Several days after the incident involving Harry "blinking in and out
of focus" in the living room on that fateful afternoon, the Dursley house
had returned to it's relative normality scale, even if it had to be
reminded once and a while, and in Harry's case, more often with force than
what was usually accustomed to be necessarily. Life went on, forcefully
smoothing out the wrinkles of bizarreness that Harry's little fiasco had
created. After the event was successfully smoothed over, Aunt Petunia and
Uncle Vernon had gone back to just barely tolerating him, and Dudley still
tore out of the room at the very sight of him. Not that that was a bad
thing, of course.
Harry should have known it was too good to last.
It all came rushing back, quite literally, at the worse possible time for that particular week. Or, worse yet, for that entire miserable summer. It all happened at a big company picnic/potluck sort of thing for Uncle Dursley's company, Grunnings, which made drills, trying to interest a smaller company, (which had been invited to this grand event) for business. The weekend lawn party took place at a local park, where several of the small businesses of interest was invited as well as the grand total population (a hundred or so) of the employees of Grunnings present. Before the actual lunch part of the party started, everyone was seated in rather rickety, metal fold-out chairs in front of a small elevated platform equipped with a microphone where Vernon Dursley now stood, clearing his throat gruffly, with rather excitable Aunt Petunia and Cousin Dudley in the corner of the raised platform, and Harry standing more or less out of sight, but still standing near enough to the platform and his relatives that he could still be loosely associated with them if someone bothered to ask. It was all going as smoothly as planned (which was pretty smooth), with Uncle Vernon droning on and on into the microphone, the audience sitting idly in their arguably uncomfortable chairs, and Aunt Petunia beaming in the corner and periodically strangling Dudley with hugs on the platform. The whole event was going far too smoothly for the likes of Harry Potter to be involved, whether it was his intention or not.
Stifling a yawn, his emerald green eyes snapped open with surprise as his muscles sort of froze up and... and...
Instead of fazing in and out and seeming to implode and stretch all at once, he simply just disappeared. But as I mentioned earlier, "just" is never a good word for describing Harry Potter. The actual time that Harry "disappeared" was only a couple of seconds, but the brief time period that he was gone was more than enough to create sufficient amount of damage. His disappearance wasn't noticed, but his reappearance certainly was.
There was an almost audible pop in the air and he fell down on something that was not uncomfortable. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He found himself staring into the very surprised face of a familiar girl just a year older than he in school.
Harry Potter had spontaneously appeared in the air and had fallen two feet in descent onto the lap of Cho Chang's, who happened to be the only daughter of the man who headed the main company of interest to Grunnings at Uncle Vernon's business party. Naturally, all chaos immediately erupted.
Ten minutes later, the entire event abandoned, Aunt Petunia was trying unsuccessfully to get Dudley safely in the Dursley company car, and Uncle Vernon was frantically apologizing to the Changs.
"You see, my nephew Harry.."
"Harry what?" Cho asked, suddenly taking interest in the mystery boy who had landed in her lap minutes before. After all, you usually didn't have boys with amazingly bright green eyes popping in your lap suddenly at large muggle gatherings.
"Harry Potter, but, you see..."
"Harry Potter!" the close family of three chorused.
"Eh?" Uncle Vernon managed to gurgle out.
"Oh, wow! Harry Potter! On your lap even, hon!" Mrs. Chang exclaimed. Uncle Vernon just stared, utterly confused. And he didn't like being confused, especially if it was with something as unusual as his nephew Harry.
Harry should have known it was too good to last.
It all came rushing back, quite literally, at the worse possible time for that particular week. Or, worse yet, for that entire miserable summer. It all happened at a big company picnic/potluck sort of thing for Uncle Dursley's company, Grunnings, which made drills, trying to interest a smaller company, (which had been invited to this grand event) for business. The weekend lawn party took place at a local park, where several of the small businesses of interest was invited as well as the grand total population (a hundred or so) of the employees of Grunnings present. Before the actual lunch part of the party started, everyone was seated in rather rickety, metal fold-out chairs in front of a small elevated platform equipped with a microphone where Vernon Dursley now stood, clearing his throat gruffly, with rather excitable Aunt Petunia and Cousin Dudley in the corner of the raised platform, and Harry standing more or less out of sight, but still standing near enough to the platform and his relatives that he could still be loosely associated with them if someone bothered to ask. It was all going as smoothly as planned (which was pretty smooth), with Uncle Vernon droning on and on into the microphone, the audience sitting idly in their arguably uncomfortable chairs, and Aunt Petunia beaming in the corner and periodically strangling Dudley with hugs on the platform. The whole event was going far too smoothly for the likes of Harry Potter to be involved, whether it was his intention or not.
Stifling a yawn, his emerald green eyes snapped open with surprise as his muscles sort of froze up and... and...
Instead of fazing in and out and seeming to implode and stretch all at once, he simply just disappeared. But as I mentioned earlier, "just" is never a good word for describing Harry Potter. The actual time that Harry "disappeared" was only a couple of seconds, but the brief time period that he was gone was more than enough to create sufficient amount of damage. His disappearance wasn't noticed, but his reappearance certainly was.
There was an almost audible pop in the air and he fell down on something that was not uncomfortable. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He found himself staring into the very surprised face of a familiar girl just a year older than he in school.
Harry Potter had spontaneously appeared in the air and had fallen two feet in descent onto the lap of Cho Chang's, who happened to be the only daughter of the man who headed the main company of interest to Grunnings at Uncle Vernon's business party. Naturally, all chaos immediately erupted.
Ten minutes later, the entire event abandoned, Aunt Petunia was trying unsuccessfully to get Dudley safely in the Dursley company car, and Uncle Vernon was frantically apologizing to the Changs.
"You see, my nephew Harry.."
"Harry what?" Cho asked, suddenly taking interest in the mystery boy who had landed in her lap minutes before. After all, you usually didn't have boys with amazingly bright green eyes popping in your lap suddenly at large muggle gatherings.
"Harry Potter, but, you see..."
"Harry Potter!" the close family of three chorused.
"Eh?" Uncle Vernon managed to gurgle out.
"Oh, wow! Harry Potter! On your lap even, hon!" Mrs. Chang exclaimed. Uncle Vernon just stared, utterly confused. And he didn't like being confused, especially if it was with something as unusual as his nephew Harry.