𝗷𝗮𝗻𝗲, harry potter

˗ˋ 07

CHAPTER SEVEN
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-: fourth year :-

── IN WHICH HE ARRIVES

. . .

Not long passed as Jane waited under the tree, slender fingers toying with the yellowing pages of her book, grey eyes slipping along the rows of letters, written in that oh-so-familar font that decorated the inside of books that had leather colours with engraved gold spines.

She had arrived under the tree that her and Harry had agreed to meet under, and she had been early. And with her bag slumped against her feet, Jane had been reading as she waited. 

"Sorry I'm late." Jane looked up to see Harry, slightly breathless as he stopped by the tree, sitting down beside her. "I had to cook breakfast and Dudley had his weekly meltdown and refused to eat."

"Is that your cousin who bullies people?" Jane looked confused - how could someone who bullied someone still have meltdowns that caused such a disruption. "Is he a little kid?"

"No he's our age - assuming your fifteen?" Harry sat down, watching as Jane nodded. "He's just very very spoilt. This time, my Aunt Petunia refused to pay for his second trip to Alton Towers this summer."

"But the summers' only just started?" Jane's jaw dropped. "And those tickets are expensive? Not even to mention all the added things you buy when you're there." 

"He would have to stay overnight as well." Harry said with a sigh, realising just how much he was revealling, the pair suddenly finding themselves bonding over their shared shock of Dudley Dursley's requests.

"We'll set off soon.. but if you barely had time to cook breakfast does that mean you didn't get eat any?" Jane looked over at him, slipping her bookmark within the pages of her book and closing it, pulling her bag closer to her lap. 

"What are you getting at?" Harry's voice was light and airy, but he narrowed his eyes as he shook his head, watching as Jane pulled a parcel out of the bag, throwing it at him. 

The Potter boy caught it in an instance, confused as he undid the loosely tied string around the brown paper, opening it up and seeing the bacon sandwich within. "I told you I'd bring you some. Angela made extra." Jane shrugged, as Harry looked up for it. "I wasn't sure if you wanted any sauces or anything so I don't have any with me, but you can let me know."

"But I denied your offer.. and you brought me it anyway?" Harry found himself comparing her to the Weasleys once again. 

"Don't look at me like that - I've grown up with tons of other kids and I know what they look like when they're hungry." Jane shrugged. "You don't have to eat it if you don't want to, and just so you're not surprised I brought you lunch as well. So hurry up and eat so we can get going."

Jane returned to her book as Harry ate, filling the empty space in his stomach that had been gnawing at him since the earlier hours of that morning when he had woken - he had barely eaten anything the night before. 

He pretended to not be as hungry as he was, taking as much time as he deemed acceptable to not seem like some ravenous monster. Not that Jane would notice anyway, she seemed too engrossed in her book. 

But as soon as Harry ate the last bite of his sandwich, her book slammed closed and she looked up, letting Harry know that even if she was focused on her book, she had been watching out of the corner of her eye. 

"Do you have a preference for what walk?" Jane asked, standing up and slipping her book into her bag, instead pulling out the map. "I saw this one that goes along the river?" 

She unfolded it and pointed it out to Harry. "It seems to go on for a while so we can just keep going? I don't know about you but I haven't been on a long walk for ages, so keeping it relatively flat rather than hilly was probably the safest bet I could go for."

Harry stared at her for a moment, taken aback by just how much she had planned. He would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about the idea of spending the next day and the rest of the summer with Jane all of the previous night, but he hadn't expected this. 

"Is that a yes?" Jane tilted her head, Harry nodding quickly. "You can speak you know, I don't bite."

"Don't worry, I'm not afraid of that." Harry replied as they set off, away from the Green Bridge and the shouts of the children playing in the early morning. "I suppose.. I'm just not a peoples' person."

"I wasn't before, but I guess I was forced into becoming one." Jane openly admitted - another thing that Harry couldn't quite believe, just how transparent she was, dropping these details to her life to someone she hadn't even known for twenty-four hours.

"Yeah.. I get that." Harry had objectively been the same when he came to Hogwarts in the first place, suddenly faced with this fame that came along with his name and parents' death. He wouldn't mention any of that to her, yet he already seemed ready to.

And in the lapse of peaceful silence that had fallen, gentle breeeze casting whispers of the leaves all around them, just somehow louder than the river lazily rippling along, Harry pushed up his glasses, glancing at the ginger girl next to him.

"Ketchup. I like Ketchup."

Jane just smiled, nodding.

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