Harry did not return to the Burrow that night, neither did he show up at Grimmauld Place. At midnight Mrs Steadfast sent out a selected group of Aurors to search discretely for him, since she did not want to awaken the interest of the press that always tried to monitor the movements of the Ministry. She knew the attention of the press could be just as damaging to Harry as a physical attack. Harry’s friends did not get much sleep that night, nor did Snape or Mrs Steadfast.

The search continued the next morning, but early afternoon Mrs Steadfast sent Snape back to Hogwarts. He was growing impatient and snappish, and was of no use to her in the office. She urged him to have some rest and get back to her later.

Snape Apparated at Hogsmeade and walked slowly towards the grounds of Hogwarts, deeply in thought. Instead of taking the path straight from the gate to the entrance, he made a detour aiming for the ground beneath the western tower. On his way, he passed by Hagrid’s cottage and the half giant called out to catch his attention.

“Afternoon, Sir,” said Hagrid urgently. “I ‘eard from Professor McGonagall just now that you were looking for ‘Arry.”

“Yes?” Snape stopped in front of his ground keeper.

“You missed’im, Professor, by ‘alf an hour or so. ‘Ee was in a state tonight when ‘ee turned up… I should’ve alerted you, but when I got ‘im to bed at last, I was too tired meeself, so I turned in as well…”

“Merlin,” Snape lifted a hand to his front. Why had he not thought to alert Hagrid? He was Harry’s oldest friend at Hogwarts after all. “Hold on, Hagrid, I need to send a message to Mrs Steadfast… She needs to hear this.”

“Already done, I think, Professor. Minerva took care of it when I told’er ‘Arry had been ‘ere. There she is, the steady lady. She’s a quick’un...” Snape lifted his head and spotted the lanky figure of Mrs Steadfast at the brow of the hill, approaching in long strides. Snape looked at her with reluctant admiration: She had been just as done in during the small hours of the night as he, and she had only had a few hours’ sleep in her office, but she had recovered remarkably, while he had barely been able to sleep at all.

“Professor,” she said as way of greeting and added with gentle sarcasm: “I don’t seem to be able to get you out of my way, can I?” Snape pulled a wry face, apologetically. “Dear Hagrid,” Mrs Steadfast went on, “please tell me everything. When did the young man turn up at your house?”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” Hagrid answered. “I more or less found ‘im on me doorstep in the middle of the night. Elves know if ‘ee was going to knock or not. It was the Kangabbits who woke me up, my magical watching creatures.”

“What was his state of mind?” Snape wanted to know.

 “‘Ee didn’t say a word, but looked a complete mess - scratches all over him, blood in his face. ‘Ee told me later that ‘ee had been ravaging the forest for hours, running, battling the branches, apparently.... ‘Ee was frozen to the bone - we’re in the middle of winter and ‘ee had no jacket, no cloak. ‘Ee had ‘is wand of course, and had been doing warming charms – when ‘ee remembered to, that is. But there’s a limit to magic, isn’t there? Merlin knows if ‘ee had made the night outside if I had not been waken up and brought ‘im in.”

Snape closed his eyes and shook his head. Mrs Steadfast muttered to herself. Snape raised an eyebrow at her.

“Young men,” she pronounced bitingly, “are so reckless.” Snape turned his eyes away.

“And sometimes prone to self-destructive behaviour,” he confirmed in a quiet voice. Mrs Steadfast sighed.

“What did he say, Hagrid?”

“I didn’t get much out of’im. ‘Ee was listless for a long while, like a Chimera who has lost ‘er baby, and agitated like a Manticore the next. ‘Ee was crying a lot… I didn’t know what to say to ‘im… Not so good at these things, old ‘Agrid is, but I gathered it had to do with Miss Ginny?” He looked at Mrs Steadfast who nodded her confirmation.

“So, what happened and why did he leave? When? And where was he going?” Mrs Steadfast spoke sternly and Hagrid reddened.

“I’m sorry Mrs Steady, I don’t know. ‘Ee didn’t fall to sleep until the sun had risen and ‘ee still woke me up several times, crying out. I rose at eleven – had things to do after all. Tried to let ‘im sleep in a little longer – ‘ee needed it, poor boy. But ‘ee woke with a start a couple o’ hours later. Stayed mute while I tried to get ‘im to eat some breakfast. No more tears, but ‘ee was restless and clammed up at the same time, if you know what I mean? Suddenly, ‘ee just told me ‘ee needed to be off, and thanked me for ‘aving ‘im stay. ‘Ee walked towards the forest. Said that ‘ee had found an Apparition spot in its outskirts. I suppose that’s ‘ow ‘ee arrived yesterday without your Aurors getting notice of it. I borrowed ‘im a cardigan, I did, to keep ‘im warm at least.”

Mrs Steadfast swore when she heard of Harry’s secret Apparition spot, because it meant that there was a flaw in her security arrangements around Hogwarts. She looked at Snape – what now? He made a grimace.

“At least we know that Harry’s alive and that he’s keeping out of people’s way. That makes it unlikely that he should stumble into a Death Eater or a Shifting member right now. The fiercest enemy is himself. We need to intercept him. Try to predict his next move,” said Snape.

***

Harry did not turn up until late the same evening when he knocked hesitantly at the door to Simmings’ apartment. The Auror opened and when he saw who it was, he drew a deep breath.

“Harry! Merlin, I’m glad to see you. Come in!”

Harry stared at Simmings as if the friendly spoken words were a foreign language to him. Simmings noticed that the young wizard’s arms were shaking. He frowned.

“How are you, Harry? You look like you’ve seen a spectre, or a gang of Inferis?”

Harry stared at him again, as if the words took long to sink in. A sudden emotion passed over his features and he made a grimace that Simmings was at a loss to interpret.

“I… I only managed to give myself a scare just now…” Harry responded with a little chuckle that got caught in his throat. He swallowed. “I… I need somewhere to stay the night. I… I’m scared of being alone, Simmings.”

“Please come on in then, Harry. You can’t imagine how glad I am that you turned up,” repeated Simmings.

Voices were heard from inside the apartment and Harry recoiled.

“You’re having a party?” he asked hesitantly. “I’ll come back another time.”

“Please, Harry. It’s just a few friends, you’ve met one or two of them already. Please, we’ll be happy to have you. We’ll take care of you. They’re good friends, you’ll see. You look so cold. Come in and warm up for a little while at least.” Simmings managed to cajole Harry into stepping inside the hall.

Harry did indeed look cold and miserable, and probably out of exhaustion he let Simmings fuss around him, take off his jacket and replace it with a thick blanket instead. Harry found himself ushered into Simmings’ living room where five or six young men between twenty and thirty five fell silent and rose to give place for Harry in the sofa. Simmings sat down beside Harry and put an arm around Harry’s back.

“Will someone get him something warm to drink?” he asked his friends.

“Oh, he’ll need something strong,” one of them said.

“Give him a Firewhiskey,” someone else said.

“A hot cocktail perhaps – I know just what to prepare. It’ll do wonders for you, darling,” said an effeminate boy in a kind voice and parted for the kitchen. A chorus of sympathetic voices ensued. Mumbled words of comfort and encouragement enveloped Harry and to his own surprise tears started to run down his cheeks. He bowed his head and wished his hair had been longer to cover his face.

“It’s okay, Harry,” mumbled Simmings with feeling. “It’s okay. We all know what happened. You don’t need to tell us if you don’t want to. You can just sit with us.” His friends had seated themselves again around Harry and Simmings. A fancy-clad man in his thirtieth spread his arms theatrically.

“Yeah, ask any of us – we’re all familiar with betrayed love. We all have broken hearts. Some of them mended and broken several times over, in fact.”

The young men started to take turns to tell Harry about their own shortcomings in love. There were naïve and ridiculous stories, sweet stories, dramatic and heart-breaking stories, and dark and brutal stories. Against his will Harry started to listen. The glass with warm spirits that someone placed in his hands helped a bit as well. The people who surrounded him were a bunch of sensitive and empathic young individuals who even made themselves cry from time to time. Harry started to give them a sympathising gaze now and then, even smiling when one of them expressed himself with amusing excess of feeling and drama. Simmings were about to rise and slip away, whispering to Harry that he was only going to send a message to Mrs Steadfast that Harry was okay.

“No!” Harry burst out, suddenly plunging into despair again. “No, please, Simmings, don’t tell them I’m here.” He bent his head down convulsively, hiding his face in his hands this time, and a new chorus of indignant and protesting voices arose.

“Now, look what you’ve done.”

“He was just beginning to calm down.”

“You’re so insensitive, Simmings, I can’t say how shocked I am!”

“Leave him be! Leave him with us. We’ll take care of him.”

“But my boss is looking for him. I only want to report…”

“Which is more important – your boss or your family?” one boy asked sternly.

“Please wait,” whispered Harry, strengthened by the support, looking Simmings pleadingly in the eyes. Simmings did not resist that look for long, but made a lame attempt to negotiate.

“Only to say that you’re safe…”

“No! They’ll come here, they’ll want to speak to me and bring me home and… and… And I don’t even know where home is these days…” Harry whispered and started to cry again. New exclamations followed from Simmings’ friends.

“Oh, poor thing.”

“Really, he’s so cut up!”

And Simmings’ last resistance evaporated.

“It’s okay, Harry, it’s okay, I promise not to call the office right now. We’ll wait. We’ll wait until you’re ready. What did you mean you don’t even know where home is?”

Simmings’ guests had been drinking wine until now. The napkin on the table bore traces of a finished meal: a couple of stains and crumples of bread. The boys were sensitive to Harry’s distress and now they claimed something stronger for them all. Someone opened a bottle of Firewhiskey and the golden beverage was distributed in the glasses.

Harry had calmed down at Simmings’ promise and fortified by the burning alcohol, he started to explain the situation to them as he saw it: It was hard to return to Grimmauld Place because Ginny might be there. They shared a room after all. And Ron who lived there too was her brother and he was always protective of his sister.

“I don’t think I’d hurt her,” Harry whispered. “I really don’t, but… I have these surges of anger… Something happened earlier tonight that… It scared the hell out of me… I don’t dare go back and risk meeting her right now all the same… And what is there to say? What is there to say when she… when she…” He could not go on, and the boys were quick to come to his defence and try to console him.

“She’s not worth it, mate.”

“If she puts you in this state, then she’s definitely not worth it!”

“Women are overrated, anyway, ask any of us.” Harry smiled through his tears - of course they would say that. He drew a deep breath and explained in a trembling voice about the Burrow, about Mr and Mrs Weasley and the other family members.

“It’s… It’s… the closest to a home that I’ve ever had, except Hogwarts, but now… now I’m afraid that is gone, too, because it’s her family, you see…? I know they like me very much, but it won’t be the same if Ginny and I… if we’re not together anymore.” Tears flooded over again.

“What about your original family?” someone asked.

“Don’t be so insensitive,” someone else snapped. “You know perfectly well what happened to his parents.”

“But I meant the family in which you were brought up after your parents died,” protested the first person.

“Oh… them… It’s… I… said goodbye to them two years ago… I’m not sure I’d be welcome back even if I wanted to.” Harry explained in a few unsentimental words about the Dursleys. To his surprise this seemed to rub off on his new friends more than his lamentations over Ginny had done. Several of the boys looked down and a few blew their noses discreetly. One of them cleared his throat.

“We… Many of us know what it means to be rejected by your family,” he said. “I was thrown out of my parents’ house at seventeen when I told them I was gay.”

One after the other the boys told their stories. These were not embellished or exaggerated like before, but told quietly, almost with an undertone of shame, and with much grief. Harry felt so sorry for them that new tears rose in his eyes and gushed down his cheeks from time to time. The others, too, wept – the party turned very mellow, but there was an allowing spirit of support for one another and a strong sense of stick togetherness.

“My parents are tolerably okay with it,” said the boy who seemed to be the youngest of the gang, save for Harry, “but in my family it’s my sister and her husband who detest me and who refuse to meet me. And my parents don’t want to antagonise my sister, because they’re afraid of not being able to visit their grandchildren if they side with me. Moreover, her husband is rich and influential, so they don’t want to antagonise him either. So I can’t visit at home. My parents sneak out to my place from time to time, but it always needs to be a secret – we can’t even have tea together in a tea house, because they’re afraid to be seen with me. And of course I never get invited to family gatherings… I miss my aunts and my cousins…”

Harry wept for the young boy. He felt much warmer now and comfortably dazed. The crying was less cramped than before, but more mellow. Maybe it was the alcohol helping, he thought and took another sip of Firewhiskey. He was not only crying for himself, but for someone else which seemed to level things out a bit, and do him good. He was starting to feel tired, though, and also a bit dizzy and queasy, so he closed his eyes and leaned his head against Simmings’ shoulder. The boys’ voices sounded distant and muffled, but the last thing he distinguished before he fell to sleep was a tender outburst of feeling from his new friends.

“Oh, look at him, he’s so sweet!”

“We’ll take care of you, Harry. You don’t have a home, just like us, but you can choose us as your family you know, you’ll always be welcome with us, no matter what!”

And Simmings mumbled, very close to his ear:

“I’ll take care of you Harry, don’t worry. No one’s going to harm you.”

***

When Harry awoke again, it was dark and silent. The room was obviously empty and he was lying on the sofa with a blanket neatly tucked around him. He was feeling sick and sat up in panic which only served to make his head spin. He realised that the risk of throwing up was impending, and he stood up with a confused idea to search for the bathroom. He knocked something down as he tumbled by the table and out of the room. By sheer luck, the first door he opened in the hall turned out to be a small guest toilet, and he made it just in time to sink down on the floor and empty himself in the right place. Waves of nausea travelled through him and his stomach convulsed several times.

Suddenly Simmings was there and helped him. He spoke soothingly, put one hand on Harry’s forehead and steadied him by the waist with his other hand. When at last Harry shrunk back, able to breathe again, but with still moist eyelids from the effort, Simmings helped him tidy up and filled a mug with water for him to rinse the bitter taste away. He helped Harry back to the sofa, and on the way they both realised just how unsteady Harry was on his legs.

Not a word of complaint came over Harry’s lips, but when he sat down on the sofa again, he was tense, shoulders drawn up to his ears, hands gripping the edge of the table in front of him. At first Simmings thought that he was merely fighting the nausea. And he probably was – Simmings could not recall ever having seen Harry drunk before, but last night he had obviously had too much, even if by Simmings’ standards the amount of ingurgitated Firewhiskey had not been excessive. After another round to the bathroom where it became evident that there was not much left in Harry’s stomach to get rid of, the young man ended up just as tense and clammed up as before, and Simmings started to realise that there was more going on in the head of his friend.

Simmings had hoped at first that Harry would go back to sleep once the nausea abated, but now he found himself forced to light up the room and try to address the anxiety that was obviously roaring inside the young wizard. Simmings was not a stranger to handling panic attacks, or soothing angst in his friends, but it turned out almost impossible to reach Harry. Simmings talked and cajoled but could not say if Harry heard him, or took anything in at all – it seemed to him that his friend blocked him out somehow, and that Harry might have an inner dialogue that filled his entire being. From time to time, Simmings thought he felt bouts of magic come and go, emanating from the young wizard.  

At last, after several hours of Harry’s mute tenseness, Simmings was getting exasperated. Finally he rose and said in a more determined and severe tone than he had used before:

“Harry, I’m going to call St Mungo’s to get you a healer. Or better perhaps, I’ll call Professor Snape. He’ll want to help, I’m sure.”

Suddenly Harry seemed to snap out of whatever vicious circle of dark thoughts he was caught in, and riveted his eyes on Simmings as if seeing him for the first time. Tears rapidly filled the eyes and brimmed over.

“No,” he whispered. “No, not Snape.” Simmings sighed and sat back down. At least Harry had snapped out of whatever state he had been locked in.

“Why?” Simmings asked carefully. “Professor Snape has been engaged in the search for you, he seems to worry about you, and he’s a healer.” Harry looked at him surprised.

“Oh,” he whispered dejectedly, “Snape probably doesn’t want me to come to harm, but… We had a sort of falling out, and he… he doesn’t want anything to do with me… not in a direct way, anyhow…” Harry started to cry again with his head bent down. “What should I do, Simmings?” he asked. “What should I do?”

Simmings chose to interpret the question literally.

“You should lie down and have some more sleep,” he said.

“If I do, you won’t call for someone else?” said Harry.

“No, I promise,” said Simmings and Harry laid down obediently. “I’d offer you a sleeping draught, but because of how you reacted to the alcohol, I think I had better not.”

“It’s okay,” said Harry. Simmings hesitated.

“I’ll bring my mattress and lie on the floor beside you,” he muttered.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to,” said Harry contrite. “I’m keeping you awake, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t think about it, Harry,” said Simmings suddenly with feeling. “I want to. I want to do it for you.” A shadow of understanding, of regret and sadness passed over Harry’s face.

“Thank you,” he mumbled very gently, and Simmings all of a sudden felt his own eyes burn.

“Er… I’ll be right back,” he muttered stiffly.

***

When Simmings woke up next, the living room was bright from broad daylight and Harry was sitting up on the sofa, the blanket neatly folded by his side. Simmings noticed that Harry winced slightly when turning his head to look at his host.

“Got a headache?” Simmings asked and grinned as he stretched his back. Harry made a grimace.

“Yeah,” he conceded. “I actually think this is my first hangover ever. I never drank very much when Voldemort was there and – well, I’ve always been careful with alcohol before.” He spoke almost absentmindedly, staring in front of him. Simmings shook his head and forced his eyes wide open, in an attempt to wake up properly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If I had known, I’d have held you back a bit.”

Harry shrugged as if it was of no importance.

“I’ll get up and make you some breakfast, or lunch more like it,” said Simmings, but Harry advanced him by rising from the sofa.

“I’m sorry, but I need to leave,” he said. “I only waited for you to wake up. Didn’t want to walk out on you when you took so good care of me yesterday. I’m sorry I spoiled the gathering with your friends. Please make my excuses to them.” Harry spoke calmly and politely, but his gaze was distant and there was a restlessness to his body movements.

“Please, Harry…” Simmings started to say.

“You can alert Mrs Steadfast as soon as I’m out of here. Tell them I’m… not okay, but…” Harry pulled a wry face.

“That’s an understatement…” Simmings muttered.

“I’ll get in touch as soon as I have… as I have resolved… as soon as I’m in control… Tell them I’ll get in touch in time…” Harry started to walk towards the hall. Simmings disentangled from his sheets and rose precipitately.

“But Harry, tonight is New Year’s Eve… The Millennium crosses the earth… It already began you know. It’s big… We were going to…”

“Shit…” Harry exclaimed and paled. “Shit… the new Millennium…” Harry stayed silent for a long while and Simmings wondered if he was going to break down and start crying again, but eventually Harry only grimaced and spoke with a cynicism that was very unlike himself: “Well, if the world shuts down or blows up tonight, it’ll save me a lot of trouble…” Harry shut his eyes and breathed deeply. “A pity I don’t believe in those conspiracies…” he muttered and opened his eyes. “Bye, Simmings.”

And he was gone.