Author's Note: Moving right along-got a fun twist to a familiar scene, I hope. Not used to having all this writing time and I'll be quite sad to see it go. Still, be on the lookout; I anticipate another chapter by this weekend and if I'm not mistaken, half way through this adventure. Also, the next chapter for Courage Rising is in the works, so if we're really lucky, we'll have a two-chapter release this weekend.

Cheers.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Hope Found in the Darkest Place

After a few short hours of sleep, Harry woke to the sound of heavy rain drops against the hard canvas of the tent and Ron's loud, sporadic snoring. He quietly lowered himself from the second bunk, landing with a soft thud as his bare feet met the wood floor. Hermione had wrapped herself in a blanket in the sitting area with a book propped open on her knees and a cup of tea beside her. He also noticed he could no longer hear Ron's snoring.

"I didn't expect you awake so soon," she said as Harry groggily made his way to another chair. Harry smiled weakly as he noticed Hermione's own lack of sleep.

"You never went back to bed, did you," he asked.

"There was little point," she said, pouring him tea. "Would you like a biscuit?" Harry nodded and Hermione offered him a plate with several biscuits.

"Did you cast Muffliato over our room," asked Harry.

"Not until I heard you wake," said Hermione truthfully. "I almost woke the both of you. How did you share a room with him," she asked quietly.

"You don't hear it after a while," answered Harry with a smile. Eventually though, the scent of biscuits and tea had roused Ron from his slumber. Only when the three of them were fed and fully awake did they discuss how to proceed.

Harry felt it was best not to stay anywhere too long and Hermione fully supported him, adding that while her enchantments would keep them reasonably safe and alert, the presence of magic would inevitably make itself known to those who knew what to look for. So, as Hermione packed away the tent and removed the numerous protective enchantments with many complicated wand movements, Harry and Ron worked to conceal any evidence of their visit. They shuffled the shallow gathering of leaves to hide the impressions left behind from the tent and filled the peg holes with loose dirt.

This was their new routine as the month of September crept by. They would find wooded areas on the outskirts of rural towns, or sometimes abandoned barns or sheds where fields stretched for miles, pitching the tent inside. Hermione would recast all her protective charms, always adding new ones she found in the many defensive books she had brought along. They didn't have an excessive amount of funds, having only the Muggle money that Hermione had kept saved up. Harry had a modest amount of Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts in the coin bag tucked away in Hermione's handbag, but they did little good in a Muggle convenience store. Still, Hermione was careful and purchased only the barest of necessities.

However, as October arrived, cold mornings and the ever-increasing presence of Dementors gave way to a gloomier outlook. The larger the Muggle town they chose to visit, the colder the air felt, the thicker the fog sunk into the fields and forests and the darker the sky appeared. Rain was frequent now and the deplorable weather only added to their frustrations with the lack of leads and their slowly dwindling food supply.

They had traveled to London only once, their leads all but non-existent, hoping beyond logic and reason that Voldemort might have hidden a Horcrux in his old orphanage. Harry highly doubted this possibility; Voldemort had no love for the orphanage and would have only served as a reminder of the Muggle heritage he'd inherited from the father who had abandoned him before birth. But with no leads and Hermione's insistence not to overlook anything, they had snuck into a public library after dark only to discover the orphanage had long been demolished. Once at the location, they discovered the site occupied with modern office complex.

They spent nearly all of autumn wandering the country-side without any further leads and discouragement taking root. They also discovered after several attempts to open the locket during the many long captive nights inside the tent, they could each feel the Horcrux's presence. Harry felt as though the soul fragment within the locket would latch onto his fear of failure and made him desperate to do anything.

"I really don't feel comfortable lugging this thing around, Harry," Hermione had said one night. "I can almost hear it when everything's quiet. Can you?"

"Yeah, sometimes," said Harry. "It's like it knows my thoughts."

"It makes me feel hungry all the time," said Ron with a grimace. "Even when I've eaten a decent amount it's not enough. And like Harry said…sometimes it's like I hear my own thoughts, but they're loud and repulsive, but at the same time…"

"You want to feel that way," Harry finished. Surprised by own admission, Ron and Hermione both nodded.

"But there's more to it," insisted Hermione. "Have you felt it, Harry?" Harry knew precisely what Hermione spoke of; the unexplainable desire to hold and war the locket was sometimes overwhelming. Harry escaped it only when he left the tent in search of wood or berries. However Harry did not confide in them his worst suspicion; that it was Voldemort's soul fragment that called out to him. The others had expressed the voice as their own thoughts. Harry never heard his own. Always the voice in his head was Lord Voldemort's high-pitched whisper. Harry did not consider it unlikely that the fragment of soul contained within the locket had recognized another portion of soul contained within him.

Midway through October Hermione began to ration their provisions once she estimated they only had enough for a few more weeks. On the whole, the smaller meal portions affected Harry the least, having suffered long stretches of near starvation at the hands of the Dursleys. Therefore, it was less of a surprise to him that Ron adjusted poorly to smaller portions and occasional missed meals as he had always had three square meals a day, courtesy of his mother or the Hogwarts house-elves. Ron's mood was almost directly related to the capacity of which is stomach was filled, often becoming unreasonable and at times downright unpleasant once Hermione started to ration their food.

Hermione suffered too, but she seemed determined to make the best of the situation. She and Harry took it in turns to prepare meals. Often, Hermione would use magic to acquire farm eggs from chicken coops or when they were very lucky, would sneak into a larder, leaving a few crinkled bills as payment. Harry then would take to cooking. Ron, possessing little to no skill in the preparation of food or finding it, would sit on the creaking rocking chair, offering his unwanted critique.

"Mum can make food appear out of thin air," he said, prodding his portion of the charred gray meat of Pike Harry had caught in the river that afternoon.

"No she can't," said Hermione defiantly. "It's not possible."

"Well how does she do it, then, eh?"

"It's the first Principal Exception to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," she said sticking her portion forcibly with a fork. "It's impossible to make food out of nothing. You can Summon it, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity of you've already got it—"

"I wouldn't bother to increase this," said Ron, pushing his plate away.

"You know, Harry and I are always the ones to sort out the food, Ron," said Hermione with narrowed eyes. "The least you can do is show a little appreciation for our efforts." In Ron's defense, Harry had never been particularly good at cooking fish, and therefore had always been the one meal Aunt Petunia always took upon herself to prepare. Still, Hermione was right; Ron's blatant displeasure was getting on his nerves as much as Hermione's.

"I'm just saying it's not particularly good," said Ron. "You don't have to jump down my robe over a bit of honesty." This was the wrong thing to say.

"You can do the cooking tomorrow, Ron; you can find the ingredients, cook and charm them into something worth eating, and Harry and I will sit here and pull faces and moan and tell you how much better your mum makes it!" Hermione rose from the chair and left the tent.

"Harry doesn't like it either," Ron had yelled after her. Harry shook his head at Ron.

"No one likes it much, you know," said Harry. "You promised me you were going to be better with her, Ron."

"Well she's not making it easy, is she?"

"You're not giving her any reason too either."

"And you're not doing a brilliant job leading us to Horcruxes, are you?"

"We're doing the best we can, mate."

"I just thought after all this time we'd have made some real progress!"

"We've found one, Ron," said Harry sadly, though he too felt the displeasure from his own lack of direction. "But this isn't her fault."

"You're right about that," mumbled Ron. Harry shook his head again and silently excused himself from the table and went looking for Hermione. She was standing a ways from the tent, looking off into the trees. Harry walked up beside her and was about to speak but Hermione held her hand up to silence him. Her face was flushed red and Harry could see the tears dripping from the edges of her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Hermione," he said softly, placing a hand briefly on her shoulder and turned to leave her alone. Sometimes people needed to be left alone. Harry understood that need better than anyone. He wanted to return to the tent and throttle Ron, but knew it wouldn't make the situation any better. The truth was Dumbledore had left them a seemingly insurmountable task. He was a frustrated with himself as Ron felt and as frustrated with Dumbledore as Hermione was likely feeling at the moment.

However, thoughts of Dumbledore were frequently replaced by thoughts of Gregorovitch's thief with each passing night. Harry found himself flitting into Voldemort's mind more and more frequently as he slept—if he could call it that—and would often trickle into the daytime hours. He was more than aware of the bags building up beneath his eyes from lack of deep sleep. The prickling of his scar during the day had likewise become so common he was almost numb to it. Still, the prickling would sometimes cause him to flinch or close his eyes tightly and this rarely went unnoticed by Ron or Hermione.

"What did you see," demanded Ron on almost every occurrence. Harry however, could only give him one answer.

"Same as last time, Ron," he said with a frustrated sigh, "the thief who stole from Gregorovith." Hermione, on the other hand, was at least a little sympathetic to his constant exposure to Voldemort's mind. She had taken to carrying a washcloth in one of her robe pockets and with a flick of her wand, she would spray a bit of cool water into it, wring it out, and offer it to him to sooth the burning that often accompanied the prickling sensations. But their unending traverse of the country-side was taking its toll upon them as they moved through old forests, the shadows of jagged cliffs, through knee-high fields of dead wild grass and along the footholds of mountainsides. The lack of outside news added pressure too; they were desperate to know anything, to speak to anyone, but they dared not chance lifting a copy of the Daily Prophet or speaking to any magical person out of fear of giving themselves away.

It wasn't until the cold frosty air of November fell over the woods they had taken refuge in did they finally get news, though it had been in the last way expected. Harry and Hermione were gathering wood when they heard the hushed voices echo through the trees. Here at last they could appreciate all the spells Hermione had cast over their little camp each night. The numerous Disillusionment Charms had made them invisible to the passerby as long as they remained still.

A fire danced in the dark, illuminating the small group of travelers. They were too far away to get a good look, but they could hear well enough over the crackling of the campfire. The scent of roasted salmon tempted their nostrils.

"Here, Griphook, Gornuk," said the voice of a man.

"Thank you," said Griphook. Harry doubted he'd ever forget the sound of his voice.

"How long you three been on the run, now," asked a new voice; a voice Harry also thought familiar.

"Harry, that's Ted," whispered Hermione.

"Ted?"

"Tonks' dad," she hissed.

"Six weeks…Seven…don't keep track anymore," said the tired man. "Found Griphook in the first few days and then we met up with Gornuk not too long after that. They make good company in these dark times. Why've you left, Ted?"

"Knew they were coming for me," he said sadly. "Couldn't stay and endanger my wife—she's a pureblood, so I reckon so long as she's careful, the Death Eater's won't give her too much trouble. Besides, she has good folk watching over her, including that fiery daughter of mine. I meant Dean here, what was it, a few days ago, right?"

"Yeah," said a voice they knew well; Dean Thomas, their fellow Gryffindor.

"Muggle-born too, I take it," said the tired man.

"Not sure either way," said Dean. "My dad left me and mum when I was a little guy. I've got no proof he was a wizard though. Mum says he was and I don't think she'd lie. Still, ain't got nothing to give those ministry idiots."

"I'm surprised to see you, Dirk," said Ted after a while. "They said you were caught."

"I was halfway to Azkaban when I made a break for it," said Dirk. "Stunned Dawlish and nicked his broom."

"Isn't he an Auror," asked Ted.

"Not a very good one," said Dirk. "At least not at the moment—might have been Confunded. If so, I'd like to shake the hand of the witch or wizard who did it—probably saved my life."

"What about you, Griphook, Gornuk," asked Ted. "I assumed the Goblins had given in to You-Know-Who."

"Not so," said Griphook. "Your impression is false. We take no sides. This is a wizards' war. We've no interest in it."

"Yet you're hiding," said Ted. "Where's the rest of your clan?"

"Goblins may not bow to the Dark Lord, but Gringotts is no longer under the sole control of my race. I recognize no Wizarding master. This is just as well—wizards are not a particularly observant race either." The Goblins laughed.

"I don't get it," said Dean.

"We're evidently missing something here, Dean."

"So is Severus Snape, though he would not know it," said Griphook.

"They were telling me about it the other day," said Dirk. "Turns out a bunch of students tried to break into Snape's office and steal the sword of Gryffindor."

"Are they out of their mind," asked Ted.

"I thought so too," said Dirk. "Snape got nervous and had the sword moved to Gringotts. Or at least he thinks he did."

"Oh yes," said Griphook. "The sword that resides in Gringotts is Wizard-made—an excellent copy. Only a Goblin would recognize it as a fake."

"And you didn't bother telling the Death Eaters?"

"I saw no reason to trouble them." The whole company laughed.

"So the kids—who were they," asked Ted.

"Griphook told me he heard about it from Bill Weasley—one of the kids who tried to take the sword was Bill's younger sister. She and a couple of idiot Gryffindors broke in and smashed open the glass case. They were punished of course."

"What happened to them," asked Dean. "What happened to Ginny?" Harry felt for Dean—he had one time dated Ginny and was sure for some unexplainable reason he still had feelings for her.

"They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware," said Griphook. "But I doubt their punishment was pleasant."

"Thank Merlin," said Ted. "Last thing the Weasley's need is another kid injured. Still, with Snape's way of doing things, I'm glad they're still alive."

"You really think he killed Dumbledore, Ted," asked Dirk.

"Course I do," he answered. "You don't honestly think Potter did it?"

"Hard to know what to believe these days," muttered Dirk.

"I know Harry Potter," said Dean. "If there's one thing you can believe, it's that he would be the last one to kill Dumbledore. Everyone could see it that night, and after. Harry was devastated. Besides, I believe Harry is the one who will finish You-Know-Who. I think he is the Chosen One."

"Son, there's a lot of folk that want to believe that," said Dirk. "Me included, but where is he now? Run for it by the looks of things. If Potter is the Chosen One or whatever it is they call him these days, he'd be out there fighting, wouldn't he?"

"Just because you haven't heard anything doesn't mean he isn't," said Dean. "I can feel it; he's out there somewhere. If he's not revealed himself it's for good reason. And I'd bet my life that Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are with him."

"That'd be Arthur's youngest son, right," said Dirk. "I thought he was home sick. Ministry officials confirmed it."

"Oh I wouldn't put it past them to pull a prank like that," said Dean. "And if he really is home sick, I'll still bet my life that Hermione Granger is with him. She's a Muggle-born and she'd follow him to his grave. To be honest, I was always surprised those two weren't a couple. They're the most loyal people I've ever met. Mark my words—Harry's out there, and he's not alone."

Harry was touched at Dean's words. Here Dean was on the run, danger chasing him around the country-side but still had hope that he, Hermione, and Ron were working to stop Voldemort gave him the first happy thought he'd had in weeks.

"Well said, Dean," said Ted. "We have to trust Harry—he's all we have left." Those words felt briefly like honey to his throat, but soured as they entered his stomach. How long would they have to run before Harry could see his burden finished? The run-aways finished the rest of their meal in silence and then extinguished their fire before they retreated into the darkness of the forest and back to the mountainside.

"Hermione—the sword," Harry said at last.

"I know, I know," she said, dropping the bundle of loose branches from her arms.

"Dumbledore said he used the sword to destroy the Horcruxes in that memory he gave me," he said. "But the one in Snape's office is a fake."

"Harry—I just realized—Goblin-made blades imbibe only that which strengthens them! Harry, the sword's impregnated with Basilisk venom. That's why Dumbledore used it on the ring!"

"And he made a copy of the sword—"

"—and put it in the glass case so no one would think otherwise—"

"—and left the real one…"

"Think Harry," said Hermione in a loud whisper. "Where would Dumbledore hide it?"

"Not Hogwarts," said Harry.

"Hogsmeade," suggested Hermione.

"I don't think so," answered Harry. "Maybe the Shrieking Shack?"

"But Snape knows how to get in," countered Hermione. "Wouldn't that be risky?"

"He trusted Snape."

"Clearly he didn't," said Hermione. "Not enough to tell him he swapped the swords."

"Come on, we need to tell Ron," said Harry, feeling the thrill of their first lead in months and comforted that Dumbledore at least had reservations about Snape's trustworthiness. They rushed into the tent and found Ron sitting in a chair just inside the entrance, his expression lingering over them with a foul sneer. However, it was the locket around Ron's neck that caught Harry's gaze.

"Remembered me, have you," said Ron. "Don't let me spoil your fun. Carry on."

"Ron, why are you wearing the locket," asked Hermione, her voice pitched uncomfortably high.

"Wouldn't you like to know."