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An Unexpected Portkey | ||||
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Category: Summer Challenge (2005-4) Characters:None Genres: Fluff Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG Reviews: 8 Summary: Harry's ready to leave the Dursleys the summer after his 5th year, but instead of going to the Burrow as he'd expected, he finds himself taking a side trip to London. Hitcount: Story Total: 4519 |
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Author's Note: I don't own the characters or concepts which are associated with the Harry Potter franchise. Those are owned by J.K. Rowling, of whose writing I am eternally in awe. Also, this is my first published fanfic and the first story I've written with this high a degree of romance at its core, so please be kind. It was miserably hot in his room, which is where he'd been shut up for most of the first half of the summer holidays. It was by mutual understanding that he had stayed out of the Dursleys' way, and they'd stayed out of his-which, for a wonder, they actually had. No complaints when he dragged his trunk full of spell books, cauldron, and other wizardly possessions up the stairs and into his room. Only a dark look had passed between his aunt and uncle, and for the Dursleys that was a marked improvement. Now, he was just waiting for word to come from Dumbledore or the Weasley's that he could pack up his things and head for the Burrow to spend the remainder of the summer. He stared out the open window and over the perfectly tended lawns of Privet Drive, watching the sun start its slow descent. He heard, vaguely, the sound of the Dursleys' telephone ringing downstairs, and he wished fervently that there was even the slightest of breezes to blow through his window and cool him off a little. The phone rang again. And again. So, the Dursleys had gone out and hadn't even bothered to let him know. Not that he cared, but it would've been nice to have known so he could've gone down stairs for a while, where it was probably at least a little cooler than shut up in this oven. He heard the answer-phone click on and his uncle's voice boomed up the stairs, muffled a little through Harry's closed door. "You've reached the home of Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley. We are unfortunately unable to take your telephone call at this time, but if you would leave a message after the beep, one of us will call you later. Good bye." Hedwig stirred a little in her cage as the shrill beep sounded. "Harry?" He froze. His heart leapt at the sound of a voice that he almost recognized. It was talking slightly louder than was strictly necessary on an answer-phone so carried well, but the distance and the thickness of a closed door between him and the muggle gadget kept him from being sure who it was. "Harry, it's me...Ginny." In one fluid motion that an outsider would've thought him incapable of, given his thin wirey frame, Harry jumped to his feet and crossed his room in three strides. He yanked the door open and was already a quarter of the way down the stairs before Ginny went on. "Harry, I'm in trouble and I didn't know who else to call. Mum and dad will kill me if..." He hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs with a loud thud and sprinted through the doorway to the kitchen. "...they find out where I am. Hermione's in France again this summer and..." He skidded to a stop in front of where the telephone sat on the counter, nearly slipping and falling over as his feet slid on Aunt Petunia's meticulously spotless tiles. He reached out and grabbed the counter with one hand while scrambling for the phone with the other. "Ginny!" he shouted into the phone. She let out a little gasp and he heard her drop the phone and waited impatiently as she fumbled to get it back up to her ear. "Harry?" she said tentatively. "Yeah," he said, "it's me." "Oh thank Merlin," she said, and Harry was alarmed to hear her voice crack. "What's going on?" he asked, afraid what she might say. Please don't let someone else be dead. Please, not another one. Sirius is enough. I can't take another one. "I'm in jail, Harry." For a second Harry's mind went blank. "What? You're in Azkaban?" he said incredulously. "Don't be stupid," Ginny said, and now she seemed to be laughing despite herself. "They don't have telephones in Azkaban." "Oh, right." "I'm at a muggle jail in London and I need you to come down here and get me out." Now that it was out, Ginny seemed quite calm and much more her usual self. Harry thought she almost sounded cheerful. The enormity of what she was saying began to penetrate Harry's mind. The momentary lapse was over and thoughts were piling into his head faster than he could articulate them. First, obviously Ginny wouldn't know, but this conversation was likely being listened to. He almost grinned imagining a faceless policeman trying to figure out if "muggle" was some sort of insult that he should be taking offense to. "Ummm...Harry?" "Yeah," he said, "I'm here. OK, what do they want in order to let you out? Why did they...er...arrest you in the first place?" "They caught me in the alley that runs behind the Leaky Cauldron and all those muggle shops. I was trying to go around to get to Diagon Alley without having to go through the Cauldron, because I knew that Fred and George had a..." "OK," Harry interrupted quickly, not wanting her to say more than she had to and make the police even more suspicious than they undoubtedly already were. "What do they want to let you free?" "They just want a family member to pick me up." Harry thought fast. He could fly to London on his broom under the invisibility cloak, but he didn't know his way around London well. Even with an address it would be difficult to find the right muggle police station from above in a city the size of London. "So, I told them I was calling my brother, 'Harry', to come get me." From behind her, he heard the gruff voice of a police officer. "OK, Miss Potter, your time's just about up. Is he coming for you or not?" Did he just say "Miss Potter"? Hearing Ginny referred to with his own sir name made Harry's stomach drop uncomfortably, as if he'd just gone into an unexpected dive on his Firebolt. "I'll be there as fast as I can," he told her. "Thanks, Harry." They both hung up and Harry stood staring at the phone. Why in blazes was she using his sir name? He'd just have to ask her later. He'd have to hurry if he wanted to make sure of getting out of here before the Dursleys showed back up. He pulled the notepad that aunt Petunia kept by the telephone and scribbled a note to his aunt and uncle on it. Dear aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon, I had to go. I don't think I'll be back until next summer. I can't take my trunk with me now, but I will send Mr. Weasley or someone to get it next week. Mr. Weasley is my friend Ron's dad, and he's the one who came to fetch me summer before last, for the Quidditch World Cup. I'll tell him not to use the fireplace this year. He stared down at what he had written and grinned. Maybe he should cross out that last line and let them sweat over it a bit. He tore the note off the pad and stuck it to the telephone receiver. He turned to leave the kitchen, and then remembered something. He turned back to the telephone and the little answer-phone that sat beside it. He pressed the large red button that was labeled "Erase All", then turned and dashed upstairs again. Ten minutes later he was baking under the invisibility cloak in the back garden, his broomstick under one arm and Hedwig perched on the other. She didn't seem too fond of standing on her master's arm while she wasn't able to see said arm. She kept hooting balefully and turning her head this way and that, trying to understand where his voice was coming from. "OK girl. I know I haven't given you a letter or anything, but I need you to go to Ginny, OK? Ron's sister, Ginny. Go to her, and I'm going to follow you on my Firebolt. All right?" Hedwig blinked in the sunlight, hooted once more, and then took off from his arm so suddenly that Harry was momentarily taken by surprise. "Hey, wait for me!" he called, hastily mounting his broom and kicking off from the ground. It was a long flight into London, and Harry was forcibly reminded of flying this way to No. 12 Grimmauld Place last summer. That night had been a freezing cold one, in sharp contrast to the heat of this day. Sweat was pouring off of him in rivers as he struggled to stay covered by the cloak which flapped around him and keep Hedwig in sight at the same time. Finally, Hedwig dived toward a busy London street and Harry followed. She came to perch on the rain gutter along the roof and Harry paused next to her, brushing the hair and sweat out of his eyes. "She's here then?" he said to his owl. Hedwig hooted softly. "OK. You head on to the Burrow and I'll meet you there later. Mrs. Weasley will give you something." Hedwig's head snapped around toward him, still clearly trying to locate the source of his voice, then she hooted in a disgruntled sort of way and took off again. Harry flew down off the roof and into an alley that ran between this police station and another, larger building next door. He stripped off the invisibility cloak and stuffed it and his Firebolt behind an old rubbish bin. Checking that his wand was easily accessible but out of sight in the waistband of his jeans, he moved out of the alley and toward the front doors of the station. The sun was going down and as he reached the doors he found an officer on the verge of locking up for the night. "Please sir," he said quickly. "I'm here to pick up my...er...sister." The officer grunted but let Harry through. "Hurry up. We're supposed to be closed now." Harry stepped inside the blessedly cool reception area and approached the desk. A woman, not many years older than Harry was himself, sat behind it, filling out some forms. "Uh...hullo..." he said awkwardly, when the woman did not notice him. She looked up, startled. "Sorry, I thought Michael was locking up. Didn't expect anyone else. Can I help you?" "Yeah, I'm here to pick up my sister, Ginny We--er...Potter." She looked at him critically for a moment, then got up. "Wait here and I'll bring out Miss Potter." Harry's stomach flipped over again at the name, but it wasn't quite so unpleasant this time. And then, all at once, it dawned on him. She'd only used his sir name because they were supposed to be siblings. He didn't know why, but that didn't seem to help him feel any differently about it. A few minutes later, the woman returned, leading Ginny by the arm into the lobby. They smiled at one another nervously and the woman left them to stand side-by-side while she went back around behind her desk. "I'll need you to sign a few things, Mr. Potter." She pulled out a sheet of paper and passed it over to him. Harry hastily scribbled his name across the bottom. He was just handing it back when the woman, who was eyeing them both quizzically spoke again. Her voice was casual, but Harry didn't like the way she was staring at them. "You know, for being brother and sister, you two sure don't look much alike." "Uh...yeah," said Harry, thinking fast. "That's because we...er...we had different..." he chanced a look at Ginny and found her looking at him. He floundered for a moment then decided on "...fathers." "Mothers," Ginny said at the same time and Harry's face started to burn. "I see," said the woman cooly. Any sense of friendliness was gone. "And where do you two live, incidentally?" "Oh come on Patricia," called the policemen Harry had passed by the front door. "Let 'em go. I want to lock this place up and get home to my Chinese food." The woman sighed, rolled her eyes, and seemed to decide that they weren't really too dangerous. "Go on," she said wearily to them. "Get out of here before I change my mind." As one, they turned and left quickly, nearly knocking over Michael the policemen in their haste. He glared at their backs as he locked up. It took them far longer than it should have to find their way to the Burrow. Harry had never traveled there on his own before, and never from London. He and Ginny kept trying to combine their limited geography to find their way back, and Harry wished fervently that he hadn't sent Hedwig on ahead of him. "Your mum must be really worried," Harry said as they finally came to a landing in front of the Weasley's crooked old house, some time after two in the morning. "No, she's not. She thinks I'm spending the night with Susan Bones. I told her that I'd probably be home early in the morning and would try to sleep for a few hours before the rest of the family got up." "So I'll just tell her I got here in the middle of the night then," Harry said. "Yeah." They made there way quietly inside. Everyone did seem to be asleep. Harry paused at the bottom of the stairs. "I guess I'll sleep down here on the sofa," he said. "Actually Harry," Ginny said, "I know you've already done quite enough for me tonight, but I thought maybe we could talk for a few minutes." "Sure." He didn't particularly feel very tired anyway. She beckoned him to follow her and they made their way upstairs. She opened the door to her room, motioned again for him to follow her as he hesitated in the hall, and closed the door softly behind them. She turned to look at him in the moonlight that was coming in through her window. They just stood that way for a long time, looking at one another. Harry felt that same strange feeling in his stomach again, but fought not to let any of it show on his face. "So," he ventured at last, "that was some really quick thinking. Giving them my sir name so they'd think I was your brother." Ginny laughed quietly. "Thanks. I'm glad you're not my brother though." "Why's that?" he asked. "'Cause then I wouldn't be able to thank you." "You don't have to thank me, Ginny." "Yeah, I do. Like this." She stepped boldly up to him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him hard on the mouth. Looking back on that first kiss later, Harry reckoned that it was rather like traveling by portkey. The floor seemed to fall away from his feet, and he got the distinct impression he was flying, surrounded by gloriously thick red hair. He had reached up and ran his fingers through that hair and when Ginny finally pulled away it was like that sudden crash of reality that he found mildly disconcerting at the end of a portkey journey. He looked at her, standing there in the moonlight and realized for the first time just how beautiful she was. He saw her for the first time as just plain Ginny, and not as his best mate's sister. And, he thought, there was one more way this was like a portkey... Despite standing next to the same bed, in the same room, and looking at the same girl as moments ago... He was definitely in a very different place than he ever had been before. |
| Reviews 8 |
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