Emma Potter; Going to War

105: The letter

HARRY:

Early next morning, before the other two were awake,Harry left the tent to search the woods around themfor the oldest, most gnarled, and resilient—looking treehe could find. There in its shadow he buried Mad-EyeMoody's eye and marked the spot by gouging a small cross in thebark with his wand. It was not much, but Harry felt that Mad-Eye would have much preferred this to being stuck on DoloresUmbridge's door. Then he returned to the tent to wait for theothers to wake, and discuss what they were going to do next. 

Harry and Hermione felt that it was best not to stay anywheretoo long, and Ron agreed, with the sole proviso that their nextmove took them within reach of a bacon sandwich. Hermionetherefore removed the enchantments she had placed around theclearing, while Harry and Ron obliterated all the marks and impressions on the ground that might show that they had campedthere. Then they Disapparated to the outskirts of a small markettown. 

Once they had pitched the tent in the shelter of a small copse of trees and surrounded it with freshly cast defensive enchantments,Harry ventured out under the Invisibility Cloak to find sustenance.This, however, did not go as planned. He had barely entered thetown when an unnatural chill, a descending mist, and a suddendarkening of the skies made him freeze where he stood. 

"But you can make a brilliant Patronus!" protested Ron, whenHarry arrived back at the tent empty-handed, out of breath, andmouthing the single word, dementors. 

"I couldn't . . . make one," he panted, clutching the stitch in hisside. "Wouldn't come."  Perhaps it was because of his ever growing worry for his sister. . .she should have come. He would have felt safer if she had come. 

Their expressions of consternation and disappointment madeHarry feel ashamed. It had been a nightmarish experience, seeingthe dementors gliding out of the mist in the distance and realizing,as the paralyzing cold choked his lungs and a distant screamingfilled his ears, that he was not going to be able to protect himself.It had taken all Harry's will power to uproot himself from thespot and run, leaving the eyeless dementors to glide amongst theMuggles who might not be able to see them, but would assuredlyfeel the despair they cast wherever they went. 

"So we still haven't got any food." 

"Shut up, Ron," snapped Hermione. "Harry, what happened?Why do you think you couldn't make your Patronus? You managedperfectly yesterday " 

"I don't know."He sat low in one of Perkins's old armchairs, feeling more humiliated by the moment. He was afraid that something had gonewrong inside him. Yesterday seemed a long time ago. Today hemight have been thirteen years old again, the only one who collapsed on the Hogwarts Express. 

Except Emma was with him. 

Ron kicked a chair leg. 

"What?" he snarled at Hermione. "I'm starving! All I've hadsince I bled half to death is a couple of toadstools!"

 "You go and fight your way through the dementors, then," saidHarry, stung. 

"I would, but my arm's in a sling, in case you hadn't noticed!" 

"That's convenient." 

"And what's that supposed to—?" 

"Of course!" cried Hermione, clapping a hand to her foreheadand startling both of them into silence. "Harry, give me the locket!Come on," she said impatiently, clicking her fingers at him, whenhe did not react, "the Horcrux, Harry, you're still wearing it!" 

She held out her hands, and Harry lifted the golden chain overhis head. The moment it parted contact with Harry's skin he feltfree and oddly light. He had not even realized that he was clammyor that there was a heavy weight pressing on his stomach untilboth sensations lifted.