A More Familiar Stranger

Chapter One

A Brush In The Street

What would happen if you were walking along one day

and you came across yourself standing in the street?

How would you greet yourself?

What would you say?

- Jostein Gaarder

~~ ~~~ ~~

Hermione Granger woke on Tuesday morning with a start. She blinked around, dazed from sleep, her eyes finally resting on her illuminated clock that blinked at her. 5:54 AM - too damn early, she thought to herself, having only stumbled into bed at just past midnight, tossing and turning for at least another couple of hours after that. But at least it's my day off.

She stared at the ceiling for a few long minutes before sighing deeply, knowing any attempts now to fall asleep were fruitless...she would just be woken up again at seven to the strains of the early morning cartoons. She swung her legs out of bed and stood, bedraggled, at her gleaming kitchen bench waiting for the kettle to boil, unable to find her wand to do things the proper way.

She jolted at the thought of doing things the proper way and scolded herself...just because she was a Witch, it didn't mean that she should go forgetting her Muggle up-bringing, even though she had been part of the Wizarding community for fifteen longs years, over half of her life. She lifted her eyes towards the photo, framed and hanging on her dining room wall, the familiar faces grinning back at her. She remembered the day, the occasion that had called for the photo to be taken.

It was at Fred and George's graduation from Hogwarts, and Colin Creevey, the Official Gryffindor Photographer, had gathered the pair, along with Ron, Ginny, Angelina, herself and Harry in front of the lens to capture the moment. For prosperity Hermione had claimed back then, but now she simply looked upon it as a time of innocence and freedom. Ginny glowed, hugging George so tightly that his face matched his hair; Ron and Fred were trying to disembowel each other with two of the twin's fake wands that were now a hot commodity all over England and Europe in general; Hermione herself was talking to Angelina; and Harry was, for once, taking the photo seriously, smiling faintly into the lens. It was one of the only photos that Hermione owned, wizarding or otherwise, that held the three friends together, Harry had taken mountains of both her and Ron through the last few years that they were at Hogwarts, having received a camera from his Godfather, Sirius, but he rarely joined them himself, being somewhat fearful about putting himself forward too much. Hermione sighed again, wiping away the old memories for now as she stirred milk into her tea and pulled a few papers out of her old leather satchel with her initial stencilled on in silver, a present from Ron for Christmas in their seventh year, and settled herself at the kitchen table, waiting for the noise of cartoons to fill the quiet house.

"Hermi, what are you doin' up?"

Hermione jumped, then turned to face Draco as he leaned against the kitchen doorframe, the oversized dressing gown hanging loosely on his frame, his face ragged and worn as the slippers that were practically falling off his feet.

"I couldn't sleep. Did I wake you?"

"No you didn't, I was already awake." Draco stumbled across to the table and plonked himself down opposite Hermione, looking faintly greyer than usual.

"I didn't even hear you come in last night, when did you get in?"

"About three. The Prophet had me covering the latest of the Death Eaters trials, and they just kept going and going." He shivered noticeably. "Vincent Crabbe was sentenced to life in Azkaban."

"Oh Draco, I'm sorry," she placed her hand over his, watching the haunted face of her long time friend grow grey with revulsion. "It must have been hard for you."

"You know, it actually wasn't, it was a relief. I looked at him from my seat in the press box and felt nothing, not once single ounce of hurt or sympathy, I just felt cold," Draco paused, omitting from his confession the fact that he had spent half-an-hour throwing up before coming home. "I have to keep telling myself that they have no claim on me anymore, that even though I was always destined to be one of them, I was able to change my destiny and walk away."

Hermione studied him and deciding, yes, it was worth the consequences of bring it up. "I can't believe that eight years after Voldemort's downfall, we're still bringing Death Eaters, accused or otherwise, to justice. That there are still followers, even though he is gone, and he's never coming back. That this isn't like the first time that-" here she faltered. "-Harry-"

Draco sighed deeply. "Yes...Harry."

The two sat in relative silence together, before Draco found his voice again.

"Dumbledore was at the trial." Hermione looked up, her eyes smiling at the mention of Dumbledore. "And he told me to send his regards. Seeing him again made me realise that he's getting very old...he looks it too, very worn down."

"Did he...did he say anything about..."

"No. Still nothing, no one is Europe has being able to confirm a sighting...yes, there are always a few, every couple of months that swear to it, but nothing concrete. Sometimes I just feel like...giving up."

"No!" Hermione spat viciously. "I refuse to give up. Hope is all I have left and if I loose that, then what else do I have?"

"You have Lily...and me. You're not alone Hermi...you're not the only one who misses him." Draco felt tears come to his eyes. "Every day, I pray for him to come back, for him to come back and tell me that everything's going to be okay, that I'm not alone, that everything's fine because he's back and he's never going to go away again and-" Draco choked. "But the reality is that he's been gone for eight year, eight long years...he could be anywhere now, anywhere. We've tried everything...even Dumbledore says that it may be hopeless. That we may never see him again and it...kills me inside-"

Draco buried his head in his arms and Hermione rubbed his spine, soothingly.

"Uncle Dray? What's wrong?" came a sweet voice from behind them.

Hermione swung around and smiled at her daughter. "He's just a little upset sweetie."

Lily padded over to kiss her mother and Draco lifted up his head as she wriggled her way into his lap. He mussed up her hair, the red curls bouncing prettily, her blue eyes wide and sparkling. "Hey Princess," He kissed her warmly. "How're you doin'? I missed you!"

"Missed you too," the little girl laughed, hugging him fiercely. "Please don't be sad Uncle Dray, I don't want you to be sad."

"I'm not sad. How could I be sad with you around Lils? Hey, you better get ready for school Princess, and if you're ready double time we'll walk to school, how does that sound?"

"Yeah!" she kissed him again and scrambled out of his embrace, her footsteps light as she ran for her room.

Draco watched her go with a sad smile. "She's got her father's eyes."

"Yes, she has, and his love for chess." Draco laughed.

"Well, I'm going to have a shower and then I'm going shopping. Is there anything we need?"

"Nothing that isn't already on the list. Oh, another thing, I'm not going to be able to pick up Lily from school...they've got me interviewing the winners of the Puddlemere United verses Chudley Cannon's game this afternoon."

"That's fine, I can do it. Oh, and say hello to Oliver for me okay?" Oliver Wood, another Gryffindor, had been playing Keeper for Puddlemere United since he had left Hogwarts, and they saw him as often as they could, as well as his lover, Percy, another Weasley.

"Who says I'll be interviewing Puddlemere?"

"Oh come on...they're playing The Cannons for goodness sake, how can they not win?"

They both exploded into laughter at the thought of the Chudley Cannons actually winning a game, being the running joke of the teams, having a longer loosing streak than followers...even the die-hard fans had pretty much given up on them.

~~ ~~~ ~~

Hermione hurried through the crowd, apologising constantly, huddled under her umbrella in a valiant effort to say dry, failing dramatically. She couldn't remember the last time that she saw truly horizontal rain. Probably Deloufous Diggle's doing yet again, messing around with rain spells she thought darkly, the wind whipping around her.

"Oh, oh sorry, sorry, excuse me. Off!" Hermione collided with somebody, hard, loosing her grip on her satchel.

The stranger, who wore black jeans, a thick black jacket and long black hair that spread tendrils, obscuring most of his face, stuck out his hand quickly and grabbed the satchel just before it reached the ground, saving it, and Hermione's precious work, from being completely ruined by landing in a puddle. She stood there, amazed.

"Sorry about that," the man apologised hurriedly, handing her the satchel quickly. "Wasn't watching where I was going."

"My fault-" she started to say, stunned, huddling the old satchel to her chest as the man side-stepped her careful, and she turned to watch him stride away again, shocked. "-completely."

She stared after the black-haired man even after he vanished from her sight, ignoring the shoving crowd around her, ignoring the wind whipping around her legs, ignoring the rain as it beat at her face and hands, forgetting that she was late, that she had to pick Lily up, everything around her.

It was the black hair, she mussed, and the quick reflexes. The hint of green eyes...

The wind chose that very moment to turn her umbrella inside out.

Hermione clutched at it desperately and swore venomously.

~~ ~~~ ~~

Hermione was still thinking about the brief encounter days later. She didn't mention it to Draco - I mean, what could I say 'Hey Dray, you're going to think I'm crazy but I think I ran into Harry on the street the other day' - and she really did think she was going crazy. She ran over the situation in her head so many times that she was worried she was making some of it up - not the reflexes, the messed-up hair, but the hint of green eyes - the glimpse of the telltale scar on his forehead. He hadn't even been wearing glasses for goodness sakes. She scolded herself on thinking that he, the dark stranger on the streets, had been wearing dragon-hide boots, and she dismissed it, put in down to wishful thinking.

She wasn't even sure that it had been Harry...it could have been just another look-alike. Apart from the scar Harry had always faded into the crowd, especially when he wanted to. She had always seen him as good-looking, his face handsome, his green eyes strickling, his body well built and muscular...but who knew how much he had changed over the past eight years.

She absent-mindedly picked some biscuits from a shelf, throwing them into the bottom of her supermarket trolley, not even wincing at the ominous crunch as they landed. It was Saturday, Supermarket Day, something that Draco, Lily and Hermione usually did together, but Draco had taken Lily to the museum to see an exhibition of Egyptian mummies and artefacts that she desperately wanted to see, having missed going with her class the week before because of a cold. Lily had been bitterly disappointed and had made Draco swear to go with her to see it - not that he minded Hermione grinned to herself.

Draco had surprised her many times over the years that they had lived together, and his embrace of Muggle art was one of the things that had shocked her the most. He had simply shrugged, simply stating that 'Art had to be defined by the beholder - and I've always loved it, Muggle or not, it never really seemed to matter. My father was always lenient with me when it came to art of Muggles.' Hermione had scoured bookshops for interesting books on art, Medieval, Contemporary, Renaissance, Abstract, it really didn't matter, and they had built a formidable collection of both books and art over the years, with Lily showing a keen interest in it too.

She was still grinning to herself, not really paying attention, when it happened again.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" She had run over a foot with the wheel of her trolley, and did a double take. This time she certainly wasn't imagining the dragon-hide boots, the long legs, the brown hands, the black clothes, the mussed up hair, there was no mistaking the emerald eyes.

It was him.

"That's okay," he spoke casually, not really seeing her at all. "No harm done."

He walked away again, but this time, Hermione was not going to let him get away that easily. She abandoned her trolley and strode quickly after him. She caught up with him and placed one hand on his arm. "Excuse me? Do I know you?"

He didn't even turn to face her as he answered her. "No, we've never met."

Desperately, she turned to her last resort, tears creeping into her eyes, she was so damned sure. "Harry?"

The man, dressed in black, his black hair messy and gleaming, his skin golden brown, dragon-hide boots and all...stopped. It was like his movements stopped when this voice from the past suddenly caught up with him, like a ghost from yesterday had reached out its hand and caught him by the sleeve and his heart stopped. He half-turned, his face like ice, her hand still on his arm, his carefully constructed world tumbling down around him by a name that he had buried along with his best friend.

"Harry?" her tone was so desperate, clinging, making him choke.

Finally, he spoke, turning to face her, his voice barely a whisper. "'Mione?"

Hermione burst into tears suddenly, and he did what any old friend would have done, he wrapped his arms around her, somewhat awkwardly, gathering her to his chest and letting her flood his chest with her tears, smoothing her hair down with one hand.

And that's where they stood, for the longest of moments, while she cried, in the middle of a busy supermarket, two parts of a whole, together again.

~~ ~~~ ~~

TBC