Rating:
PG-13
House:
Astronomy Tower
Ships:
Harry Potter/Hermione Granger
Characters:
Harry Potter Hermione Granger
Genres:
Romance Humor
Era:
The Harry Potter at Hogwarts Years
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 02/05/2003
Updated: 02/05/2003
Words: 3,404
Chapters: 1
Hits: 4,904

Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer

Apolla

Story Summary:
Harry's having the best summer of his life with a little help from his friend. Laughs, thrills, spills and an already legendary bikini.

Posted:
02/05/2003
Hits:
4,904
Author's Note:
Thanks to everyone at the


Little Whinging, Surrey. Summer 1997.

Harry Potter had never had such a wonderful summer his entire life. It had started only a couple of weeks into the summer holidays when he discovered that his best friend Hermione had moved a few streets away. Her parents had started up their own dental practice in the town and now she lived five minutes away from him. He was able to get away from his aunt and uncle now for most of the day and for the first time, he was able to get his homework and such done- Hermione wasn't only allowed to have her books during the holidays but she insisted on working.

Not that life with Hermione was all about work, he discovered. Much of the Hermione he saw at school was the determined, conscientious student Hermione. Summer Hermione was rather more laidback. He had found himself so far going on a ten mile hike through Surrey countryside one day simply because 'she felt like it' and she particularly enjoyed going to the local lido of a Thursday for a swim. In all her summer activities, Harry was a willing sidekick, accompanying her into the town centre to help her pick out CDs and on one memorable occasion, a dress to wear to an aunt's wedding. He was sure that he was still banned from the local TopShop.

"Hello Harry!" Hermione's bright, happy voice rang out as he opened the gate at the side of her house and walked around into the garden. He felt the same comfortable welcome here at the Granger house that he did at the Burrow, that feeling of a home. Hermione was sitting on the lawn with her mother and what looked like a particularly splendid picnic spread out on her Gryffindor blanket.

"Grab some lunch, Harry," Hermione's mother Catherine said with a sort of no-fuss manner that made him feel like one of the family. He sat down with them and began tucking into a lunch of cold meats and salads. He was particularly glad of the food because Petunia was trying to get Dudley on a diet again and so he'd been forced to eat terrible diet food for dinner the night before.

"Any plans for the afternoon?" Catherine asked conversationally.

"We're going on a bike ride," Hermione said. Harry nodded, but privately he was concerned. He didn't actually have a bike.

"That sounds nice. I'm sure that Danny's bike is the right size for you," Hermione's mother said, referring to her husband.

"Daddy bought a bike last summer in a keep-fit frenzy. He's hardly used it," Hermione giggled, earning a light thwack on the arm from her mum.

***

Not that Harry was much better. He'd hardly ever ridden a bike and it showed. While Hermione was speeding off along the bridle path, Harry found himself trying to remember how to ride the thing. In the end, he and Hermione ended up wheeling their bikes along, talking and laughing.

"I hope Malfoy isn't too terrible about winning the last match, you know."

"Please don't mention Malfoy, Hermione. You'll ruin my entire day."

"Oh Harry, at least you caught the Snitch!"

"Yeah. Big deal."

"Fine. No more Quidditch talk. You boys are so silly about sport you know."

"It's not just boys, you know. Girls play as well."

"Yes, but this girl doesn't."

"You brought it up in the first place!"

"Only because I know you've been moping all summer about it!"

"Well I'm fine!"

"Fine!"

"I wonder how Ron is," Harry asked her, purposely changing the subject.

"I'm sure he's having a lovely time, Harry. Ooh! Look at this!" she squealed. She threw her bike down and ran over to a decrepit looking, moss covered mound Harry suspected was made out of concrete. He wheeled both bikes over to her rather casually.

"This is a pillbox," she informed him as if it were of major importance. Harry didn't see what was so important about the rotten looking thing. He put the bikes down gently on the ground and approached it, hoping that no wild animals (if such things still existed in Surrey) were going to leap out.

"What is it?" he asked, finally finding he had no idea of what it might be. Hermione looked at him in that 'about-to-lecture' way.

"These were a part of Britain's defences during the war, silly. There's one not far from where I used to live."

"Were you sad to leave?" Harry asked. Hermione had barely spoken of moving over the course of the summer and he was worried about her.

"I don't think so... Well, yes," she admitted. She moved over the concrete pillbox and sat on the roof, avoiding the moss. Quick as a Snitch Harry was sat beside her.

"Tell me."

"Well... It was the only home I've ever known. It's where I lost my first tooth, where I had my fifth birthday party and Louisa Keane threw up over the magician. It's where I put up five Jason Donovan posters when I was seven. It's where I took down Jason Donovan posters when I was eight. It's where.... At Hogwarts, when I was homesick, it was the place I thought of. I'm never going to feel like our new house is really home. I'm back to school in a month and after that... Well, I imagine I'll have a place of my own within at least a couple of years. This house is never going to feel like home. And I'm so glad that my mum and dad have been able to get their own surgery because they always wanted it. But... I really..."

Harry hugged his friend quite fiercely as she broke off in an attempt not to cry.

"So," he said. "What were these pillboxes for?"

"Oh," she said, not entirely moving out of the hug. "I think riflemen used them. See the slits in the walls? I think some also had anti-aircraft guns. There's one near where we used to live.

"Must be pretty dingy inside after fifty years."

"Yes. I don't think I'll be checking out the inside. I dread to think what some people have used it for since the end of the war."

"I don't think I want to consider it much either," Harry told her. "Come on, you said we were going to the river."

Harry jumped down, landing softly on his feet by his bike. He swung his leg over it with the pronouncement:

"I will get better at this!"

***

They arrived about fifteen minutes later at a rather picturesque riverbank. Harry didn't like to contemplate what was actually in the water, but it looked clean enough. The water was shallow and clear and the pebbles on the riverbed sparkled in the hot summer sun.
"It is prettier here," Hermione admitted. "It's mostly all concrete where I used to live."

Knowing they'd be hungry from their bike ride (or in Harry's case, bike push) Catherine had packed them up the remains of lunch and now the two began opening Tupperware boxes of rice, salad, beans and the like. Hermione pulled from her bag a bottle of diet Coke and two straws.

They sat on the river bank eating, talking, laughing and throwing the occasional bit of bread at the occasional swimming duck. Once he'd finished eating, Harry threw off his shoes, rolled his trousers up to his knees and began to wade into the water.

"Oh don't do that!" Hermione squealed suddenly. "You don't know what's in the water! You might cut your feet! You might-"

"Shut up!" he called with a laugh. "It's too hot to worry about it. The water's really nice. Come on in."

"Not on your life."

"Scared? Sissy? Don't want to get your toes wet?"

"I don't think so!" she said, kicking her sandals off. Hermione Granger was not a sissy and she was going to bloody well prove it. She walked straight into the water, trying not to let on how gingerly she was walking across the pebbles. There was a pub just upstream, what if there were broken bottles?

"The ducks seem to like it well enough," Harry said.

"Yes Harry. But they're ducks," she said, tiptoeing from one rock to another under the water. "It is quite refreshing, although we could've just gone swimming at the pool."

"We did that two days ago. Besides, those boys were being mean to you last time," he said, recalling a group of boys that had been saying stuff every time Hermione passed them.

"They weren't being mean," she said, a blush creeping up her face at the memory. "They were just making comments."

"What comments?" he demanded to know as he hopped across the water.

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

"Apparently... Apparently I don't look all that bad in a swimming costume. At least not to twelve year olds." She blushed completely now.

"Ah. I see," he nodded with understanding now. "Well, next time, wear a bikini and they won't know what to say!"

"Harry!" She blushed red at the thought of Harry imagining her in a bikini.

"What? It's not like they were lying, you do look good in a swimming costume. Of course, you'd look better in a bikini..."

"I am going to forget that you said that. I am going to forget that my best friend is a seventeen year old boy," she said quite huffily, beginning to tiptoe back to the bank.

"Aw, Hermione!" he called to her. "Don't get in a mood."

"I am not in a mood? Why would you think that?"

"What, I'm not even allowed to tell you that you're pretty? Because you are! And you'd probably get upset if I didn't say it. Girls!" he exclaimed, storming across the river to the bank.

"It's really fine, Harry. I just... I wasn't expecting it. I didn't know how to react."

"Well next time when you're wearing your skimpy bikini you should wink at them. That'll shut them up."

"Now it's a skimpy bikini?" she asked. Harry just smiled winningly. She leaned over and thwapped him on the shoulder.

"My feet are all wet now," he said with a grimace. "I don't fancy squelching all the way home."

Without a second thought, he whipped his t-shirt off and began to dry his feet with it. Hermione sighed.

"You're going to look a total mess when you put that back on."

"So maybe I won't put it back on."

"And give all the old women of Little Whinging heart attacks when the black haired Adonis comes around the corner, falling off his bike?"

"Yeah. Why not- hang on, why only the old women?"

Hermione threw her head back and just laughed. "It's too easy," she managed to say.

"Besides, my aunt already thinks I look terrible. Might as well prove her right."

Harry stood up and threw his shirt over his shoulder. He and Hermione then packed up her mother's now-empty Tupperware and began the trip back through the woods to Hermione's house.

***

"This is the best summer ever," Harry said as they arrived back at Hermione's house. Catherine took one look at Harry's wet, muddy t-shirt and went to find a replacement from her husband's collection. The afternoon sun was still warming and so they sat in the garden, Hermione really trying quite hard not to look at her best friend's bare chest in the glow of the sun.

"What, even better than when we went to the World Cup?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because it's the first normal summer I've had."

"Oh. You know, normal really is overrated."

"I know that. All Vernon and Petunia aim to be is normal. I'm glad I'm not normal. But.... There are things I feel like I should have done. This is one of them."

"Well, I'm glad I could be of some help."

"Well, you've made it the best summer so far," he said. "And if you wear that skimpy bikini to the pool, it'll be the best summer ever."

"HARRY!" she screamed indignantly as he laughed rather heartily. "Since when did you become such a flirt?"

"Since I saw you in that swimming costume," he said, reaching over to tickle her and getting a slapped hand in return. "This is the first decent summer I've had. The first time I've worn my own bloody clothes, then-"

"Used them to dry your feet?"

"Yeah. But... I don't know. For once I feel like just a boy. Not a famous wizard who's going to have to try and kill an evil entity in the near future. Not a sad little orphan in need of everyone's sympathy. Not a Quidditch player who isn't even allowed to lose a game at school without it making a national newspaper. Not an unpaid skivvy who lives only to cook bloody Dudley's breakfast-"

"Harry," she said, moving over to put her arm around his shoulders. "It's all right."

"Yeah? Summer doesn't last forever."

"No. But if it did, we'd get bored."

"I couldn't ever get bored of this."

"Of what?"

"Of me and you just setting off on some mad adventure through Surrey. Of mucking about at the pool. Of not having to spend all day with Aunt Petunia because I can just leave to come to your house."

"Does she mind?"

"She doesn't know what to think. She's torn between relief that I'm not around to cause havoc but she misses having her own personal slave. I'm glad myself, I was meant to paint the back door last week. She ended up getting Dudley to do it. I almost feel bad for him."

"But we'll be back at school soon."

"Yeah. And I'll be given yet another irresistible offer for certain death."

"Well you haven't died yet."

"Oh, that's very comforting."

"You'll get your revenge against Malfoy."

"What, with a Brillo pad and some TCP?" he asked eagerly. "Assorted jinxes?"

"I was thinking more like on the Quidditch pitch. But whatever sick fantasy you've come up with."

"I thought the Brillo pad was inspired."

"You've spent entirely too much thinking about this."

"Needed something to take my mind off your bikini," he said with a cheeky grin.

"You do know that I don't actually own a bikini?"

"Not in my head."

"You're such... a boy."

"Well I wanted to be more of a girl but I just can't find a skirt to go with my complexion."

"I remember when you were such a polite little boy," she said wistfully.

"I know. But Witch Weekly think, and I agree, that this new improved love god you see before you is much better."

"Tell me, Mr Love god, sir, how many dates did you go on last year?"

"In round figures exactly none."

"Aw."

"I don't mind. I don't really want to go out with some fawning girl who only wants to go out with me because she thinks she'll get her name in the Prophet."

"That's not what most girls think."

"Isn't it?"

"Well... Some of them probably do. But not everyone thinks like that."

"No? How am I supposed to tell the difference?"

"I don't know. But at least there are girls out there who want to go out with you. I think most boys at Hogwarts think I'm some sort of honorary boy."

"Well, just turn up in that bikini-"

"Harry, for the last time, I don't even own a bikini."

"Which we're going to remedy tomorrow when we go into town."

"We're going into Guildford tomorrow to buy school things. Not stupid bikinis."

"This bikini really isn't stupid you know. Maybe I should get a pensieve and show you."

"The last place I want to be is inside the mind of a clearly obsessed, hormonally unstable Harry Potter."

"I am not hormonally unstable. Not my fault I have a gorgeous best friend, is it?"

"I am not gorgeous, Harry," she said, eyes darting to the ground and hands beginning to wring the hem of her t-shirt.

"I think you are. And as I spend most of my time with you, I should know."

"Shut up," she mumbled, the t-shirt wringing continuing. He moved over and placed his hands squarely on her shoulders.

"You are, Hermione." His smile turned impish. "And when everyone sees you in this bikini, they'll realise it too."

"Will you shut up about the bloody bikini, Harry?"

"Don't you even want to know what colour it is?"

"No. You've thought entirely too much about this."

"Not my fault. See, I've just spent most of my summer with this girl. Now I already knew she was sweet and kind. I already knew she was obsessed with studying. But you see, now I know she's also lots of fun, quite madly spontaneous in her own way and she's really very beautiful."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat as her shirtless best friend took her hands in his own.

"I always suspected that beneath that hard-working student facade there was a girl in a bikini waiting to get out."

"Will you please stop with the bikini theme?"

"Yes. When you get it."

"Wouldn't that make things worse?"

"Don't know. Why don't you get it so we can find out?"

"Harry-"

"No. See, the thing is, I really think I might be in love with you. I think I might have actually been in love with you for a long time and just didn't realise. I've never been in love before, but I always thought it would feel like this. I haven't just been coming to your house every day because I wanted to get away from the Dursleys. If I was living with Sirius, I'd still be here every day," he paused for a moment. "If I was living with my mum and dad, I'd still be here every day."

"Harry..." she paused for a moment. "What colour is it?"

"Colour? Oh..." he smirked wickedly. "Purple."

Hermione smiled sweetly. His eyes widened at the implication as she rather artfully slid an arm around his waist.

"I do need a new swimming costume," she whispered into his ear, sending shivers down his spine right into his toes. Without hesitation, he pressed his lips against hers.

***

Catherine Granger went to go into the garden to lend Harry the smallest t-shirt she'd been able to find. As one foot stepped over the doorway, she froze. There on her Gryffindor blanket, Hermione was lying wrapped around Harry. One of his hands was in her hair, the other quite chastely around her waist. Hermione seemed to be tracing some sort of pattern across Harry's naked back and both seemed intent on finding the other's tonsils. One of Hermione's legs was curled around one of Harry's.

Catherine smiled and went silently back inside. She draped the t-shirt over a kitchen chair and went into the living room to watch UK Style. Perhaps she'd disturb them when Danny arrived home. Until then, she was content to let Hermione make up her own mind. She'd watched her daughter veer from depression at leaving her home to her more usual bright summer do-anything attitude to real happiness every time Harry came to visit (every day, Catherine had noticed) and this seemed so delightfully obvious.

***

Three days later, Harry ran to grab two loungers at the pool. He threw his and Hermione's towels over them and patiently waited for Hermione to arrive. He'd got a little sun burn on his back from being shirtless for so long, but he was going to be manly and brave it out. He sat in his long red and gold swimming trunks (once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor) and waited.

There was a bit of a fuss up at the end by the ice cream stand. He craned his neck to see what the commotion was until his breath caught in his throat and he thought he might collapse. Surely he'd had too much sun. He'd got sunstroke, this was just a delirious mirage. He needed to buy a hat and stay out of the sun because he was quite obviously seeing things.

Coming towards him, balancing two 99s (with flakes) and a bottle of diet Coke was Hermione, sashaying towards him in a purple bikini. It wasn't the bikini that shocked him, but the fact that it looked even better in reality than in his dream.

Surely, this had to be love?

The End