章節 8: Chapter 08

"Oh…it looks like I fell asleep," she said, sounding surprised. She cast a glance at Harry and gave him a sly look. "Or it could have been that book of yours. It was so boring it put me to sleep."

"Considering I didn't read to you, and you were reading another book entirely, I doubt that's the case," Harry replied dryly. With a shake of his head he grabbed the book and stood up. "Anyway," he continued, "it's getting late so we should probably head back home."

"Yes, I guess you're right," Lisa said, standing up as well. She looked around for a second, before spotting the book she'd been reading, it was laying on the ground, presumably having dropped down there when she sat up. Leaning down, the girl picked it up, before following Harry to return her book and leave the library.

"Harry?" Lisa started once they were outside. The boy in question looked over at Lisa and raised his eyebrow when she saw her looking down at her feet. There was a very small red tint on her cheeks, and every now and then her eyes would move up to look at him, only to move back down towards where her sandaled toes were making patterns on the concrete.

He'd read about this in a book once. Sometimes when a girl wanted to ask a boy something, they'd get all shy and demure like this. It was only when they wanted something from a boy however, and the book didn't really explain why. He assumed the person who wrote didn't have the answer and was merely making an observational fact.

"Yes?"

"Will you…walkmehome?" she started out strong, but finished in a rushed, hurried voice. In spite of that, Harry made out her words just fine.

"Don't I always walk you home?" he asked, frowning in confusion. This was not the first time she had acted like this around him. In complete contradiction to her usually confident demeanor, Lisa would, every now and then, act like this. Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of it, it wasn't like there was a book to help male's understand the female mind after all; and he'd actually searched for some when Lisa first started acting like this.

"Well, yes, you do," Lisa muttered, the redness on her cheeks spreading to encompass more of her face. "It's just…I wasn't sure if you would want to today…" she trailed off, and Harry raised an eyebrow, before shaking his head.

"Come on," Harry said, hesitating for just a second before grabbing his friend's hand. Lisa looked up at Harry to see him offering the slightest of smiles. "I'll walk you home."

Lisa gave him a brilliant smile, and together the two of them walked towards the girl's home.

Lisa's home was not that far from Harry's own residence at number four Privet Drive. Indeed, the girl only lived several blocks away from him, and it was in between his own place and the library. It was just another reason his friend's shyness at asking him to walk her home confused him. Her house was on the way to his, therefore they were both required to go the same way. Why wouldn't he walk her home?

Really, sometimes this girl was so confusing.

His friend's house was much different than the one he resided in. It was large, a two story house made of a combination of bricks, stone and red roofing. Unlike his relatives home, which was clean to the point of looking sterile, Lisa's house looked alive, for lack of a better term. At the very front of the house Harry spotted several rose bushes, none of which had the perfectly trimmed symmetrical look that Aunt Petunia prided about hers. The driveway in front of the garage possessed many chalk drawings that Lisa had made last week, something that would have given Uncle Vernon a fit. There were many smaller details to the house as well, little touches that just gave the house a more "lived in" feel.

They walked up to the front door and knocked. A beautiful woman with the same brown hair and brown eyes as Lisa opened it. The woman, Anastasia, was Lisa's mother, and what Harry assumed his friend would eventually look like when she grew up.

"Lisa, Harry," Anastasia greeted them both with a smile and her daughter with a hug. "Did you two have fun at the library?"

"Of course," said Lisa, before Harry interrupted her.

"She fell asleep."

"Oh my, she did?" asked Anastasia, giggling behind her hand when she saw her daughter's face turn red. As the young girl cast a glare at her friend, Anastasia cast her own knowing look at Harry, complete with a smile and mischievous eyes. "And I imagine she decided to use you as a pillow, yes?"

Lisa's red face took on the same shade of a tomato, while Harry just nodded. "Indeed."

"Mom!" Lisa whined in an accusing tone as her mother giggled some more. She buried her now completely red face in her hands, embarrassed.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Harry started, his head tilting slightly. "You fall asleep on me all the time. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, I believe the first time I ever came to your house for dinner you used my shoulder as a pillow while we were watching a movie; Fantasia, I believe."

That had been a most, interesting experience for Harry, to say the least. Aside from the simple fact that it had been the first time he had ever been over to someone's house that did not involve lawn mowing or cleaning, it had also been his first real experience being Lisa's friend, a moment that gave him a glimpse of what being friends with this girl would be like.

It had been about a month or two after Lisa had truly become his friend—that is to say, after he had decided that he did, in fact, like Lisa and stopped trying to push her away—she had invited him over for dinner and he had accepted.