Harry Potter and His New Standards

* Chapter 3 - Admiring *

The next few weeks of Harry's life were some of his happiest. Living with Sirus and Holly seemed just too good to be true. He no longer minded doing chores; he could care less if he were forced to cook each meal for a week! Sirus had showed he and Holly the entrance to the magical section of Bolkinwick. It was concealed behind a wall blocked by a dumpster. The little alleyway wasn't nearly as large and packed as Diagon Alley, but Harry still enjoyed it every bit.

Harry's new home was by far the best he had ever been in because this time he felt like he had real family with him. Sirus took good care of him, and he never felt in danger... but Sirus still didn't seem to fill the void of "Dad" to Harry. It was odd. Holly seemed like his sister-that was easy enough because he never had a sister before. But, he did have a father...and it wasn't Sirus.

On this particular day he, Holly, and Sirus sat at a small table outside a shop in Bolkinwick Ruelle, shaded by an umbrella eating raspberry cookie sundaes while Holly poked at an ordinary flower with her wand.

"You know, you should get used to not doing magic during the summer. Just because the Ministry of Magic won't swoop down on you right where you are for breaking underage wizardry laws because you haven't claimed citizenship - " said Sirus.

"I'll get used to it - next summer..." Holly replied prodding the flower again. With a small flash of brilliant pink light, the flower started flashing different colors. Blue, pink, purple, green, white, yellow, red, orange, turquoise... and with every change of shimmering color a small amount of silver glitter burst from the inside of the flower.

"Hahaaa! That's spiffy," she said, sticking the flower in her hair. Sirus scowled at her. "I could sell these," she added as an afterthought.

Harry shook his head. "Holly, I doubt you could sell anything because anyone looking into buying would probably first consider that you'd probably hexed it to turn him or her into a dirty dinner plate or something..."

She shot him a dirty look and Harry grinned in return. "Come on you two," said Sirus, "We need to get home. Diagon Alley tomorrow."

They stood up and their plates vanished from the table as they trotted back home.

~ THE NEXT DAY ~

Harry's trip to Diagon Alley was definitely making itself into his all-time favorite. Sure, when he was only 11 and facing the prospect of being a wizard was pretty shocking. He still recalled quite vividly how excited he had been as he purchased his school supplies with Hagrid... arguing with him begging for a gold cauldron when it said pewter on his list... getting Hedwig... buying his wand... everything stood out clearly in his mind.

His second year when Floo powder brought him to Knockturn Alley through a mouthful of white-hot ashes and he saw Lucius Malfoy criticize his son for being beat by a muggle-born witch, Hermione, in every exam and the shocked and mad look on Draco's face... it all still made him grin.

In his third year he had a little accident with his aunt, Marge, and he faced spending a couple Dursley-free weeks in Diagon Alley eating sundaes and working on essays... he still snickered thinking about their first encounter with Crookshanks, Hermione's ginger cat.

When he was 14 he spent his time instead at the Quidditch World Cup. A memory that still sent chills up his spine... a few close encounters.

And that brought him to his fifth year... (I'm sorry-5th book isn't out yet so I'll make this up!) when Fred and George had steered him straight into Flourish and Blotts ramming him right into Cho Chang in a very ungraceful manner... that wasn't pretty. He didn't like being red in the face if he knew it wasn't going to leave him tan-as-heck afterwards.

But this year, well... this year was different.

When Harry and the Blacks had met up with the Weasleys and Hermione-Harry miraculously managed to get rid of the adults...something he never thought he'd be able to do.

"Mrs. Weasley," he said... surprised at his own burst of an idea, "You know, Ginny is nearly 15, can she stay with me and the gang and shop? We'll get it all covered, I think you, Mr. Weasley, and Sirus deserve a nice lunch. It's on me."

Ron stared, Ginny blushed, Hermione smiled at Harry, thinking he was doing a very nice thing for them, and Holly raised her eyebrows suspiciously. "That is a wonderful idea, Harry! Are you sure you want to pay for it?" Mrs. Weasley replied.

"Certainly! Here, Sirus," he had stated, handing Sirus some money, "Enjoy."

They all shopped ferociously, buying everything in a very short range of time. They split up in the strangest groups... Ron and Hermione wanted to show Holly around so Harry was with Ginny. Harry had never really spent much one-on-one time with Ginny, which he regretted now. Ginny was extremely sweet... not to mention... well... sexy!

He brought her to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and bought her new robes. She blushed furiously, begging him not to-said she could buy hers at a second-hand robe shop... but he insisted. Being that she had shot up a few inches over the summer and her robes now hung a bit above her ankles. He insisted, for some reason, and finally she gave in. She couldn't look him in the eye for a while... and mumbled her thank yous over and over to the ground.

After they finished their shopping, they dropped their bags off at the Leaky Cauldron with Sirus, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley before running off to eat some ice cream. ("We had sundaes yesterday...!" Holly protested, thinking longingly of cheeseburgers. "Holly," said Ron, in a dead serious tone, "you can never have enough ice cream.")

When they sat down the babble broke out.

"Hey, Harry, I bet you'll be Q/C this year!"

"Sure, Ron, and my first husband died in a tar pit!"

"Harry, you've never been married..."

"Ugh..."

"Oh my God, Hermione, you need to let me use my magical nail polish on you... I think Empress Frost would be a perfect color on you!"

"Oh! I've read about that stuff in 'Witch Cosmetics', it doesn't chip off or remove itself in any way until you magic it off! You have some?"

"Well duh! I'm a 'CosmoGIRL!' with a wand!"

"My mom used to have that kind of nail polish... I stole some tried to use it when I was about 7! I slopped all over the ends of my fingers than stole Bill's wand and tried to remove it, but instead I just changed the color of it and hardened it... Mum made me walk around with violently green fingertips for two weeks before she agreed to remove it."

"Fred and George are buying your supplies for you? That's a bit risky, Ron..."

"How's that?"

"Well, for starters, they probably transfigured leprechaun gold into Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts so you could go and spend it all so the store managers could find it gone a couple hours later and track you down..."

"A thought that haunted me since they offered to pay for them, Harry."

Finally they all got on the same subject and told Holly all about Hogwarts, the castle, the students, the professors, the caretaker, the gamekeeper, the nurse... everything.

After a while they all just sort of talked about things on and off, ordering more and more ice cream. Harry found himself staring from Hermione to Ginny in this steamy daydream when he was awakened from it, unwillingly, by a sharp poke in the middle of his back.

He blinked back to reality and found the prodder-naturally it was Holly. He had a bad feeling that her eyes were pulling information out of his brain. "Sorry to yank you back to earth and out of your fantasies, but I'm wondering if your intent gazing at those girls means you're trying to curse them with your eyes or you're thinking something else..." she whispered.

He stared at her. Sometimes he swore that all girls knew when you were thinking... stuff about other girls, or, in fact, them. He blushed a vivid crimson and couldn't continue looking in his eyes. He could already feel her grinning. "Do females have some sort of radar searching for signs of crushes or something?" he hissed.

She shrugged. "Maybe some of them," she replied, "but this...this is just a hunch. There's something about whatever you were thinking... I can't put my finger on it but I'm sure if I did I'd have to wash."

He couldn't help but grin at this. Then she said something that he wasn't sure he believed- "Your secret's safe with me."

And so the day went on. Harry enjoyed his time with his friends from Hogwarts and they departed saying "See you at Kings Cross!". Harry enjoyed his last few days back in his home...trying to take it all in. He wasn't sure if he'd see it over the holidays...whether he would remain at Hogwarts or not.

He wasn't sure if the day to approach Platform 9 ¾ came too quickly or too slowly... he didn't want to leave Sirus, but he was ready and waiting to get back to Hogwarts.

As Holly loaded her trunk into its compartment with help from Ron, Sirus turned to Harry. "Take care of yourself, Harry. I know you can do that. And please, watch over Holly... she's not as strong as you are," Sirus said. "Although she tries hard to act it..." he added as an afterthought. Harry smiled weakly. Was Sirus telling him this because he knew... something ominous was hanging over them all? Harry shook the very thought from his head.

"I will. You take care, Sirus," he said. Sirus put his hand on Harry's shoulder and gave him a comforting shake.

"Don't worry about me. Bye, Harry," he said. Sirus smiled at him, but he looked rather sad all the same. Harry couldn't place why, but he followed Ron into a compartment anyway. Holly joined them a while later, followed by Hermione. Harry soulfully hoped that Ginny would come next-but the train started moving and there was no show of her.

"Ready for another year at Hogwarts?" Ron asked, in a half-sigh as he shifted in his seat.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Harry said, "How about you." Ron nodded.

"Hermione?" he asked.

"Of course! I can't wait to get started on Shaveire Studies! The history of that magic is so remarkable..." she began.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, wondering what on earth Shaveire was and how you went about studying it.

After a while a plump witch with friendly dimples stopped in front of their compartment, pushing a cart full of candies and iced pumpkin juice. They all bought some, merged it into one pile of food, and split it up as equally as possible.

"So when are you gonna be registered as a citizen here, Holly?" Hermione asked. Holly shrugged.

"Could care less-the more magic I can get away with the better," she said. She twirled her wand in between her fingers and pink sparks came out of either end.

"What is in that wand of yours? All I ever see coming from it is shades of pink!" Harry said.

"Oh..." Holly said. Her voice dropped to a dramatic whisper, then, and she said, "A very powerful magic object..."

"Oooooh, what is it?" squealed Hermione anxiously.

"I have no idea," she replied, her voice back to normal now. "Whatever it is, it likes the color pink." She smirked.

Just then, the door of the compartment slid open. Framed in the doorway stood Draco Malfoy in front of his two overly supportive and stupid followers, Crabbe and Goyle.

"Who're you?" was the first thing he said. This was the first time Holly had failed to answer a question abruptly, smart comment or not.

"I-uh..."

"That's Holly," substituted Harry. "Holly Black."

"I was asking her...but now that you've so faithfully answered the question, Potter..." Malfoy smirked, "No need for her to do so."

Holly closed her mouth and just stared at Malfoy and his cronies. "How very touching you keep close company of your godsister, she doesn't hate you already?"

"No, not really," Harry replied, shrugging. "Excited for her to hate you?"

"Absolutely..." Malfoy said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Sorry we can't stay, but we're needed in a cleaner atmosphere." Then they disappeared.

"Who was that?" Holly asked, finally gaining control of her speech.

"Draco Malfoy in front, Vincent Crabbe and Greggory Goyle bringing up the rear," Ron said.

"That Draco character...he isn't too bad lookin'," Holly said, relaxing and leaning back in her seat. Ron looked as though he were about to die, Harry was apparently shocked, and Hermione giggled.

"Strangely gorgeous and evil," she said. Holly agreed.

Before they knew it they were slowing to a stop at the Hogsmede station. Holly didn't bother to hide her amazement as she stared, open mouthed, at Hogwarts as they approached it.

Through the entrance hall they entered the Great Hall with its long house tables lined with gleaming dinner plates, goblets, and utensils, the usual candles floating everywhere in midair casting a flickering light upon the enchanted ceiling, a deep blue scattered with stars.

They found a spot at the Gryffindor house table and introduced Holly to the fellow 6th years that sat around them and others. As the tall doors opened and Professor McGonagall lead a line of 1st years forward towards a stool with the Sorting Hat atop it, Harry felt he was facing another year at his home away from home.

It wasn't until he glanced up from Hermione and Ginny a while later and saw, sitting at the Ravenclaw table, a very pretty girl named Cho Chang that he realized that things that year could get very mind boggling. Very complex, indeed.