Archive of Our Own

It was a long time after knowing him that you finally got Harry talking about his home life. You’d caught on to the general gist of things over the years, hearing the periodic protest from Ron—who always gave the impression of wanting to make a bigger stink about things but bit his tongue for the sake of his friend—and the occasional story from Harry himself, but you made it a point never to ask more than what was given.

That was, until the one Christmas where your parents were finalising their divorce and you couldn’t bring yourself to return home, mostly because you weren’t certain exactly where home would be.

Trying to divvy up your time fairly so that no one felt they were being dealt the rotten hand was enough to invite an oncoming headache every time you thought about it. (Mum had always preferred opening presents on Christmas Eve, so you should probably stay with her that day. But Dad would be sorry if you missed the grand turkey dinner he always cooked. Then again, he might prefer you to spend Christmas Day with him so you could go tobogganing in the afternoon. But Christmas Day was also when your mother hosted her parents and last time you'd seen them had been during the summer, so you really would quite like to spend some time with them again, especially after your gran had that recent scare… And so it went, thoughts spiralling in never-ending loops and swirls, steadily driving you mad.)

For a brief period, you considered perhaps just letting your parents decide when they wanted to see you but that idea, too, was quickly chucked. It would have undoubtedly been fuel for a row and you’d had enough of overhearing those to last you a lifetime.

On top of that, it made you unbearably queasy to think of sitting in either of their new, cold dwellings so obviously not their own yet, watching them live out of boxes and strain themselves trying to ignore the glaring absence of something—someone. Or worse still, tagging along as they jetted off to seek distraction in extended family only to find everyone that everyone else was also forcibly tiptoeing around the ginormous divorce-shaped elephant in the room.

You’d finished by being so wrapped up in the troubling mental image of a miniature version of yourself lugging a giant trunk to-and-fro between a newly constructed flat and a quaint townhouse over and over and over, until something inside you cracked and you decided you’d rather live with the guilt than endure the stress.

Perhaps a bit too eleventh-hour, you rang up both your parents to break the news that you’d be staying at Hogwarts this year. They were conversations you cut short, claiming to feel overburdened with schoolwork and too weary to make the travel back to London.

It... wasn’t a total lie. And you’d reassured them that plenty of your friends would be hanging about as well, you’d be in rather welcome company.

And that was more than true.

On the 23rd of December you took off for the library to get a head start on an assignment Snape had so mercilessly set for the very start of classes after the Christmas holidays, when you spotted the lot of your friends chatting and lounging round a table, adjacent sofa and armchairs, talking at a volume that would normally not be permitted. You wondered latently if perhaps the holiday cheer had managed to spread all the way to Madam Pince. 

Your friends waved you over the moment they spotted you, calling out your name and ridiculing you for the parchment, books and quill in your hands—all except for Hermione, who pointed out approvingly that starting on work early was the smart thing to do. She was met with a chorus of boos and one “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, you lunatic!” courtesy of Ron.

You laughed lightly, left your supplies at a nearby table and nicked a chair to close off the group’s lopsided attempt at a sitting circle. Bouts of conversation were already resuming by the time you tucked into the open spot next to Harry.

He brought you into a conversation with Seamus, who was telling the tale of how he somehow managed to turn his pincushion, not into a porcupine, but a flopping, writhing salmon during O.W.L.s.

“Gave me the bloody easiest task in the book and I still loused it up.”

“Can’t possibly be worse than when I fell asleep during the Astronomy O.W.L,” you said commiseratively.

Seamus barked a laugh. “You didn't!”

Harry sat between you, an air of smugness diffusing over him. “Try fainting during the History of Magic exam.”

Seamus groaned loudly whilst you made an equally strangled noise of defeat.

“Stop one-upping us all the time!”

Seamus was eventually pulled into a rather heated discussion over Quidditch with Ron, Dean and Ginny, and Harry took the opportunity to ask about your staying.

“You normally go home for Christmas, don't you?”

The second the words left his mouth, he knew he shouldn’t have asked.

It wasn’t that your smile had fallen or that you were so obviously affronted—just the opposite. The hurt in your eyes was unmistakeable but the swift veiling of it even more so, at least to Harry, who had become well-practised in that particular competency over the years.

You weren’t sure precisely how or why, really, but you told him about the divorce the way you might have done Hermione or Luna, whom you were far closer with and to whom you’d divulged much worse. It wasn’t that you weren’t close with Harry—just that you didn’t often get into the hardships and woes of mundane life in your annual I-hope-this-isn’t-the-last-time-I-see-you-stay-safe-out-there heart-to-heart. The demands from his cascading scrolls of misfortune left little time for soliloquies.

Harry listened attentively and spoke sparingly. You formed your own quiet nook, the two of you, in what had now become more of a semi-circle of capriciously arranged chairs, loveseats and tables, the remainder of your group fading into a background of jumbled colloquy.

You glanced up every so often at them, but no one seemed to be trying to listen in on your very private conversation. Harry must have noticed it too because he repaid you in kind by opening up about his own home life.

Three minutes in and you could take no more though you knew this was only scratching the surface of horrific tales he harboured. The urge to reach out and hug him, touch his arm gently, cradle him into some sort of deeply peaceful sleep where he’d never again have to fret about anything—was overwhelming, especially when he spoke about it all in such a detached, far-away voice. A voice that suggested he could not bring himself to harken back to that life during the time when he was still here living this one.

The two of you spoke about the Muggle world after that, its quirks and faults and wiles and how, occasionally, it could be quite endearing. Harry wasn’t so sure about that last bit. It appeared you were a touch fonder of it all than he was.

“Have you ever driven a Muggle car?”

Harry shook his head.

“Oh, well then that explains it."

Harry wasn’t sure exactly what explained what, and the clarification that he’d been in a car before—and in fact flown in one, just never driven—was at the tip of his tongue but he did not have the impression any of his conceivable amendments would carry weight.

“You really don’t live that far from me,” you were saying now. “I’ll come round sometime during the summer holidays.”

Even if he hadn’t understood the precise correlation, he had taken that to be a pleasantry, something nice to close out your unexpectedly earnest exchange. He ought to have known it was really a promise.

One sunny July morning, you arrived in front of the driveway belonging to number four, Privet Drive, got out of your car, made your way to the front door, and rang the bell.

A thin woman answered apprehensively, but something in her face changed when she saw you. Harry hadn’t mentioned that the Dursleys smiled.

“Hello,” you said and introduced yourself. “I’m a friend of Harry’s. He won’t be expecting me but I thought I’d pop over and say hi if that’s all right. Is he home at the moment?”

Just as quickly as it’d morphed the first time, the woman’s face was now a deep-set frown. “No. There’s no one here by that name.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you said lightly, not doing a great deal to look surprised. “I was sure I had the right address. Number four, Privet Drive, is that right?”

“You’re one of them, are you?” sniffed the woman, her nostrils flaring snootily.

“Sorry?” you offered pleasantly, blinking up at her with all the polite confusion you could muster. “One of what?”

The woman’s smile was returning. Suddenly, she was turning back into the house, and yelling up the stairs. “Dudley! Duddykins! There’s a girl here for you!”

“I don’t know any girls!” came a shout in return.

At least now you knew you had the right address. Mrs Dursley’s smile stiffened, and she glanced at you quickly before talking to the empty foyer again, every word she uttered snagging between clenched teeth: “A—very—pretty—girl—Dudley!”

Ah, so that was why she hadn’t banged the door shut in your face. Still, you were only human and moved some of your hair behind your ear, letting yourself take the compliment to heart.

Heavy footsteps bounded down the stairs as though this Dudley character was intentionally smashing his feet on the ground and then a boy who was decidedly not Harry Potter appeared in front of you. He looked you up and down, calling to mind the act of appraising of a new gold watch, and it took everything in you not to tell him what you thought about his leering stares or ask his mother if she’d ever so much as broached the topic of manners with this child.

He was just sticking out his hand to introduce himself when who might as well have been Dudley’s antithesis appeared somewhere down the corridor, just visible in the gap between the two Dursleys.

You saw him do a double-take your way, retracing his steps backwards bewilderedly before breaking into a surprised grin. He said your name almost disbelievingly, happy recognition flooding his expression. The sight of him sent great relief washing over you.

“Harry, hey!” you waved.

Mrs Dursley was now glowering at you the way you’d wanted to her son. You smiled at her sweetly, unfalteringly, said it was nice to finally meet the aunt Harry said he lived with and stuck out a hand, seizing her own retreating one to shake far too enthusiastically, all the while forcibly ignoring Dudley and feigning short-term memory loss at the way Mrs Dursley had so obviously denied Harry’s existence under her roof just minutes ago.

In this interim, Harry took the opportunity to squeeze through his relatives and out the door beside you. You hadn’t planned to enter in the first place, but this reaction told you that Harry did not expect you would be invited in.

While you wanted to call his aunt names and wrap your hands snugly around her lengthy neck, you reckoned there were wiser ways you could conduct yourself and did just that:

“You’ve got gorgeous hair, by the way, Mrs…”

You pretended not to know, or not to remember—making like Harry had never breathed a word about her and her family, making like you had not cemented the name into your mental black book of people you might like to one day seriously injure.

“Dursley,” she supplied, glancing quickly between you and Harry, not as allayed as you would have liked. Still, you didn’t miss the hand that instinctively rose to pat at her blonde mane.  

“It must be a lot of upkeep to get it so healthy. I bet you spend ages arranging it to get it so perfect,” you continued, laying it on thick.

That had done it; the small crack in her sour demeanour was visible even to Harry and he turned to you quickly, not caring to camouflage the plain shock on his face.

“Oh, well, I’ve got less time these days as it is,” she was saying, stroking the ends of her hair, as if unable to decide whether to be modest or self-promoting. “But I do use quite an expensive shampoo. It’s…”

She spared you a look of suspicion, not seeming to want to divulge more.

“Oribe?” you guessed, crossing your fingers behind your back.

Her eyes bugged. “How on earth did you know?”

You forced a breezy laugh. “I’ve actually got a cousin who works at a high-end salon,” you told her. “Sends me new products now and then.”

“Do you really?” she asked, sounding impressed, so wildly different from her demeanour just seconds ago.

“D’you know what?” you added, in a moment of clarity. “I’m going to ring him a bit later and ask for a few bottles. For you and myself,” you joked faintly and Mrs Dursley laughed as though this was the funniest thing she’d heard in weeks.

Harry’s jaw dropped beside you.

Dudley rolled his eyes and let out a bored sigh before disappearing into the house again. (Whatever his appraisal of you, it was apparently not high enough to withstand a conversation about haircare.)

Mrs Dursley kept you chatting there about conditioners and serums for the next five minutes, meanwhile Harry caught flies in his open mouth.

“Right, the Gold Repair and Restore set, an extra mask and a light-weight hairspray,” you said, making a show of repeating it to yourself.

She nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ll remember that,” you said around your best award-winning smile. “Right, shall we head off, then?” you asked Harry, not waiting for his reply. “Have a lovely rest of your day, Mrs Dursley. I’ll have Harry let you know when the products have come in.”

She hadn’t asked what time her nephew would be home, hadn’t forbid him from leaving and, weirdest of all, she’d called out from behind the both of you as you walked down the drive, “Please, call me Petunia, dear!”

You waved at her good-naturedly as you clambered into the driver’s seat of your beloved sage green Ford Cortina and then you were rounding the corner, out of sight.

Harry stared straight ahead, his mouth still slightly ajar.

“You’ve not got a cousin…” he trailed off, amazed.

You mouthed the word “no” around a snigger, shaking your head. “Honestly, I would’ve said just about anything to get you out of the house.”

You were busy checking your mirrors so you wouldn’t have known it, but Harry looked utterly spellbound by you.

“I’ve never seen her so… charmed,” he sputtered. “What, did you use a spell?”

“Harry!” you gasped in a tone so chastising one would have thought he’d just insulted your entire lineage. “You think I’d risk expulsion for a bit of a laugh?!”

The joke here was that you unquestionably would risk expulsion for a bit of a laugh.

 “And an insult to my people skills, no less,” you pressed on, feigning hurt.

“You’re right, sorry, that’s real magic,” he agreed, banging his head back on the headrest defeatedly. “What do I have to pay you out of Gringotts for a lesson on people skills?”

“Well, it’s not going to work with you,” you said, sounding freakishly like Hermione. “I’m a girl she’s never met, and she thought I was pretty.”

Harry shook his head incredulously. “Everyone thinks you’re pretty,” he muttered under his breath, staring out the passenger side window.

Mirth prickled your features. “I’ve just got to sort it out with your uncle and I’ll be having tea in your kitchen by next week.”

Harry snorted. “What about Dudley?”

“No, it’s already gone to the dogs with him. I barely gave him time of day—he’s already called me an ugly bitch in his head four or five times by now.”

Well, Harry thought, that did sound quite like Dudley.

And then, keeping your eyes ahead of you, you wound one arm around his shoulder for a haphazard hug. “Sorry, I’ve barely said hello.”

“S’OK. ‘Lo,” Harry said, his voice considerably fonder as he returned your side hug, mindful not to move in front of you too much. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“The beach?” you suggested. “I’ve brought sun cream and towels. We’ve just got to get you a bathing suit.”

Harry was practically vibrating in his seat. “Really? The beach?”

“You’ve never been, have you?”

Harry shook his head, feeling elation bubble up inside him. The Dursleys had taken Dudley several times to beaches about an hour in every direction but the invitation had, of course, never been extended to Harry.

He forgot all about this, however, when the two of you were suddenly tearing down the motorway in your Cortina—a car entirely too reminiscent of Mr Weasley’s Anglia (and the connecting havoc) for Harry’s comfort.

He’d climbed into it too quickly to think about the make or model or even the colour in his haste to be free of Privet Drive, but now that he was really taking the opportunity to look around, he found the sage seats and dash quite nice. It was perhaps a few shades lighter or darker than the paint of the exterior, but overall very cohesive and rather charming, even if it made for something that felt thirty years your senior.

The memory of Ron sitting in your place, in a seat that was blue instead of green and with Hedwig and all their Hogwarts things in the back, kept coming back to him. It felt just a nudge like maybe he'd take off into the air soon enough; like maybe you’d twist some knob or pull some lever and the car would rise slowly with a great shuttering noise as the Anglia had done. Still, with so few other cars on the road, you didn’t need to be floating about in mid-air to feel like you were flying down the motorway.

Music was playing, which was exciting because Vernon rarely turned on the radio in the car and, if he did, he always wound up in a fit about “this new-age rubbish” and “I’d sooner listen to a chorus of Mrs Figg’s cats than the noise they want to pass off as music these days” before promptly turning off the sound system.

You, however, were playing the kind of songs that made Harry experience the surreal sentiment that nothing had ever been wrong in his life and nothing ever would be. With each passing tune, each large, blue overhead sign and blurring bridge barrier post outside his window, Harry felt himself happier than he’d been in a long while.

When there was about twenty minutes left to your journey, you turned into a petrol station and suggested he look for a swimming costume at the small shop next door while you filled up. You stopped him just before you parted ways.

“Have you got any Muggle money?”

Harry had been prepared for this very occasion. He’d surmised at the end of last term that he might need some this summer and converted about a hundred Galleons, which may have been a bit motivated but that was neither here nor there.

When he returned to your car, you were already in the driver’s seat. He pulled open the passenger door and slid in, sporting a new pair of sunglasses with the tag still on. A plastic bag was in his lap, signs of timorousness and satisfaction present in his demeanour in equal measure.

“Very nice,” you complimented, indicating his glasses.

“Thanks, I can’t see shit,” he said and tried to fit them on top of his seeing ones.

You chortled. “What else did you get?”

He didn’t like to admit it but Harry had never gone Muggle clothes shopping for himself before now, and found himself a touch overwhelmed trying to pick between all the colours and patterns and styles and sizes and unending options. It was a new, freeing experience to be awarded the opportunity to choose but, at the same time, Harry felt as though he’d been bound by Locomotor Mortis with each step he took through the aisle.

In the end, he simply decided anything that wasn’t a Speedo would be OK and grabbed for the pair his eye kept returning to, estimating a size with the strategy of going four down from the label on Dudley’s hand-me-downs.

“Right, I’ve gone with what I know,” he said, looking sheepish and pulled out his purchase for you to assess a colour rather reminiscent of his Quidditch robes.

You grinned. “You do look smashing in Gryffindor colours.”

Only proving your point further, Harry’s cheeks reddened until they nearly matched his new swimming trunks. Next, he pulled out a pair of sandals still bound by a plastic tie then dumped out the rest of the bag’s contents. Various packets of crisps and sweets tumbled out in the space between your leather seats. He’d been overwhelmed by clothing options, yes, but when it came to nosh the choices were easy.

You snapped your fingers. “How could I have possibly forgot food? Brilliant. And what do you say we pop over to the bistro on the beach for lunch?” you added, turning on the ignition with the key. It was only a quarter past eleven o’clock but you were already feeling a bit peckish.

“Sounds great,” Harry said distractedly. He was staring at the small bundle of keys and keychains dangling in the slot below the steering wheel, only noticing it now for the first time.

Curiosity got the better of him and he lifted the shiny spherical one of the chained knickknacks, finding it to be distinctly and startlingly familiar as its wings fluttered up at his touch, the only thing keeping it tethered a link of thin silver shackles. 

“You’ve turned the Golden Snitch into a keychain?!” he all but screeched.

You laughed loudly.

“No! It’s not an actual Snitch. See how it’s just a bit smaller?” You removed it from the keyring and the second it was loose, it shot about the interior of the car, wings beating wildly but not quite as fast as the real Snitch, Harry noted. He snatched it out of the air round the back of his headrest, reflexes never failing him.

Now that it sat in his palm, Harry could tell that it was indeed a fake.

“It’s just bewitched to fly like it,” you explained. “Hogwarts gift shop has loads.”

“Sorry, did you say Hogwarts gift shop?!”

You never ceased to be impressed by Harry’s everlasting unawareness of even the most mundane of magical affairs. 

“Brand-new partnership with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes—I’m surprised you didn’t hear. I find it a bit naff, personally,” you confessed, nodding at the Snitch replica, “But seeing as it’s as close as I’ll ever get to a real one...”

“I’ve got a real one!” Harry piped up, quickly forgetting all about Hogwarts’ ostensibly clandestine souvenir shop now in cahoots with the Weasley twins. “You know that, don't you? Why haven’t you asked to see it? You can if you want, you know—if-if you’d like.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right. That's really cool, Harry,” you said truthfully, at the same time hoping to dissipate some of the jitteriness that had seeped into his speech. “I’d love to see it whenever you’ve got it round.”

You touched his shoulder to punctuate a thank-you and Harry's heart leapt. He nodded and fell silent again as the car began to roll, occupying himself with returning your keychain to its ring and trying not to dwell on how you seemed so much calmer than he felt.

“I expect a wigging from the Ministry any day now,” you added blithely when you came to the streetlight right outside the station. The faint clicking of the turn signal filled the background and you cast a quick glance down at the Snitch replica, now loosely hanging and lightly clinging against the rest of the baubles. “It’s not supposed to fly in the Muggle world.”

“Reckon you’ve got Mr Weasley to thank up until now, then.”

“Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it? Good man, Ron’s dad. Then again this was Fred and George’s influence.”

“Aren’t most things that break magical law?” Harry agreed affably. And then, because he hadn’t asked yet: “Otherwise, how’ve you been?”

You were just entering the motorway again so it took you a moment to answer: “Yeah, good. Mum’s just started dating someone new.”

“Oh?” said Harry obligingly. “And?”

“Yeah, she’s all right. Sweet woman, you know? Just really bloody nice. I spend a bit more time at Dad’s now though. The thought of the woman who birthed me shagging someone in the room next makes me want to just about claw my eyes out—which Duck already tried to do one night, mind you, after I suspect he heard something he shouldn’t.”

Harry snuck an amused glimpse at you just as your body gave a revolted shake.

“Just rather avoid it if I can—know what I mean?”

Harry thought, for one horrible, wretched, nauseating second, about the Dursleys doing anything of the sort down the corridor from his bedroom. Somehow, he couldn’t imagine it. They were just so… vastly and completely antithetical to anything remotely intimate. If Dudley weren’t in existence and if he didn’t look so horribly like a young, blond Vernon, Harry might have been poised to believe his aunt and uncle had never consummated their marriage at all.

“Know exactly what you mean,” he lied. “Duck is well?”

Duck was your tawny owl, whom you’d named based on nothing other than the fact that you found it thoroughly hilarious to christen him the name of a different bird. Duck hadn’t seemed to find it quite as funny but answered to the name all the same.

You smiled at the mention. “As proud as ever, he is. Wanted to come today but I sent him off to deliver a letter to Hermione. Expect Muggles might find it a bit strange, an owl at the beach. And Hedwig, how is she?”

Harry smiled in kind. He always liked talking about Hedwig. “She’s OK. Took off on a hunt this morning. As long as she’s away from the Dursleys most days of the week, she’s OK.”

“Quite like you then?”

“Quite like anyone,” Harry amended.

“You know, I think Duck has taken to Hedwig just a bit,” you started slowly, the lilt of your words laced with insinuation.

Harry barked a laugh. “I was going to say the same about Hedwig. She nipped me on the thumb when I suggested it, though, so I’m not allowed to bring it up."

“She was being nice,” you told him. “Expect Duck might peck my eye out if I tried to say anything.”

Harry was going to make another joke but it died in his throat when he began to smell salt in the air. Out his window and beyond yours, a deep blue sea was twinkling blindingly on either side of the bridge leading to the beach. Harry felt his stomach turn in anticipation.

You glanced at the time as you looked for a vacant spot in the car park. It was close to noon already. “Why don’t you get changed and I’ll get us lunch.”

Harry nodded emphatically and unbuckled his seat belt before you’d even put the car in park.

He put on his bathing suit and sandals in the bistro’s toilets, wrenching the tags off both new items. Then, he slipped his t-shirt back on, gathered the rest of his things, swapped out his seeing glasses for the sunglasses and walked out a new man… Until his poor vision ran him into a table and he had to swap glasses again.

You passed him something wrapped in foil when he joined you—“Coronation chicken, OK?” “Yeah, great”—and strolled out together.

With food in hand now, his stomach began to growl at once and he ate on the way to shore, walking sort of funny on the pliant, sinking terrain.  

You planted the stick of an obscenely fluorescent umbrella in an arbitrary spot on the vast expanse of soft granules and not for one moment did Harry think it would hold up. And yet he knew this was something people did and plenty of other obscenely fluorescent umbrellas were holding up just fine, so there had to have been something he was missing.

He helped you pop it open, sandwich between his teeth as you packed sand in around the base. When it seemed stable enough, towels were laid down one beside the other and two packets of crisps were passed to-and-fro. Harry took in his surroundings.

He’d never quite understood what people meant when they described the sound of waves as relaxing and, now that he was here, listening to those waves live and present… he still did not understand it. He couldn’t imagine himself turning the sound on to fall asleep at night in any case.

Still, it drowned out the noise of squawking birds and pattering Brits, marginally, and that was about all anyone could ask for.

The next surprise came when, after lunch, you shrugged off your own t-shirt and shorts, revealing a bathing suit Harry hadn’t registered you’d been wearing underneath your clothing.

He tried to keep his eyes from sinking below eye level. It was impolite and you were his friend but the Hogwarts uniforms left maybe a bit too much to the imagination and it was only now that you were in your two-piece swimming costume in front of him that Harry realised he’d never seen your body clad in quite so little. 

He made it a strict point to look you in the eyes and only the eyes while you spoke to one another but when you shyly asked if he wouldn’t mind so terribly applying sun cream to the parts of your back you couldn’t reach, his efforts went out to the very sea not thirty feet away from him.

“D’you want me to get yours?” you asked breezily enough when he’d finished.

Harry couldn’t decide what would stress him more—a great blistering sunburn or your hands roaming over his bare back. He supposed it'd seem a bit odd if he said no and he couldn't think of a sound reason for it so he accepted and tried to sit as still as possible. The cream, however, was unpleasantly cold, and he went shrinking away from you the second it hit his hot skin. You gave a small titter at his yelp and beckoned him closer again and, just like that, any ideas about extra layers of meaning in this exchange were promptly quelled.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with unadulterated fun. Harry couldn’t remember an afternoon where he’d spent so long grinning uninterrupted.

You spent time swimming in the ocean—“Are you going to leave your glasses on?” “How else am I meant to see your pretty face, eh?” “Shut the fuck up, Potter”—and taking long walks to the edges of each pier until you ran into the bottom of a bridge pillar and a mass of rocks you deemed unwise to climb; you joined in on a volleyball game some Muggle teenagers were recruiting players for and got ice cream at the nearby vendor, all the while you could rest assured that your umbrella, towels, and the rucksack with all your things would remain unapproachable to any potential thievery. 

“Surely, the Ministry will understand,” you reasoned as Harry shielded you from any prying Muggle eyes while you’d cast the anti-theft charm.

“Mr Weasley, you mean,” Harry muttered.

“And Tonks and Kinglsey and…” you listed off aimlessly, pretending to adjust your bags. “I’m sure one tiny spell in the presence of Muggles who wouldn’t know magic if it blasted out their bumhole is the Ministry’s very biggest fish to fry, right next to stopping the Dark Lord.”

Harry tried and failed to bite back a wheeze, shaking his head at the all-consuming feeling of adoration swelling through him.

Each time you returned to your little spot on the stretch of sand, you moved your towels in and out of the sun intermittently, mostly quiet as you let the other get some much sought-after rest.

Harry had found lying in the sun to be a particularly delightful experience after coming out of the water. Sand clung to his feet but it was a fair price to pay for the way the warm rays dried his sodden body so splendidly. He had even managed to fall asleep like that, shivering pleasantly and understanding with sudden clarity that whole bit about the crashing waves.

Dinner time came much faster than Harry would have anticipated or wished. Suddenly, it was just past six o’clock and the sun was going hazy in the changing sky.

The two of you shook out your towels, gathered your things to drop them off in the car, and started off on a stroll toward a band of restaurants.

When you’d settled on one—speedily enough as your once-more empty stomachs demanded it—you entered to find the place relatively empty before remembering it was in fact the middle of the week.

After swapping between glasses all day—or otherwise wearing one on top of the other which was considerably bothersome—Harry was glad to finally settle on a pair.

Your meals were tasty, and though not exactly comparable to a Hogwarts feast, impressive in their own right—and especially welcome after a day of sun-soaking and sea-splashing and glasses-swapping.

Harry seized the bill before you could. You made a strangled sound of protest and knit your brows at him. 

“I can at least thank you for giving me the day away from my aunt and uncle and Dudley,” he said.

You let out a small huff before sending him a look of genuine gratitude. “You don’t have to thank me. It ought to be mandated by the British government. One beach day per year away from the Dursleys.”

“Keep talking like that and I’ll pay for all of your dinners.”

***

Once you were back at the car park, you insisted that you return to the beach to watch the sunset. Harry had no qualms about this whatsoever and believed you fully when you said it wasn’t a sight to be missed.

You got out your towels along with the leftover crisps and sweets from the boot of your car, then headed through the fenced barrier once more to get back to the stretch of sand. It was nice to be in dry clothes again because the retreating sun was so selfishly taking with it the warmth it had spent the day providing.

Harry couldn’t tell whether there were more or less people than this afternoon, but you found a quiet area to yourselves again so he didn’t pay it much mind. A balmy breeze lifted his hair gingerly and the sensation was enjoyable enough that his eyes fell shut.

Even though you were perfectly comfortable in silence with Harry, this day had been filled with conversations spanning many different topics and you felt it would be a shame to let the streak end here.

“Right—snog, marry, kill: Filch… a Dementor and…”

Harry was already wrinkling his nose, recoiling on his towel opposite you, plainly not looking forward to this pressing luckless decision. 

You grinned wickedly, choosing your final participant at once: “Or the Whomping Willow.”

“How do you expect me to snog the Whomping Willow?”

“Is that your choice?” you asked, fighting a deviant smile. 

“No, I think I’d have to marry it, with those options…”

You chortled. “Yeah, that’s probably what I’d choose too. Right, so marry the Willow,” you counted off on a finger. “Filch and a Dementor,” you reminded him.

Harry weighed his options, fighting between a chortle of his own and some convulsive retching. 

“Snog the Dementor,” he decided finally, “so it can give me the damn kiss and I don’t have to worry about being married to a tree.” 

You laughed loudly. Harry watched, your head thrown back and eyes squeezed tight, thinking that you looked very pretty just now.

“Brilliant answer.” 

“It’s true, I had been considered for Ravenclaw at one time.”

You said nothing, making a show of busying yourself with a packet of crisps, and Harry’s mouth fell open.

At the sight of his comically insulted expression, you angled your face away and stuffed your mouth to keep from ruining the joke.

Harry snatched the bag from you, the corners of his open mouth twitching upward traitorously.

“Fine, let’s see what you do with… er… Flitwick!” he counted off eagerly, delighting in the sound of your groan. “Lucius Malfoy…” 

“Naturally,” you agreed. “A Death Eater to round off the options nicely.” 

“And…” His eyes lit with mischief. “Mrs Norris.”

“A cat, you’d have me snog a cat?” you squawked. 

“You wanted me to snog a tree!” 

“Yeah, but it’s like a tree with personality. You’d never be bored.”

“Oh yeah, I expect I’d be too busy getting walloped by branches every day to be bored, wouldn’t I? And, if anything has personality, it’s Mrs Norris.”

“I’d still take the tree over that godforsaken animal,” you moaned, turning green in the face. 

Harry grinned, looking more and more like he belonged in Slytherin by the minute. 

“S’pose I’d have to marry Flitwick, then, wouldn’t I? A bit unsightly, a step stool at the alter and the massive age gap but very well.”

Harry grinned and held up a finger to count you off. “Lock it in?”

“I could also turn over to the Dark side…” 

“You’d be Draco’s step mum,” Harry pointed out and you clamped a hand over your mouth at the realisation, unable to stifle a bout of sharp, shocked giggles. 

Harry, too, was having trouble containing the laughter threatening to bubble up and he glanced around furtively, as though Draco Malfoy himself might be lurking under what was left of the impossibly brightly coloured umbrellas along the stretch of sand. 

“Wow,” you breathed dreamily. “I’d absolutely ruin that child’s life. But I think he’d Avada me in my sleep,” you added disappointedly. “Let’s say… Marry Flitwick, snog Lucius—with the goal of destroying the Malfoy family—and I’m definitely killing the fucking cat.”

“Personally, I might have snogged the cat,” Harry reasoned, reaching over you for an unopened bag of off-brand Skittles.

“You would,” you shot back accusingly.

“Right, because I think me having freed the Malfoys’ house-elf would really put Lucius out of the mood for a bit of cheeky fun, you know?” he offered flatly, popping a few Skittle-imposters in his mouth, and you let out surprised wheeze.

“Yeah, I reckon he’d end your bloodline before you’d have the chance to get within five feet of him.”

“I would be ready and willing, of course,” Harry deadpanned, barely able to get through the sentence.

“Of course.”

He passed you the bag of sweets and the two of you went back and forth like that for a bit:

“Professor McGonagall, Fluffy the three-headed dog and… er…” you looked around. “That one broken, abandoned umbrella by the water.”

Harry put his head in his hands.

“Snape, a hag, and a giant twelve-foot spider.”

“The hag’s very nice, is she?” you croaked nervously.

“You tell me,” said Harry, eyes twinkling dangerously.

Eventually, you had to stop because the options were becoming a little too close to people you knew well and more about who you’d snog than anything else.

(“Luna, Ginny, or Cho?”

“Neville, Seamus, or Dean?”

Neither of you quite gave a straight answer.)

You passed the last packet of crisps off to Harry as if you’d just had the most normal conversation in the world, then laid back on your towel, closed your eyes and breathed in the crisp ocean air.

You thought Harry might have done the same but, not two seconds had you closed your eyes when he was speaking again, voice gone quiet and soft: “You’re missing it.”

You sat up and twisted round, squinting at the horizon where, indeed, a crimson sun was sinking below the shoreline.

Without you noticing, the sky had turned a bubble gum pink ombre with deep amethyst clouds rolling along it, lit by foils of the same fiery hue alight along the vanishing point and reflected strikingly in the water. Behind you, high above, a pale moon was just barely visible in the backdrop of pastel periwinkle and warm lavender.

You shivered.

It was only this that made Harry tear his awe-struck gaze from the scene around him, and he moved in closer beside you on your towel so that you could watch together (and so that you could perhaps steal some of his warmth if you felt like it).

“You were right,” he said in that same quiet, soft voice again, pausing long enough for you to consider him. “Not to be missed.”

“Even if you’ve had the worst day of your life,” you began, your own voice dipping, “makes you feel like you’ll be OK, doesn’t it?”

Harry wondered if you’d come here a lot during your parents’ divorce. If this scene had done exactly that for you.

The sunsets were beautiful at Hogwarts too, especially if it was time of year where it set across the lake, but something about sitting on the shore in the soft sand, listening to the waves and birds and feeling like the sun was closer than it had ever been before was something Harry thought special.

He propped himself up on his palms, planting one behind you on the towel and the other off to his side in the sand, saying naively and foolishly, “Yeah. It does.”

When dusk had fallen and there was nothing but a sliver of seafoam green peaking from behind the horizon, you went back to the car park. Harry could have stayed all night if you’d have wanted to, sleeping beneath the stars and listening to the waves, but it was decidedly colder now and he was sure staying overnight on the beach was not permitted.

Your Cortina sat lonely in its spot, reflecting small orbs of warm, yellow light from the distant streetlamps lining the pier and, closer, the dusting of fairy lights strung up on the fence separating the elevated pavement from the boulder slabs and sand below.

It was unsurprising to find so few cars still here at this hour on a Wednesday night, but what was very surprising was you meeting Harry at the passenger side door of the car.

He looked at you, quirking an eyebrow and doing his best to tamp down the hammering of his heart against the wall of his chest.

You were standing close and peering up at him interestedly.

“Er… What—?” he started to say, eyes flitting from side to side and a helpless smile pushing to the forefront.

“Go on,” you said, nodding in the direction of the driver’s side of the car.

He blinked at you.

“I’m sorry?”

“You said you’ve never driven a car before.”

Harry began to protest almost immediately but you reassured him that you’d stay in the car park and take things slow, and promised that it would be fun.

It was the push he needed and he scampered round sheepishly to clamber into the driver’s seat, looking equal parts hesitant and thrilled.

This was just a big old Muggle broom, he told himself. And he loved flying his broom.

He gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

You smiled, utterly smitten. “Right, that’s great Harry. But you need to turn the car on first.”

Harry flushed and nodded, letting go of the wheel to take the key you held out for him, the fake Snitch’s cool, dainty metal sliding over his wrist, and wedged it into the slot. He turned the key and was at once nipped by this odd sense of satisfaction as the vehicle’s engine revved to life.

“Well done,” you said. Harry thought that was a bit of cheap praise but said nothing. You pointed to the pedals at his feet. “You’re familiar with those?”

Harry shook his head, a bit embarrassed. Vernon barely liked him sitting in the backseat; he could just imagine what a driving lesson might look like.

“Prang this car, boy, and I’ll prang you!” 

Realistically, it would never even get to that point; Harry pictured himself telling his uncle he’d rather like to learn to drive and Vernon doubling over in a fit of laughter so raucous it’d shake the house. “Petunia! Petunia, darling, the boy wants to—ha-ha-ha!—the boy wants to—ha-ha—DRIVE! AH-ha-ha-ha—!”

Harry waved off the unwelcome cloud of thought and let himself focus on your explanations.

“The one on the left is the brake; the right, the accelerator.”

Harry felt his foot glide over each without pressing down. “Brake, accelerator,” he repeated.

You perched closer then to indicate the row of letters along the gear shift between your seats. 

“Park, reverse, neutral, drive, and low. Only ones you really need to concern yourself with are park, reverse, and drive. P, R and D.”

Harry nodded, watching as you mimicked shifting the lever to each one.

Next, you pointed to the rear-view mirror and those on either side of the car. “Mirrors,” you said simply.

Harry nodded again.

“Right, foot on the brake then,” you said. “Press down.”

He kept the pedal pressed very securely under his right foot.

“Always be ready to return to that one. And if things go bad,” you began conditionally, tapping the lever closest to you: “Handbrake stops the car.”

Harry nodded a third time. He noticed the radio and volume knobs, glad to find at least something he was familiar with, then pointed to two glass circles on the dash in front of him.

“What are these?”

He was indicating the speedometer and rev counter. You explained each briefly, plus the turn signal, and assured him that he did not have to worry about any of them for now.

“Brake, accelerator, park and drive,” you said. “That’s all you’ve got to remember.”

“Right,” said Harry, foot still eased down on the brake.

“OK. Move the gear stick to D.”

Harry watched the red square move, and kept his foot firmly on the brake until you told him otherwise.

“Great,” you said. “Very light pressure on the accelerator, or we’ll take off through the barrier into the ocean and you’ve not got any Gillyweed on you, have you?”

Harry grinned nervously, flushed with excited nerves.

You were right about the accelerator’s sensitivity. It seemed he’d stepped on the pedal just a hair too forcefully—which was mad because he was actually trying to be gentle. You took off with a great start before his reflexes kicked in and he jammed on the brakes.

You laughed. “Yeah, gently. Go again.”

He did, and this time was much smoother.

“Wheel to the left. You’re doing really great.”

Harry, for the first time, turned the wheel gradually. He picked up the gist of it all easily enough and began cruising through the painted lines and around the perimeter, keeping generous distance from the few remaining cars tucked away in corners.

It had nothing on flying his Firebolt but Harry could see why Muggles might enjoy this sort of thing. It was a bit like a game, really. (A game that had the capacity to kill things and expend thousands of pounds in damage, he reminded himself, and redoubled his focus.)

“How do you feel?” you asked after a few minutes, apparently comfortable enough with his driving that you’d taken to staring out the passenger window, watching the ocean, the boardwalk, the surrounding trees and the main road with the restaurants as each sight swapped in and out of rotation.

“Good, yeah. It’s fun.”

“It’s a rite of passage, Harry, congratulations.”

Harry smiled and, without any prompting or guiding from you, eased the car into a slow stop between two painted lines, shifted the gear until the back square of the ‘P’ was red, then twisted the key again to turn off the engine.

“I was nowhere as good as you my first go,” you told him. “You’re a natural.”

“Thanks,” he said, beaming. "Do you like it, driving?"

"Yeah. I mean, more than flying, anyhow. I'm really quite a rubbish flyer. But I sort of understand why you lot enjoy it so much."

"Yeah, it's..."

"Freedom," you said together.

"Right," he said.

There was an easy, comfortable silence then but mounting trepidation came creeping up Harry’s spine to spoil it.

Your perfect beach day had so very evidently reached its natural end, and a really nice end at that, except he wasn’t ready to go home. He’d never be ready to get back to the Dursleys for that matter but, after this day with you, Harry thought he’d be all right to spend every day after it with you too.

“D’you want to get going?” you asked on cue, though he detected a note of reluctance in your tone and clung onto it for dear life.

“No,” he said honestly.

"Neither do I.”

It was certainly night-time but it wasn’t dramatically late either. On a Friday or Saturday, there might be an ice cream parlour open or perhaps a café.

“Suppose we could go for a drive?” you suggested. “I mean me. I drive.”

Harry nodded, laughing through his nose. He quite liked the drive here; he wondered what it would be like at night.

“Just going to get the sweatshirt I’ve brought before we head off,” you murmured aimlessly and turned around to fetch it from the backseat.

Unfortunately, Harry, in his determination to play the part of gentleman, turned around at the same time wanting to grab it for you and the two of you conked heads.

“Ah, sorry!” he hissed, face screwing up, palm coming up to rub at the darting pain.

When he opened his eyes again, the world was blurry. For all the lake-dives, Willow-wallops and fifty-foot plummets from his broom that the blasted things had managed to stay on, Harry’s glasses had chosen this moment to fly off his face. (Perhaps they had grown resentful at having to share the bridge of his nose with another pair today and had selected this moment to enact revenge.)

“Oh, your glasses!” you squeaked apologetically, bending forward in your seat to search for them.

Either Harry hadn’t tied it back properly the first time or it was an extremely flimsy chain because at that moment, whilst you were scrabbling around in the dark near the bundle of keys, the bewitched Snitch fell off its attachment and went zooming round the car like Hedwig after the Dursleys had forced Harry to keep her locked up for nearly an entire summer.

“I’ll get it,” Harry volunteered, unbuckling his seat belt, and moved around this way and that in his attempts to catch it.

You must have been right to stay mute about his consideration for Ravenclaw because this was the furthest thing from intelligence, wisdom, or wit. With a good deal of his vision compromised plus the dimness of night-time, the Snitch was impossible to capture, even in the confined space and even for the likes of Harry. He hit the sun visor down in his clumsy flailing and felt something suspiciously like an envelope fly out and thwack him on the nose.

“Is this your acceptance letter?!” he cried in utter disbelief, turning it over in the blurry darkness. His fingers grazed over the all-too-familiar purple wax seal and he knew it had to be even if he couldn’t see it properly.

You sprung up at once, hitting your head against the compartment housing the glove box in the process. “Oh! I’d wondered where that’d gone! Quite a nice keepsake, isn’t it?”

He handed it over to you thinking that, yes, it was quite a nice keepsake and one might like to find a decent place to store it safely. Clearly not having developed the ability to read minds, you shot the envelope into the rear seat offhandedly and busied yourself with gesturing at his feet, telling him you suspected his glasses might be closer to him.

So, the two of you switched roles: you, unbuckling your seatbelt and turning your attention to the wayward flying object in your car, Harry bending and fumbling around blindly on the floor in front of him. Eventually, his fingers touched the familiar wire frame and closed around it.

He straightened up triumphantly, slotting them back on only in time to have you lurch out of your seat and straight onto his where you caught the Snitch replica somewhere just over the top of his head.

“Ha!” you shouted victoriously, feeling it struggling to free itself from your closed fist… And then your entire body went icily rigid at the crushing realisation of just where you’d got to.

You’d thrown a hand on Harry’s shoulder for leverage, put a knee up on the corner of his seat and strewn your body decidedly flush against his side. You were all but sat in his lap.

“Not bad,” Harry commended, unexpectedly rosy and short for breath. "You could have tried for Quidditch."

"Bad flyer," you reminded him, somewhat breathless yourself. "But I'm sure I'd have nicked Seeker from you no problem.”

“I meant more during that bit when I was banned,” he went on, smirking daringly up at you. “You couldn’t nick Seeker from me on my worst day, darling.”

You swallowed, palpably aware of your proximity. You did not remember it being so difficult to come up with clever retorts before this moment.

“Tosser,” you muttered at last, giving up on cleverness and feeling heat rise to your cheeks. He'd never spoken to you like that.

You made yourself return to your seat, no matter how unsteady you felt and tried to convince yourself that your discomposure was nothing but a result of the last five minutes of unbridled chaos—nothing else at all.

You occupied yourself with putting the Snitch back on your keyring as securely as it would fasten and went on babbling idly because the nerves wouldn’t let you stay silent and your first instinct was always to lean on humour.

“Very big words, as well, for someone I'd absolutely flatten in a sprint.” This was true at least. Quidditch did not do a great deal for enhancement of the cardiovascular system.

Ideally, you would have uttered this playfully, close to his face and down in a whisper with every ounce of coquettishness you could muster but your basic motor functions did not seem to be working very proficiently at the moment so it came out as more of a wobbling croak.

Harry chuckled something different to his natural laugh. “Oh, you would, would you?”

“I don’t like you when you’re too proud,” you pouted, tearing your eyes away from where you were fiddling with the keychain to glower at him exaggeratedly.

“Nor do I,” said Harry candidly. He was watching your hands.

You’d just barely got the Snitch on properly, turning to spew something akin to a relieved “there we are!” when he surged forward, grasping you by the side of the face, and kissed you.

Harry wasn’t sure what made him do it. Maybe the mental image of you beside him on the Quidditch pitch or the very real feeling of your body pressing into his own just seconds ago or this extremely fun, wonderful, fantastic day you’d spent together—but he felt if he didn’t do it now he might just never work up the nerve. And that would be a tragedy too deplorable to allow even the slimmest window of opportunity.  

He hadn’t intended to trade soft romance for brash boldness but he just couldn’t bring himself to dawdle. Fortunately, you were returning the kiss, perhaps a touch less impassioned but steady, and finding your footing.

Your hand moved from his wrist where you’d first held on in surprise to the top of his shoulder and over along his back.

For Harry’s part, he was cupping your jaw in both palms, fingertips sliding into some of your hair, tilting his head so you didn’t brush noses quite so much and finding himself wishing you'd never let go.

As one of your hands found the back of his head, combing through habitually unruly locks made even more so by salty sea water, he wondered if maybe the Dursleys had gone to bed tonight convinced he was partaking in this exact form of debauchery; if Petunia had shut the front door of her home after seeing you off and, with striking comprehension, realised precisely what the both of you would be getting up to in this pretty sage green Cortina.

The thought spurred him on. Not only was he doing the thing he’d wanted to do for ages but Harry made it a point these days to seize every possible opportunity to make the Dursleys think less of him—if he hadn’t reached the lowest pit already, that was. (Where to get a shovel to continue digging deeper was always the question.)

Harry had kissed girls before—Cho in the Room of Requirement and Ginny twice before they’d decided it would be best to remain friends—but never like this. Those had been... delicate and relatively chaste but still enough to send Harry’s heart racing (and blood travelling to places he’d have preferred it didn’t on one occasion). Those were new and tentative, but this… this had escalated until it was neither new nor tentative nor delicate and the furthest thing from chaste.

Harry hadn’t even been aware that he’d known how to kiss like this. He’d been clumsy at one time, learning the ropes maladroitly and now… Well, you had said he was a natural... He hoped that was true for his kissing too.

There were noises wedged in his throat—none of which he permitted to leave the confines of his voice box—and this antsy feeling washing over him, like he was trapped in his own skin but like he never wanted to be set free; he was squirming inside in the most peculiar, wonderful way but also with the inexplicable urge to rip the car door off its hinges.

He clutched onto you with a slightly stronger grip.

It felt like hours even though he knew it had to be more like minutes and the funny thing about it was, he didn’t want to stop no matter how much time went by. Harry thought he could do this forever and still want more by the end. He’d never been in such a rhythm like this, had never had to pivot between what to fix his attention on.

His hand slipped from your jaw to your cheek for an imperceptible moment before it slid to tangle in your hair. Your own hands were now at his chest, fisting the material of his shirt.

You never wished so badly that your car had been a leather bench up front instead of two individual seats because it felt like you were as close as you were going to get in these constraints and yet you still needed to be closer.

In a flurry of frenzied emotion, you threw both arms over Harry’s shoulders, tugging him nearer and surprising him enough that he fell into you and his tongue suddenly met yours much firmer than it had been before.

You both flashed hot, parting with matching gasps before you came crashing together again.

One of those noises Harry was trying desperately to keep restrained came soaring to the surface and he had to slam a hand on the window behind you to keep from slipping, you were tugging so forcefully.

You couldn’t help it. Jolts were surging through your body, up and down and everywhere like electric currents tingling all the way to the very tips of your fingers and the soles of your feet. You wanted him close, close, close, kept your arms around his neck, indulging in the way his fingers flexed where they were holding the back of your head and roaming the length of your waist—

All at once, the radio spurred to life; something slow and sultry rang through the car as if the thing itself knew the goings-on inside of it.

You both jumped, springing back from each other hastily which was a rather graceless thing because you were still very much tangled together.

“Was that you or me?” you murmured, panting faintly.

Harry looked equally as dishevelled and ruined as you felt, lips parted, eyes half-lidded, glasses askew on his face.

“Think that was me,” he admitted, looking over. “Sorry.”

But you were more focussed on the headlights of your car, which had also come to flick on of their own accord.

“Well, suppose that was me then,” you said, nodding out the windscreen at the two Venn diagramming pools spotlighting the ground in front.

Harry laughed breathlessly as you wrapped him up in a hug full of shared embarrassment, patting his hair down gently.

It was while you were like this that Harry let himself heave a small sigh and confess in the quiet: “I don’t want to go back to the Dursleys.”

As he inevitably always did whenever he was away from them, memories of their bad tempers and sour expressions and cruel negligence crept in. And the more he thought about them in contrast with you and your bright smiles, and careful attention and warm hugs… The more dread seeped in at having to leave.

You sat with him, loosening your hold enough for him to straighten up, and reflected silently for a moment.

Harry was just feeling the aftermath of shame from vulnerability when you shifted in your seat and considered him thoughtfully.

“You know, I reckon you’d get on great with my dad…”

Harry’s insides fluttered and squeezed. His breath caught.

He was scared to ask but you looked so open and genuine about it.

“Are you… being serious?”

“Yeah,” you said earnestly. “He’s a Muggle but he loves magic folk. It’s mental I haven’t introduced him to Mr Weasley. Expect they’d actually fall in love with each other.”

Harry would have liked to return some of this amusing commentary but he was too far away in his thoughts of what you’d just offered. For one fleeting, dreamy, heart-tugging second, he let himself imagine what it might be like to stay with you until start of term. To eat breakfast with you and your dad, to look for the traits he loved in you and see if he might find them in him. To answer the kind of questions fathers asked and pretend to laugh at the kind of jokes fathers made. He was picturing a Mr Weasley character more similar to you and the thought made him smile wobblily.

He imagined accompanying you on errands in this very car, watching films and writing early reports for Professor Binns who always set homework over the summer. He wondered about the bed or sofa he might be allotted and thought about kissing you on it when night fell and you might find yourselves alone.

And then he took himself out of the reverie.

All his things were at the Dursleys’. Aunt Petunia had grown fond of you in about eight minutes, sure, but Uncle Vernon would have things to say and qualms to raise.

Harry could already hear all the horrific, humiliating, rude things that would shoot out of his uncle’s mouth…

“You want to be adolescent parents then, do you? Right Casanova, aren’t you, boy? Completely perverted just like that good-for-nothing father of yours—!”

Harry cringed physically at that grating voice in his head and almost covered his ears with his hands. You didn’t need to be anywhere near that man—Harry wouldn’t let you anywhere near him.

“If you’re thinking you’re going to impose,” you said gently, bringing him back to himself, “it’s not like that. My dad’s a bit of a fan, truthfully, I know he’d love to have you stay.”

You were peering up at him sheepishly, knowing very well how often he got the whole “fan” bit.

But Harry’s thoughts were elsewhere.

Your dad was a Muggle.

If anyone found out he was staying with you…

He didn’t have to delve into the line of thought at all; this was no longer a matter up for deliberation.

Before he spoke again, you seemed to have read his thoughts or perhaps just the conflicting emotions so plainly on display in his expressions.

“Will your aunt and uncle miss you?” you asked carefully.

Harry was silent for a long beat before he nodded slowly. Reluctantly. Mournfully—resisting the urge to bury his head in his hands. 

“Right, let’s go for that drive,” you declared finally.

“Didn’t you want your jumper?”

A smile wove its way over your face. “No, I think I’m perfectly warm now.”

You drove around town until the early hours of the morning, pointing out some of your favourite places as you went by them, and took in the stunning view of city lights over the bridge. You put in another one of your CDs, cycling through until a certain sequence of opening chords made you go still.

You turned up the volume and Harry realised he knew this one.

“If I could, baby, I'd give you my world…”

Driving was not like flying but when you reached the top of the motorway, and all the faraway buildings around shone and glimmered at you like beads of sunlight, and you were zooming down at speeds Uncle Vernon would have condemned, Harry felt damn near close to it. His stomach tightened excitedly the way it always did when he kicked off into the air on his broom and this time, there was musical accompaniment. The song stirred something in him.

“You can go your own way…”

Harry couldn’t imagine getting away with something like singing in the Dursley household but the urge was overpowering when you turned the radio loud enough he could no longer hear himself.

“You can call it another lonely day…”

A face-splitting grin stretched his cheeks and he found himself shouting out the lyrics right along with you, more of that impossibly high, giddy feeling blooming in his chest. Harry was so overfilled with elation, something emotional broke in him, and he threw both arms in the air, singing at the top of his lungs, whooping and hollering in the interims as you tore down the empty motorway, wind whipping loudly through the open windows.

He stuck his head out, feeling current pelt his face harshly and yelled out into the crisp night at the top of his lungs.

“YOU CAN GO YOUR OWN WAY! GO YOUR OWN WAAAAY!”

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when you had nowhere left to go and no choice but to return to Privet Drive.

“I’ll walk you,” you offered gently, voice raspy and low from the late hour and incessant singing (screaming), and got out alongside him.

Harry tried to make the traipse up the garden path last as long as possible but even dragging his feet as slow as he dared wasn’t enough to prolong the night by much.

He half-expected to be locked out. It would not have been out of character for Vernon to grumble something akin to ‘the boy doesn’t respect us, Petunia, thinks he can just come and go as he pleases—enough of this insolence’ and make Harry take up residency in the backyard shed for the night, before he remembered that his aunt was gaining something from letting him back into the house. Sure enough, the door handle went without a hitch.

He sighed and turned to bid you goodnight.

So many more of those twinkling, glittering beads dusted the sky high above you—smaller, like pinholes, webbing this way and that. He tilted his head up at them, breathing slowly, and you followed suit.

He was just wondering if they’d have been observable from the beach too when he thought again about the unlocked door.

Aunt Petunia was gaining something.

He pulled out his wallet and shoved a one-hundred-pound note in your hands. You barely had time to look outwardly confused before Harry was explaining.

“Get Petunia her hair products. Come see me again,” he was making you promise.

You looked down at the money and back up at him, wearing this affected expression of amazement. Harry didn’t know that this gesture was worthy of the awe on your face; he just wanted to see you again.

In your silent deliberation, Harry slid both hands to cup your cheeks.

“Come see me,” he repeated warmly, and planted a small kiss on your lips because, apparently, every shred of self-control he’d ever accrued had dispelled right out of his body today, never to be seen again.

You nodded, positively dazed. “OK.”

Harry felt himself smiling through heavy exhaustion. Even if he hadn’t been able to see the sleepiness mirrored on your face, he’d have found you out by the persistent tug of his own. 

“Will you be OK getting back?” he asked, blinking slowly, a calm contentedness washing over him now that he knew he wouldn’t have to wait until the start of term to see you.

You nodded once more, this time through a yawn. “My dad’s only a few minutes away. Nothing some cold wind and loud music won’t keep me up for.”

”Send me Duck so I know you’ve got home safe.”

You rolled your eyes at him and turned down the driveway. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“I’m serious, send him!” Harry called after you.

He waited up for your owl, fighting droopy eyes and a delirious brain. It was late enough that even the Dursleys wouldn’t have stayed up to tell him off but he supposed he’d be woken up bright and early as punishment. 

Still, he waited. And Duck eventually swooped in ever so gracefully through his open bedroom window, landing beside Hedwig’s cage where she was curled up snugly with her head nested under her wing. 

Harry blinked at Duck. Duck blinked back, then gave quite possibly the softest hoot an owl has ever made, tapping his little feet restlessly. 

From one man to the next, Harry supposed he could help him out. He dragged himself up from overtop his bedspread, his entire body begging for the sweet release of sleep, and freed Duck of your small rolled-up note.

“Go on,” Harry said then, voice brittle and gruff from fatigue. “She won’t mind if it’s you.” 

Duck pecked Hedwig’s cage lightly, cautiously, like he wasn’t sure what wrath he might elicit by rousing her from sleep.

The light ding of his beak against the thin wire was enough to do it. Lidded amber eyes lifted open and she looked as though she’d quite fancy pecking Harry’s eye out, until she noticed Harry was actually a few paces away, rather preoccupied.

He was reading your message fixedly, nose inches from the parchment.

There were only four words—six if you counted the letters at the bottom, which Harry would have been a loon not to:

Made it home, worrywart. 

xx 

In front of Hedwig, Duck was shrinking slightly, looking apologetic if an owl could look it. Hedwig churred softly, ruffling her feathers and hopping through the open entrance of her cage to meet him.

Harry reread your message three times before folding it neatly and stashing it away in the loose floorboard under his bed, just beneath his own acceptance letter and next to his cherished (authentic) Golden Snitch. 

It was silly. The note didn’t say very much at all but he couldn’t bring himself to chuck it in the bin or anything of the sort.

The plastic bag containing his sandals and swimming shorts was also stuffed under his bed, though he had plans to store the items in the back of his wardrobe where he could only hope they wouldn’t be sniffed out by his nosing aunt while he was away at school. 

When Harry turned back to Hedwig and Duck, he found them snuggled together, Hedwig towering over Duck a good bit, their heads tilted together cosily. Harry wished he had a camera.

Too debilitated to do anything else at all, he fell back on his bedspread, not bothering to get under the sheets, and used his last bit of strength to extinguish his bedside lamp before passing out.

He’d be awoken in the morning by a routinely grumpy Vernon, who’d knock on his door loud enough to startle Hedwig, sending her wings flapping agitatedly against the bars of her cage.

“Get started on breakfast, boy. If you want to be out until the wee hours of the morning, you won’t be having a lie in neither. Get to it.”

Half of these words entering through sleep, Harry would rouse with a start, glasses still on but vision bleary enough to convince him otherwise. He’d blink until the numbers on the clock cleared enough to make out the time. 7:03.

Well, Vernon had let him sleep in. That was nice of him. 

Duck had since gone and Harry could see out his open window that it would be another gorgeous blue day; a gorgeous blue day that reminded him of yesterday and of you and of your gorgeous blue day together and, in fact, he was convinced most things would remind him of you from here on out—the green grass, for instance, which was several (OK, fine, many) shades off from the green of your car. 

Harry dragged himself out of bed and to the kitchen, entirely undeterred by the usual scowling looks he was receiving from the Dursleys. He was so lost inside his mind that he barely noticed Petunia, who was the only member of the family to have morphed her usual greeting of a deep-set frown into a greeting that was instead twitchy and labour-intensive. Whether she was winning the battle to keep her face pleasantly neutral was hard to tell.

Harry hummed to himself, going through the motions of breakfast mindlessly: fetching the frying pans and the oil, turning on the stove, cracking the eggs, slipping bread in the toaster, and thinking what else he might like to eat this morning.

It was only when he looked up to see if Petunia had already sliced up some fruit for the table that he saw all three of them goggling at him.

Vernon’s face was scrunched up as though he’d just smelled something bad—which would not be odd considering there were eggs cooking on the stove—but Harry had the distinct feeling it was for a different reason entirely.

“Are you humming?” his uncle sneered, sounding more astonished than anything else.

“Am I?” said Harry genuinely, realisation dawning on him. “Oh, sorry. I’ll stop.”

He missed the exchange of wide-eyed leers at the table and, even as he sat down, his mind was far away, in your car, on the sand, in the waves, wrapped up in your arms—

“Busy night, was it?” Dudley snarked, biting into a piece of toast.

“Er—” Harry started, unsure how to respond to this very obvious snare.

Before he could think of anything to say—something that was calculatedly not along the lines of “you fucking wish you had the night I had”—Aunt Petunia piped up.

“What time did you arrive home, then?”

She was pursing her lips slightly but gave no sign that suggested a yelling was on the horizon.

Harry thought on his feet. He could probably get away with saying midnight; the Dursleys were usually in bed by eleven at the latest, so even if they had stayed up in hopes of giving him a bollocking, Harry doubted their commitment would have drawn past a full hour.

The lie tumbled out of his mouth before he really thought about it and, the second it was out, Harry had the stroke of fear that—possibly just to spite him but also because he usually wasn’t at the table until ten or eleven in the mornings—Dudley had decided to stay up until Harry got home.

“And her parents let her stay out that late, do they?” spat Uncle Vernon before Harry could scrutinise his cousin for indications that he was harbouring any potentially sensitive information.

Harry swiftly remembered that he had been keeping Dudley’s smoking a secret for years. He had leverage if he needed it but, as much as he doubted his cousin’s ability to follow the same line of rationale, Dudley wasn't saying anything and that was all that mattered.

“I dunno. Suppose so,” he said to Vernon, shrugging in a way he knew would be interpreted as disrespect. (But what the hell was he, Harry, meant to know about how late your parents let you come home?)

He shovelled a forkful of eggs in his mouth in the feeble hopes that this would discourage any more conversation—as if a forkful of eggs had ever done before.

Vernon looked to his wife, as if waiting for her to finally fly off the handle or at the very least inform Harry that they would not be letting him come home that late ever again.

Good thing you’re not my parents then, eh, Harry would have wanted to say in response. However, no addition came from Aunt Petunia. She merely nibbled a cube of cantaloupe and, anyway, he probably would have had the sense not to utter the thought aloud, even with his brain on less sleep than it liked.

No one spoke after that and Harry volunteered nothing. Vernon turned up the volume of the morning news for a few minutes before leaving for work.

Harry cleared the table without being asked, happy to lose himself in his thoughts again when they were interrupted a second go, this time by Aunt Petunia, the only person who had not left the table.

She was regarding him warily, clearly wanting to say something but perhaps not knowing exactly how and only when she cleared her throat did Harry look up expectantly from where he was stacking the dishwasher.  

“Your, erm… your friend,” she began unresolvedly, “did she she mention me at all yesterday on your little… er... excursion?”

Harry hoped a week would be enough. “Yeah, I think she said something about swinging round in the next week to drop off your, er, shampoo?”

His aunt appeared visibly torn between beaming broadly like a primary school student receiving praise from a teacher and correcting Harry’s ostensibly egregious belittling of her toiletries. It’s not just shampoo, he could hear her snap from the quivering of her jaw alone. In the end, she settled on this odd stiff expression that made Harry want to ask if she needed to use the loo.

Aunt Petunia had turned her dining chair round to face Harry, who was still by the sink, so he could see her expression clearly as something heavy seemed to settle over it. She let out a great sigh.

“Tell me the truth—is she one of… your kind?”

Harry stilled. If she was asking it was because she already thought so but Harry was thoroughly bewildered by the fact that she was bringing up the subject at all.

He was having such a good morning, he decided to push his luck.

“Yeah. She is. Is that a problem?”

He was jumping up and down inside. If Aunt Petunia had not wanted something from you so badly this would have, in fact, been a ginormous problem.

A series of conflicting emotions flickered over her face in such quick succession, Harry couldn’t read them all, even as he was observing keenly, waiting to see his aunt short-circuit.

And then, all at once, he learned something brand new about his mother’s sister which was surprising because Harry thought he’d already learned everything there was to know. As it turned out, Aunt Petunia’s infatuation with haircare products trumped her disdain for magic.

“No. Of course not,” she said stoutly, sitting up as straight as her spine would allow. Harry watched her try to put on an air of familiarity. “No problem at all.”

Best hundred pounds he’d ever spent.

And then, because this entire situation had not been mystifying enough, she added, “She’s quite pretty, isn’t she?”

Harry almost dropped the plate he’d been holding. He racked it hastily, then grabbed for the tea towel over his shoulder and dried his hands just to give himself something to do. His aunt wasn’t even looking at him yet he was somehow overcome by the feeling of being under intense evaluation.

He felt his cheeks warm. “Yeah. Very pretty.”

He wrote to ask you to come back within the week with whatever it was that you’d told Aunt Petunia you’d get her, and Hedwig returned promptly with your very, in Harry’s opinion, noble acquiescence.

And so you did.

That Sunday evening right after dinner, the bell rang.

Aunt Petunia dashed to get it, the way she had been doing whenever it had sounded in the days prior. Admittedly, Harry coveted to do the same but settled for passing by in the background, throwing the most blasé of glances at the open doorway and continuing on his way when it turned out to be the postman or a neighbour his aunt pretended to find agreeable.

Harry’s heart thumped at twice its normal volume now.

Vernon grumbled, “Who could that be at this hour?”

Who, indeed, Harry thought and leaned so far over the back of the sofa to see that his spine made a popping noise.

He heard your voice before he saw you and practically vaulted over the cushions, prompting some colourful insults from his uncle that Harry didn’t linger to listen to.

Your arms were so full he could only see the top of your face and he rushed out in front of Aunt Petunia to relieve you of the giant gift basket you were holding before she even had the chance to reach forward.

“…Dad owns a bakeshop,” you were saying and then, “Oh hi, Harry!”

“Hello.”

“Anyway, yeah, just thought I’d throw everything in one place. You’ve got your entire set: shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, volumizing and detangling—”

“Petunia!” came a bellow from inside the house and Harry outwardly cringed. “Who’s that at the door?”

The Petunia in question looked wretchedly at war with herself. While Harry found this somewhat gratifying, he also had the sudden fear that she’d throw you under the bus. He glared at her intensely, threatening her in his mind, though she did not even glance at him.

She straightened up at once, pursed her lips in that familiar snippy way Harry had been seeing his whole life, and said less stuffily and more resolvedly than he’d ever heard from her before: “A friend of Harry’s.”

The Harry in question did his utmost not to gasp.

It was as though the second ice age had diffused over the room.

You blinked politely, staring from Harry’s taken-aback gawp to Petunia’s grim stare at the ground.

Harry felt more than heard the interior of the house fall deathly silent. And then you were prattling on again, perhaps none the wiser or perhaps extremely so, explaining the contents of the basket Harry had had to put on the ground before he dropped it.

“I wasn’t sure what kind of pastries you all like, so I’ve brought a bit of everything,” you were saying breezily, sincere glee lighting your cheeks.

Harry could have swooned.

“Right, then, I won’t keep you much longer. It was lovely seeing you again,” you said to both of them, smiling meaningfully at Harry and beginning to turn away. Everything in Harry screamed at you not to leave so soon—screamed at his aunt to not let you leave so soon.

“Er—” Petunia said and Harry thought he was going to have to spend another hundred pounds on her. “Would you like to come in for tea? My husband has got work in the morning but,” she checked her watch, “still early, isn’t it?”

Harry bobbed his head up and down. It could have been one in the morning and he would have deemed it early enough to invite you in. Still, he could hardly believe his ears.

He’d never had friends in the Muggle world—Dudley and his gang of gits had made sure of that—so this had never happened before. Weirdly, even if he had had Muggle friends to invite round, Harry still could not have imagined this scenario happening ever and he was sure his uncle would be going spare any moment now.

You toed off your shoes, a gesture Aunt Petunia looked positively euphoric about, and followed both of them into the sitting room where Vernon and Dudley wore matching gapes.

Petunia introduced you and you gave a small wave, though you’d already been acquainted with the younger Dursley.

“All right?” you asked mildly.

Vernon grunted in response and tried to give you a tight smile but really only succeeded in baring his teeth in your direction. Half a second later, he pulled his wife off into the kitchen, moving faster than Harry would have bet he could. Harry was numbly impressed.

He could hear what they were saying, which meant you could hear what they were saying, so he now had the fun job of striking up conversation to distract you while simultaneously straining his own ears to try and deduce just when this whole thing would inevitably veer badly off the rails.

Dudley rarely looked more uncomfortable than he did now.

“So,” you started moderately after Harry had asked you how you were, how the drive had been and whether it’d been a lot of trouble putting the hamper together—three times that last one.

“Dudley, right?” you said.

Dudley nodded glumly.

“What school do you go to?”

Harry took the opportunity to focus on his aunt and uncle’s voices in the next room.

“Is she one of… them?” Vernon was asking hotly.

Harry was dimly shocked to hear his aunt say, “No, she isn’t—and would you show some manners, please? She’s gone out of her way to get…”

“—And where do you go to school?” Dudley was saying, portentousness dripping from every word.

“Stonewall High,” you said, a practiced response.

“Oh,” mumbled Dudley, almost dejectedly. “Thought you went where Harry goes.”

“You thought I go to St. Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys?” you inquired, trying to be blank-faced and so miserably failing.

Dudley reddened and scowled, turning his attention back to the giant television in the room and pulling a face Harry recognised as Dudley going to great personal lengths to prevent himself from saying something rude. (Dudley did not usually have to hold his tongue in this house. That role went to Harry).

“She brought scones, did she?” Uncle Vernon was burbling now in a decidedly more docile tone as he meandered back out into the sitting area. Harry could hardly believe it.

You walked a few paces to retrieve the hamper compliantly and handed it off to Vernon, who carried it straight to his wife in the kitchen without saying thank you.

He paused in the doorway between the two rooms, appearing as at war with himself as Aunt Petunia had looked earlier.

“Why don’t you two… er…” He glanced quickly inside the kitchen again before letting out a brutish grunt. Clearly, he was not agreeing with whatever it was his wife was suggesting. “Go upstairs… Tea… Er… Until tea is ready…?”

He seemed to have successfully interpreted Petunia’s instructions because his shoulders dropped an inch and he no longer appeared quite as pained. As if suddenly registering the words that had just left his mouth, however, Vernon swerved back around into the kitchen asking, at full volume, “Really? Upstairs? Why not just watch the telly with Dudders?”

Dudders craned his neck in his father’s direction so hastily a small click was heard, audible even through an abrupt clattering in the kitchen. “Do they have to?” he moaned petulantly.

Vernon’s moustache quivered.

“Fine,” he gritted out and Harry swore he could hear his molars squeaking together. “Upstairs, then. Fine.”

It took everything in Harry to hide the giddy smile threatening to break. He was successful only as long as he was facing his uncle. You’d made it up the third step behind him when Vernon cleared his throat loudly and Harry was forced to consider him again.

“The door stays open,” warned his uncle as though he might have liked to bark the order but was restraining himself for the sake of a guest who’d brought scones.

Harry nodded dismissively, fighting to keep his eyes from rolling to the ceiling, and led you the rest of the way up to his room hoping that no one would remember all his magic stuff was lying about in the open.

He’d have to come up with a cover story if they ever questioned him about how he’d hid all of it from you now that you were an ordinary non-magic-wielding common person in the eyes of at least two people in the house.

Harry stuffed his cauldron and broom into his wardrobe as soundlessly as he could, tidying up quickly just in case someone who was not his aunt appeared in the doorway. As he did so, a thought—a real thought, not the revolving panic he’d been calling thoughts for the last fifteen minutes—struck him.

“Does your dad really own a bakery?” he asked. Harry felt he would have known this before today if it were true and it wouldn’t have been the first time you’d lied so seamlessly.

But, on the spot, he discovered there was more still to learn about you.

“Yeah, he does. He’d been a baker there for about ten years before he bought it when the owners wanted to sell. Nearly put us under but he’s the hardest working person I know.”

You were by Hedwig’s cage, stroking her feathers lightly and she hooted delightedly at your touch. (Harry had practically done the same the other night  so he hardly blamed her.) She pranced around a bit, claws clicking the metal lightly, before making her way out and landing on your shoulder.

For the second time this week, Harry wished he had a camera.

“I didn’t know,” he said just to say something. “How come you never mentioned it?”

You smirked and shrugged, scratching Hedwig under the chin. “You never asked.”

“Consider this me asking.”

You grinned.

He continued to inquire: about the location (fifteen minutes off the A22), if you’d ever worked there (you had, part-time in the summer and, no, it was not enjoyable), what other food items it sold ("bakery stuff, Harry, you know what a bakery sells, don’t you?”), and whether or not he might pop in for a visit.

“Oh, I see, you want to spot me in the awful aprons and hairnets, is that it?”

“It is precisely that.”

“I believe I was promised the sight of a golden snitch,” you badgered helplessly, a sad attempt at moving away from this topic of conversation.

“Oh, you were? What kind of tosser promised you that?” said Harry wryly, already moving to the loose floorboard under his bed.

You followed, meandering over gingerly so as not to spook Hedwig, and sat down slowly next to him. You caught a glimpse of something that looked markedly like the letter you’d sent in the early hours of the morning on Thursday but were quickly distracted by an almost blinding flash of gold.

It was much weightier than the Snitch bundled on your keys and far shinier; the metal was evidently of a more pristine, sturdier quality, and decorated with deeper grooves that the fake hadn’t been able to replicate. You wished you could see it fly but knew it wouldn’t be nearly as easy to capture as the one set loose in your car.

Harry watched you roll his prized possession around in your palm, unsure why his body was refusing to breathe. Something about the awe on your face...

“It’s so… pretty. Is that a weird thing to say? I dunno…” you said softly, holding it up.

“No, I get it. It’s just, like, really sleek. Elegant.”

“That’s it,” you agreed.

And there was the briefest moment of silence where your proximity was impossible to ignore and you caught Harry’s eyes flit down to your mouth.

If he wasn’t so familiar with the Dursleys’ disdain for magic, Harry might have honestly thought they were gazing through a crystal ball because Aunt Petunia picked this very moment to call up from downstairs.

His eyes fell shut just as yours widened. You handed the Golden Snitch back to him rashly and rose hurriedly enough that Hedwig scattered and flew the short distance back to the desk her cage was perched on top of.

Harry replaced the floorboard and stood with effort against an invisible weight tethering him here to this moment with you.

He wished he could summon some sort of bubble that existed outside of time where the two of you could talk (and talk and talk) uninterrupted. Unfortunately, his track record revealed he wasn’t nearly as easily pardoned by the Ministry as you ostensibly were.

Harry had never once had a single nice meal with his only living relatives and he was not convinced today would break the streak—no matter how much you charmed his aunt or how poorly his uncle was trying to feign civility or how much Dudley was enjoying his pudding.

“Well, then,” Vernon grunted as soon as you’d tucked your chair in. “Find anything… of interest in that pigsty of a room?”

This might just have been the quickest one of Harry’s apprehensions had come to fruition.

Aunt Petunia froze in the middle of sipping tea; whether she was appalled at the thought of her husband asking such a forward and frankly offbeat question or appalled that he obviously hadn't trusted her word about your magical status, it was difficult to know.

Harry wasn’t sure whether it was a good or bad thing that she was now getting to see just how quick you were on your feet.

“Well, I suppose an owl certainly is an interesting pet. It’s really very nice of you to let Harry have one. My father would have my head, I think,” you said congenially and then considered the boy next to you rather fondly. “And not a pigsty at all. You ought to have seen the way my brother lived when he was at home…”

Your attempts at amiable powwowing faded to the background as Harry caught Aunt Petunia looking back and forth between the two of you, demonstrably at a loss for words. Harry stared back at her intently, silently daring her to expose the three of you together.

You were now smiling pleasantly at Vernon, who’d scowled at you for a whole ten seconds after you were done speaking, presumably stuffy at not having caught anyone in a lie. Petunia turned to her husband finally and her expression warped into a kind of lofty satisfaction Harry didn’t often see her wear.

Dudley ate on, unaware of much of anything. You were a close second.

“Wow, I’d forgotten how much I love scones. Had to set myself a limit at a certain point or I’d just be eating desserts all day, you know? Downside of a baker in the family.”

Petunia, after the treachery committed by her husband, seemed all the more willing to indulge you.

“They are really quite good," she complimented. "Your father is exceptionally talented. Expect I’ll have to set myself a limit in this very sitting.” And then she giggled too heartily for a joke no one else was laughing at.

You leaned forward to sip from your cup of tea and Vernon chose this moment precisely to ask, somewhat maliciously, “How did you come to know… our nephew, exactly?”

Harry hoped he was the only one to catch the way you swallowed crookedly.

“We met at the play park on Magnolia Road… two summers ago, I think, now?” you turned to Harry, as if for confirmation. He tried not to look so alarmed and forced his head to move up and down. “I don’t live very far from here,” you explained. “So we ran into each other a couple of times.”

There was a certain method to your fibbing madness, Harry realised. You were pulling from true events. He wondered if you’d ever been to that park in your life before, but he’d told you the story of the Dementor attack there. The Dursleys would have known he spent plenty of time there in the summers and it was true that you lived nearby so it wouldn’t have been at all implausible that you met that way.

He tried not to look so outwardly impressed by you. It didn’t take long for the sentiment to be replaced anyhow:

“Ought to be more careful,” Vernon was muttering under his breath, “meet all kinds of nutters at playparks.”

And then he jumped in his seat, plainly ruffled, and Harry guessed his aunt may have just inflicted upon him some sort of physical harm beneath the cover of the table.

You feigned deaf-blindness and deftly turned the subject back onto them by asking about their occupations.

Aunt Petunia explained Vernon’s drill salesman job, though Harry couldn’t see how there was very much to explain, before tacking on her housewife status.

“Oh, my mum stayed home for a bit too after I was born. She found it difficult to go back to work until I entered secondary school.”

Petunia nodded affirmatively. “I just couldn’t abandon the house. My son. My—family…” she added forcibly and Harry felt something horrible twist inside him.

She didn’t consider him family and everyone at this table knew it.

“What did you do before?” you asked smoothly, genially, not seeming to notice that Harry had stopped eating.

“Oh, just regular clerical work. Where I met my husband, as a matter of fact,” she said and Harry had to stifle his surprise so as not to indulge either of them.

He had never wanted to know about whatever it was these people who made his life a living hell every waking moment shared between themselves, whether they had wanted to share it or not—and they had not. So this was the first time he was hearing of this. Even Dudley looked up from his plate curiously.

“He was a junior executive,” Petunia carried on and Vernon sat up a bit straighter. "The very best in his department."

Harry could hardly believe what he was hearing—or seeing. He took his glasses off to clean them.

However confounded everyone else at this table was feeling, you were nodding appreciatively, a small, gentle smile on your face and Harry got the impression that whatever underlying air of ridiculing there had been in your behaviour before had now dissolved. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said you were actually connecting with his aunt right now.

It had to be something about being the only two women here—it had to be that—because Petunia was a vile, cold, uptight person, Harry reminded himself. She called him names and yelled at him and gave him a singular bent paper clip for Christmas; there was no conceivable path where she had a past or feelings or feelings about her past—she didn’t get to have those.

Because surely… Surely, if she did…

She would have mentioned her sister.

Her little sister.

She would have afforded Harry some minor semblance of decency and told him something about their past. Good, bad, turbulent, awkward, embarrassing, Harry didn’t care—he would have killed for any morsel above “your mother was a freak and that’s all there is to know!”

He was feeling his temper rise now. Blood was rushing so quickly past his ears that he almost missed it when she said “It’s hard to believe I was still just plain Petunia Evans back then.”

That name.

That name, that name, that name—!

Maybe if he weren’t shaking with rage, Harry would have noticed that this was the moment your smile fell.

You were reaching a hand out to him but he was already pushing upwards from the table abruptly, sending the whole thing skidding sideways, heart hammering piercingly in his chest.

He was angry in this house; frequently, he was angry. But he’d foolishly forgotten that important piece of himself since Thursday morning. He’d forgotten, yes, but it was pathetically naive to think he wouldn’t soon remember.

All eyes were on him and he lowered his own to the half-eaten scone on his plate. He seemed to be seeing it two-fold in the unbridled fury clawing up his throat and threatening to pull him under.

“I need some air,” he hoped he said and stumbled out of the kitchen, across the hall and out the front door, collapsing down on the pavement in front of the house and heaving for air.

Part of him wanted to blame you—you and your stupid ‘people skills’ but he knew that was only the ire casting about for where to twist the knife. He’d done this once: misdirected his temper at the people he truly cared for and he’d vowed to be better about that. Lots of people deserved the knife-twisting but none of them were you.

He heard the front door open and knew who it would be before you even came into his peripheral vision—though he half hoped it would be one of the Dursleys so he could have a proper go at somebody without feeling quite as much remorse.

You hovered somewhere over his shoulder. Harry didn’t know whether to look at you or not.

“Mind if I sit?” you asked. He could detect a rare jerkiness in your voice, and didn't really know what to make of that.

“No,” he said softly.

You folded down next to him, clamping your knees closely to yourself.

And then you apologised.

Harry forgot entirely about his dithering over whether to look at you. He was flat-out staring now even though you did not return it.

“What?”

You were gazing out across the street where you’d parked the Cortina. “I shouldn’t have chummed up with them so much. I thought I was taking the piss more than anything but it was too far, wasn't it? I’m sorry.”

Harry shook his head, feeling so much of his resentment dissipate into nothing. He wasn’t sure it’d ever drained so quickly before, perhaps because he didn’t usually receive an apology so soon, especially when he wasn’t sure if it was even entirely warranted.

“I gave you the money, didn’t I? I thought we were taking the piss too. Just… when she started talking about— I dunno…” he trailed off. And then, as he had before in private moments, he admitted quietly, “Forget she’s my mum’s sister sometimes.”

It was silent long enough for a car to roll on past; Harry was grateful for the soft rumble of its motor filling the background at least, clearing the air where his words would have dangled otherwise.

Once it had gone, you drew breath and said, voice wobbling, “You deserved better than what you got.”

He could feel you looking at him now but it was his turn to take interest in the street ahead.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

His answer must have sounded too bitter or too cold, too reticent because you were leaping to your feet suddenly and Harry could feel this off, tense energy radiating from you.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was pitying you or anything,” you were saying briskly. “I mean, I do—a bit. It’s just—I wanted to—"

You looked like you’d just barely managed to stop yourself from saying something.

“I dunno—never mind. I’m going to go, OK? I'll see you start of term.”

And, before he knew what was happening, you were hastening across the road.

Harry followed, head swimming with muddled worry. Had he just seen you fidgeting?

You were wrestling your key into the car door handle when he put himself in front of you, exactly the same way you had at the beach’s car park after sunset.

You deflated, your quick getaway no longer quite so straightforward, and stared down at the road as you turned to him with palpable frustration.

“Hang on. Finish what you were going to say,” he told you.

“What.”

“Just say what it is you were going to say.”

You collapsed back against the car door and dug the palms of your hands into your eyelids.

“What do you imagine I wanted to say, Harry? I obviously didn’t put together a whole great gift hamper for the people who’ve been abusing you your entire life.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“So then?” you said impatiently, lowering your hands. “Don’t be a prat about this.”

Harry grinned. “Aw, but I’d really like to be.”

You shoved him off your car so hard he almost fell and you both erupted into the sort of exhilarant chortles that only manifest following a peak of overstrung tension.

“This is the last time I come round bearing goodies,” you huffed, jabbing a finger in his chest.

Harry dropped his head slightly, feeling remorse all at once. “Yeah, that’s all right. I’m sorry I made you come. I shouldn’t have let you near them,” he said heavily.

“Harry… I was only joking.”

“Yeah, but I’m not. They’re—they’re not…” he sighed. “They've got no business being round you, OK?”

This did not seem as though it was quite up for contest.

“I wish you lived anywhere else,” you said weakly. “With anyone else.”

“If all goes well I’ll be at The Burrow in two weeks…” he said hopefully.

“Yeah?” you said. “OK. Good. I’ll see you there then—d’you know what, I’ll drive you there myself.”

“Really?”

“‘Course. I'll be on my way there anyway. It’s just more efficient that way, isn’t it?”

“S’pose so, yeah,” said Harry. “Well, that, and you fancy me.”

Your mouth fell open. “That’s mad because if I remember correctly, you were the one who kissed me.”

“Yeah. After you’d practically put yourself in my lap,” he countered tauntingly.

“After you put your arm behind me on the beach,” you shot back.

“After you asked me who I’d snog or shag or whatever—”

“After you paid for my dinner—!”

“After you asked me to rub sun cream on your back—”

You froze, biting your lip. There was nowhere to go from there.

Your faces were inches from each other now and Harry was grinning breathlessly, eyes flicking down to your mouth.

“Don’t kiss me,” you whispered.

Harry pulled back a few inches, visibly discomfited before you got around to elaborating: “All three of them are watching from the window.”

And then Harry rolled his eyes and met your lips anyhow.

“I don’t care what they think,” he avowed after withdrawing.

Your eyebrows knit. “You’re going to be in trouble, aren’t you?”

Harry opened your car door for you. “Two weeks. The Burrow.”

You moaned his name woefully, making a total of zero moves to enter your car.

Harry smiled reflexively. “Go on. I’ll see you soon.”

You peered at him, almost resembling Luna if he’d ever seen it.

“I can manage a fortnight,” he insisted, resigning himself to your pleading eyes.

You sank into your car unwillingly, every part of your body feeling like lead that wanted to dissolve into the cement below and keep watch of number four, Privet Drive.

Harry closed the door for you. You rolled the window down.

“I’ll write to Ron and see if he can’t get you out a bit earlier.”

Behind him, you saw the front door open to reveal a cross-looking Vernon. You gave Harry another desperate look.

He twisted around to look over his shoulder before turning back and, grinning roguishly, said, “Right, go then. Before they come and tell me they’ve decided to lock me in my room until The Burrow.” 

“Oh, they won’t, will they?” you whimpered.

“Dunno,” Harry said honestly, not sounding concerned in the least.

And then he kissed you through the open window—once, twice, three times.

“Write me, OK? I’ll go mad if I’ve got nothing to do in my room for fourteen whole days.”

“Tell me you’re being funny.”

“I’m being funny.”

You pouted. “Stop enjoying this.”

“OK.”

You continued to pout at him, this time with adorably furrowed brows and Harry let out a small laugh.

“Go on. I’ll manage.” And, “Go,” he had to encourage before you finally took the harrowing step of putting the car in drive.

Later that night, Duck flew through his window with the layout for Ticktacktoe scrawled in one corner and a game of hangman in the other. And so, it went, through the hours and days until the end of the second week arrived and Harry was packing for The Burrow.

He’d, very luckily, not been locked in his room and the Dursleys had barely spoken a word to him which suited him perfectly. The days passed quickly; though, with each reminiscing ray of sunshine and each accidental misting of a neighbour’s sprinkler, Harry found himself in deep longing for sandy shores and volleyball games with strangers... and car snogs with you.

By Monday, July 31st, he was silently thanking Merlin and every other magical dignitary there’d been through history—those he could bring himself to recall the names of anyway—because he was in a somewhat miraculous feat: loading the boot of your car, heaving his trunk in next to yours and sliding Hedwig’s cage beside Duck’s in the backseat, all without a single grievance from a Dursley.

They did not come out to say goodbye nor to bid you hello.

"Happy birthday," you said as he climbed in the Cortina passenger seat he was well-acquainted with now, reaching over for an awkward hug.

Harry thanked you and, with healthy suspicion, eyed the small package you were holding out to him.

He barked a loud laugh when beneath the bow and wrapping he found his very own Snitch replica.

"I know you've got a real one and all," you said in a superior tone, "but you can't very well attach that to your keys, now can you?"

"No, I can't," he agreed, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. "Thank you. I love it."

“So, I know we’ve got the kids with us,” you said, indicating the rear seat as you drove off toward a dazzling daybreak sun, “but I was thinking we might make a quick stop before The Burrow.”

Harry quirked a brow. “Oh, yeah?”

“We can’t stay as long as last time,” you cautioned, smiling from ear to ear, but all Harry could think about was how glad he was that he’d made the somewhat sentimental decision to take his bathing suit along with him.

He sat back, rolled down his window and let the cool morning air wash over him, that familiar giddy feeling returning as though he’d left it in the wind this entire time.

“I can see I’ve done good,” you mused waggishly, reaching for your sunglasses.

Harry chuckled and squeezed your knee affectionately before turning up the volume of your radio. “Shall I drive at the halfway point?”

“Oh, you’d like that, would you?”

“Well it’s no Firebolt…”

“Now that is where I disagree.”

“That’s only because you don't think you're a good flyer. I can teach you if you like.”

You spared him a sideways glance and fought a losing battle with a smile.

“All right, yeah. Teach me to fly, Harry.”

***