Peaches and Cream

Chapter 4: Nighttime Contemplation or In Which Much is Thought Out And Nothing Gets Done

It had been a week since she'd returned home from Hogwarts, and Dara was more than ready to leave.

Things usually stayed the same at Privet Drive from year to year. While that didn't mean Dara liked being there, of course, she had to admit that it was nice for her year to have some routine to it: ten months at Hogwarts, one at Privet Drive, and one at the Burrow.

Last year, the balance had been upset somewhat, as she and Harry had spent the last three weeks of holiday at The Leaky Cauldron, but all in all, it wasn't too off the mark.

But this year, the balance was completely thrown off. Harry no longer lived with the Dursleys. This was the hardest fact, and had yet to completely sink in; Dara had taken to repeating it to herself over and over before she went to sleep at night, just to remind herself that it was really true.

She had had several weeks of adjusting to the thought of Harry having a godfather. And although she had known things were bound to change, deep down, a horrible part of her had been hoping Sirius would change his mind. That Harry would once again be banished back to The Land of Boredom with her ...

Mrs. Stamphard was coming by at ten o'clock tomorrow. Oh joy, Dara thought as she lay under the covers, watching a twinkling star through the grimy basement window high above her. Mrs. Stamphard was a fat, foul-smelling woman who gave simpering smiles and exclaimed "the poor dear" all too often. She was also, fortunately, the woman Dara had to convince she was happy if she wanted to come back next summer.

Wait ... Since when have I ever wanted to come back here?

Shaking the thought off, Dara grinned a little in the darkness. Mrs. Stamphard was easy. All she had to do was lay on the sob stuff - "My daddy doesn't like me and Mr. Dursley's like my real dad!" - and lose her dignity for a while. Nothing too difficult.

"Poor dear."

Dara could tell Mrs. Stamphard had tried to whisper, but she managed to hear her anyway.

"Good morning, Mrs. Stamphard."

The large woman turned from the mantle, where she'd been examining the picture that hung above it. The large family portrait had been taken several summers ago to impress the Masons that time Mr. Dursley had almost signed a deal with them.

While Harry had been kept upstairs throughout the meal that time, Dara had been told to help Mrs. Dursley serve dinner. She had been introduced as a girl from up the street, trying to earn her way to college by helping out at the Dursley household on weekends and school holidays.

"How charitable of you," Mrs. Mason had remarked.

As Dara had only been twelve at the time, she had thought that the most absurd lie in the world.

In any case, the portrait had been taken without Harry or Dara in it. Which was simply unacceptable for Mrs. Stamphard to see. That was why two individual school photos, taken when they had been ten years old, were propped up underneath the portrait for her visit. Which were what Mrs. Stamphard had been looking at before Dara came in.

Dara made her way to the couch, taking care to walk like a timid seven-year-old instead of someone twice that age. Then, without preamble, she blurted out, "I get to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, right? They're the best!"

Not for the first time, Emmaline Stamphard wondered whether the Kentler girl was being forced or subdued into pledging her allegiance to the Dursley family. As the girl perched precariously on the edge of the couch, Mrs. Stamphard shook the ridiculous idea out of her head. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley had never been anything but courteous towards her, and they didn't have any addictions or anything that suggested they were less than exemplary citizens. No, she was forced to conclude that Dara Kentler truly loved her foster parents.

And the trouble was, the boat of stability Dara seemed to have found was in danger of being rocked.

"Now, Dara, I understand that Harry recently went to live somewhere else."

"Yeah," Dara said shortly. The tears welling up in her eyes were genuine - all she had to do was let them fall.

But they wouldn't.

"And how do you feel about that?"

She restrained herself from rolling her wet eyes with great difficulty. "I miss him. But -" her mouth had started forming Mrs. Dursley, but she'd stopped herself in time "- Pet said she'd take me to see him next week, and we're getting together on his birthday, too."

Mrs. Dursley had, of course, said nothing of the sort.

"So you're happy here, then?"

"Oh, yes," Dara quickly said, making her now-dry eyes grow very wide and nodding her head. Mrs. Stamphard smiled. "All right, dear, don't look so nervous! Now, why don't you tell Vernon and Petunia they can come in?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Stamphard." Dara left the room quickly, still walking like a seven-year-old, but waited, hidden, by the wall next to the doorpost.

"The poor dear ..."

Dara grinned, her mission complete; she went off to fetch Mr. and Mrs. Dursley.

Dara lay on her cot in the laundry room that night, half-buried under a blanket, and listened to the gentle thumping of the washing machine. She was so used to the noise of the machines that she found it hard to fall asleep for the first few nights she spent at the Burrow each summer. Dara'd tried to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Dursley into giving her Harry's room, but to no avail. It had become "Dudley's second playroom" once more.

At the moment, Dara was flipping through a storybook she and Harry had made. Or, more precisely, a storybook they were making.

Elfland, she read fondly.

Dara's mother had encouraged her daughter's drawing. Dara had been appalled to learn - the hard way - that Mr. and Mrs. Dursley disapproved of imagination. Their disapproval had, in her opinion, left Dudley and Harry utterly boring, dull people.

So she and Harry had struck up a compromise.

She'd first introduced Harry to Elfland over lunch at school one day. Elfland was a magical place she and her mother had invented, though she didn't tell him that.

"Lots of creatures live there," she'd said, "elves, of course, but tons of others too!"

"Like what?" Harry'd wanted to know.

"Like ..." Like fauns and dwarves ... and talking beavers like in 'Narnia'. "And the creatures live like real people - they have birthday parties and wars and things too!"

It had taken a bit more explaining and a lot of coaxing - "Oh, don't worry, they won't find out," Dara'd replied to Harry's fear that his aunt and uncle would discover their operation - but eventually, Harry had agreed to the deal. They would discuss the plot for a new story over lunch - out of Dudley's earshot, of course. Later that night, under the guise of "doing his homework", Harry would begin work on the text. In the meantime, Dara would start several illustrations for the story.

She smiled now, as she flipped through nearly two hundred pages of writing and drawings, arranged by date of completion, about the tales of the creatures of Elfland.

There were distinct changes in their writing and drawing styles. Harry's writing had started out very simple - creative, but nothing especially unique about it. He'd stuck mainly with the characters Dara had imagined. As time had worn on, and especially since starting Hogwarts, he'd made variations of his own on the plots they created together, added in more description, and made up new characters of his own.

As for Dara, her drawing had certainly become less childish over the years. Though this happened to practically everyone, it was still interesting to note exactly when she'd started drawing eyes, for example, in detail and not just crayon dots. Dara actually liked her style now.

Except hands, she thought, as she looked at a picture of a giant whose hands consisted of two large circles and ten sticks, each oddly spaced. I still can't draw hands.

Most of the thirty-five stories had been written when they were nine and ten, though approximately seven had been written at school. Dara read through the last one now, which had been written nearly three months ago.

She smiled as she closed the book, though it was more a sad, trying-to-cheer-myself-up (-and-failing-miserably) smile than a happy or nostalgic one.

School had been out of session for one week. One week. She hadn't received any letters at all in that time, and she couldn't send letters to anyone until either Harry or Ron wrote to her first. Dara supposed she could - hypothetically, of course - send Hermione letters by the muggle post, but then there was the matter of stamps - she doubted Mrs. Dursley would let her have one.

Or would she? Maybe she could tell Mrs. Dursley that Sirius was a muggleborn and not comfortable with owl post, while secretly addressing the letter to Hermione and not him.

Yeah, she told herself in a horribly sarcastic tone, and while I'm at it, I'll tell her that my dad called last week.

Bill Kentler hadn't spoken to his daughter since the summer after she'd started at Hogwarts.

"Family" is over-rated, she thought, carefully keeping her face blank of any emotion as she stored Elfland safely in a box from Harrods under the cot. After all, you couldn't choose your family. Sometimes people just grabbed the sort straw, so to speak. What you could choose were your friends.

So your friends are a close representation of who you really are, Dara decided. Not your family.

This is stupid, she thought with a glance at her watch. It's much too late at night to be philosophical.

Dara liked her watch. It was a wizard watch, with twelve hands and planets dancing around the edges and everything! Ron and Hermione had helped her pick it out on the first Hogsmeade trip that year and taught her how to use it.

She'd felt so horrible leaving Harry alone on Halloween that year. Halloween was always a hard time for him, and she'd planned on spending the day together, possibly doing some homework if he didn't feel like talking, or pondering about the past if he did. But then the Hogsmeade trip had come up ...

Dara could still see the look on Mr. Dursley's face when she'd shoved the permission slip at him.

In front of the entire Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, that is.

Dara reached up and pulled on the cord that turned the light bulb on and off, grinning broadly. Last summer, the squad had shown up about half an hour after Harry had blown up Ms. Dursley and run away ... While the rest of the squad deflated Ms. Dursley, an aspiring Auror called "Kingsley" had grilled her, interrogating her as to where Harry might be headed. She'd responded truthfully - "No idea, sir" - and they'd spent some time talking.

The squad had staked out at Privet Drive all night - much to Mrs. Dursley's dismay - while they waited for word from the Ministry saying Harry was all right. When they were finally informed that he had arrived at The Leaky Cauldron and would be staying there for the rest of the summer, Dara'd spent a good thirty seconds dreading the thought of living with the Dursleys on her own for three more weeks.

I should've guessed it would have been kinda like this, she thought sulkily.

Anyway, Kingsley must have seen the look on her face, because he immediately asked her if she wanted to join Harry there. She'd agreed at once, of course, and had hurried off to the laundry room to pack. Sifting quickly through her belongings, she'd come across the unsigned Hogsmeade permission form.

The look on Mr. Dursley's face when she'd asked him to sign the form in front of half the department had been absolutely priceless!

Later on in the year, when it became apparent that Harry wouldn't be allowed to visit Hogsmeade without his form, Dara'd tried to convince McGonagall that Mr. Dursley had intended his signature for both of them, pointing out that Harry had left too quickly to get his signed.

She hadn't been impressed.

At least Sirius can sign his form now, she thought, effectively dragging herself out of the past. Dara laid an arm under her head and ran a finger up her scalp.

Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was that her hair was getting oily and she should wash it in the morning ...

Harry still couldn't believe that this room was really his.

At the moment, he was lying on his bed in the darkened room. Harry was especially proud of his bed. He and Sirius had gone shopping for a bed frame three days ago. Harry would have been more than happy with any bed frame, provided it was a bit less prehistoric than his old one, but Sirius had insisted that he choose an extraordinary frame.

"Come on," he'd goaded. "You have a plain bed the rest of the year. I want you to pick out something out of the ordinary just this once!"

And then he'd made he'd made a puppy dog face.

How can you refuse the puppy dog face?

So Harry'd complied, choosing a large, circular bed frame from a furniture store on Diagon Alley. Which meant they'd had to buy a new, circular mattress and sheets to fit it. He'd chosen a sheet with a simple, dark blue design; Sirius had also bought a sheet that looked like a pizza pie. That was the sheet Harry was currently lying on.

Sirius had also bought himself a new wand at Ollivanders: Holly and sphinx tail hair, twelve and a half inches.

They'd actually had a pretty decent time shopping for furniture once Sirius had learned to spread the trips out over the course of several days and bring Remus along to help him "set reasonable goals" (read: restrain him from buying every single product that said "Quidditch" on it).

"Honestly," Remus had muttered amusedly. "Give a teenager a couple thousand galleons and an entire house to furnish and take a look at the results!"

Remus had also suggested a trip to Flourish and Blotts, at which Sirius had promptly pretended to vomit into the nearest trash bin.

But Harry had allowed himself to be led into the bookstore, and now in addition to the most common fourth year texts, he now owned some of Ron's favorite comics (which he found a bit dull and largely overdone, to tell the truth), several O.W.L. preparation book (Remus's suggestion), and the book he'd admired years ago - Curses and Counter-curses (Sirius's suggestion). Remus had wanted him to read some muggle classics as well, but Sirius had drawn the line at that.

As he'd so eloquently put it, "What's he ever going to do with that rubbish?"

Both Sirius and Remus wanted to buy Harry new sets of robes and muggle outfits, but he'd declined their offers ...

While Aunt Petunia had never tried to make Dara wear Dudley's old castoffs, she certainly hadn't gone out of her way to find her things to wear either. When Dara'd outgrown the clothing she'd arrived with - around her tenth birthday - Aunt Petunia had taken her down to The Bargain Bin, given her ten pounds, and driven off to do the grocery shopping. She'd done the same last summer.

So now Dara had a steady supply of jeans and plaid, button-down shirts, which had been the cheapest articles of clothing at the bargain store and were not particularly fashionable in either the muggle or wizarding worlds. Although they were, at least, in her size, which was more than Harry could say for his own clothes. All in all, Dara generally managed to look put-together. Though Mrs. Weasley had started to wonder at the uniformity of her outfits. Sometimes, when Dara felt like scaring passersby, she'd plait her hair into two short, blonde braids to complete the farm girl look.

Sirius's rules about clothing were as different from Aunt Petunia's as Gryffindor was different from Slytherin. It was all right to show up to breakfast in pajamas, fine to spend the whole day in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and considered perfectly normal to go about topless if it got too hot, as long as there were no women around.

And, in Remus's words: "What's the likeliness of that happening?"

Ever.

The score was now five to two, Sirius's favor. Harry wasn't stupid, he knew that Sirius had practically given him those two points; he was determined to gain at least one point on his own before this summer was over.

The trouble was, Sirius rarely provided any opportunities for anyone to embarrass him. Or maybe Harry just wasn't trying hard enough. Practically anything could be turned into something embarrassing if he just looked a bit harder ...

He needed Ron here. Ron could always think of funny things to say. Or the twins. Wonder if Sirius told them about being Padfoot, Harry thought, images of the stocky red-haired twins floating into his mind. They'd be over here in a second if they knew I lived with a Marauder.

If they'd known the password to get through the chimney, that is, Harry thought with a grin. Unable to act adult for more than thirty seconds at a time, Sirius had charmed the fireplaces to only recognize the password "Snape eats his bogies".

While Dara and Hermione were fun, Ron was a bit less down-to-earth than either of them. Both girls insisted on studying so they could do well in the "future", which was far-off and obscure. Ron was, well, normal. He liked Quidditch and getting a rise out of Malfoy - and NOT studying in any way, shape, or form. Harry felt bad that he would not be going to the World Cup with the Weasleys, but he would surely see them there, wouldn't he?

His last thought before he drifted off to sleep was that today was the day of Mrs. Stamphard's visit ...