Chapter Twelve - Not Dead, Just Sleeping

They four of them sat around the kitchen table, staring at the mobile phone Hermione had set in the centre of it, and tried to make sense of what Mrs Weasley had just told them after much persuasion.

Ron was an oracle.

Mr Weasley had been furious with his wife for keeping the Prewitt family secret from him. She had explained that she was the last surviving Prewitt and she didn't have the gift, none of the children had showed any signs of possessing the gift, so she hadn't ever spoken of it to him. The gift died with Fabian and Gideon that awful night during the first war. Her boys and Ginny never had to know because it never affected them. Not until Ron started walking in his sleep at around six or seven years old.

Mrs Weasley's twin brothers had been prone to the same thing at that age and she had recognised it at once but still wouldn't let herself believe that her youngest son was talking to the dead in his sleep. She knew that only those who knew of someone possessing the gift could visit them and manipulate them in their sleep and wanted to keep that knowledge to the barest minimum for Ron's sake. The more people that knew the more people would seek him out to do their bidding once they had passed on. Ron deserved a life of his own, she had told the stunned threesome, and not a life as a vessel for the unfinished business of others. Nobody alive knew about Ron's gift but her. Nobody.

"Of course when You-Know-Who began attacking Harry and the family again I had to tell Dumbledore to warn him, to let him know that Ron was to be sent straight back home if his sleep patterns became erratic but they never did." Mrs Weasley sniffed.

"You never told me Molly, he's my son and you never told me what was happening to him, how could you?" Mr Weasley had been devastated and betrayed by this lifelong lie.

The table had barely spoken to each other for an agonisingly long time before Harry couldn't hold in the number one question any longer.

"So who was he when he woke up that time?"

Mrs Weasley's eyes were bloodshot and filled with fresh tears as her whole body sagged in her chair and Mr Weasley turned and stared at her expectantly.

"It was Gideon," she could just about manage to say before dissolving into tears, "it was my brother, he was talking to me like he was...as if it was..."

Hermione leapt out of her seat and hugged Mrs Weasley with all her strength.

"It's alright Mrs Weasley, everything's going to be alright, I know your brother wouldn't hurt Ron. He'll be fine I promise."

"But he swore to me!" the older woman suddenly bellowed, causing Hermione to release Mrs Weasley and leap back in shock, "He looked me in the eye and promised me never again. he promised for both of them."

"Promised what Molly?" Mr Weasley asked, resting a hand on his wife's back.

"It was Ronnie's eyes but it was Gideon inside, I could see it Arthur, and I begged them to leave him alone and never come back I begged them to and he promised. He promised me!"

Again Mrs Weasley was lost to tears and Mr Weasley lost his anger towards her at the same moment, crushing her in his own embrace and rocking her from side to side slowly.

Ten years previously

"Ron get back in bed now!" George shoved his zombified baby brother back towards his bedroom.

"Oh don't be rough with him boys," Fred said in a cruelly accurate Mrs Weasley impersonation, "you mustn't wake a sleepwalker, it says so in all the books!"

George chuckled as he steered Ron along the landing in a zigzag motion because of Ron's resistance to returning to bed.

"What do books know?"

"Nothing, they're no good to anyone in my opinion."

"In our opinion Fred."

"In our opinion George. What can a book tell us that we don't already know?"

"The book said that a wizard of our age couldn't transfigure an inanimate object into a living creature and we proved that wrong!"

Fred laughed.

"Ronnie's face when he found himself holding that spider..."

"Priceless!"

Ron spun out of George's grip and turned to head back to the stairs but Fred was blocking his way and grabbed him, pinning his arms to his sides.

"Oops, look who's a slippery little fish tonight eh?"

George huffed and withdrew his wand.

"Oh he's such a pain when he's like this," George flickedthe battered wand he had stollen fromBill's old roomat Ron, "Ennervate!"

Ron's glazed eyes came into focus and he spun around to see George pointing his wand at him and grinning.

"Can't wake a sleepwalker my a..."

George couldn't complete his sentence as Ron punched him with an uppercut to the jaw that sent him crashing to the floor. Fred couldn't believe what he was seeing as Ron turned back to glare at him.

"She told you not to wake him up you cocky little smartarses," Fred was speechless, his seven year old baby brother had just floored George with one punch and was now putting Fred in his place in the same way Charlie was only able to do and that was because he was so big and intimidating, "you think you're so clever don't you?"

Fred swallowed and tried to hold Ron in place again.

"Sorry Ron, let's get you back to your bed ok?"

Ron shook off Fred's hold on his as if he wasn't even there.

"Well I'm here now, I may as well talk to her, she downstairs?"

Fred blinked as George struggled back to his feet behind Ron.

"She?"

"Molls? Your bloody mother! Is she downstairs?" Ron barked before shoving Fred aside and stomping down the stairs in a huff.

Fred and George cast frantic glances at each other before Fred hauled George up to his feet and they followed their out-of-sorts brother down to the ground floor and into the kitchen where their mother and father sat drinking hot chocolate.

"Ron don't tell her we woke you she'll kill us," Fred pleaded as he tugged at Ron's elbow.

"Being dead ain't all that bad," their brother sniggered, "and we both owe Molls and explanation."

The three of them stopped in the kitchen doorway and Mrs Weasley rose to her feet.

"What on earth are you doing out of bed at this time of night?" she snapped at them.

Ron looked slightly amused at this tyrannical display.

"Listen to you, you've turned into our mother!"

"I am your mother Ronald Weasley!" she screeched.

"He's not, he's not himself mum..." George stammered as he tried to pull Ron back toward the stairs.

"We'll just put him back to bed and leave you in peace. Goodnight." Fred said as he too tugged at Ron's arm to pull him back.

"George, what on earth happened to your face?" Mrs Weasley suddenly gasped.

Ron looked at her with a familiar expression of amused guilt.

"Ah well, that was me I'm afraid, I had to hit him Molls. He went and woke the poor kid up after all the times you warned him as well."

Mrs Weasley looked at Ron with utter confusion.

"You hit...Molls? What do you mean the poor kid? Who woke who?" her face fell slack with horror as she realised who she was talking to, "No!"

Ron rested a hand on Mrs Weasley's shoulder and smiled.

"At least I get to explain to you, face-to-face, what we've been doing with him."

"Fred, George, up to your room now, I'll deal with you later."

Fred blinked and George massaged his jaw.

"But mum..."

"NOW!" she growled and the twins ran up the stairs as if fleeing from a stampede.

She turned to her husband who was looking bewildered and concerned from his seat in the kitchen and gave him a flustered smile.

"Arthur, wait there for me would you, I'm just going to get Ronnie settled back down for the night."

Before her husband could answer she bundled Ron into the living room and shut the door behind them.

"We've wanted to try to explain what we've been doing with him all this time," Ron began to explain in a flippant manner before Mrs Weasley cut him off.

"Get out!"

Ron blinked.

"What?"

"Get out of him now!" she was shaking with rage and fighting herself not to bellow her enraged words into the seven year old's face.

"At least let me..."

"Which one of you is it?" she said as she squinted into the familiar blue eyes that she loved so much, trying to see the essence of the person who had hijacked her son from her.

"It's Gideon Molls, it's me."

She flinched and looked on the verge of tears before resuming her determined attack on the intruder into her home.

"Leave him alone."

"We didn't pick on him Molls, he's the only one of the lot of you who can do it, we tried all of them. I would've thought it was the girl what with her being the seventh..."

"You stay away from Ginny, both of you!" she growled with genuine fear and anger.

"She's not one of us Molls; it's only this one, he's the only one we can use."

"You can't use him anymore, how dare you even try to in the first place, he nearly froze to death last week because of you. How dare you!" she began to hit the cringing boy.

"You're hitting him Molls, please stop, you're hitting your boy not your brother!"

She seemed to be mortified as she took another step back and covered her mouth with her hands.

"Please Gideon, please leave him alone, he's just a baby."

"He's no younger than Fabian and I were when we first..."

"I...don't...care!" she spat the words as she drew herself up and took a step forward again, "Get out Gideon, get out and never come back, that goes for both of you."

Ron's head dropped and he looked ashamed of himself.

"We didn't want to leave him in the snow, we only had him for half an hour and then his body forced us out and he just slept where he was standing at the time, I swear if we knew how long it would be before you found him..."

"Get out of my son!"

"I'm sorry Molls, I'm really sorry, we were trying to help you."

"Just go Gideon, please."

"We've got money stashed, money that'll help the family," Ron tried to explain.

"I don't care about your money, I just want my boy back the way he was, now leave him alone."

"But you're struggling Molls, all those kids and you can barely feed them, we want to help."

"Get out!" she fought not to scream and alert her husband to her distress as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Ron stepped forward and grabbed her and hugged her tightly as she broke down and sobbed into the top of his head.

"We never meant to upset you Molls, we'll go I promise, we'll never use him again I promise you ok? We're really sorry."

She pulled away and wiped her eyes as she looked at the small boy in front of her.

"I miss you both so much."

He smiled in a way that was so familiar to her, it was a smile that wasn't Ron's, and she smiled back at him.

"We never went anywhere."

She kissed him on the cheek and told him she loved him, she told him to tell his brother she loved him too, and held out her wand to his face.

"I swear on our souls we will never use him again Molls, no matter what, on our eternal souls."

"Thank you Gids," she sniffed, "obdormio!"

Ron's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed into his mother's waiting arms. She sat on the sofa with him crying her heart out for three or four minutes, rocking him back and fourth and saying 'I love you' to the three different souls that had inhabited this sleeping body over the last year or so, before lifting her baby boy up in her arms and carrying him to the door and out into the hallway. Her husband leapt out of his chair and rushed over to her, offering to take Ron up to his room for her, but she refused. She made her way up the stairs in silence, her tear-streaked face shining in the candlelight as the bruised face of George and then Fred peeped around their bedroom door and looked ashamed of themselves at the sight of their mother carrying their limp brother past them.

"Get back inside you two," she said, her voice-sounding nasal, "I'll deal with you both in a minute.

They shared a glance of pure dread and went back into their room. Percy was watching through a crack in his bedroom door.

"Go back to sleep Percy, there's a good boy."

"Did they really wake him?" Percy's voiceasked although he remained hidden.

"Go to bed Percy," his mother said once again.

As she climbed the last lot of stairs to Ron's room she found Ginny crying on Ron's bed. She had always hated Ron's sleepwalking the most, it scared her to see her bother and not have him see her back, and she used to wait on Ron's bed whenever he was missing during one of his walks.

"Ginny dear, I need to put Ron down there, can you move over for me please?" she smiled at her daughter as she complied.

Ron was put back in his bed and Ginny insisted on staying with him that night so she bid her two youngest sweet dreams and goodnight, planting a soft kiss on each of their foreheads, before heading back downstairs to remind the twins that they were never to wake their brother if they saw him like that again.

They wouldn't see him like that again; she knew that, she trusted her brothers to keep their word.

Back to the present

"I can't believe it's them Arthur, I just can't, he swore on their souls."

"Shh Molly, it's alright, I can't believe you didn't share this with me at the time I could have helped you."

She whimpered as she gripped his Weasley jumper as if it was a comfort blanket to a small child.

"It was the hurt look on poor Ronnie's face when he saw that I couldn't be around him afterwards, like he was scared that he had done something wrong, but for a time I could just see Gids still lingering inside and I couldn't...I just couldn't...be in the same room as him."

The aching sobs took Mrs Weasley over again as Harry and Hermione felt an empty understanding of what was happening to Ron now and wanted him back more than ever.

"So our Ron," Mr Weasley smiled to himself at finally being able to understand after all this time, "is the last of the Prewitt oracles."

Mrs Weasley nodded and sniffed.

"But nobody can ever know," she looked across the table to Harry and Hermione, "none of you must ever speak of this you hear?"

Harry and Hermione shook their heads vigorously.

"Nobody's going to say anything Molly I assure you," Mrs Weasley sighed as he gave her another reassuring squeeze.

"Because if this became common knowledge he wouldn't...wouldn't get a moment's peace." she began to cry again.

Harry understood her fears. If people knew about Ron then whenever any body from that day forward died they would seek him out and use him to try to carry on living in their own manipulative way through Ron's sleep. Only those who knew of Ron's ability could abuse it so nobody was ever to know.

"Mrs Weasley," Hermione said calmly from across the table, "I promise you now that if I should die I won't use him like that, not even to say goodbye, not once."

Harry felt sick at the thought of Hermione even feeling it necessary to make that promise but he knew that it was highly likely that very soon one of the people sitting around that table would have to face that dilemma. Harry knew what he had to do.

"I won't either, no matter what."

Mrs Weasley was about to say something when the mobile phone between them rang.

Hermione grabbed it as if it was a lifeline and pressed a button that must have been speakerphone.

"Ron, where are you? Did you get any clues to..." she remembered that Mr and Mrs Weasley were listening, "anything?"

All they could hear was ragged breathing. Harry swallowed; this couldn't be good.

"Ron, it's Harry, where are you mate?"

Still nothing.

"Ron are you hurt?" Hermione said, trying not to panic, "your mum and dad are here, we know what's going on with you now and it's nothing to worry about. Ron? Please answer me."

Mrs Weasley gripped her husband's hand.

"Ronnie, it's mum, let us know where you are and we'll come and get you. We'll lift the wards and you can apparate right back here if you want to."

"No," the shaky voice sounded from the phone where Hermione had rested it on the table between them, "I can't, I can't apparate right now."

Something was definitely wrong if he wasn't able to apparate. Harry felt the blood drain from his face.

"Ron tell us where you are and we'll come and get you. Do you know where you are Ron?" Harry tried to sound strong for his best friend.

Suddenly they heard something that Harry had never heard before. Not when Ginny was taken into the Chamber of Secrets, not when faced with Aragog, not when people had started dying year after year...he hadn't even heard him at Dumbledore's funeral. Ron was crying.

Hermione seemed to have to hold on to the table to keep from falling out of her chair.

"Ron please," Harry almost choked on his own emotions as he spoke, "tell us where you are. Tell me where to find you and I'll be there in a heartbeat."

"I'm in..." Ron's broken voice wheezed with the sobs he had racking his chest, "...I'm in..."

"Where?" Harry demanded, knowing that the money in the payphone wasn't going to last much longer.

When Ron finally spoke again he sounded as if he had nothing left to give of himself, he sounded as if he had just spent the night in a room full of Dementors.

"I can't do this anymore Harry, this has to stop, I can't take it anymore."

Hermione rose from the table and shouted down at the phone with renewed strength.

"Ron, tell us where you woke up and tell us now, it'll be ok we're coming to bring you home. Where did you wake up?"

There was a shuddering gasp and a choked sob before the answer that turned Harry's insides to ice came through the tiny speaker that was the focus of everyone's wholehearted attention.

"In a coffin."