“No, I heard you coming out of my pocket

“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 skepticism 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 toward 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 heard, “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!”

“Yeah, well, that would’ve been me,” said Ron. “Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn’t see you and I couldn’t hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you’d have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent.”

“No, actually,” said Hermione. “We’ve been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we’d heard somebody blundering around.”

“Well, I stayed on that hill all day,” said Ron. “I kept hoping you’d appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn’t see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end – and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously.”

“You saw the what?” said Hermione sharply.

They explained what had happened and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Hermione frowned form one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.

“But it must have been a Patronus!” she said. “Couldn’t you see who was casting it? Didn’t you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can’t believe this! Then what happened?”

Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in.

“– and Ron stabbed it with the sword.”

“And… and it went? Just like that?” she whispered.

“Well, it – it screamed,” said Harry with half a glance at Ron. “Here.”

He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured windows.

Deciding that it was at last safe to do so, Harry removed the Shield Charm with a wave of Hermione’s wand and turned to Ron.

“Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?”

“What?” said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. “Oh – oh yeah.”

He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short dark wand out of his pocket. “Here, I figured it’s always handy to have a backup.”

“You were right,” said Harry, holding out his hand. “Mine’s broken.”

“You’re kidding?” Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.

Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word.

Ron passed Harry the new wand.

“About the best you could hope for, I think,” murmured Harry.

“Yeah,” said Ron. “Could’ve been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?”

“I still haven’t ruled it out,” came Hermione’s muffled voice from beneath her blankets, but Harry saw Ron smiling slightly as he pulled his maroon pajamas out of his rucksack.