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Here's chapter eleven!

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The Goblin's Revenge

The next morning, they all discussed what they were going to do next.

Elizabeth, Emmett, and Hermione all felt that it was best not to stay anywhere too long, and Ron agreed, with the sole proviso that their next move took them within reach of a bacon sandwich. Therefore, Emmett quickly scouted around the clearing to make sure that no one was around. Hermione then removed the enchantments Elizabeth had placed around the clearing, while Elizabeth and Ron obliterated all the marks and impressions on the ground that might show they had camped there. Then they Disapparated to the outskirts of a small market town.

Once they had pitched the tent in the shelter of a small copse of trees and surrounded it with freshly cast defensive enchantments, Elizabeth ventured out under the Invisibility Cloak to find sustenance. This, however, did not go as planned. She had barely entered the town when an unnatural chill, a descending mist, and a sudden darkening of the skies made her freeze where she stood.

"But you can still make a brilliant Patronus!" protested Ron, when Elizabeth arrived back at the ten empty-handed, out of breath, and mouthing the single word, dementors.

"I couldn't… make one," she panted, clutching the stitch in her side. "Wouldn't… come."

Ron and Hermione's expressions of consternation and disappointment made Elizabeth feel ashamed. It had been a nightmarish experience, seeing the dementors gliding out of the mist in the distance and realizing, as the paralyzing cold choked her lungs and a distant screaming filled her head, that she was not going to be able to protect herself. It had taken all Elizabeth's willpower to uproot himself from the spot and run, leaving the eyeless dementors to glide amongst the Muggles who might not be able to see them, but would assuredly feel the despair they cast wherever they went.

"So we still haven't got any food."

"Shut up, Ron," snapped Hermione. "Elizabeth, what happened? Why do you think you couldn't make your Patronus?"

"I don't know."

Elizabeth put her head in hands, feeling humiliated. She was afraid that something had gone wrong inside her.

Ron kicked a chair leg.

"What?" he snarled at Hermione. "I'm starving! All I've had is a couple of toadstools!"

"You go and fight your way through the dementors, then," said Elizabeth, looking up, hurt.

"Stop it," Emmett snarled at Ron, sitting down beside Elizabeth on her cot and pulling her into his side. "It's not her fault! Maybe it has something to do with the Horcrux!"

"Of course!" cried Hermione, clapping a hand to her forehead. "Elizabeth, give me the locket!"

She held out her hands, and Elizabeth lifted the golden chain over her head. The moment it parted contact with Elizabeth's skin she felt free and oddly light. She had not even realized that she was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on her stomach until both sensations lifted.

"Better?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah, loads better!"

"Elizabeth," she said, crouching down in front of her and using the kind of voice she associated with visiting the very sick, "you don't think you've been possessed, do you?"

"What? No!" she said defensively. "I remember everything we've done while I've been wearing it. I wouldn't know what I'd done if I'd been possessed, would I? Ginny told me there were times when she couldn't remember anything."

"Hmm," said Hermione, looking down at the heavy gold locket. "Well, maybe we ought not to wear it. We can just keep it in the tent."

"We are not leaving that Horcrux lying around," Elizabeth said firmly. "If we lose it, if it gets stolen—"

"Oh, all right, all right," said Hermione, and she placed it around her own neck and tucked it out of sight down the front of her shirt. "But we'll take turns wearing it, so nobody keeps it on long."

"Great," said Ron, irritably, "and now we've sorted that out, can we please get some food?"

"Fine, but we'll go somewhere else to find it," said Hermione with half a glance at Elizabeth. "There's no point staying where we know dementors are swooping around."

In the end, the settled down for the night in a far-flung field belonging to a lonely farm, from which they had managed to obtain eggs and bread.

"It's not stealing, is it?" asked Hermione in a troubled voice, as they devoured scrambled eggs on toast. "Not if I left some money under the chicken coop?"

Ron rolled his eyes and said, with his cheeks bulging, "'Er-my-nee, 'oo worry 'oo much. 'Elax!"

And it was much easier to relax when they were comfortably well fed: The argument about dementors was forgotten in laughter that night, and Elizabeth felt cheerful, even hopeful, as she took the first of the three night watches.

This was their first encounter with the fact that a full stomach meant good spirits; an empty one, bickering and gloom. Elizabeth was least surprised by this, because she had suffered periods of near starvation at the Durlsyes' (not that she'd mention that, especially with Emmett around). Hermione bore up reasonably well on those nights when they managed to scavenge nothing but berries or stale biscuits, her temper perhaps a little shorter than usual and her silences rather dour. Ron, however, had always been used to three delicious meals a day, courtesy of his mother or of the Hogwarts house-elves, and hunger made him both unreasonable and irascible. Whenever lack of food coincided with Ron's turn to wear the Horcrux, he became downright unpleasant.

"So where next?" was his constant refrain. He did not seem to have any ideas himself, but expected Elizabeth and Hermione and Emmett to come up with plans while he sat and brooded over the low food supplies. Accordingly, Elizabeth and Hermione spent fruitless hours trying to decide where they might find the other Horcruxes, and how to destroy the one they had already got. Their conversations were becoming increasingly repetitive as they had no new information.

"If there was one place that was really important to You-Know-Who, it was Hogwarts!" Elizabeth persisted one afternoon.

"Oh, come on," scoffed Ron. "His school?"

"Yeah, his school! It was his first really home, the place that meant he was special; it meant everything to him, and even after he left—"

"This is You-Know-Who we're talking about, right? Not you?" inquired Ron. He was tugging at the chain of the Horcrux around his neck: Elizabeth had the sudden desire to seize it and throttle him.

"No, Ron," Elizabeth said through gritted teeth.

Even without any new ideas, they continued to move through the countryside, pitching the tent in a different place each night for security. Every morning, they made sure that they had removed all clues to their presence, then set off to find another lonely and secluded spot, traveling by Apparition to more woods, to the shadowy crevices of cliffs, to purple moors, gorse-covered mountainsides, and once a sheltered and pebbly cove. Every twelve hours or so they passed the Horcrux between them as though they were playing some perverse, slow-motion game of pass-the-parcel, where they dreaded the music stopping because the reward was twelve hours of increased fear and anxiety.

Elizabeth's scar kept prickling. It happened most, she noticed, when she was wearing the Horcrux. Sometimes she could not stop herself reacting to the pain.

"What? What did you see?" demanded Ron, whenever he noticed Elizabeth wince.

"A face," muttered Elizabeth, every time, leaning into Emmett's arms, which would wrap around her every time. "The same face. The thief who stole from Gregorovitch."

And Ron would turn away, making no effort to hide his disappointment.

"I'm not a television, Ron," Elizabeth snapped once. "I can't just tune in to whatever I want to. It doesn't work that way."

Apparently Voldemort was dwelling endlessly on the unknown youth with the gleeful face, whose name and whereabouts, Elizabeth was sure, Voldemort knew no better than she did. As Elizabeth scar continued to burn and the merry, blond-haired boy swam tantalizingly in her memory, she learned to suppress any sign of pain or discomfort, for the other two showed nothing but impatience at the mention of the thief. She could not entirely blame them, when they were so desperate for a lead on the Horcruxes.

Ron was making no effort to hide his bad mood, and Elizabeth was starting to fear that Hermione too was disappointed by her poor leadership. Emmett tried to be supportive, but he just didn't know how to. In desperation, she tried to think of further Horcrux locations, but the only one that continued to occur to her was Hogwarts, and as neither of the others thought this was at all likely, she stopped suggesting it.

Autumn rolled over the countryside as they moved through it: They were now pitching the tent on mulches of fallen leaves. Natural mists joined those cast by the dementors; wind and rain added to their troubles. The fact that Hermione was getting better at identifying edible fungi could not altogether compensate for their continuing isolation, the lack of other people's company, or their total ignorance of what was going on in the war against Voldemort.

"My mother," said Ron one night, as they sat in the tent on a riverbank in Wales, "can make good food appear out of thin air."

"Your mother can't produce food out of thin air," said Hermione. "No one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfigur—"

"Oh, speak English, can't you?" Ron said, prising a fish bone out from beneath his teeth.

Elizabeth sighed inaudibly and leaned back against Emmett's chest. "And they're off," she murmured to him. Emmett snorted quietly and kissed her temple.

"It's impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you've already got some—"

"Well, don't bother increasing this, it's disgusting," said Ron.

"Elizabeth caught the fish and we did our best with it. I notice Elizabeth and I are always the ones who end up sorting out the food, because we're girls, I suppose!"

"No, it's because you two are supposed to be the best at magic!" shot back Ron.

Hermione jumped up and bits of roast pike slid off her tin plate onto the floor.

"You can do the cooking tomorrow, Ron, you can find the ingredients and try and charm them into something worth eating, and Elizabeth and I'll sit here and pull faces and moan and you can see how you—"

"Shut up!" said Elizabeth, leaping to her feet and holding up both hands. "Shut up now!"

Hermione looked outraged.

"How can you side with him, he hardly ever does the cook—"

"Hermione, be quiet," Elizabeth turned to Emmett. "You hear that?"

"Yeah," Emmett nodded. "Voices. They're getting closer."

Elizabeth was listening hard, her hands still raised, warning them not to talk. Then, over the rush and gush of the dark river beside them, she heard voices again. She looked around at the Sneakoscope. It was not moving.

"You cast the Muffliato charm over us, right?" he whispered to Hermione.

"I did everything," she whispered back, "Muffliato, Muggle-Repelling and Disillusionment Charms, all of it. They shouldn't be able to hear or see us, whoever they are."

Heavy scuffing and scraping noises, plus the sound of dislodged stones and twigs, told them that several people were clambering down the step, wooded slope that descended to the narrow bank where they had pitched the tent. Elizabeth, Hermione, and Ron drew their wands, waiting. Emmett came up behind Elizabeth and put his hands on her shoulders. The enchantments they had cast around themselves ought to be sufficient, in the near total darkness, to shield them from the notice of Muggles and normal witches and wizards, if these were Death Eaters, then perhaps their defenses were about to be tested by Dark Magic for the first time.

The voices became louder, but no more intelligible as the group of men reached the bank. Elizabeth estimated that their owners were fewer than twenty feet away, but the cascading river made it impossible to tell for sure. Hermione snatched up the beaded bag and started to rummage; after a moment she drew out three Extendable Ears and threw one each to Elizabeth and Ron, who hastily inserted the ends of the flesh-colored strings into their ears and fed the other ends out of the tent entrance.

Within seconds Elizabeth heard a weary male voice.

"There ought to be a few salmon in here, or d'you reckon it's too early in the season? Accio Salmon!"

There were several distinct splashes and then the slapping sounds of fish against flesh. Somebody grunted appreciatively. Elizabeth pressed the Extendable ear deeper into her own: Over the murmur of the river she could make out more voices, but they were not speaking English or any human language she had heard. It was a rough and unmelodious tongue, a string of rattling, guttural noises, and there seemed to be two speakers, one with a slightly lower, slower voice than the other.

Goblins! she mouthed to Hermione, who nodded. Ron looked confused.

A fire danced into life on the other side of the canvas; large shadows passed between tent and flames. The delicious smell of baking salmon wafted tantalizingly in their direction. Then came the clinking of cutlery on plates, and the first man spoke again.

"Here, Griphook, Gornuk."

"Thank you," said the goblins together in English.

"So, you three have been on the run how long?" asked a new, mellow, and pleasant voice; it was vaguely familiar to Elizabeth, who pictured a round-bellied, cheerful-faced man.

"Six weeks… seven… I forget," said the tired man. "Met up with Griphook in the first couple of days and joined forces with Gornuk not long after. Nice to have a bit of company." There was a pause, while knives scraped plates and tin mugs were picked up and replaced on the ground. "What made you leave, Ted?" continued the man.

"Knew they were coming for me," replied mellow-voiced Ted, and Elizabeth suddenly knew who he was: Tonks' father.

Ron and Hermione looked at Elizabeth, startled. Muggle-born, she mouthed. They nodded.

"Heard Death Eaters were in the area last week," he continued, "and decided I'd better run for it. Refused to register as a Muggle-born of principle, see, so I knew it was matter of time, knew I'd have to leave in the end. My wife should be okay, she's pure-blood. And then I met Dean here, what a few days ago, son?"

"Yeah," said another voice, and Elizabeth, Ron, and Hermione stared at each other, silent but beside themselves with excitement, sure they recognized the voice of Dean Thomas, their fellow Gryffindor.

"Muggle-born, eh?" asked the first man.

"Not sure," said Dean. "My dad left my mum when I was a kid. I've got no proof he was a wizard, though."

There was silence for a while, except for the sound of munching; then Ted spoke again.

"I've got to say, Dirk, I'm surprised to run into you. Pleased, but surprised. Word was you'd been caught."

"I was," said Dirk. "I was halfway to Azkaban when I made a break for it, Stunned Dawlish, and nicked his broom. It was easier than you'd think; I don't reckon he's quite right at the moment. Might be Confunded. If so, I'd like to shake the hand of the witch or wizard to did it, probably saved my life."

There was another pause in which the fire crackled and the river rushed on. Then Ted said, "And where do you two fit in, I, er, had the impression the goblins were for You-Know-Who, on the whole."

"You had a false impression," said the higher0voiced of the goblins. "We take no sides. This is a wizards' war."

"How come you're hiding, then?"

"I deemed it prudent," said the deeper-voiced goblin. "Having refused what I considered an impertinent request, I could see that my personal safety was in jeopardy."

"What did they ask you to do?" asked Ted.

"Duties ill-befitting the dignity of my race," replied the goblin, his voice rougher and less human as he said it. "I am not a house-elf."

"What about you, Griphook?"

"Similar reasons," said the high-voiced goblin. "Gringotts is no longer under the sole control of my race. I recognize to Wizarding master."

He added something under his breath in Gobbledegook, and Gornuk laughed.

"What's the joke?" asked Dean.

"He said," replied Dirk, "that there are things wizards don't recognize, either."

There was a short pause.

"I don't get it," said Dean.

"I had my small revenge before I left," said Griphook in English.

"Good man—goblin, I should say," amended Ted hastily. "Didn't manage to lock a Death Eater up in one of the old high-security vaults, I suppose?"

"If I had, the sword would not have helped him break out," replied Griphook. Gornuk laughed again and even Dirk gave a dry chuckle.

"Dean and I are still missing something here," said Ted.

"So is Severus Snape, though he does not know it," said Griphook, and the two goblins roared with malicious laughter. Inside the tent, Elizabeth's breathing was shallow with excitement: He and Hermione stared at each other, listening as hard as they could.

"Didn't you hear about that, Ted?" asked Dirk. "About the kids who tried to steal Gryffindor's sword out of Snape's office at Hogwarts?"

An electric current seemed to course through Elizabeth, jangling her every nerve as she stood rooted to the spot.

"Never heard a word," said Ted. "Not in the Prophet, was it?"

"Hardly," chortled Dirk. "Griphook here told me, he heard about it from Bill Weasley who works for the bank. One of the kids who tried to take the sword was Bill's younger sister."

Elizabeth glanced toward Hermione and Ron, both of whom were clutching the Extendable Ears as tightly as lifelines.

"She and a couple of friends got into Snape's office and smashed open the glass case where he was apparently keeping the sword. Snape caught them as they were trying to smuggle it down the staircase."

"Ah, God bless 'em," said Ted. "What did they think, that they'd be able to use the sword on You-Know-Who? Or on Snape himself?"

"Well, whatever they thought they were going to do with it, Snape decided the sword wasn't safe where it was," said Dirk. "couple of days later, once he'd got the say-so from You-Know-Who, I imagine, he sent it down to London to be kept in Gringotts instead."

The goblins started to laugh again.

"I'm still not seeing the joke," said Ted.

"It's a fake," rasped Griphook.

"The sword of Gryffindor!"

"Oh yes, it is a copy—an excellent copy, it is true—but it was Wizard-made. The original was forged centuries ago by goblins and had certain properties only goblin-made armor possesses. Wherever the genuine sword of Gryffindor is, it is not in a vault at Gringotts bank."

"I see," said Ted. "And I take it you didn't bother telling the Death Eaters this?"

"I saw no reason to trouble them with the information," said Griphook smugly, and now Ted and Dean joined in Gornuk and Dirk's laughter.

Inside the tent, Ron closed his eyes, willing someone to ask the question he needed answered, and after a minute that seemed ten, Dean obliged; he was (Ron remembered with a jolt) an ex-boyfriend of Ginny's.

"What happened to Ginny and the others? The ones who tried to steal it?"

"Oh, they were punished, and cruelly," said Griphook indifferently.

Elizabeth reached over and placed her hand on Ron's shoulder. He only pulled away.

"They're okay, thought?" asked Ted quickly. "I mean, the Weasleys don't need any more of their kids injured, do they?"

"They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware," said Griphook.

"Lucky for them," said Ted. "With Snape's track record I suppose we should just be glad they're still alive."

"You believe that story, then, do you, Ted?" asked Dirk. "You believe Snape killed Dumbledore."

Elizabeth's head snapped up.

"'Course I do," said Ted. "You're not going to sit there and tell me you think Potter had anything to do with it? She wasn't even here!"

Elizabeth looked around at Hermione and Ron. They both refused to meet her eyes.

"Hard to know what to believe these days," muttered Dirk.

"I know Elizabeth Potter," said dean. "We're friend actually. Same house at Hogwarts. And I reckon she's the real thing—the Chosen One, or whatever you want to call it."

"Yeah, there's a lot would like to believe she's that, son," said Dirk, "me included. But where is she?"

"Trying to save your sorry ass," muttered Elizabeth irritably. Emmett's hands on her shoulders tightened.

"Run for it, by the looks of things. You'd think if she knew anything we don't, or had anything special going for her, she'd be out there now fighting, rallying resistance, instead of hiding. And you know, the Prophet made a pretty good case against her—"

"The Prophet?" scoffed Ted. "You deserve to be lied to if you're still reading teat muck, Dirk. You want the facts, try the Quibbler."

There was a sudden explosion of choking and retching, plus a good deal of thumping; by the sound of it, Dirk had swallowed a fish bone. At last he spluttered, "The Quibbler? That lunatic rag of Xeno Lovegood's?"

"It's not so lunatic these days," said Ted. "You want to give it a look. Xeno is printing all the stuff the Prophet's ignoring, not a single mention of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the last issue. How long they'll let him get away with it, mind, I don't know. But Xeno says, front page of every issue, that any wizard who's against You-Know-Who ought to make helping Elizabeth Potter their number one priority."

"Hard to help the girl who's vanished off the face of the earth," said Dirk.

"Listen, the fact that they haven't caught her yet's one hell of an achievement," said Ted. "I'd take tips from him gladly; it's what we're trying to do, stay free, isn't it?"

"Yeah, well you've got a point there," said Dirk heavily. "With the whole of the Ministry and all their informers looking for her I'd have expected her to be caught by now. Mind, who's to say they haven't already caught and killed her without publicizing it?"

Emmett's hand moved from Elizabeth's shoulders to wrap around her waist possessively. And inaudible growl escaped his throat. Elizabeth placed her free hand over his and squeezed it.

"Ah, don't say that, Dirk," murmured Ted.

There was a long pause filled with more clattering of knives and forks. When they spoke again it was to discuss whether they ought to sleep on the bank or retreat back up the wooded slope. Deciding the trees would give better cover, they extinguished their fire, then clambered back up the incline, their voices fading away.

Elizabeth, Ron, and Hermione reeled in the Extendable Ears. Elizabeth sighed and leaned back against Emmett.

"Ginny—the sword—" said Hermione, who'd obviously found the need to remain silent increasingly difficult the longer they eavesdropped.

"I know," Elizabeth nodded.

Hermione lunged for the tiny beaded bag, this time sinking her arm in right up to the armpit.

"Here… we… are…" she said between gritted teeth, and she pulled at something that was evidently in the depths of the bag. Slowly, the edge of an ornate picture frame came into sight. Emmett reached over and easily pulled it out. The empty portrait of Phineas Nigellus came into view. Elizabeth pulled her wand and kept pointing it at the portrait, ready to cast a spell at any moment.

"If somebody swapped the real sword for the fake while it was in Dumbledore's office," Hermione panted, as they propped the painting against the side of the tent, "Phineas Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right behind the case!"

"Unless he was asleep." Elizabeth knelt down in front of the empty canvas, her wand directed at its center, cleared her throat, then said:

"Er—Phineas? Phineas Nigellus?"

Nothing.

"Phineas Nigellus?" she said again. "Professor Black? Please, could we talk to you? Please?"

"'Please' always helps," said a cold, snide voice, and Phineas Nigellus slid into his portrait. At once, Elizabeth cried:

"Obscuro!"

A black blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus' clever, dark eeys, causing him to bump into the frame and shriek with pain.

"What—how dare—what are you—?"

"Very sorry, Professor Black," said Hermione, "but it's a necessary precaution!"

"Remove this foul addition at once! Remove it, I say! You are ruining a great work of art! Where am I? What is going on?"

"Never mind where we are," said Elizabeth, and Phineas froze, abandoning his attempt to peel off the painted blindfold.

"Can that possibly be the voice of the elusive Miss Potter?"

"Maybe," said Harry, knowing that this would keep Phineas' interest. "Or maybe I'm just a girl who needs information. Maybe I'm both. You don't know."

Emmett hid a snort with difficulty.

"We've got a couple of questions to ask you—about the sword of Gryffindor," Elizabeth continued.

"Ah," said Phineas, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to catch sight of Elizabeth, "yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there—"

"Shut up about my sister," said Ron roughly. Phineas raised supercilious eyebrows.

"Who else is there?" he asked, turning his head from side to side. "Your tone displeases me! the girl and her friends were foolhardy in the extreme. Thieving from the headmaster!"

"They weren't thieving," said Elizabeth. "That sword isn't Snape's."

"It belongs to Professor Snape's school," said Phineas. "Exactly what claim did the Weasley girl have upon it? She deserved her punishment, as did the idiot Longbottom and the Lovegood oddity!"

"Neville is not an idiot and Luna is not an oddity!" said Hermione.

"Where am I?" repeated Phineas, starting to wrestle with the blindfold again. "Where have you brought me? why have you removed me from the house of my forebears?"

"Never mind that! How did Snape punish Ginny, Neville, and Luna?" asked Ron.

"Professor Snape—"

"Not my professor anymore," said Ron. "I won't call him 'Professor'."

"—sent them into the Forbidden Forest, to do some work for the oaf, Hagrid," Phineas continued, ignoring Ron.

"Hagrid's not an oaf!" said Hermione shrilly.

"And Snape might've thought that was a punishment," said Elizabeth, "but Ginny, Neville, and Luna probably had a good laugh with Hagrid. The Forbidden forest… they've faced plenty worse than the Forbidden Forest."

"What we really wanted to know, Professor Black," Hermione said, "is whether anyone else has, um, taken out the sword at all? Maybe it's been taken away for cleaning or—or something?"

Phineas paused again in his struggles to free his eyes and sniggered.

"Muggle-borns," he said. "Goblin-made armor does not require cleaning, simple girl. Goblins' silver repels mundane dirt, imbibing only that which strengthens it."

"Don't call Hermione simple," said Elizabeth.

"I grow weary of contradiction," said Phineas. "Perhaps it is time for me to return to the headmaster's office?"

Still blindfolded, he began groping the side of his frame, trying to feel his way out of his picture and back into the one at Hogwarts.

"Professor Black," said Hermione, "couldn't you just tell us, please, when was the last time the sword was taken out of its case? Before Ginny took it out, I mean?"

Phineas snorted impatiently.

"I believe that the last time I saw the sword of Gryffindor leave its case was when Professor Dumbledore used it to break open a ring."

Hermione whipped around to look at Elizabeth. Neither of them dared say more in front of Phineas, who had at last managed to locate the exit.

"Well, good night to you," he said a little waspishly, and he began to move out of sight again. Only the edge of his hat brim remained in view when Elizabeth gave a sudden shout.

"Wait! Have you told Snape you saw this?"

Phineas stuck his blindfolded head back into the picture.

"Professor Snape has more important things on his mind than the many eccentricities of Albus Dumbledore. Good-bye, Potter!"

"Elizabeth!" Hermione cried.

"I know!" Elizabeth shouted. Unable to contain herself, she punched the air; it was more than she had dared to hope for. She strode up and down the tent, feeling that she could have run a mile; she did not even feel hungry eve more. Emmett was laughing at her. Hermione was squashing Phineas Nigellus' portrait back into the beaded bag; when she had fastened the clasp she threw the bag aside and raised a shining face to Elizabeth.

"The sword can destroy Horcruxes! Goblin-made blades imbibe only that which strengthen them!" Hermione cried.

"Basilisk venom!" said Elizabeth. "Basilisk venom is one of the few substances that can destroy a Horcrux! When I stabbed the basilisk in second year… And Dumbledore didn't give it to me because he still needed it, he wanted to use it on the locket—"

"—and he must have realized they wouldn't let you have it if he put it in his will—"

"—so he made a copy—"

"—and put a fake in the glass case—"

"—and he left the real one—where?"

They gazed at each other; Elizabeth felt that the answer was dangling invisibly in the air above them, tantalizingly close.

"Think!" whispered Hermione. "Think! Where could he have left it?"

"Not at Hogwarts," said Elizabeth, resuming her pacing.

"Somewhere in Hogsmeade?" suggested Hermione.

"The Shrieking Shack?" said Elizabeth. "Nobody ever goes in there."

"But Snape knows how to get in, wouldn't that be a bit risky?"

"Dumbledore trusted Snape," Elizabeth reminded her.

"Not enough to tell him that he had swapped the swords," said Hermione.

"Yeah, you're right!" said Elizabeth, and she felt even more cheered at the thought that Dumbledore had, had some reservations, however faint, about Snape's trustworthiness. "So, would he have hidden the sword well away from Hogsmeade, then? What d'you reckon, Ron? Ron?"

Elizabeth looked around. For one bewildered moment she thought Ron had left the tent, then realized that Ron was lying in the shadow of a lower bunk, looking stony.

"Oh, remembered me, have you?" he said.

"What?"

Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk.

"You two carry on. Don't let me spoil your fun."

Perplexed, Elizabeth looked to Hermione for help, but she shook her head, apparently as nonplussed as Elizabeth was.

"What's the problem?" asked Elizabeth.

"Problem? There's no problem," said Ron, still refusing to look at Elizabeth. "Not according to you, anyway."

There were several plunks on the canvas over their heads. It had started to rain.

"Well, you've obviously got a problem," said Elizabeth. "Spit it out, will you?"

Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.

"All right, I'll spit it out. Don't expect me to skip up and down the tent because there's some other damn thing we've got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don't know."

"I don't know?" repeated Elizabeth. "I don't know?"

Plunk, plunk, plunk. The rain was falling harder and heavier; it pattered on the leaf-strewn bank all around them and into the river chattering through the dark. Dread doused Elizabeth's jubilation: Ron was saying exactly what she had suspected and feared him to be thinking.

"It's not like I'm not having the time of my life here," said Ron, "you know, with nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just hoped, you know, after we'd been running round a few weeks, we'd have achieved something."

"Ron," Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was now beating on the tent. Emmett frowned and stood.

"I thought you knew what you'd signed up for," said Elizabeth.

"Yeah, I thought I did too."

"So what part of it isn't living up to your expectations?" asked Elizabeth. Anger was coming to her defense now. "Did you think we'd be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you'd be back to Mummy by Christmas?"

"We thought you knew what you were doing!" shouted Ron, standing up, and his words pierced Elizabeth like scalding knives. "We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan!"

"Ron!" Hermione cried, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof. Emmett took a step forward.

Elizabeth whipped out her wand and put a shield charm in front of her and Ron so that Hermione and couldn't get to them.

"I had a letter to go by, Ron," said Elizabeth, her voice quite calm even though she felt hallow, inadequate. "A letter. That's all. And all the letter said was that You-Know-Who had made a bunch of Horcruxes and that I needed to destroy them. It didn't say how to destroy them or anything. I'm just as lost as you are."

Ron snorted bitterly, "Yeah."

"Take off the locket, Ron," Elizabeth said.

Ron ignored her, "Didn't you hear what they said about my sister? But you don't give a rat's fart, do you, it's only the Forbidden Forest, Elizabeth I've-Faced-Worse Potter doesn't care what happens to her in here—well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff—"

Elizabeth lunged forward and snatched the locket from Ron's neck. "Ron, listen to me," she said quietly, noticing how Ron's features relaxed a little. "I do care about, Ginny. I do. The Weasleys were the first family I ever had, you, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie… you all are my brothers, and that makes Ginny my sister, too. I only meant that they were with Hagrid, and Hagrid's more than capable of protecting them. Please, Ron, I know you're scared for your family. We all are. You're not alone. Just calm down. At least we know that they're okay."

Ron stared at her for a moment and then lowered his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Elizabeth stepped forward and pulled him into a hug. "It's alright," she whispered. "It's alright." She nodded to Hermione and Emmett to let them know that everything was alright.

"It's alright," she murmured once more.


Wow… that was crappy….

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed!

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-The Girl with the Large Glasses