Disclaimer: Everything that I didn't come up with (most of the characters, etc.) J. K. Rowling did. They're hers, I'm not trying to steal them from her. Everything that J. K. Rowling didn't come up with (the plot, etc.) I did. The copyright belongs to me, so don't steal it. Thank you.
Harry Potter and the Summer of Adjustment
a fanfic by Jessica Brown (alias)
Chapter One: Shock
The end-of-the-year feast came all too quickly for Harry. He couldn't believe that he had just finished his sixth year at Hogwarts—and that he was facing another summer with the Dursleys. Dumbledore sat up at the teacher's table, beaming down at his students. He shook his head, smiling, then leaned over and mumbled something to Professor McGongal, who nodded in response. He stood up, and all the students fell silent.
"As you all know, I, along with the other teachers at Hogwarts, have been discussing the rule on weather or not you will be allowed to use magic outside of school. Seventh years—" Dumbledore addressed the older students, his eyes twinkling. "This does not apply to you. You can resume your conversations, but please allow the other students to listen." Many of the seventh years turned to each other and started chatting. "We have decided to allow students going into the fifth, sixth, and seventh years to use magic over the holidays. However, its use will be closely monitored and any misuse will lead to a suspension of this privilege." Many of the students began to talk to each other excitedly, and all of the fourth, fifth, and sixth years had grins on their faces. Dumbledore smiled. "Thank you, and have an enjoyable summer."
"This is great! I don't want to go back to the Dursley's, but now that we can use magic it will be a little better." Harry sighed. He couldn't stand the thought of being alone with his aunt, uncle, and cousin for the whole summer. He wished he could stay at school, or with one of his friends. At least the use of his magic might make his vacation bearable.
"I'd invite you to stay with us, but my parents and I are leaving for the U.S. on vacation on July first. You'd have to leave after a couple weeks," said Hermione, as if reading his mind.
"Yeah, and my parents are being sent to Bulgaria on Ministry business from June until early August… I'm supposed to stay home with Bill and keep house," Ron said with a grimace. "Promise you'll write, okay?"
"Sure. As long as you write me, too," Harry said to both of them.
"I'll write from the U.S."
"And I'll write from…" Ron glanced around dramatically and lowered his voice so only the two could hear. "…home!!"
They all laughed as they got up from their table and headed up to the Gryffindor tower.
"It won't be as bad as usual this summer," Harry commented slyly. "I pretty much have the Dursleys under my thumb, especially now that we can use magic during the holidays. They also know that Sirius is my godfather."
Hermione gave him a quizzical look.
"But they think he is a murderer." Harry explained quickly. "They know that I keep in touch with him, and let him know how I'm doing." He grinned at Ron. "As long as I'm okay, Sirius won't bother them."
They all giggled as they split and climbed the stairs to their respective dormitories to pack and rest for their journey back to King's Cross the next day.
*************
The weather was horrible when Harry, Ron, and Hermione boarded the Hogwarts Express. Streaks of lightning split the dark gray sky into tiny pieces. Cold rain plummeted from the sky, drenching the students to the bone. Harry threw his cloak over Hedwig's cage, and Ron did likewise for Pigweigon.
"Welcome home, huh?" Ron said with a grin as he situated his cloak to best shield his owl. "Could have fooled me."
They all piled onto the train and managed to get a compartment to themselves. They had just put their baggage away when the compartment door flung open and Fred and George burst in.
"Hello all!" Fred said with a grin.
"Anyone up for a game of exploding snap?" George asked.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat staring at them, mouths open, at a loss for words. "What are you doing here?" Harry managed to say. "You guys—"
"Graduated last year?" Fred cut in with a grin.
"Of course. If we had failed or something, you lot would know about it. We decided to pay you all a visit." George looked extremely satisfied with himself.
"It's bound to be a rather boring trip back if we aren't around, right?"
"Besides, we are the ones giving you rides home."
Hermione looked confused. "All of us?"
"Right-o. We volunteered our services to your parents, Hermione, and they said that would be fine," Fred commented solemnly. With a flick of George's wand, Fred became dressed like a cabby. The corner of Fred's mouth quirked up. "Weasley Wizard Transport, at your service."
"And you, Mr. Potter," George said, gravely. He struggled with his expression for a moment, before his face broke into a grin. "We paid your relatives a little visit. They agreed to let us pick you up fair quick." George was also decked in a cabby's outfit.
"That's a surprise," Harry muttered.
"What about that game of exploding snap?" Ron asked.
"Right!" Fred exclaimed. "Bet you all five knuts that George and I win every game."
"Okay—I'll take that bet." Harry said.
"I will, too," Hermione chimed in.
"And I," Ron said slyly. "Hope you're feeling lucky, guys."
After several games (all of which Fred and George lost) they all started getting hungry. The food cart usually came around every thirty minutes or so, but it hadn't appeared yet. "Say, where did the food cart get to?" George asked, his brow furrowed.
"I dunno. It usually comes by about this time." Ron said. "I'll go see if everything's okay."
"Okay. And Fred an' I will go to the next compartment… have to say hello to everybody." George said, grinning at Hermione and Harry.
"We'll have to drop a visit to that Dudley git this summer. I think we made a pretty good impression the last time we met," Fred said with a wink at Harry. "So long, then."
As soon as the three Weasleys left, Harry turned to Hermione. "Care for a game of chess?"
"Sounds great."
Harry found his chess set in his luggage and set it up on the table. After they had been playing for a few minutes, Hermione broke the silence.
"What exactly did Fred and George do to Dudley?" she inquired.
"Aww, nothing. Just gave him some candy. To be friendly." Harry moved one of his knights.
Hermione gave him a stern look.
"Okay, okay. So it was a ton-tongue toffee. Dudley was on a diet, they were just trying to help out."
"Oh, right. I'm sure that helped—to make your relatives even more put off to wizards." Hermione said, moving a bishop.
"Mr. Weasley helped sort everything out. It was funny."
"Not for the Dursleys, I bet."
"If you knew the Dursleys, you'd be laughing at the thought of it."
"If you say so."
Harry looked up at Hermione, an odd smile on his face.
"What?"
"Check"
Hermione looked down at the chessboard. After a moment of thought, she moved her king to safety. Then she looked back up at Harry, matching his expression. "Bet I'll win this one."
"Bet you won't. You've never beaten me." Harry moved a pawn.
"There's a first for everything," Hermione said as she captured the pawn that Harry just moved.
"Not for this. Come on, Hermione, you know that I'm much better than you."
"Really?" Hermione said, looking up to grin at him. "Check."
Harry surveyed the board for a minute. He then moved his remaining rook to protect his king, and looked up at Hermione. "Checkmate."
Hermione stared at the board, then back up at him. "I'll play you again."
"If you say so…" Another grin quirked the corner of his mouth. "You going to win this time?"
Hermione grinned back. "Yup."
Just then, Malfoy burst through the compartment door, complete with Crabbe and Goyle. In a fraction of a second, he took in the scene, deciding how to best annoy the two.
"oooOOOooo…" sneered Malfoy. "Potter, are you having a nice romantic game with your girlfriend? I'm sorry, did I interrupt?"
Hermione rolled her eyes as she and Harry set up the board again. "He's so annoying," She whispered across the table to him. "And immature."
"Oh, you're whispering now? How sweet. What's she saying, Potter?" Harry glared at Malfoy over the game. "Oh, don't you worry, Potter. I'm not jealous. How could I be? Nobody with any brains would want to go out with a Mudblood—especially that one."
Harry jumped to his feet. "Don't you dare call her that!"
"Harry, it's okay!"
He whirled to face Hermione. "It's not okay!"
Malfoy smirked. "Now you're defending her. How cute. Why anyone would want do defend a Mudblood is beyond my comprehension, but…" Malfoy allowed his voice to trail off.
"It doesn't take much for something to be beyond your comprehension." Hermione quipped.
"Ooh, a feisty mudblood. How pleasant," Malfoy said sarcastically.
Harry snapped. Before anyone had time to pull their wands out, Malfoy was against the compartment door, out for the count, and Harry was massaging his hand. Crabbe and Goyle, who had been laughing, suddenly stopped. After a moment of what appeared to be thought, they lunged at Harry. Being twice his size, they easily floored him and started pounding on him.
"Harry!" Hermione squealed. She threw herself into the fight. She landed on Goyle's back and locked her arms around his neck. Goyle struggled for a bit before throwing her off. Crabbe caught her, and tried to strangle her. Harry punched Crabbe in the face. Hermione and Harry, both now free, faced Crabbe and Goyle. At the same time they whipped out their wands and threw hexes at the two… the hexes collided and filled the air with smoke. After a couple more minutes, Crabbe and Goyle were losing. Realizing this, they took Malfoy (still unconscious) and left quietly through the compartment door. Because the air was still full of smoke, neither Hermione nor Harry realized that the Malfoy trio had left. They jumped at each other, and Hermione ended up on top of Harry, pinning him to the ground. After giving him a few good punches in the face (which he returned), she pinned his arms to the ground. "You're beaten! Don't you even think about making me hurt you more."
"Her—my—o—nee?" Harry gasped. "It's—me—HARRY!"
With a wave of her wand, Hermione cleared the smoke, still lying on top of him to prevent an unexpected attack. "H—Harry?" she whispered slowly, eyes wide. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Oh my gosh, look what I've done to your face!"
Harry stared up at Hermione through a swollen eye, a split eyebrow, and a bloody nose. "I'm fine… are you okay? Is your nose broken?" He sighed. "Goddess, I can't believe I did that."
Hermione wasn't in much better shape. Her lip was bleeding, her nose was bleeding, and a dark circle was forming around her left eye. She stared back at him. For a moment, their eyes locked. Neither of them moved. A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the dimly lit compartment, casting a bluish glow over their faces.
Harry slowly reached his hand up and gently wiped the blood away from her mouth. "You sure you're all right?" he said softly, not taking his eyes from hers.
"Yeah."
Harry suddenly realized that Hermione's face was only inches from his own. He took a slow breath as redness crept into his cheeks, and he forced himself to shift his gaze out the window. "Er—d'you want me to clean up your face a bit?"
"Sure." Hermione had cut her eyes away also, and was blushing furiously. "I'll clean you up, too."
They stood up and made their way to a seat, where Hermione found a first-aid kit in the overhead compartment. She began finding the things they needed. "You shouldn't have hit him," she said quietly.
"He shouldn't have called you a mudblood." He met her eyes. "I'm sick of him treating you like that. I'm sick of him, period. That was the last straw." He winced as she began to clean his eyebrow.
"Well, thanks."
They had stopped each other's bleeding and had started healing the cuts (there was a list of first-aid spells included in the kit) when Ron burst through the door.
"Sorry I took so long, I ran into Dean, Seamus and Parvati. They wanted to play chess, then—" He stopped dead as he took in the scene before him. "What happened?" He asked, eyes wide.
"Malfoy and Company," Harry stated. He didn't want to get into explanations. He wasn't sure exactly what happened himself.
"Oh… are you guys okay?"
"We will be in a bit," Hermione muttered, preoccupied with reducing the swelling around Harry's eye. She looked at the spell sheet for a moment.
"Harry," Hermione said. "There's nothing here about black eyes." She continued scanning the page of healing spells. "All I could do was make the swelling to down."
"That's okay." Harry grinned. "I'll have to practice hand-to-hand combat now."
"Goddess, why?"
"Because next time I don't want to be beaten by you."
By the end of the journey, both Harry and Hermione looked relatively normal. As the train slowed to a stop, the three put on their cloaks and gathered their belongings. On the platform, Harry said goodbye to most of his friends, and set off with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, and George. It was going to be a long ride home… which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
***************
Harry was the second stop. They had driven the twins' taxicab to Hermione's house before heading over to Pivet Drive.
"Where'd you get this?" Harry had asked, referring to the taxicab.
"Bought it out of a muggle newspaper. Thought it looked like an interesting car." George had responded. "The only thing is, whenever we drive it around, people look at us, wave, and yell out, 'taxi!'. We can't quite figure out why."
At this Hermione and Harry had looked at each other with knowing grins. Both of them had been raised in the muggle world, and they knew how the taxi system worked. They kept it to themselves, however. They wanted to see when the twins figured it out.
As Harry climbed out of the car, Ron yelled after him. "You better write!" he called.
"Don't worry, I will!" Harry called back. With that the taxicab disappeared and Harry was left alone standing in the driveway. He turned and trudged up the steps, wishing that he were still in the backseat of the twins' cab.
He walked through the door, and dragged his trunk upstairs into his room. When he came back down, he heard the television in the living room, and went to say hello to the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon and Dudley were sitting in the recliner chairs, watching football. "Hi," Harry said. "I'm back."
Uncle Vernon grunted by way of a greeting, not taking his eyes off the screen.
"Where's Aunt Petunia?" Harry questioned.
"In the kitchen."
Harry walked into the kitchen, rolling his eyes. The Dursleys were always so polite. Petunia was at the sink, washing dishes. The corner of Harry's mouth quirked up. "Here, Aunt Petunia, let me help you with that." Harry pointed his wand at the sink, and muttered a spell. Aunt Petunia gasped and took a step back as the dishes magically cleaned themselves, dried themselves, and stacked themselves neatly on the counter. She turned on Harry.
"How dare you? You know that you aren't allowed to do that, I can't believe that you had the gall to do that in this house, I—" she paused for a second, noting the look on Harry's face. "What are you gawping at?"
Harry was staring at her. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times, at a loss for words.
"Oh, you didn't know about this, did you?" She said, placing her hand on her stomach as Harry shook his head, in answer to her question as well as in disbelief.
"How far—" Harry asked in shock.
"About eight months. Due on July the 7th." Aunt Petunia was beaming.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry asked. His tone changed from one of shock to one of anger. "How could you not tell me?"
"It would have been a waste of paper, an envelope, and a postage stamp."
Harry looked at her, a scowl on his face. "I shouldn't have done those dishes for you," Harry snapped. He lifted his wand. Petunia threw her hands up in defense. "Oh, knock it off. I'm not going to do a thing to you." He opened the refrigerator door and looked over its contents. "Aicco apple," he said, and one of the apples flew across the room and settled in his hand, the refrigerator door swinging shut after it. He then went up to his room leaving Aunt Petunia staring after him, her mouth open.