the last verse ; harry potter [2]

sixteen ; the strain of ghosts

Sleep wasn't a luxury Diana possessed that night.

The events after they had overheard Ted Tonks last night replayed in her mind over and over, the bittersweet mixture making her head throb.

After the goblins, Ted, Dirk, and Dean left, Hermione pulled the portrait of Phineas Nigellus from her bag. She blindfolded his portrait-self and he grumbled and complained just as usual, but he had told them something invaluable.

"Can you remember the last time the sword was taken out of its case?" Hermione had asked him.

"I daresay it was when Professor Dumbledore used it to break open a ring."

They hadn't had a lead like this. Dumbledore had left Harry the sword---and now, they knew why.

What happened next, though, wasn't something that was ever supposed to happen.

Ron.

He had been wearing the necklace too long. He had grown angry, throwing biting comments and scowling at every word one of them said. The necklace had infected him with something that caused him to be so angry, so cruel. 

He left. They had had a huge row---Hermione and Ron and Harry. There was nothing Diana could've done. There was just so much yelling, so much hatred in each word they spat---she hadn't experienced such violence between friends.

There was nothing she could've done. He stormed out of the tent, throwing the Horcrux at their feet, and by the time Diana chased after him, he had Disapparated. Now, it was just the three of them and a biting silence where Ron had once been.

The morning after Ron left, they ate breakfast in silence. Hermione's eyes were red and puffy, and Diana watched her with pity. Every once in a while, one of them would turn to look out of the tent opening half expecting to see a mop of red hair.

They never saw one.

Just as she expected Harry was doing as well, her mind replayed the same words over and over, something Ron had said just before he left.

We thought you knew what you were doing!

And it was true. She, as well as Harry, hadn't an inkling of an idea. Diana had only been told what she needed to do, not how to do it. This was as much of a guessing game for her as it was for everyone else---she was Voldemort's daughter, she was powerful, but she had been thrust this journey with no means to finish it. By now, all her life had become was the everlasting fear of reaching a dead end.

They packed the tent and their things, and Hermione tried to delay as long as possible, but soon, they grasped hands and landed in a knew forest on another side of the country. They landed on a windswept hillside.

Hermione sat on a large rock, covering her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook, though she tried to muffle each sob with her sleeve.

There was nothing Diana could've done.

They did not speak of Ron for the next few days.

They kept to the tent, and Diana would watch Harry pull out the Marauder's Map each day and she'd watch as Hermione would busy herself with a task that didn't need finishing, just so she didn't have to think. It was painful, watching them so pained and tired. She had learned to live with such burdens; they had not.

By day, they would circle the subject endlessly: where was the sword of Gryffindor? Each day they'd run through it, the same words each time, the same debates and the same questions. They desperately hoped one would have dreamt some magical new idea, but each morning was the same conversation with nothing new to add.