Chapter Six: Feel Like Flying

"You WHAT?" Ron yelled, standing straight up off the bed.

"I . . . I don't know," Harry said, standing up as well and going over to the window, "I just know that . . . there's a different feeling when I look at her."

"She's a girl, Harry," Ron said, "There's supposed to be that feeling. Otherwise . . . you know."

Harry shot him another look. "But, it's not like when I look at someone like Lavender. Or Hermione. Or even Cho!" He had forgotten about the Ravenclaw sixth year he had had a crush on for some time now. He had always thought she was the prettiest girl on the face of the earth. Now . . . He tried hard to keep a picture of Cho in his mind, but Jessica's face, laughing at him at breakfast, the look in her eyes when she was with Sirius, the way she smiled at him . . . they all kept trying to shove their way into his mind. He sat down against the wall, staring out of the window at the Quidditch pitch he'd just been at a few hours ago, flying . . . Flying wasn't riding around on some broomstick, diving and feinting. Flying was looking into her eyes and having her look back. Flying was smiling at her and having her smile back. Flying was . . . Flying was being anywhere near her, or thinking about her. He never felt as though he was flying when he thought about Cho.

"Ron, what am I going to do?" he moaned, his head falling into his hands.

Ron leaned against the wall across from him. "Let's look at this rationally."

Harry's head came up off his hands to send a sarcastic look at Ron. "Now you sound like Percy," he said.

"I resent that. Do you want me to help you or not?"

"Yes."

"Then stomp on it and listen. You're the great, famous Harry Potter, right?"

"Right."

"That was rhetorical and I said stomp on it! Anyway, she's this new girl who knows nothing about Hogwarts. She's your godfather's niece. She's also the first beautiful girl you meet in a brand new year. You two are the only Gryffindors here. Naturally, a conversation blossoms. Let's face it. You're both very attractive people . . ."

"Gee, Ron, I didn't know you cared," Harry said sarcastically.

"Shut your pumpkin pasty hole," Ron said, getting really peeved, "As I was saying, you start to look at each other a little differently. Sometimes, that can be mistaken for real-life chemistry, when really all it is, is an . . ."

"Infatuation. Thanks, Ron. An opinion from the 'romance king.' Thanks," Harry said, standing up and going back over to sit on his bed and stare at his Firebolt.

"I didn't really come up here to make you feel better," Ron said, "I came up here to tell you to get your arse downstairs. A certain best friend and a certain raven-haired beauty are in the common room, worried about you."

Harry's head snapped to Ron with a start. "Jess . . . Jessica's worried about me?"

"Ah, the old hearing problem. You really oughta get that checked, mate . . ."

"I can't see her now!" Harry exclaimed, ignoring Ron completely, "My hair's a mess, I smell like dormitory . . . I can't go see her now!"

Ron grabbed Harry's shoulders and wheeled him around to face him. "Run a comb through your hair and put on some cologne. If she likes you, mate, she liked you before, when you smelled like dormitory and your hair was a mess."

Harry took a deep breath. Ron was right. He couldn't worry about that now. He still had a whole year to go.

He sprayed himself with cologne ("Ugh! What is that, Parisian Stink?" from Ron), wiped some of it off, then tried, in vain, to get his hair to lie down. Finally, he gave up.

"I look like a geek," he said, polishing his glasses. Maybe he could convince the Dursley's to let him get contacts . . . He laughed out loud at that one.

"You are a geek. C'mon, we've been up here forever, they'll wonder . . ."

"Is that all you think about?" Harry asked as he hurried down the stairs.

"One track mind, mate," Ron said, closing the door behind him.



"Where are the boys?" Hermione asked, slumping down on the couch next to Jessica, who was involved in a game of Exploding Snap with Fred. A card just happened to explode just as Hermione sat down, causing her to jump . . . and Fred's face to be covered in ashes.

Hermione giggled. "You look like Seamus," she said through her hysterics. Even Jessica, who had never seen Seamus Finnigan, started laughing with Fred's contagious guffaws. Just then, Ron and Harry appeared on the stairs. Ron was looking rather annoyed, and Harry was looking a little nervous.

"Great, now we can get down to dinner," said Hermione. She led the way with Ron, who purposefully walked a little faster than Harry. Jessica walked beside him as he fell back.

"Why did you disappear after . . . Why did you disappear?" she asked him, not wanting to mention the flight just yet. She didn't know what he thought of it. She didn't even know what she thought of it herself.

"I wanted to think for a little while," he said.

They were silent for the rest of the walk down to the Great Hall. Harry kept telling himself that it was just an infatuation, and Jessica kept telling herself that she hardly knew him. By the time they reached the Great Hall, neither one of them had succeeded in convincing themselves. Indeed, all they had succeeded in was confusing themselves. Jessica sat next to Hermione as usual, and Harry sat next to Ron. They avoided each other's eyes.

"How d'you think classes will be this year?" Ron asked, helping himself to a second portion of pineapple upside-down cake.

"Really, Ron, dessert before the meal?" Hermione said, tearing into a piece of chicken.

"It's here isn't it?" he replied.

"That cake isn't very good for your teeth . . ." she began.

"You're just saying that 'cause your parents are dentists," he retorted.

Hermione looked rather irritated at this last remark, but said nothing further on the matter. Harry and Jessica's silence only made the tense atmosphere worse.

"Have some of this cobbler, Harry," said Hermione later on.

"Oh, she scolds me, but offers sweets to him," Ron said irately, chomping down on a carrot stick to please a dagger-gazing Hermione.

Hermione ignored Ron, as most people did at this point, and turned back to Harry. "Please, Harry? You haven't eaten anything."

Harry took a piece of cobbler from the tray in front of him and forced it down, swallowing gulps of pumpkin juice afterwards. Jessica was eating slowly and silently.

"Honestly, what is it with these two?" Hermione asked. Her question was quickly followed by a look from Ron. She immediately swallowed any other questions she had on the matter. Instead she turned to Jessica.

"How are your classes?" she asked, not expecting much of an answer.

"Just fine," Jessica replied cheerily. Almost too cheerily, thought Hermione.

"Which subject are you enjoying most?"

"Well, I really like Charms, though I'm not much good at it, but I think that Potions is my favorite."

Her statement was received by a chortle into his pumpkin juice from Ron (A/N: He seems to laugh into his drinks a lot, doesn't he? Sorry, this is the only A/N from me. Hopefully ever.), a snort from Hermione, and the first facial response the group had gotten from Harry all night: a grimace.

"What?" she asked, looking at all the shocked faces, "What's wrong with that?"

Ron was the first to respond to that. "'Cause Snape's an ugly git, that's what's wrong with it!"

Jessica laughed. "I know Snape's an ugly git. That doesn't make Potions any less interesting. When you've got Dumbledore on your side and a textbook by your side, you can pretty much tune out everything else he says." She glanced at Harry with what looked like a smile. Harry's face moved again for the second time at dinner. He smiled, too.

"Maybe Snape just likes Jessica," Hermione thought out loud. The other three laughed, and were soon joined by Hermione herself. They all knew about Snape's despise of Sirius.

"Actually," Jessica said, the atmosphere much lighter now than earlier, "I think he hates me even more than he hates Harry. See, he actually told me he hates me."

The rest of the meal was better than the earlier part. Then, it had to end.

"Please return to your dormitories," Dumbledore said, as there were enough students there to direct. The thirty or forty students began to trickle out of the Great Hall, Jessica, Harry, Hermione, and Ron among them. They went back to the common room and played a few rounds of Exploding Snap. Jessica, to Hermione and Harry's dismay, beat Ron at chess ("Beginner's luck," he proclaimed it. The others laughed.), and Neville actually asked Jessica if she'd walk around the grounds with him, even though it was against the rules (it would have been a no anyway, Jessica wasn't interested in Neville that way.). They laughed and had a good time until Harry couldn't stand watching Jessica anymore. He got up and went to bed, declaring that he was tired. Ron soon followed, leaving Jessica and Hermione to talk by themselves.

"Hermione," Jessica said, pulling her feet up on the couch, "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure," she said, turning to face her friend. "What is it?"

"What do you think of Harry?"

Hermione looked taken aback. She thought for a moment then said, "Well, he's really good at Quidditch, and . . ."

"No, I mean, what do you *think* of him?"

Hermione got the message. "Jessica," she asked cautiously, "Do you have feelings for Harry?"

Jessica bit her lip and averted her eyes. Hermione sat completely up on the couch.

"Oh, my," she said, "This requires a major conversation."

"I don't know what I think, to tell you the truth," Jessica said mournfully, "I wish I did, I really do. But, it's just, when he took me flying, that feeling I got in the pit of my stomach? I get it every time I look at him, like I'm going to vomit and explode with nervousness and excitement all at the same time. Every time I look at him, I feel like I'm flying. You know what I mean?"

Hermione didn't say anything. She thought she knew what Jessica meant. Lately, she'd been feeling the same way about someone else . . .

"Jessica, do you love Harry?"

Jessica bit her lip again. "I don't know!" she wailed, burying her face in her arms.



Upstairs in the boys' dormitory, Ron was trying to get Harry to talk to him.

"Harry, look, if you don't want to talk about this, fine, but you're going to be haunted by this feeling the rest of the year if you don't work it out now." Ron knew a little something about being haunted by unspoken feelings. By God, yes, he did.

Harry lay on his bed in his pajamas, staring at the ceiling, which had become, in his mind, a photo album of every moment he spent with Jessica. He didn't know. Maybe this would pass in time. He didn't want to go spouting sonnets to her if he was going to be back to feeling like she was just a friend the next day. Maybe he was dragging this out of proportion. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore Ron's incessant nagging. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep.