Harry Potter knew something was up at the Dursley household, but he didn’t really know how big of a something it was until they decided to have a family meeting and actually invited him. The last time they had done that had been when the Masons had arrived on Harry’s twelfth birthday (along with a very unwelcome house elf named Dobby who ruined everything, although Harry got the blame, of course). It was likely that another “important”, to Vernon Dursley that is, person was coming to visit. Harry tried hard to stifle his boredom at what would likely be a set of instructions to his Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley on how to kiss up to whomever it was that had proven unlucky enough to end up here in the proper Dursley way, followed by consistent reminders of how he was to pretend to blend into the wallpaper. (But certainly not actually do so. That would be far too strange for the taste of his Aunt and Uncle.)
Harry and the Dursleys had been rather successful at avoiding each other over the last few weeks; so much so that he actually didn’t mind being here for once. Left to his own room, he was free from having other, older witches and wizards constantly reminding him of how Sirius’ death wasn’t his fault or how the debacle at the Ministry could have happened to anyone. Harry didn’t need that right now. What he needed was some alone time and lots of space. For nearly three weeks now he had gotten it. It was only in the last few days, however, that his mourning period for Sirius felt like it was beginning to wane and even his spare non-Sirius thoughts no longer flung themselves automatically to the memory of Professor Trelawney’s prophecy about what was supposed to transpire between him and Voldemort. The death of Sirius Black still saddened him and the prophecy worried him somewhat, but they now seemed to fill him with a sense of determination: to avenge Sirius and finally bring Voldemort’s reign of terror to an end.
With the dramatic events of the wizard world from the end of the last school year swimming around in his head, Harry found it particularly difficult to concentrate on Vernon’s impassioned speech about being normal, especially since he didn’t seem to have to do anything or respond in anyway. It was rather like Professor Binns’ History of Magic class, only Harry could just fantasize about his Uncle becoming a ghost. As he was imagining the fifteenth way he would prefer it to happen, Vernon Dursley’s snarling face nearly met the tip of Harry’s nose. “And just what will you be doing while the Farmers are here, Potter?” he snapped.
“Hiding in my room,” Harry answered quickly with a half-yawn. Apparently his boredom annoyed Uncle Vernon, as he made his nephew repeat the answer. He then looked expectantly at Harry, as if willing him to continue. “In my closet.” Vernon then made an angry rolling gesture with his hands. “Under a pile of Dudley’s old winter coats.” Harry paused only for a moment, waiting to see if that was enough to satisfy the Dursleys. It wasn’t. He let out a slow sigh of defeat. “Making no noise and pretending I don’t exist.”
“Yes,” Vernon replied slowly, his face flushed as red as a beetroot. “Be thankful I’ve decided not to gag you. Just in case you are, by some unhappy accident, discovered, I don’t want your oral hygiene to be in doubt. We have clean teeth in this family!” As if on cue, Petunia and Dudley smiled very wide, showing off so many of their teeth at once that even Gilderoy Lockhart would be impressed. They had apparently been practicing this routine. As Harry’s stomach turned, Vernon continued. “Very good, very good. This could be a very big deal, the biggest since…since…since you,” he pointed a shaking finger at Harry, “starting going to that blasted school of yours!” His eyes then turned to the ceiling and his hands folded behind his back. Uncle Vernon’s anger began to turn to greed more quickly than usual. “Yes, I can see it now. Dentist’s drills: the future of Grunnings!”
Apparently, the British Dental Association would be working out some kind of deal with Grunnings where they became one of maybe four or five companies who supplied drills officially sanctioned by the BDA to British dentists. The details of it made Harry long for Potions homework as an escape, but as it seemed a big deal to the Dursleys, Harry took the opportunity of his Uncle’s long rambling diatribe to make his way up the stairs, into his room and into his closet. As he plopped down on the floor, he wrapped himself in about six of Dudley’s winter coats, which formed a sort of pup tent around Harry’s body. Smiling as he leaned his head back on one of his cousin’s old ratted fur hoods, he decided that the situation was not as bad as it might have seemed to someone unfamiliar with how Harry’s “adopted” family had treated him since he was an infant. The closet in this room wasn’t much smaller than the cupboard underneath the stairs, Dudley’s winter coats were comfortable and they sometimes even contained snacks that were still edible. Besides that fact, two summers ago Harry had managed to use a faulty drill Uncle Vernon brought home from work as a “present” for his nephew’s birthday to drill some peepholes in the closet so that he could now see downstairs into the hallway, the dining room and the kitchen. That meant that if anything interesting did happen with the Farmers, he would likely know about it and of course be able to tease Dudley mercilessly about it afterwards.
Looking down into the dining room, Harry saw Uncle Vernon grab Aunt Petunia by the shoulders. He considered turning away in revulsion, thinking they were about to kiss. However, with the typical Gryffindor spirit of bravery, Harry looked closer and discovered that he was merely trying to boost her confidence about something. “Don’t worry, Petunia. I know how you feel about dentists, but it will all be over soon. With you and our Ickle Duddykins turning on the charm, we’ll win them over in no time. And besides, it was only a movie.”
The curiosity of “Ickle Duddykins” was for once a great help to Harry. “What was only a movie?” he asked in an extremely rude tone of voice. It was the exact same question that sprang to Harry’s mind, but he quickly dismissed the notion that this somehow meant that he and Dudley thought alike.
“M…Marathon Man,” Aunt Petunia stammered as she muted a sob. Harry wasn’t sure he had seen that one, but whatever it was it didn’t sound scary. With Vernon squeezing her arm for support, she seemed to pull herself together, although with great effort. “Horrible creatures, dentists. Horrible.”
Harry chuckled softly to himself. “Oh yeah, dentists are monstrous. Worse than dementors, they are.” Thinking back to his childhood, this attitude of Aunt Petunia’s suddenly made Dudley’s (and, by default, his) trips to the dentist a lot more understandable. The Big ‘D’ always received a large package of suckers for braving the dentists’ chair and even Harry got a few (the grape ones that Dudley didn’t like). He then wondered idly what Hermione’s parents would think of Mrs. Dursley’s dentist fears. With both of them being in the profession, they probably ran across it from time to time. ‘Hey, I wonder if the Farmers might know them,’ Harry asked himself, but decided not to risk the wrath of his Uncle Vernon by sneaking downstairs sometime during the course of the evening to try and find out.
Harry heard the loud buzz of the doorbell and, grabbing a small box of raisins that he was surprised Dudley hadn’t simply thrown in the trash out of one of the larger pockets, turned his attention solely onto the peephole that allowed him to see the hallway. As Vernon made last minute adjustments to their clothes (they wouldn’t dare make a first impression with a wrinkle showing, other than in Aunt Petunia’s scrawny neck) and made sure that all of them had big smiles affixed to their faces, he opened the door. “Good evening, Mr. Farmer, Mrs. Farmer,” he said as he shook each of their hands with ferocity. Uncle Vernon then barely seemed to stop himself from gasping as he continued looking out the doorway at what was presumably a third figure in the doorway. “And I see you’ve brought your little girl along with you. How… unexpected.”
The familiar-looking man in a dapper-looking gray business suit replied with a large smile. “Yes, well, we heard you had a boy about her age and thought maybe they might get along smashingly.” Both of the middle-aged couple’s faces had turned red upon their introduction to the house. Harry got the distinct impression that this wasn’t going well so far for the Dursleys.
How right he was. Aunt Petunia barely had time to ask the young girl her name when she bellowed out in the haughtiest voice she could manage. “It’s Hermione. Hermione Granger. That’s our last name, you see. Not ‘Farmer’.” Harry’s mouth fell wide open. All of the Dursleys looked sheepish except for Dudley, who always looked too massive to be a sheep. He did, however, look a bit like a stunned hippopotamus.
***
“It’s an honest mistake,” Vernon Dursley insisted as he invited the Grangers to sit down in the dining room. “Farmer, Granger… they’re synonyms, really. And I’ve always said, haven’t I, Petunia?, that farmers are the backbone of this country. Couldn’t get any food grown without them.”
Harry wasn’t really paying attention to the awkwardness going on between the Grangers and the Dursleys; he was too busy focusing on Hermione. What was she doing here? She was surely here to see him, wasn’t she? And if so, was this deal between the British Dental Association and Grunnings merely a sham, orchestrated by Dumbledore or someone else in the Order of the Phoenix? Harry shuddered to think of how many shades of purple his uncle’s face would turn if that turned out to be the case.
Losing himself in his thoughts, Harry nearly lost sight of Hermione, as she forcefully grabbed Dudley’s hand and escorted him from the room. He still seemed to be in shock; otherwise, Hermione’s petite frame never could have moved his great bulk out of the dining room short of a very powerful levitation spell. They walked into the hallway, only a few feet away from his former home underneath the stairs. Harry shifted his position within the closet so that he could see what they were doing.
Unfortunately it was difficult to hear, because Uncle Vernon was telling a rather loud and obnoxious version of his new Polish barber joke. He only caught brief snatches of their conversation, but it seemed to boil down to Hermione feeling Dudley’s “muscles”, if that was indeed what they were, saying that he certainly did look like the type to be good at boxing, and oh, if only there were someone here that he could pummel, she would really be impressed. A light bulb seemed to go off over Dudley’s head, but Hermione was definitely the one who put it there. Harry grinned broadly at her cleverness.
As the unlikely duo bounded up the staircase, Harry quickly turned around to face the closet door, which would no doubt be opening any moment now. Wiping a very amused grin off of his face, he did his best to look disinterested and started practicing feigned surprise at Dudley opening the door. However, Harry soon realized that Dudley would technically be coming to beat him up, and genuine worry overcame him. Before he had too much time to think on it, the door opened wide and his gargantuan cousin lifted him out of the closet.
“So this is your insane cousin who lives with you,” Hermione said in a voice that was both pompous and apathetic as she pretended to look Harry over disparagingly. His breath caught in his throat as his legs dangled mere inches from the floor. “He doesn’t look very tough.”
“Oh, he is,” Dudley Dursley sneered as his meaty right hand finally released Harry’s now very stretched gray t-shirt. “He goes to St. Brutus’ you know, and that’s a school for the hopelessly criminal. He has to be able to take a few punches every now and then.” Dudley then gave Harry what seemed like it might have been a pleading look similar to the one he gave Dobby four years ago. ‘Don’t get me in trouble,’ it seemed to say. Harry gave a slight nod. He wasn’t about to make any sort of disturbance that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would pay attention to, as it would most likely be him getting in trouble and not Dudley.
Stealing a quick, slightly amused glance at Hermione, Harry put up his hands to fight just as Dudley did. However, neither of them wanted to be the one to throw the first punch. Dudley knew he could take Harry in a “fair” Muggle fight, but was afraid of what his cousin might do to him later if he did. Meanwhile, Harry wasn’t exactly sure what Hermione’s game was and decided to see if she was planning on doing something here. After a few minutes, the aforementioned Ms. Granger let out a dramatic yawn and pretended as though she were about to leave the room when Dudley promptly sucker punched Harry (whose eyes had inexplicably been following Hermione despite the fact that his brain knew she wasn’t really going to leave him alone with Dudley). The pain in his stomach was nothing he hadn’t felt before, but it did succeed in knocking him off of his feet. Unfortunately, as he fell to the floor, his head crashed into the table which held Hedwig’s cage. Harry’s pet owl crashed with a loud metallic clang to the floor and let off an awful stream of squawks.
All three teenagers froze. The noise was sure to have been heard downstairs. The expressions on the faces of Dudley and Harry were particularly fearful, as they could only imagine too well Uncle Vernon bounding up the stairs in a furious rage. “Goodness me. Knocking over an owl cage. That will take some explaining, won’t it? Particularly since most people don’t have owls in cages.” Hermione smirked at Harry as she stooped to look at his head. “I guess you’ll be the one to have to go and do it,” she declared with a quick glance towards Dudley.
“Me?” Dudley asked in panic. “Why me? Why not you… or him?”
Hermione gave out an exaggerated sigh. “Honestly, do you expect me to explain to my parents why you two created a disturbance? And as for this one,” she turned back to look at Harry’s forehead, “I don’t think he should be getting up soon. He’s got a nasty bump here. And look at this cut. It’s shaped like a lightning bolt!”
“He didn’t get that scar just now,” Dudley tried to explain. “He’s always…” He stopped as he heard his father starting up the stairs. “Oh, never bloody mind. Never send a freak or a girl to do a man’s job.” As Dudley stepped out the door, he apparently caught sight of Uncle Vernon. “Daddykins!” he cried. “I…I can explain.” Cries of pain escaped his lips as the two of them appeared to be making their way downstairs.
“Might get some ice for this bump while you’re down there,” Hermione called after him. Once she was sure Dudley could no longer hear them, she burst into fits of raucous laughter. After a moment, Harry followed suit, then remembered his bump and put his hand to his forehead in pain. Hermione took off the light pink jacket she’d been wearing and put it between Harry’s head and the wall. “Comfy?” she asked, as she picked up Hedwig’s cage and, taking the time to smooth her feathers, placed her back upon the table.
“Oh yes,” Harry answered sarcastically. “I feel practically pampered now.” However, he couldn’t stay even a little mad for very long. He had been starved for company since having left Hogwarts and seeing Hermione at the Dursleys was such a wonderful surprise he could barely keep the smile from his face for more than a few seconds. Harry stood slowly and attempted to make it to his bed. “How are you, Hermione?” he asked with genuine concern in his voice.
“Well, none of us that were at the Ministry of Magic are exactly doing cartwheels,” Hermione started to answer, but then stopped herself abruptly and slapped her hand across her mouth. “Oh, Harry! I’m so sorry! That’s just been the answer I’ve been giving everyone…my parents, teachers checking up on me and everything, I didn’t even think…”
“It’s OK,” Harry interrupted as he gently lowered his head onto the lumpy pillow provided him by the Dursleys. “I was an idiot. Sirius is dead. His killer will get what’s coming to her, as will Voldemort.” Whether what was coming to Voldemort was the evil wizard’s death or his own was still a matter of debate in Harry’s mind, but he wasn’t ready to let Hermione know about that yet.
“Well, whatever happens, they won’t be sent to Azkaban,” Hermione replied, trying to change the subject somewhat. She reached inside one of the pockets of her jeans and removed a newspaper article. Harry scanned over it quickly; apparently the dementors had proven too untrustworthy and the wizard prison had been temporarily decommissioned. Felonious wizards and witches were being held in special cells outside the grounds for the time being.
Once he had read everything of interest, Harry looked at the top of the newspaper. This wasn’t The Daily Prophet or The Quibbler, it was a new one he had never heard of before. “What kind of newspaper is The Phoenix Fire?” Harry questioned.
“It was started by the Order to keep its members informed,” she answered with a knowing look toward Harry. Hermione remembered well how frustrated he had been at being kept out of the loop throughout last summer. “Even now that the truth is out about Voldemort, Dumbledore decided the Daily Prophet just isn’t reliable enough to get the full truth out now that there’s a war on. Besides, it gives Professor Lupin something constructive to do.” Harry’s eyes fell upon the name of the editor: R. L. Moony. “As for what else the Order is up to, that’s sort of why I’m here.”
Harry nodded ever so slightly. “I thought so. No sane person would brave a visit to the Dursleys without having a good reason for it.” Hermione looked surprisingly noncommittal. “So come out with it. Why did they decide to send you here?”
“So that I could be your girlfriend,” Hermione answered with a sly smile.