|
|
Summary: A momentary lapse
in concentration leads to a stressful few days for Harry Potter.
Category: Comedy
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK
Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books,
Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being
made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Harry had never been pleased, in all his
years at Hogwarts, to receive a detention.
But this evening, he was grateful for the chance to think his own
thoughts and keep away from the looks Ron and Hermione kept throwing his
way. He knew it wouldn’t be long before
they both sat him down for a full grilling about what was bothering him.
He received his instructions from Professor
Snape and waited for him to leave him alone.
Then he set to work carrying out a stock check on the supplies in the
student cupboard, pausing every now and then to ponder what he should do now
that he knew who the ... thing belonged to.
“OK, that’s it!” Harry took himself to task.
“Just call it what it is. Call
the thing by its name”. After all,
hadn’t Dumbledore said that fear of a name increases fear of the thing
itself? Briefly, Harry wished he was
merely confronting the Dark Lord again rather than this tricky scenario – but
it was briefly. He genuinely
hoped he never had to meet Voldemort ever again. By contrast, there might actually be a day in the future when he
would be quite happy to be handling a … bra.
There, he’d said it.
That little hurdle over, Harry’s thoughts
turned to Ginny. He couldn’t get it out
of his head that being one … bra .. there, he’d done it again, short might be a
considerable hardship to Ginny. He was
very well aware that the Weasleys were not well off. Indeed, he had lived with Ron’s insecurities over his own lack of
underwear for years; he was always fretting that if the house elves didn’t turn
his washing around quickly enough he’d be walking round school, with his assets
dangling in the breeze.
Harry was pretty certain
that Ginny wouldn’t have an endless supply of bras – and he couldn’t stop
worrying whether this was causing her any difficulties. All this merely added to Harry’s dilemma;
firstly, he really liked Ginny and if she ever found out this would ruin his
chances and secondly, she had 3 older protective brothers still at Hogwarts,
none of whom he wanted to get the wrong idea about this. So Gryffindors are
brave? Who started that silly idea.
***
Once again, later that
night Harry lay awake pondering over how to solve this dilemma.
“Think!” he urged
himself. “Think logically. There has to
be a way.”
“I can’t just banish
it. I mean, what if it flies up the
stairs and the door is closed? Will it try and find an open window to get in?
It might turn round and come back down – it could be floating around the common
room for days .….” Harry felt himself go cold at the sheer thought. No,
banishing was not an option, too much risk.
This was going to have to be a hands-on task.
He had to return it to Ginny’s room himself. That was obvious. So now
he had to decide when. Obviously there
were less people about at night, but the problem was, the dorm was fully
occupied at night and that meant the risk of someone seeing him was
higher. And he couldn’t be seen, that
was certain, or his life would be over.
So obviously, he needed
his Invisibility Cloak. But if night
was too risky, it would have to be day.
Now, when was the best time? In
between lessons, when everyone was away from Gryffindor Tower. He could make some excuse to Ron and
Hermione, slip back to the Tower, grab his cloak and the bra and return it to
Ginny’s trunk unseen. She may well
wonder where it had reappeared from, but no-one would ever know that he had had
it all this time.
At last, a plan! He didn’t need anyone else’s help. He’d solved it on his own. With a sigh of relief, Harry rolled onto his
side and drifted off into a much-needed sleep.
***
“Damn, I’ve forgotten my
Charms textbook” Harry exclaimed as they headed to Professor Flitwick’s class
after Herbology next morning. “Let
Flitwick know, will you? I’ll be as
quick as I can,” and he fled back to the common room; Ron and Hermione,
shrugging their shoulders at each other, turned back towards the Charms
classroom.
Harry had deliberately
picked Charms as the lesson he would be late for, as Professor Flitwick was the
most lenient of their professors and therefore more likely to excuse his late
arrival, if he even noticed; Charms lessons were often chaotic.
He rushed into his room,
grabbed the cloak and slung it over his shoulders, and for the third and
hopefully final time stuffed the bra into his pocket. He dashed back down the stairs, climbed the girls’ staircase two
steps at a time and arrived out of breath a moment later outside the fourth year
girls’ dorm.
Taking a few steadying
breaths, he cautiously pushed the door open, taking the time to reassure
himself that the room was indeed empty.
With relief he saw that it was.
He walked in and pushed
the door to behind him. He had never
been in any of the girls’ dormitories before. In layout they were pretty much
the same as the boys, except the curtains and bed drapes were gold rather than
deep red, but the room looked like a bomb had hit it. He remembered then that the fourth years were still in the middle
of their Muggle project, hence the lack of bed making and tidying by house
elves that week.
Feeling a horrible sense
of guilt for being in the room without the girls’ permission, Harry moved
around, trying to find some evidence that would show him Ginny’s part of the
room.
Luckily, he soon spotted
not only a trunk with GW embossed on the side, but a photograph on the bedside
table of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, waving cheerfully. He knew it was foolish, but he was even more relieved he was wearing
the cloak; he would have felt very embarrassed if he thought Mr. and Mrs.
Weasley could see him creeping around their daughter’s room, and he felt quite
sick at what they might think if they knew why he was there.
Moving round the bed,
Harry flipped the lid of Ginny’s trunk open and stopped, transfixed. All he could see was a huge jumble of …
underwear. Now what should he do? If he just laid it on top, it would be so
obvious the next time she opened it.
But to put it lower down would mean having to move some of these
other … things … there he went again … with his hands.
‘Pull yourself
together,’ he admonished himself. ‘If
you can tackle a Hungarian Horntail, you can tackle Ginny’s underwear’.
Aware that time was
ticking away and that he needed to act fast, Harry went to pull the bra out of
his pocket, when all of a sudden he became aware of footsteps coming up the
stairs at a rapid pace.
He froze where he was,
hoping with all his might that the person would pass by. This time he was not so lucky. With a bang the door crashed open and Ginny
herself dashed into the room, her dark red hair streaming out behind her.
She was headed for her
trunk and at such a pace that Harry had no time to move anywhere; his only
option to avoid her hitting into him was to leap onto her unmade bed. To his relief, the bed covers were in such a
state of disarray that the indentation of Harry kneeling there wasn’t
noticeable.
Luckily, Ginny was in
such a rush that she didn’t seem to notice her trunk was open. She immediately started flinging things out
of it in her search for whatever had brought her back to the dorm between
lessons.
Unfortunately, the
flying items were now landing haphazardly on the bed, the floor and eventually
on the invisible Harry. Harry was
shrugging bits of clothing off the invisibility cloak as quickly as possible,
just in case she turned around and saw … things … suspended in mid air that
were actually resting on his shoulder, and for a brief second, his head.
Ginny continued to
mutter away to herself, and Harry thought he detected she was looking for a
book, but was so distracted by trying to field and dodge passing items of
clothing he couldn’t be sure. Just as Harry was becoming desperate for this
awful moment to end, the raining garments stopped. He glanced at Ginny and felt his heart lurch. She really was very pretty.
Ginny had reached into
the depths of her trunk and pulled out a book; with a triumphant “yes!” she
flicked the lid shut and headed for the door, a large volume tucked under her
arm.
Harry remained
transfixed for a moment, then he slowly eased himself off the bed, shaking out
the cloak to ensure no items of Ginny’s clothing were attached to him. He could do without any additional
complications.
Suddenly aware that time was ticking away, Harry
hurriedly returned his cloak to his room and picked up his charms book, which
he had deliberately left behind that morning.
Still engrossed in thoughts of Ginny, he retraced his steps along the
corridors and slipped into his seat in the classroom.
“What took you so long?”
Ron hissed at him.
“Hmmm? Oh no …..” Harry groaned inwardly. He patted his pocket tentatively. It was still there. He’d forgotten to leave the bra in Ginny’s
room. Was this some kind of
conspiracy? Were he and this bra going
to spend eternity together? Perhaps it
was some cunning plan of Lord Voldemort’s to drive him insane.
***
Later that day, Harry
stood in front of the mirror, studying his appearance. Black, untidy hair, sticking up at the back
as usual, piercing green eyes behind wire framed glasses, taller now in his
fifth year and filling out. Not such a
spindly frame as in his earlier years at Hogwarts. And of course there was the
scar, still slightly visible between the strands of hair resting on his
forehead.
What would Ginny see in
him anyway? Well, said his conscience,
perhaps she’s into perverts – she can redeem you. With a groan, Harry tried to force his thoughts in another direction,
but without success.
This summer at The
Burrow he had become very aware of who and what Ginny Weasley was, and he liked
what he saw and who she was, very much.
And now there was to be another Yule Ball and there was no-one he wanted
to take more than Ginny, but he couldn’t seem to draw on the courage he needed
to ask her. Why? Why couldn’t he do it?
He thought she might
like him still, although he believed she was well over her crush on him. After all, she’d stopped blushing every time
she looked at him in his third and last year they had had several occasions when
they’d conversed just like anyone else.
Was he worried she would
turn him down? Obviously. Added to which she didn’t know that he had
her bra in his pocket. Or the
fact that he had been carrying her bra around for days now. Harry sighed again and looked into the
mirror. He squared his shoulders, took
a deep breath and said aloud,
“Ginny, will you please
come with me to the bra”.
Nooooooo! What was wrong with
him? When would this nightmare be over?
Just then the door to
the dorm burst open and Ron came in. He
was panting, his robes and tie were all askew and he had a cut on his
forehead.
“What happened to you?”
Harry exclaimed, and at Ron’s expression, “Ah, Malfoy”.
“Called Hermione a
mudbl…. – well, you know” he winced as he removed his robes. “’Fraid I didn’t bother with my wand this
time, just my fists”.
“What state’s Malfoy
in? I hope he’s worse off than you!”
Harry peered over at Ron, trying to assess how bad the cut was.
“Hmph! Well, he looks worse, but of course, only
Gryffindor lost points”, Ron was easing his tie off over his head, not
bothering to undo it.
“Snape!” Harry
stated. “Typical, why don’t the other
teachers notice his … here, Ron let me help – look you’ve knocked it, it’s
bleeding again”
“Damn! Get me a handkerchief or something will you”
Ron was trying to stop the bleeding by pressing his already bloodied fingers to
the gash. “No way am I going to see
Madame Pomfrey!”.
Harry shoved his hand in
his pocket and offered Ron something to mop himself up with.
Ron stared.
“Holy crap, Harry, what
are you doing with a … is that a girl’s
bra? … in your pocket?” Harry could
feel his face turn scarlet as his stomach gave a great lurch and he sank onto
the edge of his bed.
“Wow, Harry” said Ron,
impressed, as he came and perched beside him.
“No wonder you’ve been preoccupied lately. Who is she? And how come
I never noticed?”
Harry decided in the
circumstances it would be wise not to point out to Ron that more stuff got past
him than should ever be deemed normal.
It was a bone of contention between him and Hermione on a daily basis.
Ron gave the bra a
rather startled glance. He was peering
intently at it and Harry thought for a panicked moment that he was going to
recognise it from The Burrow. Then Harry
realised the reason for Ron’s concern was different and he could almost see his
brain trying to figure out if the bra looked of a size to fit Hermione. Obviously, he decided not, because a rather
relieved expression crossed his face soon after.
“It’s not what you
think,” Harry tried to protest.
“What, you’ve got it in
there to use as a sling-shot against Malfoy, hey?” spluttered Ron.
Harry ignored him; he
was too focused on saying what had to be said.
“In fact in some ways, it’s worse than you think.” Ron stared at
Harry in confusion. “It’s Ginny’s.”
Continued
in Chapter
Three