‘No, you should do it.’

  ‘Me?’ said Ron, looking shocked. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it’s supposed to be you.’

  He was not being kind or generous. As certainly as he had known that the doe was benign, he knew that Ron had to be the one to wield the sword. Dumbledore had at least taught Harry something about certain kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of certain acts.

  ‘I’m going to open it,’ said Harry, ‘and you stab it. Straight away, OK? Because whatever’s in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the diary tried to kill me.’

  ‘How are you going to open it?’ asked Ron. He looked terrified.

  ‘I’m going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue,’ said Harry. The answer came so readily to his lips that he thought that he had always known it, deep down: perhaps it had taken his recent encounter with Nagini to make him realise it. He looked at the serpentine ‘S’, inlaid with glittering green stones: it was easy to visualise it as a minuscule snake, curled upon the cold rock.

  ‘No!’ said Ron, ‘no, don’t open it! I’m serious!’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Harry. ‘Let’s get rid of the damn thing, it’s been months –’

  ‘I can’t, Harry, I’m serious – you do it –’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because that thing’s bad for me!’ said Ron, backing away from the locket on the rock. ‘I can’t handle it! I’m not making excuses, Harry, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affected you and Hermione, it made me think stuff, stuff I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse, I can’t explain it, and then I’d take it off and I’d get my head on straight again, and then I’d have to put the effing thing back on – I can’t do it, Harry!’

  He had backed away, the sword dragging at his side, shaking his head.

  ‘You can do it,’ said Harry, ‘you can! You’ve just got the sword, I know it’s supposed to be you who uses it. Please, just get rid of it, Ron.’

  The sound of his name seemed to act like a stimulant. Ron swallowed, then, still breathing hard through his long nose, moved back towards the rock.

  ‘Tell me when,’ he croaked.

  ‘On three,’ said Harry, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes, concentrating on the letter ‘S’, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harry’s neck still burned.

  ‘One … two … three … open.’

  The last word came as a hiss and a snarl and the golden doors of the locket swung wide with a little click.

  Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle’s eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupilled.

  ‘Stab,’ said Harry, holding the locket steady on the rock.

  Ron raised the sword in his shaking hands: the point dangled over the frantically swivelling eyes, and Harry gripped the locket tightly, bracing himself, already imagining blood pouring from the empty windows.

  Then a voice hissed from out of the Horcrux.

  ‘I have seen your heart, and it is mine.’

  ‘Don’t listen to it!’ Harry said harshly. ‘Stab it!’

  ‘I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible …’

  ‘Stab!’ shouted Harry; his voice echoed off the surrounding trees, the sword point trembled, and Ron gazed down into Riddle’s eyes.

  ‘Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter … least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend … second best, always, eternally overshadowed …’

  ‘Ron, stab it now!’ Harry bellowed: he could feel the locket quivering in his grip and was scared of what was coming. Ron raised the sword still higher, and as he did so, Riddle’s eyes gleamed scarlet.

  Out of the locket’s two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed, like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted.

  Ron yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root, swaying over Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.

  ‘Ron!’ he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort’s voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerised, into its face.

  ‘Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence … we laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption –’

  ‘Presumption!’ echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: she swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. ‘Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?’

  ‘Ron, stab it, STAB IT!’ Harry yelled, but Ron did not move: his eyes were wide, and the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Hermione were reflected in them, their hair swirling like flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.

  ‘Your mother confessed,’ sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle-Hermione jeered, ‘that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange …’

  ‘Who wouldn’t prefer him, what woman would take you? You are nothing, nothing, nothing to him,’ crooned Riddle-Hermione, and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace: their lips met.

  On the ground in front of them, Ron’s face filled with anguish: he raised the sword high, his arms shaking.

  ‘Do it, Ron!’ Harry yelled.

  Ron looked towards him and Harry thought he saw a trace of scarlet in his eyes.

  ‘Ron –?’

  The sword flashed, plunged: Harry threw himself out of the way, there was a clang of metal and a long, drawn-out scream. Harry whirled round, slipping in the snow, wand held ready to defend himself: but there was nothing to fight.

  The monstrous versions of himself and Hermione were gone: there was only Ron, standing there with the sword held slackly in his hand, looking down at the shattered remains of the locket on the flat rock.

  Slowly, Harry walked back to him, hardly knowing what to say or do. Ron was breathing heavily. His eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue; they were also wet.

  Harry stooped, pretending he had not seen, and picked up the broken Horcrux. Ron had pierced the glass in both windows: Riddle’s eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Ron had been its final act.

  The sword clanged as Ron dropped it. He had sunk to his knees, his head in his arms. He was shaking, but not, Harry realised, from cold. Harry crammed the broken locket into his pocket, knelt down beside Ron and placed a hand, cautiously, on his shoulder. He took it as a good sign that Ron did not throw it off.

  ‘After you left,’ he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron’s face was hidden, ‘she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn’t want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone …’

  He could not finish; it was only now that Ron was here again that Harry fully realised how much his absence had cost them.

  ‘She’s like my sister,’ he went on. ‘I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It’s always been like that. I thought you knew.’

  Ron did not respond, but turned his face away from Harry and wiped his nose noisily on his sleeve. Harry got to his feet again and walked to where Ron’s enormous rucksack lay, yards away, discarded as Ron had run towards the pool to save Harry from drowning. He hoisted it on to his own back and walked back to Ron, who clambered to his feet as Harry approached, eyes bloodshot but otherwise composed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘I’m sorry I left. I know I was a – a –’

  He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.

  ‘You’ve sort of made up for it tonight,’ said Harry. ‘Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life.’

  ‘That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was,’ Ron mumbled.

  ‘Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.’

  Simultaneously they walked forwards and hugged, Harry gripping the still sopping back of Ron’s jacket.

  ‘And now,’ said Harry, as they broke apart, ‘all we’ve got to do is find the tent again.’

  But it was not difficult. Though the walk through the dark forest with the doe had seemed lengthy, with Ron by his side the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time. Harry could not wait to wake Hermione, and it was with quickening excitement that he entered the tent, Ron lagging a little behind him.

  It was gloriously warm after the pool and the forest, the only illumination the bluebell flames still shimmering in a bowl on the floor. Hermione was fast asleep, curled up under her blankets, and did not move until Harry had said her name several times.

  ‘Hermione!’

  She stirred, then sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her face.

  ‘What’s wrong? Harry? Are you all right?’

  ‘It’s OK, 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 on to the threadbare 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 towards 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 forwards and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.

  ‘Ouch – ow – gerroff! What the –? Hermione – OW!’

  ‘You – complete – arse – Ronald – Weasley!’

  She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced.

  ‘You – crawl – back – here – after – weeks – and – weeks – oh, where’s my wand?’

  She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry’s hands and he reacted instinctively.

  ‘Protego!’

  The invisible shield erupted between Ron and Hermione: the force of it knocked her backwards on to the floor. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she leapt up again.

  ‘Hermione!’ said Harry. ‘Calm –’

  ‘I will not calm down!’ she screamed. Never before had he seen her lose control like this; she looked quite demented.

  ‘Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!’

  ‘Hermione, will you please –’

  ‘Don’t you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!’ she screeched. ‘Don’t you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!’

  She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: it was like a malediction and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps.

  ‘I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back!’

  ‘I know,’ Ron said. ‘Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really –’

  ‘Oh, you’re sorry!’

  She laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry for help, but Harry merely grimaced his helplessness.

  ‘You come back after weeks – weeks – and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?’

  ‘Well, what else can I say?’ Ron shouted, and Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ yelled Hermione, with awful sarcasm. ‘Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds –’

  ‘Hermione,’ interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, ‘he just saved my –’

  ‘I don’t care!’ she screamed. ‘I don’t care what he’s done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew –’

  ‘I knew you weren’t dead!’ bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. ‘Harry’s all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they’re looking for you everywhere, all these rumours and mental stories, I knew I’d hear straight off if you were dead, you don’t know what it’s been like –’

  ‘What it’s been like for you?’

  Her voice was now so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity.

  ‘I wanted to come back the minute I’d Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn’t go anywhere!’

  ‘A gang of what?’ asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years.

  ‘Snatchers,’ said Ron. ‘They’re everywhere, gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there’s a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age, they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry.’

  ‘What did you say to them?’

  ‘Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of.’

  ‘And they believed that?’

  ‘They weren’t the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell off him …’

  Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humour, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs.

  ‘Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me and they’d taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine and Disapparated. I didn’t do it so well, Splinched myself again –’ Ron held up his right hand to show two missing fingernails; Hermione raised her eyebrows coldly ‘– and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we’d been … you’d gone.’

  ‘Gosh, what a gripping story,’ Hermione said, in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound. ‘You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile, we went to Godric’s Hollow and, let’s think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who’s snake turned up, it nearly killed both of us and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second.’

  ‘What?’ Ron said, gaping from her to Harry, but Hermione ignored him.

  ‘Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Hermione,’ said Harry quietly, ‘Ron just saved my life.’

  She appeared not to have heard him.

  ‘One thing I would like to know, though,’ she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Ron’s head. ‘How exactly did you find us tonight? That’s important. Once we know, we’ll be able to make sure we’re not visited by anyone else we don’t want to see.’

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

  ‘This.’

  She had to look at Ron to see what he was showing them.

  ‘The Deluminator?’ she asked, so surprised she forgot to look cold and fierce.

  ‘It doesn’t just turn the lights on and off,’ said Ron. ‘I don’t know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I’ve been wanting to come back ever since I left. But I was listening to the radio, really early on Christmas morning, and I heard … I heard you.’

  He was looking at Hermione.

  ‘You heard me on the radio?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice,’ he held up the Deluminator again, ‘came out of this.’

  ‘And what exactly did I say?’ asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between scepticism and curiosity.

  ‘My name. “Ron.” And you said … something about a wand …’

  Hermione turned a fiery shade of scarlet. Harry remembered: it had been the first time Ron’s name had been said aloud by either of them since the day he had left; Hermione had mentioned it when talking about repairing Harry’s wand.

  ‘So I took it out,’ Ron went on, looking at the Deluminator, ‘and it didn’t seem different, or anything, but I was sure I’d heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window.’

  Ron raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something neither Harry nor Hermione could see.

  ‘It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Harry and Hermione together, automatically.

  ‘I knew this was it,’ said Ron. ‘I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden.

  ‘The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it … well, it went inside me.’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Harry, sure he had not heard correctly.

  ‘It sort of floated towards me,’ said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, ‘right to my chest, and then – it just went straight through. It was here,’ he touched a point close to his heart, ‘I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me I knew what I was supposed to do, I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere …’

  ‘We were there,’ said Harry. ‘We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!’