Chapter Thirty-Nine: Down the Snakehole
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Harry was losing it.
After all, what else would one call it when their best mate started scheming with the evil wizard who was possessing them? Ron didn't know. But one thing was clear— they had to get that horcrux offed and out of Harry yesterday. Unfortunately Ron had no particularly bright ideas on that front, so Yesterday would have to extend several tomorrows into the future. That was all right though, there was a horcrux he could sort out at present. One that didn't require murdering his best mate.
He reckoned he'd spent two full days simply staring at it; this goblet, that glittered and looked entirely innocent and had cost Harry 30,000 galleons. In reality it couldn't have been more than some minutes here and there, for he had to eat, and sleep, and go to work; but those minutes had stretched and dragged into some unceasing eternity that felt like forever, or like the two full days it took for Hermione to present him with The Owl from McGonagall.
He had no idea what Hermione had said to McGonagall, but whatever it was, it must have worked brilliantly, because Tuesday morning found them walking up the nostalgically-familiar drive to Hogwarts. Hermione had stuffed the cup into her purse, where it vanished into some magical oblivion, leaving Ron with little to do besides watch the looming towers of the castle growing clearer in the distance. And ponder. Ponder the insanity that had become their lives.
"So, Harry," he said, breaking the silence as the metal gates drew nearer. "D'you reckon he could do in the horcrux in his mind?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, glancing at him.
"Well, he said he sees You-Know-Who in some black void, right? So couldn't he just, I dunno, AK him over there?"
"I doubt it," Hermione said, turning back to the road again. "Isn't that more or less what he tried the first time around?"
"I s'pose." The gravel crunched beneath their feet as they drew closer. The wind blew lightly past, tasting of spring. Birds chirped pleasantly. "But maybe it's different in Limbo."
Hermione shrugged. "I don't believe it would be that easy. Do you?"
"No," he admitted. But still, there must be something that could be done. Had to be.
The gates were fast approaching. A lone figure waited for them just beyond the worn metal. Tall, thin, and cloaked in black.
"Oh, bloody hell," Ron said.
Snape managed a scowling smile. "Mr. Weasley. Miss Granger."
"What are you doing here!" Ron said indignantly.
"Ah, Minerva has assigned me the pleasure of meeting you for assistance with your… project," Snape said softly. "I thought it prudent that I should volunteer. After all, the other staff are not aware of your intentions. Not that you have kept me much apprised of them as of late."
"Yes, Severus, that seems wise," Hermione agreed.
Ron, however, was less forgiving. "Why should we keep you updated? You nearly killed Harry! You made everything worse and vanished!"
Snape gave him a thoroughly condescending look, long enough that Ron reckoned he wasn't going to dignify him with a response before Snape finally spoke. "After Miss Foster informed me of what had happened, I have been attempting to find another solution, and rectify this… situation."
"So you left Harry high and dry," Ron said icily. "With a mad bastard in his head."
"A temporary state. Potter is trained in Occlumency. Surely the Auror Academy did not leave him so lacking in this crucial skill that he is incapable of closing his mind and maintaining mental integrity."
"Listen, you—" Ron began furiously, but Hermione cut him off.
"Ron, enough. This isn't the time."
"Fine." He fell silent, still scowling at Snape. Wondering when Hermione would stop treating him like an overactive toddler.
"We're not here about Harry," Hermione added, turning to Snape. She glanced around furtively, but the drive was quite deserted. "We need to obtain basilisk venom."
"From the Chamber?"
"Yes."
Snape appraised them, his eyes betraying nothing. "Very well. Follow me."
He led them to the castle, through the great oak front doors. Into the familiar entrance hall, empty now. It was just after ten, and the students would be well into their morning classes. Or else in their commons rooms if they were lucky enough to have a free period. They started up the marble steps, and Ron glanced wistfully up — at all the various twists and turns, the roving staircases, and the moving ones, eventually leading to Gryffindor Tower. It had been ages since he'd seen it last, since he'd slept in the familiar four-poster or sat easily by the fire in the warm common room, and the nostalgia pulled at him strongly. Teasing him with memories of evenings with Harry and Hermione long past, when things had been lighter. But they stepped off onto the second floor and turned, heading toward the far corridor that housed the entrance to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and he let the memories slip away.
Snape paused outside the bathroom door. "Do you require assistance? I have a class imminently but I can arrange coverage."
"We'll be fine," Ron said shortly.
"Thank you, Severus," Hermione added. "I think we'll manage."
Snape inclined his head in their direction and swept away down the deserted corridor, his robes flaring. Ron watched him go.
"Git," he said.
"He seemed genuinely upset by the situation, actually," Hermione replied. "I imagine he would take a failure like this quite hard."
"Well, boohoo for Snape." Ron wasn't impressed, and he had zero feelings to spare for Snape's imaginary disappointment. "If it wasn't for his stupid plan, Harry wouldn't be—"
"Shhh," Hermione breathed, glancing around. "Not here. The walls have ears."
She stepped past him, pushing at the door to the bathroom. It opened with a creak and Hermione peeked inside, glancing around the room. "It's all right, come in."
He followed her. The bathroom looked exactly as he remembered it. Damp. Forlorn. Deserted. The place seemed to perpetually hover somewhere on the edge of disrepair. Sinks were chipped. One stall door hung somewhat crookedly on its hinges, creaking slightly. Moaning Myrtle was nowhere in sight — off haunting the prefect's bathroom, probably.
Hermione had approached the sink across from the last stall. She was studying it, bending over the taps, until she pointed out something small on its side.
"That's it, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Ron said, remembering it with a certain amount of trepidation. The little snake etched into the side of the tap. It would slide open, revealing the entrance to the Chamber, and then— he remembered something. "Bloody hell, Hermione, how are we going to get in? We need Harry to ask it to open."
"I've got that covered." Hermione reached into her purse and withdrew a small golden ball, just a little larger than a Snitch, and began fiddling with it. There was an audible click, which echoed around the dank and empty bathroom, and the ball split open into two connected halves. The inside swirled with something silvery-grey.
"What's that?" He frowned.
"A Portable Pensieve," Hermione explained, cupping it in her palms and gently swirling the contents, until the wispy silvery smoke began to form into a face. He saw a flash of familiar green.
"They have them available in the wellness center," Hermione explained. "Mediation room. Didn't you know?"
"I didn't know we had a wellness center," Ron said, watching the silvery smoke form into the shape of a tiny Harry, who rose from the pensieve, one foot anchored in each half of the ball.
"It's on Eight." Hermione gave him an exasperated look which plainly said, How do you not know? "Off the atrium."
"Anyway," he said, attempting to move on. "How does this help us?"
"I stopped by yesterday when you were at lunch and asked Harry to say 'Open' for me," Hermione explained. As she spoke, she raised the ball to the snake etched into the tap and prodded Smoke Harry with her wand. Harry let out a terrible hiss that echoed all around them. The tap flashed immediately with a brilliant white light and began to spin as the sink shuddered and creaked into motion, sinking down into the floor. Revealing the pipe. Ron glanced down into its familiar blackness. It looked a bit tighter than he remembered.
"That was smart," he admitted. "I was going to suggest we have a go and start hissing."
"You did that in 7th year, actually," she said absentmindedly as she approached the pipe and examined it. "But it's been so long, I thought it would be best to have this so we're not hissing here for Merlin-knows how long. I'll go on ahead, shall I?"
"Sure," Ron said, feeling a bit put-out.
He watched Hermione step to the pipe and lower herself down before she vanished into the darkness, her abrupt screams audible for only a second as she slid down, down, down beneath the bowels of the castle.
He stepped to the pipe and teetered on the edge, glancing down. When he judged that enough time had passed for Hermione to get a decent head start, he lowered himself into the darkness.
"Hhhhhssssssssssssss," he said, a bit petulantly. Nothing happened, so he let go, and hurtled into the black.
He was heavier; much heavier than he had been at thirteen, and he flew down the pipe at breakneck speed, faster and faster, nearly lifting at the turns. Up ahead, he heard a drifting echo of Hermione's distant screaming as he rounded curve after curve, falling deeper below the school. Below the dungeons. Beneath the lake. Chunks of wet slime pelted at him, sticking to his robes. He couldn't see a thing. But eventually, his descent began to slow. The pipe began to level. And he slid out into a familiar dark tunnel.
Hermione was leaning against a rock wall nearby, looking utterly disheveled. She was shaking; he could tell by the way her lit wand shifted wildly, casting monstrous shadows on the damp walls.
"All right?" he asked, approaching her as he lit his wand as well.
"I'm never doing that again!" Hermione gasped, pushing away from the wall.
"Yeah," Ron agreed, wiping a bit of slime off Hermione's cheek. "We should leave it to the preteens next time. You've got slime on your face by the way. Did you know? Just there." He grinned.
"Oh, can't you ever be serious?" She sounded exasperated.
"What fun would that be?" he asked, and in a very serious voice at that.
Hermione gave him a look that would have Petrified the basilisk if it were still alive. Ron found that heartening.
He turned, glancing around. The tunnel was much smaller than he remembered. His head very nearly brushed the slimy ceiling when he straightened up, and the walls pressed claustrophobically close. He swallowed, briefly wondering why he had ever been excited for a trip down to the Chamber.
"Which way?" Hermione asked, sounding less sure now that they were down in the bowels of the school. And Ron reminded himself that no matter what she'd read in the book she wouldn't show him, it was her first visit. And he doubted a book, a children's book at that, could really convey how dark the tunnel was, even with their wands blazing at maximum brightness. And how dank and heavy the air felt. The smell of it. The coolness. The way the small animal skeletons that littered the floor felt beneath their boots.
"This way," he said, leading her toward the heart of the Chamber. "Don't worry, sweet wife of mine, I'll protect you."
This had the desired effect. He could practically feel Hermione roll her eyes. "I can protect myself just fine," she said, her voice blazing, and Ron grinned and led the way down the tunnel.
They walked past several bends. Past stalactites and stalagmites protruding from the floor and ceiling. Water pooled at the sloped edges of the tunnel, trailing down in rivulets from the wet walls. After fifteen solid minutes of walking, they approached a partial blockage of collapsed stones.
"Ahhh," Ron said fondly. "And this is where Lockhart and I became the best of friends."
"He really was awful, wasn't he?" Hermione said mildly, shining her light through the gap Ron had painstakingly cleared in the rockfall nearly two decades ago.
"Awful!" Ron gasped dramatically. "You don't say! Haven't you still got his autograph under your pillow?"
"No, actually, I put it on the back of your cubicle last winter."
"Blimey!" Ron said, aghast. "My own wife! No wonder the blokes gave me such odd looks over Christmas."
"That was probably because you put that ridiculous Muggle lingerie set into the White Elephant."
"Probably," he admitted, squeezing himself carefully through the gap, which was much smaller than he remembered. He turned back around, offering Hermione his hand, and she clambered through after him. And then they carried on, past the spot where the once giant basilisk skin had lain, now long withered into dust. Turn after turn. Deeper and deeper into the tunnel. Further than Ron had ever been. His apprehension grew with every step, despite knowing full well that no basilisk was lurking up ahead. Just an empty chamber awaited them.
And a carcass.
They stepped around the final bend, and a solid wall loomed in the circle of light their wands made. Two serpents were carved into the stone, entwined around each other. Green emeralds glittering where their eyes should be. It was all awfully foreboding. He couldn't think of a single bloody joke, so he waited silently as Hermione removed her Snitch-like mini Pensieve again and Harry's hissing echoed through the cavernous hole beneath the earth.
There was an awful, earth-shattering crack and the earth really seemed to shatter. Or the stone did, anyway. It split apart, the serpents pulling away from each other, and a gaping hole appeared where the rock had been, revealing the Chamber beyond.
It was vast. Enormous, really. Its far edges vanished into some distant abyss. It was suffused with a greenish glow that cast more shadows than light. But in the resulting gloom, he could see tall pillars stretching up into darkness. Darkness that pressed close from every shadow.
And the dead basilisk was just feet away.
It wasn't a carcass, at least not in the way he had expected. It was a foolish expectation to begin with. Nearly 16 years of time had left behind nothing but a skeleton. And quite a skeleton it was.
"Wow," Hermione breathed beside him, staring up in awe at the remains of the giant snake.
And he suspected she, like him, was taking a moment to consider the enormity of what twelve-year-old Harry had done. For his sister. For Ginny.
"I should've been here," Ron whispered. All those years between. Trapped behind the rockfall with Lockhart while Harry went on alone. He still regretted it. Still hated that small flash of relief he'd felt when the rocks had trapped him, unfailingly, in the safety of the tunnel, and the guilt that followed. That had added to his mounting sense of inadequacy for years.
He should have been there for Ginny. For Harry.
Hermione took his hand. Squeezed it. "You're here now."
He cautiously approached the fallen snake. The bones curved in on each other in broken tangles, leaving a looping mess of ribs and vertebrae. It took a little while for them to locate the skull collapsed within. The fangs gleamed in their wandlight, deadly and sharp.
"It still has the venom, d'you reckon?" he asked her quietly.
She nodded. "Basilisk venom doesn't degrade unless altered. In the fangs, it can last indefinitely."
"Well, then, we better stock up, eh?"
He stepped forward gingerly toward the skull, small bones crunching beneath his feet. Wandlight roving.
"Here," Hermione said, brushing his arm with something soft. She was holding out a pair of thick gloves. "Dragonhide."
"Right, clever."
He pulled them on, and then directed his wand at the skull, Summoning one, two, three fangs. It wouldn't hurt to have extras. There was a loud crack and the fangs broke off from the skull and shot toward them fast enough to make Hermione gasp. He directed them to a stop just inches away, leaving them hovering. Then he collected them carefully in his gloved hands and turned to Hermione, managing a grin.
"Release the enemy!" he said dramatically.
Hermione rolled her eyes, but reached into her purse with her own gloved hand and withdrew the goblet. The second it emerged into the damp air of the Chamber, it began to shake violently. Hermione dropped it in surprise and it clattered to the floor, skidding across the stones. The sound echoed through the endless dark.
"Twitchy little thing, isn't it," Ron said, rolling the fangs between his gloved hands. He held one out to Hermione. "Here."
"Are you sure you don't want to—"
"Oh, go on," Ron said. "Stab the thing so we can hit up the Great Hall for lunch. You know you're dying to."
"All right." Hermione took the fang and bent to collect the cup, but it rolled aside, like some kind of skittish Bludger. She raised her wand and Summoned it back into place. It lay there, quivering, straining against the hold of her magic. Harder and harder. Each tremor sent a metallic clang through the cavernous hall.
Hermione raised the fang, her hand trembling too.
And then, abruptly, there was a blinding flash of light. It blazed through the darkness, leaving Ron blind in the aftermath. "Hermione!" he gasped, blinking furiously to clear his vision. His grip tightened on the remaining basilisk fangs as he swung his lit wand, searching for her. Trying to see past the white spots that clouded his vision. And then, as the white fog faded away, he found himself somewhere bizarrely familiar. The Chamber was nowhere in sight.
He was standing at the edge of their kitchen.
"Bloody hell." He whirled, staring around.
He was sure it was their kitchen. The table was right where it should be, the chairs pushed in neatly around it. Too neatly. The pots and pans hanging just so.
Something was off.
Something besides the fact that he had just appeared here and he doubted the Chamber had realized he didn't belong and forced a Disapparition.
For one thing, he hadn't splinched himself.
It was dim in the kitchen. The windows were dark, shuttered. The only source of light was from several candles burning low around the flat. It was the sort of arrangement Hermione might call a fire hazard. He frowned at that.
And Hermione was…
Yes, there. Sitting at the table, just in front of him. How had he not seen her? A vase of flowers sat on the tabletop. Pink roses, just beginning to wilt. Hermione wasn't looking at them. She was staring down, down at her empty hands.
Excellent, she would sort this out immediately in her clever brain and they could get back to the business of destroying the cup. He started forward.
"This is too much, Hermione."
He jumped, startled. The voice was his.
And yet he hadn't spoken.
"Ron!" Hermione cried. She jumped to her feet, the chair nearly falling. And then she was looking past him, into the sitting room. Ron turned.
He was standing in the kitchen, and yet he was standing in the sitting room, just between the sofas. A twin Ron. Identical. His mouth fell open.
"Hermione…" he said weakly.
"This is an illusion," Hermione said, hurrying toward him.
And then she stepped right past him. Not even a glance in his direction.
"No shit," The Other Ron said, in a perfect imitation of Ron's voice. The tone, the cadence, it was all the same. The words felt colder, though. "We're in our flat, aren't we?"
"Hermione!" Ron repeated, louder now. "What's happening?"
She didn't seem to hear him. She approached Other Ron, her eyes only on him.
"The horcrux," she said, looking around as her eyes narrowed. "It's done this. Created some illusion. It can do that. We've got to find the cup. It's got to be here…"
Other Ron laughed. A cold laugh. It made Hermione draw back slightly. "You're joking, right? You reckon the horcrux is just going to let us destroy it now? It's got us. We're done for."
"Of course we aren't. We just have to—"
"It's your fault!" Other Ron said in an icy voice. Hermione froze, staring at him.
"Ron…?"
"Don't listen!" Ron cried, as if breaking out of a trance. He hurried around the couch and into the sitting room. "Hermione! He's not me."
He reached for her, but his fingers slipped right through her. His hand was practically inside her arm. He felt nothing. "Bloody hell!"
"I told you to destroy it!" Other Ron jeered. "You were too bloody slow. Why couldn't you just stab it? Then we wouldn't be in this mess."
"Why are you doing this?" Hermione said, her voice shaking. "It's the horcrux, isn't it? It's done something to you. Controlling you—"
"It's not the bloody horcrux," Other Ron snapped, drowning her out. "It's you, Hermione. You were too slow getting to the books. Now Saul's running free doing Merlin-knows-what. You can't even help Ella or Harry. And now we're trapped in this bloody nightmare. You think you're so clever. But you're bloody useless, aren't you? You got everything wrong!"
There were tears welling up in Hermione's eyes. Ron cursed bitterly.
"Why do you think," Other Ron added, "that I can't love you?"
The tears fell, trailing down her cheeks.
"Who could love you?" he continued cruelly. "You're insufferable. Everything you do is to hide that you're a failure. Well you can't hide anymore, can you?"
"Hermione! It's not me."
"Everything you're scared of, every thought that keeps you up at night, it's true."
"Don't listen," Ron begged. "Hermione! Hermione!"
Abruptly, everything froze. The candles. Hermione. And in the stillness, Other Ron looked up, and his eyes met Ron's.
"But she is. She is listening, Ronald." Other Ron smiled. Coldly. Cruelly. "She believes me, because she is weak. Because you have broken her. And no matter how many times you apologize or how many empty promises you make, she remains convinced deep in her heart that you simply do not love her. Every time she's managed to convince herself otherwise, you simply break her all over again, until she's not even sure that she loves you anymore. Because you, Ronald, with your sloppy laziness and your careless anger, have made her feel like she is nothing. And now she will wander here, seeing you for what you really are, until she wastes away. And so will you."
"No! That's bollocks!" He was reaching for his wand, aiming at Other Ron. "I love her. She's everything. Everything. Stupefy!"
Other Ron laughed, the spell simply shooting through him like a stray flash of light. "Brave, aren't we? Maybe she would have actually believed you, if she'd seen that. That you could be as brave as Harry Potter. Maybe she'd love you then."
Abruptly, Other Ron vanished. Simply winked out of existence. The candles began to flicker again. Hermione stumbled, tears trailing down her cheeks.
"Ron…" she whispered, and her voice broke him to shreds. "You're… really leaving? God, don't go…"
"Hermione!" he tried again, calling out her name despite the heaviness that had enveloped him. "It's not true… I'm right here…"
She collapsed onto the sofa, her face in her hands. Sobs wrecked her small frame. The sound was haunting, cutting him in every place that mattered. He sat beside her, reaching for her hand. Touching only air.
If only she could hear him. If only he could tell her. Did Hermione really believe that she wasn't everything to him? Did she really… not love him anymore?
Was it true?
Merlin. Merlin. How had he mucked it all up so badly? How had they come to this?
"Hermione, please…"
His hands were shaking.
"You have to believe me…"
Was he not enough?
"Hermione. I love you."
Nothing. He was a ghost for all the good it did them.
He jumped back to his feet, too restless to sit still. He paced the flat, back and forth, past Hermione's sobbing form. He had to do something. Had to get out of this Merlin-forsaken flat with its fire-hazard candles that Hermione would never have allowed. It was all wrong. Everything. These candles. The darkness that seemed to hover in the air, barely kept at bay. The wilting flowers, as if placed there to be some metaphor for their relationship. Well he wasn't having it. He bloody wasn't.
He strode to the table, fully intent on knocking them aside. Maybe Hermione would hear the sound. Maybe she'd see them move, and she'd wonder. She'd wonder, and then…
He froze.
That gold vase that housed the flowers was odd. They owned nothing like it, he was sure of that. Too ornate. Too fancy. And yet it seemed familiar. He felt a jolt in his stomach, as if he had missed a step on the stairs.
"Hermione!" he called again in frustration.
Nothing.
What had she said? We've got to find the cup. It's got to be here…
The vase was golden. Jeweled. The fangs, where were the fangs? His hands were empty. He slammed them down against the table. Nothing so much as shifted. Not even a tremor graced the tabletop. He felt the hardness of the wood against his palms, but that was all.
"Fang," he hissed, straining to remember where it was; what it had looked like. "Fang! C'mon!"
There was a sharpness in his hand, a pressure, and suddenly his bare skin was covered by gloves again. The fangs pressing against his palm. He grabbed them both, slamming them into the vase with everything he had.
There was a resounding metal clang, and the kitchen flickered. For the space of a breath it winked out of existence, like bad static on a Muggle TV. Only the vase remained; shifting into an empty, glittering goblet. Ha! He knew it. He bloody knew it!
But then it was back, exactly as it had been. The goblet was a vase again, still standing perfectly straight. A pink flower petal floated down to the table. But behind him, he heard a gasp.
Hermione had gotten to her feet. She was staring around, her swollen eyes wary.
He raised the fangs again, brought them once more to the vase.
"Hermione, it's not real!" he cried, as the flat flickered again. Reappeared.
CLANG. Darkness. "The vase! You've got to hit the vase!"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione stepping gingerly toward the kitchen, hugging herself with shaking arms. Another petal broke off from the dying bouquet. He reached out to stab the cup again, and something grabbed his arm, vice-like.
"Stop that, Ronald," an icy voice hissed.
Other Ron was standing before him, an ugly look on his face. His teeth were bared in a grimace and his icy grip was digging into Ron's wrist, cold numbness spreading all down his forearm.
"You will not escape." Other Ron seemed to be breaking apart at the seams, darkness oozing out of him. Turning into something vile and monstrous. Ron cringed back, struggling.
"Just give up. Stay here and accept your fate, Ronald."
"Never," Ron gasped. "Hermione. Hermione! Stab the goblet. STAB IT!"
"She cannot hear you, fool." Other Ron leaned in, his monstrous face just inches away. "You do not exist for her. You are not real. This world is only hers."
He couldn't feel his hand anymore. Other Ron was squeezing it too tight. The bones were surely broken. The coldness seeped into his arms, into his chest. His lungs felt frozen. His legs were barely holding on to the ground.
He couldn't… couldn't draw breath…
So cold…
And then, suddenly, there was an echoing clang. Loud, louder. Until it drowned out everything. And everything flashed, so bright. And he heard a terrible, terrible scream.
He couldn't hold on anymore. His legs gave way, and he collapsed, his knees banging hard against stone. And above, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Hermione. Outlined in the brightness. Her hair wild and cheeks tearstained, driving a fang deep into the heart of the goblet. And the scream was fading as the kitchen flickered away. Other Ron had let go. Had vanished. Hermione was staring down, reaching for him, as everything flickered to black.
Drip.
Drip, drip.
Water somewhere, running.
He opened his eyes to the dimness of the Chamber. Cool, damp stone beneath him. A lingering numbness in his arm. He raised his head.
Hermione was sitting several feet away, her elbows resting on her knees. Face hidden in her palms. The cup lay innocently beside her, cracks running all through its tarnished gold surface. There was a jagged hole where the crest of Helga Hufflepuff had been.
"Hermione…?" he breathed.
There was a rustling of robes. She looked up. Her eyes still swollen in the dim light.
"You're all right," she said. Her voice was steady. Forced to steadiness. He could hear the tremors underneath. She didn't move, simply remained where she was. Hugged her hands round her knees.
He pushed himself up. And they sat there, the width of several feet between them. Neither quite daring to move toward the other. And all the while, somewhere in the background, the water dripped.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
She shrugged. "It's gone. The horcrux."
"Yeah," he said softly.
A silence fell. A heavy silence that bore down on them with all the weight of the lake above. All of that easier to bear than the memory he was sure was haunting her.
"It wasn't real," he said, almost to himself. But the vision of the kitchen pressed down on him, too. Hermione said nothing.
"It's not true," he insisted into the silence.
"Yes, it is." Her words were flat. Emotionless.
"Hermione—"
"No, Ron." She shook her head. Still in that flat tone. "It is true. I keep hoping… every time we make up, I believe. But I lie awake, Ron. Nearly every night. And I ask myself…"
"What?" he asked, his voice cracking.
"If you still love me, Ron."
"I do. Hermione, I swear I do."
She glanced up, meeting his eyes. The tears were streaming down her cheeks again. "Are you happy?"
"I.." he trailed off, taken aback.
"It's a simple question, Ron. Are you happy?"
"I was," he insisted. "Until this horcrux bullshit came along and…"
"With the way things are between us?" She tilted her head, watching him. "With the way I nag, and we fight even when we're not fighting? The way we spend nights in silence. Tell me the truth, Ron. The truth that keeps you up at night."
"Yes," he said, and there was no doubt in his heart. "Yes, Hermione. Even with all that. Yes, I love you. I always will. That was the promise. I made it."
She turned away, saying nothing.
"Merlin," Ron whispered, shifting closer until he was beside her. He raised a trembling hand, brushing it against her face. "Can't you see it?"
"Sometimes. But sometimes I can't. I just can't, Ron."
"But I—" he began.
"Sometimes it's like you hate me, and nothing I do is good enough," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. The words tumbling out of her. "Merlin, sometimes I think about how much easier it would be if… if you weren't there." Her voice cracked and faded, petering out to silence. Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks.
He felt his world shatter; his heart breaking in two. Was it still beating? Did he even have a heart anymore?
Easier… if you weren't there…
He blinked, felt the dampness on his cheeks. Felt the pain in his chest, deep and resounding, at the thought of losing her. At the thought of the world without Hermione in it.
He wouldn't survive in it. He didn't want to.
He clasped her cold hands, both of them. Pulled her against him. She didn't resist, simply pressed her face against his chest and let him wrap his arms around her. Let him sit there beside her in the cold and empty dark, holding her as she cried.
"What will it take?" he asked, after what felt like an eternity had passed. An eternity of holding on to Hermione, which would never be long enough. Not for all the eternities that remained. "How can we fix this?"
She shook her head, saying nothing.
"Please," Ron whispered, his voice cracking. "Don't give up on us."
"I don't want to," she mumbled against his chest. "But I can't keep going this way. It's not fair to either of us, Ron, Something has to change."
"Then what? What can I do?" He drew her closer, as if afraid she would be gone the moment he let go.
She pulled back just enough to meet his gaze. Her eyes were trembling. "Abstract Healing."
"Just that?" he whispered, his chest clenching very slightly. It wasn't the first time she had asked. But he vowed, right there, that it would be the last.
"I know you don't really believe in it, but if you'd be willing to go, maybe, maybe we could…"
"I'll go." He would. He'd owl the Healer himself the second they got out of this snakehole.
"Really? Ron, are you sure, because—"
"I'll go," he insisted, his hands finding hers. "Hermione, if that's what you— if that's what we need, then I'll do it. Whatever it takes."
She smiled. A thready, watery smile. "I've wanted to go for ages."
"I know."
"You've always refused before."
"I know," he repeated. "I was a prat."
"And now?"
"I reckon I'm growing up."
"All right. I'll hold you to that." She leaned forward, kissing him softly. Her lips dry and cracked, and perfect against his. He held her tight, burying his face in her robes. Holding on to her; the one warm light in the endless, heavy dark.
They finally stumbled to their feet shortly after that, Hermione slipping the cup and spare fangs into her purse. They walked together to the edge of the Chamber. Back out through the hole and into the tunnel, where the rock walls pressed at them from all sides.
"How are we going to get out of here?" he asked her. "You haven't got Fawkes in there, have you?"
"No, something better." And she reached into her bag once again and dug around a bit before withdrawing a small gold badge. "It's a Ministry Recall. We're far enough from the grounds and the Chamber. We should be able to Portkey back to the Atrium."
He grinned. "You're bloody brilliant, you are. Harry and I would've fared so much better in the Chamber with you."
"Oh, don't be silly. You both did fantastic without me."
"Maybe. But we've always done better with you. I've always done better with you."
Hermione smiled and offered him the badge. "On the count of three, then," she said, and he gripped her hand, the cold metal disc between them. He didn't need to twine his fingers through hers for the Portkey to work, but he did anyway.
"One…" she counted, and her warm fingers pressed against his. She smiled. "Two… three."