Harry left the Hospital Wing himself the next day after promising Madame Pomfrey that he would do everything in his power to stay out of trouble.

"Hell, I really should have asked her if she just wanted me to make an Unbreakable Vow to be careful," Harry joked to his friends. The six of them were sitting together in the Room of Requirement, having made the group decision to ignore curfew.

Ron groaned and Ginny swatted Harry's arm. "Not funny, Harry", said Hermione. Neville nodded in agreement.

"Oh, come on everyone, lighten up," said Harry. He'd had a lot of time to think, lying in the hospital bed.

Next to him, Ginny squeezed his hand. They'd talked it over earlier and she knew what he was going to say, and what he needed from all of them.

Harry looked around at the faces of his closest friends. He was about to make their lives infinitely harder, but there was no way around it.

Looking at Hermione, Harry suddenly hoped that she'd already figured it out and told Ron. He wasn't sure he could stand watching them understand what he was about to say.

"Well, it's just this," he began. Hermione leaned forward, looking particularly grim, and Harry was suddenly sure she knew.

"Yeah?" asked Ron. He still had a mild look on his face. He didn't know yet.

Harry took a deep breath. "The Horcrux in me," he said. "We know how to get it out."

Wrong thing to say. Everyone suddenly looked excited, hopeful, even. Hermione broke into a grin and Ron and Neville gave each other high fives.

"Dumbledore figured something out, then?" she asked excitedly.

"No! No." Harry said hastily. "No, he didn't," he said more softly. Hermione's face drooped again. As Harry watched she leaned towards Ron, moving her hand so that it was close to where his own rested on his leg. Ron gave her an odd look and for a second Harry thought he was going to grab Hermione's hand, but after a second he shrugged and looked back at Harry.

"So what's the solution, mate?"

"You have to put the container beyond all magical repair," said Harry softly.

Hermione's face didn't change and Harry remembered when she'd first read to them about how to destroy a Horcrux. It just hadn't sunk in to them then.

Neville's mouth opened in surprise and shock. He looked like he wanted to say something, but no words were coming out of his mouth. Luna just stared, her eyes opening even wider, if possible.

Ron jumped up out of his seat and stalked towards him. "Bloody hell, Harry. You're the container! How are you supposed to put yourself beyond magical repair? That would be suicide!" He was looking down at Harry as if he wanted to shake some sense into him and make him see the error of his words.

"I'm trying to look at it more as the only way to make sure Voldemort can be killed . . . too." Harry hadn't meant to add that last word, it had slipped out as his voice waivered. Ron's face grew even more red if possible and this time he really did grab Harry about the shoulders.

"Are you mental? You can't . . . you can't just . . . do that. Harry." Ron's voice took on a pleading tone Harry had never heard before.

Harry tried to say something, but the words caught in his throat.

"Ron," said Hermione. She'd gotten up from the sofa and was now standing with her hand on his arm.

Ron shook her off. "Hermione, don't you see? He's talking about . . . about . . . letting himself . . . letting that bastard kill him!"

Ron stared at Hermione; he couldn't bring himself to look back at Harry again. For the first time since he'd known her, she looked . . . defeated. She shrugged at him, a single tear slipping down her cheek.

Ron refused to let that be it. He grabbed Hermione by the arm and shook her.

"Hermione, go get some of those books – there has to be a spell in one of them." He couldn't understand why she wasn't moving towards the shelves, pulling down volume after volume and burying herself in research until she came up with the answer.

"You brewed Polyjuice in our Second Year, dammit!" He shook her again.

"Ron, it's not Hermione's fault." Harry was speaking now; he sounded tired.

"Harry." Ron finally made himself look at his best friend. "You're talking like you've given up already!" He looked around the room. "All of you – why are you just sitting there?" He started pacing, unable to stay still. At least if he was walking, he was doing something – and that was more than anyone else could say.

"How long have you known?" He turned suddenly on his sister, who'd been strangely quiet this entire time. Her face was drawn and pale but it didn't have any of the shock that Neville and Luna shared. She didn't look up at him for a second, just continued to trace circles on the back of Harry's hand with her thumb.

"Ginny?"

"A couple days," she finally admitted. When she looked up at Ron her eyes were dry. "I figured it out after reading more of those Horcrux books."

"Which ones?" asked Ron sharply, striding over to the shelves on the other side of the room. He'd barely gotten halfway there when two of them pushed themselves off the shelf to hover in mid-air until he grabbed them. "There has to be an answer in here somewhere," he muttered to himself. Ron threw open one of the books to a random page and began feverishly skimming down the columns of text. The words were cramped and stained; many were unfamiliar and named spells he'd never heard of before.

"Hermione, I need you!" he yelled out without looking up. He turned to another page, then another, looking frantically for anything that might help.

Ron didn't even notice that everyone had come to his side until Harry put his hand on his arm. "Ron, I don't think the books can help."

"Well then, ask the Room to give us some new books, the right books," said Ron. "The right book has to be somewhere." There was a gnawing thought at the back of his head but as long as he was talking, he could ignore it. If he didn't stop, then he could avoid the truth – they all could.

"I don't think the right book exists," said Hermione softly. Her words, so unexpected from her, finally broke through Ron's mania. He looked up, confused.

"What do you mean? It has to exist," he said to her. He looked at all his friends. Neville had picked up another of the floating books and was paging through it with a sick look on his face. Luna also had a book, but seemed more fascinated than disturbed by its contents. Magical Man-Eaters, the title was.

Ginny was watching him silently, leaning against Harry. It was the look on her face, more than anything else, that finally made Ron believe. He knew Harry and Ginny had only been together, so to speak, for a couple of days, but something had clearly changed for both of them in that time. They had several months together this year that he knew almost nothing about, and whatever had led them to now was bigger than he could have imagined for his little sister or his best mate.

And now Ginny and Harry were having a silent conversation with each other – the kind he'd only seen between his mum and dad, who'd been together forever, for Merlin's sake. How could Harry and Ginny have gotten there so soon?

The silence stretched on as Ron struggled to get his mind around it. He tried once more. "Buy why . . ." he began.

"Because Harry's probably the only human Horcrux ever made," said Hermione, reading his thoughts. "There are few enough books explaining how to make one in the first place, and we know that even Voldemort – when he was Tom Riddle – couldn't find a lot of information about them. I can't imagine anyone ever sitting down and considering this situation."

"Yeah, I guess," Ron finally said. It was still too awful to really think on, and he cast about for something else to say.

"D'you think Dumbledore knows?"

To his surprise, Harry snorted. "No Ron. I don't think he has any idea. He's only the most powerful wizard that ever lived – I'm sure he's going to be quite shocked when we burst into his office to tell him we've figured out I have to die."

The sarcasm was more than Ron's fragile emotions could take. He glared at Harry. "How can you joke about it?" he asked bitterly.

Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair in a gesture that was almost as familiar to Ron as his own reflection. It could mean, depending on the situation, that Harry was frustrated, angry, nervous, or didn't know what else to do. Right now, it was probably a little bit of all of those.

"Look Ron . . . everyone," Harry finally said. He stopped. "Maybe we should all go back and sit down first."

Silently, Ron followed everyone back to the sofas, Ginny curling up in Harry's lap this time. Hermione sat down next to Ron on a loveseat and when she put her hand reassuringly on his leg, he didn't think twice about grabbing it in his.

Harry looked briefly at each one of them, his gaze finally settling on Ron. For a moment, Ron was surprised that Harry seemed to be speaking mostly to him and not to Ginny, who deserved as much as anyone to hear Harry's explanation.

She already knows what he's going to say, Ron realized.

"Okay," Harry finally said. "I think we can all agree that this . . . situation is pretty horrible, and we don't even need to discuss just how horrible it is. Yes, it now appears that sometime in the nearer future than I would have liked, I'm going to die."

He said the words heavily, but plainly, and the look on his face warned everyone not to disagree. Ron bit back the urge to argue again for some small hope and kept quiet.

"But I've always been a marked man," Harry went on. "Even before I knew about the Prophecy, I knew my life was going to have to . . . that it was just . . . that it was different, from all of yours."

He seemed to lose his words for a moment and Ron watched as Ginny unblushingly whispered into Harry's ear and then trailed several kisses down his face. Harry smiled briefly and looked around again.

"I never let that stop me from living before, though, and I sure as hell am not going to let it stop me now – now that I know just how it's all going to end."

He turned back to Ron. "It's not going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the next," he said. "We have all those other bloody Horcruxes to find first, you know?"

Ron let himself nod. He couldn't understand how Harry could be so calm. If it was me, I'd be bloody mental by now. That was it, Ron realized. Harry was able to sit here and talk so matter-a-factly about his own death because he was Harry. Harry Potter. And he was right. On some level or another he'd been marked to die from even before he was born.

". . . so I want to keep enjoying myself, as much as I can," Harry was saying.

"How?" asked Neville. "I mean, are you going to start skiving off classes and things?"

"No," said Harry. "Well, maybe Snape's occasionally. But more than that, I just want to live as normally as possible. I want to joke and complain about classes and play Quidditch and badger Malfoy and snog my girlfriend all over the castle." At this last statement, he pulled Ginny's head close to his and began kissing her as if the two of them were entirely alone.

Ron took a deep breath. "You know, if you want to live long enough to find the Horcruxes before you die I suggest you never let me see anything like that ever again."

Harry and Ginny broke apart. "See, it's not so hard," said Ginny. She gave Ron a smile that told him she understood entirely how much effort it was taking him right now to act normal.

"Thanks Ron," said Harry.

"No problem, mate. But I mean it. Don't let me catch you doing that ever again."

Everyone laughed, and then Luna yawned an enormous yawn that made them all realize how late it was. Ron was suddenly exhausted; he felt like he could sleep for a hundred years. But as they gathered up their things and left the Room of Requirement for their dormitories, he knew that it was more likely that tonight, he was going to lay awake for a long time.