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"Move!" Alex said, shoving Harry aside roughly as he drew his wand, muttering incantations to himself rapidly as he traced his wand slowly across Ron's wound.
When Hermione had Disapparated again so hastily from Grimmauld Place, Ron had been Splinched. Alex had been the fastest to realize, but Harry had reached him first, so Alex had shoved him. As he worked, Hermione snatched up her bag, digging through it rapidly. Alex continued his incantations and tracing as Ron's flesh slowly regrew, but he wasn't very skilled with Healing Spells. The spell he was using now, over and over and over, was made for shallow cuts, not entire chunks of flesh being sheared off. Hermione dripped three drops of Essance of Dittany onto the wound and green smoke billowed up, leaving a layer of several-day-old skin behind. Alex continued to work until he was satisfied the wound wouldn't reopen unless he pushed himself. Finally, he fell back on his arms, sighing.
"Where are we?" Ron asked, having woken a few minutes before Alex stopped.
"In the woods where they held the Quidditch World Cup," Hermione said. "I wanted somewhere enclosed, undercover, and this was..."
"...the first place you thought of," Harry finished.
Alex glanced around.
"D'you reckon we should move on?" Ron asked, he and Harry both seeming to be thinking about having been attacked the last time they Apparated the first place Hermione thought of.
"We could go to my island," Alex said. "No one else knows it exists, and it'd be safe there."
The others considered.
"I thought we can't Apparate that far," Hermione said.
"Not easily, but I could take you by water," Alex said. "And I could teach you the spell. Actually, I'm going to anyway."
The others again looked around at each other.
"We should stay here and rest," Harry decided.
The others nodded and Alex stood.
"I'll put up protective enchantments," Alex said.
"I'll set up the tent," Hermione said, picking up her bag again. "Harry, help me."
As Alex began to set up every protective spell he could think of, Hermione and Harry set about putting up a tent Hermione pulled from her bag. After a short while, Alex finished and joined the others in the tent, which Hermione had set up with a quick charm. As he entered, Hermione warned him not to use Voldemort's name, taking care not to do so herself. Her reasoning was that Ron didn't want anyone to say it. Alex accepted the request and instead, sat down, glancing around at the same tent as they'd used during the Quidditch World Cup. He conjured a pair of glasses and filled both halfway with water, setting them on the ground.
"So, have you got it?" Harry asked Hermione.
"Got...Got what?" she asked with a little start.
"What did we just go through all that for? The locket! Where's the locket?"
"You got it?" Ron shouted, raising himself a little higher on his pillows. "No one tells me anything! Blimey, you could have mentioned it!"
"Well, we were running for our lives from the Death Eaters, weren't we?" Hermione defended herself. "Here."
She pulled the locket out of the pocket of her robes and handed it to Ron. It was as large as a chicken's egg. An ornate letter S, inlaid with many small green stones, glinted dully in the diffused light shining through the tent's canvas roof.
"There isn't any chance someone's destroyed it since Kreacher had it?" Ron asked hopefully. "I mean, are we sure it's still a Horcrux?"
"I think so," Hermione shook her head, taking it back from him and looking at it closely. "There'd be some sign of damage if it had been magically destroyed."
She passed it to Harry, who turned it over in his fingers. The thing looked perfect, pristine. He remembered the mangled remains of the diary, and how the stone in the Horcrux ring had been cracked open when Dumbledore destroyed it.
"I reckon Kreacher's right," Harry said. "We're going to have to work out how to open this thing before we can destroy it."
Sudden awareness of what he was holding, of what lived behind the little golden doors, hit Harry as he spoke. Even after all their efforts to find it, he felt a violent urge to fling the locket from him. Mastering himself again, he tried to pry the locket apart with his fingers, then attempted the charm Hermione had used to open Regulus's bedroom door. Neither worked. He handed the locket to Ron and Hermione, each of whom did their best, but were no more successful at opening it than he had been. Alex took the locket and narrowed his eyes. he didn't bother trying to open it, simply held it up and stared at it.
"Can you feel it, though?" Ron asked in a hushed voice, as he held it tight in his clenched fist.
"What d'you mean?" Harry asked.
Ron passed the Horcrux to Harry. Alex understood. He was referring to the piece of Voldemort's soul inside the locket.
"What are we going to do with it?" Hermione asked.
"Keep it safe till we work out how to destroy it," Harry replied, and, little though he wanted to, he hung the chain around his own neck, dropping the locket out of sight beneath his robes, where it rested against his chest beside the pouch Hagrid had given him.
"I think we should take it in turns to keep watch outside the tent," he added to Hermione, standing up and stretching. "And we'll need to think about some food as well. You stay there," he added sharply, as Ron attempted to sit up and turned a nasty shade of green.
With the Sneakoscope Hermione had given Harry for his birthday set carefully upon the table in the tent, Harry and Hermione spent the rest of the day sharing the role of lookout. However, the Sneakoscope remained silent and still upon its point all day, and whether because of the protective enchantments and Muggle-repelling charms Hermione had spread around them, or because people rarely ventured this way, their patch of wood remained deserted, apart from occasional birds and squirrels. Alex spent the day teaching the others his water transportation spell, having them send various small objects from one glass to the other and back, at least after he summoned Winky and sent her to Hogwarts to keep an eye on Luna and to hide among the other House Elves. Hermione picked the spell up quickly, and Ron, having nothing but time to practice, picked it up before Harry, who practiced in between turns of being on lookout. However, by evening, all three could transport things nine times out of ten, Hermione getting the spell almost perfect.
The days dragged. The Nights were long and exhausting. They moved from place to place, discussing among themselves, largely minus Ron who was never content with their lack of food, where Voldemort might have hidden the other Horcruxes, or how to destroy the Locket. They wore it in turns, and each time they wore it, as Harry had discovered the hard way when he'd had to flee Dementors due to not being able to produce a Patronus, the Locket weighed on them as heavily as a Dementor giving them a hug. As such, it was decided early that Alex would rarely wear it, at least after his first watch wearing it was interrupted by an anxiety attack so bad that the Draught of Peace Hermione had brewed and magically preserved for him had failed to help until he took off the Locket, by which time he'd been in nearly as bad a state as Ron had been after being Splinched.
Alex's lack of help bearing the Locket was a source of constant strife, but they all accepted that he simply couldn't wear it. As such, they only bickered about it every few days. The more common argument was the frequent lack of food, whenever someone failed to steal them something to eat, though Alex was able to actually go and buy them something by disguising himself, most times. In addition to fsiling to figure out where to find a Horcrux, Alex also poured over the books Dumbledore had left him relentlessly, even surpassing Hermione's searching of her own books. No one questioned this, because they all understood that he simply needed to be around Luna.
A little over a week in, good news came in the form of a group of goblins and wizards on the run. The group, which included both Ted Tonks and Dean Thomas, stumbled upon the section of beach they were at. The group couldn't seethem, thanks to the charms, but by using Extendable Ears, Alex and the others could eavesdrop on them. What they heard was that the Sword of Gryffindor from the Hogwarts' Headmaster's office was nearly stolen by Ginny, Luna, and a few others, which Alex expected included Neville, but was sent to Gringotts after they were caught. While there, one of the goblins in the group noticed the sword was a fake but failed to alert the Death Eaters. Dean, fortunately, asked what had happened to Luna and the others, and the information was shared that they were punished cruely, but suffered no permanent injury. As soon as the group moved away, Hermione began to struggle to pull out an object, revealing Phineas Nigellus' portrait once it was free.
"If somebody swapped the real sword for the face while it was in Dumbledore's office," she panted, as they propped the painting against the side of the tent, "Phineas Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right beside the case!"
"Unless he was asleep," Harry said, but he still watched interestedly.
Hermione knelt down in front of the empty canvas, her wand directed at its center, cleared her throat, then said, "Er...Phineas? Phineas Nigellus?"
Nothing happened.
"Phineas Nigellus?" Hermione called again. "Professor Black? Please could we talk to you? Please?"
"'Please' always helps," said a cold, snide voice, and Phineas Nigellus slid into his portrait.
At once, Hermione cried, "Obscura!"
A black blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus's clever, dark eyes, causing him to bump into the frame and shriek with pain.
"What...how dare...what are you..."
"I'm very sorry, Professor Black," Hermione said, "but it's a necessary precaution!"
"Remove this foul addition at once! Remove it, I say! You are ruining a great work of art! Where am I? What is going on?"
"Never mind where we are," Harry said, and Phineas Nigellus froze, abandoning his attempts to peel off the painted blindfold.
"Can that possible be the voice of the elusive Mr. Potter?"
"Maybe," Harry said. "We've got a couple of questions to ask you...about the sword of Gryffindor."
"Ah," Phineas Nigellus said, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to catch sight of Harry, "Yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there."
"Shut up about my sister," Ron said roughly, Phineas Nigellus raised supercilious eyebrows.
"Who else is here?" he asked, turning his head from side to side. "Your tone displeases me! The girl and her friends were foolhardily in the extreme. Thieving from the headmaster."
"They weren't thieving," Harry said. "That sword isn't Snape's."
"It belongs to Professor Snape's school," Phineas Nigellus said. "Exactly what claim did the Weasley girl have upon it? She deserved her punishment, as did the idiot Longbottom and the Lovegood oddity!"
"You don't know anything about Luna!" Alex snapped.
"And Neville is not an idiot!" Hermione snapped.
"Where am I?" Phineas Nigellus repeated, starting to wrestle with the blindfold again. "Where have you brought me? Why have you removed me from the house of my forebears?"
"Never mind that! How did Snape punish Ginny, Neville, and Luna?" Harry asked urgently.
"Professor Snape sent them into the Forbidden Forest, to do some work for the oaf, Hagrid."
"Hagrid's not an oaf!" Hermione said shrilly.
"And Snape might've though that was a punishment," Harry said, "but Ginny, Neville, and Luna probably had a good laugh with Hagrid. The Forbidden Forest... they've faced plenty worse than the Forbidden Forest, big deal!"
Alex felt more relieved than he could say. He had been imagining horrors, the Cruciatus Curse at the very least.
"What we really wanted to know, Professor Black," Hermione pressed on, "is whether anyone else has, um, taken out the sword at all? Maybe it's been taken away for cleaning...or something!"
Phineas Nigellus paused again in his struggles to free his eyes and sniggered. "Muggle-born. Goblin-made armor does not require cleaning, simple girl. Goblin's silver repels mundane dirt, imbibing only that which strengthens it."
"Don't call Hermione simple," Harry said.
"I grow weary of contradiction," Phineas Nigellus said. "Perhaps it is time for me to return to the headmaster's office."
Still blindfolded, he began groping the side of his frame, trying to feel his way out of his picture and back into the one at Hogwarts.
Harry had a sudden inspiration. "Dumbledore! Can't you bring us Dumbledore?"
"I beg your pardon?" Phineas Nigellus asked.
"Professor Dumbledore's portrait...couldn't you bring him along, here, into yours?"
Phineas Nigellus turned his face in the direction of Harry's voice. "Evidently it is not only Muggle-borns who are ignorant, Potter. The portraits of Hogwarts may commune with each other, but they cannot travel outside of the castle except to visit a painting of themselves elsewhere. Dumbledore cannot come here with me, and after the treatment I have received at your hands, I can assure you that I will not be making a return visit!"
Slightly crestfallen, Harry watched Phineas redouble his attempts to leave his frame.
"Professor Black," Hermione said, "couldn't you just tell us, please, when was the last time the sword was taken out of its case? Before Ginny took it out, I mean?"
Phineas snorted impatiently. "I believe that the last time I saw the sword of Gryffindor leave its case was when Professor Dumbledore used it to break open a ring."
Hermione whipped around to look at Harry. Neither of them dared say more in front of Phineas Nigellus, who had at least managed to locate the exit.
"Well, good night to you," he said a little waspishly, and he began to move out of sight again. Only the edge of his hat brim remained in view when Harry gave a sudden shout.
"Wait! Have you told Snape you saw this?"
Phineas Nigellus stuck his blindfolded head back into the picture. "Professor Snape has more important things on his mind that the many eccentricities of Albus Dumbledore. Good-bye, Potter!" And with that, he vanished completely, leaving behind him nothing but his murky backdrop.
"Harry!" Hermione cried.
"I know!" Harry shouted.
Unable to contain himself, he punched the air. It was more than he had dared to hope for. He strode up and down the tent, clesrly unable to sit still. Alex largely ignored them, paying enough attention to understand what they had said, but focusing on his books again. Hermione was squashing Phineas Nigellus's back into the beaded bag. When she had fastened the clasp she threw the bag aside and raised a shining face to Harry.
"The sword can destroy Horcruxes! Goblin-made blades imbibe only that which strengthens them! Harry, that sword's impregnated with basilisk venom!"
"And Dumbledore didn't give it to me because he still needed it, he wanted to use it on the locket-" Harry began.
"-and he must have realized they wouldn't let you have it if he put it in his will-"
"-so he made a copy-"
"-and put a fake in the glass case-"
"-and he left the real one...where?"
They gazed at each other. Alex paused his reading to think. It could be literally anywhere, but it could also be somewgere connected to either Dumbledore or to Harry.
"Think!" Hermione whispered. "Think! Where would he have left it?"
"Not at Hogwarts," Harry said, resuming his pacing.
"Somewhere in Hogsmeade?" Hermione asked.
"The Shrieking Shack?" Harry offered. "Nobody ever goes in there."
"But Snape knows how to get in, wouldn't that be a bit risky?" Hermione asked.
"Dumbledore trusted Snape," Harry reminded her.
"Not enough to tell him that he had swapped the swords," Hermione said.
"Yeah, you're right!" Harry said, suddenly grinning. "So, would he have hidden the sword well away from Hogsmeade, then?"
"Probably somewhere that connects both of you but where no one would think to look," Alex said.
"What d'you reckon, Ron?" Harry aaked, then stopped as he received no reply. "Ron?"
Alex looked around, thinking maybe Ron had left. Instead, he found Ron lying in the shadow of a bunk, looking stony.
"Oh, remembered me, have you?" Ron asked.
"What?" Harry asked.
Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk. "You three carry on. Don't let me spoil your fun."
Perplexed, Harry looked to Hermione for help, but she shook her head, apparently as nonplussed as he was.
"What's the problem?" Harry asked.
"Problem? There's no problem," Ron said, still refusing to look at Harry. "Not according to you, anyways."
There were several plunks on the canvas over their heads. It had started to rain.
"Well, you've obviously got a problem," Harry said. "Spit it out, will you?"
Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.
"All right, I'll spit it out. Don't expect me to skip up and down the tent because there's some other damn thing we've got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don't know."
"I don't know?" repeated Harry. "I don't know?"
Plunk, plunk, plunk. The rain was falling harder and heavier. It pattered on the leaf-strewn bank all around them and into the river chattering through the dark. Alex considered the merits of going out into it to smoke.
"It's not like I'm not having the time of my life here," Ron said sarcastically, "you know, with my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just hoped, you know, after we'd been running round a few weeks, we'd have achieved something."
"Ron," Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud hum the rain was beating on the tent.
"I thought you knew what you'd signed up for," Harry said.
"Yeah, I thought I did too."
"So what part of it isn't living up to your expectations?" Harry asked. "Did you think we'd be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you'd be back to Mummy by Christmas?"
"We thought you knew what you were doing!" Ron shouted, standing up. "We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan!"
"Ron!" Hermione said, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof, but again, he ignored her.
"Well, sorry to let you down," Harry said, his voice quite calm, desoite the wounded look in his eyes. "I've been straight with you from the start. I told you everything Dumbledore told me. And in the case you haven't noticed, we've found one Horcrux-"
"Yeah, and we're about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them! Nowhere effing near in other words!"
"Take off the locket, Ron," Hermione said, her voice unusually high. "Please take it off. You wouldn't be talking like this if you hadn't been wearing it all day."
"Yeah, he would," Harry said. "D'you think I haven't noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D'you think I didn't guess you were thinking this stuff? Only Alex hasn't complained about anything, but that's just because he's got his nose stuffed in those bloody books all the time, and coming up with excuses to avoid carrying the Horcrux!"!"
Alex narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. He'd apologize later, once he was calm.
"Harry, we weren't-"
"Don't lie!" Ron hurled at her. "You said it too! You said you were disappointed! You said you'd thought he had a bit more to go on than-"
"I didn't say it like that! Harry, I didn't!" she cried.
The rain was pounding the tent, tears were pouring down Hermione's face, and the excitement of a few minutes before had vanished as if it had never been, a short-lived firework that had flared and died, leaving everything dark, wet, and cold. The sword of Gryffindor was hidden they knew not where, and they were three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.
"So why are you still here?" Harry asked Ron.
"Search me," Ron said.
"Go home then," Harry said.
"Yeah, maybe I will!" Ron shouted, and he took several steps toward Harry, who did not back away. "Didn't you hear what they said about my sister? But you don't give a rat's fart, do you? It's only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I've-Faced-Worse Potter doesn't care what happened to her in there! Well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff-"
"I was only saying...she was with the others, they were with Hagrid-"
"Yeah, I get it, you don't care! And what about the rest of my family? 'The Weasleys don't need another kid injured,' did you hear that?"
"Yeah, I-"
"Not bothered what it meant, though?"
"Ron!" Hermione shouted, forcing her way between them. "I don't think it means anything new has happened, anything we don't know about! Think, Ron, Bill's already scared, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you're supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit! I'm sure that's all he meant-"
"Oh, you're sure, are you? Right then, well, I won't bother myself about them. It's all right for you, isn't it, with your parents safely out of the way!"
"My parents are dead!" Harry bellowed.
"And mine could be going the same way!" yelled Ron.
"Then GO!" Harry roared. "Go back to them, pretend you're got over your spattergroit and Mummy'll be able to feed you up and-"
Ron made a sudden movement. Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner's pocket, Alex had his own raised.
"EXPELLIARMUS! ! !" he thundered, both wands spinning to him as both of their owners sailed out into the rain.
Alex followed them, wand at his side, and passed Harry and Ron's to Hermione as he passed. Harry and Ron glared at Alex, but he ignored their anger, storming over to Ron and grabbing him by the locket, then ripped it roughly up over his head, taking some hairs with it.
"Enough!" Alex snarled. "I'm wearing it next so that both of will calm the fuck down!"
"Forget it!" Ron snapped. "I'm leaving!" He turned to Hermione. "What are you doing?"
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"Are you staying, or what?" Ron demanded.
"I..." She looked anguished. "Yes...Yes, I'm staying. Ron, we said we'd go with Harry. We said we'd help-"
"I get it," Ron cut across her. "You choose him."
"Ron, no!" Hermione gasoed, horrified. "Please! Come back, come back!"
She chased him into the trees. Harry and Alex stood quite still and silent, listening to her sobbing and calling Ron's name amongst the trees.
After a few minutes she returned, her sopping hair plastered to her face. "He's g-g-gone! Disapparated!" She threw herself into a chair, curled up, and started to cry.
Alex waved a wand to dry the three of them before Harry threw Ron's blankets over her. Alex slipled the Lkcket around his neck and returned to his books silently, and Harry said nothing about it.
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