Why return?

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.

"Do it, Ron!" Harry yelled.