Chapter Fourteen - Clouding You Mind
Ron was grateful to get out of the Burrow after the uncomfortable scene his mother had caused. She was always over-protective but after all of Ron's troubles she was now on the verge of re attaching the umbilical chord. He knew that she had a point about camping not being the best thing for him as he was still recovering from that nasty fever but he also knew that the Burrow was feeling smaller and smaller with every night longer he spent there.
Harry and Hermione were bringing him to St Nectan's Glen to try and find out how to stop the inevitable insanity. Hermione was now in the loop as far as the occasional tangent moment went, she had scolded Ron for not telling her as soon as the 'chip chop' stuff had started, what with her being the person who had been going on non-stop about beheading but other than that her mind seemed to have been put at rest. Her determination that the tangents were the worst things he was going to have to deal with had given him hope as he faced his mother and told her they were leaving immediately.
"Oh wow!" Harry gasped.
The hill they had been climbing up had suddenly dropped away and plunged downward to reveal a deep valley. Thundering down to the bottom was a sixty foot waterfall that was partially framed by a natural arch made from the same stone as the surrounding rock face and the white foam at the bottom dissipated into a rippling pool of deep blue water that filled all but the very edges of the valley below. Ron began to climb down, he had the most experience with this sort of thing as Charlie had bee quite the adventurer even as a teenager and had taken Ron climbing many times unbeknownst to his mother of course.
Hermione was removing her back pack while Harry marvelled at the amazing wizard-made sight beneath him. Ron had instructed them to take of their back packs and levitate them down to him before climbing down themselves. Ron would be comfortably on the ledge by then and able to cover them with his wand to catch them if they fell.
"There's no way this is the eternal source of water you were talking about is it Hermione?" Harry asked his awestruck friend as she started to climb down after Ron.
"Why not?" she smiled as she was overtaken by her backpack as Harry levitated it down into Ron's waiting arms, followed by his own.
"Because when you were talking about a never ending spring I pictured a little trickle of water spurting out of the ground not a sixty foot waterfall!" Ron chuckled.
Ron watched as Hermione, edging along to a kinder climbing surface, glanced down to be sure that he was ready to help her down when she got close enough to him. She lowered herself a little closer to and called over her shoulder to him.
"I told you he was a powerful wizard didn't I?"
Ron got into position beneath her and nodded that she was ok to drop into his arms whenever she was ready at the same time Harry began his own descent.
"I can't jump!" she said, slightly flustered.
"Well you're gonna have to climb down a little bit further than aren't you? 'Cause I may be tall but I can't reach that far up to lift you down."
She gave a huff and eased herself down a little more. Ron managed to curl his arms around her waist and lift her down onto the ledge. As he lowered her down to set her feet on the rock she breathed into Ron's ear.
"When did you get so strong?"
"I didn't, you weigh like an ounce!" he teased as she rolled her eyes and tried not to grin to widely back at him, "Alright then an ounce and a half, too much more meat on you and we'll have to start calling you porky."
She slapped him on the arm and was about to tell him how amusing she didn't find him when her face suddenly registered panic.
"What is it?" Ron asked, fearfully, "What did I do now?"
"Nothing, it was me," Hermione said as she gently stroked his arm where she had just playfully smacked him, "I...I just hit you. I'm so sorry."
Ron's eyes were wide with disbelief before he broke into laughter and shook his head.
"You call that a hit?"
Hermione looked relieved but still quite annoyed with herself at forgetting that Ron had only just recovered the ability to touch people.
"Seriously Ron are you sure...?"
Ron took her hands in his and lowered his head to look her in the eye.
"I told you, when I'm not ok you'll be the first to know, no more secrets."
She smiled a real smile at him this time and Ron looked back up to see that Harry was almost down as well.
"I can't believe he made this," Ron called up to him before helping Harry down.
"I know," Harry said, sounding impressed, "and to think he was worried about a couple of missing cows!"
They laughed and Hermione rolled her eyes and picked her backpack off the ground and hoisted it back onto her shoulders.
"Look, I can see a great place to set up camp for the night," Hermione said as she pointed to a narrow cavern in the rock face.
Ron hoped that their shelter for the night wasn't too cramped otherwise he'd have to sleep outside. Harry seemed to be reading his mind so he tried to alleviate his concern with a shrug of resignation.
"Oh good, another cave," he groaned to his friend before following after Hermione.
She strode inside and kindled a small fire to light up the cave as Harry heaved his backpack off his shoulders with a moan and stretched out his tired limbs. Ron bit his lip and peered in from outside. It didn't look very big in there. He looked up to see how high the roof of the cavern went, and struggled to see how stable it was, what if something fell on him during the night? There were too many corners for spiders and all sorts of things that wanted to nest inside his...
"Ron, its ok mate breathe for me," Harry was saying urgently.
"What?" Ron wheezed as he realised that he was gasping for air.
Harry gripped him by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes confidently.
"Close your eyes, you're on your broom remember?"
Ron did as he was told and he nodded as he heaved a hoarse breath in and shuddered it back out rather too quickly.
"You're in the open, you're flying, the ground is miles below and nothing can touch you alright? Nothing can touch you up there."
Ron nodded again and coughed before opening his eyes, his breathing beginning to even out some more now.
"Thanks," he said to Harry who was still staring at him intently.
"I can't believe I just did that," Hermione was saying as she wrung her hands at his side, "I'm so sorry, I just walked right in and expected you to be able to spend the night here. I am such an idiot."
"Hermione he doesn't need this right now," Harry said calmly.
Ron wondered how Harry could keep so calm.
"We'll find somewhere else to camp, don't worry about it mate, its fine."
"No," Ron said, almost surprising himself as he did, "I can do this; I want to try at least."
He looked back into the cave and up at the dark roof. He was sick of this. He'd be fine as long as he could see the way out. He would be able to lay his sleeping bag so he could see outside at all times. It would be ok as long as he didn't go in too deep.
"Ron you've got enough on your plate," Hermione said anxiously, "please don't force this before you're ready."
"Let him try if he wants to Hermione," Harry said, always the one with more faith then sense.
"Ron," Hermione huffed after throwing an annoyed glance at Harry, "we both know that you and denial are a dangerous combination."
Ron found himself laughing at this and Harry seemed to relax too.
"I just want to sit a couple of feet inside and see how I do. It's an empty cave Hermione, of all the things I'm now scared of I will not be scared of that."
He expected a protest from her but she broke into a smile and took his hand. She led him inside and they sat just within the mouth of the cave together while Harry grinned at her and began to settle in for the night. Ron looked out at the wide pool and the distant waterfall; he could concentrate on the open space and keep himself calm. It was fifteen minutes before he turned to Hermione and offered to go further inside to start preparing dinner.
"We'll get the hoops on as soon as I'm done making sure there's nothing you can use to cut yourself with in here," Hermione said, matter-of-factly, "I don't want to wake up in the morning to find you missing a limb."
Ron grinned mischievously.
"Oh come on Hermione, I don't know why you're fussing about last night so much, I was arm-less!"
Harry was laughing while Hermione grumbled under her breath to herself. He and Harry had been trying to keep Ron's mind off the darkness falling outside with lots of silly jokes and childish behaviour that made Hermione quite annoyed with them but seemed to do the trick claustrophobia-wise. On seeing Hermione's latest disgruntled huff Ron lowered his head and muttered to Harry.
"Oh I'm in trouble now."
"Well if you do insist upon bringing 'the missus' everywhere you go..." Harry teased his friend.
Ron stared at Harry for a moment before breaking into an smile of embarrassment.
"So you two have been talking behind my back as well then eh?"
Harry smirked.
"Well you two have been doing a hell of a lot more than talking behind mine haven't you?"
Ron's ears flushed pink and he turned away to straighten out his sleeping bag on the hard ground.
"Shut up Harry," he mumbled.
Harry chuckled and then seemed to remember that Ron had done something that annoyed him greatly.
"Oh yeah, I forgot there was something I had to do to you," he said sternly.
"What's that then?"
"This," Harry punched Ron hard in the arm.
"Ouch! What was that for?" he exclaimed, rubbing his numb arm.
"I heard about your little chat with Hermione, the one where you told her not to make a big fuss about the two of you being together because it would be harder on her when she had to put you away with Lockheart and Neville's parents in St Mungo's," Ron looked away guiltily, "that's right you prat you should be ashamed of yourself."
Ron took a deep breath before meeting Harry's eyes again, of all people he would've thought that he would understand the need to protect the woman you love.
"Wouldn't you have done the same thing if it was Ginny?"
Harry was the one to look away this time as he turned to his own sleeping bag and began to fuss with it.
"Well never mind all of that now," Harry mumbled under his breath, "you're not going to go crazy, we're going to fix that when we find out how St Nectan did it, so this entire conversation is redundant isn't it?"
Ron snorted with amusement.
"It's funny how when I back down during an argument you and Hermione claim to have won it but when either of you back down the conversation suddenly becomes redundant."
The chuckles and the teasing continued until Ron offered Harry a nightcap and Harry revealed that he had no plans to sleep that night.
"Ron-watch is still in action then is it?" he asked glumly.
Harry nodded and shrugged.
"It's not that we don't trust you mate, I think you won't be half as bad now that we're all together again, but I do think that one of us should really stay up until you've said your piece. I mean come on Ron, you and I both know you'll probably have something to say tonight and if me and Hermione are both asleep you'd have had another consecutive night of it for nothing."
Ron was about to protest Harry's sleep starvation tactic when his mind suddenly went blank and he looked down at the ground. He was going to do something really important but now he couldn't remember it at all. Was it really that important then? It couldn't have been if it was so easily forgotten. He shrugged to himself and looked up to see Harry staring at him expectantly. Had Ron just been asked a question? What had they just been talking about anyway?
Harry leaned forward and put his hand to Ron's forehead. Ron pulled away and wondered if he had just said something strange again.
"What are you doing? Are you my friend or my mother?" he snapped at Harry.
Harry laughed as he turned to Hermione.
"He really is feverish if he can't tell me and Mrs Weasley apart."
"Honestly though, that woman, I think she just makes stuff up to worry about. It's as if she doesn't know what to do with herself if there's nothing to fret over so she just creates problems."
"Oh come on, all mothers are like that," Hermione was smiling too as she crawled into her sleeping bag.
"Yeah but my mother is a mother seven times over with no kids at home to focus all that extra strength worry on," Ron said as he too wriggled into his sleeping bag, "so the second any one of us walks through that door, or the fireplace, she's on us like a middle aged witch on Lockheart!" Harry howled with laughter at Ron's rant, "If she's not putting a forkful of food in your mouth she's putting a thermometer in there."
"Be thankful she take temperatures orally Ronald, you wouldn't want her to get confused and put that fork anywhere else," Hermione said as if she wasn't being the least bit coarse at all.
Harry began to choke with laughter now. Ron settled down into his sleeping bag and rolled his eyes.
"I'm only away from you two one day and you're starting on me already," he grumbled while Harry and Hermione chuckled, "I don't know who you're going to pick on when I'm not around anymore."
Ron smiled at them, waiting for the double comeback in their three-way game of banter tennis but Harry and Hermione weren't laughing anymore. Harry was just staring at him and Hermione had given a shudder before her eyes reddened and welled up. Ron suddenly realised what he'd said and sat up on his elbows.
"I didn't mean it like that, it's a figure of speech!" he said quickly.
Hermione got back out of her sleeping bag and ran to the mouth of the cave in tears.
Shit, I am such an idiot!
Ron was about to get out of his sleeping bag to go after her when a solid wall of wind threw him bodily down onto his back and held him there. Ron might have got a little anxious about being pinned down in such a constrictive way if he hadn't been distracted with recovering from the winding he'd just been given in the process. Harry looked alarmed and couldn't seem to understand what had just happened to Ron so he nodded to the hoop around his upper arm.
"Great, so she can keep me away from her as well as dragging me across hot coals for a cuddle," he tried not to be angry at her for being so careless with him in his semi claustrophobic state, "it's funny how she doesn't want to abuse the power until it comes to her storming off in a huff isn't it?"
"I don't think she did it on purpose, she probably just thought that she didn't want you to see her crying and bam, you're on your back," Harry said with a frown and a shrug.
Ron rolled his eyes and shook his head. He was all for giving Hermione her space to cry in private but he would kind of appreciate his own space back before he started breathing like his family's, now asthmatic, owl Errol.
"Well could you maybe go and ask her to give me a couple of inches more so I can at least turn over?"
Harry nodded and went outside. Ron could only pick up snippets of their conversation.
"...Ron was asking if you could maybe let him move a little, you really threw him down hard you know."
"Those bloody hoops! They're driving me up the wall. I didn't hurt him did I?"
"No, he just can't move, he asked if you could give him a couple more inches breathing space that's all."
Ron suddenly felt the invisible pressure lift and closed his eyes for s few seconds to picture that broomstick ride out in the open, over the fields of the Burrow, and in the brilliant never-ending sunshine. He wasn't in a dark cave with a girlfriend who had the power to crush him to death on a whim. He was free and flying and...
"I know he didn't mean it, tell him I know he didn't mean it, I'm just being over-sensitive that's all."
"Ok."
"And Harry, could you put him to sleep before I come back in? I...I just can't..."
Ron turned over onto his side and looked into the fire, maybe it was for the best if they just shut him up for the night, he didn't have a clue what he was and wasn't saying half the time. He heard Harry stepping back inside but didn't turn his head. He sat back down on his sleeping bag, took a sip of his coffee and pulled out his wand.
"Um Ron I..." he began.
"I heard," Ron sighed with resignation and tried to settle into a comfortable position, "go ahead then."
Harry tried to give him a reassuring smile but Ron knew that he wasn't going to go to sleep in the right state of mind for a peaceful night's sleep. He'd be in for another rough night, they both were.
"Night mate, obdormio!"
The cave was crumbling and he couldn't get out of his sleeping bag. He couldn't move to run and the rocks were falling down; large ones, small ones, dust and grit; it was all cascading down from the blackness above him and all he could do was lay there and wait to be buried by it.
"Hermione please!" he yelled out to her but she, just like Harry, slept soundly through the deafening cave-in.
A lump of rock hit him in the chest and he felt the air leave his lungs and not come back. The roof was tumbling down at an alarming rate now; he could see the ceiling getting lower and lower, and closer and closer to him. The whole rock face was going to crush him if she didn't wake up and release him from the bond of blood.
"Hermione let me go you're killing me!" he barely managed to gasp through his empty lungs.
The ceiling was almost upon him now and more large heavy rocks slammed into his body. This was it, this was the end.
"It's crushing me!" he panted as he sat bolt upright in the cave, clutching his chest and struggling for breath.
"...nightmare Ron," Harry was saying as he forced Ron to focus on him again, "it's just the same old nightmare ok? It's nothing that can hurt you, there's nothing that can crush you, and Hermione's right here and she's looking after you alright?"
Ron frowned, how did Harry know what that had been about? Had he really been shouting? He turned to try and reassure Hermione that he knew she wouldn't let him get crushed but no sooner had he caught a glimpse of her tear streaked face then Harry was grabbing his jaw and turning his head to make him look back into his determined green eyes again.
"I couldn't move," Ron heaved a laboured breath in as he spoke and Harry shook his head to get him to keep quiet.
"No talking, just breathing ok? I want you to close your eyes and get on that broom and fly with me ok? We're flying and there's nothing above you, nothing around you, it's all just space. Space and air, can you feel it Ron?"
Ron took a deep breath in and let it back out smoothly, he nodded and took another long breath in and out before opening his eyes.
"No keep 'em closed for me," Harry said and Ron complied," just keep doing what you're doing and lay back down for me alright? That's it, just keep breathing."
When he had eventually calmed down sufficiently Harry said something about putting him back to sleep and Ron's eyes shot open and he sat up.
"Wait," he said as he turned onto his side.
"No Ron, don't get yourself upset again, you've got to get back to sleep now ok?" Harry said calmly.
"I know, I will," Ron nodded before reaching out for some water, "it's just my throat."
He drank a whole cupful before telling Harry he was ready and laying back down to be sent to sleep again. Just before Harry hit him with the spell he looked across to Hermione, she was still looking devastated.
"Goodnight," he tried to smile to her.
"Goodnight Ron."
Sleep hit him again before he even realised Harry had lifted his wand.
There were grey shadows everywhere. He was surrounded on all sides and they were closing in on him. With alarming speed one of them burst forth from the crowd and grabbed him roughly and shook him, she had thin hair and a burned face and was pleading with him to let her take him to her daughter's home to see her grandchildren.
"Maybe I could just take your body for an hour or two so I could hold the little ones, half an hour."
Ron shoved her away and backed into eight pairs of hands all grabbing at him and making demands of him. Their lives had been ripped from them and it was unfair, it wasn't their time, they had unfinished business, they had mouths to feed, they had revenge on their minds and he had the gift. He tried to back away from them but he only found more clawing hands behind him and demands for his help.
"You can bring me back, all I ask is one evening, one night..."
"Twenty four, what kind of age is that to leave a widow with three children alone in the world? Let me find her, let me see my wife and tell her I love her."
"You have a life and all I need is one night you selfish little blood traitor, give me my life back!" a wiry looking wizard with a strong accent and a tight grip shook him and Ron squirmed to get away while the other faceless grey shapes closed in on him and he felt his throat closing up.
A hand grabbed him and pulled him away from the crowd, dragging him into a corner.
"Don't listen to them Ron, I know you and you know me," it was Sirius, he was pushing him into the wall and his eyes looked wide with frenzied excitement, "you know Harry wants me back don't you? We could share your life, your body, it's only fair. It's not fair that he doesn't have me. It isn't fair Ron!"
Sirius shook him, slamming him against the wall as he made his point.
"He doesn't have anybody and you can bring me back. Don't you want to give him back his family?"
Ron opened his mouth to try to explain to Sirius that he couldn't do it, he was going mad and Harry wouldn't believe it was really Sirius anyway, and the grey figure of the man he once knew began to dig his fingers deep into his shoulders. This couldn't really be Sirius, he would never ask that of him, and how would he have known about Ron to seek him out anyway? How did all these spirits know about him? Did everybody know now?
Arms tore Ron away from Sirius' arms and a screaming old woman knocked him to the ground and tried to force her spirit inside him, beating on his chest with her claw like fists.
"I can change the world boy, I can save them all and you'd keep me out just to get a peaceful night's sleep? You spiteful..." she pounded, "...little..." and again, "...son of a..." and with her final punch she broke through, "...whoare!"
Ron felt his bones break and his skin tear as the old hag thrust her hands into his chest and clawed at his lungs, his heart, everything that was now burning with pain inside of him. A huge man with lots of hair and the dark mark burning brightly on his arm threw the woman aside and tore into Ron's chest himself.
"I'm going to go back and kill them all, I'll kill them all and leave the blood traitor to pay my penance with the dementors. I'll finish the bloody job!"
More hands plunged into his open chest and tried to force their way into his body. Ron writhed and struggled but there were too many hands now, too many grey figures who all wanted an oracle of their very own, too many voices demanding their life back. It was their turn, he was denying them their right, and he was just as much a murderer as Voldemort. He was the destroyer of lives but Ron was the destroyer of souls. Too many hands inside him now, too many screams of pain and desire and fury and not enough room.
The hands gripped his lungs and his heart and squeezed, there was nothing he could do, there was no way to breathe, there was no way to move, there was no way to fight back. Something burned inside his chest and he saw his lungs ripped from his body. He was empty, he was airless, and he was dying.
Thank Godric, he was dying, it could end now. It would all end.
Ron's eyes flew open and he saw Harry leaning over him as white as a sheet. He couldn't breathe, there was nothing to breathe with, he coughed and wheezed as Harry's voice drifted in and out of clarity. The cave was spinning and everything was going black again.
"Please Ron no, don't do this to me, please don't do this. Come on breathe, you've got to breathe in Ron, you're going blue. What's wrong with you, why can't you do this? Why aren't you calming down yet?"
The coughs hurt him but they just kept coming, it was as if he was coughing up his own lungs, they were stuck in his throat and he couldn't dislodge them. Harry couldn't help him. He was dying. This wasn't a dream and he was really dying.
"Corroboro spiritus!" Harry yelled at him uncertainly and a whoosh of cold air forced its way into his lungs and Ron sat up and sputtered, gasping for more of the same, "Oh thank Godric, you scared the shit out of me."
Harry almost sounded as weak as he felt. Ron pulled some more air into his body and choked it back out again. He soon felt Harry's hand rubbing his back and murmuring things about flying and being out in the open but Ron couldn't think about anything other than breathing right now.
"Harry what was that?" Hermione's quivering voice was asking.
"He hyperventilated while he was asleep, he almost stopped breathing entirely," Harry said in shock, "I thought for a second...I couldn't get him back."
Ron took several more breaths in and the coughing lessened with the exhalation of each one until he was just left with an audible wheeze on every intake of breath.
"Mate I really think we should get you some dreamless sleep draught in future, this is getting to be too much now," Harry said, still seeming to be in shock at the severity of this nightmare on Ron's physical wellbeing.
Ron nodded and kept breathing until the wheeze died down completely before looking up at Harry.
"Ask the twins, that stuff they gave me before was pretty good."
He was now coming back to himself, the oxygen returning to his brain in the proper amounts, and he looked across to Hermione. She looked as if he really had just died right in front of her. What do you say to a person when you've just self induced your own suffocation in your sleep?
"Sorry to wake you."
She smiled at him through her devastation.
"Don't worry, its fine, as long as you're ok."
"That was really real," Ron frowned to her.
"You're telling me," Harry said with a shake of the head.
Ron lay back down again, he coughed again but only to clear his throat, and closed his eyes to practice Harry's flying technique to calm him down again. He had just began to picture himself flying over the ocean when a bright blue light hit him and he was drawn back into the darkness of sleep.
He was awake, it was morning and he staggered out of his bed and across the landing to the bathroom. He could smell his mother's cooking downstairs and he could hear Ginny laughing somewhere. He locked the bathroom door and walked over to the mirror to see if he needed to shave this morning.
He flinched, he wasn't looking at his reflection, it was a broad shouldered man with short black hair peppered with flecks of grey and a round shiny face, and he didn't know who it was. He forced his eyes closed and shook his head, opening them again and jumping back as he saw a different face looking back at him. It wasn't the first one but it still wasn't his. He waved his hand in front of the mirror and saw the olive skinned brown haired man with the jagged scar across his cheek waving back. He swallowed and the man suddenly jumped forward and slammed both palms against the mirror, growling at him.
He jumped backwards and fell onto the floor. When he scrambled back to his feet he saw that the face had changed again. This was a man with leathery skin and two white eyes grinning at him.
"Who are you?" he asked the reflection that wasn't.
The man smiled and revealed a row of crooked black teeth.
"Surely the question is who are you? I am reflecting what is right in front of me after all."
He grabbed the door handle and pulled, it wouldn't open, and he glanced back to the mirror and saw a wildly cackling woman with curly blonde hair and purple lips.
"You locked it silly Billy, your name is Billy isn't it? Or are you Fred? Which one of them are you I get awfully confused with all you little Weasleys. You all look the same to me."
He unlocked the door and ran out of the bathroom to find rows upon rows of doors lining the hallway. They all had different name plates on them.
Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Bill...
He looked at the names. Which one was his? Who was he? Who were all the others? He turned and ran back into the bathroom but found himself in the kitchen. He knew who the woman was, she was his mother, and she looked up at him and smiled.
"There you are I was wondering when I would see you this morning, sit down and have some breakfast dear you're wasting away."
"Mum," he said hesitantly, "what's my name?"
His mother blinked and looked to one side thoughtfully before shrugging and giving him a merry chuckle.
"Do you know I can't recall? There are so many of you. Are you the dragon one?"
He staggered back into the wall behind him, what was she talking about?
"What, what dragon one?"
"You're too homely to be the pretty one, of course now he's the scarred one isn't he? Or is that Harry? We can't have two scarred ones that'll just confuse me even more," she threw back her head and let out a jolly laugh.
"Mum?" he pleaded, desperate to find out his identity.
"You're not the girl are you? There's only one of those so I can't get confused about that one," she said jovially before turning back to do the washing up.
"Maybe he's the traitor Molly," his father said as he strolled into the kitchen rubbing his hands together.
"No," he said, feeling dizzy, "I don't...I can't be."
"Where's the other one?" his mother said as she spun around away from the sink with her eyes alight, "If there's another one just like you then you're a twin!"
His father slapped him on the back and seemed delighted.
"There you go; you're a twin, problem solved."
He shook his head and sank down the wall.
"No I can't be I must be another one, what's the other one?"
His parents snorted and broke into laughter.
"Oh my dear sweet boy there aren't any others," his mother chuckled.
"Well who am I then?"
Something dragged him towards the front door and threw him out. He saw eight people with red hair and freckles all staring out at him from the house, a crooked house, and two identical red haired men stood over him and shrugged.
"You're not one of them, you're just like us."
"And who are you?"
One of the men bent over him and stared at him with wide eyes.
"If you don't know then it's got you already."
Ron sat up and felt himself shaking and crying his heart out. Somebody was holding him and rocking him back and forth.
"It's already happened," he sobbed, "I've lost it, I'm lost, I've gone."
"You're here with me," Hermione's voice was shushing him and rubbing small circles on his back as she continued rocking him, "it was just a nightmare Ron. Just let it all out ok? You're trying to hold all the fear inside and it's hurting you. You've got to let it all go."
Ron held her tightly and cried from the very depths of his gut. He cried so hard that it made his head hurt and his chest ache. Still she kept on rocking him and soothing his pain.
"I've lost myself; I'm fading away to nothing. I'm disappearing Hermione!"
"No you're not, you're right here and I won't let you go anywhere. You can't go anywhere without me and I won't let you go, I won't ever let you go; now stop dwelling on silly thoughts like that. It's the madness trying to get to you again isn't it? But you're too strong for it. You're too stubborn to give in to that stupid little thing in your brain aren't you?"
Ron heaved a deep sigh and nodded into her shoulder. He sniffed and held her tightly to him.
"Nothing can erase who you are Ronald Weasley, you're indelible."
He laughed; it turned into another brief period of sobbing before he shook it off, and pulled away from her to wipe his eyes with his sleeve.
"It's getting so hard Hermione, they're getting too real and painful and...my mind's being wiped while I sleep I can feel it."
"They're nightmares Ron, it hasn't started happening yet and we're going to put a stop to it before it does remember?"
Ron nodded his head again, she was right, he was just tired and not thinking straight that was all. He wondered how much his nightmares were affecting the people on the outside watching them. He remembered the look on his brother's face when he had woken from a suffocation nightmare and laughed weakly.
"I scared the shite out of George last night, he was leaning right over me when I woke up and I totally lost it. He was almost as shaken-up as I was."
He had actually taken a swing at him, for the second time in his life he had tried to attack George in his sleep, and Ron wondered why his brother was always the kinder of the two twins when he was always on the receiving end of such appalling treatment from him. He gave a sniff and a shudder and Hermione shushed him and kissed the side of his head through his hair.
"It alright to take your time getting over this Ron, nobody's hurrying you, we just want you to learn to deal with all of this in your own time ok?"
Ron took a deep breath in and let it out again slowly. He looked up sadly at the woman whose life he was ruining.
"Bet you didn't miss this last night eh?"
She smiled at him and wiped his face with her sleeve before pushing his hair back from his face. She leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips. She moved back and smiled even wider. Ron realised that they hadn't had a real kiss since he had been trapped inside Black's coffin. He moved forward and Hermione met him half way. They shared another brush of the lips before Hermione kissed him a little more firmly but still with no intrusion, it was simply lips touching lips, and as she moved back again Ron put his hand behind her head and held her in place. He swallowed and saw her part her lips to tell him that he shouldn't try to do anything before he was ready and he moved in and sealed her mouth with his own.
They tasted each other again and it felt so familiar but so new. There was a salty flavour from all the tears that had been shed by both of them that night and Hermione murmured a sound of contentment into his mouth just before he moved backwards and he dropped his hand from behind her head. She looked back at him and seemed to be radiant now.
"I missed that."
They held each other in serene silence until Ron actually felt the desire to sleep coming back to him. It petrified him but seemed to entice him at the same time. He wanted to beat it, he wanted to show Hermione that he wasn't afraid to face the demons, and he decided to let the tide of exhaustion wash over him without a fight. As he lay back down inside his sleeping bag Hermione shuffled over inside hers to nestle in snugly beside him.
"You don't mind do you?" she asked as she rested her head on his chest.
"Not as long as you don't mind this," he mumbled as he put his arm around her and they relaxed into each other.
As Ron drifted away he could've sworn he heard Hermione breathing into his neck.
"I'll never mind that."