He had always been a little bit in love with her, though it would take him practically forever to realize it. There was no one moment really that he could point to and say 'there, that was when I fell in love with her'. It lay there unrecognized for years, perhaps because it was such an integral part of him that he'd never taken the time to examine it; that his love for her was in a way no different than the beating of his heart. There was no when or how for him, it just was.
There were moments though, things that he remembered but never consciously thought about.
She was the first person to hug him, that he remembered (his parent's hugs were a long-forgotten memory). The first person that showed him that touch could mean kindness and comfort - that it could heal instead of just hurt. Hermione couldn't have known, at first, how rough life had been for him. She came from a family that loved her. The idea that this brilliant young wizard could be unwanted was unthinkable to her, he knew this. And once she had realized, she cared for him with a fiery indigence that was as charming as it was amusing. As if by caring about him she was directly spiting the Dursley's for their indifference.
She treated him like family. And in return, he treated her like his own, though he had barely any idea what that meant, really. All he knew was that he liked it when she hugged him, though he didn't entirely understand the point of it at first (it seemed especially pointless in first and second year, before puberty hit). But by the time he'd gotten used to it, it had been normal... something Hermione just did. And then it became one of the things he liked best about her, besides being really smart and occasionally funny.
It had taken Ron ages to realize the third member of their group was a girl. Harry had worked it out much more quickly. He'd known in Third Year. That one evening he'd shared the invisibility cloak with her where he'd accidentally brushed against her breast or the flight on Buckbeak when she'd pressed up against his back. His pubescent mind amplifying those moments at the most inconvenient times, no matter how hard he'd tried to forget they'd ever happened. He'd berated himself for those thoughts. Hermione was his best friend. Best friends didn't think about each other like that.
Besides... Hermione was brilliant. She deserved someone as smart as she was, someone who could talk about Ancient Runes and liked to study as much as she did. Someone like her would never go for a duffer like him. Even though she always told him he could do better if he tried, he never really believed her when she said that. Learning had never been easy for him. Sure, he didn't have to worry about being better than Dudley, but almost ten years of pretending to be less smart than you were became a habit that was hard to undo. Anyway, he was less invested in being a good student than he was in learning things that'd help him survive the years ahead.
Ron didn't make much more sense, really. But at least he made her laugh and Harry knew he'd be good to her. She deserved someone like that. And Ron was uncomplicated, he wasn't destined by prophecy to destroy or be destroyed by a dark lord. And who in their right mind would want someone with a Dark Lord after them? All he'd ever done is nearly get her killed time after time after time.
So he stuffed most of those thoughts into the back of his mind, telling himself the affection he felt for her was natural. Sisterly. After all, that's what siblings did... look after each other. He couldn't possibly fancy his best friend. It'd ruin everything if he did that. And so he loved her quietly, without putting much thought into it. It was an ephemeral thing, his love for her. Not so much that the love he had for her was fleeting, but that he rarely recognized it for what it was, letting it slip through his fingers like sand.
But in his own way he loved her all the same.
It was how much he loved that look she'd get just before saying 'I'm going to the library'. How sometimes he'd watch her when she was studying. The private amusement he felt when her nose would scrunch up and she'd bite her lip in frustration at a problem she couldn't quite figure out. And then when she'd found her solution how her face would brighten imperceptibly. It was the nervous way she'd twirl her hair through her fingers just before an important exam as if she wasn't going to pass with flying colors, and how annoyed she'd get with him when he tried to make her see reason when he told her as much.
He thought her ability to focus so keenly on things was enormously endearing. He was in constant awe of her intelligence, sometimes to the point of being a bit intimidated by it but she'd never held back though. Never made herself out to be less capable than she was, and he deeply admired her for that. After all, it was her smarts that had kept him alive. Beyond that, she challenged him to be a better person almost constantly. He hadn't appreciated it back then... he should have.
He'd never gotten to thank her for everything she'd done for him. Never got to let her know how lucky he was to have her as a friend. Never got to tell her how proud he was... how much he appreciated her not just as a person but as a woman.
There were times when he'd come close to realizing just what he had. In the tent during the Horcrux hunt, he'd almost told her then but he couldn't find the right words. He knew if it was him that was distraught, Hermione would have found just the right thing to say. She'd hold him and let out a string of words and comfort that'd make him feel better or at least she'd make sense of it for him. Whenever he had things he didn't understand, he'd go to her. She made things less strange, less upsetting even when there was plenty to be upset about.
But all he managed to do was just stare pensively while trying and failing to think of something to say. So instead, he'd decided to simply get up and dance with her. He was rubbish at it, but he was hoping to at least make her laugh and he did. But he'd made a miscalculation. He hadn't thought ahead to how it'd feel to have her in his arms that way. Hadn't spared a second to think on how intimate things ended up being, all those inconvenient memories bursting forth from some hidden mental dam. Heart hammering, he became acutely aware of how she was pressed up against him. Her head resting between his neck and shoulder, arms looped around him. As if she'd had the same thought, they'd stopped dancing and just stood there holding each other.
He'd closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair, which smelled faintly of coconut, his heart still thundering in his chest as he pulled her closer. And when they finally stepped back... there was a wonderful swooping sensation and a lovely tug to close the gap between them. Staring at her lips, he found that he really wanted to kiss her. And when he looked down into her eyes, he saw she wanted the same. It was madness and yet... but before he could complete the action, she had taken another step back and another. And then she simply walked away.
They didn't talk about it the next morning, but the whole incident was never far from his mind.
Then came the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort's defeat... they'd all gone back to the Burrow temporarily for the funeral. Things were worse than awkward. He felt like an intruder... as if he were in the way. He'd tried his best to help in some way, to make the load the Weasleys carried lighter. But he couldn't help but think he was doing more harm than good being here. Even if it wasn't true, he felt as if he was to blame (as if they blamed him). It wasn't logical and if he'd told Hermione, she would have scoffed at him and given an exasperated lecture on why he was wrong, probably with some kind of illustrative graphs. This feeling was mitigated somewhat by Hermione herself, just being there with him.
And then she left. He couldn't help but follow her, telling himself that it was solely to let the Weasleys mourn in peace and to help out with the recovery and repair efforts at Hogwarts. But it wasn't entirely altruistic. Oh, he did need to help out with repair efforts because he ultimately felt responsible for all that had happened. He had to face the things that had been done in his name. But there was a more selfish reason... Hermione. He could not do this alone, any more than he could leave her to face it by herself. If he was to do this, she'd have to be there to help him make sense of it all as she always had.
Problem being, nothing about this made any sense and she was just as lost as he was.
After a full day of work, shifting rubble, finding the occasional body, they both wore the same haunted look. They both felt numb, as if made of stone. This was his home since he was eleven and just like the home he had when he was a baby, Voldemort had destroyed it utterly; made it virtually uninhabitable. Again, like that home... like that life, Voldemort had taken every last good memory he had and shattered it and turned it to dust. Things could be fixed, he was cognizant of that fact, but just because they'd been mended didn't negate the fact that they'd been broken in the first place.
When he looked at Hermione, he knew she felt the same and his heart broke for her. He knew there'd be no explanations. No calm words that'd make any of this better, but she tried anyway and he appreciated her for it. She held him and gave him her words and he loved her for it.
And then words weren't enough.
He'd been the one to find Dennis' body. Dennis and one other...
Her name was Charlotte Perkins. She was fifteen years old and had snuck back into Hogwarts with the Creevey brothers, no doubt wanting to help out with the battle. She was the only girl in her family. Her parents were muggles, meaning that she, like Dennis, had gone into hiding. She had been sorted into Ravenclaw and was the smartest in their year. This was all information he'd found out later, before he'd personally delivered her remains to her parents.
He'd gotten a picture of her from a camera Colin had apparently given to his brother. She was a pretty girl in life. Her dark eyes sparkled as she smiled in the picture, pushing back a lock of hair that had been loosened by the wind. There were a lot of pictures of her on the camera. Harry wondered idly if Dennis might have fancied her.
They'd found her right next to Dennis' broken body, underneath a large pile of rubble from one of the towers that had collapsed. Both their bodies were mangled beyond recognition. He'd been identified by his watch, which had his initials engraved into it. The only thing to identify her was the jewelry she wore. She had three distinctive gold bangles on her right arm, which her mother had given her when she'd left for Hogwarts. On the middle finger of her left hand she had a tiny gold ring on it, with an inscription that Harry couldn't read except for the last bit - Love, Dennis.
Dennis hadn't just fancied her then. He'd loved her. And like his own parents, Dennis and Charlotte had fought and died together.
Harry had dearly wished that he'd died for good. He wished he'd have taken a train instead of coming back to this... a pair of young lovers who would never see old age. They would never live to see their hopes and dreams accomplished. Charlotte had wanted to become a healer and Dennis had wanted to be a reporter for the Prophet. They'd never do any of that now. Never get married. Never have children. They were taken from their families before their time and they had both died because of him. If he could, he would have taken their place in a heartbeat.
He'd numbly walked back to his tent, thanking god that Hermione wasn't there, simultaneously wanting and not wanting her with him. Sitting down heavily on his bed, he put his head in his hands and wept. And as if summoned, she came just as he'd completely broken down. She held him, like she always had. She'd run her fingers through his hair and given him her words, just like normal. But it wasn't enough. He wanted to die... to fade away, to not be human anymore if this was all it was but he stubbornly stayed alive.
Something in him snapped, and he embraced her back, holding on with a ferocity that surprised them both. And when they'd pulled back, he crossed the gap separating them. With her, there had always been that gap, that line. He hadn't even realized it was there, but it was. So he crossed it. She'd tried to reason with him, tried to talk sense into him but he was beyond it. He didn't give a damn about any of the reasons she'd put forth.
His whole life he'd been managed. Where he lived, how long he had to stay in that hellhole the Dursleys called home, when people could send him letters, what information he was allowed to know at a time that was invariably inconvenient to him; everyone always shoving expectations of who he was and how he ought to behave.
He'd lived his whole life until now worrying about who he'd hurt by being who he was. And here she was reminding him of all that. He bloody well knew it and he didn't care. For once, he wanted to feel like a normal human being. To do something reckless and impulsive that wouldn't get anyone killed. That'd make him feel like he was here and real and breathing. He wanted to feel something, anything, other than the despair he felt now - this great yawning emptiness.
And so they'd made love. He would call it nothing less. She was one of his oldest friends; his best friend. She knew him better than anyone. Hermione had never abandoned him. She'd always believed him. And even when they didn't agree, everything she'd ever done had been for him. She had always had his best interests at heart, and he loved her for it. If he knew that she thought all she'd been was a replacement for that dot on the Marauder's Map, he would have been deeply insulted, angry even. If he'd wanted Ginny, he would have gone to her. But he didn't want her. She hadn't been through the same things and couldn't possibly understand his feelings in that moment. He wanted Hermione (he needed her).
She was the only thing that had felt real in those weeks after. It was like he was in some kind of fugue state and Hermione was the one thing slowly edging him back into really living again. And then it had ended. She'd finally been able to reason with him. Reminded him of his obligations and who'd they hurt if they carried on. She managed to make him give a damn again (about all the wrong things, though he wouldn't realize this until much, much later). If he hadn't been such a fool, he wouldn't have let her do it. His time with her had never been a mistake, but possibly what had happened after had been. He just hadn't realized it yet.
When it came to love Harry was a poor Seeker who could seemingly never catch the snitch precisely at the right time. After all, he'd spent the first ten years of his life as a virtual stranger to the only family he had left who was unwelcome as he was unwanted, love had been a foreign concept to him.
He'd proposed to Ginny... he had loved her, he really had. It was never his intention to hurt her or Hermione, but if one of them had to be hurt, he thought Hermione would take it better. Ginny lost a brother; she couldn't lose him as well. And Hermione was right, they were with other people. There were obligations and expectations to uphold and so many other people they could hurt. Hermione didn't look at him at all after it was announced. Not once. Even when he suggested that they go with her to find her parents.
The foolish part of him had thought it was a way to make things right. To show her that even if they couldn't carry on as they had been, he still cared for her. The more self-aware part did it out of plain worry. In his grief, he hadn't noticed hers and as his own veil lifted he could see it. He was afraid she'd do something rash, which was absurd. Hermione was far too ordered to do something like that but then he remembered that while she was quite rigid when it came to the rules, she wasn't above breaking them. She wasn't above doing something dangerous or crazy if she thought she had a good enough reason to.
No, Hermione wasn't as above all that as both he and Ron had believed. In the beginning, she had needed encouragement to do the same kind of stupid, foolhardy things they did without even thinking. But by second year she was doing them consciously, willingly. And unlike him and Ron, Hermione didn't just do things on a whim, she did things because she'd thought them out thoroughly and that was far more terrifying.
He'd tried to explain his reasoning to Ron, but he hadn't listened. Of course, he hadn't given him the full truth but he'd tried his best to impress upon his friend that something was very wrong with the third member of their little trio.
"C'mon, Harry. This is Hermione. You're worrying too much."
As it turned out, he hadn't worried near enough.
It was Ginny who'd found the letter. She'd woken him up, in tears, with it clutched in her trembling hand. Half awake, he'd pushed his glasses on his face and read it. She was going to Melbourne on her own. Don't worry. She just needed a bit of time to herself as she was feeling out of sorts. Give me two weeks, the letter had said. I need two weeks to sort myself out, on my own. Please don't worry.
She expected them to believe that. But Harry didn't. Her excuses about why she wanted to do this was a lie (he would discover very quickly that the whole damned thing was one enormous lie). She hadn't left to sort herself out, not really. 'She left because of me. It's my fault. I finally asked too much of her and she left... she left me.' Those thoughts ricocheted in his head on an endless and destructive loop. During the Horcrux hunt he'd wondered when she'd leave, what it would take. Now he knew. Please don't worry, she'd written that in various forms a number of times in the letter. As if those words in whatever combination was enough to make him not agonize over this situation.
"Get your father," he'd ordered without even looking at Ginny, his hands trembling.
He woke Ron up and shoved the letter into his hands, pacing back and forth while he waited for him to finish reading. When he was done, Ron looked up at him, pale with shock. Shortly thereafter, it was chaos. Molly was attempting to calm Ginny, unsuccessfully. Ron was still pale, dark smudges under his eyes as he sat at kitchen table staring at nothing. Percy was sitting next to him, jabbering on and on about how it'd be all right. They'd find her. But from the look on his face, Harry wasn't so sure, seemed more like empty platitudes to him. Bill and Arthur were the only ones with a modicum of sense. They were talking with two Aurors, who'd they'd called over the moment they'd read the letter.
Ron had given them the most current picture they'd had. And everyone, Harry included, had given them details of what they could remember about the night before; how Hermione acted, what she might have been wearing, and the note. But they'd been told point blank that looking for her wasn't a priority. She had left of her own volition, as far as they were concerned. It didn't matter if she was a war hero. It didn't matter she was Harry Potter's best friend.
One of them hand made the offhand comment, "She's of age and has every right to leave if she wants."
The Ministry was stretched thin, much too thin. Voldemort era Ministry workers who hadn't resisted the regime and had an active hand in war crimes had scattered like cockroaches. All that was left were those who had resisted and come back. They simply lacked numbers, even with the influx of former resistance members. They had Death Eaters to round up and there were hundreds of other missing persons who hadn't left of their own free will. Once they had freed up some of their personnel, they'd look into it and get back to them. They estimated it'd be at least three weeks for them to schedule some time and then they'd left. Harry had never in his life been so infuriated, as if it wasn't dangerous for her to be on her own, what with Death Eaters still about. Absolutely furious, he stormed up into Ron's room to prepare to find her himself.
Ron had followed him, the shock having worn off somewhat. He watched his friend as he threw things into a rucksack, nonplussed. "Harry... Harry, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to look for her," Harry replied roughly, angrily closing the flap on his rucksack as he stood. "Going to bring her back."
"But... you heard the Aurors, they said..."
"Three weeks," Harry growled, barely holding his temper. "They said it'd take three weeks for them to look into it. Anything could happen to her in that time. I'm not going to sit here and wait patiently for them to get their heads out of their asses."
"But... it's Hermione. She can take care of herse-"
"YOU HEARD THEM, DIDN'T YOU?! THERE ARE STILL DEATH EATERS OUT THERE, RON! SHE'S OUR FRIEND! MY FRIEND! AND I JUST KILLED THEIR BEST MATE! YOU THINK THEY WON'T BE OUT THERE LOOKING FOR PAYBACK?!" Harry bellowed, his eyes blazing. He stood there shaking, almost pleased at the panicked look on Ron's face. He went on, more calmly this time, "Besides, the longer we wait the bigger lead she has on us. Merlin knows when she left. We can't... we can't just do nothing."
"H-her note said..."
"I don't care what her bloody note said! I told you something was wrong. I don't think she's thinking clearly. I'm going after her and if you want to come with, fine. But don't try to stop me."
There was a flicker of resistance on Ron's face, something jealous and possessive. "She's my girlfriend."
Harry didn't know why, but his pronouncement irked him. He realized that he wasn't really acting like a concerned friend right now, that his actions were more akin to a concerned lover. And if he was honest, that's what he was, wasn't he. But since Ron seemed to enjoy having the official title, the right to call her that, then where did he get off acting like this was all okay... where did he get off not being worried sick about her like he should be.
"Well, your girlfriend is missing. And since you don't seem to give a damn, someone else has to," Harry said lowly, pushing past Ron and pelting down the stairs.
There were voices that called after him that he didn't heed. He could hear Ron's heavy steps just behind him, but Harry was faster. Ron ought to have thanked whatever god looked after fools, because Harry would have hexed him if he'd tried to lay a hand on him. He made it past the wards and used an old gum wrapper to make a portkey quite illegally to the precise coordinates she'd written down in her note. There was no way he'd wait for more legal means of travel. They'd already lost so much time.
And when he got to the location she'd indicated, he'd didn't have the words to express his own confusion. Her note had said Melbourne. He wasn't much of a world traveler and he'd never been to Australia, but this didn't look like Melbourne. He was on a road in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, looking at a sign that said in large black lettering: "NO THROUGH ROAD - JOINT DEFENCE FACILITY PINE GAP."
"Bloody hell," he whispered, dropping his pack to wrestle out the copy of her note he'd made. Looking at the coordinates, he read them over and over to make sure they were right and turned on his heel. And with a crack, he landed in the exact same spot he'd been in.
Several seconds later no less than five Australian Aurors from the Ministry down under had surrounded him, wands drawn. Once taken into custody, they found out who he was, naturally. The British Ministry was informed, and he was quickly let go with a formal warning. All the Australian Aurors had a good laugh about how he'd managed to apparate just outside a joint Australian/American military defense facility.
"Seems like someone was taking the piss out of you, mate," one of them had chuckled.
Harry didn't find it particularly funny. Either Hermione had given them incorrect coordinates, which was unlikely, or she'd given them purposefully wrong ones, which was sadly more likely. She hadn't wanted them... no, him, she hadn't wanted him to follow her. He briefly thought about sticking around to look for her in Melbourne. But the city was simply too big. Realistically, he'd never find her. Until he had more information, it'd be fruitless.
He hadn't wanted to go back to the Burrow, tail between his legs. Instead, he went to an International Floo Network fireplace to get to London from Melbourne and from there went to Grimmauld Place. Once he got there, he made a beeline to his old room, tossing his rucksack carelessly into the corner. There was a huge part of him that was so angry he wanted to throw something. The same part of him that had impulsively destroyed Professor Dumbledore's things in his office at the end of fifth year nearly roared to life, but he was so tired - so very tired. So he threw himself on his bed and fell asleep.
The next day he sent Kreacher with a note to the Burrow to let them know he was all right. He mentioned that he'd been unable to find Hermione, obliquely hinting she'd given them incorrect directions. It was nearly two weeks before Ron showed up. The whole affair was awkward, deeply awkward, but somehow they'd powered through it and they made up. And eventually, Harry had told him about his aborted trip.
"So, the directions in the note were really wrong?"
"Yeah, they were."
Ron laughed nervously. "You reckon it was just a mistake or..."
He let out a ragged sounding sigh. "No, she wouldn't make a mistake. She didn't want us to follow her."
"What do we do?"
"We wait, I guess," Harry answered hollowly.
And wait they did. Not just the three weeks the Aurors had quoted them but a little under t two months. Harry wasn't fundamentally interested in their investigation, as he was keenly aware that Hermione wasn't where she had said she'd be. Funnily enough, the Ministry came up with the same conclusion. In that time, the news of his proposal to Ginny had been leaked and he'd been forced to confirm it. Worse, Ginny had been pushing to set a date which they'd announced at the same time.
"So many terrible things had happened; wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a bit of good news?"
So he caved. She wanted to get married next June just after she graduated. Her parents had protested, it was too soon, they were too young. Ginny had shot back hotly that Harry's parents had gotten married young. It was a low blow, in his opinion, but he didn't feel like arguing with her. This was what she wanted. He was too busy with Auror training to care, really. Well, that, and his mind was turning over Hermione's disappearance. Where was she now? How had she gotten there? Would she eventually come back as she'd obliquely hinted at in her note?
It was stupid to hope but it was all he had left. And whether it was a stroke of genius or pure desperation, he began to investigate further on his own.
When they'd originally left on the Horcrux hunt, she'd asked if she could store some things from her parent's house in Grimmauld Place. He'd agreed and it was all still packed away on the fourth floor. When he wasn't training, he was up there going through every single last box. There were well over twenty boxes, four of them filled with photo albums neatly organized by year. Flipping through them, there were so many pictures of her... birthdays, various holidays, vacations.
There were pictures of her parent's wedding; her mother in a lovely white peasant dress with flowers in her unruly hair, her father in a fairly terrible crushed velvet tuxedo and a plain, white yarmulke. They were standing under of a kind of canopy that was decorated beautifully with a profusion sunflowers and red roses, surrounded by friends and family as they held each other's hand tightly. Her father's leg was lifted up, poised to crush a glass wrapped in a napkin on the floor. The look of pure, unadulterated joy on their faces was infectious.
Harry wasn't particularly religious but the Dursleys were. He knew because they'd gone to a church a good thirty minutes from their home every Sunday. Of course, he'd never gone with. He was either stuck at Mrs. Figg's house or left alone with strict orders not to touch anything. It never occurred to him that any of his friends were religious, which was a bit stupid of him. Still, it was strange after knowing her so long to realize that Hermione and her family were Jewish. She'd always given them Christmas presents so he'd assumed... why had she never even mentioned it to them? Was her family not observant? He wished he could ask her.
Most of the rest of the boxes were books, furniture shrunk by magic, and paperwork - loads and loads of paperwork. He'd found bank statements for her parents and their practice. There were two small packets with birth certificates, driver's licenses and passports in them, which he thought was a little strange. They were labeled with her parent's names. The third packet with Hermione's name was ominously empty.
Out of pure curiosity, he pulled out her mother's birth certificate. He opened it up to find it was entirely in French. From what he could glean, her name had been Hélène Didier before she'd gotten married. She'd been born in Paris in 1956, just four years before his own mother. Also inside Helen's envelope was her marriage license. Richard Granger and Helen Didier had married on 7 September, 1976. There was also her license to practice dentistry and a diploma from Queen Mary University, dated for July of 1980. Around about the time he was ready to be born, Hermione's mum had just graduated from dental school. It was strange to find this out, in this way. Despite his motives - vis-à-vis finding Hermione - it felt like he was invading their privacy somehow and yet...
'I should have known this,' he thought guiltily, 'I was her friend... I should have known all of this.'
Shaking his head, he carefully tucked it all away and put it back into the box. There was nothing helpful there. He turned to another box, which was full of what could only be childhood mementos. There were a ton of little colorful horses that looked worse for wear, a pair of ceramic cats, a cast of what could only be Hermione's teeth in plaster, several certificates for awards she'd won at piano competitions, a number of Moleskine journals, a worn pair of ballet slippers belonging to a very young girl, and a small box with sparkly pink flowers all over it. He drew the little pink box out. It felt so wrong to open it, but he did anyway.
There wasn't much inside, just a load of jewelry clearly meant for a little girl. Plastic bracelets in several different colors, a gaudy resin ring with a preserved flower in it, assorted charms from a broken charm bracelet, and a little jade goat ornament. There was a miniature ballerina in it, which would have moved and played music had he bothered to wind it. And there was a mirror, which seemed to be oddly skewed as if whoever had glued it to the top just hadn't cared. Harry touched it curiously. Examining it further, he noticed the entire top of the box was skewed. Like someone had peeled it back and re-glued it.
Pressing his lips together, he carefully picked at the pink fabric at the top of the box. It didn't come away easily but working it carefully he eventually peeled it back. A note fell out of it. His hands were trembling as he unfolded it. In her neat, loopy handwriting it began:
Dear Harry and Ron,
If you are reading this, it means that I didn't make it. I want you both to know that you were the best friends I have ever had. That being said, there are instructions on how you might restore my parent's memories in a box labeled Misc. China. I've left some things out of the notes I left behind so if someone else intercepts them it will be harder to decipher. Please, if it's not too much trouble, see to it that you give it to Professor Flitwick. I'd very much like my parents to know what happened to me and I trust that the Professor would be able to assist you both.
Love,
Hermione
He stood up suddenly, not caring a whit that he'd dropped the little music box and spilled its contents. It warbled 'Clair de Lune' from the floor as he took several strides over to the other boxes. He moved them aside until he found the one she had indicated. In it were piles and piles of notebooks and another note (which was as heavily charmed as her first one so that only he or Ron could read it) where she admitted that she'd lied to them. Yes, she'd modified her parent's memories but instead of sending them to Australia, she sent them to New Zealand. She gave him reasons for her obfuscation, which didn't really make him feel all that confident in her trust in them. But he saw her point. He was glad Ron wasn't here, he was sure to have made a bigger deal of it than it was.
His heart thrummed. There was a chance they could find her. He had her parent's actual aliases and their address in New Zealand. This time he'd be prepared. He'd be more careful. And he'd bring Ron.
He had hoped, perhaps somewhat naively, that if he and Ron went to New Zealand that he'd find her there with her parents. Instead, they'd found Bettina and William Robards who weren't aware they had a daughter at all. He'd remembered clearly walking into the Gallery her mother owned. Bettina (aka Helen) stood and greeted him with a smile at the small information desk. He knew it was her; she looked exactly as she had in the photos.
Feeling inexplicably nervous, he looked at Ron before asking, "Is Hermione here?"
The woman gave a little start. "Um, I'm sorry, we don't have anyone by that name who works here. Can I help you with something else?"
Ice filled his veins. "S-she doesn't work here," he stammered, his mouth felt like it was filled with molasses. "She's... she's your daughter."
"I think you must have mistaken me for someone else, young man. I don't have a daughter," she said coldly, her hand drifting towards the phone on her desk.
Ron stepped in, smiling nervously. "What I think my friend meant was... our friend, Hermione, might have been by this place. She's gone missing, see." And then he stage whispered, "My friend here is really gutted by it and I guess he just got confused." Ron turned to him, his smile looking more like a grimace at this point. In a very high-pitched voice, he turned and prompted, "Why don't you show her the picture, Harry?"
He wanted to point out that as her boyfriend Ron ought to be the one with a picture. That it was weird for a best friend to have one and not the guy who was romantically involved with her. But he neglected to because he didn't want to go down that rabbit hole. Instead, he pulled out the picture he had of her in his wallet that he'd taken from one of the albums.
Hermione's mum took the photo warily, examining it for several seconds. There was a flicker of something in her eyes, something almost like recognition. "Yes," she said slowly. "Yes, she came in a few months ago." Her voice was soft, dreamy. With a sigh, she shook herself and continued, "She bought one of my paintings. The one with yellow camellias... which I thought was rather apt because she had such sad eyes. She left after that, never indicated where she was going. I'm sorry I can't help with more..." she trailed off, the tone of her voice making it clear they weren't welcome here anymore.
They left shortly thereafter to find a room at the small wizarding community found in downtown Christchurch. It was too late to portkey back to London, so they'd chosen to stay the night and catch the first available slot the next morning. After eating, Ron went back to their room to take a nap. The whole day had left him exhausted. Harry was the exact opposite. He was so full of adrenaline that he didn't think he could sleep if he tried. Instead, he went back to the Gallery before closing. He wanted to know why Hermione's mum thought it was apt that she bought that painting. She was surprised he'd come back, not all that pleasantly. But she'd told him what he wanted to know.
"She looked quite heartbroken," she'd said, her gaze piercing Harry as surely as if she'd jammed a spear into his heart. "I'm not so old that I don't remember that look," she sighed; it was a terribly tired sound. "I thought it was apt because in some cultures, yellow camellias are symbolic for longing for the one you love."
Harry did not know how to process the information, what he ought to make of it. He didn't know if he wanted to. So he focused on the facts they knew. Hermione had been here but she hadn't broken the memory charm on her parents. It meant that now they had no leads, no idea where she'd gone. His only hope was that if they could break the memory charm, her parents might know where she went. Honestly, he wasn't sure they'd know much more than he would, but it was the only lead he could think of. So he did what her letter in the box had suggested. He gave all her notes to Professor Flitwick.
And when he did, the diminutive Charms Professor had gaped openly as he went over them, asking in a breathlessly astonished squeak, "You said she told you that she'd simply modified her parent's memories, correct?"
Harry thought for a moment, trying to remember exactly how she'd put it. He knew she'd said something more about it but for the life of him he couldn't remember. His state of mind was a bit of a mess at the moment. "Yes, she... that's just how she put it."
Flitwick frowned, rifling through the notes errantly as he mumbled to himself. "You're sure that's how she said it... that she told you all she did was a simple memory modification?"
"More or less."
"More or less?"
Feeling nettled, Harry could feel the tether on his temper shortening. He was just about to ask what any of this had to do with anything when Ron suddenly spoke up. "Well, she did say something about them having new names, I think. And that she'd made them forget her... and all the things she'd told them about Harry." Ron glowered as the two other people in the room gazed at him in amazement. "What?! You know, sometimes I do listen when she's talking, even if I don't understand half of what she says."
Professor Flitwick sighed deeply. "Well, I'm afraid this complicates things."
Harry and Ron shared a look. "What do you mean?" Harry asked, perhaps a bit less politely than he could have.
"From what you've told me and what I can glean from her notes, Miss Granger didn't perform a simple memory charm," he explained, gesturing at Hermione's files expansively. "According to this, she created a lifetime of memories and records out of whole cloth."
When all he got was blank looks, he clarified that the magic Hermione had performed had never been done. You can obliviate someone, which would take away the memory of an event. You could use various spells or curses to compel someone to do something, such as suddenly wanting to move to Australia. There was even a spell or two to implant altered memories, though the magic behind it was a touch dark. But there was no way to completely fabricate new identities by magic, at least according to everything Filius Flitwick had ever known. This was completely new magic... some of the most impressively complex magic he'd ever seen. The theories she'd put forth in her notes were nothing short of revolutionary.
But there was a caveat. Her research was incomplete. She had created a new kind of memory charm, but she had only just started on figuring out a counter charm for it, her notes indicated as much. For Harry, what it all boiled down to was that it'd take time for him to figure out how to reverse whatever it was Hermione did, if it was even possible.
Harry had decided on the spot that it wasn't worth wasting their time, bitterly accepting it was yet another fruitless lead. Flitwick disagreed and asked if he might keep her notes. He and McGonagall both agreed that the theories put forth in her research materials represented a significant magical achievement. They wanted to honor that by studying it further, indicating that they intended to publish it underneath her name. Harry agreed easily. He didn't understand a word of those notes but if they could be used for the betterment of the wizarding world, he was sure Hermione would approve of her professors using them for such a purpose.
Everyone wanted a Harry chapter and here we are! Pt1. of a chapter that's all Harry. Happy Valentine's Day for all that celebrate!