Chapter Text
Chapter One
The Change of Plans
Harry Potter was pacing the length of the narrow hallway of number four Privet Drive nervously, his large trunk had been completely packed of his things and it was sitting by the door with his owl Hedwig, who was watching him patiently as he marched back and forth, perched in her cage on top of it all. As was the tradition of his summer holidays spent at the Dursley’s, the time had come for him to be collected and taken away, far away, to spend the remainder of the break at a friend’s house, and a place far-friendlier than here.
There was a little bit of a change in the plan this year. After much correspondence between his two best friends from Hogwarts, Harry would not be taking the usual trip to the Burrow, where the Weasley’s lived. For the first time in his life, he would be staying with Hermione Granger and her parents at their house, and it was fair to say that he was a little bit nervous. He did not know them as well as Mr and Mrs Weasley, although he hoped, if all went well, that might change in the weeks to come.
They did sound like lovely people. They had been perfectly happy for him to come and stay with them, once Harry had agreed to Hermione’s persistent letters, which kept pointing out that he always went to stay with Ron, and never her. His Uncle Vernon on the other hand, who was currently sitting in the living room pretending to read the newspaper while Harry paced, had been a little less convinced about the Granger’s.
“Dentists?” Uncle Vernon had said when Harry had attempted to explain the situation to him. “As in, real dentists, from the real world? Not some strange version of your lot?”
“Yes, real dentists. They’re muggles,” Harry said, and when he saw the look of confusion on Uncle Vernon’s face he added, “they aren’t magical at all. Only their daughter, my friend, is—”
“Excellent,” Uncle Vernon said firmly, shifting back comfortably in his chair, “so we won’t be having any of that nonsense from a few years back? When my fireplace blew up?”
Uncle Vernon twitched at the thought, but Harry shook his head. His Aunt Petunia, however, made a noise with her tongue in rather a disapproving manner, much like she did when a plotline didn’t go the way she wanted whilst watching one of her soap operas on the television.
“That means nothing,” she said fiercely, her eyes narrowing, “my sister was the only one in my family like your lot, and it turned my parents into the most insufferable people—"
“Aha!” Uncle Vernon said, pointing a chubby finger at Harry. “You see? Don’t try and lie to us, boy. Dentists indeed! What a crackpot of a profession, anyway. Don’t trust them to be able to drive the right way up the street… speaking of which—”
“Yes, they will be driving a normal car, don’t worry,” Harry said rolling his eyes, “and I’m sure it’ll be more expensive than yours and driven properly and on the right side of the street and everything—”
“You dare—?”
“I’m going to go pack now,” Harry said lazily, ignoring his Uncle, who had risen angrily from his chair.
By the time the doorbell rang, Uncle Vernon was still fuming, and Harry was just about ready to be out of there. He had been at the other end of the hallway when he heard the buzzer, and raced to wrench open the door, and on the other side of it he found his best friend Hermione standing on the doormat. At the sight of him she beamed, and when he looked up, he recognised the faces of Mr and Mrs Granger, who he had only met once or twice briefly, smiling back down at him.
“Hello Harry,” Hermione said brightly, usually she would have flung her arms around him by now, but maybe because her parents were there, or maybe she was showing proper etiquette for his muggle relatives who she knew could be rather delicate and so she held back and kept her arms behind her.
“Hi Hermione,” he said happily, he couldn’t get the grin off his face as he looked up, “hello Mr and Mrs Granger—”
“Good afternoon, Harry,” Mr Granger inclined his head with a smile, “I apologise for our tardiness, the motorway was quite insufferable— oh, hello,” he looked up with another smile over Harry’s shoulder.
Harry suddenly noticed a large shadow had been cast over him, and it was being made by Uncle Vernon, who had very obviously come to investigate and judge these dentists and their fancy high-end priced car, sitting in the driveway next to his reasonable priced one. Harry stepped aside as he gave Hermione and her parents a look of apology for what was undoubtedly about to come out of the beefy man’s mouth.
“Mph,” Uncle Vernon said, clearly he could say nothing bad about the people in front of him, or the car in the driveway, as his eyes flashed towards it over Mr Granger’s shoulder, who misunderstood the situation, and put out his hand for Harry’s Uncle to shake.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr Dursley,” he said politely, Harry was sure there was a glint in his eye as Mr Granger glanced in his direction, “and you must be Mrs Dursley?”
Aunt Petunia had appeared in the hallway, barely visible behind Uncle Vernon, she did nothing but give the smallest inclination of her head, which suggested she acknowledge their presence and nothing else.
“Pleasure to meet you both. My name is Christopher Granger, though please, I’d prefer if you called me Chris,” Mr Granger said, before indicating the slim woman beside him, who Harry would have been able to recognise as the mother of Hermione out of a crowd without any problem, “this is my wife, Dianne—”
“Hello,” Mrs Granger said nervously, giving a little wave. “You have a very lovely home.”
“Mph,” Uncle Vernon said, repeating himself, apparently, he was unable to find a criticism.
“Yes, indeed,” Mr Granger said, agreeing with the sentiments of his wife, “my daughter did tell me that you do very important work that involves drills?”
Uncle Vernon’s moustache twitched, and his eyebrows rose slightly. He looked impressed.
“That’s right,” Uncle Vernon said proudly, yet steadily, as he found his voice. “I’m the director at Grunning’s Drills. I’m sure you’ve heard of us?”
“Certainly,” Mr Granger said, though Harry was willing to bet he’d never heard of such a company, “I’m not sure how much young Harry here has told you, but we’re actually dentists—”
“He might have mentioned it,” Uncle Vernon said, his eyes flashing towards the boy.
“We work with drills too,” Mr Granger said happily, reaching into the front pocket of his suit, making Uncle Vernon flinch slightly, “perhaps we could get together some time and talk?”
Mr Granger held out his business card for Uncle Vernon to take, who looked at it wearingly, and thinking of his fireplace, wondered if it might explode in his face.
“Err… I…” Uncle Vernon took the card and stared down at it unblinkingly, as Mr Granger turned to Harry.
“Are you ready to go, Harry?” he asked nicely, there was a small twitch on the side of his mouth, secretly acknowledging that he’d managed to impress the unimpressionable. “Got your trunk?”
“Oh, yeah,” Harry said, he had almost forgotten he was leaving with them, he had been so invested in the way Mr Granger was handling himself.
“Very well,” Mr Granger said, looking back around at Uncle Vernon and spotting Dudley peering at them around the corner, “perhaps your strong looking cousin could help you load it into our car?”
The ground beneath their feet shook as Dudley whimpered and raced up the flight of stairs in fear, one hand was clutched over his mouth and the other was attempting to shield his wide bottom. He, for one, had never forgotten about the things that had happened to him by the hands of Harry’s visiting friends.
“It’s okay,” Hermione said suddenly, when Uncle Vernon began to turn a slight shade of red, “I’ll help Harry, dad.”
“Thank you, Hermione,” Mr Granger looked carefully back at Uncle Vernon, “it worked out, then. Didn’t meant for it to sound like I was ordering your son around, Mr Dursley—”
“Mph,” Uncle Vernon said again with a slight twitch, Harry could tell his Uncle’s temper was rising slightly as he and Hermione shifted past him with Harry’s trunk.
“We won’t take up anymore of your time Mr Dursley, Mrs Durlsey,” Mr Granger said, inclining his head at Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who was standing in the shadows behind her husband. “Please, feel free to call about your drills. I’d love to hear about everything. Well, goodbye.”
He saluted and turned his back on Uncle Vernon, who stood like a white statue in the doorway, watching Mr and Mrs Granger return to the expensive car, where Harry and Hermione were hauling the heavy trunk into the boot. After a moment, the front door to number four Privet Drive slammed shut, and the four people in the driveway turned to one another and grinned.
“How did we do, Harry?” Mr Granger asked hopefully in a low voice, a small smile on his face.
“Brilliantly,” Harry said with a laugh, he couldn’t stop picturing the look of shock on his Uncle’s face, “he wasn’t expecting that, not in a million years, not from someone who has a daughter associated with the Wizarding World.”
“We figured as much,” Mr Granger said, that glint was still in his eye.
“Hermione has told us a lot about them,” Mrs Granger said, looking wearily back towards the house, “and the horrible way they treat you. We just wanted to get our impressions right, in case they decided they weren’t going to let you come and stay with us.”
“It was Hermione’s idea,” Mr Granger said proudly, beaming at his daughter, who smiled weakly.
“Well, it was perfect,” Harry said with a nod, as Hermione grinned, “as usual.”
“Let’s get going, shall we?” he asked them, Hermione nodded at her father and when her parents turned to get into the car, she finally flung her arms around Harry.
“It’s good to see you, Harry,” she whispered, as her hair tickled his nose.
“It’s good to see you too, Hermione,” he said, hugging her back.
It had only been a matter of weeks, but he had missed her hugs dreadfully and he had missed the flowery scent of her bushy brown hair. He had spent so many days lying amongst the flourishing agapanthus, in an attempt to replicate the soothing presence of his best friend, but all it did was remind him painfully where he still was.
Eventually they pulled apart, she gave him a short smile and then they climbed into the back of the car just as Mr Granger started the engine. Harry could see Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia peering out through the curtains of the living room, he didn’t know if they had seen him hug his friend, but couldn’t care less what they thought, as the car took off up Privet Drive along the correct side of the street, and with Harry in tow, the Granger’s made the several hour drive back to their home.