Reflections Over Tea

The tea shop on Annis and Weston was still and quiet. Understandably, most people were more interested in lemonade, ice cream, and water parks than a nice cup of earl grey; it was a warm Thursday afternoon, and the sun was shining brightly, heating the sidewalk at a pleasant twenty-five degrees Celsius, while, on the other side of the two centimetres of glass that were the shop's front window, said sidewalks bustled cheerily with Londoners and tourists and everyone in between. Sitting back in her chair, oak and upholstered in pink, and basking in the golden glow of the late July sunlight, Hermione smiled as she looked at the letter in her hands.

Dear Hermione,

I hope you are still well – I suppose it has only been a week since you sent your letter, but a lot can change in a week.

I am doing fine. I really am. The Dursleys were quite unhappy to see me, of course, and immediately locked all my things in my old cupboard. Lucky for me, I can just unlock it in the night while they're asleep. Same with my room. If I give them cheek, which I've been inclined to do of late, they lock me in my bedroom without food. But again, despite the fact that there are seven padlocks on my door, it is of no difficulty for me to open them. They never quite caught on to that. They're really not too clever, you see.

I am eating. Not as much as the Dursleys, of course, but that is to be expected. They're rather...well, whale-ish, you see. Actually, that's not quite right. I suppose Uncle Vernon reminds me of a well-fed walrus, at times, and Dudley a baby hippopotamus. They eat far too much, and I am quite content in the knowledge that Uncle Vernon will probably meet his end at the hands of a heart attack within the next decade. The next five years, if the universe is lucky.

They have me working in the garden, but aside from that, there really isn't much for me to do except read. I very much appreciate your offer for books, by the way, but I can take a form of wizarding transportation called the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley to buy more books, should I require them. However, I think that for now I will try to lay low here in Surrey. Best avoid any possibility for trouble, since it seems to find me at the most unlikely of times.

Or rather, perhaps, I seem to find it.

I really appreciate your willingness to do some research for You-Know-What. I think it's a splendid idea to set a number of goals at the beginning of the school year. Perhaps a list of spells to learn and potions to brew, to start with. I will work on it from here, as well. Would you mind sending Theo a letter, and asking him to do the same? I gave him a note with the same address I gave you, and asked him to contact me with muggle post (as I explained, I can't have owls showing up at the Dursleys'), but it occurred to me that he most likely doesn't know how to use muggle post. In fact, could you explain to him how to do so? I would very much like to be able to contact him as well. Then we can exchange ideas, provide inspiration, and combine the lists on the Hogwarts Express in September.

As for your proposal, I would love to join you for tea at some point in the next two weeks. Just send me a place and time. I rather like the idea of going out for tea, actually – it's very...posh and grown up, don't you think?

Anyway, as I said, I hope this letter finds you well.

Sincerely,

Harry James Potter

Oh, Harry, ever so polite, ever so pleasant.

Harry was a strange boy. He was short, small, with the messiest black hair she'd ever seen, and his eyes were the colour of emeralds. Exactly the colour of bright, luminous emeralds, polished to perfection. His rather pretty eyes were constantly hiding behind old battered glasses with circular frames, though. It was a shame, really, because the delicate colour and pensive shade of his eyes reflected the finer points of his personality, she thought; while other boys his age were rash, loud, and usually quite unintelligent, Harry Potter was a sweet, quiet, thoughtful boy. For the most part, anyway.

All the teachers loved him, and in lots of ways he was the perfect student – always weeks ahead of everyone in class. She had been quite jealous of him, at first, ever since their first meeting on the Hogwarts Express. He'd easily cast the tickling charm before they even arrived at Hogwarts, not to mention the silencio he'd apparently placed on Ron Weasley before she and Neville showed up. Indeed, she knew from the beginning that he would most definitely get in the way of her quest to be at the top of every class. How right she was. Harry Potter was, in her humble opinion, a genius...well, maybe not a genius, but almost a genius. His spell-casting was impeccable, and his successes weren't flukes either - he asked very insightful questions in class and displayed a good understanding of the concepts that so many of their classmates either ignored or failed to grasp.

His skill at Transfiguration and Charms were most impressive. She knew her Head of House had a soft spot for the quiet Slytherin, as did Professor Flitwick; and with good reason - Harry was eager to learn, always on top of things, and exceptionally polite about all of it. Indeed, the only professor that seemed to dislike him was his own Head of House, the terrifying Professor Snape, for some reason that completely escaped her. Other than that one exception, though, he was, while not popular per se, almost universally well liked, both for his intelligence and his personality - she had no doubt that her rivalry with him would have turned bitter long ago were it not the fact that he was really quite modest and an extremely agreeable person.

However, that's not all there was to Harry. Hermione prided herself on her skill as an observer, and over the course of the school year, she had observed that Harry Potter put a lot of effort into his kind, polite persona, and was not as simple as his carefully crafted personality would suggest; throughout their time at Hogwarts, she had come to realize that there was something very dark and dangerous hiding beneath Harry Potter's warm and bright exterior.

Her first clue should have been the troll incident. It really was very brave and kind of him to rescue her, and it showed how powerful he was too - he was a first year, and had defeated a full grown mountain troll without breaking a sweat. Now that was impressive. However...he had killed the troll without a second thought. He probably could have knocked it out, or pushed it away so they could make a break for it, but he didn't. Instead, he killed it. He had seemed sad about it after, but the sort of sad one gets when the book you're looking for has been already taken out of the library, not the sort of sad you'd feel for killing an animal or semi-intelligent magical creature like a troll. She was incredibly grateful that he saved her life...but his callousness was...unnerving.

And then there was the incident with Draco Malfoy. She had been quite shocked when Harry confessed to her what had happened. Only this time, he seemed truly remorseful.

"I feel completely horrible. I don't know what happened, I just...he was saying terrible things about my mother, and I snapped...and then snapped him, so to speak." He'd laughed nervously at his little joke. "It just gets so tiring, you know, looking the other way every time he tries to hex me, or insults me. I guess it just was too much. But I'm never going to let it happen again. I promise."

Hermione was sure he'd try to make sure never to let it happen again, but she didn't know if he would succeed. After all, he'd made it clear that it really was an accident, which meant, by extension, that he'd had little to no control over it.

To tell the truth, she had been tempted to just go back to competing with him in classes after she heard that...she wasn't sure he was safe to be around, or a good person. But then she remembered how he risked his life for her, for no reason whatsoever, and the more she thought about it, the more she understood. Harry was a kind person, but he was human, and got angry sometimes...and he was powerful enough that his magic acted up without his permission. Even she had to admit that Malfoy was sort of asking for it – he had been for two months already – and Hermione knew that were she in Harry's place, she probably would have hexed him already. Well, maybe not, but she sure would have told on him to a teacher, no doubt about it. But it wasn't in Harry's nature to be angry – that's what she chose to believe.

She had been correct. She'd never seen him angry since, much to her relief. It's always nice to know you've made a good judgement call.

However, she still didn't know Harry as well as she thought she did – just when she thought she had him figured out, he shocked her with his actions regarding the Philosopher's Stone. When she originally heard that Harry had gone to stop Professor Quirrell from stealing the Stone, she couldn't believe her ears. She would have thought Harry wouldn't care if some Stone got stolen – he was a rather easy-going type, and seemed content to let things happen most of the time.

It made more sense to her when he told her and Nott about his desire to find answers about his parents, but she was still surprised. All this time, he'd been troubled by the mystery of his parents' murder - troubled enough that he was willing to risk his life for answers. In retrospect, it made sense - his parents had been murdered when he was a baby by the most powerful dark wizard to ever live, and he'd somehow survived. She couldn't imagine how confusing and upsetting that must be. She'd just never considered it, because he seemed to go out of his way not to talk about his parents at all. In fact, he went out of his way not to talk about his family in general, and on their last day at Hogwarts, she had discovered why: Harry was being abused. His relatives locked him up, and didn't give him enough food, and even hit him sometimes. What Harry had described to her sound terrible, and she couldn't imagine what it was like before, when it was apparently worse!

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