Aurora | Harry Potter

chapter sixty-one

"Incendio," I whisper, my wand pointing at the small pile of sticks and dry leaves. A small burst of fire leave the tip and the pile lights up, smoky crackles pleasing my ears and gorgeously brilliant flames lighting up the surroundings. A sad smile on my face, I inch closer to the burning wood and snuggle into Cedric's scarf, the smell from the fire bringing a further sense of comfort. 

I start to warm up, but the sharp snap of a twig makes my ears twitch and I quickly glance over in the direction that the sound came from. I can't clearly see anything, so I stand up and start to walk down the hill, the warmth fading away as I leave the small campfire. When I reach the edge of the protective charms that Hermione put up, I still can't see anything.

But then I see a group walk down from another nearby hill. A group of Snatchers. I almost instantly recognise the leader, Scabior, known for being very ambitious and cunning. 

No wonder he was sorted into Slytherin.

My breath hitches as they walk past, leaves crunching underneath their heavy footsteps. "What's that?" Scabior asks aloud as he stops in his tracks and I feel my entire body freeze. He turns around slowly, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion. "What's that smell?"

He walks towards the protective charms and stops right in front of me, his eyes looking out around and his finger raised. I know that he can't see me, but the fact that I can feel his breath on my face sends chills up my spine. He continues to sniff and just as I think he's going to take a step through the barrier, one of the Snatcher's drops a body they were carrying, his attention switching to them. 

"What are you doing?" He asks and after being fairly sarcastic to the large Snatcher, the group walks away and I let out a large, shaky breath. My heart feels like it's going burst out of my chest, my throat feels incredibly dry and my hands are shaking wildly. Once I've pulled myself together, a crunch of leaves behind me makes me dart around and pull out my wand, but when I see Harry's face, I sigh and put it away.

"Snatchers," he observes, "good thing that Hermione's enchantments work." I nod, before a strangled choke leaves my lips as I try to speak. "He could smell my perfume," I manage to get out, fear encapsulating me. I feel Harry's hand grab mine and he squeezes it tightly, so in response, I rest my head against his shoulder and hold onto his arm.

Trying to distract myself, I ask him about how Hermione handled wearing the locket. After telling both Ron and Hermione about the plan to all take it in turns wearing it, Hermione volunteered to wear it for the rest of the day. I kept to myself for most of the day and haven't really been around the group, so I don't know how she took it.

"It was alright, after a while it just made her feel quite down and she wasn't in a very happy mood, but nothing more than that," he answers before he presses a soft kiss to my forehead. I go to reply, but stop when he says 'I'm sorry'.

"I need to apologise for earlier. Yes, I know that it was mainly the locket that made me so angry, but as soon as I took it off, I felt absolutely horrible," he says as we walk back up to the tent, the fire now almost completely gone. "Thank you for apologising," I reply, giving him a small smile. Stress levels are super high for anyone right now and I know he would never purposely yell at me, so forgiving him isn't difficult at all.

He presses another kiss on my forehead and we head inside the tent, where we see Hermione and Ron asleep together, snuggling underneath a thick blanket with warm smiles on their faces. My heart warms at the sight of them both and after saying goodnight to Harry, I head to bed myself. 

Over the next couple of weeks, we travel to multiple different places, searching desperately for another Horcrux. So far, we have had no luck. Every time we arrive at a different place, me and Hermione put up the protective charms while Ron and Harry set up the tent. We started travelling on foot because Ron's arm still hadn't healed enough to Disapparate, but he's almost completely healed, so soon we'll be able to travel much easier.

I began with wearing the locket at the start of our travels and for me, the effects were that it heightened my mood swings, making it easier for me to react negatively to the rest of the group, and I also became very self-conscious. About myself, my relationship with Harry, my friendship with Hermione, my sibling-like bond with Ron, the mission and the future. If I wore it for too long - like we unfortunately discovered one night - I would have a mental breakdown and storm off in floods of tears.

Everyone gave me some space for a few minutes, then they all came out to help. I took the locket off and it took a little while for the effects to completely wear off, but the group were as lovely as ever and were all there for me. After that, Harry wore it for a short amount of time and Hermione did also, but as of now, Ron has been wearing it the longest.

Hermione and Harry don't seem to have noticed anything change, but every so often, I see something in Ron's eyes grow darker and more intense. He has also been smiling less and less, but again, neither of the others have seemed to notice any differences in his behaviour. I tried to talk to him about it, but he insisted that he was fine, so I left it alone. I don't know if this could be a reason why, but Hermione has been spending a lot of time with Harry recently, talking about places to travel to and trying to decide when it'll be time to give Harry's thick head of hair a trim. 

Could the locket be bringing out some jealousy in Ron?

He still listens to the radio every night - I've started listening to it with him - and even though we both miss them dearly, it's nice to hear Fred and George's voices at the end of a long day. 

Hopefully, we'll be back with them, the rest of the Weasley's and everyone else soon. 

I hope...