The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|126| Hangry Thoughts

Harry, Hermione, and I felt that it was best not to stay anywhere too long, and Ron agreed, with the sole proviso that our next move took us within reach of a bacon sandwich. Hermione and I, therefore, removed the enchantments we had placed around the clearing, while Harry and Ron obliterated all the marks and impressions on the ground that might show we had camped there. Then we Disapparated to the outskirts of a small market town.

Once we had pitched the tent in the shelter of a small copse of trees and surrounded it with freshly cast defensive enchantments, I volunteered to go find sustenance somewhere around us. Under the Invisibility Cloak, I ventured out through the forest, but it did not go as planned. I had barely entered the town when an unnatural chill, a descending mist, and a sudden darkening of the skies made me freeze where I stood.

"But you can make a brilliant Patronus!" protested Ron, when I arrived back at the tent empty-handed, out of breath, and mouthing the single word, dementors.

"I couldn't... make one," I panted, clutching the stitch in my side. "Wouldn't... come."

Their expressions of consternation and disappointment made me feel ashamed. It had been a nightmarish experience, seeing the dementors gliding out of the mist in the distance and realizing, as the paralyzing cold choked my lungs and a distant screaming filled my ears, that I was not going to be able to protect myself. It had taken all my willpower to uproot myself from the spot and run, leaving the eyeless dementors to glide amongst the Muggles who might not be able to see them, but would assuredly feel the despair they cast wherever they went.

"So we still haven't got any food."

"Shut up, Ron," snapped Hermione. "Maisey, what happened? Why do you think you couldn't make your Patronus? You managed perfectly yesterday!"

"I don't know."

I sat low in one of Perkins's old armchairs, feeling more humiliated by the moment. I was afraid that something had gone wrong inside me. I've never failed in my Charms. But yesterday seemed a long time ago: Today I might have been thirteen years old again, the only one, besides Harry, who collapsed on the Hogwarts Express.

Ron kicked a chair leg. Hermione scowled at him.

"What?" he snarled at Hermione. "I'm starving! All I've had since I bled half to death is a couple of toadstools!"

"You go and fight your way through the dementors, then," I said, stung.

"I would, but my arm's in a sling, in case you hadn't noticed!"

"That's convenient."

"And what's that supposed to —?"

"Of course!" cried Hermione, clapping a hand to her forehead and startling both of them into silence. "Maisey, give me the locket! Come on," she said impatiently, clicking her fingers at me when I did not react, "the Horcrux, Maisey, you're still wearing it!"

She held out her hands, and I lifted the golden chain over my head. The moment it parted contact with my skin I felt free and oddly light. I had not even realized that I was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on my stomach until both sensations lifted.

"Better?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah, loads better!"

"Maise," Harry said, crouching down in front of me and using the kind of voice he associated with visiting the very sick, "you don't think you've been possessed, do you?"

"What? No!" I said defensively. "I remember everything we've done while I've been wearing it. I wouldn't know what I'd done if I'd been possessed, would I? Ginny told me there were times when she couldn't remember anything."