Photograph
By: Marauding Moonbabe
Harry rummaged through his messy apartment, looking for a certain object, a certain photograph, a certain memory. He was going to go to Canada for a vacation; he was so happy with his life. He had always had a thing to do, a place to go, but then, with a letter, the letter, all his certainty had been swept away like a wave in the ocean…
@#@#@#@#@
Mr. Joe Groves:
We regret to inform you, but upon your request to receive a passport to Canada, we had to inspect your social security number. Upon further inspection, we discovered that your number was non-existent in the United States. We contacted your former county's system heads to find that your alleged number belongs to a certain Harry Potter. Please come to our new headquarters at 635 River Circle tomorrow morning at 8:00 to rectify this situation. We are currently unpacking, but it should not stop us from performing in any way. Thank you for your cooperation.
Serena Collier
@#@#@#@#@#@
That would be so easy to explain. `Hi, I'm Harry Potter. I am the savior of a world you don't know about, a murderer of evildoers everywhere, and was just trying to get away from the limelight in Britain. Can I go now? Thanks.' Harry thought bitterly. That would work brilliantly. If he didn't go, he would be tracked down. If he did, he would be caught. Harry had lived in America for five years. He had snuck away from Britain five years ago. He had left familiarity five years ago. He had left Harry Potter five years ago. He was now Joe Groves, the 22-year-old veterinarian assistant with dark brown hair, a hillbilly accent, and a clear forehead. The only remaining whisper of Harry James Potter was his emerald-green eyes. No matter what he did, he could not curse, hex, jinx, transfigure, charm, or use potions to change his eyes. He had used magic to change his physical attributes, then stowed away his wand with his other school objects in a room of laughter and sadness. That was the room he was in right now, looking for his source of strength.
Look at this photograph
Every time I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red?
And what the heck is on Ron's head
And this is where I grew up
I think the prison outa fix it up
I never knew we'd never went without
The second floor is hard for sneaking out
@#@#@#@#@#@#@
Harry walked up the hot summer road, looking for the right drive. He wondered why the new headquarters was in a residential area, but when he saw a huge warehouse, he forgot his fears. `That must be the place,' he thought. He walked into the warehouse, only to find it completely empty. He began to get an edgy feeling. Out of instinct, he reached for his wand, only to remember that he had abandoned all but necessary magic. He cursed under his breath as he heard no less than 10 locks click in place. The blinding fluorescent lights went out to plunge Harry into complete darkness. He heard a light pair of footsteps coming, quickly followed by two heavier pairs. There was no escape…
And this is where I went to school
Most of the time I had better things to do
Criminal records said I've broken twice
I must have done it half a dozen times
I wonder if it's too late
Should I go back and try to graduate
Last man and now that it was back then
If I was them I wouldn't let me in
As Harry's savior stepped into his vision, an aluminous light seemed to enthrall the beautiful young woman before him. "Hermione…" Harry whispered softly, almost unknowingly. "Harry? Is that you?" Hermione asked, but needlessly. Though his appearance was quite changed, his eyes would always scream Harry Potter like a beacon in the dark. Harry couldn't even nod. He couldn't do anything. Why did he leave what he knew? Why did he leave his friends? Why did he leave her? He was under a spell not taught at Hogwarts. Remus Lupin walking out of the shadows with Ron Weasley suddenly broke the chords that wove the spell. Remus muttered a spell under his breath that immobilized Harry from moving out of a 10-foot ring on the floor. It wasn't at all necessary. "Remus, Ron? What are ya'll doin' here?" He had left them (and his accent), and five years later, here they are in a Kentucky warehouse. "Why now?" he asked, accidentally implying the wrong thing. He meant why did they come find him when he was so horrible to them. Each sentence was half British and half Hillbilly, making him sound insane.
Oh oh oh
Oh god I
Every memory of looking out the back door
I have the photo that was printed on my bedroom door
Its time to say, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
Its time to say, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
"Yes, Harry, we're here. It took me five bloody years to track you down. You hide yourself well when you want to." Hermione said, tears brimming in her eyes. Those tears were meant for hatred, but as soon as they appeared, they turned to tears of joy and relief. She had come here to give Harry a piece of her mind, a burning urge to let him have some of the grief she had endured. But as those tears slid down her cheeks, she didn't see a man who walked into a trap, or a man who abandoned his friends five years ago. She saw a boy forced to grow up too fast to be fair to the worst assassin. She saw a boy who didn't know where to go, what to do. She saw a boy who left everything he ever knew just to get a small amount of happiness he thought unattainable in Britain. She saw the boy she had grown to love after five years of separation.
"Bloody…" Ron started, but finish his trademark swear due to Hermione turning abruptly and slapping him upside the head. "Dang it Hermione. Stop doing that already. She's been doing that every day for the past five years. I knew I shouldn't have gotten that flat…" Ron said to Harry, trading `the look' with Harry, acting almost as if five years had just been a day. He knew Harry needed some space, and he sure as heck hoped that five years in Kentucky was long enough, because if not, he would just be drug back to Britain. "Wait, you two live together?" Harry asked, thoroughly confused. Where they… married? "
"Hermione, Ron and I have live in the same apartment since you left. Everyone calls it the Harry Potter Remnants Clubhouse. It's a four-room apartment, three filled. The last room is for you. It's always been open to you. At night I hear Ron muttering in his sleep, Hermione crying and praying that you will come home. I ensured that the room was always open, no matter the emotional price. We've always been waiting for you." Remus said quietly. He knew what his godson had gone through, and wanted to help him any way possible. He didn't care if it included adding guilt. Guilt can help people realize the true path sometimes, as it had with him.
"You don't have to wait anymore." Harry said, and stepped into his godfather's embrace. He had nearly forgotten what it was like to be held since Sirius had died. As he pulled back, he realized that tears were pooling in his eyes. He hastily wiped them away before anyone noticed. So neither was married, he gathered from Remus' tone of voice. "Let's go. I need to pack."
We used to listen to the radio
And sing along with every song we know
We said someday wed find out how if feels
To sing to more than just the steering wheel
@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@
"Hey Remus, Ron, can you pack up the living room? Me and Hermione can pack up these smaller rooms back here." At the affirmative, Harry walked purposefully toward his bedroom. Hermione trotted to catch up with him and said, "Harry, please let me rectify your appearance. That hillbilly accent is driving me batty." He nodded and stepped up to a mirror. Hermione muttered the reversal spell, and watched the change. First the scar returned, then the long, raven hair. After that, his nose slightly lengthened and his eyelashes became thicker and longer. He grew a few inches taller. Lastly, his muscles got a considerable amount larger.
"Why did you do that much?" Hermione asked, eyeing Harry's newly revealed muscles. "Hair, nose, scar, and accent for recognition. And for some reason, in America you are gay if you are tall, have long eyelashes, and work out. That or a bull-rider." Harry replied, sounding hopelessly bored, as though reciting it by memory. Thankfully, he fell right back into the British accent. Hermione swished her wand to noiselessly pack and shrink everything into a suitcase. "You get good at that after five years of living with Ron and Remus." She commented about her packing spell.
They walked to the bathroom and packed it in with the bedroom. Then, they walked into the last room. The room. The room that held so many memories of hope and faith, of despair and destruction. Hermione looked around the room in awe. It had gold walls with a red border around the top. The room was full of stacks of photographs. It looked like a Colin Creevy paradise. "Oh, Harry, where did you get all these?" "I got them from Colin a few days before I left. When I was in the Hospital Wing I asked him to gather up me copies of the best of the best. This one was my source of strength all these years."
Cho's the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous that I nearly missed
She's had a couple of kids since then
I haven't seen her since god knows when
Oh oh oh
Oh god I
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
Its time to say, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
He found a stack in the middle of the floor. He picked up the first one and handed it to her noiselessly. She burst out laughing, and Harry joined her. It was a picture that they had taken in 7th year in a Muggle photo-booth during graduation night, the night before the final battle. Ron was wearing a tea cozy from Dobby on his head, with Harry and Hermione singing into a hairbrush. The background was appropriately a lime-green pickup truck being driven by Ron through a cornfield. Hermione was laughing so hard that she was crying. Seamus had attacked Ron and Harry with a red paintball gun earlier. They got all the paint off except around their eyes, making them look like rabid rabbits. The truck motor was electrifying Crookshanks, making the tips of his fur turn Mad-Eye Moody blue. Pig and Hedwig were bickering with each other over nachos wearing Speedos.
I miss that town
I cannot believe it
So hard to stay
So hard to leave it
If I could I relive those days
I know the one that would never change
Hermione waved her wand to pack up the last room, still guffawing. She and Harry stumbled down the hall with the suitcases to the living room/kitchen. They handed Ron the photograph. With Remus looking over his shoulder, they both burst out laughing. They put the photograph with the others, and walked out the door. "You guys go on, I'll be there in a second." Harry said at the end of the drive. Ron and Remus obliged. But of course, Hermione stayed back.
"You'll miss it won't you?" She asked. He nodded. "It's five years of my life, Hermione, of course it's hard." She couldn't help it, she said, "That didn't stop you before." She gasped and covered her mouth. "Oh Harry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean…"
"Yes, you did, Hermione. I deserved it. I almost turned back when leaving Britain. I saw that photograph. I started laughing in the middle of the airplane. I was getting my luggage out, and realized that it was too late. You have to live with those consequences for the rest of your life. I realized that too late. I thought that I was leaving fame and… and my actions, but I didn't leave them. I left Ron, and Remus, and my friends, and… and you. Every day for five years, I tried to deny the fact that I was dieing inside. I was just a shell. I didn't think you would take me back after being so selfish. That's why I never came back."
"Harry, you have never been selfish before. You never hid from your destiny. Not once, even when it would be so easy. You deserved to be selfish for once in your life by leaving, Harry."
"You must hate me for putting you through so much, Hermione."
"I could never hate you. We live with our actions for the rest of our lives, Harry, and somehow, this will help us. We just don't know how yet."
Look at this photograph
Every time I do it makes me laugh
Every time I do it makes me
"Can we live with this?" Harry asked, softly kissing Hermione.
"Yes."
Harry started swaying to a song he made up, Hermione swaying with him. He started to softly sing:
"Every memory of looking out the back door
I have the photo that was printed on my bedroom door
Its time to say, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
Its time to say, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye"
And with that, Harry said, "Goodbye," one last time, and walked away from the death of his soul, hand-in-hand with his savior.
Every memory of looking out the back door
I have the photo that was printed on my bedroom door
Its time to say, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
Its time to say, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
A/N: Okay, to get the credits out of the way, the song is Nickelback's song called Photograph. I did modify a couple of words in it to accommodate Harry Potter. I do not own Harry Potter. I do not discriminate against hillbilly accents because I have one. I thought I posted this on Portkey, but I saw that I didn't, so I modified it a bit. I'm also considering posting Luna's Loony Articles. I wrote it as a funny thing one day, and got another idea for it, which resulted in 5 short chapters in one weekend. So who thinks I should post it? Thanks for everything!
~Loony Lovegood
~Marauding Moonbabe
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