All a Dream
Chapter 21
The morning of All Saints Day dawned dreary and dull. As Harry gazed out the East-facing window beside his bed to watch the low-profile glow that was the sun, he wondered what would happen. It was 6:30 in the morning, or so said Dave's radio clock. He tried to silence the butterflies in the pit of his stomach, but was unsuccessful. I need a calming draught, he thought as he got dressed for the day ahead. It was cold, so Harry chose to wear a warm, dark blue bunny-hug with a white t-shirt underneath and jeans. Harry looked at himself in the bathroom mirror for anything out of place. Okay. Completely and totally generic.
It was too early for breakfast, so Harry took out his Herbology textbook and read until Dave's alarm on the radio clock went off at 7:30.
"I thought you turned that bloody thing off, Dave," mumbled Stew, sticking his head out of the drapes around his bed. His blond hair was sticking out in spikes around his head so that it looked like he'd been electrocuted. The only things missing were singe marks and a trail of smoke. Harry couldn't help but laugh.
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Harry ate his porridge quickly, burning his tongue. He chugged his Irish Breakfast tea (Twinings was the best company), now cold, and didn't know what to do now. Harry thought he was still hungry, but he was probably just trying to suffocate those blasted butterflies. They now felt more like large grasshoppers, less gentle than the average monarch.
Ginny entered the Great Hall and began to look around for Harry. He waved her over so that she could sit with him.
"G'morning, Harry. You've finished breakfast already, right?" Ginny indicated Harry's empty plate and mug.
"Yeah. Avoid the bacon, it's been modified."
Ginny laughed a bit. She seemed a bit tired, like she'd stayed up too late. "Modified how?"
"I'm not sure, but a first year was dared to wave his wand at it to see what would happen. Since then, nobody's touched it."
Ginny laughed again, more quietly. From there, she and Harry made polite conversation, adding onto the topic of dares. It was almost like they were saving the deeper (or sillier) conversation for Godrick's Hollow, which, Harry thought, they probably were doing subconsciously. Even thinking the word 'subconscious' made him shiver a little, ever since leaving St. Mungo's, almost as much as the word 'unconscious'.
It didn't take Ginny very long to finish her breakfast. She was a much lighter eater than Harry expected of a Weasley, only eating a bowl of cereal. This small amount of nutrition stimulated the girl who sat beside him, and she was soon dragging Harry by the arm, not unlike Mae had the other night, to the front doors where Professors Grey (the Astronomy teacher and Head of Ravenclaw House), Lupin (who was Head of Gryffindor), Sprout (still Head of Hufflepuff), and Snape (Head of Slytherin) stood, taking down the names of students going to Godrick's Hollow.
"Ah, Harry and Ginny," said Professor Lupin, looking down the long list of names of Gryffindors. "Yes, you're cleared. Off you go, then." Lupin checked off the pairs' names just before subtly giving Harry a thumbs-up for luck. Harry opted for smiling instead of laughing, judging that it wouldn't be a good time to laugh; Ginny would want to know why.
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Snow started to fall around Harry and Ginny as they walked together to the gates of Hogwarts, little eddies swirling behind them. It would take longer than Harry had estimated to get there, but he didn't exactly mind. After all, Ginny was here, and that knowledge was warming him from the inside out. Harry and Ginny realized about the same time that the snow was the kind that stuck together. This resulted in several snowmen, three snow-women and one snow-cat. And a snowball fight, though a short one when the teachers tried to join in and failed miserably thanks to arthritis, an aversion to cold, and having come from an area with little snow.
Godrick's Hollow emerged not long after, and Harry was immediately entranced by the perfection of it all; the cobblestones that were felt beneath peoples' feet covered the stretches of street between shops, and the roundabout that appeared a few hundred meters inside the town's limits had a fountain that was still running, kept unfrozen with a Perpetual Heating charm. The fountain was a series of vine-covered stone sculptures, like cubes and spheres. There was even a double-helix that a young child was being told to stop climbing on.
"Harry, come on. This way." Ginny tugged at his arm. Intrigued, but ever so slightly reluctant, Harry was led off to the left, down a few streets that went to a small crescent in the middle of Godrick's Hollow. On the far end of the crescent from them was a fairly typical house (by wizard standards): two stories with a basement, painted dark red with white shutters, the three broomsticks tied securely to a rack in the side yard. This was the house that Ginny was soon knocking on the door of. The same door was opened by a man of average height. His brown eyes seemed smaller than they were because of the prescription of his glasses, but they appeared to glow a bit, rather than twinkling. The man was mostly bald, though half a ring of strawberry blond hair grew just above his ears, which were slightly pointed. The strangest thing about this man was that he was carrying a perfectly normal Muggle video tape, the title of which was The Beiderbecke Connection.
"Ah, young Ginger Weasley, nice to see you. And you must be the Harry Potter that I have heard so much about. Come in, come in, both of you, I've just made tea."
Harry was dazed a bit. Here was a man he barely knew who seemed to have expected them, Ginny's real name was Ginger, and those pointed ears the man had did not indicate that he was a full human. Nonetheless, Harry followed Ginny and the man into the house, hoping that alone time with Ginny would occur at some point.
The trio ended up in a kitchen/dining room. There was just a little bit of clutter, but it was all stuff that could be cleaned in five minutes. They sat down at the small table.
"Harry, Peter Langley is the reason you know so much about the Muggle world. He's a former Advanced Muggle Studies professor at the Dumbledore University for Witches and Wizards, and is great friends with my dad. He's also the father of Peterson Langley, who was good friends with your mum and dad."
A/N: This may sound a bit unfinished, but will continue, hopefully soon. I've got a lot of stuff going on, and that's why this chapter took so long to finish. And because I wanted to make it good.
