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His breath, cool, fell on her face. Then he kissed her, his lips bruising hers. It was the antithesis to what she would have expected her first kiss to be – if she had taken the time to daydream about it. There was no love, no caring there. And it was so cold.

It was as if he were trying to consume her. She could feel his hunger, so frightening and so strange, in the way he clamped his hands on her shoulders, there was sure to be finger-shaped bruises left.

Her mind froze; the ability to think had deserted her.

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That soft – yet commanding – voice slithered around her mind, teasing, sharing secrets long forgotten. Images of fantastical things came and went. Knowledge that no book held was given. The feel of his lips on hers was forgotten. She was enwrapped in a cocoon of whispers and images.

Then it was gone. The flow of knowledge taped off, the voice promised more if she… Hermione could not recall the request made of her, the memory had already dissipated.

Hermione abruptly realized that Tom had stopped kissing her, his hands no longer held her to him.

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She smiled, a sick twist of the lips, not really a smile at all.

Harry frowned. Something was not right; the feeling was strong and pulsing between them. She looked so thin and her face so white. It rivaled even Snape’s sickly pallor. Her eyes were closed off, full of secrets; the look in them reminded him of a snake watching its prey, its tongue flicking out to taste the air.

Hesitantly he asks, “Hermione, are you all right?”

That vague smile reappeared. “Of course I’m all right, Harry. There’s no need to worry about me. We need to do this; you can’t be expected to look for Ron by yourself.” The bossy, exasperated tone was there. The right words yet wrong.

He looked at her for a moment. Watched her frizzy hair curl around her face. Looked into her brown eyes, now full of caring and determination, that hungry look gone. His fears were quelled. This was Hermione; he needn’t be looking for something not there.

She slipped her cold hand into his warm one. “We’ll be all right, Harry. We’ll find Ron.”

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At first he looked asleep, lying there on the cold, wet stone. His red hair fanned out about his face and his eyelashes making shadows on his cheeks. How many times had he seen Ron like this, usually sprawled out across his bed in the dorm. He was so still, his chest not rising and falling in time with his breaths. His face was pale, his freckles standing out on his cheeks, dark pinpricks of color.

“Ron?” His voice was loud in the cool silence. He felt Hermione at his side, a comforting presence. He did not dare to look at her face. What doom would he see spelled out there? She was always the first to know the truth.

“Ron?” He was kneeling by his friend’s side now. He touched Ron’s cold hand, pushed his hands against that stiff body. Tears pricked his eyes. “Ron, wake up.”