Chapter 1: Escaping

Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!

1- Escaping

The sun slowly set beneath the horizon of an extraordinary blue Mediterranean, offering an imposing spectacle of yellow and orange colors. Finally, disappeared and for a few moments the shades magically shone until they gradually began to fade away.

Harry contemplated the magnificent event sitting on the small balcony of the hotel room in Toulon, which offered a beautiful panorama worthy of the best postcards. However, the spectacular setting of the sun only ended up sinking him into sadness, plucking a tear from his glassy eyes. With a bitter smile he remembered his birthdays in his uncles' house before he knew he was a wizard. They were days without meaning for him, since they mistreated him like any other day or ignored him totally, as if he wasn´t alive. But that day, 31st of July, was by far the worst of all his birthdays.

He was alone, all alone in France, an unknown country to him. It was what he was looking for, after all: to escape, to isolate himself from the magical world and to search for solitude. But this loneliness was depressing him, crushing him to the ground and wouldn't let him breathe. Sometimes, during his self-exile in a little town in the outskirts of Toulon (more than two months by then), he thought he was wrong and should not have left England, but the dreadful memories fell over him and drove away any intention of returning, plunging him into more guilt and sadness. But he wanted something different for his 18th birthday, he didn´t want to spend that day isolated and depressed. So he decided to leave his confinement in the new house he bought in France and rent a hotel room on Toulon, in the coast of the Mediterranean to try to escape his depression, surround himself with unknown people and enjoy the sun and the beach. However, the harsh memories of the last battle and its horrible consequences didn´t stop haunting him as Voldemort and the death-eaters haunted him for years.

"Harry, what are you talking about?" Hermione asked, frowning and watching her friend astonished.

"What you heard." said Harry laconically lying on the couch. The house of his parents in Godric Hollow, where he was temporally living since the end of the battle, was poorly illuminated by the morning sunshine, as all the blinds were closed.

"Leaving England?" Asked Hermione again, still too astonished to believe Harry´s words. "When did you decide such a thing?"

Harry didn´t say a word.

Hermione was stunned, her gaze charged with surprise and disbelief. After several attempts to say something and closing her mouth, she managed to coordinate her words.

"We've seen you in a bad shape these last few weeks. We thought that with time you would recover and you could assimilate everything, but leaving England..."

She shook her head and continued after taking a breath, she was deeply affected. "It's too drastic a decision, I need you... we need you, Harry, for Merlin´s sake!"

There was only silence. Hermione prayed that her soul mate was considering his decision. She stared at him with her nerves about to explode, but Harry seemed dejected. His glasses hid his eyes, she had to get closer to him, so she crouched down in front of him and put her hands on the boy's knees. She was surprised to notice tears coming from his green eyes, which made her suffer a feeling of infinite bitterness; she almost never saw Harry cry.

"Harry, I know a lot of things have happened since the end of the battle," Hermione said with a choppy voice and flooded eyes, "we all lost loved ones and friends, but we need to stay together to get ahead".

Harry turned his head away as only gesture. She didn't know everything that was mortifying him, but she guessed right with what tortured him the most: the deaths, the many deaths of loved ones, friends, students and people. All killed during the battle with the darkness of Voldemort and his followers in a battle he led to Hogwarts in his desperate attempt to destroy Ravenclaw's diadem.

He remained silent, not even looking at his friend.

Hermione sensed that her attempt was not working, and the anguish overflowed her into tears like she had almost never cried before. She was going to lose her best friend, her soul mate, he was going to escape to France and she won´t be able to deal with that. She had to recover and try to convince him again.

"Harry, look at me, please." She begged with a thin voice. "Harry, I understand..."

"NO, YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND!" he yelled, looking to her eyes. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE ME, OR WHAT I FEEL NOW, YOU DON'T KNOW!"

Startled by Harry's abrupt response, Hermione fell back and sat on the floor with her eyes wide open from surprise. "Harry, I know I don't, I just..."

"NO ONE KNOWS! EVERYONE IS SO HAPPY THIS IS OVER! BUT WHO IS BEING CHASED AND BLAMED FOR ALL THE DEATH? WHO?"

"Harry, please, you know that the Prophet..." The girl's voice trembled, Harry finally was reacting but his outburst of rage lacerated his young friend.

"THE PROPHET ONLY PUBLISHED WHAT EVERYONE THINKS, WHAT I THINK! THEY ARE RIGHT HERMIONE, I WAS THE ONE WHO DRAGGED THEM TO DEATH, WHO CONDEMNED THEM TO FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES!" Harry trembled with rage and frustration, and his misery wounded his friend's soul heartbreakingly. "THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! I WAS MEANT TO DESTROY THE HORCRUXES AND FIGHT WITH VOLDEMORT, NOT THEM! FRED, REMUS, TONKS, COLLIN AND MANY, MANY MORE DIED BECAUSE I DID NOT SURRENDER IN TIME! DOBBY DIED TO SAVE US! MY PARENTS DIED TO SAVE ME! SIRIUS DIED TO SAVE ME! MAD-EYE DIDN'T DO ANY BETTER, DID IT? EVEN SCRIMGEOUR WAS KILLED FOR PROTECTING ME!"

Without realizing it, Harry had risen from the couch and walked from one side to the other, possessed by a eruption of fury and nerves that exploded at the worst moment and with the person who least deserved his screaming. But he couldn't help it, the sequence of images of the funerals and the lives destroyed by that crazy maniac were carved into his mind. He watched Hermione lying on the floor with her arms hugging his legs crying: not even that image could stop him.

"Harry! Please! It´s not all about you! You are guilty of anything! It was the war and those sick maniacs who…"

"How do you think I felt when the parents of students killed in battle scolded me and blamed me during funerals?" Harry interrupted her. He was no longer screaming, but his voice became cold and full of guilt. "They were proud, Hermione, but the loss of their children destroyed them!"

Hermione raised her head to look at him, frightened by the sudden change in Harry's voice. "No one defended me from the anger of the parents, Hermione, because everyone thinks the same and I don't blame them, because I think the same too". The boy grabbed the two backpacks on the couch, which contained everything he needed, including all the Muggle money he had withdrawn from Gringotts the day before. He needed nothing more, at least nothing magical except his wand, the Marauder's map, the cape and an album of magical photographs.

"You can live without me, you don't need me anymore. But I can't live here anymore." Harry looked at the girl, who was still sitting on the floor, crying. "Goodbye Hermione, someday I hope you'll understand why I'm doing this." And looking at her great friend for the last time, he concentrated on his destiny and disappeared with a slight "pop".

"Harry?" Hermione got up as if she had springs in her butt. "HARRY DON'T GO! HARRY NO..."

Memories weren't going to leave him alone anymore; clearly almost three months since the Battle of Hogwarts weren´t enough time. Of all, this one in particular was the one that hurt him the most, besides all the dead people he knew. He regretted screaming at Hermione like that, hurting her with his anger and guilt, making her cry and abandoning her when she was begging him to stay. But he had already decided to leave by then, he could no longer live among the magic community anymore.

He only allowed to communicate with his "old" life by writing to the Weasley´s and Hermione from time to time, but only to them. Fairly short letters informing he was fine and telling them some few detail of his "new" life (with no specifics that could discover his location), and his wishes that they were doing well and that he was very sorry for leaving that way. It hurt him deeply to write to them, especially to Hermione, perhaps the only one who really understood everything he felt. Coincidentally, at that very moment he was touching her image with her finger, where she was smiling and waving with one hand in a magic picture of his best friends.

The day was over and the night was progressing over the south of France. Thinking of his friend made him decide to go the next morning to Gap, a small village near the French Alps (and close to the village he was actually living) that had a tiny magical community, the only one in the region. There in Gap he used to get some parchment and send owls, as there was no such thing in Toulon (where the hotel he was hosting were, a seaside city over the Mediterranean) or in La-Valette-du-Vars, a small community in the outskirts of Toulon and the place where bought a small house, sure to be away from anything to do with magic. This time he would write to Hermione about how much he loved her and missed her, hoping she wasn't still too hurt by his outburst of rage and his sudden runaway from England. Extremely depressed, he decided that the day, his birthday, was over, so he got up and went to his bed to lie down without even undressing and hoping to get asleep as quickly as possible.