Harry lounged in front of a campfire and looked up at the clear night sky above him. The stars were bright tonight. He and Sirius were currently camping in the Swedish wilderness. He's never been camping before, not counting the times the Dursleys would lock him outside and he had to spend the night sleeping in the garden.
He thought back to how this summer started. He was out in said garden, weeding the rose bushes, when suddenly a man came up to Harry and began talking to him. He introduced himself as Sirius Black, said that he was Harry's Godfather, and invited Harry to spend the summer with him.
Harry didn't even hesitate before he agreed. He used to have fantasies about getting rescued from the Dursleys by someone. So, when Sirius offered to take Harry abroad for an extended holiday, Harry was eager to accept.
According to Sirius, they had to leave immediately, because Sirius couldn't stay in Britain for too long. Apparently he was having a bit of trouble with the law. Harry wasn't sure about the details, but he also didn't really care. He didn't have any problems with leaving Immediately. He was just excited for the vacation. He'd never gone on a vacation before, as the Dursleys would always leave him behind whenever they went on trips.
Getting his things wasn't much of a problem, either. Sirius had a nifty little pocket knife that he used to unlock the cupboard and collect Harry's trunk. Sirius offered Harry his arm, and then, with a loud crack, they left Privet Drive for good. Easy as pie.
Well, maybe it wasn't quite so easy. Harry felt like he was being squeezed through a tube, and he proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach once the world stopped spinning. Sirius gave a sheepish apology for not warning him about Apparation, but Harry was just so thrilled to be away from the Dursleys that he didn't even mind it all that much.
From there, Harry and Sirius proceed to travel all throughout Europe. Harry was having the time of his life. They mostly stuck to the muggle side of things, going to big cities and tourism hotspots. The food was also incredible. Harry got to eat all sorts of different types of food he'd never had before. Waffles from Belgium, pizza from Italy, crepes from France, everything was just so delicious.
One of the downsides of sticking to Muggle spots was that he wasn't able to meet other magical people. Fortunately, Harry was lucky enough to randomly run into a pair of magical people out in the middle of nowhere. Harry looked across the fire at Sirius, who was currently sitting with the father and daughter pair who were sharing their campsite. They were the Lovegoods. The father, Xenophilius, was quite eccentric, and his daughter, Luna, was also a bit strange. But still, they seemed like nice people.
They claimed to be in Sweden because they were searching for something called a "Crumple-Horned Snorkack". Harry had never heard of such an animal, but he promised to keep his eyes out in case he spotted one, which made the Lovegoods very pleased. Also, for some reason, they said that Sirius was the lead singer of the Hobgoblins. No matter how much Sirius denied it, they continued to insist that he was actually the musician Stubby Boardman.
The four of them decided to camp together, and Harry was happy to finally have a magical person around his own age to talk to. Luna was a year younger than him. She was a small girl, with long blonde hair and piercing silver eyes. She also had a certain dreaminess about her. Initially he thought that she was odd, but he found that he was growing increasingly fond of the smaller girl, the more time he spent with her.
He was brought out of his musing when he heard Sirius begin to sing. The Lovegoods had been begging him to perform some Hobgoblin songs for the past few days. It would seem that Mr. Lovegood bringing out a bottle of Firewhisky was what it took to get Sirius to finally capitulate.
Harry didn't know any of the songs, but he could still tell that Sirius was singing off-key, and kept messing up the lyrics. Still, the Lovegoods seemed enthralled by the "live Stubby Boardman performance". Harry joined in the applause as Sirius finished up a song, and smiled as Sirius began laughing about at how much he messed it up, but Mr. Lovegood just waved it off as him being "out of practice".
Harry simply sat back in his seat, letting the sounds of laughter and the warmth of the fire wash over him.
Harry Potter was doing well.
Hermione Granger was not doing well.
Hermione's parents were worried about their daughter. It all started during their holiday in France. She was fine for the first few days, having a lot of fun exploring France and relaxing, but a few days into the trip, that began to change. She started to appear anxious and nervous, but whenever they asked her about it, she would just tell them that everything was fine.
When she suddenly demanded that they go back to Place Cachée, her parents were hopeful that she was feeling better, and would go back to enjoying their holiday together. They were quite confused when she bought every newspaper she could find, and then insisted that they go back to their hotel. Hermione then proceeded to bolt herself up in her hotel room, going over the newspapers and cutting out certain articles and clippings.
That was a few days ago. Since then, the Grangers returned from their holiday in France. Since arriving back in Britain, Hermione has spent almost every minute shut away in her room. She only rarely left to eat food, and even then, her appetite was noticeably diminished.
She had finally explained to them why she was so upset. Apparently, one of her friends was abducted by some sort of crazy mass murderer. Obviously that was terrible, and while Hermione's parents felt awful for that poor boy, their main concern was their own daughter.
Hermione's mother knocked on her door. "Hermione, dear?"
There was a shuffling sound from inside her room, "Um, yes? What is it?"
"Can we come in?"
"I'm busy!"
Hermione's father cleared his throat. "Listen, sweetheart, we haven't seen much of you since we got back from France. We just want to talk."
"...Alright, fine. Come in."
The door was opened, and Hermione's parents stepped inside.
Hermione was not looking good. Her normally frizzy hair was a complete mess, wild and disheveled. Her clothes were wrinkled, with stains in several places. Her hands and wrists were covered in ink splotches, and she had dark circles under her eyes.
Hermione's room wasn't in much better shape. Many of her old posters and decorations were torn down to clear space on her wall. Replacing them were dozens of various newspaper clippings, maps, and photographs. All of the newspaper clippings were heavily annotated, with different sections underlined, circled, and highlighted. In the center of the wall was a massive map of Europe. Several cities were circled, and there were red strings connecting those cities to the numerous newspaper clippings and pictures all across the wall.
Hermione's mother noted that there were two posters that had multiple copies plastered all over the wall. One was labeled "MISSING: HARRY POTTER" and had a picture of a young boy that she recognized as one of the people who went shopping with them in Diagon Alley last summer. The other poster that had multiple copies was labeled "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WIZARD?" and had a picture of Sirius Black. "Is that Sirius Black?" Hermione's mother questioned.
Immediately, Hermione wheeled on her mother. "Y- Yes. Yes it is! How did you know that? How did you recognize him? Do you know anything about him? How did you know his name?" Hermione began rapidly firing off questions.
Her mother raised her hands in a calming gesture. "Calm down, Hermione. I saw him on the news. Apparently he escaped from prison or something like that. I didn't know he was a Wizard. Is he the madman who kidnapped your friend?"
Hermione facepalmed. "Of course! The Muggle news! Why didn't I think to check the Muggle news sources!"
Hermione's dad had wandered over to her cluttered desk, and leaned over it to peer into a half-full mug. "Is this coffee?" he asked.
Hermione gave a jerky nod. "I was drinking tea earlier, but then I started getting tired, and I needed something stronger."
"Hermione…" her father began, "When was the last time you slept?"
It took Hermione's sleep-addled mind a few seconds to figure that out. She was counting on her fingers and mumbling, "Let's see, um, it was… I think… Um…"
"Hermione?" Her mother queried.
Hermione snapped out of her musings and looked up. "Right, I think it was two nights and three days ago? Or wait, was that two days and three nights ago? What day is it, again?"
Her parents exchanged a glance.
"You need sleep, Hermione. You're a growing girl." Her mother intreated. "Food, too. When's the last time you had a proper meal?"
"I have been eating," Hermione retorted, gesturing to a half empty box of granola bars on her desk. "I just haven't been that hungry."
"Listen, Hermione. We appreciate that you're worried for your friend, and you want to help him." Hermione's father said, "But don't you think this investigation should be left to the wizarding government? Surely there's some form of law enforcement in the wizarding world?"
Hermione nodded "Yes, the DMLE. I sent them the letter Harry gave me, and they thanked me for that, but other than that, they haven't been much help. I've been sending them daily updates of the progress I've made, but they haven't been responding to me!" Hermione huffed in annoyance. "I'm sure they're probably too busy tracking down Harry and Black to reply to me personally, but I still have to help them however I can!"
"That's right, like you said, I'm sure that they're hard at work tracking Harry down." Hermione's father replied. "Plus, they can use magic to track him. Why don't you leave the investigation to the professionals?"
Hermione shook her head. "I know I'm no match for a professional detective in terms of investigative skill, but I've been trying to go about this the Muggle way, using forensic sciences."
"I'm sure you're trying your best-" He said, before his daughter interrupted him.
"But I just made a major breakthrough! Look at this!" She gestured over to a table, where she had a dozen glasses, all slightly filled with water, and each holding a strip of paper with a colorful blob.
"What exactly am I supposed to be looking at? It's just a bunch of rainbow splotches."
Hermione sighed. "It's called chromatography. It's a forensic technique used to determine the composition of ink. These two here are from samples I took from Harry's letter. The rest are from various ink manufacturers across the UK. See how none of them match up? That means he was outside the country when he wrote his letter. I've already ordered samples of ink from all over Europe. Once I do the chromatography test on them, I'll be able to figure out where Harry was when he wrote that letter! And also, there were two different types of ink used in Harry's letter, see here? The postscript was written in a different ink than the rest of the letter. That has to mean something, it has to!" Hermione had to pause and catch her breath, after her impromptu rant.
Hermione's parents exchanged another glance. They knew better than to get in her way when she was this fired up about something.
"Just… Try to get proper sleep," Her father eventually said, "And don't forget to take regular breaks. And remember to eat."
"Alright, fine, I'll take a break. Now please let me get back to work!" Hermione said as she shooed her parents out of her room.
Hermione shook her head as her parents left the room. Honestly, didn't they understand? How could she waste time with something silly like sleep while Harry was probably being tortured at this very moment.
And it wasn't like she was avoiding food. It was just that whenever she sat down to try and eat something, her mind would flash back to Harry's letter. The words "starved for days" would pop into her mind, and she would lose her appetite. Besides, how could she spend her time eating where there was research to be done.
Hedwig should be back soon with the foreign ink samples, so she should get a head start on preparing the tests. Still, the ink wasn't here quite yet, so it might be fine to take a quick break, like her parents told her to. She flopped onto her bed. It would probably be alright if she rested her eyes a little bit. Just for a moment…
Hermione woke up with a start, and the first thing she saw was Hedwig sitting on her window sill.
"Huh? What? Hedwig?" She sat up slowly, rubbing her blearily eyes. "You're back already? Wait, when did you get here?"
She peered out her window to find that it was evening. She turned to glare at the owl. "Why didn't you wake me up? You must have gotten back hours ago!" she complained.
Hedwig didn't bother responding verbally, simply sticking out her leg and presented a package to Hermione.
"Right, the ink." Hermione muttered. No use complaining when there was work to do. She got up and took the parcel over to her desk, where she intended to spend the next few hours.
Midway through testing the ink samples, Hedwig suddenly gave a loud chip that drew her attention, causing her to flinch and accidentally knock over one of the glasses she was using for a chromatography test. It fell to the floor and shattered with a loud crash.
"Oh, drat." Hermione cursed. She didn't get a chance to record the results from that test yet, so now she'd have to waste time re-doing it.
"Hermione!?" Her mother yelled from downstairs. "Are you alright? I heard a crash."
"I'm fine, Mum!" She called back, "I just dropped something."
Hedwig gave another loud chirp, causing Hermione to turn her annoyance towards the bird. "What is it, Hedwig?" She snapped, irritably. "Can't you see I'm busy?"
Hedwig pointed her beak at one of the "MISSING: HARRY POTTER" posters and stuck out her leg, as if to carry a letter.
"What?" Hermione's exhausted mind took a moment to comprehend what Hedwig was trying to communicate, before her eyes widened. "You- You can send a letter to Harry!?"
Hedwig just blinked at her as she continued to stick out her leg.
Hermione felt her heart race, the shattered glass on the floor completely forgotten. "Right, yes, I had a letter prepared, in case this happened." She muttered to herself, "Where did I put it?" She went over to her desk, which was completely cluttered with all sorts of things for her research. Her search started to get frantic, as she shoved papers, parchment, and writing implements to the floor in her desperation. Hedwig gives an impatient hoot, and she gives up on her search, choosing instead to grab the nearest pen and paper, and hastily write out a message before running over to give it to Hedwig.
Once Hedwig has flown off with her letter to Harry, she let out a heavy sigh and collapsed to the floor. Unfortunately, her hand landed right onto one of the forgotten shards of broken glass. "Ouch!" she exclaimed at the sudden pain in her hand. She pulled her hand away from the ground, to see a large cut across her palm dripping with blood.
Oh no. This wasn't good. That was her writing hand! How was she meant to hold a quill or a pen with an injury like this? She clutched her hand to her chest and made her way over to her Hogwarts trunk. Carefully, with her off-hand, she opened up her potions kit and retrieved some Essence of Dittany. She delicately poured a few drops onto her bleeding hand.
Greenish smoke billowed upward, and when it cleared, the bleeding had stopped. The cut now looked several days old, with new skin stretched over what had just been an open wound. She gingerly flexed her hand open and closed, slightly wincing at the pain. Still, it was a manageable level of pain. She could work like this.
With what Harry was probably going through right now, how could she complain about a little cut? With a groan, she sat back down at her desk and resumed her work.