Time had passed and Harry had recovered from his previous, quite traumatic, incident. His dreams had been plagued by Nagini and he woke up repeatedly, panicking that someone had called out to him in the distance.

One night, when Hermione was on watch, he had just woken up from a dream and decided to join Hermione outside. He suggested to her that they should both move soon as he thought he had heard footsteps and other people nearby. Hermione thought too that it would be a good idea for she thought she had seen someone.

"Maybe it was an illusion but I think it's best we Disapparate under the Cloak for safety measures." she told him.

When the two had packed up everything, they swiftly departed and made their way back to one of the places they had been to already. It seemed like they had gone full circle.

"We're back here." Hermione said to Harry. "The Forest of Dean."

Harry did not question why she had chosen to return here but he had a faint idea. This was where Y/N knew where to find them and perhaps Hermione was holding onto a small fraction of hope that the love of her life would come back to her. Although both were on a 'break' there was no denying that the two were made for each other and ultimately, they would somehow find their way back to each other - that was if nothing got in their way.

Days passed and Harry found himself out, sitting alone and taking watch, giving Hermione the rest that she desperately needed.

In front of him, he saw a source of light, which seemed to be drifting towards him. He took out Hermione's wand and edged closer towards it. As the source of light stepped out from behind a tree, Harry noticed that it was a beautiful silver doe, bright and dazzling, stepping and making its way towards Harry. He stared at it, filled with wonder as he watched this magnificent creature.

As the doe started moving away, Harry followed with urgency and when it came to a halt, Harry produced light from the tip of the wand. He was at a small, frozen pool and as Harry glanced closer into this pool, he noticed something glinting...

The sword.

He tried summoning it at first and racked his brain for ideas on how he could get this sword that was ever so crucial, in the end, he settled onto retrieiving it by hand by jumping into the lake. After removing layers of clothing, he cracked the ice and jumped in, his body screaming at him for jumping into water so cold. As he was swimming towards, the Horcrux at this next started strangling him, constricting his windpipe.

Harry splashed and splashed, trying to make his way back to the surface as his lungs begged for air but the Horcrux was not cooperating. Just before he thought he was going to pass out, a pair of arms pulled him out of the ice-cold lake.

"Are you bloody mental?"

Harry looked around to see who had saved him from the inpending doom. He looked at the familiar figure, holding the Horcrux in one hand and the sword in the other. It was none other than Ronald Weasley.

"It-it was you?" Harry asked. "The doe?"

Ron shook his head. "I thought it was you."

After some small talk, they both addressed what they had to do.

"You have to do it," Harry told Ron, "you're the one who took it out from the lake."

Ron had an uneasy grimace as Harry prepared to open the locket...immediately a voice hissed out from the Horcrux.

"I have seen your heart....and it's mine."

"Don't listen to it! Stab it!" Harry urged.

"Ronald Weasley, I have seen your dreams and I have seen your fears. Least loved by your mother...least appreciated of all your friends, hiding always under the shadow of the great Harry Potter and Y/N L/N."

The Horcrux morphed into versions of Hermione and Y/N, passionately kissing each other.

"It'll never be you." Horcrux Hermione told Ron. "Everyone knows that."

It was true. Ron Weasley would never be able to compete with Y/N. As the Horcrux continued, Ron found the courage and the strength to smash down with the sword and destroy the Horcrux...once and for all.

Harry let out a sigh of relief. "Great."

The Potter boy was feeling awkward after what he had just witnessed, he strode over towards the now destroyed Horcrux and picked it up.

"They're meant for each other Ron," Harry said to the Weasley boy, "I hope you know that."

Ron gave Harry a bitter nod. "I know, I've always known that. How could I, Ron Weasley, ever compare to the great Y/N L/N?"

Harry looked at his friend, feeling conflicted. "Let's go back."

As the two of them walked in silence, the triumph of the destruction of Voldemort's locket gave the two boys a silent sense of victory, hopefully the first of many.

When they arrived back where the tent was, Harry went inside and found Hermione, fast asleep, snuggled in some blankets.

"Hermione...Hermione...Hermione!" Harry ushered, trying to wake the girl up.

Hermione woke up almost instantly and jolted awake.                                                  

"What's wrong? Harry? Are you all right?"

"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine, I'm great. There's someone here."

"What do you mean? Who-?"                    

She saw Ron, who stood there holding the sword and dripping onto the carpet. Harry backed into a shadowy corner, slipped off Ron's rucksack, and attempted to blend in with the canvas.                    

Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker toward Ron, her eyes upon his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak hopeful smile and half raised his arms.                    

Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.

"Ow! Ouch! Get off! What the-? Hermione! OW!" Ron cried, bringing his arms up to protect his face.

"You. Complete. Arse. Ronald. Weasley!" Hermione shouted, punctuating every word with a blow.

"You. Crawl. Back. Here. Weeks. And. Weeks. Oh where's my wand?"

She looked as though she was ready to rip it from Harry and the Potter boy reacted instinctively. "Protego!"

The invisible shield erupted between both Ron and Hermione, the force knocking her backwards onto the floor.                   

As Hermione stood back up again, ready for round two, Harry managed to calm her down. However, she was still quite angry and sent snarky comments towards Ron as he explained his story.

He told them how he had managed to find them and how he was waiting for them on a hill not long ago but seemed to have missed them. He told them how there were Snatchers and how he had to lie and say his name was Stan Shunpike. Hermione was not impressed but still listened to Ron as he told them how Dumbledore's Deluminator guided him back to the other two.

However, Hermione's mood instantly changed when she found out that at long last, the locket had been destroyed.

"I-it's just gone? Destroyed?" she asked in pure shock. "Just like that?"

Harry and Ron both nodded with a slight grin. Harry gave Hermione the Horcrux for her to inspect.

"One Horcrux down mate!" Ron cheered slightly.

The conversation continued as Harry listened awkwardly as Ron said that he heard Hermione's voice talking to him. Both Harry and Hermione inwardly cringed, Hermione could never see Ron in that way and Harry knew that it would always be Y/N and Hermione.

"Hold on," Harry said, "did you say that you got away from the Snatchers with a spare wand?"

Ron looked confused for a moment but then he acknowledged it. "Oh yeah." he opened his rucksack and took our a short spare wand and chucked it to Harry. "Figured it's always good to have a spare."

"Yeah, you're right. Mine's broken." Harry said, catching the wand."

Not much more was said as the trio silently prepared themselves for sleep. The next morning, Hermione was still annoyed at Ron and the tent was mostly silent. The only time the silence was broken was when they were trying to figure out where and who that Patronus could've come from.

The conversation about the Patronus slowly changed into a conversation about Dumbledore's parting gift to Ron and then changed to Rita Skeeter's article about Dumbledore, 'The life and lies of Albus Dumbledore.'

As their conversation continued, Harry noticed a spider and tried to practice spells on it with the new wand that Ron had given to him, he was a bit out of practice at first and promptly stopped when he realised Ron was cowering slightly, even as he grew, his fear of spiders never left him.

"You just need to practice Harry," Hermione said, emerging from another room, "you'll be fine."                                       
All three of them returned to the tent when darkness fell, and Harry took first watch. Sitting in the entrance, he tried to make the blackthorn wand levitate small stones at his feet; but his magic still seemed clumsier and less powerful than it had done before. Hermione was lying on her bunk reading, while Ron had taken a small wooden wireless out of his rucksack and started to try to tune it.

"There's this one program," he told Harry in a low voice, "that tells the news like it really is. All the others are on You-Know-Who's side and are following the Ministry line, but this one...you wait till you hear it, it's great. Only they can't do it every night, they have to keep changing locations in case they're raided and you need a password to tune in. Trouble is, I missed the last one..."                   

He drummed lightly on the top of the radio with his wand muttering random words under his breath. For ten minutes or so Ron tapped and muttered, Hermione turned the pages of her book, and Harry continued to practice with the blackthorn wand.                   
Finally Hermione climbed down from her bunk and approached Harry.

"We need to talk." she said.

Harry glanced at her and looked at the book she was reading, it was Rita Skeeter's book about Dumbledore.

"Why?" Harry asked.

"I want to go see Xenophilius Lovegood." Hermione said plainly.

Harry looked at Hermione, shocked, but as he stared into her face he knew that this look of determination on Hermione Granger's face meant that it was something important.

And so he decided that they were going to visit Xenophilius Lovegood.