Chapter Seven - Withdrawal Symptoms

"Harry"

The voice whispered, penetrating his sleep, was this his dream or was this somebody really talking to him again he wondered?

"Harry please wake up!" the voice hissed, it was Ron and he sounded desperate.

Harry's eyes flew open and he jerked up from the ground.

"Oh thank Merlin, I was beginning to think I was in trouble there," Ron sighed with relief.

"What's the matter? What's happened?" Harry sat up and looked down at Ron laying quite still in his sleeping bag.

"What happened? You tell me Harry. You two obviously did something after Hermione put me to sleep 'cause I can't get up."

Harry let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh blimey Ron, don't do that to me, you had me scared for a second then."

"You're scared? I can't move and I've needed to pee for almost an hour now, I've been bloody terrified!"

Harry finally understood the gravity of the situation and pulled out his wand.

"Oh sorry, let me lift the...um..."

Harry realised he wasn't really sure what Hermione had done to restrain Ron for the night. He remembered she'd used more than one kind of spell.

"Um?" Ron said, his state of panic flaring up again, "I don't want to hear 'um' Harry."

"Hermione did it."

"Well bloody well wake her up then!"

Harry scrambled over Ron to shake Hermione awake. She tried to shrug Harry off at first before suddenly flinching and sitting bolt upright, brandishing her wand at the wall with wide eyes.

"What is it? Where are they?"

Harry wondered if this was the way the three of them were going to wake up for the rest of their lives from now on, ready for attack, he hoped not.

"It's fine, Ron just needs the spells lifted so he can...move."

Hermione relaxed on hearing this.

"Move urgently, I need to move urgently!" Ron called over to her, "This is actually causing me pain now."

Hermione leapt into action when she though that one of her spells was hurting him, Harry didn't have time to explain the situation, and she quickly lifted the spells. Harry had never seen Ron move so fast in his life, it was quite an amusing waddle he left the cave with as well, causing him to laugh out loud and Hermione to demand an explanation.

A couple of minutes later Ron walked back into the cave with a resigned smile on his face.

"You know I remember a time, long ago, when I had dignity?"

The three of them had burst into uncontrollable laughter at this and nobody seemed to want to mention the previous night beyond Ron's question.

"Did I do it again last night then?"

"Nope, slept like a log, you were fine mate."

Ron seemed to relax on hearing that and set about slicing the remains of his bread to make toast. Harry tried to scrape the last of the cheese from the bowl so he could have cheese on toast for breakfast and he noticed Ron discreetly nudging Hermione with his elbow. She looked at him and he gave her a small smile that she returned before turning her attention back to her own toast. She looked as if a load had just been lifted and she began to fill Ron in on their progress with Borgin's paperwork.

"...so the guardian angel theory seems to have been right doesn't it?" she beamed at Ron, himself looking as if the weight of the wizarding world was no longer resting on his shoulders, "you helped us find out the location of one of the horcruxes and then you got a peaceful undisturbed night right after. I'd say that meant there's nothing sinister messing with your head."

Harry knew she wasn't being completely honest about her opinion on Ron's nighttime guide but that she needed to feel as if he wasn't being infiltrated by dark magic every night. Harry wasn't sure if he trusted this thing that had, seemingly, been helping them. There was something about the way Ron spoke to them, or it or whatever the hell he had been talking to, that caused Harry to dislike them.

"I'll do whatever you want just don't come out."

Something about that told Harry that his friend had been coerced into going to Borgin's place rather than convinced that it was the right thing to do. He hoped it was over now, they had found what the guide had been trying to show them and now there was no need for it anymore.

"Wow," Ron was exclaiming as he held the obscenely long roll of parchment in front of him, "how did you not fall asleep three paragraphs into this Hermione? This is like a handwritten sleeping draught."

Hermione had chuckled at this and Harry found himself letting out a sigh.

"You alright there mate?" Ron asked as he stared across the fire at him.

"Fine, why do you ask?" Harry grinned a little too eager to seem ok.

"Oh nothing, it's just that your toast is kind of black now."

Ron gestured to the square piece of charcoal that used to be his slice of toast by the fire and Harry hissed as he withdrew it from the flames, burning his fingers as he removed it from the stick he had been using to toast it.

Ron laughed and threw another slice of bread over to him.

"So we're off to Gringotts today them are we?" Ron asked while Harry set about skewering the bread onto the stick and having another go at making his breakfast.

Hermione nodded.

"We can say we're going to make a withdrawal from Harry's vault and see if we can get a decent look around and come up with a plan."

Ron shook his head and took a bite of his toast.

"You seriously believe you can find a way to break into Gringotts vaults? You're off your head Hermione."

"I'm an optimist Ron Weasley!" she said before frowning down at her piece of dry toast, "Um, I don't suppose you're still averse to conjuring up any food are you?"

"What?" Ron wasn't following this until he saw that she didn't have anything on her toast, not even butter, "You can make honey Hermione, I know you can make honey, I've seen you make honey."

She lowered her head and flushed in the cheeks.

"Yours is nicer."

Ron glanced across to Harry and couldn't suppress the smirk that was splitting his face. He pulled out his wand and tapped at Hermione's toast, honey dripping from his wand tip and trickling over the surface of it.

"I'm beginning to think you're making inferior ingredients on purpose, both of you," he turned on Harry as he said this, still with the wide smirk across his face, "just to lumber me with all the cooking duties."

Hermione took a bite of her toast and feigned innocence while Harry pretended he hadn't heard Ron speak at all.

"Hmmm, I thought as much," Ron muttered before biting another chunk out of his own slice of toast.

Ron had been right to some extent as far as Harry was concerned. He could conjure ingredients well enough but he just couldn't do as good a job of combining them into something appetising. Hermione was a different story though, she would have Ron believe that she was just faking incompetence but in truth she really was that dreadful! Harry remembered Hermione conjuring honey too, but he had been fool enough to taste it and discovered that she had actually produced beeswax. He withdrew his golden brown toast from the flames and put the cheese on top of it.

"So back toGringotts," Ron said after licking the residual honey from the tip of his wand, "there's no way we can do this."

"Oh come on Ron, there's always a way with us," Hermione said briskly after swallowing a mouthful of toast, "we see something impossible and laugh. Ha, we say!"

Ron looked at Hermione as if she had grown a second head, and not just any second head but the second head of Grawp.

"Are you alright?"

She grinned and shrugged.

"I'm in a jovial mood this morning."

Ron turned to Harry.

"Why does that scare me?"

"Harry James Potter?" the goblin snarled.

"That's me" Harry nodded.

"Do you have your key?"

"I do" he held up the key to his vault at Gringotts Bank.

"And you would like to make a withdrawal?"

"Well understood, yes that's exactly what I want to do."

Ron sniggered under his breath. The goblin turned on him.

"And would sir like to make a withdrawal from his own vault?"

"I don't need to visit my vault thank you, I'm just here to help Mr Potter carry his money, galleons can be so heavy y'know?"

Harry knew that Ron was joking but it still made him quite uncomfortable.

The goblin's eyes darted up to Ron's bright red hair and back down to his face before a spiteful glint flickered in his eyes.

"A visit to the Weasley family vault maybe?"

Ron didn't even blink.

"No thank you, I've seen an empty vault before."

Harry felt a sudden urge to kick the goblin as he made an amused snorting sound and turned to lead them deep into Gringotts bank. He chanced a glance at Ron, who remained impressively calm about this cruel little dig at his family, and noticed that Hermione had taken his hand and interlaced their fingers. She was also seemingly unaffected by the nasty little man's comment.

"Come on Ron, we wouldn't want to lose sight of him, he is quite tiny after all" she said.

Harry saw the goblin visibly tense up and noticed the corner of Ron's mouth twitch at this before he reset his face into a mask of nonchalance once again as the three of them followed the goblin.

He tried to take in as much of the layout of the bank as he could but there were so many corridors and lifts and at least three staircases that didn't actually seem to lead anywhere at all that he gave up and hoped that Hermione was able to take in all this information better than he was. They knew what number vault Olive Lotterby's vault was, 3830, and that was nowhere near Harry's vault or the Weasleys' for that matter. They were soon hurtling along so fast that Harry wouldn't have been able to tell if they had passed vault 3830 fifty times already.

"Here you are, the vault of Harry James Potter, key if you will sir."

Harry handed the goblin the key and watched as the vault was opened and the key was forced back into his hand as the goblin took a step back.

"In your own time sir, I have no other business to be getting on with today, take as long as you want."

Harry glared at the goblin who stared insolently up at him.

"Don't let me keep you, I'm sure we can find our own way out by ourselves."

The goblin arched an eyebrow and actually managed the feat of looking down his nose at Harry despite only being twelve inches off the ground.

"I think you'll find it impossible to remain in the Gringotts vaults without the presence of either myself or one of my colleagues Mr Potter. I will step to one side if sir is sensitive about being watched admiring his money in front of his, let's say, less fortunate friends."

Harry really wanted to kick him now. Luckily for the goblin he made himself scarce pretty fast and Harry turned his livid gaze to Ron who was smiling and shaking his head.

"Don't worry about it mate, I'm above it...about five feet above it actually!" Ron chuckled.

Harry felt quite impressed at Ron's rational attitude and glanced at Hermione, he noticed she was no longer holding Ron's hand but looking up at him proudly, and grinned.

"I never thought the day would come when I missed his temper" Harry found himself muttering.

Hermione laughed at this.

"What can I say," Ron shrugged, "I've been seeing a specialist in anger management."

Harry tried not to let his eyes dart back to Hermione again and turned back to the vault, gesturing for the two of them to follow him inside.

"Well now we know that, even if we could find a way to get in here, it's impossible to remain here unaccompanied by a Gringotts goblin. This is going to be more of a challenge than we originally thought isn't it?" Hermione said without drawing breath.

Ron put an arm around Hermione's shoulders and introduced his bushy-haired friend to him in a very formal way.

"Harry, the queen of understatement, I believe you've met?"

Hermione shrugged off Ron's arm and rolled her eyes as he and Harry shared a chortle.

"Maybe you were better off when you channelled your energy into angry outbursts after all" she grumbled.

"I'm merely the blob of clay, you've been moulding me, it's your fault" Ron shrugged without realising, as Hermione had done, that Ron had just admitted in front of Harry that there was something more going on between them than just ordinary friendship.

"So back to the...problem in hand," she said, failing to disguise how flustered she was, "any ideas Harry?"

Ron turned to Harry, still oblivious to his slip-up, and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"All I'm seeing is more obstacles," he said with a disheartened shake of the head, "it's like we found the most impossible place to get into and them found out that we had to get into it blindfolded and with both our legs hacked off at the knee!"

"I had a dream like that once," Ron said a to neither of them in particular, "except I was running away from spiders instead of breaking into a..."

"Sirs? Young Miss? Is your business complete today?" the goblin leaned around the door, his gnarled fingers curling around the doorframe.

Harry flinched, hoping that the goblin hadn't heard what Ron was beginning to say, and grabbed a single bronze knut from a pile to his right.

"Yes, got what I came for," he said flicking the coin into the air and catching it with a jaunty wink, "I need something to tip the house elf."

Ron's jaw hung open and Hermione looked a little bit miffed at Harry's 'house elf' comment as they followed him out of the vault and saw him slap the tiny goblin on the back, almost knocking him for six.

"Thanks' for your help my good man, I'll ask for you again next time."

The goblin looked as if he would be glad never to see Harry Potter again as long as he lived and gruffly ushered them along ahead of him.

That'll teach you to look down your nose at MY family.

A/N As you may have noticed I am trying to give this story an even balance between the dark stuff and the light. When things gets nasty (and you all know how nasty I can make things from past experience don't you?) they'll be very nasty so I'm trying to inject as much humour into the otherpart of the storyas I can. It's the British way after all isn't it? The darker the circumstances the more we joke around.

Thanks again for the reviews, as you can tell by the one-shots between ESSM and this fic I do act upon your advice on where I need to improve and gladly take constructive criticism when offered.

I also willingly accept fawning worship so keep that coming too!