Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

A/N: Thanks the nitaro48, who beta this story.

Chapter Fifty

Ron's Escape

Hermione stormed out of the tent, not really sure what she was feeling right now. Okay, she did know what she was feeling, she was relieved that Ron had returned and that he was safe. Her heart filled with hope the moment she saw him, all she wanted to do was run up to him and kiss... so she did. Merlin, it was so nice to be in his arms again... to feel his lips on hers... she didn't want that moment to end. She had been worrying about him non-stop for two weeks and it was just wonderful that he was back.

She looked in the tent for a second, she could see that both the beds were full, a sight that filled her with more warmth than seemed possible for such a small thing. She could tell the boys were talking about something non-important and she knew everything was going to get back to normal somehow.

However, that didn't mean she wasn't upset about everything that happened. That she wasn't angry and hurt about how he had left and she didn't want him thinking that leaving like that was an acceptable response, either. No, she was going to make him see how angry she was at him right now. The only problem was she knew she wasn't as angry as she should be. She should be fuming, but she wasn't, all she wanted to do was go back in the tent and kiss him.

"Ronald…" Hermione sighed, sitting down and pulling her knees up to her chest. She spent the rest of the night thinking about this. Half the time her mind would wonder to how worried she had been and happy she was that he was back with her and just when she thought that everything was okay she would get angry. Then when she got too angry at him she would start thinking about how much she loved him being back... the vicious cycle repeated itself until the sun was coming up and she realized that she had been out there for hours.

She got up, and went inside of the tent. She stared at him for a few seconds as he slept. He looked so peaceful just lying there. She wanted to curl up and snuggle into his back and get some much-needed sleep, but she couldn't. She couldn't let it be that easy, and besides, she had come in here so he would relieve her on watch.

"Ron," Hermione said shaking him awake.

"Um..." Ron moaned and after several more minutes of shaking Ron opened his eyes sleepily. When he saw her, he smiled wildly, "Hey Mione."

"Ron..." Hermione said smiling at him in return, looking at him like that made her heart melt.

"So beautiful," he said still daze as he reached up to brush a hair out of her face. As soon as he touched her face he seemed to wake up more. He was looking around the tent and then looked back up to her with a smile that was so different than the one that he had, but was just as touching. He seemed to be ecstatic about something. "It wasn't a dream!"

"Shhh... you'll wake Harry," Hermione tried to sound firm, but with the way he looked and acted she couldn't help but smile at how adorable he was.

"Oh," Ron said looked at the bunk above him. "Right sorry... I just... Merlin! I thought it was a dream!"

"Do you dream of this often?" Hermione questioned, her eyes dancing in amusement.

"Every night... if I was lucky," Ron said, his voice trailing off at the end and he shook his head.

"It's your turn to do watch," Hermione said, her voice going cold again... she shouldn't be amused by him right now... she was supposed to be angry.

"Okay," Ron said and before she could do anything to stop him he brought their lips together and kissed her sweetly.

Hermione could feel the end of her mouth curve up in a smile, betraying her when she wanted to be angry. "Ron... you can't just go and kiss me like that when I'm angry..."

"Hm... well I sense that you aren't that angry at the moment," Ron said softly, getting out of the bed and turning them so she was sitting on it. "And I figured that I might as well get a kiss out of you before you got back to the Mione that wants to hit me."

Hermione rolled her eyes, before she bit her lips. What the heck, he was right that she wasn't angry with him for this moment. She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a real kiss. All too soon she was pulling away though. "You really do need to go on watch."

"Right," Ron sighed, and then kissed her on top of the head. "Sleep tight, Mione."

"Hm..." Hermione hummed, but she wasn't sure if she would really be able to sleep.

O

It was later that day and Hermione wasn't able to sleep. She had closed her eyes for a few seconds and saw the same old nightmares. She sat upright and didn't let herself even close her eyes again. With the lack of sleep she became more irritable about everything. She was angry that Ron's arrival hadn't driven the nightmares away and she worried that they never would leave her… that she would have to deal with getting no sleep for the rest of her life.

She got even angrier every time that she heard Ron and Harry laugh. How could it be so easy for them to be happy again, but she still felt so uncomfortable. She knew it was her fault, if she just let go of her anger she wouldn't be so upset right now, but she couldn't. There was a serious issue that she would have to deal with before she could even think of forgiving him.

"You know, what I've really been wondering about is how you got out of that trap." Harry said to Ron as the three of them sat down for lunch.

Ron had been looking at Hermione and his attention was obviously not on what his best friend had just said. "Huh?"

"Tell us about how you escaped from..." Harry started to say.

"Oh... er..." Ron said and then looked over at Hermione questioningly.

"I would like to hear this, too," Hermione said.

"Well, let see," Ron said, "After I... er... left," he said looking at the table, uncomfortably. He must have felt the glare that Hermione was now giving him but he didn't look up for sometime as he told his story...

Ron was running, running as if his life depended on it, as he knew it really was. He could hear the clumsy footsteps of the Decoy Detectors he had just made running after him. He looked back, trying to see if he could see if there was something more than the puppets behind him but as soon as he saw the messy hair he felt his heart beat painfully in his chest. He left Harry and Hermione behind... in an alleyway. He had stunned his Hermione to make sure she (they) would be safe, but what happened if the Death Eaters didn't followed him, she wouldn't be able to defend herself!

A loud crashing noise at the side of his head told him that he didn't really have time for this, there were at least a few Death Eaters chasing him. He took a quick left at the next turn and was glad when there was another right turn quickly after that. He ran down the next turn but sent one of the decoys to go straight ahead. He bit his lip as it ran away... it was the decoy that was supposed to be Hermione and he knew that they were going to curse it.

He tried not to let that image assail his mind as he continued to push himself, his legs burning. The pain in his legs, however, wasn't enough to not hear the scream that was the Decoy. He prayed that they wouldn't realize what it was too quickly, but again he didn't think it mattered because he could still hear footsteps following his own.

He turned a corner and found himself in another dead end. He knew he was caught for sure. He tried to steady his breath, he didn't want anyone to realize that he was here; perhaps they didn't know where he was. He waited to punch his traitorous heart for pounding so loudly, he was sure it was betraying him at this very minute.

He didn't even have time to blink before the curse flew at him...

It was a good thing he didn't blink, for if he had it wouldn't have had a chance. The yellow light that came at him was flying right at his chest, but before it could reach him the Harry decoy jumped in front of him, taking the curse. Ron reacted immediately, he fired the severest curse that he knew at the Death Eater sending him into the wall of the alleyway.

He stood over the man for a few seconds, his ears straining to hear something, anything, but there were no footsteps nearby. He took a deep breath to try to settle his nervous, before looking down at the Harry Decoy as it started to disintegrate. He knew that image, the one of his friends face crumbled in pain would fill his dreams and waking thoughts for a long time but he couldn't help but watch the thing disappear. It had saved him. He wondered if that was something the twins had made it do, like it was something that was built in the puppet or if it was his best friends characteristic showing through the thing, but he felt he owned it the decency to watch its last moments.

He then bent over the man that was now unconscious and picked up the wand that he was using. When he grasped it, the wand felt oddly warm to him, almost like his own but not quite. He didn't spare another thought on that as he thought through his options as quickly as possible. He had to get out of here and on to the main street, but that wouldn't be good with the way he looked, if he could avoid being noticed he wouldn't have to run. If he didn't run, he wouldn't draw attention to himself.

He took off the sweatshirt he was wearing and replaced it with the jacket the Death Eater was wearing, though he did change it so it was now black. After he did that he pointed his wand at his head and tried to remember the spell he had to say to transfigure his hair. It took a few seconds but eventually he had brown hair, instead of the black that he had for most of the day.

After that was done, he walked briskly out of the alleyway, silencing his shoes so they wouldn't make as much noise. He prayed that he could get out to the main street before he was seen. He knew that if he was spotted it would matter little if he matched the right description or not, the Death Eaters would shoot first and ask questions later.

He listened the best he could as he moved, trying to sound out which way he could go. At first he couldn't hear anything, or at least not anything that told him if people around him. However, a few times he had to quickly turn down a side alley because he could hear footsteps nearby. Fear was his constant companion as he walked, but he knew that was keeping his senses heightened, and for that he was grateful.

He sigh a breath of relief when he saw it, the crowded street. He could tell by the way they were dressed that he had made it to the Muggle part of town. He picked up his pace and quickly melted into the crowd. He glanced to the side and noticed several other people coming out of various different alleyways looking around. One of these people seemed to be watching him with a curious expression, and he was glad that he hadn't turned all the way around. This Death Eater obviously found him suspicious but Ron didn't look like he was supposed to and that seemed to be making the Death Eater stall.

Ron turned to face the front and walked at as slow a pace as possible. He couldn't run... that would just make them follow him. But if he could control himself they would probably let him walk away.

Every step he took for the next ten minutes seemed to be agonizingly painful. He couldn't look back in fear that someone was watching him and he would tip them off. However, when he couldn't take it anymore he looked behind him to find that only Muggles surrounded him. There wasn't anyone that he recognized in the crowd.

He sighed, and decided to take a seat on a bench that was nearby. His mind was reeling about everything that had passed in the last few hours and he didn't know what to do. He had no idea where Hermione and Harry were. He had lost his friends and he knew that he wasn't going to find them. Hermione's charms were too strong for that. So where the hell was he supposed to go now?

It did no good searching the country. He wasn't going to find anything of value by himself, and even if he did, it wouldn't help the others because they wouldn't know that Ron had found something. Besides, he knew as soon as the adrenaline wore off he wasn't going to be able to do much but wallow over his friends' fate.

So he needed to go somewhere that he would be safe... somewhere that he could think in peace. His first thoughts were to go home to the Burrow, but something made him stop. He didn't think he could take the look in his mum's eye when he told her that he didn't know where Harry and Hermione were. That he had lost them and they were still in deadly danger. He also knew that if he went home he would have to face Ginny too, and that thought made him cringe. He knew that after he told them what happened they wouldn't say too much about it, but they would be devastated to hear it and he didn't think he could take that right now.

So where else could he go that would be safe and he would have some time to think? The answer came to him instantly and he was moving before he could realize it. He couldn't feel safe in this town knowing that Death Eaters lurked in the corners. He was glad when he was actually able to Apparate away, he was afraid that it might still be blocked, but soon he found himself staring at the most beautiful cottage he had ever seen.

The beauty of course was lost on him; he could feel his body starting to lose some of the tension that had been building in it as he walked towards the door. His mind started to show him broken imagines of Hermione's shocked face as he stunned her... of the Harry decoy pained expression as it died (he couldn't help thinking of it as dying even though he knew it wasn't really alive). He quickened his pace; he didn't want to break down in Bill's front yard...

When he reached the door it opened before he could even knock on it.

"...Bill is that... Ron!" Fleur said, her expression changing dramatically when she saw him. She put her arms around him to hold him steady. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"No," Ron mumbled and he could feel the much smaller woman move him inside the house, guiding him to the couch. He watched her for a second as she ran towards the kitchen for something. He had once found this woman beautiful, though he had realized that it was superficial, and she would never have anything on Hermione. He realized that he had wanted more than just outside appearance, he wanted someone that was truly beautiful inside and out. It was at this moment that he realized that his new sister... she really was beautiful.

"Ron," Fleur said, he could feel her press something in his hand, which he dimly realized was a glass of water. "Have a drink Ron, I think you are... what is the word... you don't have enough water in your body."

"Dehydrated," Ron said slowly, his brain wasn't moving at its normal pace. He put the glass to his mouth and when he lowered it, the water was gone. Fleur refilled the glass and while Ron drank he felt her hand feel his forehead, before she waved her wand over him. He assumed that she was looking to see if he was hurt somehow. He was sure she wouldn't find anything. Except for exhaustion, the pain he was feeling wasn't in his body.

"What happened?" Fleur asked again, after she was done checking him over.

Ron was immensely glad that Bill had chosen that moment to come home for he didn't think he was ready to say it and he knew he didn't want to tell Fleur this.

"Fleur, are you okay... the door was ope... Ron!" Bill said, running towards his brother, his scar face was hard as ever to read but his eyes were obviously terrified.

"I'm okay," Ron muttered to his brother, he didn't like seeing Bill panic like this. Bill was supposed to be level headed about everything.

"The others..?" Bill started to ask but he stopped himself, he could see it on Ron's face that they weren't here. He feared the worst had happened. "What...?"

Ron had difficulty telling his brother what had happened that day, it cost him a lot of the little energy he had left to say even the few words he had. He stuck to the vital points, but it still took him ten minutes to say everything he had to.

"... Now I don't know where they are or if I'm ever going to see them again!" he finished, and he noticed only then that tears were falling down his face. What if he never saw Hermione's face again? What if Harry sacrificed himself like he had seen the decoy do? What if they never made it out of the alleyway and it was his fault that everything went to hell?

"Ron," he could hear his brother saying. Bill's hand squeezed his arm in comfort. "You'll find them somehow."

The words meant little, but the grip on his arm helped. He wasn't by himself; he had to believe that Harry and Hermione were going to be okay. He had to believe.

The next week was the hardest he had ever lived, he worried constantly that his friends where going to get captured. He knew that they had escaped the town too, because of the news that filled the paper. He believed Bill's words that it would be front-page news if Harry were caught. It would be, as Bill said, devastating for those who opposed Voldemort if Harry was captured; the Death Eater's would love to get that out there.

He felt useless as he listened to Potterwatch, listening to the information that Bill had learned from the other Order members about the war. He knew that these things would be valuable if he ever got back to his friends, but they didn't mean anything if he didn't. Still, he listened anyways, for there wasn't anything else he could do to find them. They were gone and he couldn't do anything about it.

He couldn't sleep and he hardly ate. He knew he wouldn't have eaten anything if Fleur didn't force him to at times, imitating his mum by calling him too skinny, though he was well aware that he really was much skinner than he was before. There was nothing Fleur could do about his sleeping though, he would hardly get more than a few hours sleep, and he would often wake up in cold sweat or screaming. He couldn't help but imagine all the things that could have happened to his friends in the last two weeks.

Bill and Fleur didn't tell anyone else he was there. They agreed that it would just cause the others strife if they knew Harry and Hermione were on their own. And Bill knew it would break his mum's heart to see her youngest son like this.

When Christmas morning came and he heard the voices he had longed to hear for days he thought he had gone mad. What the voice was saying didn't make any sense, which actually made him believe that it was for real. There was no way he could imagine Hermione talking about a wand.

So he got up with a zealous feeling that he hadn't felt in weeks and looked through his things until he found the Deluminator that Dumbledore had given him. It was shining, and felt warm when he touched it. His heart filled with hope when he picked it up and he flicked it, a blue light came out of it. He knew then that this was his way home...

Back in the tent Ron was just finishing his story and Harry and Hermione were staring at him.

"The Deluminator... how did that...?" Harry said flabbergasted.

"Don't know," Ron shrugged. "All I know is when I Apparated with it in me... it took me to where you were."

"Merlin, that's brilliant!" Harry smiled. "I might have to stop being annoyed at Dumbledore for this!"

"That would be quite the feat," Hermione said, her voice annoyed as she got up and left the tent.

Ron longed to go after her, but felt that she didn't want him to.

"Don't worry mate, she'll come around," Harry said, wrapping his arm around Ron's shoulder.

"Yeah," Ron sighed. "But not before she stonewalls me for a few days... Merlin, she knows I can't stand it when she doesn't talk to me."

"Yeah, well you should think of that the next time that you ditch us," Harry shrugged. "Oh, and did you say you had an extra wand."

"Yeah, I figured it would be good to have an extra one just in case," Ron said.

"Good thinking, because I'm going to need it," Harry sighed.

"Why?" Ron asked in trepidation, and Harry told him everything that happened to them in the last two weeks. Ron was speechless by the time that Harry had finished and all he could do was hand Harry the wand that he had won off the Death Eater.