Chapter 10: This Weird British Thing

Professor Ardel welcomed them into the empty classroom, smiling at Pepper's apprehensive face and Harry's determined one. "Shall we get started then?" he asked the two. He had the two of them stand on opposite sides of the room. "Now Pepper, I understand you have natural powers? Professor Dumbledore has told me that you can freeze things?"

"Yes," Pepper said.

"Are you aware of any blocking methods?" Ardel asked.

"No, though strong demons can fight it off. So if I were to use it on Voldemort, depending on how strong he is, he might be able to fight it," Pepper responded.

"Well, why don't you try it on Harry and I to see if we can fight it," the Professor suggested.

Pepper and Harry were already aware Harry couldn't fight it off, though he hadn't known that he was going to be frozen the first two times, so he might show some resistance to it now. Pepper waved her hand nonchalantly at the room and everything moving froze in its place. The two other humans in the room plus all of Professor Ardel's gadgets stopped moving, leaving Pepper free reign of the classroom. Pepper already knew she could freeze things, so was the point of this lesson to develop her powers more? Then why was Harry here?

With another wave of her hand she unfroze the two, not wanting to stand and wait for them to unfreeze, as it could take forever. "There, I froze you," Pepper said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

"Can you unfreeze just Harry and myself?" Professor Ardel asked, wanting to show Pepper this lesson was going to go somewhere. "Or is that a part of your power you have not yet developed?"

"I think I can," Pepper answered. She gestured with her hand and the room once again froze the two guys in the room. She then pointed at Professor Ardel and twitched her finger a bit to try and unfreeze him and it worked. The professor blinked and then looked around, a smile spreading on his face.

"You've done it," he said. "Now can you do it to Harry, too?"

Pepper's finger waved again at Harry and he moved. "Cool," he said, eyeing the still-frozen objects around the room. "This should work well against Voldemort. You could just freeze him, unfreeze all of us, and then we could destroy him!"

"It may not be that easy, especially at this stage in Pepper's life," Professor Ardel said thoughtfully. "I'm sure, Pepper, that there have been times when your powers have not worked for you."

"A few," Pepper answered.

"I am assuming that that is because of all of the changes going on in you," Ardel told her. Pepper felt her face going red. Yes, she already knew that puberty fucked everything up. "Also, we aren't sure of Voldemort's strength. He could just repel these powers. I'm sure they're not as developed as they could be. We should work on that," he said, turning to Pepper. "We could also work on Harry's fighting them, so he's not affected by them at all. That way, when you freeze a roomful of people and try to unfreeze just a select few but you're not sure it will work you always have Harry there by you. It might take too much strength to unfreeze a load of Aurors in one room, so Harry can be fighting by you, or if you get into trouble he can help you."

"So we'll just work on developing my freezing power and Harry's immunity to it?" Pepper asked, raising her eyebrow. "You know, I have other powers too, what about them?"

"Miss Halliwell, we will be doing much more than that while you and Mr. Potter meet with me. We do have a lot to cover if you're after Voldemort to destroy him," the teacher informed her.

Walking out of that room an hour later, Pepper felt exhausted. Professor Ardel had had her freezing and unfreezing left and right and it drained a lot of her energy. Harry had made a bit of progress – the freezing didn't last as long on him – but Professor Ardel said they had time, and a little progress was good.

Harry followed her out of the classroom and down the stone corridor. He, too, looked exhausted. "Great job in there," he said.

"You too," Pepper responded. "I'm so tired, though. I never knew my power could take so much out of me."

"Try being on the receiving end," Harry said. "That is one powerful, erm, power. I'm not even sure why Ardel wants me to be able to fight it. His explanation was beyond me."

"Me too," Pepper laughed. "I don't know the point of doing any of that, my power isn't any stronger, I'm just tireder. Plus my other powers aren't helped any by this nonsense. I want to do something different, something that might defend me, perhaps. Something new to me."

Harry suddenly stopped. "New?" he repeated, grabbing her arm to stop her too. They were in the same position as they were yesterday: him standing so close that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes, which held a playful glint. Her arm felt hot under his hand. "How's this for new?" he said quietly, pressing his mouth to hers.

It was her first kiss. His lips were soft and slightly chapped. He was applying just enough pressure to make it clear that she could back out of the kiss if it wasn't something that she wanted. But she wanted it. Her heart hammered in her chest, her palms flying to his chest as she took a step closer to him. His arms wrapped around her waist as she pushed back into the kiss. She was enjoying the pressure of his mouth and the heat of his body against her

His hands were at her hips and he started to finger the hem of her shirt, testing the boundary of what she wanted. After a moment, she seemed to be okay with it, so he slipped his thumbs up onto the skin of her hips.

There was a loud gasp beside them and they broke apart, Pepper still in a slight daze, smiling up at him. Lavender Brown was standing there, her mouth wide open in shock. "You-you," she stuttered at them. "How dare you!"

Harry removed his arms from around Pepper's waist. "We have to go, Lavender," he said quickly and, grabbing Pepper's hand, ran down the corridor.

Harry and Pepper were laughing when they entered the Gryffindor common room and collapsed on the couch. Hermione and Ron, who were studying at a nearby table, and half of the common room stared at them quizzically. Pepper and Harry did not even notice.

"I feel sorta bad," Pepper said between giggles. "Poor Lavender, she really likes you, Harry. You should hear her talking about you in the dormitory. Harry this and Harry that and Pepper shouldn't go near Harry, he's mine. Quite annoying, really."

"Really," Harry said amusedly as he leaned over and kissed Pepper's cheek. "Maybe it's good I've cleared it up for her then."

"Harry!" they heard Ron exclaim as he came and stood before the two panting figures lying on the couch. "You – " he pointed to Harry, "and you – " he pointed to Pepper, "are kissing?"

"Ron," Hermione laughed, coming over to join the three of them, "are you so thick that you completely ignored what Harry said to you yesterday?"

"What?" said Ron.

"Thickhead," Hermione sighed. "I'm going to get back to my essay, Professor McGonagall wants it by Thursday and I'm not halfway done yet." Hermione went back to her essay, leaving Ron to mumble something under his breath and shake his head.

"You know you fancy her, Ron," Harry muttered to Ron.

Ron's face almost turned the color of his hair. "I do not," he said.

"Sure..." Pepper said. "We can both tell, Ron. Why don't you just go for it and ask her to go to Hogsmeade or something, that seems to be the hot spot around here."

"I do not," Ron repeated and stalked away.

Pepper and Harry sat up on the couch, both wearing expressions very close to smirks. "Hermione should give it a go," Pepper said. "She's more likely to say something then Ron, anyway. Well, I'm going to lie down, maybe do some studying... See you later, Harry." She got up and walked the short spiral staircase to her dorm, a smile spreading across her face. She hoped he was watching her flounce away.

She flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, a sigh escaping her lips. Her eyelids began to close and she suddenly realized how tired she really was.

Pepper's eyes fluttered open as she heard a door bang and her bed curtains ripped back, revealing a fuming Lavender Brown. Standing close by and also looking angry was her best friend Parvati Patil.

"You stole Harry!" Lavender exclaimed. "Haven't I told you to stay away from him? I've been after him since fourth year, and then you come up and take him! Did you make a Love Potion? I bet you did, didn't you?!"

"Lavender," Pepper said calmly, "I didn't do anything of the sort. Harry kissed me first. Why don't you go shout at him?"

Lavender glared at Pepper before flipping her hair over her shoulder and leaving the dormitory, slamming the heavy door behind her. Pepper rolled her eyes. She didn't exactly want Lavender to be mad at her, but she wasn't really devastated either. Pepper wondered if Harry really hadn't had a clue about Lavender's crush on him, after all, she said it had been going on for two years...

The door opened and in walked a frazzled Hermione. She sat heavily on the bed, her books tumbling to the floor. "What's up?" Pepper asked.

"Ron," Hermione said, as if that answered everything.

"What is it now? He hasn't asked you to Hogsmede, has he? That's what Harry and I suggested..."

"No," Hermione chuckled sarcastically. "I wish that was it. He just...he's complaining and whining about the new relationship you and Harry might have. I assured him it's better than Harry and his sister, but he just doesn't want to let his best friend or something...I'm so tired of it!"

"I hope he makes SOME move. I told Harry you're more likely to do it first, and I know it's sort of sexist of me, but I think the guy should make the first move. It just seems more romantic that way, I suppose," Pepper said.

"I want him to do something first, too," Hermione sighed. "But maybe I should say something, at least to stop him from being such a git."

"It seems we've had this conversation before..." said Pepper. "Ron appears to be a very popular topic of conversation."

"Appears so," Hermione agreed. "So, I take it Lavender is mad at you? I could hear her yelling all the way down in the common room, and when she came down there she looked like she was going to go talk to Harry. He looked as if he might run away."

"Yes, she came in and had a go at me and I sent her to Harry, said he kissed me first. I think I'll have to apologise to Harry later," Pepper looked a bit frightened.

"In the way I think you're thinking of?" Hermione inquired, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

"Hermione!" Pepper exclaimed, tossing her pillow at Hermione. "I didn't know you had such a...dirty mind! Shame on you!"

"Well..." Hermione said.

"I think you should go talk to Ron," suggested Pepper. "Or at least give him a push in the right direction. Say something like, 'Harry and Pepper are going to Hogsmede together, so I'm sure they'll want nothing to do with us' – "

"Hey!" Hermione protested. "You won't?"

Pepper shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. But anyway! Say something like that, suggesting you'd like to go with him, and see if that works."

"Now?" Hermione asked nervously. "I don't know if I want to do it now...perhaps later in the week, when he hasn't made me angry," she decided. "Would you like to work on the Potions homework with me? I'm sort of stuck at one point."

"Sure," Pepper said.

After the homework was done, Pepper and Hermione did some talking, some O.W.L.s studying, and then Pepper decided she needed to go apologise to Harry. He was in the common room with Ron, sitting at one of the tables with books open in front of them, faces buried in their notes. Pepper took a chair next to Harry's.

"Heard you got yelled at by Lavender," Pepper said. "Sorry, it was me who sent her to you, I said you kissed me first when she was having a go at me."

"'S'all right," Harry said dully. "I was ready for it anyhow. Though she made it sound like I should have known she fancied me all along."

"Well, Hermione and I are headed off to bed," Pepper announced, glancing behind her at Hermione, giving her a look that said 'talk to Ron!'. "So goodnight..." She stared pointedly at the top of Ron's head.

"'Night," he mumbled before sticking his quill back in his mouth.

Pepper sighed in exasperation. "'Night," she said. As she got up Harry pulled her arm back down and gave her a peck on the cheek.

Hermione and Pepper returned to the dorm after everyone said their goodnights. "You know Pep, you and Harry will make a really cute couple," Hermione pointed out.

"You think so?" Pepper asked, pulling on her pajama top.

"Absolutely," Hermione assured her friend. "You might consider yourself lucky, there are tons of girls besides Lavender after Harry. After all, he is the Boy Who Lived, who defeated the Dark Lord. Not as good looking as Malfoy, perhaps, but still...So, what happened between you and Harry to get Lavender so mad, anyway?"

Pepper's face immediately went red and she glanced at the floor. "Well," she began hesitantly, "After mine and Harry's extra Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson today, he kissed me in the hallway and it got, erm, a tad more intimate and he did this weird thing I suppose is British, he was sort of playing with my shirt. Then Lavender saw us and we ran."

"Um, Pepper," Hermione said, trying not to laugh at her friend's ignorance, and trying not to throw up at Harry's apparent abundance of hormones. "I believe Harry was trying to – how do I put this lightly – feel you up."

"What!" Pepper screeched. "It was the first time we kissed! I can't believe it! Boys are so perverted. Do you think I should go yell at him? Yes, I think I should. Where's his room?"

"Pepper," Hermione warned, "You're not allowed in the boys' dormitories. It's against the rules...though I do think you should have a go at Harry."

"I don't care if it's against the rules, he's a perverted pervert, thinking that I would let him touch my boobs in the hallway during our first kiss! He needs to know he can't just go and do that to me. Is their door labeled or something, like ours?" Pepper asked, determined to go yell at Harry. Pepper realized she wouldn't be the first to yell at Harry today, but she didn't really care.

"It's in the same place ours is, except it's in the boys' hallway," Hermione replied, giving up.

Pepper headed towards the door before remembering to ask something else. "Hermione, another thing," she said, turning once again to face Hermione, "What's Harry's middle name?"

"It's James," Hermione answered. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because when you're really mad at someone you have to use their full names," Pepper replied matter-of-factly. She rushed out the door, down the stairs and into the common room. As she'd thought, Harry and Ron weren't there. She received a few startled cries from the boys in the common room as they watched her go up the stairs to their dormitories, but she didn't pay any attention to them.

Six doors down the hallway she knocked to make sure it was, in fact, Harry's dorm room. "Who is it?" she heard Harry's voice from inside. With that cleared up, she burst in the door, ready to yell.

Shouts of "Hey!" echoed about the room as she saw the heads of four boys stare in her direction. They were all sitting on the edge of their four-poster beds, apparently talking, before Pepper had burst in. Her eyes landed on Harry, and she opened her mouth to start reprimanding him.

"Harry James Potter!" she screamed. "You do NOT try to grope a girl in the middle of the corridor! We only just figured out we liked each other twelve hours ago! You may be horny but that does NOT mean you can be so disrespectful to me! Go find someone else who's HORNY and screw THEM! Anyone could've walked by and SEEN US! You could've gotten me DETENTION! So just do me a favor and LEAVE ME ALONE!" Pepper finished her yelling lecture and stood there for a few seconds, finding Harry's face was completely red and the other three boys were staring, shocked and amused.

Pepper fumed out of the room, back through the common room and into her dorm once again. She saw Lavender and Parvati's silhouettes in their beds so she drew back her own curtains and lay down on her bed. Hermione's head poked between the closed curtains and Pepper sat up so Hermione could come in. Hermione sat down and looked expectant before her eyes widened with insight.

"Pepper," she hissed. "Do you realise how see through your pajamas are?"

"Shit," Pepper said, hitting the back of her head on her headboard. "But they'd have to be, wouldn't they, because I can't do anything right! That's probably what the boys were staring at. Oh, good show, Pepper. Thank you so much, Aunt Paige, for the revealing clothing."

"Anyway," Hermione pushed, changing the subject, "how'd it go?"

"Brilliant, I suppose," Pepper said, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I told Harry off for being a horny pervert and – "

"Really?" Hermione squealed, cutting Pepper off. "A horny pervert? I never thought that description fit Harry. Ron, perhaps, but not Harry. Oh, I'm sorry, continue."

"And he turned red, and I guess everyone saw through my pajamas...curse my aunt and her kinky going away presents."

Hermione began to giggle and it caught on to Pepper. "Well," Hermione gasped, "Now they'll all be horny perverts." The two girls giggled a bit more before calming down. After saying goodnight to each other, they went to sleep, ready for lessons the next day.

At breakfast on Monday, Pepper immersed herself in a conversation with Hermione, so Harry wouldn't have a chance to say two words to Pepper. Pepper walked quickly to Double Potions, far ahead from Harry, and sat next to Hermione when they arrived in the classroom. Harry took the table behind them, Ron next to him. As he was leaning forward to talk to Pepper, Lavender walked by them, stopping in front of Pepper and Harry, who was right next to her head.

"Oh, wow," Lavender said scathingly, "You two are actually in a room without your tongues down each other's throats."

Pepper rolled her eyes at Lavender. "Get over it," she told the girl. "I'm sure you can find someone else better, anyways." With that, Pepper turned her attention towards Hermione, engaging her friend in another conversation.

Before Harry could apologise to Pepper, Snape walked in and began the lesson.

In History of Magic, Harry took a seat next to Pepper right before Professor Binns started talking, so she couldn't move. She busied herself with taking notes on the history of house elves while Harry kept trying to get her attention. After ten minutes of agitation, Pepper finally glared in Harry's direction. "What?" she hissed softly.

"You didn't mind it when we were kissing," he answered in a whisper.

Embarrassed and angry, Pepper went back to taking notes. She was afraid he'd notice that she didn't notice it when he was actually doing it. At that moment she just wanted to get away from Harry. She was surprised that no one had said anything to her about her show in the boys' dormitory last night.

"Pepper, I'm sorry," Harry apologised quietly. "I shouldn't have done that, even though you didn't object...I'm sorry. I'll take it slower, I swear. I'm really sorry."

Pepper wasn't sure if she should forgive him or not. He did say he'd take it slower and she did know boys were full of hormones and pervertedness. Plus, she did like Harry, he was nice and sweet and friendly and he hadn't fought with her yet.

"Oh fine," Pepper said, giving in to Harry.

Harry smiled. "I just hate it when I'm not talking to my friends, and that seems to be happening lately."

"Yea, sure, whatever," Pepper answered, trying to suppress a smile at Harry's excuses. "Just don't let that happen again – for a while, anyway." The smile she had been trying to smother appeared on her lips, she was happy she and Harry were alright again, she didn't want to have another period of someone ignoring someone else. She had been through that so she knew what Harry felt like, being ignored by her. Besides, she wanted to talk to him. Not to mention kiss him.