(2012) This chapter is now edited. Main lesson I learned? I did not need to actually post a full grocery list that Hermione was going to buy with items such as 'other spices' and 'anything else I see in the store.'
Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter.
Hermione snuggled into her bed awhile later, because when everything else was going strangely and completely unexpectedly her bed was a solid place she could cocoon herself in. Eventually her thoughts wandered to Andrea, wondering how she was supposed to go about explaining why she'd randomly moved into a house with people from school, half of whom she didn't even like. No doubt she would want to come over to meet them and visit often, which would be highly problematic. While she was certain Ron and Harry would be willing to tone down the magic references and keep their wands out of sight, the Slytherins would no doubt refuse.
She pulled herself out of the pile of blankets she'd bundled herself in and reached for her laptop. Hopefully if she went to Andrea's pool party, which she'd managed to avoid for several years, she could placate her friend. Andrea was relentless in her attempts to get Hermione to be more social and refused to accept that she really didn't have a secret desire to be a social butterfly.
To: Mione
From: Andrea
Subject: pArTaY
Hey hun,
Omg where are u? I called ur house and ur parents were like she's gone for the entire summer? But they gave me ur address and the house phone number, ur only a fifteen minute drive. u had better invite me over soon I want to meet ur friends!
So my party. This Saturday. Sorry about the short notice but ur coming! Come for 9 so we can talk and everything before it starts. And girl, unless u've gained about a hundred pounds u had better be in a bikini. If ur not I'll force u into one of mine.
Love from
Annie
Xoxo
Hermione grimaced as she read through the message, pausing briefly before clicking reply.
To: Andrea
From: Hermione
Subject: The party
Hello,
I'll come for 9, but no promises regarding my attire. If you want to talk to me I suggest calling my cell phone (it's new), so here's the number: 735-761-8376. I don't know how polite anyone will be on the phone. Some of my roommates were definitely not my first choice. So you'll have to call me before you come over.
By the way, please spell 'you' properly next time you e-mail me, it is so distracting and difficult to read when you spell it that way. Thanks.
Hermione.
Again—please no drop-by visits. This isn't like living with my parents, I'm going to need advanced warning.
She clicked send and leaned back with a sigh. She didn't feel very tired, but emerging from her room increased the possibility of running into one of the Slytherins and she really didn't want to deal with living with them yet. These laptops have some kind of magic tampering on them…maybe I can look up the television show on here. She brought up google and typed in 'House of Hell.' A few web results came up, one of which was for a muggle horror book series, and then clicked the one that was made by the WWNC and wasn't accessible for muggles.
As she scrolled down she saw personality summaries, background information and even bets on the relationships of people in the house. There were videos with interviews of Sheila and James, as well as the first half-hour introductory special available that basically consisted of their kidnappings. There were sections that had photographs of her and her friends from Hogwarts, summaries of their time at the school, and speculation regarding their futures.
Shaking her head she returned to google and searched the image results, which were just as strange. She was about to exit off when something caught her eye. It was a photograph of one of the clips from the introduction Sheila and James had shown them. Six pairs of eyes were stacked, staring out of the screen at her. She was entranced.
Silver grey eyes, like ice burgs or liquid metal, gazed out of the screen. Pale blond eyelashes framed them and her breath caught in her throat, because it was just unfair that Draco was such a terrible person and had the most incredible eyes she'd ever seen. Harry's were beneath his, and although they were a piercing emerald green there was still the warmth in them that she was accustomed to seeing. It comforted her to know that, despite what Harry had been through, he still had the ability to care and even, on occasion, embraced it.
If it hadn't been for the stretch of skin surrounding their eyes Hermione may not have realized the next ones were Blaise's. They were the darkest blue she had ever seen—the deepest parts of an ocean during a thunderstorm. She had always thought Blaise was a rather cold person—he always seemed very arrogant and aloof, but his eyes were burning with passion. Ron's blue was next, the middle of the sky in a sunny day, and Hermione marveled at how eyes seemed to hold a person's history in them. Ron's almost seemed to tell a story of love, of being a brother and son and best friend.
Pansy, who Hermione had always found quite annoying and shallow, also had beautiful eyes. They were all teal with flecks of grey and what looked like a light honey. Almost reluctantly she looked at her own. While she wasn't one to criticize her own characteristics, as she thought other aspects of a person were far more important, she'd always been a bit disappointed by her eye colour. No one ever exclaimed over brown eyes—they seemed common and average. The same eyes that looked back at her from the mirror were watching her now, but there was warmth in them that she never seemed to have when she did so.
With a sigh Hermione closed the window and leaned back against the wall. She'd been in this house for a matter of hours and already she was behaving in a self-indulgent manner, staring at photographs of her own eyes. It was ridiculous.
People would probably be talking about the show already, and that made her uneasy. Everything she said or did would be captured on film, save anything in the bathroom and the rooms around the house with no camera. Unfortunately none of them knew which ones they were. It was such an invasion of privacy.
The conversations she had with Ron and Harry were obviously going to be very limited, because she didn't want to talk about anything important until she knew where she could do it without the entire wizarding world finding out. She supposed she could just write things down, but she was worried her laptop had some kind of bug in it so Sheila and James could keep track of what she did. That only left a diary.
Wrinkling her nose at the idea of turning into a stereotypical teenager with a diary she began to type up a list of things she would need to get from the grocery store, before climbing back into bed and falling asleep.
The next morning Hermione slept in until the sun streaming through her window woke her up. When she returned home from Hogwarts her sleeping habits were usually screwed up for a couple weeks, so she shook off the drowsy feeling that wouldn't release her from its clutches and got ready for the day.
The walk down to the little village nearby only took about 10-15 minutes and she was soon turning into a respectable store labeled 'Food.' What an original name.
"Hello my name is Pam may I be of any assistance to you?" The voice came from a girl with cropped black hair standing just instead the store entrance. She had olive skin and grass green eyes, with pale lips and a few freckles. Her expression had brightened almost instantly when Hermione appeared and she'd stopped slouching. "But actually, though. I really need something to do."
"I, er, have a list," Hermione answered and dug through her purse for the list she'd made the previous day.
Pam's face lit up. "Great! This will take awhile!"
"Okay…a diary…this way." She led her through a series of aisles until they reached one with shelves stacked with paper in every shape and color.
"This one is really cute." Pam held up an extremely fluffy blue diary that looked like a deformed cat.
"Erm, I'm looking for something a bit more…practical." Hermione stared at the diary, wondering what the point of keeping such a conspicuous book was.
"This?" It was a neon pink diary with 'princess' blazing across the front. Pam saw the Gryffindor's horrified look and laughed. As she turned something caught her eye.
It was a faded green diary with metal clips in the corner. She picked it up and flipped through it. The pages were crisp and she inhaled. "I'll take it."
Pam's eyebrows shot up. "You realize that that's second hand, I'm not sure where John picked it up." Hermione didn't know who John was, nor did she really care.
"I like it," she said and made a point of putting it in her cart.
"Whatever the customer wants the customer gets," Pam parroted and then looked back to the list. "Diary? Check. Now, milk."
An hour and 35 seconds later they were in the fruit and vegetable section picking the last few things from the list. The cart was dangerously full, with a box of cereal wobbling precariously on top.
"So what is this exactly?" Pam held up an orange fruit in her left hand, flicking it with her right. "Because, like, it looks like a cross between a pear and my ex-boyfriend's face."
"I think it's a papaya," Hermione said and looked more closely at the fruit. "That's what the sign says."
"Really? We have signs here? Wow. You learn something new every day." Pam tossed it into the air but when she went to catch it it slipped through her fingers and landed on the floor. The papaya exploded, its insides shooting across the clean floor and splattering their legs.
"Oh my god! Uhh…" Pam grabbed the microphone attached to the wall and pressed the on button. "We have a papaya down people, we should, er, evacuate the building to stop any, erm, further harm from becoming any other innocent fruit. And please thank Miss Granger for supplying the identity of the fruit in question."
Hermione chuckled and then frowned. "Couldn't you get in trouble with your boss for that?"
Pam nodded. "That is why we're running." She wheeled the cart around and took off, Hermione hot on her heels. They stopped, gasping for air, on the other side of the store. "I think we have another casualty," Pam said between laughs. "The cereal is gone!"
"I suppose you found that amusing." A cool voice said from behind Hermione. She froze and turned slowly.
"Mike," Pam scoffed, "it was funny. Add a few words to your extensive vocabulary."
He ignored the other girl in favour of looking at Hermione, recognizing making his eyes widen. "Hey, again."
"You've met?" Pam looked between them, her eyebrows narrowing a bit too much for an innocent question.
Hermione flushed. "He delivered pizza to my house."
Pam frowned, her previously amused demeanor disappearing. "Where do you live?"
She recited her address and at Pam's confused look explained, "The big white house on top of the hill."
Pam whistled. "Didn't you walk here? How are you taking all this stuff back?"
"Er…I can be pretty strong." She said, though in truth she'd planned on using a spell to decrease the weight of the bags as soon as she could without attracting notice.
"I'll drive you if you want." Mike offered, running the zipper from his red vest up and down.
"Er, okay. Thanks," Hermione said, unsure how exactly she could avoid it.
"Another girl never coming out of his car of doom." Pam said in a sinister voice. At Hermione's alarmed look she sighed exasperatedly. "A joke. Am I the only one with a sense of humor?"
Without waiting for an answer she headed off in the direction of the cash register. Mike gave her another smile behind Pam's retreating back and began to push her cart for her. With a small sigh Hermione followed.
She paid for everything and Pam programmed her cell phone number into Hermione's phone, demanding that she call her within the next week. Then Mike helped carry her groceries out to the trunk of his car.
"You know a man was killed on that property a few years ago." Mike said as they began to drive up the road. "It's sort of the local scandal."
"Really?" Hermione asked, intrigued. "How?"
"No one really knows. They found his body one morning, and he didn't have any marks on him. Although," he added thoughtfully, "that's not the original house. I can't really remember when, but they tore it down and rebuilt it on the property."
He looked at her, obviously expecting something along the lines of a scream of terror. Instead she was thinking the idea over in her head, staring out the window of the car. He looked a bit surprised. "That doesn't bother you?"
"It's curious. What was the family name?"
"I…can't really remember." Mike frowned, appearing a bit nonplussed, and turned up their driveway. He parked in front of the door and turned to her. "You're not like many girls, are you?"
She blushed. "I should hope not." She saw Ron's face in the window and couldn't stifle a few giggles over his expression of glee. Mike's grin widened.
"Do you want help with your stuff?"
"That would be great, thanks." She opened the car door and went around to the trunk. Mike popped it open and she gathered as many bags as she could. Ron and Harry met her by the door and snatched them from her hands, so she went back to get more.
"Thank-you so much." Hermione said gratefully.
"No problem." He shrugged. "If you ever need anything else, don't hesitate to call."
She smiled, nodding her head a bit awkwardly. She was entirely unused to receiving this kind of attention from boys and, though she was sure Mike was a very nice person, it seemed like there was something between him and Pam. Plus, she was in no way interested in dating someone over the course of a few summer months.
"Bye." He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. She could have sworn from his grin that he had felt heat emanate from her face and had heard her heart beating a mile a minute. She watched his car go down the driveway and turn onto the road.
Her smile disappeared when she turned to go into the kitchen and saw Ron's expression. "Ron?"
"What?" He asked, voice sullen, and began to pull the groceries from their bags.
"Nothing, you just look a bit…upset."
"Do I?" He asked in a strained voice.
She looked at Harry, who shrugged and dug through the bags for cereal. She waved her wand and all the groceries flew to exactly where she wanted them. To her disgust Ron devoured his bowl in about 3 bites and a lot of flying milk, and started on a second.
"So my friend from home, Andrea, invited me to her pool party tomorrow. I think I'm going to go." Hermione began casually, watching as Harry stopped eating and Ron's brow furrowed.
"You think that's a good idea?" Harry asked her, stirring his spoon around the bowl.
"I don't know." She picked at the edge of her nail, avoiding their eyes. "I've always managed to avoid going to them, but I think if I go now she won't push as hard to see me this summer, so I can keep her from coming to the house."
"But you'll have to swim." Ron said, his cereal forgotten.
"I don't actually think so," she shook her head. "I'll go for a few hours and hang around without getting the pool. It will be fine. Honestly, my most pressing concern right now is how to avoid wearing a bikini."
Ron's jaw dropped. "You're not going."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly. Anyway, I'm going to go take a shower. I'll be back down later."
"We'll probably be checking out the Quidditch pitch area," Harry informed her as Ron attacked his food with renewed vigor.
Pansy and Draco were coming down the stairs side by side as she began to climb them, and they took up the full width of the stairs. As they approached it became apparent that one of them was going to have to move so they could go around each other. They all stopped in the middle of the steps, before Pansy climbed back a step and moved out of the way.
Hermione continued to the top, but when she reached the landing turned back and watched the pair descent.
The Quidditch pitch was nowhere near full sized, but her two friends were flushed and windswept when they landed beside her and she found herself smiling. "Wow. This is pretty nice."
"Wow."
"I know." Ron said with a grin, slightly breathless. "Beats the field out behind the house, anyway. It's got goalposts and everything."
"You know," Harry began slyly, "This is the perfect time for you to give flying a chance. We never got the time at school, but there's really no excuse now!"
"Yeah!" Ron joined in, "It'll be great fun. Unless you fall off!"
Harry and Ron both laughed, but she glared at them. "You'd better not let me fall off."
"You don't just want to take my Firebolt for a whirl?" Harry asked, eyebrows raised in an attempt to seem innocent. She didn't answer and his face broke into a grin. "Okay, just climb on and hold on to my waist."
"On three." Ron swung onto his broom, "one," she tightened her grip around his waist, "two," she felt his muscles tighten, "three." They shot into the air and a curious sensation filled her. She felt Harry relax, proof that flying helped him release stress. A small bubble of excitement filled her chest and she couldn't help smiling.
"Are you okay?" Harry called back, wind whipping through his hair.
"Yes!" The blood pounded in her ears and adrenaline coursed through her. This was much smoother then a hippogriff, and a thestral. But then anything is more comfortable then flying on something you saw right through.
They soared around the pitch and came to a halt in the middle. She gazed around the pitch and sighed. The view was amazing, even if she could only see the grass stretched below. Then she made the mistake of looking straight down.
Fear swamped her and she gasped. "Can we go down? Please?" He grip tightened around him.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked.
"Look down." She shivered and pressed closer to him. Harry and Ron looked around below and searched for whatever had disturbed her so much.
"I don't see anything." Ron said.
"I think I'm not used to this kind of thing." She buried her head in the crook of Harry's neck and he slowly drifted back to the ground.
"That is going to take some getting used to." She muttered as she righted herself.
Her implications made Ron beam. "You'll go up again?"
"Maybe not today, tomorrow, or the next day, but someday." She couldn't refuse, what with the looks Harry and Ron were giving her.
"Okay, good." Harry grinned.
"Well you two have fun, I'll see you later." She waved them away and before she'd turned around they'd both shot back up into the air.
She'd always found it fascinating, the passion they held for the sport. It was the same energy she had for knowledge, except she thought hers as a bit more productive then flying around on brooms.
By an unknown command her legs started moving and took her away. The grass crunched unnaturally under her feet and she knelt down to touch it. It was real, but she assumed it probably had a spell to maintain its length.
She kept going, contemplating how different her summer was going to be. Why had Sheila and James chosen them as the 'stars'? There was the obvious reason, she supposed. The Boy-Who-Lived and his two closest friends that had been getting into trouble every year at their school, usually under strange and dangerous circumstances. People sometimes had the nerve to wonder if maybe she and Ron weren't really his friends, if they were just in everything for the fame. But no one had experienced what they had together.
"No!" Ron shouted as Hermione was hit by a red stream of light. She staggered as blood seeped from the gash in her right thigh.
"Go!" She screamed at him. "Just go!" Ron stood there, motionless for about 10 seconds as the movement around them seemed to slow, and then began running towards her. "Ron, go!"
She stumbled and fell down, narrowly avoiding a green jet of light. A hand grasped her arm and pulled her up.
"Come on," Harry's eyes burned her. "We've got to keep moving."
She forced herself to get up and keep running, but her strength was ebbing away with each step she took. The three pulled into a crevice barely big enough for them to fit as Harry looked them both over. He ripped a piece of his shirt off and Hermione bound her leg to stop the blood flow. With one last look at each other they dashed back out of their hiding spot.
Then there were always the love triangle hopefuls, eager for more after Rita spread rumors involving Harry, Victor, and Hermione. They couldn't seem to grasp the thought that there can be friendship with people of the opposite sex without feelings that surpassed those that were strictly platonic.
Sheila and James had obviously thrown in Draco and his friends to try and stiry up some drama. There was Draco, the Death Eater's son, with plenty of money and powerful familial connections. Blaise was rather mysterious, given his usual silence, and the fact that he spent half his time with Draco and the rest with Theodore Nott, who most people forgot was even in their year. A raised eyebrow from him was creepy enough under the right circumstances. And of course Pansy, always with her nose held high, never letting anyone faze her. Attention seeking at its worst.
It was relatively common knowledge in Hogwarts that Blaise and Pansy never got along, and they were only together because of Draco. They could be seen glaring daggers at each other in the halls, classes, meals and probably in the Slytherin Common room. Every so often there would be someone that suggested they were like Hermione and Ron because they were always arguing, but both sides fervently denied this.
She realized her feet had betrayed her and taken her to the pool. Light reflected off the surface, sending her mind reeling. But no, this water seemed much more serene. Not like before. She sank to her knees and stared at the stagnate surface, the close proximity sent shivers through her, but she was safe.
It didn't stop her from remembering the last time she'd been submerged in a body of water, the slime choking her, the eery green sheen and the hands, tugging her, dragging her, the realization that she was going to die—
"Granger if you don't move away from the pool I may decide to push you in after all." A cool voice sounded behind her. She scrambled to her feet and whirled around.
Draco stood there in swimming trunks with a towel thrown over his shoulder, with Blaise at his side, dressed similarly.
"Go away Malfoy." Her voice lacked the usual conviction.
He smirked. "I would, well actually I wouldn't, but we're going swimming and we'd appreciate mudblood free water."
"Well you're in luck," she said coolly, "I was just leaving. Be careful, you may be infected with arrogant prat germs after swimming with him." She directed her last comment at Blaise. Then she pushed past them roughly and stalked up to the house. Why did they think they could walk all over her? Just like Todd. Well he had another thing coming at Andrea's pool party.
Well, they all had another thing coming. She would show them all.
A/N I'm sorry this has taken so long, but something has been wrong with the site, and I managed to upload The Initiation on one day when things seemed to be working, and then they were messed up again.