A/N: Hello all! I won't ramble, but thanks-a-bunch to everyone who's reviewed/favourited/followed thus far- it's very much appreciated!
This bit is set during the Battle in the Chamber of Secrets.
Let the sky fall,
When it crumbles,
We will stand tall
and face it all together.
The impenetrable stone tunnels of the chamber of secrets offered Ron and Hermione quick relief from the noises of screaming and dying upstairs. It was very quick relief. It struck them both as odd that the part of the castle with the most horrific stories was the one place where anybody was safe.
"That's horrible," shuddered Hermione, appraising the twisted skeleton of the basilisk with disgust.
"Can't be worse that what it looked like in its prime," Ron replied, crouching down to its gaping mouth and grasping one of its larger fangs.
"Be careful!" said Hermione quickly. "Basilisk venom is fatal. There might be some in there still."
Ron tugged on the tooth and it came away easily, a few flecks of bone breaking away with it. He frowned at the fang doubtfully. Surely it wasn't sharp enough to penetrate a horcrux...
"Let's have it, then. Get the cup out."
Hermione fished around in her beaded bag and pulled out the cup. She held it out to Ron, keeping her eyes trained on it at all times. Ron looked at her curiously.
"I completely forgot: you haven't had the honour yet!" he grabbed the cup and put it on the slimy chamber floor, then held the fang out to Hermione. Her eyes widened.
"You do it."
"I can't."
"I really think you should do it."
"No, Ron, I can't!"
"Yes you can"
He reached out to her and grabbed her hand. She was clammy and trembling. "When I destroyed the locket, I saw stuff... and yeah, I wouldn't call it my idea of a good time but it's helped me to think."
He gently wrapped Hermione's hand around the basilisk fang.
"You can do it, Hermione. I'm right here."
Hermione watched Ron take a step back with the same desperate loneliness as a child watching her parent leave her on her first day of school. She suddenly became very aware of the fang she was holding and consequentially at the job at hand.
"Alright... alright..." she muttered to herself. She lowered herself to the ground and gave the horcrux a long, hard, determined stare before lifting the fang high above her head and plunging it into the cup.
There was a flash of white light and a foul, dissonant groan and Hermione was thrown backwards.
"I HAVE SEEN YOUR HEART, HERMIONE GRANGER," said the sickening, rasping voice of Lord Voldemort. "I HAVE SEEN YOUR FUTURE."
Hermione watched in horror as great whirlwinds of black smoke and ash spiralled and conversed around each other into a slowly- forming shape. Bizarrely, this shape was not horrific nor dreadful. The smoke dissolved, and in its place stood a very pretty girl.
"Mummy?" the girl whimpered. Hermione's eyes widened impossibly further. The small child, with shocking red hair and a filthy white dress was crying, reaching out to Hermione.
"Mummy, please, help!" the girl cried. Somewhere in the corner of the room, Ron was shouting.
"Mummy, it hurts... please don't fight, I'm scared," the girl stepped forward. Her feet were soaked in blood. Hermione's body cranked up into a sitting position.
"Don't cry..." Hermione heard a voice say, not willing to believe that it was her own. She hadn't opened her mouth...
"Mummy, please!" begged the girl. "I need you! We need each other!" the girl walked towards Hermione until she was standing over her, her tears nearly falling onto her. However, they evaporated into smoke inches from Hermione's body.
"Please, Mummy. Please don't fight anymore. You can't die. Grandma and Grandpa are gone. Daddy's gone. I'm all you have left!"
Dozens of questions crackled in Hermione's mouth like popping candy, but one question in particular was crashing around in her mind, making her head spin. She felt her hand twitch upwards towards the girl, but with the girl being so close, she could see something far down in the depths of the girl's sky blue eyes purr. A victorious, satisfied sneer of something so evil, it would pray on any weak creature in its path.
"NO!" cried Hermione, squeezing the fang in her hand once more. The fear and confusion she'd felt seconds ago quickly erupted into a surge of anger, and Hermione plunged the fang into the cup once more. Relief washed over her like a tranquil stream over a rock as the painful cries of Voldemort echoed around the chamber, but that did not stop tears stinging her eyes as the beautiful red-haired girl screamed and burned in front of her, being engulfed in a white light before flashing out of existence.
As the last of the screaming echoes dissolved into the stone walls, all that was left were the sounds of Hermione and Ron's panting.
"You did it..." Ron breathed.
The previously shiny cup was now rusty and tarnished, with a huge crack down the side where Hermione had stabbed it. She heard Ron come to stand beside her. He held out a hand.
"You did it, Hermione," he said again. This time, she looked up at him. The look of awe she'd been hoping to see wasn't there. Instead, he looked solemn. She took his hand and he pulled her up to a standing position.
"Whatever the horcrux showed you," he began. "it was lying."
The pair were very close together. Neither of them moved back. Instead, Hermione saw Ron's eyes flicker downwards to her lips. Her heartbeat was so loud, it was embarrassing.
"You said that when you destroyed the locket, it helped you think. What did you mean by that?" she asked, keeping her lips parted. Ron's eyes met hers again.
"It helped me make some decisions."
"and when are you going to act on those decisions?"
Ron blinked several times as he stared at her. Eventually, his jaw seemed to lock and his eyes fell to the floor.
"We should probably gather up these fangs then," he mumbled. Hermione frowned, but agreed.
In silence, they gathered the fangs and marched back through the chamber to the bottom of the drop. After a few moments of awkward re-arranging of fangs in arms, Ron was able to comfortably sit and steer the broomstick with a fearful Hermione clinging on behind him. For Ron, her arm around his waist was a pleasant distraction from the violent whirlpool of questions and answers sloshing around in his head. For Hermione, her hold on his strong stomach was not at the forefront of her mind for very long. The image of that girl from the horcrux was still burned in her retinas. Every fine detail of the girl's tattered dress, bruised limbs and tear-streaked face was right there, clearing her mind of all else: the most probing aspect of the whole vice being the fact that the girl who'd called her 'Mummy' had striking red hair...
I have seen your heart, Hermione Granger... The horcrux had told her. I have seen your future.
She became even more wary of her grip on Ron's waist then. His unbalanced whooshing and diving and vertical flying did not phase her, in the scheme of things. This girl, her daughter... was she Ron's too?
Whatever the horcrux told you, Ron had said afterwards, it was lying.
Ron landed with a thud on the stone floor of the girls' bathroom, jolting a few fangs out of their arms. He felt Hermione numbly retract her arm from around his waist. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was alright, but the screaming and banging of the battle was audible up here, and the adrenaline and fear of war seeped back into Ron's veins. Apparently, Hermione had a similar reaction to the noises.
"Right," she said finally, taking a deep breath. "We find Harry!"
"We find Harry," Ron repeated quietly as Hermione opened the bathroom door. The sounds of chaos flooded the bathroom. Death and destruction were mere feet away, and they were walking straight into them with their arms full of fangs and questions still unanswered.
The moment the two of the turned the corner, they saw carnage again. Death eaters leaping and bounding from staircase to staircase, students and teachers throwing curses and hexes around the room, flashes of green and red snapping and banging in the air.
"Hermione!" Ron shouted over the deafening noises, tipping all the fangs into one arm and lurching forward to grab her hand. Hermione whirled round, startled. It was wonder, really, how in the ugliness of conflict and prejudice and truly horrific death, there was still such a beautiful face that could anchor him to sanity.
"What is it, Ron?! We have to find Harry!" she yelled. Ron's mouth went dry.
"Ron, we need to go!"
"Hermione, if we both survive tonight, will you go on a date with me?"
It was as though all of Voldemort's death eaters had respectfully ceased fire to listen in to Hermione's answer, because Ron could hear nothing but the excruciating silence that met his question. Hermione's gormless stare was unreadable for a long time, before a shrill, hysterical laugh escaped her lips.
"You're asking me out?! NOW?! IN THE MIDDLE OF A BLOODY WAR?!"
"It's now or never, isn't it?" he asked feebly, his face going beetroot. Hermione's face burned a similar colour, though Ron was sure it was out of fury.
"You're a fool, Ronald Weasley," she growled. Tears welled up in her eyes for the split second that Ron was able to see her face before she threw herself into him. The fangs in her arms poked Ron's stomach uncomfortably but she pressed her forehead into his chest in such a loving way that he was sure she was mocking him. When a loud bang resonated around them, she got up on her tiptoes and put her lips to his ear.
"If you'd asked me out a year ago, or maybe even a day ago, I wouldn't be so scared of dying tonight." she whispered, her voice thick with sadness. She was close enough to him that she could speak this quietly and she would still be the loudest sound to him. It was almost as though they were completely alone.
She pulled back with a face of determination and started hurrying back towards the fighting.
"Was that a yes?!" Ron called after her, running after her.
"Put it this way, Ronald: if you even think about dying in this war, I will kill you!"
"Is that a yes?" he asked again, the juvenile frustration of first love roaring with laughter deep inside of him, reminding him that he was just a boy, and that fighting in this war was ridiculous. Never the less, Hermione Granger had left him with another unanswered question. It slotted in with all the others. Will you ever forgive me for leaving? Did you really snog Krum at the Yule Ball? Will you marry me?
A year ago, he would've wretched at that last one. But since his fate could go either way tonight, there was a possibility of a future blaring in his face; an entire life that he'd have to do something with. Surely a mere child wouldn't be thinking of such things.
Ron followed after Hermione feeling really bloody old, but he couldn't care less. He was proud of the fact that if he was going to win this battle, he was doing it for her.
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