a/n: I couldn't leave out this iconic moment. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter - it's a doozie!
They had spent several comparatively calm days camped in the forest after their close escape from Godric's Hollow. Harry had softened his stance a bit, no doubt feeling responsible for their most recent foray into danger, and the dynamic between the three of them had shifted much closer to something resembling normal as a result.
The dynamic between Ron and Hermione, on the other hand, continued to move further away from their previously established normal, although in that case, it had been a change for the better. Ever since that first night when Hermione had crawled into his bed, they had been sleeping together. At first, she had joined him after her watch with a muttered complaint about how cold it was and then stayed until she fell asleep. The next night, when Ron was the one coming in from watch, he had found his bunk mysteriously buried under mountains of laundry, and Hermione had sleepily mumbled that they would worry about it in the morning if he wanted to just stay the rest of the night in her bunk, and of course he had.
The night after that, when Harry had the first watch and the two of them were faced with the prospect of going to bed at the same time, Hermione had spilled tea all over her bunk and then despite being the brightest witch of their age, had conveniently forgotten the incantation for a drying spell and suggested that they both sleep in Ron's bunk for the night, at which point he had kissed her and told her that she didn't need excuses for them to spend the night together. She had, of course, taken a very offended stance to this accusation, before proceeding to curl up under Ron's blankets with a smile.
It had now been almost a week since then, and Ron had very quickly grown comfortable with their new sleeping arrangement. Sharing a bed added a certain emotional intimacy to their relationship that he hadn't previously realized was missing. And it had certainly helped to move along the slow but steady progression of their physical intimacy as well.
Harry had decided, after walking in on them snogging that first morning in Hermione's bunk, to completely avoid entering the tent during his watch, just in case. Fortunately, though, he wasn't interrupting anything but sleep when he burst into the tent in the middle of the night several days after Godric's Hollow and shook Ron awake. His body had by now become accustomed to shorter sleep cycles, so although he didn't exactly know what time it was, he knew it was too early for Harry to be waking them up to trade shifts. "Ron! Hermione!" he hissed in the dark tent. "Come on, get up, quickly!"
The urgency in Harry's voice made Ron move faster than his limbs wanted to allow. "What's going on?" Hermione asked groggily as Ron tugged on the shoes Harry had tossed at him.
"You'll see. Come on." He dashed back out of the tent without waiting for them, and they followed at a run, Hermione summoning both of their coats behind her. Harry was standing just a few paces out from the tent, pointing out into the forest, although unnecessarily; Ron could see the bright white light without his guidance.
"What is that?" he breathed.
"I think it's a patronus," Harry replied excitedly. "You could see its shape better a few minutes ago. It's moving. Come on." Harry took a couple of steps before he realized that the other two hadn't followed.
"Harry, a patronus means—" Hermione lowered her voice further than the whisper she had started with. "Someone's out here. We're not alone." She looked at Ron for backup, and he glanced between the two of them, hesitant to agree with either.
"Let's take the cloak, then," he said finally. Harry reached into his pocket and withdrew the billowing cloak.
"Already got it. Let's go, before we lose it."
The three of them ducked under the cloak and hurried along through the forest, finally gaining enough ground to see the patronus itself and not just the bright glow it emitted. The shape of it was familiar, although not quite right. "Looks like yours, Harry," Ron whispered as they followed the silver doe.
"My patronus is a stag," Harry whispered back.
"Still, it's close. Who else do we know that has a deer for a patronus?" Harry and Hermione both shrugged as the doe halted abruptly, and the three of them did too, maintaining their distance from it. Down below the crest of the hill they had stopped on, the ghostly deer had paused at the edge of a frozen pond. As they watched, it stepped onto the surface and disappeared halfway across.
Hermione frowned curiously. "Now what?" Ron turned to look back the way they had come. He hadn't really paid attention to their surroundings as they walked, too focused on the deer, and now he was wondering if he had missed something. Or, he thought worriedly, someone.
Harry took a tentative step toward the pond. Ron glanced around them, but despite the patronus that suggested otherwise, they seemed to be quite alone in the forest. He drew his wand and followed after Harry, and Hermione, with a small sigh that Ron took as exasperation, followed suit.
Harry crouched down at the edge of the pond and then swore as he pressed his hands to the frozen surface. "The sword's in there."
"No way," Hermione blurted, though she and Ron both hurried to Harry's side to see for themselves. Sure enough, at the bottom of the pond, the sword of Gryffindor glinted in the light from Harry's wand. Hermione bolted up, wand high, and spun around, looking again for whoever had cast the patronus and, apparently, left them the sword.
Ron cast a diffindo on the ice, and the crack as the ice splintered echoed in the empty forest. Harry took a delicate step onto the ice and pointed his wand into the hole Ron had created. "Accio sword!" Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, nothing happened.
"Honestly, Harry, did you really expect that to work?" Hermione chided.
"No, but I was hoping." Harry took a deep breath and took another step towards the opening in the center.
"Be careful," Ron warned, watching the ice beneath Harry's feet. It was hard to tell from the sidelines just how thick it was, and how much weight it could support.
"I am, it's—" But before Harry could even finish his sentence, the ice gave way beneath him, and he fell into the frozen pond with a yell.
"Harry!" Ron and Hermione screamed in unison. He surfaced quickly, the water coming just to his shoulders.
"It's not deep," Harry said, wrapping his arms around himself as his teeth chattered wildly. "Just really fucking cold."
"Can you reach the sword?" Ron asked.
"Not without going under. Although, reckon that might be the only way to get it anyway." Harry took his glasses off and tossed them to Ron. "Cheers!" he called.
"Harry, you've—" The rest of Ron's warning went unheard as Harry ducked under the water, and Ron turned to Hermione. "He's wearing the bloody locket!"
Hermione's eyes widened. "That's not good." They waited for what felt like much too long, but Harry didn't resurface. Ron shrugged quickly out of his coat and kicked his trainers off. Hermione grabbed at his arm. "What are you doing?"
"Going in after him." Ron leaned over and gave her a quick peck on the lips and then, ignoring Hermione's look of absolute terror, he jumped into the water and cursed at how cold it was. He had once gone nearly starkers into the pond at the Burrow in the dead of winter on a bet he lost with the twins, but even that could not compare to the stabbing pain of the freezing water he was in now. If he didn't get Harry out, they'd both be dead in minutes.
He cracked open his eyes under the water and saw Harry immediately. He was only a short distance away, and appeared to be unconscious, with that bloody locket strung tight around his neck. Ron cast another quick diffindo on the chain, and yanked the necklace off of Harry, leaving an angry red mark behind. It looked like the damn thing had tried to strangle him. He hauled an arm around Harry's middle and kicked furiously to get to the surface.
He hauled Harry up onto the shore, tossing the locket up after him. "Ron—" Hermione started.
"The sword," he reminded her quickly before he dove again.
Back beneath the water, he grasped the hilt of the sword with both hands and pushed back up to the surface. He broke the water's surface with a gasp and pulled himself up, still holding the sword as he stood. Harry was coming to, coughing up icy water as he fumbled a hand around for his glasses. "Are. You. Mental?" Ron demanded, his teeth now chattering as badly as Harry's had been. "Why the hell didn't you take that thing off before you dived?"
"Right. Yeah. Forgot," Harry panted. Hermione flitted between the two of them, and Ron felt her drying spell hit him. He was still chilled to the bone, but he appreciated the gesture. "How do you suppose the sword got in that pool?" Harry asked, looking at it in Ron's hand.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Hermione piped up, now attempting to dry Harry's clothes as well. "Whoever cast the patronus must have put it there."
Ron held the sword up to examine it. "You reckon this is the real one?"
"One way to find out, isn't there?" Harry returned. All three of them dropped their gazes to the locket lying on the ground at their feet, and Ron bent to scoop it up. Harry was right: if it were the real sword of Gryffindor (and why anyone would go to the trouble of hiding the fake, Ron had no idea), it would destroy the horcrux.
Harry skirted around the pond to a clearing on the other side, and Ron and Hermione followed. There was a large, flat rock at the edge of the clearing. Hermione hung back a few steps, but Ron stepped up next to Harry and made to hand him the sword. Harry shook his head. "You should do it."
Ron shook his head right back. "I can't," he protested. Every minute he spent holding the locket brought back all the horrible feelings it had given him before, and this felt like a grave overstep on the promise he'd made Hermione.
"Yes," Harry said firmly, "you can."
Ron hesitated. "You know it affects me more than it does you and Hermione," he argued softly.
"All the more reason." Harry reached for the locket, and Ron let the chain slip through his fingers without resistance. Harry set the locket down on the rock and knelt on the ground next to it, holding it in place. "Now, I'll have to speak to it in order for it to open."
"Okay, now how do you know that?" Hermione interrupted, arms crossed. Harry shot her a quick glare but otherwise didn't answer.
"When it opens, stab it straight away. Don't hesitate. Whatever's in there will put up a fight; that bit of Riddle that was in the diary tried to kill me."
Ron nodded and gripped the sword tighter. If Harry meant his words to be encouraging, they had failed. He glanced over at Hermione, who gave him a reassuring nod, then back at Harry. "Just do it," he said firmly, raising the sword, and hoping to Merlin it was the real one.
Harry let out a menacing-sounding hiss of Parseltongue, not unlike the one Ron had imitated to open the Chamber, and the contents of the locket exploded out with such force that all three of them were knocked to the ground. The dark, dense smoke swirled through the clearing, and then, to Ron's absolute horror, the raspy, high-pitched voice of Voldemort issued from within it. "I have seen your heart, Ronald Weasley, and it is mine," the voice hissed at him. "I have seen your dreams, and I have seen your fears." An army of spiders the size of his hand advanced on Ron, and he scampered back several feet before he realized they weren't real. "Least loved by your mother who craved a daughter..."
"Ron! Kill it!" Harry yelled. But Ron barely heard him; everything the locket had made him feel was being put into actual words, and hearing it aloud was even worse than it had been inside his own head.
"Least loved by the girl who prefers your friend..."
As Ron watched in horror, the swirling darkness parted, and two ghostly figures emerged from the spot where the locket still lay on the rock. It was Harry and Hermione, but their features were oddly distorted. "Your mother confessed she would have preferred me as a son," the horcrux Harry said, almost sounding like the real Harry, but with too much of the same rasp of Voldemort's voice.
"Ron, it's lying!" the real Harry called to him in contrast.
Ron shook his head, willing himself to believe his friend and not the locket. It wasn't true. It wasn't real. He just had to stab it and it would go away. Why couldn't he just get up and stab the damn thing?
Horcrux Hermione taunted him next: "Who could look at you next to Harry Potter?" she crooned, her voice just as terrible as the fake Harry's. "What woman would take you? Who are you compared to the Chosen One?"
He tore his eyes from the ghost-like Hermione, forcing himself to look at the real one. She was watching the events unfold in silent horror, tears streaming down her cheeks. Ron turned back to the horcrux figures, tightening his grip on the sword. As he was steeling himself to get to his feet, though, the figures turned towards each other, and Hermione's arms snaked around Harry's neck as she kissed him with a passion that he enthusiastically returned.
He couldn't take any more. Ron got to his feet and charged towards the rock, slashing the sword through the foggy image of his best friends and bringing it down on the locket in one precise motion. The metallic clang of the sword hitting the rock echoed in the small clearing, but the locket had gone silent. It looked charred, as if it had been badly burned, and it lay absolutely still on the rock. The sword was real; the horcrux was destroyed.
Ron sank to the ground, his back against the rock and his face in his hands. He couldn't bring himself to look at either Harry or Hermione, couldn't bear to see the pity he knew would be on their faces. How was he supposed to explain to Hermione what she had seen, after everything that had now transpired between them? Surely she couldn't think that he still had doubts. But Harry. He hadn't told Harry at all about the jealousy he'd been harboring, so what must Harry think of what the locket had shown them?
He was vaguely aware of footsteps approaching from his right, footsteps that sounded too heavy to be Hermione's. Harry sat down on the ground next to him. "Just think," Harry said, his voice coming out exactly as Ron felt, completely drained of emotion by the night's events. "Only three to go."
