Homecoming



A/N: Well, this is an interesting little frolic in my crazy mind. . . .I hope you enjoy. It's a bit angsty, I'm not exactly sure what happens next, and PG-13 for my potty mouth. I'm a pyromaniac myself, so flames are permitted if you absolutely feel the need. Constructive criticism is eternally appreciated!!! So please review, especially Kain, Gypsy, Flourish, Slytherin Dragon, Alicia Spinnet, Dobby (Fudge's friend), and Morrigan, because you guys rock!



Disclaimer: I am she and she is me and we are all together. Peace out.



Disclaimer to disclaimer: This disclaimer belongs to the illustrious Flourish. I don't think Flourish will mind that I've borrowed it. . . .see above.

Harry Potter looked out the window of the airplane and watched as the lights of New York City shrank below him to faint neon blurs. He shook the plastic glass of brandy he held in his hand, took a careful sip, and rested his forehead against the cold glass of the window, sighing, his eyes closed. All he wanted was to get drunk maybe and fall gently into a cushioned, sleepy haze where he could forget-forget the place he was leaving, forget the place he was returning to. Things were so much nicer when one is under the influence. Easier. Simpler. And somehow softer, in the same comforting way that the world looked when Harry took off his glasses-lines losing their biting sharpness, faces their distinctions.

But the brandy was his fourth, and the stewardess, a twiggy thing with blond hair and a smile that were both all too fake, had shot him a suspicious look when he had ordered it, though she had kept her mouth thankfully shut-you could get away with anything in first class, which was the way Harry was flying. And why shouldn't he, since the Minister of Magic himself had paid for Harry to take this trip?

Harry opened his eyes and straightened his glasses, wincing as everything came back into clarity too quickly. He took a last glance out the window. America. A haven for the oppressed. It had been his haven for the past seven years, but it hadn't become home.

At first America had seemed like a sure thing. He'd been the star player for the Miami Devils, which was possibly the best Quidditch team in the American league, enjoyed a popularity with the ladies while raking in a couple million a year, which he'd mostly squandered one way or another. For some reason, even as a kid Harry had never known what to do with large amounts of money. Somehow, it had never really mattered to him.

Four years into the whole deal Harry had taken a nasty fall that messed up his right arm so much that it was never quite the same again. He'd lost his place with the Devils soon afterward, not so much because Harry didn't play well, but because he didn't want to play well. Harry had always privately considered Quidditch a temporary thing, something to hold him over while he grew up, and he'd been eager to spend some time wandering the United States. He had enough money so that he could go where he pleased, staying a week here, a couple of months there, finding himself. It had been the idleness that had led him to the drink, Harry now understood with more certainty than he cared to-regret was something that could eat you up inside. As his meandering path wound on, Harry grew more and more restless, more dependent on alcohol to survive, doing everything but really gaining nothing, and meanwhile the darkness grew larger-he felt like there was some kind of hole inside him, through which all the happiness was leaking out.

Three years older and a staggering two million dollars poorer, Harry was going back to the country he was born in, feeling somewhat older than twenty-seven, disillusioned, very much lost, and so tired he often wished he could sleep into eternity, until all his troubles faded with time. America had lost the charm it had with novelty, but Harry was apprehensive about returning to the people who really knew him and therefore becoming vulnerable again. About seeing the Minister of Magic, who also happened to be his old best friend, and letting him see what he'd become.

When he'd defeated Voldemort for good in his seventh year a Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry had thought his troubles were over.

And then life punched him in the face.



********************************



A violent jolting and shaking in the plane cabin woke Harry up. For a few terrifying seconds, Harry thought the plane was going to crash. Then he realized that they had already landed, and was ashamed for having panicked. He took a steadying sip of his watery brandy as the stewardess bid them good bye over the intercom in a syrupy voice.

"I'm not going to die," he muttered very quietly with a small smirk. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

London International Airport was a flurry of weary travelers rushing from one place to another. Harry fought through the tides of people toward the baggage claim, thankful that he had the sense to carry only two things-a long wand of holly wood and a battered leather wallet, both of which fit neatly into a hidden pocket on the inside of his suit jacket.

Harry found a little booth near the baggage claim where he changed eight hundred dollars for pounds, making the little man behind the plastic counter fumble about annoyingly. As he turned from the booth and stepped into the current of travelers again, he crashed into a young woman who was hurrying by.

"Oh, excuse me, sorry about that," Harry said as the pile of papers the woman was holding scattered in all directions. He crouched quickly to help collect the papers, offering her a sheepish smile. The woman, who appeared to be Harry's age, was small and very attractive, with thick, shoulder-length brown hair and light cinnamon eyes that were so familiar it shocked Harry when he looked into them.

"It's quite all right," the woman said, not taking the hand Harry held out to her and getting up herself. Harry, feeling a little miffed, glanced at the paper he had picked up before returning it. It appeared to be some sort of exam; "Gina Preston" was scribbled at the top and the same girlish writing filled the blank space beneath typed questions.

"You're a teacher?" Harry asked, handing her the exam.

"A schoolmistress," the woman answered, taking the paper, "and a teacher, yes. I'm grading final exams." She peered up at him thoughtfully. Harry had, once again, upon looking into her pretty brown eyes, the impression that he had met her before-not only that he had met her, but that he had known her.

"Do I know you?" she asked suddenly, eerily voicing Harry's thoughts. "You look terribly familiar."

"I was just thinking the same thing," Harry replied. A brief thought scuttled across his mind. "Do you think we went to the same school or something?"

"I highly doubt that," she said quickly, flashing a tiny smile that made her even more familiar. A shadowy memory was dancing just beyond his grasp. . .

"Well, I wasn't sure myself," Harry said, thinking of Hogwarts and the practically nonexistent likelihood that she was from there-yet she had acted like she was thinking the same thing-"but did you go to a boarding school? In Scotland?"

"Why, yes!" the young woman said, frowning quizzically. "Shall we head on to the baggage claim?" she asked cordially. "My name is Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

For a moment Harry thought his heart was exploding. He could hear it pounding in his ears, an urgent tattoo that seemed to be saying Remember, remember. . . First was the name-Hermione Granger, his old best friend from Hogwarts. But that wasn't all. The very way she had said it seemed familiar, too-the memory surfaced suddenly, sending Harry reeling. . .

Harry was sitting with his new friend Ron Weasley on the Hogwarts Express, rushing towards the wizard school that his dead parents had attended, the school where he might find friends and a home. But what if Harry really wasn't a wizard? What if he got there and they told him they'd made a mistake? He thought of returning to the Dursleys again and shuddered.

Ron was attempting to perform a spell on his pet rat, Scabbers, who was sleeping peacefully by the window. Just as he raised his battered wand, a girl entered into their compartment, in her wake the boy who had wandered in a few minutes ago looking for a toad.

"Has anyone seen a toad?" the girl asked in a bossy sort of voice. "Neville's lost one." The girl had lots of bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth. She looked over at Ron. "Oh, are you doing magic?"she asked, sitting down. "Let's see it, then."

Ron rolled up his sleeves and pointed his wand at Scabbers, who was still slumbering unsuspectingly. He cleared his throat nervously and said:

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,

Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

Nothing happened. The brown-haired girl launched into a lengthy monologue in which she bluntly commented on the ineffectiveness of Ron's spell (while Ron rolled his eyes and exchanged a weary look with Harry), ending with a breathless "My name's Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

And what had Harry said? Oh yes, the first words he had spoken to Hermione-his name-

"Harry Potter."



"Harry Potter," Harry said.



"Oh, are you?" the eleven-year-old Hermione had replied, cocking her head to one side and looking at him with interest. "I know all about you of course. You're in Important Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century and Recent Triumphs over the Dark Arts. . ."



"Oh my God," the twenty-seven-year-old Hermione whispered. After this brief reply she just stood there, dumbstruck for the first time in her life, staring at Harry as if he'd said something thousands of times more significant than a simple name-which, in a way, he had.

Then she dropped her papers for a second time, forgetting about them as she breached the gap of four feet and seven years between them and threw her arms around him. Harry laughed softly and pulled her into a hug, a bittersweet joy filling him as he held her, his arms wrapped tentatively at first, then securely, around her waist. How long had it been? Much longer than seven years, certainly.

"Oh, Harry!" she cried, her words muffled against his shoulder. Harry could hear the tears in her voice and squeezed her closer.

"It's me," he whispered. "It's alright," he added lamely, not knowing what the hell he meant by that and feeling a strange aching in his chest.

Hermione slowly drew away, her bright eyes questing his face for something. "Where have you been?" she asked in a very small voice.

"America," Harry said, stooping to collect the test papers for the second time. "Playing Quidditch. Bumming around. And you, Headmistress Granger?" he asked half-mockingly, throwing her a smirk.

Hermione took the papers from him absently, still looking intently at him. "Oh, yes," she said vaguely. "I teach Charms too. . ."

"The incarnation of Minerva McGonagall," Harry said teasingly. "I should have known."

"It's not such a bad thing to be," Hermione replied with a trace of her old sharpness, but she lacked her usual snappish tone. "Harry. . ."

"What?"

Hermione then did something completely unexpected-she reached up, brushed aside the still-untidy hair that fell over Harry's face, and traced the thin, lightning-shaped scar on his forehead with a careful finger. Harry felt himself trembling, and though he tried to steady himself, he couldn't stop.

"It's you," Hermione whispered finally, dropping her arm to her side. "I couldn't believe it. . .but it is. Harry Potter. . ."

"The one and only," Harry replied, trying to seem offhand, but he was still trembling a little. What the hell had she just done?

"Harry. . ."she said again, seeming to not hear him.

"Come on," he muttered, putting an arm around her shoulders, and shaking her gently,"let's go. We're getting looks. . ." Harry glared around at the crowd that was eyeing them curiously. Why couldn't they mind their own damn business? If it was something about Muggles, about people in general, that annoyed Harry, it was the fact that they were all so damn nosy.

"Oh, right," Hermione murmured back, dazedly letting Harry steer her towards the baggage claim. As they waited in the packed area for their luggage to be regurgitated out of the shoot, Harry's arm still around Hermione's shoulders, Hermione looked up at him.

"But why, Harry," she asked. "Why? Why did you go? Weren't you. . .happy. . .here?"

Harry averted his eyes. "No," he said after awhile, shaking his head. "I mean, I was happy, but then again I wasn't."

"I-I don't understand."

Why the hell can't you? Why the hell can't I understand? the dark part of Harry wanted to scream, not for the first time, loud enough so that the world-and himself-could hear it, to no one in particular. But he knew the whole thing was crazy. He really knew it. So instead he said, "It's alright. You don't have to," and let his arm slide slowly off of Hermione's shoulders. But her hand caught his arm on the way down, and she held it, firmly, as if she were saying, I'm not going to let you go. But Harry wasn't going anywhere. Not this time. No matter how much he wanted to.

Harry knew he was being vague, but he didn't think he could tell anyone how he felt. He had gotten used to "grin and bear it" when he had still been in Britain, and he didn't really have to explain in America, (another one of the States' charms-ambiguity), where the people he knew after his fling with Quidditch were all Muggles. Harry hadn't been expecting understanding when he came back. How could he, when he didn't rightly understand himself?

Thankfully, Harry didn't have to tear himself apart in introspection, as the baggage finally emerged and made its endless round on the conveyor belt. He just spotted his suitcase, a brand-new snobby leather thing he had purchased for an exorbitant amount of money in a bout of pre-journey craziness, as it slogged past, and snatched it up. As he hefted the unfamiliar handle and propped up the bulky monstrosity, Harry remembered the battered duffel bag he had traveled with during his last three years on the road. He had thrown it away before he left, along with all his other superfluous possessions. Everything that Harry didn't pack in the new bag was gotten rid of, just as Harry had done when he had first left Britain-disposing of anything that might bind him to the place he was leaving.

As Hermione grabbed a compact black suitcase from the shuffling mound of luggage Harry asked, "Where are you going now?"

"I'm getting a cab. To the Ministry building. You?"

"That's where I'm headed, too," Harry said. He should have known R-the Minister had called Hermione, too. He wondered what this was all about. As they stepped out of the glass doors of the airport into the busy street and cool autumn air, Harry muttered to Hermione, "We need to talk, don't we?"

She glanced at him sidelong-another searching look. "Yes," she said softly, after a moment. "We do."

Harry rubbed his bare hands together and shivered. It was cold outside for his light suit. It was cold inside, too, in a very different way. "Do you want to go out for coffee or something? I'd rather go to a Muggle place, if you don't mind. I-I don't want to be-"

"-recognized?" Hermione finished gently for him. "Yes, of course. That I can understand." But she glanced at him quickly, as if she quite didn't. Harry wasn't really worried about being recognized. He was worried about recognizing someone else. About getting all emotional. Homecoming, he thought wryly, isn't as easy as they make it out to be.

"What are we going to do with our luggage?" Harry asked, brushing away his thoughts, which were getting too philosophical lately for his liking.

"Honestly, Harry, don't tell me you forgot everything while you were in the States," said Hermione in a superior sort of voice that was obviously the one she used in the classroom. She scanned the opposite side of the street. "Aha! Perfect!" she said, grabbing Harry's arm and hurrying him across the street along with a flock of luggage-toting pedestrians. Once they were on the other side of the busy way, Hermione pulled Harry into an alley just as the chattering flock passed. No one gave them a second glance.

"Where the hell are we going?" Harry hissed at Hermione.

"Where I'm taking you," she replied mysteriously. "And don't you dare curse at me, Harry Potter." Harry snorted softly but followed her.

After several sharp turns through the alleyway, which twisted along erratically through the shabby back streets of apartment buildings, restaurants, and small businesses, Hermione stopped suddenly.

"Here we are!" she said, smiling at Harry and setting down her bag. Harry ran his fingers through his hair, which was no doubt pushed up in all different directions after chasing Hermione, and peered around. They were in an alleyway that looked exactly like the ones they had been rushing through for the last five minutes-damp, gray, and dirty. Harry turned to Hermione.

"What do you mean, 'Here we are' ?" Harry asked, completely lost and a little irritated for being so.

"You'll see," Hermione replied, turning away from him and staring very intently at the smudgy brick wall on their left. "Bingo," she whispered after a few seconds, drawing out her wand and touching the tip of it to a brick that looked identical to the others.

"Wha-" Harry began, but Hermione cut him off.

"Abertem portem transitem," she chanted, tapping her wand firmly on the brick in time with each word. Then she stood back.

Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then the brick she had tapped seemed to wiggle slightly. Soon the bricks around it began to undulate as if seen through a fire, and with a soft squelching sound a space three feet wide and long appeared as the bricks melted into a muddy red pool at the foot of the wall.

"What did you just do?" Harry asked, astounded. "And-and what is that?" he added, pointing to a wide shoot that was visible through the hole. It looked remarkably like a laundry shoot except for the fact that it was silvery-blue and glimmered iridescently.

Hermione glanced at Harry, an amused smile on her face. "What exactly did you do in America," she said softly, "that you forgot about magic?" In her normal business-like tone she continued, "This is a transit port. You can put just about anything through this shoot, and it will come out in the laundry room of your choice. The Minister had them installed all over London last year."

"But how did you find it?"

"Easy," Hermione said with a shrug. "You can get to a transit port from any alley in London. Just enter, make two left turns and three rights, and you'll get to a brick wall on your left as soon as you make the last right turn. Count five bricks from the left and seven up, say the magic words, and viola!-a transit port." She stooped, picked up her bag, and set it on the lip of the shoot. "Your bag, monsieur?" she added, gesturing with a pompous flourish towards the waiting shoot.

Harry scooped up his bag and placed in next to Hermione's rather nervously. "You're staying at the Leaky Cauldron, I assume," she asked quickly. Harry nodded. Hermione tapped both suitcases with her wand, said firmly, "The Leaky Cauldron," and shoved the bags into the tube, where they disappeared from sight with a sound like a zipper being pulled.

"Cerrem," she muttered when the luggage was gone, and the red pool surged up and plastered itself over the hole. Within three seconds, the brick wall was back, looking as scummy as ever.

"Wow," Harry murmured. "Guess I-I did forget. America was-well-"

"It's all right," Hermione said reassuringly, dusting off her skirt and replacing her wand in her jacket pocket. "You can tell me all about it over coffee."

**************************



The café they chose was large and very noisy, full of people chatting animatedly and quaffing caffeine with gusto. No one even glanced in their direction when they entered, which sealed the decision for Harry. They took a small table tucked into a corner at the back, and ordered their drinks at the counter to avoid a waiter. No doubt anyone who happened to notice their presence would think them to be two young, attractive, upwardly-mobile businesspeople, getting together to negotiate casually over expresso and danish. How wrong they would be.

"So why are you here? In London, I mean," Harry asked, watching Hermione take a slow sip of her coffee.

"Same reason as you, unless I'm terribly mistaken," she said. "Ron-er-the Minister owled me over. I've been in France for the past week, acting as a guest headmistress at a school there, but I flew in as soon as I got Ron's note."

Harry nodded. "I was wondering why you were in the airport. I would have expected you to take the train from Hogwarts."

"It's extremely lucky I didn't," Hermione said bluntly, "or I wouldn't have run into you."

Harry smiled slowly. "I suppose it is lucky." Harry doubted that he would have had the nerve to actually go see Ron again if chance-or fate-hadn't led him to bump into Hermione. "But what did his letter say?" Harry continued. All he wrote in mine was that it was an 'extremely urgent and delicate matter for which he required my counsel' or some bureaucratic nonsense like that."

"I'm glad he wasn't so pompous with me," Hermione said, laughing, "or I would have most likely refused him royally and sent him a very nasty reply. Or else I'd have agreed to come and then slapped him on sight. Poor Ron, I think he's getting into this Minister stuff a bit too much. Next thing I know he'll be wearing a lime-green bowler hat and a purple tie like that old fool, Fudge." Hermione sighed and leaned her elbows on the table as she continued. "But they've been running him ragged since they elected him two years ago, you know. And everything's so difficult these days. Those Muggles are getting more and more suspicious."

"You know, I never thought Ron would be the Minister type," Harry said before he could stop himself. "I mean, not that I thought he couldn't do it or anything. . ." he added quickly, floundering for words.

"It's alright," Hermione said, smiling. "Neither did Ron himself, I think. But he just warmed up to the government thing right away. He's very good at what he does. I think it has something to do with his talent at chess. He plays the whole system very well, as if it were a game. And the old bureaucrats thought they could control him if he was Minister, so they elected him. They're giving him a hard time, but he's figured out how to play them all like pawns so they don't even know it."

"Odd," Harry commented, frowning.

"What is it?"

"It's just-the way you describe it, he sounds almost like-like Malfoy."

Hermione laughed again. "How funny you should say that," she said, "as our favorite Malfoy himself is Ron's right hand man!"

Harry jerked his head up in stark disbelief. "What?! Malfoy-Ron's right hand man?! Back at Hogwarts I had to practically nail Ron down to keep him from throttling Malfoy every five seconds! And Malfoy-all those mean cuts about Ron's family. . . .What the hell happened?"

"A lot can change in seven years, Harry," Hermione said, looking highly amused at Harry's incredulous outburst. "I expect Ron-or Malfoy, I wouldn't be surprised if he was in on this too-will want to give you the full story himself. Even I don't know the details."

Harry shook his head and took a gulp of coffee. "Amazing. Next thing you'll be telling me that you're dating Neville Longbottom."

"Actually, Neville and I were planning to get together this weekend. . ." Hermione began. Harry half looked up but sighed, relieved, when he saw that Hermione was grinning wickedly.

"Okay, back to your original question," Hermione continued, cupping her mug in both hands, "the letter. Well, Ron was annoyingly cryptic about the whole thing. Said he had something very important to tell me, something only he knew about. Something he couldn't take care of alone. . ."

"So he called his two best friends," Harry said, nodding. "He thinks we'll be able to help him with whatever it is. I can understand that-you're one of the most talented witches in England. No, don't deny it, Hermione," Harry continued quickly with a slight smile just as Hermione opened her mouth to protest. "Even when we were kids it showed. You were a prefect in your fourth year, before anyone else, and you were Head Girl and all. But I don't know why he bothered tracking me down. I'm as good as a squib," he added bitterly.

"Bullshit if I ever heard any," Hermione said breezily, but fixing him with a look that was not light and breezy at all. It was rather stormy, in fact. "If I'm one of the most talented witches in England, then you were-are," she corrected herself, "the most powerful wizard in England, maybe even in the world. You'd give even Dumbledore a run for his money. And you were a Head student, too, Harry," she pointed out.

Harry peered up at her over the rim of his glasses, which had slipped considerably."You were right the first time. I was a powerful wizard." Harry glanced down at his hands as they rested on the tabletop-what power they once had. He remembered the magic flowing through his taut hands with a hot, fevered buzzing, the way the tendons would tense when he performed a particularly difficult spell. Now his hands just looked tired. The fingers were curled up a little, making them look like the afraid hands of a child. There was no strength anymore in the narrow wrists or the slim fingers. No more magic. No more-"And as for that Head Boy stuff, look at where it's got me. I'm an ex-Quidditch player with a fucked-up arm and a habit. What success." Harry's voice cracked painfully on the last few words. He let out a choked, sardonic laugh. It sounded terrible in Hermione's silence.

For a few moments neither said anything. Then, very slowly, as if she were afraid he would shrink away, Hermione placed her hands over Harry's. The strange aching was back, and Harry was acutely aware of the wholeness that had eluded him all these years.

"I-I hadn't meant it to come out that way," Harry began, his voice jumping all over the place.

"It's alright, Harry," Hermione said quietly. "You can tell me."

"But I can't!" he said, in the voice of a frightened little boy. When had he become such a wimp? "Not-not here. Not now."

"Then when?" Hermione asked anxiously. "When will you tell me?" Her hands tightened over Harry's suddenly. "I'm your best friend, Harry. I was since the day I met you sixteen years ago, and I still am, although you haven't spoken to me in seven years. And I always will be. Please, Harry." Harry looked up, and she was staring at him, her eyes wide and urgent and a little hurt. Harry hated to leave her in the dark like this, but what could he do? If Hermione had known what he had done all these years, what would she think?

"You'd hate me if I told you, Hermione," Harry said, his voice cracking like it hadn't in more than ten years.

"No, I wouldn't!"

`

"You would," Harry said miserably.

"Oh, Harry, I wouldn't hate you for playing Quidditch! You were always good at it. . ."

"It's not that," Harry said. "After I stopped playing, I just-fell apart. Really crumbled."

"You don't look it, Harry. . ."

"You didn't even recognize me! If you knew how I was. . . .you wouldn't recognize that person, either, Hermione. I was really low."

"Bullshit."

Harry groaned. "You don't understand! I've changed! I really was a jerk in America. . . I used people, Hermione, when I fell apart. I'm a fucking alcoholic, for Chrissake! I can't even tell you about it. . . "

"Yes, you can!" Hermione argued. "It's me, Harry. It's Hermione."

"That's the problem." Harry pinched his eyes shut. "If you knew what I did!"

"Harry, just tell me! It can't be that terrible. You're still Harry."

"I don't know who the hell Harry is anymore," Harry muttered bitterly. "Hermione, when I killed Voldemort, you don't know what happened, do you?" Harry said in a low voice. Hermione frowned.

"Remember that time in our third year at Hogwarts, when Sirius Black was on the loose?" Harry continued, resolved. "And you, Ron, and I went into the Shrieking Shack, and Sirius and Lupin took Scabbers and turned him back into Peter Pettigrew?" Hermione nodded, transfixed by his words.

"But I don't know what you're getting at. . ."

"Just hear me out, Hermione!" Harry said. It was rather ironic. . .now he was asking Hermione to listen to him. "Well, Sirius was about to kill him, and I stopped him. Remember that? How I said I didn't think my dad-" Harry choked, swallowed back tears-"my dad would have killed him, no matter what he did?"

"Oh, Harry, I was so proud of you then," Hermione burst out. "You really did the right thing. . ."

"But I did something terrible," he said, ignoring her words. "Later. Something my dad never would have done. No one knows about it except me and Dumbledore, and now Ron. . ."

"What the hell. . ."

"When I faced Voldemort, before I killed him, something happened. . ." Harry clutched Hermione's hands just thinking about it. He remembered it even now, the pain, and then the thing that happened next. . . .



Haha! Cliffhanger! Mwahahahah! Katie Bell, come and get me! I'm ready for anything. . .::cackles wildly::