THIS IS A TRIAL STORY. Story may be deleted. This was supposed to be a story only for myself, but I wanted to try and see what people had to say about it. Please R&R! I really hope the read is worth it. (Before you read, let me clear something up: I know that there are some modern things here that do not belong on Harry's 7th year time line, but please bear with me and use your imagination. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters in it. Everything (but the plot) belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Vacation? I Think Not
"Honestly. Of all the ways to finish our 7th year, and Dumbledore decides to send us out across the world like we're just a bunch of animals that could survive in their own. Non-magical animals." Ron said with a huff.
"Technically," Hermione corrected, "we're still allowed to use magic, but only if we really need it. The sole purpose is to learn how to live without it, anyway. It'll be a good experience."
Harry eyed his two friends, not sure which side he's on. The Headmaster had decided that the best way to end the year with a "bang" (or so he said), is with a challenge.
Everyone started cheering of course, a challenge at Hogwarts was always interesting. However, once the words "no magic allowed unless it's an emergency" and "survive with only your partner" came out of Dumbledore's mouth, the happy mood died down.
What is the challenge, you ask? Well, it's simple really. A student is paired with another student in the same house and they will go out into an assigned place with a certain amount of money and luggage, living like a muggle. They will be given a week to spend there and come back to reflect. The purpose? To "prepare for the unexpected", he had said. Harry thought it was just another meaning for: "we didn't know what to give you, so we thought this could be a good idea."
The trio reached the portrait entrance of the Gryffindor house, muttered the password, and climbed through the hole. All Gryffindors had to meet in the common room for the picking of partners.
Harry pulled his friends to the front, and tried to move in between the crowd of students. He saw Professor McGonagall in front of them, standing on a stool so that everyone would be able to see her.
A strict 'ahem' and a stern look on her eyes, seemed to quiet down the students. Harry shuddered. Although Professor McGonagall seemed to give this type of look every day, it still looked harsh.
"Today we will be picking your partners for the trip," She said as she pulled out a hat with a bunch of tiny ripped out papers inside, "from inside a top hat."
Harry was bewildered. A top hat?
Hermione echoed his thoughts aloud, "A top hat?"
Harry muttered sarcastically to Hermione leaning slightly towards her, "Oh how convenient. The person that we're going to have to live and survive with, with no magic included is going to be picked out by ransom in a top hat."
She snorted at his comment before turning back to Professor Mcgonagall when she had cleared her throat again. Harry and Hermione flushed.
Seeming as if the professor had heard Harry's comment, she said, "We are picking your partners from a top hat because the headmaster would like to see how well you cooperate with others and your people skills. Meaning, you have to work fair with your partner, no matter who you get."
The sea of students grumbled. Ignoring it, Professor Mcgonagall continued, "We shall begin." She pulled the first name out of the hat.
"Neville Longbottom. With... Lavender Brown."
Harry could just imagine the look on both of their faces.
...
As Professor Mcgonagall carried on, she had finally called out Harry's name. He held his breath and silently hoped to get someone that he was close with, if not, then at least someone he talked to once in a while.
"... Hermione"
Harry exhaled, he was relieved. The new partners looked at each other, smiling brightly. What luck they had.
On the other hand, Ron was sulking beside his partner; he had been paired with Parvati. The two had nothing in common and were definitely not close. Harry really felt bad for his best friend, knowing that Ron would be very uncomfortable. He gave him a pitying look before turning back to face Professor Mcgonagall.
Harry furrowed his eyebrows when he saw an owl flying out of a window and the professor opening a note. The note must've been important since she was wearing her focused face. Harry waved it off thinking it was probably some staff thing.
Professor Mcgonagall strolled quietly to the portrait hole, and Harry was the only one noticing her movements. The rest of the students were talking to each other.
He then saw her peek through the little slit (she had only opened it slightly), seemed to murmur a few things, then finally opened it all the way. Harry gasped. It was not some staff thing.
He hadn't meant to say it so loudly, but it came out of no where, "Malfoy?"
And then all the conversations stopped, and all heads turned toward the Slytherin.
"Oh hello, Potter. Subtle, as always." Malfoy drawled on sarcastically. Harry glared at him and opened his mouth to say something back, but Professor Mcgonagall cut him off.
"Mr. Malfoy here, will be joining a pair to complete the assignment with. The Slytherin house has an uneven amount of students, and Draco was the last student that had not been picked. By my decision, I have chosen Harry and Hermione to include Draco in their group for this project. I decided that it was only fair to put him with two students who had been raised in the muggle world, so that Draco would learn their ways." Professor Mcgonagall said to the Gryffindors.
Harry's mouth dropped open. He was shocked and annoyed greatly. Whatever happened to the random picking out of the hat? Now is the time she decides to set out the partners fairly?
He shifted to the side to look at Malfoy, and he was wearing the exact same expression as Harry. "Well that's just great. The Golden Boy as one of my partners to live like a muggle. Bloody brilliant." Malfoy retorted.
"Oh, like we aren't mad either! We have a complaining git to accompany us to who knows where. Right, Hermione?" The Gryffindor said back and looked behind him to Hermione for backup. But instead of glaring at Malfoy like he thought she would, she was invested in a book about all of the countries.
"Oh, stop it you two," Hermione said, nose still down on her book, "You both are acting like babies. We're eighteen, for Merlin's sake!" Harry rolled his eyes. So much for backup.
Professor Mcgonagall cleared her throat to catch their attention, "Okay, that's enough. Everyone decide which one of your dorms to go into, and all partners must stay together. Your luggage will appear there next to you, along with the name of the place you will be visiting on a piece of paper. You will all be departing tonight."
"Tonight?" The students chorused. But the head of Gryffindor was already gone and the chatter started (mostly argues) about which dorm they were going to. Harry saw Partivi dragging Ron to her dorm and his red-haired friend mouthing the word 'help'. He have Ron a face that said yikes.
"Harry, we're going to your dorm." Hermione said, bringing out another book, this time about muggle travel. Where were the bloody books coming from?
He nodded. Thank goodness for Hermione, they were able to make a decision that they both liked without arguing. He led her towards the staircase before he felt a tug on his arm. Harry skidded to a halt and gave his friend a questioning look.
"Well?" She asked, raising her eyebrows.
Harry frowned. "Well what?"
"Aren't you forgetting something? Or someone?"
He shifted his eyes to Malfoy, who was standing at a corner of the common room and sulking. "Oh," Harry paused then said, "Him." Him meaning the prat, the git, the Draco sodding Malfoy.
"Yes. Him" Hermione said, air-quoting the word Harry had used and rolled her eyes. "You know what? I'll just call him, since I'm not using the pronoun like it's foreign."
"Draco! Over here." She called out. Malfoy shot her a look.
"Unless you want to be left alone with the staff while the rest of us are around the world, I suggest that you get your arse here now." Hermione called out again, clearly losing her patience. Harry held in a snort. Malfoy grumbled and grudgingly dragged his feet towards them.
They both followed Harry up the staircase. Harry leaned towards his friend and muttered, "So what, are we on first-name basis now with Malfoy?"
She muttered back with a sigh, "First-name basis, last-name basis, I really don't care."
The three finally reached Harry's dorm, and it was empty. It seemed that Harry's roommates were probably dragged to the girl's dorm, too.
At the corner of his eye, he saw Malfoy's nose crinkle. "Seriously, Potter, do you ever clean? Your part of the dorm is very untidy," He then turned his head around and observed the room and said, "Actually, the whole dorm is untidy."
"We didn't ask for your criticism, Malfoy." Harry shot back, speaking for him and the rest of his dorm mates.
The Slytherin smirked, "Well take it as an honor that you're getting it anyway."
"You two always have something to say to each other, don't you?" Hermione said.
Harry and Malfoy jumped. They had forgotten that she was there.
They both turned to her and saw Hermione on Harry's four-poster bed, leaning against the acawall and reading the book she had while walking up the staircase. She put down her book and looked at them. "Well if you guys are going to be any help, you can get our luggages and the note over there." She said, pointing towards the corner of the room where indeed the things were.
Harry ignored the fact that he and Malfoy might have forgotten about Hermione and they might have been too caught up on their rivalry to notice the package that had suddenly appeared.
He swiftly took his and Hermione's luggages as Malfoy carefully took his own along with the note because you would be wrinkling it, Potter.
Harry settled on his bed right by Hermione's feet while the other just kept standing there in front of them.
Malfoy began to read the message in the note:
"Dear Students, as you can see right now, you have been given your luggage where all your necessary belongings are stored in. Under this note should be the plane tickets to go to your destination and to return back, passport, money that has already been converted to the currency used in the country you're visiting (equals to 166 galleons, 5 sickles, and 17 knuts), the name of the hotel (to access your room you must go to the service desk and go under the name "Erodel B. Mud"). You will be given a week to figure out the place and work together with your partners to explore around it. To get to the airport, stand together in a circle with your belongings and you will automatically Apparate to the airport when you are ready. Do not stress it, think of it as a wonderful vacation. Sincerely, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Your destination is Japan."
The three were all silent for a moment. Hermione looked focused as she mentally planned their trip (while frantically turning the pages to where it talks about Japan), but Harry and Malfoy were still trying to take in the information.
Harry furrowed his brows. A plane? They were going to take a plane? Being raised by muggles, he had seen those on Dudley's telly and occasionally find them crossing above the Dursley's house. He had never worried about going on a plane because a) the Dursley's would never take him along on a trip and b) when he had discovered that he was a wizard, why take a plane when you could learn to Apparate or fly a broom? But now he was terrified, because even he knew that it wasn't anything like flying on his broom and the flight would depend on how stable the plane, pilot, and technology was.
Malfoy, on the other hand, looked truly confused. "What the bloody hell is a plane and a hotel?" He asked looking at both of them.
Harry opened his mouth to answer his question but after a pause, he closed it. He knew what a plane and a hotel was, but he didn't know how to explain it. He's never experience being on either. Also, he thought that Malfoy would remember the brief try-out class that every seventh year had to take. It covered that basics like muggle traveling, technology, etc.
Instead, Hermione answered him, "A plane is the transportation we're going to use to get to Japan. I... I'll explain it to you later when we get to the gate. And a hotel is where we are going to stay during our time there. Think of it as… renting the place for a week." She was only half paying attention while she reading her book and jotting down notes on a piece of paper at the same time.
The Slytherin nodded thoughtfully, but Harry knew that he was just as equally confused as earlier. Malfoy didn't do "muggle things".
"Okay, uh..." Hermione started as she stuck the piece of paper in one of her two books, "Are we ready? Should we do the formation to Apparate?"
Harry inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. This "challenge" was crazy, but that's life in Hogwarts, wasn't it? He looked to Malfoy expecting him to answer, but he looked uneasy so Harry nodded his head.
Each grabbed their luggage and formed a circle, like the letter had said. Harry was puzzled; nothing happened. Then in a pop, the three stumbled on the floor of the airport.
The first thing Harry noticed was that his clothes were changed to a maroon hoodie (with a white shirt inside) and jeans. They must have changed it to muggle clothes, since they couldn't be walking around in the muggle world with their school robes on.
The second thing Harry noticed was that it was crowded. Really crowded. Harry felt small and confused, for he had never been in an airport before. He observed his surroundings. There were lines of people and muggle machines and technology all in the really big space.
"I've been in airports all the time. My family and I likes to travel, so don't worry, I've got this." Hermione said, waving her hand at Harry and Malfoy. She must've seen the confusion on their faces.
Harry nodded while Malfoy continued to say nothing. He smirked that the thought that maybe Malfoy was intimidated by the crowd of people go back and forth and all the machines everywhere.
"Something funny happening, Potter?" Malfoy said in front of him with his regular sneer. Harry looked up at him. They were now in line for airport security.
He was considering to comment about how Malfoy was intimidated by the muggle technology that he did not grow up with, but Harry decided to give it a rest seeing that the Slytherin had grown pale to the thought that he had to go through one of them.
Hermione glanced at the two of them and gestured towards the machines, "Okay, so this is just airport security. Nothing to be worried about. We just have to take off our shoes, hoodies, jackets, and put our luggage there." She pointed to where the people in front of them were putting their belongings.
"Then," She continued, "We have to walk through there. It won't do anything to you, you won't feel anything. After that, then you can get your belongings, put on your shoes and whatever you had on earlier, and we'll go to our gate."
It seemed simple enough. Harry nodded and thanked his friend for guiding them, "Thanks, Hermione." She replied with a cheerful 'mhm' while she stuffed her two books in her luggage.
Malfoy, on the other hand, wrinkled his nose in disgust. Harry thought he was going to complain about dealing with muggle technology, or something but it came out for a completely unexpected reason.
"We have to walk in our socks?" Malfoy asked, staring at the people who were doing it. "That's very…"
"What? Unmannerly? Revolting? Un-Malfoy like?" Harry snorted. Malfoy jutted his chin up, and tried falter his small smile (for whatever Harry had said, was what Draco was going to say). Oh look, Draco Malfoy actually does know how to smile, Harry thought, catching his failed attempt to cover it.
Hermione rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, come on. Deal with it." She was in front of both of them and was now putting her belongings under the machine. The lady had called her up and Hermione walked through the machine with a grin. Little did Harry and Malfoy know that she had not missed the Slytherin's (almost) smile.
Maybe this so-called "vacation" wouldn't be filled with Potter-Malfoy arguments, after all.
...
With Hermione guiding them through the process of traveling international, they had finally gone through all security. Now, the three were standing in the middle of the walkway, surrounded by stores all around.
"Why are there so many muggle shops? I thought we were in a place of transportation not shopping." Malfoy commented at the sight of shops selling things like bags and clothes.
Hermione, who was looking at some type of screen, answered, "Well, you know, tourists from other places visit here, too. So maybe they would want to buy some type of souvenir from England."
Harry left Malfoy looking at the muggle stores and the things they sell and went to Hermione. "What are you doing?" He asked her, then looked at the screen, "And what is that?"
"This, is like an advanced telly, to put it into words. A TV. But over here in an airport, it's not for watching shows, or things like that. It's to tell us what time our flight it, and what gate it is located on." His friend replied while her eyes were still scanning the two screens.
So, it was an "advanced telly", as Hermione called it. It was very advanced, indeed. Unlike the telly, it was not a box, but somewhat like a flat screen, and much more clear.
Hermione nudged Harry and pointed to the screen, "Look, I found our flight! Gate 14. Looks like we're a bit early though, since our flight departures in two hours… perfect! Enough time for me to sit down and read more about our tr—"
"Potter," A voice drawled out loud from behind Harry, "I was peacefully browsing this muggle shop and then Weasel here comes bombarding me with questions about where you are. Look, he's even brought a bunch of Gryffindor boys and girls along."
Harry and Hermione turn around and they are met with the view of Malfoy in front of a window of a store with the most bored face ever, followed by Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville in front of him. In the store behind them are Parvati, Eloise, Fay, and Lavender walking around in the shop. What a crowd.
"Ron?" Harry called out while he and Hermione walked towards their friend.
"Harry! Hermione! Merlin, thank goodness I met you guys here. We haven't even reached our destination yet, and I'm already absolutely hate this vacation." Ron spurt out.
"Ron!" Hermione scolded and wacked his arm.
"Ow!" He complained, rubbing the side of his arm. Standing beside Ron, Harry saw Malfoy looking in his nails and smirking.
When Ron finally looked up, Hermione was giving him a stern look. "What?" Ron asked to Hermione, "Don't blame me! I would've enjoyed this whole thing—surprisingly— if I'd had a different partner. Seriously though, she hasn't even uttered a word to me, and she always, always wants to be with her friends." He gestured to inside the store where Parvati and her friends were in.
"Same goes for us," Seamus, who was paired with Eloise, chimed in, "We were all dragged by them to go to their dorm, nothing discussed!"
"Wait," Harry paused, realizing something, "You guys are all here at the same time… so, did you guys plan a certain time to Apparate just so you could come here all together?"
Seamus sighed and murmured wearily, "Them. Not us." Wow, Harry thought, what a tight group.
Neville joined in, "Apparently they wanted they wanted to be here together to 'help each other'. Which I don't think you're supposed to do, considering the rules were that we're only supposed to work with each other… b-but I don't want to u-upset Lavender, so…" Harry noticed that by the time Neville finished, his head was down. Poor Neville. Lavender can be a bit… loud and very expressive with her opinions and Neville having her as a partner isn't exactly the world's best pair.
On the other hand, Dean seemed perfectly fine. Harry had noticed that he hadn't complained about the other girls yet and decided to ask, "What about you Dean?"
Dean, who was staring off into the outer world, snapped out of his trance and looked at Harry. "Hm?" He asked looking around at Harry's curious expression and at Ron's, Seamus's, and Neville's glum faces.
As if he seemed to finally catch on he spoke again with a smile, "Ohhh. My partner, Fay? I don't have any problem with her; we actually cooperate really well. When she asked to go with her friends, I said, why not? Seems like Ron, Seamus, and Neville were going along, too. Plus, we were kind of buddies before all this. She's such a delight."
Ron's face was covered by his hands and he groaned, "Good for you, mate. At least one of us ended up with someone friendly." Harry gave his best friend a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
Malfoy, who was starting to look bored, cut in, "As much as I would love to join your pity party, we have a flight to catch." The sarcasm was just about dripping from that sentence.
Standing on Harry's right, was Hermione, who suddenly spoke up for the first time since the conversation had started, "Actually the flight is not until—"
"We have a flight to catch." Malfoy interrupted abruptly. Taking the hint, Hermione rolled her eyes (which Harry noticed that she has been doing that quite often now), but gave in, "Yeah. Right, whatever."
So, they had to say their goodbyes, and Harry had to leave Ron, oh poor Ron, and the others to the very tight group of Gryffindor girls.
When the three were finally at least fifty feet away from them, Malfoy (who was by Hermione's left, strictly because he and Harry did not want to be by each other) said proudly, "You're welcome."
Harry scoffed, "For what? Ron, Seamus, and Neville were clearly being left out by the girls, not letting them do anything, and taking the lead on their own."
"What should we do then, Potter? Help them? How? We can't do anything, and it's not our business anyway. So, again, you're welcome. From saving all of us from the pity group of dreading, complaining, and ranting."
And as much Harry wanted to prove Malfoy wrong, he knew he was right. There was nothing they could do. A silence response from Harry ended their argument.
Hermione clasped her hands together, "So, we have two hours to kill. Well, an hour and forty-five minutes because of the whole thing earlier. What do you want to do?"
"I'm actually quite hungry," Malfoy announced, "We haven't had dinner and they decide to send us off around the world starting with an empty stomach." He rolled his eyes.
"Well I think on the plane they're going to serve a meal there since it's a long flight, but yeah I'm hungry too," Hermione said then looked to Harry, "What about you Harry?"
Yup, food sounded real nice to Harry, right now. Harry's stomach rumbled, in reply. Hermione laughed and Malfoy crinkled his nose.
"Guess you know my answer now." Harry said, blushing profusely.
...
They had all agreed on just having a light snack at the coffee shop, since they were going to be fed a full meal in the airplane, anyways.
So after a long five minutes of waiting to pick what Malfoy wanted to eat ("This is muggle food, Potter, don't expect to me to pick something right away.") (Well Malfoy, it's nothing different than the food they serve at Hogwarts."). they settled on a corner table where Harry and Malfoy had to sit next to each other across Hermione, so that she could have a row to herself and her books.
Hermione, well, she was really taking the most of her space. The books she had brought with her were sprawled open on the table, along with a small pocket notebook that she also took along to write down notes and plans with a pen.
And… they were also in mid-conversation about pens.
"So this so-called pen," Malfoy started, as he swallowed a piece of scone, "It's like an alternative quill, but you don't need to dip it in ink because…?"
"Because the ink is already included inside the pen. You just need to click it," Hermione answered and demonstrated by clicking the pen with her finger, "and write."
"Hm," Malfoy said looking down at his tea, "I guess in some ways, muggles are convenient after all."
"Mhm." Hermione replied absent-mindedly, as she continued to write down notes neatly in a very organized way. Harry noticed that there were lots of columns, numbers, and… a bunch of lines?
Harry nodded towards her notes and asked her, "Hermione, what is that? The one with lines."
"What?" She asked, confused and looking around her memos but then realized what Harry was talking about, "Oh! These?" Hermione pointed to the lines Harry was looking at.
He nodded.
Hermione explained, "It's Japanese. The writing system, it has two scripts called Hiragana and Katakana. And of course, when I wrote them, I just copied them from the book… Anyways, on the bottom of that, I wrote down the pronunciation, so that we would know how to communicate with the people there if we need any help. You know, simple phrases like hello, goodbye, thank you, we're lost—which I hope we won't be, but just in case—, how do we get to…, and other things like that."
Malfoy frowned, "Well, that's going to be incredibly hard. Why can't we just use a translating spell? And yes, I know that we can't use magic because it's only for 'emergencies', but isn't it one? I mean, I'd call it an emergency considering that the writing is something that we can't even try to translate since it doesn't use the alphabet at all and speaking Japanese is definitely not something we learned… and even if we use your stupid translations, how are we going to understand them?"
He took another bite of his scone as if it were meant to give him the energy to argue back, swallowed, then spoke again, "We might know how to communicate with them, but how are they going to communicate with us."
Hermione leaned closer to glare at him and lowered her voice, "First of all, keep your voice down. Are you forgetting we're in the muggle world? And second of all, no. We are not using a translation spell, Malfoy. We're supposed to learn how to live like muggles, and muggles visit foreign countries all the time, which means that they have to deal with communication with people that don't speak their language, too."
Harry looked at Malfoy and Hermione, head turning every time one of them spoke. It felt exactly like the conversation Ron and Hermione had earlier this night when they were walking to the Gryffindor common room. Except this time, it felt more like a debate. And Harry, again, did not know where to side on, because they both had a point he agreed with.
"Yeah, okay, fine," Malfoy said as he narrowed his eyes, "But you're missing one thing: how are they going to communicate with us? We don't understand their language."
Hermione crossed her arms and went straight for her answer, "Well if you're a tourist, and you're staying at a hotel or at some place where most tourists go, they're going to have to know at least some English. And if not, sign language. Wave their hands a little, point to directions."
After that, they seemed to have an intense staring contest with glares and dirty looks included. But after a matter of time, Malfoy rolled his eyes and huffed. Hermione beamed proudly and went back to her notes.
And with that, Harry sighed and continued to eat his treacle tart.
...
Forty five minutes later, Hermione led Harry and Malfoy to Gate 14. She suggested that we get there an hour early so that the seats wouldn't be crowded and they would not have to rush to their gate and be late to their flight.
Hermione continued on with her notes (Harry thought, how many notes was she planning to take?) and Malfoy settled down and took out a book to read, which was inside his luggage.
And Harry, well, he didn't have anything to do. When he had looked inside his luggage to see what the school has packed for him, they had brought him muggle clothes in his taste and size, along with other things like toiletries. It seemed that they had also included the things that were on top Harry's drawer. Unfortunately, the only thing that was there was his Quidditch magazines that he already went over, and didn't feel like reading it over again, right now.
So Harry had ended up eyeing over Malfoy at the book he was reading. It looked familiar, but he wasn't sure where he had seen it before and he couldn't quite place it.
If Harry wasn't this bored, he would have just shook it off and find something else to do. But given that that wasn't happening anytime soon…
"What book are you reading?"
Malfoy flinched as he was interrupted from his reading, "None of your business, Potter."
Harry rolled his eyes, "You don't have to be a prat about everything. I'm just asking because I feel like I've felt like I've seen that book before that's all."
"Well," Malfoy said as he shifted his eyes slightly towards Harry, "It's… it's a muggle book."
Then it came right at Harry. He remembers where he had seen the book clearly now. Somewhere during the year, Hermione had dragged Harry to the muggles section in the library (because Ron had a "thing") and started showing him all the muggle books. He had seen that book in the pile of books Hermione gave him. Surprisingly, Harry was interested in the muggle novels. It was the first time he had read one of those, since the Durselys mostly spend their time in front of the telly, and never for books. The novels were just so interesting with the twists and plots simply for the entertainment of reading, and not just for learning.
But when Malfoy had announced that he was reading the muggle novel, Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. Malfoy was against all muggle… anything (although not like the silly deep hatred before; Harry thought he was just not used to things like that since he hadn't experienced them in his life. Take Hermione for example: Malfoy always calls her rude things, but unlike before, despite the harsh names he calls her, when it's just the two of them he's actually polite and formal— most of the time.)
"Oh! Yeah I have definitely seen this book before. And… I didn't know you read muggle novels, Malfoy."
"Well, I do because I like it," He snapped, "I don't need your judgements, Potter."
Harry raised his hands up and smiled, "I wasn't going to judge… just surprised that's all."
Malfoy seemed to relax from his stiff posture. After a long moment he finally turned and went back to reading his book and Harry went back to the state of boredom.
...
"So… this is where we're going to sit for eleven hours?" Malfoy asked eyeing the row of seats where the three would be sitting. There were three seats in a row.
Harry bulged his eyes out and looked at Hermione, "Eleven hours?" Bloody hell, Harry was going to be stuck on his seat, in the airplane, for eleven hours. He was starting to go against this whole "live like a muggle" thing, for the traveling part. Why couldn't they just Apparate them to Japan, then start living without magic.
"Yup," Hermione sighed warily, "We are traveling to a different continent, after all. And yes, I know that it is long, I agree too, but we have to deal with it if we want to complete the assignment."
"Now go in you two, you're holding up a line behind us." She said as she gestured to the people behind them.
Malfoy went in first and took the window seat which meant…
Harry was going to be sitting in the middle.
Oh, this was going to be a very long flight.
…
They had just took off and were in the air, right now. Harry was never going to admit this to anyone, but the take-off kind of threw Harry off a bit. He eyed at the window and gripped his handle tightly every time they would turn left or right, until all he could see was dark night sky. Not to mention his ears popping.
But a few minutes later Harry relaxed and told Malfoy to close the window since all there was outside now was the dark sky.
"Fine." He bit bitterly at Harry and snapped the window cover shut as loudly and forcefully as he could. Harry jumped from the loud noise.
He furrowed his eyebrows, confused by Malfoy's sudden unpleasant attitude, "Well, if you want it open then… open it." He didn't need to be such a git about it. But of course, Harry didn't say that aloud.
"No- it's not- never mind." Malfoy said as he pressed his right hand against his ear and glared into nothing. Harry blinked dumbly at him but then decided that he didn't want to get in his business. Malfoy is causing enough drama on his own (whatever the hell that bitter attitude was about).
With eleven hours to kill, Harry decided on finally re-reading through one of his Quidditch magazines again (which he had decided to keep it with him just in case). He flipped a page. Oh look, a new broom: Storm Flash One. "Speeding fast", "Best broom yet", "Perfect for professionals and for those who like to fly just for fun!", "The broom of the—
"Can you cut it out?" Malfoy shouted, turned to Harry, and shot daggers at him. Harry, once again, jumped from him seat from his sudden shout.
Harry was feeling very confused and angry. Malfoy's little attitude had turned into an episode and he was now turning it towards Harry. He bloody shouted in a plane full of muggles, for Merlin's sake! He turned to him and said the next couple words through his teeth, "Keep. Your. Voice. Down."
Malfoy glowered and leaned forward to Harry, "Then take that bloody hex off me!" Harry tugged on his arm and shushed him again.
He looked to his left to see why Hermione wasn't taking any say in this. Oh. She was sleeping. She must've been worn out by all of the planning, reading, and note-taking. It was night time, too, anyway.
"Look, I don't know if it's because you're being moody today, but I did not put any hex on you!" Harry whispered furiously, not wanting to wake Hermione up. He hardly thought so though, considering that she slept through Malfoy's angry shout earlier.
"Oh, don't play innocent, Potter. I know that you put that hex on me. Why else would I be feeling irritable around my ears? I feel like there's air pressure on it." Malfoy crossly replied back, angrily rubbing his ears.
Harry was infuriated. He most certainly did not put a hex on Malfoy's ears. They weren't even allowed to use magic on this assignment anyway! It wasn't Harry's fault that Malfoy's ears felt like there were "air pressure" on it.
Wait.
Oh. Oh.
Harry suddenly burst into laughter and had kept laughing so much that he had to put his hand over his mouth to not disturb the other passengers on the plane.
Malfoy's eyes widened as he stared at Harry. "What?" He asked incredulously.
Harry came up from his laughter, slapped him (for being such an incredible dimwit) and explained, "I didn't put a hex on you, you prat. Your ears just popped. Not literally, of course just that- the thing- agh never mind, I don't know how to explain. All you need to know is that the pressure that you feel in your ear that is making you feel partly deaf and uncomfortable is because of when we started to take flight because the air above the surface is less dense than the air below. Happens to lots of people on plane all the time."
"I- what?" Malfoy repeated again, much quieter this time, and stared at him in disbelief. Harry rolled his eyes and shoved an unopened water bottle that he had bought inside the airport, under Malfoy's nose.
His eye's darted towards Harry's hand, which was holding the water bottle below. "Drink it. It'll help your ear-popping problem." Harry explained.
Malfoy took the bottle and wrinkled his nose as he pushed Harry's hand away. He gulped at least half of the bottle by the time he was done (probably desperate to get rid of his ear-popping, Harry thought).
Harry snorted, "I can't believe you made such a fuss about it." He snatched the bottle from Malfoy's hands.
Malfoy narrowed his eyes and stole one of Harry's Quidditch magazines, rolled them up, and smacked him on the head with it. "Sod off." He said and tossed about the magazine to Harry.
The magazine landed on Harry's lap. Harry glared at it and Malfoy. Just as Harry brought up his hand to give Malfoy a good flick on his head, he stopped as a lady with a cart on the aisle came in sight.
He put his hand back down and stayed still as he listened attentively to what the lady and one of the passengers were conversing about.
A few sentences exchanged later, Harry finally caught on that this lady was serving dinner. Harry debated on waking Hermione up or not, and decided to wake her up since he didn't want her to sleep with a (kind of) empty stomach.
"Hermione," Harry whispered to her as he shook her shoulder gently, "I think they're serving dinner now."
Hermione's body shifted towards Harry as she replied faintly, "Hm? Dinner, you say?"
She suddenly bolted right up and said in a clearer voice, "Dinner! Yes, right, dinner. The flight attendant should be coming to our row, pretty soon." Harry nodded. So that was what the lady was called. A flight attendant.
Harry turned around to his other side and let Malfoy know that they were going to serve dinner.
…
Harry was halfway finished with his chicken and rice, and was just about finished with his salad. Airplane food weren't too bad, despite of what Malfoy kept on rambling about (but of course, he Malfoy kept eating anyway; they were all hungry).
He was also in the middle of telling Hermione the story of Malfoy's tantrum ("It was not a tantrum, Potter.")
"Seriously though, when he shouted it was so loud. But when I looked at you, you still slept through it!" Harry said as he swallowed a mouthful of chicken and rice.
Hermione covered her mouth from giggling and she shifted to look at Malfoy, who was rolling his eyes. She shook her head and pointed a finger to him, "You're lucky that no one complained or got angry from the amount of noise that you were making."
"Look, I wasn't that loud." Malfoy said, raising his eyebrows.
Harry and Hermione gave him a look.
"Fine, maybe I was." He waved his hand and went for another scoop of his meal, which was also chicken and rice. He and Harry had just got whatever Hermione got.
Harry and Hermione turned back to their food and continued eating.
"You know," Hermione started, lowering her voice so that only Harry could hear, "hearing about your 'big fight' with Malfoy earlier, it made me think. We wouldn't want to fight like that every single day of this trip, wouldn't we?"
Harry shrugged, while taking another spoonful of his meal. Fighting with Malfoy didn't seem so serious now. It felt to Harry that it was just an insult here, a jeer there, but nothing seriously offensive. It seemed the same with Hermione, but they had more of a formal relationship now, unlike Harry.
"So, we should make a truce." Hermione proposed, still speaking only to Harry.
Harry nearly choked on his food.
"A truce?" Harry asked with Malfoy chorusing behind him. They were both looking to Hermione in bewildered expressions. Looks like Malfoy had heard what she said.
"Yeah," Hermione continued slowly and eyed the two of them carefully, now that the idea is out of the bag, "What's wrong with a truce?"
Harry rested his head above his palm, with his elbow on top of the arm rest, as he stared at the tray of food and began to cogitate Hermione's sudden suggestion. A truce wouldn't be so bad, wouldn't it?, Harry thought to himself. It'd be nice to have a decent conversation with just the three of us, and no 'Potter, this. Potter, that.'
He got up and faced Hermione. "Nothing," Harry said lightly and shrugged, "A truce sounds good."
Hermione waved her hand towards Harry and expressed fervently, "Exactly. It's what we need if we want to have a peaceful week. We're stuck together anyways, right?"
"So," She looked towards Malfoy, "What do you say? Truce?"
Malfoy was tight-lipped as he considered— or at least thought about the idea of a truce. "Explain this… truce." He inquired, narrowing his eyes.
"Hm," Hermione wondered aloud, "No retorts, for any matter, if we don't want to be constantly fighting."
Harry cut in, "Er—"
"— Yeah, not going to happen." Malfoy interrupted, shaking his head.
Hermione rolled her eyes, "Okay, fine, since apparently you guys can't survive a day without saying at least one sarcastic remark to each other, we'll say no retorts for some matters."
Malfoy sighed, "Fine. Polite conversation half of the time. Anything else?"
Harry shook his head. That seemed to be just about it.
But Hermione seemed to have one more in mind. "Yes," She announced, "We should all be on first-name basis. It seems silly to be calling each other by our last names."
Malfoy widened his eyes as he wore an expression that looked dramatically stricken. On the other hand, Harry nearly fell off his chair, but fortunately his seat belt across his waist was on. Otherwise, he would have looked just as dramatic as Malfoy.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Hermione cried out, looking completely annoyed by the two pettiest boys in the world, "Get over yourselves."
Harry and Malfoy frowned as they both thought over of having to call each other on a first-name basis and having to keep it courteous (on 'some matters').
Malfoy spoke up, "Look. I want to put in another ground rule from myself if you want me to agree on this thing. This 'truce'— is only for this stupid trip. The second we set foot on Hogwarts, it's back how it used to be."
"A hundred percent, fine with that." Harry nodded. He would love nothing more than to go back to the usual where he could simply just ignore Malfoy.
Hermione and Harry both agreed to Malfoy's—who was now to be called Draco— ground rule of the truce, while he had agreed to theirs.
…
Eleven hours on the plane and another hour on the bus ride to the hotel, they were able to check in under the strange name 'Erodel B. Mud' around 5 P.M in the hotel. Eager to get some real rest rather than just sleeping on an uncomfortable seat on the plane, they had all rushed up to their hotel room.
After Hermione put in the key card, she opened the door. Harry was met with a neat large room with a TV, a small couch in the corner, a circle table in front of it, and…
Two twin beds?
He looked beside him where Hermione and Malfo- Draco was being awfully quiet, and got the hint that they had noticed too.
Draco coughed. "I think there has been a mistake. Did they give us the wrong room?"
Hermione scratched the back her head and squirmed in her position, "Er… how do I say this. I think that whoever was in charge of booking hotels for the student in Hogwarts, forgot to change our hotel room to three beds, instead of two, since you know… we're the only group that has three people. You joined in last minute, too, so."
"Well this is just great." Mal- Draco replied. "Where am I supposed to sleep then? And if we're doing any of that girls sleep with girls and boys sleep with boys type of bollocks, then I'm out."
Harry cringed, "Count me out, too." There was no way in hell Harry was going to sleep in the same bed with Malfoy.
"Don't be silly," Hermione waved her hand, "A twin bed is too small for two people, unless they squish together." Harry and Draco looked at each other and shuddered.
Hermione bit her lip as she thought. "Why don't we push these two beds together and sleep horizontal?" She suggested as she pointed which way we would be sleeping.
"How the hell are we supposed to fit our entire height of body sleeping like that?" Draco's nose wrinkled. "Our legs would be dangling on the end. Or if you want all your blood to rush to your head and have neck pain in the morning, feel free to let your head dangle instead." He quipped.
She glared at him and said, "It's either your legs dangle, or you two," Hermione pointed at Harry and Draco, "squish together in one little bed, while I have a whole bed to myself." She shrugged, "I'm fine either way."
Draco frowned but gave in, anyway. Not like he had the choice.
So after a long day, they were finally able to unpack, change their clothes, and get some real rest (after a full five minutes of pushing the two beds together).
Hermione shut off the lights after they had settled in bed— Harry by the wall, Hermione in the middle, and Draco at the edge— and Harry was lying there, tense, and surrounded by darkness.
"Well this is… er, comfortable." Harry awkwardly said to the dark.
Harry felt the bed dipped as someone shifted. "Yes, very 'comfortable' indeed." Draco replied from the other side of the bed.
"This day was weird, huh? It happened all so fast, and now we're on another continent." Harry continued, still staring into the blackness.
"Mhm. So tell me, Harry. Are we allowed to fall right asleep, or do we have to talk about how our day was first before we get to sleep?" Draco deadpanned.
"Hey," Harry complained, "Truce."
"Technically, I wasn't insulting you directly. I was just being sarcastic about what a talker you are." Draco pointed out.
Harry scoffed and rolled his eyes even if no one could see. "Whatever."
"Both of you are talkers." Hermione murmured with her face in her pillow. Harry turned his head to the voice. "Now shut up and go to sleep." She mumbled.
Draco snorted from across the bed and Harry felt him shift as the bed dipped again. He sighed and continued to stare into the darkness until he finally fell asleep.
Please tell me what you guys think! Should I continue and post their days in Japan?