Forsaken

The sun was sinking behind the hills in the distance when Harry finally found his way into the small village. It was out of the way, tiny, and didn't even show up on the map, but he'd been assured by a man in the last big town that it was there, and that it was on his way, if he wanted a place to stop and rest for a few days. The people there were friendly, he said, and he wouldn't be too out of place, as strangers passed through it all the time. Harry had thanked him, and continued on towards the tiny village in the middle of nowhere that might not even be there.

When he finally arrived, he nearly staggered into the main street, exhausted and sore from walking. "Excuse me," he whispered. "Is there a pub with an inn here?" The woman he'd stopped took pity on him.

"Just down the way, here," she said gently, pointing. "Where are you from, then?"

"London." Harry said, turning himself in the direction she'd indicated, feeling that if he just walked that way he might stumble across it. The road was dusty under his feet, but the only thing he was aware of was his hunger and tiredness.

"You ... London?!" She exclaimed, horrified. "Tell me you didn't walk all that way! What on earth are you doing out this way, if you're from London? Did your car break down?"

"Walked most of the way," Harry said, suddenly wary of saying too much to her. "My friends needed the ... car. They found out they're having a baby, and couldn't come with me. I'm just passing through," he said. "I'll be on my way in a few days, once I've had some rest and food."

"You'll get plenty of that here," she said, and stopped them in front of an unprepossessing building, squalid but not derelict. "Here's the inn, dear. Good luck with whatever brings you here to Weyvn."

Harry thanked her for her kindness, and forced himself into the bar. He sat down with a sigh at one of the nearest empty tables, and reveled in the joys of just being able to sit down. Pulling his book bag off his back, he rifled through it and pulled out some of the muggle money he'd had exchanged about ten thousand years ago at Gringotts. Really it had only been a week, but five of those seven days he'd been on foot after lending the Firebolt to Hermione and Ron so that they could get back to London. Hermione had found out she was pregnant, and Ron had promised to come back as soon as his fiancee was safely ensconced at the Weasley's Burrow, but Harry had no intentions of letting himself be found again. Ron would give up and go back to his family, and Harry would continue on as he'd originally planned; alone.

He had a ration of food in his bag, along with his invisibility cloak and wand. The rations were growing short, and it had been a while since he'd seen any sort of civilization. At least now he could stock up for another few days, just long enough to get him to the next town closer to Godric's Hollow. It was only a stone's throw from where he currently found himself, but on foot it was sure to take at least a day, and in his condition possibly longer.

A waitress flitted over to him energetically. "Can I get you anything sir? Coffee?"

"Coffee," Harry managed, and blinked up at her. For a moment his fuzzy brain mistook her for Ginny, and he was terrified that she'd followed him. The similarities ended with the hair, however. Her eyes were dark brown, and she was petite in ways Harry had only ever seen on magazines before. Her nametag read Jenne, and he looked away.

"Just coffee? You look like you need something a bit stronger." Her voice was husky, slightly rough around the edges, and Harry found it pleasing to listen to.

"I wouldn't mind someone to chat with, if you've got the time," Harry said on a whim. "And a sandwich."

"I'm off in an hour," she said. "My name's Jenne, by the way. I know a place we can go and sit for a while. You can check into the inn if you're staying."

"Harry," he said blandly and nodded. She drifted away to get his coffee, and he watched her go, admiring her lithe form. She'd probably grown up in this small town, and had a boyfriend on the local football team. When she set the coffee down in front of him, Harry breathed it in blissfully, before taking a long pull on it. "Oh, that's good," he said, and she smiled at him.

"Glad you think so," she offered, and moved on to help the couple who'd just walked in. Another waitress brought out his sandwich, which was even better than the coffee, and Harry scarfed it down as though it would scuttle off his plate if left too long. He glanced at his watch, and then picked his bag up, leaving a ten-pound note on the table for Jenne. He checked into the inn, and fell into the bed when he made it to his room. He took his wand from the dusty bag and set up a rudimentary alarm system, enough to keep people from getting to close and to alert him if they did. He yawned, and forced himself off the comforter, then unpacked the few items in his bag, laying them out on the table as a reminder. He had the ring, salvaged from Dumbledore after his death, the necklace, found at last at number 12, Grimmauld place, where it had been all along. The remnants of the diary, stolen right out from Malfoy's nose at his own house by his own house elf. Three of the supposed six Horcruxes he was crusading to find. Two destroyed already, and the third awaiting an answer to it's unsolvable riddle.

He took his clean clothes from his bag and showered quickly, wishing he had more time to relax and wash the road's grime from his body. He dried off and dressed again, looking much more presentable now, and left his glasses beside the bed. He didn't need them after having paid for expensive muggle surgery to correct his vision, but clung to them both for sentimental reasons, and his darkest, dearest secret.

He'd killed Rodolphus shortly before they set off on the quest for Horcruxes. Lifted his wand to the Death Eater's back, and cast the killing curse at him. In the resulting chaos he'd caved to the niggling voice in the back of his mind that whispered to him that he should use the aftermath of Rodolphus' murder to his own advantage. In a moment of drunken stupidity, he'd started himself on the path he'd vowed never to tread, and created a Horcrux of his own. Stupidly - drunkenly - he placed the bit of his soul in his glasses, despite not needing them, and promptly spelled them into unbreakability. They were completely impervious to fire, spells, brute force. Everything he could think of that would damage them, and he considered hiding them away somewhere, tucking them into some niche and forgetting they existed. That was treading dangerously close to Voldemort's way of thinking, however, and he continued to wear them as a reminder of his folly.

He locked the door behind him when he went, carrying only his wand and wallet with a few bills in it, leaving his entire life's worth of belongings in the unwarded room.

He wandered back into the main dining room, and saw Jenne leaning against the table he'd sat at earlier, her apron gone and her hair down.

"Hey," she said. "I was wondering if you were going to come down, or just stand me up for your bed." He grinned at her.

"Nah, I'd never leave such a pretty girl like you waiting like that. I'd like to think that there are some men with manners still left in this world, and I'm just stubborn enough to count myself among them."

She giggled softly, and lead him out into the street. "What brings you around here, then, Harry?" There was something a bit deeper in her tone, something strange, but it darted away from Harry's consciousness almost as soon as it made itself known to him.

Later, he'd have no idea what came over him. There was something about the feeling of the wind drying his hair, and the sun on his face, and the pretty girl with a kind smile that made him lose his wits.

"Well," he said with complete honesty. "As archaic as it sounds, I'm on a quest to save the world."

"You're not from Greenpeace, are you?" she asked, smirking at him over her own joke. Harry laughed, and shook his head.

They walked only a short distance from the pub, out the back of the town and down to a sizeable lake. "No one remembers what it's called any more," Jenne said. "Most people just call it 'the lake'. I like to think of it as a celestial mirror. You see how the moonlight flickers off of it; the sun makes it glow golden, like a pool of gold."

The still water reflected silver in the moonlight, and Harry looked out over the lake. It did seem like a mirror, put there just for the moon to admire herself.
"Have you lived here long?" Harry asked, grasping at straws for conversation.

"A few months. I moved here with my dad when my mum was ... when my mum left us," Jenne said softly.

"Why here?" He guessed that the subject of her mum was a sensitive one, and avoided it.

She shrugged, leaning back on her elbows to look up at the stars. "It's out of the way. It's small. It's situated in such a way that no one knows it's here, but most travellers to and from Whales pass through it at least once. The library is over a hundred years old, and some of the texts in there are so old they're falling apart. I love the library. I love books, and learning. I wish I had been able to finish school."

"School?" Harry asked, startled. "How old are you? I didn't finish school, either. This would have been my last year." His voice took on the same wistful, longing tone hers did.

"I'm seventeen," she said slowly. "It would have been my last year, too." There were a few moments of speculative silence, then Harry lay back and looked up to the sky.

"That's my favourite constellation," he said, pointing. She twisted closer to him, following his hand.

"That wonky looking N one, beside the big dipper?" she asked. "I can never remember what it's called, but I know that it's one of the constellations."

"Draco," Harry breathed quietly. "It's been my favourite since I was a kid." Jenne got up on her elbows again and peered down at him, a curious expression on her face. She sat up and took a small sip out of a bottle that disappeared back into her pocket.

"I think... it's getting late. I should get home. I don't work tomorrow, though, if you'd like to get together and talk some more." She climbed to her feet gracefully, and Harry realized she was taller than he'd thought originally, just incredibly thin. Her shirt clung to her waist, accentuating her hips, and Harry kept his eyes on her feet until he'd stood up beside her, not wanting to seem like he was staring.

"Thank you, Jenne," he said, and smiled at her. She smiled back, looking a little breathless, and then turned and started jogging in the direction of 'the other side of town'. Harry watched her go, and turned only when she was out of sight to return to the inn.

-- TBC...

This was inspired by the song Travelling Soldier, by the Ditsy...er...Dixie Chicks. (I generally don't like them, but it's a good song.) STILL working on Displaced, Tempus Fugit, and about half a dozen others, I'm just adding this to the list.