Soon enough, after a backpack of food made by Mrs Weasley, and a muggle magazine full of sites to visualise for apparating from Mr Weasley, Ron and I were ready to go.
To finally find my parents.
"Where are we off to first?" Ron questioned, shouldering the backpack without discussion.
I smiled gently at his gentlemanly behaviour before I focused my mind back on the subject at hand.
"My home." I whispered, closing my eyes.
I held out my arm to him. He clasped my hand and we apparated.
A short while later, I was outside my childhood home. My shoes sunk into the dense grass and a smile played on my lips as I let memories speed through my mind.
Ron and I walked up the garden path, hand in hand, and stopped at the door. I held up my other hand, trembling, and slowly balled it into a fist and rapped smartly.
"Who in heavens is here now?" A voice groaned on the other side of the door, as footsteps stomped towards us.
The door opened. Behind it, stood a lady with black hair tied up in a messy bun. She wore a pink silk bath robe and fluffy pink slippers, and her irritated facial expression told me very swiftly she didn't want us to be here. I also very swiftly realised why as I remembered the time was something like 6:30.
"What?!" She snapped.
When none of us spoke she continued:
"What in the blazes are you children doing here so early in the morning?! Me husband and I are trying to get some peace and fun on Boxing Day morning, but obviously we can't!" She barked at us.
"We were wondering," I started, in a slightly shaking voice, "If you happened to know where a Mr. and Mrs. Granger went? They used to live in this house, you see. I'm sorry for disturbing you and your husband, but this matter is rather urgent. Do you happen to know where they might be?"
She wrinkled her nose, staring off into the distance. "Mr. and Mrs. Granger, eh? Yes, me husband and I must've bought this house off of 'em, what four months ago? Yes, they were strange folk.
"Bought some house down in Australia, said it was their dream to live in some small suburb near Sydney. Pymble, I think it was? Ah, I remember now, they even sent us the address 'lest someone asks' they said, which we thought was odd, but I s'pose you're those someone's. It was 3 or 4 King Edward Street, Pymble.
"They should be living in comfort by now, I s'pose.
"Anyway if you haven't got anymore questions, I'd like to ask ya if ya could use the garden path on the way out? Me husband mows the lawn to perfection every weekend and I don't want to see fifteen footprints in random places when I come out here. Now, if you'll excuse me."
She closed the door, and we left, hand in hand. Once we were on the road we began to talk.
"'Mione in Auror training we train to apparate long distances. You know that I'll be fine, once I've finished visualising the surroundings. It will be pushing the limits a bit, but I trust in magic." Ron offered.
"Hmm." I mused, before considering the matter over.
"Ron, are you tired? Really, though? Answer me truthfully because these questions could determine your level of splinching." I explained, gauging his reaction.
"I'm a little tired, but I had an all right sleep, so I think I should be fine." Ron answered.
"Right. This will be a long journey though, Ron. We need to go through Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and finally Australia."
"You sure this isn't a world tour?" Ron asked in an exasperated tone, eyes bulging at my list of countries.
"If you're not up to it, it doesn't matter at all. I'm sure I have enough money somewhere to buy-"
"No, Hermione, we're going to do it."
I nodded, before taking a deep breath and clasping his hand.
This apparition was awful. My skin stretched so much it felt like it was cracking. I didn't scream as it felt like my organs would all come out my throat and I seemed to be spinning and knocking into hard things. Suddenly, it stopped.
I collapsed on the cobbles near me, in a little alley.
"Let's just lie here for a while and rest." I whispered to Ron.
He grunted in reply, his arms still around me.
After about fifteen minutes he lifted himself off the ground.
"We're in Bruges. Or is it Brugge?" He asked.
"Bruges in English and French." I replied.
And that was the beginning of our long, long journey. After cracks, the feeling of stretching and many, many sudden bursts of light, and different sounds, scents, temperatures, languages and surroundings, we were finally in Darwin.
Ron and I collapsed on the cool grass of an oval, warm sunlight seeping into my bones. We lay there for a while, side by side, breathing heavily. After about seven minutes, Ron lurched up suddenly.
"How are you s'posed to rest when it's so bloody hot!" He moaned.
I laughed as he glared at me.
I laughed even more as he motioned to walk away and was hit by the passing spray of a sprinkler, spluttering loudly and dramatically.
"Are you ready to move on?" I asked him, in between giggles.
"Yes, I s'pose so, anything to get out of this awful place." He grumbled.
****
Ron and I were again blinded by the light for a moment, before we ducked down a darker alley.
"Ron, we should get dressed in here into summer clothes, as it's Summer in Australia." I said.
Ron grumbled something that sounded like profanities, so I ignored it. I quickly got dressed into a blue t-shirt and jean shorts with magic, as did Ron, who also dressed in simple attire. Then, we slipped our wands into our pockets and walked out of the alley.
The sun fully hit us and Ron swore under his breath.
"Why does it have to be so hot?" He moaned quietly.
I smiled to myself, as it was probably only around 25 degrees Celsius, after all it was quite late in the afternoon.
After some looking around, I concluded we were in The Rocks, an old town with stone buildings and lots of history it looked like. Soon, we saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House.
"It never ceases to amaze me what muggles do without magic." Ron muttered under his breath.
I smiled. My parents would have loved this.
We stopped at an old pub to order a glass of water and some food, but mainly to distract Ron from the heat and give him some energy.
"May I please have two sandwiches, some water and a bag of crisps?" I asked, fishing around my purse for Australian dollars.
"Crikey, you guys aren't from here, are you? You tourists? From the UK?" The man behind the counter asked.
"Yeah, Britain." Ron said half-heartedly.
"You enjoying the scenery? Been to Parliament House in Canberra yet?" He asked, his back turned, while fetching the sandwiches from the fridge.
Ron turned to me with a facial expression that just yelled What the Ruddy hell is a Parliament House and where's Canberra?
It took all of my willpower not to burst into a fit of laughter there and then.
"No, not yet, we just came from, uh, Queensland, you see." I quickly responded.
Ron made another face.
"Oh, that would've been nice. I hope you enjoy your trip here. If there's anything you're wondering about, you can ask me." The man said and handed us two curried egg sandwiches and two glasses of water.
Ron and I picked up our plates and glasses and walked to an empty table. I hesitated.
"You wouldn't have a transport timetable, would you?" I called back to the barman. "We've lost ours."
The man picked up a colourful brochure from a stack of them on the front bench.
"It tells you the time, place, destination and duration if you look." He said pointing out some things.
"Thank you very much." I said, then hurried over to Ron.
"So," Ron said, through a mouthful of curried egg sandwich, "Do we have a plan?"
"We do." I said, wrinkling my nose at his lack of table manners.
And we certainly did.
