HP In The USA

Prologue

Harry Potter was asleep. The past twenty-four hours had been both emotionally and physically exhausting, and he was grateful for the eight hour plane ride ahead of him.

Just yesterday morning, Harry had been awoken early by his owl, Hedwig, who had been delivering him an important message from one of his best friends, Hermione Granger.

Dear Harry, the letter had read, I have exciting news! I've won a contest, and now we (Ron, Ginny, you and me) are going to America! I'll explain more later, but now I've got to go and pack. You should, too. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning. Tell Ron all of this, and meet Ginny and me at Heathrow Airport (outside the International Terminal) at seven o'clock tomorrow!

Harry turned over in his sleep, and his head dropped onto the shoulder of his girlfriend, Ginny Weasley. She smiled at his sleeping face, and thought back to the last time she had traveled to America, almost four years ago. She had been sixteen, and her father had recently been promoted. Her parents had decided to take the family on their first---no, second---real family vacation (the first, Ginny suddenly remembered, had been to Egypt when she was twelve.) They had invited Harry and Hermione, since they were Ginny's older brother, Ron's, best friends. The trip had been a blast, and that was when Ginny had discovered that she still had feelings for Harry. Obviously, Harry had also discovered feelings for Ginny, as he asked her for a date shortly after returning home. Harry and Ginny had been dating ever since. Ginny smiled again, and continued to reminisce about her long relationships with Harry and Hermione.

In the seat in front of Ginny, Ron Weasley sat awkwardly, twiddling his thumbs, listening to the radio and avoiding eye contact with Hermione. Their relationship had always been slightly awkward, hitting it's peak when Harry and Ginny had started dating. In the past year or so, Ron had calmed down enough to be able to look in Hermione's general direction when he was talking to her, but they still couldn't be the in same room without his heart rate soaring and his palms sweating. When Harry had told him, the day before, about this trip, Ron had panicked slightly. An eight-hour plane ride? Who-knows-how-many-hours traveling throughout America? Hotel rooms? Ron shuddered as images of himself further messing up his relationship with Hermione ran through his head. He chanced a glance at Hermione, and remembered the day that changed their relationship forever...Christmas, the year before he turned nineteen...Celebrating at the Burrow... The mistletoe...Ron's face turned a familiar shade of red, and he turned his face towards the window and forced himself to think about something else, anything but Hermione.

Hermione Granger, sitting next to Ron, was also anxious, and also trying to think about something else. She was shuffling through a stack of papers, trying to find where she had written down the information for their hotel in New York. She knew she didn't need it. There were four hours of the flight to go, and her agent ("I have an agent!" she thought, not for the first time) would be meeting them at John F. Kennedy Airport. However, Hermione was a perfectionist, and couldn't stand for her papers to be out of order.

It was partly thanks to this perfectionist habit that the four friends were now on their way to America. Shortly after Harry, Ron and Hermione had graduated from Hogwarts, Hermione had decided to write down all the adventures they had endured throughout their school years. She had originally written it for fun. Then, she had read about a Muggle writing contest. Hermione sent in the manuscript, and had won the contest. Her book had been published in the Muggle world, and she was now on her way to a promotional book-signing tour.

Harry and Ron didn't know what the tour was about, didn't even know that Hermione had written the book, and she was slightly dreading their reactions. After all, she hadn't exactly asked their permission to write about them...