The rest of the holiday passed with Harry spending time at Greengrass Estate, Longbottom Hall, Bones Manor, Grimmauld Place, an overnight at the Grangers, and even a couple of day trips to the Weasleys.
Daphne, and sometimes Tori, came along to each, except for visiting the Weasleys.
The twins sent him an invitation via owl to spend the day with them, and he was happy to go. Harry found their home, the Burrow, to be quite an eclectic jumble of jutting rooms and windows. But, it was a fun place to be, with it's rickety stairs and ghoul in the attic.
When the twins discovered he was offered a try out for the seeker position on the Ravenclaw team, they even offered to help him out. So, he spent a day with them in their backyard Quidditch pitch learning what they were willing to teach him about the position.
After he showed them some of the moves he'd read about in Quidditch magazines and learned how to do, they were amazed by his flying ability. Percy, however, appeared quite distracted.
When he asked the twins about it, they told him Percy received twelve owls and didn't even gloat about it. But, he was wearing out his poor owl with constantly flying back and forth to no one knew where.
Their sister, the youngest of the Weasley children, was starting at Hogwarts that year. Harry found her to be very shy. Every time he came close to her, she'd blush profusely and run away.
It wasn't until he had the guys offer her a try of his broom - after the twins and Ron tried it, of course - did she seem to come out of her shell a bit. And, it was only the offer of a ride on Harry's broom that also brought the youngest male Weasley out of his self-imposed funk about the 'Famous Harry Potter'.
While she, Ginny, was flying around showing off some of the things she could do, Harry said to the twins, "There flies a future seeker. You may want to help her develop that talent. Gryffindor will need her once I'm on the Ravenclaw team."
The twins could only nod in agreement, quite amazed by their sister's obvious talent.
At Longbottom Hall, Harry and Daphne helped Neville in the Hall's old, but functional, small greenhouse. Neville was happy to tell them all about the plants they were working with and how they played a part in various potions. Both Harry and Daphne came away from the day having learned so much they both agreed a Professorship in Herbology was clearly in Neville's future.
When they visited the Granger residence, Harry was at first a little leery of the home. While it was a much larger home than Privett Drive it still had some similarities; such as the cupboard under the stairs.
Seeing him standing in the downstairs hallway, at one point, staring at the small door, Daphne came and hugged him from behind, reminding him that part of his past life was just that, in the past.
However, the small incident did not pass the notice of Monica; who vowed to herself to find out why Harry was so sad about and simultaneously afraid of the cupboard under the stairs. Based on what she heard Daphne tell him she knew it had to be important. Bones Manor was similar to Potter Manor. The Boneses were once as wealthy as the Potters, but no longer. Unlike James Potter sinking much of the Potter wealth into land, overseas and muggle businesses, the Bones fortune was mainly in businesses that had been destroyed in the last war.
However, Aunt Amelia had learned from that and had made sure to diversify, as much as possible, the remaining wealth of the family. And their wealth was steadily regrowing. The stewardship of House Bones was in very capable hands; and Susan would inherit a greater wealth than was available when Aunt Amelia first took control.
At the Davis's Manor, the Davises warmly greeted Daphne as if she was a prodigal daughter. However, both Davis parents, Edmund and Petra, were a touch cool towards Harry; as was Tracey's older brother, Edward. It was not made clear to Harry why, but he firmly believed you can't expect everyone to like you, let alone love you. However, he treated them with respect and soon the coldness of their initial reactions faded to a grudging respect.
It was quite the abrupt change when Harry went with Susan and Daphne to the Abbott home, called the Rectory.
The Abbotts were a very warm and welcoming family. Both worked full time jobs, even though they really didn't need to, because they both believed a good day's hard work makes a person feel useful. It wasn't hard to work out that both parents were in Hufflepuff when they attended Hogwarts.
While Daphne, Susan and Hannah disappeared for 'girl talk', Harry sought out Hannah's father, Michael; finding him working in his study.
"Hello, Harry," Michael warmly welcomed him and indicated a chair on the other side of the desk. "The girls getting too much for you?"
"Normally, I'm alright with it," replied Harry, walking in and sitting in the chair. "But, as soon as they mentioned the 'three dreaded words', I made a bolt for it."
"Three dreaded words?" the older man asked.
"Yeah," replied Harry, holding up his hand and ticking them off on his fingers. "Teen. Witch. Weekly."
Michael gave a full throated laugh and said, "Maybe you should get in with Quidditch Quarterly first." "I may only be twelve, Sir," said Harry with a wry grin. "But, I've already learned getting between girls and their discussing the latest issue of that evil publication is not conducive to one's health. All three have become way too ready and too fast with Stinging Hexes for me to be comfortable upsetting them when I'm outnumbered as much as that."
That elicited another laugh from his host.
The older man and the young boy sat down and began what would become an enduring friendship, irrespective of their ages.
Normally - well, as much as the previous year could be considered normal - Harry would have preferred to have gone in to pick up their texts for the next year, early. However, Daphne and Tracey preferred to go later in the summer. In this case, that was the 19th of August. As Isabel escorted Harry and Daphne through the Alley, Daphne pointed out the crowd gathered around the entrance to Flourish & Blotts. Walking closer, they saw a placard that said a bloke named Gilderoy Lockhart was in the store signing autographs for his just released autobiography, 'Magical Me!'.
"It's his books we're required to purchase for DADA this year," muttered Harry. "Eight of the buggers."
"Language, Mister Potter," muttered Isabel, also looking at the queue outside the store, and clearly not concentrating on Harry and Daphne.
"Well," said Daphne with a frown. "Let's get the books out of the way so we're not carrying too much while we're queued up."
"You actually want to get your books signed?" asked Harry, a little shocked. "Well, no," replied Daphne, a little uncertain.
"Then we need not queue up," said Harry. "Can we please just get the books and get out of there?"
"Alright, Harry," she said.
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