A Thousand Fibres

Part Two : Away from Hogwarts

Chapter Seven

Sometimes, Harry could barely believe that it had been five years since Hermione and Ron's wedding. Five years since he had left England and had begun his journey. To him, it seemed it was only yesterday.

He had, of course, been back several times to England. At least four times a year, actually. He stayed at Lupin's place, or at the Burrow, where Molly kept repeating he didn't take care enough of himself, and he needed to eat more, while piling food on his plate.

Every time he got back, someone asked him when he would come back for good.

"I'm here now," he usually replied.

For the first two years, that was enough for everyone.

The third year, people seemed intrigued by his steadfast refusal to come back, settle down and marry.

Now, some people seemed worried and some annoyed.

Harry had visited Lupin, one month ago, before leaving for the United States.

"Molly asked me to ask, subtly, when you'll be coming back for good," the older man had said as they sat down to eat.

"Subtly?"

"Yes."

Harry had laughed a little. "Right. And the answer hasn't changed."

Lupin had nodded, a little sad. "We all miss you."

"I miss you guys too," Harry had said. "Really."

"But you're still having fun."

Harry had nodded.

"Harry..."

"Remus, I don't... I'm not running away, okay. I still don't know what I want to do with my life, and I won't discover that here. Not with everyone watching me like I'm in a fishbowl. Not with the newspapers printing every single thing I do."

"Do you think that would still happen?"

"Remus, I'd only been in Diagon Alley for fifteen minutes when already, three reporters had spotted me and were asking me what I thought about the latest elections, and what I thought about the Minister's decision to create a new prison for lighter offences."

Lupin had sighed. "I know. I would have thought the fervour would have died down, with you away, but it didn't."

"That's okay. Well, most days. But the problem stays the same as when I left."

Lupin had looked resigned. "They're still thinking of you as a symbol," he had finished.

"And if they're asking these kinds of questions when they *know* I haven't been following the news from here... Remus, they still want me to provide them with answers, and I'm just some kid who was marked for death by a dark wizard, and grew up in a cupboard, not learning much about people in the process."

"I could argue that no one is much of a psychologist at twenty."

"I know. But Remus, it's my choice to learn and make mistakes far away from the cameras and all the fuss. Can you imagine me getting a job shelving books in Britain? The reporters would come take pictures, ask me if that's my vocation, and... At least, when I'm away, I can try that kind of thing without interference."

"Did you?"

"Yes."

"And?"

Harry had sniggered. "That's not what I'm meant to do, I think."

Lupin had smiled. "One down... I know it's not easy for you here. I hope you know that we don't ask each time just to annoy you. We just miss you, and want to make sure you know that."

* * *

The screams startled Harry from his distracted thoughts.

He had been having a nice evening, walking on the beach, under the stars, hearing the noise the waves made as they crashed on the sand, a few meters at his left. He loved beaches, he had learned early on in his travels. Especially in the dark, when no one was around to disturb the peace.

Except, apparently, this time.

He may have been looking for peace when he left England, but Harry hadn't become the kind of man to ignore a cry for help - he hadn't even become the kind of man who could *understand* people who refused to help their fellow humans.

He ran in the direction the screams had come from - there was no public lighting here, but the full moon was providing enough light to at least be able to orient himself and not stumble too much.

He found them under the pier, a good hundred meters from where he had been. The woman was lying on her back, her legs held down by the man's. Harry absently noted her sportswear clothes - she must have been jogging. Her attacker was holding her writs above her head with one hand, and with the other, he held a knife, which glittered in the light of the moon.

"Muggles?" Harry wondered. Wizards tended to attack with their wands, not with Muggle weapons. And, Harry thought, if the woman was a witch, she would have had her wand with her, and would have been more than able to defend herself.

The man was toying with his knife, smiling a crooked smile, and Harry was once again reminded that bad guys - and especially mediocre bad guys - often looked like caricatures of movie characters.

"Problem here?" Harry asked casually, as if he happened on what he suspected was an attempted rape every night.

Some people, he knew, were sarcastic in the face of danger. They joked, made cracks - their way to deal with the pressure. Once upon a time, he could have done the same. He found, however, that calm and detached worked better for him.

"HELP!" the woman screamed.

The man snorted and told Harry, "Get lost."

Not the smartest man in town, Harry thought. Unless he was deliberately trying to look obtuse - still possible, but unlikely.

"I don't think so," he said evenly.

"Please," the woman said.

"I said to be quiet," the man snarled.

"And you told me to get lost, and yet, none of us seem to be bowing to your superior knowledge of what you think is best," Harry pointed out.

The man looked lost. "Too many complicated words?" Harry wondered, and the thought sounded so much like Snape in his own mind that he almost smiled.

The woman arched backwards, trying to dislodge the man, who didn't budge.

Harry sighed. It was going to be one of these nights, he just could tell.

On the plus side, the man wouldn't be able to move well - if he let the woman go long enough to deal with Harry, he would be vulnerable. If he didn't move and continued to subdue the woman, Harry would just have to knock him out.

On the minus side, the guy was huge, and Harry had kept a Seeker's build - thin, and short. He was fast enough, but sheer muscle strength was not something that came naturally to him.

The man seemed to be pondering the same things Harry was. He looked up after a while. "One hundred dollars to let me finish here," he offered.

Once the first moment of astonishment had passed, Harry almost laughed. Almost.

"Man, I know this is California, but if you think *everyone* is for sale, think again," he said.

The man frowned. "Well, then," he said. And moved, so much faster than Harry would have expected, he almost let himself be surprised. He narrowly avoided the knife, and felt it scrape his left cheek as he threw himself to the ground. The man, carried forward by his momentum, stumbled. Harry jumped to his feet, blessing his slimness that allowed him to move faster, and kicked the man behind the knees. The man fell completely to the ground. Had he had a weapon of some kind - a tree branch, a staff, anything, Harry would have stayed and tried to knock him out. He could still, Harry thought, stun him, and let the official wizarding authorities obliviate him and the woman. And, if the man tried to catch them, he would. But he didn't want it to come to that. As it was, he merely shot one glance to the woman, who had used the diversion to get up.

"I hope you run fast," he said conversationally.

She nodded.

They ran.

* * *

"This is my home," the woman - Sarah Winters - said in a trembling voice. Her hand was shaking so much she was having a hard time putting the key in the keyhole. Harry watched her fumble a moment, before stepping forward.

"May I?" he asked, taking the key.

She watched him warily, and he could tell she was still jumpy after her attack. Understandably, she must still be uncomfortable about letting a complete stranger enter her house. Even if the stranger had saved her life. She nodded, though, surprising Harry. He smiled reassuringly, took the key and opened the door, gesturing for her to enter. He made no move to follow her, though. She entered the house, then noticed he wasn't following, and looked at him.

"Come in," she said.

He hesitated. She repeated, more forcefully, "It's okay."

Harry followed her inside and closed the door.

The first thing that came to mind was that he was too used to motel rooms. He barely knew what to do with himself in a house now.

Sarah nodded to a door on his left. "Let's sit down," she said, looking much more at ease now. "I don't know about you, but I could use a chair, right now."

"Me too," he admitted.

The living room they entered was small and comfortable. Petunia Dursley had always kept her house immaculate, and the neatness of the rooms had always reminded Harry of a museum - something to look at, not use. The room he was in now felt more "lived in" for lack of a better word. There were books on shelves, on the table, and even one perched on the television. One title jumped out at him. "The Art Of Potion Making." He filed the information away for future reference, but now didn't seem like a good time to have the usual I'm-a-wizard-yes-wizardry-exists discussion.

The table was facing a fireplace, a couch and three chairs gathered around it. He dropped onto the closest chair. "Are you sure you're all right?" he asked.

She nodded. "He didn't do anything. He was just going to-" She shivered, and sat on the couch next to him, hugging herself. At a loss for what to do, Harry asked, "Perhaps you should call someone."

She swallowed. "My roommate will be here soon."

Harry nodded. "Good." There was a tense silence, and he said, "Do you want me to go or-?"

She shook her head. "No, sorry. I didn't even thank you yet."

He shrugged. "No problem."

She looked at him. "I've been mugged once before, and no one helped me. The man pulled a gun, yelled for my bag, I gave it to him, he punched me, I still don't know why-"

She cut herself off, and Harry said, "Probably because he could."

"Yes." She took a moment to gather herself. "Anyway, I was there on the sidewalk, bleeding from my lip, the man had gone, and people just walked past me. It was so... depressing."

Harry nodded. "Guess so."

The front door opened brusquely, and Sarah started. Then a cheerful voice called, "You there, Sar?"

She smiled. "Over here!"

A young woman - no more than twenty-five, Harry estimated - blond, short, and literally bursting with energy, came into the room. "Hey, how come you're-" Her eyes fell on Harry, then on Sarah, who was still hunched over. "What's up?" she asked immediately.

"I... I was..." Sarah burst in tears, and without missing a beat, her friend, totally ignoring Harry for now, sat down next to her, and put an arm around her shoulder.

"Hey, what happened?" she asked.

Sarah gave a strangled sob, and Harry said softly, "I found her with a man, at the beach. He had a knife, and he was about to, er."

The roommate's eyes darkened. "I see," she said, and she hugged Sarah closer. "It's okay," she said soothingly.

Harry, feeling like an intruder watching the two, stood up. The roommate's eyes met his. "Wait in the kitchen," she mouthed. He nodded, and left the room.

* * *

Feeling slightly uncomfortable in an unknown house, Harry sat on a chair and waited. He had been there for about ten minutes when the roommate came in, an antiseptic bottle and a cloth in her hands.

"She fell asleep," she said. "Without saying a word."

Harry nodded.

"Margaret Peterson," she said, offering him her hand to shake. "Don't call me Maggie, or, Merlin forbid, Marge."

He shook her hand, the "Merlin" registering. "Harry Potter," he said.

She gaped for all of three seconds, glanced at his scar, and said, "Really? Wow."

It was about as non an awed reaction as he had ever provoked, and Harry found he liked her already.

"Well, I won't have to find a way to explain why there are Potions books in the living room, at least," she said.

Harry smiled. "How do you usually?"

"I say I'm a witch, really."

He looked at her, surprised.

"People just assume I mean "Wicca," and think I make love potions upstairs, or whatever. Not that many strangers come here."

"And they don't ask for more details?"

"Well, sure, they do, but I read a little about Wicca, so I can answer convincingly enough."

Harry wished that excuse had ever occurred to him. In fact, he felt ashamed that it hadn't.

"So," Margaret said, sitting down next to him, "What happened to Sar?"

He began to tell the story, as she set about disinfecting the cut on his cheek - it wasn't deep, but it still stung. When she was done, she smiled a motherly smile at him, and for a moment, he thought she was going to pat him on the head and offer him a lollypop.

The thought was hilarious, and he bit back a laugh. If she noticed, she didn't say anything.

* * *

Harry awoke the next day, in yet another hotel room. He had become familiar with those a long time ago - he barely remembered how exciting it had seemed, at the beginning, when every hotel seemed mysterious and filled with history.

They all looked pretty much the same to him now - a few stood out in his memory, either because the town they were in had been a favourite of his, or because he had stayed a long time in them.

He had gone back late last night - he had talked a long while to Margaret, recounting what had happened, and how Sarah had reacted.

"I'll probably take her to the police station tomorrow," she had said, "so she can file a deposition."

"Okay."

"If they find the guy, they may ask you to identify him," she had added.

He had shrugged, and said, "I travel a lot, but I have no plans for the following months. I can stay, if they need me."

"Thanks," she had said.

As she was leading him to the door, he had hesitated, not wanting to upset her. As if she had read her mind, she had said, "You're not as well known here as you are back in England," she had said. "If you don't want people to know you're here, I won't go babbling it to everyone. And even if I did, I don't think you'd have to face mass hysteria. From what I heard, that's pretty much what you're used to back in England?"

"Yes. And thanks," he had said, sincerely.

"That's okay. But... Our friends are all very protective of Sarah. She's a Muggle, but her sister was a witch - a dear friend of ours. She died three years ago, and Sarah... we all love her, and she stayed in touch with us."

He had nodded, unsure where this was going.

"The guys will probably want to thank you themselves," she had said. "So, perhaps, once, we could have diner, and you know..."

He had nodded. "I think I'd like that," he had said. "If you want to." He found both Margaret and Sarah very nice, even in such dire circumstances, and he wouldn't mind talking a little with friendly people. He was used to solitude, but sometimes, even he needed human contact.

He had met many friendly and interesting people, as a matter of fact. Some had never heard of him, some had heard vague stories. Some knew he was a big thing in England, but didn't seem to understand why, and when he met those, he wished Snape could see it - the man would certainly be amused.

Once, he had travelled with a couple of French journalists. Muggle ones. They had been in Laos at the same time, and in the same hotel. They had had a talk - both were aware of the wizarding world, and intrigued by Harry. Then, they had gone their separate ways, and met again one week later, in Viet Nam. They had laughed at the coincidence. Three weeks later, they met again, in China. They compared their itineraries for the following two months, found out they planned to visit the same countries, and decided to travel together for a while. He had enjoyed their discussions - he had learned more about the Muggle world in those two months than in most of his time with the Dursleys.

On another occasion, he had visited a country - Russia - with a wizard travelling companion. The man was from Japan, and was venturing outside his country for the first time. Harry had enjoyed giving him tips on the art of blending in with a crowd, and advice to avoid being hassled.

There had also been people who had offered him hospitality - Daoud, in Egypt, the second time he had visited the place. Sebastian in Spain. And Nassir, in Saudi Arabia, who had been so very insistent that Harry learn to ride a horse properly.

Some of these people he could call friends, he thought.

For the last six months, however, he had travelled without a companion, and he was beginning to feel lonely, instead of merely alone.

It was time, he told himself, for a little socialising.

* * *

Which was why, two days later, he rang the bell at Sarah's home. Margaret had left a note for him at the hotel's front desk, inviting him over.

Sarah opened the door, and beamed up at him. "My saviour," she said, laughing slightly.

"Hi," he said cheerfully. "How are you doing?"

She nodded. "Pretty good, considering...." Her smile faltered briefly. "I think the worst of it is that the man was stupid."

Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing. She looked at him sheepishly. "Sounds stupid, I know. How dare someone so unoriginal attack me?"

Harry did laugh at that. "Understandable," he said. "I don't like bullies, myself. Never imaginative, these people."

Sarah brightened. "Everyone's already there." She motioned for him to go in, and lead him to the kitchen, where "everyone" was sitting around the table.

Margaret called laughingly, "Hey. Hope you don't have anything against pizza. None of us can cook worth a damn."

The delivery guy arrived as Sarah was finishing introducing him to the others, and Harry tried to commit the information to memory.

Two tall men, Alex and John - Alex was a teacher, John was a writer, and Harry had the strong feeling that they were a couple, although nothing was said precisely.

One short, bulky man, with the bluest eyes Harry had ever seen, and who definitely had a crush on Sarah - Roland, yet another teacher.

One woman, a redhead, about the same size as Harry, called Regan. She worked with the Ministry, she explained. The American equivalent of Aurors.

They all seemed pretty curious about him, and as the pizzas were divided between them and they began to eat, Harry sustained several veiled questions - and several not so veiled ones as well.

They covered what had happened to Sarah - "Both the ministry and the Muggle authorities are aware of that guy, and they're looking for him," Regan said.

They talked about their jobs - Margaret was a teacher at the same school Alex and Roland were teaching at. Harry, used to a school where the teachers were much older, was a little surprised to see so many people his own age in a teacher's role, but didn't say anything.

Then, as they finished eating, and settled outside, on the grass, to drink and talk some more, one of them asked directly if he really was "the" Harry Potter they had all read about.

Harry shrugged. "If you mean the guy who defeated Voldemort, yes."

"Wow," Regan said. There was a silence, then she said, almost shyly, "Don't take this the wrong way, but we never heard anything after, well, that. I had assumed..."

"That I worked in law enforcement, myself?"

"Well, yes."

He shook his head. "I thought about it. But I had had enough of it."

"It?" Sarah asked.

"The killing. People dying. People looking at me as if I was the ultimate answer to all their problems."

Regan looked apologetic. "Sorry," she said.

"It's okay."

"But," John threw in, "The war didn't last that long, did it?"

Sirius's face flashed in front of Harry's eyes, and he answered, "Long enough."

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence, and Harry wondered if he shouldn't have stayed at the hotel. Margaret, perhaps feeling the way his thoughts were heading, asked, "What have you done since then?"

"Travelled a lot. I went to... pretty much every country I could get into, really. Muggle way, wizard way..."

It had been fun to discover just how wizards went from one country to another, Harry reflected. The use of Portkeys was strictly regulated by the Ministries, and by the International Confederation of Wizards - a good thing, as Harry had heard, more than once, about unsuspecting travellers using inadequate Portkeys and landing in the middle of an ocean, or a desert.

Apparition was all well and good over short distances, but it tended to be tiresome, and Harry didn't like to try it in foreign lands, where he didn't understand the language, in case an accident happened. And Apparition was simply impossible over long distances, or to cross an ocean.

Floo travel was practical when going from an hotel to another landmark in the same town, but couldn't be used to cross borders - it would have been too easy for criminals to leave the country that way, someone had once told Harry.

Harry had more than once travelled on his broom - he had found that that transportation method was particularly relaxing above deserts, like in Egypt and in Australia. But, much as he liked flying, Harry didn't trust a broom to cross an ocean.

So, the International Confederation of Wizards proposed two alternatives; the WizShip, and the WizAir. The WizShip company owned five MagiBoats, the WizAir owned twenty planes. Both worked on the same principle as the Knight Bus. It lead the passengers from one place to another in a series of Apparitions. Harry had tried both, and found they had the same inconveniences as the Knight Bus. The travel was noisy, shaky, and, to him, nausea-inducing. It was fun over relatively short distances, or when he needed to move fast from one place to the other. On the whole, though, he preferred Muggle transportations methods - much less jarring.

"You must miss England a lot," Margaret said, interrupting his thoughts.

Harry shrugged. "Sometimes, I get a little homesick, yes. But... I don't have family there, just friends, and they're living their lives."

It had been slightly saddening to feel the growing distance between him and Ron and Hermione. They were married, had two kids now, and while they still wrote to each other, the letters were growing increasingly superficial with the years. It was inevitable, he supposed. He didn't know anything about their lives, they knew little about his own, and the experiences they went through were difficult to relate to.

They were still friends, and he still saw them several times a year. He didn't feel unwelcome in their home - be it at the Burrow or their London house. But the camaraderie that had bound them all those years ago had... not vanished, Harry decided, but, attenuated.

The Weasleys were still the only family he had ever felt he had. Harry's investments in the twin's shop had grown more important, Molly still mothered him when he visited, Charlie and Bill still teased him like a long lost baby brother. He was grateful to have them, and Lupin, when he went to England.

"Must be lonely," Alex said.

Harry smiled. "I'm still in touch. I still go visit sometimes. They're living their lives, and frankly, so am I. And travelling means meeting people."

"As today brilliantly demonstrates," John said.

As if on impulse, Alex leaned over and kissed John. The others sniggered, and Harry smiled a little. "Shut up," Alex said.

"Is that an order, mister?"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Regan said. "Get a room, you two."

Everyone laughed at her disgusted tone, and Harry met Sarah's eyes. She was considering him. "What?" he asked.

"You don't seem too horrified by our antics."

He snorted. "Nope."

Margaret smile. "Then, can we count on your presence, a few more times? As long as you stay in the neighbourhood?"

Not knowing what he was getting into, he said, "Sure."