Authors Note. As you can see, your overwhelming response has convinced me to continue with this story and I hope that you all enjoy the continuation it. I will try to update once a week on Friday afternoons that is Friday afternoon in the U.K.
Chapter 2. The Bikini.
Petunia Dursley wondered if she should be suspicious, her dratted nephew had gone off before seven-thirty this morning happily whistling. She thought that it sounded like 'I Only Have Eyes For You,' that's a bit before his time isn't it?
Her first thought was should she tell Vernon, he is not supposed to be happy, if she told Vernon he would start to make a scene and it wouldn't be long before the freaks would come around checking up on Harry. She decided that she wouldn't tell Vernon, she didn't really care if the scruff was happy or not and if she said nothing to the fat lump at least she would have a peaceful life for a while.
As Harry stepped through the back door of Hermione's house two owls entered with him. One was Hedwig but she went over to Hermione because the letters she had from Ron and Ginny were addressed to both of them, even more important Hermione had bacon. The other owl departed as soon as Harry removed the official looking letter it was carrying, strangely, this also was addressed to the pair of them.
Tonks greeted everyone as she followed Harry through the door.
He sat down next to his love and gave her a good morning kiss, as she was feeding bacon scraps to Hedwig he opened the unexpected letter that turned out to be from Gringotts Bank.
"It's from Gringotts but why is it addressed to both of us?" he pondered.
"Well if you read it, perhaps we would find out. Oh love of my life." Hermione said with a cheeky smile and fluttering her eyelashes, so she received a playful slap for her effort.
Harry read the letter out to Hermione and the others.
For the attention of Mr H. J. Potter and Miss H. J. Granger,
The presence of Mr Harry James Potter is required in the Estates and Trusts Department of Gringotts Wizarding Bank on Thursday the forth of July at 10.00 a.m. on the occasion of the reading of the Will of Mr Sirius Black.
It is also required that you be accompanied by your Wizard World Guardian.
You are requested to bring Miss Hermione Jane Granger with you, as she is also a beneficiary under this Will.
At your pleasure you may be accompanied by any other such persons as you wish.
Yours truly,
Raggnog.
Chairman and Head of Gringotts Wizarding Bank.
"Wow!" said Tonks, "I have only ever heard of letters like that I have never actually seen one."
"It's worded a bit strangely but what is so special about it?" Jane asked.
"Well," said Tonks, "it's the fifth line mainly, you never get an open invitation to bring whoever you like and the line above is unusual as well. By rights Hermione should have received her own letter and you two wouldn't then be invited, but this way Harry can bring Hermione's parents with her, so we can all go. You must be the major and I mean like five million plus major beneficiary because we are going to see Raggnog and no one sees Raggnog, he's like the leader of all of the Goblins not just the bank."
"So who is my Wizard World Guardian?" Harry asked as they were all eating their way through breakfast. "Have you any idea Tonks?"
Tonks mused, "You can't actually have a proper one at the moment, so it's probably Dumbledore, you were in school when Sirius died so the headmaster would automatically take over temporarily. Because of your age they can't appoint an official one without your consent, so basically you get to choose and it is normally a man."
"Would you like the job Tonks?" he asked.
"Yes I most certainly would, but I told you they prefer a man."
"So if they were given the choice between a woman and a werewolf, which do you think they would pick?" Harry asked with a cheeky grin. "Or could the pair of you do the job jointly?"
"The Goblins will really love you," she said with a big grin of her own, "they are always complaining about Wizard World restrictive practices, it should be fun and if you are prepared to settle for either Remus, me or both then they will have to deal with it."
Matt suddenly said, "Hey, were running late."
"Just go on." Hermione said, "We will wash up then clean around and if you phone us when you arrive we will come straight away."
Jane and Matt hurriedly left to go to work and Tonks went to do a security check of Privet Drive, Hermione and Harry set about clearing the table then washing and drying the dishes.
As they were working Harry asked, "Why did your mum and dad offer me a job seven days a week, they don't seem to have very much work for me to do?"
"I think that it was mainly because I asked them to try to help get you away from the Dursleys," she told him, "although I didn't realise that we would be living next door to each other at the time and I didn't really think that they would be able to organise it. You don't mind being stuck with me seven days a week do you?"
"Well," he said, looking serious, "I suppose that you are a little better than Dudley and the Dursleys."
"And I suppose that I asked for that fishing for compliments, bu…" she couldn't finish because he was kissing her.
When their lips parted he said, "I have to go up and change and we still have Ron and Ginny's letters to read. You can read them out to me whilst I am changing."
The couple made their way upstairs and Hermione was admiring his bum as he went up, she sat on the floor of the landing as Harry went into his room to change, she started to read out Ron's letter.
Hi H. & H.
I think that is pretty cool, don't you?
So Hermione moved into the house next door to you and you used that as an excuse for you two to get together, you could of got to know each other a bit first do you really think that five years of finishing each other's sentences is long enough? I have known that you two have liked each other since the Troll, talk about slow. Congratulations, about time and all that sort of thing, Ginny and I won't tell anyone it's up to you two to decide when they should print a special edition of the prophet.
Enough about you pair, Luna and I had a date and it was great, we are having another one today, feels great. She is a really good cook and likes Quidditch, what more can a man ask for. By the way, I am sure that Luna could get it released in the Quibbler if you wanted, don't tell her that I said so but nobody would believe it if you did.
Ginny is being a pain over Dean, I've tried to tell her that he is a womaniser but she won't listen, how many girls has he been out with now, I counted seventeen? That's not including Ginny.
Bye for now, Ron.
"Well at least he is not mad with us." Harry said.
"And he's taken up with Luna, that's good, she'll be good for him." Added Hermione, "Ginny's letter next."
Hi, You two,
Congratulations, well done and all that. I think that I have won the sweepstake, I picked the summer after OWLS in my first year. I think that I have won about two hundred Galleons don't tell Ron he had you pegged for sometime after NEWTS.
I have been teasing the prat something rotten about Dean and actually I have not been going out with him, I have been out with Neville a couple of times but nothing serious, he is really very sweet and I will kill Ron if he says anything out of place to him.
I don't need my brother to tell me that Dean is a womaniser I think that even all of the second year girls (from all of the houses) know what Dean is like. Ron only counted seventeen I counted twenty-three that I know about.
Congratulations again, love to you both,
Ginny.
Harry said, "Just what does she mean that she has won two hundred Galleons betting on when we would get together."
Just then the phone rang and as Hermione went to answer it she said, "It appears that not everybody else has been as blind to our mutual attraction as we were."
She had reached the telephone and answered it. "Good morning." … "Ok we will come after we have locked up." … "Love you too, bye."
"I assume that was your mum?" Harry said.
"No it was Dudley, lets lock up." Hermione said and continued whilst opening the back door, "I wonder where Tonks is?"
There was a small pop and Tonks appeared, "I have just come from Croydon and it all appears to be clear, so I will go back and you follow in about a minute."
Tonks had come into the house and Hermione had shut and locked the backdoor behind her, then she said, "Ok bye then, we'll see you in a minute."
Tonks Disapparated.
The couple went upstairs this time Hermione went first, of course Harry admired her bum, they were soon in her room and they Portkeyed to the cupboard in Croydon.
It wasn't the same atmosphere in the surgery as it had been on Saturday, all of the lights were on and they looked like they were ready to receive patients.
"So what would you like me to do?" Harry asked Jane.
"Well we normally have two receptionists," Jane told him, "and this week Lauren is on holiday, next week Tanya, who is at the reception desk now, will be off. So we thought that you and Hermione could stand in for them, it won't be very demanding work but at least it will be something to stop you getting to bored. In three weeks time we will probably be going to France on holiday and if you want to, we would like you to come with us, do you have a passport?"
Harry was overjoyed, "I would love to go to France with you but I don't have a passport, if we ask in the bank on Thursday then someone there will definitely know where I will get one."
Hermione and Tonks had been listening and Tonks said, "The bank will probably give you one on Thursday if you ask them along with several other useful things. Is there anyone else you would like to take with you to the reading?"
"I would think that Remus would have his own invitation, is there anyone else you think I should take?"
Tonks thought for a minute and replied, "Remus, Mr and Mrs Weasley, Ron, Ginny and Dumbledore I know to have their own invitations. It could be a good move for you personally to invite my boss Amelia Bones although it may not please the Headmaster too much, if she comes she will be a hundred percent on your side, she is a stickler for the rules and she knows them backwards. It's your life and Dumbledore might not be very happy seeing you starting to take some control over it yourself, he is currently the executor of the 'Potter Trust' and he will have to relinquish that to your new Guardian or Guardians." She fluttered her eyelashes at him and received a playful slap from Hermione.
"I think that it could be a very good idea if your boss was to come to help me, could you ask her for me please and I've never heard of the 'Potter Trust', what is that?" Harry asked.
"Of course I will ask her for you Harry and there is no real reason you should know about the trust." Tonks said, "Remus told me that a very small part of it is what is in your vault, your parents left that bit to keep you going while you were in school. You will probably get the rest when you are seventeen, although you may well be allowed to use some of it before hand if your new Guardian approves." Her eyelashes were fluttering again.
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a little girl crying so they went to the waiting room to investigate, Tanya was having a problem getting the little girl, who looked about seven, to come through into the surgery.
Harry crouched down in front of her and said, "My name is Harry what's yours?"
"Sniff…Helen…sniff." She said shyly.
Harry smiled at her and she tried to smile back through her tears, then he said, "Hello Helen, would you let me take you to see the dentist?"
"Will you hold my hand until I can come back to my mummy?" Helen asked.
Harry agreed to hold Helen's hand until she was back with her mother and so they went through to Matt.
Five minutes later Harry led Helen back to her mother and Helen said, "Please mummy can we take Harry home with us," then she whispered loud enough for everyone to hear, "he's cute."
All five women had been talking in the waiting room and they all heard what the little girl had asked, they had great difficulty not laughing at Harry's embarrassment.
Hermione said, in a very kindly tone, "I'm sorry Helen but my mummy already promised me that I could take Harry home with me."
Helen's mother eventually persuaded her to leave without Harry and he knew that he was set up to be teased, he wasn't wrong.
Apart from Harry's teasing the rest of the day at the surgery was relatively uneventful.
When they reached home in the evening Harry suggested that the next morning he should go to Madame Malkins with Hermione and Tonks to buy some new robes to wear to the Bank on Thursday.
x-x
The next morning Tonks had arranged a Portkey to carry the three of them to Diagon Alley. It was timed to activate at nine o'clock and so at that time they went first to Gringotts, for Harry to get some Pounds and Galleons then they went to the shops.
Foolishly perhaps, Harry had thought that buying himself dress robes would be simple but, trying to satisfy three women, Mme Malkin had joined Hermione and Tonks, the task was destined to be anything but simple.
When they had finished he had to admit that the final result was good, the robes were very soft dark grey material, with a satin finish that shimmered emerald green although he refused everyone's urging to wear a hat.
It had taken over two hours to find Harry's robes, Hermione simply asked for the matching female set and was finished in twenty minutes, hers only had to be resized slightly. Tonks simply refused new robes saying that to such an occasion, she would have to wear her Auror Dress robes, however she added that come the next ball or party she would think about his offer.
Tonks managed to divert Hermione away from Flourish and Blotts bookshop by telling her that she should go there after Thursday, then she might well have enough money to buy one copy of each volume of everything they sold.
Hermione was walking on air, she had Harry and enough money to buy a bookshop, that was a close approach to her vision of paradise, but there was still the minor matter of Voldemort to be taken care of sometime in the future.
When the trio arrived back in Croydon, Jane immediately sent Harry to Vision Express the opticians because Hermione had asked her to book an appointment for him to get new spectacles.
Tanya was going to lunch and it was left to Hermione to sit in reception while she was away, this left Tonks and Harry to go to get his glasses without her. She was not too happy with this turn of events and told him that if she didn't like the new pair he would have to go and get some more. She then gave Tonks strict instructions about keeping other girls away from him and not to let the optometrist alone in the darkroom with him if she were female and under fifty.
His eye test showed that his prescription had changed noticeably, after all he had not had his eyes rechecked since he was ten and at school in Little Whinging. So he had to choose new frames, those he chose were brushed Titanium and circular, John Lennon style, a very similar shape to his old ones, albeit far more stylish, but their major advantage was that he could see with them.
To say that Hermione liked his new spectacles was a bit of an understatement, she loved them and when he told her that she looked twice as good through them she dragged him out to the cupboard by the backdoor.
Her mother found them there about three-quarters of an hour later and asked, "Have you had had lunch or are you trying to eat Harry?"
To which Hermione sheepishly replied, "He's my main course and desert."
Trying to keep a straight face Jane said, "Every summer you complain that his aunt starves him and now you are trying to do the same."
Hermione appreciated the truth of this observation when, much to his embarrassment, Harry's stomach gave a huge rumble, so they left the cupboard to find food together with Jane and Tonks.
x-x
The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday morning passed without incident.
After lunch on Wednesday Matt sent them home because it was very hot and Hermione thought that it would be a good idea to give Harry some more swimming practise.
It hadn't occurred to Harry that it was time for the bikini and the fact that it was a little pale lemon string affair took quite a while to register, what did register was skin, an awful lot of beautiful skin that was normally kept covered.
Hermione's scar was completely healed, she indicated, for him, with her finger where it had been and he knew it was completely healed. He had checked it out very carefully, several times especially where it had crossed her sternum between her breasts and he was checking that area out again now.
Hermione had never been checked out this way by a boy before, truth be told she had never been kissed before either, Viktor had tried to kiss her but she had never let him. Her first kiss was to be special and it had been. Now the ever so special boy who had given her, her first kiss was looking at her as though she was something special as well and Hermione (bookworm) Granger had to admit that she rather liked it.
"Do I pass inspection?" she asked in a husky voice, completely scrambling Harry's brain.
Eventually he managed to whisper, "Yes. You are more beautiful than any mortal has the right to be."
The pair had been standing at the edge of the swimming pool and when Harry said that Hermione threw herself at him kissing him and they both fell into the pool.
Tonks was getting worried, she had seen Hermione kiss Harry about a minute and a half ago when they fell into the pool and there had been no sign of them since. She went over to the pool to make sure that they were all right, as they bobbed to the surface they weren't gasping for breath they were still kissing, so she withdrew and left them to it.
Swimming a little and canoodling a lot is a pretty good way to spend an afternoon when you are in the company of the person you are in love with. In later years, when they were married, Hermione and Harry would remember this afternoon as one of the best they ever spent with their clothes on.
Later on they were lounging in each other's arms in the shallow end of the pool when Hermione said, "You were the first boy I ever kissed you know, I wish that I was the first girl that you ever kissed."
"You are the first girl I ever kissed."
"I can't be, you said that you kissed Cho."
"No I didn't," he said, "you said 'did Cho kiss you' and I said 'yes'. Then Ron asked 'what was it like' and I said 'wet', then I told you that she was crying and then Ron said perhaps I was a bad kisser but when I agreed you said that I wasn't. How did you know?"
She blushed, "I had dreamed of kissing you loads of times and it was never bad, not as good as the real thing mind but never bad. It was amazing that Ron didn't pick up on that more and he let it go so easily."
"I was stood under the mistletoe, defying the Nargles." She giggled at him. "Then Cho starts bawling her eyes out and comes up and kissed me. I was just stunned, I just stood there and didn't do a thing. Then she ran off I suppose back to the Ravenclaw common room and I came down to ours. The only date we ever had was that one on Valentines Day when first off she dragged me into Mme Puddifoots then proceeded to bawl her eyes out again and to tell me how Cedric used to bring her there. Then I really cheered her up by going to see you and Rita Skeeter in the Three Broomsticks. You know the rest of the story and I never kissed her, or anything."
Harry couldn't see her face but Hermione's had a small smile on it, without realising it at the time she had effectively put the kybosh on Cho and Harry's relationship. She couldn't honestly say that she was in any way unhappy about that, in fact she would do it again in an instant, if she had to.
She turned around in the water whilst deliberately maintaining her close contact with Harry and then she kissed him, 'accidentally' rubbing her boobs up his chest as she moved up towards his lips. He moaned into her mouth as she kissed him and she loved it, so you could learn a lot by reading that type of book, she would have to find some for Harry to read. Soon.
"Shall we go and have a shower and get dressed before my parents come home?" she asked.
"But I've got…" he stuttered.
"Well if you didn't have I would be a bit disappointed." She said, with a cheeky grin, "But I would prefer it if my dad didn't see quite what I've done to you."
He was shocked, "You, you did it deliberately?"
The couple were going back into the house and up to their rooms.
"Yes," she said, giving him another big grin. "Did you enjoy it?"
"Of course I did," he said. "But what are you going to do about it now you have made it like this?"
"Well," she said rather sheepishly, "I obviously have never done anything like this before and I didn't realise that it would work quite so well. I have read about some things that I can do with it but I didn't want to do any of them until your birthday, so can't you have a cold shower? Or something?"
Stopping between their rooms, they continued their conversation.
"I have heard Ron say that if you think about something really gross then it will go away. Snape in his underpants." Nothing happened. "I know." He thought of something else and it disappeared.
"What did you think about?" she asked.
"You don't want to know." He said with a really sick look on his face.
"If it's something really awful then I should really suffer as well, after all I did start it all off."
He closed his eyes and then with a shudder said, "Snape snogging Umbridge."
When he opened his eyes she had gone green, "I deserved that," she said, "and I am going to have a shower."
After they had showered and dressed themselves they met again on the landing where Harry gave Hermione a loving kiss, he thanked her for a lovely afternoon, then they made their way slowly down stairs.
It wasn't very long before Hermione's parents arrived home, they had brought Pizza and when they had all finished eating Harry went home for an early night, they would all have a busy day tomorrow.
x-x
Authors Note. I thank every one of you once more for all of the reviews for the first chapter. I will not threaten you again with stopping the story at this point but as any of you who write yourselves know, reviews certainly make the writing easier.
If you notice spelling mistakes it does not help me if you say 'I noticed some spelling mistakes'. I need to know what they are and if you want to I will always respond to an e-mail, check my FF. net homepage for the address.
QUESTION TIME; for this week's question, whom would you like me to include in the story? If you have Ron he will come with Luna (I will ignore her age) then you have the choice of any or all from; Ginny, Padma Patil, Susan Bones, Daphne Greengrass, Parvati Patil or add others at will, however I do think that this H & H are very one for one.