The Muggle-born Registration Commission

Phoenix Tears, Chapter Eight : The Muggle-born Registration Commission

DISCLAIMER : The characters and many of the situations described in this story are the property of the incomparable J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this story, which exists as a work of tribute. Dialogue marked with an asterisk is quoted from the original HP stories.

As always, I want to go down on bended knee and thank my fabulous betas, LAxo and WriterMerrin, who devote their precious time and energy to point out my rather idiotic mistakes.

That evening, Hermione went to bed even later than the boys did, though they had all stayed up going over the plans for the morrow. Once Harry and Ron crashed, she pulled out her Arithmancy calculations and ran them through again. The odds were surprisingly good that the three of them were going to make it into the Ministry, and Hermione turned next to the set of equations dealing with Godric's Hollow. The probabilities there, however, remained as dismal as ever.

A further twenty minutes spent frowning over the knowledge distribution curve left her even more frustrated. No matter how she ran the numbers, her calculations told her that Harry alone had to figure out solutions to the various puzzles and problems that lay in their future. Hermione found herself unable to suppress a surge of jealousy. It was her job to solve problems. It was Harry's job to rush in to danger without a firm plan, and it was Ron's job to follow along and secure an escape route...the Chamber of Secrets provided the perfect exemplar. Hermione let out a heavy sigh of annoyance. Apparently now Harry was to be both hero and brain; she was merely to keep him alive.

Trying unsuccessfully not to take it personally, Hermione pushed her Arithmancy equations back into her beaded bag. Before zipping the bag closed, she pulled out the half photo of Harry and Ron that she'd found in her room. Not for the first time, she wondered where the other half was: it was torn so cleanly down the middle. The most logical possibility swirled around inside her. She wanted it to be true so badly that she skittered away from actually voicing it to herself, unable to bear the disappointment if she was later proved wrong. She'd looked long and hard for the other piece, but not even an Accio aimed at the bags of rubbish that she and Kreacher had amassed in the cleanup had turned it up. Don't be an idiot, Granger, she berated herself, stuffing the torn photograph back into her bag. There's no reason for Snape to want a photo of you.

In the month since escaping from Death Eaters at Bill and Fleur's wedding, Hermione's opinion of her grumpy, prickly, brilliant, yet inscrutable ex-Professor had swung from doubt to faith and back again more times than she wanted to acknowledge. Yet eventually, the persistent presence of Death Eaters in the square outside Grimmauld Place, and their evident inability to see the building or get inside, had solidified her thoughts: she had to trust him. Besides, no matter how many logical reasons she marshalled against him, deep down she knew that the swirl of doubts and fears was indicative of the situation she and her boys were in, not him, not really. So, she'd doubted him; so what? She still trusted him more than Minerva McGonagall or Kingsley Shacklebolt. If Snape told her to leap, she'd jump first and ask questions later. Right now, she doubted everyone, even herself. And she would until Voldemort was dead and everything back to normal.

God, what she wouldn't give to be worrying about NEWTs right now instead of their crazy plan to break into the Ministry of Magic and steal a Horcrux from a highly placed and dangerous official!

Before she closed her beaded bag, a flicker of movement in its depths caught her attention. Hermione froze, her ears straining for any sound of the boys in the old house. Acting on an impulse that she found impossible to resist, she cast a silencing charm on the room and magically locked the door. Then she pulled Phineas' portrait from her bag and propped it up on the chair beside her.

"Phineas?" she called softly. "Phineas Nigellus? Are you there?"

"Why, if it isn't Miss Granger herself," he replied snidely, slipping into the frame and leaning nonchalantly against one edge. "A significant number of people are looking for you, you know." His eyes flickered around the room, noting the details of where they were. "Where's Mr Potter?"

"He's not here," replied Hermione firmly. "It's just me."

"All alone?" he mocked.

"Yes," she responded tartly, crossing her arms.

"Very well, then, I have a message for you."

"From Professor Snape?" Hermione felt breathless.

"From Headmaster Snape," snapped Phineas reprovingly. Hermione gestured for him to hurry up and he glared at her. "Be very careful not to say the Dark Lord's name."

Hermione looked at the portrait blankly for a moment. "What?" she asked. "But, why? Dumbledore always said..."

"Why, why, why?" echoed Phineas, interrupting her in an outraged tone. "The problem with adolescents is that they have no respect. You've been given an important piece of information. Use it. You don't need to know why!"

Hermione bit back several retorts.

"Do you have a message for Headmaster Snape?" demanded Phineas.

"I..." Hermione broke off as she thought of all the things she wanted to say to Snape and then imagined transmitting them through the irritable and rude picture of Phineas Nigellus Black. "No," she replied finally, "nothing."

"Fine," snapped Phineas and swept from the frame, leaving behind nothing but a bare, muddy backdrop.

Hermione felt sadly bereft and sat staring at the empty square of canvas for several minutes before stuffing it back into her bag and cancelling the charms she'd set up. She threaded one wrist through the strap of the beaded bag and set off upstairs to the room she once shared with Ginny and now shared with Ron.

Harry, for his part, had decided to sleep up in Sirius' old bedroom. Ever since he'd had to acknowledge that he continued to share mental space with Voldemort, Harry had been prickly and a little standoffish, although still, Hermione found the decision to sleep alone difficult to understand. The creaky, creepy old house got on her nerves.

Eventually, after several hours of prevaricating and an embarrassing first evening, Hermione and Ron had settled into the twin beds of what had been the girls' room, finding that the comfort of company far outweighed the awkwardness of navigating each other's privacy. As a consequence, after brushing her teeth and staring at the ceiling for awhile thinking about Snape, it was to the soft sound of Ron's snores that Hermione finally fell asleep. At least the proposed Ministry break-in was far from her mind.

Hermione's calculations had not been wrong, and she, Ron and Harry had made it through the various defences of the Ministry of Magic without major incident. Getting out alive, however, was beginning to look more precarious. Hermione had not anticipated that Ron...thoroughly disguised as Reg Cattermole...would be forced to repair broken Ministry weather charms, let alone jeopardising the life of an innocent woman in the process. Thus, when the lift doors clanked open on level one, Hermione was still focused on Ron and his plight, one floor above. The sight of Umbridge took her completely by surprise.

"Ah, Mafalda!" exclaimed Umbridge in her distinctively girlish voice. "Travers sent you, did he?"*

Realising belatedly that she was, to all intents and purposes, Mafalda Hopkirk, Hermione managed to stammer a reply. "Y-yes."* She nodded for good measure.

"Good, you'll do perfectly well."* Umbridge turned and spoke to the man beside her. Hermione recognised him from the Daily Prophet as Pius Thicknesse, the new Minister for Magic. "That's that problem solved, Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straightaway. Ten people today," she declared, assuming a sanctimonious expression, "and one of them the wife of a Ministry employee! Tut, tut . . . even here, in the heart of the Ministry!"*

Hermione was now panicking not only about Ron, who was stuck doing Reg Cattermole's job (undoubtedly quite badly), and about Reg's as-yet-unnamed wife who was about to be dragged before the Commission, but also about the possibility of being caught out by Umbridge herself and the now-likely prospect that she would be separated from Harry. At the same time, she wondered if there were really so few Muggle-borns that it was unusual for a Ministry employee to be married to one and hoped Harry would realise his opportunity to search Umbridge's office unimpeded. She glanced upward as Umbridge and two unfamiliar wizards stepped into the lift and caught Harry's eye. She tried to communicate everything she was thinking in a single gaze, but felt pretty sure that Harry remained completely unaware of the finer details of her thought processes.

"We'll go straight down, Mafalda," added Umbridge, drawing Hermione's attention from Harry. "You'll find everything you need in the courtroom."* Umbridge gave Harry an odd look. "Good morning, Albert," she simpered, "aren't you getting out?"*

"Yes, of course,"* replied Harry in Runcorn's much deeper tones.

As he stepped out, the golden grilles of the lift door slammed shut behind him. Hermione caught a last glimpse of his face, blank with shock, as she sank from view.

Hermione hadn't been into the depths of the Ministry since the night the DA had been ambushed in the Hall of Prophecy. Exiting the lift on the lowest level, that night came back in a rush.

The wizards who had taken the lift down with Umbridge and Hermione headed straight for the sinister black doorway of the Department of Mysteries. Thankfully, Umbridge turned left, rather than right, taking a flight of stairs down to an even lower level. The relief Hermione felt at having left the horrifically familiar scenery of the previous floor behind faded quickly. The further down the staircase she went, the greater her feelings of despair and misery grew.

Only when Umbridge shouted, "Expecto patronum!" did Hermione realise there were Dementors in the hallway below. The unnatural aspects of Hermione's sense of horror faded immediately, although the sight that met her eyes was disturbing enough on its own merits. The hall was crowded with the looming forms of the hooded Dementors. The unfortunate Muggle-borns called in to face Umbridge's inquisition were corralled into several clusters, and they sat huddled on uncomfortable-looking wooden benches. Their despair was palpable. Umbridge was carving a path through the crowd, and Hermione took care to stick close to the horrid woman so as not to lose the benefit of her Patronus.

I really don't want to know what makes Umbridge happy enough to cast a Patronus, thought Hermione, staring at the fluffy silver cat as it sashayed through the crowded corridor. It took tiny little steps, its rear end wobbling much the same way as Umbridge's did. They also shared the same squashed, smug-looking expression. I'd like to see Crookshanks take you on, thought Hermione savagely. As the Patronus passed the captive Muggle-borns, they raised their faces, turning towards it with their eyes like sunflowers following the sun.

Hermione throbbed with a cold, furious anger. Hearing about the Muggle-born Registration Committee from Lupin and reading about it in the Daily Prophet had been upsetting, but also unimaginably distant. Seeing it in action, however, filled her with a rage unlike anything she had previously experienced. These were wizards and witches like her, and their wands had been confiscated. They risked a term in Azkaban, or worse, based on their ancestry. This was racism. This was genocide.

Harry has to win, she thought with renewed conviction. Only then would this travesty of government be brought to task. Harry has to win. And once he has, I'm going to make sure Umbridge pays and that something like this never happens ever again. Hermione remembered the published list of those who had failed to present themselves for interrogation...her name had appeared there, as had that of Professor Vector and of most of Hermione's Muggle-born classmates. Wherever they were, she hoped they were safe. Her relief that they'd so far managed to evade this particular nightmare was so strong that she could taste it on her tongue.

"Come on, Mafalda," trilled Umbridge, interrupting Hermione's reverie to gesture her through an open doorway.

Hermione stepped into the room. It was clearly a courtroom, although the ceiling was disproportionally high, and the space seemed oddly truncated. There was a long bench across one side, furnished with several chairs and raised up on an imposing platform. The seat on the far right of the bench was taken by a tall, dark haired man.

"Dolores, darling," he drawled, with an unpleasantly sinister smile.

Death Eater, noted Hermione, repressing a shiver. She recognised his picture from the papers.

"Why, Mr Yaxley, it's a pleasure to work with you, as always!" simpered Umbridge, punctuating her greeting with a high-pitched giggle. She gestured towards the chair on the far left. "Mafalda, the files are over there; you've got a few minutes to get organised before we begin."

Hermione hurried over to the bench. On the way, she passed a single seat, isolated in the centre of the room. The arms were hung with heavy chains that wriggled almost longingly at her.

After Umbridge and Hermione entered, two Dementors had drifted into the courtroom, and they floated over to stand sentinel in the far corners of the room. Umbridge had set her Patronus to patrol the edge of the platform, so Hermione couldn't feel them, though they still gave her the willies.

Hermione offered a polite greeting to Yaxley, who she knew to be the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, then quickly paged through the documents she was required to deal with. There were a number of named files, ordered alphabetically. Most contained questionnaires, along with birth certificates, Hogwarts results, marriage certificates, house deeds and other personal documentation. She also uncovered a sheaf of forms that were clearly there to record the trials of the Commission. There was ink, but no quills, and Hermione immediately conjured one. She tried to set up her work area so that Umbridge wouldn't have a clear view of the notes she would have to take...Polyjuice had no effect on handwriting, and it was imperative that Umbridge not notice something was up. After all, she had graded Hermione's papers for an entire academic year.

Once they started, the trials were every bit as horrific as Hermione had anticipated. The process was almost laughably biased, and Hermione was forced to subsume her emotions below her Occlumentic shields in order to function smoothly. Each time Umbridge tittered or belittled someone or lied outrageously about the transmission of magical potential, Hermione swore her silent revenge. She committed each and every detail to memory with a vicious intensity. One day, she vowed, you'll be sitting on that seat, Umbridge, wrapped in chains, and I'll recite the list of your crimes. Just you wait. On the outside, she smiled as prettily as Mafalda Hopkirk could and responded to each of Umbridge's demands with alacrity.

Hermione was so focussed on her dreams of revenge that Harry's arrival startled her. Caught up in the horror of the Commission's trials, the search for the locket had slipped her mind. Shit, she thought as she glanced at her watch and calculated the time they'd spent transformed. They had less than twenty-five minutes to get out before the Polyjuice wore off.

As if Harry's unseen presence had lured the locket into the open, it swung forward when Umbridge leaned over to gloat over Mary Cattermole. Bingo, thought Hermione irreverently. "That's...that's pretty, Dolores,"* she offered, pointing at the locket.

"What?" Umbridge was annoyed to have her attention dragged from contemplation of the weeping witch in front of her. "Oh yes," she continued in a more friendly tone as she realised the object of Hermione's interest, "an old family heirloom. The S stands for Selwyn . . ."*

Hermione tuned out the rest of the lie, her attention caught by a flicker of movement as Harry's wand appeared in her peripheral vision. What is he...

The thought was answered, though her anxiety far from appeased, as Harry shouted, "Stupefy!" and a flash of red light smacked into the back of Umbridge's shoulder. Hermione took some satisfaction in the crunch of Umbridge's head against the balustrade of the platform, but her attention was on Yaxley. Using the bulk of Umbridge's body as a screen, she drew her own wand, although Harry felled him before she needed to use it.

"Harry!"* she exclaimed, exasperated and relieved in equal parts. She let his answer wash over him as she checked that Umbridge and Yaxley were well-and-truly out for the count. It was when she turned that she caught sight of the Dementors. "Harry!" she shrieked. "Mrs Cattermole!"*

Hermione had her wand out, but couldn't manage to conjure up a happy thought. "Expecto patronum!" she cried ineffectively. Nothing happened. Hermione tried to call up the feeling of laughing with Harry and Ron, but the sight of the Dementors looming over Mrs Cattermole, one scaly hand twisting back her head, killed any flash of joy.

When Harry's stag leapt past her, Hermione almost sobbed with relief. Real pleasure flushed her face.

"Get the Horcrux,"* instructed Harry as he pulled off his cloak and ran towards Mrs Cattermole.

Hermione reached down between Umbridge's collar and her neck, grimacing as she touched against the horrid woman's puffy skin. She found the clasp and made short work of the fastening, but then had to levitate Umbridge's body to get the locket itself out from underneath. The heavy, egg-sized weight of it swung from her hand, and she frowned at it.

"Hermione?" called Harry. "How do I get rid of these chains?"*

"Wait, I'm trying something up here..."*

"Hermione, we're surrounded by Dementors!"*Harry sounded a little frantic.

"I know that, Harry," she replied distractedly, "but if she wakes up and the locket's gone...I need to duplicate it...Geminio! There . . . That should fool her . . ."* Hermione fastened the false locket securely around Umbridge's neck and let the woman's body fall back onto the desk with no regard for her comfort. She stuffed the Horcrux into the pocket of her robe, spelling the pocket shut for good measure. Harry was pulling manually at the chains that bound Mrs Cattermole to the chair. "Let's see," said Hermione, pushing his hands out of the way. "Relashio!" she tried and was pleased when the chains slithered away.

Mrs Cattermole looked rightly terrified. Harry-as-Runcorn was trying to calm her down.

"How are we going to get out of here with all those Dementors outside the door?"* asked Hermione. The sheer quantity of them made her nervous.

"Patronuses,"* replied Harry as if the answer was evident. Easy for him to say. "As many as we can muster: do yours, Hermione."*

Hermione grit her teeth with determination. "Expec...Expecto patronum!"* As before, nothing happened.

"It's the only spell she ever has trouble with," remarked Harry to Mrs Cattermole, amusement tinting his unnaturally deep voice. "Bit unfortunate, really . . . Come on, Hermione. . . ."*

It's not the only spell, thought Hermione miserably, rocked by her own inadequacy. I had trouble with wards, too, and Defence in general. The thought of wards made her think of Snape, and she pictured his relaxed persona in the Room of Requirement: his t-shirted chest, his arms crossed. She heard the smug satisfaction in his voice as he pointed out the differences between charmwork and warding.

"Expecto patronum!"* she cried again, with more certainty. This time, her silver otter leapt out from her wand and swam out across the room, where it tumble-turned a loop around Harry's stag.

Firming her resolve, Hermione followed Harry and Mrs Cattermole out into the corridor. At the appearance of the two Patronuses, the accused Muggle-borns and their families surged forwards, instinctively pushing themselves towards the silver puddles of good feeling and away from the Dementors. The Dementors fell back, disappearing into the far reaches of the corridors.

While Harry was making a speech, Hermione busied herself urging forward hesitant individuals. "Once you get out, run for it. Leave the country. Contact Torvik Murk by owl, he will help you." She reiterated the instructions into ear after ear, hoping that they would listen and obey. When the lift clanked open and ejected a dripping Ron-as-Reg, her heart leapt. Maybe we are going to make it. She glanced at her watch: ten minutes.

"Harry," said Ron urgently, "they know there are intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge's office door, I reckon we've got five minutes if that..."*

The hope in Hermione's heart dissipated instantaneously, and her Patronus disappeared. "Harry, if we're trapped here..."*

"We won't be if we move fast," replied Harry. "Who's got wands?"* he asked, addressing the question at the terrified group around them.

No more than half, noted Hermione.

"Okay," he continued in the deep and commanding tones of his Polyjuiced form, "all of you who haven't got wands need to attach yourself to somebody who has. We'll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on."*

Hermione crammed into the lift with Ron...who had conjured his Jack Russell Patronus...and about half of the crowd of escapees. Harry, with his stag, took another. The Atrium, once they got there, was in chaos. Ministry officials were hurriedly sealing the fireplaces, and the space was filling up with traffic that would have otherwise been flowing through.

Harry, it became immediately clear, was impersonating someone important, and furthermore, he had realised it himself. He began to bluff and bluster, distracting the officials to the extent where several stopped their frenzied attempts to close the fire connections and engaged him in conversation.

"Let's go!" urged Hermione, turning towards the panicked Muggle-borns and their families. She hurried them over to the nearest open fireplaces and started shepherding them through as fast as she could. "Remember: Torvik Murk, flee the country," she repeated over and over again.

"Mary!"*

"Shit," swore Ron, causing Hermione to spin around. The real Reg Cattermole was running towards them, throwing his wife into visible confusion. They might still have made it out unharmed, had Yaxley not burst from the lift at that point.

"Seal the exit! SEAL IT!"* he shrieked.

The confusion in the Atrium reached the point of pure pandemonium. Harry punched the balding Ministry official with whom he'd been arguing, shouting out contradictory statements at the top of his voice. Ron grabbed Mrs Cattermole and wrestled her into the nearest fireplace. Glancing around, Hermione saw that all of the Muggle-borns had disappeared...hopefully to safety.

"My wife!" screamed the real Reg in a panic. "Who was that with my wife? What's going on?"*

A brighter-than-average Ministry official tried to grab hold of Hermione, but she stunned him and twisted between two bystanders to reach Harry's side.

"Come on!"* shouted Harry as he grabbed her hand. The two of them leapt into a fireplace and shot upwards. Hermione heard a curse smack into the mantel as they spun away.

Seconds later, they burst out of a toilet bowl in the public facilities that served as portal to the Ministry. Harry wrenched open the cubicle door. Ron-as-Reg was trying to extricate himself from the anxious grip of Mrs Cattermole, who was still convinced that Ron was her husband.

"Accio Ron!" cried Hermione. The spell ripped Ron out of Mrs Cattermole's reach, and Harry grabbed him as soon as he got close enough, seizing hold of Hermione's hand at the same time. Hermione heard a noise behind her and twisted over her shoulder to see Yaxley explode out of the toilet behind her.

"LET'S GO!"* shouted Harry and turned into nothingness.

Hermione was twisted along with him, but she felt no relief. At the moment of departure, an unwelcome hand closed uncomfortably hard around her shoulder: Yaxley was along for the ride. Hermione could feel the pressure of his fingers even as the compression of Apparation squeezed her from all sides. He was strong, and Hermione had to struggle to keep hold of Harry's hand. She didn't want to know what would happen if Yaxley managed to pull her away and she lost her grip on Harry somewhere in the magical interstice of Apparation.

As soon as her feet touched the stoop at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Hermione blasted Yaxley with a Revulsion Jinx. The relief in her shoulder was immediate. "Hold on!" she shouted, though she wasn't sure either of her friends would hear. She had to trust that Harry had a firm grip of Ron, and she twisted away into nothing once again, this time headed for the first place that came to mind.

Hermione lay on her bunk, staring at the slats of the bed above her, thoroughly swamped by waves of self-recrimination. Useless. Unattractive. Stupid. A hot tear leaked from the corner of one eye and hovered on her cheekbone for several seconds before sliding sideways and trickling down into her ear.

No-one cares that it's your birthday.

Annoyed, Hermione rubbed at her wet face roughly with the heel of her hand.

At the sudden movement, the Horcrux, which had been sitting atop her pyjamas, slipped from her chest and came to rest in the crook of her neck, the heavy metal cold and clammy against her skin. Disgusted, Hermione pulled it sharply away from her body, twisting the locket sideways so that it lay on the pillow beside her head. Merlin, Granger, she swore at herself, can't you keep still?

Glancing at her watch, she calculated the time until she could pass on the Horcrux: one hour, forty-seven minutes. Hermione sighed.

What's worse? she wondered, wearing it myself or trying to put up with Ron while he wears it? Ron plus Horcrux was a very bad combination. Hermione tried to picture it as a third-order integrated equation where the derivative of the curve would represent the change in his behaviour and the definite integral the array of the effects on others. In that case, she theorised, I'd just have to work out the right noumenal integration, and I could return him to normal . . . Oh, shut up, Granger. Not even I can bear to listen to you.

Swivelling her eyes sideways, she returned her attention to the Horcrux. She hated it. There was something foreboding about it, something malicious. With a quick glance in the direction of the tent door, where Harry sat, unseen as he kept watch, Hermione eased the chain over her neck. The relief was immediate. She couldn't understand why Harry insisted that they wear the thing. Who does he think he is? Frodo Baggins? Guiltily, she wrapped the chain around one finger. There. That was practically the same as wearing it . . . wasn't it?

Hermione could still feel the insidious, throbbing presence of the Horcrux as it lay beside her, but she could think more clearly. We have to destroy it. They'd spent endless days discussing how to find the other Horcruxes...with no luck...but much less time contemplating the destruction of the one they had. It's almost like the locket won't let us think about that for too long; we're too distracted.

As if in confirmation of her thought, her brain skittered sideways once again: Ron certainly can't seem to think about anything but food. I swear, the next time I go on the run, I'm taking a boy who can cook . . . The memory of Snape's seafood stew curled across the back of her mouth, and she swallowed instinctively. No! Hermione folded up the memory and tucked it forcefully away. She would not think of Snape while she was wearing the Horcrux, not even when it was but wrapped around the tip of one finger. She felt sure the Horcrux was spying on her. Its weight was an unbearable heaviness of the brain. It felt like pure evil.

Gradually, eventually, the endless minutes of her shift with the locket wore down. Precisely twelve hours after she'd put it on, Hermione shook Ron awake and dropped the Horcrux into his palm.

"Wha'?" he asked blearily, rubbing at his eyes with his other hand. He squinted up at her in the dim light which soaked through the fabric walls of the tent. "Where're you going?"

"To get firewood," she replied, turning away.

"In your running clothes?"

Hermione ignored him.

"Back in less than an hour," she informed Harry as she passed him, sitting by the front door.

"Okay."

Hermione felt clunky at the start of her run...an uncoordinated bundle of arms and legs and lungs and hair...but after twenty minutes, she found her rhythm. Her breath came more evenly, and her body seemed to stretch, each joint loosening and her stride lengthening. As her body relaxed, her anxiety evaporated. For the first time since they'd stolen the Horcrux, she felt content.

Attentive to the lessons she had learned from Snape, she unfolded the memories she had tucked away. To leave them concealed for long periods inside her head would risk permanent damage, and out here, away from the Horcrux, she had no need to hide her memories of Snape. Distance had tempered the desperate and illogical concern that the locket was eavesdropping on her thoughts, that she might inadvertently betray Snape to this horribly severed part of Voldemort's horrible soul.

I have to find the time to run every day, she decided. And I have to find a more successful method of protecting myself from the Horcrux.

Hermione ran almost all of the way back to the tent, stopping in a clearing to stretch and collect some wood before her return. The run had helped her make some decisions. Firstly, she was going to keep her Occlumency shields up whenever she was near the Horcrux. Unlike Snape, she wasn't dealing with Voldemort himself, and she had no need to fool the Horcrux into thinking she couldn't Occlude. There was no reason for her to be using the more subtle forms of Occlumency when straightforward defences would do.

Second, she was going to be very careful about using the so-called Dark Lord's name. Despite the advice she'd received via Phineas' portrait, Hermione had come very close to using his name several times. Mostly, she'd caught herself half-way through, but on one occasion, it was only Ron's sudden paranoia that had prevented her slip. I wish Phineas had just told me why, she thought, her brows creased. It would make it easier to remember.

Third, she was going to try to be nicer to Harry and Ron. If she was finding the Horcrux hard, they surely were too. And the most important thing of all was for them to stick together. Harry needed both her and Ron, otherwise the Arithmantic probabilities of success didn't bear thinking about.

Hermione wandered back towards where she knew the tent to be, one hand guiding a bundle of kindling that she'd levitated to waist height. Though the tent itself was concealed behind her wards, Hermione had discovered that if she squinted and leaned her awareness towards the magical barriers, she could sense the barriers themselves quite easily. She had even begun to differentiate between those she'd cast herself and those Harry had made. Concentrating now, she leant forwards, reaching with her mind and groping gently with her wand hand. There. The force of her own ward hummed slightly under her palm; its protective energy comforted and reassured her.

Smiling to herself, she stepped through. Ron sat where Harry had been at her departure, his knees drawn up to his chest and a black scowl plastered across his face. The glint of the locket's chain was visible around his neck.

"Good morning, Ron."

"Is it?"

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm going to make a cup of tea, you want one?"

"Suppose."

There was a pause as Hermione laid the wood and conjured bluebell flames to get it started. She was surprised when Ron broke the silence.

"I thought he had more of a plan. What the hell are we doing out here?"

Hermione froze. "Where is he now?" she asked.

"Sleeping." Ron waved a hand dismissively in the direction of the tent.

"I thought he had more of a plan, too," she said. Her tone was conciliatory, but she meant what she said wholeheartedly. "I thought Dumbledore would have given him more to go on, but even so, I would still have come. We have to help him; he needs us."

"He needs a good smack in the ear," muttered Ron.

It was going to be another difficult day.