Harry and Hermione looked at each other for a second after recognizing the new student, but were quickly brought back to the present by the instructor.

"Hello everyone. My name is Mr. Tucker, and I'll be teaching you basic karate. First of all, I'm going to pass out a white belt to everyone." He smiled. "You get this for showing up today." He then passed a handful of white belts to the closest student and continued as they were passed around.

"This is an accelerated course designed for kids who go away to boarding school for most of the year. We will be meeting Monday through Friday until the third week of August, after a total of ten weeks. That's not much time to learn karate, so I expect you to do your best.

"The order of karate belts varies a bit in different schools, but in this one, the order is white, yellow, purple, green, blue, brown, and black. The white you have now. In three weeks, I will test you all for yellow. If you fail, you'll have one week to practice on your own and retake the test. Six weeks after that, you'll be tested for a purple belt. If you pass, you may either practice here for the remaining week or stay home, your choice. Those who fail that test will have that last week to practice with my help. It is my hope that all of you will achieve the purple belt by the end of this course.

"You will receive a training manual that covers this course's material at the end of this lesson. There are manuals available for sale here that cover the material for every level, should you desire to continue studying. At the beginning of next summer, you can arrange for an evaluation to determine what level you should study next summer. There's no reason why everyone who works at it shouldn't receive your green belt at the beginning of next summer and start working on the blue belt. A few of you might even make the blue belt if you work extra hard, but that's rare.

"After you receive the blue belt, it will take more than a year of hard work, most likely two years, to earn a brown belt. After that it will take at least two years, more likely three, for you to earn a black belt. So basically, if you work your butt off all year long while you're away at school, you might be able to get a black belt in five years. It's more likely to take you seven years. Let's get started on lesson one."

As with everything, the first lesson is always boring, laying the foundations that everything will be built upon. After it was over, Harry and Hermione went to their locker rooms to change. Once he changed, Harry walked up to Neville and said, "Hi Neville. I was surprised to see you here. How's your summer been so far?"

"You were surprised?" said Neville. "What about me? Both you and Hermione are taking this class! I'm surprised Ron wasn't here."

Harry looked a bit uncomfortable. "Well, we had a bit of an argument. Hermione and I told him we were dating..."

"You're dating?" said Neville. "I always had a feeling about you two. Dean, Seamus, and Colin each owe me a Galleon."

"Why?"

"Colin bet you'd date Ron's little sister Ginny first, Seamus bet you'd date the Ravenclaw seeker Cho Chang, and Dean bet you'd date Parvati Patil. I bet all of them that you'd date Hermione first," he said with a smile. "Anyway, what happened with Ron?"

"At first he seemed to be alright with it, but then he found out I was staying at her house and he kind of flipped out. I'm sure he'll get over it."

"Yeah," said Neville. "So am I. He's just jealous. You do know he fancies Hermione, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I got her first. Besides, all Hermione and Ron ever do is argue. We'd better get out there before Hermione comes in here looking for us."

They left the locker room in time to see Hermione purchasing all the books necessary to attain a black belt. Harry walked up to her. "Er, don't you think we could wait a few years on some of those books?"

She looked at him defiantly and said, "It never hurts to read ahead." Then she looked over at Harry's companion. "Hello Neville. It was quite a surprise to see you in class. Why did you decide to join?"

He looked down at the floor. "Er, well on the train, Draco and his goons beat me up again, and I wanted to stop it from happening next year. I know I can't practice you-know-what outside of school, but I can learn to defend myself in some ways here. My Gran didn't really like the idea, but I managed to get her to let me come. Why'd you two take the classes here?"

Harry answered, "I always end up in tight spots, so I thought that I'd like a little help getting out of them. Hermione decided to join me."

"We're dating now," said Hermione blushing. "Did Harry tell you?"

"Yeah. Listen, I've got to go. My Gran'll...."

"Neville," came a call from an old woman with the weirdest looking hat Harry had ever seen. He recognized it immediately from Neville's boggart, but was still shocked to see someone with a bird-hat anyway. "I told you not to talk too much to the other children. You might give away to much information."

"Gran," said Neville as they walked toward the door to meet his grandmother, "This is Harry Potter and Hermione Granger."

Mrs. Longbottom's eyes immediately darted up to Harry's scar. Her face turned a bit pale. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was you. I thought he was talking to muggle children and might accidentally reveal things about our world. Neville has of course told me all about the both of you. You must join us for an early dinner tonight."

Neville looked uncomfortable, so Hermione said, "I'm terribly sorry, but we promised my parents that we'd go straight home. Some other time, perhaps."

"Oh, alright dears. If you've promised your parents something, you should keep your word. I am curious as to why you're here. As I understand it, you're both very good at defending yourself."

"You can't learn too much self-defense," said Harry. "Besides, none of the other wizards can fight hand-to-hand. It gives us the advantage in a fight."

"I suppose you could look at it that way. Neville, I suppose that from now on if I say anything against this class you'll say, 'Harry Potter is taking the class.'"

Neville chuckled, "Yes, I will."

"Well," said Hermione, "It was nice meeting you, but we have to go. Goodbye."

"Yeah," said Harry as Hermione grabbed his hand, "See you later."

After they rode their bikes back to Hermione's house, Harry said, "I wonder why Neville was so uncomfortable around his Gran."

"I don't know, Harry, but it's none of our business. I say we should do some school work for an hour, and then go swimming."

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An hour and ten minutes later, Harry was outside in the swimming pool waiting for Hermione to come out. He realized that he'd never seen his girlfriend in a swimsuit before. For that reason, he was still wearing his glasses. When she finally came out, he wasn't disappointed. She was only wearing a silver one-piece suit, but it did a great job of revealing her almost fifteen-year-old form. Even though he thought she was pretty, he'd never actually thought of her as sexy, hot, or whatever word you use to describe a girl that looks that good. He was very glad that most of him was under water. If he weren't, then he'd have been very embarrassed by the reaction she was causing.

She blushed as she recognized the look in his eyes. She was surprised, though pleased that he was looking at her like that. She decided to make him blush. "I see you like what you see," she said with a smirk, earning the desired result. His whole face turned bright red, and he dunked his head under water for a good fifteen seconds. When he came up for air, he saw that she was now in the water swimming toward him. He took a deep breath and went back under water and swam behind her, and then came up for air and grabbed one of her feet, and started tickling it. He was ready to catch her if she went under water because of this. "Ha-ha-ha-Harry Potter!" she screamed in between laughs as she tried to get free, "Let-ha-go-ha of me!"

"Only if you kiss me," he said.

"Ha-fine. Let me go and I'll kiss you. I promise."

"Ok," Harry said, letting her go. She splashed water into his face with her foot and swam off as fast as she could. He yelled, "Liar!" and swam after her.

Harry soon found out that Hermione was the fastest swimmer, probably because she had the pool, although he figured that if the Dursleys had one, his job would be to fill it up one glass from the upstairs bathroom at a time, and then clean it up. He'd never be allowed inside it, and if Dudley were to push him in, he'd get punished for going in the pool and not drowning. When Dudley finally found a way to ruin it, he'd be blamed. So he figured it was best that the Dursleys didn't have a pool. He pulled himself out of these thoughts, and stopped swimming. He stood where the water just reached his chest and called out, "I give up. You're a much better swimmer than I am. You look extremely beautiful in that bathing suit, and I would really love to kiss you."

She turned around to swim back to him, and stopped right in front of him. When she was standing directly in front of him she said, "Have you learned your lesson now? If you want something from me, you ask for it instead of torturing me to get it." With that said, she put her hands on the back of his head, and pulled him into a passionate kiss. He put his hands in her hair, which he thought looked wonderful all wet like this. She considered turning their kiss into a snog, but decided to wait a little while for that. They'd actually only been together for just over a day, even though it seemed like forever. They could wait a few weeks for their first snog.

When they separated, he didn't see anything to complain about. He then kissed her on the cheek. He smiled and said, "Thank you. You're not only the brightest and sexiest witch of your age, but you're also the best kisser.

She blushed at the compliment, but then decided to give him a hard time. "Just how many girls have you compared me to?" she asked with a smirk. She already knew the answer to that. Neither of them had kissed anyone else.

Harry blushed and said, "Er, well, none. But there'd be no reason to. I already know you're the best."

"Don't ever forget that," she said, and then gave him another quick kiss. "I think it's about time we went back in. My skin is starting to shrivel up."

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A few hours later, the Grangers came home to find Harry and Hermione sitting at the table together doing homework. Adam said, "I can't wait until I see that demonstration of what you've learned. Maybe we can go there tomorrow."

"No," said Harry, "not tomorrow."

"Why not?" said Marissa.

Hermione smiled at her parents. "The house is being redecorated. We thought we'd make it look nice before bringing you there. We'd hate for a shabby abandoned house to be your first impression of a wizard's home."

"When do you have time for that?" asked Adam.

"Actually, Harry hired someone to do it."

"Oh," said Hermione's mother.

"Yes. You see, Ginny Weasley asked us if she could practice magic at the house with us, and when she saw how it looked, she volunteered to fix it up for a price. Since we didn't have time, and she does need the money, I hired her. Tomorrow we're going to go over her plans and buy the necessary materials."

"Ok," said Adam, "I guess we can wait until the place looks nicer. Just make sure there's some comfortable furniture for us to sit on while you put on your magic show. How was that karate class?"

"It was very informative," said Hermione.

"She bought every book they had," added Harry, causing her parents to chuckle. "It was a lot of fun, and we saw one of our friends from school there."

"Really," said Marissa, smiling, "Is it anyone you've told us about?"

"Yes," said Hermione, "Neville Longbottom."

"The slightly clumsy but goodhearted boy?" asked Adam.

"That would be him," said Harry.

"You must invite him over for the afternoon one of these days," said Marissa. "Does he live near here?"

"I don't know," said Hermione. "I guess he must if he's going to that school."

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The next morning, Harry and Hermione portkeyed to Grimmauld Place to find Ginny already there, sitting at an old table with five parchments, ink, and a quill. "Good morning guys," she said brightly, "I've come up with my design - red carpet and curtains, and all the walls painted hot pink."

"What?" said Harry, while Hermione giggled.

"I'm just kidding," said Ginny. "Here are my ideas." She then walked them through the house to various rooms, reading her different ideas from the parchments. After they'd settled on what Harry wanted, which included at Harry's insistence a new door knocker, they went shopping.

They took the Knight Bus to a store in London that had everything they needed except for the furniture, which they ordered elsewhere to be delivered later that day. Harry started to suggest buying a drop cloth to protect the furniture, but Hermione reminded them that they could simply make everything impervious to the paint (or anything else). After Harry paid for everything, they took their cart to a place no one could see, and then everybody grabbed as much stuff as they could, which was everything. Ginny portkeyed first, followed by the other two. "Harry," said Ginny, "I didn't know you had your own portkey."

He'd forgotten that he wanted to keep that a secret. Inwardly he cursed himself. "We decided it would be better if I had one when we were shopping, so Hermione made me one yesterday at the same time she made yours. She gave it to me after we left yesterday."

"Oh," said Ginny. "I guess I'd better get to work. It's a good thing I can do this magically. Can you imagine how long this would take the muggle way?"

They left Ginny to her work and went to their practice room. After they silenced the door, they started working on their lesson for the day. They had time to get everything but their dueling done. They portkeyed straight out of that room, had lunch, rode their bikes to the karate class and back, and then portkeyed back to find that the living room was completely changed. Instead of threadbare old carpet, it had nice new dark green carpet with tan walls. There were a light brown couch and two matching recliners, along with a beautiful table in front of them. They noticed that the kitchen was similarly decorated. When they got to the next room, they found Ginny with her wand out, making paint float out of open gallons onto the walls.

"You've been doing a great job, Ginny," said Harry. "The living room and kitchen look wonderful. I'd hardly know that it's the same house."

"Thanks! These spells I found in mum's household book work even better than I thought. I should be done with every room by tomorrow night."

"Well, keep up the good work! Hermione and I have some practicing to do."

"What are you practicing?"

"Er, dueling," said Harry.

"Really?" she said. "Can I practice with you after I finish decorating the house?" When she saw they looked uncertain, she added, "A lot of boys like to take advantage of girls who can't protect themselves. Malfoy was looking at me a lot toward the end of the year, and it made me very uncomfortable."

"Fine," said Harry, "we'll practice with you, but if Malfoy comes bothering you, let us know. We'll take care of him!"