Light in the Darkness

Chapter 28: Forgiveness and Chaos

He took another step back, dragging the sword by his side. "You can do it," Harry told him. "You've just got the sword. I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please, just get rid of it, Ron."

Ron took a deep breath and took a step forward to the cursed object. "Tell me when," he croaked, desperately scared.

"On three," Harry said. Ron stared at the locket as Harry counted down from three. Finally, Harry spoke in Parseltongue, opening the locket. "Stab!" Harry shouted.

Ron raised the sword in his hands, shaking. He could do this. He could destroy the Horcrux. Before he was able to stab the locket, a voice hissed from it. "I have seen your heart and it is mine."

"Don't listen!" Harry said. "Stab it!" But Ron was frozen.

"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible."

"Stab!" Harry yelled. But Ron couldn't move.

"Lease loved by your mother, who craved a daughter...Least loved by the girl who prefers your enemy...Second best, always, eternally overshadowed."

Ron raised the sword higher. He knew the locket was wrong. Pansy didn't prefer Malfoy. She had told him so. But an imagine appeared from the locket. It was Pansy and Malfoy. They were laughing at him for actually believing Pansy cared for him. Malfoy quoted what Harry had said to him. "She was just using you. The whole time. They said he was nothing, utterly nothing.

"Do it, Ron!" bellowed Harry. Ron glanced over at Harry. Everything the locket was saying wasn't true, he had told remind himself.

Ron looked back at the locket. Down swing the sword, destroying the Horcrux. The sword fell to the ground. Ron, too, fell to the ground, stricken by what he had just seen.

Harry crammed the locket into his pocket. "I shouldn't have said that about Parkinson," Harry murmured apologetically. "I guess I didn't understand why you liked her...we used to say she was disgusting. I reckoned she'd cursed you somehow." Ron shrugged.

"I should have told you about it," Ron admitted. "I'm sorry I left. And I didn't mean what I said when I left."

"Me either," Harry said. Simultaneously, they insulted forward and hugged. "Now all we've got to do is find the tent again."

-----

Draco Malfoy didn't want to go home over Christmas break. The Dark Lord had taken up residence in his childhood home. Hogwarts, despite all of the horror this year held, felt so much safer than his home.

Narcissa  was waiting for him on the platform when the train arrived. His mother looked like she had aged ten years in the past four months. Grey streaks had sprouted themselves in her hair. "Hello, dear," she said with a smile. He returned the smile easily and hugged his mother.

Together, they Apparated to Malfoy Manor. The mansion was drearier than Draco remembered. Certainly, the manor had never been a particularly cheerful place, but now, it was as if the house itself had succumbed to the darkness living within its walls. For as long as Draco could remember, his mother nurtured the manor's garden. And the yard he used to play in was healthy. But now the trees were dying and the flowers were a grey nothingness. The state of the house must have been killing his mother.

For the majority of his break, Draco stayed in or near his room. He could hear Greyback coming and out with his friends, bringing potential Harry Potter to his father. His father was desperate to regain his standing with the Dark Lord. Draco hated it.