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There was a crackling sound like the breaking of a twig and I jumped, my head snapping up to study the white curtain of snow falling around the tent. Hope and fear tangled in my stomach. The hope was defeated after only a minutes struggle. He wasn’t coming back. If it was a someone and not a something moving around out there, it couldn’t be him. It would be a Death Eater or someone just as unpleasant. The movements I had been catching at the corner of my eye had to be an animal. If it was a Death Eater, we would know it by now.
I looked back down at A History of Magic, trying to concentrate on it, rather than the tingle running across my skin, the chill running up my spine- the sensation that we were not alone. “Wileburt the Wild was an excellent speaker, according to a journal entry by Marian Goodby of Willowshead Marsh. Within a month of his emancipation from Azkaban he had riled his fellow Goblins into-“
Harry cleared his throat. He was standing behind me in the tent. I jumped.
“The snow still hasn’t stopped?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“No. And it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down.”
“You think we should move on now, rather than waiting til morning? It’ll probably be above our knees by then.”
I nodded. Carefully, I marked my place in A History of Magic, closed it and retreated inside. I grabbed the first sweatshirt I laid eyes on.
“We’ll go somewhere more sheltered,”* I mumbled, pulling the sweater over my head. It was maroon: one of his old sweaters. It was a little too big for me, but it was warm. The majority of my sweaters were in the wash.
“I kept thinking I could hear people moving outside. I even thought I saw somebody once or twice,”* I continued. Harry, who was pulling on a sweater too, stopped and looked at the top-like Sneakoscope on the table. I didn’t bother. I had looked at it myself as soon as I had come in. It made me uneasy, how still it was. What if it was unreliable and there really was a Death Eater out there waiting to ambush us?
“I’m sure I just imagined it,”* I said. I was sure, wasn’t I? Where had all my reasoned arguments for it being some small animal gone? “The snow in the dark, it plays tricks on your eyes… But perhaps we ought to Disapperate under the Invisibility Cloak, just in case?”*
Harry agreed, and so, a very short time later, we were pulling off the Invisibility Cloak and setting up camp in the Forest of Dean. It was terribly cold here too. The snow lay like a thick white carpet over everything, but at least it wasn’t still falling here.
I fumbled through the cabinets for a bowl. Harry was sitting, his arms around his knees, on the floor, shivering. I had felt very responsible for Harry’s well-being ever since I had accidently broken his wand. Quickly, I directed my wand into the bowl and performed the bluebell flame charm. Holding the bowl full of flames I went back to Harry and put it on the floor beside him. Harry thrust his hands right up to the flames, eager to be warm. I sat down next to him and extended my own hands. We sat like this for most of the afternoon, saying little, entirely consumed in our own thoughts.
A certain tall, redheaded young man being the main subject of mine.
I hadn’t been sleeping well since that certain tall redhead had left us, so I decided to go to bed early in the hopes of getting the amount of sleep most untroubled people get. I made sure Harry was well set up in the tent doorway, changed into pajamas and climbed into my bunk.
I lay there for what felt like a very long time before drifting into dreams.
His blue eyes were glaring at me again. “Are you coming with me?” The words echoed and bounced around my head. “Are you coming with me?” Over and over and over again he said it, inflecting each word, yelling it, whispering it, his voice a hoarse roar or a pleading cry. Each time he asked I shook my head.
“No.”
No, no, no, echoed my voice. Then he was gone again.
I awoke with a shudder and clawed at my pillow, squirmed under the blanket, and curled myself into a ball.
The next moment I was dreaming again. I dreamed I was laying on my bed in the tent, waiting like Sleeping Beauty for my red-haired prince charming. I heard the rustle of the tent flap as Harry came in. Oh no, I thought, it’s another dream about it being my turn to keep watch.
“Hermione,” Harry called.
But this time I wasn’t going to answer. It was my dream after all. I could change the outcome, couldn’t I?
“Hermione.”
Harry sounded much louder than he usually did in my dreams.
“Hermione!”*
Harry’s voice was much too urgent. Perhaps this was not a dream after all. I twisted under my blankets and sat up quickly, alarmed at the tone of Harry’s voice.
“What’s wrong? Harry? Are you all right?”* I asked, trying to sound alert and awake, ready for anything.
“It’s okay,”* Harry said. Why had he sounded so urgent then? Maybe I had been right in the beginning and this really was a dream. “Everything’s fine. More than fine. I’m great. There’s someone here.”*
This really must be a dream. There was no way anyone could find us here, and Harry would not be happy about it if they had.
“What do you mean?”* I asked foggily. “Who-?”*
Then I saw him. Tall, red-haired, and handsome, with blue eyes and a pale freckled face, holding the sword of Gryffindor and dripping water on the rug: Ron Weasley. I had only said his name once since he had left, and had only allowed myself to think his name a few times in the time between now and then. And now he was standing there, holding the sword we had gone to Godric’s Hollow hoping to find.
This was most definitely a dream. Ronald was probably going to pull out Harry’s wand, good as new, any moment.
I stared at him as I pulled myself out of bed and began to walk forward. Strange, I thought, how lifelike this dream feels. Usually it wasn’t so easy to move in dreams. When I was standing close enough to count the freckles on the Dream-Ron’s face, I stopped. Suddenly, I was unsure of whether this really was a dream. I had never been able to count his freckles in all the other dreams I had ever had of him. He was always too far away.
Ron half smiled and raised his arms, as if to give me a hug.
I snapped.
I didn’t care if this was a dream or not. If I was near enough to count his freckles then I was near enough to-
“Ouch- ow- gerroff! What the- ? Hermione- OW!”* Ron yelped. My fists were flying, trying to reach every inch of him they could find. So the stupid git thinks he can just come waltzing back after leaving for so long?
I was yelling something- I wasn’t sure what I was saying. So the idiot thought I’d just fling myself into his arms whenever he deigned to return?
“-oh, where’s my wand?”* I heard myself shriek. I wanted to curse him. Rip a hole in his chest to match the one he had ripped in mine. I looked around to see where Harry had gotten to- he had my wand, I remembered now.
He was holding it in front of him. Before I could demand he return it, or seize it from him, he yelled a spell and the same shield charm I had used to separate him and I from Ron- so long ago it seemed- was now separating me from both of them. The force of the charm, and my own lightheadedness caused me to topple over onto the floor, my hair all over my face.
Spitting the hair out of my mouth I leapt up, angrier than I had ever been in my life.
“Hermione! Calm-“* began Harry.
“I will not calm down!” I shrieked. “Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!”* I couldn’t believe him. I had given the last several months of my life to helping him, the last several years really, and now he would not even give me my wand so I could perform a well justified murder. The nerve of him!
“Hermione, will you please-“* he started again.
“Don’t you tell me what to do, Harry Potter! Don’t you dare!”* I screeched.
I had never spoken to Harry like this in all the time we had been friends. I had wanted to a few times when he was yelling at us, but I had never let myself go on him until now. The idiot was defending Ron, defending the man who had ripped out my heart. I had thought Harry was my friend. I thought he would side with me. Ron had abandoned him too after all. And now he had my wand, which I had loaned him, and he wouldn’t give it back!
“Give it back now!”* I screamed at him again. He just looked grimly down at me from the other side of the shield charm. He seemed determined to keep it from me.
So I turned toward the other person I was upset with- the only person I was really upset with.
“And YOU!”*
My arm raised to point at Ron. Having no wand I pointed a finger at him. He had destroyed whatever life I had had for more then a month. He had been gone for ages. He had left us to almost die in Godric’s Hollow. He had ripped out my heart.
“I came running after you!”* I hissed, my voice deadly quiet. “I called you! I begged you to come back!”* Even as I said the venomous words I could feel the hurt that had spawned my anger surging to the surface, pricking my eyes with mutinous tears.
“I know,”* Ron said. His face was white as a sheet, his voice remorseful.
“Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really-“*
“Oh, you’re sorry!”* I screamed, interrupting him. A wild hysterical laugh broke from me, I didn’t know why. So he was sorry, was he? Sorry wasn’t going to make up for weeks alone, my heart ripped out, Godric’s Hollow, Harry’s wand. Sorry wasn’t enough.
“You come back after weeks- weeks- and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?”* I yelled. My voice was becoming hoarse. I wasn’t sure exactly when I had figured it out but I knew now that this was not a dream. Everything was too real. You don’t get hoarse throats in dreams.
Ron’s face was turning pink.
“Well, what else can I say?”* he yelled.
Insanely pleased with myself for thinking of it, I pulled out an insult I knew was below the belt.
“Oh, I don’t know! Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take couple of seconds-“* I seethed.
Now Harry interrupted me, his tone part bemused, part desperate. “Hermione, he just saved my-“*
“I don’t care!”*
I didn’t. Ron had ripped out my heart, abandoned me. Anything he had done for Harry might redeem him in Harry’s eyes, but not in mine.
“I don’t care what he’s done!”* I repeated. “Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew-“*
“I knew you weren’t dead!”* Ron roared so loudly it scared my voice back down my throat. He stepped forward. He was as close to me as he could be with Harry’s charm between us. Close enough that had the shield not been there his nose would almost have been touching mine. His blue eyes were searching mine, staring, hurt and angry.
“Harry’s all over the Prophet, all over the radio,”* he continued, his voice only a little louder than usual. “They’re looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories,”* his voice shook, and I wondered momentarily what those stories had been about, but his next words drove me into a new frenzy of anger. “I knew I’d hear straight off if you were dead, you don’t know what it’s been like-“*
“What it’s been like for you?”* I shrieked, my anger was so overwhelming I could not find any more words to express it. I expected Ron to be thrown backward by my fury but he surprised me by holding his ground.
“I wanted to come back the minute I’d Disapparated,”* than why in the world didn’t you, Ronald? I thought exasperatedly, ”but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn’t go anywhere!”*
My anger wobbled as he kicked out one of the legs it had been built on. Unbalanced and flustered I stepped away from him and threw myself into a chair, where I glared at him and tried to think of a new attack.
Harry asked what Ron had walked into and Ron looked away from me to answer him.
“Snatchers. They’re everywhere- gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there’s a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry.”*
Oh, so you had to think fast- they must have had you for several hours then! I thought viciously, missing Harry’s next question, and half of Ron’s answer.
“-Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of.”*
“And they believed that?”*
“They weren’t the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell off him…”*
How extremely funny, I thought sarcastically. Ron glanced at me to see my reaction and I made sure to keep my face entirely still. Ron gulped and continued.
“Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me and they’d taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated. I didn’t do so well, Splinched myself again,”* Ron showed us a hand with two missing nails.
How disappointing. I had hoped he might have lost more.
I raised my eyebrows and glared at him to let him know I was not impressed as he continued. “-and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we’d been… you’d gone.”*
Pathetic.
“Gosh, what a gripping story. You must have been simply terrified,”* I said in a mock-sincere voice. “Meanwhile we went to Godric’s Hollow and, let’s think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who’s snake turned up, it nearly killed both of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second.”*
Ron looked like he’d been hit in the stomach. I was grimly pleased by this.
“What?”*
He stared at me then Harry, then me again.
“Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective,”* I cooed, still faking sympathy.
“Hermione, Ron just saved my life,”* Harry said from his place by the wall of the tent. I ignored him. My rational sense was beginning to return to me, and I had just thought of a vitally important question. A question that rather embarrassed me however, because it suggested my magic had not been good enough.
How did Ron, a mediocre wizard, I thought savagely, find us? The enchantments I decided on, the ones we use every time we put up the tent, should make us absolutely impossible to find.
I stared at the ceiling of the tent above Ron’s head to keep my face from flushing as I asked as cordially as I could, “One thing I would like to know, though. How exactly did you find us tonight? That’s important. Once we know, we’ll be able to make sure we’re not visited by anyone else we don’t want to see.”* I put a delicate emphasis on the word else. Let him know his visit was unwanted.
Ron was silent for a moment then I saw him, out of my peripheral vision, reach into his pocket and pull out something.
“This,”* he said flatly.
I glanced at the object in his hand and my anger all but disappeared in curiosity and wonder. It was the object Dumbledore had left for Ron in his will: the Delu-
“The Deluminator?”* I asked before I could stop myself.
And with that Ron was off explaining the bizarre story of how he had found us. I discovered I couldn’t sustain my murderous fury at him when I was so interested in what he had to say. I had not forgiven Ronald, but it was of no use to remain in such a temper, and I was sure it was unhealthy.
When I went back to bed a few hours later my thoughts were focused on the certain red-head who had been reinstated in one of the nearby bunks.
I could hear him now, he and Harry were talking quietly on the other side of the tent.
"-best you could hope for, I think,"* Harry was saying.
"Yeah. Could've been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?"* Ron whispered back.
I smiled into my pillow.
"I still haven't ruled it out,”* I called.
There was a pause and then I could hear the rustle of two boys getting ready for bed.
I would give Ron one more chance. If he ruined it, he would not get another. And until he proves himself one way or the other, I thought, I suppose I will have to keep my wrath in check… If I can.
I smiled, rolled onto my side and went to back to sleep.
Through Different Eyes by hogwartsbookworm
Chapter Notes: Ronald Returns. Location: Perkin's tent again.
Chapter Endnotes: *Asterisk marked quotes are from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, US version, pages 363, 364, 379, 380, 381, 382, and 383.Thanks for reading! Hermione is very fun for me to write. I hope you liked it!
Please, review!