One week before September the first, Harry portkeyed back to Dover with his two loyal companions, and navigated the International Portkey Terminal with more anonymity than he expected.
Crow immediately left his side to fly back to Islington, but Harry found his arms full of indignant kneazle while he waited in line for the ministry workers to put through his paperwork and let him out into the British Floo System node.
At least it was pleasantly cool in the high halls of the stone building, built as grandly and whimsically as possible because it was perfectly hidden from muggle sight.
"I'm sorry," Harry found himself mentioning more than once, as he and Crookshanks took another three steps forward towards the pendantic little wizard checking their paperwork – not a passport, because wizarding borders didn't work that way, but all Ministries did like to register their statistics. "I get the portkey hangover too. All sorts of bloody colours are seeping through the shadows right now, actually. Shall I put you down?"
Crookshanks emphatically disagreed.
"Is it your…whatdoyoucallit…your inner ear? Hermione says that's where the dizziness comes from….no?" He grimaced. "All right then, keep your socks on. I'll give you some peace and quiet, shall I?"
A glimpse of grey sea could be spotted to one side: wide doors were left open to let the fresh air and light in, presumably to cool what could sometimes get very heated crowds.
The English weather was as to be expected: the early afternoon sun was present in patches, but mostly hidden behind a smattering of clouds, and the wind was fresh and smelled like sea salt.
But, as Harry's position in the queue slowly moved up and Crookshanks gradually stopped hissing into his neckline, Harry found the wait to be more pleasant than he had expected. Effectively disguised, both he and Crookshanks handed over their German-issued intent-to-travel documents and traipsed beyond the lines of queuing wizards and witches and beings with no one the wiser.
Harry had Sirius to thank for the idea: he was still getting used to the idea of wearing wizarding robes beyond just the Hogwarts uniform, so he certainly would never have thought up the baggy motorcycle jacket, fake piercings, or the temporary tattoos.
But they certainly worked. In combination with a change in hair colour, to a warm but common dirt brown shade, Harry looked like a standard muggle-born wizard disenchanted with the Wizarding World.
Throughout the International Portkey Terminal, witches and wizards of a more traditional bent saw him coming a mile away and averted their eyes to make snide comments.
No Potter Spotter sightings considered.
The colovaria charm, which had also temporarily turned Crookshanks' magnificent orange coat an elegant but subdued grey, was not helping the kneazle's mood any, either.
Having left the large stone hall to step into…another large stone hall, this time with less doors open, Harry paid his three knuts for a Floo trip to Charing Cross, and soon he and Crookshanks snuck out of the Leaky Cauldron, their anonymity retained.
While Harry tried to flag down a taxi on the muggle side of the pub, he found himself coaxing the huge, sulking beast in his arms. "Sirius said he was happy to look after you until he came back, since you hate the portkeys so much…" Harry tried. His eyes scanned the road for an available taxi. "And Remus did say he'd be happy to bring you back the muggle way if you wanted to wait just a bit longer. You know Remus could come back much sooner than Sirius, whether or not the Ministry changes its stance on the Azkaban thing."
Crookshanks remained unimpressed.
"I gave you the option of coming back by boat, didn't I?" Harry muttered, as a black London taxi finally spotted him and swerved over to pick up him. "You could even have come back in my trunk. It makes the portkey a bit better…doesn't it?"
Crookshanks gave Harry such an unimpressed stare that Harry knew he was being judged for such stupid thinking.
"I did tell you that I wouldn't mind that slower boat ride over," Harry protested. Then the taxi driver leant over to open the window to shout at him. Obviously, the surly man had not realised that Crookshanks was a cat until he'd stopped.
"'Ere, you," the driver scowled. "I kin take yer, but only if yer pay extra fer th'animal. An' if it ruins m' car seats, mate…"
"Sure, sure."
After a quick heft to shove his trunk into the boot of the vehicle, Harry slid into the back seat of the car, his leather jacket squeaking unpleasantly on the faux-leather of the taxi seats. Crookshanks arranged himself more comfortably in Harry's arms; from half-climbing Harry's torso, he deigned to relax.
The taxi driver stared suspiciously in his rear-view mirror as Crookshanks let his hind legs drape off Harry's thighs and onto the cool pleather. Harry kept stroking the great kneazle's head – that special spot just under his jaw that always put Crookshanks in a better mood.
After the driver received his instructions and the car pulled off smoothly, Harry went back to apologising to his cat.
"Look, I know I said I wanted to get back in London as soon as possible, but you're obviously more important to me than getting myself acclimatized back to England."
Crookshanks flicked his ears oppressively.
"Well, yes." Harry admitted. "But I've been tired before, and it's all worked out alright. And it's not like this is the last time I'll see Sirius. As soon as the Ministry gets its act together, he can come back to England and finally take over my guardianship. The Dursleys won't matter after the graveyard, I don't think? So losing a week wouldn't have hurt me."
A tail whipped.
Harry vacillated. "True… but then we both could have just come a week later. I mean, it probably wouldn't even be a week. The trains over the muggle side there are really fast. We could have gotten to a port really quickly."
With a solemn turn of the neck, Crookshanks' calm eyes came to meet Harry's, and they stared at him in silent judgement. The taxi driver was giving him some very odd looks in the mirror, but Harry ignored him out of sheer force of habit, and the fact that he'd become significantly more inured to public judgement these days.
Harry's shoulders collapsed a little under the weight of Crookshanks' stare. "Yes. Okay, okay. I know. I'm grateful, okay? And I know I need all the help I can get, and even if Kreacher will be here, and even if Crow will probably beat us to the house, you being here as well will obviously be better for me.
"I'm just – I don't like it when you're uncomfortable, you know? And knowing that you put up with it for me kind of makes it worse."
After a moment of silent evaluation, Crookshanks turned his body to headbutt Harry fondly. Harry jerked back against the seat a little; a headbutt from Crookshanks in the diaphragm carried a lot of force.
Harry found the time to gaze out the window at the street. Muggle cars had updated again, since the last time he'd spent much time on the roads in London proper. People on the sidewalks were wearing fashion that was slowly shifting back to how it was when he'd last been seventeen.
"So this is the modern world, huh, Crookshanks?" he found himself mumbling. "Been a while since I've been here."
The ride itself was quite comfortable after that.
By the time the taxi had made it to Grimmauld Place, not only had Harry been forgiven for the portkey, but Crookshanks' body had relaxed enough so that the claws no longer kneaded at Harry's tender thighs.
Harry shoved his only handful of British muggle money at the driver in the front seat.
"Take all of that, why don't you? Crook—my cat appreciated how smoothly you went around the corners, and I don't have any use for the change, anyway."
The man's eyebrows rose abruptly. "Now, see 'ere…"
"Thanks so much," Harry continued, opening the door to let Crookshanks leap out onto proper British soil once again. "Keep the rest as a tip. I'll just grab my trunk from the boot, if that's okay?"
Muttering confusedly about unexpected windfalls and well-behaved cats, the driver was pleased enough with Harry's attitude to actually clamber out of his seat and unload the trunk from the boot personally.
He ran bewildered fingers over his short salt-and-pepper hair.
"You, er, yer jus' like to spoil yer cat then, izzit? I guess I kin 'ppreciate a man who pays extra fer m'skills."
Harry stood on the pavement, trunk resting neatly by his side, and waited for the taxi to drive off so he could walk into the building that – to the muggle – didn't exist.
He cocked his head a little and smiled politely.
"…that I do."
A pause, while the taxi driver looked over Harry again to try and get a read on the strange picture that was Harry in disguise.
Rather youngish, according to his size. But Harry knew that his surprisingly piercing green eyes had seen a bit too much, and sometimes bothered people. Dirt-brown hair that hung loose about his ears and just about tickled his shoulders with its scruffy-looking tips. A leather jacket that was surely older than it should be, Merlin only knew where Sirius had scrounged it from. Tribal tattoos up his forearms, as curling and angular as the original Celts' themselves, peeking out from inside his cuffs, and climbing up his neck to curl around his chin and ears. Piercings apparent on his nose, eyebrow, ears.
The problem, Harry thought in amusement, probably came about because of the huge cat, shadow-grey, that leaned up against his legs and, while sitting on the sidewalk, more than came up to Harry's thigh.
Harry knew that he might seem a tad otherworldly to the gruff muggle, and stifled a grin.
Then at that precise moment, with a flutter of black feathers and a hoarse, throaty cry, Crow abruptly appeared above Harry like some kind of messenger of the gods, and dove straight down to take up his habitual spot, on Harry's shoulder.
The muggle's eyes widened. "Good Lord. Um. I'm out. Cheers, uh, sir." He jumped back into his taxi and sped off, no doubt wondering what kind of ancient god he was leaving behind.
Harry saw the man off with a cheerful wave, before turning to Crow and scratching him under the chin, how he liked it.
"Welcome back. How was the flight?"
Crow jumped a little on Harry's shoulder, fluttered his feathers and clattered his beak. By his knees, Crookshanks twined between Harry's legs with enough force to make him stagger, and then led the way up to Grimmauld Place.
"It's good to be ho—back."
Kreacher was waiting for him just inside the front door, and hustled the trunk out of Harry's hands, popping it upstairs with a snap of his fingers even before Harry had closed the door behind him.
"Good Young Master Harry!" the older house elf beamed. "Welcome back, welcome back. The Black House is being missing you while you is gone."
Harry paused in the middle of shucking off his leather jacket, Crow fluttering gracefully to one side while Crookshanks seemed to flow past the threshold and scratch himself carefully on a proper, English doorframe. "The House itse—?"
The air pressure changed.
"What. Has. Master. Harry. Done?" A shriek of horror cut off his thought, and Kreacher descended upon Harry.
Bodily.
Kreacher's wizened little face was wreathed in horror and far too close to Harry's own face. His long-fingered hands tugged urgently on Harry's collar, jerking off the leather jacket roughly, to reveal the Celtic-inspired designs all over his arms and neck in all their glory.
"What?" Harry reeled back a little while Kreacher manhandled his arms and then jaw. "Oh, yeah. Sirius did it for me? Weirdly enjoyed it too. Something about 'telling Prongs he'd get the kid' – me, I guess – 'inked' someday. He had far too much fun with it, I think. What do you reckon?"
"Fun?" Kreacher mood abruptly darkened, and his eyes took on a menacing gleam that reminded Harry a little too much of the house-elves at the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry swallowed. "The Naughty Young Master is calling this…desecration…the poor Good Young Master…oh, that naughty, naughty…this violation, this sacrilege…"
Harry tried to take a step backwards, but Kreacher's hand around his upper arm was as solid as steel.
Crookshanks and Crow stood a few feet away, blast them both, completely uninvolved and mildly entertained by Harry's manhandling and Kreacher's rising ire.
"Whoa, whoa, Kreacher. Hang on," Harry felt his neck jerk up and left so Kreacher could check out the patterns under his jawline and attempted some damage control. "It's just ink."
Harry's ears rang as, "Kreacher is knowing its ink!" the irate house-elf shrieked. There was the sudden smell of ozone. Harry felt his mind slip halfway into the familiar calm of Occlumency as he was made belatedly aware that something was wrong. "Ooh, that bad, naughty wizard—"
"Wait, wait! It's just ink, like…muggle ink. Sharpie ink. It's not permanent, Kreacher!"
Kreacher's piercing grasp on his arms froze for a minute, before relaxing minutely.
"It—" Kreacher coughed. "What was that?"
Carefully, Harry stepped backwards in order to regain control of his arms and his neck. Still a little sceptical, Kreacher relaxed his muscles and let his fingers slide off Harry's arms. "This is all a disguise, to get me through the Portkey Terminal without the journalists or the Ministry catching me in public." Harry found himself rubbing his neck gently, now that the house-elf's demanding hand wasn't forcing him to stare at the ceiling. "The jacket is borrowed," he hung it rapidly on the coatrack so disliked by Tonks, "and the piercings are…they're a stick-on, muggle thing."
His fingers rushed to pop them off from his skin with more haste than gentleness.
Kreacher's eyes were still narrowed, clearly not nearly so worried about a simple leather jacket or plastic stickers on Harry's face. Harry licked his lips and kept his breathing very steady.
"The tattoos are definitely temporary. They'll come off with rubbing alcohol, or a little bit of oil on a soft towel, or a sea salt paste. Or," Harry paused to squint carefully at the small being, and assess Kreacher's mood from his facial wrinkles, "I can try to just spell if off now, if you want, actually. It should take about three or four charms, I reckon."
Kreacher seemed to deflate from the peak of his furious concern, and stood once more before Harry as his usual busy-body self. The ozone smell faded. Harry shot a startled glance at Crookshanks and Crow, to see if they, too, had noticed the change in temperature and the sudden shock of sunlight returning to…the hallway had definitely been a bit darker just now, Harry was certain.
"The ink is not being permanent?"
"Look here, see?" Harry crouched down next to Kreacher, and spent a little bit of time rubbing at the triquetra that rested over his left wrist joint.
From the very slight oil of his fingertips, soon the knotted triangle shape blurred.
"It will come off, quite easily, see?" Harry reassured his elf, and Kreacher ducked abruptly to peer at Harry's wrist from three inches away, before straightening with a world-weary sigh.
"Kreacher is relieved. The Good Young Master is far too young to be having his body inked."
Harry looked up, startled, at the fact that Good Young Wizards were allowed tattoos in Kreacher's conservative world.
Kreacher, he immediately remembered, had never quite gotten over his habit of mumbling his private thoughts out loud, and Harry took the moment to take off his shoes in the hallway while listening to Kreacher's under-his-breath commentary.
"And him not even seventeen. The Naughty Master Sirius is at least not ruining the poor boy's body with someone else's tattoos. Kreacher is thinking that some of them look like the naughty master's thinking…more Black than Potter…"
Harry's head froze, his eyes shooting to Crookshanks and Crow while his lips repeated Kreacher's words silently. 'More Black than Potter?'
Crookshanks shrugged. Crow ignored him.
Harry spent another long moment staring at the three family members in front of him who seemed to be confusing him on purpose, before he decided that Kreacher was looking at him again.
"The Good Young Master is taking his bath now, and is washing away all the travel dust and tiredness. Kreacher has some nice fresh bread and preserves for a late lunch. Young Master Harry is making sure the ink is all gone by the time he sees wizards tomorrow." Kreacher waved a relieved arm. "Your room is ready, and the bathwater is hot."
Harry's eyes crinkled. "Thanks, Kreacher. It's good to have you back."
Harry had barely begun to fall back into regular London habits before social obligations reached out to grab him.
Kreacher was very upset with him when Hermione's owl, Artemis, flew through the open kitchen window and joined Harry on the breakfast table at half-past seven in the morning.
The sudden shock of seeing someone not a family member intruding into the Fidelius caused Harry, Crookshanks and Kreacher to freeze simultaneously for a moment, before Artemis' relationship with Hermione's really registered. Crow would have probably leapt to their defense, but he was out at the moment, enjoying the familiar weather after his travels.
The complete lack of movement allowed Harry to remember, that he had whispered the Secret to all of his friends' owls well back during last year, for occasions just like this one. He was contactable by those he called friends, without any of the draff otherwise intruding into their very private lives.
Once the realisation hit and the adrenaline began to fade, the house-elf, kneazle and wizard all exhaled at once, glancing at each other in a silence that spoke volumes. Then action returned and the kitchen regained its lived-in hum.
Artemis eyed their silence suspiciously before hopping across the wooden table to delicately extend her leg to Harry.
"The Good Young Master is focusing on his breakfast," Kreacher instructed, exactly at the moment that Harry put his spoon down to untie the letter from the great Eagle Owl's ankle.
He paused. "I…yes," he obeyed. Harry reached to pick up his spoon again, but Artemis clacked her beak at him imperiously. "Er…Kreacher…how about I just take the letter off her first, so she can…there's a bit of sausage here she might want, and then we can both eat before I read the letter. I think she's going to wait for a reply."
Kreacher tsked disapprovingly. "The Young Master has lost weight when Kreacher is not there to be feeding him."
Harry could help but glance down at his body evaluatively. It looked normal to him – maybe a little softer around the middle because of the lack of quidditch practice recently…
"No," the wizened little house elf continued. "Kreacher is getting the good girl her own sausage, and maybe a little bit of bacon or toast to keep her busy while the Young Master eats. Kreacher is collecting the letter from the mu—uggle-born witch, and we is all waiting for the Young Master to finish in his own time before we is dealing with the letter."
Sitting between them, in his regular spot at the Grimmauld Place kitchen table, Harry couldn't help but flick his eyes from the imperious Kreacher and to the equally authoritative post-bird. Artemis, an intellectual owl and rather more obnoxious than Hedwig had ever been, ruffled her feathers in vexation before deigning to allowing Kreacher to approach. Hermione's letter to Harry fell to the table smoothly thereafter, and she hopped over to rest on the back of a chair well away from Harry, so that Kreacher could deliver her the food in a manner becoming of her station in life.
Crookshanks' tail-tip twitched. As always, he'd been keeping Harry and Kreacher company while sunning himself in a little spot of sunlight closer to the window, and as Artemis settled in, Crookshanks rolled to his feet with a dismissive roll of the shoulders and leapt gracefully to the floor.
His magnificent fur, once again orange and lion-like in its vibrant magnificence, was puffed out to the extreme and he padded out of the room in high dudgeon. Ever since Hermione has chosen to buy the owl instead of him all those months ago, he'd been holding a small but stubborn grudge. As best as Harry could tell, neither Hermione nor Artemis were likely to be forgiven any time soon.
Harry watched in bemusement as the huge kneazle's footfalls paced sullenly towards the six-inch gap in the kitchen door, his tail as stiff and straight as a bottlebrush. He slipped through the door, displeasure radiating, with barely a sound and disappeared from view.
"Sorry about that," Harry nodded Artemis' way. "It's nothing personal. Just some…extenuating circumstances that abused his pride a bit, a wee while ago."
"Master Harry…" Kreacher muttered warningly.
"Oh, right." Obediently, Harry picked up his spoon and dunked it into his half-full bowl of Kreacher's best porridge again. The homely scent of oats and cinnamon wafted into his nose, while the lingering remains of toast and beeswax and woodsmoke lingered in the air.
Eyes closed, Harry inhaled.
Then, after a quiet clink of his spoon against china, the taste of rich, creamy oats seemed to melt in his mouth, and soon slipped down his throat easily to warm his stomach and fill him with comfort.
For a moment, the room was filled only with the sound of Harry chewing, of Artemis stabbing at the small pieces of sausage on a piece of Kreacher's second-best crockery set, and Kreacher keeping himself busy with the fire and the poker and the kitchen clutter. Domestic sounds of plates clinking together and water boiling over the fire had Harry exhale heavily for a moment. Then his shoulders sank in relaxation.
It was good to be h—back.
No sooner had Harry finished chasing the last of the porridge around his bowl, but Kreacher appeared at his elbow, a single cup of breakfast tea steaming and ready to drink.
Harry jumped a little. "I…thanks, Kreacher. Breakfast was lovely, as always."
Kreacher's nose rattled with his sniff, but he began clearing Harry's breakfast table with the silent, quiet efficiency that revealed he was pleased with the compliment.
Artemis, who was still dealing with her sausage pieces, barked softly at Harry when he failed to move towards the letter on the table next to him. Kreacher shot her an impatient glance, but this time Harry found it easy to ignore her.
He drank the tea quietly, its bitter tannins familiar on his tongue, the sweetness of the milk and soothing heat washing across his mouth before he swallowed. The teacup itself was cupped between his two hands; the hazy steam fogged his glasses in that cozy and familiar way. Very little could interrupt his tea habit these days. A good cuppa – which Kreacher's tea always certainly was – deserved his full attention.
After he'd soaked in the heat and the calm of his good breakfast tea, Harry upended the cup onto his saucer to take in the signs. Nothing worrying revealed itself: good weather, a meeting, that mysterious letter 'C' again, and a reminder to manage his money.
Then he finally opened Hermione's letter, and scribbled a quick response back.
Hey Hermione! Sounds good. Meet you at eleven just outside the Leaky then. Looking forward to it! Harry.
Once, Harry would have considered the assembled Gryffindor crowd an unusual mix. He'd arrived early enough, Crow hanging around on the nearby rooftops to maintain his supervisory presence, and met Hermione who was pacing up and down a four-foot section of pavement.
Seamus arrived next.
Harry and Hermione hugged in greeting and found themselves a nice, out-of-the-way corner in which to stand before Hermione knelt to unshoulder her muggle, denim backpack. She promptly pulled out book after book of wizarding textbooks, the ones she'd promised to buy on Harry's behalf so he wouldn't get mobbed in the Alley.
"Wow, gee," Harry finally uttered, when the final Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4 landed on the top of the rather impressive pile. "I – thanks, Hermione – I would have been happy to come around to your place to collect them, or to grab them off you on the Express."
Hermione straightened from the ground, tucking her curls behind her ears and leaving the pile of books at Harry's feet. "I assumed you'd like to read them before September," she shrugged one shoulder. "You tend to skim all the year's textbooks before school goes back, don't you? Before checking out what will most likely be the pre-readings, and all?"
"Well, yes?"
Harry took a moment to make sure that they were mostly hidden in the corner and that Hermione's body blocked his from view, before leaning down to stuff the books, one by one, into the mokeskin pouch that hung inevitably, around his neck.
He'd finished that, and then barely gotten started on what textbooks he'd read over the holidays when both of them twitched, jerking their heads up in surprise at the tap-tap-tapping sound that intruded on their conversation.
Inside the Leaky Cauldron and behind a very dingy window on their right, Seamus' familiar face beamed out at them. He stopped tapping, and waved energetically instead.
'I'll—be—right—out!' Seamus seemed to mouth, and a minute later he clattered out of the Leaky's front door, his sandy hair curling a little around his forehead.
"Harry!" he exclaimed, and approached Harry to pull him into a rough hug and whack him manfully on the back. "So good to see you, mate! Blimey, it's been ages. I've only been able to keep up with your doin's through the Prophet, don't you know? I've been reading me mum's copies, o'course. I'm not mad enough to buy them just to hear about you. You looked alright, not too snobby or stuffy, if you were wonderin'. How was Germany? Did you meet any fit birds?"
While Harry found his mind whirling suddenly – had he? He didn't actually remember any girls from Germany, all of a sudden; had he even spoken to any? – Hermione snorted in exasperation. Seamus backed off Harry to ruffle his hair roughly and then greeted Hermione with a much more polite and subdued half-hug. "Hermione, lovely to see you," Seamus grinned. "Keeping Harry in his place, are you? Ready to fend of all his fangirls?"
Harry emerged from his confusion about German girls to see Hermione blushing – did she like Seamus, he suddenly wondered, before realising that would be out of character even in this timeline – and promptly forgot what he'd been thinking about.
"She is actually," he added instead, causing Seamus to raise his eyebrows and whistle before Hermione elbowed him to shut up. "I mean, the papers are all reporting I'm still in Germany, I hope," Harry continued, upon which Hermione's blush finally faded. "I'm hoping I get a full week back in Britain, if I'm lucky, before I have to worry about reporters chasing me again. I came back rather incognito on purpose, you see."
Abandoning whatever ideas he'd been thinking of, Seamus abruptly settled down and lowered his voice. He eyed the Leaky Cauldron windows suspiciously. "Blimey! I hope I wasn't too loud just now then. I didn't call your name, Harry. Inside, I mean. I hope to God that I didn't blow your cover just now. D'ya think it's alright, do you reckon? Nice jacket, by the way."
Harry, with his hair untied again and its tips still brushing his shoulders, straightened the collar of his leather jacket. Merlin only knows how Sirius had found him a vintage leather jacket in wizarding Germany, but it was already worn soft in all the right places and Harry was becoming rather attached to it. He cocked his head. "I'm dressed a little differently to my normal style," he explained, "and besides, that's why Hermione organised us to meet up on the Muggle side. We reckon I'll be safe here, we think."
Dean jogged up from some nearby bus stop about then, and there was chatter and laughing and a fair bit of ribbing between the boys. Hermione found herself pushed to the edge of the group for a little bit, and looked rather relieved when Neville was escorted out of the Leaky Cauldron by his grandmother, who pulled him to one side before seeing him off.
The dowager paid no mind to how the muggles on the pavement kept doing double-takes at her outfit. While the eyes of business people and young couples seemed to pass right over her bright red handbag and her tall and bony figure, Harry caught more than one of them turning around after passing to stare boldly at the large, stuffed vulture that always sat on her wide-brimmed hat.
A couple of passing cars tooted, and someone hung their head out of a window and yelled. Harry used all of his life experience and his newly minted public persona to close his ears to their jeering and pretend that the scene had nothing to do with him.
Then Madam Longbottom nodded politely at Harry, glossed over the other teenagers, and promptly embarrassed them further by pulling out a large creamy-blue handkerchief and scrubbing at Neville's face with it.
"Now mind your manners," Madam Longbottom told her grandson in a voice that was just a tad too loud. "I've given you twenty galleons in muggle money – the goblins converted it specially, and stay close to young Mister Potter at all times, you hear me?"
Neville mumbled, "Yes, Gran," and blushed bright pink. Seamus mouthed, 'Twenty galleons!?'
"I dare say you'll find yourself embarrassed at times," the older woman continued relentlessly. "But hold your chin up and always be polite to everybody and you'll do alright. Do you have your handkerchief? Ah, and what did I say about keeping your hair tidy, Neville?"
The blushing boy mumbled something and turned his shoulders so that he wasn't directly facing the amused glances of Harry, Hermione and Seamus.
"Hrm, and just look at that hair," she tutted. Neville's grandmother reached out to drag efficient fingers through Neville's fringe. Finally she seemed satisfied with her handiwork. "Now, do you have your wand?"
Hermione startled. "Oh, um…Madam Longbottom…?" She was ignored.
"If you do find yourself lost, just hold your wand arm out and summon the Knight Bus. It will bring you straight home." His grandmother, completely ignoring Neville's increasingly mottled face, reached out to tuck a few sickles into a pocket just inside his jumper. "Now, you keep these coins separate to your spending money, alright? Even if you do lose your money pouch, you'll still get home with this, and I can sort out any remaining issues from there."
She paused, standing back to admire the view before gently placing her papery hand against Neville's jaw. "My dear boy. Look how fast you're growing. You're more and more like your father every day."
Harry grabbed Seamus by the shoulder and swung them both around swiftly to gaze at the passing traffic instead. He didn't want their sniggers to get Augusta Longbottom's attention.
It was excruciatingly hard not to laugh at the old lady as she patted Neville's cheek some more, but eventually she said goodbye, stepping smoothly back into the wizarding space of the Leaky Cauldron without ever having to acknowledge her effect on the passing-by muggles.
"Harry! Hermione. Seamus," Neville could finally say, and the chatter continued until eventually Dean jogged up from some nearby bus stop.
Shortly thereafter, in the last-minute manner that Harry had come to expect from the Weasleys, Ron burst out from the door of the Leaky Cauldron excitedly, followed by the curious forms of Fred and George Weasley.
"Finally!" Ron burst out as he bustled around greeting his House mates and friends. "I thought we'd never get away. You wouldn't believe how Mum kept going on: be careful of this, be cautious of that, 'mind your manners now, young man', as if I'm still a child…"
Seamus eyed Neville again, and sniggered.
Ron paused and eyed him strangely. "I don't get it. But anyway," he exclaimed, bouncing with energy once again. "I've always wanted to come out this door! Mum would never let me. Said after she almost lost Fred and George out here a few years back, she'd never have another of her children anywhere near the muggle entrance. Ginny wanted to come too, but we told her we didn't want girls." George elbowed him in the ribs until Ron paused and looked at Hermione awkwardly. "Er, expect you, of course. So. This is how the muggles live, eh?" he looked around curiously, staring rudely at the pedestrians passing by with their jeans and their hoodies and lit cigarettes.
"Cor blimey," he exclaimed again just as Harry had turned to say 'hi' to Fred and George. "Those are some fancy dragon-leather boots. D'you reckon Professor Dumbledore would like to do his shopping out here?"
Harry eyed the twenty-something-year-old woman's high-heeled boots surreptitiously, before grabbing Ron by the arm and dragging him in the direction the woman wasn't going.
"Only women tend to wear high-heels here, Ron. And they're not dragon leather. That's probably cow-leather, or, um…what's it called, the fake stuff. Lower your voice a bit, won't you? Hermione's found us a nice little café a bit up the way here, so we can talk without…reporters and fans and people…finding us. We've got a bit to catch up on, eh?"
He shot Fred and George a careful look.