Chaos Rising |BOOK 2| Harry Potter x PJO |Alexandra Marine|

HARRY POTTER

"What's the problem?" I asked, frowning.

"Problem? There's no problem," said Ron, refusing to look at me. "Not according to you, anyway."

There were several plunks on the canvas over our heads. It had started to rain.

"Well, you've obviously got a problem," I said. "Spit it out, will you?"

Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.

"All right, I'll spit it out. Don't expect me to skip up and down the tent because there's some other damn thing we've got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don't know."

"I don't know?" I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to control my anger. "I don't know?"

Plunk, plunk, plunk. The rain was falling harder and heavier; it pattered on the leaf-strewn bank all around them and into the river chattering through the dark. Ron was saying exactly what I had suspected and feared him to be thinking.

"It's not like I'm not having the time of my life here," said Ron, "you know, with my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just hoped, you know, after we'd been running round a few weeks, we'd have achieved something."

"Ron," Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was now beating on the tent.

"I thought you knew what you'd signed up for," I said.

"Yeah, I thought I did too."

That was it. Anger came to my defense at once.

"So what part of it isn't living up to your expectations?" I asked. "Did you think we'd be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you'd be back to Mummy by Christmas?"

"We thought you knew what you were doing!" shouted Ron, standing up, and his words pierced like scalding knives. "We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan!"

"Ron!" said Hermione, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof, but again, he ignored her.

"Well, sorry to let you down," I said, straining to keep my voice quite calm even though I felt hollow, inadequate. "I've been straight with you from the start, I told you everything Dumbledore told me. And in case you haven't noticed, we've found one Horcrux —"

"Yeah, and we're about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them — nowhere effing near, in other words!"

"Take off the locket, Ron," Hermione said, her voice unusually high. "Please take it off. You wouldn't be talking like this if you hadn't been wearing it all day."

"Yeah, he would," I spat. "D'you think I haven't noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D'you think I didn't guess you were thinking this stuff?"

"Harry, we weren't —"

"Don't lie!" Ron hurled at her. "You said it too, you said you were disappointed, you said you'd thought he had a bit more to go on than —"

"I didn't say it like that — Harry, I didn't!" she cried.

The rain was pounding the tent, tears were pouring down Hermione's face, and the excitement of a few minutes before had vanished as if it had never been, a short-lived firework that had flared and died, leaving everything dark, wet, and cold. The sword of Gryffindor was hidden we knew not where, and we were three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.

"So why are you still here?" I asked Ron.

"Search me," said Ron.

"Go home then." 

"Yeah, maybe I will!" shouted Ron, and he took several steps toward me. I didn't back away. No. I was angry at him too. I readied my fists just in case, awaiting the first punch. "Didn't you hear what they said about my sister? But you don't give a rat's fart, do you, it's only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I've-Faced-Worse Potter doesn't care what happens to her in here — well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff —"

"I was only saying — she was with the others, they were with Hagrid —"

"Yeah, I get it, you don't care! And what about the rest of my family, 'the Weasleys don't need another kid injured,' did you hear that?"

"Yeah, I —"

"Not bothered what it meant, though?"

"Ron!" said Hermione, forcing her way between them. "I don't think it means anything new has happened, anything we don't know about; think, Ron, Bill's already scarred, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you're supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I'm sure that's all he meant —"

"Oh, you're sure, are you? Right then, well, I won't bother myself about them. It's all right for you two, isn't it, with your parents safely out of the way —"

"My parents are dead!" I bellowed. "How dare you-"

"And mine could be going the same way!" yelled Ron.

"Then GO!" I roared. "Go back to them, pretend you've got over your spattergroit and Mummy'll be able to feed you up and —"

Ron made a sudden movement: I reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner's pocket, Hermione had raised her own.

"Protego!" she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and me on the one side and Ron on the other; all of us were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Ron glared at us from the other side of the transparent barrier as though he was seeing us clearly for the first time. 

I didn't care about him. He had brought in a dangerous topic, and I felt a corrosive hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between us.

"Leave the Horcrux," I said.

Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair. He turned to Hermione.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you staying, or what?"

"I..." She looked anguished. "Yes — yes, I'm staying. Ron, we said we'd go with Harry, we said we'd help —"

"I get it. You choose him."

"Ron, no — please — come back, come back!"

She was impeded by her own Shield Charm; by the time she had removed it he had already stormed into the night. I stood there, rooted to the spot, quite still and silent, listening to her sobbing and calling Ron's name amongst the trees.

After a few minutes she returned, her sopping hair plastered to her face.

"He's g-g-gone! Disapparated!"

She threw herself into a chair, curled up, and started to cry.

I felt dazed. I stooped, picked up the Horcrux, and looked at the necklace. The locket remained silent, it's heart beating through the tiny doors behind it, and the pendant gleamed in the light of our lantern. 

"Sikonetai."

"Sorry, what?" I turned to Hermione. She didn't look up, and I realized that she hadn't actually said anything.

"Sikonetai."

I looked at the necklace. "The-" I began. The pendant was whispering. I stared at it in wonder, trying to understand whether it was speaking in Parseltongue, but it made no sense. "Hermione."

Hermione didn't budge. 

"Alright," I whispered to myself, and placed the necklace around my neck. I dragged the blankets off Ron's bunk and threw them over Hermione, trying to make sure she didn't catch a cold. Then I climbed onto my own bed, switched the lantern off and stared up at the dark canvas roof, listening to the pounding of the rain, and the whisper of the pendant, continuously warning me about something that I did not understand. By the high pile of used clothes lying on the chair, a gleaming dagger lay, our only source of light in the darkness.