I sat up on the crunched leaves beneath me. Hermione was hoovering over Ron, "He was splinched! Harry, quick! I need you to grab a bottle from my bag that says Dittiny!"
I got up and ran over to Ron and Hermione. Ron's arm looked nearly severed. He was in a lot of pain, I could tell. I knelt down, "Is splinching like a deep gash?"
"Yes, why?" Hermione was in a panic.
"Move," I gestured her.
"Bridge, you're not famili-"
"I'm not debating about this. Move." My best friend stood up. I traced my arm over Ron's arm, "Vulnera Sanentur. Vulnera Sanentur." The blood was starting to seep back into him arm. Harry handed me the bottle Hermione was talking about. I grabbed it. I opened it. It smelt kind of funking, but I wasn't about to judge. Not if it was going to save my other best friend's life. I applied it before going back to the spell.
While I did this, Hermione was putting up a force field type thing around what I was going to assume was our base. Hermione instructed Harry to set up the tent. I helped Ron sit up, "I need to bandage you up."
He nodded. I took out the wrapping. I started to bandage up his arm. He looked to me, "You saved my life, Bridge. Again."
"No, Harry saved your life the first time."
"But now you did."
I sighed, pinning the bandage to a sling for his arm. I set his arm in the sling. I helped him to his feet, "Let's get you in the tent. Maybe find you some pain pills."
***
We got up the next morning, as usual. I checked Ron's arm and gave him some pain pills. Hermione and Harry wanted to try and destroy the locket. I handed over the locket, "It's not going to work."
Hermione set it on a rock, "We've got to try."
"No..." I sighed. "You need a very destructive artifact. Like basilisk venom. Which that's only on the Sword of Gryffindor that nobody can find. It's also in basilisk fangs, but we don't have one of those either. A simple spell isn't going to do the trick, unless it's the killing curse. This isn't going to work."
"Incendio."
I rolled my eyes and went back into the hut. I grabbed a book Hermione brought: Secrets of the Dark Arts. I had snatched it from Dumbledore's office after he died. I sat in a chair as I opened it. I flipped through the pages, trying to find something helpful and interesting.
I found the pages with dark magical creatures. I always found magical creatures to be fascinating, good or bad.
From the outside of the tent I heard they shoot mulitple spells at it. I looked up right as Ron entered the tent. He sighed, "It's no use. Nothing's working."
"Told you so," I looked back to my book as I flipped the page. "Like always."
"So, how'd you say we needed to destroy it?" Ron asked
Hermione entered as well. "Harry has gone for a walk. No clue when he'll come back."
"Here, read this," I stood up and handed the book to Hermione. "It says in there how we need to destroy the horcruxes. Dumbledore told me that we should try to look for four more horcruxes. He's thinking Voldemort created seven. He's destroyed two. We have one. So we need to start thinking about how to find the rest. But right now, I'm going to talk to Harry."
"How come Dumbledore told you all this," Ron asked, "but not us?"
I sighed, "I don't know. You guys were busy last year; I wasn't. I spent a lot of time with him and other professors. He also saw me as a granddaughter. It was easy for him to talk about things to me." I left the tent. I tranformed into my dog animagus. I sniffed the air. Southwest, about two to five minutes. I ran in that direction.
I saw the boy sitting on a rock, fiddling with the locket. I transformed back.
"What Bridge?"
"Nice to see you too," I sat next to him.
He didn't look at me. Instead, he put the locket back and looked out to the empty forest.
"Did you know that there's a dark magical creature called a Hag?"
"Really?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "They look like old witches but worse."
He was silent for a few minutes. I didn't try to say anything. I waited until he spoke up first, "Bridge, how come Dumbledore told you everything that he should've told me?"
I bit the inside of my cheek, "I don't know. Maybe he wanted you to figure it out on your own."
"But he would've known you tell me everything..."
"Well," I took a deep breath, "if he made me promise not to tell you, I wouldn't of."
"Wait, so you're still hiding things from me?" Harry stood up and looked to me.
I stood up, "Harry, I have to. I wish I could tell you, really. But I can't. Not yet."
"I can't believe you."
I looked down to the locket around his neck, "Give me the locket."
"What?"
"Give me the locket," I held out my hand. "Horcruxes can make people irrational, maybe really angry or really sad. That thing can cause danger if we don't all take turns."
"I'm fine." And he walked off.
***
I was sitting next to Hermione by the little fire we had made. She just told me about what happened with her and Harry. I told him it would do that. He didn't listen.
"I'll wear it first thing tomorrow morning," I told her, staring back into the fire. Things went quiet again. But only seconds into the silence, we both heard a crack of a twig. I stood up, getting my wand ready.
"Let's go check it out," Hermione whispered to me. I nodded and we were off. We were careful with every step we took. One wrong move could've gotten us killed.
We walked to the tiny hill that Hermione did the protective spells. I definitely couldn't see anything. But I swore I heard something. I took a step next to Hermione. Another snap came. But the location was exact now.
To the right, about three or four men were walking towards us. More were surrounding the area ahead. I held onto my wand tight. In one of the guys' arms was a dead person. I swore it was a girl. Another guy seemed to be carrying a dead person; I thought it was a male. One of the guys stopped as he passed us. I took a step backwards. Silence.
He turned back to us, "Do you guys smell that?"
"Smell what?"
The ponytail guy stood in front of Hermione and me. I pulled on my best friend, but she wouldn't budge. Come on, Hermione. He's going to find out we're here if you don't move. She didn't budge. The ponytail guy sniffed the air, "It smells like...perfume...and wet dog."
I dropped my jaw, Excuse me? I don't smell like wet dog! Do I? I quietly sniffled my jacket. Okay maybe a little bit.
One of the guys dropped their corpse they were carrying and the guy walked away. I sighed as well as Hermione.
"Glad that your spells work, Hermione," Harry's voice from beside me made my jump. "Those snatchers would've given us a beating."
"You could say that again," I nodded.
Hermione agreed. She headed back to the tent while Harry didn't move from my side. I watched the men walk over the hill. I put my wand back up my sleeve.
"I'm sorry, Bridge."
I turned to Harry, "For?"
"Getting angry with you," he sighed. "It was-"
"The locket," I nodded.
"Will you forgive me?"
"If you say, 'You were right, Bridget. I will trust you from now on.' then I guess I'll let it slide."
He sighed, "You were right, Bridge. I will trust you from now on."
"Thank you," I smiled. "Now let's go get some sleep." We started to walk back to the tent. I turned to Harry, "You know he said that he could smell wet dog! I found that rather insulting."