Over the next few weeks, Harry explained the finer points of Defense Against the Dark Arts to the Weasley twins, enabling them to develop one of their best selling product lines, one that consisted of General Shield Paraphernalia, or ParaShield for short. It constantly generated a trip ward six feet around it at all times, that when tripped by a jinx, would put a Protego up that would last for an hour if it wasn't shattered before that. They sold multitudinous versions of it, from rings to hats to gloves, and they sold like hot cakes as the Ministry built up the Voldemort scare, in an attempt to convince the populace to forget that they had denied it for so long in their fright.
It had been a sort of awkward conversation when he had tried to explain to Fred and George exactly why he didn't really feel like telling people his "real" name, as they hadn't believed him that he was valuable enough to the cause against Voldemort that he hadn't wanted to reveal his real name of Mortimer Saignant. In the end, he had had to tell them that he was a special operative sent from the United States in order to infiltrate the magical community before they would accept that even if they didn't believe him, they wouldn't be getting a better answer.
It had been a sort of awkward conversation when he had tried to explain to himself exactly why he didn't really feel like telling people his real name, and how he had managed to come up with apparently believable lies so quickly. In the end, he had decided that it was because of the sheer necessity of the situation, and the necessity of the situation had appeared from the fact that he had needed a way out from his stress-filled environment, and a world in which there was an alternate him to pick up the slack was far too inviting for him to ruin it.
He had briefly entertained the idea that this entire world was simply a figment of his imagination, but decided that that was ridiculous on the grounds that dreams lasted only as long as the sleep, and that he would have had to be sleeping for a ridiculously long period of time, and he hadn't had any of the usual symptoms of syncope, which he considered would be the only way that he could become asleep while walking. He also doubted that his mind was innovative enough to come up with the stuff that Fred and George did every day.
Harry spent the galleons that he earned from working with Fred and George in several different ways. He used part of them on lunch with Flyfeather, which they had made into a daily thing, except on weekends, when Flyfeather had the day off, and Harry party-hopped with Katie. Through Flyfeather, Harry began to learn Gobbledegook insults, and useless phrases like, "Your bum is on the man," from which, like adolescents, they derived great entertainment. Through Katie, Harry made many connections that he had never formed in the previous world, with whom he had never met. On the rare days that were Bank Holidays for goblins, Harry perused the Wards section of one of the many bookstores on Diagon Alley. Another part, he bought himself necessities that had been left behind in his own world, like clothes and various toiletries. Another part of the galleons, he saved up, and for the rest of it, he rented an owl in order to mail Hera.
They had started an interesting correspondence, where Harry sent her materials, and she responded with descriptions of how she had used them against Dudley, or tailored them to be more effective, and Harry told her about his work with Fred and George, and his lunches with Flyfeather. He had considered telling her about the various parties that he had gone to, but had decided that it would be a painful reminder of everything she couldn't do as long as she was trapped in Surrey. Besides, he didn't need to tell her everything that went on in his life, it was enough that he would be there for his other-self whenever she needed him, he had concluded. As it was, they each lived vicariously through each other, and had a great time of it. It was an odd state of affairs, the double–blind over everyone except the Weasleys and Flyfeather, and the triple–blind over everyone save himself.
Harry slowly but steadily worked through the books that he had retrieved from the Potter Vault, and thought that he would be ready to do serious warding by Christmas, considering the rate that he was going at the moment, and assuming that he would have even less time during school, which he was in the middle of making plans to attend.
Harry was waiting for the ink to dry on his missive to the Headmaster, requesting a scholarship to Hogwarts, when a plain brown owl swooped in, dropped off a familiar vanilla coloured envelope with pale green writing, and flew off again. He picked it up warily, almost afraid that it wasn't real, and in a way wondering who it would be addressed to. The envelope was strangely heavy, and was addressed toWhomever,atWeasley HQ,2, London. Surprised, he ripped it open, revealing many galleons, and a brief letter that simply read:
Be at Platform 9 and 3/4 on September 1st. Your list of necessary books and supplies is included, as are funds. Madame Malkins can be trusted, and is holding your invisibility cloak. Do not under any circumstances talk to anyone about anything in that store who is not Madame Malkins.
Anno Domini
PS: Include your name, we need it for your schedules.You must take NEWT Defense and NEWT Potions.
The end of the letter was written intensely, almost furiously, and Harry noticed that nearly every sentence was written in the imperative form. Judging by the initials AD, and the distinctively loopy handwriting, Anno Domini was Professor Dumbledore. It was a little shocking that he was so commanding, which was such a complete change from who he was in Harry's 'Old World', but it made a weird sort of sense to receive a letter just as he was thinking of him. The slightly shady circumstances, and that Harry would need an invisibility cloak made Harry wonder if this Dumbledore was somehow connected to his travel from his world to this one, but decided that he would think about it when the time came for it. He was having too much fun in this world to wonder what had become of his old one. He briefly considered the Prophecy, and realized that he should feel guilty about not fulfilling it for Dumbledore, but also realized that he didn't at all. It was enough for him that this world, and more importantly, Hera, would be safe, after Hera defeated Voldemort.
Quickly quashing thoughts as to why Hera was more important than the world, Harry dumped the contents of the envelope out, revealing OWL scores. Wondering what Dumbledore had fabricated for him, he looked at the scores, and was surprised to see, that he had received O's in Potions, Herbology, and Care of Magical Creatures, an EE in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ancient Runes and Astronomy, and an A on History of Magic, Transfiguration, and Charms. "Bugger," Harry whispered. He had always liked Charms, so it was a pity that Dumbledore hadn't seen fit to qualify him for the Charms NEWT course. He could always study it on his own, of course, but there was a difference between being able to say to a potential employer, "I studied some charms!" and being able to say to a potential employer, "I got an O on my Charms NEWT!"
After weighing his options, he decided to go with NEWT Care of Magical Creatures, NEWT Ancient Runes, which he had had to start learning anyways, for the Runes work, and regular Charms, in addition to NEWT Potions and NEWT Defense. He wrote in neat cursive, 'Brian Wilson', as he had long ago decided that Brian Wilson would be his Hogwarts persona, and that Mortimer Saignant would be his working name. Giving it back to the owl, the owl began its long journey back to Hogwarts.
Harry lay on his pillow, and contemplated his future. In his old world, he had never really done it, because when he was eleven or twelve, he was still too interested in the now to worry about the later, and when he was thirteen and fourteen, he had been busy being angry over not being able to live with Sirius, and wondering why anyone ever had to die at all. Even in the part of the summer before Harry had . . . moved, he had spent an exorbitant amount of time contemplating his own role in Sirius' death, as well as how he could possibly defeat one of the most powerful wizards of the century. Now, he had the opportunity to wonder whether he would enjoy working with wards for the rest of his life, or with Fred and George's shop. Fred and George's shop was quite fun, and quite lucrative, although taxing on his body. He had no idea how he managed to work ten hour days, and then go home and study for another few hours. Fred and George would just sleep the instant they got home. On the other hand, there was whatever Dumbledore had planned for him. It seemed likely that he had been the one who had extracted him from his 'old' world, and he most likely wouldn't have done it without a sound reason.
Harry heard the sound of knuckles rapping on wood, and twisted his head around to see George knocking on the table. "C'mon Mr. Public Relations, rise and shine!" he joyfully cried.
Harry grinned, having long ago gotten used to the Weasley twins' different types of humor. "Give me a few more minutes, mum," he groaned, miming pulling covers over his head. George summoned his pillow, and Harry got up, groaning for real. "Oy. Where do I have to be today, anyway?" he asked George.
"You're going with Katie to a birthday party at 'Leesh's house," George told him, looking through the fridge for something to snack on. "I'd come, but her parents aren't so fond of me. Think I'm a bad influence, same for Fred."
Harry shrugged, and warmed up the leftovers from the night before, chicken soup. "That's fair, I think." George shot a mild stinging charm towards him, which was deflected by the shield ring that he wore at all times, forcing George to dodge his own spell.
"Bugger," George muttered as the stinging spell crashed over his head into a glass bowl, creating a pinging sound.
Harry smirked, and after dumping equal portions of soup into two bowls, he charmed them to not let any liquid fall out if not accompanied by metal, or plastic. "Here you go," he said, handing them to George who was snacking on some tough carrots. "One for each of you. Go ahead, I'm going to take a shower and apparate after you."
George grumbled briefly about the small portions, but threw his carrot in, and apparated off. Fred rushed in a few seconds later, his shirt partially tucked in, and whipping his head around, looking for George. "He's gone to work," Harry informed him. Fred grinned, before apparating out. One of the nice things about the job was that Harry had learned how to apparate from Fred and George, and that he had been able to skip the usually long waiting lists from the ministry for approval of an apparation license on the grounds that he needed it for his job.
Harry took a long, relaxing shower, and slipped into sweat pants and a hoodie before donning his robe, and apparating to the shop. He was about to head for the back, when he realized that Fred was giving him a shooing motion, toward the door. He turned around, and was slightly surprised to see Katie already there, leaning on a wall, casually waiting for him.
"C'mon Brian, let's go," she commanded.
He shrugged, grinning, and linked his arm through hers. "Where are we going?" he asked.
"We're attending a party tonight, so we're going to go have some pre-party fun.
"Like what, going clothes shopping?"
She laughed briefly. "How stereotypical. Not necessarily, we could go and check out some of the restaurants, hang out outside of the convenience store, whatever." As they walked out of the store, she stopped dead, jerking his arm. "Actually," she said pensively, "What are you wearing right now, under your robe?"
"Um . . . Sweats and a hoodie," he answered.
She rolled her eyes, and started pulling him forward again. "The clothes of a man who has given up," she quoted. "Yeah, we're going shopping." Feeling the galleons that Fred had slipped him in his left hand, he let himself be led away into Madame Malkins'.
An hour and a half later, Katie had selected jeans of precisely the right shade of dark blue, as well as, after much deliberation, a black button-down shirt. They went to lunch at WacArnolds with a few of Katie's wizard friends, and after enjoying some Big Wacs, over to Katie's house in London to prepare for the party.
Katie's house was about as large as Sirius' at Grimmauld place, but much lighter, and more welcoming. Harry was quickly redirected to the basement, which was surprisingly large. Harry wondered that the house didn't cave in, and although the supports were most likely what prevented that, he wondered if Katie had protected it herself with magic. The muggle friends weren't there yet, so after they were introduced to each other, he took the opportunity to talk to them about the various new products that Fred and George had recently put out, and, as the twins had instructed, told them that they could get the special friend discount on ParaShields for their clothes, which was that the charms were completely free. As a show of good faith, Harry charmed the clothes of anyone who wanted, to hold a shield.
For a little while after, they were all fairly interested in the products, but after he had given their basic descriptions, and had launched into the details of the production, which were to him the really fascinating part, they began to drift away, until finally, only Katie and Harry were left. Seeing that everyone was gone, Harry sighed, and took a swig of his water. "Oh well," he muttered, examining the bottom of his glass awkwardly.
"You win some, you lose some," she reassure him with a smile, before tilting back her head and emptying her plastic cup of some brown fizzy drink.
Harry smiled. "Thanks, Katie." He raised his voice, and continued, "I'll keep in mind that most laymen are too uncouth to understand the creative genius that is WWW."
Several of Katie's friends turned, and laughed. One of them, who Harry didn't know gave him the two-fingered salute, and Katie began to laugh too. "Fuck you, Wilson," she added for good measure.
Harry gave a small snort, before returning to gazing at his glass, a little uncomfortable. For most of his life, he had been pretty solitary, and even in Hogwarts, he only really associated regularly with two people. On the quidditch team, it was just Fred and George, and in the rest of life, it was just Ron and Hermione. Although he had gotten a bit of experience with other people through keeping the store while Fred and George worked on some of their more delicate projects, he couldn't decide what steps to take to try to force a friendship with any of the other people at the party. Obviously, connections were useful with anyone, if only for something to do when Flyfeather wasn't around, but he couldn't imagine how to go about making them, especially since most of the people at the party were girls, and had already moved into smaller groups with their friends.
He looked up again, and noticed that Katie had drifted off, probably to refill her glass with whatever she was drinking. Deciding to take this as a cue from some higher being, he walked over to the sole group of boys, who were mostly sipping the same fizzy drink as Katie, and motioned for one of them to shove over. One of them did, and they all formally introduced themselves again. The one with the brown hair and eyes was Chuck, the one with the strong overbite was James, the quiet one with glasses was Tom, and the fat boy was Pete. Still nursing his water, he wondered how people remembered him, now that he wasn't "The one who's Harry Potter."
As he concluded his introspective and slightly hopeful musings, he noted that Pete was telling a tale. "So, I went down to the store yesterday–"
Suddenly, Tom interrupted, surprising Harry a bit, who hadn't heard the bespectacled boy speak before. His deep voice was a small surprise, as it delivered very casually, "I went down on your mother yesterday."
A few snickers went around the group, and Pete cracked a smile. "As I was saying," he continued as the laughs died down, "there was this totally banging girl who was just standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at the side of the building."
Again, Tom interjected, "Your mother's about as big as the side of a building."
This was followed by a laughter, although Harry noted that Pete wasn't even smiling anymore. "So I go and buy the newt's eyes that my mum sent me out for, when I decide to go over and ask the chick what she was looking at. Suddenly, this little boy comes running out of the wall–"
Quickly, Tom fit in, "More like your cum was running out of a little boy's ass." This was followed by the loudest round of laughs yet, and a small admonishment, from James, who thought that was a little far, and Pete, who was quietly simmering, and unconsciously gritted his teeth. Harry suspected that it would probably be considered baring his teeth if he was an animal.
"And the wall doesn't even shimmer," he continued, trying to ignore Tom's prods. "It's like the other way to get into Chuck's house, you know. So I tried to do the wall, you know, like walking through it, and–"
With a hint of triumph, Tom blurted out, "Sort of like how I did your mother. You know. On the wall."
Pete exploded. There was no other word for it. One moment he was listening with pursed lips, and the next, he was advancing towards Tom, who was laughing outright now. Pete looked murderous, and Harry began to laugh alongside the other boys. He had a feeling that pushing him to the edge was a sort of sport to Tom, and realized that that was probably why he was invited to things like this, as a sort of entertainment, although his jokes weren't all that funny.
"If you tell one more goddamn 'your mom' joke, I swear, I will fucking stab you," Pete muttered, his fists clenching and unclenching.
"I stabbed your mother. With my penis," Tom said, with a smirk.
Pete let loose a bizarre and primal scream, and began to wring Tom's neck. Tom began to laugh, and waved off Harry, who was making to try to save him from Pete's clutches. Chuck shook his head. "Don't worry, Tom's has charms to prevent his untimely death from strangulation–that's why he can still breathe." Turning away from the slightly uncomfortable scene, he changed the subject ably. "By the way, Brian," he began, "I'm trying to convince James that he'd look like shit if he started wearing tight pants."
"Not exactly an expert on men's fashion, Chuck," Harry backed up.
"Come on, we just need a second opinion. I think they're aesthetically attractive, and Chuck disagrees," James said with a grin, ignoring Pete and Tom as easily as Chuck.
"They look like they could be your sister's pants," Chuck drawled derisively.
"They are," James countered easily.
"That's a really fantastic first impression," Harry informed him with a laugh. So, it wasn't that hard to forge connections.
"I'm sorry, that's probably just the coke talking," he said with a smile, drinking another glass.
Harry nodded, not particularly understanding. He was about to ask about it, when Chuck pocketed his Pastille Pastie, and Pete stopped strangling Tom, and causally, Katie's muggle friends came over. There ensued another round of introductions, of which Harry caught maybe a third, and the group of boys widened, with Katie and a group of muggle girls joining them. He felt a tad left out as they debated the pros and cons of the popular bands of the day. Harry decided it was most likely a good decision to become familiar with popular and current artists–it wouldn't do for WWW employees to look uncouth, after all.
As the party dragged on, he would occasionally find something to add to the conversation, when they compared school experiences, but he felt more and more disappointed with how foreign most of the world was to him. Why hadn't he known about any of this stuff in the world, he asked himself internally.
Without a moment's notice, Harry decided that he needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere where Hera was. He excused himself to the bathroom, and crossing his fingers, he apparated to Hera's room.
She was in her room, packing her trunk, and at the cracking sound of his apparation, she turned around and screamed.
Harry heard someone yell, "Upstairs!" and the banging of feet upon the wooden stairs.
"Sorry, it's me, Mort," he said. After a few seconds of her still not understanding, he removed realizing that he was still wearing Viktor Krum's face, he removed the mask.
"Oh! You," she said with a sign of understanding. "But why are you here?"
"Figured you might be able to use some help. And since I could apparate here, that must mean whatever wards you had for protection have fallen."
"Bugger," she muttered irritably, before a speculative look came upon her face. "Do you think you can apparate us out?"
"Don't want to take the chance of splinching, that would be pretty disastrous, since we can't come back and put your head back on. This room is pretty defensible anyway. We can fight."
Hera looked panicked once again. "Fight? I've never been in a duel before!"
It was interesting, the way that she was both very different and very similar. Very strange indeed. "You sent out the owl though, correct?" At her nod, he raised up the bed with a flick of the wand, carved out a good deal out of the bottom, and motioning for her to crawl under, dropped the bed back down. "Send hexes at their feet."
A second later, a Death Eater opened the door, and managed an inarticulate scream of surprise before Harry got him with a stunner. He moved slowly towards a corner, knowing that his best hope was to get them with the first shot, and wondering where the order member who was supposed to be guarding the home was. He shot two blasting charms towards the door, hoping to both shut it and alert the guard that something was wrong, and in a lucky coincidence, managed to hit it right before someone who trying to get in. A few seconds later, he stumbled in again, his nose bloody, and his wand aimed towards the middle of the room. Harry raised his wand to fire again, but he dropped to a full-body binding hex before Harry could do anything.
"Good job," he muttered, keeping an eye on the door.
He heard a muffled thanks, and cast a few more blasting charms on the door, knocking it off of its hinges. There were voices arguing past the door, and a shriek rang out after the door was blown off its hinges, followed by nervous laughter. Harry cast colloportus on the door, and a few of the ParaShield charms, adjusted for a static item. It wouldn't do for the door to turn into a curtain, after all.
Sure that they had at least a few moments to spare, Harry chanced a look outside the window. The neighbors had come out of their houses, so they were definitely causing a ruckus. He had no idea why the Order wasn't there yet, however. Thinking of the Order, he suddenly remembered last year's escape plan.
Harry lifted up the bed again, and beckoned for Hera to come out. "We have a few minutes of peace to try to escape," he whispered. "Do you have a broom, by any chance?" he queried hopefully.
"Er, yes, Sirius gave me one a few years back–haven't used it though, didn't want to hurt myself," she admitted.
"Let's see it," he said softly, with a grin.
"I . . . it's really fast Mort, we could be putting ourselves into more danger by using it than we'd face just against these guys."
"You know," he said speculatively, "I think I heard them say that Voldemort was coming next . . ." he lied.
Hera bit her bottom lip. "Fuck you." Throwing open her trunk, she dug through to the bottom, where there sat, in all of its majesty, an unused, mint-condition third edition Firebolt™.
A smile grew on his face. "Perfect," he breathed. With a wave of his wand, and a quick, "Pack!" her trunk was packed, and with another wave, it became miniaturized. "Pocket the trunk, and then get on," he ordered, mounting the broom.
Hesitantly, she slid on behind him. He waited for a few seconds, and then commanded, "Hurry up, put your arms about my waist. You said it yourself, it's fast." She quickly moved to do as he said. "Comfortable?" he asked.
"Yeah," she responded, her face muffled slightly by his robe.
Adeptly, he cast sticking charms on her arms, and ignoring her howls of indignation, flew off as the death eaters burst into the room. Rather than waiting around to see if their curses flying randomly out of the window would hit him, he set about fleeing them, and getting into cloud cover.
Harry instructed Hera to look for planes, figuring that they could just follow them to an airport, since he didn't really know where he was going. They flew for a few miles in the clouds, without seeing any planes, when Hera shouted in his ear, "6 o'clock! 6 o'clock!" He made an abrupt turn, making her scream into his robe, but he saw the plane clearly, and rose to about a hundred feet in the air above it, before rocketing towards it. They followed the plane as closely as they could, although at times it felt to Harry as if the plane was barely moving. There is a considerable difference between being able to cover 600 miles in an hour and being able to cover 600 miles in four seconds. Nonetheless, they found their way to the airport after half an hour, and the two of them took a taxi from Gatwick to Grimmauld Place.
Hera promised Harry, "I know it's a safe place, don't worry about it," and he smiled, nodding, wondering if she realized that it was no longer under fidelius. He could see it, and he doubted that fidelius had crossed over the border of dimensions with his wand, since this was clearly a different Grimmauld place. He told her he'd wait for a few minutes, to make sure she was safe, and to say goodbye. On her order, he turned around, and within a few minutes, she was back outside.
"Most of the Order is cleaning out the Death Eaters who were lingering in the house. They had stunned my relatives and the Order Member guarding the house, since they didn't know whether or not there were some sort of curses that would be activated with their deaths, so they're fine." She paused, and asked delicately, "Do you know what the Order of the Phoenix is?"
"I know enough," he said, cutting her off. "Is this house safe?"
She shook her head, no. "Many of the wards fell when my Godfather died, and until they tie them back to the Black heiress, me, which could take a while, I'm going to another safe house."
Harry nodded with understanding. It was basically what he had expected. "Good. By the way, Viktor Krum's face is the one I'll be wearing at school," he informed her, donning his mask. A little shorter, different hair, maybe crossed with another mask if necessary, he added to himself. It wouldn't do to be going about as a celebrity, anyway. He flashed her a grin, and apparated back to the party.
It was a bit peculiar, he noted. Music was cranked up to the maximum volume, and people were walking into each other. He got himself some more water, and almost spilled it on himself when he realized that a muggle girl he didn't know was rubbing herself on him, accompanied by a boy who seemed to be supporting her and leading her around. Basically everyone was laughing uproariously, and Harry, puzzled, but getting the feeling that something funny was up, went to the bathroom to relieve himself.
Unfortunately for his bladder, Katie was throwing up in the toilet, and suddenly everything came together. The drink that everyone was having was some sort of spiked coke. Spiked with what, he didn't know, but it just served as an example to him how obvious the gaps in his social knowledge were. Obviously, everyone else had known and expected it, judging by Chuck's comment previously.
Harry wasn't really sure of standard procedure when assisting someone in emptying their guts into a toilet bowl, but was relatively sure that holding someone's hair was applicable here. He did so, and Katie began to thank him, before the bile rose up in her throat again, and some more watery vomit dripped out of her mouth. After it stopped seeping out, she, with Harry's aid, made her way to the mirror and sink, and Harry helped her wash the vomit off of her face with a paper towel, taking care to trash it after they were done.
Harry decided that it was silly to let Katie stay as insanely drunk as she was, especially since she wasn't the only one–what would happen if two people had to bow to the porcelain god at the same time? "Come on Katie, we're going to Alicia's room," he said, as if to a small child. Her face lit up, and she stopped having to lean on him as much, as she led the way to Alicia's room. Mercifully, they didn't run into Alicia's parents, who seemed to be out of the house, judging by the light fixtures, which were all off.
Once they were in Alicia's room, Harry quickly found her trunk, opened it up, and rifled through it for Jigger's Magical Drafts and Potions. He could at least perform this potion easily. Within a few seconds, he had a good fire going, one of the ones that Hermione had found in first year, and within a few minutes, the sobriety potion was ready. He conjured at glass bottle, bottled some of the viscous yellow fluid, and waited for five minutes, putting away the cauldron and making sure that Katie didn't do anything especially loud or stupid. Within that time, he decided that he needed to get back to the flat and tell Fred and George about Hera.
Judging the potion finally cool enough to drink, he managed to convince Katie to drink it, and within minutes, she was sober again, and slightly amused. Schooling his face into an expressionless mask, he looked at her severely. "We're leaving," he announced definitively.
Katie took a glance out the window. "What time is it?" she asked with a yawn.
"Twelve," he responded tersely.
"That early?" she asked with surprise. "C'mon Brian," she cajoled him, "we usually stick around for at least another hour. You've been having fun, right?"
He took a breath, trying to quickly balance the pros of getting home to Fred and George and telling them about Hera versus the cons of not letting Katie have a good time. He shook his head to clear it. What was he thinking? Of course Hera was more important than Katie. She was the most important girl in the world. "You're too sober, people will be suspicious. We gotta go, Katie."
She nodded, slowly. "That's true. And I over-drank, anyway–I wouldn't have remembered the party anyway." She smiled briefly. "You're cute when you're thinking."
Ignoring the comment, too busy to really think about it right now, Harry looked around for a second, before noticing the window. It had a ledge outside for them to stand on as they disapparated, and people wouldn't really notice the noise. He was pretty good at apparating by himself, but his side-along apparation was still like a gunshot. She pouted prettily, while Harry opened Alicia's window. "Being rational is so much less fun," she complained, with a teasing lilt to her voice. Harry detected a trace of something else, but decided it was nothing. He was more worried about the girl who meant more than the world, anyway.
Harry gave her a small smile, before climbing out of the window, and onto the ledge. She joined him shortly thereafter, and with a sound like a cannon, they were back in Katie's house.
"I'm home, mom!" she called happily into the darkness of the house.
"We heard," someone yelled back, the voice muffled.
Katie gave Harry a quick hug, and a kiss on the cheek. His mind still on Hera, he gifted her with a thoughtless smile, and disapparated again, this time much more quietly.
When he got home, Harry reassessed his priorities. It appeared that he'd need to keep on learning more about wards to properly protect Hera. How had he known that he needed to leave, he wondered.
A/N: Oodles of kudos go to Dellacouer, who read the chapter over for me and suggested some great changes (check out Della's work, it full of win), and dragonofAlagaesia, who betaed it. Also, thanks CGB for the great eye for detail.
In other news, I have started work on my other stuff again, namely WotR but since I was just infected with live influenza, that might, ah, how do you say . . . stop. This chapter was mostly because I had run out of inspiration for WotR and decided, "Why the hell not work on something simple?" It was also practice to see if I could remember how to write. I'd like to know if any of you guys think it's any good, or if I need to work on some writing exercises to get back in shape.
Fun fact: I tried NaNoWriMo this year but only managed to total . . . 500 words. Which is a new low for me. Go me, I guess.