28th April 1996
The house was empty. It was nice, but it was empty and bare. Ginny had expected it to be full of furniture but now she realised that was silly really. It was quite an odd house. The kitchen was upstairs and the bedrooms were downstairs, but Ginny didn't mind that. She'd always lived in an odd house.
There were two bedrooms, one quite a lot bigger than the other one. Ginny had insisted that Harry had the big one. He'd paid for the house, hadn't he? And, anyway, the smaller bedroom was bigger than Ginny's at the Burrow. They had a bathroom each and there was a little utility room by the stairs. Upstairs, there was just one room: the kitchen, dining room and living room all in one. The kitchen installed was white and shiny. The rest of the room was empty. It looked like a dance studio.
"Right, what should we do?" Harry asked.
"Food."
XXX
The muggle supermarket was revolutionary to Ginny. There just weren't such things in the wizarding world. There were food shops, but not like this. If there were, at least, Ginny had never been to one. They grew most of their food at home anyway. Ginny was pushing the trolley excitedly. They'd walked to the supermarket from their house, after having gotten changed into some of their new clothes. Ginny was wearing a pretty denim skirt and a white top with a baggy cardigan. They were the nicest clothes she'd ever owned.
Harry kept laughing at her exuberance but this was all new to Ginny and she was trying to get as much enjoyment out of everything as possible. It was all she could do to distract herself from the facts of their life at the moment.
They had a large fridge and freezer in their kitchen and Harry had declared to Ginny that they were going to fill it to the brim. There were lots of foods that Ginny had never heard of that went into their trolley. They got fruit and vegetables, and bread and cereal. Harry threw chocolate and crisps and all sorts of snacks. In the end, they got two trolleys and both were full. It was only a five minute walk home, but there were too many bags for one trip.
Harry took some bags to the house and then came back and waited while Ginny went and took some. Then, they took the last lot home together. The kitchen was full. They'd bought a toaster and a kettle and some other little accessories. As soon as they'd bought the house, they'd said they were going to make it their own. They needed to feel at home and not constantly as though they were running.
"Well, at least we've got things in the kitchen now," Ginny laughed. Harry grinned at her. There was an IKEA just a bus ride away, so that was going to be their job tomorrow. For now, though, they were going to settle down on the carpeted bedroom floor and sleep.
XXX
"If you were two teenagers running away from the ministry, where would you go?"
It was the question on all of their minds, but Charlie had voiced it. They'd turned Sirius' mother's office into a war room for finding Harry and Ginny. A map had been stuck up on the wall and their last known location (Fort William) had a pin stuck through it.
"This is useless. We have no idea where they'd go," Bill sighed. "I have to go and meet Fleur. Charlie and I will go to Gringotts tomorrow, Sirius, and sort out the house for them. At least it'll be doing something productive," Bill grumbled.
Sirius sighed and gestured to Charlie to follow Bill out of the room. Charlie and Sirius settled in the kitchen and Sirius opened a bottle of firewhiskey. "I don't think I've ever felt so useless in all of my life," Sirius said, taking the first sip from his glass of firewhiskey.
"Sirius, we will find them," Charlie reassured the older man. "We'll find them and get them safe." Sirius nodded, but Charlie's words didn't make him feel any better. Harry and Ginny were surely sleeping on the streets and there was nothing any of them could do because they had no idea where they'd gone. "If only they'd just stayed in Fort William," Charlie sighed. "They must have known we'd come and find them."
Sirius shook his head. "I don't think that Harry's ever had an adult he can rely on. He's not used to it."
"Surely he knows he can rely on you?" Charlie asked incredulously. Sirius took a sip of his whiskey.
"I don't know, Charlie. I was supposed to be there for him when he was a baby and I ran off to get revenge instead and then I was sent to prison and he was sent to his relatives. He- they didn't treat him well there. I don't know exactly how bad it was. He won't talk about it, but he flinches if I touch him. He flinches if I tell him I love him. He never says it back. I don't know, Charlie. You've seen him. His clothes are too big. He's too skinny. I don't think they fed him properly. Every time I think about it, Merlin, I just want to go to their house and kill every one of them.
"Petunia, that's his aunt, she was always a bitch," Sirius swore, taking a glug of his whiskey. "Lily asked her to be her chief bridesmaid, because she was her sister. She refused and then she didn't even turn up to the wedding. Lily was devastated. Petunia had gotten married before Lily and her parents had forced her to invite Lil to the wedding, but I don't think she spoke to her the whole time she was there. I can't understand why Dumbledore put Harry there," he said, shaking his head and finishing his drink. He stared at the table as he poured himself another.
"Supposedly, there's some sort of protection there," Sirius scoffed. "Protected him well enough from the monsters outside, but what about the ones inside?"
Charlie swore softly. "Mum's always tried to do her best by Harry. She knows his relatives aren't the best, but I don't think she knows quite how bad they are. Poor kid," Charlie said, shaking his head. Sirius agreed, throwing back all of his whiskey in one.
XXX
29th April 1996
"Harry, are you sure that's how that works?" Ginny asked a bit meekly from the corner. Harry was trying to build the first bed they'd bought that morning. He was getting very frustrated and Ginny was rather worried about him. She'd offered to help a million times but she just felt like she was getting in the way every time she tried.
"Do you want to come and read the instructions?" Harry asked her angrily. Ginny sighed, irritated. He'd been in this mood all day and she was so fed up of it. She knew that the situation was hardly ideal but it wasn't like they were on the streets. They had access to money and a home.
Ginny winced as she heard some pieces of wood clatter to the floor. Harry swore loudly. "Harry, let me hel-"
"It's fine!" he shouted at her. Ginny bit her lip to keep herself from talking. There was no use when he was in this state. She pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning on and walked out of the room, not even glancing at him once.
Calm and collected, she took one step up at a time until she reached the kitchen. She closed the door behind her and only then did she begin to sob.
She cried for Harry and for the way he made her feel. She cried for Hogwarts and the life she'd left behind. She cried for her family and the fear that she'd never see them again. But, most of all, she cried for herself. For the girl who had been stupid enough to write to a diary who had written back and the girl who had started this whole mess.
XXX
Harry could hear Ginny crying, but there was nothing he could do. He'd only make it worse. He made everything worse. He was the one who'd lost the contact mirror, so now they couldn't talk to their families. They had no way of knowing what was going on, no way of knowing whether or not the ministry had any idea where they were. They didn't know what Voldemort was doing. They didn't know if their family were even alive after the ambush on the police station.
Sirius had been there. Harry couldn't believe he'd taken the risk. Why expose himself just to come and get Harry? He could've been caught. He could've been killed.
Harry shook himself. He'd been thinking too much on that. He stared down at the instructions and decided to start again. That's what Hermione would advise him to do.
Picking up the first piece and the right screw, Harry began again. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could be done with it.
XXX
Ginny heard the door slam and furrowed her brow. She'd been sat in the kitchen, binge-eating biscuits, for about three-quarters of an hour once she'd stopped herself crying. She wondered if Harry had been able to hear her. She decided she didn't care.
Curious as to why the door had slammed, Ginny ran downstairs. "Harry?" she called. In her bedroom, she found her bed fully built, but no Harry. Peeking out of the window, she caught a glimpse of Harry as he turned the corner onto the main road. Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Ginny stroked her hand along the headboard.
She sighed. If Harry was gone, maybe she'd have a better chance of actually building some of the furniture they'd bought that morning. To start though, she wanted to actually have a bed she could lie on. Heaving the mattress up, she threw it onto her bed and began to fit the sheet to it. It was more difficult than she'd anticipated. Her mother had always done this for her, with magic.
Frustrated, Ginny peeled the sheet away from the corner she'd started and tried again at another corner. She supposed she must have looked rather comical as she struggled with her bed. The problems she was having reminded her that she wasn't brought up in this world. She would have bet that Harry could fit a sheet in seconds. She was going to have troubles in the muggle world, she could see that.
Embarrassed by the amount of time it took her to fit the sheet, Ginny was glad that Harry had left. While she knew he would never laugh at her inability to do something that she'd never done before, she didn't want him to worry that she wasn't going to be able to blend in sufficiently with muggles. She was going to have to work on that, a lot. It wasn't going to be her lack of knowledge that got them caught.
An hour later, Ginny had found that making a bed the muggle way was not a simple task. Fitting the sheet was one thing, but getting the cover to fit the duvet was quite another. But, now, her bed was fully set up and looking rather pretty. She'd chosen simple striped turquoise and white bed covers, as well as matching curtains - something that she wasn't even going to attempt until Harry was home to help her.
With that done, she made a start on the chest of drawers. The clothes she'd purchased a few days ago were sat, still in their bags, on her floor. The chest of drawers were white to match the rest of the furniture she'd bought. She was rather pleased with it all. It was much more matched and pretty than her old bedroom.
Sighing, she considered how much she would rather be in her old bedroom right now. She missed her family more than she could say. She was used to being away from them of course: she spent ten months out of the year at Hogwarts. It was not knowing when she'd see them again that made her miss them even more.
Chest of drawers half built, Ginny began to wonder where on earth Harry had gone and when he would be coming back. A horrible voice in Ginny's head asked her whether he'd be coming back at all. Ginny shook it from her mind. Harry had promised that they would do this together. He was just struggling. Ginny understood that.
As she looked out of the window and saw the rain, she bit her lip. Where on earth was he?
XXX
"Arthur, how are you?" Kingsley asked the older man. Arthur Weasley looked broken. Severe bags under his eyes, he didn't seem to have slept at all since Ginny went missing. He looked up at Kingsley and noticed Tonks stood beside him. He motioned to the two of them to sit. They took seats opposite from him at the table in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.
"I've been better, Kingsley," Arthur said quietly. Kingsley nodded understandingly. "What can you tell me about the investigation?"
Kingsley pulled the folder from his robes. "Obviously, their last known location is Fort William. We've tracked them using muggle CCTV from the police station to an alleyway. We don't see them come out of the alleyway, but we see Ginny suddenly appear on a bench on her own later on. She disappears again about ten minutes later. My bosses have the theory that they are using an invisibility cloak. Could that be possible?"
Arthur nodded wearily. "Harry has one. It was his father's." Kingsley noted that piece of information.
"And it's not been found in his possessions?" Tonks checked. Arthur shook his head. Tonks swore softly and Kingsley agreed. At Arthur's questioning look, Tonks explained, "the Ministry have developed a sort of spell that uses body heat to be able to tell where a person is in a memory. They can't use it unless there's proof that an invisibility cloak is in use by a criminal, for some sort of privacy reason, but they asked-"
Tonks paused here and Kingsley knew why. Arthur would not take this information lightly. "They asked Percy," Kingsley finished for Tonks. Arthur let out a choked sob and Kingsley felt his heart clench for his friend. "They asked Percy if Harry had an invisibility cloak and Percy confirmed their suspicions. Aurors will be attempting to track them through memories of people in the area. It's not a quick technique, but we are thinking that it will lead us to where they've gone. I wish there was something we could do to stop it, Arthur, but with Ministry interest in the Order so high, there just isn't."
Arthur nodded. "I understand, Kingsley. Thank you for this, though. At least I know they're alive and together. Please let me know of any developments."
Kingsley agreed and, with Tonks, he departed, retiring for the night.
XXX
Hogwarts was not the same without Harry. There weren't so many laughs. Ron was funny, of course he was, but Hermione didn't seem to spend as much time with him now that Harry was gone. She didn't understand it at all. It wasn't anything she could pin down either. They still sat together at meals and in the common room at night, but something was different.
Harry being gone was madness. She could feel his missing presence all the time. It was like missing a brother. She was sure that Harry felt the same about her, but she wished she'd told him how she felt all the same. Having put a few things together, she rather thought Harry hadn't been told that he was loved much in his life.
With missing Harry and things being odd with Ron, Hermione was throwing herself into her work more than ever. She wouldn't skip meals or anything, but her free time was spent doing extra work, reading, rather than spending time with her boys. But she wasn't happy.
She'd always loved work. Reading was her passion, but she needed her friends. She needed that company, those laughs. Without them, life was becoming very dull. Maybe she needed to make new friends. The thought of a best friend that wasn't Harry was abhorrent, but it would have to happen at some point.
Harry wasn't the only thing that had changed though. With Umbridge dead, Dumbledore had employed a new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Fudge had insisted it be someone from the ministry, so Hestia Jones had been employed. Hermione had met her a few times when she was working with the Order over the summer and she was very nice. She was proving to be much better than Umbridge at any rate.
So, they'd decided to end the DA. It was difficult to carry on without Harry. Less people attended and Hermione wasn't a natural leader like Harry. Professor Jones was competent enough that it wasn't really necessary anymore.
Hermione shook herself out of her contemplative thoughts and focussed back on her book. It was three o'clock in the morning. She was relatively tired. Going to bed at 10, Hermione had had four hours sleep before an awful nightmare had awoken her. Since Harry had left, Hermione was plagued with nightmares about him, about Ginny, about Hogwarts. She'd not had a full night sleep since he'd gone.
"Hermione?" a voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked up. It was Fred. This was clear by the large F on his pyjama top. He rubbed at his eye and meandered over to her. "What are you doing up?"
"I-" Hermione was rather embarrassed by the fact that she wasn't able to sleep. She was too afraid after a nightmare so she would come down to the common room where it was lighter. Her fear of the dark had never really gone since she was a child. "I had a nightmare," she admitted reluctantly. Fred nodded and sat down next to her.
"Wanna talk about it?" he asked her kindly. Hermione was almost shocked. While she didn't think that Fred was cruel, she thought he'd tease her at the very least.
"Just about Harry, you know? I can't stop thinking about him, about whether he's safe, about whether he's hungry. He's had such a difficult year and I don't know- oh, I don't know," she finished morosely. Fred grabbed her legs and pulled them over his lap. He shuffled closer to her.
"Hermione," he started, "Harry is the strongest person I know. He's also the most stubborn. He's not gonna get caught. It's Harry and he's with Ginny. They're gonna look after each other and we're gonna stay here and be absolutely petrified that they're not okay. That's not gonna change, but we can't let it affect our lives. That's not what they would have wanted."
Hermione nodded. "I know."
"Next time you have a nightmare, come up to my room, okay? My bed is the first one on the right. Sometimes we just need to feel safe," he said softly. Hermione nodded, but knew she never would. That sounded like prime blackmail material.
"Thanks, Fred," she whispered.
XXX
Ginny was furious. And exhausted. It was half past three in the morning. Harry had left over six hours ago and he'd not returned. She hadn't wanted to go out and look for him just in case he came back, but at this point, she wouldn't whether he'd been hurt.
She pulled on a jacket and some boots and set out into the night. It was pitch black, but the lamp posts lit her way. Despite it being the warmer side of spring, Ginny was freezing. Arms crossed, she walked as quickly as possible, her head flicking from left to right. Maybe this was a stupid idea. She had no idea where Harry was. He could've walked for miles.
After walking for twenty minutes, Ginny realised she'd come in a circle and ended up at the supermarket they'd visited the other day. She could see the 24/7 sign lit up across the road. The supermarket reminded her of Harry. They'd had so much fun going around the shop. It was the first time she'd properly laughed since they'd left Hogwarts.
Ginny found a bench and sat down. She felt like crying. Getting the house had felt like everything was going to be okay. It felt like they were safe. Why did Harry have to go and ruin it? How were they ever going to succeed at this if he didn't want to be around her? Tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them back rapidly. She would not cry.
It was rather scary on her own out here. Her dad had always told her not to walk around on her own at night. It was dangerous. Sighing and realising the truth to her father's words, Ginny stood. As she was about to turn to go home, she saw him. He was stood on the other side of the road, staring at her. She thought that he must've been rather surprised to see her.
"Harry!" she shouted, beginning to cross the road.
She was so preoccupied with finally getting to Harry that she didn't notice the car hurtling down the badly lit road.