Chapter 6
The food from Annabelle lasted with the rationing they had begun enforcing more strictly. Tensions were at an all-time high, each of them taking the stress of no progress in their own way: Rebecca was quiet, Ron still listened to the radio ever waking hour, Harry muttered to himself wherever he went--repeating the unanswered questions they were all asking themselves--Hermione poured over every book she had brought with a ferocity new even to her. It didn't matter if they found more of the horcruxes if they couldn't destroy them.
Rebecca was cutting the tangled mats out of Harry's hair when Hermione, sat at the table in their tent, sat up straight with a gasp.
"Oh my god!"
Harry's hands shot to the sides of his head, thinking Rebecca had done something irreparable to his hair. Rebecca gave him a look and set the scissors down to see what Hermione had found.
"What is it?" Harry asked as he followed Rebecca.
Hermione held her hand up, needing to sort her thoughts out before she could share them. "I'll tell you in one minute.
Harry waited as long as he could, ten seconds. "Now?"
Hermione looked up excitedly. "The Sword of Gryffindor! It's Goblin-made."
Harry glanced at Rebecca to see if she showed any signs of understanding, but she seemed as confused as he was. "Brilliant?
"You don't understand," Hermione flipped the page of the book she was reading. "Dirt and rust have no effect on the blade. 'It only takes in that which makes it stronger.'"
Rebecca furrowed her brow, still not seeing the point.
Hermione pointed to Harry and raised her voice, caught up in her discovery. "You've already destroyed one horcrux, right? Tom Riddle's diary in the Chamber of Secrets!"
Harry raised an eyebrow. "With a basilisk fang! If you tell me you have of those in your bag..."
Rebecca's laugh escaped her and Harry couldn't help but smile. Laughter was rare.
"In the Chamber of Secrets, you stabbed the basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor. Its blade is laden with basilisk venom now."
It dawned on Rebecca and Harry instantly. "It only takes in that which makes it stronger."
"Exactly!" Hermione turned the book so that Rebecca could read it easier from over Hermione's shoulder.
"It can destroy horcruxes." Harry said quietly, talking to himself. "That's why Dumbledore left it to me in his will."
"It's one of a kind, unfortunately. We won't find another." Rebecca's eyes scanned the diagrams on the page. "You are brilliant, Hermione."
"I'm highly logical." Hermione brushed away the praise. "I look past extraneous detail to see that which others overlook."
Rebecca pushed the side of Hermione's head and went back to the book.
Harry straightened his glasses and moved to sit opposite Hermione. "There's only one problem, of course, we-"
The light flew out of the lantern, plunging the room into darkness. Ron stepped out of the shadows he produced with the Deluminator in hand. "The sword was stolen." He let the light go back into the room, and the rage that was barely suppressed from his voice was obvious on his face. "Yeah, I'm still here. You carry on though; don't let me spoil the fun."
"This isn't fun, Ron." Rebecca looked back down to the book with the light now returned. "We thought you were still asleep."
"Oh!" Ron gasped and clapped his hands slowly. "She speaks! Call the bloody Prophet!"
Harry turned on the bench and jumped to Rebecca's defense. "Look, if you've got something to say then say it. But don't be an arse. Becs didn't-"
"Becs?!" Ron snapped harshly. "Since when do you call her that?"
Harry looked to Hermione confused. They had all called Rebecca that on occasion. "It's a nickname? Rebecca--Becs. It's literally-"
"Don't explain it to me like I'm stupid!" Ron bellowed, making the three at the table jump. "I'm just as smart as all of you!"
"No one said you weren't, Ron." Hermione stood up and approached Ron slowly. It was obviously the next person's turn with the locket. "Maybe you should-"
"No!" Ron stepped back from her. "Don't! How can you sit there happy when now we've got another damn thing to find?"
Rebecca looked up. "I thought you know what you signed up for--searching. It didn't come with a map, you know."
"Yeah, I thought I knew too." Ron scowled.
Rebecca stood and slammed the book shut. "I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what part of this hasn't lived up to your expectations." She was shouting now too. "Did you think we'd be staying in hotels every night? Finding a horcrux every other day?" Rebecca circled the table and stood closer to Ron. "That we'd be home by Christmas?"
"My home." Ron stared at Rebecca as she froze. "I thought I'd be back at my home." Ron turned on Harry and raised his voice again. "I thought, after all this time, that we would have actually achieved something! I thought you two knew what you were doing! That you had a plan!"
Harry scoffed and moved to Rebecca's side.
"I thought Dumbledore would have told you something worthwhile!" Ron added another layer to the insult.
"I told you everything Dumbledore told me--we both have." Harry argued back. "And we've already found a horcrux! We-"
"We're as close to destroying it as we are finding another, aren't we!" Ron sneered as Rebecca met his eyes once more. "What? Something to say?"
"Ron," Hermione stepped between them. "You wouldn't be saying this if you hadn't been wearing it all day." She reached up and tried to get the horcrux off from around his neck, but Ron threw her arms away from him and stared at Rebecca over Hermione's head.
"Do you want to know why I listen to that radio every minute? I have to make sure I don't hear Ginny's name. Or Fred. Or George. Or mum. Or-"
"You think I don't know how that feels?" Rebecca screamed back, pointing at Ron. "You think I'm not listening for-"
"NO!" Ron shouted over her. "No, you don't know how that feels! Your parents are dead. Mum and dad--MY MUM AND DAD--aren't yours! You've only got one brother and he's here with you! My brothers and sister aren't!" Ron twisted the knife. "You have no ties to them, not really. Nothing but a fake marriage!"
Rebecca launched herself past Hermione and threw a fist at Ron's eye as he jumped backwards and tried to hit her back. His fists, even fueled by the horcrux, weren't enough to get her off.
Harry had to link his arms under Rebecca's and pull her off as she continued to swing at him. "You ever say that again--YOU EVER SAY THAT AGAIN I'LL KILL YOU! You bloody hear me!" She struggled against Harry harder. "Don't you-I'm not-You..." Rebecca couldn't breathe a moment as her mind went faster than her mouth could follow.
Ron stood up and wiped at his bleeding nose with his sleeve. "Was anything I said something you haven't thought before?"
Harry let Rebecca go in shock at how low Ron had gone. Even Hermione didn't realise Ron could have been capable of such destruction, and she had been victim to his more so than anyone. Hermione looked at Rebecca and saw the walls being put up behind the one-already-darkening eyes.
"Then go!" Rebecca spat. "If you want to go be with your family so badly, go." She wiped at her face, angry tears spilling. "Go be with your family because you clearly haven't got any here."
Ron tore the horcrux off and threw it down on the ground before swinging his bag over his shoulder roughly. He eyed Hermione pointedly. "What about you? Are you coming or are you staying?"
Hermione looked over her shoulder at Harry and Rebecca. She couldn't leave.
"Fine." Ron scoffed. "I get it. I saw you two the other night, you know? You're not as sneaky as you think."
"There isn't anything to see!" Hermione breathed. "That-We're on a mission!" Ron had already thrown open the tent flaps and stormed out. Hermione raced after him. "Where are you going? Ron! Please, come back!"
Harry laid his hands on Rebecca's shoulders and turned her towards him, tightening his grip when she tried to pull back. "Just listen, okay?" He waited until Rebecca nodded that she was. "Everything he just said, it was all a lie. You said it best ages ago: 'Family is who we choose.'"
Rebecca looked up at him with a blank face threatening to break under the weight of her heart's aching. "The horcrux doesn't make the thoughts, Harry. It amplifies them."
Harry pulled Rebecca into his arms and whispered the things he thought he would want to hear had the roles been reversed. But he didn't think anyone had ever say anything that would cut so deeply before, so he could only try his best.
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"Salvio hexia."
"Repellum muggletum."
"Salvio hexia."
"Repellum muggletum."
Rebecca walked in a slow circle on top of the mountain they had apparated to. Hermione had chosen the location, needing to get far away from where Ron had left them, but not before she had tied her scarf around one of the trees nearby.
Harry had tried to get them to speak to him, to speak to each other even, but both girls were too far locked behind their own walls of hurt and existential issues to appease his attempts.
Rebecca had taken to staring into the locket Fred had chosen when it wasn't her turn to wear the horcrux. Fred's photo filled the left window, one she was incredibly happy she had managed to get. He was sitting on the bench outside the Burrow, looking towards the window and noticing she was photographing him. Then, in the photo, Fred broke into the crooked smile that sent her heart racing before throwing his head back and laughing heartily.
She didn't look at the other side, she couldn't. Not without Ron's parting words echoing around her head. It was a family portrait from the last time Bill and Charlie had been home at the same time. Ron had insisted the Rebecca go beside him for the picture and he had his arm around her happily, both of them looking at each other before the camera.
Hermione reached over from her cot and turned the radio on as the evening grew later and the night's Potterwatch was due to start. The broadcasts had grown more random and spaced out as their weeks on the road had turned into months, but they were usually able to figure out when the next one would be.
Instead of the sounds of their friends and other Order members, music poured out and filled the tent. Harry pushed himself up from his chair at the table and held his hands out to them cheekily, "May I?"
Hermione looked at Harry's outstretched hand before grabbing it and catching Rebecca as she stood. Harry gave Rebecca a small smile and took the locket off from around her neck before setting it on the bed behind her. For this moment, they could all be only themselves.
"C'mon," Harry grinned. "You've got to show me how. I never did figure this part out." He moved from side to side, nowhere near anything resembling a beat.
Hermione laughed, her head falling back at the depth it reached in her. "Remember the Yule ball? How bruised Parvati's toes were?"
Rebecca's laugh joined Hermione's.
Harry continued to move, bringing the girls with him. "Oh yeah, keep making fun of me! How about when I asked Luna to the Slug Club with a yellow eyebrow!"
Rebecca's laughter grew and she raised her hand with Harry's to spin him like Fred always did her. The hurt of remembering how long it had been since she had been able to see her Fred wasn't as sharp as she thought it would have been--not with her friends alongside her hurting and trying their best too.
Harry stumbled as he tried to spin with Hermione's hand still in his and nearly pulled them all to the ground.
And then, after the song, things went back to how they had been.
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Rebecca spent the next afternoon the next day tossing rocks down the mountain side, trying not to think about anything in particular. The locket was back onto Hermione and it would be her turn next. Rebecca dreaded it.
The worst thing to do with the locket was to sleep; it turned her dreams into montages of violence, her worst thoughts--the ones you shoved to the bottom of your being and pretended you never had--played over and over. Her family, her loved ones...all suffered at her actions, at her hands. The pains came after she wore the locket for too long, accompanying the whispers.
Rebecca tossed her last rock and stood, planning on taking a nap before the switch.
"Sorry!"
Harry jumped out of bed, pulling the snitch away from his mouth. "It wasn't like that!"
"You were snogging your snitch without wank-"
"No! I wasn't-I wasn't snogging or-"
"Alright. Alright." Rebecca raised an eyebrow and held her hands up for him to calm down before he melted out of mortification. "You were...not doing anything then."
Harry's cheeks still burnt as he spoke. "It wasn't snogging. I was thinking about something Hermione said once, something about snitches having flesh memories. I caught this one by-"
"Eating it out of the air." Rebecca crossed the tent and studied the snitch, thoroughly intrigued. "And?"
Harry held it back up to his lips and turned it to Rebecca so she could see before it disappeared. "It says, 'I open at the close.'"
"Well, what the hell does that mean?"
"I don't know, but you know who might!"
And that's how they both ran out of the tent, calling for Hermione in unison.
"I'm not sure." Hermione hated saying that, especially when they looked to her with so much hope. "But I found something too. Look at this, it's been inked in." Hermione held up the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard that Dumbledore had left her in his will. "I thought maybe it was an eye. It isn't a rune and it isn't in Spellman's Syllabary."
Harry pointed at the triangle with a circle and a line inside. "Luna's dad wore that at the wedding!"
"Why do you think it's in a children's book?" Rebecca looked out at the distance as she mulled over her own questions. "Children can't even read, you ever think about that? We call them children's books, but it's not like they're the ones reading the stores. Their parents do." Harry and Hermione stared at her. "They should be called parents' books."
Harry took a sharp breath and decided to voice something he had been thinking about, Rebecca's odd thought pattern creating the opportunity. "I want to go to Godric's Hollow." Behind the girls, the winter sun began to set. "It's where we were born, it's where our parents died-"
"That's exactly where he'll expect you to go." Hermione reasoned. "Because it means something to you two."
"But," Rebecca added. "It would mean something to him, too. You-Know-Who almost died there. It's bound to be a sore spot." She especially despised that Voldemort had weaponised his name. All of their efforts to never be afraid to speak a name were erased as now it acted as a beacon for snatchers.
"That'll be the exact type of place he would be likely to leave a horcrux." Harry finished.
"It's dangerous." Hermione sighed. "But even I have to admit, I've been thinking we'll have to go there anyway."
"What do you think is there?" Rebecca asked.
"The sword. If Dumbledore wanted you two to find it, but not for it to fall into the Ministry's hands, where better to hide it than the birthplace of the founder of Gryffindor?"
"Oh." Rebecca scratched the back of her neck. "I didn't put that together--guess there's not that many Godric's though."
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"Of course there's bloody snow." Rebecca shivered. "There's always snow."
Hermione looked around the little hamlet they stepped out of the trees near and ignored Rebecca's complaints. It had taken longer than they had expected to pack the campsite and, but the time they were ready to apparate to the birthplace of both the Potter twins and Gryffindor, the sun had set.
"I still think we should have used Polyjuice Potion." Hermione sighed.
Harry repeated himself. "This is where we were born. We're not returning as anyone but ourselves."
Harry held an arm out for each girl to take and the three of them walked down the empty streets slowly. There were lights in the windows and wreaths on the doors, smoke billowed out of chimneys and filled the air with a home-like coziness. A bell tolled out and ahead, where a man left a door ways, there were calls to enjoy the gift and the holiday.
"I think it's Christmas eve." Rebecca looked around the fronts of the homes they passed and couldn't help but remember her first Christmas at the Burrow.
Harry nodded, finding himself filled with thoughts of his Christmases in the castle. Ahead, past the church, was the graveyard. "Do you think that they're in there?"
"I think so, but there's only one way to find out." Hermione walked behind Harry and Rebecca as they searched the rows, eventually going in a different direction so that they could have a little bit of privacy--she sensed that this was something they needed to do with only each other. Leaving Harry and Rebecca, their arms still linked, Hermione read the gravestones with care as she went.
On one, she found a strange indentation on the plaque near the path. Upon brushing it off, the grave with the same symbol that was in her book from Dumbledore, was the name "Ignotus Peverell."
Across the yard, Harry and Rebecca stood in front of the grave with different expectations. Harry looked to the marble that with Lily Potter and James Potter carved into it and thought he would feel a burst of inspiration, that his parents might bestow on him where they needed to go next. Rebecca thought that the final resting place of her parents would bring an end to the hold left in her chest by Ron's words. Neither Potter child was given what they hoped.
Rebecca stood there, next to the roots of her blood, and felt like she and Harry were planets away from everyone they cared about--Hermione excluded.
Hermione joined them later, once they had had their silence. She crouched down and conjured a wreath to rest against the quote below James and Lily's names: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
A sob escaped Harry and Rebecca pulled his head down into her shoulder, patting his back. "Hey, we're here. It's alright."
Her words didn't pause his crying. "I know that you're here, but nothing's right. You're both here and I don't know where to go. I don't know what we're supposed to do. I'm failing you and I'm failing them and-they died for-"
"That's enough, Harry." Rebecca's hands tightened around him before pulling him back enough to rest an icy-hand against his emotion-warmed cheeks. "They died so that we could live. As long as we do that, we're not failing them."
Harry took a moment and composed himself enough to stand on his own. "I'm sorry." He said, wiping his nose.
"Don't be." Hermione grabbed his arm and looked at them both. "I love you two."
"I love you both, so much." Rebecca paused and gave them a small smile. "Happy Christmas."
"Happy..." Harry froze, looking past both girls. "There's someone watching, by the church."
Rebecca tightened her grip on her wand and looked after Hermione had. There was an old woman down the path, an old woman who stared at them a moment longer before shuffling away.
Harry began leading them after the woman, now ahead of them in the street. "I don't like this, Harry." Hermione whispered.
"This is stupid. We are following a stranger." Rebecca scowled up at him and raised her hand. "Couldn't even tie my bloody shoes and I know that this isn't a good thing."
Hermione looked to Harry even more seriously. "She didn't even know what a dentist was and she knows you don't follow a stranger!" Hermione brought her voice down from where it had raised to, calming herself. "Though, we really do need to get that fixed. You're supposed to go to the dentist twice a year and the optometrist-"
"You have to go back once you have glasses?" Rebecca asked incredulously. "But I've already got the damned glasses!"
Hermione's jaw dropped. "That's it, that is our next stop. There'll be an opthamologist in a small town somewhere. When's that prescription even from?"
Rebecca stared at Hermione. "When I got them? I don't know."
Harry gave Rebecca a concerned glance before shaking their chatter from his head. "Right now, we need to follow her. I think that's Bathilda Bagshot and she knew Dumbledore. If he'd left the sword here for us, it'll be with her. I'm sure of it."
Harry raced ahead and into Bathilda's slumped, tilted house before they could say another word. Rebecca and Hermione stepped into the house and found Harry helping the old woman light a candle.
"Miss Bagshot?" Harry asked. "Did you know Albus Dumbledore?"
Bathilda did nothing but pick up the now lit candle.
"Miss, do you know where-"
"Hermione, come look at this!" Rebecca interrupted forcefully. Hermione didn't continue with her question and went to Rebecca. "Don't mention the sword, or anything important at that. Something's off, something doesn't feel right here." Rebecca and Hermione looked over their shoulders as Harry disappeared up the spiral staircase with the woman. "And he's gone."
"Bloody idiot." Hermione muttered. "Be ready to go. You're right, something is off."
Rebecca climbed over the piles of junk on the floor to get to the bottom of the stairs and hurried up them, pushed faster by the sound of Parseltongue. Upstairs, Bathilda Bagshot was hissing in Harry's face.
"Harry?" Rebecca called. Bathilda slammed the door between them shut. Rebecca went to it, knocking on it before trying to force it open. "Harry!"
Hermione, still downstairs, followed the buzzing that seemed to reverberate through the walls. "Lumos." In the kitchen, Hermione's wand illuminated the swarms of flies and the blood.
Rebecca knocked on the door harder. "Miss Bagshot? Open this door!"
Harry stood with his back against the wall while Bathilda jerked violently. After spasming, she froze and opened her mouth. Her face froze before she dropped to the floor a pile of robes.
Rebecca kicked the door open just as a snake larger than any either had ever seen flailed out and snapped its jaws at them. It lunged at Harry primarily, ignoring Rebecca as much as possible. Harry used whatever he could pick up to swing at the lunges. The first hit he landed on the snake sent the stool he had held into splinters and the second sent Harry through the wall.
"Serpens mori!" Rebecca tried, but the spell only turned the snake onto her more ferociously. Rebecca jumped to the left and slammed the door onto the snake's neck as it tried to follow after her.
Unable to push through, the snake retreated and slithered back into the room. Launching itself through the hole Harry had left and wrapping it's serpentine body around Harry's for the killing squeeze. Harry's wand was useless at such close quarters and he was thrown about from side to side. When his fingers brushed against a brick, he brought it up over his head and onto the snake.
Hermione sprinted up the stairs and found Rebecca bent over Harry's curled-onto-itself body. Behind them, the snake reared for another, final strike. Hermione threw up a magic block that sent the snake down into the hold in the floorboards and Harry's wand clattered to the floor near Rebecca. She snatched it off the ground before pulling Harry to his feet, eying the arm he held gingerly to his chest carefully.
Panting, all three of them thought that the fight was over. But the snake wasn't done. It launched back up at them with a renewed vigor that was met with Hermione's even-faster response. "Confringo!" A burst of flame sent the snake to the ground once again.
Hermione put an arm through Harry's and Rebecca's and half-dragged, half-led them to the window where she then took the lead and apparated them back into the wilderness.
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"I don't want it." Fred called from his bed as someone knocked at the door again. Tea, a snack, a chat, a hug...He didn't want any of it.
George opened the door and Cedric lingered in the doorway. "I think you're going to want to see this."
Fred swung his legs out of bed with an angry sigh. It was bad enough to be away from Rebecca. It was worse to be stuck in Aunt Muriel's shell cottage. But it was absolute hell to not be allowed his misery.
Fred clomped down the stairs angrily. "I just want to be left-Oh my god." Fred's hand shot to his heart. "No, don't-She-"
"They're fine!" Ron answered quickly, before his brother fell faint down the last few stairs. "They all were."
"Were?" Fred repeated breathily. Seeing Ron at the table had, for a moment, made Fred think the unimaginable had happened. "What are you doing here?" He noticed that Ron's eye was bruised and his lip was split. "Was it Snatchers?"
"Sit down, Fred." Molly patted the chair beside her. "We're all going to talk."
When Ron had finished retelling his tale with an admirable level of absolute honesty, he lowered his head and repeated what he had said to Rebecca that final evening. Ron had hardly finished when Fred launched himself across the table and sent glasses careening to their shattering deaths. Fred slammed Ron's back onto the floor and brought his fist back to punch.
Ron made no move to defend himself, only closed his eyes for the imminent justice he deserved. Fred's hand stayed in the air.
Ron opened his eyes a few moments later when nothing had happened and stared up at the emotions flashing across Fred's face. One moment there would be rage, the next despair. Underneath it all was loss. Loss of respect for Ron, loss of hope for their mission, loss in hope for the future.
Ron shook his head. "I'm so sorry."
Fred stood up and looked around at the mess Molly was magically cleaning. "I'll be in my room." He climbed the stairs in silence and charmed his door so that the sounds pouring out of him couldn't reach the rest of the house.
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Rebecca filled buckets of water at the river with blocks and shards of ice floating down it by levitating buckets to the edge and them back to the snowy ground beside her. Harry had been unconscious for hours. The healing from the snake bite left him so. Hermione focused on building a fire warm enough to combat the chill around them.
"Where are we again?" Rebecca asked, her breath pluming in front of her as she spoke.
"Forest of Dean." Hermione smiled, thinking of her memories and their missing classmate. "I came here once with mum and dad. Years ago." Hermione looked around them, at the twisting trees with snow-layered branches, at the river in the distance, at the solitude of it all. "It's just how I remember it."
Rebecca eased herself to the ground and scooted closer to the fire.
"It's like nothing's changed. Not true, or course." Hermione gave Rebecca a cynical smile. "Everything's changed."
Rebecca shrugged. "I haven't changed. I'm still me, I think at least." Rebecca looked around. "We could stay here, you know. I may have suggested an 'island' lesbian colony, but I could make due with a forest colony, too."
Hermione laughed at that. "I am still not starting a colony with you, sapphic or not!" She noticed how Rebecca's glasses were scratched. "I was serious, you know. We are going to find an in-store glasses maker and you're going to get a new prescription. You probably don't know what any of us actually look like!"
Rebecca sighed. "I know exactly what you look like. You have blue eyes, right?" Hermione threw a handful of snow towards her. "Alright, alright. I'm taking the mick. I know they're brown."
Hermione brought the subject to the book on her lap. "This name sound familiar to you: Gellert Grindelwald?"
Rebecca thought a long moment and shook her head. "Is it supposed to?"
Harry burst out of the tent as Hermione went to answer, wobbling from the after effects of the potions Hermione and Rebecca had given him. "Meh 'and!" He shouted, delirious. "Where's my wand!"
Rebecca stood up and caught him by the arm, settling him onto the ground she had just been sitting at. It had been Hermione's idea to explain it to him while he wasn't fully aware, to see if the blow would be softened. "It-The curse rebounded as we were leaving Godric's Hollow." Rebecca set his wand, snapped in two, onto his leg. "We've tried to mend it. Wands are different, so we haven't figured it out just yet, but-"
"It's done?" Harry asked, looking at his wand with unfocused eyes. "My wand?"
"No, Harry. We'll fix it." Rebecca spoke softly and lifted him back to his feet. "You good on watch for a minute?"
"Take him in and get warm." Hermione shooed them back to the tent. "No need for us both to be out here."
Rebecca nodded and tried to get Harry back into bed. "C'mon, Harry. Let's have a little lie down, yeah?"
Harry turned to the double-cot and refused to let go of Rebecca's hand.
"Harry?" Rebecca asked.
"I don't want to be alone." He slurred slightly, wavering as he stood. "I don't...alone."
Rebecca lifted the blanket and covered him tightly before kissing his forehead and lying next to him. "You're not alone, Harry."
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"It's been days, Fred." George spoke through the door through tears and desperation. "Please, eat something!"
Fred didn't answer. He had a routine since Ron's return: He woke up, cursed the fact that he wasn't on that damned mission with them, sulked to his desk, and began to while away the hours until he could sleep again. Fred obsessively worked on the Shield-Caps Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was making for the order, then he would write in his notebook until he couldn't keep his eyes open.
Cedric had been the one to suggest the strangely therapeutic notebook--it held everything he wished he could say to Rebecca. It was nearly the same thing every day, but there was a momentary relief when Fred got into the writing and could close his eyes as the quill scratched on the paper where he could pretend he was conversing with her.
I miss you. Did you know that? I'm sure you're missing me--I hope at least. That's where you would hit me and I would pretend it hurt so that you would kiss it better. It never hurt, you'd never do anything to hurt me. Rebecca, I hate this. I hate this world that needs you as much as I do because it can all just burn down, I don't care. Not if it means you will come home. Fuck what's right, you hear me?
I know you're too good to believe in that though. You'll fight and fight until this is over and I am trying to think as you would, but it's hard. Hard without you here...
With Ron's return, an increasingly angry tone in his writings came. Part of the reason that Fred stayed upstairs was because Ron was there, he didn't know if he could control himself. Not with Ron in the house, in safety, while his Rebecca--his wife for all intents and purposes--was out doing what Ron hadn't been strong enough to.
"Fred?" A different voice spoke behind the door, Sirius. "I'm coming in."
Fred didn't move from the desk, continuing to work. He ignored the plate that had been set beside him. It smelt disgusting, nothing tasted as it was supposed to anymore. Nothing was right.
"Son," Sirius laid a hand on Fred's wrist. "It's your responsibility to keep yourself healthy. You need to eat to do that."
Fred let the quill rest in the inkwell. "I don't care."
Sirius sighed and set the plate more in front of him. "We all have to do things we don't want to. It's not about you, though. Not really. How is your mother supposed to feel as you lock yourself up here every hour of every day? Your twin?"
"I don't care."
Sirius reached forward and smacked Fred's head. "That's a lie. You're being a child."
"I am not!" Fred shouted and stood up, looming over the older man. "I miss-"
"DON'T YOU DARE!" Sirius roared. He took a breath before he continued, he hadn't come up here to shout at Fred. "Don't you dare tell me that you miss her and that's why you're doing this to yourself." Sirius shook his head. "I spent twelve years away from my RJ. I spent every full moon knowing he was hurting all on his own. I spent every birthday, every anniversary, every-"
"I'm sorry." Fred bowed his head, his shoulders already beginning to shake. "I didn't-I didn't mean it. I know you know."
Sirius pulled the tall boy, as a boy is all he was in the moment, into his arms and waited for his tears to dry. When Fred had stilled, Sirius patted his back and put the plate into his hands. "Eat. If not for you, for her."
Fred picked up the sandwich and took a bite.
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Harry opened his eyes a few hours after he drifted into a strange period of dozing. Rebecca slept on in the cot beside him and at the sight of the rubble still in her hair, Harry remembered what had happened in Godric's Hollow.
Rebecca stirred as he left the tent, the cold air forcing her to burrow under the covers farther.
"Better?" Hermione asked as he took the same spot at the base of the tree as he had when he was delirious. "The bite, that is."
Harry pulled his sleeve up so she could see that their healing had only left two, much smaller injuries. "Two of us need to go to a town. We need food."
Hermione sighed. "It'll be the last of the money from...Caterham." It seemed wrong to say from Rebecca's past. "There was something else, wasn't there?"
Harry stared at her uncomprehendingly.
Hermione took the locket off and handed it to Harry. The obliviousness of he and Rebecca became too much to handle after wearing it for long. "Where she got the money, there was something else."
"It isn't important." Harry had sensed it too. All that money had not come from wallets and picking pockets. "It's just not important."
Hermione stood up and brushed her blanket it off before handing it to Harry. "We'll go now. It's early enough for shops to be open and not busy. I was serious about finding an eye tech. I can't even imagine how...that has to be fixed."
Harry nodded. He couldn't imagine it either. Even the Dursleys took him to Dudley's appointments so he could get his eyes checked. "Don't ask about the money."
Hermione gave him a hard look. "I know, Harry. I do have manners." She sighed. "It-I wonder how much we really know about her."
Harry stared into the fire. "We know everything we need to."
*******************************************
Rebecca pursed her lips as they entered the empty shop. "Where are we again?"
Hermione picked a town on the map that wasn't too far from the Forest of Dean, but was far enough that their location couldn't be found if they were recognised. "You know where we are. You just want me to say it so you can whinge."
The optical office on the high street didn't open for a half hour which was fine with Rebecca because she wasn't even sure why they were wasting time on it. She pointed at the tins at the back of the shelf Hermione was at. "Look, marked down."
Hermione read through the ingredients. "This doesn't have a single-this hardly has any nutrients." Rebecca put three tins into the basket. "You are unbelievable."
Rebecca tried to look serious, but grinned. "I know."
The man working the till hardly looked at them. He scanned their items quickly and ignored that they carried them out by the armful. Once away from the potential lookers, Hermione slipped them into her bag with as little dents or noise as possible.
"We really can just-"
"No." Hermione dragged Rebecca to the door with cartoon glasses on it and opened it before she could say another word.
"Morning!" A frazzled woman poked up from the counter. "Sorry, seem to have lost an eye."
Rebecca picked up the plastic, white orb that rolled towards them. "I see that."
The woman laughed loudly, taking the eye from Rebecca and putting it back on the stand behind the glasses. "That was quite good!" The woman held her hand out to shake theirs. "Dr Brigg, ladies. You are?"
"I'm Lavender and this is Yara." Hermione answered.
Dr Brigg looked over them carefully, neither look like those names at all. "And what can I help you with today?"
"A new prescription." Rebecca tapped her glasses. "Apparently that's a thing."
Hermione followed them to the back, answering every question with a well-placed, vague story. Dr Brigg listened, but didn't believe a single word.
"Specs off, dear." Rebecca held them in one hand. "Cover your right eye and read this row, okay?"
Rebecca held her hand up to her eye and looked at the shapes on the poster. "4. 9. H. P. 8? That one might be a G though."
Hermione stared at what Rebecca was reading off of. There wasn't a number on the whole chart.
"And the left?" Dr Brigg scribbled on her paper a few notes. The left was albeit slightly better than the right. But it still wasn't good. "I'm confused as to why your parents haven't brought you in before. I think I need to have a chat with them before we go any farther. This is a serious issue, ladies. We're talking neglect on a nearly criminal level."
Hermione scrambled. "You can't! Talk to them that is. They're-"
"Dead." Rebecca took over the story. "Both of them. Dropped like flies, one and then the other."
"Oh my!" Dr Brigg held a hand to her mouth dramatically before putting it on her hip. "That's enough stories, I think. The truth, or this one remains impaired." She hopped up on one of the chairs behind the counter and crossed her arms. "I'm not going to call the police, if that's what you're worried about. I think vision is one of the most important things in the world, hence the occupation. But I won't be lied to."
"Well..." Rebecca put her glasses back on. "We haven't lied. Not once. If you're not going to help us then we'll just go."
Hermione lingered at the counter.
"Did you know that street signs aren't just for decoration, they're meant to be read?"
Rebecca paused and looked back. She hadn't known that. The letters were far too small to be seen from the pavement. Hermione's eyes widened at the shock on Rebecca's face and she told the optician as much as she could while keeping her safe. "We're runaways from a very real, very deadly danger. That's all we can tell you."
"And the glasses?" Dr Brigg questioned. "Who in their right mind wears the same pair since childhood without question?"
Rebecca put her frames back on the counter. "Look, clearly there's been a lot going on here. Are you going to swap the lenses for whatever you wrote down?"
"Only for the pun." Dr Brigg picked up the frames and held them to the light. "Without it, you'd both be booted out for your cheek." She reached under the counter and set a bowl of sweets between them. In the workspace behind, the doctor popped out Rebecca's old lenses and held the frames up. "You want the same frames?"
"Please." Rebecca liked her frames. Similar to Harry's in their simplicity, but hers had now black boundary on the round lenses like his did.
It took the doctor the better part of an hour, but she was true to her word--she set cleaned, updated glasses into Rebecca's hands and watched as she put them on for the reaction. This prescription was so different, there would be a noticable difference when Rebecca looked through them.
Rebecca slipped them over her ears and looked around the room quickly. Things were defined, more colourful. But it was the words...the words are what surprised her. She walked away from the counter to the shelves of labeled contacts and read through them hungrily. Before, they would have just been smudges until she was right in front of them. Now, she could see it all.
"I thought that was how everyone saw."
Dr Brigg watched curiously as Rebecca looked to Hermione the first time and hurried to be closer, scanning her face.
"You are..." Rebecca held her hands to her cheeks. "I can't believe this!"
"Believing is seeing." Dr Brigg offered happily. A police car rolled down the street and Rebecca's joy was extinguished immediately. Hermione grabbed her by the arm and moved so that she and Rebecca were crouched behind the counter at the doctor's feet.
"What-"
The door jingled. "Morning, doc." A deep voice called out. "Y'aven't seen a girl roun' here, have you? Got reports of two and we need 'em."
Dr Brigg paused, tapping her fingers on the counter like she was thinking. "No, I don't think I have. What do they look like?"
The officer rattled off some facts. "...black hair, one with brown. Dangerous, they are. Violent."
Dr Brigg shook her head and looked down at the calendar in front of her. "I haven't, Humphrey. But I know exactly who to call if I see anything." The door jingled again, but the doctor held her hand from the girls to wait. "What on earth have you two gotten yourselves into?"
"It's safer if you don't know." Rebecca looked over her shoulder. "Do you have a toilet we can use before we leave?"
Dr Brigg relayed instructions to a room past the examination room. Rebecca couldn't believe there was so much about her she hadn't noticed before, just by catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror in the hall.
Pausing before they were out of the doctor's sight, Rebecca turned back around. "Thank you. For all of this."
Hermione pulled Rebecca back into motion. Once they were both inside the toilet, Hermione pulled out the box of money with only a few pound notes inside.
"It's the thought that counts." Rebecca frowned as she set it with a hastily scribbled apology.
"I know. I wish there was more we could do." Hermione unlocked the door and checked to see if Rebecca was ready.
"Ready."
Both girls apparated back to their camp in the forest.
Dr Brigg, curious as to what could be taking them so long, would find the note and money in the empty bathroom. She would wonder about how they got out without passing her for hours, years even.
*******************************************
"Blimey, Harry!" Rebecca had gushed over how handsome and how beautiful Hermione was well into the evening. "No bloody wonder you're one of the Chosen Ones!"
Harry laughed and ate from the tin Rebecca held out to him. "That's enough, really! Wait until you see..." His voice trailed away.
Rebecca grew more somber. "Yeah, I know."
Hermione tried to take first watch, but Rebecca wouldn't let either of them. "You two go on in a rest a while, I'll get you when it's time to switch."
Harry scratched the back of his neck. "About earlier-"
"What? Dinner?" Rebecca made it clear she didn't want to talk about it. "Get some sleep, okay?"
"Okay." Harry looked at her with his care clear. "You're okay, right?"
Rebecca waved her wand over the snow in front of her and made a miniature snowman that hopped towards Harry slowly. "I'm fine, but he's not. Better get somewhere warm! He looks menacing."
Harry stared at the snowman and kicked it over. "I'm terrified." Hermione and he laughed into the tent.
Rebecca grinned out at the fire and kept herself busy by making an army of small snowmen, only stopping when she ran out of places to put them without having to get up. She looked out at the clearing in front of the tent and shook her head in disbelief. Snow wasn't just white, it had piles and shadows and it raised and dipped with the ground underneath. The icicles weren't just there, they glittered and shone and now she saw how the fire made them flash a brief moments as they fell and hit the snow below.
And, as she alway did in the quiet moments she found herself alone, her thoughts turned to Fred.
*******************************************
Ron stayed at the cottage for just over a week. Fred only went downstairs on the morning of his departure. Sirius continued to bring him up every meal, talking sense into Fred about every topic.
Those aligning with managing anger and dealing with issues that didn't want to be dealt with were the most useful when it came to Ron. Ron had a backpack filled with food Molly had packed for the others, as well as letters he was to pass on if he was able to find them. George had slipped the one Fred had written for Rebecca in with the others day earlier, knowing that Fred wasn't able to face Ron yet.
The room fell silent as Fred appeared in the doorway, stubble peppered along his jaw and dark bags under his eyes.
Ron stood up straighter, avoiding Fred's eyes. Fred crossed the room and grabbed Ron by the straps of his backpack, forcing him to back pedal until he was against the wall. Fleur jumped to stop him, but Bill caught her hand and gave her a subtle shake of his head.
Fred bent his head down towards Ron. "When you find them," he spoke softly, though his words would stay with Ron as if he had screamed them at him. "You make it clear that you were wrong. That you didn't mean it. That you, and you alone, said those words." Fred shook his head. "You had better make her know this will always be her family."
Ron nodded. "I will."
Fred stared at Ron a long moment before pulling him into a tight hug. "Good." Fred held the back of Ron's head. "I should beat you into next year."
"You should."
"At least you know." Fred stepped back. "You'll tell her that-"
"I will." Ron looked around sadly. "I-I really fucked up."
Molly didn't admonish his language. "You'll fix it."
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