A/N: the updates may come slower, but I am still working on this, please be patient.

A/N 2: The wards to Grimmauld Place were changed - Hermione cannot get in there - no one form the Order can get in there anymore.

A/N3: AllWasWell07 - Thanks for the help - the error has been corrected.

A/N4: Thanks for the reviews and encouragement. For those readers who do not like the direction of this story - sorry - but it goes where my mind wanders...and it continues to wander in different ways form when I wrote the first few chapters...I hope you all continue to enjoy it though...

May 7, 1998

Hermione was poring over the documents she had received from the ministry while she was eating her dinner in the great hall. The quiet was disturbed as several members of the Weasley family came into the hall to join them for dinner. Ron was excitedly talking about the food that they would get to enjoy, while Ginny and George were both more somber as they approached the table.

For her part, Hermione was surprised to see them show up. She noted that Arthur and Molly hurriedly made their way to the head table and spoke with Minerva McGonagall. She was able to overhear part of the conversation, how the family just was not comfortable back at the Burrow yet, and thanking the headmistress for allowing them to come back to spend some more time with friends at Hogwarts.

Ginny and Ron sat down across from Hermione. Ron started shoveling food onto his plate and Ginny just looked over at the papers that Hermione had, wondering what she was doing.

"So, what do you have there?" asked the youngest Weasley.

Hermione then realized that Ginny was looking at the parchment sheets she was holding, and she blushed slightly as she felt she had been caught stalking Harry. "Oh, these?" she asked with trying to create a tone of indifference, "This is just a list of Harry's various properties. I'm still trying to figure out where he took off to and when he might come back."

Ginny eyed Hermione suspiciously, wondering if there was anything more to the comments. Ron, for his part, nearly sprayed food all over Hermione. "Give it a rest!" he exclaimed. "Can't you leave him alone, even for a few days? He said he needed to clear his head and that he would be back soon."

Hermione was furious with the young man who she was now embarrassed to have ever thought she could possibly be romantically interested in, with all of his boorish behaviors, lack of dependability and deplorable manners. "Ronald, in all of the letters that Harry sent out he most definitely did not say he would be returning any time soon. In fact, if he made any reference to when he would be back in any of the letters he made it perfectly clear that he would not be back soon, and he gave no one any idea of where he was going."

Ginny felt that Ron definitely deserved the tongue lashing, but she was not particularly happy with Hermione's tone and implications, and she was also more than a little irritated that Hermione had found a way to get a list of all of Harry's properties. "What, are you up to? Can't you just leave Harry alone for a day or two?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "This is not like Harry to run off like this," she stated emphatically. She noted the expression that Ginny gave her that conveyed 'and just how would you know?' so she added, "I spent the better part of the past year living with Harry in a tent, traveling all across the countryside, and before that I was in school with him for six years, I think I have some idea of what I am talking about."

"He's a big boy," chided Ron. "He killed Voldemort, he has survived everything the Dark Lord threw at him for nearly his entire life, why don't you think he will be fine now?"

"I know exactly what Harry has survived, Ron," she snapped back. "But there are still Death Eaters out there who may think they can get at Harry now that he may let his guard down. Besides, after everything we have all been through, I want to be with him." She put her hand to her mouth as she had not expected to go that far in her explanation.

Ron just glared at her for a brief moment and then silently turned back to the food on his plate. Ginny did not stop her stare at Hermione for well over a minute before getting up and moving to sit down next to her parents.

Hermione just finished her meal quickly in silence and then returned to her room in the Gryffindor dorms. "I really need to find somewhere else to stay," she thought to herself.


Harry had spent his morning shopping in the village near his chateau. He had gone to some muggle stores to buy appropriate attire for a day spent on the sea. He figured it would probably get chilly, so he made sure he had a pullover and a windbreaker. He wanted to have sunglasses to deal with any glare from the sun that might come off of the water, but he wondered if the magical types did something different.

As he was wandering around the muggle shops, he decided that he wanted to check on Kreacher, who had been so helpful for him earlier in the week. After everything that he had been through, Harry was developing a warm spot for the grouchy old house elf. After he arrived back at his chateau, he decided to use the floo connection to Grimmauld Place, as Kreacher had created a closed network between Harry's various properties. Upon exiting the floo and tripping onto the floor as he usually did, Harry stood up and brushed himself off. A quiet 'pop' was heard as Kreacher appeared next to him, being alerted by the thud of Harry falling onto the floor.

"So, Master Harry has returned from his trip to France," croaked Kreacher. "Will master be staying the night? Shall I prepare a room?"

"No Kreacher, I actually just stopped by to check on you. See how you're getting along," said Harry with a smile.

"No need to worry about Kreacher. No one ever bothers with this old elf. I've been here for months and years without anyone, why should a few days be any trouble?" The house elf spoke in such a monotone that Harry almost laughed at his words.

"Well, I came by anyways," said Harry. "I presume things have been quiet around here."

"Just the pile of letters forwarded by Gringotts," complained Kreacher. "At least the bloody owls don't try and get in here anymore, but the goblins keep sending over bags of letters for Lord Potter every day."

"Right. How much can there be?" asked Harry.

"The bags are in the parlor, Master Harry," said Kreacher with a detectable added annoyance in his voice.

Harry walked up the stairs from the kitchen and headed into the parlor. He was shocked to see three large bags with letters, each of which seemed to be stuffed to nearly burst their seams. Harry couldn't believe what he found.

"Should I just burn the whole pile, Master Harry?" pleaded the elf, clearly hoping that he would be given the okay to destroy it all.

Harry tried to recover from the shock. Then he looked to Kreacher, "No, but there is no way I can read all of that. There must be more there than what Lockhart was receiving back when he was at Hogwarts during my second year." He looked at the bags of letters and then back to Kreacher. "Is there any way of sorting this out at all? Such as by who they are from or what they are about?"

Kreacher grunted, and then answered, "I suppose I could sort them for you, how do you want to divide them up?"

Harry went over and untied all of the bags and then he gave directions to Kreacher.

"Can you separate them based on my comments?" asked Harry.

"I can try master, Kreacher lives to serve," muttered the old elf in response.

Several hours later Harry had a number of different piles.

There was a relatively small pile of letters from friends and people he actually knew. He had another small pile of enchanted letters that he had no intention of touching. There was a surprisingly large pile of letters from witches from all over Britain and Europe asking to either be his girlfriend or if they could be the next Lady Potter. There were a handful of non enchanted threats against him. Several requests for Harry to be a spokesperson for some sort of magical product or another. A particularly large pile of letters that merely were congratulating him on defeating the dark lord, and this pile was eventually separated into smaller piles based on where the letters had come from.

Kreacher took the enchanted letters and had them all destroyed. Harry looked at the piles that were left. He had no desire to read the mail from the fangirls who wanted to marry him or date him, so he quickly decided to ignore those. He looked at the various piles from around Europe, and he noted a handful of letters from Durmstrang, in addition to the various countries. He noted that there was a small pile from France, and his curiosity got the better of him so he decide to flip through that pile. He came across two letters that were marked with the DeMarest Coat of Arms and was shocked. Harry quickly opened the first and he read a brief note from Angelique. She had apparently written the letter several days prior, even before he had met her father, the baron, and she stated how she had heard stories of him from a family friend, whom he presumed would have been Fleur DeLacour, and how she was so happy he had been able to defeat the dark lord, and how she would like to meet him someday. The next letter he picked up was also from the DeMarest family. Harry hesitated as he picked it up and then he decided to tear it open. He slid out the letter from the envelope and noted that it had been written earlier that day and it came from Camille.

Dear Harry Potter,

I know that you don't know me, but I just had to write to you and thank you for what you have done for all wizard and witches throughout Europe. My father, the Baron DeMarest, tells everyone that if the Dark Lord Voldemort had been successful in taking over Great Britain then he would have moved to take over Europe next and then the rest of the world. My best friend from when I was a student at Beauxbatons Academy for Magic, Fleur Delacour told me many stories about the Tri-Wizard Tournament and how brave you were and how skilled you were in magic.

I was so happy to hear that you were successful in your duel with the dark lord, and I am sure that Fleur is happy to hear of your success. She had told me how brave you were to face the dark lord at the end of the tournament when the other champion form Hogwarts was killed. You must be a very brave and a very powerful wizard.

I am so sad that there are those who would try to belittle what you have done. I met a young man, the Lord Black, who seemed to feel that you did not do very much to save everyone. I think that he is just jealous of what a powerful wizard you must be. I am sure that you have all sorts of young witches writing to you and professing their love for you. It would seem to me to be silly for anyone to profess their love for someone they have never met. I do envy my friend Fleur, for she has met you and she knows the greatest wizard of our time.

I wish you well in all that you do, and I ant you to know that all proper witches and wizards will always appreciate all that you have done. You are a very brave man, Harry Potter, and do not let the Lord Black's of the world tell you otherwise.

My father tells us all that the DeMarest family will always ally itself with the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter if ever it is necessary, so please know that you will always have my support.

Camille DeMarest

Harry could not help but laugh out loud as he read Camille's letter. A 21 year old fangirl trying to sound more mature than her 15 year old sister was at first amusing, but the more he thought about it, the more he found it odd that Camille had actually taken the time to write to him. Perhaps it was his own fault that Camille had written to him, as Lord James Black had actually tried to minimize Harry's accomplishments which apparently was enough to anger Camille and feel the need to defend Harry's honor, even when Harry supposedly had no idea that his honor had needed defending in the first place. The more he thought about the letters, the happier he was that he had disguised his scar and had not shown up in France appearing as the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry then looked at all of the other letters, and decided to take the pile of letters from his friends and others whom he knew and return to the Chateau.


May 8, 1998

Hermione woke early that morning and decided that she really needed to get out of Hogwarts as soon as possible. While it was conformable enough, she really couldn't deal with being around Ron and she wanted to have some place where she could trust she would be alone and not be bothered by others. After finishing her breakfast early, she decided to head off to Diagon Alley, perhaps the goblins would know where she could find an apartment that would be tied into the floo network.

By mid morning she had several leads on flats that were located nearby to Diagon Alley, and the owners were magical. Due to the war, many magicals had fled many parts of England, and the rent was actually fairly cheap for a simple flat. It wasn't hard for her to set up an automatic payment for her rent through Gringotts.

The simple one bedroom flat was partially furnished which suited her just fine. She was able to unload most of the contents from her enchanted bag, and by mid afternoon she had the time to sit down at her small table in the kitchen with only a cup of tea and her list of Harry's properties.

'Where to begin?' she wondered. After reviewing the list several times she made a quick mental checklist. She had already tried Grimmauld Place and Godric's Hollow without success. One had new wards and the other was still abandoned since the night Harry's parents were murdered. That left the Potter Mansion, the Black Summer Home, and several flats or places of business. Hermione was certain that Harry was not currently worried about the businesses that his family owned, so that left only a few places she would need to investigate in England. She turned to the parchment with the holdings in Europe. Several properties in France, a castle in Germany, a property in Switzerland, a villa in Italy and an island near Greece. She looked again at the list as she thought she must have missed something. The property was listed as an island off of Greece, not just a home or villa on the island. Hermione began to wonder about how that might be intriguing to Harry.

Hermione then considered the wards she had placed in the Forest of Dean. She would be notified if and when Harry ever returned, but she realized that it would not be helpful if he left before she could get there. She thought about how she would watch nature shows on the television when she was younger, and how the wildlife conservationists would tag animals to track them and study them. Now she had another idea. She could create a ward that would act as a tag and she could find where Harry went. Such a tag might even break the fidelius charm, just as Yaxley did by grabbing a hold of her when they apparated away from the ministry back in the fall.

She stopped herself, thinking that would be wrong. What right did she have to do that to Harry? That would probably violate some sort of laws according to the DMLE . Maybe she should ask Shacklebolt about this. She paused for a minute. That was exactly the sort of thing that Harry would come up with if he felt it was important when they were in school. And it was exactly the sort of thing that she would have argued against and she would have listed all of the reasons why Harry and Ron shouldn't do something like that. As she considered how often that Harry's intuition proved correct during there years together at Hogwarts, she made up her mind. The rules be damned, she was going to create the new ward to tag Harry and track him.


Harry arrived at the Chateau DeMarest early on Saturday morning. The baron was communicating with his house elves to coordinate getting everything ready for the day planned out on the sea.

"Lord Black, so good of you to join us this fine day!" he called out.

"Please, Baron," replied Harry, "just call me James, I really do not enjoy the formality of all the titles."

"Of course you don't," snapped Camille who was walking through the entrance hall at that moment, "you wouldn't want to be upstaging Harry Potter now would you? Oh that's right, you probably couldn't, when did you ever best a Hungarian Horntail?"

Her father glared at her for her rudeness, but before either her father or the Lord Black could respond she quickly exited down a hallway and around a corner.

"Please excuse my daughter," pleaded the baron, "I do not know what has caused her to be so childish."

"That is quite all right," answered Harry. "Perhaps she felt I was belittling her hero, Harry Potter, the other night at dinner. So, baron, who will be joining us all for this trip?"

"It will be you, my family and a couple of friends from my club," he replied.

Harry looked at him questioning the term, "What club would that be?"

"Why, the wizarding yacht club, of course," explained the bemused baron. "Several of us the families along the sea here have become fascinated with the sea. The muggles venture out quite often, and my father and grandfather before him had been curious about the sea. If muggles can sail a boat, surely we can to and we have discovered just how wonderfully relaxing it could be. I am sure that you will agree soon. However, if you have never been to sea before, we may need to give you a potion to help settle your stomach before we leave. The waves can often make one's stomach turn a little if you are not accustomed to the experience. The elves should have everything ready, so we will all head down to the dock. The house elves will bring you down in just a moment.

Several hours later Harry was getting accustomed to the rolling motion of the boat over the swells. Baron Demarest called to him from where he was standing behind the wheel, "So James, what do you think? How is your first sailing trip?"

"He's probably too sick to answer," called out Camille who had earlier noted the slight green color that Harry had developed shortly after they had left the dock.

"Actually, I am getting more used to this, its reminding me of riding on a broom on a stormy day," said Harry with a smile.

Camille seemed to pout at Harry's response.

The sound of the boat splashing over the waves and the wind gusting made it hard to hear at times, so often people would need to shout. Harry looked up at the boat and noticed there were no sails and that there was no sound of an engine. He walked back towards the stern of the boat and asked the baron what made the boat move. The baron seemed perplexed at the question. "It just does, that's how it happens."

"But the wind, you are not using sails to catch the wind," Harry stated.

Camille had followed Harry towards the back of the boat. "What does that have to do with anything?" she questioned.

Harry looked at her with surprise. "That's how the muggle sailboats move. They use the wind to push them by catching it in the sails."

Camille looked at Harry and then across the bay at the muggle boats that had sails. "So that is what those triangle shaped things are for?" she asked. "But what do they do if there is no wind?"

"They don't sail," Harry answered.

Camille looked at Harry and then at the other boats. She wasn't sure if he was trying to make fun of her ignorance or if he was making fun of her by making up a story. Either way, she was sure she was not happy with him. She started to walk towards the bow, and when she got near Harry, she grabbed his hat he had on his head to keep the sun off of his face and tossed it into the air. The wind carried it away from the boat and it splashed into the water. Harry turned and looked at where his hat had gone and was leaning slightly over the edge of the boat. Camille was still feeling mischievous and she pushed him slightly. The unsuspecting Harry who was not used to being on a boat, lost his balance and fell face first into the water.

Camille starting laughing as she watched the Lord Black floundering in the water. Harry was shocked to find himself off of the boat. He was not a good swimmer, and he had really not done much swimming other than when he competed in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Harry was struggling to stay afloat in the waves, while on the boat the baron was shouting at his daughter.

The baron started to turn the boat around so they could try and get back to where the Lord Black was in the water. Harry, for his part decided to try and return to the boat, however it was moving so he was not sure how easy it would be to apparate there without injuring himself. He concentrated on the most open spot on the deck, and he remembered to think hard about his determination, destination and deliberation. The next thing he knew he was momentarily standing on the deck of the boat, but due to his wet trainers he immediately slipped and fell, landing on his head.

The next thing Harry knew, he was waking up with a massive headache and feeling a little nauseated. He no longer felt the swell of the waves rocking the boat. His senses started returning to him and the light from the room he was in started to hurt his eyes and make his headache worse. He felt a throbbing sensation on the back of his head and he reached to feel the goose-egg that had formed. He remembered falling into the water, apparating back onto the boat, and then slipping on the wet deck.

As his eyes started to take in his surroundings he realized that he has someone watching over him closely.

"Stay still, Lord Black," stated the gentle voice in a hushed tone. "I healed the bleeding from the injury to your fall."

Harry's eyes focused on the face of Camille, who actually had a worried look on her face. "Papa tells me that I must take care of you as it is my fault that you got hurt. I am sorry Lord Black for causing you this injury."

Harry looked up into her eyes and saw a compassion there that he had never noted before. Suddenly he became aware that he was under a warm blanket and he did not feel any wet clothes o his body. He felt the warmth rush to his face at this thought.

Camille noted the redness in his cheeks and she guessed what he was wondering about. "We brought you back to our chateau after you fell. The house elves placed you in this bed with the warm blankets after removing your wet clothes to wash them. And no, I did not peak under the covers while you were sleeping here."

Harry visibly relaxed as she told him this.

"When you are feeling well enough to sit up, I will have your clothes returned to you," she added. "Perhaps you will need assistance with getting dressed?" she asked playfully.

Harry grimaced as he tried to raise his head, he fought off the slight dizziness and sat up. "I think I will be able to manage just fine, thank you," he said sternly. He was not amused with his current situation. "I really think I should return back to my own chateau."

Camille frowned at his statements.

"If you could have my elf, Rene, summoned, I think that would be best," continued Harry.

Camille's eyes pleaded with him to stay and let her care for him. The look terrified Harry. He looked away and softly asked again for his elf to be summoned.

"Very well, Lord Black," she answered with a sadness in her voice. "I will send for him at once."