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The search started a month after the battle. Harry Potter vanished straight off of the Earth two weeks after the battle. No one knew where he went or why he disappeared. He just… left. He was left behind the Wizarding World, the torn-apart school that was his home for seven-ish years, and presumably leaving the British Isles.
People started speculating, just as they always do. The papers theorized that Harry Potter had been killed by some rogue Voldemort sympathizers who escaped capture. Schoolchildren theorized that he’d killed himself after the battle out of grief, he certainly wouldn’t have been the first to do so. His friends and family didn’t know what to do except hope that he was safe.
Amidst all the grief and uncertainty, came Hermione Granger with her ingenious idea. Even though the Aurors had searched every place that he could be, including some of the lesser-known places, she thought to just… continue. From the day that the Aurors gave their condolences and declared the saviour dead, Hermione Granger vowed never to stop searching for her best friend and brother.
She, of course, took some time off to spend time with her best friend. Ron would come along on the searches sometimes. Mostly on the anniversary of Harry’s disappearance. Though after five years Ron just stopped coming along, including trying to get his sister-in-all-but-blood to stop obsessing over this search.
“Hermione, he’s gone. Harry’s been gone since 1998. You aren’t going to find him.”
She turned to look at him, “He isn’t dead. I’ll find him and I’ll bring him home. Even if it’s just his body. Harry deserves a proper burial if he’s dead. I’m going to find him, even if it takes another twenty.”
“Damn it, Hermione. This isn’t healthy. Do you know what most people call what you're doing right now? Obsessing. Obsessing and not accepting your grief. Everyone was devastated that Harry died so soon after the battle, and that’s okay. What your doing, still searching for a dead man after five years, isn’t.”
“He isn’t dead Ronald. So what if I’m obsessing over trying to find him? You care about him as much as I do. When I find him, everything will be right again. I’m not stopping until I find him, so don’t even try to stop me anymore.”
And so, we have today. Exactly twenty years after Harry James Potter disappeared. Twenty years since he vanquished Lord Voldemort. Exactly nineteen years since he’d been declared dead.
On a normal suburban street in Hamburg, New Jersey was a family of five. The three children, James, Lily, and Molly. James was eleven years old, Lily was nine, and Molly was six. The mother, Gabrielle Taylor, worked as a store manager at a Walmart. The father, Harry Taylor, worked as a paper salesman in an office in New York City. Most people regarded the family as a normal happy family. No magic, no odd occurrences with the children, all around normal people.
Something special happened a few days ago though, James was delivered a letter by an owl. A letter inviting him to study at the Ilvermony School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At first, the parents thought it to be some kind of prank from one of James’ school friends, but when a teacher from the school came to their doorstep to confirm their son’s enrollment, it made them believe. Those few times that something strange happened in the home, such as lights flickering and water faucets spraying water even though they weren’t on, made sense. It was James doing magic.
Coincidentally, Hermione Granger was in the town of Hamburg, looking for the Man-Who-Won. What brought her here was unknown, just a gut feeling, but after almost dying at eighteen multiple times, she learned to trust her gut. The thirty-eight-year-old was trying to follow a magical signature when she came a second, slightly dimmed but still, powerful signature coming from the gas station.
Following this new source, she found it and her breath hitched. There, standing alive and well, was Harry James Potter looking the best she had seen him look. He stood tall and didn’t look like the same gaunt seventeen-year-old she spent a year finding Horcruxes with. He had a wedding band on his hand surprisingly. Even more surprising was when the Gas station clerk called him Harry Taylor. After twenty years, she found him alive and well. With her determination steady she walked up to Harry as he was walking out.
“Harry! Oh by Merlin, Harry!” She called after him.
Harry turned around with an eyebrow raised. He glanced at her and then said something that would make all the searching seem like it was for nothing.
“I’m sorry miss, but do I know you? You might have the wrong person.”
Hermione just looked at him blankly, and then realized why he hadn’t come back, “Ah, I’m sorry. You just look like someone I knew when I was in grade school. I’m sorry for startling you.”
“No worries.”
Hermione and Harry went their separate ways, Harry to his car and Hermione to hers. Her whole world just came crashing down. She finally found Harry Potter but he didn’t remember her? Was he confunded? Had twenty years made him forget? A million questions were running through her mind. Though one stood out the most, ‘Had whatever made him leave also erased his memories?’
With this question in mind, Hermione Granger placed a notice-me-not spell around her car and followed Harry Potter. She was surprised when she followed him to a normal-looking neighborhood. She saw him leave the car and walk into a normal, muggle-looking house. Throwing one of George’s invisible extendable ears into the open door, she used an invisibility spell to sit outside of the house and listen in.
Inside she heard a woman greet Harry as her husband and three children call him Dad. What solidified her theory that Harry lost his memories but still remembered a few was that he called the children James, Lily, and Molly, the names of his dead parents and mother figure.
“How was work, Harry?” The woman asked.
“It was fine Gabby. I stopped by the gas station and something interesting happened when I was leaving the store. Some woman came up to me a called my name. Guess she thought I was someone else. It’s kind of funny that her friend has the same name as me though.”
“That’s interesting. Now, James has all of his school things for this magic school, how do you feel about all of this? He’ll be gone for a good ten months.”
“He’ll be back for Thanksgiving and Christmas, won’t he? I mean, he’ll be the first person in our family to have magic. I wonder if Lily and Molly will have magic too?”
His wife, Gabby, seemed to get closer to the ear, so farther away from Harry, “It isn’t like either of them went to magic school is it Harry?”
“It isn’t, but imagine all the fun James will have. I think I might be jealous.” Harry laughed.
“How mature, a father being jealous of his son’s specialties,” Gabby said sarcastically.
This banter went on for a few more minutes, with talk about their son, James, going to magic school. Hermione guessed that this school would be Ilvermony, essentially American Hogwarts. Though after listening, especially with how Harry seemed to genuinely not remember who he is or what he’s done, she makes a decision. She’ll need help if she’s gonna bring Harry back to the wizarding world, and she’ll have their (hers now it seems) friends help her return Harry Potter to them. And hope they don’t completely uproot his life like what happened when her parents’ memories were returned.
With renewed vigor, she apparated to the nearest international floo. With an address, life confirmation, and a drive that even the gods could not stop, Hermione Granger came back to England determined to get Harry Potter’s memories back and hopefully get him to come back to the place he once called home.