Hello potential readers,
Well, this is my first fanfiction story. It's short, inane, and overall not the best thing ever written. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it.
A word of temporal explanation - this is set in the summer right after Harry's first year at Hogwarts, but prior to the Dobby incident.
Rating explanation: It could probably just be K, but I added the + just to be safe. It has a very small amount of blood in it and some (purely medical) drugs.
Disclaimer: I don't possess the rights to any of the Harry Potter characters, settings, terms, or anything else to do with Harry Potter. The only OC is the random old man.
Harry gazed out the window as the Hogwarts Express wound its way over heather-covered moors. His first year at Hogwarts had come to an end, and he couldn't help feeling that the summer ahead would seem unduly long.
"Hey, there's the trolley. You want anything, Harry?" Ron asked.
"Yeah, sure," he replied, glad of the distraction from his gloomy thoughts. "What about you, Hermione?"
"No, thank you," she answered vaguely, not looking up from her perusal of Hogwarts, a History. Ron shrugged, and he and Harry went to the door of the compartment. They selected a wide variety of sweets and pasties, and paid the cheery trolley lady, who beamed at them and said, "Had a good year?"
They chorused agreement. "That's lovely. Oh, and dear," – this was directed at Ron – "make sure and clean your teeth after having that Toad Treacle. They make very good tooth-flossing mints at Honeydukes." Ron nodded in reply, as his mouth was already stuffed with the sticky treacle. He and Harry returned to their seats and ate their way slowly through the candy.
"I'm saving some of this for later," said Harry, shoving as many treats as possible into his pockets. He figured that summer at the Dursley's would be more bearable if he had something tasty and magical to remind him of the wizarding world.
The train reached King's Cross station, and he said farewell to Ron and Hermione before driving off with the Dursleys, none of whom spoke to him at all for the entire ride back to Number Four, Privet Drive. This was actually something of a relief for Harry.
The summer passed painfully slowly. Harry spent much of his time in his room, wishing that time would go by more quickly and eating his way gradually through the sweets he'd bought on the Hogwarts Express.
One Wednesday afternoon, while he was left blessedly alone at the house (Dudley was off at the dentist's due to a cavity), he leafed through a phone book with the vague intention of seeing whether any of his muggle-born friends were listed there. This peaceful activity came to an abrupt halt as the door banged open.
The Dursleys came into the kitchen, where Harry was, Aunt Petunia tearfully clutching Dudley. Harry quickly put the phonebook back and stood up, remaining a good distance from his relatives.
"Get me the telephone, boy," barked Uncle Vernon. Harry did so, staring at Dudley, whose cheek was bulging out with a wad of cotton padding.
"My poor Diddums, does it hurt?" Aunt Petunia asked, patting Dudley's distended cheek.
"What's wrong with him?" Harry inquired, warily. He suspected that a Dudley suffering from minor discomfort would result in he, Harry, experiencing major discomfort.
"None of your business," snapped his aunt, turning on him with an accusing look, as though this was his fault. Harry could not see how she could possibly think him responsible for Dudley's teeth rotting; he thought it far more likely that his cousin's habit of ingesting large quantities of sweets, and totally ignoring the need for dental hygiene, had finally produced visible results.
Uncle Vernon slammed the phone down. "He's got an appointment for this Friday, Petunia."
"What's wrong with him?" Harry asked again. His uncle glared at him belligerently.
"He's got a cavity, boy! He might have to have a tooth pulled. We're taking him to a dentist in London, the regular one says this calls for an expert. Now get out of our way, we have a seriously ill son here!"
Harry retreated to his room, where he spent the next few minutes moodily poking owl treats through the bars of Hedwig's cage. After a while he got up and went over to the broken television on the shelf, behind which he had stashed the sweets from the Hogwarts express. They were gone.
He stared in horror at the blank shelf. He knew that there had been at least three of the Toad Treacles remaining yesterday morning – he had eaten the last Chocolate frog before breakfast that day. Frantically, he searched his memory for a time between then and now when someone could have entered the room unnoticed. And yes, there was one, last night after dinner. He had gone outside to look for bugs or mice to feed to Hedwig.
Harry sat down on his bed and groaned. He figured that Dudley must have gone into his room while he was occupied and found the treacles. He debated whether he should tell the Dursleys this, but decided against it. The treacles couldn't be too bad, or they wouldn't have been available on the Hogwarts Express. They would probably just cause a really bad cavity, and Dudley would get his tooth pulled, or something.
On Friday, the Dursleys took Harry with them into London, on the grounds that they couldn't leave him alone in the house for that long, he might blow something up. He stared longingly at King's Cross as they drove past it. Eventually they arrived at the dentist's office and proceeded into a comfortable waiting room. After a few minutes a friendly-looking man with brown hair and slightly large teeth came over and escorted Dudley and his parents into another room. Harry stayed outside in the now deserted waiting room, reading through the various magazines left for patients, most of which involved golf.
Suddenly, the door through which the Dursleys had just gone burst open. Harry looked up, startled, just in time to catch a glimpse of bushy hair before Hermione threw herself at him.
"Hermione!" he said, shocked.
"Harry! Harry! I recognized your aunt and uncle from the train station! What are you doing here?"
"Dudley's got a cavity – Hermione, why are you here?"
"This is my parents' office! I told you, they're dentists. Oh, it's so good to see you! But why did your aunt and uncle come here? Surely there are dentists closer to where you live?"
"Yeah, but I guess they thought this called for experts. Hermione, I think he ate a Toad Treacle."
Hermione gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.
"Oh no… Harry, how could you leave one around? Those things are enchanted!"
"I didn't leave one around," he replied, annoyed. "It was in my room, he snuck in. And there were three."
"Well we've got to stop them from treating him," Hermione said at once. "Those treacles don't just rot your teeth, they'll turn them into little toads… it's supposed to be funny, remind kids to take care of their teeth… But we can't let my parents find out, they'll be sure to say something, and there are other patients in there!"
"What can we do?"
Hermione clasped her hands together anxiously.
"I don't know, I don't know… Wait. I can tell my parents there's someone at the door for them, that's downstairs. Your aunt and uncle will probably come out with them, and we can go in and fix your cousin's tooth."
"How? We're not allowed to use magic outside school."
"Yes, but there's a clause in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Wizardry that makes allowances if you're trying to cover something up to prevent muggles from seeing any magic, I'm sure of it. I have my wand with me, and it's not like there's much of an alternative."
"Okay. Let's go."
Hermione walked over to the door and opened it. Harry heard her talking to someone inside, her voice a little higher than usual.
"Dad, there's someone at the door for you. I think he needs you to sign something…"
"Oh. Alright, would you keep an eye on the patient, darling?"
Mr. Granger and the Dursleys came out of the room. Uncle Vernon gave Harry a menacing look as they headed downstairs.
"Okay, quick, quick, let's go," Hermione hissed as soon as they were out of sight. They sped through the door and into a clean, white room. Dudley was there, lying unconscious on a dentist's chair. Harry could see two adjoining rooms as well, on the left and the right. One was empty, but the room on the left was occupied by an old man who was lying with his eyes closed and a wad of bloody cotton in his mouth. A sinister looking, vaguely wrench-like device and an empty syringe lay on the table beside him.
Hermione pulled her wand out of her pocket and nervously approached Dudley.
"I thought you said they were just pulling a tooth!" she whispered. "Why is he knocked out?"
"My aunt wouldn't want her precious Diddykins to be awake for that," Harry murmured in reply. Hermione looked incredulously at him for a second, then shrugged and turned back to Dudley.
"It's a simple sequence of spells, it shouldn't take long," she informed Harry. He glanced uneasily around the room as she muttered a succession of incantations under her breath.
Suddenly, the old man in the next room let out a yell. Both Harry and Hermione jumped violently.
"It's okay, the Novocain is probably just wearing off," Harry said reassuringly, after a few heart-pounding seconds. Hermione did not reply, and he turned around to see her staring in horror at Dudley. He did not at first understand what she was so distressed about, but then a large, mottled toad emerged from his cousin's mouth and hopped onto the floor. It croaked.
"I've done it wrong!" Hermione whimpered, clutching at her hair. "Oh, it was that yell, it gave me a start, and now I've accelerated and extended the process of transformation!"
"What?"
"All his teeth are transforming, and not just into the little toads like they're supposed too, the ones that stay in place, they're turning into real, live toads! And they're leaving his mouth!"
"Alright, alright, what can we do to fix it?" Harry whispered.
"I'm not sure, but I think I should be able to - " she stopped suddenly as footsteps sounded on the staircase outside. Both she and Harry stared, transfixed, at the open door to the waiting room.
Recovering quickly, Harry sprinted out into the waiting room and pulled the door shut behind him. Then he looked around frantically for inspiration – he had not had time to think of a plan. He spotted the golfing magazines.
Several seconds later, the Dursleys and Mr. Granger came into the waiting room and stopped, staring at the floor, which was now entirely covered in magazines. As one, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia looked up and across at Harry, who was sitting innocently on a chair, identical murderous expressions on their faces.
"What in heaven's name is going on?" exclaimed Mr. Granger in consternation, gazing bemusedly at the mess.
"Oh nothing, nothing… just our nephew… don't mind him, he has odd fits every now and then," said Uncle Vernon, waving his hands as if describing a slightly eccentric pet, all the while glaring furiously at Harry.
"Oh. Well. That's all right, I suppose… I'll just get back to work, then," Mr. Granger said, still sounding a bit nonplussed. Harry, sure that Hermione had not yet had enough time to reverse the tooth incident, leapt to his feet.
"Wait!"
Mr. Granger looked at him. "What?"
"Er… these magazines! They're wonderful. Where did you get such a great collection?"
"Um… I just have a subscription. They bring a new one every month," said Mr. Granger, nervously.
"Oh. Right. Who was at the door?"
"No one, actually. I expect it was a prank," replied the dentist. "Now, I really must finish up my work on your cousin."
Before Harry could say anything else, he pulled open the door.
"Oh, Hermione! What are you doing, honey?" he asked in a surprised tone.
Harry peered around him to see Hermione standing stiffly at attention next to Dudley, her hand in her pocket, where she had presumably just shoved her wand.
"Oh nothing! Nothing," she replied in an overly bright voice. "I was just
wondering what you're doing about this patient, his teeth look fine to me."
"Really?" said Mr. Granger, gazing at her suspiciously. Harry guessed he suspected Hermione of using magic, and was aware of the restrictions on underage wizards.
"Perfectly fine, yes! I'll get out of your way, help clean up these magazines…" and she pushed past her father and began stacking the golf magazines with a fervor not usually seen in such an activity. Mr. Granger shrugged and invited the Dursleys through into the room, where he said he would just wrap things up with Dudley. The door shut behind him.
"That was close!" Hermione breathed, immediately abandoning her tidying. "I'd only just finished the spell when they came in. Thanks for distracting them, I hope you won't be in too much trouble with your aunt and uncle."
"Don't mention it. He's completely fixed?"
"Oh yes."
"Great. It's great to see you, too – actually, there was something I wanted to ask you – why haven't you answered any of my letters?"
She looked bewildered.
"What? But I - " Unfortunately, at that moment the door swung open and the Dursleys emerged, Uncle Vernon shaking Mr. Granger's hand. Aunt Petunia was fussing over Dudley, who seemed woozy.
"Time to go, boy!" barked Uncle Vernon, and he escorted Harry forcibly towards the exit. Harry just had time to glance back at Hermione, who waved goodbye inconspicuously as he disappeared down the stairs.
Well, hopefully that wasn't too bad. I'd appreciate any reviews, whether pointing out flaws or just giving general comments - I'm still learning the ins and outs of fanfiction here. Whether you review or not, thanks for reading!