Disclaimer: Yes, I'm secretly making billions of dollars off of my silly little story. No really, do you honestly think I own any of this (besides Emily and my plot)? No, it all belongs to J.K.R.
A/N: Hey, you guys like it! Well, at least, I gave you little enough information that you actually want to know what on earth this is all about. Hope this chap answers your questions!
Chapter 2: GIRLS: The Unknown Entity
Harry looked up from the kitchen floor he'd been acquainting himself with to see Emily standing at the foot of the stairs, hair pulled back in a messy bun, cheeks flushed, breathing heavily as she looked at the kitchen.
"Hi." Harry said, pausing his scrubbing to talk to her. "How's the bathroom coming?" he asked.
"Oh, it's finished." Emily replied, plonking herself down on a clean spot of floor. "I don't know about you, but I'm absolutely ready to drop dead on the spot. Feel like taking a break? When it's over we can finish up in here together."
Harry thought that this was an excellent suggestion and so promptly discarded his rags in favour of the bottle of water Emily had pulled out of a bag sitting in one corner of the room.
"Is that all the food and stuff?" he asked, scrambling over to look inside. Emily moved over so that Harry could get a better view.
"Yeah – and it's still cool! How – is this some kind of – uh…magic?" she looked hesitantly at him.
"Well," Harry began, unsure of what Emily knew of the wizarding world, and how much she was supposed to know. On second thoughts, he told himself she'll be living with a wizard all summer, she's bound to find out something. Might as well tell her now.
"Yeah, it is." Harry said, grinning at the excited expression on Emily's face. The look in her eyes was identical to the one Mr. Weasley wore when he had discovered a new tidbit of information about muggles. "It's probably a cooling charm – probably made to last for a day or so."
"So we'd better clean out the fridge and get it working next, then." Emily said, rifling through the bag again. "And it's not even cool inside here – it's just the food! Amazing, really."
She turned to Harry again, her look questioning. "So, you go to this school for magic, right? What was it called again, Hog…Hogs…"
"Hogwarts." Harry supplied. "Yep, that's my school. I'm going into sixth year in September."
"Cool," Emily said, nodding. "It's crazy – you have a whole world that people like me have no idea about. I've probably walked by a wizard on the street and had absolutely no idea."
"Yeah," Harry said, for lack of anything else to say. Suddenly he found himself curious as to what on earth she was doing there that summer.
"Er," he began. "So, uh, why, are, um, you here this summer? I mean – no offence, but – you're not a witch or anything."
"Oh – yes, right – I know it's strange – well, as Mr. Dumbledore explained it to me…"
Figures, Harry thought. It was Dumbledore who ordered her up here with me – to keep an eye on me? No, he'd have sent an adult for that…
"Well, you of course know how there are some not so good wizards and stuff out there?"
Harry snorted. Yes, he knew, all right. "Yeah, I know." Harry said.
"I'm - oh - what do you call it again – telekinetic – and somehow these 'bad guys' got wind of this and so Mr. Dumbledore wanted me to stay safe or something. I don't know – I'm still more than a little bit confused over the whole thing. I mean, I'm still hung up over being able to do weird things – my mind hasn't even got to the fact that there is such a thing as magic, let alone a whole magic society!"
She glanced at Harry, her cheeks red as she fiddled with a loose curl. "Sorry," she said. "I'm still a bit overwhelmed."
"No-no problem." Harry said, completely at a loss as to what to do next. If he was lucky she'd get over her confusion and they could just get back to cleaning. Or, he inwardly shuddered. She'd start to bawl and then what do I do? The last time a girl started crying on me was with Cho – oh – not good. Not good at all.
Much to Harry's great relief, Emily did not start crying, but merely shook her head in frustration a couple of times before sitting up straight and sighing. "Oh well. It has its advantages, I guess."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked curiously.
"Do really think I could have finished my room that fast? With all that junk and stuff lying everywhere?" Emily looked mischievously at him, her eyes dancing. Harry was momentarily taken aback, then pointed a finger at her accusingly.
"And there I was thinking that you were using some kind of 'girl' power to get it all done so fast!" he grinned at her, but Emily narrowed her eyes.
"What? You think that girls are just made for cleaning or something?" her tone was light, but Harry saw the dark look in her eyes and very hastily backtracked.
"No – I mean – you do seem to be better at it – I just thought you'd done it all really fast, that's all."
Emily looked at him suspiciously for a few seconds, then seemed to brush it off. "No, I did my 'weird stuff' again. Can you…" she turned to him eagerly. "Can you do magic here? I mean, could you – uh, show me some?"
Harry, feeling all too grateful to the powers above that she was not crying or angry with him, was just about to pull out his wand and do a spell when he remembered that he couldn't.
"Sorry," he said apologetically. "But we're not allowed to do magic outside of school – at least, not until we're of age."
Emily looked disappointed, then frowned. "So – if you don't mind me asking – how old are you?"
"I'll be sixteen at the end of the month." Harry said, dread creeping up on him unawares. He suddenly became very conscious that with the current situation in the wizarding world, he'd be very lucky to see that birthday, let alone come of age.
"Oh." Emily said, but not saying anymore, as if she could sense Harry's dark mood. For a while, the only sound was that of the swish of water in their bottles as they drank, resting from the activity of that morning. Suddenly Emily put her bottle down, its contents drained.
"Why don't we finish up in here, then? I'll start cleaning out the fridge and oven and I guess you can continue with the floor."
Harry nodded, and soon the two were back at work, the silence occasionally punctuated by one or the other's request for some cleaning supply or another. Harry found himself enjoying the fact that Emily left him alone with his thoughts. The hard work was keeping his mind off of the events at the Ministry, and in the monotony he was surprised to find his mood lifting. After a while, he became aware of the fact that Emily had left and returned, this time with a small silver box attached to her hip leading up to two black circles seemingly nestled in her ears. He stared curiously for a moment, then realized that it was much like one of those portable cd players he'd seen Dudley with at the beginning of the summer. Emily straightened up for a moment, stretching her arms out above her head, and for a second, Harry could hear music coming from her direction.
Suddenly Emily stiffened, as if she realized that Harry was watching, and turned around, a puzzled expression on her face. "Hi." She said cautiously. "You - uh - finished?"
Startled out of his reverie, Harry blinked quickly. "Er – no – almost." He said. "Well, actually, the floor's done, I'm just cleaning up the table and stuff." He gestured towards the half polished table and the now fixed stools as if to prove that he wasn't lying.
Emily looked amused. "I believe you." She said, laughter in her voice, and Harry felt slightly offended.
"I was actually just wondering," he began. "What is – uh that thing …there?" he pointed to the silver box, which Emily looked down at as well.
"Oh, you mean my minidisc player? It just plays music – actually, I have a discman upstairs if you want to listen to something. I can't guarantee that you'll actually like my music, but if you want to listen to something…" she trailed off, looking slightly embarrassed now.
Harry didn't really care whether or not he had any music to listen to, but thought that he'd better be polite and try the 'discman' out anyway. He told Emily yes, upon which she disappeared up the stairs to her room, coming back down with a bigger object that Harry recognized as being like the cd player Dudley had carried around with him. Soon Emily had him all hooked up to it and he was rifling through the cd's that she'd laid out for him to choose from.
"Er," he began, not wanting to sound rude as he looked through Piano Classics Volume 1 and Schubert and Schumann and Love Songs for the Flute. Emily pulled a speaker out of her ear and came over. When she saw what he was looking through she flushed and stammered that she'd given him the wrong ones. Going back upstairs, she soon returned with a whole bunch of different cd's.
"These are movie soundtracks," she informed him. "So there are a variety of songs. Here – try this one." She handed him a cd that was labelled as being the soundtrack to the movie 'The Matrix' and Harry was soon listening to it as he finished up the cleaning.
He found himself quite immersed in the music and was therefore surprised to look up when it finished to find the sun casting long shadows into the room where now only he was standing. Looking around, he was pleased to see that it was now clean, the food put away into the fridge and various dishes and cutlery from the attic put away into the cupboards and drawers. He could even see his reflection in the black tile floor and felt a swell of accomplishment as he surveyed his work. Feeling hungry, he gathered up the discman and went upstairs to take it to Emily's room. He knocked on her door once, then twice. Still hearing no response after a third knock, he turned the doorknob, slowly opening the door so as to alert her if she was inside the room.
Emily, however, was not in her room, and so he slipped inside and quickly laid the discman on her bed. As he turned to leave, he heard another door opening outside and suddenly Emily appeared in the doorway, her hair wet, wrapped in a big blue bathrobe. Harry started guiltily, unable to do anything but stare at her now very flushed face.
"Uh, Harry – what…are you doing in my room?" Emily asked slowly, attempting to pull her bathrobe tighter around her despite the fact that it covered everything from her neck to her ankles within its big, fluffy folds.
Harry stammered incoherently for a full five minutes before finally managing to squeak out that he was returning her discman. Not caring whether or not she had understood him, he fled to the safety of his own room, shutting the door firmly behind him and collapsed to the ground, taking huge, gasping breaths. Calm down, Harry. He told himself. Nothing happened – you were in her room to return her discman and she happened to be coming out of the bath – nothing – bath – was she wearing anything beneath that - No! Can't go there!!
Harry rubbed his eyes vigorously, attempting to banish that particular train of thought from his head. He had to live with this girl all summer – at least, that's what Dumbledore had told him. All he had to do was to make it through the next 8 weeks – 8 weeks!!! Harry groaned as he got up, wondering how on earth he was supposed do it. Emily seemed nice enough – around his age, fairly intelligent, and she definitely wasn't one of those girls who complained about any sort of work. But still, Harry complained to himself It's just me and her! I don't know anything about living with girls – and not all by myself! Where's Ron when I need him…
Harry walked over to his bed, plopping down onto the red patchwork covers he'd pulled out one of the boxes in the attic earlier that day, burying his face in the pillow in frustration. Suddenly he heard a knock on the door, followed by Emily's voice shyly asking if she could come in.
"S-sure." Harry stammered, wondering what on earth had possessed her to come into his room after the fiasco of moments before. No, Potter! He firmly told himself as she opened the door. It was just a little bit of bad timing, no big deal.
"Hi," he said uncertainly, trying not to look at her, but failing miserably. However, she was quite harmlessly dressed in a pair of comfy looking pyjama pants and a huge sweater. Her hair, still wet, was tied up on top of her head in a high ponytail which looked quite in danger of falling off to one side, but Harry knew that the whole ensemble was nothing dangerous to him at all, and so sat up on his bed, feeling considerably more cheerful.
Emily seemed momentarily taken aback by Hedwig's presence in one corner of the room, where Harry had promptly installed her after cleaning up his room. Belatedly he realized that she'd never seen Hedwig beforehand. Emily, however, seemed to recover and, by the look on her face, simply accept it as some weird 'magic' thing before Harry could introduce them.
"Hi." Emily responded, tilting her head to one side. "Uh – do you mind…" she gestured towards his chair, and Harry nodded his assent.
"So," Emily began after a few seconds of their trademark awkward silence – which, now that Harry thought about it, didn't seem so bad anymore. He was starting to get used to it. "I guess that we need to…well…have some…I dunno, rules, in place?"
Harry nodded vigorously, thinking that that was exactly what they needed. "Yes," he said, agreeing with her. "We don't have to worry too much about the bathroom – it has a lock on it."
Emily smiled, looking very much relieved that her idea was being so very well received. "Yeah, and I'll keep the majority of my girl stuff out of there so…"
"Oh, that's okay," Harry interrupted her. "I don't mind, really."
Emily went rather red and began to fiddle with her wet curls as she stammered out that she did mind about certain things. Harry looked at her blankly for a moment before understanding dawned and he hurriedly assured her that he knew what she meant, his own face now a very deep shade of red.
"W-we-well," Emily continued, managing to regain her composure. "About our rooms – look, it was no big deal that you were in mine just now" she quickly interjected as Harry began to apologize profusely. "I mean, like, as long as we knock first, and wait until someone says come in or something."
"Yeah," Harry agreed. "But – what – can you hear me knocking if you have your…headphone thingies in?"
Emily looked thoughtful for a moment before replying. "If you knock really loudly, I should hear you. Other than that, just open the door really really slowly. Same goes for you, I guess?"
Harry looked confused. "I don't have a discman." He told her, but Emily shrugged it off.
"You're welcome to use mine, you know – I don't need two. I just didn't want to throw away something I'd paid good money for."
Harry told her that it would be very nice of her indeed to let him use it, and Emily told him that she'd even bring it over after they'd finished talking. Soon they were laughing about who was going to cook, and so forth, and eventually came to the conclusion that they'd simply just share all the work that needed to be done. Harry suddenly felt grateful to the Dursleys that he'd had to cook for them when he saw Emily's look of awe upon being informed of his culinary skills. For some reason, he felt quite happy as she complimented him on all the cleaning he'd done, and put it down to the fact that the Dursleys never commented on the work he'd done for them except to berate him about it.
After they'd worked out the majority of their 'rules', Emily began to yawn rather uncontrollably, and said that she'd better be getting to bed. "Here," she told Harry, handing him the discman that she'd retrieved from her room, as well as the cd he'd been listening to earlier. "Have a good night, then."
" 'Night" Harry replied, feeling a yawn threatening to overtake him. He heard Emily go into her room and soon saw the light under her door go out. His body aching for bed, he walked towards the bathroom to brush his teeth before going to bed. As soon as he opened the door, however, a strong smell of lavender overcame him and he momentarily ducked out of the room to get some air.
Still coughing slightly, he waved the door back and forth a bit to clear the air, and soon it wasn't quite so bad. His cheerful mood from their successful conversation earlier quickly dissipated as he wiped the condensation off the mirror so he could actually use it. Curious about her 'girl stuff', he peeked into the cupboard over the toilet to see what Emily had put in there. He was much relieved to find that all she'd placed inside were things like toothpaste, soap – essentials, he noted. A quick survey of the bathtub, however, told a different story – 'Spa Time Lavender Bath Oil', 'Spa Time Lavender Shower Gel'- that's useless now, Harry thought, we don't have a shower, 'Essence Herbale Shampoo' 'Essence Herbale Conditioner' and a puffy purple looking thing that was hanging off the tap.
Quickly finishing his teeth and exiting the room, he stretched out on his surprisingly comfortable bed with a sigh of contentment. Suddenly he sat up, sniffed the air slightly, finding that he could still smell the lavender. Slowly he lifted his shirt to his nose and took a cautionary sniff. Harry groaned. I smell like a girl!!! He reached over and grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill and began to write.
"Dear Ron, you'll never guess what has happened to me now…"
A/N: So, if you think it's stupid, or you think it's great (hopefully the latter but I'm not holding my breath) please review and let me know! -Laren