"Sorry," Hannah mumbled lowly, his words seemingly sucking out all of her previous enthusiasm about meeting a celebrity.
"It's fine," Harry said. He knew he was being too hard on her—just as he'd been too hard on Ron. After all, who wouldn't be curious about him? It was just as Hannah said, he was a celebrity in their world. To top it off, the people on this train were children, tact and understanding weren't exactly concepts they were familiar with.
With a small sigh, he decided that the pair deserved an apology and explanation so they knew he wasn't actually angry at them.
"I apologize for snapping at you. The boy whose compartment I just left asked me if I remembered the night my parents died when he found out who I was." Both of the girl's gasps told him all he needed to know, and he offered them a small smile. He didn't quite manage it, his face making more of a grimace than anything, but it seemed to do the trick of putting the two at ease. "I didn't mean to take my anger at him out on you two."
"No, no, it's alright," Hannah said, shaking her head back and forth, her blond pig tails swaying behind her. "I can see why you were angry at me. I didn't mean to remind you of your parents death or anything. I was just so excited to meet you."
"I understand." Harry resisted the sigh wanting to pass his lips. "It seems everyone in the wizarding world is excited to meet me." Wanting to change the subject to something less personal, Harry switched topics. "So why don't you two tell me about yourselves?"
The conversation became much less strained after that. Harry learned quite a bit about the two girls he found himself sitting with. Both had apparently been friends for a long time; the Abbots were a minor pureblood family that were decently wealthy due to the wine vineyards they owned on the mainland, namely France and Italy, and had been allied with the Bones family for the last century.
Susan, he had learned, was indeed related to Amelia Bones, as he had first suspected. In fact, she was the woman's niece, and due to the fact that she and her aunt were the only members of the Bones family remaining, was also the heiress of the family. Harry knew right then that befriending them would prove advantageous for him in the future, if for no other reason than that.
He also learned much about the two as people. Hannah, for example, was very talkative and even more confident. She didn't have much trouble stating her opinions and wasn't shy about speaking her mind. Her friend Susan, on the other hand, was much more shy and soft spoken. She tended to let her friend do the talking, and the few times she did speak it was with a light tinge of pink dusting her cheeks. Harry also noticed that the redhead couldn't seem to keep eye contact with him for more than five seconds, before averting them and her face would flush a deeper shade of red.
He wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but put it out of his mind for the moment.
More than what he had learned about the two with him, Harry was surprised to discover how easy talking with them was. While the conversation hadn't taken all of his attention away from his thoughts of Lisa, they had proven to not only be an able distraction, but the two girls were also quite pleasant to converse with.
A part of him chalked it up to them being girls. Since Lisa was not only his best, but also his only friend at the moment, and had been for over three years, Harry found it easier talking to the opposite gender. Another reason he felt his mind was so at ease among the two was because they were witches. He didn't have to pretend to be normal in front of them, and that simply made acting more natural easier.
"So wait," Hannah said as she chewed on a pumpkin patty Harry had bought for her from the trolly (he was a gentleman, after all). "You mean to tell me you didn't even know about the wizarding world until you got your Hogwarts letter?"
"No, I only knew the basics," Harry said as he looked over the card of Albus Dumbledore he had gotten from a chocolate frog. He watched the man with half-moon glasses, a long, crooked nose, and flowing silvery hair, beard and mustache disappear from inside of the picture frame, before turning his attention back to Hannah. "You see, my aunt, that is to say, my mum's sister, is a muggle, but because my mum was a witch she knew about magic. However, she only told me a little bit, so I didn't know very much about the wizarding world itself, just that it and magic existed."
"But what about all the stories?" asked Hannah, the expression on her face looking just as shocked as her voice sounded.
"You mean the stories about me fighting dragons and trolls, and adventuring through Africa while fighting against indigenous tribes and ferocious nundus?" asked Harry with a quirk of his left eyebrow. "They're all lies. I didn't even know dragons and trolls actually existed, I've never heard of a nundu before, and I've never even seen a banshee much less fought one. I didn't even know those books existed until I went shopping for my school books."
"But that's illegal!" Susan gasped in shock, right before she blushed when Hannah and Harry turned to look at her. Despite this, she managed to continue on with only a little bit of stuttering. "S-since you're the heir to the Potter family, it's illegal for them to use your name without your consent."
"I know," Harry said, giving her a thin smile.
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