Chapter 12

The next morning Ron woke pale and weak, but he was recovered enough to move around, so the three of them made the decision to pack up and walk a bit. Just in case they had somehow been followed or located, they had decided that it would be safest to find a new place to stay the next night. As they walked, Hermione noticed that Harry was not…himself. He was much more ill-tempered than normal, barking at her and Ron over the smallest, most inconsequential things. She found herself puzzling over his behavior for hours as they walked.

A glint of sunlight catching on dull gold caught her eye and drew her attention to the necklace that dangled from Harry's neck and with it came a sudden realization. She grabbed Harry's upper arm and pulled him to a stop, holding out her hand expectantly.

"What?" he snapped waspishly.

"Give me the locket, Harry," she said simply.

She could see the argument brewing in his eyes and cut him off before he could retort.

"You've been a right arse all day thanks to that," she pointed accusingly at the necklace that rested against his chest, "and I'm tired of it. So, give it here. Now, Harry Potter!"

With a disgruntled huff he pulled the necklace over his head and dropped it into her waiting hand, and she could see the tension leave his shoulders and his vivid green eyes clear as soon as he was no longer touching the Horcrux.

"Better?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he said, relief clear to hear in his voice. "Much."

"I think," she said, looking down at the locket in her hand, a look of distaste on her face, "that the Dark Magic in the Horcrux must be affecting you negatively… I think it will probably affect us all negatively…"

She could feel the hateful magic brushing against her skin and suppressed a shudder. She looked up at Ron, then back at Harry.

"If the only way to keep it safe is to wear it, then we should probably all do it in turns."

She slipped the chain around her neck where the locket landed next to her charmed necklace, her only tangible tie to Draco. She could feel the magic of the Horcrux whispering vilely in her ear and she took a deep, fortifying breath, doing her best to block it out.

The next couple of weeks were draining, to say the least. They spent every day traveling on foot to a new location, Ron still not recovered enough for them to risk Apparation. They would go as far as they could walk, then set up camp before nightfall. Hermione typically set all of the protective enchantments while the boys set up the tent, although she had ensured that Harry and Ron both knew how to set them in case she was ever unable to, so occasionally one of them would set the enchantments instead.

They also continued to take the Horcrux in shifts. Hermione's assumption that it would affect each of them negatively had quickly proven itself to be correct, though the way it affected each of them differed greatly. Harry tended to get very short-tempered and would snap at them over nothing, but always bounced back fairly quickly: almost as soon as he removed the locket from around his neck, as a matter of fact. Hermione turned even more introspective than normal, becoming much more withdrawn and melancholy when it was her turn to bear its weight. She slept even less than she did when she wasn't wearing it and had a hard time bringing herself to care about much of anything. Unfortunately for her, the feelings did not go away when the Horcrux was gone, they just became less…consuming.

Ron, though, was the worst. He seemed to be like a cauldron that was ready to boil over. Every moment that he wore it was like the heat getting more intense, the potion inside getting closer and closer to erupting. He didn't yell and he didn't scream, he just bottled it all up inside of himself. His black moods did not go away when his turn with the Horcrux was over, either. Hermione was afraid of what would happen when he did explode, when he'd finally decided that he'd had enough.

One night, during Hermione's turn at watch, she sat by the fire as she stared idly into the crackling flames. It wasn't the flames that she saw, though. It was faces from the past that shimmered in the flickering lights and haunted her restless mind. She had just handed the locket over to Ron as he went to bed and before she headed out to keep watch, and she could still feel the residual effects of the corrupting magic staining her soul like ink on her fingertips. She knew that she would find no peace tonight.

Suddenly feeling a presence to her left she turned swiftly, wand at the ready, only to discover Harry standing beside her. Relaxing, she laid her wand back on the ground beneath her legs and resumed the position she had been in before he had arrived. Her back was pressed against a narrow tree trunk, feet flat against the ground and pulled up nearly against her butt. Her arms were wrapped around her legs and her chin rested on the shelf created by her arms as she stared into the fire in front of her. She felt Harry sit down next to her but did not turn her head to look at him.

"I'm really worried about you, Hermione," he said softly after a long moment of silence that was broken only by the crackling of the logs in the fire. "You hardly sleep; you barely eat; you only ever speak a few words at a time lately. What's going on?"

She was surprised that Harry had noticed her behavior, although she shouldn't have been; he had always been more observant that she ever gave him credit for. She sat watching the fire for a few moments longer before finally turning her head to look at him. A ghost of a smile attempted to curl up one corner of her lips at her best friend's appearance. His black hair was even more messy than usual, sticking up all over the place from where he had been tossing and turning in his bed, clearly too preoccupied by his worries for her to go to sleep. His bright green eyes, clear and focused, shone behind his round-framed spectacles as he peered intently at her. She debated with herself for a moment more before arriving at her decision.

"I told you I convinced my parents to go to Australia, to keep them safe from…well, everything happening here," she began, and Harry nodded. "What I didn't tell you is that my parents…they no longer have a daughter."

At the look of confusion on Harry's face, she sighed wearily and continued.

"I modified their memories before I came to the Burrow in July, and I gave them new identities. You see, Monica and Wendell Wilkins," she said, sharing her parents' new identities with Harry for the first time, "don't have any children. They don't know anything about the magical world. Or about me." A tear slipped down her cheek, but she turned back to the fire before Harry could see it. "It was safer for them that way."

The silence that followed was deafening as Harry absorbed what she had said, and as Hermione replayed that day in her head for the thousandth time. Finally, she heard a rustle of leaves from beside her and then Harry's arm was draped over her shoulders, and he was pulling her into the warmth of his body. His embrace caused her fractured heart to crack further, and the tears raced in silent tracks down cheeks that were icy from the cool night air. She rested her head on his shoulder and allowed herself to soak in the heat that rolled off his body, blocking out the chill of the night around them.

"I miss him, Harry," she said, hating the pitiful sound of her voice but feeling her vulnerability and loneliness even more in that moment, safe as she was in her best friend's embrace.

"I know you don't like him," she continued, ignoring Harry's soft snort of agreement at what was possibly the greatest understatement ever made, "but I miss him so much."

"I know, 'Mi. And just for the record, I've decided that if you love him, he can't be quite as much of an insufferable arse as I always thought he was," he added, a teasing tone in his voice that managed to coax a watery chuckle from her.

They sat there together for hours, saying nothing, each just staring into the fire and taking comfort from the other's presence. Hermione felt the isolation and misery that had enveloped her for months now changing. It didn't disappear, but it began to ease away just a bit, like a thick fog just starting to burn away under a morning sun. The guilt over her parents was still very much present, as was the ache from Draco's absence and continued state of danger, but finally sharing the burden with Harry had made it seem a little bit easier to bear and she knew that, as long as she and Harry and Ron stuck together, they would all be just fine.

Song Inspiration: Heart of Stone - Iko

Well, at least Hermione isn't carrying the guilt by herself anymore. Hopefully things will start to get a bit better for her here soon?

sbz