Dear Journal,

I…am not exactly sure where I am this time. All I know is that a few minutes ago, I was on my way to lunch my sixth day in Italy when the necklace reappeared and dropped me off here, wherever that is.

Its pitch black, and I'm writing by the light of a stay-and-glow floating orb. I've never actually used one before, and I only have the one that I'm using now because I was curious about how it worked, and decided to buy one. It follows you around as you walk, so right now I'm walking around, exploring. I cast a levitation charm on the journal, so it's floating next to the orb, and I'm using a self-writing quill to write down everything that I'm saying, so that my hands are free.

My voice is echoing, and the walls look to be made of rough rock, that glistens whenever I get close, so I think that I'm in a cave. Which cave where, though, remains to be determined.

I don't really feel like I'll be doing much here, and since I don't know when I'll be able to leave, I don't really have anything to write about. But I already started writing on this page, and it would be a waste to leave it mostly blank, so…I guess I'll write down everything that happened leading up to the first day I disappeared.

I'll start with the end of the battle at Hogwarts. Now with this, I think that a lot of people thought that the war was over, and for the most part they were right, and it was. But there was also the clean up to deal with, the aftermath of something that disrupted the lives of hundreds of people. Everybody that was left, which was mostly seventh year students, a few teachers, and whoever was still in order, all set to trying to restore some semblance of order to , well, everything.

I, of course, also did my part to help, as there was no time to rest, not even for those who just happened to have died and come back to life, and by those, I mean only me. I helped mainly with trying to fix the shops that were destroyed in Diagon, and sending letters out to all the students that had left Hogwarts, telling them that unfortunately, they wouldn't be able to return anytime soon.

And that's what my days consisted of, helping out where I could, and going back to 12 Grimmauld Place whenever I remembered that I couldn't survive on just pepper - up potions alone. I needed a regular bed to sleep in sometimes, and whenever the urge hit me, there I went.

The Weasleys did offer me a place at the burrow, but I didn't feel comfortable at the thought of being surrounded by people so soon after everything. I needed time to think, and process that my main motivator and driving force behind the last seven years of my life was suddenly gone. I felt lost and purposeless in regards to what direction my life was supposed to take now. At least when Voldemort was around, I had a goal to work towards, stop him and keep myself from dying, but now that he's gone, I constantly found myself thinking, now what?

I knew that this wasn't the type of thinking that was expected of the boy-who-lived, but I didn't care, and I didn't feel like having to pretend to be and feel something that I'm not, which is what I found myself doing whenever I wasn't alone. So even if Mrs. Weasley meant well, I had to say no, because otherwise I would have had to deal with everyone's expectations, including Ginny and her dream of a once in a lifetime romance with a hero. A dream that was only ever just that, because I knew her since we were still children, and I could only ever see her as a younger sister. Not that she seemed to notice, or maybe she just didn't care? Because every time we happened to be around each other, the conversations would start about the future, "our future", and that was something I really didn't have the time, or presence of mind to deal with, at least not now.

So yeah, to Grimmauld Place I went, and this continued for about a month. A seemingly endless cycle of get up, help, maybe eat, and sleep, if I didn't manage to get my hands on any pepper-up. This wasn't the healthiest way to live, but I didn't care. As long as I was busy enough to avoid thinking that I really didn't have a purpose in life, then I was fine, or as fine as I was going to be, at any rate.

It was on, June 8th or 9th I think, when it happened. I had returned to Grimmauld Place after spending most of the day in a strangely quite Diagon Alley, and I was ready to just have a snack and sleep. The snack part didn't happen, but the sleep part did, though if I knew what I was going to wake up to, I probably would have stayed awake, though it really wouldn't have made a difference.

But I did sleep, and so here I am now, about 15-16 days later, in a cave.

This definitely wasn't what I was expecting to happen to me after the final battle, but considering I also didn't expect to be alive after it either, I guess it isn't so bad. I mean sure, I don't have any control over where I end up, but I'm also not trying that hard, or at all really, to figure out what's going on. And I think that's because a part of me is enjoying the fact that I'm being forced to live life for myself. I'm basically a stranger everywhere I end up, and that means no having to pretend to be anyone besides me, just Harry, and not the boy-who-lived, or the savior of the Wizarding world.

Right now, I'm freer than I've ever really been for my entire life, and I don't think that I would mind if I never stopped, because that would at least mean that I was moving forward, instead of standing still.

That isn't to say that I wouldn't like to know what was going on though, because I most definitely would. I don't understand why or what is making this happen, and I probably should.

But that's a discovery that's going to have to take place another day, because right now, I'm hungry, and tired from walking around this cave that seemingly has no end.

Until next time,

H.J.P.B