We are going a bit back in time just because it's an idea I had for a while but never incorperated... now you'll see how Harry and Hermione started to really become friends... More A/N at the end- enjoy
I do not own Harry Potter or Tomb Raider... though it would be nice if I did.
November-
Let's get retarded in here…
Harry sighed as he stretched, shoving his arms out in front of him, shrugging his shoulders, hitching his head from left to right, the cracks telling him that he'd way too much tension in his neck. He turned back to the door and knelt down to press play on his cd player. His work out mix tape filled the cavernous room, Nothing was in his way, just a flat surface that echoed into darkness somewhere beyond him. The Room of Requirement was a curious thing, on several occasions he'd set up obstacles and even made a lake once. He'd gotten odd looks on his way back to the dorm, his hair dripping on the stone corridors.
For now, though, all he needed was a room with a high ceiling and plenty of space. He took off running, a deep breath, then he started tumbling. Flips, twists, landing on one foot and kicking high, going into katas and abandoning them halfway through. He followed the beats of the music that filled him. Mostly club tunes, remixes, heavy beats and soft melodies made an odd yet complimentary blend.
Ladies and Gentlemen, broadcasting live… The first day of the rest of my life… Ya'll keep the spotlight…
He ignored the door as it opened and let in a friend. He just continued, unrelenting, trying to work out his problem.
Hermione just sat up against the wall near the door and watched. She'd sometimes come and do homework, listening to the muggle music as he drudged out whatever it was he needed to think on. This time she was just watching. She waited until he paused, in between songs, his breath a bit heavy.
"Teach me," she asked. Her voice quiet, but still heard as the next song began.
"Teach you what?" Harry asked, even though he had a good idea what it was she wanted. She just looked at him, the answer was hanging in the air between them.
Me I'm superfly…. I can't stand the rain…When the rain hits my window…
"Stand up," he frowned as she stood and walked over. First thing, balance. She stopped in front of him and was just not ready when he shoved her. She went down with an oof and a glare.
"What was that for?"
"We've got some work to do…"
December-
Let me talk to 'em… Shorty had them apple bottom jeans… She hit the floor…
Harry grinned as Hermione finished her combination tumble. She'd taken to gymnastics like a duck to water, maybe he'd teach her some more advanced stuff, take her through the school and it's ever changing hallways, play some Parkour…
He slapped away her fist as she shot out and attacked. She was not as good at the fighting aspect, he smirked and pressed forward, working out some kink in her arm as he pulled it forward. She huffed a bit, noticing the correction and making the resolution to never do that again. They very rarely talked during the sessions. For some reason they both worked better when he showed her something and she emulated, only having him correct her by pressing down or up on an appendage.
I'm the type of girl to look you dead in the eye-eye… We ain't here to hurt nobody…
She was having fun during the school break. Christmas dinner was amazing and she'd gotten so excited during her talks with Remus. Harry never really had a friend who was a girl before, and he was trying to figure out why Hermione was so different, why he felt so comfortable around her. Hermione was just a sponge, soaking up knowledge and skills with an uncanny ability. After Remus had him showing Hermione his wandless exercises she'd figured out how to make a small ball in the palm of her hand. She couldn't do anything with it yet, it was still stuck to her hand, but Harry had faith in her ability to figure the rest out quickly.
I'm trying to help… flash that buttery gold, jittery zeitgeist, wither by the watering hole… and I will remember your name and face…you tried to trick me, you've got a lot of nerve…
She was so awkward with everyone else. Harry wondered if maybe she wasn't as open with everyone like she was with him. Then again, he'd never given her the opportunity to not be open with him. Neville had once told him that he forced people to know him. Of course that had sparked an argument. But it came out that Neville hadn't meant that he did it on purpose. Harry was just Harry. He had a personality very much like his aunts. It wasn't a bad thing, but it tended to either put people off or make them want to know more. He was just more approachable then Lara, apparently. Harry had always been popular in school, never one to shy away from anything, which Lara said he must have gotten from his father, along with his hair (which she would then ruffle with a smirk).
Hermione sat down abruptly and started to massage out a kink in her calf.
Yeah, she was coming along fine.
February-
Hermione laughed as Harry showed her the proper way to roll out of a high leap. She hadn't really believed him when he told her that he didn't "enhance" his tumbling abilities with a little magic. She didn't understand, four months ago, that if you just trained and believed in your own skills you could pull off such impressive feats. She was nowhere near his level, but learning how to hang from a ledge properly was harder than she'd thought possible at first.
Everybody here get it outta control get yo backs off the wall… boy the music makes me lose control…
"You ever line dance?" Came the question out of Harry's mouth before any self editing could be done.
"What?"
"Line dance," he shrugged. "I learned one because I liked the music, you wanna try?"
Down, down do your dance… they I'm a rapper and I say no… just let the music come from my soul… it don't matter if you're young or if you're old…
"That's easy!" Hermione laughed as she and Harry danced across the floor.
"Yeah, this one is… It's a very basic pattern, it's meant for fun more than showing off. Though you could get really fancy," he grinned back as he kept within the basic framework, but added a showy turn on one hand instead of waving his knees at the last part. Hermione almost had to stop she was laughing so hard, but got into the spirit of it and flipped at her turn.
"There you go!"
"We should teach the rest of Gryffindor! They'd love it!"
March-
Bounce, come on bounce, Slam the door, boom!… come get some of this, come and get the innuendo…
Hermione wasn't sure how she was supposed to turn on her head, sure her hair was going to tangle horrendously, but even so… He was grinning at her again. It was this smile he had whenever he was sure she could do something, but she wasn't so positive.
April-
Ma-ia-hii, Ma-ia-huu, Ma-ia-hoo, Ma-ia-haha
Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc…Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei/ Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma tau si dragostea din tei/ Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.
Hermione was somewhat sure that Harry was making fun of her… He'd had this smile on his face since coming back from Easter weekend his aunt insisted he come home for. She still wasn't sure what this exercise had to do with anything. Sure, it was working out her arms, but they could be doing something… She stopped as she realized Harry was laughing. He couldn't stop, even as she glared at him.
"Sorry! I just… I couldn't help myself!"
"Harry!"
Ok, we'll stop, I promise… but you could help me out?" Harry asked as he let the mirth fade from his smile. Hermione was a little more wary, this was his, 'I need a favor' smile.
"How so?"
"My aunt has this bug up her butt… she wants me to learn to dance."
"All right…"
"Like dance, dance. Like ballroom… and she was talking to your mom apparently, and found out…"
"You want me to teach you to ballroom dance?" Hermione asked.
"Uummm.." That smile Hermione was wearing was quickly recognized as her 'devious-smile' number three… Number two was reserved for 'you need to study and I know how to make you', number one was just a mystery…
"Sure Harry. I'll teach you," she waved over to the cd player and asked, "Do you have any suitable music?"
May-
The subject for tonight's lecture is rhythm, the beat, the driving force that holds our lives together…
Harry had to smile whenever Hermione put on her teachers face. Stern, yet smirky, she was.
"Well, Harry, you've done well with Waltz, let's try something more complicated. Cha-Cha!" Harry was only eleven, but when Hermione grabbed his hands and put them on her hips he suddenly realized that he had hormones, and they were screaming at him. He pushed it aside quickly, Hermione was looking at him weird. And so started off the most uncoordinated day of Harry's life.
First week in June-
I need your arms around me, I need to feel your touch. I need your understanding, I need your love so much… On the phone, long-long distance, always though such strong resistance…
"Guys!" Neville burst into the room.
"Yeah?" Harry asked as Hermione quickly ducked under a side kick.
"It's started!"
"Does Dumbledore know?" Hermione tried to hook Harry's ankle and was thwarted when he simply skipped over her leg.
"He's answered a councils summons. He's not in the castle."
"How about McGonagall?"
"She doesn't believe us. I think Ron might have pushed the point too hard, she kicked us out."
"Well, do we really want to prove ourselves correct? Do you think we should follow?" Harry mused as Hermione grabbed his fist and pulled him into a tumble, landing on his stomach and smirking as he mulled over ideas.
You ready? Lets go! Yeah! For those of you who wanta know what we're all about? It's like this ya'll, C'mon! Its 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will,, 5% pleasure, 50% pain and a hundred percent reason to remember the name…
Harry sighed, he had to know what was really going on. This was the only way.
"All right, let's go."
That night-
It wasn't really all that hard to get past traps designed to stump one adult when you had an entire team of Gryffindor's known for their different special skills. It was discovered during the, now regular, Friday night karaoke/ line dance parties that Percy had a rather pleasant voice and (like his professional dragon trainer brother) a talent for calming large creatures. So he sat next to Fluffy and crooned a lullaby while reaching out to scratch the puppies neck(s) as his brothers and Harry and a few other students jumped down the trapdoor. He knew he wasn't supposed to let them go, he was a prefect for Merlin's sake, but saving the school was more important. Neville figured out the Devil's Snare and quickly got everyone to relax, he stayed behind with the Snare and tried to find the heart of it, Harry didn't begrudge him the opportunity, he'd been trying to find a source for years. Harry managed to get the Twins to help his obtain the flying key by handing them a couple of brooms and conjuring a couple of bludger bats to keep them from swarming him as he caught the one they needed. Ron played them through the giant chess set (only loosing himself ultimately) as Harry and Wood discovered that the pieces were impervious to explosions. (darn)
Thankfully the troll was knocked out already, though the smell had them rethinking passing it in favor of maybe just turning back around and avoiding the hideous stench. Hermione once again proved her brilliance as she solved the potions puzzle, though almost murdered Harry as he snatched the potion out of her hands and gulped the entire thing down before shrugging.
"You can't come, there was only enough for one, and I have a feeling," he shrugged when the others asked what he meant.
"I just think I was supposed to be here. All year has been building to a moment for me, and I'm pretty sure this gauntlet was for me. If I'm being arrogant, you can put up with it until after this is all done. Then you can scold me." and with that he jumped through the black flames, feeling only a cold tickle as he passed through.
There was that thrice be-damned mirror, and in front of it- Professor Quirrel.
He'd known that the teacher was odd, but odd was a slim word to use when the man unwraps his turban and you find out there's a demon on the backside of his head.
Harry didn't move from his spot next to the flame curtain. He just waited, waited while Quirrel struggled with the hissing voice, stuttering protests one minute while standing tall and shouting defiance the next. It was almost like Harry wasn't even in the room as the man fought with himself.
Quirrel somehow managed to get his body close enough to the mirror to fling out a suddenly independent hand and shove the mirror away, shattering it on the cold stone floor around Harry's feet.
"You will regret that!" The hissing voice growled out. "Submit your will to mine!"
Quirrel fell to his knees, his hands clawed at his ears, blood fell like tears from his eyes as he fought with every breath left in his broken down soul. Harry was still frozen, he didn't know what to do! He couldn't banish a spirit! He knew theory, but possession hadn't been covered yet in either his Hogwarts curriculum or his separate tutoring with Remus.
"Harry!" Quirrel gasped out, "I care not how you came here, or what brought you here at this time, but look to Hogwarts for the answers!"
"Be still your mouth!"
"He hid them," Quirrel shoved his face up and caught Harry's wide eyes with his own blood stained features. "He hid them, himself, in the ancestors…"
"You will not steal my revenge from me!"
"In the Hogwarts four… tell Lara…"
"Be GONE!" and with a final roar Quirrel gasped his last breath and a great inky black cloud shot from the back of his head and overtook Harry completely.
The next morning-
Harry woke with a start, expecting the dull cave and the broken mirror shards all around him. What he first saw when he opened his eyes though, was white.
"Ah, awake are we? Mr. Potter, how are you feeling?" Madame Pomfrey scooted Harry up in his bed so that he could look at her instead of straining to see around the room. He felt so weak…
"What happened?"
"I'm afraid that you got caught up in the wrong place and the wrong time, Mr. Potter." Dumbledoor slid through the half open doorway with a grace that belied his many years.
"What happened to Professor Quirrel?"
"I'm afraid that the Professor picked up a rather impressive curse while exploring Romania last year. I thought it just increased his already rampant paranoia, that he wasn't any danger to himself or others, but unfortunately as I was out of the castle trying to find some help for him, for he has gotten worse throughout the year, he decided to go down to the lower levels and retrieve something that I was keeping safe."
"The stone?"
"Yes, I guess it's not a secret any longer."
"Right."
"The curse literally shoved another personality into his head, so he was a bit of, what the muggles call, a nutcase. He had an aneurism."
"All right, blood pressure popped a vein in his head?"
"Yes," Dumbledoor shook his head in regret. "Unfortunately he was dead before any help could be summoned."
Harry wanted to call BULLSHIT! He wanted to shove what he knew was the truth into those twinkling blue eyes and call to the world that the Headmaster of their respectable school was masterminding a cover-up of epic proportions!
But he took a deep breath and looked Dumbledoor in the eye. Waiting for that slight push in his mind that revealed that all the Headmaster wanted to do was fuck with his memory. And he let the little shit spell in, played nice, let Dumbledoor think it had worked…
Then stomped the shit out of it.
This was just going to be a throw-away chapter. Something that I wrote because I was listening to music and an idea popped in there. I've known that I wanted Harry to train Hermione and possibly some of the rest of Gryffindor, not so much Ron mostly because they're not all that close in my story. Harry thinks Ron needs to grow up a little and Ron is still a little in awe of Harry. I'm not trying to super-power Hermione, but I do think she'd pick things up very quickly, especially if Harry is working her hard so he can get to the "fun stuff" quicker. Then I decided to take it all the way to the end of the year and pop in my ending… I hope you liked year one, and be assured I'm planning a very Tomb Raider summer break…
Disclaimer: I know that none of these songs were out in the proper time frame for Harry Potter, but then, we've already established that I have no time line in mind. Lara has to have her robotics, and I really like messing with technology vs. magic. So I've bumped up the time for about now-ish, so please no reviews on how I've 'Back-To-The-Futured this stuff. Thanks.
Let's Get Retarded- Black Eyed Peas
X- Xzibit
The Rain- Missy Elliot
In the Ayer- Flo Rida
Give It to Me- Timbaland
None Shall Pass- Aesop Rock
Lose Control- Missy Elliott
Cupid Shuffle- Cupid
Dragostea Din Tei- O-ZONE (if you don't get this joke then you've never watched You-Tube)
Hiphip Chinchin- Club Des Belugas
Remember the Name- Fort Minor