Escape ↣ Harmione

Chapter Twelve

America, specifically New York City, was another experience. Hermione had in theory known it was large and populated, but that's like saying ant nests have a lot of ants in them. Until you kick it over and they come boiling out, numbers are hard to imagine.

The house that came with her parent's job was nice; it was a brick built terrace over three floors, although the estate agent seemed to think it was four. It had steps leading down to the tree lined the street with a park at the end. Built in the early nineteen hundred's it was very different to her parents nineteen thirties house they had left behind. It looked quite narrow from the front but was long to compensate. The ceilings were high; the floors downstairs were covered in parquet, and one room even had wood panelling. Original to the building, the agent assured them when she handed over the keys; the room was instantly earmarked for a library. Upstairs was more wooden floors which clattered loudly in the emptiness as Harry and Hermione ran through the house as excited as five-year-olds at Christmas. Opening every door, they explored, up and down the stairs to call out to Helen and John some new detail they found or a room they wanted to claim as their own.

Furniture was to arrive tomorrow shipped over from the UK, in the meantime, the two magical adolescents put their skills to good use and transfigured camp beds and chairs. Once they had somewhere to sleep and to sit, they set off out into the neighbourhood with a map determined to see at least one tourist site and find something to eat before their first day was over.

They managed both goals before realising they were hopelessly lost. Rather than call a taxi, Hermione took her mother's hand and apparated her straight into the sitting room before going back to collect her father. Harry who had yet to take his apparition test was last. Home a lot faster than expected Helen and John thanked Hermione and suggested that next time a taxi would be fine. Apparation they decided, was a method of transportation best left to wizards. The first night in their new home they slept on their camp beds in the main sitting room together giggling and whispering until finally drifting off.

The next day the truck containing everything arrived, they told the moving men to put everything into the one room to be sorted. Puzzled but happy not to be climbing up and down stairs they complied and left. Harry and Hermione set to work, under Helen's direction boxes were shrunk and put into pockets to be taken upstairs, furniture was levitated, and unpacking was done with a wave of a wand. Within a lot less time, using a lot less energy the house was set up and ready to be lived in.

Happy to be settled in, Helen set off for the supermarket to stock up on food with John, borrowing Hermione's book bag with its charms. It would make bringing home a full shop a lot easier since they were currently restricted to using the bus and taxis.

The persistent noise of traffic that Hermione had expected hadn't materialised for a city so densely populated with cars and people. She sat in the postage stamp of a back garden overlooked on all sides, listening to her new home. It was different, it smelt different, it sounded different. Gone was the lush green of her previous home in Crawley or quiet stillness of the isolated castle in Scotland. Here she could all but feel the beat and pulse of the millions of people around her; it was strangely intoxicating. It made her feel surrounded and isolated all at the same time, and she wasn't sure of what to make of it.

Harry came outside to join her, and they sat quietly together leaning on each other. "You know, when you've had enough of feeling like a fish in a bowl," he said. Indicating the numerous windows that overlooked them. "I think you should come and see what I've done with my bedroom. Once you've done that, you might like to try it in your own."

She turned to look at him and caught the glint in his eye. "Maybe I would," she said with a smile. She stood up and let him lead her inside; her parents were going to be at least an hour or so. They could probably get a thorough inspection of both rooms done in that time. Maybe more than once.