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

HARRY POTTER

He's gone, I told myself. He's gone. I had to keep thinking it as I washed and dressed, as though repetition would dull the shock of it. He's gone and he's not coming back. And that was the simple truth of it, I knew, because our protective enchantments meant that it would be impossible, once we vacated this spot, for Ron to find us again.

Hermione and I ate breakfast in silence. Hermione's eyes were puffy and red; she looked as if she had not slept. We packed up our things, Hermione dawdling. I knew why she wanted to spin out our time on the riverbank; several times she looked up eagerly, and I was sure she had deluded herself into thinking that she heard footsteps through the heavy rain, but no red-haired figure appeared between the trees. Every time I imitated her, looked around (for I could not help hoping a little too) and saw nothing but rain-swept woods, another little parcel of fury exploded inside me. I could hear Ron saying, "We thought you knew what you were doing!"

The muddy river beside our tent was rising rapidly and would soon spill over onto the bank. We had lingered a good hour after we would usually have departed their campsite. Finally having entirely repacked the beaded bag three times, Hermione seemed unable to find any more reasons to delay: She and I grasped hands and Disapparated, reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside.

The instant we arrived, Hermione dropped my hand and walked away, finally sitting down on a large rock, her face on her knees, shaking with sobs. I watched her, supposing that I ought to go and comfort her, but something kept me rooted to the spot. Everything inside felt cold and tight: Again I saw the contemptuous expression on Ron's face. I strode off through the heather, walking in a large circle with the distraught Hermione at its center, casting the spells she usually performed to ensure our protection.

We did not discuss Ron at all over the next few days. I was determined never to mention his name again, and Hermione seemed to know that it was no use forcing the issue, although sometimes at night when she thought I was sleeping, I would hear her crying. Meanwhile I'd started bringing out the Marauder's Map and examining it by wandlight. I was waiting for the moment when Ron's labeled dot would reappear in the corridors of Hogwarts, proving that he had returned to the comfortable castle, protected by his status of pureblood. However, Ron did not appear on the map, and after a while I found myself taking it out simply to stare at Ginny's name in the girls' dormitory, wondering whether the intensity with which I gazed at it might break into her sleep, that she would somehow know I was thinking about her, hoping that she was all right.

By day, we devoted ourselves to trying to determine the possible locations of Gryffindor's sword, but the more we talked about the places in which Dumbledore might have hidden it, the more desperate and far-fetched their speculation became. I could not remember Dumbledore ever mentioning a place in which he might hide something. There were moments when I did not know whether he was angrier with Ron or with Dumbledore. We thought you knew what you were doing... We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do... We thought you had a real plan!

I could not hide it: Ron had been right. Dumbledore had left me with virtually nothing. We had discovered one Horcrux, but we had no means of destroying it: The others were as unattainable as they had ever been. Hopelessness drew over our tent. I was staggered now to think of my own presumption in accepting my friends' offers to accompany me on this meandering, pointless journey. I knew nothing, had no ideas, and was constantly, painfully on the alert for any indication that Hermione too was about to tell me that she had had enough, that she was leaving.

We were spending many evenings in near silence, and Hermione took to bringing out Phineas Nigellus's portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of the gaping hole left by Ron's departure. Despite his previous assertion that he would never visit again, Phineas Nigellus did not seem able to resist the chance to find out more about what I was up to, and consented to reappear, blindfolded, every few days or so. I was even glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind. We relished any news about what was happening at Hogwarts, though Phineas Nigellus was not an ideal informer. He venerated Snape, the first Slytherin headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and we had to be careful not to criticize or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus would instantly leave his painting.

However, he did let drop certain snippets. Snape seemed to be facing a constant, low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Ginny had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. Snape had reinstated Umbridge's old decree forbidding gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies.

The weather grew colder and colder. We did not dare remain in any one area too long, so rather than staying in the south of England, where a hard ground frost was the worst of our worries, we continued to meander up and down the country, braving a mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent was flooded with chill water; and a tiny island in the middle of a Scottish loch, where snow half buried the tent in the night.