Title: Maps to the Stars' Homes
Author: LizBee
Summary: Following the war, Harry buys a plane ticket and leaves, but the memories keep following him.
Rated: PG-13, if you care about such things.

Notes: Apparently I can still write HP fic. Who knew?
Warnings: Non-linear narrative structure. "You'll have to excuse me, I was having a flashback." Uses the 'ships established in HBP.  Shamelessly self-indulgent.

Maps to the Stars' Homes
By LizBee

Six.

The travel agent had a pierced nose, and her blue eyes seemed to brighten as Harry sat down.

"Good morning," he said. His fleeting smile felt natural, and her lips curled in response, so he decided that he was passing for normal. "I was looking to buy a plane ticket, please, to North America. Um, California?"

California, he remembered from the Muggle television he'd seen as a child, was sunny.

"Whereabouts in California? We have a few options," she said, typing something and frowning at her computer screen. "Depends what you're after, really." She double-clicked and turned the screen around to show him the list. "Just finished school?"

"Something like that. Tell me about this one." As he pointed at the screen, he felt her eyes on his hand, tracing the curious pattern of scars that ran down his wrist and over his palm, following the lines of his skeleton. He turned his hand slightly. Too late. Now she was looking at him properly, seeing the dead, blackened little finger of his left hand, perhaps finally registering the way he'd been limping when he came in.

He was half tempted to draw his wand and cast Obliviate, but he forced himself to stop. You didn't go around casting spells on Muggles. It wasn't done. It wasn't right.

You just didn't do it.

"Looks like you've been in the wars," she said, and her tone was almost, but not quite, light-hearted.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess."

One.

Uncle Vernon turned an interesting shade of purple when he realised that Ron was accompanying Harry back to Privet Drive, but he said nothing.

Aunt Petunia greeted them with a sniff.

"Staying long, are you?" she asked, pointedly ignoring Ron.

"A few weeks," Harry said. "Best set up a spare mattress or something. Does Dudley still have that camp bed?"

"But—"

"Oh, and Hermione's following in a few days. Had to see her parents first."

Petunia didn't turn purple, which Harry thought was a pity. But she did make a strangled noise that came out sounding like, "—Unnatural – house into a circus—"

"Cheer up," said Harry, pulling Hedwig's cage out of the car. "Her parents are dentists. Very respectable. Is Dudley off on boxing camp again? She can have his room, then." He gave Petunia a manically cheerful grin. "We wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression or anything."

Inside, Ron was exploring the house. "Dunno, Harry," he said. "It's all a bit dead and boring, if you know what I mean." He squinted at a photo of the Dursleys. "Not to mention scary…. Hey, look at that."

Before Harry could stop him, he'd crossed the room and gone to examine the cupboard under the stairs. "Bloody enormous," he was saying. "Get a space like this in a wizarding house, and it'd have a ghoul living in it before you could blink." He crouched down and leaned inside, pushing the vacuum cleaner and an empty bucket out of his way. "Reckon you could fit a couple of First Years in here, no problem."

Harry found his voice and said, "Don't let Hermione catch you saying that."

Ron said nothing; he had found something in a corner and brought it out to examine in the light. It was a piece of thin, cheap paper, yellowed with age, but even from a distance, Harry recognised it. Printed across the top in garish purple crayon were the words, My family, although the coloured blobs beneath bore only the slightest resemblance to actual people. There was Uncle Vernon, the round purple blob; Aunt Petunia was thin and yellow; and Dudley was pink. They all had identical black dots for eyes and wide, unnatural smiles. Standing to one side was the Harry-blob; above him were insubstantial grey shapes. Because he hadn't known, until he came to Hogwarts, what his parents had looked like.

Ron cleared his throat and said, "Always said you had an artist's soul, mate." He handed the paper to Harry, his smile bright and his eyes furious, and went to explore the kitchen.

Ron said nothing more about the picture, or the cupboard under the stairs, and he was unfailingly polite to the Dursleys. But he was tall, lanky and careless, and it wasn't his fault, he said later, that he'd tripped over a rug and somehow managed to break every single ornament and photo-frame in the sitting room.

Eight.

Harry went to Los Angeles first. If anyone was looking for him, he figured, they'd never find him in a crowd of three million people. He stayed in an old hotel, built in the fifties and owned by Carole, who had been a sex siren and a screen legend under a different name. Now she was just a faded old woman who wore too much make-up. She liked him, though; one of her husbands had been English, and she thought it was charming that he had no idea who she was.

She didn't know who he was, either. She didn't seem to notice his scars, or his dead finger. The limp faded after a few months.

They watched old movies – although she never watched her own films – and she instructed him in what she called "the lost art of making great cocktails". It was easier than brewing a potion, and although he wasn't much of a drinker himself, he figured it was a useful skill.

Maybe he would get a job in a bar. Or go into the movies and become famous, and one day Malfoy would be strutting through Muggle London on some obscure bit of business, and see Harry Potter's face on a poster.

Knobbly knees, strange scars and a slight tendency to freeze in front of audiences killed that dream pretty fast, but he still thought the idea was pretty funny.

Sometimes, he found himself thinking that Ron would really love LA. It was energetic and slightly mad, and full of the kinds of odd stories that got published in the Peculiar Tales column of the Daily Prophet, which Ron used to read out over breakfast to distract Hermione from the bad news.

Once, he took a trip up to San Jose and visited an old house, built by the mad widow of a gun manufacturer. It was clearly the work of a lunatic, with staircases to nowhere and doors that opened onto blank walls. The tour guide said it was haunted.

Harry saw no ghosts, but he was oddly reminded of Hogwarts, and he wasn't sorry to leave.

After that, California's glitter seemed to fade, and he realised it was time to move on. He was sorry to leave Carole, but she merely kissed his cheek – leaving a bright red lipstick mark – and thanked him for his company.

The day before he left, he bought one of those maps to the homes of famous people. On the back he wrote, As you can see, Muggles really know how to have fun. Does Celestina Warbeck still live in that cottage in Dorchester? I'm seeing a business opportunity here. Although the twins will say it needs more explosions and less famous people. Harry.

He addressed the envelope to Ron Weasley, The House With the Crooked Stair, Outer Hogsmeade, and as he ventured into the wizarding market to mail it, he wondered what he should put on the forwarding address.

Two.

The Dursleys went out of their way to make Harry's life awkward for his last month there. Dudley was sent home from camp two weeks early; his dismay at finding the house inhabited by Harry's freak friends was slightly leavened by Hermione's presence. For her part, she had taken to reading aloud from Fred and George's catalogues whenever he was in the room, but it was still awkward. When Hermione's parents pointedly invited them to come and visit for a weekend, no one hesitated about accepting.

"After all," Ron said, "how bad can a dentist be?"

They were on the train to London.

"By the way," he added, "I've been meaning to ask for years. What's a dentist?"

"Oh Ron," Hermione sighed, and pointedly opened her book.

In London, they paid a brief visit to Diagon Alley to see the twins and continue building what Harry thought of as their war chest. A couple of insignificant purchases here and there, the sorts of things that wouldn't tip the Ministry off. Ron bought some dragonhide gloves and boots "for Herbology", while Hermione bought a book on significant magical artefacts. Harry picked up some wood-strengthening broomstick polish and replacement twigs for the Firebolt and Cleansweep.

They also encountered Ginny and Luna, who invited themselves along to the Grangers' home. Ron looked surprised and slightly annoyed; Hermione had the look of someone whose plans were falling into place. So Harry wasn't even slightly surprised when Ginny said, "So. Harry. I hear you've been planning a stupidly noble quest without telling anyone."

They were in the Grangers' sitting room, recovering from an excellent lunch.

"I told Ron and Hermione," Harry muttered.

"Yes, well. You might have told us, too. Did you think I wouldn't notice when you didn't show up for school next term?"

"Yes." Luna looked up from her close examination of the Grangers' video collection. "It was very thoughtless, Harry. I've heard that Minster Scrimgeour is planning to have you assassinated in a freak troll rampage."

Harry considered this for a moment.

"Nah," he said. "Wouldn't work. I'm good with trolls. Do I need to ask how did you find out?"

Hermione's cheeks were pink.

"I just thought that, you know, we'd be a lot better off if we had some support. You know, people we could rely on. I was going to tell Neville, too, but I thought it might be better to wait until we've gone back to Hogwarts. I don't know what his grandmother will say."

"Wait," said Ron. "We're not going back to Hogwarts. Are we?" He gave Harry a pleading look.

"We are," said Hermione, before Harry could answer, "because even now, it's one of the safest places in Britain. And more importantly, it has one of the best magical libraries in the country."

Ron stared. "You want to go to the library at a time like this?" He muttered something that sounded like, "mental, I'd call it."

"No, really. The Ministry library is closed to the public, and most magical public libraries only have romance novels, mysteries and back issues of Witch Weekly. We need Hogwarts, Ron. If we're to find the Horcruxes, we'll need information, and I can't just buy all the books we'll need."

There was a brief silence.

"You know," said Luna, "I think we need to consider a different plural for 'Horcrux'."

Hermione looked disbelieving, but Ginny laughed, and Harry's heart flipped, just a little.

"Yeah," said Ron at last. "I see your point. Harry?"

"Fair enough," Harry said. "But I draw the line at homework."

Hermione gave him an exasperated scowl, but he was pretty sure that was just habit.

Harry went east, to New York. 

He remembered Los Angeles in contrasting images of sunlight, Carole's shabby little personal theatre and the way light refracted around her cocktail glasses.

New York, on the other hand, he thought of in terms of food: delicatessens and diners that seemed somehow indefinably American. Nothing at all like the meals they'd had at Hogwarts, or anything Aunt Petunia had ever served. The city was as crazy as Los Angeles, but much saner than England, and anyway, no one knew him there.

He sublet an impossibly small flat at an impossibly high price, and spent a day setting up magical roach traps. It reminded him of living in the cupboard under the stairs, where everything had to go in precisely the right place, or he'd have no space for sleeping.

It wasn't a comforting memory.

He listened to Muggle music in New York, old songs from the seventies that his parents had probably heard, if they even listened to music. And new stuff with rough guitars and uneven vocals that hinted at long nights spent smoking, drinking and writing bad songs. He bought CDs, feeling guilty as he did so, because travellers weren't supposed to accumulate too much baggage. On the other hand, Muggle travellers weren't able to shrink their music collections to the size of a child's board book, so that was all right.

He Transfigured a scratched Wallflowers CD into a driver's license that said he was twenty-one, and got a job in a bar. He didn't need the money, but he liked meeting people. He mixed good drinks, and he looked older than his age. Women liked him, his supervisor told him, because he was un-threatening. She laughed as she said it, and added, "Don't take that the wrong way. It's cool."

In the dim light, no one saw his scars.

Oddly, he missed Luna. He sent her a copy of the National Enquirer that had an article about a mysterious secret civil war in England that the government had covered up.

You should come out here, he wrote in the enclosed note. Lots to write about.

The Quibbler wasn't sold outside Britain, but he met a wizard who'd had every issue for the last ten years owled to him by a friend.

"It's important, man," he said, peering through a battered pair of Spectrespecs. "They know stuff. Harry Potter gave them an interview, once."

He paused to give Harry a second, closer look. But by the time he'd nerved himself to ask the obvious question, Harry had vanished into the crowded magical market, and he steered clear of wizarding places for the next few months.

Luna replied, Dad says that the American magical authorities are not to be trusted, and that if they know you're in the country, they'll try and get a sample of your blood for their cache of Dark ingredients. So please be careful, because he'd love to have you over for tea again one day. Also, Ginny says you're a git and she loves you, and when does she get a strange magazine article?

Harry couldn't find any magazine articles that made him think of Ginny, but he sent her a CD. He couldn't think of anything to say in the note, but he thought she liked it, because she sent a short note in reply: You're an idiot, but you're my favourite idiot. Be safe.

Three.

"In light of these events, it has become obvious that Hogwarts cannot be kept open for the duration of this war." McGonagall's voice was shaking. "Professor Lupin's body will be returned to his family this afternoon, and a special train will take you all to London tomorrow. Owls will be…" She faltered, and Harry's hands clenched in sympathy. "Owls will be sent to your parents…"

The Headmistress's hands were shaking, and she seemed thinner than ever in the dim early morning light. Professor Trelawney helped her sit down, murmuring something inaudible, and Professor Slughorn stood up.

"We hope, of course," he said, "that Hogwarts will be able to reopen. Perhaps with a pay-rise for its hard-working teachers."

Harry saw Ginny scowl at this weak attempt at a joke, but there was scattered, half-hearted laughter throughout the Great Hall. Pansy Parkinson was crying and smiling at the same time, and Zacharias Smith managed a watery grin.

"Hogwarts has stood for a thousand years," Slughorn continued. "It has produced some of the finest wizards the world has seen. This is but a temporary closure, no more than a footnote in the school's history."

Hermione sniffled, and Ron leaned over and said, "Come on. No point in listening to this."

He pulled Hermione to her feet, Harry following. Ginny quickly finished her pumpkin juice and rose, joined by Neville. Luna met his eye and made a vague gesture which Harry took to mean she'd follow in a moment.

They congregated in the library, largely deserted since Madame Pince's death last month. Hermione was levitating a pile of books into a box, muttering feverishly. Harry wondered if she intended to carry the whole collection away, and if it mattered.

"We should have brewed Felix Felicis when we had the chance," Ron said for the third time.

"Don't be stupid," Ginny snapped. "Felix Felicis didn't help us stop Snape from getting to Dumbledore, did it?"

"Anyway," Neville added, "it'd be dangerous to rely on a potion like that. No guarantee we'll be able to get ingredients."

Luna helped Hermione carry a pile of books out of the Restricted Section and said, "I'm sure my father will let you store these at our house, if you need a safe place to keep them. You can make copies of the pages we need on the printing press, and Dad's very good at keeping things safe. He's never once revealed a confidential source, you know."

Hermione added Great Acts of Dark Magic to the pile and pushed her hair out of her face. It seemed to take her a few minutes to decipher Luna's offer.

"Yes," she said at last. "That would be wonderful. Thank you."

Ten.

Harry liked Toronto. The traffic was awful, but the city was large enough – and its magical population small enough – that he could be anonymous. He never did learn to stomach the cheap coffee that was sold everywhere, he developed a taste for butter tarts. He got another job in a bar, shared a flat in Mississauga with a ballet teacher and, at Hermione's insistence, joined the library.

(Honestly, Harry, have you even picked up a book in the last few years? I know they say travel broadens the mind, but you do have to work at it…)

He didn't tell her that he was mostly reading old science fiction from before his parents were born. He didn't think she'd approve, and anyway, she had enough on her plate.

(The Ministry says it'll be another two years before Hogwarts re-opens, and meanwhile the Hogsmeade Library is overwhelmed with parents looking for books to help them with their children. Not to mention the Muggle-borns – Minerva's started teaching them all individually, as much as she can – but it's not much, and a lot of families won't even talk with her. Well, what would you do if you know nothing about magic, and one day a strange woman showed up on your doorstep, told you that your child was a witch or wizard, and that there is usually a school, but it's closed for the moment because an evil wizard tried to destroy it?)

His room-mate's name was Melanie; she was four years older than he, and could put her feet behind her ears. She was usually so busy planning classes and worrying about her young students that she didn't notice that most of Harry's housework was done by magic. Not that he really cared; he was through with elaborate deceptions about magic.

(I don't understand why the Ministry doesn't step in, since they're so keen to "assert control over magical education in Britain". They're all very keen to introduce reforms, and "build bridges between the Muggle and magical societies", but it's just like the old days. If the Ministry hadn't gone to such trouble to be obfuscatory, the Muggles might have been more prepared, and there'd have been a lot fewer deaths. Ron says the Department of Aurors has started monitoring Muggles, the way they used to with Dark wizards. He's not happy about it, but a junior recruit can't say much. Tonks and Kingsley are pretty vocal, though, not that it's helping them.)

"Hey, Melanie?"

"Hey, Harry?"

Melanie was alternately stretching and annotating her class list.

"Do you ever have to deal with un-cooperative parents?"

"Sometimes." She raised her leg, holding it in place and counting to ten. "Little girls who want to become ballerinas, and moms wanting them to play softball. I had this awful stage mother last year, too – would not accept that poor Claudia had two left feet and no balance whatsoever. Completely unreasonable. Claudia wanted acting lessons." She raised the other leg, counted and added, "I gave her a character role in the final pageant. She was brilliant – didn't matter that she couldn't dance, she was the funniest thing you ever saw. Her mother decided it was an insult and pulled her out of the school. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. A friend from school was complaining that some kids aren't getting the education they need."

"Is he a teacher?"

"She's a librarian."

Melanie gave him a sidelong glance. "Girlfriend?"

"Girl who is a friend."

She smiled. "Good."

(On top of all that, there are all those hundreds of teenagers who aren't qualified, and have no way of becoming qualified in the near future. Luna seems to think it's a great joke, but Ginny's furious – never mind the Great Duels, Gringotts won't hire her unless she's got her NEWTs. It's fair enough, you wouldn't want to be a curse breaker without full qualifications and training, but the Ministry isn't offering any alternatives. She's picking up jobs here and there – helping Luna research articles for The Quibbler, some security work for the Holyhead Harpies – but she's getting frustrated, and I don't blame her. She's staying with us at the moment – she says living in the Burrow is only making her feel like a child – so I've been hearing a lot of it. You should write to her. She misses you.)

He shouldn't have been surprised when Melanie kissed him, but as Ginny said when he rang the next night – braving both the expense and the bad half-magical phone connection in the twins' shop – he'd always been a bit dense about girls.

"So I guess you'll be moving on soon," she said.

"Huh?"

"What, is it hard to hear at your end? I said, I guess you'll be moving on."

"I don't know," he said, even though he knew she was right.

"You should try Egypt. I hear there's work for freelance curse breakers."

"I don't think tombs are really for me, thanks, Ginny."

"I wasn't thinking of you." There was a hint of laughter in her voice, and Harry's throat was tight when he hung up.

Four.

Mrs Longbottom opened the door, her wand already raised. Her gaze flicked over Ginny and Harry, but she didn't lower her wand.

"You'll have to prove yourselves before I let you in," she said.

"Neville sent us," Harry began.

Ginny stepped forward. "He said we should remind you of that time when he was five, and he got into your garden and ended up all tangled in witch-root, and you told him that if he wanted to get any further in life than the back door, he'd have to learn a bit more about the world."

There was a hint of a smile in Mrs Longbottom's eyes, but also caution as she said slowly, "You could have tortured that out of him."

"Please," said Harry. "We saw you in the closed ward at St Mungo's at Christmas a couple of years ago. You and Neville were visiting his parents. And his mother gave him a bubblegum wrapper."

Mrs Longbottom's lips were tight.

"Come in, then," she said. "But don't think I'll be putting my wand down for the moment."

She stepped aside to let them enter, and followed them through the house, directing them to an airy kitchen at the back.

"Is my grandson dead, then?" she asked.

"No," said Ginny quickly. She and Harry exchanged a look.

"He was hurt, ma'am. We were—" Harry paused to think of a polite way of saying, We were breaking into Malfoy Mansion in search of anything that might have belonged to Tom Riddle, and failed.

"We were attacked by Death Eaters," Ginny finished. "Neville's not, um, badly hurt, but we can't move him for the time being, and we thought, um—"

"That you might want to see him," Harry finished.

"If you can't move him," said Mrs Longbottom severely, "then it's not a minor injury."

"Um. No, ma'am." Ginny blushed to the roots of her hair.

"Well." She closed her eyes briefly, then fixed Harry with a penetrating gaze. "How bad is it, then?"

"He won't lose the leg. It was touch and go, but Tonks is good with field medicine."

"Thank God." Mrs Longbottom stood up; with a wave of her wand the kettle was boiling, and she poured tea for all of them. Her hands hardly shook at all. "May I ask if you know who attacked him?"

Ginny gave Harry a worried look, but somehow, his voice was completely calm as he said, "Severus Snape."

"Ah." Mrs Longbottom set her tea cup down in its saucer. "Poor Neville. Severus has always been very hard on him." She saw Harry's surprised look and smiled thinly. "Didn't you know, Mr Potter? His mother was my cousin, and a good friend. Severus always felt it keenly, being the only half-blood in the family. And I'm afraid Frank never made it easy for him."

Harry felt his lips stretch in a smile.

"Don't worry, Mrs Longbottom," he said, "I doubt Snape will have to worry about it much longer."

Ginny made a choked noise, but Neville's grandmother returned his smile.

"More tea, Mr Potter?" she said.

Eleven.

Harry returned to Europe because Ron was turning twenty-one in March, and there was a big party planned. Hermione's birthday had been marked with a quiet family gathering, but there was no way to avoid Ron's party, and he didn't really want to try. But he stayed in Berlin. He rented a room in a big house, filled with tourists, musicians and students.

The owner and unofficial house mother was a witch with purple hair that reminded him of Tonks. She was pointedly unimpressed by his past, and told him that tattoos were more interesting than scars. Studied indifference, Harry felt, was a slight improvement over hero worship, although he wasn't convinced about the tattoo idea. He spent enough time hiding parts of his skin all ready.

It was a good place to live, fraught with a dozen dramas that never touched him except when he had to cook because Louise or Hans or Julio had flounced out in a huff. The walls were thin, and Hette's sound-blocking charms had a tendency to crack, but Harry didn't mind; he wasn't spending much time in Berlin.

Every couple of weeks he caught the train to Austria, where an old friend of Dumbledore lived. Leckelere claimed to be one hundred and fifty years old; Harry easily believed it. He was also faster with a wand than almost anyone Harry had ever met, a wily old man who knew more defensive magic than Harry thought he could learn in a lifetime. He had condescended to teach Harry in honour of Dumbledore's memory, he said, and because Harry showed some small bit of promise.

Half of Leckelere's magic was Dark, and Harry didn't expect to remain his student for long. He was already thinking of leaving Berlin. One day.

But for now, he liked the food, and the music, the constant cloud of cigarette smoke and arguments. He even liked Leckelere's lessons, the sharp hiss of his wand as he moved, and the way his waxed moustache quivered as he spoke.

"Brilliant, Dumbledore told me?" he would spit. "Pah! A gifted child with a firm goal, that is all. Won't make an extraordinary man. Not without," he would turn suddenly, drawing his wand, "work."

Sometimes, Leckelere reminded him of Snape. The comparison stung less than Harry expected.

He went back to England for the week of Ron's birthday, and had long, all-night conversations with Ron and Hermione in the house with the crooked stair.

Ginny was somewhere in Egypt; she sent him an owl, but couldn't get away at that time. Freelance curse breaking was dangerous work with famously poor conditions. The twins and Ron spent a lot of time planning improbable rescue attempts, which Bill firmly squashed.

"When Ginny needs rescuing,” he would say, “we'll know."

"So," said Ron, on Harry's next-to-last night, "where to next?"

"Dunno," Harry said. "Asia, maybe. I'm not sure yet."

"Oh well. Drop us an owl and send a few presents when you get there."

The next night, when most of the other guests had gone, Neville found him in the backyard, lying on the grass and looking up at the stars.

"Evening, Harry."

"Hey." Harry was just drunk enough to feel philosophical, and just sober enough to know that this was a good time to stop drinking. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"It's about Ginny, actually."

Neville took a couple of steps away, then turned and came back. His gait sounded unsteady, but that was probably just his limp.

"What about her?"

"Are you still … a thing?"

Harry squinted. There was a new moon rising. "Dunno," he said. "Guess it depends what you mean by 'thing'."

"Only I'm going to Cairo next month. There's a consignment of African Weeping Lilies I need to pick up, and some other things. And I thought, maybe…"

"Maybe you'd try digging her out of a tomb?"

It came out sounding rougher than Harry had intended.

"Just saying hi. That's all."

"You can say anything you like to her," Harry said wearily. "She's not … not my House Elf." It occurred to him that Hermione had better not hear about that analogy. "If she says yes or no, it's up to her. I don't mind."

It wasn't quite true, that last statement, but he felt better for having said it, and for the fact that Neville seemed to believe it.

Five.

"Mr Potter?"

Luna Lovegood's father was a tall, impossibly thin man with a slight stoop. He had protuberant blue eyes and restless hands with knuckles swollen from arthritis. He moved with a surprising grace that belied the fact that he was probably old enough to be Luna's grandfather. Or maybe even older.

"Come in, come in, best not to hang about here all day…"

The irregularity of this invitation was too much for Hermione. "Don't you want to check that we're not Death Eaters in disguise?" she blurted out.

Mr Lovegood smiled as he ushered them through the narrow hall and into a wide space that had once been a dining room, but now looked more like a mad inventor's workshop, or possibly the office of a slightly deranged author of second-rate thrillers.

"Don't be silly, Miss Granger. My Sneak-o-scope and Foe-glass are both silent and still."

Harry looked more closely at the clutter, and saw a dusty Foe-glass half-concealed behind a mass of sticky notes that held ideas for future articles. And on the long wooden table, amidst a disassembled owl feeder and a set of Matchbox cars, there was a Sneak-o-scope – not a toy, like the one Ron had given Harry, but the proper kind, that was only issued to Aurors.

He met Mr Lovegood's eyes, and was rewarded with a mere flicker of an eyelid, and the shadow of an amused smile.

"May I offer you young people a cup of tea?" he said, "or are you merely here to collect your belongings and go?"

"Tea would be lovely thanks," Hermione said, just as Harry said something about not wanting to impose.

Mr Lovegood smiled again, and waved his wand at the kettle.

"Make yourselves at home," he said. "Don't worry about the clutter, none of it's important. All my work for The Quibbler is done downstairs, you see, in the cellar." He filled the teapot with hot water and rummaged about in a cupboard. "This is merely … camouflage. Ah, thank you, my dear."

He accepted the tin of tea leaves that Hermione had found buried under a pile of old issues of Witch Weekly.

"It's all nonsense, of course, this guff that I'm publishing. Conspiracies and fantastical creatures and whatnot. But the right messages get to the right people, that's all that matters."

Harry met Hermione's eyes. She, too, was looking slightly worried.

"When the war is over, I shall return to my Snorkacks. Fascinating creatures, you know. I am thinking of writing a book on the subject."

Hermione relaxed. Slightly.

"My friend Alastor tells me that you're to be trusted, you two. And my daughter considers you friends." He set the tea pot down on the table and levitated a set of fine porcelain cups and sauces over. "I can think of no better judges of character. Incidentally," he poured the tea, "where is Luna? I do hope she's not dead."

While Hermione choked on her tea, Harry said, "Um, no, not at all. She's trying to figure out how to break into the Ministry."

"Ah. Yes, that's my girl. Do you have children?"

"Um…"

"No, silly question. You're only a bit older than Luna. Seems forever since we first heard your name." He sipped his tea. "I never met your parents, but they were said to be fine people. Certainly, their names have never come up in any of my researches into Ministry conspiracy."

"I'm very glad to hear that," said Harry gravely.

"Sir," said Hermione quickly, "Luna left some books here, earlier in the year. We were wondering—"

"Of course, of course. In the cellar." Mr Lovegood got to his feet, reaching for his walking stick. Harry gulped down the last of his tea, and followed the old man down a long, narrow staircase, into a dark and damp cellar. Pebbles crunched under his trainers, and in the near-total darkness, he almost walked straight into a pillar.

"Harry," whispered Hermione urgently, "I saw this house from the outside."

"Yeah. So did I."

"Harry, it didn't have a cellar."

Ahead of them, Mr Lovegood's chuckle echoed in the darkness.

"Magic, right?" Harry muttered.

But the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he suddenly wondered if they had been too careless. Mr Lovegood hadn't checked their identities, but they hadn't checked his, either.

"Lumos."

The sudden light revealed a long, dim room that was somehow much longer than Harry's senses told him it should be. A printing press sat in one corner, and a long desk ran along one wall. The other walls held bookshelves, including – neatly arranged by call number – the books Hermione had stolen from the Hogwarts library.

Harry thought she might cry, or possibly fall to her knees in front of the shelves and kiss the spines of every book.

Instead, she gave a little sigh of relief, and said, "Thank you."

"You're more than welcome, Miss Granger."

"No, really. I can't say – there are no words."

Mr Lovegood laughed. "Really. You're welcome. It was no trouble at all. And may I say, a young lady of your obvious intelligence will always have a job with The Quibbler, should you need it." He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I do pay my contributors, you know. The ones that deserve it."

Hermione laughed, clutching a book to her chest. Harry watched her, feeling curiously detached. They were only books, he thought. Might as well depend on the rotten novels Ron read when he couldn't sleep, which was all the time.

But it was good to see Hermione smiling properly again.

Twelve.

When winter came, bringing wind and snow and Christmas festivities, Harry bought a ticket for Australia.

He arrived in Sydney on a warm December morning. He lasted a week before losing patience with the narrow streets and expensive coffee, and caught the train north, to Brisbane.

There, he fulfilled a private lifelong dream, and bought a house near the beach. The house was raised on timber stumps, with big windows and long verandas to catch the breeze; the beach was mostly mud and shingle, with little wavelets sucking at the shoreline. The area was full of parks and day-trippers, and his neighbours were mostly retired people and young, wealthy renovators. He ignored them, and they ignored him, and everything was very peaceful.

He shared his house with a public servant who spent his weekends dancing in clubs and taking pills, and with a salesgirl who worked in an exclusive boutique, and spent her wages on tattoos her customers would never see.

He didn't bother to hide his magic. He was tired of lies, and anyway, who would believe him?

"Fair enough," said Anna, when he explained it. They were sitting outside a bakery, eating croissants and contemplating ice cream. It was a Sunday in late June. "Can I put it on—"

"No." Harry swallowed the last of his croissant. "No internet." More gently he added, "If you'd ever met a magical journalist, you'd understand."

"Why? Are you a runaway prince?"

Anna was a secret romantic.

"Maybe. Is your cousin smart?"

"Thick as two planks."

"Then it's probably my mumbo-jumbo people." Harry looked up at the cloudless sky. "Reckon you ought to be nice to him. I had a cousin, once."

"What happened to him?"

"Last I heard, someone had hexed his pillow to make him re-live every meal he's ever eaten in his dreams."

"That's not so bad," said Anna.

"Only in his dreams, he's the meal."

"Oh. Yuck."

Ginny wrote, Had enough of Egypt. Tired of being the whole world's little sister. Going travelling; may cross your path at some point. Or maybe not. Hot weather and sunshine don't really appeal just at the moment. Lots of love.

Seven.

It was a bright, cool day in June when Harry visited Snape's grave.

He moved through the magical cemetery, noting without emotion the number of fresh graves bearing stones carved with familiar names. He had discharged himself from the hospital two hours ago, ignoring the objections of his Healers. If they had known he was coming here, to make the long journey through the graves, they would have fought him harder. He was beginning to regret making the journey alone; his bad leg was sore, and the fresh scars on his left hand seemed to throb as he walked.

Snape's grave was a week old. Shoots of grass were growing up through the dirt, but most of the plot was covered in wreaths and flowers. Which was a bit of a joke, in Harry's opinion. He pushed the green-and-silver offerings aside until he'd uncovered the gravestone. It read, simply, Severus Snape. 1960-1998. Beneath the inscription, the Slytherin crest had been carved.

Harry wondered who had paid for the stone.

Someone, a woman, he thought, had written, in Unwashable Ink, Coward.

It seemed about right.

He'd prepared a speech.

Snape had died at Voldemort's hands, and Harry thought that was fair enough. Justice, in a way, like Wormtail's death.

They had, between them, both betrayed his parents, after all.

He remembered Dumbledore's body tumbling off the Astronomy Tower.

He opened his mouth, but his speech felt stupid and rehearsed, and anyway, Snape was too far away to hear him.

"I never liked you," he said at last. "But you saved my life … heaps of times. You tried to save my parents, even though my dad was a bully and my mum was a Mudblood. You didn't kill Neville, even when you had a chance. And now you're dead, and I'm really mad that you're gone, and I'll never have a chance to tell you these things properly. Like a man."

There was no answer, but for the wind rustling a wreath.

From his pocket, he drew a thick book with old, dog-eared pages and an incongruously new cover. Harry set Advanced Potion-Making down amidst the offerings from the Slytherins, past and present. He noticed, concealed behind a small wreath, an elderly Mimbulus mimbletonia in a familiar pot, but he didn't touch it.

"Yeah," he said. "That's it, really."

He turned, and walked slowly out of the graveyard, and didn't Disapparate until it was far behind him.

Thirteen.

Harry opened his door on a hot November morning, and there was Ginny, sweaty and sunburnt.

"Thought you'd had enough of hot weather and sunshine," he said.

"So did I. Can I come in?"

Harry stepped aside to let her pass. "Are you all right?"

"I haven't slept for a few days." She gestured to the battered Nimbus 2000 in her hand. "I got a Portkey as far as Perth, but then I ran out of money, and had to fly the rest of the way. Good thing I paid attention when Flitwick taught us how to conjure water."

"Hold on," he said, "I'm pretty sure I remember how to brew a Hydration Draught."

"Thanks." She gulped the water down, refilled the glass with a flick of her wand and began to sip more slowly. "We didn't get paid, you see. Not for the last two months, anyway. Last month, they – the Egyptians – stopped letting us down into the tunnels to work, and a week ago, they brought in trolls to keep us in the camp. That's when I took off." She fished a bit of dirty newspaper out of her pocket. "This was in the South African Owl."

Curse Breaking Crash, Harry read. The dangerous semi-legal business of freelance curse breaking has been brought to a halt in Egypt, as the Aegyptian Ministry for Sorcery finally bowed to pressure from the Alliance of Goblin Traders. It is widely believed that the British bank, Gringotts, was the primary force behind the push, citing concern for the well-being of those witches and wizards who put themselves in the hands of greedy treasure seekers...

"Turns out they've been blocking the payroll," said Ginny. "But we got paid every six months, so we didn't really notice at first."

"What will you do now?" Harry asked.

"Shower. Sleep. Drink." She smiled. "After that – I don't know. I didn't want to go straight home. I didn't like to think what the others would say."

"I understand."

"I thought you might."

She fell asleep on the couch, one grimy hand trailing on the wooden floor. Brian and Anna, when they arrived home from their respective works, peered curiously at her.

"Friend of yours?" Brian asked.

"Yes."

"Don't witches believe in baths?"

"She just flew across the Simpson Desert."

"So?"

"On a broomstick."

"Oh. Right. Okay."

It was late afternoon when she woke up. Harry heard her turn the shower on and curse as the tetchy hot water system played its usual tricks. She joined him on the veranda twenty minutes later, glowing in a singlet borrowed from Anna, and smelling of Brian's expensive body wash.

"Nice place you've got here," she said. "I hope you don't mind me crashing, Harry. I just--"

"No," he said. "It's okay. I understand."

There were clouds on the horizon.

"Stay as long as you like," he added.

They sat in silence. The breeze was beginning to pick up, playing with Ginny's hair.

"What was it like?" Harry asked. "Curse breaking, I mean."

Ginny grinned. "It was ... amazing. Dangerous, though, I mean even more than with Gringotts, but ... I don't know. After a few months, it started to seem like – a job. Couldn't go back, though. The twins would never let me forget it."

"Fair enough."

The clouds were overhead. In a few minutes, the first drops of rain would start to fall.

"I meant what I said, by the way," he added. "About staying as long as you like."

A few drops of rain hit the tin roof with a clatter.

"That would be nice," Ginny admitted.

They were avoiding each other's gaze.

"I mean," he added, "I've missed you."

"I know. I mean, I have, too. Missed you." She raked her damp hair out of her face and laughed. "And I always said you were awkward with girls. I have missed you, Harry. Not in a crying-in-my-pillow way, but – Neville came and visited, you know, and it was ... well, I love Neville, but not like that. And I had to run around and pretend everything was fine, which was tiring, and it occurred to me that I wouldn't do that for you. Things are better when you're around."

"Yes," he said. "I agree."

The rain was falling properly now. It was nearly dark, except for the lightning that struck every few seconds.

"These storms come up suddenly," said Ginny. "I like that."

"It'll clear up quickly. Like it was never there."

"And after?"

Harry shrugged. "Who knows?" He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the veranda railing. "I make pretty nice cocktails."

"And I can break a Flesh-rotting Curse in my sleep."

"Skills like that," Harry said, "we could go anywhere."

end