Disclaimer: I own Emily and the plot. Everything else belongs to J.K.R.
A/N: Hey hey you all. I haven't stopped writing Chem. for Werewolves (if you haven't read it go check it out! It's a Remus/OC) but I'm suffering from horrible writer's block on that one and at best I'm writing a paragraph a day on it. So, in the mean time, you get this lovely little plot bunny that was just dying to be put on paper. Hope you enjoy!
1. Dumbledore is a NUTTER!!!
"I'm going to what!!??" asked Harry, utterly bewildered. Earlier that week there'd been another dementor attack on Privet Drive, ensuring his swift removal to Hogwarts. He'd assumed that he'd be returning to Grimmauld Place, and despite the horrible memories it now held for him, he was looking forward to some familiar faces.
For some reason, though, he could have just sworn that Professor Dumbledore had just informed him that he would not be returning to the headquarters at all. In fact, he was going to be living in some randomly isolated house with a muggle girl under very heavy wards. And all this without any magic!
"Of course, Miss Gould – that's the young lady you'll be sharing the house with – is a muggle, and you are quite used to a muggle lifestyle, so the two of you should have no problem whatsoever!"
Harry looked blankly at his rather cheerful looking headmaster. "You'll be quite safe, Harry, but time is really of the essence – the sooner we get you there, the better. There's food there – although you'll be able to pop out to get more and whatever else you need in a couple of days – and it is a bit of a mess, I'm afraid, so there are also cleaning supplies. Now let's get moving, Miss Gould will be waiting!"
And with this Dumbledore handed Harry his shrunken trunk. Harry took it, a huge sense of foreboding overcome by the familiar tug under his navel. Damn him!! Harry thought. He made my trunk into a port-key so I couldn't say a thing – annoying old man! Suddenly, however, he was standing in the middle of a dusty old room, facing a blackened fireplace. A rustling sound from behind prompted him to whip out his wand and point it at the person behind him.
"Whoa…sorry, d-didn't mean to sneak up on you or anything…um…yeah…I guess you're Harry?"
Standing in front of Harry was not, as he had momentarily thought, a big, menacing death eater, but a curly haired girl approximately his age. She was slim and naturally tanned, contrasting with her blond tipped curls. She looked rather nervously at Harry's wand pointed at her, and had taken a step back. Harry belatedly remembered that she was a muggle.
"Er, yes," Harry replied, lowering his wand but not yet putting it away. "And you're…" he realised that Dumbledore had not told him her full name. "Uh, Miss Gould." He finished lamely. The girl visibly relaxed and smiled shyly.
"Yeah, I'm Emily." She told him. "Emily Gould."
There was an awkward silence following this; neither of the teenagers seemed to have any idea what to do next.
"Uh," Harry said. "Uh, nice to meet you." He stuck out his hand stiffly, feeling incredibly stupid. Fortunately, Emily didn't seem to care. If the blush on her face was any indication, she felt just as out of place.
"N-n-nice to meet you too." She stammered, shaking his hand quickly and then snatching her hand back.
"Well," she said after another few seconds of silence, tucking a stray frizzy curl behind her ear. "This place is – uh – well, a mess, so I guess we should spend some time today fixing up the essentials, bedrooms, bath, kitchen, you know."
Harry stared at her for a second then nodded belatedly as he processed what she said. "Oh yeah," he replied, for lack of anything else better to say. "Have you – have you had a look round, yet?"
Emily fidgeted with her jean skirt, and Harry momentarily thought that she looked exactly how he felt. "It's actually not that bad – I mean, once it's clean, it'll be a nice place. So, uh,"
She moved past Harry towards a doorway behind him. Looking around, he realized that they were in some sort of living room – there were old sofas covered with sheets, as well as a small fireplace.
"This is the living room," Emily informed him, gesturing round her. "and over there," she pointed to a small enclave beyond an open door visible through which were dusty, empty old bookshelves. "that's a sort of mini library, I guess. Out here is the hallway – there's the front door to our right, and a tiny sunroom and small dining room – it's all tiny, really."
Harry glanced into the two rooms; Emily was spot on when she said they were tiny. But, he mused, it's just her and me here – it should be all right…but what if we hate each other? There's nowhere to go!
"And here's the kitchen" Emily continued. Harry followed her into a dirty room, the dust illuminated by the sunlight pouring in through a window over a counter. It wasn't, he noted, as small as the tiny dining room, and he realised that this was probably where they'd be spending a lot of time, along with the living room, which wasn't too small either. In the centre of the kitchen stood a dusty table, with a couple of broken chairs around it. Just beyond it was a doorway, flanked by an open cupboard door that was, like most of the others in the room, broken. Emily stood in front of him, hands on hips as she surveyed the room.
"Are those the stairs?" Harry asked, pointing to the steps visible through the dark doorway.
"Oh, yeah." Emily turned around and walked over to the doorway, reaching inside and flicking a light switch. "Yup, upstairs, this way!"
Harry started as the lights came on. "Whoa…" he began, confused. "The lights…"
"Sorry, did – Mr. Uh… Dumbledore not mention? The house has water, electricity, everything, it's just really, really…"
"Dirty?" Harry supplied helpfully, stepping over some broken glass to follow her up the stairs. The two of them crunched up the steep, narrow steps into a dimly lit hallway. On their right were two doors, much the same as to their left. The very end of the hallway was dark, and a series of steps leading up to a trapdoor could just be seen in the gloom.
"Okay, so, that's just a closet…" Emily opened the first door on their right, then moved to the first on their left. "And this is the bathroom."
Emily opened the door and Harry walked into the bathroom past her – or more accurately, squeezed past her through the extremely narrow doorway. It, like everywhere else in the house, had broken glass, dirt, and dust all over everything. There was a toilet, bathtub, and small sink, but…
"No shower, it sucks, but the water works." Emily said resignedly, pointing to a puddle of gritty looking brown water in the sink. "But I guess we need to leave it running for a bit to clear out the pipes."
Harry scrunched up his nose in disgust and left the bathroom – it smelled awful. The next door on their left was a bedroom, not to large, but considerably bigger than his room at the Dursleys. Just opposite it was another room, a mirror image, but sunnier.
"Er," Harry began, unsure of how to ask her which room she wanted. He had some vague idea that girls had very strong opinions about these things, and thought that they'd better get off to a good start as they'd be living across the hall from each other all summer.
"Er," he tried again. "So, uh, which…uh, room do you want?"
Emily looked back at him, unsure, peering back and forth into the two rooms, casting longing glances at the sunny room while pretending to be interested in the darker room.
"Oh, I don't know" she stammered, playing with her hair – Harry was starting to get the idea that she did this when she was nervous. "Why don't you pick? They're all the same to me…" She trailed off, uncertainty and awkwardness written all over her face. Harry gulped wildly and looked into the rooms. It was obvious even to him that she wanted the sunny room, but he knew that he'd also like that room. Somehow, it just seemed bigger. Suddenly he realized that Hedwig would much prefer the darker room, and that it was closer to the bathroom.
"Er," Harry began, hoping that he hadn't misinterpreted her glances. "Well, I know girls always take forever in the bathroom, so, I'll take the one on the left – I can get in before you do." Seeing the indignant look on Emily's face made him wonder if he should have just said something about Hedwig. He grinned apologetically at her, and was inwardly relieved when Emily's face brightened.
"All right then," Emily said, sounding much happier. "Well, I guess we should leave our stuff downstairs until we cleaned up here. Oh – I almost forgot – that's the attic. I haven't looked up there yet."
"Well, I'll go, then." Harry volunteered, walking out to the stairs hoping that he looked much braver than he felt. Peering into the dim gloom of the hall, he could see why Emily hadn't gone up there to look around yet. Putting one hand on the stairs, he looked up and slowly began to climb. Emily was at the bottom looking up after him when he pushed open the trapdoor and sunlight flooded through, temporarily blinding him. Cautiously opening his eyes after a few seconds, he saw that the attic was actually a big room with huge slanted windows.
"Hey Emily, look at this!" Harry called back down, and she quickly came up the stairs after him, taking Harry's hand so he could pull her through the trapdoor.
"Oh, now this is nice." Emily said, going over to one of the windows and staring out at the view of the forest beyond. Harry began to walk over towards her but found his progress impeded by a big box lying on the ground – and then noticed that is was one of many all around the attic.
"Weird," he said out loud, catching Emily's attention.
"What?" she asked, without turning around.
"Well, this attic doesn't look like a storage room – not with all those windows."
Emily turned around and gave a small gasp upon finally seeing all the boxes. She walked to where Harry was standing and looked with him at the box, her eyes lighting up.
"Ooh!" she exclaimed, obviously getting rather excited. Harry didn't know whether to be worried or excited with her. "Oh, I wonder what's in all those, maybe there's something interesting!"
Harry was slightly less enthusiastic – the whole place seemed a bit too creepy for the contents of the boxes to be harmless. Emily, however, was clearly not thinking along those lines, as by the time he looked down again, she had already opened the box at their feet and was leafing through an old book.
"Well, there's nothing except old books in here. What about this one?"
This time, however, Harry was ready for her, and caught her wrist just before she opened it. "NO!" he exclaimed, roughly pulling her back. Emily winced in pain as he jerked her away, but was too shocked to cry out. She stared at him in disbelief, her navy eyes wide.
"Uh…" she said, uncertain and more than a little miffed.
Harry, unnerved by her deep blue stare, quickly let go of her arm and pulled out his wand. "Sorry," he said, cheeks red with embarrassment. "But there could be something dangerous in one of them, you know, something magical" he tagged the last part on as an afterthought, belatedly remembering that she was a muggle. His embarrassment grew as he realized that she probably thought he was a paranoid maniac now.
Emily blinked a few times, then, much to his surprise, looked rather sheepish.
"Oh, right." She said, her voice small. Her eyes seemed to become fixed on a spot on the floor and Harry felt even worse. "Sorry – I don't really know anything about – well – magic, and stuff."
"Oh – it's – it's okay, but…you know…just to be safe." Harry gave her a silly half smile, trying to be nice.
"Yeah," Emily said, still sounding like a chastised child. "Yeah, I know."
The awkward silence that they were getting to know so well reigned once more until Emily piped up, her voice shy but no longer embarrassed.
"You know what? This house probably belonged to…non magical people, like me, and seeing as the first box seemed to be alright, I mean…"
Harry had to admit her train of though was in all likelihood correct. "I suppose," he said out loud, striding over to the first box and thoroughly examining its contents. "Well," he said at last. "Yeah, I guess, okay, let's open them."
Very soon the room was ensconced in a flurry of dust and both teens were sneezing away as they rifled through the contents of the boxes. It seemed as if the previous owners had packed up all of their household items neatly away and left them up here, were, unlike the rest of the house, they had lain undisturbed. Soon they were hanging up sheets and bedding to air out, taking out stacks of dishes and cutlery, and occasionally stumbling along the odd artefact that really had no use but interested them anyway. Much to their delight, most of the useful items only needed airing or a light cleaning before being as good as new.
Tramping back downstairs, they soon began to work on their respective rooms. Harry had just finished sweeping away the last of the dust and the broken glass and looked around his now clean new room with a critical eye. It wasn't bad, he decided, looking at the double bed – he would enjoy that – along the back wall, and the small desk to its right in front of him. The closet to his immediate right was bigger than his old one at the Dursleys, but that really didn't matter, as he didn't have that many clothes to begin with. He suddenly heard a loud beating sound coming from Emily's room, and decided to go over and see if she was finished yet.
Knocking lightly on the door, he heard an out of breath "Come in!" and went inside. Emily was standing in the middle of her room, on her empty bed frame, which, unlike the one in Harry's room, now looked polished, beating the dust out of her mattress.
"Sorry!" she said over the thumps. "I just can't sleep on this with all the dust, you know? Have you done yours already?"
Harry, however, didn't answer. Emily hadn't swept her floor yet, but it looked as if that was only because she was getting the dust out of the rest of the room first. Her bed, desk, and closet looked well cleaned and Harry saw that she'd brought down a rug from the attic as well as some bedding and curtains.
"Harry?" Emily asked, stopping her abuse of the mattress and replacing it on the bed. Harry snapped out of his stupor upon hearing his name called again. "Harry – did you finish already?" she asked, sounding impressed.
"Uh, no," Harry said hurriedly. "I was – just taking a breather, you know. Do you – uh – mind if I borrow that polish?"
"Oh, go ahead," Emily said, starting to make her bed. "I just need to do the floor in here, then I think I'll start on the bathroom. I would have brought down some sheets and stuff for you," she added shyly. "But I don't know what you like, so it's all upstairs. Hmm. I wish I could clean these window from the outside."
Harry quickly excused himself and fairly ran across the hall into his room. Looking at it after having experienced Emily's room, he now saw dirt everywhere. Sighing, he took his mattress of the bed and began to beat it. This was going to be a long day.
A/N: If you like it or if you don't – review and let me know!! (And should I bother continuing this?) Thanks!
-Laren.