94 hp Diagon Alley

"You must be freaking out. And we went to Godric's Hollow. Let me see, what happened there, Harry? Oh, yes, You-Know-Who's snake jumped Come out, almost killed us, and then the mysterious man arrived in person, only a second away from catching us."

"What?" Ron opened his mouth, looking from Hermione to Harry, but Harry ignored him.

"Think of losing your nails, Harry! It really shows how little we suffer, doesn't it?"

"Hermione," Harry whispered, "Ron just saved my life."

She didn't seem to hear.

"I'd like to know, though," she said, her eyes fixed a foot above Ron's head, "how did you find us tonight? People we don't want to see come to bother us."

Ron glared at her, then pulled a small silver object from his jeans pocket.

"this."

She had to glance at Ron to see what he had brought out.

"Deluminator?" she asked, so surprised that she forgot to look cold and fierce.

"It doesn't just turn lights on and off," said Ron, "and I don't know how it did it, or why it did that one time and not another, because I've been wanting to come back since I left. But that day I was listening to the radio, it was early Christmas morning, and I heard—I heard you."

He looked at Hermione.

"You heard me on the radio?" she asked incredulously.

"No, I hear you in my pocket. Your voice," he held up the Deluminator again, "is coming out of this."

"What the hell am I talking about?" Hermione asked, her tone somewhere between doubt and curiosity.

"My name, 'Ron'. You said... what wand..."

Hermione turned red, and Harry remembered: that was the first time they had said his name since Ron had gone.Hermione mentioned him when talking about fixing Harry's wand.

"So I took it out," Ron continued, looking at the extinguisher, "it didn't look like anything, but I was pretty sure I heard your voice, so I pressed it and the lights went out in my house." up, but another light appeared outside the window."

Ron pointed forward, his eyes fixed on something neither Harry nor Hermione could see.

"It was a ball of light, it seemed to be pulsating, blue, like the light around a portkey, you know?"

"Yeah." Harry and Hermione said together involuntarily.

"I knew this was it," said Ron, "so I packed up my things quickly, put on my backpack and walked into the garden."

"The little light ball stopped in the air and waited for me. After I came out, it floated up and down for a while. I followed it to the back of the hut, and then it... Well, it floated into my body."

"What?" Harry thought he hadn't heard.

"It floated toward me," Ron demonstrated with his index finger, "up to my chest, and then—it went in. Here," he pointed to a spot near his heart, "I could feel it , hot. As soon as it got inside me, I knew what to do, and it would take me where I had to go. So I disapparated, and I was on a hillside, and there was snow everywhere..."

"We've been there," said Harry, "and stayed there two nights, and the second night I always felt like someone was walking and shouting in the dark!"

"Well, that's supposed to be me," said Ron. "At least, your warding spells are working, because I can't see or hear you. But I believe you are nearby, so I ended up in my sleeping bag and waited." Which of you shows up. I think you'll show up when you close the tent."

"Not necessarily," said Hermione, "we all Apparated under the Invisibility Cloak just to be on the safe side. And we left early because, as Harry said, we heard people bumping around. "

"I've been up on that mountain all day," said Ron, "and I've been hoping you'd show up. But when it got dark, I knew I'd probably missed it, so I flicked the extinguisher again, and the blue light appeared, drifting into the inside me, I Apparated into this woods. Still can't see you, I can only hope that one of you will show up - Harry shows up. Oh, obviously, I saw the doe first. "

"What did you see?" Hermione asked sharply.

They recounted their adventure just now.As the story of the silver doe and the sword at the bottom of the pond unfolded, Hermione frowned and looked back and forth between them, so absorbed that she forgot to bind her limbs.

"But it must be a Patronus!" she said. "Did you see who called it out? Didn't you see someone? It led you to the sword! Incredible! And what happened?"

Ron told how he saw Harry jumping into the pond and wanted to wait for him to come up, then realized something was wrong, jumped down to save Harry, and went back to fish out the sword.

Deciding it was finally safe, Harry lifted the Iron Armor Charm with a flick of Hermione's wand, and turned back to Ron.

"Did you just say that you earned a wand when you escaped from the Snatchers?"

"What?" said Ron, who was staring at Hermione. "Oh - yeah."

He undid the buckle of his knapsack and drew a short, black wand from the pouch. "Here. I guess it's always good to have a backup."

"You're right," said Harry, holding out his hand. "Mine is broken."

"Are you kidding?" said Ron, but when Hermione stood up, he panicked again.

Hermione crawled back into her bed and lay down without a word.

Ron handed Harry the new wand.

"Pretty much the best you can hope for, I suppose," Harry whispered.

"Yeah," said Ron, "it wasn't the worst, remember those birds she let out to peck me?"

"I haven't ruled that out yet," Hermione's muffled voice came from under the blanket, but Harry saw Ron smile slightly as he pulled his burgundy pajamas from his backpack.

"Actually," Ron whispered to Harry, keeping his eyes on Hermione, "I was really just going to get something to eat - we haven't eaten properly in weeks." He took out several cans from his backpack, "I went to Shell Cottage after I escaped from the search team, and Bill managed to get me some thick soup, beef and beans..."

Hermione sat up in bed, but still looked fuming.

"…Hermione, can I warm up some soup for you? I still have a couple of loaves." Ron hastily thrust his entire arm into his bag. Stuff, still bulging. Fleur put freshness magic on the bread - it seems to work. Hermione, you've lost too much weight -"

Hermione didn't even lift her eyelids, intending to respond to Ron's flattery with silence.Harry didn't want to be involved in the cold war between the two friends, so he drew out his new wand and prepared to light a fire to comfort his stomach.

"Well," Ron said, clearing his throat at Harry's movement, and pointing to the little flames floating in the glass jar, "I've always liked these flames that Hermione made."

"I'd love it too," said Harry, "especially now that there's a warm bowl of cream of chicken soup." He cast a spell on a stubby ten-inch blackthorn wand that Ron had stolen, "Quick GET BIGGER - GET SMALLER FAST!!!"

The flames in the can nearly burned a hole in the roof of the tent.

Impatiently, Hermione went out herself and piled the few tins that Ron had brought over the freshly lit fire.And deigned to examine the wand. "You just need practice." She said nervously, "It's all about confidence, Harry." Harry understood that she was still beating herself for breaking her own wand.

But they soon indulged in the deliciousness of the canned goods, and forgot about the awkward wand.

After seeing Hermione's expression softened by the sweet dinner, Ron worked up the courage to talk to them again.

"Job, I'm sorry to argue with you - but there's a reason for it, I was having nightmares at night and irritable during the day. It wasn't until we got to Shell Cottage that Bill discovered that I was actually Poisoned—the mushrooms we picked under the tree earlier—Bill said those rose-red white mushrooms were hops, and they were hallucinating.” He swallowed, as if unwilling to recall that he was outrageous hallucinations, "So I hurried to find you with a big bag of food, worried that you would eat poisonous mushrooms..."

"Hmph." Hermione wrapped herself in the blanket again, turning her back on Harry and Ron.

"When do you think her anger will go away?" Ron asked Harry in a low voice.

Harry was quietly throwing the mushrooms he and Hermione had found during the day outside the tent, "Tell me more about how that glowing ball got into your heart, and she will forgive you."

"I'm telling the truth, everything," said Ron, squinting at Hermione, who didn't know whether she was asleep or awake on the cot.

Harry hadn't expected Hermione's anger to dissipate overnight, so he wasn't surprised to see her communicating mostly with a scowl and conspicuous silence the next morning.Ron maintained an unnatural seriousness in front of her, as a sign of continued confession.In fact, when the three were together, Harry felt like the only one not mourning at a small funeral.But in the few moments he spent alone with Harry, Ron would be wildly happy.

"Somebody's helping us," he kept saying, "somebody's sending the doe, somebody's backing us up, we got the sword that kills the Horcruxes, man!"

Inspired by the sword of Gryffindor, they began discussing where the other Horcruxes might be, although previously