The Brighter Side

Summary: Harry's in his Sixth year and to his great annoyance, everyone's on his case. After bumping (literally) into Parvati a couple of times and seeing things from her bright perspective, he wonders, could she be his escape?

Disclaimer: Nah, most of this doesn't belong to me (except the storyline of course). They belong to, can I have a drum roll please, J.K Rowling!

Chapter One: Jumping to Conclusions

Utterly disgusted. That's how he felt; utterly disgusted. And he had every right to be. Walking in on Cho Chang and Michael Conner kissing in the hallway was something he need not have seen.

And to think she kissed me too, Harry thought with a frown on his face. As that horrible image played over and over in his head, he did not realize the slim girl walking idly his way.

'Oomph!' he heard a female say as their shoulders crashed into each other. Before he could say anything, she walked on ahead. Harry turned around to see none other than Cho Chang talking to a friend of hers. She had her back to him, her long, black hair shaking happily as she laughed at a joke her friend was telling her.

There's no way I'm letting her get away with that, he thought angrily.

'Mind where you're going! The world has enough problems to deal with without clumsy idiots like you walking around the place!' he practically shouted, his heart feeling lighter after letting out some of the frustrations of the day.

Cho's back froze and he saw the shocked face of her friend looking at him. It was the first time he noticed that it was Lavender Brown who Cho was talking to.

Odd, he thought momentarily before why she was talking to her suddenly became clear.

Cho, or so he thought, had turned around and Harry found himself facing a stunned Parvati Patil.

'I…I'm sorry…I didn't think you'd be mad,' she stuttered.

Harry felt completely stupid but he was not going to make a bigger fool of himself by telling her who he'd mistaken her to be; gossip queens like Parvati and Lavender would obviously jump to conclusions.

'Well just watch where you're going next time, yeah?' he said in a slightly calmer voice.

Parvati only nodded still looking at him with that stunned (and was that hurt?) expression.

Harry then whipped around quickly and walked in the direction of the common room.

'That was strange,' was all Lavender could say after a while.

Parvati could only shrug and walked behind Lavender to her locker.

'Pav! What's wrong with you? It was his fault; you don't need to get all sulky. I wonder what was stuck up his ass! He shouldn't have been so mean.'

Parvati smiled weakly, 'Don't worry about it Lav. I guess…' She suddenly stopped talking as she saw a giggling Cho and an overly happy Michael walk around the corner.

'What?' Lavender asked curiously as she saw her best friend look dazedly over her shoulder. Lavender then turned around and an 'oh' escaped her lips.

'Wasn't that the direction Harry came from?' she said with an odd gleam in her eyes.

'Yeah, yeah it was,' Parvati said softly. Then she noticed the all too familiar look on her best friend's face. 'Lav, forget it. Have a little sympathy…'

'There's no way, you're going to talk me out of this one babe. I let it slide when he treated you terribly at the Yule Ball but he's not getting away with it this time. And when has he ever been sympathetic towards us, eh? I remember that look on his face when Binky died. He can't get away with treating people like this just because he's 'the-boy-who-lived'.'

Parvati sighed, 'Okay, okay. You've made your point. What are you going to do anyways? Tell everyone what happened?'

'Oh no, dear Parvati. I think I've got something better in mind,' Lavender whispered, a some-what evil smile forming on her lips.

Parvati slid her slender fingers across the balcony banister as she walked to the very end of it, to her special spot. It was more like a terrace then a balcony. She had found it on one of her first days at Hogwarts when she had made a wrong turn. Parvati had first thought that it was the Astronomy tower with part of the area lined with telescopes (magical ones of course that had a better range then any ordinary telescope). But then she found out, upon further research, that this was the former Astronomy tower. The reason it was former was because the Bloody Baron had taken to strolling around the place. Tired of squealing students, Professor Sinistra had requested for another place for her class to take place.

This also used to be the place where she and Padma had used to meet after finding out they were not allowed in each other's common rooms. It was where they used to catch up on the latest gossip, confess their crushes and just talk about the ordinary things.

This was where I'd begged Padma to go with Ron to the Yule Ball, she remembered with a smile. They had stopped that a while back though. Neither realized it but with Padma's prefect duties and Parvati's involvement in Hogwarts' first Drama Club (Professor Dumbledore had thought Parvati would be perfect as the Head of the club along with Lavender as Vice Head) they just slowly drifted apart. Sometimes, Parvati missed her sister a lot, sometimes she quite honestly forgot. This was one of the times that she missed her. Padma would understand why she, Parvati, Queen of Carelessness, would be so affected by Harry's words today. He had said them with such hatefulness, that Parvati had been quite frightened.

In an instance, her confidence had been swiped away and she could not explain why. She had seen him rant at people before (mostly Hermione and Ron) but she saw no reason why he would do that to her. In fact, after all the D.A lessons, they had become rather friendly, well more friendly than usual. She knew that it was only because of him that she had managed to get an Outstanding in Defense Against the Dark Arts. They had not talked much since school started this year and she had disregarded the surprising disappointment she had felt because of it. She now realized that she had liked seeing his small smiles at her whenever she had made stupid mistakes with her wand or his firm but patient teaching methods.

'Oh get over it,' she scolded herself, 'this isn't like you at all.'

She then noticed the eerie form of the Bloody Baron hovering in the darkness.

I'd better go to bed, she thought nervously and, with that, she sprinted into the castle.