[Name]: Ikuni Hattori

[House]: Ravenclaw

[Subject/Task No.]: Geology: Testing

Task 2: Hardness: Write about resisting, or failing to resist, something.

[Title/Link]: Compelling

[Summary]: After Ron leaves, Hermione thinks it's easy to resist the effects of the locket…but is it really?


The day started out like any other day…well, almost any other. Ron had walked out on them earlier that week, and Hermione chose to stay with the mission over following her heart. They had a war to win! She didn't have time to listen to her heart, not when the fate of the Wizarding World rested on her shoulders.

Well, the fate of the Wizarding World rested on Harry's shoulders, but he relied on her to figure things out, just like they always did.

It was her turn to wear the locket, and it was wearing on her. Wearing her down. The sweet sibilant voice from the soul that was housed inside the locket cooed to her as she stood guard outside the tent, giving Harry a reprieve of this nasty feeling of the Horcrux they now had to share between two people instead of three now that Ron was gone. It was starting to become addictive, this heady feeling the locket imbued her with the longer she wore it. Idly she wondered if this feeling was what compelled Ginny to write in the diary before the compulsions to keep writing took over. The evil emanating from the locket both tired her but invigorated her, like an addict. She needed the next fix of when she had possession of the locket. As her latest turn had started, Hermione had clutched the locket to her, much as she remembered Smeagol did with the ring in the Lord of the Rings books her father read to her when she was young.

The day blurred for her, but she remembered what went on around her, she thinks. It was like swimming underwater, where everything went slowly, but still happened. There was no blacking out to suggest possession, like the diary had for Ginny, and Hemione felt confident that anything she said or did while wearing the locket was of her own volition.

So when the intrusive thoughts began after lunchtime, Hermione wasn't alarmed by them.

It started with something small, like watching Harry sit and stare at the Golden Snitch Dumbledore had bequeathed him, instead of the boy pouring through the books to see if he could find something she missed. No, he and Ron never looked at the books, it was just her that agonized over the written word. The stray thought crossed her mind of just screaming at Harry to get to work, to stop making her shoulder the whole burden, but then Harry would shift, and look exhausted, and Hermione would look away, burying that thought deeply. He didn't need to see that thought on her face, and she didn't need to think it.

It was unnecessary.

Dinnertime came, and it was Harry's turn for the locket. She saw how exhausted he was, and offered to keep carrying it for another day. His shoulders sagged, in relief, in resignation, she wasn't sure. But he allowed her to keep the locket and a surge of elation went through her. Was that her? It must have been. After all, she was in full control of herself, and the locket had no power over her. None at all.

Harry went to bed early, to catch up on much needed sleep, and Hermione took up her post outside the tent once more. But suddenly, she stood at the side of Harry's bed, her feet moving before she could stop herself, and she just stared down at her best friend. He had been involved with so much when they were younger, simply for being him. What would a normal year have been like, she idly wondered.

But the intrusive thoughts were back, the locket whispering sweet nothings in her ear about how easy it would be to reach out and end him…end her suffering. She could easily imagine it. Reaching out and choking him with her bare hands, or pressing a pillow against his face…it didn't even have to be a magical death. They were both Muggle raised after all…

Harry blearily opened his eyes and spotted Hermione standing next to his bed. He hastily donned his glasses as he sat up. "Hermione?" he asked worriedly, his voice cutting through the haze that had dropped over her mind the past few days. "Is something wrong?" Hermione shook her head before plastering a convincing smile on her face.

"No, nothing's wrong. In fact, everything is okay," she replied. "I just wanted to check on you." She reached out and squeezed his hand before turning and leaving to head back outside, snatching up her purple beaded bag on the way out. Hearing him settle back to sleep had Hermione relax, and she reached up to lift the locket from her neck. She hastily transfigured a lead box out of her old jewelry box from her parent's house and shoved the locket inside of it before burying it deep in the depths of her purse.

Immediately, the effects of the locket dropped from her, and Hermione took a deep breath, as if she had been drowning. Her mind clearer than it had been since they obtained the locket, she pulled out a notebook and a biro and began to put her thoughts to paper.

It was time to end this.