Chapter 21: Johannesburg Johnny
Despite his bravado, James started slumping in his seat within minutes of class starting. He made up for lack of attention and focus with sheer talent, however, and successfully mastered the task assigned to them on his fourth try. His peacock feather was now a delicate glass vase in the same vibrant shades of teal and purple. A smug smile flit across his face before he dropped his head onto his desk.
"Wake me if she gets annoyed, will you?" he requested and fell asleep instantly.
Harry just nodded and tried very hard not to laugh. He reminded Harry so much of Ron at that particular moment, Transfiguration skills notwithstanding. The boy turned his focus back to his ostrich plume. The white hair-like barbs floated in the air, mocking his attempts to transfigure them into the sides of a vase. So he had not managed to inherit his father's skill in this particular subject. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Lily glaring daggers at her feather. It was supposed to be either a pure white peahen tail feather or a vase, but the girl had somehow managed to turn it into a vibrant orange glass feather. It was quite pretty and Aunt Petunia would have stopped and admired it in a shop, but it was so far from the assignment that the girl looked like she was preparing to smash it.
"Why did it do that?" Lily whined quietly.
If James were awake, he would have been offering the flustered girl some assistance, though she likely would have turned him down. Harry would have welcomed his help, but the boy was snoring softly beside him. Waving his wand and attempting the spell a second time, Harry managed to make the hollow shaft and rachis harden and expand into white porcelain. It had the vague shape of a vase his aunt kept on the mantle beside the numerous pictures of Dudley, but it was still far too much like a feather.
"Try a sticking charm," James muttered sleepily as he glanced up at Harry's work. "It'll look like you did it on purpose."
Harry arched an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
There was no way McGonagall would fall for that, but he could not get the last of the feather to transfigure regardless of how many times he waved his wand and repeated the spell. He heard the old woman's approach and gave one final panicked attempt at doing things the right way. It failed. With McGonagall just two tables away, he tried it James's way and grinned at the decorative pattern the barbs and after-feathers made on the smooth surface of the vase.
"Brilliant," he said and elbowed James to wake him up both to see the results of his suggestion and to keep from getting detention. The boy sat up quickly and managed to look as if he had been working the entire time. How Harry wished that he had learned that skill.
The professor nodded in approval of their work, "Very nicely done, Mr Potter. Mr Granger, I think a bit more practice for homework would be useful." She smiled down at them and moved on to the next pair.
"Wonderful work, Miss Granger," she praised Hermione's vase; the decorative pattern of a flock of birds adorning the porcelain was well beyond what she had assigned and only threw into contrast the dismal mess Lily had made of her feather. "Miss Evans, try again for homework, and I want an additional foot on the importance of the wand work used in this particular spell."
"Yes, Ma'am," Lily said, her face a deep and embarrassed red. She kept her head down for the final minutes of class, too ashamed to look at anyone.
"I'll help you try again later," Hermione offered as she guided Lily toward the exit. The girl refused to look up; even the threat of walking headfirst into a solid stone wall couldn't entice her to tear her eyes from her shoes.
"How did I manage to make it into a NEWT-level Transfiguration class?" she moaned as she left the classroom. "I'm rubbish."
"You just need a bit more practice," Harry said.
"Yeah, twelve inches worth according to McGonagall. Why do I have to write an extra foot on my essay?" she griped, her embarrassment giving way to outrage the farther she got from the classroom. She protested and grumbled her way to the Great Hall. "Why didn't you have to write anything extra? You barely made a vase."
"Oi!" Harry nudged her shoulder. "I made a perfectly respectable vase."
"Provided you don't mind a vase that will tickle you," she added.
"Now you're just being picky. It was breakable and could hold flowers," he retorted. "It passed the aunt test, so it was fine."
"Aunt test?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "If my aunt would stop and look at it without being horrified, it passes the test. She would have loved my vase." Lily looked at him oddly a moment before laughing. Hermione, by contrast, looked positively dismayed, as if Harry had just provided the name and address to his Aunt Petunia's house instead of mentioning her only generally.
"Do you want to practice with me later?" Lily asked.
Harry was tempted to continue insisting he didn't need extra practice, that he had done perfectly fine on his own, but he knew it would be stupid to say. He needed all the help and practice he could get, and if it meant spending more time with his mum then all the better. "Yeah, okay."
"See you later then," she smiled and sat down with her friends, pulling Hermione along with her.
After only a week, Hermione was still having a hard time keeping the amazement off her face whenever Lily or the other Gryffindor girls included her. She had grown accustomed to being ignored except when someone needed help with homework or information regarding whatever chaotic episode Harry had managed to get involved in. Ginny, wonderful a friend as she was, did not really count; she was a friend by default thanks to her spending so much time with the girl's brother. So to be willingly included in every part of these other girls' day was astonishing.
"Tell me more about this Dora person," Tildy said, eyebrows dancing suggestively around her forehead. "Is she pretty? Are they serious? I'm guessing not since Harry hasn't gotten any letters since he's been here."
"How do you know he's not gotten letters?" Silvia asked. "Are you stalking him?"
"Well, he is adorable…"
A murmur of consent ran through the little pride of Gryffindors and all eyes turned expectantly to Hermione.
"Dora is just a friend," Hermione said slowly, worried where her reply might lead.
"What? But she sounds brilliant!" Tildy balked.
Mary scoffed, "You mean she sounds like you. Punk, random changes of hair colour… yeah, that's you."
"What's wrong with that? I wouldn't say no to someone as cute as Harry," the girl sniffed indignantly but stopped in the process of folding her arms. "Wait. That means he's single. Dibs!"
The protest at her laying claim to the new boy was far louder and more adamant than when she had claimed Hermione as her study buddy. It would have been enough to set her laughing if she had not caught Lily taking part in the objection. She had to take Harry off the market and fast. "He's not really single," she interjected hastily. "There's a girl he likes, I mean, really likes. He hasn't even considered dating anybody but her; he's that serious about her."
"Aw, how sweet," Mary cooed. "What's her name?"
'Damn! I should have thought of that!' she cursed at herself. There was really only one girl Harry had ever liked – Cho Chang. Their only date had been abysmal from what Harry had told her, and he seemed to have given up on her after that. If it came to feigning love, she doubted he would be able to muster much believability if he was forced to talk about Cho. But who did that leave? What other girl did he know well enough to claim feelings for? Just one.
"Ginny," Hermione said. "Ginny… Weasleby."
Tildy frowned. "Sounds boring."
"She isn't!" she insisted. "She's lovely and a good friend."
"Well, damn," the girl scowled.
Ignoring her friend's childish sulking over the loss of a boy she never really had, Lily turned her attention to Hermione. "What about you? Is there anybody writing you love letters back in Johannesburg?"
"What? No…" Hermione said, dropping her head a second too late. Her blush was very noticeable.
"Who is he?" Tildy demanded. "I want to know all about this Johannesburg Johnny."
"His name's Ron, Ginny's brother. I've liked him for ages," she admitted unhappily, "but I don't think he's noticed."
"Boys are dumb like that," Silvia agreed. "No worries. We'll find you a great bloke here."
"No!" Hermione shouted with far too much vehemence and volume. Half the table, Harry included, looked her way. She shrank back into her seat, flushed a humiliated scarlet. "I don't want to get involved with anyone. Really."
Silvia and Mary shared a glance that clearly suggested the girl was mental. Tildy frowned her confusion and disapproval, but her eyes were glittering like she had already planned which boy to set her study buddy up with. Only Lily looked at her with any real consideration, those familiar green eyes studying her. She said nothing, but Hermione could tell that she was working something out and that worried her.
"I just really like Ron," Hermione insisted, hoping to distract Lily from whatever thoughts she had in her brain and perhaps put off Tildy's match-making scheme. "I really like him and I don't want to have to compare anybody to him. They would not look good by comparison, believe me."
Mary was cooing again. "That is so sweet. I guess it runs in the family."
"Yeah, it does," Hermione agreed, too worried to bother reminding the girl that Harry was not actually related and therefore nothing they shared could 'run in the family'.
"Well, you can tell me all about him on the way to the hospital wing," Tildy insisted as she stood and took up Hermione's bag, setting it on her shoulder and walking away before the girl could take it from her.
"Are you hurt?" she asked as she chased after the girl, or, more precisely, as she chased after her bag. Clearly, Tildy was one that she would have to watch out for.
"No, I need Remus to help me with my essay," she said absently.
"Well, I could help you with that," Hermione said, annoyed that she was being forced to follow the girl clear across the castle unnecessarily. "No need to disturb him. He's not feeling well."
The girl waved her hand dismissively, though it looked more like she was conducting an orchestra the way she moved her whole arm and snapped her wrist sharply. "He's always ill with something, but he gets over it by the next day. I think the boys use him to test their pranks. You'd think he'd learn being as clever as he is, but no… every month, without fail, he's holed up in the hospital wing." She sighed and shook her head. "So, tell me about this Ron Weasleby."
"He's wonderful," Hermione said.
"Details!" Tildy chirped.
"Like what?" she groaned.
"Is he smart?"
Hermione frowned. That was not among the list of details she had required from Harry earlier. "Smart enough," she hedged. "He's brilliant at wizard chess."
"'Smart enough'?" she repeated, disapprovingly. "What exactly is smart enough? Like top ten in your year?"
"No. He's far from that."
"So he isn't smart enough. Not like, oh, I don't know," she said with obviously bogus deliberation, "say, Remus, for instance. Remus is first in our year, you know. Very smart bloke."
"I'm sure he is," replied Hermione baldly. Suddenly, she was not particularly keen to be following the girl to the hospital wing.
"What's he look like, this Ron of yours?"
Suspecting she knew where this was going, she answered with as much accuracy as she dared.
"Not bad, if you aren't exaggerating," the girl commented. "I like a bloke who's tall, but I never cared much for broad shoulders. I always preferred something in the middle. You?"
"Middle is fine, I suppose," Hermione agreed warily.
Before the words had finished leaving her mouth, Tildy was asking, "Pianist hands?"
"I guess, but wh—"
"Strong jaw?"
"Yes. Wh—"
"Blond hair?"
"No, sandy," Hermione said but stopped. "I mean fawn. No, brown. Damn! Red, red hair."
Tildy grinned and pointed at the girl. "I knew it! You like Remus better than you like Ron!"
She didn't care that her cheeks and ears were burning with embarrassment. She didn't care that Tildy was laughing at her. All Hermione care about was getting away from the hospital wing and Remus as quickly as she could. The irritatingly Tonks-like girl had tricked her, she knew, but she had meant it. The image that came into her brain when prompted what hair colour she liked on her preferred boy was sandy with subtle streaks of fawn brown – Remus's hair. She had always appreciated his intelligence and his humour, but now she found herself admiring his appearance.
This was bad. Very, very bad. Dangerously bad. Disturbingly bad.
She tried to turn and run, but Tildy had her by the arms, preventing first her escape and then her attempt to reach for her wand as she marched Hermione the last few yards to the hospital wing. One surprisingly strong shove had Hermione stumbling into the hospital wing and onto the bed nearest the door.
"Most people just walk in," an amused voice commented.
Hermione, impossibly, flushed even further. She had been pushed onto Remus's bed… with Remus still in it. Righting herself with as much dignity as she could, she mumbled, "Tildy. She... um…"
"Say no more," the boy smiled, a brilliant flash of teeth and confidence that left her slightly stunned. "I think we've already established that she's about the oddest girl we both know. But I'm glad she brought you. I was getting bored."
"She didn't bring me. She pushed me!" Hermione scowled.
'Tricked me, more like,' she wanted to say, but was afraid to hurt the boy's feelings. The smile he was sending her way was heart-warming, but also frightened her. She did not want to upset Remus by denying him friendship, but, if Tildy kept up her crazy comments that they were flirting and that Hermione liked him, he might get ideas. He was clever, yes, but he was still a boy.
"Regardless, I'm glad," he said. "Poppy won't let me go for at least another hour. You can keep me company."
"Okay," replied the girl nervously.
"What did I miss in class?"
She relaxed and smiled at the question. That was a subject that was in no way flirtatious or idea-making and one she happily talked about for the two hours before he was released.