After everyone told their Christmas stories, some funny, some normal, and all of them happy with their presents, the impromptu gathering broke up and most of the others went their separate ways. Ron let out a big yawn and called it an early night, Neville went back to working on copying spells, and Hermione blushed a little and nodded when Harry asked her in a very low whisper to stay up for a while and he would be back down to talk to her.
Harry left her and went up to his bed to get his writing things and quickly wrote out, almost word for word, what he had told everyone else. He included the events of New Year's Eve and the events at the Ministry after the trip was over. That part had been a bit difficult to write, until he thought about Hermione waiting for him downstairs in the common room. He kept his emotions in check and told Bertha all about it.
He filled a one foot roll of parchment and then half of another, without even really embellishing anything. His writing was small and concise, and he thought that it would take Bertha a long time to get through it all. Harry thanked her for the Christmas present of a new book called Charms of the Ages. He hadn't had a chance to look through it yet and knew it was going to be a good one, especially since he thought it was going to tell him some of the old spells that people didn't use anymore.
At the bottom of the second roll of parchment, Harry added in what happened with the Slytherins and about getting detention afterwards. He left out telling Professor Snape about the prophecy, since he thought that was something no one else needed to know... except for one person. The only one that was better at meditation than him.
Harry folded up the two sheets of parchment and made a large envelope for them, tucked them inside, and sealed it with a tap of his wand. He walked over to the window and opened it for Hedwig. She landed and Harry gave her the large envelope.
“Bertha might give you three mice for this one.” Harry whispered.
Hedwig hooted happily and took the envelope, dove out the window, and disappeared from sight.
Harry closed it, cast the warming charm to stop the cold air that had come in, then went down the stairs. No one else was in the common room and he walked over to the chair that Hermione sat in.
“You took your time.” Hermione said softly.
“You waited anyway.” Harry said softly back and sat beside her. He waved his wand and a privacy curtain surrounded them. Silencio was cast next and he put his arm over her shoulders.
“This must really be serious.” Hermione said, without worry that someone else would hear.
“Kind of.” Harry said, a little sheepishly. “I... ah... left something out of my trip story.”
“Oh, no.” Hermione covered her mouth. “You cast magic illegally.”
Harry chuckled. “Not during the trip.”
Hermione caught her breath. “Oh, Harry. What happened?”
“Before I get to that, I need to tell you about the trip first.” Harry said. “I hope you don't freak out about it.”
“You're making me nervous, Harry.” Hermione said.
“Well... I... um...” Harry stammered. Now that the moment had come, he wasn't sure how to say it.
“Harry.” Hermione said.
“Did you know that on New Year's Eve, you're supposed to kiss the person you're with?” Harry asked.
“Well, yes. Mom and dad do it every year.” Hermione said. “This year we were at the top of the mountain when the fireworks went off.”
Harry relaxed a little. “I didn't know it happened... until... well...” His face went a little red. “Susan kissed me.”
Hermione's mouth dropped open and she had a surprised look on her face. She didn't say anything.
“She said everyone was doing it and then Amelia explained to me about it.” Harry said and Hermione kept staring at him. “When she told me that it was a kiss that was usually shared with a date, I wasn't sure what to say. Then she said you could do it with a close friend as well, as long as it didn't mean anything more than wishing them a Happy New Year... and I kissed her.”
Hermione took in a sharp breath and then seemed to stop breathing.
“Hermione! Breathe!” Harry said and gave her a little shake. “Breathe! Please!”
Hermione let out the breath she was holding and took another. “Is... is that all you did?”
Harry shook his head. “I told Susan that I liked her... but...”
Hermione closed her mouth into a thin line and her eyes squinted.
“No, don't be angry at her.” Harry said. “She didn't reject me. I rejected her.”
Hermione's mouth opened slightly again and her eyes went back to normal.
“She knows that I like her; but, I don't like her, like her.” Harry said. “We're just friends.”
“A-Amelia.” Hermione asked, barely above a whisper.
“No.” Harry shook his head. “She sees me like she sees her niece Susan and I... I think I...”
Hermione's hand took his free one. “You see her like Susan sees her, too.”
“She said... she would have taken me in if she knew.” Harry whispered and did his best to not cry.
Hermione sat there and watched him fight to not cry. “Harry, why... why are you telling me this?”
“You needed to know, so that... when I explain what happened... you would understand.” Harry said, then he told her about going to the Ministry, finding the prophecy, hearing what it said, and then everything that happened afterwards.
Hermione stayed quiet and didn't say anything, because she knew that he wasn't done with the world changing information. After sharing his new version of the encounter with the Slytherins and what he said, revealing his scar, and everything about Professor Snape in his office, she was stunned.
“M-m-me?” Hermione whispered and her hand gripped his hand. “I calmed you down?”
Harry nodded. “I tried thinking of Susan and her kiss. It didn't work, because it wasn't very important. I tried Amelia and what she said as she kissed my forehead, and it wasn't enough... then I thought about sitting here, like this, with you.”
Hermione's breathing sped up a little.
“It worked a lot better than anything else I thought of. When Professor Snape's words surprised me again, I remembered falling asleep right here, in your arms, and it all stopped.” Harry said. “My mind and my magic were calm, even though I had broken the glass in the cabinet a moment before.”
“H-Harry...” Hermione whispered. “That's why you told me about Susan.”
Harry nodded. “I was upstairs and wrote about the prophecy to Bertha, because you know she's going to know all about it.” He said and Hermione nodded. “I started to get angry again and went right back to thinking about being here with you. I calmed right down and I still am, even after telling you everything.”
“You aren't remembering it right now are you?” Hermione asked.
Harry shook his head. “I'm here with you.”
“H-Harry... take... take out your wand.” Hermione whispered as she let his wand hand go.
Harry flicked his wrist and his wand popped out of his sleeve. He held it out to her and she put her hand around it and his hand. She shared her magic with him and his responded, almost eager, and she pointed their hands up to the ceiling. A small red spark popped out of the end of the wand, floated up to the ceiling, then popped apart like a firework. Another followed it, then another.
“Happy New Year, Harry.” Hermione whispered and kissed him.
The wand shook and hundreds of multi-colored sparks shot out and lit up the entire common room.
If anyone had been outside the castle at that moment, they would have seen that Griffindor Tower looked like the brightest lighthouse beacon in the country.
*
The next term started and Harry was happy. He and Hermione hadn't done anything more than kiss that night, and hadn't done it again since. They did sit closer together at mealtimes, pushed their chairs together during class and in the library, and they always sat in the same armchair in the Griffindor Tower common room, even if the place was empty.
Harry did his detention and both Filch and Missus Norris loved their presents. Filch was sure he was never going to run out of a year's supply of cleaning supplies and Missus Norris only left her giant cat treehouse with multiple levels and hiding holes when she had to accompany Filch on castle inspections once a week. Otherwise, she stayed inside and enjoyed her home.
Harry ignored the jibes and jeers from the Slytherins for his cleaning duties. Like he had told Draco, he didn't care. Nothing they said meant anything to him. They were not a part of his life and he paid them no attention. He didn't even bother silencing them most of the time, unless he was walking with Hermione. No one was allowed to speak badly of her. He always did it silently, so that they wouldn't catch him at it.
Madam Pomfrey was quite busy for the rest of the school year.
Classes continued and so did life at the castle. Wednesdays were Hedwig days and Fridays were Potion days. Harry kept getting Exceeds Expectations in all of his potions and did his work quickly and efficiently. He didn't have to help Neville anymore with the potion formulas for the gold cauldron, either. He, Hermione, Neville and even Ron were getting excellent grades.
The same was true for their normal classes of Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, and Astronomy. Once they realized that taking classes were fun, especially if you understood things and had friends to help when you struggled, everything became easier to handle.
His Saturdays training with Amelia and Susan weren't strained or awkward, even when Susan joked about the kiss. Harry joked right back and then they both laughed at Amelia's red face from being reminded about Harry kissing her that night. The times they spent together made him feel even more welcome in their lives.
Harry also promised to spend two weeks of the summer break going with them on the next train tour. It was just too much fun to say no to, especially since all the places would be almost completely different for the summer.
Rumors spread randomly about odd creatures roaming the school, long lost magical artifacts turning up in random empty classrooms, and stairways taking students to parts of the castle that they hadn't been before. Harry and his friends ignored all of it, unless they ran into them. Thanks to Hermione's creature and spell list, anything they met was dispatched without so much as an eye blink and then vanished or reported to Filch.
Harry always helped him clean up large messes, even when he didn't have detention. No one said anything and assumed that he was being punished for something. He ignored those rumors, too.
The year end exams approached and everyone went into serious study mode, even Harry and Hermione. They knew that they didn't have to study, since their own research and spell work were so far above everyone elses; but, they also did their best to help their friends study. It also put the course materials freshly in their minds and helping their friends actually helped them, too.
Harry wasn't surprised that neither Amelia nor Bertha mentioned the prophecy to him again. Amelia didn't believe in it and Bertha probably didn't want to bring up such a sensitive subject. They didn't have to worry about him, though. He and Hermione had been working on it and trying to decode it since Christmas, with an occasional visit by Harry to Professor Snape's office. He added his own input, then gave Harry detention for bothering him.
Harry took it gratefully, because they both knew what detention really meant for him.
After everything that happened to him during his first year in the wizarding world, discovering who he was and then finding out how he became that way, made Harry realize one thing. Something he never, ever thought would happen.
For the first time in his life, Harry Potter was genuinely happy.
Ok, good things first, Russians aren't trying to stole your work. They don't say it was them who wrote it. They position themselves as translators and only.
And they took fees for translation service and it's more like a patreon. It's almost always optional. (Russians don't like to pay for anything in the internet)
Not so good things.
Автор: Bokuboy
this is a reference to you. A bad one, since it doesn't actually leads to you. Which should be easily done in the internet. It used as a tag to search for other translations of your works. The guy who posts translations is named
Hobbs
. And he neither trying to hide it nor pretend to be you.
Bad things.
There is not a single link to the original work. And I don't know if it can be added.
Really bad things.
That Russian guy works as a translation machine. He can post 4-5 translations daily. So the quality of his work is really low. He uses google translate or Russian analog on Yandex and then copy pastes it with little or no editing at all. There are a few disapproval comments from other authors. But this is his way to receive the income and he won't change.
PS: don't be too upset over it. A lot of people who doesn't speak English were able to know your work. Some of them might google for the original.
This is a kind of grey area. There are many translators on the web that do the same, translating Japanese/Chinese/Korean novels all the time. Sometimes they get taken down when some company bought the right to do the translation officially, but you don't have the layers to do that.
I doubt you could legally claim your rights anyway on this one. It is after all fanfiction, not entirely belonging to you, but based on Rowling's books. You could complain, but I don't think that many of the Russians would read it in English even if they properly linked original because their skills are probably not high enough, that's why they read translated version in the first place.
@pavook, you can read the latest message that I posted a few hours ago. I explain better my gripes and why it irks me.
The problem I have with it, is that it has me listed at the author and them as the owner. That's what irks me. I mean, they don't even own the translation, let alone the original story. Just because they translated it, doesn't make it theirs.
I've done fan translations of manga and released it, giving full credit to the original manga and the person that I found the scripts from. I just didn't want to wait for the thing to come out to read it, so I cleaned up the images I found and added the text. I also didn't claim any credit (or even put my name on any of the images) because it wasn't mine, even though I did a ton of work on them.
It was the responsible thing to do. I also didn't make any money from it. So, that's what's sticking in my craw sideways. They are taking my work and claiming they own it. That's not right. I could probably let the Harry Potter one go, once I calm down a bit... but they took Morbid. My baby. My little boy. I just... (starts cursing for a bit)... ugh. Yeah. It irks me.
Noooo! damn it Harry, Susan should have been the one!
That aside, now that I caught up, I just wanted to say: This is brilliant in so many ways I can only mention a few.
Despite the fact that making a rewrite or alternative version is generally much easier, this does nothing against the fact that this not only reads better than the original, but it even *feels* better.
How you manage to make such real characters in your stories is beyond me. I'm not even going to compare to myself since my human understanding was never high, but even compared to other authors, you are phenomenal.
And of course, the realism seeping into the narrative is just so pleasant.
No clue if this'll be eventually resumed or not, but I loved it plenty nonetheless. 5 Points to Bokuboy!
Thanks! I have part of the next year planned; but, it's on the back burner with my two other daily stories going.
@Bokuboy Yeah, I can understand that. Scribblehub is full of unfinished stories though, so it's not like waiting is alien to me.
Bookworld (both series) is somewhere in my list too, so I'll eventually come annoy you there too ?
@Blanklines I finished Harry's first year, just so there's at least some kind of 'ending'. I wouldn't leave readers hanging (too much LOL).
Rogue Necromancer drops you right into the middle of the story. It was my first attempt at doing it that way. Some loved it and some hated it, so... enjoy. LOL
Nearly everyone is enjoying Marsh Man.
Thanks for the story.
Stay Safe and Be Well.
I wished I could help in someway.
:D CHEERS (c)
My obsession with Harry Potter has gotten a bit riddikulus. It's a Sirius problem.
There's nothin Ron with that. Keep up these puns and you'll be muggled. Neville gonna stop are you?
I hope you enjoyed this little journey into the Potterverse.
I thought about making some puns as well, then figured I should Percy my lips and bite my parseltongue. I don't want you possibly breaking out in Hogwarts, so I hope you're not too Crabbey over this. I know it's Lestrange to enjoy puns, so I'll try to stop from Rowling on the Fleur and laughing.
Woo chapter 100 . Thanks as always BB.
Damn that sucks about your story being re-posted behind a paywall, translating it i can understand but making a profit off someone else work is scummy. Unfortunately there is probably not much you can do about it apart from reaching out to the site admins and requesting they either take it down or remove the paywall, as Russia is infamous for ignoring intellectual property/copyright (the scp ip trademark comes to mind). If its any consolation, the translation looks pretty bad (probably google translated from English to Russian), and your name is listed as the author.
@Bokuboy
https://tl.rulate.ru/site/contacts
you have not dropped this, isn't it? please this is one of my favorite novel :( I literary forget some of the content because of the hiatus
I'm sorry about the whole Russian thing. And I know what I'm about to write is pretty selfish, but this is honestly the best HP fanfic I've ever read. I tried reading some others, and they were ok. But they quickly lose all realism, and I couldn't finish them, and instead started promoting yours.
Thanks for the compliment. I've got a continuation sitting in the back of my head. The problem is it's competing for a few other things that I want to do.
On a related note, someone stole another of my stories and published it on Amazon.
@Bokuboy for real?! That is just wrong! I'm sorry that happened, and hope that we can help if you need.
Thanks for the book. Very enjoyable 100 chapters, good work overall!
It seems to me the link at the russian site is down (403). So something happened over there, which might be good news.
Thanks!
OHO! Thanks for letting me know! I didn't check it yet today. (does a little dance)
Edit: They only took HP down, though... and now they're stealing Summoned Again? on me! Dammit!
They shouldn't be explicitly charging for it but fan translations are nothing new. I've read hundreds of JP/KR/CN fan translated novels.
Russia doesn't care about copyrights so I don't think there's anything you can do about it. Unless you're intending to officially get into the Russian novel scene yourself I'd say just move on and let it be. Sucks that someone else might be profiting from your work but there's not much you can do about it.
Hundreds? Teach me sensei! My dozens are nothing in the face of such conviction.
@Milando I've only completed maybe a dozen, a lot are in translation limbo or I've just lost interest. My NU lists are a mess.