How to survive a camping trip
Another quick one-shot to help with the dictation and editing. I don't expect to get much traffic for this one, it's just there to help. Let me know what you think of the flow in the comments.
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Ron had just popped away, leaving Hermione and Harry stranded at the campsite. They had been fighting for quite a while now and had all said words that couldn't be taken back. Ron was in a rage because there wasn't enough food. That and they weren't getting anywhere on their hunt, and he just was upset that his sister was being tortured at Hogwarts and he wasn't there to help her. He felt Harry wasn't taking that into consideration.
Harry could understand where he was coming from, but he had things he had to do to stop the war and kill Voldemort. He didn't understand why Ron didn't understand that. Harry had obligations that he had to do, and Ginny was not one of those obligations. The entire wizarding world depended on what he was doing right now. Sure, he had feelings for her. She was once his girlfriend, but the entire wizarding world was more important. He tried to keep an eye on her every night, looking at the map, seeing where she was, making sure she was safe. But what else could he do?
Hermione was at an impasse. She needed to be here for Harry. She needed to do research to find out what was going on with the Horcruxes. She just couldn't leave because there wasn't enough food. She couldn't research any faster. If the boys would help, it would go a bit faster, but Ron and Harry weren't much of researchers. She didn't understand why Ron didn't understand that either. She felt bad that the kids at Hogwarts were having a rough time of it, but they were having just as rough time out here. And Ron leaving wasn't going to change any of that.
"I can't believe he did that," Harry said, staring at the spot his ex-best mate just left from. His anger was almost palatable.
"Me neither," Hermione cried. She was much more emotional about this than Harry was. She had more feelings for Ron than Harry did. There were times when she actually thought she loved the git.
"Well, I don't think we should stick around here just in case he comes back," Harry said, looking up to the sky to see what time it was. It was dark out. He really didn't want to move, but he didn't want to be here in case Ron came back. He didn't know what he'd do if that redhead appeared right now. He might just punch him in the nose.
"What do you mean? Of course, we should stay here," the bushy-haired witch utterly disagreed. She wanted to be right where they were, so he could find them right away if he came looking. Then again, that would make it easier for the Death Eaters to find them too.
"No, I don't think we should," he disagreed, turning to look at her in disbelief. Hadn't she heard the things the two boys had just said to each other? Ron had said some pretty hateful words.
"Harry, he's our friend," she said, grabbing his arm in a pleading manner.
"He just left. Friends don't do that," he said, yanking his arm from her grip.
"He's just angry. The locket makes him angry," she said, trying to reason with him. "Don't you see it controls our emotions."
"He always leaves. This is not the first time he's walked away from me when things got rough," he said, trying to remind her of what Ron did in their fourth year. He was still very upset about that. Sure, he had forgiven the boy, but he had not forgotten.
"He's just… It's just… I mean, Harry, he's just angry," she finished lamely. She knew Ron had buried himself this time.
"I'm leaving, and I'd like you to come with me," Harry said, heading for the tent.
"Let's just stay here the night and see if he comes back. If he doesn't come back tonight, then we'll go. For me," Hermione said, trying to offer some type of compromise.
"Fine, I can compromise that much," he said with a sigh. He would always cave into Hermione. She was his best friend after all. She at least stood by him whenever anything got rough.
And with that, they went back into the tent. Hermione was doing a bunch of research and she was looking through her beaded bag and found a book on camp survival.
"Harry, look at this book I found. We can hunt for our own food," she said excitedly, brandishing the book for him to see.
It didn't look like anything she would ever read. She had no idea how it wound up in her beaded bag. Maybe it was something she picked up that her father had left behind. It was something her father would have read, and that made her sad just thinking about it. She had no idea when she was going to see her parents again.
"Is it magical or muggle?" he asked, taking a look at the book. It did look muggle. The cover was glossy and colorful, and it didn't move.
"It's muggle. But I'm sure we can adapt it to magical," she said, thumbing through the pages, looking for anything that they could use to find food. There was ever so much useful information in here. From what she could see, there were things on poisonous plants, edible plants and how to tell good water from bad water. Everything you needed to know on how to survive in the forest.
"Here, let me see it, then," Harry said, making a 'give it here' motion.
"Okay," she said, handing it over. It'd be more useful to him than it was to her. Not that she thought men were the hunters, or anything like that. It's just that she was not the outdoorsy type of girl. She usually left that up to her dad, and that thought made her sad again. Her mum liked to hunt too. Maybe she'd read that book after all.
Harry took the book and read it. There was a lot of good stuff in there about trapping. There were things he could use to trap Death Eaters and keep their camp secure. They could use muggle and magical traps, and the wizards would not look for muggle traps. They would fall for them so easily it would be ridiculous.
"I think we're still gonna need some muggle money. I'm gonna go out and try and get some. There are things we're gonna need that we can't get in the woods," Harry said after he read through the book most of the way. They were gonna need things like rope and string and knives. Even though it looked like they could do just about anything with a cutting charm. There are still some things that needed the delicate hand of a knife, like skinning the animal. Unless they could look up a skinning spell in the books that they had, he didn't think either one of them knew how to skin an animal with spells.
"How are you going to do that?" she asked, looking at him, perplexed.
"I'm gonna have to steal it," he said with a sigh. He really didn't want to have to do that. It went against his morals, but he didn't see he had any other choice.
"Harry, that's immoral," she said, echoing his thoughts.
"Hermione, we have no choice," he said, a bit of anger in his tone, both at himself and his situation. He wasn't really angry at her for pointing it out, but he really didn't need her to either.
"Are you willing to compromise your morals? Are you really willing to do that?" she asked, also angry at what they were having to do just to get through this war.
"I'll try and only steal from those who can afford it. Or I can take from a cashpoint," he said in a way of compromise.
"You can get caught and blow our whole cover," she tried a different route.
"I have to make it look like it's being done by a muggle," he said, though he wasn't sure how he was going to do that.
"How are you going to do that?" Hermione asked, folding her arms in an 'I doubt you can do that' type of way.
"I don't know. I'll figure it out when I get there," he said, throwing his hands in the air.
"Oh, Harry, please be careful," she finally said, knowing that she wasn't going to be able to talk him out of it. Harry could be just as stubborn as she could when he got an idea in his head.
"I will," he said, kissing her on the forehead.
He left the tent and walked to the nearest town, which was a good two miles away. When he got there, he used his wand to flip wallets out of the trousers or purses of anyone he thought might be rich people. He made the wallets fall to the ground. Unfortunately, before he could get there, somebody else had snapped them up. Sometimes they would return them to the people that the wallets fell from. Other times, they'd snatch it up and run away.
Harry wasn't very good at being a pickpocket.
So, he decided to get closer to his victims. Unfortunately, he got too close and got caught. He had to disapparate away. He went three streets over and saw a cashpoint machine. He knew cashpoint machines had cameras. So, he wasn't sure how he was going to get money out of it.
He stood out of the way of the camera, he hoped, pointed his wand at the machine and quietly said, "Accio."
He wasn't sure if it would work, but he had to give it a shot.
Money came flying out of the machine and everybody around started yelling in joy and running towards the machine and grabbing up all the money that was flying onto the sidewalk. Harry ran across the street and started grabbing up money as well. When he had his pockets full, he ran away. He made his way back to the campsite.
Hermione was pacing back and forth in front of the tent. "Oh, Harry, where have you been?" she asked, having been worried sick.
"I had a bit of bad luck trying to get some money," he said, his head downcast as he headed into the tent, but he took the money out of his pocket and put it on the table. He did manage to get a good £500. So it wasn't a total bust.
"Did you get any?" she asked unnecessarily. She could see he was putting something on the table but not what.
"Not as much as I'd like, but enough to get us some food," he said, standing aside and gesturing to the money he just placed on the table.
"Oh, my," Hermione said, looking at his catch. "I've been summoning animals from the forests all day. I didn't like it, but I used the book and learned how to snap their necks. We have enough food. Well, that's not the staples," she said. Pointing to the animals that she had bled out, hanging above the sink.
"That's good to know. At least we won't starve to death," Harry said, going over to the animals and beginning the process of skinning them. He had to look at the book many times. He messed up the first two animals, which just meant the skins were worthless, but he did get better after the third. There were six squirrels and two rabbits there. Not bad for someone who had never hunted before.
Hermione looked up preservation charms, and they had a chill box in the tent, so they didn't have to worry about the animals going bad. Meaning, they had enough meat for them to survive for a week at least. They had mushrooms and even some canned tomatoes. That would get them dinner tonight.
"Let's pack up and get out of here. Ron hasn't returned," Harry said after he was done skinning the animals.
"Yes, let's," Hermione said with a sigh. She didn't like that they were leaving Ron behind, but she didn't have much of a choice since she wanted to stay behind and help Harry.
It took very little time for the two of them to pack the tent and blind apparate to another part of the forest. They set the tent up and reset their wards. They went back into the tent and made dinner. It was actually a pretty good dinner of rabbit, mushrooms, and tomatoes. It wasn't the healthiest dinner, but it was filling. That was better than they had had in weeks.
"What do you think Ron's eating right now?" Harry asked as he chased a tomato around his plate.
"Probably something his mum has cooked," Hermione answered as she tucked away the last of her rabbit.
"Which means it has all the basic food groups and afters," he said with almost a dreamy voice, dreaming of treacle tart.
"Well, we'll have to do without afters, that's for sure," she said. Never really a big fan of sweets. Her parents were dentists after all.
"That's okay, we don't need afters," he said, putting his dreams of treacle tart aside. He could do without sweets. Even if it was hard to give up. He'd been without them most of his life, after all.
"We have extra rabbit," she said, trying to sound excited. That was kinda hard to do because the rabbit was bland. They didn't have much in the way of seasoning.
"We do at that," he said, not really caring what the rabbit tastes like, having been starved most his life. Food was food.
"So, what next?" she asked.
"I wanna hit a hardware store and get some rope and some knives and set up some traps around our camp and then we do some more research on the horcruxes," he explained, wiping his face off with a napkin. "That and it'll make skinning the rabbits easier."
"Are you going to help me with the research?" Hermione asked. It would go so much faster if he did help.
"Yes, yes, I am," he assured her. "I'm really sorry to have put that entire burden on you. I think it's unfair that you have been looking at horcruxes as well. I've been doing nothing." He looked into her face to make sure that she understood that he was telling her the truth.
"Thank you, Harry," she said sincerely, seeing the truth in his eyes.
"No problem, Hermione," he said, smiling at her.
With that, they cleaned up the dinner and went to their own beds and went to sleep. The next day Harry went to the nearest town, which was three miles away this time, and hit the hardware store. He spent £100 on rope and knives and other trap needs. And then he went to the grocery store and spent another £100 on staples. Such as bread, milk, and eggs. He went back to the tent and started setting up some traps around the campsite. He made them a little bigger than they were in the book because he was trying to catch a man and not a rabbit.
"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione asked, confusion in her tone. She was taking a break from research at this time.
"Setting traps," he said blandly.
"Those aren't going to catch a rabbit," she said, still confused.
"Not trying to catch a rabbit. I'm trying to catch a Death Eater," Harry said, setting an extra-large circle out and covering it up with leaves. Then he tied the rope down on a bent sapling. He held that down with the tripwire. According to the book, if they stepped into the circle then they would step on the tripwire causing it to make the sapling fly up and making the person who stepped into the circle fly up also. He wasn't sure how it worked, something about physics, but he guessed it did.
"Why do you want to catch a Death Eater?" his friend asked. She wasn't sure what she would do with the Death Eater. She wanted to stay as far away from them as possible.
"It's to catch them, before they catch me," he said as he went about setting up another trap.
"Oh, I guess that makes sense. What are you going to do with them when you catch them?"
"I'm going to kill him. Or her," he added, thinking of Bellatrix.
"Dumbledore doesn't want us to kill anybody," she said, completely aghast. Dumbledore had preached and preached and preached about not killing.
"I always thought Dumbledore was a fool for that. I mean, they are trying to kill us. Why shouldn't we try to kill them?" he said sardonically. He never did cotton on to that. It never made sense to him, and especially after the battle at the Ministry. Every time they stunned somebody, somebody came by and woke them up, and they had to fight them again.
"It'll just stain your soul," she said, not wanting him to get corrupted.
"Are you sure about that? I mean, have you really researched that? Are you really sure about it?" he asked, knowing there was no real way you could research something like that.
"No, but Dumbledore said…" she said, trailing off. Not sure how to answer that.
"Dumbledore said a lot of things that I don't believe in. He said the Dursley's was a safe place for me, as was Hogwarts, but I was almost killed both places many times. They weren't very safe," he said, finally standing and facing her. His anger at the headmaster was plain on his face.
"Well, I guess you have a point," she said, worrying her lip. She really couldn't dispute what he was saying. Harry had been in trouble every year he'd been at Hogwarts.
"Besides, I don't know if I can actually kill another human being. I'm just talking out my arse. But I am going to question anybody I catch," he confessed, knowing that he didn't have the heart in him to actually kill another human being that wasn't actively trying to kill him. Now if it was a fight, that was a whole different quidditch game. He didn't know if he had it in him to torture somebody either, but he was going to try and get information out of anybody who was coming to their campsite.
"That does make me feel a little bit better. Though I don't know, torturing anybody is much better for your soul than killing them," she said, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Don't you have any Veritaserum?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.
"Why would I carry around Veritaserum?" she asked, genuinely confused.
"Because you're Hermione," he said in a flourishing manner.
"Flattery will get you nowhere," she said with a lot of snark.
"I have to try. Seriously, you don't have any Veritaserum?" he asked seriously. He really hoped that she had some of the truth serum in her beaded bag.
"Harry, Veritaserum is a Ministry Controlled substance. It takes forever to brew and a Potions master to brew it," she huffed, folding her arms over her chest like he had just asked her to brew an impossible potion.
"This coming from the girl who brewed Polyjuice Potion in second year," he snarked.
"Well, you got me there. No, I do not have any Veritaserum," she stated one final time.
"Do you know where we can get some?" he asked, hoping she knew where they could get their hands on a bit.
"Only if you're willing to break into the ministry again," she said, blowing all his hopes out of the water.
"No, thank you. Once was enough for me, thanks," he said, shuddering a full body shudder at what they had to do just to get the necklace.
"There is such a thing as a true spell, but it's a dark spell," she said, worrying her lip again.
"I think we've gone past Light and Dark right now," he said, looking at her with kind eyes.
"You do have a point. If we want to win this war, we are going to have to delve into a bit beyond the Light," she said still biting her lips.
"How Dark is it?"
"It came from the Black library."
"Hey, speaking of the Black library, I wonder what Kreacher is doing?" he asked, struck with the realization they had not seen the house elf in a while.
"He's probably just still moping around Grimmuald Place. He really doesn't have anything better to do," she said, feeling bad for the house elf.
"There is that. I wonder if we should call him here to us and give him something to do," he said out loud. It would be better than him just moping around the place, doing nothing but listening to that blasted portrait, giving him orders to do whatever it is that portrait gave him orders to do. Which is basically nothing.
"Oh, Harry, that's slavery," Hermione said, going on her crusade again.
"No, I'll make it suggestions," Harry said, trying to placate her.
"What kind of suggestions?" she asked, giving him a stink-eye.
"You know, like maybe he should clean up the house. Or maybe he should get the portrait off the wall. Or maybe he should take a bath. Suggestions," he said.
"What about Dobby?"
"Now Dobby would be fun. Maybe I should call him here," Harry suggested, thinking a house elf would be great to have around.
"Master is calling Dobby?" the little elf said, as he popped in. He looked excited to see Harry.
"Hey, Dobby, where have you been?" Harry asked, bending over, and giving his little friend a hug.
"Dobby has been at Hogwarts. Keeping the children safe from the Death Eaters," Dobby said, bouncing in place.
"Is it really that bad there, Dobby?" Hermione asked, really wanting to know what was going on at the school.
"It is being very bad there, Missy Grangy," Dobby said, looking at her with mournful eyes. "There is being bad people doing very bad things to the children there. Headmaster Snape is doing the very best he can, but there is still being bad people there." His ears drooped at the thought of what was going on.
"Then you better go back and take care of them. I'll call you if I need you," Harry said, bending over to give his friend a hug again.
"Harry Potter, sir, is too kind," Dobby said, snapping his fingers and popping away.
"It was good to see Dobby," Harry said disappointed that he wasn't able to keep the elf around, but glad that he was alright, and that the elf was helping the children in Hogwarts. He had been a bit shocked that the elf said that Headmaster Snape was helping the children. That was a bit weird. He'd have to think about that one.
"Yes, he is looking much better. See how elves can be free and healthy," Hermione said, a smug tone in her voice.
"I hate to tell you this, Hermione, but Dobby is not free," Harry said, looking at her like she was a bit out of her mind.
"Yes, he is," Hermione said, completely affronted that he would say such a thing to her.
"Dobby has been bonded to Hogwarts since my second year," Harry told her.
"He told me he was a free elf," she said, wondering why the elf would lie to her.
"No, he responded to Hogwarts. Dumbledore just gave him leave to dress the way he wants and pays him a sickle a week. Now that Dumbledore is dead, he doesn't get that sickle a week, but he still gets to dress however he wants," he said once more bursting her bubble.
"That's terrible," she said, putting her hands to her cheek in horror.
"Anyway, let's get these traps finished and get to hunting some more. I want to make sure that we've got plenty of food and set up in case we have to bug out again," he suggested, knowing that they couldn't possibly stay here for more than a week.
"That sounds like a good idea," she agreed, dropping the subject of house elves for right now.
And with that, they finished setting up the traps for the Death Eaters. And then they went hunting again, getting small game animals, and leaving the bigger ones free. They got five rabbits, three pheasants, And two game hens. They decided they would try for the bigger ones at a later date, but right now they just didn't have the time or effort to take down deer or elk. Not that they'd seen any elk, but they'd seen plenty of deer.
They skinned and dressed the animals. They made sure to put all the innards into a bag and banish it so none of the predators of the forest would come into their campsite. They had no idea what kind of muggle predators there were about in these woods, but they didn't want to find out.
Because they were better fed, they were able to get more research done and were able to find the diadem horcrux faster. All Harry had to do was share what he had learned from Dumbledore with Hermione and together they put it together.
They had Dobby pop them just outside of Hogwarts. There they snuck in through the tunnel of the Shrieking Shack, went to the Room of Requirements, and searched the Room of Hidden things. It took them a while, and they had to wait until the room was empty, using Harry's invisibility cloak. But they did find the diadem.
They still had no way of destroying the horcruxes, so they took it with them when they left.
So now they had two horcruxes. They still need to figure out where the rest of them were. Hermione had the brilliant idea that Bellatrix probably had one in her vault. But they had no idea how to get it out of Gringotts. There was no way they were going to break into the bank. That was just suicide. Harry thought of calling Kreacher.
Kreacher came when he was called. "What can Kreacher be doing for master?" the grumpy old elf mumbled, glaring at the teen.
"Kreacher, are you able to get into Bellatrix's vault?" Harry asked, thinking it was a long shot.
"She is being of the Black family. Kreacher can try," the elf mumbled, looking shifty.
"Would you do that for me, please?"
Kreacher lifted his hand, snapped his fingers, and went to Gringotts. He came back five minutes later and said that he could not get into Bellatrix's vault.
"Well, there's no help for it. We're going to have to go to Gringotts," Harry said, looking around the tent like another answer would come to him.
"What are we going to do when we get there?" said Hermione, sounding exasperated. She was well and truly tired of this horcrux hunt. But she knew that it was very important to ending the war. But dealing with the goblins? That was on a whole new level. They were as surly bunch.
"We're gonna have to talk to the goblins," he said as he started packing up a few things that he didn't want to lay around the tent.
"What do you think they're going to do?" she asked as she put a few things in her beaded bag so that she'd have them ready in case she needed them.
"I don't know, Hermione. We're just going to have to try," he said, just as exasperated as she was. He didn't like dealing with the goblins any more than anybody else did.
"The goblins is being nasty creatures," said Kreacher, being helpful for once. "But they is not being liking soul magic."
"Do you think they'll help us just because there are horcruxes?" asked Harry, pausing in his packing and looking at the elf.
"Yous can be asking them," said the house elf as he shuffled to the bed and snapped his fingers to make it.
"Thank you, Kreacher. You can go back to Grimmuald Place," Harry said, thankful for the elf's help.
Kreacher lifted his hand, snapped his fingers, and was gone.
Harry and Hermione tore down the camp and made their way to Diagon Alley. Since they were the most wanted people in the wizarding world, they made sure to put on disguises of the muggle kind. Each wore wigs and wixen hats and robes, so they could blend in. Harry had muggle makeup on to hide his scar. They made their way up the steps of the large white building, nodded their heads to the guards that were standing outside, and made their way to the closest teller.
"May I have a quill, ink and parchment?" Harry asked politely.
"A strange request, but I'll grant it," the teller said, giving him a queer look.
Harry wrote down one word on the piece of parchment and handed it to the teller. It said 'Horcrux'.
The teller looked at the word, looked back up at Harry with wide eyes, and said, "Wait here."
Harry and Hermione waited patiently while the teller hopped down and ran to the back of the room and out a pair of double doors. He was gone for a good ten minutes when he came back and motioned for them to follow him. They went with him through the pair of double doors down the hallway. And into a pair of ornate golden doors.
Behind those doors was a large office with a large desk. Behind that desk, sat a large goblin. "Do you know what you've wrought by bringing us this piece of information?" the goblin behind the desk asked, glaring at Harry like he had done something wrong. It wasn't often that anybody brought up the word Horcrux inside the bank. Soul magic was completely taboo.
"No, I don't, but I'm hoping you can help us," Harry said sincerely, looking the goblin straight in the eye. He wasn't going to back down from this. They needed help and they needed it badly.
"What do you know of these vile creations?" the still unnamed goblin asked. He picked up a piece of parchment and looked at it, put it back down, picked up another piece of parchment, looked at it, put it back down, and then looked at Harry again.
"We have two, we think you're housing one, and we don't know where the rest are," Hermione said, fingering her beaded bag.
"How many do you think there are?" the goblin asked, picking up a quill. Ready to write down the information.
"We know two have been destroyed. We have two. We know one might be a snake. And we know you might have one, so that would be six and we hope that's all of them," Harry said, though he did reach up and rub his scar.
"We have a spell. If you have two of them, we can find out how many there are. Are you willing to give up the two you have?" the goblin asked, jotting down notes.
"Gladly."
"Very well. Follow me," the goblin said. He got from behind the desk and went out the doors and back into the hallway.
Harry and Hermione followed him back down the hallway. They walked for a very long time until they came to another set of double doors and went into a ritual room. Hermione produced her beaded bag and pulled out the two horcruxes that they did have and handed them over to the goblin.
The goblin took them and put them in the center of a ritual circle. He then pushed them towards the wall and did a small ritual dance around the circle. Once the dance was done. Some light shot out from the two Horcruxes. Four lines. One shot into the bank and two shot out in the same direction. One shot to Harry's forehead.
"You are correct, there is one in the bank and there are only two more left after this, besides Mr. Potter. One is probably the main caster and the other is probably, as you say, the snake. And we'll have to deal with the one in your scar, Mr. Potter," the goblin added, looking closely at the one on Harry's head.
"Just how will you do that?" Harry asked. The only way he knew how to get rid of a Horcrux was to destroy the vessel.
"Don't worry, we know how to get rid of them without ruining the container," the goblin said, making calming gestures with his hand.
"Oh, thank Merlin. That means this is almost over," Harry said, sighing with relief. He was just glad that he didn't have to die. He was pretty sure that was Dumbledore's plan. Now that he thought about it, it made sense to him. "Let's get this over with," he said.
"We'll get the one out of the vault. Whoever's vault it's in is considered forfeit," the still unnamed goblin said.
"I'm sure I don't care," said Harry, he was pretty sure it was Bellatrix's, anyway.
"Did you want to sit and watch the ritual?" the goblin asked Hermione as he directed Harry to sit in the ritual circle.
"Oh, could I?" said Hermione, ever the one to learn new magic. That and she didn't want to leave Harry alone.
"As long as you remain quiet, I have no issue with that," the goblin said.
So Hermione stayed along the wall while the goblins rushed around, grabbing the horcrux from Bellatrix's vault and putting it with the other two in the middle of the circle. They made Harry sit with them on his lap.
Then six more goblins came in ornate robes and did another dance around the circle. Channeling magic and waving their staffs around the three horcruxes, and Harry, calling for the soul pieces to unite. The other two soul pieces were pulled into the circle with those that were there. All the soul pieces were pulled out and converged into one soul piece above the circle. It's sat there, just hovering like a large black mass.
The goblins took that one soul piece and then shoved it into a piece of amber, which instantly turned black.
"Behold, your Dark Lord Voldemort," one of the goblins said, holding up the amber with a gloved hand.
"What are you going to do with it?" Harry asked, from the circle but still clutching the treasures of Hogwarts in his hands. After all, it was Slytherin's necklace, Ravenclaw's diadem, and Hufflepuff's cup.
"We're going to kill it. What else do you want us to do with it?" the goblin said as if that was a stupid question.
"Oh, how are you going to kill a piece of rock?" Harry asked, feeling foolish for having asked the question in the first place.
"We're going to throw it into a volcano," the first goblin said, taking the amber and putting it in a box.
"That makes sense." Hermione said, nodding her head in agreement.
"Well, that's the end of that," Harry said, going over to Hermione and handing her the treasures to put in her beaded bag.
"Harry, how are we going to tell the wizarding world that it's over?" she asked as she took the treasure from him and put them one by one in that bag.
"I think they'll notice when all the dark marks disappear," he said.
"Yes, but how is it going to stop the muggleborn camps and all the laws that have been changed? We still have to figure out how to get rid of all the Death Eaters," Hermione said as she closed the bag up and put it back in her pocket.
"That's not my job. My job is to end Voldemort," the very tired teen said. He didn't understand why she was thinking it was his job to cure the entire wizarding world. He did his part.
"I don't know, Harry. I think our job is to end the war," she disagreed, looking at his face like he had more to give.
"No, my job is to end Voldemort," he repeated, running a hand down his face.
"Do you think once he's gone, the Death Eaters will stop?" she asked, hopefully. She too was tired and didn't want to fight anymore. But she also didn't want to stop as long as injustice was going on.
"I don't know, Hermione," he said, slumping that she wasn't letting this go.
"Well, let's find out. We'll go with them when they throw this in the volcano and then we'll come back and see what happens," she said, in a way of compromise.
"OK, let's find out," he said, giving her a smile. He wasn't going to promise anything.
So they went with the goblins to the volcano and watched them throw in the piece of amber. As the amber melted, a horrendous scream emitted from it. And the Dark Lord Voldemort knew no more.
Harry and Hermione went back into the wizarding world. And it was brighter, and there were no more Death Eaters, it seemed. As the Dark Lord died, so did the Death Eaters. However, there were still people in power at the ministry that were still bigots. Like Umbridge. But that was up to the ministry and the adults to take care of. It looked like Kingsley Shacklebolt was going to take care of that.
Harry's job was done.
"I take it we have you to thank for taking care of You-Know-Who, Harry Potter," Shacklebolt asked one day while Harry was at Hogwarts to discuss his education with Headmistress McGonagall. He would be redoing his seventh year with everyone else. They were technically calling it the eighth year, but…
"No, you have the goblins to thank. All I did was work with Hermione to gather up some necessary parts. They're the ones that took care of the last of it," Harry said, folding his arms as if to dare the man to contradict him.
"But you did gather up the necessary parts, correct?" the new minister asked, trying to get Harry to make his part important.
"Me and Hermione, yes," Harry stressed his point again.
"Therefore, you are still a hero," Shacklebolt stated, clapping his hand on Harry's back as they walked down the hall towards the Entrance Hall.
"No, that would be the goblins," the frustrated teen said as he made his way towards the entrance doors and out into the grounds.
"We can't award the goblins," The minister said, running his hand over his bald head and walking alongside the teenager.
"But they're the ones who did the work," Harry said, completely flabbergasted. He didn't understand the mindset. The goblins are the ones that did all the work. They're the ones that should get the reward. He was okay with getting an award, but the goblin should get recognition.
"So did you," Kingsley said again, narrowing his eyes at the persistent teen.
"What about Neville? Who kept the students safe at the school?" Harry said, getting tired of everybody putting him on a pedestal.
"He will be awarded too," was the irritated response.
"You want to give me an award?" Harry question finally.
"Well, yes," Kingsley said like he was saying that all along and couldn't understand why the boy wasn't getting it.
"And you're going to give one to Hermione too, right?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes at the man.
"Of course," the older man said quickly.
"It'll be the same award you give me, correct?"
"Well, no. She'll be getting a second-class award," was the incorrect answer.
"But she did most of the work," Harry said with a note of irritation in his voice.
"But you're the hero," Shacklebolt said.
"Look, either Hermione gets first-class award with me, or you're not giving me an award at all," Harry said, making a slashing motion with his hand.
"Harry, you have to understand..." Kingsley started, only to be cut off by Harry.
"No, you have to understand. It's my way or the highway. I'm not getting an award unless somebody gets the same award," The teenage boy said, turning and walking away.
"Let me talk to the committee," the minister said, calling to his back.
"You do that," Harry said without even turning around.
And because of his commitment to his best friend, Hermione got the same award he did. All three award winners were seen at the ceremony getting the Order of Merlin: First Class. Ron felt cheated because he only got third-class. And it was all because he left because he was hungry.
Harry felt bummed that all his trapping didn't catch a Death Eater, but at least now he knew how to camp and could take his future children on camping trips.