Chapter 1

"I won't change. I want to give
Everything away. To wander forever."

-interrogative, tracy k. smith

She's never really let go of him; no, that's not right. It's more that he came along with her, like the reddish dust from the garden she scrubbed her travel boots in – has she always thought of them as her travel boots? – before she'd left home the first time.

Maybe the distance of years and miles should make him irrelevant, a splinter on the barest edges of her memory. She's barely seen him since she started school, and in her memories he's just a smear of turquoise hair and a keen sparkle of earring – but maybe that's why she associates him so strongly with home.

In some ways, Teddy is a talisman of it even more than her parents. For her, home is still the house surrounded by trees in the countryside near The Holyhead Harpies' old practice grounds, and while her parents are the house in Godric's Hollow and James and Albus are Hogwarts and yearly bar trips in London, Teddy is bound up in her warmth-filled childhood like the grain of sand within a pearl.

It's easy to guess why she's thinking of that today - she's leaving again, and so she's itchy with nostalgia, trailing melancholy and self-pity as she heads to the anemic tree behind the inn. She could just buy a souvenir like a normal tourist, but that feels like cheating. She scrubs her boots in the dirt around its base carefully, trying to keep as much dirt as possible on the soles, as if this is the solemn, crucial part of a spell.

The concierge-bellhop-and-room-service is staring confusedly at her from the top window. She waves cheerily and blows him a kiss – shocking him into retreat – because she doesn't yet know enough Greek to tell him that the only way she can leave is if she carries a little bit of this away with her, on her feet.

Inside the room, she takes off her boots carefully and pulls out the battered map in her trunk, affixing it to the wall with a haphazard charm. Shutting her eyes, she scrabbles on the wardrobe behind her until she grabs a handful of toffees from the half-open bag, and flings them in the general vicinity of the wall. She peers through one eye and then the other, and then whispers "Land ho!" on sighting a telltale gold splotch stuck to a land mass. Stalking closer, she plucks the toffee off the wall and taps the map with her wand until she can see the place clearly. She pops the candy into her mouth and murmurs the name under her breath until she has it memorized. Maastricht, Maastricht, Maastricht.

It doesn't take long go. She's already packed, and the Greek Embassy is almost too full of helpful wizards and witches. She's got her Portkey set up and ready in under two days, and both her suitcases stuffed in a wristlet from her Aunt Hermione an hour before it leaves. She shuts her eyes, and can't decide if it's a prayer or a wish when she begins to chant No rain, no rain, no rain.

Happily, there is no rain. There is also very little sky, and too much shade. But, after so many mountains and expansive farms in Greece, there is something comforting about the city streets. If she closes her eyes, she can pretend she is being cradled by the hum of a million heartbeats pressing against her. At her unfortunate hour of waking (she really ought to bully Vic or Roxy into inventing a spell for jetlag) there is something about the way the light touches the buildings which makes it look almost like London.

She unpacks her belongings into the rented flat, and traces her fingers over the lacquered box she bought in the gullies of Delhi. She can't actually remember the market, but inside the box, within a vial marked Spring 2030, is the fierce throng of people dashing and squabbling through the streets, the bright colours of a hundred dresses strung out for display and the jangle of jewelry amidst the harsh symphony of the street.

She runs her fingers across the box one more time, a bone-deep satisfaction in carrying all of these cities with her, pristine and beautiful and untouched by time or distance, before she replaces it on her highest shelf, far from the prying eyes of anyone who walks in. She carefully digs out the travel boots, and slips them on before she twines the bright scarf she's grown to favor around her throat. The box is always the second-to-last thing she puts away, and then the boots. She's almost tacked the scarf on to the routine, but it still teeters on the edge of being permanent. She swirls on a leathery brown coat over her blouse, and swirls herself out and into the city.