167[@more@]"It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?"
"Yeah," said Harry and Hermione together automatically.
"I knew this was it," said Ron. "I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden.
"The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it ... well, it went inside me."
"Sorry?" said Harry, sure he had not heard correctly.
"It sort of floated toward me," said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, "right to my chest, and then -- it just went straight through. It was here," he touched a point close to his heard, "I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me, I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere...." "We were there," said Harry. "We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!"
"Yeah, well, that would've been me," said Ron. "Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn't see you and I couldn't hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you'd have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent."
"No, actually," said Hermione. "We've been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we'd heard somebody blundering around."
"Well, I stayed on that hill all day," said Ron. "I kept hoping you'd appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn't see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end -- and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously."
"You saw the what?" said Hermione sharply.
They explained what had happened and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Hermione frowned form one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.
"But it must have been a Patronus!" she said. "Couldn't you see who was casting it? Didn't you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can't believe this! Then what happened?"
Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in.
"-- and Ron stabbed it with the sword."
"And ... and it went? Just like that?" she whispered.
"Well, it -- it screamed," said Harry with half a glance at Ron. "Here."
He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured windows.
Deciding that it was at last safe to do so, Harry removed the Shield Charm with a wave of Hermione's wand and turned to Ron.
"Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?" "What?" said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. "Oh -- oh yeah."
He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short dark wand out of his pocket. "Here, I figured it's always handy to have a backup."
"You were right," said Harry, holding out his hand. "Mine's broken."
"You're kidding?" Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.
Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word.
Ron passed Harry the new wand.
"About the best you could hope for, I think," murmured Harry.
"Yeah," said Ron. "Could've been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?" "I still haven't ruled it out," came Hermione's muffled voice from beneath her blankets, but Harry saw Ron smiling slightly as he pulled his maroon pajamas out of his rucksack. Chapter Twenty
Xenophilius Lovegood
Harry had not expected Hermione's anger to abate over night and was
therefore unsurprised that she communicated mainly by dirty looks and
pointed silences the next morning. Ron responded by maintaining an
unnaturally somber demeanor in her presence as an outward sign of continuing remorse. In fact, when all three of them were together Harry felt like the
only non-mourner at a poorly attended funeral. During those few moments he
spent alone with Harry, however (collecting water and searching the
undergrowth for mushrooms). Ron became shamelessly cheery.
"Someone helped us," he kept saying, "Someone sent that doe, Someone's on
our side, One Horcrux down, mate!"
Bolstered by the destruction of the locket they set to debating the possible locations of the other Horcruxes and even though they had discussed the
matter so often before. Harry felt optimistic, certain that more
breakthroughs would succeed the first. Hermione's sulkiness could not mar
his buoyant spirits; The sudden upswing in their fortunes, the appearance of the mysterious due, the recovery of Gryffindor’s sword, and above all, Ron's return made Harry so happy that it was quite difficult to maintain a
straight face.
Late in the afternoon he and Ron escaped Hermione's baleful presence again
and under the pretense of scouring the bare hedges for nonexistent
blackberries, they continued their ongoing exchange of news. Harry had
finally managed to tell Ron the whole story of his and Hermione's various
wanderings, right up to the full story of what had happened at Godric's
Hollow; Ron was now filling Harry in on everything he had discovered about
the wider Wizarding world during his weeks away.
"... and how did you find out about the Taboo?" he asked Harry after
explaining the many desperate attempts of Muggle-borns to evade the
Ministry."
"The what?"
"You and Hermione have stopped saying You-Know-Who's name!"
"Oh, yeah, Well, it's just a bad habit we've slipped into," said Harry. "But I haven't got a problem calling him V ---"
"NO!" roared Ron, causing Harry to jump into the hedge and Hermione (nose
buried in a book at the tent entrance) to scowl over at them. "Sorry," said Ron, wrenching Harry back out of the brambles, "but the name's been jinxed, Harry, that's how they track people! Using his name breaks protective
enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance --- it's how they