40 Days

November 15, 1997

November 15, 1997

"Take off the locket, Ron!" My voice was high-pitched but I couldn't control it. Ron and Harry never acted like this towards each other. It had to be the locket's influence. I tried to make my voice more calm, more pleading and less demanding as I continued. "Please take it off. You wouldn't be talking like this if you hadn't been wearing it all day."

"Yeah, he would." Harry cut me off, walking closer to Ron, his emerald eyes dark with anger. His voice lowered, vicious as he continued. "D'you think I haven't noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D'you think I didn't guess you were thinking this stuff?"

He wasn't facing me and didn't see me flinch at his accusation, all Harry's attention was on Ron as the two wizards faced off. It looked like they were going to attack each other and I looked between them before going to Harry, pulling his hand. "Harry we weren't–"

"Don't lie!" Ron screamed at me, even though I was only a few feet away. "You said it! You said you were disappointed, you said you'd thought he had a bit more to go on than–"

I could feel Harry's muscles tensing as if he was going to jerk up the hand he had his wand fisted in and duel Ron at any moment. My breaths were coming strangled as I tried to stop my two best friends from ripping into each other. "I didn't say it like that! Harry, I didn't!"

It was hard to breathe. I felt like there was a rock in my throat as tears started dripping down my face. Outside our tent it was raining, the storm heavy, and the rolls of thunder seemed to feed the drama inside.

The cold swept through the tent. Even with the lanterns lit, a pervasive darkness seemed to reach out and spread over us. We were tired, hungry and on the edge of despair and the locket was breaking us down. It seemed impossible that we would find the sword of Gryffindor. We were just three stupid teenagers in a stolen tent whose only triumph so far was that we weren't dead.

"So, why are you still here?" A snarl had marred Harry's face, an expression of anger I had never seen before. He still ignored me at his side, all his focus on Ron.

"Search me."

"Go home then."

"Yeah, maybe I will." Ron took several steps even closer to Harry and I shuddered, trying to pull Harry backwards, but he was like stone, rooted to the ground. Their chests almost bumped with how close Ron got, using his slightly taller height to look down at Harry with a sneer.

"Didn't you hear what they said about my sister? But you don't give a rat's fart, do you, it's only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I've-Faced-Worse Potter doesn't care what happens to her in there– well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff–"

Ginny's name seemed to momentarily throw Harry off, his face becoming a little confused. "I was only saying–she was with the others, they were with Hagrid–"

"Yeah, I get it, you don't care! And what about the rest of my family? The 'Weasleys don't need another kid injured'. Did you hear that?"

A furrow etched between Harry's brows as he stared at Ron, as if he didn't know quite how they had gotten to this point. I felt the muscles of his arm relax slightly. "Yeah I–"

"Not bothered by what it meant, though?"

"Ron!" I had heard enough. I forced my way between them, pushing Ron back away from Harry, who still stood staring at him with the same slightly confused expression. "I don't think it means anything new has happened, anything we don't know about, think, Ron, Bill's already scarred, plenty of people must have seen that George lost an ear by now, and you're supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I'm sure that's all he meant–"

"Oh, you're sure, are you?" He focused his eyes on me. The blue was paler than I had ever seen it, giving his eyes a vicious look. Like a wild animal. "Right then, well, I won't bother myself about them. It's all right for you two, isn't it, with both your parents safely out of the way–"

I felt Harry jerk behind me, as if Ron had landed a physical blow and he bellowed out, making my ears ring. "My parents are dead!"

"And mine could be going the same way!"

"Then GO!" Harry roared behind me, his hands trying to shove me out of the way so he could approach Ron again. "Go back to them, pretend you've got over your spattergroit and Mummy'll be able to feed you up and then–"

I saw Ron's hand jerk and felt Harry's jerk in response. I whipped up my own wand before either of them could start. "Protego!"

An invisible shield expanded, Harry and me on one side, Ron on the other, the power of the spell forcing us all to back away from each other. Ron and Harry focused on each other again, glaring at each other through the transparent barrier.

Harry's hand lifted, landing heavily on my shoulder and drawing Ron's gaze. Hatred threaded through his voice when he spoke. "Leave the Horcrux."

Ron's eyes didn't leave where Harry's hand rested on my shoulder as he wrenched the locket over his head and cast it to a nearby chair. Then he caught my gaze, a jealous fire in his unnaturally pale gaze. "What are you doing?"

I swallowed hard, caught between the pressure of Harry's hand on my shoulder and Ron's vicious gaze. "What do you mean?"

"Are you staying, or what?"

Anguish rushed through me as I felt pulled in two directions, but... I couldn't leave Harry. I wouldn't. "Yes—yes, I'm staying. Ron, we said we'd go with Harry, we said we'd help–"

"I get it. You choose him." His mouth opened and I could tell that even more vicious words wanted to tumble out but he closed it abruptly, turning. Leaving.

I cried out, my hands reaching for him. "Ron, no–please–come back, come back!"

My own shield charm prevented me from chasing him, and I fumbled with my wand, losing precious seconds as I removed it. I heard the crack of his apparition before I had even reached the tent door. I ran outside into the rain anyway, sobbing and crying for him to come back. I stumbled in the dark, rain plastering my hair to my skull, shivering from the cold as I called for him.

He had really left me. In the middle of a fucking war–he left me. My stomach twisted harshly and I fell to my knees in the mud, gagging and overwrought. Falling apart.

It was long minutes that I knelt there, getting lashed by the rain, before I had the strength to stand up and make my way unsteadily back into the tent.

Harry had moved to sit in the chair Ron had thrown the locket on. He was wearing it now, the green stones glittered against his chest.

I tried to speak normally but failed, my voice stuttering with my sobs. "He's g-g-gone! Disapparated!"

I threw myself onto my bed, curling up into a ball and sobbing, my eyes closed as I tried to block out everything. I heard Harry move around and the tent suddenly became pitch black, blankets hit me as he threw them at me and I heard him get into his own bunk.

I pulled the blankets over me, burying my face into them, muffling my sobs, trying to calm down. I don't know how long it was, how long I cried, but I must have annoyed him, because suddenly I felt the blankets shift as he climbed into the bunk with me, his hands rough as he shifted me over.

"Harry?"

His arm came around me uncomfortably tight and hard from behind, to cup my jaw as if forcing my mouth to close. "Stop crying for him."

I wanted to shove him off, to get mad. But something made me stop, made me the tiniest bit afraid of the way Harry sounded and I choked back my tears. The boy who was my best friend. The wizard who had saved me when I was eleven. The locket was pressed between us digging into the skin of my back hot and sharp.

I twisted slightly trying to dislodge his arm, and he threw his leg over mine, pinning me into the bed and when he spoke again his lips were right near my ear. He spoke to me in almost a hiss, his voice barely audible over the rain. "Stop moving."

I froze, some visceral instinct telling me not to push him. Not to move. It took me a long time until I finally fell asleep, pinned by the threatening weight of my best friend, the locket burning against my back.