Chapter 18

Hermione awoke suddenly from a deep sleep. She wasn't sure what had woken her, but a nagging feeling churned in her gut, refusing to allow her to roll over and go back to sleep like her body and mind so desperately wanted her to do. She threw her legs over the side of the bed and slipped her feet into her trainers, then made her way to the entrance of the tent.

It was dark outside in the snowy forest, but the moon was bright. She considered that a huge stroke of luck, considering Harry currently had her wand. She felt naked standing out in the forest at night without her wand, her greatest means of protection, but she knew that Harry felt the same without his wand. Since he had taken first watch that night, it had only made sense for her to give him her wand while she had slept.

But now, seeing his spot by the fire vacant and no sign of him anywhere around, she couldn't help but worry about him, wondering where he had wandered off to in the dark forest.

She moved slowly, carefully, keeping a close eye on the ground and the visible tracks that Harry had made among the leaves and snow that carpeted the forest floor. She also made sure to watch out for all of the protruding tree roots and fallen branches that impeded her path; she didn't relish the thought of falling on her face in the middle of the forest.

She worked her way slowly but steadily through the forest, with the moon above as the only thing lighting her path. Suddenly, the silverly glow of what looked to be Harry's Patronus lit up the area ahead of her, and she saw Harry standing on a lake, which had frozen fully solid in the cold. She watched, absolutely befuddled, as Harry stripped off his jumper, shirt, and jeans, his shoes and socks already on the ground beside him. Before she could get close enough to stop him, she saw him use her wand to create a large hole in the ice, and then he plunged into the water.

Hermione gasped and raced for the place where he had disappeared. Her wand sat at the edge of the hole in the ice, and she picked it up, shining its light into the dark water below and waiting for Harry to emerge. Only…he didn't. Interminable seconds ticked by, but it was taking him too long to resurface. Something was wrong.

Without thinking, Hermione plunged into the freezing water herself, dropping to the bottom. She saw Harry struggling with something around his neck and realized that he had jumped into the water with the damned Horcrux still around his neck. Clearly it was taking the opportunity that had been presented to it to get rid of its biggest threat. She looped her arm around his torso and kicked off the bottom of the lake, propelling both herself and Harry back to the surface. When she had him up and out of the water, she went back under again. She had spotted the long, gleaming silver sword at the bottom and was not going to leave it there after all of the time they had spent wondering where it had gone. If the Sword of Gryffindor had presented itself to Harry, she was not going to let the opportunity pass them by.

When her head broke through the water's surface, Harry was there, pulling her from the frigid water. The look of fear and concern on his face was broken only by the look of pure relief in his eyes as he saw her gripping the Sword tightly in her hand.

"What in the ever-loving FUCK, Harry Potter!" Hermione shouted, livid with her friend over his reckless actions that certainly would have ended in his death had she not been there to pull him from the frozen lake.

"I'm sorry, 'Mi," he said, contrition clear to hear in his voice. "I know it was stupid, and I should have woken you, but…well – it was my mother's Patronus. I had to follow it."

While the emotional part of Hermione's brain fully understood the compulsion that had led Harry to act without thought, her rational brain was not so forgiving.

"You could have DIED, Harry! Did you think at all about what that would have done to me to wake up and find you gone? I never would have been able to find you at this bottom of that lake," she motioned back to the hole in the ice with an impatient jab of her finger as her teeth chattered uncontrollably. "I would have thought you had just left me…just like Ron left me."

Harry's face fell at her words, and she could see that, indeed, the thought had never crossed his mind.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione," he said, voice sorrowful and filled with regret. "You know that I'll never leave you, right?"

He reached out with one hand to push a water-logged curl out of her face, then took her wand from her fingers, now numb from the cold. With a quick wave he had dried both of them off and Hermione stood to the side, clutching tightly to the Sword, as he dressed quickly.

The two made their way back to the camp, both lost in their own thoughts. Harry's mind was consumed with the enigma of who could have cast the doe Patronus that led him straight to the Sword of Gryffindor, while Hermione…. In her mind replayed over and over again the betrayal of Ron's departure and the feeling of loneliness that that same thing had nearly happened again with Harry.

When they had crossed back into the circle of enchantments that protected their camp, Harry pulled Hermione to a stop.

"We have the Sword now, 'Mi. That means we can finally destroy this damned locket," he said, holding the dark object out to dangle from one hand. Hermione nodded in agreement, eager to have the thing gone once and for all.

"I agree, Harry. You should just do it now."

Hermione watched, confused, as Harry shook his head.

"I can't, 'Mi. I'm not the one who pulled the Sword this time," he said, and Hermione felt dread welling up inside of her like a living, breathing entity: she thought she knew where this was going, and she didn't like it one bit. "You're the one who was deemed worthy enough to wield it; I think you're the only one that can use it to destroy the Horcrux."

Hermione, putting on her bravest Gryffindor face, nodded, but inside her gut was churning. An intense feeling of foreboding had washed over her at Harry's words, and she couldn't shake the feeling that whatever would come next would be very bad indeed.

Harry watched Hermione's face pale at his words, but she nodded anyway, gripping the Sword tightly in both hands as she looked at him, determination shining in her brown eyes. Harry hoped that he wasn't wrong about this.

He lay the locket down on the ground in between them, then looked up at her in question. Her nod of affirmation told him that she was as ready as she could be for this.

After spending so much time trying to figure out how they would destroy the Horcrux, and getting nowhere, all of a sudden, the solution came to Harry. He looked down at the Serpentine S on the face of the locket and his voice rose in pitch as he hissed at the locket in Parseltongue: Open!

At his command the locket popped open, but neither Harry nor Hermione was prepared for what happened next. Harry watched as a distorted version of Jean Granger rose from the inside of the cursed object. Harry knew that this was a trick of the Horcrux, that it was Riddle and not her mother that opened its mouth to speak to Hermione.

"Hermione," Riddle-Jean hissed. "Blood of my blood, how you tried to destroy us. Your father and I were so…disappointed when we realized what you had done. But I want to thank you. You see, we are much happier now that you are no longer in our lives. You cannot know what a relief it was to realize that we did not have to deal with you ever again. After all, who would ever want to claim a freak like you as their own. Leave us be, we are all happier without you. Aren't we?"

At its last words, Riddle-Jean turned to look at a new figure that emerged beside her. He heard his best friend's distressed moan at the person who now held her rapt attention: Draco Malfoy.

"Certainly, Jean," Riddle-Draco hissed out in a familiarly arrogant drawl. "Who would ever choose to be with someone who was so – gullible. Did you actually think that I, Pureblood scion of the most revered house of Malfoy, could actually love an ugly, filthy little Mudblood like you? I'm much happier now that I am surrounded by those that feel as I do. My Death Eater brethren and I would fight to the death for the opportunity to rid the world of scum like you."

Harry watched as Hermione stared in horror at the apparitions before her, transfixed by their words.

Hermione looked at Draco and her mother through eyes so full of tears that the two figures were mere blurs. Over the dull roar in her ears and the pain in her chest from their heart-rending words, she heard her name faintly in a familiar voice.

"Don't listen to them, Hermione! It isn't true! That's not your mother, and it's not Draco. It's him. It's the Horcrux. You have to destroy it.

Gathering every ounce of courage tightly to herself like a protective cloak, Hermione lifted the Sword high into the air and let it fall onto the open locket with a loud CLANG. The object shattered, and her mother and Draco disappeared.

Nerveless, frozen fingers lost their grip on the Sword and it fell to the ground, along with Hermione herself. Her knees slammed into the ground painfully, twigs and sticks stabbing into her skin as the wetness of the snow seeped through the denim that covered her lower half. She buried her face in her hands and bone deep sobs ripped from her chest as the Horcrux's words repeated over and over inside of her head.

Suddenly, she was no longer cold and alone, but wrapped in Harry's warm embrace.

"Hermione," he said, voice full of compassion and sorrow, "none of it is true. You know it's untrue. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that, if your parents were somehow able to find out what happened, they wouldn't be upset with you, but you know that they would never think their life was better without you in it. They love you." He paused for a moment, then seemed to arrive at a decision.

"Draco loves you, too, 'Mi. Do you remember the letter that I got after Dumbledore's funeral?" he asked, seemingly out of nowhere. She was so startled by the abrupt change in subject that she could only look up into his green eyes and nod. "He asked me to watch out for you while he wasn't with you to do so himself. He asked me to keep you safe. That doesn't sound like something that a person would do if they didn't love the person, does it?"

At her look of shock that Draco would have asked Harry for anything, he continued.

"And do you remember his words before we left Bill and Fleur's wedding? He asked me and Ron to keep you safe. He loves you."

Hermione let Harry's words sink into her soul like a balm. Maybe he was right? She allowed him to help her to her feet and guide her back to the tent, where he tucked her into her bunk with a hot cup of tea. Then, he sat with her for hours until she finally fell asleep, tear tracks drying on her cheeks and a pillow clutched tightly to her chest.

Song Inspiration: Snow White Queen – Evanescence