40 Days

November 23, 1997

Harry watched me closely all the next day, as if enjoying my anger. There were the tiniest of crinkles at the edge of his eyes and the slightest upturn of his lips as he watched me stomp around. I did my best to ignore him and went through my ritual with the Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Count the vowels. Count the letters. Whispering revelio repeatedly, moving my wand a millimeter at a time.

"Dumbledore obviously didn't leave any hidden message in there. I don't know why you continue to waste your time."

"No one asked you." My tone shocked me with how vicious my voice came out, but Harry said nothing, turning away from me after a moment to leave the tent.

I went back to my work, writing down the first letter of every word, when I froze. A blood stained Harry stumbling into the tent flashed in my mind. I jumped up and ran for the tent door, bursting outside into the freezing cold without a jacket. "Harry!"

He was a ways away from the tent, still visible in the sloping vista of the hill we camped on and I watched as his hand rose, his wand touching his temple, and a silvery wisp emerged, dangling in the faint breeze. He shook his hand and the silvery string disconnected from his wand, floating away and dispersing into nothing.

What the hell. I ran up to him, catching his wrist tightly. "What the bloody hell did you just do?"

He turned to me without surprise, probably having heard my initial yell. He laid his hand over mine. "Did you want to go on a walk today?"

"What did you do? What spell was that?" He was more mental than I thought if he thought I would just ignore what I had seen and let him distract me.

He smiled at me strangely, his lips pulled back. "A spell that you don't know? Let's alert the Prophet."

I smacked his shoulder before I even realized what I was going to do, and then I smacked him again. Harry didn't move. I kept expecting him to dodge, to give me that look he always did when I smacked his shoulder, faintly apologetic, as if he was sorry he had driven me batty. But now he just looked down at me, unbothered, not even willing to give me any reaction.

"Tell me! Tell me what you did!"

He finally moved, his hand reaching out to grasp my face. His long fingers almost spanned my entire face as he cupped my jaw harshly. Why hadn't I realized how large his hands were before? I whimpered when he squeezed his hand, digging into my cheeks as he looked down at me coldly.

"Tell you? I don't think I have to tell you anything."

I grabbed his wrist, trying to pull his hand away from me. "You're hurting me. Stop it, Harry."

He stared at me for a minute as if he was trying to remember how to understand English before he blinked, his hand releasing me and stepping away. He rubbed at his chest, the locket under his hand, and muttered to me. "Sometimes I forget."

"What do you forget?" I whispered it because my jaw hurt.

His hand was fisted around the locket now, holding it protectively against himself. "That I don't want to hurt you."

I swallowed hard at that. "Harry." I began tentatively. "If you don't want to hurt me, then maybe you should give me the locket?"

Harry shook his head vehemently, his fist tightening so hard around the locket that his knuckles were white from the force. "I need to hear it."

"Hear what?"

"The countdown. The locket—it's telling me how long I have to live."

My mouth opened and closed several times as I tried to think of what to say to that.

"Sometimes it's all I can hear, the pulsing from the locket. It's weak. It's irregular. I think— I think it's going to be over soon, Hermione."

"What's going to be over?"

"The war. Me. Voldemort."

My eyes widened. "Harry! You can't say his name!"

I grabbed him to turn to run, but within seconds sharp cracks of apparitions were already happening around us. I froze. Three black robed death eaters had apparated in, scanning the area. They were outside the protective enchantments, if we were quiet..

No sooner had it run through my mind than Harry apparated right behind one of one them, stunning him and with a crack apparating behind the next, the death eater whirled but was too late and he too collapsed near his fellow death eater. The third managed to fend off Harry's initial attacks, and they started sending rapidfire spells at one another while dodging and casting shield charms.

It was stupidly easy for me to cast at the third attacker's back, as his entire focus had been on Harry. The last one collapsed mere feet from his other two companions. Harry gave an exhilarated laugh, approaching them, his wand still pointing still pointing at the last dark wizard he had been dueling. "It's like a little dinner bell, Hermione. You ring it and they start salivating, thinking they've got prey."

Harry stepped deliberately forward onto the out-flung forearm of the last attacker laying on the ground between us. The crack of his bone breaking under Harry's foot echoed around us. "But what happens when it's a trap? Hmm?"

"We've got to leave Harry." I took a step back away from him as he looked at me with his pale, animal-like eyes, his foot not moving, still grinding into the knocked out wizard's arm. "Harry! We've got to leave!" I repeated, even more shrilly, afraid, but unwilling to leave him behind.

I took another step backward. I didn't know how long until more would arrive. We needed to get far away from south England. Harry had already apparated multiple times and wouldn't be able to help carry us further away.

Finally he moved towards me and off of the wizard who's arm he had broken but he cast several almost longing glances back towards the unconscious bodies of the death eaters we left behind. Packing up our things and apparating out was a complete blur, I just remember thinking we had to head north, away from London.

I don't know at what point I became faint. I just know that one minute I was holding on to Harry and our hastily packed belongings chain apparating and the next I was lying on his lap, our stuff spread out around us.

I tried to jerk up, but he placed a hand on my shoulder, holding me down. I looked around frantically, not recognizing the area. Had we gotten far enough? "Where are we?"

"Somewhere north of Manchester?"

We had gone from a hillside to a mountainside. The sky above me was darkening rapidly with the threat of freezing rain. We needed to get our tent set up, or we were going to freeze. We needed to cast our protective spells around the perimeter. All these things ran through my mind. What I actually said to him was," You can't apparate without a license."

His laughter rang out sharp and clear, echoing slightly in a way that made me uneasy about drawing attention, but I froze watching him. I could almost see my Harry in that moment, and it made my heart twist with yearning.