Chapter Nine - Waking the Dead

The floorboards beneath Ron juddered and he fought not to wake up. He desperately wanted more sleep and all this thumping around him wasn't helping him to achieve that goal. He tried to turn over before a cramp-like pain in his arm stopped him and he settled into a more comfortable position. Except no position was comfortable, not at all, the floor was hard and his joints were stiff. Voices were bringing him further out of his rapidly diminishing state of sleep and he groaned and tried to banish the intruding sounds from his brain.

"Too much noise!" he grumbled.

He really was uncomfortable now and shifted his weight and tried to turn over onto his other side before the arm suffering from the cramp yanked him back and something cut into his wrist.

"...you put his shoes on."

That sounded like Harry. Why was Harry giving orders? Then he felt somebody handling his feet quite roughly and jamming something unnaturally hard onto his foot. His toes hurt and Ron realised that something was wrong and forced himself to wake up.

"Is the building on fire or something?" he blinked as he tried to sit up.

Harry was practically sitting on his chest and trying to un-cuff him from the radiator. Ron remembered everything now.

"Stay still for a second Ron, I'm trying to liberate you from the radiator."

Harry shoved Ron hard in the chest and he fell back onto his back. Harry was struggling with the key to the handcuffs and Ron's feet were both feeling as if they were twisting in an abnormal way. He looked down at them and saw Hermione tying his shoelaces with an intense look on her face.

"Hermione, why are you putting my shoes on the wrong feet?"

Ron strained to look around the room; desperately trying to discover their source of panic and seeing nothing, while Hermione pulled his shoes back off roughly. At the same moment Harry turned the key and the cuffs slid open. His feet and his arm free, Ron snaked away from both of them and out of his sleeping bag, he got to his feet and demanded an explanation.

"Look what is wrong with you two? What's the panic about?"

"We're going to take you home," Harry said in a way that seemed to dare Ron to argue with him over the matter.

He looked at the floor, he had been expecting this, for all their reassurances, and was surprised it had taken them this long before deciding to cut him loose.

"Oh, right, I'll just pack my..." Ron suddenly saw that his things were already packed and ready to go, they were eager to rid themselves of him, "...you've packed for me already? How efficient."

Hermione moved closer and handed him his shoes with a look that managed to combine amusement, affection and sadness.

"We're coming with you silly," Ron lifted his head, not daring to get his hopes up, "we need stronger wards and the Burrow has them."

"Sorry mate, I didn't think about how it must look, I'm a prat," Harry said, looking as if he had his mind on about a dozen other things and kicking himself for not remembering that Ron was the kind of idiot who would always think the worst, "We managed to keep you safe last night but you said some stuff that made us think that we really need to be around somebody who's dealt with your sleepwalking before."

Ron suddenly felt ill, they hadn't told on him had they?

"You didn't tell my mum about this did you?"

"No," Hermione insisted as she grabbed his wrist, the handcuffs still swinging from it, "but we think that things might get nasty tonight and we're going to need..."

"Wait you think things are going to turn nasty so you're bringing me closer to more people I don't want to hurt? Where's the sense in that?" Ron snatched his arm back away from Hermione and glared at her with alarm.

Harry put the key into Hermione's hand and grabbed Ron's arm back. He held him still for Hermione to unlock the other cuff while fixing Ron with a fierce look of his own.

"Ron you are going to have to trust us and stop being so sensitive about this sleepwalking stuff alright?"

Easy for you to say, robbed any banks lately?

Hermione tossed the cuffs aside but Harry kept a hold on his arm. Ron tried not to let either of them see how painful this was for him, the bruises on his arm being almost completely concealed but still just as painful as they had been the day before.

"We don't think that you're going to hurt anybody. We don't think that the person sending you after the horcruxes is anything to do with Voldemort, we think they're genuinely trying to help us with the mission, but we also don't think that this person is being careful enough with you ok?"

Harry suddenly seemed to remember Ron's injuries and let go of his arm as if it had burned him. Hermione took another step closer and let out a pained sigh.

"Something you said last night made us worried, for you Ron, not for the safety of us or others but for you and we want to take you home so there are more people there to protect you. There are wards there that Dumbledore put up himself and right now Harry and I can't think of anywhere safer for you."

Ron's head began to spin briefly and he put his hand to his previously swollen eye before shaking the micro headache off almost immediately. He felt Hermione rest her hand on his cheek and he wondered if he was coming down with something as his skin seemed to burn beneath her touch and it didn't feel the same way as when he was blushing.

"We're not trying to take you to the Burrow to get rid of you, we're trying to keep you with us," Hermione said warmly.

"Listen Ron, something was in this room with you last night telling you that you were...that somebody was going to die and I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to. We're flooing from Fred and George's place in ten minutes and that's final."

Hermione seemed to glare at Harry in the same way she had the morning after Gringotts and Ron worried that his condition was causing his two best friends to be at each other's throats while he was asleep...or away.

"Ron," Hermione began, tearing her stern gaze away from Harry's, "last night, whoever it was you were talking to threatened to kill you."

Ron said nothing; he just blinked and turned to Harry.

"That was only what it sounded like, it could've been anything, we've miss-interpreted things before haven't we?"

"You're going to kill me, that's what you said Ron, that's what you said word-for-word!" Hermione said before shoving him backwards onto the bed and forcing his shoes back onto his feet, the right way round this time, "We are getting you out of here now and no arguments."

Somebody wanted to kill him? Somebody wanted to kill him and Harry wanted to keep it from him? Ron waited for Hermione to finish putting on his shoes while he watched Harry picking up their backpacks and walking out the door.

"Here, get this on, you look like death warmed up," Hermione snapped at him, throwing a jumper into his Ron's face, before her own face suddenly fell and she clamped her hand to her mouth, "Oh God Ron, I didn't mean...I'm sorry."

Before Ron's brain could catch up with who he was annoyed with and who he wasn't Hermione had managed to shake off her guilt and pull him off the bed, dragging him down the stairs after Harry.

Harry pounded on the twin's door with a face like thunder and Fred answered and stared at him, then a scowling Hermione, before looking at Ron with some never before seen degree of sympathy and grabbing him and hauling him in off the street. Ron still hadn't found any words to say about this subconscious death threat on his life or the fact that his friends were fighting over him for some reason and let Fred shove him up the stairs to the flat.

"So I take it Hermione won the 'do we tell him' war then?" George said as he saw them climbing the stairs.

Ron finally understood what was going on between them. Hermione was always the one for outright honesty even if it wasn't what you wanted to hear and Harry was the king of bottling things inside to protect everybody else. He had obviously wanted to spare Ron the worry. He heard Hermione hissing at Harry.

"What would you have me do, tell him everything was fine like you did the last time?"

Ron turned on them.

"What about the last time? What didn't you tell me then?" he asked, wondering what else Harry was keeping from him 'for his own good'.

Harry glared at Hermione as she became flustered at letting Ron hear her little aside.

"What's the matter little Miss honesty?" Harry snapped at her.

"Harry don't," she warned.

Harry turned to Ron who was looking at him in a way that demanded an immediate explanation.

"You hexed Hermione and me in your sleep to get away and rob Gringotts the other night," his best friend said matter-of-factly before his face dropped and he looked disgusted at himself.

No. He couldn't have done, not his friends, he couldn't have hurt them, not even in his sleep.

"I did what?" Ron gasped.

Hermione turned on Harry with her full fury.

"You wanted to protect him from that Harry...You! How dare you do that to me," she punched Harry on the arm hard, "how dare you do that to him! After all you said..."

Were they having lengthy debates about how to handle him and what to tell him? Ron felt sick. It was bad enough being taken every night and being left with no memory of his own actions but to discover that his own best friends were keeping what little else he had to go on from him made his insides burn. They were arguing over him as if his opinion was completely invalid.

"Shut up the both of you," Ron snarled, "I am sick of being treated like the fragile little nutcase in this scenario!"

Both Harry and Hermione froze and stared at him with stunned shame and he felt Fred thumping his hand on his shoulder for support.

"I have to say I'm with Ron on this one, you two are letting the stress get to you and you're disguising it as concern for the nocturnal wanderer here."

How very unlike Fred, Ron thought, this was the same bloke who tormented him for all those years wasn't it?

Hermione bowed her head but Harry seemed just as tense as ever.

"Look I'm sorry Ron but you've got enough on your plate right now and..."

"I think I'll be the judge of that," Ron interrupted.

There was a silent standoff for a moment until George decided that he had enough of the tension and sent them off on their way via the fireplace. Ron returned to the Burrow with mixed feelings. It felt good to be going back home again but it also felt like failure. He hadn't prepared himself to be seeing the place until this quest was all over.

Ronald Weasley, the boy who went off an epic quest and came back home after a couple of weeks because he was having scary nightmares. I am officially pathetic.

ooo

Ron saw the living room through the dissipating green flames and stepped out, spluttering on the soot in his lungs, his mother flung herself at him and planted a wet kiss on his forehead. Then she clamped his head in her vice like grip and scanned him for injury in her time honoured way of seeing him again after knowing he had been out in the thick of things.

Don't let her see your head hurts, don't let her see your head hurts; don't let her see your head hurts.

"You look different Ronnie dear, what is it?" she said with a frown.

He suddenly remembered her ability to spot old injuries, she was a pro after all the concealment charms Charlie had used over the years for Quiddich and then dragon related wounds, and gave a shrug.

"It's only been a couple of weeks mum."

"Nearly a month is not a couple of weeks Ronald," she said before turning the tender side of his face to the light and squinting, "have you been healed recently?"

Oh shit!

Ron pulled his head back and turned his previously swollen side away from his mother's eagle eye.

"It's soot mum, I'm fine really," he rubbed his cheek rigorously for effect; making him flinch inwardly at the extra discomfort he was causing himself.

There was nothing else for it, he thought, he had to go to the emergency back up plan. The one thing he had up his sleeve to distract her attention away from worrying was his 'gotta love me' smile and that wasn't always a guarantee to work. He tried it after he, Fred and George had liberated Harry from the Dursleys in his dad's flying car and she had nearly smacked it right off his face with rage.

It seemed to have done the trick this time though; she gave him a chuckle and hurried into the kitchen to begin making a feast for the three of them after declaring that they had all become so thin after such a short time away.

As they heaved their backpacks onto their shoulders to take them upstairs to their rooms Ron's dad pulled him back by the shoulder and gave him a conspiratorial wink before muttering.

"I'd ask Hermione to have another go at that face of yours Ron, when your mother sees those bruises aren't soot she'll go spare."

After a long evening of humouring his mother and avoiding awkward questions the three of them made their excuses and went up to bed. Harry and Hermione had been doing a special set of enchantments on everything they could think of while he helped his mother with the dinner downstairs that afternoon and now they were about to put them to the test.

Ron noticed that Hermione and Harry seemed to have resolved their conflict and were on pretty good terms again so he decided against bringing up his own annoyance at being kept in the dark. There was no point in restarting a dead argument after all he told himself.

Harry left the room to go and brush his teeth and Ron sat on his bed wondering if he should tempt fate and wear shoes to sleep just in case. That was when Hermione came in swinging a pair of handcuffs from her finger and grinning at him and all other thoughts left his head.

"You don't have to look so happy about chaining me up you know?" he teased.

"I am though," she said as she sat beside him on his bed, "I could get used to having you exactly where I want you Ronald Weasley, it makes a nice change."

Ron didn't know whether to blush, laugh or flirt back. He didn't have to choose as Hermione leaned in and pressed her lips against his with a wicked smile.

"Oh I like it when you're lost for words," she said as she sat back again.

Ron licked his lips to taste the remnants of their brief kiss once again and leaned into her, lifting his hand to stroke her hair, he closed his eyes to return her kiss but opened them again at the sound of the cuffs clicking closed around his wrist.

"You're under arrest sugar," Hermione giggled.

"And you call me a tease?" Ron scoffed as he lay back on the bed and lifted his cuffed arm up to the bedpost and watched Hermione fasten the other cuff around the brass frame.

She was practically lying on top of him as she did this and she didn't move back once it was done. Instead she smiled down at him and stroked his fringe out of his eyes and ran her fingertips over his thrice healed cheekbone, admiring her own handiwork on his now entirely reduced swelling around his eye, and stared right into his eyes with her huge brown ones and smiled. Before Ron knew what he was happening he found himself trembling violently all over, his skin extraordinarily sensitive to the touch, and Hermione looked concerned for him and was about to ask him what was wrong when he just let it go.

"I love you."

There, he'd finally said it; at long last he'd finally got the nerve to put it out there. He was still shaking, unable to believe how nervous it had made him to say those words to her after coming so close so many times recently, and he swallowed as he watched her face for signs of reciprocation or fear and disgust.

"What did you just say?" she whispered into his face, her expression still not having changed from the one she wore just before he said it.

He shuddered as he exhaled and wished more than anything he wasn't handcuffed beneath her right now. He wanted to run away and bury his head in the back yard until she had forgotten all about his stupid little declaration.

"Don't make me say it again."

Her face fell and Ron's heart tightened in his chest.

"Why, didn't you mean it?" she asked him, looking hurt now.

"No, I meant it," Ron said before stalling again and feeling as if his mouth was his worst enemy and willing it to shut the hell up, "it's just I think I might explode if I say it again and you don't..." he couldn't get the last couple of words out as Hermione had kissed them away with one of the hungriest kisses the two of them had ever shared.

Ron thought for a moment he was going to pass out. His heart was pounding so hard that he could hear his pulse in his ears and Hermione seemed to be kissing all the air out of his lungs. On top of that he was still shaking with the nerves he had built up to actually say those words to her after all this time. She was crushing him beneath her and he didn't mind in the slightest. Hermione was so deep into their kiss that it took Ron by surprise when she suddenly pulled back a fraction, panting heavily.

"You know I love you too right?" she said at rapid speed.

"I..." Ron began to respond before he had even began to draw breath but Hermione was back on him, lips devouring his and his need for oxygen seeming insignificant now as he prepared himself to die in the most wonderful way possible.

They heard the bathroom door opening and Hermione launched herself off the bed and stumbled backwards towards the door.

"Wait here," she said breathily, "there's something else I've got to make sure you can always reach me when you want to."

With that she ran out of the room and Ron found himself flapping his jaw like a goldfish on dry land.

Wait here? Where the hell was he supposed to go while shackled to a bloody bed? Something to make sure he could reach her when he wanted to? He wanted to reach her now. Where in Godric's name had she gone running off to?

"Alright there mate?" Harry said as he returned to the bedroom without paying Ron's expression that much attention, "I see Hermione's already got you restrained for the night, are you comfortable?"

Ron was still watching the doorway that Hermione had disappeared through and saw Harry pulling back the bedcovers out of the corner of his eye. He was thankful that his friend hadn't noticed how stunned Ron was at that moment and he tried to pull himself together again.

Hermione cleared her throat, appearing at the door again just as Harry was climbing into bed, before walking over to Ron, and sitting down on the edge of his bed. She withdrew a small black object from her pocket.

"What's that?" Ron frowned, more confused than he could ever remember being before.

"It's a mobile telephone Ron," Hermione said, sounding as calm and clinical as if she was explaining a homework assignment to him, "I got one so you can contact us even if you end up in the muggle world, it's a way to tell us where you are and if you need help."

She held up the mobile phone and flipped it open.

"See? You'll see public telephone boxes everywhere and all you have to do is put one of these coins into the slot," Hermione held up a silver coin with corners and slid it into the pocket of Ron's tracksuit bottoms causing Ron to almost lose his composure entirely, "and dial the number and you can speak to me wherever I am in the world right then and there ok?"

Right pay attention Weasley, she's saying something about a number; I have to remember a number.

"What's the number?" Ron asked; trying not to sound amazed at Hermione's ability to stay so calm after what had just happened between them, while she closed up the phone and slipped it back into her pocket.

"It's 0744..." she began.

What?

"Whoa, how many numbers is this? I thought you said a number, as in one?" Ron sputtered.

Harry was laughing at him now and Hermione smiled and shook her head.

"Sorry Ron, a phone number is actually several numbers long and this one is eleven digits."

Oh she's having a laugh!

Ron couldn't even remember his own address at that very moment, how the hell was he supposed to remember eleven random numbers in his state?

"I'm never going to remember that Hermione."

Her eyes met his briefly before she began to search around for a solution. She spotted something on his bedside table and leaned over to grab a spare quill and a pot of ink.

"I'll write it on your arm for you ok?"

Ron extended the arm that wasn't manacled to the bedpost and Hermione inked the quill and began to write the numbers up the length of it. Ron began to feel the trembling returning to his body as Hermione held his arm tightly in position with one hand and caressed the surface of his skin with gentle strokes of the quill with the other. He felt her hands were shaking now as well and looked down at the numbers she was transcribing onto his body. She was making slow work of it, Ron assumed in an effort to keep the numbers neat and legible despite her quivering hand, and with every pause she took to re-ink the nib of the quill her eyes would dart back up to meet his and they would both tense up again. When she finally completed the final number and placed the quill back on Ron's bedside table he felt as if he was shaking so violently that he would go into a full on convulsion.

"There," she swallowed as she released his arm with some reluctance.

Ron wasn't able to speak any more and just about managed to give her a nod as she sat up again.

"So that's my number then," Hermione said, her voice sounding breathless, "and you dial this number and the phone will ring and I'll answer and be speaking to you ok?"

Ron nodded again. Hermione braced herself to get up from the bed.

"Ok then, I'll be saying goodnight."

Ron managed to make a sound as he nodded this time and Hermione left his side and set off across the room towards the door, never tearing her eyes from his the whole time, walking backwards as she went.

"Well goodnight," she said, making a very un-Hermione-like girlish sound as she smiled at him.

Harry made an amused snorting sound and Ron suddenly realised that he'd probably been watching the whole thing all this time and felt suddenly humiliated. Hermione jumped, obviously not having noticed Harry's presence in the room either, and gave him a rather over the top wave.

"Oh, goodnight to you too Harry."

" 'Night Hermione," Harry grinned and Ron cringed internally, he was going to make him pay for this tomorrow.

Ron looked back to Hermione who was edging out of the room again with an irrepressible grin on her face. She ended up backing right into the door.

"Goodnight."

She finally made it out of the room and closed the door behind her. Ron immediately looked down and pretended to examine the numbers on his arm so as not to have to meet the eyes he knew were on him.

"Don't smudge 'em mate or she'll have to come in and do it all over again," Harry teased.

"What?" Ron said as he forced himself to look up at his friend and concentrate on something other than the fact he had just told Hermione Granger that he loved her.

"I said do you want me to put you to sleep tonight or are you ok?" Harry smirked.

"No, I'll be fine I think, as long as this thing doesn't get too uncomfortable," he jangled the handcuffed arm against his bedpost.

Harry smiled at him before wishing him a goodnight and blowing out the candle at his bedside. Ron stared into the darkness and wondered if Hermione's touch would always make him feel that way from now on. He closed his eyes and thought about tomorrow. They were going to be very different from now on.

"Give 'em hell from me Ron," Harry's muffled voice drifted across the room to him.

"Will do," Ron's answered back.

ooo

Dumbledore had woken Ron, in a way, which was something of a surprise to him considering he had been to the man's funeral not so long ago now. He had been told not to say anything and wake Harry, who he couldn't quite make out in the darkness, and Dumbledore had released him from the handcuffs and broken Hermione's enchantments on the room as if they were nothing more than paper chains. He had lead Ron out of the room and down the stairs all the way down to the kitchen where he had muttered something about forgetting about Molly and Arthur's late nights and directed him to go and try the front door after Ron had found the back door to be locked.

"My own wards have turned out to be my biggest obstacle Ronald," the ghostly figure said, "I would ordinarily laugh at such a thing if it was any other night than tonight."

Ron thought that Dumbledore was staring at him in a very unhappy way, had he done something to upset him he wondered?

"Floo powder!" Dumbledore suddenly announced brightly, "there's nothing to prevent a Weasley using the Burrow fireplace Ronald...but alas I am not the only one of us to have thought of that."

Ron wondered what all these mood swings were all about. Were they flooing or not? He moved into the living room to fumble for the bowl on the mantelpiece anyway. He wondered why the Burrow was so dark, he couldn't see a thing, and Dumbledore rested his arm on his shoulder and sighed.

"Well we'll just have to resort to the first ever escape plan you came up with Ronald. The window it is."

Ron crossed the room to the window and slid it open. He climbed out and found himself being encouraged to run by Dumbledore. This was a hard thing to do in the pitch black but he did his best anyway and soon Dumbledore announced that they were outside his anti apparition wards and took his arm firmly.

"Ronald, I want you to take us to the image you see, no questions asked and I will perform a spell to account for the change of angle as we go alright?"

Ron nodded and waited for an image to appear to him. Nothing came so he glanced up to Dumbledore and saw the old man had a sombre look on his face as he stared back down at him.

"Sir, what is it, what's wrong?" Ron asked.

Dumbledore squeezed his arm and answered in a low tone.

"I am sorrier than you will ever know Ron."

Ron was about to ask him what he meant when the image of dirty satin and some kind of dank sludge with what looked like twigs sticking out of it flashed into his mind and Ron disappareated with Dumbledore without another moments hesitation.

Crack!

Ron was lying down on his back, not flat on his back though, there was something lumpy and gooey beneath him. Dumbledore seemed to be beneath him as well. He felt something cold penetrate through his back and he heard Dumbledore's voice inside his head.

'Close your eyes Ronald and hold your breath until I tell you otherwise'

Ron did as he was told; he wondered what the icy feeling in his back was as he listened to Dumbledore shouting incantation after incantation.

"Concavo! Contego! Effodio! Permeo! Orno spiritus! Accelero ennervate!"

The chill left Ron's body and he heard Dumbledore's voice again, it sounded shaky, instructing him to open his eyes and take a breath again.

"What was that?" he gasped as he inhaled air that seemed to have been recently created in the tight space.

"I have tried to lessen the weight above you so you will be able to get out, I have given you something breathable for the time being and you should now wake as soon as I leave you which has to be now while you still have the air. Your right hand Ronald, feel for a wand, there should be a wand somewhere at your side."

Ron felt around and his fingers plunged into the most revolting lumpy slime, it was like stirring congealed bile with his bare hands, until they curled around a thin wooden stick that could only be a wand.

"Found it," he said with a shudder as he withdrew it from the ooze.

"Now all you have to do is get out and bring the others back here to find the locket. If I had just shown you the grave from the outside Ronald none of you would ever have attempted to dig up the coffin to recover the horcrux. If you did you would have taken too much time over it and Lord Voldemort knows you are looking for them. It had to be this way I'm so sorry Ron, I really am."

Ron suddenly drew a sharp intake of breath and slammed the palms of his hands against the dirty satin above him.

"What grave? No you didn't, you can't," he pushed against the solid surface above him and heard creaking wood, "you can't leave me here!"

His arms fell back down to his sides as if they were made of lead and sleep hit him with the same speed and silence that Dumbledore left him.