Author's Note - Okay...Um...I'm not sure how this chapter turned out...Whether or not I'm doing okay with this whole story writing business
either...So if you could tell me how I'm doing, that'd be great! Also next chapter will (hopefully) be just a Hermione and Draco scene...But, I've also
had chapters planned out, then in the last minute, write something completely different in its place and post it. A good example is that 'flash back'
of Hermione and Draco's last moment together...I was just as surprised as you guys with that one! Hopefully this chapter will meet with approval!
Chapter thirty-two.
In another fifteen minutes time, the car-load of people came across another old dirt track that seemed to be divide the rows of sugar cane, across from them there was dense Australian bush. Amelia stopped and hopped out and Alice jumped off the car to stand beside her. The two New Zealand witches stood there muttering and pointing while the others lounged in the hot sun, feeling the affects of sleepiness.
Soon a large white, dirty school bus came rumbling into view from the left. Fred jumped off the back and slowly walked to the front of the car, the others soon piled in behind him cautiously. Amelia and Alice started waving and the bus pulled up beside them and the driver cheerfully stuck his head out of the window.
"G'day girls! These your mates?"
"Yeah Frank, do you think you could take 'em over to Charters?"
"Towers? Yeah I reckon, I'm taking a coupl'a tourists down ta Steak and Kidney, so I'll be able to swing over 'nd drop 'em off. Roy's?"
"Yeah, thanks mate, we've gotta pick up a coupl' o' others, so we can't take 'em."
"Yeah, she'll be right with me."
"Ta Frank."
"No worries girls, Merry Christmas!"
"Yeah, Merry Christmas!"
Alice turned around and smiled cheerfully, "I 'ave to go see to a coupl' a other things, so you lot get to take the bus with Amy!"
Hermione stared at the slow looking bus and said, "How long'll it take?"
Alice scratched her head "Well, it's 'bout 448 kilometers… which is 278 miles… So…" as she scratched her head, Ron leaned over to Harry with concern written on his face.
"Psst… Mate! Have you seen any spiders yet?"
Harry, who at that point had been eyeing the large spider crawling in between the cane stalks, shook his head, "Nah mate, she's right. No spiders so far."
The spider crawled into a small hole and seemed to close a door behind it. Trapdoor spider, something told him in the back of his mind; large spiders that lived in hidden holes and when it's prey went by, BAM! out it comes and drags it under ground. Something told him that it was highly venomous as well, but that might've just been paranoia.
Ron relaxed, "Oh, that's good! Well, if you see any, let me know."
Harry watched a beetle crawl over the trap door of the spider's hole. The next minute the beetle was gone. He swallowed, looked at Ron and smiled.
"Yeah, of course."
"Okay, so it's about the same distance as London to Dublin…I think, so… maybe an hour?" Alice finally said.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked curiously.
"Oh, I have to meet some friends, pick up a coupl' a things for Christmas tucker an' stuff. I'll probably be there in a coupl' a days."
"But you said that the journey's an hour?"
"Yeah, in the Sun Bus! Muggle way its about a whole day! Usually two."
Draco sighed, "Fine, I'll come with you." Alice beamed and ran up to hug the tall man, "Yay! Thanks Drake!"
Harry blushed, "Umm…I'll come too… If- If you want?"
Alice's brilliant smile was directed at him now, "Oh thank you! That's gotta be the nicest thing anyone's ever done!" Alice's smile turned to a pointed mock glare at Amelia, who shrugged, grinning.
"What? It's not my fault that I want to get in there early!"
"Don't take my spot!"
Amy smiled, "'course not, you're the only one who likes that place!"
"She's got a point Al." Draco drawled.
Hermione, now curious, spoke up, "I'll come with you too Alice, I've always wanted to go on a road trip!"
Alice grinned, "Great! Now I won't be alone! Unlike what someone wanted to do!"
"I repeat the word, what? Still not my fault."
Turning her attention to matters at hand, Amy yelled over everyone's excited chatter, "Okay! Everyone on the Sun Bus! Those who're goin' with Alice, stay behind!"
Everyone except Harry, Hermione and Draco stayed behind. Ron had to go with a heavily pregnant Padma and everyone else was excited to see where they would be spending their Christmas holidays.
Amy tipped her head to them and grabbed most of the luggage, leaving behind the four's suitcases. "I'll be seeing you lot later!" she called cheerfully, "Oh and Alice? We will be talking about this whole...not telling me thing."
"Duh."
With everyone safely on board, the old school bus rambled down the road.
"How is that going to be any - " the old bus suddenly raced to a high speed and disappeared " – faster." Harry stopped talking.
"Oh, it's like the Knight Bus." Hermione said.
"Yeah that's what Draco said when he first saw it too. Are you two comin' or not?" Alice called from the driver's seat, Draco lounging in the seat behind her. Harry raced to the front seat and Hermione got in the back next to Draco.
"Where to first Al?" Draco said lazily, his arm hanging out the window as she took off, heading through a track through the bush.
"Oh, I have to just say hi to a couple of muggle mates in Port Douglas and Cairns, then we'll pick up Aunty Jane in Townsville as we shoot by. I've got to get all the food too and some prezzies for the kids."
Draco chuckled, "What! You still haven't got Mary and George any presents yet?"
Alice glared at him, "They won't mind, they're two years old!"
"Which means they'll defiantly be hankering for presents."
"Eh. I'll think of something."
"What about the others?"
"As I said, I need to get presents."
"No, you really need to get organised."
Hermione frowned worriedly, "How many people are there going to be?"
Draco absent-mindedly reached over and stroked Hermione's arm comforting and she was so worked up she didn't notice it, "Don't worry love, I've just bulked brought some elven-wine, spirits and Firewhiskey as well as a couple of toys for the kids there. We'll just divide and wrap them when we get there."
"Wait, for us both?" Hermione's mind was still playing over the casual way Draco had called her love.
"It'll be weird if they get different stuff from each of us, they don't know you, you don't know them, they'll just be giving us presents as one anyway."
Alice nodded, "The same'll happen with us Harry. I hope you didn't get British wine, Draco." She warned playfully.
"What's wrong with British wine?"
"Are we going to get into this argument again Malfoy?"
"I don't know what you mean Fletcher." As their playful banter continued Harry was still reeling as he realised that this was the first time Alice had called him by his first name…Well, it felt like it, the fact that she had just acknowledged that they were going to get married and would have to be giving out joined presents hit him too… He would have a family soon, he hoped desperately, if the playful witch fell for him as he'd done so for her, then everything would be right in his world.
Soon Harry was sorting through the CDs in the front while a song played on the radio and Hermione was curled up against Draco. The open windows were blowing away any conversation, so they just sat in peaceful silence, listening to the music.
"Hey Alice, when are we going to hit the highway?" Draco called.
"Ah,' she glanced in her rear view mirror back at them, 'Soon. Don't worry."
"Cheers."
A while later, an old bitumen road came into view and Harry sighed in relief. They'd probably follow that for a while before they hit the highway, which would give him time to adjust to the smoother riding. They'd followed the road for a bit before Harry, tired and cranky from the long and bumpy ride, cracked, "Okay, you said we'd be on the highway soon, is your sense of time as wacked out as your ideas of temperature?"
Alice glared at him, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm saying that you seem to have a horrible sense of time and what constitutes as appropriate clothing for the weather! And! It looks like you don't know where you're going as well!" Harry ranted.
"Well!' Alice started to yell at him too, Hermione smiled sleepily up at Draco, who smirked down at her, both were enjoying the amusement of the fight.
It was strange, Hermione thought, that Alice and Harry, two of the most amicable people she knew, could get so riled up in each others presence, whereas she and Malfoy, who had hated each other for almost 7 consecutive years, where sitting there peacefully, enjoying (on her part at least) the others company.
As it was, Draco was absent-mindedly stroking her hair and Hermione wondered when had they gotten so comfortable in each other's presence for him to do that and her not to mind. But, getting back to matters at hand, Alice was now sulking because Harry had questioned her navigational skills.
Harry was looking smug as well, feeling as if he'd pulled one over the witch, the long hours of drive making him cranky and the need to be an ass.
Hermione sighed sleepily, there was only one way to solve this problem. "Alice? When will we reach the highway?"
Alice pouted and mumbled something angrily.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"I said, we've been on the highway for about ten minutes now!"
"Wha-?" Harry began, but then the road curved around to go right along the coast of Australia.
And it was. Right. On. The. Coast. The road edged along the side of a cliff that dropped onto a golden beach with blue waves and led up to the rainforest-covered mountain they were travelling on. The heat and flowers in bloom mixed with the salt and the sand gave off a heady smell that Hermione recognised as the same one that had floated on the breeze through their dorm on one of Alice's first nights.
"I tried to tell you, the highway can't get any wider at this point or we'd drop into the sea!" Alice said grumpily.
Hermione chuckled at Harry's embarrassed face and Alice's pointed annoyance.
"But…It looks like a country road!" he said despairingly.
Alice grinned sheepishly, "Well, it's that too."
Hermione turned her eyes up to Draco, "So, Draco, how much do you know about the muggle world? I'm guessing quite a bit?"
Draco shrugged and grinned sheepishly, "Actually, not a lot. Even though all the magical folk down here have to integrate a lot to the muggle methods and community, everyone was forbidden to talk about anything less than wizarding culture. This was in case You-Know-Who decided to do occlumency on me to see where my parents loyalty lied in the 'eyes of a child'."
He swallowed and looked out the window, "You know how I only started to call you the 'M' word in Second Year and not First? Well, it was because when I got home that first summer, my parents told me I'd have to call people that in order to keep up appearances… I- I'm sorry for all the pain I caused. Do you… forgive me?"
Hermione surprised herself when she reached up and kissed him on the cheek.
"Of course."
The rest of the ride was done in a comfortable silence.
Soon afterwards, the bush began to thin out and more and more houses with large gardens filled with trees and wild bushes appeared and Alice began worrying her lip.
"Uh…guys? As my friends are muggles… that means that we have to pretend we are really in love and are getting married by choice…"
"Don't sweat it." Draco called and Harry looked back at him, their eyes meeting, and Draco could tell exactly what Harry was thinking, 'Easy for you to say, you're in love with the girl and deep down, she's in love with you too. I'm stuck with a girl that I like, but who thinks I'm a egotistical nationalism masochist.'
Alice blushed, "But…that means…you know…holding hands and stuff."
"And kissing." Draco added amused.
She paled, "Blimey."
Hermione blushed, for some reason in the time that they had been together, pranked each other and confided in each other, she was rearing and ready to have a go at kissing Draco. 'Pretending' to kiss would be as good a start as any. But then she frowned as she thought of the other girls reaction, "Alice, did you have a boyfriend?"
"Of course not! Why would anyone want to go out with me?"
Harry at that point, who'd been sipping a bottle of water, started to choke.
She glanced coolly over at him. "I'm not helping you, if that's what you want."
Another glance between the boys asked, 'Is she for real?'
Hermione nodded, "That's okay, I didn't date during Uni either."
Draco smiled, that had been the Weasleys and Harry's fault. When Hermione had lost her memory, they had done everything in their power to not let anyone else date her, so that when the time was right, Draco could try and win her over again. That time had been forced because of the Marriage Law, but it left her heart open to him as well.
"No, I mean I've never had a boyfriend, not in Primary school or High school or Uni. Never means not ever."
"So you haven't even had your first kiss?"
"You need a boy for that, so no."
Harry rose an eyebrow, "I had mine when I was about fourteen."
"No need to boast!"
"And you're, what, twenty two?" Harry continued shamelessly.
The car screeched to a halt.
"Alice-" Draco began, but before he could blink, Harry Potter was sailing, spelled petrified, through the passenger door and onto the side of the road. Luckily, the highway was quiet, i.e. no one else was there.
Alice closed the door and drove off.
Hermione sat bolt upright, "You can't leave him there!"
"Don't worry, I'll just drop you two off in town and come back for him before we go to my friends. You can exchange your pounds and Galleons for Australian dollars and get some things or whatnot while I'm gone.' Alice mumbled darkly, 'I hope someone's told him about Drop bears and that he's terrified stiff."
"Alice, he's petrified."
"So?"
"That means he's already frozen,' Draco sniggered then sighed at Alice's questioning eyebrow, "Fine, yes, I told him about the Drop bears during one of the many times he's asked me about the differences in Australia and England."
"Excellent."
Draco whispered to a perturbed Hermione, "Never piss off an Aussie."
"I'M KIWI DAMNIT!"