Chapter 1: At Tottenham Court Road

Ron opened his eyes and tried to understand where they were or what in the name of Merlin's trousers had just happened. All around him, he saw what were unmistakibly bustling citygoers carrying bags and chattering as though You-Know-Who and his followers hadn't just taken over the entire country. His eyes saught those of the beautiful, bushy-haired girl by his side and they just looked at each other for a moment, horrorstruck.

"Where are we?" asked Ron, trying to sound casual as though maybe he wouldn't need to think about the fact that they'd been separated from Harry if he just didn't mention it.

"Tottenham Court Road," answered Hermione, sounding flustered, "Ron, what are we going to do? Harry and Ginny could be anywhere, and now Ginny can't go back, they'll be hunting her now that they saw her with Harry. She's still underage, she'll have the trace on her, and now Harry has to look for the horcruxes all by himself and it's just..." She seemed to be in a state of outright hysteria by this point.

Ron stepped closer to her and turned her face so she was looking at him. "Hermione," he started, trying to remain calm, for her sake if more than anything, "Harry won't be doing it all alone, he'll have Ginny. Hold on," Ron interjected as she made to interrupt, "She won't be able to do magic for around a month, but once Hogwarts starts, the trace system doesn't really function because there's so much magic being done by people being taught from home, which is really common, so any instance of underage magic will just seem like a homeschooled student since all of the people who the trace is mainly for will be at Hogwarts." Hermione seemed to steady slightly but did not look anywhere near fully comforted.

"But he'll still have to find the horcruxes alone," she said, sniffling slightly as she recovered from her crying outburst.

"'Course he won't!" said Ron indignantly, "We'll still be looking, won't we?" This at last coaxed a small smile out of Hermione and she leaned into him, her head on his chest. Ron's hand jumped instinctively into her hair as he murmured against her bushy curls, "Yeah, we'll keep looking, and Ginny'll take care of him and he'll take care of her. It'll be... it'll be alright." His voice started to break as he thought about his baby sister and his best mate having to fend for themselves, "And, he'll have whatever you thought to give him in that bag since you're the most brilliant person I've ever met."

Hermione gave a watery chuckle into his chest and blindkshed slightly at the compliment. "My bag has an undetectable expansion charm on it and I had all of our stuff separated in replicas of the bag that were in the original one just in case so I could give it to whoever got separated. I'd always assumed that it... you know... wouldn't be nec.in

"See? What did I just say, you're bloody brilliant," said Ron, still running his hand through her hair, "Now, not that I'm complaining about just standing hear with you like this, but we've got to find a place to change, people are staring."

Hermione seemed to largely regain her composure as she stepped back and looked around for a place to go. "Here, behind here should work." She grabbed his hand and pulled him into an alley behind a rather ugly, old-looking shop.

"Er, Hermione, I haven't got anything to change into," said Ron, not sure exactly how to get around this conundrum.

"I've got everything in the bag," she said, thrusting it into his hands.

"Damn, I wish I had Harry's invisibility cloak for this, that'd be right useful for this," said Ron as he began as Hermione turned away while he took off his dress robes.

"Oh for heaven's sake Ron, we just escaped a whole army of Death Eaters and that's what you're worried about?"

"Well, you would be too, you're not the one changing, are you?" Ron replied indignantly pulled on a pair of his pants Hermione had packed. Just as he was about to pull his shirt, Hermione turned around without really thinking and flushed as she saw his shirtless torso, trying not to keep looking as her eyes roved over his surprisingly muscular, lean form.

"Oh, sorry," she squeaked as she turned back around.

"What? You've seen me shirtless before," laughed Ron, not seeming to catch onto the effect the sight had had on her. That's true, thought Hermione, although all the other times were with Harry and somehow it seemed more distracting when it was just the two of them.

"I just... wasn't expecting it," she said quickly, trying to cover up her embarrassment, "Are you ready? Let's go, I want to find somewhere to sit and figure out what to do." Ron nodded and followed her back out of the alley, both of their eyes scanning up and down the street in search of a place to settle in for a bit.

"How about there?" Ron pointed to a cafe to their right, "Looks empty." Hermione nodded and Ron took her hand in his as he lead her into the tiny cafe.

As they sat down, the waitress hurried over to them and took their orders, and had soon left them alone as she busied herself with preparing their drinks. Ron leaned closer to Hermione and lowered his voice.

"Where do you reckon we go now? Obviously Grimmauld Place is out if Snape can get in, and we can't stay with anyone we know, too risky."

Hermione chewed her lip and Ron couldn't help but adore the look of concentration that he'd seen on her face so many times. "We could try my parents' house, but I'm sure they'd check there... we could put a memory charm on a muggle family and then we could get a house, but that just feels like..."

"Too much, yeah, I get it," said Ron and he took her hand on the middle of the table and squeezed it. The waitress came back with their drinks and they thanked her.

"or... or we could use the tent," said Hermione tentatively.

"The tent?" Ron asked blankly.

"Your dad got the tent we used for the world cup from that Perkins and gave it to me, I have it packed in the bag."

"Have I told you yet that you are the most brilliant person I have ever met?" Ron looked incredulous at the fact that she'd thought so far ahead as to bring the tent.

"You might have mentioned it," she said with a small smile, "But is that what we're going to do? Use the tent? It won't really be comfortable, I'm not sure what type of food je'll be able to get, and we'll probably have to move around a lot and..." Ron cut her off by squeezing her hand again and looking her in the eyes, his blue ones meeting her brown with a fierce determination that made her stomach flutter pleasantly.

"Of course it won't be comfortable, we didn't sign up for comfortable, did we? We signed up to get rid of those damn horcruxes, didn't we? Obviously we planned to do it with Harry, but now we have to do it by ourselves, and if that means camping out in that tent all over the damn country, then so be it, we'll do it." Hermione felt herself relax, much of the tension of the day leaving her as she stared into Ron's reassuringly determined eyes.

"Alright, we'll pay and then we'll disapparate," she said. She rummaged in her bag for money and handed it over to the waitress. The pair stood up and stepped outside, but just as Hermione was about to grab Ron and turn to disapparate, something bright and silver zoomed in front of them and materialioed into a weasel patronus, which opened it's mouth and spoke in Mr. Weasley's voice.

"Family safe, don't reply, don't contact anyone by patronus, you will be caught. And we've just received word, you mustn't say the name, it will alert them, I'm running out of time, good luck."

Ron and Hermione stared at each other as the patronus desolved, both seemingly at a loss for words. Ron broke the silence first. "Let's go." Hermione grabbed his hand, tkrned on the spot, and with a pop, they had entered into the dark, suffocating depths of apparition.

Author's note:

I'm interested to see if anyone can guess why Mr. Weasley's message is different, there is an important reason, it'll be explained in due time. In the meantime, please reliew if you lped it or thought there's something I can improve on, thanks for reading!