London Fog

Prelude: In this Fog, Only Silence…

Harry stared down the end of his arm to where his wand pointed at a gaping black hole in the ground. He stood there, head bowed, breathing ragged, and not daring to blink in case that patch of charred earth would transform back into Voldemort's skeletal figure. `He's gone,' Harry reassured himself, `he's gone;' but still he could not seem to move. His vision blurred and something wet and warm trickled down the bridge of his nose, but Harry remained frozen, like a Petrified form of himself.

“Harry! Harry!” Someone was calling him from far away.

Harry blinked. Another warm drop fell down his forehead. And then Hermione was at his shoulder, turning him away from the large blot on the ground and wrapping her arms around him, her head pressed to his chest. He began to feel something other than the fear and rage he had been thriving on since the end of sixth year, but then she pulled away, holding him by the arms instead.

“Harry, are you all right? Voldemort's gone! He's dead! You've done it!” she scanned his blank face, her brow creasing in concern. “Oh, Harry,” she said, “you're bleeding.”

She pulled out her wand and muttered, “Tergeo,” and Harry felt the blood disappear off his face. Then, she stood on the balls of her feet to examine a tiny cut on his forehead, from where the blood came, touching it gingerly. Harry could feel her breath near his face.

She stepped back and said, “It's just a scrape, it's not serious. It's stopped bleeding now,” though her brows still knotted with worry. She looked at him again, assessing him, “Harry?”

The silence roaring in his ears, Harry gazed at her, trying to understand what she was saying to him. The two looked at each other for one heart-stopping moment before Harry finally took a gasping breath, relaxed his shoulders, and said, “Yeah.”

Hermione laughed in relief, and asked, “Where's Ron?”

Harry twisted around and looked across the great green expanse of the hill upon which the final battle took place.

“I don't know,” he said, “the last time I remember seeing him, he was fighting Dolohov by that tree.”

He pointed down the slope a ways, and felt Hermione's body instinctively leap in that direction before she caught herself and turned back to him with a questioning glance.

Harry nodded at her, “Go ahead, I'll catch you up.” Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but Harry cut her off, “Go, Hermione.”

She closed her mouth in resignation, and hurried away.

Harry turned back to the ebony stain, all that was left of Voldemort. At his feet a light breeze swirled the ashes, scattering some in the air. `He really is gone,' Harry thought, faintly rubbing the scar on his forehead. He did not feel one ounce of pain emanating from it. Slipping his wand inside his pocket, he turned and walked down the hill after Hermione.

In the distance he spotted the tree by which he had last seen Ron; on the other side of it, he could see someone hunched over, kneeling next to something that the tall grasses partially hid from view. Frowning, he circled around the large willow, squinting at the bent figure. It was Hermione, and he saw she was leaning over a person lying spread-eagle on the ground. Her shoulders were jerking up and down, and she had one hand covering her mouth, the other over the chest of the prostrate figure. `Ron!' Harry's mind raced. He began running, cutting a path through a field mired with dead bodies, souvenirs of the final battle.

But as he came up, a few hundred yards from his two best friends, he heard Hermione give a strangled sob, and saw her incline her head towards a redheaded one, her eyelids drooping as she bent to kiss a very alive yet very injured Ron. The sight caused Harry to stop cold in his tracks and completely forget his panic.

This was the first time he had ever seen the two kiss. He had assumed they had gotten together at the end of sixth year, but the three of them had never actually discussed it, and during the search for the horcruxes and the ensuing battles, they had never publicly given any indication that they were lovers, at least not around him.

His mind went blank, but he could not seem to tear his eyes away from either of them, connected like that. It was so foreign; he felt like he was looking at a mirage. They had not even realized he was there. Harry felt a sharp jab at his side, like a knife inserted and quickly twisted out. His cheeks blazed as he watched Ron reach up and pull Hermione down to him; their kiss still unbroken.

Harry felt like he was now intruding on something private, but his feet seemed mortared to the ground. He cast around wildly in his mind for some semblance of rational thought and fell upon an image of a redheaded girl. `Ginny!' he thought, `she's waiting for me; she's been waiting for me.' A thousand desires suddenly thrust themselves upon him at once: the need for someone to hold him, the need to sleep for a thousand years, the need to get out of this body, the need to get away from this place and never come back again.

The longer he stood there, the more he felt a strange prickling on his skin, everywhere itching, pinching him, like a million spiders crawling up and down his limbs. Hardly able to stand it, he Apparated with a deafening crack; at the sound echoing through the branches of the tree, Hermione gasped and her head snapped up, looking directly at the place where Harry had been a moment ago.

Harry Apparated to the Burrow with the intention of seeing Ginny, but for some reason could not bring himself to walk up the path to the front door. `But this is what you wanted, isn't it?' he reasoned with himself. `All those long months searching and destroying those horcruxes…all those battles to get closer to Voldemort…you fought, you killed to avenge those who died for you, to save those who love you…and now that he's gone, you can return to her and lead a normal life, the life you've always wanted!`

`Is that what you really want?' a small voice contested in the back of his mind.

`YES!`

He tried mentally screaming at the dissenting voice with all his might, yet it only seemed to come out as a choked whisper. He wanted to be surrounded by all of his loved ones; Lupin, the Weasleys, especially Ron and Hermione. `But what if Ron and Hermione don't want to be around you?'

His mind shot back to the scene he had just left. They did not need him anymore; he had defeated Voldemort. There was no need to spare his feelings, make certain he did not feel like the third wheel. They could get on with their lives now. `And, he supposed, their lives revolved around each other now. Where do I fit in? With Ginny?`

That's how he had planned it, during those grating, sleepless nights while journeying for the horcruxes. If he were still alive after fighting Voldemort, then he would return to the Burrow to be with Ginny, Hermione would be with Ron, and they would all be one big, happy—but, no! He discovered the strangest feeling of revulsion in the pit of his stomach as he thought of going into that house in front of him, his favorite place in the world. That feeling frightened him, and made him feel like the biggest git alive.

He felt a tug in his gut to return to the battlefield. He wanted to be with Ron and Hermione, to celebrate with them; he wanted to go back to second year when he and Ron had solved the mystery of the chamber and Hermione had been Unpetrified and had practically flown down the Great Hall towards them.

But he did not belong under that tree with Ron and Hermione kissing. Had he just not escaped from there, not being able to stand it a second longer? He hung his head; the heat of the battle, the tension in his bones, and the conflicted thoughts hammering in his head all seemed to gather right behind his eyes. Suddenly, they felt sore and heavy.

`Don't cry,' he warned himself, `don't cry, you big git. What have you got to cry about? You should be happy! Voldemort's gone, and you're alive!'

But he could feel the weight behind his eyes increase.

`She'll be so mad at you; she'll be right pissed. Her mum will find out, and then Mrs. Weasley will be furious with you too. You'll push away the only family you have.'

But despite all his remonstrances, he could not persuade himself inside the house. Vague feelings pounded away at his battered heart, but he had no wish to examine them. He just wanted to leave. So, away he Apparated again, and from inside the Burrow, where Ginny Weasley was indeed sitting, she did not even notice the crack.

Harry found himself at King's Cross station, behind a bin outside an abandoned toilet. Upon Disapparating from the Burrow, Harry had barely realized to where he would be Apparating, though once he inhaled the familiar odor of steam and beheld the well-known train tracks, he knew instinctually that he had been thinking of coming here the entire time he had been standing outside the Burrow.

Twilight was falling over London; autumn had arrived while Harry had been fighting Voldemort. A dense fog had rolled into the station, obscuring the bustling crowd. Harry gratefully enveloped himself in this anonymity, and walked to the column between platforms nine and ten. Stepping to the side in the pretense of letting an old woman by, Harry put his back up against the bricks and fell gracefully through to platform nine and three-quarters.

With the corners of his mouth turned up fractionally, Harry smiled for what seemed like the first time in over a year as he took in the familiar railway station, empty except for himself and the fog, which, it appeared, had followed him from the Muggle world. While moments before Harry had basked in the haze, as it swirled around him now, caressing his tired face, he felt a strange emptiness not in his stomach, but higher up his ribcage, near his sternum.

He let his mind drift with the mist as it drew tendrils of smoke above the railway tracks, as if beckoning for the Hogwarts Express. A fleeting image of Hermione, holding Crookshanks in his cage and stepping up onto one of the train cars, swept across his mind, but Harry shook his head, dispersing it into the fog.

He did not want to think about that; that time was over and done with. He was not in school any longer; he was an adult wizard; he had been for over a year now. Hermione would not be by his side, nagging him and Ron to do their homework or to not break that rule; she would be taking care of Ron now. Harry did not realize until then just how much he would miss that.

He rolled his shoulders beneath his singed robes, and snorted at his own sentimentality. `I need to get away,' he thought, putting on a tough exterior instead. `France, maybe?' And with a decisive step and turn, he vanished for the third time in under an hour, and for the last time in a long time, out of London.

To be continued

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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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A/N: After a few great review suggestions, I changed a few things about this chapter and have uploaded it again. Thanks to all, and happy reading!

Disclaimer: Don't own nuthin' but a pair o' Bermuda shorts and a bag o' peanut M&Ms…the Mischief and Mayhem kind….roooowwwff!

Chapter 2: The Voyage In

She continued to stare at him, immobile; her shoulders started shaking and her face screwed up as though she had just eaten a lemon. Feeling a familiar sense of alarm, Harry tensed, gripping the bag on his shoulder for support. Like when he had been a teenager, he seemed again to be at a loss at what to do whenever a female began crying. The rare smile from moments before had fled from his face; he looked uncertainly at Hermione, who, it appeared, was attempting with all her might to dam the flood of tears just behind her eyes, fists clenched and knuckles chalk-white in her effort.

Harry shifted uncomfortably; he wanted to go to her, but she looked on the brink of losing such control over herself that he, with no small amount of doubt, sensed that if he were to touch her, she would either run from him or else haul back and punch him a good one. She had, after all, been known to pack quite a lot of power, as evidenced by Malfoy's face in their third year. `Merlin knows, I deserve it,' Harry thought to himself before moving towards her, hesitating after each step as though stalking a doe which might bolt at any moment.

As he came around to the other side of the kitchen table, he looked at the broken mug now in shards on the floor, and then at Hermione's bare feet behind them. Taking out his wand, he hurriedly muttered, “Reparo,” and stooped down to pick up the newly whole mug, now inches away from his childhood best friend.

Hermione had followed Harry steadily with her eyes, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from spilling; she had watched him walk cautiously towards her, had watched as he said the spell and picked up her mug.

As he straightened to face her, he paused, drinking in her face like a man who had just crossed the Sahara, before tentatively holding out the cup to her.

He looked so lost and yet so determined that Hermione's resolve broke, and taking the cup, she seemed to fall towards him.

Nonplussed, he moved to catch her, but she simply threw her arms around his neck and sobbed unabashedly into his chest.

“W—W—“ she cried into his robes, though her lips were pressed so far into the folds of his fabric and her words so truncated by her hiccups that it came out unintelligible.

She tried again, clutching onto him as tightly as she could in order to stop shaking, “W—We—“.

Her breath came in a succession of staccato gasps, and she stamped her foot on the ground in frustration. She exhaled once as slowly as she could, and finally whispered, “We would have gone with you.”

Harry felt two distinct strands of warmth and disappointment intertwine themselves within him; warmth because she knew him like no other did, and disappointment because she failed to see him in the light which she had apparently bestowed upon his best friend. Of course Hermione would have been the only one to understand his need to disappear from the public eye after defeating Voldemort, to maintain his sanity, to remain himself, but how could she have known that his reason for leaving centered on her and Ron? Of course she would have thought that they all could have supported one another in the aftermath of the second war; Harry had given no indication that the trio's changing relationships were the root of his troubles.

Harry closed his eyes, his chin resting on the top of Hermione's bushy head. He felt the distinct urge to tell her he would never abandon her again, but he could not, so instead, he concentrated on matching the fall of his chest with hers. They breathed quietly in unison, holding each other in the middle of the Weasley's kitchen.

The Weasley's kitchen. A disturbing thought entered Harry's mind, `Why was Hermione in the Weasley's kitchen, washing dishes no less? It was as if she had usurped Mrs. Weasley's place as matriarch of the family. Did that mean that Hermione was—` but at that moment he heard a familiar voice jerking him from his speculations.

“Hermione! Is the cake ready yet? Ginny's—“ Ron's voice called from outside, halting abruptly as Ron himself banged open the back door. Harry saw his oldest best friend standing with one foot in front of the other, his hand still on the door handle and his mouth hanging open, as if to catch flies. As when Hermione had first seen him, Harry again felt the urge to laugh out loud, but upon realizing the rather intimate position in which he was engaged, quickly let go of his other best friend and stepped back.

At the same time Hermione jumped away from him as if she had been scalded, though kept a hand at the crook of his arm, as if afraid that were she to let go, he would vanish again. Turning to Ron and wiping her cheeks, she said haltingly,

“Ron! Harry's come home!”

But Ron was already striding across the kitchen, and for a split second Harry lost his head and sincerely thought Ron was going to hit him for hugging Hermione. But the redhead simply enveloped him in a hug, nearly bowling him over like a wriggling puppy, his laugh bouncing off the walls.

“Harry, where've you been, mate? Why didn't you write? Mum nearly went bonkers!”

Harry caught Hermione's eye over Ron's shoulder; she was smiling, though her mind seemed to be elsewhere.

Ron pulled away, saying again, “So, where've you been?”

“A little bit of everywhere, actually,” Harry said quietly, somewhat embarrassed by the other's exuberant display of emotion.

He could see Ron's dissatisfaction with his vague answer, and could tell he was about to ask again when Hermione interjected, “Why don't we go out back, Ron? So Harry can say hello to everyone else.”

Ron looked from Harry to Hermione and back again as Harry glanced at her briefly, afraid of how much she might have deduced about his four year sabbatical. Hermione was looking him straight in the eye, but Harry could not perceive anything other than that she was saving him from an uncomfortable moment.

Silently thanking her, he responded, “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Ron's eyes had narrowed at the wordless interaction between his two friends, but at Harry's response he quickly shook off his dark expression, punching Harry in the arm and tugging him towards the back door, “Yeah? Well, come on, we were just celebrating dad's birthday! They're gonna flip when they see you. You'll probably be sore tonight from them hugging you so much. Everyone's here, Bill, Fleur, even Percy, and Ginny brought Neville. Can you believe it? I never would've guessed that she'd fall for a bl—“ but here, Ron stopped short, glancing over at Hermione worriedly, as if waiting to be chastised for his insensitivity. Hermione merely had a slight frown on her face and seemed to be looking at the floor as she walked beside Harry.

Ron looked back at his long-lost friend, “—I mean—er—well—anyways, mum's sick with the flu, so she's upstairs in bed. Said she wanted to come down and at least help clean, but Hermione wouldn't hear of it. Marched mum right back up the stairs and said she'd handle it. Fixed her a wellness potion too. Actually,” Ron paused, looking over at Hermione again, “you're getting to be worse than she is.”

“Ha, ha,” Hermione said half-heartedly.

“So that's why you were in the kitchen, cleaning,” Harry said to her. His heart thrashed around as he heard his voice, unnaturally high, emerge from a throat which felt as though a python were squeezing the life out of it.

This seemed to shake Hermione out of her reverie. She opened her mouth to respond, but Ron beat her to it, “A regular little housewife our Hermione is. Uh oh, spew better watch out! Before long the poor house-elves'll have to fend for themselves again; Hermione'll be right beside them, polishing the fine silver! Ow, ow!” He grinned as Hermione reached behind Harry and jabbed Ron hard twice on his side.

Satisfied, she held her head high, stating, “I'll have you two know that there is nothing wrong with doing a little housework. You should try it sometime, Ronald. Then maybe your room wouldn't look as if a herd of Blast-Ended Skrewts rampaged through it.” She reached the back door and turned the knob, “And don't make fun of the house-elves. They work very hard and they deserve to get paid!” Her hand still on the handle, she looked back at the redhead, who was rolling his eyes at Harry. “And don't call it spew!” she admonished, rapping Ron over the head before opening the door and striding outside.

Rubbing his head fondly, Ron grinned at Harry, who mustered all of his resolve and grinned back. But as Ron followed Hermione out the door, Harry's smile slipped off his face, replaced with a look of deep dejection.

`Oh God, she's already moved in here and is cleaning house. Next week, they'll probably have chosen a wedding date, and the week after the number of children they want—unless…they're already married and have a whole brood of Weasley's running around out back...but wouldn't they have mentioned it to me already? And I didn't see a wedding band on either of their fingers.'

But then a creeping doubt trickled into his stomach and answered back, `Well, Hermione could have taken hers off while she was cleaning. And Ron might have just forgotten to wear his. Or maybe they eloped and Hermione charmed their wedding rings invisible in front of the family. And they wouldn't necessarily tell you about it the second you got here; they were both shocked enough to see you as it was. Oh shut up, shut up, it doesn't matter, I shouldn't have come. I can't do this, I can't go out there and face everyone.'

But one foot moved automatically in front of the other, and he headed out into the yard. After all Ron and Hermione looked happy to see him, and Harry did owe the family an apology and an explanation.

He took in the familiar sight of Crookshanks chasing after a gnome, who giggled madly and dived into a hedge. `This has been eleven years in the making,' he thought resignedly, `him and her. Still arguing after all these years. Now, they're even physical with each other.' Harry turned pale at the thought. `They're worse than Mr. and Mrs. Weasley!' But then, he sighed, almost immediately reprimanding himself for all his bitterness. `It's just jealousy. Stop being a prat, and go do what you said you would do,” he told himself scathingly.

So, with a deep breath Harry walked towards the large group sitting around a long wooden table in the middle of the yard.

To be continued

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