Author's Note: Return Trip takes place after my previous story, The Trail, which may be found at http://www.fanfiction.net/master.cfm?action=story-read&storyid=18446 This is the first of my fics that I have completed before midnight. I hope that the quality does not suffer because I am writing while still mostly awake. Feedback will be greeted with wide smiles and a dance of joy.
Return Trip
The night smells like spearmint.
The window is open in the tiny room above the bar, and the night air drifts over me as I lie in the narrow, unfamiliar bed. I breathe in, the late night smell of spearmint filling my head with memories of childhood. In a brief moment I am back at the Burrow, watching the stars with my grandparents. I am a first year student at Hogwarts, attending my first astronomy class. I am a recent graduate, walking with my father after the rest of the family is asleep, and he asks me to undertake an important task for him, take an important journey. Just for a moment of time do I revisit these memories before I bring myself back to the present.
I had been asleep until just a minute ago, resting after nearly a week of traveling by foot and sleeping under the stars. I strain my ears, trying to locate the sound that has wakened me. Through the window I hear the muffled sound of a lone car passing, a cricket, a cat singing to his love, faint laughter from the late-night bar patrons waiting for a taxi. From the next room I hear my traveling companion softly pacing. If he ever sleeps, I have yet to witness it. He is awake when I go to sleep at night, and he is awake when I regain consciousness at sunrise. If ever I awaken during the night, he still sits on the other side of the fire with eyes open, observing everything. I had hoped that he would take the opportunity tonight of sleeping in a real bed, but it seems that I do not yet fully understand this man whom I have worked so long and so hard to find.
I am able now to call him by his name, rather than the title that he held so long within my mind, The Man with the Lightning Scar. I also have stopped referring to him in my thoughts with a capitalized pronoun. He has become a reality in my life, and can no longer be treated as a myth or a creature to be revered. Harry Potter is a human being, and although he has become a legend within his own lifetime and although I owe my very existence to him, the time has come for this situation to be handled with the care of a responsible adult rather than a hero-worshipping child. My father is counting on me to bring him back.
I have tried on several occasions to explain to Harry why my father needs him, but he always stops me. He gives no reason, but I think that either he is trying to postpone the inevitable or he wants to hear everything from the lips of his old friend. We talk very little, traveling in silence. I hope that it is not that he finds my presence painful, that he wants to forget the existence of this girl who has stolen the name of the one that died to save him. She died to save my father as well, so in a way she is my benefactress, despite the fact that I have never met her. But though I am talented with witchcraft, divination is not my strong suit, and I can not claim to know the thoughts of another person. I turn my mind back to listening.
I hear the door of the next room open and then close soon after. Footsteps descend the stairs at the end of the hall. It seems that Harry is returning to the bar area. I am momentarily tempted to follow, but decide that such an action would not be welcomed. I need to win his trust gradually. Following him around is not the best way to do so.
I breathe deeply of the clean spearmint-scented air and try to empty my mind of all thoughts. There is time enough tomorrow and all the days afterward for answers. Tonight I need to rest.
Fini