Hiya readers :] I'm aware that I already have a HP story goin on somewhere else, but I kinda got out of that..
But something I will never fall out of love with is some Drarry :DD
Here's an idea I got. PS this is also my first time ever writing in present tense…so sorry if there are any grammatical errors, feel free to bring any errors to my attention [:
FOREWARD: contains some slash in later chapters, if it's not your cuppa tea, then im telling you now, you're warned ;)
(also: this is set in their seventh year, the war has been won, and everyone's back to re-do their previous year. All character deaths are still included.)
"Harry, check these out!"
Harry Potter is sitting with his two best friends in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express, absentmindedly rubbing the scar on his forehead when Ron's voice snaps him out of his daydreaming.
"What?" Harry sits up and looks over towards his friend, who is excitedly brandishing a shiny package that is half-unwrapped.
"Fireworks!" Ron stresses. Harry raises his eyebrows and he notices Hermione peeking over at them from the top of her book.
"Who'd you nick those off of?" Harry laughs.
"Nobody, you git, I found 'em in the bottom of my trunk. Must've been a prototype from my brothers they'd snuck in." Harry notices the way Ron was unable to say his older twin brothers' names. Any mention of the ones who had given their lives for Harry's safety caused an uncomfortably despairing silence to fall among the group.
Harry ignores the fractional moment of awkwardness.
"Nice, what do they…do?" Harry questions.
Ron seems to look at him like he's an idiot.
"You grew up with Muggles, yet you've no idea what a firecracker does?"
Harry promptly chucks a half-eaten Chocolate Frog at Ron, who dodges it deftly. "Of course I know what they do!" Harry defends. "But what makes these different?"
"Well, knowing Fre-" Hermione, interrupting, catches herself, "Ron's brothers, they're probably laced with something really stupid…or dangerous. Or perhaps, and most likely, both."
Harry glances at his second best friend, noticing the blood that is pooling into her cheeks from her near slip-up. Hoping Ron doesn't notice it, Harry covers up any doubt by uttering an obnoxiously fake laugh.
Ron ignores both of them before continuing, "I always thought I heard loud noises from their room." He smiles at a memory. "I remember once they accidentally blew a hole through their ceiling and the attic, putting a hole in the roof. Mum was furious, and Dad couldn't repair it with magic. Took them weeks to patch those holes."
"Are you sure you should have those, Ron?" Hermione asks him meekly upon hearing his story.
"Relax, 'Mione, what Filch doesn't know won't hurt him," He responds with a wink, leaning across the seats to plant a sloppy kiss on her mouth. She giggles in a very un-Hermione-ish way and blushes even deeper than before. Ron simply smiles and eats the rest of the Chocolate Frog Harry threw at him.
"I bet you can't wait to try those out." Harry remarks.
"Yeah, want to tonight?" Ron asks him through a mouthful of chocolate.
Harry nods distractedly, hearing Hermione humph in disagreement; he could see her face behind his now closed eyelids, her eyes rolling back and her mouth puckered in a disapproving grimace.
They sit in silence for several minutes before the time comes for them to change into their robes.
Harry thinks to himself how much different his final year at Hogwarts will be than all the others as they exit their compartment with their trunks in hand.
The first, and most obvious, difference is the absence of Professor Dumbledore behind the podium as everyone files into the Great Hall for the Start of Term Feast.
Harry's heart aches as his mind replays the old wizard's last moments, the flash of light from Professor Snape's wand and how the Headmaster was flung off the tower like an overlooked doll.
Despite the death of his role model, Professor McGonagall is a wonderful replacement who will likely bring the school to new heights. Not only is she one of the few female Headmistresses, she is the only one of both male and female descendants to continue teaching their previous position as well as hold the title of Headmaster or Mistress.
Harry feels that she will do Dumbledore justice, that she will repair the snipped heartstrings from the war. Now that Voldemort is gone, and the Death Eaters are all either dead or locked away forever in Azkaban, very little threat is left to loom over the students' heads. The returning students are anxious to start their previous year over without any worries of death, or Voldemort's minions breathing down their backs, shooting curses at their feet.
Harry and Ron and Hermione gladly dig into their feast laughing and enjoying every moment they can spend with each other. Harry glances up off of his plate and looks across the Hall to the Slytherin table.
His eyes are drawn automatically to the blonde head that is ducked over a plate. Draco Malfoy lifts his head and glances sullenly around the room, his grey eyes flitting between all the familiar faces around him. Harry feels a stab of pity for the lost boy with the hurt look on his face. He had saved Draco's life, and his father's had been lost shortly afterwards.
It isn't like Harry has any fuzzy feelings for Malfoy, but he is practically on his own now. Harry believes he is no longer the evil being he once was, only one more misunderstood. Malfoy raises his eyes and catches Harry looking at him and sneers forcefully back. Harry snaps his head away and glares at his food.
"You alright, Mate?" Ron mumbles through his food. Harry looks up at him.
"Yeah, I uh…" Harry rubs his eyes. "I'm fine."
Hermione gives him a concerned look and glances over her shoulder at Malfoy, who is looking at the table.
"Thinking about Malfoy again?" She asks softly.
Dean, who is sitting beside Harry, snorts with laughter.
"Again? As in he's thought about him before?" Dean slaps Harry on the back. "Yeah, his father's dead and his Mum's insane, but that doesn't mean you got to go all gooey on us, Harry!" He slips Harry a wink, and Harry feels his face flush.
"I-I was just wondering how he was doing." Harry defends himself in spite.
"Harry, Malfoy's had it out to do you in his entire existence. He was kicked out of the Death Eaters and now he's sad. He'll get over it." Ron replies, obviously wanting to end whatever discussion of Malfoy's feelings that is bound to come up next.
Harry grimaces and pushes his potatoes around his plate. He feels eyes on him and glances up to see Hermione's cinnamon eyes looking at him, a concerned crease forming in the middle of her forehead.
Harry ignores her and finishes his dinner.
Ron shoots panicked looks all around him as Filch does his routine check of everyone's trunks in search of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, even though the store was now out of business. Ron has the illegal fireworks stashed under his cloak and in his trousers, a hiding spot he finds to be the most clever. Hermione rolls her eyes at him for the second time that day, and surely not the last.
Harry laughs at first and second years as they get their Fanged Frisbees and Skiving Snackboxes confiscated, and a distraught fourth year is sobbing over the broken bottle of love potion that is seeping through the pocket of her robes.
"Just think, Ron, that was us our third year!" Seamus elbows Ron in the ribs, apparently oblivious to the precious cargo Ron has under his clothing. Ron's face nearly turns purple with anxiety as Filch goes through his things. His eyes linger a little too long on the slight bulge on Ron's crotch.
"Oi!" Ron snaps at the old man, diverting his eyes from what is surely thought of as a rouge prick.
The caretaker, obviously flustered, pushes Ron forward and out of the way of his angry path towards a group of gallivanting fifth years.
Once out of the crowd, Harry, Ron, and Seamus break into rib-splitting laughter at the encounter that just happened.
"You are never living that one down, Weasley!" Seamus manages through his choking laughter.
The three boys join Neville and Dean on the trek to Gryffindor tower and immediately share the story of the day. Harry laughs with the rest, but a part of him feels detached, as if a hidden thought was nagging at the back of his mind, a thought that wasn't letting itself known.
He manages to shake it off by the time they reach the portrait and everyone looks at him for the password. Harry simply stammers back at them.
"You, of all people, Mister Potter should know this password." The Fat Lady chides at him. Harry shrugs. "Because it's you lot, I suppose I'll let you in." The Fat Lady grumbled with a sigh.
Harry raises his eyebrows in surprise at the word, but is silent as the painting swings forwards and allows the boys to clamber through the opening.
The common room is bustling as usual, the atmosphere tinged with the excitement of a new school year, a feeling that would die off by the end of the week as homework piled up and happiness was replaced with stress over classes. The chairs are temporarily taken by scattered books and letters that are dumped about by careless owners as they strive to tell every detail of their fearless summers to their friends. As Harry's presence in the room is noticed, the noise level diminishes by a fraction and everyone, especially the first years, shoot furtive glances at him.
Harry nods and smiles at his old friends, ignoring the gaggle of giggling girls crowding the stairway to the boy's dormitory.
"Excuse me," Harry mutters as he pushes through the girls to his room.
His friends follow behind him and look at each other curiously as they enter the familiar circular room they had come to call home for the last seven years (give or take). Harry dumps his trunks at the foot of his bed and the rest follow suit as he flops on his bed, closing his eyes and letting the din from downstairs sooth him as well as the chatter that was beginning to form in the room.
"Whoa!" Someone shouts and causes Harry's eyes to spring open. He sits up and looks for the cause of the exclamation.
All of his roommates are crowded around Ron's bed; Harry saunters over to the other side of the room and glances at what the other guys are ogling.
The fireworks.
They are wrapped in dazzlingly bright colors and pictures of explosions and sparks in the shapes of inappropriate gestures and words are flashing on the paper. One is labeled "The Boomerang", claiming to return back to the wizard who set it off in the form of a flaming yellow ball, only to be extinguished and set off again.
" 'Extremely dangerous. I wouldn't open these if I were you.' " Ron reads aloud the warning that was conspicuously printed below a graphic purple interpretation of the latest and most popular sex position, one that makes even Harry blush.
At those words, Ron tears the wrapping off and points his wand at the explosives.
"Ron-" Harry tries to stop him, but he is interrupted by a deafening CRACK that resounds and echoes through out the room, followed by the sounds of shattering glass and falling stones.
The boys duck their heads and listen to the whistling of the fireworks.
Rather than to look up and see where the fireworks could've possibly shot to, everyone looks up at their new ceiling of stars, and jagged walls around them. They stare up in awe of the grotesque and lewd pictures and words that are being projected into the night sky.
Their reveries ware only destroyed as the unmistakable screech of Hermione resounds from the lower floor of Gryffindor Tower at the sound and sight of The Boomerang as it crashes through the wrong wall and into common room.
"RONALD!"
Ron blanches.
"Shit."
Yaayy Ron, for screwing things up!
We'll see where this goes from here, I think I have the next chapter pretty much figured out, but I'm definitely going to need you guys to keep this thing going.
I plan on making this entire story up as I go, letting the readers feed me ideas.
The title will stay this plain and simple as it is, for I have no idea where the story will lead to after the next chapter.
I'm accepting ideas through reviews or PM (preferably PM if they're borderline amazing). I'll give you credit if I use one of your ideas.
Let your imaginations flow, my dearies!
I don't have a computer with internet access at my lovely home, so I will be updating when I have access.
I reserve the longest ANs for the first chapter, so..yeah. [:
R&R, loves!
~meg