Harry lay in bed listening to Hermione's soft breathing from the other side of the room as she slept. He was thinking about everything that had happened since he'd met Ms Richards yesterday.
They had arrived back at the Grangers' at about 8 o'clock, with the usual bags of takeaway, as was traditional when Hermione came home from Hogwarts. Normally, it was one of Hermione's favourites, such as pizza or an Indian dish, however, in defence to Ms Richards, who didn't particularly like those things, they had picked up Chinese instead.
Dinner was a little awkward for Harry, as Hermione was understandingly more focused on her nan, telling her all she could about her last few years at school. Some of Hermione's modifications about school where interesting; like Harry saving Hermione from a 'big stray dog' instead of a troll, or Hermione being sick in the Hospital Wing when Harry had refused to let her spend Christmas alone, and instead had stayed with her reading.
While she had obviously been talking him up at some points, Hermione wanted her nan to approve of Harry, but every time she pulled him into the conversation, Harry felt that he was cutting into the limited time the two of them had together. As such, he tended to redirect the talk back to Hermione and her Nan, letting them talk while he ate in relative silence. The way Harry saw it, he would have Hermione all to himself again when they got back to Hogwarts.
Now, Harry was wondering about today, as he had to pop to Gringotts to get some Muggle money to buy a few Christmas presents that he couldn't get in the Magical world. He also had to get cover gifts for the Granger's.
He had gotten Hermione and her parents magical presents, but most of them couldn't be unwrapped around Ms Richards. Hermione's muggle present would be the easiest, considering that he needed to buy her some Muggle accessories to go with her magical present anyway. He also wanted to get something for Daphne and Tracey, who had helped him find out that the Muggle type of item was compatible with the wizarding verity he had gotten Hermione for christmas.
But there was no way Mr or Mrs Granger, or Dan and Emma as he was slowing getting to know them as, would let Harry go alone.
Should he ask Hermione to go with him? On one hand, Hermione was better at this sort of shopping than him and she probably wanted to get a few presents herself. Though, on the other, Hermione may want to spend the day with her family and do her shopping another time.
Hermione shifted in her bed, indicating to Harry that she would be awake soon. When she'd shared his bed for the first week after half term, back when neither of them had been having happy dreams, Harry had learned a little about her sleeping patterns, and Hermione would always start moving before she woke up. Then again, Harry didn't have anyone else to compare her sleeping habits to. He just didn't care enough about his dorm mates to notice how they slept. Well, apart from Ron, who he didn't need to observe to know he snores really loudly. For all he knew, everyone moved about more in their sleep before they woke up.
"Harry?" Hermione had woken up.
"Morning sleepy head", God, she is cute , Harry thought as her looked at her yawning face. Her normally bushy hair looked like it had been plugged in to an electricity socket, and she still had that dazed, sleepy look to her face. Not the type of sleepy she got when she had been reading for 12 hours and was using wit sharpening potions and coffee to stay awake, like she tended to get around exam time, but the warm, cuddly kind that she got when she was more relaxed. Harry noticed she was usually like when they curled up in front of the fire in the gryffindor common room..
"Not sleepy, it's just early."
"Sleep well?"
"Amazing", she grinned at him, "I always sleep well when you are close."
That in turn made Harry smile widely, "I was thinking, we could get our Christmas shopping mostly done today, if you like, then you can spend the rest of the week catching up with your nan."
Hermione frowned slightly, "Sounds good, but I'm not going to ditch you for the whole week Harry."
"It's Ok 'Mione. You don't get to see her often. I get you all to myself while we are at school."
"Harry, it's Christmas . I want to spend time with all four of you. So no running off and brooding."
"I'm a wizard 'Mione. I need to brood, it's in the union manual. Do you want to see me pulled in front of the council of crotchety old men because I haven't done enough brooding?"
Hermione tried not to laugh, but Harry's delivery had been perfect; and now in her head were images of Dumbledore, Disney's Merlin and Gandalf, all sat in a dark room berating poor Harry for not brooding enough. Once the visual manifested inside her head she let out a real laugh.
Not a giggle, but a full-on side-splitter, "O-oh my god Harry!" She managed to get out eventually.
Hermione's door opened, and Ms Richards poked her head around the door, "Everything Ok in here? You two behaving yourselves?" The worry was clear on her face as her eyes darted back and forth between the two beds, each containing its own teen.
"Naaan! Harry and I promised we wouldn't do anything...anything that we wouldn't do if mum and dad, or you, were in the room. Harry just said something funny is all."
"Ok Ok…I just worry is all, I remember what it's like being a teen. I get to worry about my favourite granddaughter sometimes, especially if she happens to be sharing a room with a teen boy."
"I'm your only granddaughter though."
"Then you know it's true!" Ms Richards stated, with the confidence of someone who had just won an argument, even though she really hadn't.
"Hermione, your parents had to go in to the surgery today, and they've already left, so what do you want for breakfast?"
"If you like Ms Richards, you and Hermione could spend a bit of time together while I make breakfast?" Harry offered.
"I don't know...can you cook?"
Hermione giggled, "Nan, over the summer, Harry taught mum a few things when it comes to cooking."
Ms Richards raised an eyebrow at Harry, who further explained, "I've been cooking since I was seven. I picked up a few things." Harry tried to keep it light, but he saw Hermione's face darken momentarily at the thought of why he had to cook since he was seven.
"Anyway, you two go have a chat and I will see what I can whip together. Maybe you can convince Hermione to let me teach her next summer", He winked at Hermione, grabbed the clothes he had set out yesterday and disappeared into the bathroom to change, leaving her with her Nan.
Harry had tried to get Hermione to learn to cook from him over the summer, but she was convinced that she was a disaster in the kitchen, if it was anything more complicated than pouring milk into cereal. It had taken Harry almost a week to convince her that he didn't think she needed to learn just because she was a girl.
He knew there were people who thought like that, but Harry was of the opinion that it was probably better if everyone could feed themselves, and while most people could probably make simple dishes, it would be better if they could cook something tastier. Hermione had liked that argument a lot better than the idea that girls should cook because it's women's work , but it still wasn't enough to get her to try in the kitchen.
Once Harry was dressed, he went to see what the Granger's had available for making breakfast. The answer was not a lot, it seemed that they hadn't had time to pick up groceries yet.
There was, however, the usual that most people always had; flour, milk, sugar and eggs, and they even had a few bananas.
That gave him an idea, and he promptly set to work making American style pancakes* with caramelized bananas.
--- ϟϟϟ ---
Harry and Hermione were approaching the Skinners arms; they had been running around all morning getting what they needed for Christmas. First it had been a visit to Gringotts to get some money from Harry's vault. Then, it was being dragged around London as Hermione tried to get as much done before lunch as possible.
Now they were meeting Ms Richards for lunch. It had been almost impossible to leave the house without her this morning. When Hermione had told her about her and Harry's plan to do a bit of Christmas shopping, Ms Richards had thought it a fantastic idea and wanted to come along. Harry did suspect that she was only coming to make sure the two of them 'behaved' though...
Either way, her presence would have been fine, if only Harry hadn't needed to visit Gringotts first.
Harry somehow doubted that the ol' ' I need to go to a secret bank that you cannot see, so do you mind waiting for me in this odd part of London while I go do that?' would have worked well. He just couldn't think of a way to ask the woman not to come, nor could he see a way to get at his gold, meaning all of Harry's gift plans were going up in smoke.
It was Hermione who pulled it out of the fire. She had claimed to need the morning to buy her Nan's Christmas presents. It had been tight, but they had managed to get out of Diagon Alley and find Ms Richards a few presents.
The pub was almost exactly as Harry remembered it from the summer, the only difference being that they'd put up a small Christmas tree in one corner of the main bar, and had draped the railings in red and green tinsel.
Hermione's Nan hadn't arrived yet, so she got a table while Harry grabbed them something to drink. He stopped short just before the bar, trying to remember what Hermione had to drink last time she was here. If they were in the wizarding world, Harry would know exactly what to buy her, but here in the world of fizzy drinks, he wasn't sure at all.
He relaxed when he saw the familiar face of Michael behind the bar, "Well, if it isn't Mr Harry. Welcome back. Is Hermione home for Christmas then?"
"Yeah, we just got back to London yesterday. We've been doing a bit of Christmas shopping. We arranged to meet Hermione's grandmother here, grab a spot of lunch, then do some more shopping. I'll take a coke, and whatever Hermione normally has."
"One coke and one R White's*. You don't know what Hermione drinks?" He asked as he started filling the glasses up with those drinks.
Harry thought of the excuse that he had planned in his head, hoping it sounded feasible, "The school we go to has a complete ban on fizzy drinks. Ànd, I don't think I've ever seen a bottle of pop at the Granger's either. I think the last time I saw Hermione with a fizzy drink was here, actually."
"Fair point. Dan always takes teeth very seriously. Your table ready to order yet?"
"Na, we're still waiting on Ms Richards to get here."
"You paying for the drinks now, or shall I open a tab for your table?"
Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. It was an old, beaten up bit of leather that was held together by tape and hope, but did the job, barely. Harry extracted the needed Muggle money and handed it over to Micheal, "Don't really know what's happening with lunch yet, so best pay for these separately."
Harry bid farewell to Micheal and took the drinks over to the four person table that Hermione had chosen, one with a good view of the front door. He set the lemonade drink in front of Hermione and took the seat next to her. She murmured her thanks and the two got to discussing what presents they still needed to buy. Mostly, they were looking for things for Hermione's family, as their magical friends had been bought magical gifts. There were a few mundane gifts Harry and Hermione had still wanted to get a few people.
A cool wind blew through the pub as the door was opened for a few seconds. Hermione smiled and started waving to her Nan, who had just entered. Ms Richards went to the bar and got herself a drink, before joining them at the table.
"This is a nice pub Hermione, how do you know about it?"
"Its owned by the family of an old friend of dad's. So he used to bring me here after we had been to the library."
Ms Richards gave an appraising nod as she looked around the bar, "It's nice, how's the food here?"
"It's good", Harry replied, fondly remembering his meal here, though it wasn't truly the food that he remembered…
They ordered lunch and chatted for a bit, when the waitress brought the food; a ham and cheese panini for harry, a club sandwich for Ms Ritcherds and a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel for Hermione. Once she had delivered the food, the waitress started ringing. She had one of those new flip phones that were becoming popular. It was a pity such modern tech had trouble around magic, or Harry would have considered getting Hermione one for christmas. He knew she would love to be able to talk to her mother on the phone while she was away at school.
"Harry honey, do you want to tell me why you are staring at the waitress!?" Hermione stressed the words honey and staring , while trying not to sound too annoyed at Harry.
"What? Oh, no , I was looking at her phone...the charm on it", there was a charm hanging from the waitress' phone that Harry could see clearly as she talked to whoever had called her.
"Her phone charm?"
Harry glanced at Ms Richards, wondering how he could explain what he was thinking. Now that he was paying attention, he could see what was going through Hermione's head, seeing him staring avidly at another girl. He quickly started explaining, "I was thinking about my project...the one for professor Babbling. If I put the... circuitry in an external bit, like that charm, it would stop it interfering with the main component", he didn't use any words that would give away what he was really thinking, not covering a wand with Runes. He hoped that Hermione would understand what he meant, without Ms Richards knowing.
She looked a little confused for a few seconds, then her eyes lit up as she got it, "Harry, that's brilliant! Sorry...it looked like you where-"
"I'm sorry 'Mione. I can see now how it must have looked, I promise you, I was looking at the phone charm, you know I wouldn't do that to you."
"I should hope not", Ms Richards added."
The three of them continued to enjoy their lunch. Hermione seemed to have accepted Harry at his word, as she did seem to have a knack for telling when he was lying, though Ms Richards didn't seem quite as ready to trust him as Hermione was. Throughout the rest of the meal, Ms Richards gave Harry some not-so-covert glances, obviously watching to see if his eyes strayed back to the waitress, or to any other girl apart from Hermione.
--- ϟϟϟ ---
Harry was sat in the waiting room of Granger and Granger dental surgery. Dan was just finishing up with his second-to-last patient for the day. It wouldn't have bothered Harry in the slightest if that patient was last, as he happened to be in that current position.
Hermione, Emma and Ms Richards had gone out for lunch together, just the three of them, and with Dan covering the last shift in the surgery before it closed for Christmas, it had been decided that Harry would, instead of being left in the house alone, be at the surgery, using Dan and Emma's office to do his homework. Then, he was to be the last patient of the day.
If Harry was honest, it didn't bother him that much that he was alone. He was doing the same thing at the surgery that he would be doing at home without Hermione there; sitting at a table, doing his homework while listening to the radio, though he thought he might have chosen a different station himself. Unfortunately, Dan apparently liked 80s pop, and had chosen a station to suit just that.
If it was just homework, Harry would be completely fine, but instead his thoughts were being brought back to the fact that in a few minutes, Dan was about to start playing around in his mouth. He wasn't stupid, he knew that dentists were docters and that they did what they do to help people, but he just couldn't get the image of someone drilling his teeth out of his head.
He also knew that by his age, a lot of people had a filling, it was impossible to date Hermione and not know a bit more about teeth than most people. And those people who had fillings had probably been to the dentist a lot, and had taken better care of their teeth for they whole lives, where as Harry had only really started to take care of his teeth when Hermione had started...well, nagging him about it.
Nagging sounded so harsh in Harry's head, after all he didn't mind one bit, but it was the only word he could think of to describe how Hermione went on to him about his teeth.
"Harry, we're ready for you", Abigail, the nurse that worked for the Grangers', poked her head around the door.
"Ok, I'm coming", Harry packed up his homework in an old backpack he had borrowed from Hermione, before following Abigail into the treatment room Dan used. The room was mostly white and chrome, giving it a clean and clinical appearance, there was a workbench along one wall, with some covers above and below. There were all manners of things Harry didn't even begin to recognise, all laid out across the bench. Some of the tools he could probably guess at a use for, but there were others that he had absolutely no clue about.
In the center of the room was a big chair that Harry presumed was were the patient sat while they were being worked on. There was an odd looking lamp on an arm that positioned it directly above the chair.
"Hello Harry, did you make some progress on your homework?" Dan asked as he indicated to Harry to sit in the chair.
"Uh, yeah, though Hermione is probably going to read it and tell me about half of it is wrong", Harry latched onto the topic of homework as he attempted to delay the moment when his teeth would be inspected for as long as possible.
He wasn't scared , definitely not, just anxious, was all.
"Well, if you don't want Hermione telling you how much you got wrong, you should try getting it right the first time", Dan teased him, while Abigail was behind Harry, doing something he couldn't see.
"Right, let's see if there is anything wrong with your chompers. Head back, and open wide, and no biting", the next few minutes were filled with Dan's gloved fingers and dental tools in Harry's mouth; poking, prodding and examining every single tooth in his mouth. That was then followed by Dan scraping his teeth with another tool and finally giving them a brush. Harry thought that that last part was a bit too far, as he could brush his teeth himself at home. He didn't argue with Dan, though. He was the dentist after all, so he probably knew best.
Once Harry had his mouth rinsed out, Dan sent Abigail to finish up the last of the paperwork for the day, and sat Harry down to talk to him, "All in all, your teeth are good; no cavities or chips, and you won't need braces or anything like that", Harry breathed out a sigh of relief, that had been what he was dreading, the idea that he would need work done on his teeth. The idea of that was terrifying to him.
Dan wasn't done though, "However, it was clear that you had never been to a dentist before; you had a large build up of solid plaque around the base of your teeth. That was why I had to scrape your teeth, so I could remove it. There is one thing. I'm curious about what was under the plaque; your teeth are in far better condition than they should be, do you have any idea as to why?"
Harry thought about that. Why were his teeth in such good condition? He knew that he had had a few pains in them in the past, Hermione had even recommended he try a toothpaste for sensitive teeth in their first year. So didn't that suggest that there had been something wrong with them at one time?
He wondered if his teeth could've been healed once he had started brushing properly, especially after Hermione had started lecturing him about it. But according to Hermione, teeth don't just heal, at least, not without magical intervention. But that couldn't be the case, as Harry had never gone to Madam Pomfrey about his teeth.
Hermione had told him once how to fix teeth magically, but he couldn't remember a time when he had ever used that, not to fix his teeth at least. But...maybe it had fixed his teeth without him noticing?
"Um...I think they might have been worse at one point, but there is..." Harry looked around to make sure Abigail was out of earshot, "...there is a potion that is supposed to help fix teeth. It's called skello-gro, it's mainly used to help repair broken bones or even regrow them. Last year, one of my professors accidentally vanished all the bones in my arm when he tried to fix a break in one of them. Don't worry, he was a bloody idiot. I told him I would rather go to the school nurse, I have way more confidence in her abilities, I'm so glad that that professor doesn't teach there anymore. Anyway, to regrow the bones in my arm, the school nurse gave me a dose of skello-gro. So, while it was regrowing all the bones in my arm over the course of one night, not an experience I would recommend by the way, I think it may have fixed my teeth."
Dan sat there, shaking his head in disbelief at what he'd just heard, "I'm glad magic is secret, cause if it wasn't, I would be out of a job. At least it explains why your teeth are as good as they are, given your history, I would have expected a lot worse. Anyway, let's close this place down and get out of here, we can pop to the supermarket and grab some sandwiches for our late lunch and do some grocery shopping."
--- ϟϟϟ ---
Hermione was sitting in a nice restaurant with her mum and nan, a tradition that the three of them have had ever since Hermione was old enough to come to a restaurant like this and behave properly. It was nice being out, just the girls. While she loved her father and Harry, they just didn't get some things like her mum and nan did.
Currently, she was listening to her nan as she told them about life outside of the city. Her nan had lived in London her entire life, but a few months before Hermione had gone to Hogwarts, she had taken ill, nothing too worrying, but she had been forced to give up her job. After weighing up her options, she had decided early retirement was the best choice, only, she couldn't afford to live in the city and had sold her London house, which was not far from where the Grangers' lived, and had moved to the suburbs.
Retirement had not suited her nan well at all , and while a job was too much to manage along with her health, she had started volunteering to fill her time. She was just finishing telling them about how she was now the treasurer for her local WI.*
"So, after they heard that I used to work as an accountant, they practically begged me to take a look at their books. They are nice women, but their books were a complete mess, it took me two weeks of ringing around and badgering everyone, just to get all the receipts and information I needed to find out who had access to the accounts.
Then , another two weeks to make heads or tails out of it. In the end, I decided that I should take over the finances or it will just get out of hand again. But after I found that £300 that they had forgotten about in the old account, they were more than willing to let me handle it from now on."
Hermione's nan stopped talking for a second to take a bite of her chicken, "I can't blame them too much, none of them are trained in accountancy, nor could they have afforded to hire one at market price. It's a long way from the 30 or so small businesses I used to do the accounts for, but it's keeping me from going crazy. So, how about you love?" She indicated to Hermione's mum, "how are things going at your dental surgery?"
Her mum finished her bit of salmon before answering, "Everything's going well, we have a full client list, and a few people on a waiting list to use our surgery, so work is ticking over. We are looking into replacing some of our equipment, actually; new drills and a few other things. We just need to find a good supplier."
"I thought you already had a supplier lined up before I went to school?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, about that...we found out something about that company, so we won't be using them", her mum answered cryptically.
"What did you find out?"
Emma considered for a few moments what she should say; Hermione wasn't the type who wanted or needed coddling, but still…
In the end she went with honesty, "we found out who the CEO of the company is."
"Who?" Hermione and her nan asked at the same time.
"It's...Harry's uncle", the statement hung in the air as the other two started putting the meaning together in their heads.
"You mean the uncle you told me about, love? The one with the sister in the news?" Hermione's nan asked; she had only gotten that much from Harry during the shopping trip, that and the fact of Harry not knowing about the children. But, he hadn't been surprised that Marge Dursley could and would treat children that way. Harry hadn't said that she had treated him similarly, but that hadn't been enough to prevent her from putting it together herself.
"Yes, and as you can imagine, we don't exactly want to put any money in his hands."
"I should bloody hope not", Hermione didn't swear very often, and her nan was a little surprised by her crude language, "that man deserves a lot of things, but money is definitely not one of them."
"Quite right kitten. Your dad is looking to blacklist the company throughout the network our surgery is in", her mother felt her daughter's venomous vendetta for the man.
"He's not talking about Harry, is he? Harry isn't a fan of people gossiping about him", Hermione was more than a little worried that Harry's private life was the topic of gossip once again. It didn't sound like a lot to have people talking about you, but she had seen what it was like for Harry; everywhere he went, people were always staring and whispering. And that was when he was just Harry, when he was Harry, the heir of Slytherin, it had gotten so bad that Hermione had come up with the polyjuice plan, and look how that ended up. Not that she didn't have selfish reasons to stop muggleborns being attacked.
"No dear, your father is being as vague as he possibly can. He's telling them he can't talk because of patient confidentiality. And, with Harry at the surgery today, that is now more true than it ever was."
"Hermione, dear..." her nan softened her tone, setting Hermione on edge, as she knew her nan was about to ask her a difficult question, "About Harry…Are you sure that it's a good idea to date him?"
"What do you mean Nan!? Why would it not be a good idea to be with Harry?" Hermione's tone was ice-cold.
"After everything that happened to him...Isn't he, for lack of a better term, damaged goods ? I don't mean to be harsh, as this will sound, but I've heard of people who went through stuff like that before. They don't learn how to be normal when they are young. They don't end up normal. Are you sure it won't become a problem in the future? I don't want you being hurt because of all this."
Hermione was shocked, angry and more than a little disappointed. Shocked that her Nan would say stuff like about anyone, angry at her for saying something like that about Harry. But it was the disappointment that hit her the hardest, because she didn't know if she was disappointed in her Nan, or disappointed in herself . Why didn't her Nan trust her judgment? Hermione had known Harry for over two years now. If anyone knew Harry, it was her, right?
"Nan I know Harry.
Is he perfect? No. but, harry's problems don't make him dangerous to anyone but himself." the older women gasped a little at that. "I don't mean he will hurt himself like that but… if Harry thinks that someone will be hurt by something he will try and keep them from being hurt even if he is hurt instead. He has become so used to pain that he just accepts that he should be the one hurt. So Nan you are right harry didn't learn to be normal when he was growing up. But he did learn how to be harry and that's pretty amazing if you ask me."