My beta-readers, fredfred and InquisitorCOC, deserve a huge thank you. They helped a lot.

Chapter 17: The Hunt

East of Prizren, Kosovo, August 2nd, 2005

Ron's heart was still racing, and he was still breathing heavily. Still keyed up from his close brush with death at the hands - fangs - of a monster straight out of his nightmares. But it was dead now. Crushed by a giant… he blinked. "A cookbook?" He turned his head to look at her.

"It was the heaviest book I had that wasn't essential," she said.

Was she blushing? He couldn't tell; they were both flushed from running. She was covered in mud and sweat. Just like him. And still trembling and shivering. Just like him. But the monster was dead. And they were alive. Alive!

Without thinking, he leaned forward and kissed her.

He blinked. He was kissing Hermione. Had been kissing her for how long? Gasping, he pulled back and released her. "Ah…" He could feel his face heat up. Why had he done that?

She was staring at him. And blushing - now he could tell. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, though.

"I'm sorry!" he blurted out.

For a moment, she glared at him, and he was certain that she'd slap him. But she merely pressed her lips together and nodded. Curtly. After taking a deep breath, she said: "We should go."

Focus on the task at hand, yes. Not on his loss of control. "We need to find a hiding spot. The potion will run out any minute, won't it?" He checked his watch - yes. Any minute.

"Yes."

He looked around. "We won't make it to the tree over there with the dense undergrowth." It was about… he couldn't estimate distances correctly like this. It looked like a few miles to him, so probably a few hundred yards, tops. Too far for them. But… "The bush there!" It would provide at least some cover, and wasn't too far. Or so he hoped. "Let's go. And we need to recover the book. It has your fingerprints on it." Burning it would only attract attention.

"That will have to wait until we're back to our normal size."

The trip was far more nerve-wracking now that they had realised just how dangerous the area was if you were only two inches tall. A spider or another animal could be hiding behind every patch of grass, in every bush. If there was a snake… he ground his teeth.

Almost at the bush, he suddenly felt as if his stomach twisted. Then his body shook. The potion! "Down!" he yelled, grabbing Hermione and pulling her to the ground. If they grew to their normal size while standing, someone could easily spot them.

She yelped in protest, but he was already rolling away from her - if the potion's effect on her wasn't also ending, he might crush her. Then, suddenly, he wasn't a tiny human anymore hiding in a field of grass the size of trees. He was a human on the ground. And so was Hermione. And the grass and bushes around them provided little, if any, cover - barely enough to hide them from view if they were prone.

They should have worn camouflage, he thought. "We'll have to crawl the rest of the way to the tree," he said. About two hundred and fifty yards, he guessed.

"Did you spot anyone observing us?"

"No. But they're bound to have a lookout up," he replied and started crawling. "Follow my route."

That would make it a little easier on her. Only a little, though - it wasn't as if the grass was hindering them much, if at all. At least they didn't have to worry about getting killed by spiders or snakes any more, he tried to console himself as he felt the sun starting to burn now that the grass didn't provide him with ample shade any more.

By the time they reached the tree and assorted bushes he had picked, he was soaked with sweat and felt exhausted. And Hermione simply collapsed next to him, chest heaving as she gulped down air. "Water…" she gasped, fingers reaching for her bag.

He waited a moment, then pried it open for her.

"Thank you." She stuck her hand inside, then pulled it out again, holding a bottle of mineral water. "Here."

He took it without protesting that she should drink first and guzzled it down, splashing half of it over his head. "Yes!" he sighed, closing his eyes. "That bag's the best thing, ever."

"Thank you. I'm quite proud of it," she replied.

He glanced at her. She was on her back, with her eyes closed. Her hair was plastered to her head, wet from sweat and water. Her clothes were covered in dirt, part of it having turned to mud.

He wanted to kiss her again. But he couldn't. Shouldn't.

Damn.

"Can you get an assault rifle out? And then the radio? We need to call the others," he said after a moment. Harry and Berisha would also have returned to their normal size by now, and they would have noticed - if they hadn't before - that Hermione and Ron were missing.

And if they were still alive, of course. But he didn't want to dwell on that.

"Yes." She turned on to her side and reached into her bag again, pulling out another assault rifle - an M16 this time - and then a radio set. One Sirius had picked; military models with encryption.

He took it from her - she still looked exhausted - and quickly set it up. Battery looked fine, the display worked, the antenna was extended… He switched to the agreed-upon frequency. "Red One calling Tank. Red One calling Tank." Sirius had picked the call signs, citing his military experience.

No answer.

He repeated himself twice. Still no answer. That didn't mean anything, of course - the others could be out of reach. In these mountains, radios didn't have the same range as on flat terrain. Especially not with a simple extendable antenna instead of a five yard one. "Satellite phone?" he asked.

Looking grim, she nodded and handed him the Iridium 9522A. He turned it on, then waited. "No connection."

"What?"

"There's no connection," he repeated.

"Are you sure you've turned it on properly?"

"Try it yourself," he replied, handing it back to her.

She pursed her lips and tried it herself. "It's not connecting. But everything seems to be working."

"We're being jammed." He shook his head. "Turn it off!" he snapped.

"What?"

"If they can jam it, they might also be able to locate it."

She gasped and turned it off. "But… that would mean, the radio…"

"We need to move. Quickly." This was worse than they had thought.

"Why would an Albanian warlord have such a capability?" she asked, stuffing the radio and phone back into her bag.

"It would come in handy if he wants to take out a competitor. Or wants to hinder NATO surveillance," Ron said. "I'm no expert. Some criminals have phone jammers, to deal with police surveillance." And the Iridium phone wasn't exactly military grade equipment.

"What if this is the work of his contact?" Hermione asked, taking another swallow from her water bottle.

"If they were present, I don't think we would have escaped the village," Ron said, studying the area around them. "We'll crawl to the dry creek there," he said, pointing ahead. "Then we can follow it up the ridge and over it. Perhaps we'll be able to contact someone from the top of the ridge." Or from the other side, if they were jamming them from this side of the ridge.

"I need to summon the book first," she said.

"How long will that take?"

"Not long," she replied. He could see her jaws clench as she turned without waiting for him to respond and held out her hand. "Accio cookbook!"

It took the book five minutes to reach them. Five minutes he spent looking for enemies descending upon them. He didn't spot anyone, though Hermione was panting and sweating even more by the time it dropped into her hand. He should comment on that, he knew. But they didn't have many alternatives - crawling there would have taken too long.

"Here's the spider," she said, holding up the book and showing him the squashed remains of the little monster.

He shuddered but nodded. "Let's go."

By the time they reached the creek, Hermione needed another break. They hid under the roots of a tree dangling in the air after half the soil beneath the tree had been washed away in a flood and had some energy bars.

While Hermione rested, pressed against the cool earth in the shade under the tree, Ron crawled up the side of the creek and peered back towards where they had fallen from the Land Rover. He still couldn't spot anyone chasing them. If Berisha's men had spotted them, wouldn't they have come at them already? They might not even be searching for them - who would have expected two miniature people to have fallen off the Land Rover? But it wasn't enough to bet their lives on it.

He slid back down to the tree's roots. "It looks clear, but we should keep moving anyway. Once you're rested," he added when he saw her start to move. She wasn't ready to climb up the ridge.

"I can go on," she insisted, raising her chin to stare at him.

"What if we get discovered and have to run?" he retorted.

She didn't say anything, but the way she pressed her lips together was answer enough.

He didn't smile at his small victory. He moved and lay down next to her instead. "It'll also be easier to move once the sun's not as high," he said.

He heard her snort at that. She knew as well as he did that they couldn't rest until the evening. They had to move and make contact with the others.

And find out what had happened to them.

After a short rest, they moved up the creek. They didn't have to crawl all the way, but it was near enough as made no difference. And the last part up to the top didn't have any cover. "This will be a little tricky," he commented as they rested in the last bush of sufficient size to hide beneath - as long as they stuck close together. Close enough to be touching. "We could be spotted from miles away. Perhaps we should pick another route…"

"What? Go back down, and then up again?" Hermione sounded as if he had proposed tunnelling through the mountain. "We're already covered in mud; we could add some more and just pass for the ground."

"It's mostly rock up there," he replied.

"By the time I'm able to crawl down without dying," she told him, "it'll be night anyway."

He hoped that was just hyperbole - she didn't look that exhausted. "Perhaps we should have crawled around the lake," he said, "as training."

That made her laugh, at least.

"Aren't there any magical potions to keep you going?" he asked.

"There's the Pepper-Up Potion. It'll deal with the common cold and lack of sleep. But if you're physically exhausted, it's not safe to use; you won't fall asleep, but that's all. You might kill yourself from exhaustion if you use it to keep going instead of sleeping." She snorted. "Of course, sometimes a chance of dying from exhaustion is still better than getting caught."

"Ah." He nodded. "We're not at that point." Not yet.

"I know." She looked around. "We haven't spotted any pursuit. Nor any patrols."

"We have to assume they have lookouts hidden in the valley," he told her. They couldn't risk being discovered. "It's the tail you don't spot that gets you caught."

"Moody."

"Yes." He frowned - he knew what she was implying: That this was paranoia. But it wasn't. Merely caution and common sense.

"At the very least, we know they weren't tracking the radio, or they would have appeared by now," she pointed out.

"Or they didn't manage to locate us before we shut the radio off," he replied. "We can't make such assumptions."

"Overestimating your enemy can be as deadly as underestimating them."

He shrugged. "Not as often, though." He shook his head. "We need to get on top of the ridge to have any chance of making contact with the radio. And check if the phone's still being jammed, too." He thought of Dumbledore sending in a plane armed with anti-radar weapons and laughed.

As did she, once he explained. "Not even the Phoenix Gruppe could send a warplane over Kosovo without NATO detecting it and taking action. But I bet he has a team ready to intervene near the area. Or two."

"But they won't know anything until told to move in, and they can't be too close, or they'll realise it was about Berisha even if they aren't given orders to intervene," he pointed out.

"You're speculating."

"Yes. But my speculation is based on what he told us. And on the fact that he let us go on this mission in the first place," he retorted.

"You mean the fact that he let me go on the mission," she corrected him.

"Yes." Ron had no doubt that Dumbledore considered everyone else in their group expendable. Without them, Hermione would have to depend entirely on the support of Phoenix Gruppe. He eyed the ridge again. "Read to move?"

"Yes." She sounded confident. She might be overestimating her stamina - but she had been running with them ever since they had arrived at the lab and he had seen what she could do.

Good enough. "Let's camouflage ourselves then!"

"I really wish I had Harry's Cloak of Invisibility."

"We'll have to make do with a cloak of camouflage," he replied with a grin.

"A mud cloak, you mean."

"Like in 'Predator', yes. Now let's get out some water bottles so we can improvise some mud."

"I'll ask Dumbledore for camouflage suits once we're back."

"Make it ghillie suits." Although even camouflage netting would be very helpful right now.

It didn't take very long to camouflage themselves - they weren't up against an alien killer with infrared vision, after all. All they needed was to break up their silhouettes. Which fresh mud, thanks to a few more water bottles, did perfectly well.

Crawling up to the top of the ridge took another thirty minutes, but mostly because they didn't want to move too quickly. Ron was first and peered down into the valley on the other side. Forested, good cover.

Then he saw the smoke at the bottom. A burning vehicle - he knew what that looked like. He clenched his teeth. "I need the binoculars."

It couldn't be the others! They couldn't be dead!

"Here!" She gasped as she spotted the burning vehicle as well. "Is… is that...?"

"No." He grabbed the binocs and focused on the burning vehicle. It was hard to tell, but… "It's not a Land Rover."

He could hear her relieved sigh next to him.

"No bodies nearby," he reported. "None that I can see, in any case." If there had been bodies - and Ron thought there would be, given that Sirius had been shooting at them - that probably meant they had been recovered. Which meant at least some of Berisha's men were still alive. Though… had they given up the chase, or had they recovered their own wounded and dead after finishing the others?

"Shall we try again to raise them on the radio?" Hermione asked.

He pondered this as he searched the valley below them for any sign of the Albanians or Harry and the others. He couldn't spot anyone, though. The satellite phone would be harder to track, or so he thought. But using it would involve contacting Dumbledore. And revealing that Ron and Hermione had been separated from the others might endanger them - Dumbledore would certainly prioritise recovering Hermione, even at the cost of the rest of their group. If he didn't immediately use them as a distraction. "Let's try the radio," Ron said.

She nodded in agreement. She was probably more concerned about the others than about herself. Especially, Ron thought, if they looked like her best friends in her world.

So they set up the radio, pulled out the antenna and flicked it on. "Red One calling Tank. Red One calling Tank."

He heard a squeal. "Ron! Where are you? We were so worried!"

He had to smile despite the breach of security - Luna never cared much about communication protocols, unless they were computer protocols. But she was alive. "How are the others?"

"Si…" She was interrupted by a shouted "Call signs, Battleaxe!" So, Sirius was alive as well. Ron could almost see Luna pout and roll her eyes as she continued: "Tank was wounded, but not seriously. Pitch and Red Two are alright. Car's damaged."

He sighed with relief, closing his eyes for a moment, and felt Hermione's arms wrap around his torso and squeeze.

"They're alive!" she whispered.

"Where are you?"

"Oh, we're… hmm…" "Give me the microphone." "You're wounded, you need to rest." "Give me the microphone."

"Yes, they're fine," he told Hermione. As Mum always said: if you can argue, you don't need any help.

"Tank to Red One: We're at three-seven-double-oh and two-four-double-oh. Approximately. Your position? Over."

That meant they were three thousand seven hundred metres north and two thousand four hundred metres east of 'Point Alpha'. Which was a set of coordinates Sirius had picked, probably randomly, to the southwest of the area.

Hermione had already pulled the GPS out, and half a minute later, she told Ron their own coordinates relative to Point Alpha.

They were about ten miles apart - with a damaged car. Well, that's what you got when Ginny was driving. His sister should have become a sports racing driver instead of a tennis player. He relayed the coordinates to the others.

"Tank to Red One. Are you in a safe location? Over."

"Red One to Tank. No. Over."

"Tank to Red One. Copy, unsafe location. Find a safe location and contact us again. We'll prepare an extraction. Over."

"Red One to Tank. Copy, searching for safe hiding spot. How long will it take you? Over."

"Tank to Red One. We don't know yet. Assume at most twenty-four hours. Over."

A day? They had to hole up in this area for a day?

"Red One to Tank: We can exfiltrate on foot. Over," Ron quoted a military sci-fi novel.

"Tank to Red One: Negative. Not safe. Over."

Great. Had they pissed off the entire region? Ron wouldn't put it past Sirius to have accidentally machine-gunned some bystander's favourite car or cousin and started another blood feud. But there was nothing he could do about. "Red One to Tank. Copy, moving now. Over."

"Tank to Red One: Copy, you're moving. Out."

Not for the first time, Ron wondered if Sirius's wordplay was intentional.

"Where should we hide?" Hermione asked. "We need to keep in range of the others."

"And we also need to move from here, in case our radio transmission was detected," Ron said. He looked around. "Let's climb down and follow the ridge until we find a hiding spot." Although finding one that Berisha's men didn't know about would be difficult. Ron hoped they weren't looking in the first place.

They climbed and slid down the ridge, again taking their time so they wouldn't draw attention from a lookout, until they reached the cover of a scraggly treeline. Then they followed the treeline along the ridge until they came upon another dry creek - with the cover provided by a few nearby trees, it made a decent hiding spot.

As long as it didn't rain. That would turn the hiding spot into a death trap unless they left at once. On the other hand, the locals would be aware of that, and so might not consider it a suitable hiding spot.

Given how exhausted Hermione looked, they had to rest anyway.

"Let's hide here," he said, nodding towards a spot under a slight overhang.

She didn't argue, which told him that she was as exhausted as she looked. "For how long?" she asked as she sat down on the bare ground.

"A few hours at least," he replied, joining her after a quick look around, carefully putting the rifle down so the muzzle stayed clear of the ground. "Blanket?"

"I'll have to replace half my supplies," she said, though she was smiling as she did so - and she pulled two blankets out of her bag. Grey-coloured.

"Home sweet home," he commented as they spread one blanket on the ground, then covered themselves with the other.

"If you dragged as much mud around at home as we're doing here, I think you'd end up in the pond," she told him.

He chuckled, even though it was eerie to realise, once more, just how much she knew about his family thanks to knowing their counterparts.

"What ration would you like?" She didn't bother hiding her triumphant grin. Of course, they'd end up needing the MREs!

He sighed, which made her grin widen even more. "Chicken with Thai sauce."

"Ah! Here."

So she had remembered that they were his favourites - among the MREs in her bag. "Thank you."

She hadn't picked roast beef, though, but spaghetti with meatballs. Or something like it. She handed him a flameless ration heater as well. "Here."

That came in handy as well in their current situation. No flame, no smoke. She still looked too smug, in his opinion. But fifteen minutes later, they were eating.

"See how useful MREs are?"

He rolled his eyes at her as he handed back the plastic bag stuffed with the empty packaging for disposal. Most anything tasted good if you were hungry, after all. "This is quite different from saving time in a lab." They were whispering, of course; mustn't give away their position.

"They're good for that as well."

"That I'll contest."

"I know."

He hesitated a moment, then asked: "Because my counterpart did the same?"

She frowned at him, then shook her head. "You made your views quite clear." With a sigh, she added: "But my world's Ron was used to his mum's cooking, which was extraordinary. Even Hogwarts' cooking paled in comparison."

"Ah." The git probably complained about the cooking during the war. But as much as Ron would love to hear about his counterpart's few flaws, that wasn't a good topic of conversation. "Mum is a good cook as well," he said. "It was quite a change when I moved out. The twins and Percy regularly visit on Sundays."

"And you?"

"When I can make it. My hours are often a little irregular."

"Ah."

He smiled at the memories of those family dinners. "Charlie and Bill usually work abroad, so they're rarely home."

"That's the same in my world. Charlie works with dragons in Romania and Bill works as a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts." She was looking at the sky - or at the branches and leaves above them - not at him, and she was smiling.

"Dragons? Aren't they dangerous?"

"They are. Mrs Weasley often complains about his burns. Or did," she added with a sigh.

Uh oh. Another landmine. "My Charlie studied biology; he's currently in Africa collecting ape shit."

She snorted at his crude joke. "And Bill?"

"Investment banker in New York. The black sheep of the family."

She laughed again - softly. "Really?"

"It's a stressful job, and Mum would have liked him to work in London. And he's living it up, or so he claims. She wants him to settle down and start a family."

"Ah. My world's Bill works in Egypt, or did until the war. Tomb raiding."

"Oh." So Curse-Breaker wasn't a medical profession. "The two Weasley families sound quite similar, though. The twins are trouble makers, Charlie and Bill abroad, Percy working for the government like Dad..."

"Yes." She sounded a little guarded. Best not to push further. And no asking about her family.

"So, what about your Harry's family?"

"They're vile," she spat.

She had mentioned the Dursleys, he remembered. "Do they also try to use him to make connections? Or try to get his money?"

"No. They loathe him."

"Oh." And with her Sirius having been in jail, they would have been Harry's closest relatives… best not go there either.

"Does Sirius have cousins here?"

"Two. Andromeda, the nice one. And Narcissa, the other one," he replied. That was how Sirius described them.

"There's no third cousin?"

He pressed his lips together. "There was Bellatrix. She married Ralph Lestrange against her family's wishes. Ralph and his brother Robert had joined Riddle's terrorist cell, though that wasn't known at the time, only that they had extreme left-wing sympathies - and were quite active, too. Anti-war, anti-imperialism, the works. Apparently, they tried to steal her money to support Riddle and when she found out, she 'had an accident'. Harry's dad solved the case, shooting the Lestranges in the process and foiling the entire plot, which, presumably, made Riddle go after him and his family." And which led to Harry becoming an orphan. And having killed a man as a kid. Sirius had never said, but he must blame Bellatrix for that, at least in part, or so Ron assumed.

"Oh." She pursed her lips. "That sounds like a very different Bellatrix Lestrange to the one I knew."

"Oh?"

"She joined the Dark Lord. And she was his chief assassin. And torturer," she replied in a flat voice.

Damn, he had been an idiot again. Even though he hadn't known about Lestrange, he should have noticed how tense she was and dropped the subject, not asked for more information. "Sorry."

"It's not your fault."

But it was. Sort of. He sighed and stared at the sky as well. What he could see of it through the foliage, at least.

"Why didn't it work out between you and Luna?"

He blinked at the sudden question and glanced at her. She was looking at him, biting her lower lip. Nervous? Why would she be…? He took a deep breath. "It was probably my job."

"Oh?"

"Not like you think," he corrected her. "We did have some differences of opinion about working for the police, but it wasn't as if that was the single reason for breaking up. But I was working in London, and we didn't see each other as often as we used to. Then there were the hours - when Harry and I started out, we got the worst shifts. And, well, we both changed, too. We started dating when we were teenagers." And the fact that, at the time, he hadn't wanted his colleagues and superiors to know that he was dating a girl with a rather negative but very vocal opinion of the police hadn't helped at all, of course. "We drifted apart. We remained friends, though."

"That's obvious," she said. "And were there any other significant others?"

He glanced at her again; this time, she wasn't looking at him. "Nothing serious," he replied.

She nodded at that. And she was smiling.

He woke up with his arms around Hermione and his face full of muddy hair. Apparently, her ponytail had come undone. Probably at the same time she had moved into his lap. Which he hadn't noticed - he must have been more tired than he had thought. A quick check of his watch confirmed that they had slept for a few hours. His headphones had stayed on, fortunately - he hadn't missed any calls on the radio.

He knew he should wake her up. Take a look around. Check for enemies. But he didn't want to. He just wanted to remain like this a little longer. With her. Even if both of them were covered in mud and hiding in a dry creek, he didn't want this moment to end yet.

Of course, as soon as he thought that, she woke up. Or rather, she started to - she was shifting around in his lap, stretching slightly. Moaning softly.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he struggled with the urge to kiss her again.

Ron felt the moment she woke up. She suddenly tensed, then drew a sharp breath. He was tempted to fake being asleep, see what she would do in his place, but whispered "Good morning" instead.

She tensed again. "Good afternoon, I believe."

"Or evening," he replied - the sun was about to disappear behind the mountains to the west.

She hadn't moved off his lap. He hadn't taken his arms away, either.

"What do you think the others will do?" she asked after a moment.

"They'll call Dumbledore for help." It was the only logical option. If it was too dangerous for Ron and Hermione to leave the area on foot, then it was too dangerous for the others - with a wounded Sirius - to come and fetch them. The Land Rover would draw too much attention.

"And what will he do?"

That was trickier. A helicopter would be the fastest way to recover them. But it would also be quite obvious. And if anyone in the vicinity had a MANPAD stashed somewhere… Helicopters didn't do well against missiles, even older missiles. Though the alternative - a convoy, probably armoured - would be even more noticeable. And tell everyone that someone very important was being recovered. "I don't know," he said. "I think he'll send a helicopter or an armoured personal carrier. But I don't know what forces he has available."

"And what forces he'll trust," she added.

"Yes." Ron was fairly certain that Dumbledore wouldn't baulk at eliminating people he didn't trust, should they happen to know too much. "Too bad we don't have a miniaturised plane we could use to fly away."

"Could you pilot it?" She shifted, craning her neck to look at him.

"Ah, there's the flaw in my plan," he said with a faint grin.

She snorted. "One of the flaws. Constructing a miniaturised plane that can be piloted by shrunken people would also require a lot of technological expertise. And probably a lot of trials before it could be trusted."

"Could we take an ordinary RC plane and simply shrink the remote control?" he asked.

She blinked. "That… I think it would work." She frowned. "But none of the planes and helicopters in my bag have the range to leave the area."

He nodded. They hadn't really considered endurance when they had planned their escape by RC helicopter. Range of the remote control had been too short anyway. "My fault."

"What? No. You thought of it in the first place." She shifted around to face him, frowning.

"Too late to do us any good, though," he replied. "And how much Shrinking Solution do you have left?"

"Enough for at least two such trips," she replied. "So we might be able to do that in the future."

She didn't have to say that that might be their trump card, should they have to flee from Dumbledore. "We'll need some anti-spider weapons, though," he added with a shudder.

"Yes," she agreed. "And perhaps…"

He shushed her with a gesture. The birds in the trees to their left had stopped singing.

"Something's disturbing the wildlife," he whispered as he pushed her off his lap and grabbed the rifle. She gasped and grabbed her bag, then the blankets. While she stuffed them back into her bag, Ron crawled to the left and climbed the bank of the dry creek where the grass was particularly dense on top, his rifle on his back.

He reached the top and slid into the closest bush, where he unslung his rifle. The muzzle was clear of mud and dirt, he noted with relief - he hadn't been certain he would manage it. He slowly brought it up, taking care not to disturb the branches hiding him, and inched forward until he could peer out of the bush, into the woods.

The undergrowth wasn't as dense as it would be elsewhere, but his field of vision was still limited in the rough terrain. This was the direction from which they had come. If anyone was tracking them…

"Shit!"

He jerked at hearing the sudden curse. English? Who would...

But the expletive was followed by a string of Albanian words. Probably more curses - the voice sounded angry. He heard another voice, but couldn't make out any words, and then the first man cursed some more. So two men - at least two, Ron corrected himself.

He gripped his rifle and pressed the shaft against his shoulder. He couldn't see them, but they were close. Too close. What were the odds that someone would just happen to stumble on them? Slim to none. On the other hand, anyone tracking them should know better than to alert everyone and everything to their presence by yelling. Could they be trekkers or hunters?

He pressed his lips together. He couldn't shoot civilians who didn't mean him any harm. That would be murder. He was a police officer, not some secret agent who eliminated witnesses! And if he shot anyone, the noise would alert any others anyway.

But Berisha's men would then have to search for him and Hermione. Dead hunters couldn't tell everyone where they were, and what they looked like. And they would have to find the bodies, first, before they would know to search for them.

So… but it would be murder. Killing someone just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Though if Hermione got captured by Berisha's men…

Movement! Something was moving through the bushes in front of him! He held his breath and aimed his rifle at the centre of the undergrowth. The men had stopped talking. Did they suspect something?

A man appeared, moving slowly, carefully, through the foliage. He was wearing civilian clothes and carrying a hunting rifle. Not camouflage and a Kalashnikov. Damn. A hunter, probably. That didn't rule out him being one of Berisha's men. But Ron couldn't shoot him just to be on the safe side. Even if the man had his rifle ready, not slung on his back.

Ron licked his lips, tasting his own sweat as he tracked the man with his assault rifle. The Albanian was looking around. Hunting. But was he hunting Ron and Hermione, or game? He looked like a normal hunter, not a mercenary or thug.

The second man to emerge from the undergrowth behind the first didn't look like a hunter at all, though. He was in a camouflage suit - surplus Bundeswehr, Ron thought - with one leg covered in mud up to the man's hip, and he carried an assault rifle.

Although some people hunted like that. Americans, for example. Ron couldn't just gun them down from ambush. But if they were working for Berisha, then he couldn't let them find Hermione and himself, either.

He cursed silently as the hunter in the lead moved even closer to his position. Ron would be spotted at any moment. What could he do? Take them prisoner? Ron was alone, and there were two of them with their rifles at the ready. Would they even understand him if he demanded their surrender? Well, with their country covered with NATO troops, they should understand English well enough...

The hunter crouched down, checking the ground. Looking for their tracks? Or for animal tracks?

Ron clenched his teeth. He couldn't wait any longer. "Kosovo Force! Drop your weapons!" he yelled.

Instead of complying, the two men dropped to the ground. Ron fired a burst at the hunter and rolled to the side as automatic fire tore through the bush, taking cover behind a tree trunk. He heard the hunter scream - he had hit him, then, but not fatally. That left the other man.

Ron slid back a little, then rolled to the side and crawled forward. Where was the other man? The hunter was moaning but didn't call out for help. Was he already too far gone for that?

Movement! Ron swung his rifle around, firing several rounds at the foliage, then pushed himself back. Bullets tore up the earth in front of him. Where was the bastard? He changed position. To the other side of the trunk.

He couldn't see any smoke from a shot… too slow to catch it. The longer he took here, the worse their chances to escape any reinforcements would be. He had to finish this fight, quickly.

Movement! Ron aimed but didn't fire. Damn camouflage suit… there! He aimed carefully, tracking the man through the woods. A little more… He fired. The man fell. Ron hesitated a moment, then put another round into the body on the ground. No screaming, no moving. Dead.

He closed his eyes, grit his teeth, then slid down the slope to Hermione. They had to leave now!

"We need to go!" he snapped. "There were two people hunting us."

"Hunting us?" she asked as she moved towards him. She had a vial in her hand that she stashed in her bag. It didn't look like a healing potion.

"They were tracking us," he explained.

"And you tried to pose as a member of KFOR," she replied.

"Yes. It didn't work, though." And now they were dead. Or dead and dying, in one case. He suppressed the guilt he felt at leaving the hunter to die - he couldn't afford to try to save an enemy.

She nodded. "Do we go on or change course?"

If Berisha's men were smart, they would have split up and were now converging on them from multiple directions. "Let's go back over the ridge."

"We'll lose contact with the others."

"Can't be helped," he replied, already moving up the creek. That way, they'd have cover for most of the distance. "We'll return to this side in a few hours."

He heard her draw a sharp breath at that, and when he glanced over, he saw she was frowning. He didn't look forward to walking for hours, either. But it couldn't be helped.

They reached the end of the creek, below the ridge, without spotting anyone else. But to go further, they would have to expose themselves. And someone would be watching the ridge. After Ron had shot two men, that was certain.

"I don't like this," he muttered.

"It's not exactly my favourite pastime, either," Hermione replied, her tone apparently barely affected by the exertion of climbing the ridge so far.

"They're bound to be watching the ridge. If we move out of cover, we might draw fire." He looked at her.

"I can't disillusion us," she replied to his unasked question. "I could cover the area in smoke, but…" She shrugged.

That would tell their enemies exactly where they were. "We could shrink, but…" That would turn the distance to the top of the ridge from two hundred yards to four miles. Up a steep slope. And they wouldn't be able to contact the others until the potion's effect ended if they merely wanted to hide for a few hours in a mouse hole. Not to mention they would have to watch for spiders and other monsters.

"We can't stay here," he said. "The man I shot won't have been the only hunter able to track people."

"You mean we'll have to cover ourselves in mud and crawl. Again."

She didn't look happy. He grinned. "We're still covered in mud. We just need a few touch-ups."

That earned him a glare and a huff.

He wanted to kiss her. But they had to move.

Five minutes later, they were covered in mud and crawling - slowly - towards the top of the ridge. He kept glancing over his shoulder regularly; Hermione was slow, so he had to wait on her anyway.

Halfway to their goal, he spotted them. Several men were moving up the creek, about five hundred yards down. They were advancing slowly and carefully - they must have found the two dead men and feared another ambush. But even so, they would catch up before Ron and Hermione reached the top and disappeared over the ridge.

Damn. He pressed his lips together. They couldn't run. The steep slope would slow them down. Enough for a good shooter to hit them. And he couldn't take on half a dozen men. Experienced men, too - not some idiots imitating action movies. They couldn't hide, either - their improvised camouflage wouldn't hold up once the distance shrank.

"Let's hide behind the rock and call the others," he said. If that failed, they could take the shrinking solution and hide. And hope the enemy would leave after losing them. Before the potion's effect ended.

It took them a few minutes to crawl into cover, but as soon as she was behind the rock, Hermione pulled out the radio while Ron kept an eye on the approaching enemies.

"Brown to Tank. Brown to Tank. Over."

"Tank to Brown. What's your status?" That was Sirius.

"We need help. Urgently. We're about to be discovered," Ron heard her say.

"Tank to Brown. Where are you? Over."

She told them.

"Tank to Brown. We'll be there in ten minutes. Mark your position with red smoke in five. Over."

Ten minutes? That meant a helicopter. He saw that Hermione was looking at him and nodded. They could hold out for ten minutes. After a few shots, he doubted that Berisha's men would be willing to charge up the slope.

"OK," Hermione replied. "Hurry."

"Tank to Brown. Copy. Out."

Ron flashed a smile at her, to reassure her. They could do this. He could do this.

He took aim at the one in front, then squeezed the trigger. The man dropped, and Ron sent a few more shots down the slope, almost randomly. All he had to do was to keep Berisha's men scrambling for cover.

He slid down the rock to reload just as they started to return fire, then changed position, coming up behind another rock. He couldn't spot them - they were under cover. Which meant they weren't moving towards him. Good.

He changed position again while several shots from the enemy passed overhead. "Hand me some smoke grenades. Not the red ones."

"Of course not," she snapped. But she did pass him the grenades.

He threw two of them down the slope, as far as he could. That would block line of sight - and, therefore, line of fire. Somewhat, at least. If they had some tear gas, and if the wind were blowing in the right direction… But they didn't. And it wasn't.

He returned to his first spot, almost climbing over Hermione, and surveilled the area. Nothing in the smoke. But… there! He fired a few shots at a man trying to flank them. Then he rushed over to the other side - there had to be someone trying that there as well. He couldn't see them, though. Damn.

"Setting red smoke," Hermione said.

"Do it on this side," he told her. That would block them. A little.

The shots were coming closer now. He could hear the impacts against the rocks nearby. And the angles were widening - they were flanking them.

Where was the damn helicopter? Time was running out.

Through the noise from the shots, he suddenly heard another noise. The helicopter!

Berisha's men must have heard it as well, since their fire quickly tapered off.

"There!" Hermione yelled, pointing up.

Yes! A helicopter was flying alongside the ridge. A military model - with KFOR markings. Were the NATO forces getting involved? No! "They're posing as KFOR forces!" he said as the helicopter came to a stop, hovering twenty yards behind them. There was Harry, waving at them as the door opened. Next to him was a soldier with a machine gun.

Hermione dropped more smoke down the slope, then they rushed towards the helicopter.

Ron ran behind her - some idiot might still be firing blindly at the smoke or the helicopter.

But if someone was, their shots went wide. Harry pulled Hermione into the helicopter, Ron climbed inside and, a moment later, they were flying away.

They were safe.

She was safe. Free. Her friends had come for her. Had sprung her from her cell. Unless, she thought with sudden anxiety, this is just a cruel joke. To make her think she were safe, only to crush her hope.

But that was Lestrange's body on the ground. And she was holding Lestrange's wand. The dark witch wouldn't go that far. And she wasn't the type to be so subtle, anyway. No - she shivered - that witch had only ever used the Torture Curse.

"Hermione?"

She turned. Ron. He held out his hand. "We need to leave."

She blinked. Yes, they had to. Ron and Harry and the others had broken into the manor, but the Death Eaters might send reinforcements at any moment.

She took his hand, and he led her out. Out of the dungeons. "How… How did…?" She broke off. Her throat hurt. Too much screaming.

He understood her anyway. "Dobby knows a secret passage."

Ah. Of course. She smiled. How fitting - tonight, the Malfoys were reaping what they had sowed. "B-burn."

"Once we're all clear," he told her.

Harry rejoined them, with Dobby and Fred and George - had they brought their cell? - and they entered the secret passage.

Ten minutes later, Ron and she were kissing in the forest while, behind them, Fiendfyre consumed Malfoy Manor. And the Malfoys.