Harry Potter liked spending time with his grandfather Esteban at the ministry of magic. There was always something interesting happening there.
Except for now.
Christmas ball at the ministry was opulent, ostentatious, and utterly devoid of anything even resembling amusement. Or at least nothing a mischievous six years old would consider amusement. The only people his age he had seen thus far came from the stuffiest, haughtiest, most bigoted blood purist families he knew. And he was forced into promising not to prank anyone that eve.
All in all, it promised to be one of the most boring experiences of his short life. All he could do was stick to his grandfather, and listen to him talk laws and politics. He made himself listen diligently because his previous experience with magical populace had thought him that wizarding world at large expected him to be all-wise and all-powerful, and while he could do nothing about the later, and, just about as much about the former, it would be prudent to at least appear knowledgeable.
So, he spent an hour and a half suffering thru the conversations he could barely, or not at all, understand, and frequent gawking at his scar.
And then he saw them. A middle aged, slightly balding man was lightly swaying a slight girl, who could not have been much younger then Harry himself, upon a dance podium. Both the man and his daughter were red-headed, but there was something particularly catching at the girl's particular shade of red hair.
He politely excused himself from his grandfather, and approached the pair. He tapped the men on the back and asked in his politest tone if he could cut in, that is if the lady would not mind.
Arthur Weasley got a surprise of his life as the young boy asked him if he could dance with his daughter. It was a pleasant surprise though. The boy was exquisitely courteous, but he did not appear to be stuffy, although it was a bit difficult to determine with a child that young. Still, as a father of six boys, his instincts told him that the child was to be trusted.
He gave the youth a friendly smile, and then turned to his pride and joy.
"What do you think Spark? Would it be OK, if I left you to dance with this lad, and go spin a few circles with your mother?" It was a low blow perhaps, but he knew his daughter, and he knew that there was no chance that she would refuse after he put it to her like that. Predictably, she agreed, all the time watching curiously at the boy who asked to dance with her.
As her father left them, and the boy followed him with his gaze, Ginny caught sight of a rather famous scar emerging from behind the boy's messed up bangs.
"Y…You…You are Harry Potter!" she exclaimed dumbstruck.
There was a rather saddened look in his expressive eyes for a moment, and then it vanished, and they began twinkling merrily as he grinned at her.
"Yep, but don't hold it against me!"
Without any though, Ginny started giggling at this, rather twins-like answer.
"I have to warn you, I'm not much of a dancer." She told him shyly.
"Tell you the truth, neither am I, but as long as we are having fun, who cares?"
Ginny's face lit up in a grin.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
School sounded like a nice sort of thing to Harry, and he was generally rather excited at the opportunity to experience the vaunted joys of education.
If not for the fact that Aunt Alice decided to enroll Neville along with Harry to the local school, a few blocks from Harry's grandparent's house, Harry would have died out from boredom after the first fifteen minutes. As it was, the two six year olds spent most of their classes playing a tic-tac-toe tournament. It went to their credit that they had not been caught unawares once, and without any hesitation gave correct answers to any question that their teacher gave them. It was not as if the questions were difficult anyways - there was nothing particularly profound in the first grade lessons.
They were accosted for it a week later by an annoying girl, a daughter of the pair of well respected dentists that lived few blocks away.
Her tirade about flaunting their prior education in front of those who were less fortunate then them was cut off by Neville's cold remark.
"So, it's all right and peachy if you do it, but not anyone else? Grow up Granger, you're not the center of the world." After which he had simply turned his back to her and started walking down the lane to Mr. and Mrs. Evans' house.
"How da…" Started outraged girl, but she was cut off by furious Harry.
"When you loose one or both of your parents, then come talk to either of us, and tell us how lucky we are, otherwise just keep your mouth shut. No one wants to listen to you, anyway." He snarled at her, before he too turned his back to her, and ran to catch up with Neville.
"You know, that was very rude. The fact that she was too, does not excuse our lack of manners."
"Mate, you have spent entirely too much time with mine grandmothers, and yours too." Harry gave his near-brother a lopsided grin.
Then he became serious, even forceful. "Besides, she was acting like a bully. She might not beat up on others, but she still acted like one. You know how that goes with me…"
Neville definitely knew.
Andrew Evans was an easygoing man, and his even tempered, and friendly and jovial nature was perfectly matched to his wife's fiery demeanor. The one time he lost his temper was when his grandson Dudley, the son of his elder daughter, started hitting his much smaller cousin.
Dudley received a through spanking on the spot, and then, Andrew got on the business of chewing out his daughter until she broke out in tears. Him, Rose and little Harry had left the house of Dursleys promptly afterwards. The image of his grandpa in rage was vividly imprinted in Harry's mind, and the impromptu lecture on bullies he received afterwards was so firmly imprinted upon him that he could repeat it verbatim any time, be it day or night.
Since that day, any indication of bullying in his presence had sent Harry up the wall.
"Still, mate that is not an excuse. For you particularly. You are, like it or not, a celebrity. If you go into flames at snotty behavior, all you will ever achieve is to become a bad joke."
"You are unwholesomely grown up for our age Neville." Harry answered him in disgusted voice.
Neville only shrugged.
"Someone has to keep you on your toes. Last one to the house is dragon dung!" As he was making the challenge, Neville had already bolted.
It didn't take long for Harry to catch up to him though, and they merrily raced down the street, with Harry, inevitably, winning. For a child so small, he could run as fast as wind.
And the next day at the school, a surprise in the way of very contrite Hermione expected them.
"I want to apologize for yesterday. What I said and did was really rude…" By the tone of her voice, and apprehensive expression upon her face, and… Actually, by her whole bearing, it was easy to deduce that she was very sincere, but also unaccustomed to apologizing to anyone.
"Yes, it was truly inexcusable…" Hermione's face fell at Neville's level tone, and inexpressive face.
"…But the fact that you had realized it is so, is enough for me. I forgive you, and while, we're at that, I hope you can ac…"
"No, mate, you have nothing to apologize for. You were somewhat abrasive, but that is as far as it went. I on the other hand had been truly uncouth, and said some tings I had no business saying. I'll accept your apology, Hermione, if you accept mine."
Those events set of something of a precedent for the future schooling of the three. Harry, more often then Neville, although not by any significant difference, would get in trouble for this and that reason, Hermione would rant at them after school, they would have a row, and the next day, or the next week if the row was truly heated, they would apologize to each other.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
For probably the first time in his life, Harry was at a complete and utter loss at what to do with himself. He was grounded and while that particular predicament was by no means unusual for him, the severe lack of things for him to do was. All the books he had in the room were either read so many times it was ridiculous, or were so boring they were impossible to read, uncle Sirius had, for the umpteenth time, filched his comics stash, all his toys were back at the mansion, and just that morning Sestra had cleaned up his room so even that was out. All he had left to busy himself with were his sketching pad and pencil – and he lacked an inspiration to sketch.
He wasn't deluding himself to think that he had any perceivable art talent; what he had was a whole lot of determination and a heck of a lot of practice that resulted in respectable skill. And working with his pad and pencil never failed to strike some deep peace in his usually restless soul.
His eyes flew around the room ceaselessly seeking, trying to find something - anything - to spark up that something within him that he got while sketching. But there was nothing. Not on the first sweep, not on the twentieth. He almost hurled his pad at a wall in frustration, but at the last moment opted to replace his beloved pad with the first thing he could grab with his free hand. It just happened to be one of the small tomes collecting his previous sketches his adoptive uncle Remus had bound for him. With a weary sigh he rose to retrieve it. If he did it really slowly, he figured he could waste at least half a minute.
As he picked it up his eyes fell upon the sketch of the girl he had danced with the past Christmas. It was his second to last attempt to work the sketch with ink. As all other attempts, it was neither here nor there some lines were good, others sloppy, ink smeared on some parts; but overall he figured he did a half decent job with the hair at least, using three different kinds of red ink and, on impulse a bit of his spelled golden one.
He tried to remember the girl's name. He thought it was something than –iny, but for the love of Merlin and the first Harold, he could not recall how it went. He sighed in frustration. He had had fun that evening, actually having someone his own age interested in the dance and everything in his upbringing as he understood it almost demanded from him to remember such details as the name of the lady he had danced with. It of course did not occur to him that the same social manners displayed and described by his grandparents could not apply in entirety to someone as young as him.
All the while an idea slowly hatched within his mind. Almost without any conscious direction he had begun to draw outlines upon a fresh piece of paper.
By the time dinner rolled around he was not even half done.
In the end, it took him something over three days to get it just as he wanted it, and by that time Sestra, with her usual quiet competence, had managed to secure both the address and the name of the recipient of the work.
