By far the best part of his lessons were the field trips on Saturdays. They seemed to go everywhere, from court houses and museums, to workshops and sporting events, and even to a wildlife reserve for endangered magical creatures. Many of these places the others had already been too, but to Harry it was all a wonderfully new and peculiar. It earned him a fair bit of teasing, but he didn't care.
Aside from that first day, there were no further discoveries regarding any wizards or witches named Potter, but Hermione pointed out that there really weren't that many books in their psuedo-library and once term started they could make more definitive search. Harry was torn between longing and dread at the thought that he had wizards in his family. What if is father had been a squib and he'd been cast out of the family? If there were still a wizarding family of Potters would they one day learn of him and try and claim him as their own? What they be like? Like his father? Brave, playful, a bit immature at times? Would they be like the Dursleys? Arrogant, selfish, and prejudice? Had they aligned with Voldemort or killed during the war?
Sometimes he would stay up at night thinking about, a network of different pasts leading down paths to different futures, too many to calculate. And sometimes it all seemed so trivial. Harry Potter was Harry Potter, and he was a wizard. The past couldn't change it, and the present didn't want to. .
He was enjoying himself so much that when August 1st arrived, he had completely overlooked the fact that he was now eleven. Hermione, however, proved once again she had a mind like a steel trap and presented him a small, neatly wrapped package during lunch.
"Happy Birthday, Harry," she said, placing her gift beside his sandwich.
Harry blinked at her owlishly. "I completely forgot. How could I have forgotten that? Wait, how on earth did you know today was my birthday?"
"You told me the first day we met, remember? When I asked if you had your wand yet you said you didn't because you wouldn't be eleven until the first of August."
"Yikes...no, I don't remember it all. I think the discussion about Voldemort kinda shoved the rest of it aside."
There was a loud clanking of dropped silverware and several students turned dark glares at him. "Potter! Don't say his name so nonchalantly!" snapped one of Thomas' friends.
Harry just shrugged and muttered a sorry, then turned back to Hermione.
"You didn't have to get me anything, Hermione. I mean, we haven't known each other that long and all."
"If I had known you thirty years I would not have had to get you anything either. Just open it."
Timidly, he followed her instruction. It turned out to be a gold plated pocket watch with the Hogwarts emblem on the exterior. He opened it, and inside was engraved 'To Harry, Hope this keeps you on time and on track. Hermione.'
"Hermione, this is much too nice for me to accept!"
She merely waved off his concerns. "Don't concern yourself with that. It's just a transfigured stopwatch. My adoptive mother, Narcissa, helped me make it. It's charmed to grow warm if you start running late for something."
He smiled at her shyly, still rather awed by the gift. He hadn't been expecting anything, and despite her dismissive attitude it was a beautiful gift. As he stared at it a sudden memory came to him. Years ago when he was only five or six, he had been sitting in the living room as his parents got ready to go out for the evening. He remembered his father standing in the hall, dressed in a tux and holding a gold pocket watch as he told his mother to hurry up. She had come rushing down the stairs in her high heels and red dress, her hair up in cascading red curls. His father had smiled at her wryly, showing her the time, and she had grabbed his arm and rushed him towards the door, kissing Harry goodbye as she went.
Feeling his eyes suddenly damp, he quickly got up and left the table, heading for the privacy outside. He was three steps out the door before Hermione caught up with.
"Harry, what is it? Did I do something wrong?"
"What? No! No, of course not." Harry turned away from her a moment to dry his eyes and try to calm himself. He felt a fool for getting all weepy over something that wasn't even sad. Not really.
"Harry, please talk to me. I promise I won't tell anyone else, but please tell me what's upset you?" she pleaded.
"It's not you. Really, it's silly. It's just... while I was looking at the watch, I suddenly remembered my father had a watch like this. I mean, not like this watch, but you know, a gold pocket watch," he began, and inexplicable his gaze found its way to bearer of his memories, the gold Hogwarts seal gleaming in the sunlight. "I remembered how he used to carry it around, and my mom never wore a watch so she was always asking him for the time or pulling it out of his pocket herself. It's merely old memories. They just caught me off guard is all."
When he looked up, Hermione was looking at him with such a sad look.
"I must be nice," she said, "... to remember something like that about your parents."
"Don't you remember your parents?" As soon as he asked it, he regretted it. He knew the answer already. He knew she could not possible remember them the way he remembered his. No child of WYRA could possibly have left with the memory of their muggle life intact.
"I remember one or two things. I remember they were both dentists. I remember that my room was blue and there were white lace curtains on my window. But I can't remember what my life was like back then anymore. I don't know if I have my mother's or my father's eyes, or how they sounded when they laughed, or if I had any siblings or not. I don't remember much of anything. I was five when they took me away, but you'd think I would remember something more than curtains."
They stood there silently, sharing something unspoken, an understanding Harry was afraid no one would ever share with him again. She was like him. She might not have remembered her parents or her life from before, but she felt the loss. WYRA and memory spells and time hadn't stolen that primeval instinct that desired the connection of kin. They may have both hid their grief from the world, but it was clear as day to each other in this moment.
It was a startling realization, that she was now his very best friend.
She was his only real friend.
And he had to give her gift as well, even if it hurt her to accept it.
"It's not your fault," he said, "WYRA...they put spells on our beds to make us forget. They took our lives from us, Hermione. In more ways than one."
Her eyes widen, suddenly shiney and wet.
"How do you know-"
"Snape. He mentioned it the day before I was brought here, but I suspected it before then. There was a little boy who came in about a week after I arrived. He kicked up such a fuss all day, but when he woke up the next morning he was... different. Like he had never lived another life or had family before. I never slept in my bed after that. I've probably lost some memories because of the week I did, but I like to think they're ones that involved the Dursley's."
"The Dursley's?"
"My relatives. They looked after me...er, let me live with them... after my parents died."
Hermione let out a little gasp.
"I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't know. That's why you came back from Germany, isn't it?"
Harry shrugged it off. Hermione paced back and forth, a habit she often adopted when puzzling through unexpected information.
"I wondered sometimes," she said, "If something hadn't been done to me... but then I just dismissed it as me making excuses for myself. I can't believe it. That they would... It's awful. It's immoral."
"It's the world Voldemort made for us," Harry said bitterly.
"Harry! Be careful what you say!"
"I'm tired of being careful of what I bloody say!"
"For both our sakes, be careful what you say!"
That shut him up fast, and he gave her a pained, apologetic look. Harry looked off towards the lake and wondered where his treasonous thought had come from. Certainly, he couldn't remember entertaining it before, at least not with any feeling behind it. Yet now that he said it, it rang with a certain truth. How badly had Voldemort damaged wizarding society? How many families had it destroyed and lives it ended? Finally, Hermione, who had been pacing again turned back to him.
"We should go back. Natalie has probably started all sorts of gossip already."