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Harry Potter and the Cracked Reservoir
Chapter 10: Dates and Afterdates
By Musings of Apathy
Chapter 10: Dates and Afterdates
Thank you to my Beta’s Donalddeutsch, Cateagle, Kat Armstrong and Sparky40sw.
In the days leading up to the shopping trip, Harry made his own preparations by having the twins withdraw some money for him from his vaults. He needed two sacks of galleons, one for Ron and Hermione and one for his and Ginny’s own shopping trip in Diagon Alley, as well as a stack of muggle pounds for their shopping in muggle London.
He also needed to ask Hermione where he should shop in muggle London where there was an abundance of choices, as opposed to shopping in the British wizarding world, which held a considerable lack of choices or competition. For any particular item, there were no more than a few different stores in the magical world.
"Hermione?" Harry asked when he was able to find his friend alone.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Where’s the best place to find nice clothes in London?" he asked. "I need a place with a wide selection because I don’t know what Ginny and I will like."
"Sure, um," she started, "um…what’s your budget like?"
"Well, the Dursleys always told me that clothes were expensive," he answered, "so I had the twins withdraw a little money for me and convert it to muggle money. It comes to about twenty-thousand pounds."
"Twenty thousand pounds!?!" Hermione exclaimed, "That’s an absolute fortune. You could shop at any store in London without trouble."
"Ok," Harry asked, "but where?"
"If you want one place with a large selection, I think that you need to go to Harrods," Hermione said after some consideration. "They’re not the cheapest, but they have a lot of nice clothes. I’ve been there a couple of times, my mum took me there for my dress clothes and I went with my dad when he needed some new suits, and I was able to get a good look around when I was there."
"Thanks, Hermione."
Monday, August tenth dawned and for once both Harry and Ron were up by seven o’clock and getting ready for the day.
"So, Ron, you’re up early," Harry said. "You must be excited."
"Yeah," he said, "my first date with Hermione and we get to spend all day in Diagon Alley on it."
"Yeah, just remember that the purpose of dates," Harry reminded Ron, "is to make her feel special and happy; that means you can’t spend all day in Quality Quidditch Supply."
Ron deflated, "Well, can I at least have a good look around?"
"Take her to Flourish and Blotts first and buy her some books that she’s interested in," Harry advised, "and spend a good amount of time in there. I think that you can spend about half as much time in Quality Quidditch as you do in the bookstore and she’ll probably be happy. But you need something to do in the bookstore so that she doesn’t think that you only care about quidditch."
"Yeah, but what?" Ron asked. "I don’t think I need any books."
"Tell you what," Harry said, "get me a good book on Animagus Transformations. I want to study it at the beginning of this year, before Ginny becomes too bogged down with OWL’s."
"Okay, I can do that," Ron agreed. "Hermione can even help me to pick one."
Harry rummaged around in his trunk and came up with two leather moneybags.
"Here you go Ron," he said handing one of the bags to his best friend.
"Harry," Ron protested, "I have money. I don’t need you money to take Hermione out."
"I know that Ron," Harry assured him. "I want to pay for today. I like giving to friends and part of the favor that I asked you two was that you let me pay."
"But…"
"Ron," Harry said, "I insist and you know how stubborn I am."
"Okay, fine," Ron huffed.
"Good, there is plenty in there for dress robes and some standard robes for both of you. I think that the Headmaster’ll do another Ball this year and you could be prepared."
"Okay."
"And let Hermione help you pick your dress robes," Harry told him. "That way she can pick ones that will look good with hers."
Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione arrived at the Leaky Cauldron and made their separate ways. Ron and Hermione entered Diagon Alley while Harry and Ginny met up with the Order members who would escort them through London.
"Tonks, Professor Lupin, good to see you," greeted Harry.
"Wotcher Harry, Ginny," answered Tonks.
"Harry, Ginny, please call me Remus.," Moony said. "I’m not your professor anymore."
"We’ll try," answered Ginny.
"Hello, thanks for taking the time out to come with us on this shopping trip," Harry greeted the four other order members that were there. He had not met them before but he could be sure that Dumbledore would have competent people for this trip. Of course Harry would have felt secure enough with just Remus and Tonks.
"You all look very nice," Ginny praised. The Order members were wearing dark muggle suits that would be commonly seen on businessmen and women.
"Thanks. I believe that we have young Harry here to thank for that," Tonks answered.
"Your welcome," Harry said. "I didn’t know who would be coming and frankly some wizards are hopeless in blending in with muggles."
"How are we going to get around London and where are we going?" asked Ginny.
"As to how, we have a ministry car outside to take us around today. As to where, I believe that that is up to you two," Tonks said.
"Ok, Harry, where are we going?" Ginny asked her boyfriend.
"Harrods," Harry answered.
"Harrods!" Ginny exclaimed. "Harrods! We get to shop in Harrods! We’ll get so many great clothes for you there."
"Yes, Ginny, Harrods," Harry said. "But it’s not just for me. I’m not going to take you shopping just for me. You get all of the clothes that you want too."
"Harry," Ginny answered naturally, "I don’t need you to buy me clothes. My clothes are fine."
"I know that, Ginny," Harry smiled at her. "I love how you look in anything and I know that you don’t need me to, but I want to."
"But…"
"Aaaa…," Harry cut her off, "no protesting. If I am to be your boyfriend you must learn to accept that I will want to spend money on you and shower you with gifts worthy of you."
Tonks had been observing the couple through all of this. Harry had quite a task in front of him if he were to break through the longstanding Weasley pride, however misplaced it was.
"Better accept, Ginny," said Tonks, "Because if you don’t, I’ll take him for myself. You wouldn’t hear me complaining if my boyfriend enjoyed showering me with gifts, not that that is necessary."
This statement from the young auror changed Ginny’s attitude.
"Ok, I guess that I can allow it," she said as if it would be an imposition before letting her excitement show through.
Ginny was so excited that she was absolutely bouncing on the balls of her feet. She launched herself at Harry and hugged and kissed him appreciatively.
The group exited the tavern and entered the ministry car that awaited them.
The manager of Harrods department store was an experienced man in helping the rich and famous in making use of their wealth. Harrods was a store that specialized in making the customer happy for a price.
When John Wilson, general manager of Harrods, was told that a limousine had pulled up to the front of the store just after the store opened on this quiet Monday morning, he immediately went to greet the persons unknown. What he saw was six men and women in business suits exit the limo followed by two teenagers in more questionable clothes.
He just assumed the best and approached the group that had entered the store.
"Hello, welcome to Harrods," he greeted the group as a whole. "How can we help you?"
Harry stepped up to the manager and shook his hand.
"Hello, I and my girlfriend, Ginny, need some clothes," Harry said with as much class as he could muster in his less than aristocratic clothing. "My old stuff is destined for the burn pile."
"Very good, you have come to the right place. My name is John and I am the manager here. And you are…"
"Harry."
"Yes, Harry. I will get someone to work with you two today." He gestured a salesperson behind him forward. "This is Sarah and she will assist you today. If you need anything ask her, or me, and we will be glad to help you."
The manager excused himself and Sarah turned to the couple.
"Okay," she said, using her more natural manner of speech rather than the more sophisticated patois that she was forced to assume when dealing with the older rich and powerful, "and how would you like to start, sir?"
"Please, call me Harry," he said, "and Ginny here is in charge of choosing what clothes I need."
"Hello, miss," Sarah turned to Ginny, "and how should we start?"
"First, call me Ginny," she said as well, "and second I think that we need to find an outfit and get him changed into something more appropriate before we do the rest of his wardrobe."
"Well, then, Ginny," Harry said, "I think that you need something new while you shop today also."
"Harry, my clothes are not nearly as bad," Ginny replied with a smile, "but who am I to refuse a new outfit."
The next several hours of power shopping were punctuated with an amazing light lunch in a Harrods restaurant courtesy of John, the manager. The restaurant facilities contained within Harrods quickly became, for the group, something of note. They were really incredible, however, today was not about lunch, but a new wardrobe or two.
In total, Harry received every little thing that he could need from socks to handkerchiefs. Everything was replaced and Harry was left with brand new clothes hanging on his sleek form like a GQ model. Ginny was similarly outfitted for a night on the town in an elegant restaurant or in a posh club.
"Hey, Tonks," Harry said when their muggle shopping was concluding at around three in the afternoon.
"Yeah, Harry," Tonks answered.
"How much longer do we have here?"
"Plenty of time," the Auror said. "Dumbledore arranged for us to have you back to the Burrow by eight o’clock. Why?"
"Oh, I was just thinking of dinner," Harry said.
Harry paid for the day's considerable purchases and thanked the manager and sales attendant. He even managed to get reservations for his group to go to dinner at a nice restaurant before returning to Diagon Alley for the remainder of his shopping.
"So," said Ginny, "What’s next, kind sir?"
Harry laughed, "Well, how about an early dinner followed by a quick purchase of robes on Diagon Alley and have you home in time for your Mother to check that we have eaten and fuss over us some before bed and your special day tomorrow."
"Oh, Harry," she kissed his cheek, "If my special day is any more special than this, I don’t think that I would survive. I just want a calm relaxing day to rest on my birthday."
"As you wish, now off to dinner."
"So, Hermione? How was your day with my brother?" Ginny asked when they both were bedded down in Ginny’s room that night.
"It was fabulous," Hermione gushed. "We went to all of the interesting shops in Diagon Alley and he even bought me a bunch of books in Flourish and Blotts. He was attentive and gentlemanly all day."
"What, you weren’t stranded in Quality Quidditch Supply all day?" Ginny feigned shock. "Has Ron broken something in his head?"
"No, but I think that someone must have realigned something for him. I doubt that he would have contained his excitement so well on his own. After Flourish and Blotts, where we spent all morning we only were in the Quidditch store for half an hour. That short of span, after he was so nice, I could stand."
"So, did you kiss him?" Ginny asked with a sly smile.
Hermione blushed and turned her attention to the bedspread.
"Well, of course you kissed him. What am I thinking?" Ginny mocked, "The question is, did you find any dark corners to snog his brains out?"
"Ginny!" admonished Hermione as her face turned into a tomato in silent admission.
"You did!" Ginny exclaimed, "Well, then, I’m glad that Harry set up our separate days so we could both have special ones."
"What?" Hermione asked. "How did you know that that was why Ron and I weren’t with you?"
"Harry isn’t that hard to understand," she said. "Ron’s even easier, but that’s just because of Ron’s complete lack of depth in the romantic field."
"Hey, your brother’s not that bad," Hermione protested. "He seemed to know that the perfect time for me was to look at books with him," she defended her boyfriend, "We even got Harry a book on Animagi Transformations. Ron and I looked through every book that they had on the subject. Apparently Harry asked Ron to find him one as he would be busy with you."
"Well," Ginny said, "thank you from him and especially from me too."
Hermione was deep in thought at the events of the day.
"Ginny?" Hermione started. "You don’t suppose that Harry had asked Ron to get the book so that we would shop for books together, do you?"
"I think that it was even better than that," Ginny offered. "Harry could’ve been the one to tell Ron to not spend all day in Quality Quidditch. You’re truly lucky if Ron is willing to take advice on how to make your dates better. Should save you endless hours of quidditch talk."
"Yeah, I hope you ‘re right," Hermione agreed. "So, how did your day with the Famous Harry Potter go?"
Ginny blushed. Hermione’s statement reminded her of how girlish she was in her early crush on the famous Harry Potter. She finally found her voice after recovering from the apparent embarrassment.
"It went great! We both have a new wardrobe," she answered. "Harry has a fully new wardrobe and my closet is now full to bursting. He got me so many nice things and he let me pick out all of his clothes with a little help from Tonks. He just looks so delicious in some of the things that he got. Too bad the Hogwarts robes cover so much."
"Well, look at it this way," Hermione offered. "If the other girls don’t get a good look, you’ll have Harry relatively to yourself."
"What do you mean?" Ginny argued. "He practically has an official fan club."
"Practically?" Hermione joked. "As I recall you would be considered the president and founder of said club. After all, you formed a crush on him before any other female in this world had laid eyes on him."
Ginny blushed in embarrassment from not being able to say Hermione was wrong.
"Quiet, you."
"Yeah," Hermione joked, "you just wait until the competition mounts for our young Harry James Potter, the richest and most eligible bachelor in all of the magic world."
"What do you mean richest, what about Malfoy?" Ginny asked.
"I did some checking," Hermione informed her. "Harry’s inheritance from Sirius was huge and he still has the Potter wealth coming to him when he comes of age. You know what he told me about your little shopping trip the other day?"
"No, what?" Ginny asked.
"He had never been shopping for anything but his school uniform before," Hermione said, "and he had no idea how much money to bring today."
"What do you mean?" Ginny asked. "He seemed to have plenty for the day."
"That’s just my point," Hermione said. "He had somewhere around four thousand galleons on him for the day’s shopping. You know, casual money."
"Oh my gosh," Ginny reacted. "Well, I’m going to have to defend my territory! He’s mine now."
Harry and Ron were getting ready for bed when Ron asked how the day went for Harry.
"It was great," Harry said. "I don’t even know what all of the clothes that we got are for, but we got a lot."
"Anything for quidditch?" Ron asked.
"Nah," Harry said. "I still have my old uniform from last year. The school provides them and my pads are still good. How was your day?"
Ron slid from his bed and went to the desk in his room. "Good," he said as he moved across the room. "We got these for you," he said, tossing two books to Harry. "Hermione figured that more than one perspective would be best if you are going to start the thing. She said that those two were the best. They looked pretty straight forward to me, but I wouldn’t want to do it."
Harry sat up in his bed and retrieved the second book from where it fell on his comforter. "Why not?" Harry asked.
"Looks too complicated to me," Ron said. "It seems that you have to do hundreds of magic drawings of the animal and I was never any good at drawing."
"Oh," Harry said, a little daunted at the thought of such a difficult task.
"How are you at drawing?"
"Okay, I guess," Harry said. "The Dursley’s never encouraged drawing or any other creativity in their house, but when I was in primary school, we did have some art and drawing. I did alright," he declared with a shrug. "I was able to draw in the cupboard when I was little, but only in the dark late at night with any crayons and paper that I could sneak from Dudley. He never noticed because he always was distracted at the time blowing aliens up in one game or another. Only once or twice did Vernon or Petunia find one of the papers, but they never came in the cupboard, so I could draw on the walls a little. Decoration, you know?"
Ron was inwardly both confused and furious, but only showed his friend understanding for the horrible childhood that Harry had endured and accepted.
"Oh, hey, good news," Ron said to lighten the mood. "Bill spent all of today updating the wards and placing some new ones. He says that we are better protected now and he added some sort of ‘notice me not’ ward around the orchard so that we can play real quidditch without worrying about muggles. Isn’t that great!"
Harry smiled along with Ron at the good news. The Weasley’s would be protected and he could do some dive practice. Harry would be better prepared for quidditch this year than he had ever been before.