Chapter 23

Harry stepped out of the backdoor of his house and into the warm spring morning. He peered into the wilderness beyond his home, his eyes scanning through the dark trees. The home was set back into the forests east of Seiyo.

The agent they'd purchased it from seemed hesitant to even show it to them. Of course that wasn't an uncommon sentiment they'd drawn. Harry wasn't entirely sure if it was because of their nationality, the makeup of the group, or their general shabby appearance, but they did not garner much positivity after a first impression. Or, in the case of this particular house, the run-down nature of it.

Priya did most of the talking. Largely because of the trio she had the best Japanese. Although, Harry wasn't sure that was true. Gina, or Emily, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to call her at this point, it didn't seem to matter to her, she responded to either, probably had the best overall Japanese.

But every time she spoke people gave her a funny look. It wasn't until they arrived in Ehime that someone bothered to explain it to her. The bartender at a hotel in Matsuyama gave her a strange look after she ordered and Harry finally worked up the courage to ask about it.

Her Japanese was flawless, the man said. At least in the technical sense. But it felt like something you'd hear in a fifties movie rather than on the street. He'd never quite seen Emily blush as she had when the man explained it. She didn't say much for the rest of the night. Instead she spent most of her time staring down at her drink and only commenting when Priya addressed her in English.

Later, as they cuddled in a semi-drunk haze in their hotel room, he'd asked Priya about it. She'd shrugged her shoulders and nestled her body closer to his. It was simple, she'd said. Emily, like everyone else on the planet, didn't like being embarrassed.

You see, she'd spent a lot of her life being better than those around her. She prided herself on it. She was the best. There was nothing she couldn't do, or do properly. And she believed it. So when she got something so wrong, in front of people she cared about, she wasn't sure exactly how to react.

But she hadn't been wrong, Harry argued through a yawn as he pressed his face into her hair and prepared to let sleep take him. She'd just learned so long ago that things had changed. There wasn't any shame in that.

No, Priya had agreed. There wasn't. And Emily would realize that eventually. But for now they just needed to let her stew on it and come to that realization herself. There wasn't much of a point in teasing her about it or even acknowledging it.

Well, he hadn't really planned on either. But he still remained surprised that she stayed with them. At this point, she had what she'd seemed to value, right down to the fake identity with impeccable credentials. She could have gone anywhere, done anything. There was little point in joining them in their self imposed exile.

Maybe, Priya shrugged. Maybe not. Maybe she was exactly where she thought she should be. And they shouldn't question that. At least this hotel had an extra room for her so they could have some fun.

Small mercies, Harry agreed as he drifted off to sleep. A part of him thought that Emily would be gone by the morning. He couldn't see why she chose to stay with them. She could have gone anywhere, done anything. To him, it made sense. At the first opportunity he'd had like that, an opportunity she'd given him, he'd fled without looking back.

He couldn't find her in the morning. And again, he thought she must have chosen to flee in the night while she hadn't had to look at either of them. In a way, he was happy for her, and he wished she'd find some semblance of happiness or some sort of life she didn't detest.

It was some surprise to him that he was both relieved and sad when she popped into the hotel restaurant during their morning coffee. She had a bundle of housing listings with her and handed them to Priya. They exchanged a few words in Japanese, with Priya correcting an annoyed Emily, before she sat and ordered by pointing at an item on the menu as if she were too embarrassed to speak to a local.

Priya ignored her embarrassment and instead let her attention drift to the flyers. She passed over most of them, a slight frown on her face at each one she discarded. If Emily noticed, or cared, she did not show it.

Priya would pass him a page for every five or six she looked through. He frowned at most of them. Nothing was that impressive. And while he knew they weren't really looking for impressive as much as location and feasibility.

He still wasn't quite sure why they couldn't have just used their old house. She still owned it. And was apparently renting it out to one of her old doctor friends. It would have been a dick move to kick them out, she said. Harry shrugged at that. Sure, it would have, but a large sack of money could rectify that.

It wouldn't work, she'd argued. And not the sack of money. That, she figured, would work just fine. But their old house was known to enough people that it didn't make sense for them to immediately flee there. That was the first place anyone would check if they decided to look for them.

So wasn't she putting her friend in danger?

Probably. But she hoped that anyone looking for them wouldn't bother just barging in attacking, figuring that was likely the worst possible way of dealing with Harry Potter. So she'd hoped they'd observe and realize that there was no sign of either of them, and that there hadn't been in months. And go on their way.

It was the same reason they couldn't go visit the school and see how it was doing. Which both Harry and Emily wanted to do. If he was honest, Emily seemed to be even more interested in it than he was. She'd talked rather excitedly about it and pouted more than Harry thought was appropriate for Lord Voldemort when Priya refused to let them go.

She'd used the same excuse. If someone was looking for them, the first places they would check were the places they'd had a connection in the past. So if they wanted to keep unwanted attention away from their former friends or students, then the best thing they could do was not be there. And have it so that everyone would honestly say they hadn't seen them in months and that, last they heard they'd gone back to England.

If everyone insisted that was the truth, there would be little reason to harm any of them. And if someone, like say Grindelwald, decided to try to use their connection against him, it would give them a benefit.

How? Emily had asked before Harry had even thought to interrupt his fiance. Priya smiled at her and gave her a condescending look. Harry could feel the hatred bubbling in Emily but she'd made no further comment.

The Japanese didn't like to be bothered. Outside of one or two contacts Priya made at the government, none of them knew they were back in the country. And she planned on keeping it that way. If Grindelwald came looking for Harry Potter, and tried to throw his weight around, the Japanese would react poorly to it. And if it came to conflict there was no way Grindelwald wouldn't look like the aggressor. Which he couldn't afford to do.

And even if his research worked and he could give magic to people, which Priya seriously doubted the validity of, earning a snort from Emily, why would the Japanese care? Harry had already done that.

Not really, Harry argued. He'd just fixed an issue, he didn't really give magic to anyone who shouldn't have had it. It wasn't the same thing.

It wasn't, Priya agreed. But the Japanese already had enough trouble with the return of magic and the relatively small size of the population that surely they had no interest in adding even more to it. At least not at the immediate moment.

Harry shook his head as he let his mind return more to the task at hand. He stepped off of the small back patio and made his way into the woods behind their new house. Well, newish for them, at least. It had been a few months since they moved in. And since then, they'd changed so much of it that Harry couldn't help but wonder why they'd bothered to even find an existing building.

It was funny, he thought, as he weaved through the familiar path into the mountains, how the memories of the conversations worked. He knew that they certainly hadn't discussed any of those specific things while they'd had breakfast that morning months ago.

No, they almost certainly discussed more banal things. Like whether or not the hotel was comfortable, or how the weather looked that morning, or, perhaps most likely, what sounded good for breakfast. Or dinner. Food, he thought, was more often than not the topic of conversation.

But that wasn't as interesting. The conversations were utterly inane. What did you want for dinner? Pho, you? Sushi. Eh, not feeling that. You? A steak would be great. Nah, how about some grilled fish? I mean, or we could just not grill it and have sushi. I really am not feeling raw fish, last time it didn't agree with me. Well, I'd rather have pho than bother with cooking the fish. I'd still prefer a nice steak. Didn't that joint we walked past last night smell amazing? No, not really but you go ahead I'll just sleep with her tonight instead.

Excuse me what? You heard me.

Something about that just felt too unimportant to reference. Yet, food was probably the thing they talked about the most. And the next closest topic of conversation was likely the local sights they stopped at out of nothing more than general curiosity.

Yet he couldn't recall those conversations with quite as much clarity. Whatever they said at the fourth, fifth or sixth Shinto shrine wasn't much different than whatever they'd said at the first. If there were all thrown together before him he probably wouldn't have been able to tell a difference.

But with other conversations he could place them anywhere. And something about it felt true, even if it wasn't. The brain, he figured, was a mysterious thing.

He continued his trek through the mountains. It took perhaps fifteen minutes before he found himself in a clearing with a large glass building. It was set back far enough away from the main trails that it seemed unlikely anyone would stumble upon it by accident. In their time here he hadn't seen another soul out on the hiking trail. And none of the intruder alarms they'd set on the building had ever been activated.

Harry stepped inside the greenhouse and said his traditional greeting, realizing well after the words were out of his mouth that their intended target was nowhere to be seen. Instead he decided it was best to check on the berries and lose himself in thoughts once more.

His mind shifted back toward that fateful breakfast. Despite knowing that wasn't how it happened, that even stuck out in his head. He wondered if it was because that was really when Emily started being self-conscious about her Japanese. For some reason that stuck out in his head.

It marked a shift from her. One that was, perhaps, not quite as related as he'd thought. And perhaps there was something else to it. Although that avenue wouldn't be explored for months. But, still, something changed in her.

She'd stopped being as sullen. She stopped being as condescending. She stopped being as petulant. Something about her became more demure, more understanding, and, frankly, more friendly than they'd ever seen.

Harry tried to ask Priya about it, but she deflected his questions. He'd caught them practicing Japanese on multiple occasions but said nothing. If they'd noticed his intrusion they also chose to not say anything.

Their dynamic changed. Faster, he thought, than he should have expected. He and Priya were close. They had been for years. And Emily was the clear outsider. But with each day she became less of a plus one and more of an equal. Until the three of them together felt right.

It must have been that morning in the restaurant, where he poked at a fried egg with a chopstick and wondered exactly why anyone had ever thought that was a good idea when he'd really realized that they'd really become a trio.

And, perhaps even more surprising, was that unlike the last trio he'd been a prominent member of, he didn't lead this one. Although he'd never really thought about it with Ron and Hermione. They were always together yet, in the end, they deferred to his judgment more often than not.

Here, both he and Emily looked to Priya to make most of the decisions. Well, most of the non-food related decisions. He and Emily were rather openly questioning her decision making skills when it came to dinner by that point.

He'd peered down at the listings Priya passed to him. Of the entire stack Emily had found, only about fifteen of them were of any interest. Most of them were in the general area, a few of them weren't. It would take them a couple of days to look at all of them.

He still wasn't quite sure why they were doing it this way. Priya told him it would be like their first home, where when they saw it, they would know it was where they were meant to be. Harry hadn't quite remembered feeling like that at the time. Mostly, he'd thought it was good enough and fixable. And had appreciated the fact that she seemed enamored with it. Basing all of his housing decisions off of chasing a similar feeling to whatever she'd felt seemed fool hearted at best.

On the flip side, it wasn't like he had a whole lot better to do with his time. They'd bounced around for nearly a month by that point. And had made it to three of the four main islands. He'd preferred Hokkaido, but the girls had vetoed the weather. He thought that was a foolish decision on their part, as it wasn't like they weren't all magical. They'd merely stared at him, turned to each other, and shaken their heads in virtual unison, expressing just how stupid they thought he was being with that little movement.

He'd let them think they'd won the argument there. But, so far, the best lodging they'd found was a converted onsen in that region. He hadn't bought it up since they left. But it was one of three that Priya kept the ad for in her purse.

Harry spent a bit of each day scavenging for English news. It was futile in most cases. Magical news itself didn't seem to travel quickly in Japan. And what little of it focused almost exclusively inland. And whatever English news they deemed of note tended to be more American than English.

He half wondered if his flight from Hogwarts had even been of note. He doubted it. It wasn't like he'd care if the head of a Japanese Magical school was ousted from his position by the local government.

But, then again, that same head probably hadn't run a magical school in his country. And wasn't a celebrity in the magical circles. So perhaps the situations weren't the same. He hadn't seen his name in any Japanese headlines since they arrived. But, in fairness, they hadn't gone straight to Japan when they'd fled England.

No, as he'd had all those years earlier, they'd started west to go east.

Priya and Fumiko, unbeknownst to him, devised a communications system for if they were ever separated. It seemed pointless to Harry, but not everyone was capable of apparating a couple thousand miles like he was.

Avery had been investing in property all over the world. It was something he'd started doing in his early years as at Death Eater. Under the encouragement of the woman currently traveling with him. He'd always had a good eye for investments and numbers, Emily had said. So it made sense.

He spent a lot of time traveling, making Harry realize his chosen companion for his journeys likely hadn't been at random. And still had properties in many of the places they'd traveled to. Harry wondered why it had never really clicked with him while they were traveling. He should have noticed that they almost always had places to stay or Avery had half an idea of which restaurants to go to. But he was used to adults just figuring things out. It wasn't until he traveled more and more that he realized how much of a safety net there had been.

Well, aside from having access to a great deal of money.

Either way, Fumiko was in the process of adding in magical dead drops to places they might go if they needed contact. They were far spread apart, but Harry, and perhaps Emily, could apparate to them from nearly anywhere with how they were placed. And could use them as hopping points if need be.

They'd checked on the first one, in Washington D.C. on their first stop. They'd wanted them to be hidden, so Priya set it up like that. The only caveat was that they would all be within a mile or two of their owned lodgings.

Harry thought they'd look for it together. But Emily wanted to see the Lunar Lander and Priya wanted to see the Hope Diamond, so the girls wandered off to start their journey at the Air and Space museum before Harry even realized what was happening.

There was magic in the district. But no more than he'd have expected to sense in any mostly magical city. It took him the better part of the morning to find it, but he did, on a side street near the National Portrait Gallery he'd stumbled on a small marking on a building. When he traced a hand over it a small message fluttered for an instant on the stonework.

Hi Harry. It was simple. Coded to his magic no doubt. He thought back at it and his thoughts flashed for a moment a simple response forming on the wall. Hi Fumiko flashed away in an instant and Harry turned back toward the National Mall.

It would work, he figured. But he wasn't sure of the necessity of it. And the fact that they didn't know all of the locations was a problem. One that probably would have been rectified had they not fled before they were set up. But that was a problem for another day.

He'd bought a bottle of water from a street vendor and found a bench near the entrance to the Museum of Natural History and waited. An hour later he saw the girls approach and joined them. They'd only spent one more day in Washington before they continued west.

It was a short flight to Chicago. They spent a few days there without much worth noticing before moving on to Las Vegas.

Emily cheated. Harry wanted to scold her for it, but didn't see the point. She drew some attention to herself, which resulted in a free room and quite a bit of free food and alcohol. Three days was more than enough time in Vegas though, and after that San Francisco awaited.

After that was a week in Hawaii. Harry wanted to stay. And not only because of the bikinis. And there were lots of bikinis. Something about the tropical islands just felt right. It was remote, warm and wonderful. But the girls seemed less interested in staying than he did. He figured that also had to do with the bikinis.

So after a week it was off to Japan. And a few weeks later, Shikoku. And, as he'd noticed, somewhere along that way they'd become a new trio. If he had to guess, it started somewhere around the Hall of Bones, grew around a roulette table, and solidified on a beach surrounded by tiki torches and daiquiris.

He remembered Ron and Hermione from school. He could clearly remember their days at Hogwarts. Their conversations flooded back to him with little prompting. Often it would be he and Ron talking about Quidditch or jokes, or sports in general or even girls, while Hermione would sit there stoically, adding next to nothing to the conversations.

But in Japan he found it to be the opposite of that. Now, he found himself being the statue in the conversations. He wished he'd have noticed the first time it happened. He wanted to know which of them broke first.

Priya had to have been the one asking the questions. It just made more sense. But at what point had Emily bothered answering. Or perhaps she'd snapped and asked something after so much battering.

Either way, the banal conversation of their trio turned to fashion, clothing, makeup, medical theory, and attractive men. His opinion had almost no bearing on any of their conversations.

He grew used to it. It wasn't bad, really. Something about their chatter amused him. It was hard to find anything wrong with it. He wondered if it was how Hermione felt while he and Ron talked of nothing.

While he didn't actively participate in many of the conversations, he never felt excluded. Sometimes, they'd even ask his opinion on something. It always earned a sort of confused look from them when he answered. But what had they expected him to say? Yes, there were Japanese girls with bright pink hair. And yes, he didn't think it looked bad. And honestly, if they wanted to dye their hair, he figured they'd look great with whatever color.

Although he did have a hard time picturing Lord Voldemort with bubble-gum pink hair. But honestly, the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to see it.

They'd raised their brows, almost in unison, at his comment. They stared at him for about ten seconds, before turning back to each other and continuing their conversation. She'd thought about a dark red, Emily admitted, and even going blonde. Priya shrugged and said she'd never given it much thought. Somewhere along the way it led into a discussion of purples, reds and blues and ochres or umbers or a million other things Harry didn't have the faintest clue about.

But by that point they'd no longer had any interest in his opinion, so he listened, finding himself amused by it. Wondering if, perhaps, one day he'd come home to a brightly colored Priya. It hadn't happened yet.

Back in the real world he spent a few minutes looking over Emily's plants. The Greenhouse was a pet project of theirs. For different reasons. Emily grew rarer plants for potions and salves, largely to help Priya. She'd chosen the ones that would be the most difficult to find in the region.

Harry, on the other hand, grew fruits and vegetables. Letting his gluttony get the better of him. From what he gathered Shikoku was known for citrus. And he looked forward to sampling all of it. But there were other things he'd also craved. And he figured, given that he had ample free time, he may as well try to grow it.

Most of it required less diligence than he would have thought.

He paced through the greenhouse. He'd promised Emily he'd keep an eye on her plants while she was gone. They required far more attention than his own. But still, that wasn't a lot. It helped that she'd left detailed instructions. Down to posting a step-by-step listing of the care requirements for one of them. She'd even conjured a small chalk board by the plant with said steps, because obviously he'd have lost the parchment had she gone that route.

He peered at step twenty-three of fifty seven and shook his head. It was an easy day, just some pruning of any leaves that decided to turn black during the night. There were only two. He snipped them off and disposed of them while giving the plant one more cursory look just so he could be sure he'd missed nothing.

A few of her other plants were ready for harvest. He figured they'd keep until he could check on his own. A few berry plants were more or less ready. He ate a few as he harvested a few containers worth and set them aside while he went to work on Emily's plants.

It was simple work, and nothing that needed more than a few minutes of his time. He'd have to get the leaves to Priya by the afternoon and their evening would likely be spent processing them into the appropriate remedies.

He supposed he could have sent her a patronus and just asked her which ones she wanted him to focus on. But it gave him an excuse to walk down to the small village and continue to reflect upon the last few months.

The Greenhouse actually came before their house house. Sure, they didn't build it. And by they, he meant Emily, before they found suitable lodgings, but the idea for it came about while they were still looking around Hokkaido.

The winter weather led to Emily deciding that whenever she lived, she wanted a way to grow her own food and supplies. Priya suggested a greenhouse, and the idea kept rolling from there.

At first, Harry thought it was rather dumb and pointless. But this was coming from the person who saw no reason to not oblige them. So he went to work planning it in his downtime. His plans were useless, as they didn't know what they wanted to do with it or where to even put it, but it was something to do.

And it was that which made him realize why the girls hadn't wanted to stay in Hawaii. Harry could drift from one thing to another, he didn't need much direction in his life. When he didn't bother to fret about Grindelwald he was rather happy. And he knew he could drift off with it and call it a life.

But Emily and Priya needed to feel like they were involved. Like they were helping. Like they had a purpose in life. And that was when it clicked to him just what Pirya was looking for.

It wasn't so much lodgings that she was looking for as it was a community. It was strange to think that was what she longed for. But it made sense. It took him until a hotel in Osaka to actually ask her about it.

She'd admitted she was looking for a small, rural town. Somewhere where they could be hidden, and where she could be useful. A small town doctor and pharmacist rolled into one. She knew there were rural areas like that.

It sounded far too public for Harry's taste. But he was helpless against the look on her face. So he kept looking at houses with her. Not to judge the homes, because the homes didn't matter, they could magic them to be whatever they needed them to be, but to judge the villages they traveled to.

So they'd looped around the island until they wound up in Seiyo. Harry wished he could say he knew as soon as they arrived that this was the area they'd stay in. But that would be a lie. It didn't feel any different than any of the other small cities he'd seen in Japan. They'd spent a day or two there, mostly as tourists, before venturing out east into the woodland area.

They'd stumbled into a little mountain town. The entire thing felt like little more than a few streets. The population that they saw skewed older but there were some families as well and things like a small school house, shrines, and the like.

Priya found a small corner shop, empty and abandoned and peered into it through the darkened windows. At that point, Harry knew she wanted it. But it took him a while for it to click that their journey was over.

They walked further east out of town and eventually found a building tucked back into the woods. Emily sorted through the papers she carried and found the listing. It was a good trek to town, but would be an easy bike ride. Priya barely even looked at it as they toured it.

Less than a week later he owned it.

Well, Iphigenia Darnell owned it. But she'd paid for it with his money. He didn't think using that pseudonym was the best choice of action, given that Grindelwald knew it, but the girls seemed far less concerned about the minutiae of things like that.

It didn't take very long for it to be livable. A day or two with magic to clear out some rooms, furnish them and arrange things how they wanted it. He'd always meant, but never actually bothered, to look into what the building was before they'd converted it into a house. The structure of the building reminded him of the onsen they'd looked at, except for the distinct lack of a hot spring. He half wondered if it was once a tea house or rest stop or something for the grown over trails in the mountains. But in the end it never interested him enough to find out.

Whatever it was didn't matter. It was now his house. It was a large, two story building. Priya converted one of the main rooms downstairs into an office, and another few more into a waiting area and patient rooms, just in case. Harry redid the kitchen, modernizing it, and Emily did the bathrooms and bedrooms.

When he'd finished with his tasks he'd helped Emily create a basement laboratory. It took the better part of a day for them to deal with the earth moving and not accidentally collapsing the structure on top of them. But they managed, despite his best efforts. It almost certainly wouldn't have passed any form of Muggle inspection, but given that it was magic, it didn't need to.

Emily took a first floor bedroom, set back near the kitchen and on the opposite end of the house to where Harry and Priya's master bedroom was. It was odd, he thought, having her claim a room. Part of him had always expected she'd vanish once they were settled, yet she moved in without a qualm.

While they were finishing the house, Priya snuck off to town and bought the store space. Harry helped her turn it into a little convenience store slash pharmacy and clinic upstairs. She may or may not have cheated to get the required permits and red tape out of the way. Emily took the time while they were doing that to find a place for, and build, the much talked about greenhouse.

And after that they settled into life.

Harry finished his chores and exited the greenhouse and peered down toward where he knew his home was. He followed the path back into his kitchen. He took a moment to neatly press the magical roots and leaves between some paper towels and sort the barries into smaller containers. He put most of them into the fridge before leaving the rest on the counter while he walked upstairs to change out of his gardening clothing.

It wasn't much of a change, really. The pants were cleaner and the shirt collared, but that was all. He pulled a stylish black twill jacket out of the closet and threw it on. It would probably grow far too warm for said jacket that day, but he thought he looked cool in it.

He hopped back down the steps two at a time and regathered his spoils before walking out the front door this time. He started on the familiar path down to the town. The same path he'd taken multiple times a day for the last few months.

That's what his routine was. Priya opened her little clinic and store and they all worked there. Priya was there almost every day. And when she wasn't she made sure she was contactable in case of emergency. The nearest hospital was a few towns over and she thought the village could use a doctor.

The locals largely ignored them at first. Priya was personable with everyone. Always bubbly and bright and talkative. She made sure all their prices were competitive as well. It was fake, everyone could tell, but she tried. Some of the locals glared at her, some just looked confused, and some replied. Harry and Emily, for their part, actively ignored the locals as much as they were actively ignored. They all felt more comfortable that way.

But on their third week in town, a car accident resulted in an elderly lady in serious condition being rushed to the closest possible place for medical care. And that just happened to be Priya's fledgling clinic.

There wasn't anything devastatingly wrong with the woman. Sure, Muggle medicine may have taken weeks to correct things. But Priya did it in an instant, commenting that the woman must have just been shaken up by the accident as she was going to be fine. Sometimes it was hard to tell how serious things were in the initial moments but she'd been quite lucky.

She gave her some pills to take to keep up appearances and told her to come back if anything felt out of place after the adrenaline wore off. The woman didn't return with any maladies, but word of mouth spread and she developed a small trickle of patients in their little town. Enough that she felt like she was helping.

Harry and Emily took turns manning the register of the convenience store. Emily was a natural, especially when it came to inventory, while Harry found all of it rather tedious. He had no real interest in how many bottles of Kirin Lemon they had. After a few weeks one of Priya's patients said her young niece needed a job and Harry figured she would be a better candidate for employment than him, so they hired the local girl. Soon they had two local girls working nearly every day and a few more part timers filling in here or there.

Despite not working there any longer, he still seemed to visit the shop every day. It gave him something to do. Not that he was bored or dissatisfied with his life. He just liked to feel like he did something during the course of the day. So something he did. It didn't have to be productive or important, it could be a hike or a swim or a puzzle, it just had to be something. In the end, they wormed their way into the little community without much fanfare.

He walked into the town, nodding at a few familiar faces out and about as they went about their business. There were enough of them that he assumed it had to be a weekend. He wasn't sure when he stopped noticing the specific days. He always thought that type of apathy would take longer to develop. But when it didn't matter if it was Monday, Tuesday or Friday, it suddenly became trivial.

Sure, he could remember days when he'd look forward to the weekend for whatever reason. Of course the reason was almost certainly to not go to class, but he digressed. Now, though, it just didn't matter. And the thought that it could somehow have any bearing on his life felt off.

Clouds lingered overhead, giving the day a bit of a dreary feel. It felt like rain but the ground showed no signs that it had. He peered ahead and saw the glowing fluorescent lights from Priya's shop, familiar universal cross logo adorning the top of the door.

He'd helped design the signage. Most of his ideas were promptly rejected. But he'd won with the cross design. Although he couldn't help but wonder if it was only to get him to shut up about other poor design choices. The offered bone, as it were.

He waited on a few cars before crossing the street and moving to enter the shop.

"Good morning, Shoka," he said to the girl sitting behind the register. She was peering down at a text book and nursing a green tea. There was a time, months earlier, when such an intrusion would have led to her trying to hide the book and look busy. But she'd quickly learned that as long as she wasn't actively ignoring any customers that needed help, and the store wasn't a mess, then the Potters has no qualms with her studying.

"Good morning, Mister Potter," she answered. It still felt weird to hear his name said with such disinterest. But they were Muggles, and the significance of it was lost on them. "Mrs. Potter is with a patient upstairs."

"I shouldn't bother her then," Harry said. He offered one of the containers of berries to her. "Fresh berries from our greenhouse?"

"Oh! Thank you, they look great," she said, sliding the container over to her and popping it open. She tossed one into her mouth. "I'm not sure how you manage to grow them all like you do."

"Green thumb," he smiled, holding up his white thumb. Her attention had already fled from him and returned to her book. He weaved around the shelves and made his way upstairs to the waiting room of the clinic.

The wedding, well, hadn't been much of a wedding. It happened shortly after they'd settled in the area. They'd gone into Seiyo with Emily and the recently hired Shoka to pick up some supplies and instead wound up at the local government office. Some paperwork and some signatures later and Patel became Potter.

It wasn't anything like what either of them had expected. But it still felt right. Emily stayed in the city for the evening, taking in the night life with their new employee, while the newly christened Potters returned home.

Someday, they agreed, they might do the ceremony. But for now they didn't need it. They had the confirmation that they were man and wife and that was enough.

He only had to wait a few minutes before she emerged from one of the rooms, laughing with an elderly man. Harry only caught the end of their conversation, something about a youthful folly of cliff diving back after the war. Priya teased him about not condoning it at his current age and wished him on his way.

She turned her attention to Harry as the man made his way down the stairs. They kissed and she groped his backside, so he returned the favor.

"Hey now," she teased. "I'm working."

"Oh? I hadn't noticed," he said. He shifted and offered her the container of berries. She snatched them out of his hand and immediately started eating them.

"I didn't eat breakfast," she defended herself before Harry even thought of making a comment.

"The roots were also ready," he said, holding up the pressed towels.

"Oh great, they're a couple days early," Priya said.

"Hopefully I didn't go too early with them," Harry frowned as she took the package from him and started opening it. "Her notes said three inches was the ideal size."

"And yet she loved her husband," Priya quipped. Harry rolled his eyes.

"I've heard size isn't everything," Harry responded. Priya merely smirked at him while she started to pull out the leaves. When she spoke next it wasn't to continue the joke.

"Do you know how to make an anti-inflammatory balm?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "I thought I read that Muggle pills were more efficient for that than most magical options."

"If you have a loose definition of 'efficient' I suppose. For mild cases they're certainly easier to acquire. But they are slower to act compared to the magical counterpart. They more or less do an equal job," Priya said. Harry shrugged his shoulders as if it was all the same to him.

"We grew the dittany in a greenhouse in a month," Harry said.

"And it will take another month to even become a moderately usable paste, and then ten days after that for it to turn into something we consider effective. While it can mostly be left alone during that time it's still a great deal of effort as opposed to Accio Tylenol," she said, and a small box of five hundred little pills shot toward her hand.

"Still, not as good," he said.

"No. But it's not like I'll be using it for anything other than emergencies. The herbology bookcase in my office should have one of Spore's books on salves. You mind running home and getting it started? From what I remember the first few steps are fairly rudimentary. The leaves spoil quickly and I'd prefer you to take me to dinner tonight than doing it myself," Priya said. She repackaged the leaves and offered them back to Harry

"Happily," Harry smiled and took the package from her. "Think you can free up a few minutes for lunch? Or did you bring something?"

"I brought something," she said, her lips curling downward. Have an eleven and a noon appointment today. Didn't think I'd have time to sneak out," Priya sighed.

"No problem," Harry said. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the mouth. She met his lips before shifting them away and pressing her face into his neck. She hugged him tightly and pressed her lips gently to his skin before breaking away as they heard the telltale sign of footsteps on the stairs.

"Do you mind if I take a quick break before the next client?" Shoka asked from the stairs.

"Not at all," Priya said. She attempted to move toward the stairs but Harry stopped her with another kiss.

"You look like you could use a break too," he said. "I'll cover downstairs until she's back."

"Thank you," she said and returned his kiss. He made his way down and moved behind the register.

Only two groups came in during the half hour their employee was gone. One was a group of teenage girls who spent more time complaining about the lack of selection than actually buying anything. Once they felt like they'd been suitably annoying they left. The second was a young man who bought cigarettes and a bottle of tea and headed on his way.

When Shoka returned they chatted for ten to fifteen minutes about nothing in particular. He asked about her studies, she asked how he was and when he was going to make more of that chicken jambalaya Priya brought leftovers from again. He promised her her own portion for the next week and she quipped that he couldn't leave Suzu, their other main clerk, out. He agreed as he left the store with a wave.

He didn't bother walking back home. Instead he ducked down a nearby alley and apparated straight back.

He walked into Priya's office and started to peer through her bookshelves. They'd meant to set up a library and study in one of the rooms but hadn't come around to which specific room to use for it yet. Harry didn't think it mattered but Emily and Priya argued about it. Priya wanted it near the kitchen, around the back of the house, with views out the back. Emily wanted it on the second story, near the front, with a panoramic view of the rolling hills leading down toward the village.

They'd paused their argument when Emily left. But he fully expected it to return in earnest when she graced them with their presence once more.

Either way he found a quartet of books by Phyllida Spore. He pulled them off the shelf, peering at the smiling young woman in the portrait on the back of the first one. They'd actually teased Neville relentlessly about her when he'd admitted to thinking the ancient witch was cute.

Now, as a happily married man of about the same age she was when she published her first text, he could agree that she was pretty enough, in a basic sort of way. She'd never have tempted him away from his wife, but if he wound up at Hogwarts during the fifteenth century he figured he could do worse.

Still, the image he had of her was far closer to the far older woman who graced the portrait in the Headmaster's office. So he pushed that memory from his head and instead paged through the text until he found the appropriate salve.

She'd been right in that the first few steps were rather basic. He figured he could get to step four before the evening. Which was the first spot where the crafter could pause in the process. So he set out to work.

It was boring work, mostly chopping and smashing and mixing with some other basic ingredients. He got it to the point where it needed to chill and set about the appropriate spells before tucking them away into a dark corner of the laboratory.

He'd killed the day doing it though, and his only real thoughts shifted to where he should take Priya that evening. He came up with three suggestions in his head, figuring that if she vetoed all of them then there was obviously somewhere else she'd rather go, and she'd just tell him.

So he showered and changed, again lost in the routine of it all, before he decided to walk back toward the town.

The same steps through the same familiar tamed wilderness calmed him. He liked the walk. He didn't mind doing it multiple times a day. The girls usually apparated but sometimes Priya biked if she wanted to look Muggle. The clerks asked if they were going to buy a car, but neither of them came up with a satisfactory answer.

They'd pressed the issue, asking what they'd do if they were caught out in rain or snow. Harry had only shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't mind any type of weather, and that it would take something biblical to stop him.

He'd smirked as he said it. The girls looked at him as if they thought he was an idiot. Suzu commented that a typhoon would change his tune in a hurry. And they'd teased him the rest of the day.

The teasing lessened when Priya continued to show up, early, every day despite the weather and without the aide of an automobile. He'd even walked in during one of the rainiest days, completely unfazed by the water which he hadn't let touch him. The girls looked shocked when he shrugged that the heavy stuff wasn't going to come down for quite some time. They'd watched him leave with narrowed eyes, as if wondering about his secrets.

It was funny how the memories flashed by. He and Priya had laughed about it, sitting in a magical bubble on their patio as the rain fell around them. They sipped wine and giggled about the girls' reactions late into the evening.

It was the little things that amused both of them. They knew there were likely issues with flaunting their magic like that. But the girls didn't catch on. And they didn't see any reason to enlighten them.

He found himself smiling at the memories as he approached the city. It had been months. And, while a small part of him knew he should be worried about things in the outside world, should be trying harder to contact those left behind, the larger part of him disagreed. He was finally happy, he thought. Truly happy. He loved his wife. He enjoyed their traveling companion when she was around. Sure, he'd have liked to invite Fumiko and Avery to join them but that was yet to happen.

They'd have surprisingly little contact with them. It was by design, of course, but he found he missed their presence. They'd have liked the village, he thought. Soon enough they'd get their chance to visit it.

But for now his life was, well, what he thought it should be. And in those moments, it was perfect.

Life, though, had a way of swerving at inopportune moments.

He turned the familiar corner toward the store and stopped in his tracks. Three gaijin stood on the street, looking confused. Two were tall and built well, flanking a stocky man. He held a bowler hat in his hands, spinning it around slowly.

They were looking toward the store, but not quite seeing it.

They couldn't see it, he knew. He'd put the magical defenses on the building himself. He'd stolen the idea from the Room of Requirement, actually. It had taken the three of them a month of theorizing to pull off the charms. Aside from the three who cast the spell, the only way a Witch or Wizard could see the little pharmacy was if they truly had need of it.

Magic, however, always left a trace. They must have been able to tell something was wrong. But they'd never be able to crack just what it was. He wondered what they'd think of it, or what they'd try. But for now they did nothing.

He saw Suzu turn the corner. His eyes flashed to his watch as he realized she must have had the evening shift that day. He ducked out of sight and watched as the three men approached her.

"Potter?" he heard one of them say. Harry cursed himself for not bothering to change the name. He'd argued they should. But Priya argued she spent too long waiting to be Mrs. Potter to not bother using it once she finally could. And something primal in him like the way that sounded. Emily had rolled her eyes. But then again, he still wasn't quite sure if she was Miss Riddle, Mrs. Price or Ms. Darnell.

Suzu looked at them, her brows raised. She merely shook her head.

"Potter?" One of the men insisted. More forcibly. Again, Suzu shook her head and scrunched up her face. She lifted her hands in confusion and answered them in Japanese.

"I don't speak English," she lied. Her English was far better than his Japanese. In fact, they often conversed in it with her using the Brits as an excuse to practice, not that she needed it.

"Potter?" they insisted once more. She shrugged her shoulders and pointed in the exact opposite way of the store.

"Seiyo?" she answered before pushing past them and continuing on her way while earning a very large bonus on her next paycheck. She walked past the entrance of the clinic and turned a corner. He saw her pause and peer back at the three men. They argued amongst themselves for a moment before continuing in the direction she pointed.

Harry waited until they disappeared from sight. He focused on Priya's clinic office rather than her home one and readied himself to apparate through his own wards. All the while wondering just how he was going to tell her that Cornelius Fudge found them, more or less.

He could picture what she'd say easily enough. What did it matter? It wasn't like they covered their tracks that well. Instead they'd opted to hide behind his power. Fudge could know, more or less, where they were. But he'd never be able to find them, find their house, or their business, unless they let him.

The question was, should they let him?

Author's Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing I do appreciate all of the support I receive. If you wish to support me further I am available on PAT RE ON at TE7Writes. There's two additional chapters of CTS posted over there as well as the first seven chapters of my next fanfic.

Thanks again for your continued support.