A Hospitalic Romance

"Well," Harry said, "Here I am."

And here he most certainly was. Gabrielle smiled, charmingly she hoped, and pushed some hair back from her face.

His eyes followed her hand, and she smiled a shade more broadly.

"Would you like to have a seat by the table? It will not be long."

"Thank you," said Harry, obviously shade uncomfortable but trying to be polite. He always tried to be polite... As she took his coat and hung it in the closet, she wondered why. People would love him no matter how he acted, so he really needn't bother. He did, though...

Gabrielle slipped back into the kitchen to stir things. Dinner was to be a chicken soup, bread (warming in the oven), and salad. Simple, but good, and it had the benefit of easily doubling as her lunch the next day.

"I forgot to ask," she said, simply to make small talk, "if you had any food allergies. So I tried to make something that you couldn't possibly be allergic to unless you were very strange, and I have seen you eat most of the ingredients."

She gave the soup a final poke, and, satisfied that it would be ready in about five minutes, turned around just as Harry was saying, "Thank you. I don't actually have any allergies as such, but I'm not too fond of humbugs or mashed potatoes that are too lumpy."

She smiled. "Well, I am pleased to announce that those will not be served tonight." She frowned a bit. "I'm not even sure I know what a humbug is, actually."

Which gave them something neutral to talk about while they waited for the soup to be done.

*******

Harry, she knew, was an interesting conversational partner. He had a unique take on most things, and never changed his opinions just to make her like him, as so many men did. He also didn't confuse her; he spoke in such a way that she could understand him easily. Lastly, he tended to be a bit quiet, which suited Gabrielle just fine; she liked to talk a bit more than was needed.

Dinner was, as she had known it would be, excellent, if plain. Harry complimented her on the soup, ate two bowls full (which Gabrielle was more than happy to serve him; she knew she would be heartily sick of the soup before it was gone) and pretended he were going to throw up, before laughing and teasing her. It wasn't just the food that made it good, though...

Although Gabrielle tended to roll her eyes a bit at romanticism, she thought, when it came down to it, that it was Harry himself who made the meal great. This scared her, more than a little bit: she had always been calm, independent, and rational; she had been to dinner with this man countless times; why was it that suddenly, he was here in her apartment, and everything glittered? Why was it that suddenly, it was like she heard music? Why not before?

Gabrielle was more than a little frightened; all at once, love was out of her control.

There was more than just a lifetime of being a veela, born of the Goddess of that emotion, to this; she was also a logical person, and years of trying to learn control of her own emotions and thoughts tended to give one the misconception that one could; finding out she couldn't was shattering. It was as one of the basic precepts of her medical training were coming out from under her; she was falling, and all at once a certain English expression made absolute sense. It was not a nice feeling.

*******

Harry, across the table, was having a good but nerve-wracking time. He didn't know which half of the meal was worse: the first half, where he felt like a rabbit under the hawk-like gaze of her gorgeous blue eyes, or the second half, where she acquired a strange, distracted look in her eyes...

After dinner (there were marvelous pear sundaes for dessert) they sat around and chatted for an hour, until Gabrielle suggested that they take a tour of the park near her house. They spoke of all sorts of things; his recovery, her career, his prospective careers, the recent wizarding musical groups, the latest in games from Zonko's (they'd stopped trying to compete with the Weasleys after the first year or two, it seemed, and had switched merchandise), and how the world had changed since last Harry had been out of it... It was a wonderful thing, being able to talk freely. He hoped she felt the same way.

In the park, they had a long and humorous conversation on the names of flowers. As they walked around the area, Harry would point out flowers and attempt to name them. The problem was, he wasn't much into gardening. In fact, he was rather down on it, since the Dursleys had made him do so much of theirs for free. So Gabrielle got treated to him pretending to pretend to know them, and was even picked a bouquet of "the little flowers with the pink dots where there shouldn't be any dots, not to mention pink ones."

"Of course! But per'aps, zey are better zis way," she commented, eyes sparkling. Harry smiled, and, unable to resist it, tucked another blossom (a lily, the only one he'd really known) behind her ear.

That's when it happened. As he began to draw back from placing the flower, he caught her eye; there was something raw and naked in there, and yearning. He paused, one hand still holding her chin steady, his face perhaps six inches from hers, and not for the first time since stepping out her door with her noticed how the moonlight seemed to have a permanent collection in her skin, and how her hair glowed, not like silver, but like fog, and how her eyes looked like mercury in the night, and how her face was so delicately pointed... She shivered, neither of them having pulled anything on before leaving. How odd, Harry thought... it was warm out. Uncomfortably warm, really...

Which was when all the blood in his body clued itself in and started bungy jumping south. Without warning, still trapped in the timelessness of her perfection, he knew he had to get away, or he was going to jump her right there on the grass.

His jacket was back at her place. He was enormously tempted to leave it there, but his wallet was in it, too, and he didn't really want to loose that.

Harry swallowed, and pulled his hand back to his side. "Perhaps we'd both better go home soon," he said. "It's getting late."

*******

Gabrielle was stunned. Late? It wasn't that late! It was only nine or so when they left the flat, and they'd only been walking for an hour or so! Okay, maybe it was that late, but he'd been to parties that ran much later! And anyway, he hadn't even looked at his watch. "I'm sure you could stand to stay a bit later," she said.

He looked panicked. "No, no, I couldn't ask to impose like that! I'll just walk you back to your flat, pick up my jacket and go."

Gabrielle looked at him, first in confusion and then in concern. "Are you alright?" she took a step towards him and laid her hand on his forehead, "You look rather pale... You are a bit clammy, too. You are correct, I should get you to bed."

Harry choked.

Gabrielle snatched her hand back, her brain finally, finally registering what was going on. Her mind must be going; with any other man, she would have spotted it immediately.

Of course, it didn't take a genius to know that Harry Potter was not any other man.

She was left wondering, though: why didn't he think of that when she turned the veela charm on, but he did when it was the furthest thing from her mind?

*******

The walk back to Gabrielle's flat was torture. Harry kept thinking of how beautiful she was, and trying to not think it, until he thought he would go insane. Gabrielle talked, in that French accent that he had thought was charming and now thought was sexy, of many things, all of them frivolous and easily manipulated to insinuations and double-entendres that Harry was sure were deliberate, despite sounding so innocent...

He was in a right state by the time they reached base.

It didn't help that the first thing he saw upon entering the room was the bed.

Gabrielle pulled him back into the room and shut the door behind him. Harry glanced at the door nervously, and then looked back into her eyes.

This proved to be a mistake. In the moonlight, they had looked silver; in the soft, warm light of her flat, they looked periwinkle. And luminous.

Gabrielle stepped closer to him, then reached up and brushed a kiss against his mouth. "I would not wish you to become sick," she said quietly, "But I zink that you are not so ill zat you can not stay with me."

Harry looked into her eyes, and gulped. He let go the iron grip he had had on the doorknob, and reached forward to take her arm. He pulled her slowly up again, and at the same time reached down and kissed her.

He most certainly did not catch a chill.