8.

Secret-Kept Location - September 1997

"Hermione!"

Hermione blundered out of her bed, her wand in her hand and yanked on the door handle. It was stuck fast. Tight magic flickered over her skin. Wards. Oh fuck. Wards…and Ron. She swore out loud and took down the thick shielding.

Harry was on the other side of the door, his hair raked and his face flushed. "He's gone."

She frowned. "What? Who?"

"Ron."

Harry thrust a torn piece of paper at her and she recognised Ron's blotchy scrawl. Yet another curse broke from her.

Harry

Look. I'm injured…and I'm no good at hunting through old books and cracked parchment. You know that. And well, I'm not welcome here, am I? Not anymore.

So, I'm going back to the Burrow.

Good luck.

Ron

Hermione scrunched the paper in her fist. "That selfish…wanker!" She gritted her teeth, the swell of her magic pushing at the very edge of her skin, the metallic stink of it already thick in the air. From Harry's backstep, her hair had to be at the gorgon-level of writhe. "This. This!" She shook the paper at Harry. "Because I refused to sleep with him."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"I would —apparently— be a lot less…tense if I had sex with him. He had a ring from Molly, to protect my reputation in case we bonded."

Harry's jaw dropped. "He…what?" He caught his fingers in his hair and shook his head. "Then you know what? Good fucking riddance to him. Let's have breakfast."

He grinned at her. It was forced, but bless him, he was trying so hard. Ron's ignorance, his lack of support had to be cracking one of the solid foundations of Harry's life. But then she'd begun to learn that Ron Weasley could not be relied on…if things did not go his way.

She pushed to a safer subject. "You know, Harry, when this is done with, you can became a Ravenclaw scholar."

His green gaze slid to her. "Hermione Granger, that is a cruel and unusual punishment."

She made her way into the kitchen and stopped as she picked up the kettle to boil water for tea. "I'm sorry, about Ron."

"No." Harry shook his head. "You shouldn't have to…" His lips pressed together. "It shouldn't be a requirement that your body is available to him so that he'd stay." Colour flashed across his face. "I may…I may never forgive him for that."

Her smile felt tight. She hated that they'd come to this. Broken apart when they needed each other to be strong, to win through the insanity of the task fate had set for them.

"You are stronger without him." Salazar's smooth voice eased through her turbulent thoughts. "And when you uncover which of Rowena's precious objects the Pretender fouled, it will be time to tell this boy of his fate. He deserves to know."

Hermione closed her eyes as Harry rattled about the little kitchen, pulling out plates and cutlery. Ron's desertion had broken something in him. It was there in the tightness of his jaw, in the clatter of ceramic and the bash of drawers. She vowed in that moment, that she would not abandon her best friend to this fate.

Yes, fuck Albus Dumbledore's plans. The future was Slytherin.