Dawn Rivera

Godric's Hollow

Hermione and I, already busy in the kitchen, do not wish Harry and Danny good morning, but turn our faces away quickly as they go by.

He's gone, I tell myself. He's gone. I have to keep thinking it, as though repetition with dull the shock of it. He's gone and he's not coming back. And that is the simple truth of it, I know, because our protective enchantments mean that it will be impossible, once we vacate this spot, for Ron to find us again.

I, Hermione, Harry and Danny eat breakfast in silence. Hermione and I's eyes are puffy and red; we have not slept. We pack up our things, Hermione and I dawdling. I want to spin out our time on the riverbank; several times Hermione and I look up eagerly and we have deluded ourselves into thinking we hear footsteps through the heavy rain, but no red-haired figure appears between the trees. Every time Harry and Danny imitate us, look round and we see nothing but rain-swept woods, another little parcel of fury explodes inside me. I can hear Ron saying "We thought you knew what you were doing!", and I resume packing with a hard knot in my stomach.

The muddy river beside us is rising rapidly and will soon spill over on to our bank. We have lingered a good hour after we would usually have departed our campsite. Finally, having entirely replaced the beaded bag three times, Hermione and I are unable to find any more reasons to delay: we, Harry and Danny grasp hands and Disapparate, reappearing on a wind-swept, heather-covered hillside.

The instant we arrive Hermione and I drop Harry's and Danny's hands and walk away from them, finally sitting down on large rocks, our faces on our knees, shaking with sobs. Harry and Danny watch us. Everything inside me feels cold and tight: again I see the contemptuous expression on Ron's face. Harry and Danny stride off through the heather, casting the spells Hermione and I usually perform to ensure our protection.

We do not discuss Ron at all over the next few days. Harry and Danny are determined never to mention his name again, and Hermione and I know that it is no use forcing the issue, although sometimes at night when Harry and Danny are sleeping, we cry. Meanwhile Harry and Danny have started bringing out the Marauder's Map and examining it by wandlight - or hand-light. I am waiting for the moment when Ron's labelled dot will reappear in the corridors of Hogwarts, proving that he has returned to the comfortable castle, protected by his status of pure-blood. However, Ron does not appear on the map, and after a while I find myself taking out the blank-paged book simply to stare at it, wondering whether the intensity with which I gaze at it might break into its mystery, that it will somehow know I am thinking about it, hoping it will tell me its secrets.

By day, we devote ourselves to trying to determine the possible locations of Gryffindor's sword, but the more we talk about the places it, the more desperate and far-fetched our speculation becomes. Cudgel their brains though they might, Harry and Danny cannot remember Dumbledore ever mentioning a place in which he might hide something. There are moments when I don't know whether I am angrier with Ron or Dumbledore. We thought you knew what you were doing...we thought Dumbledore had to,d you what to do...we thought you had a real plan.

I can not hide it from myself: Ron was right. Dumbledore left them with virtually nothing. We have discovered one Horcrux, but we have no means of destroying it: the others are as unattainable as they ever were. Hopelessness threatens to engulf me. I am staggered, now, to think of my presumption in offering to accompany Harry on this meandering, pointless journey. I know nothing, I have no ideas, and I am constantly, painfully on the alert for any indication that Hermione and Danny, too, are about to tell Harry that they have had enough, that they are leaving. I won't leave, though. I'll never leave Harry.

We are spending many evenings in near silence, and Hermione and I take to bringing out Phineas Nigellus's portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of the gaping hole left by Ron's departure. Despite his previous assertion that he will never visit us again, Phineas Nigellus does not seem able to resist the chance to find out more about what Harry is up to, and consents to reappear, blindfolded, every few days or so. I am even glad to see him, because he is company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind. We relish any news about what is happening at Hogwarts, though Phineas Nigellus is not an ideal informer. He venerates Snape, the first Slytherin Headmaster since he himself controlled the school, and we were careful not to criticise, or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus will instantly leave his painting.