Until both sensations lifted.

"Better?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah, loads better!"

"Harry," she said, crouching down in front of him and using the kind of voice he

associated with visiting the very sick, "you don't think you've been possessed, do you?"

"What? No!" he said defensively, "I remember everything we've done while I've

bee wearing it. I wouldn't know what I'd done if I'd been possessed, would I? Ginny told

me there were times when she couldn't remember anything."

"Hmm," said Hermione, looking down at the heavy locket. "Well, maybe we

ought not to wear it. We can just keep it in the tent."

"We are not leaving that Horcrux lying around," Harry stated firmly. "If we lose it,

if it gets stolen—"

"Oh, all right, all right," said Hermione, and she placed it around her own neck

and tucked it out of sight down the front of her shirt. "But we'll take turns wearing it, so

nobody keeps it on too long."

"Great," said Ron irritably, "and now we've sorted that out, can we please get

some food?"

"Fine, but we'll go somewhere else to find it," said Hermione with half a glance at

Harry. "There's no point staying where we know dementors are swooping around."

In the end they settled down for the night in a far flung field belonging to a lonely

Farm, from which they had managed to obtain eggs and bread.

"It's not stealing, is it?" asked Hermione in a troubled voice, as they devoured

scrambled eggs on toast. "Not if I left some money under the chicken coo?"

Ron rolled his eyes and said, with his cheeks bulging, "Er-my-nee, 'oo worry 'oo

much. 'Elax!"

And, indeed, it was much easier to relax when they were comfortably well fed.

The argument about the dementors was forgotten in laughter that night, and Harry felt

Cheerful, even hopeful, as he took the first of the three night watches.

This was their first encounter with the fact that a full stomach meant good spirits,

An empty one, bickering and gloom. Harry was least surprised by this, because be had

suffered periods of near starvation at the Dursleys’. Hermione bore up reasonably well on

Those nights when they managed to scavenge nothing but berries or stale biscuits, her

Temper perhaps a little shorter than usual and her silences dour. Ron, however, had

Always been used to three delicious meals a day, courtesy of his mother or of the

Hogwarts house-elves, and hunger made him both unreasonable and irascible. Whenever

lack of food coincided with Ron's turn to wear the Horcrux, he became downright

Unpleasant.

"So where next?" was his constant refrain. He did not seem to have any ideas

Himself, but expected Harry and Hermione to come up with plans while he sat and

Brooded over the low food supplies. Accordingly Harry and Hermione spent fruitless

Hours trying to decide where they might find the other Horcruxes, and how to destroy the

One they already got, their conversations becoming increasingly repetitive as they got no

New information.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 704