Disclaimer:
I do not pretend to own the Harry Potter world or any character within it: that right belongs to the eminent J. K. Rowling, to whom I most respectfully yield.
Neither do I pretend to be an expert on the early legends of King Arthur and the fabled Isle of Avalon. They belong to posterity and my imagination.
If, in writing, I offend someone, I apologize, but stand by my opinions. I write this solely for my own amusement and for the appreciation of my audience.
I have no money, don't sue me, I'm not worth it, and there are bigger fish to fry.
Chapter Two
The summer, for Harry Potter the magical Boy-Who-Lived, started out as any summer ever had; with the Dursley's: his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and their scummy child Dudley. This year was slightly different; they had ceased treating him as though he wasn't there, and begun actively picking on his choice of lifestyle, as if he could help being a wizard, and on his friends.
"So what kind of girls become witches anyway, Harry Pooper, I bet all the girls at your school have big ugly warts on their nose and cackle like crows!"
Dudley's latest taunt was sheer spite; he had no way of knowing anything about the girls at Hogwarts. Not that they did have warts or anything, Harry thought quickly of Cho Chang, and his stomach did its familiar flip. Some of them most definitely didn't have anything wrong with them whatsoever.
Point in case, Ron, one of his very best friends in the wizarding world, was likely head over heels enamoured with Hermione, his other best friend in the wizarding world, and had absolutely no clue about what to do with it at all. Harry had been the unfortunate recipient of letter after letter from Ron about Hermione all summer long. In return he'd also been the recipient of letter after letter from Hermione about Ron all summer long.
Who'd of thought a simple trip to Bulgaria would have created such fuss?
If you are Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, then Bulgaria may well be the front lines of some sort of horrific battle for all the paper they used up worrying over it. Viktor Krum, the legendary, famous, and young Quidditch player, had invited Hermione over to his home, Bulgaria, because he was fond of her. Hermione accepted, because she liked him as well, and to Ron she may well have accepted a dance with the devil.
Owl after owl flew between Bulgarian airspace and Britain, Harry once fancied that the RAF likely had spotted the owls on radar through sheer volume. Harry feared, at one point that the friendship between Ron and Hermione wouldn't last the week as insult after accusation flew past each other.
In the end, the weeklong vacation in Europe closed with as little fuss as the leftover remains of a firecracker falling to earth. Hermione simply returned home and Ron just quit talking to Harry about her. When he'd received the owl, from Hermione, saying that the traditional meeting-before-school-starts was at her place this time, he'd simply packed and waited for the Weasleys to pick him up.
He was in an agony of anticipation, after last year's little accident with the Floo Powder, Harry had no idea how the Weasley's were planning on showing up. That and the fact that he had no idea what Hermione said to Ron to get him to shut up the way he had. At five o'clock sharp two weeks before the September the first departure of the Hogwarts Express, someone knocked on the door.
Uncle Vernon threw it open, expecting it to be Arthur Weasley, Molly Weasley or any combination of the two, but was instead greeted by a pretty girl with bushy brown hair, cinnamon eyes, and wearing the omnipresent jeans and a jumper (sweater) that half the population of Muggle Britain wore on a regular basis.
"Hello, you must be Harry's Uncle Vernon. Is he ready to go?"
Harry, recognising instantly the voice of his friend Hermione, jumped off the stairs where he'd been perched, half ready to run up and hide, half ready to sprint down to escape. "Hermione! What are you doing here?"
"Picking you up! Isn't it obvious?" she retorted, "After all we're meeting at my place aren't we? Are you ready?"
"Yes, I am," he gestured back to his packed trunk, and Hedwig, his owl, "Do you want the trunk or the cage?"
"The cage," she said brightly, "Hedwig's easier to lift." he pulled the trunk down the front stairs, wondering at the absurdity of it all. Mr. Granger, a man he'd met once in Diagon Alley, turned off the motor and helped him get the trunk into the boot of the car.
Looking back at the massed and astonished Dursley's Harry could see that this was not what they had in mind for a pickup. They were expecting blasting walls, oddly dressed people, and magical mumbo-jumbo, not an ordinary car, a middle aged Dad, and a pretty young woman. For pretty is what Hermione had become. Her hair, while still bushy, had calmed down somewhat over the summer, the reduction of her front teeth was more noticeable than ever, and she certainly filled out that jumper more than she had in previous years. She had definitely become pretty, in a curvy sort of petite kind of way.
"Good day then," Mr. Granger smiled cheerfully and waved, "Harry'll see you next term." As if he hadn't really been expecting an answer, which he likely had not, he opened the passenger door for Hermione, hopped in the car, gunned the engine, and took off. Leaving a very bewildered family of Dursley's on the front step, gaping.
Hermione waited until they were out of sight of Privet Drive, before bursting into a fit of suppressed giggles. "I guess that wasn't what they expected was it, Harry?"
Seeing now that she'd planned the meeting up to her usual standards of aplomb, Harry burst out laughing, holding on to Hedwig's cage to keep balance. "No blasting walls, no flying car, no robes or wands. Certainly not!"
"Well," Mr. Granger said smilingly, "Have we set you off right then, lad?"
"They never knew what hit them" Harry grinned.
"Good" the man said, satisfied that his daughter's plan to liberate Harry and upset the Dursley's had gone off without a hitch, "We're very glad to have you, Harry."
"I was glad to be invited, but tell me, where is your house Hermione?"
"Oh we're not going to my house;" she said offhand, "Mum's rented a boathouse near Bath for the next two weeks. Mr. Weasley had it hooked up to the Floo Network, temporarily, so we only had to pick you up. Ron and the others are coming by Floo."
Marvelling at Hermione's usual efficiency and forethought, he grinned, "I'll bet Mr. Weasley is going to have a blast playing with his plugs and all."
"Half the fun, isn't it?" Hermione shot him a grin over the headrest of her chair. "Get comfortable Harry, there's no invisibility booster or rockets in this car, just good old fashioned muggle transport."
"Amen," said her father, he had the same wavy, chestnutty, hair Hermione did, though not quite as bushy. "Scares the way some of those wizards get about"
"Scares me too, sometimes," Harry admitted.
The boathouse was a lot more fun than Harry though it would be. He was greeted at the door by Mrs. Granger, an attractive, fit, and very not-so-motherly-looking sort with Hermione's cinnamon eyes, by her dog, a big German Shepard named David, and by Crookshanks, the insane ginger cat. Almost as soon as he'd got his trunk to the room he'd be sharing with Ron, Fred, and George the fire in the empty fireplace lit and the whole Weasley gang tumbled down the chimney.
Dinner was a noisy, messy affair. Mrs. Weasley brought her wand and conjured up as delectable a feast as had ever been served. A few of Dr. Fillibusters No-Heat Wet-Start fireworks set the tone, and had the big dog running around and barking at the everlasting sparkles for an hour at least.
After tumbling down into the first set of bunk beds with Ron, he listened to Fred and George tumble in the ones set on the other wall. Hermione and Ginny had the sleeper couch in the living room, her parents the double bed in the other bedroom upstairs. Almost as soon as he shut his eyes, morning came and he was shaken awake by Ron, who clamoured that all the bacon would be gone if he didn't hurry.
The weeks flew by. In addition to the house, the Grangers had rented a small boat which Fred and George and Mr. Granger could barely be persuaded to leave. They spent half their time letting down traps and lines and whatnot and the other half eating whatever it was they caught. Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Granger put on some power shoes and did some serious shopping in the storefronts nearby, giggling madly at whatever it was girls talked about amongst themselves when alone.
This left him and Ron to be beachcombers, rock castle builders, and general lay-around-the-house and do nothing kind of people. They played chess, sometimes, with Hermione and one of her books curled up in one of the chairs nearby, commenting absently on the game.
It was as if they were back at Hogwarts, Ron and Harry playing chess and Hermione talking, absently, through her homework. It was as if the excited flurry of owls and insults had never been exchanged. It was just like old times, with one small detail: Ron and Hermione never argued. They danced in diplomatic circles around each other, with a ruthlessly maintained politeness that fooled no one. The hissing, spitting, knock-down-and-drag-'em-out kind of argument that Ron and Hermione had perfected, were conspicuously absent.
Or at least they were until the clambake.
Harry could never remember how the fight had started; he just remembered digging the pit for the fire that would slowly roast the large bags of clams they'd bought at market. Dinner had been over, the bugs humming, the ocean waves crashing, and to all intents and purposes life had been perfect. Until some snide remark or sly comment had sent the pair of them over the edge, literally.
Hermione leaped up to her feet, hands on her newly acquired hips, shouting herself hoarse, while Ron, all six foot of tanned Weasley, screamed himself red in the face. Half of it Harry couldn't have understood, it being shouted at unholy decibel levels, and the other half was garbled by interruption and flying spit.
Somewhere along the line Hermione took a swing at Ron, getting him full across the face, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her like a doll, that's when Mr. Granger got up to break them out of it. Or at least he tried. Somehow they ended up rolling together, kicking and clawing, right up the dockside, right over the embankment, and right into the ocean.
It took twenty minutes to get the two of them, fully dressed, out of the water. Sopping wet they stood on the dock, side by side glaring, until Hermione started giggling madly. Ron gave her a dirty look and made as if to shake her again, but his saltwater soaked jumper held him down. Looking down at his clothes and the absurdity of it all, he too started to laugh. Hysterically they both, dripping wet and shivering, laughed until their sides hurt and tears started to fall. Ron held out his soggy arms, and pulled Hermione into a salty embrace.
The next day Mrs. Weasley popped in by Floo, she'd picked up all of the children's school supplies in the weeks before. They hopped, skipped, and jumped their way to Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross in London and submitted to the ritual kissing and hugging before the train was scheduled to leave.