Beauty and the Unexpected Beast

The Snatcher

"Protego!" I shouted, getting both of the enraged boys attention as the invisible shield expanded around the three of us. I took a step back, getting out of the way, and watched as Harry and Ron resulted to sending death glares at one another, now that they could not shoot spells at each other. I tried so very hard not to glare at Ron as Harry was.

Suggesting I would leave Harry, and suggesting that himself would do the same. The three of us have been through so much together, for him to leave now.

"Leave the Horcrux," Harry said, his tone was near menacing. Neither of them saw me flinch at the word, like all the other times. I watched in horror as Ron took of the terrible locket and threw it into one of the chairs. Harry turned to me, his menacing look lessening but still hard. "What are you doing."

Shocked I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Are you staying or what?"

"Yes, yes I'm staying." I said then quickly turned to Ron, hopping to change his mind to stay with us, to stay with me. "Ron, we said we'd go with Harry, we said we'd help-" Before I could get it all out he interrupted me.

"I get it. You choose him." He snapped. "Ron, no" I tried to reach him but the shield was still up. I quickly took it down and tried to grab Ron but he stormed out of the tent. "Please- Come back, come back!" I screeched running after him in the poring rain. A lightning streaked the sky, and thunder boomed, muting the sound of the pop as Ron disapparated away, no longer being able to come back.

I screamed and fell to the damp floor sobbing and screaming at different intervals from when I was broken-hearted to when I was too angry to do anything but scream. Thunder boomed again, awaking me from the dream.

The moment I awoke, I knew it was just a nightmare, a nightmare of what was now the past as far as I was concerned. And Harry seems to have accepted fact that too.

It was February and Ron still had not come back, but we had given up on him after Harry found the Sword of Gryffindor. Since then, all he has been thinking about was the Deathly Hallows. We had no leads on those or the dreadful Horcruxes.

The night Harry had found the sword, I was scared he was going to die of frost bite. The locket had put up a tough fight. It must have been luck I found Harry under the ice at the time I had. My wand had been with me on the side of the lake and I quickly shot a warming charm to warm the pond, and extract Harry, warming him in the process. He was so weak he somehow convinced me, I had to destroy the locket.

Harry had opened the locket using Parseltongue, and immediately I could feel the evil it possessed. Harry was holding it open when it began to speak, in a low and hissing voice.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine." I had frozen, enchanted by the voice. "I know your fears, Hermione Granger, I know your nightmares. Everything you fear is possible, and has happened."

Suddenly, what looked similar to mist came out of the locket, and wrapped around itself forming my parents and another set of family. What looked like the figures of Lucius and Draco Malfoy stood in front of my parents.

"Filthy Mudblood." Draco Malfoy had spat at me, Lucius nodding. "They are happier without you. A failure as a muggle and a failure as a witch. Why would anyone want you? You are a freak of nature, as ugly as your won blood. You deserve this."

As I watched in horror, the sword still raised above my head, Lucius and Draco both sent identical red streaks of lights at my confused parents, who then began to fall to the floor dead.

"Stab it Hermione!" Harry yelled. I ran forward, not thinking about breaking the locket, but instead killing Malfoy.

We didn't talk about it after that, Harry had done something with the locket but I didn't want to know what had happened to it. A few times, I thought of obliviating myself to get rid of the memory, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Before that night, I hadn't even realized that was my deepest fear. The only relief I felt from it, was to know I no longer worried of Ron and where he was. It wasn't much, but the weight that had been taken off of me helped a little. Even if I did still hope he would come back to us. To me.