Chapter 2: Paris, Part II

The next morning, Harry was woken up by the same bushy haired missile that woke him yesterday.

"Harry! Harry! Wake up! We're going to the Louvre today, and maybe even the Eiffel Tower!" Hermione begged.

"I'm coming," Harry moaned as he slowly started getting up.

"I'll get him up," Sarah offered.

She jumped onto Harry's bed and started tickling him mercilessly.

"Okay, okay, I'm up." Harry pleaded.

He put on his glasses and saw that Sarah was sitting right in front of him.

"I may be ten and you may be almost thirteen, but just you wait, big brother," she promised. "When I start Hogwarts next year, there'll be plenty of me to go around."

"I can hardly wait," Harry muttered.

After getting dressed and cleaning up, the kids headed down to the hotel restaurant to meet their families for breakfast. Harry wasn't sure what to expect in terms of hotel cuisine, having only known France for their so-called diet of snails. Fortunately, he found that the Escargot was only on the lunch and dinner menu, either as an appetizer or a side dish. So, he and he rest of the family enjoyed a breakfast of eggs with French-fried potatoes, which they were glad was part of the French diet.

Soon enough, they were on their way to the Louvre, which Sirius was pleased to find was underground. He was glad that wizards and muggles had at least something in common and started acting on his best behavior, even though Lily was still sure it wasn't built to last. She assumed it would die down when Sirius found out that the pictures there didn't move. Hermione picked up a guide for the museum and the items it had on display, and when she put it down, people may as well have called her a junior museum guide. She considered it very much like being a prefect, because it involved taking people around, pointing out what's what, where it was, and most of all, insisting that people don't touch anything.

There are too many items in the Louvre to take them through via text, but I can talk about them seeing the museum's star attraction; the Mona Lisa. When the families reached it, there was a mass of people trying to get a glimpse, as back then, no flash photography was allowed there. Harry and Hermione were surprised to see one familiar face among the crowd. It was Harry's dorm mate and fellow Gryffindor student, Dean Thomas. I decided to add him to the story in a very brief cameo.

"Dean!" Harry called.

Dean turned around and was thrilled to see who was calling him

"Harry! Hermione! What are you guys doing here?" He asked.

"We're on holiday with our families," Harry replied.

"Me too," Dean added. "Have a look at this."

He showed them a sketchpad he was carrying and on the page was an almost exact copy of the Mona Lisa in pencil. Harry had to admire Dean's artistic skills and thought they'd have even more credibility in the Wizarding World, where pictures moved.

After saying goodbye to Dean when the museum trip was over, the group headed over to the Eiffel Tower and decided to go up to the top. The line for the cable car to the top looked extremely long, but Sirius decided it had to be better than walking all the way, especially wth he lessons he'd learned about complaining.

At the top, the couples were having their romantic moments. Lily and James embraced each other, even though Lily kept trying to make James look like a sap. Paul and Jane were debating which type of wine was better for human teeth. Remus and Dora were getting a little… well depends on what you mean by "sexy". Remus, being a werewolf, growled through his teeth, while Dora turned her hair red, to symbolize "European Blood". Sarah watched them all in disgust and turned her attention to two others who hadn't gone too far.

Harry and Hermione were looking out over the city with their trademark hats on. They'd look at each other and smile every few seconds before either of them went to adjust their hats.

"Kissy kissy!" Sarah shouted at them.

Harry groaned.

"Note to self," he muttered. "Next time, tickle Sarah."

After spending an almost romantic afternoon at the Eiffel Tower, talking and thinking about their lives as if they had absolutely nothing to worry about, they headed back to the hotel to shower and head to dinner. They headed to a less expensive restaurant where they were surprised to see Dean and his family again. With the manager's permission, Dean's family brought their table over to the Potters' and Grangers' table and dinner seem much more animated. After saying goodbye again, the families headed back to their hotel and crawled into bed.

Tomorrow would be much more exciting as, the families would be going to some more adventurous places, which would remind them very much of how Hogwarts was in the other timeline.

The next morning, Harry was up before both Hermione and Sarah and had a rather clever and amusingly despicable idea. He started bouncing on a Hermione's bed to wake her up.

"Hermione! Hermione! Wake up!" he fake begged. "We're going to Notre-Dame and the Catacombs today! Who's knows what we could discover there!"

Hermione woke up frowning at Harry, knowing exactly where he took this from.

"I think I've had a bad influence on you," she grumbled.

Her frown immediately twitched into a smile and the two of them started laughing, until Harry saw Sarah, still sleeping.

"Speaking of bad influences," he muttered.

He ran over to the bed, cracked his knuckles and, you guessed it, started tickling Sarah mercilessly. She woke up laughing hysterically, until she saw who was doing it. Need I say more?

Anyways, after getting dressed and washing up, the three of them headed down to meet their families for breakfast; same place, same food. After picking up the cheque, they headed out the hotel door and towards the Notre Dame cathedral. This had to be the greatest of all of France's landmarks, as it was much older than the Eiffel Tower and made entirely of stone. But in terms of size, Sirius thought Hogwarts might put it to shame.

When Hermione saw it for the first time, she made note to start reading Victor Hugo's novels, someday. The only exposure she had to Hugo was that one time her parents took her to see Les Misérables at the Palace Theater in the West End of London for her tenth birthday. I mention this because Victor Hugo is known for writing not only Les Misérables, but also Notre-Dame de Paris, or in English, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Harry, meanwhile, was excited about the next part of their holiday, at EuroDisney, and his attention was diverted at the gargoyles guarding the outside parapets. He noticed Hermione looking as if she were taking something in.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"Victor Hugo's novels," she replied.

"What about them?" Harry asked.

"He wrote Notre-Dame de Paris," she replied. "Or, The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

"Oh," Harry realized.

He thought again for a minute.

"I just thought," he stated. "Wouldn't it be funny if Disney made a film out of that?"

"I wouldn't count on it," Hermione decided.

Harry's attention was still directed at the gargoyles outside. He also couldn't help but wonder…

"Wouldn't it be funny if Disney made a series out of those?"

But those thoughts were just mere coincidence, don't forget it.

Eventually, it was time to visit the catacombs. It was so dark and dank, Hermione wondered if this was someplace Victor Hugo had written about or wanted to. There were hundreds of bones aligned everywhere from skull to foot, which made Harry think that Voldemort had nothing on this. To James, Sirius, and Remus it seemed utterly familiar.

When they set foot down there, staring at all the alignment of bones, it sparked some imaginations, particularly James, Sirius, and Harry. James and Sirius thought this had to be what most of the Hogwarts students in their day expected when they heard about the secret passageways under the castle.

Hey, "great minds" think alike, don't they?

Harry, on the other hand, thought maybe Salazar Slytherin, could have done this with the bones of his victims, if he had the imagination. Harry suggested this to his father, godfather, and honorary uncle and thought this was something that would have made Molly Weasley flip. Lily, on the other hand, kind of agreed with them. In the other timeline, she wouldn't approve of these kinds of thoughts at all, but in my universe, she's learned to lighten up a little.

After this little underground adventure, both families returned to their hotels to shower and pack their belongings before getting ready for dinner. Tomorrow, they'd check out of their current hotel and move to a hotel in the EuroDisney Resort Area, so they thought they'd pack their belongings now so they wouldn't have to when they got back from dinner.

They decided on something simpler, as tomorrow, they'd move on to their primary objective on this trip; EuroDisneyland. Before dinner, though, they decided on browsing through some more of the shops, like the Pierre Cardin boutique and the Lanvin flagship store, before passing the United States Embassy before heading off to dinner. They decided on something simple tonight, so they entered a small pizza restaurant. The food tasted about as ordinary as the pizza back home, but there were lots of French-fried potatoes in it for them.

After dinner was over, the groups headed back to the hotel and got into bed. There was even more excitement for them now, as Hermione struggled to restrain her extreme giddiness that stemmed from over-enthusiasm. But before Harry drifted off to sleep and got ready to dream of EuroDisney, the first thing he thought was that Hermione needed a name for her blue beret. After all, he was the one to come up with Lucky Lennon.