Chapter 2: Best Friends Meet Again.
Harry woke up with a start that morning at 6am. He tried to get back to sleep fruitlessly for an hour, then decided he could sleep no longer and got up.
Today was the day he would be going to Hermione's House. He would be catching the train at 8 o'clock from Little Whinging station, and meeting her at King's Cross. He had already arranged all this by owl, telling Hermione casually that he still had her book; Advanced in Charms, and if she wanted (which he very much wanted her to want), he could drop it round sometime. To his glee, he received an excited scrawl back from her, telling him that she couldn't wait, and did he want to spend the day there. There then followed an extensive list of things they could do.
He dressed very carefully that morning, taking his time to try to tame his unruly black mass of hair, but to no avail. He wore his best clothes, ones he bought himself from the money at the bottom of his trunk. He moved in front of his mirror to inspect his appearance, and to his complete surprise he found himself looking quite tidy.
At five to eight he arrived at the station in the town of Little Whinging, a small pale pink building which looked more like a primary school than a station. Rushing into the station to find his train, he could see mothers with pushchairs, holding on to struggling 5 year olds, who were crying or eating sweets. Important-looking businessmen and women pushed past him, wearing crisp neat suits and balancing cups of coffee and mobile phones. It wasn't like Kings Cross station, with porters carrying around trolleys worth of suitcases and luggage, instead people carried their bags by their sides, which bumped into Harry as he made his way to his train. He rushed onto it, and made straight for a seat next to a grimy-looking window, Hermiones book clutched safely in his arms.
There was a long clatter of noise as people barged onto Harry's train and took their seats, but as the noise subsided and the only loud noise now came from children crying and mothers chatting animatedly to each other, there was a whistle and the train gave a shudder, and pulled itself out of the station. Butterflies of excitement arose in Harry's stomach. He was actually getting out for the day, something which his Uncle had been reluctant to let him do, but was reminded, by Harry conveniently remembering at that moment that he had to owl the order to tell them he was doing OK, that he should not be horrible to Harry this summer. So to Harry's delight, he was now on the way to spending a brilliant day with Hermione, just the two of them, with the exception of her parents some of the time, as she had not forgotten to leave them out in her plans for the day, so that Harry could meet them properly.
He looked out of the window, watching large wheat fields fly past, a soft yellow and green blur. Looking further out into the countryside, the horizon looked like a big patchwork quilt of golden yellows and deep greens, with a few cows stitched in for decoration. He sighed, thinking of the hats Hermione had made last year in her attempt to free the Hogwarts house-elves, whether they wanted it or not. Thinking of Hermione gave him butterflies again, so he shook his head and glanced at his watch. He had been travelling for 5 minutes already. Absent-mindedly he glanced down the train at the other passengers, the children had calmed down by now, and were quietly sitting next to their mothers eating their sweets, or looking out of the windows at the cows in speeding fields. Looking around further, he came across an oddly familiar man with an oddly familiar bowlers cap.
'Of course,' thought Harry, watching Mad-Eye Moody read his paper, knowing full well that the eye under the bowlers cap was spinning around frantically, looking for any sign of trouble. 'They wouldn't let me go off somewhere on my own without a guard tailing me.' He watched Moody continue to read his paper, then feeling Moodys' Magical Eye on him, he turned away, looking for something else to stare at. Settling for his watch, he checked the time, and counted down how long it was until his train arrived in London. Not long now…
Stepping off the train at King's Cross station a while later, Harry was tossed and pushed about by busy, bustling people, while desperately trying to scan the area for any trace of Hermione. This station was much busier than Little Whinging, there seemed to be a hundred times the amount of people here, all of them seemingly businessmen and women, marching briskly along the platform, not looking where they were going, but there seemed to trace of Hermione. Feeling desperate, he was about to go to the Help desk and ask when someone ran up behind him and frantically grabbed his middle, hugging him and knocking the wind out of him. He tried to turn around, but to their vice-like grip, he struggled, all his breath fading rapidly. When he thought the need for oxygen was too great, he softly prised their hands from around him and turned to greet Hermione at last.
On first sight, Hermione looked great. Better than great. Beautiful. Better than that. Her hair was shiny and sleek, long tidy ringlets framing her dainty face, the minimal amount of white across her eyes, illuminating her beautiful caramel-chocolate pools. She was wearing hipster jeans, which were long, flared and purple corduroy, leaving a small slither of her well-toned, brown skin showing off. On top was a striped black and purple woolly three-quarter length top, which encased her delicate arms and torso perfectly. On her face was a beaming smile, showing off her perfect white teeth which she had inherited, most likely, from her parents, the dentists.
'Well, H-Hi to you too.' he stuttered out a greeting, which made her beam even wider, her smooth face stretching slightly to make room. She surprisingly wrapped her arms around Harry's neck and buried her head in his shoulder, causing him more butterflies to the stomach.
'Oh, Harry! I'm so glad you're here! I'm sorry I jumped up on you like that, I didn't hurt you did I? Oh, I've looking forward to today ever since we arranged it! It's going to be so much fun!' she said with great speed. Harry vaguely wondered how she did it. 'I've been bored all day, You have no idea how boring it is at home on my own.'
'But you're not on your own,' Harry began. 'Your parents-'
'They had to go away for the weekend,' She explained, cutting smoothly across him. 'Dentists convention or something in Newcastle. So it's just you and me.'
She smiled at him again, and Harry's stomach gave an uncomfortable jolt, the butterflies were starting to attack him from the inside, and he smiled back, not too nervously, he hoped. Becoming aware of the fact of why he came in the first place, he realised he had dropped Hermiones book on the floor in the process of getting winded and stooped to pick it up, Hermione seemingly having the same idea. As Harry lay a hand on the book, Hermione mistakenly put her hand on his and they jumped. Looking up at each other nervously, Hermione smiled first, followed by Harry and they simultaneously let out a nervous laugh. Taking her hand away, Hermione stood up, Harry did the same, picking up Hermione's book in the process. He handed it to her with a nervous smile, she graciously took it with a small; 'Thank you.'
'N-No problem,' he looked determinedly around the station, trying not to look at her again, and held out a long arm, gesturing that they move on. 'Shall we go then?'
'Oh!,' she said, snapping out of her reverie, and she excitedly linked her arm through Harry's to his surprise. The butterflies in Harry's stomach were like raging bulls. 'Yes! I can't wait to show you where I live! We can't really do anything special today, since mum and dad have the car, but I've rented out some videos for us to watch. One's a romance; Valentines Day, I wanted to watch it the other day, but if you like we can watch the scary one; Legend of Spooky Swamp.'
Harry and Hermione chatted all the way to her house, topics for conversation came easily, considering all the experiences they had gone through. When Hermione turned and walked through a small black iron gate, Harry turned and for the first time, looked up at Hermiones House.