Hermione could feel the eyes of bystanders on her neck as Harry began to lead them away from the courtyard, away from Voldemort’s body (what a novel thing to be able to say) and those who would try to steal Harry’s time if given half a chance, and into the castle that was their home for the past six years. Through the destroyed corridors they went, and for once Hermione didn’t bother questioning where they were going, or the reason behind their journey, simply focusing on Harry’s and Ron’s hands in her own and the fact that they were both alive.
They came to a stop where their first adventure happened, and Hermione could still see Fluffy over the trap door like the philosopher’s stone puzzle had been yesterday. Thinking back on it, she couldn’t quite believe how foolish they’d been to go after something so dangerous at eleven years old (twelve for her), but there wasn’t an ounce of regret in her. She would do it all again if she had to, and she was certain Ron and Harry would say the same.
Her lips twitched up when Ron said exactly what she was thinking–she would’ve helped drag Harry back by the ear if needed–but the fact that he’d been a Horcrux gave her pause. Ron’s confusion echoed her own thoughts, but rather than ask what she wasn’t sure even Harry knew, Hermione thought it through. “You became the Horcrux when his curse bounced back as a baby,” she said slowly, looking between the two boys. “His soul was so fragmented at that point that part of him must have gone into you, leaving that scar behind, and since he was supposedly killed that night, he wouldn’t have known it happened. Not when he had six other Horcruxes out there.” Her eyes narrowed as everything pieced together in her head, and she shook her head furiously. “And Dumbledore knew, didn’t he? He–and he didn’t bother telling you? He told Snape of all people?”
He must have known that Harry had to die to be rid of the Horcrux as well. How could he have known that Harry would be able to return to life, though? “Both of those men are lucky they’re already dead, or I’d be killing them myself.”
At least Harry wasn’t alone. His parents were there thanks to the stone, which brought Hermione a little bit of comfort, but she hated that it needed to happen at all. She gently pried her hands from both of them and walked closer to the trap door, heart aching when Ron asked about Fred. The stone only brought back what the bearer most desired, and Hermione doubted that was Fred. She didn’t have the heart to tell Ron that though, not when he likely knew that on his own deep down. Instead, Hermione knelt down and lifted the trap door open, staring down into the dusty room below and glancing back at the boys behind her. Her boys.
“Come on,” she said, throwing caution to the wind with a smile at Harry and Ron before dropping down into the chamber, the fall not nearly as far now that she was grown. She cast a buffering spell anyway to cushion her fall, just to be safe, and glanced back up through the hole. “Don’t leave me down here alone.”
Neither looked surprised at their destination. Harry wondered if it meant as much to them as it did to him right now, to be with the two of them still, to have them the only thing calming the anxiety and fear in his heart. The only thing that stopped him from falling apart was explaining it to them, quietly and calmly, his heart rate slowing back down to normalcy as he went on.
“Right again, Hermione,” Harry said, a small smile on his lips. She’d answered Ron’s question before he’d even had the chance to do so himself. He wasn’t surprised that she could so easily grasp something he was still struggling to understand, that she had so quickly been able to move on from confusion to anger. It pierced right though his heart again, as it had when he’d been talking to Dumbledore, but like then, all of his own betrayed fury quickly became defensiveness. He somehow hadn’t been able to bear hearing Dumbledore blame himself and the urge to speak for him rose up again now, “Snape was loyal to him, that much was true as well. Dumbledore trusted him to tell me when the time was right.”
Was it that simple? Part of Harry still ached over it, the man he had trusted so much, above anyone else, but another had already come to grips with it, had already composed arguments that made it make sense. Maybe he just needed it to make sense because the alternative could destroy him. He caught Hermione’s eyes and shrugged, “You know better than anyone I can be reckless and he didn’t really know that I’d be able to come back. But Voldemort took my blood and my mother’s protection, remember, when … when Cedric … so, in a way, he was my horcux in return.”
A shiver passed over Harry’s spine, disgusted by and hating the thought of that connection, but it had allowed him to make the choice to come back. It had saved his life. When so many others had died. It wasn’t fair. He was almost afraid to turn back around and see either of their expressions again, just in case they - perhaps especially Ron - were horrified. He only did so when Ron asked about his brother, a sick feeling welling up inside his stomach.
“Yeah,” Harry answered, nodding once. “My parents. Sirius. And Remus. Not Fred,” he added, in the gentlest voice he had, taking a step towards Ron and then stopping himself. “I think I was going to them. Not the other way around. Fred wouldn’t have been part of that. It’s not how I ever thought of him.” Even now, he still couldn’t believe Fred Weasley was dead. Harry had longed for loved ones beyond the veil a thousand times over, but never Fred who’d been more alive than anyone, who still should be. Who Ron should get to see again.
He looked to Hermione for help, a sort of desperation in his eyes, right as she jumped down the trapdoor. Afraid of what he might offer if it was just him and Ron a moment longer - the stone’s power was already too tempting for Harry alone - he bit down on hasty words and followed her instead. As he always had, really, it not even crossing his mind to cast a spell of his own to protect his fall. Without conscious thought, he assumed Hermione would have done so for all of them. “Never going to happen,” Harry called down as he knelt, before he leapt to join her. “We started this together and the three of us - that’s how it’s going to stay. Until the very end.” Repeating his father’s words made a warm feeling surge in his chest, even if he was the only who understood it - but how apt it was for himself, Ron and Hermione as well.
Glancing down at the trapdoor, which looked far less large and intimidating as it had when they were twelve, Ron squats down beside it, brushing his fingers mindlessly against the tarnished latch. “Look, it’s no girls bathroom after we locked a troll in there, but this place’s still got a lot of memories. First time ‘Mione yelled at us for one,” he says, glancing up to smirk at his...well, he supposed his now-girlfriend. Their hands are still firmly entwined and Ron can’t help but squeeze her fingers softly, opening to convey at least a quiet bit of affection.
He falls silent as Harry and Hermione speak, happy to listen to them talk and plot and work things out, a far cry from his Horcrux-enhanced insecurities of months previous. His own mind ticked over the newfound knowledge, a crease in his brow as he did so. It made sense, he supposed. Cursed objects were often unstable; he had heard Bill talk about his job often enough to know how some curses were strong enough to transfer from object to object through sheer proximity if they were given the time. For You-Know-Who to have rendered his own soul so fractured that it would break away and latch to the closest thing...well it made sense in its own fucked up way.
Squeezing Hermione’s hand once more, Ron pulls himself back to his feet, shaking his head enough to feel his neck crack, gaze falling heavy on Harry beside them. “I’m guessing Dumbledore had his reasons?” he asks, waiting for Harry to finish explaining. People like Dumbledore always had reasons for their behaviour, even if it made no sense to anyone else at the time. “Why he trusted Snape though...I mean, I knew he was batty, but surely he saw that Snape was a dickhead, yeah? Even if he...” he wrinkles his forehead, thinking back to the revelations of the hours previous, “...he was in love with your mum?”
Ron regrets asking about his brother the moment the words fall from his mouth, already feeling the heavy sick feeling as his heart caved in on itself. It was a stupid question, he knew that. Harry didn’t have enough of a connection with Fred to see him at the end, not when there were so many people he deserved to see more. This doesn’t, however, stem the urge to ask his best friend exactly where that stone lay, to allow Ron the closure he found himself in desperate need of. “How were they?” he says instead, determined to move past his own blunder, lest he find himself bursting into tears, “Did they look...how’d they look? Could they speak or were they like ghosts?”
Sliding down into the hole with a measured thump, Ron stretches his arms in the air, amused by how close to the trapdoor his finger-tips were. It had all seemed so much larger when they were younger. Glancing down at the lifeless remains of the Devil’s Snare around them, Ron bites back a laugh, “We wouldn’t leave you here. You might forget you’re magic and all if we did.”.
