All a Dream
Chapter 19
A few more moments between Harry and Erin were spent in silent thought. The siblings watched the owls fly in and out of the many windows of the owlery, hunting.
Harry recalled the isolation he'd felt while he'd dreamed his summers. He also remembered the jubilation he'd felt when he got the Hogwarts letter, when he'd finally fit in.
"You'll find your place soon enough."
Erin smiled in thanks.
"Do you want to write a letter to anyone, like Mum or Nigel? I've got some spare parchment and quills; I was going to write to Dad or Sirius."
Erin thought it over. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be good."
Harry brought over the stationery supplies and set them down on a broad window ledge. He wrote:
Dear Sirius,
How's life with you? School's going fairly well. Stew began the year with a bang. Literally. It was kind of funny, and if you want a fully exaggerated version of what happened, I suggest that you write him.
It's kind of late right now, way past curfew. Say 'hi' to Regulus for me, and ask him how he's doing.
I guess I'll see you later.
Harry
P.S. Erin wants to write something:
Hi Sirius! Mum wrote me, and said you knew where the secret passageway behind a tapestry was, and that it would get me to Transfiguration class faster. Which tapestry? There're loads all over the place.
With that final note, Erin and Harry got an old barn owl to take the letters. Together, they walked under the invisibility cloak, trying not to make much noise. When they were almost back to Gryffindor tower, Erin brought up a point. "Um, Harry, could you just kind of drop me off here? Only, I need to take this passage here to get to my common room."
"Oh, sorry. Yeah. Take care, right?" he replied.
"Right, Harry."
As Erin began to walk down the hallway to their left, Harry looked at his watch. It was 12:01.
"Erin!" he stage-whispered.
She wasn't very far away yet, and heard him. "Yeah?"
"Happy Birthday." Harry took off the cloak halfway and gave Erin a tight hug. She hugged back, grinning from ear to ear.
.:. :.: .:.
Classes continued as usual for the next month or so, with the occasional pranks between teachers. Harry's time was almost entirely consumed by homework, though he found himself needing less effort to get good marks than he had previously. He figured that this was because he'd been unconscious while doing his work, making it harder for him to conceive what he was doing. Even so, he found himself doing a few all-nighters.
The loads of homework also made it difficult to remember that the first free weekend (which was on All Saints Day) was approaching quickly, and that he'd be spending it with Ginny. Occasionally he found himself thinking about it absentmindedly during a lecture, wondering what he and Ginny would do together. He hoped that they'd go to Godrick's Hollow; he wanted to see his hometown, and the house where he'd lived before the coma. But there were so many possibilities, and some of them seemed like they could be fun.
A week before Hallowe'en, Harry was actually ahead in his homework and decided to find Stew or Drew and play a game of Exploding Snap. He exited the library and was turning a corner when he almost ran smack into Mae, coming close to dropping his books in the process.
"Oh, good, there you are. Ginny 'fancies a chat' with you, come on."
Slightly bewildered, Harry was dragged by the arm to the Gryffindor common room where Ginny sat at one of the tables, reading a thick novel with altogether too much pink on the cover in Harry's opinion. He managed to get a glimpse of the title, The Academy for Young Witches: Book 2, before Ginny swiftly stowed it in her book bag. She turned around to face Harry as Mae let go of his arm. Ginny gestured for Harry to sit in the vacant chair beside her, and he did.
"So, um...Mae said that you wanted to talk."
Ginny giggled. "You make it sound so serious. Yeah, I wanted to know what you wanted to do on the free weekend."
"Well..." Harry said, "I was kind of thinking about going to Godrick's Hollow. Y'know, to see the shops and all that."
"Excellent. I guess I'll meet you in the Great Hall, then." Ginny stood up and started over to the girl's dormitories, but stopped and darted back to Harry. Ginny paused for a moment. So quickly he barely noticed it, she kissed Harry on the cheek. And for the next several hours, when everyone had gone to bed and Harry closed the curtains on his four-poster, a small patch on his right cheek burned.
.:. :.: .:.
Hallowe'en began with a sharp popping sound that resonated in Harry's ears. It turned out that Drew and Stew had made a firecracker by setting an over-sized saltine on fire and levitating it in the middle of the circular room. The fire was blue-green because of the salt, and the popping sound was made because the medium the pair had used to set the cracker on fire was...
" Man, I love the smell of potassium and hydrogen in the morning!" yelled Haggis from the far side of the room.
A/N: Yes, I know that Drew and Stew wouldn't need to use anything but their wands to set that giant cracker on fire. But I love potassium, it's my favourite element, and it makes such a lovely ka-boom sound. I couldn't bear to leave it out.
