War Is Over: Chapter 3/17 - Australia
Australia turned out to be further away than either Hermione or Harry had ever imagined it'd be. At first, there were the delays. Molly Weasley was not thrilled to hear that they'd be leaving so soon, even after Ron made it clear that for this journey, he won't be joining them. Ron himself was very unhappy with the idea, but he knew that leaving his family so soon would be impractical, almost as impractical as asking Hermione to wait. But his sulking wasn't as hard to deal with as Ginny's reaction. She didn't sulk, she wasn't angry, but just looked at Harry with a somewhat disappointed expression and sighed. "Are we ever going to have more than three days together?" she asked, and only then did Harry realise how unreliable he had been with her - they hardly saw each other for that entire year, and times had been challenging for her as well, even if she didn't look for Horcruxes in snowy forests. And now, with her brother dead, he was going again, instead of staying and supporting her.
"I promise you," he whispered in her ear, "I'll come back as soon as I can. And this time I'll stay."
She nodded, and then kissed him deeply. "You better," she said and smiled a mischievous smile that made Harry ask Hermione in a whisper, "How long did you say this was going to take, again?"
Then there was another run-in with Kingsley. He came to dinner with the Weasleys the night before Harry and Hermione left, and he was very unhappy with the news.
"I hoped you'd come to the memorial service," he said, sounding just as disappointed as Ginny was earlier.
"Memorial service?" Harry asked in curiosity while taking a second helping of Mrs Weasley's wonderful pea soup.
"The Ministry is having a memorial service after the last funerals take place, in a couple of days. When everything is still fresh. Help people put this behind us."
Another opportunity for public display, another event where everyone would talk about Harry as if he was the only one who had made sacrifices and the only one who suffered. At that moment Harry was grateful that Hermione asked him to accompany her.
"I'm sorry, Kingsley, we can't ask Hermione to wait any longer to look for her parents."
"The Ministry could do with your presence there, Harry. Especially as now you're becoming a Ministry employee. We thought we'd announce it after the ceremony."
Really grateful to Hermione.
"I'm sorry, Kingsley. It's just not possible."
"I see," Kingsley said. "Well, I won't push the subject any further. As long as you know that we really are happy at the Ministry that you're joining us. Your input means a great deal to us there, Harry."
"You care about what I have to say?" Harry asked doubtfully.
"It's not just your name that we want, Harry. You have shown yourself to have determination, and consideration, and understanding that few wizards - your age or older - have. You were put in terrible ordeals, and you performed magnificently. We really do care about your advice."
"Alright then, here's one piece of advice from me. Get the Dementors out of Azkaban."
The table, that had gone slightly quieter when the discussion between Kingsley and Harry began, turned dead silent with that statement. Arthur was looking at Kinglsey with interest, while Ron was rolling his eyes at Harry.
When Kingsley spoke, he spoke very calmly, very slowly, and very carefully, his deep voice booming around the room. "I don't disagree with you, Harry."
"But?" Harry asked immediately, and for a moment, Kingsley looked like a person who was looking for the right answer.
"But," he said finally, deliberately, "I have many battles to fight. What you need to understand is that there are worse things going on right now than the Dementors of Azkaban. And that is partially the reason I want you to be more visible at the Ministry."
"It would be easier to get things done if you can use my name?" Harry asked quietly.
"Yes. Already the Ministry is full of people who are looking for their own personal gain. But no one is going to be on one side when you're on the other."
"I'll think about it," Harry said, and the discussion moved to safer, better subjects.
Harry did think about it, all through that night. In a way, he felt worse than he did only a few days ago, when he put his head in the pensieve and learned just how he had been used by Dumbledore. Then, he allowed himself to be used. Out of his own free will he had agreed to finish Dumbledore's plan, to save the lives of everyone he had ever known, everyone he cared about. And now, here was Kingsley, asking him to allow himself to be used again. But this time, there would be no end in the horizon, no single bad man to defeat so that everything could be decent and good again.
But he still had time to decide, so he turned around and tried to think of other things, but the image of Dumbledore as he had last seen him was planted deep in his mind, and he got almost no sleep until the morning.
The next day he said nothing of that to Hermione. They left early, because they had a lot of ground to cover, and were too sleepy to have any sort of coherent conversation, let along about serious issues. Hermione told Harry the night before she had half a mind to get them plane tickets, as it apparently was a much faster way to travel. They couldn't Apparate the entire distance at one go - the laws of magic made it impossible. Instead, they would have to cover the distance in a series of small jumps, jumps that would only get them to Australia after a couple of days. Before that, Hermione said in a slightly exasperated tone, they would get to see all of Europe and large portions of Asia, too.
And so it happened, that after a whole day of Apparating and Disapparating from one city to the other, from one country to the other, after a glimpse of Amsterdam, a five-minute tour of Berlin, after lunch at Warsaw and a growing view of snow and ice through the colder parts of Russia and Kazakhstan, they had found themselves in the middle of the night at a city called Ürümqi, technically in China but looking very little like any picture of any book that Hermione or Harry had ever read. In fact, it looked much more like Russia, or the little they had seen of Kazakhstan only a short while ago. The only hint they had of being in China was the Chinese script, accompanying the Cyrillic and Arabic ones.
Neither of which, of course, either of them could read.
After an hour of useless efforts to communicate, Harry was in half a mind to continue Apparating throughout the night instead of trying to explain to the locals that they were after a room, but Hermione refused to give up. "I'm tired," she said, "I'm stinking, I'm hungry, I need a bath, and the war is over so there really isn't any excuse to feel any of this."
She had a point, of course. Rare were the occasions that Hermione Granger did not have a point. But so far, her efforts were showing no progress, and he was becoming more and more restless as his hunger and tiredness grew. He had already suggested a couple of times that they Apparated again and tried their luck elsewhere, but if the first time Hermione stopped to explain to him why they should stay there, the second time had only earned him an impatient look, after which Hermione immediately returned to try and find someone - anyone - who spoke English at that time of night.
The night soon became morning. There was still no sign of the sun, but the houses around them started filling with light, and people started exiting their houses.
Hermione's Muggle watch still said 10 a.m., Harry confirmed through a stolen glance at her wrists as she was moving her hands animatedly in the air, trying to make the sleep-deprived hotel clerk understand her words and getting a mixture of Uyghur and broken Russian and Chinese in return. But right now Harry didn't care for the time differences or for the fact it was morning. All he wanted was a bed, and preferably before sunrise.
And then their luck changed - or rather, Harry's luck. They had tried again in a small hotel, where Hermione repeated the ritual of battling sleepy night clerks who didn't speak a word of English. Harry was standing behind her, looking in boredom at the room around them. Just then, the lift opened, and a small man emerged. He wasn't dressed like the others - instead of the clothes the Muggles wore here, he had a long red robe with a Chinese pattern of dragons and phoenixes, and a small, weird hat. And on his face was a huge moustache, black but with a touch of white.
The man didn't pay them much attention. They were just a couple of badly lost tourists. He gave Hermione a quick look, then another at Harry, and kept on walking, folding the paper in his hand. All of a sudden he stopped, blinked, and turned to look at Harry again.
"Harry Potter," he said, surprised.
Even Hermione stopped waving her hands and stared at the man.
"Yes," Harry said, and the man walked towards him and offered his hand. Harry took it tentatively, and the man started shaking it, completely excited. His English wasn't much better than the clerk's - Harry could understand "great victory" and "luck" and a couple of other words, but nothing tangible.
But at last came the salvation. "You look for room?" the man asked, and as Harry nodded in amazement, the man walked to the clerk and barked in quick Mandarin at him. Within minutes, they had a key to one of the hotel's rooms in their hands - "Room on me! Harry Potter!" was the best they could get from their unexpected saviour - and were up in the lift and stepping into the room.
A quick bath, a quick snack, and by the time Hermione finished drying her hair and lying on her side of the bed, Harry was already deep into sleep on his.
-X-
"You know, we really don't learn enough languages at Hogwarts," was the first thing Harry heard when he woke up.
His mumbled "What?" was the only reaction he managed to muster. Where was he - ah. Soft bed, unknown room, and a sun that was already past its height and starting its long journey down to the other side of the Earth - they were Somewhere On The Way To Australia.
"I've been thinking. This whole mess could have been avoided had we studied languages at Hogwarts. I should talk to McGonagall about it."
"Right. Mind you, we do spend a lot of time studying magic, so I'm not surprised its not the highest priority," he answered, then sat up and rubbed his eyes before putting on his glasses. Had he imagined it, or had Hermione moved her gaze quickly from him towards the radio in her hand? He must have imagined it, he figured, as she was already tapping on the thing.
"I'm trying to get a signal from back home," she explained.
"What time is it over there?" Harry said, stifling a yawn.
"Should be around 10," she said.
"We slept long."
"You slept long," she threw him a look and tapped the radio again.
"I slept long," Harry amended his latest statement.
"Well, I suppose it was bound to happen. It's not like you had much sleep in the past week or so."
"Actually, a week ago we were still in Shell Cottage - " No, that can't be right, Harry thought to himself. That was more than a week ago. It had to be.
It looked like a different lifetime. A week ago - or maybe slightly longer, he was no longer sure - they were still scared, fighting for their lives, sure they were going to die. And then he really thought he was going to die.
And now here they were in Ürümqi, China, and Hermione, having given up on fiddling with the radio, handed him some sort of dumpling as breakfast. Or lunch. It wasn't much after the huge dinners at the Burrow, but Harry wasn't going to complain. It was much better than anything he had had to eat most of that previous year.
"How are you feeling?" she asked once he finished his dumpling.
"Fine. I'm fine," he looked at her, confused.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," he replied and got up to wash his teeth. He had a feeling Hermione was still looking at him strangely.
But whatever went through Hermione's mind that morning, it disappeared soon enough. They had checked out of the hotel - "No money, already pay," the day-clerk, who had some grasp of English, told them, but Harry still wasn't sure he understood their request to give their thanks to the generous wizard - and off they went. China, China, and more China, they Apparated due south until they had left China behind, and found themselves in Vietnam, then the Philippines, and finally Indonesia, Papua New Guinea - and Australia.
Another three Apparitions or so - by now, the both of them were tired, and hungry, even if it was day all around them. Hermione was beginning to worry that they would make a mistake in their Apparition and refused to make it to Sydney in one go, so the journey took even longer. But finally, they Apparated one last time, and were there. Sydney, Australia.
Now all they had to do was find two people between four million, and all they had to go on were names. Wendell and Monica Wilkins, a couple of British dentists who had moved to Australia after a lifelong ambition to do so, that was all they had.
"I suppose I could look in the phone directory," Hermione said quietly, as the looked at the park from the Liverpool St. Monorail Station.
"Tomorrow," Harry answered. "We've had enough for today."
"But - "
"You'll get to see them, Hermione," he touched her hand ever so lightly with his. "One more day. After all this time, what's one more day?"
"Yeah," she said, doubtful, slightly disappointed, but grateful at the same time. She needed sleep as much as he did.
And yet, neither of them got much sleep that night. As they were walking along, looking for a place to stay - "I have Australian dollars, how much do you think they'll want?" Hermione fretted - something else caught Harry's eye. In a newsstand in the corner of the street, one that none of the Muggles seemed to notice, the pictures on the papers were moving.
"Wizard newspapers!" he called, and rushed towards the stand. The wizard who owned the stand eyed him, first in confusion, then in excitement. Once again, he was recognised. But that didn't matter at the moment, because on the first page of the Sydney Prophet were pictures from the memorial service Kingsley had wanted him to attend, pictures of mayhem. Death Eaters strike again in London, said the headline in huge letters, and Harry snatched the paper.
"That'd be three Knuts," said the owner, but Harry paid him no attention, and quickly scanned the article, Hermione reading behind his shoulder in similar dismay.
Three dead, dozen wounded and hospitalised at St Mungo's. A dozen or so more with minor injuries, already sent to their homes. One Death Eater dead, one apprehended. A third managed to escape. And an unknown number of Death Eaters are still at large all over Britain. The British wizarding world in panic, and no one knows where is the Chosen One, The Boy Who Lived, The Hero of the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter. The Ministry denies rumours of his death in the attack, claiming he couldn't make it to the ceremony in the first place; but the Sydney Prophet has heard from a reliable source in the Ministry that Harry Potter was dead.
At that, Harry snorted. "They're just as reliable as the Prophet at home," he said to Hermione, but her face was pale as she grabbed the paper.
"Hey! Potter! Three Knuts for the paper! You're not entitled to free newspapers yet!" the owner shouted at them. Harry fished a couple of coins from his pocket and handed them to the vendor, not realising he'd just given him two Galleons.
"They're alright," he focused again on Hermione, reading her worried face correctly. "Ron's alright. Ginny's alright. Everyone is alright. It wasn't them."
"How can you know?" she demanded.
"I know. They're alright." He didn't know, of course. He had no way of knowing. But he thought it would be impossible if, after all they'd been through, they did not survive. He refused to even consider the thought.
"Oh, Harry," she said and hugged him. He hugged her back. "I thought it was over," she whispered. He didn't quite know what to say.
"It is over, Hermione," he whispered back. "This doesn't mean anything. It's over. Really."
She took a couple more seconds to calm down. Then she sniffled, wiped the tears from her face, and looked at him, embarrassed. "You're right," she said and sniffled again. "You're right. Of course you're right. It's over."
"You're just tired," he told her. "C'mon, let's find a place to stay for the night. Get some sleep. And tomorrow we'll find your parents. And then we'll go back home, and you'll get to see Ron again and see that he's alright." And I'll see Ginny. Who's fine. She has to be fine. She can't be - she's fine. He pushed his own fears out of his mind and looked at Hermione, determined and assured. He smiled at her, and eventually she had calmed down and smiled back at him, and they went to find a place to stay.
But he didn't sleep much. In his own mind, he imagined Ginny hurt, or dead, when no one saw it coming, when no one expected. All the wizards were certain they were finally safe.
Hermione, next to him, was completely silent. She didn't move on her side of the bed at all, not since she got in and they said goodnight. But he had no doubt that she was lying there, fully awake, thinking of Ron, dead or dying or injured. Just as he was. Ginny and Ron.
"Harry?" she whispered in the dark.
"Yeah."
"Were you dead? Did Voldemort... did he kill you?"
Harry thought for a moment about King's Cross, or a place that looked a lot like King's Cross, but wasn't. A place he hadn't told Hermione about. A place he wasn't sure he could. "I don't know," he finally said.
She didn't reply. Harry waited for her to say something, but she remained silent, and his mind drifted, and before he realised it his eyes were closing, closed, and he was dreaming of Ginny.
It wasn't a dream of Ginny that woke him up, though. It was a different dream. He was walking into a forest, and it was dark. He was walking into a forest, and he didn't have his wand in his hand. He was walking into a forest, and a snake-like face looked at him, and smiling, and Harry woke up.
Hermione was asleep, her breath regular but her body tight and curled into a ball, her hand clutching something - her wand. She didn't let go of it, not even in her sleep. Harry looked guiltily at his own wand, left at his bed stand, glanced at the clock - 4 a.m., and looked out the window. Outside, the sky was dark, and the street lights stood lonely, shining on the empty roads. In front of them, the docks were abandoned, apart from some ships that moved slowly in the quiet water. Sydney was sleeping. Hermione was sleeping. Far away, half the world away, the Weasleys were still awake, and so was Harry, right here, wishing he was there.
"It's nice here, isn't it?" Hermione asked, and Harry jumped - she was awake after all.
"Don't do that!" His heartbeat slowly returned to normal, and he caught his breath. He turned from the window to look at her and noticed she was still clutching her wand. But just as he looked at it, she put her wand down.
She was no longer lying curled in the bed, but instead sat on it, legs drawn to her chest. Her bushy hair was mostly freed of its plait, making her look like a half-tamed lion. She rubbed her eyes, and when she took her hands off her eyes, he could see they were slightly puffy.
"You were miles away," she smiled.
"At the Burrow," he agreed.
"She's fine," she told him in a stern voice, reassuring him just as he reassured her the day before. "And so is Ron. Everyone is fine. Like you said."
"How do you know?"
"Because you said so," she smiled, and he wasn't sure he was happy with this answer, but let it slide.
"It'll be sunrise soon," he said instead.
"No, it won't. It's the Southern hemisphere." He gave her a blank look, and her voice became stern again, and so much like it did every time he failed to remember something Professor Binns said in class, or something that was written in Hogwarts: A History. "Honestly, Harry, don't you read anything but spellbooks? It's winter in Australia now. Didn't you feel how cold it was outside?"
"It wasn't that cold..."
"It was cold for Australia," she said, and he laughed. He could see her in the Hogwarts library, looking for books about wizards in Australia.
She laughed, too - perhaps sharing the same mental image.
"I think I should talk to Professor McGonagall when we're back," she said, and he completed the sentence - "Hogwarts needs more general studies?"
"Yes! We can't go on blundering about. Or not knowing anything about Muggles. Or about the world! This doesn't make any sense, honestly, I think - "
" - that the kids in Hogwarts have enough on their minds as it is," Harry pointed out.
"Nah, that was just the three of us. Everyone else had enough free time and were mainly worried about exams," she said, and they both laughed again.
"Go back to sleep," he said softly. "You want to be fresh in the morning, to find your parents."
"What about you?" she asked.
"I think I'll stay up a little longer," he said, looking again outside the window. "Don't worry, nothing will happen."
"I know," she said sleepily, already back inside the blankets. "You're here."
He turned to look at her, confused, but she was already asleep. He then looked back through the window, sitting in front of it for a bit longer and staring into the ocean, and thought of Ginny's smile, her red hair and perfume. The lights of the pier sparkled back from the water, and reminded him of Ginny's eyes.
And everything was peaceful.
He only realised he had fallen asleep again when he woke up, his neck hurting and his back stiff, several hours later. It was 8 a.m. - the sun was up, the city awake, and he and Hermione had things to do. The sooner they found her parents, the sooner they'd find their way back home. The sooner he'd know the Weasleys were alright.
Hermione didn't need more than a touch to wake her up, and soon they were both dressed, fed, and down in the lobby, looking at the phone directory.
"Check for Wilkins, will you?" she asked him as she was going through the dentist adverts, making impatient sounds. Wilkins, Barry. Wilkins, James and Amy. Wilkins, Peter Gregory and Tamara. Wilkins, William and Robert.
"Are you sure they're in Sydney?" he asked her.
"Yes. I made sure to put it into their heads. So I could find them, you see. That's where they wanted to go."
He closed the phonebook. "They're not listed, then. Must have a private number". Or the spell had gone wrong and they don't called themselves Wendell and Monica Wilkins. Or they're not in Sydney. Or in Australia.
Better to think they were just not listed.
"Well, I got something here in the dentist adverts. Roberts, Avery & Wilkins, Dental services."
"Looks like we're going to the dentist, then," Harry mumbled. He really hoped this was the right Wilkins.
The clinic wasn't far from them, so they decided to walk. They didn't have too much time to talk on their journey to Australia - between one Apparition and another, they were both nervous and tired, and had mainly remained silent. Harry wondered if this was the reason Hermione decided they go by the much more complicated and time consuming Apparition rather than take a Muggle airplane - so that they wouldn't have to talk. Or maybe it was like she said, and she didn't want to wait a whole week before there were seats available on a flight. But now, when they were walking together towards the clinic, after a good night's sleep and good food, they were talking again. They were talking about nothing in particular - Hermione was telling him she had decided to go back to Hogwarts and finish school - "I have to get my N.E.W.T.s, Harry! How could I find a job with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement without them? Besides, it's really important, to finish school!" - and ignoring him when he told her that after the year they just had, no job will be closed before her. Harry, in turn, told her that he thought about going back to Grimmauld Place, as to not burden the Weasleys more than he already did - "I can't very well live there in someone else's room, can I?". She didn't mention Ron; he didn't mention Ginny. He said nothing about his meeting with Draco, about thinking he should testify in his trial; she said nothing about the Death Eaters still at large. Apart from Harry's little comment about the year they had gone through, neither of them mentioned battles, of Voldemort, or the forest. Even Hermione's strange comment from the morning went without a single mention by Harry. They were two teenagers, walking in the cool winter morning in Sydney, without a care in the world.
It wasn't until they were almost at the door of the clinic that Hermione started fretting. "What if it's not him?" she asked. "What if it's the wrong W Wilkins?"
"Then we search again," he reassured her. "They're not lost, Hermione. We'll find them." He wasn't half as assured of that as he pretended to be, but Hermione didn't need his doubts right now. "Come on," he gently pushed her towards the door. "Let's go in."
She swallowed, and opened the door. He followed her in.
In front of the door, behind the reception table, sat a girl with spiky blue hair, chewing gum and reading a magazine. She seemed completely uninterested in the two people who had just walked in - in fact, she didn't seem to realise they had walked in at all.
"Excuse me," Hermione started, but the girl stayed glued to her magazine. "Excuse me," Hermione tried again, unable to put the impatience out of her voice. "We need to see Dr. Wilkins."
"D'ya have an appointment?" the receptionist asked.
"Yes," Hermione answered immediately.
"What's your name?"
"My name?" Hermione stopped dead. She hadn't thought of that.
"Your name. Y'know, so I could check and see when you're supposed to be."
"Oh, my appointment is in 10 minutes."
The receptionist finally put down her magazine. Unfortunately, that was not a good sign. "Dr. Wilkins doesn't accept patients before 10 a.m.," she said.
"It was an emergency," Hermione immediately answered. "I - I - I broke my tooth. And it hurts! I called him yesterday," she added.
"I don't remember that."
"Well I did," Hermione insisted, and the receptionist did what receptionists do everywhere - shrugged and went back to her magazine.
"Then go wait by his room," she said without giving the two a second glance. Hermione sighed in relief and started walking towards the treatment rooms, Harry following her closely.
They sat there waiting for about a quarter of an hour. Hermione was beyond conversation, just paced back and forth next to the door, then sat down for a while, fretting, then started pacing again. Harry knew there was no point in talking sense into her - he had seen her behave like that before exams, when she knew she was as prepared as she'd ever be. He had seen her like that before they went into Gringotts. She'd be nervous until she sees W Wilkins and confirms his identity, one way or the other.
Or until she heard his voice.
"There's that girl waiting for you, Wendell," they heard the receptionist's voice across the hall.
"What girl?" someone answered back, and Hermione jumped - a huge smile on her face. She hugged Harry in relief.
"That girl with the broken tooth, she said she talked to you," the receptionist said from the other side of the corridor, but it didn't matter anymore. In two minutes, Hermione's father would walk into the room, and Wendell Wilkins would cease to exist.
"What girl with a broken..." he mumbled as he walked out of the reception and into the corridor. "Excuse me," he turned angrily to Hermione. "Who are you?"
Hermione pulled out her wand. Mr Granger pulled back, then looked at her, confused - and then something in his eyes had cleared.
"Hermione!" he called out, and hugged her, and she hugged him back.
Harry looked at the happy reunion from his place on the chair, and couldn't help but smile. Some things really did have a happy ending.
"Hermione," Mr Granger said again. "What - how - what's happened? Why am I - oh," at last, realisation dawned on him, and he let go of his daughter, looking at her with a worried face. "You're alright," he said. "Heavens, you're alright," and once again he pulled her into a hug.
"I'm fine," she was laughing and crying at the same time. "I'm fine, we're all fine, it's okay, everything's brilliant!"
"Your mother!" Mr Granger pulled out of the hug again all of a sudden. "We need to find her, we need to tell her - you need to undo whatever it is you did, young lady! I'll have you know that that was - "
" - I had to do it, Dad," she said, and he nodded.
"But we need to find your mother. Come on, let's go! What are you waiting for?" He grabbed his coat and rushed to the door.
"Are you going out?" the receptionist asked in a bored voice as the three of them went to the exit.
"Roxanne! Cancel my appointments for today! Actually, cancel all of them! For ever! I quit!" he rushed through the door and into the street, Hermione and Harry almost running to catch up with him.
"Jack would love that," said Roxanne the Receptionist, and turned back to her magazine. She wasn't paid to make phone calls before 10 a.m., anyway.
-X-
The next couple of hours went past truly quickly. These were happy moments, plain and simple. No bittersweet endings, no death, no lost friends. After Mr Granger got his memory back, they all rushed into his car and to his home, where his wife, who until that moment was certain her name was Monica Wilkins, got the same treatment - and the same reunion had repeated itself. Hugs and kisses and tears and laughter, the Grangers were once again a family, and Hermione could calm her parents down and explain time and again that the danger was over and all was safe. After a while, she introduced Harry. He could see from her parents' eyes that the name was familiar to them - how much had Hermione told them, he did not know. Not everything, not by far, he knew. She didn't want her parents to be frightened of the world she belonged to, would never risk them refusing to allow her to go back to Hogwarts. But it was impossible to hide the war from them, and so they heard something - and heard of Harry Potter.
He didn't mind, though. These people only cared that they got their daughter back, and their lives back, and didn't care about The Boy Who Lived or terrible Dark Lords. These people bought him dinner in a fancy Vietnamese restaurant because he was a friend of Hermione's, and when they had ordered plane tickets, all they cared about was that their daughter would sit between them, so that they could spend as much time with her as possible in the long flight back home. Harry didn't mind any of this. He was happy not to be the centre of attention, almost as happy as he was to see Hermione's reunion with her parents.
Only once did they really pay attention to him. When Mr and Mrs Granger had heard that Harry was sharing a hotel room with Hermione, they stopped for a moment, and looked at the both of them.
"Is there something you want to tell us, sweetheart?" Hermione's mum said in a strange voice, but still it took several seconds before either Harry or Hermione realised what they were asking.
"Oh, no," Hermione said, at the same time as Harry offered his own, "No - no, it's not that."
"It was cheaper that way," Hermione explained to her parents. "Besides, I - "
"It's Ron you'll want to meet," Harry joined in with the explanations. "Ron Weasley. He's the guy you - he's the one you want to meet."
"Oh," Harry wasn't quite sure whether he should be amused at the obvious relief in the Grangers' face, or perhaps hurt.
"Ron - we've met his parents, haven't we?" Hermione's mum asked, and Hermione nodded.
"A long time ago. Yes."
"Yeah, I remember. There was that fight in the bookshop..." Mrs Granger mused, and Harry raised his eyebrow at Hermione, but she didn't notice. She was, all of a sudden, nervous again.
"They're going to love him," Harry whispered, but it didn't stop her from fretting around all through dinner.
The rest of their time in Australia was a proper holiday. There was still no word from either of the Weasleys - "Oh, why can't they get a phone!" Hermione said angrily at one point, when the topic of Ron came up again in the conversation - but a day later, when the names of the wounded and dead were published in the Sydney Prophet, both could relax, as neither of the names belonged to people they knew. Instead, they became tourists, enjoying their times in chilly Sydney and seeing the sights.
It was not all perfect, of course. Even Hermione's parents could see how Harry was becoming more distracted the closer they got to the flight back home. He was eating less, and sleeping more, and sometimes wanted to be on his own, and if Hermione told her parents how he would wake up at night, quiet but sweating and his heart racing in his chest, they said nothing, only watched him in silence.
"It would get better once he gets back home," he caught a whispered conversation one night. "He just needs to relax. From your stories, it sounds like you three all went through a terrible ordeal, sweetheart."
They were shocked, of course, the first time they heard their story. "Tell us everything," they had asked their daughter, and one night, in the house that was still theirs, Hermione sat down and told her parents all about the war and their mission, with Harry sitting besides her, but offering no information. She told them of Voldemort and his beliefs, and didn't stop even when her parents' faces became horrified and angry and hurt. She told them about the mission, left to them by Dumbledore. She told them about the wedding in the Burrow, then of Grimmauld place and breaking into the Ministry; about the Forest of Dean and Godric's Hollow; about Gringotts and the dragon - Harry wasn't quite sure whether her parents were more shocked at their ridiculous actions or at the existence of dragons, but either way, they were so shocked they could not say a word. And then she told them about Hogwarts. But when she came to the forest, she became quiet, more confused.
"And then Voldemort tried to kill Harry again, in the forest, but he couldn't," she concluded. "He couldn't do it. It didn't work. Harry survived again." She didn't know why, not for sure. Harry still didn't talk about the forest. He was sure Hermione was clever enough to figure out most of it on her own, and the rest he didn't feel like sharing. At least, not yet. But there was something in her voice when she told them how Voldemort had failed that confused him - the same thing he had heard in her voice in their first night in Sydney.
She didn't sound like Hermione when she was telling that part of the story, he realised. She didn't sound like someone who had known him for seven years, like someone who had been one of his closest friends for all that time. She didn't sound like the person who went through all those things with him. When Hermione told the story of how Harry survived in the forest yet again, of how he escaped death by the hands that had killed so many others, she sounded like a person who didn't know him at all. It was the voice of the bystander, telling the legend. And Harry had a feeling that even if he did share what had happened that night in the forest, it would do nothing to change that. Aberforth Dumbledore's words came to his mind, about the legend around him, but that only made him uncomfortable. So he just excused himself early, and went to bed, where he dreamed of a forest and a snake-like face and woke up in the middle of the night, covered with sweat.
There was no one happier than him the next day, when they drove to the airport and got on the plane, and were on their way back home. His last adventure was finally over, he thought. Time to start living the normal life.
Whatever the hell that meant.