Disclaimer: I don't make any claim of ownership over Harry Potter. This is written strictly for fun and not for profit. If you like this fic though feel free to use your imagination. ;)

August 1st 1998

Whatever she'd been expecting to see in Australia that was most definitely not it.

Harry Potter was standing in her parents' living room. Actually he wasn't so much standing as he was swaying about; Hermione experienced a brief moment of incredulity that Harry Potter would be here of all places dancing of all things. It was then that she realized he was rocking a baby as he swayed around staring lovingly at the baby in his arms. 'Of course,' she thought, 'Teddy.' She took a moment to just watch him sway and noticed he seemed to be mouthing something she couldn't hear, probably a lullaby. She wondered briefly why Harry had Teddy in a pink outfit but quickly pushed the thought from her mind as irrelevant.

She gave the window pane a quick rap of her knuckles and Harry looked up startled and instantly on guard, his wand pointed at her while he cradled the baby with just his left arm before she'd even registered his movement. Then a wash of realization spread over his features as he took in the sight of her, smiled warmly and pointed the wand over towards a door which she could hear click unlocked. He put his wand away and held up a finger to his lips before beckoning her in and walking out of her sight down a hall.

She stood frozen for a moment before she went over to the door and entered the house finding herself in a small entry way with a few pairs of shoes on the floor and only a short hall to her right with a wall in front and to the left. She kicked off her sandals and went down the short hall to the living room to see Harry coming back out into the room.

She took in the sight of him, something she'd been too distracted to do before. He'd developed a rather full tan at some point, something she'd never even seen a trace of on him before. His ever present round framed glasses were missing, assumedly replaced with contacts since he wasn't stumbling around, and his eyes were all the more vivid for it. He was also filling out his T-shirt quite a bit better than she remembered him having done, Harry Potter had definitely never had a chest before and his shoulders had broadened noticeably or maybe it was that he just wasn't slumped over constantly anymore. The black bird's nest he carried around on his head was still there though, some things will never change.

He walked over to her and warmly embraced her. She was startled for a moment, she couldn't, off the top of her head, think of a single time Harry had initiated a hug with her, before she broke from her stupor and proceeded to try and squeeze the life from him. She had been literally sick with worry over him but hadn't had any way of trying to find him once he was out of country, not without Hedwig. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to show up. Honestly Hermione," he pulled back a bit and winked at her but didn't let go, "it's been months!"

She just gawped stupidly at him, completely nonplussed. This Harry was nothing like she remembered; not only did he look better but even Harry at his best was never this… Playful? Ebullient? Bubbly? That's the one; Harry had never been bubbly, not even when he was eleven, he'd always been either shy and reserved or fiercely determined. She wasn't sure what was more surprising; that Harry was here standing in her parents' house or that she'd found him in such good spirits. She'd expected him to be withdrawn and moody at best and despondent at worst when he eventually showed back up at the Burrow after having time off on his own to brood.

He was staring at her, obviously expecting her to say something but she for the life of her couldn't think of anything. What do you say to your best friend who's been missing for nearly three months when you find him in your parents' hideout he shouldn't have even known existed? Seemingly deciding she wasn't currently capable of doing more than staring uselessly at him he leaned back in and tightened his embrace on her. "I've missed you Hermione. Only bad part about leaving Britain was being without you and the Weasleys." He pulled back from her again and met her eyes. "So you're looking well. How is everyone else?"

Shaking her head quickly Hermione took a moment to come back to herself. "The Weasleys are fine, upset you ran off of course, Mrs. Weasley's hair has started to grey, but they're fine. I left just a couple weeks after you so I'm not exactly current. Repairs on Hogwarts aren't going terribly quick, it'll probably open a month late." She pushed all of that out in a single burst eager to get it out of the way then planted her hands on his shoulders and cut into him. "Why did you have to leave like that? How did you get here? Why are you here of all places? Did you really have to take an infant with you? Didn't you realize how worried we would be? Didn't you care?"

She caught a glimmer of affront drift across his eyes at the last question before he firmed up and responded. "I was drowning in Britain Hermione, you must have seen that. You know I've always hated the attention, people staring or crowding around me wherever I go, flashbulbs constantly going off; everyone patting me on the back while the real heroes are in their graves, not even cold before they're pushed aside and forgotten!" He spat the last word then took a few steadying breaths to calm himself before continuing.

"What happened to Andromeda just pushed me too far; it was completely senseless, just needless. If I'd stayed I'm not sure what I would have done but it definitely wouldn't have been anything good. I had to get away from it all and there was no way I could leave Teddy there. You know who his closest blood relative is. If the Malfoys decided to take him, a blood traitor's half-blooded half-breed… That would make growing up at the Dursleys look like a 5-star resort. I'll not let that happen to him. Never." He was practically growling by this point, a tone that would be more expected from Teddy's birth father.

"You could have tried talking to someone though Harry; Mr. Weasley, McGonagall, me, someone, anyone. You didn't have to just run away on your own."

"I did have to leave Hermione. I had to escape."

"You didn't even tell us where you were going, didn't so much as breathe a word to anyone before you left. If my hair wasn't so ruddy thick I would have pulled it all out because of you!"

He looked guilty for a moment before he dropped his head and hid his face. "If I'd stopped to say goodbye I wouldn't have managed to leave. I left you a-" He was cut off by Hermione tackling him, which winded him as she connected rather low, right in his solar plexus, and then mounting him and pounding her fist on his chest.

"That's the point you bloody idiot!" Thump "You should have stayed!" Thump "I. We were all sick," Thump "with worry over you! I ought to bludgeon you to death you stupid," Thump "careless," Thump "prat." Thump. She punctuated herself with forceful strikes to his chest and shoulder.

"I'm sorry Hermione. I-"

Thump. "And that's another thing," she cut across him, "if you ever so much as think," Thump "about leaving me again with nothing but such a piss poor excuse of a note I'll… I'll… Well you damn well won't like it that's for sure." She gave him one last hit before she let herself fall forward onto him, her anger quickly exhausted by his refusal to fight back against her.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"Language." She reached her hand up and cuffed him softly on the ear smiling despite herself, not that she let him see it of course.

"Prat. So much as try something like this again and you'll get more than vulgarity and bruises."

"I really am sorry Hermione but I just…" His voice trembled and he faltered. "I couldn't-"

"I know. You never have been very good at solving problems you couldn't knock unconscious. In the future do try and remember that's what you have me for and let me help. Please." She quietly added after a moment and felt him slowly nod into her shoulder.

She pulled a large and rather wet sounding breath through her nose, definitely not a sniffle, and sat up suddenly looking down the hall Harry had appeared from earlier. She saw that it led to a stairwell with a pair of closet doors on the left and a room with a lino floor on the right, the kitchen most likely. "Teddy must be a really deep sleeper if this racket hasn't woken him."

"He is, but not that deep. There is a one way silencing charm on the nursery; sound will come out but it won't go in."

"That's quite brilliant actually. How did you come up with it?"

He raised an eyebrow at her and she had the decency to blush. "I'll let you read the book later." He stated dryly.

She rolled fully off of him, stood up, smoother her skirt, and went over to a wingbacked chair. Harry got up and sat on the sofa across from her. "You still haven't explained how you got here, or why you're here of all places." She stated, ignoring the fact that her knocking him to the floor while pummeling and ranting at him could be considered a valid excuse for not having given her full disclosure yet.

He sighed and paused a bit to collect himself before starting. "Well when I left I didn't really know where I was going other than I was getting far away from Britain. First stop was the Ministry to sign the papers for Teddy's adoption, that surprisingly only took about an hour from in the door to back out of it. It's rather disconcerting that they'd just hand me a kid like that if I'm honest. The clerk's eyes just got wide and it was all of ten minutes consisting of, 'Of course sir. Please sign here and here sir. Will there be anything else sir?' Then it was Gringott's to get some pounds, you can't take a baby on a portkey so we were going muggle.

"We took a taxi to Heathrow from Charing Cross and that's about as far as I'd planned anything out. Stood staring at the departures board for a while but I've never been anywhere so I didn't have any idea what to pick. I saw a flight leaving in two hours for Sydney and decided if you'd send your parents to Australia then it must be a nice sort of place, and I knew they'd speak English." He shrugged like he thought it really was just that simple of a decision.

"Wait a minute. You just showed up at the airport and picked a flight to Australia because you figured I wouldn't send my mum and dad to a crappy country? Wait, do you even have a Passport?"

His eyes widened briefly before he nodded. "Pretty much yeah, the only references I have to places outside of Britain are places you or Ron have been on hols to and I don't speak French, Romanian, or Egyptian so all of those were right out. As for the Passport, well no not really. I had what I used as a Passport but it wasn't so much a real Passport as a…" He trailed off obviously nervous about telling her this part. "Well to be honest it was more like an address book I picked up at a muggle Stationery and put a confundus charm on." He finished, shying away from her a bit. His shoulder was bloody sore.

Surprising him she just laughed at the admission instead of scolding him. Poor girl had spent too much time with him and Ron; she'd been corrupted. "They speak Arabic in Egypt not Egyptian and that might just be the most half-arsed plan you've ever come up with. Keep in mind I'm including taking just Ron and Lockhart with you to fight a Basilisk on that list."

He looked slightly abashed. "What else could I have done? Take a boat? That wouldn't get me very far." He only lasted a few seconds under her withering glare before he nervously shifted. "What?"

"What? What do you mean what? You took a newborn and hopped on a plane to go halfway around the world without any real idea where you were going and no idea of what you'd do once you got there on the basis of, 'Hermione wouldn't send her parents to some shithole of a country.' Are you insane?"

He just stared back at her darkly. "It's a damn sight better than anything I'd have ended up doing if I'd stayed. We made it here, we're both doing well, and we're very nicely settled in thanks for asking." They stared each other down for a tense minute before Hermione gave a sigh; he could tell that it was more exasperated than accepting though.

"Well that's how you got here to Australia. We're pretty far from Sydney though, that's like aiming for London and winding up in John O'Groats. So I'm guessing it's not just coincidence you're here right? Did you get bored and decide to ring my parents up or something?" She noticed him not meeting her eye. "Seriously Harry?"

He still wouldn't meet her eye. "Once you've seen that stacked up clam building in the harbor there's really not that much to do in Sydney and it's not as though I know anyone else here. I stayed there for about a week before I got restless and decided to look for your mum and dad; I was planning on just checking on them, making sure they were okay, then waiting about for you to show up and fix them. Knew you'd have to turn up here at some point. Two days later I was here and-"

"Two days! Two days? How the hell did you find them in two days? It took me two months!"

Harry just gave her a weird look. "Why would it take you two months? All I did was head over to the Ministry in Sydney and have them do a scrying; didn't take them much more than a minute to find this place. I really thought you'd have more security on their location than that. The two days was how long it took to drive up here; I'm pants at coordinate apparition."

Hermione found herself staring at him incredulously. "The security was all in the secrecy of their identities… Wait did the Ministry find them on the first go? What names did you have them look for?"

Harry looked a bit sheepish. "Yeah, first go. I'd kind of forgotten about that whole Montel and Wendy bit;" he shot her an annoyed look when she snorted at the name Wendy for some reason but kept on track, "I just remembered that you erased all knowledge of yourself and magic from their minds and sent them to Australia. Didn't remember that until I'd made it up here and talked to them. I wasn't expecting them to know me so I headed over to their practice," he noticed her questioning look; "they gave up being baristas," he paused long enough to roll his eyes at her, "and took dentistry back up after not even two months here.

"Anyway I walked into their practice to just discretely check in on them and your mum practically tackled me, sobbing then quickly shoved me out her way and started looking around rather frantically like I had you hidden in the corner or something, firing off questions all the while. Where you were, why you weren't with me, were you alright, what happened to you? She was rather distraught. They'd gotten their memories back in late March. They'd assumed with the charm broken and your best friend showing up alone that you'd…" He trailed off, not willing to give voice to that particular thought.

Hermione grimaced. "My death wouldn't have broken the charm; that was kind of the point of it; they wouldn't have to deal with losing me if something happened. I made sure to be clear about that. She shouldn't have been able to recognize you at all though; the only thing which would break the charm was seeing me, they'd recognize I was their daughter and everything would come back to them. Maybe they found a picture I missed, that shouldn't have been enough though; they were supposed to have to see me in person. I don't know where it could have gone wrong, how they might have been affected-" She looked up at him from her hands which were twining around each other nervously in her lap and saw him looking evasive. "You know don't you?"

"Hermione I'm not really sure I should be the one to tell you." He snuck a look up at the clock. "Your mum will be back in about an hour and a half and I think she should be the one to…" he saw the glare she was sending him, realized waiting any amount of time was not going to be an acceptable option for her, sighed and got up. "Wait here a minute alright?" He asked before getting up and walking down the hall.

Hermione watched him walk up the steps and wondered if he was just putting her off, she hadn't heard a baby stirring. If he wasn't just putting her off though he was getting something to show her, she tried to think of what it might be but was coming up blank, a photo album with a simple picture of her couldn't have broken the memory charm.

He'd been gone for a couple of minutes before she started getting antsy. If he made her chase him down he wasn't going to like it. She watched him come back down the stairs as soon as she'd finished that thought though. He sat back down across from her on the couch he'd been on before. He was once more cradling Teddy, still in his pink outfit.

"Hermione I have someone I'd like you to meet."

A/N A little better than last chapter I think. Now we are actually starting to get somewhere but we're not quite out of the exposition and into the good stuff yet. Hermione thankfully managed to shed her Lunaness in this one. So any guesses who Harry wants to introduce Hermione to?