𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 || HJP

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO : DUMBLEDORE'S FUNERAL

"I suppose I'm just going to have to accept that he really is going to marry her," she lamented.

"She's not that bad," (Y/n) interjected,

"Yeah," Harry chimed in.

"Ugly, though," he hastily added, glancing at (Y/n) as her eyebrows raised, and Ginny couldn't help but giggle.

"What do you mean ugly?" (Y/n) questioned. "She's pretty, and I don't care whether you find her attractive, Harry."

"She's lying," Ginny declared.

"I'm not," (Y/n) retorted.

"No girl would be happy if her boyfriend found some other girl attractive," Ginny asserted matter-of-factly.

"That isn't the point. The point is that Fleur is hella gorgeous and—"

"Well, I suppose if Mum can stand it, I can," Ginny interrupted.

(Y/n) shot her a glare.

"Anyone else we know died?" Ron inquired of Hermione, who was engrossed in the Evening Prophet.

Hermione winced at the forced toughness in Ron's voice.

"No," she replied reprovingly, folding up the newspaper. "They're still looking for Snape, but no sign..."

"Of course there isn't," Harry replied, growing angry each time the subject arose. "They won't find Snape until they find Voldemort, and seeing as they've never managed to do that in all this time..."

"I'm going to go to bed," yawned Ginny. "I haven't been sleeping that well since ... well ... I could do with some sleep."

Ginny waved at them and departed for the girls' dormitories. The moment the door had closed behind her, Hermione leaned forward towards Harry, her face taking on a characteristic Hermione-ish look.

"Harry, I found something out this morning, in the library..."

"R.A.B.?" said Harry, sitting up straight.

He didn't feel the usual excitement and curiosity that would accompany a mystery. Instead, he knew that unraveling the truth about the real Horcrux had to be completed before he could progress further along the dark and winding path ahead. This path, once shared with Dumbledore, now lay before him alone.

There might still be as many as four Horcruxes out there, each needing to be found and eliminated before there was even a possibility of killing Voldemort.

He kept reciting their names to himself, as though by listing them, he could bring them within reach: "the locket ... the cup ... the snake ... something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's ... the locket ... the cup ... the snake ... something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's..."

This mantra pulsed through Harry's mind as he fell asleep at night. His dreams were filled with cups, lockets, and mysterious objects just out of reach, while Dumbledore offered him a rope ladder that turned into snakes the moment he began to climb. Thankfully, (Y/n) would shake him awake whenever he was having nightmares.

The two continued to sleep beside each other, Ron growing both annoyed and accustomed to it.

Harry had shown Hermione the note inside the locket the morning after Dumbledore's death. Although she hadn't immediately recognized the initials belonging to some obscure wizard she'd been reading about, she'd since been rushing off to the library a bit more often than necessary for someone with no homework.

"No," she said sadly, "I've been trying, Harry, but I haven't found anything... there are a couple of reasonably well-known wizards with those initials – Rosalind Antigone Bungs, Rupert 'Axebanger' Brookstanton – but they don't seem to fit at all. Judging by that note, the person who stole the Horcrux knew Voldemort, and I can't find a shred of evidence that Bungs or Axebanger ever had anything to do with him... no, actually, it's about... well, Snape."