A/N: I see that I have 2 reviews already, but I can't get my cache to clear so that I can read them. Also FF.net seems to be having a problem with sending out review alerts. So, thanks to you 2 that have commented. I'll see it soon and respond then.

Chapter 3

The next morning Harry decided to stay at Grimmauld Place for a few weeks until he ran bored or the search for him turned up sour. However he needed a few things, mostly food which would be hard to get when half the Ministry would be keeping an eye out for him. So he took a page from Mundungus Fletcher's life and found some old clothes down in the basement.

After an uneventful morning where he stopped by Gringott's, dropped off the Black key to a bewildered Senior Executor, visited his new and expanded vault and exchanged some of his wizarding Galleons for muggle money, he went shopping in the muggle world.

He returned to number twelve Grimmauld Place by early afternoon with a grumbling stomach. The small ice cream he had purchased at Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor did little to tide over his rapidly shrinking innards.

It wasn't a couple of hours later after two sandwiches and two bottles of butterbeer when he found himself in Sirius' old bedroom asleep atop the grand sized bed

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

"Harry, wake up!"

He woke to the violent shaking of his shoulders and a lithe figure standing over him. The room was still dark as he grabbed for his wand at the bedside table.

"Oh, don't be stupid, Harry. It's me."

He recognized the voice at once and reached instead for his glasses. "Hermione?"

She sat on the bed beside him and sighed. "Oh, Harry. What are you doing here?"

His head was still foggy from sleep, "How did you get inside? How did you know where I was?"

"Torca Ignis!" she said to the walls and the gas jets lit, adding a soft glow to the room .

Harry winced at the sudden light amongst the darkness.

"In the future, Harry, when you run off and hide, I'd suggest going somewhere where you don't share wizarding portraits with the Headmaster of Hogwarts."

Harry cringed at the forgotten portrait of Phineas Nigellus, great-great-grandfather to Sirius Black, that hung in the main living area downstairs. Dumbledore had a similar portrait hanging among the past headmasters of Hogwarts in his office. It was a stupid mistake that had cost Harry his freedom.

Now he was sure members of the Order of the Phoenix would be swooping down any moment to drag him back to the Dursley's or to the Hogwarts dungeon, perhaps to be chained to the wall in Snape's office for his attempted escape.

"I'm an idiot," Harry proclaimed with his head in his hands.

Hermione shook her head, "Professor Dumbledore attempted to floo here and discovered it had been taken off the network. Did you know about that, Harry?"

He shook his head in silence. "Then he said he tried to apperate nearby and couldn't gain admission to the house. So he tried one last thing before resorting to strong magic which might reveal the house to muggles"

Harry finally lifted his face from his hands, "You."

She nodded, "Well, I was closest."

He looked down at his state of dress, or rather just the opposite, "Hermione, could you give me a few minutes. I'm not dressed."

Her eyes widened and her face flushed as she looked down at Harry's bare shoulders and chest. Her hand slapped to cover her eyes and she gasped, "Oh, Harry. I'm so sorry. How stupid of me. I ... I'll..."

She stood up rapidly and lost her footing on a loose floor rug, tumbling to her knees.

"Hermione, are you all right?" Harry almost jumped out of bed except for his overwhelming sense of modesty that held him back at the last moment.

Hermione kept her eyes covered and scrambled out of the room, "I'm fine, Harry. Come down to the kitchen when you're dressed." and she closed the door.

Harry could have sworn he heard her voice behind the door saying, "Stupid, stupid girl."

That brought a smile to his face that he hadn't had there for quite some time. A short time later he joined Hermione in the kitchen. She was still red in the face from her embarrassment.

"Harry, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

He waved her off and sat down across from her at the table. "Forget it."

He watched as she wrung her hands and stared at the imperfections of the table trying furiously not to meet his eyes.

"You don't think Dumbledore will leave me alone, do you?" he asked already knowing the answer.

She shook her head. "I'd rather doubt it." Then after a moment, "Harry, why did you do it?"

It was Harry's turn to stare at the table. He ran his hand across the top, brushing away imaginary crumbs to the floor. "I don't want anyone else to die because of me, Mione."

She found her courage in outrage. "And running away is going to prevent that?"

Harry nodded once. "It will if I'm not around to drag all of my friends into danger because Voldemort possessed me."

She reached across the table for his hand and caught it before he pulled away, "Harry, it wasn't your fault."

He met her eyes with his own, "You know it was, Hermione. If I had just practiced my Occlumency lessons every day like I was supposed to then none of this would have happened. Sirius would still ..."

"Be dead," she finished.

Harry flinched and pulled away, "You don't know that."

Hermione picked up her resolve. "And you don't know if practicing would have done any good. From what you've told me, Voldemort has a connection with you. It might take being a master at Occlumency for there to be any good done."

Harry remembered what Snape had told him at his first lesson. Voldemort was a master of the art and had many years practice to his few months. He doubted, at the end, he would have stood a chance either way.

"Maybe you're right," he said more for her comfort than his own.

"Harry, you have to come back to Hogwarts in the Fall for the same reason that you are running away now."

He looked up to her for an explanation.

"You have to learn to be a better wizard so that you can defeat Voldemort once and for all. If you don't then he will still kill people. The difference is that you won't be there to help. You will be ignoring and turning your back on those very same people that you are running away from."

Begrudgingly he admitted she had a point.

"I'll think about it." Then he added, "But I'm not going back to the Dursley's."

She smiled brightly. "You don't have to. Professor Dumbledore said that you have already spent your required time there and that you could stay at the Burrow or here if you like." Her nose crinkled in confusion, "What did he mean about spending your required time at the Dursley's?"

Harry shrugged, "I'm safe there from Voldemort. Something about my mother's blood and my aunt preventing him from hurting me while I'm there."

Her eyes lit up with understanding, "Of course, why didn't I think of that before? It was your mother that saved you and your aunt is her sister. It all makes sense, now."

Harry yawned broadly.

"I'm sorry, Harry. You must be very tired. It's very late, after all."

He nodded slightly and ran his hand through his hair, "So when am I going to be invaded?"

"You aren't, " she responded thoughtfully. "Professor Dumbledore said that it was okay if you needed some time alone to sort through things, but he asked if I would stay with you, or Ron if you'd have at least one of us."

That surprised him. Hermione wasn't even sixteen yet. Two teenagers alone in a unplottable house?

"Get that look off your face, Harry Potter. The professor knows we are only friends and nothing untoward is going to happen. He told my parents that we would be looked after and they trust him."

He let the matter drop in his mind and stood up, "Come on. I'll show you where the clean linens are. We both need some sleep."