Of bleeding hearts and wildflowers

Harry - loneliness, depression, fear of abandonment

I don't know if you remember, but Harry didn't start wearing the locket in "The Goblin's revenge". The first time Harry put the locket around his neck was in the chapter just before that ("The thief"). And we were immediately shown, only five paragraphs later, the terrible influence of Voldemort on Harry's thought process.

“Keep it safe till we work out how to destroy it.” Harry replied, and, little though he wanted to, he hung the chain around his own neck, dropping the locket out of sight beneath his robes, where it rested against his chest beside the pouch Hagrid had given him.

“I think we should take it in turns to keep watch outside the tent,” he added to Hermione, standing up and stretching.

“And we’ll need to think about some food as well. You stay there,” he added sharply, as Ron attempted to sit up and turned a nasty shade of green.

With the Sneakoscope Hermione had given Harry for his birthday set carefully upon the table in the tent, Harry and Hermione spent the rest of the day sharing the role of lookout.

However, the Sneakoscope remained silent and still upon its point all day, and whether because of the protective enchantments and Muggle-repelling charms Hermione had spread around them, or because people rarely ventured this way, their patch of wood remained deserted, apart from occasional birds and squirrels. Evening brought no change; Harry lit his wand as he swapped places with Hermione at ten

o’clock, and looked out upon a deserted scene, noting the bats fluttering high above him across the single patch of starry sky visible from their protected clearing.

He felt hungry now, and a little light-headed. Hermione had not packed any food in her magical bag, as she had assumed that they would be returning to Grimmauld Place that night, so they had had nothing to eat except some wild mushrooms that Hermione had collected from amongst the nearest trees and stewed in a Billycan. After a couple of mouthfuls Ron had pushed his portion away, looking queasy; Harry had only persevered so as to not hurt Hermione’s feelings.

The surrounding silence was broken by odd rustlings and what sounded like cracklings of twigs: Harry thought that they were caused by animals rather than people, yet he kept his wand held tight at the ready. His insides, already uncomfortable due to their inadequate helping of rubbery mushrooms, tingled with unease.

The "unease" mentioned in the last paragraph is described in more details in the paragraphs just after and is a direct indication of the influence of the locket, but I would like to pause here before going further and make a note of Harry's situation in this scene.

This isn't a coincidence if his feelings of unease took hold at this exact moment. Harry spent the entire day without being able to eat properly and feels "a bit light-hearted" due to lack of food - his "unease" is actually mentioned in the same sentence as his hunger.

Furthermore, Harry is completely alone in that scene, since he has to keep watch, and therefore has all the time in the world to focus on his inner thoughts since there's no direct action to be done. He's thus alone at night, with Voldemort around his neck, while his best friends are talking in the tent.

He had thought that he would feel elated if they managed to steal back the Horcrux, but somehow he did not; all he felt as he sat looking out at the darkness, of which his wand lit only a tiny part, was worry about what would happen next. It was as

though he had been hurtling toward this point for weeks, months, maybe even years, but now he had come to an abrupt halt, run out of road.

The way his actions are pictured here is a direct metaphor of what's happening to him mentally because of the locket: he's only slowly starting to look at "the darkness" of his own psyche, and what he feels and thinks in this moment is only "a tiny part" of it.

And out of the blue, Harry feels hopeless. He has absolutely no rational reason to think that any progress is impossible, since the Trio just managed to steal a Horcruxe, yet he feels as if he's already given everything he had and that he's "run out of road" - so he has nothing to look forward to.

There were other Horcruxes out there somewhere, but he did not have the faintest idea where they could be. He did not even know what all of them were. Meanwhile he was at a loss to know how to destroy the only one that they had found, the Horcrux that currently lay against the bare flesh of his chest. Curiously, it had not taken heat from his body, but lay so cold against his skin it might just have emerged from icy water. From time to time Harry thought, or perhaps imagined, that he could feel the tiny heartbeat ticking irregularly alongside his own. Nameless forebodings crept upon him as he sat there in the dark. He tried to resist them, push them away, yet they came at him relentlessly. Neither can live while the other survives. Ron and Hermione, now talking softly behind him in the tent, could walk away if they wanted to: He could not. And it seemed to Harry as he sat there trying to master his own fear and exhaustion, that the Horcrux against his chest was ticking away the time he had left… Stupid idea, he told himself, don’t think that…

Here. I could almost walk away and leave you with that, because the way Voldemort influenced and abused Harry is described here in a nutshell, and it's done very explicitly.

The first few lines of this paragraph are linked with the previous paragraph, and explain why Harry'd feel hopeless. He's submerged by the difficulty of the task he's been set out to do, and his lack of knowledge about what the other Horcruxes are or their location, his lack of knowledge about the way they could destroy the only Horcruxe the Trio has, the huge number of things that need to be done.

Then Harry reflects on the physical aspects associated with the locket, and you can clearly understand that this is not a normal object: this is Voldemort. The locket is "cold", so cold that it reminds Harry of "icy water", which is a metaphor for Voldemort's lack of emotion and empathy. Can you see how the balance of power is tilted towards Voldemort here ? The locket didn't take "heat from [Harry's] body", but instead makes Harry's skin cold - basically, Voldemort is not influenced by Harry's goodness and warmth, but Harry is influenced by Voldemort's manipulations and coldness that directly affect his skin. Even more than that, Harry can feel Voldemort's heartbeat against his own - it's about as explicit a metaphor you can have for "being close emotionally" and making yourself "vulnerable" (think about the fact that mentioning two hearts beating together has huge romantic undertones, and you'll understand how intimately and creepily close to the trio Voldemort was at that time).

The two next sentences is a direct explanation of what Voldemort did to Harry - he read his fears and insecurities, and abused him with it. Those fears are described as "nameless forebodings", as if they were external bodies Harry couldn't see, almost like shadows, "coming at him" (the verb used here is a synonym for "attacking") "relentlessly". They're so persistent Harry can't resist them, and he's forced to feel the full force of the shadows, which are therefore not "nameless" anymore.

And what is the first "nameless foreboding" attacking his mind ? His first thought is that he's actually alone in this deadly adventure that may lead to his death, and that if they wanted to, Ron and Hermione, who are currently talking "behind him" in the tent could leave him because they don't have a destiny being forced upon them and are only here because they care about him. This is the first time that Harry, in this book, thinks Ron and Hermione might leave him.

Doesn't it remind you of all Harry's inner thoughts in the "Goblin's revenge", of all his fears and insecurities that flared up during the fight ?

That's right. Voldemort just exploited the deep fear of abandonment that Harry is suffering from because of years of mental abuse and trauma (when Dumbledore died, for example, Harry said that Dumbledore had just left him), and planted the first seed of what was going to become the fight.

You have then a sentence that implies the locket is like a watch ticking, and counting the time Harry has left [before dying] (though honestly it wasn't wrong, that was probably exactly what Voldemort was doing).

Finally, Harry realizes that the thoughts coming to his mind are counter productive, and he's trying to talk himself out of thinking them - as if he hadn't been in control of his own thoughts up until that point (because, let's be honest, do you remember a time in the HP books when Harry thought "I shouldn't think that at all" ? No, the best we had was "I'm going to deal with this later")

His scar was starting to prickle again. He was afraid that he was making it happen by having these thoughts, and tried to direct them into another channel. He thought of poor Kreacher, who had expected them home and had received Yaxley instead. Would the elf keep silent or would he tell the

Death Eater everything he knew? Harry wanted to believe that Kreacher had changed towards him in the past month, that he would be loyal now, but who knew what would happen? What if the Death Eaters tortured the elf? Sick images swarmed into Harry’s head and he tried to push these away too, for there was nothing he could do for Kreacher: He and Hermione had already decided against trying to summon him; what if someone from the Ministry came too? They could not count on elfish Apparition being free from the same flaw that had taken Yaxley to Grimmauld Place on the hem of Hermione’s sleeve.

And surprise, surprise, Harry's scar starts hurting him, and Harry's afraid that's caused by the dark thoughts he's just had...that were caused by Voldemort abusing him with his insecurities.

What follows is an attempt on Harry's part to distract himself from his first and deepest fears (that he's alone, that he's going to be abandoned, that he's going to die) with another subject, namely Kreacher, and failing. As soon as Kreacher enters his mind, Harry comes up with pessimistic scenarii and uncomfortable questions (and yes, the "who knew what would happen now ?" is a parallel to the worry about "what would happen next" in the paragraph describing his unease), and "sick images" swarm his head...so horrible that he once again tries to push the thoughts away.

Harry’s scar was burning now. He thought that there was so much they did not know: Lupin had been right about magic they had never encountered or imagined. Why hadn’t Dumbledore explained more? Had he thought that there would be time; that he would live for years, for centuries perhaps, like his friend Nicolas Flamel? If so, he had been wrong… Snape had seen to that… Snape, the sleeping snake, who had struck at the top of the tower.

Now Harry's scar is "burning", and he's once again plagued by thoughts pertaining to his lack of knowledge in regard to the Horcruxe Hunt, and his slight frustration towards Dumbledore. And just after, Harry is seized with a vision of Voldemort.

Once they had pitched the tent in the shelter of a small copse of trees and surrounded it with freshly cast defensive enchantments. Harry ventured out under the Invisibility Cloak to find sustenance. This, however, did not go as planned. He had barely entered the town when an unnatural chill, a descending mist, and a sudden darkening of the skies made him freeze where he stood.

“But you can make a brilliant Patronus!” protested Ron, when Harry arrived back at the tent empty handed, out of breath, and mouthing the single word, dementors. “I couldn’t… make one.” he panted, clutching the stitch in his side. “Wouldn’t… come.”

The next morning, Harry "venture[s] out under the Invisibility Cloak" to find food, but, faced with Dementors, he is absolutely unable to cast a Patronus. It's of course obvious that the reason he couldn't do that is because he was wearing the locket. Voldemort therefore acted in a way that is reminiscent of the Dementors, and leaves Harry defenceless against the embodiment of depression.

Another element to note here is Harry's shame. Harry always has a tendency, in the books, to feel shame whenever he has the impression that he is weak or vulnerable (which is why he was afraid to say anything about his fear of the Grim in the third book, for example), and here his inability to defend himself definitely triggered this automatic response in Harry. Furthermore, what really made Harry ashamed in this scene is above all the deception of Ron and Hermione - or, if I rephrase it slightly, Harry felt ashamed because his inability to pull off his skills in Defence Against the Dark Arts disappointed Ron and Hermione.

Crazy how scenes like that paved the way for the fight in the end of the chapter, right ?

This last paragraph simply reinforces what I've said above. While the first reason Harry got ashamed is that he felt like he was letting Ron and Hermione down, he also felt that way because of his need not to appear vulnerable or weak.

So we still haven’t got any food.”“Shut up, Ron,” snapped Hermione. “Harry, what

happened? Why do you think you couldn’t make your

Patronus? You managed perfectly yesterday!”

“I don’t know.”

He sat low in one of Perkins’s old armchairs, feeling more humiliated by the moment. He was afraid that something had gone wrong inside him. Yesterday seemed a long time ago: today me might have been thirteen years old again, the only one who collapsed on the Hogwarts Express.

Harry, overwhelmed by his feelings of shame after one day of abuse at the hands of Voldemort, starts taking it out on his friends, almost resentful that they (here Ron) are not the ones who have to deal with the pressure of saving the world, resentful that he has to be the leader.

Ron kicked a chair leg.

“What?” he snarled at Hermione. “I’m starving! All I’ve had since I bled half to death is a couple of toadstools!”

“You go and fight your way through the dementors, then,” said Harry, stung.

“I would, but my arm’s in a sling, in case you hadn’t noticed!”

“That’s convenient.”

After only one day (one day!) of wearing the Horcruxe (not even one day, actually), Harry started being passive aggressive towards Ron, telling his best friend, who had almost bled to death the day before and can't use his arm, that he's basically using his injury as an excuse not to act and/or that he's faking or overplaying his injury in order not to do anything.

And you all want to make me think people could really control themselves while wearing the locket ? I guess you have a lower opinion of Harry than I do then.

Now I want you to imagine what could have happened had Hermione not realized that the locket was affecting Harry. What would have happened had Harry kept on being passive aggressive and had Harry escalated the discussion into a full-blown argument, for example ? Indeed, Hermione actually stopped the argument from escalating there, unlike what is going to happen later in the chapter.

Exactly. Let that sink in.

This scene is also the reason why I think Harry was way more irritable and irascible than what he lets on as he describes the situation later on to the readers, probably because he couldn't see it himself.

She held out her hands, and Harry lifted the golden chain over his head. The moment it parted contact with Harry’s skin he felt free and oddly light. He had not even realized that he was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on his stomach until both sensations lifted.

This is what happens when Harry removes the locket after one day of wearing Voldemort around his neck : he realizes he was "clammy" (definition of "clammy": "cold and damp", the coldness here being once again a veiled reference to Voldemort's influence on Harry) and feels "free" and "oddly light".

The expression "oddly light" is particularly interesting to me, because the meaning of the adjective "light" is ambiguous : in this case it can mean either "cheerful", and here the feeling would be induced by the lifting on the "heavy weight pressing on his stomach" (which is an obvious reference to the negative thoughts and feelings of helplessness and doom induced by the locket), or "dizzy", which would imply Harry was losing control of himself.

After that, Harry insists that they still need to wear the Horcruxe, and Hermione suggests that they need to take turns wearing it so that "nobody keeps it on too long". Harry describes wearing those times of wearing the locket as moments of "increased fear and anxiety", which in fact reflects what he was feeling wearing that first night being abused by Voldemort - fear in regard to the almost insurmountable task given by Dumbledore, fear of what is awaiting for him at the end of road, fear of being abandoned, anxiety of letting down his friends and anxiety in regard to his role as the leader.

I had completely forgotten how those turns were organized, but we're actually given this information in the book: the three friends each wore Voldemort for "twelve hours or so" before giving it to the next person.

I know we're supposed to read this scene and see the influence of the locket on Ron, but I'm suggesting another reading of the scene here: Voldemort wasn't just strongly influencing Ron here, but also Harry.

“Yeah, let’s go to Albania. Shouldn’t take more than an afternoon to search an entire country,” said Ron sarcastically.“There can’t be anything there. He’d already made five of his Horcruxes before he went into exile, and Dumbledore was certain the snake is the sixth,” said Hermione. “We know the snake’s not in Albania, it’s usually with Vol-”

“Didn’t I ask you to stop say that?”

“Fine! The snake is usually with You-Know-Who - happy?”

“Not particularly.”

“I can’t see him hiding anything at Borgin and Burkes.” said Harry, who had made this point many times before, but said it again simply to break the nasty silence. “Borgin and Burke were experts at Dark objects, they would’ve recognized a Horcrux straightaway.”

Ron yawned pointedly. Repressing a strong urge to throw something at him, Harry plowed on, “I still reckon he might have hidden something at Hogwarts.”

Hermione sighed.

“But Dumbledore would have found it, Harry!” Harry repeated the argument he kept bringing out in favour

of this theory.

“Dumbledore said in front of me that he never assumed he knew all of Hogwart’s secrets. I’m telling you, if there was one

place Vol-”

“Oi!”

“YOU-KNOW-WHO, then!” Harry shouted, goaded past

endurance. “If there was one place that was really important to You-Know-Who, it was Hogwarts!”

“Oh, come on,” scoffed Ron. “His school?”

“Yeah, his school! It was his first real home, the place that meant he was special: it meant everything to him, and even after he left -”

“This is You-Know-Who we’re talking about, right? Not you?” inquired Ron. He was tugging at the chain of the Horcrux around his neck; Harry was visited by a desire to seize it and throttle him.

I'm saying this because I truly have the impression that Harry's reactions and violent thoughts are disproportionate compared to not only Ron's behaviour, but also Harry's past reactions.

Sure, Ron is being rather annoying in the eyes of Harry there - he is dismissive of Harry's ideas (without suggesting one himself), keeps insisting on not saying Voldemort's name and interrupts Harry whenever Harry starts pronouncing it, openly yawns while Harry talks and comes across as disdainful, and also makes a remark that is a dig at Harry's emotional vulnerabilities (what I mean by dig is that he's unravelling Harry's vulnerabilities with that remark, something that Harry would positively hate).

But does any of it warrant the level of Harry's annoyance ? Is it enough to justify why Harry had such violent thoughts towards his best friend and shouted at him ? Is Ron's behaviour that annoying that it justifies Harry wanting to "throw something at [Ron]" 'throttle him" with the locket, and shouting at him simply for asking him not to say Voldemort's name ?

I really don't think so. It's a level of anger and aggressivity that is quite baffling if you take a look at what Ron did in that scene, especially if you consider that this happened not long after they started wearing the Horcruxe.

It's even more baffling if you look at Harry's past behaviour. Harry does have strong anger management issues (for example, he threw a badge at Ron's face in the fourth book after Ron simply made a disparaging remark towards him, and strangled Mundungus Fletcher in the sixth book), but at no point in time did Harry ever feel the desire to throttle Ron, not even in the fourth book when they were angry at one another, nor did he ever shout at Ron for asking him not to say Voldemort's name (he would simply ignore him).

Of course, you can argue that Ron didn't just shout at Ron for saying "Oi!" to Harry after Harry started Voldemort's name, but that he did it because he was "goaded past endurance" by Ron's behaviour, and there would be truth to that reasoning.

However, his general feelings of aggressivity still seem really strong in that scene, way stronger than they should be considering Ron and Harry's past interactions.

What I'm suggesting here is that wearing the locket/being abused by Voldemort brought to the surface Harry's anger issues, and they remained even after Harry removed the locket, influencing his reactions and interfering with his emotions and usual behaviour.

You can't spend twelve hours being abused by Voldemort every 24 hours for days and days and weeks and walking away unscathed.

Harry’s scar kept prickling. It happened most often, he noticed, when he was wearing the Horcrux. Sometimes he could not stop himself reacting to the pain.

“What? What did you see?” demanded Ron, whenever he noticed Harry wince.

“A face,” muttered Harry, every time. “The same face. The thief who stole from Gregorovitch.”

And Ron would turn away, making no effort to hide his disappointment. Harry knew that Ron was hoping to hear news of his family or the rest of the Order of the Phoenix, but after all, he, Harry, was not a television aerial; he could only see what Voldemort was thinking at the time, not tune in to whatever took his fancy. Apparently Voldemort was dwelling endlessly on the unknown youth with the gleeful face, whose name and whereabouts, Harry felt sure, Voldemort knew no better than he did. As Harry’s scar continued to burn and the merry, blond-haired boy swam tantalizingly in his memory, he learned to suppress any sign of pain or discomfort, for the other two showed nothing but impatience at the mention of the thief. He could not entirely blame them, when they were so desperate for a lead on the Horcruxes

I've already mentioned that the first time Harry had Voldemort abusing him as he was wearing the locket, Harry's scar started hurting him almost as a direct consequence of Voldemort's close proximity. I've also said that having Voldemort abuse you for hours on end has lasting effects.

You can see it confirmed here, since Harry's scar "ke[eps] prickling" - though Harry's scar was more painful ever since Voldemort came back, at no point in the book did it keep prickling practically non-stop. And of course, the pain/discomfort is even more frequent and strong when he wears the locket.

Other elements are important to note here, and the most noticeable one is the disconnect between Harry and "the other two", and more particularly Harry and Ron. Harry is somewhat frustrated and hurt by his friends' reaction of impatience whenever he tells them what he saw when his scar hurts him, especially because he feels like they're somehow indifferent to his feelings of pain or discomfort, that he thinks he has to hide as a result.

This divide between the friends is even more pronounced between Harry and Ron, and that is due to the fact that, in Harry's eyes, Ron doesn't make any effort to "hide his disappointment" at the fact that Harry can't see what happened to his family. Harry feels used, and the fact that Ron prioritizes news about his family over Harry's present discomfort is a source of resentment for Harry.

As the days stretched into weeks, Harry began to suspect that Ron and Hermione were having conversations without, and about, him. Several times they stopped talking abruptly when Harry entered the tent, and twice he came accidentally upon them, huddled a little distance away, heads together and talking fast; both times they fell silent when they realized he was approaching them and hastened to appear busy collecting wood or water.

Harry could not help wondering whether they had only agreed to come on what now felt like a pointless and rambling journey because they thought he had some secret plan that they would learn in due course. Ron was making no effort to hide his bad mood, and Harry was starting to fear that Hermione too was disappointed by his poor leadership. In desperation he tried to think of further Horcrux locations, but the only one that continued to occur to him was Hogwarts, and as neither of the others thought this at all likely, he stopped suggesting it.

Again, this is not a coincidence if those two paragraphs directly follow passages that describe Voldemort's influence on Harry and a growing divide between the Harry and "the other two". It's also very easy to see that Harry was wearing the locket when he stumbled upon Ron and Hermione talking together: there is very little chance Ron and Hermione would confide in one another and try to comfort one another at times one of them would be influenced by the locket.

The first of those two paragraphs describe moments during which Harry grows more and more isolated from his best friends, who appear to leave out Harry more and more, as if Harry was trying to run after them, yet could never catch up - and their whispered conversations become a source of rumination, speculation and anxiety for Harry. It perfectly parallels his first night wearing the Horcrux, when he was alone in the darkness and Ron and Hermione were talking "behind him".

His worries, too, are a direct development of the fears that plagued his first night. Harry is not only aware that Ron and Hermione could walk away, but is now afraid that they might leave him at any moment notice. Even more than that, he's paranoid that the only reason they agreed to come was that they trusted him as leader, not because they cared about him. His insecurities about his "poor leadership", his shame at letting down his friends in one way or another, and more importantly his growing fear that they're slowly growing away from him, all of it explains "his desperation" at finding something, anything, that might convince them to stay.

Autumn rolled over the countryside as they moved through it. They were now pitching the tent on mulches of fallen leaves. Natural mists joined those cast by the dementors; wind and rain added to their troubles. The fact that Hermione was getting better at identifying edible fungi could not altogether compensate for their continuing isolation, the lack of other people’s company, or their total ignorance of what was going on in the war against Voldemort.

You have to understand that the weather and the seasons, in those parts of the seventh book, are a direct reflection of the way the Trio is feeling. The situation is slowly getting worse, as can attest the presence of wind, rain, and "natural mists". The tent, which represents their mission, is being pitched on "the fallen leaves", that might very well be a metaphor for their minds beginning to crack, or their friendship slowly dissolving under Voldemort's influence.

Several elements make the picture even more sombre and also add to their dire situation: "isolation", "the lack of other people's company", and "their total ignorance" of anything going on "in the war against Voldemort".

Now that the picture is complete, let's see what happened the fateful day they heard the conversation between Dean Thomas, Dirk Cresswell, Ted Tonks, Griphook, and Gornuk. It's interesting to note that, as we know, Ron had been wearing the locket the whole day and that Harry was already irritated by him.

He prodded moodily at the lumps of charred grey fish on his plate. Harry glanced automatically at Ron’s neck and saw, as he had expected, the golden chain of the Horcrux glinting there. He managed to fight down the impulse to swear at Ron, whose attitude would, he knew, improve slightly when the time came to take off the locket.

After that, Harry hears something outside, and the trio gets to spy on the three wizards and the two goblins. Very quickly, Harry realizes that the goblins have crucial information about the sword of Gryffindor that might be extremely useful to his quest.

Inside the tent Harry’s breathing was shallow with excitement: he and Hermione stared at each other, listening as hard as they could.“Didn’t you hear about that, Ted?” asked Dirk. “About the kids who tried to steal Gryffindor’s sword out of Snape’s office at Hogwarts?”

An electric current seemed to course through Harry, jangling his every nerve as he stood rooted to the spot.

You can clearly see how excited Harry is by his finds. But what you have to realize is that this means more than just finding a lead on the Horcruxe Hunt. In light of what I've explained above, in light of Harry's fear of having his friends walk away from him, having any new information means that he might convince his friends to stay with him.

Inside the tent, Harry closed his eyes, willing someone to ask the question he needed answered, and after a minute that seemed ten, Dean obliged: he was (Harry remembered with a jolt) an ex-boyfriend of Ginny’s too.

I simply needed to mention that at first, Harry was very anxious about Ginny's fate after she stole the sword from Snape's office.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione reeled in the Extendable Ears. Harry, who had found the need to remain silent increasingly difficult the longer they eavesdropped, now found himself unable to say more then, “Ginny - the sword -”

Harry's exclamations reflect both his priorities (Ginny's fate was the thing he thought of first, and then the sword of Gryffindor came up), and the way he was torn between his personal feelings for his ex-girlfriend and the important task at hand.

“I know!” said Hermione.

She lunged for the tiny beaded bag, this time sinking her arm in it right up to the armpit.

“If somebody swapped the real sword for the fake while it was in Dumbledore’s office,” she panted, as they propped the painting against the side of the tent, “Phineas Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right beside the case!”

“Here… we… are…” she said between gritted teeth, and she pulled at something that was evidently in the depths of the bag. Slowly the edge of an ornate picture frame came into sight. Harry hurried to help her. As they lifted the empty portrait of Phineas Nigellus free of Hermione’s bag, she kept

her wand pointing at it, ready to cast a spell at any moment.

“Unless he was asleep,” said Harry, but he still held his breath as Hermione knelt down in front of the empty canvas, her wand directed at its center, cleared her throat, then said: “Er - Phineas? Phineas Nigellus?”

Nothing happened.

“Phineas Nigellus?” said Hermione again. “Professor Black? Please could we talk to you? Please?”

“‘Please’ always helps,” said a cold, snide voice, and Phineas Nigellus slid into his portrait. At once, Hermione cried: “Obscura!”

A black blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus’s clever, dark eyes, causing him to bump into the frame and shriek with pain.

“What - how dare - what are you -?”

“I’m very sorry, Professor Black,” said Hermione, “but it’s a necessary precaution!”

“Remove this foul addition at once! Remove it, I say! You are ruining a great work of art! Where am I? What is going on?”

“Never mind where we are,” said Harry, and Phineas Nigellus froze, abandoning his attempts to peel off the painted blindfold.

“Can that possibly be the voice of the elusive Mr. Potter?”

“Maybe,” said Harry, knowing that this would keep Phineas Nigellus’s interest. “We’ve got a couple of questions to ask you about the sword of Gryffindor.”

“Ah,” said Phineas Nigellus, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to catch sight of Harry, “yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there -”

“Shut up about my sister,” said Ron roughly.

Phineas Nigellus raised supercilious eyebrows. “Who else is here?” he asked, turning his head from side to side. “Your tone displeases me! The girl and her friends were foolhardily in the extreme. Thieving from the headmaster.”

“They weren’t thieving,” said Harry. “That sword isn’t Snape’s.”

“It belongs to Professor Snape’s school,” said Phineas Nigellus. “Exactly what claim did the Weasley girl have upon it? She deserved her punishment, as did the idiot Longbottom and the Lovegood oddity!”

“Neville is not an idiot and Luna is not an oddity!” said Hermione.

“Where am I?” repeated Phineas Nigellus, starting to wrestle with the blindfold again. “Where have you brought me? Why have you removed me from the house of my forebears?”

“Never mind that! How did Snape punish Ginny, Neville, and Luna?” asked Harry urgently

“And Snape might’ve though that was a punishment,” said Harry, “but Ginny, Neville, and Luna probably had a good laugh with Hagrid. The Forbidden Forest… they’ve faced plenty worse than the Forbidden Forest, big deal!”

“Professor Snape sent them into the Forbidden Forest, to do some work for the oaf, Hagrid.”

“Hagrid’s not an oaf!” said Hermione shrilly.

He felt relieved; he had been imagining horrors, the Cruciatus Curse at the very least.

This excerpt shows once again that Harry was almost as excited as he was about the sword of Gryffindor as he was worried about Ginny (who was again his priority, since the first question he asked "urgently" to Phineas Nigellus was the way Snape had punished Ginny, Neville, and Luna). He feels "relieved" when he learns that his friends have been sent to the Forbidden Forrest with Hagrid, simply because Harry faced many terrible things in his life and is therefore desensitized to situations that are below a certain degree of horror - in that case, Harry is relieved to see his friends weren't tortured with the Cruciatus Curse.

And now that his worries about Ginny are lifted, Harry can once again focus on the task at hand and the sword of Gryffindor.

“What we really wanted to know, Professor Black, is whether anyone else has, um, taken out the sword at all? Maybe it’s been taken away for cleaning - or something!”

Phineas Nigellus paused again in his struggles to free his eyes and sniggered.

“Muggle-borns,” he said, “Goblin-made armour does not require cleaning, simple girl. Goblin’s silver repels mundane dirt, imbibing only that which strengthens it.

“Don’t call Hermione simple,” said Harry.

“I grow weary of contradiction,” said Phineas Nigellus. “perhaps it is time for me to return to the headmaster’s office.?”

Still blindfolded, he began groping the side of his frame, trying to feel his way out of his picture and back into the one at Hogwarts. Harry had a sudden inspiration.

“Dumbledore! Can’t you bring us Dumbledore?”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Phineas Nigellus.

“Professor Dumbledore’s portrait - couldn’t you bring him along, here, into yours?”

Phineas Nigellus turned his face in the direction of Harry’s voice.

“Evidently it is not only Muggle-borns who are ignorant, Potter. The portraits of Hogwarts may commune with each other, but they cannot travel outside of the castle except to visit a painting of themselves elsewhere. Dumbledore cannot come here with me, and after the treatment I have received at your hands, I can assure you that I will not be making a return visit!”

Slightly crestfallen, Harry watched Phineas redouble his attempts to leave his frame.

“Professor Black,” said Hermione, “couldn’t you just tell us, please, when was the last time the sword was taken out of its case? Before Ginny took it out, I mean?”

Phineas snorted impatiently.

“I believe that the last time I saw the sword of Gryffindor leave its case was when Professor Dumbledore used it to break open a ring.”

Hermione whipped around to look at Harry. Neither of them dared say more in front of Phineas Nigellus, who had at least managed to locate the exit.

“Well, good night to you,” he said a little waspishly, and he began to move out of sight again.

Only the edge of his hat brim remained in view when Harry gave a sudden shout.

“Wait! Have you told Snape you saw this?”

Phineas Nigellus stuck his blindfolded head back into the picture.

“Professor Snape has more important things on his mind that the many eccentricities of Albus Dumbledore. Good-bye, Potter!”

And with that, he vanished completely, leaving behind him nothing but his murky backdrop.

“Harry!” Hermione cried.

“I know!” Harry shouted. Unable to contain himself, he punched the air; it was more than he had dared to hope for.

He strode up and down the tent, feeling that he could have run a mile; he did not even feel hungry anymore. Hermione was squashing Phineas Nigellus’s back into the beaded bag; when she had fastened the clasp she threw the bag aside and raised a shining face to Harry.

“The sword can destroy Horcruxes! Goblin-made blades imbibe only that which strengthens them - Harry, that sword’s impregnated with basilisk venom!”

“And Dumbledore didn’t give it to me because he still needed it, he wanted to use it on the locket -”

“- and he must have realized they wouldn’t let you have it if he put it in his will -”

“- so he made a copy -”

“- and put a fake in the glass case -”

“- and he left the real one - where?”

They gazed at east other Harry felt that the answer was dangling invisibly in the air above them, tantalizingly close.

Why hadn’t Dumbledore told him? Or had he, in fact, told Harry, but Harry had not realized it at the time?”

“Think!” whispered Hermione. “Think! Where would he have left it?” “Not at Hogwarts,” said Harry, resuming his pacing.

“Somewhere in Hogsmeade?” suggested Hermione.

“The Shrieking Shack?” said Harry. “Nobody ever goes in there.”

“But Snape knows how to get in, wouldn’t that be a bit risky?”

“Dumbledore trusted Snape,” Harry reminded her.

“Not enough to tell him that he had swapped the swords,” said Hermione.

“Yeah, you’re right!” said Harry, and he felt even more cheered at the thought that Dumbledore had had some reservations, however faint, about Snape’s trustworthiness.

“So, would he have hidden the sword well away from Hogsmeade, then? What d’you reckon, Ron? Ron?”

At this point in time Harry is positively bursting with excitement. He can barely contain himself from talking in front of Phineas Nigellus, and "punche[s] the air" once the latter leaves. He doesn't even feel hunger anymore, he's high on adrenaline and feels unable to remain in place, feeling that "he could have run a mile", and he's even more on a high when he starts to think Dumbledore didn't entirely trust Snape.

Harry looked around. For one bewildered moment he thought that Ron had left the tent, then realized that Ron was lying in the shadow of a bunk, looking stony.

“Oh, remembered me, have you?” he said.

“What?”

Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk.

“You two carry on. Don’t let me spoil your fun.”

Perplexed, Harry looked to Hermione for help, but she shook her head, apparently as nonplussed as he was.

What is clear here is that Harry has no idea what is going on - he's "perplexed", "bewildered", and "nonplussed" by what Ron is saying, and the simple interjection "What?" indicates he doesn't understand Ron.

What’s the problem?” asked Harry.

"Problem? There’s no problem,” said Ron, still refusing to look at Harry. “Not according to you, anyways.”

There were several plunks on the canvas over their heads. It had started to rain.

“Well, you’ve obviously got a problem,” said Harry. “Spit it out, will you?”

You can almost feel the tension rising: Harry dreads what Ron is going to say, because Ron's "obviously got a problem" and he's refusing to look at Harry. Plus, as I've stated earlier, the weather reflects what's happening to the trio emotionally, and here Harry's jubilation has been replaced by fearful anticipation.

Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.

“All right, I’ll spit it out. Don’t expect me to skip up and down the tent because there’s some other damn thing we’ve got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don’t know.”

“I don’t know?” repeated Harry. “I don’t know?”

Plunk, plunk, plunk. The rain was falling harder and heavier; it pattered on the leaf-strewn bank all around them and into the river chattering through the dark. Dread doused Harry’s jubilation; Ron was saying exactly what he had suspected and feared him to be thinking.

We've gone back full circle, guys. The first night Harry wore the locket, he started being anxious about his lack of knowledge about the Horcruxe Hunt and was beginning to think that Ron and Hermione might leave at any time. As the weeks went on, he was desperate to find anything useful that would ensure Ron and Hermione wouldn't leave him because of their lack of progress and what he considered his "poor leadership", while also being resentful of his friends because they weren't "the Chosen One" (and therefore didn't have the same weight on their shoulders), and having his anger issues aggravated.

And now, you have Harry listening to Ron repeating back at him Harry's worst fears; it's not a coincidence if the word chosen here to describe what Harry's feeling is "dread". Harry is in fact already afraid of what Ron is going to do, Harry's already afraid Ron and Hermione might leave him. There's also an undercurrent of resentment in the way Harry talks about his feeling of "dread"; the fact that it replaced his "jubilation" means that Ron is "raining on his parade", if you allow me the expression - which therefore means that what Harry found about the sword is somehow not enough to keep his friend.

It's really crazy, but you'll notice that in some ways, Harry goes back and forth through the so-called "stages of grief" during the fight - in his head he's somehow already lost his friends in a way, or at least he feels like he's losing them, and his reactions show that.

Another element to notice, of course, is that the rain worsened after Ron opened up and Harry heard what he had been fearing since the first time he wore the locket.

“It’s not like I’m not having the time of my life here,” said Ron, “you know, with my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just hoped, you know, after we’d been running round a few weeks, we’d have achieved something. “Ron,” Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was beating on the tent.

“I thought you knew what you’d signed up for,” said Harry.

“Yeah, I thought I did too.”

“So what part of it isn’t living up to your expectations?” asked Harry. Anger was coming to his defence now. “Did you think we’d be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you’d be back to Mummy by Christmas?”

We have no idea whether Ron actually heard Hermione here, but Harry clearly thinks he has but is so hostile that he doesn't want to listen (as shows the use of the word "pretend" here) - in some ways Ron represents Harry's insecurities in the fight, or at least he voices them.

Harry's first statement is very revealing here in the sense that he's indirectly asking Ron why Ron is here, expecting against all odds that Ron is here because he cares and not because he expected Harry to be an all-knowing great leader (well, that's why Ron is here, but Harry doesn't remember it at that point).

Yet as Harry interprets Ron's answer as a confirmation of what he was dreading (that Ron and Hermione were only here with him because they expected Harry to have a plan), Harry is extremely hurt, which immediately leads to anger (second "stage" of grief). This anger is fuelled by months of abuse at the hands of the locket, months of having his fear of abandonment and insecurities toyed with, and months of resentment against his friends piling up.

And so Harry escalates the fight, because Harry wants to see if Ron cares; he wants to see if Ron cares enough about him to stay, even if the situation is dreadful. Part of his reaction is pure resentment and hurt, but a huge part of it is also Harry lashing out at his friend for not caring enough the way Harry wants him to.

We thought you knew what you were doing!” shouted Ron, standing up, and his words pierced Harry like scalding knives. “We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan!”

“Ron!” said Hermione, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof, but again, he ignored her.

“Well, sorry to let you down,” said Harry, his voice quite calm even though he felt hollow, inadequate. “I’ve been straight with you from the start. I told you everything Dumbledore told me. And in the case you haven’t noticed, we’ve found one Horcrux -”

Ah, bargaining, now. And pain.

See how Harry feels "hollow" and "inadequate" as he tells Ron "sorry to let you down" ? Disappointing Ron and Hermione is exactly what he was most afraid of, and this is one of the reasons Harry became passive aggressive the morning he fought off the Dementors. And of course, the reason why he feels this way is that Ron just voiced the very things Voldemort had abused Harry with (his so-called lack of leadership abilities, his lack of preparation, his lack of plan...), which "pierce[s] Harry like scalding knives".

Just after that, Harry tries to explain his situation and gives one reason to counteract what Ron has said, as if he both wanted to prove his friend and his insecurities wrong and therefore convince Ron (and Hermione) to stay.

“Yeah, and we’re about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them - nowhere effing near in other words.”

"Take off the locket, Ron,” Hermione said, her voice unusually high. “Please take it off. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you hadn’t been wearing it all day.”

“Yeah, he would,” said Harry, who did not want excuses made for Ron. “D’you think I haven’t noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D’you think I didn’t guess you were thinking this stuff?

“Harry, we weren’t -”

Aaaaand we're back to anger.

This is the moment Harry stops wanting to listen and simply wants a fight, as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise, why refusing to let Ron remove the locket ? Why not agreeing with Hermione and let Ron cool down ? Harry knows quite well that if Ron removed the locket he indeed wouldn't talk like that, but he's too angry to care.

The truth is that Harry, at this point, actually wants to take his anger and resentment on both Ron and Hermione, letting his fears, which had been toyed with by the Horcruxe, overwhelm him. Harry wants to know if Ron and Hermione regret being here with him, and the months of mulling and getting anxious over this have become too much for him. Harry dreads the answer to the question, but he's almost begging them to say they'll be here for him, and he's so angry at them for having thoughts that sound like his fears.

“Don’t lie!” Ron hurled at her. “You said it too, you said you were disappointed, you said you’d thought he had a bit more to go on than -”

“I didn’t say it like that - Harry, I didn’t!” she cried.

The rain was pounding the tent, tears were pouring down Hermione’s face, and the excitement of a few minutes before had vanished as if it had never been, a short-lived firework that had flared and died, leaving everything dark, wet, and cold. The sword of Gryffindor was hidden they knew not where, and their were three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.

“So why are you still here?” Harry asked Ron.

“Search me,” said Ron.

“Go home then,” said Harry.

Of course, Harry's description of the weather is very important, and here a direct parallel is made between the rain "pounding" the tent, and the tears "pouring down Hermione's face" (the paronomasia with the use of "pounding" and "pouring" in parallel grammatical structure making the comparison even more obvious). You can see that their fight, their pain, their isolation, their fears, all of it is reflected in the rain pounding the tent in a barely veiled metaphor. Harry describes the situation as being "dark, wet and cold", which once again refers to the weather in some way, and makes their hopelessness very clear, but is also reminiscent of the adjectives used to describe the locket - and that just after the moment Harry and Hermione were making a breakthrough to destroy the Horcruxes (if that's not suspect, I swear...) !

Harry asks Ron a second time why he's still there, though in a more direct way this time. But as Ron doesn't answer the way Harry would want him to, Harry taunts and provokes Ron, in the hope that Ron is going to prove him wrong and stay.

“Yeah, maybe I will!” shouted Ron, and he took several steps toward Harry, who did not back away. “Didn’t you hear what they said about my sister? But you don’t give a rat’s fart, do you, it’s only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I’ve-Faced-Worse Potter doesn’t care what happened to her in there - well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff -”

“I was only saying - she was with the others, they were with Hagrid -”

“Yeah, I get it, you don’t care! And what about the rest of my family, ‘the Weasleys don’t need another kid injured,’ did you hear that?”

“Yeah, I -”

“Not bothered what it meant, though?”

“Ron!” said Hermione, forcing her way between them. “I don’t think it means anything new has happened, anything we don’t know about; think, Ron, Bill’s already scared, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you’re supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I’m sure that’s all he meant -”

As an aside, I still wonder, to this day, what Harry and Hermione thought they were going to achieve knowing that Ron had the locket on him, though Harry didn't really want to deescalate the fight because he was too angry and too hurt thanks in large parts to Voldemort. Remember Harry's first day with the Horcruxe ? Remember I asked you to imagine what would've happened had they let Harry escalate the discussion with the locket on ? Neither Ron or Hermione would've been able to reason with him either.

But let's go back to the analysis.

Here, Ron actually caught Harry off guard, because he was not expecting that part of Ron's rant at all, which is why we're back to denial and bargaining. Harry tries to explain himself and of course denies Ron's claims, though Ron doesn't really let him time to fully voice his statements.

“Oh, you’re sure, are you? Right then, well, I won’t bother myself about them. It’s all right for you, isn’t it, with your parents safely out of the way -”

“My parents are dead!” Harry bellowed.

“And mine could be going the same way!” yelled Ron.

“Then GO!” roared Harry. “Go back to them, pretend you’re got over your spattergroit and Mummy’ll be able to feed you up and -”

So there are two versions of this scene, though I don't actually know which one was there first. In one version, Ron says "it's all right for you", which makes more sense considering he was talking to Hermione, and in another, Ron says "it's all right for you two", which explains Harry's reaction better.

Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner’s pocket, Hermione had raised her own.

There is only explanation that makes sense : Ron was addressing the first part of his comment to Hermione, then was cut off by Harry before he could actually tell Harry anything, because Harry anticipated where this was going and was furious (his own parents are already dead, Ron's are still alive).

At this point Harry just wants to lash out at Ron, though again with the hope that Ron's going to deny Harry's claims : it's not a coincidence if Harry evokes food here considering what Ron had said earlier in the evening, and it's not a coincidence if Harry basically asks Ron to choose between being with Harry or going back to his family.

“Prestego!” she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and Harry on the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Harry and Ron glared from either side of the transparent barrier as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time. Harry felt a corrosive hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between them.

“Leave the Horcrux,” Harry said.

At this moment, Harry's too blinded by rage to truly think things through. He thinks Ron doesn't truly care about him and never has, and as a last taunt he tells Ron to leave the Horcruxe, as if Ron was already out of his life.

And then the sun and light won't come back for a while.

Winter has come.

Ron - low self-esteem, fear of oblivion, helplessness, depression, and suicidal ideations

Now let's see the same events through Ron's point of view, and I'm going to ask you something difficult: forget one minute what you know about Harry and the way he experienced things. Now you only have what Ron knows and feels to understand what happened. I know it's hard, because we view things through Harry's eyes, but at least give it a try. Obliviate ! Let's start all over again.

And above all, remember that once you have Voldemort's heart beating against your own, you're not really in control of your own behaviour anymore.

I have already dedicated part of an essay I wrote a few years ago about "mental torture in the wizarding world" to the effects the locket/Voldemort had on Ron, and I think it might be an interesting complement to this post, so I've included links to those parts of my essay below. It's particularly informative if you want to see that some of the techniques used in Guantanamo are eerily similar to what Voldemort did to Ron (part 2.2).

Of bleeding hearts and wildflowers — Mental Torture in the wizarding world (2.1) (tumblr.com)

Of bleeding hearts and wildflowers — Mental Torture in the Wizarding World (2.2.) (tumblr.com)

It'll always be more complicated to understand what exactly Ron was thinking or going through at a particular time, for the simple reason that the story is told through Harry's eyes - we therefore lose crucial information, nuance, accuracy.

Yet there are many elements that can help us see what happened. We need to take a few things into account before we get to the fight itself.

1. A very weakened physical state

The first is that, as I've noted above, the first time Harry wore the locket, Voldemort started manipulating him at the moment he was the most vulnerable, after a day of near fasting - so the weaker you are physically, the more vulnerable you are emotionally. This logic also applies to Ron in the entire period he wore the locket. We already know that Ron's worst times with the locket always coincided with a lack of food: "Whenever lack of food coincided with Ron’s turn to wear the Horcrux, he became downright unpleasant."

Furthermore, Ron had got a splinching injury right before he started wearing the locket, a splinching injury that had his arm "mangled" even months later.

A very good essay has already been written on Ron's weakened physical state in this part of the book, so I'm simply going to link it below (but to sum up: Ron never had time to recover properly after that terrible splinching injury, and his metabolism probably made things worse) :

nerdy stuff hill likes — The physiological effects Ron faced in Deathly... (tumblr.com)

@hillnerd Just to warn you I've used your essay as a reference (and yup, the review for "Waking up", chapter 7 is on its way)

2. The locket affected Ron more than Harry or Hermione

The second thing we have to notice is that the locket or Voldemort's influence on Ron was way worse than it was on Harry. Explaining in details why would be beyond the scope of this essay, but we can definitely see that it was indeed the case.

From the beginning of September to mid-November or end of November, Harry describes Ron as particularly irritable, irascible, moody, and way more so when he was wearing the locket - so Ron was in "a bad mood" practically the entire period. The only time Ron had been as tense and touchy before was in sixth year, when he was struggling with nasty bouts of anxiety and self-loathing (remember the Quidditch practice during which he "bellowed at everybody so much" that Demelza Robbins ended up in tears, and after which he confessed "I resign. I'm pathetic" ?).

Furthermore, Ron was completely helpless and unable to concentrate or contribute much during those months ("He did not seem to have any ideas himself, but expected Harry and Hermione

What is patently clear is that this behaviour is in sharp contrast with the one Ron had before the Trio started wearing the locket, since even after he bled half to death Ron wanted to help Harry and Hermione:

“I think we should take it in turns to keep watch outside the tent,” he added to Hermione, standing up and stretching. “And we’ll need to think about some food as well. You stay there,” he added sharply, as Ron attempted to sit up and turned a nasty shade of green.

Even when Ron was ill-tempered and snappish the next morning due to lack of food (given that he had only swallowed two mouthfuls of wild mushrooms and had been unable to eat more, "looking queasy"), he still wanted to act, and told Harry, after the latter threw at him to "go and fight [his] way through the Dementors" that he would if only his arm wasn't in a sling.

But what's most important here is the way Ron himself talks about his time with the locket and reacts to Voldemort-locket when he comes back (because this is an even more valuable insight into Ron's psyche than Harry's description).

How are you going to open it?” asked Ron. He looked terrified.

“No!” said Ron. “Don’t open it! I’m serious!”

“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.

“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.

[...]

Ron raised the sword in his shaking hands: The point dangled over the frantically swivelling eyes, and Harry gripped the locket tightly, bracing himself, already imagining blood pouring from the empty windows.

What I will say will of course overlap a bit with the analysis I've done about mental torture, but I still need to point out a few things.

Ron's behaviour here is absolutely unprecedented and is a testimony to how terrible the torture he's been through has been. Ron is rarely described as being terrified in the books - he may be terrified for Harry, but he's seldom terrified of something. And this is literally the first time in the books Ron backs away (he does it twice in one paragraph) from something in fear (he didn't even do it when he was facing giant spiders).

He even begs Harry to do it in his place, stating that "this thing" (that is, Voldemort-locket) "is bad for him", and confesses to Harry that he's not even trying to "justify" his behaviour when he was wearing the locket, but that he simply "can't do it" and "can't handle it" (this literally means that the pain and dark thoughts are too much for him to bear). When he finally accepts to confront Voldemort, his hands are "shaking", and his voice is hoarse (the expression "he croaked" shows that his feelings are particularly intense).

What's more, Ron gives a very peculiar picture of the torture he went through: unlike Harry, who talked about "heightened fear and anxiety" to describe what he felt wearing the locket, Ron evokes a complete loss of control over his own thoughts ("I'd take it off and I'd get my head straight again" implies not that his time being tortured had no influence on him when he was not wearing the locket, but that the dark thoughts Voldemort fed him with were so prominent and so persistent he couldn't think at all when he had it on), the locket directly abusing him, and feelings of suffocation.

What I mean by feelings of suffocation is that you can clearly see that he identifies the locket as being an external "thing" or being that forces him to "think stuff", and that he went through cycles of being overwhelmed with painful, dark thoughts - dreading being overwhelmed again (as shows the expression "I'd have to put the effing thing back on", and the way he describes his experience with an accumulation of "then").

3. The nature of Ron's mental torture at the hands of Voldemort

We're not told exactly how Voldemort tortured Ron. We just know that it used his worries and low self-esteem issues, that is the stuff that "he was thinking anyway", and that Voldemort "made everything worse" and "made [Ron] think [about it]" - but we have no idea how Voldemort made Ron think about it, and how Voldemort "made everything worse". Even Ron says he can't explain it.

However, we know the kind of "stuff" that Voldemort used against Ron, though we don't know if the list is exhaustive, and the truth is that it probably isn't.

I don't understand why, but some people tend to reduce "The Silver Doe" to feelings of jealousy toward Harry - but that's not really what was being said.

Then a voice hissed from out the Horcrux.

“I have seen your heart, and it is mine.”

“Don’t listen to it!” Harry said harshly. “Stab it!”

“I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible…”

“Stab!” shouted Harry, his voice echoed off the surrounding trees, the sword point trembled, and Ron gazed down into Riddle’s eyes.

“Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter… Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend… Second best, always, eternally overshadowed…”

“Ron, stab it now!” Harry bellowed: He could feel the locket quivering in the grip and was scared of what was coming. Ron 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 Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted. Ron 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 Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.

“Ron!” he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort’s voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerized, into its face.

“Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence… We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption -”

“Presumption!” echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: she swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified, yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side.

“Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?”

“Ron, stab it, STAB IT!” Harry yelled, but Ron did not move. His eyes were wide, and the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Hermione were reflected in them, their hair swirling like flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.

“Your mother confessed,” sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle-Hermione jeered, “that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange…”

“Who wouldn’t prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him,” crooned Riddle-Hermione, and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace: their lips met.

On the ground in front of them, Ron’s face filled with anguish. he raised the sword high, his arms shaking.

His impression that he's a burden, and suicidal ideations

This feeling is embodied by the lines "Why return ? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence...We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption...". Ron literally thought that he was useless and that Harry and Hermione would be better off without him, and even relieved to see him go away, because they'd be "happier" without him. It's also important to note that Ron has always hated feeling left out during the series, and that's precisely because he's afraid his loved ones might leave him behind (even in the first book, Ron was hurt and angry that Harry had gone on an adventure with the Invisibility Cloak without telling him).

This to me shows Ron was battling suicidal ideations during the Hunt - there is very little that is more representative of suicidal thoughts than the feeling that you are a burden for your loved ones and that everything would be much better for them if you simply disappeared.

"It is a sad fact that a universal feature of suicidal ideation is the belief no one would miss you — that you are a burden on your loved ones, that everyone would be happier without you here." (excerpt from a blog on suicide).

His fear that his loved ones don't really love him/don't care about him and even despise him

This fear is very important to understand what happened in "the Goblin's revenge", I'd say it's even one of the most important elements to understand what Ron was thinking. Ron's mind can't help but imagine that Harry and Hermione never really cared about him, that (again) they'd be "better without" him, and "happier without" him, that he's loved least, if loved at all. Even worse, he thinks his best friends think he's so horrible that they in fact despise him and would spend time together enjoying "laughing at" him and at what he considers to be his worst traits (his so-called "stupidity", "cowardice", "presumption", though there is an ellipsis here that suggests the list is endless).

Ron also thinks deep down that his mother doesn't really love him, and that he's a disappointment to her because for one, he believes she "craved a daughter", and two, he fears he doesn't live up to her expectations, which is why she'd "gladly exchange" him for Harry, who not only has a good and filial relationship with Molly, but also represents everything Ron thinks he isn't and would like to be (it's also interesting to note Neville made a very similar remark to Harry in the sixth book).

His fear that he's not worthy enough to be loved or given attention, his fear of oblivion

In a previous essay of mine, "Why did Ron date Lavender ?", I mentioned that Ron thinks he has to achieve something in order to be noticed. This was present since book 1: one of the reasons Ron wants to stand out from his brothers is that he hopes that way, he'll finally receive attention and love from his family, most particularly his parents, and even more particularly his mother. On the other hand, Ron also thinks that attention is the sign that you are worth something, a belief he has internalized over the years due to many contributing factors, including his family (and unfortunately mother's) tendency to pay attention only to noticeable achievements (and even then, if they've already been done before, they're not really all that noticeable according to Ron's description of his family expectations), his family (especially mother's) tendency to draw comparisons between the Weasley children, his peers' reactions to Harry and Hermione, and teachers' behaviour like Slughorn who couldn't remember his name and acted as if Ron wasn't there (he once looked at Ron as if he was nothing more than "cockroach cluster").

This is perfectly reflected here in the speeches of Riddle-Harry and Riddle-Hermione. They mention the word "presumption" twice, which clearly implies that Ron wants things that are way above his level (remember when Ron apologized to Harry for "thinking he could play Quidditch" ? Yes, this is exactly the kind of thought patterns I'm talking about). The things that are deemed to be "above his level" are attention and love, which simply means Ron deems himself not worthy enough of either of those things, which in turn makes his feelings irrelevant and worthless.

Riddle-Harry and Riddle-Hermione outright tell Ron that he's going to disappear into oblivion, that no one's ever going to look at him, that he's literally "nothing", word that she repeats three times.

His inferiority complex toward Harry

Many of Ron's conclusions about himself were made because of comparisons he drew between himself and his siblings, Krum, Hermione...and most noticeably Harry, who is his best friend, is almost the same age, and with whom he shared many, if not most experiences in his formative teenage years.

The comparison he drew in his hand gave him the impression that Ron is "nothing" compared to Harry, that his accomplishments are worthless (if you're reminded of the prefect scene, congratulations: that's exactly what happened there, though at the time his internal beliefs got confirmed by everybody present...and he didn't complain because he silently agreed with them). It would take way too much time to analyse every moment or every reason why Ron felt that way, but it's clearly because he thinks Harry is a hero and he a peck of dust.

His worry toward his family, and Harry's place in it

Though this is not directly mentioned in "The Silver Doe" (which is why I truly believe even the Silver Doe doesn't tell us everything about what Ron went through at the hands of Voldemort), Ron spent a huge part of the seventh book worrying about his family, and spent a lot of time in the chapter that interests us being very afraid for his family's safety and asking Harry whether he had any kind of news about them. I'd say that Ron's concerns about their lack of progress or Harry's lack of plan also stem from largely from a place of concern for his family: he's afraid they're being useless while his loved ones are dying.

It's also interesting to note that Ron has mixed feelings about Harry being part of his family. On the one hand, he considers Harry a brother and welcomed him with open arms into his family every year, and offered him his family's affection. However, part of Ron also thinks that Harry might replace Ron in the Weasley family, because Ron doesn't think he's good enough to be part of his own family. Part of Ron resents Harry for not completely considering the Weasleys his family, considering the way he reacted in "the Goblin's revenge" - so what ? Is Ron's family not good enough for Harry ? Is Harry going to replace him even though he doesn't seem to care about his family ?

Now that we're clear on the kind of things Ron was being tortured with and was struggling against, let's rewind.

*I press the button, everything's going backwards, and we're back to the first few days Ron started wearing the locket*

Ron's point of view during "The Goblin's revenge" moments described by Harry

First of all, I find it interesting that just a few hours before wearing the locket for the first time, Ron got told by Harry that his injury was more or less nothing and that he was basically using it as an excuse to be useless. I find it even more interesting that Harry doesn't tell us anything about Ron's recovery past the very first day after he got splinched. The only conclusion to that glaring omission is that Harry never enquired whether Ron was restored to health - because otherwise, we'd have been told something, anything about Ron; even Hermione's recovery after "Malfoy Manor" is better described. Yet we know that Ron's arm still hurt him two-and-a-half/three months later, since he says that his arm is "mangled" at the very beginning of the fight.

Then we've got this moment that I already analysed from Harry's point of view, when they talk about the places Horcruxes could be hidden, which, may I remind you, happened just a few days after they started wearing the locket.

“Yeah, let’s go to Albania. Shouldn’t take more than an afternoon to search an entire country,” said Ron sarcastically.

“There can’t be anything there. He’d already made five of his Horcruxes before he went into exile, and Dumbledore was certain the snake is the sixth,” said Hermione. “We know the snake’s not in Albania, it’s usually with Vol-”

“Didn’t I ask you to stop say that?”

So here the way Ron phrases the question is very evocative: he explicitly makes a reference to the fact that he asked Harry to stop saying Voldemort's name (usually Ron rather said something along the lines of "don't say his name"). Ron asked his friends not to say the name anymore after he nearly bled to death, but he had to apologize for it because he knew they found that ridiculous. There is some history behind that, since Harry directly asked Ron in fifth year when he'd start saying Voldemort's name and told him to get a grip the next year; meanwhile, Hermione shamed him for wincing when the name was being said out loud (saying things like "stop whimpering, Ron" for example).

So here you can easily imagine that not only is Ron's dealing with feelings of worthlessness, but is also resentful of Harry and hurt because he has to remind him every few seconds of something that he explicitly asked for as a small request, based on feelings of unease he had. Based on what we know, it's very likely Ron is hurt Harry doesn't seem to care enough to do such a small gesture.

“Fine! The snake is usually with You-Know-Who - happy?”

“Not particularly.”

“I can’t see him hiding anything at Borgin and Burkes.” said Harry, who had made this point many times before, but said it again simply to break the nasty silence.

“Borgin and Burke were experts at Dark objects, they would’ve recognized a Horcrux straightaway.”

Ron yawned pointedly. Repressing a strong urge to throw something at him, Harry plowed on, “I still reckon he might have hidden something at Hogwarts.”

Again, this may seem like a small thing to people who aren't currently being tortured by Voldemort, but Harry completely ignores Ron even though Ron just answered "not particularly" to the word "happy?" - because for Harry, Ron's interruption was a waste of time. Ron, however, definitely saw that as a dismissal on Harry's part, the confirmation that he didn't truly care about Ron's feelings because he deems Ron's feelings ridiculous. Ron just admitted that he wasn't well, in a way, and Harry moves on to something else...and Ron "yawn[s] pointedly" just after, because if Harry doesn't care about him, why should he care about what Harry is saying ?

Hermione sighed. “But Dumbledore would have found it, Harry!” Harry repeated the argument he kept bringing out in favour of this theory.

“Dumbledore said in front of me that he never assumed he knew all of Hogwart’s secrets. I’m telling you, if there was one place Vol-”

“Oi!”

“YOU-KNOW-WHO, then!” Harry shouted, goaded past endurance. “If there was one place that was really important to You-Know-Who, it was Hogwarts!”

“Oh, come on,” scoffed Ron. “His school?”

“Yeah, his school! It was his first real home, the place that meant he was special: it meant everything to him, and even after he left -”

“This is You-Know-Who we’re talking about, right? Not you?” inquired Ron. He was tugging at the chain of the Horcrux around his neck; Harry was visited by a desire to seize it and throttle him.

Here Ron asks Harry again to stop saying the name, and Harry yells at him for it. Ron is unable to hide his pain and his resentment, which is why he has no qualms being disdainful of Harry's suggestions as the locket repeats to him, over and over again, that Harry doesn't care about him. Ron's openly shown to find this moment unbearable, since he "tug[s] at the chain of the Horcrux", trying to get it as far away from his body as possible, as if he couldn't wait to throw it away.

Furthermore, as I've mentioned earlier, this is a period during which Ron is generally unable to concentrate because he's overwhelmed by his dark thoughts as he's being tortured by the locket, and of course can't cope with it. He's also very weak, physically, and is starving, but we know his remarks and complaints about that are met with barely hidden irritation and scorn on Harry's part. Ron in general is in a very bad mood, but what irritates Harry is that Ron can't hide it, which in turn suggests that from Ron's "I'm-having-my-head-toyed-with-by-Voldemort"'s point of view, neither Harry or Hermione care much about what's happening to him, since he's unwell and they don't see it or refuse to help him with it (it's a very common reflex among people who are suffering from deep mental health issues). It's also hard to know if Ron didn't partially thought Harry and Hermione would be better without him because of their reactions to his bad mood.

Harry’s scar kept prickling. It happened most often, he noticed, when he was wearing the Horcrux. Sometimes he could not stop himself reacting to the pain.

“What? What did you see ?” demanded Ron, whenever he noticed Harry wince.

“A face,” muttered Harry, every time. “The same face. The thief who stole from Gregorovitch.”

And Ron would turn away, making no effort to hide his disappointment. Harry knew that Ron was hoping to hear news of his family or the rest of the Order of the Phoenix, but after all, he, Harry, was not a television aerial; he could only see what Voldemort was thinking at the time, not tune in to whatever took his fancy.

We can see Ron being worried sick about his family. But what's interesting here is that, again, Ron makes no effort to hide his disappointment that Harry doesn't have any news: Ron actually wants Harry to notice it. Ron wants to discuss his worries about his family with Harry and Hermione. Ron wants Harry to be worried with him. Ron actively wants to pause the hunt for a few minutes so that what matters most to him is actively debated.

Ron does have a few moments when he can do that, that is during his few discussions with Hermione about the Horcrux hunt itself, his disappointment in their lack of progress, their common disappointment that Harry doesn't have anything more to work with, their fear of doing nothing good.

Then, the fateful day starts again.

Ron's been wearing the Horcrux for months now, and this particular day he's been wearing it all day long.

“My mother,” said Ron one night, as they sat in the tent on a riverbank in Wales, “can make good food appear out of thin air.”

This says more about Ron's worries about his family than it does about his hunger, though of course he's also unhappy about that. But the fact that the expression "my mother" is separated from the rest of the sentence puts the emphasis on the expression itself (in French we call that "emphase par détachement"). What Ron's saying here is that he misses his family terribly and is extremely worried whether he will ever be able to see them again.

I'm going to skip the slight argument between Ron and Hermione after, because I don't think there was anything particular to see behind Ron's words apart from general exhaustion. Instead, I want to make a little remark about what Ron cared about during the discussion he heard between Dean, Ted Tonks, Dirk Cresswell, Griphook and Gornuk. At no point is he shown to share Harry and Hermione's excitement about the sword. In fact, he's not seen reacting at all, yet we know exactly what he remembered from it.

Any discussion about the sword went literally over his head when he heard that part of the conversation:

“What happened to Ginny and all the others? The ones who tried to steal it?”

“Oh, they were punished, and cruelly,” said Griphook indifferently.

“They’re okay, though?” asked Ted quickly, “I mean, the Weasleys don’t need any more of their kids injured, do they?”

“They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware,” said Griphook.

“Lucky for them,” said Ted. “With Snape’s track record I suppose we should just be glad they’re still alive.”

So Ron was worried sick about what had happened to Ginny, who was said to have been punished "cruelly". Furthermore, the line that really retained his attention and that he was able to quote word for word to Harry was "The Weasleys don't need any more of their kids injured", which we know he took to mean that one (or more) of his siblings had been injured.

There's also something said by Dirk Cresswell just after that that was interesting and that definitely echoes some of the concerns Ron brought up afterward. Indeed, Dirk literally said that Harry (and by extension the people with Harry) are not really acting against Voldemort, are not doing anything and are hiding instead:

“Yeah, there’s a lot would like to believe he’s that, son,” said Dirk, “me included. But where is he? Run for it, by the looks of things. You’d think if he knew anything we don’t, or had anything special going for him, he’d be out there now fighting, rallying resistance, instead of hiding. And you know, the Prophet made a pretty good case against him -”

Not long after, the trio stops listening to Ted and Dirk talking, Hermione opens her bag and gets Phineas Nigellus' portrait. Ron's subdued and silent, and ruminates what he's just heard (Ron being silent is never a good sign - the only time Ron was mentioned to be very quiet was right after Arthur had been attacked by Nagini):

Harry, Ron, and Hermione reeled in the Extendable Ears. Harry, who had found the need to remain silent increasingly difficult the longer they eavesdropped, now found himself unable to say more then, “Ginny - the sword -”

“I know!” said Hermione.

She lunged for the tiny beaded bag, this time sinking her arm in it right up to the armpit.

“If somebody swapped the real sword for the fake while it was in Dumbledore’s office,” she panted, as they propped the painting against the side of the tent, “Phineas Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right beside the case!”

“Here… we… are…” she said between gritted teeth, and she pulled at something that was evidently in the depths of the bag. Slowly the edge of an ornate picture frame came into sight. Harry hurried to help her. As they lifted the empty portrait of Phineas Nigellus free of Hermione’s bag, she kept

her wand pointing at it, ready to cast a spell at any moment.

“Unless he was asleep,” said Harry, but he still held his breath as Hermione knelt down in front of the empty canvas, her wand directed at its center, cleared her throat, then said: “Er - Phineas? Phineas Nigellus?”

Nothing happened.

“Phineas Nigellus?” said Hermione again. “Professor Black? Please could we talk to you? Please?”

“‘Please’ always helps,” said a cold, snide voice, and Phineas Nigellus slid into his portrait. At once, Hermione cried: “Obscura!”

A black blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus’s clever, dark eyes, causing him to bump into the frame and shriek with pain.

“What - how dare - what are you -?”

“I’m very sorry, Professor Black,” said Hermione, “but it’s a necessary precaution!”

“Remove this foul addition at once! Remove it, I say! You are ruining a great work of art! Where am I? What is going on?”

“Never mind where we are,” said Harry, and Phineas Nigellus froze, abandoning his attempts to peel off the painted blindfold.

“Can that possibly be the voice of the elusive Mr. Potter?”

“Maybe,” said Harry, knowing that this would keep Phineas Nigellus’s interest. “We’ve got a couple of questions to ask you about the sword of Gryffindor.”

“Ah,” said Phineas Nigellus, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to catch sight of Harry, “yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there -”

Then Ron says the only thing he'll ever say during that entire conversation, and the last thing he'll ever say before the argument breaks out:

"Shut up about my sister,” said Ron roughly.

Right (so those of you who said he only wanted an excuse to lash out at Harry can pack up and go). Ron didn't say anything at all, but he was unable to let Phineas Nigellus speak ill of his sister, and he told him "roughly" to shut up.

And then the rout begins.

You know this fight quite well by now, don't you ? So you don't need me to quote it again just so I can tell you what was going on inside Ron's head just before the argument started, though I want to remind you again that all of this is influenced by Voldemort torturing Ron. I'm going to make a list instead:

His fear of oblivion and his worry that he's a burden

Ron's first lines during the argument, lines that neither Harry or Hermione were able to understand are "Oh, remembered me, have you?" and "You two carry on. Don't let me spoil your fun". They mirror exactly what Voldemort told Ron during "The Silver Doe", that is that Harry and Hermione are better without him, happier without him and glad of his absence.

What appears is that Ron was really unwell and suffering because of the many hours spent wearing the locket that day, was also definitely worried about his family, but neither Harry or Hermione paid any attention to it. No, they were outright cheerful, Harry punching the air and Hermione beaming. And so Ron disappeared and went lying down on his bunk, though the reader doesn't know when because Harry didn't notice it. Ron became invisible to Harry's mind for 38 lines, busy as he was being overjoyed about the sword. Ron saw that he could leave and make himself invisible, and that the other two wouldn't notice - the only thing that he saw was that him being there or not made little to no difference, and that they seemed even better off and happier without him.

In other circumstances, this could have turned really, really badly. Ron deliberately making himself disappear like that just to observe Harry and Hermione's reactions and see whether they'd care/whether they'd see if he's there or not is a huge red flag for the psychology student that I am - the highway to suicidal behaviour/self-harming, if the process was not engaged then. This is another difference with the movies: in the movies, Ron isn't there for the beginning of the conversation and forces the other two to notice him; in the books, Ron leaves the conversation/goes away without Harry and Hermione noticing and he waits to see if Harry and Hermione are going to see that he's not there anymore (don't be mistaken: in an alternate universe, this would have ended up with Ron quietly leaving and hanging himself up).

2. Worry about his family, and fears that the trio is being useless

As I said above, Ron quoted Ted Tonks word for word when he asked Harry whether he had heard what had been said, and told Harry "Not bothered what it meant, though?". On top of his obvious worry for Ginny's fate in the Forbidden Forrest (he was clearly reminded of the the Acromentulas, since he explicitly brought them up during the fight, and may have remembered that Hagrid couldn't lay foot in certain areas of the Forrest because of them), all of this clearly implies he also spent part of this time when Hermione and Harry were talking to Phineas Nigellus pondering on which one of his siblings had been hurt.

More than that, Ron's worries about his families were directly linked with his fear that they (Harry, Hermione and he) weren't doing anything worthwhile, that they weren't making any real progress and were not "acting", "fighting"...while his loved ones kept getting hurt.

3. Anger and resentment toward Harry, who doesn't seem to care about the Weasleys/thinks certain types of sufferings are irrelevant

So, unfortunately for him, Harry said that right after being told that Ginny had been sent in the Forbidden Forrest, and after that completely moved on to another topic without (seemingly of course) a care in the world.

“And Snape might’ve thought that was a punishment,” said Harry, “but Ginny, Neville, and Luna probably had a good laugh with Hagrid. The Forbidden Forest… they’ve faced plenty worse than the Forbidden Forest, big deal!”

On top of worrying about his family and their lack of progress, on top of self-loathing thoughts, Ron was also listening to what was being said between Harry and Hermione...which is why he later uses Harry's statement against him and calls him "Harry 'I've-faced-worse' Potter", simply because Harry dismissed going into the Forbidden Forrest as "no big deal", something that is rather low on Harry's scale of really bad things.

And as I already mentioned in this post (https://austenpoppy.tumblr.com/post/679911050356899840/ron-was-not-really-worried-for-his-family-in-the), in light of what we know thanks to "The Silver Doe", part of what angered Ron here is that Harry seemed to think, if we were to follow his logic, that what Ron went through when he faced the giant spiders was "no big deal" - so Ron's suffering is also something that can be tossed aside and forgotten because Harry's faced worse.

Ron was hurt that Harry didn't seem to care enough about the things that mattered to him. Ron was hurt that Harry didn't seem to care enough about the Weasleys - but Ron is a Weasley too. Ron was hurt that Harry didn't seem to care about things that were beneath him.

All of this was in Ron's mind before Harry noticed that there was something amiss.

Harry looked around. For one bewildered moment he thought that Ron had left the tent, then realized that Ron was lying in the shadow of a bunk, looking stony.

“Oh, remembered me, have you?” he said.

“What?”

Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk.

“You two carry on. Don’t let me spoil your fun.”

I've already mentioned what those lines mean, but let me remind you: Ron is already extremely hurt and is bitterly stating that he's invisible and that Harry and Hermione don't care about him and would barely realize whether he was there or not. Harry is surprised, and Ron snorts, bitter and pained that Harry doesn't even know what he's talking about, before being even more explicit and telling the other two that they seem better and happier without him and that he seems to be a burden.

”What’s the problem?” asked Harry.

"Problem? There’s no problem,” said Ron, still refusing to look at Harry. “Not according to you, anyways.”

There. Just like Harry, Ron's comments don't come out of nowhere. It's a result of Ron's frustration and resentment that Harry never seems to care about Ron's problems (especially during that period), as if there was no problem - because Ron's problems are insignificant.

There were several plunks on the canvas over their heads. It had started to rain.

“Well, you’ve obviously got a problem,” said Harry. “Spit it out, will you?”

Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself. “

“All right, I’ll spit it out. Don’t expect me to skip up and down the tent because there’s some other damn thing we’ve got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don’t know.”

You see me obliged to notice that Ron literally isn't himself: Harry describes him as looking "mean, unlike himself" - or, in other words, Voldemort has taken over Ron's behaviour as Ron's been wearing the locket all day and is probably feeling as terrible as one possibly can.

Of course, Ron is here voicing his worries about the mission, and the fact that they're following Harry into the dark instead of "rallying resistance" or fighting, while many people, including his own family, is getting injured and possibly killed - Ron feels useless, and he resents the fact that Harry is so focused on the mission without seeing the rest of the world around him.

But Ron is also resentful and hurt by the fact that he's expected to let his worries and his concerns aside for the mission, that he has to pretend he's perfectly fine for Harry's sake even though he really isn't - the expression "don't expect me to skip up and down the tent" speaks about the way he's supposed to act in Harry's eyes.

“I don’t know?” repeated Harry. “I don’t know?”

[…]

“It’s not like I’m not having the time of my life here,” said Ron, “you know, with my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just hoped, you know, after we’d been running round a few weeks, we’d have achieved something.

In Ron's mind, here, the only thing that has retained Harry's attention isn't how Ron feels, but Ron's accusation - basically, there's no acknowledgement on Harry's part that the situation is dreadful and therefore that Ron's worries are justified.

Ron therefore gets more explicit, and talks about himself, the way he feels - hopeless and useless. So much is said in a few sentences. Ron talks about their lack of progress, and therefore his fear that they (and Ron in particular) are not really doing anything while his family is in danger. He also reminds Harry that his arm is "mangled", something that Harry hasn't been shown to display much concern for after the first few hours, and that he's starving, in the hope that this time Harry is going to understand him and sympathize with him.

Ron just wants Harry to validate his feelings and tell him that his concerns are not insignificant.

"Ron,” Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was beating on the tent.

“I thought you knew what you’d signed up for,” said Harry.

“Yeah, I thought I did too.”

We readers can't actually know whether Ron heard Hermione. If he did, then one can imagine that he's actually focusing on Harry because of the imbalance he resents in their relationship, with Ron having to give his everything all the time because he's not as important, and Harry taking his support without really ever acknowledging that he matters or that what he does is significant.

Ron, wearing the locket, mostly hears Harry saying that Ron should have expected to feel this way - to be starving, to be in pain, to feel hopeless and useless, and therefore that he should just accept it as being normal.

Ron's "Yeah, I thought I did too" means a lot in light of what we know. Ron is, in a way, telling Harry that he actually expected to face horrors, pain, and other terrible things; the only thing that Ron couldn't have foreseen are those feelings of uselessness and hopelessness and self-loathing plaguing his mind every single day.

He's still waiting for Harry to acknowledge that what he feels isn't insignificant.

So what part of it isn’t living up to your expectations?” asked Harry. Anger was coming to his defence now. “Did you think we’d be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you’d be back to Mummy by Christmas?”

“We thought you knew what you were doing!” shouted Ron, standing up, […]. “We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan!”

...and Harry does the exact contrary by invalidating Ron's concerns and by dismissing his feelings as ridiculous and almost slightly despicable (and so that Ron is nothing and should just shut his mouth). The use of the word "Mummy" here is particularly painful considering Ron was missing his mother right before the fight and is worried about his family as he's fighting with Harry. Harry therefore comes across as disdainful of the Weasleys in general, confirming Ron's impression that Harry doesn't care about them (though of course that's not the case, but Ron doesn't remember it at this point).

It hurts Ron so much that he "stands up" and begins shouting, voicing worries that he does have (still hoping Harry is going to prove him wrong and acknowledge he's not insignificant, that how he feels isn't insignificant), but that also allow him to lash out at Harry. Remember that in the beginning of the fight, Ron wasn't looking at Harry, refusing to tell him what was bothering him. Now that Harry doesn't seem to care and dismisses everything Ron is saying, Ron feels more justified in voicing many of his concerns, trying to get through Harry.

“Ron!” said Hermione, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof, but again, he ignored her.

“Well, sorry to let you down,” said Harry, his voice quite calm even though he felt hollow, inadequate. “I’ve been straight with you from the start. I told you everything Dumbledore told me. And in the case you haven’t noticed, we’ve found one Horcrux -”

“Yeah, and we’re about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them - nowhere effing near in other words.”

"Take off the locket, Ron,” Hermione said, her voice unusually high. “Please take it off. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you hadn’t been wearing it all day.”

This time Ron is purposely ignoring Hermione, feeling hurt and resentful toward Harry.

And there's something you need to understand: the reader knows that Harry feels "hollow" and "inadequate", but Ron, wearing Voldemort-locket, doesn't. All he hears is Harry's "calm" voice, which would come across to him as uncaring and cold as Harry dismisses Ron's concerns again. For example, the "sorry to let you down" said in a calm voice can definitely be interpreted as disdainful, especially if you have Voldemort repeating over and over "You don't matter. He doesn't care. You are nothing to him."

Remember: at this point all Ron wants is acknowledgement that his concerns are not insignificant, and Harry, caught up in his own side of the argument, will never give it to him.

I also want to point out that I think Ron's so hurt and so angry, at that point, that he doesn't realize how Voldemort is abusing him anymore, which is why he doesn't remove the locket himself.

“Yeah, he would,” said Harry, who did not want excuses made for Ron. “D’you think I haven’t noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D’you think I didn’t guess you were thinking this stuff?

“Harry, we weren’t -”

“Don’t lie!” Ron hurled at her. “You said it too, you said you were disappointed, you said you’d thought he had a bit more to go on than -”

Ron "hurl[ing] at" Hermione is more meaningful than people realize, especially in regard to the fact that he's been nothing but protective of her in the vast majority of the book. Ron "hurl[s] at her" because he's incredibly hurt that she, too, would completely invalidate his worries and deny conversations they've had together for Harry's sake, indicating that she, too, thinks Ron's nothing compared to Harry, thinks that he's nothing at all (since his concerns and feelings don't matter at all).

“So why are you still here?” Harry asked Ron.

In the same vein, Harry asking Ron why he's still here is an indication, to Ron's tortured mind, that Harry simply...doesn't need him, and that he's just a burden raining on Harry's parade. His answer is a provocation; it's a way for him to convey the question "Why am I still here if you don't care about me and if I'm useless ?", while also inviting Harry to contradict him - he's basically hoping that Harry is going to provide him with a reason to stay, that Harry is going to prove that he cares.

“Go home then,” said Harry.

“Search me,” said Ron.

See. Ron is not taking Harry's bait right away, even though Harry just dismissed Ron's entire person as if Ron being there or not made no difference to him. But Ron wants to get to Harry's heart so hard, which is why he takes "several steps toward Harry" (though it doesn't seem to affect Harry one bit, since Harry doesn't "back away"). This is also why he actually opens up a bit more about some of his deepest concerns - that Harry doesn't care about the Weasleys since he dismissed Ginny's punishment as being "no big deal" because he's faced worse, that Harry therefore doesn't care about him, that Harry thinks whatever Ron went through (namely meeting the "giant spiders") is "no big deal" either, because everything Ron does is beneath Harry.

“I was only saying - she was with the others, they were with Hagrid -”

“Yeah, I get it, you don’t care! And what about the rest of my family, ‘the Weasleys don’t need another kid injured,’ did you hear that?”

“Yeah, I -”

“Not bothered what it meant, though?”

Ron doesn't listen to Harry here because Harry doesn't acknowledge that the situation was dangerous, and blurts out what he's been really thinking and fearing for several months - that Harry "do[esn]'t care", as if it was a fact. He further confronts Harry, revealing another piece of information that's been plaguing him since the end of the discussion between Ted, Dirk, Dean, Griphook, and Gornuk, hurt that Harry hasn't seemed to notice the fact at all, or that Harry hasn't given it any thought.

Ron!” said Hermione, forcing her way between them. “I don’t think it means anything new has happened, anything we don’t know about; think, Ron, Bill’s already scared, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you’re supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I’m sure that’s all he meant -”

“Oh, you’re sure, are you? Right then, well, I won’t bother myself about them. It’s all right for you, isn’t it, with your parents safely out of the way -”

Again, what bothers Ron here is that no one acknowledges that his concerns and fears are valid, and that he is somehow supposed to swallow everything, any fear, any concern, any worry, as if he was nothing more than a robot here to serve Harry's mission because he doesn't matter.

Ron's not thinking straight at all (well he wasn't before, but at this point there's nothing but pain left). He's only a bundle of hurt feelings and resentment that he apparently doesn't matter much/that his worries don't matter.

“My parents are dead!” Harry bellowed.

“And mine could be going the same way!” yelled Ron.

“Then GO!” roared Harry. “Go back to them, pretend you’re got over your spattergroit and Mummy’ll be able to feed you up and -”

Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner’s pocket, Hermione had raised her own.

That's it. Now it's too late. Ron yells at Harry that he's worried that his parents (and family) might die, and Harry (again I'm exploring Ron's point of view here) simply tells Ron to leave again, dismisses the Weasleys as "them", is disdainful of Ron's hunger, mocks him and disrespects Molly with the use of the word "Mummy", and manages to dismiss everything Ron's done so far as if it was nothing much.

“Prestego!” she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and Harry on the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Harry and Ron glared from either side of the transparent barrier as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time. Harry felt a corrosive hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between them.

“Leave the Horcrux,” Harry said.

I'm always befuddled whenever people say that Ron was supposed to calm down right after removing the locket. In normal circumstances people don't cool down right away, and you expect someone who's being tortured and manipulated by Voldemort right at the moment their best friend tells them to go away for the third time as if them being there made no difference (or as if they'd be happy to see them leave) to just...forget ? Ron has the locket on right at the moment he's on the other side of the barrier created by Hermione, glaring at Harry who tells us he feels "a corrosive hatred" toward Ron, and you think Ron would be fine right after removing the Horcrux (honestly I'm amazed he ever recovered that quickly) ?

Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair. He turned to Hermione.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you staying, or what?”

“I…” She looked anguished. “Yes - yes, I’m staying. Ron, we said we’d go with Harry, we said we’d help -”

“I get it. You choose him.”

So in Ron's mind at this moment, Harry thinks he's a burden that he doesn't care about and would be better without. Yet part of him still hopes Hermione doesn't see him that way, which is why he asks her the question as to whether she's staying with Harry or not. Frankly the way he comments her choice shows he was not expecting any other answer, though.

So Ron thinks his friends don't care about a nobody like him, and that he's nothing. And leaves, still under Voldemort's influence.

Winter has come again.

Hermione - fear of rejection

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, we're not really given any description of the influence of the locket on Hermione. However, based on what we know of Hermione and one small element, I think we can deduce the way Voldemort also manipulated Hermione.

We know that Hermione's biggest fear is failure, which in terms of relationships with others translates as rejection. We also know that Hermione is often worried about doing the right thing - it'd make sense that having the locket on would make her not only more anxious, but also less sure of herself.

And case in point, this is how Hermione reacted the moment Harry started saying weird things as he was wearing the locket:

“Of course!” cried Hermione, clapping a hand to her forehead and startling both of them into silence. “Harry, give me the locket! Come on,” she said impatiently, clicking her fingers at him when he did not react, “the Horcrux, Harry, you’re still wearing it."

And this is how she reacted when Ron started being cryptic:

“Oh, remembered me, have you?” he said.

“What?”

Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk.

“You two carry on. Don’t let me spoil your fun.”

Perplexed, Harry looked to Hermione for help, but she shook her head, apparently as nonplussed as he was.

That's right. Almost no reaction. She doesn't say anything until several moments later, and when she does, she only says Ron's name very quietly.

Ron,” Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was beating on the tent.

Then, four lines later, she repeats Ron's name a little louder, though we're still very far from Hermione's behaviour in the first excerpt:

Ron!” said Hermione, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof, but again, he ignored her.

And then she acts in a very anxious way, very afraid of doing anything that might get Ron or Harry to rejects her:

“Take off the locket, Ron,” Hermione said, her voice unusually high. “Please take it off. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you hadn’t been wearing it all day.”

“Yeah, he would,” said Harry, who did not want excuses ma-de for Ron.

“D’you think I haven’t noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D’you think I didn’t guess you were thinking this stuff?

“Harry, we weren’t -” “Don’t lie!” Ron hurled at her. “You said it too, you said you were disappointed, you said you’d thought he had a bit more to go on than -”

“I didn’t say it like that - Harry, I didn’t!” she cried.

Don't you feel like the Hermione in the first excerpt is a very different Hermione from the one who seemed so anxious during the fight in "The Goblin's Revenge" ?

Summary: what did Voldemort do ?

It's time to sum up why this entire fight is Voldemort's fault.

The very first day Harry began wearing the locket, he started thinking, due to his fear of abandonment, that his friends might walk away. Later on, undoubtedly still wearing the locket, Harry catches his friends talking without him and deduces because of Voldemort that they never really wanted to be with him and that they might leave him at any moment because of his own lack of knowledge about the Horcruxes and his own so-called poor leadership skills. Voldemort also makes sure to get Harry to resent his friends, most noticeably Ron, and brings up Harry's anger issues to the surface.

As a result, when the fight begins, Harry doesn't see his best friend anymore, but the embodiment of his insecurities that he just wants to lash out at, which is one of the reasons he refuses to let Ron remove the locket. What's more, the moment Ron starts saying that somehow the new piece of information they got isn't good enough, Harry feels as if his efforts mean nothing and just goads Ron to see if he cares enough about him to stay despite the situation.

On Ron's side, Voldemort tortures him with his low self-esteem, his obvious worries about his family's safety, his worries about the trio's lack of progress in regard to his worries about his family, his most self-loathing thoughts, his pain and resentment about his impression that his feelings don't matter and that Harry doesn't care about them and expects him to swallow everything for his sake. On top of it, Voldemort abuses Ron's already very weakened physical state to get to him more easily.

Before the fight, Voldemort pushes Ron to silently disappear to see if Harry and Hermione are going to notice and care about it (which, I repeat, is typical of people with suicidal ideations, especially people with active suicidal ideations). He forces Ron to see a credible but twisted version of reality in which Harry thinks the Weasleys don't matter, that whatever Ron and his family went through is "no big deal" because their suffering is beneath Harry's, a reality in which Harry doesn't care much about Ron and the way Ron feels.

Then Voldemort tortures Ron and manipulates him so that Ron interprets everything Harry says in that lens, without letting Harry acknowledge any of Ron's feelings because Harry, himself abused by Voldemort, is too busy interpreting Ron's words as evidence that Ron doesn't care about him. Voldemort also gets Hermione to be more subdued, so that she's too afraid to fail or say the bad thing to take charge.

Neither Harry or Ron ever really felt hatred toward one another. They were just too hurt, thinking their best friend didn't care about them, and this is all Voldemort's fault.

And think about it: isn't it strange that the fight happened precisely the moment the trio was making progress about the way they could destroy the Horcrux, right at the moment Harry and Hermione could have understand where the sword was ? Isn't it strange that Voldemort targeted the trio's friendship, that is the very element that made them strong, and targeted the one member of the group who represented friendship in particular ?

Don't you see that Voldemort either wanted to make Ron resent Harry so much that he'd kill him (which he tried to do in "The Silver Doe"), either wanted to get Ron to kill himself (repeating him over and over again that he's a burden people laugh at, that he's nothing, that his loved ones are better without him and pushing him to disappear out of their sight), either wanted to get Harry to push people away ?

As an aside, if Ron could control himself during this argument approximatively three months after being tortured by the locket for the first time, then Harry definitely never tried to cause a full-blown argument the very first day he wore the locket, right ? If Ron could control his behaviour three months after starting to wear the locket, then Harry definitely could after only one day, right ? Conclusion: if Ron was in control of himself during that fight, so could Harry this morning he couldn't fight off Dementors, and therefore Harry said a very vile thing.

Titans #25

Months after that, Gar and Bette went to New York, and run across a Wildebeest - an actual Wildebeest, not the crooks who were using costumes. They had a fight with the creature, and some Titans arrived right at the end of the fight.

Titans #35

Have you paid close attention to the panel above ? Upon seeing Dick, Bette immediately started fawning ("Nightwing ! It's so good to see you !") and tried to go in for a hug/touch Dick. Dick wasn't happy about that, when he'd been smiling a few seconds before that.

Titans #35

LOOK AT HIS FACE

That's what it suggests to me :

Fortunately, it seems like Bette'd matured ever since her and Gar'd started Titans West again. While they were there, Liberty Belle's lover (Liberty being Jesse's mother) was killed, and the Titans started an investigation, discovering Liberty herself had disappeared.

During a meeting, Bette took the situation seriously, and was the one who remarked that Liberty was capable physically of having done the crime. Jesse came in right at this moment, and became outraged that anyone would accuse her mother. And Dick actually defended Bette (though telling Jesse to calm down was a bit insensitive, and considering Dick's own reaction to Tim suggesting Bruce could've killed Vesper Fairchild... Well it hadn't happened yet, but still) !

Titans #35

Dick's last interaction with Bette on page in the New Earth continuity, as far as I'm aware, happens just an issue later. It's not really significant, apart from the fact that Bette was standing next to Dick and that Dick seemed to be treating her more seriously... probably because Bette herself was taking the job more seriously.

Titans #36

Bette was present when many people were there to rebuild Titans Tower and Dick and Gar had a fight, but I don't think it's extremely relevant, except perhaps it shew Bette Dick wasn't perfect.

"He" put them into podes showing them virtual realities that were supposed to be about what they wanted most, according to Dick's files. Dick freed himself, Wally did too, and Dick freed Gar. Then they, along with the soul of Raven, inspected their environment and deduced that all former Titans had been captured.

It's interesting to note, though, that during all that time Bette was still trying to impress Dick, and was still somewhat in contact with the Titans. In "Hawk and Dove - Annual 1", she tried to call Dick to tell her about a tennis match she'd just won. Kory was the one who answered, and though Bette called Kory by her name she had to repeat her name and even spell it for Kory (and she thought of Kory as a bimbo, so I suppose she was jealous).

Dick was apparently "not there" (was he really not there or did he not want to talk to Bette ?), and Bette said it was a shame because she "knew" he liked to follow her matches/career (she was deluding herself).

The call ended when someone knocked at her door. Bette wanted it to be someone "tall, dark and famous", and she couldn't help but fantasize that Dick was there. Later on, after an adventure with former members of Titans West and people like Dove, Dove complimented Bette on her skills, and Bette said "Now if I could only convince a certain Titan !" (meaning Dick).

Months or years after, Dick and Bette were both at a Christmas party thrown by Guy Gardner after Dick left the Titans, but the next time Dick truly saw Bette was in the JLA/Titans crossover. Vic had become this almost thoughtless technological being, and captured anyone who'd ever been a Titan in a misguided quest to find his family again.

Dick saw Bette in her pode, and immediately said : "Bette ? Man...Somedoby was thorough." And the "thorough" isn't just in italics, it's underlined. The level of derision and distaste hidden in that comment is unreal. There are other people who didn't spend much time among the Titans, like Pantha, Leonid (Red Star), or Terra II. But the one whose importance to the Titans Dick decided to undermine was Bette.

"Even her ?... Wow..."

JLA/Titans #2

Dick stayed behind to help free the others from their virtual realities. He was very sympathetic to the people and friends he helped, except for Bette.

It's very funny and a bit creepy that "Vic"'s file for Bette and what was important to her basically had two items : "she's very good at tennis" and "she's obsessed with Dick", so the pode had her playing a tennis match against a rather fawning Dick (in his short pants, since she'd mostly known him as Robin) at her beck and call. I mean, it's truly weird. It could have just shown Dick being interested in her - but no, he had to be at her feet, too.

Even weirder is that Bette was actually engrossed by the virtual fantasy. Like, it'd been years. She could've, should've outgrown her attraction/obsession with him at that point. But nope, instead she was playing along and asking the virtual Dick to "bend over" more so that she could ogle his butt.

Dick came right in the middle of it, and he wasn't impressed. He just deadpanned "Flamebird. Sorry to interrupt your game...". Was Dick chanelling Alfred there ? This is exactly the kind of sarcastic and snide remarks Alfred could've come up with - not that Dick can't do it on his own. Obviously, the point was that there was no true game to interrupt, and that Dick wasn't sorry at all for preventing Bette from enjoying the fawning virtual Dick.

JLA/Titans #2

After the crisis was aborted, Bette was seen talking with Toni and Helena (with whom he'd already slept with and been manipulated by) about what made Dick so physically attractive. Bette was the one who mentioned his butt. Dick passed them by and was uncomfortable again.

JLA/Titans #2

Weeks later, Gar was framed by Madame Rouge's daughter for crimes she'd committed, and was arrested. Bette, arguably at her most likable, wanted to help him (using her "Titans" card to get to him) and tried to bail him out, though to no avail.

Unbeknownst to Bette and Gar, Dick went to L.A. to investigate himself. He deduced who the next victim would be, and went to their address, only to be faced with someone impersonating Gar. A fight erupted, and Dick quickly deduced that it was indeed an impersonator. In the chaos, Bette, who'd just understand with Gar what exactly was going on, had heard that a fight had started at Dick Dickerson's house, and had decided to come over to help (knowing Dick was there mind you), barged in and kicked the impersonator in the face.

I don't know what's funnier. The fact that after all those years Bette couldn't help but still call Dick "handsome" as soon as she saw him, her goofy entrance with the corny line "Flamebird to the rescue!", or Dick's open displeasure at seeing her ("Oh no. Not her..."). The fact that Dick, who values teamwork and is usually the one telling people to let aside their personal conflicts while working with other people would take the time to openly express his distaste for someone in the middle of a fight is hilarious.

Beast Boy #3

When Bette came to land in front of Dick, he begrudgingly acknowledged her (as you can guess from the use of the ellipsis before her name and the discontent look on his face).

Bette started cheerfully explaining the situation to Dick, but he'd already found out all of it on his own, so he tried to tell her that he knew everything already, but she kept going. So he repeated that he did know what was going, only she kept going.

The escalation of Dick's answers is very funny. His first "I know, Bette..." is normal. Then as she kept going his second "I know, Bette..." put an emphasis on the "know". And as she kept talking, he literally put his hand on her mouth to shut her up while loudly exclaiming "I KNOW, Bette" (the letters being written in a bigger size).

Dick remained fairly polite considering the situation, but everything about his behaviour couldn't have been more obvious if he'd screamed at the top of his lungs "BETTE WILL YOU SHUT UP ALREADY ?"

Then he told her to stand aside and protect herself while he finished the fight, showing he didn't trust her abilities as a crimefighter (to be fair, no one did). Of course the impersonator used the distraction provided by Bette's arrival and her conversation with Dick to throw them in the pool and escape.

Beast Boy #3

Dick was not happy about that. He immediately told Bette that he hadn't needed her, implying that if she hadn't been there/hadn't been distracting him, he would've caught the impersonator ("I had him, Bette..."). Honestly it's probably true, but also I'm pretty sure Dick wouldn't have made that comment had it been anyone else - he could've also completely ignored Bette to focus on their enemy, and he generally tends to reassure people about their mistakes... Unless he thinks people aren't truly committed to crimefighting/a team, which is probably what he thought of Bette.

I say that because right after, Dick noticed that the police'd just arrived, and told Bette : "Forget it. We've got company. You're the publicity hound. DEAL WITH IT." And when Bette answered the police officer's question, she tried to turn to Dick for confirmation, only Dick'd already vanished.

So he left her to deal with the police on her own by referring to her appetite for public attention, openly calling her "a publicity hound" (calling her out on her attention-seeking behaviour). Then he told her harshly to "deal with it" (implying that since she wanted publicity so badly and sought it out, she was the one who should have to talk to the police), washing his hands off of her, and disappearing without a word after that.

LMAO

"You keep making publicity stunts. You wanted publicity so badly, Bette ? Well then here comes the police. ALL FOR YOU, Bette, and no goodbye."

Beast Boy #3

After that, Bette and Dick met up to free Gar out of prison. Dick bailed him out while Bette was waiting in a car (she was the driver). She drove Dick, Gar and his cousin to a place they could stay at, Dick and Gar had a conversation while Bette and Gar's cousin waited by the car. Then once Dick and Gar were done, Dick told her he wanted to have a word with her. Below is their conversation.

Not included here is Gar's cousin being interested in Bette, and Gar telling him it was a lost cause because she only had the hots for Nightwing.

Beast Boy #3

As you can see, Bette started the conversation by happily mentioning their previous team-ups, as if they were former partners who'd worked together for a long time but hadn't seen each other for a while. And Dick immediately invalidated that by saying there hadn't been that many "old times", putting a distance between him and Bette.

XD YOU TELL HER DICK

Then Dick said what he'd wanted to tell her : that he didn't think she was made to be a super-heroin, and that she should "hang up" her costume. One could be indignant on Bette's behalf, and say Dick had no right to tell her what she should do.

Personally I think he was right, in that moment at least, that he was doing her a favour. He'd done that job since he was a child, he'd done it over a decade, and much longer than many superheroes. Bette hadn't done anything much as a superheroin, and seemed more preoccupied with her status as a superheroin, what it brought, rather than crimefighting itself. It's a shame, as I said when I presented Bette in part. 1, because Bette was a very competent woman, with a unique talent in tennis (for example).

And Dick was more graceful than I would've been in his place considering the way Bette'd treated him, telling her she had heart and was brave (also "spunk" ? Was that Dick's inner Alfred again ?).

Bette stammered that she did try to do the best she could. Dick went on to say that he was flattered that he'd "inspired" her to do this, but that it'd gone too far.

LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE

It wasn't a sarcastic comment, but Dick wasn't really flattered she'd started crimefighting because of him. That's obvious because of the inverted commas used to frame the word "inspired" (the shade those inverted commas signal). Those inverted commas signal that Dick was doubting Bette's real reasons for becoming a crimefighter, that he had to wonder whether she'd become a hero simply because she had the hots for him and wanted to be closer to him.

He then said "You're a good kid, Bette [NDLA : how much younger than Dick is she supposed to be here ? Is she Gar's age, that is about three years younger ? Seems to me she should be around the same age as Dick; the use of "kid" is strange]. You've got a bright future ahead of you. But it isn't in spandex. Anyway, I've gotta run. Take care of yourself."

Again, it may not seem that way at first glance, but in my opinion Dick's wording couldn't have been much kinder. Being a crimefighter is exceptionally dangerous, and can put others in danger too. Dick recognized Bette's good qualities, told her that she had a "bright" future, but simply not as a hero. And he told her to take care.

Bette's obstinated refusal to quit after Dick left is fascinating for me (interestingly, this mini-series is what made Bette a more compelling character as far as I'm concerned). Did she refuse to quit out of defiance ? Was it a way to prove to Dick she was capable ? Did she simply didn't want to give up on her dream ? Had her ambitions gone past the one who'd inspired her and that she still had a crush on ?

There's still a part three to do, but it's going to be shorter.

Part 3

Bette Kane's an interesting concept as a character, because she's not a very good super-heroin, but she's extremely competent in other areas of her life. As a teenager, she began playing tennis in competitions, and she was so good at it she quickly became "a pro", and was considered something of a celebrity.

Yet Bette dreamed of something very different. She openly admired Robin (Dick) and wanted to imitate him by becoming a super-heroin of her own. She even designed her costume as a tribute to him, and chose the code name Flamebird. That's somewhat ironic considering Flamebird was originally Nightwing's partner back when Nightwing was an identity Superman had used.

Bette as Flamebird's New Earth origins are recounted in Secret Origins, vol. 2 annual 3, which is focused on a mental attack Dick suffers at the hands of the Gargoyle. Here Gargoyle narrates one of the first acts Bette did as Flamebird, which was saving Navy men hanging to lifelines attached to an air-craft carrier that was being lifted into the air. Other super-heroes helped resolve the situation, and that teamwork is what prompted the creation of Titans West.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

Interestingly, you can see that Dick wasn't really aware of how much he'd inspired Bette, and this mental fight with the Gargoyle happened several years after his first meeting with Bette as leader of the Titans, and years after his first meeting with Bette at all.

At first glance, this may seem surprising, given that Bette was obsessed with Robin and wasn't remotely subtle about it. After becoming Flamebird and rescuing the Navy men, she was part of the unofficial first meeting of Titans West along with Gar, Hank, Dove, Charley, and Lilith. And her first reaction was to be delighted at the idea of seeing "Robin" again, calling him "a cute hunk". When Lilith asked her to tone it down and be serious, she instead went further by commenting on Dick's legs.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

Then when it became clear the newly formed Titans West would have to seek help and go see the official Titans in New York, all Bette cared about was that she was going to work with Robin.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

When the two teams finally met, it wasn't love at first sight. Once they finally started discussing the case they were working on, Dick suggested a plan of action that involved the two teams splitting up. Bette cut him off as soon as he said it to contradict him and affirm that she was going with him, which she ended up doing.

Her behaviour was honestly creepy. She cut off Dick just because she'd decided that she was going with him. She didn't refer to him by his code name, but only by the part of his body she'd commented on before, calling him "legs". She took his face between her fingers. And the sentence "I've waited too long for this", coupled with the nickname, would've made my skin crawl. It sounds like she'd fantasized about Dick for a while, was going to have what she wanted no matter what, and had no problem announcing it out loud.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

After the case was over, the two teams had a fight over what team had done more to solve it, and over the legitimacy of Titans West. Wally criticized the way they'd come into the headquarters like they belonged, Bette said they did because they were Titans too, and appealed to Dick to validate her opinion - calling him "legs" again, which implies that this was the nickname she gave him the entire time they worked together.

Dick said he wasn't sure whether it was a good idea for the others to be Titans, because he wasn't sure he would be able to lead two teams, one of them long-distance. Members of Titans West were affronted by Dick's speech, including Bette. She went with the others, talking to Dick again to tell him that "[he'd] never know what [he'd] missed", making her departure partly about a romantic/sexual golden opportunity Dick didn't take. Appreciate the fact that she called him "Robin" again now that she was irritated by him.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

Titans and Titans West had a couple other team-ups before Titans West disbanded, during which Bette learned Dick's secret identity. From the way Bette acted during the one team-up recounted in details in New Titans #56, we can deduce that every time she met Dick she kept trying to seduce him, persistently, relentlessly, in obnoxious ways that sometimes border on sexual harassment.

It was well-known that Bette was obsessed with Dick - not like Bette was trying to be subtle about it, she had no problem making her intentions clear and that publicly. There's a panel I couldn't include in which Hank scoffs at the idea that Lilith "trusts" Dick and tells Charley that "she's got the hots for him. Just like Bette."

I'm sad I couldn't include it because there's this hilarious exchange after in which Hank bemoans "Man. That burns me. What's he got that I haven't ?" and Charley answers "Look in the mirror and weep" (lmao).

But as I was saying, Bette kept trying to hit on Dick. In the panel below she asked him whether he needed help (the "sure" implying it's not the first time she asked the question), only to say that it was "[his] loss" when he said no. Dick was very polite in his answer, thanking her for her offer, but was turning her down all the same.

New Titans #56

Not long after, Dick told off Hank and Charley who'd gone in an argument over leadership and about their association with the Titans, before having the conversation about Dick I mentioned above. Bette immediately cheered him on, calling him "handsome" as she got close to him. Dick ignored her.

New Titans #56

During a fight she called out to Dick to warn him about an assailant, and had to sneak in a comment about his butt (whoever said this kind of things was recent was lying). Dick was clearly uncomfortable, answering with an embarrassed "Uhh, thanks, Flamebird" - the "uhh" plus the two commas in a three-word sentence indicate he didn't know what to make of her comment. He also corrected her to make sure she knew he'd seen the assailant she was talking about. It was a way for him to reaffirm his skills as a crimefighter (she's not the first one he said those things to), but also a way for him to reject her attention.

New Titans #56

She was also very physical around Dick. I can't include all panels of her, but she seemed to be near Dick most of the time, would touch his shoulder for no reason when they came in a lab, or, like in the panel below, latch onto his arm. Dick wasn't shown shaking her off, but he wasn't seen reciprocating either.

New Titans #56

So in the end, it's not a surprise Dick had no idea Bette'd wanted to become a super-heroin because she'd been inspired by him. Not when most of their interactions revolved around her attraction for him, not when she kept making comments about his looks.

As an aside, this is one of the reasons I can't take seriously anyone who says it's Devin Grayson's fault if Dick's been sexualized. Hard to do that when you have an entire character who could've been one of the best tennis players in the world but decided to become a crimefighter because she was obsessed with Dick, and kept gushing over his legs and butt. Dick's been dealing with that kind of things since the 80's, guys.

Part 2

Part 3