Disclaimer: I don't own HP :)

A/N: Hello everyone. I know it's not a Wednesday, but I feel really poorly about not updating for three weeks. I moved into college during this time, so please excuse me. It's been exhausting and exhiliarting with all the goodbyes and hellos. Dorm life is very different and I'm not completley used to it, yet. My room mate is very nice, though. :) At the same time, I miss home. Writing fan fiction is actually good practice at getting away from all my worries and hopefully it can get me through this homesickness. I'm glad I've outlined the ending, because thinking isn't really a strong suit of mine right now.

Anyway, dun dun duun - here is a turning point! And this chapter is not all about Ron and Hermione! Which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how much you like the two of them together. :) Thank you to all of you who continually read this, despite the lack of updates. I promise to see this one through. :)

"Harry?" Ron hissed through his clenched teeth. It was a possibility he had never considered. Even now, his mind had trouble believing that Harry Potter was standing outside the poorly-constructed tent he was sitting under. Fear masked as guardianship was rushing through him. It could easily be Skillen, Nash, or Rivers coming for them. This time the trio would not bother to take them back to Headquarters to kill them. Ron would not let them have the chance to even lay eyes on Hermione.

The chill in the air assaulted him as soon as he stuck his head out into the open. Stumbling, Ron narrowed his eyes. His fingers were shaking around his wand. There was a figure not too far off in the distance standing by a grove of trees. He couldn't make out the face, but the build was correct for his long-ago friend. Wind blasted against his face and through his hair, making him stumble. Was that man standing with purpose, power? Or with amiability?

"Ron?" the voice asked loudly. The figure took a few steps toward Ron and he raised his wand. Lumos was on his lips. His mind was pouring over several other spells. "It's me."

"Prove it," Ron challenged uneasily. It sounded like his old friend, but he had learned that no one was to be trusted. The man – he had decided it was a man by the person's broad shoulders and cropped hair – walked with a small bounce in his gait. It was almost amusing to watch him shuffle slowly up the path. It could very well be Harry.

"What are you doing with that out?" Harry bit seriously, upon coming closer. Ron was half crouched and pointing that blasted wand straight at his chest. His hesitant smile was replaced with a grimace as he leaped forward. His loping sidle became a quick, sharp step and he easily snatched the wood out of Ron's grasp. "Do you know what kind of trouble you could get into out here using magic? Do you even know where you are right now? Practically at the Shop's doorstep, you git! Please don't tell me you've been using it."

"Don't talk to me like that," Ron griped sourly, quickly plucking his wand out of Harry's calloused hand. It was Harry, after all. Though he stood a head shorter and a few inches thicker, it was still the rumpled, fierce man Ron knew very well. Right down to the scratched, rounded glasses.

Harry wanted to break a smile, but his need to hear the answer to his previous question overrode it. It had been more than a half year since he had spent the night in Ron's company. There was so much to cover, but a simple, "Did you?" would have to suffice. "Did you?" he snapped again.

"Of course not!" Ron hissed again, the cold biting at his lips. "D'you think I'm daft?"

Relieved, Harry let his smile come naturally. He got knocked on the shoulder roughly, but it was nice know that this whole thing was real. He had actually stumbled upon Ron's makeshift campsite – he had not dreamed it. The footprints in the snow hundreds of miles back had lead him to his friends after all. He stumbled backwards, but forced himself forward and shook Ron's hand vigorously.

"Course not, mate," Harry replied genially.

Ron rolled his eyes, trying not to convey the extent of his relief that it was not a killer coming for his life. The sad part was that his thought was not all that fanatical. Harry could understand that. "Come inside," he invited, turning around quickly. "It's fucking cold out here."

"Agreed," Harry almost chirped. He realized how chipper he sounded and cleared his throat to make his voice sound deeper –as gruff as Ron's was. His attempts were becoming comical. Back at Grimmauld Place, he had barely spoken to his two true friends. They had understood that he needed time with Ginny, but it didn't erase the smudge of guilt from his mind. He was so lucky to have found them again. He followed Ron under the tarp and nearly stumbled over Hermione.

"Careful!" Ron chided, crouching next to her. His hand rested on her side, feeling her rhythmic breathing. She slept on.

"Sorry," Harry whispered back, his hands rising in front of him. Ron was more… territorial than before. It surprised him, but also warmed him some. He took a seat next to Hermione and touched her shoulder lightly. He looked up at Ron. He was wearing a grimace.

"Did Viktor send you?" his voice was clear through the cold air. It hit Harry in a sharp, authoritative sense, accusing him of some crime he knew nothing about.

"No," Harry replied quickly, but thought better of it. "Well, uh, actually… technically, I guess, you could say he uh-"

"He did?" Ron interrupted, the lines on his forehead deepening. His eyebrows knit together until there was no white patch of skin visible between them. His hands were shaking and now there were other reasons besides the cold for their trembling. They weren't supposed to be found – not by anyone – and that included Harry. If Viktor already knew the couple had snuck away in the dead of night, then news would be everywhere. It could get to The Shop. They could be walking into a trap.

Harry shook his head. His lips tightened into a line as his frustration grew. "No, Ron," he began. Hot breath came from his mouth and created a white cloud between them and it was broken apart by his next words. "Viktor wanted me to find Seamus. I'm out here to look for him, not you. I thought you two were supposed to be in hiding still, anyway."

With that, Ron let his knees give and he fell back. He sighed and tugged at his hair, biting his lip. Harry watched him a small amount of amazement. "You are supposed to be in hiding, aren't you?" he asked incredulously. "This obviously isn't the place you've been living. What's going on?"

"We left," Ron groaned, his body stretching and relaxing. Viktor did not know and that was enough good news to let him fall asleep tonight. It was good enough to keep him from thinking of the ache in his bones. It was good enough to keep the growling of his stomach out of his ears. He and Hermione were safe for another day.

"When?" Harry demanded. It was his turn to become suspicious, paranoid.

"A week ago?" Ron guessed in that same, tired voice. He moved closer to Hermione so that he could smooth her hair absentmindedly. He pretended to not to notice Harry's eyes on his hand. "I can't remember. We were in Spain – on the coast somewhere."

"Well," Harry snorted, "Why'd you leave?" His grimace was returning and he did not like where this was going. "Viktor put you there for a reason, mate."

"I'm sick of that bullshit," Ron returned in a snap. "I know what you're going to say next – that he just wants to 'keep us safe.' I know that and so does Hermione and we both can't stand it anymore. There's a line between safety and complete ignorance." He saw the doubt on Harry's eyes and added, "You would have done the same thing. Don't say any different, because all three of us have some sort of complex that pushes us to do this sort of stuff. Viktor had good intentions, but doing anything is better than sitting around and pretending to forget about Seamus. He's a damned good man and we're not going to let him die without fighting for him. That's not right."

Harry stayed silent for a moment, swaying with Ron's words. His head ducked between his legs and his hands tucked themselves in his hair. "What am I supposed to say, now?" he asked offhandedly. "I guess you're right for once. It has been a long time." Why did Ron have to be so foolish, so stubborn? Why did they share the same qualities? It made it hard not lecture, preach at him. Doing so would just be labeling himself a hypocrite. Still, why? Why had he done something so… stupid?

"It has," Ron agreed. He felt as though he had passed some sort of challenge, like something bad had just brushed him over.

"But what about her?" the question burst out of Harry's mouth violently. He hadn't meant to say it so loud and felt embarrassed with himself. "You can't tell me she volunteered herself for this kind of thing." His mouth hung open, unable to exercise the control to close it. He was beginning to become angry with Ron, now that he had awkwardly turned the subject so tender. "She couldn't have possibly wanted to come back here. She knows where you're taking her, right? Please tell me she does."

"Of course she does!" Ron practically roared. He regretted it slightly as Hermione's head lolled on the ground. He narrowed his eyes in the dark and drew himself to Harry. "Don't try to blame this all on me. I wanted her to stay behind – I flat out refused to take her at first." He shook his head and tried to stay calm, because there was no way his case would be made if he erupted again. His anger was like a monster. That skeptical look on Harry's face only fueled its rage. "Harry," he gasped, "I couldn't leave her there alone. I need her. I know it was selfish to let her follow, but I couldn't stop her. She wanted to come and she knows what's out here and so I let her."

Harry held a sour look, but he listened. He was lost when it came to his friends' love lives. There was such a long gap that it was hard to make assumptions. Could Ron really feel this way about his ex? The same one he swore to hate? It made his head hurt and eventually, Harry stopped his inane questioning. It was something he would never fully understand, anyway. The thing between Ron and Hermione – no matter how fragile or weird – was something beautifully inexplicable.

Harry drew in a great breath and that seemed to empty his mind some. Better to focus on the present, he figured. "Is she doing alright?" His eyes darted to Hermione and the coldness seemed to come back. She was real, tangible, and mostly importantly – breakable. He feared for her.

"Well enough," Ron shrugged, grimacing. It was hard for him to sum up their journey, because it was so long and winding. It was difficult to say one way or another if she was 'fine.' She was walking, but she was also wheezing. She was speaking, but of nothing good. She dreamed, but they weren't of pleasant things. "Limps, but that's about it. Whines a bit. Tells me what I'm doing wrong. Catches her step on the back of my feet and then blames me for not walking fast enough. Asks me when we're going to stop next ten minutes after we just sat. Things like that."

"Well," Harry grinned, "that's Hermione." The news was somewhat comforting. There was some quantity of original personality left in her body, reminiscent of their school years. He wished that they were all like that – still unchanged, still confident.

"Yeah," Ron agreed hastily, not wanting him to note the bad things. "But she's been a fighter – amazingly hardheaded."

"She's been around you. Of course she has." Harry settled down into the cramped spot Ron had made for him. The ground was solid beneath him and the air was chilled around him and the sense of unity – of friendship – pervaded him. He felt relaxed and tired, but not entirely in the bad way. He would accept what he could of Ron's shaky explanation and sleep with a quiet mind tonight. He breathed in and out and let his eyes shut.

"Of course I have."

It was a soft echo of a voice and neither man believed it was actually spoken. Ron imagined it was just his mind whispering it to him from the blackness of the space between reality and caprice. Hermione's voice often visited him there, telling him sweet and tender things. Harry thought it was the wind accented through the pines. Hermione smiled with the wisps of the words evaporating in her mouth.

--

"Get me Ginny Weasley," Viktor growled. "Immediately."

Within ten minutes of the order, a slim, redheaded woman was sitting stiffly in the chair opposite his desk. Her eyes were wide, but guarded. Her mouth was a thin, white line. Her clothes were rumpled and she looked very tense. Her shoulders were thrown out defiantly, as if to show Krum that was wasn't afraid of him, no matter what tone of voice he used. She waited, watching him without blinking.

"This is not good news," he began, throwing out his robes before taking a seat. Viktor folded his hands atop the desk and glared at her. If it had been any other day, he would have offered her something to drink or a seat closer to the fire or made small talk about the upcoming holidays. However, 

he was not in the mood to do any of those things. He barely wanted to speak to Ginny, but found that this was impossible. He always notified the kin of missing persons in, well, person.

Truth was, there hadn't been any pleasant news from the Order in days. In fact, things had turned towards catastrophic in the last several hours. That afternoon he had received the news that Granger and Weasley had vanished from their Site and had not been seen for days. Furiously, he had stormed down to the men in charge of that sort of thing and demanded to know if their heads had been up their asses during that period of time. He had gotten a shaky apology and then was informed that Gus 'wandered a lot' and it 'wasn't uncommon for no chatter' to be picked up for days at a time.

Viktor had sent squads out to scour the surrounding areas, but he had collected nothing but 'all clear's. He felt like throttling each and every incompetent peon that stood next to him, shaking their flimsy heads and blinking their blank, bulbous eyes. It wasn't like him to be unkind, but goddamnit this shit that Ron was pulling was enough to make him Avada Kedavra that man on the spot. Who the hell was Ron Weasley to take matters into his own fucking hands? Who gave him the right to completely disregard Head orders? To make Viktor look inept? To put another life in jeopardy to go on a tryst to find Seamus? All kinds of things had been ripped and torn and smashed while Viktor tried to work out the answers.

Even now, he was wasting time with Ginny. She had no clue where her moron brother had gone trotting off to and if she did, he would probably be one of the last to know.

"Alright," Ginny replied firmly. "Get on with it, then." She knew the instant she had been called on that it was not going to be good news. Her brother was not coming home and Seamus had not been found. She could not begin to imagine what dismay she could be facing in Viktor's office now. Her hands held each other tightly.

"Your brother and Granger have decided to take this situation into their own hands, it seems." Viktor had to clear his throat afterwards to resist the urge to shout. He could keep his anger under control for a few minutes. He would save it for much more useful things.

The color drained from Ginny's face, making the freckles stand out like little flecks of ink against parchment. "What do you mean by that?" she asked, her nostrils flaring and the edges of her eyes burning. There was some invisible thing – anticipation, maybe fear – settling on her chest.

"I mean," Viktor snapped, "that your brother," he spat the words, "ran off. Not only that, but he's on his own little expedition to find Seamus. Not only that, but he dragged Hermione along with him. They've been gone for quite a while now and we have no idea where they are." His teeth were clenched now, hot rage searing through his veins. It was impossible to stay cool when the god damn awful news was so fresh and unsullied. He could kill Ron.

"What?" Ginny shrieked, rising from her seat. She acted on impulse. "What did you say?" There was a brief second where there was no ground beneath her feet and no vision in her eyes. It was like a black hole, but when veracity returned, it was sharper than ever. All of her color returned in splotches 

across her face and neck. Her blood was hot and thrumming quickly. She could see every line in Viktor's brow and each wrinkle in his clothes. She even saw the glint of seat forming on his brow. "How the fuck could you let them do that? And not a clue to them now?" she screamed, gripping the edge of his desk with white knuckles. "How could you? How dare you! We all trusted you with their safety and you allow them to just wander off? How does this happen, Viktor, honestly? Which moron here-"

"Stop it!" Viktor roared, throwing back his own seat. It clattered behind him precariously close to the fire, but it didn't matter now. He stood half a foot above Ginny, but it didn't seem like enough. There was enough ire radiating from her that it was sure to make a good match. "You shut up and listen to me!" His thick fingers pointed at her face. His chest felt like exploding. He had been blamed for enough today – there was no reason for him to take this from a woman who had no clue what was going on.

"Tell me what the hell you were thinking, Viktor!" Ginny howled, unrelenting. Viktor did not scare her, not when it came to her family. "How could you? You're the only one who knew where they were and you lost them! It's not easy to misplace two people, Viktor! You really have to try. "

"I didn't let him go, Ginny!" Viktor yelled over her, cocking his eyebrow up. "Ron took Hermione and they snuck out during the night. He let Gus go and left us a tiny fucking note saying that everything is okay and they're on a goddamned quest to find Finnigan! It's not entirely my fault!"

"That doesn't matter!" Ginny screamed in reply. She pounded her fists on the desk and she felt fire in the pit of her stomach. "You let them slip away and now their gone! Maybe for good! I may never see them again and it's your fault."

"That is completely untrue," he barked, feeling heat on the back of his neck. "We did everything we could to keep them safe. Ron is an idiot – he always has been – and there is no one that can change that, obviously!"

"Fuck you," Ginny spat, her arms going rigid.

"Fuck your brother!" Viktor returned.

"Bastard," she spat, pointing one shaking finger at his chest. "I hated this whole thing from the start. You took away Ron and Hermione and you let Seamus get taken away, too. Who knows what's going to happen now, thanks to how utterly useless you seem to be!"

Viktor grabbed her wrist and held it very tightly with his fist. He felt the bones shift in his grasp and wanted to snap all of them. He couldn't take it anymore. He had nothing left to give Ginny and all she wanted was more. He was livid and irate and heated and exhausted and overworked and she might have to pay the consequences. "Shut up," he snarled in a voice so deep and menacing that Ginny turned to stone.

There were so many things that wanted to roll off her tongue, but they had all died and been forgotten when Viktor's voice entered her ears. He was dangerous and now, standing completely still, 

she was fully aware of that fact. She did not breathe. She did not blink. She did not feel the ache in her hand. She stared into his wild eyes and waited.

"I am going to finish telling you what I brought you here for," the low rumble of his voice was like thunder, "and then you are going to get the fuck out of my office. You aren't going to say another fucking word."

Still, Ginny did not move.

"I sent Potter to scout for the Shop a few weeks ago, as you know. I'm trying to alert him of the situation and when I do, he is going to make finding Weasley and Granger his number one priority." The anger was dissipating, but at such a fraction that Viktor could not feel the effect. He held on tight to Ginny, as if losing his grip would mean losing control. All he had to do was finish these brief sentences and then he would be alone. That was all he needed. "Once that is done, I am going to rally every single Agent we have to find Seamus and then we as the Order are going to put an end to the Shop. This is it. Finally."

A/N: I hope you liked it! Have a great weekend, everyone!

Please leave me a review - tell me how you liked it or things I could change or questions. I know I've caught several errors thanks to comments.

Katie