"Aw, come on Hermione. Just a hint. Not everyone is as smart as you."
"No. You should be doing your own work Ronald. I'm not going to do it for you."
"No one said you'd be doing it for me!"
"No one ever says that, and yet I end up doing the majority of it"
Harry tried to block out his friends' argument and concentrate on his own work. They were the only ones in the Gryffindor common room, everyone was outside. It was the perfect winter day. The snowfall was gentle, and it wasn't too cold outside. He wouldn't have minded being inside either. But he had to put up with Ron and Hermione's bickering, as well as homework. He sighed and looked out the window. Perhaps a tiny break wouldn't hurt.
"Hey," he said "why don't we go outside for a bit.?" Hermione glared at him. Ron nodded and yawned, throwing his parchment onto the ground.
"Good idea Harry." he said cheerfully. "We've been working too hard."
Hermione scoffed "working hard?" she said dryly. "Ron, you haven't written anything in the last half hour,that heading is spelt incorrectly, and you've only got one sentence on your page." She picked up his parchment off the floor. "This is a copy from my work Ron!" she said exasperated "you haven't even bothered to edit. Did you take notes during class?"
"I was going to edit it later" he grumbled " and no I didn't take notes. I couldn't keep up with what she was saying"
"More like you weren't paying attention." Hermione shot back. "Here you can borrow mine. I've written down all the key points of the lesson." she threw a scroll of parchment at him. He unrolled it and found three full pages of script, in miniscule handwriting. Harry looked up and raised an eyebrow.
"Hermione... don't you think that's a bit too much?" he asked. She shrugged.
"And your handwriting is tiny." Ron said, scanning down the page "key points of the lesson" he said sarcastically "more like the whole lesson."
Harry gave up on trying to go outside and dozed off.
"Well, if you don't like my notes deal with it, that's all the help you're getting from me." Hermione said coldly. "Besides, this task isn't even that hard you know. If you just tried by yourself..."
Ron ignored her " Wizardry isn't as easy as that rubbish they teach you in muggle schools."
"Which would explain why I've completed mine and you haven't" Hermione snapped. "Besides, it's not 'junk'. It's just as difficult as what they teach us here."
"Difficult? Counting and reading and writing the alphabet is difficult?" Ron asked sceptically.
"Oh that's rich coming from someone who can't even spell." Hermione retorted. She looked like she was going to explode, but took a deep breath calmed down. "At least Harry can do his homework." she said coldly.
Harry sat up at the mention of his name "Wha?" he said stupidly.
His friends didn't notice him and kept on fighting. "You wouldn't last three weeks in a muggle school." Hermione said to Ron. He gave an indignant growl. "Longer than you'd think" he replied.
Harry rolled his eyes. They were going to either get angry and storm off or ask his opinion. He slowly tried getting out of his chair without them noticing.
"Fine." Hermione said. "After school ends, we'll go to a muggle school during the holidays-"
"Stuck with five year olds? No way!" Ron said. Hermione shook her head.
"Not with five year olds you git. There is something called high school." she continued "anyway, we'll make it somewhere outside of England so then it's fair for both of us. Three weeks in a muggle school, no magic. Deal?"
Ron thought about it for moment. After a while he shrugged. "Three weeks in one of your schools and no magic. Easy. Deal. If I can't survive it, I won't ask you for help with homework ever again."
Hermione smiled. "Good."
"One condition though."
"I'm listening."
"Harry is our judge." The two turned to look at Harry, who'd reached the foot of the stairs. "Damn." he said quietly then turned around.
"You'll judge it for us Harry, won't you?" Hermione asked.
"Like I have a choice" he muttered.
"What was that?" Hermione said a litlle loudly. Harry sighed then nodded. Time to start thinking up excuses.
Ron stretched "Ok. Since that's over and sorted, will you help me with my homework now?"
Harry trudged slowly down the platform. Another horrible summer. He'd tried to come up with some plausible excuses for why he couldn't go, but Hermione had found a loophole in everyone of them.
"You know Harry, you didn't actually have to come with us, but I'm glad that you are" Ron had said. Harry had mentally kicked himself every day after that.
He sighed. Well, it might be better than staying with the Dursleys. But at least with them, he didn't have to do more school work. A lightbulb went off in his head.
"The Dursleys... why didn't I think of that before?" he said to himself. He met Ron and Hermione and they started hunting for an empty compartment.
"Sorry Ron" Harry said, in a voice that he hoped sounded disappointed. "The Dursleys would never let me go with you." He expected both of them to say something like "Oh what a shame!" but was instead greeted with a smug smile from Hermione.
"Well" she started "I knew how eager you were to come with us" Harry scowled. Ron was bad at perceiving feelings, but Hermione wasn't. She gave him a knowing grin then continued "so I just notified the Dursleys that Hogwarts was allowing students to stay during the summer."
Harry looked incredulous "They'd never believe that."
"Oh they did." Hermione said mysteriously. They found an empy compartment and piled in. Hermione pulled a scroll of parchment from her robes, along with a map and a travel brochure. She handed them to Ron and Harry.
"What's all this?" Ron asked.
Harry turned the brochure over. "Australia?" he said questioningly.
"That's where we're going" Hermione told them. "their semesters are different from ours. We'll be going to Sydney. It'll be winter there, but it's not as cold as the season here. And we'll have to start wearing muggle clothing as soon as we board the plane-"
Ron looked confused "Plane? What's a plane?"
Hermione stared at him for a minute, then shook her head. "I keep forgetting you're not a muggle. Remember, and airplane? They look like metal birds. Here, there's a picture of one on the back." she took the brochure from Harry and handed it to Ron. "You'll have to get used to seeing and using muggle appliances. Like electricity. And they have computer lessons in schools these days." Ron looked lost and Hermione just shrugged. "Don't worry about it now, you'll learn soon enough. Just... don't act like you've never seen any of them before."
"I haven't" Ron replied bluntly.
At that moment, the Weasley twins came into their compartment.
"Hi Harry. Hi Hermione." They said in unison. They sat down on either side of Ron.
"So which country are we going to?" Fred asked. Harry looked at them in bewilderment.
"You don't mean... you're coming with us?" Harry asked. George looked offended.
"Of course we are! You need two responsible people like us to pretend to be your guardians!" he said happily. Ron looked just as surprised as Harry.
"You two are just a year older, you can't be our guardians" Ron said. Both of his brothers nudged him.
"Did you hear that? He said we couldn't be their guardians" George chuckled. "I think someone misses his mummy"
"Aw... poor little Ronnie," Fred teased "and since mummy can't come"
"We're the next best thing!" George finished. Ron still looked sceptical.
"Mum wouldn't let you come" he said in disbelief "she wouldn't..."
"She did! She was more than happy to" George said proudly.
"It will teach us some 'responsiblity.' Looking after our brother and finally growing up" Fred said.
"I doubt it" Ron muttered under his breath.
"So Granger, where are we going?" George asked. She threw him the brochure. Fred snatched it from him.
"Australia?" they said together. Hermione nodded.
"Remember, you're our guardians. I'll take care of the flight business." they nodded.
Ron glared at Hermione. "How come I wasn't told about this, and how come they were clued in about all that muggle stuff before me?"
"You had Harry as your condition. We need people to be our guardians, they're picky about that there, we're going to a day school." Ron still maintained the withering look and Hermione rolled her eyes "would you have rathered Percy then?" Ron's facial expression immediately changed and he sank back into his chair muttering about backstabbers. George pinched one of Ron's cheeks.
"Cheer up Ron" he grinned. "It's not everyday you get to go with your favourite brothers to another country."
"Yes" Fred said nodding his head "we'll have lots of fun too."
Hermione looked at both of them. "Remember, no magic." The twins both wore innocent faces, with wicked grins. She shook her head and sighed.
Harry was starting to like this bet. It would be interesting now that the twins were in on it. He looked out the window and prepared himself for a strange trip.