InsaneJournal

Believe that Magic Works (3/10) - R/Hr - PG-13
Title: Believe that Magic Works (3/10)
Author: shocfix
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Words: 4200
Rating: PG-13

Written for sugarandginger’s Definitive Ron/Hermione Year Seven Novella Challenge

As the Trio set off on their search for the Horcruxes, Ron finally accepts that he wants to look after his two best friends in completely different ways


Chapter 3 : Lock It Up
****
We slept late the following day and I lay there thinking idly when I finally woke.

Thinking about Harry, and all the crap that was thrown at him.

Thinking of how strong he was, how bravely he'd faced things the day before, how he'd let himself lose it in our arms in the middle of the night.

Thinking how proud I was of me and Hermione, of the state he'd be in without us.

Thinking of Hermione. Obviously I did a lot of lying in bed and thinking of Hermione; I was seventeen. But this morning I was thinking of how brilliant she was. Of how we had gone to bed miserable, and how Harry had stewed and I had fretted and she had Thought. With a capital T.

She really was incredible, and I was the luckiest bastard in the world. Questing and facing Dark Lords notwithstanding. Because of who would be standing with me. I chuckled at my joke and Harry said, "Ngggrrmmphh," from the other bed.

I looked over at him. His head was under the cushion, to block out the weak light that straggled through our window and he lifted it to peer out at me. "Time?" he asked, his voice a bit scratchy.

"Eleven," I said, checking my watch. "I guess there's still time for breakfast." I sat up and stretched both arms above my head, rolling my shoulders and neck. "I'm knackered."

"Hmmm," he said. "That's what drama in the middle of the night does for you." He pushed the cushion and his blankets off and sat on the edge of the bed. "So, what d'you think?" he asked casually, reaching for his glasses.

"You look like shit," I answered cheerfully.

Harry laughed. "What would I do without you?" he joked, but I just looked at him and we had something of a Moment, and it's a good thing Hermione wasn't there, or she'd have burst into tears.

"You only keep me around so you can keep in with Ginny," I pointed out and he glared at me and we both grumbled good-naturedly into the bathroom, taking it in turns to shower and shave and shoving each other at the sink and earning a snippy comment from the mirror for not taking our ablutions seriously.

We dressed in jeans and shirts and ambled barefoot into the kitchen, hair wet and eyes blinking at the sunlight pouring in from the garden.

Hermione was sitting at the long table, reading. There were the remains of her breakfast scattered in front of her and I sat beside her and snagged a piece of cold toast. Harry sat opposite us and Summoned a couple of mugs and poured us some coffee. Her hair was messily tied back and she was wearing one of Harry's shirts and I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying to Harry, because there was a tiny dab of marmalade in the corner of her mouth that I couldn't take my eyes off.

Finally, Harry kicked me under the table and I jerked back to consciousness. "What?" I demanded.

Hermione tipped her head to one side and peered at me. "You're not listening to me," she complained.

"You're distracting me," I explained.

"I'm distracting you from me?" she asked and Harry sniggered and got up to make some fresh toast.

I pulled her onto my lap and licked at the mesmerising preserve. "You taste lovely," I said and she giggled and Harry made loud vomiting noises.



"Can I talk now? Have you finished tasting me?"

"Yes, he has," Harry said firmly, plonking a plate of toast in front of me and I let Hermione wriggle out of my lap and take her seat again.

She smiled softly at me. "As I was saying, Ron," she smiled again and Harry cleared his throat. "As I was saying. We are going to assume that our theory is correct, yes? Voldemort freed the part of his soul that was the accidental Horcrux. So now we move on."

"Can't we use Bill's Charm on him?" I asked.

"Bill isn't the Weasley whose charms work on me," he pointed out.

I made kissing noises across the table at him until Hermione shoved me. "No," she said, firmly. "The Charm is for possessed objects, not people."

"We have to work on Professor Dumbledore's theory," said Harry. "We don't have a choice."

"We'll do whatever you want," I told him.

"So," said Hermione briskly, "who is going to help me research Slytherin's Locket?"

"How?" I asked

"In the library," she smiled.

I pretended to groan. "How about… you can sit on my lap while you read?" I offered.

She rolled her eyes heavenwards and picked up her book. "Well, I will be in the library, you can come after you've finished breakfast – and cleared up!"

oOoOo

And so it went.

Hermione was once more reading her way through the Blacks' library, for any mention of Slytherin and his locket; Harry and I helped her sometimes, but we made dreadful research assistants, so we spent much of our time practicing DADA with whoever we could lay our hands on.

Remus came by when he could, but he was still supposed to be spying on the werewolves; Kingsley showed us some really cool stuff, but this pissed Harry off a bit, because he didn't expect anything flashy to be of any use to him, he just wanted to find the next Horcrux and get moving again.

Sometimes Bill dropped in and I was really tempted to ask him if he knew anything about Horcruxes, but Harry wouldn't let me. So, as we practiced deflecting some pretty vicious curses with him, I just had to hope for a day he'd start a session with, 'and this is how you destroy a Horcrux!'

My mum was happy to know that we were safely cooped up at Grimmauld Place, and she turned up with food pretty often, sniffing at our housekeeping and making us promise to come to dinner at the Burrow.

Actually, it was pretty nice to drop in there for dinner, to be treated almost as adults, to have Hermione discuss the Ministry with my dad. The fact that Hermione still updated her coin, even at the Burrow, made me pretty sure that it was Ginny she was keeping up to date with Harry's status.

But most evenings we spent at 'home', just the three of us.

And that was the best.

Being with my two favourite people. Taking care of them.

Sometimes Harry and Remus spent an evening discussing Order stuff and, even though he came up to bed frustrated as hell about the lack of progress on tracking down Malfoy or Snape, you could see it was doing him good to be accepted as part of the Order.

I would have loved to take advantage of his temporary absence and Hermione, but she wouldn't let me. I did manage an occasional kiss in the library, but she felt uncomfortable if Harry walked in and caught us, so I had to make do with pestering her.

Actually, she wasn't the only one thinking about our problems, and one evening I decided to share my worries with her while Harry was otherwise occupied.

She was flicking through yet another book about Slytherin and I was sitting watching her.

"Hermione?" I said.

She looked up and smiled at me and I nearly forgot what I was going to ask her. "I've been thinking about the Horcruxes," I said and she raised an eyebrow.

"And?" she asked.

"Well, how many are we assuming, now?"

"It's supposed to be six Horcruxes" Hermione began, but I interrupted.

"When did he do the snake?" I asked.

"What?" she asked.

"Well," I counted on my fingers, "that's one: the diary, two: the ring, three: the locket, four: the haemorrhoid cushion, five: the cup stroke Harry, six: the snake, seven: You Know Who. But why did he go for Harry for number five? Shouldn't that have been his final one?"

Hermione sighed. "We're making so many leaps here, Ron, and we're basing everything on Professor Dumbledore's assumptions. I don't want to speculate on what Voldemort was thinking."

"But when did he do the snake?" I insisted.

"Why does that matter?" she asked.

"Because. It couldn't have been before Harry; and Harry saw the snake at the beginning of fourth year, but Voldemort didn't get his body back until the end of fourth year. So he must have done the snake after that, before he… it attacked my dad."

"So?" she frowned at me.

"So, he carried on with his project when he came back; he made the sixth Horcrux."

"So?"

"So, has he made another one with the piece he ripped out of Harry?"

She glared at me.

"I don't think Voldemort controls the other pieces, Ron. He doesn't seem to know that the piece from the diary was released, and Professor Dumbledore wouldn't have just destroyed the ring if that gave Voldemort another piece back."

"Then why take the piece out of Harry? Why not just let the piece be released when he kills him?"

"Maybe he couldn't kill Harry without hurting himself?"

"Maybe? Maybe? Has he made another one with the piece he ripped out of Harry?"

"No," she said. "If Professor Dumbledore realised that Voldemort had ripped the piece out of Harry, but thought he'd made a new one, well, he'd have said something."

"What if we're wrong about Dumbledore knowing about it? What if he assumed the Cup would be a Horcrux and he didn't realise that Harry was? What if Voldemort took that piece back out of Harry and made it into another one, hidden safely somewhere, and we find all the others and Harry 'kills' him and he doesn't die?"

"We can't think like that, Ron," she said, taking my hands.

"But…"

"No," she said sharply. "We can't think like that and you cannot tell Harry."

"But we have just one chance, Hermione. We have to stand there with him and watch him attack the bastard and then just hope that it works?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "Let's all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best, right?"

I half-choked and half-laughed. Trust Hermione to finally remember the Cannons’ motto. "Oh, Hermione," I said. "Isn't this more important than Quidditch?”

oOoOo

It took a little while to be able to put it to the back of my mind and behave normally with Harry, but I think he put my twitchiness down to my tragic lack of snogging, and his sarcastic remarks soon cleared the air between us.

Christmas came and went, with a break in our research as Hermione went to stay with her parents for a couple of weeks. Harry and I were stunned to discover that she hadn't told them she had left school.

"Well," she said in a reasonable tone of voice. "I haven't told them about Voldemort or the Death Eater attacks or anything. They would have worried about me – or taken me out of school, even if I am of age."

We both gaped at her. "But, Hermione," I said. "You have left school without finishing your exams, you are sharing a house with two blokes, you are planning the downfall of the Darkest wizard for half a century – and your parents think you're still at school?"

"Yes," she said. "Look, it's not ideal, Ron, but it was the best I could do. I wrote and told them that I was Head Girl, I told them about us – but I never have told them about classes or anything, so it hasn't been any different."

"They know about us?" I asked.

"Oh, focus," she snapped. "What is wrong with telling them I have a boyfriend?"

"Well, they, um, don't realise we're practically living together for one thing," I snorted.

She went dangerously red in the face. "We are not practically living together," she hissed. "And, anyway, you are the one who decided to take things slowly, Ron…"

"Blimey," muttered Harry as he left the room.

"…you cannot make it into a big thing that would shock my parents. And they are better not knowing what we are up against." Suddenly she crumpled. "I don't want us to argue, Ron, I'll miss you."

I opened my arms, my anger completely gone. "I'll miss you, too. And I'll worry about you – I don't like you being alone in the Muggle world."

"You could come with me," she murmured into my neck.

"What?" I gasped, pushing her to arms' length and boggling at her. "I can't stay at your parents' house; they know we're together."

She rolled her eyes at me. "What's the worst that can happen? They could put us in the same room…" she teased.

She laughed out loud at my expression, which I know was far too hopeful.

"No, they probably wouldn't," she admitted and laughed at my pout.

"You go, then," I said kissing her forehead. "I should be with Harry, anyway. We'll be OK at the Burrow, and I'll see you in the New Year. I think inflicting me on a Muggle household can wait until after the War, don't you?"

"Yes," she smiled. "You're stressed enough, aren't you?"

"I will be until you get back," I said, hugging her.

"I'll miss you," she whispered.

"I love you," I said into her hair, before it hit me in the face as she snapped her head back to look at me.

"Ron," she breathed.

"I do," I said sheepishly. "I don't know if it is appropriate to our taking it slowly thing to say it, but I do."

"I know," she said. "And I love you, too. I always have."

I smiled and smoothed her hair out of her face as I leant down and kissed her.

"You really are a glutton for punishment, aren't you?" I whispered.

oOoOo

Christmas at the Burrow was awfully quiet. Mum insisted that Ginny stayed at school, and Harry moped; even the twins only came over for Christmas dinner, and we needed so few sprouts that I didn't even need to use magic to prepare them.

Harry and I didn't mention the Horcruxes, didn't mention our abortive love lives. We didn't discuss it beforehand, but like some sort of mutual support system, we just played chess, or cards, or listened to Quidditch on the wireless.

Just the two of us, like it had always been, recharging our batteries in preparation for the horrors that would lie ahead. I missed Hermione something rotten, but she never missed a night updating her coin, and Mum always smiled, and told me she was OK.

It was so quiet that we didn't even bother staying up for New Year. Having a glass of sherry with my mum and dad at midnight wasn't a very exciting prospect for two seventeen-year-olds, and we went up to my room with a smuggled bottle of firewhiskey.

After a couple of drinks, we were sprawled on our beds, giggling.

"OK," Harry said solemnly. "So, tell me about you and Hermione."

I boggled at him. "You never want to hear about me and Hermione!"

"No, wait, wait, wait," he said, stumbling to his feet and tripping up as he took his jeans off.

"What are you doing, Harry?" I asked.

"Take your trousers off, Ron," he ordered, climbing back onto his camp bed.

"Dare I ask why?" I asked, unzipping and wriggling out of them, revealing a very orange pair of boxer shorts.



"If we're gonna talk about girls, it just seems we should be in our boxers," he explained earnestly.

"Why?"

"Dunno."

This seemed very funny and we both giggled a lot before pouring another drink.

"It's a good thing Hermione isn't here," I said.

"So you can tell me all about it?" he asked.

"No, 'cos we're drunk. Hermione wouldn't be pleased," I sighed. "I'd love to see Hermione drunk – that would be the funniest thing ever."

Harry snorted with laughter. "Oh, we have to get her drunk," he whispered. "When it's finished. Promise?"

He looked about twelve and I solemnly promised that we'd get my girlfriend drunk.

"Well?" he prompted.

"You really want to know what me and Hermione have got up to?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think I'm drunk enough to forget it's Hermione," he said.

"I wish I had something to tell you," I said mournfully.

"What? I've seen you kissing," he objected.

"Kissing, yes, we've done kissing. Fully dressed, standing up, no wandering hands kissing."

"It's 'cos of me, isn't it? I'm sorry, Ron," he looked so sad and I rolled my eyes at him.

"'Snot 'cos of you, you prat. It's 'cos it's not the right time, it's fine, really."

He didn't look convinced. "You'd be able to do stuff if you weren't following me the whole time," he said solemnly.

"I don't think Hermione would let me do that much stuff, anyway," I pointed out. "It's probably best that we stick to being heroic for now."

"But you want to?" he asked.

"‘Course I want to!" I snorted. "I'm seventeen."

"You know, I think I should ask you about your intentions, as I am her honorary brother. So. You fancy Hermione?"

"I don't fancy her, Harry," I said.

"You do. I've seen you." He pointed at me, triumphantly.

"I love her."

"Whoa," he blinked at me. "You love her? Does she know this?"

I laughed. "I think she knew it before I did, but, yeah, she knows. I told her." I grinned self-consciously.

"Wow, you told her. I really am very impressed, Ron, I didn't think you had it in you."

"It was very simple, when it came to it," I shrugged.

"I don't know if I could ever just say it," he said, peering into the distance.

"What?" I frowned. "You're not talking about my sister, are you?"

"Well, not yet… maybe… someday… I don't know!"

"Then you're not," I said smugly. "'cos if you were, you'd know."

He snorted at me. "Yes, the Great Kisser knows all about it, I'm sure. Well, I've done more than kissing and I don't…"

"No. No, no, no. I am not drunk enough to hear about you and Ginny!" I put my hands over my ears.

Harry laughed and hit me with his pillow, and I had to leap, slightly wobbly, off the bed and straddle him and try to smother him with my pillow, and he was trying to complain that suffocating the Chosen One was a bad idea, while I was claiming that it was also very unfair, as apparently only You Know Who could best him in a pillow fight, when there was the soft pop of someone Apparating into our room, behind me.

Hermione wrinkled her nose adorably at the smell of alcohol in the room and went and sat on my bed. I tried shoving Harry off of his bed, which didn't work, as I was still sitting on him, and hissed, "Get out of here, Harry. She's come to snog me at midnight."

"I absolutely have not," she sniffed. "I came to show you something."

I waggled my eyebrows at her as suggestively as I could, while drunk, and Harry started giggling.

She glared at us both and I collapsed on top of him, both of us clutching our stomachs – and our swimming heads – as we laughed.

"Honestly," she muttered, taking out her wand and casting Sobering Charms on us both. "You don't deserve it, but I need to talk to you while you are relatively sensible."

I untangled myself from Harry and we blearily sat side-by-side, trying to look expectant.

Hermione was holding a large book against her chest, and she was vibrating with excitement. Not normal excitement, Hermione research-excitement. Harry raised a polite eyebrow, waiting for her to speak, while I casually covered my lap with a battered pillow, as research-excitement Hermione is one of the sexiest things I have ever seen, and it was unfair of her to leap out at me like this, while I was in boxer shorts.

"I took a few history books home with me last week," she said, eyes sparkling, face flushed, and I vowed for the millionth time that I would find another way to put that look on her face.

"Really?" Harry teased.

"And," she said, almost bouncing. On my bed. She was bouncing on my bed. "And tonight I was just leafing through this," she held out a huge book with ' Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy' on the cover in gold letters, "and, look!!"

She opened it on a page with a drawing of the Slytherin crest at the top, and tiny close-printed text in two columns. Harry took the book and I leant closer and peered at it. There was an awful lot of guff about Slytherin and his pureblood nonsense, and there was the story of what happened to him after he left Hogwarts, and there was a drawing of a locket.

"That's it," Harry murmured. "That's the locket I saw in the Pensieve."

"I wish you'd put that memory in the Pensieve for me, Harry," she said. "Because we've seen this locket before."

"Yeah, I saw it in Morfin's memory, and in the house-elf's…"

"No, Harry," she interrupted, her hands clasped between her breasts making it very hard for me to concentrate. "We've all seen that locket. It was in the glass cabinets in the drawing room at Grimmauld Place when we were cleaning it out last year."

"That can't be right, Hermione," he whispered. "How could it possibly have got there? Whoever stole it from the cave…"

Hermione snatched the book back from him and flicked swiftly towards the front of the book. We looked again. 'The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black : Toujours pur' it read.

I looked where Hermione was pointing, 'Regulus Arcturus Black, b.1 Jul 1961, d.27 Aug 1979'.

"RAB," I said, looking up at her glowing face. "Wow, Hermione!"

Harry looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. "Oh, God," he said. "I held it. I held it in my hand and never knew. Shouldn't my scar have hurt, or something?"

"The diary never hurt you," I said and Harry flopped back on the bed.

"We're doomed," he moaned. "It was all just thrown away. We'll never find it again."

"Maybe it was destroyed?" Hermione said, hopefully. "Maybe Sirius burnt it all up."

"We can’t rely on a maybe, Hermione!" Harry complained.

"Maybe Kreacher pinched it?" I said and Harry leapt up again, eyes burning into me.

"Oh, God," he whispered. "Please. Please let Kreacher have stolen it. Kreacher?" he called, looking uncertain, but there a loud crack and a resentful-looking house-elf materialised in my bedroom.

He glared at Hermione and muttered, "Kreacher must serve his master, but master calls poor Kreacher into a nest of traitors and Mudbloods, what would my mistress say. What does my master want?" he eyed Harry evilly.

Harry ignored the angry muttering and showed him the page in the heavy book. "See this locket, Kreacher?" he asked.

"Kreacher sees," the elf spat. "Kreacher sees everything in his mistress's house being destroyed by his master and his nasty friends."

"This locket was in the drawing room at 12 Grimmauld Place until summer last year. I saw Sirius throw it into a rubbish bag – did you take it out again, Kreacher?"

"It was not his to throw away! Kreacher kept Master Regulus' locket. Kreacher helped Master Regulus. Always helped. Helped him in the cave, yes he did."

"What do you mean?" Hermione interrupted his muttering.

"Kreacher doesn't speak to Mudblood," he sneered, looking Hermione up and down and making my blood boil.



"Answer me, Kreacher," Harry snapped. "What do you know about the cave?"

"Master Regulus needed help, he trusted Kreacher, needed my help," Kreacher boasted. "Couldn't find his locket without me, needed someone in his boat, his boat couldn't take two wizards."

"Harry!" I gasped. "Professor Dumbledore took you because the boat can't hold two full-grown wizards."

Kreacher laughed. "Did my stupid master try and find the locket? Try and cross the lake? Cross the drowned? All for nothing! Master Regulus was the clever one, we had taken it already, and my mistress kept it after Master Regulus died. Master Regulus was loyal to his family, Master Regulus…"

"Where is that locket?" Harry interrupted.

"Stolen!" Kreacher crowed.

"You stole it, Kreacher. You have to give it back to me, if I ask for it."

"Kreacher doesn't have it!" the elf smirked. "Kreacher can give nothing to his master, Kreacher had the locket, but nasty sneak-thief stole it from him!"

Harry looked up at us and shrugged, but Hermione whispered, "Mundungus!"

Kreacher gave her a filthy look and said, "Yes, the Mudblood works with the sneak-thief to take all my mistress's beautiful things. The thief took it last year, master won't find it. It's gone. And only Kreacher knew, but Kreacher didn't tell…"

"Go back to Hogwarts," Harry snapped and Kreacher vanished with a snap.

"Mundungus?" Harry said. "How am I going to get to see Mundungus?"

"Break into Azkaban?" I suggested.

oOoOo