Chapter 11

Hermione stared at the piece of parchment in her hand, knuckles white from how tight she clenched the slip. She was completely stiff, frozen, save for her bottom lip, which she anxiously chewed at.

"'Mione?" Ron whispered quietly, "Come on, we should go."

Eyes still fixed on the paper, she allowed herself to be lifted to her feet by Harry and Ron. As they escorted her to the door, Harry turned.

"Thank you, Miss Macintosh."

She smiled brightly at him. "Anytime, Mr Potter. Good luck, the three of you."

Out on the street, Hermione finally spoke.

"So... I suppose we better go and find my parents," she said quietly. Ron and Harry exchanged an awkward glance.

"Yeah, I guess. But maybe we should stop at a hotel tonight. It's almost eight o'clock, we're all tired, we don't know how long it'll take us to get to your parents house, and I don't think they'll appreciate us turning up at there house late at nigh blathering about memory charms and a daughter they don't remember having." Ron caught Hermione's expression at that and stopped.

Quietly, Harry said, "I know you want to find them as soon as possible, but Ron has a point. We'll stay the night somewhere, but I promise we'll leave to find your parents first thing tomorrow. Promise."

It turned out that the Ministry of Magic was very close to Sydney Central Station, so they headed towards it, hoping to ask someone for the best way to get to the Esplanade, the road that Hermione's parents lived on. At the station they were given a list of instructions, and purchased a map. Harry spoke to the women in the ticket booth, as Ron stood awkwardly at the side with Hermione, uncertain as to what to do or where to look.

The booked a couple of rooms at a fairly cheap place called the Bounce Hotel that was right by the station. Nothing much was said as they ate dinner in the hotel's restaurant, and in the end the three of them left for their separate rooms. No one slept much; nerves and jetlag made sure of it.

The journey to the Espalanade took about forty-five minutes. They took the CityRail South train from platform 17 to platform six of the Wynyard station, and from there they took the 180 bus from Carrington Street to Spit Road, North Abawa Street, Mosman. They followed their map to 39The Esplanade, Mosman New South Wales 2088. Ron stood uncomfortably to the side as they sorted through their muggle money for the transport fares, and gripped the edge of the bus seat

And there they were, staring up at the set of flats that shone slightly in sun. Glass panelled balconies faced out onto Hunters Bay. Any other day, the three would have paused to admire the view, but today they didn't even notice it.

They didn't say anything, they just stood and watched, unsure what to do now that they had found the house.

The minutes ticked by, until the front door of the building opened. A small gasp escaped Hermione's lips as a tall man with thick, dark hair, and a shorter woman with straight, cropped brown hair appeared. Neither Harry nor Ron needed to ask who they were, but to their horror, the couple crossed to road, heading in the direction of the trio. Harry glanced at Hermione, whose face was a mask of shock and something that looked like hope. About a metre from the three, the man and woman stopped.

"Hey, we saw you guys from out apartment, staring at the building. Are you lost or something? Can we help you?"

Ron appeared to be working some sort of response around in his mouth, but after a moment, Harry realised he probably wasn't going to say anything for a while, and there was a possibility that if he did, it wouldn't be a particularly eloquent sentence. He decided to interject before that happened.

"Uh, well, we're supposed to be meeting some friends here, but they're, well, not here..."

"Ah, you're from England, you three? Us too!" Hermione's father said enthusiastically, "Well, you probably already guessed that from the accents. Anyway, we would invite you in for tea while you wait for your friends, as our apartment looks out onto the street and you'd easily be able to see them from the balcony, but I'm afraid we're off out briefly. I'll tell you what, though, if you're still waiting when we get back in about... half an hour, then you can come and wait inside. How about that then?"

Harry was a little lost for words. "Uh..." he said finally, "yeah, that'd be great, thank you so much."

Finally, Hermione's mother spoke, "Don't worry, it's nothing at all. Goodbye!" The two of them wandered off leaving Harry and Ron staring after them, feeling shocked.

A/N: Oh wow. Ten months. That's insane. I started writing this semi-chapter back in January, but got really "Urgh, this is so boring, no one's going to want to read this, I suck at writing, argh!" about it, but several things made me see it was necessary to upload this. Firstly, I realised how many people are subscribed to this, and therefore how many people 1) Think I'm a good enough writer and this is a good enough story that they would like to continue reading it once it's updated and 2) are sitting, waiting for me to post again. I know it's taken me a while to realise this, but I have now!

Right, also, I'm sorry for how short and dull this chapter is. It's hardly action packed now, is it? I apologise for this, but it is necessary for the story to continue, and now it's out of the way, it finally can! Now, speaking of stories, I have two new ones going on. The first one is called Letters To Fred, and is a series of...letters to Fred (go figure). This one have about five or six letters so far, and shall be updated whenever I get inspiration for the kinds of things people would want to say to him.

The second story is called Reputations. It's a Dramione fic I've just started writing, if you're into Dramione, and I have big hopes for it as a story. The relationship in that shall be very slow in developing, and I'm keeping the characters as close to JKR's as possible, only adding things in where aspects of their personality were not mentioned or portrayed in the books, if that makes sense. It's set post Deathly Hallows.

Right, I've gone on far too long. I shall update hopefully within the next couple of weeks.

If you're still reading this story, thanks so much for sticking with me, guys!

MODA