Chapter One - Wake Up Ronnie

"I can't believe how useless you two are," Ron grumbled as he stirred the pot over Hermione's magically conjured fire, "heroic stuff: brilliant; defensive magic: brilliant; hoarding an entire library's worth of knowledge in your head: brilliant; actual practicalities that are of some real use when searching for fragments of the most dangerous dark wizard in history's soul: clueless!"

Harry chuckled, he was sure he could have a go at preparing dinner for the three of them out of absolutely nothing but Ron was fantastic at it so he had been feigning incompetence. He was nowhere near as good at turning dew into salt, pollen into honey, and moss into a variety of different herbs as Ron was. Harry thought that was due to Mrs Weasley, if there was a way of doing something that kept them within their merge budget then the Weasleys would know of it. Putting food on the table for a family of nine must have been hard, Harry thought, but Mrs Weasley had managed to do it for all those years somehow. He watched Ron as he transfigured a handful of gravel into tomato seeds and tossed them onto the ground, added water to them and mumbled and incantation that made the seeds rapidly sprout and begin to grow inside the cave.

"Surculus! They won't be very sweet I'm afraid, I need to be doing this in the sunlight really" Ron had shrugged as he turned his attention to some toadstools he had found just outside and transfigured them into mushrooms.

"It'll be fantastic Ron, it always is" Hermione smiled.

Harry could see that she felt a little frustrated that Ron was able to do this so much better than she was. She had attempted to transfigure toadstools into mushrooms herself but they had been hallucinogenic mushrooms and none of them wanted to go through another night like that one again in a hurry. He tried not to laugh at the memory and could've sworn he saw Ron was having the same thought.

"Um, Hermione could you do me a favour and conjure up some bowls and cutlery for me?" Ron said, with a hidden snigger in his voice, I'm going to have another crack at getting us some bread."

Hermione nodded and set about transfiguring rocks and leaves that were scattered around the inside of the cave into a matching dinner service, now that was complicated magic at it's best and that's why she could do it so well. Cooking, it seemed, wasn't her thing and neither was improvising ingredients.

"Lanx, calix! There you go," she said with some satisfaction as Ron left the cave, wand in hand, "good luck with the bread this time."

Ron snorted and called over his shoulder.

"Thanks, I'll need it!"

Bread was a bit of a complicated one to transfigure from scratch. Even Mrs Weasley had to use the basic ingredients when she was baking her own. Ron kept telling them it was the yeast that complicated things. He never managed to get his bread to rise apart from that one time when the dough he managed to transfigure from a pile of damp wheat kept swelling until it almost swallowed up a large oak tree they had intended to camp beneath. That had taken some getting rid of that was for sure.

Harry watched Hermione as her eyes followed Ron out of the cave. When he was out of sight she turned her head towards Harry and caught him watching her, a slight smile on his face, and blushed.

"I'd offer to go and help but after the toadstool fiasco..." she shrugged.

"Yeah, best be safe eh?" Harry chuckled.

She sat opposite him, cross-legged, and let out a sigh.

"So do you have any clue where to begin looking?"

He shook his head and looked at the dirty ground.

"What about which horcrux we're going to go after first, any preference?"

He sighed and raised his eyes to meet hers again for a moment before staring back down and prodding at an earwig with the tip of his wand.

"I don't know. I don't even know what all of them are."

Hermione's hand reached out for him and he looked up as her hand rested on his knee.

"You've got an idea though haven't you?"

He sighed a little deeper and shrugged.

"All I've got is Dumbledore's theories. Dumbledore's theories and no Dumbledore."

Hermione gave him a sad smile as Ron stomped back into the cave with a defeated huff.

"Didn't rise again, we'll have to make do..." he paused and stared at Harry and Hermione for a moment before frowning, "...am I interrupting something?"

Harry suddenly realised that Hermione's hand was still resting on his knee and she had obviously noticed it too as she pulled it away and tutted at Ron.

"We're talking about where to start tomorrow, we haven't really got a plan of action have we?"

Ron made a humming sound and walked back over to the fire.

"So," Harry stood up and moved across to Ron's side to see what he had managed if not bread, "Is it pita again tonight then?"

"What? Oh no, better than that, I managed a naan for each of us" Ron said as he held up three large naan breads.

Harry was quite impressed as he examined the fluffy naans, he felt sure Ron would master a loaf within the week at this rate. Hermione leaned over the stack and inhaled the aromas.

"Mmmm, you even seasoned them."

Ron nodded.

"Garlic and coriander," his face broke into a smile, "we're gonna stink!"

As Hermione set a naan on each of the plates and Harry filled the cups with water from his wand Ron stirred his stew and mumbled something to himself.

"Maybe I should add some curry powder seeing as we've got naans."

"No!" both Harry and Hermione blurted, eyes wide.

The Weasley family's idea of curry was a normal human beings idea of molten lava and Harry's taste buds had still yet to recover from Mrs Weasley's curried eggs at Bill and Fleur's wedding the previous week.

"Fine," Ron rolled his eyes, "stew and naan bread it is then."

He and Hermione cast a thankful glance toward him before sharing a relieved sigh and sitting on the floor before their plates.

"Philistines" Ron grumbled under his breath.

"I think you're using that word in the wrong context Ronald. Your curry isn't exactly a work of art." Hermione smiled as Ron levitated the pot down into the centre of their dining area on the floor.

"Now that's blasphemy!" Ron said with a wave of his ladle at a visibly amused Hermione.

This was how their first week of the quest had been so far, fun. Harry knew it wouldn't last and decided to savour the laughter while they had the luxury of it. He had a fake horcrux in his pocket and three genuine ones to track down before facing Voldemort himself. He didn't have a clue where to begin. He didn't know how Dumbledore had come up with the idea of looking in that cave from Riddle's childhood but he felt sure that he was going to clutch at a hell of a lot of straws before even getting close to a real horcrux and then what? Then he would have to go through something similar to what Dumbledore had to, and all for nothing, or maybe worse. He broke his naan bread and watched as Ron and Hermione teased each other between mouthfuls of stew. What would they have to go through in order to help him he wondered? He hoped it wouldn't be too bad.

He knew it would be though.

Harry felt something kick against his foot and jolted awake, fumbling for his wand with one hand and his glasses with the other.

"Lumos!" he yelled, waking Hermione.

"What is it? Who is it?" she was wriggling out of her sleeping bag and pulling out her own wand as she spoke.

Harry's eyes finally focused on the figure silhouetted in the mouth of the cave against the moonlight.

"Ron?"

Hermione was three steps ahead of him as they ran to join Ron, who had obviously seen something and gone to investigate, and Harry had seen her expression as she reached him and looked at his face.

"Hermione what is it?" he whispered as he drew up alongside Ron and tore his eyes from Hermione's expression of discomfort and concern to Ron's own blank face, "What's wrong?"

"Ron?" Hermione stood right in front of him and snapped her fingers twice but Ron didn't even blink.

"What's the matter with him?"

Hermione bit her lip as she examined Ron's glazed eyes closely.

"I think...I think he's sleepwalking."

She reached out to shake Ron awake but Harry batted her arm away fiercely.

"Don't do that! Don't you know you're not supposed to wake a sleepwalker?" he hissed, beginning to wonder if Ron really was sleepwalking at all.

Hermione huffed and cast an annoyed glare in Harry's direction before responding with great impatience.

"Don't you know a myth when you hear one Harry? That's a load of tosh and you know it."

She reached out to Ron again with both hands now and Harry pulled her away with some annoyance.

"I don't know it and neither do you! Are you telling me you stayed in the library in Hogwarts and read up on sleeping disorders for fun?"

"Well no I didn't but it's obviously an old wives tale isn't it? What's supposed to happen to a sleepwalker if you wake them up then? Do you know that?"

"No I don't, I know about as much as you do and that's why I don't think we should take the chance of waking him up!"

Harry couldn't quite believe they were having an argument right now; he turned to glance at Ron and saw that he was gone.

"Oh shit."

Hermione spun around and pointed to Ron as he trudged in an uncoordinated manner towards the woods several feet away from the mouth of the cave. They rushed after him, disagreeing all the way about how to stop him wandering off.

"You see Harry we've got to wake him."

"It could be dangerous."

"And wandering off into the woods in the middle of the night in a trance isn't?" she puffed.

They reached him and before Harry could stop her Hermione leapt in front of Ron and placed her hands forcefully onto his chest, stopping him in his tracks.

"What are you doing?" Harry let out an exasperated cry.

"I'm not waking him alright? I'm stopping him."

He saw her eyes looking up into Ron's own once again and realised that she wasn't trying to be difficult, they really did have to get him back to the cave somehow for his own safety, and rested his arm around Ron's back.

"Come on Ron, back to bed now" he said as he pulled Ron around as gently as he could.

Hermione seemed greatly relieved at his actions and took Ron's arm on the other side and helped to lead him back into the cave.

"It's alright, there's nothing to see out here, let's get back inside ok?"

She and Harry shared a look of apology as they guided Ron deep into the cave and got him to settle back down on the floor.

"His eyes are still open aren't they?" Hermione frowned as she covered him with a blanket.

Harry nodded as he looked into the unfocused stare that made his best friend look nothing like himself at all.

"Maybe we should try to close them" he wondered aloud.

"No," Hermione said quickly as she sat beside Harry and watched Ron as if trying to work out a difficult equation inside her head, "you're right, neither of us know anything about this really do we? We shouldn't do anything other than make sure he doesn't wander off again."

"I'm sorry about just now Hermione, I was just worried because I've heard..."

"I've heard those stories too Harry," she interrupted him with a smile, "I understand why you wanted to be careful about waking him, I just don't believe that they're true. I should've understood your need for caution though, I'm sorry."

Harry smiled and shook his head.

"Let's just say we're both sorry and never mention it again."

"Deal."

The rest of that night was spent waiting for Ron's eyes to close, which they eventually did after half an hour, and sitting guard on the off chance he might make another unconscious escape bid. As they talked through the night they covered as many angles of Ron's history of sleep as they could; the fact that he sometimes mumbled and the fact that he always snored. Harry had sworn to Hermione that, as far as he knew, Ron had never once walked in his sleep in all their years sharing a dormitory in Griffindor tower. There was a tangent-filled discussion about Ron's nightmares and his ability to fall into the deepest of sleeps within record time before they both grew too tired to keep their own eyes open any longer and resolved to let themselves sleep at last. Hermione conjured a seal across the mouth of the cave that would rouse her or Harry if anybody tried to get in or out.

That was the first time, as far as Harry could remember, that Ron had woken up before both him and Hermione in the morning. Harry's eyes had opened to the sight of Ron pointing his wand at a small bundle of wheat he had obviously just grown in the same way as he had the tomatoes the night before and tried the incantation that had become quite familiar to Harry by now.

"Crustum!" Ron flicked his wand and the wheat began to weave together into the shape of a loaf of bread before flattening out into a solid disc shape and dropping to the floor like a frizzbee, "Bollocks!"

"No yeast again?" Harry's voice croaked.

Ron was startled by this sudden intrusion into his quest for bread and flinched slightly before sighing and shaking his head with resignation.

"I'm missing something, it should already have yeast in it, I just can't get it to rise" he grimaced before lifting up the baked disc and knocking on it with his knuckles.

"Speaking of which," Harry said as he heaved himself up into the sitting position, "you seemed pretty eager to rise yourself in the middle of the night."

Ron's eyes almost bulged out of his head and Harry realised how what he had just said could be interpreted.

"No not that! You were sleepwalking."

Ron looked predictably surprised but there was something else in his expression that made Harry question him on whether this had happened to him before.

"Not for years," Ron had said as they sat down in front of the porridge Ron had managed to transfigure the failed bread into as it magically served itself into Harry's clumsily conjured bowls, "I used to wake up in the strangest places but I never remembered doing it. Apparently I punched George once."

"Really?" Harry exclaimed, thankful that Ron hadn't become violent with him and Hermione the previous night.

"They tell me I'm quite strong when it happens. It used to make Ginny cry, I look a bit scary when I'm like that so I'm told, but I haven't done that since..." Ron looked thoughtful for a moment, "...before Hogwarts. Bloody hell years before Hogwarts. I really did it again?"

Harry nodded.

"I can see why it used to upset Ginny mate, it was as if you weren't...in there."

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault," Hermione's tired voice sounded from the spot she lay curled up inside her sleeping bag, "although I'd like to request your permission to tie you up tonight just to be on the safe side."

Ron raised an eyebrow, Harry stifled a laugh and Hermione's voice spoke up once again with more than a passing resemblance to McGonagall's disapproving tone.

"And I don't even have to bother opening my eyes to know you've got that look on your face Ronald Weasley."

Ron and Harry stared at one another before sharing a smirk and a shake of the head before turning their attention back to their porridge and their conversation.

"You know there is one thing that Hermione and I really need to know Ron?"

Ron swallowed his mouthful and frowned.

"What's that then?"

"Do you know if you can be woken, is it ok to do it I mean?"

"He wants to know that it's safe" Hermione sighed as she sat up and shook the grit from her hair.

"Um," Ron seemed to have suddenly lost the ability to look Harry in the eye, "it's best if you don't."

Hermione and Harry looked at each other in astonishment before turning their gaze back to Ron.

"Why do you say that?" Hermione asked.

Ron still wasn't looking at either of them and this was causing Harry some concern.

"Well it's just that Fred and George did once and...mum said to the rest of the family that I shouldn't ever be woken from it after that."

"Do you remember what happened?" Harry asked, not entirely sure he really wanted to know the answer to this question.

Ron shook his head.

"I never remember anything about it when it happens."

"But you were woken up," Hermione pressed for more information with more perseverance than Harry could muster right then, "do you remember waking up?"

Ron seemed suddenly agitated and got to his feet.

"I don't remember anything about anything, I'm just telling you both what I've been told."

He began to walk to the mouth of the cave and Hermione got up and ran after him.

"Wait what's wrong? You can tell us Ron, we just want to know how to deal with you if it ever happens again."

Ron spun around with what Harry assumed was a false cheerfulness and shrugged at her.

"It won't happen again. It hasn't happened for ten years, it won't happen for another ten, you don't have to worry about it." he nodded over her shoulder and back to the bowl of porridge that was waiting for her, "Eat up Hermione, it'll go cold."

Harry didn't buy it and he could tell by Hermione's posture that she didn't either as she tugged at the sleeve of his sweatshirt as he turned to leave again.

"Should I send an owl to your mother to ask her how to deal with it?"

Ron turned on her defensively.

"Don't you dare go upsetting my mother!" he warned her.

Harry got to his feet and took a couple of steps toward his two friends.

"Why can't you trust us?" Harry asked in as calming a tone as he could manage at that moment.

Ron seemed to slump before giving the two of them a look of apology and shaking his head.

"I don't know what I did ok? I did something and they wouldn't tell me what it was and it made mum cry...for three days...she wouldn't even look at me."

Ron's head dropped and Hermione pulled him into a hug without hesitation.

"It's ok, we won't try to wake you if it ever happens again I promise, we just wanted to be prepared that's all."

Harry felt awful now, he was right after all and he hated that he was, he knew that whatever it was that happened to Ron when the twins had woken him had caused Mrs Weasley not to be able to bare looking at her own son for three days. That Mrs Weasley even had that in her made Harry feel queasy but the fact that it was caused by something Ron did made the feeling even worse.

Hermione released Ron and he took a reluctant step away from her.

"Dad told me it wasn't my fault. He kept saying it wasn't me, I wasn't myself when I woke up," Ron took a step towards the mouth of the cave as he spoke, "and that I shouldn't feel guilty about upsetting mum."

Harry's stomach twisted as he watched Ron edging away from them both, the news that he was sleepwalking again obviously bringing back some very bad memories for his friend, and knew that this wasn't a matter of Ron trusting them but trusting himself.

"Ron I..." Hermione began before Ron fixed a smile on his face and interrupted her.

"I'll just go for a walk if you don't mind, a conscious one, I'll be back in...I'll be back."

Ron stepped out of the cave and a wave of energy shook Harry and Hermione to the bone.

"Whoa!" Ron gasped, "What the bloody hell was that?"

"I think that was our warning system being triggered" Harry shivered, feeling slightly nauseated and struggling to keep his porridge down."

Ron could see how badly the alert spell had affected them and arched his eyebrows.

"Maybe we'd all be better off if you tied me up tonight after all eh?"

Before either of them could respond he had walked away.

"Harry I..." Hermione began.

"If what you're about to say involves the words library or research then just go now."

She nodded once and disapparated on the spot. She was back seconds later to get changed.