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𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐀

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you look at me

and i remember the day

at the riverbank

when we were gods

(never let me forget that)

you smile and me

and i feel warmth

like summertime

or fire

(it consumes me)

you kiss me

and i forget all else

and i remember that i

would follow you anywhere

(living or dying)

— p.

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐀 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑 eyes and was dazzled by gold and green; she had no idea what had

happened, she only knew that she was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs. Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, she blinked and realized that the gaudy glare was sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves far above her.

Then an object twitched close to her face. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, ready to face some small, fierce creature, but saw that the object was Ron's foot. Looking around, Elara saw that they, Harry, and Hermione were lying on a forest floor, apparently alone.

Elara's first thought was of the Forbidden Forest, and for a moment, even though she knew how foolish and dangerous it would be for them to appear in the grounds of Hogwarts, her heart leapt at the thought of sneaking through the trees to Hagrid's hut.

However, in the few moments it took for Ron to give a low groan and Elara to start crawling toward him, she realized that this was not the Forbidden Forest: The trees looked younger, they were more widely spaced, the ground clearer.

She met Hermione, also on her hands and knees, at Ron's head. The moment Elara's eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled her mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron's left side and his face stood out, grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth. The Polyjuice Potion was wearing off now: Ron was halfway between Cattermole and himself in appearance, his hair turning redder and redder as his face drained of the little color it had left.

"What's happened?" groaned Harry, an arm tossed over his eyes.

"Ron's splinched," said Hermione timidly.

Elara's fingers already busy at Ron's sleeve, where the blood was wettest and darkest. Harry and Hermione watched, horrified, as Elara tore open Ron's shirt. Elara ignored her insides crawling unpleasantly as she laid bare Ron's upper arm, where a great chunk of flesh was missing, scooped cleanly away as though by a knife.

"Harry, quickly, in Hermione's bag, there's a small bottle labeled 'Essence of Dittany' —"

"Bag — right —"

Harry sped to the place where Hermione had landed, seized the tiny beaded bag, and thrust his hand inside it. As Harry was searching, Elara quickly metamorphosed her hair into a messy topknot and focused on cleaning the wound best she can.

"Quickly!"

"Accio Dittany!"

Harry hastened back to Elara, Hermione, and Ron, whose eyes were now half-closed, strips of white eyeball all that were visible between his lids.

"He's fainted," grunted Elara, who shook her hands nervously before taking the bottle from Harry.

She wrenched the stopper off the little bottle, took it and poured three drops of thepotion onto the bleeding wound. A loud groan of pain escaped Ron.

"Elara, you're hurting him!" cried Hermione, hands shaking.

"Hey, Hermione," said Elara sharply, "Why don't you go put up enchantments?"

Hermione opened her mouth to argue, but decided against it, as Elara's gaze was dangerous.

Greenish smoke billowed upward and when it had cleared, the bleeding had stopped. The wound now looked several days old; new skin stretched over what had just been open flesh.

"Wow," said Harry.

"I'm going to have to cauterize the wound before I set him completely right."

"How — "

Harry's question seemed to be answered for him, as Elara hiked up her skirt and unsceathed the knife that was strapped to her thigh.

"Do you always have a knife on you?"

"Yes."

Elara clenched her free fist and opened it to find a dancing flame. She held the silver dagger over the red and orange light until the edges of the weapon were slightly red. Not wanting to watch Ron's flesh boil, Elara closed her eyes tight as she lay the flat edge on his upper arm.

The sizzling sound sickened Elara to her stomach, and Ron's groan didn't help. Ignoring the nausea, she cast her knife aside and reached for her wand.

"Vulnera Sanentur."

A brilliant light appeared underneath the new patch of skin. Exhausted, Elara fell back and lay upwards, staring at the forest canopy.

"You're brilliant, you know that," said Harry breathily, the adrenaline still coursing through him.

"I'll feel like it when he wakes up."

"How did he get hurt? I mean" — Harry shook his head, seemingly trying to clear it — "why are we here? I thought we were going back to Grimmauld Place?"

Hermione turned and took a deep breath. She looked close to tears.

"I don't think we're going to be able to go back there."

"What d'you — ?"

"As we Disapparated, Yaxley caught hold of me and I couldn't get rid of him, he was too strong, and he was still holding on when we arrived at Grimmauld Place, and then — well, I think he must have seen the door, and thought we were stopping there, so he slackened his grip and I managed to shake him off and I brought us here instead!"

Elara threw a bloodied arm over her eyes as she listened to Harry and Hermione panic.

"But then, where's he? Hang on. . . . You don't mean he's at Grimmauld Place? He can't get in there?"

"Harry, I think he can. I — I forced him to let go with a Revulsion Jinx, but I'd already taken him inside the Fidelius Charm's protection. Since Dumbledore died, we're Secret-Keepers, so I've given him the secret, haven't I?"

Gloomy and oppressive though the house was, it had been their one safe refuge: even, now that Kreacher was so much happier and friendlier, a kind of home. With a twinge of regret that had nothing to do with food, Elara imagined the house-elf busying himself over the steak-and-kidney pie that Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione would never eat.

"Harry, Lara, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't be stupid, it wasn't your fault," said Elara exhaustedly, sitting upwards again.

Harry put his hand in his pocket and drew out Mad-Eye's eye. Hermione recoiled, looking horrified. Elara, who had already maxed out on her sensitivity to gore, stared at it blankly.

"Umbridge had stuck it to her office door, to spy on people. I couldn't leave it there . . . but that's how they knew there were intruders."

Before Hermione could answer, Ron groaned and opened his eyes. He was still gray and hisface glistened with sweat.

"How d'you feel?" asked Elara.

"Lousy," croaked Ron, wincing as he felt his tender arm. "Where are we?"

Breathing a loud sigh of relief, Elara fell backwards again.

"In the woods where they held the Quidditch World Cup," said Hermione. "I wanted somewhere enclosed, undercover, and this was —"

"— the first place you thought of," Harry finished for her.

"Excellent," said Elara sarcastically, "The place were I had a panic attack."

Elara felt a warm presence beside her, and looked over to see that Harry had lay down beside her, his forehead against her arm. She looked over at Ron, who was still pale and clammy. He had made no attempt to sit up and it looked as though he was too weak to do so. The prospect of moving him was daunting.

Hermione rejoined the three, tired out.

"Could get out the tent, Harry. . . ." she asked, swaying on her feet.

"Tent?"

"In the bag!"

"In the . . . of course," said Harry.

He stood up, and immediately Elara missed his warmth. While the tent emerged in a lumpy mass of canvas, rope, and poles, Elara looked over to Ron, who's eyes were closed.

"I fucking told you you'd need a healer."

"Fuck off," responded Ron, flipping her off with his uninjured arm.

Elara tiredly returned the gesture, tuning into Harry and Hermione's conversation.

"I thought this belonged to that bloke Perkins at the Ministry?" asked Harry, starting to disentangle the tent pegs.

"Apparently he didn't want it back, his lumbago's so bad," said Hermione, now performing complicated figure-of-eight movements with her wand, "so Ron's dad said I could borrow it. Erecto!" she added, pointing her wand at the misshapen canvas, which in one fluid motion rose into the air and settled, fully constructed, onto the ground before Harry, out of whose startled hands a tent peg soared, to land with a final thud at the end of a guy rope.

"Cave Inimicum," Hermione finished with a skyward flourish. "That's as much as I can do. At the very least, we should know they're coming, I can't guarantee it will keep out Vol —"

"Don't say the name!" Ron cut across her, his voice harsh.

Elara sat up quickly and exchanged glances with Harry and Hermione.

"I'm sorry," Ron said, moaning a little as he raised himself to look at them, "but it feels like a — a jinx or something. Can't we call him You-Know-Who — please?"

"Dumbledore said fear of a name —" began Harry.

"In case you hadn't noticed, mate, calling You-Know-Who by his name didn't do Dumbledore much good in the end," Ron snapped back. "Just — just show You-Know-Who some respect, will you?"

"Respect?" Harry repeated.

"If either of you continue arguing, I'm going to set this entire goddamn forest on fire," snapped Elara, standing up.

Elara, Harry, and Hermione half carried, half dragged Ron through the entrance of the tent. The interior was exactly as Elara remembered it: a small flat, complete with bathroom and tiny kitchen. She shoved aside an old armchair and lowered Ron carefully onto the lower berth of a bunk bed. Even this very short journey had turned Ron whiter still, and once they had settled him on the mattress he closed his eyes again and did not speak for a while.

"I'll make some tea," said Hermione breathlessly, pulling kettle and mugs from the depths ofher bag and heading toward the kitchen.

Harry had dove onto the tattered couch and caught Elara's arm as she passed to check on Ron, pulling her down onto him. All was quiet as Hermione prepared tea.

Elara found the hot drink as welcome as the firewhisky had been on the night that Mad-Eyehad died; it seemed to burn away a little of the fear fluttering in her chest. After a minute or two,Ron broke the silence.

"What d'you reckon happened to the Cattermoles?"

"With any luck, they'll have got away," said Hermione, clutching her hot mug for comfort. "As long as Mr. Cattermole had his wits about him, he'll have transported Mrs. Cattermole by Side-Along-Apparition and they'll be fleeing the country right now with their children. That's what Harry told her to do."

"Blimey, I hope they escaped," said Ron, leaning back on his pillows. The tea seemed to be doing him good; a little of his color had returned. "I didn't get the feeling Reg Cattermole was all that quick-witted, though, the way everyone was talking to me when I was him. God, I hope they made it. . . . If they both end up in Azkaban because of us . . ."

Elara looked over at Hermione and the question she had been about to ask — about whether Mrs. Cattermole's lack of a wand would prevent her Apparating alongside her husband — died in her throat. Hermione was watching Ron fret over the fate of the Cattermoles, and there was such tenderness in her expression that Elara felt almost as if he had surprised her in the act of kissing him.

"So, have you got it?" interrupted Harry.

Elara internally groaned.

"Got — got what?" she said with a little start.

"What did we just go through all that for? The locket! Where's the locket?"

"You got it?" shouted Ron, raising himself a little higher on his pillows. "No one tells me anything! Blimey, you could have mentioned it!"

"Well, I was too busy blowing shit up, wasn't I?" said Elara.

"Here," said Hermione amusedly.

And she pulled the locket out of the pocket of her robes and handed it to Ron. It was as large as a chicken's egg. An ornate letter S, inlaid with many small green stones, glinted dully in the diffused light shining through the tent's canvas roof.

"There isn't any chance someone's destroyed it since Kreacher had it?" asked Ron hopefully."I mean, are we sure it's still a Horcrux?"

"I think so," said Hermione, taking it back from him and looking at it closely. "There'd be some sign of damage if it had been magically destroyed."

She passed it to Elara, who turned it over in her fingers. The thing looked perfect, pristine. The sinister feeling the locket gave her greatly discomforted Elara, and she quickly passed it over to Harry.

"I reckon Kreacher's right," said Harry. "We're going to have to work out how to open this thing before we can destroy it."

He tried to pry the locket apart with his fingers, then attempted the charm Hermione had used to open Regulus's bedroom door. Neither worked.

"I bet I can blast it."

"With fire or a molotov?" asked Ron.

"Yes."

"Not until we're in an open space," said Harry, handing the locket back to Ron and Hermione, each of whom did their best, but were no more successful at opening it than he had been.

"Can you feel it, though?" Ron asked in a hushed voice, as he held it tight in his clenched fist.

"What d'you mean?"

Ron passed the Horcrux to Elara. After a moment or two, Elara thought she knew what Ron meant. Was it her own blood pulsing through her veins that she could feel, or was it something beating inside the locket, like a tiny metal heart?

"What are we going to do with it?" Hermione asked.

"Keep it safe till we work out how to destroy it," Elara replied, and, little though she wanted to, she hung the chain around her own neck, dropping the locket out of sight beneath her robes, where it rested against her chest.

"I think we should take it in turns to keep watch outside the tent," she added to Hermione and Harry, standing up and stretching. "And we'll need to think about some food as well. You stay there," she added sharply, as Ron attempted to sit up and turned a nasty shade of green.

"I'll watch with you," offered Harry.

With the Sneakoscope Hermione had given Harry for his birthday set carefully upon the table in the tent, Elara, Harry, and Hermione spent the rest of the day sharing the roles of lookout. However, the Sneakoscope remained silent and still upon its point all day, and whether because of the protective enchantments and Muggle-repelling charms Hermione had spread around them, or because people rarely ventured this way, their patch of wood remained deserted, apart from occasional birds and squirrels.

Between her roles of lookout, Elara spent her time either concentrating merciless fire onto the locket or trying to open that notebook that had been left to her from Dumbledore. She would have spent the time blowing up the locket with the molotovs, but Harry and Hermione said no despite Ron voicing that he too, wanted to "blow shit up".

Evening brought no change; Elara lit her wand as she swapped places with Hermione at ten o'clock, and looked out upon a deserted scene, noting the bats fluttering high above her across the single patch of starry sky visible from their protected clearing.

She felt hungry now, and a little light-headed. Hermione had not packed any food in her magical bag, as she had assumed that they would be returning to Grimmauld Place that night, so they had had nothing to eat except some wild mushrooms that Hermione had collected from amongst the nearest trees and stewed in a billycan. After a couple of mouthfuls Ron had pushed his portion away, looking queasy; Elara had only persevered so as not to hurt Hermione's feelings.

The surrounding silence was broken by odd rustlings and what sounded like crackings of twigs: Elara thought that they were caused by animals rather than people, yet she kept her wand held tight at the ready.

Her insides, already uncomfortable due to their inadequate helping of rubbery mushrooms, tingled with unease. She had thought that she would feel elated if they managed to steal back the Horcrux, but somehow she did not; all she felt as she sat looking out at the darkness, of which his wand lit only a tiny part, was worry about what would happen next.

It was as though she had been hurtling toward this point for weeks, months, maybe even years, but now she had come to an abrupt halt, run out of road. There were other Horcruxes out there somewhere, but she did not have the faintest idea where they could be.

She only had the faintest idea of what all of them were. Meanwhile she was at a loss to know how to destroy the only one that they had found, the Horcrux that currently lay against her chest. Curiously, it had not taken heat from her body, but lay so cold against her skin it might just have emerged from icy water.

From time to time Elara thought, or perhaps imagined, that she could feel the tiny heartbeat ticking irregularly alongside his own. Nameless forebodings crept upon her as she sat there in the dark: She tried to resist them, push them away, yet they came at him relentlessly.

A martyr —

Ron and Hermione, now talking softly behind her in the tent, could walk away if they wanted to: She and Harry could not.

And it seemed to Elara as she sat there trying to master her own fear and exhaustion, that the Horcrux against her chest was ticking away the time she had left. . . .

Stupid idea, she told herself, don't think that. . . .

Her forehead was starting to prickle again, and she immediately stood to change roles with Hermione. She entered the warm tent as Hermione stood from the old armchair. The pair smiled at each other as Elara handed Hermione the Horcrux.

Harry seemed to be zoned out, a warning sign another one of his visions was coming. Ron seemed to notice it too, as his eyes were locked on Harry.

"What — "

Elara raised a finger to her lips before taking a seat beside Harry. She laced his fingers with her own and willed waves of calm to crash over him. Within seconds, he slumped over, his cheek against Elara's shoulder.

Harry twitched violently every few seconds. Ron watched in horror, but Elara sat still, willing herself to stay calm. She kept him grounded to the couch as he experienced his vision. A throbbing pain struck Elara's forehead, and she clenched her eyes shut.

After a few minutes, he opened his eyes, panting.

"Dream," he said, sitting up quickly, "Must've dozed off, sorry."

Ron opened his mouth, but Elara glowered at him.