Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if that's you.

Author's Note: It was supposed to be just a quiet date night where they could eat their fish & chips in piece.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 11); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Gryffindor MC; Ravenclaw MC; Slytherin MC; Times to Come; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux; Two Cakes!; Short Jog
House: Hufflepuff
Assignment No.: Term 11 – Assignment 03
Subject (Task No.): Care of Magical Creatures (Task#3: Write about an attack.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Romance Awareness [D30] (Shared Talents)(Romance); Insane House Challenge [233] ("Saying sorry is hard. Can't I just buy you jewelry instead?"); 365 [135] (Horrible); Galleon (fish & chips)
Space Address (Prompt): n/a
Representation(s): Blaise/Luna/Harry
Bonus Challenges: Abandoned Ship; Head of Perseus; Muck & Slime; Second Verse (Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Unwanted Advice; Three's Company; For the Vine; Lovely Coconuts); Chorus (Odd Feathers; Wabi Sabi; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Tomorrow's Shade; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Creature Feature)
Tertiary Bonus Challenges: T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Ameliorate); FR (Satisfaction); LiCK (Poppy; Narcissus; Yarrow); HoSE (Schooner)
Word Count: 1100

(^^)
The Pub Incident
(^^)

Blaise growled in mild threat as Luna stole one of the pieces of fish from his basket. The blonde just grinned at him as she took passed her ill-gotten prize to their other soulmate. Harry blinked at his sudden possession of the pilfered food. As he always did when Luna decided to play this game, Harry tried to hand it back to Blaise. Just as routinely, Blaise shook his head and indicated that Harry should go ahead and eat it. Luna preened a bit in triumph as Harry obeyed.

Their relationship was just like that most of the time, and it had been from the very beginning, too. Sometimes figuring out who were soulmates by just demonstrating one's talents was too much hassle for anyone to bother even trying to find out who was the person destined as one's match. But Blaise's soulmates being who they were, and having the talents they did, had made it relatively simple to figure out that they were soulmates. Parselmouths were really rare in the UK, being far more prevalent on the Indian subcontinent and surrounding area, where the Potter family had emigrated from before settling in their Yorkshire estate. Once Harry had revealed himself to the school, Blaise had known he was looking at one of his soulmates.

Luna's talent, on the other hand, had been trickier, as one would expect from an empath of her strength. It was very easy for her to get caught up in the emotions of those around her if she was open to them. However, maintaining her shields left her unable to process her own emotions. It also had the unfortunate side effect of making her look perpetually confused or lost. Being able to focus one of them made keeping a balance possible. It also tended to reveal that Harry was in need of something, but for whatever reason, was doing anything about it.

That was usually when Luna would decide to steal from Blaise in a blatantly obvious way and pass it to Harry. Blaise would never begrudge Harry anything he needed, especially something like food. Harry had a horrible relationship with food that they were still trying to figure out the extent of. The most troubling issues were his habit of not understanding his body's hunger signals, which led to him either not eating enough or accidentally overeating. Luna's empathy actually came in handy for that, as physical feelings were something that she could sense.

Suddenly, Luna looked over Blaise's head. Her face grew politely blank as her silvery eyes grew as misty as the forest on the Potter estate during the full moon. Just from those two actions, Blaise knew that he would see a wix when he turned, despite it being a Muggle pub in a Muggle town. For them to be approaching their table, it also had to mean that it was someone who had recognized Harry. If it wasn't someone with ties to either fraction of the war, then it was likely a fan and they would have to figure out how to get Harry out of there without drawing too much attention from the Muggles.

Too many of those who would do anything to meet the Boy-Who-Lived cum Man-Who-Conquered seemed to forget that the Statute of Secrecy existed.

Except when Blaise turned around, it wasn't anyone that he recognized, and they didn't seem to be focused on Harry. Instead the man seemed to be focused on him. Blaise narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"You must know her," the man muttered. He reached out with both hands. Instinctively, Blaise jerked away. Moving quickly, Blaise got to his feet, careful to keep between his mates and the stranger who was reaching for him again. "You look just like her. Please, can you tell me where she is? I love her! I must see her, just one last time."

"If my mother has denied you, please take that as a hint," Blaise said with a sigh. For all that his mother was not nearly as famous as his Harry was, she was just enough that this was a common enough occurrence. The only major difference was that Harry's fans were grateful for the thing that made him famous. Claudia Zabini's fans were typically those who had sought her bed but would not accept her refusal. The unreasonable anger that caused had nearly cost his mother her life multiple times. Only meeting and bonding with his own soulmates had prevented Blaise from sharing his mother's fate to watch those she had loved turn into monsters who saw her as more possession than person. "I will not take you anywhere near my mother."

"Please," the man begged, grabbing hold of Blaise's shirt. "I have to see her again. It would only take a moment! Just a little moment of her time! Would you really begrudge me just a little moment?"

"Yes," Blaise said succinctly. With careful precision, he pried the man's hands off of him. "If my mother gave a little moment to everyone who demanded one, she would spend all her life catering to strangers. It's not going to happen. Now please leave."

"That's what I thought you would say," the man said ominously. Faster that even Blaise could react, the man pulled out a dagger and stabbed Blaise's shoulder. The attack made him grunt, but it was when the man pulled the blade out for another blow that drew a gasp of pain from him.

"Hey, dragon-bait! Look at me!"

The man turned to obey Luna's order, giving Harry the opening he needed to throw a greasy basket that once held his chips into the man's face. While struggling with the newspaper sticking to his face, the man smacked himself with the pommel of the dagger. In an ironic twist of fate, he crumpled to the ground unconscious.

"Well, that's just embarrassing," Luna commented flatly. "Brought down by a chip wrapper and his own stupidity."

"I think I need to go to the hospital now," Blaise said, one hand pressed against his bleeding shoulder, "but I swear I will make up for ruining date night." He panted a moment before continuing. "Saying sorry is hard. Can't I just buy you jewelry instead?"

"You don't have to," Harry said only to be interrupted by Luna knocking her shoulder into his.

"Speak for yourself! I want the sparkly!" She grinned. "I've always wanted a sparkly of my very own."

Both Blaise and Harry groaned then, knowing what movie they would be watching later. Not that they really minded. The Secret of NIMH really was a classic.