Harry had mumbled something about the bathroom and quickly left the room, leaving Ron and Hermione alone. Hermione pursed her lips and began to extract sleeping bags from her small beaded bag. They both knew he was escaping because his scar was giving him excruciating pain.

"I wish he had practiced Occlumency more," she said. "Voldemort can already get into his head; what more can he do to Harry?"

"Hermione, you need to give him a break," Ron said sternly. "He's trying the best he can, and he's already been through so much. He doesn't need you nagging on him."

"I'm not nagging, Ron. I'm simply saying that –"

"Just drop it, alright?" Ron interrupted. When Hermione gave him a deadly look, he added, "Please? We've all had a long day, and I don't want to talk about it."

Hermione looked as if she would start in again, but after a few moments, she simply nodded and continued setting sleeping bags up. Ron watched her and suddenly thought of something rather important. "You didn't happen to…er…pack any other clothes, did you?"

As if reading his mind, Hermione pulled out his maroon pajamas from the bag. "I have everything," she said, throwing them at him. "We could live out of this bag if we needed to."

"Well, that's what we're going to do, isn't it?" Ron asked, grinning.

"I hope not," Hermione said worriedly. Ron's grin had for the first time, failed to make her smile. "I wish I knew this Horcrux hunt isn't going to take long, but I think we all know it's going to take a while."

Hermione walked over to sit next to Ron on the sofa. "Do you think he's alright? He's been in there for a while."

"He's fine, Hermione," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "If he doesn't come out in an hour, we can break the door down."

Hermione's lips twitched and she broke out in a smile, despite her efforts to stay serious. Ron grinned back, knowing that his joke to make her smile had worked. However, her smile faded away fast. "I can't believe we got out of that."

"What?"

"The attack at the wedding! And those Death Eaters disguised as workmen! I can't believe they attacked the wedding…"

"Things happen, Hermione. They were bound to attack sometime. Do you really expect we would've been able to avoid them until we killed Voldemort?"

"No," Hermione admitted. "But it just happened so suddenly. I wasn't prepared or anything! And you! I don't want you ever leaving my sight again! I was so afraid you had been attacked and were lying on the ground somewhere! Ron, you can be so –"

"Hermione," Ron had approached her and grabbed her firmly by the shoulders. "Please shut up. I know I can be stupid and irresponsible and whatever else you were going to say, but I'm here now, alright? That's all that matters."

Hermione sighed and wrapped her arms around Ron to fall into him. He gave into her, and stroked her hair as she lightly sobbed into his chest. "It was just too close," her muffled voice was carried to his ear, and he understood how upset she was. He bent his head to talk into her ear. "I know. But we're all here now and we know the family's alright too."

"But can we keep this up? I don't think we'll all be able to pull off what we did tonight again."

Ron whispered back, knowing that Hermione needed to be told that everything would turn out alright. "I think we can. We just all need to look out for each other, and everything will be fine."

Hermione withdrew from the embrace, much to Ron's disappointment, and began to dig through her beaded bag again.

"What are you looking for now?" Ron asked, suddenly annoyed at Hermione.

"Harry's toothbrush. I need some sort of excuse to see if he's alright, don't I, or he'll just yell at me again, won't he?"

Ron couldn't argue with this and reluctantly let her go check on Harry.

He decided to make up the sleeping bags that were sprawled on the floor. He decided to put the cushions from the sofa under Hermione's sleeping bag, so she wasn't so close to the hard ground. As he did this, his thoughts began to completely turn to Hermione.

He hadn't expected her to constantly be at his side, but after the incident at the wedding, he felt the same way Hermione had said about him: he never wanted her out of his sight. He was sure now that Hermione felt the same way about him as he did about her. All the signs were there: she blushed when he was staring at her for a moment too long. She didn't do this to Harry. She turned to him for comfort when she needed it, she had told him things no one else knew (not even Ginny), and she had danced with him, when she could've plainly denied and danced with Viktor Krum instead.

Hermione reentered the room, interrupting Ron's thoughts, and he blushed at his own knowledge that he had been thinking of her. "He's alright, isn't he?"

Hermione nodded, and Ron grinned. "I told you."

Hermione shook her head. "Whatever, Ron. Anyway, he'll be out in a few minutes." She began to pick out clips that had been holding her hair in place to pass the time. Ron found himself staring at her and realizing how much he had missed her bushy hair in the few hours she had had it up. She was beautiful when it was straight and out of her face, but her natural hair always seemed more Hermione, and that was one of the reasons Ron had fallen for her.

Hermione seemed to notice the bed Ron had made for her. "Is that yours?"

Ron shook himself out of his reverie. "Er…no. That's for you."

Right away, Hermione being Hermione, she began to argue at once. "Oh, Ron, you didn't need to do that for me –"

"I know," Ron said suddenly. "I wanted to."

"Ron, you went to so much trouble, don't you think - ?"

"Hermione," Ron said once again. "It's no trouble. Please take it? I didn't do it for me, I did it for you."

Hermione looked as if she would argue, but she only smiled and nodded. "Fine."

"Bravo." A third voice made the two jump. They both whirled around with wands out to see Harry standing in the doorway and smirking. "Bathroom's free."

Hermione hurried past Harry with her things, looking flustered as he smirked at her. Harry entered the room and seeing the Ron had his pajamas, began to dig through Hermione's bag to find his. They both took the advantage of Hermione in the bathroom to change into their pajamas. As Harry began to crawl into the bed Ron had made for Hermione (without really thinking about who it was for) Ron shouted, "Oi mate, that's for Hermione!"

Harry, confused about what Ron meant, scowled. "What?"

"The bed. I…made it for Hermione." Ron blushed at the fact that he had to admit this to Harry. But Harry simply smirked and climbed out of the makeshift bed. He seemed to know better than to push the subject.

Hermione came out of the bathroom moments later and climbed into the makeshift bed. Ron had turned off the lights with the Deluminator, and Harry was already asleep, his back turned from Ron and Hermione's sleeping bags.

Hermione turned to face Ron, and he saw her brown eyes almost glowing in the sliver of moonlight that came in from the window. Ron could tell by the way she was positioned that she was uneasy.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked quietly, making sure not to wake Harry.

"I don't know…" Hermione said, stalling. "Everything, I suppose. The fact that we're in this creepy house hiding from the world. I hate being here."

Ron understood why she didn't like the house. Ever since Hermione had seen the house-elf heads lined up on the wall upstairs two years ago, she had blamed the horrid personalities of Sirius' family on the house. He reached out and took her hand and squeezed it. "You're with me and Harry. Nothing's going to happen to you. I made you a promise."

He felt Hermione shiver delightfully at the mention of his promise. He made to let go of her hand, but she kept her grip firm. "Don't let go. Please?"

He smiled at her faintly. "'Course."


Ron woke to a stream of sunlight hitting him in the face. He groaned as rolled over to see Hermione sleeping peacefully beside him. In his mind, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He smiled at her before getting up to find her beaded bag. He found it in the corner of the room, and began to grope in it to find some fresh clothes. Ron glanced at the wall at one point and saw close to the last things on earth he wanted to see.

Spiders. In his opinion, massive spiders. They were crawling down from a hole in the ceiling. Ron slowly started to back away, and called, "Hermione." When she didn't respond, he went from calm to full blown panic attack. "HERMIONE!"

Hermione woke startled, flew for her wand and fought to get out of the sleeping bag. "What? What is it, Ron?"

Ron pointed to the hole in the wall, where the spiders were crawling around freely. Hermione dropped her wand and sighed exasperatedly. "Honestly, Ron, I thought Death Eaters were attacking again –"

"Get rid of them, Hermione, I don't want to see them!" Ron turned his back on the spiders.

"Oh, but look Ron, they're only spiders." To his horror, Hermione walked over to the wall and let one of the spiders crawl on her hand. She brought the spider over to Ron, who quickly jumped away from her. "Hermione, I'm not joking, get it away!"

"Alright, alright, I was only playing with you." Hermione performed a spell that got rid of the spiders, but Ron had his mind set on avoiding them, he didn't hear what the spell was.

"Honestly, Ron, you would think after a few years of fighting the Dark Arts, your worst fear would change – where's Harry?"

Ron spun around and found that Harry's sleeping bag was empty. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Hermione suddenly was in a full panic attack. "Alright, you check downstairs, and I'll check upstairs. I just hope –"

"Don't say it," Ron cut sharply across her. He stepped over the sleeping bags to stand in front of her, and took a firm grip on her shoulders. "We'll find him."