HP/LOTM: Visionary - 436

Chapter 436: Horcrux Destroyed, The Killing Game Begins, Four Dishes and a Soup

"Ron, you destroy it," Harry said, picking up the sword and shoving it at him.

"What? I cannot. I will not be able to fight it off," Ron yelped, backing away, face white.

"That is exactly why you have to do it. You need to learn to resist it," Harry said.

He did not give Ron the chance to refuse; he simply thrust the Sword of Gryffindor into his hands.

The three of them went outside the tent and found another fallen tree trunk. Harry set the locket on the dead wood.

"Ready?" he asked.

Ron nodded, throat working.

Harry touched his wand to the locket and poured a thin stream of golden magic into it.

Chaos slammed against his magic at once. Thick black fog squeezed out of the chain and spilled over the bark.

The air grew heavy and warped around them under the pressure of that power.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Silver-white mist burst from Harry’s wand and coalesced into a stag three storeys tall. The Patronus stepped forward, antlers lowered, and the Chaos-twisted space straightened; the worst of the distortion pushed back. Some trees at the edge of the clearing were not quite right anymore, but it was still under control.

Hermione lifted her wand as well, layering shield and Confundus Charms to muffle the light and sound.

"Do it, Ron!" Harry shouted.

Ron charged with the sword raised.

A whip of black magic lashed out from the locket and sent him flying.

He crashed to the ground and skidded, barely holding on to the hilt.

"I cannot," he gasped, dropping back onto the snow. His fingers almost slipped from the blade.

"What are you doing, Ron? Why did you jump back yourself?" Hermione yelled from across the clearing.

"What?"

He stared at her, stunned. He had felt the lash, felt it wrap him and throw him.

"Waste of a good mind," Lada said.

A small cat padded up beside him and sat down primly, licking her paw.

"This is your flaw, Ron. Aiden and I have been using hypnosis on you for years now, trying to toughen your mind. When real pressure hits you, Ron, you don’t push back. You choose to vanish. To make yourself small enough that no one blames you when things break,” she said.

Ron’s jaw clenched. He wanted to hex her—hex both of them—blast them into the snow just to shut them up.

The Chaos in the gemstone, the pure mental pressure flooding from it, nailed him to the spot.

"Look. Your friends are fighting for their lives, waiting for you to move," Lada said, tilting her head toward Harry and Hermione.

"So, are you going to plug the leak in your heart and be a hero, or run again, Ronnikins?" she said.

At some point, her pupils had shifted into mismatched amber and deep blue again. Ron did not notice the change in the way she addressed him.

The Horcrux did.

It dipped into his thoughts and started to whisper.

"I know you, Ron Weasley. I have walked through your dreams," it said.

The voice in the fog was low and rasping, as if its throat were full of bubbles.

“Your mother loves everyone but you the most. She dotes on her nephew, she’s proud of all her other sons, and she cherishes her daughter… but you? You’re the one she always forgets,” it whispered. “And the girl you want doesn’t love you either. She loves your friend.”

The smoke heaved and rolled. Shapes formed inside it.

Harry and Hermione, barely dressed, arms around each other, kissing.

Shock twisted Ron’s face, then rage.

He surged to his feet, sword coming up.

Inside the jewel, Tom’s remnant watched him come and smiled. She could already see it: Ron, broken by her words, turning the blade on his greatest rival.

The blow fell.

Not on Harry.

On her.

Steel met gemstone with a ringing crack. Basilisk venom soaked into the fractured core. The remnant screamed, a high, tearing sound. The knot of black magic blew apart.

Silence dropped back over the clearing.

Ron stood there, gasping. The sword slipped from his numb fingers and thudded into the snow.

"Not bad, Ron," Lada said.

She trotted over and picked the Sword of Gryffindor up carefully between her teeth.

"That thing… it nearly… fooled me," Ron said. His voice still shook.

Harry came to clap his shoulder. Hermione’s anger had drained away. They had both seen what he had chosen.

One Horcrux down. One step closer.

The air in the camp felt easier to breathe. For the first time in days, something like hope settled over them.

……

Far away in Romania, Tom’s eyes flew open.

Killing intent poured off her in waves.

She had felt it the moment the Horcrux broke.

She could not move.

Edmund was still tying up too much of her strength. If she broke away from the Mediterranean even for a day, the forces in Egypt could surge north and smash her hard-won territory to pieces.

She was running herself to the edge.

There were never many witches and wizards truly suited to slaughter and bloody rule. The biggest group was always the ordinary sort.

To keep a continent running, she needed black wizards to sit on the masses and grind them down, and she did not have enough of them.

In her rush to swallow all of Europe, she had not noticed. Her forces were stretched far too thin.

She was a serpent. When prey came this close to her jaws, she had to bite first and worry about the poison later.

Whether this particular prey had come out of some writer’s twisted imagination was another question entirely.

She could feel death breathing down her neck.

She would not sit and wait for it.

"Caius Quirrell," she said.

Her call rolled out from the castle and straight into the ears of a young man outside.

Quirrell Apparated into the hall and dropped to one knee.

"Your orders, my lord?" he said.

“Send word to Severus. Tighten the net around Harry Potter. And find me Aiden Prewett—” Tom said, her voice dropping to a cold hiss. “Track down the vanished Department of Mysteries as well.”

She never noticed the flicker in Quirrell’s eyes, the hint of dragon gold swirling in the dark.

On Voldemort’s side, tension and the taste of blood hung over everything.

On Harry’s side, they had just finished stuffing themselves.

Lada had personally caught enough fish to feed three people to bursting.

After tasting Hermione’s roast, the little cat had turned around and, in the same cramped camp kitchen, produced four dishes and a soup that left Hermione staring.

"Where did you learn all this… no, how do you even know the spells to do it… can you teach me those charms?" Hermione said.

The question changed shape three times on its way out.

For someone with a mind as sharp as hers, that said everything.

"Aiden taught me. He says he got them from a friend in America. If you lot had flour, we could even be making quiche," Lada said.

She looked up from her wooden bowl and swallowed the fish she was chewing.

"And your survival skills are terrible. Want me to teach you how to catch fish tomorrow?" she added, head tilting.

The three of them stared at the cat, judging them.

They did the only thing they could.

Ate faster, in perfect silence, and then slipped back into the tent to sleep.