At 9:30 am, the alarm clock on the night stand started going off, waking Hermione from her sleep. Sluggishly, she rolled over and turned it off. She then rolled onto her back and just laid on the bed for a couple of minutes, having a silent argument with herself about getting up. She knew that she needed to get up and get herself ready to go and had to make sure Ron was ready.

As she sat up, she looked over at Ron, who was still sleeping on his bed, his mouth slightly open, as he snored somewhat softly. 'He looks so peaceful, sleeping there', Hermione thought. She had almost forgotten just within the last few weeks that Ron always snored in his sleep, but amazingly enough, it wasn't a loud snore that would make it difficult for anyone who was in the same room with him to fall asleep. It was soft and quiet but just loud enough to hear if you were close enough.

Hermione shook her head at herself and went to the bathroom to get herself dressed and ready. She figured it would be easier if she got herself all settled before attempting to get Ron up. It was going to be a fight to actually get him up out of bed but once he was up, he would only need 10 minutes to change and pack whereas she needed more time.

As she entered the bathroom, she was upset to see her hair sticking out all over. She attempted to brush it down so that it wasn't as bushy as it always was and she did use a little bit of the frizz-ease bottle that she had bought in Diagon Alley last year to try and help tame her lion's mane. After about five minutes, her hair seemed to be as good as it was going to get. It wasn't as flat as she would've liked but it was the best she was going to get today. Then she changed into her clothes and brushed her teeth.

Once she was ready, she walked over to Ron's bed and started shaking his shoulder gently. When she realized, he wasn't waking, she started to shake him harder.

"Ron. Ron. Come on you need to get up. We need to get going." She said as she was still shaking him. He moved slightly beginning to wake but not fully waking yet. She was expecting this, but nonetheless, she started to get annoyed with him and lost her temper.

"Ronald, wake up!" She shouted.

Ron's eye flew open as his hand flew towards his wand on the nightstand and he sat up straight immediately, his wand right in front of her face. Hermione took a step back, surprised at how he reacted and scared that he was about to curse her. Ron blinked his eyes a few times before he seemed to register where he was and looked at Hermione, realizing that she was the one who yelled at him and caused him to wake up in such a panic.

"Blimey Hermione, you didn't need to scream in my ear. You're lucky I didn't curse you." He said rather grumpily as he placed his wand back on the nightstand as his shoulders relaxed from the tensed state they had just been in.

Hermione crossed her arms and stared at him in anger. "Well I wouldn't have had to yell if you were easier to wake up. We need to get going." She replied. She couldn't believe that he was mad at her. He was the one who wouldn't wake up and he had asked her to wake him up. What else was she supposed to do?

"Alright, just give me like five minutes and we can go."

Ron got up, which surprised Hermione because she had thought getting him out of bed was going to be more of a challenge but she guessed that scaring him awake had done the trick. She was thankful that she didn't have to fight with him.

Once Ron was ready, they headed downstairs to the café and grabbed a quick breakfast, since it was free for staying at the hotel. They ate mostly in silence and when they were done, they headed over to the reception desk to check out and then headed outside. Hermione and Ron walked to the side of the hotel, where they hoped they would be hidden from any muggles so that they could apparate away from here. Just as Hermione reached out her hand for Ron's, Ron asked her a question.

"So, where exactly do we go from here?"

"Well, as you know, we can't apparate all the way to Australia from here which is unfortunate. We will have to take muggle transportation, like an airplane, which is the fastest way to and from one place to the next. I know an airport that is a few hours from here. It's Gatwick airport. We'll probably be better off spending another night in Gatwick to recover from all the apparating that we will do but then we can catch an early flight tomorrow."

Hermione glanced at Ron, who just looked at her in confusion. "What is an airplane? I've never heard of that before."

Hermione tried very hard to stifle the laugh that came up but failed miserably as Ron looked at her with an irritated look. She could not believe he did not know what a plane was. It took Hermione a good two minutes before she was able to contain her laughter so that she could answer Ron, and his face had turned red from his annoyance and anger at Hermione for laughing at him.

"Sorry. A plane is a type of muggle transportation that takes you from one place to another, especially when it is a long trip and you can't or don't want to take a car or train. It can cover a lot of miles in a very short amount of time. For example, when we take the Hogwarts express to school, it takes about six hours for us to get to Hogwarts. If we took a plane, it would probably only take us about two to three hours. I'm surprised you don't know what they are. They have had to fly over your house in the sky when you were out and about?"

Even though Ron didn't live around muggles, the sky was open to use for anyone as well as an unending road for any type of aircraft. There had to have been planes that flew over his house to get to their destination so he should have seen them, even though he didn't have a name for them up until now after Hermione just told him what they were.

"Wow, that's fast. So if it's not a train or a car, exactly what is it and how does it go so fast? And no, can't say that I have ever seen one nor has my dad mentioned them."

This time Hermione was able to contain the bit of laughter that tried to escape. "Well, a plane flies through the air, similar to what your dad's car does, except they are much bigger and faster than that flying car. They can hold up to 100 people and some other aircrafts that are bigger are able to carry a larger capacity as well."

"That is just crazy and unbelievable especially because there's no magic involved. I mean magic is what made my dad's car fly but muggles have their own ways of flying without magic? Wow." Ron said with fascination. "I never would have believed that."

Hermione couldn't help herself this time and let out a small laugh at Ron. It was a bit funny to Hermione just how much Ron didn't know about muggles but also, he was like his father more than he would probably admit, because all things muggle did interest him as well.

Ron just gave Hermione a slight glare for laughing at him before he grabbed her hand and they disapparated away from the hotel to begin their journey to Gatwick.

This time, Hermione and Ron took their time in between apparations, because they were in no rush. Also, it would help them each to have a few minutes to recover. They made sure they stopped for lunch as well in order to recharge and also because Hermione knew that Ron wouldn't be able to go all day without eating and how grumpy he could be if he didn't eat.

Finally, around 7, and after eating dinner at a small diner, they had arrived in Gatwick.

"I don't have much muggle money with me, so I figured we could just spend the night in the tent so that we can pay for the plane tickets tomorrow. Those are not going to be cheap either, especially because we will be looking at last minute tickets." Hermione told Ron as they walked into a wooded area, away from the small neighborhood that they had apparated too.

"Tent? Where are you going…" But before Ron finished his sentence, he saw Hermione remove that beaded bag from under her sweatshirt where it had been hiding. "Of course, I should have known" Said Ron shaking his head with a small smile on his face. He should have expected that Hermione would have thought of everything including some place to stay in case they couldn't stay in a house or somewhere else.

"Brings back some memories doesn't it?" Hermione asked, chuckling lightly as she gave a quick wave of her wand and the tent was all set up.

"Yeah, just a few. Mainly about you, Harry and I living in this tent for the past year on the hunt for horcruxes while in hiding from death eaters, snatchers, and You Know Who" Said Ron as he made his way inside, Hermione following right behind him.

The rest of the night passed with the two of them just relaxing, talking here and there about nothing important until Ron started to doze off. Hermione got up off the chair she was sitting in and made her way to the bed that she had slept in when they had been in this tent hunting horcruxes. Although this time was much different.

Hermione had still put the same enchantments around the tent as she had done their journey for horcruxes, just to be safe. But they weren't on the hunt for horcruxes or trying to hide. They were on their way to Australia to find her parents and it was just her and Ron. No Harry. Honestly, she was really thankful Ron ended up coming with her. He made her feel safe, even though she knew she was perfectly capable of handling herself. But it was nice to have someone with her and it was even better that it was Ron. For the most part, everything had been going well between them. There hadn't really been any awkwardness between them and he wasn't ignoring her.

Of course, all those lingering questions of where they stood with each other were still running through her mind but so far, there hadn't been a proper moment to bring it up to discuss it. Not only that, but she figured this would be one of those conversations that would need to be in private and it wouldn't be short. Ron has never been great at talking about his feelings but hopefully, when it came to the two of them being together, he would be willing to talk about it and they would be together. That is what Hermione was thinking about when she finally fell asleep.