AUTHOR'S NOTES:

This was my intended 2018 HP Shore-Of-Angst Fest fic entry that never made it to the fest on time (hp-shoreofangst . livejournal . com). This fanfic is finished and will be updated once a week.

My prompts for the fest were:

- Some Drama-angst (per the fest requirements). Not too much tho.

- Dramione or Harmony

- Draco rescued

- Ron must play an important role in the tale - please don't bash him too badly

Thank you to my lovely beta, wronskiifeint and my alpha, ladysashi! You ladies feed the muses and keep me centered, and I am eternally grateful!

This story ended up being a prequel, of sorts, to another of my stories written years ago, called "Three". This tale sets up the reason why Harry loses the war, why Hermione disappears for years, and why Draco ended up staying within the Death Eater ranks.

DISCLAIMER: "Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. This fanfiction was written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.

TIMELINE: During the war (Spring 1998) - A/U events

CHARACTERS FEATURED (alphabetical order, last name): Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley

SUMMARY: Ron returns to Hermione and Harry's encampment with an unexpected surprise.

RATING: Hard R (MA)

TAGS & WARNINGS: War violence, Explicit profanity, Ron takes a beating for being an idiot, Heterosexual sex (memories on screen)

NOTES: Remember that Ron left Harry and Hermione sometime in the autumn of 1997 in novel canon, sometime around the 3rd of September (after Hermione consulted the portrait of Phineas Nigellus she carries around in her beaded bag and learned about the sword of Gryffindor destroying horcruxes - according to hp-lexicon dot org, which has a pretty reliable timeline established from the novel source). As such, I am stating in this fic that Ron left them on the 3rd of September, 1997, which would put this fic's starting point at early January, 1998.

LOST AND FOUND

By: RZZMG

It had been four months since Ron had abandoned them, taking off without a plan, but with plenty to say...

That morning had been particularly difficult, as they'd had to move their encampment once again. Fear had dodged their heels as they'd packed up, and as they took hands and unwittingly shared the miasma of evil that oozed from Slytherin's cursed locket, that unnamed terror had been only amplified. Yet, after settling down in the new spot far from the stink and noise of a city, Hermione had felt reasonably safe, enough that she'd returned to her research. Harry had walked the perimeter on sentry duty. Ron...

Her friend had sat alone in the main area of the tent, watching her through the dim lighting with eyes that gleamed with an unholy light.

She'd done her best to ignore it, not wanting to provoke another fight as there had been too many lately. It had been an awkward and uncomfortable few hours, however.

Around noon, they'd had lunch together in the tent, a modest soup she'd thrown together from some of the Muggle canned goods she kept in her beaded bag's stores and a heating charm. It had been warm and filling...and yet there had been entirely too much tension in the room to relax.

With nothing else to occupy the time, Hermione had returned to her research, and soon after, had found a clue. After consulting the portrait of Phineas Nigellus with her hypothesis, they'd actually won a major victory in gaining new information on how to destroy horcruxes...and Hermione had felt a burst of pride and a blooming of hope. Finally, her skill set had been put to some good use on this exhausting and often disheartening quest, and perhaps they could now advance towards the end goal of ending the Dark Lord forever.

She and Harry had embraced in happiness.

That one small act had been the tipping point for their friend.

Boiling over at long last, Ron had erupted in a jealous tirade that had encompassed everything from loss of family to her. Hermione had instinctively known even then that it had been the horcrux panicking at the knowledge they'd gained and spurring Ron on towards violence to stop their intended plans for it, but all the same, the hurt could not be rationalized away. "Ron, stop!" she'd pleaded with him at one point, desperate for him to remove the locket and come back to himself, but he was like a bull seeing only red. Unforgivable words conceived from the darkest corners of his heart and mind were belched forth with a sharp tongue that slashed at both her and Harry, emotionally bleeding them.

Long minutes later, when he'd finally finished shouting down the roof, Ron had done enough damage to break hearts and ruin friendships. To make matters worse, he'd then tossed the locket at them and left without a backward glance.

He'd abandoned them.

Harry had been utterly devastated, and Hermione...

That day, Ron had been lost to her, and in truth, she was torn as to whether or not she'd ever want him back.

~.~.~

Four months without word or even a hint of Ron's final fate, of searching for that familiar shock of bright red hair peeking through a forest canopy or between buildings whenever she and Harry had dared set up camp on the tops of Muggle buildings or under bridges.

Four months of listening to the wireless at her best friend's side while reading Beedle Bard's tales and trying to solve Voldemort's riddle of the horcruxes. During those long weeks, Hermione had silently prayed not to hear her friend's name called out by Lee Jordan as being among the list of the missing and the confirmed dead.

When she'd closed her eyes at night, she was most often haunted by nightmarish visions of Ron dying, alone and afraid.

Despite her colossal disappointment in her ginger-haired friend, Hermione had felt his loss, like some sort of phantom limb syndrome. Ron had always been a part of her and Harry, a vital third wheel that tempered both her and her best friend's more serious natures and forced them to think beyond their Muggle roots, to embrace magical culture and make it their own. She'd mourned him with the same ferocity as she did anything in life—that is to say, with passion.

Then one morning, after a particularly horrifying dream involving him dying in a pool of blood and crying out her name, she'd awoken to find him at the edge of the camp's wards...and had finally exchanged her hot tears for a cold rage, one that settled in the space where her heart persistently clapped out its steady beat.

Apparently, Ron had found them with Dumbledore's gift, the Deluminator, using it to track their voices by some bizarre magic she didn't quite understand.

–And he hadn't been alone.

~.~.~

It had been Harry's turn standing guard when the lightning-crack of Apparition echoed through the forest.

The sound woke Hermione from a sleep disturbed by terrifying visions that had left her with tracks of tears salting her cheeks. Surprised into instant alertness, she'd dropped to the floor on instinct and reached under her pillow for her wand. Her hand froze as she found the space empty, and a moment later, the reason why came to her: Harry's wand had been broken at Christmas and they hadn't replaced it yet, so he was borrowing hers in the interim.

With a silent curse in her head, Hermione slunk on silent feet low towards the tent flap and paused there to listen.

At first there were no sounds coming from outside the tent, but then a muffled voice barked something unintelligible about being let through their magical barrier. Carefully, Hermione peeked around the flap and looked out, two wandless spells she'd perfected over the past few months—one defensive, one offensive—on the tip of her tongue, ready and willing use.

Ron was on the other side of their wards…and he was half-carrying someone who had a leaden arm slung over Ron's burly shoulders and leaned heavily against him as if he were unconscious. There was blood all over the both of them.

Even from the distance, Hermione recognized that familiar cap of sugar white hair of the injured man, stained as it was with gore. She swore under her breath.

Near the boundary line, Harry raised her wand and the hopeful and happy look on his face told her all she needed to know about his intentions. "Harry, no!" she shouted, but by then, it was too late. Her friend had lowered the wards to let Ron in, not suspecting a possible ruse in the works. "Idiot," she seethed at him and ran over, preparing her first wandless spell for casting.

Ron carried his limp parcel across the boundary line, huffing and grimacing in pain.

"Close it behind me," he croaked and then collapsed to his knees.

Malfoy tumbled out of Ron's arms and fell limply to the forest floor, rolling from his side onto his back. He was unconscious. From the long, but thin wound that crossed his chest and another across his forehead that bled as excessively as all head wounds tended to do, Hermione thought it for the best.

"Harry, fix the wards, quickly," she instructed him as he stood in shock over what he was seeing. When he didn't react, Hermione snapped her fingers at him. "Harry! The wards. Now!"

"R-right," he stammered and got to work repairing the damage he'd done to their sanctuary.

They'd have to move tonight. This location was no longer secure, she thought as she turned to her red-headed friend and inspected him. He'd clearly been in a wand duel and was bleeding from several shallow Slashing hexes all over his torso and arms.

She knelt before Ron and pointed a finger, aimed like a Muggle gun, at his head. "What exact colour dress did I wear to the Yule Ball?"

Ron's eyes were glazed with pain and he blinked in confusion. "W-what?"

"The colour of my dress, the one you'd insulted so thoroughly that night," she reiterated with the familiar irritation at that memory creeping into her voice. She prepared to hit him with the Knock-Back jinx she'd wandlessly been practising for the past two months if he didn't get this one right. "I corrected you on the exact shade when you mentioned it. What did I tell you it was?"

"'Mione, for fuck's sake-"

She pressed her fingertip harder into his skin. "The shade," she growled, a final warning in her tone. "What was it?"

Ron seemed to grasp for the memory. "Fuck, I don't-" His eyes brightened with remembrance. "Periwinkle. I said it was blue, and you said 'It's periwinkle, Ron. Don't be dense.'"

He mocked her as he recited her words.

Well, that told her precisely what he thought of her, didn't it?

"Stupefy," she cast instead, and because she hadn't a wand in hand at that moment and her wandless casting of the spell hadn't been perfected, the spell only hit Ron with enough strength to knock him backwards onto his arse into the snow and to daze him.

Standing back up, her knees snapped in the cold.

Harry appeared at her side, staring down at their friend. He didn't seem inclined to help Ron, however, she noticed.

"You didn't need to-" he began, but by then Hermione had dismissed Ron with a sniff and an upturned nose and turned to Malfoy…and she hit the ferrety git with a wandless stunner of light strength as well. His body twitched once, but otherwise, he didn't give any indication that he was faking being unconscious.

Harry's lips curled with a vindictive smile anyway.

"That, I didn't mind seeing," he admitted.

Hermione sighed as she stared down at her childhood bully, wondering what in Godric's name Ron thought he was doing rescuing Slytherin's fallen prince. What had Ron gotten up to since they'd parted ways four months ago?

Clearly no good.

"We're going to talk about what you did," she calmly told Harry and held her hand out for her wand.

Harry gave over the weapon without complaint. "Yeah, okay," he agreed, sounding resigned to being pecked to death in the verbal dress-down she was, even then, planning for him. "Probably should see to their wounds first, though."

Hermione huffed.

"You can carry Ron then," she told him, eyeing the wards once to make sure they were up to snuff.

"And Malfoy?" her friend asked, moving to stand over Ron and offer him a hand up.

With a swish of her wand, she had the Malfoy scion hovering in the air and following behind her as she headed back into the tent.

"We'll see," was all she promised her friend, leaving the possibilities open-ended.

TO BE CONTINUED...