Here's the next chapter. Some of the quotes are taken directly from Deathly Hallows Part 1, yet I own nothing…sadly.
Ron and Pansy apparated to a snowy forest after leaving the mountain side and the Snatchers behind. Not knowing where else to go, Ron just disapparated them to the first place he could think of. He wasn't sure where this forest was anyway. He was still not too good at disapparating so he worried that he may have splinched himself or Pansy.
"Are you ok?" he asked her even before he had time to check if he was okay.
"Just a sprained ankle, I think," she replied out of breath. She was still frightened with Thorn's anger and feared that the Snatchers would come looking for them.
"Let me set up the tent and put a few wards up before I help you wrap it up."
Ron worked quickly and silently to set up their new camp site. The tent they managed to procure while gathering supplies was smaller than the one they shared before. The only bright side to that being that it was easier to set up without Pansy's help.
Once the tent was up and the spells in place, Ron helped Pansy inside. There was quite a bit of snow outside so Ron decided to gather some up to make Pansy a makeshift ice pack for her ankle. He wrapped it up for her and gave her the ice to help numb the pain. He really hoped it wasn't broken.
"Thanks for helping me Ron," she said as they sat together eating some fruit for dinner. They would have to go looking for food soon as their supply was small and consisted mainly of fruits and vegetables. Ron would need something else soon, she thought.
"No problem," he said with a grin. "We can't have you with a sprained ankle if we plan to keep moving."
"Not just my ankle though, thanks for thinking quickly and disapparating us away from Thorn. I just froze as soon as I saw him standing there pointing his wand at us. I don't even want to imagine what spell he was going to throw at us before we left."
Ron could see that Pansy was still quite shaken up with the past couple of hour's events. "You should rest now. Maybe the ankle will feel better tomorrow." He helped her to her bed before heading to his own.
Pansy tried to go to sleep but she had too much on her mind. What were they going to do now? When they were with the Snatchers, they had a clear mission to save muggleborns. Now that they were on their own, would they just focus on running and evading capture? Ron would be wanted by Death Eaters for his association with Potter.
"Ron?" Pansy whispered hoping he was still awake.
"Yeah?" he answered.
"What's our next move? We had our escape all planned out but we never talked about what we would do after we left."
"I wanted to talk to you about that before but we never really had the chance. I think we should look for Harry and Hermione."
Pansy thought this over and it seemed logical that he would want to go looking for his friends. But what would happen with her? Would they just receive her with open arms? She highly doubted that. She voiced this concern to Ron and it was his turn to think things over.
Finally after some time he said, "They will have to accept you into our group. You saved me and have helped me so much. That's got to count for something. Besides, they would never turn away someone in need. I bet they would even help Malfoy if he ever helped someone they care for. I will put in a good word for you."
"I hope you're right. I've kind of grown attached to you," she confessed. "I would hate to have to leave." She smiled and Ron could see the sparkle in her eyes faintly through the candle light as she said this.
"I've kind of grown attached to you too," he said, "Let's figure this out tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure, good night Ron," she yawned.
"Good night Pansy." He blew the candle out and turned to sleep. He truly had grown very fond of her and wished his friends would let him keep her.
Meanwhile with Harry and Hermione…(Harry's POV)
The days after Ron left passed by in gloom. Hermione and I formed an unspoken agreement not to speak of him as his parting still hurt the both of us. I kept hoping that I would wake up in the morning and see that he was still here. I kept wishing that our argument was only in my imagination despite the fact that his words about my parents still hurt me deeply.
Hermione and I devoted the days to try to determine the location of Gryffindor's sword or any of the remaining horcruxes. However, at night we would both be preoccupied with other matters. I spent many nights looking over the Marauder's Map and looking out for Ginny's name to make sure she was still safely in the castle. Hermione spent her nights crying herself to sleep most likely still hurt over Ron's departure.
To break the silence that seemed to be ever present, we began to talk to Phineas Nigellus' portrait to try to gain more information on the situation at Hogwarts. We were able to gather that Ginny and a few other students were causing mischief, most likely trying to reform the DA as I noticed she seemed to be disappearing into the room of requirement a lot. Due to this, the old decree on gatherings of more than three students was now reinstated. I hoped that these stricter rules would not affect the students too much but knowing Snape, this did not bode well for anyone.
It was a few weeks after living in this routine that I began to feel the need to break the monotony of living this way. Having to wear the locket really added to our grief so I decided that a few hours without it on would do Hermione and me some good. I went over to Hermione and took the locket and put it somewhere safe. She gave me a weird look as I set it down and took my wand and turned on the old wireless that Ron had left behind. I turned it on and then asked Hermione to dance. This helped cheer her up as we were able to distract ourselves from all of the troubles going on. Seeing her eyes light made me decide to try whatever it takes to cheer her up. I decided that we would spend a few hours each day without the locket. We would use this time to talk about good memories or just listen to the wireless. This gave us the strength to pull out of the desperation we were feeling and so we spent the next few days in a much better mood. It also helped that we were able to find some decent food. It was then that I decided that for us to move forward with our search we must go to Godric's Hollow.
One night as I was thinking of how to bring up going to Godric's Hollow to Hermione, she asked me about an odd mark she found in The Tales of Beedle the Bard book. I remembered that was the same mark Luna's dad wearing on a necklace. I told her how Krum told me that it was Grindelwald's mark. I had to convince her to go to Godric's Hollow. I had a feeling that's what our next step should be.
"Hermione, I think we should go to Godric's Hollow," I said ready to explain my reasoning and fight to convince her but she surprised me by readily agreeing.
"Yes, I think that's what our next step should be. It makes sense that Godric's Hollow is where the sword would be. I mean that is where Godric Gryffindor used to live," she said.
Our trip to Godric's Hollow turned out to be a trap. Bathilda Bagshot turned out to be luring us into a trap set by Voldemort. Hermione managed to get us out of Godric's Hollow before Voldemort could get to us. When I awoke I found that she was outside reading.
"Are you feeling better?" she asked.
"You've really out done yourself Hermione," I told her as I looked around to where she had apparated us to.
"The Forest of Dean," she explained. "Came here with my mum and dad, years ago. It's just how I remember it." She said looking around, "The trees, the river. Everything. Like nothing's changed. Not true of course, everything's changed. If I brought my parents back here now they probably wouldn't recognize any of it. Not the trees or the river, not even me. Maybe we should just stay here Harry. Grow old."
I have finally made progress in merging other characters into this story. It looks like both couples are in the same forest but it will still be a while before they meet up. We still have to see how the Harry/Hermione story develops. Sorry for the POV change, I had the H/Hr part written in that POV already and when I tried to change it I felt that the tone I was trying to capture changed. So I just left it like that but the rest of the story will strictly be in third person.