"Pack your things, kiddies, we're headed out," John Granger announced happily while the two couples ate their breakfast together.
The Grangers were dressed in power suits again. Harry started to wonder if they ever wore anything else. He and
Hermione, on the other hand, looked as good as could be expected given that they'd taken ten minutes to get
ready.
They had been disappointed to have to tear themselves out of their warm bed early enough to meet her parents
downstairs. "Now that the conference is over, so is our fun," Hermione had warned teasingly. Actually, she
had no idea what was next on their itinerary.
"You still haven't told me where we're going next," Jane said, giving him a harsh look.
"My dear," John grinned broadly, "I thought you might want an answer to that question and I happen to have it in my pocket." He took an envelope out of the pocket of his coat. He teased Jane by handing her the envelope, then taking it back, then finally giving it to her. "Happy anniversary."
She opened the envelope and nearly squealed her delight. "John! You didn't! Oh my god!"
"What is it?" Hermione asked. Her mother rarely acted with such enthusiasm.
Jane handed her daughter the contents of the envelope, "Look!"
"Bon Jovi," Hermione read. "Dad, you're awesome!" she said turning to her father. "You know how to make mom a happy woman, don't you?" she laughed. She showed the four concert tickets to Harry, "We're going to see Bon Jovi!" The one thing that made her mother relax and loosen up after a hard day at work was her music. She liked all kinds and that included rock and roll.
Harry looked dumbfounded, "Er..." This was one of those times when he felt as stupid in the Muggle world as he often did his first year at Hogwarts. "What's that?"
"You've never heard of Bon Jovi?" Jane gasp, looking absolutely horrified. Her reaction probably would not have been any different if he'd admitted he didn't know England had a queen.
"No ma'am," he answered. "But I did live in a cupboard for ten years," he offered apologetically.
"Oh," Jane said. "Did you really?"
He nodded.
"Like the Rolling Stones only younger and good looking," Jane offered, but no hint of understanding flickered in Harry's eyes. "No Keith Richards lab experiments if you know what I mean," she giggled at her own joke.
"Cupboard," he repeated, feeling very stupid and surprisingly unembarrassed that he could admit to the Grangers where he slept as a a child.
"Think Gilderoy Lockhart meets the Weird Sisters," Hermione explained to Harry.
With that truly odd picture in his mind, Harry thought he may have been more confused than ever.
"It's a Muggle rock band," she elaborated. "The singer is this really good looking man that makes women go nuts. My mom is about him the way Mrs. Weasley was about Lockhart. Awestruck, squealing like a teenage girl if I do say so myself," she laughed, glancing at her mother who just shrugged and didn't try to deny it. "But they play pretty cool music for, you know, their generation," she jerked her head toward her parents. "I mean, this is actually a cool thing and we're seeing them in New Jersey, so it's like seeing the Stones at Wembly (before they tore it down anyway). Don't worry, they're not dragging us to see Barry Manilow. It's rock and roll. Like, you know, U2 or Aerosmith."
"I'll take your word for it," Harry said with the jumble of images and names in his mind, most of which were meaningless. You too? Aerosmith? Wembly? They may as well have been going to see Barry Manilow because he didn't know who that was either.
"I didn't pack anything to wear to a concert!" Jane gasp, mentally taking stock of her wardrobe. "That settles it, Hermione. We're going shopping."
"Great!" John said and he took out his wallet and handed her his credit card. "Use my card, honey. I want you to go all out for our anniversary. I'm sure Harry and I can find something to amuse ourselves while the two of you shop. But you only have an hour. We need to get on the road soon." He tucked the tickets back into his pocket. "We'll wait for you here," he offered, looking around the mostly empty dining room. They wouldn't be keeping anyone else from having a meal if they stayed.
Jane's jaw dropped, stunned. "That's not enough time! We'll have to find something at one of the boutiques here." There were several shops in the hotel, obviously intended to lure patrons to impulsively spend any winnings they may have gotten while gambling.
Harry was horrified. In moments, Hermione would be leaving him alone with her father. He had no idea what to do or say or how to act with the man.
"Well, come on then," Jane said to Hermione, rushing her to finish her breakfast so they could get going.
"You're going to be impossible today," Hermione laughed, happy to see her mother so excited. "Harry, I... I guess I'll see you later." She felt bad leaving him alone with her father.
"I'll miss you," he smiled at her. Perhaps he'd never uttered a truer word in his life.
She kissed his cheek and whispered, "You'll be okay."
"Love you," he whispered back.
Then he watched as the love of his life disappeared with her mother. He looked back to Mr. Granger who was smiling at him in a disarming way. "I think Mrs. Granger is very happy with her present," he began, hoping it would break the awkwardness. It was simple enough.
"You have no idea," John shook his head. "My wife has been smitten with this band for about 20 years," he explained. He left out the private joke they had that he was lucky his name was John. That was just too much information for the boy who had lived in a cupboard. "I think the way she feels right now is akin to the way you and Ron Weasley felt about going to the Quintin World Cup."
"Quiddich," Harry corrected.
"Quiddich," he repeated. "Hermione tells me you play?" he inquired politely.
"Yes, sir. I'm the seeker." Harry answered. This wasn't so bad. He could talk about Quiddich with anyone.
"So, what do you do then? How does the game work?"
"You see, there are seven players, three balls, and three hoops in the air..." Harry began. He explained the details of the game and what he did as seeker including some of his mishaps. Describing his Firebolt made him think of Sirius, but it brought happy memories of Sirius.
"That must be a lot of pressure on you," John commented, realizing that the seeker had to end the game and could turn a losing game into a winning game. "But Hermione says you've never lost a game."
"One," he corrected. "I fell off my broom. I thought there were... well, I got distracted. It was stupid really."
The conversation came to an uncomfortable pause when the topic of Quiddich was exhausted. Harry tipped his empty glass to his lips trying to drink something that wasn't there, anything to keep his mouth busy since he wasn't talking. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate being on this trip with your family," he stated again. It was repetitive, but at least it was something.
"We really are glad you could come," John answered. "Hermione thinks the world of you, you know."
Harry smiled, "I... think the world of her too," he answered. He had been close to saying that he loved her.
"Yeah, I thought so," John responded. "I don't want to pry, Harry, but, are you feeling better? Hermione was so worried about you at the beginning of the year. She wouldn't tell us what happened and I'm not asking, but I am concerned."
"Oh," he paused. "Yes, I'm much better because of Hermione. I, um, I felt really alone until she rescued me from the Dursleys."
"Rescued?" John asked. He knew Harry had been making a joke of his sleeping in a cupboard, but John found it very disturbing that it was the truth, just as he had found it disturbing that Hermione had asked for food to send to Harry during previous summers. Only monsters would make a child sleep in a closet and deprive him of food to punish him. It was obvious food was not too hard to come by in the Dursley household.
Harry looked down and shrugged. Another uncomfortable silence followed.
"You won't have to go back there this summer," John offered. He wouldn't pressure Harry to talk about them. His silence said more than Harry would ever know. "I'm sure I can talk them into letting you stay with us even after we get back to England." He found Vernon to be a pompous boar and Petunia to be saccharine. The way Dudley had looked at his daughter made him want to hide her. It was entirely different than the way Harry looked at her with pride and respect.
Harry looked up again, smiling. "That would be great. Thank you so much!" He didn't care what Dumbledore had said. Now that the Grangers had the same protection that the Dursleys had had there was no reason for him to go back, in his opinion, ever.
"You're a good kid, Harry. You deserve better than that," he said approvingly. He knew from Hermione's stories that Harry was a heroic young man. He wasn't completely aware of all of Hermione's involvement in his heroics, but he wasn't naive enough to believe that she was reciting all those adventures with purely secondhand information.
Harry smiled, unsure of what to say. He felt good to know that Hermione's dad cared about him.
"And you are in for a treat tonight. I'm not sure if you noticed, but I got us some prime tickets--spent a fortune, mind you," he laughed. "My father would roll over in his grave if he knew what I had put into those tickets. But it's worth it to see Jane happy."
"You'd do anything for her, wouldn't you?" Harry asked. He was starting to realize what being in love meant.
"Of course I would. I get the feeling you'd do anything for my little girl too."
"Definitely." Harry answered without pause. "She's my best friend and I love her." Well, there. He had said it. He had not planned to say it, but he had told Mr. Granger that he was in love with his daughter.
"I can see that," John nodded. This gave him the opportunity to address certain concerns he wasn't sure he would otherwise be able to approach. "We trust you two, you know."
"Yes sir," Harry answered, fully understanding the implications of those words. Suddenly, the room seemed to be getting hotter. He knew he was sweating.
"You're old enough to make responsible decisions." John said firmly, but not harshly.
"Sir," Harry began tentatively, "Has Hermione ever told you about wizarding, um, morals or standards, er... the way we conduct ourselves?" He saw the quickest way out of this conversation was the truth about wizard customs.
"What do you mean?"
"Well," Harry's throat felt very dry. "The thing is that, you don't have to worry about us crossing any lines."
"I don't?" he asked. This certainly would not have been an easy conversation to have with his daughter. That was Jane's job.
"No sir. We, it's sort of, well, it's just not something that proper witches and wizards do until they are formally bound to one another... for life. It's a code of conduct. I mean, I know Muggles would think we were old fashioned and maybe insane. Maybe we are. A lot of customs and traditions are upheld from the past that are still meaningful because of the symbolism and the sheer power involved. I dare say even the evil wizards would uphold the traditions and ceremonies because they're even more obsessive about bloodlines and purity than any other group."
"Oh," John answered, truly surprised by what he was hearing. Maybe he should have read that Hogwarts: A History that Hermione offered over and over. He could have spared himself a few years of worry.
"There are mixed relationships of sorts," Harry thought of Hagrid's parents, but didn't go into detail. "But it's a life commitment in our world. It's not casual. Some kids our age do cross those lines, but, well, Hermione and I won't. Even being raised outside that world, we realize how important the traditions are to honor the past. Just because it's not what seems 'normal' doesn't mean there's not a good reason for it. So, we probably would get laughed at by Muggle kids our age, but it would be scandalous the other way around in our world."
"Well, that's a relief," John sighed stating his honest opinion. "Thanks, Harry. I'm glad we had this conversation. I won't have a coronary worrying about my little girl."
Harry saw the relieved expression on John Granger's face. "Oddly enough, sir, I think I'm glad we had this conversation too." He realized that, even if it had been uncomfortable, it was good that John knew that he and Hermione could be trusted to be together. He valued Hermione so much that this bit of awkwardness was worth it to establish a trusting relationship with her father.
"Well, look who's back!" John exclaimed as his wife and daughter came back into view, carrying two large shopping bags.
A/N: Gal-texter raise a questions that I'll address here for all the readers:
She asked if Bon Jovi is as big in the UK as they are in the USA. Actually, they're bigger. They're one of top touring acts in the world along with the likes of the Rolling Stones, U2, Metallica, and the Eagles. Their shows in Europe typically draw crowds of +/- 70,000 per night. They played to 92,000 in one single show of several in the UK last year and were given the honor of being the last band to play at the legendary Wembly Stadium before it was destroyed. The only act to sell out said stadium more times was Michael Jackson who's been in the business longer. They're a perfect realistic choice for a woman Jane Granger's age (in my story, about 38) to have a love for and I hope that having Hermione's mom have a rocker-chick side to her will add some humor and adventure to the story.