Chapter Sixteen - Dizzy

Ron felt damp sand between his toes and heard the crashing of waves behind him. He squinted around himself but couldn't see a thing.

"We are going to need to do some quite difficult climbing Ronald and in this darkness the risk of hurting you is too high," Dumbledore said as he stood at his side, shimmering brightly against the blackness that surrounded him, "so, with your permission as always, I will take control of your body briefly and get you to where we need to be. While I do this I must insist that you trust me and keep your eyes firmly closed."

"But sir, I can't see a thing, why do I need to...?" Ron began.

"When I enter your body you will regain your sight and, although visibility will still be extremely poor, there are magical and natural illusions placed on the staircase we will be climbing that will cause you to become quite dizzy and the only way to avoid the affect is for you to climb blind."

He didn't really understand what he was going to be walking blindly into but he decided to trust Dumbledore. He had saved him from his own psyche after all.

"Oh ok, whatever you say."

The wizard smiled and rested his hand upon his shoulder as they walked away from the sound of the waves and along the cool sand. Gradually the sand became rockier until they stopped and Dumbledore let go of his shoulder and stepped behind him.

"This will feel a little cold but don't worry, it doesn't hurt, and we've done it many times before."

Ron nodded before two ice cold spears thrust into his back, making him shudder, and Dumbledore's voice spoke to him in his own mind.

'Close your eyes Ronald.'

He did as he was told and felt himself being pushed forward. His legs were stepping up and walking on a strange staircase that felt as if it was made of stone but every step seemed to veer off at a different angle to the previous one.

'Keep them closed.'

"I am, I will," he answered aloud as he felt himself take a very large step up and heaved himself onto the next step with a wobble.

'Dear me, will we never remember to put some shoes on your poor feet?' he heard Dumbledore muttering to himself.

Soon Ron realised why he had made this comment as the stone surface he was walking of felt as if it was breaking up beneath his feet. It was like walking on giant pieces of gravel.

"It's alright, it doesn't really hurt, it's just a bit uncomfortable," Ron said as he winced when a solid lump of stone jabbed him in the arch of his foot.

'There's my favourite optimist, I missed him!'

Ron laughed and frowned with confusion at this comment.

"What does that mean?"

'Only that I took a positive confident young man for several night time strolls and then lost him for a short while to a hurt desperate soul who thought I was trying to kill him. The worst part of it all was it was all my own doing.'

Ron didn't say anything to this as they made silent progress up the increasingly unstable steps. Dumbledore was feeling guilty for all he had put Ron through but didn't want to dwell on it and remind him now that he was almost completely healed again. He felt himself being turned and crawling out onto a flat surface to his right. The cold rods left his back and Ron shivered at the sensation. Still he kept his eyes closed.

"I still don't understand why...well I think you would've tried to explain that night to me but I don't remember it do I?" Ron began, remaining on his hands and knees with his eyes tightly closed.

"Ronald please, you don't have to think about that, it was not my intention to remind you of that awful night again."

"No listen to me, I don't understand why it had to happen that way but..." he thought hard about what he was going to say before he said it and realised that he really did mean it, "...I forgive you ok? You made it up to me and I forgive you. I trust you."

He listened and heard nothing. Tentatively he opened his eyes and jumped back at the sight of his ghostly headmaster's face staring so closely back at his own. He was smiling but his brow was crinkled like corrugated steel. Ron hadn't seen that many worry lines on another person other than his mother and that was saying something.

"You are remarkable," Dumbledore said weakly, "utterly remarkable."

Ron wasn't used to compliments like this being thrown his way and didn't really know how to react. He swallowed and found himself uncomfortable under Dumbledore's intense gaze, looking away and hoping that the old man would do the same. He didn't though; he looked at him with even more intensity and placed his hands upon Ron's shoulders.

"Very few men have humbled me in my lifetime Ron and you have managed to do it during my afterlife."

Ron forced himself to meet Dumbledore's eyes again and shrugged.

"Well at least dead people can't cry eh? I'm good at making people do that as well."

Dumbledore laughed and Ron felt him shaking through his touch just before he let him go.

"Your pain deserved all those tears my boy, and yet still you still have the ability to make people smile, as I said before, truly remarkable."

Dumbledore released Ron and turned to glance around at his surroundings. Ron couldn't see a thing and moved to stand up when Dumbledore grabbed at his wrist and held him down with him.

"No, be careful in here, the roof his quite low and you are even taller than I remember you. I fear you might concertina in on yourself if you attempted to stand."

Ron chuckled at this image and put his hand above his head to feel around for the roof.

"Well I can see that what we were looking for has flown the nest so I will leave you to get some sleep and bring Harry and Miss Granger back here in the morning to investigate for themselves. Can I suggest you crawl back here behind this bundle of straw and hay, it should keep you warm and spare you the draft?"

Ron crawled after Dumbledore and curled up beside something very soft but slightly itchy.

"So you're going now?" Ron asked him.

"Until next time, and remember to call on me in the morning in future, I am sick and tired of disturbing your sleep. That goes for all three of you you know?"

Ron smiled and watched as the silver form of his old headmaster disappeared into a bright swirl of mist at the same time his eyelids became heavy and the darkness ushered him back into a state of deep sleep.

Ron huffed and rubbed the nagging itch on his arm, opening his eyes and sitting up, before swearing out loud to see that he was lying beside a huge bird's nest on what looked like an enclosed ledge in the side of a cliff. The cool sea breeze blew his hair out of his eyes and he crawled across to peer over the edge. He swore again, he was really high up and looked around to try and work out where he had apparated to. The ceiling was too low for him to have apparated onto it but he couldn't see any surface he could have managed to appear safely.

He looked down at his bare feet and brushed off some sand before understanding that he must have apparated onto the beach and then climbed up.

How the bloody hell did I manage that? I know I'm good but I'm not up to Charlie's standards.

He crawled over to the open side of the ledge and looked down. He saw a staircase that looked as if it was in the middle of breaking into a million pieces and tumbling into the sea when it was frozen in mid air. Surely he couldn't have walked up that thing, it wasn't stable, and it seemed to have death trap written all over it. It was the only way he could see he could've got up to this empty nest though and it did seem to be his only way back down again.

He sighed and looked back at the nest. It really was huge. What kind of bird made that, he wondered? He crawled back over to peer inside and saw a red and gold feather, a very long red and gold feather, a very familiar red and gold feather.

A phoenix feather.

He looked around the nest for any evidence that it had been inhabited recently but there were no scraps of food or droppings of any kind and it seemed to have been abandoned long ago. Why on earth had he been taken here?

Ron rubbed his tired eyes and shook his head, a crick in his neck making him wince slightly. Hermione was clever, she'd take one look and be able to tell him the bird's life story, and then they'd use this so called clue to find the next horcrux and destroy it. Ron actually smiled as he crawled back over to the top of the wonky staircase, he hadn't been attacked or hurt or anything nasty at all. Maybe things really were turning around for him he thought.

Shit no, now you've jinxed it you berk, touch wood...touch wood...bollocks where's a piece of wood when you need one?

He swung his legs out onto the first step and pulled himself up by the handrail that seemed to have been yanked out of its final destination and wobbled unsteadily at the top of the staircase. He turned and looked down and that was when it hit him. He felt as if the stairs were moving in every direction at the same time and at different speeds while his body told him he was leaning so far over to his right that he was about to fall over. His stomach did a flip inside him and his brain felt as if somebody had just stuck their finger inside and swirled it around.

He closed his eyes with the nausea and the spinning stopped, his feet felt secure, and he realised that he was standing perfectly straight. It was an illusion. Charlie had told him about having to cross a bridge like this once in Budapest. As soon as you stepped on it the bridge felt as if it was turning upside down and hundreds of people had died trying to cross it. Witnesses always said that it looked as if they started walking across the bridge before swaying drunkenly and toppling over the edge as if they had been shoved by a strong wind. The trick was, Charlie had told him, fixing yourself onto one constant thing all the way along and telling yourself that you trusted that thing over your instincts, your centre of gravity and your brain. Charlie had clung to the rope that ran unbroken and constant along the edge of the bridge and made it safely across.

Ron staggered backwards and sat back down on the ledge, pulling his feet back up off the step and opened his eyes. The dizziness had stopped. He looked back down and saw the rusty metal handrail was fixed to the wall all the way down and as long as he held on to that he wouldn't go wrong. Taking a deep breath and reaching for the handrail he tried to begin his decent again.

The stairs looked as if they were moving away from him just as he was about to place his foot on them and step down. He began to feel sea-sick and gripped the handrail even harder than he already was.

The handrail is still, the handrail is anchored, you can trust the handrail.

He continued down the stairs, pausing every now and then to close his eyes and stop the spinning, but he went on with his eyes wide open as he knew the decent was precarious enough without attempting to do it blind. He felt his head and his eyes betraying him again as the walls seemed to be moving, rocking and falling away without falling apart, and he slid his hand further down the hand rail as he struggled to ignore the evidence of his eyes that this tactic would cause him to fall.

Indeed he didn't fall, the walls righted themselves after three more steps down and then the steps began to try to convince his mind that they weren't where they appeared they were. Ron swallowed and took a breath as he reminded himself of his mind clearing techniques. This wasn't exactly claustrophobia but Harry's way of clearing Ron's mind from the sensation of things falling in on him and walls closing him in when nothing was moving at all might work in this situation he thought. He told himself that the walls were solid and that the steps were smooth and even and that he was just strolling down them as if he was walking down the steps to the great hall at Hogwarts for dinner.

He couldn't let his stomach turn because he didn't want to ruin the feast that was waiting for him at the bottom. He wasn't going to fall down the stairs because that would be embarrassing and it would put him back in the hospital wing where the food was awful. It was all about the food, getting food and avoiding humiliation, and he saw the sandy beach getting closer and closer until...

"Oh thank Godric for that!" he groaned as he thudded down onto the ground on all fours and felt his head right itself again.

He dug his fingers into the soft sand and spent a few minutes composing himself before sitting up straight and looking around to see where he was. He saw waves crashing in, the tide was about to cut him off and isolate him on the beach, and turned behind him to see where he had just climbed down from. It was a massive dark coloured rock that looked something like an elephant with its head bowed. He tried to see the ledge he had woken on but couldn't make out where it had been and hauled himself up to his feet unsteadily.

He walked as far as the encroaching tide would allow and saw a small sign warning people that 'Access to Bossiney Cove is restricted during high tide due to dangerously fast submergence of the beach and high risk of drowning'. As Ron turned to look back to see how far in the tide had come now he felt a wave washing over his bare feet.

"Wow, that is fast!" he said as he realised that he should disapparate while the sand beneath him was still solid enough to do so without splinching himself.

Crack!

The sudden compression on top of the lingering nausea had been a little too much for Ron and he dropped to his knees again, fearing he might be sick, and tried to compose himself. He saw he was right beside the pool of cool clear water and took some in his cupped hands and splashed it onto his face to keep the distant threat of anxiety at bay. It was nothing like what it was in the recent past but it was still there just a little. He didn't think it would ever completely leave him but at least he could deal with it now. Harry had heard him returning and come out to check that he was alright. After telling him where he had found himself and with what Harry had informed him that he had been able to travel alone as he had managed to persuade Hermione to release him from the bond of blood during his sleep.

Ron had asked after her and Harry told him that she was asleep inside the cave, inside his sleeping bag, and probably going to be in a bit of an emotional state when she woke up. Ron had built himself up to face a bollocking from his girlfriend and walked into the cave, leaving Harry to ponder the significance of Ron being taken to an empty phoenix nest in the middle of the night.

It was exactly as Harry had told him, there she was inside his sleeping bag with her knees drawn up to her chest and her hands balled into tight fists which clutched at the fabric of the sleeping bag as if it was a lifeline. Ron sat down beside her and gently stroked her hair while he watched her sleep. She was sleeping with a frown on her face and he smiled at her ability to worry while unconscious.

He heard Harry clearing his throat at the mouth of the cave and turned to look over at him.

"I was just going to go for a walk to think this over ok? Just so you and Minnie don't wonder where I am," he smiled.

"Minnie?" Ron tried not to exclaim too loudly as Harry chuckled.

"This guy we met in Wales couldn't say her name properly, too drunk I think, and he insisted on calling her Minnie. She hated it!"

Ron sniggered as quietly as he could before looking back down at her sleeping form.

"I don't know, I think it quite suits her."

Harry shrugged and gave him a wave as he stepped back from the cave to set off on his walk. Ron looked back out and called after him.

"Is this that bloke Ivor? She told me you had a muggle guide who got killed when you...well when you were both hurt."

Harry nodded sadly before walking away. Ron turned back to Hermione, Minnie, and lay down beside her. He kept his hand at the side of her head, playing with her bushy brown hair between his fingers and watching her looking angry with him in her sleep.

He hadn't realised that he had fallen asleep himself until the sensation of her hand brushing against his cheek woke him. Hermione was heavy-lidded and looking worry-free as she smiled at him and ran her hand over the side of his face.

"He kept his promise then?" she said.

Ron blinked with confusion as he turned his head to plant a kiss on the inside of her palm and sit up on his elbow.

"Who's this?"

"Your guide, I made him promise to look after you and bring you back to me safe and here you are."

Ron exhaled with relief that she wasn't angry with him for leaving her.

"I was half expecting a dig in the ribs for making you stay behind after Harry told me how unhappy you were about the idea last night."

She sat up on her own elbow and pulled him towards her for another light peck, this time on the lips.

"Well I was quite hurt that you wouldn't let me come but there's no point taking it out on you this morning seeing as you don't even remember why you did it is there?"

He smiled and wriggled in closer to her they draped their arms across each other and rested their foreheads together.

"Where's Harry?" she whispered into his face.

"Gone for a walk," Ron whispered back.

"Is there anything I need to worry about from last night?" she asked him as she ran her hand along his contours.

"Nothing at all, it was just a clue and nothing else, no Death Eaters," he whispered as he kissed her on the side of the neck, "no dead people," he kissed a little higher, "nothing to be afraid of except for the fact that you weren't there with me."

Hermione made sure he wasn't able to say anything more for the next twenty minutes.

"Wow, you're getting really good at this side-along apparition Ron," Harry said, sounding impressed at Ron's ease in transporting the three of them to Bossiney Cove all at once.

"Yeah well, I won't be held responsible for missing eyebrows or anything you may find you've lost along the way, I'm still not comfortable with dragging one person with me let alone two."

Ron was leading Hermione by the hand. They had been in some form of physical contact ever since she had woken that morning and hadn't even felt self conscious about it when Harry had returned from his walk. He glanced back at her as they reached the elephant rock and pulled her into the space that was the elephant rock's hind legs and nodded up at the disorientating staircase.

"This is the reason we didn't have breakfast this morning," he said with a shrug, "it's best done on an empty stomach."

She squeezed his hand and looked up, he could see that she didn't quite understand how difficult this was going to be, and then turned to see Harry stepping through the two pillars of rock to join them.

"Blimey Ron, it's making me dizzy just looking up at them!" Harry took his warning about the dizzying climb with a little more understanding after seeing Ron having to compose himself at the side of the pool that morning.

"You wait until you start climbing them, it makes you feel sea sick, it's like you're climbing while rotating three hundred and sixty degrees. That was why I needed to get myself together when I first apparated back, I thought I was going to throw up."

He felt Hermione tug at his arm and she gave him a slightly annoyed frown. He knew she was telling him off for not mentioning his nausea when she had asked him if he was alright but he genuinely hadn't thought to mention it by then as it had long passed. She would always suspect him of keeping his personal pain and discomfort to himself to a certain degree no matter how much he swore to her he would be open about all that from now on. She saw that he hadn't meant to keep anything from her and gave him a nervous smile before taking a tentative step up onto the staircase.

"Any tips before I start?" she asked Ron nervously.

Ron placed the hand he was holding upon the rusty handrail to Hermione's left.

"Just make sure you hold onto this the whole time," he said as he watched her swaying slightly and readied himself to catch her if she fell, "you'll feel as if you're walking sideways sometimes but you've just got to remind yourself that while you're holding onto the hand rail you're the right way up. It's all an optical illusion."

As Hermione set off and immediately swayed to her right as if she had been shoved. Ron grabbed the handrail and jumped up onto the step behind her in case she lost her balance. He too was rocked by the swirling of the winding staircase ahead of him, it seemed even worse going up, but he was anchored to the handrail and knew he had the ability to ride the stomach churning mind tricks with his adaptation of Harry's claustrophobia technique and was sure he could manage the climb as well as looking out for Hermione at the same time. He hoped that Harry was doing alright behind him.

Ron turned to look over his shoulder, not the wisest thing to do in an already dizzy state, and saw that he had forced his eyes shut and was clinging to the handrail so tightly that his knuckles were white. He was trying to climb up by feeling for the steps ahead of him but that was impossibility, he would lose his footing and fall back down for sure.

"Harry are you alright back there?" Ron called down to him while trying to hold his body close to the wall and not let himself believe that doing that would topple him over.

Harry nodded before closing his eyes again and seeming to be steadier on his feet.

"Harry mate, I'm really sorry but you've got to climb this with your eyes open, I know it feels better to close them but the steps are so uneven you'll twist an ankle or a knee and go down like a sack of spuds."

Harry took a deep breath in and forced himself to open his eyes again and look up at Ron.

"I'm beginning to realise that."

Ron turned back to concentrate on Hermione once he saw Harry going on with his eyes open again and a greenish tint to his face. She was now crawling up the steps, one hand securely holding onto the handrail and the other pulling her up onto the next step. It didn't seem to be any easier than trying to walk the stairs upright though.

The steps beneath him suddenly seemed to swing out from beneath him and he felt as if he was dangling from the handrail at forty five degrees. He reached out with his free hand to grip Hermione's shoulder as she let out a squeal and used all his concentration to remind his brain that his feet were touching something, he was standing on something solid, he wasn't hanging at all.

"Keep going Hermione, we've got to keep going to get out of this one, I know it's hard but I'm right here ok?" he managed to say as his brain began to beat the illusion and correct itself.

He really was standing on something, it wasn't really happening, he couldn't trust his eyes or his instincts but he could trust his sense of touch and he was definitely touching something solid with his feet. Hermione crawled up another step just as Ron felt the universe right itself again and he slammed into the wall as if he really had just been tipped back upright.

"We're out of that one now, it's ok, you're doing really well."

Suddenly he saw her back arching and Hermione purged her body of the cup of tea Harry had made her before they left the glen for Bossiney Cove. She sputtered and gagged before spitting and wiping her face and turning back to look at Ron with a very pale face.

"Sorry about that, you were right about skipping breakfast weren't you?"

"Don't worry about it, just keep going ok?" Ron smiled as he tried to ignore the smell that now hit him and made him want to do the same thing himself.

"Ron!" Harry called out to him urgently.

He spun around, not the best of ideas, and looked down at his nauseous best friend.

"What?"

"Couldn't you have just apparated us to the top and save us all this?"

"Not possible," Ron answered.

Suddenly the walls began to move inwards on him and the stairs felt as if they were falling away from beneath him. He felt a wave of claustrophobia hit him and gripped the handrail with both hands and leaned against the wall with his forehead. The wall felt as if it was pushing against him and about to topple but he ordered his brain to beat it. This wasn't happening, this wasn't real, and the handrail told him he was still safe and upright and secure. He took a deep breath and let it out, then another, and tried to distract himself by finishing off his explanation to Harry.

"The ceiling's really low," Ron pulled himself together enough to go on, "we'd have taken our heads off."

"Ron," Hermione's weak voice distracted him from occupying himself with Harry, "are you alright?"

"Yeah don't worry about me I'm fine, look you're nearly there now, just a couple more steps further," he said as he pulled himself up by the handrail and tried to ignore the placement of his feet, he managed to climb up five steps that way before slipping down one and having to slow down and take his time again.

Hermione had finally reached the ledge and was crawling of to the side now. Ron stepped up and sat on the top step, he couldn't go in and leave Harry so he waited with his eyes closed to try and hold off the dizziness. He had let go of the handrail now and had no purchase on anything to rely on so he had to open his eyes every two of three seconds to check on Harry and then force them shut again to maintain his sense of stability.

He heard Harry was close now and opened his eyes to see him losing his own hold on the handrail and toppling backwards. He lunged forward and grabbed him by his sweatshirt, pulling him up the last two steps and throwing him onto the ledge beside Hermione. Harry was in and Hermione was in and all Ron had to do was turn around and join them but he had lost all sense of direction now and could only see the staircase they had just ascended spinning away from him. He didn't know which was to turn and felt around for something solid. He found a wall and tried to stabilise himself enough to get his bearings back. He closed his eyes to try and over come the awesome pull he was feeling away from the wall and where he was sitting but that defence didn't seem to be working anymore.

"Ron, you alright?" Harry's voice was asking from what sounded like somewhere several feet above him…

He kept his eyes tightly shut and tried to breathe through the overwhelming need to vomit while jabbering so fast that he didn't think he had made any sense at all.

"Can you get me off of here please?"

As soon as the words tumbled from his lips Ron felt himself tumbling forwards. He lost his touch on the wall and felt himself lifting off the step he was seated upon. He had nothing solid around him anywhere now and no idea which way up he was supposed to be. Something grabbed him by the arm and tugged him backwards.

"Oh no you don't," Harry said.

Ron felt his back thump down onto solid ground and opened his eyes to see the roof of the tiny indentation on elephant rock where he had woken that very morning. He let himself lay still for several seconds before feeling that he knew where he was and which way was up again.

"Thanks," he muttered as he heaved himself up into the sitting position.

"No problem mate," Harry sighed, "I can't believe you held it together right up to the top."

"It's a lot easier going down I can tell you."

Hermione crawled over to the two of them and she looked very pale and strangely ashamed of herself.

"You sure you're ok Hermione?" Harry asked her.

"Just a little embarrassed," she said with a smile at Ron, "a lady doesn't tend to want to throw up in front of her boyfriend, at least not so soon into the relationship."

Ron managed to laugh at this and rubbed her back.

"Has it passed yet?"

She nodded.

"Thanks for your help, I couldn't have done it without you," she wiped her mouth and rested her hand on his leg.

"I think I owe you after all the crap I've put you through recently; I wouldn't have been able to shake off that claustrophobic bit down there if it hadn't been for all your help before."

Harry was crawling over to the nest to investigate and Hermione rubbed her hand up and down his leg reassuringly.

"You shook it off all by yourself though Ron," she whispered with a look of pride on her face, "you know you can beat it now."

He smiled and gave a small shrug before looking down at the stone floor of the ledge.

"It's still there though."

He felt her lifting his chin and forcing him to look at her, she was beaming at him.

"That's what makes it incredible Ron; you are a remarkable human being."

Ron found himself frowning at that compliment and Hermione was looking at him with intrigued concern as he tried to work out why the word remarkable was sounding so familiar to him.

"What is it? You're head's not still playing tricks on you is it?"

"No," he shook his head as he looked off to one side struggling to place the non-memory he was having, "it's like...I think I've got deja-vu."

Hermione shoved him in the shoulder and rolled her eyes.

"Don't scare me like that."

He shook the feeling of familiarity out of his head and laughed.

"Sorry!"

Hermione began to crawl over to join Harry at the phoenix nest and Ron followed on. He leaned over Harry's shoulder to see that he was examining the feather in his hands thoughtfully.

"D'you think it's Fawkes' or another phoenix's?" Ron asked.

"I can't say, I've only ever seen one phoenix my whole life and I didn't really pay all that much attention to individual feathers at the time," he shrugged.

Hermione linked her arm with Ron's and frowned at the feather in Harry's hand.

"I've just had a thought," she began, "what if Ron's guide is Dumbledore?"

What?

"What?" Harry said, mirroring Ron's own thought.

"Well if it was then that would explain why he's looking for Fawkes wouldn't it?"

Ron looked from Harry to Hermione, trying to read their expressions, and wondered if that could be the case. The headmaster had been one of the only other people his mother had told about his 'special' gift but at the same time he and Dumbledore had never really had much to do with each other over the years, he was more of a mentor to Harry and a distant authority figure to Ron. Then there was the question of the risks that had been taken and the unforgivable curses at Gringots, would Dumbledore have had any part in that?

"That would explain Ron trusting him," Harry said thoughtfully.

"It would also explain how he knows where to look for horcruxes and clues," Hermione nodded, "and of course all that power he has when he's sleepwalking."

She was making some good points, he had to admit that, but there was still something about this theory that didn't sit right with him.

"Would Dumbledore have put Ron in Regulus Black's coffin?" Harry said with a harsh tone in his voice.

Ah there it was.

He knew they were both looking at him for his reaction to this so he stared down at the phoenix feather as if he had zoned out on their entire conversation and was trying to decipher the clue. They weren't going to be fooled of course but he hoped that they would let the matter drop and not dredge up all those awful memories again. He didn't want to think that anybody he trusted would ever put him in that position. Then again, if anybody was to take over his body while Harry and Hermione were sleeping and defenceless he was happy to think that it might be their great protector Dumbledore.

"I don't know Harry," Hermione said, seeming to accept Ron's silence for the time being, "I don't know him well enough to know how far he would go but he did know about Ron being an oracle, Mrs Weasley said."

"Could Fawkes, or the phoenix in question, have been guarding a horcrux?" Harry pondered aloud.

Ron looked back up at this change of subject and glanced around the tiny enclosed ledge.

"Well Vol..." now that his sanity worries were gone he was back to not being able to say the name anymore, how stupid was that? "He knows that we're looking for them now doesn't he? Maybe he moved it and the phoenix followed it wherever it went."

Harry nodded.

"That makes a lot of sense."

Ron sniggered and nudged Hermione in the side.

"Hark at me eh, I'm making sense!"

Hermione and Harry laughed. He was only too pleased to inject a bit of levity back into this discussion, anything to get away from talk of that night again.

"There's a first time for everything," Hermione smiled before loosening her hold on him and looking down at the feather.

She took it from Harry and stared at it in deep thought. Something seemed to have occurred to her that didn't make her very happy at all, as if she had just come up with an idea that she was reluctant to go through with.

"What's the matter?" Ron asked her as he rubbed her arm.

She swallowed and looked him in the eye with determination.

"I think we should put you to sleep and see what the spirit has to say for himself about this, he can tell us if this is a clue or a dead end, and that way we don't have to wait around until nightfall to move on with the search. He said so himself didn't he? We've got to start using your somnambulism in the daytime so the three of us can spend our night's actually sleeping."

Ron turned to Harry and shrugged.

"What d'you think?"

"Well I don't know," Harry frowned, "it's a crazy idea, that's for sure, sleeping in the nightime?"

Ron broke into laughter and Hermione rolled her eyes at the both of them.

"Go on then Minnie," Ron chuckled as he prepared himself for another enforced sleep, "knock me out if you must."

"Minnie?" Hermione growled as she turned her fierce gaze onto Harry.

"What? I didn't say it!"

"No but you're the only one who could've told him about Ivor's little nick-name for me," she said as she punched Harry on the arm.

"You call her Minnie and I get punched, how is that fair?" Harry said, turning on Ron, and rubbing his sore arm grumpily.

Ron tried not to openly laugh and shrugged.

"Hey I'm the one getting knocked out, count yourself lucky mate."

"Bloody couple ganging up on me. Wait 'till they have a row then they'll come running to me with all their woes and I can rub their lovey-dovey noses in it!" Harry grumbled quietly to himself.

"Right, you lay down," Hermione said in her most business like manner while getting out her wand and pointing it at the still very amused Ron, "The deep sleep charm totally relaxes every muscle in your body, I can't do it if you're sitting up, you'll hit your head."

"What harm can that do," Ron asked as he lay flat on his back, "all you'd do is knock me out twice as much?"

She huffed at him and narrowed her eyes.

"A deep sleep charm and a fractured skull are very different things Ronald, now take a deep breath, your breathing drops straight into slow even breaths and it can be risky if you're not relaxed."

She was sounding increasingly huffy to him and he felt a bit annoyed that she was still prone to these sudden mood swings out of the blue. What the hell was it with women?

"I'm bloody relaxed ok? Godric Hermione, will you just get on with it?" he snapped at her.

She glared at him and the last thing he saw was her wand sending out a bright blue light and hitting him in the face.

"My dear boy, you can go from charming to dolt so rapidly it amazes me!"

Bloody hell it is Dumbledore!