A/N:
Hi, new chapter!
Since some people asked, let me clarify that in this fic Astoria is 18 and Harry is 20. I know it might have been confusing in the previous chapter, but don't worry. This fic is only a little weird, not that weird.
I hope you like it!
Harry's Astoria Greengrass poster didn't last very long after their first meeting; every time it blew a kiss at him, he remembered being bitten by that very same mouth. After a few very unsuccessful days of trying to pretend that never happened, he took the poster off his wall.
The same thing happened when he tried to listen to her music, which until now, had been his absolute favorite. While Astoria's angelic voice sang songs about peace and love, all he heard was the voice of a girl who called him a creep and a virgin. He ejected her album from his vintage record player by the end of the week, and by the end of two, had stuffed the rest of her merch into a trunk in his closet. He didn't have the heart to throw it out, but he also knew he'd never look at it the same way again.
Ultimately, while Harry knew better than most that public appearances could be deceiving, nothing drove home the lesson of never meeting your heroes quite like meeting his hero did. And unfortunately, losing his celebrity crush made Harry rather more lonely than he'd have liked to admit.
"Harry, my boy! It's so nice to see you again!"
Lonely enough to accept an invitation from Horace Slughorn to attend the Quidditch World Cup together.
"Likewise, Professor," Harry replied. "It's been, uh…a long time."
"It sure has!" Slughorn smiled cheerfully. "You must've been busy – you haven't even had time to come to my annual Christmas parties! Not that I blame you, of course. I've been following you in the Daily Prophet, and it seems like every day you find a new cause to fight for."
"Yeah, that's true…"
Harry neglected to mention that he'd spent his last few Christmases alone with a bottle of sparkling apple juice, and felt perhaps it was better that way.
"Though, it would thrill me if you could make it to the next one," the man added hopefully.
"Ah…I'll try my best."
To be clear, Harry didn't dislike Slughorn. He didn't dislike anyone who had stood and fought beside him in the Battle of Hogwarts. But some of the man's tendencies to schmooze got on Harry's nerves, and as such he tended to avoid meeting him these days.
"So, tell me," the old professor said, leaning in conspiratorially and blatantly ignoring Harry's lack of enthusiasm. "I've heard a rumor that you're aiming for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. Is that right?"
Harry shrugged. "That's the goal. But honestly, I'll take any position if it means getting my foot in the door."
"I hardly think you have to worry about that," Slughorn chuckled. "But I'll be sure to put in a good word for you with Minerva just in case."
"Thanks…?"
Harry really didn't know what Slughorn's good word would accomplish that saving the school and the entire wizarding world didn't, but he appreciated the thought anyway.
The two men continued through the stadium, moving up to their seats in a comfortable booth towards the top of the stands. Harry could say what he wanted about Slughorn, but he couldn't deny the man knew how to use his connections to get what he wanted. The seats would normally have cost over a hundred galleons each, but he had a feeling his old potions professor hadn't spent a knut.
"We'll have a nice view of the action from here, eh?" Horace laughed.
Harry nodded; even he was getting excited.
As they waited for the match to start, Slughorn took the opportunity to wave and introduce Harry to more or less everyone around them. It horrified and impressed Harry in equal measure just how many people the man knew.
"So, are you seeing anyone these days?" he asked at one point, leaning closer to Harry.
Harry's eyebrows shot up, and Slughorn raised his hands defensively.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "I'm only asking because there's a woman in my entourage – a lovely girl, around your age – who asks about you from time to time. Her name's Rebecca, I believe. She's an up and coming reporter for the Daily Prophet. If you're interested, I'll give her your details and you could…"
"Er, that's alright, Professor," Harry said, cutting him off. "I appreciate it, but I'm not really interested in dating anyone right now…" He shivered slightly. "Besides, even after all these years I'm left with something of an aversion to news reporters."
"Ah, well. It was worth a shot."
Harry was thankfully spared from more awkward conversation as the lights in the stadium dimmed and the Minister for Magic stepped out onto the field. It was a man Harry knew well, and he smiled at the sight of him.
"Good evening!" Kingsley Shacklebolt announced, amplifying his voice around the stadium with his wand. "And welcome to the four-hundred-twenty-fourth Quidditch World Cup! As Minister for Magic, it brings me great pleasure to host this momentous event once more during a time of peace and order!"
A hundred thousand voices cheered as one, and Harry had to cover his ears from the overwhelming noise.
"While it's customary for the Minister to send off the first match, I was never one for the spotlight – so this year we're trying something a little different!" Kingsley paused, and a hush fell across the stands. "May I introduce a very special guest…Astoria Greengrass!"
The noise from the crowd was even louder this time as the spectators immediately burst into feverish cheers and screams, and in his shock, Harry forgot to cover his ears this time. From the side of the stadium, Astoria Greengrass stepped out onto the pitch.
"Hello everyone!" she chirped joyfully, using both hands to wave at everyone all around her. "What a wonderful night this is!"
The girl was dressed up in a puffy green gown, and was smiling for all the world like she had never been happier. The gaudy getup should've looked ridiculous, but Astoria's beauty and the radiant beam on her face made her look like an adorable fairy princess instead.
"It's such an honor to be here!" she continued, undaunted by the fanatical screams around the stadium. "I hope everyone's looking forward to this match as much as I am!"
She raised her wand and glanced at Kingsley. He gave her a nod, and she shot an impressive stream of green sparks into the air.
"Let the match…begin!"
"Well how about that!" Slughorn exclaimed as the two walked out of the stadium together. "An excellent match, wouldn't you agree?"
"Yeah," Harry replied, kind of apathetically.
It was an excellent match, but Harry had found it rather difficult to concentrate after Astoria's surprise appearance. The teacher inside of him was proud that she could now cast the spell they worked on during their tutoring session, but the fan inside of him was horrified that she had previously referred to the Quidditch World Cup as 'some silly event'.
"And how about that Greengrass girl?" Slughorn continued, either not picking up on or ignoring Harry's detachment. "She's been quite the hot topic lately, and I can see why. A real gem of a girl, you can just tell. I wonder what it would've taken to get her as one of my students…"
"A few bites," Harry replied numbly.
Slughorn turned to look at him with a puzzled expression on his face.
"What was that, Harry?"
"Ah, nothing…"
The two continued their walk out of the stadium, Slughorn jabbering constantly and Harry staring forlornly at nothing in particular. Something about seeing Astoria Greengrass tonight felt like running into an ex-girlfriend at the grocery store; uncomfortable and heartache-inducing as the memories of their good times together flashed before his eyes.
Not that they ever actually had any good times together. Astoria was an untouchable flower that turned out to be a thorny rose, and Harry was an adult man who was having trouble getting over his two-year obsession with a celebrity idol.
When he thought about it that way, he really needed to get his life together.
"Shall we get a drink or two before we call it for the night?" Slughorn asked, turning to look at Harry and breaking him out of his reverie.
Harry blinked, recovered his wits, and then shook his head. As much as he wanted to forget about Astoria and the way she looked in that green dress, he had just committed to getting his life together and drinking to forget a girl would not be a good start.
"Oh, no…sorry about that," he said, trying to sound apologetic. "I'm going to head back early. I have students tomorrow."
He didn't actually know if he had students scheduled for the next day or not, but he assumed he probably did and was reaching the limits of his social battery for the evening in any case.
Slughorn nodded sagely. "Makes sense, makes sense. Heaven knows I wish I had that attitude when I was a young teacher. This one time, I was in such a situation that I had my students make a hangover cure for their final exam!"
With that, the two men said their goodbyes and Harry apparated back to his apartment, ready to call it an early night.
He was now committed more than ever to getting his life together; besides everything else, he really didn't want to become the kind of teacher that shows up to their class hungover.
No offense to Horace intended.
The next morning, Harry made himself a quick breakfast and got dressed, checking his magical scheduler for the day's work.
"Huh…"
He blinked, rubbed his eyes, cleaned his glasses, and flipped the scheduler upside down. He shook it, closed it, opened it again, and then stared at it once more.
"Is this for real?" he asked no one in particular.
After a brief internal debate about whether or not becoming a teacher was really worth it, he put on his boots and apparated out of his apartment to meet his first student of the day.
"Er…hi," Astoria Greengrass said, meeting him at the end of her driveway.
She was dressed prettily, in a little blue dress with white tights, and there was not a cigarette to be seen on her person. It was exactly the way he would've expected the girl to look before he met her for the first time, and for a moment he wondered if she was reformed.
"Hi," he replied tentatively. "I can't say I was expecting to see you again…"
"If it were up to me, you wouldn't be," she scoffed quietly. "I begged my mom to find literally anyone else."
It was then that Harry noticed Astoria's mom peering out of the second-story window with her arms crossed, and he realized that the girl was not reformed but simply under observation.
"If you didn't want to see me again, then why am I here?" he asked, matching her lower volume.
"Because my mom doesn't listen to me," Astoria replied. "Kind of like how you don't listen when teenage girls beg you not to enter their bedrooms."
Harry winced. She was making it sound way worse than it was, but he had spent some time reflecting since their last session and realized that he had been far too pushy.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," he said. "I should've been more…diplomatic with my entry methods, and it wasn't my place to confiscate your cigarette. Maybe we can let bygones be bygones and turn over a new leaf?"
"Whatever, it's not like I have a choice either way," she muttered. "You're Harry Potter. If I refuse you'll just turn me into a garden gnome."
"What?" Harry shook his head in confusion. "I don't turn people into garden gnomes."
"That's exactly what someone who turns people into garden gnomes would say, you psychopath."
Harry narrowed his eyes, and felt the frustration from their last session start to come back.
"I thought I was one of your heroes," he said. "Why do you treat me like this?"
She glanced up at him. "Huh? My hero? Where did you get that idea?"
Harry stumbled. "Uh…my friend's daughter mentioned it once," he replied, thinking quickly. "She read it in an interview for some magazine, I think?"
"Oh." Astoria laughed humorlessly. "Probably Witch Weekly, then. I don't write a word of those interviews."
"You don't?"
She shook her head. "My mom does it all. She doesn't trust me not to say something stupid and ruin my public image."
Harry thought that was maybe a good decision, but didn't tell her as much. Instead, movement in the window caught his attention and he noticed Astoria's mother giving her daughter a strange look.
"Well then…shall we get started?" he asked, trying to avoid a repeat of last time.
Astoria sighed and glanced over her shoulder to confirm she was still being observed from afar.
"I don't really have much of a choice, do I?"
As Harry walked into a teenage girl's bedroom for the second time in his life, he passively wondered why they couldn't do their tutoring session literally anywhere else. Astoria's house was huge, and they had a large front yard with protection wards perfect for practicing magic. Choosing what was probably the single most uncomfortable room in the house for him to be in felt like a special kind of torture, especially with Astoria glaring at him the whole time.
"Should we maybe take this outside?" Harry asked eventually, trying not to notice the sweet smell of his ex-celebrity crush's room.
Astoria scowled and flopped onto her bed. "My mom wants us to practice here, and she's already on the warpath today. If I want to even dream about seeing my allowance this month I need to stay in line."
"You have an allowance?"
"You have a problem?"
Harry frowned. "Wait, why does your mom want us to practice in your bedroom?"
"The same reason she dressed me up like a little French schoolgirl," she replied, kicking out her legs and collapsing into her pillows. "She wants you to push me down so she can engineer a rumor, or a scandal, or whatever else will make me more famous."
Harry's jaw dropped. There was no way that was true, right?
Astoria sat back up with a start. "But for the record, if you try it, I'll scream for Pinky and she'll murder you."
"I'm not going to try anything!" he immediately protested, raising his hands defensively and dragging his eyes away from her tight-clad thighs. "I'm your teacher, and you're my student, and anything…indecent would be completely inappropriate!"
She gave him a weird look. "You're kind of creepy, you know that?"
He frowned. "No, I'm not."
"I'm telling you that you are. You're literally blushing right now. I'm only eighteen, you freak."
"And I'm only twenty!" Harry realized that wasn't the point as she gave him another disgusted look, and he rushed to continue. "Which isn't important right now, but either way, I'm not a creep. If I'm blushing – and I'm not saying that I am – it's only because you brought up a strange topic in the first place!"
A few moments later, Astoria's big blue eyes widened, and the disgust in them was replaced with a predatory sparkle.
"Hold on, you actually are a virgin, aren't you!" she declared confidently. "I knew it!" A thoughtful look crossed her features. "Woah, that means you saved the entire wizarding world and still not a single girl was willing to sleep with you!"
Astoria started laughing hysterically, and Harry felt his blush deepen. He wasn't sure how much of the red on his cheeks was embarrassment and how much was anger, but he knew the source of it either way.
He walked over to where the girl still lay laughing on her bed, and pulled his wand out of his pocket. With a wave he animated the mattress, and it chomped down on the girl like a giant, pillowy mouth.
She stopped laughing then.
"Um…Harry?" she asked, looking up at him a bit nervously. She tried moving her arms and legs but the mattress enveloping her didn't budge.
"I'm not 'Harry' to you," he said, his voice as low and menacing as he could make it. "From now on, you will call me 'Professor Potter'. I am your teacher, not your friend. And certainly not someone that you can make fun of while we're supposed to be learning. Is that clear?"
Harry generally didn't like using intimidation as a tactic, but he thought a little reminder of his station was in order here.
He was also kind of frustrated with the girl, and squishing her into her own mattress was immensely satisfying.
"Um…"
Astoria gulped, and her little feet kicked out of the bottom of the mattress in a futile attempt to break free. It didn't work.
"I…I understand," she said a moment later.
"You understand?" Harry repeated darkly. "You understand what, exactly?"
"Everything…? Er, Professor."
Harry stared at her for a few seconds longer, just enough to make her sweat a little, and then reversed the spell on her mattress.
"Good!" he smiled, clapping his hands together and putting his wand back in his pocket. "Now let's get on with the lesson. What have you been working on lately?"
Astoria was surprisingly well behaved after that. She immediately explained how thrilled her mother was that she was able to cast the spell for the Quidditch World Cup, and how she demanded Harry return as Astoria's weekly tutor. Having spent much of her early life in the hospital, and her teenage years busy working as a celebrity, Astoria's education was severely lacking, and her mother wanted Harry to patch up her knowledge as best he could.
It was a relatively simple request, and Harry found Astoria wasn't a horrible witch once she put her mind to it.
"Lumos Maxima!"
A brilliant light shone from the tip of the girl's wand, and both her and Harry had to avert their gazes.
"Nice!" he said, pleasantly surprised that she got the spell down after only a few tries. "Great work, Astoria!"
She lowered her wand and smiled proudly, puffing her chest out like a student who'd just been praised by their teacher.
And the smile on her face was so stunning that Harry forgot that she was in fact a student who'd just been praised by their teacher.
"Be sure to put that in my report card, Professor," she hummed, glancing up at him.
At some point throughout the lesson, Astoria had started inflecting the word 'Professor' with something that definitely wasn't respect. It felt intentionally dirty, and he definitely liked it better when she just called him 'Harry', but his pride stopped him from reneging on his earlier demand.
"Er, right," he coughed. "Well, I won't be issuing you a report card, but I'll be sure to communicate your good progress to your mothe-"
"Question," Astoria interrupted, sighing. "When Voldemort cast the killing curse on you, did he miss your soul and hit your sense of humor instead?"
Harry stopped, frowned, and then narrowed his eyes.
"I have a sense of humor," he said defensively. "And don't you think it's a little gutsy to be making Voldemort jokes with me?"
"Eh, not really? You already killed him, so it's no big deal."
The audacity of the girl still shocked Harry sometimes, but he supposed you couldn't become the biggest star in the wizarding world without having a healthy dose of shamelessness.
"I might have defeated him in the end, but I wasted the better part of my teenage years to do it," he explained. "So your flippancy on the subject is mildly inappro-"
"Is that why you're still an untouched bachelor? You were too busy chasing the wrong kind of baddies and now you can't get any action?"
There was a flicker of something in her expression, a little twitch at the corner of her lips, and Harry realized she was testing him.
She wanted him to blow up at her.
"No," he said patiently, not wanting to stoop to her level. "I'm an untouched bachelor because I've been focused on my career."
Astoria burst out laughing again, and Harry felt his composure waver.
"What's so funny about that?" he demanded. "I'm career-oriented, that's all!"
She barely gasped out a reply between laughs.
"You called yourself an untouched bachelor!" she wheezed.
Harry's face grew red again. His last demonstration of magical force had netted him about sixty minutes of respectful Astoria before she reverted to her old ways again.
As he took his wand out of his pocket, he wondered what he'd have to do to get another sixty minutes out of the girl.
An hour later Astoria left her bedroom with empty, broken eyes.
"You…you pervert," she muttered emotionlessly. "I still can't believe you tied me to the ceiling and tickled me. There's no way that's legal…"
To be fair, Harry couldn't quite believe it either. He clearly needed to learn to control his temper better before he became a fully fledged teacher.
"I…I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have done that. But for the record, I didn't tickle you. I cast a tickling charm on you, and there's an important difference."
"There's no difference," she shivered. "I'm used goods now. If my fans knew about this, they'd riot…"
"Don't be dramatic," Harry said, even though he was honestly starting to feel really guilty. "Back in my day at Hogwarts, misbehaving students were transfigured into ferrets."
Astoria's eyes widened and she stopped. "Wait, seriously?"
"Yep," he nodded. "And if you were caught out of bed after curfew you were tossed into the Forbidden Forest. Happened to me, once."
"You're having me on."
"Nope. I can swear on my honor that all of this actually happened."
"Pinky promise?"
He raised an eyebrow at the proffered pinky, but squeezed it with his own a moment later.
"Pinky promise."
She let out a breath. "Sheesh. No wonder you turned out all screwed up."
Harry couldn't really argue with that, so he stayed silent as they walked through the hallway. As they reached the main hall of the manor, Astoria pulled out a cigarette.
"Want one?" she asked, holding the pack out to him.
He took a deep breath. She knew he didn't want one.
"No," he said. "But thank you."
She smirked. "Suit yourself."
They stepped out into the front yard and Astoria lit up with her zippo. Harry continued to take deep, calming breaths, trying to resist the urge to take away her cigarette again.
"Got something to say?" she asked as he stared at her.
"No…" he replied begrudgingly, remembering his commitment to stay in line as a teacher.
She looked ridiculously smug as she took another drag on the cigarette, and Harry tried to ignore her. He couldn't tell if she was just a disagreeable person in general, or if she specifically hated him in particular.
And, to be fair, he had tied her to her own ceiling and cast a tickling charm on her, so if she did hate him, it was kind of his fault.
"Mmm, delicious," she said as she smoked.
"You know, magic can't cure-"
"Astoria!"
Before Harry's lecture could properly begin, it was cut short by the angry voice of a woman who had just apparated down the driveway. She held a couple of shopping bags in her hands, but she passed them off quickly as Pinky scurried in from somewhere to take them.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, walking towards them with her angry eyes focused on Astoria. "Were you smoking again?"
"Oh, um…"
The girl felt around at her lips, but the cigarette was already gone. She hadn't noticed its disappearance, and she glanced over at Harry.
"No ma'am," he answered for her, ignoring Astoria's stare and smiling professionally at her mother. "Astoria was just thanking me for the session, and making sure she knew what to work on for next time."
Astoria looked like she was about to protest, so Harry subtly reached over and pinched her back. She was about to protest that too, but then her brain caught up with the situation and she realized he was lying for her sake.
"Is that true?" her mother asked, turning to look at her.
"Yes mom," she nodded.
"And what are you supposed to be working on this week?"
"Counterspells," Astoria said without missing a beat. "Particularly to tickling charms."
Her mother stared at her for a second, as if deciding whether or not to believe her, but eventually nodded.
"Very well. Good work today, Astoria."
"Right!" Harry interjected, wanting to extricate himself from whatever was going on here. "Good work, Astoria. I'll be off now, and I'll see you next week!"
He was halfway down the driveway when Astoria called out to him again.
"Harry, wait!"
Slowly, he turned back around.
"Thanks," she said, fidgeting awkwardly as if the word physically pained her.
Despite her evident discomfort, she was looking at him with a softer expression than usual, and he smiled.
"Don't mention it."