Chapter XI
Tested
Disclaimer Haiku:
I don't own Harry /
He belongs to Jo Rowling /
Fun to pretend, though.
Author's Note: Thanks for the kind reviews, guys. I thought you all might like that last chapter. ;-)
Soundtrack Note: Possession, from the Order of the Phoenix soundtrack.
Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side.
-The Talmud
Hermione awoke with a wide, all-consuming stretch, delighted by the feel of Harry's arm draped over her side. She emitted a noise rather more like a squeak than a yawn, which she found slightly remarkable if not entirely surprising. She was of course well familiar with the sound, but couldn't actually remember the last time she'd heard it coming from her own, or for that matter anyone else's, throat.
It was the squeak of an utterly contented witch.
Even wearing the locket was not such a drag anymore. Their tempers remained shorter whenever one of them had it around their neck, but with everything out in the air… The past three days had quite simply been the best of her life, and she was more than willing to put up with a slightly crabby Harry when it was his turn to bear the Horcrux, and knew full well that he felt the same way about her.
Now that they were together, not even the locket could truly dampen their spirits.
She hadn't felt this happy in years.
The best part wasn't even all the snogging—although she was more than pleased with all the snogging—it was the fact that they were speaking again. And boy, did they ever speak. Over the past several months, especially after Ron had left, it had gotten to the point where they'd hardly ever opened their mouths, except for the barest minimum of necessary planning, such as where they were to move the tent next, or arranging watch schedules.
Since they'd—what? Gotten together? She liked the sound of that. Yes… since they'd gotten together, they'd stay up for hours, just talking. Well, yes, and snogging, but honesty, there was lots of talking also.
They of course still discussed their plans regarding the Horcrux hunt (what a ridiculous way for him refer to it as, she thought—it was not some sort of Easter Egg scavenger hunt!), but now when that conversation ran out of steam (as it always did when neither of them had any brilliant ideas about what to do next), they always had something else to talk about. Last night they'd discussed how they thought their classmates were faring back at Hogwarts, what they planned to do for their first date in Diagon Alley after the war was over, and what careers they might be interested in once they both had the chance to live a normal life.
He'd even asked her to explain her fascination with Arithmancy to him, and he'd patiently endured her raving on about Pythagoras and the numerical theory underlying the cosmos. In return Hermione had allowed him to rave on about Quidditch, something she felt particularly magnanimous about, and somehow she'd allowed herself to get roped in to having Harry give her private lessons on the sport after they'd defeated Voldemort.
Somehow, she got the feeling those lessons wouldn't actually feature much Quidditch at all.
She was cold. Snuggling her back and bum more comfortably up against Harry, she began to giggle uncontrollably, trying to stay quiet so as not to wake him while her imagination was assaulted by the wildly unbidden image of Voldemort forging his remaining Horcruxes out of Easter Eggs, and leaving clues to their hiding places all over England for intrepid Horcrux Hunters like themselves to puzzle over.
They'd talked about Dumbledore, too. She knew Harry was feeling angry at and betrayed by the former Headmaster, as if he'd abandoned them by dying. He'd only gotten madder after reading through that book she'd found at Bathilda's house, the one written by that horrible Rita Skeeter. She agreed that it had some pretty terrible things about the Headmaster written in it, but she was quick to remind him that they'd always relied on Dumbledore before, and that she was hardly going to start taking Skeeter's word over his, no matter how mad they might be at the wizard. Harry still wasn't feeling very forgiving, but she was relieved that they didn't argue about it, and even when he was wearing the locket he went out of his way to just agree to disagree rather than get into a row over it with her. She found it quite endearing, to be honest, the way he was already trying to spare them from fights.
They still hadn't progressed past long, heated snogs whenever they felt like it—which, in all fairness, was quite often—even though they'd fallen asleep holding each other the last three nights, but she had to admit, the idea held some appeal. Harry's hands roamed a bit further now than they had that night they'd kissed for the second time, the night they'd declared their feelings to one another, and she kind of liked the feel of it it. It all seemed so deliciously normal, worrying about whether she should let him "get hit by her Bludgers", as she'd overheard Ron and some of the other more juvenile Gryffindor boys refer to it in the common room before.
Come to think of it, she wasn't very good with any of these Quidditch slang terms, she thought. "Getting the Quaffle through the hoop" was obvious, but she was only vaguely aware of what "Blagging his Beater's Bat" was supposed to mean, and whether "Flacking" was demeaning or not. "Haversacking" just sounded painful.
She had the feeling, though, that when and if she was ready to let things progress that far, Harry would excel at finding her Snitch.
The mere thought of it made her blush furiously.
So far, though, he'd been nothing but the perfect gentleman, and that was hardly surprising. This was Harry she was talking about here—her Harry, she thought, breaking into another irrepressible smile—and despite a tendency to rush into things without fully thinking things through, he'd always been thoughtful and considerate where she was concerned, and she loved him for it.
He was stirring behind her now, and he began planting light kisses on the back of her neck. She squirmed, ticklish there.
"Morning there," he told her, his voice dripping with satisfaction as he brought his other arm under her so he could squeeze her to him more tightly.
"Morning," she sighed back. She could still scarcely believe it. She'd wanted to be Harry Potter's girlfriend since she was twelve years old, and now she had him.
It was better than she'd ever hoped, aside from the dismal tent and the seeming hopelessness of the Horcrux Hunt.
"I should get up and take the first watch," he murmured into her ear.
She thoroughly disagreed with him, and wiggled closer to the warmth of his body and emitted a low whine to tell him so, burying her head beneath her pillow.
"Hermione!" he chastised her. "We haven't been doing a very good job keeping watch the last couple nights, we should at least do our best as long as we're awake!"
"It's more comfortable this way!" she protested, her voice muffled since she was speaking into her pillow, but he was already twisting and rising, lifting the pillow for a moment to plant a peck on her temple before getting out of bed.
"I'll see if I can make you breakfast, and then I'll keep lookout for a few hours."
She grunted. As much as she hated being deprived of his body heat, she knew he was making a good point. Over the past couple days, they'd both thought they'd heard someone outside the tent, and had Apparated to a new location, the Forest of Dean. She'd chosen the spot—her parents and her had gone camping there, once.
She could feel him smirking at her laziness and general craving to stay in bed with him all day, even with her head still under the pillow.
She'd get him back, she knew. Later, when he'd sat down in the tent entrance, he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off of her, not once she plopped herself down in his lap and started kissing him…
The thought made her smirk, and made the thought of getting up to eat whatever miserable breakfast Harry was preparing for her more bearable. Harry was quite a good cook, she knew, he'd been forced to pick it up during his years with the Dursleys, but there was simply nothing out here in the dead of winter to cook up, nothing she had any real desire to eat, at least. Perhaps they were due for another trip to a Muggle supermarket.
"Uh, Hermione? I could use some help. Could you conjure up some more of those bluebell flames?"
She rolled over with a groan. Typical man. They'd been together three days and already he was showing his ineptitude in matters of hearth and home.
A thrill went through her at the thought of sharing a hearth and home with Harry, but she pushed it aside. That was still a long ways off, if it would ever happen at all; no need to get ahead of herself.
She threw her pillow at him as she rose, and he snatched it out of the air laughing before it got the chance to hit him. Damn those Seeker's reflexes.
All was not wasted, though, for as he laughed she could see him smile, really smile, and in that moment she knew deep down that he loved her every bit as much as she loved him. She hadn't seen him smile in months, not since this damned Horcrux Hunt had begun. Up until the last three days, that is.
What was it about his smile that she found so captivating, so enthralling, she wondered.
It was as if every time she saw it, a little more of her belonged to him. But only as if, she told herself, because she already knew that her whole being already belonged to him, and that that had been the case for far longer than the past three days.
He did have good teeth, she supposed, but she knew that that wasn't it.
Even if she was a dentist's daughter, twice over.
It was that his was the most beautiful smile she had ever seen, the same smile he had given her the first day back from their first day home from Hogwarts… she'd already fallen for him at that point, but if she hadn't, it would have happened then anyway, when he'd given her the most dazzling grin, simply beaming from ear to ear, and whispered to her and Ron that the Dursleys weren't aware he couldn't do magic at home, and that he was planning on having a lot of fun with Dudley that summer…
Just thinking about it filled her with a pleasant, bubbly sensation. That memory had been one she'd always used to conjure a Patronus with. But as she hopped up from bed to go throw her arms around her new boyfriend, laughing the whole way there, she knew that that memory would be facing stiff competition from the memories she'd been making with him the last three days.
She wasn't sure if it was actually possible to conjure up a Patronus the size of a Hungarian Horntail, but she thought that if it were she might finally be up to the challenge.
That night Harry sat on an old cushion in the tent mouth and stared out into the darkness with a wry grin. Hermione was asleep now, which was good news for the both of them, because if she weren't, she'd be doing her damnedest to make keeping the watch downright impossible for him. From experience, he knew that whenever things seemed to be going his way for a while, the universe would step in to right any karmic imbalance—and since he was so ecstatic over the thought that he and Hermione were together, he knew that if there was ever a time for Death Eaters to stumble on to them, it would be now, and so he'd insisted that she get some rest and that he keep a proper night's watch for once.
Of course, wanting to keep her safe was not the sole reason he was feeling grateful she was asleep right now. Since they'd told each other how they'd felt, Hermione had seemed to feel the need for him to reassure her exactly how much he loved her every couple of minutes, and her preferred method of receiving said reassurances was for them to snog the hell out of each other.
With a smirk, he thought that she resembled no one so much as Lavender Brown in that. Not that he'd ever tell her that to her face—he'd rather face down an enraged Nundu than tell Hermione that.
Now, he was more than willing to participate—what healthy red-blooded young wizard wouldn't cast an Unforgiveable Curse on his own grandmother for the chance to snog Hermione Granger?—but it was what happened after that was the cause of his discomfort. She'd taken to cuddling up beside him in his bunk when it was time for them to go to sleep, and that was starting to get him a bit flustered. He hadn't even had the willpower to keep himself from kissing her, and that was before they'd even been together—if he'd been hoping that making things between them official would strengthen his resolve, then he was sorely disappointed. His desire for her was only increasing with every kiss, every touch, every soft sigh she released in her sleep while the two of them were, for all intents and purposes, spooning.
He prayed she hadn't noticed the Beater's Bat he got every time they did that.
He'd tried to think back to the discussions the other boys had had in the dorm over the years, about what they'd done or wanted to do with the girls they fancied. Despite the fact that he'd had the Romilda Vanes of the world throwing themselves at him from the moment his voice had deepened, and had dated Ginny for a few months, he wasn't terribly experienced. He'd never received much in the way of "the talk" from the Dursleys, and it wasn't like he had any older brothers like Ron, so pretty much everything he knew about… playing Quidditch came from Ron, Dean, and Seamus—Neville never had much to contribute other than bewilderment, and he knew Fred and George too well to take anything they said without several very large grains of salt.
He knew the mechanics of it all, of course, but he'd never touched Ginny's… hoop, and the farthest they'd ever gotten was that she'd put his hands on her Bludgers without a bra on. She'd always been very insistent on where she had wanted him to touch her, even going so far as to grab his hands and place them on her chest or bum when he was overly hesitant to make a move. That had been… nice, but things with Hermione were different. He didn't want to move to fast with her. Ginny had been a girlfriend, but Hermione…
Hermione was Hermione. And that was so much more, in his eyes.
He doubted she'd appreciate much the kind of talk that the boys had spouted in his dormitory, anyway. "Haversacking" just sounded painful.
So now he sat in the tent entrance, wearing every sweater he owned and still shivering. A cold shower might not be an option out here in the Forest of Dean, but surely this was the next best thing, right?
Except even out here he couldn't really get her out of his head.
After Godric's Hollow, he felt as if he was recuperating from some brief but severe illness; even with Hermione and his new relationship, he didn't feel quite up to his old strength. Their escape had been so narrow that Voldemort somehow seemed closer than before, more threatening. He still mourned the loss of his wand, and had no ideas on how to get it repaired or obtain a new one. He was using Hermione's for now, and from the moment they'd told each other of their love it had responded to him nearly as well as his own used to, but it wasn't the same, would never be the same.
Being with Hermione cheered him immensely, made carrying the locket hardly a burden at all, but he still didn't know what to do. Despite the fact that he now had a—what? A girlfriend? A beloved? A Hermione?
A soulmate?
Despite the fact that he now had her… he still didn't know what to do next. Where to go, where to find the sword, where to find the remaining Horcruxes, how to finish Voldemort once and for all… Plan-wise, he was no better off than he had been a week ago.
He'd been a bit on edge today, even with Hermione to distract him this morning while he'd tried to keep watch. Someone had been out there, in the snow, before they'd Disapparated to the forest. He was half-convinced they'd been followed, even though the other half was pretty sure he was just being paranoid. He could hear noises, the sounds of movement, mostly caused by the wind but others almost assuredly from whatever forest creatures inhabited the wood around them.
He remembered the sound of a cloak slithering over dead leaves many years ago, and at once thought he heard it again before mentally shaking himself. Their protective enchantments had worked for weeks; why should they break now? And yet he could not throw off the feeling that something was different tonight.
His thoughts drifted to Hermione, and what things might be like for them after the war was finally over. Whatever other insecurities he might have, he knew in his very bones how deeply she loved him, as deeply as he loved her. He was not worried about her losing interest or only caring about him for his fame; she was Hermione. And his only concern now was for her safety. She had to make it through all of this alive. She had to be protected.
And once it was all over…
He'd just wondered idly how much an engagement ring might cost him in Diagon Alley when a bright silver light shone through the trees ahead of the tent. He hopped up, raising Hermione's wand, ready to strike out as the source of the light stepped into plain sight.
It was no Death Eater.
It was a gleaming white doe, emitting the most brilliant radiance he had ever seen, as if someone had plucked the moon down out of the sky and placed it gently down before him. It was without question the second most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life; the first most beautiful thing was of course drooling on her pillow somewhere behind him.
The doe seemed familiar to him, somehow, intensely and fundamentally familiar, as if he'd known it all his life and was just now meeting up with it again after a long journey spent away from home. She reminded him of Hermione, somehow, and not just because of its incredible beauty. It was something about the way the creature held itself, stared at him with those peaceful, long-lashed eyes, the way it radiated kindness and wisdom and hope.
There was something else, too, though… She reminded him of something, something from when he was little, something that he knew would drive him mad unless he could remember what it was, exactly…
Neither of them moved for a long moment, but finally the doe turned round and trotted away.
"No, come back!" he called, and was already setting off after it, not a moment's hesitation slowing him down. He knew. He knew that this thing had come to him for a reason. That it was here to show him something, give him the answer he sought so desperately.
Why was it so damned familiar?
He chased after it through the trees, the snow hindering his pursuit, the cold filling his lungs and making his fingers sting. Intellectually, he knew that he could be walking right into a trap, that it could be bait of some kind to draw him out into an ambush. But in his heart, he knew that that was not the case.
No dark witch or wizard could conjure up something so beautiful, so pure.
Finally, the doe stopped and, with one last long look at him, vanished, at the side of a small, frozen pool. He blinked, his eyes unused to the sudden darkness, and immediately he regretted not waking Hermione. Was he about to be attacked?
No ambush came, though, and when he lit Hermione's wand, he could see the glint of a great silver cross speckled with deep red beneath the cracked black surface of the ice.
The sword.
How was this possible?
Try as he might, it would budge when he summoned it to him. And it appeared to be at the very bottom of the pool, far out of reach. How could he get a hold of it, then?
"You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart."
Well, he had been wanting a cold shower…
That was it, then. With a stab of Hermione's wand, and a hurried "Diffindo," the ice shattered with an enormous crack, the sound like an army of Disapparating house-elves. The waters below were freed, and chunks of black ice bobbed in the newly opened pond. It did not appear that deep, but it was deep enough that he had no other choice.
He set Hermione's wand down on the snow, still lit, and without wasting any more time, jumped in.
The cold was excruciating. He'd never felt such cold in his entire life, not even when a hundred dementors had stormed the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch… and he was only up to his shoulders in the water.
Water this cold should have the decency to remain solid, he thought, or rather he would have if he were capable of rational thought at the moment. As it was, he forced himself to dive, and the cold burned so badly he might as well have plunged into a lake of fire. He groped blindly, fingers felling around the bottom of the pool for the sword.
They brushed past something hard and he closed his fingers around it desperately; it was the hilt. Just as he began to yank on it though, something wrapped itself around his throat…
The cold has been so intense that he'd already felt like his lungs and throat had closed up, and he hadn't been able to breathe anyway, underwater, but a terrible choking feeling hit him instantly, and he would have gagged if he could. His hands, slow and useless, lunged for his neck, tugging desperately at whatever it was that was trying to strangle him.
It was the locket chain. The Horcrux was killing him.
He thrashed wildly, desperately, trying to gain a little breathing room, but it was to no avail. It was constricting him so tightly that he knew it wasn't just air that he needed to worry about—he'd pass out from the blood flow to his brain being cut off before he suffocated. He tried to kick the bottom of the pond, propel himself out of the water and onto the snow, to break the surface and suck down oxygen, only half-aware that clearing the water wouldn't break its stranglehold on him, but it was already to late, the darkness of his vision was strangely dimming, going from black to blacker than black… strange, that he'd never seen that shade of blacker than black before… little lights were popping in his head, and the strong arms that were reaching for him, wrapping around him, were surely Death's…
AIR! Rasping, retching, he gasped greedily, lungs filling with precious, life-preserving air, and he swore to himself he would never take another breath for granted ever again…
Hermione had saved him, then, for what had to have been the zillionth time… but those deep coughs did not sound like Hermione, and to judge by the weight of his savior's footprints in the snow…
"Are—you—mental?"
It was only the fact that it was Ronald Weasley's voice that he was able to force himself into an upright sitting position and stare up at him numbly.
"Why the hell," panted Ron, holding up the Horcrux in one hand and the sword of Gryffindor in the other "didn't you take this thing off before you dived?"
He had no answer. He was deeply, deeply divided. One half of him wanted to clamber to his feet, reach out for his former friend, and slam his fist into the redhead's nose, hopefully breaking it.
The other half wanted to grab his best mate into such a fierce hug the likes of which neither had ever seen, and never let him go.
It took him only a moment to realize that he wasn't deeply, deeply divided at all; the half of him that had wanted to punch him was actually only a tiny sliver, the remnants of the anger he'd felt at his friend's abandonment of them and whatever residual jealousy he had left that Hermione had once fancied Ron. But all that was gone now, wiped away by the knowledge that Ron had returned, and indeed, dived after him and saved his life.
It was only the intense, hypothermia-inducing cold that prevented him from wrapping his arms around his best friend. Instead, rather stupidly, he began yanking of sweater after soaked sweater, trying to free himself from as many wet clothes as he could, as if that would somehow make him warmer.
"It was y-you?" Harry said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation.
"Well, yeah," said Ron, looking slightly confused.
"Y-you cast that doe?"
"What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!"
"My Patronus is a stag," Harry told him tiredly.
"Oh yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers."
"How come you're here?"
Apparently Ron had hoped that this point would come up later, if at all.
"Well, I've—you know—I've come back. If—" He cleared his throat. "You know. You still want me."
In the silence that followed, Ron looked down at his hands. He seemed momentarily surprised to see the things he was holding.
"Oh yeah, I got it out," he said, rather unnecessarily, holding up the sword for Harry's inspection. "That's why you jumped in, right?"
"Yeah," said Harry. "But I don't understand. How did you get here? How did you find us?"
"Long story," said Ron. "I've been looking for you for hours, it's a big forest, isn't it? And I was just thinking I'd have to kip under a tree and wait for morning when I saw that deer coming and you following."
The two looked around, trying to locate the source of the silver doe Patronus, if it indeed had been a Patronus. Harry dashed wildly across the snow to a shadowed space between two nearby trees, the most obvious place to lie in wait if you wished to observe someone picking up a sword you'd left behind for them at the bottom of the pool. There was no evidence that anyone had been there, no footprints, no retreating figure hurrying away into the darkness of the forest. That was alright, honestly; Harry had moved as much to keep his limbs from freezing solid as to look for the source of the vision.
They both looked at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the light from Hermione's wand.
"You reckon this is the real one?" asked Ron.
"One way to find out, isn't there?" said Harry.
Ron offered him the sword.
"No, you should do it."
"Me?" said Ron, looking shocked. "Why?"
"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you." He did not know how he knew, only that he did. Ron had obtained the sword; he was its rightful wielder. It had to be he who struck down the Horcrux.
"Open," he commanded, and Ron stared at him, because he was speaking in no human tongue, but rather hissing in the language of serpents.
The locket opened with a click, and the blazing, angry eyes of Tom Riddle glared at them from within each little glass window.
"Stab!" demanded Harry, holding the locket steady on a rock for Ron to end it.
His friend raised the sword with shaking hands. The point dangled precariously over the locket, and Harry braced himself, ready for the damned thing to die.
But then it spoke.
"I have seen your heart, and it is mine," the Horcrux hissed.
"Don't listen to it!" he said harshly. "Stab it!"
"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. But I have seen much, much more than that, since you left… You are too late!"
Its voice sounded all the more horrible for the awful glee with which it spoke.
"Stab!" shouted Harry; his voice echoed off the surrounding trees, the sword point trembled, and Ron gazed down into Riddle's eyes.
"You are already betrayed, by the only two who could betray you so thoroughly… Your so called friend, as if you would ever be worthy of his friendship, and the girl who prefers him to you…"
"Ron, stab it now!" Harry bellowed: He could feel the locket quivering in his grip and was scared of what was coming. Ron raised the sword still higher, and as he did so, Riddle's eyes gleamed scarlet.
From the locket rose the ghostly images of Harry and Hermione, like memories risen out of a Pensieve.
"Ron!" shouted Harry, but it was too late, for Riddle-Harry held the other's attention.
"You could never have deserved her," it sneered. "Never given her what she truly needed… never possessed anything worth her interest… never pleasured her, as a woman deserves to be pleasured… the way I have pleasured her, from the moment you departed…"
"You're pathetic, Ronald Weasley!" cried the Riddle-Hermione, both more beautiful and more terrible than the real Hermione. She swayed, nude, at the side of Riddle-Harry, who looking like some sick parody of a Greek god gripped her possessively to him, grinding against her. "Poor, pathetic Weasley, most talentless and pointless of your line… Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?"
"Ron, stab it, STAB IT!" Harry yelled, but Ron did not move. He stood there, transfixed, his eyes wide, the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Hermione reflected in them.
"The saddest thing is, the Mudblood's a better fuck than you'll ever know, Weasley," jeered Riddle-Harry, and Riddle-Hermione laughed.
"I was on him the moment you shut the tent flap behind you," she cackled. "I knew that once you were gone I could finally know what it was to have a real man."
"Ron…" Harry begged, his voice desperate. "It—it wasn't like that… I swear…"
Ron glared at him, sharply, his eyes filled with pain and rage and seething, seething jealousy. "'Even if he'd never left, even if we'd gotten together after all this is over, made things work…'" he quoted, his voice low, dangerous.
"I would still belong to you," Ron and the Riddle-Hermione said as one, the latter laughing maniacally, as if it had just stated the punch line to a joke it had been leading up to all evening.
So he knew, then.
But how? How had he heard her say that?
"Ron—?" Harry asked, staring in horror at the red gleam in his friend's eyes as lifted the sword high above his head, ready to bring it down for a killing stroke.
The sword flashed, plunged: Harry threw himself out of the way (too slowly!), there was a clang of metal and a long, drawn-out scream. Harry whirled around, slipping in the snow, wand held ready to defend himself: but there was nothing to fight.
The monstrous versions of himself and Hermione were gone: There was only Ron, standing there with the sword held slackly in his hand, looking down at the shattered remains of the locket on the flat rock.
Slowly, Harry walked back to him, hardly knowing what to say or do. Ron was breathing heavily: His eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue; they were also wet.
Despite the deathly cold, neither of them moved for a long time. Ron was trembling, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. The two remained there in silence, until Harry began to lose feeling in his extremities.
"It could have been you," he said quietly at last. "It would have been you, if you hadn't left. What the locket said wasn't true. She did love you… still loves you. You could have made her happy."
Ron did not respond, but turned his face away from Harry and wiped his nose noisily on his sleeve. Together, the two hauled themselves to their feet and eyed each other warily.
"I'm sorry," Ron said in a thick voice. "I'm sorry I left. I wish…"
Harry realized his friend was not only apologizing for having abandoned him.
He'd had his chance with her, and he'd walked out on it. If Harry had been in his position, he might have chosen to fall onto the Sword of Gryffindor.
But Ron must have been made of sterner stuff than he, for carrying on, he said, "I know I was a—a…"
He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.
"You've sort of made up for it tonight," said Harry. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."
"That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was," Ron mumbled.
"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was," said Harry. "I've been trying to tell you that for years."
Simultaneously they walked forward and hugged, Harry gripping the still-sopping back of Ron's jacket.
"And now," said Harry as they broke apart, "all we've got to do is find the tent again."
But it was not difficult. Despite the fact that he was very likely suffering from both frostbite and hypothermia, the two reached the tent much too quickly for Harry's liking.
His best friend was once more at his side. And that was as it should be, he really was glad for that, honestly…
But a part of him did not want Ron and Hermione interacting again, not in the slightest.
What was that about? Harry knew how Hermione felt about him. He knew she wouldn't jump into Ron's arms and leave him broken hearted and alone. She was his, and he was hers. It wasn't jealousy; there was nothing to be jealous of.
But a part of him didn't care what he knew about Hermione. It only cared that Hermione had loved Ron… still loved Ron, he'd said it himself only minutes ago, and more importantly, Hermione had said so the same night she'd claimed that she'd always love him…
So as they entered the tent, gloriously warm, illuminated by the bowl of bluebell flames sitting in the center on the floor, Harry realized that he had a choice.
Ron or Hermione.
Ron was in love with her, as much in love with her as he was. Harry wasn't a big enough prat to deny another man's love for her; he knew Ron felt the exact same way he did. To see them together—actually see them together, not just a twisted, evil caricature conjured up by a Horcrux… it might destroy him. Losing Hermione to him had to have been Ron's deepest fear, for the locket to prey on it so viciously, and now that fear had gone and come true. Could Harry give her up to protect his friend?
The answer, he knew immediately, was no. He loved Ron; he was the closest thing Harry had to a brother. Hell, he was Harry's brother. He would do anything for Ron, even die for him.
But he couldn't give up Hermione. That just wasn't possible, like asking the moon not to share the sky with the sun. They belonged together.
She was fast asleep, curled up under her blankets, and she didn't wake, even when he called her name several times.
"Hermione!"
She stirred, then sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her face. "What's wrong? Harry? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he told her, voice grim. "There's someone here."
"What do you mean? Who—?"
She saw Ron, who stood there holding the sword and dripping onto the threadbare carpet. She stared at him, as if seeing a ghost.
"He knows," Harry told her quietly.
"How did you find us?" she asked quietly. Harry had been half expecting her to go ballistic on Ron, maybe even trying to hit him. Instead, all she did was stand there like a statue, pale but unruffled.
Wishful thinking, he supposed.
Ron told them everything. About how he'd run into Snatchers almost immediately after leaving, hunters of Muggleborns and blood traitors, and had only just barely escaped. About how he'd tried to return to them right away, but that they'd already moved on. How on Christmas morning he'd heard their voices coming from Dumbledore's Deluminator, and how it had lead him to them.
That's how Ron had known what Hermione had said that day, back with the Horcrux, Harry realized. That's how he'd known he'd lost her.
It had been Ron they'd been hearing outside the tent the last few days, trying to find them.
"I still couldn't see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end—and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously."
"You saw the what?" said Hermione sharply.
They told her everything, right up to the point when they'd opened the locket.
"Then what happened?" she asked, when it became clear neither of them wanted to continue on with the tale.
"Ron stabbed it with the sword."
"And... and it went? Just like that?" she whispered.
"Well, it—it screamed," said Harry with half a glance at Ron. "Here."
He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured windows.
"Did you just say you got away from the Snatchers with a spare wand?"
"What?" said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. "Oh — oh yeah."
He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short, dark wand out of its pocket. "Here. I figured it's always handy to have a backup."
"You were right," said Harry, holding out his hand. "Mine's broken."
"You're kidding?" Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.
Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word.
Ron passed Harry the new wand.
"About the best you could hope for, I think," murmured Harry.
"Yeah," said Ron. "Could've been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?"
"I still haven't ruled it out," came Hermione's muffled voice from beneath her blankets.
It should've been funny; the two of them should've chuckled at that a bit, or at least shared a smile.
It wasn't, though, and they didn't.
After he'd changed into some warm clothes, Harry lay awake in bed, unable to find sleep. He was glad, very glad to have Ron back. It wasn't until the moment he'd seen him again that he'd realized just how much he'd been missing him while he'd been away. But it bothered him that Ron's return meant having to choose between his friends. He knew they only hope their friendship actually had of surviving rested in Ron's hands. Ron had to be strong, had to be able to forgive him for stealing Hermione away from him (for surely that must be how he saw it), because Harry would absolutely not give her back, could not give her back. If Ron could handle the fact that he and Hermione were together, he'd be welcome; if not, well, Harry didn't particularly want to think about that possibility.
And Hermione's reaction was strange as well. It was as if she hadn't cared one way or another that Ron was back, and that was even more disconcerting than her screaming at him, or throwing her arms around him and kissing him.
Well, maybe not more disconcerting than that. But still, it was odd. He wished he could talk to her now, have a private conversation with her about Ron, and how she was holding up. He didn't see any chance of that happening anytime soon. It was hardly as if they could convince him to go out and fetch them firewood or something, since they already had a bowl full of magical flames, and were capable of conjuring up more at any time. Maybe they could send him to go get food for them?
God help them if that happened. They'd probably lose him again, this time a victim of an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet rather than a Horcrux's sinister influence.
No, it would be a long time before Harry would be able to get a word in private with Hermione. And it would probably be even longer than that before he'd get to share a bed with her again.
Merlin.
Just a few hours ago he'd been trying to put a stop to that, or at least slow things down some.
Now it was all he could think about.
Still, they'd destroyed one Horcrux, and acquired the means to destroy the others. It was only a matter of time until they found the rest.
But that seemed like a hollow victory, in the face of the realization that it could be days, possibly weeks, before he got the chance to snog his girlfriend again.
Fucking Ron.
