Hi! This is going to be a short story (about 6000 words), divided into 3 parts. This is Part One, where Harry finds true love – or at least decides who it's going to be....

I think this has never (or not very often, I know everything has been done in HP-fanfic) been done before: HP/EM.
Who is EM? Read and find out. And no, don't be afraid, it's no OC or Mary Sue – EM is 100canon.

All characters JKR's, as usual.

Enjoy!

It was 8 o'clock in the evening. All the Gryffindors were hanging around in the common room, some talking, others finishing their homework, a few just lying in the squashy couches around the fireplace, staring into space. Harry was in the middle of a group of Gryffindor boys, all talking lazily and munching sweets.

"... got on quite well with Padma, yeah," Ron said through a mouth full of chocolate, sounding very off-hand about it, "Pretty girl, clever too I heard..". "But we all know who you're really after, aren't we?" sniggered Seamus, who was steadily emptying a big box of cockroach cluster, "do I need to say it out loud?" Ron blushed slightly, but grinned all the same.
"For me it's definitely Cho," Seamus continued, "but I guess I have to wait until it's my turn I guess. Gets around a lot, this girl does!" Dean shifted his position in the armchair closest to the fire. "Well, me and Ginny, we get along really fine," he said, "even Ron has given up his furious stare he wore everytime he saw us together." Ron pretended not to listen and turned to Harry. "You haven't told us anything 'til now. Anything we need to know?" Harry furrowed his brow. "After the Cho disaster, you mean? Well, no, sorry. Hadn't had time since school started, to be honest." "Well, better be quick then, or the good one's will be taken – again", Ron said sarcastically, "You don't want to leave Hogwarts without having had at least one romantic interlude?". Harry thought about that. "I guess not," he murmured. "Well it's time for bed anyway," Seamus sighed, "Good night, everyone!" And with that, the boys slowly picked up their sweets, books and various other articles which were littering the common room floor, and went to bed.

As Harry lay in his comfy four-poster bed this night, he thought about the other boys' talk, their carefree attitude and happiness. 'Am I ruined for life?' he thought, knowing this sounded dreadfully declamatory. 'I am really not at all interested in girls,' he thought, 'Is it weird that all I want are my best friends, Ron, Hermione and Hagrid, and being left alone sometimes?' Turning over he decided to look around more carefully tomorrow. Maybe there was some hidden beauty in the great hall to lift his spirits.

When Harry entered the great hall for breakfast next morning, he remembered his resolution of the previous night. He cast his eyes over the house tables, noticing Cho was still the prettiest girl around, closely followed by Pansy Parkinson, who had a certain myserious aura. He looked over to the Hufflepuff table (wondering if anyone had already noticed his strange behaviour) and scanned the rows of over-15 year-olds. Hannah Abbot was clearly not his taste; blonde pigtails (she always wore them, he mused. What the hell?) and innocent blue eyes. Nina Gleeson, a redhaired Hufflepuff girl with a big mouth, turned her head to Harry, made a grimace at him and left the table, revealing the girl who had been sitting behind her.

The image of the girl hit Harry like an arrow of love: half-closed grey-blue eyes, rather thin, pale lips who were in need of some lip balm, ordinary skin without any traces of make-up (which was a good thing in Harry's book anyway) and frizzy, grey-blonde hair that looked quite unkempt and flat at the back of her head; her nose like a little potato, and clearly off center, which gave her whole face a jumbled look:

Eloise Midgen.