InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "The worms play pinochle"

Hermione Granger (cerebralwitch) wrote in wished,
@ 2009-12-29 18:06:00

Entry tags:

!1997: 12, !complete, !plot, harry potter, hermione granger, ron weasley

Who: Hermione, Harry, Ron
What: Horcrux discussion, and destruction!
Where: Forest of Dean
When: Today
Rating/Warning: Some Violence, Language, and Danger

She couldn't believe it was that easy. There right in front of her in Dumbledore's notes. The next horcruxes. She knew what they were! Hermione stared at her journal in silent awe for at least five full minutes before she jumped up, tearing through the tent to find Harry.

"Harry!" She called, then pulled open the divider to his bedroom in the tent. "Harry! Get up! I've figured out the next two horcruxes! I know what they are!" Which, of course, didn't help them to destroy this one, but it put them one step further. Two steps, really. Two very large steps closer to what they needed to eventually do, which was destroy all of them. And, if they could talk together about what this might mean if she was right, then maybe Gryffindor's Sword would be the answer to this riddle, too.

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sonofastag
2009-12-30 12:35 am UTC (link)

Harry was curled up, sleeping fitfully. He didn't sleep much, and he had the horcrux with him, which just meant his dreams were even more strange and hard to take.

He wasn't asleep that deeply anyway, and he was edgy and paranoid, so Hermione bursting in had him bolting up, groggy but wand already in hand and pointed toward her before his brain cleared enough to really understand who she was. "Bloody hell," he mumbled. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and looked at her, frowning.

"You know where they are?" he asked flatly. He pursed his lips and shook his head. "How does that do us any good when we fall apart just carrying ONE and don't know how to destroy it?" he demanded.

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cerebralwitch
2009-12-30 12:37 am UTC (link)

"I didn't say where," Hermione pointed out, and she ignored Harry's tone - as she'd gotten used to doing over the last few months, and went to sit at the end of his bed. "I said what. I know what they are. And once we find a way to destroy this one, we'll need to move on to collect those, won't we? It isn't as if we're just going to stay in the forest forever hoping that they come to us."

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sonofastag
2009-12-30 12:49 am UTC (link)

"Brilliant. So you know WHAT they are, but not where, or what to do about them. Since nothing we've tried so far has done a damned thing." Except drive Ron away, which was probably for the best, since Harry had been about to kill him anyway, but still. He was worried about him, when he could think straight enough to worry about anything.

"No, we're eventually probably going to freeze to death or have death eaters find us. And STILL not have made a dent." Not for lack of trying on either of their parts. But Harry didn't have the first idea what to do anymore, and it was hard to think at all straight about it anymore.

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cerebralwitch
2009-12-30 12:55 am UTC (link)

"What they are is a damned sight better than we had before, isn't it? Any step is at least a step that isn't us going round in circles over that damned locket!" And she hadn't meant to raise her voice to him, really. But Harry's mood fed her own even when she was trying to ignore it.

It didn't help that he was right. That nothing they'd done - and they'd tried everything she could think of short of dropping the thing into a bloody volcano - had so much as dented the metal.

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sonofastag
2009-12-30 01:24 am UTC (link)

"No! How is any better to know one more thing I SHOULD do, but CAN'T? How does it help us? It hasn't so far! We have it RIGHT HERE and can't do a thing with it!" Harry shot back, scowling and rubbing at the shape of the scar on his brow. He hadn't meant to shout either. It just. . . happened. A lot.

He took a deep breath, shaking his head. "Look, it's just. . . it's good. That we know. I just need some air or something, all right?" It wasn't exactly a sincere apology, but it was as close as he could manage just now. "You can tell me later."

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cerebralwitch
2009-12-30 01:34 am UTC (link)

Hermione's mouth set into a tight, disappointed line, but she didn't argue with him. Arguing with him wasn't going to do any damn good, and she knew that.

"Take the sword," She said, instead. "You know they'd be watching for any wand work." She'd been terrified, just going to retrieve the parcels Viktor had left for them. It was nice to have the food and other things, but she was sure that she'd been followed, last time, and just barely gotten away.

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sonofastag
2009-12-30 03:07 am UTC (link)

"Well, good, then my fencing skills can save us." Which amounted to the ability to poke a giant snake in the eye with the pointy end of the sword, really. Harry gave her a brief, tight smile and shook his head.

He picked up the sword obediently though, taking it with him as he left the tent, walking toward the water and leaving Hermione to sit around the tent thinking of brilliant ideas that wouldn't work in the least.

Harry found his feet carrying him toward the lake, poking at the thin ice atop it with the point of the sword, frowning a bit as it broke apart.

His head ached and his scar pulsed, and he stared down into the water, free hand curling unconsciously around the lump of the horcrux he wore around his neck, covered by fabric so it wasn't touching him.

As he stared at the ice, it started to haze over, and Harry found himself looking at something else entirely. A vague image he couldn't quite identify, from the corner of his eye though it started to clear, and he saw the thick bulk of Nagini, the snake's eyes seemingly looking right back at him. Nagini moved toward him, and Harry felt the weight at his neck pulling, and the vision of the snake receeding, as if the snake were pulling it away.

Harry's heart hammered and he lunged forward, trying to grab the snake to take the locket back, waving the sword a second later, but Nagini was already out of reach. And Harry found himself overbalanced and tumbling forward, vision clearing as he fell into the water.

The cold water hit his system like a shock and Harry gasped, taking a second to start to struggle back out. The locket around his neck, though, felt heavy as lead, suddenly, and went tight around his throat, pulling him down, half choking and half starting to drown him under the shallow, cold water.

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geroffme
2009-12-30 03:33 am UTC (link)

Ron sat in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, munching on some of the peppermint bark Lavender had sent and feeling vaguely grateful that he'd been spared jewelry this year. Under normal circumstances, he'd have considered it quite a good holiday; but these were hardly normal circumstances, and it hadn't escaped him that the most useful of his gifts all pointed him towards one thing: he had to leave. Percy's warnings and the Prophet's ridiculous accusations helped to confirm it, but worst of all was the tightening feeling in his stomach every time he saw the snow whipping by the window. It put him in mind of a cold tent and a sharp sense of hunger.

He had to go back, he knew, but he had no idea where to find them. How could he, when none of them had ever had any idea where to go? As he clicked the deluminator on and off, on and off in his pocket (where he kept it out of little more than habit and superstition) he felt a familiar surge of anger. The fact that he truly wanted to find them served only to make him feel worse; he was no closer to being able to do so. Not even Dumbledore's "gift" could give him that. He shoved himself up out of his chair, clicking the deluminator again to release the lights, and began to stalk off towards the staircase.

But the darkness persisted. Ron turned with a curse back to the fireplace - of course the bloody thing had gone and broken - and stopped in his tracks. The light that ought to have returned to the common room fire was hovering lazily in the middle of the room. It began to float in his direction as he watched - and his initial surprise when it when inside him was overwhelmed almost immediately by the realization that he knew now exactly where to go. He couldn't have said what it was called, and didn't know where it actually was - but he could see it in his mind, more than clearly enough to Apparate. There was an urgency about it, and he turned immediately to climb the stairs to the dormitory. It was the work of a few minutes to pull together everything he'd need - warmer clothes, the map, all that remained of the food he'd been given - and to slip down the stairs again, through the portrait-hole and into the empty halls.

The entrance to the tunnel that would take him into Hogsmeade was unguarded, and after a few breathless minutes he was through. He sent up a prayer of grudging thanks to Fred and George as he broke out into the night, paused to look back up in the direction of the castle, closed his eyes, and Apparated.

The disorientation passed off a moment later, and he looked around - dark, freezing woods again. Of course. Fantastic. But there was no sign of the tent, and his heart sank. There was only a lake, looking frigid and desolate. A sudden motion caught his eye, and he turned to see Harry stumbling into the water ... with the sword of Gryffindor, of all things. Ron waited for him to climb out. It was shallow enough, surely he'd only tripped. But he didn't. He only kept thrashing, and sinking. Ron held his breath.

... It was taking too long. He ran down to the bank of the lake, dropping his coat and everything he'd brought with him before diving in headfirst after Harry. The cold felt like a punch in the stomach, but he grabbed Harry around the ribs, dug his feet into the mud, and jerked, hard, to pull them both up onto relatively dry land. His hands and arms felt frozen solid, locked in place; but he remembered how to breathe after a few moments.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he shouted, before his teeth started chattering. "Are you mental?"

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sonofastag
2009-12-30 03:46 am UTC (link)

Hauling Harry out was like hauling a sack of bricks. He was weighed down by more than just wet clothes. The sword fell out of his grip as Ron pulled him out, and he struggled to breathe, hands coming up to claw at his throat, trying to pull the locket off.

His lips had gone blue - from cold or lack of oxygen or both, and his spectacles were half off his face.

He managed to get the locket away enough to drag in a ragged breath and he looked up at Ron, not entirely sure that he was actually seeing something real. Ron hadn't been there, after all. He was sure of that. He didn't know why he'd see Ron and not Nagini or something though. "R-Ron?" he choked out.

He swallowed hard and saw Nagini slithering away again in the back of his mind. He remembered what he'd heard too, now. A hiss of a word that no one else would understand, just praise for his pet. But it made Harry think. Before he could overthink it, or lose the image of the snake in his mind that would let him speak it at all, Harry opened his mouth, hissing out a breathless open in parseltongue.

The choking weight at his neck abruptly eased, and the locket, whose covering had come off somewhere in the water, opened.

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geroffme
2009-12-30 03:56 am UTC (link)

Who else is stupid enough to jump into a frozen lake after you? Ron's jaw was clenching too hard from the shock of cold, washing over him now in a powerful shudder, to voice anything more than a very annoyed grunt. The sight of the locket made him feel a little sick to his stomach. As he saw Harry trying to pry it off, he willed his arms to move, to help him, but he was too slow. By the time he had regained enough feeling to reach for it, it was lying open against Harry's chest. Ron snatched his hand back away from it. He had never seen the thing open before, and he wasn't all sure what it was capable of doing to him.

"What are you d-doing?" he stammered, edging away from Harry in the mud. "What's it doing?"

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sonofastag
2009-12-30 04:05 am UTC (link)

Harry was shivering like his bones might break, but he sat up, shaking his head and pulling the locket off, or trying to at least. Shaky hands didn't want to grip it properly. He got it finally, breaking the tie that held it and looking down.

Inside he saw the clear image of eyes that were entirely familiar. It took him a long moment to place why though. Voldemort. Or Tom Riddle, before he was Voldemort. This was how his eyes had looked in the memories Harry saw.

He didn't know what that meant, and his fumbling fingers dropped the locket anyway, sending it to the half-frozen ground, shaking too hard and too sluggish-minded to actually make himself grip it.

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geroffme
2009-12-30 05:02 am UTC (link)

Ron pushed himself stiffly to his feet, taking a wary step back from where the locket had landed. It had eyes, and it seemed as though they were locked on him. He found he couldn't turn his head, try as he might to look away from it.

All of a sudden it was more than eyes - as he stared into the depths of the locket he saw Hermione growing up out of it, wearing an expression he had never seen before, a cruel smile with brutally cold eyes. And although it was new, he could read it perfectly clearly: it confirmed all of his worst fears in a glance. He was an idiot, a fool they'd never needed - dead weight more often than not - and nothing, nothing compared to the boy he was presumptuous enough to call his best friend.

He could hear her speaking to him, as if from a distance. He didn't want to listen, but he knew what she was saying. He shouldn't have come back, shouldn't have bothered. He wasn't wanted. What good was he? What could he possibly offer that Hermione and Harry couldn't manage together?

Harry was beside her then, looking at him with nothing more than a faint sneer, his eyes glinting red behind his glasses. Ron knew Harry didn't hate him. He wasn't worth hating; he was pathetic, a hanger-on who had somehow failed to realize, over the span of seven years, that his only purpose lay in being fodder for mockery. Harry had tolerated him long enough to take what he could - his entire family preferred Harry, his own mother had admitted as much, his brothers openly favored him, his sister was Harry's without question. All the school felt the same way. And why wouldn't they? What had Ron ever done but tagged along in the shadow of the Boy Who Lived? How could he think he had anything to offer Harry Potter? Why had he come back at all?

Harry's image turned from him to slide its arm around Hermione's waist. Ron's shoulder sagged with the weight of the memory of why he'd left in the first place. Why had he come back?

Then Harry kissed her. Ron felt as though someone had dumped him in the water again. "Stop it," he muttered, his face flaring up as Hermione snickered at him, her arms twining around Harry's neck. Ron ran to the locket before he realized what he was doing, and stomped on it, shoving it clumsily down into the mud. Harry laughed. His hands were lost in Hermione's hair.

"Stop it!" Ron shouted, falling to his knees to grab the locket off the ground - but it was white-hot, and he drew his hand back with a yelp. He looked around desperately for something, as Hermione slipped her hands down Harry's shoulders, her eyes shut to Ron. He found a rock, and slammed it down on the locket's open face. It only brightened. Harry and Hermione seemed to grow stronger, and more opaque. Ron stood, and turned to run away - but there they were reflected in the water of the lake, together, more than content to forget him. He saw Hermione's lips twitch up into a much warmer smile than she had given him when Harry's lips trailed down to her throat.

"Stop it!" he screamed, his voice cracking in his throat. The sword caught his eye; in a rage, he bent down to grab it, tripping over something soft and cold that felt like a body. He caught himself on the ground, seized the sword's handle, and brought it crashing down onto the locket's jeering eyes.

There was a faint scream, and a smell like burning flesh. Harry and Hermione disappeared into the darkness. Ron stood with the sword clutched in his hands, his shoulders heaving. Then he looked down at the shattered, smoking locket, and saw Harry, half frozen and still, covered in muddy water. He let the sword drop, and knelt down again to shake Harry's shoulder, his mind still reeling.

"Harry." He put his arm around him and hauled him up off the ground, stopping only to gather up the broken locket. Where's the tent? The sense of urgency that had been with him since he had left Hogwarts was fading, and when Ron realized what he had just destroyed, it went away entirely, and his load felt much lighter. He started dragging his friend away from the lake, trusting that he would find the right direction, even though he felt half out of his wits.

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cerebralwitch
2009-12-30 05:10 am UTC (link)

Hermione had been in the tent. Once Harry had left for the lake, her anger had frustration had almost faded - it often did with the horcrux was taken that far away. She'd been going over the runes again. She knew she was right.

Then something startled her - a scream. It sounded like voices in the woods though she couldn't hear what they were saying, and she grabbed her wand and took off in a dead run toward the lake. Toward Harry. God, why had she let him go alone? Why did they ever let him out of their sight. She turned a corner on the snowy forested path and stopped in her tracks.

Ron.

Ron? She couldn't seem to speak for a moment, sure her heart wasn't even beating.

Finally, she realized that she was right. It was Ron. And he was carrying... oh gods, was that Harry?

"Ron!" She cried, alarmed, scared, and there was something of relief in there too, at seeing him, and she couldn't put a name on why when obviously something had happened.