I hope our story has a happier ending

flower bud in concrete

The first few weeks are—completely useless.

They're still full of anxious hope, and a misplaced faith that it will be easy and they'll be able to be successful so long as they devote themselves to it.

Hermione feels like a complete idiot for not packing any sort of food provisions, because realistically that should've been her foremost concern, but she was so worried they'd forget necessary magical objects or information for the search itself she forgot about preparing for the human side of things.

(Survival. Funny, how that's always what it comes down to.)

And they're all too hesitant to go into town, to risk anyone seeing them at all, so they're scrounging and attempting to hunt, and it's all going...well, rather badly.

They have more than one close call with mushrooms and berries that turn out to be poisonous; and beyond that, on more than one occasion they all feel ill after eating.

Several meals end with them all vomiting, but it's when Ron finds Hermione being violently sick outside the tent after one such meal, his own face going white with guilt as he blames himself for her state, having been the one to prepare the food.

"You're doing your best, Ron," Hermione pants out, wishing she had the energy to hug him. Wishing he understood how critical he is, in these hardest of moments—his effortless love and comfort and calm, subduing her and Harry's unstable, downward spiraling tendencies. "You're keeping us alive, it's not your fault we're having a few hiccups with the meals."

"I just—merlin, I hate seeing you like this. I'm so sorry." He's clenching his jaw, beating himself up internally.

"Ron." She stares him down, fixing her hair shakily, though still not feeling one hundred percent. "This is not on you. You're doing a great job. Harry is self-deprecating enough for all three of us—you can't get down on yourself too, or we'll never make any progress."

Making a face, he moves to help her to her feet. "I suppose. I just...I feel like I'm not doing enough to help. I don't want to be dead weight."

"Ronald, you are—anything but dead weight, and I'm not just saying that to spare your feelings. Your presence is every bit as necessary as Harry or I's; and you have more to lose, so it means a lot to us both that you're here anyway. We all feel a little useless right now, because—well, we're not making much progress, so it's hard not to lose steam, to lose hope.

"But that's not a reflection of you—that's because the task before us is a difficult one; almost impossible, really. One more reason why I fucking hate Dumbledore, but that's besides the point." She shakes her head at the thought. "You're doing everything right, Ron, I promise—with how on edge we all are right now, I'm sure someone will snap the second one of us isn't."

It's—interesting, to Hermione, the way their situation is affecting all of them so differently.

For her and Harry, the desolation is par for the course—they don't love it, but it's far from surprising.

(It's hard to lose hope when you never thought to have any in the first place—when life has always taught you to brace for the worst, so things getting bad barely registers.)

On Ron's end, though, there's never been the same darkness, and hopelessness, and trauma—which is wonderful, and a reason his presence is so critical for them, because he's the only one that can look at things through an unbiased, mentally stable lens.

But also...situations like this hit him much harder. He assumes things being bad is his fault, because he's never experienced this kind of hardship before, so it's taking a much greater toll.