A/N – I’m back!!  This story started with the thought of, what happened with Hermione’s parents?  And when I started to write this, I realised just how many holes in JKR’s whole ‘sending the Grangers to Australia’ scenario like – what happened to all their friends and family back home?  How about documentation, was it all forged? How about their careers, do they stay dentists?  If so, would they also have to have false educational credentials?  The more I thought about it, the more I thought that doing what Hermione did would be pretty impossible, or if possible, something she couldn’t do with Ministry help.

Anyway, that’s what got this story going.  I’m up to chapter 7 on paper and chapter 9 in my head.  I think it will be about 10 chapters long.  No horrible Ron or Ginny this time around and although it starts with the canon pairing, it won’t end that way.  Needless to say, I’m ignoring the epilogue.

Hope you enjoy and I should update in a couple of days.

“Hermione!” Harry exclaimed as he opened his door, “you’re back!”

“Er, yeah,” she replied, somewhat hesitantly, “um…can I come in?”

“Of course,” Harry said as he moved out of the way and let Hermione into number twelve, Grimmauld Place, frowning as she passed him.

Hermione was supposed to be in Australia, bringing her parents back to England.  She had been gone for two months now and he hadn’t expected her back for another few months; yet here she was, on his door step, looking terrible.

“Ron’s not here,” Harry told her as she stood dejectedly in the hallway, “they’ve all gone on holiday to France for a week…”

“I know,” she said sadly before looking up at him, “Harry, can I stay with you for a little bit?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” he frowned again, “no problem.  Kreacher!”

Harry called out to his house elf and in an instant, Kreacher was standing before him.

“Yes, Master Harry?”

“Could you please take Hermione’s bags to the other bedroom we’ve cleared?” Harry instructed, “she’ll be staying with us for a while.”

Recognition and inbred disgust of her blood status flared in the elf’s eyes, but he held his tongue and even gave Hermione a short, awkward bow.

“Of course, Master Harry.”

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Harry asked his guest, who had stayed silent, staring unfocused at the carpet in front of her, “Hermione?”

She blinked as she recognised that Harry was in fact talking to her, and with a tired smile, she nodded her acceptance.  They made their way to the now cosy kitchen where Harry bustled to make the tea, trying to work out what he was going to say to her – something was obviously very wrong.

“How was Australia?” he asked as he sat down, placing a cup of tea in front of her.

“Lovely,” she said as she held her mug tightly in both hands, her eyes glistening with tears, “brilliant, actually.  Mum and dad live in this fantastic place that is only ten minutes from this amazing beach.  They have heaps of friends and they’ve both settled into brilliant jobs in the city.  They’ve even brought a dog.”

“A dog?” Harry repeated and, as if on cue, Crookshanks sauntered into the room looking for food but saw Hermione instead.  He meowed his welcome and she smiled the first real smile Harry had seen since she arrived.

“Crookshanks!” she cried, putting down her cup and opening her lap for her furry companion, who jumped up and began purring at his masters manipulations, “you’re here!”

“Yeah,” Harry explained, “we thought, what with one thing and another, he’d be better here than The Burrow.  He’s been keeping me company.”

“Brilliant,” she mused, “oh I’ve missed you so much!”

Harry watched Hermione cuddle her cat, his frown deepening as she started to silently cry into Crookshanks long fur. 

“Hermione, what’s wrong?” he asked, concerned, “what’s happened?”

“They’re not coming back,” she sobbed quietly.

“What?”

“Mum and dad, they’re not coming back.  They’re staying in Australia.”

Her face was hidden in her cat’s neck as she held Crookshanks tightly, finally letting him go when he began to squirm out of her embrace.  Not looking at Harry, she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand before once more holding her cooling cup of tea.

“I’m so sorry, Hermione,” Harry consoled, not really sure what he should do but knowing she required some form of comfort, he scooted his chair closer to hers and took one her hands, squeezing it to let her know he was there.  After a few moments, she began to speak.

“They were so happy, Harry,” she told him, “they had this whole other life without me.  I knew they would, of course – I mean, I had removed all traces of me from their lives.  But to see them smile and not worry…”

“Did you remove the spell?”

“Yes,” she sighed, her eyes glistening again, “and they were so understanding, like they always are.  They told me about what they had done for the last year – we spent two whole weeks just catching up.

“But as I listened to them talk about their new jobs, and how they fell in love with their new dog the moment they saw him as a puppy at a friends house and all this other…inconsequential rubbish that was their lives, I realised we had nothing in common any more.  I was such a different person from their little girl that they remembered.  I am such a different person…

“I couldn’t tell them about what we did last year only that you won, that we fought and you won…”

“We won,” Harry interjected, getting a small glance from her before she went back to staring at her cup.

“…I really thought they just wouldn’t understand.  So I decided that I couldn’t ask them to give up everything for the second time.  I couldn’t ask them to come back home just for me…”

“You could stay with them,” he suggested half-heartedly.

“No, I couldn’t,” she stated, looking up at him as she started to cry once more, “it was alien for me down there, everything was so…bright!  And I’m not that person any more!  I’m not the person who can just run away and live with my head in the sand.

“I wasn’t their daughter any longer.  I had to let them go.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, though part of him already knew what she was going to say.

“Philip and Helen Granger were killed while in Australia, their bodies incinerated beyond recognition,” she mono-toned, her tears quickly drying up, “their only daughter, Hermione, luckily survived as she wasn’t in the car at the time it crashed.  She brought back their ashes a month ago.

“Wendell and Monica Wilkins had been great friends with the Grangers, all being ex-pats, and have promised to keep in touch with Hermione when she returned to England.”

“You re-modified their memory?” he wanted to confirm.

“Yes,” Hermione nodded, “their life in Australia is as the Wilkins, who are childless.”

“I’m so sorry, Hermione,” Harry repeated, realising just how inadequate those words were – she had just lost her parents.

“I’ve spent the last month at home, packing up then selling our house,” she continued sadly, “I organised a memorial service…”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Harry cut in a bit more sharply than he meant to, “we would’ve been there to help you!  Ron could’ve…”

“Ron is dealing with the death of his brother,” Hermione interrupted, “and you’ve got your own things to deal with.  I needed to do this on my own.”

Neither of them spoke as they both got lost in their thoughts.  Harry couldn’t quite believe that she had gone through what must have one of the worst experiences of her life without either himself or Ron. 

“The thing is,” she said after a little while, her voice small and timid, “I…I have no where to live now.  I could’ve stayed in the house, but it had so many memories and I couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage or bills or anything any way.  And…and I haven’t got much money until the will is cleared…”

She broke down and sobbed then, hiding her face in her hands.  Harry had seen her cry before, too many times during their hunt for the horcruxes to count, and he knew he had been less than adequate when it came to supporting her when she had needed him.  But this time he didn’t think twice about holding her to him as she cried, her arms eventually circling him, hugging him closer.

They stayed like that until her tears finally subsided and she pulled away from him, sniffing and wiping her eyes with a handkerchief that she had.

“I’m so sorry,” she sniffed, “I didn’t mean to…I mean, I know you have your own things to deal with.  It’s just that, I…I have no money, no job, nowhere to live – I don’t know what to do…”

“You could always live here,” Harry suggested immediately, blushing when she looked at him, “I mean, there’s plenty of room.  You could do what you like to one of the bedrooms and I’m slowly getting rid of the many disgusting books in the library so there would be room for your books and stuff there,” he paused when she continued to look at him in total shock, “er…only if you want to, that is.”

“Live here?”

“Sure,” he shrugged, “why not?  And you’re one of the smartest witches in England, Hermione, I know that there’s a million jobs at the Ministry you can do.  You can come in with me on Monday and see Kingsley if you like.”

As she thought his offer over, once more looking down at the cup sitting in front of her on the table, he looked at her, really looked at her. 

She was exhausted, he could see that easily – the large black smudges under her eyes giving it away.  And even though she had spent a month under the sun in Australia, she was pale with her usual lively hair caught in a lank ponytail, hanging down her back.

The worse thing was, however, the way her cheeks were now hollow and how her arms were so terribly thin.  And how her eyes, when they did look into his, no longer had their intelligent glint.

It was like something had died inside of her.

Perhaps it had.

“I…I would really appreciate it, going in with you to the Ministry,” she finally said, glancing at him briefly before returning her gaze to her cup, “and thank you for the offer to live here.  I…I’m not sure, I don’t want to intrude…”

“You won’t be intruding,” Harry cut in.

“Can I think about it?” she asked, tentatively, “and let you know?”

“Of course,” he answered, giving her what he hoped was a nonchalant smile when she quickly looked at him again.

“Thanks,” she uttered, taking a deep breath, “I…I’m pretty tired.  I might just go and have a nap for a bit…”

“Sure,” Harry assured, leaning back in his chair and giving her the room to stand so she didn’t have to touch him, “Regulus’s room is the only other bedroom we’ve cleaned so that’s where your bags are,” she nodded in understanding, “do you want to be woken for dinner?”

“Um, no…if you don’t mind,” she muttered, “I…I’ll come down if I’m hungry.  I just need to rest for a bit.”

“Okay,” he agreed as he watched her make her way to the door, noticing how her clothes were hanging off of her, “sleep well.”

She nodded and gave him the briefest of smiles before going up to her room, leaving a worried and confused Harry sitting at the table.

When Hermione had left, things had been pretty tough.  The Weasley’s had closed ranks when dealing with the death of Fred and although both Ron and Ginny tried hard to include Harry and Hermione in their lives, it hadn’t been easy.

Added to that was the knowledge that pretty much every part of the wizarding world had been destroyed in some way by Voldemort and his followers.  There were many dark wizards still roaming and not nearly enough Auror’s to catch them.  Kingsley Shacklebolt had been appointed temporary Minister and quickly began restructuring the Ministry in a more positive way.  Every able-bodied witch or wizard joined in the exercise of rebuilding their world.

Two weeks after the death of Voldemort, the nightmares had begun for Harry, breaking into his dreams nearly every time he closed his eyes.  The dead, blaming him for letting them down, visited him – many were nameless faces but some were not.  He couldn’t talk to either Ron or Ginny about it as their brother were one of those who haunted his nights. 

And Hermione had gone to Australia.

His lack of sleep made him short-tempered which in turn caused things to be strained between himself and Ginny.  When they did meet, she would talk of her family and he would listen with sympathy because they had lost one of their own.

Sometimes he wished she would dig a bit deeper when he evaded her questions on how he was, that she wouldn’t just accept it when he said he was fine – he was in fact anything but.  Still, she had been a comfort during the last few months although he had to admit that there were now seeds of doubt, that Ginny wasn’t as perfect for him that he once thought.

Things for Ron and Hermione also seemed to have halted somewhat.  Her decision to go to Australia once the funerals had ended caused some resentment in Ron as he had wanted her to stay with him to help him cope without Fred. 

Harry knew it was because Ron was scared of losing Hermione as well, that her being so far away from him was going to be difficult.  Yet Ron had returned to form and accused Hermione of deserting him when he needed her the most, hurting her and making her departure even harder.

She still left, however, and it was Harry that saw her off at the airport.

Thinking back on that now, Harry remembered that even then she had been quiet and subdued.  He had thought it was because of the argument with Ron and the fact that she was anxious of seeing her parents for the first time in a year but perhaps it was something more, something else, because the Hermione he had just met wasn’t the Hermione he knew.

Sighing, he got up and made his way to the library.  He had already cleared quite a few shelves but if Hermione was to live here, he knew he would need to clear quite a few more.  With his mind still pondering what had just happened, he set to work and for the first time in a long while, he thought of something else besides himself and the horrors in his life.