May 17, 1998.
The bright yellow dress that Luna wore made Hermione hug her even tighter when they met in the square of Ottery St. Catchpole. Ron, despite his continuing insistence that she had more than a little bit of lunacy flowing in her veins, embraced Luna right after Hermione released her. The blond girl smiled at them, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. Hermione couldn't help but be reminded of their smiling faces and the word friends written in spiraling gold.
In the days that had passed since the memorial, Hermione had returned to the Burrow, fighting exhaustion and sleep; after their dinner, the Weasleys had come home, all worn out and ready to settle into a quiet evening. She and Ron had wrapped themselves in a blanket on the couch. He'd let her sleep, taking her hair clumsily out of its pins and running a soothing hand over her bruised scalp. The bushiness, of course, had been released from its magical bonds by the next morning, and Ron had woken to a ball of frizz in his face, per usual.
In the morning, she had professed an intense desire to search out her parents. Ron and Harry had accompanied her to her home, where they found brochures and fliers for houses for sale in Australia strewn across the coffee table. She had chosen not the one on top of the pile, but the one with the star in the corner - her mother had always marked stars in the files of outstanding patients, on lists on the refrigerator, in the old drafts that Hermione had seen of her school papers. Hermione had gone up to her room and found that it had been left completely untouched, and when she pulled open her desk drawer, she found the roses. They were not quite together anymore, after seven years of being held and jostled around in Hogwarts: A History in her schoolbag, but they had at least stayed in a pile. She'd nearly grabbed a locket from her jewelry box to nestle a petal in, but her hand had stopped an inch away from the chain. She had worn quite enough of those for this lifetime.
Instead, Hermione had reached into her beaded bag and pulled out Hogwarts: A History. The pages were a bit more indented than they had been when her journey had begun, having been bumped around in the bag for a year, but when she tucked a few petals between the pages, it felt as though things might finally be heading back toward normality.
Returning Luna's smile, Hermione looked to Ron. "We'll be back sometime in the next three days, depending on the portkey we take," she said. "Percy set them all up to bring us to the hill again, so we should be home by nine in the morning..."
"I know," Ron replied. "And I still want to go with you. We never listened to Harry when he said we couldn't come, did we?"
"No, I know we didn't, but these are my parents." Letting out a shaky breath, Hermione fluttered a hand over her hair, which she'd contained in a slightly more comfortable ponytail than what Ginny had put it in for the memorial days earlier. "Besides, I shouldn't be in any danger in Australia, unlike when Harry was running around the countryside on the most wanted list."
"Australia is home to many magical creatures, though," said Luna, her lilting, dreamy voice turning their attention to her. "Father and I have always wanted to go there, you know. The nargles thrive there. It's a shame he'll miss it."
"I'm sure Xenophilius will be happy to go another time," Hermione assured the younger Ravenclaw. Luna had retrieved her father from Azkaban in the week after the war; he had only just now become well enough to leave on his own again, but just in case, he had gone to stay at the Fawcetts', who were newly returned to their cottage.
"Luna," began Ron hesitantly, and Hermione sensed a point coming. "Aren't nargles the invisible creatures that mess with your brain?"
"Wrackspurts mess with your brain. Nargles are thieves. They only do that if you stand under their mistletoe for too long, though," she said brightly. "There must be quite a lot of mistletoe in Australia. Father says they like it there more than they do here."
"Ronald," warned Hermione, casting a sidelong look at Luna.
"Are you sure you don't want me to go?" The blue in his eyes seemed to get more vivid as he stared at her, his long red lashes brushing his cheeks when he blinked. "The nargles could be dangerous."
Sighing, Hermione reached a hand around his waist and pulled herself closer to him, very aware of the younger girl right behind them who gazed at the hills in the distance. With one arm under his ribs, Hermione looked up at him. Her other hand touched the back of his neck, bringing his forehead to hers. "We'll be fine. Luna and I can look out for one another just as well as you and Harry look after each other." Part of her wondered if that was an accurate statement, considering the trouble the two of them routinely got into, but they certainly had fun together, when they weren't fighting. She tried to ignore the memories of their silent treatment in fourth year.
Ron wrapped her in his arms and Hermione breathed in his scent, a clean, soapy scent from the shower he'd had before they'd left the Burrow. The warmth of his fingers pressing gently into her ribs felt so right she thought she might never pull away.
"Hermione," said Luna, "we'll miss the portkey."
Closing her eyes, Hermione let out a breath and bumped her head lightly against his chest. Too soon.
Fingers cold from their walk lifted her chin. "Hey," murmured Ron. "If you don't make it back, Harry and I will come find you. We will always find you. Alright?"
Hermione swallowed, blinking up into his eyes. "Alright," she replied hoarsely. Her eyes started to drift downward again, his gaze too intense to keep for long.
"I love you."
Her eyes snapped back to his face. Some kind of pained look had replaced his reassuring, smiling eyes, pleading with her. "I… I love you, too," she said, her stomach wrenching with nerves of a new kind.
The smile that lit up his face made her insides flutter, and he leaned down to brush a soft kiss against her lips. "I'll see you when you come home."
Hermione nodded, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you soon."
With more than one look back at Ron as they walked away, Hermione and Luna crossed the village toward Stoatshead Hill. Her heart ached to leave him standing there, but she had started this on her own. They had to do some things apart from each other.
And when she returned, she would have a home of her own again, just like him.
May 17, 1998.
Australia was warmer than Hermione had expected. The sun was already low in the sky when they landed in a copse of trees in what could only be a public park, by the mowed green grass and the rows of trees along the pavements. Once Luna had let go of their portkey - a year-old Quibbler, which the younger Ravenclaw had been eager to reread - Hermione stowed it in her bag. "That magazine will reactivate tomorrow at five, so we need to be back here by then," said Hermione. "If we're not, we'll have to go to the Australian Wizarding Authority and get to one of the other two that Percy scheduled through them."
With a slight nod, Luna stepped out of their hiding place. The breeze played with her hair, tangling the white-gold wisps until she brushed it out of her face again. "Australia is so green," she said, her voice carrying wistfully on the breeze.
Hermione squinted at the park around them. Everything had a hue of gray to her eyes - and it was no surprise to her, for it was technically winter here. But, if Luna had expected a dry brown desert, as she herself would've, had she not done her research, Hermione supposed that the sagebrush color of their surroundings might be considered green.
She already missed the isles.
"Come on, we've got to find a taxi," murmured Hermione to the dreamy young woman beside her. Just to be sure she didn't drift away, Hermione took Luna's hand. "I've no clue if Australia has a transport for wizards, so we'll be using Muggle means."
As if on cue, Luna lowered the Spectrespecs she had been pulling from her bag back into their pocket. Ron must have given her ideas about wrackspurts with that comment, thought Hermione, groaning inwardly.
"You have Muggle money?" asked Luna.
With a nod, Hermione pulled a handful of brightly colored bills from her pocket, all folded neatly together in order of their value. "Gringotts exchanged some for me."
Nearly an hour later, their bright yellow cab pulled up in front of a suburban house with a sad lawn. Wendell and Monica Wilkins clearly did not have the green thumbs of her parents, if there even was such a thing as a green thumb in this place. "Ambleside Avenue, miss," said the driver, a dark-haired man with warm brown eyes. He had been the only one they'd met to even contemplate the forty kilometer drive out of the city. "And your total's seventy-two thirty-four."
After handing him eighty Australian dollars and telling him to keep the change, Hermione hauled herself out of the vehicle, pulling Luna right after. Before closing the door, she stuck her head back in. "Thank you," she said, giving him a smile.
The young man gave her a nod. "I don't know why you're here," he replied, his voice solemn, "but even we heard about the battle for Britain."
Hermione's eyes widened, and her hand went to her puffy ponytail. She'd put it up specifically to avoid recognition; just two days ago, the Prophet had called her mane her "frizzy trademark," much to the dismay of herself and Ginny, and to the laughter of one Ronald Weasley. Harry had stayed stoically silent on the subject. "Why is a wizard driving a taxi?" she hissed, her voice high with incredulity.
"Squib," he said matter-of-factly, and Hermione was relieved not to hear an ounce of shame in his voice. Too much of that had been passed around based on blood status in the last centuries. Perhaps Australia was different. All the same, she dropped her scarred arm from the roof of the vehicle, in case he saw what was written above the seam of her sleeve. "Whatever you're doing, I hope it's sanctioned by AWA. They're rather strict about ops on their soil by Brits. They don't want that prejudice here."
"It's not sanctioned, but it's not the sort of thing that needs to be," she muttered, shutting the car door. Apparently, Australia knew more than she thought - far more than anyone would want them, or any other country to know. International relations were already strained by the Ministry's ineptitude. In the last few days, Kingsley had been working desperately to piece back together the shards of dignity that their nation still had. He'd even had to call on France for aid.
The driver rolled down the window. "Look, I'm not going to report you or anything. Merlin only knows what you want with suburbia - I hope it's to find some place quiet to lie low. You'd deserve some peace." His brow furrowed as he leaned across the console. "Just be careful. You just got your home back."
One corner of Hermione's mouth came up in a lopsided smile. "My home is with the people I love," she told him. "And they -" she pointed to the deep blue door of the house across the street "- are on the other side of that wall."
Raising his eyebrows at her, the driver leaned around to get a better look at the place, then began to roll up the window. "Well, whatever they're doing there, I can't argue with that. Stay off AWA's radar." With one last wave, he cruised away, and Hermione breathed for what felt like the first time in an hour.
Luna, who had been standing on the pavement studying the place, spoke up. "Well, he was quite nosy."
"Curiosity is in the nature of caring people," Hermione replied. "At least he seemed to care about my wellbeing more than he did about the fact that we're currently breaking several international laws just by being here."
The blue-eyed witch gave her an owlish look. "Laws have never stopped us before."
Shaking her head, Hermione started across the street. "They used to stop me, and after this, I'll be bending them back into place."
With her heart in her throat, Hermione raised her hand to the knocker. Its metal was warm in her grasp, and before she could think about leaving her parents in peace, she rapped it against the door.