Author's Notes:
I started this fic ages ago, but couldn't figure out where I was going with it. I finally figured it out, almost half a year later.
Harry/Parvati is one of my favorite pairings. It doesn't really make sense in canon, but then again, it makes more sense than Draco/Harry or any of those other totally nonsensical pairings that people seem to love, so I don't feel like I need to defend it. ;)
I hope you enjoy. Leave a review if you like. Flame if you like. Even if you don't review, thanks for reading.
"Parv, stop moaning. You had a great time with those Beauxbatons boys, right?"
The ball having finished just minutes prior, a sullen Parvati and bubbly Lavender lay on their respective beds.
"Only after wasting half the night with the most inconsiderate git on the planet," Parvati responded heatedly.
"Most inconsiderate git on the planet? I thought Ron held that honor. Or are you actually Padma?" Lavender replied, smiling.
"Fine, the second-most inconsiderate," Parvati conceded, staring angrily at the ceiling. "But it was still awful. All those hours spent in front of a mirror, making everything perfect, for a guy for whom I was a last resort, I don't know what I was thinking."
"If you didn't want to be a last resort, why did you turn down that fifth-year Hufflepuff bloke? He was pretty good-looking," Lavender inquired, sitting up from her bed and staring at her best friend.
"You know, I was hoping for somebody more...more familiar, I guess. I didn't even know that Hufflepuff's name."
"It's obvious who you were waiting for, Parv. I'm not thick you know."
"Enlighten me, then!" Parvati snapped.
"Harry, of course."
"I was not waiting for Harry to ask me to the ball," Parvati said, a little quieter this time, turning away from Lavender.
"You might think your little crush went unnoticed, but you can't hide anything from me, Parv." Lavender replied, the smile returning to her lips.
"I do not have a crush on Harry," Parvati responded, still looking at the wall. Had she been that obvious?
"Then why are you so disappointed? You said yourself that you knew he was only asking you out of necessity. You can't have expected much from a fourteen-year-old boy whose affections were clearly directed towards someone else."
This took Parvati by surprise. She had thought that Harry was simply too shy to ask anybody.
"Oh? Who's that?"
"Cho Chang, dummy. You clearly haven't been keeping up with the gossip."
Parvati sniffed derisively. "I'm going to bed."
"Still in your dress?" Lavender asked, smirking.
"Oh, shut up."
Lavender became distracted as Hermione walked in the door, looking flushed.
"Ooooh, how did it go? Did you and Viktor kiss?" Lavender gushed as Parvati rolled her eyes. That had also been the first thing out of Lavender's mouth when she had met up with Parvati after all the ball.
Hermione nodded, smiling slightly. "And how was your evening?"
"Seamus was an absolute dream," Lavender sighed. "I had so much fun. Same can't be said for Parvati, though," Lavender continued, jerking her thumb towards Parvati's bed. "Harry wasn't a very good date, from what I hear."
"I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have gone to the ball at all if he hadn't had to open the dancing," Hermione said, trying her best to sound sympathetic. "It's not your fault, Parvati. Harry can be a bit...oblivious sometimes. If he had realized that you weren't having a good time, I'm sure he would have been more considerate."
Parvati nodded mutely, feeling tears building behind her eyes. She knew it was nothing to cry about, that it was stupid to let a fourteen-year-old boy's stupidity have an affect on her. But she had had fairytale-like visions of the night, and those visions weren't easy to let go of even after the fact. She kept trying to figure out where it had went wrong. Had she been too outgoing? Not outgoing enough? Too giggly? Too serious? She knew that the problem had probably been Harry's lack of interest, but that didn't preclude her from pondering endless "what if?" sequences in her head.
Hermione and Lavender were conversing about their nights. Parvati felt a pang of jealousy. Judging by Hermione and Lavender's conversation, Seamus and Viktor sounded like perfectly considerate dates. Why couldn't Harry have been more like that?
She spent the next few minutes in this thought pattern, cursing the fact that Harry Potter apparently had no idea how to treat a lady. It was absolutely ridiculous that she had had a more fun time with a person whom she could barely understand. As Lavender and Hermione finished up their conversation, Parvati got up off the bed and changed into her nightclothes. She hoped she would be able to forget about this entire debacle by morning.
However, attempting to fall asleep just put her in a worse mindset. She normally wasn't a very weepy girl (that was Lavender's forte) but now that she was sure that her roommates were sound asleep, she let the tears flow. Her once chance to maybe, maybe make an impression on Harry Potter, whom most girls would have given their wand arm to go on a date with, had gone completely wrong.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Harry awoke slowly, savoring the diffuse light that was making its way into his four-poster. He had been having a good dream...Cho had been in it...if only he could hang on to the details just a little longer....
Within ten minutes, after many hopeless attempts to extricate more details of the dream from his unwilling mind, Harry was awake enough to seriously consider getting out of bed, even though it was 7:00, way too early to get up during the Christmas Break. Thinking vaguely that he might use the quietness of the common room to get some of his potions essay done, Harry grabbed his bag and went downstairs.
The common room was almost deserted, except for a few older couples who had neglected their dorms entirely and fallen asleep mid-snog. Harry eyed them amusedly before settling down in front of the fire and pulling his essay to him. The only thing that occupied his mind was the question of what would happen if one were to add an extra unicorn tail to a Draught of Daring.
An hour later, Harry threw down his quill in satisfaction, just as Hermione was coming down the stairs. She spotted him immediately and came to sit next to him.
"I never really got a chance to ask you, how did the ball go?" Hermione asked, her expression oddly neutral and her voice steady and composed.
"Fine, I guess. After Parvati went to dance with that French bloke, the evening kinda...fizzled out, you know? I was never much of a dancer anyway," Harry responded, grinning slightly.
"She was crying last night," Hermione said bluntly.
"Huh?" Harry's eyes widened with surprise.
"She didn't really let on about it, but she was really upset last night. Maybe you should have payed a bit more attention to her," Hermione said, eyebrows furrowing. "How would you have enjoyed it if Cho had asked you to the ball, getting your hopes up, and then ignored you after one dance?"
Guilt slammed into Harry, along with a little confusion. Hermione seemed to be implying that Parvati liked him in "that way", but there was no way that was true, was it? He started, "Well, she...I-" but Hermione cut him off.
"I think you should apologize to her first thing. You don't want her hating you for the rest of your life, do you?"
Harry winced. He was now feeling like a complete git. "You're right, Hermione, I'll try to get hold of her sometime..." he conceded, mentally casting around for an instance where he had ever seen Parvati without Lavender right next to her. Of course, if he had been able to get Cho on her own, it couldn't be too hard to do the same with Parvati, could it? He had managed to talk to her once, he could do it again...but what would he say? Could he make it up to her? Would she even want to talk to him anymore? And if she did indeed have a crush on him, well, he had no idea what he thought about that.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Parvati gazed down at her Divination homework blankly. Usually it put her in a good mood, but right now it seemed so pointless. She wished Lavender were there, but she was off with Seamus somewhere. Lavender was always the one that was good with boys; Parvati merely got lumped into that group by association. Right now Parvati was just trying to push last night out of her head and move on with life. Lavender would know how to handle this situation; she always had words of consolation on hand. Parvati did not want to think about it until Lavender could think it through with her.
It didn't help that Harry was in her direct line of sight, all the way across the common room, looking tired but not especially concerned. He appeared to notice her gaze and got up from his seat, walking across the common room towards her. Parvati wondered that if she would be able to refrain from crying; last night had not helped the stability of her emotions any.
"Hi Parvati," he said, looking at a spot above Parvati's shoulder.
"Hi Harry," responded Parvati coldly, countering Harry's lame attempt to start a conversation with an equally lame attempt to stave one off. Was he under the impression that last night had actually gone well? Did he want to talk about how much fun he had had last night?
Harry took a deep breath. "Sorry about last night. I was a bad date," he said, still avoiding eye contact.
"You're remarkably quick on the uptake, it would have taken most guys a few weeks to figure that out," Parvati responded, smirking. She didn't want to clue Harry in on how much he had actually hurt her.
"Actually, Hermione helped me out with that, otherwise it would have taken months of angry glares before I got the point." Harry joked, bravely attempting a small smile.
"Oh, she must have better people-skills than I give her credit for," Parvati responded, wondering if she had been obvious to the point where even Hermione, who was generally clueless about boy issues, had picked something up. Parvati had tried to act like Harry had simply been a poor date, instead of the heart-breaking cataclysm that the ball had actually been. Maybe Hermione had heard her crying?
Harry continued, "Well, anyway, I thought I need to make it up to you somehow, so I was wondering if you'd want to come with me on the next Hogsmeade trip."
Parvati was elated but attempted not to show it. Harry was obviously trying to learn from the error of his ways and it would be stupid of her not to take advantage of this second chance. "You won't ignore me this time?" Parvati responded, raising one eyebrow.
"I promise I won't ignore you," Harry said sincerely. "Should I take that as a yes?" Parvati swore that she could see a little pleading in his eyes. Not that she needed much convincing.
"Yes."
"Good. Er - great. Yeah. So, I'll see you later, then," he said before walking back to his original seat.
Parvati tried not to smile too much.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Two weeks later, Harry sat at the Gryffindor table, munching nervously on the bowl of cereal in front of him. It was Hogsmeade weekend.
"Stop worrying Harry, Parvati's really glad to be going with you to Hogsmeade, everything should be fine," Hermione reassured from behind the day's issue of The Daily Prophet. "She spent twenty minutes picking out her outfit this morning if it makes you feel any better." Harry looked down at his ratty jeans and randomly-chosen t-shirt and wondered if he should have spent more time thinking about his appearance.
Ron nodded in agreement with Hermione. "Mfffmff," he said before swallowing his mouthful of toast. "You're the Boy-Who-Lived, every girl in the school would love to go on a date with you."
Harry thought that Ron wasn't exactly qualified to give his opinion on girl matters, but kept this thought to himself. "It's just that I have no idea what you do on a date. I don't expect that Parvati will just want to sit in The Three Broomsticks all day while I grope around for conversation starters."
Seamus, who was sitting next to Harry, decided to butt in on the conversation. "As long as you don't start groping anything else, you should be fine." he said, nudging Harry with his elbow. Both Ron and a nearby Dean found this uproariously funny, but Harry just blushed and glanced around to see if the girl in question was within earshot while Hermione shook her head and muttered under her breath, eyes steadfastly remaining on the paper in front of her. She glanced up, noticed the frantic look in Harry's eyes and put down the paper.
"Just do what we normally do. It doesn't need to be romantic or anything. She'll just be happy that you're paying attention to her."
"Yeah, girls like attention," Ron concurred, nodding.
"Says the boy who said only one word to his ball date the entire night!" Hermione responded sharply. "You haven't the faintest idea how to spend time with a girl."
"That's not true!" Ron said indignantly. "I spend time with you all the time!"
Sensing a row coming on, Harry decided to make his excuses and leave. He stood up from his almost completely full bowl of cereal, grabbed his cloak, said, "Well, I'd better be going, then, see you later," and walked down towards the other end of the table where Parvati was sitting with Lavender. The walk seemed to take no time at all, and when Harry reached her he realized he hadn't planned what he was going to say. But not everything needed to be scripted, right?
In any case, it would have been better if Lavender wasn't sitting there giggling.
"Er - hey Parvati. Are you ready to go?" he said in as cool a voice as he could muster.
Parvati smiled and nodded. "Yes. Let's go," she said before turning back to her friend, who was visibly struggling to not laugh outright. "Have fun without me, Lavender!"
"I'm expecting to hear all the details tonight!" Lavender called shrilly after them as they walked towards the entrance hall. Harry grimaced.
"Now I have to live up to her expectations, too. I don't think I can handle the pressure."
Parvati laughed at his feeble joke, to his great relief. "Don't mind her," Parvati said. "She has good intentions."
Harry wracked his brains for topics of conversation while they waited for Filch to do his routine. Parvati didn't seem to be minding the silence, but he felt like a moron all the same. He thought about bringing up the Triwizard Tournament but decided against it for fear of seeming too self-impressed.
"I don't know if I'm allowed to ask, but how are you coming with that egg?" Parvati asked as they finally walked out the front doors and onto the lawn.
Harry was reminded of Hermione's constant nagging, but Parvati was probably just interested and not trying to hassle him. "I haven't really given it much thought. I'm never really in the mood to hear an egg screaming at me, so right now it's just sitting at the bottom of my trunk."
"And you have no idea what it might be trying to tell you?"
"No idea. I'll probably just show up at the second task and do whatever they tell me to do."
Parvati laughed. "I heard that you had no idea what you were facing in the first task, is that true? I would have completely fallen apart at the sight of a dragon, myself, especially if it was unexpected."
Harry felt a twinge of guilt and decided that lying would be a poor idea. "Actually, all of the competitors knew what was coming. We weren't supposed to, but that's how it turned out. If I hadn't know about the dragon, I would have been toast, literally."
"I kinda figured that," Parvati responded lightly, as if this revelation of a corrupt tournament didn't phase her at all. "Maybe something like that will happen for the next task," she added with a smile.
They continued chatting about the tournament as they walked down the path to Hogsmeade. Before Harry knew it, they were at the wizarding village.
"So, er, where you would you like to visit first?" Harry inquired, hoping that Parvati wouldn't suggest something like Madame Puddifoot's teashop or Winifred's Makeup Shoppe and Beautification Parlor. He had never been inside either place but had overheard horror stories told by older boys. Or perhaps there was some as-yet-unknown-of Divination-supply store that he would be forced to endure for hours. . .
Harry was saved from additional morbid predictions by Parvati's response.
"It's a little chilly, I'd like to head over to the Three Broomsticks to warm up for a bit."
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. The Three Broomsticks was something he could deal with. For the time being at least, this date seemed like it would turn out alright.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Parvati sipped her Butterbeer contentedly. It seemed that when not faced with the prospect of dancing, Harry was actually capable of paying attention to a female, and the day so far had been very relaxing. She had been worried that the two of them would attract undue attention, but that turned out not to be the case; most people had seen them at the Yule Ball, and, not being aware of the disaster that the ball had been, seemed to naturally assume that the two of them might still be "together".
They talked about the usual subjects; classes, friends, quidditch, and the like. Harry was still somewhat nervous, however; much more nervous than he had been at the Yule Ball. It didn't come across in his voice but he was wringing his hands when they weren't engaged in holding his bottle of butterbeer. She figured she was being too observant and tried to forget about it.
Parvati finished off her Butterbeer and, noticing Harry had also finished his, said, "Do you want to go somewhere else right away, or would you like to stay here and people-watch for a little while?"
"Er, either way is fine with me, I guess. As long as we don't end up at that Puddifoot's place," Harry responded.
"Let's go then," Parvati said, grabbing Harry's hand. He tensed up for a second, then relaxed, realizing that holding hands is something that people did on dates. "I hear Honeyduke's has a new line of Chocolate Frogs."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After Honeyduke's, the two of them visited several more stores. Harry found he was enjoying himself more and more and feeling nervous less and less. Parvati had more depth of personality than he had realized. Of course, he probably would have noticed at the Yule Ball, had he not been so infatuated with Cho.
Harry could barely remember why he had been so enamored with Cho in the first place. Parvati was just as good-looking and was not involved with another guy like Cho was. Harry supposed he was either hormonal or just plain fickle, but at this point the thought didn't bother him too much. Even seeing Cho walking hand-in-hand with Cedric down the main street didn't have any affect on him.
It was worse when Lavender walked by with Seamus and Dean and started giggling loudly. Harry did his best to ignore it while Parvati waved. After she had passed out of earshot, Harry turned to Parvati and asked, "Does she ever not giggle?"
"Sometimes. If we're working on homework or something. But if boys are involved, well, you see how she gets."
Harry bit back the snarky comment that formed in his head. He didn't want to erase all of his progress with Parvati just by making fun of her personality.
"Well, I'm sure she's not that bad once you get past the giggling," Harry said in an effort to be diplomatic.
Parvati smiled. "That's a nice thing to say. Most boys are kind of disarmed by her bubbly-ness. I'm pretty sure Seamus only stands it because he likes the idea of having a girlfriend."
A nasty thought occurred to Harry; what if Parvati was only with him because she liked the idea of being seen with the Boy-Who-Lived? It would explain why somebody socially adept and cute like her would bother spending time with an uncertain, socially awkward guy like him. He quickly pushed the idea away; Parvati had given no indications that she didn't genuinely appreciate his company or that she was doing this just for attention. In any case, there was no reason why he shouldn't at least try to enjoy himself.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Before he knew it, it was late afternoon, the sun was setting, and people were piling into the carriages waiting to take them back to the castle. "So, do you want to walk back, or would you prefer the carriage?" Harry asked.
"Oh, definitely walk. I don't want to have to share a carriage with somebody who would ask a bunch of questions," Parvati responded. Harry understood the unsaid implication; a ride with anybody from their year or house would probably result in a lot of awkwardness. "Plus, I'm not really in a hurry to get back," she added.
Did that mean she actually wanted to spend more time with him? Harry thought so. "Agreed," he concurred with a smile.
The walk back was mostly silent. Harry didn't feel any pressure to start a conversation; the silence was not awkward, just the silence that two people share when they're simply enjoying each other's presence. They eventually reached the front doors, and the part which Harry was dreading: how to part ways. It would be absolutely horrible if they said "bye" to each other and then ended up walking the same way to the Gryffindor common room.
"Well, I guess I'm going to go have some dinner, do you want to join me or...?"
"I promised Lavender I would tell her all about it as soon as we got back. She's probably waiting in our dorm as we speak."
Harry cringed, which prompted a laugh from Parvati. "Don't worry, I had a good time, there's not much to gossip about."
"I had fun too. We should, uh, do this again sometime?" Harry berated himself for sounding so uncertain.
"I'd like that. The next Hogsmeade weekend is only a few weeks away," Parvati said.
"Yeah, alright. Cool. I guess I'll see you then," Harry said.
"I have a feeling we'll being seeing each other again much sooner than that."
Author's Note: That's it! I am still new to writing romance (I wonder, does it ever get any less painful to write this stuff?). I would love it if you tell me what you think about this.