Down Under

“Well, fuck.” 

Hermione purses her lips and privately agrees with George’s assessment. She steps back and cranes her neck, her eyes taking in the small room filled from floor to ceiling with the white pages for every town and municipality in Australia. 

“It’s a bit more than I was expecting,” she says. 

George snorts. “Just a bit.” 

Hermione rocks back on her heels, catching her bottom lip with her teeth as she scans the shelves. “We’ll need to move quickly to duplicate all of these.” 

George slants a glance at her and arches an eyebrow. “You’re sure you have enough room in there?” he asks, nodding towards the knapsack on her shoulder. 

Hermione nods and swings the bag off her arm. “I might need to move some things around,” she says, opening the bag and reaching a hand in, running her fingers over clothes and phials and books. “But they should all fit.” 

“If you say so.” George shrugs and takes one of the volumes from the shelf, holding his wand up above it. He glances over his shoulder and catches Hermione’s eye. “I’ll cast the duplication spell and you can get them all into the bag?” 

“Sure.” Hermione sets the knapsack on a low table near the door and kneels in front of it. “Oh, this is going to be a nightmare to reorganize,” she mutters under her breath, frowning as she shoves a pile of clothes to the side and hears a clatter of glass jars toppling over. 

“Here.” George takes his own bag from his shoulder and tosses it lightly to her. “Put some of your clothes and things in there. We don’t want you losing anything in that little traveling library you’ve got.” 

Hermione rolls her eyes but picks up the bag gratefully. She pulls out a small stack of clothing from her own bag and stuffs it into George’s, followed by a crate of medicinal potions. Her hand catches on a small book, and she pulls out the copy of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe she had taken weeks earlier. 

The glossy cover glints against the library’s overhead light. Hermione bites her lip, flicking through the crisp pages. She glances towards George’s bag and quickly, before she can change her mind, stuffs the paperback into it. 

She locates and moves the books on memory charms, and then her peeling copy of The Healer’s Helpmate. Satisfied that there is now enough room for the small mountain of volumes in front of them, Hermione looks to George. 

“Ready?” he asks, holding up the book in his hand. 

Hermione nods, settling herself into a seat next to the table and opening the mouth of the knapsack as wide as it will go. “Ready.” 

***

An hour later, the door to the hotel room slams shut behind them and Hermione drops the book-laden knapsack on the floor with an echoing thud. 

“I hope I never have to cast another duplication charm in my life,” George groans, flopping onto the bed near the window and throwing an arm over his face. “I think I pulled a muscle in my hand.”

“You were the one who suggested you do all the spell work,” Hermione sniffs. She sits on the floor and crosses her legs below her, pulling the knapsack into her lap. “I told you we could switch if you wanted.”

“Just let me complain in peace for a moment, Granger.”

Hermione rolls her eyes and shakes her head, biting back a smile. “I wasn’t stopping you. One of us is going to have to set the wards, though. If you don’t want to do it I’ll need you to come over here and get all these books out of the bag.” 

George groans again but sits up and takes his wand out. “I’ll do it,” he says. “You’ll be paying for my next massage, though.” 

“You can owl me the invoice when we’re home.” 

George lets out a low chuckle, and Hermione turns back to the bag in front of her. She takes out two of the thick volumes from her bag and sets them on the ground beside her. 

From the bed near the window, George points his wand towards the ceiling, muttering under his breath as strands of silver and gold fly from his wand and wrap around the room. 

Hermione takes another two volumes from the knapsack and stacks them on top of the books at her side. Then she takes out another, and then another, until several teetering piles of books surround her. 

“Careful, Granger,” George’s voice wafts from somewhere behind her book blockade. “If you make those any taller you won’t be able to get out. You’ll be lost to us forever, hidden behind a great wall of muggle telephone books.” 

“Maybe that’s the idea,” Hermione says, a grin splitting her lips as she strains to add another book to one of the piles. “This was all just an elaborate plan to hide from you.” 

She hears fabric rustling, the gentle thud of two feet hitting the floor. George looms behind the book piles, peering down at her. 

“This isn’t one of your best plans then, I’m afraid.” 

Hermione looks up and catches his eye, feigning a look of shock. “Well bugger,” she says. “I suppose it’s back to the drawing board, then.” 

George lets out a laugh and leans down to take several of the books in his hands. “Do you mind if I move some of these? It’ll make it harder to hide from me but I’ll be a lot less worried that one of them is about to fall over onto you.” 

Hermione shrugs. “Sure. I should be nearly done anyways.” She adds another book to a pile and twists to examine the piles. “I just wanted all of them out of the bag so we don’t forget them. I think we can shrink some of them and put them near the television until they’re needed.” 

“Alright.” George nods, lifting a pile of books onto the entertainment stand. He takes his wand from where he had left it on the mattress and waves it over the books so they shrink to the size of index cards.

“We’ll need to figure out a way to track which ones we’ve looked through and which ones we haven’t,” Hermione says absently, twisting a piece of hair around her finger as she surveys the maze of volumes in front of her. “And we should put the Do Not Disturb on the door so housekeeping doesn’t try to walk in while we’re working.” 

“The what?” 

“The sign near the television that says ‘Do Not Disturb.’ You can hang it on the door handle in the hall and the staff won’t try to come in to clean the room.” 

“Found it.” 

She sees George cross the room, hears the heavy door open and then close with a click. Hermione rises and takes another stack of books to the entertainment stand, waving her wand to shrink them down. She turns to get another stack and finds George standing behind her, one of the volumes in his hand, forehead creased as he reads the title page. 

“So muggles really just print a list of everyone who lives in a village and their telephone number?” he asks, glancing up at her and raising an eyebrow. “That seems a bit dodgy.” 

Hermione shrugs. “I expect it was a lot simpler when they first started doing it fifty years ago. And anyways,” she gives a wry smile. “It’s rather helpful for our purposes now.” 

George cocks his head to the side, flicking through the pages with the pad of his index finger. “Why didn’t we just start with these?” he asks. “We probably could have read through every single one of them by now.” 

Hermione chews her lip. “I thought they’d most likely be a dead end,” she murmurs. “These white pages are printed every year, so anyone who’s lived in a city or town for less than a year usually aren’t included. And people can choose not to be listed if they don’t want strangers looking up their phone numbers. Mum and Dad always opted to be unlisted back when—back home.” 

George’s eyes rise to look at her and he gives a short nod before looking back at the book in his hands. “But we’re looking at them now?” 

Hermione shrugs. “We need to move quickly,” she says. “Like you said, these will only take a few days to read through. And if they—if my parents are in there—we’ll be able to find them much quicker.” 

“Right.” George’s arm drops to his side and he strides across the room, dropping once more onto the bed by the window. He looks over his shoulder and catches Hermione’s eye. “I suppose I’d best get reading then.” 

“Before you do—” Hermione bites her lip and makes her way to the other side of the room, carefully skirting stacks of books as she does so. She reaches the bed and perches herself primly on the edge of the mattress, leaving a respectable amount of space between herself and George. “I wanted to ask you something.” 

George’s eyebrows rise, his eyes darting from Hermione’s face to her hands folded in her lap and back. “Alright.” 

“Should we get in touch with someone—the authorities—and tell them we’ve seen Yaxley here?” 

George straightens, a hand coming up to run through his hair. “I thought about that this morning,” he says slowly. His eyes latch on hers, and he grimaces. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” 

Hermione catches a lock of hair around her index finger and twists it. “It just seems like we should tell someone—” 

“Not right now.” George shakes his head. “Think about it, Hermione. The one advantage we have right now is anonymity. If we go to the Australian authorities, or try to get in touch with the Ministry, everyone will know we’re here. They’ll probably want to keep tabs on us, or at least communicate with us more frequently. We’d be exposed. And—” His expression twists. “That’s all assuming that the authorities wouldn’t just hand us right over to Yaxley.”  

Hermione’s finger begins to pulse painfully, and she hastily releases the lock of hair, feeling blood rush back into the tip of her finger. 

“You think there might be spies?” she asks, swallowing heavily. 

George shrugs, his face darkening. “I don’t know. But I don’t think we can assume they’ve found everyone in the Ministry who was working for You-Know-Who. Or that there’s nobody here in Australia who might be helping all the death eaters that have gotten away. We’d be telling them exactly where to find us.” 

Hermione wets her lips and nods, rubbing a hand down her face. “I suppose you’re right,” she sighs. “I just wish—” 

“I know.” George moves over, shuffling to sit beside her. He takes her hand, and Hermione inhales. “I think the best thing we can do is to find your parents and get ourselves back home. Once we’re there—when we’re all safe and not hiding out in muggle Sydney—we can tell everyone we saw him here.” 

Hermione nods again, interlacing her fingers with George’s. “We just need to make sure we find them first.” 

“We will.” George squeezes her fingers. “And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” 

Hermione turns and frowns at him. “Whatever for?” 

“For not killing the fucker when I had the chance.” George scowls at his knees, his hand flexing against hers. 

“What—oh.” Hermione draws a heavy breath as the image flashes like a lightning rod in her mind: George and Lee Jordan overpowering Yaxley at the end of the battle, the two of them converging as the man’s sneering face crashes into the castle floor. 

“It’s not your fault,” she says after a pause, leaning to the side and letting her shoulder rest against his. “You couldn’t have known he’d get away.” 

“Yeah, well,” George shrugs, his face still pinched. “Could’ve made our lives right now easier if I’d just finished the job.” 

“George—” Hermione twists, pulling her hand from his and taking him by the elbow. “It’s not your fault,” she says again, crossing one leg on the mattress and turning to face him fully. “You couldn’t have—it wouldn’t—don’t apologize for not killing someone—” 

He looks up at her, eyes stormy. “I hate that I had a chance to end him and I didn’t—I could’ve stopped him from going after you in that restaurant—and  you wouldn’t have to worry right now about him finding your parents—”

Something bursts in Hermione’s chest and she flings an arm around George’s shoulder,  dragging him towards her. George lurches, one arm catching around her waist as the other braces against the mattress for support. 

“You know that curse is unforgivable,” she murmurs into the space between his neck and shoulder, both arms wrapped tight around him. “It would’ve split your soul to use it.” 

George gives a humorless laugh and leans back, his hands coming to rest against her sides as he looks at her. “I already feel like my soul’s been split in half, Granger.” 

“It would be different,” Hermione insists. She bites her lip and lets her hands drop so they rest on his shoulders. “You’re not someone who kills other people, George.” 

He makes a face. “Unfortunately for us both.” 

“No.” One of her hands comes up, almost of its own accord, and runs through the hair curling at his jaw. “It’s a good thing. Didn’t you ever listen to Dumbledore?” 

A ghost of a smile flashes across his face. “You know I wasn’t very good at listening to teachers. What did he say?” 

“He said the thing we always had on our side—the reason Harry was able to live—it was because we knew how to love other people, and how to forgive. The goodness that Harry has—the power—it all came down to love.” 

George gives her a taut smile, and the fingers at her waist press more firmly into her skin. “We can’t all be as good as you, Hermione.” 

She shakes her head, a lump forming in her throat as she looks down. “I’m not that good,” she says softly. 

Goodness means pulling people closer, she thinks to herself, the thought running through her chest like ice. And she has never been good at keeping people close to her. 

“I don’t believe that,” George says. His gaze rakes down her face, hands moving gently against her, as though worried she might slip away if he holds too still. “If that was true you wouldn’t have stuck by Harry through everything.” 

Hermione lets out a breath, a grim smile spreading over her face as she thinks of her friend. “Harry’s easy to love up close,” she murmurs, her eyes meeting George’s. “He makes everyone near him look better by association.” 

She bites her lip, her arms loosening from George’s neck as she pulls away. “I’m not like that. I think I’m best loved from a distance.”  

One of George’s hands moves to her back and he tugs her forward, pulling her into his chest and wrapping an arm firmly around her to hold her in place. 

Hermione lets herself sink into the embrace for just a moment, a single breath in and out. She lets her mind go blank, banishing thoughts of her parents and Yaxley and her own habit of bringing pain and danger to the people she most desperately wants to keep safe. She buries her face in the folds of George’s shirt, lets herself catalog the feeling of his hand running up and down her back, and holds her breath, wanting to extend the moment as far as possible. 

Finally, she forces herself to pull away, letting out a shaking breath. She makes to stand and bites her lip as George’s arms drop.  

“We’d best start reading,” she says, looking over her shoulder towards the stacks of books dominating the hotel room floor. “We have a lot to get through.” 

George watches her, his own expression inscrutable. His eyes flick once again over her face, searching for something Hermione doesn’t know. 

His face clears, and he nods. “Of course,” he says easily, getting to his feet and scooping a small stack of white pages from the ground. He turns to look at her over his shoulder. “I don’t suppose you’d want to have a contest to see who can find them first?” 

A soft smile tugs at the corner of Hermione’s mouth, and she forces herself to roll her eyes. “Of course not,” she says. “We both know I would win, and I don’t want to listen to you complain the entire way home.” 

George laughs softly and turns back to the books, flipping the first one open as he takes a step back and drops onto the bed. 

Hermione skirts around him and pauses as she stands in front of the volumes, staring down at them. 

George had been joking just a moment ago, but a small part of her does hope she is the one to find them. She hopes she is not so inept that she must rely on another person to do such a simple task of finding Wendell and Monica Wilkins listed in a telephone book. She hopes she can do something meaningful to fix this horrible mess she has created for them. 

Hermione swallows, the ice in her chest expanding, moving towards her stomach as the horrible thought from earlier reappears. 

All she does is bring pain to those she loves. She is the reason her parents are in such danger now, though they don’t even know it. She must be the one to find a way to get them out. 

***

They read through the white pages until the windows grow dark and George’s stomach growls. They apparate to a nearby market rather than a takeaway restaurant, finding enough food that Hermione hopes they won’t have to venture into public for several days. George charms his hair again before they go and Hermione does the same, silently praying it will be enough to conceal them should they run into Yaxley again. 

When the door to the hotel room swings shut behind them, Hermione swallows a sigh. A pile of shrunken books sits haphazardly on the entertainment stand, a reminder of just how many volumes they had read through that afternoon. 

Her eyes drift to the stacks of books still on the floor, the hundreds of pages they still need to read, how many roads they must still peer down just to know they are dead ends. 

She sets the bag of groceries down at her feet and takes out her wand, pointing it towards the small refrigerator in the kitchenette. The refrigerator door swings open and the groceries fly from their bags and pack themselves neatly onto the plastic shelves. 

George takes out his own wand and waves it, conjuring a small pot which he fills with water. A moment later the water rumbles, steam curling off it in gentle swirls. He waves his wand again and the pot comes to sit on the hot plate, a package of pasta flying from the counter and spilling its contents into the water. 

Hermione turns to him and arches an eyebrow, watching with undisguised curiosity as he continues to conduct a symphony of magical cooking with his wand. 

He looks over his shoulder as a tomato crushes itself in a saucepan, a shaker of salt raining down upon it. “What?” he asks, catching her eye and frowning. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“Nothing.” Hermione smiles and shakes her head. “I guess I just didn’t realize you knew how to do all this.” 

George rolls his eyes, turning back and flicking his wand to drain the pasta. “I have fed myself before, you know.”

 “I’m so glad to hear it.” Hermione can’t keep the laughter out of her voice, biting her lip as she watches him stir tomato sauce with his wand. 

He narrows his eyes at her over his shoulder. “Keep it up, Granger, and I won’t share any of it with you.” 

“Fine, fine. I’ll leave you to your cooking.” Hermione forces her face into a neutral expression, going to her bed and sitting cross-legged on top of the blankets. She reaches out and takes hold of the open white pages book sitting in the middle of the mattress, pulling it towards her and returning to her search. 

She gets to the end of the list and closes the book with a sigh. She snatches her wand and mutters an incantation, watching the thick volume shrink before tossing it onto the entertainment stand with the others. She leans over the edge of the bed, choosing another volume at random and settling back on the mattress. 

Closer. They are getting closer, she reminds herself. 

George steps away from the kitchenette and drops onto the bed across from her, two bowls of pasta hovering in front of him. He drags his wand through the air to face Hermione and one of the bowls floats towards her. She puts her hands out and takes it gratefully. 

“I can’t help but feel you’ve been holding out on me here,” she says, taking a bite and giving a rueful smile. “If I’d known you weren’t hopeless in a kitchen I wouldn’t have had us get takeaway so much.” 

George shrugs and quirks an eyebrow. “That’s entirely your own fault, Granger. All you had to do was ask.” 

“Well, consider me impressed.” 

Setting the steaming bowl on the nightstand, Hermione stretches her legs behind her on the mattress and returns to the white pages, her index finger trailing down the page as she looks for a Wendell or Monica Wilkins. 

She hears shuffling across the room, and sees George’s bag fly towards him, landing next to him with a skid. He opens the bag and extracts a large book. Hermione cranes her neck, and sees it is one of the books on memory spells they have been reading through. 

George looks over at her and grimaces. “I’ll get back to the white pages in a few minutes. I just need to read something else for a little bit or I’m going to go mental.” 

Hermione shrugs and tucks a piece of hair behind her ears as she returns to the neverending list of townspeople and telephone numbers in front of her. 

They work quietly for some time, the air punctuated every few minutes by the clink of a fork hitting the sides of a bowl or flick of a turning page. Outside, the sky turns from twilight to the inky darkness of night. 

Hermione’s eyes start to burn, straining against the dim light of the lamp as she reads through page after page of listed Australian civilians. 

Wendell Wilkins. Monica Wilkins. David and Miranda Granger. 

Their names repeat through her mind like a refrain. She flips a page, blinking rapidly to keep her gaze focused. 

She almost doesn’t hear George when he speaks. 

“Hermione.” His voice is different, lower than it has been since they returned from the market. “Come look at this.” 

She glances up, brows furrowing as she peers at him. He sits upright on his own bed, a heavy book open in his lap, his forehead creased as he watches her. 

Hermione slowly pushes the white pages away from her and swings her legs onto the floor, taking the half step necessary to stand in front of George’s bed. He slides over, making room for her to sit beside him. 

She lowers herself onto the duvet and crosses her legs beneath her, turning her head to the side to look at the heavy book between them.  

“Read here,” George points to an entry at the top of the page. “I think this spell—if we can figure out how to calibrate it right—I think we can use it to remove the memories you implanted.” 

Hermione bends over, her hair falling into her face as she scans the page. 

Priori retinentia: Used to erase a subject’s most recently created memories. First recorded use in Marseilles, 1868 by Jean Deveaux to make his wife forget she had found him with a mistress. Wand movement: sharp flick to the right. Augmentative: Priori Retinentotalus. Diminutive: Priori Retinenterius. 

Note: as shown by the study conducted by Sir Thelonius Oswald Stubbs, memories are removed in the order in which they are created, not the order in which events happened. See pensieve memories, page 1132. 

Hermione sits back, feeling rather dazed. “We’d be erasing all the memories they’ve created since getting here.” 

George nods slowly, leaning over and dragging the book back in front of him. “Yeah, we would be.” 

“And it still doesn’t solve the problem of how to resurface the memories of their old life.” 

George runs a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t.”

Hermione puts her hands on the mattress beside her and takes a breath. Her head is buzzing, too full of everything. She leans back against the headboard and brings her knees to her chest. She feels the mattress dip, and George move closer beside her, his leg pressed against hers. 

He puts an arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. Hermione lets herself lean in, lets her cheek rest against his collarbone. 

“We’ll need to do a little bit more research before we decide if we’ll use it, of course,” he says, his chest rumbling below her ear. “But it seems promising.”

“I think it will work,” Hermione says. “At least, I think it would remove all the memories.” She takes a breath. “I still don’t know how we’re going to get back all the old memories I destroyed.” 

George is quiet for a moment. “We could keep looking to see if there’s anything else out there about magical bonds and whether or not they apply to muggles.” 

Hermione chews her lip, her cheek shifting against the crisp fabric of George’s shirt. “I don’t think there is anything else out there.” 

“There’s got to be something,” he presses, turning and glancing down at her. “I mean, you’re not the first witch with muggle family. There has to be something— ”

“I think you’re really overestimating how much most wizards care about how magic affects muggles,” Hermione says grimly. 

George huffs. “We’ll keep looking. There must be something. Even if most of those gits don’t care, there’s enough people like Dad around who are all about amplifying muggle voices that I’d bet someone has written something about it.”

Hermione pauses, then shoots up, George’s arm falling to the mattress as she straightens and runs a hand over her hair. 

“Amplify—” she murmurs, eyes going wide as she faces George. “Amplify—that’s it! George, that’s it!”

George’s brows knit together. “What?”

Hermione nods, flapping a hand in his direction as she talks hurriedly. “It’s what we need! An amplifier! Oh, but how—of course it would have to be a natural one—with the low dosing—it wouldn’t even—”

George frowns at her. “I’m going to need a full sentence to understand what you’re talking about.” 

“Your love bites!” she cries. “The chewing  gum for the store—I think I figured out how to make the dosing work.” 

George’s frown melts into a look of curiosity. “Just now?” 

Hermione nods, twisting a piece of hair around her finger. “Yes! And it’s—what if you don’t have to worry about getting the dose of uninhibited attraction potion exactly right, but just need something else added to the gum that can act as an amplifier?”

The frown returns to George’s face, his forehead crinkling as he considers her. “I thought about that,” he says. “But it doesn’t solve the problem. The augmenting charm we use on other products make the effects last longer than normal. If we used it on the chewing gum then we still have the problem of the potion effects lasting after the person spits it out.”  

Hermione shakes her head. “If you use an augmenting charm that happens, but I’m talking about using a natural amplifier—a potion-specific amplifier. Something—something like a sopophorous bean. It only changes the immediate potency of the potion, not the effective time range. It’s why they’re used in the draught of living death, they add power without making effects last longer.”

George pauses for a beat, and then his face splits into a grin.  

“You’re brilliant,” he says, pulling her into a crushing hug. “Have I told you that today?” 

Hermione smiles into his chest and squeezes her arms around him before letting go and leaning back. “It’s just something we all learned in potions,” she shrugs, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear and looking down at her hands. “It’s nothing too impressive.” 

“It’s incredible. You’re incredible.” 

George’s hand comes up and catches her chin, tilting it up so Hermione’s face is level with his. “I don’t know if you realize just how brilliant you are,” he says, his voice dropping to a rasp. 

Hermione feels as though someone has pressed a boulder to her chest, all the air leaving her in a sudden burst. She stops, breathless, watching as George’s gaze bounces from her eyes to her mouth. She can count all the shades of blue in his eyes, can feel the flicker of his pulse against her skin. 

George’s mouth opens slightly and his head dips, his nose brushing against hers. 

“Don’t.” 

Hermione turns away, her throat tightening. She can feel George freeze, can feel his breath waft over her jaw. The hand at her chin flattens, moving to her cheek. 

“Hermione—” 

“I’ll only hurt you,” she whispers, twisting to face him again. Her eyes find his, and she swallows heavily. “That’s all I seem to do to people I care about.” 

George’s thumb strokes across her cheek, and he leans closer. “I’m okay with that.”  

“George—” her voice sounds pained in her ears. She pulls away, the rush of cold air between them biting into her skin. “I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you. Really. You shouldn’t—you should stay away from me.” 

One of his hands falls to her side, fingers pressing lightly into the soft skin of her waist as the other comes up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “What if I don’t want to?” 

Hermione closes her eyes. It would be easy, so easy, to give in. To dip herself in his warmth and let it consume her. 

“You should do it anyways,” she says, forcing herself to pull away. “Because I’m asking you to.” 

George studies her, his hands still ghosting at her sides. His expression rearranges itself, his jaw tightening, and his hands fall away. 

“Alright, then,” he says coolly. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” Hermione takes a breath, swallowing the rock that has landed in her throat and pushing away the burning behind her eyes. She looks up, her chest clamping as she sees George’s expressionless face, the lines creasing his forehead as he watches her. She wants to lean over, put her arms around him again, run her thumb over those lines until they are smooth. 

Instead she takes a deep breath and looks away. “It’s what I want,” she says. 

Maybe if she says it enough she will begin to believe it.