Chapter 7: Diagon Dreams
It was about a week after they had spent that awful time in the hidden corridor. They were all sitting in Fred and George's room, talking about various things.
"Hermione's been disappearing a lot lately," said Ron slowly, breaking the long silence that had followed their discussion about Quidditch.
"Yeah, I know. And did you see how mad she was when we told her about what happened in that corridor?" said Harry.
"Good thing she didn't start yelling," Fred said seriously.
"Yeah, she was trying really hard not to, though. She was just...silent. It was kind of creepy," Ginny commented.
"And then she disappeared right after that! Again! I wonder where she keeps going?" George stated thoughtfully.
Another silence followed this. Harry was just about to suggest that these two things were somehow related (and he was sure everyone else had thought of that, he just wanted to break the silence), when they heard excited voices floating up the stairs.
Harry, Ron, and Ginny went out to see what was there. Fred and George stayed in their room, however, but Harry noticed two pieces of long, flesh-colored string sneaking down the stairs.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they found Mrs. Weasley in the front hall along with-
"Bill!" said the three of them at once. Then Harry added, "...Fleur!"
"Hey, guys!" said Bill happily. He hugged Ginny and Ron, then shook Harry's hand.
"Hello, Harry!" cried Fleur, rushing forward to greet him. "I said I hoped we would see each other again, and here we are!"
"Wow, Fleur, your English has gotten really good!" said Harry.
"Yeah," said Bill. "I've been giving her lessons. I guess I'm just a really good teacher."
"That or Fleur here's a really good learner," said Ginny.
Bill made a face at her, then asked, "Where're the twins?"
"Funny you should ask," said Fred.
"Yeah, we're right here, thanks for noticing us," George said, unable to conceal a grin.
The twins had, apparently, heard on the Ears that Bill was there, and apparated downstairs to say hello.
"Hey, Fred-George," said Bill.
"Come along, we're going to have dinner soon," said Mrs. Weasley happily.
As they all followed her to the kitchen, Harry distinctly heard Bill ask the twins in an undertone, "How's Weasley's Wizard Wheezes coming along? Is mum too mad at you?"
Fred and George both made faces and began to tell him about how they weren't allowed to do anything until the next year.
Over dinner, two very exciting announcement were made (after Bill and Fleur had been filled in on everything that had been going on). First, Bill and Fleur were engaged. Harry couldn't help but to grin at Mr. Weasley's expression. Mrs. Weasley, however, seemed delighted. Fred and George jumped up and shouted "WHAT?" at exactly the same time.
Second, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts was someone from the Order, though who exactly Harry didn't know. Lupin, Moody, and the rest of the Order members refused to tell. They spent the rest of dinner trying to get the information out of the Order members. It was actually great fun, thought Harry, as he climbed into bed that night.
××××
Harry had a very strange dream that night. He was in Diagon Alley, but Ron and Hermione had gone into one of the shops to buy something. Harry was waiting outside, watching the crowd go by, when he noticed someone familiar. He could only see the back of the person, but they had long, black hair that fell below their waist. It was the girl he had seen entering the kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Feeling very excited, he followed her. He wanted to know who she was, or even just what she looked like. He wound his way through the crowd, trying very hard not to lose sight of her. He reached the end of the street, where Gringott's Bank was, and found that she had disappeared. Instead, a centaur came out of the snowy white bank. He trotted down towards Harry. Harry looked around and noticed that all the people in the street had vanished, as well as the entire alley itself. Instead there was a forest and stars above. The centaur walked up to Harry, looked up at the sky, and said, "Mars is bright tonight." Harry looked up, too, and saw a raven flying away towards the sky, outlined against the moon.
××××
The day had finally come when they would go to Diagon Alley to buy their school things. They all pulled on jackets, as Tonks had come inside soaking wet, informing them that it was pouring down rain outside. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny met up with Mrs. Weasley and Tonks in the front hall. Today, Tonks had long, blonde hair, a small nose, and sea-green eyes.
They left the house and stood, shivering, on the side of the road. Tonks threw out her right hand, and with a huge BANG, the Knight Bus was in front of them. They all climbed on board, Mrs. Weasley telling the driver, Ernie, to take them to Diagon Alley.
"Diagon Alley it is!" he said brightly. They all found seats together, and waited while the bus jumped and jolted along the roads, skipping miles at a time. After many other stops and many other passengers had gotten off, Stan, the attendant, called out, "The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley!" Ron hurried off the bus, followed by Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Mrs. Weasley, and Tonks.
They all stepped into the dark pub, still rather dry. Mrs. Weasley and Tonks quickly found seats by the fire, telling the others to go buy their school things and meet back there.
After they had gotten money from their Gringott's vaults, they hurried from shop to shop, doing their best to stay dry. They even visited Lee and Angelina in Fred and George's joke shop. They were in Mulpepper's when they ran into the person that they least wanted to see: Draco Malfoy.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped when he saw them. "Surely you aren't buying something, Weasley? Did you manage to get some money over the summer? Probably not, I would have read about it in the news, that would have been very big, wouldn't it?"
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" said Harry coolly as he and Hermione held back Ron and Ginny. "Surely you should be in Knockturn Alley, or somewhere else foul like that? I notice your father isn't here. Can't show his face in public now, can he?"
Ron and Ginny laughed loudly, but Hermione was still glaring at Malfoy.
Malfoy's eyes narrowed at Harry. "You are going to pay for what you did last year, Potter. You're going to pay for ever being such a 'hero'."
Harry looked sarcastically surprised. "Will I? Well, you are going to pay for what Lestrang did to Sirius. I can promise you that."
"You know you're a disgrace, Potter, don't you? Hanging around with half-bloods, mudbloods, and garbage like the Weasleys-I expect it's because of your filthy mudblood mother-"
"And you know you'd do much better to the world if you crawled under a rock somewhere and died, Malfoy, don't you?" Hermione spoke for the first time. Ron and Ginny beamed at her, then looked back to Malfoy's increasingly angry face.
"Did Voldemort never tell anyone of you that he's a half-blood? Or did he just leave that little detail out?" Harry said in an exasperated tone.
"The Dark Lord is properly ashamed of being a half-blood, and he killed his useless father to make some good come out of him."
"If I were you, I'd be properly ashamed that you follow some old geezer who can't even defeat a teenager!" Ron snapped
"Why you-" Malfoy began towards Ron, but just then Mr. Mulpepper came up and asked if they needed help finding anything.
"No, we're fine, thank you," said Hermione quickly, and they all hurriedly bought their things and left the shop.
"I think that's everything," said Ginny, looking at her school list. "What about you?"
"Yeah, I think we've got it all...what do you say we go back to warm up a bit at the Leaky Cauldron and have something to eat? I'm starving." moaned Ron.
"Sounds good to me," said Harry eagerly. "Hermione-?" But Hermione was hurrying away down the street.
Ron sighed. "She probably forgot something on her list. She knows where we're going; she'll meet us back there. Let's go already!"
When they reached the Leaky Cauldron, they found Tonks and Mrs. Weasley still sitting by the fire.
"Hey mum," said Ginny as she sat down on the hearth, trying to dry her hair.
"Oh, hello," said Mrs. Weasley brightly. She didn't ask about Hermione.
"Er-Hermione forgot something, I think. She just ran off as soon as we were about to come back..." Harry began awkwardly.
"Oh, that's fine, dear, we'll just wait here for her."
××××
"Sorry I'm late," gasped Hermione as she slid to a halt next to Flourish and Blotts. "We ran into someone at Mulpepper's."
"It's okay. I've already gotten my books, though."
"Oh, that's great! Now we need to get you some robes, potion ingredients, scales, quills and ink..."
And they hurried off to buy all the things needed for school.
××××
"Hermione, where have you been? You looked soaked!"
"Just checking to make sure I got everything."
"Right..." Ron said slowly.
"Well, we'd best get going. Hermione, dear, I'm sorry you don't have time to dry yourself off-"
"Oh, it's okay," she said quickly. "We'd better go..."
Harry wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Mrs. Weasley mutter to Hermione as they left, "Has the raven flown home?" Hermione quickly nodded.
All of them laden with packages, they left the pub and boarded the Knight Bus once more. After a long, bumpy, uncomfortable ride, they arrived in Grimmauld Place. Harry quickly paid the driver for everyone's ride, then led them all off the bus. Once inside, they all went down to the kitchen. They hadn't gotten a chance to eat at the pub, because Tonks told them that they would be eating as soon as they got back, anyway. After a large lunch and a long time spent by the fire, they all felt much better and went back to Harry and Ron's room. Or, they thought it was all of them.
"Hermione's gone again!" said Ron when they reached the bedroom.
"Did you notice that she always disappears after meals?" said Fred, entering the room. "Oh, well, what can you do? How was Diagon Alley? Did you see Weasley's Wizard Wheezes? Wish we could have gone." he finished bitterly. Mrs. Weasley had refused to let the twins come to Diagon Alley because she thought they would have gone to their joke shop. She was, of course, right.
"Yeah, we saw it. It was great. Lee and Angelina were having fun running it." Harry said. "Now, about how she disappears after meals...she left us in Diagon Alley for a long time, maybe she went to every shop again...and she was so mad when she found out that we had gone into that corridor-you don't think-?"
"Hey! Sorry, I stayed behind to ask Lupin something."
"What did you ask him?" said Ron suspiciously.
Hermione grinned. "Well, I was trying to see if he'd tell me who our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is. He didn't of course, but I think he might have been seriously considering it! I was so close!"
They all laughed. Hermione usually wouldn't be the person to do something like that.
"Hey, Hermione," Ron began slowly. But then he caught Ginny, Harry, Fred, and George's looks and changed his question. "Why didn't you just tell us while we were down there?"
Harry almost sighed with relief. Ron had been about to ask why she kept disappearing, he was sure of it.
"Well, I didn't want it to look too suspicious. You know, like I had planned it with you or something."
"Okay, then. Well, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters tomorrow! I can't wait!" said Harry, knowing he sounded a bit corny, but wanting desperately to change the subject. Hermione beamed at him, then joined in the conversation about what they wanted to do when they got to Hogwarts, what and who they couldn't wait to see, and (from Fred and George) what they wish they could see or do again at Hogwarts
It was about a week after they had spent that awful time in the hidden corridor. They were all sitting in Fred and George's room, talking about various things.
"Hermione's been disappearing a lot lately," said Ron slowly, breaking the long silence that had followed their discussion about Quidditch.
"Yeah, I know. And did you see how mad she was when we told her about what happened in that corridor?" said Harry.
"Good thing she didn't start yelling," Fred said seriously.
"Yeah, she was trying really hard not to, though. She was just...silent. It was kind of creepy," Ginny commented.
"And then she disappeared right after that! Again! I wonder where she keeps going?" George stated thoughtfully.
Another silence followed this. Harry was just about to suggest that these two things were somehow related (and he was sure everyone else had thought of that, he just wanted to break the silence), when they heard excited voices floating up the stairs.
Harry, Ron, and Ginny went out to see what was there. Fred and George stayed in their room, however, but Harry noticed two pieces of long, flesh-colored string sneaking down the stairs.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they found Mrs. Weasley in the front hall along with-
"Bill!" said the three of them at once. Then Harry added, "...Fleur!"
"Hey, guys!" said Bill happily. He hugged Ginny and Ron, then shook Harry's hand.
"Hello, Harry!" cried Fleur, rushing forward to greet him. "I said I hoped we would see each other again, and here we are!"
"Wow, Fleur, your English has gotten really good!" said Harry.
"Yeah," said Bill. "I've been giving her lessons. I guess I'm just a really good teacher."
"That or Fleur here's a really good learner," said Ginny.
Bill made a face at her, then asked, "Where're the twins?"
"Funny you should ask," said Fred.
"Yeah, we're right here, thanks for noticing us," George said, unable to conceal a grin.
The twins had, apparently, heard on the Ears that Bill was there, and apparated downstairs to say hello.
"Hey, Fred-George," said Bill.
"Come along, we're going to have dinner soon," said Mrs. Weasley happily.
As they all followed her to the kitchen, Harry distinctly heard Bill ask the twins in an undertone, "How's Weasley's Wizard Wheezes coming along? Is mum too mad at you?"
Fred and George both made faces and began to tell him about how they weren't allowed to do anything until the next year.
Over dinner, two very exciting announcement were made (after Bill and Fleur had been filled in on everything that had been going on). First, Bill and Fleur were engaged. Harry couldn't help but to grin at Mr. Weasley's expression. Mrs. Weasley, however, seemed delighted. Fred and George jumped up and shouted "WHAT?" at exactly the same time.
Second, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts was someone from the Order, though who exactly Harry didn't know. Lupin, Moody, and the rest of the Order members refused to tell. They spent the rest of dinner trying to get the information out of the Order members. It was actually great fun, thought Harry, as he climbed into bed that night.
××××
Harry had a very strange dream that night. He was in Diagon Alley, but Ron and Hermione had gone into one of the shops to buy something. Harry was waiting outside, watching the crowd go by, when he noticed someone familiar. He could only see the back of the person, but they had long, black hair that fell below their waist. It was the girl he had seen entering the kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Feeling very excited, he followed her. He wanted to know who she was, or even just what she looked like. He wound his way through the crowd, trying very hard not to lose sight of her. He reached the end of the street, where Gringott's Bank was, and found that she had disappeared. Instead, a centaur came out of the snowy white bank. He trotted down towards Harry. Harry looked around and noticed that all the people in the street had vanished, as well as the entire alley itself. Instead there was a forest and stars above. The centaur walked up to Harry, looked up at the sky, and said, "Mars is bright tonight." Harry looked up, too, and saw a raven flying away towards the sky, outlined against the moon.
××××
The day had finally come when they would go to Diagon Alley to buy their school things. They all pulled on jackets, as Tonks had come inside soaking wet, informing them that it was pouring down rain outside. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny met up with Mrs. Weasley and Tonks in the front hall. Today, Tonks had long, blonde hair, a small nose, and sea-green eyes.
They left the house and stood, shivering, on the side of the road. Tonks threw out her right hand, and with a huge BANG, the Knight Bus was in front of them. They all climbed on board, Mrs. Weasley telling the driver, Ernie, to take them to Diagon Alley.
"Diagon Alley it is!" he said brightly. They all found seats together, and waited while the bus jumped and jolted along the roads, skipping miles at a time. After many other stops and many other passengers had gotten off, Stan, the attendant, called out, "The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley!" Ron hurried off the bus, followed by Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Mrs. Weasley, and Tonks.
They all stepped into the dark pub, still rather dry. Mrs. Weasley and Tonks quickly found seats by the fire, telling the others to go buy their school things and meet back there.
After they had gotten money from their Gringott's vaults, they hurried from shop to shop, doing their best to stay dry. They even visited Lee and Angelina in Fred and George's joke shop. They were in Mulpepper's when they ran into the person that they least wanted to see: Draco Malfoy.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped when he saw them. "Surely you aren't buying something, Weasley? Did you manage to get some money over the summer? Probably not, I would have read about it in the news, that would have been very big, wouldn't it?"
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" said Harry coolly as he and Hermione held back Ron and Ginny. "Surely you should be in Knockturn Alley, or somewhere else foul like that? I notice your father isn't here. Can't show his face in public now, can he?"
Ron and Ginny laughed loudly, but Hermione was still glaring at Malfoy.
Malfoy's eyes narrowed at Harry. "You are going to pay for what you did last year, Potter. You're going to pay for ever being such a 'hero'."
Harry looked sarcastically surprised. "Will I? Well, you are going to pay for what Lestrang did to Sirius. I can promise you that."
"You know you're a disgrace, Potter, don't you? Hanging around with half-bloods, mudbloods, and garbage like the Weasleys-I expect it's because of your filthy mudblood mother-"
"And you know you'd do much better to the world if you crawled under a rock somewhere and died, Malfoy, don't you?" Hermione spoke for the first time. Ron and Ginny beamed at her, then looked back to Malfoy's increasingly angry face.
"Did Voldemort never tell anyone of you that he's a half-blood? Or did he just leave that little detail out?" Harry said in an exasperated tone.
"The Dark Lord is properly ashamed of being a half-blood, and he killed his useless father to make some good come out of him."
"If I were you, I'd be properly ashamed that you follow some old geezer who can't even defeat a teenager!" Ron snapped
"Why you-" Malfoy began towards Ron, but just then Mr. Mulpepper came up and asked if they needed help finding anything.
"No, we're fine, thank you," said Hermione quickly, and they all hurriedly bought their things and left the shop.
"I think that's everything," said Ginny, looking at her school list. "What about you?"
"Yeah, I think we've got it all...what do you say we go back to warm up a bit at the Leaky Cauldron and have something to eat? I'm starving." moaned Ron.
"Sounds good to me," said Harry eagerly. "Hermione-?" But Hermione was hurrying away down the street.
Ron sighed. "She probably forgot something on her list. She knows where we're going; she'll meet us back there. Let's go already!"
When they reached the Leaky Cauldron, they found Tonks and Mrs. Weasley still sitting by the fire.
"Hey mum," said Ginny as she sat down on the hearth, trying to dry her hair.
"Oh, hello," said Mrs. Weasley brightly. She didn't ask about Hermione.
"Er-Hermione forgot something, I think. She just ran off as soon as we were about to come back..." Harry began awkwardly.
"Oh, that's fine, dear, we'll just wait here for her."
××××
"Sorry I'm late," gasped Hermione as she slid to a halt next to Flourish and Blotts. "We ran into someone at Mulpepper's."
"It's okay. I've already gotten my books, though."
"Oh, that's great! Now we need to get you some robes, potion ingredients, scales, quills and ink..."
And they hurried off to buy all the things needed for school.
××××
"Hermione, where have you been? You looked soaked!"
"Just checking to make sure I got everything."
"Right..." Ron said slowly.
"Well, we'd best get going. Hermione, dear, I'm sorry you don't have time to dry yourself off-"
"Oh, it's okay," she said quickly. "We'd better go..."
Harry wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Mrs. Weasley mutter to Hermione as they left, "Has the raven flown home?" Hermione quickly nodded.
All of them laden with packages, they left the pub and boarded the Knight Bus once more. After a long, bumpy, uncomfortable ride, they arrived in Grimmauld Place. Harry quickly paid the driver for everyone's ride, then led them all off the bus. Once inside, they all went down to the kitchen. They hadn't gotten a chance to eat at the pub, because Tonks told them that they would be eating as soon as they got back, anyway. After a large lunch and a long time spent by the fire, they all felt much better and went back to Harry and Ron's room. Or, they thought it was all of them.
"Hermione's gone again!" said Ron when they reached the bedroom.
"Did you notice that she always disappears after meals?" said Fred, entering the room. "Oh, well, what can you do? How was Diagon Alley? Did you see Weasley's Wizard Wheezes? Wish we could have gone." he finished bitterly. Mrs. Weasley had refused to let the twins come to Diagon Alley because she thought they would have gone to their joke shop. She was, of course, right.
"Yeah, we saw it. It was great. Lee and Angelina were having fun running it." Harry said. "Now, about how she disappears after meals...she left us in Diagon Alley for a long time, maybe she went to every shop again...and she was so mad when she found out that we had gone into that corridor-you don't think-?"
"Hey! Sorry, I stayed behind to ask Lupin something."
"What did you ask him?" said Ron suspiciously.
Hermione grinned. "Well, I was trying to see if he'd tell me who our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is. He didn't of course, but I think he might have been seriously considering it! I was so close!"
They all laughed. Hermione usually wouldn't be the person to do something like that.
"Hey, Hermione," Ron began slowly. But then he caught Ginny, Harry, Fred, and George's looks and changed his question. "Why didn't you just tell us while we were down there?"
Harry almost sighed with relief. Ron had been about to ask why she kept disappearing, he was sure of it.
"Well, I didn't want it to look too suspicious. You know, like I had planned it with you or something."
"Okay, then. Well, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters tomorrow! I can't wait!" said Harry, knowing he sounded a bit corny, but wanting desperately to change the subject. Hermione beamed at him, then joined in the conversation about what they wanted to do when they got to Hogwarts, what and who they couldn't wait to see, and (from Fred and George) what they wish they could see or do again at Hogwarts
