Story Title: Imaginary Friend
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Word count for this installment: 1,402
Running Total no. of words for entire story: 2,845
Summary: Harry thinks he's loosing his mind. He has an imaginary friend but is she as imaginary as he thinks? Response to a challenge by reptilia28 on the forum side. VERY AU!
A/N: This is my first challenge response in a very long time so please be gentle.
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Harry had once again locked his door and he was absolutely determined that the compact devil also known as Hermione Grander… Grunger… whatever… would not be getting back into his flat this time. He had ever so skilfully slipped away from her in the corridor; he had not forgotten she was there at all. That was simply a ploy to fool whoever it was that was watching into thinking that he was forgetful whilst he quite clearly was not. Despite the whole lost remote thing.
He glanced briefly at the TV and shook his head to rid the appealing images of yet another once-in-a-lifetime-stupid-to-pass-up deal and instead walked purposefully to each of the windows in his small flat looking for any sign of Hermione's forced entry.
Window after window he inspected and window after window he found no sign of anything that would show how she got back into the flat. Frustrated Harry stood in the middle of his living room and his eyes fell on the small cat flap he had nailed down a week after he had moved in. Mrs Figgs cats could be terribly persuasive when they wanted the tuna he had prepared for his sandwich. He still had the scars from where they had mistaken his leg for a scratching post.
Harry looked once again around the room in which he was standing as though looking for someone, namely Hermione, to see his ridiculous hunch played out and when he saw no one he took a step closer to the small opening in the door. He half expected a laugh to ring out when he made a move towards the door and so when no such giggle reached his ears Harry strode towards the flap confidently and knelt down in front of it.
He frowned slightly when he saw the nails all still in place but there had to be some way that Hermione was getting in. And she was awfully small… He poked a finger out and prodded the flap half expecting it to open up into a much larger entrance but it didn't even shake.
Slumping in defeat Harry accepted that there was just no way Hermione could be getting into his flat. Not again anyway... unless she was some sort of witch which was of course impossible. Unless she was in those Neville Longbottom novels JK Rowling had made a mint off! Harry laughed at his own idiotic notion and stood from his position on the floor before he noticed just how much he needed to hoover and surveyed the room. He sighed noticing just how much of a mess it was, beer bottles were strewn all over the place, pizza boxes, plates, cups, dishes and take away trays were littering the floor and what Harry was sure used to be a coffee table and decided that he really should clean the place up… later.
He set the water running as he stripped his clothes in the usual thoughtless manner, his trousers falling wherever he was at the time and his battered t-shirt flew across the room and hung on the handle of the closed door. Left in only his boxers Harry glanced at his reflection in the mirror and took the time to notice the rather pronounced beer gut that had snuck up on him whilst he wasn't looking. Really, who knew copious amounts of beer meant a beer gut of all things would form? Shaking his head he removed his boxers and finally stepped into the warm stream of water falling from the shower head and let the gentle heat and water wash away the memories and stress of his rather eventful evening.
Grabbing the nearest bottle of shampoo he squeezed a handful of the questionably manly smelling substance. He thought with a grimace that beer and cigarettes would be manly than what he swore was lavender with a fancy manly name- Power Boost. Yeah. Right.
Stepping back into the stream of water to wash away the fancy lavender, sorry Power Boost shampoo he closed his eyes and quite to his surprise an image of the tiny shrill woman that had somehow gotten into his flat (twice) flew into his eye line. Figuratively speaking of course, he was almost sure she couldn't fly… though that would explain how she managed to get up and into his flat the second time so quickly… It was a thought at least.
He moved out of the shower spray and opened his eyes once again and, to his complete horror he was met with the wide hazel eyes of the said tiny flying shrill woman. His throat made yet another manly roar of surprise (also known as the little girl scream of terror) much to his own disgust before he managed to control himself.
"Hermione!" He gasped quickly turning off the shower and grabbing whatever it was that was nearest to scrape back just a little bit of his dignity. It just so happened that it was a tiny face wash cloth which barely covered anything (what a boost to his male ego!). No matter, he was more concerned with just how Hermione kept getting into his flat and how exactly did she end up in the shower with him! Though under normal circumstances he wouldn't object to a pretty woman sharing his shower (yes, the tiny flying shrill opposite-of-Houdini flying woman was pretty! Come on, he's only human!) but these weren't normal circumstances, not in the slightest.
"Harry!" Hermione squeaked clearly not expecting to see him there "What am I doing in here?!"
"How the heck should I know? You're the one that popped up from no where." Oh my, what a bad choice of words…
"Alright look, get dressed I think we need to talk." Hermione stated reasonably.
"You need to get out of my shower is what you need to do!" he begged his voice to drop down several octaves though it seemed that he would forever be matching Hermione in the highest voice stakes.
Harry blinked the water that was falling from his sodden hair line out of his eyes and, in what he was positive was a split second, Hermione had disappeared from his shower and out of the room. Quite how she managed that he had no idea, maybe she wasn't the complete opposite of Houdini after all.
Drying himself off in record speeds Harry dressed himself in the clothes that he had discarded before the whole fiasco had begun and hurried to the living room where he expected Hermione to be sitting waiting.
She wasn't there.
Sighing he called her name in an attempt to get an idea of where she was in the flat but no answer came, not so much as a tiny squeak. Frowning he wondered around his flat and looked into every room in search of his little intruder but there wasn't a single sign of her. Nothing at all.
It was at this point that Harry began to get a little nervous. Maybe Hermione wasn't a tiny flying shrill opposite-of-Houdini flying intruder woman, maybe she was a ghost. As soon as the thought entered his mind he laughed at the ridiculous notion. A ghost? Next he'd be saying giants existed!
Again, it didn't really matter who or what she was. He cringed at the thought; he could just imagine the sharp slap he would receive if she knew he was thinking about her as a "what"… No matter she had gotten into his flat three times with absolutely no signs of how (or why) she did it. That would certainly be one argument on the side of the "Hermione-is-a-ghost" idea. Though it could also be one argument on the side of the "Harry-is-a-lunatic-and-is-slowly-loosing-his-mind" idea that had just cropped up in his head.
Harry plopped himself down on the sofa after determining that Hermione was no longer in the flat and stared blankly at the television that had been turned off- Hermione's doing no doubt he thought with a sigh. Glancing down at the mess previously known as a coffee table a broad grin spread across his face. There, sitting atop the mess was the remote in all its glory.
Grabbing it in triumph he turned the television on and changed from the home shopping channel to a much more entertaining show- Big Brother. "I'm not watching that drivel" he muttered to himself while shaking his head, he switched back to QVC. Maybe having a ghost wouldn't be so bad he thought with a slow smile, not that she was a ghost of course.
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