Chapter 2: Angry Girl Mob?
As Harry entered the room full of girls, he was expecting to find them all gathered together in a circle plotting to kill him.
He found instead, that while looking upset, at least they didn't appear to have a picture of him on a dart board while they waited for him to arrive or pull out their wands as soon as he came in.
Deciding that this was at least a nominally good sign, he addressed them:
"Now I know that you girls are probably upset..."
"I was mad at you until I found out from Hermione just what had happened," Susan confirmed, still sounding annoyed but seeming to understand, "I can't really find a reason to say that this is your fault."
Each of the girls nodded in agreement and Harry let out a long exhale of breath he had been holding ever since this whole incident had began. Or at least he would have held if it was possible to do so that long without dying of oxygen deprivation.
"I really like you and I really was looking forward to going with you Harry," Hannah said sounding super disappointed, "now it appears I won't get a date at all."
"Don't say that, I myself would have happily gone with you had you been the only girl I was going with," Harry declared.
"Really?" Hannah asked, sounding somewhat skeptical, "you'd date a fat girl?"
"You say that like that's a bad thing," Harry commented.
She seemed surprised by this answer and said, "isn't it?"
"To be perfectly honest, I tend to like all girls in all shapes and sizes, nor am I really sure just what body type I like best. To me, you're just as beautiful as any other girl and you have plenty to attract my attention with," Harry told her, "honestly I find all of you girls very attactive and I would consider myself very lucky to have gone with any of you.
Hannah blushed at the compliment as did several of the other girls when speaking about them and Angelina stated, smiling, "I know that he definitely likes me at least. I've caught him staring at me more than once...usually on the Quidditch pitch when he's supposed to be looking for the snitch."
"The snitch could be over by you," Harry claimed, "got to keep my eyes looking everywhere."
"I highly doubt that it would ever fly down my shirt though because that seems to be where you are looking," Angelina countered teasingly, lifting up her large breasts in response.
He found himself blushing at that as he admitted, "well yes, I like you...in fact I like all of you, again you are all very attractive girls, even you Hermione even if I just barely started realizing it. What can I say? I'm rather dense."
"No you're not dense Harry, Ron is dense, but you're just a guy," Hermione reminded him, but she did seem flattered that he would think of her.
"Again you say that like that's a bad thin?," Harry replied.
"I don't mean it like that, but you are still a guy and my best friend," Hermione responded.
"So if we're done talking about whether or not Harry is a guy or not, I'd like to figure out just which one of us Harry is planning to take to the ball," Padma interrupted in annoyance.
Harry had decided that in this case and in most cases for that matter, honesty was the best policy.
"I'm going to be honest with all of you as I feel you can all handle it and I think deserve it," Harry began, "by now, you should all know that either I asked you or someone else asked you for me, thinking I still didn't have a date. This was not orchestrated by me, nor was I simply trying to pull a prank as this would truly be suicidal if I had."
"You got that right," Fleur quipped.
Everyone laughed at that as he then answered, "I'm hopeful that I can avoid death or dismemberment, or at least until I get good life insurance."
All the girls blinked and stared at him in confusion not being from the muggle world, other than Hermione who let out a small giggle at his joke.
Realizing they wouldn't know what life insurance was, he corrected himself and said, "Sorry, I'm trying to use humor as a defense mechanism and it isn't working out so well. What I meant was that I would hope that we can manage to move past this and come to a fair agreement concerning this matter. I'd like to hear all of your opinions."
"Then I'll start and say that I'd really like to go with you," Padma told him.
"I think all of us do or we wouldn't have agreed not to go with him in the first place," Fleur observed.
"Of course, but what I meant was that this would mean a lot to me if we could go. I was the one you originally chose and asked out and we already had a date set for tomorrow," Padma reminded him.
"I had actually originally planned on deciding to take you as I felt it was the most fair choice," Harry replied, "however I'm not going to say it was completely fair to everyone else and if anyone else has any other ideas I would be happy to hear them."
"How about we have a contest to decide who gets you?" Angelina said.
"Oh great, another contest I'm sure to lose, what were you thinking? Beauty contest or athletic contest?" Hannah asked in annoyance.
"It was merely an idea," Angelina insisted.
"Actually I think Angelina might have a good idea," Hermione observed.
"I don't think we should be having any beauty contests," Fleur surprisingly said, "that really wouldn't be fair as beauty really isn't the only reason you should want to go out with someone."
"I agree which is why I propose that Harry go out with all of you at least once this week and decide who he'd prefer to go with. Otherwise make sure you are available to be asked by someone else if he doesn't pick you," Hermione suggested.
"I like that idea," Susan admitted.
"So do I," Fleur agreed.
"Well if all of you are okay with that, I'm happy to go out on individual dates first with all of you," Harry said, quite relieved first of all that they hadn't decided to kill him first and now, hardly believing his luck, he now had quite a few dates that he'd get to go on with some very attractive and great girls, "to be honest it will help me decide what I really do like in a girl since I still have no real idea."
"Just as long as you are willing to give all of us a fair shot," Hannah reminded him.
"Of course," Harry answered, "well I already have a date with Padma tomorrow, so who should go next?"
"We can draw wands," Angelina suggested.
Harry was a bit confused as to what she meant as he asked, "Draw wands?"
"It's a game wizards use to determine who goes first," Angelina explained, "we have someone else not playing gather up our wands and then put them in their hand. With our eyes closed we then have to choose the first wand we touch, no matter if it is our wand or not. We then choose the order based off of the shortest to the longest wands."
"I'll do it since I'm the only one not trying to go with him," Hermione recommended.
Each of the girls handed her their wands and then Hermione mixed them up in her hand and then let them pick one with their eyes closed.
Hannah accidentally reached too far forward and grabbed Hermione's chest instead, but gratefully Hermione chose not to embarrass the poor, seriously blushing girl further and instead guided her hand over to the wands in her own other hand.
After the order was determined with Susan grabbing her own wand which was the shortest, followed by Hannah with Angelina's that was the second shortest, then Angelina with Fleur's, and finally Fleur with Hannah's which was the longest.
With the order decided, Harry knew it was now up to him to decide just what they would be doing for each of their dates, which now greatly worried him. Just one date would be quite scary, but now 5 was quite nerve wracking.
Padma he knew he would be learning to dance with, so she was covered but the rest he wasn't really sure about.
TOOMANYTOOMANYTOOMANY
He decided he should make sure he had some sort of meal made for each of his dates so he went inside the school kitchens to see if the house elves would let him cook there and give him the food he would require.
As soon as he entered however Dobby immediately noticed him and quickly hurried over to where he was standing.
"The great Harry Potter is visiting Dobby?" Dobby asked in excitement.
Since he had been intending to see if Dobby was here anyway, he smiled and said, "Yes."
"Look at Dobby's new socks," Dobby informed him with pride.
They were two mismatching pairs, one green and one red.
"That's great Dobby," Harry replied, "so what have you been up to?"
"Dobby is working hard for Dumby," Dobby told him.
Harry laughed and said, "that's a good name for him, but I have a question for you. I was wondering if I could use the kitchens here to make some food for some dates I have?"
"Dates?" Dobby asked sounding confused, "Why would you want dates? They taste nasty and Dobby would only eat those if he planned to punish himself. Harry deserves better food that Dobby can make you than nasty dates."
"Not that kind of date Dobby," Harry replied, laughing again, "although dates don't taste too bad to me. What I mean is I'm going to be having a few romantic meals with a few different girls."
A sly look passed Dobby's expression as he realized just what he wanted to do.
"Harry is courting now?" Dobby asked.
"If that is what you call it, yes," Harry answered.
"Dobby would be happy to make food and be a waiter on Harry's dates," Dobby replied.
"Well there are going to be at least 5 of them, with different girls," Harry said.
"Dobby will make dinner for Harry and his girls everyday forever if he wants Dobby to," Dobby replied, sounding super excited.
Owing to the house elf's enthusiasm, Harry was tempted to agree but finally said:
"I was actually planning on making food for them myself," Harry informed him.
Dobby looked practically scandalized, "It is not proper for a wizard to make food himself when a house elf can do it."
He was a bit torn as it would be more special if he helped make it, but he supposed if he let Dobby cover this part it would give him more time to plan the rest of the dates.
"All right," Harry agreed, "so I was also wondering if you knew of any good places to have a date."
The elf's eyes lit up as he said, "Actually Dobby knows of a place, super special and secret that only us house elves know about. It's called the Come and Go Room or the Room of Requirement and the room gives you anything you want to be inside it. Dobby can show you right where it is."
It was already getting kind of late that night, but he decided that if it wasn't too far away he could make it back in time for curfew and so followed Dobby over to wherever this special room was.
When he got there, it seemed to be just a blank wall, after being told about how to activate the room by Dobby he thought to himself, "I want a room that is perfect for dancing and eating a semi romantic dinner."
As the door finally appeared, he opened it to find a room that looked just like a dance hall, or at least what he would have guessed a dance hall was supposed to look like.
The room had dim lighting but with a certain brighter light illuminating the back of the room where a small table with candles already lit lying on it stood.
Romantic sounding jazz music emanated through the room.
He smiled and said, "This is perfect Dobby!"
Dobby looked somewhat bashful at the compliment and said, "It was nothing."
This would save him a ridiculous amount of time on fixing up each of his dates.
"Even so, you're a lifesaver," Harry declared.
He couldn't wait to have dates in here!
TOOMANYTOOMANYTOOMANY
Just before 7 the next night when he and Padma had planned for him to pick her up, he headed over to the Ravenclaw common room.
When he got there, he spotted a 3rd year girl just about to head in.
"Hey would you mind letting Padma Patil know I'm waiting for her here?" Harry asked her.
The girl, who was small but in a rather cute kind of way blushed and said, "Sure."
As she went in, he nervously went through how he was going to go through with the date.
Make small talk, be courteous, nice, and complementary, avoid belching or anything offensive, especially that Indian joke that Ron had told awhile back...
No, that certainly wasn't helping, he thought to himself. I could tell other jokes though, girls like to laugh right...
Oh no! What if she doesn't laugh at my jokes? Then what do I do?
As he was currently stressing over things, he almost didn't even notice when Padma finally emerged.
"I'm ready," Padma announced.
As he looked over at the sound of her voice, he stared in shock at just how good Padma looked.
She was wearing a formal white evening gown that contrasted very well with her dark, caramel skin and revealed just a hint of her modest cleavage.
Her beautiful shiny black hair was let loose and cascaded down well past her bum, which as he had noticed before, was a rather nice looking bum that was showed off quite well in the white dress.
"Well how do I look?" She asked as he still stared at her.
"You look hot!" Harry replied, before blushing at what he'd said.
She blushed too and said, "Thanks, you look rather hot too Harry."
He had tried to clean himself up a bit, with Hermione's help of course. She'd even managed to tidy up his hair using this hair potion stuff she'd found and he was wearing the same fancy dress robes that Mrs. Weasley had gotten him for the Yule Ball.
"Sorry," Harry apologized after standing there trying to think of what he was supposed to do next, "can I take your arm?"
She offered it to him, quite pleased at the gentlemanly gesture and they headed off.
After a minute she said, "You know, you don't have to feel so nervous Harry. I know this is your first date and it's mine as well, we'll probably end up making plenty of mistakes, so just don't worry about it."
He tried to relax as he tried to think up a conversation to start with her, but now that he was in such close proximity to her, it seemed his mind had gone completely blank. Come on, think of something he told himself...
"So what's it like being a woman?" Harry asked.
As soon as he said this, he immediately cursed himself. Why oh why had he asked that? It had just come out.
She looked over at him and seeing the look of horror on his face, she had the gall to actually laugh.
"You know Harry that isn't something guys usually ask on a first date," Padma reminded him, "but judging from your expression you already knew that."
"I'm sorry, I'm just really nervous," Harry admitted.
"Trust me, I'm nervous too Harry," She confided giving his arm a squeeze before taking pity on him and suggested, "How about you ask me how school is going?"
"Okay, how is school going for you?" Harry asked.
She politely responded as they struck up a conversation about classes and the like.
When they finally got to the Room of Requirement, things were going much better, or at least he wasn't having to apologize or make a fool out of himself every 5 seconds.
As they entered the room however, Padma's breath was taken away as she stared around in wonder.
"Harry!" Padma exclaimed, "this is amazing!"
"An amazing place for an amazing girl," Harry replied, very pleased to see her thrilled reaction.
Yes! Score one point for him! He thought, having at least done something right.
He guided her over to their table yet she still stood as if she was waiting for something.
Still wondering what he was missing, she finally had to tell him to pull out her chair for her.
He did so, feeling slightly embarrassed again and then she sat down.
"So what are our plans for the evening?" She asked.
"I thought we'd start out with dinner and then practice dancing afterwards," He suggested.
"Okay," She agreed seeming to like this idea but a bit confused now as she looked around, "so where's the dinner?"
"Dobby," Harry asked.
Immediately Dobby appeared right in front of them.
"What will Harry and his date be having this evening?" Dobby asked.
"Dobby you already know what we will be having," Harry reminded him.
"Yes but Dobby would be happy to make whatever Harry and his date wants!" Dobby declared.
"What are we having Harry?" Padma asked.
"Well I asked Parvati and she said your favorite food was Chicken Tikka Masala so I figured we'd have that so Dobby could make the food beforehand and we wouldn't have to wait," Harry replied.
"Oh, well that's fine too then, thanks so much," Padma replied, clearly impressed with his forethought.
"Dobby will bring the drinks and then the food," Dobby told them.
He popped out leaving them alone for a second.
"We really could get Dobby to make something else if you'd like, I'm sure he wouldn't mind," Harry said just in case.
"It really is fine Harry, that really is my favorite food," Padma informed him.
Dobby came back with the drinks and then the food and they began eating.
It really was very good, and he was amazed that Dobby actually knew how to make it since it was clearly not a British dish.
She asked him as they ate about how the tournament was going and he decided to regale her about the story of the 1st task.
"That must have been so terrifying facing a dragon," Padma commented, impressed but also scared for him.
"It was, although considering how well this date is going I think I'd rather face the dragon again," Harry replied. He felt he'd done some great things, but also messed up plenty of times as well.
"I think it's going great," Padma told him reassuringly, "and to be honest I'm rather glad that you're nervous. Normally I've been the one nervous around you."
"How so?" He asked.
"The truth is I've had a crush on you ever since I first saw you clear back at the beginning of first year," She confessed, "it wasn't even that you were the boy-who-lived since I grew up in India before that and really hadn't even heard of you. I just thought you were really cute and in my first memory of you on my way off the train, do you remember what you told me?"
He shook his head, he couldn't actually remember anything of the sort, although he had been a bundle of nerves then, much like he was now.
"I was actually super nervous and I could tell so were you but when I was struggling to carry my luggage because there weren't any carts left for me to push it with and nobody was willing to help me, you offered me yours, even though you already had all of yours on it. Then you ended up carrying yours instead. It was a small act of kindness, but it still stuck with me, and over the years those feelings for you have only grown."
"I never knew that," Harry confessed.
"You probably wouldn't since I've always felt rather shy around you since I figured you'd never like me back. There are so many other girls much more attractive than me trying to get your attention, and I figured you'd always ask them out or at the very least my twin sister Parvati. She's always been much more outgoing and is in the same house as you and I know she likes you too, nor is she subtle about letting you know that."
"I like Parvati, but I'm certainly glad that I asked you out instead of her," Harry told her.
"I'm glad too, that at least we'll get this one date. I'll treasure it always," Padma replied.
His eyebrows rose as he said, "What makes you think that we'll only have this one date?"
"You and I both know I can't compete with those other girls," Padma insisted, "they are all more attractive than me."
"What? Why would you say that?" Harry exclaimed.
"Name one thing that I have that they don't," Padma asked.
He wasn't expecting such a question, nor was he prepared with a quick answer so he chose the first thing that popped into his head.
"Your hair," He replied, "none of them have such long, beautiful black hair as you."
"My hair?" Padma questioned, "I wouldn't have pegged you for a hair man."
"Well my name is "Harry" Potter," He reminded her.
She laughed and said, "You're so cute and funny Harry, I love you."
As soon as she said it though, her eyes grew big as she tried to apologize, "I am so, so sorry, I...I didn't mean that, that wasn't what I meant, I..."
Now it was finally his turn to be on the receiving end of watching his date be super embarrassed and he grinned at her discomfiture before cutting her off and said, "It's okay, like you said at the beginning, we're both bound to make mistakes this being both our first date."
She smiled at him gratefully and he decided to change the subject.
"So would you like to practice dancing now?" He suggested, both of them already having finished eating.
She nodded and he went and took her hand before going out onto the floor area that was meant for dancing.
He admittedly wasn't all that great of a dancer yet, Professor McGonagall had had a few lessons but not enough for him to actually get good at it.
Nevertheless, Padma was patient with him, even when he stepped on her toes a few times. Still he could tell she was really enjoying herself and he was too. She really was a great girl and one he was glad he was taking the time to get to know. Also just looking into her beautiful eyes and at her face as they stood so closely and intimately together...it was just magical.
By the end of the date, they were both exhausted from dancing, but he was feeling significantly more confident about his dancing abilities.
He took her back to the entrance of the Ravenclaw common room.
"I had a lot of fun Harry," Padma replied.
"So did I," Harry answered, "maybe we could do this again sometime."
She winced and said, "Don't you already have dates for the next 4 days and then have to pick someone to go to the Ball with?"
"I don't know who I'll pick to go to the Yule Ball with, maybe you, I can't say, but I do know I definitely want to go out on another date with you no matter what," Harry responded.
After smiling she said, "I'd really like that Harry."
He wasn't really sure what to do next, whether he was supposed to just wave goodbye or whatever, but to his amazement, Padma leaned in and kissed him.
It was only for a second, but he still felt it all through his body. It felt really nice, good even and caused his heart to flutter.
Pulling away, she gave him one last glorious smile and then slipped inside, leaving him alone or so he thought.
He was just thinking that that date had not been perfect but he had certainly done something right if she had kissed him at the end, when a voice broke his thought process.
"It looks like you two had a lot of fun."
Turning to look at the sound of the voice, he found Luna currently standing just to the left of him.
"You saw that?" Harry asked.
"I see a lot of things," Luna answered, "to what were you referring to?"
"The kiss," Harry replied.
"Right, the kiss," Luna said, "it wasn't a very long kiss, but you'll have many more longer kisses later."
"With Padma? So you think I'll start dating her then?" Harry asked.
"Yes, with her and with everyone else too," Luna said.
"Just who's everyone else, you're being a bit vague?" Harry reminded her.
"Whoever else you want everyone to include," Luna answered.
"So you still think I'm going to end up with all those girls and you huh?" Harry queried.
"I think you'll end up with everyone," Luna said, once again being annoyingly vague.
"Forget it," Harry finally said, giving up on getting out of the rather odd girl just what she meant. If she didn't want to tell him, then fine.
"So when is my date with you Harry?" Luna asked.
"I wasn't aware that I had asked you out on one," Harry reminded her, "besides I've got dates all this week until Saturday."
"Then you can pick me up on Saturday," Luna replied calmly.
Once again caught off guard by what she said, he wasn't prepared to immediately answer but he decided why not? He kind of liked her despite her strange manner and she wasn't unattractive either. She seemed more than a little crazy, but crazy people could be fun too.
"All right, you've won me over. I'll pick you up here at 7 on Saturday," He answered.
"Yippee!" Luna cheered rushing forward and giving him a hug, "this is so exciting!"
Well this is going to be a fun, he thought. He would be going from never having been on a date to six all in one week.
If it was possible to have too many dates, he would know by the end of this week.