Harry Potter: The Boy-Who-Is-Missing

joerandom

Started: 12 May, 2014

SUMMARY: Harry Potter: the boy-who-lived, the boy-who-ran-away, the boy-who-is-missing, the street urchin, the boy-who-hung-around, the survivor, the boy-who-changed-everything. AU since 31 Oct 1981. Rated T for some language and violence. A HHr story with a poor relationship with Dumbledore.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, I'm only visiting this universe.

STATUS: This story is completely written with over 114k words in 15 chapters. I'm just posting a chapter a day in a blatant attempt to elicit reviews. But I suppose you could also consider it holding the story hostage for reviews. Or probably more appropriately, extortion. But given that I've announced the posting schedule ahead of time and I will post the complete story regardless of the number reviews - it ain't much of a threat. That and the fact that it's only fan fiction. But on the other hand, is a review all that expensive? So give it a shot: Yes? No? Maybe so? (Pick one, or be brave and write something)

Chapter 1

The End Of Second Year

Hermione Granger sat in a compartment on the train heading back to Kings Cross Station. She had just finished her second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Mercifully, it was an empty compartment. She laughed at herself. It was a very empty compartment, even with her still in it. Her growing realization of, and abject disappointment in the thoroughly broken society that was the wizarding world weighed on her like a container ship run aground on top of her. She could no longer rationalize away all the evidence that assaulted her daily. Blind, corrupt, bigoted, racist, full of slavery dressed up with magic so it was shinier. Stuck at least 150 years in the past and receding fast. She had thought magic could solve so many problems, could fix things that couldn't be fixed other ways. Instead she found a dying society, inflexible, with no creativity. Calcified. Her hope was dashed.

Compounding this was her immense frustration that she seemed to be incapable of breaking out of her shell, of changing her path and habits in life. She had started Hogwarts and her career in magic with huge anticipation and hope at a fresh start, a new beginning. A chance to change those things about herself that in her old environment seemed to be encased in stone. Now, she knew that was an illusion. She fell into old habits like a strong current and was swept away. It just happened, before she was even aware of it. And now the die was cast, seemingly up to her neck in the hardened cement that was the prevailing student opinion. She was again the 'know-it-all', the 'insufferable', bossy and overbearing. Claustrophobia had started to bloom and just breathing seemed to be getting harder.

Still having made no friends, and lots of jealous enemies because of her embarrassingly high talents and drive, she considered giving up on magic and going back to the muggle world. Even if it meant obliviation for her and her parents. She no longer needed the approval of others; you had to respect someone to want their approval. That had been burned away quite completely. Her disappointment was crushing.

But how do you give up on what you are? "To be or not to be, that is the question." She smiled at the quote that jumped to mind. If the environment didn't crush her joy of learning, if the pure-bloods didn't kill her for being a mudblood and an embarrassment to their lack of talent, if she could keep her sanity while watching slavery and bigotry destroy people, if she can survive long enough to sit her OWLS, then maybe she can abandon magic and go back to the muggle world and start again without being obliviated. All she had to do was survive long enough to escape back to reality. That's all; as if it were easy. She was trapped in a magical cage. Could she survive three more years?

She decided that at the end of a bad year was not the right time to be drawing any lasting conclusions like these. She would have to wait until later in the summer to decide whether to go back or give it all up as lost. Even through her iron will, she came the closest she had in many years to crying herself to sleep as she faded into a nightmare; a vision of that container ship breaking loose in the coming storm. Or breaking up on the rocks, it wasn't clear. The storm though, was very clear.