Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter One.
The Way Things Are.

"Go to sleep, everything will be all right"
-In dreams, Roy Orbison.

2003. New York City.

Draco sat at the kitchen table and looked at the relics of his five years living in New York City with Harry Potter. Under the boxes of his things was the flat they had shared for so long. The kitchen sink where Harry had cured him of his alcoholism. The fridge where they had hung up the dry erase board that would contain the list of chores they were to preform around the place. The corner behind the front door where they had had the only fist fight they would have in the place. The couch in the living room where they had made up and Draco had admitted that Harry was his best friend.
Draco sighed and smiled when his eyes fell onto the hallway. The place he had asked Harry to serve as his best man the year before. He walked to his room, opened the door and noted the bed on which he and his wife had shared their first night as a married couple. He laughed to himself as a memory of Harry sitting with him on the fire escape smoking and talking. The shy look on Harry's face when he had asked him to stuff a pillow behind their head board, it turned out that they had been keeping him upon nights when he could sleep.
Draco turned his head when he heard a key in the lock. He checked his wristwatch to make sure it wasn't the movers, but they weren't due for another hour. He figured it was likely Amber back with their lunch from that little Thai place she loved so much. He rushed the length of the apartment, and held the door for what had indeed been Amber. She kissed him on the cheek, and he nuzzled his cheek against her head.
"Is Harry around?" She asked.
"He's out for his walk."
"Good, I didn't get him anything." She smiled at her husband.
Draco grabbed one of the bags of food and made his way to what would soon not even be his kitchen, "I'm sure he won't mind."
"We got a letter for him, by the way. It's in my purse." She called after him.
He poked his head around the corner, "In the regular mail?"
"I know. Who doesn't email these days." She agreed absentmindedly.
"Yeah, email." He said softly, "I'll leave it for him. Just set it on the table out there."
Amber walked in and planted a huge kiss on him. She smiled against his lips and breathed soft, almost purr like, breathes against his chin.
"Are you ready to have our own place, Mr Malfoy?" She moved her head until it rested on his chest.
Draco looked around the old apartment, the ghost of a smile haunting his eyes, before he softly said, "Yes, Mrs. Malfoy. I think I am."

* * *

Harry,

What's happened to all of us? I'm sorry. I've tried to write this nine times tonight. You would laugh at the huge pile of crumpled paper by the waste basket. I've been trying to find the perfect opening line, I don't know what to use. I don't know these magics, studious as I am. I don't know the proper series of words, the enchantment to reach across these old pages and feel for your heart. I don't know the words, Harry, that will bring you back to us. Back to me.
I got this address from Luna. You still have a subscription to the Quibbler. I don't mean to intrude on you or your life, far from it. I know that the evidence points elsewhere on that score, I know that. But you won't respond to my owls, you don't write me, You don't write Ron, not that I even speak with him that much anymore, but, Harry, you don't even write Ginny or the Mr and Mrs Weasly. You don't visit. I haven't seen or heard from you in five years. Five years!
I miss you.
We used to be such good friends. We told each other everything. Everything. I never had anyone else I could tell these things to. It was always you. I miscarried last year, Harry. I didn't even know I wanted to have a baby until I lost one. How pathetic is that? I wanted to tell you. I wanted to cry into your arms, not the goddamn stairs outside my flat. I need you, Harry. Nothing is working out right. Ron was supposed to be my future, then it was going to be Chaz, and none of that worked. And you were never there.
Wow, I just reread that last paragraph. I sound insane. I think I must be insane. Please, Harry, if you ever cared, come home to me.
Love From,
Hermione

* * *

Harry stood in the half empty apartment as the letter fell from his hand to the floor. He stood there for twenty minutes, his mind alternating between racing and being blank and finding no comfort in either. Finally he walked into his room and sat down at his desk. He reached out and took one of the letters from the stack. He opened it and did what he should have done years earlier.

Sitting in his bedroom an ocean away, years too late, Harry Potter got reacquainted with his best friend.

2003. London.

Hermione was eating a very late lunch at her desk. She was trying to sort out a couple of different fundraising events for her equality banquets, write a writ for legislation, organize a speech about house elf voting privileges, get a defense lawyer for a hearing about education rights for giants and all the while attempting to track down her anonymous donor. The same person had donated a substantial amount every year, but never seemed to be at the events, she had originally assumed it was Harry, but the handwriting on the bank slips didn't match. She wanted to invite this person, she was consumed by the notion of finding out the mystery benefactor's identity. Ginny had said it was a natural response to the fact that she didn't have a life outside of her work anymore.
Still she couldn't make any kind of head way, hard as she tried. So she reclined in her chair and stretched her arms out. She had been sitting all day, and she hadn't realized how stiff she had become. She rubbed her eyes and considered going home. She had been finished with her actual days work three days ago, she was in charge, and not a single one of her employees would blame her for leaving on time for a change.She bit her lip and looked at the stack of things that needed to be done for the speech she planned to make at the Ministry about granting house elves voting rights. She supposed it could wait a day, but she had so many things she needed to get just right for it to work the way she wanted it to. She smiled at her own over developed work ethic and shifted the speech paperwork in front of her.
When she removed her quill her assistant poked his head into her office.
"Ms. Granger." He began.
"It's okay to send everyone home, Bryan. I'm just going to finish these up before I head home." She waved to him without looking up.
"No, um.. You have someone here to see you."
"Tell them that I will have the notes for the legislative brief done in-"
"Ma'am. I would wager that this is something of a personal call."
Hermione put her head up, cocked it sideways and raised an eyebrow, "Really? And who might it be, this personal caller?"
Bryan grinned from ear to ear, "Well, if his get-lost-in-me green eyes weren't the trade mark of Harry Potter, himself." His gaze slipped and he coughed self consciously before he added, "Ma'am."
The words were barely out of his mouth before he was watching Hermione leaping from her desk to run past him. Bryan spun on the spot. Standing in the middle of the open floor office space was his boss, having stopped only a few feet from the handsome stranger he was sure was Harry Potter. Workers at their desks were staring. The stranger smiled knowingly, Bryan noted the way that Hermione's shoulders slacked. He knew he was holding his breath, but didn't know why, and when the stranger finally spoke and a collective release of air from his co-workers sounded he realized he wasn't the only one affected in that way.
"Hello, Hermione."
"Harry." Hermione's lip quivered. She blinked her eyes several times.
He raised his hand, he had a few pages of parchment gripped between his fingers, "You sent a letter."
She shook her head, "I sent hundreds of letters."
"I know." He looked at the floor, a boy again for a few moments, "I read them."
She held out her arms, "Come here."
Harry closed the gap and took her into his arms, a friendly embrace, brief and powerful. The entire office was captivated with watching them, none of them sure if it was because of the legendary quality of the friendship before them, or the fame of Harry Potter. When Hermione broke the embrace she turned to her workers and announced that she would be leaving to catch up with her friend. They all began to nod, numb to all of the things around them, and continued to until the old friends left the building. As soon as they were gone the office exploded in conversation.

* * *

Late night in Hyde park found Harry and Hermione conspiring like the old days on a bench. She laughed at his jokes, his eyes lit up when she spoke about work, and when they finally got comfortable, when they truly were old friends again, they began to speak about the difficult things.
"You never wrote." She said, her face suddenly a wealth of pain that he could barely stand to look at.
"I'm sorry." Was all he could think to say.
"Why did you leave?"
"I had to get away. I had to redefine myself. I would always be Harry Potter, the-boy-who-whatever, as long as I stayed here. I had to go and find out who I actually was. I mean, I spent my entire adolescence at war." He smiled in spite of himself, "Plus living in New York is pretty cool."
"Why did you cut everyone out?" She paused, but pushed on anyway, "I mean, Draco Malfoy? You abandoned all of us and moved abroad with Draco Malfoy?"
"Malfoy is a good guy." Harry said as his only answer.
"Fine, whatever. You couldn't write?" She shot him a look that would kill a lesser man.
"I..." He looked into the sky, "I wanted a new life. One without all the constant drama. One that I understood. I don't know. You guys just seemed to bury me in... I can't describe it."
"I know what you mean. I do." She put her hands on his, "But it was a rough patch, Harry. Most people just wait for it to pass, they don't leave the country."
"I guess I'm not most people."
"I guess not." She smiled, "Forgiven?"
"Am I?"
"Yes."
He smiled, "Then so are you."
"How long are you in town?"
"I don't know." He shrugged, "I own a flat here, I own my flat in New York, I can stay indefinitely."
"You didn't sell the flat?" Her eyebrow shot up.

"Yeah. I guess I always thought I would come back." He looked around, " Now? I don't really know what to do with my life. I haven't been back here since Ron's wedding, now Draco is moved out of my place with his wife. I don't know."
"You could move back home. I've missed you horribly." She blushed and smiled, "Embarrassing confession: I have zero friends, outside Ginny."
"I had heard that you and Ron had made up." He searched her eyes.
"We have, but he lives in Yorkshire with Luna. I'm just never out there, you know."
"What would I even do if I moved back here?" He said.
"Same thing you do in New York, I guess."
"Pace my flat, read books, and watch trash telly."
"You could get a job. I know you don't need one, but you could get one." She suggested.
"I tried that. I'm too high profile in the wizarding world, and in the muggle world, I'm twenty-three and have no education or work experience."He laughed, "Who would think I would ever want a muggle job?"
"Harry, I need...." She broke off.
"What?" He looked at her, and regretted it. She looked so scared.
"When you left, we..um...what I mean is..." She bit her lip, "Did you ever think about me?"
Harry stared off into the darkness around Hyde Park, letting the air hang pregnant with anticipation. Finally he looked at her and winked, "I'm starving. Let's get something to eat."
Hermione tried not to let he disappointment show as she nodded, forced a smile and stood up. She offered him her hand to help him up. He ignored it and stood, and she tried not to read anything into that.

* * *

Harry tossed and turned in his London bed. He was trying to sleep, and trying not to dream when he did it. However every time he closed his eyes her face was there. Looking at her hand as he denied help up, wondering what was wrong with her, what was so unappealing to him. He looked at his clock, noted the time, rolled over and waited, but when he turned back the hands had not moved.
When he finally did get to sleep his dreams woke him with guilt, and agony, and worst of all with a powerful urge to go over to her flat. He refused himself all of this and fought back to sleep every time.