The Mountains of the Moon

Hermione comes up with a contingency plan for Harry's Ministry hearing, and they decide their education can be better pursued elsewhere—at the largest and oldest school of magic in the world: Uagadou. Voldemort won't know what hit him. Harry/Hermione.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter.

Part of this story is quoted from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

A/N: Harmony fans rejoice! I've been planning a Harry/Hermione story for a while, and this is the one. There are a lot of these stories out there, but surprisingly, there aren't that many that start it off just before Harry's hearing at the Ministry, which I think is the most natural point in the series to do it. Here's my take on it with a classic get-out-of-dodge plan added in.

Update: I have decided to mark this story complete and leave it at this. This is for several reasons, but the main one is that I was never all that excited about the continuation of this story, even at the start, and I deliberately wrote it so it could stand as a two-shot for that same reason. I was somewhat interested, and I kept it on my list because of reader interest, but my writing priorities have shifted a bit. This would have been a complicated story to write, even though it would be a relatively short one. I don't really feel like putting in the effort to build the new world of Uagadou City well enough to do it justice. I still like the idea, but I have too many other projects I want to work on as it is, including some original writing, and I think it would be better let this one go.

That said, if anyone else wants to write a continuation of this story, feel free to PM me, and we can discuss it further.

Chapter 1

Ron was standing there with his mouth half-open, clearly stunned and at a loss for anything to say, while Hermione looked on the verge of tears.

"BUT WHY SHOULD I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON? WHY SHOULD ANYONE BOTHER TO TELL ME WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING?"

"Harry, we wanted to tell you, we really did—" Hermione began.

"CAN'T'VE WANTED TO THAT MUCH, CAN YOU, OR YOU'D HAVE SENT ME AN OWL, BUT DUMBLEDORE MADE YOU SWEAR—"

"Well, he did—"

"FOUR WEEKS I'VE BEEN STUCK IN PRIVET DRIVE, NICKING PAPERS OUT OF THE BINS TO TRY AND FIND OUT WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON—"

But Hermione didn't retort. To his shock, she dropped to her knees and started sobbing uncontrollably. Harry's anger started to flag as he saw his friend's distress and then faded rapidly when she choked out, "OH MY GOD, IT'S ALL MY FAULT! I'M SUCH AN ARSE!"

Harry stared down at her, wide-eyed, unsure of what to do. The last time he'd seen Hermione like this had been in third year when she'd been running herself ragged for months with her Time Turner.

"Er, Hermione?" he said.

"Harry, we wanted to tell you," she sobbed, "but I said we should talk to Dumbledore about it and get permission first, so…We tried, Harry. We really did. But we couldn't even talk to him most of the time, let alone try to convince him. Even when we saw Dumbledore, he barely gave us the time of day. I fought him when I got a chance—both of us did. We begged him to do something—to get you out of there or to let us tell you something. But he said it would be safest if you stayed at your relatives' house, and if we didn't tell you anything. We asked him why, but he didn't answer. We told him you'd get restless and do something stupid, but he wouldn't listen. I was furious, and I knew you'd be even more furious, but I still believed him. I believed he was right that you'd be safer that way because he's Dumbledore, and then…AND THEN YOU TOLD US YOU WERE ATTACKED BY BLOODY DEMENTORS, AND YOU MIGHT BE EXPELLED! I was so scared I might never see you again, Harry, and it's all my fault! I should have just ignored Dumbledore from the start! I should've written you more or…or…"

Harry finally moved, crouching down beside her and awkwardly patting her on the shoulder. He hadn't really meant to make her cry, and she was doing a good job of making him feel terrible about it. "I—I'm sorry, Hermione, I didn't know," he said.

She sniffed. "I'm such a horrible friend."

"No, I…I don't think that," Harry stammered. "I mean, look at everything you've done for me. I was just so mad about not hearing anything. I mean, I'm the one Voldemort's trying to kill. I'm the one in the middle of all this. Shouldn't I know what's going on?"

"Of course you should Harry," Hermione collected herself. "That's what we said. I don't know what Dumbledore was thinking. And I just took his word as gospel and ruined everything…! Am I too trusting, Harry?"

"Um…kinda, yeah," he admitted uncomfortably, "but still, Dumbledore's usually been trying to help me. I don't know what he was thinking, either."

Ron finally jumped back in: "Mind you, Mum's been pretty keen on keeping us out of the loop, too. Says we're too young and all that crud."

"Oh, your mum's here, too?" Harry said, helping Hermione up. "Where is here, anyway?"

"Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix," Ron said.

Harry shot a glare at him, but a weak one. "Should that mean something to me?" he said.

"Well, no, I guess it wouldn't. It's like a secret society."

"Dumbledore started it," Hermione said. "They fought against You-Know-Who last time."

"Alright, what're they doing, then? And what's Voldemort up to, for that matter?"

"We don't know much," Ron said apologetically. "They don't let us in the meetings. Fred and George invented these Extendable Ears to listen in, but Mum went berserk when she found out."

"They've got Order members following known Death Eaters," Hermione added. "And some working on recruiting. And they're guarding something, too."

"That was me, according to Mrs. Figg," Harry said.

"Oh, right, of course."

Harry was about to ask what the two of them were doing all summer when he was interrupted by two loud cracks, and Fred and George appeared in the middle of the room.

"Stop doing that!" Hermione shouted.

"Better be careful, Fred," George said with a grin. "She's got a temper, that one."

"So I heard," Fred replied. "Hullo, Harry, we thought we recognised your dulcet tones. Hermione here was a bit of a surprise, though. She's got a real set of pipes on her."

Hermione glared at them with a hurt look. On seeing this, Harry said, "Hey, give her a break, guys. She was really freaking out."

"Ha. I was freaking out?" she said, forcing a weak laugh. "I'm not the one who got attacked by d-dementors in broad daylight."

"I'm fine, Hermione, really," Harry said. "I mean, it was bloody close, but that was mostly because—erk!" He grunted as she grabbed him in a tight hug.

"Harry, you need to stop almost getting killed," she said. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

"Oh, hi, Harry. Am I interrupting something?" another voice called. Harry looked up and saw a smiling Ginny Weasley leaning against the door frame. He flinched back from Hermione and blushed heavily, but before he could answer, she turned to Fred and George and said, "Don't bother with the Extendable Ears. Mum put an Imperturbable Charm on the door."

"Dang," Fred said. "We wanted to find out what old Snape was up to."

"Snape's here?" Harry said.

"Yeah, giving a report," George said. "Top secret."

Harry remembered the memories from Dumbledore's Pensieve last spring. "Oh, that's right. He was a spy in the last war, wasn't he?."

Hermione nodded: "Yes. He started back up right away. There are always a lot of people coming through here for the order—Sirius and Remus, of course. McGonagall, Moody, some Aurors. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Bill and Charlie…"

"And Percy?" Harry asked.

Evidently, that was the wrong thing to say. The mood turned tense at once, and the younger Weasleys explained in great detail how Percy had sided with the Ministry against Dumbledore and, therefore, his own family. It was a pretty sore spot.

"Percy said the only evidence You-Know-Who is back is your word," Ron said. "And…well…"

"Your word doesn't carry as far as it ought to," Hermione said. "Not with what people are saying about you."

"What are people saying about me?" Harry demanded, his temper rising again.

"Haven't you been reading the Daily Prophet?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I thought I was, but I never saw anything about me or Voldemort. Is Dumbledore messing with that, too?"

"No! I'm sure he's not, Harry. It's just that it's subtle. They…they crack a joke about you once or twice a week. They act like you're…well, delusional and attention-seeking is the only way I can put it. Like if something weird happens, they'll call it 'a tale worthy of Harry Potter.' You kind of have to read between the lines, but they want people to get the impression that you're hooked on being famous, and you'll say anything to get attention."

"That's insane!" Harry shouted. "Voldemort killed my parents! How can they think that I—"

"Harry, please calm down," Hermione said, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder. "We know none of that drivel about you is true. But you can't do anything about the rest of it—not yet—not with the Ministry out to get you like this. They don't have a case to expel you. They don't even have the right to expel you, but the fact that they're trying—"

"And the fact that I got attacked by dementors?" he interrupted. "Did they mention that?"

"Of course not. That's a straight cover-up. They'd never admit to losing control of the dementors—or worse. The fear of losing control of them is what got them removed in third year after they tried to Kiss us, even though Sirius was supposedly still on the loose. But you need to get through this hearing first. They're going to try to railroad you. I just know it. You need to try to stay on their good side. If there are enough law-abiding people in the DMLE, they should put a stop to it, then."

Harry stewed, but didn't say anything more. A minute later, Mrs. Weasley came into the bedroom. "The meeting is over," she told them. "Come along to dinner. Everyone's dying to see you, Harry, we've been so worried."

The Weasleys picked themselves up and headed downstairs, but Harry and Hermione lingered back, neither of them too keen to stay with the larger group.

"Harry, I am so sorry about not writing to you," Hermione repeated, "but I'm here for you, now. Any help you need with the hearing, I'm there. I've already got some law books from Sirius's library."

Harry sighed. He was feeling too worn-out to be angry now, at least not at Hermione. He smiled weakly at her. "Thanks," he said. "It sounds like I'm gonna need it."

Dinner was actually pleasant. Harry got to know some of the other Order members better and get a feel for what they were doing. Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora Tonks was a Metamorphmagus, which basically meant she was a brilliant mistress of disguise. Bill Weasley was trying to negotiate with the goblins, who were unhappy because of centuries of oppression by the Ministry and because Ludo Bagman had swindled them out of a sizable sum of gold. Mundungus Fletcher was a con artist who really shouldn't have been allowed to roam free, but Dumbledore put up with him because he had an ear on all the other crooks. Sirius was unfortunately stuck in the house because the Ministry was still after him. The real tension came after dinner, when Mrs. Weasley and Sirius got into an argument when Sirius tried to tell him more about the Order.

"Dumbledore says we shouldn't tell Harry more than he needs to know," Mrs. Weasley said, emphasising the last three words as if there were some special significance to them.

"I'm not telling him more than he needs to know, Molly," Sirius shot back. Harry felt uncomfortable that he seemed to be buying into the same concern of Dumbledore's, whatever it was. "But considering he's survived more tangles with Voldemort than any of us besides Dumbledore, he has a right to know."

The argument went on for a while, and Harry didn't fully understand all of it. Mrs. Weasley was playing the overprotective mother card at least as much as invoking Dumbledore's orders. Harry really wanted to give the old man a piece of his mind by now, but he did get to learn a few more things. Fred and George were also allowed to stay over Mrs. Weasley's strenuous objections because they were of age, and Ron pointed out that Harry would tell him and Hermione everything anyway. Ginny got the short end of it because Ron hadn't included her in that statement, even though they'd tell her too. Ron got a taste of Ginny's wrath when she "accidentally" brought her heel down hard on his foot on the way out of the kitchen, with the promise of more to come.

In the end, though, it turned out there wasn't much more for Harry to know. There wasn't any news about Voldemort because he was lying low and trying not to attract attention while he built up his forces. Harry wasn't supposed to have survived the graveyard to announce his return. Unfortunately, Minister Fudge was unwittingly doing everything he could to help Voldemort by denying everything and spouting paranoid nonsense that Dumbledore was after his job, and Dumbledore himself had had most of his titles and awards taken away for speaking the truth.

And there was some clue that Voldemort was after something he didn't have last time, possibly something that the Order was guarding besides Harry. But Mrs. Weasley was adamant that wasn't something Harry needed to know. Harry was unhappy, but Remus, who was acting as the voice of reason in all this, agreed with her, and she sent them all off to bed, not even letting them talk to each other, not that that stopped them.

The next day, Mrs. Weasley had all of them busy cleaning. This was questionably legal, Harry thought, because the House of Black was in such bad shape that in the muggle world, it would probably be sealed off by the Health and Safety Commission and only allowed to be touched by professionals. Harry got the feeling that she was trying to keep them busy so that they wouldn't talk about the Order, even though that was going rather far to try to keep them in the dark, not to mention being ineffective.

Eventually, Mrs. Weasley got distracted, and Sirius wandered into the Drawing Room to have a chat with Harry. However, he seemed less interested in talking about the Order at the moment and more interested in reminiscing about the family tapestry that filled the walls. Harry noted that Sirius wasn't on it.

"I used to be on it," he told him. "Down there." He pointed to what looked like a large cigarette burn near the bottom. "Mother dearest blasted me off the tapestry when I ran away from home."

"You ran away from home?" Harry said.

"Yeah, when I was sixteen. I'd had enough. I hated my parents and everything they stood for, and I didn't want to wind up like my brother, believing every word of it."

"Where did you go?" Harry asked. Maybe he could get some pointers if something went wrong with this place (which seemed likely at the rate they were going). He'd tried it once before, after all, although that hadn't turned out the way he'd expected.

"Your dad's place," Sirius answered. "Your grandparents were really good about it. Didn't like my parents any more than I did."

"Wow." Harry looked over the tapestry and quickly came to realise it was covered in similar burn marks.

"Yeah, it's not as majestic as you'd think, is it?" Sirius said with a conspiratorial grin. "You know what the dirty secret of the old pureblood families is, Harry?"

"What?" he said.

"We're not really pureblooded. Families like mine? They disown any family member who doesn't do what they're told. Pretend they don't exist. Me? I left because I didn't agree with them or their ideas." He pointed to another nearby burn mark. "Uncle Alphard? He was a Black in good standing…until he left me a fair bit of money in his will. Cousin Andromeda was over there." Harry saw a burn mark between Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eater whose trial he had seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve, and Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother. "She's Tonks's mother. She was disowned for marrying a muggle-born. Great Uncle Marius was a squib, but it wouldn't surprise me if he has kids or grandkids who are magical. And suddenly, there are Blacks running around who aren't so pureblooded anymore, and all Mum and Dad could do was just ignore them. Phineas Black supported muggle rights. Cedrella Black married a pureblood, but his surname was Weasley—Arthur's parents. Go back all these generations, and I bet I have more relatives who've been written out of the family than are still in it."

Harry stared at the tapestry in surprise. And he thought his relatives were bad. Sirius's family looked like it had been broken for centuries. He looked back down at Sirius's brother. "What happened to Regulus?"

"Stupid idiot. He joined the Death Eaters."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope. He bought into it. All of it. And then—I'm guessing—he got cold feet when it came time to actually get his hands dirty. Tried to leave. I bet you can guess how Voldemort deals with people like him."

Harry didn't have to guess. He'd seen Voldemort torture his own followers in that graveyard for disloyalty, and those were the ones who actually came back.

He wished he had somewhere he could go, like Sirius did. Well, he already did, really. The Weasleys would be happy to have him every holiday, he was sure. But Dumbledore kept telling him he had to go back to the Dursleys, so he knew he wouldn't be able to run away so easily. Even if he got expelled…He stopped and asked Sirius if he could live with him if that happened. Sirius had offered it himself once before, but he didn't seem to be so committed now, and that was probably Dumbledore's doing. Harry wasn't sure what to think about Dumbledore right now. The man had kept him from being expelled right away, but he'd also told his friends not to contact him over the summer, and he was still angrier about that than anything else. He just didn't know what to do about it.

It took three days just to make the Drawing Room safe for human habitation. Meanwhile, between all the work they were doing and trying to spend some time with Sirius, Harry barely noticed that he was seeing less and less of Hermione. Of course, she'd been talking to him a lot about magical laws and everything he would need to know about his upcoming hearing, and he really didn't want to think about that at the moment. He tried to be friendly with her, but she'd been disappearing more and more in the evenings and not really interacting with anyone. He was worried that she was still feeling guilty about not writing to him over the summer, but when he approached her, she looked more like she was in one of her obsessed-with-a-big-project moods…which, knowing her, wasn't a whole lot better.

"Hermione, school hasn't started yet, and I know you've got your homework done by now," Harry told her. "What are you so busy with?"

"Huh? Oh, your hearing, Harry," she said. "I wanted to do more…"

"I think you've done all you can," he said. "You must have read every law book in the house by now."

"I know, but I'm still worried. The Ministry's not supposed to be able to expel you. It was textbook self-defence. But they might do it anyway. I wanted to find some other contingency, so I…"

Harry saw the uncomfortable look on her face as she trailed off. He wasn't sure he liked it. "Hermione, what did you do?" he asked.

She lowered her gaze. "I'm sorry. I should have talked to you sooner," she said quickly. "I know I need to be better at actually telling you things, but I didn't want to get your hopes up until I had something to show for it. I didn't commit you to anything, please understand. I just wanted to find out what the options were—"

"Hermione what are you talking about?" he cut her off.

She took a deep breath: "Harry, if you could leave Hogwarts and go someplace people would actually treat you decently, would you?"

"…What?"

"I know how much you love Hogwarts, but be honest: it's been a mixed bag for you. Near-death experiences on a regular basis, the student body turning on you at the drop of a hat, unhelpful teachers…Snape…And now the Ministry's trying to silence you. Do you ever wonder if it's not worth it anymore?"

Harry's jaw hit the floor. Hermione Granger saying Hogwarts wasn't worth it. He actually drew his wand. "Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Hermione?" he said suspiciously.

"Harry!" she backed up a little. "I didn't mean dropping out! I meant switching schools."

He lowered his wand. "Switching schools?"

"Yes. Listen, I looked into it, and there's only so much they can do at your hearing. They can snap your wand, sure, and they can ban you from carrying a new one so you couldn't well go back to Hogwarts, but they can't ban you from the magical world or prevent you from travelling overseas or anything like that. So I thought, if it all falls apart at your hearing, maybe you could go to some other magical school. If we could find a place that will actually give you a fair hearing, they could revoke your wand ban and let you attend there."

Harry's heart leapt like he hadn't felt in a long time. He had another chance if he lost the hearing? Another chance to escape the Dursleys and to keep learning magic? That would be perfect. "Hermione, you're brilliant," he said. "Absolutely brilliant. You really think they'd take me?"

She flashed a knowing smile at him: "Honestly, you're Harry Potter. Your name may be mud in Britain right now, but you're famous enough in other countries, and you're an up-and-coming Quidditch star, too. That's enough for a lot of people to be willing to give you a chance."

"Seriously? Wow. Okay, so all we need to do is write to the heads of some other schools and ask if they'll take me?"

"Actually…I've already sent the letters," she said. She looked up at him sheepishly, unsure how he would respond.

To her relief, he merely rolled his eyes. "Of course you have, Hermione." He patted her on the shoulder. "How many letters?"

"Eight," she said, colouring slightly. "Unfortunately, there are only eleven well-recognised schools of magic in the world. Durmstrang doesn't accept muggle-borns, and the Japanese school doesn't take non-native students, so that leaves us with eight."

"And…?"

She grinned and held up a letter: "Uagadou School of Magic in Uganda is interested."

Harry's jaw dropped again, and then, not quite sure why, he began laughing uncontrollably. Hermione came through for him yet again, before he'd even known to ask for help. He'd have to do something really nice for her when all this is over. "Thank you," he said once he caught his breath. "Uganda. Bloody hell. Thank you so much, Hermione. I'm sorry I yelled at you so much before."

"Don't be, Harry. I deserved it for how I treated you. I did this to try to make it up to you."

"You did more than that. This is the best news I've gotten since I got here…" Suddenly, a thought struck him. "Wait, what about Sirius?" he said.

She blinked in confusion: "What about him?"

"Well, I don't want to leave him behind. If we can find a country that'll give me a fair shake, do you think we'd be able to do the same for him?"

A look of shock crossed Hermione's face. "Political asylum," she whispered. "Harry, you're a genius!" She leapt forward and hugged him.

"I am?"

"Yes. Sirius never received a trial, and the judicial process against him is being railroaded because the truth is a threat to Fudge's regime. By any reasonable definition, he's being politically persecuted. You're an even more clear-cut case. You opposed him directly; you're a political dissident. That means both of you could apply for political asylum. If we can find a place that would take you, not only would you get a fair hearing, you'd have official protection from being sent back here! It's perfect!"

Harry was stunned. That would solve so many problems it sounded too good to be true. "That's…that would be…do you you really think that would work?" he stammered.

Hermione bit her lip and tried to reason it out. "We'd have to be careful," she said. "First, if we're really serious about Uagadou, we'll need to write to a bunch of the Ministries of Magic in its catchment area, but we'll have to be careful what we say. We can use your name, but we'll have to be vague about Sirius and just say he's an acquaintance of yours who's being denied a fair trial or something like that. The good news is Uagadou serves all of Africa, so it has a lot of countries in its catchment area."

"And if we can find one that'll let Sirius in, he'll be safe?"

"Nothing's completely certain, but if it's anything like the muggle world, there would be a hearing to decide whether to grant him political asylum. It might be a tough sell, since all we really have is our word, but we can offer to use Veritaserum and such. If it succeeds, he'll definitely be safe. If it fails, he'll be extradited back to Britain."

"I don't like that," Harry said.

"I know, but it's still probably his best chance. You should at least ask him if he's interested—and he probably will be. You can see how stir-crazy he is here."

"Yeah, I guess," he said uncomfortably. "You think it'll work, then?"

"If we find a sympathetic Ministry, I think so," Hermione said. "Did you know that most countries don't even use Dementors anymore? A lot of them don't like the British Ministry because of that. I bet there are a few that actually care about justice and want to stick it to them. Hm…I'll have to look them up and draw up a list. Nigeria's probably no good. The new Supreme Mugwump is from there, so he won't be on Dumbledore's side. And the countries on the Mediterranean coast and South Africa wouldn't be my first choice either. Too many close connections with Europe. We can rule out small countries that don't have a strong enough Ministry to stand up to Britain. I mean, they might, but I'd be more comfortable with a bigger one. And we'll want to stay out of conflict zones."

"But how many would that leave us?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure. Probably still about twenty or so. And we can add some more back in if we need to. I'll draw up the list tonight so we can start writing letters. If we're lucky, Uganda will just take us directly…though I'm not sure what languages they speak there."

Harry nodded and then stopped. "Wait, did you just say us?" he said.

"Well, of course I'll be coming with you," she said with a smile. "With my grades, I can get into any magical school in the world, and I've got less and less reason to stay here with You-Know-Who running unopposed. To be honest, I had half a mind to tell might my parents let's pack up and move to Australia already—"

"Wow, Hermione—" Harry started.

"—and if the Ministry is so corrupt that they'll go after innocent people, I'm actually kind of scared to stay in this country…Oh God, Harry, I'm just so worried."

"Hermione—"

"What if they try to stop you or Sirius leaving the country? If they break so many of their own laws, there's no telling what they could do. What if they try to take you straight to Azkaban when you show up just to shut you up? What if they try to wipe your memory and expel you from the magical world? Can they even do that? What if they're already secretly working for You-Know-Who? What if—?"

"HERMIONE! Hermione, please calm down." And then, Harry did something that he had never done before: he initiated a hug with his bushy-haired friend.

Hermione immediately slumped in his arms and started crying. "Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry," she said. "It's just that I can't stop. Ever. I try. I really do, but nothing works." She sniffed and laughed slightly. "You know how I am about exams. I'm always sure I failed everything, no matter how well I do—it was my boggart, for heaven's sake. That's why I sent all those letters. I'm going mad just waiting here and doing nothing. I have to do something to take my mind off it."

Harry chuckled: "You're brilliant, d'you know that? You're doing fine."

Hermione blushed and shook her head. "You don't what it's like," she said. "I try to sit still and just not think for a few minutes—you know, kind of like meditation—and I can't do it. Do you know how hard it is when you try to calm down and relax, and you realise you're so wound up all the time that you just can't stop thinking, even for a minute?"

"I think that's who you are, though. You wouldn't be Hermione Granger otherwise."

"But I can't stand it! I wish I could just switch off my brain sometimes…It's all such rubbish, anyway. There's no way they can convict you, legally. If there's anybody sensible watching the proceedings…"

"Yeah, I know, but…but maybe it's better this way."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're right, I don't have much reason to stay here—not if they're going to treat me like this and let Voldemort walk all over them. I mean, what good is it if both sides are gonna be fighting me?"

"So then you…want to go?" she said.

"I think…I think we need to talk to Sirius…" Then he smiled. "But sticking it to the Ministry and Dumbledore at the same time is starting to sound like a good idea."