Hermione watched as Harry's eyes closed. As he began to glow, she felt a tug, like she was a little girl and her daddy was pulling her hand to go to the zoo. The world faded as she followed it... Right back to her seat.
She looked at Susan and Hannah... oh. Well, now they were on the other side. They were also wearing some fairly close fitting shirts, bright purple and blue. Looking down, she saw a very orange shirt on her... huh.
But where was Harry?
Looking around her mouth dropped. They were sitting in the train car... but the car sort of stopped. The rest of the room was open to a huge space, with a smooth stone floor and a moon in the sky, a deep green mesh surrounding the area and trailing into the distance.
"Sorry about the clothing thing, forgot about that."
She turned and saw Harry wearing a white shirt and jeans and a VERY red face. Clothing? Wait...
Her glare could have melted mountains. "Harry James Potter, what did you do to our clothing?" That seemed to have jump started the brains of the other two girls, who were very rapidly catching up to the "Let's glare at Harry" stage of recovery.
It seemed to make his blush worse. "Uh... So I first came to my mind at the age of 8. I was the only one here, so it didn't matter to me back then that I was... um. Look, I didn't see much, as soon as I noticed I turned around and gave you clothing."
Hermione's foot started tapping. "Much?"
"QUAAAACK!"
The girls all turned in shock, barely registering Harry's comments. On the table of the compartment next to ramp was a tiny seat with a baby duck.
Said duck was rolling on the table quacking.
"IT'S NOT FUNNY JIM!" They turned to Harry, and he seemed close to crying. Hermione inwardly sighed, it was really hard to stay angry at him. "Harry, we know you didn't do it on purpose." She tried to get Susan to support her.
Susan was busy.
"Harry, you have a duck on your table."
Oddly this seemed to only make the duck laugh harder. Harry pulled himself together, then stood next to the clearly too happy duckling. "Everyone, this is Jim. Jim, this is Hannah, Susan, and ..."
"QUACK!"
Harry blushed so red his hair should have probably changed. "SHUT UP JIM!" He waved his hand and a glase dome covered the quacking duck. "Just... Just ignore him. He gets like this sometimes." Susan was thankfully back with the program now. "So... No, I can't do this. Harry, you STILL have a duck on your table."
Harry nodded. "Yeah, I... well. I was eight, see?" He couldn't meet anyone's eyes at this point. "I had never really had a friend before, or had anyone smile at me or anything. But I saw a baby duck before. So, when I made this place I made Jim. He is my friend."
Harry couldn't see his guests or their suspiciously wet eyes. "So... yeah. He is a good guy, you just got to hang out with him a bit. Always was there for me."
Hannah cleared her throat. "So... Is this green thing your threads?"
He wiped an eye and gave a huge grin. "Yep! In fact, you should be able to see your OWN threads here, since I can in my mind and you are here. Just imagine that you have your wands with you." Hermione quickly swiped her eyes clear with her sleeve and imagined the feeling of her wand, the way it looked the... oh. She was already holding it. Her eyes widened as she saw brown threads in the wand reaching down her arm, across her chest... oh wow. Her core was beautiful. Orange like a fuzzy peach. LOTS of tiny threads, waving around like they were saying hi.
She felt Harry touch her shoulder and she turned. He was amazing! His core was wiggling like a dancer, thick ropes and coils, his skin seemed covered in threads and ropes vibrated in his arms. "WOW! How did... Look Susan!"
Susan had been mesmerized by her purple core. It didn't have a LOT of threads, but the few it had were pretty thick. She even had one rope that seemed to be keeping time with her heart. Turning to Harry was an experience. "Harry, you could be one of those muggle lava lamps or something." Hannah thought her core was awfully smooth. It only had about three threads, and they were so small. "I... I guess I won't be able to do this, will I?" She tried not to sniffle. She had known she wasn't as powerful as Susan, but it still hurt. She leaned into her friend when Susan wrapped her into a hug.
Harry leaned close. "I don't see why not. How many ropes do you want?"
She stared. "Uh. I don't know. Three?"
He shrugged. "Sure." He held his hand forward, and a HUGE CABLE of power wrapped her up.
It was like being wrapped in warm towels. She felt like she should be in terrible pain, but something was just... it all felt warm.
As Harry released her, for some reason blushing pretty heavily, she looked down. Her core was now almost a perfect sphere, instead of the lopsided thing it was before. It was covered in tiny threads like Hermione, and three HUGE ropes now twitched with her heart.
Her smile was huge. She wrapped Harry in a hug, "THANKS HARRY!"
He coughed. "Uh... we have one more thing to do." She let go and looked at him, ignoring the quiet whispering of the two girls behind her.
He pointed at her wand. "You can't feel your wand now, right?"
She looked like her world had broken. As quick as he could he raised his hands. "NO NO, don't worry. I told you I can use any wand I want, right? Your wand wants to connect to your core a certain way, and the better the connection the more 'compatible' the wand is." He pointed at the brown threads that were bouncing off her spherical core. "I stabilized your core a lot, so the original weaknesses and stuff are not there that existed when you picked your wand." He grabbed the end of her wand, and she watched green threads wrapping the brown ones. As they traveled up her arm, it felt like someone rubbing her arm with a fluffy towel.
He grinned. "Now, if we just make some connection points in your new core, your wand can be a PERFECT match, maybe even better than when we started!" As he finished the sentence she felt like someone had kissed her side. The green thread had just pushed her wand's power into her core, and it felt almost... well, naughty. No wonder he had blushed before.
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