Everything you recognise belongs to JKR and Ure. This is a rip-off or an adaptation, to please myself, of Ure's gentle bawdy frolic 'You win some, you lose some'. You have been duly warned.
Chapter 3 not in old flowery pyjamas
'OK, ten-minute break. everybody! But don't fall all to pieces.'
Harry staggered thankfully to the side of the hall, wobbling on legs like Hermione flying on a broomstick for the first time (Would he dare to say riding a broomstick?). His muscles had turned all to jelly: his hair, when he touched it, was dripping wet. He had thought Oliver Wood was a slave driver, but he was nothing compared with this guy - Sadismo Grausam. This guy, their physical trainer, was something else, a cross between the Marquis de Sade and Attila the Hun. (Fortunately, wizarding villains were not so inclined to be the same as them.) With such names, no wonder! (Hermione had informed him with a pert glimmer in her eyes, that grausam meant cruel in German.)
'Oh, are you having Mr Grausam?' Hermione had said. 'He's great.'
How did she know? How could she say that he was great when he was barely a metre and a half tall and looked like an ageing golden monkey? Harry couldn't imagine, but he had learnt since his fifth year that there was no understanding of girls' minds: they would be taken with the most unlikely of specimens. Take Hermione for example, she crushed on Lockhart, the peacock, the self-obsessed fraud when she was twelve (OK, she was too young at the time to know better). Two years later, she took a complete turn, she agreed to go to the Yule ball with the ever grouchy Viktor, an over-grown bird of prey, completed with large curved nose, thick black eyebrows and all. (He didn't object Viktor as a person, but was Hermione really so holy and selfless as to fancy someone she (or he) considered ugly?)
He rubbed his hair with his towel vigorously, and slowly slumped down on to the floor, shoulder pressed against the wall. All the other five members of his group were doing the same, except for Zacharias Smith, who had been called over to Sadismo Grausam. Zacharias had arrived wearing scarlet leg warmers over his jeans. Harry wasn't too sure about Zacharias. He wasn't too sure about Kevin Entwhistle, either. Kevin was small, rather pretty, and spoke with a bit of a lisp. On the whole, he wasn't the sort of person one would like to be seen out in the street with; not at any rate, by the Prick.
The remaining three -Dean Thomas, Terry boot, and Justin Finch-Fletchly looked quite normal. He knew they were normal. All, apart from the flamboyant Zacharias, were wearing regulation black trousers with black or white T-shirts. Zacharias's T-shirt was scarlet, to go with his scarlet leg warmers, which he wore defiantly over vomit-green trousers. From the way Sadismo Grausam was pointing him about various parts of his anatomy with his wand, Harry gathered that his choice of colour scheme was subjected for criticism.
'All right, you lot!' Sadismo Grausam stopped pointing at the scarlet leg warmers and shot instead crackling sparks from his wand. 'That's enough lazing about.. On your feet - let's be having you!'
Terry Boot groaned and pulled a face.
'There surely must be easier ways of life than this?'
'Yeah, like Knight Bus conductor,' said Harry, 'for example.'
Sadismo Grausam's wand shot again: it was growing impatient.
'Get a move on, over there, and stop gossiping! Like a load of old hags! What do you think this is? An exploding snap session?'
By the time the session reached its end, sharp on the chime of seven thirty, Harry was going to pay for this tomorrow; already, the thought of another session was an agony. The others were all in some degree or another, sharing his suffering. Zacharias had actually at some stage removed his leg warmers. Kevin was the only one who looked unruffled and unmarked.
'Today,' said Sadismo Grausam, 'I have let you off lightly - seeing it was your first session. Tomorrow I shall expect everyone to put in just that little bit more effort. By the end of the week --' he paused, to let it sink in - 'we will start working'.
"If we can still move," grumbled Zacharias.
After half an hour of changing, they apparated directly from the ancient woodland, which surrounded the training complex, to the south gate, avoiding the cruising gay muggles (Yes, He had heard of the notorious nightly activities in Hampstead Heath, thanked to the Prick), and parted company. It was Terry who had chosen to walk with him, turning left, the others continuing straight on to Hampstead tube station.
'Feeling like stopping off somewhere for a quick drink?' said Terry.
Harry shook his head not without regret: 'I'd better go straight in and hit the sack. It'll be a pretty heavy day tomorrow.'
Terry said: 'I suppose you live in digs nearby?'
'Not exactly.' He made a negative noise in the back of his throat. 'Stay with people.' He explained about Auntie Loveday being Hermione's mother's sister, and how they had a big house with more room than they know what to do with.
'Handy,' said Terry. 'I've got this place in West Hampstead - well, I call it a place. Actually, it's more like a cupboard - a hole in the wall. Still, I can do what I like there.'
'This is it,' said Harry. He had no doubt that if he really wanted he could do what he liked at Auntie Loveday's. She was very liberal. There weren't any rules or conditions - no one said that he had to be in by a certain time, or report his movement or anything like that. He just didn't somehow feel quite comfortable.
'I wouldn't mind a place of my own,' he said.
'I'll keep an eye open. Let you know if anything turns up.' They walked on for a while in easy silence.
'Tell me,' said Terry, 'you going to take the auror business up for real? You really aiming to do it seriously?'
'Aren't you?' he assumed, automatically, that they all were. He must be catching Hermione's bug - taking it for granted that everyone had the same burning passion for school or work as herself. Not that he had a burning passion, but he thought he needed some sort of commitment. No one endured several hours of torture like the one they'd just been through purely for the fun of it. He said as much to Terry, who hunched a shoulder.
'Maybe you are right. It's just that I haven't made up my mind yet. It's a bit like deciding to go into a monastery - dedication, and all that crap. I don't mind the hard work, it's not that bugs me, it's all the bullshit that goes with it. All the camp. The prestige … as if it's some kind of an elite club.'
Yes, he'd had some of that from Hermione. She tended to speak of her study and books as if they were objects of worship. He'd had a go at her about it once. Since then she'd tried hard to be a bit more rational (at least, in front of him: there was no telling what she was like all day with her new friends at LSE) but every so often, even now, she'd have a relapse and go all dewy-eyed and shining faced.
'Anyway, ' said Terry, 'our group is lousy with flaming poufdahs. Look at the old Kevin Entwhistle … a right little raver. And the Lady Zacharias. Talk about flaunting herself! Next time round, if she's not careful, she'll come back as a peacock.'
'You mean peahen,' said Harry. (Peahen was wrong, peahen didn't have anything to flaunt. OK, cheap laughs.)
He left Terry at the junction branching to Hampstead Village, he went on up the quiet road to Auntie Loveday's. The house was called Wychwood (Did they know Hermione's magical talent when they named the house?), and although it wasn't as big as the auror training mansion, which had once been some lord or earl's villa, still it was big enough. It was set back from the road, in a front garden the size of a park, with a vast semi-circle sweeping driveway and a flight of steps, leading up to the front doors. The front doors opened to another pair of doors which in turn opened on to a huge octagon hall with other doors opening off, and in the middle, a wide curving staircase covered in cascading water pattern stair carpet going all the way up to the attics.
This evening, when he came back, he found Hermione and Auntie Loveday watching natural history program in one of the rooms on the left-hand side of the hall. (He had never known a family house with so many rooms, Grimmauld Place 12 included, they seemed to have a different one for everything they did.) Uncle Richard wasn't there, because he had gone off on a conference or something as always with Royal Dutch Shell. The Prick wasn't there, either, because he was safely tucked away back at university reading his art history books, whilst the obnoxious Hebe was at her full-boarding school in Surrey (telling all her little pals about queers, he had no doubt, and sifting through the Kama Sutra for things that sounded dirty).
He opened one of the double doors that led into the room where the television was kept and cautiously took a look. You never knew when there was going to be company - one day last week he'd walked in on a whole dinner table full of them. In any case, the floor was covered in creamy white carpet of shag pile two inches deep, which he did not trust his outdoor shoes to tread on. Usually he took them off and carried them, something which Auntie Loveday seemed to find amusing.
'Here comes Harry,' she would say, 'carrying his shoes!'
He bet she wouldn't find it so funny if he trod dog shit all over the place, considering that Hampstead Heath had 791 acres (Thanks for the data, Hermione) of open land for all the leg-stretching dogs in London.
Tonight she said, 'Hello, Harry! Had a good day?'
Hermione bounced round from her chair.
'Did you enjoy it?'
'Yeah, it was OK.'
'You look tired,' said Auntie Loveday.
'Did you have Mr Grausam? How did it go?'
'There's some of Mrs Archers' Irish stew downstairs if you'd like. It only needs heating up.'
He declined the stew in favour of bed: it had suddenly come upon him that he was not only tired but half dead on his feet. That hours with Attila the Hun, coming as it had at the end of a day perfecting all the basic charms had just about killed his appetite for anything and finished him.
'Take a bath if you want one,' said Auntie Loveday.
She was always urging him to take baths. So far, he hadn't been able to bring himself to do so, the reason being that the bathroom (one of the bathrooms) unnerved him. It felt like the prefects' bathroom back at Hogwarts although it had a circular bath instead of the rectangular, with glass shells instead of taps and white carpet on the floor instead of marble slabs. The memory of the ordeal Myrtle and the mermaid put him through was still fresh. On top of all, there was a curious glass dome let into the ceiling, directly above the circular bath, which he was wary of. It looked to him suspiciously like a spy hole. Today, being all of a muck sweat after the Hun, and not wanting sours and aches in the morning, he decided to take a chance and risk it.
He ran a bath of thick bubbles and slip under the bubbles in a swift move. He enjoyed the warmth and softness for quite some time, almost forgot the spy hole. At long last, he hopped into a bath towel, and hot footed it down the passage to safety. Back in his bedroom, in his worn but very soft flowery pyjama shorts that had been his favourite for two years, he did a few gymnastic body contortion, using the headboard as a bar, just to reassure himself he still remembered what he learned today, and was on the point of climbing into bed when there was a tap at the door, and Hermione's voice said, 'Is it alright if I come in?' She was in anyway. He felt distinctly foolish, standing there in his old flowery pyjama shorts and topless.
'What d'you want?' The words came out rather short than he had intended, but it was embarrassing being seen by Hermione in this state. Underpants he wouldn't mind, but old flowery pyjama shorts -
'I just wanted to know if you are all right.'
'Um, I am fine.'
'Did you have Mr Grausam? Do you like him? He's super, isn't he?'
'Yeah, we had him. He's a sadist, if you ask me.' It wouldn't have been so bad if he'd had a dressing gown on. At least he could have hidden the worst of it.
'And you are going to go on with it?'
For crying out loud! He just started it. ''Course I am going to go on with it.'
'Hermione,' he said 'I am a bit knackered.'
He didn't actually say so if you wouldn't mind shoving off, I could get into bed and get my head down. But the message obviously got across. A spot of pink appeared in Hermione's cheeks, as it had in summer when he'd given her present.
'Sorry,' she said. 'I didn't realise…'
She walked, stiff backed, from the room. Now he'd gone and upset her. For a moment he was tempted to go after her and tell her that he hadn't meant to, but it just wasn't dignified; not in old flowery pyjamas. Anyway, people shouldn't be crashing in and out of other people's bedrooms. God knows, he'd told Ginny about it often enough. He wouldn't think he'd have to tell Hermione.
Grumpily, he crawled into bed, beneath the continental quilt. He didn't enjoy upsetting Hermione - he didn't mean to be curt to her. If only she would just use a bit of forethought and this little unpleasantness would never occur. Perhaps tomorrow evening he'd take her down for a butterbeer, then she could talk about the Hun to her hearts content. That would make her happy.
Duly, the following evening, he hurried back - only to find Hermione was not there, Auntie Loveday said she'd gone to see a ballet with a friend from her school.
'A girl friend,' she added.
He didn't care if it was a girl friend (that was a lie: he did). He still felt put out. She might at least have told him. If he'd known she wasn't to be here he'd gone for a butterbeer with Terry. When he had asked, Harry had thought of Hermione and how he was going to talk to her, to make up for turfing her out of his room the previous night, and now he got back to find that she was out enjoying herself. Well, tomorrow evening if Terry suggested they go for a butterbeer, he'd go for a butterbeer and be hanged to her. (Was he asking too much of her?)
The following evening, Terry suggested they go up to muggle West End on Friday night and mosey around for a bit, look at the loonies in Leicester Square, 'You never been up there at night?' Harry shook his head. 'In that case, my son, your education is sadly lacking. Come along, let's broaden your outlook.'
It was about time he had his eyes opened to some seamier things of life - the things they were always going on about in the Sunday Witch Weekly. Sex shops, prostitutes. He probably wouldn't even recognise one if he saw one. Terry was right: his education was lacking.
When he got back at Auntie Loveday's Hermione was waiting for him. She seemed anxious.
'Harry, I'm sorry I was out last night.'
Why, he wondered, Why was she sorry? She had every right to go out. He was not the only one she should hang out. She was not the only friend he would hang out, either.
'It's just that we were given these free tickets… We've got some more for Friday. Do you --' the colour was in her cheeks again -
'Do you like to come?'(did she know what she was saying?)
Why did these things always have to happen to him?
'I would've,' he said, 'but I've just arranged to have a guy's night out with Terry Boot.'
'Oh. Oh, well, never mind. It was just an idea. I can always go with Lavender.'
'I would've come,' he said (yes, he would.).
'It doesn't matter, Harry,' said Hermione. 'Do go and enjoy your night out.'