The wind was howling in the distance, snaking through the branches and massaging the hair from Ron's forehead. He was sweating – badly. The pain in his leg grew in severity. It took an indecent amount of distraction for him to stifle his urge to scream. Naked ladies. Naked ladies. Naked ladies. It would have helped to have seen one, before that moment, but all he had to go off of was, well, pornography.

His relationship with Hermione had been short-lived and fragile from the start. They had only ever kissed – maybe a handful of times, but he tried not to think about her as much. She was still brilliant and beautiful, but in his absence the girl had developed affection for someone else, someone equally undeserving.

She should have been with Harry, the young man thought to himself. There was a time, in which the very notion of his best friends pairing off together had been his worst nightmare, but the more Ron thought about it, the more he realized how compatible they were for one another. He secretly wondered if Hermione had ever felt anything for Harry…even the slightest crush during first or second year. Half the girls in Hogwarts had been vying for his attention at one point or another – including Ron's own sister. But it was more than a crush for Ginny. She loved Harry; from the moment Ron came home from first year and told his family about his new best friend. Ginny's eyes lit up for Harry and stayed like that until her dying day.

It was real love, but it had ultimately been the reason she was murdered so savagely. The Death Eaters knew she was Harry Potter's girlfriend, and that was a weapon far too useful to ignore. Ginny was a clever witch, but she was also very young and inexperienced when it came to Death Eater dealings. He closed his eyes and thought distantly of their last conversation.

"Find her, brother." Ginny had told him. "But don't, under any circumstances, lose your will to love others."

At the time, her words had angered him, because she spoke in such a way that suggested his love for Hermione wouldn't last…or rather…the other way around. But the truth was ever evident. He could now see the flaws in his romance with the bookish Head Girl. She had loved him, yes, but their love had been young, untried and untested. There was so much build-up, so many years of dreaming, hoping, praying she felt the same way…but it was never meant to last. It was still important to him, that Hermione had been his first love and he hers. They had taught one another to find joy amidst chaos, and that was a lesson neither of them would ever forget. In fact, that very lesson had driven Hermione towards the Slytherin Prince…and perhaps, one day, if the universe would allow it, Ron would find someone to know and to love and to cherish.

He inhaled, deeply, forcing the frustration down, and hastily grabbing at the tree behind him, until a pair of strong hands lifted him from the ground.

"Found you," Greyback growled. "Didn't run very far, did you?"

Ron kicked at him and winced. "My – My leg."

The werewolf chucked him on the ground and stomped on his broken bones, causing the young man to shout in pure, unadulterated agony. "Cry all you want, Weasley. I'm still going to turn you."

"Just – Just kill me," he begged. "I'd rather die."

"Funny," Greyback mused, cracking his knuckles, as he prepared to morph into a full-fledged beast. "Lupin said the same thing, before I turned him." He released a roaring laugh at the very memory of it. "Didn't do him much good."

Ron tried to steady his breathing, watching with wide eyes as the werewolf tilted his head to the sky, as he had done before the chase, and howled to the moon. Crows fluttered away from the tree branches and for a moment, just one moment, it sounded as though there was another howl…a fair distance away, but Ron had no time to ponder. He dragged himself backwards with his elbows, as fast as he could.

The structural makeup of Greyback's enormous body shifted and twisted, until his back arched, his hind legs extended and his teeth turned to weapons. It looked nothing like the time Remus Lupin morphed into a werewolf during the trio's third year. Greyback didn't cry out in pain, as Lupin had. In fact, he looked to be enjoying it…as disgusting as it was to realize. Ron kept moving, trying his best to keep positive and not scream with fright. He was no longer a little schoolboy. He was a man, and men faced their fears.

The young wizard used every ounce of strength left in his body, and lifted himself from the ground, limping and groaning and sweating a bloody fever, as he tried to escape the oncoming attack.

Greyback's rumbling growl tore through Ron's conviction and caused the redhead to stumble about ten or eleven feet from his starting point. He tried, as hard as he physically could, to recover, but the sound of claws digging into the earth as they neared him kept the boy frozen in fear. He reluctantly shifted his gaze, and he did so with just enough time to see the possessed, starved, feral beast coming straight for him. Ron did what little he could and shielded his face and neck from the assault.

The werewolf tackled him to the ground and sunk his elongated teeth into the flesh of Ron Weasley's arm. This time, he didn't suppress the urge to scream. There was a crack in his courage, and through the crack traveled a deafening scream that was heard throughout the grounds of the Death Eater headquarters. Ron cried out and writhed in sheer torture. He could feel the bite through every inch of his body and went into shock, as Greyback savaged his wound – mercilessly.

Ron opened his eyes, quaking beneath the assault, praying darkness would find him. The moon was there. It wasn't full, but its light poured down, through the tree branches and illuminated him. For a moment, Ron thought he had died and that heaven was claiming his body, but he then realized the light wasn't from the moon, and that it wasn't pale and glowing…it was green and vibrant. It enveloped the werewolf whole, putting an end to his savagery and in a flash, Greyback returned to his human form…but the hunger in his eyes was no more.

His lifeless body fell to the ground, beside Ron, and on the outskirts of the clearing stood one Severus Snape, with his wand arm extended and his facial muscles contorting with shock. The former Potions Master immediately came to Ron's aid and lifted his arm for inspection.

"I – I'm fine," Ron urged. "Find Hermione and help her."

Severus threw the boy a stern look. "Your leg is broken and you've been bitten by a werewolf. You are not fine. In fact, you are light-years away from fine, Mr. Weasley."

"You're right," Ron agreed. "I – I'm not fine. Right now, I'm useless and I will only slow you down."

"Shut up and hold still." The aged wizard grabbed the boy by the shoulder and in a flash, Apparated them out of the forest and into a small, plainly decorated room with nothing but a bed and a cabinet, filled with various potions ingredient and not clothes.

Ron's eyes darted from left to right. "Which part of the castle is this?"

"This isn't the castle. It's my flat."

"Won't your flat be the first place the other Death Eaters will come looking for you?" the boy ventured.

Severus retrieved dozens of ingredients from his cabinet and distributed them around the edge of the bed, in deep thought. "Astute analysis, Mr. Weasley," he retorted, sarcastically. "They will, indeed, look for me in my London flat."

"I s'pose that means we aren't in London…" Ron gathered.

"We aren't in England," Severus corrected, grinding several ingredients together using a mortar and pestle. "I've several places of residence all over the continent. Our current location is Oslo."

"Oslo…?"

The wizard flashed his former student a look of disapproval. "Norway, Mr. Weasley. Norway."

"Erm – right."

Severus finished grinding the ingredients and then proceeded to cut strips of a bandage, before approaching his patient. "This will be painful," he warned, pressing the powdered mixture onto the werewolf bite and ignoring the agonizing sounds Ron was making. He then wrapped the bite in a bandage and spared a moment to see if the wound would bleed through the fabric. It didn't. "There. The wound should heal come morning."

"You – You should have let me die," Ron struggled to say. "I don't want to be a werewolf."

"I'm too fearful of Miss Granger's wrath to let that happen," Severus said carefully. "I must return to the castle and finish the preparations," he started, lifting his hood on. "When I come back, we'll discuss wolfsbane and everything you need to know about living a normal life."

Ron opened his mouth in protest. "But –"

"Rest well, Mr. Weasley." And just like that, the dark-haired wizard vanished.

Hermione placed protective charms around Draco's body, unable to look him in the eyes as she hopped into the invisible boat Harry had described to his friends, following Dumbledore's tragic death. There were still Inferi stirring the waters, and she tried her best to evade them with quick maneuvers and bursts of fire. Their bites were toxic, and had to be healed using a special ingredient, that she unfortunately didn't have. Her thoughts drifted to the possibility of losing Draco, but she pushed those crippling thoughts aside. They were no help.

She passed the island on top of which rested the basin that had once held Slytherin's locket. It was haunting in its own way, knowing the potion in that basin had weakened her favourite Headmaster and contributed to his death tenfold. Draco had been there…when Albus Dumbledore had died. In fact, he'd been assigned with the task of killing him, and tried using various methods throughout the year – but his efforts got him nowhere.

Hermione wondered if perhaps Draco had actually been trying. She knew he was clever, and that if he really, truly wanted to…he could accomplish anything – even as the arrogant, privileged boy she had grown to know and despise in Hogwarts. Even then. There was good in him, good that his father had once tried to thwart, but the atrocities of serving the Dark Lord for so many years had eventually taken their toll on Lucius Malfoy, and surrendered him to his own goodness and the goodness of his family.

There was once a time in which Hermione desired to watch Lucius Malfoy writhe in pain, but without Lucius…there would be no Draco…and for a brief moment, she wondered if Draco's parents would have liked her, had they lived to know the mother of their son's child. She swallowed hard and glanced down at her lower abdomen, keeping a hand there, as if she could already feel what was growing inside. It was too early for that, but even the possibility of it brought her comfort.

Then, more than ever, she had to be careful. It wasn't just her life on the line.

The invisible boat reached the end of the water, where there was an entrance to a tunnel that would have otherwise been overlooked. Hermione quietly climbed out, throwing one glance behind her before entering the tunnel with feet as light as feathers. She reached into her robes and carefully withdrew something. It was thin, ornate and soft to the touch. It was the fabric Snape had used to bundle the Elder Wand; thereby joining two of the three deathly hallows.

It was the Invisibility Cloak – the one Harry had used for many of his and his friends' sneaking about during their time in Hogwarts. Hermione had thought it to be lost after the Battle of Hogwarts, but Professor Snape found it and cleverly used the visible side of it to conceal the Elder Wand. She recovered it from the Dark Lord's living quarters, just moments before she and Ron had run into Severus in the corridors, and kept it for obvious purposes. Using the cloak, Hermione had entered the cave alongside Voldemort and Draco, remaining unnoticed in the midst of their journey.

She draped it over her body and continued walking, careful not to make a single sound or take a breath that wasn't completely necessary. Nearly six or seven minutes worth of walking had come and gone, before Hermione reached the end of the tunnel.

There he was, standing in a large, circular space, in the center of which was a bed of some sort. The brunette tried to focus on what was going on. She couldn't see much, seeing as the Dark Lord was blocking her line of vision, but there was a body on the bed. It was female. It was breathing, slowly and steadily, as though it were dependent on machinery…but Hermione knew the sight before her well enough to know the body wasn't dependent on any sort of mechanics. It was dependent on magic, just as she had been for all those months.

"Gemma…" spoke the voice of a man, not a snake-man or an evil wizard…but a man. "I've come. I've returned for you."

Hermione listened closely, knowing by the sound of the Dark Lord's voice and the change in his demeanour that this wasn't just any girl. It was the girl, the only girl who had ever been able to penetrate the force field of darkness that had encapsulated him since birth. Her name was Gemma. It was such an ordinary name. Hermione had known many women by that name, but none of them had the overwhelming influence of this particular Gemma. The brunette knew, by just the sound of Voldemort's voice, that this girl had to be special. She was, after all, vessel to the last fragment of his tortured soul.

Gemma was the last horcrux.

A/N: Thanks for reading! For anyone who may be wondering, Nagini is not a horcrux in this story, seeing as she is still alive and I keep referencing the Crystal Cave horcrux as the last one. I'll explain everything in due time, either in the story or through my blog.

We're very close to the end. You've all been very patient and very supportive. Thanks, again.

Cheers

xo