AN: This first section is dedicated to Ziactrice; she's right, Dobby does deserve more screen time.
.o0O0o.
Dobby blinked groggily as he knelt with his head in the oven. It was all about to end; it was going to be over soon. Then, then he would rest.
Master Lucius had been giving Dobby so much work for the last several days; Dobby had never felt so alive! And tired. Alive and tired. Dobby had been going without sleep to make sure it would all be done by today.
Dobby didn't think there'd be much cleaning to do for the next week or more once this was done but they were always thinking up something for Dobby to do. The boy had been bragging to everyone all summer about how his father would buy his way onto his house team so maybe he would use him as a bludger again when his friends came to play. Dobby didn't hope so.
Dobby heard footfalls behind him and started to panic, scrubbing the last of the stubborn burnt food residue from the oven grill and vanishing it with a snap.
"Are you done yet?" the man behind him sneered, making Dobby feel just as worthless as the bit of burnt food he had just destroyed.
"Yes, Master Lucius," Dobby said staying partially hidden in the oven. "Dobby be finished now, sir."
"Good," Master Lucius said, seeming for once to be pleased.
Dobby suddenly felt an enormous pain and was flung forward, crashing into back of the oven, jostling the entire thing and snapping the door shut. In the darkness Dobby's hands made their way to his behind. Master Lucius had hit him with his cane again. Why wouldn't he just leave Dobby alone?
From the other side of the oven door Dobby heard his master speak.
"Go to the basement and vanish your things, then come with me, we're leaving."
Dobby must vanish his things? But where will Dobby sleep? When will Dobby sleep? His master didn't care. Even though Dobby had been given more work than ever before, this was the worst time in Dobby's life.
.o0O0o.
Harry's stomach tied itself in knots as he looked around the room again. He was in trouble, big trouble, and couldn't see any way out of it. It was Wednesday morning, they were about to leave for Diagon Alley, it was the first time he'd be seeing Hermione since last term, and he didn't have a thing to wear!
He tried to tell himself he was mad to be stressing out like this; after all, they'd never said it was a date. That had been before though – back when they were just two friends sending letters to each other, before Harry had asked her to go Hogsmeade with him. It was a year from now, sure, but what did it make this? And what did it make her? Was she his girlfriend?
Having a girlfriend was a big thing though – huge, even; nothing that big had really changed between him and Hermione though. The only thing that big right now was the butterflies in his stomach, they were the size of rabbits and were bouncing around like they'd too much sugar. Maybe he should've gone down to eat breakfast but the thought of the coming trip through the floo still made him reconsider.
It was too bad all his hand-me-downs from Dudley had already been binned. Mrs. Weasley probably could have shrunken them into something halfway presentable in no time. The night before last Mr. Weasley had taken him out to the shed to check on a strange smell coming from the washing machine. As it turned out, the smell was his clothes.
The bulging remnants of his former life had been washed but left to sit there for over a week and they had started to get all moldy. After a very close call with a magical fungus when Bill was two, the Weasleys didn't take any chances when it came to mold so out the clothes went. Harry hadn't thought anything of it at the time – he'd been using bits of his Hogwarts uniform instead and should've still had another clean shirt and suitable trousers. The problem was he couldn't find them.
Harry supposed he could try and see if something Ron had would fit him, but Ron was a bit taller than him. Odds were also good all of Ron's school things were still wadded up in his trunk, so they'd be wrinkly too. The ill-fitting issue was true for the twins as well, and they were older, so even if they had something worth wearing it'd still be too big for him.
That brought up yet another problem, a glaring hole in Mrs. Weasley's homemaking knowledge: she had never gotten around to learning how to lengthen or shorten anything. She lamented the fact just yesterday when he had asked her about his clothes while she had been transferring things from the old journal he'd found into a new one she'd been keeping.
His plan had been to get her to do what Madam Malkin had done for him before but while she could enlarge or shrink the whole thing all day long, apparently changing just one part of it was entirely different. All the books she had already assumed you knew how to do it but it had never caused her much of a bother though since having six boys in a row had always meant there was a steady stream of hand-me-downs to be passed on from one brother to another whenever they grew out of something.
And as bad as it sounded, even in his own head, Harry didn't want to wear any of their hand-me-downs today. He wanted to look nice. His backup plan had been to repeat what he had done when he had gone to Gringotts: run off to Madam Malkin's and have her fix him up real quick. That way he wouldn't miss Hermione and could stop back by sometime later on for some actual new clothes. That certainly seemed better than standing around on that stool for who knows how long and leaving Hermione to wonder if she'd been stood up.
What he needed now was a miracle. What he got was a knock on the door and a whack on the back of his head when he ran into the underside of his bed.
"Hey Harry," Ron said as he entered, having finally roused himself from an extra-long breakfast. "Mum says we're about to leave."
"Alright," he said as he pressed a hand to the back of his head to check for lasting damage. Thankfully, there didn't appear to be any.
"She says to hurry up and get changed," Ron continued. "Mum wants to make sure you're 'presentable' before we leave." Above him he heard a soft thump. "Clothes are on the bed."
Harry sat crouched in silence as the door closed again and Ron walked away. Surely it couldn't be. Taking care to mind his head, he backed out to see what Mrs. Weasley had sent up to him. There on his bed was a freshly washed, pressed, and folded shirt, slacks, and robe. She'd even included a clean pair of socks and underthings.
With a bit of mad laughter Harry thought that if Molly had been there right then he would've kissed her, and wouldn't have minded in the least if the twins called him Dad for the whole next week.
.o0O0o.
Hermione took a calming breath and scanned the London street for the Leaky Cauldron as her father looked for a place to park. There was no reason to be nervous, absolutely none. Today was just a normal day like any other, the only exception being a day trip to Diagon Alley to pick up her school things for the new year, that was all.
"There it is," she said as she stared at the old pub like it were some giant coiled snake ready to strike and a new wave of nerves washed over her.
Her father shifted from grumbling about other people's driving habits, as he'd been since they entered the city proper, to about London congestion and parking. She was just glad he'd dropped his ribbing that finding a boy she liked suddenly had her off on a whirlwind shopping spree though. To those she could only roll her eyes.
If she ever got as bad as that – to where she was obsessing over her hair and whether her nails matched her handbag or if they brought out the hint of honey in her eyes and hair and what her crush-of-the-week might think of them – if she got as bad as Lavender Brown that is, then she might as well leave her brain at home because she certainly wouldn't be Hermione Granger anymore.
As her father repeatedly zigzagged Minnie the Mini Mint Mini into a clear parking spot Hermione checked her reflection in the mirror one last time. She wished she'd thought of something she could do with her hair to keep it under control but had ended up deciding nothing short of magic would settle it one bit. The conclusion did nothing to lessen the worry about it in the slightest though.
Hermione chewed her lip in frustration. Her teeth were another issue she wished she could change. They were too big, and no reassurances she'd grow into them or could get braces to fix them when she was older helped matters any.
She tried to push all those worries away. If appearances were really so important there wouldn't be a witch or wizard who didn't look like supermodels, and that certainly wasn't the case. That was why she decided not to dress up, settling instead for a comfortable pair of jeans and nice top and not something which screamed "date" or, God forbid, a dress. That would build up expectations too high.
Besides, Harry liked her for her and because they were friends, not because of what she looked like. At least she hoped so, though, if he did like her for what she looked like – then she must not look as bad as she thought. Hermione paused for a bit to ponder that peculiar line of reasoning.
It didn't matter anyway, she decided. Today was not a date; at least she didn't think so. Harry'd asked her out, true, but that was to visit Hogsmeade – more than a year away – so it was just an agreement to go on a date then, not now. It didn't change anything about today; she didn't think it did anyway.
The car finally came to a halt and Hermione got out, trying unsuccessfully to smooth her hair as she walked to the door of the pub and taking another calming breath. They were just three friends out to buy their school books and getting to know each other as friends, though that did bring the Ron issue into play. As soon as the silence from Harry had been broken Hermione hadn't written to Ron at all, so she didn't know if any awkwardness from the end of last term would still be around. She hoped not.
Either way she didn't think he'd deliberately try to sabotage things by acting out. After all, what would he hope to gain by it? All it would do would embarrass both his friends while showing what a – well, what a complete arsehole he could be, as her father would say when he got mad – and that was something they'd managed to avoid so far, at least since the troll.
"Er – Hermione?" her father called from beside the car as he looked around in a rather confused manner. Though how he thought to find her by looking towards the record store's window next to them or up in the sky she didn't have the foggiest. Was there some sort of charm on the building to bewilder nonmagical people, just in case the charm that made it invisible failed for some reason?
Hermione shook her head at her own silliness as she realized what she'd just thought. In her nervousness she'd completely forgotten the practical application of what Professor McGonagall had said about the Leaky Cauldron: muggles can't see it and have to be escorted inside by someone who could, so her walking off without him would leave him stranded like she'd vanished into thin air. But then again, how often did she need that bit of trivia?
"Hang on, Dad," she said as she walked back to him. "Close your eyes."
Taking her father by the hand, Hermione pulled him back into the magical world.
As her father took a look around the dingy little pub, Hermione's eyes sought out her friends. They weren't there. With their red hair, usually it was easy to spot the Weasleys from a distance and Harry was sure to be with them. She took a look at her watch, and while they were a little late because of the traffic, she supposed they might've shown up first.
"I take it from the fact you haven't run off that your friends aren't here yet?" her father said from beside her. "You want to wait for them or go ahead and get started?"
She absentmindedly made her way to a seat at a nearby table as she continued to check for anywhere Harry might inadvertently be hiding. One thing she did notice, as her father asked the barman if they had anything nonalcoholic when he came over to take their order, was the Leaky Cauldron looked decidedly smaller and less scary than it had when she first visited.
She supposed the fact this visit was almost two years after the first one, and the fact she'd spent much of the last year living in an enormous castle, could account for the change. It was hard to imagine a small London pub being all that threatening when you'd spent several hours a week in a dungeon with Professor Snape and the Slytherins.
"I don't know about this," her father said as he looked at his drink questioningly. "How do you reckon they get juice from a pumpkin, Pumpkin?"
"Probably the same way Mum gets it from a carrot," she replied.
"You mean this might actually be good for you?" he asked as he took a sip and smacked his lips repeatedly, as if it would make the tasting process any more efficient.
Hermione hoped he got all this silliness out of his system before Harry showed up, and preferably didn't go mad like he did on vacations, because she didn't think constantly rolling her eyes with a long-suffering expression would be the thing to do to start shifting things between her and Harry along in the right direction.
"Ooo, this is good," her father declared. "Don't tell your mother or she might insist we start drinking carrot juice again," he said with a shudder.
Deciding she'd had quite enough of that, Hermione got up and walked up to the bar.
"Excuse me," she said by way of getting the barman's attention.
"Butterbeer?" the hunchbacked man asked.
"Er– no, thank you," she replied. "I was wondering if you could help me, I'm looking for Harry Potter."
The barman squinted at her curiously.
"He and some friends of mine were supposed to meet me here," Hermione explained.
"Oh, ya mean the Weasleys," the barman smiled a gap-toothed smile; the man definitely needed an appointment with her father. "Sure, the whole gaggle o' them came through a while back. That dark-haired young feller," he said with a look, "he ran through here like a banshee was after him. Ain't you, init?" he finished with wide eyes, gaping mouth, and a finger pointing at her like he'd said something particularly funny.
Hermione didn't answer; she was too busy running to alleyway behind the pub.
Any hope she had they'd be waiting on the other side of the archway disappeared when she saw the steady stream of people moving from shop to shop. It was all completely Weasley-free. The only hint Harry'd ever been there was a green sign in a window saying, 'Come See Harry Potter's Shoes!'
Hermione supposed since the shop was a cordwainery, a place which by definition makes shoes, they could've actually kept the old ones for display purposes, but with more than one person already taking advantage of Harry for their own gain this would certainly be something his lawyer should look into if they haven't already.
"You shouldn't run off like that," her father huffed beside her. The strange dentist wasn't used to exercise; being thin didn't mean being in shape. "Is that Indiana Potter they're talking about over there?" he asked, gesturing to the sign. "Running from boulders and tribesmen will be rather difficult without shoes."
Hermione rolled her eyes. She loved her Dad, but the man was impossible to live with.
.o0O0o.
He had to wait. He wasn't buying so he had to wait. He hated having to wait. Why did you always have to wait when you really wanted to be somewhere else? The anticipation was always the worst part. He squirmed around in his seat again.
"Alright, don't get your wand in a knot," Madam Malkin said. "Now what do you want?" she asked with a smile.
"I was wondering if you could fix me up again," Harry said, slipping on his outer robe. Last year he'd wondered why wizards bothered with it but it did make for a nice lightweight jacket.
"You know you could always step up and do it proper," she said, gesturing to the stool.
"I'll come back, promise," he said hurriedly.
"What's the rush?" she asked as she scrutinized the changes she had to make. "Court date today or something?"
"I'm meeting someone – a friend," Harry answered.
"Friends are nice," Madam Malkin murmured, lengthening the right sleeve of his shirt. "What's his name?" she asked, lengthening his left trouser leg.
'Why did she have to be so torturously slow? It didn't take this long last time,' Harry thought to himself.
"Her name's Hermione," he said quietly as a witch with spiky pink hair came in to ask her assistant if they could get scorch marks and ground in dirt off some robes.
"Oh, well in that case," she said cheerily, "you'll need a tie."
She tapped him with her wand and as quick as a flash his other shirt sleeve and trousers leg lengthened, his Gryffindor crest disappeared, and a tie appeared and tied itself around his neck before his robe buttoned itself up. Another tap had the tie change colors to green.
"It sets off your eyes, dear," she said with a wink that made him even more embarrassed.
He started to head for the door before she drew him back.
"Oh, no you don't," she chuckled. "That'll be a sickle. You come in here again without buying anything and it'll be a galleon," she said with a look passing for good-natured but trying to be stern without smiling.
"Yes, Ma'am," Harry said as he slapped a sickle into her hand and bolted for the door.
The crowd in the alley was still going strong, most of the traffic going to and from Gringotts and the bookshop, Flourish and Blotts. Quick glimpses of faces and brushes against cloaks marked his passage as Harry dodged and weaved his way through people as fast as he could. He was going to be late; he just hoped it wasn't too late to make a good impres–
The people in front of him parted to make way and Harry skid to a halt and felt his whole body seize up like he'd been turned to stone. Right in front of him was a wide-eyed Hermione who looked as surprised as he felt.
"Uh – hi," Harry said stupidly.
"Hi," she replied stiltedly.
'Oh great,' Harry thought, 'our friendship's ruined. I'm going to have to move to Brazil and see if we can still be pen pals.'
Just as they were about to be drowned by the shocked uncertain stillness, help came from the strangest of places.
"Ooo! Is that ice cream?" the man beside Hermione asked, knocking her forward in his mad dash for sweets. "Don't tell your mother," he said in lieu of an apology, leaving Harry to catch her as he fled.
Hermione watched the man dash off with an incredulous look on her face before looking down to see her hands were on Harry's arms. When he noticed this too Harry found himself becoming very warm. Should he apologize for something? The girl partially in his arms slightly shook her head.
"Hey Harry," she said, smiling shyly up at him.
"Hey Hermione," he replied, finally seeming to relax and smile when he realized they'd just repeated the opening lines of their letters – and said hello to each other, twice.
"Did you – er – want to get ice cream?" Harry asked numbly as he released his hold on her and gestured to where the man just went off to a short distance away.
"No, that's alright," Hermione said. "Unless you wanted to," she added quickly.
"Er – no," Harry said. "Maybe later," he added, remembering he hadn't had breakfast yet. "So was that–?"
"–The Fred and George who spawned me?" Hermione finished for him. "Yes, but if it wasn't for the hair I'd swear I was adopted."
Harry chuckled, earning a tight-lipped smile from her.
"I see Percy," Hermione said, nodding to the redheaded prefect standing nervously outside of Flourish and Blotts and scanning the crowd. "But where are Ron and the others?"
"Oh, um," Harry said, embarrassedly running a hand through his hair. "Mrs. Weasley said she'd be keeping them occupied. She thought we could walk around with him. He – er – he's got a girl coming."
"Oh," she said, cheeks tinting and tongue darting out to wet suddenly dried lips as she thought of something to say. "That's very – thoughtful of her." Hermione struggled to get her face under control as she nervously plucked at the bottom of her blouse.
"You look–," Harry started, before freezing mid-sentence. What should he say? Not beautiful, that's too much. "–Nice," he finished dumbly.
Why'd he suddenly get so stupid around Hermione? It was like someone had sucked all of the oxygen out of the street leaving him all woozy. It was an oddly lightheaded and energetically nervous kind of feeling. Harry didn't know if he liked it or not.
"You look smart too," she said. "New clothes?"
"Not exactly."
"Mm, Hermione, you've got to try one of these," the gangly man from before said as he reappeared with a half-eaten ice cream cone that might've been sized for small children. "Triple cream vanilla. It puts Lakenham's to shame. Oh! Where's my manners," he said spotting Harry and extending his hand. "You must be Indy, it's written all over your forehead."
Harry stifled a groan as Hermione covered her mouth as she struggled not to laugh.
"Dad, this is Harry," Hermione said as Harry shook her dad's hand. "Harry, this is the large child I live with."
"Nice to meet you, Dr. Granger," Harry said, it being his turn at trying not to laugh.
"Oh, no need for the doctor bit with me," the lanky man said with a wave. "I'm only a dentist. My wife's the doctor in the family."
Harry looked at Hermione curiously.
"So what's the plan for the day?" Mr. Granger asked.
"Er–," Harry said stunned. People had plans for these things? "I've got to stop by Gringotts for a bit, but not until later. Besides that–"
"–We'll just be looking at the shops with Percy and a friend of his," Hermione said, filling in and nodding to the prefect in question.
"Is he the boy over there talking to that older gentleman and the bird who looks like she wants to fly away? The one with the badge on his chest?" Mr. Granger asked, looking over to where Percy was chatting with Mr. Weasley and a girl Harry vaguely recognized from school who must've been Penelope.
"Yeah," Harry replied. "That's Percy and his dad."
"Well, he looks like a real stick-in-the-mud, doesn't he?" Mr. Granger said disapprovingly. "I'll go over and distract them while you two kids run off and play," he whispered conspiratorially. "I'll be in the bookshop pricing things; just stop by later so we can go to Gringotts together. I need to convert some money into the solid gold bricks you guys use."
Harry stared in confusion as the man swept off to introduce himself to Mr. Weasley. He must've been more muggle-crazy than he thought for after the shock of seeing a muggle wore off he was greeting Hermione's dad like they were old friends, giving Percy and Penelope the opportunity to slip away.
"That was – nothing like I thought it'd be," Harry said in a daze.
"And you don't really get used to it either," Hermione said beside him. "I think he purposely chooses the exact opposite of whatever anyone expects him to do. Did you get new shoes?" she asked suddenly looking down at his feet.
"Oh, yeah, about a week ago, why?" he asked.
"Oh, it's nothing," she said, describing what she'd seen.
"Well I did say we could do what he wanted with them," Harry chuckled. "I thought he'd just be destroying them. Would you like to meet him? He's definitely an interesting person."
"Maybe later," Hermione said. "Oh! I just remembered," she said suddenly, grabbing his hand and pulling him away. "Come with me."
.o0O0o.
Draco smirked as he caught a glimpse of what the stupid little red-haired girl was looking at through the bookstore's window. Of course she was stupid; he'd seen her when she came in with the unkempt herd she called a family. She was a Weasley and all Weasleys were lowborn and stupid without a bit of influence.
"Hold these," he sneered, dropping his seven Defense textbooks on an unsuspecting Dobby before going over to play with the girl.
"Oh look!" he drawled delightfully, as if just stumbling upon the grand display outside. "Potter's got himself a girlfriend. And they obviously want to be alone," he added as the jumped up mudblood led the poncy 'Prince' Potter away to the Magical Menagerie. It was only fitting they surrounded themselves with the other lower animals. That's what you sow when you swap spit with swine. He'd definitely have to teach the girl her proper place this year.
"How'd you manage to let such a golden opportunity to marry up slip away?" he asked, turning to the pale little girl with a look of wonder. "Then again," he sneered, giving the Weasley a critical look. "No wonder he went for a boring book-brained mudblood. It's not like you had anything to offer him, did you?"
The stupid no-named Weasley looked at him as if he'd said the worst thing imaginable. Merlin, he loved that reaction. He should definitely say that word more often.
"Leave her alone, Malfoy," the girl's idiot and equally pale brother said as he came charging to the rescue, dropping a load of second-hand books into the girl's sorry excuse of a cauldron. He might think saying his name in such a fashion was insulting but it sounded like he was saying 'majesty' to him.
"Oh! Looks like you've got a girlfriend too!" Draco said with feigned surprise. "Engaging in a bit of the 'grand tradition' with your sister, are you?" he smirked. "I thought there wasn't anything a Weasley could do and not marry up, but here you are."
The thrill of victory he gained from the verbal barb making the brother and sister look at each other with same disgust he had for them faded quickly as the presence on his shoulder of a silver serpent capped cane announced the arrival of his father.
"Now, now, Draco. Play nicely," Lucius Malfoy said as he took in his son's choice of prey. His father's voice carried a hint of amusement when he continued. "Let's see, red hair, vacant expressions, tatty second-hand books," he said as he withdrew and examined one of the first year school books from the girl's cauldron. "You two must be the Weasleys," his father concluded, as if their fates were already sealed and no one else would take them but each other.
The rare moment of familial camaraderie was quickly trampled by the balding red-headed man who had to be the insipid source of the stinking cesspit of blood traitors daring to pass themselves off as purebloods.
"Oh, believe me," the Weasley was being told by a silly-haired man said as they entered the shop. "I wish that were the case, but I'm afraid I just have one of those faces."
Draco scoffed at the man, though he was hardly a man. He was a muggle and made no effort to hide his inferiority, parading down their street with his frizzy hair like he had a right to be there, or to be alive for that matter. If they couldn't exterminate the lot of them they should brick up the front door of the Leaky Cauldron so these vermin couldn't find their way in. Failing that, the least these swine could do was hide themselves until they could adopt more suitable clothes, though he supposed having their abnormality noticeable on sight had its uses. It gave everyone a common enemy to look down on.
His father noticed it as quickly as he did, though the look on his face was more of slight puzzlement than disgust. The look faded quickly though, the muggle must not have been worthy of that much effort. The man must've felt the same because he quickly turned and hid himself in the crowded aisles of books he was too ignorant to understand.
"Well, well, well, Weasley senior," his father said, dropping the books back in the stupid girl's cauldron.
Draco felt his lips begin to curl as his father got into the game. This was going to be good.
.o0O0o.
"Isn't it adorable?" Hermione cooed as she thrust her fluffy pussy at him. "Don't you just want to take it home and play with it for hours?"
The kitten had a squashed face; Harry had no idea what she saw in it that was so adorable. It wasn't ugly, precisely, but it certainly wasn't–
"Cute," he said diplomatically, hoping she removed the tiny squashed-faced ginger cat from his chest sometime soon.
"You really aren't much of a pet person, are you?" Hermione asked in consoling tones as she took the kitten back and pet it.
"I just don't like things that look at you like you've done something wrong," Harry answered.
"This from the person who owns Hedwig," she said to the cat.
"She's better than Imogen," Harry defended his pet. "And at least when Hedwig looks at me like I've done something wrong I've actually done something wrong. Besides, she's family."
"You could be family too, couldn't you?" Hermione asked the ginger cat, which looked back at her reprovingly, as if offended it wasn't already considered family.
"If you wantin' any o' them kneazle-kits, you best snatch'em up," the shop owner called as Hermione put the small ginger cat back in its crate. "Word around the alley is the breeder's been nicked for somethin'–," he said conspiratorially as he came over to make sure the lock was secure. "–So might not get mo' fer a while. You sure I can' tempt you?"
Hermione looked torn.
"I better not," she said finally. "Things have actually been rather civil at home lately," she said to Harry. "It'd be a shame to mess it up over nothing. Maybe next year," she finished to the shopkeeper. "I was wondering," Hermione said as the man turned to walk away, "do you know of any snakes that can talk?"
"Don' knows any that have anythin' worth sayin'," the man said with a shrug. "They's all a tight-lipped bunch – not that they have lips. Scales, you see."
Hermione shot Harry a look that asked if everyone tried to explain to him that water was wet or if it was just her.
"Right," she said politely.
"If you into snakes though," the man gestured to one corner, "I got one over there but he's never said peep to me."
Hermione thanked the shopkeeper as he returned to the counter.
"So let me get this straight," she said, returning to their prior subject as they meandered through the store. "You want me to apologize to Ron for him being embarrassed, when it was him who jumped to conclusions in the first place? Why should I apologize for his stupidity?"
"Well, aren't you sorry he's stupid?" Harry asked automatically.
Hermione put a finger across her tight-lipped grin as she fought to keep herself from laughing.
"That's not very nice," she said finally.
"Yeah, I shouldn't have said it," Harry agreed, flattening his hair again. He really shouldn't be talking about his best mate like that, even if it did almost get a laugh.
"Not that," she said. "It's not very nice being funny when I wanted to be flabbergasted at you."
"Why be flabbergasted at me?" he asked trying to divert attention away from himself. "Ron's the one that got confused on what you were saying."
"Yes, but – Wait, that's not what I'm–," she stopped to take a breath. "You are way too good at confusing the issue," Hermione said, properly flustered again. Harry was surprised to find it was quite enjoyable winding her up a bit.
"You're quite right," Harry agreed, earning a rolled eyes, a shake of the head, and a tight-lipped smile from Hermione before she remembered to hide it with her hand again. "Why are you doing that?" he asked curiously.
"Doing what?" she asked, sounding like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
"Why are you hiding your mouth when you smile?" he clarified. "You didn't do it last year."
Hermione gave him a bit of a pained look.
"My teeth are too big," she admitted.
"I wear glasses," he shrugged and replied with the obvious.
"Well, my legs are like sticks," she pressed.
"I've got knobby knees," he countered.
"And my voice gets all screechy," she said, determined not to lose.
"And I've got this huge scar."
"My hair's a nightmare," she said.
"Have you seen mine?" he asked incredulously.
That was the one that did it. Harry wasn't sure if it was his sarcastic tone, the point they had in common, or the fact this was the strangest back and forth of all time but something finally cracked Hermione's serious demeanor and made her start to chuckle. He was glad to join in because when they were done she smiled at him like she used to. Yeah, her teeth were a little big, but who cared?
Hermione nudged him with her shoulder and walked over to one sun-lit corner of the shop to peek inside a terrarium with leafy green plants. Harry followed her over, wondering if they had found a cage for some sort of walking plant when they began to rustle. Before he knew it, he was staring at a black-and-blotchy-gold ball of a – whatever it was.
"Well, talk to it," Hermione prompted.
"What am I supposed to say?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. "Try 'hello.'"
He shrugged and turned back to the ball. "Er – hello," he said to it.
Hermione didn't look satisfied.
"How did you talk to that snake last time?" she asked curiously.
"Wait, you mean that's a snake?" Harry asked. "Neat. I didn't know you could turn into a ball," he said to the snake which prompted the blotchy ball in question to uncoil and reveal a small head in the center of it. The whole animal couldn't have been bigger than the tank was across.
"Merlin's beard!" the shopkeeper cried. "What's going on over there?"
A shocked Hermione hid Harry behind her as the man hurried forward. Whatever had spooked her was no concern of the shopkeeper though for as soon as Harry found himself stuffed into the corner the man angled off to stare out the window; a curious Harry and Hermione followed suit.
There was some sort of disturbance over at Flourish and Blotts; the crowd had parted and two men were rolling around on the ground.
"I hope they don't go for wands," the shopkeeper moaned. "It's very bad for business."
"Arthur, you stop that this instant!" Harry heard Mrs. Weasley call as she pried the blond-haired man off her husband.
"Mr. Weasley?" a stunned Harry asked no one in particular. He'd been such a bumbling, kind of humble man Harry couldn't imagine what could've caused him to turn violent. The scene was then graced by another blonde, this one none other than Draco Malfoy, which the blonde man grabbed to haul himself up.
"Come, Draco, we're leaving," Mr. Malfoy said straightening his clothes. "Leave those, Dobby," he snapped as a walking pile of books appeared from the crowd around them.
Dobby's family was the Malfoys? No wonder the elf said they'd kill him before selling him; Draco probably would've done the job himself. If his father was anything like him there really might be something dangerous being planned for Hogwarts this year, and Draco would probably be in on it.
As soon as the Malfoys' backs were turned Harry gave Dobby a smile and wave. He got one in return, not only from Dobby, who scampered off afterwards, but from Mr. Granger as well who was part of the crowd and started to make his way over. Harry decided to give the Malfoys plenty of time to finish any paperwork at Gringotts so he and Hermione left the shop to find out what happened.
"If you knew who he was insulting you would've hit him too," Mr. Weasley defended himself as he drew his wife aside, obviously not wanting to air their laundry in public.
Mr. Granger looked rather embarrassed from being so near what went on and eager to avoid any attention. Apparently the man disliked the public spotlight even more than he did himself.
"Dad, what happened?" Hermione asked.
"Apparently, those goose-steppers don't like gingers any more than they like people like us and it came to blows," the odd-haired man said succinctly. "Why don't you two go inside while I try and put out some fires? He's an alright guy, your friend's dad," Mr. Granger said about Mr. Weasley, "and doesn't deserve to be crucified for bloodying that idiot."
Hermione shook her head and quickly became engrossed in a sign by the bookshop's door as Harry watched Mr. Granger make his way over to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. He must've had a way about him because only a few seconds later Mrs. Weasley hugged him about the neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She hadn't even been that welcoming when he'd offered to sell them the Burrow.
"Harry, look," Hermione said, pointing at the sign.
'Meet Gilderoy Lockhart,' the sign said. 'Book Signing – Wednesday & Thursday.'
Harry couldn't help but chuckle.
"What is it?" she asked curiously.
"Well if it's the lilac-loving Lockhart I've heard about," Harry said with a grin, "–let's just say a lot of people aren't too impressed."
"I've been wondering about him ever since we got our book list," Hermione said with a frown as they went inside.
"Not to worry, Mr. Lockhart," a man said in unctuous tones as they made their way around a crowd of onlookers. "Those troublemakers won't find their way in to disturb you again today, I guarantee you that."
"Well done, Mr. Flourish," a wavy-haired, lilac-draped wizard said as he put his arm around the man and faced the bulk of the crowd, his back to the newcomers. "It was only a pity I couldn't make my way over sooner or I'd've taught them both a lesson they wouldn't soon forget. Am I right?" he asked the ring of book-buyers who clapped sycophantically.
Harry followed Hermione back into the book aisles as Lockhart made his way back to the grotesque desk they'd set up for him to use. Once he was there he addressed the crowd again.
"Now you parents shouldn't have any worries about that sort of thing happening while I'm at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," the abnormally bright-toothed man said, causing a bit of a stir in the onlookers.
"Did I forget to mention it?" Lockhart asked, teasing things out a bit more. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher – is me," he finished with his arms spread as wide as his saccharinely sweet smile, earning another round of twittering approval from the gaggle of witches around him as a cameraman fluttered about taking pictures.
Beside him, Hermione wasn't taking the news nearly so well.
"That's absolutely repellent," she said, snatching up a copy of one of the man's books, Wandering with Werewolves, from a nearby shelf and began flipping through it.
If Harry had thought he wouldn't like the man before, now he didn't want to have anything to do with him. Anyone so eager for a bit of attention they lapped up as much as they could simply had to be avoided, especially if they had wavy-blond hair, immaculately shiny teeth, and robes so garish they're rivaled only by his peacock quill in terms of ostentatiousness. Even worse was the thought that none of it would matter in the slightest as far as anyone else was concerned. What's done was done, and they were going to be stuck with him all year. Grumbling about torturous teachers, he grabbed one of the werewolf books for himself and started looking for the others.
"You can put that back down, Harry," Hermione said unexpectedly as she tossed her copy back on the shelf before leafing through another one, Break with a Banshee.
Hermione was never one to turn away information but here she was telling him to throw it away, again. He looked at her curiously.
"Don't you see how unethical he's being?" she asked, brow furrowed at him like the time she'd caught them sneaking out of the dorms last year. Maybe she and the cat would've gotten on well after all.
"He's the Defense professor and he assigned seven books he wrote – that he makes money off of – to every Hogwarts second year," Hermione explained, lips scrunching up to match her furrowed brow as the banshee book went back on its shelf and she flipped through a new one, Voyages with Vampires.
"It's not just second years," Harry said. "It's every year."
Hermione pinned him in place with a look.
"At least Ginny, Ron, the twins, and Percy all have them on their lists," he explained. "I assume everyone else does too."
She snapped the book shut and let it fall to the floor.
"So not only does he force families to buy multiple copies of every book he's ever written–," Hermione said, her hair seeming to inflate as her temper was worked up. "–But worse, all those books are completely narrative in structure."
"So?" Harry asked, curious how the books were written could be worse than the man extorting money from people.
"So?" Hermione echoed disbelievingly. "That's fine for a novel, but not for a textbook," she explained. "If we had to fight a real werewolf we'd have to read through several hundred pages of that book, sort through a mountain of meaningless information for the tiny clues he left readers to find which hint at how to identify the person in question, and then you'd have to read dozens more for information on how he fought it off."
Harry had to concede her point; it would take too much time to learn anything useful that way. Unfortunately he never got the chance to get a word in edgewise to tell her he agreed with her before she rolled on.
"In a proper textbook," she continued, "the first part of the werewolf section would probably be a general description of the phenomenon and how it affects the person, along with the general hunting characteristics of the werewolf itself and whether or not it hunts in packs. The identification would probably only take a handful of pages, depending on how complex the problem is, and a few more would focus on how to defend yourself from it."
He opened his mouth but she continued to roll right over him.
"You wouldn't teach a class using the book you sent me, would you? It'd be equally useless."
Harry opened his mouth again and held it there for a second, just to see if she'd let him speak. It seemed she was finished.
"First off, I agree with you completely," he said, pleased to be included again. "And secondly, I wouldn't want anyone to read books like the one I sent you. The last thing I need is a bunch of little Asian kids following me around calling me 'Doctor Jones.'"
Harry'd been hoping the joke would lessen Hermione's desire to burn Lockhart alive and dance around a pyre she built of his books but his luck didn't seem to be that good.
"Someone should say something about the appalling abuse of power the man just admitted to," she said before turning to go confront their would-be teacher.
Harry had to grab her hand before she charged off.
"Let's not create a scene, please?" he asked quietly, not wanting to be near the center of attention today. "I'm sure one of the parents would've noticed and there's a newspaper man standing right there asking questions in case they didn't. I think this bookshop's had enough fights for one day."
The hunched look of her shoulders gradually lessened as Hermione reluctantly agreed, but he wouldn't put it past her to give her father an earful on the subject on the trip home and maybe send a letter to Professor McGonagall to boot.
"Besides," Harry said, "if there's one thing I've learned this summer is that just because something's wrong doesn't mean it's illegal and vice versa."
"So he's just going to get away with it?" she asked indignantly.
"If it's not illegal there's nothing he's getting away with," Harry explained. "And shouting at him certainly won't stop them from selling any more of his books or get anyone their money back. The lists have been out for days, who knows how many people have bought their copies already. We can run it by Lichfield later, if you want, and I'm seeing McGonagall tomorrow; I can mention it to her then."
"When did I become the hothead and you the logical one?" she asked while trying to regain her composure. "That Lichfield must've had an effect on you."
"Er–," Harry said with a shrug. "I guess so."
"Well, we can't just rely on him for our Defense instruction this year, whether what he's doing is illegal or not," Hermione said definitively. "I looked over our notes from last year and was shocked at how little course material was actually covered. Compared to the other classes, that stack of notes was tiny."
"That might've been because the last professor had Lord Voldemort growing out the back of his head," Harry said quietly lest he cause a panic.
Spotting the book on hexes and jinxes he wanted to buy last year, Harry took it down and gave it a look.
"An alternate book list?" Hermione asked, looking at what he had picked up. "Might be a bit less serious than I'd prefer but it'd work better than the Chronicles of Indiana Potter and his adventures in Narnia."
Harry groaned. "Must we continue with the Indiana Potter thing?" he asked as she looked through a book on Dark creatures.
"We could always go with the romance novel angle but a bullwhip so much easier to find than a sword," Hermione chuckled. "I could always dye my hair red, rip your shirt half off, and lounge all over you but I don't think my father would approve."
"You might be surprised!" a voice popped up beside them suddenly, shocking them both. It was Hermione's dad. "Have you seen this?" he asked, showing them a book on transfiguring your own teeth. "These people are so mad they make me look sane. I swear they should charge admission. Oh! You think they'd let me buy some robes? I want to go as a wizard to the Halloween party at the hospital your mother and I always get dragged to. Everyone'll know what I am but only your mother will get the joke. It'll be hilarious."
Harry laughed but Hermione looked at her father like he'd lost his mind, something he thought might be a common occurrence.
"I don't even want to think of you with magic," she said seriously.
"A wand might be a bit much," he nodded, "–but maybe one of those pointed hats!"
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"So what are you two up to?" the frizzy-haired man asked.
As Hermione described the 'ethical malfeasance' of their new Defense professor, Harry wondered if he'd have to intervene again. She didn't look ready to storm off to confront the man but sounded very determined to establish 'an alternate curriculum because we shouldn't be expected to condone such inappropriate behavior.'
"And so you shall 'cause no you shouldn't," her father said with a smile. "Damn the Man and fight the power," he said, raising his fist in cheery triumph before spinning around to peruse the wall of books.
"Do we still have enough money from last time or should we wait until after the bank?" Hermione asked.
"I've got a couple of those bricks left and some silver ingots," her father answered. "Though if we may have to saw one of them in half if we need any of the bronze cuff links. But why wait to start judging books by their covers? I always was good at that," he confided to Harry. "I once did an entire term paper at uni just going off of five or six books I plucked off the library shelf at random, though I fudged a bit on the bibliography," he admitted with a wink.
"Dad," Hermione said, scandalized. "That's academic dishonesty. You could've been expelled for it."
"Bah," the man said as he flipped through a book on defensive magical theory. "I was more concerned with the fact it was already three days late when I started. Got a B though," he said, as if it settled the whole thing.
"And you could have gotten an A if you had done it properly," his daughter chided.
"Well if I had done it properly then I wouldn't have been in the library that day at all," he said, tossing magical theory aside. "Then I never would've seen your mother, never transferred to dentistry, and you never would've been born – so I really don't see what you're complaining about."
Harry looked to Hermione to see if she had a comeback but she'd settled for a dignified silence as she checked out the werewolf section of her dark creature book.
"How about this one?" Mr. Granger asked, showing them The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection.
"We had that one last year," Harry said.
"Oh, well, I suppose you can use it again then," Mr. Granger said, a bit discouraged. "It's slim pickings otherwise. Looks like Lockhart's loathsome legerdemain locked-down literary… lobbyists," he said with a straight face even if he finished rather weakly.
Before Harry could even begin to fathom how anyone could spin a sentence like that on the drop of a hat Hermione interjected.
"I don't think 'lobbyists' goes there," she noted as she added a copy of her dark creature book to the hexes and jinxes he already had.
"Well, not in the strictest sense, no," her father agreed, adding a thin book of dueling basics. "But in context–"
"–In context it means you couldn't think of an L-word for 'rival' and had to abort," she said, determined to puncture her father's balloon as he perused another shelf. "If I were playing – which I'm not – I would've gone for 'license' meaning 'options' instead."
"Yes, well, hindsight is twenty-twenty," he said stuffily. "But you didn't have to spell everything out like that, did you?" he asked rhetorically. "There is such a thing as subtlety."
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Ah! Here you go Harry," Mr. Granger said as he plucked another book of the shelf. "A book on the most tenacious enemy you're ever going to face – or if you think of an L-word for a rival and don't want to abort." On top of the other books he placed a copy of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches and gave his daughter a meaningful look.
"OH MY GOD!" Hermione cried, snatching the offending book before Harry even had the chance to react.
"Yes, I know!" Gilderoy Lockhart's silky tones answered as they wafted back from the front of the shop. "Five times in a row, such an honor, really, but nothing the likes of the Order of Merlin, Third Class."
Just as Harry envisioned Hermione pulling a Mr. Weasley and attacking her father with the book, his three favorite redheads arrived to save the day.
"Oi! Here he is," Ron told the twins. "Told you that was her voice."
"And we told you he'd be here," the twin he was pretty sure was George said as Mr. Granger hid himself with a Practical Runemaking book and Hermione rid herself of the witch-charming manual.
"Odd choice of reading material there, Hermione," the twin he thought was Fred said as he picked up the odd book. "Especially considering–," he left the rest hanging as he nodded to Harry.
"It's not mine," she said acidly. "And it's not Harry's either," she said to the other one.
George pulled a face and held his hands up in surrender, though Harry thought it might've been to cover the book being covertly slipped into his twin's robes. Harry shook his head in a most Hermione-like way, though he got a wink from the felonious Fred.
"So what're the odds your dad's been banned from the place?" Harry asked.
"Pretty good," George said, "though Flourish is notoriously forgetful."
"He's banned us for life twice and still lets us in," Fred grinned.
"And what did you do to get ban–," Hermione began scolding before her balloon was quickly popped.
"Puckle," her father said from behind them, drawing the boys' eyes to him.
As cool as a cucumber, the ditsy dentist continued to worm his way through the book he was reading as if he hadn't said anything at all.
"So…," George said to fill the uncomfortable silence that descended. "What do you think of this Lockhart?"
"I think he's being completely unethical," Hermione said. "Making everyone buy his–"
"Puckle," her father said again.
Hermione's shoulders hunched like she really wanted to hit something. The Weasleys' eyes darted between her and the odd muggle man behind them and seemed to collectively decide not to mention him lest Hermione explode on them.
"He certainly has a lot of witches around him," Fred said with a casualness Harry admired. "Probably be popular at Hogwarts this year."
"Oh please," Hermione said irritably, shooting daggers at the teacher in question through the bookstore's shelves. "He's not that attractive."
Ron struggled to keep his short snort quiet but all it did was draw the girl's attention.
"While he may have certain aesthetic qualities–," Hermione started.
"Puckle," Mr. Granger said again bravely, drawing a full-strength flared-nose Hermione glare for his comment.
Suddenly Hermione seemed to relax and draw herself up defiantly as she turned to look at Ron.
"I like my hair messy," she stated before darting her hands to Harry's hair and messing it up for all she was worth.
The Weasleys looked at her dumbfoundedly while Harry didn't know what to think. Whatever it was that just happened though must've been right because Mr. Granger just laughed and walked away towards the front of the store.
"Are all muggles this mental?" Ron asked astonished.
"Well we do do everything backwards," Hermione said sarcastically.
With a quick look at Harry showing a glint in her eye, she smiled and turned back to Ron.
"Harry and I've been talking about the uncomfortable event at the end term and he seems to think–"
"What happened at the end of term?" Fred asked with a smile like Christmas had come early.
"Nothing happened," Ron said panicking.
"Oh, well, now we know it's good," George added. "What'd he do?" he asked.
"Nothing!" Ron cried, trying to physically drag his brothers away. "We're fine," he almost seemed to plead. "Nothing happened at all."
"My mistake," Hermione said, brushing past them with her small stack of books. "I must be imagining things. You know how mental we muggles are. Coming Harry?" she called back to him.
Harry followed behind her thinking this was shaping up to be a very interesting year.
"I was curious," he heard one plump-looking witch say as she fawned over Lockhart's grotesque desk as Harry stopped to listen. "How was it you were able to investigate the Wagga Wagga Werewolf when Voyages With Vampires has you in Romania at the time?"
"Well, as to that," Lockhart said with a smile. "With a wizard as talented and famous as myself, we have acquaintances all over the world. We can't be pestered with ordinary owls dropping in at all hours of the night, we need a more instant and reliable means of communication than just your standard floo," he said with a condescending smirk the surrounding witches didn't see.
"Well," he ostentatious man continued, preening his hair once again. "Once I got the distress call from down below I popped off to Wagga Wagga on the next international portkey. It wasn't noted in Voyages because those print people didn't think it 'flowed quite right.' It's clever of you to pick it out. Everyone, let's give her a round of applause," he called to his audience.
Harry got up to the counter just in time to see Mr. Granger add the Practical Runemaking book to Hermione's stack and for her to look up at him quizzically.
"I want to compare them to the Futhark," he said with a bit of a mad grin. "Just to see what those old Vikings were up to."
"My word!" Lockhart's sultry tones washed over the store. "It can't be Harry Potter!"
Harry's eyes rolled uncontrollably as he stifled a groan. The last thing he wanted was to be latched on to by some lilac-loving lunatic. He opened his eyes just in time to see the coiffed blonde beckon the photographer over as he swooped down on him.
"Together you and I rank the front page," the man said with a predatory gleam in his eye as he put his arm around Harry's shoulder to lock him in place.
Before he could even think of what to say there was a movement to his left and Lockhart spun away in a lilac colored swirl.
"No hands on the kid, lad," Lichfield's gruff bark of a voice said as he twisted their would-be Defense professor's arm into the middle of his back.
"Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Not the pinky, it hurts!" Lockhart cried as the ever-present cameraman took another photo before Lichfield shoved the man away.
"Get back where you belong, you puffed-up peacock before you get plucked," the litigator growled before he turned to Harry. "You alright?"
"Fine," Harry said relieved.
"Good. You there!" Lichfield pointed at Mr. Flourish. "You hold these books on reserve; we'll be back."
"W-we don't really do that here," the cowardly Mr. Flourish stammered, making Harry wonder what he'd done to break up the fight in the first place.
"You do now," the old bailiff barked as he surveyed the scene. "Ready to go?"
"Absolutely," Harry said. "You ready?" he asked Hermione who nodded and looked again at their suddenly weak-chinned professor before shaking her head.
"By the way," he asked as they left the shop with Lichfield and her dad. "What's a Puckle?"
.o0O0o.
AN: For anyone who may have caught it, the "leave Dobby alone" bit in the first scene is a reference to the movie version of Chamber of Secrets. If you watch the scene at the end where Lucius Malfoy leaves Dumbledore's office, and listen closely, you can hear Dobby whimper "Leave me alone" once he gets hit. I couldn't help but include it.
Thanks for reading.