6.

Secret-Kept Location - September 1997

"Why are we here again, Mione?"

"Did he not listen the other eight times you explained it to him?"

Salazar's question was a tense and angered hiss…and Ron's repeated asking of the same thing was wearing down on Hermione's last nerve too. Did girls mature faster than boys because they had to deal with boys? Hermione resisted the hard need to slap him on the side of the head as he twitched back the blinds on a picture window looking out over a sunlit Georgian square.

"It's not difficult, mate." Harry wandered in from the small kitchen with yet another bacon sandwich. Possibly his fourth of the afternoon. "Hermione found a book that listed hallowed magical sites…and when a muggle builds on it, the building becomes magical. She did advanced and complex magic, for which she is well known," Harry smirked at her and she narrowed her eyes, "and here we are. In a secret-kept flat, somewhere in York, with a rather lovely bag of plenty she pilfered from Hogsmeade."

"Well, I've never heard of it." Ron frowned as both Harry and Hermione gave him a look. He slouched. "My family's been magical for centuries. I know stuff too."

"Course you do mate, but we both know you're not Hermione Granger." Harry polished off his sandwich. "Think there's ice cream in that bag?"

Hermione snorted. "You'll burst."

"Oh, a challenge!"

But Ron wasn't finished, nor distracted by the talk of food. Unusual. "And what about the locket? Now that's fine, is it?"

Harry frowned. "What's your problem, Ron?"

"It's all too convenient. Too simple."

Ah, he had this sometimes, a perception at odds with his usual view. He caught strands others didn't see. So that's what the repeated questioning was. He was trying to catch her out in her lie. And he was right. It was a complete pile of shite. Mostly. The land was tithed to the blood of Salazar Slytherin. Only his Augury could inhabit it. Deeds the Head of Slytherin had guarded as their solemn duty down the centuries…and with no clue as to why. Salazar had prepared for her.

Severus Snape was her secret-keeper and that had to remain hidden at all costs.

Ron's eyes fixed on her, dark and distrusting. "Is that really Hermione Granger?"

Harry groaned and chased his fingers through his hair. "We've been here for over an hour. Mione hasn't eaten or drunk anything in that time. She isn't polyjuiced." He glared at Ron. "Or glamoured."

"It's too simple."

"Fine, mate."

Harry tilted his head towards the little galley kitchen and Hermione followed him. Ron shifted his gaze back to the window. Harry didn't risk a muffliato, as the pervasive hiss would give away that they were discussing him.

Instead, he clattered about with bowls and spoons and a scoop and then shoved his whole arm into the little bag. He grinned as he brought out a cold glass dish of vanilla ice cream. "I love this bag. I may ask it to marry me."

Hermione shook her head. Harry was still a little…loopy from her return with news that she'd scouted out a flat, managed to de-horcrux the locket on the land the Georgian house was built on…and could feed them forever. But she would allow him that. He was a horcrux… She shoved down that pain and stroked the smooth, black velvet of the bag. She smirked at him. "At least your children will have tamer hair."

"True." He scooped ice cream into bowls. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Ron…is feeling a bit useless. He's injured," and there was the unspoken words of Ron's blaming her for the splinching, "he was hungry…and that was making him angry…and then you come back, solving our problems as you always do. I mean, he likes you —likes you-likes you— and this, well, I think he feels…inadequate."

Hermione picked up a spoon —though she was quite stuffed from her lunch with Snape— and swirled it through the scoops of ice cream. She risked a glance to the window, and Ron was still a mulish statue glaring out of it. "I can't…temper my abilities so he feels better about himself. We don't have that luxury."

And it would be that. She would have to appear less, to be less…so that Ronald Weasley didn't see himself as emasculated. A sourness wrapped around her heart and not even Salazar's rush of comforting warmth could shift it. Her dream of a future with Ron was already crumbling away.

"I know." Harry picked up his bowl and cradled it to his chest. "Maybe when all this madness is behind us—"

"I will still be me, Harry."

He let out a soft sigh. "I'm sorry, Hermione."

And there, right there, in that little kitchen in York, her firm future with Ronald Weasley died.