Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and am making no money from this.
Harry
I made a point to avoid Uncle Vernon when I got home from shopping. Actually, I always try to avoid him, but especially now. Parkinson gave me his wallet back, but I just left it on the kitchen table. I doubt he'll see it being returned as any sort of reason to be nice to me,and no matter how scared he may be of Parkinson, I don't think he'll treat me well after her threats; I'm keeping my head down until I get to go to the Burrow.
That plan works pretty well, at least until the day before I'm supposed to get picked up by the Weasleys.
"Boy!" my uncle screams from downstairs. "Get down here."
"Yes Uncle Vernon?" I ask, coming down the stairs.
"Do you have any idea what this is?" he demands, waving an envelope and some papers at me.
"No uncle, I have no idea what that is."
"These are my monthly credit card statements. You and those foul friends of your managed to run up thousands of dollars worth of bills."
"Thousands? But it was just one day." Though come to think of it, some of the stuff was pretty pricey. Some of those heels Pansy kept getting Cho to try on were a few hundred a piece, and I remember carrying quite a lot of them to the car….
"Apparently your vile ilk has no concept of money. Fine, you freaks may be irresponsible, but I work for a living, and I absolutely will not pay this bill; you will. So tomorrow, I expect you to go out and get a job. Every dime you earn will go towards this."
"But I'm supposed to go visit my friends tomorrow."
"Absolutely not. You work. And if you don't repay the bill before you go to that school of yours you will start working again the day you get home. I don't want to see you doing a thing except paying this off. Actually, perhaps two jobs. The only time I expect to see you in this house is to sleep. Is that clear?"
"But uncle," I start.
"No buts. This is final. If you don't like it, blame those friends of yours. Now go find the help wanted ads and start making phone calls."
"Yes uncle." I sigh and go to the kitchen. The paper is in the trash by now, of course, so I have to go looking for it. The help wanted section is under some old coffee grounds. I take the paper out, clean it off as best I can and take it upstairs. I still plan to leave tomorrow, but I have to at least look like I'm going to get a job or things will get worse. So that's my evening, reading a dirty paper and circling ads as if I actually care.
It's early the next morning when I get woken up. It isn't my uncle waking my up though, it's Ron. "Ron? What are you doing here?" I ask, looking around. I see that it's before 5 in the morning, and somehow both Ron and Ginny are in my room.
"We're here to get you, mate," Ron answers. "Figured it'd be better to do it early before the Muggles are awake."
"Hmm, so this is what a boy's room looks like," Ginny says, rifling through the drawers of my dresser.
"Hey, stop that! Don't look through there," I yell.
"Shh," Ron hushes me. "Quiet or you'll wake up the Muggles."
"Yeah, but she's looking through all my stuff."
"I'm helping you pack," Ginny smirks at me, throwing some of my underwear into my trunk. It's creepy how some girls can pull off a smirk like that.
After that shopping trip, I'm pretty sure fighting a girl is a losing battle. Besides, Ginny's probably already seen everything worth seeing. So I decide to try my very best to ignore her. "How are we getting there?"
"Portkey. We'll pack everything up and be on our way," Ron answers.
So pack up my stuff. It's kind of depressing how fast it is to do. I think the girls bought almost as much stuff on that shopping trip. Finally, it's all done and Ron takes out a very tired looking piece of rope. We all take hold, using our other hands for my various possessions. Ron activates the Portkey, and after a moment of that weird inside out sensation we're at the Burrow.
"Oh, Harry, good morning," Mrs. Weasley greets. "Sorry we had to get you so early. We wanted to avoid more trouble with the Muggles though. Hurry and take your things upstairs, breakfast will be ready soon."
After a lot of effort, Ron and I get everything up to his room. "Merlin I wish this house had less stairs," Ron pants. "Oh, Hermione won't be making it here this year."
"Why not?"
"Parkinson," Ron almost spits the name out.
"Oh, that's right, she's staying with Hermione over the summer."
"What, she wormed her way into Hermione's house?"
"Apparently."
"And Hermione still hasn't smartened up? Bloody hell."
"Ron, she did help us at the Ministry. I saw her not long ago and she seemed to still be getting along with Hermione. Sometimes people change, do strange things and stuff."
"What's that mean? What have those two been doing?"
"I don't mean them." I've been wondering how to ask Ron about this all summer. We never got a chance last year, but sooner or later I have to. It's one of those things that you just need an answer to. "Ron, what happened at the end of last year?"
"What do you mean? At the Ministry?"
"No, at the DA."
"Oh, that."
"Yeah, that," I answer. "When Umbridge broke in, you were with her. And the way Parkinson told it, you were how Umbridge knew where we were. She was an Inquisitor, Ron; she'd know. So what happened?"
"Look, can we just drop this? It's over, right? Umbridge is gone, everything's fine."
"No Ron, we can't just drop it."
"Fine," Ron groans. "What do you want to know? Did I just go to Umbridge and squeal? Hell no. I didn't want to tell her anything, she made me."
"She made you? What, she was going to put you in detention or something?"
"No, if it was just that I'd have told her where to shove it. She was going to change all my Defense Against the Dark Arts grades, make it so I failed the class. Then since she was headmaster, she wasn't going to let me take summer school or something. She was going to just flat out expel me. Then where would I be? She said she'd make sure no other school anywhere took me, and it's not like my family could afford to send me to France or the States or something. That'd have been it, I'd have been done. No job no nothing. What, bus tables at the Leaky Cauldron or something? She was going to ruin my entire life, Harry. What could I do?"
"So you told her everything."
"Of course, I had to. What, you'd have rather I said no? She'd have probably just poured some Veritaserum down my throat and gotten the truth anyway."
"At least you'd have had to make her do that then. Instead you just gave up."
"What's the big deal, mate? She was going to bust everyone either way. It's not like I'm Wormtail here. No one died or anything; it's all fine now."
"You don't see how it's the same thing?"
"No, I don't. No one died; everything went just fine. You-Know-Who's plan got foiled, we all got medals, Umbridge is gone, happy ending all around."
"And how am I suppose to trust you, Ron? How are any of us?" I demand.
"How am I supposed to answer that? I didn't want to tell Umbridge anything. You know I'd never betray you or Hermione or anyone. What was I supposed to do? Just let her take away my entire life and she'd still get what she wanted? It's not like I wanted to do it; she didn't give me any choice."
"Well maybe you should have listened to Hermione and not just taken all those nonsense grades you got."
"She's always telling us stuff. How many times has she wanted us to quit Quidditch so we could have more time to study?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"No, look mate, seriously, I would never do anything to betray you. I wouldn't do that to any of my friends. Umbridge was going to get what she wanted no matter what. Yeah, maybe I should have known things were too good to be true and all that, but by then it was too late; she'd already won, we just didn't know it yet. But you can trust me. Really."
"Breakfast," Mrs. Weasley calls from downstairs.
"So are we all right then?" Ron asks.
"Yeah, I guess so," I answer. I guess it is. I mean, Ron's right, Umbridge played him. I guess it isn't totally his fault. Ok, maybe letting her play him is. I don't know, it's messed up. I just hope it gets better over time.
Hermione
We're tracking Pansy's cat through the neighborhood. He's off on quite the adventure, a good distance away from the house.
"All right, we're close now," I finally announce. "There's an alley ahead, I think he's in there."
"We really have to find how he got out and fix it," Pansy comments.
We round the corner and look into the alley. Sure enough, there's Pansy's cat, being held by someone. There's three of them, actually, all rather hooligan looking in nature.
"Um, excuse me, but I believe you have our cat there," I get their attention.
"Oh, is this yours?" the one holding Pansy's kitten replies.
"Yes, it is."
"Oh, did he get lost? You really should take better care of him."
"We will," I assure. "So if you return him we'll be on our way and you can get back to whatever you were doing."
"He was a lot of trouble to catch. I think we deserve a reward."
I see Pansy tense up next to me, I'm still trying to keep things calm though. "A reward? What, like money?"
"Money's good, but we can get money anytime. I think maybe it's not so interesting here."
"What then?" I ask, worried Pansy's instincts for trouble may be dead on.
"You want the kitty, we want some pussy."
"What the fuck did you say?" Pansy makes no effort to hide the anger in her voice.
"You heard me."
"No, fuck you."
"Not a smart answer, girl. We still have your cat."
"So we have sex with you or you hurt the cat?" I ask.
"Now you're getting it."
"You touch my cat and I'll fucking kill all of you," Pansy threatens.
"Now Pansy, try and keep calm, there's no need to have things get out of hand here. We can just back off and I'm sure they'll let the cat go, there's no need for violence here," I try and calm things down before this gets truly out of hand.
"I'm not leaving my cat."
"Actually, you bitches aren't leaving at all." So much for deescalating the situation. "There's three of us and two of you. Do the math."
"Last chance, let the cat go or you get hurt."
There isn't an counter threat or snappy comeback. The man simply takes his free hand and puts it on the cat's head, twisting hard. I can hear the crack from where I am. He throws the cat's limp body in our direction, where it lands at Pansy's feet.
"Avada Kedavra," Pansy yells, her wand out almost faster than my eyes can track. The fact he's being attacked doesn't even register on the thug's face before he falls dead.
Pansy get a second spell off right after the first,Sectumsempra, a slashing spell. One of the hooligans is standing sideways to us. The spell catches him across the side of his jaw, completely severing his jaw, and from the sickening blood spurts, her spell cut deep into his throat as well. He'll be dead in seconds.
There's only one opponent left, and I don't want to see him killed as well. "Bombarda," I cast a kinetic explosion spell. I doubt he knows what's going on, but seeing his friend spewing blood was enough to convince him to turn and run. My spell hits his right knee, the blast collapsing it sideways. He crumples to the ground just as a third spell from Pansy flies overhead; if he'd still been on his feet it would have hit him.
"Pansy, stop," I yell. "You've done enough all ready."
"It's not finished yet."
"Yes it is. His knee is destroyed, even with the best medicine he may never walk again. You've done enough. Please, just stop, it's enough."
Pansy keeps her wand out for a while before finally lowing it. "Fine."
"All right, good, thank you. Now we need to think of some way to deal with this." This is bad, very bad. I have no idea how to handle this. All right, I know how to handle a bit of it at least.
I run over to the still breathing hooligan and cast a quick memory charm. I'm no master of them, so I don't try anything too difficult; rather than replacing or altering his memory of us I simply remove all traces of Pansy, myself, Pansy's cat and everything that just happened in the alley.
"I wiped his memories, but I have no idea what to do about the rest. With all the Death Eaters around who knows if the Ministry will look into violence here or not. If they do they'll realize this was magic. I don't know what we can do about it…."
"They want to find magic? Fine," Pansy raises her wand high into the air. "Morsmordre." Green light flies from Pansy's wand. It rises above the alley and creates the Dark Mark.
"Pansy," I gasp.
"I told you, my parents are Death Eaters. Now come on, let's go."
Pansy picks up the body of her cat and we head out of here as fast as we reasonably can. We don't want to run and look suspicious, but we absolutely want to be gone before anyone shows up. With Voldermort back I doubt anyone will look for suspects, not with the Dark Mark over the crime scene, so we should get away with it. God, how did a missing cat lead to this?
We burry the cat in the backyard when we get home. Pansy doesn't say a word the entire time. Actually, she doesn't say a word the rest of the day; she just shuts herself in her room. When it came to Pansy's parents and what happened at the end of last year I've given Pansy her space. I know she isn't one to lead with her feelings. Actually she tends to use anger and surliness to cover up her feelings. She hasn't done that this summer, she's outright suppressed her feelings, and I've respected that. I assumed when she was ready to talk, she would, so I've been patient, but this is something I just can't leave alone.
It's after midnight, well after my parents are asleep when I knock on Pansy's door. I can see a light coming from under it; I know Pansy is still awake. There's no answer, so I knock again. Still no answer. "Pansy, I'm coming in."
I open the door and quietly go in. Pansy is there, watching some movie or another on the computer in the room.
"Pansy, we need to talk." She still sits there, staring at the screen. "Pansy, please look at me."
She stands up and turns to look at me. The look on her face is unreadable, so neutral it's almost disturbing. "Look, about what happened earlier…." I start.
"Why did they have to do that?" Pansy asks in a small voice. "That cat never did anything to anyone. He'd barely been born."
"I don't know why they did what they did."
"He didn't deserve to die, not like that."
"No, he didn't," I agree. "But I don't think those three guys deserved what happened to them either."
"Why not? You saw what they did. Like it was nothing, like he was just a piece of trash to throw away."
Yes, I know enough psychology to know that people who kill small animals have a very high chance of moving to people. That little gang may well have robbed people, broken into houses, maybe even killed, but even still it wasn't on us to be the ones to stop them. "I know Pansy, but what you did, it isn't ok."
"Why not? Why shouldn't someone do something? When someone is just thrown away like that, how is that ok? How can you just let that happen? Like he was nothing. That kitten was adorable and cute and innocent. But that didn't matter at all. How can someone just throw something away like that?"
"I don't know."
"Someone can just lose everything in an instant. They don't do anything wrong and then just suddenly it's gone." Pansy trails off and I see her neutral look cracking. I rush over to her and by the time I have my arms around her she's crying. "It's not how things are supposed to work."
I don't say anything; I just hold Pansy. Before long she isn't saying anything either, she's just crying and holding on to me as tightly as she can.
Ron
Harry, Ginny and I are meeting Hermione and Cho at Diagon Alley. Oh yeah, and I'm sure Hermione will have Parkinson in tow. Sure enough, the girls are on time; they meet up with us just outside of Gringotts.
"Hey Cho, still dressed like normal?" Parkinson asks after everyone's said hi and all that.
"She should be dressed abnormal?" Ginny asks.
"No, we all went shopping;she got some showy new stuff. Apparently isn't going to wear it though."
"It's not exactly something my parents would approve of, so I'm holding off on wearing any of it we're at Hogwarts. Actually, I didn't even take a lot of it home," Cho answers. "Didn't you notice I wasn't carrying much when you dropped me off?"
"Hmm, good point. So what, left if all in the car or something?"
"Muggle roads don't go to my house, remember? It was too much to easily carry, so I asked Hermione to just bring it to school and I'll get it from her there."
"Huh? Don't remember anyone saying anything about that."
"You were trying on clothes of your own," Hermione points out.
"Oh. Yeah, starting to outgrow some stuff, guess I did get a few things of my own."
"Do you all know the kind of trouble that trip go me in?" Harry interrupts, sounding pretty angry.
"Your uncle was upset about Pansy's threats?" Cho asks. Wait, she and Parkinson are on a first name basis now? So girls go shopping together and they're all friends I guess?
"He didn't like that, but it's not the first time wizards have come in. Not quite as menacing, but it's the money that really got him upset. He got his credit card statement."
"Uh oh," Hermione looks worried.
"What's a credit card statement?" Cho asks.
"You remember all the things we bought with that card in Harry's uncle's wallet? That card is called a credit card, and a credit card statement is the bill for it all."
"The bill?" Cho stops and thinks for a bit. "Oh my. What's the current exchange rate between Muggle and wizard money again?"
"Around ten Muggle dollars to the Galleon."
"So somewhere between three and four hundred Galleons, give or take a few dozen Galleons. Oh,"
"Bloody hell? Three or four hundred Galleons?" I gasp.
"What did you spend all that money on?" Ginny asks.
"Um, skirts, some tops and shoes. Quite a few pairs of shoes actually. Muggle high heels look good," Cho explains.
"Hell yeah, Cho looks amazing in those stilettos," Parkinson agrees. "The right clothes make a huge difference for her. It's really something when you see it.
"Still, perhaps we did lose ourselves in the moment somewhat."
"What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is my uncle is making me pay it all back. He's forcing me to get two jobs until I pay back every dime," Harry frowns.
"What, he thinks you should pay for it all? Tell him to get fucked."
"He's my family, I'm not going to tell him that."
"Why not? He's an asshole. From what Hermione says he's abused you and crap, so why not treat him how he deserves."
"Oh, that would be a wonderful idea. Swear at him and threaten him, and then what? He'd throw me out of the house, literally."
"I thought you were staying with the weasels now. So just live with them full time."
"I can't, I'm not allowed to."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Professor Dumbledore won't let me."
"What the hell's he matter? He your dad or something?"
"No, he just… won't let me. I don't know why."
"I've asked about it too," Cho interrupts. "It didn't make any sense to me either."
"So what, he gets shit on because the old man says so? Sounds like he should tell the old bastard to fuck off, and then do the same to his ass of an uncle."
"Of course you'd say that," Harry frowns.
"It works. Don't blame me if you don't have the balls to do it."
"You know, life isn't all about threats and telling people off. I'd have thought living with Hermione you might have learned that, but apparently not. But whatever, you don't seem to care about the trouble you cause anyone. I'm going to go broom shopping; you all can do whatever."
"Harry, I'll come with you," Cho offers.
"No, it's fine. You've got other shopping to do I'm sure. I'll meet up with you all at Flourish and Blotts in a little bit."
Cho looks surprised and kind of hurt, but Harry walks off anyway. I watch him go for a minute before deciding to go after him. I catch up with him just outside Quality Quidditch Supplies.
"Hey, Harry, wait up mate," I call.
"Oh, Ron, hi."
"Everything ok? Cho looked kind of upset when you walked off like that."
"What, because I don't want to go shopping with her? That didn't work out so well last time I tried it. Now I'm stuck working all next summer to pay off that stupid bill."
"You've got lots of gold, don't you? Can't you just turn some of that into Muggle money?"
"Yeah, but my uncle won't care. He's going to do this to me just to punish me, even if I have the money."
"Oh. Sorry."
"You know the worst part? It's like they weren't even sorry. Sure, the girls were surprised how much they spent and all, but you didn't see one of them offering to help pay it back or anything."
"Three or four hundred Galleons is a lot of money."
"I know, and yeah, there's no way they could do it, but they could have at least offered. Instead it was like it just didn't register how bad this was. It barely registered that I was there when they were dragging me around all the stores though, so I guess it's no surprise."
"That's just sort of how girls are, you know? They really get into shopping. Just look at any clothes store, they're full of girls in their own little world."
"Yeah, I guess. It just makes me mad. I mean, Cho's my girlfriend, shouldn't how I feel be a big thing to her?"
"I'm not really the guy to ask about this stuff. I mean, shouldn't you talk to her? At first when you got together you were all nervous and stuff, but it worked. Towards the end of the year though it didn't seem like you two talked much at all. That's kind of important to do, isn't it?"
"Probably. But I can deal with it later. I actually do need to get a new broom."
So we head inside and start looking over what's there. Firebolts are still the best thing on the market, but they're priced like it too.
"Still expensive. You really looking to drop that much gold?" I ask.
"I don't know. What's the alternatives?"
"There's a comet 260. Gin and I have them, Cho used to fly one too."
"That's sort of a big step down from what I'm used to, isn't it? I'm not sure I want to do that."
Yeah, it's a crap broom, I know. Gin and I fly them because it's all our family can afford, not because the thing's any good. "I guess you'd want something a bit faster, yeah. Got to have something at least close to what Cho and Malfoy are flying if we're going to win the cup and all."
"Win the cup? I don't think that's exactly realistic, Ron. We don't have a team. I mean, who actually has experience? You and me, that's it."
"Gin and a few others played for part of last year."
"A month or two doesn't really count."
Yeah, I guess Harry's right, there's no team left at all, just him and me, and I'm not exactly a star player. "So what, we're just going to have a lousy season then?"
"I think it's better if we look at it as a two year plan. We've got two years left at Hogwarts and all, so I think we should plan around that. So this year we build a team and just get people used to working together and the game and stuff. Maybe try and beat Hufflepuff? They've rebuilt after um, after losing their Seeker. But even still, they aren't great, so maybe we can beat them."
"And Ravenclaw and Slytherin?"
"I just don't see us beating them this year. It'd be great if we could, but I don't see how."
"So your girlfriend gets to play Malfoy for the cup again."
"I guess so." All right, Cho is obviously not Harry's favorite topic at the moment.
"So um, anyway, a broom? What about a Nimbus? You had a 2000, that wasn't bad, was it? There's the 2001 too now."
"Malfoy has a 2001; I'm not getting the same broom he has," Yup, definitely some anger in Harry today.
"So a 2000 then?"
"What, have a worse broom than Malfoy? That's bollocks."
"That just leaves the Firebolt then."
"I guess so. Looks like I'll have a lot less gold after today."
Merlin, why can't I ever get to say something like that?
Pansy
I'm a charity case now; I know it. It's pretty fucking terrible, but that's my life. Not even enough gold left to pay for my books; Hermione's family is doing it. They were nice about it and all, gave her enough to pay for us both and just didn't talk about it,so I don't have to beg or shit and can pretend I'm not fucking broke, but it's crap. Not like I could have done anything about it in advance though. Muggles may have those ATM things, but when I decided to ditch my family for Hermione I didn't have any way to get my hands on any extra gold.
My original plan for the summer was to just kind of wander and find some house that was abandoned or for sale or some crap like that and let myself in. Few spells to keep Muggles away and then that'd be it, my house for the summer. Just steal food and shit and wait for summer to end. So yeah, really glad Hermione let me stay with her.
Her parents were cool with it too, which is good. They even taught me to drive and stuff. And Hermione? Hell, she didn't freak out when I started killing people. I mean, talk about good traits in a girlfriend. Who really wants to put up with bitching and whining when you cast a few fatal spells? I sure as hell don't.
Ok, so she sort of did treat it like a big deal and there was going to be some kind of crap or another from it when I kind of just fell apart. I don't know how long it had been since I cried; years I guess. But damn it, that was such bullshit. I mean, fuck, just… killing my cat like that. Even I know that kind of thing isn't right.
I swear it was half the night before I got a hold of myself. Hermione just stayed and held me the whole time. I don't know what it was about it all, but I guess I kind of needed her. I'm not all sappy and stuff (Hermione kind of is), so I've never done any fancy declaration of love, just that scene in the Great Hall, but I guess yeah…. Hermione's told me she loves me, but I've never said it to her. Stuff like that night make me wonder if maybe I should or something.
We never talked about that day since, not the assholes I killed and not the crying and shit. That's fine with me. I don't actually know if Hermione's ok with what happened, but she's at least ok enough with it to have not raised it again or thrown me out or something like that, so as far as I'm concerned that's plenty good enough.
Still, you can be damned sure I've been a lot more careful about my remaining cat. My little kitty has a name now too: Madison. She's a beautiful little gray and black kitten and I'll be damned if I let anything happen to her.
I'd say I have better things to do than let my mind wander like this, but I really don't. Potter ran off and the idiot weasel chased after him, so we're sort of just killing time now. Just walking around, Hermione, me, Cho and the girl weasel. Pretty damned boring. Maybe if we could spend more of Potter's uncle's money it'd be more fun.
I'm bored and looking around for something entertaining. Anything entertaining. If I wasn't, I might not have noticed it. I squeeze Hermione's hand (she's big on hand holding) to get her attention. "Hey, over in the alley over there, somebody's there. I think we're being watched," I whisper.
Author's Notes:
A bit of a hard chapter to write, for I think obvious reasons. thanks to that-fan for all his help, as always. I appreciate it.
Of course I'd also like to thank everyone who reviews. They're much appreciated, and I always welcome more. Thanks.