Disclaimer: I don't make any claim of ownership over Harry Potter. This is written strictly for fun and not for profit. If you like this fic though feel free to use your imagination. ;)

Agapéros

A Harry Potter Epilogue

May 8th 1998

Hermione Granger was furious. No she was beyond furious, she was livid, no, incensed, no, incandescent with rage, yes that's the one; Hermione Granger was incandescent with rage. That stupid prat Harry Potter had run off on his own somewhere leaving only two brief notes to 'explain' why he was gone. One addressed to the Weasleys as a whole saying 'I can't stay here anymore.' and one to herself stating simply 'Sorry Hermione.' with a tear stain just below the 'm'. that was it seven sodding words spread across two sodding notes and off he trots to God knows where.

She knew he had been dealing poorly with the attention he'd been getting, all the scrutiny he was under, he'd always hated it. She knew he was going to get it and going to hate it before it happened; that didn't mean she had any more power to help him cope with it though. She knew he felt guilty that people had died fighting and being constantly congratulated on his 'Victory' would ring ever more hollow in his ears but she just didn't know how to help him with it. He'd had some sort of row with Ginny a few days ago and they hadn't so much as tolerated being in a room with each other since. Things with her and Ron had gone slightly better than that, well maybe anyway, the two of them had pretty much decided that they were better off as friends and were going to just let it remain that way and parted quite amiably. They'd forget the few sporadic kisses they'd shared and things would end before they'd even really begun. They both saw what lay in store for them in the not so distant future if they pursued a closer relationship, one where they couldn't just run away from each other and would instead resort to wounding each other more thoroughly. She'd been expecting Ron to blow up about it and for them to have a battle of stubborn wills, yay against nay, when she'd brought it up with him but he seemed oddly accepting of the whole idea and suspiciously quick to agree. It was almost like he was relieved she'd been the one to bring it up first; but that couldn't be right unless…

She wondered idly who it was. Luna maybe? Luna had always carried a fairly hefty torch for Ron. Apparently she'd never given up on the boy she'd shared her first kiss with at the tender age of seven. She indulged herself in a smile imagining how eight year old Ron would have reacted to that. Luna would definitely be preferable to Lavender at any rate. Luna wouldn't borrow the topaz and emerald pendant her parents had gotten her for her 17th birthday without asking first and even have the gall to wear it on a date with a boy she knew Hermione fancied. Worst case scenario Luna would pluck a couple radishes out the garden. Ron had shown rather a predilection for busty blondes, Rosmerta, Fleur, Lavender, she wondered where she fit the pattern for a moment but ah no matter. Luna was blonde and definitely wasn't lacking in the chest department.

She was getting off track though. Harry Potter had fled, with an infant in tow no less. Stupid irresponsible boy, he had maybe three hours total experience caring for a baby and he runs off by himself with one without even so much as a 'By your leave.' She knew he was upset, stressed to near the snapping point really. Paparazzi and suffocating crowds of people wanting to pump his hand and pat him on the back wherever he went and sad, sympathetic, pitying looks whenever he stayed. The poor boy couldn't get a moment's peace and he didn't seem to want to really talk to anyone, not to anyone at all, she frowned severely. He'd be cordial of course but she could tell the guilt was devouring him; with Tonks and Lupin deaths hitting him the worst. Seeing his baby Godson orphaned must be a heart-rendingly familiar scene for him.

Then that stupid murdering bastard had gone after Andromeda Tonks last night. When fate rained on Harry Potter it really did seem to dump buckets of shit. She'd been out with the Weasleys with Harry brooding away as was his custom, only George had been left with him and she was sure they'd been locked away in separate rooms, Harry unwilling to face any sort of public and George unable to face any sort of anything really. They'd returned to the Burrow to find Kingsley Shacklebolt there waiting for their return and gotten the story from him. He'd come here with Teddy not wanting to dump him in Ministry Child Housing and found Harry sitting at the kitchen table alone. Kingsley had told him what had happened and Harry had taken Teddy Lupin straight to the ministry, being the Man-Who-Won must have its advantages because despite being a seventeen year old bachelor the adoption had gone through before she and the Weasleys even made it back from Diagon Alley in time for a late lunch. Harry was gone leaving nothing but two painfully abrupt notes and a trail of tears in his wake. The worst part though had been the motive the man had given if you could find the generosity to call it that, "Bellatrix LeStrange killed my sister so I killed hers." What a stupid, pitiful, useless sack of shite. He couldn't even go after Narcissa Malfoy, Deatheather's wife; he had to go after the grieving widow who'd been ejected from her family over two decades previous. Stupid cowardly fuck. At least the bastard had enough of a tiny scrap of decency in him to no hurt Teddy. That was certainly the only reason he was still alive and Harry was missing instead of in a holding of his own awaiting trial for murder.

God why couldn't that stupid obstinate boy ever just talk to someone when he had a problem? Hadn't he had enough of running off to try and do things by himself? He bloody ate a killing curse the last time he left her! She let her head fall forward onto the table with a satisfying crack as the anger dissipated and the tears enveloped her once more.

August 1st 1998

Hermione had finally done it; she'd managed to track down her parents. It had two months of searching, the majority of that had been in Melbourne where she'd sent them but that search had turned up completely fruitless. She'd managed to find the café that Monica and Wendell Wilkins had leased and run together after only two weeks of looking but they had left the place shortly after arriving and then just flat disappeared.

She spent more than another month searching around the town for them then widened it to a national search for the Wilkins but that had turned up completely fruitless as well. The only thing she could find other than the shop rental was that they had deplaned at Melbourne Airport, not to be confused with Melbourne International Airport which for some stupid reason was in Florida. That had been an extra two days of Portkeying wasted right off the bat. She'd let herself get excited about making a direct trip and only having to puke her guts up the once; she should have realized she wouldn't be able to take a single jump all the way to Australia and ended up puking her guts up in Florida, back in London on the return, then Bombay, on to Darwin, and finally in Melbourne, Australia for real this time, she'd quadruple checked on departure and triple checked on arrival before the attendant got rude.

There was no trace of anyone she could find in Australia using the names Monica and Wendell Wilkins when she performed the scrying herself and she had resorted to going to the local Ministry in Sydney and having them perform their own national scrying to locate her wayward parents which had been not only exorbitantly expensive, for a foreigner looking for fellow foreigners, but also entirely without results. She had panicked of course sure that they had died or been discovered and taken and made a desperation bid and had them try to locate Robert and Helen Granger. She'd never been so relieved in her life, well maybe once before but she tried not to think about that day.

That was how Hermione found herself standing on Casuarina Street in Coconut Grove a suburb of Darwin, ironically enough less than two miles from where she'd first landed in Australia. She was here in front of the house her parents were living in. It was really a beautiful place; a lovely little suburb and the house they picked out had a direct view onto the beach and the Timor Sea, even if the beach was covered in some sort of scrubby bushes the water sparkled most invitingly in the noon sun and the air was clear and wonderfully salty, she'd always loved that smell. The only problem was that it was 90 degrees but thankfully wasn't too humid, she'd packed for what should have been winter in Melbourne with only this one skirt and tanktop she'd packed in case she had to layover in India longer than expected.

There was no car in the drive and no garage for it to be hiding in so she decided her parents must be at wherever they were working at now. She'd just take a little peek around then maybe dip off to find a café to loiter in while she waited for them to get back. She went around the back of the house and peered in the window and could feel her mouth fall open but didn't really have the motivation to close it. Whatever she'd been expecting to see in Australia that was most definitely not it.

A/N I liked the first bit in May but I'm not so sure about the second part in August. I think I ended up with less neurotic Hermione and more with some combination of Luna and the dog from Up! I'd like to know what you think. I wrote this story starting from the end (the last chapter is about 8k words words, already written and far more polished and relevant than this one) and just pounded this out tonight so I can get to the important bits that happen later on. There will be more coming, probably soon but I decided to put this bit of what is essentially backstory up now. I can't believe I'm uploading almost 2k words and only one set of quotation marks and they don't even go a real character. I feel so cheap. In conclus- SQUIRREL! :)