Hermione was a muggle.
It was hard for Hermione, always being the person who wanted to know everything that she possibly could and yet discovering there was a whole secret world right under her nose that she didn't know anything about. And to think that if it wasn't for her ex-next door neighbour, she'd know even less of it than she did now.
"I can show you places that you've only dreamt about," Dean Thomas vowed, waving his wand around in the air as if he could conjure them in a second. "Take you there in a flash before you've even blinked."
"Of course you can," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. He only grinned at her scepticism instead of taking offense. She'd had this all thrown onto her literally two hours ago. He didn't expect any other reaction from her.
"You muggles," he teased. "You always lack such imagination."
"Excuse you," she gasped. "I'll have you know that I obviously contain some imagination."
"And why's that, love?"
"Because I haven't called the Police to let them know about the deranged man sitting in my front room." Dean barked out a laugh and shook his head at her. "So, what else can you do with the stick?" she asked. He opened his mouth to correct her and she giggled, raising her hands to placate him. "Sorry, sorry. What else can you do with the wand?"
"I can turn a teapot into a tortoise." She blinked at his seriousness and raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Yeah, I know. Such a handy trick to have in life."
"What could you possibly want more with a tortoise than a teapot?" she questioned and he bit back a grin as she seemed to consider the answers to her own question. "So peculiar."
The pair sat there for a couple more hours, discussing everything about the world - excluding the war that had just occurred - until Dean realised that he had to get back to his new flat sooner rather than later otherwise Seamus and Neville would probably owl all of Dumbledore's army just to track him down and check he was okay. The paranoia and worry hadn't faded just yet.
"Before I leave, tell me a place you really want to go," Dean ordered. "Anywhere in the world."
"Anywhere?" she asked dubiously. "But I have so many."
"Pick a random one for now and we'll talk more about this list later." She chewed her bottom lip for a second before sighing.
"The pyramids in Egypt," she declared finally. "Why?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow, I've got to run." He pecked her on the cheek, not noticing the faint blush that followed and walked into her back garden.
"You're going to leave over fences, like some criminal running from the Police?" He chuckled at her and with a wink, disapparated from her garden with a crack. He wished that he could see her face.
"When you said that you were taking me to my dream place," Hermione said, "standing around a bag of dog poo was not what I had in mind."
Only two days after Dean had broken his magical news to Hermione, he'd appeared at her front door, knocked impatiently until she answered and declared that they were leaving. She was thankful that her parents had already left early that morning to open the practice otherwise he would've experienced some choice words.
"Didn't I mention your lack of imagination already? I'm sure I did, so pipe down."
"Dean," she whined, extending the vowels of his name. "I don't want to stand here with the poop bag any longer."
"It's not a poop bag." She glared at him, and the poop bag before he sighed. "Okay, so it is a poop bag but it's also so much more!" She tried not to laugh at the way his hands acted around his head, similar to those of a fake magician's. She failed; he pouted. "Touch it."
"I'm not touching it," she declined, taking a step back. "That is revolting."
"But how am I meant to show you the world if you won't touch it?" He grabbed her hand and inched her closer to the bag. "What will happen is when we both touch it, we'll go." She was definitely looking sceptical and the smell from the bag was a nice touch by the Ministry but he could've gone without it now just to persuade Hermione to touch it. "Please? Do you trust me?" He reached a hand out towards her and she chewed her lip again.
"Show me the world? Do I trust you? If I didn't know any better, I'd say you'd just watched Aladdin."
He smirked. "That would make me Aladdin, you the beautiful Jasmine, and this bag of poop my flying carpet." She sighed and placed a finger on the top of the bag, her face scrunching with disgust. "Don't let go until I say so," he told her before placing his finger next to hers.
Hermione experienced this feeling of a hook pulling her from her navel and she had to keep her teeth gritted shut just so that she could keep her stomach down. She didn't chance opening her eyes in case she saw something that just made the feeling worse. Her hair was fluttered all around her face. She could barely contain it before this, she was going to have no chance once it had all stopped.
"Let go now!" Dean shouted over the whirling wind around them. Hermione instantly removed her finger and abruptly fell, though she was only a few feet above the ground. Dean landed beside her and instantly came to her side. "Are you okay?" he asked, helping her to her feet and dusting the sand off her shirt. "Hermione?"
She didn't answer him. Couldn't answer him. She was lost for words.
"They're pyramids," she whispered in awe, staring at the magnificent monuments in front of them. "Are they real? Of course they're real," she carried on. Dean was grinning at her from her side and stepped a bit closer, resting the back of his hand against hers.
"Aladdin wins over Jasmine in the end," he commented. Hermione's fingers twined with his and his heart skipped a beat.
"Yeah, he did."
Written for Teachers Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The prompt was portkey.