A sirius matter

Chapter 18 - Going Places

Another exercise that had been added on Mondays when they studied defensive magic was to spend fifteen minutes each in the dueling room without a wand being shot at by Sirius, only able to physically dodge spells. Harry and Hermione, who'd been exercising and taking karate, were better at this than Ginny, but she wasn't that bad.

In their magical travel lessons, they'd all learned to charm brooms and magic carpets. They'd learned to make portkeys and to put any fire (including a campfire) onto a private floo network (specifically to go to Grimmauld Place). The only thing left from that book to learn was apparition, which they'd start learning the next day.

They'd continued increasing their magical potential, and Lupin (who got interested when they told him about their early results) had even found a way to charm an object to measure how much magical force it had been hit with, so they were tracking their progress. There was improvement every week when they tested it. Not very much, but always some improvement. At the rate they were going, Sirius and Remus felt that the kids would be as magically powerful as most Death Eaters within a year.

Occlumency was going well. Remus had to put forth more effort to read their minds every week. He felt that by the time school started, he wouldn't be able to read them at all and would ask Dumbledore to take over.

When the dueling was over, Harry and Hermione portkeyed back to her house to eat a quick lunch and ride their bikes to karate class. They briefly chatted with Neville, who seemed to be hiding something.

While they were bicycling back, Harry commented, "Neville seemed nervous. Do you think he's not telling us something?"

Hermione's ears went pink, but Harry, who was paying attention to where he was going, didn't notice. She replied, "I'm sure it's just your imagination, Harry. What could Neville possibly be hiding?"

"I don't know," admitted Harry, "He was probably just nervous about class."

When they got back home, Hermione said, "Mum and Dad want to take us out to eat for your birthday if that's all right with you."

Harry grinned. "That sounds nice."

"I told them we want to disguise ourselves, so we'd like to all portkey to Sirius' house at five so we can change our appearance and then go out to a nice dinner for your birthday?"

Harry smiled at this idea. "All right. I guess I should study more runes and start packing up my stuff before then if I'm gonna move tomorrow. Maybe I can bring some of it with me."

-ASM-

At about 4:30, Harry and Hermione were packing up most of his things into his new trunk with the door open. As he was adding more and more stuff to it, Harry realized that finding things inside it could become a problem. He knew he could do a summoning charm at Grimmauld Place and at Hogwarts if he couldn't find something, but he didn't want to have to. It was set so that the top of the pile was always the last thing you put in there. He mentioned this problem to Hermione, who responded, "That's why a lot of trunks like these have separate compartments. What you got at Flourish and Blotts is the basic trunk, which is the only one they sell. There's another shop in Diagon Alley that specializes in trunks, and has all kinds of options they can add. If you really want to do that, why don't we take the trunk over there Saturday after you've had a chance to empty it?"

Harry grinned at his girlfriend. "Sounds like a great idea. Why didn't you suggest it when I bought the trunk?"

Hermione blushed. "Honestly, I was too excited about all the books you bought that I didn't think of it."

About that time, Adam Granger walked up to the open doorway and greeted, "Hi guys."

"Hi, daddy," replied Hermione with a grin.