Chapter 3
Daphne Greengrass was furious.
She couldn't believe what her eyes had seen outside- Harry and that Gryffindork Know-it-all sitting all too cosily and watching... what? Some lovers' scenery? Reliving a date? Maybe they were just cuddling.
That would be terrible.
She huffed herself straight into the dungeons, and onto the bed.
Who the hell did that little mudblood think she was? Moving in on Harry- it wasn't fooling anyone. They could all tell she was working an angle. She would probably seduce him and then put him on a bloody altar- a sacrifice to appease the Gryffindorks.
The thought of Harry bound and naked and helpless on an altar made her heart constrict.
Why couldn't Harry see through that wench?
Didn't he see the way it was always Daphne who was there for him?
She always said goodnight, made sure he was fed, told the houselves to make sure he had extra blankets... They laughed a lot together. Had a good time. Went out to Hogsmead together.
Ugh! She should have taken Runes and Arithmancy! That way that Gryffindor chit wouldn't have gotten her claws into him!
The truth was that ever since Daphne had figured out that 'sex' was more than just a word, she'd been in love with Harry.
She'd been crushing on him since before that.
Gah! She thought as she tried to smother herself in her pillow. It was all his fault! Always showing up like some knight in shining armour... listening to her prattle with this faint smile on his lips... acting like she fucking mattered!
This was monumentally unfair.
First quidditch, now Harry.
Ever since he'd fought off Longbottom and his cronies when they'd cornered Millie and herself back in first year, she'd adored him.
Adored him like a lost traveller adored a lantern... like a lily appreciated the moonlight... like a werewolf appreciated a fresh steak... like...
Oh. Dear. Merlin.
She sounded like one of Urquhart and Vainey's lame love songs!
A really lame one.
Ugh! If only he didn't insist on walking around the dungeons barely clothed! She knew she wasn't the only one to look at that tanned, toned expanse he called a chest when he came out to get Draco's coffee in the mornings.
The tatoos just added that bad boy edge...
Merlin! This was so unfair! Granger was getting what Daphne wanted. And she was a bloody Gryffindor!
"Daphne?" Millicent's voice came through the door.
"I'm in here Millie."
The door to her room cracked to reveal Millie- one look at her and Millie called her personal house elf to go and get some bloody chocolate.
"What's wrong?" Millie asked after sending the elf off with some coins.
"That hag- Granger- is dating Harry!" Daphne cried.
"... Impossible. It would be totally unfair."
"Yeah well, they were looking pretty fucking cosy when I went for a smoke after class!"
"No. Nu-uh. I absolutely refuse to believe that my Harry is dating that harpy!"
There was a moment of silence before.
"Your Harry?" Daphne asked in disbelief.
"Yes- my Harry. After all, he did save me, and I have been looking after him ever since. It's only natural that we end up together..."
"Excuse me you... you... Gollem! I was saved by him and I've been taking care of him all these years! I'm the natural choice!"
"No you haven't! I have!"
"I saw him first! He's mine!"
"Like hell he is!"
"Ladies- ladies! What is all of this uneducated shouting about!" Pansy Parkinson asked, hands on her hips as she stood in the door to Daphne's room.
"She's trying to steal my boyfriend!" They both shouted, pointing at each other.
"Uh huh..." Pansy gave them both a long hard look. "Would this 'boyfriend' by any chance be one Harry Potter?"
The blushes on their faces must have given them away, because Pansy rolled her eyes at them. "Well, well. Funny coincidence- guess what I just got a memo about? No guesses? None? Fine, I'll tell you. The HWA is having a special meeting tonight. And the first thing on the agenda is Harry Hunting."
"Really?" Daphne asked, grabbing at the beige handmade paper that constituted the agenda for that evening's meeting.
"Yes. And apparently they're bringing in Miss Granger to... explain this afternoon's little scene..."
"Good... I can put her in a headlock again..." Millie growled.
Pansy immediately squirted her with water from a little green bottle.
At the two other girls' dumbfounded looks, she shrugged.
"I'm exploring behaviour modification methods to see whether it doesn't make the Firsties more trainable... So beware my squirter bottle!"
"Riiiight... We'll, uhm, do that Pansy..." Daphne said, slowly backing away from the other blonde.
"Good- here, have a chocolate." She smiled, holding out the gold foil wrapped treat.
"Ooh! Don't mind if I do..."
HP-BaB-HP
Dinner was... awkward.
For some reason Pansy was squirting people with water and/or giving them little chocolates (Harry didn't want to know, he honestly didn't), Tracey was busily writing something on hand made paper with little flowers in it- and then borrowing Pansy's spray bottle to spray a little of the violet scented water on the paper.
But it was Millie and Daphne that were worrying him.
It wasn't that they hadn't piled his plate higher than Big-freaking Ben or that they hadn't both been fussing over him as usual...
It was the fact that they seemed to be doing it with an edge of- dare he say- competitiveness? They kept scowling at each other and elbowing each other away from him.
Maybe he smelled?
A quick sniff revealed that there was a faint hint of perspiration there, but it was blissfully neutralized by Lockheart's Pit Lotion- in Ocean Fresh scent.
Okay.
He didn't smell bad.
Another quick look at the female portion of the Slytherin table revealed that something was definitely up with it. They were all either bent over the notes that Tracey seemed to have been handing out during dinner.
Of course, she'd been handing them out to almost the entirety of the school's female population... and it did seem that they were all a little... edgy.
What the hell was going on here?
And then there was the irritating giggle that seemed to be permeating the Firstie girls... What in the name of Merlin's old, saggy balls was going on here? It was putting him on edge.
"It's an HWA meeting." Draco said in hushed tones over the table as Daphne and Millie started arguing about who was going to study with him in the library. Maybe they were mad at each other? Would he have to take turns studying with them now- or would they make up?
Harry raised his brows as Draco beckoned him closer. "I'm not kidding- I saw the invites."
"No way- that's just an old Hogwarts legend. No way we have a 'Hogwarts Women's Association'." Blaise put his two cents in it.
"No, no- I saw the invitations... with my own eyes in Pansy's bag when she was squirting some Firsties..."
"Yeah- what's up with that man?" Teddy asked, eying Pansy warily.
"Merlin alone knows." Draco rolled his eyes. "But that's not the point!"
"What are we talking about?" Urquhart said as he slid closer.
"Who are we pointing at? Because we had a false start today... Thought we could take on a Hufflepuff but Sprout ended up seeing us..." Vainey nodded as he joined the little male huddle.
"We're talking about the HWA!" Draco said.
"... Old wives' tale." Urquhart dismissed.
"Yeah. That many babes in one room? We'd have sniffed them out by now." Vainey agreed.
"Apparently Draco saw the invites in Pansy's bag..." Teddy pointed out.
"No way. That's just too scary a thought." Adrian Pucey pointed out.
"Yeah, you want us to believe... what? That all our girlfriends belong to some secret society that is capable of bringing us all to our knees by withholding sex or something?" Warrington guffawed as he elbowed Montague.
"Yeah right. Later losers." Montague snorted as he and Warrington got up and headed for the dungeons.
Harry glared after them, his hands in fists beneath the table to keep him from smashing their stupid faces in.
"Ugh! Now that the rabble has gone... I saw it! It's real!" Draco exclaimed.
"That would explain Tracey's weird behaviour I guess..." When the rest of them turned quizzical gazes on Blaise he merely shrugged. "Well, they'd need agendas for their meetings wouldn't they? And Mum's assistant is always scribbling away at agendas and memos for her perfume business..."
"That would make sense I guess..." Teddy said, with a sideling glance at Tracey.
"That is a really... scary thought." Urquhart said, also eyeing the girls strangely.
"I know, right? But wait- how would that work? What about House loyalty?" Vaisey asked.
"Well... it's never really been the girls that have harped on about that... they seem to date indescriminately amongst the other three houses..." Teddy said, thoughtfully.
"Psh. Well... well... if they can do it then so can we!" Draco decided.
All the guys stared at him in disbelief and he deflated.
"Yeah, yeah. I know. We have too much testosterone for that to work."
Harry just grinned at him and gave him a solid pat on the back.
HP-BaB-HP
Hermione Granger was in trouble.
So much trouble.
She'd been abducted in the middle of the Hogwarts halls! She'd been squashed in between Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Ginny Weasley and Katie Bell... Were they okay? Had this fiend gotten them too?
The point was, she'd been walking up towards her dorm in relative peace when suddengy a bag had been shoved over her head, she'd been body bound and thrown over someone's shoulder.
Wasn't it a bit early in the year to be getting kidnapped?
After all, they'd all pretty much gotten into a comfortable rhythm: start the year, run around trying to figure out what Voldemort (or their DADA teacher... or both, if you counted Quirrel) was up to this time around, foil the insidious plan, win the house cup and then go off for the summer holls.
This was not in keeping with that pattern.
Which was a Bad Thing.
Whenever a routine got changed, it meant something had gone wrong.
Hadn't they foiled the whole Ministry-Prophecy scheme well enough? Had they kidnapped her to use as leverage so Neville would tell them the prophecy?
Would Harry be able to save her again?
Not to do the other boys in her life injustice, but it always ended up being Harry who would save all their sorry asses... And she knew that he always went where angels dared not tread to keep her safe. Somewhere along the way, they'd ended up as more than the last two kids to get chased out of the library.
They'd ended up as friends.
And Harry looked after his friends.
That little bit of certainty caused a warmth to bloom in her chest... Pity it couldn't take away the panic that was pretty damn close to surfacing any minute now...
She was a researcher, not some beefcake fighter! Even in computer games she played the brainy, back of the battlefield type of characters.
Boy, for someone who doesn't fight you sure do end up fighting a lot. A nasty little voice in the back of her head snarked at her.
It sounded suspiciously like Professor Snape.
Shut it, voice! I am a member of Green Peace! I. am. Peaceful. Now shut up before I hex you into oblivion!
Oh, yes. Definitely not a violent person. The voice sniggered.
Before Hermione could continue conversing with her inner Snape, the bag was ripped off of her head and she was thrown into a chair.
Hermione blinked.
The rest of the female population of Hogwarts blinked back at her.
"Ahem. Right. Thank you Millicent." Katie Bell said as she headed for the chair sat at the front of the room, next to where a Slytherin girl (Tracey? Stacey? Tratey?) was busy unpacking a scroll and several bottles of ink and correspondingly coloured quills.
"Hear ye, Hear ye! This, the thirty-thousand-two-hundred-twenty-six-and-a-quartert-th, I have got the right number right, Tracey? Yes? Okay, ahem. This meeting is now in session- yes, I know I should technically say it again but, look, you can just write it in can't you? Bloody hell! It's an HWA meeting not a bloody government one... Please don't make me say it again?" Katie was practically begging Tracey by now, who finally gave in and didn't make her repeat it despite her eye roll.
Hermione frowned at this scene.
This was... the most comfortable trouble she'd ever ended up in. The chair she was sat in was plain and wooden, but the rest of the room was singularly luxurious.
Everything was covered in velvet and silk and glitter.
Hell, the rest of the girls were all lounging about on couches and chaise lounges and other furniture types that she couldn't even begin to pronounce. And despite the fact that there was some pink, the rest of the colours tended to be more house neutral- like purples and creams.
And all the girls were dressed to the tees, in pretty cocktail dresses that would have rendered the male portion of the population speechless.
"Right. This meeting of the Hogwarts Women's Association is now in session!"
And with that the entire room turned to stare at Hermione Granger.
A/N: Uh, oh Hermione, what have you gotten yourself into? I hope someone gets the Bleach reference here...
Also, I moved the whole ministry-Prophecy thing to the gang's fourth year. I'm not sure that I'm going to go explain it all in this story. I might just write a bunch of one-shots to give details. I dunno.
That said- Harry will be talking later on, and more of his history will be revealed if you'd just hang in there with me. The story starts off slow, and it's frustrating because I want to get to all the 'good bits' as much as the next person, but we need to get the basics down before we get to the action.
Thank you so much for all of your reviews, alerts and favourites! It makes me do funny dances in the hallways of my uni as I look for signal and then do little happy dances when I get the e-mails. My maths lecturer thinks that I'm completely bonkers.
This coming from a lady who snuggles up with her maths texts.
I kid you not.