Part 3

She eased herself off him, and Harry repeated the question.

"What's happened to Ron? This is about Ron, isn't it, Hermione?"

She nodded, and he could see she was trying to be strong for him, but her effort showed. "Harry, I don't have much time... The Ministry..." she shook her head, as if wondering what should come next, but then she continued. "Sylvan Wentworth--you know him, don't you, Harry?"

Harry nodded. "Of course, Ron's boss."

"He came to the house five days ago. He said he needed to see Ron, that it was urgent, but Ron had gone away two weeks ago. I thought he would know that, but then he just went pale and told me to sit down because he needed to talk to me..."

"But how could he not know that Ron was gone?"

"Because... what Ron was working on wasn't authorized by the Ministry..."

Harry felt like the air in his lungs had seeped out. No... Not Ron. Not Ron... Somehow, he knew what Hermione was about to tell him.

"He told me that he had noticed some strange behavior on Ron's part--unexplained absences, secrecy... He..."

Hermione broke off again; this was clearly difficult for her. Harry put a hand on her shoulder for reassurance, though he didn't know what good that would do.

"Ron's been suspected of treason," she finally said.

Hearing it said out loud didn't make Harry's suspicions any easier to digest. He shut his eyes and tried to strengthen his resolve; Hermione needed him to be strong.

"Harry, they think he's joined..."

He could tell she didn't want to say the name, but eventually, she did.

"They think he's joined Voldemort." She looked up at him, eyes filled with unspeakable pain. "They're going to hunt him down, Harry, no holds barred. They're going to send the Dementors out for him, and he won't just be sent to Azkaban--they've authorized a Dementor's Kiss on him..."

Harry took her in his arms again and held her as she began to cry, but she pushed off him gently.

"He didn't do it. They're wrong, I know they are..."

She looked at him, and her eyes flashed with pain once more. "Oh God, Harry, don't tell me you believe them! You know Ron! You know he'd rather die than betray us!"

"I... I know..."

But he wondered if he really did know. He thought back to Ron's coolness towards him during their last visit, but he shoved the thought out of his mind.

"Please tell me you're on my side, Harry. There's no one else I can turn to... Dumbledore would have been the only other person who would have believed Ron was innocent, but now he's gone... Harry, I refuse to let my child grow up thinking his father is a traitor. So either you help me, or..."

He didn't let her finish her sentence. With a solemn nod, he said, "You can count on me, Hermione."

"Good. Because I bought us some time. Not much, but I will take what I can get..."

"What did you do?"

"I managed to convince the Ministry to let me find him myself. I told them I could convince him to come home from whatever this is that he's doing and we'll prove that he's innocent. They gave me a week to find him and they would keep this quiet until I do, but if I don't bring him back..."

Harry made a motion to put his hand on her shoulder, but she refused it.

"We've got two days, Harry. Two days to find him and bring him home, before..."

He took a deep breath before he said what he was about to say. He knew Hermione wouldn't want to hear this, but he had to tell her. "Not we," he said.

"What?"

"We won't do anything. I am going to look for him-"

"Oh no, you don't-"

"No, you don't, Hermione. Listen to me, you are pregnant! Now I know that doesn't make you an invalid, but that doesn't mean you can go around playing hero, either."

"This is not your decision, Harry. He's my husband-"

"And my best friend. As are you, and Ron would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you or the baby. Don't fight me on this one, Hermione. You won't be able to bully me on this. Not this."

She managed a weak smile in spite of herself, and even Harry released a small chuckle.

"I do not bully you," she said quietly.

"Not all the time, anyway."

"What would you and Ron do without me, though?"

He smiled and took her in his arms again, squeezing her tightly, in a silent gesture to let her know that somehow they would make this right. "I don't ever want to know," he said.

He had been in the Forbidden Forest only a few times in his life, and he had hoped he would never have to come here again. In the distance, he could hear werewolves howling, and though the sound would have normally unnerved him, the matter at hand weighed far more heavily on his mind.

"You picked a dangerous place to meet, Weasley," came a voice that had been familiar to him for over twelve years now. "You know what lurks in these woods."

Ron tensed his jaw. "Voldemort isn't here, you know that," he said. "And I had no other choice--I can't apparate anywhere on these grounds, and it would be far more dangerous to meet in the castle. Harry could have seen us-"

Snape's thin mouth bent into a smile. "Ah yes," he said, "what would happen indeed if the Defense Against Dark Arts professor caught the Dark Mark on his own best friend's arm..."

"Shut up!"

"Tsk, tsk... Manners, Weasley. But then, you never did have them, did you?"

Ron was seething inside, but he would be damned if he let Snape catch on. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "It makes me sick, every time I see it!" he said. "I never should have agreed to this--never!"

"You are just as short-sighted now as you were as a student!" Snape said, obviously disgusted with him. Ron didn't care. "Do you actually think your traditional methods will ever reel him in?"

Ron let out a derisive laugh. "What was I thinking trusting you... For God's sake, you were linked to him all those years! When you never came back in our fifth year, I made a decision right then and there. You're the reason I became an Auror, did you know that?" He came closer to Snape; it gave him a strange sense of triumph to see Snape slightly flinch at his height as he looked down on him. "I became an Auror just to have the pleasure of catching you-"

"And you almost made the biggest mistake of your life," he hissed. "You almost cost me eight years of hard work-"

"Maverick work!"

"Effective work!! Why do you think Voldemort never unleashed the fury everyone had been expecting him to since he came back to life?"

Ron was still unused to hearing Voldemort's name being said out loud; only Harry had ever done so, but now he did as well.

"Why else hasn't he gotten to your precious Potter yet, Weasley, if I hadn't been holding him back, making him believe there would be a better time in the future--a better time to truly make his mark?"

"Why should I believe you!!" Ron spat back, but he knew Snape spoke the truth.

"Because you can't run away from what's true, not when it's right in front of your face." He reached over and grabbed Ron's arm, holding it up. "This," he said, pointing to the spot where Ron knew the mark would appear again soon, "is what's going to help you get him at last. You knew that going into this, Weasley."

Ron ripped his arm out of Snape's grasp and pulled the sleeve of his robe over the exposed forearm, then turned his back to Snape.

"If you're wavering even one little bit, might I remind you that there is absolutely nothing stopping Voldemort from going after your family." He came up behind Ron and taunted in his ear, "Your wife is about to have a baby, isn't she?"

It was all Ron could do not to whip around and grab Snape by the throat for daring to speak of Hermione. "Don't you ever bring her up again, Snape," he said through gritted teeth.

Snape seemed to have gotten the reaction he wanted though. He backed off and laughed. "I thought that might bring you to your senses," he said.

For a long time, Ron stood silent, then he faced Snape again and said quietly, "Why me? Why did you pick me to do this?"

Snape stopped laughing and looked back at him, stone-faced once more. "He was beginning to question my loyalty," he said matter-of-factly. "And if I delivered him the Ministry's top Auror, he'd have no reason to doubt it again, would he? Especially when the Ministry's top Auror is Harry Potter's best friend--his loyal sidekick over the years, overshadowed by every great deed ever accomplished by him..."

Ron felt his jaw clench again.

"There must have been a part of you that's always resented him, hasn't there, Weasley?"

Ron refused to answer, but Snape took his silence as affirmation, and smirked with delight. "Voldemort certainly believed so," he said. "It wasn't difficult at all to persuade him that you had joined our side."

This was almost more than he could take; if he didn't leave now, the rage inside him would surely combust at any second.

"I told you from the beginning there would be no halfway, Weasley." He came up to him again, apparently no longer intimidated by Ron's size. "You agreed to do it, and I will be damned before I let you ruin what I've worked so hard for all these years, do you understand?"

With strained effort, Ron answered, "Perfectly."

Snape nodded. "I gave Dumbledore my word," he said, "and I will not let him down. The Order of the Phoenix lives on."