Harry Potter: How I Met Your Mother
Southern France Part One: Le Plage (The Beach)
DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling created Harry Potter, its plot, and its surroundings. The World of Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, Wizarding World, and Warner Brothers. I don't own them. I do claim possession of my original characters, both the ones in Slytherin House and elsewhere.
This story was written for my own amusement, not for profit. I you are enjoying this work of fiction, please write and post a review.
This story has no relationship whatsoever to the How I Met Your Mother television series.
-XXX—XXX—XXX—
As you know one of the most famous events in Wizarding Britain in 1993 was Sirius Black breaking out of Azkaban. Other wizards and witches had succeeded in getting out of their cells at Azkaban before, but Sirius Black was the first wizard to actually succeed in escaping Azkaban Prison entirely.
The effect of his escape was electrifying. Wizards and Witches across Britain and on the Continent, thinking that Black had escaped to reignite the Dark Lord's rein of terror. Grandfather Uther and Grandmother Cora were of the minority who didn't panic. Instead, they moved their vacation plans forward a week and we went to the French Riviera.
We traveled to the Riviera the way most wizards would have: by portkey. Despite my knowing that I was a wizard I found myself a bit discontented with our means of getting there. True, we got there far quicker than any Muggle could have hoped to either by train or aircraft, but I would have liked to have seen the French countryside before we arrived in Nice. Someday, I told myself, I'd take the train.
We arrived in the Cote d'Azure without incident. Once we gathered our things together, we used charms to lighten our luggage and headed for the exit. We didn't have far to walk: despite the fact that most of Nice is Muggle, the hotel that we preferred was just over half a mile away. Our rooms were ready and the receptionist welcomed up back. After checking in, we discreetly removed the charms the lightened our trunks, forcing the Muggle bellboys to set them on a cart, then lug it to an elevator.
You might not think it strange that a wizarding family should holiday on a beach primarily used by Muggles. Not for us: after all, we'd been doing it for some time. But it wasn't so common before the Second War: there was still pressure on the part of some of the old families and by the Dark Lord's former adherents. They strongly felt that wizards were not only better than Muggles, but we shouldn't even rub shoulders with them.
You might not think it strange that a wizarding family should holiday on a beach primarily used by Muggles. Not for us: after all, we'd been doing it for some time. In this, we went against the grain: most wizarding folk would have sought at wizarding resorts along the Mediterranean. My Da had good reason for that: not because there were more activities in Muggle areas or because Muggle resorts were cheaper. They weren't: Muggle resorts could cost a pretty penny even then. But we had a better reason: safety. The wizarding resorts most frequently used by wizards and witches were cursed with deadly rip currents that could carry off and drown magical swimmers just as easily as they could some hapless Muggle. The currents were close to shore and very dangerous. Grandda had been made aware of them when his father started taking him to the beach after the end of the Grindlewald War.
When asked by one of my aunts why we didn't stay at a Magical resort, Great-grandfather had stated that his children's safety far outweighed the social cachet of staying at wizarding resorts. As I grew older I found that I agreed with his opinion and we've been staying at Muggle resorts ever since.
Once we had settled in, I changed clothes, then went outside to explore. As usual, Grandda did not pick a hotel directly on the beach, but one located several blocks away. While it would have been nice to stroll down to the shore from the lobby, I'd gotten use to walking a few blocks down to the shore.
To me, one of my favorite pastimes when visiting a seaside resort, whether it be on the Riviera or someplace, is people-watching. Admittedly, most of the beach-goers who travel to Nice are Muggles, but they're Muggles who traveled there from all over Europe, and sometimes even beyond. There were tall beachgoers, short beachgoers, fat beachgoers, thin ones, dark-skinned beachgoers, light-skinned beachgoers, ones with dark hair, blondes, red-heads or sometimes bald ones. Most of them travel from their hotels to the sand wearing colorful cover-ups, but sometimes they're content to walk to the shore wearing their swim costumes and little else. I hadn't crossed more than one city street before I heard fellow beach-goers speaking in at least four different languages. And I'll be honest. I was young then, what Americans call a teenager, and I spent most of my time looking at teenaged girls.
And there was a lot to see. I don't know what you know about wizarding swimwear, but most wizarding swimwear fashions lag decades behind what Muggles would wear to the beach. While surfer-type swim trunks had just begun to be considered acceptable for wizards, wizard-born witches felt an incredible amount of social pressure to dress modestly. A modest Muggle-style one-piece swimsuit would be considered quite moderate in Muggle circles, but among our kind the wearer would be condemned for showing too much. The same for a two-piece swimsuit, except even more so.
As for bikinis, they were considered well beyond the pale. As far as the string bikinis worn by brave and brazen young women, the less said about wizarding reactions, the better. Tart would be the mildest comment respectable witches would use, then conversation would go downhill fast.
Which didn't stop me from looking. So a certain young British wizard is ambling along the sands of Nice, admiring views of the ocean waves and of other bathers when he steps back from a pair of young louts throwing a rubber ball back and forth and nearly collides with a frizzy-haired blonde girl wearing a tee shirt over a modest two-piece swimsuit.
"Pardon," I said to the young woman, who was much younger than I was. Our eyes locked and I realized who she was. So did she.
"Woodbine!" she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here on holiday with my family," I said.
"But why here?" she said.
"Because we always try to spend a week or so by the sea shore during the summer," I said.
"But why Nice?" she said.
"It's one of the places my Da likes to visit," I replied. "My family has taken holidays on the Riviera for years."
"I didn't think that purebloods or Slytherins mixed with half-bloods and Muggles," she said.
"Malfoy and Parkinson might not," I said. "My Mum and Dad are not so choosy. My Dad says that if we're discrete, there's no reason as to why anyone should be the wiser. Besides, I'm not really a pure-blood."
"Does Veronica know?" she said. "Is she here?"
"She knows I'm here," I replied. "She's in Scandinavia with her family this summer."
"Are you staying at one of the…" she hesitated "...resorts?"
"No, we're staying at an ordinary hotel a few blocks away," I replied.
"Why not the other sort?" she said.
"Because the cachet of those places is outweighed by the risk of drowning," I replied. "The other ones have ugly rip currents and I've witnessed the aftermath of a couple of people drowning." A Muggle term came to me. "You know how people wearing green neckties are risk-averse."
Her lips worked as if she was thinking of smiling. An errant thought came to me: that swimsuit complimented her. I squashed it immediately. She was far too young and I was already attached.
"Seriously, it's good to see you," I said.
Hermione looked at me as if she wasn't so sure she was glad to see me.
"It's good to see you too," she replied.
"Anyway, I probably ought to cut my stroll short," I said. "My best to your Mum and your Dad."
I turned around and walked away. I wondered if I'd run into her later on. Perhaps, perhaps not. Beaches could be so crowded that finding someone without a wand could be extremely difficult, and that was assuming we were looking for each other.
Looking back I suppose that was one of the first times, if not the very first time, that I began to see Mademoiselle Granger as a girl and not simply as a younger schoolmate.
-XXX—XXX—XXX—
Author's Note: Yes, I used an Internet search engine to research what actress Emma Watson's character would look like in a swimsuit.