Chapter 2 - The Dentists' Office
Moody -
It's been two days, but I'm fine. The relatives are pretty much leaving me alone.
Harry
Harry woke to the sunrise of a dreamless sleep and the faint feeling of terror in the back of his ribcage. He'd had another nightmare. He didn't remember anything...except the green mist. His head hurt, and his body felt like he'd been running all night. He felt the blood caked onto his cheeks. He knew he'd had a number of nightmares that summer, each worse than the last, and he was starting to remember the horrors in the back of his mind. Although the nightmares were similar to the year before, he didn't think that they meant Lord Voldemort was trying to pry into his mind. It just didn't feel the same. As his motor skills improved and his body woke up, his mind seemed to as well, and he felt that panicked hopelessness creep into him. He hated that feeling, more than the rage, more than the fear, more than anything. His closed eyes bore an image of the looming tombstones. He opened them quickly, but the image was not so easily lost. Though faded, it stayed close enough to his line of vision to haunt him.
Harry pushed the covers off and got shakily to his feet. He stumbled blindly around his room, taking his nightshirt off and feeling in his dresser for another shirt. He found one, which looked like it was a greenish colour, and put it on. He'd taken several Galleons at the beginning of summer from his Gringott's bank and exchanged it for Muggle money, buying himself clothes that actually fit him. It was a nice feeling, to have his own clothes. He found a pair of jeans and pulled them over his boxers, then returned to the nightstand and snatched his glasses. He shoved them on, and the room suddenly filled with defined objects and solid lines. Harry suddenly realised he had quite a bit of packing left to do. He looked longingly at the wand on his nightstand, but resisted the urge, stepping toward his dresser and the open trunk underneath it. He began pulling socks, trousers, and any other clothing left in the drawers and dropping them half-heartedly into his trunk. He paused for a moment at his still nondescript letters, but he was too tired to be mad anymore. He sighed, and remembered how he had pieced together the hints in the several letters he had received to figure out that Mr. Weasley was coming to pick him up. "August 3rd, what a good day for a picnic." "Oh, the summer's so hot, not really weather for having a fire, if I could only find my keys..."
Aunt Petunia's voice shouted at him to come for breakfast. Hopping on first one foot and then the other, Harry successfully managed to put on both of his socks while jumping down the short hallway. He tramped down the stairs and walked into the kitchen. A grapefruit quarter waited impatiently at his place. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon ignored him, and continued discussing Aunt Marge's next visit; a fun filled Christmas Harry couldn't wait to miss.
In the next second, two things happened simultaneously. A horn sounded from the driveway, announcing Dudley's return, and a thump from above told of the much less welcome arrival of Mr. Weasley. Aunt Petunia shrieked and ran to the door, where she desperately tried to block the view of the inside of the house from the driveway with her body.
Harry, forgetting his breakfast, raced up the stairs. He flung open the door to his room, barely missing Mr. Weasley, who looked around cheerfully and greeted him with a "Hullo, Harry!" His voice suddenly softened with his eyes, and he said quietly, "How are you? I mean... how are you holding up?"
"What, no cavalry to come and escort me this year?" Harry successfully attempted a smile.
Mr. Weasley, looking concerned but relieved, smiled back. "Well, I hope you've everything packed; we're going to make a quick stop at Hermione's, and then it's to the Burrow. Are you ready?"
Harry grabbed his wand from the nightstand and the books under his bed and shoved them into the open trunk, closed it with a snap of the locks, and touched the rubber chicken Mr. Weasley was holding out to him. The familiar pull of the Portkey brought him dizzy and stumbling into the whitest room he'd ever been in.
The look and the smell strangely reminded him of getting his cavities filled. From the walls to the floor and all that was in between, everything in the room was white, excluding a photo of a Parisian sunset, the dark cherry wood bookshelf it hung above, and the cherry table that the bookshelf matched. Afraid to touch anything, Harry stood with a rigid back, keeping his trunk and Mr. Weasley close to him. However, at that moment Mr. and Mrs. Granger both walked in, and Mr. Weasley left Harry to fend for himself in the pristine house as he stepped across the room to greet both of them. They shook hands with the beaming Mr. Weasley, and Mrs. Granger, a tall woman with perfect teeth and hair that curled softly around her neck, looked at Harry, saying, "She's in her room upstairs. Second door on the left."
Harry tiptoed up the stairs, trying not to disrupt the threads of the carpet. He heard Mr. Weasley and whom he assumed to be Mr. Granger laughing behind him. The large hallway at the top of the stairs was as white as the rest of the house, with a photograph of the African savannah hanging between the first two doors on the left. Not thinking to knock, he turned the silver doorknob and walked in. The room was, again, a pristine white and deep cherry. Two tall, thin bookshelves stood against adjacent walls, full of both textbooks and fictional novels, which Harry would never have guessed Hermione read. She herself was standing in a small camisole tank top, at a dresser also of cherry wood, pulling a shirt out of an open drawer. She looked up at the sound of the open door and glared, somewhat annoyed, at him.
"Harry, do you mind? I'm half dressed."
He glared back mockingly, then laughed. "Hermione, I've seen you in swimsuits that revealed more, and besides, we're best friends; what does it matter?"
She laughed as well. "All right, then. Just sit over there, I'm almost ready." She waved her hand toward the white bed with silver knobs. He dawdled to the bed and sat down, watching Hermione, who was standing at an oval mirror hanging above her dresser. It had several bottles, tubes, and disks of every size, most of which were still sealed in plastic casing. She suddenly looked at them and began peeling the plastic off each one, then setting them in the exact places that she had them before.
"Hermione," Harry spoke up, concerned, "What are you... doing?"
"What?" She turned around to look at him. "Oh, these? Well... my mum bought them all for me right when I got home. She seems to think that I'm not, well, enough of a teenage girl, I suppose. Anyway, there's no way I would use any of this, but I can't let her know that I haven't even opened them." She began throwing the little bits of plastic into her trunk, then picked up a purple bottle and squeezed some gel into her hands. "This, though, I may as well use. Don't think me shallow, Harry, but it almost makes life easier."
She ran it through her tangle of curls and pulled at the ends of her hair, then scrunched it back up again. He looked on, a bit confused. Hermione's hair hadn't changed a bit, but he didn't want to be unsupportive.
"So," he tried to start conversation as she began shoving the tubes and bottles into her trunk, "Have you talked to Krum?"
"Not in a good way," she sighed. "He was just so... oh, I don't know. Viktor's nice and all, but he's much too agreeable. We still talk occasionally, but we've decided to just be friends."
"Are you going to tell Ron?" Harry said, sensing a possible catastrophe.
Hermione giggled. "Now, where would be the fun in that?" He looked up at her quickly in surprise, and she smiled, a mischievous light shining in her eyes. She threw the top of her trunk shut, locked it, and began dragging it toward the door, motioning for Harry to follow. He helped her and her trunk down the stairs and into the living room, Hermione chattering excitedly about how much she'd done on her wormwood essay. Hermione's parents both leaned into say a tearful goodbye to her, and she left them with a whoosh, a step into the fireplace, and a shout of "the Burrow!" Harry followed, stepping forward heavily but keeping his balance as he fell out of the Weasleys' fireplace.