Chapter 4 Encounters
*************Diagon alley***************
August 1, 2005
Harry and his friends have disapparated to the Leaky Cauldron. Since they were going to Diagon Alley together, and with all its other wizards around Dumbledore had decided that there was no need for an escort. And to be truthful, the six of them were as proficient as any of the Order members that he would have had available to go with them anyway. The teens had soon split up after they had entered Diagon Alley. Ginny and Neville having gone off to look at a cage in the pet store that according to advertisements in the Sunday Prophet might hold the ever-elusive Trevor the frog. Harry, Hermione, Ron and Luna were together having just left Gringott's, where Harry and the rest had gotten some money out of their respective vaults. Hermione also had to exchange some muggle money for galleons, as her parents were muggles, and most of her Wizarding money was tied up in a secret trust from Sirius that only she and Harry knew about.
Harry had remembered his promise of yesterday, and they were all on the way to Flortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, where the rest of the group of friends planned on taking Harry up on his offer to celebrate both their induction into the Order, however somber the connotations of that event might be, and more happily, Harry and Hermione's appointments to Head Boy and Head Girl of Hogwarts.
The two couples were holding their respective partner's hands and walking down the center of the street without a care in the world for the first time in a long time. They were conveniently, deliberately, forgetting all of the other times that they had been attacked or otherwise accosted by various foes on this very street, ranging from the Malfoys both young and old, to the attempted assault on Harry and Hermione last year, by a freed on a technicality, Delores Umbridge.
Having just left Quality Quiddich Supplies, they were walking along the dusty street looking in windows and dodging occasional errant owls. With a small sound of delight, Hermione spotted a new book in the window display of Flourish and Blots, "Harry, look they have the new version of Hogwarts a History, I know that we already have our school books, but can we go in for a second? Please?" Hermione pleaded, with a grin.
"Sure Mione," Harry responded instantly while giving Ron and Luna a quick eye roll at the same time. "Lets go." Ron and Luna silently broke up with laughter as Hermione dragged Harry to the bookstore, though both of them could tell that he was not resisting too awfully hard.
As Harry and Hermione started to walk into the door of the wizarding bookshop, they were bumped hard enough to knock Hermione to the ground. Harry looked, up expecting to see an apologetic employee of the bookstore, apologizing profusely. They have been known to run over a customer or two while hauling stacks of books around especially during their busy season right before school or failing that, some overzealous first year running though the store.
Instead of these perfectly ok explanations however, the visages of Draco Malfoy, along with his "companion" Pansy Parkinson, and henchmen Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle assaulted his eyes. Draco, especially, stared at Harry with hatred in his eyes, as if he still hadn't gotten over the capture of his father at the Ministry of Magic by Harry and his friends in their abortive attempt to save Sirius Black, or the various confrontations that marked the school year, just past.
Crabbe and Goyle merely stood there in the doorway, their large bodies blocking traffic in and out of the store. They were trying to look menacing and failing badly, especially to eyes that have faced down the Dark Lord Voldemort himself. Harry reached down and pulled Hermione to her feet, all the while staring at Draco with a look of utter distain.
"Potter," Draco sneered in his inherited aristocratic drawl, as he instantly evaluated Harry and Hermione's changed relationship, "I'm not surprised a half breed piece of shit like you would take up with a mudblood like Granger there." He turned to Ron and Luna who were still standing in the middle of the street where they had been going to wait outside for Harry and Hermione while they shopped. "And Weasley, I see that even though you are a pure-blood you managed to find the one pure-blood even more fucked up in the head than you, how are you Loony?" Draco chuckled haughtingly, while his minions laughed sycophantically.
Harry glanced at Hermione and just managed to barely restrain himself at a tiny shake of her head; he contented himself with just silently glaring at Draco. To his rear, he could feel Ron bristling while Luna of course was unfazed, but then she was unfazed in the running battle in the Ministry of Magic and later at the battle of Hogsmeade.
While this confrontation was brewing, Draco and his friends failed to notice that the street was starting to resemble a pride of lions with all the Gryffindors that started to appear as if from out of nowhere. Pavarti Patil, and Lavender Brown slipped out of the bookstore behind the bookends, Crabbe and Goyle, with full bags from where they had been getting their books for the upcoming year. Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas appeared from the other end of the dusty street where they had been looking at this year's brooms in the Quality Quiddich Supplies window, and finally Ginny and Neville appeared carrying a cage for the recalcitrant Trevor. They had been supposed to meet the group at Flortescue's. None of the Gryffindors said a word; they were all waiting to see what would happen, and to see if they would be needed to fight or just to enjoy the show.
"So Granger," Pansy began hatefully with a sneer in her voice and on her face "Is he at least good in bed?" as she mimed a eating a banana.
From there the fight was on, Hermione instantly crossed the gap between her and Pansy in two quick strides and backhanded her across the face. Pansy staggered to the side, her lip bleeding. Instantly, Draco punched in response at Hermione's head. Hermione however, was far from the little innocent muggle girl she had been, she had had over six years of practice at this stuff. She was already moving away when he threw the punch so it missed the side of her head by several inches. This did not save him from Harry's wrath however, as a punch that started around Harry's belt buckle landed under his jaw and knocked him to his knees. Chest heaving, Harry stood over Malfoy, his eyes now glowing, and radiating power for every magic user present to feel.
As to the rest of the fight, the remainder of the Gryffindors had not been idle, Ron had jumped Goyle as he looked to come in and blindside Harry; Goyle was now sitting on his arse, with an eye already swelling shut. Crabbe seemed to have run into a wall; he was just lying on his back with Seamus and Dean looking down on him with very satisfied expressions. Even Pansy had not gotten off easy as Lavender grabbed her hair while Pavarti punched her in the stomach...hard, causing her to spill even more blood from her split lip on the ground, soon followed by the remains of her breakfast.
Around Harry, small objects were starting to levitate and move about as if possessed of their own free will. With dawning horror, Draco looked up at Harry to witness a pair of glowing electric blue eyes looking down on him, as he suddenly started to recognize what he had awoken. As the feeling of raw, elemental magic filled the air, Hermione ran over to Harry. Without any hesitation, she threw her arms around him until he calmed down, returning the favor that he had shown to her on a train platform in downtown London, less than two months ago.
After a few seconds of her calming arms around him, the levitated objects gradually settled to the ground and his eyes turned slowly back to their normal green. With a glare that promised divine retribution as she stared down at Draco, Hermione said scornfully, "Get the hell out of here, while you still have a head on your shoulders, you arse." With this Draco scampered to his feat and the four damaged Sytherins beat a hasty, staggering retreat.
Escaping out of range, Draco yelled a parting shot back at them, "YOU WON'T HAVE YOUR MUDBLOOD TO SAVE YOU NEXT TIME POTTER!" All the while thinking, I wonder what Lord Voldemort would think of Potter's choice in mates, I think I remember him killing Potter's parents for the same sin among others.
"Thanks for calming Harry down, Herm. I could have got the blood out of these robes, but when he does that glowing eye thing my hair is just buggered up all day." Pavarti said with a smile, as she beat dust from her robes and shook out her hair.
"Your welcome. Mine too." Hermione responded with a matching smile, then giggled a bit at Pavarti's expression.
The tension broken, Harry looked to his housemates with gratitude, "Before those idiots showed up, we were going to Fortescue's to celebrate, the rest of you come on, my treat." Harry said to the assembled Gryffindors, who all readily agreed to let Harry once again buy and they all headed off together towards the sweet shop at the other end of the street.
*************Riddle Mansion*****************
In a dark wood paneled room lit only by a few candles, and despite the time of year, a roaring fire, a tall, thin dark man sat in an old fashioned high backed chair. He glanced down at a short note he had just been given by one of his minions. Crushing the note in his bony fist, a heinous smile appeared on his snake like visage, his cat-pupiled red eyes, growing wide with an evil joy. He turned to a small, slightly hunched, greasy man in one corner. The man had a silver right hand, and appeared to be utterly subservient to the dark man.
In a flat menacing hiss, the dark man spoke, as if from a man down to an ant, "So Wormtail, it looks as if Potter has taken up with a little mudblood bitch" The man cackled softly while the silver-handed man cowered in fear, "I think it is time to show them there is no safety anywhere, especially for their dogs." The candles blew out in a sudden gust of wind, leaving the previously dimly lit room almost in blackness, the only exception, the light from the fire and from the dark man's curiously glowing red eyes.
"He He HE"
A/N: Okay that was a short chapter...sorry about that. For some oddball reason, some of the early chapters are kinda
short. Next chapter an early morning morning wake up call, and a late night conversion. SeYa then.