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Chapter Number: 13
Chapter Name: Carpet Ride and Griffin Watching
The next morning Harry awoke to gentle nudges and a soft, sweet voice that belonged to Hermione. " Harry..." more nudges before a violent shake, "Harry," she was kind of whining, " Come on love, wake up."
Harry tossed around and tried to cover himself up a little, trying to hide. But a few minutes later, he was up. " I'm up. I'm up." Yelled Harry despite himself.
" Hurry up." Hermione said frowning at Harry, who was sitting up on the bed, but trying to make sense of the world without his glasses. " It's seven already. We need to get ready."
" Ready for what?" Harry mumbled. ' WAR?!' he thought to himself. Harry didn't realize why they needed to be up so early. It was an ungodly hour - especially since he was on holiday. And the last few days had been very tiring.
" Oh, nothing really, " Hermioen said smiling - he could see her mind was filled with mischevious thoughts. His own lips curled up slightly. " ...unless you don't want to learn how to ride on a flying carpet."
" Did you say 'Flying Carpet'?" He asked, not sure he heard it right. Ofcourse, Harry had read about the carpets, but most of his knowledge came from a muggle cartoon - Aladdin. Growing up he had seen few short burst of that cartoon while Dudley lay on his king sized bed - blocking half the screen from the door. While Dudley turned over, making the bed threaten to give way, Harry had often see the young hero perform dashing moves on his carpet. And Harry had often dreamed of being on one - riding away from the Dursley's forever.
When Hermione nodded, Harry literally jumped off the bed and flew into the shower facilities - almost sleeping on the wet floor. It took less than five minutes to go through the morning ritual. He brushed his teeth while he was in the shower and he was under the water just long enough to get his body wet. Harry quickly got dressed in his best muggle clothes and left the shower. When he came out wearing his new glasses, he didn't feel right. He had been using his old ones for so long that it felt rather alien and not quite like himself.
But the effect to Hermione was different. ' That can't be Harry...' His wild hair had spiked up his hair after getting wet. The glasses offset his eyes, and really brought forth his emerald coloured centres of his eyes. She gasped at the sight infront of her. She squinted through her own glasses to make sure that she wasn't seeing things. WOW! He looks good...' Just the thought made her blush.
Hermione quickly turned away so that Harry wouldn't see her face. By the time Harry had put on a cloak his hair had lost most of its moisture and Hermione had recovered herself. Hermione didn't think it was appropriate to suddenly lust after her friend just because he cleaned himself up a little. It was a very silly thing to do, and Hermione Granger did not do silly things. She said something hurriedly, and left the room.
After breakfast Mr. Pasha took both teenagers to a storeroom, which had been unnoticeable until then (enchanted to be only seen when the person looking for the door knew exactly where it is). The whole room was full of shelves and there was only one wall in the room that didn't have anything on it and when Mr. Pasha murmured something while pointing his wand, it simply vanished in front of them.
Harry and Hermione had never seen a wall disappear before; though they had seen some other amazing things happen to them before. Mr. Pasha murmured something and a large red and pale yellow colored rolled carpet dropped to the floor. It unrolled itself and waited to be boarded. Hermione was certain that she had seen the carpet stretch a bit - as if a person getting ready for a marathon by lightly stretching.
Mr. Pasha explained that the carpets themselves are not magical and as such can not do anything unless there is a witch or a wizard on the carpet. They were just tools to be used like a broomstick. Harry got on board the carpet as soon as Mr. Pasha told them to do so, but Hermione needed convincing that they weren't going to go too high. Even with that, she only sat down on the carpet as opposed to her male counterpart who had decided that he would stand.
The three were shown the basics before Mr. Pasha asked Harry to head for the west. " Rise." Said Harry making the carpet even more rigid then it was before. Hermione could have had sworn the carpet felt thicker.
" Mr. Pasha... What about muggles? Won't they see us going out?..." asked Hermione in her adoring voice reserved for teachers.
" I'll come to that Hermione..."
As soon as the carpet went outside, through the wall that had disappeared, the wall reappeared with a small flash of white light. Once outside the carpet rose to the height of six feet and then there were three flickers as three different charms automatically came to being around them. Mr. Pasha explained that there was one to hold the riders to the carpet, one to repel other carpets from colliding with each other and last and the most important one being making them only visible only to people on other carpets.
Mr. Pasha spent good part of next five hours giving the two students practical flying lessons. Hermione, who was less confident in a broom, turned out to be very good at riding on the carpet. Harry thought it was kind of like the situation where some people found it really easy to ride on a motorcycle, but people who were afraid of them were a lot better on cars.
" Hermione..." said Harry, who was standing next to Hermione at the front while a patient Mr. Pasha sat at the back letting the two teenager in front of him.
" What?" she said, getting nervous because they were very close to their destination, and she really didn't want Harry to get mad at her, because she had ulterior motives.
" You're really good at this. You should consider moving here when you finish school. I bet you can get a job as anything you want"
Hermione turned the brightest shade of red possible for a human being upon receiving the complements. She just hoped that Harry would feel the same way when they got to their destination. Harry might have been nice about doing homework over the holidays, but he was still Harry. And Harry didn't like being tricked into going out to do homework.
" The reason that we're here is to observe the Griffins." Said Mr. Pasha pointing at two giant creatures that looked like a cross between a lion and an eagle. As if to just point out what he had said, the creatures emitted a loud screech.
Mr. Pasha explained that the Griffins live in a 'nest' and are very protective of their cubs. That is why one of the parents stays behind, while the other is out hunting. The screech is only a signal that one of the partners is going hunting. He also told them that since the Griffins are very sensitive to magic, the duo should stay as far as possible. He told them that if they wanted to spend more time observing griffins they were quite welcome to do so, but he had to go home and await the arrival of messages from Professor Dumbledore and a few other colleagues of his at the ministry.
He left the pair with food for dinner and emergency portkeys that'll take them right into the house. Harry and Hermione observed the behavior of the Griffins as they both took notes for their Care of Magical Creatures class. Hermione was furiously writing her notes down, mostly to avoid talking with Harry. She thought because she had partly lied to Harry he was upset with her.
On the contrary, Harry was totally fascinated by the Griffins and his silence only reinforced her belief that Harry was indeed upset with her. When Hermione thought that she couldn't stand Harry's silent treatment anymore, she started to speak to him...well actually apologize to him for getting him up in the morning.
Harry smiled a while listening to her speak. When Hermione stopped her apology to ask why he was smiling, Harry explained that the reason he wasn't talking was because the Griffins were so very interesting. Even when they did nothing, they had a mixture of nobility and savageness that interested him.
Hermione was just glad that he wasn't upset with her.
However, though Hermioe found the creatures endlessly fascinating, Harry found them to be reasonably fascinating. Eventually Harry's fascination ended. Even the most interesting of diversions become rather dull after a long time of doing it.
Having had enough of the Griffins, he and Hermione agreed to go back - more like Harry begging her to finish writing, so they could go back to the site. As they approached the city, Hermione, who was the driving the carpet, performed more and more astounding feats in the air. Harry wondered, where she got the sudden urge to perform, however neither noticed a big leopard beast that saw them head towards the general direction of the city. The beast was powerful enough to see right through the invisibility charm.
When they got back they practiced dueling...err... No they practiced 'pick on Potter', as Harry it seemed had actually grown worse, than he was at the beginning. Hermione took full advantage and for the next hour and a half Harry was thrown around the room like a small but hot potato. Harry was actually trying to find a weakness in the method that they fought, unfortunately for Harry, Hermione had none that he could find until they finished. Hermione showed Harry some of the moves that she remembered from her early endeavour into martial arts.
To Harry who had no experience in that field at all, he found her exceptionally good in self defence. ' I wonder why she never hit Malfoy back for teasing her ,' thought Harry, but decided it was probably because she thought that would be lowering herself to Malfoy's level. He thought no more of it for that day , Hermione had a particularly hard grip on his shoulder, and it was taking his mind away from thoughts like these.
The next day was spent fully on Dueling. More of Pick on Potter. Followed by a short lunch, followed by more pick on Potter. More pick on potter. And after Dinner, a match of Pick on Potter infront of Hermione's parents and Mr. and Mrs. Pasha.
The day after was more interesting. That day started out in a similar fashion as to the one before, but they did dueling practice before Mr. Pasha would let the pair take the Magic Carpet out for a spin. Hermione was severely disappointed and didn't hide it. She liked the freedom the carpet gave her, but more over she liked her adventurous self on the carpet. She felt most of the time like she was the dullest person that ever lived at Hogwarts - well other than Percy. But then he was interesting. She was neither. Without her books, she was nothing…. That's what she though. The carpet let her be a whole new person… though it was more like bringing out another side of herself, and Harry being on her side while she did these loops in the air - she realised what Harry loved about flying.
When she was on a broom, it always made her feel a little uneasy but now that she was good at flying, and being able to do all fancy moves she wanted to do, she wanted to be out doing it.
So they quickly went through the lesson. Hermione paid for her lack of attention, as she spent almost all of the first hour on the floor. But after a while her proper personality kicked in and Harry was again falling victim to Hermione's skill - repeating the game of "flip Potter", " "kick potter" , "make him hurt".
' Ouch! Man I was having fun throwing her around for a change and now she's beating the living day lights out of me.... OW!' though Harry as he reacted to the knee in the groin.
" Awhhh! What the f**king hell was that for." Shouted Harry in pain, using his two hands to protect his groin from further attack.
" ... Did it hurt?" asked Hermione tentatively, letting go of her guard to approach Harry.
" No!..." said Harry as he jumped, pinning her to the ground, before he continued "... I was just acting... Well not really... it hurt but not as much as this." With that Harry hit her on the face with his elbow making her bleed from her lips. He knew he was being too rough, but he couldn't stop himself. Hermione really had hurt him, and on a subconscious level he wanted to get back at her. He just didn't know where he could hurt her the same way.
Hermione was angry. At herself for falling such a stupid trick. Angrey at Harry for using that trick. Angry because her hands couldn't move, and she felt helpless under Harry. She hated feeling helpless. She was also pissed, because Harry had pinned her using one of the moves, she had shown him the day before. " Get off me..." Hermione started to struggle under him.
" No..." replied Harry with a tone full of mischief.
" Get off me..." she pleaded in earnes. " This is embarrassing."
" So what?... You kneed my groin! That hurts! Do you have any idea... OOPS!" blushed Harry. Ofcouse she had no idea how it must feel to have more nerves in one place where it was so vulnerable to attack. Hermione felt the grip loosen a little and took her chance at freedom then. She threw him off her fairly easily, then pinned him to the ground and repeated what Harry did on her face. Four times.
" How does it feel now?... HUH" asked a cocky Hermione.
" Pretty good actually..." Harry said smiling. " Rememebr the healing power I told you about yesterday, see when the cuts are repaired I get these funny sensations on my face and I love those." Hermione looked disappointed. " And did you really think I couldn't get out of the hold?..." said Harry as he not only threw her off him but also almost making her fly.
It had taken him all of last night to practice in his Astral form. " ... oof" moaned Hermione in pain as she landed right on her arse. It took half a second for Hermione to recover and she was furious. She literally was in the process of lunging on top of Harry when both of them froze where they were. Like someone had stopped time - just for them. Well not totally, but for their bodies. They could not move, but still think and blink.
" Okay you two... Break it off. You need to remember you can't get angry. No matter what!" said Mr. Pasha. " So.. I'll leave you two alone and you can either fight for a while or you can go observe those Griffins. I'll leave it up to you to get the details sorted." When Hermione quirked her eyes with an incredible amount of strength, he replied, " I've got some things to take care of…"
Hermione, who was in mid air when Mr. Pasha had stopped their bodies from moving, fell to the floor with a loud thud when he made their bodies unfreeze. Harry couldn't stop himself from laughing and when she came up to him after she had recovered from the abrupt fall she punched the laughing Harry in the stomach knocking the wind right out of him. " oof." Cried out Harry as he grabbed on to his stomach with one hand and with the other he grabbed one of Hermione's legs as he doubled over and pulled them out from under her. Harry took his wand and pointed at her face....
' What curse is he gonna do now.' wondered Hermione in a panic.
But to her surprise Harry didn't curse her. He put one end at the edge of her lip where the blood was still coming out of and started to mutter something under his breath. She felt the tingling start at her lips and then slowly resonating thought her body. As she felt it at different places in her body, she had to use all her mental control to not scream out in pleasure.
' Oh God! I never felt like that before.... WOW! Talk about intense...What's he saying? I have to know the spell.... Awhhh '
" Hermione are you ok?" asked Harry stopping the spell abruptly.
" What was that spell?" asked Hermione who couldn't wait to find out the source of the spell. Fro research reasons.
" OH! It was the one that Rowena used on Goderic...." Harry saw the confused look on Hermione's face so he ventured more information, " ...after the final battle with Salazar."
" I know when they used it... but that's a very powerful spell. I mean... It takes years to master. That's why school nurses have to do three year apprenticeships after they finish school."
" Well. I didn't do it right now did I. Your cheeks weren't supposed to turn pink, now were they."
" er...no." Hermione said feeling her face flaming more. " But you came very close." Hermione couldn't bring herself to tell him the way the spell made her feel. " Hey! I need a shower and after that we'll take the carpet for a spin. What do say, Harry?"
" I'm game." Came the reply from her back as Hermione made her way across the room still feeling a little light headed.
<<~~~>>
END OF CHAPTER
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