Author's note: Before you read this story, if you even read this note, I would like the audience to know that this was rather an important piece of writing to me because in every writing I do their is some part of it based on me or how I wish to be. Please, Read, review, and enjoy it first and foremost.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but I do own my own life and I choose to write.
Chapter Three: The Wrong Person
Para sat staring blankly through the frosting window. It seemed so wrong for her to be in love with Harry. She didn't want to be, and honestly was enormously relieved she wouldn't be able to put a face to the Boy-Who-Had- Stolen-Her-Heart. She knew it was only a matter of time before she would break down crying. The friend who had come with her to visit their old pal whose family had moved to London had gone and done her shopping while Para had waited in the Leaky Cauldron. They had piled their belongings high by the door so that Para could spend as much time with Harry as possible before either of them had to leave. Harry never showed.
The ice cream shop was just opening but the inside was so cold already from the need to keep the dessert throughout the night that the employees needed to scrape the frost off the windows. The customers couldn't see inside otherwise. Para had slowly risen from her table in the smoky pub at 10:56 and moved to the ever-so-different table outside the creamery, but she has reseated herself in an exponentially worse mood at 11:02. Time seemed to stop and then jump a few minutes ahead every once in a while to keep up. Para would look down at the tabletop, and then lift her head and be staring at a completely different group of people; the scene just jumped that quickly.
On her oh-so-morbid walk from table to table, her friend had spotted her and asked if she had gotten to talk to her "Harry-kins". Her friend gave a bit of a giggle at her own joke and all of the sudden frowned at the expression on Para face.
"What the blazes is eating you? He did come, didn't he?"
Para almost broke down at these words, but couldn't bring herself to tell the lass how pathetic and stupid she had been to expect a 15 year old boy to not be scared away by a love letter a good day before meeting someone for the FIRST time. So she settled with a rather good sized lie. "He didn't really like me all that much. We just left it at that."
"Oh poor babe, go have a mint cone and I'll grab your books and whatnot. You got your list?"
Para fished the crumpled paper out of her pocket, not realizing another bit of parchment fell out in the process, and began to scribble down a few specifics of stuff she wanted. She handed it over roughly and scuffled away. Her friend, still frowning, walked into the Quidditch gear shop.
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Lila stormed quickly out of Flourrish and Blott's with as much grace as she could muster in the heat of the moment. This was just ridiculous!
"You bloody liar!!" Lila skidded to a stop on the opposite end of the patio table Para had molded her self into, throwing the books into Para's view as she stared. "You have no spine what-so-ever. How could you sit there and tell me you had given up when you never even tried? What did you do, run out as soon as your saw him in the door frame?"
Para still hadn't looked up; she had only made the move to pick up her new 'all you need to know about Quidditch' book. Lila stopped her short, pounding her fist to back cover of the text, halting any movement. "Do you know who just asked me if I was you? Do you know who has no idea what's happened to the person who said she would be here? Harry Potter, the boy you, if you won't say it, I will, LOVE." Lila whispered the last part, harshly bending towards Para, who looked up with the most innocent, devastated expression on her blotchy red face.
Lila pushed herself upright again and gave a hearty laugh. Para realized at that very moment she had most definitely brought the wrong friend along on this very important day. Para, flustered and beginning to feel her face grow hotter than she ever felt possible, shot out of her chair and staggered into the creamery for that mint cone. All she could think was that she would bet 50 galleons that her face was redder than Ron Weasley's hair, and Para began to cry.
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"Great," Harry breathed as pathetically as he felt, "not only have I screwed everything up today, but I've given people all the more reason to think I'm crazy." He stepped forward and almost slipped on a scrap of trash someone had thrown to the cobblestone, but caught himself. "Thank you for not letting that happen on top of all this."
Harry walked across the street to the Quidditch shop, knowing it was the single place that could bring his spirits back up before he had to break into a school supplies shopping spree. Indeed, soon after Harry's fifth school year started, he forgot almost all about Para except for the occasional finding of her last letter at the bottom of his trunk, but he could never bring himself to actually throw the parchment away.