Believe That Magic Works: A Novella by Shocolate
Chapter 2 : Where It All Began
I know we were at war; I know we were about to set off on an absurdly dangerous quest; but I had never been happier.
The three of us moved in to 12 Grimmauld Place, Harry and I still sharing a room, even though there were so many empty bedrooms. This was partly so my mum could think of him as my chaperone, and partly because we were just so used to sharing.
Hermione had come back from Hogwarts almost glowing. Professor Flitwick had been thrilled to teach her the Fidelius Charm and she had performed it flawlessly. I had been turned on beyond belief as she solemnly informed each member of the Order of the location of their headquarters once more. The unspoken knowledge that Snape wouldn't be able to find us was on everyone's mind.
She had also come back with our Head Girl and Boy badges. Apparently Professor McGonagall had had tears in her eyes when Hermione told her that we had to turn them down to go with Harry. She had insisted that we were still Head Girl and Boy, should we be able to return to school, and that she would appoint deputies in our absence. Hermione had bawled in my arms.
Harry and I had passed our Apparition tests and then had something of an argument in Diagon Alley.
He must have expected an argument, because his first words were, "Look, Ron, no arguments, we're going clothes shopping."
"You can," I replied shortly.
"We're both sick of wearing hand-me-downs. I am going to burn everything of Dudley's; you're taller than all your brothers and nothing fits you properly. Let's buy new everything."
He knew that this was my sorest of sore points. Hermione turned up every summer, smart as a new pin in her new Muggle clothes, her robes were always perfect. Harry always had new robes when he needed them, but he never bothered with his Muggle clothes. I was always shabby, faded and worn, with sleeves and trousers too short.
He knew I hated it. And he knew I was really bad at accepting things from him. So I didn't argue; I just glared at him.
"You accepted the new Dress Robes from Fred and George," he pointed out.
"They're my brothers," I muttered and could have bitten my tongue as he winced.
"So am I," he said quietly. "And they bought the robes with the money from the Tri-Wizard - because I told them to."
He is a bastard. And the best friend you could ever have.
But I still argued.
"Look," he said, eventually. "I am not having Death Eaters laughing at my troops for wearing hand-me-downs."
I boggled at him. "What?" I gasped, trying not to laugh at his absurd logic.
"I'll use Sirius's money," he said.
"What difference does that make?" I asked.
"Well, you're happy to live in his house; I'll use his money for the tent, for supplies, for food, for rooms at the pub. He gave the house to the Order, he'd like the money to be used for the Quest."
"Yeah," I admitted.
"He really would," Remus put in, quietly.
"And he would be more than happy for some of the money to be used to dress us properly," Harry said.
"Well…"
"To impress our girls," Harry said.
I smiled. "Well, maybe."
Remus laughed.
"All three of us," Harry added.
"What?" Remus gasped.
"It's settled then," Harry smirked. "We'll use Sirius's mum's money to look drop-dead sexy and impress our Muggleborn and blood-traitor women."
"Bugger," I said.
"Well, if you put it like that," Remus muttered.
"I do," Harry laughed.
So the three of us had spent far too much money on new clothes. Not something that any of us had ever done before, but Harry had been right. Hermione had certainly seemed to like my new look.
We'd spent a few weeks at Grimmauld Place getting everything ready. Hermione was reading her way steadily through the Blacks' library of Dark Magic, looking for anything about Horcruxes.
Harry and I were practising NEWT level DADA with Remus and Tonks.
In the evenings we cooked; we sat in the library playing chess, Hermione curled up against me, updating the date on her Galleon, so that everyone would know we were OK, so no-one would come looking for us. Officially, Mum and Remus had the other coins, but I am pretty sure that Hermione had given Ginny one, as well.
It was wonderful.
A glimpse of what our lives could be like. Afterwards.
All too soon we packed our tent and our supplies and Apparated to Godric's Hollow.
Luckily, with no Muggles to fool, Hermione and I erected the tent with magic while Harry wandered moodily through the ruined house. Hermione was itching to go to him, but I dragged her into the tent.
She pulled away from me. "Ron, not here!" she gasped.
"Hermione!" I said. "I am not trying to seduce you, I am trying to give Harry some privacy! I don't believe you."
"Very convincing," she snapped. "But you wouldn't be this indignant if I'd let you pull me into the bedroom."
"I wasn't pulling you into the bedroom," I shouted. "I was pulling you into the tent so Harry wouldn't feel us watching him."
"Don't pretend you're all super-sensitive about people's feelings all of a sudden."
She stopped, abruptly, and her mouth snapped closed. Her face was red, her eyes sparkling, her chest heaving.
And she was staring at Harry, standing in the entrance to the tent.
"Harry," she gasped.
"Harry," I said, guiltily.
Harry smiled. "Just like old times," he said, crossing to the couch and collapsing onto it.
"Sorry," I said.
"Yes, sorry," Hermione said.
"It's just that we don't know what we're doing here, and Hermione hates the unknown," I explained and Hermione glared at me.
"Well, you do," I said.
"Well, you're never having sex, then," she muttered and Harry choked.
I gaped at her and laughed and she bit her lip and smiled at me. Our fight forgotten, we crossed to sit by Harry.
"So," I said, "what are we doing here?"
"I just have a feeling about it," Harry said and Hermione raised a tentatively sceptical eyebrow.
"I understand you wanting to spend time here, Harry," she said, "but why would we find anything useful here?"
"We have to go everywhere Voldemort did," Harry shrugged. "And this is the last place he went."
"Yes, but you told us about the elaborate protections in the cave," Hermione said. "He wouldn't have hidden anything here - even if he had time."
"Yes, but he hid Slytherin's ring in the ruins of the Gaunt cottage after killing Morfin," Harry said.
Hermione sighed.
"OK, how's this," I offered. "When he came here he was all full of himself, he'd already made, what, four Horcruxes? He felt immortal. And he would just love the idea of making a Horcrux from killing Harry."
"But he didn't kill Harry," Hermione objected.
"No, no, give me a chance here, Hermione. He'd have loved to make a Horcrux that night, so he brings with him whatever Relic of the Founders he's tracked down - Ravenclaw's Haemorrhoid Cushion -" Harry sniggered and Hermione glared at me, "and he gets ready - he does the spell that splits his soul in two and Harry's dad tries to hold him off, but it's no good. He goes up to the nursery and Harry's mum tries to stop him, but she can't, and then he looks at Harry.
"He takes out the Cushion and activates the Horcrux spell and it's all glowing and swirling and sucking the life-force from its surroundings, like a Dementor, and he AKs Harry, but the spell rebounds on him, his soul leaves his body - one piece is sucked into the Horcrux, which falls, forgotten, into the ruins - the other piece flees, tethered to the earth by the Horcruxes!"
"Wow!" Harry said.
Hermione stared at me.
"What?" I asked.
Hermione blinked.
"Hermione?" I said.
"You know," said Harry, "apart from the cushion thing and the glowing and swirling…"
"That's brilliant!" Hermione whispered.
I smirked.
"That was really convincing, mate," Harry said, gazing at me.
"And Aurors investigating the explosion and stuff wouldn't even notice an evil haemorrhoid cushion," I pointed out.
"Don't spoil it, Ron," Hermione laughed, shaking her head.
"So, we're looking for a …" Harry shrugged.
"A Something," I explained.
"OK, a Something that Voldemort could have dropped when the spell hit him."
"We're not actually any closer, you know," Hermione objected. "We just have a theory for how a Horcrux could be here."
I waved this away. "Don't ruin the moment, Hermione," I said. "Let's go and look for the Something of the Founders!"
Harry and I dragged her to her feet and we went outside.
But she was right, of course. It wasn't that easy.
The house had been pretty thoroughly blown apart, and sixteen years' worth of weather and plant-life had transformed it into an unrecognisable wreck.
Once we identified the ruined nursery and I'd clapped Harry on the shoulder with an, "All right, Harry?" and Hermione had rolled her eyes and pulled me aside for a whispered argument about the appropriate way to comfort someone on the death of a loved one…
Once we had our bearings, we let Hermione take over. She divided the house into ever widening concentric circles, highlighted by glowing blue lines and we went to work, searching.
Searching for the Something that could have been dropped or blown from Voldemort's hand.
It was hard work, even using magic. Every stone had to be carefully lifted, every beam moved, every mysterious moss-covered Thing taken back to the tent to be cleaned up, in case it was a Something.
Cleaned up without magic, as Hermione was worried what a Scourgify would do to a Horcrux.
After yet another day's hard work, and an evening scraping grime from bricks and broken pottery and what looked like a rat's skull, I slumped back on the couch, took out my wand and said, "Accio Something!"
Luckily the closest Something was the couch cushions, which piled on top of me, much to Hermione's anger and disgust.
"Why don't you try that in the kitchen?" she shrieked, waving the knife she'd been using to make dinner. "Let's see what happens when random knives fly at you, shall we?"
I knew I'd been stupid, but she didn't let it go all evening, muttering under her breath as we ate, as I did the washing up, as she updated her coin. Even threatening to send my mum a message about how stupid and irresponsible I was, instead of the usual 'OK' and the date.
She was still angry with me the next morning as she stamped across the overgrown garden to the stream that ran along the far side of the old lawn.
She was wearing cut-off jeans and a black Weird Sisters t-shirt and she took off her shoes and waded into the water, muttering under her breath about having to live with idiots. Harry smirked at me and I poked my tongue out at him.
Harry and I were digging crap out from between the roots on an old tree, and I was just telling him that the Something had probably gone down a rabbit-hole, and that the local rabbits were terrified of the Dark Rabbit, when there was a shout from the far side of the tree.
"Ron! Harry! Get in here!"
We rushed round the tree and scrambled down the bank, splashing over to where Hermione was squinting down into the water.
"Down there!" she babbled. "Between the roots - can you see something metallic?"
There was definitely a Something down there, pinned amongst the twisting roots.
I was waist-deep under the bank and it was too deep for even me to reach. Hermione tutted and pushed me out of the way, casting a Bubblehead Charm on herself and jack-knifing under the water, her bottom briefly breaking the surface as she kicked and drove herself downwards.
Harry and I watched, anxiously, trying to see past her bottom and the cloud of floating hair to where her slim fingers were prizing the Something loose.
He was biting his lip and had gone rather white, looking far more worried than he should, as she was safely breathing inside her bubble. His eyes flickered back and forth between us.
"Hey," I said, and he focussed on me. "Am I still the thing you'd miss most?"
He laughed nervously and a little colour returned to his face and I thought I'd hit a nerve - he was having Second Task flashbacks.
"No, you're not," he snorted. "I can't get rid of you if I tried; Ginny is the thing I miss most."
I smirked at him and he blushed and grinned self-consciously back and I promised myself yet again that he'd come back safely to her.
Then Hermione surfaced with a splash, a slimy Something clasped in her hands. Harry took it and wiped some of the gunk off as she ended the charm. "Hermione!" he breathed.
"Hermione!" I shouted, sweeping her up in my arms and swirling her in the water before kissing her soundly and sinking beneath the surface. We came up for air to find Harry laughing at us, so we both grabbed him and pulled him under, too.
When we had struggled from the stream and cleaned the slime off and dried out and changed our clothes, we gathered around our Something in the tent.
Hermione breathlessly and carefully wiped away the layers of mud and slimy plant-life.
"Well, what d'you think?" she asked Harry. "Harry?"
He had gone chalk white and his mouth had dropped open.
"Harry?" I prompted.
"Yes," he breathed, wild-eyed. "Yes. Hufflepuff's Cup."
"Are you sure?" Hermione gasped.
"Oh, yes." Harry smiled crazily. "It's the one I saw in the memory. Oh, dear God! We did it!"
We smiled at each other for a few ecstatic minutes. Hermione was the first to sober up.
"Right," she said briskly. "Back to Grimmauld Place and we'll find out what to do with the blasted thing!"
oOoOo
Although I thought it was tempting fate rather to break camp, we packed everything up and Hermione and I Apparated back to Grimmauld Place, leaving Harry to say goodbye to his parents a bit.
Of course I wanted to just dump everything and put our feet up; spend a little time alone together. But Hermione insisted we put everything away properly. Apparently we'd regret it next time we needed the tent and stuff if we hadn't taken care of them. And it would be sensible to do our laundry. And firecall my mum, to tell her we were safely back at Grimmauld Place.
So I did, but I made it very clear that it was a fleeting visit; that we were off again any minute. Because, while it was nice to talk to my mum for the first time in a few weeks, I really didn't need her flooing in to help Hermione with the laundry.
Because it was my first time alone with Hermione in a few weeks.
I knelt by the kitchen fireplace and reported in, while Hermione sorted everything out behind me. I tried to let my mum know that we were fine, we had had a successful mission, and then I brushed away her questions and took my head out of the fire.
Hermione was standing at the sink, magically drying all the plates and mugs we'd used in our campsite. I crept up behind her, wrapped my arms round her waist and kissed her neck.
"Hmmm," she said, tipping her head to the side and I kissed her again.
"Hermione?" I whispered into her skin.
She turned round in my arms and clasped her hands behind my neck.
"We did it, Ron! We really did it!" she said, eyes sparkling.
"How did I miss that?" I gasped. "After waiting so long…"
She smacked me. "Ron!" she admonished. "Not that! Is that all you think of?"
"Yes," I said, grinning at her indignant reaction. "And I can only hope that you look this excited should we ever…" And I dipped my head and kissed her.
I felt her smiling against my lips as she kissed me back and I ran one hand up into her hair, pulling her tighter against me with the other.
And then, of course, Harry opened the door. "Oh, sorry," he said. "I'll, um…"
"No, no, it's fine," Hermione said, disentangling herself from my arms and smoothing her hair down. "We've got work to do."
I pouted dramatically and she ignored me, but Harry caught my eye and mouthed, "sorry," again.
oOoOo
Harry placed Hufflepuff's Cup in the middle of the kitchen table. "What do we do with it?" he asked.
"Well," said Hermione, "I had a bit of a chat with Bill before the wedding."
"About Horcruxes?" I asked, eyes wide.
"Not specifically," she said serenely. "I asked him what the first thing a curse breaker does when he needs to find out if an object is cursed or possessed."
I smiled at her and Harry beamed. "And?" he asked.
"And he taught me the Charm," she said, taking out her wand. With a complicated wrist movement she cast a strange charm on the cup. Which glowed blue.
"Is that good?" Harry asked eagerly.
Hermione was silent.
"Hermione?" I asked. "What's wrong?"
She bit her lip.
"Hermione?"
"No, not good," she said blankly. "Red for cursed, black for possessed, green for touched by Dark Magic somehow, blue for completely pure and untouched."
"Yes, but… Horcruxes are probably something different," Harry said.
"It's not checking for a specific list of curses, Harry," she whispered. "It's generally checking for Dark Magic; even if we don't know the spell for creating a Horcrux, it has to be Dark Magic."
We looked at each other. Harry looked exhausted, Hermione looked furious.
"After all that!" she moaned.
"All for nothing," Harry said.
"No, not for nothing." I tried cheering them up; that has been my job for so long. "Let's think about this."
"There's nothing to think about!" Harry snapped. "We wasted our time; it's just a cup."
"Yeah, but it's Hufflepuff's Cup," I pointed out.
"So what?" Harry said. "We can give it to the school. Big deal."
I tutted at him. Tutted; I swear. Hermione really had been rubbing off on me. An unfortunate choice of words, which completely distracted me. The image derailed me for a few moments.
"Ron?" she said, poking me in the arm and destroying my fantasy.
"What?" I said, disoriented.
"You were saying?"
"I was?" She glared at me. "Oh, yes, Hufflepuff's Cup. Well, if Hufflepuff's Cup was in the ruins of your parents' house, then Voldemort brought it there that night."
"So?" Harry said.
"Yes," Hermione said slowly. "So he did intend to make a Horcrux…"
"Yeah," I replied. "But something went wrong. It was all glowing and spinning," Hermione tutted, "and he AKed Harry and the spell rebounded on him, ripping both pieces of his soul out of his body…"
"One of which fled, tethered to the earth," Hermione muttered.
"And the one he'd intended for the Horcrux went…" I frowned.
"Into me," Harry said quietly.
Hermione and I turned to gape at him.
"No," I said.
"No, Harry," Hermione said, reaching for his hand.
"Yeah," he said simply.
"Harry, you are not a Horcrux," Hermione said sternly.
"We know he transferred powers into me, Hermione - I always wondered how 'speaking Pasrseltongue' could be transferred. Well, I have part of his soul in me, don't I?"
"No," I said firmly.
"Oh, Ron," he said dully. "Saying that won't make it go away. It makes sense. His powers went into me and his soul went into me. I can feel what he's thinking, I know when he's happy and when he's angry; I see what he sees."
"Dumbledore would have said something," Hermione said, helplessly.
"Not if he didn't realise," Harry said.
I felt just terrible. Everything was falling apart. This was just impossible and horrible and… and wrong.
"No!" I said yet again.
"Leave it, Ron," Harry warned. "We'll forget this and move on; there are still two relics to find."
"Forget it?" I asked.
"Move on?" Hermione echoed.
"Yes!" Harry spat
We were left speechless as he stormed out of the room. "Oh, Ron," she wailed and I opened my arms to her.
"It'll be OK, Hermione," I soothed her, stroking her hair. "We'll.. something… something will come up. It'll be OK."
She cried into my neck as I held her, more scared than I'd ever been. This was not supposed to happen.
oOoOo
It was late when I slunk into Harry's and my room, and he was already asleep, facing the wall, looking very thin and vulnerable.
I slumped onto my bed and stared at him.
What were we going to do now? I know I wasn't all that good at talking about 'stuff', though I was getting better, but Harry was going to ignore it, he was going to go after the next Horcrux with this self-sacrificing thing that was going to drive me mad.
He assumed he was going to have to die.
And he was going to ignore it.
I hated it when he did that.
I felt so helpless.
Hermione was going to obsess about it; Harry was going to ignore it; I was going to be stuck in the middle.
I glumly changed into my pyjama bottoms and slid under the covers.
It felt like I tossed and turned for hours, listening to Harry breathing on the other side of the room. And it felt like I had barely fallen asleep when Hermione shook me awake.
"Ron," she hissed in my ear and I forced my eyes open.
"Hmmmmn?" I managed.
"I need to talk to you," she whispered.
"Oh, Hermione, can't it wait until morning?" I whined.
"No," she said firmly. "I have been thinking about what Harry said."
"Oh, Hermione…"
"No, listen, I think I can explain what happened."
"Hermione…"
"Shhh, wake Harry up and come downstairs."
And she was gone.
I slung my feet over the edge of the bed and ran my hands violently through my hair, trying to wake up properly. I shuffled over to Harry's bed and sat on the edge. This was going to be fun. My hand hovered over his shoulder and I took a deep breath. Well, I trusted Hermione, didn't I? She'd sort things out.
I shook him gently.
His eyes snapped open and he sat up abruptly, scaring me half to death.
"What?" he asked angrily.
My hand fell to my lap. "Hermione wants us downstairs," I yawned.
He scowled. "What time is it?"
I squinted at my watch in the light from the doorway. "Three," I moaned.
"Tell your girlfriend we can do this in the morning," Harry said, flopping back and trying to turn away from me.
"Nope," I said, pulling his blankets off him. "You know Hermione, she is downstairs waiting for us and we are going down there; she won't let it go." I grabbed his arm and dragged him sideways across the bed. "You'll go back to sleep, but she'll be up here whispering at me until dawn!"
He snorted and slithered over the edge of the bed as I dragged him.
Staggering to his feet, he rubbed his face and put his glasses on. He wandered towards the door, wearing just boxers and a t-shirt and I said, "You gonna put anything on?"
He looked down at himself and up at my bare chest. "No," he said. "Hermione doesn't care about seeing me in my boxers."
I shrugged and followed him from the room.
Hermione was pacing in the library in her pyjamas. Her hair was insane, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and, God, all I wanted was to go to sleep.
I slumped in the corner of a couch and tried hard to keep my eyes open; Harry leant against me.
"OK," said Hermione, standing before us with her hands on her hips. "I have been thinking about this."
Harry snorted.
Hermione frowned at him.
He rested his head on my shoulder and his eyes drifted closed.
"Harry!" she snapped. "This is serious."
We both jumped. "Oh, Hermione," he muttered. "I'll be just as doomed in the morning."
He quailed at the look in her eyes.
"OK, Hermione," I interrupted them. "What have you been thinking about until three in the morning?"
"Right," she said and we both tried to sit up straight. "Let's assume that the separate piece of Voldemort's soul did go into you, Harry."
"Yes, let's," he muttered.
She ignored him. "Let's assume you received some of his odder powers, let's assume you could see what he saw; let's assume you could feel what he felt; let's assume your scar hurt when he felt something."
"I hope you're going somewhere with this, Hermione," I said.
She ignored me, too. "When did you last feel something in your scar, Harry?" she asked.
He opened his mouth and then blinked, thinking hard. "At the Ministry," he muttered eventually.
Hermione beamed at him. I looked fondly at her. I loved it when she did this. Her eyes were sparkling more than should be humanly possible at three in the morning. We'd obviously slept through the thinking aloud, the wild-eyed fragments of sentences and the rushing off to check things in the library; now we were here for the results, and she was almost trembling with excitement at her theory.
I wondered if there was any chance she'd send Harry off to bed once she'd told us, and spend a little time alone with me. Almost certainly not.
"At the Ministry!" she crowed.
Harry raised an eyebrow and looked rather dubious. "Not my happiest memory, Hermione," he pointed out.
"Professor Dumbledore was fighting Voldemort," she said.
"Yes, and Voldemort possessed me," Harry said quietly.
"And the pain?" Hermione asked and I glared at her, unhappy that she was making him relive this.
"I wanted to die," he whispered.
"And then?" she prompted.
"It was gone," he answered.
"And since then?"
"Nothing, he's blocking me."
"He's gone," she said simply.
"What?" Harry and I gasped and something stirred inside me. Something hopeful.
"When he realised you could sense what he was feeling, he must have realised he'd made you an accidental Horcrux that night; when he possessed you at the Ministry, when he taunted Professor Dumbledore to strike you both down? That would have killed you, but his soul would have been tethered by the other Horcruxes. That is why he knew Dumbledore couldn't do it. And he wrenched himself free - the part of his soul he had left inside him - and the part that had been in you."
I could feel Harry shaking beside me and I put my arm round his shoulders.
"Hermione?" I breathed. "You're brilliant."
"I haven't felt anything since then," Harry whispered.
"Nothing," she agreed, kneeling at his feet and taking his hand.
"All… all that year Professor Dumbledore wouldn't meet my eyes… drove me crazy… but when he did, something rose up inside me and wanted to strike… to kill him… that was Voldemort?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"But after we got back from the Ministry… it never happened again," he said, holding her hand so hard I saw her wince.
"He was gone," she said, reaching up to brush his hair off his scar. "Gone," she said, leaning forward and kissing it gently.
"And Professor Dumbledore did suspect," I said. "You said he wasn't surprised you'd had no more trouble in your scar."
"He said Voldemort was using Occlumency…" Harry trailed off.
"No need to freak you out, was there?" I shrugged.
"Oh, God," Harry said, pulling her into his arms. "Oh, God," he whispered into her hair.
I wrapped my arms around both of them and we just sat there and held each other.
oOoOo
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