Harry had thought--hoped, really--that after a good night's sleep, he would have been able to figure out what their next move should be.

Trouble was, he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep at all. All night, he had tossed and turned, and whenever he did manage to doze off, he would hear him: Lord Voldemort. Harry could hear his sick, tell-tale laughter, thick with triumph, echoing in his head. And he could hear Peter, too, and the awful, blood-curling scream Peter had let out when he'd cut off his right hand. And then Harry would feel his own arm begin to burn unbearably, and the memory of Peter plunging a silver dagger into it to get his blood--blood that would ultimately bring Voldemort back to life--was enough to make Harry wake up in a cold sweat.

The final time the dream woke him, the sun hadn't even risen yet. Harry fumbled around for his glasses and put them on, then saw that Ron and Hermione were still sleeping soundly, Crookshanks curled up alongside Hermione and watching Harry as he got up as quietly as possible. The cat began to purr, and Harry put a finger to his lips right away.

"Shh," he whispered. Crookshanks continued to look at him with utmost curiosity. "Just let them sleep, all right?" More to himself, he added, "God knows they need the rest after everything that's happened."

Ron stirred; Harry thought for a moment he was going to wake, but instead, he simply rolled over to his other side and continued to sleep. In the bed, Hermione also turned over, slinging her arm around Crookshanks, who meowed in delight.

Wow, thought Harry with a grin, even in their sleep, they're synchronized. He chuckled, in spite of himself, at the sheer irony of the sight.

He waited a few moments, watching them to see if either was going to wake. But neither did, and when he saw that both were still fast asleep, and probably would be for a while, Harry opened the door and slipped outside.

Hermione would no doubt scold him for sneaking off to be by himself, especially at a time like this, but he decided to take his chances anyway. He knew she only meant well, and truth be told, he even appreciated her mother-hen tendencies (though he would never dare tell her this), but he also needed desperately to be alone at that moment. Before long, both she and Ron would be awake, and then he would have no choice but to deal with the reality facing them.

For now, he just needed some time to himself, to gather his thoughts and shut the lingering voices in his head, and to figure out what they were going to do to get themselves out of this mess.

They were extraordinary, he thought. Ron and Hermione. True friends, who had seen him through more hellish things than any one person should have to face in one lifetime. And they had been there with him each step of the way--willingly at that. It didn't seem fair that they should have to keep finding themselves in one dangerous situation after another just because of him, and yet here they were again. It was familiar territory by now.

Somehow or another, he had to find a way to make everything right again. Maybe then they could be free of Voldemort and all the fears of what he could do to them. Maybe then they would have nothing more to worry about, except the very normal things every fifteen year old wizard worried about: dating, Quidditch, and (in Hermione's case) the O.W.L. exams at the end of the year.

He had been staring ahead in the distance for some time now, looking at nothing in particular, but he caught the sun as it materialized above the tops of the majestic trees, sending light beaming through the otherwise dark forest. The beauty of the sight distracted him for a few minutes, which is why he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a sound pierce the silence of the coming morning.

He was so startled that he actually leapt when he gasped, and as he looked around, he could hear the pounding in his ears, as all his blood seemed to rush to his skull at that very moment. As he had last night, though, he saw nothing. There was not even a single leaf rustling in the windless sky.

I'm going mad, he thought, shaking his head. There's nothing here... Nothing here at all-

"Harry?"

"Ahhh!!"

Hermione screamed almost as soon as he did, then put a hand to her chest dramatically, pretending to clutch her heart. "For goodness sakes, Harry, what are you trying to do, send me to an early grave??!"

She was standing at the door, obviously having just woken up because her hair was as bushy and wild as ever, and her feet still bare. Soon, Ron appeared beside her.

"What in the bloody hell-" He looked down at Hermione, who was eying him, then cleared his throat and corrected himself. "What is going on here? I heard you two screaming like someone was being murdered!"

It had taken all this time, but Harry finally let out a breath. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I thought... Never mind what I thought..." He shook his head then came in. Hermione was still staring at him.

"What were you doing out there all by yourself?" she demanded. "Do you know how frightened I was when I had woken and saw that you weren't on the floor anymore?" She grabbed hold of his shoulders and shook him. "Do you??"

He looked down at her foot. "I see your ankle's all better."

"DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT!!"

"All right, all right, Hermione," Ron finally said. "We're supposed to be in hiding, remember? If you keep it up, I reckon Peter will be able to hear us wherever he is and then he'll know where to find us, won't he?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Ooh, I knew you'd take his side!" She turned on her heel and marched off.

"Where are you going?"

"To the kitchen!" she spat out. "I can't very well let us starve to death, can I?"

Harry heard the banging of pots and pans a few seconds later. He and Ron both cringed as it soon became apparent that Hermione was trying to take out her frustrations on inanimate objects.

With a sigh of resignation, Harry decided to walk into the kitchen, Ron trailing him. He watched Hermione, whose face was scrunched up so much that she was all red. She was muttering something.

"I just try and do what's best for the people I love and where does it get me? You're a worrywart, Hermione... Stop being such a spoilsport, Hermione..."

"You're not a worrywart, or a spoilsport," Harry said.

"Yeah," added Ron, "not all the time, anyway."

"Not helping, Ron," Harry muttered, as Hermione looked up at both of them and glared.

"For your information," she said, and as she did, tears were rolling down her face, "I do not say these things to ruin your fun, Harry Potter!"

"I know that-"

"I just want to make sure you're safe, is that so wrong?"

"Of course not, Hermione." He walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you for caring so much. I'm sorry for giving you such a hard time... All right?"

She took a deep breath, then finally nodded. "Okay," she said weakly. Then, she said, a little more forcefully, "You've got to stop taking so many chances, Harry. I know it may seem like such a little thing, you being out there by yourself, but I would think after everything that's happened to you, you'd be a little more careful."

Eager to change the subject, Harry said, "So, er... d'you need any help with breakfast?"

"Well... yeah, I reckon I do, seeing as there's not likely to be any food here and... I don't know how to cook anyway..."

Ron made a sound in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a stifled laugh to Harry, but for once, Hermione let it go without comment. Apparently she was too preoccupied with other thoughts.

"We're going to starve," she said, though she said this in a far less depressed manner than before, causing all three of them to laugh. "Well, we are! Not unless we can conjure up some food..."

Ron rolled his eyes and strode confidently to the pantry. "A little adversity and she falls all to pieces," he said. He opened the cupboard and began to inspect its contents.

"And I suppose you can magic us up a feast with what's in there?" Hermione huffed. "Not exactly filled with goodies, is it?"

"Did you even bother look in here?"

"What do you mean? What's the point, this place is obviously abandoned. You actually expect food to be in there?"

Ron raised his eyebrows at her, and Hermione, after exchanging puzzled looks with Harry, came to Ron's side to look inside the cupboard.

"I don't believe it..."

"What?" said Harry.

"Food!" She turned back to look at him. "Well, not cooked food, but marmalade, and cheese, and even... bread." She took it out and sniffed it. "And it's not even moldy!"

"That's odd... But it looks like no one's been here in a long time--how could there be food in there?"

This didn't seem to bother Ron, as he began stacking food in his arms and carrying all the items he physically could to the table. "One's got to eat," he said. He looked at Harry and Hermione, both of whom had incredulous looks on their faces, then as if to ease their minds, he told them, "Blimey, you didn't think I was going to let us eat all of this without testing everything first, did you?"

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and watched him pull out his wand.

"Er... it'll all be a little soggy," he said, "but at least we'll know if it's got that powdered cemassil-"

"Cessamil, Ron."

"Whatever," he said. "Facio aqua!"

They watched as water shot out of Ron's wand and onto the food, but this time, there was no steam, and nothing turned fuchsia.

"There," Ron said, with a self-satisfied grin. "All safe to eat!"

Hermione looked at Harry and rolled her eyes, then finally, sat down at the table with Ron and started to eat.

"Aren't you going to have anything, Harry?" Ron warbled through a full mouth.

Still suspicious, but also starving after having gone without food for so many hours, Harry finally nodded and joined them.

"The fire's starting to fade." Ron was looking inside the stove, poking at the last of the dying embers. "We'll need some more wood, or else it's going to be an icebox in here pretty soon."

Without much thought, Harry said, "I'll go get some."

Hermione wasted no time in making her assessment of that idea known to the both of them. "Oh no you don't, Harry!" she said, grabbing his arm.

"What?!"

"What did we just talk about earlier, or have you already forgotten?"

Harry looked to Ron for help, but Ron just grinned and shook his head, clearly trying to stop himself from laughing.

"I thought you had agreed that you wouldn't be wandering off by yourself again."

"I'm not going to wander off," he said. "I'll be right outside getting wood."

She was still staring at him wordlessly, apparently unconvinced.

"Hermione, I'll be just outside!" He sighed. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, you have my permission to declare a state of emergency."

That was enough to send Ron into fits of laughter, though Hermione did not appear too amused. She just stood there tight-lipped, until at last, she said, "Fine."

Harry turned to go, when he heard her call after him again.

"Fifteen minutes, Harry! Fifteen minutes or I'm coming out there with Ron!"

"Yeah, all right," he said. And with that, he walked out the door.

She's overreacting, Harry thought, as he began picking up random twigs. We've been here for a day now and Peter hasn't found us yet. But no matter what he was telling himself, he found himself unable to shake the uneasy feeling he'd had ever since they walked into this forest. Ever since they went into the cottage, and most importantly, ever since they ate the food that seemed to come out of nowhere.

A sudden breeze grazed his skin, making the hair on his arms stand up. Harry felt as if a thousand ants were crawling up his spine, and he knew this time, he wasn't imagining the noise he had just heard.

"Who are you?" he cried out. "Show yourself, I can hear you!"

It's nothing, he kept telling himself. If it were Voldemort, my scar would be hurting...

"Tell me who you are-"

Just then, his eye caught movement up above. He looked up and there was an owl perched on the top branch of a particularly tall tree. It looked at Harry for a few moments, then fluttered its wings. Harry stared wide-eyed as it left the branch and flew right at him, landing on Harry's outstretched arm.

Harry couldn't say anything.