A/N: Hi everyone! I want to say again how thankful and encouraged I was by the response to my first story. I have always enjoyed writing for my own personal entertainment, but posting here is the first time I've actually shared a piece, so all the thoughtful comments really do mean the world to me.

That being said, here is the start of my next chapter work. This one is a good deal more plot heavy so I can't promise the updates will be quite as frequent, but I'm aiming for once a week. Thanks again for reading, and without further ado...

"Ron! Ron, where are you going?"

She tore out of the tent after him, but the strength of her own Shield Charm had cost her several steps. The fact that every one of his strides was worth about three of hers didn't help matters, either.

"Will you stop?" she demanded, raising her voice over the pounding rain as she chased him to the edge of their wards. It was pouring, and she was drenched in seconds. Her feet were slipping on the soggy grass, which only added to the struggle of keeping up with him. "RON!"

"What?" he finally snapped back, whirling to face her.

"Come back," she said again, hating how pathetic her request sounded.

His eyes flashed with uncharacteristic anger. "What for? As if you and Harry need a bloody sidekick dragging along. There's nothing in that tent for me. I'm going home."

"Nothing?" she repeated incredulously. He didn't answer but to take two more steps, and she followed, definitely outside of the wards now. "At least you have a home to go back to!" She was so angry she felt like she could spit nails at him, and was almost surprised only words were coming out. "At least you have a family to go back to! We gave up everything to do this, together, and you're just going to leave?"

"You don't need me here. And I don't need any more of this bullshit." He waved his arm widely to indicate she wasn't sure exactly what.

"I don't need you?" she screeched, way too close to revealing the truth and too incensed to care. "That is bullshit, Ron!" She wanted to grab him and shake sense back into him, but he was clearly in no mood to be reasoned with. He scoffed and rolled his eyes and made to turn away from her again, but damn him, he needed to listen to her!

She reached out and clutched the sleeve of his coat, realizing a second too late that he wasn't just turning away. He was turning to Disapparate. And she was now, unintentionally, going with him.

Hermione landed in a heap on the ground. She couldn't remember ever apparating so sloppily, but then, she hadn't been anticipating this one. She scrambled to her feet, wand at the ready, and saw Ron several metres away, doing the same. She almost breathed a sigh of relief that at least they hadn't been separated, but they had, of course. Separated from Harry, if not each other. And Ron had been trying to get away from them both, she reminded herself, the thought causing a painful twist in her stomach. Nothing was stopping him from disapparating again, leaving her completely alone, but he seemed frozen, at least for the moment.

She quickly took in their surroundings. They were still in a forest, but the trees didn't look quite the same, and wherever they were, it was far enough away from where they'd been moments ago that it wasn't raining, and there was no sign that it had been. "Where are we?" she demanded in a low voice.

"Dunno."

"What do you mean you don't know?" she hissed. "You're the one who apparated us!"

"I..." Ron glanced around them, looking rather as confused as he sounded. "Didn't really think of a place, just wanted to go away."

"Oh, well, that's a lovely sentiment," Hermione spat sarcastically. "And a fine way to get yourself splinched."

"You're one to talk about splinching," Ron snapped back, indicating his not-quite-healed arm.

"I was trying to shake off a bloody Death Eater, what's your excuse?"

"I didn't bloody splinch us, so I don't need one!"

There was the sound of leaves crunching behind them, and they both spun to the noise, wands high. A rabbit scampered into the brush, and Hermione sighed in relief before facing Ron with a scowl. "You'd best be going, I suppose." She shouldn't goad him, she knew, but she was going back to the campsite, with or without Ron. And given everything he had said in the past ten minutes, she was assuming it would be without.

He stood frowning at her, but otherwise not moving. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going back. Harry needs us. I followed you to say that, but if you're too thick to see it, I'll just go back on my own." She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for him to disapparate again. Frankly, she wasn't sure why they weren't already back at the Burrow, why that wasn't his intended destination when he left, but she didn't care enough to question it. He had left. That told her all she needed to know.

Ron heaved out an exasperated breath, then took the necessary steps to reach her. He put his hand firmly on her forearm. "I'll make sure you get back okay, then I'll go."

She shook her arm free but didn't move away from him. "Don't do me any favors. If you want to go, just go." She had to tilt her head back almost completely to look him in the eye, as close as he was to her.

"You're alone in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a wand."

"And whose fault is that?" He glared down at her, but grabbed her arm again.

"Let's go," Ron said with an air of finality. She stared up at him for another long moment, and when she didn't see any weakening of his resolve, she raised her wand and apparated them back to the area of the campsite.

"Ah!" Hermione yelped in surprise, having already forgotten the downpour they'd left.

"Least we're close," Ron grumbled. He took a step back from her and raised his wand, muttering the detection spells that would reveal the campsite to them. Hermione took several steps in the opposite direction, casting the same spells and coming up empty. "Well?" Ron asked. "Aren't we?" She barely heard his question above the rain and wind.

"Yes," she said firmly. The tent was nearby. It had to be. Then she had an alternate thought. "Harry!" she called into the darkness.

Ron rushed to her and clamped a hand over her mouth. She was so startled that she forgot for a moment how cross she was with him. "What are you thinking?" Ron hissed. "What if we aren't alone out here?"

She grasped at his wrist and pulled it from her mouth. "I'm thinking it will be much easier for Harry to find us than for us to find him."

"Yeah, well, it'll be easier for You-Know-Who to find us too if you don't shut up."

Hermione dropped his wrist. "I know the tent's around here somewhere. You've seen me back. So you can go now." She started walking again, continuing to cast the detection spells without looking back at Ron. She knew she wouldn't hear it when he disapparated, over the sound of the storm, but she didn't want to. The thought alone was enough to sting her eyes with tears that mercifully blended into the rain.

She turned to start a different direction and caught Ron's hair, now a dark auburn from the rain, out of the corner of her eye. He was still standing in the same spot, watching her. "What?" she sighed, more relieved to see him there than she would ever admit.

"Why don't we just set up and have a go in the morning?"

She rolled her eyes. "Set up what? We've left everything back in the tent." She noticed his rucksack still slung over his shoulder and corrected, "I've left everything back in the tent."

Ron was apparently ignoring her, already walking a circle around her and casting the same protective enchantments they had used before. "We can conjure a tent," he said as he worked. "Nothing like what we brought, with the kitchen and whatnot, but something to keep the rain off."

Hermione was annoyed to admit that Ron was right, but traipsing about in the rain when she had clearly misjudged where the campsite should be was not likely to get them anywhere but sick. "Fine," she gritted out through clenched teeth, and aimed her wand at the flattest ground in the vicinity, conjuring a passable facsimile of the muggle camping tent her family had used on a trip when she was young. Satisfied, she stepped past the magical barrier Ron had created and used her wand to carve H + R into a tree trunk. When she returned to the tent, Ron had his eyebrows raised. "In case Harry comes looking for us," she explained. "It's something Muggles do. It won't give us away." Ron only nodded, then cast an impervious charm on the tent and ducked inside. She lifted the flap and went in after him, sealing it behind her.

It was nothing, of course, like the tent they had left behind nearly an hour ago now, just big enough for them to lie down in. But, as Ron had said, it was something to keep the rain off. He had rolled out his sleeping bag and duplicated one for her, and was now working on a drying charm on his clothes. She conjured one of the bluebell flames in between them and then copied his movements, removing her coat and drying the clothes underneath as best she could. They worked without speaking to one another, the tension returned now that they were, relatively, safe and dry. Hermione crawled into the sleeping bag and turned on her side, away from Ron. She heard him do the same, then he said softly, "We'll find him in the morning." After a long pause, he added tentatively, "Hermione?"

But she had no interest in talking to him any further, so she pretended to be asleep and didn't respond.