Harry Potter and the Bite of the Serpent

CHAPTER THREE

You called Madame?

Later that evening Harry and Hermione spent the past few hours keeping themselves occupied by reminiscing about their previous years at Hogwarts. "This year I'm determined to encourage more people to sign up for S.P.E.W, after all we have another new group of first year students who I can attempt to persuade."

A few more minutes passed and Harry was unable to stifle the majority of yawns erupting from his mouth. "It must be getting late," he muttered between yawns.

Hermione stepped off the worktop and pulled a silver watch out of her suitcase, glanced at it and then back at Harry. "It's just passed midnight. That makes it July 30^th..." Hermione grinned at Harry who smiled.

"Yep, the big one-six is approaching," he said sarcastically. "I'm gonna miss that lovely pair of socks from the Dursleys, how will I cope this year?" Hermione laughed and re-joined him on the worktop.

"I'm sorry Harry," she said softly, her eyes meeting his.

"For what?" he asked, confused.

"For everything you have to go through with the Dursleys and...everything."

"Don't worry about me Hermione, I'm more concerned for you right now. What exactly were you doing out there anyway? I'm storming off in anger and then I find you in the middle of...where the hell are we?" Harry said, swinging his arms in the air for a moment. "I know why you left but what I don't know where you were planning on going?"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders and sighed lightly. "Neither do I. I couldn't have gone too far, I just kept following the roads and eventually ended up here."

"So what's the plan? Are we going to try and sleep here tonight and then take tomorrow as it comes or are we going to look for someplace better to sleep?" Hermione walked over to her suitcase and opened it up.

"Well I have a sleeping bag..."

"Right. You can have that and I'll just sleep up here for now," said Harry, pushing off the worktop.

"Harry, that's not going to be very comfy," said Hermione anxiously.

"Well neither will that on these floors," answered Harry, pointing at the sleeping bag.

"But it will be warmer in here, the torrential rain is hardly making the summer feel warm is it?"

"Well what do you want me to do?" asked Harry holding out his hands.

Hermione remained silent for a moment. "I just feel uncomfortable."

"You will when you lie down," muttered Harry, but he quickly cut off his laugh when Hermione began frowning at him. "Okay look. I'm fine - I'm warm enough. If you want to use the sleeping bag then use it, but I'm one hundred percent fine."

*

The chilly drafts blowing through the gap under the door, the few shatters in the windows and the bizarre shaking of Hermione's trunk (which he suspected was her Care of Magical Creatures book) woke Harry for what probably the fourth time in the few hours of sleep he had managed in the dull and depressing abandoned bar. The cold, hard wooden floorboards needling and splintering his back probably weren't helping either.

Harry had spent much of the night occupying his thoughts with ideas of what Hermione's parents might be like when he met them. He had seen them very briefly at Diagon Alley one year but had never shared a conversation with them. He had always expected them to be just like Hermione but after discovering how they had reacted to last years events he was now a little unconvinced. Or maybe it was that they couldn't understand because they weren't a part of the wizarding world...it would be frightful to any Muggle to hear about a murderous wizard, Death Eaters and various other events atypical to them.

They can't be that bad, Harry thought as the nauseous feeling began to grow in the pit of his stomach. Harry pulled himself to his feet by gripping onto the worktop with his right hand. He looked over to the window, and what would usually be called curtains but looked more like one of Dobby's old tea cosies.

Harry walked over to the curtains where he could see the daylight waiting to break through. He opened the curtains and a blinding flash caused him to take a step back.

The sunlight he had been hoping to see was actually an array of lightning flickering in the sky, followed by a few rumbles of thunder. The rain was still persistent too, and a shallow stream was beginning to appear in the cobbled street. Harry thought about the two men that they had tied up and a smirk developed on his face as he thought about them sitting in this horrific storm soaking wet with a broken nose and nasty concussion respectively..

"You okay?" Harry turned around to see Hermione jogging down the stairs, her hair looked wet and she looked as awake as he wished he was.

"Not bad, how long have you been up?" he asked, as she came towards him.

"About an hour," she answered.

"How did you manage a shower in this place?" said Harry, glancing around the morbid room once again.

"The water is actually running, believe it or not," said Hermione. "I just wet my hair a bit to wake myself up, I could hardly have a shower with the decorative soaps could I?"

Harry laughed. "No, I guess not. So what do you want to do today?"

Hermione shrugged. "I don't want to stay here."

"Me neither, but that storm is getting pretty bad." Harry looked out of the window again.

"Well lets go then," suggested Hermione.

"What?" said Harry, taken aback.

"I feel like a bit of an adventure," she answered, grinning.

"Okay, if you're sure."

"I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't sure."

Harry smiled, Hermione was certainly developing a wild side. Maybe he and Ron were a bad influence on her?

*

Harry and Hermione had tried as hard as they could to walk in the strengthening rain but were forced to a halt and took shelter under a large tree to the right of an empty road.

"Hermione, this is ridiculous," said Harry, trying to squeeze some of the water out of his clothes.

Hermione didn't respond but appeared to be deep in thought. "The Knight Bus!" she said suddenly. "You have been on it before haven't you?"

Harry nodded half-heartedly. "Yeah, but there's just one problem. I need to use magic to flag it down. Last time I thought I'd been expelled so I didn't care."

Hermione frowned. "What exactly did you do to flag it down?"

"I cast Lumos and fell over my trunk," Harry answered bluntly.

Hermione continued to stare at the ground in thought. "Maybe there's a way to call it without casting an actual spell?"

Harry stepped out from under the tree and when he was standing on the edge of the road he pulled out his wand. He quickly checked to make sure no Muggles were lurking before moving his arm up into the air. "Knight Bus!" he shouted uncertainly. Nothing happened. "I need the Knight Bus!" Still nothing. "We need the Knight Bus!"

Harry nipped back under the tree to see Hermione sitting on top of her trunk with a small book in her hands.

"What are you reading?" asked an exasperated Harry as he stood by the edge of the tree.

"It's a dictionary of spells and potions, there might be something about the Knight Bus in here." Hermione trailed a finger along a page in the book and paused. "Got it." She muttered something to herself before standing up and marching past Harry and out into the road.

She cleared her throat with a cough before thrusting the book into Harry's hands and holding out her wand while reading from the page. "You're lost, you're tired or you're a lazy git. Either way The Knight Bus can help, so give me some help." Hermione glanced doubtfully at Harry who rolled his eyes and stormed back under the tree, shouting.

"Let's face it Hermione this isn't going to work, we're stuck in this stupid fucking storm in the middle of fucking nowhere-"

"Harry-," began Hermione stepping under the tree.

What are we going to do Hermione? Go to your parents house, then back to Hogwarts, the very place that created these problems. We'd be better off staying under this crappy tree. Let the rest of the world get on with things." Harry took a hard kick at the tree trunk, wincing with pain before sitting down on his trunk, fuming.

"Harry calm down-" Hermione said softly.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" Harry snapped, springing up from his trunk.

"I'll stop telling you to calm down when you stop behaving like a child!" Hermione said strongly. "You can moan and complain all you want but at least I'm trying to-"

With a loud bang and a flash, Harry and Hermione were silenced and The Knight Bus became visible on the other side of the tree. Hermione grabbed her trunk and dragged it behind her and stepped out from under the tree, Harry following reluctantly.

The entrance flew open and Stan stepped down onto the middle step. "You called Madame?" he said, glancing at Hermione.

"Yes, could you take us somewhere please?" Hermione asked politely.

Stan nodded and stepped off the bus. "What do you fink we do on a bus, eh? Wings, Ernie!" he shouted. Harry could see the aged driver move the bus and suddenly a large canopy shot out of the side of the roof and nearly knocked the tree out of the ground. "Not that far you old codger." The expanded canopy retracted into the bus a little and once the tree was standing firmly again Stan stepped out and was now sheltered from the rain.

"Alright Neville?" he said, winking at Harry.

"It's alright Stan, real name will be okay now." Stan nodded.

"Who's this then?" Stan said, looking at Hermione as he dragged her trunk up the steps.

"Hermione Granger - be careful with that!" she said nervously as the trunk bounced off the steps. "Neville?" Hermione asked as Harry brushed past her, his trunk dragging behind him.

"Forget it," he said, stepping onto the bus. He and Hermione sat side-by-side on one of the old beds. Just before the doors could close up Hedwig soared in and perched herself gently on Harry's knee.

"You're supposed to be at Ron's!" Harry said. Hedwig dropped an envelope onto his lap, which he tore open. He unfolded a piece of parchment and he began to read, Hermione reading over his shoulder.

Hey mate, what's up? Why did you send Hedwig here? And why haven't you answered any of my letters? Anyway, if you want to come here for the rest of the holidays you can, we'll pick you up from the Muggles if you want?

Ron

"I'll send a reply later, Hedwig needs a rest," said Harry, stuffing the letter into his wet pocket and trailing the back of his hand over Hedwig's soft, white feathers.

"Choo doin' out 'ere in this storm then?" Stan asked, counting out the silver Harry and Hermione had given him.

"We had some disagreements with family members," said Harry.

"I fell out with my brother once over who should patrol the bus...I wonder if he's still alive?" Stan slipped into thought for a moment before returning to the silver. "All seems to be okay," he said, dropping the silver into a tub at the front of the bus. "Alright, Ernie!"

The old man thrusted his foot down on the accelerator pedal and the bus flew forward rapidly. Harry gripped onto the railings at the bottom of the luggage compartment above his head with one hand, while he used the other to hold onto Hermione's right hand to stop her from flying to the other end of the bus. Hermione steadied herself as the bus slowed down and she sat back down next to Harry and checked that her trunk, which had remained on the bed, was still intact.

"Hermione what've you got in there?" Harry asked. "I saw it moving last night."

Hermione unzipped the trunk a little more than it already was and a ginger ball tumbled out of it. "Just Crookshanks, he followed me out of my house so I just kept him in here so that he wouldn't go missing. I left a gap in the trunk obviously," Hermione assured him.

Crookshanks crept along the bed and curled up next to Hermione. Harry quickly moved off the bed to place Hedwig where she wouldn't be in danger.

The bus took another huge bolt forwards and shortly after Harry could hear Hermione coughing loudly from behind him. He sat back down next to her. "Are you okay?" he asked uncertainly, Hermione's whitening face didn't do much to settle his concern.

"Bucket," she muttered. Crookshanks leapt across to the other side of the bed as Harry quickly stood up. "Stan, have you got a bucket up here anywhere?"

Stan turned and focused on Harry, and only reacted when he saw Hermione on the verge of vomiting all over the floor. He pulled a white bucket out from underneath one of the beds and passed it to Hermione who stuck her face inside it. "There's always one," he muttered.

Harry looked away from Hermione as she heaved heavily. "Thanks."

"Thanks for telling me, I spent hours cleaning that floor this morning." Stan sat down opposite Harry. "Choo got your broom this year?"

Harry nodded. "I always take my broom to school with me."

Stan returned the nod. "Yeah, you'll need your broom this year."

"What do you mean by that?" Harry asked, suspicious.

"You'll see," but before they could speak again the bus pulled to a huge halt and Harry had to catch Hedwig this time. "Well, here we are."

Hermione pulled the bucket away from her mouth and placed it on the bed. "Sorry about that." Hermione pulled a small tube out of her pocket and placed a small sweet in her mouth.

"Don't worry," said Stan. "I suppose it's better out than in."

"Thanks for picking us up," said Harry.

"That's what we're 'ere for." Harry and Hermione stepped out into the now softer rain.

"Bye Stan, Ernie," said Harry.

"Bye," added Hermione.

Stan waved them off before The Knight Bus vanished with a flash. Harry and Hermione walked slowly up the eerily quiet road. "I never knew you lived in the middle of nowhere," said Harry.

"Yeah, we like peace and quiet." They carried on walking, dragging their trunks behind them, Hedwig perched on Harry's shoulder, and Crookshanks nestled back in Hermione's trunk. They were only meters away from their destination when Harry noticed a few lights on in the distance, he stopped suddenly.

"What's up," Hermione asked, stopping with him.

"I don't know I just...maybe you should go first you know...it just seems right."

"I know," Hermione answered. "Do you want to stay here then and I'll come and get you in a bit."

"Okay," responded Harry.

"Here you go," Hermione passed him the tube she had taken the sweet from on the bus. "Mints, I mean it has been all night. And this is the first time you'll be meeting my parents."

Harry smiled and took the mints from her. "Thanks." Hermione began to leave but Harry grabbed her arm to stop her. "I'm sorry about earlier." Hermione smiled before turning away from him.

He watched on as she walked up a curling path between large lush green bushes, which led up to a large wooden porch, and the door. Hermione appeared to be opening the door but then moved her hand up to the doorbell and pushed it with her shaking hand. The gong echoed through the quiet street and Harry sat down on his trunk in silence, a few raindrops dripping down his face.