Chapter Three: The Great Escape
"Well…." I said aloud while I was thinking about where I should start.
Ron saw my hesitant response to his question, so he asked, "Why did you leave after the Battle at Hogwarts?"
"As you know," I began. "Voldemort killed my whole family and I was alone." I held my hand up because Ron began interrupting me. "I know I wasn't truly alone I had Seamus, Ginny, Harry, Hermione, you, and the rest of you family, but I don't think I could've relied on the help of your family for much longer. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that your brothers suggested that I live above their shop, but I didn't want people to pity me and feel sorry for me. I had to leave. So one night I packed my belongings into my trunk, left the shop, and headed to Gringotts. I got out all my money in my vault, had it exchanged to muggle money, and went back to the shop to grab my trunk. Once there, I thought of the place where my family and I had gone on vacation in the States a few years back. I quickly apparated to a hotel not far from where we had stayed."
"I shrunk my trunk and put it into my pocket so I could check into the hotel. I got in my room and waited until morning before I went looking for a place where I could live. I knew that no one in the States would recognize me. I guess I was wrong," I said looking at Ron sheepishly. "So what brings you here anyways?"
He looked at me and said, "I'll get to that later. Why did you leave without telling anybody? When Seamus came to check up on you the next day, he was worried that something bad had happened to you. He thought that some Death Eaters had gotten you. Even though most of them were dead or locked up in Azkaban, but there were a few who fled before they could be captured. He sent a patronus to the Order and waited. When they showed up, they investigated and came to the conclusion that you either ran away (hence why your stuff was missing) or someone kidnapped you and took your stuff with them to make it look like you had run away.
"They said that if someone had killed you they would've left your body to find. So, we began searching for you and the remaining Death Eaters. We looked for you for two years before we concluded that someone had killed you. Seamus was devastated, he was depressed for months. Not that he wasn't depressed while we were looking for you, he just assumed that we would find you. He ended up marrying Lavender Brown," Ron said looking up at me.
"I know," I said softly. Ron looked at me, bewildered. I got up and walked to the trunk that was in the corner of the room. I opened it and removed the blankets that were in it and took out the false bottom. I picked up all the Daily Prophets that I saved and walked back over to him. I showed him the papers and sat down.
He looked through them and back up at me. "You….you knew all this time, you knew that we were looking for you and you didn't bother to write anyone," he said.
"I tried to," I told Ron, getting up once more. This time I walked into my bedroom to get what I wanted. When I came back, I had a shoebox in my hands. I gave Ron the box and said, "I just didn't have the courage to send them." Ron was opening the box. I had written many letters over the past seven years telling everybody that I was okay. The box I handed Ron was one of many full of letters. I sat down in the beanbag chair on the floor and put my chin on my knees.
"So what brings you to this part of the world?" I asked him.
He started to say, "Auror bus….," but was interrupted by a knock on the door. I zoned out before I went to open the door. I had started thinking about how I was almost caught by a knock on the door on the night of my great escape.