I am damaged at best
like you've already figured out
-Broken by Lifehouse
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O
The elation felt between Harry and Hermione was short lived. Of course, both were absolutely thrilled they were dating their best friend. But the harsh reality around them became the focus.
"It's bloody cold in Russia," Ron said. The three young adults were currently hiking in a thick forest in the middle of Russia.
"Hopefully we're almost there," Harry said. He agreed; it was colder that all get out. Even between his six layers of clothes and the heating charm he had applied, he was cold. His toes were becoming numb. Harry turned to look at his girlfriend.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Harry asked. Her lips had a blue tinge to them. It was starting to worry him.
"I'm fine. I'm cold, just like the two of you," Hermione said. She was absolutely freezing. It would be no surprise if she ended up with frostbite.
"There's nothing here," Harry said. He came to a stop and looked down at the map that he and Hermione had drawn.
"If we came all the way to Russia and hiked for Merlin knows how many bloody miles for abso-fucking-lutely nothing, I'm busting some chops!" Ron growled. He came to a stop next to his best friend.
"There's supposed to be a small cabin here. We mapped it all out. Hermione spent hours making sure," Harry said, trailing off toward the end. This had all been for nothing. There was no cabin. There was no necklace. There wasn't a sign that anyone had even lived there.
There was only a beautifully frozen lake and tall, bare trees.
"Damn it!" Harry said. He sighed and saw down on the ground. It was cold, and the snow seeped through his jeans, but he didn't care. It was all for nothing. For all he knew, Voldemort could've moved the final Horcrux as soon as he figured out Harry knew about them. He was fucked. They were fucked.
"What are we going to do now?" Ron asked. He had taken a seat next to Harry. "That small village is at least fifty miles back. By the time we get there, it'll be dark and we don't know what lives in these woods."
"We're going to have to build camp here," Harry said. He sighed and reached into his pocket to withdraw a miniscule bag. Pointing his wand at it, Harry enlarged his nap sack. Beside him, Ron did the same.
Harry busied himself with setting up the tent and everything inside it while Ron set up an area for a fire.
"Right, well, there are three sleeping bags with fleece lining in there. I put warming charms on them too," Harry said as he came out of the tent. "It'll be sort of a tight fit, but we should be fine."
"Did you protect the tent from the conditions?" Ron asked.
"Yeah, there shouldn't be any problems," Harry said.
"Guys!" Hermione called out. Ron and Harry shared a look before jogging over to where she stood on the bank of the frozen lake.
"What's up?" Harry asked. His hand came to a rest in the middle of her back. Hermione pointed to the lake.
"What?" Ron asked.
"Look closely. What do you see?" Hermione asked. Harry looked down at the lake. The ice was thin enough that it provided a clear picture to the bottom of the lake. Harry looked hard but all he saw was weeds and rocks lying stagnant on the sandy bottom.
"What the bloody hell is that?" Ron asked.
"Do you see it?" Hermione asked.
"See what?" Harry asked.
"That. Right there, mate," Ron said. Down at the bottom of the lake there was a rather large rock in the shape of an `S'. A few inches from the base of it, there was a small sparkle.
"What is that?" Harry asked. He stepped forward a little more and peered closer from above the surface of the lake.
"Harry, be careful," Hermione said. "We don't know how frozen the lake is." Harry absentmindedly nodded as he withdrew his wand. He followed the outline of whatever the shiny object was.
"Incidere Glacies," Harry said.
"Mate, what are you doing?" Ron hissed.
"Relax, I'm just breaking the ice," Harry said.
"Ostando sum Humus," Harry spoke. A blast of orange light sped toward the bottom of the lake. The sand covering the shiny bauble disappeared, revealing the rest of the piece.
"Look," Harry said. He motioned Ron and Hermione closer to the edge. Down at the bottom, a diamond attached to a silver chain was lying motionless. Its sparkle was almost daunting.
"Is that…?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know, but it's sort of ironic since that's virtually what we're looking for," Harry replied.
"Is it…do you think it's cursed?" Ron asked.
"I don't know, but it's got to have some sort of protection," Harry said. "He wouldn't just leave it in plain sight like that."
"Not necessarily," Hermione said. "Sometimes less is more."
"Why would he leave a fraction of his soul unattended?" Ron asked.
"From everything that's happened with Voldemort, all of us know he's exceptionally arrogant," Hermione said. "Only a few people know exactly what he's done to stay alive, and most of them are dead. This is an extremely secluded area in the middle of Russia. Not too many people are going to stumble across this lake unless they know what to look for. And even if they do, chances are they won't notice a necklace all the way at the bottom of the lake. Hiding it in plain view could sort of be like a big screw you."
"He's so egotistical he'd be sure no one could touch it, let alone find it if they were looking for Horcruxes," Harry said.
"Exactly," Hermione agreed.
"So, what? We're just going to take a dive down to the bottom of an unknown lake and grab a piece of Voldemort's soul?" Ron asked.
"Pretty much," Harry said. "It looks shallow enough that if anything did happen, it wouldn't take much to get out."
"Right then," Ron said. "This is extremely stupid, but what choice do we have?"
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Harry said. He conjured up a rope and gave one end of it to Ron and wrapped the other end around his waist securely.
"If anything does go wrong, pull me up," Harry said. He took off his shoes and set them on the ground.
"Go down slowly," Hermione said. "The water will be exceedingly cold and your body will need to get used to it or you'll go into shock and die."
"Thanks for the good luck," Harry said sarcastically as he looked at his girlfriend. She rolled her eyes.
"Good luck, and be careful," she added. For extra measure, she gave him a small kiss. With that, she performed a bubble head charm and Harry slowly submerged himself into the water.
"Bloody hell, she wasn't kidding," was the last thing Ron and Hermione heard before he submerged his head into the water.
Slowly, Harry swam to the bottom of the lake. Fish scattered out of his way as he entered their domain. He looked back up toward the surface of the lake. He could make out the blurry faces of Ron and Hermione peering down at him. He gave them a thumbs up and continued downward.
Finally, he reached the `S' shaped rock and the necklace next to it. He stared for a second. What would happen if he touched it? Would he immediately be attacked? Or would he be free to go?
Here goes nothing he thought before he reached out and grabbed the necklace. He paused for a moment. Nothing happened. He looked around the lake and nothing had changed from before. Fish were still swimming around. There were no crazy creatures thirsting for his blood. He was good.
Turning around, he began to swim toward the surface. He did so slowly, following Hermione's directions to avoid shock and death. He suspected the warming charm he had applied during their hike was the only thing keeping his body from going completely numb.
His head broke the surface and he took a deep breath. Tossing the necklace onto the ground away from the lake, Harry lifted himself out of the water. He was immediately covered with warm towels and blankets.
"Cor, you were right," Ron said. He picked up the necklace while Hermione tended to Harry. Sure enough, the initials RR were on a small silver plate attached to the chain.
"We need to get you out of these clothes," Hermione said. Harry smirked.
"Don't you think it's a little early in our relationship for that?" he asked. The smart-alec effect was lost though, because of his chattering teeth.
"Shut up, Potter," Hermione said. She grabbed his hand and towed him to the tent. She opened up the tent flap.
"In," she said. Harry ducked in and she followed him. Ron stood awkwardly outside the tent waiting. It was one thing to deal with your best friends' relationship but to see it live was completely different. Hermione exited the tent a few minutes later.
"So, do you think it's the necklace?" she asked. Ron nodded and pointed to the initials. Harry emerged from the tent looking every bit like the Nanook of the North.
"Hermione, I feel like I'm frying," Harry mumbled as he joined his two best friends.
"Good. You might not get hypothermia then," she retorted.
"But I'm hot!" Harry complained.
"Look, it's below freezing out here, Harry. I don't know what I was thinking in the first place, letting you get in that water with weather like this," Hermione said.
"Well, how else were we going to get the necklace?" Harry asked.
"I don't know, we could've thought on it a little bit more. But letting you go into water when it's at the most fifteen degrees out was possibly one of my dumber moments," Hermione replied.
"But-" Harry began, but he was stopped.
"Right, you two. It's over and done with. We have the necklace and now we need to figure out how to get rid of it," Ron said, looking between his two best mates.
"We can start on that tomorrow, when we get back to school," Hermione said. She checked her watch.
"If we want to get back at any sort of decent time, then I suppose we should head to bed," she said.
"We'll do watches," Harry said. "That way, all of us can get some sleep and we'll still have a look-out."
"I'll grab first watch," Ron said.
"I've got second," Harry said. "Hermione, you'll grab third. We should leave around four, five at the latest."
"That gives us three four hour shifts," Hermione said. Ron nodded.
"Night then," Ron said. Harry and Hermione bade him goodnight and entered the tent. Ron sighed and made himself somewhat comfortable on the ground and leaned back against a log, close to the fire.
At that particular moment, the wind howled and blew a gust of biting air toward him. The flame of the fire flickered before it went out.
It was going to be a long night.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O
"Be quiet you two!" Hermione hissed. Behind her, Ron and Harry quieted down.
"It's bleeding two in the morning, Hermione. No one in there right mind is up," Ron hissed back.
"Do you think everyone here is in their right mind?" Hermione retorted. "For all we know, Filch could be up."
"If he isn't, Mrs. Norris will be. And then she'll go get Filch," Harry whispered.
"Oh, bollocks that cat! I swear, when we graduate, that cat is the first thing I'm hexing," Ron said.
"I've got dibs on Filch himself," Harry muttered. "That old bastard needs a swift kick in the arse."
"Honestly, are you two seventeen or three?" Hermione asked. Harry and Ron shared a look.
"Four," they said. Hermione rolled her eyes and they continued down the corridor. A flicker of a shadow crossed her eyesight and she immediately pressed up against the wall. Harry and Ron followed her example. Even with being under the cloak, they wanted to be as careful as possible. It would be a month's worth of detention if they were to be caught out of bed at this hour.
Slowly, Mrs. Norris walked passed the trio. The cat stopped and seemed to look directly at Harry. He sucked in his breath and held it. A second later, she continued down the corridor. Neither of the three removed themselves from the wall until the cat was completely out of sight.
"You know the only bad thing to this cloak is that it can't be enlarged," Ron mumbled.
"Why did you two have to grow so tall?" Hermione grumbled back.
"Good question," Harry added. He shifted forward a little, so he was more pressed into Hermione that Ron. Silently, Hermione reached back and took Harry's hand in her own.
They made their way back to Gryffindor Tower with little trouble. Hermione whipped the cloak off the three of them and handed it to Harry.
"Goodnight," she said. She leaned up and kissed Harry lightly before saying goodnight to Ron and going up the girls' staircase. Ron and Harry went up to the boys' dorm and quietly crept in.
"Night, mate," Ron called softly.
"Night," Harry said as he drew the curtains around his four poster bed. He climbed in to the warmed sheets and fell asleep almost instantly.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Well, it's up. And it only took four months too. How `bout them apples? Hopefully it won't take me forever and a day to get the next one written and up. I blame my muse for not feeling it until…now. Haha.
It's a day late. But was it a good post-Christmas present?
6 pages.
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