Title: The Golden Trio
Author: jltat
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Chapter 1: Late Night Reunions
Harry woke up with a start, at the sound of someone apparating into his flat with a faint pop. Said person then crashed into what sounded like a chair, causing it to topple over, causing the person to swear loudly. Harry slipped on a pair of pajama bottoms over his boxers and reached for his glasses and wand by his bedside. Slowly, he tiptoed towards his kitchen, where all the noise came from.
"Who's there?" Harry said, his wand raised as he flipped on a light switch. What he found, however, was definitely not a Death Eater, Lord Voldemort, or even remotely as sinister as he had expected
"Hermione? Ron?" Harry asked, slowly lowering his wand, "What're you guys doing here?"
"I told you we found the right flat, and there you were raving on about how we should have researched it more to make sure it was actually his and we weren't just popping in on some poor unsuspecting muggle who would have a heart attack and-"
"Oh, shut up, Ron," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. Instead of saying anything further to him, she turned to Harry, with an extremely angry look on her face. "Harry Potter! How dare you! You haven't returned any of our letters, you didn't attend Bill and Fleur's wedding, we haven't seen or heard from you in 2 months, ex-plain-your-self." She enunciated these words by stalking dangerously towards him and poking him in the chest with her wand, backing Harry into a wall.
"Whoa, hold on Hermione," Harry said, looking slightly fearful. Dark Lords he could handle, but a pissed of Hermione was an entirely different story. Ron seemed to agree, as he just stood there with his hands jammed in his pockets giving a look of pity to Harry.
"Umm... hey Ron, Hermione. Long time no see. How are you guys doing?" Harry said, chuckling nervously. He mentally cursed at the Ministry of Magic for temporarily abolishing the ban on underage use of magic because Hermione still had her wand fixed on his bare chest, making him fidget.
Hermione's eyes narrowed, "Don't give me that bull Harry, I will ask you again to explain yourself."
It had been 2 months since Dumbledore died. A week after the funeral, Harry decided to leave Privet Drive once and for all, and bought a flat under a muggle alias, partly for protection, and partly because he had to lie about his age to have ownership of his own flat.
He only had his mind on one thing. Revenge. Revenge on Snape, Voldemort, Bellatrix, Dolohov; anyone who ever hurt someone near or dear to him. In his mind, the only way to accomplish his goals of finding more Horcruxes, he had to get in shape, mentally and physically. Trying to retrieve the last Horcrux was hard for Harry to do, and he even had Dumbledore on his side. So he enrolled in muggle martial art classes, a gym, and bought a stackful of books on hexes, how to perform and defend against. However, all of those things kept him entirely too busy to keep in touch with anyone. In fact the only contact he had with the wizarding world for the past couple months was the Daily Prophet he got every morning, which kept him updated on the most recent attacks, which served as more reason for him to train harder and harder.
His birthday came and went, and he ignored the letters he received, placing them all in a stack on his mantle above the fireplace. However, as he stood there now, at the receiving end of the wand of one of the few people he actually feared, Harry thought not replying to those letters was exeedingly foolish and had he known that this was the response he would get, he would have written back pronto.
Harry sighed and launched into an explanation for his actions in the last 2 months.
"Now will you lower your bloody wand and stop poking me in the chest, I'm still sore from all the working out and I think your going to leave a bruise," Harry said, now slightly irritated at the situation. Now that he was fully awake, he found that he did not very much enjoy people popping into his flat at 3 in the morning, demanding answers from him while prodding his torso with a sharp stick.
Hermione looked slightly apologetic, lowered her wand and then suddenly lunged at Harry and gave him a bear hug. "I'm sorry Harry, we were just so worried about you, and you didn't answer us for the longest time, we thought something happened to you at your horrible relatives but we visited them and they said you had left and then we were really worried and we couldn't find you and-"
"Hermione," Ron cut her off, "You're rambling again. And your choking Harry so I think you might want to let go of his neck before his face turns purple," Ron chuckled and Hermione released Harry, looking sheepish.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Harry!"
Harry wheezed for air, able to let out an, "it'sallright" Finally, after Harry got his breathing back to normal he looked at his two friends and didn't really know what to say.
"So... you guys, how'd you find me?" he said finally, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
"Oh, lemme tell you mate, it was not easy. Once we found out you weren't at your Aunt's anymore, it was actually Ginny who suggested that you bought your own flat. You, my friend, are one hard man to find. Do you know how many muggles there are out here by the name of James Evans? Mind you, Hermione did most of the researching, but still," Ron said, "I helped you know, it was hard work."
Harry had to chuckle at this, it was nice to see Ron still acting like Ron even after Harry had read in the paper a couple weeks ago that his brother Percy had been hurt during an attack on the ministry.
"Well you guys found me, but I guess I should have seen that coming, Hermione can find a needle in a haystack if she really wanted to." Hermione blushed at this comment. "But why did you guys decide to come so late?"
"Well believe it or not, this was the last address on our list," Hermione explained, "And I wanted to wait until tomorrow morning, but this one over here," she jerked her thumb towards Ron, "was admant on going, so here we are."
Harry smiled, he had to admit, he was happy to see his friends again, it was getting lonely for him. "Well it's late, I don't want to make you guys apparate home at this hour so you two can stay here for the night and we'll all catch up in the morning. Hermione, Ron, you two can get my bedroom and the guest room and I'll take the couch there."
"Oh, no Harry, we don't want to impose really-"
"Don't worry Hermione, I insist."
"But I don't want to kick you out of your bed Harry-"
"Oh c'mon Hermione," Ron said, while he yawned, "The man says he insists, let's just go to sleep, I'm knackered." And with that Ron headed towards the guest room, "Thanks for letting us stay the night Harry, see you in the morning."
"Alright, fine," Hermione said, throwing her hands in the air, admitting defeat, "G'night Harry."
"Night Hermione," Harry said as he headed towards the couch. He fell asleep as soon as his body hit the cushions, and slept better than he had his school ended.
A/N: yea ok, so this is my stab at my own challenge i posted in the forums but i haven't written fiction in so long i'm afraid i'm off my game. So if anyone actually likes what i write, you can thank JKR and her abysmal HBP ship pairings for forcing me to write. Please review because i love feedback on what i write but honestly this was a spur of the moment thing and i can't guarentee when the next chapters will be coming, but i am fairly sure that i will continue it, because i like how i started it, which is rare. But if all goes as planned, this will end up being by best fic yet.
By the way, i am in desperate need of a beta, so if anyone wants to volunteer for the job, email me, my address is in my profile.