Chapter Twenty - St Nectans Glen
"No, I won't allow it, it's too soon!"
Mrs Weasley wasn't taking the news that the three of them were leaving that afternoon very well.
"You and Hermione have only just been healed from last night and neither of you are up to going back out there again."
Harry glanced at Hermione who was trying to hide some of the nastier looking cuts on her hands but the frantic woman had now turned her attentions to Ron who was hoisting his backpack over his shoulders with determination.
"Ronnie you can't go, I forbid it!"
"You what?" Ron's eyebrows lifted so high that they seemed to disappear into his hair.
"You're not well Ron and you and I both know it. Does Hermione know? I bet she doesn't, I bet she wouldn't be so eager to take you back out there if she knew the truth."
Harry wondered why Mrs Weasley felt so sure that Ron had been keeping his mental deterioration from Hermione. If anything she had been the one who he would let his guard down with the most.
"Mrs Weasley, I promise I'll be very careful with him and we're going out into the open so his claustrophobia shouldn't be an issue, this is something we have to do to try and help Ron. It won't make him any worse which just leaving him sitting in the Burrow being tormented every night seems to be doing. He tried to get out of here for a reason last night and I think I know what that reason is now."
"Oh you silly girl, I'm not talking about that I'm talking about his fever!" Mrs Weasley snapped.
Hermione glared at Ron and camped her hand to his forehead.
"Ron you didn't tell me you had a fever!"
Ron shook off Hermione's hand and threw his own glare at his mother.
"I don't, it's gone now ok?"
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, noticing his best friend's ears pinking-up.
"When he has a fever his oracle powers become incredibly strong, that was why we couldn't stop him any other way when he was wrecking the kitchen last night, for Merlin's sake Ron you've been wandering around in the dead of night barefoot and hardly wearing anything. You're going to catch your death if you go camping with these two again."
"It went away as soon as I was stunned, George told me so, it's only when I'm sleepwalking."
"It's the reason you're sleepwalking Ronnie, I told you your episodes get worse and worse when your ill and you've not been well since Gringots. Harry you said so yourself."
Ron threw his arms up into the air.
"Ok how many conversations have been going on behind my back? I just can't keep track of them anymore."
Harry sighed.
"Mrs Weasley, you're right," Ron was about to turn on him but he continued with a firmer tone of voice, letting both Weasleys know that he was not finished yet, "but he's not feverish now and he really does need to come with us."
Ron relaxed and looked back at him mother, almost daring her to try to stop him.
"But Ronnie, you're going to get worse if you start sleeping in caves again, you know you are."
Ron stepped forward and put his hand on his mother's arm.
"But staying here won't make me any better will it? You know that."
Mrs Weasley began to cry. Ron leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek before taking Hermione's hand and leading her out the back door.
"Come on before she starts trying to force-feed us."
Harry knew that Ron had meant it as a joke but his voice didn't have any humour in it right at that moment. Hermione sniffed and Harry shrugged apologetically at Mrs Weasley before heading for the door himself.
"Harry," Mrs Weasley called after him, he turned at the door and saw her wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, "look after each other won't you? I worry about all three of you you know?"
"I know Mrs Weasley," Harry smiled, "but we live charmed lives us three, we'll be fine."
The woman let out a solitary sob.
"You sound just like Ron," she sniffed before looking Harry in the eye, "you do know that when he says he's fine he's lying don't you?"
Harry nodded sadly.
"Only too well."
The three of them had been hicking up to St Nectans Glen, in a hidden valley in Tintagel in the West Country, while pondering aloud how exactly this long dead auror could be of help to Ron. None of them knew what to expect at all. As they reached a sudden drop several feet ahead of them they soon saw something that took the mission and all their other worries off their minds.
"Oh wow!" Harry gasped.
Hermione threw her backpack off her shoulders and moved around for a better look at the sixty-foot waterfall they had stumbled upon. It really was breathtaking, Harry thought, as Ron began to climb down a little way to a natural arch that the water was falling through.
"There's no way this is the eternal source of water you were talking about is it Hermione?" Harry asked his awestruck friend as she started to climb down after Ron.
"Why not?" she smiled as she was overtaken by her backpack as Harry levitated it down into Ron's waiting arms, followed by his own.
"Because when you were talking about a never ending spring I pictured a little trickle of water spurting out of the ground not a sixty foot waterfall!" Ron chuckled with amazement.
Hermione lowered herself a little closer to the ledge where Ron was waiting for them and called over her shoulder to him.
"I told you he was a powerful wizard didn't I?"
Harry set about climbing down himself as he wondered why all the muggle and magical history books had been so vague about how impressive a wizard St Nectan was. He had created this whole thing with a flick of his wand, a valley that only magical folk could find, a never ending source of water that plummeted sixty feet into a beautiful pool at the bottom of his hidden valley, and even an archway in the middle of the great waterfall made out of the very stone of the valley walls as if it was a naturally formed footbridge.
Ron reached out and lifted Hermione down when she was low enough for him to get a firm hold of and Harry heard that they were saying something to each other but the sound of the water crashing beside him drowned them out. They were both smiling, Harry could just about make out before he turned his mind back to climbing the rock face at the side of the waterfall, and he assumed that this was a new couple moment that they wouldn't appreciate him bringing their attention to.
"I can't believe he made this," Harry heard Ron saying as he helped Harry down from the last couple of feet.
"I know," Harry said, sounding impressed, "and to think he was worried about a couple of missing cows!"
They laughed and Hermione rolled her eyes and picked her backpack off the ground and hoisted it back onto her shoulders.
"Look, I can see a great place to set up camp for the night," she pointed to a sheltered crack in the rock at the foot of the valley.
Ron turned to Harry with a shrug of resignation.
"Oh good, another cave."
Hermione had kindled a small fire and Ron had made dinner for them, followed by a rather delicious apple crumble that had thoroughly impressed Hermione, while Harry tried to fill the cave with as many protection and containment charms as he could remember. The hoops were working brilliantly but he still wanted to do it just to be on the safe side, sleepwalking when so close to water wasn't something that Harry felt the need to combine.
"We'll get the hoops on as soon as I'm done making sure there's nothing you can use to cut yourself with in here," Hermione said, matter-of-factly, "I don't want to wake up in the morning to find you missing a limb."
Ron grinned mischievously.
"Oh come on Hermione, I don't know why you're fussing about last night so much, I was arm-less!"
Harry couldn't help himself, he had to laugh, but Hermione scowled at the pair of jokers and hissed something under her breath. Ron lowered his head and muttered to Harry.
"Oh I'm in trouble now."
"Well if you do insist upon bringing 'the missus' everywhere you go..." Harry teased his friend.
Ron stared at Harry silently; he was just beginning to understand that Harry didn't just suspect him and Hermione of having a relationship now, he knew; and he broke into an embarrassed smile.
"So you two have been talking behind my back as well then eh?"
Harry smirked.
"Well you two have been doing a hell of a lot more than talking behind mine haven't you?"
Ron's ears flushed pink and he turned away to straighten out his sleeping bag on the hard ground.
"Shut up Harry."
Harry chuckled before his face suddenly set into an expression of seriousness, followed by great annoyance.
"Oh yeah, I forgot there was something I had to do to you," he said sternly.
Ron looked concerned as he turned back to face him.
"What's that then?"
"This," Harry punched Ron hard in the arm.
"Ouch! What was that for?" he exclaimed, rubbing his numb arm.
"I heard about your little chat with Hermione, the one where you told her not to make a big fuss about the two of you being together because it would be harder on her when she had to put you away with Lockheart and Neville's parents in St Mungo's," Harry tried not to soften his tone when he saw Ron lower his head with shame, "that's right you prat you should be ashamed of yourself."
Ron took a deep breath before meeting Harry's eyes again and he seemed to have a look of steely determination as he spoke.
"Wouldn't you have done the same thing if it was Ginny?"
Harry found himself unable to hold Ron's gaze at this, his backbone turning to jelly and his resolve crumbling into nothing as he turned to his own sleeping back and fussed over it unnecessarily.
"Well never mind all of that now," Harry mumbled under his breath, "you're not going to go crazy, we're going to fix that when we find out how St Nectan did it, so this entire conversation is redundant isn't it?"
Ron snorted with amusement.
"It's funny how when I back down during an argument you and Hermione claim to have won it but when either of you back down the conversation suddenly becomes redundant."
Harry laughed so loudly at this that it attracted Hermione's attention and she approached the two of them with a look of quizzical amusement.
"If only I could use that defence against you in chess I'd never lose," Harry chortled.
"What's this?" Hermione asked as she arched an eyebrow and looked from one of them to the other.
Ron narrowed his eyes at her but couldn't wipe the smile off his face as he spoke.
"Some blabbermouth's been talking about me behind my back that's all."
Hermione tried to wipe the smile from her own face as she sat down on the ground and conjured three cups.
"Now Ronald, that's no way to talk about your mother is it? Calix, calix, calix!"
Ron was about to feign offence before Hermione held out one of the cups to him.
"Milk please, if you'd be so kind."
Harry grinned at Hermione's attempt to look as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth while Ron merely shook his head and filled her cup with milk from the end of his wand.
"Lactis!"
He turned to Harry to ask see if he wanted him to do the same for his cup.
"Um I'll be having coffee if you don't mind Ron?"
Ron's wand lowered and his light-hearted expression fell with it.
"Ron-watch is still in action then is it?" he asked glumly.
Harry nodded and shrugged.
"It's not that we don't trust you mate, I think you won't be half as bad now that we're all together again, but I do think that one of us should really stay up until you've said your piece. I mean come on Ron, you and I both know you'll probably have something to say tonight and if me and Hermione are both asleep you'd have had another consecutive night of it for nothing."
Ron seemed to accept this without much argument, this made Harry a little uneasy in itself, the old Ron would have protested a little or at least grumbled for a bit. These episodes really were taking their toll on him, little by little, and Harry felt the need to do something that he knew would definitely get Ron's temper going.
He leaned forward and put his hand to Ron's forehead. Ron pulled away and looked at him as if he'd just called him a liar or a cheat.
"What are you doing? Are you my friend or my mother?"
Harry laughed as he turned to Hermione.
"He really is feverish if he can't tell me and Mrs Weasley apart."
Hermione didn't seem able to smile at this and Harry kept his head turned away from Ron and mouthed to her, ' he's fine '.
"Honestly though, that woman," Ron grumbled to Harry's internal jubilation, "I think she just makes stuff up to worry about. It's as if she doesn't know what to do with herself if there's nothing to fret over so she just creates problems."
Hermione really did smile now.
"Oh come on, all mothers are like that," she sighed as she crawled into her sleeping bag.
"Yeah but my mother is a mother seven times over with no kids at home to focus all that extra strength worry on," Ron said as he too wriggled into his sleeping bag, "so the second any one of us walks through that door, or the fireplace, she's on us like a middle aged witch on Lockheart!"
Harry howled with laughter at this imagery.
Ron was still on a roll.
"If she's not putting a forkful of food in your mouth she's putting a thermometer in there."
"Be thankful she takes temperatures orally Ronald, you wouldn't want her to get confused and put that fork anywhere else," Hermione smiled innocently.
Harry almost spat his coffee all over his own sleeping bag and began to choke on his own amusement.
Ron huffed and lay back on his sleeping bag, pretending to be annoyed with them.
"I'm only away from you two one day and you're starting on me already," Harry and Hermione's eyes met and they chuckled, "I don't know who you're going to pick on when I'm not around anymore."
Ron looked at them with a smile but Harry and Hermione weren't laughing anymore. Harry felt as if his entire body had just plunged into icy water and Hermione had shuddered and her eyes were growing red and watery. Ron suddenly realised what he'd said and sat up on his elbows.
"I didn't mean it like that, it's a figure of speech!" he said quickly.
Hermione got back out of her sleeping bag and ran to the mouth of the cave in tears. Ron tried to get out of his sleeping bag to go after her but was slammed back down onto his back, knocking the wind out of him. Harry didn't understand what had just happened until Ron nodded to the hoop around his upper arm.
"Great, so she can keep me away from her as well as dragging me across hot coals for a cuddle," he growled, "it's funny how she doesn't want to abuse the power until it comes to her storming off in a huff isn't it?"
Harry frowned and tried to give Ron a sympathetic shrug.
"I don't think she did it on purpose, she probably just thought that she didn't want you to see her crying and bam, you're on your back."
Ron rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Well could you maybe go and ask her to give me a couple of inches more so I can at least turn over?"
Harry nodded and followed Hermione outside. He saw her sitting at the side of the freshwater pool, watching the waterfall crashing on the other side of the valley, and made his way over to join her.
"Go away Harry, I'm coming back inside in a minute, I just need a moment alone."
Harry stopped in his tracks and paused before calling out to her back.
"Ok sorry, it was just that Ron was asking if you could maybe let him move a little, you really threw him down hard you know?"
Hermione's head turned and, for a moment, she didn't understand what Harry was saying to her. Then her eyes filled with fresh tears and she looked back out across the valley.
"Those bloody hoops!" she cried, "They're driving me up the wall. I didn't hurt him did I?"
"No, he just can't move, he asked if you could give him a couple more inches breathing space that's all."
He watched her; she didn't seem to be moving.
"It's done," she said with a sniff.
Harry turned to go back inside.
"I know he didn't mean it," she called back to him, "tell him I know he didn't mean it, I'm just being over-sensitive that's all."
"Ok," was all Harry could say before taking another couple of steps away.
"And Harry?" she called to him again, this time she turned and met his eyes, he saw her tear streaked face and wanted to give her a hug, "Could you put him to sleep before I come back in? I...I just can't..."
Harry nodded and stepped back into their shelter in the rock face.
Ron was lying on his side, resting his head on his elbow and looking into the fire, when Harry returned and sat back down on his sleeping bag. He took a sip of his coffee and pulled out his wand.
"Um Ron I..." he began.
"I heard," Ron sighed with resignation and tried to settle into a comfortable position, "go ahead then."
Harry gave him as much of a smile as he could manage.
"Night mate, obdormio!"
Ron's body relaxed and his eyelids fell closed. Harry rubbed his own face roughly before taking another sip from his cup.
What would they do if he weren't around anymore?
Ron had a lot of trouble slipping into a deep sleep that night.
Hermione had settled back down in her sleeping bag and chatted to Harry for half an hour before Ron sat bolt upright and gasped something about being crushed. Harry had to be the one to calm him down as Hermione looked on the verge of tears again. She did widen Ron's free range though, Harry had noticed, as he had been able to reach out and take a drink of water before laying back down and letting Harry put him back to sleep. He had said goodnight to Hermione before he did and she had responded in kind through her strained vocal chords.
Hermione had drifted off to sleep herself fifteen minutes later, after remaining totally silent after Ron's reawakening, and Harry sat re-stoking the magical fire for another hour before Ron flinched violently in his sleep and Harry readied himself to have to settle Ron down again. He waited on tenterhooks for two full minutes before relaxing again and that was the moment when Ron started gasping for air and beginning to hyperventilate in his sleep. Harry leaned over him and willed his friend to wake up from his nightmare. He was still breathing as if he had an elephant sitting on his chest and Harry began to worry. He with drew his wand and pointed it at Ron.
"Ennervate!"
Ron's eyes flew open and he had a small coughing fit that woke Hermione who looked alarmed to see Ron, red in the face and struggling to steady his breathing, with Harry rubbing his back and trying to calm him down. Hadn't Ron said that these nightmares were getting better? This didn't seem better to him. Then he remembered Mrs Weasleys words to him as he left the Burrow that morning.
"...when he says he's fine he's lying."
"Mate I really think we should get you some dreamless sleep draught in future, this is getting to be too much now."
Ron nodded and took several slow deep breaths before looking up at Harry.
"Ask the twins, that stuff they gave me before was pretty good," he turned to Hermione, "sorry to wake you."
She smiled at him.
"Don't worry, it's fine, as long as you're ok."
Ron lay himself back down again and Harry waited a while before sending him back to sleep this time, he wanted to be sure that Ron had fully calmed down, and as soon as he did Hermione sat up and shuffled her sleeping bag closer to him and held his limp hand.
"You've got to expect this haven't you?" she asked Harry who was still somewhat shaken from the whole unconscious anxiety attack itself, "Now that he's decided to put on a brave face he's holding a lot of that pain from the night in the coffin inside and it's got to come out somehow."
Harry nodded, he just hoped that Ron wouldn't have to get any worse before he got better, and he realised that waking up in a coffin with a decomposed corpse wasn't something that time would ever completely heal.
The coffee was wearing off now and Harry thought that maybe this wasn't going to be a night that Ron would descend into a deep sleep at all. He smiled a little, at least that would give Ron one night off at long last, maybe that was the secret of St Nectans Glen. Maybe it drew all your anxiety out of you in one night so you could find some peace and sanity again in your life. He hoped that was the case.
Harry had only slept for thirty five minutes before waking to find Ron being rocked in Hermione's arms, guttural sobs being choked into her shoulder, and she gestured for him to go back to sleep and let her deal with it. Harry settled back down and closed his eyes. He didn't sleep until he heard Ron pull himself together and sit talking to Hermione for a few minutes.
"I scared the shite out of George last night," Ron had wheezed a strained chuckle, "he was leaning right over me when I woke up and I totally lost it. He was almost as shaken-up as I was."
Harry heard Ron sniff and Hermione sounded as if she was shushing him and hugging him again.
"It's alright to take your time getting over this Ron, nobody's hurrying you, we just want you to learn to deal with all of this in your own time ok?"
Ron took a deep breath in and let it out again slowly; Harry thought he heard a shudder in the exhalation, before he spoke again.
"Bet you didn't miss this last night eh?"
There was a very long pause, Harry wondered if they had actually gone back to sleep, but finally Hermione spoke again with a smile in her voice.
"I missed that."
Harry let himself go to sleep after that.