Chapter Eight - Into the Arms Of Death
"No, you're fine Ron, they don't know it's you," Hermione said in an attempt to reassure him that he wasn't about to be arrested on sight as soon as they left Fred and George's place.
"It wasn't him," George said stubbornly, Ron thought that George had always taken anything to do with his sleepwalking very personally due to the fact it had been he who had disobeyed his mother's instructions and woken Ron that time ten years ago.
Hermione nodded in agreement.
"What I mean is that nobody saw you there to blame you. You won't get into any trouble over this."
"No trouble?" Ron rose to his feet and began to pace even more frantically than he had been before, "No trouble Hermione? I attacked aurors!"
"You didn't attack anybody, you controlled people."
What they hell was with her? Why isn't she scared of me?
"Oh well that's fine, perfectly acceptable isn't it?" Ron scoffed with a wave of his hand.
"Calm down," Hermione said, grabbing him by the shoulders, "nobody got hurt. Nothing belonging to anybody got stolen remember? You are not in any trouble because, along with everything else, you managed to perform a memory charm on everybody."
"Witnesses Hermione," Ron prodded at the paper with his finger, "did you not read the word witnesses...plural?"
"Witnesses who, along with everybody else, didn't see the wizard's face and weren't able to supply any kind of descriptive details to the investigators who arrived on the scene. You're in the clear Ron."
He wished that was the case, he really did, and he felt Hermione's firm grip on him loosen and her hands gently rub up and down comfortingly. He looked her in the eye and just wanted to bury his face into her shoulder and hide until all this was over. She seemed to have more faith in him than he did. She really did trust him more than anybody else in the world ever had done before. He wanted to tell her...to tell her... No, he told himself, it wasn't fair of him to do that now. He pulled himself together and out of her reach in order to pick up his frantic pacing once again.
"All those people Hermione, I had one wand and I was asleep, and I performed an unforgivable curse and an unbreakable memory charm on all of them."
Harry suddenly stood up and glared at Ron.
"So what?"
Ron looked at Harry as if he was clearly insane.
"So I need to be locked-up!" Ron said incredulously.
"You need to be shut-up," Harry said harshly, "you're talking bollocks."
"Hear, hear!" George said.
"Look at the state of me Harry," Ron said through gritted teeth as he held out his bruised arms for Harry to get a good look at, "and I was covered in blood when I first woke up, you're seriously telling me I'm not dangerous?"
"That's easily explained," Hermione chipped in, tugging at Ron's elbow, "Voldemort would've got word almost immediately that one of his...possessions had just been stolen from Gringotts and sent as many Death Eaters as he could summon to Diagon Alley to get it back. If you hurt anybody it was only somebody who was looking to hurt you."
Why was it that every source of comfort came with another huge worry?
"Oh so I'm fighting Death Eaters in my sleep too now? What the hell is going on?"
"What's going on is that Voldemort now knows what we're trying to do," Harry's words were like a kick in the stomach to Ron, "and unless you managed to perform that memory charm while fighting those Death Eaters Voldemort also knows that the wizard the Prophet has just declared to be as powerful him is you. This mission just got a whole lot harder."
They were in a room above the Leaky Caldron, Hermione was sleeping on the bed and Harry was being gradually swallowed by a battered old armchair in the corner, and Ron was sitting on the windowsill gazing out at the rooftops and sipping on his third or fourth cup of coffee since they had checked in that afternoon. They had eaten lunch in total silence an hour earlier and still not said a word to each other since. There wasn't really anything they could say. Every word of reassurance seemed to make Ron feel steadily worse and every time Ron got visibly upset Hermione would become either tearful or livid. Harry was just determined that Ron would never be taken out of his sight ever again and had been vowing to ensure Ron's security to Fred and George when they left the shop for the Leaky Caldron.
Harry let out a deep sigh and Ron took another sip of his coffee.
"Listen Ron," Harry's voice came as something of a shock to Ron when it finally penetrated the weighty silence, "if you want to get some sleep we can work something out."
Ron smiled across at him and shook his head before turning to look at Hermione as she slept soundly on the bed, he envied her, and then he realised that maybe this was the best time to bring up a subject that he knew she was vehemently opposed to but one that he really felt warranted serious consideration in light of recent events.
"Look," Ron twisted his body away from the window to face into the room as he spoke, "in my backpack there's..."
"I know, I saw them," Harry nodded, he had packed up Ron's things before they had apparated to Fred and George's place with them, "I thought Hermione made her feelings about that pretty clear."
Ron lowered his head and looked over at her sleeping form again. It was her SPEW mindset that was so against the bond of blood, he told himself, if she really thought about it she would see that it was for the best. Just because they used to be used for enslavement that didn't mean she and Harry would be enslaving Ron.
"Yeah well that was then wasn't it?" he raised his eyes to stare into Harry's with determined ferocity, "Do it before she wakes up so she can't stop it."
Harry sat forward in his chair and clasped his hands together.
"Ron I don't know about this, she was cautious for a good reason you know?"
Well there was that other loophole too but why did he have to bring that up?
"The reason being that whichever one of you does it for me...if anything happened to you, I'd be stuck forever, but you know what Harry? If anything happened to either of you me being stuck would be the last of my worries."
Harry was giving this some serious thought, which encouraged Ron no end, as his eyes drifted over to Ron's backpack where it rested on the floor.
"The thing is Ron," Harry said, Ron's face fell, this didn't sound promising, "I really don't think it should be me."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm almost certainly going to get killed."
Ron shuddered involuntarily, he hated it when Harry talked like this and he was talking like this more and more often these days.
"Don't say that."
"It's the truth Ron; I've told you the words of the prophecy haven't I? Neither can live while the other survives."
Ron swallowed, he hated that damn prophecy.
"Well you're going to kill Vol..." Ron stalled, almost able to say it but not quite, "you'll kill him and then you'll be able to live won't you, there's no problem."
Harry smiled. Ron realised that he was brilliant at instilling confidence and bravery in other people and wondered why he had never been able to do it for himself.
"I intend to kill him Ron, I just can't be sure that he won't take me with him and if you're bound by my blood when that happens, when my blood stops flowing, you're bound for the rest of your life."
Ron blinked and fixed Harry's eyes in an unbreakable glare, wasn't that motivation enough for him not to die and why the hell would Harry bind him during a fight anyway?
"Well you better not bloody 'bind' me anywhere during the battle eh?" he said firmly.
"I didn't mean that Ron, I was thinking of a nigh time attack, I could get caught up in defending myself and not have time to release you."
Ron stood up and crossed the room to crouch down at his Backpack and rummage around for the two silver coloured hoops that he had been hiding from Hermione since he took them from Borgin's secret room. Ron withdrew them and held them out to Harry.
"It's the only way to stop me Harry," Ron looked up at Harry with pleading eyes and his heart leapt as Harry's hand slowly reached out to take the hoops from him, "please."
"Don't you dare!" Hermione's furious voice hissed from the bed, "Either of you."
Shit!
Ron's head dropped and Harry jumped back from the hoops as if they were covered in dragon dung as Hermione threw herself off the bed and stormed over to yank the offending items from Ron's open palm.
"I don't care what you did last night Ron, I don't care what you do tonight or the night after that, you are not restraining yourself with the bond of blood and that is final!"
Ron cringed beneath her rage from his position crouched on the floor.
"It was just a maybe Hermione," Harry said, trying to help him friend out, "we were just talking about the idea of it. I wasn't going to do it."
Ron glared up at Harry, who tried to signal to him with his eyes that he was just trying to get them out of trouble and to keep his mouth shut.
"No you were going to suggest I do it, I heard you both Harry," Hermione yelled and stamped her foot, she really was furiously against using those hoops.
Ron pulled himself back up to his feet and rounded on Hermione.
"I knew you'd never do it and I would never have asked you ok? Now give them here."
Ron held out his hand for her to give the hoops back but Hermione was gripping them so hard that her fingers were almost turning blue from the lack of blood reaching them. She seemed to swallow down a ball of rage and her eyes were burning fiercely as she stared at him.
"What was that supposed to mean?"
Oh not he couldn't take another row, not now.
Ron lowered his voice but tried to remain firm.
"I knew you'd say no. I didn't want to waste my time."
The two of them seethed at each other until Ron lowered his hand and turned away from Hermione.
"Keep 'em then," he growled under his breath before stomping back over to the window to sit on the sill and silently seethe.
"Harry's right Ron," she said, her voice sounding suddenly weak, "if you're bound while the binder's blood stops flowing you're bound for life."
Ron looked back at her, his resentment being replaced by the depressing truth, and he laid it on the line.
"If the binder's blood stopped flowing I wouldn't care about being bound for life."
Hermione was suddenly running at him, her eyes flashing with outrage, and Ron tensed from his position on the windowsill. As she reached him her right arm flew back and swung forward, slapping him on his good side and stinging his cheek. The sound was like a thunder crack and he stared up at her as he felt the sensation of her handprint beginning rise to the surface of his skin.
Hermione's hands were covering her mouth and she looked appalled at herself. Well she had just hit somebody who had, only that morning, been recovering from a beating from murderous Death Eaters. Ron was still just staring up at her without reacting in any way. They were just looking at each other. They were like that forever, that's what it felt like, until Ron couldn't bear to look into Hermione's eyes any longer, and he jumped to his feet before he even had the thought to move.
He grabbed Hermione in a full body hug while whispering into her hair with a broken voice.
"I'm sorry."
Hermione held him tight and began to uncontrollably yammer
"We'll find another way I promise you. There's got to be a way to keep you safe, to keep you with me, and I can't let you do something this drastic so soon. There has to be something else we just haven't thought of. I can't let you do it, I won't, it's far too risky. We can chain you up physically and magically tonight and I'll stay up with you all night and you won't go anywhere. I won't let you go tonight. I won't let you go, not ever, ok? You're not a bad person. You're not a dangerous person. The thing that comes to you at night isn't dangerous either. They didn't hurt anybody last night. They didn't make you hurt anybody. It's going to be ok Ron, I promise you, I swear."
Hermione's hands were resting on his face, now sore on both sides, and he realised that he should have said that thing he wanted to earlier. He should have said it ages ago. He should say it now. Instead he made a joke.
"Say that again, I didn't quite catch it," Ron muttered.
They both laughed and Ron suddenly remembered that Harry was there too when he heard him laughing as well. Harry made himself scarce, leaving the two of them alone and still in each other's arms at the window, and Hermione rested her head against Ron's chest.
"I'm sorry I hit you, I can't believe I did it, does it hurt?"
"Stings a bit but I deserved it, its ok. I can't believe that after all the times I've pissed you off over the years that this is the first time you've ever done it," he chuckled and squeezed her a little tighter.
She looked up at him and smiled before standing on tip toes and gently kissing him. She dropped back down again and looked tired.
"I was so worried about you last night, I couldn't sleep until I knew you were safe, and I was so scared that they were hurting you from the inside," Ron felt her shudder against him before continuing, "I convinced myself you could hear me for a while but it wasn't true, they had you from the very beginning, they had you all alone in there and there's nothing I can do to help you when they come for you again tonight."
"They may not come any more Hermione, we got the impossible one, it's over," Ron smiled down at her and lowered his head to kiss her, she met him halfway.
As they separated again Ron felt Hermione squeeze him again, he felt another dull ache around his ribs and his back but kept it to himself, and they sat down on the window sill.
"You know that's not true, don't lie to make me feel better, I hate it when you lie to me."
Ron pushed the hair away from her face and saw her tired eyes shining as she looked back at him.
"I'd tell you the truth but it scares me too much, I'm protecting myself as well y'know?"
She thrust her face into the side of his neck and curled her arms around his neck with a breathy whimper. Ron rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head.
"Hey come on, don't get upset, everything's going to be fine. You'll see."
Hermione's muffled voice sounded against his skin and her breath was warm and slightly ticklish as she said something that silenced Ron for several minutes afterwards.
"If they ever break you Ron I'll find a way to make them pay. I'd kill for you. I'd die for you."
Harry had returned with a pair of handcuffs and an apologetic look on his face for interrupting what he thought was an intimate moment between Ron and Hermione. Ron had finally found his voice and had told her that no matter what happened to him he forbade her to become a murderer or a victim in the name of revenge.
"I can just about handle ruining my own life let alone yours too."
She had kissed him with increasing ferocity for ten minutes before resting her head in his lap and drifting back to sleep. He had stroked her hair and watched the sun go down through the window before carrying her over to the bed and laying her down, immediately causing her to wake up, and she had insisted upon having another go at healing the visible bruises and swelling on Ron with her wand.
"You're just feeling guilty about smacking me aren't you?" he had smiled and she had been about to threaten him with another red handprint on his anatomy when Harry coughed to catch their attention.
Now Ron was tugging against the handcuffs as Harry finished fixing the one that wasn't around Ron's wrist to the radiator.
"These'll be off in a second you do know that right?" he warned Harry apologetically.
Harry shrugged.
"Well we'll take your wand from you, that'll make it a little harder for you won't it?"
Hermione had a book open on her lap and had been casting charms on Ron, on the handcuffs, on the door and window and pretty much anything she could find a charm for.
"You shouldn't be able to get out of them and my magical re enforcements on them Ron and even if you do the room should hold you."
Ron glanced up at her.
"And if it doesn't?"
Hermione looked a little upset, but only for moment, before standing up straight and closing the book.
"Harry or myself would have woken up long before that becomes an issue, if either of us sleep tonight at all, and if you apparate anywhere we'll be taken with you."
Harry nudged Ron and grinned.
"Don't worry mate, we'll be on you like glue tonight."
Ron rolled his eyes and smiled as Hermione took a step back and regarded the sight of him sitting on the floor, one arm chained to a radiator, on top of his sleeping bag and began to frown.
"Well you're obviously not going to doze off in that uncomfortable position are you?" she said, before raising her wand and twirling it in front of her, "Let me know when you're ready and I'll..."
"Cheers Hermione," Ron nodded as he turned onto his side to continue chatting with Harry.
Harry gestured to the radiator with a nod of the head.
"Why does this room even have one of those when there's a fireplace right here?" he asked.
Ron shrugged.
"Hot water's got to come from somewhere hasn't it? Besides, these fireplaces are really for flooing rather than heat, the chimney's haven't been cleaned in an age."
Hermione settled down on the end of her bed with another book and Harry and Ron played wizard chess until Ron found himself losing the fight to keep his eyes open. Harry must've noticed this as he lost their last game.
"Well mate I don't know about you but I'm knackered."
"Oh very subtle," Ron snorted, "couldn't you have just said, you're boring me now, knock him out Hermione?"
Harry laughed at this.
"I didn't want to hurt your feelings," he shrugged.
Hermione put her book aside and sank down to the floor with her wand in her hand.
"You have been looking sleepy these last few minutes Ron," she smiled as she held up her wand to his face, "I think it's time for you to get some rest don't you?"
Ron tried to lay himself down in a comfortable sleeping position. Hermione held her hand over the delicate side of his face as he wriggled around, fearing that he would knock it against the radiator and ruin all her good repair work, and as he rested his head down onto his pillow she stroked the cheek she had previously felt the need to strike and stared down at him with a smile.
"Are you ready?" Hermione asked him, he nodded, "Obdormio!"
Ron's eyes closed and his body slumped, he was submerged in blackness again and the world was drawn away from him, he was back in his own personal void.
"Ronald, it's time."
He knew that voice. He sat up and saw the ghost of Dumbledore standing in front of him.
So that's who it was, that's how he broke into Gringotts.
He felt a wave of relief and answered him.
"For what?"
"To find the next of Lord Voldemort's horcruxes."
"Now?" Ron wearily, he really wanted to just get a good night's sleep after all the activity of the night before.
"The sooner the better now that he has been alerted to our task."
"There's really no other way?" Ron asked.
Dumbledore shook his head.
"I'm afraid not Ron," Dumbledore's face suddenly brightened as he took a step closer and crouched down before him, "Come now, cheer up, you have been doing a wonderful job and I am very proud of you."
Ron couldn't help but find this amusing.
"Throwing your lap dog a bone huh?"
Dumbledore stared at him with surprise for a moment.
"I think there's still something of last night lingering within you Ronald."
Before Ron could ask what that was supposed to mean Dumbledore shook his head and returned to his point.
"You're no lap dog Mr Weasley; you are a divine instrument sent to rid the world of Lord Voldemort once and for all."
Ron felt something against his hand. He looked but could only see a shadow darkening the skin. He looked back up at Dumbledore.
"You know just how to play me don't you?"
Dumbledore smiled.
"I sense your hostility has lessened towards me Ron. Dare I hope that you now trust I am who I say I am?"
"I don't know, do you dare?" Ron said, wondering if his past conversations with Dumbledore had been particularly frustrating for the old wizard.
"I am ever the optimist, even in the afterlife Ronald, and do not fear for tonight you will travel nowhere."
Ron let out a sigh.
"Thank you."
"Oh don't thank me Ronald, thank your friends, they have seen to it that I will not be able to take you where you need to go this evening."
"You can't break the spells?" Ron was asked, wondering how he could have been beaten by Harry and Hermione's efforts when he managed to walk into a vault at Gringotts and out the front door without any problems at all.
"I can Mr Weasley, of course I can, but I can do nothing to prevent Harry or Hermione from trying to side along apparate with you and that cannot be allowed on this next part of the journey."
"I have to go alone?" Ron asked, wondering if this meant that he was in for another battle to the death.
"In order to ensure that the locket was indeed destroyed, yes I'm afraid you do."
"When?" Ron asked with resignation.
"When you aren't being quite so closely scrutinised by your friends," Dumbledore said before looking away.
Ron narrowed his eyes slightly, Dumbledore looked deeply unhappy all of a sudden, and he wondered what it was about this mission that Ron had to go on all alone that made the man so sad.
"What? What's the matter?"
He still couldn't bring himself to look at Ron.
"You finally trust me. You and I have finally had a light-hearted conversation. Look at you now Ron, you are even showing concern for me when a few nights ago you were convinced I was a trick of Voldemort's sent to use you to get to Harry. This next task Ron, I wish there could be another way, I fear that I will lose the trust I have only just earned from you."
"Why? What is it?" Ron demanded, uneasy at both what he was being told and this previously unseen demeanour in Dumbledore, "Where are you sending me?"
"I will send you to the locket Ronald. I wish there was some way I could spare you this but alas, I can think of none in this time of urgency. I only wish you had some memory of our conversations in your waking hours. I wish that when you wake and find yourself with Regulus you could know that I am with you and you are not alone."
"Regulus?" Ron frowned.
"Sirius' brother Regulus Black, R.A.B. Ronald," Dumbledore said before another wave of unhappiness caused him to avert his eyes from Ron's own, "I fear you will never forgive me when this is done."
Ron wondered what on earth could be worse than him having performed an unforgivable curse.
"You're not going to make me kill anyone are you?"
"Never Ron, never that, but I will be sending you into the arms of death," Dumbledore was looking at him again; he seemed to have strengthened his resolve despite still being clearly unhappy about this next step.
"You're going to kill me?" Ron shuddered, still not able to translate exactly what he was getting at.
A dark shadow passed between Ron and Dumbledore and remained while Dumbledore answered the question.
"No. It will be much worse than that I'm afraid."
Ron had more questions, he wanted Dumbledore to let him in on the plan, and he wanted to reassure the old man that together they could do anything but he didn't get the chance. His body felt limp and heavy and his head fell backwards while the black shroud of unconsciousness fell over him once again. Something was cushioning him from behind and his arm was suspended in mid air by something but that was all he knew before the darkness penetrated his mind as well as his body and thought left him until morning.