16 November, 1997
"There's nothing there," Hermione repeated for the umpteenth time, rubbing her temples. She wanted to look outside just to see if the sun had come up, because it felt as though they'd been going at it for hours. "He hated the bloody place, he wouldn't leave sock lint there, let alone a piece of his sodding soul."
"He left the ring at the Gaunt house," Ron argued incessantly, a pronounced dent forming between his ginger brows. "It's just as likely he'd leave something at the orphanage."
"It's not!" Hermione snapped, smacking a hand on the table like it might somehow pound the point into his thick skull. "It's not 'just as likely.' The Gaunts were his tie to pureblood society, tarnished and inbred as they were at the end, their names were still among the sacred twenty-eight. The orphanage was a dark mark on his past, a reminder of his lowly muggle upbringing. He'd have done everything he could to distance himself from it."
Ron paced and seethed while she rolled her eyes, sitting back in her chair and picking up the small hunting knife on the table in front of her to clean her nails.
There was no blaming the locket for Ron's behavior this time; Harry had left it on the table when he went out to take his turn at watch, and there it sat while they argued like kneazles and krups around it. She could practically feel that greasy shard of pitch-black nothing smiling at the maelstrom of discontent.
"What if we just go –" Ron started again, that irritating, nagging edge on his voice, and Hermione lost it.
"Oh, for the love of FUCK!" She sprang to her feet and plunged the knife into the worn wooden table, sinking the tip perhaps a quarter of an inch. "Fine! If you want to go, then bloody-well go. Send a postcard and buy a souvenir, have a wonderful time."
Before Ron could retort, his face kaleidoscoping between about fifteen different shades of red, the tent flap opened.
"I know we have silencing charms," Harry said, his voice tired and eyes ringed by bruise-like shadows, "But I'm really starting to question if they're strong enough for the two of you."
Hermione's shoulders slumped and she ran a hand over her face.
"Blast it. Sorry, Harry, we'll keep it down."
"Are you talking about the orphanage again?" He asked, looking at the journals and notes spread across the table in front of them.
"Yeah," Ron cut in when Hermione opened her mouth to respond. "I still really think we should go, mate. Just to rule it out."
Hermione watched Harry's face carefully and her stomach sank, because she knew him, and she could tell that she was about to be overruled.
"There could be something to it, Hermione," he started earnestly. "Dumbledore showed me the memory of him there, maybe it was meant to be a clue or something."
She wanted to scream.
"Dumbledore was –" Hermione started through clenched teeth and then paused, taking a deep breath in through her nose and then blowing out through pursed lips, because attacking Harry's hero was only going to hurt her argument. "You don't think he would have looked into it himself were that the case?"
"I think it's worth checking out," Harry said stubbornly.
Hermione made the mistake of glancing at Ron and seeing the smug look that he wore as he realised he'd won. For a second, the barest fraction of a moment, she seriously contemplated wrenching that knife out of the table and re-splinching his shoulder.
"Three days," she said flatly, walking to the table and snatching the locket. As she fastened it around her neck, she could practically feel the little golden magpie sleeping over her breast shudder in aversion. "We'll go the next time we move camp, in three days."
Three days later, Hermione propped against a lamppost, Polyjuiced to look like a 40-something woman with dark skin and short, curly hair. Fortunately the woman's face, foreign as it was to her, was still capable of conveying just how very vindicated she was feeling.
"Maybe there are tunnels?" Ron tried to reason weakly, he and Harry also disguised as they looked up at the five-story, steel and glass office building set in the middle of Canon Street in metropolitan London. What seemed like hundreds of muggles bustled by, dressed in work attire and yammering on their cellulars.
"By all means," Hermione invited, gesturing at the relatively new, unblemished concrete beneath their feet. "Go ahead and get to digging. I certainly won't stop you."
She was still profoundly paranoid that they were in public, and in such a busy place no less, but it was alleviated some by the evidence that Voldemort not only hadn't used this as a hiding place, but rather seemed to have disregarded its existence entirely.
Harry, currently in the liver-spotted skin of a seventy-year-old-man, placed a hand on Ron's arm and started to pull him back toward the dark alley they'd apparated into a little further down the block. He seemed disheartened, certainly; she was a little, too, if she was being honest. But it was nothing compared to the storm brewing in Ron's eyes.
"I'll get the wards set up," Hermione volunteered as soon as they landed at their next destination.
"I'll do the tent," Harry agreed, dark hair starting to sprout back beneath the gray it'd been disguised under.
Ron had gone silent, and it felt like a tide dragging back.
She wondered if this would be the final straw between them.
She wondered if she cared about that at all anymore.
"Bathroom," he muttered, unceremoniously trudging off.
Hermione acted on muscle memory, layering on familiar spell after familiar spell until a tight bubble of magic encapsulated them once again.
"Try not to rub it in too much," Harry entreated, breaking the silence as he staked the tent at the corner nearest her. "He just wanted to check; it's been a long time since we've made progress."
"I'm acutely aware of that," Hermione bit back at him, instantly regretting her tone when she saw the look on Harry's face. "I – damnit, I'm sorry, Harry. I don't know what's gotten into me lately."
She did, actually, but he didn't. Hermione sighed, following him into the tent and tossing her bag onto the table, shucking her outwear.
"We just have to be careful. Limited resources aside, every venture we make into the world, even the muggle world, poses a huge risk. We can't afford to do it on a whim, or to soothe a bruised ego."
"I know," Harry agreed quietly. She watched him prod the fire he'd ignited, a little more of that desperation that she knew lay beneath the surface bubbling up. If it wasn't clear before, it was now that that was precisely what the trip had been. Going to the orphanage was an attempt at peacekeeping, Harry had never really believed there was anything there, either.
Hermione crossed the tent to her friend and pulled him into a tight hug.
"We'll figure it out," she assured him, her voice muffled in the shoulder of the bulky coat he was still wearing. "I am going to figure it out, I promise. If it's the last bloody thing I do, I will not be outsmarted by a noseless bigot."
Harry chuckled beside her ear, giving her a quick squeeze before loosening his hold. "If anyone can do it, it's you."
She'd just begun to pull away when there was a rustling behind her back.
"Well, this is real fucking cosy, isn't it?"
Ron had walked into the tent and he was sneering at the both of them.
"What?" Harry asked, turning on the spot to face their friend. He looked between Ron and Hermione with genuine confusion. "What are you talking about? We were just –"
"Careful, Harry. Before you know it, she'll have a hand on your cock and the other on your Gringott's key. That's how it works for you, isn't it?"
Ron directed the question to her, and Hermione couldn't help but let out a disbelieving laugh. Harry, on the other hand, stilled.
There was only one time she'd actually seen him with an expression that could be called murderous, running through the halls of the Ministry after Bellatrix Lestrange nearly two years before. But "murderous" was the most apt description of his face in that moment.
"What did you just say?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes like he'd misheard. Hermione already knew he didn't because she hadn't; he'd been crystalline clear.
She also didn't jump to defend herself because there wasn't any point in doing so; the line was already in the sand, it had been for a while. No, instead she approached Ron leisurely, like a cat stalking through tall grass, dragging her fingertips over the table and the backs of the chairs as she circled him.
"I think what Ron's implying," Hermione started matter-of-factly, stopping only when she was in Ron's face. "Is that I'm a whore." Dark circles ringed his eyes and pale skin appeared sallow and blotchy in the shadows. "That's it, isn't it? You're insinuating that I only fuck men that are successful and powerful and rich. Real pity for you, then."
"Shut up," Ron hissed at her.
He stepped even closer, trying his best to leverage his height and loom over her, but Hermione didn't flinch, she didn't even blink, because Ron Weasley did not scare her.
"You see, Harry," Hermione said over her shoulder without looking away, "Ronniekins here has a nasty little inferiority complex, and he can't stand that he was wrong about the orphanage today. Or, more accurately, he can't stand that I was right. So, he's attacking me in what is frankly a pretty pathetic attempt to make himself feel better."
"Shut your mouth."
"Is it working?" Hermione leaned forward and faux-whispered, letting all of the venom that had built in her bleed out as she cut their last remaining ties carefully and precisely into little ribbons. "Did somebody finally pick you?"
"I SAID SHUT UP!"
Several things happened at once.
Ron pushed her backward by the shoulder and she stumbled, just barely catching herself on the corner of the table as he raised his hand like he was going to strike her.
Her pulse jumped, and she realised that, sick and twisted as it was, she wanted him to do it. She wanted him to slap her so hard that her ears rang, so hard that her cheek burned and her eyes watered. She wanted him to give physical form to the blows he'd already struck, to the hurt and the fucking objectification she'd felt outside the tent those weeks ago because then maybe, just maybe, she could start to heal from it. Maybe when she closed her eyes at night, she wouldn't feel that detestable pressure on her thigh, eyes the wrong shade of blue watching her in all the worst ways.
Harry would never let something like that happen, though. No sooner had she taken a breath as a white-blue jet of light flew past her shoulder and struck Ron square in the chest, sending him soaring backward and out of the tent flaps, his wand flying from his pocket in the process.
Hermione looked up to see Harry, standing there with a mask of both grief and horror plastered onto his face as he stared at the place their friend had been. Slowly, he reached out a cold, shaking hand and pulled her upright, leading her out of the tent without stowing his own wand.
Freezing rain had begun to fall in earnest and Ron was getting up from the ground, mud smeared on his trousers. Harry, consciously or not, stepped between him and Hermione.
"What is wrong with you?!" He shouted. Her heart hurt for him because he asked like he genuinely wanted to know, like he wanted to understand how they could end up like this. "What in the hell is wrong with you? That's Hermione," he said, pointing at her, "Our Hermione! How could you talk to her like that?"
"Of course you're on her side," Ron scoffed, roughly pushing his soggy fringe from his eyes. "Could have bet on that."
"In what universe would I be on yours?!" Harry retorted. "I warned you, Ron. I warned you ages ago not to hurt her, not to give me an ultimatum. I told you not to make me choose."
"Well, I suppose you've made your choice, then." Ron looked toward Hermione, partially concealed behind Harry's shoulder with something dangerously close to hate.
"No, mate. But you just did." Harry's voice had changed, cooled this time. He swallowed hard, but Hermione could still hear his voice shake. "Get your shit and get out. I don't want to look at you anymore, and I certainly don't need your help."
"You know, I think I will," Ron fired back haughtily, like he somehow still held the high ground. He brushed past them into the tent, checking Harry's shoulder in the process. Hermione put out a hand to steady her friend.
It was only a moment before Ron reappeared, lumpy rucksack slung over his shoulder and wand in his hand.
"I'm sure the two of you will enjoy your time alone together," he said, insinuation dripping off of the words.
Harry made to raise his wand again, but Hermione stayed his arm and stepped into Ron's path, blinking away the icy droplets of water clinging to her eyelashes.
"The locket," she demanded tightly, extending her hand. Ron rolled his eyes and reached beneath his collar to jerk the clasp open before dropping the vile thing into her palm. As she took it, she leaned forward and whispered to him, too low for Harry to hear. "When you go to sleep tonight, Ron Weasley, beneath whatever rock you slither under because you're too ashamed to go home to mummy, I want you to remember something: I want you to remember that you are not, nor will you ever be, half the man that your brother is."
For a split second, Hermione thought she saw something in his eyes shift. Some remorse or regret, but it was quickly eaten by dark rain and shadows, and Ron, without another word, stomped to the edge of the wards and apparated with a crack.
The following morning came quickly, as it likely would going forward with only two of them to trade watch and share chores. For hours after Ron left, they'd just sat in silence before Harry insisted she get some rest while he took the night shift.
She protested at first, but in the end she was too emotionally wrought to really argue.
Hermione stretched on her cot, faded red and purple fabric draping to make the ceiling over her partitioned corner of the tent. Her back ached a little, and her eyes were puffy, but she felt a new sort of calm that hadn't been there with Ron's malcontent presence constantly hovering.
Dressing quickly, she washed up and put on her outerwear before ducking outside. The tea she'd left Harry the night before sat balanced atop a fallen log, still filled to the brim and now with a thin layer of ice crusting the top. She was relieved that he'd at least used warming charms as she got closer to where he sat.
"Morning," she murmured, offering him a new mug that he actually took and clutching her own to her chest whilst steam billowed from it. She plopped down beside him, staring out at the grey morning light and pale mist twirling and dancing among the dark trees.
Harry nodded his greeting, his expression in her periphery somber and thoughtful.
"There was more going on with Ron, wasn't there?" Harry started without preamble, still not looking up. "All night I thought about the things he said, the horrible way that he looked at you… And I realised there had to be more to it, something that I wasn't seeing."
Hermione dragged her thumb over a small chip in the brim of her mug. It was sharper than she'd thought, and with a flicker of pain, a fat bead of blood formed on her fingertip. She watched as it bloomed before losing surface tension and tracking down to her palm.
"Yeah. Yeah, there was more to it."
"I'm really sorry, Hermione. I should have noticed." He looked like he didn't really want to know the details, but Harry was a good friend and he asked anyway. "I'm not sure what I can do now, but… do you want to talk about it?"
Hermione finally turned to look at him, resting her cheek in her shoulder and smiling sadly as she let herself feel the full implications of the loss for just a moment. Not the loss of Ron himself, that could hardly be classified as such. But the loss of an ally. The loss of a person whom she could depend upon, if not to choose her, then to at least choose their cause.
"No, not really."
Harry just bobbed his head.
"I want to leave," he blurted out. "I know we just got here, but I don't want to be where he can find us if he decides to come back."
Hermione didn't disagree in the slightest, but she wanted to make sure he understood the gravity of doing that.
"Are you sure, Harry? We don't know where he went, and once we leave, that's it. He won't be able to find us again."
Harry met her eyes, conviction clear in them once more.
"I know. That's why I want to go."
She nodded and drank deeply from her cup, hissing as hot tea burned her throat.
"I'll get the wards?"
"I'll do the tent."