Bearings
Disclaimer/Author's Notes: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter.
I know now, just quite how
My life and love might still go on
In your heart and your mind
I'll stay with you for all of time
The Calling
Wherever You Will Go
Interlude: Family and Friends
Saturday, May 25th, 2002
Dan Granger stopped pushing on the mower and stood still, in the middle of his backyard. The sun was unusually warm for the morning hour-it was around ten o'clock-and he had to wipe the sweat from his face that threatened to drip into his eyes. Taking a deep breath, rolling his neck so that the tendons creaked and popped, he began mowing again.
He'd been up since early that morning, when his wife had sprinted into the bathroom and dry heaved for at least a full minute. He remembered, somewhat vaguely, what Jane's pregnancy had been like with Hermione, and knew that things would only get more intense from here. He hesitated to think `worse' because of the new child they were bringing into the world and into their family, but neither of them needed the stress at this point.
Shrugging to himself, as there was no one in the backyard to see it, he turned a corner and paced along behind the mower as it clipped the grass. His thoughts wandered idly for several minutes; he watched as the shorn grass spit from the side of the machine.
When was the last time he'd seen Hermione? He suddenly realized that it had been at least a full day and maybe two since she'd been home, and came perilously close to jabbing himself in the midsection with the push-bar on the mower. He extended his arms and shortened his steps a bit, to avoid that uncomfortable problem.
Dan frowned slightly. He assumed that she was spending her time with Harry Potter. Call it a father's intuition, but it really was more than assumption. He knew that's what she was doing. He'd only see the young man briefly, and he had been barely awake then. Jane had been there well, and the look she had given him clearly said Keep your mouth shut.
So he had, and he hadn't broached the subject with either Jane or Hermione since then. Not that he could have with Hermione even if he wanted to, because he saw less of her since Harry'd come back than when she was working sixty hours a week. But…
But she had been happy when she'd been home. She'd even conversed with him, and hugged him, which she'd done very little of since he and Jane had confronted her about Harry over dinner that one night. Happiness was something he had seen very little of in her during the past four years, and it was quite rewarding to see his daughter smile again.
It was hard for him to think about an entire world out there that he could never be a part of, simply because he didn't have magical powers, but he was immensely happy that Hermione had seemed to grow into her world the older she became. She had taken that same drive to excel from her youth and applied it during her adolescence, and it had paid off in many ways-namely, her position near the top of the magical government.
But she had also fought in a war at a horribly young age. Dan had never considered joining the service, and of course had never seen battle, so he couldn't fathom what it must have been like for his eighteen-year-old daughter to fight for her life. He had wanted to resent Harry at the time for leading his precious only child (though she wasn't that anymore) into mortal circumstances, but he couldn't because Hermione would have never forgiven him. She hadn't even seemed afraid of the war she was getting into; she had placed, completely, her very life in Harry's hands.
When they emerged victorious, all of them relatively unharmed, a wave of relief so powerful swept through Dan that he wanted to find Harry and hug him tight. And he probably would have, except for the fact that Harry had left Britain. That tiny seed of resentment, which had never gone away, had started to blossom again when he realized that Hermione was, in essence, a jilted lover. It made him uncomfortable to think of Hermione as a woman, but some part of him knew that she was an adult and capable of making her own choices.
Hermione had wiled away the years working harder than he ever had during his life, and he'd watched her become sadder and sadder. That was why they had tried to talk to Hermione that one night, but that had backfired in their faces. Hermione had become distant.
Now though, after her holiday in America, she was her old chipper self. And Harry Potter seemed to be the reason for it. He didn't know how he could resent someone who brought Hermione's old happiness back to her. And also, he didn't know if he had ever truly disliked Harry, or if those feelings had been the projection of the desperation he had felt for Hermione, and through her.
Truthfully, he didn't really know Harry. He had only met the boy four or five times, the last of which was at the Burrow the summer after they'd graduated from Hogwarts, not counting their brief encounter in the Granger kitchen. That was nearly four years ago now. Had his impression of a slightly awkward boy proved wrong since then? There was also something hard to describe about Harry, that made him almost formidable, but that was more of a nuance than a true character trait, as far as Dan knew.
Dan was shocked to see that he'd completed the mowing. His thoughts had absorbed him so thoroughly that he'd been mowing the same stretch of already-mowed grass for several minutes. He let go of the handle and listened as the motor puttered out, and then was distracted by a soft swishing noise.
Before he could even turn his head, he heard, "Daddy!"
He looked over and saw his daughter moving toward him. It looked like she had just left the arms of-who else?-Harry Potter.
"Hi baby," he said, spreading his arms and accepting her embrace. It felt nice to hug his daughter again. He could still remember when she was three or four and would cling to him whenever he was around. Too bad those days were long gone.
"Finished already?" she asked, stepping back and looking around. She was wearing light summer clothes, accentuated by sandals and sunglasses.
He nodded, and glanced at Harry, who had hung back. He was also wearing lighter clothing. "Your mother was up early today," he commented.
"Where is mum?"
"Inside," he answered. "Probably resting on the couch."
"Ok," she said, smiling at him. "I'm going to go talk to her for a bit. Why don't you and Harry get to know each other," she stated, more than asked, looking back and forth between him and Harry. And without waiting for a response from either of them, she strode off toward the house with nary a look back.
Dan looked at Harry in silence for a moment. The young man seemed to be doing the same thing. Harry had thick, black hair and shockingly green eyes. He thought he remembered glasses on the younger Harry, but he didn't see any now.
"How are you…?" Harry asked, trailing off, as if waiting for something.
"It's Dan," he responded. "Dan Granger." He moved forward and stuck out his hand, carefully hiding any of his ill thoughts toward Harry. Harry shook it with a strong grip, meanwhile looking Dan in the eyes.
"Nice to meet you again, Dan," Harry said, politely.
"Likewise," Dan said, motioning them both toward the patio. As they ascended the one step and sat down in two chairs, Dan noticed that Hermione had left the patio door ajar when she'd gone in.
Then the awkward silence fell. Dan didn't know how he could politely broach the subject he wanted to talk about, which was Hermione of course, and Harry looked like he'd talk about anything with him except Hermione.
Fishing for something, Dan asked, "What was your degree in?"
"I have a BA in Business," Harry answered. He sat back a little and Dan noticed, for the first time, the wand stuck in the young man's front pocket. Briefly, Dan entertained a mental image of how he supposed Harry had fought with it, but it faded away.
"Plan on going any further?" Dan asked, thinking of a Master's or even a professional degree, such as the one he held in dentistry.
"Well…" Harry hesitated. "Probably not in Muggle education, but…" Harry appeared to consider something and then make a decision. Dan found himself looking into those green eyes once again.
"That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about," Harry said. "The future, that is."
That sounded mightily ominous to Dan-the future-and he just arched an eyebrow. Whatever Harry had on his mind, Dan wasn't going to make it easy for him.
"Do you have a problem with me, Dan?" Harry suddenly asked, totally catching Dan off guard. Not only was he surprised by the question itself, but also by the tone of Harry's voice. It wasn't timid or quiet; it was powerful, questioning, and curious.
"Why would you think that?" Dan asked, recovering quickly.
"I've only met you a few times, and you've always seemed a little distant to me," Harry said. Dan wasn't used to blunt honesty, especially from someone he barely knew, and said the first thing that came to his mind.
"Is that so?"
"Yes," Harry asserted, "and I'm wondering why."
Now was Dan's chance to tell Harry exactly what his problem was, that Harry had hurt Hermione deeply and that he'd had to watch as his daughter slowly lost herself in her work because of it…
But his thoughts of Hermione held his tongue for a moment. What would she do if she heard Dan telling Harry off? Would she go back to the same cold and distant person she had been before she'd gone off to America?
Dan knew instantly, as if someone had shouted it into his ear, that he was being immature and overprotective about this entire thing. Hermione was acting more like an adult than he was, and he was a little ashamed of his attitude. Harry made her happy, and the young man had ended a war and protected his precious baby girl, and here Dan was ready to lash out at him for something that happened four years before. Dan didn't begin to know the dynamics of Hermione and Harry's relationship, and therefore couldn't fault Harry for something that he didn't understand.
"I watched my daughter go off to war," Dan started, and held up his hand when Harry started to interrupt. "I don't blame you for that, Harry, but I wish that I could have done something more to protect her. And I guess the reason I was a little turned off toward you was that you provided the protection I could not."
"But I didn't do much, Dan," Harry said. "Hermione did and can take care of herself, very well. And," Harry continued, taking a deep breath, "the war isn't really what I want to talk about."
Dan said nothing again, merely waiting for Harry to continue.
"I…I've recently realized that I'm going to be staying here in Britain." Harry was looking off into space now, focused on nothing except his thoughts. Dan just listened. "At the same time, I realized something that I should have long ago, and that has to do with Hermione.
"We were best friends at Hogwarts, true, but it never occurred to me how much I actually relied upon her. Now that it has," he said, looking at Dan again, "I can't imagine it any other way. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love your daughter."
Silence again. How does a father respond to something like that, from someone he barely knew, except through stories. Stories that were so fantastical he even had a hard time believing them sometimes. Trolls and dragons and evil megalomaniacs…
The patio door opened then, saving him from having to respond immediately, and both he and Harry looked toward the door. Hermione and Jane emerged out onto the patio, both with large grins on their faces. Hermione was looking at Harry with an expression Dan had seen in Jane's eyes from time to time. Dan had a sneaking suspicion that they'd both heard his and Harry's whole conversation.
"I love you too, Harry," Hermione said, erasing any doubt Dan had. Jane made an odd squee sound and embraced Hermione, and they both laughed. Harry looked on amusedly, glancing at Dan as if to gauge his reaction. Dan didn't know how to react. This was all so new to him.
"And I want to move in as soon as possible," Hermione said, turning back to Harry.
"What do you-?" Dan started to ask, alarmed by what she had said.
The phone starting to ring cut him off.
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Around 2 am, GMT -8 (West Coast US Time)
John Sanders backed tiredly out of his small bedroom, where he'd just tucked Erin in, and went to find the cell phone he'd inadvertently left in the apartment. He and Erin had just returned from a trip south to LA, seeking employment, and they were both bone tired. Erin had gone immediately to bed.
John wanted to join her, but there were a few things he had to take care of before succumbing to what dreams may come; namely, finding his damned cell phone and making sure everything was ready for another day of searching for jobs in the morning.
Since he'd graduated from Stanford the week before, he and Erin had moved into a small hotel suite near the campus and were looking for jobs. They'd spent most of the last week looking in the Palo Alto area, but when options had dried up there they'd broadened their horizons. That's why they had gone to LA. Erin had interviewed with an engineering firm there and John had applied at several accounting agencies. He expected to hear back from them any day.
He had thought for only a day about pursuing baseball, but his blossoming relationship with Erin and his desire to move on with his young life had ended that possibility. He idly wondered, as he looked for his cell phone in the small living area, what Harry was doing and if his friend had met with the Yankees yet. John was slightly envious of Harry for catching the Yankees' eye, but John loved Erin very much and didn't regret his choice to give up baseball, at all.
Just as he was going to give up for the night, he saw his cell phone on the corner of the table by the door, where he must have left it just before they'd left for LA. He hadn't realized he'd left it behind until they were long gone.
He slid the phone open and blinked his eyes at the bright light in an otherwise dark room, for a moment, and then saw that he had missed one call. It was from an unfamiliar number. There was a voicemail. He dialed his voice mailbox and punched in his pin, and then brought the phone up to his ear.
A familiar voice came over the line: "Hey, it's Harry, was just wondering what you've been up to for the past week. When you get a chance, call me at…" John replayed the message again after it finished and wrote down the number this time. He looked at it in the light from his phone for a second, considering the foreign set of numbers. It was definitely an international number.
John thought it must have been Britain; doing some quick math in his head, he figured that it must be a little after ten in the morning there, and started punching in the number he had written down. The call took several seconds to go through, but then a dial tone came through.
After four rings, a click sounded. "Hullo?" a female voice asked, in what sounded to John like a thick British accent.
"Hi…I was wondering if there was a Harry Potter at this number?" John asked, sure his accent must have sounded just as thick to the person on the other end.
"Uh," the person said, and then he heard more words that were muffled, so that he couldn't totally make them out. "Who's calling, please?" the voice asked.
"My name's John Sanders. I went to school with Harry."
"One second," the voice said, and the line went silent. John listened intently; he thought he heard muttering in the background. Finally, after a minute or so, there was a rustling sound and a new, familiar voice came through the phone.
"John?" Harry asked, because he knew it was his friend.
"Yeah Harry, it's me. What's up? Where are you?"
"Britain," Harry answered. He then said something to someone on his end, something that sounded like `just a second'. John couldn't be sure though. "So I noticed you added Erin's name to your voicemail," Harry said, and John could hear the humor in his voice.
"Fuck off," John said, though he was smiling.
"Aww, I thought it was cute," Harry returned, and John laughed.
"What's this about?" John asked, after his laughter had died away.
"Well…what are you and Erin up to these days?" Harry asked.
John sighed. "Living temporarily in a hotel suite by campus…and looking for jobs. We haven't had any luck so far, though we just got back from LA about twenty minutes ago."
"You're not doing anything with baseball then?" Harry asked, and John was curious why Harry didn't seem disappointed at all, or even surprised really.
"No…but what about you? What about the Yankees?"
"I turned them down, John," Harry said, with a weight he had only heard in Harry's voice a few times.
"So the damn Yankees actually offered you a spot on the team?"
"Yeah," Harry replied. "They did. But baseball isn't what I want to do."
"I hear ya there, Harry," John said, understanding Harry's desire to move on from baseball, or at least thinking he did.
"So what's this proposition you were talking about?" John asked.
"Well…if both you and Erin are still looking for jobs, I might have something for you two. But it would require an open mind-and I mean really bloody open-and a willingness to travel a bit…"
"If you could set us up with jobs, whatever man. We're both sick and tired of the search already, and we've only been at it for a week. It's unbelievable how little a bachelor's degree means these days."
"Let's see…it's 10:13 now…so that would make it 2:13 where you are, right?" Harry asked.
"Yeah," John affirmed.
"Why don't I pick you and Erin up around eleven your time…about nine hours from now?"
"Uh, sure, I don't think that will be a problem," John said, though something strange occurred to him. If Harry were in Britain, how would he be getting to Stanford in nine hours?
"Alright mate, sounds good. You and Erin might want to pack for a couple days, at least."
"Sure," John said, still confused.
"Then I'll see you soon," Harry said.
"But how are-" There was a click and a dial tone. Harry had hung up. John stared at his phone, wondering exactly what Harry had in mind and how, if his friend were thousands of miles away, he would get to California in nine short hours. Finally, shrugging his shoulders, he slid his phone shut and headed toward the bedroom. He needed to sleep for a few hours, and then he would tell Erin of Harry's call.
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