DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns most of the characters and settings here—I own the rest.

This chapter was extra difficult to write, even though I had it all plotted out. And then Real Life intervened to knock me off my weekly schedule, but I'm hoping to be back to that.

There will be a lot more to come concerning Ron and his upcoming nuptials, and Lucius will be back soon, as well.

An extra big Thank You to all reviewers-as always! Feel free to leave a further review in the box at the end of the chapter.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
Chapter 20 - Overkill

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know will be alright
It's just overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away

"Overkill," Men At Work

The toast and tea that Hermione and Walden had ordered turned into a rather large breakfast, which stretched out for several lazy hours. After that, Heather Disapparated everyone to the Great Ocean Road for a brisk sightseeing walk, so by the time they returned to the Macnairs', everyone was happily exhausted.

The next three days were spent in touring and getting acquainted. Evan was bright and curious, but had been thoroughly briefed on his heritage and circumstances by his half-sister, so he didn't ask any difficult questions at first. Further, he was completely enamored of Hermione almost immediately; he asked her right away to autograph his favorite book, Adventures of the Golden Trio, and if she would consider meeting some of his friends from the magical primary school he attended.

"Should I?" she asked Walden, as they climbed into the very comfortable guest room bed they'd been sharing.

"Might as well, lass," he said, as he pulled her close and kissed her. "I doona think he's going to want any of them to meet me."

"Oh, you don't know that," she replied, after she kissed him back, and then reached for her current book from the bedside table.

"Heather said he never talks about me with his friends, and didna really start asking about me until about a year ago, when he read that book."

"Yes, well, that book is a bit embarrassing, really, I'm glad it's not widely available in Britain. I hope none of Evan's friends ask me anything about Ron, that ending made it sound as if we were destined to be married any minute." She reached behind her to fluff up her pillow a bit.

Walden scowled, and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like "I shoulda pulverized him."

"What was that?"

"Nothin' important," he said, as he got up out of bed and headed toward the door. "Goin' to the loo."

When he returned, he was a bit calmer, and they made tentative arrangements to meet Evan's friends the next day, and then head to Brisbane on Saturday.

Wendell and Monica Wilkins lived in a lovely Queenslander house in a quiet suburb of Brisbane. Hermione had done her preliminary research well, and had concluded that she (and Walden, if he accompanied her) could take a Portkey from Melbourne and then use Muggle transportation for the final leg of the journey to their neighborhood. She planned to first telephone from a nearby convenience store to ensure they were home, and then start lifting the spell as she approached the house, hoping that by the time they answered the door, her parents' memories would slowly be filtering back to them and they'd have a lovely, joyous reunion.

Sadly, things didn't go according to plan.

As she was in a rather agitated mood the morning they left, she and Walden began to bicker about everything from how to hold the Portkey (which was a can of Foster's Lager) right on down to the Muggle taxicab she hailed in the street nearest the Brisbane wizarding district. She hadn't wanted to eat anything at breakfast, and had rushed him out of the inn before he finished his food, which made him peckish in addition to rather tired (as he hadn't finished his second cup of tea, either). To make matters worse, her parents' neighborhood turned out to be neither quiet nor deserted that Saturday morning. She could feel Walden bristling at her side as he warily eyed the crowds of Muggles swarming around the store and car park...and, as she surveyed the area, she noted that five ravens had already landed on the store's roof. Luckily, she'd done a quick Notice-Me-Not spell so that nobody would stare too much at Walden. Although he was wearing the kilt and linen shirt again, at her request, he stood out among the shorted and t-shirted crowd. She had opted for a sun dress, cardigan, and flats, and fit in perfectly.

The final bit of annoyance was the rather lengthy queue for the pay-phones. Of course, she was glad that they were there; she did own a cellular phone, but she kept it well insulated in her apartment, as the more magic that was performed around it, the worse it seemed to work, and she hadn't wanted to risk bringing it on a Portkey journey.

By the time she placed the call and reluctantly told her father that she'd dialed the wrong number, she was beginning to wish that she hadn't brought Walden along, as his presence was less than comforting, and was considering sending him back to the Brisbane Portkey Office on his own.

"Let's get this over with," she sighed, turning to him.

"The sooner we can get away from these damned Muggles, the better," Walden growled, in a rather Death-Eaterish manner, to her chagrin.

"If you hadn't recalled, we're going to see more of them in a minute," she snapped.

"Tryin' to forget about that part of it," he replied, scowling, as they began to walk down the street.

"Look, you don't need to come with me!" she said, after they'd turned the corner and started walking down her parents' street. "You can go back to Melbourne and help your family pack up!"

"I promised ye I'd be here for ye," he said.

"Well, you're not helping!" she said, as she raised her wand and wordlessly cast the first spell to lift the False Memory Charm, adding in a little extra oomph to move it rapidly toward the white frame house, which was getting closer as they slowly ambled down the sidewalk.

It was at that moment Walden decided to remark, "Ye know, Yaxley went to your London house with Dolohov, found it deserted."

"What? You never told me that before!" She paused on the sidewalk and turned to him. "And neither did he mention that, as far as I know, during the trials, or Orla would have told me. Why are you bringing this up now?"

"Forgot about it," Walden said, rather offhandedly.

"Nice to know I went to all this trouble for a good reason!" Hermione snapped, as she cast a second spell.

"Och, aye, they were supposed to capture yer parents," he said.

"Look, do you think you could possibly shut it about that?" Hermione said, looking rather angry. "Possibly until we're done speaking with them?" She cast a third spell. As she did this, the door of the Wilkins' house opened, and her father walked out onto the porch, presumably to retrieve the newspaper. Two ravens flew down to the yard and began pecking at the grass next to him, which caused him to glance up, then he spotted Hermione and Walden and did a double-take.

"Hermione?" he asked, tentatively.

"Dad!" she exclaimed, and ran toward him, hoping for a hug, but he was looking a bit bemused, and she stopped short.

"I think you'd better come inside," he said. "And bring your...er...friend," he added, with a rather nervous glance at Walden.

After a very uncomfortable thirty-minute chat, Hermione and Walden found themselves on the sidewalk yet again, waiting for another Muggle taxi. Hermione had rather unenthusiastically cast a Cheering Charm on herself as they left the house so that she wouldn't burst into tears. Neither of them said anything to each other until they were back in their inn room in the Brisbane wizarding district, which was located near a market in the city's West End.

"Have you ever heard of a charm degrading over time like that?" Hermione finally asked, after Walden had sat her down in the room's lone armchair with a glass of Laphroaig.

"Canna say as I have, lass," he said.

"And they kept those Daily Prophets, and that annoying Ministry pamphlet, I didn't think to take them with me..." she took a long swallow of her drink. "I suppose if you hadn't rolled your sleeves up..."

"It was bloody well hot, and they might have found out some other way," he said. "Ye knew there was a chance they wouldna want to come back to Britain."

"But to tell me that they 'need time to understand what I'm doing with my life now,' in that tone of voice," Hermione said. "They never once sounded disappointed in me when I was growing up, or when I was in school. I thought they'd at least be happy with my career choice, barristers are essentially the same in the Muggle world." She waved her wand and poured herself another drink. "I wonder why they didn't try to contact me...or the Weasleys? They'd spoken to them before."

"Didna ye take yer owl with ye when ye left?"

"I didn't actually have one then; I did have a cat, but I left him at the Burrow with Mrs. Weasley, he liked to chase the gnomes there..."

"They wouldna have been able ta do much without one-but ye said they went to Diagon Alley..."

"They were able to go there and to Platform 9 3/4 because I was with them, apparently." She stood up and stretched. "I...can we get some more whisky?"

"O' course," Walden said. "Ye know, I wanted to, er, I wanted to ask yer father for...well, I doona know if the Muggles do it this way but it's traditional to ask for, er..." and he looked down at the floor as he swallowed the last few words.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, my father was looking at you like you were some sort of...well...terrorist! I don't think we need to bother with you asking for my hand now, do we?" She started pacing. "Sod it all!" she finally said, her face red. "Stupid Cheering Charm's wearing off too! I suppose I can't do anything right today!" She tossed her whisky glass to the floor. "Sod it!"

"Lass, sit down," Walden said. "I'll get ye some more whisky...or maybe some tea might be better."

"I don't want you to get me anything! You've done enough!" She grabbed her beaded bag and wand from the bedside table. "I'm going back to Britain tomorrow. I'm sorry. I have to be alone for a while...I'm going to go and get my own room."

"But, lass, ye were supposed to come back on the Portkey with all of us," Walden said. "Evan was looking forward to it."

"I'm sorry...tell him I'm sorry." She started to walk toward the door, but paused before opening it.

"Ye shouldna be alone right now, lassie," Walden said. "I know what it's like to have yer parents disappointed." He paused, and said quietly, "Please stay here with me, I willna bother ye at all, just put up a Silencing Charm and ye can yell as much as ye want, and I'll get ye more whisky, too." He stood up and walked over to her and took her hands in his and led her back over to the chair. "Sit here and I'll go get it, I'll be back, ye can start yellin' while I'm gone."

By the time he returned, she'd calmed down somewhat. Walden poured them both fresh drinks and he reclined on the bed, staring at the fireplace, as he began to speak in a low voice.

"I told ye about how they took us straight to Azkaban after the Department of Mysteries," he began. "Was in there for a year. About a week after I got there, Diggory, me Ministry supervisor, visited and he looked at me as if I were a piece of rubbish he'd got stuck on his boots, shoved a letter across the table at me and said I was removed from me post. Got up and left straightaway after that. I'd expected that, I mean, we'd broken about a hundred rules going down there, I was the one who'd let everyone in through the official entrance since I worked at the Ministry, that was in the letter, too. I tore it up after he left and tossed it in the...well, the bucket we used for a loo." He paused to take a drink. "I didna think it was going to bother me so much, I mean, well, I had other things to occupy me mind at that point, I had been living at the Manor in a guest room, hadn't gone home for months. But then the verra next day me Da visited and that was worse. He had got the guards to get me clothes and property out and he brought it in the room with him, and he took me Laird's ring, and told me I was no longer his son and no longer the Laird, and he didna care if he ever saw me again. And he didna give me a chance to say anythin'. Mum came a week later and told me she was tryin' to talk to him, but it took years before we really spoke, it was after I'd been on house arrest for, I dunno, a year, I think. And it's never really been the same as it was..." and his voice drifted off.

"This isn't exactly helping, you know," Hermione finally said.

"I know ye're disappointed in yer parents but I was hopin' maybe ye'd see that it wasna so bad," Walden said. "Ye have a good job, everyone in our world thinks ye're a hero...of course, ye're spendin' time with a nasty old Death Eater, but nobody's perfect..."

Hermione giggled. "Oh, for heaven's sake," she finally said. "I suppose it was rather a shock for them, considering that the last news they had about our world looked pretty grim. I probably should have gone to talk to them alone, first, and tried to explain it to them."

"Probably," Walden echoed. "Shall I go down and get some food? "