With Ron gone, Harry seemed oddly keen to actually do something productive.

"Let's go to Godric's Hollow!"

So we did.

And we nearly got eaten by a snake.

"Well that was a roaring success," Harry muttered bitterly back at the tent as he held up his broken wand. "I may as well just give up and die already."

"Oh, stop being such a mood," I tutted, banging down a bowl of grass soup on the table in front of him. "You're starting to sound like Ron."

"Hermione, this war will very likely end with my death. I've the right to be a little bit grumpy."

Sitting down opposite him to tuck into my own bowl of soup, I stared at him thoughtfully, for the first time really wondering what it must be like to carry such a burden.

"Is that why you're so keen for me and Ron to get together?" I said quietly, suddenly getting it, "-to keep the Golden Trio going in case you die?"

"I was kind of hoping you'd name your first born after me," he confessed with a heavy sigh, running his fingers along the untidy stubble of his jaw. "Harry James Weasley has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"What if it were a girl?"

"Harriet? Henrietta?"

I raised an eyebrow, he smirked.

"Either way, Harry," I said firmly but kindly, "I'm not going to force myself to have kids with Ron just to honour your memory. It would be like sleeping with my brother."

"How would you know what that's like? You're an only child."

I stuck my tongue out at him and he copied. A helpless smile pulled at my lips and he instantly returned it. And then the next thing I knew, we were both doubled up, clutching our aching stomachs as we shook in hysterics.

After a while, the laughter died away, and we looked at one another fondly, wiping away our tears.

"Do you think he's okay?" I asked, my heart tugging sadly.

"He's a Weasley, he'll be fine." Harry said dismissively, giving his shoulders a little lift.

Yeah... I had been talking about Draco. Although I was tactful enough not to point this out.

*****

"Cru- Crucio!"

Draco squeezed his eyes tight shut as he awaited the screams to follow his incantation.

However, only silence remained, punctured with the frightened whimpers of the elderly prisoner.

"Weakling."

Draco's stomach plummeted. It didn't matter how much he tried, at the end of the day he couldn't do it, he couldn't cast the Cruciatus Curse on innocent people.

"I'll show you how it's done-" the cruel cold voice spoke again. "Crucio!"

Draco's body fell heavily to the floor as he jerked and writhed; limbs flailing and insides burning in agony.

As much as he wanted to think of her in that moment to help him endure the horrific pain, he forced her from his mind, tried to push her right away because he refused to let him see her.

Afterwards, when he was in the safety of his own bedroom and was working tirelessly into the night attempting to remove the Dark Mark, he did think about her.

I'm coming, Hermione. I'm coming back to you.

If only he could free himself from this fucking hell before it killed him first.

*****

The second Ron returned to the tent, I smacked him a good one.

"But 'mione!" He implored, holding his arms up to protect himself. "You don't understand, I just saved Harry and destroyed a Horcrux!"

I froze. "How, exactly?"

"With this little beauty!" Harry answered, brandishing an impressively large sword as he leapt into the tent.

From that moment on, his obsessive behaviour moved from ogling the map in favour of polishing his shiny new sword.

Meh - whatever kept him busy whilst I spent hours cooking and cleaning like the good little witch I was.

The days rolled by again, only this time, Ron ceased his complaining about saving the world being a right bore, despite the fact that it clearly was.

With Harry seeming to have forgotten that we weren't simply on a camping trip, I decided to make a suggestion.

"I think we should go and visit Luna's father." I announced, putting down my copy of the Tales of Beedle the Bard and solemnly clasping my hands together.

"Why?" Ron frowned from where he sat crossed-legged on his bed, his hands tangled up in string after lousily attempting Cat's Cradle.

"Something Viktor said about that symbol Xenophilius was wearing around his neck at the wedding." I said, causing Ron to frown deeper. "He seemed to think it was offensive. Yet if that is so, then why have I just found the exact same mark in a children's book of fairytales?"

I held my book back up to show them.

"And what the fuck has that got to do with anything?" Harry growled aggressively, waving his sword in the air. "Aren't we supposed to be hunting Horcruxes?"

"Yeah, that's what we thought too," Ron muttered under his breath.

Harry glared at him but said nothing.

"Dumbledore left it to me, didn't he?" I explained, sitting up eagerly now.

"So?" Harry muttered, checking out his reflection along the sword's impressive blade.

"So-" I intoned, "-it must be a clue! You always said Dumbledore enjoyed a good riddle."

"Which is ironic when the one we are trying to kill is no Mother Theresa." Ron snorted, chortling at his own joke.

Having literally nothing else to go on, off we trotted to Devon, hoping we might catch Luna seeing as it was still the holidays.

Sadly, not.

"You promised it wouldn't be like Godric's Hollow again!" Harry spluttered angrily when we arrived back covered in cuts and bruises.

"It wasn't," I shrugged, brushing stray bits of debris out of my hair, "I don't recall seeing any snakes."

"HIS HOUSE BLEW UP NEARLY KILLING US ALL!"

"And let's be honest," Ron added gravely as he wiped blood from his lower lip, "there was a snake - a great big Xenophilius-shaped one to be exact."

"He was in a difficult position," I pointed out, my heart twisting for the poor man, "his daughter has been captured and he'd do anything to save her. Poor Luna."

"She'll be fine," Harry snarled callously, "no doubt she's probably driving the other inmates up the wall teaching them about Wrackspurts and Nargles."

Harry sulked for days after that, with Ron and I treading on eggshells around him.

And then, one day, Harry announced that he was going to give up on hunting Horcruxes and start searching for the Deathly Hallows instead.

"Merlin," I muttered quietly to Ron, "perhaps it had been a bad idea to visit the Lovegoods, after all. If we give up on the Horcruxes now, all this will have been for nothing."

"You can't blame him, though," Ron shrugged, peering through the gap in the tent where Harry was outside slashing the sword through the air, fighting an invisible assailant. "The outcome isn't looking good for the poor git. I'd want an unbeatable wand too if I were in his shoes."

"But it's not what Dumbledore wanted!"

"Dumbledore threw himself off the top of the Astronomy Tower, remember?"

"He was murdered by Snape," I gritted.

Ron shrugged. "Whatever. Reckon he gave up too easily, if you ask me. Seems a little sus."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "So you're saying that Dumbledore let Snape kill him because he was feeling suicidal?"

"Why not? Makes sense as to why he'd been giving Harry all those private lessons. Passing the buck, so to speak. Now it's up to Harry to kill You-Know-Who while Dumbledore gets to rest up in peace."

"Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself!" Harry yelled from outside the tent, clearly having listened to every word. "Say his name, you coward, say Voldemort-"

"HARRY - NO!" Ron bellowed as loud cracks sounded around us. "THE TABOO, YOU TWAT!"

I didn't hesitate. Grabbing my wand, I leapt out of the tent and waved it towards Harry's face, giving him the painfullest and ugliest disguise I could think of.

That would teach him to ruin everything.

*****