Chapter Five - Two Kinds Of Dough

"Crustum!"

A small shrivelled loaf as solid as a lump of coal fell to the ground.

"Shite!"

Ron kept on walking deeper into the woods. He passed an abandoned bird's nest and pointed his wand at it.

"Crustum!"

The nest wove and folded and swelled and solidified and then exploded.

"Crap!"

He stomped onwards and flicked his wand at anything he could see lying around the forest floor.

"Crustum, crustum, crustum!" more solidified dough littered the path ahead of him.

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" he shouted up at the canopy of leaves above his head before leaning against the trunk of one of the trees and sliding down it to the ground.

Ron felt something digging into him and lifted up his jumper to plunge his hand down his jeans and pull out the silver hoops he had stolen from Borgin's place. He looked at them in silence, turning them over and over in his hands in deep thought, and wondered if they were the reason Hermione had suddenly turned on him back there. Well she was stressed, he knew that, and she had been working hard all afternoon looking through all those documents but that didn't mean there was any need to...

Ron forced his eyes shut tightly and gritted his teeth as he banged the back of his head against the tree trunk behind him three times. He opened his eyes again and let out a breath of defeat. He tossed the bag containing the hoops down in front of him and pulled off his jumper, it had a huge hole in it from where he had snagged it earlier, and threw it down alongside the bond of blood hoops.

Was she mad at him? Should he be mad at her?

He couldn't even remember what had happened now. He remembered this morning by the river; he remembered that as clear as anything, and he remembered being inside the wardrobe but everything after that bloody foe glass was just confusing.

If it's seven years bad luck to break a mirror what do you get for breaking a foe glass?

She had been angry with him for suggesting the illegal binding spell but that was no excuse for her to blame him for what he did at night was it? Was it, he asked himself again, giving the matter a lot more thought? He was a burden to them and Hermione only wanted him around to...well, for times like this morning maybe, and for cooking for them.

No! You cleared all that up you prat, she told you that wasn't the case, why are you doing this to yourself?

He was doing this to himself because he was tired that's why.

"Crustum," he mumbled, half-heartedly as he pointed his wand at the tatty old jumper.

The jumper swelled and grew upwards and outwards and browned before his eyes. He sat up and watched in amazement. The woollen knit smoothed out and a golden crust formed while a wonderful aroma drifted his way and he inhaled the scent of freshly baked bread. He'd done it. He'd made bread.

Out of a jumper?

Was it that his casting was always too ferocious or enthusiastic all those other times? Maybe he was rushing it when bread making is a slow process. He picked up the loaf and tapped it on the bottom. There didn't seem to be any nasty surprises inside. He'd really done it at long last.

"Well beat my bludger I actually did something right for a change."

He almost smiled before looking around and realising that it was very dark outside now and he didn't have a jumper any more. He'd have to get back, that or freeze, and maybe the bread could be a peace offering. Whatever the hell had gone on was probably his fault, it usually was, and he was too tired to care about it anymore.

Ron grabbed the hoops and stuffed them back down his jeans before picking up the bread and disapparating. He reappeared a little way away from the cave. He could see that a torch had been lit, he guessed to help him find his way back in the dark, he smiled at this. At least one of them wanted him to come back. He trudged across the clearing towards the cave and readied himself for their stares.

Harry was cleaning one of the plates from last night as Ron walked inside, avoiding the brown eyes that were immediately upon him, and he tossed the loaf of crusty brown bread on it. Ron reached into his backpack for another jumper and pulled it on as Harry jumped and looked up at him. Hermione was standing up and moving across the cave toward him. He couldn't do this right now, so he leaned over the cooking pot and saw that Harry was boiling whole onions in water.

"Ron I'm so sor..." she began.

He cut her off and looked from the pot to Harry.

"Are you planning on putting anything in that onion stock Harry?"

"I admit it, I'm more useless than we first thought" Harry smiled at him.

So Harry was still ok with him, it was a thing between him and Hermione then, but Ron didn't smile back. He just wanted to curl up and get some rest. No arguments, no apologies, no explanations, just rest. Hermione was standing right behind him, he could feel her staring at him but he wouldn't turn around.

"Look I don't really feel like cooking tonight so," Ron flicked his wand at an empty bowl, "Lactis! Confundo accelero!"

The bowl filled with milk that began to churn itself rapidly. Ron put his wand away and kicked off his shoes.

"That'll turn into cheese in about five minutes, you can make sandwiches if you want."

Harry seemed impressed at this and looked back at the bread.

"You finally did it then, well done" he seemed to be trying to look unconcerned for Ron and not doing the most convincing job of it.

"Yeah," he said as he unfurled his sleeping bag and crawled inside.

Harry seemed to decide not to bother with the pretence anymore.

"Ron, are you ok?"

"I'm fine," he nodded, he didn't even care if they believed him or not, "I could just really use an early night that's all."

Harry nodded and started slicing the bread. He thanked him wordlessly but didn't think that he saw. He did see Hermione readying herself to say something to him as she walked to his side and crouched to force him to look at her. She lowered her voice to almost a whisper, but not quite, and looked so distressed that he felt like a pig for not doing anything to make her feel any better about their little spat.

"I'm sorry Ron, I really didn't mean to..."

"It's fine, don't worry," Ron mumbled, he heard himself sounding tired but sincere and hoped Hermione heard the same thing too.

"No it's not fine, I'm such a..."

He knew she'd be like this, he couldn't let her tear herself up over saying the wrong thing for once in her life, he had hurt her feelings plenty of times and she hadn't tortured him over every single one of them, just some of them.

"Hermione don't, it's fine, I just need to sleep."

"But," she began, Ron sent her a pleading look and she hesitated before smiling across at his loaf of bread being evenly sliced by Harry, "good job on the bread Ron, it looks perfect."

He smiled at her and fidgeted as he tried to remove the hoops from his jeans as discreetly as possible. She didn't seem to notice as she was staring into his eyes and smiling with a little less concern now. She seemed to believe him that there were no hard feelings between them.

"We'll talk tomorrow ok?" she said before moving to stand up again.

Ron reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her down again, maybe if he got her to help him she would be able to let it go.

"Hermione wait, could you do me a favour?"

"Of course, whatever you want."

"Can you put me to sleep please?" he whispered.

She nodded as she pointed her wand at him. Their eyes locked and he saw a look that he last saw at the river side that morning, theyreally wouldn't ever be able to be just friends again, and he liked it.

"Goodnight Ron, obdormio!"

A blue light blinded him before his eyelids shut it out and his limbs turned into heavy weights. All sound and sensation left him and he was swallowed up in the blackness of sleep.

"Did I do it again last night then?"

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

Ron felt more relieved than he ever thought he could be at this news and began slicing the remains of his bread to make toast. Harry was trying to scrape the last of the cheese from the bowl so he could have cheese on toast for breakfast. While his friend was distracted Ron nudged Hermione, who was sitting at his side, with his elbow. She had been sitting with him without forcing him to talk about last night and giving him the occasional smile and he wanted to reassure her that he really wasn't angry with her anymore. She looked at him and they shared an affectionate smile before she looked back to her own toast. Ron felt quite satisfied about the look of relief that was now upon her face as she began to talk to him about her productive night with the papers.

"I found Hufflepuff's cup in the inventory of an old wizard called Lotterby's possessions. It was his will and the cup was put in a vault at Gringotts that can only be accessed by a witch called Olive Lotterby once she comes of age and can prove her bloodline as a true descendant of Lotterbys."

Ron raised his eyebrows as he watched Hermione pull the longest scroll of parchment he had ever seem towards her and pointed down at some kind of addition in a different handwriting.

"The thing is Lotterby was the last in his bloodline, he never had any children and he never had any brother's or sisters, so Olive Lotterby never existed and never will do. That vault can never be opened. Sounds like a hell of a good place to hide something don't you think?"

Ron tried to process what she was trying to tell him. Did this mean that he had been taken to Borgin's secret room not to be ambushed or captured or killed but to find out where Voldemort had hidden one of his horcruxes? He tried not to get his hopes up but the look on Hermione's face made him dare to think that maybe he was doing some good to them after all.

"If all of this is correct then it's going to be pretty impossible to get to the thing but at least we know where it is now. It's all thanks to you that we do know Ron, you were taken there in order to take us back when you woke up, so the guardian angel theory seems to have been right doesn't it?" she beamed at Ron, "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."

Ron wanted to throw his arms around her and cuddle her for the next hour with gratitude. Maybe this wasn't all good news, maybe his sleepwalking had been more than a friendly spirit guide trying to help, but he didn't want to think about that right now. He wanted to feel normal and useful and not in the least bit possessed by evil.

He reached out to take the roll of parchment that never seemed to have an end to it from Hermione and marvelled at her ability to have read so much legal mumbo jumbo without her brain dribbling out of her ears.

"Wow, how did you not fall asleep three paragraphs into this Hermione? This is like a handwritten sleeping draught."

Hermione chuckled at this but Harry sighed. Ron frowned at his friend.

"You alright there mate?"

"Fine, why do you ask?" Harry had forced an entirely unconvincing fake grin onto his face; Ron was an expert at pretending everything was great when he felt like screaming so he wasn't buying it for a second.

He did know what it was like to just want to be left alone too and decided to give Harry an opening to talk without being pushy.

"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 Harry's slice of toast by the fire and he hissed as he withdrew it from the flames, seeming to have burnt 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 his distracted friend, maybe it was a Ginny thing and he really didn't want to get into heartbroken little sister territory with his best mate right now.

"So we're off to Gringotts today then 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."

Her eyes were alive as she poked him in the side with her finger.

"I'm an optimist Ron Weasley!" she said with a wicked little smile, was she flirting with him? Before he could test the waters she frowned down at her piece of dry toast, "Um, I don't suppose you're still averse to conjuring up any food are you?"

He blinked, where did that come from, that wasn't any kind of flirting he recognised?

"What?" he crinkled his nose before following her eyes down to the piece of dry toast she held in her hands, "You can make honey Hermione, I know you can make honey, I've seen you make honey."

Ron wondered if she was just humouring him or if it was genuine laziness on her part. Hermione bowed her head and blushed.

"Yours is nicer."

Ron glanced across to Harry and couldn't suppress the smirk that was splitting his face. He'd not only made Hermione blush but she had told him that he could do something better than she could. He pulled out his wand and tapped on Hermione's toast, honey dripped from his wand tip and trickled over the surface of it.

"I'm beginning to think you're making inferior ingredients on purpose," Ron's eyes darted across to Harry, "both of you, just to lumber me with all the cooking duties."

He was still smiling quite smugly about this as 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.

He felt something brush against his hand where it rested between he and Hermione and glanced down to see her fingers resting across his own. She rubbed up and down gently while nonchalantly munching away on her slice of toast and honey. Ron swallowed and noticed that a blob of honey was oozing from his wand tip and brought the wand to his lips to lick it clean. Hermione's hand was entirely resting on top of his own now and she was interlacing their fingers and squeezing gently.

"So back to Gringotts, there's no way we can do this," he said with a shake of the head.

"Oh come on Ron, there's always a way with us," Hermione said with an ' I'm not holding Ron's hand ' kind of nonchalance after swallowing her mouthful, "we see something impossible and laugh. Ha, we say!"

Ron couldn't believe how out-of-character Hermione was acting in front of Harry. He too was relieved that they were ok with each other and that last night was well and truly behind them but he wasn't drawing attention to himself in the way she was. Did she want Harry to notice something was going on? They had agreed, what was she doing?

"Are you alright?" he asked her, trying to slide his hand out from under hers but she gripped it even harder.

"I'm in a jovial mood this morning," she said with a merry shrug.

Ron turned to Harry.

"Why does that scare me?"

Harry just laughed and got up to fetch himself a drink of water. While his back was turned Hermione leaned in close and whispered into Ron's ear.

"I'm so proud of you," she said before kissing him on the cheek.

As Harry turned around and sat back down again she sat back and loosened her grip on his hand while still resting her hand upon his while smiling at him. He glanced across at Harry, who was going through his backpack searching for something with a look of concentration crinkling his brow, before mouthing the word 'why?' to Hermione. She was almost glowing now and rubbed the back of his hand with her own cool smooth fingers before whispering so low that he really only understood what she was saying by partially reading her lips.

"You're being so strong. You never lost your temper."

Ron smiled and glanced back at Harry who was still distracted.

"You didn't see me in the woods," he shrugged guiltily.

"Exactly!" Hermione mouthed to him.

Harry pulled a key out of his backpack with a satisfied look on his face and glanced back over at the two of them. Hermione moved to get up, pausing to gather the breakfast things strewn around them, and as she leaned across Ron to pick up his empty plate she breathed into his ear.

"You didn't let anybody see."

He almost shivered and his eyes followed her as she stood up and carried the plates and cutlery over to the corner of the cave. She smiled and gave him a wink. He didn't really understand what she was so proud of entirely but it made him feel good anyway.

"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 found Harry's attitude extremely amusing. There's nothing quite like winding up bureaucrats while seeming to be as polite as possible at all times. Fred and George used to do the same thing to Percy, back when the family were talking to Percy that is. The goblin turned on him, after he let out a snigger.

"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?"

Yes! I can do it too; this is going to be fun.

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?"

Hermione's hand slipped into his own but he was fine, this little bank clerk wasn't going to faze him, and Ron didn't even blink.

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

Hermione's fingers wove between his own once again and he finally understood exactly what she had been talking about that morning, what she had been trying to tell him for years now, that there was nothing that riled an antagonist more than their target not taking the bait. The goblin turned with a snort and shuffled off toward the back of the bank where the transportation to the vaults were picking up and dropping off customers.

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

The goblin cringed and Ron struggled not to smirk as the three of them followed the goblin, his hand still in Hermione's.

When they reached Harry's vault, after quite a hairy journey that caused Hermione to leave imprints of her fingernails in the palm of Ron's hand, the goblin grinned a patronising grin that looked more like a dog chewing on a mouthful of bees in Ron's opinion and bowed.

"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. The goblin shoved the key back into Harry's hand as if it was a weapon he was attacking him with before taking a step back. Harry peered in at his vault and glanced over his shoulder to Ron. Ron knew that he was feeling self conscious about the piles and piles of gold galleons there were, stacked floor to ceiling in some places, when he hadn't done a thing to earn them. He also knew that Harry had tried to give money to his parents in the past, he wasn't supposed to know this and never once told Harry that he did, to pay his upkeep during summers at the Burrow but Ron's mum would have none of it.

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

Harry glared at the goblin who stared right back at him to let him know he didn't give a damn who he offended.

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

Harry was obviously trying to get rid of the goblin for two reasons. The first was that he was an insufferable prat and the second being that they could go and explore the vaults in search of number 3830, the vault of Olive Lotterby. The goblin arched an eyebrow and looked at Harry as if he had just suggested the two of them entering the Cornish midget toss that summer.

"I think you'll find it impossible to remain in the Gringotts vault 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," the goblin's narrowed eyes moved across to fall upon Ron again, "let's say, less fortunate friends."

The goblin shuffled away into the shadows before Harry could do anything other than look utterly furious on the behalf of his best friend, who was smiling at his friend's protective streak before shaking his head.

"Don't worry about it mate, I'm above it," Ron felt Hermione squeeze his hand once again before releasing it for the first time since they had met the nastily little runt downstairs, "about five feet above it actually!" he chuckled.

"I never thought the day would come when I missed his temper."

Hermione laughed at this. Ron rolled his eyes; he couldn't win with these two could he? He smiled at Hermione before looking back at Harry and giving him a carefree shrug.

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

Harry seemed to tense up, Ron wondered whether he suspected anything was going on between he and Hermione, before turning back to the vault. Ron wondered if they weren't being quite as subtle as they'd have liked as Harry gestured for the two of them to follow him inside the vault.

"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 quite quickly.

If there was one thing Hermione was good at it was stating the obvious. Ron put his arm around Hermione's shoulders and gestured to her for Harry's benefit.

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

Hermione shrugged off Ron's arm and rolled her eyes as he and Harry chuckled.

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

Never satisfied this woman.

"I'm merely the blob of clay, you've been moulding me, it's your fault" Ron shrugged.

"So back to the...problem in hand," she said, sounding a little weird in Ron's opinion, "any ideas Harry?"

"All I'm seeing is more obstacles," he shook his head, seemingly more discouraged now that he had seen first hand how difficult this was going to be, "it's like we found the most impossible place to get into and then 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 to himself before realising he was speaking out loud, "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.

Ron's skin ran cold.

Shit he didn't hear me did he?

Harry reached out to a stack of coins at his side and grabbed a single bronze Knut.

"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 was amazed by the cheek of his friend and just stared at him, impressed and greatly amused, while Hermione looked disgruntled on behalf of house elves everywhere as they followed him out of the vault. Harry slapped 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."

It was at times like this that Ron wondered if Harry was a secret member of the Weasley family, only with black hair.

A/N I'm not sure if the slang word dough, meaning money, is something used overseas so I just thought I'd clear that up for you in case you're confused by my chapter title.

Hope this is going well, it's weird for me to write as I always knew all of this stuff was happening behind Harry's back so I don't feel as if I'm telling you guys anything other than the same story all over again in the exact same way, it's really odd for me! I'm really struggling not to just be going over the same old ground as LiP but at the same time I want this story to make sense to somebody reading it without ever having read LiP. I'm walking a fine thightrope aren't I?

I've also been having technical problems with logging in to the website...it happens during EVERY one of my stories doesn't it? So that's why you're getting a bulk of chapters all at once as it built up while I was unable to post them.

As ever, thanks for the reviews, you guys are diamonds.