"Ok, so the flight took off three hours ago UK time so she'll land..."
"We're going to need some huge bits of card, from one of those big craft shops, ooh and some thick pens…"
"Maybe you should get a haircut Harry…"
"How are you going to get there?"
"We've got about ten hours.."
Everyone was talking over everyone else and it was general chaos around the small table in Starbucks. They still hadn't left the airport and were frantically putting parts of Harry's plan into motion.
"You know Harry, this would be a lot easier if you'd tell us what the plan is and not just what you need" Ginny sighed exasperatedly.
Luna smiled dreamily, "Ah Gin but it wouldn't be nearly as romantic then"
Harry beamed at her. "Exactly Luna, you know Hermione, and the gesture means so much more if it's a surprise for everyone and not just for her, you know how she feels about surprise parties." They all nodded and soon the plans were beginning to take shape.
Harry hugged each of his friends before looking around and subtly apparating away from the airport. He arrived moments later in the living room of Grimmauld Place; he quickly took two flights of stairs at a run and was soon rummaging in the trunk carefully placed in the bottom of his wardrobe for a pile of parchment bound together with a frayed piece of string. He grinned on finding it and sat down on the small sofa by the window in his bedroom, untying the string and quickly sorting through the parchment until he found the pages he was looking for, a letter he'd received from Hermione a long time ago, three years ago to be precise, during the first year of the Horcrux hunt, she'd gone to spend a week away with her parents in France at his insistence. On the second day of her absence, he and Ron had rather unwisely spent a night locked up in Godrics Hollow with a bottle of firewhisky and he had written sorrowfully to her of his own imminent death. He recalled very few details of the letter he had sent her, just vague notions of lost hope and an acceptance of the prophecy. He had once asked her what his letter had contained, but she had simply ruffled his hair and said it didn't matter anymore. However, his letter and her reply had been a turning point in not only their friendship, but the direction of his focus in the Horcrux hunt. Harry grabbed a clean sheet of parchment and pen that was lying on the floor and began to copy across a passage of her letter to him.
"When you try your best but you don't succeed, when you get what you want but not what you need, when you feel so tired but you can't sleep - stuck in reverse. And the tears come streaming down you face, when you lose something you can't replace, when you love someone but it goes to waste, could it be worse? Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you."
He smiled at the words, words he had read hundreds of times throughout the years of hunting and then through the long dark days of fighting. Every time he thought he couldn't make it through another day her words brought him back, and reminded him that whatever happened she would be there. To his left was a low table covered in framed photos, he picked up one of him and Hermione, taken at Ron's wedding, laughing together. Propping it up beside him, he gazed at her sparkling chocolate brown eyes, framed by soft chestnut brown curls, and began to write.
"High up above or down below, when you're too in love to let it go, but if you never try you'll never know just what you're worth. Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you. Tears stream down your face; I promise you that I will learn from my mistakes, tears stream down your face. Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you."
Humming to himself, Harry jogged down the stairs to the basement of Grimmauld, letting himself into the small recording studio that Charlie Weasley and several friends used to record their albums. Harry sometimes came here in the middle of the night and tinkered around on the keyboards, having picked up bits and pieces of most instruments throughout the years at the Dursley's as Dudley failed to learn instrument after instrument in an attempt to either be cool or attract girls. Sitting down at the magical keyboards he grimaced when he remembered exactly why the studio was empty today, the keyboards were somehow magically stuck sounding like an old church organ, and so far no one had managed to reverse the setting so they were waiting for the tuner to come out. He shrugged to himself, it wasn't like this was going to be a masterpiece anyway, it was just getting the words out, and the music wasn't what was important.
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