A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed! Happy New Year, and here's a little piece of soul-searching, angsty Harry to brighten up the season!
Disclaimer: M&M are poor, poor souls who own nothing Harry Potter and are in no way acquaintances of, attached, or related to J.K. Rowling.
Chapter 1: Point Me
Four years later.
Harry stood erect, a worn tote bag over his right shoulder. He looked older, with two-day old shadow highlighting the contours beneath his cheekbones and the darkness under his eyes looking as if it wanted to shrink from the world.
But he had no lines around his eyes or mouth because rarely did he ever find himself smiling or laughing. He chalked it up to merely being an introspective person, though in the back of his mind, a nagging voice, which seemed hauntingly familiar, kept reminding him that he never smiled and never laughed because he was lonely and unhappy, and that in his four years of travel, he had not succeeded in replacing who-`no, what,' he always repeated to himself-what he had left behind.
His dark hair still stood up in myriad directions, his most identifiable trait was still the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, and he still wore glasses, `the very same glasses that Hermione had charmed to repel water for a third year Quidditch game and that she-but what did that matter?' He shook his head and clenched his jaw, determined not to think about why it did indeed matter.
He shifted the bag on his shoulder, breathing in the London air that he had missed so acutely. His old Invisibility Cloak being too cumbersome to use while also carrying his luggage, he had instead Disillusioned himself directly before Apparating to platform nine and three-quarters.
He was not quite ready yet to reveal himself to his compatriots, and especially not to any unwanted beetles flying around. His anonymity, one of his dearest assets during many of his travels in Europe, would surely be shattered now that he had returned home. `Home,' he pondered. `Why is it that after all this time, I still think of this place as home?'
Again, he took a deep breath as that London fog embraced him, welcoming back a prodigal son. On impulse he reached out to try to grab some of it in his fist, even though he knew it impossible. Like a swarm of locusts, the mist shied away from his hand, diffusing and reforming again as seamlessly as two dancers pirouetting side by side, untamable and amorphous.
Admitting defeat, Harry slid out his Firebolt from its casing on his back, mounted it, and kicked off the ground in one fluid motion. Throughout his journeys he had meant to trade it in for a newer model, but could never bring himself to surrender one of the only gifts by which to remember his godfather. In a flash his mind raced him back to the Department of Mysteries, where Sirius was once more falling through the veil.
But almost immediately, he narrowed his eyes, shutting out that thought, and flattened himself further to his broomstick, urging it to increase its speed. Recollections of Sirius always prompted him to do something rash, to fly so fast that everything he passed simply became a blur, which in turn, if he were lucky, would trigger his own mind to dissolve into a jumbled mesh of indistinguishable visions.
But then, Harry suddenly pulled up on his broom, cutting his speed by half. The reason he had decided to fly in the first place was so that he could have some time to think before reaching his destination. He had planned to return to the Burrow, to the closest semblance of a family he had left. Four years ago, he had abandoned them without warning, without explanation. In those four years he had never once written one letter informing them of his whereabouts. Four years later, he did not expect them to accept him back so readily. He just wanted to apologize to them; to the Weasley's, to Lupin, to Hermione, for turning tail like a coward.
He wanted to repay Mr. and Mrs. Weasley for all their kindness during his years at Hogwarts; he knew the only way he could do that was to be there for them in the same way, to know what was happening in their lives, to be involved, if they let him. He wanted to tell Ginny the reason for their stunted relationship. He wanted to find out how Lupin was doing, and if he and Tonks had gotten married; he wanted to begin caring for his father's old friend as he would a family member.
And most of all, he wanted to try his hardest to have Ron and Hermione as his best friends again, because his time with them had truly been his happiest and he could not bear to live without that. It was not the kind of bliss he had felt when he had dated Ginny in sixth year; that, to him now, was an illusion.
With Ginny he had experienced an extreme joy spawned from escapism; he had in a sense used her in order to flee his responsibilities. Like an addiction, he felt in ecstasy while with her, yet simultaneously guilty and hollow, as though he were suffocating a vital part of himself. Eventually, by the time he had broken things off at Dumbledore's funeral, that ecstasy had already begun to lose its shiny newness until Harry finally realized what Ginny had been to him: a façade of comfort, and nothing more.
Looking back, he greatly disliked the person he had become when he had been around her; arrogant, selfish, snotty, and even cruel. But with Ron and Hermione he could be his true self; that was pure happiness, good and true and cherished within him. He told himself he did not care if the two of them were dating and if that strange, uncomfortable feeling returned upon seeing them together; he still wanted to talk with them and set things right.
It was nearing dusk by the time he spotted the village of Ottery St. Catchpole below him and swooped down. He gazed up at the house which had afforded him so many fond memories, though acknowledged the sense of foreboding at what retribution he would undoubtedly find inside it this time.
Nevertheless, he drew in a long, nervous breath, pulled out his wand, and lifted the Disillusionment Charm. Then, he walked resolutely up the cobbled path and knocked on the door, noting the several pairs of rubber boots piled next to it as usual. He could hear the faint clinking of pots and pans and an even fainter buzzing punctuated by occasional laughter beyond that, but not much else. He knocked again. Still no answer, though he knew, given the noises, that several Weasley's must be home. Tentatively, he tried the knob and, finding it unlocked, cautiously pushed the door open.
"Hullo?" he called in a slightly raised tone, not wanting to startle anyone. "Hullo?" he said down the hallway. No answer.
Leaning his Firebolt and casing carefully beside the front door, he made his way through the empty living room to the kitchen, where he could hear the tinkling becoming progressively louder. From the sound Harry figured someone must have charmed the cookware to wash themselves.
He pushed open the kitchen door and saw a woman by the sink standing with her back towards him, two pots and three pans indeed soaping themselves to her left. Out of habit, he automatically assumed that a female in the Burrow's kitchen meant Mrs. Weasley, and called out, "Hullo? Mrs. Weasley?" before realizing that the woman who had just lifted her bare foot to scratch the back of her other ankle was neither Mrs. Weasley's height nor had she Mrs. Weasley's flaming red hair.
In fact this woman's hair was-but she whirled around before Harry could complete his thought, and dropped the coffee mug and spoon she had been holding upon seeing his lanky figure at the door. He heard the loud crash of breaking porcelain and clanking pewter on the wooden floorboards, but his eyes remained on her. Both her hands flew up to her mouth.
Harry and the woman stared at each other, both stunned beyond words. With the wide expanse of the kitchen table like an island between them, the sounds from the washing seemed to reverberate cacophonously in the room. Their silence lasted so long that Harry thought he would surely go deaf from the banging pots and pans, as if they were deliberately trying to prevent him from forming a coherent thought.
He finally managed a small smile at the woman, who, if truth be told, painted quite an amusing picture, standing with her bare toes curled, her hands almost inside her mouth, and her unblinking eyes wide open. His tentative offering seemed to break her out of her trance, and she shakily lowered her hands from her face, whispering hesitantly,
"H-Harry?"
Harry's smile grew larger, dimpling his cheeks and crinkling his eyes. He felt as if his face were breaking out of a death mask he had placed upon it four years ago, and, pleasantly curious at the rediscovery of these muscles, he replied, "Hi, Hermione."
To be continued
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