Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.

“All right, I’ll spit it out. Don’t expect me to skip up and down the tent because there’s some other damn thing we’ve got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don’t know.”

“I don’t know?” repeated Harry. “I don’t know?”

Plunk, plunk, plunk. The rain was falling harder and heavier; it pattered on the leaf-strewn bank all around them and into the river chattering through the dark. Dread doused Harry’s jubilation; Ron was saying exactly what he had suspected and feared him to be thinking.

“It’s not like I’m not having the time of my life here,” said Ron, “you know, with my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just hoped, you know, after we’d been running round a few weeks, we’d have achieved something.”

“Ron,” Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was beating on the tent.

“I thought you knew what you’d signed up for,” said Harry.

“Yeah, I thought I did too.”

“So what part of it isn’t living up to your expectations?” asked Harry. Anger was coming to his defense now. “Did you think we’d be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you’d be back to Mummy by Christmas?”

“We thought you knew what you were doing!” shouted Ron, standing up, and his words Harry like scalding knives. “We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan!”

“Ron!” said Hermione, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof, but again, he ignored her.

“Well, sorry to let you down,” said Harry, his voice quite calm even though he felt hollow, inadequate. “I’ve been straight with you from the start. I told you everything Dumbledore told me. And in the case you haven’t noticed, we’ve found one Horcrux—”

“Yeah, and we’re about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them—nowhere effing near in other words.”

“Take off the locket, Ron,” Hermione said, her voice unusually high. “Please take it off. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you hadn’t been wearing it all day.”

“Yeah, he would,” said Harry, who did not want excuses made for Ron. “D’you think I haven’t noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D’you think I didn’t guess you were thinking this stuff?

“Harry, we weren’t—”

“Don’t lie!” Ron hurled at her. “You said it too, you said you were disappointed, you said you’d thought he had a bit more to go on than—”

“I didn’t say it like that—Harry, I didn’t!” she cried.

The rain was pounding the tent, tears were pouring down Hermione’s face, and the excitement of a few minutes before had vanished as if it had never been, a short-lived firework that had flared and died, leaving everything dark, wet, and cold. The sword of Gryffindor was hidden they knew not where, and they were three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.

“So why are you still here?” Harry asked Ron.

“Search me,” said Ron.

“Go home then,” said Harry.

“Yeah, maybe I will!” shouted Ron, and he took several steps toward Harry, who did not back away. “Didn’t you hear what they said about my sister? But you don’t give a rat’s fart, do you, it’s only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I’ve-Faced-Worse Potter doesn’t care what happened to her in there—well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff—”

“I was only saying—she was with the others, they were with Hagrid—”

“Yeah, I get it, you don’t care! And what about the rest of my family, ‘the Weasleys don’t need another kid injured,’ did you hear that?”

“Yeah, I—”

“Not bothered what it meant, though?”

“Ron!” said Hermione, forcing her way between them. “I don’t think it means anything new has happened, anything we don’t know about; think, Ron, Bill’s already scared, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you’re supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I’m sure that’s all he meant—”

“Oh, you’re sure, are you? Right then, well, I won’t bother myself about them. It’s all right for you, isn’t it, with your parents safely out of the way—”

“My parents are dead!” Harry bellowed.

“And mine could be going the same way!” yelled Ron.

“Then GO!” roared Harry. “Go back to them, pretend you’re got over your spattergroit and Mummy’ll be able to feed you up and—”

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And with that, he vanished completely, leaving behind him nothing but his murky backdrop.	\|	Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner’s pocket, Hermione had raised her own.

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