It Was Never Supposed to Be Easy

Decisions.

The daylight was quickly submerging into night and the shadows cast by the mansion were running towards us.

“We need to hurry.” whispered Ginny for eleventh time.

“Ginny, I know that you like Harry a whole bunch, but really, shut up. We know we need to hurry, we’ve rescued the world before.” snapped the now visible Ron.

“No need to be rude.” Ginny said, slapping at his arm.

“Shhh!” he said, whipping around to glare at the younger girl. She merely raised a brow and threw him a challenging look.

“Hey!” I interrupted. “I don’t mean to break this up, but our best friend is somewhere in there.”

They turned to look at me, and then at each other. Ron shrugged and crouched down next to me in the dirt where I was tracing out a floor plan.

Or, what could resemble a floor plan. I didn’t see much of the house, and when I did have the chance too, I was running for my life.

For some reason, this whole situation had become mildly amusing. I think we were all on the verge of breakdowns and hysterical laughter was better than hysterical tears.

Neville was dead.

Luna too, was dead. Caught in an ambush meant for Harry, she died two weeks into their journey. It was gruesome, Ron had whispered to me. They never did recover the body. And they still hadn’t sent an owl to her father. Ron shrugged when I asked him why.

“She died. Sure, it was heroic and for the war, but how do we tell a parent that?”

Ginny stared off into the growing darkness. Her hands were twisting around and around, wrinkling her already shabby robes. She coughed quietly, her shoulders trembling and we all started at the sound.

“Sorry.” She murmured.

I shook my head. How do we sneak back into the mansion? If only we had saved Draco!

“I don’t…see how this is going to be possible.” I whispered.

Ron grunted and sat back on his heels; Ginny turned to my drawing and traced the spot marked for the entrance hall.

“We’re wasting time.” She whispered.

“It’s been a half-hour, surely if something major had happened, we would’ve heard the commotion.” I said, wrapping an arm around her thin shoulders.

She didn’t pull away, but I felt her stiffen slightly.

Ron groaned and rubbed at his face, smearing a thin layer of dust over his pale cheeks.

“We all know what we need to do. We can’t sneak in, there is no way. We’re going to just have to barge in.”

I sighed. “Ron, if we do that, we’ll be dead in a second.”

There was silence. Every second was a waste of time. We needed to get to Harry as fast as possible and soon. He needed our help, forget what the prophecy claimed, he couldn’t do this alone.

Not with what Ron had whispered to me, as we sat over the plans.

“The final Horcrux…Hermione, Harry is the final Horcrux. If he dies, that’s the only way we can beat You-Know-Who. Harry has to die.”

I had sat quietly with that information buzzing through my brain. I had felt no misery, no sadness. I didn’t believe it; Harry had always scraped by before.

Always.

“He’ll never allow Voldemort to kill him?” I whispered to Ron.

Ron said nothing. And then I knew the truth. We had to get to Harry, before Harry destroyed himself.