This chapter is dedicated to Chrissie. She'll know why when she reads it, and other people in our class will be able to work it out as well. Other people, just ignore this bit. It won't make sense. Happy reading! (that sounded so neeky)
Harry woke up before Ron this time. He fumbled about in the dark, getting dressed. Soon he opened the door quietly, and crept out.
The sound of Muggle music, and laughter, drifted up the stairs. Hermione was sitting in the kitchen, laughing with her mum over orange juice and toast. Her dad was half-listening whilst reading a Muggle newspaper. Harry saw that the vibey music was coming from a radio on the kitchen table. He felt like he was intruding as he walked up to the happy family.
"Good morning, Harry!" Mrs Granger said brightly, as Harry slid into the seat next to Hermione. Mrs Granger jumped up. "Would you like some toast? I'm afraid we only have wholemeal, better for the teeth, you know."
"That would be great." Harry said politely. Mrs Granger beamed at him and went to make the toast. Harry marvelled again at how alike she was to Mrs Weasley.
"'Morning Harry." Said Mr Granger ("call me Jim!"). Harry said 'morning' back.
When Ron had arrived and been similarly fussed over, and Mr and Mrs Granger had gone off to work, conversations turned to more serious matters.
"Did you really mean what you said to Dumbledore?" Hermione asked tentatively. Harry didn't bother to ask how she had heard; he had been shouting so loud that his voice was still sore.
"That I hate him?" Harry asked matter-of factly. "Yes."
"No …not that." Hermione said hastily. "That you're going to look for Jane."
"Oh!" Harry said. The question took him by surprise. "Yes, of course. Why wouldn't I have meant it?"
Hermione coughed nervously. "Well, it's just that …if even Dumbledore couldn't …"
"I don't want to hear that name." Harry said firmly. The thought of Dumbledore sickened him.
"Look, what Hermione's trying to say is …you don't have a hope in hell of finding her." Ron said bluntly. "People have tried, Harry …and you're not even fully-qualified yet!"
Harry frowned. As unbelievable as it was, he hadn't thought of that. Now he really thought, Ron was right. How could Harry have kidded himself that he had a chance of finding Jane? Things looked hopeless. Harry couldn't think of any argument against what Ron had said. Just as Harry was about to give up completely, a voice on the radio caught his attention:
"Easy to despairWhen all you hear is fear and lies
Easy just to run and hide
To frightened to begin
But if we dare to dare …"
Harry couldn't believe the coincidence of it. The song fitted. All of it. "When all you hear is fear and lies"; well, he'd certainly heard enough lies from Sirius and Dumbledore to last him a lifetime. Then "Easy to despair"; well, that had been exactly how Harry was feeling. "Easy just to run and hide, to frightened to begin"; it was as though the song had been written for him!
The song had inspired new courage into Harry. He only had to "dare to dare", to believe in himself, and everything would work. He could do anything.
"Yes." He said suddenly. "Yes, I'm going to look for her."
There was a shocked pause, then Hermione spoke. "Well, I'll help." She said nervously.
"Me too." Ron agreed.
"Well, that's settled then." Harry said brightly.
The next few minutes were spent brainstorming ideas. Hermione was being a great help.
"Sirius said that they'd moved." Harry recalled dimly.
"Right …so we can check house sales." Hermione suggested.
"And how are you going to do that?" Ron asked. "They're wizards! And witches. They're not going to have bought Muggle houses; you can't track them!"
"Haven't you read A History of Magic?" Hermione asked. Ron and Harry shook their heads and Hermione rolled her eyes. "Even houses in places like Godric's Hollow get registered in Muggle records. Muggles build the houses, after all."
"Well, that still doesn't help us." Harry pointed out. "We don't have access to house records, do we?"
"There's always the internet." Hermione suggested.
"Good one!" Harry cried. "Do you have a computer?"
Hermione nodded. Ron had been watching this exchange with an expression of bewilderment.
"What's the internet?" he asked. "What's a computer?"
Harry and Hermione exchanged glances. "You explain." Harry said. "I'll get searching."
The hours spent in Privet Drive when the Dursleys had been away had enabled Harry to become an expert in surfing the web. He opened Google and got searching straight away, whilst Ron watched over his shoulder in amazement.
It was only a few minutes before Harry found a site with house sale records on. Unfortunately, although surnames were listed, there was no way of searching by surname. So Harry had to scroll through the thousands of names. It was half an hour before he finished.
"No Potters." Harry said gloomily.
"But they won't be Potters, will they?" Hermione pointed out. "They'll be Evans'. Your mum's sister …oh no, but she'll have kept her husbands name."
"Smith." Harry said. "They were Smith. I saw it on the family tree."
Hermione groaned. "It had to be Smith, didn't it? They'll be hundreds!"
Sure enough, Harry scribbled down a list of twenty names. "This is assuming that they moved to somewhere in the UK, of course." Hermione pointed out.
"Well, it's a start." Harry said, looking down at his list. "We'll investigate these families and if we don't find her …we'll go from there."
"What's number one?" Ron asked, taking the list from Harry. "They moved to …Brighton, by the looks of this."
"Brighton it is then." Harry said.