Disclaimer: I know it, you know it, WE ALL know that Harry Potter belongs
to JKR. I'm not JKR. It does not belong to me. So there, you police
dudes. *police back off still glaring suspiciously at me*
A/N: I know this idea has been done a HUGE number of times, but guess what? I'm gonna do it too!!! Sorry for the insanely long periods of time between updates, but I DO write you long chapters, riiiight? So I hope it makes up for it.
Summary: When a certain person is depressed after a certain person's death, another certain person and that certain person get transported back in time and meet other certain people, and the first certain person is still depressed but starts to heal with time. Get it? He's back in time, he's healing with time ... yeah. I'm sooooooooooo funny.
Okay, third chapter! Here you go!
*~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~*
As soon as the four heard footsteps outside the portrait hole, Harry and Hermione scurried up the stairs to their new dormitories.
Harry looked around. It was exactly the same as in his time ... but somehow different, as if missing something.
He sat down wearily on his bed. It wasn't fair. Seeing his father ... and Sirius ... both of whom were dead in the future ... it made his head ache with the emotions swirling around inside him.
He put his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. He wished that Ron were there. He'd cheer him up.
Just thinking of his best friend, and not knowing whether he would be able to see him again, made Harry's mood drop even lower. Finally he decided to go to sleep, in hopes that his spirits would improve by morning.
~*~
Hermione lay awake for hours, hands behind her head, staring up at the canopy. She was just rolling over to close her eyes when the dormitory door opened and light flooded into the room. Hermione wrenched the hangings shut far too late.
"Hannah?" said a girl's voice. She was giggling. "Is that you? Come on, you goose, you're missing out on all the –"
The girl ripped aside the curtains to reveal Hermione with her head under the covers. The other girl laughed. "Oh, come on, Hannah, don't be such a spoiler," she said, and pulled the sheet back.
Hermione looked up.
"Oh –" said the girl. She turned bright red. "I – I'm sorry – I thought you were my fr... wait, who are you? I haven't seen you before."
Hermione sat up to get a better look at this girl. She was silhouetted against the light coming from the door, so her features were invisible.
"Uh – it's hard to explain ..." began Hermione. She stood up. "You see – me and my friend Harry – we're –"
"Well, first of all, what's your name?" asked the other girl. She flicked her wand, and the torches around the walls flared into life, lighting up the room and revealing her face.
Hermione gasped.
The girl had long, auburn hair that fell in soft waves down just past her shoulders. She was small and slim, and had startlingly green eyes.
Very familiar green eyes.
"L-Lily?" Hermione stammered. The other girl was instantly alert, and held up her wand warily.
"Okay, who are you, and how do you know my name?" she asked, her tone edgy and sharp. Hermione hastily dropped her wand onto the bed beside her, and raised her hands in the air.
"I'm Hermione Granger, and I know you from – from – pictures," she said, somewhat desperately. The redheaded girl looked suspiciously at Hermione.
"How'd you get in here?"
Hermione sighed. "Look, it's a long story, and it'll all be explained tomorrow morning at breakfast, okay? I'm tired, goodnight," she said wearily, climbed back under the covers, and closed the hangings, leaving a very confused and suspicious girl standing alone.
~*~
That night, Harry tossed and turned a lot, waking up every two hours, it seemed. He couldn't seem to stay asleep. He kept dreaming of his father, and Sirius, and Remus, and his mother, and Peter Pettigrew.
At four in the morning, Harry woke again, biting his lip to keep from crying out.
~*~*~*~*~Dream~*~*~*~*~
"Harry ... Harry ..."
"Leave me alone."
"Harry ... it might even be painless ... I would not know ... I have never died ..."
"Shut up."
"Lily! Go! Take Harry and go, I'll hold him off!"
An evil cackle filled the air and echoed around his head ... a blinding flash of green light ... his mother's scream ...
~*~*~*~*~Reality~*~*~*~*~
Harry woke up with his scar burning and his hand clapped tightly over his forehead. He was sitting bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily and sweating.
He shuddered. The stupid old nightmare was back again.
He glanced at his watch and groaned, seeing that it was only four o' clock. He tried consistently to fall asleep again, but couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the laughing face of Voldemort, and the sneer of Wormtail just behind.
Harry grimaced at the thought of them both. He tried one last time to drift off, but finally gave up. Swearing under his breath, he swung his legs off the bed and onto the floor. He dressed quickly and went down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. Where would he go when people started to come down? He wished he'd thought to bring his Invisibility cloak.
Harry gasped.
It was his father's Invisibility cloak!
Harry went back up to the sixth year boys' dormitory and crept on tiptoe over to James' bed. Harry felt around under it, and brought out a trunk. He whispered "Alohomora," and it opened with a quiet click. He rummaged around through it, picking his way carefully under dirty shirts and odd socks. How lovely. His father's dirty socks. What a souvenir.
Finally, buried under a pile of odd junk, Harry pulled out the fluid-like cloak. He quickly put everything back inside the trunk as it had been, closed it, and pushed it back under his father's bed. Harry tucked the cloak under his arm and hurried back down to the common room before anyone could wake and hear him.
~*~
Hermione tossed in her bed one last time and then sat up, rubbing her eyes and biting her tongue so as not to scream with frustration. She was tired and wanted to sleep! Why couldn't whatever God there was listen to her pleas and let her rest? Hermione sighed. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well go down to the common room and wait to be discovered there.
Getting dressed in the dark was not as easy as it sounded. She stubbed at least three different toes and banged her head against a bedpost. She was surprised the thud didn't wake anyone.
When she was finally finished, she whispered "Lumos," and looked at herself in the mirror to check that she'd gotten dressed properly, which she had. She quickly whispered "Finite," and the light from her wand went out. She tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs to the common room. A figure with messy black hair was sitting on the couch, staring into the fire.
"Uh – Harry?"
~*~
Harry looked over his shoulder to see her in the stairway. "Oh – hullo, Hermione," he said, yawning. She yawned too. "You couldn't sleep either, then?"
"No," she admitted, coming and sitting down beside him. "Not a wink. Kept waking up all night long."
"Same here. My old nightmare – it – happened again," Harry said, sighing and staring at the fire. He felt her arms go around him.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"It's not your fault," he mumbled.
"I can only imagine what you must be going through right now," she said somewhat awkwardly. "You know we can't tell the people here anything about our time and what's happened, right?"
"I know."
"You must be so torn up about Peter Pettigrew. I know I am."
"Yeah."
They sat like that for a long while, staring at the flames and not saying anything.
"Oh – I found this," said Harry suddenly, and showed Hermione the Invisibility cloak that he'd taken.
"How did you – oh, Harry, you stole it?"
"Not exactly ... it'll be mine someday, right?"
"But not today! Go put it back."
"What about when people start coming down?"
"We'll explain at breakfast, remember?"
"Fine. I'll go take it back to my dad, then," Harry sighed.
"Oh – that reminds me – Harry, last night I met your mum."
There was a silence. Harry froze. "M-my mum?" he said, swallowing hard. All of this was coming to fast at him, one thing right after another.
"She was rather suspicious of me, as a matter of fact."
Harry chuckled weakly. "She was?"
"Had her want out and everything. Although, I suppose I would have done the same, being in that situation," Hermione said, smiling as Harry laughed quietly. "I'm sorry for bringing her up. Just, talking about your father's clock reminded me, and you're going to meet her sooner or later anyway –"
"I know, it's all right," said Harry, but his throat tightened as he thought of his mother.
The two friends sat in silence for a while longer. The flames danced and crackled and sparked, making Harry even sleepier than he was already. Hermione yawned and rested her head on his shoulder, curling up on the couch and tucking her legs underneath her. To make his arm more comfortable, and for no other reason, he lifted it up and let her snuggle up against him, and he dropped his arm. It happened to land around her shoulder, but that was a combination of coincidence and gravity, of course. Absolutely not a thing more.
Harry glanced down at Hermione and felt a very unexpected twist in his stomach. He shook his head and looked back at the fire. Perhaps it was because he was still extremely tired; perhaps it was because the weight of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours was getting to him. Perhaps he was simply crazy. But where had that feeling come from?
Voices startled him out of his thoughts.
"... I didn't see him in the dorm – oh, here he is! Harry, up so early?" Sirius said as he came down from the dormitories. He grinned when he saw Hermione there as well. "I see. Lucky with the ladies, are we?" Harry turned bright red, and Hermione sat up, twisting around to glare at her friend's godfather.
"For your information, Sirius Black, Harry and I have known each other since we were eleven years old. We're FRIENDS. Can you get that through your thick skull?"
Harry snorted while Sirius raised his hands in surrender. "All right, all right! I've seen what you can do with a wand, I'm not about to argue," he chuckled. "Although I'm positively certain that I could beat you in a fair, organized duel."
"I seriously doubt that," said Hermione sweetly, and Harry laughed outright. Sirius frowned as James came down the stairs.
"Morning, all," James yawned, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. "Woss going on?" he said, sounding still half-asleep.
"Granger here reckons she could beat me in a duel, mate," said Sirius. James laughed.
"Hah! I'm not sure just who would win!"
"Oh, come on, you really think she could beat me?" Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"Those two cursed you up pretty good the other day, Padfoot," chortled James.
"They did you too. Hey, where'd they go?"
Harry fought not to laugh. While his father and godfather had talked, he'd pulled the Invisibility cloak over himself and Hermione. She was biting her lip so as not to laugh as well. James and Sirius were looking around the common room.
"Weren't they just there on the couch?"
"Yeah, where'd they go?"
"You know, I think they've given us the slip."
"Very observant of you, Prongs."
"Why, thank you."
"They're probably still around somewhere."
"We'll ignore them."
"Good idea. So, have Quidditch practices started yet?"
Harry tuned out of their conversation and thought instead of his own beloved Firebolt back in his time. He wondered whether he should try out for the Gryffindor team while he was here or not. After debating with himself, he decided against it. What if he was transported to the future during a game? No, it certainly wouldn't do.
Harry felt a tug on his sleeve. "What?" he whispered so Sirius and James wouldn't hear. They were now talking of pranks and were fully absorbed in their own conversation, so wouldn't have heard anyway, but he couldn't be too careful.
"I was just thinking – your father is a bit –"
"Full of himself, I know."
"I was going to say that he's a bit taller than you are."
"Oh."
Both sixteen-year-olds under the cloak tried not to laugh at this last comment, most unsuccessfully. James and Sirius looked up and over at the couch.
"I think they're still on the couch."
"Only one way to find out."
The two boys sauntered over. Sirius sat on one end, and James sat on the other, promptly squashing Harry and Hermione. James grinned. "Found 'em."
He stood up and lifted the Invisibility cloak up off of the other two, who were laughing along with Sirius. He couldn't help grinning too.
"So ... you have an Invisibility cloak too?" he asked Harry, who thought fast.
"No – I found this one on the floor in the dormitory," he said innocently. "I thought I'd bring it down so that I wouldn't be seen by people who don't know how I got here."
"Then this is my cloak?"
"I guess so."
James looked suspiciously at Harry. "I put it in the bottom of my trunk."
Harry shrugged. "Well, I found it on the floor." There was a slightly tense silence for a few seconds, whish Sirius broke.
"SOOO ... ah ... Harry, d'you play Quidditch?" Sirius asked, his tone light. When Harry didn't answer, Hermione spoke up.
"Yes, he does, and he's brilliant at it, too. You should see him fly. He's got a Fi- ahh ... a new racing broom back in our time. He's on the Gryffindor team, too – Seeker."
"Do you play?" Sirius asked her. She shook her head.
"No."
"It's the one thing she can't learn from a book," Harry said, grinning. "That's why she doesn't."
Hermione shoved him playfully. "That is not the reason, I'll have you know, Mr. Potter," she said loftily.
"Why not play, then?" asked James. "It's loads of fun."
"I – I wouldn't be any good at it."
"How will you know if you haven't tried?" Harry offered. James and Sirius both gasped.
"You haven't tried playing Quidditch?"
"Let's go find some brooms."
"No, really, I'll probably be horrible –" Hermione protested as the three boys stood up, grins on all their faces. "Honestly, I'll be really bad, I could hardly get off the ground in first year –"
"That was six years ago, Hermione," said Harry as he pulled her up off the couch. "You'll have improved by now."
"I haven't even got on a broom since then! Oh, I don't want to, it's fine, I'm perfectly content to watch –"
James and Sirius rolled their eyes at each other and looked at Harry. "Is she always like this about flying?"
Harry shrugged. "It's true that she's hardly touched a broom since first year." He glanced at the girl. "And in third year on the hippogriff – she was scared then, too..." he said, starting to finally put two and two together. "In fact, she was scared when we were riding Thestrals last year, too."
Harry's throat suddenly tightened. They had ridden Thestrals to the Ministry of Magic at the end of last year to go and save Sirius from Voldemort ... only Sirius hadn't been there, but a group of Death Eaters had ... Harry shuddered at the memory of that horrible night. And swallowed – hard – as he thought of the death of his godfather.
"Harry? You all right?" James was saying. Harry nodded.
"Yeah, sorry. I was – thinking of something, that's all." He swallowed again and looked down at the floor. Hermione was watching him, and noticed his discomfort. She knew what was making him like this – the Thestrals, taking them to the Ministry, the night that Sirius had died. She hesitantly put a hand on Harry's arm. He was tense. "Anyway – Hermione, are you afraid of heights?" Harry asked, fighting to swallow the lump in his throat and looking up at her inquisitively.
She dropped her hand off his arm and stepped back a bit. "Um – maybe?" she said in a small, timid voice. The three boys broke into grins.
"Oh, really?" said James.
"Why didn't you ever say so?" asked Harry.
"Come on!" exclaimed Sirius, and they all helped in escorting a loudly protesting Hermione through the portrait hole. She talked all the way down the flights of stairs and into the Entrance Hall and out into the grounds, saying that she was going to fall off and that she was going to be killed and that when they buried her, could they please not write "Afraid Of Heights" on her tombstone?
"Oh, shut up, Hermione, please?" begged Harry as they reached the broom shed by the Quidditch field. He clapped a hand over her mouth to stem the flow of protests coming from her while James and Sirius got out four brooms.
"Here," said Sirius, tossing two to Harry. He caught them, and handed one to Hermione.
"Look, you know how to mount the broom, right?"
She nodded, finally unable to say anything.
"Good. Mount yours, then."
All four did so. James took over. "Okay, first of all, you're holding your broom wrong. Here." He walked over and corrected Hermione's grip, adjusting the position of her hands on the wood. Then he corrected her posture, and her stance, and then informed her that her grip had slipped again and moved to correct that when Sirius coughed.
"Ahem ... Harry and I are alive too, you know, mate," he said, rolling his eyes at Harry, who grinned. James promptly tossed his head arrogantly.
"I'll have you know, Mister Padfoot, that if this girl is to become a Quidditch player, she needs to have the right grip and stance and –"
"I think I'm ready now."
All three boys turned to Hermione, who was sitting on her broom and looking at it expectantly. James sighed.
"I told you, you just kick off gently from the ground, and it'll – or, you could do that," he said, scratching his head as Hermione rocketed into the sky. Harry rolled his eyes and Sirius whooped.
"I think I've got it from here!" she called down. James glanced at Harry.
"You know, she's kind of annoying."
"I know," said Harry, not taking his eyes off of the small figure flying about the field. "But you get used to it after a couple of weeks or so."
"You think you'll be here that long?"
Harry shrugged. "No idea. So, are you any good at flying?"
James grinned. "Are you?"
Sirius grinned and jumped on his broom. "Well, get up in the air! If you're going to race each other, better to do it before breakfast."
A/N: I know this idea has been done a HUGE number of times, but guess what? I'm gonna do it too!!! Sorry for the insanely long periods of time between updates, but I DO write you long chapters, riiiight? So I hope it makes up for it.
Summary: When a certain person is depressed after a certain person's death, another certain person and that certain person get transported back in time and meet other certain people, and the first certain person is still depressed but starts to heal with time. Get it? He's back in time, he's healing with time ... yeah. I'm sooooooooooo funny.
Okay, third chapter! Here you go!
*~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~*
As soon as the four heard footsteps outside the portrait hole, Harry and Hermione scurried up the stairs to their new dormitories.
Harry looked around. It was exactly the same as in his time ... but somehow different, as if missing something.
He sat down wearily on his bed. It wasn't fair. Seeing his father ... and Sirius ... both of whom were dead in the future ... it made his head ache with the emotions swirling around inside him.
He put his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. He wished that Ron were there. He'd cheer him up.
Just thinking of his best friend, and not knowing whether he would be able to see him again, made Harry's mood drop even lower. Finally he decided to go to sleep, in hopes that his spirits would improve by morning.
~*~
Hermione lay awake for hours, hands behind her head, staring up at the canopy. She was just rolling over to close her eyes when the dormitory door opened and light flooded into the room. Hermione wrenched the hangings shut far too late.
"Hannah?" said a girl's voice. She was giggling. "Is that you? Come on, you goose, you're missing out on all the –"
The girl ripped aside the curtains to reveal Hermione with her head under the covers. The other girl laughed. "Oh, come on, Hannah, don't be such a spoiler," she said, and pulled the sheet back.
Hermione looked up.
"Oh –" said the girl. She turned bright red. "I – I'm sorry – I thought you were my fr... wait, who are you? I haven't seen you before."
Hermione sat up to get a better look at this girl. She was silhouetted against the light coming from the door, so her features were invisible.
"Uh – it's hard to explain ..." began Hermione. She stood up. "You see – me and my friend Harry – we're –"
"Well, first of all, what's your name?" asked the other girl. She flicked her wand, and the torches around the walls flared into life, lighting up the room and revealing her face.
Hermione gasped.
The girl had long, auburn hair that fell in soft waves down just past her shoulders. She was small and slim, and had startlingly green eyes.
Very familiar green eyes.
"L-Lily?" Hermione stammered. The other girl was instantly alert, and held up her wand warily.
"Okay, who are you, and how do you know my name?" she asked, her tone edgy and sharp. Hermione hastily dropped her wand onto the bed beside her, and raised her hands in the air.
"I'm Hermione Granger, and I know you from – from – pictures," she said, somewhat desperately. The redheaded girl looked suspiciously at Hermione.
"How'd you get in here?"
Hermione sighed. "Look, it's a long story, and it'll all be explained tomorrow morning at breakfast, okay? I'm tired, goodnight," she said wearily, climbed back under the covers, and closed the hangings, leaving a very confused and suspicious girl standing alone.
~*~
That night, Harry tossed and turned a lot, waking up every two hours, it seemed. He couldn't seem to stay asleep. He kept dreaming of his father, and Sirius, and Remus, and his mother, and Peter Pettigrew.
At four in the morning, Harry woke again, biting his lip to keep from crying out.
~*~*~*~*~Dream~*~*~*~*~
"Harry ... Harry ..."
"Leave me alone."
"Harry ... it might even be painless ... I would not know ... I have never died ..."
"Shut up."
"Lily! Go! Take Harry and go, I'll hold him off!"
An evil cackle filled the air and echoed around his head ... a blinding flash of green light ... his mother's scream ...
~*~*~*~*~Reality~*~*~*~*~
Harry woke up with his scar burning and his hand clapped tightly over his forehead. He was sitting bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily and sweating.
He shuddered. The stupid old nightmare was back again.
He glanced at his watch and groaned, seeing that it was only four o' clock. He tried consistently to fall asleep again, but couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the laughing face of Voldemort, and the sneer of Wormtail just behind.
Harry grimaced at the thought of them both. He tried one last time to drift off, but finally gave up. Swearing under his breath, he swung his legs off the bed and onto the floor. He dressed quickly and went down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. Where would he go when people started to come down? He wished he'd thought to bring his Invisibility cloak.
Harry gasped.
It was his father's Invisibility cloak!
Harry went back up to the sixth year boys' dormitory and crept on tiptoe over to James' bed. Harry felt around under it, and brought out a trunk. He whispered "Alohomora," and it opened with a quiet click. He rummaged around through it, picking his way carefully under dirty shirts and odd socks. How lovely. His father's dirty socks. What a souvenir.
Finally, buried under a pile of odd junk, Harry pulled out the fluid-like cloak. He quickly put everything back inside the trunk as it had been, closed it, and pushed it back under his father's bed. Harry tucked the cloak under his arm and hurried back down to the common room before anyone could wake and hear him.
~*~
Hermione tossed in her bed one last time and then sat up, rubbing her eyes and biting her tongue so as not to scream with frustration. She was tired and wanted to sleep! Why couldn't whatever God there was listen to her pleas and let her rest? Hermione sighed. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well go down to the common room and wait to be discovered there.
Getting dressed in the dark was not as easy as it sounded. She stubbed at least three different toes and banged her head against a bedpost. She was surprised the thud didn't wake anyone.
When she was finally finished, she whispered "Lumos," and looked at herself in the mirror to check that she'd gotten dressed properly, which she had. She quickly whispered "Finite," and the light from her wand went out. She tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs to the common room. A figure with messy black hair was sitting on the couch, staring into the fire.
"Uh – Harry?"
~*~
Harry looked over his shoulder to see her in the stairway. "Oh – hullo, Hermione," he said, yawning. She yawned too. "You couldn't sleep either, then?"
"No," she admitted, coming and sitting down beside him. "Not a wink. Kept waking up all night long."
"Same here. My old nightmare – it – happened again," Harry said, sighing and staring at the fire. He felt her arms go around him.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"It's not your fault," he mumbled.
"I can only imagine what you must be going through right now," she said somewhat awkwardly. "You know we can't tell the people here anything about our time and what's happened, right?"
"I know."
"You must be so torn up about Peter Pettigrew. I know I am."
"Yeah."
They sat like that for a long while, staring at the flames and not saying anything.
"Oh – I found this," said Harry suddenly, and showed Hermione the Invisibility cloak that he'd taken.
"How did you – oh, Harry, you stole it?"
"Not exactly ... it'll be mine someday, right?"
"But not today! Go put it back."
"What about when people start coming down?"
"We'll explain at breakfast, remember?"
"Fine. I'll go take it back to my dad, then," Harry sighed.
"Oh – that reminds me – Harry, last night I met your mum."
There was a silence. Harry froze. "M-my mum?" he said, swallowing hard. All of this was coming to fast at him, one thing right after another.
"She was rather suspicious of me, as a matter of fact."
Harry chuckled weakly. "She was?"
"Had her want out and everything. Although, I suppose I would have done the same, being in that situation," Hermione said, smiling as Harry laughed quietly. "I'm sorry for bringing her up. Just, talking about your father's clock reminded me, and you're going to meet her sooner or later anyway –"
"I know, it's all right," said Harry, but his throat tightened as he thought of his mother.
The two friends sat in silence for a while longer. The flames danced and crackled and sparked, making Harry even sleepier than he was already. Hermione yawned and rested her head on his shoulder, curling up on the couch and tucking her legs underneath her. To make his arm more comfortable, and for no other reason, he lifted it up and let her snuggle up against him, and he dropped his arm. It happened to land around her shoulder, but that was a combination of coincidence and gravity, of course. Absolutely not a thing more.
Harry glanced down at Hermione and felt a very unexpected twist in his stomach. He shook his head and looked back at the fire. Perhaps it was because he was still extremely tired; perhaps it was because the weight of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours was getting to him. Perhaps he was simply crazy. But where had that feeling come from?
Voices startled him out of his thoughts.
"... I didn't see him in the dorm – oh, here he is! Harry, up so early?" Sirius said as he came down from the dormitories. He grinned when he saw Hermione there as well. "I see. Lucky with the ladies, are we?" Harry turned bright red, and Hermione sat up, twisting around to glare at her friend's godfather.
"For your information, Sirius Black, Harry and I have known each other since we were eleven years old. We're FRIENDS. Can you get that through your thick skull?"
Harry snorted while Sirius raised his hands in surrender. "All right, all right! I've seen what you can do with a wand, I'm not about to argue," he chuckled. "Although I'm positively certain that I could beat you in a fair, organized duel."
"I seriously doubt that," said Hermione sweetly, and Harry laughed outright. Sirius frowned as James came down the stairs.
"Morning, all," James yawned, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. "Woss going on?" he said, sounding still half-asleep.
"Granger here reckons she could beat me in a duel, mate," said Sirius. James laughed.
"Hah! I'm not sure just who would win!"
"Oh, come on, you really think she could beat me?" Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"Those two cursed you up pretty good the other day, Padfoot," chortled James.
"They did you too. Hey, where'd they go?"
Harry fought not to laugh. While his father and godfather had talked, he'd pulled the Invisibility cloak over himself and Hermione. She was biting her lip so as not to laugh as well. James and Sirius were looking around the common room.
"Weren't they just there on the couch?"
"Yeah, where'd they go?"
"You know, I think they've given us the slip."
"Very observant of you, Prongs."
"Why, thank you."
"They're probably still around somewhere."
"We'll ignore them."
"Good idea. So, have Quidditch practices started yet?"
Harry tuned out of their conversation and thought instead of his own beloved Firebolt back in his time. He wondered whether he should try out for the Gryffindor team while he was here or not. After debating with himself, he decided against it. What if he was transported to the future during a game? No, it certainly wouldn't do.
Harry felt a tug on his sleeve. "What?" he whispered so Sirius and James wouldn't hear. They were now talking of pranks and were fully absorbed in their own conversation, so wouldn't have heard anyway, but he couldn't be too careful.
"I was just thinking – your father is a bit –"
"Full of himself, I know."
"I was going to say that he's a bit taller than you are."
"Oh."
Both sixteen-year-olds under the cloak tried not to laugh at this last comment, most unsuccessfully. James and Sirius looked up and over at the couch.
"I think they're still on the couch."
"Only one way to find out."
The two boys sauntered over. Sirius sat on one end, and James sat on the other, promptly squashing Harry and Hermione. James grinned. "Found 'em."
He stood up and lifted the Invisibility cloak up off of the other two, who were laughing along with Sirius. He couldn't help grinning too.
"So ... you have an Invisibility cloak too?" he asked Harry, who thought fast.
"No – I found this one on the floor in the dormitory," he said innocently. "I thought I'd bring it down so that I wouldn't be seen by people who don't know how I got here."
"Then this is my cloak?"
"I guess so."
James looked suspiciously at Harry. "I put it in the bottom of my trunk."
Harry shrugged. "Well, I found it on the floor." There was a slightly tense silence for a few seconds, whish Sirius broke.
"SOOO ... ah ... Harry, d'you play Quidditch?" Sirius asked, his tone light. When Harry didn't answer, Hermione spoke up.
"Yes, he does, and he's brilliant at it, too. You should see him fly. He's got a Fi- ahh ... a new racing broom back in our time. He's on the Gryffindor team, too – Seeker."
"Do you play?" Sirius asked her. She shook her head.
"No."
"It's the one thing she can't learn from a book," Harry said, grinning. "That's why she doesn't."
Hermione shoved him playfully. "That is not the reason, I'll have you know, Mr. Potter," she said loftily.
"Why not play, then?" asked James. "It's loads of fun."
"I – I wouldn't be any good at it."
"How will you know if you haven't tried?" Harry offered. James and Sirius both gasped.
"You haven't tried playing Quidditch?"
"Let's go find some brooms."
"No, really, I'll probably be horrible –" Hermione protested as the three boys stood up, grins on all their faces. "Honestly, I'll be really bad, I could hardly get off the ground in first year –"
"That was six years ago, Hermione," said Harry as he pulled her up off the couch. "You'll have improved by now."
"I haven't even got on a broom since then! Oh, I don't want to, it's fine, I'm perfectly content to watch –"
James and Sirius rolled their eyes at each other and looked at Harry. "Is she always like this about flying?"
Harry shrugged. "It's true that she's hardly touched a broom since first year." He glanced at the girl. "And in third year on the hippogriff – she was scared then, too..." he said, starting to finally put two and two together. "In fact, she was scared when we were riding Thestrals last year, too."
Harry's throat suddenly tightened. They had ridden Thestrals to the Ministry of Magic at the end of last year to go and save Sirius from Voldemort ... only Sirius hadn't been there, but a group of Death Eaters had ... Harry shuddered at the memory of that horrible night. And swallowed – hard – as he thought of the death of his godfather.
"Harry? You all right?" James was saying. Harry nodded.
"Yeah, sorry. I was – thinking of something, that's all." He swallowed again and looked down at the floor. Hermione was watching him, and noticed his discomfort. She knew what was making him like this – the Thestrals, taking them to the Ministry, the night that Sirius had died. She hesitantly put a hand on Harry's arm. He was tense. "Anyway – Hermione, are you afraid of heights?" Harry asked, fighting to swallow the lump in his throat and looking up at her inquisitively.
She dropped her hand off his arm and stepped back a bit. "Um – maybe?" she said in a small, timid voice. The three boys broke into grins.
"Oh, really?" said James.
"Why didn't you ever say so?" asked Harry.
"Come on!" exclaimed Sirius, and they all helped in escorting a loudly protesting Hermione through the portrait hole. She talked all the way down the flights of stairs and into the Entrance Hall and out into the grounds, saying that she was going to fall off and that she was going to be killed and that when they buried her, could they please not write "Afraid Of Heights" on her tombstone?
"Oh, shut up, Hermione, please?" begged Harry as they reached the broom shed by the Quidditch field. He clapped a hand over her mouth to stem the flow of protests coming from her while James and Sirius got out four brooms.
"Here," said Sirius, tossing two to Harry. He caught them, and handed one to Hermione.
"Look, you know how to mount the broom, right?"
She nodded, finally unable to say anything.
"Good. Mount yours, then."
All four did so. James took over. "Okay, first of all, you're holding your broom wrong. Here." He walked over and corrected Hermione's grip, adjusting the position of her hands on the wood. Then he corrected her posture, and her stance, and then informed her that her grip had slipped again and moved to correct that when Sirius coughed.
"Ahem ... Harry and I are alive too, you know, mate," he said, rolling his eyes at Harry, who grinned. James promptly tossed his head arrogantly.
"I'll have you know, Mister Padfoot, that if this girl is to become a Quidditch player, she needs to have the right grip and stance and –"
"I think I'm ready now."
All three boys turned to Hermione, who was sitting on her broom and looking at it expectantly. James sighed.
"I told you, you just kick off gently from the ground, and it'll – or, you could do that," he said, scratching his head as Hermione rocketed into the sky. Harry rolled his eyes and Sirius whooped.
"I think I've got it from here!" she called down. James glanced at Harry.
"You know, she's kind of annoying."
"I know," said Harry, not taking his eyes off of the small figure flying about the field. "But you get used to it after a couple of weeks or so."
"You think you'll be here that long?"
Harry shrugged. "No idea. So, are you any good at flying?"
James grinned. "Are you?"
Sirius grinned and jumped on his broom. "Well, get up in the air! If you're going to race each other, better to do it before breakfast."