The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

15. The Goblins Revenge

"I'm not coming back, I'm done something so terrible, I'm terrified to speak, but you'd expect that from me. I mixed up, I'll blunt." - Remembering Sunday, All Time Low 

Early the next morning, before the other two are awake, Harry and I leave the tent to search the woods around us for the oldest, most gnarled, and resilient looking tree we can find. There in its shadow, we bury Mad-Eye Moody's eye and mark the spot by gouging a small cross in the bark with my wand. It isn't much, but I feel that Moody would have much preferred this to being stuck on Umbridge's door. Then we return to the tent to wait for the others to wake and discuss what our next move is. 

Harry, Hermione, and I feel that it is best not to stay anywhere too long, and Ron agrees, with the sole proviso that our next move takes us within reach of a bacon sandwich. Hermione, therefore, removes the enchantments she has placed around the clearing, while Harry, Ron, and I obliterate all the marks and impressions on the ground that might show that we camped here. Then we Disapparate to the outskirts of a small market town. 

Once we've pitched the tent in the shelter of a small copse of trees and surround it with freshly cast defensive enchantments, I venture out under the Invisibility Cloak to find sustenance. This, however, does not go to plan. I've barely entered the town when an unnatural chill, a descending mist, and a sudden darkening of the skies make me freeze where I stand. 

"But you can make a brilliant Patronus!" Ron protests, when I arrive back at the tent empty-handed, out of breath, and mouthing a single word, dementors. 

"I couldn't...make one," I pant, clutching the stitch in my side. "Wouldn't...come."

Their expressions of consternation and disappointment make me feel ashamed. I was a nightmarish experience, seeing the dementors gliding out of the mist in the distance and realizing, as the paralyzing cold choked my lungs and a distant screaming filled my ears, that I was not going to be able to protect myself. It had taken all my willpower to uproot myself from the spot and run, leaving the eyeless dementor to glide amongst the Muggles who might not be able to see them, but would assuredly feel the despair they cast wherever they go. 

"So we still haven't got any food."

"Shut up, Ron," Harry snaps.

"Haylee, what happened?" Hermione then questions. "Why do you think you couldn't make your Patronus? You managed it perfectly yesterday?"

"I don't know."

I sit low in one of the armchairs, feeling more humiliated by the moment. I'm afraid that something has gone wrong within me. Yesterday seemed a long time ago: Today I might as well be thirteen years old again, collapsing on the Hogwarts Express.  

Ron kicks a chair leg. 

"What?" he snarls at us. "I'm starving! All I've had since I bled half to death is a couple of toadstools!"

"You go and fight your way through the dementors, then," I shoot back, feeling stung. 

"I would, but my arm's in a sling, in case you hadn't noticed!"

"Very convenient."

"And what's that supposed to -?"

"Don't you start on her!" Harry snaps. 

"Of course!" cries Hermione, clapping a hand to her forehead and startling us all into silence. "Haylee, give me the locket! Come on," she says impatiently, clicking her fingers at me when I do not react, "the Horcrux, Haylee, you're still wearing it!"

She holds out her hands, and I lift the golden chain over my head. The moment it parts contact with my skin I feel free and oddly light. I had not even realized that I was clammy or that there was a heavyweight pressing on my stomach until both sensations lift.