You could crack the forest open like a cipher, Hermione thought. With the right combination of words and wand movements, you could bring hidden meanings into view. And that was cause for concern. If the wrong code breaker were to walk a figure eight around the tent while murmuring a few Latin words, she and Ron and Harry would all be dead.

She was entertaining these morbid thoughts while ringing out Ron's filthy jumper above an icy cold stream. Freezing droplets slid down her exposed wrists. Deep in the Galloway Forest, Hermione had mostly stuck with her commitment to warding off useless worries with a firm refusal to engage. But she still had to consider, realistically, how flimsy their protections were. No concrete, no steel, no titanium—just this illogical, mesmerizing stuff called magic. Just thinking the right thoughts in the right order. If good intentions were enough, how had they already lost so many good-intentioned people?

"My mum once said that Muggle women would piss into the laundry 'cause it helped get the stains out. Is that true?"

Hermione nearly jumped. "Gosh, Ron. You're of so much help, aren't you?" She shook the jumper, soaked and heavy, scattering droplets like sparks of silver into the wind.

"But you must know if it's true."

"It is true," she admitted. She thrust the wet jumper at him and he took it from her. It sagged in his arms, obviously heavier than he had expected it to be. "Urine has ammonia in it. Ammonia's basic so it neutralizes the acidic stains."

"I don't even know what that means," grumbled Ron. "Is this supposed to be clean?" He held up the jumper to the light. There was still a trace of purple across the sleeve, where blackberries had stained the elbow.

"I don't know, maybe I should piss on it," she ribbed him.

"Alright, alright." Ron shrugged. "You're no elf, but it's better than nothing."

"What a compliment."

"You're a domestic goddess, then. The queen of laundry." He raised his eyebrows at her, as if expecting her to be impressed. But she knew him well enough to know that Ron was only trying to annoy her even worse, because that was their way. Bickering back and forth, in and out, like a sewing needle through the fabric of their courtship.

"I don't want to be a domestic goddess. I want you to wash your own clothes."

"And I will," he promised. "One day." Ron touched his wand to the jumper and cast a drying charm. The jumper glowed buttery yellow, and the soggy sleeves puffed out and shrank back into their original shape.

"Nice. Have you practiced that?"

Ron nodded. "I'm not totally useless anymore."

"Lead the way back, then."

Hermione wiped her freezing, wet hands off on her jeans, and pulled her coat sleeves down over her fingers; hugging some warmth back into herself, she followed Ron through the muddy woods. Snow crackled beneath their feet, and naked branches criss-crossed over their heads. After months of winter in their tent, Ron's red hair had darkened into auburn. A few scraggly locks brushed his collar. Hermione wanted to give him a haircut, as she had for Harry, but things were different with Ron. She couldn't just put her hands on his shoulders and feel him sit down, acquiescing to her wordless demands, as Harry so often did. He would push her away; or worse, he would come closer, and then what would they do? Everything had to be a struggle; that was their way.

"Harry's supposed to be on watch." Ron touched the trunk of every tree they passed, like rosary beads. "But I don't think he's really watching. He says he's got a headache."

"Another one?"

"Yeah." Ron's voice sounded rusty. "He's...he keeps clutching his head, and he's breathing really weird."

"So, a vision then."

"But he won't admit it," Ron sighed. "It's obvious, but he says he can't see anything..."

Hermione played with the damp cuff of her sweatshirt, peeking out from under her puffy coat. "I think," she said, "if it was really important, he would tell us."

"You think that."

"Yes," she restated, impatient. "If Harry believed it was important, he would tell us."

"You think that if Harry, I mean our Harry believed something was important—"

"That's what I said," she kicked at a twig. Why was he being like this?

Ron shook his head in disbelief. "Hermione, you honestly think that Harry would always tell us if he had a vision or a prophecy or whatever it is, and he thought it was important? You think he never keeps things to himself?"

"I never said he doesn't keep anything to himself," she corrected. "But he understands he has to tell us if his visions of V—You-Know Who—have real information in them."

Ron raised his eyebrows again, and gave her a sharp look. Hermione pushed a puffy cluster of hair back behind her ears and tightened her ponytail. The elastic was full to bursting.

"I'm just—"

"No, it's—" he started, at the same time as her. They both stopped and glared at each other, not really cross, just worn-out and frustrated. The low winter sun glinted off Ron's red hair, outlining his scalp with cool fire.

"Look," Ron lowered his voice. "You know Harry's kept things from us before. I'm just saying that this could be something...he could be seeing things he doesn't want us to know."

"But you know he's told us that the visions aren't clear anymore," Hermione insisted, though the doubt was bubbling up inside her. "He said it's not sharp—not enough to learn anything significant."

"And you're just going to...believe it?" His blue eyes met hers, hesitant. He seemed like he may have regretted saying that aloud.

Hermione glanced between the trees, ensuring that Harry wasn't within earshot. She knew he didn't like her private conversations with Ron, convinced as he was that they only ever talked about him behind his back.

"If Harry knew anything more," Hermione said quietly, "he wouldn't be so unreasonably obsessed with the Hallows. That's how I know."

Ron pursed his lips, thinking. She could practically see the wheels turning in his head. Harry preferred the new to the old; Harry liked a shiny, new mystery, not a tired old search. If Harry knew anything they didn't, he would have dropped his Hallows obsession like a hot potato.

"Right," Ron finally said. "Right. I...guess that makes sense."

"It's the only thing that makes sense, Ron."

He shrugged. "I was just hoping we might have more to go on. It's March and we've still got..."

"Practically nothing," she admitted. "But don't say it in front of him, you'll only trigger him."

"I know," grumbled Ron, and he lumbered off in the direction of the tent, bringing their conversation to a close.

Melting snow and soggy leaves were soft beneath their feet. Ron's trainers squelched audibly in the mud. Hermione was careful to stick to the drier areas. The dim sunlight blinked between ancient oak trees as they walked on. Ron ducked to avoid low-hanging branches, but Hermione could walk easily beneath the lowest boughs. She felt smaller than she ever had, both physically and mentally. The great grandeur of the forest stretched over them, a massive reminder that they were nowhere near as powerful as they needed to be. As Harry needed to be.

Suddenly, Ron flung his wand arm out in front of her and placed a finger to his lips. He held the dry jumper with his other arm. She froze in place, edging her hand towards her wand as inconspicuously as she could. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs.

Hermione visually scanned the perimeter. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but a soft crinkling issued from under a pile of broken branches.

"Rabbit," breathed Ron. Slowly, slowly, he aimed his wand. Before the spell could form on his lips, a blur of grey and brown dashed out of the twigs, disappearing between the trees.

"STUPEFY!" yelled Hermione on instinct, a bolt of red lightning bursting from her wand towards the rabbit. The rabbit froze, fell over, and rolled to stop next to a mossy log.

"A stunning spell?" Ron complained. "You do realize this we're going to eat this thing, right?"

"And what have you bloody well done, Ron? Did you kill it? Did you even manage to hex it?"

His shoulders slumped. Ron stared at the wet ground, muttering, "I was about to. You were just a second faster—"

"We didn't have a second to kill, and it was the first thing that came out."

Ron sulked off towards the rabbit. He crouched next to it, Hermione waiting from a few yards away. The sleeve of his newly washed jumper was now dangling perilously close to the muddy snow. There was no way, she thought, no way she would clean his jumper a second time that day.

"Can you get it, then?" she said, impatient.

"Yeah, but I need to kill it...I need a rock or something." He looked around him, helpless as a toddler. "I can't find one."

"Use magic, Ron."

"I can't just use the Killing Curse—"

"It's a rabbit, and we're starving. Just go ahead and do it."

Ron picked up the rabbit gingerly, both hands cradling its small, furry body. He stroked its belly with trembling fingers.

Hermione approached him, careful to step over a fallen log slick with rotting moss.

"It'll wake up if you wait too long," she said. "Best do it while it's still stunned."

"Yeah, I know."

"Just think—we'll actually have meat for dinner. And you were complaining about all the fish."

"Yeah."

"Do it, Ron."

He nodded and raised his wand to the rabbit's soft, grey-brown throat. Its big, shiny eyes were black as the lake they rowed across on their first night at Hogwarts.

"Hermione." Ron hesitated, parsing his words. "I know I'm being really dumb, but..." He held up the frozen rabbit to her. "Could you...?"

Hermione stepped back. "No, Ron. It was supposed to be yours in the first place; you were the one who found it."

"I know, but could you just do the spell? I don't like Unforgivables." He gave her a pleading expression. "And you're the best at magic."

"You can't just say I'm the best at magic whenever you want me to do things for you," Hermione said shrilly. Her blood pressure was rising at this—Ron's total and complete feigned helplessness, his utter incompetence in the face of any task necessary for survival. How could you so adore someone who couldn't do a single thing for you, not a single thing that could compare to the mountain of tasks you performed for his sake?

"Just, please, Hermione. Please. I can't do the spell."

"I'm not doing it!" she huffed, backing up until her shoulder blades hit a tree trunk. "I washed your jumper, I did all the tidying up this morning, and you hardly collected any firewood!"

"I know, I messed up today... Please, I'll do all the washing up afterwards—"

"Are you totally useless, Ron?"

He sighed shakily, squeezing the rabbit's little foot in one hand. "Hermione. I—I'm just trying to be honest here...I don't think I can kill it, and we're hungry...could you please just cast the—"

"No!" she spat. Her shrill voice sounded incongruent with the tranquil woods, the slow-dripping icicles and sound-absorbing moss. "No, for the love of God, no, I won't kill it. You can get your hands dirty for once, Ron. Maybe you can even screw it up, and then we can all tell you what a lousy job you've done."

"Look," he begged, "I'm not good at killing things—it's not what I do! It's not—it's not that it's a chore, I just don't want to kill it—"

"MAYBE I DON'T WANT TO KILL IT EITHER!" Hermione yelled. "MAYBE I'VE GOT FEELINGS TOO, HAVE YOU EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT?"

She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, she wanted to hex him with the filthiest Dark Magic she knew. She could tear the sky open and shove his horrible, lovable, useless, lazy, whiny self into the atmosphere. Ron's face had fallen like a melted candle, and he was hugging the rabbit to his chest now, as though to protect it.

"I know you have feelings," he said quietly. "You've been having feelings at me all week, and I'm kind of sick of it."

"Well, you know what, Ron? I'm sick of doing everything around here!" Hermione shouted. Her puffy hair popped free of its elastic band, the torn loop falling to the forest floor. "I'm sick of cooking, cleaning and having to hunt too, not to mention the Horcruxes, which we still have to—"

A third voice issued from well behind Ron. "What about the Horcruxes?"

Ron spun around, still clutching the rabbit. There was Harry—third wheel of their little broken cart, leaning against an ash tree.

"Never mind that," scoffed Ron. "Aren't you on watch?"

"Wait, is that a rabbit? Excellent." Harry ignored the question. "Hold on...it's still twitching, Ron, it's not dead yet."

"Yeah," said Hermione coldly. "We know."

She and Ron looked at each other, her icy grimace meeting his shame.

"It's waking up," Hermione noted. "If you don't do it now, he'll wriggle out of your arms and we'll have nothing to eat."

"Give it here, then," Harry said simply. He pulled the rabbit out of Ron's arms and twisted its neck in one fluid motion. Ron flinched at the crack of its spine. Soft ears flopped down over Harry's filthy sleeves. Hermione stared at Harry, in admiration and horror.

"What?" said Harry.

"Nothing," muttered Ron.

Hermione sighed heavily and stepped between both of them. "I'm heading back to the tent. My knife's in the beaded bag." Along with everything else they needed, which only she had remembered to pack.

"Fine," spat Ron.

Harry followed her back to the tent, his trainers squelching in the mud, the rabbit hanging limp in his arms.