Hermione was across the chamber before Ron could say anything at all.
One of her arms, thin and tanned from what felt like millennia outdoors on the run, was stretched out in front of her, ready to grab the basilisk fang from what was left of the jaw of the beast.
"Oi!" It came out of Ron's mouth reflexively before he could stop it. He broke into a run. "Be careful, would you? They're—"
"Impregnated with basilisk venom?" Hermione snapped, looking over her shoulder to offer him an exasperated look. "You don't say?"
"Well, if you're just going to run at it with reckless abandon, shoving your hand all round the damn thing—"
"Contrary to what you might think, I'm not that thick."
Ron rolled his eyes and snorted. "Oh, please. There's not a single soul on this planet that thinks you're thick, Hermione."
He'd almost closed the distance between them when she snapped the fang off. It was large—maybe half the length of his whole arm—and quite pointed at the end, even after years in the oddly humid, definitively frigid bowels of the castle.
"We'd better get loads of them," Ron said. "Who knows if we'll lose one or if one's broken or something."
"Well, we'd better make sure it works first, shouldn't we?"
"Make sure it works?"
She shoved the fang at Ron, reached into her sock, and pulled out the beaded bag to Summon the cup. Once it was in her hand, she returned the bag to its hiding place and knelt to place it on the ground.
"I'll hold it in place."
At these words, Ron realized exactly what Harry had felt when they'd disposed of the locket: it was obvious to him that Hermione had to destroy the cup, though he could not come up with a clear reason why.
"You've got to do it."
Hermione's determined expression changed to one of fear, although she did not look entirely surprised.
"What?"
"I dunno," Ron said. "Harry said the same thing to me with the locket, said it had to be me, but he didn't tell me why. But I get it now—it's got to be you."
"That's completely illogical," she said, but her voice was not convincing.
"Maybe because you carried it around the most, like me with the locket."
"We took it in shifts!" she argued. "And you most certainly weren't wearing it when you were gone!"
"I just told you I don't know! It could be because you're the one who took the fang, or maybe it affected you the most—"
"It did not affect me!"
"Hermione, we're wasting time! Plus, you're a terrible liar. You know just as well as I do that it's got to be you."
She shook her head and eyed the cup with what looked like dread.
"I can't," she whispered.
"What? Sure you can. Why d'you think that?"
"It's going to say terrible things, isn't it?"
Ron's stomach seemed to plummet even deeper into the castle. Had Harry told her about the locket?
"What makes you say that?"
"You and Harry aren't the best liars either, and you seem to have forgotten that I did loads of research on Horcruxes." She looked up at him with those brown eyes of hers, always so revealing of the constant calculations going on behind them. "They don't die without a fight."
Ron wondered if this was her way of asking him to disclose what the Horcrux had said to him. He wasn't sure it was something he'd ever feel comfortable doing, but even so, it would not be now.
"I'll be here to help. You'll just have to listen to me and, y'know, tune it out." Hermione raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to speak, but Ron added, "I know that's easier said than done. Been there and done it, remember?"
She looked down at the cup again nervously.
"And I don't mean to make this worse, honest," he added as gently as he could, "but we're still sort of in the thick of this mess, what with all the violence going on upstairs, so I reckon we'd better get this done."
Hermione seemed to steel herself and nodded, but said nothing more than, "Alright."
"D'you think we can just stab it? Harry had to open the locket."
"Nothing to open here, is there?" she asked.
"Right," Ron said, kneeling across from her.
He handed her the fang and took the cup in return. He'd just opened his mouth to offer words of encouragement when she drove the fang into the cup.
When she did, Tom Riddle's slimy voice filled the chamber.
"I have seen your heart, and it is mine. I have seen your dreams, Hermione Granger, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible…"
It was the exact words that the locket had said to him. He felt his blood turn to ice and gazed up at Hermione, who was, as he'd predicted, totally paralyzed with fear.
With absolutely no idea whether or not it would work, Ron bellowed, "Stab it again!"
"The Insufferable Know-It-All, the Nightmare, the Mudblood… you are nothing more than the weakest sum of your parts… you will never be enough for him, for them, for anyone—"
"Hermione!" Ron yelled in warning. The cup was growing hotter in his hands, and he knew what was next—some sort of demented shape coming out of the thing, ready to taunt her.
It was as if the cup knew exactly what he'd been thinking; from it came four twisted forms: Ron's, Harry's, and those of her parents.
"You!" said the accusatory voice of Mr. Granger, "Our only child, our pride and joy, erasing our memories and sending us overseas? Betraying our trust, destroying our lives, dividing this family… Unthinkable—we will never forgive you, never, never!"
"My daughter, the light of my life… a traitor, living in that evil world, a world I never trusted… you belong there with them, those wretched people—"
"No," Hermione gasped with wide eyes. Every inch of her was trembling. "No—"
"Hermione, it's trying to stop you, just stab it!"
"You've slowed us down from the start," Harry added. "Always the weakest…. Always the slowest… Always imperfect... Destroying the dual-cored wand that would defeat Voldemort… splinching Ron near to death… countless mistakes over time—"
Riddle-Ron moved a fraction, looking ready to speak; Ron had stopped breathing in anticipation, dreading what his evil self would say, but Hermione, seemingly determined to silence him, plunged the fang once more into the heart of the cup.
A deafening silence followed its death. The figures turned to smoke around them. Ron pushed the mangled, smoldering remnants of the cup aside and looked up.
Hermione had leaned back on her heels and was staring with glassy eyes at the Horcrux. The basilisk fang was still in her left hand; it hung limply at her side. Her pallid face was frozen with shock.
"Hermione?"
She was shaking violently from head to toe. He scooted forward a fraction, ducking his head to meet her vacant gaze.
"Hermione," he tried again, more tenderly this time. "Hey."
Her expression changed to one of immense pain. She covered her mouth with her free hand, clearly trying to fight off a sob threatening to break through.
He was close enough to touch her, now, so he tugged the fang from her hand. When reached a long arm out to give her a one-armed hug, though, she seemed to break out of whatever state she'd been in.
She sniffled once and shook her head.
"Give me it," she said, gesturing to the cup. "I'll put it in the bag for now."
"What? Hang on. Can we rewind for a moment? Are you alright?"
"Give it to me," she ordered.
Ron reached for the cup and handed it to her, watching warily as she stowed it away.
"What did it mean, 'for him?'"
Hermione finished tucking her bag into her shoe and looked halfway up, refusing to meet his eyes. "What?"
Ron felt vaguely faint. "'For him,' it said. 'You'll never be enough for him, for them, for anyone—'"
"How am I to know, Ron?" Hermione said impatiently. She looked more exhausted than he'd seen her yet—quite a feat, considering how beaten down she'd been after their time at Malfoy Manor. "Does it matter?"
Ron glared at her, considering this quite a stupid question.
"Well, considering the thing attacked you directly, I'd think you'd have a perfectly good idea what it meant. And, yeah, I'd like to think it does matter, actually." He gestured to her beaded bag. "Who's he to decide who you're enough for? He's an absolute tosser—everything he said was absolute shit—"
"—It plays on your weaknesses, Ronald—"
"I know that," he said darkly.
"If you knew it so well, I'd assume you'd know when to leave well enough alone, too," Hermione said sharply. It seemed she was resorting to the age-old, time-tested tactic of rowing to dodge whatever she was feeling. "Besides, you won't tell me what the locket said—"
"—Not now, Hermione—"
"Exactly—it doesn't matter, does it? We're here—we've killed the Horcrux, we've got to get back."
"'Not enough for anyone,'" Ron muttered, a bit pink from the mention of the locket. "How could you possibly think that?"
"Oh, I don't know, Ron," Hermione snapped, "let's think of all the times somebody's made a comment about Hermione going to the library or Hermione the know-it-all or Hermione's Muggle-born so she couldn't possibly—"
"So? They're all gits!" Ron exclaimed. "Mental—they couldn't possibly—"
"You've said some of the worst of it!" she shouted, "'She's a nightmare. It's no wonder she hasn't got any friends!'"
The words echoed across the chamber and somehow stung Ron worse with each repetition. Her poor imitation of an eleven-year-old Ron would've been comical, hilarious even, in a different context, but now he was immediately flung back into reality: here he was, in the middle of what would likely be the last battle of the Second Wizarding War, surrounded by the only weapons he could think of strong enough to kill the remaining pieces of Voldemort's soul (the teeth of a massive, murderous snake, at that), rowing with Hermione.
At least there was one constant in life, he reckoned.
You've said some of the worst of it. All those years of teasing—sometimes gentle, sometimes a bit harsh, even he could admit—and she'd been taking notes. Filing it away. It was likely that every insult he'd ever fired off in a fit of frustration was etched into the deepest part of her memory.
Now was not the time, he knew. He wanted to sit across from her, to unpack the details of this revelation, to really discuss what was going on in their heads—but You-Know-Who was preparing to curse the living daylights out of everybody that they loved.
"Hermione," he said pleadingly, but he was not sure what to say after that.
"It doesn't matter," she said dismissively. She looked, of all things, embarrassed to have admitted it.
"Don't be stupid. Of course it matters. You're right."
"I—"
"—You know you're right, yeah, I know, but lemme just say it, alright? You're right. I've always been mean to you—I'd do anything for a laugh—Harry's been pointing it out for years—"
"Please, Ron," she begged, and it was only the desperation in her tone that stopped him. She rose to her feet, saying, "We've got to go. Help me collect some of these fangs."
"Hermione."
"Ron—"
"You do know that none of us think any of that rubbish, right? Deep down, you've got to, yeah?"
Hermione stopped walking. Her back was toward him, but he saw her stiffen at his words.
"You'd have to be mental to believe your parents'd think that. You saved their lives, no doubt, and they'll see it that way. I'm sure of it. As for Harry… not even sure what to say, every single word of it was so bonkers—I know you're not stupid enough to think that. You're the only reason we're still alive."
She still hadn't moved.
"And whatever… whatever I was going to say… That would've been shit, too. There's not a single thing it could've said just then that would've been true. Not a single one. I mean that," he said earnestly.
Hermione heaved a sigh before reaching for another fang. Ron felt a shift in the air, though he was not sure what precisely had changed.
"Yes," she said so quietly that he could've imagined it. "I know, Ron."
Ron stood up, dusted his trousers off, and settled at Hermione's side.
"You're a terrible liar," Ron said lightly. "I know I've already said it but blimey, it's positively insufferable."