Chapter 9 - Flirting and Fighting on the Express
Harry was the only silent one as the four of them walked on the castle grounds.
'Why is Ginny accompanying us, why isn't she somewhere else with her own friends?' he thought to himself, taking a quick look at the red-head's face and then quickly turning away, not wanting her to catch him looking.
She seemed to be displaying her old personality a bit too early this time ; she seemed very outgoing, bold, and confident to the point of arrogant.
And Ron too. Harry had been observing his friend's behaviour for some time now and he hadn't missed the quick glares or the other displays of jealousy directed toward him. Especially when he was talking to Hermione.
Harry wondered how different other people would be in this new timeline, especially the people close to him. Were they all fundamentally different from the people he had known the past seven years?
It started with Lucius, who seemed to be more aggressive towards his slave and actually assaulted him, something he hadn't done before. Then Ron and Ginny, whose changes he didn't like at all, and he dreaded what those changes would bring about in the long run.
Then, Hermione herself. She had actually taken the trouble of going to the Headmaster and writing to her parents to bring him to her house for the summer. That was something he certainly hadn't expected. And then he had noticed her reaction when he mentioned Ginny. In his old life, she had never actively disapproved of the girls Harry went out with, but what Harry had seen now was different. He didn't know whether this made him a wretched person, but he had secretly enjoyed Hermione's jealousy.
Nevertheless, he was going to spend the summer at Hermione's house. Things were looking bright for Hermione and him.
Hermione and him.
Hermione and Harry.
He smiled to himself at the thought.
Even in his head, the words sounded so good, so pleasant.
'Whatchya smiling for, Harry?' Ron asked, looking at his friend in curiosity.
'Oh, um, nothing,' Harry immediately replied, quickly rearranging his features.
But even as he did so, he couldn't help but shoot a quick smile at Hermione, who was pleasantly surprised by this. She felt something warm bubbling in her chest.
***
The noisy chattering and the usual chaos among the students was brought to an immediate halt as the sound of Professor McGonagall striking her glass with her silverware brought their attention to the staff table.
Professor Dumbledore stood up. Spreading his arms wide as if welcoming the whole school in a hearty embrace, he surveyed all of his students with a fond smile playing on his face and a familiar twinkle in his eyes.
'The end of another year!' he exclaimed loudly.
Harry grinned broadly ; it had been a long time since this had happened.
'I have no doubt you'll be eager to be rid of an old man's ramblings so that you can savour your delicious meal but first I have a few annoucements to make. First of all, words cannot express my gratitude on seeing every petrified victim alive and awake and eating in this Great Hall!'
All the students cheered at this, with the notable exceptions being the majority of the Slytherins, who seemed to look uncaring and some even downcast at this announcement.
'On that note, I would like to thank Professor Sprout and Madame Pomfrey for their excellent work and co-operation in making all this happen. '
Both the women blushed as Dumbledore inclined his glass in their direction and after setting it back down on the table, he clapped his hands loudly to quieten down the cheering students.
'That's all I have to say. Please enjoy the rest of your meal,' he finished.
The students had barely begun to quiet down when Dumbledore stood up and said, 'I almost forgot. All exams have been cancelled and the Hogwarts Express will leave tomorrow at eleven a.m. sharp.'
Needless to say, the roars and cries of delight of the students didn't cease for a long time.
***
Harry was simply stunned as he walked to the school gates to enter the carriages that would take everyone to Hogsmeade station. Hermione and he were walking together and they had somehow lost sight of Ron on the way. What scared him out of his mind yet thrilled him to bits was that Hermione was flirting with him! Hermione... and flirting! He had never associated those two words in the same sentence but now he found himself corrected.
He had started it off with a desire to just pull Hermione's strings and see that pretty little blush of hers. So he had innocently asked her, 'So Hermione Granger's decided to have a handsome young man entertain her during her vacation?'
Initially her face ripened like a tomato, but then she recovered well and replied, 'Well I have to have someone over. Two full months and no boys around, my bed is bound to get a bit cold and lonely.'
Harry nearly choked out, not expecting his shy Hermione to be so forward. Hermione giggled softly and the sound was better than anything he had ever heard in his life.
'Hmm, so how many guys have had the honour of keeping your bed from going cold?' Harry asked, a trademark Potter grin playing on his face. There was no way Hermione could reply to that.
'Well, after the first few, rumour spread around that I was too much for any guy to handle, if you know what I mean,' Hermione replied, a wicked look in her eyes.
Harry's eyes widened before he looked away from Hermione, blushing furiously.
'So I kind of stopped having guys over after that and that's why I invited you home. Hopefully you can last the whole night,' Hermione finished.
Harry sputtered for a moment before he hastily recomposed himself and turned to look at Hermione.
'Cat got your tongue, Mr. Potter?' Hermione asked slyly, knowing that she had won this round.
'Yes, but I wish it was your tongue that got my tongue,' Harry replied smartly, and he knew that he had Hermione on the backfoot, at least temporarily.
Hermione looked at him for a moment and then her expression changed into something much more tender. Before Harry had more time to decipher that look and respond accordingly, she had looked away.
Harry chuckled for a moment. He was, in all essence, a seventeen year old, and he had been out-flirted by a fourteen year old.
'What?' Hermione asked curiously.
'N-Nothing,' Harry said, 'I just never thought you would flirt.'
'Why, am I abnormal?' Hermione asked softly, yet there was a dangerous undertone in her voice.
'No, no, nothing like that. It just goes to show how much of you I've missed all these years,' Harry said.
'All these years?' Hermione asked, 'You've only known me for two years.'
Harry flinched. He didn't mean to let that slip.
'That's what I meant. These last two years,' Harry replied.
Hermione gave him a suspicious look but chose to say nothing.
Simultaneously, for some reason, they chose to look at each other, reading every emotion in each others' eyes. Harry didn't know where he and Hermione stood in regards to their relationship, but he decided then that he liked looking in Hermione's chocolate-brown eyes like this. However, they were shaken out of their reverie by a loud voice calling out to them.
'Harry! Hermione!' Ron came running up to them. 'Why didn't you wait up?'
Neither of them replied, both of them lost in the memories of their brief flirting encounter and the 'moment' they just shared.
'Hey guys! GUYS!' Ron shouted this time, 'what's wrong with you both?!'
Again, Harry and Hermione chose not to respond but instead Hermione voiced a question back at him.
'So you managed to finish your packing then Ronald?'
'Huh? Oh yeah, I cut down my breakfast time to twenty minutes and then threw the rest of my stuff in,' he said, now leading them to the gates along with the other students.
Hermione made a faint sound of disgust in the back of her throat.
After the carriages took them to their destination, ( during which Harry could clearly see the Thestrals ) the three of them quickly boarded the train and found an empty compartment at the rear.
Harry quickly put his luggage in the rack above their heads, before seeing that Hermione was having trouble with hers.
Ron was already looking out the window and when he looked back in their compartment, he too saw Hermione having trouble with her luggage.
He made to get up and help her, hoping to win her favour by doing so, but Harry beat him to it.
Quick as a flash, Harry reached over and gently pulled Hermione's suitcase from her hands and said, 'Let me take care of it.'
Ron glared at Harry for a moment, before he took his seat and continued staring out the window.
Hermione raised her eyebrows at Harry, although she was secretly pleased with his actions.
'Thank you Harry,' she said softly, before taking a seat opposite Ron.
'N-No problem Hermione,' Harry replied, flushed with his success, no matter how small it was.
Harry wondered if he should take a seat beside Ron or Hermione, but at that moment the compartment door opened again and it revealed Ginny who took in the situation in their cabin and promptly sat down beside Hermione.
Not wanting to sit by Ginny in the fear that it would give her hope, he took a seat beside Ron.
For a moment, there was an uncomfortable silence in the compartment, something that had seemed to be happening very often in the recent days. The train had just started picking up speed, passing Hogsmeade and going through the wilderness.
The silence in Harry's compartment was broken by the sound of the door opening. This time it revealed the pale, blond figure of Draco Malfoy and his cronies.
'Well, well, well, hero Potter saves the day again,' he sneered, looking at Harry and then Hermione with disgust on his face.
'What do you want, Malfoy?' Harry spoke in an exhausted voice, the old Harry rising in him again at the sight of their irritating Slytherin classmate.
Ron and Hermione gaped at Harry, both of them expecting the usual, angry outburst that was common for the trio at the sight of their hated Slytherin classmate.
Even Malfoy looked surprised for a fraction of a second, before he sneered at Harry again.
'You're pretty stupid aren't you Potter? You save the little useless Weaslette and a bunch of other Mudbloods, but you couldn't save your own parents. Of course, your mother was a stinking Mud - AHHHH!' he ended off with a scream as he was hoisted into the air upside down, the blood flowing to his brain now.
Harry, who had just cast a non-verbal Levicorpus, snuck his wand back into his robes with satisfaction.
'Put me down, Potter!' Malfoy screamed, as Crabbe and Goyle looked on stupidly behind him.
'I don't even have my wand and I didn't even say anything, Draco,' Harry said pleasantly, and his use of Malfoy's first name brought even more confusion to the two Weasleys and Hermione.
Ron and Ginny seemed just as bewildered as Crabbe and Goyle were, not knowing how Malfoy was expelled so violently. Hermione, however, cast a suspicious look at Harry before turning to look at the spectacle that was going on in their compartment.
'Hey br - HOLY MOTHER OF MERLIN!' the door had opened again, and this time it was a stunned pair of Weasley twins looking at Malfoy twisting and screaming in the air.
'I said get me down, Potter!!' Malfoy shouted again, and he lunged for Harry in the air, with the unpleasant effect that the spell he was under tore him away from Harry and his head banged against the wall with an unpleasant 'thud'.
'Sorry, Drakie poo. As you said, I can save only Muggleborns and half-bloods. I don't think I'll be able to help inbreds.'
'WHAT?!' Malfoy roared, and Harry's barb on his precious bloodline angered him more than his condition.
'Oh, nothing. Inbred is just a word for people who marry their cousins or blood relatives,' Harry said nonchalantly, and Ron, Fred and George were sniggering now.
'I'm not inbred, you filthy half-blood, I'm a scion of one of the oldest pure blood familes! Now get me down!!' he screeched.
'Of course, Mr. Draco Malfoy sir, I'm not denying that you're a pure blood. Your dear little dad knocked up his cousin sister, hereby keeping the blood pure,' Harry smiled, and now all the Weasleys and Hermione were staring at Harry in shock, wondering when he had gotten so mature, confident and punishing.
Crabbe and Goyle raised their wands at long last, but they were immediately thrown out of the compartment with purple boils erupting all over their faces, courtesy Fred and George Weasley.
'Your dad is pretty good at claiming he was under the Imperius, maybe your fat mum claimed to be under it when she was banging her own relative,' Harry said, getting up.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ron and Ginny look at him in awe while Hermione was frowning slightly. He knew there was something radiating off of him, some unexplainable demon-like power and it affected everyone in the compartment. Fred and George also had a half-wary, half-fearful look on their faces as Harry advanced forward.
Malfoy, whose eyes had initially turned feral when he heard Harry mentioning his mother, cringed back in fear as Harry advanced towards him, a mysterious, powerful green aura surrounding him.
Harry silently cast the counter curse and Malfoy fell unceremoniously to the ground.
Harry bent down and whispered something in Malfoy's ear, his face showing a calm, icy hatred that brought chills up Hermione's spine. The look of vengeance on Harry's face and the darkness emanating from him as he taunted Malfoy didn't endear him to her at all, in fact in that moment she despised both Malfoy and Harry for what they were doing.
A malicious hiss sounded out from where Harry was silently conversing with Malfoy ; none of the Weasleys nor Hermione could hear anything being said, but they saw Malfoy's face turning a pasty-white and they were suddenly glad that they couldn't hear.
'Leave,' Harry snarled, his voice now audible to everyone in the compartment, 'and take your slime with you.'
The three left without a word and all the occupants remaining stared at Harry in awe and fear.
As Harry turned back to them, something seemed to lift from his face, some kind of sibilant, venomous shadow and its removal immediately seemed to brighten the compartment. Hermione looked at him silently, wondering how she could have despised him even for a moment.
The mood being cheerful once more, Harry sat down and Fred and George took seats beside him.
'Harry...' Fred began.
'That was amazing,' George continued.
'When can you teach us-'
'How to do that?'
'Um,' Harry started nervously, 'there isn't a spell actually-'
'Ah, the wandless kind-'
'Our favourite.'
'Your eyes became a dark green and some mysterious thing was rolling off of you in waves. You looked pretty freaky for a moment,' Fred explained.
'Pretty scary actually,' George finished.
'Ah, when 900 years old you will become, look as good you will not,' Harry said wisely.
All four Weasleys looked back at him blankly while Hermione snorted loudly.
'I can't believe I'm gonna seduce and shag a green bodied Jedi Master,' Hermione stated, idly turning a page of the book she had just taken out.
Harry blushed a deep red as he looked at Hermione. She was certainly being forward with him and this thrilled him. Thankfully, none of the Weasleys noticed his reaction as they were too busy staring at Hermione, a perfect mix of shock and cluelessness etched onto their faces.
'What?!' Ron cried, his eyebrows reaching his hairline.
'What? Oh, um, nothing, it's just something in the book I'm reading,' Hermione said quickly and unconvincingly.
'What book is that?' Ron demanded, moving his hand to wrench the book from Hermione's hands, but Hermione was too quick for him. Moving away from his reach, she got up and tossed the book into one of her bags and sat down again.
'Oookay,' George said uncertainly.
'We're going to go down to the other end where Lee Jordan is flirting with a tarantula-'
'In the meanwhile, if a green-bodied Jehdie Master wanders in here-'
'Please send for us ASAP-'
'Thank you ladies and gentlemen-'
'Over and out.'
With that, they left the compartment leaving four people shaking with silent laughter.
***
At last, they reached Platform Nine and Three Quarters just as the sun was setting and everyone got out of the train, dragging their luggage along behind them.
'So, when are you coming over to the Burrow, mate?' Ron asked expectantly.
'Umm - Ron, I'm going to Hermione's place for the summer,' Harry replied.
'I know, but, when you leave, you're coming over right?' Ginny asked, flashing Hermione a quick glare.
'Ginny, I think when Harry leaves my house, he'll be going back to Hogwarts,' Hermione said coolly to Ginny, daring her to say something back.
'What? Why-'
'HEY! Move on!' a furious sixth year pushed his way past them, all his friends shoving them as well.
Luckily for Harry, the topic of his summer arrangements died a natural death as they stepped off the train.
'Harry, before you go back to your aunt and uncles', I want you to meet my parents,' Hermione said, dragging him away from a furious Ginny.
They waved bye to Ron and winked at Fred and George who were some distance off and then they made their way to Hermione's parents, who were waiting expectantly near a bench.
'Mum! Daddy!!' Hermione squealed, as she shared a tight hug with both her parents, Thomas' arms going around both the women.
They stayed like that for a moment before Hermione's mum pulled away and looked fondly at Hermione before exclaiming, 'You've grown up so much Poppet!'
'MUM!!' Hermione shrieked, blushing furiously, 'don't call me that!'
Harry, who up till then was nervous at the prospect of being formally introduced to Hermione's parents, merely raised his eyebrows. In the seven years he knew Hermione, he had not once heard her being called 'Poppet'.
'Hmmm. So this is the boy Hermione has been talking about,' Jane commented, turning to Harry at last and regarding him with a somewhat serious look.
'I, um, err -' Harry was now tongue-tied.
'Lighten up sweetie,' Jane spoke, her face breaking into a wide smile, 'I'm Jane, Hermione's mother and I'm not going to eat you. I'm going to look forward to knowing you when you come over.'
'Me too,' Harry responded sincerely.
'Please don't be nervous on any counts with us. We know you're Hermione's best friend and we hope both of you have an excellent summer this year, okay?'
Harry nodded, feeling much better, although Hermione's father hadn't spoken yet.
'And this is my husband, Thomas,' Jane continued, gesturing to Hermione's dad, and Harry reached forward to shake his hand.
'I'd like to know what your intentions are towards my daugh-'
'Thomas!' 'Daddy!' two shouts of protest came from the two Granger women at the same time.
'Sorry,' Thomas drawled, not looking sorry at all, 'Time for that later, Harry'
'Have your aunt and uncle arrived yet Harry?' Hermione asked, looking around the emptying platform for any signs of Harry's relatives.
'Yeah, they're actually some distance off, behind you,' Harry said and sure enough, there they were, glowering furiously in Harry's direction, wondering what on earth he was doing talking to some girl.
'Well, Hermione will send you an owl or ring you when she's ready to pick you up, okay Harry?' Jane asked.
'That's great. Thank you, Mrs. Granger,' Harry said.
'Not a problem, dear,' Jane replied, 'we'll be off then.'
'Bye, Mr. Granger,' Harry said.
'Be seeing you Harry,' Thomas said, and Harry could see that the older man was impressed with his manners and was probably beginning to warm up to him, slightly. He even gave Harry a genuine smile and shook his hands again. Harry's spirits rose at that.
'Bye, Harry,' Hermione cooed, and she threw her arms around him, gripping him in a tight Hermy-hug.
Thomas Granger lost his smile again.
AN - The first eight chapters dealt with a time slot of a day, so I've tried moving things forward all in one chapter now. But if you guys are looking for a fast-paced thriller that has them destroying Horcruxes every alternate day, you should look somewhere else. There will be a serious plot, heavy action and thrillers ( I hope! ) in various sections of the story, but on the whole, I intend on writing this as carefully and as detailed as possible. So, to sum it up, yes, this story will move slow.
I've also seen my mistake in reposting the same chapter of 'After the Deathly Hallows', and I will rectify that ASAP ; a new chapter of that story will hopefully be out soon.
Please review!! Thanks to all those who have.