Alright, so I know I promised another chapter by the end of July, but as you can see, that's not quite happening. The next chapter is only halfway done, and I might upload it in mid-August or September. Sorry about that but I've been busy, cuz of university projects and stuff (excuses, excuses, yeah I know, but it's true though ^^")

Instead, here's a special chapter, an omake if you will, to placate you guys. Requested by the 104th reviewer (because the 100th reviewer did not request for anything and TrenchcoatMan reviewed on the same day, and gave me an interesting idea), a prompt for a short story, which I will state at the end of this chapter.

You guys can take this chapter as Second-Chance-(SC)-Canon, but do not worry about spoilers. At most you'll be getting hints on what will happen. I might make references to this chapter later in the story, but this chapter won't actually play a major part in the future of the story. Except maybe giving you guys a glimpse of more character interactions and... well, hints. Haha.

Oh, and many thanks to my new beta... Yukinaru Suzumi~!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything canon to Naruto or Harry Potter.

[ "Normal speech in English/Normal speech in another language ('un-translated')"

"Normal speech in another language ('translated')."

§Parseltongue ('translated' obviously)§

Thoughts/Mind speech/Otherworldly (including prophesies) speech/letter writing/emphasised words

cancelled words (because doesn't seem to allow for strikethrough effects) ]

*Speech/Mind-speech in bold = demon speech/mind-speech

and when something is written in someone else's handwriting but on the same paper e.g. in a letter, it'll be in bold:

[ person A's writing vs person B's writing ]

Special Chapter One: Halcyon Days

And so they fought.

And so they laughed.

Friends.

And before they knew it,

They were inseparable.

July was as blistering hot as usual, and while Harriet remembered a time when months were spent in the humid warmth of Konoha, or the days in the melting sun of Suna, she was nevertheless extremely irritable, sitting in the garden, taking a break from pruning the flowers. Of course, there was no need for her to do any gardening, not when she could probably convince Aunt Petunia to do the work herself, but she soon realised that Aunt Petunia's gardening meant too-straight hedges and too-neat flowerbeds. And she couldn't stand it. It wasn't natural, and made their garden look pretty much like all the other gardens in Privet Drive.

Now if only you would just master that Cooling Charm I taught you, Riddle said patronisingly. Really, it shouldn't be too hard for you to do. I'm not even expecting you to do it non-verbally or wandlessly.

But it is! I don't understand how you can even think about anything cooling in this heat! I think I must have forgotten what the cold is like, Harriet whined.

Don't be dramatic, Riddle chided. You've experienced heat worse than this before. I don't understand why you can't just cast the spell, though I wonder if that mangy ball of fur is responsible for your lack in aptitude for the charm, when you've easily mastered others.

So you're saying it's my fault, eh? You miserable scrap of a soul!

Your fur is practically made of fire. It only makes sense that—

Alright, alright, you two. Shut up. I don't need a headache on top of this bloody heat, Harriet interjected before they could engage in a full-blown quarrel. She hefted the shears in her left hand—just to make sure her non-dominant hand didn't become too disused—and resumed snipping away the dead leaves and flowers of the camellias.

What Riddle suggested sounded plausible, and as an alternative to her pathetic Cooling Charm, she had tried coaxing out a breeze before. She got a face full of hot dry wind instead, and she didn't try it again.

Just as Hari was just about to give up and shower herself with the garden hose, Fuyu cannonballed into the garden before swooping back up towards her in a display of aerial acrobatics.

"Show off," she greeted her snowy owl fondly, and stretched out an arm for the bird to land on. There was a letter tied to the owl's leg, and Hari detached it carefully.

She automatically recognised Hermione's neat and rounded cursive, having looked at her friend's notes more times than she could count (because no matter how much Riddle tries to make her study, her attempts, hindered by her natural aversion to studying, could never compare to the Ravenclaw's).

The letter read:

Dear Hari,

Sorry for the late reply. I'd have sent this the ordinary way—that is, Muggle post—but then I realised I didn't have enough stamps, and when we got back from New Zealand—and yes, it was very nice, absolutely beautiful, thank you—Fuyu was already waiting at my window.

I've received a letter from Ron, and he says you haven't been replying to his mail. Is anything wrong between the two of you?

Apparently his Dad is very keen on exploring Muggle London, but Mr Weasley has never had a proper guide before. Ron's suggesting we have a field trip of sorts to Muggle London, the three of us, his family, and maybe Neville? I'd suggest asking Malfoy as well—and Zabini, perhaps? —Since you two get along quite well and it'd be a good opportunity to properly educate that prat about Muggles, but I'm not sure how well that'd turn out. Ron is rather against the idea, what with their family feud and all.

So, what do you think? It should be fun. We haven't gone out together out of school before.

With love,

From your friend,

Hermione

Hari read the letter twice, frowning as she did so. Ron had been trying to send her letters? Well, she certainly hadn't been receiving any from him. In fact, the only letters she has been receiving were from Sasuke and Hermione. How strange.

She hadn't been very bothered by the lack of letters from her other friends, because well… Neville was still rather shy, and she thought she'd give him some time before he truly opened up to them. And as for Draco, well, she had no idea what his family thought of her. For all she knew, his parents may well be against communicating with her any more than necessary for acquaintanceship, what with her being a half-blood and a Hufflepuff. Not to mention that the trip included their blood-feud-enemy and a 'Mudblood'. Hari had expected to get letters from Ron, but when he didn't write any… she figured it might have something to do with having several other siblings, two of which were Hari's rivals in pranking.

But know that she knew he had tried, and succeeded with Hermione… could her Uncle be responsible for the missing letters? He hated anything magical, and would probably prefer if she had no contact with the Wizarding World… He wouldn't dare touch Fuyu or Takatsuki, but any other letter-carrying bird…

That mystery could be solved later. First, she had to know: Will London be any cooler than here?

London, as it turned out, was only a little more than 35km away from Surrey as the crow flies, and was just as warm. Luckily for Hari, both Hermione and Draco did know how to perform a Cooling Charm.

"I still don't understand why I'm here."

To be honest, Hari wasn't quite sure either, but Draco had agreed without much persuasion needed on her part. Blaise was there with them as well, and Hari wondered if he had been the one to convince the Malfoy boy to come along. In any case, unlike the blonde, the dark-skinned Slytherin seemed to be enjoying himself, teasing Ron until his ears turned red, and making conversation with Hermione about some books that Hari had never heard of before. Unfortunately, Neville didn't come along in the end.

"To learn more about Muggle culture, of course, since you are so woefully lacking in any accurate knowledge about—"

"Yes, Mu-Granger, that is why I was invited. But it doesn't explain why I'm going along with your plan!"

"Really Hermione, I told you this would happen. The git just doesn't appreciate your efforts. I bet he was going to call you a Mudblood earlier!"

"Well he didn't. And it's not as if you appreciate my efforts in making you study harder."

"That's different!"

Hari felt a ticklish breath at her ear, and nearly jumped, cursing her lack of attentiveness to her surroundings. She was an ex-kunoichi for kami's sake!

"Wanna bet they'll get together by the end of fourth year?" Blaise whispered conspiratorially.

Hari glanced at him. "Ron and Hermione?"

"Who else? Draco's straight as far as I know, and he wouldn't go for a blood traitor anyway, let alone a Muggleborn."

Hari chose not to comment on what she now termed as 'bloodism'. Instead, she wondered aloud, as she stared at the arguing 'couple'. "Would they take that long?"

"With Weasley's thickhead, definitely."

Hari hummed, as she rolled the question over to Riddle, who had been silent for some time, probably still in shock at the idea of a Weasley, a Malfoy, a Muggleborn, and the Girl-Who-Lived going window-shopping in Muggle London. Unsupervised. (Mr Weasley had disappeared into a shop selling electrical appliances and both Ron and Mr Weasley had agreed it was best for them to move on without him, because he was bound to spend another hour in there staring at plugs and batteries.) Not to mention that among the children, there was one Gryffindor, two Slytherins, a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw—You could call it House unity, Hebi-sensei, Hari had told him with amused patience. Though it's not as if we're all getting along like one big family. The world's not going to end just yet.

Riddle pondered over the relationship between Ron and Hermione, though to be honest, the two of them knew next to nothing about romance besides what they had observed before as a third party.

In the end Hari took the bet. Both Hari and Blaise agreed upon betting five galleons—not too much money even though the both of them were rich, and not too little either. Draco kept giving them suspicious glances the whole time they spent whispering to each other.

"Keep this up and people will start thinking you're a couple," he commented with a well-practiced sneer to hide his wariness of them. Hari might be a Hufflepuff, but he had learnt a long time ago not to underestimate her.

"We're partners-in-crime, dear Draco," Blaise replied with a chuckle.

"Purely business relationship, you know," Hari added mock-seriously.

Draco threw his hands up in the air dramatically—his father will have a fit seeing him behave like this, Riddle muttered—and groaned, "Seriously, why am I here?"

Hari turned to Blaise. "How did you get him here? And how did you convince Mr Malfoy to let him come?"

Blaise gave her a wide Cheshire-Cat-grin in reply. "Do you know just how useful your name and title are?"

"He convinced Father that all of this is to get into your good books. And he failed to mention that the Weasels and a Mud-Muggleborn would be coming along," Draco elaborated irritably.

"Don't sulk, Draco, it's unbecoming," Hari chided, imitating the mannerisms of a pureblood mother. (Riddle had plenty of memories for her to refer to, having been invited to meet several of his 'friends' families before.)

The blonde merely gave her an unimpressed glare, crossing his arms as he did so. "This place is a mess. There are Muggles everywhere, the horseless carriages make such a horrendous grating cacophony with their screeching and bellowing and rumbling, and no one seems to know how to behave like civilised human beings! I mean, look at those-those vagabonds over there for example! Is that-do you even call that a dance?! And they expect people to pay them for it! And—"

Hari silenced him with a wave of her hand, something she had mastered quite easily after doing it a few times to her uncle with accidental magic. She rarely did such acts of wandless magic, as it only brought unwanted attention to herself, and Riddle had advised her that underestimation of her abilities could only work to their advantage. Still, there were times like this when she'd prefer not to take her wand out in a Muggle public area, and gained herself wide-eyed-looks from her friends.

"We're in Muggle London. Of course there are Muggles everywhere. And those things are called cars. You'll get used to the noise after a while. It's not like Diagon Alley is any quieter than here anyway. And those dancers—yes that is a type of dance—are not vagabonds. Have you heard of the word 'charity'?" Here, Hari gave Draco a pointed look with raised eyebrows, before cancelling the Silencing Charm.

Blaise sniggered as he cut in, waving a newspaper in his hand. "Look, I've bought us a Muggle newspaper. This should be a perfect educational tool for teaching Draco about the Muggle world."

(It should be noted that ironically, Blaise, a proud pureblood, had gotten the hang of using Muggle money faster than Mr Weasley, the fan of all things Muggle.)

Draco scowled at the non-moving pictures on the front page of The Sun. "You expect me to read this piece of—"

"Hey! Check this out!" Ron suddenly yelled, interrupting Draco in his next slew of insults. They turned to look at Ron waving a small orange book, while Hermione tried to grab it from him.

"What a surprise. I didn't know weasels could read," Draco drawled. Hari sighed as Ron's face automatically turned as red as her mother's hair (didn't matter if it was Kushina or Lily, they both had hair redder than a Weasley).

"So what's this amazing book that managed to catch your attention when all others failed?" Blaise asked, walking over.

Ron gave Draco a dark look before holding out the book for all of them to see. "I'm not sure, but from the cover, I think it's about romance. For some reason, it's in Japanese, and I don't understand these… funny lines and squiggles. But guess what? It's written by Asher Merit!"

"Um, who?" Hari asked as she tried to look over Draco's shoulder at the book.

"Oh, I read about him! He's the Auror who is known for his efficiency when hunting down dark wizards and his well-rounded spell repertoire. And he knows five different languages!" Hermione said.

"So Japanese must be one of them," Ron said. "Dad always said he was a weird one."

"How is knowing Japanese weird?" Hari demanded. "I know some Japanese."

"You do?" Ron blurted at the same time as Malfoy muttered, "You are weird."

"So you can read some of this then?" Hermione asked, practically shoving the book in front of Hari's face in her enthusiasm at the prospect of learning something new.

Hari stared at the book in front of her.

And froze.

Then, with forced calmness, she turned to the newsstand. "Are there any other books like this one?"

Ron peered at the books on display, then pointed at one of them. "Nope. But there is another Japanese book here. Written by someone called Loki… Hayes. Hayes. Why does that sound familiar?"

"It's a Grey pureblood family in Norway. Well, officially, they're Grey, but really. They're about as Dark as the Blacks are," Draco said.

"Oh, of course you would know some Dark family from another country," Ron said rudely. "All of you best friends with You-Know-Who. I bet you're all pen pals, exchanging letters on how to suck up to him and avoid getting caught."

"My father was under the Imperius! And I'll have you know; our family only knows the Hayes because our great-grandparents used to be friends, before the Hayes moved to Norway."

"Yeah right. You just admitted it! Your families are friends!"

"Used to be. Salazar, you're deaf, aren't you? No wonder—"

"That's enough!" Hari interrupted. "Shut up before I silence the two of you."

Ron gave her a betrayed look. "But Malfoy—that slimy git—didn't you hear him? He—"

"Of course she did. And I bet she has better hearing than you! Look at that, a Lion being inferior to a Badger! Why, I'd—"

Hari sighed, long and hard. She turned to Blaise and Hermione. "There's no stopping them, is there?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "I'm actually surprised they've only just started."

Blaise nodded along. "I was surprised from the very beginning when Draco actually managed to keep his mouth shut upon seeing Mr Weasley. I mean, I nearly vomited when I saw that atrocious Muggle attire! You girls have got to teach him some fashion sense!"

"We'll… try," Hermione said faintly, no doubt recalling the horrid old-fashioned Muggle clothes that Mr Weasley had somehow put together, with colours that clashed horribly with his ginger-red hair. None of them had wanted to tell the excited and very pleased man about his failure at dressing up however.

"Back to the original topic. What's this book about?" Blaise said, gesturing to the book that Hermione was still holding.

Hari coughed uncomfortably. "It's… um… Don't read it. Just… don't read it."

Hermione eyed the book critically. "Have you read it before?"

"No," Hari replied hastily. "But I know of someone who has read it before."

Liar, Riddle pointed out, sounding very amused. You know, I didn't think you were the type to—

No! I read it out of curiosity! And it turned out to be quite useful! Hari protested. When Riddle merely chuckled, she groaned.

Nonono! I don't know what you're thinking, but that's not it! It's just… ugh. Kurama, show him the memories of the second bell-test.

Aloud, she added, "But I have read the other one before. The one on that shelf that Ron pointed at just now."

Blaise took the book off the shelf and flipped through the pages. "Really? So what's this one about?"

"A boy named after some fishcake, but he's kinda cool, because eh… Actually, he's Gryffindor-ish, so he has this noble goal of wanting to destroy this 'curse' that—"

"You need to work on your book-recommendation skills, Hari," Blaise observed. "Never mind. I'll check it out myself. I'll just have to get my mother to teach me some Japanese."

"Your mother knows Japanese?" Hermione questioned, amazed.

He gave her a flat look. "With the number of husbands she's had, it's not a wonder she picked up a language or two."

Hermione shut up after that.

The rest of the trip passed by uneventfully (after Hari silenced the two arguing boys before they could start hexing each other), and they went their separate ways after meeting up with Mr Weasley and having dinner at a Muggle fast food outlet.

—Ronald? As in…?

—No, Mr Weasley, it's MacDonald's, not MacRonald.

—McDonagall?

—Don-ald. Mac-Don-ald.

—Can I have a McLaggen meal?

—What? No! Zabini, don't encourage him.

—Isn't that the Griffindork one year above us?

—G-Gri-Griffindork?

—Ron, that isn't worth turning your ears red over. Excuse me, can I have two McLaggens please?

—Hariii!

It was a cold day in November—autumn was giving way to winter with clouded skies and frosty wind—when Blaise found her before classes and told her he'd finished the book, as well as figured out what the other dubious book was about.

"You have a friend who reads that thing?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Hari merely shrugged in response.

"Anyway, you sure you read this book before?" Blaise continued, waving the book he had bought.

Hari frowned slightly. "Yeah, why?"

"Hmm… Your book-recommendation skills really need work. Unless you meant 'curse' in a metaphorical way. And the main character's not a boy, it's a girl."

"… A girl…?"

"Yes, and I thought it'd have some cliché plot with a happily-ever-after ending, but it's surprisingly good. Even if the main character is practically a Gryff. I certainly didn't expect it to be a tragedy."

Hari stared blankly at him. "What?"

He stared back at her oddly. "Are you really sure you've read this book before?"

She gingerly took the book from him and flipped to a random page. Then flipped to another random page. And another random page. What. The. Hell?!

Then she closed the book and looked up, face carefully expressionless. "Yeah, I've read it before. Must have confused it with another one I've read."

Blaise glanced at her suspiciously. "Okay… If you say so…"

"But I'd like to borrow it. Can I?"

"… Of course, if you'll let me borrow your owl for a bit."

"My owl? Don't you have one? Or at least a family one?"

"Fuyu is the smartest owl I've met thus far," Blaise replied rather vaguely.

Hari raised an eyebrow, not needing Riddle to tell her what the Slytherin boy could possibly use her owl for. "… All right. As long as you're not sending her to some dangerous place or some dangerous person."

"Deal." They shook on it, and Blaise handed Hari the book, before they headed off for their respective classes.

When Blaise was just about to round a corner, he turned back and called out, "You're really sure you've read it before?"

Hari laughed. "Yes, I'm sure."

After all, this is my life story you're talking about here.

Anyone noticed the various references I've made here? If you haven't don't worry. You might get it later XD.

And here we go, the prompt I was given:

'Harriet and co were out for summer break, just after their first year at Hogwarts, Draco was complaining about how noisy Muggle London was and Ron was browsing some books on a news stand when he picks up a book and shows Draco: "Hey, look at this, looks good!" and everyone turns to see what the red-headed boy was talking about and Harriet's eyes go wide when she see's Ron holding 'Icha Icha Paradise' Book One'.'

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this. I might move this chapter to a 'new story' if there are many more of these special chapters, sort of like a 'story' featuring a collection of SC-canon (and maybe non-canon?) omake.

Anyway, how was it? Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are all welcome~! If you have any questions or notice something you would like to clarify about or point out, feel free to put them into your review or PM me. I will try my best to answer them.

Now, addressing (Guest) reviews... Assuming you guys read this chapter...

To Yukon x zerr, hari, xxheart, and to lazy to log i: Thanks for the reviews~! I'm pleased you guys have enjoyed the story thus far.

To Yukonmademeread: Just curious, who are your cousins? Haha help me thank them for recommending this fic? I'm very flattered.

To shu: Sasuke... will probably not make another appearance until later. Sorry about that ^^"

To Emlights: Yes, she's probably going to be training, both in magic and jutsu. Haha, wait till someone attacks her. Her first instinct will still probably be a ninja response, considering she has been a kunoichi far longer than she has been a witch.

To the Guest who reviewed on April 26: Thank you~! I'm glad to know there's character development. I do try, you see ^^" but i'll never know if I really succeed until you guys review. So once again, thanks!

And to all other future guest reviewers, it'd be greatly appreciated if you would leave a name behind for me to address, especially if you're going to ask a question. It can even be just a number or a letter. You know, to differentiate you guys from one another? So I don't end up naming you guys based on the date you review?

Oh, and before I forget, thank you, all of you, for the support thus far XD Please be patient for the next chapter. I will not be on a permanent hiatus anytime soon, so don't worry.