“The shower gets wonky with the hot water sometimes. If it gets too hot, just jiggle the handle, and it resets itself,” Harry said.
“Jiggle the handle,” Ron repeated blankly.
“Yeah,” Harry said absently, opening the window to let in the owl delivering the Daily Prophet. He paid for the paper and turned back to find Ron still sitting there.
“What?”
“I can’t just tell the shower how hot I want it to be?” Ron asked, although it sounded more like a whine.
Harry remembered his first summer at the Burrow, when he was twelve and standing naked in Ron’s shower, completely perplexed over the lack of a handle to turn the water off and on. He’d broken out in goose bumps before it had finally occurred to him simply to ask the water to begin spraying.
Taking pity on his friend, he grinned and said, “Come on. I’ll show you how the common folk live.”
By the time Ron had finished with his shower and returned to Harry’s room (with the echo of Aunt Petunia huffing over the waste of water), Hermione had returned from her visit to Diagon Alley.
She burst into the room in a foul temper, angrily swiping the hair from her face. She dropped a heavy load of books onto Harry’s rickety old desk and plopped a box full of more pastries than even Ron could eat onto the bed.
“Your relatives weren’t hungry, so there’s plenty to eat,” she said stiffly.
Harry really tried his best not to grin. Really.
“What did they do? Throw them at you?” he asked.
“They’re under the impression that I did something to the pastries. Honestly, Harry, I can’t believe that you ever tried to poison them, so I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” she sniffed.
“They hate anything – and anyone – associated with magic. It has nothing to do with you, Hermione. It’s just how they are,” Harry replied, shrugging his shoulders.
Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “Well, that’s just as bigoted and narrow-minded as the Malfoys’ view of Muggles.”
Harry supposed she was right. “Yeah. Now that you mention it, I think Dudley and Malfoy could have actually been mates.”
“There’s an unpleasant thought,” said Ron with a grimace. He’d already opened the box of pastries and held one in each hand. He took a bite of one, causing jam to squirt up on the side of his face. He slowly licked it off. “Mmmm, this is brilliant. I love you, Hermione.”
Hermione’s cheeks turned pink as she hurriedly looked away and selected her own pastry.
Harry wasn’t certain what was happening between his two best friends. He’d thought that maybe they’d come to some sort of an understanding at Dumbledore’s funeral, but they hadn’t said anything to him. In fact, they were acting pretty much the same as they always did – except for a lot more blushing.
He didn’t know how he felt about it. He wanted his friends to be happy, but the idea of sitting on the sidelines and watching them fall in love while his own heart was aching was more than he could bear.
Ginny.
Things were different for Ron and Hermione, though. They were together on this quest for the Horcruxes. They were a team and worked much better with each other than apart. Harry watched his friends out of the corner of his eye as he ate his own pastry. Ron was doing a good job on both of his, but Harry noticed him pausing every once in a while to sneak a glance at Hermione. For her part, Hermione was much more discreet, but she was also copping her fair share of peeks at Ron. Harry thought there must be some powerful feelings between them if Hermione could distract Ron from food.
It was different for Ginny and him, though, wasn’t it? He had to protect her…she was better off far away from him. Still, the battle raged within his mind. For those few weeks that they’d shared together, he’d felt as if he could conquer anything. He’d felt so much stronger when she’d been by his side.
No! Stop!
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t even allow his traitorous heart to think it. Ginny shouldn’t be anywhere near him.
He had to be the one to do this thing. Even if Ron and Hermione were with him on the hunt for the Horcruxes, he had absolutely no intention whatsoever of letting them get anywhere near Voldemort when the final battle raged. He’d take Voldemort out, and maybe die in the process, but he’d be certain that neither of his friends was anywhere near him when that happened. He could never allow any of them to become another spare. Especially Ginny.
An image rose unbidden in his mind of Cedric’s lifeless eyes staring from his crumpled body in a graveyard. Harry shuddered as his mind played a trick and warped the body into Ginny. Her warm, brown eyes – eyes that could melt an iceberg – stared blankly, almost accusingly, through him. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t.
He glanced up at Ron and Hermione in time to see Hermione use a napkin to wipe away the jam that still remained on the corner of Ron’s mouth.
It would be wrong of Harry to begrudge them this happiness, no matter how much his heart ached to see it. Hadn’t Professor McGonagall said that Professor Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think there was a little more love in the world?
He’d personally told Harry that love was his greatest strength, so why was he pushing it away?
No!
It was different for Ginny and him. Everything was always different for him, and he’d only end up getting her killed, or forcing her to watch as he died. No. It was better for her own sake to keep her away. He’d never want her to have to suffer the kind of horror and pain that he’d felt when he’d watched Sirius slip through that Veil.
Harry shook his head, steeling his resolve. This was the way it had to be.
“Okay.” Hermione’s voice dragged Harry out of his thoughts. “Let’s start with this room. It definitely needs some improvements.” She scowled as her gaze roamed around the stacks of broken toys cluttered in the corner and the rundown condition of Harry’s small bed. She withdrew her wand from her sleeve.
“We can’t use magic,” Harry said quickly. “The Ministry can’t detect who is doing the magic, only that it’s being done here, and I’ll get another reprimand. Dumbledore told me that’s why I got the letter when Dobby levitated my aunt’s pudding.”
“Not to worry, mate,” Ron said, his mouth still full of pastry. “My dad said he’d inform Matilda Hopkirk at the Ministry that Hermione and I were staying here this summer, and we’re both of age.”
“So…then…they won’t do anything if I use my wand, either. Right?” Harry asked, furrowing his brow.
“No, Harry,” Hermione said firmly. “You’re still underage, and we have to play by the rules if we want to avoid any trouble from the Ministry. They could still use a Priori Incantatum to see if your wand has been used. Let Ron and me handle the spells while we’re here.”
Harry scowled, feeling that old, familiar resentment arise within his heart. Dumbledore had always tried to shield him, and look at how well that turned out in the end. “Yeah. I’ll just sit back and be a good little boy – like I always do.”
“Right,” Ron said, choking slightly on a piece of his pastry. “You’re so good at staying out of trouble. It’s not our fault you’re such a young ‘un.”
A reluctant smile spread across Harry’s face. “Shut it,” he mumbled, but it was no use. It was impossible to stay in a foul mood when he had Ron and Hermione here with him on Privet Drive.
“So…what kind of changes do you have in mind?” he asked, looking back at Hermione.
“Oh, something like this,” Hermione said much too casually, as if she’d been thinking of nothing else since she’d arrived. She waved her wand toward the mess of Dudley’s old things in the corner and vanished them completely.
She turned towards Harry’s desk, and, with a brief flick of her wand, the chipped, sagging old wood transfigured into a polished cherry and doubled in size. Shiny brass knobs appeared on the drawers, and a small bookshelf formed on the top.
Harry’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Nice transfiguration, Hermione.”
She wasn’t finished. She turned her wand towards his bed – really, just a threadbare old mattress on top of a box spring that sagged in the middle. It immediately transformed into a replica of his beloved four-poster bed at Hogwarts, complete with a fluffy red duvet.
Harry felt as if his face would burst from smiling so wildly. “Wicked,” he said.
Hermione aimed her wand at the window. The bolts that had once held bars in place disappeared, and the window adjusted itself so the panes could swing outward, letting in a nice summer breeze. Heavy curtains in a shade of red that matched his bed linens appeared, tied back with gold braids.
Harry had never had curtains in his room before, and honestly, he’d never really even noticed. He was stunned at the difference it made.
“Oh, I know what I want to do with that,” Ron said, sounding disgusted.
Harry turned to see him pointing towards the cat flap on the door.
“What is it?” Hermione asked.
Ron answered before Harry could change the subject. “They used to shove his food through there when they locked him up after first year.”
Hermione’s lips thinned into slivers. “What did you have in mind, Ron?” she asked, her voice sounding extremely shrill.
“Remember that drive-through place your parents took us to yesterday?” Ron asked, grinning.
Hermione’s face lit up with a memory. “I know exactly what you have in mind,” she said.
Harry frowned. He did want them together, but he wasn’t certain that he liked this secret language that only they appeared to understand. “Erm?”
Hermione flicked her wand again, but the cat flap appeared unchanged.
“Did it work?” asked Ron.
“Try it,” replied Hermione.
Ron lay down on his belly in front of the door.
“What are you doing?” Harry asked, perplexed.
“I’d like three cheeseburgers and some crisps, please,” Ron said, speaking to the cat flap.
Before Harry even had the chance to ask Ron if he’d gone mad, the food Ron had requested slid from the flap on the door. Harry blinked in surprise.
“Have a nice day,” a voice echoed from the cat flap.
Hermione grinned, and Ron looked as if he’d died and went to heaven. He unwrapped a cheeseburger and took a bite. “Mmmm.”
“What do you think, Harry?” Hermione asked.
Harry had yet to remove his eyes from the cat flap. Slowly, a delighted grin spread across his face. “I think the smell of that food alone will drive Dudley mad.”
“It’s cold down here on the floor, though,” Ron said, his voice muffled with burger. “Can you do something about that, Hermione?”
Hermione flicked her wand yet again, and a lush soft carpet covered the floor. “It’s going to be a bit crowded in here, though,” Hermione said thoughtfully before closing her eyes.
Harry’s eyes widened as the walls began to shift outward, enlarging the room to nearly double its original size. Quickly, Hermione transfigured Ron’s conjured camp bed into a duplicate of his bed at Hogwarts. “There,” Hermione said with an air of satisfaction.
“My aunt is going to flip,” Harry said with glee.
“The house won’t appear any different from the outside, so it’s only if they come in here that they’ll notice,” Hermione said.
“Oh, believe me, Aunt Petunia will be sticking her head in. I’m certain the curiosity over what we’re doing up here is killing her,” Harry said grimly.
Hermione bit her lip. “She won’t be angry, will she?”
“Of course she will,” Harry said happily. “Not only did we perform magic, but now my room is nicer than Dudley’s. She’ll despise it.”
Hermione frowned. “That certainly can’t be a reason, Harry. She doesn’t like the magic, but she’s coming around now because of Dudley.”
“Okay,” he replied. He knew Hermione was only setting herself up for disappointment. He only hoped his relatives wouldn’t be too hard on her. He didn’t want to see them hurt her; she was truly trying to
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