Disclaimer: Hmm . . . am unable to think of anything funny, seeing as how 'No Sleep 2nite' (Molly McQueen) is blasting in my left ear. So I'll go for short and sweet: me no ownie.

Author's Note: Hi everybody! I'm bad and I'm back!

Just kidding.

Actually, I'm back with the sad information that I'm going to have to start killing people off. I know! I know! It's evil of me . . . but I'm a very violent person, and to tell you the truth, certain people are starting to really annoy me. And they're just gonna have to go.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Ravenclaw's Wand

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"They took Ginny."

Hermione's breath froze in her chest. It felt like her rib cage was slowly retracting around her heart and lungs when she gasped out, "Harry, who took Ginny?" It was an unnecessary question; they all knew the answer, but she needed to say something; to have the illusion that something was being done.

Her brother looked like a child as he raised his head, his eyes caged by unruly black hair and crinkled at the corner from regrets. "The Death Eaters."

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Christmas morning over the fields surrounding the Weasley family home had dawned grey and cloudy, streaks of sunlit red dashing through the storm clouds. The snowfall from the previous night had ended slowly, drifting off until the fields were blanketed in crackling white that burned the eyes to look at.

Inside the Burrow, Christmas presents lay unopened as Aurors moved about, casting trace spells and questioning the Trio and Luna with endless, stupid questions until Mrs. Weasley stepped in, tears in her eyes, and demanded that they leave the children alone.

When the Aurors acquiesced, the freed teenagers fled upstairs to Ginny and Hermione's room. Hermione sat on her bed, barely used as of late, staring into space, a threadbare pillow clutched to her chest. Harry stormed to a fro, his eyes dark with self-hatred, spitting sparks every time he turned.

Ron was sitting on the floor by the doorway, Arthur the Pygmy Puff clutching in his cupped hands. He wasn't sobbing openly, but there were sparkling tear tracks down his cheeks as he gazed, unseeing, at the purple ball of fluff.

Luna was curled in a circle at the end of Hermione's bed, staring at Ginny's tussled, unmade one, remembering their conversation of the previous day.

There was silence, save for the shuffling of Harry's feet as he pushed himself, faster and faster, from one end of the room to the other.

With a savage cry he turned and buried his fist into the crumbling wall at the foot of Ginny's bed, splitting his flesh to the knuckles and leaving smears of blood over the white wallpaper.

He withdrew his fist and stared at it for a moment, flexing his fingers, wincing at the pain even as he looked at it as though unsure of what he had done.

None of them moved, made a noise, made to stop him from doing it again. The numbness from the cold of the snow had seeped into their bones and made them all but lifeless.

"Come here," said Hermione finally, listlessly moving the pillow aside and beckoning with her hand. Luna curled her body into an even smaller circle, and Harry settled between them so the three were facing Ron, who sat across the way. She took his hand in hers, and then settled it in her lap, taking her wand and with a whispered spell began to weave the skin back together. She inhaled for a moment before turning her wide hazel eyes onto her brother, and smiled sadly. "Harry, don't –"

"Don't what?" interrupted Harry bitterly. "Blame myself?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Too late, Hermione. You're too damn late."

"Harry James Potter!" she snapped, thrusting his still-mending hand back at him, jerking herself out of the self-imposed coma. "Don't you have any sense at all! Voldemort took Ginny so he'll have something, someone to taunt you with! He couldn't kill me, and he couldn't throw you off with the Order deaths so he took Ginny, and by letting him succeed you're not only being incredibly pathetic, you're insulting both Ginny and her memory!" Her words slapped across his face.

"Her memory?" repeated Ron in an acidic little voice. "Sounds like you're already preparing a eulogy, Hermione." Stung, Hermione made to respond, but it was Luna silvery, albeit muffled, voice that cut past her.

"There's no point in arguing about this." The blonde shifted so her head was raised from its previous spot burrowed in her arms. "Shouldn't we be thinking of ways to be getting Ginny back and killing Voldemort?"

"Dammit!" exclaimed Harry. "She's right! We should be going after her!"

The four teenagers were unaware that Harry's agreement with Luna had morphed the Trio into a quartet; Hermione's instantaneous response distracted them. "Without having destroyed the six horcruxes? I think not!"

Harry and Ron simultaneously drew in a single breath, shooting looks of pure panic at Luna. Hermione slapped a hand across her mouth, horrified at what she had revealed. Luna, however, narrowed her eyebrows and said the four words that had probably never before emerged from her mouth: "There's no such thing.

And before Hermione or Harry could begin damage control, Ron insisted stubbornly, "Of course there are. Of all the bloody things to believe in, you can't believe in horcruxes? At least there are documented cases of them – as opposed to Crunkle-Morned Snortyaks, or whatever they are."

"My father," replied Luna as primly as she had ever been, sitting up, "did a study on them for The Quibbler ten years ago. He proved that there's no possible way for a horcrux to be created because it always contradicts itself."

Hermione figured that Ron had already dug a grave for them – in addition, Harry was looking less and less suicidal as the moments went on – so she ventured slowly, "Luna, did your father research murder as a possible vessel for the soul to be transported?"

"Of course not," huffed Luna, sounding remarkably Hermione-like, but a moment later there was knowledge in her eyes. Looney, Luna Lovegood may have been . . . but she wasn't stupid. "Are you saying that Voldemort made six horcruxes? That he murdered all those people just to make six horcruxes?"

"Well, no," replied Hermione, shifting in the bed uncomfortably. "He murdered all those people because he's depraved. He just used six of them to make his horcruxes. And then, of course, there's the seventh bit still within himself."

"And you've been going about destroying these?" asked Luna.

"All year," replied Hermione. "We've already gotten three of them. We need to destroy three more, and then Voldemort himself."

"Which three?" asked Luna, and then Hermione proceeded to explain all of it; Riddle's diary, Hufflepuff's Cup, Slytherin's Locket, the Gaunt Ring, the history of Tom Riddle, the two horcruxes they had yet to identify, but that they knew the two belonged to the two other House Founders; by the time she was finished, it was late afternoon, and the shuffling downstairs from the Aurors had lessened dramatically.

"You know," said Luna when Hermione had finished, "I have an idea. About the horcrux of Ravenclaw's."

"Really?" asked Hermione without much conviction. She was all but certain that Crumple-Horned Snortnacs were going to be involved.

"In the Sorting Song, there was a verse something like, Ravenclaw possesses / In her house a thousand guesses / And for those answers there must be / A question to be asked of thee."

"Yeah," replied Hermione, perking up a little.

"Well, there's this legend within Ravenclaw that her wand would one day come back to Hogwarts in the possession of an absolutely brilliant student. In it, all the potential Ravenclaws are referred to as 'guesses', or sort of missed shots. According to the legend, the wandmaker has innate knowledge of who will be 'guesses', and asks them a specific question. No one has yet to answer correctly. I know, because he asked me. I got it wrong . . . but if anyone ever gets it correct, then they are meant for Ravenclaw's wand."

"So you're saying what exactly?" asked Ron, never the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

"That you think Ravenclaw's wand is a horcrux," breathed Hermione. "It's brilliant, of course. Hogwarts, A History vaguely mentions the legend of Ravenclaw, and the potentials being referred to as guesses. I can't believe I forgot!"

"I can't believe she forgot," huffed Ron.

"What was the question, exactly?" asked Hermione excitedly, talking over Ron's subversive comment.

"'I am one but I am more, I am born in light but loss becomes me, Beware my touch, a kiss of death for all but one, Who seeks me out seek fierce victory. What am I?'"

"A horcrux," answered Hermione. "Of course! They're all but telling us that Ravenclaw's wand is one. How could we have missed all of this?" She sprang up from her bed and began to pace. "How could Dumbledore have missed this?"

"Well," pointed out Harry darkly, "How many wands does Ollivander have? Thousands?"

"Possibly millions," added Ron unhelpfully.

"There had to be a system," mused Hermione, pacing frantically. "Some way that if someone answered the riddle correctly, Ollivander would be able to get them the wand without sorting through all of his wands."

She bit her lip in frustration and paced faster. Suddenly, halfway across the room, she, Harry and Luna said at the exact same time, "Window."

"Huh?" Ron had missed the connection.

"Window!" exclaimed Hermione. "The wand in his window! Oh, honestly Ron, do try and keep up! The wand that Ollivander has in his shop window! That must be Ravenclaw's wand!"

"But if that's Ravenclaw's wand," pointed out Ron in yet another moment of stunning brilliance, "why didn't he give it over to Dumbledore, if he knew the answer to the riddle was 'horcrux'?"

Hermione harrumphed.

"Maybe Ollivander didn't know that the wand in the window was Ravenclaw's; it's been there for ages, hasn't it? Maybe he didn't even know what the answer to the riddle was. After all, some generation along the way would probably rig it if they knew the answer . . . so maybe Ollivander, along with his forefathers, just knew to ask the riddle. Their system was probably bespelled so if the right answer was spoken, the wand would be summoned."

"But everything still points to the wand in the window," continued Hermione happily. "The faded cushion – what do you want to bet that was royal blue once? And that piping? Bronze for sure! Ravenclaw colors!"

"So now how do we get it?" demanded Harry. "Because the sooner we do, the sooner we can get the next horcrux, and then we can get Ginny!"

"One step at a time," soothed Hermione. "We can Apparate now, remember? We'll go tonight, at midnight."

"Isn't Ollivander's shop closed up?" added Ron, yet again unhelpfully.

"If he was in a hurry to leave, I doubt he put up wards," pointed out Harry darkly. "We'll go in, Luna can say the correct answer to the riddle, we destroy it, and we get out before breakfast."

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Okay, I know it's short, but due to my incredibly AWFUL schedule, I thought you would appreciate it if I at least got something out.

Review! Because I'm too exhausted to think of some witty reason why you should!