Welcome to the Jungle

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or Glee. All recognisable characters, content, or locations belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.

Part One: Fifteen

Chapter Eight: I Want To Hold Your Hand

They gather on the school's front lawn the following morning, Harry, Puck, Finn, Matt, Mike, Quinn, Santana, and Brittany. They've each just come from football and cheerleading training, respectively, shower damp and muscles sore, and occupied mostly by the breakfast muffins Harry's mother had taken to providing for them. They're orange and poppyseed this morning, and they're demolished as quickly as their triple chocolate-chip counterparts from two days prior.

"God, these are so good," Matt groans, "Your mom's so awesome, dude."

"I'll pass on the compliment," Harry answers, tone droll, and washes down the last of his (second) breakfast with the bottle of orange juice he'd purchased from a vending machine, "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

"Does she make them every morning?" Santana wonders.

"I wish," Harry laughs, "She makes them the night before, and only when she knows Kate and I have training the next morning. Otherwise, we have to fend for ourselves."

Santana shrugs. "More than my mom will ever do."

Santana's mother, Carmen Lopez, is a surgeon. She's also a workaholic, which essentially means she's rarely home. Her father, Jose, also a workaholic, is a lawyer based out of Dayton. As such, Santana's not particularly close to either of them, and although the Latina puts up a tough front, Harry's fairly certain it leaves her pretty lonely at home. It's why she spends so much time at Quinn or Brittany's, and it's also why Puck's mom, Deborah, has more or less adopted Santana as her own.

"I'm sorry, Santana," Harry says.

She shrugs. "What can you do about it, you know? It is what it is."

"Right," Harry acknowledges, and he wishes he could do something.

As the others talk around them, he and Santana sit in an easy, companionable silence, content to listen, and to observe. Brittany's babbling about her cat, Lord Tubbington, to Quinn, who has taken to playing with the former's hair. Matt and Mike are talking about the training session they have that afternoon, to make up for the one Coach Tanaka had cancelled the day before, and Finn interjects with his displeasure regarding the issue. Puck, meanwhile, entertains himself with the grass beneath them, pulling out the manicured blades and shredding them to a whole lot of nothing.

"What do you think, dude?" Mike asks Harry.

"I think it's throwing me off," Harry answers, "Ron and I had to switch shifts this week, and it was a pain in the ass. This morning, I started packing my work uniform before I remembered I don't actually have work today."

He's not exactly sure why Coaches Hooch and Tanaka had switched around their Wednesday and Thursday afternoon training sessions, and nor does Harry particularly care about the reason behind it. He's just ready for his schedule to return to normal, and he's also dreading the pain he'll feel tomorrow morning. There is, after all, a reason why they don't have two training sessions a day.

Quinn offers him a laughing grin. "You'll live, I think."

"I appreciate your sympathy, Q," Harry answers. He tickles her side, she squirms away with a laugh, and next to Puck, Finn frowns. Harry's stomach churns with nerves, and he wonders how to go about asking Quinn out.

Somehow, his eighth grade 'relationship' with Marie Bernard had not prepared him for this. Mostly because it wasn't a relationship as much as it was holding hands and occasionally fooling around whenever they got the chance, but also because he'd never actually asked her out. They'd wound up in a cupboard during a round of the cliched 'Seven Minutes in heaven', and they'd just never stopped. But then he learned she and her parents were moving back to Provence, in France, and his own parents dropped the bomb that they were moving to Ohio, and things just fizzled out from there. It wasn't love, and he didn't particularly miss her, but he almost wished they'd taken things a little more seriously. Perhaps if they had, he'd be a little bit more certain of how to go about asking a girl on a date.

Brought from his reverie as the school bell blares across the grounds, Harry gets to his feet, helps the girls to their own, and then walks with Quinn and Mike to English. Hermione joins them, clad in Krum's letterman jacket, and starts up an animated conversation with Mike about the school's academic decathlon team. It segues into discussion regarding the debating team Mike, Hermione, and Harry are all members of, and all the while, Quinn observes them in silence. As she does, Harry feels horribly self-conscious, entirely too aware of her scrutiny, and it seems like an age before they reach their classroom.

"Will you sit with us?" Mike asks Hermione. "You can help me come up with questions for next week's meeting of the Brain Trust."

Hermione palms his face. "You can do that yourself, Chang."

Nevertheless, she sits beside Mike, in front of Harry and Quinn. they spend the entire class challenging each other with increasingly difficult questions that range from Pop Culture, to Science, to Literature, Politics, History, and everything in between. They only get away with it because they have a substitute teacher that morning, and as much as Harry is tempted to sit and watch and marvel over just how impossibly well-rounded and intelligent his two friends are, he instead produces his laptop from his backpack, and turns his attention to his essay regarding the social issues prevalent in 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. It's due in a week, and although Harry is mostly finished, he still hasn't written a conclusion, and neither has he started a final edit. Beside him, Quinn follows suit, and their English class passes in a haze of writing, rewriting, and spell-checking.

After homeroom, it's a productive 45 minutes in which he completes his essay, but it's still a relief when it's over.

-!- -#-

By some miracle, Harry musters up his courage by the time he reaches Biology. He's sure it's Puck's fault, because the asshole has called into question his 'badassness', among other things, but that's neither here nor there, because he also gets his chance to ask Quinn out.

As has become usual as of late, she sits beside him, and Harry slides over a folded note he'd prepared during Geometry. It's cliched and corny, but the sight of his 'Would you like to go on a date with me? Check yes or no:' note makes Quinn laugh and smile, and Harry's heart pounds as she pens her response.

The next few moments, as she folds the note and slides it back to him, seem to last an eternity. His heart pounds in his chest, he's sure his about to throw up, and it doesn't feel like he's getting enough oxygen to his lungs and/or brain. The anticipation will surely kill him.

Their teacher hasn't yet arrived, so Harry unfurls it quickly, and he can't suppress his megawatt grin if he tried.

With one of her scented gel pens, Quinn's left a tick in the box he'd drawn beside his ''YES', and he is sure his day can't get any better than this.

He clears his throat, meets Quinn's gaze, and asks, "How does Saturday evening sound?"

Quinn, who's cheeks are flushed an endearing shade of pink, bites her bottom lip. "It sounds great. I, ah, can't wait."

Harry palmed the back of his neck, and he could feel his ears burning. "Yeah, me too."

-!- -#-

Author's Note: Harry, Quinn, and co. are in an Advanced English class. I don't know how obvious I made that, but that's why they're studying 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. I, personally, never studied it. In year 10, they gave us the option to study Animal Farm and Romeo and Juliet, or To Kill A Mockingbird and Macbeth, and I chose the former. A little author's trivia for you. Also, do American schools still do that whole Pledge of Allegiance thing? Google says yes, but I figured I'd ask my readers. Because, you know, enquiring Australians want to know…

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope you've enjoyed. Leave a review? Until next time, -t.