A Different Halloween

Chapter 50

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Dudley was sitting down to dinner at the Grangers, he was finding it strange to be here on his own. Emma appeared to read his thoughts.

"Yes it's certainly a lot quieter without those two here, now it's clear who caused all the trouble."

This raised a slight smile from Dudley. "You're only saying that because you know they can't answer you back from Scotland. Can you imagine Hermione's reaction to that accusation, and you just know Harry would support her."

Imagining the scene Dudley described put a smile on all their faces.

"Thanks for staying with us Dudley, I don't know how Emma and I would have coped with an empty house until Christmas. I'm already going off the idea of boarding school, and they've hardly been gone two days."

"I know exactly what you mean. Without those mirrors from Uncle Remus, I think we would all have gone crazy. At least with them, we can still all chat every night and keep each other up to date with what's happening."

Emma ruffled the boy's hair before lifting his empty plate away. "It's one thing to say we were prepared for this, it's totally different being faced with the situation."

This was met with nods of agreement from the two males at the table. Emma intended to have a chat with Lily using her own mirror tonight. Remus had established a 'mothers network' so she, Alice and Amelia could keep in touch with the one person in their group who was actually in the castle. They may have Sirius as their head of house but Lily was going to be their surrogate mother while they were in that castle.

Maia also had a mirror but faced a different problem. Luna was separated from her friends before attending next year. Using magic to alter the documents Luna needed for St Andrews turned out to be ridiculously easy, unfortunately the same couldn't be said of Hogwarts. The castle's admission policy had also stood for hundreds of years and their first of September rule couldn't be changed because a child wanted to attend with her friends.

Dudley was helping tidy up after dinner when his mirror went off, he was soon chatting away. When Dan and Emma heard him laughing along as they described Sirius' lesson, they began to think they might just get through this as a family. A rather extended family to be sure but they wouldn't have it any other way.

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Their Herbology class started off well, Professor Sprout demonstrated a task to the small class before splitting them into groups of four. Since it was only the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, the professor allocated a Gryffindor into each group of three Slytherins. Neville, Harry and Blaise found themselves working with Dean Thomas. The professor also said she didn't mind them chatting as long as they were working.

Dean tried to get the conversation going within their group. "I couldn't believe it when Professor Black pulled out that paintball gun, I thought magical people tended to shy away from all things muggle? Seamus is half-n-half so I really don't have anyone else to ask, hope you don't mind?"

Harry could only smile as he answered the likeable boy. "My mum's parents weren't magical, neither are Hermione's or Dudley. We all grew up in a mixture of both worlds. Most of the time we live in Crawley, in a perfectly normal house that's next door to Hermione's. The school holidays we tend to spend at the manor. It has a Quidditch pitch and a quad bike trail."

"You've got a quad bike?" was asked almost simultaneously as "What's a quad bike?" Harry and Neville were handling the explanations when Harry noticed Hermione glancing over at him, her expression told Harry their Gryffindor was not integrating as well as Dean.

Hermione, Susan and Millie had been allocated Lavender Brown to work with them, the girl was a total nightmare. She'd just fired off at least half-a-dozen questions without pausing for breath, or allowing any opportunity for answers. The blond Gryffindor had spotted Hermione holding hands with Harry from the other side of the great hall, now she wanted to know their entire life history in minute detail.

What really worried Hermione though was the mischievous look Susan had in her eyes. Susan was renowned amongst their group for being the sharpest at pulling pranks, she could spin a believable tale out of nothing. It would never be malicious, was often hilarious and usually embarrassing for anyone who bought into it. She was currently whispering to their Gryffindor co-worker and Lavender's eyes appeared ready to pop out.

"She kissed a frog?"

Hermione's groan alerted Millie that everything here was not as it seemed. "Our Susan has that wide-eyed innocent look down to perfection. Why do I get the feeling the sorting hat couldn't have placed her anywhere else but Slytherin?"

"Sue just loves her practical jokes and Lavender here gives the impression of someone who likes to spread news around. Sue will think it's bloody hilarious if Lavender spreads the story she's spinning all over school."

Millie smiled at the girl she was now thinking of as a new friend, Hogwarts was quickly turning into a better experience than she ever thought possible.

Blaise's main reason for attending Hogwarts was to learn, he was currently being educated in ways that weren't on the Hogwarts curriculum. Just listening to this conversation was opening his eyes to things he couldn't even imagine just a few days ago.

Dean was also enjoying himself. "I'm glad I came to Hogwarts but I'll desperately miss my football, Saturday is going to be hell without being able to see a match."

Harry had a sly glance at Neville before answering. "We may have a way to help you out there. Neville and I intend to sit down and watch Match of the Day on Saturday night, would you be interested in joining us?"

The expression of longing on the boy's face was pitiful to see. "You wouldn't joke about something like that, would you?"

Neville sounded a cautionary note. "Better check he's not a Manchester United fan first."

Dean acted as if he'd been insulted. "I'm a West Ham fan. Why don't you like Man U?"

"Oh we don't have a problem with them, we're all Crawley City fans. When Sirius discovered that United were also called the Red Devils, he was disgusted and thought Man U should get a new nick-name."

Dean was struggling to believe what he was hearing from Neville, were they trying to wind him up here? "Man U are one of the biggest teams in the world!"

Harry was trying not to laugh, remembering his godfather's indignation. "That doesn't matter to Sirius, he's convinced they stole Crawley's nick-name. Nothing anyone says can convince him otherwise. I'll ask some questions regarding Saturday night and try and let you know by lunchtime."

The group spent the rest of the time working away with Dean constantly humming 'I'm forever blowing bubbles'. Blaise was struggling to make head or tail of this whole situation, he was having an enjoyable time though.

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I want to thank everyone who voted on this book and wasted their time even reading it. I never imagined that i would get 7.4k reads on this story. Im also getting the book's cover done by Autrixielle, so go check her out.