Once again, the four of them landed back in the Forest of Dean. Annie cradled Dante in her arms from when she had grabbed him after he had been attacked by the snake. She was horrified when she saw that he was quickly succumbing to the snake's poison, which now coursed through his blood. His face was now as pale as death itself. If they didn't get help quickly, Dante was surely going to die. 

She then remembered something and quickly got into action. She ignored Dante's moans of agony.

"Hermione, please get out the vial of phoenix tears from my bag, please. Quickly!" Annie pleaded desperately as Dante let out a groan of pain. 

"I'll get the lower bunk ready," Harry declared hastily. 

"Good idea. Hurry, Hermione! Please!" 

"Accio phoenix tears!" Hermione cried out. 

At once, the vial landed in her hands and she quickly tossed the glass vial to Annie. She quickly unstopped it hastily dropped a few phoenix tears onto Dante's wounds. Very slowly, he seemed to return to normal. 

Annie let out a quiet laugh of relief before looking up at Hermione, who was still the only one left outside while her brother got the lower bunk ready. 

"Can you please help me get him to the lower bunk that my brother has ready for him?" 

Without a word, Hermione nodded, and walked over to help Annie move Dante from the cold air outside, to the warmth of the tent inside. By the time they had walked in, Harry had already finished making up the bed. 

"You got him fixed up, then?" he asked, nodding in Dante's direction. He was still unconscious. 

"We'll need to wait until he wakes up again before we can do anything else," Annie answered as she and Hermione lowered him onto the bed. Once they set him down, she turned to face her friend and her brother. "You two can go and do your own thing. I'll stay and watch Dante." 

No one said anything. 

Annie did everything she could to keep Dante comfortable. She never left the tent, or Dante's side in that matter, except to go fill up a bowl of ice water from the nearby stream so that she could ease Dante's fever down.

Slowly, Dante began to recover. When he first began to blink his eyes after a few hours of resting, Annie was the first one to notice, and her head shot up from where it had been hanging.

Unfortunately, Dante still looked a bit weak, despite the phoenix tears clearing up his wound. In an instant, Annie took his hand which still felt unnaturally warm to her. She frowned, putting a hand to his forehead.

"Dante? Can you hear me?"

To Dante, Annie's voice sounded muffled, as though her voice was coming from the end of a long tunnel.

"Y-Yes," he answered weakly.

"Shhh. Go back to sleep for a bit, Dante. You're still recovering."

Dante wanted to protest. He tried to sit up and move, but the pain screamed at him with each movement he made. Instead, he laid himself back down on the mattress and reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled back into the abyss of darkness in hopes that it would distract him from the pain he was in.

Annie stayed inside with Dante  while Harry went outside to see Hermione. He'd been sleeping for two days non-stop. But for Dante, it was day three and he still hadn't woken up. But Annie didn't blame him. The poison from his veins must have drained him, even after they'd been drawn out by the Phoenix tears. 

Hermione came back in with tears of regret in her eyes. She sat down in the nearest chair and said nothing, staring into space. Annie finally had the guts to start the conversation. 

"Did you tell him? About his wand, I mean?" 

Hermione only scoffed, rolling her eyes in return. She slouched in her chair, looking thoroughly miserable. 

"What do you think?" 

Annie blushed. "Sorry. Is there no way to fix it?" 

Hermione shook her head, sighing heavily. "There's no way to fix that wand of his, Annie. It's broken, nearly cloven in two. The only thing that was keeping it together was the phoenix feather." 

Hermione had fallen asleep. In the distance, she could have sworn that she heard her brother's voice, but it was too far away for her to hear. She didn't move until she heard her brother's voice right outside the tent. 

"Annie?! Hermione?!" 

Hermione finally woke up, confused. Annie glanced over at the still-unconscious Dante. She hesitated before walking out of the tent with Hermione. 

"Is everything all right?" Hermione asked anxiously. 

"Harry, why are you soaking wet?" Annie asked at the same time. "Are you out of your mind?" 

"Fine," Harry answered, grinning quite broadly. "Actually, it's more than fine. It's actually —" 

He waved over to the familiar red-headed boy, who stood a few feet off. Annie's mouth flew open when she saw the familiar red-head. He grinned back at Annie before giving the two girls a tentative wave. 

"Hey." 

Hermione took a moment to register everything in her head before storming over. 

"Hermione, what —?" Annie began, flabbergasted by her actions. 

"You! Complete! Arse! Ronald! Billius! Weasley!" Hermione screamed at him, punching and throwing whatever she could find in his direction. 

Annie bit on her lower lip, trying to not laugh. Sure, this was no laughing matter. But Hermione's reaction made everything funnier. She backed away to not get hit by Hermione's furious swings. 

"You crawl back here, after all these weeks of abandoning us! And all you say is 'hey'?!" She turned to Harry, looking absolutely livid. "Where's my wand?" 

Harry quickly shoved Hermione's wand in the back pants pocket of his soaked jeans. 

"Dunno," he answered hastily. 

"Don't you lie to me! Harry Potter, you give me my wand — now!" 

Ron looked confused. "How come you don't have a wand anymore, mate?" 

"Never mind why he's got —" 

"Really?" Dante asked unexpectedly, clearly full of disbelief. Annie whipped around to see Dante, who had finally woken up and began to move about. His curly blonde hair that Annie had fallen in love with was sticking up in all directions. He did not look too pleased about being woken up to all this commotion, and he wore a half-tired expression on his face, his eyes partially shut from exhaustion. "I'm trying to recover here and all this yelling and shouting is giving me a headache. What's all this —?" His eyes fell onto the destroyed locket, which had been smashed, broken down the center. His eyes lit up in excitement. "What's that?!" 

"Dante, are you okay? You look a bit pale there, mate," said Ron in concern. 

"We'll explain everything when we get inside," Annie answered at once. She walked over to Dante, who leaned heavily against the nearest thing he could find. She put her arm around his waist, helping him to keep his balance. 

"And how did you happen to come across the sword of Gryffindor?" Hermione asked rather bluntly. Annie smirked, knowing that she was trying to hide her excitement of seeing the locket finally be destroyed. 

"It's a long story," Harry answered quite hastily. 

"I'm guessing that would explain why you're literally soaking wet?" Annie teased as she shifted Dante in her hold. 

Hermione looked baffled, examining Annie's brother's appearance before turning to glare at Ron. She pointed a threatening finger at him.

"Don't think that this changes everything," she growled threateningly at him. 

"No," Ron answered hastily. "Of course not! I mean — I just destroyed that bloody Horcrux we've been trying to destroy for weeks. Why the bloody hell would that change anything? D'you know what it was like for me to be seeing all those things — those words coming from you? To see you two doing all those things —?" 

"What things?" Hermione echoed, confused. 

Ron looked rather embarrassed, glancing around at anything except at Harry and Hermione. Harry finally broke the tension.

"As I've said, it's a long story." 

"Look," Ron finally sighed. "I wanted to come back the moment I left the tent. I just . . . I just didn't know how to find you. I've been searching for you guys around England for weeks, hoping that you'd show up." 

"How did you find us?" Harry asked. 

Ron grinned, holding up the Deluminator in his hands. 

"With this." 

"Doesn't the Deluminator only put out and turn on lights, though?" Annie asked thoughtfully. 

"Not just turning on and off the lights, Annie," Ron answered, his eyes twinkling. "I don't know exactly how it works. But on Christmas morning, I was sleeping at a little Muggle pub. I've given a pair of Snatchers a slip the night before that, with me being a blood traitor and all that shit. I was sleeping soundly, when I heard it." 

"It?" Dante asked weakly. He gave Ron a quizzical look. 

"Your voice, Hermione. It came out of this." 

Hermione's nostrils flared, but she didn't flinch. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. She continued her haughty, stubborn demeanor. 

"And what did I say, exactly?" 

"My name. I know it sounds dumb, but you just said my name. Almost like a whisper. So I took the moment to stand still to make sure that I wasn't imagining things. So I took it out and this tiny ball of light appeared. And I knew." 

"Knew what?" Annie interrupted. 

Ron shrugged, looking rather sheepish. "I just knew. On account of Hermione's voice. And sure enough, the thing floated towards me and went to my chest — straight through here." He pointed straight to his heart, motioning to where the light went in. "I could feel it inside of me. It was warm, like that first sip from a cozy cuppa tea. And I knew that it would take me to where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out to this hillside over there. It was dark, of course. I had no idea where either of you were. I just sat there and hoped that one of you would show up, and you did!" He turned to Annie, motioning to the still-weakened Dante. "What happened to him?" 

Annie sighed, shifting Dante uncomfortably in her arms. She winced slightly at his weight. 

"First, I need to get him back inside so that he can rest more," she answered. 

"What?! No, I'm fine, Annie. I feel well enough —"

"Dante, you need to rest. I know you just woke up. But trust me, you need more bed rest." 

Annie ignored Dante's complaints and dragged him into the tent. She lowered him onto the lowest bunk where he had been resting for the past twenty-four hours. He grumbled, giving Annie the stink eye, which she completely ignored. 

"So what happened to him?" Ron immediately asked as soon as he got comfortable in the armchair. 

Annie winced. "Long story short, we went to Godric's Hollow to pay our respect to our parents' house and to find the sword of Gryffindor. Unfortunately, Nagini was disguised as the recently-deceased Bathilda Bagshot, and attacked. Hermione made an explosion that caused half the upper floor to collapse. Dante looked over the edge to see if the snake had completely disappeared, but it had been too late. The snake lunged unexpectedly at Dante and bit his hand. Once we landed back here, I got Hermione to take out the vial of phoenix tears, which healed his hand up within seconds. But he still suffered from the fever and was knocked unconscious for twenty-four hours." 

When Dante was well enough to sit up, Annie helped him move over to the next chair. Both Ron and Harry had taken over the lower bunk. Annie caught Ron admiring the flames in the jelly jar that Hermione had produced moments before. Ron let out a longing sigh.

"I've always loved the flames that Hermione makes," he admitted. 

They glanced outside to see Hermione still sitting outside. Annie knew that she refused to come inside with Ron still in the room, unless she had no other choice. 

"How long d'you think that she'd stay mad at me? For leaving, I mean." 

"Keep talking about that little ball of light touching your heart, lover boy, and she'll eventually come around," Annie teased gently. 

Ron blushed. "It was true, y'know? Every single word that I said. You're going to think that I'm mental, but I think that's why Dumbledore left this for me. The Deluminator, I mean. He knew that I would eventually find my way back. And Hermione would lead me, like she always does. Bloody hell — I just realized this. You need a new wand, don't you?" 

"Yeah, I do. Mine is nearly cloven in two with the phoenix feather still clinging onto it like a thread." 

"Well, I've got one right here." Ron sat up, bringing a wand with him. He handed it to Harry. "It's a Blackthorn wand. Ten inches. It's nothing special, but it's better than no wand at all. I wrenched it from one of the Snatcher's hands a few weeks ago when they had been perusing on  me." He leaned in to whisper to his friends. "Don't tell Hermione, but they were a bit dim, those Snatchers. One of them had a foul odor to them. Definitely looked as though they were part-troll. With the smell coming from him, I mean." 

Annie watched as Harry pointed the wand at the flames in the jar in front of them. 

"Engorgio!"  

The flames shot several feet in the air, almost burning down the rough canvas of the ceiling. Ron jumped back with a yelp. Harry quickly reduced the flames. Everyone relaxed with relief again. 

"What's going on in here, now?" the voice of Hermione asked as she peered through the flaps of the tent's entrance. 

"Nothing," both boys responded, making Annie smirk. 

"Maybe a bit more practice would do, I think," Harry admitted. 

Hermione finally huffed and stomped back inside. 

"Guys, we need to talk." 

Ron frowned, confused. "All right?" 

Hermione clearly ignored him, speaking to Annie, Harry, and Dante instead. 

"I want to go see Xenophilius Lovegood." 

Annie blinked at her in surprise. "Sorry?" 

Hermione huffed and shoved the book in Annie's face. "See this? It's a letter, written to Dumbledore from Grindelwald. And look at the signature! It's that same mark again that keeps cropping up everywhere! I think that it's trying to tell us something. It's here, in the Beedle the Bard tale. And in that graveyard at Godric's Hollow. What —"

Annie turned to look at her brother, who was staring at the mark, hard. A look of recognition dawned on his face. 

"Jesus!" he breathed excitedly. "It was there, too!" 

"Mind telling us what you're talking about, brother?" Annie inquired thoughtfully. 

"Outside Gregorovitch's wand shop. On the alley wall, I mean." 

Ron seemed to be getting impatient. He clearly hadn't caught up with everything yet. 

"But what does it mean?" 

Everyone went quiet before Hermione spoke up again. 

"Harry, I don't have a clue where the next Horcrux is. Neither does your sister, Dante, or Ron do. But this —" she tapped the symbol on the book, hard "— It has to mean something. It can't just be there for no reason. I'm sure of it." 

"Hermione's right," Ron butted in at once, hoping to gain her his trust. "I think that we oughta go and see this Lovegood fellow. What say we vote on it?" 

His hand immediately flew into the air, grinning broadly. Knowing that Hermione could not back down, she rolled her eyes and slowly put her hand in the air, all while glaring at Ron. Slowly and reluctantly, Annie put her hand in the air, surprising her brother. Ron grinned at Annie. 

"Sorry, mate. Looks like you've been outvoted by me, Hermione, and your sister this time."