And Ye Shall Find
seventy-eight - eighty-three
by: Ladymage Samiko

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Middle of Nowhere, Asia gave way to Middle of Nowhere, Siberia. Followed by Middle of Nowhere, Maui, Alaska, Nebraska, Greenland, Kenya, Nubia. Severus had realized that the world was open to him; he could go anywhere he liked, do whatever he wanted to do. No obligations. No manipulations or goading. Just a wand and a travel case and his own free will. And so he gathered black ice roses from a glacier. He spoke with Hawaiian menehune. He witnessed Jinn raising a sand storm. Severus saw places and events he'd only ever seen in musty books… and long-ago, childish dreams.

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A warm summer's day saw Severus's return to Nowhere, Asia, perhaps the exact nowhere where he'd begun with its same emptiness. He'd felt a strange pull towards the place, a restlessness that drove him to seek out this place where he'd first felt at peace. And yet he could not now recapture that feeling; something was out of sync, something that refused to let him rediscover that one-ness he had absorbed with the eagerness of a starving child.

And the agitation only grew with his attempts to calm himself. Why, why couldn't he find the peace he'd purchased so dearly?

.

"You look lost."

Severus scowled. Translation spells were all very well, but he preferred to simply ignore people. Unfortunately, it was difficult to ignore several dozen people who'd happened upon you in Middle of Nowhere. "I am not lost," he informed them tersely.

"Yes, you are." He found himself contradicted by a tiny, apparently ancient woman fantastically festooned with cloth strips and metal discs and bells of all sizes. But her eyes were sharp and her expression determined. "You will come with us. We will un-lose you."

"I am not your concern."

"We are sent for you. You will come."

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It's been a while since you left. I can't help wondering why. I mean, I can guess you don't want to see us, but why not? We miss you. Hell, Ron's even got your photo by his bed. So even if you feel you can't 'come home', for whatever reason, please try to visit. I feel like we're all moving on, and we've left you behind somewhere. I don't like the feeling. You're one of us, Mione. You should be here, bossing everybody about until the wizarding world's back to normal… or better.

We're finally settling in here…

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Hermione smiled a little as she finished reading Harry's letter. She half-wished she could visit like he asked, but… no. He was right that they'd left her behind somewhere, and how could she set the wizarding world in order when she couldn't even manage herself? These past few months had been a continuous exercise in frustration. The nightmares, the fears, the helplessness and hopelessness… No one she'd seen had seemed to make the slightest difference in the way she felt or thought.

She constantly asked what the point of it all was. She had yet to find any real answer.

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"You look lost."

Hermione looked up, startled, to see a neatly dressed woman of middle age standing before her. "No, I'm not lost," she replied, puzzled. She was firmly seated on her park bench and knew her way around.

"I don't mean geographically, dear." The woman seated herself on the bench. Her face was pleasantly lined, her hair in a practical knot, her hands well-worn. She rather reminded Hermione of Professor McGonagall, actually. "No, I meant here and here." She tapped her head and heart in turn.

Hermione looked away, embarassed and angry with herself. "Is it really that obvious?"

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AN - A little word offering in the review box would be lovely, an it please thee. Thank you, Lm. S.