Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter no matter how much money I offered

I was listening to 'Meet Me on Diagon Alley' by the wizard rock band, Ministry of Magic. So I'll just credit them with inspiration for this chapter (even though its about Harry and Ginny…Yuck!)

Anyway, thank you all for staying with me and for that I have a special treat, see bottom of the page for details…

One of the Guys

Chapter Fourteen:

The 'non-date-like' date

Harry waited by the portrait of the fat lady holding 'Karen the egg' and felt self-conscious at all the eyes staring at him. He pulled his cloak tighter upon himself, wishing to Merlin that it was invisibility cloak and rubbed his stomach. If it wasn't the embarrassment of knowingly asking another guy out on an 'assumed' date than it was his stomach tying up in knots that threatened to kill him.

"God, just take me now before I can make a bigger fool of myself," Harry mumbled.

"Did you hear? The 'new girl' is going on a date with the 'hot guy'," Harry heard a first year squeal from her seat on the couch.

"Who's the 'hot guy'?" Her friend asked.

"The hottest guy in the school, duhh," The first girl cried. "He's like super hot!"

"But who is he?"

"Like I know his name," The first girl said. "All I know is that they're baby clothes shopping. She must've gotten knocked up."

"Oh my gosh, really?" The second girl gasped.

Harry blushed and buried his face into 'Karen the egg'.

"Hey, Evie," A deep voice from behind said.

Harry jumped and turned around to see the familiar mop of brown curly hair behind him. The other boy, Harry noticed wore large clothes that were too big for him. 'He must have hand-me downs,' Harry thought thinking of Dudley's old clothes that he kept at the bottom of his trunk.

"Hey, Matt," he greeted. "You ready to go?"

Matt nodded. "I'll take her," He gestured to 'Karen the egg', "She's kind of heavy so…"

Harry shrugged. 'Karen the egg's weight didn't bother him from his practice on the quidditch team but he didn't feel like carrying her either. 'That's the one good thing about being a girl,' he thought, 'Guys like to carry stuff for you.'

Together they left the Gryffindor tower and headed off towards a secret passage way that led to Honeydukes.

"Wow," Hermione said, "How do you know about this secret passage when you've only just came here?"

She noticed Evie paled but tried to cover it up with a nervous laugh. "Ron told me," was all she said.

Hermione felt her dislike for Ron grow. How did he and Evie become such good friends? "You two sure are close," She commented lightly, but deep inside her dislike bubbled.

"Oh, sure, he's a good friend," Evie said but when Hermione caught her eye she knew Evie saw her slight anger. "But I would never date him…ewww, y'know?"

Harry turned away from Mathieu and blushed. 'Why the heck did I just say that?' He thought, 'Its not like I want to date Matt, either, he is a guy, too. But he did look upset, and kind of cute. UH OH! Bad thoughts! bad thoughts,' Harry screamed internally.

"Are you ok?" Matt asked. He rested his hand on Harry's shoulder. "You're kind of freaking out there."

"I'm fine, really, Let's just shop," Harry said. He rubbed his stomach and knew it was only acting up because he was nervous.

They entered several stores and bought 'Karen the egg' a red skirt (on behalf of the Gryffindor house) and a gold (yellow, but don't tell Harry that) jacket. Matt had laughed at his house pride and jokingly reminded him that he wasn't really a Gryffindor.

'Wouldn't you like to know,' Harry thought into response as he watched the French man window browse as they passed by. Matt didn't seem to notice that Harry had his eyes trained on him, because if he did Harry reckoned he would blush and fidget. Harry noticed he did that a lot.

'What could have that boy so enthralled?' Harry wondered and realized that they were standing before the window of the local bookstore. 'Ahh, titty mags, perhaps?'

But no, Harry should've know that Matt was classier than that. The boy was staring at the Merlin Encyclopedia Vol. I. 31st Edition.

"Oh, sorry for spacing out," Matt said when he noticed Harry was standing beside him. He held the newly clothed 'Karen the egg' (nicknamed now as KTE) in his arm as he tightened his cloak around them. Neither of the two had realized how chilly it was in the fall weather and were greatly relieved that their awkwardness in their gender-warped bodies had overridden their desires to look attractive.

"No problem," Harry waved it off, "I can tell you like to read, but honestly the encyclopedia?"

"What's wrong with that?" Matt asked, "Its informative and half the book is written in Goblin. How cool is that?"

Harry shrugged, "Yeah I guess, but would goblins actually want to buy that? After all it was made by wizards."

Matt smiled and shrugged. "I suppose you're right, but it would be nice to speak more than one language," he said.

Harry sent Matt a confused look and mulled over the words in his head. "But you already do. French and English, right? I mean, after all, you're from France?"

'Oh crap,' Hermione squealed internally. She squashed the anger aimed towards herself for being stupid. She had to come up with a quick and an intelligent answer that will explain and take any suspicion off of her. "Yeah, I do," She answered. There that took care of that.

Evie cocked her head to the side but shrugged it off. "Well, okay…but are you going to buy it?" She asked turning back to the store window.

The shop owner was glaring at them as if he suspected they were about to break the window and snatch some 'very valuable' books bought in mass quantity right out of the window. To prevent this from happening he had not so subtly ordered the stock boy to keep an eye on them under the guise of cleaning the window.

"Buy what? The book?" Hermione looked back at the book and saw the price tag was 20 galleons. "I don't think so," She decided, "it's a little bit out of my price range. I only have five galleons and 11 sickles left on me."

Evie smiled casually. "Its okay, I'll pay for it," She suggested, "I have plenty of money on me right now."

"No," Hermione said and grabbed Evie's hand before she could reach for her money, "Don't bother, I'll just come back for it later," Hermione said. It didn't sit well that Evie had offered to buy her something as expensive as that book. She was suppose to be the boy…on this 'suppose' date and letting Evie pay would be ungentlemanly.

"Are you sure? Because I don't mind," Evie encouraged.

"Its fine," Hermione still held Evie's hand in heres and began to drag off towards the center of town. She felt her face blushed and thanked God that she was walking in front of Evie so she wouldn't see her blush. "Its getting dark, anyway. I think we should head back."

"Mmm," Evie said in a distracted voice. Hermione glanced at the other girl to see she had a blush on her face as well, "I mean, yeah, but we missed dinner."

"Oh-" Hermione realized.

"So let's get dinner out here," Evie suggested.

Hermione nodded silently, but fully aware of the twilight turning into night. 'We'll be able to see the stars,' She dimly thought.

"Okay, c'mon," She said. They were still holding hands and the wind had idly blown on her cloak. She could see Evie's choppy black hair swaying in the breath. "At the Three Broomsticks?"

The two (and 'KTE) made it down the street to find the pub dimly populated. Hermione relaxed knowing they wouldn't be to bothered by other customers and was, for once, grateful that they broke the rules and snuck out instead of waiting for a Hogsmeade weekend.

They found a tiny, darkened corner and settled into it. The warmth from the pub made the necessity of their cloaks null so they both pulled them off and huddled into each other for warmth. Soon Madam Rosmerta appeared and they ordered two butterbeers. Hermione nearly laughed at how ridiculous she must've looked when after her first sip of the warm liquid, the foam from the drink rubbed onto her nose. She was about to wipe it off when she caught sight of the hungry gleam in Evie's eyes.

"Wha-" she started to say but was abruptly cut off when Evie leaned foreword and licked the foam right off her nose.

Seamus walked nervously up the boy's staircase to the dorm rooms with deliberate steps. He was determined to ignore whatever attraction he had growing for Mathieu Mondego, but was almost afraid to see the other boy for whatever unwanted response his body might give off.

"I can't let Seamus Jr. do 'that' again in front of the other boy," He admonished to himself.

After realizing his sudden attraction to the French student, Seamus had taken off to the privacy of the broom closet on the third floor to have a nice long moment of self-realization. He loved to think in the broom closet because it was quiet and dark, therefore blinding him from any distractions. And here was where he realized the change in himself.

He had always been a slave for his girlfriends; buying them gifts, smothering them with compliments, and being all around nice gets tiring after the first few days, but there was something different about Mathieu. First and forefront, he was a guy, and a smart one at that. That was when Seamus realized that he had never been in a relationship with a smart person before and that was a change he fully wished to explore (and the guy part too). But to explore it, he must first find said boy.

"Hey, Dean, where's Mathieu?" He asked his dark skinned friend. He was reading a muggle book on football while he laid on his stomach in his bed.

"On a date," Dean said callously.

"WHAT?"

Next: Growing pains

A/N: Check out my profile page for a link to a drawing I did of this chapter! If the link doesn't work, just check out my deviantart profile.