Harry had just left with Luna to the Ravenclaw Tower, in hopes in finding the Lost Diadem. Ron and Hermione watched him leave before Hermione turned to Ron. "Even if he does find the diadem, we won't be able to destroy it," she said bitterly.

Ron knew she was thinking of Griphook, the goblin who had betrayed them. "Yeah, it's not like there's a Horcrux-destroyer just lying around –" he stopped abruptly and his eyes widened as the realization came to him.

Hermione frowned and seemed unsure about what had hit him. "Ron, what –"

Before she could finish, he grabbed her arm and told his brothers to tell Harry that they went to the bathroom. Hermione still looked confused. "The bathroom? Ron, what are you on about?"

He ignored her. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought about it before…it seemed so obvious now…

He led her to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, ignoring her questions the entire way. Myrtle was no where to be seen. Thank Merlin, Ron thought.

The sinks in the bathroom closed off the slide that led to the Chamber of Secrets, as always. Now what?

He could hear Hermione still asking him what was happening. "Ron, can you please tell me what we're doing?"

"We're going in the Chamber to get some basilisk fangs!" Ron said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Something to destroy Horcruxes!"

Hermione's eyes widened as she realized what Ron was talking about. "Ron, that's brilliant! Why didn't I get it before?"

"Yeah, it's great and everything, but we have a problem," Ron stated. "You need to speak Parseltongue to get through. Now what do we do?"

Hermione's face fell. "Well, maybe we can go and try to find Harry –"

"I'm going to try it." If Ron hadn't felt his lips moving, he wouldn't have believed he had said it. He knew it was useless, but he needed to try, for Harry and Hermione.

"What?" Hermione didn't seem to believe he could do it either. "Ron, that's absurd, you're not a Parseltongue!"

"I know that, thanks," Ron said through clenched teeth. Hermione realized she wasn't helping at all, and instantly backed off to avoid an unnecessary argument.

After concentrating for a few minutes, Ron looked up at Hermione, who had been waiting with anticipation. "Alright, I'm going to try it."

Hermione nodded solemnly. Ron turned back to the sinks. He closed his eyes and said, "Open."

He opened his eyes. The sinks had not budged. Ron looked back at Hermione, who was behind him waiting with crossed arms. She shook her head. "English."

Ron turned his back to her and tried again. And again. And again. He tried speaking Parseltongue for what felt like ten times, but before he could try again, Hermione spoke up.

"Ron, you obviously can't speak Parseltongue. Can we just go get Harry?"

"No!" The response came out louder than he had meant it to and it echoed off the bathroom walls. "I…I need to do this on my own."

"Why?" Hermione persisted.

"Because I need to prove I'm not useless!" Hermione's expression softened, but Ron turned his back on her again before she could say anything more. Nevertheless, he heard a small voice behind him speak softly: "You're not useless, Ron."

He felt his ears turning red and he was sure Hermione was blushing behind him. "I'm trying again. Just one more time, and I promise we'll go find Harry if I can't open it, alright?"

He turned back around to see Hermione nodding. Once again, he faced the sinks. He needed to concentrate…he kept his focus on only snakes…his mind was plastered with snakes and concentration on trying to talk to them…

He let out a strangled hissing noise for the first time. To his surprise, the sinks began to open. He turned back to Hermione, grinning. "I told you I could do it, Hermione!"

Hermione beamed at him before launching herself at him. He was nearly knocked down into the gap that had opened in the middle of the bathroom. She let go of him, blushing, obviously aware that she could've had them both toppled down into a black hole when they weren't ready. "Now what?" she asked him, peering apprehensively into the hole.

"We go into the Chamber," Ron said. "It's a slide, you won't get hurt. I'll go first, alright?" Ron dropped down into the hole, and he soon heard a thump that meant that Hermione was right behind him.

When his feet eventually hit the ground, he looked up and saw the Chamber exactly how he had left it. The whole place was a mess from the avalanche that had split him and Harry up almost five years ago.

Before he could look around much more, Hermione appeared out of nowhere and landed with a thump on the ground as the slide ended. Ron scurried to help her up.

"We'll have to get through that hole to get to the Chamber," he said, pointing to the small hole his thirteen-year-old self had dug out to get to Harry after the rocks had separated them.

However, Hermione seemed to know what had happened from what the two boys had told her those years ago. "Did – did you – dig that hole out?"

Ron shrugged modestly, "Yeah, had to. Anyway, I needed something to do while Harry went and slew that snake." Hermione smiled at his joke, and he grinned back at her. However, her smile faded fast. "We can't get through that hole, it's too small."

She drew her wand, and told Ron to step back. Not soon after he did had she screamed "Bombarda!" causing the rocks to explode into different directions.

Ron slowly lowered his arms from in front of his face, his arms now covered with dust. He looked at Hermione, who looked apologetic. "Sorry," she said. "But we wouldn't have been able to fit!"

"'S alright." Ron crawled through the hole first, making sure Hermione was right behind him.

There was a long, winding tunnel up ahead. Ron and Hermione were in complete darkness. Ron launched his hand in his pocket to draw his wand, and he heard Hermione do the same. They both said "Lumos!" in unison and two beams of light illuminated the darkness from their wands.

"I don't think it's that far," Ron told Hermione, though he had absolutely no idea. He took her hand and pulled her along, hoping there were no forks in the path.

Eventually, they came to a solid wall on which two intertwined serpents were carved into. Ron groaned internally at the thought of the attempt of speaking Parseltongue again. However, after five tries, he was able to open the wall that gave them entrance to the Chamber. He noticed Hermione beaming at him with pride out of the corner of his eye, and his stomach dropped at the thought of her pride for him.

The Chamber was long and completely made of stone, but that wasn't the startling part of it. In the middle of the Chamber, lay a huge, fifty-foot long body of a snake. It was frightening to think that Harry had stabbed the beast only five years ago. It was slowly decomposing; the body was attracting flies and maggots. The fangs inside the basilisk's skull, however, were what caught Ron's attention.

He nudged Hermione with an elbow. "Hey." He pointed over at the basilisk's gaping mouth which Hermione's eyes fell on. She looked back at him, looking slightly nauseated. "So the fangs are what we need?" Ron nodded, wishing there was a less difficult way to destroy the Horcruxes.

He led Hermione over to the giant mouth; and found that he could fit inside it. Fortunately, almost all the fangs had fallen out of the basilisk's rotting gums and Ron could simply pick them up off of what was left of the basilisk's tongue without entrance to the mouth.

He picked one bloodstained, venomous, fang and turned back to Hermione. "I have the cup…and I think we should destroy it now." Hermione looked surprised, and looked worriedly down at the cup and fang in Ron's hands. "Are- are you sure? I mean, we could wait for Harry…" she stammered and trailed off when she noticed Ron shaking his head.

"We have to do it now," he told her. "We can't wait anymore, especially when we have what we need to destroy it."

Ron looked back at the cup and then the fang when a sudden realization dawned on him. "And…er…I think you need to do it." He regretted saying it, but he had had an insight that Hermione was the person who was supposed to destroy the next Horcrux.

As he had predicted, she was clearly taken aback. "W-What? Ron, I can't –"

"You can, and you will," Ron said firmly. "I just have this feeling that you have to do it, alright? Please?"

Hermione stared at him with a slightly agape mouth and then nodded. He knew she no longer wanted to argue with him.

"It's going to say things…things to make you stop…just ignore it, alright?" Hermione looked confused at his words and said, "The cup is going to talk to me?" Ron nodded grimly and set the cup down on the ground. Hermione held the fang and hesitantly started to raise it to stab it when as Ron predicted, the voice of Tom Riddle came booming out of the cup:

"I know who you are, Hermione Granger, and I've seen your mind. I know what you desire and what you fear. I have the power to destroy all your hopes for your life…and I also have the power to make them happen…"

Ron saw that Hermione's eyes already had the same terrified look he had felt when he had stabbed the locket. "Hermione, don't listen to it, stab it now." However, Hermione's arm stayed frozen in the air, her fingers gripping the fang as she continued to listen to the cup.

"An insufferable know-it-all, as your professor put it, you are completely useless, only getting in the way of your two best friends…"

"Hermione!" Ron wanted to shake her to snap her out of the trance she was in. "Don't listen to it, it's lying!"

Suddenly, the cup began to shake, and Ron's worst fear for the situation was realized. Two clones of himself and Harry had rose from the depths of the cup and towered over Hermione and himself. They were made out of some kind of silvery vapor, but they couldn't look more real. The fake Harry spoke:

"You were never important, a mere annoyance on our backs…you were never helpful, always useless…

"Why would you ever think of us as your friends?" the fake Ron spat at her. Hermione's eyes were swimming with tears, and Ron wanted nothing more than to hug her and reassure that wasn't true. However, the fake Ron continued:

"You never meant anything to us, why bother following us around? You've always been a pathetic, useless Mudblood and you will never fit in with the wizarding world!"

At this, tears were streaming down Hermione's face and Ron yelled out, "STAB IT!"

Whether she heard him or not, it did not matter, for she brought the fang down on the cup and started stabbing it with such viciousness, Ron was momentarily afraid of her. The cup screamed and the fake Harry and Ron evaporated into thin air. When there was silence once more, Hermione dropped the fang, fell to her knees, and started sobbing furiously.

Ron approached her carefully and kneeled down next to her. "You know none of that was true, Hermione. Riddle was just getting to you. He did the same to me." Hermione didn't show any sign that she had heard Ron; however, she fell into his arms when she realized he was there. He drew his arms around her and hugged her to his chest.

When she seemed to dry out, Ron said into her hair, "You know me and Harry don't think at all of you as useless. If it wasn't for you, Hermione, we both would've been dead a long time ago."

Hermione sniffed and escaped from his embrace. "I just can't believe Riddle knew exactly what I was thinking. Ron, that's exactly what I've always been afraid of! Being useless!"

"You've never been useless, Hermione," Ron said truthfully. "You've actually been the exact opposite, come to think of it."

Hermione almost scoffed. "Sure about that?"

Ron raised his eyebrows. "I've never been more sure about anything else."

Hermione sniffed and wiped her eyes on her robes. "Well, I guess you and Harry would've been dead in second year if I hadn't figured out the basilisk was living in the pipes."

Ron smiled, knowing the Hermione he loved was back.