Lost Memories

lxiii. broken friendship

Autumn rolled over the countryside as we moved through it: We were now pitching the tent on mulches of fallen leaves. Natural mists joined those cast by the dementors; wind and rain added to our troubles. The fact that Hermione was getting better at identifying edible fungi could not altogether compensate for our continuing isolation, the lack of other people's company, or our total ignorance of what was going on in the war against Voldemort.

"Your mother can't produce food out of thin air," said Hermione. "No one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfigur —"

"Oh, speak English, can't you?" Ron said, prising a fishbone out from between his teeth.

Looking over at Ron, I saw the glittering necklace around his neck, the cause of most of his anger.

"Ron," I rolled my eyes, "it's impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you've already got some —"

"Well, don't bother increasing this, it's disgusting," said Ron.

"Harry caught the fish and Hermione did her best with it! I've notice Hermione and I are always the one who ends up sorting out the food, because we're girls, I suppose!"

"No, it's because you two are supposed to be the best at magic!" shot back Ron.

Hermione jumped up and bits of roast pike slid off her tin plate onto the floor.

"You can do the cooking tomorrow, Ron, you can find the ingredients and try and charm them into something worth eating, and I'll sit here and pull faces and moan and you can see how you —"

"Shut up!" said Harry, leaping to his feet and holding up both hands. "Shut up now!"

Anger bubbled in my veins.

"How can you side with him, he hardly ever does the cook —"

"Charlotte, be quiet, I can hear someone!"

Harry stood up, keeping his harms raising warning us to not talk. Beside us, I could hear hushed voices again. Harry looked through the Sneakoscope, but it wasn't moving.

"You cast the Muffliato charm over us, right?" he whispered to me.

"H-Hermione and I did everything," I whispered back.

"Muffliato, Muggle Repelling and Disillusionment Charms, all of it," Hermione nodded furiously. "They shouldn't be able to hear or see us, whoever they are."

They ended up being friendlies, but we didn't interact with them and only listened via Extendable Ears. It was two goblins, Griphook and Gornuk, Dean Thomas, Ginny's ex-boyfriend, Dirk Cresswell, the former Ministry employee who was betrayed by Runcorn, Ted Tonks, Tonk's father, and the two goblins— they're all non-pureblood fugitives on the run from the Ministry and Dolores Umbridge's Muggleborn Registry.

From them, we learned that Ginny, Neville, and Luna all tried to steal the Sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office for us and ended up getting caught. Their detention was with Hagrid, in the Forbidden Forest, as we had to do our first year at Hogwarts. We also learned that the sword they tried to steal was put into Gringotts for safekeeping— the kicker was it was fake.

"The sword of Gryffindor?"

"Oh yes. It is a copy— an excellent copy, it is true— but it was Wizard-made. The original was forged centuries ago by goblins and had certain properties only goblin-made armour possesses. Wherever the genuine sword of Gryffindor is, it is not in a vault at Gringotts bank."