Harry was weeding the rose bushes in the front garden with Hedwig supervising from a hoop. He heard the phone ring inside and Vernon picked it up. Desperately hoping it wasn't one of the rare calls from the office he paused the weeding to listen.

"Hello, Dursley residence... Yes, she's here."

"Pet! Phone for you."

"Hello? Slow down... We'll be right there."

"Do you need me to drive you anywhere?"

"No, we'll catch the bus, it's faster."

A moment later Petunia stormed out of the house with Vernon and Dudley trailing behind.

"Come on Harry, we need to go"

Scrambling to his feet he turned to go and get his belt and wand when he heard the familiar bang of the Knight bus arriving. He also had a good look at Vernon's face and could see the disgust mixed with anger on his face.

Not even waiting to see more he turned around and sprinted to the bus. The sound of Dudley talking to his dad following like a Cassandra voice of the future.

"Mum's a freak, does that mean that I'm a freak too?"

Half and hour later a silent Harry followed a pensive Petunia. Almost a month of living more freely with her not able to over come the lifetime of conditioning he had into following her orders without question when she looked like this. She marched up to the front door of the Grangers and rang the bell.

A moment later an ashen faced and clearly shaken Dan opens the door and invites them in.

Petunia takes in his appearance and gently leads him to the sitting room.

"Harry would you be able to make a pot of tea, Chamomile if they have it. And bring Dan a mug rather than a cup."

As Harry went off to do that, Petunia rubbed circles into the back of Dan's hand while whispering reassuring statements. When Harry got back she poured Dan half a mug of tea and placed it in his hands. She watched as the warmth permeated the mug and into his hands. Then as he reflexively held it up to his chest in both hands. As she waited for him to calm down, she reflected on the fact that he wasn't used to dealing with trauma, and what did it say about her life that she was. Eventually colour started to come back into his face, and his shaking subsided, so she gently took the mug from him and handed him a fresh cup of tea.

"What happened?"

Dan took a deep breath and launched into an explanation of what he saw last night.

"Shh, it's alright, you came back and you couldn't see any sign of injury on Emma before you came down, so I'm sure they're still just sleeping it off. Here, hold Nixie, I find that stroking her is calming." She reached under her hair and replaced the empty cup of tea with Nixie in his hands.

Seeing that his Aunt had things under control here, Harry spoke up. "Is it OK if I go and check on Hermione?"

Dan looked up from Nixie, a look of wonder warring with the memories of last night, "Sure. Go ahead, you know where it is."

He found Emma and Hermione where they fell, and sat down beside them and stroked Hermione's hair, needing to touch her to reassure himself that his first friend was still here. After a while Emma started to stir, and wake up. She suddenly sat up and checked her shoulder looking around wildly making Harry jump.

Harry used the voice that he used when trying to appease Vernon when he was building up, "It's OK, Auntie's downstairs with Dan. You go, I'll stay here with Hermione."

Getting up, she looked much more together than Dan had at the door, Harry guessed it was the fact that there were other people around. The low murmur of people talking floated up the stairs, providing a comforting backdrop while he sat there stroking his friends hair.

It was late afternoon when Hermione finally woke up, and looked around. When she saw Harry but not her parents, she immediately started crying and latched on to Harry. "I didn't mean it, I killed mummy and daddy, I didn't mean to."

"Shh, shh, it's OK, they're downstairs with Aunt Petunia."

"They're dead, and it's all because of me."

"No they're not, they're downstairs."

After another cycle of self-recrimination Harry realised that nothing he could say would help, so instead he struggled to his feet and pulled Hermione downstairs with him. When they got down, he had to physically turn her head to look at her parents before she finally realised that they weren't dead. After that she flew into their arms in turn sobbing about how she didn't mean it, she didn't want to hurt them.

She finally calmed down and finished reassuring herself that her parents were OK, and that they weren't too upset with her, she still got a lecture about doing dangerous things just because she wanted to prove she could before someone else. Suddenly she perked up and squeaked "Chirpy!" and bolted for the stairs.

Harry and Petunia both looked confused. "Chirpy?" Harry asked.

"It's what she called her…", Dan waved a hand at Nixie, ", we can't call it an imaginary creature any more as I'm looking at and stroking Nixie."

She came back down a few minutes later with a mini Nixie sucking on a finger. "He was hiding under the bed, oh, and I found your socks Dad." Everyone else saw the exact moment that Hermione realised that she could actually see Chirpy and Nixie and they burst out laughing. With the offended look on Hermione's face the events of last night were put into the past.

"Aunt Petunia, you know we came here on the Knight bus?"

"Yes?"

"How did you call it?"

"Erm, I just stuck my hand up like this to call the bus" She demonstrates and they hear a Bang from outside and the voice of the conductor.

"Huh, no one here, they must have decided to apperate. Well they don't seem to have left anything behind, so next stop Ernie." Followed by another bang.

After a long silence as they look at each other, Dan breaks it. "Well, apparently that's a thing now."

"Oops."

They all start laughing and something heals in the Grangers souls.

"Well, that gives us a different option for tomorrow. You could take the Knight Bus to Kings Cross, and I could call it to bring you home."

Emma looks at Dan, "Well that would save worrying about traffic and parking."

"Now what am I going to tell Vernon."

With that, the mood turned serious again, and Harry and Hermione retreated to her room rather than remaining behind to get bored. They eventually decided that Dan would phone and "Explain the situation".

"Hello. Could I speak to Vernon?... Hi, it's Dan Granger I called this morning. No, we're alright, Hermione's going to Hogwarts with Harry, and she had an accident so we wanted a familiar face to help us out… No, nothing dangerous it's just that I don't think those in the other world would understand the problem… Yes, we were all taught how to call the bus… No it doesn't require us to be that… I'm sorry sir, I have been a dentist for 20 years, and I have never used magic I didn't even know it was real before the teacher turned up to talk to Hermione… That's quite alright… Yes… We were going to take them out for dinner as a thank you… Yes, we'll call you as they're about to leave… Crawley… OK, goodbye."

Dan lets out an exhausted sigh, OK, he bought it, we'll make sure you get home and we need to phone before you leave. I think he's going to indulge Dudley and give him a birds and the bees talk.

Harry and Petunia eventually got home at around 9, and after a quiet conversation Petunia persuaded Vernon to let her take Harry to the station as she knew how to call the bus, while he drove Dudley to Smeltings and got there in time to go through the student induction with him. She also reminded him to take the camera and take lots of photos.

She wondered if it was possible to get a magical camera so that she could get some photo's of Harry.