A/N: A huge thank you to my readers who have opened up communication with me to talk about this story and some aspects of it. A lot of you have expressed distaste at my characterisation or some facts about the story and I am sorry that I cannot please everyone. After the last bout of reviews, I seriously thought about disabling anon reviews but I have always been against that. Everyone deserves their opinion and for those of you who take the time to leave a comment where many do not, should be recognised as valued readers, whether you agree with my decisions or not. After some discussion with readers, I have actually altered this story, so updates will not be as frequent as I will be factoring these changes into my WIP update schedule. Thank you again for reading. As always, I will be available to PM if anyone has any questions or comments that you'd like to express, as long as they're in a mature and respectful manner. Please enjoy this chapter.

Chapter Four: The Sound of Dragons

Ron sat all alone in the pub. Hannah was doing her best to ignore him, but every now and then Ron would catch her staring at him, with a gentle and concerned look on her face. Most of the other patrons simply ignored him. They weren't particularly interested in Harry Potter's sidekick—most of the people in here weren't interested in Harry Potter himself, Ron would wager. And that suited Ron just fine.

Sitting here alone in a pub, hiding out from the press, was rather cowardly. Ron was a Gryffindor for Merlin's sake, not to mention a qualified Auror. Nobody would blame him for hiding out, with that toe-rag of a woman following his every move looking for her next full-of-shit exclusive. Ron could lie to everyone else and himself but deep down he knew that he was very much afraid of finding out the truth. For all those years he had convinced himself that Hermione had always loved Harry best. They were a trio of friends for so long and that night he left in the tent, the Horcrux has prayed on his weakness, whispering terrible and awful things. When Hermione had kissed him in that final battle, it became clear as day that the Horcrux had been feeding him lies all along; it was so clear that he had been telling himself lies all those years.

Ron could probably look past the fact that they had shagged, if it had only just been shagging. It was the other possibility that had him scared out of his wits.

What if the Horcrux was right, all this time? Ron thought, feeling his body freeze up at the mere acknowledgement of his underlying demons. He thought back to earlier, the way Hermione had sobbed and begged him not to leave. It wasn't that he didn't believe that she loved him now. She proved that she loved him every single day. The thought that maybe, once, she had loved Harry the same way she loved him was the crux of the issue.

Ron had never spoken about his Horcrux episode to Hermione. He had made Harry promise not to tell her either. Harry had been the one to convince him that there was nothing going on between them, that night. He had lied to his bloody face. The entire time the Horcrux was taunting him; Harry had begged and pleaded with him to know that it wasn't real. The Horcrux had only shown him Harry and Hermione kissing. In reality they had done worse; much worse. Ron suddenly became even angrier with Harry.

Why had he convinced both Ginny and Hermione to lie to him? Even now, after all this time, Hermione had abandoned Ron once again for Harry. Always for Harry.

Being here, in the Leaky, being in fucking London was just too much for Ron right now. The Wizarding community wasn't huge—if either of them were still actually looking for him, it wouldn't be long until they found him here, sitting in the middle of a pub like a lonely arse. With that in mind, Ron silently thanked Merlin that his status as a war hero had certain benefits. As a high ranking Auror, he had permission (and the skill) to create a portkey without prior authorisation. It would certainly mean loads of paperwork when was back on duty, but Ron found himself really not giving a Hippogriff's arse. Taking out an ordinary quill he had shoved into his trousers pockets, he cast the complicated spell and turned the object in his hands twice.

He stood up from his chair and briefly nodded goodbye to Hannah, who looked at him with the same look of pity and concern as earlier. He pushed his chair in and headed towards the exit. When he finally reached the small alleyway, he commended himself on his precise timing. He waited twenty seconds and tightly grabbed the quill.

Within seconds, he was spinning through the air. International Portkeys were difficult to make and the journey was awful. Ron felt his feet hit the ground and sighed as he realised he still had three more stops to make.

Ron smelt the dragons before he saw any. After four stops with the Portkey, he was exhausted. The firewhiskey he had readily consumed earlier was sitting at the pit of his stomach and with all the spinning, Ron was fighting to keep it down. He looked around the reservation, trying to figure out which cabin was Charlie's. Hearing a dragon roar in the background, Ron shuddered and quickly ran to the first cabin. After a bang on the door, a young Romanian-looking man opened the door.

"Er, I'm looking for..."

"Another Veasley," he said flatly, staring at Ron's hair.

"Yeah, Ron Weasley, er, could you tell me..."

"Ron?"

Ron turned around to see his older brother holding a crate and looking at him with panic in his eyes. "What the hell are you doing here? What's wrong? Fuck, is Mum alright? Ginny?"

Ron shook his head. "No, nothing like that. Sorry mate, didn't realise I'd cause a panic," he said, motioning to the Romanian who had just slammed the door in his face. Charlie visibly relaxed.

"Effing hell, Ron! You can't just turn up like that, what's a bloke to think?" Charlie protested, walking toward his cabin. Ron followed and grabbed one of the ends of the crate, shuffling it with Charlie to lighten the load. Ron realised how mental it must have looked—an Auror coming by Portkey for no good reason to a place he'd never been before. He was mental, to come all the way out here. Charlie represented the furthest place from home Ron could feel safe. Then he realised that of course, Charlie would want to know why the hell he was out here.

Charlie kicked open the unlocked door to his cabin and guided Ron to carefully place the box on the floor. Ron stood and looked at the cabin as the door slammed shut behind him. He saw Mercury, Charlie's owl hooting happily next to the window. A thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Bollocks! Charlie, do you reckon I could use Mercury? I, uh, kinda need to owl Hermione and let her know I'm here," he added sheepishly.

Charlie looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "You've got to be joking, Ron. Hermione doesn't know you're here?"

Ron took that as a yes and snatched up the parchment and quill that sat on the edge of the bench.

Hermione,

I'm sorry. I'm safe but I don't know when I'll be home.

Ron

Ron looked up and saw Charlie reading over his shoulder. "Is that all you're going to write? You're going to send my ruddy owl all the way to London and not even tell your effing girlfriend where you are? What the hell is going on?"

"She'll recognise Mercury and know where I am and shove off! If I wanted a lecture, I would have visited Mum!" he snapped.

"Knowing Mum she'll send Errol out with a Howler just to give you one anyway!"

Ron couldn't argue with that. Charlie summoned two butterbeers and handed one to him, motioning for him to sit down. "Sorry I don't have anything stronger. Had a bird over the other night and we drank all of it," he supplied as way of explanation. "So er, want to tell me what's got your wand in a twist? You and Hermione have another fight?"

Ron watched Charlie take a large gulp of his butterbeer.

"Harry told me he shagged Hermione."

Ron watched with vague amusement as Charlie spat out the butterbeer.

"Fuck off!"

Ron nodded.

"Well why the hell aren't you back in London beating the fucking crap out of him? What about Ginny? When did all this happen?"

"Long story. Harry didn't cheat on Ginny. It was, uh, before Hermione and I got together as well."

Both men paused and drank their butterbeer in relative silence.

"George took me to the pub this morning." Charlie raised his eyebrow. "He didn't drink any, not a single drop. Ginny also skipped out on training and watched as I downed one too many shots of Firewhiskey. She knew about it since the effing Battle of Hogwarts."

"And?"

Ron shrugged."She reckons that she's forgiven them both. All in the past and that shit. I...I just don't know, Charlie. What the hell am I supposed to do? I can't even look at either of them. She fucking lied to me, Charlie. And not just the kind of lie like, 'oops, sorry, I didn't tell you I accidentally set those shorts you loved on fire'. She had sex with my best friend and lied about it for years. I love Hermione and I know that it's in the past but fuck. Harry, why fucking Harry?"

"Would you have preferred someone else? Malfoy? Viktor Krum? Percy?"

"You're not helping, Charlie."

"Have you asked her why? Or asked Harry for that matter?" Charlie asked.

"Do you and Ginny have some sort of stupid psychic link going on?" Ron demanded. "Besides, why the fuck would I want to speak to that tosser any time soon? Lying prick."

"We're just the smartest out of the lot," Charlie cheeked back. "She's got a point Ron. What they did was fucked, I agree. Especially since you had to find out now but running away isn't the answer. If you still love Hermione maybe you should go home and talk to the woman."

Ron stared at his big brother before opening his mouth. "You don't get it, Charlie. She lied to me because Harry asked her to. She even, oh Merlin, I can't believe I'm saying this, but she's been lying to me about it ever since we, you know."

Charlie looked at him curiously. "Since you what?" he asked slowly, clutching his butterbeer.

Ron felt like an absolute git spilling his secrets but fuck it, it wasn't like his girlfriend was going to win the saint of the year award. He never spoke about sex with anyone. He was in a don't-ask-don't-tell situation with Harry and he was always deathly afraid his brothers were going to take the piss out of him. But now wasn't the time to be conservative. Charlie was extending a helping hand and Ron knew the smart thing was to take it.

"We had sex after the Battle," he supplied, taking a sip of his own butterbeer. Merlin, he wanted something stronger. A lot stronger.

To his credit, Charlie didn't question him or say something stupid. His silence urged Ron to continue. "And um, well, it wasn't my first time," he started and Charlie raised a hand to stop him.

"Bloody hell Ron! Who was the lucky bird who managed to snag that trophy?"

The thought repulsed him now. "Lavender Brown," he muttered. "Fucking Lavender Brown."

Charlie whistled. "Impressive." Ron glared at him and Charlie shrugged apologetically. "Sorry mate. Your story. Go on."

"Er, thanks. Well, like I said, it wasn't my first time but I assumed it was hers, so I went slowly."His face was absolutely burning with embarrassment now. "But not once, Charlie, not once during the whole thing did she ever stop and say, 'Ron, I've done this before, you can get on with it now'. Bloody hell!"

He dropped his head into his hands. "What am I supposed to do, Charlie? How can you forgive someone who's lied to you through that?"

Charlie reached over and patted Ron gently on the arm. "Fuck me," he answered honestly. "But Ron, did you ever, you know, think to ask her before getting on with it?"

Ron's head shot up in an instant. Had Charlie gone mad? Here he was pouring his heart out about Hermione and he was implying that Ron had something to be sorry about. He was the victim in all of this. And Harry was the bad guy. And Hermione? Well, she wasn't exactly a victim in all of it either. But was she the bad guy? Yes. Was she as bad as Harry in all of it? Fuck, I don't know, Ron finally confessed to himself. But first, he needed to understand where Charlie was coming from.

"Meaning?" Ron demanded, wanting some clarification.

"I just mean that not all birds are the same and just because Hermione didn't act like Lavender during sex, that doesn't mean anything. Not all birds bleed either," Charlie pointed out, "and it can hurt more than once too, so I reckon she probably wasn't lying about that."

If Ron hadn't been mortified before, he was certainly mortified now. "Since when were you an expert? Wait, don't tell me. All this time sniffing dragon dung has made you barmy, I reckon."

"Well, Romania does have some appeal. You, the big shot business owner and successful Auror still took a bunch of portkeys to get here, after all. Or did you miss your big brother?" Charlie cheeked and Ron couldn't help but smirk. He was right.

"Shove off."

There was silence between the two for a while. Ron considered the irony of him running away from the situation. Hermione was probably beside herself with worry. A small part of Ron revelled in that thought. She probably deserved to sweat it out a bit. But the thought made him sick as soon as it passed his mind. If nothing else, he had spent the last four years of his life with her. And if he was being completely honest with himself, he still loved her.

Merlin, he still loved her. But the question was whether he would be able to ever forgive her. She had been part of making his nightmare come true. He couldn't just give up now. The memory of Fred made that all too clear. Life was too bloody short. But one thing was for certain, he wasn't ready to go back.

"Charlie, could I stay here a few days? Just until I sort my shit out?"

Charlie stood and banished their empty butterbeer glasses to the kitchen. "Of course you can, mate. But are you sure that's what you want? I can understand you wanting to stay out of Potter's way but are you really going to hide from Hermione?"

Before Ron could contemplate opening his mouth to answer, the fireplace began to roar and George's head popped up in the Floo, looking around until his eyes focused on Ron. "You git!"

"Come off it George," Charlie warned.

"I'll kill Ginny. I thought I was leaving you in capable hands."

"S'not her fault," Ron said.

"Well then it's your own fault for dragging your arse all the way to bloody Romania, innit?"

"What do you want, George?" Charlie asked, clearly getting irritated with his brother. "You're wasting enough time and Floo powder with your long distance whining."

George's eyes softened. "Er, Ron..."

"Spit it out, mate!" Ron snapped. George sighed and Ron swore he had seen that look before.

"Mum's on the lookout for you," George warned, "not to mention your woman and Potter. And Skeeter's been here sniffing around."

"Well I don't want to be found," he declared. "So if you could kindly tell them to piss off, I'd appreciate it. Especially Skeeter."

Even through the Floo network, Ron could see the strained look on George's face. "Have it your way, Ronniekins. Although if you think I'm telling Mum to piss off, you're barking."

"Is that all Georgie boy?" Charlie asked. "Because Ron here has volunteered to help me clear out the dragon dung and you're wasting time."

As that information sunk in with Ron, it seemed to have the same effect on George. "You're staying in Romania?" he asked, clearly surprised. "Well, fuck me."

"Goodbye George," Charlie said sweetly as pushed Ron out of the view of the Floo. "Tell Mum I'll owl her later, yeah? When Mercury comes back. And Georgie? I'll take care of him, don't worry."

Ron was glad George had no response as the Floo deactivated and Ron faced the thought of Hermione back in London. With a flick of his wand, Ron opened the door, letting the air rush in.

"Sure about this?" Charlie asked, standing with Ron. "You could tell me to bugger off and head back to London to talk to Hermione. Or beat the shit out of Harry?"

Both sounded possible, but Ron sighed. Right now, he couldn't face them. He needed to sort his shit out. And Romania was the place to do it.