to strip off until at last he stood there in his underwear, barefooted in the snow. He placed the pouch containing his wand, his mother's letter, the shard of Sirius's mirror, and the old Snitch on top of his clothes, then he pointed Hermione's wand at the ice. "Diffindo." 　　　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 Harry could judge, it was not deep, but to retrieve the sword he would have to submerge himself completely. 　　　Contemplating the task ahead would not make it easier or the water warmer. He stepped to the pool's edge and placed Hermione's wand on the ground still lit. Then, trying not to imagine how much colder he was about to become or how violently he would soon be shivering, he jumped. 　　　Every pore of his body screamed in protest. The very air in his lungs seemed to freeze solid as he was submerged to his shoulders in the frozen water. He could hardly breathe: trembling so violently the water lapped over the edges of the pool, he felt for the blade with his numb feet. He only wanted to dive once. 　　　Harry put off the moment of total submersion from second to second, gasping and shaking, until he told himself that it must be done, gathered all his courage, and dived. 　　　The cold was agony: It attacked him like fire. His brain itself seemed to have frozen as he pushed through the dark water to the bottom and reached out, groping for the sword. His fingers closed around the hilt; he pulled it upward. 　　　Then something closed tight around his neck. He thought of water weeds, though nothing had brushed him as he dived, and raised his hand to free himself. It was not weed: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe. 　　　Harry kicked out wildly, trying to push himself back to the surface, but merely propelled himself into the rock nike air max wright y side of the pool. Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at the strangling chain, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were popping inside his head, and he was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing he could do, and the arms that closed around his chest were surely Death's.... 　　　Choking and retching, soaking and colder than he had ever been in his life, he came to facedown in the snow. Somewhere, close by, another person was panting and coughing and staggering around, as she had come when the snake attacked....Yet it did not sound like her, not with those deep coughs, no judging by the weight of the footsteps.... 　　　Harry had no strength to lift his head and see his savior's identity. All he could do was raise a shaking hand to his throat and feel the place where the locket had cut tightly into his flesh. It was gone. Someone had cut him free. Then a panting voice spoke from over his head. "Are -- you -- mental?" 　　　Nothing but the shock of hearing that voice could have given Harry the strength to get up. Shivering violently, he staggered to his feet. There before him stood Ron, 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. 　　　"Why the hell," panted Ron, holding up the Horcrux, which swung backward and forward on its shortened chain in some parody of hypnosis, "didn't you take the thing off before you dived?" 　　　Harry could not answer. The silver doe was nothing, nothing compared with Ron's reappearance; he could not bel Air Max 2011 ieve it. Shuddering with cold, he caught up the pile of clothes still lying at the water's edge and began to pull them on. As he dragged sweater after sweater over his head, Harry stared at Ron, half expecting him to have disappeared every time he lost sight of him, and yet he had to be real: He had just dived into the pool, he had saved Harry's life. 　　　"It was y-you?" Harry said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation. "Well, yeah," said Ron, looking slightly confused. "Y-you cast that doe?" "What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!" "My Patronus is a stag." "Oh yeah. I thought it looked differ nike air max 87 ent. No antlers." 　　　Harry put Hagrid's pouch back around his neck, pulled on a final sweater, stooped to pick up Hermione's wand, and faced Ron again. "How come you're here?" Apparently Ron had hoped that this point would come up later, if at all. 　　　"Well, I've -- you know -- I've come back. If --" He cleared his throat. "You know. You still want me." 　　　There was a pause, in which the subject of Ron's departure seemed to rise like a wall between them. Yet he was here. He had returned. He had just saved Harry's life. 　　　Ron looked down at his hands. He seemed momentarily surprised to see the things he was holding. 　　　"Oh yeah, I got it out," he said, rather unnecessarily, holding up the sword for Harry's inspection. "That's why you jumped in, right?" 　　　"Yeah," said Harry. "But I don't understand. How did you get here? How did you find us?" 　　　"Long story," said Ron. "I've been looking for you for hours, it's a big forest, isn't it? And I was just thinking I'd have to go kip under a tree and wait for morning when I saw that dear coming and you following." "You didn't see anyone else?" "No," said Ron. "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!" 　　　Harry was already hurrying to the place that Ron 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 Harry could see no sign of footprints. He walked back to where Ron stood waiting, still holding the sword and the Horcrux. " nike usa online Anything there?" Ron asked. "No," said Harry. "So how did the sword get in that pool?" "Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there." 　　　They both looked at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the light from Hermione's wand. "You reckon this is the real one?" asked Ron. "One way to find out, isn't there?" said Harry. nike air max usa The Horcrux was still swinging from Ron's hand. The locket was twitching slightly. Harry knew that the thing inside it was agitated again. It had sensed the presence of the sword and had tried to kill Harry rather than let him possess it. Now was not the time for long discussions; now cheap nike air max was the moment to destroy once and for all. Harry looked around, holding Hermione's wand high, and saw the place: a flattish rock lying in the shadow of a sycamore tree. 　　　"Come here." he said and he led the way, brushed snow from the rock's surface, and held out his hand for the Horcrux. When Ron offered the sword, however, Harry shook his head. "No you should do it." "Me?" said Ron, looking shocked. "Why?" "Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you." 　　　He was not being kind or generous. As certainly as he had known that the doe was benign, he knew that Ron had to be the one to wield the sword. Dumbledore had at least taught Harry something about certain kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of certain acts. 　　　"I'm going to open it," said Harry, "and you will stab it. Straightaway okay? Because whatever's in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the Diary tried to kill me." "How are you going to open it?" asked Ron. He looked terrified 　　　"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Harry. The answer came so readily to his lips that thought that he had always known it deep down: Perhaps it had taken his recent encounter with Nagini to make him realize it. He looked at the serpentine S, inlaid with glittering green stones: It was easy to visualize it as a miniscule snake, curled upon the cold rock. "No!" said Ron. "Don't open it! I'm serious!" "Why not?" asked Harry. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months --" "I can't, Harry, I'm serious -- you do it --" "But why?" 　　　"Because that thing's bad for me!" said Ron, backing away from the locket on the rock. "I can't handle it! I'm not making excuses, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affects you and Hermione, 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 effing thing back on -- I can't do it Harry!" He had backed away, the sword dragging at his side, shaking his head. 　　　"You can do it," said Harry, "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 Ron." 　　　The sound of his name seemed to act like a stimulant. Ron swallowed, then still breathing hard through his long nose, moved back toward the rock. "Tell me when," he croaked. 　　　"On three," said Harry, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes, concentrating on the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket