Harry comes back to life when Ron is around, his smile going from indulgent to infectious. "How was it?" he asks, as Ron sits moodily next to him. Hermione can just tell he's grateful to have an excuse to change the subject.

"Fuck Snape," says Ron. "Berk."

Out of obligation, Hermione is indignant; when Harry and Ron laugh she does too.

They don't argue anymore when she comments; they move on with the conversation. Hermione can never decide whether she likes that or not.

It's easier with Ron. Tonight they sit moodily in the boys' dormitory; Hermione does homework wearily and Ron makes occasional derogatory comments about Lavender Brown. "I mean I'm glad it's over," he says. "But- that was such an obnoxious way to end it."

"Mm hmm," says Hermione.

"She's so shrill," says Ron. He pitches his voice up an octave- "I'm your girlfriend, not her! You can't expect me to trust you!"

Hermione agrees with him but can't help being offended at the imitation. "Well, she was your girlfriend," she says. "Until twenty minutes ago, she was well within her rights to be mad."

"She's so shrill," says Ron again.

Hermione can't bear this conversation for any longer; "Why d'you think Harry's gone to Hagrid's?" she says. When they are alone they never make it too long before they bring up Harry. It reminds her starkly that they are functionally a group of three.

But it works; at that, they speculate for twenty minutes about what Harry's doing. "He must have made a bad potion," Ron insists of Slughorn.

"He wouldn't have!" says Hermione. "Not in the least because he's a teacher! He wouldn't be so irresponsible!"

Ron snorts with laughter. "Hermione- of all the people- he nearly killed me!"

"Not by making a bad potion," she points out. "Look- maybe the potion's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing."

"He's burying a spider that also nearly killed me," says Ron.

"Maybe Hagrid invited Slughorn," says Hermione.

"I don't think I've ever seen them talk," says Ron.

"Well if you've never seen it happen, it must have never happened," says Hermione, and he chucks his pillow at her.

"Just saying," laughs Ron.

It's always comforting when Harry's got the locket and she and Ron can retreat a little bit. Even when Ron's being an arse. As they're getting firewood he's complaining bitterly about the way they have to move around. She can't help but agree with him- it'd be nice to spend a week in one place.

Hermione, for all the books she'd brought in her bag, is nowhere near finding a foolproof, safe way to destroy the locket. They've got no clue where to look next; Harry sits on watch outside the tent moodily and she can tell he's thinking hard too. But, not for the first time, all the thinking they can do isn't worth a thing.

"It would have been nice if we had literally anything to go on," Ron says sourly.

She knows he doesn't mean it personally at Harry, or maybe she just hopes he doesn't. "I know," she says. "Dumbledore had to know he didn't have much time left, he knew about Malfoy- he could have better prepared him."

Ron grunts.

She hazards a glance up at him; they've got plenty of firewood by now but they're both lingering back. Harry's got the locket- he'll be sour when they return. He's not as bad as Ron when he's got it, but at least Hermione can tell herself that the moody outbursts are entirely from the locket when it's Ron.

Awkwardly Ron shifts his pile to his good arm, uses the injured one to reach for her mittened hand. She lets him rub his thumb over it before she clears her throat.

""He's got to be wondering."

"Right," mumbles Ron.

"He's just being such a tit," says Harry in an undertone. Ron's retreated into the tent already; Hermione'd snapped at him during dinner and he'd snapped immediately back before Harry shut them both down.

"It's the locket," she says, quietly.

"Hermione, I don't think it is," says Harry. "Come on- he wouldn't say it if he wasn't already thinking it."

She makes far too many excuses for Ron. "He's worried about his parents."

"So am I," says Harry; Hermione doesn't have the heart to tell him it isn't the same thing.

Every day when Ron is gone reminds them both of it. She wonders, if she'd stormed off, if Ron and Harry would go for days barely talking, if Ron and Harry would sit on watch together in chilly, miserable silence.

But wondering does them no good, and anyway Hermione knows she never would have left.

Harry doesn't bring it up. Hermione doesn't push it, but when his breathing's softest at night she cries into her fist. Sometimes she worries he's still awake, can still hear her, but he knows what it's about, and doesn't seem willing to talk about it. Which is fine by her.

For weeks now they exist uncomfortably like this. He sulks and she reads; sometimes they'll propose a new spot to look, either for the Sword of Gryffindor or for another horcrux. She knows she's not spending all her free time obsessing about the Sword or the horcruxes; she wonders if he's thinking about the same thing she is.

(Ron, of course. And she knows he is. Ron had been the life of their group even though they'd all been miserable and cranky. And without him they are worse off than ever.)

Hermione understands more clearly than ever, now, what Ron had been for them. He'd kept her sane, yes, he'd kept her company and he'd kept her spirits up- but she'd forgotten he was doing the same for Harry, too.

She's bundled in a blanket of Bill and Fleur's and watching as Fleur tries to patch up Griphook's hands. Ron sits on the sofa next to her, looking tense and worried. She doesn't really realise she's fully forgiven him until he says, "Dobby didn't make it."

"Oh," she says, softly.

"Harry's burying him," he says.

"Oh," she says again.

"I'd help," he says. "But I think he wants to-"

"No," says Hermione. "Stay with me."

There's a pause; she searches his face and he stares fixedly at his own hands. "Do you think he'll be alright?" he says, after a moment. Even now they know that they need most of all to worry about Harry.

"I don't know," says Hermione.

"Yeah," says Ron.

Fleur comes back around, tired- "'Ermione, let me see your neck."

Ron stands up. "I'll go check on Harry," he says.

Hermione catches his hand as he's moving past her; she means that she's forgiven him, that she's glad he's back, that she's sorry about Dobby, that she could hear him going insane at Malfoy Manor and she's a little glad that he did.

He squeezes her hand and goes.

She doesn't like being at Hogwarts alone- but she can't deny she's never done so well in her classes.

Ron and Harry both went straight to the Aurors, with Seamus and Neville and some of the other DA. Oddly it doesn't bother her so much as it would have, two or three or four years later. She's not exactly like them and that's not necessarily awful.

Bafflingly she's still a Prefect, and when she patrols the halls in the evenings with Anthony Goldstein he echoes her own worries and fears back at her. "It's like we were functionally a group of three," he says, of himself and his two best friends, "and with only two of us back at Hogwarts we sort of fell apart."

Hermione knows for a fact that the boys wouldn't fall apart without her. Not the same way that she and Harry had when Ron had left, not the same way that she and Ron default to worrying over Harry.

"It happens," says Anthony after a moment, when she doesn't reply. "You know, people change."

She worries that she and her friends will change over the next few months, separately and irrevocably, but then the boys show up at Hogsmeade over the weekend. Ron kisses her knuckles and Harry hugs her and then they both tell her loud, inappropriate stories about Auror training.

They're two of a kind, her best friends.

"They're putting us in simulated combat soon," says Ron. "Y'know- all we've really got to know is Expelliarmus."

Harry laughs; Hermione does too.