Chapter Thirteen - Tearing My World Apart
Hermione was trying not to look at him.
She started crying every time she did and now that they were about to leave she was welling up just looking at the crack in the stone floor tiles on the kitchen floor.
"Well I've packed you enough food to last you until dinnertime at least, you can come back any time you like to get some more, I don't want either of you going hungry Harry," Ron's mum fussed as Harry hauled his backpack onto his shoulders.
"You've packed enough food to last us all weekend Mrs Weasley, don't worry we'll be fine," Harry smiled.
Hermione sniffed and stared at the wind chimes above the back door. Ron glanced at his mother who nodded to him to take her outside and say goodbye in private. Ron pointed to the hoop that floated around his arm, he was restricted to within the Burrow, something that caused quite a bit of grief in itself as Ron had gone through a moment of claustrophobia as soon as he knew he wouldn't be able to get out if he wanted to. Hermione had burst into tears then too, leaving Harry to calm him down and work out a psychological technique to make him feel a little less closed-in by the walls of the house. Harry had, after all, lived in a small cupboard for several years of his life.
"Um come on Harry, let's see you off, I'll show you to the edge of the anti-apparition wards," Ron's mother smiled as she guided Harry, who knew well enough by now where Dumbledore's wards ended, outside to give Ron and Hermione some peace.
Hermione let out a juddering exhalation and turned to look back at Ron. Her eyes were filling rapidly and Ron raised a warning finger.
"I don't want to see that anymore, I want a proper goodbye, I want to remember you happy and confident and strong. That's what my girlfriend's like, not this."
Hermione sniffed and wiped her face, she nodded, and walked across the kitchen to plant a soft kiss on his cheek and look into his eyes.
"Tell me to stay with you," she pleaded.
He smiled and pulled her into his arms. They held each other for a couple of minutes, rocking from side to side, before Ron let her go and took a step back from her.
"It's still hard for you isn't it, to touch me?"
He shook his head.
"Don't lie to me," she said roughly, her throat constricting with restrained emotion.
"I'm not, it isn't hard to touch you, it's just hard sometimes, with everyone."
"I don't want you to go through this by yourself," she said, straightening her backpack on her shoulders.
"I won't be, mum and dad will be here and Fred and George are coming tonight, it might not happen at all. They might now come if Harry's not here."
Hermione huffed and turned to walk out of the kitchen without another word to him.
"Bye then," Ron called after her.
She didn't even get all the way through the doorway before running back to him and throwing herself at him with a whimper. Ron closed his eyes and pictured himself on his broom flying out in the open. His body relaxed in her grasp and he was able to open his eyes and hug her back.
"I know you didn't really need me to do that but I just had to."
"It's ok, I need the practice," he smiled and nodded, "it worked. Did you feel it work?"
She nodded against his chest.
"I barely even noticed you tense up," she lied.
Ron kissed the top of Hermione's head and tried to tell himself that she wasn't going to be gone long enough for him to be lost to her when she returned. He would still be able to be there for her. It would only be for a few days, he knew it, and he could hold the madness off that long. Who's to say that the viator spell that had passed the message on to Harry that he was to go to Wales in the first place had deteriorated him even more? It might not have and then he'd still have a couple more weeks, maybe three, which would be good wouldn't it? He marvelled inwardly at his own optimism. He was thinking of three weeks of lucidity for the rest of his life as a treat.
"I can't leave," Hermione whispered, "I can't walk away from you, I can't."
Ron cleared his throat and shoved her away from him firmly but gently.
"Right then I'm going to do it for you ok?" he looked down at her tear streaked face and quickly bent over to kiss her on the cheek, he whispered, "I love you," and turned quickly and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
He heard the door closing and a few seconds later the sound of Harry and Hermione disapparating away. He threw himself face down onto his bed and tried to stop his brain from going off on one of the tangents that he'd found himself unable to escape from over the last few hours. It was as if he would be in the middle of a conversation and then suddenly burst out laughing for no reason or feel suddenly paranoid or aggressive. He told himself if wasn't the oracle madness, he was just tired and he still wasn't eating as much as he should.
By the time night had fallen Ron was beginning to feel the claustrophobia setting in again. He knew that the living room wasn't the best place for him to be and made his excuses just after sunset. George had followed him upstairs and sat in the corner of his room while Ron stood by the open window with his eyes closed, feeling the breeze on his face and focusing on the open fields and rolling hills that stretched out ahead of him. He pictured gliding over them, following the sun so it never went down, and nothing could pull him down or close him in. He was free and calm and able to breathe.
He heard the door behind him creak and Fred's voice whispering to George.
"Everything ok?"
"Fine."
"You wanna swap?"
"Nah, I'll stay for another couple of hours more."
Ron opened his eyes and was startled at how dark it was outside now. He turned around and saw Fred retreating from his bedroom. He saw Ron looking and smiled.
"Hi little bro, want me to bring you up a drink or a snack or anything?"
Ron smiled and shook his head before looking at George sitting on the chair and fanning through a copy of '101 things muggles think when they see magic and how to modify their memories'.
"You don't have to sit up here with me y'know George, I'm doing better tonight."
Fred gave George a look out of the corner of his eye and slipped out, closing the door behind him as he went, and George closed the book and sat forward in his chair.
"What will you do in here all on your own?"
Ron nodded to the open window.
"I'll keep doing this."
"And what about when you get tired, what'll you do then?"
Ron averted his eyes and turned back to look out of the window. George stood up and walked across the room to join him at the window.
"Why don't you let me put you to sleep?"
Ron looked back at his brother and remembered that he had been the one to let him know that everything he did at Gringotts meant nothing to him. He was the one who had been punched while Ron was taken over by their uncle Gideon. He was never the one to instigate any of the cruel Weasley twin pranks. He was the one Ron hadn't really spoken to since the coffin. George was feeling as if he was useless to him.
"Because I can't win after tonight that's why."
George sat on the windowsill and stared at him.
"What do you mean by that?"
Ron looked back out the window.
"If they come for me tonight, while Harry's away, then that means they'll keep on coming every night until I lose it and if they don't come for me then I'll know I can't ever be around my best mate ever again else risk it happening again. I'm done for either way."
George put a hand on Ron's shoulder and gave him a shove.
"You're a prat you know that?"
Ron smiled.
"Yeah, what of it?"
George shrugged.
"Nothing, I just thought I'd remind you that's all."
They sat and looked out the window until George saw Ron shivering and made him get into bed. It wasn't until his brother was about to place the sleep charm upon him that Ron realised that the chill still hadn't gone away. George noticed it too and put his hand to his forehead.
"Shit Ron, you're on fire, don't move I'll go and get mum."
George got up to leave and Ron called out to him.
"Don't bother, I get this feeling on and off every now and then since Gringotts, it's like the beginnings of the flu but it goes away after a while. Don't worry about it."
George took a step back towards him and frowned.
"Are you sure, you're looking shittier and shittier the more I look at you."
Ron chuckled.
"And you're a handsome devil too."
George smiled and shrugged with resignation as he flicked his wand at Ron and said the sleep spell. Ron was blinded by the blue flash and felt his chill dissolve away into the darkness.
Ron woke at the sensation of an ice-cold hand clamping over his mouth and the unnerving sight of his dead headmaster leaning over him. He began breathing erratically as he tried to shake off the ghostly but strangely solid hand from his mouth to take in the air he needed.
"Ronald stay calm, I don't want you to hyperventilate again, I'll remove my hand but you have to come with me and not ask any questions. We have to get to Harry and Miss Granger do you understand?"
Ron was still breathing in and out way too fast through his nose as he nodded.
"The Death Eaters are coming for them and they are injured, we need to assist them now, follow me."
Dumbledore released his hold on Ron and he gasped a huge lungful of air in as he threw back the covers and run after Dumbledore out of the room and towards the stairs.
Just as he was about to descend the first flight something grabbed him around the legs and he crashed down onto the landing and began to crawl down the stairs, pulling what felt like a very heavy weight behind him, and unable to move his legs. He struggled after Dumbledore this way until they reached the bottom of the stairs at which the old wizard turned and yelled at him.
"Kick Ron!"
He kicked out as franticly as he could until he felt his legs become freed from what looked like two flailing shadows on the stairs. He kicked them off as he reached the ground floor. Dumbledore was looking up the stairs and Ron was about to turn and do the same when the old man's eyes went wide and he yelled at Ron to dive for cover behind the kitchen door. He did as he was told, wondering why he couldn't see his attackers. Was this one of Voldemort's new tricks?
"You didn't bring your wand did you?" Dumbledore asked him as he crouched before him.
"Was I supposed to?" Ron panted with confusion.
"Let us hope I have kept you feeling ill enough to do adequate wandless magic to get us out of here."
"That was you?" Ron blurted
"Come, the back door, we must see if it's possible to break the bond of blood without hurting you."
Ron got to his feet and ran to the back door, flinging it open and slamming his palms against it, he was about to ask Dumbledore what to try next when he felt two ice cold spears penetrate his back and he heard his old headmaster inside his head.
'Let me try Ronald, keep calm for me won't you?'
"Lentesco solvo depulso!"
Power flowed through Ron's back and down his arms before crackling against the barrier. It didn't even waver. Ron felt his breath getting away from him again.
'No Ron, please, I need you to keep your breathing steady. You have done this with me before and you were astonishing so I know you can do it again. Breath calmly and let me try to make you a little more powerful.'
"What, how?" Ron said as he began to sweat with the amount of extra energy he was trying to process inside him.
A spell was cast inside him, a spell that he recognised as an effective form of defence that led to no permanent injury or risk of fatality, the fever spell.
'Egresco!''
Ron felt stronger than he had ever felt in his entire life. He pressed against the barrier with his full force and with Dumbledore's encouragement but still there was nothing, no give whatsoever. He hissed as he stopped trying forceful measures and waited for Dumbledore to come up with something intellectual for him to try.
The ghostly old man was pacing back and forth mumbling to himself though. All Ron could hear him saying was the words, 'no way to beat it' and Ron realised that forceful approach was what Dumbledore had been counting on working. Ron stared around the kitchen. Yes he could see a little better now, the power was clearing his vision, and he saw that the kitchen was full of things that he could use to smash his way out with. He pointed his hand at the kitchen table and magically threw it at the barrier where it splintered into several pieces that he threw back at the barrier, splintering them further still.
"We need more than brute force Ronald, we need... we need..." Dumbledore was looking around the kitchen himself now and his eyes lit up as he shouted across to Ron to throw the floo powder at the breach and call out the spell to pass through solid objects.
Ron didn't know where his mum kept the spare floo powder so raised his hand and summoned it to him. A huge stone jar flew into his hand from beneath the kitchen sink and he hurled it at the barrier while bellowing the spell with his full force behind it.
"Permeo!"
The floo powder burst into an inferno of green flames that threw Ron against the barrier so hard that he bounced off it and hit the floor hard. Dumbledore was already thinking fast and Ron flipped back up to his feet as if he was just doing a roll on his broom during quiddich.
"Try to shatter it Ronald, wait no, we'll join forces."
Dumbledore ran to stand behind him and Ron once again felt the cold rods penetrating his back and the power within him swelling and rumbling and almost burning through his skin. He was pouring with sweat now and he and Dumbledore lifted his arms to rest on the barrier and shouted the spell with one voice.
"Perfringo!"
Dumbledore withdrew from him and Ron huffed and kicked at the barrier as it remained strong. He turned and saw that the old wizard was losing hope of being able to get them out in time to help Harry and Hermione and Ron felt his anger sear through him like a hot knife. He thrust his arms behind him to levitate whatever he could find and hurled it forward at the barrier where it bounced of or broke into smithereens on impact. He did this again and again and again until he felt some of the power draining away from his body and felt himself getting uncomfortably hot. He guessed that the fever was breaking.
There had to be some way to break the bond of blood. Ron looked down at the hoop around his arm and realised why Hermione had protested the idea so much. He had to get it off and he had to get it off now. He gripped it with his wand hand and growled as many spells he could think of to release him from the hoop's grip.
"Absisto! Reluctor! Expedio! Labour lapsus! Solvo! Depulso!"
Ron felt dizzy now and nothing had worked. Dumbledore was shaking his head.
"Stop Ronald, it's no use, they're on their own."
"No!" Ron said through gritted teeth as he scanned the kitchen and saw his mother's block of kitchen knives on the worktop. His eyes widened as he ran towards it and Dumbledore tried to block him.
"Ronald no, I forbid you to do this, Harry wouldn't want you to try to do this for him, I command you to stop!"
"You command?" Ron snarled under his breath while hurling his mother's entire dinner service at the wall behind him without even noticing he had done it, "You put me in a fucking coffin you can fuck off!"
Dumbledore reeled from Ron's rage.
"Ronald, you can beat the madness, please stay strong for me, for us all, for yourself! Don't do this."
A brilliant flash hit him with such force that he flew through the air and hit the wall. The kitchen blurred and disappeared and he heard Dumbledore's voice through the darkness.
"I could bring you back for the last ten minutes Ron but I think it's best if I leave you for tonight don't you?"
The world was sucked away from him and his skin burned while his bones felt as if they had been plunged into cold water. Then he didn't feel anything more.
"I feel like shit," Ron groaned as he turned over in his bed and opened his eyes a crack to see George staring at him intensely, "Did you not go to bed at all last night?" he mumbled.
George put his hand upon Ron forehead and Ron flinched away, not really out of a fear of being touched but out of confusion at his brother's out of character behaviour.
"You weren't very well last night mate, I think you're well out of it now though," George smiled with a relieved sigh as he sat on the edge of Ron's bed and looked down at him.
"Out of what?" Ron said as he winced, his head was killing him for some reason.
"You had a really bad fever in the middle of the night, had us all worried but it broke and now it's not there at all."
Ron sat up and put his hand to his temples, massaging slowly with his fingers, while blinking the sleep away from his eyes.
"I've got a headache."
George snorted.
"I'm not surprised."
"What d'you mean by tha..." Ron was in the middle of asking George to clarify his comment as he climbed out of his bed only to find himself thrown back into it with the familiar force of the bond of blood, "...whoa! Hermione's got me restricted to my bed. Why would she have done that?"
George jumped up to his feet and looked as if his mother was about to catch him doing something she didn't approve of.
"I'll go and fetch you a cuppa and something to eat, you're still doing that vegetarian thing yeah?"
Ron nodded with suspicion and watched as George ran out of the bedroom. He grunted as he stretched, his back felt as if he'd been hit with eight bludgers at the same time, he wondered if he had been visited during the night. Maybe that was why George had been so weird with him, he'd never really seen it yet, and Fred had always been the lucky one so far. Ron suddenly felt something shifting and shuddered for no reason. He tried to get off the bed again and found that he could. Maybe Hermione had been sleeping and subconsciously restricted him to his bed. He climbed out and walked with heavy footsteps to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Ron looked at his reflection in the mirror and tried to work out if his face looked any different to when he had last looked at his reflection. He peered closer. He was definitely different but he couldn't work out how. Maybe it was the fever. Ron shook his head as he brought the toothbrush up to his mouth and began to clean his teeth. He remembered George commenting on him looking a bit ill before he went to bed now that he thought about it. He was never feeling one hundred percent these days but had put that down to all the sleepwalking. He spat and rinsed out his mouth while he wondered if this little overnight sickness would put an end to his permanent state of 'coming down with something'.
He left the bathroom and went back to his bedroom to get dressed. He was halfway into his jeans when he suddenly laughed out loud.
"Who needs that much floo powder in a big jar? Was she expecting a really fat man to show up and want to floo somewhere?" he asked himself before braying with laughter again.
He hopped up and down on one leg and wrestled the other leg into his jeans, pulling them up and buttoning them before suddenly stiffening.
What the hell was I just laughing about?
Ron rubbed his face firmly and shook his head to try and clear his mind. He was doing it again, that tangent thing. He felt suddenly horrible about the un-ignorable craziness in him coming out again.
He set off down the stairs to see where George was with his breakfast.
I've never seen a black hippogriff.
He heard voices coming from the living room and then more in the kitchen. How many people were at the Burrow for breakfast Ron asked himself.
Wait a minute, was I just thinking about hippogriffs?
Ron paused at the bottom of the stairs and shook his head again. This had to stop, he had to focus, he wasn't going mad. He wasn't going mad just yet anyway.
Ron walked past the living room door and let out a yawn before walking into the kitchen where his parents and Fred and George were brewing tea and making enough breakfast for seven people. Ron wondered if his mum sometimes forgot that most of her children had grown up and left home.
"I wonder why Hermione waited so long to let me get out of bed, d'you think she slept late or something?" Ron pondered aloud on seeing George spreading jam onto a piece of toast.
"Didn't you just see them?" Fred's amused voice snorted.
"See what?" Ron blinked.
"Harry and Hermione, they're in the living room you nit!" George laughed.
Ron ran back to the living room door and skidded to a halt when he saw Hermione sitting on the sofa with both her arms bandaged up and her clothes covered in dried blood.
How long was I out with this fever?
"Oh Merlin, what happened, did something go wrong?" he gasped.
Hermione looked at him as if she hadn't seen him in years and reached her arms out to him with a whimper of longing. Ron was suddenly dragged off of his feet, by a wind that seemed to pull rather than push, across the living room floor on his knees and into Hermione's waiting arms.
"Whoa!" Ron gasped as he recognised the sensation of the bond of blood being utilised again.
Hermione let him go as if she feared that her embrace was killing him.
"Oh God Ron, I'm so sorry!"
"No it's fine," he laughed in amazement at being hurled into her arms in such an undignified manner, "I'm not so bad about the touching anymore."
Hermione looked incredibly disgusted at herself for some reason.
"It's not that," she whimpered, "it's what I did, I hate these things! I don't care what your mother says I'm taking them off you now!"
What the hell is she talking about? Am I on a tangent again?
Hermione slipped the silver hoop off Ron's arm and did the same with her own.
"My mother?"
Hermione was hugging him close to her despite her horror over how she had got him to be at her side.
"Don't you get it Ron? I wanted to hold you and the second I thought it you were dragged into my arms on your knees. When this is over I want those hoops destroyed in the twins chest do you hear?"
Ron began to rub Hermione's back soothingly.
"It's ok Hermione, I don't mind really, it's alright as long as it's you doing it."
"It's never alright," she snapped as she pulled back from him to stare into his eyes, "I'm manipulating you to my own ends and it doesn't matter if you understand or you grant me permission, I'm just as bad as whoever's messing with you every night, and I wish you were angrier with both of us about that."
"You want me to be cross with you?" Ron frowned.
Was he listening to this conversation properly? He wondered if this was the insanity kicking in. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, he couldn't remember having a fever, he didn't know what his own girlfriend was talking about and he was kind of scared that he didn't trust his own reflection in the mirror this morning.
"C'mon Hermione, give the poor bloke a break, he got stupefied last night," Fred's voice sounded from the doorway.
Ron glanced over his shoulder and then back at Hermione before doing a double take.
"I...What?"
Oh Godric I have gone crazy, I'd remember being stupefied.
"Sorry little bro," Fred spoke again, only this time he sounded a lot less amused, "I had no choice, you were kind of out of control."
Ron's eyes looked down from Fred and he flinched on seeing Harry lying on the sofa on the other side of the room, watching the proceedings in stunned silence.
"So, how long ago did this happen?"
"About eight hours ago," George said nonchalantly.
Ron stared at Harry.
"You two were only gone one day?"
So my time line isn't completely messed up.
"Yeah and look at the state we got ourselves in without you," Harry smiled.
"So I got struck down with a message while I was awake and you two had to fight of a whole magical forest and for what?" Ron frowned as he examined the figure in his hand, "It isn't even a horcrux."
"It's help," Harry said, "it's something to help us find horcruxes."
"How does it help though?" Hermione took the figurine from Ron and tapped it a few times with her wand, nothing happened, "It doesn't have any magical properties other than us using it as a portkey this morning."
Harry sighed.
"Maybe it's a message, who is St Nectan anyway?"
Ron was about to answer this when his brain made him think about St Jude and how he was all the more fitting to this quest. The patron saint of lost causes pretty much summed the situation up for Ron. He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to get the nursery rhyme 'oranges and lemons' to stop playing in his head over and over again.
"The patron stain of nectarines?" he sighed, partly to distract himself with a silly joke and partly because he had fruit on his mind.
Hermione had noticed that Ron was distracted by something as he tried to shake off this new tangent he was being sucked into and looked at him with concern.
"Ron why don't you go back to sleep? All that wandless magic last night must have taken a lot out of you. I'll put the hoop on just to be sure you don't go anywhere."
Here comes the night-light to light you to bed...
Ron shook his head in an effort to clear his mind and grinned at her.
...and here comes the chopper to chop off your head!
"No, it's alright, I'm fine. So St Nectan then, that sounds like research is called for," he nudged Hermione, "that sounds like your sort of thing."
Chip chop, chip chop...
Hermione forced a smile onto her face and nodded.
"Yes well I'm sure you two wouldn't mind helping me out would you?"
...fall down dead!
Harry looked at Ron with resignation and the two of them nodded their agreement to hit the books with her. Ron was getting up to follow them out the door when he accidentally told himself off out loud.
"Stop it!" he had hissed to his wandering thoughts.
"Stop what?" Harry frowned as he turned back to look at Ron with worry.
"What?" he asked, a blank expression on his face, "Did I say something?"
Ron was curled up inside the tiny box full of broken chess pieces watching the game progress above him. St Nectan, Ron recognised him fro his figurine, was playing against St Jude, who looked like Dumbledore for some reason. St Jude was losing, obviously otherwise he wouldn't have been living up to his reputation, and his pieces were being tossed into the box on top of Ron.
Pawns, rooks, bishops fell upon him in heavy chunks. He was being buried in them and was trying to shove them off of him to climb out and back to the top of the pile to watch the rest of the game when St Jude's knight was taken. The broken horseman plummeted down and hit Ron on the chest. Ron was winded and struggled to push the knight off of him but he and the horse were too heavy and the game was now over. St Nectan was victorious, he and St Jude shook hands over the board and the rest of the pieces were tossed into the box on top of Ron and the crushing knight.
His chest felt as if it was caving in, he couldn't lift his rib cage enough to pull what little air was around him into his lungs, and he saw St Jude closing the lid on the box above him, plunging him into total darkness. He was getting frantic now and gasping for breath while he felt the bodies around him begin to liquefy and stink. They smelt just like Black's decayed flesh in the coffin and without another thought Ron realised he was back in there, the earth collapsing in on top of him and no wand to blast his way out.
Ron gasped, his eyes flew open and he felt a hand on his face that he smacked away as he sat up, and panted heavily.
"I can't breathe!" he shuddered.
Ron looked around at Harry and Hermione's distressed faces as the leaned over a pile of weighty books to see if he was all right. He tried to calm himself down when he realised that he had been dreaming again and took several deep breaths. It was then that he realised that hand was almost certainly Hermione's and he felt sickened to think that he had just struck out at her. He took her hand and squeezed it tightly.
"Sorry about that, I didn't hit you did I?" he asked breathlessly.
She smiled and squeezed his hand back.
"No you just made me jump a bit that's all. Are you ok?"
Ron smiled and his breathing slowly began to even out.
"Yeah fine, it's just the claustrophobia again, it's getting better though isn't it?" he attempted to give them a reassuring smile as he lied, he wasn't sure how well he was covering up his deterioration.
Harry and Hermione glanced at each other for a moment before smiling at him encouragingly.
Good, they bought it.
"Yes, much better."
Ron felt himself shudder before he pulled the book he had been sleeping on back towards him and tried to force the feeling of the walls moving in on him unnoticeable slowly out of his head.
"So Hermione was just telling me that she found something weren't you Hermione?" Harry said, nodding at Hermione to tell him her news.
"Oh yes!" she suddenly sprung into action and read aloud from her book while Ron and Harry listened with interest, "St Nectan was originally from Wales, which probably explains why we found his icon in a Welsh forest, and moved down to the west of England where he became one of the most celebrated saints in the region."
"Yeah but celebrated for what? I can't find that the guy actually did anything," Harry grumbled as he closed his book with annoyance.
"Well he did settle at a valley in Hartland point and created a never ending spring there. Creating eternal fresh water is something of an achievement don't you think?"
"Creating eternal butterbeer would be a better one," Ron snorted, he could really do with a drink right now.
Harry sniggered and Hermione rolled her eyes and carried on.
"He tended to the needs of the poor, mostly muggles but he did a lot of good in the wizarding community too. He sounds like a quiet peaceful man who kept himself to himself despite having an awesome amount of power. He wielded it but it didn't seem to have any negative affect on him."
"So what are you saying?" Harry frowned.
"I'm just telling you what's written down here," she huffed, "so it goes on to say that he had two cows stolen from him and he was beheaded while in the process of retrieving them."
Chip chop, chip chop...Stop it!
"They chopped his head off because he wanted his cows back?" Ron said as he tried to ignore the nursery rhyme picking up in his head again and tried to look as if he found the story amusing.
"Hold on, if he was so powerful how on earth did they manage to chop his head off in the first place?"
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"He's a magical martyr Harry, he did it for a greater good."
Ron cursed under his breath as a deja vu threatened to come back to him and then wafted away with as much vagueness as it had come.
"Oh not the greater bloody good again, I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime," he muttered with annoyance.
Hermione smiled at him sadly and pushed her book in front of him.
"But it says here that legend has it Nectan picked up his severed head and returned home to his chapel."
Ron blinked at her and looked to Harry before trying to understand what Hermione was finding so informative about this.
"So he's the patron saint of headless people is he? Nick will be pleased."
Harry chuckled before shrugging at Hermione to let her know that this had passed him by as well.
"Oh you two can be so literal. Of course he didn't pick up his head and go home, that's not possible, it's a metaphor isn't it?"
I'm going crazy Hermione, just do me a favour and talk like a normal person will you?
"Is it?" he grunted.
Hermione seemed to be grinning and not the least bit annoyed at Ron's grumpy demeanour.
"Let her finish," Harry said, nodding for Hermione to continue.
"He didn't lose his head, even when they chopped it off, that's the metaphor. A powerful wizard who didn't lose his head Ron."
She threw Ron a meaningful look and he shrugged, all this talk of chopping off heads wasn't doing anything to get rid of those bloody sing song voices in his head.
"Think about it," she huffed as she took Ron's hand in both of hers and looked him in the eyes, "he was really powerful but there are no stories about his power, no demonstrations or legends about his deeds during his life. Why did he become a saint if there was nothing more to him than his creation of a spring and the fact that someone stole his cows?"
Ron turned to Harry with exasperation.
"Am I really that slow or are you not following this either?"
Harry shushed him and leaned across the table, eager for Hermione to continue.
"He was very powerful but for some reason his power had to be kept a secret, sound familiar Ron?"
No way!
"He was an oracle?" Ron gasped, eyes wide with hope for his situation.
"Make sense doesn't it?" Harry nodded, "So what are you thinking Hermione?"
Hermione took a deep breath in before laying it on the line.
"I think that Ron's night time companion is on his side just as much as yours Harry."
Ron snorted and Harry almost jumped out of his chair with his eagerness to refute this crazy theory.
"How can you say that after what they did to him Hermione, you said yourself that they were just using him and didn't care if he got hurt along the way as long as he got the job done."
Ron looked at Hermione in shock.
"You said that?"
"Listen," Hermione raised her hands to silence them both, "This wasn't a horcrux, this wasn't even a clue to the whereabouts of a horcrux, this was a six inch high icon of an oracle...who kept...his head."
She said the last sentence with such emphasis on every word that there was no way she could be misunderstood.
"An oracle that didn't lose his mind?" Harry said, seeming to try and stifle his optimism.
Hermione nodded victoriously. Ron swallowed and looked at the figurine.
"So what you're saying is..." he began.
"What I'm saying Ron is that the message, the viator spell, that wasn't for Harry at all. It was for you."
"They're trying to help you, they know that they're d...damaging you and they're trying to keep you sane," Harry's hesitation had caused Ron to look away from both of them.
Had they both noticed? Were they both humouring him? Was it that obvious?
"So how does knowing that this guy didn't go mad help me?" Ron said, refusing to get his hopes up about this theory.
Hermione cupped Ron's face in her hands and beamed.
"That's what we're going to find out."
Harry rushed out of the room to tell the twins the good news and Hermione's hands fell away from Ron's face as she realised that he wasn't exactly jumping for joy about this.
"I think we can stop this before it even starts Ron, this is really promising news, and I wish you were happier about it."
Ron forced a smile onto his face.
"Of course I am, we did it, we found a way to stop it. Everything's going to be ok."
Hermione looked about as convinced as Ron himself had when Hagrid told him that Aragog thought of him quite fondly. She took his hand and stroked the back of his hand while staring up into his eyes with that 'you are going to talk to me whether you like it or not' look on her face.
"We were gone for a day and you're much better about being touched aren't you? You said so yourself and you didn't deteriorate so we're way off having to worry about that aren't we?" Ron nodded and Hermione shuffled her chair around the table to sit right beside him now, "You're not getting any worse since I last saw you, you're getting so much better and all the facts we know from your mother tell us that you should be getting worse with every consecutive visit and you're doing the exact opposite of that. You seem to be pulling yourself together and getting stronger don't you?"
Ron cleared his throat and nodded at her with a relaxed smile, he had done it; he had convinced her he was ok. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She had closed her eyes as he did and they remained closed until some time after he had pulled back again. He rested his hand on the side of her face with concern.
"Hermione?"
Her eyes opened and he knew she had him, he knew she wasn't fooled at all.
"It's all a lie isn't it Ron?"
He dropped his hand into his lap and his head followed its path so he didn't have to look into her accusing eyes. He didn't respond to her question.
"You're not getting better at all are you? You're just getting better at covering it up. You're becoming a better liar," her voice sounded hurt and broken.
"I..." Ron began before realising that he had nothing to say.
Hermione lifted his chin and forced him to look at her. He did so with a gulp.
"We'll keep up the act for Harry if you like, I don't think he's noticed, but don't you dare hide this from me Ron. I won't let you go through this alone do you hear?"
He nodded and glanced around the table to put away the mess he had made earlier on.
"What are you looking for?" Hermione frowned at him as he searched around the table in confusion.
"The chess pieces," Ron said as he furrowed his brow and wondered where the chess set he had just been occupied with had gone to.
"We weren't playing chess Ron," Hermione said with a hollow sounding voice and fearful eyes.
Ron suddenly remembered his dream and stiffened with fear that he couldn't differentiate his sleep state from reality any more.
"Ah, no we weren't."
Hermione looked at him with more determination and intimidation that his mother had ever managed to muster in all her years of dealing with secretive Weasleys.
"Right, you're telling me everything."
A/N Ron fans will be pleased to know that our favourite tortured redhead has been meating out some karmic justice to this particularly 'mean to Ron' minded writer. Last night I attacked myself in my sleep and bent my own fingernail back, ripping it off quite painfully so now I know exactly the feeling I only recently described!
Let me just tell you...OUCH! Watch your back Scrib...or should I say your knees, Ron's out to get us all!