AN: My dear, patient readers. Turns out I accidentally uploaded the first part of this chapter. I would just replace the content, but I feel awful that everyone following it clicked to see an update and got less than three hundred words! So here is the real one, hope you enjoy, and I apologize most profusely.
The heavy door clanged shut and Ron felt utterly trapped.
"We're in trouble, they suspect."
"Harry, he's just standing there."
"He just led us back here!"
"What's going on…"
"They're imperiused."
Ron and Hermione fell silent and exchanged alarmed glances.
"I don't think I did it strongly enough. I don't know…"
How many times could that heavy feeling of reality smash down on one person's shoulders in so short a time?
"What do we do? Shall we get out now, while we can?" Ron's tone was lighter than he thought himself capable of.
"If we can."
"We've got this far. I say we go on." Harry's tone was final.
What else could they do? Ron knew that Harry was right, but he didn't much fancy the idea of whatever might lie before them.
"Good! So, we need Bogrod to control the cart; I no longer have the authority. But there will not be room for the wizard."
"Imperio."
Ron couldn't help the shiver that ran up his spine to hear Harry say the curse. Travers trotted off.
"What are you making him do?"
"Hide."
He tried to ignore the distant yelling as the three of them climbed into the back of the cart. Hermione was trembling slightly beside him and, feeling her fingers against his in the darkness, he shifted only a little to cover her hand with his.
As the cart gathered speed, Ron began to wonder if, of all the unpleasantries they'd faced so far, this one was the worst. His felt a violent urge to be sick. The only thought he could process into action was that of keeping from crushing Hermione's fingers under his tightening grip. It provided almost a relief from the cold fear of their demise – Ron found himself more concerned with the fear of hurling up his intestines.
After one particularly nasty turn, Ron was dismayed to see a pounding waterfall in front of them.
What bleeding madness….
He only had a moment to process the gallons of water crashing down on him when they were suddenly flying from the cart.
To come all this way and end up squashed on the rocky floor below seemed like a horrible way to die and he was tremendously relieved when they landed softly, without harm. He turned immediately to Hermione who had fallen on her backside.
"C-cushioning charm," she told him, shivering, as he pulled her up. Something was odd, though, and with a sinking feeling he realised that she looked like Hermione again. His face felt naked as well – all of their disguises were gone.
"The Thief's Downfall! It washes away all enchantment, all magical concealment! They know there are impostors in Gringotts, they have set off defenses against us!"
Ron's heart accelerated with the familiar feeling of hopelessness. Knowing that Hermione was probably close to hysterics with how badly their meticulous plan had gone awry, he reached out and squeezed her wrist lightly.
He had been right. At his touch, Hermione's breathing slowed and steadied. She checked to make sure she still had her handbag. Discovering that she did, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"We'll be fine," he whispered and she shot him a look of gratitude.
"Aren't we always?"
"We need him. We cannot enter the vault without a Gringotts goblin. And we need the Clankers."
They glanced up to see Bogrod coming back to his senses.
"Imperio."
Ron and Hermione both cringed again to see Harry say it, even if they knew it was necessary. Ron walked over and picked up the back with the clankers.
"Harry, I think I can hear people coming."
Ron glanced over at Hermione as she pointed her wand at the waterfall and yelled, "Protego!"
As usual, he was amazed at how effective her magic was, the shield charm breaking the stream of the waterfall and filling the opening.
"Good thinking. Lead the way, Griphook!"
"How are we going to get out again?"
"Let's worry about that when we have to." Ron wasn't too chuffed to hear that answer, but he fell silent anyway. "Griphook, how much farther?"
"Not far, Harry Potter, not far."
Not for the first time, Ron felt a creeping sense of suspicion towards the swarthy goblin.
"Merlin's holy beard." Ron murmured. As they rounded the corner, a dragon crouched pathetically before them. Pale, white and full of scars, Ron felt a stab of pity. He could only imagine how outraged Hermione would be at the scene.
All sympathy left him, then, as it reared its head and blew fire straight at them. Instinctively, he dove between it and Hermione and felt his leg hairs singing as they ran up the passageway.
"It's partially blind, but even more savage for that. However, we have the means to control. It has learned what to expect when the Clankers come. Give them to me."
He handed out the Clankers and Ron noticed that Hermione's expression was faintly queasy. He knew that she was probably barely containing her outrage at the dragon's condition.
"You know what to do. It will expect pain when it hears the noise. It will retreat, and Bogrod must place his palm upon the door of the vault."
Ron shot a look at Hermione who looked near tears. He reached out and opened his hand for her Clanker. Gratefully, she surrendered it, and Ron shook two as they advanced.
He tried not to look at the dragon trembling in the corner, face mutilated.
"Make him press his hand to the door!"
The door melted away and Ron froze. Floor to ceiling treasure, gold, expensive potions and armour – more value in this small space than he'd ever seen in his life. He felt a bizarre desire to cry and embarrassedly pushed it away.
"Search fast!"
A large metallic thud resounded in Ron's gut as the door sealed shut, and he shouted his surprise.
"No matter, Bogrod will be able to release us! Light your wands, can't you? And hurry, we have very little time!"
"Lumos."
Harry's wand light fell upon the vault's content and, lighting their own wands, they began to search for the cup.
"Harry, could this be – AARGH!"
Ron spun around in time to see piles of goblets cascading from Hermione's hand.
"It burned me," she whimpered.
He struggled his way over the piles between them to her side, holding out his hand for hers.
"They have added Gemino and Flagrante curses! Everything you touch will burn and multiply, but the copies are worthless. And if you continue to handle the treasure, you will eventually be crushed to death by the weight of the expanding gold!"
"Okay, don't touch anything!" Harry cried, and Ron thought again how futile this whole thing was. Even then, he accidentally nudged one of the goblets and a dozen or so more were scattered across the floor.
"Stand still, don't move!" Hermione said, holding his arm down.
"Just look around! Remember, the cup's small and gold, it's got a badger engraved on it, two handles – otherwise see if you can spot Ravenclaw's symbol anywhere – the eagle…"
Craning their necks, they looked over everything. When they could see nothing more from their same stance, they cautiously pivoted in a circle. Harry accidentally touched some galleons and by now they could hardly stand anywhere – Hermione had one foot atop Ron's and barely any room for her other.
"It's there! It's up there!"
They directed their wands and, sure enough, there was the cup exactly as Harry had described.
"And how the hell are we going to get up there without touching anything?" Ron said, forgetting to curb his frustration.
"Accio cup!"
Hermione lost her footing as she finished the spell, and Ron slid his arm around her in an attempt to steady her.
"No use, no use!"
"Then what do we do? If you want the sword, Griphook, then you'll have to help us more than … wait! Can I touch stuff with the sword? Hermione, give it here!"
Drawing out her bag, Hermione did as she was told and handed the sword to Harry.
"If I can just poke the sword through a handle – but how am I supposed to get up there?"
The sound of more Clankers was getting close and Ron knew they only had moments in this furnace of a vault, surrounded by inanimate objects waiting to sear their flesh off, unable to reach the one item they'd come for.
"Hermione. I've got to get up there, we've got to get rid of it."
Puzzled, Ron glanced between the two of them as Hermione, shaking, raised her wand.
"Levicorpus."
Chaos erupted as Harry's floating body smashed into a suit of armour – which multiplied – sending the rest of them flying into other objects, trapped in the rising pile of blistering metal. They were all screaming, but Hermione raised her wand and cried, "Impervius!"
Ron could hear Harry's unintelligible words and a horrific scream from Bogrod but nothing was processing aside from the clanking, the heat and his horror as he watched Hermione sink deeper and deeper into it.
The vault door opened and boiling treasure came pouring out, all five of them tumbling along with it. All Ron could think to do was find Hermione in the mass and cling to her with all of his strength.
"Thieves! Thieves! Help! Thieves!"
Puzzled and finally able to see the crowd around them, Ron stared at Griphook with disgust and fury. The traitorous goblin entered the mob of his kind without protest from any of them. Ron reached down and pulled Hermione to her feet and then all three of them raised their wands.
"Stupefy!"
"Stupefy!"
"Stupefy!"
Several goblins toppled, but they were outnumbered and far more advanced. Wizards were coming, now, too, and Ron wondered just how they'd get out of this one, especially when a burst of flame shooting over his head reminded him that they were trapped on all sides.
"Relashio!"
Startled, Ron turned in time to see Harry's wand directed at the chains holding the dragon down. What the bleeding –
"This way!" Harry ran towards the goblin and Ron could only assume that he had finally lost it.
"Harry – Harry what are you doing?"
Ron's thoughts echoed Hermione's inquiry.
"Get up, climb on, come on!"
He gaped as Harry scrambled up the leg of the thing. Finally, like he'd learned to do so well, he followed Harry.
He and Hermione arrived just in time for him to help her up and then pull himself up behind her, thinking all the while that he must be mad.
The dragon raised itself onto its haunches and Ron felt the increasingly familiar sting of his impending doom. He clung to the scales of the dragon, closed his eyes and prayed to whatever force existed that he would not die by way of inability to hold on to a dragon.
"We'll never get out! It's too big!"
Ron cracked his eyes open and noted that, indeed, the dragon was far too big to fit through the slender opening before them. Even if it could somehow squeeze through, they would be nothing more than squashed insects.
Apparently this dragon was more self-sufficient than they'd anticipated. With a great roar, it opened its mouth and blew a flame to rival those previously, carving out a large enough entrance.
This time, Ron couldn't close his eyes, entranced by the scene enfolding before him. The dragon was tearing away rock and huge chunks of the cave wall, slithering its way out.
"Defodio!"
Ron stared in awe as a jet of light shot from Hermione's wand and enlarged the entrance of the hole.
Harry and Ron wasted no time in helping her. The work went much quicker after that, the distance between them and the goblins growing steadily larger. Finally, with a lurch that made Ron hold to the dragon with both hands again, they were in the entrance hall of the securest wizarding bank in the world.
A moment later they were in the streets and then, with a leap, they launched into the air.
Ron's stomach flew into his brain and choked his throat and something was about to come out – he was mildly surprised when he was cursing and he couldn't stop, he could only hold on to Hermione, gripping her hands as she sobbed.
At any moment they could be thrown off, but like the lucky blighters they were, they'd escaped yet another impossible situation. Ron buried his face in Hermione's hair and, still weeping a little, she leaned back into him.
The dragon moved steadily higher and, intimidating as the idea of being thrown off a dragon was, and as cold as the air up there was, there were few feelings that had ever compared to flying through the air on the back of a dragon with Hermione leaning into his chest and holding his hands sweetly to her stomach.
However, it was only so long of this before Ron was seriously worried. The air was thin and he couldn't feel any of his extremities.
"What do you reckon it's looking for?"
"No idea!"
Ron secured his arms more firmly around Hermione knowing that she must be freezing. He was surprised, leaning in, to hear soft, even breathing that meant she had fallen asleep. Her grip slackened on Harry's waist and Ron (without complaint) held her more firmly between the two of them.
Time passed in a daze. Ron occasionally dozed a bit, but mostly just closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to not worry, think or do anything except feel. It was clichéd and he wouldn't have admitted it aloud, but it filled him with overwhelming exhilaration.
He opened his eyes for a moment and looked to the side. His stomach jolted. The ground was growing larger.
"Is it my imagination or are we losing height?"
It was a rhetorical question. It was obvious, now, as the landscape beneath them became sharper that they were indeed spiraling to the ground.
"I say we jump when it gets low enough! Straight into the water before it realises we're here!"
Hermione was awake, now, as Ron heard her murmur her hesitant agreement.
"NOW!"
For a wild moment, Ron didn't know if he would actually do it. Then, as Hermione began to slide, he thought that there was no chance he was letting her fall without him.
They plummeted to the surface and the sensation in his gut was like skipping an entire Hogwarts staircase. The wind whistled through his ears and then, with a great crash, he hit the water. It was freezing and it seemed as though his entire system collapsed as he shot further and further beneath the waves.
When he finally broke the surface, gasping and spluttering, he saw Harry and Hermione bobbing next to him. Harry cried something unintelligible but Ron gathered that he wanted them to swim to the shore opposite that of the dragon's landing place.
Choking for air, he began to swim.