Only For You

Only For You

by DPx

Chapter Two - Heaven Beside You

"Like the coldest winter chill,
Heaven beside you, Hell within."

Alice In Chains - Heaven Beside You

August 31st, The Leaky Cauldron, London.

I left Madam Malkin's carrying 2 bags - in addition to the school robes I'd bought, I'd had to fork out for some dress robes too. I'd actually spent more than I'd intended to on the dress robes. I thought it'd be important to try and make a good impression on people, so I'd spent some extra Galleons on looking really good at any occasions that I was required to wear the dress robes. I walked back down Diagon Alley to Florian Fortescue's, to find Harry, Ron and Hermione sitting outside under a parasol with three of the biggest ice creams I'd ever seen in front of them.

'Hey Miah, over here!' Harry shouted, indicating a chair in between him and Hermione.

'Hi guys. Wow, those look great,' I said, indicating the sundaes.

'Yeah, they're really good,' Said Harry, offering me some of his. My fingers brushed against his as I took the spoon from his hand and he jumped slightly. I scooped up a little bit and tasted it. 'Not bad,' I said, smiling at Harry.

'Try some of mine,' Hermione piped up, offering me her spoon. Ron rolled his eyes at her again as she practically pressed her spoon into my hand.

'Yeah, that's good. So... What's Hogwarts like?'

'It's great,' said Hermione. 'The castle's really historic and interesting...'

'Hermione, he doesn't want to know about any of that boring stuff. Do you?' asked Ron, looking up at me.

'Well, I'm sure it'd be interesting,' I said, as diplomatically as I could. 'What are the teachers like?'

'Some of them are great,' said Harry.

'Yeah, like Professor Dumbledore,' piped up Ron.

'Or Professor Vector,' said Hermione.

'Don't listen to her, Miah, she just goes on about Arithmancy like it's the greatest thing in the world.'

'Well, at least I don't do Divination, like some people.'

'Yeah,' said Ron, 'Trelawney's a big fraud, but at least she sets homework that you can just make up the answer to. If it's miserable enough, she laps it up. What subjects did you choose?'

'I haven't. I know I'm doing the standard stuff like Transfiguration and Charms, but I didn't get anything about any other subjects.'

'Oh well, you can have a look at the books when we go into Flourish and Blotts.'

'Yeah, cool.'

'Oh, Harry, I didn't tell you - Miah can play keeper, so if he gets into Gryffindor, we've got a keeper.'

'Good. We've been really worried about who was going to play there.'

'Yeah, he got a trial for Germany.'

'Not quite. They offered me one, I turned it down.'

'You turned down a chance to play internationals?'

'Well, it was only junior level. And... well, it's Germany, isn't it?' I said, with a crooked smile.

'But you could have played internationals?'

'Well, hopefully if I do ok I'll get an England youth place, but that's still just a dream.'

'I'd like to see you play.'

'Well, hopefully you will.'

When they'd all finished their sundaes so I picked up my bags and followed them into Flourish and Blotts. I bought "The Standard Book Of Spells, Grade 5," "Advanced Transfiguration," and several others. I decided in the end to take Divination, as it sounded like the easier option. Being from a half-Muggle family, Muggle Studies didn't sound like it would be that much use to me, Study of Ancient Runes sounded boring, Arithmancy likewise. At least Divination, according to Harry and Ron, I could fabricate.

'Right,' said Harry, 'I think I just need to go and get some more Potions ingredients. Hermione? Ron?'

Of course, I did too, I'd left pretty much everything that wasn't to hand behind when I left home, and I really wanted to make a good impression at Hogwarts by being prepared. We walked into the shop, even though it was rather busy and got into the queue to be served.

'Oh look, if it isn't Potter, Granger and the Weasel,' sneered a voice from in front of us.

'Drop dead, Malfoy,' said Ron quickly.

'Sharp-witted as ever, Weasley,' said the blond haired boy who was standing in front of Harry in the queue.

'I'll give him sharp,' grimaced Ron, reaching for his wand, only for Hermione to grab his arm.

'Just try it, Weasel,' Malfoy snapped.

'If I just knew how, I swear I'd turn him into something so slimy even his dad wouldn't recognise him,' muttered Ron.

'I wouldn't,' I advised, trying to get a look at Malfoy. Not exactly tall, skinny though, with a sharp, somewhat feminine face. He had longish blond hair, down to about his ears, and robes that had to have been very expensive. The fact that he was wearing proper, smart robes even out of term time told me that he probably came from a pure-blood wizarding family, and that put me on my guard before he even spoke to me.

'Well, well, the gang grows. Got another Mudblood to add to your little clique, Potter?'

The Mudblood jibe stung, but I wasn't prepared to start anything in such a public place.

'Something like that,' Harry said slowly.

'You're that Weiss kid that got expelled from Durmstrang, aren't you?' He said to me, more as a statement than a question.

'Maybe.'

'I can't believe that Dumbledore's letting more criminals into the school. He must be going senile.'

Thankfully though, before things could escalate any more, Malfoy got to the front of the queue. He paid for his ingredients and left, giving us all an infuriating 'better than you' smirk as he walked out.

'Criminal?' said Hermione, looking at me very strangely. 'What DID you do?'

'I really don't want to talk about it.'

'Was it illegal?'

'Maybe.'

'It was, wasn't it?'

'Hermione, Miah obviously doesn't want to talk about it. Maybe you should just let it go.'

She obviously wasn't satisfied with that, but did as Harry asked and stopped pressing me for answers.

'So what are we going to do now?' I asked, when we'd bought all our Potions ingredients.

'Are you staying at the Leaky Cauldron?' Harry asked.

'Yeah. I suppose I should take all this stuff back and feed Davros, he must be getting pretty lonely.'

'Davros?' said Hermione.

'My pet rat.'

'I had a rat once,' said Ron, 'but he... ' He stopped, as if he'd said something he shouldn't have done and finished lamely, 'he died.'

'What have you got now?'

'An owl. Called Pigwidgeon. But he's totally useless. He's tiny and he's totally hyperactive.'

'He's not that bad, Ron.'

'Yeah, well, you don't have to live with him, Hermione. He's always squawking and flapping about, even at night. Not like Hedwig.'

'My owl,' Harry explained, as I'd looked at him questioningly. 'Anyway, we should drop all this stuff off back at the Leaky Cauldron.'

We wandered back up Diagon Alley and into the back door of the Leaky Cauldron. Tom spotted us walking in and came over to us, clapping his hands together, 'Hello Harry, Ron, Hermione. And Miah. Would you be wanting some lunch?'

'Lunch? It's not that late, is it?' asked Hermione.

'Nearly one o'clock,' said Ron, looking at his watch.

'Lunch would be great,' said Harry, 'but we've got to take the bags up to our rooms.'

'Well, take yer time, it won't be ready for a little while.'

'Ok. What room are you in, Miah?' Harry asked.

'14.'

'Right. We'll call for you on the way down, ok?'

'Fine. See you all in a bit.' I picked up my bags, and jogged up the stairs to my room. Someone had been in to clean since I'd left for Gringotts that morning. I slung my bags at the foot of the bed and sat on the bed, running my fingers through my unruly hair. Davros poked his head out from under the duvet and squeaked at me softly. 'Hey Davy,' I said, picking him up, laying down and letting him sit on my chest. 'You'll never guess what. I met Harry Potter today. Yes, THAT Harry Potter. He seems a really cool person. And kinda cute too.' Davros let out a surprised squeak. 'Yeah, I know, I didn't think I'd ever think that way about another guy. Well, not that I really am. I said I thought he was good looking, not that I fancied him.' Davros of course couldn't speak, but the look on his little face said it all - "yeah, whatever."

'Ok, so maybe I do. This is weird for me, Davy. I've never felt like this before. Every time he speaks to me my stomach ties itself in knots.' I paused, thinking about what I'd just said. 'Do you ever get like that with lady rats, Davy? Nah, I bet you don't. I bet you're the rat equivalent of Casanova. Just one little squeak and they come running. Anyway,' I said, picking Davros up again and swinging my legs over the side of the bed so that I could sit up, 'it's time for lunch.' Just as I said that, there was a knock on my door.

'Miah? You ready?'

'That's him, Davy. Come on, let's go.' I pulled my jacket off the back of the chair, pulled it on and put Davros in one of the pockets. 'Just coming,' I said, standing up and opening the door. 'Hi Harry.'

'Hi Miah,' said Harry, echoed by Ron and Hermione. We trooped downstairs, finding ourselves a table and sitting down.

'Here you are,' said Tom, setting plates down in front of us. This time though, when I ate, I let Davros up on the table and gave him little bits to eat from my plate now and again. Thankfully no one seemed to think there was anything wrong with that - obviously they'd been used to Ron's rat eating from the table.

Soon enough, we'd finished eating, and Tom cleared away the plates. 'So what now?' I asked.

'I dunno,' said Harry. 'Your family should be getting back from shopping quite soon, shouldn't they?' he asked Ron.

'Yeah, wonderful. I get to have Ginny sit there and stare at a certain black-haired 15 year old individual who will remain nameless.' Harry blushed a deep red at this, not quite meeting Ron or Hermione's eyes. 'Ginny's my sister,' said Ron, by way of explanation. 'She's got the biggest crush on Harry. It's really quite pathetic.'

'No, it sounds cute,' I said, smiling at Harry.

'Yeah, nice,' he said, looking at me with a betrayed expression on his face.

'Well, we could go into London, if you don't want to stay here.'

'Into Muggle London?' asked Ron.

'Well, why not?'

'We don't have any Muggle money, do we?'

'Well, I've got some,' said Hermione quietly, 'but I don't think it's a very good idea. If anyone finds out, we could get into all kinds of trouble.'

This seemed to convince Harry and he jumped to his feet. 'Come on then.'

We thanked Tom for the meal and trooped out into the busy London street. 'So, where do we go?' Ron asked, looking at me.

'I don't know really,' I said, walking in between Harry and Hermione. 'We could go to Oxford Street and have a look round there, I suppose.'

'Ok,' said Hermione, leading us towards a tube station. She paid for our tickets and we took a train to Oxford Circus.

'I came down here before my first year,' said Harry. 'With Hagrid.'

'Hagrid came on the Underground?' asked Hermione with a smile. 'That must have been interesting.'

'Yeah, people wouldn't stop staring. And he kept asking them what they were looking at!'

'I couldn't possibly imagine,' snorted Ron.

'Hagrid's the gamekeeper at Hogwarts,' explained Harry. 'He teaches Care of Magical Creatures too. He's half giant.'

'He likes his magical creatures a bit too much for my liking,' said Ron. 'He once won a dragon egg down the pub in Hogsmeade, and hatched it in his hut. His WOODEN hut.

'Sounds clever.'

'You have no idea! He's a nutter. But he's great too,' Ron said.

'I'm really looking forward to going now, actually. I didn't have a good holiday.'

'How come?' asked Harry.

'Well, you try not telling your mother you got expelled from school for 3 months!'

'How come she didn't get an owl?'

'I don't know. I think everything was a bit confused at Durmstrang, after Professor Karkaroff disappeared. I suppose they just forgot to send one. But they made it very clear I was expelled.'

'That's pretty bad,' said Ron.

'But how come your mum's not here right now, to see you off to a new school?' asked Hermione.

'I ran away from home. She wasn't exactly happy when I finally told her, so I just left. I caught the Knight Bus to London, went to Gringotts to get some money and went into Malkin's. That's where I met you guys.'

'You really ran away?' said Ron, sounding impressed.

'Yeah, just me and Davy.'

'That's cool.'

'Aren't you worried about her calling the police or something, to get you back?' asked Hermione. I really get the impression that she doesn't trust me that much.

'No, it'll be ok. She doesn't want me around that much.'

Again, any further questions on Hermione's part were forestalled by the train pulling into Oxford Circus station.

We filed out into the bustling crowd of Muggles, dodging in and out of them.

'This is cool,' murmured Ron as we turned onto Regent Street and the crowds receded just a little.

'Where are we going?' Hermione asked.

'The Trocadero. Just down here on the right hand side. But I want to go to Tower Records quickly first.'

'Why? Electricity doesn't work in Hogwarts.'

'I know. I don't have any money either, I just want to look.'

'Oh, right...'

It seemed that I was the only one to have the slightest interest in Tower Records though. It's hardly surprising I suppose, but even so, I felt like a complete lemon looking round with three very bored people following me around. Especially as I didn't have any money to buy anything with to make it worthwhile.

By the time we got back out onto the street, it was raining a bit, so we walked a bit quicker across Picadilly Circus, dodging in and out of the Muggles who seemed to be doing their very best to get in our way. It was just starting to rain properly as we dodged under the awning of the Trocadero, leaving four trails of dampness behind us.

'So what's actually here?' asked Ron. Now the thing was, I didn't actually know. It's just that a lot of my friends had been, and they said it was really good. But of course, living in Yorkshire, it wasn't exactly easy to get to London. Especially as my mum had a job that required her to work six days a week and left her so tired on the Sunday she didn't want to do anything. Not that I'm bitter or annoyed about it at all.

'Loads of stuff to do. Like games and stuff.'

'Muggle games?'

'Yeah, that kind of thing.'

'Should be... interesting,' Ron said guardedly.

We hopped onto an escalator that took us up through a tube, ringed with fluorescent lights.

'My Aunt and Uncle brought Dudley here, for his birthday a few years ago.'

'Oh, so you've been?'

'No. He didn't want me to come. I live with them, but... we don't get on that well.'

'That's got to be pretty bad, if you have to go back to that during holidays.'

'Well, Christmas and Easter are ok, they let you stay at school if you want.' Sounds useful, it's not like I really wanted to go back home. 'Summers can be pretty boring though,' he said, smiling ruefully.

'Yeah, I know what you mean,' I said, leading us through a turnstile into the arcade. It was ridiculously busy, and more than once while just looking around, one of us got knocked into someone else by a kid not looking where they were going.

'I suppose you want this then, don't you?' Hermione said, holding up a £20 note.

'You bet,' said Ron, grabbing the note from her hand before looking at it in a bewildered fashion. 'Er...' he said to Harry, holding the note out to him.

'Change machine over here,' I said, taking the note from Harry, putting it into the machine and getting out a small pile of tokens.

Ron grabbed one from my hand and ran over to the nearest machine, a two-player Time Crisis game. 'In here?' he said, putting the token into the coin slot. 'Now what?' he asked, picking up the gun and pointing it at the screen.

'Oh, you have to press the flashing button,' I said, reaching over to push it for him.

'And now what?'

'Ok, well, just aim it at anything that moves and pull the trigger. Shoot at anywhere off the screen to reload. You've only got six bullets.'

'Ok,' Ron said, pointing the gun at an enemy and missing by about six inches. His first go didn't last very long, he got killed rather quickly, but the second it'd finished he grabbed another token from me and slapped it into the slot.

'You want a go?' I asked, offering Harry a token and standing aside so he could get to the other gun on the machine.

'Er, alright,' he said, standing alongside Ron and picking up the other gun, aiming it at the screen. Harry played for one game, but Ron carried on shovelling tokens into the machine.

'This is wicked,' he said. 'Dad is going to have to get one of these.'

'Ron, there are a load of other games here, you know?' I said, 'this is only the first floor.'

'Yeah, ok...' he said, 'just one more game.'

About three games later, and with our supply of tokens considerably lighter, we walked down the stairs to the next hall (in the Trocadero you take the escalator to the very top and work your way down) where they had a load of flight simulator-type rides, the ones that tilt on hydraulics.

'What is THAT?' asked Ron, staring. 'It looks crazy.'

'Well, come on then,' said Harry, getting into a queue. I got in the queue behind him and Ron and Hermione got in the queue for the next machine along. We were only behind two other people and soon we were sitting down inside the machine. Before long it started, and because I hadn't been on any roller coasters or anything like that in my life, and I'd had rather a lot to eat at lunch,, the constant movement started to take a toll on my over-full stomach. 'You ok, Miah?' Harry shouted.

'Uh huh,' I managed, nodding slightly as the movements of the machine got more and more violent.

'You sure? You're turning green!'

''M fine.' It certainly didn't help that at that point one of our remaining tokens fell out of my pocket and started whizzing about inside the confined space of the simulator, cracking me on the head a few times.

By the time the ride was over, I was feeling distinctly ill, and as Harry and I climbed down from the simulator, I nearly tripped, clutching at his arm to stop myself falling.

'Miah, seriously, are you alright?' he said, putting his arm around me to hold me up. Well, that made me feel a little better anyway.

'Yeah, I'll be fine,' I said, gulping. 'I just need to maybe sit down for a while.' I felt like such a total wimp, I mean, it's not like I'm not used to changing direction suddenly and so on, it was just the fact that I wasn't outside on a broomstick, that I was stuck in an enclosed space... It really made me feel bad. I've always been a little claustrophobic, but that was just nasty.

Ron and Hermione came over, Hermione looking pretty much as green as I imagined I did just then.

'I don't think she liked it that much,' said Ron, flushed and smiling all over his face. 'But that was cool.'

'Good,' I said, smiling ruefully. I gave him the few tokens we had left to go and spend on Time Crisis, because I really didn't feel like going on anything else like that!

I rose to my feet to follow him, and Harry, Hermione and I watched Ron shoot his way through the rest of the tokens.

'I have GOT to come here again,' Ron murmured as we walked out of the door. Thankfully it had stopped raining in the time we'd been inside and the walk back to the tube station wasn't too unpleasant, despite the constant buffeting from Muggles who weren't looking where they were going.

By the time we'd made our way back to the Leaky Cauldron, it was getting dark and the bar had become really quite busy. Not so busy that an angry looking witch, with shocking red hair, much the same colour as Ron's, couldn't make her way through the crowd of people towards us, however. 'Oh no,' said Ron quietly.

'RONALD WEASLEY! What DO you think you're doing? Wandering off into London without so much as leaving a note, anything could have happened to you! Anything! And leading Harry and Hermione with you too.'

'It's ok, Mrs. Weasley,' said Harry, 'it was my idea.'

'Ah... Well, yes, Harry dear, I dare say you knew what you were doing, but you need to be careful these days, going out without anyone to look after you.'

'I am fifteen, mum.'

'Ron!'

'It's alright, Mrs. Weasley,' I piped up, confidently. 'I'm Muggle born, I know my way around London.' Not in the slightest, but it's not like I wanted my new friends to get into trouble on my account.

'Well, ok, er...'

'Miah,' Harry and Ron supplied.

'I'm sure you know your way around, but... I just worry, with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named back and everything.'

'It's not like He's going to do something in central London, is it...' He trailed off under his mother's annoyed stare. 'I'm sorry mum, it won't happen again.'

'I should think not. Now go and have some dinner. Your father, Fred, George and Ginny are in a parlour down the corridor by the bar.' We followed her directions to a room that seemed far too small to accommodate eight people. But we all managed to find a seat and tucked in to the food that was piled on the table. Ron's family were all very friendly, although I got confused on more than one occasion as to which of the twins, Fred and George, was which. Ron's father seemed particularly interested in hearing about our trip to the Trocadero and the video games we'd played. This caused mass rolling of eyes from Ron, Fred, George and Ginny, and especially later on from Mrs. Weasley, who appeared to be not exactly pleased that her husband wasn't criticising us for going into London on our own. We chatted until about 10, when Ginny went up to bed.

'Hey, Miah, you want to go for a butterbeer in the bar?' asked Ron.

'Yeah, why not? You coming?' I asked Harry and Hermione.

'Ok,' said Harry, following us out. Hermione shrugged and came after us. We sat in the bar until about 11, having a couple of tankards of butterbeer each before climbing up the stairs to our rooms. 'Goodnight, Miah,' Harry, Ron and Hermione said, at the door to my room.

'Night guys, see you tomorrow.' I let Davros out of my pocket and he curled up on the bedside table to sleep. I pulled my guitar out of its case and lay on the bed, strumming it aimlessly.

'Hermione, there's nothing wrong with him, he's ok!' I heard come through the wall of my room. It was Ron, speaking agitatedly.

'Then why is he always keeping things from us?' Hermione's voice.

'What?'

'He didn't say why he got expelled. He didn't say what he'd done, it could have been anything!'

'I doubt it was anything that bad, Hermione,' said a third voice, Harry's.

'He said it was illegal.'

'No, he just didn't say it wasn't.'

'Which means the same thing, Ron. He could have killed someone.'

'If he'd killed someone, they wouldn't have let him into Hogwarts.

'They might not have, he might be lying about that too!'

'He had a letter.'

'He could have written it himself.'

'Rubbish.'

'Really, Ron! He could be anyone.'

'Look, if you're going to talk crap about a friend of mine, you needn't think I'm going to hang around to hear it. Good night.' I heard a door slam and the sound of someone stamping down the corridor.

'Night, Hermione,' said Harry's voice, and I heard the door open again.

'Harry, don't you agree?'

'No. Just cause he got expelled from Durmstrang, it doesn't mean anything. It could be that he got expelled just cause his face didn't fit. You remember what Malfoy said about Durmstrang - they don't let people from non-wizarding families in. Maybe they found out one of his parents was a Muggle. You can't say he's a criminal, Hermione, he probably didn't do anything wrong.' The door closed and Harry's footsteps receded down the corridor.

Hermione really thought I was a murderer? Well, I suppose I should tell them the truth. Tomorrow maybe.

I lay back, strumming my guitar gently, letting my voice rise softly over the top.

'I don't feel like sleeping,
I don't feel too good,
I'm alone, now you're gone.
You're all that I lived for,
You're all that I knew how to do
But you're gone.

You killed me today - blew me away,
So how can I live... without you?

So I breathe for the last time,
These are the last words
You'll hear me say...
I guess you're the lucky one -
Your life goes on,
So have fun, but I'm done.

You killed me today - blew me away,
So how could I live... without you?

Perhaps in the next life
I'll see you again.
And I'll love you forever
Past the end.

But somehow it seems
Whatever I say
I'm just a voice from the grave

Without You.'

I lay my guitar down on the floor, suddenly tired. I undressed for bed quickly, and before I knew it, my eyelids were so heavy I could barely resist the onset of sleep. As my eyes closed, a vision flitted into my mind, a vision of Harry arguing my case with Hermione, imagining his handsome face full of indignation...