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SIYE Time:9:49 on 28th March 2024
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A Strange Surprise
By WALKINGUNDEAD

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Category: Alternate Universe
Characters:All, All
Genres: Comedy, Fluff, Songfic
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 7
Summary: It's four years after the war, and no one has seen Harry Potter since. Join Ginny and Hermione as they find their friend, in the most unlikely of places.
Hitcount: Story Total: 5395







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A/N: Ok, this was something that I started to think about while I was on the bus the other day. As strange as it sounds, I've come up with some ideas in weirder places. This, as you'll see, is simply a one shot fic, that came while trying to get the old creative juices going. Some one is going to try to tell me that it's unreal, and OOC, but you know what, you don't like it, you don't have to read it. Yes, for my purposes, the war ended in 1999.

Disclaimer: I, must unfortunately do not own Harry Potter, or the lyrics to the song below. If I did, I wouldn't be writing this, I would be rolling in a large pile of one hundred dollar bills.

A Strange Surprise.


It was four years after the war, the war to end all wars. Voldemort was destroyed, and the death eaters had chosen to die, rather than be captured, but many where still unhappy. The toll of the war had been great. The Ministry had estimated that over 500 had died in the final battle alone, and that was just wizard casualties. This was the greatest amount of deaths, for wizard kind, since the great witch burnings of the fourteenth century. The people that were most unhappy, were the friends of Harry Potter.

Something after the war had changed him, and it may not have been a change for the good. After finishing Hogwarts, Harry decided to travel, rather than become an Auror, like he had planned. Soon after leaving, he became almost impossible to find. No one seemed to know where he was, and only Ron and Hermione had managed to get their letters answered. He appeared from time to time, making lame excuses about why he hadn't replied to any of their letters, but other than that, he was almost invisible.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

One day, around Ginny Weasley's birthday, her best friend, and soon to be sister-in-law, walked into her room.

“Hey Gin,” called Hermione. She looked down at the youngest Weasley, and the first girl, in several generations. Over the years Ginny had filled out, and most of the boys at Hogwarts were tripping over themselves to get her attention, except for the one she wanted to pay attention to her. Her flaming red hair, that she almost constantly cursed, had grown down to her waist, and her brown eyes seemed to sparkle with some inner light. Even though she spent a lot of time in the sun, her skin remained pale, with a light dusting of freckles going over the bridge of her nose. She had a full smile, and naturally bright pink lips. She had become quite the young woman.

“Hey yourself,” she replied. She was in a bad mood as it was, another year had gone by, another year without Harry.

“Are you busy tonight?” Hermione asked. “'cause there is a really good concert going on in London, at some club, and I managed to get us tickets. Should be a good turn out.”

“A muggle concert?” asked Ginny. Hermione indicated that this was true. “Then thanks, but no thanks, I can't stand that Britney Smears, or what ever she's called.”

Hermione blushed. She happened to like Britney Spears, but she would never admit it. “No, it's a tribute to some American rock band. I don't remember what their called, but one of my cousins told me they were really good, considering that their not signed to a record label.”

“Record Label?” asked Ginny, “What's a record label?”

Hermione sighed. “It's a company that produces music. Their the ones that find the talent, then they make a recording of the band playing, then they sell it to muggles, I thought you knew that.”

“I knew about records, and gramophones, but I had never heard of a record label before.”

“Anyways, are you coming or not? You've been a right funk for a while, you need to get out more, you know that?”

Ginny sighed. She knew that Hermione meant well, but she didn't like going out mingling, especially to things like concerts. Her room mates at Hogwarts used to talk about them all the time, loud music, and drunk people everywhere. If that was a concert, then she would do fine without it. But on the other hand, she knew that Hermione had probably spent a lot of money on these tickets, and that she wouldn't want to seem rude. Besides, if worse came to worse, then she could always leave, and say she wasn't feeling well.

“Alright, what time does this thing start?”

“About 8 o'clock. I'll pick you up, ok?”

“Yeah, I'll see you then.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Wh en Hermione had arrived later that evening, she found Ginny outside waiting for her.

“What's up?” Hermione asked.

“Nothing, I just couldn't stand sitting in there with mom, constantly telling me to be careful, and to come home straight away if I have any problems with the muggles. You wouldn't believe I'm turning twenty-two in a few days time from the way she speaks to me!”

“Well, you are the youngest, she's just looking out for you,” Hermione replied carefully, Ginny did have a very large temper.

“SO!” Ginny yelled. “I'm big enough to take care of myself!”

“Ginny, calm down. I didn't say that you weren't capable, but that your mom wants to make sure that you're safe.”

“Alright, where is this concert?”

“Not too far from Diagon alley, lets apparate there, then we'll walk the rest of the way.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Not long after, they walked up to a muggle night club, in a rather seedy area of London, where there was a large, burly looking muggle with a shaved head, and dark sunglasses standing near the door.

“Whose he?” Ginny whispered to Hermione.

“He's the bouncer. He makes sure that no one without a ticket comes in, and if a fight starts, he breaks is up.”

“Geez, he's a big guy, I'd hate to get on his bad side.”

“Yeah, bouncers have to be big, or else people will start trouble. In their line of work its more intimidation than anything else.”

They handed their tickets to the large man at the door, who grunted and stamped the back of their hand. After they had walked through the door, Ginny turned to Hermione and said

“I think he might be related to Crabbe or Goyle. Has their vocabulary.”

Hermione let out a nervous giggle, and looked around the bar. The atmosphere was surprisingly friendly, considering the shoddy location of the building. They walked up to the bar, and ordered drinks. Hermione ordered something called a mudslide, which looked more like an ice cream float, with lots of chocolate syrup and whipped cream, and Ginny just ordered a rum and cola. They chose seats close to the bar, at Hermione's recommendation, rather than close to the stage. When Ginny asked about this, she simply replied

“These events have a nasty habit of getting rough, lots of injuries have been known to happen here.”

“Then why in merlin's name would you bring me here?!” Ginny asked, nearly hysterically. This did not seem like Hermione at all.

“Nothing will go wrong if you keep your head. Just calm down.”

The room slowly filled up, mostly with muggles in their late teens, some in their early twenties. The vast majority were dressed in black, along with large leather boots, chains, spikes, studs peircings and other unusual things, at least to Ginny. After one particular incident, Ginny pointed this out to Hermione.

“Did you see that bloke? He's being walked around on a leash!”

“Yeah, from what I've heard, thats not too uncommon here.”

“But why?”

“Who knows, its all part of the fad, I guess.”

A young man, whom was sitting at the bar talking to the manager about something turned around at Hermione's last comment. He had an unruly mop of jet black hair, that grew down to his shoulders, and had peirceing green eyes, almost exactly like Harry. Though Ginny was sure that Harry would never dress like this. He was wearing a long black trench coat, a black t-shirt, a pair of black cargo pants that were held up with a thich leather belt covered in strange, little metal pyramids, and had what appeared to be black, fishnet stockings covering the visible part of his arm. His feet were covered in leather boots that almost came up to his knees, and zipped up rather than laced. His face was mostly obscured by his hair, but Ginny thought that she saw something strange, when the stranger walked away.

“I hate to be rude,” he said. “But these people, they're not indulging in a fad, its a lifestyle,” and with that, he judged the conversation closed, and hopped up onto the stage.

“Hermione, was that who I think it was?”

Hermione turned to face her friend, and had a calculating expression on her face. “Who do you think that was?”

“Harry!”

A strange look flashed across Hermione's face very quickly, but soon was replaced with a neutral expression. “Nah, it couldn't have been Harry. Last we heard, he was somewhere in Ireland, taking a tour around the country side.”

Ginny reserved her doubt; she didn't think that her friend was being entirely truthful with her.

A loud tapping noise that echoed around the bar brought the two girls out of their reviere. They looked up to the stage, where the strange man that had listened into Hermione's explanation was standing on the front of the stage, infront of a microphone, with a black electric guitar strapped over his shoulder. When the man was sure he had everyone's attention, he said

“And without further adeiu, lets get this show on the road.”

The man sitting behind the drums counted the rest of the band in, and the song began. The beat was heavey, and the lyrics where almost screamed into the microphone. Ginny had no idea of what the man was singing about, but there was something about it, that dragged her in, kept her enthralled. She soon found that she was attempting to tap her foot in beat to the music. A large group of people, boys mostly, were ingaged in some sort of strange movement, which was almost to fast to catch. Ginny soon realized that a fight had broken out.

“Where is that bouncer guy?” she yelled at Hermione, who had closed her eyes, and was nodding her head with the song. “What are those guys doing?”

Hermione opened her eyes, and looked at the space that had been cleared right in front of the stage. She shook her head, and looked back to her friend. “They're moshing,” she said, as if it was something a two year-old could have understood.

“What's moshing?” Ginny yelled. She was beginning to understand why people didn't talk much at concerts, it was too hard to hear what the person next to you was saying.

“I don't know how to explain it, but basically, its a friendly fight. It's what people here do instead of dancing. This is usually the roughest part of these concerts. A lot of nose bleeds.”

Ginny shook her head in wonder of what these muggles would do next. She found that during the preformance, the signer would look at her strangely, almost as if he remembered her from somewhere.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Ok people,” the singer said after an hour, “this is our last song, and its a really light one, but its been great playing here, I hope we can come back.”

“That's it?” Ginny asked. She was expecting this thing to go on longer than this.

“No, there are other bands playing, just this was the reason I got these tickets.”

The singer stepped up to the microphone, with a stool, and an acustic guitar,looked Ginny in the eyes, and began the song.

She seams dressed in all of me,
streached across my shame.
All the torment and the pain,
leaked through and covered me.
I'd do anything that I could to myself,
just to have her for myself.
Now I don't know what to do,
I don't know what to do, when she makes me sad.

And I won't let this build up inside of me,
I won't let this build up inside of me,
I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up... inside of me.


The lead singer's emerald green eyes seemed to bore into Ginny's and as he shook his hair out of his face, she again saw something that was strange, but she didn't have enough time for it to register before his hair was hanging over it again.

A catch in my throat,
Choke,
Torn in to pieces,
I won't,
No,
I don't wanna be this,
But I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up inside of me,
I won't let this build up inside of me,
I won't let this build up...
build up
inside of me,

She... isn't real,
I can't make her real

inside of me.


The croud burst into applause, and a stream of people headed outside for fresh air, and the band packed up their instruments. When they were done, the lead singer walked over to the bar, and the manager shook his hand, and handed him an envolope. The singer sat down on the stool next to Hermione, and poked her in the shoulder. She looked at him, and gave him a huge hug, and a kiss on the cheek.

Ginny was stunned, especially when the young man gave her a familiar hug too.

“How did you like the performance, Ginny?” he asked.

Everything hit her all at once. The strange familiarity of the singer, and his voice. His appearance, and his attitude. “Harry?” she replied quietly.

Harry grinned, nodded, and brushed back his hair, revealing his lightning bolt scar.

“You two were in this thing the whole time, wern't you?” she asked acusingly. Her resemblance to her mother was extremely profound at this moment.

Harry nodded guiltily. “But theres a story to tell here, if you'll...”

“What?” yelled Ginny. “You run off for FOUR YEARS, and expect just to jump back into our lives like this? Do you know how long mum cried for after you left? Do you know how worried I was about you? Off by yourself, with Death Eaters on the loose? God Harry, you can be so thick sometimes!”

Harry's face fell. “I'm sorry. I guess I was wrong.” He stood up, and walked away, over to his band whom where getting things ready to leave.

“God, Hermione, what did I just do?”

“Well Ginny, you just ran off a man that was going to tell you something very inportant. He had come back to see your family, last week while you were at work, and explained everything, but he wanted to surprise you. So we planned this little charade. Do you think your mum would have let you come to a muggle club otherwise?”

“What should I do now?”

“Go talk to him, or you might never get the chance again.”

Ginny walked nervously over to the group, and tapped Harry on the shoulder. His expression was neutral, but Ginny knew he was hurting. “I'm sorry Harry, I should have let you tell me the whole story, but some times my temper just gets the best of me, you know?”

“Yeah, uh can we talk, alone?”

“Sure,” Ginny replied and followed him out the door, and around the corner.

Harry sat down, against the wall, and looked up. “I do have a lot of explaining to do. I guess, when it was all over, when the shit hit the fan, so to speak, I felt guilty.” Harry looked at his knees, which were hugged up against his chest, and continued. “I felt guilty for causing the loss of so many lives. All those Aurors and the members of the order. Sirius in my fifth year, you nearly died, all because of Voldemort, and your association with me. I had to get away, but something was nagging at the back of my mind, always, and it was you.” Harry looked up at Ginny again. Seemingly changing subjects, he said, “You know that I was prophecized to be the one with the power to vanquish the dark lord, and that we would be equals, right? Well, apparently I had a power over him, something that he didn't know about. Do you know what that was?”

Ginny shook her head. She knew about the prophecy, Ron and Hermione had told her about that, after Harry had told her.

“It was love, Ginny. The one thing that Voldemort couldn't understand. My love for my friends, and family. It was my mother's love that saved me when I was only a baby, but do you know what saved me in the end?”

Again, Ginny didn't know, and she shook her head.

“It was my love for you. I love you Ginny Weasley, but I was too thick to know for a long time.”

Ginny nearly fainted. The boy, no the man, that she had loved for as long as she could remember, the one she loved when her mother used to tell her stories about him saving the world before bed time, was finally telling her he loved her. Ginny sank down against the wall, next to Harry. She looked into his eyes, and could tell that, that was what she saw when he was singing, seemingly staring at her. She slowly moved forward, still gazing into his eyes, until their lips met.

Their first kiss was amazing. There was nothing else around, except for her and Harry. While the kiss itself only lasted a few moments, it seemed to take much longer than that. A minute, an hour, maybe a day, or even an eternity. They both finally understood what it meant to be complete.

“You know what Ginny?” Harry said when they finally broke apart.

“hmm?”

“I wandered for a long time, searching for something that was here all along. I'm finally home.”

A/N2: for those of you that don't know, the song above is called Vermillion part 2, and it is bu the almighty Slipknot. Listen to it, I may have gotten a few of the lyrics wrong, but I'm not that far off, I had to do it by memory, I'm typing it at my sister's place, and I don't have a copy of the cd it's on with me. Thank-you for reading, It's quite a change from what I usually do, so please leave a review!
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