Sooooooo time for another quick rant! Have no fear this one is less over dramatic than my slip up last week! So first off, thank you so much to everyone for leaving such kind reviews, messages, and forum responses in response to my rant and the previous chapter releases. Last week the series had more activity than ever before and somehow we surpassed follows with reviews! (Which I think we are probably the only series over 300k words on the site to ever do that lol) Anyways, thank you again. Your feedback and kind words helped me a lot ot take a critical look at the series and think about things. I even managed to get three whole new chapters written last week because I was so fueled to get you guys out some better stuff.
As of now I will not be going back and making major changes to the series. Eventually I will, but right now I am happy with things overall and really just wanna get all of book four out to you guys so you can hurry up and get to book 5(its kind of my favorite so far!). With that being said please, please, please continue to leave me your feedback, again you have no idea how much your words pump me up and kick my ass into gear when it comes to writing.
Before you move on to this chapter I would also like to let everyone know I created a twitter. The account will cover any and all of my fanfics and has been created to give you guys another platform to follow and discuss the story. I will frequently be posting updates, teasers, and other things on there. Please follow me at OseRSFanfic. Thanks and enjoy the rest of book four!
Hermione
The quiet inside the room was beginning to drive her a little mad. Everyone inside of their study room had been busy working on their end of year projects for closing on a few hours now and a concentrated silence had taken ahold of the room and its occupants. While her friends seemed to be making headway on their work she was making no progress whatsoever with her project. All she was doing was spending the time getting annoyed by how quiet the room was and how little work she was getting done.
April was always the time in the school year where most students started to get serious with their end of year projects. Professors began to slowly allow more and more free time around this time of the year and spending time in the library or practice room was encouraged if not expected. Just like in her past three years at Hogwarts by this time in the year she had already narrowed down what her projects for each class would be. That was the easy part for her. The hard part was actually making progress on her projects and getting them completed.
Even with the tournament taking up a lot of her time throughout the year she was still fully expecting to make just a big of a splash in the water as she had last year, if not an even bigger one; that is if she managed to actually finish all of her projects on time. The classes at Durmstrang were not necessarily easier than the one at Hogwarts, but many of the lessons did cover topics that they had previously learned at Hogwarts, which allowed her the time outside of class usually spent reading to work more on her projects.
Last year she had earned four 'M' rankings, thanks in large part to her end of year projects, this year she was planning on just as many. She was confident in her potions project earning her a top mark again this year; with all the time and effort she had already put into making brewing her potion possible it would be a great disappointment if she did not end up on tthe top.
This year she was attempting to brew the most advanced and difficult potion she had ever brewed before. The potion, known as the dragon's breath potion, was a potion, was so time intensive and volatile that currently only somewhere around sixty people in all of Europe had managed to even brew it at higher than ninety-eight percent accuracy before. Thankfully, two of those people she had access too.
Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Snape had provided her with an immense amount of help so far in the preparation stages and early brewing processes. When it came to anything dealing with dragons or dragons blood you could safely assume that Headmaster Dumbledore had some knowledge or experience with it, and dragon's breath potion used a lot of dragon's blood.
The ingredients list for the potion was massive too, and obtaining rare ingredients like dragon's blood, dragon scales, ashed lantadyme, and phoenix ash would be close to impossible for the average brewer. Thankfully Professor Snape had again come to her rescue here and set Hermione up with a number of his contacts throughout Europe and had made obtaining the ingredients possible, but certainly not cheap. Dumbledore had even gone so far as to give her a healthy supply of his own phoenix, fawkes's, ashes.
To this point, the hardest part of the potion by far had been obtaining dragon's fire, which is not an easy task as you might guess. Because of the first task of the Triwizards Tournament though, Durmstrang just happened to have a dragon on hand for a short period of time. With the help of Headmaster Dumbledore she had managed to snag a large portion of Hungarian Horntail's flame in a magical jar.
By this point in the year most of her time had been spent just preparing the potion. Just a little over two weeks ago she had at last began brewing the potion and would be spending pretty much the remainder of the year finishing it. Upon completion, hopefully, the potion should provide the drinker with immunity to fires of all type. The only way to feasibly test her potion would be to be hit with fire, which would definitely not be fun if all her work resulted in a failed potion.
As tough as the dragon's breath potion was to brew it was not the end of year project that was putting her in a bad mood currently. No, that title currently belonged to her spell creation's project. Time-magic was Hell to say the least, and it was slowly becoming more and more apparent why it was not something every witch or wizard with a wand was creating. The immense amounts of math, testing, and theory needed to create a spell utilizing time-magic was insane, not to even mention the amount of focus and concentration needed to actually cast a spell.
She had managed to create five time-magic spells since she begun exploring the subject back in her third year. Each one of the spells had proven to be more complex than the next in its development. The one she was currently designing for her spell creations and charms project was no different.
The idea for the spell she was calling 'restore' for the moment, was to restore an item back to the state it was in before it took damage. So for example, say you broke a teacup, with the spell you could restore the teacup to how it was before it was broken, thus fixing it. Her aevumcorretro spell applied a lot of the same principals that this spell would, but this spell took things to a whole nother level.
With her aevumcorretro spell she was able to take a living thing and return it to a position that it was in moments earlier, like she did in the first task when she moved the minotaur back to where it had started its charge. With this spell, using the teacup example again, she not only had to do all of the math, theory, and tests to make the teacup to return to its old position, but also return to that position in the old, original un-broken state that it had been in.
And so far today she had made zero progress on figuring out how to make all of that happen. Zero!
"Ughhhh I'm going to stab myself with this quill soon!" she growled.
"I'm sure that will give you a good spell creation's mark," Marik quipped with a sarcastic grin. She glared at him and he quickly returned his nose to his parchment.
"What's wrong Hermione?" Harry asked her, stretching his hands as he took a break from writing to look up at her.
"I cannot think of a way to make the math work to even get my spell started. I've been stuck at stage one for hours now!" she groaned, admitting defeat outloud only made her temples hurt worse.
"Maybe you should take a break," Fleur suggested.
"I don't have time to take a break!"
"Hermione, it's April. You still have plenty of time. Most people are just now starting to even think about their projects. You are already halfway done with some of yours. You have plenty of time for a break," Fleur argued.
"'Mione doesn't know how to take breaks. One time she told me and Harry that she was going to take a break and go for a walk around the castle, we found her six hours later in the middle of the library a hundred pages into a book on the history of magical squids," Marik laughed.
"Hey that is not fair!" she shouted, even if it was technically true. That had been the first time she had seen the giant squid in the lake! What else was she supposed to do after seeing a sight like that.
"Another time she even pretended to take a nap in our study room but had really just used a disillusionment charm on the book she was reading and hid it under her blanket with her," Harry added.
"Guys!" she blurted. That one was also true.
"Hermione you really are helpless aren't you?" Fleur chuckled.
"She is," both Harry and Marik said in unison. Neither one of them even lifted their noses from their papers to answer.
"I am not!" she tried to argue. No one seemed to believe her though.
"Come on then," Fleur ordered her and quickly stood up and began packing her things away.
"What? Where?" she asked, confused.
"I am going to be a good friend and help you take a break," Fleur answered her and started packing Hermione's things away too.
"But I!" she started to protest.
"Hermione!" Fleur playfully shouted. "You know that you are my favorite but I will hex you if you don't come with me!"
"She will trust me," Marik added and his body gave a scared shiver.
"At least tell me where!" she pleaded as Fleur practically pulled her out of her chair.
"You will just have to be spontaneous for once and trust me!" Fleur sassed.
"I could use a break too, maybe I will. . ." Marik started to say, but was quickly cut off.
"Marik you on the other hand do not have time for a break. You have only added one paragraph to your research on Ancient Egyptian runes since we got here, so you need to stay here and keep going," Fleur exclaimed.
"She sure told you," Harry laughed at Marik's misfortune.
"And you Mr. Potter!"
"Me?" Harry croaked.
"Yes you! Two paragraphs isn't much better than one! You need to stay here and work on your Hydra report or you aren't going to finish your care of magical creatures project on time either! Me and Hermione are going on a girl's only trip!" Fleur proclaimed.
"Girl's only trip?" she asked, unsure of what exactly a girl's only trip entailed having never been on one before.
"Yes, now come on! Bye boys." Fleur turned to the door and dragged Hermione by the hand along with her.
"Bye," both boys in the room groaned as the door closed behind them.
It was a Saturday at Durmstrang, which meant that the halls of the castle were packed with students moving freely from one area of the castle to another on their day off. Curious eyes locked on to her and Fleur as the French Champion continued to drag her through the castle's halls towards the front gate of the castle.
Fleur didn't seem to be slowing down at all though. Whatever her plans were for this, 'girl's only trip', they were apparently outside of the castle. Every student spending their day outside on the grounds seemed to be interested in what they were up too and Hermione could feel even more eyes staring the two of them down as Fleur continued to drag her across the grounds.
At last Fleur seemed to slow down when they arrived at a group of huge carriages parked under a canopy of tall trees on the edge of the grounds.
"Wait here for one sec okay," Fleur ordered.
"Okay?" she stammered out, still a little confused at what was going on and what she was about to be doing. Fleur approached the largest carriage of the group and knocked on the carriage's door. After a few seconds the giant Beauxbaton's Headmistress opened up the door and stuck her head out.
Even from where she was standing, Hermione could tell that the inside of the carriage was enchanted; it was probably the size of a mansion inside there. It had to be for the giant Headmistress to fit inside. Fleur and the Headmistress exchanged a few words in French that were spoken too far away for her to make out before the Headmistress took out her wand and threw a spell at one of the nearby carriages.
Six horses appeared out of thin air, looking ready to pull the carriage. Apparently satisfied with her spell the Headmistress nodded her head to Fleur and returned back inside her carriage. Fleur turned and skipped back to where Hermione was, a wide grin on her face.
"Ready to go?" Fleur asked, taking Hermione's arm into hers.
"Ready to go where?" she asked nervously, not sure if she wanted to know.
"To Anklam of course! Come on!" Once again Fleur was pulling Hermione alongside. They made their way over to the newly horsed carriage and Fleur politely opened the door for her. Nervously Hermione stepped into the carriage.
"Anklam? Where is Anklam? I've never heard of it," she asked Fleur as the door closed behind her friend.
"It's only a few miles away from Durmstrang. It's the closest wizarding town to the castle."
"Why are we going there?"
"To take a break of course!" Fleur exclaimed. "You know the more we hangout the more I discover how much alike you and me are," Fleur pointed out and the carriage lurched forwards.
"Why do you say that?"
"We both tend to put school above everything, even our own health and wellbeing. Last year in the last few months before end of year projects were due I spent every free minute I could in a lab room working on my projects, trying to make sure they were perfect. I ended up passing out from exhaustion at one point and had to spend a week in the hospital because of self-induced magical deficiency.
"I had been so caught up in my work that I didn't realise that I had missed meals, sleep, and that my magic was drained. You are the same way. If it wasn't for Marik and Harry making you stop to take breaths you would probably have the same happen to you."
Fleur probably had a point. Even with her friends keeping her in check she could list a number of times where she had been on the brink of exhaustion from overworking herself.
"So being the good friend that I am to you, after seeing you starting to look ready to hex your project I decided that this time I would take it upon myself to give you a day off and a refresher," Fleur smiled.
"Did I really look that bad?" she asked, a little embarrassed. She hadn't realised anyone could tell how annoyed she was getting with her work.
"If looks could kill we would all be dead," Fleur laughed. "Besides I wasn't making much progress on my spell creations project either so I needed a break too," Fleur admitted.
"And the truth comes out!"
"Oh shut up! Just try and have some fun today alright?"
"I will, I will! Why Anklam though?" she asked again, still curious why Fleur had chosen to take her there. "And are we even allowed to leave the school to go there?"
"I got permission for us both from my Headmaster so don't worry! Call it the perks of being a Triwizard Champion. And because we both just need to get away from the school for a bit and stretch our wings. No boys to worry about, no classes to stress over, and no other students staring at us because we are Triwizard Champions. Just a day to ourselves to do what we want and have some fun!"
"What are we going to do though?"
"You really don't know how to be spontaneous do you?" Fleur laughed.
"I really don't," Hermione admitted with a giggle.
The carriage ride to the city of Anklam was a short and fun ride. Fleur was right about getting away from the school doing them some good. Even before getting out of the carriage, just putting some distance between the school and them seemed to put all of her worries out of mind.
The town of Anklam was adorable to say the least. Historic looking buildings lined every wide streetside and there were dozens of adorable old couples hand in hand walking together and sharing a cup of tea outside the many shops. Whether it sounded creepy or not Hermione loved seeing old couples together. You just felt warm inside seeing a couple that had been in love for that long. It only made you hope that she could be that lucky and grow that old with Harry.
There seemed to be an endless number of cute shops of all varieties lining the streets. Every fifty feet or so there was also an enchanted fountain at the street's center, with water spewing out of a different magical beast at each one.
"It's so pretty!" she practically squealed as she stepped out of the carriage and onto the streetside.
"Isn't it?" Fleur smiled and headed down the street, Hermione quickly followed her. Anklam seemed to be a lot like Diagon Alley, only with a flea market like twist to things. Most of the shops looked to have hand crafted goods and there were very view big brand stores to be seen. They made their way down the sidewalk until Fleur stopped to look at something in one of the windows.
"Hermione love, you know what you would look so hot in."
"Huh, what?" she asked.
"A cute summer hat like that one, come on!" before Hermione could register Fleur's answer she was being dragged into a nearby clothing shop. Unlike the clothing shops of Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley everything here looked brighter and almost like something a family member would knit for you. There were elegant shirts, sweaters, and dresses of all colors and sorts all over the place. "Here." Fleur plopped something on top of her head.
Hermione turned to look in the nearby mirror. Fleur had placed a whickered summer hat with a red floral fabric wrapped around its base atop her head.
"I knew it! It looks perfect on you!"
"I don't know. . . you really think so?" She spun to get a look at it from the other side. She guessed she could pull it off a little.
"Of course I do. When you grow up with a mother like mine you learn fashion. That hat and a cute summer dress to go with it and you will have to stun Harry to keep him off you!" Hermione blushed at Fleurs remark and the thought of Harry. . . well, on her. Fleur immediately made a b-line for the dress section.
"I do have to admit that you definitely know how to pick out an outfit."
"Let's make a deal Hermione," Fleur proposed.
"A deal?"
"Yeah, a deal! I will pick you out a few outfits since you are in dire need of some clothes that aren't jeans or pajamas and in exchange all I ask is that you help me find a present for Marik while were here in town, deal?" Fleur proposed.
"Even if it may be true that my closet is entirely jeans and pajamas you don't have to say it like that!" she asserted, even if Fleur did make a great point. "And why do you need to get Marik a present? His birthday is in November and there isn't a holiday for a while."
"Because I just want to get him something, you know-just a spontaneous gift. He has been so perfect to me and spoiled me practically everyday since we started dating. I just wanna do something for him, you know? So do we have a deal?" Fleur asked her again as she sorted through a few bright colored summer dresses on a nearby rack.
"I guess sure. My mother has been begging me to get some new clothes for years now. Although I don't know how much help I will be in finding something for Marik," she confessed.
"You are his best friend Hermione. Even if I'm his girlfriend you know him better than I do, and have known him for longer than I have."
"I'm his friend yeah, but Alina is his best friend. I always go to her whenever I have to buy him a gift. Don't tell him that though," she confessed.
"You think Alina is Marik's best friend, really?"
"Yeah, I do. What, you don't?"
"Me and Marik have been dating since December and I have barely seen those two together for more than a few minutes in that time at most. And the few times they have been together she looks more like she hates him than anything else. I always figured she put up with him so she could hangout with you and Harry," Fleur explained.
"Alina doesn't hate Marik. In fact, well. . . it's just complicated," she replied with caution.
"What's complicated?"
"I shouldn't say. I'm sorry, it's just that Alina wouldn't want me to say."
"Then don't say. I'm sorry I even asked. Here go try this one on." Fleur handed her a bright yellow dress and pushed her towards the fitting room. Reluctantly, Hermione entered and changed into the dress. As much as she hated wearing dresses she had to hand it to Fleur, the girl knew how to dress, so she would trust Fleur's judgment.
Surprisingly, the dress looked good on her, even better with the hat that Fleur had picked out too. It was an outfit choice Hermione would have never picked out in a thousand years but she thought that she actually looked pretty good in it.
"Well, come out here already! I wanna see!" Fleur blurted from the other side of the curtain. Hermione pulled the curtain aside and embarrassingly did a quick spin for Fleur. "I love it! We are going to get you this one and two others like it! What is Harry's favorite color?" Fleur shouted as she ran back over to the rack and looked for another dress similar to the one Hermione had on.
"Uhh, I actually don't know. He wears a lot of red I guess, but that's just probably because he's in Gryffindor." Unfortunately, the topic of favorite colors had never come up with Harry before.
Hermione felt like how her father did in stores whenever her mother took them all shopping. He just stood there looking lost and clueless the entire time her mother picked out clothes for them all. Hermione watched in awe as Fleur quickly picked out two other dresses for Hermione and in a flash Hermione had bags in her hands and they were back out on the streets of Anklam.
"Where to next?" Hermione asked.
"Hmm. . . How about we stop for some coffee and we can try and think of an idea for Marik. I saw a cute cafe last time I was here that I wanted to go to, plus I could use some caffeine," Fleur suggested.
"I will never say no to caffeine, lead the way."
Fleur wasn't lying about the cute cafe. The cafe gave off a sort of Paris cafe type of vibe. It had a whole bunch of tables set out in the street filled with couples lost in conversations over coffee. The shop was small and had a delicious smell to it. Mugs of all shapes and sizes floated in the air from tables to behind the counter and there was an assortment of metallic machines in the back spewing steam out into the ceiling of the room.
"You wanna go grab us a table and I'll grab the drinks?" Fleur asked.
"Okay, three sugar and no cream in mine please." Hermione said before she found a table outside in the shade of the cafe building and sat down.
If you didn't already know that this was a wizarding town, aside from the teacups floating in midair, it would be hard to tell. Most of the people there were wearing normal looking clothes that looked almost like something muggles would wear. Even the people themselves looked more like muggles than wizards. None of them had wands out or crazy creatures flying about. The only wizarding thing any of them had was the paper with moving pictures. Seeing the paper she scanned around until she found a rack just outside the cafe door with papers on it. She made her way over to it and took a sickle from her pocket and dropped in the jar and took out one of the papers.
When she sat back down at their table she unfolded the paper and took a look at the front page.
Death Again!
Minister Weber has received confirmation from British Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, that there was another attack by the group called Death Eaters in the town of Little Hangleton two nights ago. The Escaped German prisoner, Manuel Ulreich, was identified by British aurors to be a part of the group that made the attack.
This reporter was told that the attack was done in the shroud of a rainy night and that the British Ministry is still unsure of why the town was attacked. No bodies were discovered at the scene of the attack and there have been no reports from the muggles of the town of anything stolen either. Had it not been for an auror stationed in the town sighting the death eaters the Ministry may have never learned of the event.
Minister Weber has told German magical citizens again that these attacks have little impact on the safety of the German wizarding community. However, Readers will remember that Manuel Ulreich was serving a life sentence in Munich Prison for selling illegal potions to questionable groups before he was broken out in a prison attack back in October of last year. At the time of his arrest, Manuel Ulreich, was known as one of Germany's top potion brewers and both ministries warn all citizens to take caution when buying potions and to not accept any unknown substances from anyone.
What a renown German brewer is doing with the Death Eaters in Britain remains to be seen; along with what the death eaters were up to in Little Hangleton. All we can do for now is keep our wands ready and our eyes searching. Please make a report if you see anything or anyone that looks suspicious.
"Here you are, three sugars and no cream." Fleur interrupted her daze and set her coffee down on the table. "What's the news say?"
"There was another attack a few nights ago in Britain apparently." She took a big sip from her coffee.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Was it anyone you knew?"
"Actually, the paper said no one was killed, so it sounds like either the death eaters weren't there to kill someone, or they got out of there before they could." Her mind was already racing with hundreds of possible explanations for what she had read in the paper.
Although the attacks had died down substantially since the attack on Hogwarts last year, there still seemed to be a random attack pop up in the paper every so often. Even though she promised Harry she wouldn't overthink and worry about Voldemort and death eater attacks she still always kept a close eye on the attacks, just to be on the safe side. The fact that no had been killed in this last attack did not sit well in her stomach. The death eaters always killed wherever they went, not killing meant they were probably up to something. And whatever that something might be, it worried her to death that it had to do with Harry.
"Well no dwelling on dark thoughts today! Today is relax and have fun day!" Fleur said with a smile, once again pulling her from her train of thought.
"Right. So-" she stammered, "do you know at least what type of gift you want to get Marik?"
"I have absolutely no idea! What types of gifts have you given him for Christmas or his brithday?"
"Uhhh books mostly, I think I got him a scarf once too," she answered. To be honest Alina had helped Hermione get Marik his gifts the past few times they had to buy him something.
"Well he does look good in scarves, but winter is over so hmm. . . Maybe something different, but what?" Fleur scratched her chin as she thought.
"I still don't get why you want to buy him something," she admitted again.
"So you're telling me that you have never wanted to do something for Harry just because?" Fleur asked, one of her brows arched.
"Well, I mean yeah I guess, but that's different."
"How is it different?"
"Well because me and Harry are in love," she practically blurted out the L word. It never got less embarrassing admitting that she was in love with Harry. Fleur didn't say anything in response, but just averted her eyes as she took another sip from her mug. "Wait. . . Fleur are you telling me that you lov. . ."
"SHHH!" Fleur practically jumped across the table to put her finger over Hermione's mouth.
"Well are you?" Hermione whispered, even though there really wasn't anyone without hearing distance from them .
"I don't know! I've never been in a relationship like this one before! I have only ever dated one guy before Marik and it was only because my mother practically forced me to. All he did was talk about himself the entire time and I never really cared for him at all. After two dates I just started ignoring all of his owls until he stopped writing.
"With Marik though, as soon as I wake up in the morning I want to go hangout with him and as soon as I'm away from him my first thought is always 'I wonder what Marik's doing now'. I'm sure you have been able to tell that since I am practically with your group all day everyday now. I just. . . I don't know how to say it! Ughh! I just want to buy him something today to, you know, to say thank you to him, and show him how much I value him. Does that make sense? God I must sound like a crazy person," Fleur ranted, her cheeks flushing as she did.
"No, you actually don't sound crazy at all. I totally get what you are saying and it makes perfect sense to me. I think you should tell him that too and not just get him something. I think he would like to hear that from you more than any gift you could get him," she insisted.
"I don't think I'm ready to tell him anything yet. I don't want things to change you know? These past few months have been some of the best of my life. I'm just so happy right now I don't want to ruin things. Plus I don't even know what I'm exactly telling him really either," Fleur admitted.
"Well let's start with the gift for now then. We can talk about you confessing your lo. . ."
"SHH!" Fleur spilled a bit of her coffee as she jumped across the table to quiet Hermione again. Hermione giggled at her friend. It was rare you got to see someone as composed and put together as Fleur normally always was flustered like this.
"Alright fine, I'll stop! I still find it a little hard to believe that someone like you has only had one boyfriend, or could have trouble with relationship stuff at all," she confessed.
"Are you calling me a slut Miss. Granger?"
"Oh shut up, you know I'm not. I just mean, well you're hot! Before I got to know you I figured you had boys all over you all the time. It's just hard to believe you would get flustered with this stuff."
"Did you just call me hot? I'm sorry Hermione but I'm seeing someone, although I'm sure Marik and Harry would jump at the idea of us together. I wouldn't have to get Marik a gift in that case too, hmm . . ." Fleur quipped.
"Oh shut it Fleur! I was being serious!" she laughed.
"I'm sorry! And Hermione you are hot too. I guarantee if you weren't with Harry the boy's would be all over you too."
"I doubt it."
"Doubt it all you want, I know I'm right. Now let's go window shop for ideas; I'm not going to be able to think of something just sitting here," Fleur ordered and stood up from their table. Hermione took one more sip from her coffee before picking it up and following Fleur's lead.
"So are you thinking something big like 'here Marik I bought you an owl,' or something small like 'here Marik I bought you your favorite jelly beans'?" she asked in her best Fleur impression.
"First off, I do not sound like that. Secondly, I really have no idea. What would you buy Harry if you were getting him something?"
"Uhhh I don't know! Harry really likes wearing sweaters and hoodies all the time so I would probably get him one of those; or maybe a new tie, he mentioned the other day that he is running out of good ties." It was hard to think of gift ideas for Harry. She usually had Alina help her narrow down her ideas with Harry too.
"Why don't you get him one then?" Fleur asked as her as they passed another store window. Fleur stopped and peered inside.
"What?"
"Why don't you get Harry a tie, sweater, or hoodie then. We are in the middle of a shopping town and you do love him," Fleur answered her and turned to head in another shop.
"I guess I could," she stuttered. She had not planned on buying Harry anything before"I guess I can't let you show up with a gift for Marik and me have nothing for Harry. I would look like a bad girlfriend! Hey, why are we going in there?" she asked as she followed Fleur into the strong smelling shop.
"I thought of a gift idea for Marik."
"Hello ladies. May I help you find anything today?" the male store clerk behind the counter asked them as they entered the shop. From the aroma of the stores and the stock on display the shop seemed to be selling a variety of spices, coffee beans, tea leaves, and a number of other odds and bits.
"Yes actually. I'm looking to buy a gift for someone who is a big tea person. I honestly know nothing about tea so I don't really know what I'm looking for," Fleur answered.
"Well do you know what types they like?"
"Uhhh, honestly no. Do you have anything Egyptian though? Or is there even such thing as Egyptian tea." Fleur asked the store clerk who chuckled at Fleur's question.
"I thought you said you had an idea," she sassed towards Fleur.
"I do have an idea you jerk! Marik has gotten really into Egyptian magical history over the past few months. He told me on one of our first dates that your spell creations professor at Hogwarts had him doing a bunch of research on ancient spell creators. He stumbled on a book about a famous Egyptian King who was known for his spell creations and runes and that's what gave him the idea for his ancient Egyptian runes end of year project. He is always drinking tea and always talking about Egypt now, so I figured I would try to combine the two!" Fleur ranted.
"It sounds like a very thoughtful gift-" the clerk interjected, "and you will be happy to know that Egypt is actually very famous for their tea and we do have some very good saiidi tea in stock. Give me one minute and I'll bring some up front for you. Do you want a small, medium, or large bag?" the store clerk asked Fleur.
"Medium please," Fleur bellowed as the store clerk disappeared into the back of the store for a brief moment and shortly returned with a fairly large sack.
"Here you are, one medium sack of saiidi tea. That will be one galleon, four knuts." Fleur handed the coins over to the store clerk and practically skipped out of the store, looking obviously happy with her gift idea.
"Alright, mission one accomplished. Let's go find Harry's gift now!" Fleur insisted and once again was pulling her down the street.
The first men's clothing shop they entered was a little, well, too dark for their tastes. After quickly leaving that store and the creepy store clerk behind they eventually found a much nicer shop. Inside Hermione quickly found a warm, soft jacket that she was sure Harry would love. She thought it was cozy as could be and since she stole practically all of Harry's sweaters and jackets if she liked it she was sure he would let her wear it to. Plus the jacket had a cat logo on it that kind of looked like Harry did in his animagus form, which was icing on the cake.
"Thank you for bringing me here today Fleur. You were right, I did need this," she confessed as they exited the shop. She reached her arms up into the sky as she stretched. Shopping really drained you.
"Your welcome. Now what do you say we head back now? I'm sure Harry and Marik are going nuts without being with us for this long," Fleur laughed.
"Yeah, let's go."
The ride back to the castle was just as fun as their time in Anklam had been. Hanging out with Fleur was so much fun and the two of them could seemingly talk for hours. They had been in a particular interesting conversation when the carriages came to a stop. They begrudgingly put their conversation to a halt as they exited the carriage and headed into the castle, where they quickly made their way back up to their study room.
"Well if it isn't the two slackers. How was girl's day?" Harry asked them as they entered the room.
"It was amazing," she answered and gave Harry a kiss on the lips, which seemed to catch him off guard.
"We had a blast," Hermione heard Fleur say from the other side of the desk, but was too caught up in her kiss with Harry to add anything else.
"I got you something," she finally told Harry after a few more blissful seconds of kissing.
"You did? And what did I do to deserve this?" Harry asked her. A cute grin plastered on his face and his cheeks red from the spontaneous kiss.
"Everything." Was all she said as she handed him the bag and anxiously waited for him to open it.
"A new hoodie! Thanks Hermione," Harry blurted out and before she could say polyjuice he had her in another kiss.
"Do you like it?" she asked him after another few moments of kisses.
"I love it. Idiot over there spilled a potion on my favorite one two nights ago so I really needed another." Hermione turned to see Marik excitedly looking over the gift Fleur had given him with a big grin.
"Well good, I'm glad. I love you Harry."
"I love you Hermione," Harry whispered and pulled her back into his lips for another passionate kiss.
"When you two lovebirds are done tongue wrestling let me know if you wanna go to the dining hall with me, I'm starving," Marik bellowed from the other side of the table. With blushing cheeks Hermione pulled her lips off of Harry's.
"I'm game. I need a break anyways," Harry replied and stood up from the table. Hermione smiled as he immediately put his new jacket on."You coming Hermione?" Harry turned to ask her.
"Actually, I'm going to stay here. I came up with a solution to my trouble with my math while we were gone. I think I can make a lot of progress tonight and don't wanna ruin my momentum."
"Alright, then. I'll come back after we eat then to help you. You coming Fleur?" Harry asked again.
"I'm gonna stay with Hermione, you boys have fun though," Fleur answered.
"Guess it's time for boy's night out then. Alrighty, see you ladies later," Marik called out and waved goodbye as he left the room.
"Bye," she and Fleur replied in unison as the boys left and closed the door behind them.
"Ughh!" Fleur groaned and dropped her head onto the table with a thud.
"What's wrong?" she asked, a little surprised by the sudden thud.
"I was so close! But I bitched out at the last second," Fleur groaned again.
"So close to what?"
"To telling him how I feel! He kissed me and I was all caught up in the moment and thinking about you telling me tell him. I started to tell him I love him and ended up telling him that I love the weather this time of year when I got scared. Teach me how you do it!" Fleur pleaded, her cheeks a full red blush. Hermione couldn't help but burst out into laughter. "It isn't funny Hermione!" Fleur roared, her cheeks only getting redder.
"Yes it is!" Hermione barely managed to get out through laughter.
"I hate you!" Fleur cried.
"Oh don't lie, you love me!" she teased.
"You are dead!" Fleur growled and threw a quill towards her.
"Alright, alright I'm sorry! Let's do a quick game plan on helping you tell Marik and then I'm gonna get some work done."
"Thank you Hermione!" Fleur replied.
"It's the least I can do for a friend and to repay you for all you did for me today. Now . . ."
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