A/N: We are building up to the Weasley explosion (you can probably guess where that'll come out) and to be honest I'm not exactly sure how much of a role Ickle Ronniekins will have in this series in general. Any role will pale in comparison to Harry and Hermione. For story reasons, we're skipping ahead in the timeline (the last part of the last chapter was just to set up Ron's aloofness) to King's Cross and Hermione's parents. Suffice it to say, Harry and Hermione told Ron a basic outline about the Dursley's, but he doesn't know the whole truth.
Furthermore, I will borrow both from canon, the movies, and anything else my head will come up with over the course of the storyline. You'll see what I mean.
I refuse to name my Granger parents Dan and Emma. I will stand by this till the day I die :harumph:
/ - / - / - /
Nicholas Granger thought of himself in a decent enough light. He got along well with his co-workers and his patients. He provided for both his daughter and his wife, Josephine. Sure, he might have spoiled his little princess a bit much when she was younger, but that didn't stop her from being a bright, down-to-earth girl that he was immensely proud of.
That she was also a witch bared little weight in his perception of her. Quite to the contrary, he found it to be a characteristic uniquely Hermione.
Since the Granger's had discovered that their little girl was actually a witch, life had not changed overly dramatically. She still came home for Christmas and summer holidays, just as she would have had she gone to the Fullcridge School for the Gifted that she would have entered the year she first went to Hogwarts. She was still as studious and as caring as they remembered her. In fact only one thing had changed, the fact that Hermione actually seemed to have friends. It pleased Nicholas when she wrote back during her first year, speaking of two young boys that she had formed close bonds with. Though this Ronald character seemed to be a bit thick-headed for Nicholas' tastes, he was particularly interested in the young man he only knew as Harry.
He and his wife didn't know much about Harry aside from the fact that he was some manner of celebrity in the wizarding world. A brief meeting in that Diagonal Alley or whatever it was called offered Nicholas the only picture to go with the name. But the way Hermione seemed to hang on his every word made Nicholas frown and smile at the same time. He smiled because he realized that his little girl was growing up and probably developing a crush on her best friend. He frowned because it was his paternal instinct to instantly think any boy not worthy enough for his little princess.
It was this protective instinct that drove Nicholas to initially object when they had received a letter from Hermione (on a rather beautiful owl that they had discovered was Harry's) asking permission to invite Harry over for the summer. She had explained in brief detail that Harry was...well they didn't quite explain what the problem was...but suffice it to say he wasn't going to be welcome at his aunt and uncle's house for the summer and that he needed a place to stay through his birthday. Nicholas was a bit affronted. Even if he was Hermione's best friend, the idea of a ....boy....spending all day in an unsupervised house with his little girl was disturbing to say the least.
That was until his wife had intervened, explaining that the time would come when Hermione would choose between them and Harry, and she didn't want to come out on the losing end of that stick.
Nicholas had argued his point as best he could, stood his ground like any tried and true father of a teenage daughter would, but despite it all he had reluctantly surrendered the pass. Harry Potter would be coming to the Grangers this summer.
Nicholas and Josephine were currently in the throng of people in King's Cross station, awaiting the arrival of their daughter and her summer companion. Before long Nicholas saw a pack of redheads that he knew were the Weasleys coming out of seemingly nowhere. He expected his little girl was not far behind.
He did not expect this.
His little girl was not there. Instead a rather beautiful young woman was coming from the gaggle of ginger-haired magic folk and walking towards them. Her bushy hair was as curly as ever, though it had lengthened somewhat over the year, extending down to the middle of her back. She had adopted more of her mother's features it seemed, looking more and more like a younger version of Josephine everytime he saw her. She smiled brightly when she caught sight of them, her trunk and cat carrier firmly strapped to her luggage cart that she towed behind her. She dropped the cart for a moment and jogged the remaining few feet towards her parents as she grabbed her mother in a fearsome hug.
"Mum! Dad!" she shouted, oblivious to the other people around watching. Nicholas smiled as Josephine lingered for a moment with her daughter, before releasing her to hug her father.
"Who are you and what have you done with my daughter," Nicholas cheerfully chided, earning a blush from his not-so-little girl. The tender moment lasted far shorter than Nicholas would have liked, but Hermione pushed away and backed towards her carrier.
There waiting was a rather interesting sight. In the brief time he had met Harry, he had been wearing his school robes and looked rather well put together, if a bit on the thin and short side. Here was something entirely different. The boy was still thin, though he had more meat and muscle on his bones than two summers ago (no doubt from a growth spurt, Nicholas told himself erroneously). He still had the same ruffled black hair that hung down in the front and went every which direction in the back, and piercing emerald green eyes that stuck out from the rest of his face.
His countenance was, well it was hard to describe. He was smiling at the two adults standing before him, but something about him appeared off. He was glancing around, looking for something or other, but doing so in a discreet fashion so that no one would notice unless they were paying extra attention.
His clothes as well gave Nicholas pause. Now that he had time to throughly glance him over, he noticed that his shirt hung off him like a garbage bag. His jeans also seemed to be resewn together several times over with loose threads hanging from the bottoms which hung over his feet. They were also about three or four sizes too big at least, loosely held in place by a rather sorry looking cardboard belt. Finally peeking out from the bottom of the parachutes he was wearing were a pair of battered black trainers that had duct tape wrapped around them. This was how a celebrity in the wizarding world dressed?
"Mum, Dad," Hermione said, pulling closer to the young man, "This is my friend Harry." Josephine immediately reached over and gave Harry a firm handshake.
"It's nice to finally meet you dear," she warmly said with a smile, "Hermione has told us all about you."
There, there was a bit of a flinch of fear in his eyes. Nicholas barely noticed it, and it vanished as quickly as it came. What was he hiding?
"Pleased to meet you Harry," Nicholas answered back, keeping up appearances for his wife and daughter. He too offered Harry a handshake.
"It's nice to meet both of you," Harry politely replied, returning each of their handshakes in time. He lingered a bit longer than normal, but before long the four of them were making their way towards the Granger's car in the parking lot.
/ - / - / - /
For the first few minutes of the trip to Hermione's home in Kensington, Harry kept quiet and observed Hermione in her natural element. She was parlaying all the information about what had gone on in school, albeit editing out some of the more serious details about recent events quite heavily. From his vantage point he could see Mr. Granger smiling to himself and nodding his head at the interesting parts, while Mrs. Granger was asking all of the questions.
Finally, Mr. Granger turned his gaze in the rear view mirror towards Harry. "So," he said, clearing his throat a bit, "Hermione tells us you're some kind of celebrity in your world." Harry looked at him, his face a bit flushed.
"I guess you could say that," he replied, shrugging his shoulders, "It's not something I try to flaunt too much. I didn't even know they thought of me that way until I came to Diagon Alley the first time." Mr. Granger cocked an eyebrow at this, and Hermione jumped in to Harry's rescue.
"Harry grew up with his aunt and uncle," she said, more than a tinge of anger hidden in her voice, "They kept the fact that he was a wizard from him until he turned 11." Harry nodded, his eyes suddenly becoming very interested in the floor of the Granger's BMW.
Before long the assembled party pulled into the driveway a good-sized home in suburban street of Kensington. Harry glanced out of the car window. The house was much larger than the one on Privet Drive, something to be expected given the income difference between Little Whinging and Kensington. It was two stories and painted an off-white color with an attached carport and a rather nice looking porch out front. Harry stared at it for a few moments and thought then and there that it was one of the best looking houses he had ever seen. Anything was better than Number 4 Privet Drive at this particular moment in time. Harry mechanically got out of the car and grabbed his trunk and Hedwig's cage, which was currently empty since he had sent her on ahead during the train ride.
The Granger home was, surprisingly, exactly what Harry expected. The front hallway led to a large living area straight ahead with a rather large library to the side. The living area opened out to the backyard with an enclosed sun room, which led out to the yard itself which was dominated by a modest sized swimming pool. Passing the door to the sun room one entered a formal dining area with the kitchen connected to the library in a wraparound style. Harry walked through the main hallway, stopping at the stairs as Hermione motioned for him to follow her.
"I'll show you to your room," she said with a smile. Harry followed like a child on a leash, hauling his trunk with surprising ease, trekking after Hermione up the stairs.
/ - / - / - /
As Nicholas Granger watched the young man follow his daughter up the stairs, with their school things in tow, he shook his head and let out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding. He meandered into the living room and put his feet up on the coffee table as he collapsed into the sofa. His wife sat next to him, placing her arm around his neck and rubbing circles on his tense shoulders. "What're you thinking Nick," she asked with a bit of worry in her voice.
"I don't know...it's just...." he trailed off, his mind trying to grasp onto something he was feeling. Finally he stumbled onto the most obvious element, "Doesn't what he was wearing strike you as odd?"
Josephine looked a bit perplexed and shook her head, "I just think he's nervous dear. As to what he was wearing, what does it really matter." She paused before adding, "So what if he doesn't have a lot of money, that doesn't mean he's not a good person."
"And how can you tell he's a good person," Nick asked quickly, a little too quick before he could catch himself. Josephine gave an affronted look and half-scolded him.
"Nick, of course he's a good person. This boy saved our little girl from a troll and helped her get well after she was....petrified." She stopped, trying to fight back the odd feeling she got from saying such statements so matter of factly and without wonder. "If you've paid any kind of attention than you'd see our Hermione has gone head over heels for him the way she talks about him in her letters. Why she was practically devastated with that whole broomstick thing she told us about."
"I know, I know," Nick replied, shrugging his wife off. "I'm sure he's a very nice person it's just that..." Josephine nodded with a knowing look.
"I see what this is about," she said coyly, "This is just the father in you coming out. Nobody's good enough for your little girl, are they?"
"Damn right they're not," Nick said with mock fortitude, "And nobody ever will be." They both shared a laugh with each other, easily causing any lingering stress to fade into the background for the moment.
"I'll talk to Harry about buying him some proper clothes if he needs them. It's the least we can do after everything he's done for Hermione." Nick nodded, unwilling to argue the point. It certainly could be argued that opening up their home to him was thanks enough, but he knew when his wife had her heart set on something, it wasn't a good idea to stand in her way.
/ - / - / - /
"You're father hates me." Harry plopped down on the bed that had been provided to him, while Hermione just stared at him incredulously. Harry stared up at the white ceiling, his mind running through the fact that everything that could've gone wrong with his first impression seemed to of. Mrs. Granger seemed warm enough, much like Hermione in that sense, but her father approached him with kid gloves, treating him coldly at best.
"Harry, you've barely said eight words to him," Hermione replied, setting herself down at the desk chair across from the bed. "I'm sure he's just a bit nervous at having his little girl invite a boy over for the summer."
For some reason that made Harry's mouth go dry.
Harry's room was easily larger than his room at Privet Drive. The queen size bed took up most of the left side of the room. Across from that was a small desk with matching bookcase in the right hand corner that was currently empty. Outside of the room proper there was a small inlet that held the closet on one side and a door to a small toilet and bath with a vanity and sink in between the closet and the bathroom door. The whole room was painted an off-white color that made Harry feel oddly comfortable if he stared at it for too long. Hedwig's cage had been set up in a corner next to the lone window in the room, waiting for her arrival while Harry's trunk was at the foot of the bed.
"Just give him a chance to know you," Hermione continued, giving Harry a reassuring pat on the knee. She added, "Anybody who knows the real you can't help but like you Harry." He offered her a smile at this comment, and she stood up to tend to her own things, leaving Harry to his thoughts.
He made his way to the window and opened it, expecting that Hedwig would be arriving soon. That accomplished, he sat down on the edge of the bed and opened his trunk. After fishing around for a few seconds he found what he was looking for, his photo album that Hagrid had given to him at the end of first year. Silently he opened it to his parents wedding photo, his eyes misting over as he saw how happy they looked in each other's company. Silently he wondered how he had gotten to be this lucky. For the first time in a long time he allowed himself to focus on the good in his life. He had been saved, pure and simple. There was no other word that could adequately describe it in his mind. Hermione had swooped in with single-minded ferocity and rescued him from another disastrous outing with the Dursley's (he internally chuckled at how Petunia was going to get the gardening done this summer).
What had spurred this sign of compassion was a mystery to him. Even after three years in the wizarding world, the small little boy locked in the cupboard for ten years was amazed by the simple prospect that someone would actually want to help him. Him. Harry Potter. The boy who was called a freak every third sentence. The boy who didn't even know his name till he was 5 years old. The boy no one wanted. The boy that had no one in this world.
He wiped away the tears he didn't know he was shedding and placed his album back in his trunk carefully, as if he were handling a fragile piece of glass. Much as he tried to tell himself that he wasn't any of those things, and even if he had been he was no longer, he still occasionally slipped back into that mode of thought. Idly he pushed his thoughts aside and began unpacking his clothes, what little he had of them. Setting them on the bed, he sighed again. The whole of his life was in this trunk, not much to show for thirteen years of living.
Shaking his head out of such thoughts once more, he automatically began to set books on the bookshelf and organizing himself as best he could.
/ - / - / - /
Dinner at the Granger residence, Harry quickly came to find out, was much better than dinner at the Dursleys. For one thing, he didn't have to cook it all by himself. Much to his surprise when he and Hermione came down from unpacking he found that the table had already been set and Hermione's father was coming in with burgers from the grill located next to the pool in the backyard. The fact that he got more than his usual meager portions that he was used to at the Dursley's was another pleasant surprise, no matter how much he had prepared himself for the idea that these were in fact not the Dursley's.
He also found the atmosphere to be much more subdued and much more laid back than the Dursley household. While a normal Dursley meal (when he wasn't sent away to his room and was actually allowed to be present for the meal) usually involved Vernon discussing how perfectly normal his day had been, Petunia gossiping the latest news from the neighbors, and it involved both of them fawning over Dudley as if he were the crown prince of England. Here the conversations were much more balanced. Hermione continued talking about the previous school year (including mentioning that Harry was going to be in more classes with her next year, something that caused Harry to blush a bit) while her parents informed her on the happenings of their dental practice and updated her on her extended family.
When they had finished dinner, Harry instinctively stood up first without saying a word, and began clearing the table of all the plates. The three Grangers stared at him for a moment, before Josephine asked softly, "Harry, what are you doing?"
Harry looked a bit bewildered. "Um...clearing the table?"
Josephine shook her head, but with a smile, "Harry, dear, you're our guest. You shouldn't have to do such things." At this she stood up and began to clear the dishes, taking the ones out of Harry's hands. He stood there, dumbstruck, unsure of what to do next.
"It's....it's no big deal Mrs. Granger really, I can just..."
"Nonsense. You and Hermione go sit down and we'll take care of this." Harry wasn't sure what was going on, but allowed himself to be led from the dinner table by Hermione.
As she put away the last of the dishes, Josephine Granger made her way to the sun room. There she found Harry and Hermione, speaking about something. She only caught the tail end of the conversation, but what she did hear made her take quick pause...
"You don't have to be afraid Harry....they won't treat you like the Dursleys..."
"I know Hermione, it's just hard after so many years of..." he trailed off when he heard Josephine enter the room. Immediately he turned to her, erasing a faint flicker of concern that was drawn across his face. Josephine looked at him, trying to figure out what in the world was so off about this Harry Potter she had heard so much about.
"Harry," she said, moving closer, "I don't mean to pry dear, but when we picked you up today we couldn't help but notice that you're clothes were a tad bit too big." It was a gross understatement, Josephine told herself, but she kept that thought to herself. "Do you need to go shopping for some new ones?" Harry sheepishly examined the wooden floor of the sun room, a blush of shame immediately coming to his face. He automatically sought Hermione's hand, which was there in support, as it always had been.
"You don't need to trouble yourself Mrs. Granger," Harry finally said, sighing, "I can make due."
"Nonsense dear," Josephine replied in a very Hermione-esque fashion. "It's no trouble at all." She paused, biting her bottom lip in concern. "Harry, if it's a matter of money then I'm sure we can..." Harry immediately shook his head.
"No, it's not that." Josephine was taken aback. She had immediately assumed that the reason Harry's clothes were so ill-fitting and in such a state of disrepair was because of money. But the look in his eyes made her see it was not that. It was something deeper, something much more sinister afoot. Josephine Granger was much like her daughter, in fact it could be said they were spitting images of one another. A few clues in Josephine's head began to connect themselves, forming a picture in her mind that she didn't really care to examine very closely. Still, she filed it away in case she should ever need it again. Harry continued during her thought process, "It's just that...well...I've never really bought that many clothes before. I don't even know where to start." He hung his head a bit lower, though tried to hide the shame that was readily apparent across his face.
"We can go tomorrow," Josephine said, "I don't have any appointments and I'm sure that Hermione needs a few things for the summer." Harry looked at her with a glint in his eye, something tantamount to a ray of hope. Josephine smiled at him and walked away, the plans for the next day having been set. In her mind however, a conversation with her daughter was clearly in order.