Chapter Nine - The Things You Do

"Agito!"

The charm to wake Ron had obviously worked but, after the previous night's adventures, he was more than a little reluctant to get up just yet.

"Five more minutes," he mumbled as he turned over onto the bruised side of his face before flinching, "ow!"

The discomfort of trying to lay on his tender side had achieved what Hermione's spell hadn't, Ron was awake, and he hauled himself up on the twins' sofa and looked around with bleary eyes.

"Where the hell...?" he began to say in a slightly confused tone before suddenly throwing himself into a standing position and searching himself for his wand, "Where the hell...?" he said again, his tone now much more urgent.

"Looking for this?" George said as he held up Ron's wand.

Ron stared at his brother, it seemed he was about to ask the twins what was going on, before remembering how he had originally been woken that morning. Ron's eyes darted from left to right rapidly, not even taking in Harry and Hermione's presence in the flat as he did.

"Where's the...?" again he didn't manage to complete his sentence as Fred held up Hufflepuff's cup.

"The thing you apparently stole from Gringotts last night, is that what you're looking for?" Fred asked while George stood at his side and folded his arms in that way that made him look as solid as a brick wall.

Ron finally noticed Harry and Hermione at his side and shuddered.

"I didn't did I?" his eyes were pleading with them to prove the twins wrong.

Hermione rubbed her hand up and down Ron's arm, not noticing him wince at the discomfort she was causing his bruises.

"We don't know what happened," she sighed.

"How did you get hurt?" Harry asked, grimacing at Ron's swollen eye.

Ron glanced down at his bruises before staring back at Harry and shrugging.

"What is going on?" George demanded.

Hermione pushed Ron back onto the sofa as she began to magically treat Ron's injuries while Harry realised there was no way out of this other than telling the twins the truth, or at least a version of it.

Fred sat down and stared at the cup in his hands.

"So you're saying that if you destroy this cup You-Know-Who gets a little bit weaker?"

Harry nodded.

George cleared his throat and set off into another room.

"Well destruction is our middle name."

"Fred," Ron winced as Hermione tried to examine his swollen eye before continuing, "do you get the Daily Prophet delivered?"

"We do little bro, we do indeed," Fred nodded as he sat forward in his chair, "why do you ask? Afraid you'll see your face on the front page?"

"Well I wasn't until you just said that...Ouch, Hermione!"

Hermione huffed and lifted her hands away from Ron's face, dropping them into her lap in annoyance.

"I'm just trying to help you Ron, don't be such a baby."

"You were poking me in the bloody eye!"

"Now now Ronniekins, be a good little soldier for nurse Hermione or we'll call in matron mum to heal you," George teased as he re entered the room carrying a large block of stone with a deep indentation all the way around the top of it.

"Don't you threaten me with mum," Ron snapped defensively.

Fred was grinning wickedly.

"Oh how we'd love to see you squirm little brother," his mirth seemed to dissipate rather quickly as he spoke, "but I wouldn't want to mention your name and sleepwalking in the same sentence to her for all the galleons in Gringotts."

George gave a derisive snort to break the tension.

"The ones you left in there after your 'raid' last night at least."

"Oh you're funny, both of you, I could listen to you for hours," Ron's deadpan delivery didn't fool Harry, he was very anxious to find out just how much trouble he was in after his escapades during the night.

"Look Ron," Harry began, "I know you're going to tell me you don't but I have to ask you anyway. Do you remember anything at all?"

"Nothing. Did I talk before I left?"

Harry and Hermione shared a glance before Harry nodded.

"Yeah, a bit."

"What did I say, anything interesting?"

"Nothing that made any sense, it was only one half of a conversation mate," Harry shrugged, he didn't think Ron really needed to know just how close they had come to getting through to him.

Ron slouched and Hermione seemed to scowl at Harry before renewing her efforts to treat his eye, which had started to go down quite a lot.

"So what's with the brick then George?" Ron asked as he allowed Hermione to heal the last of the swelling around his eye without complaint.

"This brick, as you so ignorantly put it," George said, "is a chest."

"Carved out of stone from Pevensy Bay and naturally hinged, making it ideal for the incineration of magical objects." Fred nodded.

Harry looked closely at the unimpressive but heavy looking chest and hoped it would be up to the job of destroying a horcrux.

"Um, will it destroy any magical enchantments when it destroys the actual object then?" he tried to ask as casually as he could.

The twins didn't buy it for a second, Harry suspected they knew they had been given the edited version of what this cup of Hufflepuff's was and why it really had to be destroyed but they seemed to have decided to let it go for now. Harry suspected they were doing so to show Harry that he could trust them later on down the line rather than keeping them in the dark. Now that they knew about Ron's return to sleepwalking they probably wanted to be in the information loop even more than they had before. Despite their usual attitude of teasing and boasting Harry still hadn't forgotten their state of sibling protectiveness when they had been worried about Ron's condition. They weren't just the jokers of the Weasley clan, they were a force to be reckoned with, which was probably why they had been the only ones Harry had ever witnessed standing their ground with Mrs Weasley.

"It'll destroy anything you put in it no matter how magical the protection spell put upon it," George said proudly.

"And no matter what might be secretly hidden inside...for example," Fred smirked as he opened the lid of the stone trunk.

George took the cup and placed it inside the stone trunk. Fred closed the lid and nodded to George who withdrew his wand and tapped the top of the trunk three times.

"Aboleo, nusquam esse, absisto!"

The sound of a raging fire came from the chest as it violently shook in Fred's hands before smoke pushed out of the indentation where the lid rested.

"There," Fred grinned as he opened the lid and showed them the empty trunk, almost like one of the muggle magicians Harry had seen on the TV, "all gone."

Fred handed the trunk to George who turned to return it to wherever it was he had got it from. As he did he caught sight of Ron's butchered-looking feet and pulled out a small green bottle from his back pocket.

"Ron you're feet are putting me off having breakfast, go to the bathroom and soak them in some hot water with a capful of this will you?" George winced.

Ron eyed the bottle he had just been handed with great suspicion.

"Alright but if this stuff makes my feet swell up to five times their normal size I'm going to use them to kick your arses!"

George chuckled as he left the room with the trunk in his arms. Ron got up and hobbled across the room towards the bathroom, Hermione watched him with a pained expression on her face, and he let out several sharp intakes of breath as he put his weight on the soles of his raw feet. As soon as he closed the bathroom door and they heard the sound of running water she spun around in her seat and hissed at Harry.

"Why didn't you tell him?"

This took Harry by surprise.

"We agreed he'd feel guilty about it and it wasn't his fault," Harry sputtered.

"Not the immobulus spell, the unforgivable curse, why did you tell him he didn't really say anything last night?"

Harry couldn't believe she didn't understand that this extra worry was the last thing Ron needed on top of everything else that was going on. Fred sat forward in his own seat and looked at Harry with the same severe expression he and George had been wearing when they had first opened the door to them that morning.

"I'm fully aware that you've lied to me and George over the course of this morning but you're lying to Ron too? That's not on Harry and you know it."

Harry made a frantic hand gesture to get Fred to lower his voice as the sound of running water from the bathroom ceased.

"I'm not lying to Ron, I'm trying to protect him," Harry hissed.

Hermione actually scoffed at this.

"Protecting him from something he'll never find out and should never know like hexing the two of us in his sleep," Hermione ignored the horrified look on Fred's face on hearing this, "is not the same as lying to him about what he was talking about last night."

Fred looked from Hermione to Harry and then back again.

"What was he talking about last night?" Fred demanded just as his twin returned, oblivious to the serious turn in the conversation.

"Right, who's up for breakfast the Weasley way?" he grinned, on seeing the three un-amused faces that turned to glare at him his face fell and he sat down on the arm of Fred's chair, "What now?"

"Hermione's about to tell us," Fred said as he turned his attention back to Hermione.

She, in turn, glared at Harry.

"He's going to want to see the Prophet when it arrives Harry, there's going to be a report on the break-in at Gringotts, and there's going to be some mention of what he had to do to get that horc...cup."

Harry let out a deep sigh, she was right and he hated her for that, but Ron wasn't taking this latest attack of somnambulism quite as badly as he could have been and he didn't want anything to ruin that.

"I thought you two didn't know what he was doing last night?" Fred asked when he realised that Harry didn't have a response to Hermione's statement.

"We don't," she sighed as she looked at the twins, allowing Harry to breathe easier now he was no longer subjected to her accusing stare, "but there was one thing he said last night that makes me think..."

"Hermione thinks that the person Ron's been talking to in his sleep was trying to force him to use an unforgivable curse last night."

George's eyes were wider than Harry had ever seen them in his life.

"On who?"

Hermione shrugged.

"We don't know but we do know that he's been in quite a fight and had something that nobody is supposed to be able to get their hands on from one of the most impenetrable fortress' in the wizarding world."

"You don't think he hurt anybody do you?" Fred asked, seeming to be more horrified at actually saying those words than of the consequences that would arise if they turned out to be true.

"He wouldn't, not even in his sleep, he couldn't do something like that. He's Ron." George shook his head vigorously.

Harry wanted to believe that was the truth more than anything right now.

"Yeah he's right Hermione, Ron was being threatened with an unforgivable curse just like we originally thought last night."

"Haven't you worked this out yet Harry?" she said, seeming to be annoyed at the both of them, "They weren't threatening him with an unforgivable curse they were telling him he had to use one. That's why he said he wasn't strong enough. He wasn't talking to me at all, he couldn't hear me the whole time, I was just kidding myself."

At those last few words Hermione's head dropped and she looked at her hands as they rested in her lap. Harry had nothing to say, neither did the twins, and not another word was spoken until Ron stepped back out of the bathroom. He seemed to be walking a lot more comfortably now.

"You know I've got to say you two have impressed me with this," Ron said as he handed George back the green bottle, "I mean they still look a bit raw but they feel great. Ever thought of doing business with St Mungos?"

The twins were staring at Ron and didn't answer his question. Harry assumed they were trying to picture him using the cruciatis curse against a room full of Gringotts goblins and finding themselves unable to do it.

"What?" Ron looked down at himself and then felt his face before glaring at the twins, "What did that bloody stuff do to me? If I've turned green or something I swear I'll..."

"You're exactly the colour you're supposed to be Ron, we were just talking about how dreadful the Cannons are this season and didn't want to offend you," Harry impressed himself with his cover story.

Hermione didn't seem quite so impressed with him though and got to her feet to address Ron before he went on an hour-long rant in defence of the Chudley Cannons.

"Ron there's something I think you should know," she began.

She didn't get any further than that because of the post owl that swooped into the flat and landed on the table beside Ron with some letters for the twins and that morning's Daily Prophet.

"Oh great the Prophet's here," Ron said as he grabbed the newspaper up and read the front page with some combination of dread and excitement.

Hermione looked down at Harry fearfully and the twins were looking at each other in much the same way. Ron was reading silently and they couldn't see his face behind the paper. Hermione took a step toward him but Harry reached out and grabbed her wrist to hold her back. He didn't know why but he seemed to think Ron had the right to find out about his own activities before the rest of them did.

After an agonising minute Ron lowered the paper to meet their eyes, he looked worse than he did when he had first apparated back to them from Borgin's house, and he seemed to be shaking. Hermione shook off Harry's hold on her and took a step towards him. Ron's eyes darted down to Fred and George who were getting to their feet in one liquid movement and he shook his head and took a step backwards.

"I couldn't have done this," his face was white, even his freckles seemed to have been drained of all colour, "it's not possible. I didn't do this. I didn't do it. It wasn't me."

Ron looked back to the paper and gulped. Fred took a step toward him and spoke in such a gentle way that Harry wouldn't have believed him capable of had he not been there to hear it for himself.

"It wasn't you, you're absolutely right about that Ron, whatever happened last night it wasn't you. We know that."

Ron looked back down at the paper that was shaking in his hands itself now and Harry could've sworn that his legs were about to give way.

"That's...That much power, I shouldn't be able...I couldn't do that, it's not possible."

Hermione bundled Fred aside and tore the paper from Ron's hands. She thrust it into Fred's and threw her arms around Ron's neck, hugging him tightly, while Fred began to scan the front page frantically.

"I don't care what the paper says happened in Gringotts last night because you weren't at Gringotts last night," Hermione said firmly as she gripped Ron even tighter, "you're right Ron, it was somebody else who left us in that cave. It was somebody else who dumped you on Fred and George's doorstep this morning. Whatever happened, had nothing to do with you do you hear me?"

She pulled away and forced him to look her in the eyes, Ron couldn't speak, and Harry was shocked to see Hermione shaking him as she repeated her question.

"I said do you hear me Ron?"

Ron shook his head as Fred passed the newspaper to George and sat back down looking devastated.

"I can't trust myself to be around you, either of you, not anymore."

"Rubbish!" Hermione snapped.

Harry ripped the Prophet from George's hands and read the offending article for himself while George steeled himself against the wall, took a deep breath and grabbed Ron out of Hermione's grip, pulling him into a hug of his own.

"Bollocks Ron, I trust you with my life and don't you forget it."

Ron pulled away from his brother and ran his hand through his hair.

"I've already hit you when I was like that," Ron scoffed as he began to pace up and down.

Fred got to his feet now.

"Oh come off it, you can't blame yourself for that, you were just a kid."

"It wasn't you!" George almost snarled at Ron as he passed back and forth in front of the twins.

"Goblins and powerful enchantments and aurors guys, aurors! I...I...all of 'em!"

"Stop it, stop it all of you!" Hermione screamed.

Ron stopped pacing, Fred and George were halted in the middle of their protestations, and Hermione stood frozen with her arms in the air just as she had been standing to let out her scream. Harry carefully folded the paper and set it down on the table. He still couldn't tear his eyes away from the headline though.

Gringotts Goblins duped into handing over entire contents to one of their vaults. Staff, security and several aurors controlled by the imperius curse at same time. Shocked witnesses declare 'Only You-Know-Who capable of such powerful magic'!

Ron leaned against the wall and slid down it, his head dropping into his hands.

"I'm going to go to Azkaban for this."