Chapter Two - The Young Somnambulists Handbook
"Well we were both right."
Hermione was finally returning to the world outside her book on Somnambulism to have an actual conversation with him.
"Well of course we were, I'd hate to see you ever be wrong about something even once Hermione" Harry said with weary sarcasm.
She looked at him as if he was a stranger to her.
"Are you channelling Ron?"
"What have I done?" Ron suddenly asked as he packed up the last of his gear from their overnight stay in the cave.
"Don't worry, Hermione's just telling me how she was right after all."
"Right about what?" Ron frowned.
Harry shrugged and shook his head.
"I don't think it really matters as long as she's right."
Harry and Ron shared a snigger at Hermione's obvious annoyance at their teasing as she looked back at her book.
"Well if you don't want to know more about Ron's sleepwalking then I'll just keep what I've learnt to myself shall I?" she said in a clipped tone.
"Ooh you're in trouble now" Ron smirked as he shrank his sleeping bag down to the size of a Swiss roll and dropped it into his backpack.
Harry dumped his own full backpack beside Hermione and sat down on top of it to look at the page Hermione was focusing so intently upon.
"Sorry Hermione, what were you going to tell me?"
"I was just going to fill you in on the basic facts but you don't have to humour me, I'll just deal with Ron by myself tonight."
Ron paused and his eyes flicked up to meet Hermione's own, she seemed to be fighting back the pink flush that was creeping over her cheeks.
"You're going to have to stop saying stuff like that Hermione, it'll give people the wrong idea" Ron said before re-arranging the contents of his back pack.
Harry tried not to laugh and nodded to a now flustered Hermione as she returned her attention to her book.
"Right then, sleepwalking or somnambulism usually happens in childhood and very rarely continues into adulthood. You will find it incredibly difficult arousing a patient during an episode. The patient is not aware of what is happening and not formulating memories of his or her actions, this amnesia only lasts a short time after waking."
"Tell me something I don't know" Ron mumbled.
"The sleep walking only ever happens when the patient is in a state of deep sleep which usually occurs three or four hours in," Hermione continued, "Adult sleepwalkers can be more aggressive and there is potential for self-injury."
Hermione stalled at this paragraph and Harry glanced over to Ron who seemed to be concentrating hard on untying a knot in his shoelace and deliberately averting his eyes from the both of them. Hermione took a deep breath and carried on reading.
"If the patient is suffering from a fever the symptoms can become much worse. Ah, here it is," she said with a confident tone as she pointed to the sentence she was reading aloud, "It is a common misconception that sleepwalkers shouldn't be woken. See I told you it was a myth didn't I?"
Harry was in the middle of rolling his eyes when Ron kicked at his misshapen back pack and growled with annoyance.
"Bloody thing!"
Hermione looked from Harry to Ron with concern as she closed the book and got to her feet, crossing the cave as she spoke.
"This is a muggle medical book Ron, I don't doubt that there could be a big difference between magical somnambulism and muggle somnambulism, Harry and I will still follow your mother's advice and be sure not to wake you up I promise."
Ron turned his head and stared at her for a second before nodding.
"Thanks. It might not even happen again eh?" he said with a hopeful smile.
Hermione grinned back at him.
"There's absolutely no reason to think it will."
Hermione turned back to shrink the library book and stuff it into the mini library in her own backpack and Harry leaned in to whisper to her.
"Did the book say anything about any kind of treatment for it?"
"Only hypnosis," she sighed, "and as neither of us know how to do that we'll have to work on magical confinement spells just to be on the safe side."
"Right so where else can you think of from what you saw of Riddle's childhood then Harry?" Ron called over to them as he hoisted his backpack over his shoulders.
"You said he was really fond of the school didn't you? He kept wanting to come back to Hogwarts all the time" Hermione pondered.
"Please don't tell me we have to go back into the Chamber of Secrets again," Ron pleaded with him.
"Well that can be a last resort. I've been thinking actually, he spent a lot of time at the Riddle house considering how much he hated that family."
"There's an idea," Hermione nodded.
"Come on then, let's go."
Harry had to take Ron and Hermione to the Riddle House using side-along apparition as neither of them had a destination to focus on. In truth Harry was kind of amazed that he had even been able to get there himself seeing as he'd only ever seen the place in a dream but there he was. It made him feel very uncomfortable to be standing there and he was thankful that it was daylight.
"You don't think he still uses this place do you?" Ron asked with anxiety.
"I'm sure Voldemort doesn't but you never can tell where you'll find a Death Eater these days can you?" Harry said bitterly, "wands out just to be safe though alright?"
Ron and Hermione complied and the three of them approached the house with great caution.
"So of all the things that could be a horcrux here what do you think's the most likely then Harry?" Hermione whispered for no particular reason.
Harry hadn't the faintest idea; he was really unprepared for this now that he thought about it.
"Well all I know is that Dumbledore felt pretty sure that Nagini was one of them, she could be here I suppose."
"Oh great," Ron muttered as they neared the large oak door at the front of the house.
"Then," Harry went on, "there's that goblet thing of Helga Hufflepuff's, I can't think why that would be here though, at least I've seen Nagini here so that would make sense."
"Well it looks the sort of place to be filled with old relics so an ancient cup would blend in easily wouldn't it?" Hermione ventured as her own fingers tightened around the handle of her wand.
"Isn't this place generally known to be deserted though? It's a bit open for thieves isn't it? Surely anything of value would've been nicked ages ago" Ron said as he stopped at the doorstep to the Riddle house, holding out his wand in preparation for a sudden attack.
"That's why this place screams snake to me for that very same reason mate, she's her own defence isn't she? That fake horcrux, that had a hell of a lot of protection and surely if something like that was in place here then there'd be a lot more dead and missing muggles connected to this place than just the Riddles and that old man a few years back."
"We still don't know what it is of Griffindor's that we're looking for do we?" Hermione said, tension in her voice as she flicked her wand and unlocked the door, "We could be walking into anything."
"Or even worse," Harry said as he took a deep breath and stepped into the house, "nothing."
They began their investigation of the massive house together, safety in numbers was the theory, but after the first hour of ensuring that there was nobody there but themselves they agreed to split up to get the search done before dark. Nobody wanted to still be there at night.
Hermione was going to cover the ground floor, Ron the second and Harry the third, and when they were all done they were going to venture up into the attic together.
Harry shuddered at the familiarity he felt walking down those hallways and couldn't help but feel guilty as he rummaged around amongst the Riddle family's personal artefacts. He wasn't sure what he was looking at half of the time. How was he supposed to tell if something was significant or not he asked himself? He had spent a good ten minutes cautiously approaching a set of horse brasses that hung on the wall in the wood panelled smoky room at the end of the row of bedrooms because they gave him an eerie feeling before realising that the reason for that was because they looked just like the ones that Uncle Vernon had admired at his boss' house and that Harry had accidentally brought to life and watched in shock as they set about trying to strangle his uncle.
Harry huffed and wondered if he was ever going to be able to do this without Dumbledore.
"Detineo!"
Harry recognised Ron's voice from downstairs as he yelled the defensive spell and then heard a mighty crash. He ran before he even realised he was moving and heard Hermione calling out Ron's name as she ran up a flight to meet Harry as they turned to the source of the commotion and saw Ron backing out of the room, wafting dust and debris away from himself and sputtering.
"What happened?" Harry demanded as he ran to his friend who was now brushing himself down and looking slightly embarrassed.
"False alarm, all my fault, sorry."
"What were you defending yourself against?" Hermione snapped, obviously annoyed at Ron having given her such a scare in this huge intimidating house.
Harry watched the dust settle as Ron ventured back inside the room and picked up a long fresh snakeskin with his wand.
"I only caught it out of the corner of my eye and I sort of panicked" Ron explained with a shrug.
Hermione backed away a step.
"That looks as if it came from a big snake."
Harry nodded.
"That looks as if it came from Nagini."
Ron let the snakeskin slide off of his wand and coughed some more of the decades old dust from his lungs as he walked back over to the two of them at the doorway.
"So does that mean we just missed her or I just tipped her off that we're here?" he asked Harry, fearing the answer was the latter of the two scenarios.
Harry gave this some thought before lowering his wand.
"I think that when we find Nagini we find either Voldemort himself or a hell of a lot of Death Eaters. I can't see her slithering around by herself can you?"
"So," Hermione tilted her head at an angle and squinted at Harry, "there was a horcrux here and there isn't now."
Harry raised his eyes to the ceiling and said the one thing that none of them wanted to hear.
"If there is there's only one place left to look...in the attic."
There was no light switch in the attic. Harry went ahead of Ron and Hermione and felt the cobwebs breaking against his face as he groped his way forward. He brushed the fine strands away and wondered how badly Ron was going to react when he felt them on his skin. He was about to light his wand tip when he lost his footing and twisted his ankle as he slipped off the narrow beam he was unknowingly balancing upon. Ron's arm had caught Harry as he started to fall and Hermione's voice broke the darkness.
"Lumos!"
Harry almost lost his balance once again, pulling Ron over with him, when he saw that there was no floor to the attic at all. Ron managed to find a secondary beam to rest his other foot, making himself a lot more solid as Harry felt his friend brace himself and pull him up to rest both feet on the widest beam beneath him.
"Cheers mate," Harry winced as he took the weight off his swelling ankle.
"Well this is going to be more difficult than we thought isn't it?" Ron huffed as Hermione's wand light was directed around the walls of the attic, "Balancing across a rotten piece of wood three inches wide in the dark, looking for something that you don't recognise or that could be a huge snake with huge fangs..."
"With a sprained ankle?" Harry added.
"Well there is that too" Ron shrugged as he shifted his weight out from beneath Harry and manoeuvred himself in front of him on the widest beam, "and you do realise that if a spider lands on me I'm going to completely lose my composure."
Harry found himself smiling. Ron wouldn't even make it to the far wall without losing his footing in the throes of an arachnophobia attack and go crashing through the floor.
"So essentially this is all down to me then is it?" Hermione huffed.
She didn't wait for an answer as she hopped deftly onto a narrow beam to her left and speedily walked it like a tightrope, overtaking Ron as he edged his large feet along the beam to the right of the attic now, and Harry couldn't help but be impressed at her cat-like balance. He must have made some sort of sound to let her know that was what he was thinking as she spoke with nonchalance over her shoulder as she reached the far wall of the attic.
"I used to want to be a gymnast before I found out I was a witch, the beam was never my best apparatus though, but you never forget do you? Like riding a bike isn't it?"
"I'd like to see you riding a bike up here," Ron snorted as he lit his own wand now and flinched, clumsily jumping across to the next beam over and waving his hands in front of his face with a squeak of panic.
"Ron please try to stay calm," Hermione huffed as she set about rummaging through the dusty shelves, "they're more scared of you than you are of them you know?"
"I seriously doubt that Hermione!" Ron snapped.
Harry would've laughed at this little exchange if he hadn't just lost his balance and been forced to put some weight down on his sprained ankle for a second or two.
"So when you eventually get to your side of the wall remember you're looking for a gold cup with a badger on it, anything with something to do with Godric Griffindor or a locket with an 'S' engraved on it" Hermione called across to Ron.
"Thank you for emphasising the word eventually Hermione. It's so nice to be reminded that, yet again, I'm nowhere near as good as you at something" Ron snapped as he waved a large cobweb out of his path wile cringing.
"Can we concentrate guys?" Harry called out to them, not really wanting his best friends to fall out on this mission.
"We?" Ron's head snapped around to glare at Harry before an anxiety-laced smile crept over his face, "I'll take a twisted ankle over this anytime, you want to swap over?"
Harry chuckled, as Ron seemed to build himself up to walking the last few feet of the beam without stopping to freak out about anything that might crawl over him on his way. He took a deep breath and faced the back wall before hopping, with more luck than skill, along the beam and throwing himself against the shelving against the wall and frantically brushing himself down from head to toe. Harry glanced over at Hermione who was watching him with a small smile on her face before turning back to a locked wooden case about the size of one of Hagrid's fists and tapping the lock with her wand.
See, you faced your fears, you can do anything now Ron" Harry called across to him.
Ron was already hurriedly rummaging amongst the items on the shelf in front of him as he grumbled a response that involved several quite severe swear words.
"I've got to get back yet" was the last thing he said before pointing his wand at what looked like a brass tankard and tossing it way.
"Gold with two handles Ron," Hermione said to him before calling over her shoulder to Harry, "I don't think there's anything up here Harry, this is all just muggle junk."
Harry grimaced, partly with the discomfort of his ankle and partly with the frustration of his utter clueless-ness of where to find any of these magical relics.
"This was the most obvious place to look wasn't it?" Harry's voice said, sounding hollow even to him, "And isn't it obvious that he wouldn't hide something that valuable in such an obvious place as this? I'm such an idiot!"
"Harry don't say that. Even if this turns out to be a non-productive day at least we have another place to cross of the list. We can only find these things by narrowing the list of places they could be down."
Hermione could even make failure sound like a rational and logical decision. Harry was about to tell her this when Ron suddenly yelped and stumbled backwards. He and Hermione turned their wand tips on him in time to see him slip off the beam.
"Agh, bloody hell!" Ron said as the floor gave way at the same time he seemed to be trying to shake of a huge spider as it crawled up his right arm and he disappeared between two beams to be replaced by a cloud of dust.
"Ron!" Hermione screeched as she vaulted from her own beam and landed almost halfway across the attic floor, a frantic look on her face.
Ron had actually done what Harry had seen coming, he had smashed through the unstable floor due to a spider attack, and he would've laughed if the look on Hermione's face as she reached the jagged hole in the floor and peered through wasn't so worrying.
"Harry," she called over to him as she coughed and fanned away the dust that hung in the air, squinting as the light flooded through the hole and illuminated the attic, "we've got to get down there, he's not moving."
Oh this was great. They hadn't found anything and two of them were hurt already. He was cocking this mission up good and proper.
Harry struggled down the ladder and back onto the third floor landing with Hermione hurrying down after him.
"What room do you think he fell into?" Harry winced as he hobbled in the general direction of Ron's fall.
"It looked like a bedroom with thick burgundy curtains hanging in the window."
Harry remembered searching that room earlier and limped along the hallway to the third door along and flung it open. He expected to see a limp or twisted Ron on the floor but the sight that greeted him was even worse than that. Harry wouldn't be able to get there in time and he grabbed Hermione and shoved her through the door ahead of him.
"Stop him!" Harry gasped as he watched Ron swinging his leg out of the window and begin to hoist himself up onto the ledge.
Hermione crossed the room in a second and wrapped her arms around his waist, hauling him back inside and falling back onto the floor with the weight of him.
"Ron what are you doing?" she demanded as she wriggled out from under him.
Harry had dropped to his knees and crawled over to the two of them and found himself shushing Hermione as she turned to yell at their friend. He could see what was going on in an instant and it made him feel sick. Ron's eyes were unfocused and unblinking as he began to get back to his feet. Harry grabbed Ron's arm to hold him back and looked at Hermione in desperation.
"He's sleepwalking again."
"What?" she gasped as she clambered to her feet and held Ron's face in her hands, staring into his glazed eyes with determination to prove Harry wrong, "He can't be asleep, he's unconscious, it's not the same thing."
"It's a deep sleep isn't it, a kind of deep sleep anyway, and that's what your book said was the kind of state he'd have to be in for it to happen."
Hermione was feeling the back of Ron's head with her fingers while remaining focused on his expressionless face.
"He's knocked out this shouldn't be possible," her eyes were beginning to well up now, "and why did he try to jump out of the window?"
Harry struggled to make sense of this from his position in a heap on the floor.
"I don't think he was trying to hurt himself, I think he's just trying to go somewhere."
"From the third floor window?" Hermione spat the words down at him in a way that would have made Mrs Weasley proud.
"He doesn't know where he is," Harry speculated in his own defence, "he just knows he needs to be somewhere else."
Ron was now pushing against Hermione to try to get to the open door, a fight that she was loosing with him, and she glared down at Harry as he massaged his greatly swollen ankle and winced.
"Harry I need your help, he really is too strong for me you know?" she groaned as she used all weight to hold Ron back.
"In case you haven't noticed I can't really stand right now" Harry barked at her.
Was this how it was going to be with the two of them? Every time Ron had an episode he and Hermione would have a fight? He hoped not, it was bad enough when it was just Ron and Hermione bickering all the time without it becoming a three-way thing. Hermione withdrew her wand and in doing so found herself unable to hold on to the struggling Ron any longer. As he blundered out of the room and off down the hallway she pointed her wand at Harry's ankle and he covered his eyes.
"Adstringo sano!" a flash of warm yellow light enveloped his ankle and he felt a soothing pressure and the pain receding.
Harry couldn't wait around to test his the spell's effectiveness and just hoped that his ankle was strong enough to support his weight as Hermione's helped him to his feet and the two of them ran after Ron. They caught up to him halfway down the stairs and began to debate what to do.
"We're going to have to wake him," Hermione said reluctantly.
"No, we promised him we wouldn't and you know we shouldn't."
"But Harry he just tried to throw himself out of a third floor window!"
"No he didn't, he just tried to leave the house, he didn't know he was on the third floor..."
Hermione seemed to be stifling a sob as she spoke now.
"But the book, the book said sleepwalkers hurt themselves, this is what it meant. He's going to fall down the stairs or jump out of a window and not know he's doing it. We've got to do something to stop this and now it's pretty obvious that knocking him out isn't going to help."
"We promised Hermione!" Harry said with determination while linking his arm with Ron's to be sure he didn't take a spill down the stairs he was clearly not focused upon, "We swore we wouldn't wake him, we're right here aren't we? We won't let him do anything stupid."
They reached the bottom of the stairs and Harry felt Ron pulling towards the front door.
"He wants to go outside, he's trying to leave the house, that's all he wants."
Hermione's rational thought seemed to come back to her now that Ron was at ground level and she nodded.
"Ok well the grounds here are pretty big, we can let him wander until he comes round or falls asleep and just keep a close eye on him until then."
"Good idea," Harry nodded, "know any spells just to be safe?"
Hermione's eyes darted from side to side as she seemed to be going through the extensive library inside her own head and pointed her wand at the retreating Ron.
"Contineo!"
A shimmering bubble seemed to form several feet around Ron and he was unable to leave it.
"A containment spell, I think we should use that every night from now on Harry."
He nodded and let out a relieved sigh.
"Thanks for fixing my ankle by the way, it feels even stronger than before."
She looked a little bashful at this compliment.
"It's magically bound that's all, it'll give you extra support until the healing's done."
Harry pointed his wand back into the Riddle house and summoned their backpacks. He sat down on the steps to the house with Hermione and watched Ron fidgeting inside his magical sphere. He seemed to be mumbling something to himself and nodding. Harry really wished Ron could remember what went on when he was in this state; it really was fascinating. He watched with Hermione in silence as Ron withdrew his wand and pointed it at the shimmering wall. Harry stiffened and nudged Hermione; he didn't know why really, she could see exactly what he could see.
"Can he break out of there d'you think?"
"He shouldn't be able to, only a really powerful wizard would know an incantation strong enough to rupture..." she stopped speaking as something resembling white noise began to emanate from inside the confinement bubble before it fell away from Ron.
Harry and Hermione got back to their feet and watched Ron, readying themselves to pursue him again but taken slightly off guard by the sight of Ron taking a deep breath and nodding again before walking back towards the two of them.
"He's going back into the house again?" Harry frowned.
Hermione held her wand ready and shrugged. Ron was almost directly in front of them now and shoved Harry aside as if he wasn't even there before crouching down and rummaging through the backpack Harry had been resting against. Hermione squatted beside him and rested her hand on his back. She tilted her head at an angle so she could look up into his still unfocused eyes and spoke to him in a calm, soothing manner.
"Are you looking for something Ron? What are you looking for? Can we help you find it?"
Harry felt an icy chill when he heard Ron's voice, barely a whisper, as he appeared to be responding to another question entirely.
"Not without me."
Hermione frowned and tried to lift Ron's head, as if she was trying to force him to look her in the eye, but he just turned back to the contents of Harry's backpack and carried on rummaging.
"We'll find it together. What is it you need?" Hermione's voice was beginning to crack now.
"When are you going to leave me?" Ron said, staring into the distance at nothing at all.
"I'm never going to leave you!" Hermione gasped before looking up at Harry, her eyes reddening and becoming watery.
Harry rested his hand on top of Ron's as it lay still inside his backpack and spoke firmly to him, desperate to get his friend to hear him, and feeling determined to break into his subconscious.
"Can you hear us? Who are you talking to?"
"When it's over?" Ron said, still addressing the middle distance.
Harry and Hermione shared an incomprehensive glance before looking back at Ron who was speaking again before either of them could open their mouths.
"How long?"
Ron seemed to hear something that upset him and he lowered his head and sighed. Hermione tried to pull him into a hug but Ron was looking up and staring into space again.
"I can't see them. They're like shadows" he said, once again in that eerily weak whisper.
"Harry this is scaring me" she said as she wiped a tear from her cheek.
Harry felt a cold chill running through his bones and he grabbed Hermione's backpack and began to search for the book on sleepwalking.
"Where's your mini library? There must be something we can do to...I've got it!" Harry pulled out the shrunken down book and held it out to Hermione, "Enlarge it for me."
"Engorgeo!" she said with a swish of her wand before returning her attention to Ron.
Ron was making renewed efforts to find whatever he was looking for inside Harry's backpack as Harry flicked through the pages of the book.
Bloody hell was this thing long-winded, why couldn't they just have a chapter marked 'cures'?
"Give it here," Hermione snapped and grabbed the book from Harry, "we need to find something about what to do if the patient becomes distressed."
Harry realised that even if they did find anything it probably wouldn't apply to Ron anyway, this was a muggle textbook after all.
As Hermione fanned through the pages Ron's left arm suddenly shot out towards her and tore the book from her hands, she let out a squeal of shock as she watched him pull out a quill from Harry's backpack and begin to try to write something on one of the pages.
"Ron," Harry said to his friend with great urgency, "wait a second, you don't have any ink, don't write just yet."
Hermione let out a gasp of hope.
"He's trying to send us a message."
Ron was still scratching away on the page and Harry cursed as he reached around in the mess Ron had made of his organised backpack for the bottle of ink he knew was in there somewhere.
"Got it!" he said as he unscrewed the top and tried to ink Ron's quill while he was still attempting to write with it.
Hermione's eyes widened suddenly and she clamped her hand to her mouth in horror.
"Oh no this is a library book! You can't write on library books."
Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Hermione, get some perspective!"
They both leaned forward to squint at handwriting that was even worse than Ron's usual scrawl. Ron seemed to be at the end of whatever sentence he had been trying to write and the handwriting was illegible. Harry could make out one word though, and from the gasp that Hermione had just let out she could read it too, the last word Ron wrote before slumping over and being caught in Harry's arms.
...Borgin's.