Author's Note: I might have slipped an AVPM Easter Egg or two into this chapter as well as a Ryan George one. Some word-patterns are just too good to stop using just because someone else thought them up.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do owe Harry Potter, though. For all the wonderful experiences he brought me and for all the misery I bestow upon him.

Harry is a She!

Chapter 4

Indefinitely Indisposed

It was a cold, autumn night and the currents were not in favour of the white, regal bird. She brought her wings up and down again, pushing onward despite the adversity.

The choice to leave hadn't been easy but it's been three moons already since her human lost its mind. She waited and waited for it to get better but it was losing sense with each passing day. She still couldn't understand what happened to her favourite pet. She had thought it to be prime familiar material. Not so much anymore.

Well, no point pondering that. She'd simply have to find a new way now and that way seemed to lead north, where other snowy owls might live, and of course to a tasty mouse or two that she might find on her journey.

There were many things Harry didn't want to deal with and among them many things he never thought he'd have to deal with. Among those was having to bear through a girls' night with his dormmates. Honestly, more like spending a girls' night ever with anyone but especially with his dormmates who up until this month had always been guys.

Another thing he'd never thought he'd deal with was girls wearing his clothes. Actually, we could bring it all down to him not planning on ever really dealing with girls (outside Hermione, but even she exceeded his expectations when she helped herself to his favourite T-shirt, the one from his Quidditch team uniform).

It didn't get any better in the morning when he was startled out of his sleep by the sound of Lavender changing. He was so startled he sat up and, forgetting to look away, saw her sniff Dudley's shirt.

Well, that wasn't disturbing at all.

Pretending to still be asleep he lay back down and turned onto his side, hoping to block whatever other sight she might want to give him. The side effect, however, was that now he was staring at Hermione in her sleep, still clad in his golden-red Quidditch shirt.

He'd thought the girls had folded the shirts to preserve the loose hairs per Hermione's excuse but it seemed that the author of said excuse didn't care to keep up the pretence.

Staring at her in her sleep made him feel guilty but now that he started he found he couldn't help himself. He had never seen her like this before and it wasn't just the fact that she rolled up her cover and was hugging it in her sleep, showing plentiful skin of her legs, nor was it the way his shirt covered her shapes. It stirred something in him, something he didn't understand and was beginning to fear, something very different to what Lavender tried and the magazine succeeded at waking.

Suddenly her eyes opened and he froze in place, transfixed by these dark eyes searching his.

"Uh, hi." he said eloquently.

She put a finger to her lips and pointed behind him, indicating that Lavender was still not done changing.

They lay there like this, searching each others' faces, until the door clicked and they got out of their beds, getting ready for the day, not exchanging a word.

And soon Harry run away under the pretext of looking for a non-Lavender-infested bathroom. It was fortunate no Prefect needed the loo so early in the morning.

Harry could say with a modicum of certainty that he was used to people staring at him. They stared at him every time he went to Diagon Alley, showed up at Platform 9 3/4, played Quidditch, entered the Great Hall, came into a class, didn't come into a class, even when he just walked down a corridor. Honestly, it was very rarely they weren't staring at him.

Predictably, they stared at him as he came back to the Tower, they stared as he went up the girls' staircase with a towel hung over one shoulder and later when he went down for breakfast, Hermione in tow.

Only, they seemed to be staring more, somehow.

"Did I get something on my face?" he whispered to Hermione. She shook her head in amusement.

He tried to keep the frown off his face and followed the girl to where their friend was already helping himself to a handful of toasts and bacon.

Ron started struck when he noticed them. Or maybe… him?

"What?" he asked irritably. "I have something on my face, don't I?"

"No, it's nothing." Ron suddenly became very interested in his food. Not that it was uncommon for him but Harry got too self-conscious to let it go.

"Seriously, what's going on?"

"Nothing." Ron mumbled.

"You were staring at me just a second ago!"

"I said it was nothing." Ron snapped.

Now it was Harry's turn to stare. What in the name of Merlin's ever-loving grandmother was going on today?

"Can someone give me the Prophet?"

"Here." Neville passed him the paper. "I've already read it."

Harry scanned the articles but he could tell from Neville's lack of hesitation that he wouldn't find anything. Whatever caused today's crazy was not the Prophet.

Hermione chuckled.

"What?" he looked at her in bafflement.

"It's you." she whispered.

"What? What did I do?"

She chuckled again.

"Have you seen yourself?"

He quirked a brow at her and picked up an empty golden plate to check his reflection.

Nothing new.

"I look exactly like you girls left me tonight."

Hermione laughed at him.

"That's the point!"

He frowned at her. He supposed his new hairstyle could be interesting since for the first time in forever it didn't look like a crime tool but why would it make Ron act so out of character?

It hit him.

Oh no.

He did it again. He was an idiot who continually made things hard for himself.

His lack-of-bits was already public knowledge. He changed his clothing to avoid trouble with Pink Tart. Now he let his hair get all niced-up.

He couldn't look more like a girl if he tried to. But still, that left one giant issue:

Had Ron been ogling him?

Yuck!

He needed to fix this as quickly as possible!

He got up rapidly, knocking some of the tableware, provoking an amused:

"Something wrong?" from Hermione and another stare from Ron. He looked at Harry as though he was a fresh cut of beef.

Harry shuddered and run away.

In Ron's defence, he had been trying very hard to ignore the fact that his best mate was no longer a dude. He honestly thought he could manage to treat Harry like this nebulous, genderless thing until his best mate came in sporting a hairstyle that Lavender Brown would be proud of (hell, she was proud of it, it's just that Ron didn't know that). When it finally broke through to him that Harry was a she, it became extremely hard to ignore.

He had to physically wrest his eyes off Harry's strangely feminine, yet so familiar, face and when he did, it only got worse.

Looking down he felt himself flush as his eyes landed where Harry's robe suddenly became very flowy. Very flowy right under the very tight part. Ron didn't remember his friend being so... bulgy, in that area.

And then he had to point out his staring, he just had to!

Ron cast his eyes down, wondering if it was possible to drown himself in the melted butter on his toast. It would certainly be preferable to meeting Harry's gaze.

Well, at least it didn't take him four years to realise his other friend was a girl too. That had to count for something, right?

Despite his former resolve, Harry run straight for the closest toilet, scaring off a couple of first-year girls thinking he was Snape gone completely nuts.

He went straight for the sink and sprayed his head with copious amounts of water but apparently, his new hairstyle was not only sleek but waterproof. Fuck.

He already had his wand drawn and a Cutting Charm half-formed on his lips when Hermione came in and stopped him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Reversing this disaster waiting to happen?" Wasn't it obvious?

"It's not a disaster, Harry, it's a hairdo. Honestly, one would think you knew the difference already." she teased.

"It is a disaster if I have my best friend ogling me!" he snapped. "And how did you find me anyway?"

"I just followed the trail of terrified first-years, it wasn't that hard." she rolled her eyes. "Were you going to cut it?" she asked, looking at his wand pointedly.

"Yeah, so?"

"That would be a disaster." she held his wrist and pushed his hand down. "You'd look like a scarecrow and waste all the hours the girls put in."

He wanted to argue, to just wrest his wand arm away and get on with the plan, but looking at her he found he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to turn that soft, caring look into a disappointed one. He would have to be an idiot to do that.

"And what do you think I look like?" he growled in the back of his throat.

"Have you seen yourself?" she pointed to the mirror. "You look like her, you know. Like your mom."

"But I. Am. A GUY!" he shrieked with a voice belying his claim.

"I know it's hard on you, Harry." she put a hand on his shoulder. "You lost a lot, you're not who you used to be. I'm just trying to give you something good. Every girl in the castle would want to look like you do now."

He started breaking into tears.

"But I can't look like a girl. I can't. It feels like giving up. Like Voldemort won, like Umbridge won and I really wasn't Harry Potter."

Hermione smiled reassuringly.

"You're the only Harry Potter there is. Your life is strange and more than a little messed up but you just have to take what you're given and live on." she bit her lip. "And I don't know what it's worth but I like your new looks."

"Really?" he smiled stupidly through his tears.

"Really." she pulled him into a hug. "Tell you what, we can try searching the Library again. Maybe there's something that can help you."

"But there isn't." he reminded. "We already looked and Healer Johnson said it might kill me if I try to turn back."

"Do you have a better idea? Because I know you're not going to give up. That's not your style."

He shook his head.

"Okay, let's do this. Just..." he run his fingers through his hard. It remained impeccable. It wasn't natural. "Can we do something about this? I really think Ron was ogling me because of it."

"It's Sleekeasy, it'll fade in a day."

He closed his eyes.

"So I'll have to bear with it? Great. Just fucking great."

"Language, Harry." she teased. "Besides, it's not so bad. And you'll never have to see it after today. Just don't use Sleekeasy."

"Just don't use Sleekeasy..." he muttered. "You know, I can't deal with this sober. I need my painkillers."

He started for the Hospital Wing.

"Harry!" she called in outrage.

"Whaaat?" he turned around and spread his arms, walking backwards.

"It's not healthy!"

"I'll have you know it's Healer-prescribed medication." he set his steps straight.

"I don't want to see you turn into a junkie."

"I'm not a junkie." he said and in his mind added: 'Most of the time.'

In the end, Harry decided to wear the standard black pointed hat the entire day. Not that it helped in not drawing attention to himself but at least Ron had something to fix his eyes on when talking to him.

It was a no-loss situation. That is, it was so bad nothing he did could make it worse.

Although the day did seem to go particularly well for Draco Malfoy, who took it upon himself to annoy Harry by paying him compliments, gifting flowers and asking him out to Hogsmeade. If you think he was being nice, think again. Malfoy was a vindictive son-of-a-bitch just trying to make his life miserable. Every compliment bore a barely-hidden undercurrent of "You're a disgusting freak, you still dare call yourself a man?", every flower was a hidden dungbomb and had Harry been stupid enough to accept any invitation instead of immediately trying to hex Draco's bits off, he was sure to be delivered straight to the Dark Wanker himself.

Moreover, Malfoy seemed to share his fun with the Pink Tart, who gave Gryffindor fifty points for Harry's new style and a thirty-minute long speech about his contribution to his assimilation into proper pureblood society. Not that thirty minutes of Umbitch-DADA was a loss but Harry thought he was going to vomit during that speech and that would've surely landed him in detention.

And that's how went day two of his period.

Day three. Who the hell came up with this bloody mess lasting three days?!

His hair became wild again and he could ditch the pointy hat. That was good. Ron stopped staring quite as much and seemed to now only focus on Harry's eyes and nose. That was good too. Probably.

If only he wasn't bleeding so fucking much!

"Hey, would you do something about this owl? It's messing up the food!" Ron said.

Harry looked up and blinked. An owl? To him? He didn't remember sending any letters that needed answering.

He picked up the letter from the bird's leg and gave it a piece of bacon. Hedwig liked bacon. Where was she anyway?

Hedwig:

Now thoroughly sated with the carcasses of two delicious rodents, she hid in a crook of a tree. A snowstorm was picking up that she didn't fancy flying through. It might still be many suns before she got to her homeland but it would be worth it. It had to be. She was not coming back to that stupid, delusional hatchling!

Back to Harry:

Well, she was probably out hunting again (not far from the truth). He would visit her in the owlery later (not gonna happen).

Anyway, he unrolled the letter and read:

"Dear Harry,

Thank you for the samples of hair for my research. These are going to come in handy. Next time, please include blood, nails, saliva and menstrual fluid. According to my calculations, you should have some in handy right about now.

I also implore you to come to some kind of decision concerning your gender problem or at least share your thoughts on the topic. I keenly await your reply.

Your very concerned Healer,

Katherine Johnson"

He blinked several times fast. What on Earth?

"Hermione, did you send Healer Johnson the samples?" he whispered to her.

"Yes, I did. Otherwise, all the effort the girls put in would go to waste." she matter-of-factly.

"Could you at least ask me next time before you mail my body parts?" he snapped.

"I did." she pointed out. "You said that I, quote, can sacrifice it to the bloody Secrets' Lady for all you care, end quote."

He hid his face in his hands. Honestly, he wanted to slam it right in the table but that would only draw more attention. The last thing he needed now was more bloody attention.

"Do you have a quill?" he asked in a small voice.

She handed him one, because of course she did, and he turned the letter around to write on its back:

"Dear Healer Johnson,

Here are my thoughts: the options you gave me all suck dragon ass.

Your furious patient,

Harry Fucking Potter."

He thought about biting his nail off and adding it as a 'sample' but even his drug-ridden mind recognised it as a bit too extreme.

He rolled up the letter and tied it back to the owl's leg and sent it on its way.

That's when a second letter hit him in the head.

He looked up and cursed the stupid bird (not that it was its fault, it was a no-reply delivery).

"Dear Harry," he read.

"It's been already a month and I still see no thank-you-card from you. One could start to think you didn't appreciate the gift from your loving cousin.

Don't make me cry.

Tonks."

Having read that, he slammed his face into the table.

Looking a little more like himself seemed to help Harry's predicament if only a little. The jealous (question mark?) stares from female students turned into amused ones, the lecherous ogling by the more disgusting of the male population eased up a bit. Not completely as apparently they couldn't unsee Harry as a girl.

The scandalised and the disgusted looks remained and Harry's own belonged among them if he was being honest to himself. The whole situation shouldn't have happened in the first place and he counted it amongst Voldemort's greatest crimes, right up there next to mass genocide and making him an orphan.

Fortunately, Draco eased up as well, catching on to the fact that his 'wooing' of Harry only got him repeatedly hexed.

His dormmates were a little put out when he didn't let them do his hair again but then decided that:

"That messy-haired, devil-may-care look suits you, Harri." as Lavender put it.

And that's how went day three.

Day four.

Harry frowned at his bloodied underwear.

There wasn't supposed to be a day four.

It was unarguably bloody, no less than yesterday, but it was so early in the morning maybe the mess was leftover from yesterday.

He shrugged it off and continued with his shower.

Day six.

It was definitely not a coincidence anymore. Something must be wrong. Maybe he busted his female bits? He did seem to be pissing white while reading the magazine lately... Did all the porn damage him? Did his wicked deeds finally catch up to him?

Was he going blind next?

Day eight.

He didn't go blind. Not yet anyway.

Something was going on though. He didn't know how long he could stand it. During his previous periods, he just clenched his teeth and bear through it but would it work this time?

He really should go to the Hospital Wing but it was so awkward. Maybe tomorrow it'll pass.

Day ten.

He stumbled into the Great Hall during breakfast and fell heavily into the seat across from Ron, next to Hermione.

Those two never really did get along, did they? They even sat as far from each other as they could while still being close to him. Weird.

He poured himself pumpkin juice and shoved something onto his plate. What was it? Some kind of food to be sure but what? Did he even care?

"Haaarry." Hermione woke him from his musing as he picked up his goblet.

"What?"

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, why?" he asked and drank from the cup. Or at least tried to but it came up empty.

"Because you just flooded my homework with pumpkin juice and took a serving on my quill shavings." she said while wand-drying her parchment.

He frowned at the empty goblet. He could've sworn he'd poured something into it.

"I'm feeling a bit dizzy, to be honest." he put the offending vessel down. "Might be the painkillers, might be all the blood loss, I can't be sure."

"Blood loss? Painkillers?" Hermione looked at him with worry. "Harry, what's going on?"

"You tell me. My current period is reaching the middle of its second week." he said as he crunched on a spoonful of... What was it again? Bird fries?

"Did you say your period lasts over a week?" she asked, Vanishing the food from his plate and serving him actual fries. He didn't even notice.

"Yeah, it's like, day ten or something."

"Day ten!" Hermione hissed.

"Yeah, I know, pretty annoying." he picked at his fries. Hadn't they been more crispy before?

"Annoying? It's dangerous. You might even have cancer. Are you sure it's your period?"

"Well, I'm bleeding."

"Yes, we already established that. What else?"

He frowned. The fries really did absorb most of his attention span. Was this how it felt to be Ron?

"Is there anything else?"

Hermione might've rolled her eyes if she weren't concerned her friend might be dying.

"Do you still have the cramps?"

"I dunno, what are those?"

She forced down a sigh.

"I already told you, it's this feeling like someone punched you in the gut."

"I dunno, I'm on painkillers."

"So, what did Madame Pomphrey say about it?"

He looked at her quizzically.

"What does Madame Pomphrey have to do with anything?"

"She gave you the painkillers!"

He shook his head, munching on the still-mysterious fries.

"Then where did you get them?" she asked, equally confused (but for different reasons).

"I Summoned them?" he said like it was obvious. "Accio? You taught me last year? Ring any bells?"

"You Summoned medication from the Hospital Wing?" she gaped.

"Of course I did! Can't expect me to drag my ass up there every day, can you? And what if I need a re-dose?"

"Oh, that is it!" she stood, knocking the bowl of fries he tried to serve himself from to the floor. "We're going there right this moment!"

"But the fries..." he protested weakly.

"Stop trying to pull off a Ron and get moving!" she ushered him to the door.

The aforementioned Weasley didn't speak up to defend his honour, too busy eyeing Hermione's quill shavings intently and wondering if maybe Harry was onto something.

"It's just a simple bladder infection." Madame Pomphrey announced. "Though I have no idea how you caught it. It is a sexually transmitted infection, you know."

"No, it's not." Hermione frowned. "It's only a risk factor."

"I don't know who told you that, Miss Granger, but it is a sexually transmitted infection." the Healer told her sternly.

"Not according to the WHO, it isn't."

"The what?"

Both women were frozen in shock which allowed Harry to ask the question of the day:

"What are you even talking about?"

Hermione explained to his ear, blushing furiously.

"Oh." he said eloquently. "Oh. No, I'm not doing that." He didn't think it counted, at least.

"That's what I figured." Pomphrey said. "Anyway, that will be a dose of the General Anti-Infection Draught once a day until it passes." she handed him a vial. "And stop Summoning my potions. Do you know how many broken vials I found this last week?"

Madame Pomphrey didn't think it was serious enough to warrant a stay at the Hospital Wing but it didn't stop Hermione from wondering:

"Honestly, Harry, how did you get infected?"

"I dunno." he shrugged. "Ate a funny whelk?"

"No, it can't be that. Your urinary tract must've gotten contaminated."

"My what is what?"

She sighed.

"Your pee hole got dirty. Got it?"

He considered for a moment.

"I don't think the Prefects' toilet is dirty. Probably the cleanest one in the castle."

"That's not what I meant!" she pinched her nose.

"It's alright, Hermione, you don't have to always word your thoughts perfectly."

She ignored his quip and went through a mental list of all the things he could've done wrong.

"Sex is the cause of like 70% of bladder infections..." she glanced at Harry spinning pirouettes along the corridor. "Yeah, I really don't think that's it. What else?"

She counted on her fingers:

"You're not obese, don't have diabetes, no family history, I think, but we can't really check that..."

She grabbed Harry by the arm to stop him from pirouetting down the stairs.

"I think this is going to have to wait." she sighed. "Come on, Harry. Let's get you to safety."

Getting McGonagall to excuse him for the day was super easy, barely an inconvenience. Especially after he tried to pet the Professor and called her 'Pussy Pur-Pur'.

To McGonagall's credit, she only raised a brow at his behaviour and agreed he wasn't in any condition to learn. 'Medication side-effect' was the only justification she needed.

At their Head of House's orders, she lead Harry back to the Hospital Wing but Madame Pomphrey said she wouldn't bother with intoxication and sent them away. To quote "This is a medical facility, not some sobering-up centre." She even had the gall to call Harry's condition 'non-threatening'!

Non-threatening, my ass. Didn't she realise he was as likely to sleep it off as he was to jump off the Astronomy Tower?

Hermione bit her mental tongue and admonished herself for her language.

Why am I even writing this from her perspective if she's such a stick-in-the-mud about language? I'm glad you asked. See, Harry was too bloody stoned to have any conscious thought worth mentioning.

Remember kids, don't overdose pain-relieving Potions. It might make you fall down the stairs in the most epic way and break your neck.

Fortunately for Harry, Hermione was there to save him. Otherwise, this story would've been very short and not made much sense.

Day eleven.

Harry woke in his bed with no recollection of how he got there in the first place.

He was still bleeding.

His downsides were burning so much he didn't have the will to drag himself out of bed. Why was it always him?

He grabbed for his wand to Summon some painkillers but it wasn't there. Hermione came around and gave him something strange to drink. Now his throat was burning too. Was he finally dying?

"Where's my wand?" he rasped. One needs to have their priorities.

"I have it."

"You have it?"

"The last time you touched it, you turned all the rubies in Gryffindor's Hourglass sparkling pink."

He frowned. "I don't see how that's a problem."

"Well, you were trying to levitate a stream of pumpkin juice from your goblet to mouth like it was some kind of invisible straw and that turned the rubies pink." she explained. "McGonagall said, quote, she better take it away before you Vanish your own bones, end quote, and I thought it'll be easier for you to get it back from me than from her.

Anyway, you're in no shape to stand on your own feet, let alone do any magic." she pushed him to lay back down. "Just try to rest, ok? You're excused from classes anyway."

At least that was good news.

"Thanks, Hermione."

Day twelve.

His downsides were still burning but he was now lucid enough to notice all the other pains. To be honest, he'd rather not be lucid at all.

His muscles were sore and his mouth dry. He guessed lying in the bed all day hadn't done him any good but the way he felt, repeating it was more than likely.

He couldn't sleep anymore but neither did he want to move at all, so he just stared at the ceiling of his four-poster. He could really do with some painkillers right about now.

That's when Hermione came in, carrying a breakfast tray.

"Oooh, not fair." Lavender moaned, walking out of the bathroom. "I wanted to bring Harri breakfast!"

"Well, then you should've done so instead of staring in a mirror all morning." Hermione snapped.

The strangely fully-clothed girl huffed.

"I'm only going to let this go because you look cute together." with that, she stormed out of the dorm.

Hermione sat on the edge of his bed.

"How do you feel?"

"Like I lost to a dragon again."

She raised one eyebrow.

"You never did lose to a dragon."

"Exactly. Worse than ever." he smiled weakly as she shook her head in exasperation.

"How do you feel about treacle tart, then?" she gestured to the tray.

"Is it spiced with painkillers?"

"No, they're here." she wiggled a vial in front of his face.

He reached for it.

"Uh-uh." she pulled it away from his hand. "It's one dose, okay? No more than one dose a day." she handed it to him.

"But what if I need them later?" he argued, then he drank.

Hermione's eyes darkened.

"You do realise they're exactly what put you in this position, right?"

"Really? And here I thought it was having my very genes ripped from my body!" he snapped back.

That stopped her.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" Harry snorted. "Voldemort stole my bloody Y chromosome, that's what!"

His eyes refocused on her and he gaped a little.

"You didn't know." it wasn't a question.

"St Mungo doesn't give medical information to anyone but family and... "

"And I have no family."

She didn't say that she meant 'and the Dursleys wouldn't ask'. It was better left like this.

"I didn't think you knew what chromosomes are." she quipped.

"I don't, not really. Healer Johnson talked about them, though."

"What did she say?"

"Something about instructions in a multi-volume book and how I lost my 'how-to-boy' book and there wasn't a spare."

She seemed to consider it for a bit.

"I didn't think you actually had your gender changed. It is supposed to be impossible, you know."

"Didn't think?" he shot her an incredulous look. "Hermione, I got my bits taken. How does it get any more real?"

"Genes." she said like it was obvious. It wasn't. "Imagine that you lost your arm. It wouldn't make you a one-armed species of human. Or better, you lost magic to a curse. You wouldn't be able to use it but it wouldn't make you a muggle because you weren't born one."

He was still staring at her without understanding.

"Who you are is written in every single one of your cells. You can't just take a gene out because it's not a single thing, you see? For Voldemort to steal your Y chromosome he'd have to take it in millions of copies. That's why I thought it was only an external change."

Harry didn't even pretend to understand what she said. The pain would prevent him from focusing on it even if she repeated a hundred times, so he let it go.

"But it did happen." he pointed out.

She bit her lip.

"At least now I know what to look for: a way to restore chromosomes." not that she thought wizards would use that word in any of their books but she didn't want to discourage him.

Harry laughed to himself, drawing her out of her musings.

"What?" she asked. He kept laughing. "Do I have something on my face?"

"No." he smiled. "I was just thinking it'd be very touching that you want to search the entire Library for me if books weren't your favourite thing ever."

She pushed the food tray into his hands.

"I'd read bad books for you." she whispered with an uncharacteristic grin, very much like the one when Lavender gave her a reason to steal Harry's shirt. It stirred something in him, another one of those new and scary feelings he was getting lately. "Eat up." she returned to her normal, slightly bossy tone. "I have to go to class now"

He stared after her long after she left. If he wasn't currently a girl, he might've thought she was flirting with him.

He laughed at the thought. Hermione? Flirting? With him? Preposterous!