11 Years prior.
"Boy, come over here. You got a letter"
11 year old Harry looked up from the book he was reading – he only got to read on Saturdays, after his chores were done (and his chores were only 'done' when Petunia forgot to assign him more). Even during the summer, and even on his birthday.
He shuffled into the living room, "Yes, sir?" He asked quietly.
The land whale who was his stepfather held up an (opened) envelope and waved it in his face. "Take it. It says you have to go to that school for freaks." As he turned back to reading the paper, he huffed through his mustache and grudgingly added, "And happy birthday. Don't cause any trouble like you did last year." Which meant stay quiet and out of sight.
Harry read the letter. It was written on thick paper, embossed with a fancy letterhead. "Um, is this a joke? It says that it's a school for wizards." He flipped it over to see if there was anything on the back.
"Petunia, come explain to the boy!" Vernon hollared without moving from his recliner.
The rail thin women came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel before taking the letter out of Harry's hands. "Hmm. Yes. That's correct. There are witches and wizards, but respectable people don't speak about them. Or have anything to do with them. Your biological parents were those sort of people." She read the second page. "It says here that they are going to send one of the housemasters tomorrow to help you buy your school supplies." She folded up the letter and put it neatly away. "The letter says that they will be here at 11 am. You are to be up, showered and ready to go by no later than 10:30. You will answer the door when they ring."
"Um, do I need to do my chores also?"
"Of course you have to do your chores!" Petunia scowled. "And you can start by making lunch right now. And get to it smartly - we will be taking Dudley to the movies this afternoon."
Obviously, the 'we' did not include Harry. He was almost never included in family outings, unless they were school related.
Harry nodded and went to work with a smile. He could make lunch in a few minutes, and then he would have all afternoon to himself!
Harry liked that best, when the house was empty. There was no Petunia to assign him chores, no Dudley to tease him, no Vernon glowering at him for being disrespectful or noisy or whatever it was that day.
He could climb up into the tree in back (which Petunia would yell at him for if she knew) and read a book (which Dudley would try to steal) and not take off his shoes when he went in to get a drink, which caused Vernon's blood to boil.
But at the same time he was filled with a new sensation – an excitement at the future. He had no idea what a 'Hogwarts' was, but it was someplace different. Someplace that the rest of his family wanted nothing to do with.
Therefore it must be a good place.
*UHD*
The following day, Harry was ready & waiting by the door at a quarter of eleven. The rest of the Dursleys were nowhere to be found – they had left a note saying that they had gone to church (which was odd, as they never, ever went. Not even on Christmas)
*Ding Dong*
As soon as the bell rang, he shot out of the sofa and darted to open the door, but first he paused a moment to straighten his button-down shirt. Vernon insisted that both boys wear button downs whenever they went out into public (though Dudley typically ignored that rule, like he ignored most rules).
"Hello dear," on the front steps of number 4 Privet Lane was a frumpy looking older woman wearing a nondescript brownish dress (Petunia regularly railed about the scandalous fashion of today's youth, but even she wouldn't wear something like this). But the matron had a friendly, grandmotherly vibe to her. "I'm Professor Pomona Sprout. I am the head of Hufflepuff House at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Did you read over your introductory letter?"
"Yes, ma'am." Harry replied politely. Vernon had beaten politeness into him.
"Wonderful! Are your aunt and uncle here?"
Harry looked puzzled, "I don't live with my aunt and uncle. And my step-parents are out." He didn't say where, because he was pretty certain that the note was not true. And while it was ok for the Dursleys to lie, Harry was not allowed to. Which was one rule of theirs that he tried to follow – because that way, then when he DID lie, nobody expected it (unlike with the Dursleys).
"Of course, of course," Pomona quickly backtracked, "Well, then, let's go get your school supplies, why don't we. Have you ever traveled by port-key before?" Pomona cocked her head to get a better view under Harry's bangs – his hair was an unruly mess, as always, and a shock of hair was always flopped over to cover his forehead.
"No, ma'am." Harry paused, "Is there something on my face?"
"Um, no…" Pomona paused – Albus had sternly instructed her not to make a big deal about his encounter with Voldemort (or the celebrity status that it had imparted onto his name) so as to let Harry live a normal life. "It's just that when your parents were killed, you received a scar on your forehead. It was.. rather sensational in the magical world at the time, though I can imagine that you might not want to talk about it." Pomona skirted the headmaster's instruction – the child had a right to know what had happened to his parents, and she very much doubted the muggles had had any idea.
"They were murdered? Petunia – my stepmother – said that they died in a car accident." Actually, she claimed that they were driving drunk, but Harry never took anything the Dursleys said at face value (see above, about their lying). He lifted up his bangs to show his forehead. There was just the slightest outline of what could have been a scar. It really wasn't visible unless you looked close. "I used to have a mark on my forehead, but it went away in the last year."
"Yes. It was all in the news. But the dark wizard that killed them also died." Petunia patted Harry comfortingly on the shoulder. She really didn't like talking about this sort of thing – that is why she spent most of her life with plants. "I guess children heal from injuries that adults can't." She switched topics.
"Oh, ok." Harry let the hair flop down, not certain why she was making such a big deal over something that had happened ten years go. Honestly, he didn't like having anything that made him stand out. Standing out got you into trouble. "So let's go. I assume that this port-key thingy is magic?"
"Yes, take the end of this bookmark," Pomona smiled kindly. He seemed like a nice, normal boy. It would be best if nobody knew about the whole 'Boy-Who-Lived' nonsense.
*UHD*
"Come along Harry," Pomona lead the way out of the Goblin bank. Harry's head felt like it was going to fall off from all the swiveling it was doing as he tried to look everywhere all at once all the time. Professor Sprout on the other hand tried to keep her eyes fixed straight ahead. She looked more than a little green from the cart ride down into the depths of the earth to pick up Harry's yearly stipend.
"Here, let's start at Madam Malkins," Pomona led the way into a clothing shop where she made her way to the back, passing a gaudy array of clothing that seemed to be the answer to 'what should you never wear together?' Most of the witches and Wizards that Harry had seen on the street (Diagon Alley) were wearing more conservative clothing that wouldn't have looked out of place in Victorian times, but some of the younger ones had been wearing an ensemble in these sorts of clashing, eye-watering colors.
In the back of the store there was a double row of plain looking robes in sizes that would fit teenagers, and behind that was a room with a squat woman all in mauve chattering away with a shop clerk as they took measurements off of another boy Harry's age. "Madam Malkin, can you please fit Harry here for a set of Hogwarts robes? I need to step out for a moment."
"Why of course. Come over here, dear." She waved Harry to a spot next to the other boy before turning back to Professor Sprout, "We'll be about a half hour, so take your time."
Pomona nodded and turned to Harry, "I'm going to run down to the apothecary to get something to settle my stomach. I'll be back in a jiffy."
As Harry stood, his arms outstretched (as directed), the blond boy spoke up, "So, you're also going to be a first year at Hogwarts? Do you know which House you're going to be in?"
"Um, House? I mean yes, I'm going to Hogwarts, but I don't know much about the school."
"There are four houses at Hogwarts. And I'm going to be in Slytherin. That's the best house – anybody who ever amounted to anything was in Slytherin!" Draco's explanation left much to be desired, but Harry nodded along with it anyways.
This 'Slytherin House' sounded promising. Harry wasn't ambitious, but he was tired of being bullied, so being in the house where everybody was respected was appealing. "I'm Harry, incidentally, Harry Dursley."
"Malfoy, Draco Malfoy" Draco pronounced, trying to sound suave and sophisticated, which was somewhat spoiled by a robe leaping from Madam Malkin's hands to slip slip over his head as if it was alive.
"Tut. This is too tight in the middle. It doesn't hang right. Give me a few minutes to alter it." The robe jumped off of Draco, mussing his hair so that it looked as messy as Harry's. Harry was just starting to laugh when he was also ambushed by a school robe and had to stand still as Madam Malkin's assistant fussed over him, instructing him to turn or lift an arm, all of which made conversation difficult. Not that this stopped Draco - he happily monologued about all the things he would do at Hogwarts, starting with sampling all of the desserts.
The time passed surprisingly quickly, and soon Professor Sprout was leading Harry out with a set of robes. They next visited Potions Supply, followed by Flourish and Blotts and finally the wand shop, where they spent far too long before they were able to find a wand that worked for Harry. All the while the creepy old man who ran the place muttered strange and ominous things about Harry's new wand.
In the middle, they took a quick break for lunch. It was a very long day, and as the afternoon wore on, Harry began to drag. No matter how exotic Diagon Alley was, shopping was still shopping – a deadly dull chore that numbed the mind and the soul. When Pomona finally returned the heavy laden (and slightly leaden) Harry back to 4 Privet lane, she handed him a ticket, "Have your parents bring you to King's Cross Station on September first. Somebody will meet you there and guide you to Platform 9 ¾".
*UHD*
"Platform 9 and ¾? There's no such thing!" Scoffed Vernon as he pulled off of the road and into Kings Cross Station. It was September first, and Harry was practically vibrating with anticipation. Not only to see his new magical school, but to be done with his family until next summer. When Petunia, Vernon & Dudley had returned after Harry's shopping trip, they hadn't asked him anything – their only words of greeting were 'Boy, start making dinner', and Vernon had only grunted when Harry asked to be driven to the station on September 1. So this was the first that they were hearing about Platform 9 ¾.
"Whatever. You jump off here." Vernon pulled up to the curb and levered himself out of the car to help Harry take out his trunk. It would be good to have the little runt out from underfoot. They could then take Dudley to a nice brunch before dropping him off at Smelting. He didn't even wait for Harry to disappear from sight before peeling out, almost hitting a young child exiting the station with her family.
Harry trundled the large piece of luggage through the station with difficulty. It was very crowded, filled with mostly individual adults going about their business, but sometime family groups as well. As Harry approached the platforms he could see platform 9 and a platform 10, but nothing in between. And there was no sign of Professor Sprout. 'She said she would be here, to help guide me!' Harry was just starting to panic when a sever older woman called out, "Are you Harry Dursley?"
"Ah, yes, ma'am," He replied more tentatively than he liked towards the tall woman standing by the wall between the two platforms. She had steel gray hair and stood with a stiffness that made her appear like a caricature of an old fashioned school teacher, which image was enhanced by her clothes - she has dressed in a fashion that would not have been out of place in the 1940's. And her scowl would have put the scarers on Vernon.
"I am Madam Bones. Professor Sprout is busy getting things ready at school, so she asked me to help guide you to the train." She turned and gestured to the to a pair of young girls standing a little behind and to one side of her. A round faced blond girl was listening as a short girl with an immense head of hair talked with great intensity about something. "That is my niece, Susan, and keeping her company is another muggle-born, Hermione Granger." Her face softened as she looked at her niece, "And with you here that makes my full compliment, so please follow me." She turned and walked right into - and through! - the wall separating the two platforms.
On the other side was a regular platform, with a slightly outdated but beautifully maintained red locomotive hooked up to a train.
Harry quickly made his way to an empty compartment at the rear of the train, ditching the two girls (He had nothing against girls, but the bushy haired one was driving him spare with her non-stop nattering).
He settled in, waiting anxiously for the train to leave (and for his new future to begin). He tried to read a book that he had brought along, but every few minutes some sound would draw his attention back out the window. Nevertheless, he persisted - he didn't want to appear like some yokel, so he kept forcing his attention back to his book. About half an hour later the train was starting to fill up - now most of the compartments had somebody in them and there were kids standing in the corridor chatting with their friends. Harry considered going out to join them – that was something he had always wanted to do in primary school: to just be part of the crowd, but he was self conscious because he didn't know anybody out there. As he dithered, the door to his compartment slid open and a red haired boy peered in, "Is there space in here?"
"Sure, come in. I'm Harry."
"I'm Ron. Has the snack cart come by yet? I'm famished."
"No… We haven't left the station yet." As the words left Harry's mouth, the train gave a slight jerk and chuffed into motion. An older teen came down the hall, yelling, "Get into your compartment, take a seat!" To any dawdlers.
"Well, it'll be by soon enough. My brothers told me all about the snacks – they have every kind of chocolate imaginable, as well as crisps and crackers! In the mean time, want to play exploding snap?" Ron explained exuberantly.
*UHD*
The train ride passed mostly uneventfully, as Harry learned several new games and ate a chocolate frog (which was disturbing yet tasty). Hermione - the chatterbox from before - came by once looking for a toad, and Ron discovered that the snacks were not (as his brothers had claimed) free, but other than that that nothing untoward happened and as evening crept in things were starting to get dull.
But when the train finally arrived at their destination in northern Scotland that all ended, as the largest man that Harry had ever seen lead them all through the darkness down to boats bobbing on an inky lake. The darkness was unbroken save for the small balls of dim light that drifted through the air beside them. Harry and Ron got into one of the tiny boats and a few moments later they were joined by Hermione. As soon as there were three students in the boat it started off on its own across the lake, eliciting wonder from Hermione as she peered around trying to determine what could be making it move, but even she fell silent as the lit-up castle drew into view across the lake.
"Wow." Harry thought this was the most magical thing he had seen. Even more than anything in Diagon Alley. He immediately forgot all the worries that Ron had stuffed into him about wrestling trolls and memorizing quidditch statistics.
*UHD*
"Harry Dursley," Albus pronounced, reading off the list as the new students waited in the doorway of the great hall to be sorted. His beard concealed his smile. 'This has worked out better that I had hoped.' He had wanted Harry to have a normal childhood, away from toxic fame and attention, but to think that he could come to Hogwarts without anybody knowing who he was, that was beyond his wildest dreams. He looked up from the list just as the hat called out:
"SLYTHERIN!"
Albus' smile wilted slightly.
Harry took the hat off of his head and made his way down to the table with the green trimmed student. 'I hope Draco gets sorted here as well'. He had been pretty certain that he would. The hat couldn't decide whether to put him in Gryffindor or Slytherin, but he was hoping that in Slytherin he would have at least one friend. Well, Ron Weasley was a friend, but who knew where he would end up. And he was a little too… nice. Harry didn't trust nice.
"What's you're name, Firsty?" A large boy asked as Harry sat down. "I'm Flint, I'm the captain of our quidditch team."
"I'm Harry Dursley."
"Dursley, Dursley.. That doesn't ring a bell. Are you from the continent?" The boy asked, looking puzzled.
"No. We're from Surrey."
A girl on the other side of the side of the table leaned across, "Wait, are you muggle-born?"
Harry had just learned what that meant on the train ride up, "I guess." He didn't want to talk about his birth parents – he didn't know anything about them. Petunia only ever mentioned 'her sister Lilly and that husband of hers', so he wasn't even sure what their married name was (neither Petunia nor Vernon encouraged the asking any questions). And it's not like they had played any part in his life.
"Oh," Flint turned away, clearing dismissing Harry as insignificant. The other Slytherin kids ignored Harry as well, going back to either watching the Sorting or to their own whispered conversations.
When Draco was sorted a few minutes later, Flint turned back to Harry as he sauntered over to the Slytherin table. "Hey, push off"
"What?"
The same girl across the table leaned over again, "He means budge over a space."
"Hey, Draco, I got a seat for you!" Flint called out.
Harry frowned as Draco spent all of dinner preening and talking to Flint and a boy named Theo Nott. When Harry interrupted to get a word in, Draco smiled and nodded before continuing on without bothering to reply. He was clearly floating high on all the attention being lavished on him.
'Maybe I chose the wrong House?' The Slytherins seemed awful cliquey.
"I thought this was the year that Harry Potter was supposed to come to Hogwarts," One of the older Slytherin students mused around a mouth full of mashed potatoes.
Draco snorted, "Best thing that he's not here. Or that little nancy boy would get the shit beat out of him," he pronounced menacingly.
Several other Slytherins nodded.
"What's wrong with this Potter bloke?" Harry asked cautiously. Even though the Dursleys never, ever mentioned his biological family by name, simply referring to them as 'those ne'er do wells', Harry thought he remembered Petunia once mentioning that his dad's name was James Potter. 'Which could make me Harry Potter'.
"Nothing. He's the hero of the wizarding world. He defeated You-know-Who as a baby," Theodore replied darkly.
"Except that got a lot of fine people sent to prison when that happened." Draco added.
"My Da almost was one of them," a large Firsty seated next to Draco nodded. "If Mr. Malfoy hadn't explained that he was Imp'ressed, he would have been sent to Azkaban!"
Several older Slytherins grunted their agreement.
Harry nodded. 'Maybe I'm misremembering my fathers name.' In any case, it wasn't going to be something he would talk about. Not that he thought that he was that Harry Potter, but there was no reason to ask for trouble.
*UHD*
First day of classes, Harry woke up and headed down to breakfast by himself. Last night in the common room after dinner, he had learned that he was the only Muggle-born among the Slytherin first years (apparently there was a quiet muggle-born boy among the third years, but he didn't want anything to do with Harry), and that in Slytherin, family status was everything. The Malfoys were wealthy and influential, so Draco was lionized by the other First years and even the upper years treated him like a little brother.
But that wasn't necessarily bad – nobody bothered Harry: they just ignored him, and he was used to that from the Dursleys.
Harry grabbed a plate of eggs and propped up a book next to it so he coule read as he ate.
"Oy, what are you, a Ravenclaw? Don't read at the table, it's bad manners," An older boy called out. Harry had never been good with names, and he saw no point in starting to make an effort to remember them now. He just shrugged and turned to face away from the boy.
The boy looked annoyed but didn't do anything. 'So that speech last night about supporting your House-mates and not attacking them in public wasn't just hot air.' Harry smiled and took a sip of the orange juice. Except it wasn't made from oranges – it tasted less sweet and a little… nutty? Harry shrugged and took another sip. It wasn't terrible. He could get used to it.
That seemed to be his standard refrain for everything Hogwarts.
"Dursley, here is your timetable" Harry looked up to see Snape, his head of house, sneering down at him.
"Thank you, sir."
Snape's sneer twitched, the only sign of the inner conflict roiling beneath the surface of his impenetrable legilimens shields. "Nott, turn around and take your time table," he moved on.
*UHD*
Classes were fascinating, and the professors all quirky. The first class of the day was Charms and Harry quickly took a liking to it, in part because Flitwik was so animated and cheerful that even Harry, cynic that he was, enjoyed his presence.
The next class was potions and Harry expected it to be welcoming, since it was run by their head of House, but it was a joint class with the Gryffindors and the inter-House rivalry made itself known, with the girls making snippy comments and the boys throwing pieces of paper at each other, making the classroom a little tense.
The worst culprits were Draco and Ron, who were seated a row apart but nevertheless called insults at each other over the hunched head of Neville Longottom, the fat Gryffindor boy with the misplaced toad.
In the front sat Hermione all by her lonesome, as neither the snakes or the lions wanted to be in the front row.
Nott made a blow gun out on a piece of parchment and hit her with a spit ball. Just then the bell rang and the door to the Potions office slammed open, startling everybody. Snape swooped in like a giant crow and in a swirl of robes settled onto his stool. He glared at all of the students, who quietly melted back into their seats under his gaze.
"There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few... I can teach you to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death."
His head jerked up and his hand snapped out to point at Harry, "what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"I, ah, I don't know," Harry stuttered. The rest of the class looked confused except for Hermione Granger, who raised her hand tentatively.
"Where would you find a bezoar?"
Hermione raised her hand up straight up again and gave it a little wiggle as Harry thought in a panic. Snape didn't wait for an answer, snapping "And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
"I don't know sir. I haven't had time to read ahead," Harry defensively. None of his classes in primary school had required him to read the books before class started!
Snape snorted. "In that case, I think it would be best if you paired up with miss Granger, who appears desperate to share her knowledge." He looked up at the rest of the class. "Everybody else, pair up as well. We're going to get right into it. We will start by brewing the Sleeping Drought." He tapped the blackboard with his wand, revealing a set of instructions. "Work as teams. One partner preparing the ingredients, the other maintaining the potion."
As everybody sat frozen, like mice before a snake, he added, "Well? Get too it!"
Harry got up and made his way to the front of the class. "I guess we're working together."
Hermione just nodded. "I guess so. I'll go get the ingredients." It felt like some sort of weird punishment that Snape had dreamed up, forcing him to work with the girl who everybody in the class, both Gryffindor and Slytherin, found annoying.
When she came back she handed them over to Harry. "Can you start preparing these, and I'll get the cauldron going." She paused and bit her lip, "For the record, I think professor Snape was being a little mean, asking all those questions right away." Not that she would have minded answering them, but after 6 miserable years in primary school her mother had finally managed to drill into her that she needed to be more considerate of others, and Harry clearly had not enjoyed being put on the spot.
"Thanks."
The rest of the class went surprisingly well. Once they started working, Hermione stopped talking and concentrated on the procedure with a focus that was actually a little scary. They decided that Harry would prepare the ingredients, since Hermione had never cooked before in her life. Instead she meticulously followed the instructions on how often to stir the cauldron, down to counting the strokes (which made Harry roll his eyes – that sort of thing never mattered when you were cooking). But the end result was ok – they got top marks for a potion that Snape had accepted as being 'adequate' (and certainly better than Longbottom & Weasley's effort, which Snape deemed as only useful for 'putting down a rabid dog').
After class Harry had a free period. He didn't want to start on his homework already, and he had no interest in hanging out with his House-mates, so he asked one of the older students for directions to the library. The library in Little Whining had been right on the way home from school, and it been Harry's refuge – he would spend countless hours reading fantasy. Last year, he would even sometimes go there after dinner. But as he wandered the Hogwarts library he discovered that, to his immense disappointment, it didn't have a fiction section.
"Ma'am, do you have any books on Harry Potter?" Harry asked the librarian, trying to make the best of the situation. 'At least I'll know what everybody else was talking about'. And maybe he could learn about the wizarding world in general.
The librarian directed him towards a shelf of recent history. He scanned through the titles on the spines before settling on a book about the 'British Wizarding War of the 70s'. It had one chapter at the end dedicated to Harry Potter. There was no physical description given, as apparently nobody had seen the chap since he was less than a year old, but it did say that Harry Potter had a lightning bolt scar on his forehead and that he had been sent by Dumbledore to live in America with his relatives.
Harry rubbed his forehead. He used to have a mark on his forehead – it had slowly gone away, but even last year you could still see a faint line. 'Maybe I am that Harry Potter!' That was kind of cool. But all the more reason to not let his House-mates know his background. With a sigh, he made his way to the back of the library, in search of something worth reading – the history books had been painfully dry and dull.
As he passed an abandoned study coral, he noticed that the previous user hadn't put their books away, leaving out a tome labeled 'The Power of Purity: Harnessing Your Inner Unicorn", as well as a thin volume titled "Working with Goblin Steel". Those looked pretty fantastical, so Harry sat down and picked up the second of those. He soon discovered that he couldn't understand half of what was written there, so he just flipped through it looking at the diagrams and reading the captions. Afterwards, he picked up the Unicorn book. That was surprisingly more legible, though some of what it said sounded absurd. Harry wasn't certain if it was all true or not, but it made for a fun read. Not that he would want anybody to see him reading something with a title like that, but the few people already in the library gave him a wide berth once the saw the green trim on his robes.
*UHD*
The rest of the classes progressed in much the same fashion. For Transfiguration, the Slytherins shared a class with the Ravenclaws. The class was taught by McGonagall, who in her own way was as intimidating as Snape. But at least this time the two classes weren't forced to work together, so Harry took a spot towards the back, solidly in the pack of Slytherins. He ended up working next to a pair of quiet girls who he hadn't noticed before in the common room. 'Heh. They are the real Slytherins, as opposed to Draco and his cohort – there is nothing subtle about that prima donna.'
As the class was winding down, Harry had managed to transform his toothpick into a brown colored nail (He tested it – it was definitely metal!) The two girls next to him were still hard at work, with little to show for it.
"Nails have a head – that looks more like a needle," Harry commented. The blond just gave him a dirty look for stating the obvious. Harry shrugged. "Sorry. Just trying to be helpful. I'm Harry."
The blond tilted her head so that her hair fell forwards to obscure her face and continued to ignore him, but her friend gave him a smile and replied with false cheer that was sharp enough to cut: "I'm Tracy. But I need to concentrate now, so can you not talk to us? Thanks."
Harry shrugged and went back to putting the finishing touches onto his nail. It slowly changed color until it looked like it was made out of bronze, and then shifted to a slightly rusty looking steel just as the class bell rang.
Harry smiled – except for Terry Boots, the golden boy of Ravenclaw, nobody had done better. Not that he was competitive (well, not publicly competitive, but he couldn't get into trouble with Vernon over what he thought in the privacy of his own head).
As he exited the class he almost bumped into Hermione, heading in the opposite direction. "Oh, Harry. I wanted to talk to you. Can you help me with something? Hagrid – he's the groundskeeper, and he seems very nice - invited me to come to his cottage for some cookies, and I was hoping you could come with me."
Harry paused as he tried to recall who Hagrid was, "He's the really, really big guy, right? Are you too scared to go visit him by yourself?" Some Gryffindor she was!
"I'm not scared," Hermione replied defensively, "but I don't know him at all, so it would be awkward to just visit him, out of the blue."
"And you think it won't be awkward for me?"
"Agh! If you don't want to go, just say so! Slytherins!" She turned and started to stomp off. If she had anybody else to ask, she wouldn't have bothered with Harry. But all of the girls in her house her vapid and mean. And the boys were boys.
"I'll go, I'll go." Harry called after her. "After dinner?"
Hermione's face lit up. "Sure! And thanks" She darted into the Transfiguration classroom.
*UHD*
That evening Harry made his way to the side entrance of the castle – the one that faced the quidditch pitch.
"Oh, good. There you are. I was wondering if you were going to get cold feet." Hermione tried to cover up her nervousness. She had never visited anybody before – in primary school, her 'school friends' had been just that – acquaintances she knew in school. None of them had been close enough to socialize outside of school hours. And her parents both had careers, so what little time they had with her was spent shuttling her to extracurriculars, not on arranging play-dates.
Harry shrugged, "Sorry I'm late - I had to get a scarf. It's chilly out there." In all honesty, he HAD been thinking of ditching. He didn't have much experience with friends either, and he didn't even KNOW Hagrid. But he felt guilty lying to Hermione. She was so sincere and nice… well, not necessarily 'nice' as in kind, but 'nice' as in innocent. It would be like kicking a puppy. So he ended up coming like he had promised.
They made their way outside and took a left at the quidditch pitch until they were halfway to the Forbidden Forest. "Blimey, there really is a lot of 'grounds' for him to keep. I wonder if he has to mow all the grass by himself." Every summer his step-parents made him mow the grass and it was an awful lot of work.
"There's a charm for that."
"Really? You know that for a fact?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, "It's Occam's Razor, Harry. Mowing grass is an unrewarding, time consuming task so it stands to reason that every society that values short grass will invent some sort of labor saving device to do the work for them." Hermione pronounced all this in her 'Little miss know-it-all' voice (the once that disqualified her from being the other kind of 'nice') as they approached the front door of the cottage.
"I guess this society doesn't value 'short grass'" Harry poked at the bushy hair that sprang in every direction from Hermione's head.
"Oh, you're one to talk!" Hermione retorted, trying not to feel hurt. 'Everybody thinks my hair is ugly.'
"My hair has mind of its own. I can trim it or comb it, but in a couple of hours it will look exactly the same. My step-dad even shaved me bald one day. The following morning it was back to normal." He knocked on the thick oak plank that was the front door of Hagrid's hut.
"Come in, come in!" Hagrid pulled open the door, "Oh, 'Ermione, nice to see you. Don't mind Fang, he's a little pussy cat."
As a matter of fact Fang was not a pussy cat, he was a wolfhound, and a large one at that. But he didn't seem aggressive. He sniffed Hermione's armpits before laying back down and thumping his tail rhythmically against the floor.
Harry eyed the huge dog that was almost as tall as he was before self consciously slipping by it, taking a stool at the rough hewn table. The stool was built to Hagrid proportions, so when he sat down his feet dangled, not quite touching the floor.
"Here, have some of me rock cakes," Hagrid brought out a plate of cookies that looked like they had been baked too long and poured each of them a cup of tea. "It's nice to have some students come out this way – the grounds are beautiful in the fall, but most everybody stays cooped up in the castle except in the last few weeks of the school year."
"It is rather chilly up here in Scotland," Hermione defended as she took a sip and a dainty bite. Her teeth did not penetrate into the cookie at all. Harry saw her expression and smirked. He surreptitiously dipped his cookie into the tea and left it there, covering it with his hand so that Hagrid wouldn't see.
They chatted for a bit. Or more like Hermione and Hagrid chatted – Harry didn't really have a gift for small talk and didn't know what to say after the first few minutes. But it was nice listening to the two of them. Hagrid turned out to be a very gently person and Hermione actually was nice when she tried to be. Surprisingly, even the rock cakes were pretty good, if you let them soak long enough in hot tea. Harry was experimenting to see what was the exact optimal amount of time when Hermione finally said, "we should be getting back – it's going to be curfew soon." She petted Fang one last time and they slipped out.
"I didn't know you were a dog person," Harry commented on how Fang had spent all the time at Hermione's side
"I'm not really. But those rock cakes were awful, so I slipped mine to Fang. He liked them."
"Yeah. Hagrid baked them too long."
"Oh, as if you could do better!" Hermione snapped. As soon the words were out of her mouth. She immediately felt guilty, 'This is why I never had friends as a kid!'
"I could – my step parents had me doing the cooking for the past two years. And if I was going to be stuck in the kitchen, I figured that I might as well make something that I actually liked. So, cookies." Harry replied with a smile. It was nice how Hermione didn't judge him. The other Slytherins would have given him grief for doing 'house elf' work.
"Huh. That explains potions." The two preteens went their separate ways once inside the castle.
It had been the nicest evening Harry could remember ever having.
*Chapter End*
I have the next chapter written, I just need to edit it.
I have a question – do you prefer chapters this length or twice this length.
I intentionally split these two chapters apart because I assumed that folks performed bite-sized chapters.