-/-Imaginary Friend-/-

Posted 14 July 2019

As usual, unedited and not proofread, as I just thought of this being something cute an hour ago, and I honestly had not planned to write this.

-/-

Petunia Dursley once owned a pair of taupe heels. They were sensible, tasteful, and went with a majority of her wardrobe. She lived life in those shoes. She had admitted her precious Diddidums to primary in those shoes, accepted the award for best garden on the block in those shoes, and, of course, cleaned up the body of her dead nephew in those shoes.

Unfortunately, those taupe heels, dubbed the magic shoes by her ghostly nephew, met a tragic end.

Upon a visit by her husband's sister, Marge, the woman's dog, Ripper, snuck one of the shoes from beside the door before being let out into the yard during dinner. In the heel of one of those shoes, was a small sliver of bone.

Ripper trotted down the street with the shoe, ultimately dropping it on the curb near the rubbish when his owner called him back for his own dinner. A little while later, a passing dog saw a prime opportunity with the shoe and picked it up to chew on. Its owner, in a rush to go home, does not notice the shoe in the dog's mouth on their way back home, nor notices when the owner sends the dog outside in the backyard before starting dinner.

The dog sneaks out a lose fence panel and makes it way to the park down the road, dropping the shoe in an already dug hole for later and covering it with some dirt before making its way back to its home for its own dinner.

Before the dog could make its way back to recover the shoe, landscapers had arrived at the park early in the morning. Not noticing the loosely covered shoe in the dim morning late, the landscapers planted a tree in the hole dug the day before.

Petunia, seeing only one shoe that day, ultimately placed the remaining shoe in the rubbish.

-/-

Harry blinks, looking around at the new surroundings in surprise. He stands in front of a recently planted tree, holding a dozing Oreo close to his chest.

Furrowing his brow, he thinks. He had been at home - quite bored with his cousin at school, Petunia at the grocer, and Vernon at work - longing for the magic shoes that would have let him go to the store.

He had wished he could go to the magic shoes.

So, maybe the magic shoe has to be somewhere where he is now, wherever that is?

"Oreo, we have a situation," slurs Harry seriously to his companion. Wishing hard, he wants to go home, and suddenly there is no park, but back to his cupboard. Grinning, Harry wishes hard again to go someplace, and blinks as he sees himself in a sewer. "Ewe."

Harry looks around him, seeing the light from a grate, peaks out to see the street just down the road from Number 4 on Wisteria Lane. Looking around him, he sees running water, a few stray piles of rubbish, and a flash of white.

A bone, like from a finger.

"Could that be my bone?" Harry inquires aloud.

Harry has grown a lot mentally over the time he has been dead, making use of his detective skills he mimicked from Batman and Robin, as well as watching crime shows on the telly. He is reasonably sure that there has to be some sort of connection between where he appears and why he cannot go past certain areas.

Pursing his lips, Harry decides to leave the deductions for another day, closing his eyes and wishing for the shoe again. After all, it has been a long time since he could play in the park.

Opening his eyes, he sees himself in the park and grins.

-/-

Harry had been coming to the park for several weeks when he gets bored, one day noticing someone new.

There is a girl at the swings, with bushy hair and large front teeth, scowling at the children running around the park. She does not look happy, looking on the other side of the park often where an older woman sat; from the looks of the two, probably her grandmother.

He watches her for quite some time while he plays with Oreo, noting the longing she wears on her face as equally as the frustration. After several hours, the older woman finally puts her novel away – romance by the cover – and calls the girl over.

Hermione.

It is an interesting name.

The girl looks equally relieved to be leaving by the woman calling to her, and Harry watches her go, thinking it the last he will see of her.

Until he is surprised to see her the next day, the same scowling visage.

"I'm gonna go over to her. You want to come?" Harry asks Oreo. The cat cocks her head to the side before crawling up Harry's arm to rest around his shoulders like a scarf. Harry makes his way across the park until he stands in front of the girl sitting on the swing, peering at her closely in curiosity.

"You know, it's rather rude to stare," the girl states, an almost bossy tone to her voice. Harry starts, looking behind him for another child, but not seeing anyone. "And, to get so personal with someone whom you do not know."

"You can see me," Harry gaps dumbly at her, mouth falling open in surprise.

"Of course I can see you. You're a translucent sort of silver, it's rather hard to miss," she continues, eyes scrutinizing him. "Why are you silver, anyways?"

"I'm a ghost," Harry replies easily, recovering quickly and pushing aside his glee at being able to truly interact with someone for the first time in forever.

"That makes no sense. Ghosts aren't real," she answers smartly, surety in her voice. Her brows furrow, mind calculating. "Unless, this is a figment of my imagination. That would make sense. I've been reading a lot of mystery novels lately, Sherlock Holmes and Chronicles of Narnia and the like. Because of my boredom here, my subconscious mind has created an imaginary friend for stimulation."

Harry is both offended by the notion he is imaginary and fascinated by her grown up speech and deduction. "Well, why don't you just leave, then, Hermione?"

He did not really want her to leave, and Hermione's thoughtful expression turns to a scowl at the reminder. "Well, my parents are on their fifteen year anniversary holiday for a month, and I'm staying with my grandparents. Nana thinks I should be playing outside instead of reading books all the time."

"Why can't you bring books to the park?" Harry asks; it seems perfectly sound to him.

"I tried that already," Hermione groans in dismay. "I tried to put them under my jacket and tucked into the waistband of my trousers, and now nana pats me down before we leave the house. She keeps lecturing about sun and exercise and making friends."

Hermione's voice is sarcastically exasperated as she finishes her sentence, and Harry laughs at the tone. Hermione grins at him, and he thinks she looks much better grinning than she does scowling.

"I'm Hermione Granger, by the way. I'll be ten years old soon," Hermione introduces herself with a smile. "Not that it matters. You already know, Mister Imaginary Friend."

"My name's Harry," he protests, almost wanting to protest the imaginary friend title except for two reasons. One, for some odd reason, she can interact with him. He does not want to take away his first real interaction in forever. And, two, she said friend. Harry had never been anyone's friend before. "This is Oreo, by the way."

Oreo raises her head briefly, meowing, before lowering it and purring herself back into her doze.

"That would not have been my first choice for a name, but it reinforces my theory about my subconscious. Dr. Watson's sibling's name is Harry, and I had Oreo's for pudding last night," Hermione nods, crossing her arms over her chest. "That is the one good part about staying at nana's, I suppose. My parents are dentists, and I usually never get pudding except on my birthday."

"I love Oreos," Harry agrees eagerly, putting down Oreo's head for emphasis. "I named her Oreo, because of the patch-"

"Around her eye," Hermione cuts off and finishes, looking at the cat, mostly white with occasional black patches, one almost perfectly round circle around her eye. "Easy to remember and appropriate."

Harry huffs a laugh. Hermione certainly is her own character.

"So… Harry, what should we do than? Obviously, you've appeared to keep my mind simulated, so there must be something my subconscious is telling me to do," Hermione demands easily. Harry leaps at the chance to play.

"Have you ever watched Batman and Robin?" Harry asks curiously, eager at the additional partner.

"No, I cannot say I have," Hermione frowns, tilting her head.

"Well, Batman fights crime, and Robin is his sidekick. They are the greatest detectives in the world. Oreo is usually Catwoman, that's a thief who occasionally works with Batman. And, I'm usually Robin, 'cause I'm flexible like an acrobat. You can be Batgirl, because she's really smart and awesome," Harry weaves a story, grin widening as Hermione nods in concentration. "So, here's what's going to happen…"

Harry and Hermione spend a month playing together in the park. Harry never forgets his Batgirl, always hoping that she will come back to play.

Hermione eventually goes home, just before her tenth birthday, and does not return to the park that summer or the next or the one after that. She puts off the incident to her imagination, a perfectly healthy and acceptable part of childhood. She does not remember a year later, when she gets her Hogwart's letter, the little boy who had introduced himself as a ghost.

-/-

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