Shattered

A/N: This was an idea that came into my mind awhile back. It’s a sort of opposite to my other story “Continental Holiday”. Whereas in that story they went on a holiday and ultimately recovered from the war….this is the other side of the coin. Answering the question “What if they didn’t recover?” This is my realistic look at how the events of the books might have affected our seventeen year old heroes. This first update is prologue of sorts to segue into it. Hope you enjoy!

~

"What do you mean they're gone?"

"They left. They're running."

"Running? Running from what?"

"What do you think they're running from? Have you any idea what they've done? What they've been through?"

"Of course, it's awful....but Arthur you can't be suggesting there was another way?"

"There were plenty of other ways....that we stood by and let them take the responsibility for everything we love and cherish is a crime."

"They're heroes! They have been since they set foot here."

"They're children."

"They're all of age."

"And being 17 makes you qualified to face the horrors of war?"

"It has been asked of those their age since time immemorial."

"And that makes it right?"

"I seem to recall you letting your other sons join the war at 17....what makes it different now?"

"I made my mistakes and now I have one son dead, another who's half a man, and another who's broken beyond repair. So excuse my revision of what's important."

"The prophecy Arthur....Harry was the only one...."

"Words Minerva. A foggy crystal ball on a dusty shelf. Is that seriously all that you can think of? All the justification you need to have stood by and watched?"

"I trusted Albus. I remember a time when you did as well. We all did."

"And look what it gave us."

"We won Arthur, in case you've forgotten."

"Yes, but at what cost? At the end of the day can you seriously say that it was worth destroying three lives that had barely begun so that most of us could keep ourselves safe? Can you seriously say that we wouldn't have won the final battle without them? That the Order couldn't have hunted the horcruxes that Dumbledore knew existed and even essentially knew what they were? That we couldn't find some other way to destroy the one inside him without sending the boy to his death?"

"Arthur, he came back!"

"And I suppose Dumbledore knew for a God given fact it would work?"

"Dumbledore was the wisest wizard of our time."

"Wise? Where was the wisdom in letting school children fight our fight? In letting them become dropouts and fugitives? It wasn't wisdom, it was cowardice."

"The nerve of you!"

"If it wasn't for the final battle....if Voldemort hadn't finally pushed our hand....could you honestly say we would have faced him in the open? Can any of us? How long? How long did good people outnumber the Death Eaters a hundred to one? How long did we let the few frighten the many into complete helplessness?"

"Rehashing the past is pointless. What's done is done."

"You asked why they're gone, why they ran."

"And you answered that?"

"We both did. It broke them. It would have broken anyone."

"Well, I do hope they come back."

"I hope they never come back. They deserve much better than what we've given."

"They will want to return, they'll want to help rebuild."

"And I suppose we can't do that without them either? Ask them to not only save our world for us, but the to clean up the mess we made for ourselves?"

"I pegged you a better man Arthur. I thought you cared about our world."

"I do, I think it would do us all some good to lie in the bed we've made for ourselves. Reflect on just how cruel we've been. Do the math on how many that we've buried in the past month should have been walking these halls the past year. How many of them DID walk these halls."

"Students were not the only ones to shed their blood here, you would do well to remember that Arthur. They'll be remembered."

"Yes, by the parents they've left behind."

"I think perhaps it would be best if we part ways Arthur."

"Yes, I think so too."

"Goodbye, Arthur."

"Goodbye, Minerva."

~

Son, wherever you are, I hope you find somewhere better. That you find the life we so cruelly stole from you. I’m sorry, so sorry to have done this to you. I could have stopped you, could have stopped all of you.....my apologies will never be enough.....I love you son, enough to tell you the hard truth: I won't stop you now. If you find you happiness somewhere else.....then I hope to never see you again. I failed you. We all failed you. But I still love you. If you can ever forgive us, we’ll always be here. We’re always with you, wherever you go.

love,

Dad

A/N: I’m going to stick with naming chapters after whose perspective we’re using. Cheers!

As always, I don’t own anything of the Harry Potter universe, etc.

~

Watching the other people their age was the worst. It was a reminder of just how unbelievably unfair it was. They were seventeen, eighteen years old. They should be frolicking on a beach somewhere just like the young people in front of them.

They had never really had that opportunity. Ever since Voldemort returned, ever since Harry had come out of the maze clutching a portkey and the dead body of a fellow student, they had rarely had a moment where they could simply be the teenagers they all were. It was all prophecies, dreams, nightmares, battles, death, and destruction. What moments they could grasp had always been swallowed up by the omnipresence of the greatest threat the wizarding world had ever seen. One that had a keen interest in a particular member of their party.

Voldemort would have always come after Harry. That couldn’t be denied, but why did that mean that the fate of their whole world had to be placed upon him?

Hermione had never been much for divination. Cold, hard logic was more useful in the real world than the ethereal “knowledge” of a crystal ball. A crystal ball kept in the Department of Mysteries said that Harry could be the one to conquer Voldemort. He had the power; he had certainly proved that, but why? Why did everyone take what could have been and make it into something that had to be?

Why had it felt for two solid years like she was the only one who thought it unfair for everyone to place their complete hope in a seventeen year old Harry Potter? Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t been Harry who not only forestalled Voldemort’s return for four years, but had also dueled him and lived to tell the world of his return? Had that not been enough? At what point would it have been too much to ask of Harry? Did anyone even care? Why was it that older and supposedly much wiser men and women only came to fight when there was no choice left, instead of taking the reins from the hands of three Hogwarts dropouts and taking responsibility for their own lives?

What about her? She had had a bright future ahead of her. She was going to be Head Girl, graduate top of her class, enter the Ministry and make the world a better place…..instead, she had had to erase herself from her own life, drop out of school, and spend an entire year as a wanted fugitive desperately trying to keep Harry and Ron alive while they hunted the tainted objects bearing the Dark Lord’s soul. There were times when the reality of the past year threatened to press in on her from all sides and completely smother her. There were times she wanted to scream in agony that none of it had been fair and why did it always have to be them? Why did it always have to be him?

It had been Harry’s idea at first. He tossed it into conversation, hoping to scope out how his friends felt about it. Hermione had known better, her and Ron both knew better. He wanted to get away, to get away from these people who insisted on making him the hero he had never once wanted to be.

They hadn’t really talked about it. After two months of dodging the press and the smothering sorrow of funeral after funeral, they had reached a silent agreement: they were leaving. They had simply packed their bags and left. No note or letter. No sort of explanation why. The three of them simply left.

There had been owls. Mrs. Weasley had wrote them daily for a week, finally sending them each a howler to tell them how irresponsible they were. Ginny, Neville, McGonagall, Shacklebolt….they had all written. They all asked the same questions:

“Why?”

“Don’t you care about us? About your family?”

“Where will you go?”

“How long will you be gone?”

They hadn’t answered any of them. The thought that anyone could think they were owed an explanation….after all that they had been given by Harry, Ron, and herself…..was simply absurd to Hermione.

They didn’t owe them anything else. They had given everyone else their lives, their whole world back. They didn’t owe them one more cent, one more word, one more drop of blood.

So they had left. They had no particular direction, nowhere really for them to go. They had pooled together the money they had and put it all in Harry’s Gingott’s vault. Not that they were using much money. They used their old tent from the horcrux hunt as their shelter. Food was the only thing they paid for, but none of them were eating much. They primarily stuck to the fringes of society: places like the Alps, Tibet, the Russian steppes….places where the emptiness of the land seemed to match the emptiness they each felt in their chests. A soul sucking emptiness that threatened to eat away at the fiber of their beings.

She could see it in both of them. None of them talked much, but she knew them too well and cared too much about them not to be able to see it in their eyes. Harry in particular. She had read somewhere about the “million mile stare” that soldiers sometimes had in war and while she had never seen a picture of it she certainly thought she could recognize it in the vacant expressions on Ron and Harry’s faces.

Empty, like everything else.

It was while they were in Alaska that she noticed something else: that they had each begun to spend large amounts of time alone. They would wake up every morning to tea or coffee together, but then they would split up. They never told each other where they were going, it was a simple crack of disaparrition or swoosh of a broomstick and they were gone. At first, it was only for an afternoon or maybe an evening; but then they began to disappear for days at a time, the others waiting to move places until everyone was together again.

Hermione knew what was about to happen, which was why she finally spoke to Ron over a dinner neither of them had touched.

“Ron?” her voice sounded strange to her, like it was smaller from disuse.

“Yes, Hermione?” he sounded course and every word took visible effort.

“We’re about to split up aren’t we?” it wasn’t really a question, more a statement of fact. Ron didn’t answer, but she could see by the way he slumped his shoulders and let out a sigh that she was right. “What about….what about us Ron?”

Again Ron was silent. Strangely, she wasn’t really looking for a particular answer. It seemed to her like she was asking more for the sake of knowing than because she particularly cared about the outcome. What had happened to her? Why didn’t she care anymore?

“I….I don’t know. I just….I need some time.” Ron wouldn’t look at her, whether because it would hurt too much or because he felt as empty as her she couldn’t tell. Hermione simply nodded.

“I saw this coming, I have something…something to take with you.” She held out what looked like a lighter.

“The Deluminator?”

“Yeah, I…I borrowed it awhile back. I managed to copy the spell Dumbledore put on it, the one that led you back to us? So we each now have something to lead us back to each other. When…..when we want to come back.” She had almost said “If we come back.” But she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge that possibility. Not yet anyways.

“Oh, okay.” Was all Ron said.

She knew this day had been coming; she often was the only one of the three that saw the shifting in the winds. It wasn’t that they didn’t want each other around or cared about one another any less. They hadn’t talked about it, but somehow they had all reached a sort of silent understanding that they all needed some time alone. How long that would be, none of them really knew. It was exactly like when they left England: they hadn’t known if they would be gone a day, a week, a year….they had simply left. They would figure the rest out as they went. It was the same principle at work here. They had no idea how long they needed to be alone, they would figure it out as they went, which was exactly why she had made the trackers. Whenever, if ever, any of them decided to find one another, they would be able to.

She left a small snitch on the table, it was Harry’s tracker, and she placed a small locket in the shape of a book around her neck that was hers. She was going to be the first to go; she wasn’t even going to wait for Harry to return. She had to go give her parents their memories back. After that, she wasn’t sure where her feet would take her.

She looked across the table at Ron, his sullen face and empty eyes staring at the table unseeingly. She groped desperately within herself to find something, anything to tell her not to go; any sort of feelings that might tell her that it was more important to be by his side…

Nothing.

She was as empty as she had been for four solid months now. Even her love for Ron had been stolen from her, the feeling of being wrapped in his arms and the taste of his tongue dancing delicately with hers a memory so far gone as to have been a part of another life.

What had happened to them? They had all felt it: the joy of seeing Voldemort’s demise. They had all felt a sense of relief in knowing it was over.

Except, it wasn’t over. Almost as soon as the dust settled, the nightmares started. They had all three slept together in Harry and Ron’s room at Grimmauld Place in the immediate aftermath, holding whoever it was that woke up screaming in the depths of the night, taking it in turns to assure one another that Voldemort truly was gone and that they were indeed still alive and still together. It was during those initial days that the injustice of it all had finally begun to sink into them. They had fought for so long that they had completely blocked from their minds any thoughts about why they fought. They had never had the luxury of wondering why, in a world full of those who were supposedly older and wiser than them, why they had to be the ones to finish it.

They had had time now, enough time to know that everything was different now. They had all lost so much, had carried such a heavy load for so long….

But Hermione was getting ahead of herself. What was important now was ensuring that they could see one another again and going to give her parents their memories. With one objective accomplished, it was time to fulfil another one.

She looked at Ron one more time, feeling again the gaping hole in her chest where her heart should be feeling sorrow at leaving.

Empty.

With a light pop, she was gone.

He had always wanted to try Firewhiskey. He supposed as a younger man that it had an allure of adventure, of being grown up.

Now, it was a source for the oblivion he craved.

Betrayed, betrayed by everyone who I thought loved me.

He hates Dumbledore for enabling them to play the little heroes. He hates his family for not stopping him from going with Harry. He hates himself for hating his family, because deep down he knows he still loves them. The only people he doesn’t hate are the two people that left him twenty-seven months ago.

It was ironic that he left them so long ago and now they’ve left him. He tried to be mad about it, but truth be told he’s secretly glad for the time alone. Neither Harry nor Hermione would allow him to drink his pain away like this.

Pained.

That was the one word that summed up his existence. Everything was tainted and tinged with pain. His brother was dead. His other brother was a ghost. His girlfriend or whatever the hell Hermione is to him finally, finally kisses him and all seems right with the world….then turns around and offers her life to his best friend. This all happening of course after three years of being at war, the last year of which had been spent surviving one run in with death after another.

It just wasn’t fucking right. None of it was. Where did anyone get off letting them do half the shit they had done?

He takes another deep swig. His head is warm and swimming. Its close, it won’t be long until blessed blackness overcomes him. It’s the only sleep he gets nowadays. Before, when he had managed sleep, he had relived it all over and over again: Fred’s ghostly smile, Hermione’s screams as he beats on the basement door, Lavender Brown’s bleeding neck, the Room of Requirement in flames, Harry’s lifeless body in Hagrid’s arms….

I’ll go with you

That had been it, he knows now, that had been the moment when he just snapped. The final straw that broke his back. Maybe, maybe before that he comes out alright even after everything else that happened….but the double blow of (he thought) losing Harry and (he knew) losing Hermione was just too much. Of course, she denied everything. They had gone around and around the subject in the subsequent weeks. Exhausting every jot and tittle. She swore up and down that it had nothing to do with any romantic feelings for Harry. He knew better. He had known them for too damn long not to put all the pieces together in that one moment: the two idiots loved each other and the worst part was they didn’t even know it yet. Exactly how they didn’t know after everything they’d been through was entirely beyond his ability to comprehend.

He stumbles his way over to the door, swaying gently as he does so. He hasn’t moved the tent in days, though he doesn’t remember exactly where he is. As he unzips the door he’s greeted with gently falling snow. Strangely, he doesn’t feel cold as he steps out into the ankle deep snow.

Russia

So that’s where the hell he was. The memory suddenly dawned on him of crossing the border from some country he couldn’t pronounce a few weeks ago. Had to confund to border guards ‘cause he couldn’t understand a word they said. He takes a few stumbling steps towards a fallen tree before settling roughly upon it, the nearly empty bottle of whiskey hanging limply between his legs.

Why? That was his biggest question. Why hadn’t somebody, anybody tried to stop them. His mother had sent him a fucking howler for stealing the car, but drop out of school and become a fugitive and not a single word. Never once had she brought it up. A pale face and tear rimmed eyes had been the best he had gotten out of his mother all that year. His father at least had the dignity to whisper “I’m sorry son” every time he had seen him. A letter had come from him, years ago, and he kept it folded up on his bedside table. A reminder that if the pain ever stopped he had a home to return to.

The only one he genuinely felt sorry for, apart from George, was Ginny. The poor girl had suffered what many a soldier’s lover has suffered since the beginning of time: the boy she watched leave never came back. Somewhere amongst all the horror, Harry’s love for Ginny became hollow, a clinging on to a sense of normalcy that was long gone and never coming back. At least he had had the sense to tell her, it was about the gentlest he could have let her down. The poor girl had still taken it hard. She would have finished Hogwarts long ago. He wondered how she had handled it. A number of her friends had been killed; Gryffindor tower had surely been a bit emptier than it should have been.

Kids, fucking school kids and they died fighting a war. Where was the justice in that? He had a good reckoning how many wizards lived in Britain….how few of them were Death Eaters? How had it come down to teenagers to do the work of killing the worst dark wizard the world had ever seen?

Poor Harry. Ron hadn’t seen or heard from him since he left. Harry had been different after the battle: cold, distant, with eyes that looked hollow. Ron remembered standing with his mouth hung open stupidly as Harry explained that his whole life had been planned around the fact that he would have to die. Ron had been furious. It was the only time he had ever wanted to use an Unforgivable. If Dumbledore had been alive, Ron might have done Voldemort’s job for him. The man who had once been the paragon of wisdom in his mind had forever given up the pedestal that he had lived upon in Ron’s mind. He now occupied a space little better than Voldemort. With a chuckle, Ron thought that at least Voldemort had been honest about his desire to kill Harry.

He took another swig.

Shit, I’ve got to stop living in my head. Who am I? Hermione?

Thinking of Hermione sent a small lurch to his stomach, making him retch into the snow. He loved the girl, loved her more than he loved himself. Something deep inside of him told him that there was something toxic about that, but he had never really given himself time to think about it. It had broken his heart to watch her offer to go with Harry, even if she had been with him, Ron, ever since. Not just because of what it said about how Hermione felt about Harry, but because deep down he knew that he never would have offered to go himself.

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Harry. He loved Harry, but he knew Harry never would have let them go with him. Never. Harry wasn’t like that. Besides, he had told himself, years before, that if it came down to it he would stay with Hermione. He loved her too much to let her go and secretly he imagined himself taking care of her. Harry had even communicated that to Ron over Hemione’s shoulder on the staircase. Take care of her. There hadn’t been a need to say it, it was a simple understanding shared between two friends with a simple look.

But as he stood by himself watching Harry and Hermione cling to each other he had known right then and there that they had something that he was never going to be able to touch. Hermione had told Ron after the battle that he was the love of her life. He certainly felt that way about her. But he knew now that Harry and Hermione were soulmates. They just had an understanding of one another. Harry knew more about Hermione without trying than Ron would ever know with years of study and practice.

Why was it that nothing in his life was fair? His brothers had all been so bloody perfect. Percy the model citizen, Bill the height of cool, Charlie the great quidditch player, Fred and George the wildly popular pranksters, and Ginny the beautiful girl ever boy wanted. Where had there ever been any room for Ickle Ronniekins? Harry had been a hero from the cradle, Hermione was the most brilliant witch of the age and of course they were secretly and stupidly in love with one another.

“Where the fuck do I fit in?” he shouted into the cold, hearing his voice die once it hit the magical barriers around the tent. He felt a single hot tear steak down his face, the contrast to the cold around him suddenly alerting himself to the fact that he was nowhere near dressed appropriately for snow.

He stood up and managed to take two wobbly steps before he pitched forward face first into the snow, blissful oblivion finally overtaking him.

A/N: Made an important change in the timeline. Instead of the two months that Ron said Harry and Hermione have been gone, I’ve changed it to a little over two years. Edits have been made to that chapter accordingly (which is why it was reposted). So here is the new update. Hope you enjoy!

~

It was quiet here. That was why he liked it more than anything else.

He had completely lost track of time. Whether he had simply been here for days, weeks, months….he couldn’t know. That had been the furthest thing from his mind. The closest thing to mind was just how much he both relished and hated being alone.

He relished it because it allowed him to think, just think, without having someone else’s burdens or cares to occupy his mind. Hermione had once thrown at him that he had a “saving people thing”, that she was right was not nearly as surprising as the fact that the one person he didn’t care to save was himself. It was much easier to focus on saving someone else than it was to focus on what was eating you alive from the inside out.

That was why he hated it. Because out here, all by himself, the only person who needed saving was Harry Potter.

He wasn’t even sure who that person was anymore. His entire childhood had been spent being a burden, his early wizard years marked him a hero, and the last year marked him a sacrifice. So much store had been put into his connection with Voldemort and the prophecy that without the Dark Lord around to threaten anyone anymore, Harry felt oddly out of place.

Maybe he wasn’t supposed to come back from the forest after all. Maybe he didn’t have a post-Voldemort identity because he was never supposed to. He had served his purpose to the wizarding world and if he survived to find himself maladjusted to being a normal eighteen year old wizard then that was his inconvenience to bear for outliving his usefulness.

A tool

That was what perfectly described what he felt like. Ever since he had been discovered in the ruins of his parent’s home he had been Dumbledore’s tool, an almost perfectly balanced blade to the heart of Voldemort, delivered from the grave by the great puppet master himself. Raised to be the perfect martyr, it had been a mere accident of fate that had given him a second chance at life.

He hated Dumbledore for it. He hated Voldemort for being foolish enough to use his blood. He hated that because he had taken so long to do what was necessary that people had died. That people he cared deeply about had died. He hated that he lived on while they were gone. Almost everyone he had ever cared about was gone. Only the Weasley’s that were left and Hermione remained.

He knew somewhere deep down, that they were the ones who gave him purpose. That Ron and Hermione served as the anchors that kept him tethered to this life. It had been because of them that he had come back at all. He loved them and cherished them above anybody and anything else in this world.

So why was he here, half a world away from them, when he could be with the two people he loved most? Was it because he was scared? Terrified that once they had each other and didn’t need him to save the world for them that they wouldn’t want him anymore? Wasn’t it easier just to run away while he could still tell himself that they wanted him? Was it the terrible weight of guilt every time he saw Ron’s face and thought of Fred or saw Hermione’s scarred forearm? The constant whine in his head starting again of itsmyfaultitsmyfaultitsmyfaultitsmyfault? Or maybe it was the fact that he needed them so badly, the truth itself so terrifying because of how easy it would be to lose them. He had seen it first hand: a shout, a flash of light and everything he had left could be taken from him. Or worse, the slow tug of time and responsibility once the inevitable wedding happened. Doing over the course of decades what a curse could do in seconds.

Any way he stacked it, it lead to him feeling physically sick to his stomach at the mere thought of them being around. He hated himself for that too.

So here he was, somewhere in the wilds of North America. The tall trees obscured by fog, the hard earth beneath him, and the haunting stillness his only companions. The quiet was only broken by the occasional echoing howls of a wolf pack in the valley far below. Here he was, searching for something that he wasn’t sure he could find.

“Damn it.” His voice shook. He wasn’t sure exactly who he was supposed to be talking to. He remembered a moment in the Department of Mysteries, when time seemed to stop and Voldemort stood over him and whispered “…You will lose…everything…”

Was this how Voldemort would win in the end? A cold corpse lying in the dirt of an unmarked grave and still the bastard managed to make his life a living hell. He had come so close, so close to losing everything. He had lost his parents, his godfather, his greatest mentor, and more friends than he dared think about. The dead haunted his dreams.

“Kill the spare.” Cedric’s cold lifeless form, a flash of light and his mother’s scream, Dumbledore’s body sliding over the ramparts, Remus and Tonks’ cold hands reaching out to each other, Fred’s ghostly smile…….they all made their appearances in his nightmares. He was terrified of sleep, he kept himself awake for hours on end, going over in his head just how awful and unfair it was. He would eventually drift into sleep despite himself, waking in a cold sweat and a fresh face he would never see again swimming in his vision.

There were times he thought he was losing his mind. Times when he felt more than anything that he was drowning, life had pitched him head first into the turbulent waters of despair and he was drowning. No rope, no raft, no flotsam to hold onto. Nothing to hold his head above the water except the memory of the few people he had left.

He had tried everything to make it stop. In England he had thrown himself into spending time with Ginny, until he had realized that whatever he had felt for her was gone. Stolen from him by the overwhelming sense of failure he felt that her family, his family had suffered. He couldn’t see her as anything other than another family member he had let down. Just like his parents, too young to stop them sacrificing themselves for him. Just like Sirius, too stupid to not draw his godfather into a lethal wild goose chase. Just like Teddy, too broken to do anything other than stare blankly at tiny tuffs of hot pink hair.

When romance had failed, he turned to his friends. His once sure bulwark against the world. Unfortunately they were just as broken as he was and guilt soon took away any comfort he might have found. Next came the alcohol. Firewhiskey could do marvelous wonders of wiping the brain clean of everything…for a little while. But once he was jerked out of his booze induced coma by the coming day it all came rushing back, seemingly gaining strength from his hangover weakened state. Then he tried pleasurable company, losing himself in a woman’s body. It wasn’t about love and it was barely about the sex. It was about flooding his senses with something, anything other than the crushing weight of grief that hung over him like cold, hard iron.

Nothing he tried held it back. That was what eventually leads him here. If he couldn’t escape it, he would simply sit in the quiet and let it take him. Let it wash over him like the cold wind and the blustery snow. Let it take him and crush him until there was nothing left. What was there to salvage anyways?

He had always felt marked, like the scar on his forehead set him apart in some unholy way from the rest of the world. Little did he know that the whispers and pointed fingers had always been right all along: He was marked. No, he was more than marked. He was tainted. Voldemort hadn’t just set him apart; Voldemort had set aside a part of himself. Making Harry a sick vessel of his own essence, a capsule containing just a measure of the pure evil that made Voldemort who he was. That he had hardly done this on purpose was academic. It had made Harry sick to know that he had played a part in aiding such a vile thing continue to exist on the earth.

The darkness was closing in. Even his vision began to tunnel. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten anything or slept. The howling of the wolf pack drew closer.

It was quiet.

So very quiet.

He could hear his own heart beating, the sound of the wind passing over snow covered branches and between rocky crags.

His vision was just a pinprick now. A tiny mote of light in the surrounding darkness. Darkness so dark that it promised the void and emptiness that he craved more than anything else.

At last. Free at last from this nightmare existence.

Then there’s something. Not the wind, not his heart beat. A voice, a woman’s voice: Soft, delicate, and barely audible. But it’s there.

“I wish Harry were here.”

Was it real? Or was it in his head? Now it’s a different voice, a memory.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

He strains to hear the voice again. It comes to him, quiet still, but stronger.

“I just want to see him again. To know that he’s alright. Oh, Harry….”

He knows the voice, it’s the same voice he’s heard more than once in his life tell him when he’s wrong. Now, that same voice is calling him back from the darkness. Pulling him away from the brink.

His vision opens. He begins to make out trees and snow and the outline of a white wolf, not ten yards away. Deep black eyes, hunger festering in their depths.

“Harry.”

It’s a sob this time, coming from his pocket. He reaches his hand and retrieves a golden ball with wings to either side. A snitch. Hermione’s last parting gift to him. It opens to his touch and a small blue light emerges. It floats in front of him for a moment, before settling itself into his chest.

A tiny warmth spreads into his lungs, empowering him to reach his feet. There are more wolves now, circling around him, close enough that he can hear their light steps in the snow, their panting at the meal to come.

He turns on the spot, vanishing, leaving the wolves to howl into the emptiness in their hunger for blood.

A/N: At least one of you has been waiting awhile on this one. J For those of you who are reading “The End of the Beginning” know that I’m in the process of redoing some chapters and that chapter six is redone and posted. Just an FYI for my lovely readers. Cheers!

~

She was never one to believe in a higher power, but Hermione often wondered if magic itself could be a kind of providence.

If she had not stuck her head in a particular compartment her first year on the Hogwarts Express she might have never known either of them.

If she hadn’t gone running to the bathroom crying then she might have never befriended them.

If neither of those things happened she wouldn’t have grown to love them.

Most importantly, if she hadn’t decided to come back when she did…she might have lost one of them.

She aparrated into a small, snow covered clearing. Somewhere in the Baltic she thinks. The first thing she notices is the tent. Though the aparration wards were supposed to let the three of them in, she shouldn’t have been able to land so close. Ron had been getting sloppy. The second thing she notices is a small patch of fiery red hair nearly buried in snow.

She immediately levitates him inside, hitting him with a warming spell and throwing some blankets around him. His skin is tinged blue and his lips are purple. His nose had been bleeding, probably from hitting the ground. He had been drunk, the empty bottle of firewhiskey said as much.

He looked awful. His eyes were sunken and dark circles ringed them. He was paler and thinner than she remembered and he positively reeked of alcohol. She decided the best thing for him now was something warm inside of him and rest. She manages to wake him long enough to retch and splutter down some warm soup she threw together before knocking him out with some sleeping drought. She sits on his bed watching him slumber underneath every spare blanket she could find. She shudders to think what may have happened if she hadn’t come back when she had. As it was he had clearly been there for a while, if she had waited any longer….

She pushes the thought from her mind. She got here in time and that’s what matters. Merlin, what had he been doing all this time? Had he really been trying for two years to drink his pain away?

Was what I did any better?

While she certainly hadn’t avoided alcohol during the time she spent away, she could only count on one hand the number of times she had been truly drunk. Then again, it wasn’t alcohol that she turned to when she hadn’t been able to stand it.

She began settling her own possessions into her room. She hadn’t been sure how long she was going to stay, but clearly Ron needed her help so she was going to be here awhile. When she was squared away she began looking around to piece together what Ron had been doing. From the few newspapers she found strewn about she deduced that he hadn’t moved around quite as much as she had. He had stuck mostly to northern Europe from the looks of things. One paper was from Amsterdam and she shuddered to think what he may have been doing there.

She couldn’t find any evidence that anyone else had been here in some time, so Harry hadn’t come back yet. That worried her. She hadn’t seen Harry in over two years. What if he had ended up like Ron somewhere without either her or Ron to help? He had been the most effected by the war, if Ron was this bad off how bad could he have gotten? The idea of splitting up that she had so easily accepted two years ago now seemed downright foolish.

She went to check on Ron. His color had improved and his loud snores told her that he was in a deep sleep. He would be alright; she was just going to have to get him off the creature. She fondly tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. She had come to some realizations about the boy lying in the bed, though she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant yet. That was going to complicate things.

“I wish Harry were here.” She whispered out loud. Seeing Ron again reminded her how much she had missed him…and how much she had missed Harry. She had thought about both of them nearly every day while she had been gone. Wondering where they were, what they were doing.

“I know you can’t hear me, but I thought about you Ron. Both of you.”

She heaves a great sigh. By her fourth year of Hogwarts she had begun to wonder if the two boys that rescued her from the troll that night where the worst things that could have happened to her. She had broken more school rules and gotten into more trouble than she had planned on for a lifetime. But she thinks about Ron’s smile and sense of humor and Harry’s eyes and caring spirit and she knows that there is nothing better she could have asked out of life than to have them by her side.

“I just want to see him again, to know he’s safe. I know you do too Ron. Oh, Harry…”

Something about saying his name and the quiet that greets it brings tears to her eyes. Something inside of her screams that something is wrong, that if she was here talking about wanting to see him and he wasn’t there…..then something must be terribly wrong. She closes her eyes and pictures him as she had always chosen to remember him: his hair windswept, the rare sparkle his eyes had when he was truly happy, a goofy grin stretched across his face.

“Harry.” She sobs. Tears rolling down her face. She’s not sure why she feels like she’s losing him, but she can’t help the knot in her chest or the way her hands were shaking.

It’s just then that there’s a loud crack in the sitting room. She bursts out the door with her wand drawn, only to scream at the sight that greets her.

It’s Harry, but if Ron had looked bad then Harry was downright dreadful. He looked more like a corpse pulled from the grave than a live human being. His eyes were shrunken back into their sockets and were heavily bruised from lack of sleep. His skin seemed stretched over his skeleton and there seemed to be clumps of his hair missing. He was deathly pale and his hands too were shaking.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, before he pitched forward and Hermione lunged to catch him. She was alarmed by how light he was. She was able to get him into his own bed and settled while she started brewing three potions at once in the kitchen. One was full of vitamins and essential nutrients to treat malnourishment, one was another sleeping drought, and the final one was a basic healing potion meant to counter most infections. She had no idea if he even had one, but in his state she wasn’t taking any chances.

She returned to his room just as he woke up coughing.

“H-Harry? I need you to take some potions.” Her voice was shaking but she forced her hands to steady.

“Hermione?” Harry’s voice was cracked and barely audible. She felt fresh tears building in her eyes to hear it.

“Harry p-please, take this.” She lifted his head up and managed to help him down both the potion of essentials and the healing potion. When she went to give him the sleeping potion, his eyes registered what it was and he tried to push her hand away, shaking his head violently.

“Harry, please. You need some sleep. It’s a dreamless sleep potion I swear.” His eyes were still wide with fear. She knew what nightmares awaited him in his dreams, but she was telling the truth. They wouldn’t reach him if he took the vial in her hand. She put her hand on his cheek, flinching at the cold skin beneath rough patches of facial hair. “Please Harry, for me?”

She saw his eyes soften and he nodded his head. When he had downed the entire vial and sank into a deep sleep, she gently laid his head down and covered him with blankets. She watched him sleep for a few minutes before retiring to the kitchen. She poured herself a single shot of firewhiskey and downed it before collapsing into a chair, sobbing so deeply that her whole body convulsed.

She had had a hard two years. There were moments that she wasn’t sure if it was worth the struggle of putting one foot in front of the other, days where she hadn’t left the safety of a bed or a sleeping bag and wished more than anything to slip into sleep and never wake up.

She had also fought through it. She had learned more about herself in two years than the rest of her life combined. One of the things she had learned was that she loved both Ron and Harry more than anything or anyone else in life. To see them both falling apart at the seams just destroyed her.

Nothing had prepared her for this. She knew this type of thing could happen. She had read the books and studied the courses. But never in her worst nightmares had she been prepared for the sight of Ron’s figure in the snow or Harry’s skeletal frame standing in the sitting room. She thought of her own journey, of how she must look. She walked over to a mirror, curiosity taking hold. She couldn’t remember the last time she really looked at herself.

She looked largely the same. Her eyes too had dark circles underneath them, but they were a much lighter shade of purple than the black surrounding Harry’s. Her skin was tanner and hair lighter than it had been before, probably due to the large amount of time she had spent in Australia. She was thinner, but in a more athletic way rather than from lack of eating. She had taken up running over a year ago and now she did three miles four days a week. She couldn’t suppress the guilt that flared up in her heart. While Ron and Harry looked like they had been to the deepest ring of hell, she looked positively healthy in comparison.

She reminded herself that she had gone through the wringer much the same way they had. She had just found a different way to cope. Her outward appearance belied that fact that mentally and emotionally she was no better off than they were and feeling guilty over the decisions they had made wasn’t going to get her any closer to moving past any of it.

This is the moment we can turn the page.

She felt a familiar determination surge through her veins. Voldemort hadn’t been the end of them then and he sure as hell was not going to end them now. She let her fingers run across the skin of her forearm. And neither will that bitch.

Hermione changed into her dressing gown, crawled into her bed, and for the first time in years, she wasn’t afraid of what might lurk behind her eyes when she closed them.

~

A/N: A bit of filler I know, but necessary. Some important little things hidden in there that we’ll explore later…..

A/N: Back again. There’s another fresh update for “The End…” as well. I don’t think it’s going to bump it until I get to where I was before removing the chapters, so I’ll stick to the pattern of mentioning it here until it starts bumping again. Once again, your comments are much appreciated. Cheers!

~

Ron woke up sweating with a pounding in his head. He was underneath what seemed like every blanket in the tent. The last thing he remembered was being outside. How did he get here? He pulled the blankets back and extracted himself from the bed. His arms and legs felt weak and tingly. He gingerly made his way to the door to be greeted by a surprised Hermione.

“Hermione?” he hardly believed it.

“Ron, you’re up. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. How?....When?....”

“Two days ago. I found you nearly buried in snow. Ron what were you thinking?” her voice rose with every word.

“Two days?”

“Don’t avoid the question Ronald.”

“What do you want to hear? That I was drunk?” his anger broke through his curiosity. “Here I’ll say it: I was drunk. Happy now?”

“No.”

Silence enveloped the room. This wasn’t exactly how he had wanted it to go whenever she came back.

“I’m glad to see you again.” He said a note of apology in his voice.

“I’m happy to see you too Ron.” Hermione’s voice went quiet. A groan from the other room caught his attention.

“Who is…..” Ron started before his brain answered for him. “It can’t be. Harry?” he gently pushed his way past Hermione to the other room and had to stifle a yell at what greeted him. “What the hell happened to him?”

“He’s…he’s in bad shape.” Her voice wavered, “But I think he will be okay….I…”

“You think?”

“I’m not a doctor Ron. I did everything I knew how to do. I think, I think maybe we should take him to a hospital. I would have done it already but you were here and I couldn’t do it by myself…”

“Where would we go?” he cut through her.

“I don’t know. The only place I know of is St. Mungo’s.”

The statement hung on the air. That would mean going back to England, back to everything they had run from almost three years ago.

“Ron?”

“Give a guy a minute.” Ron’s brain was running faster than it had in a long time. He wasn’t ready to go back was he? Hell he wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to go back. He was still pissed at pretty much everyone they knew back home. Not to mention it would mean having to go see Fred…..he wouldn’t be able to go back without visiting his brother.

“Ron, I have another idea….but you might not like it either.” Hermione was biting her bottom lip.

“Well, what is it?”

“Well, I’ve kept in touch with Viktor and” she paused, “I know where his home is. Maybe he can point us to somewhere to go.”

“You’ve been writing to him again?” the question leaves his lips before he can stop it. Now wasn’t the time to be jealous.

“I…I just needed someone to talk to. I didn’t want to bother you or Harry and Viktor had still written to me from time to time…”

“Okay, let’s do it.”

She goes from worried to frenzied planning mode in an instant. He is reminded of how much he loves the girl, though it doesn’t stir his stomach quite the way it used to. Hermione sets him to getting everything else squared away while she gets Harry ready to travel. Ron stalks through the tent, packing everything away like he’s done so many times over the years. He can hear Hermione talking to herself as she moves frantically around Harry’s bed. She’s tanner and thinner than he remembered, though she still has the same bushy hair and deep brown eyes.

There had been times, loads of times really, that he had thought about going after her. He had packed up the tent and had everything ready to go at least a dozen times to find her, wherever she was, and every time he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He would think of her smiling face and the way her warm body had felt against his and he would pull out the Deluminator….

And then he would think about a stairwell and four simple words.

He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to tell her. Wasn’t sure how you told anyone that the reason you couldn’t be with them was because they loved someone else. Usually the other person did the talking in those situations. But then again, nothing had ever been typical when it came to the three of them.

He just couldn’t keep living in this lie that was his and Hermione’s relationship. He had longed after her for so long. She had been the only girl he had ever really wanted. Even Lavender had really been about making Hermione jealous and hurting her the same way she had hurt him with Krum. Hindsight told him it had been petty and made him a prick, but she had forgiven him…eventually. Nobody affected him the way she did, even when they were arguing. But he couldn’t….he wouldn’t….settle for being second best in her heart. He had always, always been afraid that she cared more for Harry than him. No matter how many times he told himself that it wasn’t fair to Harry he had never been able to stop himself for being jealous of Harry’s relationship with Hermione. That he eventually turned out to be right did nothing to make himself feel any better about it.

That would have to wait though. The important thing now was making sure the git actually lived to see his wonderful future with Hermione.

“Everything is ready.” He walked in to see Hermione frowning down at Harry. “How exactly are we going to move him?”

“Precisely what I’m trying to figure out.” She said. “We have to keep in mind that he’s going to have to aparrate with us, or else we’ll have to use muggle transportation…”

“What about a broom?”

“Are you insane?”

“Look, here me out. I know you hate flying, but we could sit him up and use a sticking charm to stick him to me, then you could hold onto him. We wouldn’t be able to travel as far or as fast, but it would be easier and draw less attention than muggle transportation.”

“I don’t know…”

“Alright, well if you think of a better idea I’m all ears.”

Ron stood waiting for her to respond. He took a closer look at Harry. The poor guy looked terrible. He couldn’t imagine what he had been doing to look like this.

“Okay. We’ll do it.”

“Brilliant. I’ll get Harry if you’ll take up the tent.” Ron walked to Harry’s side. He looked to be somewhere between sleep and alertness. “Alright mate, up you get.” He reached down and pulled Harry upright, sliding his arm underneath Harry’s shoulder. Harry groaned as Ron stood, awkwardly making his way out of the tent. He was perturbed at just how light his friend was.

Hermione took down the tent and got it folded neatly into her bag with a couple waves of her wand, placing her bag inside of Ron’s. “Where’s your broom?” she asked

“My bag, front pocket.” She reached into the bag and withdrew a miniature broom that she returned to normal with a quick flick of her wrist. “Up.” Ron commanded his broom, mounting it as Hermione took Harry. It was awkward trying to get Harry seated, as he was complete deadweight, but after a few minutes of trial and error he was firmly attached to Ron’s back on the broom. Only Hermione remained on the ground, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

“Come on Hermione, don’t you trust me?”

“It’s not you I’m worried about.” She eyed his broom.

“So you can squeeze yourself in and out of fireplaces and whatever the hell happens to you when you aparrate, but you can’t trust a broomstick?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Well I could leave you to your thoughts…” he drifted away from her.

“Stop!” she growled in frustration, “You win, let’s get this over with.”

She gave all three of them a rap on the head with her wand to disillusion them before Ron took off, staying a couple hundred feet above tree-top level. Too high and they risked running into the many airplanes that crossed European airspace. Too low and even disillusioned they could be spotted. Ron pushed his Cleansweep as fast as he could while still navigating the terrain. They passed through a large forest and a bustling city before reaching a wide open plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. Only small villages and farms broke the monotony of the steppe that flew underneath them.

“How long do you think it will take?” Hermione shouted.

“Can’t be sure. I didn’t even know where we were. All I’m basically doing now is flying west. See anything you can recognize?”

“Judging by the terrain we’re somewhere in the Ukraine. But I can’t be sure. You’re last newspaper had been from Kiev, I think that was the city we passed. That puts us at least a thousand kilometers from Sofia. You’ll want to head South-West. We can land when we hit the next city and check our position.”

“Have I ever told you you’re brilliant?”

“From time to time.” Ron had to smile at her distressed attempt at humor. She really hated flying. Not that that had ever seemed to stop her where Harry was concerned….

They flew for hours, the terrain flying away beneath them. Soon the steppe gave away to foothills. It felt so freeing to be flying again. Times like this made him wonder why he had spent two years drinking when he could have been flying. It was a shame Harry was missing out, he might’ve been the only one who would have enjoyed it more than Ron.

The sun was beginning to sink below the distant mountains when they reached the outskirts of a town which a quick translation charm told them was Suceava. Ron brought them in a wide circle around the town, taking in the church domes and steep rooflines of the spread out and rather quaint town.

“So where are we?” he asked Hermione, who had stuck herself to Harry facing backwards so she had enough room to open a map.

“Romania. We need to take a more southerly course until we hit Bucharest. Do you think we could make it to Krum’s tonight?”

Ron thought about the man stuck to his back. “Do we have a choice?”

“Right. Well, on with it then.” Hermione turned herself back around as Ron sped off to the south, the mountains to his left guiding him. Darkness fell after another couple of hours, the lights of villages glowing like much like yellow patches of fallen stars against the blue hued earth. A full moon lit the night with a ghostly pale light, making his hands appear deathly in their grip on the broom handle.

Harry’s occasional groans worked liked the ticking of a clock in the back of Ron’s mind. He was clearly in need of real medical attention and Ron shivered to think what might happen if it got to him too late. Harry hadn’t survived countless run ins with the worst wizard of the age to succumb to his denial. It was mad, every bit of it. They had all three spent two years apart and for what? All they had seemingly accomplished was to reach the very depths of denial. Seeing just how far down they could push reality.

Ron was no fool. He knew full well what his trips to the bottle had been about. Knowing it and coming to terms with it were two different things. It was just too hard to accept that this really was the fate assigned to him. He wondered briefly how long he could keep it up now that they were back together again.

Harry groaned again behind him.

One thing couldn’t be denied, Harry needed help soon. He tightened his grip on the broom handle, speeding off into the night.

This is a similar author’s note to the one I left for “The End of the Beginning” (though that one has a special treat for my readers if you want to check it out).

Basically this is just to let you know I’m going to be gone for a week or two. It’s Spring Break and Easter which is a real double whammy for a student pastor like me! I also am at a natural point to stop and frame a few chapters ahead for both stories.

I just didn’t want you guys to think I had forgotten you! As always, much love for your reads and reviews!

A/N: Sorry it has been so long. Had other projects I have been working on and work got busy for a while. Glad to be back though! Cheers.

~

Harry wasn’t sure if he was awake, asleep, or somewhere in between. Flashes of what seemed to be real seamlessly blended with things either past or so fantastic to not be possible.

“It can’t be. Harry?”

A brief glimpse of red hair and gangly arms gets grotesquely skewed into a brain from the Department of Mysteries. The tentacles reach out and snare him, but before he can reach for his wand he hears Hermione yelling not to struggle and that it would only make it worse. He frees the tentacles from his throat, but when he goes to take a deep breath; his lungs fill with water, as he is suddenly swimming for his life to reach the surface of the lake. Except this time, the surface keeps moving further and further away….

“What about a broom?”

“Are you insane?”

He’s flying high above the quidditch pitch when he spots it: the golden snitch. He dives for it, wind blowing through his hair as he reaches out and takes it in his fingers. Oddly, he can still feel the wind in his hair, although now he is standing still and the snitch opens up to reveal the Resurrection Stone. He revolves it, but instead of his parents it’s Ron and Hermione.

“Wait, how are you?”

“Here? We never left Harry.” Hermione smiles at him.

He reaches for her hand, but his fingers close on cold air. He feels a moment of vertigo as his body sways dangerously to his left. He can’t see anything but rough fabric.

“…We need to take a more southerly course…Do you think we could make it to Krum’s tonight?”

“Do we have a choice?”

He drifts off again and this time he is riding the dragon from Gringotts. He is riding high above Hogwarts. He dives and sees the chaos of a battle unfold before him. The dragon disappears as he hits the ground and he watches helplessly as Tonks and Bellatrix are dueling furiously over the body of Lupin. A green jet of light leaves Bellatrix’s wand and hits Tonks square in the chest and the light is leaving her eyes and no matter how hard Harry screams his wand doesn’t do anything.

“Harry, it’s me. It’s alright.”

He’s walking into the graveyard in Godric’s Hollow alone. When he reaches his parent’s headstone, there is a pristine white one directly to its left with his name on it. He sits on the ground and leans back into it and he just cries. He cries and he cries but no one ever comes to comfort him. It was just like when he was a little boy in his cupboard when he would see all of Dudley’s toys and have nothing of his own to play with. He would sit there and cry and wish that someone, anyone would hear him and take him somewhere where he could have toys and be hugged and kissed like Dudley; except no one would hear him and he would cry himself to sleep.

Sleep, he’s falling into a deep sleep and there is a cold stone floor underneath him and he can feel his blood coursing through his veins and he thinks to himself that if this is dying than it’s really not all that bad.

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never died.” A high pitched, cold voice says.

Snakelike, red eyes fill his vision and he’s dodging killing curse after killing curse. Each one closer than the last, but everyone that misses is killing someone else instead. James, Lily, Sirius, Dumbledore all fall to the ground dead before Harry finally can’t move with exhaustion and a green light hits him dead in the chest.

“Harry? Harry, wake up.”

He’s lying on the ground and Ron and Hermione are sitting over him. Ron is shaking his shoulders but he can’t move. Hermione is crying and whispering

“Please Harry, wake up.”

~

He finally opens his eyes to find himself in a dimly lit room. There’s a door with a window in it and he’s lying in what seems to be a hospital bed.

“Harry?”

Hermione is sitting next to him, looking tired and disheveled.

“Hermione?” he tries to sit up.

“Don’t sit up Harry. You shouldn’t exert yourself, you’re very weak.”

“Where?....What?...”

“You’re at a hospital. St. Aleksi’s in Burgas, Bulgaria. Ron and I brought you here three weeks ago.”

“Three weeks?” he looked around and saw a rough couch bed.

“It was a tight fit, but Ron and I made it work.” Hermione laughed. “Ron can be quite the bed hog.”

“You slept here?”

“We didn’t want to leave you. Besides, where else were we going to go in the middle of Bulgaria?”

“How did we even end up here?”

“Well, you aparrated right into the tent three weeks ago. You were a mess: dehydrated, malnourished….I knew it was beyond my ability to heal. We didn’t really know where to go, so we came to Bulgaria to find Viktor. He was able to point us here. The Healer said you were in the worst shape he had ever seen a wizard. You were in and out of consciousness before slipping into a sort of coma about two weeks ago. We weren’t sure if you were going to wake up.”

Harry struggled to put together the pieces. He remembered everything up until he decided to head to Alaska, but everything after that was a blur. He noticed the dark circles underneath Hermione’s eyes.

“I’m sorry Hermione.”’

“Sorry for what Harry?”

“Sorry to put you through this.”

“This is what friends are for Harry. What, did you think I was just going to sit there and let you die? I did this because I care about you. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Knowing defeat when he saw it, Harry again looked around the room. Hermione was the only one there. “Where’s Ron?”

“He went to stretch his legs. He should be back before…”

“Harry? You’re awake.” Ron walked in right on que. He looked ganglier than ever, like he had lost weight since last Harry had seen him. “Good to see you mate.”

“Likewise.”

All three of them looked from one to another.

“Look, why don’t we wait on filling in the gaps of where we’ve been until we’re out of here?” Hermione said tentatively.

Not being in any particular rush to talk, Harry simply nodded. Ron did the same. There was a soft knock at the door before a plump woman in a nurse uniform strolled into the room.

“Shoo! We must run tests!” the nurse gesticulated in the direction of Ron and Hermione, both of who scowled at the nurse before turning to Harry.

“We’ll be back.” They said simultaneously. The nurse was already tutting in broken English over the shape his body was in. Harry just laid there and ignored it, much more focused on what it meant now that the three of them were back together.

His friends looked a little different; as he was sure that he himself looked different. The real question was what inside of and between them had changed in the time he had been away?

More importantly, what hadn’t?

A/N: I’m finally back! It took a little longer than I thought, mostly because of work and family, but I’m finally making my return to my favorite community.

Thank you so much to everyone who expressed their condolences for my friend Tim. It meant so much to have the support of my community here on Portkey. Thank you all so much for being patient with me while I have been gone and for the little notes here and there to let me know you were here waiting for me.

I may have to go back and edit this some, I’ll admit I didn’t check it as thoroughly as I usually do, but I was really excited to finish this and get it out to you guys asap. Let me know if I missed something particularly egregious.

I’m very blessed and happy to be back and thank you all again so much. I will be back very soon with an update for “The End of the Beginning”. Cheers!

~

It was the most boring week in Harry’s life to be stuck in a hospital bed. They ran every test imaginable to ensure that he didn’t have any lingering side effects or infections. Finally, after a final gauntlet of revealing potions and spells he was released.

“Ready to go mate?” Ron was waiting for him outside the room.

“Never more ready.” Harry grumbled back. They walked in silence out to the front of the hospital where an anxious looking Hermione awaited them.

“Feeling well?” she eyed Harry.

“Swell; let’s get out of here before they decide to keep me here any longer.”

They stepped out the front door, materializing in a busy side street. Nobody seemed to notice the three young adults who appeared out of thin air. They walked a few blocks until they found an empty alleyway where they could apparate.

“So where are we going?” Harry looked from Ron to Hermione. His two friends looked at one another.

“We’re not really sure ourselves.” Hermione tentatively answered. “We could go anywhere really. We still have the tent, although I do have a house I’ve been renting.”

“You do?” Ron looked quizzically at her.

“I didn’t want to mention it, but we could go there if you guys wanted. It’s a small cottage by the ocean. There’s enough room I think.” Hermione looked at her feet, clearly not thrilled with the idea.

“Well, if it’s okay with you, why don’t we just head there temporarily so we can make a more permanent plan?” Harry suggested. Hermione didn’t look up but shook her head, Ron nodding his assent.

Ron and Harry each took one of Hermione’s arms as she apparated them. The bright afternoon sun of Bulgaria disappeared in favor of a starry night sky in Australia. A small cottage was perched on stilts just passed a number of sand dunes, a small wooden walkway winding its way to the porch.

“Nice place.” Ron whistled.

“Thanks, it’s not much, but it’s been a nice place to get away.” Hermione’s voice sounded far away, she stopped them when they reached the porch. “Listen, there’s something I should tell you before we head inside.” She looked apprehensively at them both, “I have a roommate.”

Ron and Harry looked at each other, sharing a puzzled look between them. “Okay,” Ron was the first to answer, “what’s the problem with that? What’s her name?”

“His name is Ethan.”

Harry could have cut the air with a knife. Ron looked like a troll had clubbed him over the head while Hermione looked apologetic. Harry pushed aside his own surprise to ask what he knew Ron couldn’t form the words to ask himself.

“When you say roommate….”

“He’s just that. Well, at least now he is.” Hermione shifted her guilt ridden gaze to Harry, “I kind of just left about a month ago. We didn’t really talk about it, but it is my house. I still pay the rent. He may not even be here, but I thought you should know.”

Harry looked from her to Ron, who was just now beginning to regain use of his faculties. “So he’s your boyfriend?”

“Was.” Hermione sighed. “Look can we discuss this later? It’s getting late here and we still have to make the beds.” She turned and pointed her wand at the lock which clicked open and strolled into a small sitting room. Harry followed suit with Ron bringing up the rear. There was a sofa and a small reading chair by the window. The sitting room led into an open kitchen/dining area that seated four around a round table while a small hallway lead off to bedrooms on either side.

“So, you came back.” A tall, dark skinned man who looked to be a few years older than Harry stepped into the sitting room from the left hallway.

“Listen, Ethan we can talk later, can we get everyone settled first?” Hermione took one of Ethan’s arms in her hands and looked up into his sour face.

“Why? Why should I listen to you? You just up and left. No note, no nothing to explain where you had gone.” Ethan jerked his arm away from her. “The only reason I stayed was because I couldn’t find another place that I could afford.”

“I’m sorry Ethan. I promise we’ll talk about this and I will explain everything. Just please, let’s get Harry and Ron settled.” Ethan still didn’t change the sour expression on his face, but walked back into the hallway. “You guys can have the two guest rooms to the right here.” Hermione walked them to a pair of identical rooms across from one another. “There’s a bathroom in this door here,” she gestured to a door they had just passed, “and linens in the closets. If there’s anything else you need just ask.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Ron blurted out. Hermione heaved a deep sigh and closed her eyes.

“There really hasn’t been a good time until now. Between the state I found the two of you in.” a fire glinted briefly in her eyes. Ron’s ears began to turn red.

“How I spent your time away is my business.” Ron snarled.

“And how I spent mine is my business.” Hermione huffed. Harry could see that both their tempers were about to reach the boiling point.

“Let’s save this for the morning shall we?” he put a hand on each of their shoulders. Both of them glared at the other for another moment before Hermione walked around them both to head to the master bedroom. The last thing they heard was her casting a silencing charm on the door when she closed it.

Ron glared at the closed door. “Can you believe this?”

“Honestly, there’s not much I wouldn’t believe anymore.” Harry grimaced at his friend. “We’ll handle it later, let’s get some rest.”

“Fat chance, my body clock is all wrong for it to be night here.” Ron mumbled. Harry kept his own thoughts about sleep to himself as he closed his bedroom door behind him and promptly cast his own silencing charm. He made his way to the window, sliding it open and awkwardly making his way out of it, making sure to break his fall with a cushioning spell.

He made his way towards the sound of the crashing waves, relishing being on his feet after a solid week (consciously anyways) of being in a hospital bed. Sleep wasn’t forthcoming with the time lag, so a long walk on the beach seemed appropriate. The water was a beautiful blue here even in the moonlight, completely different from the dark, churning waters of the Atlantic and Baltic.

His mind drifted back to the last thing he fully remembered before the hospital. The snow and the winter wolves, it seemed like something out of another life. He couldn’t really think of how he would tell Hermione that her voice had quite literally saved his life. It seemed surreal that he had been that close to simply letting it all end. At the time it was so easy, but now it seemed that being with his friends was reminding him that he did have something to live for.

He let his feet walk on autopilot while his mind drifted. He tried to isolate all the good that had happened in his life: quidditch, holidays at the Burrow, late nights in the common room with his friends. It was a simple reality of his life that at the edge of every good memory was an equally bad one that attempted to force its way in.

It almost seemed like he had lived two lives. One in which he was a target and reluctant hero and one in which he was a normal teenaged wizard. His mind flashed back to a conversation he had had years ago with Hermione.

“Why can’t I just be normal?”

“We don’t always get to choose our fate Harry. Unfortunately for you, you were marked long before you had any say in the matter.”

“You really have a way of making me feel better…”

“Oh come on Harry. At some point you’re going to have to accept that it’s a part of who you are. It will only ever become the entirety of who you are if you let it. Yes, you are Harry Potter “The Boy Who Lived”; but you are also Harry Potter my best friend. It’s not one or the other Harry, it’s both.”

She had given him a big smile that he hadn’t been able to help but return. Sometimes Hermione was too smart for her own good, but sometimes she was exactly what he needed.

“Hey, wait up!”

Ron came huffing up behind him. “Wasn’t slippery enough to get our unnoticed eh?” Harry elbowed him.

“Not quite mate.”

They walked on in easy conversation, talking about quidditch and speculating who the top teams likely were. Harry couldn’t help but smile, because sometimes Ron was exactly what he needed too.