire body wailed from the torture it was enduring. Still the sword glittered up at him and he pushed through. The darkness swallowed him up and surrounded him like millions of needs picking at his skin. The boy could hardly think, yet his body seemed to remember the task and his hand closed around the sword's hilt. With the first yank, came a tightening at his through and he feared that he would have to resurface for breath, and come back for another go.

That wasn't it at all though. The Horcrux's chain was rapidly tightening around his windpipes. His first instincts told him to pull at the damn thing, but it had sensed the sword now and would not let him go. He gnashed in the water and opened his mouth for breath, but only icy water burned down to his lungs, it was no use, and now his vision was starting to go. His body stilled as he looked down at the sword with little white dots obscuring his vision, remembering that Hermione once told him drowning was peaceful. First you fight, and then you can't anymore and you just let go. The sword was right there, but the necklace was overtaking him and water had filled every cavity of his lungs, and he couldn't fight any longer. Something was greeting him, colder than the water in a way he hadn't thought was possible, but it was inviting, like an old friend he'd missed too long.

His vision finally turned black, and he allowed himself to be embraced by deaths arms.

The next he knew, someone was ripping him out, away from the hands still trying to pull him in, and out of the water. His body landed on the frozen lake, quivering and heaving up water. Over his own hacking he could hear someone else still panting. Perhaps the person who had sent the doe had known he wouldn't make it after all. Or maybe it was Hermione, come to save him, as she always seemed to do.

His body was too exhausted to so much as lift himself up, if it were a death eater wanting to finish him off themselves then they would simply have to do so with his back turned to them. Still as his forehead hit icy ground his hands reached for his neck and found the bloodied slit where the locket had dug in. Whoever it was must not have wanted him dead after all.

"Are- You –Mental?" The voice was like electric shock, and made his head snap up to see for himself, as though he'd imagined it.

Standing above him was Ron. His layers of clothing and hair plastered to his skin from the water, and the sword hanging limply in his right hand, and the horcrux gripped in his left. His skin looked blue and he was panting.

"Why the hell" he continued, as Harry pushed himself up, mesmerized by the sight, just as he had been the doe. "Did you not take this off before you went under?" Ron swung the locket in front of his face as he spoke.

He couldn't answer, and only the cold pulled him away from Ron as he scrambled to pull on his discarded layers of clothing. "It was you-" he fumbled, bewildered because he was positive Ron's patronus was a Terrier. "how did you?"

"I pulled you out, and the sword worked on the locket…"

"No" he said with a furrowed brow and pulled on his final coat. "The patronus?"

"I thought it was you!" Ron said looking as confused as Harry felt.

"Mine's a Stag"

"Right, no antlers, I thought it seemed different." He mumbled as Harry bent to retrieve Hermione's wand and the pouch Hagrid had given him.

"How're you here"

There was a moment of silence and then Ron seemed to straighten and did his best to look up from the ground at Harry's face. "I've come back.. to help, if you'll have me"

Harry blinked a few times, remembering the rage he had felt the night Ron had left, but then he looked down at the lake, and back at his friend. He had just saved him, risked his own life for Harry just as he'd been doing since first year.

Just as he was about to assure, that of course Ron was welcome back, the redhead lifted the items in his hands. "I got this out as well, its why you dove isn't it?"

"Yeah" he answered softly, still staring at Ron's features like they would vanish just like the doe. "How did you find me?"

"I've been here all night searching for you two," the boy shrugged looking sheepish. "I was just about to go to sleep until daylight when I saw you running after…"

"Did you see anyone else" The chosen one asked quickly, cutting him off.

"Not until you were diving, I saw a cloak, over in that area" Ron gestured "but it had been forever and you hadn't come back up, so I had to dive in after you, and I wasn't exactly going to…"

The dark haired boy was already slipping across the pond in the direction his friend had pointed. He could hear the Weasley, crunching on ice behind him. He waved Hermione's wand frantically, but there was nothing left but a pile of uneven snow behind an oak. Someone had certainly been there, but they were also certainly gone.

"They aren't here any longer" Harry called, and walked back to his friend.

"Then who put the sword there"

"Same person who cast the Patronus" he answered looking down at the sword in Ron's hands with the light of Hermione's wand.

Ron saw where gaze went and lifted it a little. "Do you think it's the real one?"

"We can find out" He looked over Ron's shoulder and saw a flat rock near where he'd entered the clearing. "Come on."

The two trudged around the lake in the slush of snow and Ron silently handed over the locket which Harry placed on the rock. It was quivering, like it could sense the end was near, and wasn't yet done with them. He looked up at Ron, and found the other man holding out the hilt of the sword.

"No"

He blinked at his friend, bewildered.

"You do it"

"Why?" Ron turned pink noting the way his voice had jumped in pitch. Maybe his friend truly had gone mental while he was gone. Didn't he know that the thing had tormented him far worse than the others? He couldn't.

"You got out the sword, it's supposed to be you" Harry was talking, but he couldn't hear him, and was merely staring down at the locket like it would attack his neck as well. "I'll open it and you stab it, okay?"

Numbly, Ron nodded his head, but when Harry got on his knees to do it, realization hit in a wave of nausea "Don't do it Harry!"

"Why not?"

"I can't" his voice cracked and he sounded pitiful, even to his own ears "That thing, I can't"

He was already beginning to back away, his hand gripping the sword so tightly his knuckles went white.

"Why can't you"

"You know what that thing does" he exclaimed staring down at it, quivering in his soaked clothes. "And I know I was a right arse, but that thing affects me worse than the two of you"

"Ron-"

"No Harry, it made me think things, hear things in my ear. It would fuck with my head, I'd take it off and get everything back in order just to have to put the bloody thing back on!" he let out a shaky breath "I can't"

"Yes you can, you've got the sword, I know it's got to be you.

He was still shaking his head and backing away, "Please Ron" Harry called, and like a loyal pet hearing its name called Ron looked up at his friend. There wasn't a doubtful look on the boy's features, and it made his own face steady, and his hand lift the hilt.

In a silent understanding Harry turned back to the locket. The hissing started in a cacophony of parsletongue between Harry and the cursed object, and it sent chills down his spine just listening to it. It seemed to go on long enough, that when the click came, and a scream sounded from the locket, Ron was almost unprepared for it.

Two eyes glared back put at him from within the locket and he stepped forward and raised the sword as Harry yelled "Stab!"

Before the point could hit metal a voice came, grating on his ear drums just like the locket had all those weeks.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."

"Don't listen to it!" Harry's voice sounded as distant as a memory. "Stab it!"

"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!" shouted Harry; but his voice only echoed. Ron's gaze was locked down into Riddle's eyes.

"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter . . . Least loved now, by the friends who would choose your siblings . . . Second best, always, eternally overshadowed . . ."

Harry's voice was getting scratchier with each call, "Ron stab it now!"

Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed, like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted. Ron yelled in shock and stumbled back, dragging the sword along with him 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, swaying over Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket like it had burned.

"Ron!" Harry shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort's voice and Ron was transfixed by it.

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

Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who would have any use of you? You're surrounded by great wizards, your brothers, the boy who lived, and yet you still can't figure out what to do with yourself."She laughed, and the sound ripped through his brain. "Why did you come back at all, is it because mummy didn't want her one failure around any longer, or were your brothers ready to kick you to the curb as well."

"Ron, stab it, STAB IT!" Harry yelled, but Ron did not move.

His eyes were wide, and the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Hermione were reflected in them, their hair swirling like flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.

"Your mother confessed," sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle Hermione jeered, "that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange . . ."

"Why wouldn't she" laughed the figure of Hermione, "There's always someone better than you. Better in quidditch, better in school…"

Tears were streaming down his face now, and just as he was sure it couldn't get worse, came a third figure. The person was nearly unrecognizable as it morphed between Harry and Hermione.

Then he saw, it was not one, but all of his family. Copper locks swayed around an ever changing face. Ginny's freckles and their fathers glasses, then Bills scar, Charlie's tattoos, George's missing ear, Fred's sneer, Percy's upturned nose, and his mother's scathing gaze. The voice was worse than either of the other two as it leered down at him "You'll never be enough, don't come home"

Slowly Ron's gaze turned down, Harry was shouting, but he's already decided that it couldn't be done, thee sword grew heavy in his hands and he looked down at the glass of the locket, waiting for it to finally finish him. Then his own reflection caught his eyes, and a glint of red stared back at him.

His head snapped back up to the figure that was still yelling at him. Now he couldn't hear it, only Harry's voice surged through the clearing.

"Stab it Ron!"

Both hands tightened around the hilt and he surged forward. The locket began its terrible scream that had happened when it first opened, but he hardly noticed as he sent the metal crashing down through the smoke figures and into the glass.

All three figures wailed as they curled down, and were pulled back into the broken window they had emerged from.

His chest was heaving harder than he would think possible. After all those weeks enduring the belittlement of the locket, and then the time he has spent practically under attack at his brother's, he still hadn't been prepared for what that thing had saved up. Yet somehow he'd managed it. Through all the stress, and the pain he'd managed.

Now if he could just figure out how to face Hermione long enough to apologize, then maybe he'd be able to look at himself in the mirror again.

I know it has been forever, but I have gotten so incredibly busy you could not imagine. Still, I have a break from classes for the holidays and am hoping to get a lot of writing accomplished. And I hope the extra length of this one makes up for the wait I put you all through.

Read & Review

Thank you all so much

Love, Mel