Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize from the first 6 books in the Harry Potter series by J K Rowling belong to the aforementioned J K Rowling. I am simply playing with them for my amusement, and to see what kind of reaction I can get.
My sincerest apologies for the delay in updating. I have been trying to provide my readers with 'correct English' … grammar, spelling … etc. It is a painful and time consuming process to filter the chapters through a good Beta. Good Betas are hard to find and very busy. I am certain that I am optimistic, but, I would like to try to finish this story by the time book 7 comes out [not likely going to happen - but I can try]. This chapter and the next have been Beta'd and I will put the next one up in a few days.
Since I'm currently writing at around chapter 29 or 30 it's hard to remember this far back [called 'old timers disease' or C.R.S.]. Anyway over the last couple of chapters H/Hr flashed to the Burrow, Harry confirmed the bad news to Ginny that the break-up was permanent. Hr & R had a similar chat. They floo'd to WWW, then went to Gringotts, they found some books {typical Hr} before visiting Tom and partaking in some refreshments. Finally they ended up back at WWW (that's not the world wide web) and you may continue on below. Starts out with George or Fred, H & Hr in a back room of WWW.
(8) Harry's Room
"I'm George, and yes you can, but I'll have to lift the wards before you try." He said to Harry and Hermione.
"Don't bother", Hermione said.
"You don't want to know what those wards will do to you, it's rather nasty."
"Trust us", said Hermione as George showed them to the room.
"Are you sure?" said George, "I want to see this, I may be laughing, but you won't think it's funny if I don't lift the wards."
"Okay George, watch and laugh if you want, but don't tell anyone how we do it, agreed?"
"If you can do it, you've got to tell me how."
"It'll be obvious when you see. Here goes nothing."
Harry took Hermione's hand, and then silently called for Fawkes. After the flash of red flame in the air and a gasp from George, Fawkes landed on Harry's' shoulder.
"That's Dumbledore's phoenix", screamed George startling the red and gold bird.
"You promised not to tell anyone."
"I've got to tell Fred, but no one else, I promise." Then in a rather large flash of red flame they were gone, re-appearing in Harry's bedroom.
"The look on George's face was priceless", said Hermione, laughing, "Stunned disbelief."
Laughing, Harry said, "Who did he say was going to be laughing?" Harry spun Hermione around a little too energetically and she fell into him reaching her arms around his neck to steady herself.
Harry started to topple over backwards. Fawkes, who was still on his shoulder, apparated them over to the bed. He was holding onto Hermione as if their lives depended on it. When she felt Harry falling backwards, she opened her eyes to see the bed rushing up to her. She closed her eyes while holding tighter and waited for the crash. Harry bounced twice before his movement stopped.
"You alright?" he asked.
"I don't know", was all Hermione could whisper.
"I'm going to roll over and loosen my hold on you", he said in a concerned voice. He slowly rolled to the right and gently released Hermione until she was lying on her back. She looked alright, no bloody nose or anything else that was obvious. Harry gently moved his fingertips over her forehead, nose, cheeks and chin to see if anything was hurt. The only reaction he got was a little moan as a fingertip brushed her lower lip.
She finally opened her eyes, albeit slowly, to see a look of absolute concern in his. "You didn't hurt me", she whispered as quickly as she realized what was going through his mind.
As soon as Harry realized Hermione wasn't injured he took a quick look around then back at her. It was then that Harry heard his Uncle as he climbed the stairs, "You, boy, what's all the racket and when did you get home?"
Harry managed to sit up; Hermione was still catching her breath as Uncle Vernon hammered on the door. Harry unlocked and unsealed the door just before it burst open.
"A few minutes ago we heard all kinds of banging and crashing from up here, the telly and lights went out for a minute, when I got to the bottom of the stairs I could see light under your door and knew you must be here", Vernon just realized that he was explaining himself to Harry so he stopped. "When did you get in, I didn't hear the front door open?" It was then that Vernon noticed someone behind Harry. "You, who are you and what are you doing here?" Hermione sat up, mostly recovered, and faced Vernon.
"Hello, my name is …"
She never got to finish as Vernon screamed, "You're bringing your little school tramps here now, are you boy? She's not staying in my house, and especially not with you!"
Harry never really moved, but his glare at Vernon grew deeper when he called Hermione a 'tramp', Vernon was lifted off the floor with so much force that he broke through the door behind him and was pinned midway up his own bedroom wall. Petunia and Dudley had arrived by then, took a look at Harry and followed his gaze to find Vernon. Petunia screamed and Dudley fainted.
"First of all Uncle Vernon, you don't own this house, I do, and you've never paid a pence in rent … ever … so I don't think that gives you much say in what happens and who goes where. We expect to be fed properly while we are here. Hermione will stay in my room and I'll stay in Marge's room. If there's any trouble, Hermione has my permission to turn you all into mice and she can feed you to her cat or my owl for all I care. Harry motioned towards the window with his hand and as it opened Hedwig flew in. Not finding his cage in the usual spot he perched on Harry's shoulder."
"I'm going to let you down now Uncle Vernon, you might want to brace yourself for the landing." Harry slowly eased up on the magical force he was using to hold his Uncle against the wall and Vernon slid down jerkily as Harry tried to adjust the force to keep him from falling. Vernon landed in a crumpled heap on the floor, not even trying to stand up.
Hermione's face was a picture of shock and surprise once she grasped what had happened. The amount of magical energy radiating off Harry was making the air around him crackle and shimmer
She wrapped her arms around Harry's chest and said, "Harry, calm down, take it easy, you're using a lot of magical energy." She rubbed her hands up and down his left arm hoping to calm him down.
Petunia looked around when she heard Hermione. She saw the shimmering air and heard the crackling sounds emanating from Harry and backed up through the shattered door towards Vernon.
"Mrs. Dursley, Harry doesn't want to hurt anyone … Mr. Dursley just made him mad, I don't think he's hurt", said Hermione in a timid sounding voice to try to calm Petunia. Hermione was still trying to calm Harry down by rubbing his arm with one hand and his back with her other hand.
"Harry! Look at me Harry! Harry!" She placed her hands on the sides of his face and gently turned him to face her. The crackling noise slowed to a stop and the shimmering went away. A look of peace filled his face and he relaxed using her for support.
Hermione eased Harry back onto the bed and told him to relax before she went in to see if Mr. Dursley was alright.
Petunia and Hermione managed to get Vernon onto the bed, he was just dazed, but he had a good lump on the back of his head. Hermione got a glass of water from the bathroom and poured it on Dudley's face, he then sputtered back to life and scurried away.
Hermione got another glass of water and gave it to Harry. He was sitting up again and took the glass from her.
"Thanks sweetie, how's Uncle Vernon?"
She looked surprised and pleased at being called 'sweetie' and said, "He'll be okay, a lump on his head and a couple of bruises to remind him to be nicer. How are you feeling? That must have taken a lot out of you."
"I'm feeling a bit tired, but mostly hungry. Lets walk over to Mrs. Figg's, then we can floo to the Leaky Cauldron … seems like we just left there." They took off the robes that they had been wearing all day and now just had their Muggle clothes on. Leave your bag here, I'll lock the door and straighten up the room later.
"Aunt Petunia, would you like me to bring back fish and chips for the three of you as well", Harry asked.
"You would do that … after this?" She waved her hand around, first to Dudley trying to hide behind the shattered door, ending at Vernon trying to sit up on the side of the bed.
"Peace offering", he said, "five orders of fish and chips coming up. We'll be back shortly." Harry did a wandless 'reparo' to Petunia's bedroom door and it reassembled itself, then he waved his hand at his bedroom door, it closed and he did a silent, wandless 'colloportus' to seal it. They walked down the stairs and out the front door before joining hands to walk to Mrs. Figg's house.
"Harry," she said, "Do you have any idea what you looked like when you shoved your Uncle through that door and onto the far wall?"
"I looked like something?"
"You know how the air shimmers around something very hot?"
"I was hot?"
"Well … no you weren't burning my fingers. The air around you was shimmering and there was a crackling sound like … the snap of an electric arc, but continuous … constant … buzzing."
"Wow"
"You are very powerful Harry, like McGonagall said, but now you need to learn to control it and use it effectively. We should spend more time at Hogwarts this summer. Ron can join us and you two can practice magic while I try to research these Horcruxes."
"This is the house", said Harry as they approached it.
Mrs. Figg opened the door as they were about to knock, "Hello, Harry, and this must be Hermione if I'm not mistaken. Come on in, what brings you by? I hope your relatives didn't see you come here."
"I don't think they saw us, we came by to use your floo, may we?" Harry asked.
"Certainly my dear boy, floo powder is in the bowl on the mantle, help yourself."
"We're going to order fish and chips from the Leaky Cauldron, have you had supper yet?"
"No, I was thinking about it though."
"We'll get some for you too?"
"That's not necessary, Harry."
"We'll be back soon, Mrs. Figg", said Harry as they flooed to the pub. Hermione came out of the fireplace of the Leaky Cauldron first and was brushing herself off as Harry appeared. She finished brushing him off as they approached the bar. There were now a few people in the pub.
"Hello, Harry, Hermione what brings you back today?" Tom, the barman, asked.
"Supper", said Hermione.
"Could we have six orders of fish and chips to go", said Harry, "and how much?"
Tom called the order into the back, waking up the cook and said to Harry, "two galleons and six sickles, it'll take a few minutes, the cook was asleep."
The two sat at a nearby table and started talking. They both laughed and talked about other things for a few more minutes until Tom brought their food over. They took the floo back to Mrs. Figg's and left her with some of the food before ending up at the Dursley's.
Petunia had set five places at the table while Vernon grumbled about freaks and weirdoes. When the teens arrived, Harry split up the food and they all sat at the table. Harry and Hermione, being quite hungry, went at their food with a vengeance. Petunia then tried it, found it to be excellent and encouraged the other two to eat.
When Hermione had finished, Harry spoke, "I expect to stay here no less than one full day each week until my birthday for the purpose of maintaining the protection charms that Dumbledore placed here, those protections expire on my seventeenth birthday. Hermione will be using my room and I'll be using the spare room that Aunt Marge uses when she's here. The rooms will be sealed when we're gone. You are not to attempt to enter them at any time."
"Also, there will be no derogatory name calling, if you can't call us by our given names then don't call us."
"Does anyone have any questions?" Harry waited a few moments and said, "I take it you understand and there will be no problems."
"No problems", said Petunia, "and you friend's name is?"
"Ah, introductions, yes, Hermione, this is Aunt Petunia, Dudley and Uncle Vernon." Hermione said hello to each of them, then Harry carried on. "Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Dudley, this is Hermione Granger, my friend and witch extraordinaire", at which point the three Dursleys mumbled hello.
"Hermione, my dear, I think it's time we left these good people in peace and got settled in." He gave Hermione a tour of the house, then unsealed his room and opened the door.
"This just feels strange", she said, "I can legally use magic, but I don't dare use my wand here, and you, who aren't supposed to use magic, are doing all the wandless magic you can, and getting away with it."
"I know what you mean; I cringe every time I stop to think about it, the amount of magic I used to send my uncle flying through the air should have triggered something."
"The magical energy you were dissipating in this bedroom was enormous; I'm surprised you didn't collapse from exhaustion."
"I couldn't believe it worked, not that I was consciously trying to do it, but when he insulted you … that was too much … there was a lot of emotion at that moment, and it just happened, like accidental magic when I was younger."
"Back to the previous subject … have you tried wandless magic recently?"
"No, besides I can use a wand", she said
"If someone takes your wand away", he said as he reached out and her wand flew to him. He then held it out in his opened hand for her to retrieve.
Hermione looked at her wand and concentrated on it. It jumped and twitched then finally fell out of Harry's hand. "This is hard, or I'm not doing it right, maybe if I read the book."
Harry handed back her wand and said, "I'll take my stuff to Marge's room then meet you in the back yard. We can read the book together or you can bring another one for me. If you'd prefer, we could just go for a walk, that's what I usually do in the evenings when I'm here."
"A walk sounds good; I'd like to get a look at the neighbourhood."
"Meet you downstairs whenever you're ready."
They walked around for nearly three hours. It was getting quite dark by the time they returned to number four. Harry showed her where the dementor attack occurred and the school he went to, the playground and swings. After that they came up to some stores and a small theatre. He pointed out some of the homes he knew and the ones that housed members of Dudley's gang. Anyone that came near crossed to the far side of the street prompting Hermione to ask why.
"Uncle Vernon told anyone who would listen that the reason I wasn't in school with the other kids was because I was sent to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys" said Harry.
"That's terrible!" shrieked Hermione, "How could he …"
"There's not many Muggles that will even come near me … around here anyway. Of course when they see a pretty girl like you, hanging around with me, they might try to warn you off.
"I'm not pretty, I'm as plain as girls come!" She said, "And this bushy hair is terrible, I hate it."
"Didn't your Mum ever tell you not to argue with a compliment when a friend says you're pretty?"
"Mum must have forgotten that one, I don't remember it."
"You can be drop dead gorgeous when you want to be, the rest of the time you're the prettiest girl at Hogwarts."
"Is that the first time I've said that to you?"
"I think so Harry, and thank you, you're the best, most generous and handsome guy a girl could ask for. I love you Harry", she whispered and leaned into his arm.
"Mmmmm", he whispered back in contentment, not really thinking what he was saying.
They eventually found their way back to number four; Harry suspected it was more by dumb luck than good management as he wasn't paying much attention to where they were. He was simply enjoying Hermione's company.
They walked around the house to the back and sat on the bench seat behind the house. Harry was about to close his eyes when he spotted a tabby cat sitting on the fence on the opposite side of the yard. He whispered to Hermione that McGonagall was sitting on the fence, then he whispered, "Together … three … two … one", and they both said, "Good evening Professor McGonagall." Then they both giggled.
è
Review please … & thanks.