A/N - Just a suggestion - the song "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum.
Harry Potter just couldn't take any more.
So on Saturday morning, he took a walk. Not far, just around the corner from Grimmauld Place, just enough to be pretending to read a book that Hermione left behind (what was a Wuthering Height, anyway?) and accidentally-on-purpose run into a young man. They became entangled, and Harry came away with a few strands of the stranger's hair.
An hour later, he stood in King's Cross Station, disguised as the anonymous fellow, carrying a duffle bag with three changes of clothes. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but when the young lady in front of him asked the clerk "How far can I get from here as soon as possible?" it caught his attention.
"There's a train leaving in half an hour with a terminal point of Edinburgh." The clerk peered over the top of his glasses at her.
"Fantastic," she nodded enthusiastically. "I'd like a one way ticket."
Harry soon found himself in front of the ticket window. "I'd also like a one way ticket to Edinburgh."
He found his way to the platform where the young lady sat waiting.
"Are you following me?" she asked with an infectious smile.
Harry shrugged. "Getting as far away as possible as soon as possible sounded like a good plan to me too."
She gestured for him to have a seat on the bench beside her.
"Do I know you?" Harry asked. "You look a little familiar, but I can't place you."
"Is that supposed to be a pickup line?" she rolled her eyes.
Harry grinned. "No, but it certainly sounded like one, didn't it?"
They boarded the train, finding a otherwise empty car.
"So," Harry looked across at her. "What are you running away from?"
She scrunched up her face in thought, but on her it was cute. "Expectations." She said finally.
Harry cocked his head at her in curiosity, silently encouraging her to go on.
"My family is wealthy. That may be why I look familiar. We're in the society pages sometimes." She made an expression of disgust. "All my life, I've been raised to grow up and become the perfect trophy wife. I've decided I don't want that. I'm seventeen years old. I don't know what I want to do with my life. I don't even know if I want to go to university or not. But I do know that I want more from life than just parties and sitting around looking pretty."
"I take it your parents don't see things the same way," Harry said conspiratorially.
"Not in the least." She rolled her eyes. "What about you? What are you running from?"
He looked into the air above her head for a moment. "I guess I would say expectations as well. For the past several years, everyone around me has been waiting for me to do this one thing. Now it's done and over. But everyone else seems to be waiting for me to do something else brilliant, and they all think I have all the answers to all the world's problems. I don't." he shrugged. "I just want to go back to having a normal eighteen year old's life, but this whole thing has been hanging over my head so long, it's like I don't know how to be normal."
"I know what you mean." She nodded. "I just want to be normal too."
"I feel like I'm not." he continued. "It's like I've become jaded to the world, and I don't want to be that way. It's crazy, part of me wants to feel nothing at all. But part of me is terrified of ending up that way."
"Don't shut yourself off." she shook her head. "Feel everything. Good, bad, or otherwise. You're not being true to yourself if you don't."
"I just want to feel like what I did was worth all of it. I don't, seeing as how my friends didn't get their happy ending. That was all I wanted out of the situation, for everything and everyone to be all right. And it didn't turn out that way." he ended on a note that was dangerously close to hysteria.
"One person can't save the world." she looked at him with a mixture of sympathy and something else he couldn't define. "All you can do is to help in whatever way you can, and then let go. If you hold on too long, you'll make yourself crazy. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to go on with your own life and let others go on with theirs."
"So how do we find this "normal" thing? The kind of life normal people have?" Harry asked.
She shrugged. "I have some money. I figured I would get a flat. Maybe find a job, maybe take a class. Just live in the world and find out what it is I like, instead of being told what I like."
"It sounds like you have a plan." Harry looked out the window.
"You don't?" she asked, drawing his attention back inside.
It was his turn to shrug. "Three hours ago, I was planning to go to a friend's house today. All of this was completely off the cuff."
She looked impressed. "Totally spontaneous, huh? That's rather daring."
He snorted. "And that's the whole thing. Everyone thinks I'm some daring, brave, wonderful hero. And I'm not. I'm just ...me."
"Maybe you are daring, brave, and wonderful. You just don't see it." she offered.
"But what if I don't want to be?" he looked at her with sadness.
"You are who you are." she replied sagely. "You have to take who you are, and what you want, and weave them into the person you will become."
He smiled with admiration at the muggle girl. "You're very wise for someone who's only seventeen."
She looked down at the table, embarassed. "My sister says I'm an old soul, whatever that means." she looked back up at him, changing the subject. "Do you have brothers and sisters?"
He shook his head sadly. "No. I was an only child. And my parents both died. I have an aunt and uncle, but I don't get on with them very well. The closest thing I really have to a family is my best friend's family. They've somewhat taken me in."
"That's not totally a bad thing." she had an odd look on her face. "You don't have to worry about disappointing as many people."
He reached across the table to pat her hand. "I can't imagine that your family would be disappointed in your becoming the best person you can be. Surely they just need some time to adjust to the idea. Then they will realize what an even more wonderful daughter they have."
She smiled shyly. "You're very kind to say that, Mr. …." She looked to him expectantly.
"Um, M – Malfoy," he shuddered inwardly, clueless as to why that was the first name that came to his mind. "Dray – Drake Malfoy."
She smirked at him, one eyebrow raised. "You could have just said you didn't want to tell me."
"Excuse me?" Harry's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
"Draco Malfoy has never done anything in his life he would consider brilliant." She leaned across the table and winked at him. "And he hates to be called Drake."
"Do I know you?" Harry repeated, somewhat dazed.
She shrugged. "We were at school together, but I don't think we ever actually spoke to one another. I'm Astoria Greengrass. You can call me Storie."