Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.
Author's Note: This is a story that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile. It actually came out of writing my other Fan Fiction, House Divided. Which is radically different from this story. Anyway, I'm still working on the other story, but I thought I would put this up. I've been writing it off and on for a little while now. I wanted to try my hand at a post DH story, see how I do. Let me know, and enjoy.
It all started with the letter. It wasn't extravagant, and it wasn't long. It was just memorable, though perhaps only for him. It had come by way of owl, as so many of his letters did. It was in the familiar fluid handwriting of one of his dearest childhood friends and it said simply;
I miss you, Harry. Hope you come home soon.
Love, Hermione.
He had read it and reread it hundreds of times. She had sent other letters since but he scrutinized none the way he did that first one. He thought it was the "I" and not "We" which sent the shivers down his back, but it was hard to be sure. He couldn't really get a good read off the thing. It was very short. He had noticed, however, that in all letters since she always used a "we". Other people had sent him owls in the years since he left, but none stuck with him the way that letter did.
He would often go into his luggage and pull out a stack of letters from Ron, his best friend. The ginger that could make him laugh so easily, even in print. Or he would look through his stack from Ginny, the girl who's heart he broke. He would even read those from Neville and Seamus and his other school mates. He would take time reading his letters from Mr. and Mrs. Weasly, his surrogate family. He treasured all the letters, every stack of which were bound with red string according to sender and nestled gently in his duffle. The first one from Hermione though, that one he had put in a frame.
It had been three years since his self imposed exile. He had wanted to get away from Great Britain. Away from the memories of that place. The war had hardened him. He would look in the mirror some days and forget who he was back then, in those dark times. When it was all over he left. He told those near and dear to him that he was going. He had brought them all to his home, the one he bought in the heart of London and told them that he had to leave. He had spent a year in London trying to get through his daily grind. Trying to forget the things he had seen, the things he had done. Try to just live an ordinary life of purpose and quiet dignity.
The place was like a frozen world to him. Like a poison. The city spoke of times now gone. Happy memories and worse yet the tragedies that befell him. His family, his proper family all but erased from the world. Those he loved like fathers dead and gone. His mind would turn to Sirius or Lupin and most importantly to Dumbledore too often in that house. With no real warning he had bought his ticket and made up his mind. He told his closest living friends that he was going and he didn't know when he would return. They tried to understand, but it was hard for them. He knew that, but it couldn't be helped. He was drowning in his own fame.
So he found himself in Dublin for a time and Moscow as well. He had made it to the wailing wall and climbed the peaks of Dover. After a number of months of trekking across Europe he had made his way east to Asia. He worked on rice patty farms and wandered almost lost through thick mountain forest. He had stayed for a time in temples with monks and learned some things about himself and his soul. When he had reached the farthest eastern shore of Asia he kept going. In California he spent time working the docks to earn enough money to continue. He stared into the great abyss of the grand canyon and marveled at the skyscrapers of New York and their defiance of the sky. He traveled from coast to coast of America and then moved north. He was in Alaska when he saw the northern lights for the first time. He attended some classes in a local college in Montréal until he grew restless with schooling. When he reached the northern tip of North America he went south. He experienced the warmth and hospitality of Mexico and enjoyed the rain forests of South America. In Cape Froward he took a job working as a deck hand on great ship. He traveled on the ship to Australia. He spent time there exploring the great cities and sites and roughing it in the outback. He met a man who had planned an expedition to Antarctica and decided to tag along.
While there in the biting cold he learned to survive and to thrive. He next went to Japan on a sea faring boat from Australia. He spent time there learning the customs of that totally alien culture. After all of his travels and all his time spent abroad he finally made land fall in Wales. He took a job as a farm hand. The work was hard, but he had become accustom to that. He had found that hard work and labor made him feel alive and refreshed. It pulled his mind away from the small and large horrors of his life. He could throw himself into his work and forget about anything else.
In this way Harry Potter spent three years of his life. In that time he had received countless letters, and when he found the time he replied to most of them. The work had made him strong. Lean and muscular. He found little comfort in the cramped spaces he lived in, as he was now many shirt sizes away from the start of his journey. In these cramped spaces he found it difficult to write. Most of his response letters were short and to the point. Most containing only a sentence or two. All usually in the style of, "Doing fine. Hope all is well back home."
He had not touched his massive wealth of wizard gold at all in his travels. He had worked his own way across the world, sleeping many months only in worker lodgings or in fields beneath the stars. His hair had grown long and his beard had grown in. The scar that made him famous across the wizarding world hidden behind much longer locks of unruly hair. Ron had sent pictures with some of his letters. Harry took great care of them. His favorite was one snapped at the engagement party.
While Harry was away Ron and Hermione had broken up. According to both of them it was the bickering that finally won out. Ron had moved on to their close friend Luna. She stood beside him in the picture. She looked marvelous in her shimmering blue gown. In the picture her hand would move slightly toward Ron's. Ron stood tall as ever, crimson hair shorter than Harry remembered. Ginny stood to the side beaming with happiness over the engagement of her brother and best friend. She looked great in her red dress. However it wasn't Ginny that Harry would stare at most nights.
It was the beautiful girl in the yellow sundress. Her chocolate eyes and bushy brown hair all at once familiar and totally new to him. She was mostly in the background. She looked sad, distant. Harry wondered many times why. He hoped she would be okay. He hoped his leaving wasn't the cause. He would pull her note from his only duffle and reread it again. He worried for her so. Ron had made some mention of her failure to make a new life for herself.
She had become a professor. She worked at Hogwarts during the school year and as a scholar of note to the ministry over the summers. She spent all of her time working. Ron had said he had barley seen her lately. He was clearly concerned. Harry had made a habit of checking the skies at night for owls. To see if any more news came of his old life. The people he left behind. The other workers on the farm would often ask what he was looking for in the stars. He would only laugh a little and tell them simply, "An excuse."
Deep down Harry knew that his days as a farm hand were coming to their end. He knew that he would have to return to London soon. He had finally made peace with his dark and disturbing life and had found purpose in living again. He had put behind him the actions of war and managed to find remnants of the old Harry Potter standing excitedly on platform Nine and three quarters. Now all he waited for was a reason to exit his time as a poor world weary traveler and see if he could fit back into his old life. So there was truth in his statement. He looked to the skies for an excuse to leave it all behind.
One night as he was about to walk back to the lodging and his cramped room his excuse came. It was carried on the leg of an owl. A tawny colored barn owl. It dropped the letter in Harry's hand and stayed awhile for a treat and some lazy stoking of it's belly feathers before it spread it's wings and flew off into the night. The letter itself was two pages. Harry opened the rolled letter and read it carefully in the dim light cast by the moon.
Harry,
You are cordially invited as a guest (plus one) to the wedding of
Ronald Weasly and Luna Lovegood.
We hope you will be in attendance as the Groom wishes respectfully that you act as Best Man.
Love from, Ron and Luna.
Harry blinked twice and read the missive over again. His best friend was getting married. The second sheet of parchment had all the necessary information, location date and whatnot. It was going to be at the Burrow in three weeks time. Harry had needed an excuse, this was it.
* * *
When Harry arrived in London he immediately went round to his flat. Everything there was free of dust. It took him slightly by surprise. He had been gone for three years and had never hired a cleaning service. He thought his Apartment too humble to bother. It was a two bedroom affair with one bathroom and a full kitchen. From the kitchen to his room was a hallway of modest length and across from the kitchen his living room. He had bought the place for the living room. It had a great big bay window over looking London. He could sit on the sill and look out at the massive city. Quaint but in that refined British way. Though the apartment didn't really feel like home anymore he set his clothes in the closet and sat on his couch.
As soon as he had turned on the television the mystery of his clean apartment was solved. He heard a key in the doorknob. He sprung from the couch and raced toward the door. He pulled it open in time to see a very shocked Hermione holding a bag of cleaning supplies and the one copy he had made of his flat key. He smiled warmly at her and waited for her to recover. She shook her head and blinked several times before she found her bearings and her voice.
"Harry." She gasped with tears welling in her eyes, "You're home."
"Just got in." He answered with a shrug.
Before he could get a word out about being just about to send word to everyone he was pulled into the fullest hug of his life. Not knowing what to do really he hugged back. In his travels he had received few hugs. He wasn't really used to them anymore. He could hear her muttering into his shirt, his faded lived in flannel shirt. He couldn't be sure but he thought the words were, "I missed you so much.". It was difficult to tell. Her voice muffled by the fabric and her words spoken so softly. So earnestly. He could feel the wet warmth of her tears soaking through his shirt and onto his chest.
"I missed you too, Hermione." He said finally.