Early next morning, before the other four were awake, I left the tent to search the woods around us for the oldest, most gnarled, and resilient-looking tree I could find. There in its shadows I buried Mad-Eye Moody's eye and marked the spot by gouging a small cross in the bark. It wasn't much, but I felt that Mad-Eye would have much preferred this to being stuck on Umbitch's door. Then I returned to the tent to wait for the others to wake, and discuss what we were going to do next.

Terry felt that it was best not to stay anywhere too long, and I agreed with him; however we had thwarted Riddle by Apparating into some random woods, he would be bound to find us eventually if he kept looking through my mind, so it would be better to move around. And ever since I started wearing the locket, our connection was more frequent. 

Dark thoughts started to enter my head as well. I would just be hanging out with the guys, and random creeping whispers would emit from deep within my mind, telling me to take the nearest sharp object and slit Terry's throat, or stab Lee, or use my Grace to incinerate Fred or George. I had to shake these thoughts away, because for whatever reason, they always seemed so... deliciously tempting. 

And one day, the temptation took a hold on me. I was washing the dishes, wiping a small knife clean with a tea towel, when Terry brushed past me, reaching for the drying rack; within a split second, the thought had crept into my head: Stab him... just do it... you know you'll like it... 

I pushed Terry up against the counter, pressing the knife into his side; I could feel something dark and thick and seductive swirling around inside me; there was a pressure in my head, making me dig it into his skin, bowing my face down towards him, feeling my lips curve into a sadistic smirk - 

"Daisy!" Fred's shocked voice came from behind me. "Daisy, what the fuck, no -" 

"Dude -" 

"D-Daze?" Terry finally spoke in a small, terrified whisper, his eyes wide and shimmering, his bottom lip wobbling. 

And I could see my reflection in his teary eyes. My own eyes... were bright red. 

I took a step back, suddenly shocked and horrified at what I was doing. The knife clattered to the floor. 

"Terry, I-I'm so sorry -" I stammered, starting to shake. 

Terry took a deep breath, composing himself as he shifted against the counter, tugging his jumper down. "Take it off." 

"W-what?" 

"Take it off." He said calmly, though he was blinking away his tears. "The locket. Take it off and give it to me." 

He held out his hands, and I lifted the golden chain over my head. The moment it parted contact with my skin I felt oddly light. I hadn't even realised that I was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on my stomach until both sensations lifted.

"Better, bitch?" Terry asked.

"Yeah, loads better!"

"Softpaw," He said, reaching out and taking hold of my upper arms, using the kind of voice I associated with visiting the very sick, "you don't think you've been possessed, do you?"

"What? No!" I said defensively. "I remember everything we've done while I've been wearing it. I wouldn't know what I'd done if I'd been possessed, would I? I think I would know, most out of all of us?" 

"Right. Well." Terry said, looking down at the heavy locket. "Maybe we ought not to wear it. We can just keep it in the tent."

"We are not leaving that Horcrux lying around, for fuck sake." I stated firmly. "If we lose it, if it gets stolen - I think it's more evil than the cup, it might -" 

"Fine, whatever!" Terry said, and he placed it around his own neck and tucked it out of sight down the front of his shirt. "But we'll take turns wearing it, so nobody keeps it on too long."

"Yeah, and so nobody ends up literally trying to kill Hopper." Fred said darkly. 

My lips twitched. I didn't allow myself to laugh. I felt sickened, horrified by what I had nearly done to Terry, my heart sinking as I thought about what if I hadn't broke out of the trance, if I had actually stabbed and killed my very best friend... 

But I looked around at George, Lee, and then Terry, all of whom had widened eyes - then Terry started cackling. Fred and George joined in a moment later, Lee cracking a wide grin, and then I couldn't hold it anymore; I doubled over as we all laughed, tears of mirth spilling down my cheeks. 

~~~

Even without any new ideas, we continued to move through the countryside, pitching the tent in a different place each night for security. Every morning we made sure that we had removed all clues to our presence, then set off to find another lonely and secluded spot, travelling by Apparition to more woods, to the shadowy crevices of cliffs, to purple moors, gorse-covered mountainsides, and once a sheltered and pebbly cove. Every four hours or so we passed the Horcrux between us as though we were playing some perverse, slow-motion game of pass-the-parcel, where we dreaded the music stopping because the reward was four hours of increased fear and anxiety.

My scar kept prickling. It happened most often, I noticed, when I was wearing the Horcrux. Sometimes I could not stop myself reacting to the pain. 

"Can you stop fucking flinching?" Fred scowled at me as he lounged on his bunk, the locket gleaming dully up at me from his chest. "I'm sick of it. All it does is remind me that he's in your head." 

"Yeah, and you don't like that, do you?" I rolled my eyes. "Well, tough shit, I can't exactly help it." 

"Whatever. Just get out of here. I don't want to think about him in your head, it's sick." Fred said harshly, turning back to his book with a dark glare on his face. 

I sat there on the rug beside his bunk, staring up at him in outrage. "What?" 

"You heard me." 

I sniffled. "That's fine. I guess YOU don't want to be in MY head, then." 

Fred lowered his book, looking interested, but the effects of wearing the locket just half an hour before it was Fred's turn swirled in my head, influencing me, making me naughtier and more of an asshole than I usually was. I crawled over to George, who was reclining on an armchair reading his own book, focused on it as Terry and Lee were taking watch outside the tent. 

"Georgie," I purred up at him, and George nearly dropped his book, "Freddie hates the thought of anyone in my head. But I don't care... I want YOU in my head." 

"Er -" George started stammering, glancing up at Fred then back down to me, turning bright red. "Um - Daze - you -" 

"Do you want to be in my head, Georgie?" I tilted my head at him, my eyes burning into his. I leaned in closer as George stuttered, placing my hands on his knees and digging my fingertips in, hard. "Do you want me, Georgie?" 

"Y-yes!" George whimpered loudly, and I smirked. 

"That's what I thought, baby." I said seductively, reaching up to unbuckle his belt. George groaned quietly, glancing over at Fred. I glanced as well, licking my lips as I noticed how mutinous my boyfriend looked, staring at us with furious but darkened with lust eyes. I turned back, tugging George's jeans down, and lowered my head. 

Within minutes, George was a moaning mess above me. I took him in my mouth and down my throat, bobbing my head over him and sliding off, licking up and down his length slowly, gazing up and making eye contact all the while. George was slicked with my saliva, and as he twitched in my throat, I glanced up and saw that he was red-faced, tousled-haired, and his eyes were squeezed shut as his fingers tightened in my hair, hands pressing my head further down onto him. 

I moved my eyes to Fred's bunk. My boyfriend was still watching us with eyes full of rage, but his hand was moving suspiciously underneath his blanket, and his dark eyes were latched onto me, moving from my own (thankfully green again) eyes to my lips, stretched around George, to my throat. The locket was twitching on his chest, practically jumping, and I was flooded with a dark pleasure at the sight of him. 

I sank down further on George; gagging slightly, I plunged down until I was kissing his crotch, his tip throbbing down my throat, and his hands were grabbing my hair hard, his head thrown back. 

"Daisy, baby..." George groaned huskily. "Princess..." 

I swallowed around him, thinking, Don't be such a gentleman... 

"Take this cock down your slutty throat, princess..." George purred suddenly, and I felt a rush go through me as he pulled out of my mouth slightly, only to thrust back in again roughly. "Take me, take it, fucking taste me..." 

I moaned around him; George swore, and he bucked his hips faster into my face. My jaw ached but I didn't care; I moved my tongue underneath him, and he threw his head back again, groaning deeply. 

"I'm gonna come - fuck - you're gonna take it all, aren't you, you're gonna swallow every drop, princess -" 

I moaned enthusiastically as George came in my mouth, feeling his taste seep over my tongue. I pulled back off of him once he finished, turning and making eye contact with Fred. Fred's angry eyes were still on me, and his hand was jerking erratically underneath that blanket. I knew he was close. With a cocky little smile, I stared deep into his eyes, and swallowed slowly with an audible gulp. 

"F-fuck." Fred bucked his hips into his hand, tearing his eyes away from me, and I tossed my hair over my shoulder smugly, licking around my lips and smacking them for George's benefit as I looked back up at him. George was staring down at me with eyes full of desire. 

"Guys, where are you, next watch is - oh." Terry's voice came from the entrance to the tent, and I looked around just in time to see him scuttling back out, giggling hysterically. 

~~~

"So, you three have been on the run how long?" A mellow, and pleasant voice asked; it was vaguely familiar to me, who pictured a round-bellied, cheerful-faced man. 

We were listening in to a small group's conversation as they ate fish down by the river, completely unaware of our wards and therefore our presence. The twins crouched on either side of me in the tent, both way too close and breaching my personal bubble, and we all held Extendable Ears. 

"Six weeks... Seven... I forget." The tired man said. "Met up with Griphook in the first couple of days and joined forces with Gornuk not long after. Nice to have a bit of company." There was a pause. "What made you leave, Ted?" 

"Knew they were coming for me, Dirk." Mellow-voiced Ted replied, and I suddenly knew who he was: Tonks's father. "Heard Death Eaters were in the area last week and decided I'd better run for it. Refused to register as a Muggle-born on principle, see, so I knew it was a matter of time, knew I'd have to leave in the end. My wife should be okay, she's pure-blood. And then I met Dean here, what, a few days ago, son?"

"Yeah." Another voice said, and me, Terry, Fred, George, and Lee stared at each other, silent but beside ourselves with excitement, sure we recognised the voice of Dean Thomas, our fellow Gryffindor.

"Muggle-born, eh?" Dirk asked.

"Not sure." Dean said. "My dad left my mum when I was a kid. I've got no proof he was a wizard, though."

There was silence for a while, except for the sounds of munching; then Ted spoke again. But I couldn't concentrate; Fred's hand was travelling up my thigh, and George's was tracing my ass. 

"Similar reasons." The higher voiced goblin said, and I tried my best to tune in again and ignore the twins. "Gringotts is no longer under the sole control of my race. I recognise no Wizarding master."

He added something under his breath in Gobbledegook, and Gornuk laughed.

"What's the joke?" Dean asked.

"He said," replied Dirk, "that there are things wizards don't recognise, either."

There was a short pause.

"I don't get it." Dean said.

"I had my small revenge before I left." Griphook said in English. 

"Good man - goblin, I should say." Ted amended hastily. "Didn't manage to lock a Death Eater up in one of the old high-security vaults, I suppose?" 

George's hand cupped my ass cheek; Fred's hand found my crotch. I whimpered quietly. 

"If I had, the sword would not have helped him break out." Griphook replied. Gornuk laughed again and even Dirk gave a dry chuckle.

"Dean and I are still missing something here." Ted said.

"So is Severus Snape, though he does not know it." Griphook said, and the two goblins roared with malicious laughter. Inside the tent my breathing was shallow with excitement: me and Terry stared at each other, listening as hard as we could, the twins forgotten. 

"Didn't you hear about that, Ted?" Dirk asked. "About the kids who tried to steal Gryffindor's sword out of Snape's office at Hogwarts?"

Fred smirked at me and Terry; I grinned back. 

"Never heard a word." Ted said. "Not in the Prophet, was it?"

"Hardly." Dirk chortled. "Griphook here told me, he heard about it from Bill Weasley who works for the bank. One of the kids who tried to take the sword was Bill's younger sister. Daisy Potter was one of them, too. She and a couple of friends got into Snape's office and tried hunting it down." 

"Ah, God bless 'em." Ted said. "What did they think, that they'd be able to use the sword on You-Know-Who? Or on Snape himself?"

"Well, whatever they thought they were going to do with it, Snape decided the sword wasn't safe where it was." Dirk said. "Couple of days later, once he'd got the say-so from You-Know-Who, I imagine, he sent it down to London to be kept in Gringotts instead."

The goblins started to laugh again.

"I'm still not seeing the joke." Ted said.

"It's a fake." Griphook rasped. 

"The sword of Gryffindor!"

"Oh yes. It is a copy - an excellent copy, it is true - but it was wizard-made. The original was forged centuries ago by goblins and had certain properties only goblin-made armour possesses. Wherever the genuine sword of Gryffindor is, it is not in a vault at Gringotts bank."

"I see." Ted said. "And I take it you didn't bother telling the Death Eaters this."

"I saw no reason to trouble them with the information." Griphook said smugly, and now Ted and Dean joined in Gornuk and Dirk's laughter. 

Holy shit. Snape didn't have the real sword. He didn't have the real sword! 

~~~

When my turn for wearing the locket and taking the love potion to fall in love with Boggart-Riddle for one minute coincided, it wasn't a pretty picture. One morning, it took an hour for the boys to coax me out of it, during which I sobbed for Riddle and when I came to, my eyes were all puffy and red, and tear tracks were staining my skin. 

I had no idea why it was so bad when I was wearing the locket. I wasn't usually like that. 

We decided to call it quits on our area and moved to another one, and Terry took the locket from me for that shift, stating that I could have it back in the evening, but I was clearly too physically weak and influenced by the locket to have it on right now. 

Here too snow lay on the trees all around and it was bitterly cold, but we were at least protected from the wind. We spent most of the day inside the tent, huddled for warmth around the useful bright blue flames that Terry was adept at producing, and which could be scooped up and carried in a jar. That afternoon fresh flakes drifted down upon us, so that even our sheltered clearing had a fresh dusting of powdery snow.

Evening soon came, however, and with it my turn for the locket and also my watch shift with Fred. We sat outside in the dead of night, chatting and making out, and eventually we lay back against the canvas of the tent, Fred's arm slung around me, and watched the flakes floating down from the black sky. 

Several times I jerked upright, my neck aching because I had fallen asleep, slumped at an awkward angle against the side of the tent. The night reached such a depth of velvety blackness that I might have been suspended in limbo between Disapparation and Apparation. I had just held a hand in front of my face to see whether I could make out my fingers when it happened.

A bright silver light appeared right ahead of me, moving through the trees. Whatever the source, it was moving soundlessly. The light seemed simply to drift toward me. I jumped to my feet, Fred's arm falling off me as he halted snoring, my voice frozen in my throat. I screwed up my eyes as the light became blinding, the trees in front of it pitch black in silhouette, and still the thing came closer... 

And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoofprints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped toward me, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high.

I stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but her inexplicable familiarity. I felt that I had been waiting for her to come, but that I had forgotten, until this moment, that we had arranged to meet. My impulse to shake Fred awake, which had been so strong a moment ago, had gone. I knew, I would have staked my life on it, that she had come for me, and me alone.

We gazed at each other for several long moments and then she turned and walked away.

"No." I said. "Come back!"

She continued to step deliberately through the trees, and soon the brightness was striped by their thick black trunks. For one trembling second I hesitated. Caution murmured it could be a trick, a lure, a trap. But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told me that this was not Dark magic. I set off in pursuit.

But I wasn't following her for long when she vanished, just like that. Though the darkness had swallowed her whole, her burnished image was still imprinted on my retinas; it obscured my vision, brightening when I lowered my eyelids, disorienting me. Now fear came: her presence had meant safety. I held out my hands, concentrating hard and making my own feeble white light shine from them. 

The imprint of the doe faded away with every blink of my eyes as I stood there, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow. Was I about to be attacked? Had she enticed me into an ambush? Was I imagining that somebody stood beyond the reach of the light glowing from my hands, watching me?

Something gleamed in the light, and I spun about, but all that was there was a small, frozen pool, its black, cracked surface glittering as I raised my hand higher to examine it. I moved forward rather cautiously and looked down. The ice reflected my distorted shadow and the beam of light, but deep below the thick, misty gray carapace, something else glinted. A great silver cross...

My heart skipped into my mouth: I dropped to my knees at the pool's edge and raised my hand so as to flood the bottom of the pool with as much light as possible. A glint of deep red... it was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt... The sword of Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

Barely breathing, I stared down at it. How was this possible? How could it have come to be lying in a forest pool, this close to the place where we were camping? Had some unknown magic drawn Terry to this spot, or was the doe, which I had taken to be a Patronus, some kind of guardian of the pool? Or had the sword been put into the pool after we had arrived, precisely because we were here? In which case, where was the person who wanted to pass it to me? Again I directed my hand at the surrounding trees and bushes, searching for a human outline, for the glint of an eye, but I couldn't see anyone there. All the same, a little more fear leavened my exhilaration as I returned my attention to the sword reposing upon the bottom of the frozen pool.

But I was convinced now that nobody was going to attack me. They had had their chance as I walked alone through the forest, had had plenty of opportunity as I examined the area. The only reason to delay at this point was because the immediate prospect was so deeply uninviting.

With fumbling fingers I started to remove my many layers of clothing. I stretched my hand out towards the ice. 

It cracked with a sound like a bullet in the silence. The surface of the pool broke and chunks of dark ice rocked on the ruffled water. As far as I could judge, it was not deep, but to retrieve the sword I would have to submerge myself completely.

Ugh, who am I kidding. That is deep. Deep to me, anyway. I hated water deeper than about waist length... 

Contemplating the task ahead would not make it easier or the water warmer. I stepped to the pool's edge, then, trying not to imagine how much colder I was about to become or how violently I would soon be shivering, I jumped.

Every pore of my body screamed in protest. The very air in my lungs seemed to freeze solid as I was submerged to my shoulders in the frozen water. I could hardly breathe: trembling so violently the water lapped over the edges of the pool, I felt for the blade with my numb feet. I only wanted to dive once.

I put off the moment of total submersion from second to second, gasping and shaking, until I told myself that it must be done; for fuck sake, Daisy, just get it over with; gathered all my courage, and dived.

The cold was agony: it attacked me like fire. My brain itself seemed to have frozen as I pushed through the dark water to the bottom and reached out, groping for the sword. My fingers closed around the hilt; I pulled it upward.

Then something closed tight around my neck. I thought of water weeds, though nothing had brushed me as I dived, and raised my hand to free myself. It was not weed: the chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting my windpipe.

I kicked out wildly, trying to push myself back to the surface, but merely propelled myself into the rocky side of the pool. Thrashing, suffocating, I scrabbled at the strangling chain, my frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were popping inside my head, and I was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing I could do, and the arms that closed around my chest were surely Death's... 

Choking and retching, soaking and colder than I had ever been in my life, I came to facedown in the snow. Somewhere, close by, another person was panting and coughing and staggering around... the deep coughs, the weight of the footsteps... 

I had no strength to lift my head and see my saviour's identity, but I thought I knew who it was. All I could do was raise a shaking hand to my throat and feel the place where the locket had cut tightly into my flesh. It was gone. Someone had cut me free. Then a panting voice spoke from over my head.

"Are - you - mental?"

Shivering violently, I forced myself to stagger to my feet. There before me stood Fred, fully dressed but drenched to the skin, his hair plastered to his face, the sword of Gryffindor in one hand and the Horcrux dangling from its broken chain in the other. I bit my lip, letting my eyes roam over this incredibly hot sight for a moment before mentally slapping myself. 

"Why the hell," Fred panted, holding up the Horcrux, which swung backward and forward on its shortened chain in some parody of hypnosis, "didn't you take the stupid bloody thing off before you dived?"

I couldn't answer. Shuddering with cold, I caught up the pile of clothes still lying at the water's edge and began to pull them on. As I dragged sweater after sweater over my head, I stared at Fred; he had just dived into the pool, he had saved my life. 

And that was really fucking hot. 

"Did you see anyone?" I asked. "Anyone who could have cast that Patronus?" 

"No." Fred said. "I -" 

But he hesitated, glancing at two trees growing close together some yards away.

"I did think I saw something move over there, but I was running to the pool at the time, because you'd gone in and you hadn't come up, so I wasn't going to make a detour to - hey!"

I was already hurrying to the place that Fred had indicated. The two oaks grew close together; there was a gap of only a few inches between the trunks at eye level, an ideal place to see but not be seen. The ground around the roots, however, was free of snow, and I could see no sign of footprints. I walked back to where Fred stood waiting, still holding the sword and the Horcrux.

"Anything there?" Fred asked.

"No." I said.

"So how did the sword get in that pool?"

"Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there."

We both looked at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the light from my hands, which were still glowing. 

"You reckon this is the real one, babe?" Fred asked.

"One way to find out, isn't there?" I said.

The Horcrux was still swinging from Fred's hand. The locket was twitching slightly. I knew that the thing inside it was agitated again. It had sensed the presence of the sword and had tried to kill me rather than let me get it. Now was the moment to destroy it once and for all. I looked around, holding a hand high, and saw the place: a flattish rock lying in the shadow of a sycamore tree.

"Come here." I said and led the way, brushed snow from the rock's surface, and held out my hand for the Horcrux. When Fred offered the sword, however, I shook my head.

"No, you should do it."

"Me?" Fred said, looking shocked. "Why?"

"'Cause you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."

I wasn't being kind or generous. As certainly as I had known that the doe was benign, I knew that Fred had to be the one to wield the sword. Dumbledore had at least taught me something about certain kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of certain acts.

"I'm going to open it," I said, "and you'll stab it. Right away, okay? 'Cause whatever's in there'll put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the diary tried to kill me."

"How're you going to open it?" Fred asked. He looked terrified. 

"I'm gonna ask it to open, using Parseltongue." I said. I looked at the serpentine S, inlaid with glittering green stones: it was easy to visualise it as a minuscule snake, curled upon the cold rock.

"No!" Fred said. "Don't open it! I'm serious!"

"Why not?" I asked. "Let's get rid of the stupid fucking thing, c'mon -" 

"I can't, baby, I'm serious - you do it -" 

"But why?"

"Because that thing's bad for me!" Fred said, backing away from the locket on the rock. "It made me think stuff - stuff that I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse. I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd get my head straight again, and then I'd have to put the fucking thing back on - I can't do it, babe!"

He had backed away, the sword dragging at his side, shaking his head.

"You can do it." I said. "You can! You've just got the sword, I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please just get rid of it, Freddie."

The sound of his nickname seemed to act like a stimulant. Fred swallowed, then still breathing hard, moved back toward the rock.

"Tell me when." He said roughly.

"On three." I said, looking back down at the locket and narrowing my eyes, concentrating on the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around my neck still burned, and Diary Riddle's evilly-twinkling eyes remained clear in my memory.

"One... two... three... open."

The last word came as a hiss and a snarl and the golden doors of the locket swung wide open with a little click.

Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle's eyes had been before he turned them scarlet. "Stab." I said, holding the locket steady on the rock.

Fred raised the sword in his shaking hands: the point dangled over the frantically swiveling eyes, and I gripped the locket tightly, bracing myself, already imagining blood pouring from the empty windows.

Then a voice hissed out from the Horcrux.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."

"Don't listen to it!" I said harshly. "Stab it!"

"I have seen your dreams, Fred Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible..." 

"Stab!" I shouted, my voice echoing off the surrounding trees, the sword point trembling, and Fred gazed down into Riddle's eyes.

"You desire the girl... the girl you fear is now mine..." 

"Red, stab it now!" I cried; I could feel the locket quivering in my grip and was scared of what was coming. Fred raised the sword still higher, and as he did so, Riddle's eyes gleamed scarlet.

Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of me and Riddle, weirdly distorted.

Fred yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root, swaying over Fred and the real me, who had snatched my fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.

"Fred!" I shouted, but the Riddle-Daisy was now speaking with Riddle's voice and Fred was gazing, mesmerised, into its face.

"Why even try, Fred Weasley? You could never measure up to him, you could never match the Dark Lord... even your brother is better at fucking me!" Riddle-Daisy laughed. "Tommy is so much more handsome, so much better, and his cock is -" 

"Oh-my-Godric-shut-up!" I yelled over the top of Riddle's voice, cringing as Fred's eyebrows slowly started furrowing. 

"So much bigger!" The locket-Riddle echoed; he swayed, cackling, before Fred, who looked horrified, yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside me? What are you, compared with the Dark Lord? She chose to marry me, Daisy Riddle is in love with me and my huge -" 

"Fred, stab it, STAB IT!" I yelled, but Fred did not move. His eyes were wide, and the Riddle-Daisy and the locket-Riddle were reflected in them, their hair swirling like flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.

"She even confessed," sneered locket-Riddle, while Riddle-Daisy jeered, "that she prefers me, that she wants ME..." 

"No." I gasped, feeling slightly dizzy and breathless. 

"We're married, and I'm going to have his babies... I'm going to live my life with your worst enemy, and have his children, and I'm going to be so happy without you..." Riddle-Daisy crooned, and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around locket-Riddle, wrapping him in a close embrace... their lips met.

On the ground in front of them, Fred's face filled with anguish. He raised the sword high, his arms shaking.

"Do it, Fred!" I yelled.

Fred looked toward me, and I thought I saw a trace of scarlet in his eyes.

"Freddie -?" 

The sword flashed, plunged; I threw myself out of the way; there was a clang of metal and a long, drawn-out scream. I whirled around, slipping in the snow, hands held ready to defend myself, but there was nothing to fight.

The monstrous versions of myself and Riddle were gone; there was only Fred, standing there with the sword held slackly in his hand, looking down at the shattered remains of the locket on the flat rock.

Slowly, I walked back to him, hardly knowing what to say or do. Fred was breathing heavily; his eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal brown: they were also wet.

I stooped, pretending I hadn't seen, and picked up the broken Horcrux. Fred had pierced the glass in both windows: Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Fred had been its final act. The sword clanged as Fred dropped it. He had sunk to his knees, his head in his arms. He was shaking, but not, I realised, from cold. I crammed the broken locket into my pocket, knelt down beside Fred, and placed a hand cautiously on his shoulder. I took it as a good sign that he didn't throw it off. 

"Freddie..." I whispered. "It's not true. I -" 

Fred moved closer to me, and I enveloped him in my arms. 

"Though I may still feel something for Riddle... it's completely against my will, because it's a side effect of recovering from Stockholm Syndrome, Terry and George told me..." I took a deep breath. "You're the one I love. I would always choose you, over anyone else." 

Fred looked up at me at last, his eyes watering. 

"It's you, Freddie." I said softly. "It's always been you."