Everlasting (H.P x fem.reader) YEARS 1-4

Year Three: Chapter Three

Harry's POV:

 I was several streets away before I collapsed onto a low wall in Magnolia Crescent, panting from the effort of dragging my trunk. I sat quite still, anger still surging through me, listening to the frantic thumping of my heart. But after ten minutes alone in the dark street, a new emotion overtook me: panic. 

Whichever way I looked at it, I had never been in a worse fix. I was stranded, quite alone, in the dark Muggle world, with absolutely nowhere to go. And the worst of it was, I had just done serious magic, which meant that I was almost certainly expelled from Hogwarts. I had broken the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry so badly, I was surprised Ministry of Magic representatives weren't swooping down on me where I sat.

 I shivered and looked up and down Magnolia Crescent. What was going to happen to me? Would I be arrested, or would I simply be outlawed from the wizarding world? I thought of Ron, Y/n, and Hermione, and my heart sank even lower. I was sure that, criminal or not, Ron, Y/n, and Hermione would want to help me but Hermione and Ron were both abroad, and with Hedwig gone, now, no means of contacting them. 

 I didn't have any Muggle money, either. There was a little wizard gold in the money bag at the bottom of my trunk, but the rest of the fortune my parents had left me was stored in a vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank in London. I'd never be able to drag my trunk all the way to London. 

Unless... 

 I looked down at my wand, which I was still clutching in my hand. If I was already expelled (my heart was now thumping painfully fast), a bit more magic couldn't hurt. I had the Invisibility Cloak I had inherited from my father - what if I bewitched the trunk to make it feather-light, tied it to my broom stick, covered myself in the cloak, and flew to London? Then I could get the rest of my money out of my vault and... begin my life as an outcast. 

It was a horrible prospect, but I couldn't sit on this wall forever, or I'd find myself trying to explain to Muggle police why I was out in the dead of night with a trunkful of spell-books and a broomstick. I opened my trunk again and pushed the contents aside, looking for the Invisibility Cloak — but before I found it, I straightened up suddenly, looking around me once more. 

 A funny prickling on the back of my neck made it feel as though I was being watched, but the street appeared to be deserted, and no lights shone from any of the large square houses. I bent over my trunk again, but almost immediately stood up once more, my hand clenched on my wand. I had sensed rather than heard it: Someone or something was standing in the narrow gap between the garage and the fence behind him. I squinted at the black alleyway. If only it would move, then I'd know whether it was just a stray cat or - something else. 

 "Lumos," I muttered, and a light appeared at the end of my wand, almost dazzling me. 

I held it high over my head, and the pebble-dashed walls of number two suddenly sparkled; the garage door gleamed, and between them I saw, quite distinctly, the hulking outline of something very big, with wide, gleaming eyes.

 I stepped backward. My legs hit my trunk and I tripped. My wand flew out of my hand as I flung out an arm to break my fall, and I landed, hard, in the gutter— There was a deafening BANG, and I threw up my hands to shield my eyes against a sudden blinding light— 

 With a yell, I rolled back onto the pavement, just in time. A second later, a gigantic pair of wheels and headlights screeched to a halt exactly where I had just been lying. They belonged, as I saw when I raised my head, to a triple-decker, violently purple bus, which had appeared out of thin air. Gold lettering over the windshield spelled The Knight Bus. For a split second, I wondered if I had been knocked silly by my fall. Then a conductor in a purple uniform leapt out of the bus and began to speak loudly to the night.