DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc

Alone in Bathilda Bagshot's filthy living room, Hermione could not persuade her heart to slow it's rapid pace. An almost uncontrollable sense of panic rose within her, as well as nausea unlike any she had ever experienced. She had finally identified the smell that was so overpowering underneath the stink of general household neglect. It was decay, and the instant she realized it, it terrified her.

Harry had explained that Bathilda was likely not "all there" or, "gaga" as Muriel had so delicately put it. She supposed if that really was the case (it certainly seemed to be) then things like household upkeep could go downhill fast. But decay? Something was wrong, very wrong indeed.

Harry's reassuring smiles, and confidence that the two of them could easily defend themselves against this old woman if need be, did nothing to soothe this feeling of dread within her. She understood, of course, how desperate Harry was to find something, anything, that would further help their cause. She felt the same restless desperation to destroy not only the Horcrux they had, but all the Horcruxes Voldemort had created.

That locket was evil, and wearing it had made that simple truth even more clear to her. She hated wearing that relic of Salazar Slytherin. She wasn't as obviously affected as...well, it wasn't as outwardly obvious on her, but the things it made her think...she normally would have never pictured such disturbing things. The images that came to her mind while she wore that horcrux frightened her more than any Bogart could.

But something about this felt wrong. Here she was all alone, while Harry was upstairs doing Merlin only knew what with a woman that had clearly gone crazy...

It was at that precise moment that a very unwlecome thought clicked into place within Hermione's mind. Surely Dumbledore would have know if Professor Bagshot was senile.

Dumbledore was eccentric, Hermione knew, but he was also brilliant, and deadly serious about defeating Voldemort. Godric's Hollow had seemed like such a logical location for the sword. It seemed to make sense that Dumbledore would've wanted them to make the connection. But now...she highly doubted that he would placed something so important with someone who was clearly unstable. This was not right...

Suddenly, as if confirming her worst fear, Hermione heard a large crash come from somewhere upstairs. She dashed to the bottom of the staircase, a sudden jolt of adrenalin coursing through her, putting her senses on high alert. Her entire body was tingling in a most unpleasant way, and her wand was quivering in her shaking hand. She hadn't even realized she had taken out in the short distance between the sitting room and the staircase.

"Harry?" She called, knowing even as she said it that he would not answer her, safe and whole like she so badly wanted him to be. Something had gone terribly wrong...

Not knowing what awaited her, Hermione scrambled up the narrow staircase as fast as her legs would carry her. In the distance she heard Harry beckoning for his wand and knew even before she reached the landing that her destination was to the right.

She threw open the closed door and squinted into the darkness. Like a powerful wave a smell more foul than anything she had yet encountered in Bathilda's house washed over her and it was all she could do to force down the bile that had risen in her throat. Something was moving in the darkness, she could not see Professor Bagshot or Harry but she thought she could hear him, gasping for breath as though he were drowning.

But before her eyes could adjust to the darkness an enormous snake, illuminated by the light of the landing, was lunging at her. On pure instinct Hermione fired off a blasting hex and leapt aside, narrowly escaping the great serpent's attack. Immediately she felt bitter, winter air fill the room but everything else was a blur as she jumped to her feet and whirled around. She went to aim for the snake again but found she didn't need to, because it was everywhere.

The Stunner burst from her want like a gun shot, and hit the snake full on causing the entirety of it to fly in the air, far from stunned

"He's coming!" Harry was yelling from somewhere. "Hermione, he's coming!"

A cold dread trickled down her spine. Harry couldn't possibly mean...

But pandemonium ensued then as the snake fell, bringing down the room with it, it's tail thrashing lethaly. No...no... She felt pain, sudden and clear despite the confusion all around them and realized that Harry's arm was around her waist, yanking her across the glass strewn bed. Harry leapt as the snake lunged at them, hissing wildly.

"Confringo!" Hermione heard herself shriek just before the spell began to destroy everything in it's path. Pieces of broken glass and splintered wood attacked the skin on her face and hands. She closed her eyes tight...

And then they were falling. Free falling through the icy air...

Hermione opened her eyes and immediately wished she hadn't. She slammed her eye lids shut again and spun in mid-air, focusing with all her might on getting them the hell out of there. But even as she welcomed the suffocating darkness she could still see piercing red eyes, filled with unbridled rage.

*****

They dropped out of the darkness and slammed into the frozen, snow covered ground. Hermione jumped to her feet, unable to gain her balance on the icy hillside as she ran around, frantic to secure the area with their usual protective enchantments.

Finally satisfied that the area was secure she stopped and tried to take a breath. Tears were running silenty down her face but she ignored them and shook her head, attempting to clear it. She needed to assess the damage. Harry appeared to be unconcious but it was clear that he was going through some sort of episode. That coupled with all the blood, most of which was coming from his arm and what Hermione suspected was a snake bite, made for an alarming picture. She needed to get Harry into the tent and see to his injuries immediately.

Ignoring her shaking hands, she removed their tent from her beaded bag and began to set it up. Within minutes it was constructed in the middle of their secure site. She went back to Harry and saw that he was worse now. Much worse.

His body was rigid, his fists clenched tightly. His lips were curled in a cold, determined smile that Hermione had never seen on his face before. Her stomach churned and she wished harder that she had ever wished before that Harry would stop looking like that. She moved her wand over Harry's rigid form, trying not to think about the hideous smile, and with the use of a Hover Charm levitated him to his bunk in the tent. Their polyjuice disguises were wearing off now and Hermione could tell just by looking at him that Harry had grown feverish. His face was glowing red and covered in a sheen of sweat. There was an internal battle going on inside of him, but it was not between Harry and a virus, but between Harry and something much more evil than any illness.

Quickly, Hermione conjured water and a small sponge and retreived the bottle of dittany from the beaded bag. She dipped the sponge into the bowl of cool, clear water, preparing to clean his wounds, but was stopped cold. Harry had begun speaking, and though it was Harry's own voice it was different...altered in a way that made him sound cruel. Hermione swallowed, her eyes fixed on Harry, the sponge hanging useless from her fingertips, dripping water into her lap. She wanted desperately to look away, but found that she could not.

"...uneccesary, quite unecessary..." Harry murmured. The cruel voice sounded disappointed.

Suddenly and causing Hermione to gasp, Harry's eyes sprang open, but they weren't Harry's intelligent, vivid green eyes at all. They, like his voice, had turned cold and...disturbed, and for just a moment she thought she saw the slightest hint of scarlet mixed with green. Harry stared, not at her, but at some unseen point in the distance. Then his face changed. He looked determined, excited... and in the next moment he was Harry again. The real Harry, the Harry she knew and loved. But he looked absolutely terrified...

Before she could say anything, reach him and pull him away, saving him from whatever horror was in his mind, his eyes closed and his expression rearranged itself once again.

"...easy, too easy..." The cruel Harry voice spoke now, and this time his face had contorted into a sort of grotesque grin. And then he was laughing, a trumphant, demeaning laugh, full of malice. It made Hermione's skin crawl and she had to fight the desire to run as far away as possible.

Abruptly the laughter died away and Harry was screaming, crying, horrible gut-wrenching sobs. Hermione tried to take his hand but he was thrashing too wildly, clawing at his chest... That was when she saw it. There, outlined against the bulk of Harry's sweatshirt, was the locket, but instead of swaying from side to side as it should have been considering Harry's wild movements, the locket remained fixed over his heart.

Ducking Harry's flailing arms, Hermione pressed her fingertips to where she knew the Horcrux was and immediately pulled her hand back, a pained cry escaping her lips. The locket felt as though it were on fire, even through the thick material of Harry's jumper. She didn't know what it was doing or why it was behaving that way, but she knew she had to get it off Harry - now.

She struggled to rip Harry's sweatshirt off as he continued to thrash. The voices, the real Harry and the cruel Harry, began again as Hermione attempted to reach the possessed relic.

"Stand aside, you silly girl...stand aside now." The cruel voice was calm and quiet but there was a sense of poorly constrained urgency in his tone that was very telling.

Hermione's hands hesitated above Harry's chest. She looked down at Harry, whose movements seemed to still whenever the cruel voice spoke. She couldn't help but wonder. Was this...? Was Harry seeing that night? She had assumed that it was another episode, another painful glimpse into Voldemort's mind, but this? It was too horrible to imagine. If her guess was correct, then Harry was watching the most terrifying, life-altering night in his family's history and to add insult to serious tragedy, he was forced to watch through the murderer's eyes. Immediately Hermione felt guilty. It didn't seem proper for her to watch as Harry experienced this intensely personal...memory. He seemed so vunerable, and ...innocent. He would be embarrassed to know she had seen him this way. But what was she supposed to do? Leave him, when he clearly needed her now more than ever before? What kind of friend would that make her?

Harry's voice moaned, and Hermione's mind leapt back to the present, forcing her to remember that no matter what, she had to get the locket off of him.

"No," Harry sobbed now, his voice like a small child's, scared and alone. "Please," he begged, "Not her."

Fresh tears pricked behind Hermione's eyes, blurring her vision as she went back to the task at hand.

"This is my last warning," the cruel voice boomed. Harry sobbed harder than ever. Then, slowly, Harry's arm raised out in front of him and his body became quite still. For just a moment Hermione saw something in Harry's outstreched hand, something too horrible for words, but she didn't have time to think about it now. She wasn't sure why, but she knew that it was imperative that she get that Horcrux off and away from Harry.

But how? With Harry's sweatshirt out of the way she could see the Horcrux clearly. It was glowing-red, too hot to touch.

"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!" The cruel voice said even more urgently, excitement now plain in the cold voice.

There was a breif hesitation then as Harry's face transformed, his distorted features slowly moving into a resigned smile. Harry went still and quiet. Hermione knew what was coming next and braced herself for it even as reached for her wand. There was nothing for it, she would have to sever the locket from Harry's chest. Harry's outstretched arm jerked as though casting a spell and not a moment later Harry's body was wracked with huge, grief stricken sobs...

And then there was a third voice, and though it wasn't harsh or cold like the cruel voice, it was somehow worse than anything she had yet heard. From Harry's lips came the cry of a very young child. “Mu Mu,” it kept calling in the way a toddler calls for it's mother. The voice was cheerful, but a little nervous. After a moment the child's wails filled the room and over and over again it cried, “Mummy. Up! Up!”

It was horrific, and disturbing and just when Hermione thought she could not stand to hear this younger version of Harry calling for his mother any longer, the child' voice ceased it's pained cries and was replaced by the cruel voice.

The voice, Voldemort, uttered the killing curse, barely above a whisper...

And there was screaming... A painful, blood-curdling screach that Hermione was quite sure she would never forget.

"Diffindo!" She cried at the top of her voice, not only to save Harry but to silence that awful wail.

The very moment that the cursed relic fell from Harry's chest he went completely quiet and still, as though he was sleeping or... In a moment of blind panic, Hermione pressed her fingertips to Harry's wrist, feeling for a pulse the muggle way, forgetting that she had a wand. She breathed a sigh of relief and did not attempt to stop the tears that were still flowing freely. He was alive. Hurt both pysically and mentally, but alive.

After a few minutes he started to mumble and moan softly. Hermione caught a few words and realized that he was re-living that night again...and again. But now it was...muted somehow. As if Harry was watching a program on the telly, but he was in a seperate room, as opposed to being in the program itself. It seemed that the Horcrux had somehow concentrated the entire experience, making it more real.

Pushing that disturbing thought and it's implications from her mind, Hermione picked up the now cool Horcrux from where it lay on the floor with the tip of her wand and dropped it into the beaded bag. She realized it was probably fine for her to touch it now, but she wasn't taking any chances. She wasn't going to touch it or wear it until Harry was awake again and there was no way she was putting it back on Harry either. It was safe enough in the beaded bag for the time being.

Harry's fever had broken. Seeing that he was sweating profusely, and not wanting him to get the chills, she piled blankets on top of him. That done, she set to work, finally able to clean his wounds and put some dittany on them. The snake bite worried her but the dittany seemed to be helping. It looked better anyway and that was really the most she could hope for. A qualified Healer could do better of course, but Harry was in no condition to apparate and even if he was there was no possible way either of them could show up somewhere like St. Mungos and receive proper medical care.

It was then that the seriousness of the night's events hit Hermione full on, causing tears to stream down her face yet again. It was like an avalanche of fear and panic had tumbled down upon her and it was all she could do to breath. She tried to focus on using the small sponge to soak up the sweat that was pouring off Harry in torrents, and it helped, but only a little. They had come close to death before but never quite this close. They had been just outside of Voldemort's reach. This was their narrowest escape thus far, and now here in the wild they only had each other to rely on. In the past it had always been three...

Oh Ron, Hermione cried inwardly. She was so angry with him, especially now. How could he leave them? How could he leave her? Didn't he know, as she did, how indispensable he was? It was simply not right that she should be here alone, watching over and supporting Harry by herself! Being Harry Potter's friends was a burden and privilege that she and Ron had always shared together, even when the two of them could not get along to save their lives. She loved Harry like the brother she had never had, and she supposed that Harry felt the same way about her, but it wasn't right for it to be just the two of them. The two of them alone did not make sense. It was meant to be three, and with Ron gone that was clearer than ever.

Which was of course why she was so angry with him right now.

Biting the inside of her mouth, Hermione wiped Harry's face a little more exuberantly than was strictly neccessary. Ron had had the audacity to make her choose! Choose between her best friend and her...well, her...well... Hermione sighed. He knew, just as well as she did that there was no choice to make. Not now anyway. They had chosen their path long ago, both of them had. She had never regreted it, and she knew Ron didn't either. Not really.

Of course, it certainly didn't mean that if given a different choice, a personal choice, she wouldn't choose...

But it didn't matter now. Ron wasn't here and she had more pressing matters to be concerned with, one of which had just popped back into the forefront of Hermione's mind. Something she had glimpsed during Harry's episode. Standing up, she leaned over Harry and looked down at the object laying in his unclasped hand. She picked up the broken wand and sat back down with a thump.

Numb, she looked over the splintered wood, all the while knowing that there was absolutely no hope for it. She wasn't a wandmaker and even if she had been she wasn't sure you could mend a wand that was as badly broken as this one. She felt tears falling down her face again, so used to them now they barely registered in her mind, and with every ounce of her being she began to dread the conversation that she would have to have with Harry when he awoke.

A/N: Thanks to monkeyfish, my ever patien beta who never tires of reminding me i before e, and also to Melindaleo for giving me the idea for this fic as well as excellent suggestions. Thanks for reading!