𝐋𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐝 {𝐇. 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫}

99

When Johnny woke the following day it was several seconds before he remembered what had happened. Then he hoped childishly, that it had been a dream, that Ron was still there and had never left. Yet by turning his head on his pillow he could see Ron's deserted bunk. It was like a dead body in the way it seems to draw his eyes. Johnny got up from his bed from his own bed, keeping his eyes averted from Ron's. Hermione, who was already busy in the kitchen, greeted Johnny with a small kiss to the cheek..

He's gone, Johnny told himself. He's gone. He had to keep thinking it as he washed and dressed as though repetition would dull the shock of it. He's gone and he's not coming back. And that was the simple truth of it, Johnny knew, because their protective enchantments meant that it would be impossible, once they vacated this spot, for Ron to find them again.

He, Harry and Hermione ate breakfast in silence.

The muddy river beside them was rising rapidly and would soon spill over onto their bank. They had lingered a good hour after they would usually have departed their campsite. Finally having entirely repacked the beaded bag three times, Hermione seemed unable to find any more reasons to delay: She, Johnny and Harry grasped hands and Disapparated, reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside. The instant they arrived, Hermione dropped Harry's and Johnny's hands and walked away from them, finally sitting down on a large rock, her face on her knees, shaking with what they knew were sobs. Johnny comforted her by wrapping his arms around her and letting Hermione cry into him, while Harry did the usual protective enchantments and setup the tent.

They didn't discuss Ron at all over the next few days. Harry and Johnny was determined never to mention his name again and Hermione seemed to know that it was no use forcing the issue.

By day, they devoted themselves to trying to determine the possible locations of Gryffindor's sword, but the more they talked about the places in which Dumbledore might have hidden it, the more desperate and far-fetched their speculation became. Racking through his brain, Johnny couldn't remember Dumbledore ever mentioning a place in which he might hide something. There were moments when he didn't know whether he was angrier with Ron or with Dumbledore. I thought you knew what you were doing... I thought Dumbledore had told you what to do... I thought you had a real plan!

Johnny and Harry couldn't hide it from themselves: Ron had been right. Dumbledore had left them with virtually nothing. They had discovered one Horcrux, but they had no means of destroying it: The others were as unattainable as they had ever been. Hopelessness threatened to engulf the two boys. Johnny was constantly, painfully on the alert for any indications that Hermione too was about to tell them that she had had enough. That she was leaving.

They were spending many evenings in near silence and Hermione took to bringing out Phineas Nigellus's portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of the gaping hole left by Ron's departure. Despite his previous assertion that he would never visit them again, Phineas Nigellus didn't seem able to resist the chance to find out more about what Harry and Johnny were up to and consented to reappear, blindfolded, every few days of so. They were even glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind. They relished any news about what was happening at Hogwarts, though Phineas Nigellus wasn't an ideal informer. He venerated Snape, the first Slytherin headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and they had to be careful not to criticise or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus would instantly leave his painting.

However, he did let drop certain snippets. Snape seemed to be facing a constant, low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Ginny had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. Snape had reinstated Umbridge's old decree forbidding gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies. From all of these things, Johnny deduced that Ginny, and probably Neville and Luna along with her, had been doing their best to continue Dumbledore's Army. Indeed, as Phineas Niggellus talked about Snape's crackdown, Johnny and Harry experienced a split second of madness when they imagined simply going back to school to join the destabilisation of Snape's regime: Being fed and having a soft bad, and other people being in charge, seemed the most wonderful prospect in the world at this moment. But then Johnny remembered that he and Harry was Undesirable Number One and Two, that there was a ten-thousand Galleon price on their heads, and that to walk into Hogwarts these days was just as dangerous as walking into the Ministry of Magic. Indeed, Phineas Nigellus inadvertently emphasised this fact by slipping in leading questions about their whereabouts. Hermione shoved him back inside the beaded bag every time he did this, and Phineas Nigellus invariably refused to reappear for several days after these unceremonious goodbyes.