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 5 It must be your lucky day
Harry was fed up with his staple food: tins of baked beans. It came as a relief when Hermione rang him to ask if he would like to have dinner at Auntie Loveday's Friday evening, Dad would also be there (he was passing by from the regional dentists annual meeting and then taking Hermione back home the next day). Harry had made a vow to live by himself without running to dinners at any his associated families at least for a month, but since she was offering - and he hadn't seen her for almost two weeks.
'When shall I see you?' he said.
'Six o'clock?'
'I'll be there,' said Harry.
'So! You've set up an independent establishment, have you?' Dad said, after dinner, as they sat in one of the sitting or thinking rooms. He gave Harry a wink, 'Got yourself a flat, eh?'
'Actually, it's a bed-sitting room,' said Hermione.
'Well, that's still a sight better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick … nothing like having a place of your own.'
'It's not his own,' said Hermione. 'He shares.' (Wasn't she contrary today?)
'Ah, yes!' said Dad. 'But there's a world difference between sharing with someone your own age and sharing with some crusty old fossil of a geriatric, isn't there, Harry?'
'It does mean you can do things,' agreed Harry.
'I'm sure it does!' Dad understood too.
There was a pause, Dad helped himself to some of his honeysuckle tea.
'What sort of things?' said Hermione.
Dad, at that, threw back his head and roared. Harry resisted the temptation to join in: the pinkness had come into Hermione's cheeks and he didn't like to see her embarrassed. Wasn't he indulging her?
'It means you can go out and leave things,' he said, 'instead of having to keep putting them away all the time. Like if the bed's not made, or the sink's full of stuff, there's nobody to nag at you.'
'God!' said Dad. 'Shades of the past … I'll bet the place is a shambles!'
'It's not exactly spick and span,' admitted Harry.
'I'll bet it isn't. Needs a woman's hand, by the sound of things.' Dad shot an amused glance at Hermione. 'Wouldn't you say?'
'I wouldn't know,' said Hermione. 'I've never been asked round there.'
She turned, and looked out of the window at the dim gardens. Harry stared at her, in anguish. He hadn't known she wanted to be asked round - he'd thought she wasn't interested. That was the impression she'd given, the day he'd moved out. It had been Auntie Loveday who'd wanted to know everything, like whether they were on the telephone, and whether there were cooking facilities. Hermione had seemed not to care, very uncharacteristic if he thought about it. Before, she had always wanted to know everything happening to him.
***
He worried about it all weekend - about Hermione wanting to be asked round, and him not having asked her. He didn't like to floo her and make a special point of it; it would be too obvious. He was happy she wanted to come round. But he wouldn't like her to be certain that she could send him running with every little wish of hers. On the other hand, he didn't want to do it in front of Dad, at Auntie Loveday's. This was something between him and Hermione. In the end, he managed to get her by herself for just five minutes while Dad was turning the car out of the driveway on Sunday evening after dropping Hermione off at Auntie Loveday's (Harry made sure he came to see Auntie Loveday earlier. Wasn't this even more obvious?).
'You doing anything Friday?' he said.
'No,' said Hermione. 'I don't think so. Why?'
'I was wondering if you'd like to come round to our place.'
Now she'd gone all pink again. He'd never known her keep going pink, with him, like this before. (The only times he saw her pink for a short time were when Hogwarts professors praised her, the one time when she admitted to him and Ron that Viktor fancied her and the time when He and Ron caught her hiding Lockhart's getting-well-card under her pillow.) Perhaps it was just something that happened to girls like Hermione at her age.
'All right.' she said.
'Come round for a butterbeer about eight o'clock.'
'All right.'
Eight o'clock would give him time to get back from training and stuff some baked beans down himself. Give him a chance to do a bit of tidying up, as well. He wouldn't like Hermione to see the place as it was. He wondered whether Terry was going to be in, or whether (hopefully) he'd be going round to Emilia's place. Tentatively, he suggested the idea.
'Why?' said Terry, at once. 'What dirty little plots are you hatching now?'
'Nothing. I've asked Hermione round, that's all'
'So why do you want me out of the way? I thought you didn't have anything going between you?'
'Well … no, not in that sense.' Unfortunately.
'So why can't I just pop in and say hallo?'
'You can if you really want.'
'I do want; I haven't seen Hermione since we left Hogwarts. I also want to see what's so special between you other than firm school friends.'
'There isn't anything special between us. She's just someone I happen to be friend with in school and after.'
'Oh? You could have fooled me,' said Terry.
The remark bothered him. What did he mean by it? You could have fooled me. What was that supposed to get at?
'Well,' said Terry. 'she obviously wield great influence over you … Hermione says this, Hermione says that, … Hermione does such and such, Hermione thinks so and so … I not unnaturally concluded that she must be of great importance in your life.'
She was of importance; of course she was. If it hadn't been for Hermione, he might have died several times over. On the other hand, he resented the suggestion that she wielded great influence over him. He wasn't as easily affected by her as some people seemed to think. Was he?
To prove the point, he didn't bother tidying up on Friday evening. He liked the place the way it was, so Hermione would just have to put up with it (Besides, she had been perfectly happy in Hagrid's cluttering hut). It might not be what she was used to at home and at Auntie Loveday's, but so what? Not everyone wanted to live with creamy white carpets and glass-topped tables. He half expected her to take one look and say 'Harry, it's a midden,' but in fact she seemed quite struck with it.
'It's nice,' she said. 'You are lucky … I wish I had a place like this.'
He was gratified. (He kept discovering something new about Hermione even after seven years being close friends with her.)
'Want me to try and find one for you?'
Regretfully she shook her head.
'I couldn't. They won't let me - not until next September. I'll be twenty then. They've promised me I can then, if I want.' He kept forgetting she's ten months older than he was. For all her super intellect and wizarding knowledge, she seemed even more lack of certain education. What sort of things could he be doing in his own place? Indeed! If she were to be dumped in the middle of Leicester Square at night without her wand, she wouldn't know how to set about looking after herself among the loonies.
'You have the chair,' he said.
He waved her towards the room's only armchair, but instead she chose to kneel on the hearth rug, in front of the fire. She was wearing a natural fine-knitted rib sweater, with a low cut neck and a pair of midnight blue stretch denims tucked into boots. Her hair, as usual, was hanging about her shoulders.
He poured her a bottle of butter beer in a traditional German beer glass.
'I'd made you some food or something, except that all I could do is breakfast. I'm not a very good cook.'
'Neither am I,' said Hermione. 'Baking chocolate chip cookie is the most I've done in my food technology group at my prep school. But, after all the potion making at Hogwarts, following some simple recipes shouldn't be a problem, should it?'
'Or you could try baked beans. I live off them at the moment' he said. 'I do.'
He sat at the edge of the bed, holding his bottle between his knees. A silence fell. He sought for some way to break it. He'd never tongue-tied with Hermione before; she had certainly never been tongue-tied with him. The silence continued. Hermione smiled, rather shyly: Harry contorted his lips. He must find something to say.
'Have you --'
'Did you --'
They both spoke at the same time; both stopped.
'After you,' said Harry.
'Are you still enjoying it … being at the auror training?' (Didn't she know? They had this topic last Friday with Dad, hadn't they?)
'Yeah; it's great.'
'What do you brew at your potion training?' He talked for a while, detailing her every potion he did this week. She listened with rapture and fired questions at him every now and then.
Then, there was a pause.
'What were you --'
'I was just --'
'Go on,' said Hermione.
'I was just going to ask how you were getting on?'
'Oh! Fine,' said Hermione, 'we've got Miss Flowerdew for our tutor group, she's great. Much better than Miss Gover … ghastly Gover. She's really bitter.' He couldn't possibly comment since he didn't know any of her tutors. She talked more of her study. He enjoyed listening to her clear description of her courses and tutors. She's always there, always enthusiastic, and inquisitive. He felt more at ease when they talked as if they were back at Hogwarts.
He opened his mouth.
'What --'
'Hi, there!' said Terry's voice. His head insinuated itself round the door.
'Hi,' said Harry.
'I trust I'm not interrupting anything? No!' Terry slid the rest of his body in the wake of his head. 'Obviously not. One on the bed, one on the floor … how very proper! How are you, Hermione?' He held out a hand to Hermione, who's still kneeling on the hearth rug. 'Long time no see, But I've often heard about you from a certain someone…'
Terry did the most talking, although Hermione contributed her share. All Harry did was sitting on the edge of the bed, listening to what they were saying, and interspersing the odd word or two. They didn't really seem to have any need of him - he wasn't at all sure that they would notice were he simply to dis-apparate (admittedly, he noticed Hermione often looked at him during Terry's rambling.) Hermione, as always, talked about her school, things that happened with Miss Flowerdew. Terry made smart remarks and kept up his usual flow of banter. Harry was glad to see that Hermione, although she smiled politely from time to time, was not nearly such an appreciative audience as Sally-Ann had been.
Afterwards, as he accompanied her home, she said, 'I hear you went to a party the other night with Sally-Ann Perks?'
The way things got round the magical London was nobody's business.
'It wasn't much of a do,' he said. He wondered how she'd come to hear of it. Most likely, some girl friends of hers are friends with Sally-Ann. 'I'd have asked you to come,' he said (that's true, had she been interested in coming with him as his date), 'except it was on Saturday and I knew you'd be going home.' (was it only because she had to go home?)
'I don't have to go home,' said Hermione. 'I could stay if there is something to do.'
'Well, anyway, you didn't miss much.' He didn't really want to talk about the party, and about Sally-Ann. 'They were all older persons- two of them were Terry's girl friends.'
'He's the sort that would have two,' said Hermione.
'Don't you find him more amusing than he was at Hogwarts? Most girls seem to.'
'He's all right,' she said.
Hermione, plainly, had not been over-impressed. Terry, by contrast, the minute he got back at West Hampstead, greeted him with 'Hermione is still every bit the superior lady you had back at the Hogwarts days. I can't imagine why you waste your time chasing after all the rest of the rubbish when you could have her.'
It just showed how little Terry knew about anything: if he could have had Hermione, he wouldn't be chasing after all the rest of the rubbish.
Since he couldn't have Hermione he took the opportunity, next morning, of approaching number two on his list. Number two was Mandy - round, bubbly Mandy. He magnanimously stood her a coffee in the canteen and invited her out to a meal the following Friday. She accepted with an alacrity (like Angelina Johnson accepting Fred's invitation to the Yule ball), which surprised him. (These girls really went for their food in a big way.)
On the day, Mandy didn't look glamorous, but at least she looked approachable, that was the main thing. They walked towards West Hampstead in search of food.
'D'you like Chinese?' he said.
'I like Indian.'
He hadn't asked her if she liked Indian, he'd asked her if she liked Chinese. Why did they always have to make difficulties? There was a Chinese take-away only fifty yards down the road; also he didn't go a bundle on curries.
'What about Chinese?'
'Chinese is all right. The only trouble is I keep thinking of pink and curled-up prawns.'
'Pink and curled-up prawns?'
'The way they cook them and eat them. Do you know,' she said, 'why it is that prawns are all pink and curled up?'
'No.' He wasn't sure that he wanted to know.
'It's because they're thrown alive into boiling water … like lobsters. You mustn't ever eat them.'
There wasn't really any argument against that; in any case you couldn't expect a girl to give you her all if she was worried you were making her eat boiled-alive prawns. The least he could do was feed her a meal she felt happy with. He did rather wonder, though, why every female he encountered seemed to have some strange hang-ups. First it had been naked men lying about in fields, now it was curled prawns. He wondered if there were any woman, anywhere, who didn't have hang-ups, or whether that was asking the impossible. Wait, he didn't notice any hang-up of Hermione's. No, she didn't have one. Why wouldn't the girls who would go out with him be like Hermione for a change?
He suggested them taking away curries, from a grotty (so they couldn't eat in) Tandoori place, back to his place and listening to CDs. He waited for her to decide that they should go somewhere else. He should never have given her any choice in that matter. He should simply have marched her in and ordered two curries without even asking her. Once he'd gone and ordered the stuff she couldn't very well start making a fuss.
'Mm, … ' She pressed her nose against the restaurant window. 'It certainly is very grotty in there.' Then, she agreed to his plan.
He could hardly believe what he was hearing - she actually agreed to go back. It was all he could do to stop from grabbing her hand and rushing her off there and then. He controlled himself enough to go in and order a couple of curries, but having to wait while they were being cooked (or warmed-up) was almost unbearable. Mandy kept looking round at the flock wallpaper and the pictures of Taj Mahal and saying, 'It's not as grotty as I thought it was … it's really quite nice, once you're inside … I wouldn't actually have minded eating here. Still, now that we've ordered …'
'You can't chop and change,' he said. 'It gets them in a panic.' She giggled.
'Is Terry going to be there? I suppose,' said Mandy, 'he's gone out with a girl friend?'
Harry looked at her, suspiciously. Did he detect a wistful tone? What was it girls he asked out all seemed to go after the other bloke?
The room was in its usual chaos. Mandy, fortunately, seemed not to be a girl who objected mess, or maybe she didn't even notice. She dropped her duffle coat on the floor, on top of a pair of trousers that were waiting to be washed, sat down quite happily on the unmade bed to eat.
They listened to one of her favourites sifted out from Terry's collection. To his disgust, he heard what sounded like a slurpy ballad drifting across the room. Really slurpy, sugary stuff, with lyrics that rhymed, like on greeting cards. He wasn't surprised at Mandy going in for syrup, but he would have thought better of Terry. She kept giggling at Harry's quite normal and plain remarks.
It was only after a bit that he realised why she'd giggled: on close listening, the ballads were nowhere near as innocent and slurpy as it seemed. He listened in growing amazement the nauseating little ditties slowly changed from greeting card twaddle to what could only be described as soft porn. The change came about so gradually that just at first you didn't grasp what was going on.
Harry turned wondering eyes on Mandy, who giggled; yet again. Not that he minded her giggling quite so much now. He'd thought at first it might just be stupidity, but obviously it wasn't. Clearly, in spite of being all round and bubbly and looking so innocent, Mandy knew a thing or two.
'Great, isn't it?' she said.
'Mm,' said Harry. Not exactly what you'd call subtle - you'd hardly not know what the lyrics meant; not unless you'd spent your life living in Azkaban.
Harry swallow up his curry at a speed he normally reserved for dishes that didn't offend his palate, such as baked beans or roast beef and Yorkshire. With curry, he generally just pushed it about on his plate and picked out as much as he could manage to resuscitate. Today, thanks to the ballads, he got through it without even noticing.
Mandy lay back on the unmade bed, eyes closed, allowing Harry stretched out beside her. After a while, Mandy took his hand and firmly guided it inside her bra. Harry swallowed. This was furthest he'd ever got with any girl. (OK, she was only the second girl whom he got anywhere with.)
It seemed it was the furthest he was destined to get (for this evening, at any rate). As the CD drooled to an end, Mandy suddenly sprang up on the bed.
'I think I should go now, before we go too far.' she said.
'Go?' he was flabbergasted. What did she mean go? Go where? His immediate thought was that she must mean, go to the bathroom. It took a second or so for her meaning to sink in. That flabbergasted him even more. She lay there, letting him undo her blouse, putting his hand on her breast, listening to some slob of a pop star singing pornographic songs, and then she dared to talk about going too far? He pushed his hair out of his eyes. This was unbelievable.
'I'm sorry,' said Mandy. She looked at him, earnestly, all giggles gone. 'Really I am. It's not that I wouldn't like to. It's just that I never have - '
That made two of them, he thought.
'I keep thinking about it - I keep meaning to. But then, when it comes to it --'
Then when it came to it, she went and got cold feet. Or cold something else.
'-- I am not really, absolutely, one hundred per cent certain that I actually want to. I mean, I do want to, but then again, I don't. I know there are girls - I mean, Daphne.' Big blonde Daphne. 'She does it all the time, practically with anyone she fancies. I mean, she doesn't have to be in love with them, or anything …' she trailed off. 'I am sorry,' she said. 'Really I am. I do hope it hasn't upset you, or anything?'
Upset him? Oh, no. He liked people leading him on. He enjoyed that kind of thing. A little bit of frustration was good for you every now and again.
'I do feel awful,' said Mandy. (She felt awful?) 'I feel I'm taking advantage of you - being so nice-natured and everything. If you weren't so nice-natured, I wouldn't dare.'
She'd better be warned: he didn't feel so nice-natured. Not just at this moment.
'I mean,' she said. 'You could hex me or curse me or almost anything.'
Fat lot of satisfaction that would give him.
'It must be your lucky day,' he said.
Mandy giggled, though a little nervously looking round, big-eyed at the room. He knew she wasn't nervous of him turning violent - what with him being so nice-natured, and all - but nervous, nonetheless, in case he was mad at her. He wondered whether he was. He thought about it and decided that on the whole he wasn't. There really didn't seem much point. He could yell at her and call her by a few names, but he wasn't in love with her either. He wasn't sulking, or being mad at her, or anything like that, it was just that the moment had passed: he wasn't interested. He couldn't be bothered at this particular moment in time.
On the way back from seeing Mandy home, a lady in a fur coat and high heels approached him. He thought she was going to ask him time, or directions. Instead, as she drew level with him, she winked and said, 'Hallo, darling … want to learn a thing or two?' He said that he didn't, not just at this moment, thank you. The lady shrugged.
'Oh, well, suit yourself,' she said.
And why shouldn't he? It was what everybody else seemed to do to him. From now on, he was going to be ruthless.