One More Year

Chapter Two

They had been travelling from town to town for three weeks now. They had started in Sidney and had just arrived in Perth last night. Hermione had a large detailed map of Australia folded neatly inside the bag she carried. As they explored each town she would cross it off from the map. The map was wrinkled from being looked at so frequently. Each X on the map represented one more disappointment. She hadn't expected finding her parents would be easy. If it was easy then a Death Eater could have found them, but she also hadn't expected it to be so difficult. She was so happy that she wasn't doing this alone and she had Ron with her. With a surge of emotion, she gratefully took his hand and they intertwined their fingers as they walked down the street together.

Each day had been the same since they arrived. They spent the day searching. Going through phone books looking for her parents' aliases and looking up all the dentist offices in town. They would then visit the offices just to make sure her parents didn't work there. After failing, she would cross off the town with a black X and they would apparate to a new town together. She would spend her nights pouring over the books she brought with her that she thought may help, until falling into bed in an exhausted, anxious mess beside Ron. She was beyond grateful he was here with her. He would curl up around her, holding her and rubbing the knots out of her neck. Sometimes they would spend the night kissing, but it never went further than that. The kissing lacked passion but was derived from a need to feel connected and not alone on this journey and in life. It was hard for her to concentrate on their relationship with her parents constantly nagging at the back of her mind. Ron could sense that with everything going on Hermione was distracted and waited patiently providing any support she seemed to need.

Occasionally they would receive an owl from one of Kingsley Shacklebolt's Australian contacts with any information they had on her parents. He had very kindly contacted a few officials he knew before they embarked on their trip to help them in any way possible. So far, they had had no luck and Ron let out a frustrated sigh.

"Are you sure there's no way to find your parents magically?" he complained for what seemed like the tenth time.

"If there was a way don't you think I would have used it already!" she snapped. "If only we could use the tracer charm."

"What's the tracer charm?" Ron asked excitedly.

"If you are searching for someone, you can trace them if you have something of the missing persons that is extremely meaningful and special to them by enchanting the object. The enchanted object will then be drawn to them."

Ron looked uncomfortable, "like a piece of their soul?"

They both grimaced at the line of thinking. "No. Nothing so permanent. From what I read it just has to be an item that the missing person associates great significance too. For example, I had a stuffed unicorn growing up that I slept with every night. I still keep it in my trunk with me at Hogwarts. I think that item would trace me."

Ron's eyebrows raised in disbelief, "but you grew up a muggle! How did you know about unicorns?"

Hermione gave him a half-hearted grin. "The muggle world knows of magical creatures Ron, they just don't believe they're real."

They stopped at the corner pay phone and Hermione started rifling through the pages. Ron had learned early on to let her do this part. If he tried looking she just got annoyed and would have to look again after him to make sure he didn't miss anything. He leaned lazily against the telephone booth as she scribbled down notes.

"Alright, let's go back to our room, map out the dentist office locations and then head out"

"Hermione, I know the drill. We've done the same thing every day for three weeks." He rolled his eyes.

She bit her tongue to avoid the scathing retort she was about to hiss at him. Nothing was going to ruin her mood today.

They entered their dingy room and she started to work. They were interrupted almost immediately by a tap on the window. She recognized the grey and white owl from one of the Australian contacts Shacklebolt put them in touch with. For the second time that day Hermione quickly tore open a letter and scanned through it. Ron could immediately tell it was bad news as Hermione sighed in frustration and tapped her foot in annoyance.

"What is it?"

"The same old nothing Ron. They're doing what they can but are very busy and can only provide limited resources. If only Harry was here! I bet they'd find the resources then!" She huffed.

She returned to her map but immediately felt guilty that she was resentful that Harry didn't join them.

After the war they had all spent time attending every funeral that was held. She knew Harry felt personally responsible for each persons' death. It had taken its toll on all of them. They were all quieter and lost in their thoughts more. She was lucky that she had Ron. He had helped her get through each of those funerals. She didn't know if she would have been able to manage without Ron's reassuring presence next to her, holding her hand. She knew Harry had Ginny too and she was grateful for that. But it would take a lot of time to move on from what happened. The immediate shock of the situation had passed for her. Now it was just like a constant low-lying sadness that was always present.

Hermione had to find her parents and she threw herself into this project to keep her mind from dwelling on all the people they had lost. When she was really involved in a project she could temporarily forget about what happened and the depression that sometimes threatened to overwhelm her. She was especially grateful for Ron's arms around her holding her tightly on those nights. She had known Harry wouldn't join her to search for her parents. Not that he didn't want to help her but in addition to spending time with Ginny and Teddy he was spending his days trying to fix the magical world and everything Voldemort had ruined. He had been working closely with the new Ministry to try and put everything back to normal in whatever way he could. She knew that Harry needed to be trying to fix everything on a larger scale then simply finding her parents and she understood that. But not for the first time did she wish he would have been there with them. It felt odd to be missing one of her best friends.

"Alright Ron, I've got our day all mapped out. Shall we begin?"

As if he knew that she was beginning to feel discouraged he turned to her enveloping her in a hug and whispered, "we'll find them Hermione. I know we will."