A.N.: This is a rather strange story. It begins with a letter that Harry is writing, and I'll let you discover the rest. I don't know how it's going to turn out.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for Lysandria. J.K. Rowling and her publishers do. I'm not making any money off of this, and I don't plan upon ever doing so.
Hermione, I know you're never going read this, because I'll never have the courage to send it. That would be too hard. ItÕs not the trouble of finding where you live -- thatÕs easy, all you need is a simple location charm for that. ItÕs what would happen after I found out. After I could. I canÕt send you this letter, Hermione, because IÕm too scared of what you might see.
I'm not frightened of what I'd see in you. I know you are successful, Hermione, because you always have been. There's no doubt in my mind that your somewhere, happy, successful. I'm sure you've done all and more than anyone ever expected of you, because that's your nature, Hermione.
It's what you're going to see when you see what I've become. I'm too afraid of what you'll think when you know. I don't want you to see what I've done to my life, chasing after silly ambitions, hoping for things I never should have hoped for. I'm too afraid that you'll abandon me and want to forget me if you see this; I want you to stay the way you are, blissfully ignorant of the path I chose, probably thinking I'm successful, and still liking me because of it. I'm too afraid you'll really hate me if you see what I've done to my life.
I started trying Quidditch; that would have worked if I hadn't been permanently injured by the Bludger. Then I wanted to be the Minister of Magic; maybe I could have done that if I'd had the patience and ability to start small and rise up the ranks. I wanted to be an Auror; that might have worked if I hadn't made that one stupid blunder, the one mistake amongst so many victories. Every thing I tried ended up collapsing and dying.
So now I'm just a sales clerk in a small wizarding region of a city here in England, selling potions ingredients and other ditties. It's a completely French place -- settled by the Normans, no one can even speak English -- but I can't even speak French properly. That's how much of a failure I am. Not only am I wasting my life being a nothing and doing stupid things, but I haven't even learned anything, haven't even adapted to my new life.
I've had my scar removed, no one recognizes me, no one cares about me. I'm a nobody, someone that doesn't matter, who gives you your frog spawn and then lets you go without even a goodbye. No one really cares about me anymore, and I'm too afraid that you won't either when you find out. That's why I can't tell you right now.
Sure, people used to care about me. Oh yes, I got your letters. Everyone was sending me letters, at first, when I was on the Quidditch team. "Dear Harry, how are you?" "Dear Harry, I hope you're well." "Dear Harry, you're doing so well, congratulations." You wrote to me, too, Hermione. I remember. I knew.
But I thought that this was all over. I was on the Quidditch team, therefore you and Ron and everyone else didn't matter. You and Ron weren't "cool" enough to be the friend of Harry Potter, world famous English seeker, defeater of Voldemort. Now I was friends only with the Žlite, the Quidditch team and a few select others.
I shouldn't have done that. What I used to be speculating I now know: you were one the best friends I could ever have had, I should have stayed with you. The people who I befriended only cared about me, were only my friends, when I was also Žlite. Once I was just an ordinary person again, I didn't matter to them. I should have known from the beginning how it was. But I chose not to, I preferred to be ignorant of all of this, because it brought me bliss.
I wish I could tell you all this, but I already told you, I'm too afraid to. It would free my soul so much if I could just see you one more time, and tell you, and you would forgive me. But I'm too afraid that if I see you that one more time, and if I do tell you, you won't forgive me. And after all, I hardly deserve to be forgiven. I did something terrible, something that I don't know if I'd be able to forgive myself.
If you knew who I am, would you forgive me? If you knew everything I want to tell you, if you knew everything I'm writing to you now, Hermione, would you still like me? Would you forgive me, or would you forget me? I'm too afraid that you'll want to forget me if you find out, and because of that, I can't send this letter that I wish with all my heart I could send.
I'm feeling really bad right now, Hermione. You were more in my life, meant more to me, than I could ever tell you, and even if I find the words to tell you, how can I come up to you and say them? You meant so much to me, you were so special, and without you and Ron to laugh with, to be with, my life is feeling empty.
Hermione, my heart is weeping silent tears for you. Is yours weeping any for me?
Harry sighed and set down his quill. He put his head in his hands and wondered just why he kept on writing these letters to Ron and Hermione. He knew he'd never send them; he'd admitted as much. So what was the point? Why was he writing letters no one but himself would ever read.
Harry felt a salty tear run down his cheek. He wished these letters would at least help him feel a little better about what was happening in his life, but he knew they didn't. He looked at the small clock that sat on his desk, and noticed that he was supposed to have been at the shop, selling the ingredients, ten minutes ago.
Harry started to stand up to go back to his monotonous work at the shop, but paused. "Why should I?" he asked himself. "What's the point? I might as well just stay here, for all the world cares about me. For all the world knows me. For all the world wants me to be here. Hermione's forgotten about me, so has Ron, no one remembers me. What's the point of going to work?" Harry angrily crumpled the letter into a wad of paper and shoved it into the little wastebasket.
"You need your work to make money so that you can keep on living, " Harry reminded himself, as if he didn't know.
But nevertheless, Harry wondered why he should even try to live. "To hell with it all, " he muttered. "I'm not even going to bother to try it. There's no point in living when there's no one and nothing to live for."
Before he went to lay down in bed, Harry forced himself to throw out the many papers in his wastebasket. All of them went into the large dumpster...except for one large sheet of parchment, in a crumpled ball, that Harry hadn't noticed. It blew away in the wind.
Hermione walked down the street in Hogsmeade with Lysandria, her four-year-old daughter, and Ron, savoring the moment. Soon, she'd be back at Hogwarts, teaching History of Magic (which had become a much more interesting subject since Prof. Binns left), only seeing Ron and Lysandria for the short time she had each day after work. She smiled, happy for her success and that she had fulfilled things which had been in her dreams since she was a small child.
Hermione was contented, yet she knew there was something missing from her life, a void that wasn't filled, though she tried to pretend it was. Her heart, again ached for Harry. "But," she reminded herself sternly, "He's somewhere else. He's forgotten you, and he's not about to come back. He obviously doesn't want me anymore. Just forget it, Hermione, forget it."
Hermione quickly put Harry out of her mind, deciding it would do no good to linger on his memory. She smiled at her little daughter, who smiled back. Then something caught Lysandria's eye. It was a small, crumpled piece of paper, blowing down the street. Lysandria eagerly chased after it, wanting to pick it up.
Hermione smiled at her daughters figure as she ran after her. Her daughter's hair, bushy like her own but red like Ron's, was blown about by the wind, and she looked happily as she frolicked about in the street, chasing the paper, which seemed trivial to Hermione but was extremely important to Lysandria. Hermione had recently taught her young daughter to read, and ever since, she'd been trying to read any sheet of paper she could find in her path.
Lysandria finally managed to catch up with the paper. She smoothed it out and began to read it. After a short moment she said, "Mum! It's got your name on it!"
Hermione said curiously, "Is that so? What does it say?" She couldn't imagine what piece of paper with her name could be blowing around, and Hermione wasn't exactly a common name.
Lysandria began to read in her sweet little voice, which, even when struggling to read a word sounded like a songbird's, "Hermione, I k-k-k, I know you...you...you're never go..." She stopped, saying, "Mummy, help me with this word, I can't read it."
Hermione was now becoming very interested. She knew something strange was going on here, but when she looked over at the letter, she was shocked; the letter was written in Harry's hand. She hadn't seen Harry in years -- about sixteen by now -- but she knew that she would recognize his handwriting anywhere.
As she read through the letter, tears glistened in her eyes. "Of course I'd forgive you, Harry," she thought, though she couldn't say it aloud. "I'd be your friend no matter what." She past it to Ron, who was looking quite concerned, with a shaking hand, and said in an unsteady voice, "Y-you won't b-believe this."
As Ron read the letter, he clutched Hermione's hand, saying, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this. We should never have left Harry. We should have made sure not to lose touch with him, even if he didn't ever talk to us." They held each other's hands, tears running down their cheeks, remembering their nearly-forgotten friend.
Lysandria looked at her parents, shocked. They had always been stable, an unwavering support, and it was scary for her to see them like this. "I...I'm sorry," she said, unable to think of anything else to tell her parents.
Finally, her mother smiled through her tears. "You have nothing to be sorry for, my little one, " she told her daughter. "We have you to thank for letting us rediscover Harry." Then, Hermione and Ron stood up, and resumed walking, with a bewildered but obedient daughter who didn't understand anything that was going on around her.
Hermione sat on the bedroom floor, one hand around Ron and the other resting on the cold hardwood floor. "We have to find him, " she said, "but how?"
Ron looked at her, and she knew he would be looking surprised and almost comical if the situation weren't so important, saying, "Hermione, isn't it obvious? The location charm!"
"But Harry might have done the Untraceable Charm, " she said, wringing her hands. "It's more than likely than he has."
"Herm," he said, using the name he reserved for times that he wanted to comfort her, "Don't lose hope. Until we try it, we can't know."
"Well, all right," she said, "here goes nothing." She was frightened in her heart of doing this charm. She didn't know what she would feel if it didn't work, because she was depending on it to work. Abandoning Harry at a time like this would be just terrible. She had to find him, soon.
Her hand trembled but she held her wand steadily and forced her voice to stay calm. "Locator Harry Potter." She anxiously looked at the parchment, and saw the letters beginning to form on the parchment..."R-E-S."
She looked away, tears forming in her eyes and feeling without hope. She'd never tried this charm in her life, but could guess what R-E-S stood for: Restricted. They weren't allowed the information. Harry was hiding where he lived from them, from the world, and they were no more able to find out than anyone else was.
A few moments later, she heard Ron's voice, sounding almost distant as it interrupted her reverie. "Hermione?" it said, "What's wrong?"
"You know good well what's wrong, stop trying to comfort me," Hermione said, "Stop trying to right things that are wrong!"
"But, Hermione, " Ron said, gently, so that even Hermione's anger began to subside, "Hermione, it worked! We have the address."
"We...we know?" Hermione said, and a small sliver of hope was back in her voice. Cautiously, she pushed the parchment into view, and saw the word Resides, followed by an address. Feeling a sudden surge of happiness and of hope surging into her body and coursing through her veins, she hugged Ron and said, "Oh Ron. Oh Ron. Oh, I feel so..."
Hermione, Ron, and Lysandria all climbed into a small car. "Where are we going, where are we going?" Lysandria asked eagerly. It wasn't too often that they went on trips, as most of the time Hermione was occupied with Hogwarts work, so she was very excited by the prospect of a journey.
Ron smiled down fondly at his little daughter and stroked a finger through her pretty hair. "We're going to visit a friend of ours from school from a long, long time ago. Be nice to him, you don't know him but he's a very nice person."
"Okay, daddy, " Lysandria said, as her father started up the car.
Ron began to drive, looking for the small village Harry apparently lived in. They passed houses, lined with neat flower gardens, and each time he saw a sign, he wondered with a jump of his heart if they were about to enter into the town where Harry lived. But the signs went on, with no sign of Harry's village.
It seemed like forever, but eventually Ron sighted the sign. He pointed and said, "Hermione! Hermione, look, we've arrived! We've arrived at last!" Without even thinking, forgetting in their happiness that they were driving in a street, Ron and Hermione embraced.
"Daddy, watch out!" little Lysandria shrieked from the back seat. Hurriedly breaking from the embrace, Ron looked frantically out the window, and saw he was about to crash. He managed to right himself, and remained unscathed, though only barely. His heart beating quickly, scared, Ron made sure to keep his eye on the road for the rest of the drive to Harry's house.
They finally arrived. It was something that they couldn't have expected. Harry's house was small, falling apart, with paint chipping and a mess outside. However, in their happiness to be there at last, they hardly noticed this, and when they did, they waved it away, knowing that their were more important things about Harry than the state of his house.
Her finger trembling, Hermione rang the doorbell.
Harry sleepily rose from the bed as he herd the doorbell ring. He was a wreck, and hadn't been outside of his home for nearly three days -- not to work, not to the market, nowhere. He had given up.
Grumpily, Harry wondered who it was. "Probably the owner of the store, come to complain and fire me, " he grumbled to himself. "Can't he tell I've given up? Does he really have to come and tell me he's given up on me, too?"
The doorbell sounded again. Deciding that he might as well make them shut up and leave as soon as possible, he thrust the door open. What he saw in front of him wasn't his boss. They were three people who Harry could never have expected; though they had aged, they were unmistakably Ron, Hermione, and someone who had to be their daughter.
Harry put his hand on the doorknob, ready to slam it shut, not wanting to have to face them, not wanting to try to explain it all to them. But as he looked into the two faces, warm and bright, and the third, unknowing but still loving, he thought that perhaps they could understand. Maybe if I let them know, and if they can understand and help me through this, life will be worth it after all.
Suddenly, hardly knowing what he was doing himself, Harry clutched their hands. A smile lighting up his face that hadn't been there in sixteen years, he said "Ron? Hermione? I'm so sorry, I should never have abandoned you, you were the best friends I could ever have had." Knowing by their looks that he had already been forgiven, he said, "I have so much to tell you..."
A.N. That sucked. It may be the worst story I have ever written on fanfiction.net. Tell me what you think of it please. If you want me to write a sequel, in which they all talk to each other about what's been going on in their lives and such, please tell me in the review. I'm not planning on writing a sequel to this story unless someone wants me to, because I personally think it really stinks and is poorly written.