After sampling the best TexMex cuisine London had to offer, Harry Potter decided that he and Hermione didn’t need to do that again for the rest of the summer. ‘Or ever,’ he thought as he remembered his singed mouth. After lunch, Hermione had suggested that they watch a production of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, so that they could take in a little bit of London culture. Much to their surprise, however, the show turned out to be a very funny send up of the famed English playwright’s works. Harry looked over at Hermione to make sure she was having a good time. To his great relief, she seemed to be laughing and enjoying herself along with everyone else.
Curiosity weighed on Harry’s mind as they exited the theatre. “You seemed to get a lot more of those bits than I did, Hermione. Are you a Shakespeare fan?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I read all of his plays when I was a little girl. Although my favourite’s ‘The Tempest,’” Hermione remarked with a somewhat dreamy, Luna Lovegood-esque look on her face.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of that one,” Harry admitted with some reluctance, hoping that she wouldn’t launch into a complete retelling of the story.
“I think you’d like it,” Hermione replied, a strange smile coming over her face. “It’s about a wizard who lives on an island with his daughter, who’s kind of like a squib because she doesn’t have any magical powers. The only company she’s ever known is a sprite and a kind of fish monster. So naturally she’s fascinated when a bunch of muggles show up on the island.”
“Shakespeare wrote about wizards, squibs and muggles?” Harry asked in disbelief.
“Not using those words,” Hermione scolded him lightly. She looked away from Harry again and let out a long sigh. “It’s so romantic when Miranda sees Ferdinand for the first time, the first real man she’s seen her whole life. And then they fall in love, of course…it must have been so lonely for her.”
For some reason, this entire conversation was making Harry uncomfortable. He also began to notice that they were walking along the streets of London although they didn’t seem to be headed anywhere in particular. “Uh…Hermione?” He hadn’t yet captured her attention. “Hermione!” She finally met Harry’s eyes. “Where to next?”
“Oh right,” Hermione said with a slight blush. “Well…I guess I should consult the guide again. There was a charming little museum around here somewhere…”
The sound of the word ‘museum’ sent Harry’s eyes darting around for an acceptable substitute activity. He finally settled on something that he wasn’t sure Hermione would go for, but which seemed unusually alluring to him. A crowd of people about their age was queued up in front of a nightclub. Harry began slowly guiding Hermione towards it while she flipped idly through her guide to muggle London. “Why don’t we try this place?” Harry suggested offhandedly as they began to approach the line to enter.
Hermione’s head snapped up as if someone had just suggested she’d cheated on a test. “‘Serpent’s Tooth’,” she read aloud. A frown crossed her face, as her fingers changed position within the large tome in her hands. “Let me see if it’s listed in here.”
Harry let out an overly dramatic sigh. “Can’t you… er, we just be spontaneous for once?” He raised his eyebrows at her expectantly.
“Oh, alright,” Hermione replied with a small permissive smile. “I suppose it could be fun.” As they got into the queue, she added as if in her own defense, “Besides, the name is a clever ‘King Lear’ reference.”
Deciding not to touch that remark, Harry waited patiently with Hermione, who was still flipping through the guide, until a few of their fellow teenagers (some of whom were dressed much more, er, festively than they were) filtered into the entrance in front of them. After a few minutes, they got to the front of the line. A tall, lanky man in his early twenties with silver hair looked them over with disdain. He put his right palm against Harry’s chest as he attempted to enter. “No way.”
“What?!” Harry exclaimed. “Why not?”
The man let out a contemptuous snort. “Not only are you probably underage, but the two of you look like rejects from a library. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone stand in queue with a book before,” he said, indicating Hermione.
Harry felt the crowd behind him growing restless. “Look, this is our first outing on our own in London,” Harry explained in what he hoped was an impressive manner. “We’re just looking for a good time.” Hermione even put her book away as if to prove it.
The silver-maned man looked as though he was going to say something else nasty until another man stepped in front of him. At first, Harry thought it was Professor Snape, but upon closer examination the man was too young (probably in his mid-twenties), he sported a goatee that Snape would never dream of growing, not to mention that he was wearing a smile. But his dark clothing, large nose and long, greasy black hair gave him a very Snape-like appearance. “Oh, let them in, Marty. They look as though they need to let their hair down.”
A sour expression crossed ‘Marty’s face. “If you say so, Mr. Moseby,” he replied mechanically. Harry and Hermione entered without further incident. Unless you counted the fact that the place was so packed once they were in there that they could hardly move. The two of them did their best to make it upstairs, off of the main floor, but found themselves constantly shoved back in the direction of the dance floor, where a massive, pulsating group of their peers seemed to be enjoying themselves quite a lot.
“I guess we should dance then,” Harry yelled at Hermione. Hermione gave him a suspicious look, as if somehow he had planned this all along in order to humiliate her publicly. She eventually agreed and the two of them began doing their best to mimic the other dancers on the floor.
Harry wasn’t very good. Much to his surprise, however, Hermione wasn’t bad. She didn’t have much time to show off, however, as Harry trampled on a tall brunette with purple streaks in her hair, who just happened to be dancing with Mr. Moseby, the man who had allowed the two of them into the club in the first place. As he backed away awkwardly, Hermione steered him to what finally looked like a clear path away from the floor.
The two of them quickly made their way upstairs. Taking a seat, Hermione picked up a small card that lay in the middle of their table and was reading it over when Harry decided to make conversation. “Where did you learn to dance like that, Hermione?” Hermione couldn’t hear him the first time over the music, so he repeated himself in a louder tone of voice.
“France,” Hermione answered simply and loudly. Her eyes turned back to the floor filled with dancing teens below them. “Not exactly the Yule Ball, is it?”
“What?!” Harry asked, holding his hand to his ear. Hermione folded her arms and looked frustrated. Grabbing the card she had been looking at earlier and a quill she had been hiding somewhere on her person, she wrote something on it and passed it to Harry. “Let’s get out of here and go somewhere we can talk,” it read. Harry turned the card over and read the front. “Why did King Arthur turn down a date with Westminster Abbey?” There was no answer to the strange-seeming question, but Harry decided to take Hermione’s advice and get out of there. Maybe this had been a bad idea, after all.
As they walked back downstairs to leave the club, the man who looked like Snape stood in front of them, blocking their path. Harry gulped, but tried to look brave. However, Mr. Moseby didn’t seem to be angry. He offered both of them another warm smile. “Come back anytime,” he offered kindly, and then moved out of their way, leaving them both looking perplexed as they made their way back onto the streets of London.
***
“Are you certain this is a shortcut?” Harry Potter asked Hermione Granger with exasperation evident in his voice. “I think we’ve passed this tree before.”
Hermione was unperturbed. “If I’m reading this map correctly,” and her tone left no doubt that she was, “the street where we parked should be right beyond this…” She pointed first, looked at where she was pointing second and then pretended as though what she was actually pointing at was what she meant to. “lake… over here.”
Harry let a slight grin escape his face. “Right.” As he took in their surroundings, Harry couldn’t help but be struck by how picturesque the night was. A half-moon hung above a cloudless sky and reflected beautifully off of the shimmering surface of the lake. A small grove of trees cast a canopy around the shoreline and a thin, curvy paved road ran parallel to it. Their feet seemingly moving of their own accord, Harry and Hermione ambled slowly along the path so that they faced the middle of the lake.
They stood there in silence for a few minutes, taking everything in. It was a nice moment, tranquil and happy, something that Harry Potter, boy wizard prodigy destined to end the reign of terror of Lord Voldemort, wasn’t used to. Sure there were fun times, when he was at the Burrow or playing Quidditch, but those were hardly relaxing. And the quiet moments, when he had some down time, were usually dull. So this was something Harry definitely wasn’t used to. A nice moment.
But, of course, he had to go and spoil it. “I miss him,” Harry confessed in a whisper.
The words hung in the air for a few seconds, as a large weight seemingly descended on them both. The problems of the wizarding world promptly returned to their minds. “I know you do,” Hermione replied and there was no question as to who they were talking about: Sirius Black. It was nice having a friend who could practically read your mind. Harry soon found Hermione’s reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“He was like a brother to my father. He was my only connection to my parents, to the lives that they led. And he suffered more because of their deaths than I did. I…I loved him.” Harry hadn’t expected to be pouring his heart out like this, particularly not to Hermione. But then again, now that Sirius was gone, was there anyone besides Hermione who he would feel comfortable talking about this with? Upon consideration, Harry thought not.
“You know it wasn’t…” Hermione started, but she stopped herself before he could. He didn’t need to hear “your fault”, he just needed the sentiment behind it expressed aloud.
Harry nodded slowly. “I know.” Silence fell again. The intimate friendship between them was palpable as he gave her an appreciative half-smile and Hermione’s hand had not left his arm. It was another nice moment and Harry wasn’t about to spoil it
Turns out he didn’t have to. Hermione did it for him. “I’m thinking of asking Ron out,” she said suddenly.
As far as Harry’s brain was concerned, she might have just announced that she was going to try to fly to Mars on a broomstick. “Asking Ron out? You mean, out on a date?”
“Of course, Harry,” Hermione retorted, removing her hand from his arm so she could give it a light and playful punch. “There’s been…something…between us for a while now. Of course, he’s been too thick to really see it, but I thought you would have picked up on it by now. You’re usually much more sensitive about these things.”
‘You know all about the Martian SuperBroom, don’t you Harry?’ seemed to be reverberating around his mind. When did this happen? I mean, sure there were all of those arguments and there was protectiveness of Hermione on the part of Ron (although Ron was perhaps the single most partisan and possessive individual Harry had ever met). He soon became aware of a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t jealousy, as Harry wished both of his best friends all of the happiness in the world. Instead, it felt somewhat similar to how he felt about Sirius’ death: that something special had been lost, possibly before he had even really experienced it.
Harry just now became conscious of the fact that he had been standing there in front of Hermione, mouth agape, saying nothing for about twenty seconds. He closed his mouth and tried to think of some way to respond. There wasn’t anything he wanted to say, but he had to say something. “That’s great, Hermy,” he heard some voice that sounded roughly like his own say. “I hope you and Don are really together happy.”
“Are you feeling alright, Harry?” Hermione asked with a frown as she placed her hand to his forehead. “You look flushed.”
“I’m fine,” he replied, turning away from Hermione quickly, although he felt his face go hotter.
“No you’re not,” Hermione said in an authoritative tone of voice she usually saved for the classroom, as she stepped in front of Harry, practically shoving her face in front of his. “That’s why I wanted to bring this up now, before I actually asked him. I thought you might feel this way.”
Harry felt a great knot in his stomach, as if his insides were being transported by portkey while leaving his skin and bones behind. Hermione knew how he felt? How? And if she did, could she maybe explain it to him? “Er, what way?” Harry asked lamely.
“Excluded. Like a third wheel. Isolated. Alone.” Hermione’s words seemed to cut at his heart like a dagger. She was right. Why was she right? Happiness for Ron and Hermione was something that would naturally make Harry happy too, wasn’t it? “It’s been something that you’ve struggled with for most of your life, hasn’t it? Ron told me about what you saw in the Mirror of Erised. That a family was what you wanted most.” Why was Hermione saying this? And why did it seem like the most compelling thing in the world right now to Harry? “Other than the Dursleys, who I know are horrid to you and always have been, the only family you’ve had is Sirius…and us.”
“Us?” Harry repeated mindlessly. The two of them had been moving closer together without either of them really noticing. Their heads hadn’t been that far apart to begin with.
“Us,” Hermione said again in a muted voice. What were they doing? “And…and you’ve lost Sirius already…you don’t want to lose…” She couldn’t make herself say the rest. Their lips were dangerously close and they weren’t getting any further apart. Kissage seemed imminent.
Hermione’s brain, however, had other plans. “The Lady of the Lake,” she interrupted suddenly.
Harry looked at her as though she had suddenly suggested that they both apparate to Madagascar for the weekend. Actually, that might have been more in keeping with the moment. “What?” Harry asked, completely perplexed.
“Westminster Abbey is where English kings are crowned, but that was after King Arthur’s time. It was the Lady of the Lake’s presentation of Excalibur to Arthur that made him king,” Hermione announced as if it had something to do with anything that had been going on in the last few minutes. “So King Arthur turned down a date with Westminster Abbey because he’d been crowned by the Lady of the Lake.”
Something was buzzing inside Harry’s mind, but he couldn’t quite pin it down. As he got ready to ask Hermione what in the world she was going on about this time, he caught a glimpse of something odd out of the corner of his eye. It was a girl, about their age, thrashing about in the lake below them. “I don’t believe it,” Harry exclaimed.
“I know,” Hermione replied with a look of disgust on her face. “Jokes about domestic violence towards men aren’t any funnier than the ones about women.” Harry didn’t bother to reply to that, but instead took off towards where the girl was to get a closer look. It was as he feared. She was drowning.