A/N: Hello all! Wow, the response the first chapter was a little overwhelming, but I'm so glad that some of you have been enjoying it! I'm sorry that I haven't gotten back to all of your reviews and I will definitely get on that. Thanks so much for reading! Oh, and some of you haven't noticed a problem with the format. I've tried to correct it and have re-uploaded this baby about four times but it seems to be an exercise in futility. I suggest copy and pasting into Word. Sorry!
Disclaimer: I own nothing, blah, blah, blah. Oh! And there are two little songy bits in this fic. The first is "Witchy Woman" by the Eagles and the second is "Hole in the Head" by the Sugababes, which I realize was technically released after this story takes place, but I hope you will forgive the oversight.
The Littlest Things
Chapter 2-Pros and Cons
When I woke up the next morning, it took me a good thirty seconds to figure out why my flat smelled like breakfast. Then it came to me that it wasn't just my flat anymore. At once the contented smile that had spread over my face immediately dropped off upon realizing that what I was smelling was probably Hermione's cooking. Now I'm no gourmet, but Hermione in control of the kitchen is truly a fearsome sight. For someone who's so good at Potions-and nearly everything else-I don't understand how she can produce such foul-tasting food.
Anyway, with the safety of our flat in mind, I jumped out of bed, put on a t-shirt from the floor, and headed purposefully toward the kitchen. I was just in time too, because Hermione's attention was divided between three simmering pans, one whistling tea kettle and four slices of bread.
"Hermione!" I shouted, darting forward to flip over the burning scrambled eggs.
I must have startled her because she jumped and the bread she had been toasting fell to the floor. The fact that she yelled, "Harry!" in annoyance was probably an indicator too I suppose. Her hands went to her face as she watched me taking over the helm at the stove, and she said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I know I'm rubbish at cooking, I just wanted to do something nice for you-"
"You don't have to apologize," I said, interrupting her and smiled to show I wasn't annoyed that she was on her way to burning down the flat. Eventually she lost her dejected look and she busied herself by setting the table while I finished breakfast.
Conversation was easy as we chatted about what we were going to be doing that day. Hermione was going to be heading off to full day of classes-"Including labs!" she gushed in a way that made me think that labs were probably sheer torture for anyone other than her, perhaps on par with giving Snape a neck massage-while I was going to spending at least the afternoon at Grimmauld.
"And thank you so much for the duvet cover, Harry," said Hermione, her eyes trained on me earnestly.
I squirmed under such a show of genuine gratitude and mumbled a quiet, "No problem."
She rolled her eyes at me, quirking her mouth in a smirk and shaking her head amusedly as she started to clear the table. I followed her to sink, intending to do the dishes as I usually did after a meal. Hermione saw my approach and held up her free hand. "No Harry, I got this, just go and do whatever you normally do in the mornings."
Now how could I argue with that? With a joking, "Thanks for breakfast, Hermione," I headed into the living room and plopped on the couch. Normally my mornings were spent leisurely, since the kids at Grimmauld were generally in their lessons until at least lunchtime. But with someone else around I felt as though I should be doing something more productive, so I reached over for the folded newspaper with an absent thought that Hermione must have forwarded her subscription here already because I didn't usually get the Prophet.
I was impressed by how quickly she worked and felt a twinge of something like disappointment that she would probably find a new place to live just as swiftly. So far having a flatmate to talk to in the morning over breakfast was pretty nice and reminded me a little of Hogwarts.
I tried to keep that in mind a few days later after Hermione cheerily left for school and I went to take a shower. I pushed over the door to the bathroom and was immediately assaulted by the violently colored and oddly shaped bottles of all of Hermione's hair stuff, arranged neatly in a row on the counter. Apparently she had removed the charms that had disguised them from the Jerk, as I was now calling him in my head, because I didn't remember them looking quite this…magical when I shoved them all in a sack the day before.
Looking around I also spotted extra shampoo bottles in the shower as well as something that looked a lot like my razor except that it was bright pink. There were new-or transfigured, probably-bath mats and a matching red seat cover. She had also added a toothbrush to the cup that normally just held mine and had placed an extra roll of toilet paper near on the back of the toilet in case the one in the dispenser ran out. All in all, my bathroom had become feminine and practical-and it sort of scared the hell out of me. I had already had to deal with the toilet seat always being left down, and really, a bloke can only take so much.
I tiptoed around the room as though afraid to mess anything up and gingerly turned on the tap, undressing and waiting for the water to reach a tolerable temperature. Stepping into the tub, I noticed that Hermione had adhered some kind of sticky flowery things to the bottom. I shrugged my shoulders, figuring that it was still okay for a bloke to have floral designs in his bathroom if it prevented him from slipping the shower.
Reaching blindly for a switch just left of the water knob, I was again glad that I let Ron talk me into installing a shower radio. Hermione even charmed it to pick the wizarding stations as well. I flicked the switch, expecting to hear some generic indie band, but what came out was:
Raven hair and ruby lips
Sparks fly from her fingertips
Echoed voices in the night
She's a restless spirit on an endless flight
Ooh, witchy woman, see how high she flies,
Ooh, witchy woman, she got the moon in her eyes!
In the words of Ron, what the bloody hell? I checked the dial and saw that it was tuned to what was magically labeled 'Spellbound: Wizard Oldies." Figuring this was Hermione's doing, I interpreted this as another example what it must be like to share a place with someone. I mean, I shared a dormitory with four other guys in school and with Ron and Hermione for a while during the Horcrux extravaganza, but we all had clearly defined boundaries and not really any shared space. I supposed that that was what I was experiencing with Hermione.
It would just take some getting used to, I tried to tell myself. Like the hair that I had to clean out the drain sometimes that wasn't dark enough to belong to me, or the fact that our bathroom smelled really girly after she'd been getting ready in it. Or the fact that my refrigerator was now full of healthy food and there wasn't a pizza box in sight. And the flat was actually clean and neat, which, for a bachelor pad often is not the case.
When I went to grab my towel from the floor where it usually was all I felt was air. A note scrawled on a ripped off piece of waterproof parchment was stuck to the wall and said in Hermione's distinctive script, which was big enough for me to read without my glasses, 'Try the towel rack.'
Slightly confused by her meaning and also a little surprised to be finding notes from my best friend whilst in the shower, I turned off the water and slid back the curtain, noticing that my towel was neatly hung on a metal rod attached to the wall. Suddenly, a fuzzy memory of Aunt Petunia chiding me for leaving my wet towel on the floor and forcing me to pick it up and hang it on a metal rack came to me and I figured that I kept to do it in adulthood in the hopes that it continues to annoy her. Somehow Hermione's casual suggestion seemed to be more effective, and I replaced the rumpled towel when I was finished drying off.
Over the next few weeks we got into the swing of things and worked out shower schedules-Hermione's idea-and a television schedule-er, my idea, which was a little pointless anyway because Hermione almost never watches tele. Popstars the Rivals, why are you so addicting?
Living with Hermione was interesting because despite the fact that we had known each other for over decade, she still managed to surprise me on almost a daily basis. If you had asked me before she moved in how much I knew about the girl I considered to be my best friend, I would have answered something along the lines of 'nearly everything.' Now, though, I feel the need to emphasize the 'nearly.'
I've already hammered the cooking thing to death-mostly because I've been on the receiving end of some pretty dodgy meals prepared by the otherwise brilliant Hermione Granger-but what I didn't know until about week two of Hermione's residence that the girl has a damn good set of pipes.
I had just switched off the wireless in the living when I heard the words:
Seven hours since you went away
Eleven coffees, Ricki Lake on play
But late at night when I'm feeling blue
I'd sell my ass before I think of you.
After verifying that the sound was not in fact coming from the radio but from somewhere down the hall, I followed it to the wooden door of the bathroom.
Seven hours since you closed the door
Started a diet, got a manicure
Erased your number from my telephone
And if you call me I won't be at home
They say
Why'd you cry-ee-eye-ee
For the guy-ee-ey-ee?
Say goodbye-ee-ey-ee
Run away
Why'd you cry-ee-eye-ee
For the guy-ee-ey-ee?
Say goodbye-ee-ey-ee
I said ok, 'cause...
My jaw dropped. Hermione was singing, more importantly she was singing a new Muggle song about breaking up. I felt weird about eavesdropping on my best friend while she was singing in the shower and probably thought that no one could hear her, but I still leaned closer.
Ooh, won't you miss me like a hole in the head
Because I do boy
And it's cool boy
And ooh, bet you never thought I'd get out of bed
Because of you boy
Such a fool boy
With a smile I shrugged to myself. After all, it's not every day that you hear Hermione Granger belting out girly pop lyrics in the shower. I hoped that the spite in her voice was a sign that she was moving on from Connor.
Anyway, the shower thing worked out well for the most part. I say for the most part since I suppose it's inevitable that when two people are shoved into a small area, there are bound to be, er, collisions. In my defense though, the door was unlocked, so there's a disclaimer.
I was minding my own business and heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth before heading to bed. It had been a long day and I didn't really think about the implications of a close bathroom door, so without thinking I twisted the knob, opening the door and got an eyeful of my best friend-but thank Merlin it was the female one.
"Harry!" Hermione-who was very clearly not in her room asleep like I had thought-shrieked, turning away from me and wrapping herself in a towel.
Now the decent thing to do would have been to look away, apologize, and excuse myself, or some combination of the above, not to stand there staring like an idiot at the girl I thought I knew as well as I knew myself.
"Just get out!" she cried, less hysterical but a touch embarrassed.
I complied, closing the door and walking mechanically to the living room where I sat and stared blindly into space.
What had I just seen?
The rational part of my brain supplied for me, rather unhelpfully I might add, the proper names of all of the anatomical flashes of Hermione that were now permanently burned into my weak, little mind. Now I've always known that Hermione was a girl. The fact that she was so defensive about it fourth year and liked to talk about emotions was sort of a tip-off. And I would be lying if I said that in the decade or so that we've known each other I haven't noticed her other feminine attributes. Hermione isn't really conventionally beautiful-but she is attractive in a way that is from within and not the result of hours of effort. Not that she couldn't clean up nice.
I barely had any time to force out the images before soft footsteps announced Hermione's tentative arrival. She paused at the end of the hallway, now dry and fully clothed, and we regarded each other carefully. She and I had grown up together, a fact that was made even more evident a few minutes before, and I was wondering where we stood.
"I'm sorry," I muttered, keeping my eyes firmly focused on her face only.
Her face remained expressionless for several long moments and I feared that our friendship had somehow been irrevocably damaged by my one, rare, moment of stupidity. Then she cracked a grin and pointed a finger at me. "I had you there for a second," she laughed as I sagged against the couch cushion in relief. "It's fine, Harry, I shouldn't have left the door open." She turned to leave, not seeming to notice that I hadn't spoken a word, and said, "Next time, just try knocking."
Hermione's words of advice rang in my head every time I encountered a closed door and I tried to get used to certain parts of what was formerly just my flat now being off limits. For the most part, this practice of knocking on the bathroom door seemed to work well, as neither of us were really used to locking it behind us.
One night, though, I passed Hermione's room on the way to bed, musing to myself how strange it was that the door was shut since Ron was hardly ever home. It was nice that the room was occupied and even nicer that the occupant was my best friend. My grin was replaced by a frown when I detected faint sniffling coming from the room I had just passed.
"Hermione?" I knocked softly and heard scuffling through the door.
"Come in," called Hermione in a thick voice when the sound had stopped. I opened the door and found her sprawled on her stomach with a large book open on the bed in front of her. I smiled to myself; some things never changed.
Hermione closed the book and gave me her full attention. The light from her bedside table threw her features into sharp relief and I noticed for the first time in a while that she had dark circles beneath her eyes. The brown color of her eyes stood out sharply against their red and puffy background and I realized with a slowness that alarmed me that Hermione had been crying.
"Are you all right?" I asked in concern.
She smiled radiantly at me and for a second I wondered if I had misinterpreted everything. "Of course," she answered hastily. "Did you need you something, Harry?"
I scratched the back of my head uncertainly. "Er…well, I've left the grocery list on the table for you to add anything that you need to it."
The smile Hermione wore was truer as she looked up at me from her bed. "Thanks, Harry," she answered, and I had a feeling that she was speaking of more than food.
I returned her grin and shut the door behind me as I continued my journey to brush my teeth.
The next day Hermione had left for school before I got up, so I had breakfast by myself and spent the early afternoon reading the Prophet, which I was glad to say had been revamped in the years since the war and printed more than just tabloid nonsense. Since it was Wednesday, I knew that Hermione would be home late from her chemistry study group and was usually starving after hours in the university's library.
After getting dressed and having a quick lunch, I grabbed the list off of the kitchen table, noticing that Hermione had made some additions, and with a faint pop Apparated to Sainsbury's.
I walked through the sliding doors, inserting a pound coin into the slot on a shopping trolley and wheeling it toward the bread section. I had already gone through the aisle of cans before I glanced at the list and did a double take. There, in Hermione's neat script, was word that I had only ever heard used on commercials and conversations that I endeavored to ignore: tampons.
Hermione wanted me to buy her tampons…I obviously had to do it. I mean, what were my options? To get everything else on the list that she requested and claim to have missed that possibly vital product? Put that way I really didn't think I had a choice. Half of me was concentrated on directing my steps and the other half was engaged in some kind of pep talk. I found the appropriate aisle-pretty much the only one Ron hadn't ever dragged me down when we did our rare grocery shopping excursions-and stopped dead.
There were hundreds, nay millions of boxes on either side of the row, looming over me in their colorful packaging. I squinted at the labels and now understood why Hermione had to specify; there were at least a dozen different kinds! Different sizes, different shapes, different brands, scented, unscented, different-gulp-applicators. Honestly, why did there have to be so many different varieties of something that ultimately served the same purpose? And what the hell did 'regular' mean then?
Not wanting to spend an hour there choosing, I grabbed the box with the most subdued coloring and after a moment of hesitation, put it inside my jacket pocket. I had to urge to also buy something to assert my manliness as well-like bacon.
"Excuse me, would you like some sanitary napkins to go with the tampons you were just looking at?" came a sweet voice not ten feet away from me. I sharply turned to find a girl a few years younger than me wearing the store's trademark apron and smirking in that knowing way I have become used to seeing from women.
"Wah-er-I was just-" was my coherent reply. Take that, teenage Sainsbury's worker!
She laughed and said, "It's all right to keep it out in the open. Frankly, I think it's sweet that you're buying them for your girlfriend."
And with that she walked away, leaving me choking on my instinctive response that Hermione was not my girlfriend but that we just lived together. What was weird was that the female teachers at Grimmauld also gave me that knowing look when I mentioned that Hermione had moved in. Strange.
So I paid for the thingies-sans bacon-and headed home to find the lights still all out. I walked to the bathroom and deposited the purchase on the counter, silently praying that I had gotten what she asked for because there was no I way I was going back anytime soon. Still feeling slightly grumbly about the whole thing-or maybe just embarrassed that I tried to hide them in my coat and nearly got accused of shop-lifting in the process. Oh, what if the Prophet had gotten wind of that?-I headed to the living room and turned on the wizarding wireless, since the Quidditch match was on that would decide which team next played the Canons.
I flipped the dial to the match, having just missed the pre-game talk, and plopped down on the couch with my hands laced behind my head and a freshly summoned butterbeer on what according to Hermione was called a coaster in front of me. The score was about 140 to 170 Holyhead Harpies when I heard keys jingling in the lock. I angled my head toward the door and greeted Hermione, looking exhausted as she walked in with her school bags and a plastic bag of takeaway. Annoyance flared up that she had time to pick up food but not buy her own…thingies. I wasn't sure what I was irritated about, other than that she had put me in an embarrassing situation and I was still recovering from it.
"It's a peace offering," she explained, holding up the bag. "We had extra food left over from the study session and I just wanted to apologize."
"What for?" I asked, my annoyance momentarily forgotten.
With a sigh, she answered, "For making you buy tampons for me. I didn't realize until later…" She plopped down beside me on the couch and I noticed how the harsh living room lighting accentuated the lines on her face. She was working hard at school, even harder than most Muggle studies because she hadn't had the same academic background and had to catch up, and she had just caught her boyfriend with another woman. Why was I being such a jerk about these little things like hair potions on the counter or the wireless set to a different station?
"You didn't make me do anything, Hermione. I am able to refuse the great Hermione Granger, you know," I said playfully, wanting to reassure her that although I may not have enjoyed my little foray into the land of women, she was my friend and she would do the equivalent for me, whatever that was.
She arched an eyebrow at my comment. "Oh really?" she said challengingly.
Something in the room shifted, like the thermostat had suddenly kicked on the heater, and I could tell Hermione felt it too because she fidgeted in her seat and turned a delicate shade of pink. I couldn't put my finger on what just happened, but I was distracted when Hermione jumped up from the couch, saying something about putting the food on a plate, and the moment had passed.
I sat there frozen while my mind vaguely registered the sound of clinking dishes and closing drawers. I wasn't sure if what had just happened meant anything more than just two friends' playful banter, but there was an odd feeling of hope in my chest like maybe I wanted it to.
I immediately disregarded that thought, again reminding myself that Hermione was going through a difficult time and that it was my duty to simply be there for her. The last thing I wanted to do was confuse her by thinking she implied more in her offhand comment than she had.
"Here we are," she announced, carefully levitating two plates of Indian food and two bottles of butterbeer in front of her. I hopped up to make room on the coffee table, pushing aside various Quidditch magazines and catalogues and old newspapers, and gingerly set down our meals. She gave a small smile of thanks and sank down next to me onto the couch, scooting forward so that she could reach her plate.
I took the opportunity to scrutinize her profile from the corner of my eye. The dark circles, whose presence I'd noted not two weeks before, were still marring her otherwise flawless complexion and she seemed to have lost some weight since moving in. Both could be attributed to stress related to school, but if it was something else, I wasn't sure if I had the right to question her about it. Hermione hadn't had too many serious conversations since the war because when you've been fighting for your chance to live every second, everything after that just doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. But I thought that maybe this situation was a little different.
"So how are you holding up?" I asked with a casual tone so that she wouldn't feel awkward.
She looked over at me and finished chewing before answering with a careless shrug. "All right, I suppose. Final exams are coming up so everything at school is getting rather hectic," she said, matching my tone. The silence that followed was punctuated by the scraping of cutlery across the plates. I looked up when I realized that I was the only one shoveling food into my mouth. Hermione was facing me with a faraway look in her eyes. When she noticed me gazing back, she blushed and stared down at her plate, pushing her rice around with her fork. "I know what you're doing, Harry, and I appreciate it, but I don't want to make you uncomfortable."
I tried to affect an innocent expression but I don't think she bought it. Since I've always been one to recognize defeat when I see it (well, actually, I haven't, but that's neither here nor there), I admitted, "You're not making me uncomfortable, Hermione, I just thought maybe you needed to talk about it."
"Talk about it?" she asked doubtfully, quirking an eyebrow. "I am speaking to Harry Repressed Emotions Potter, right?" she joked.
"Hey!" I said indignantly, ignoring the fact that I sometimes refer to myself by the same name. But watching her smile into her plate of food distracted me from arguing with her.
Her laughter naturally died down and she looked up at me uncertainly. "I'm sorry again for the store thing, Harry. Connor didn't even like picking up tampons for me, so I should have realized that you wouldn't either," she said, the words coming out in a rush.
"Yeah, well, Connor was a jerk," I said without thinking.
Hermione raised her eyebrows, probably surprised to hear how vehemently the words came out. "Are you referring to something specific or just speaking in general?"
I laughed despite myself as images of a black velvet box flashed in my mind. "Just a jerk in general," I mumbled.
"I know," she agreed quietly. She continued to push food around her plate and I got the feeling that she was deep in thought.
Steeling my courage, I asked her something I'd been wondering for a while. "Hermione?"
She looked up at me curiously. "Yeah?"
"Why didn't you tell Connor you were a witch?"
Pursing her lips, she seemed to be forming her words before answering. "I just…I was waiting for the right time, you know? I tried many times, and even started leaving little clues around the flat to broach the subject. I never told him explicitly, but I think he sensed that I was hiding something."
"Oh," I replied eloquently. "So he didn't know anything about Hogwarts or anything?"
She took a bite and chewed slowly, considering her response. "Well, he knew that you, Ron, and I were schoolmates from Scotland, but I didn't tell him the name of the school and definitely had to give him slightly censored versions of our little misadventures," she laughed sardonically. "In a sense, I've been feeding him half-truths since we met."
I smiled sympathetically, not sure what to say after her admission.
"Although I would have taken a wand to him if he psycho-analyzed me one more time," she added.
I vaguely remembered her once telling me that Connor was studying to become a therapist and how he sometimes took his work home with him.
"You know what he told me once?" she asked suddenly. I reckoned the question was rhetorical so I let her go on. "He said that he sensed I had some 'issues,' as he called them, with 'disconnecting from my past.' Just because I run around with a pair of blokes for best friends and sometimes have nightmares about the war that he obviously couldn't know anything about. Honestly, if he had seen the things I have, then he wouldn't have opened his big gop. Bloody psych majors."
I was taken aback by the amount of curses that had just issued from Hermione's mouth. But strangely enough I could understand where she was coming from, because it was exactly how it was with Ginny when the war ended. "I know what you mean," I said quietly.
She gave me a warm but sad smile. "I knew you would, Harry."
I held her gaze for a long moment and was the first to look away, casting about for something to fill the silence. I was unnerved by the awkwardness that seemed to have descended over the conversation, since it wasn't a feeling I often had near Hermione. "But you always seem to recover quickly from break-ups," I said, speaking the first thing I thought of. I wasn't sure how valid this was, since I had heard sniffles coming from her room a few times since she had moved in.
A snort escaped her and she aimed a truly amused grin in my direction. "Yeah, all two of them," she said sarcastically. "Ron and I broke up during the war, Harry. Did you honestly expect me to going around moping when there were bigger things going on?"
I shrugged, returning her grin. "Guess not," I said. I thought of how funny it was what my mind chose to remember from the war. Sure, all the battles and faceless-or masked-opponents blurred together as one giant memory, but mixed in with that were images of Hermione, Ron and I around a fire somewhere laughing, or poring over the Dark tomes in Grimmauld's library while Ron wolfed down the contents of one of Mrs. Weasley's care packages. So much had happened in those two years when we were so young that I couldn't imagine what my life would be like without the pair of them, even when they were bickering constantly.
Hermione's fork suddenly hit the plate. "I just feel like such a fool!" she exclaimed suddenly. I jumped at her outburst and dropped my fork on the floor but she didn't seem to notice. "I'd suspected for months, you know," she confessed in a quiet voice. I was horrified to see tears in her eyes. "Deep down, anyway. I was just unwilling to see the signs…" A tear rolled down her cheek but I was frozen in my seat by her words. "I thought, when I met him, that along with meeting you and Ron and finding out that I was a witch, he was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Every time he came home from a study session, I thought to myself if I could just be prettier, or smarter, or more 'emotionally accessible,' then maybe he would feel the same. I thought that somehow loving him made up for all of Malfoy's taunts in school, for being Petrified second year or surviving Dolohov's curse fifth year." She furiously wiped away the tears coursing down her face and seemed to sag after the weight of words left her. "But you know what the worst thing was?" she said almost to herself. "When I walked in the room and I saw him like that, I wasn't even mad, I was just disappointed. After all that we had been through together, I wasn't someone he could commit to, and I was delusional to think that he might love me as much as I loved him."
I couldn't hold back any longer. "He did love you, Hermione. Listen, when I went to get your stuff, I found something." Suddenly I wasn't sure if I had a right to say anything, but I seemed to have caught Hermione's attention.
"What?" she said, leaning forward on the edge of her seat.
"I, er," I began, scratching my neck nervously. She looked at me expectantly. "Found a ring." I held my breath as Hermione processed the information, a rather familiar look.
"Oh," was all she said.
That was it? I mean, I didn't want to invoke any hysteria from my best friend, but I definitely expected something more than 'oh.' Maybe this was something she would have to sleep on. "Was I right to tell you?" I asked anxiously.
She lost her dazed expression and sent me a warm smile. "Of course, you know you can always tell me anything."
I grinned back, not noticing the current running between us. "Good."
She leaned forward and placed her plate on the table. "How about some tele?" she suggested with a mischievous wag of her eyebrows.
I laughed out loud. Only Hermione could think of television as some form of mischief. "All right. A little light comedy?"
Snuggling deeper into the couch cushions, she said, "Sounds perfect. And Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
I reached the remote and heard Hermione sigh as she snuggled into my side. Flipping the channel to a little "Whose Line is it Anyway?", I didn't realize until we were both cracking up over something ridiculous that I had put my arm around her. I looked down at her as she laughed and pointed at the screen, feeling a twinge of something fluttery in my stomach. It had been a long time since I had heard her really laugh and I couldn't help but think how nice it was.
But I should have known that since my name is Harry bloody Potter, something would come along to screw it all up.
A/N: Some of you by now have realized that I'm not British (especially since I just spelled 'realized' with a z) so I hope that you are able to overlook my pitiful attempts at impersonating a British guy.