The
World Wide Web.
Jasmine
and Harry spent a lot of the afternoon holding hands and exploring the forest.
They ate their picnic and finally decided to ride back to Jasmine's house.
Harry and
Jasmine had kissed a lot, but neither had tried anything too rude. Jasmine
suspected Harry had never really been out with a girl before, but then, she had
never been out with a boy before either.
After a
long happy ride, the pair reached Jasmine's house. The sun had baked the pair
and they were both gasping for a cool drink when they dismounted in the alley
behind Jasmine's terraced house.
"Follow
me Harry," she said.
The
house looked quite small yet was tidy and well-kept. The street was one of the
poorer ones in town, but still Harry did not feel intimidated.
Jasmine
unlatched the high wooden back gate and wheeled her bike inside. A black and
white cat bounded up to mieow at her as she fumbled for her key.
"Looks
like no-one's fed Daisy today," she sighed.
"Are
all of your family named after flowers?" joked Harry nervously.
"Ha!
Course not, silly! My dad's called Barry and my Mum's called Kate. They'll be
at work, which is cool."
Harry
and Jasmine entered into the cosy little house. Harry noted the many inanimate
family photographs and felt a pang of jealousy that he had none of his own.
"Would
you like a drink or something?" asked Jasmine.
"Erm…
Yes please."
"You
are awfully polite aren't you?" giggled Jasmine. With that, Jasmine grabbed two
glasses and some cider from the cupboard and led Harry upstairs.
In her
messy room was a scruffy looking bed, many tatty looking posters of dragons and
almost-naked women holding impossibly large swords. The curtains were suspiciously
black, yet the rest of the room appeared quite normal. Part of Harry felt the
urge to clean up her room and he cursed his Dursley conditioning and sat on her
bed.
By her
bed was a small computer. Harry had seen these before, but only briefly. Dudley
had several and some even survived his tantrums to still be alive today. In
fact, Dudley seemed to spend most of his day locked in his room with one
nowadays.
Harry
contented himself during the next few awkward moments stroking Daisy, who had
followed Jasmine upstairs.
Jasmine
poured out the drinks and introduced Harry to her computer. At first it did not
seem too amazing, yet sounded fascinating. After worrying about Daisy being so
close to Jasmine's 'mouse' he finally sat down in front of it, draining his
glass of the pungent apple cider to bolster his resolve.
"Right,
it's almost loaded now. You get to play whatever character you like in a world
of fantasy," explained Jasmine as another half-naked women appeared on screen.
"Really?"
"Yep.
So if you want to be a wizard, you have to click on the mouse where it says
wizard."
"Right."
Harry sat confused. Jasmine clicked the icon for him, leaning across him to do
so, much to his secret delight.
After
ten minutes of Jasmine chastising Harry for never having used a computer
before, Harry finally had a small blue wizard with pointy ears moving around
'on-screen'.
"And
this is what you muggles do for fun is it?" asked Harry.
"Muggles?"
Jasmine noted that Harry was on his third glass of cider and seemed to be
relaxing a bit too much.
"Sorry.
It's a term we use at school for, well, non-Hogwarts… erm, people."
"Your
school's called Hogwarts? Sounds grim!" giggled Jasmine.
"Oh no
its not! I love Hogwarts! Better than home, that's for sure," growled Harry.
Jasmine
sensed Harry was getting all upset again after he had mentioned home. She hugged
him and Harry smiled. "Muggles huh?" she grinned.
"Sorry.
It's just so frustrating!" sighed Harry.
"What
is?"
"The
fact that you're a muggle." Jasmine stared at Harry sternly and Harry
apologised.
"I
don't know what a muggle is, but I don't like being called one in that tone.
Grrr." Jasmine took over from Harry at the computer and the pair sat in awkward
silence for a few moments.
"Sorry
Jasmine. It's just that.. . at Hogwarts
they teach... stuff which... cannot be found outside of Hogwarts."
"Whatever.
Anyway, here's the game. I keep playing it, even though it runs up a huge phone
bill. My mum keeps threatening to ban me from it, but she won't 'cos I only
work to pay of the bills."
Harry
watched drowsily as Jasmine showed him all about her game of dragons and
warriors. He also finished off the cider and in his stupor laughed at her.
"Oi!
What's up with you?" asked Jasmine, annoyed at Harry's thirst and apparent
ambivalence.
"You
call that magic? You want to see dragons? Do you fancy flying on my broomstick?"
Jasmine
giggled. "Ooh you animal you. Yeah baby!" she mocked.
Harry,
red-faced and flustered searched his pockets for his wand. Amazingly, he had it
on him, even though he was sure he had last left it locked up under the stairs.
However, he was planning to reveal his true self, so perhaps his memory had
been affected by the cheap cider. Jasmine looked startled as Harry pulled out
his wand.
"Okay,
stand back!"
"What –
it might go off in your hand and kill me?" she laughed.
Harry
ignored her and began summoning a spectacular fireworks show, especially for
her. Daisy the cat screeched and dived out of the room in panic, sensing
something bad was about to happen.
"Get
ready! Here it comes!" yelled Harry.
TO BE
CONTINUED…
[Eventually!
Apologies for the delay! It has been incredibly difficult to link this all in
for the main story to sort of work, and I still am not entirely happy with it –
suggestions please!]
Big hugs all…