A Perfectly Legitimate Question

A Perfectly Legitimate Question

The train had almost gone off the tracks, throwing students and luggage all over every compartment. Harry looked across at Ginny and Neville's startled faces as he pushed Luna Lovegood off of his lap. The fact that he'd had his hands in places where he'd never handled a girl before was being pushed out of his mind by the anxiety he'd felt when he'd heard the brakes screeching.

"Now what the hell happened?" he asked no one in particular.

A moment later, Hermione, Ron, Pansy Parkinson, and Draco Malfoy appeared outside the compartment door.

"Someone tried to attack the train," Hermione said with her usual conviction. "When we get to the station, it's going to have to be examined. We're supposed to wait on the platform until the teachers have finished searching it. The prefects," she added, giving Pansy and Draco a disgusted look, "will be in charge. We have to keep control of the fifth, sixth and seventh years. The other prefects will be in charge of the first, second, third and fourth years."

"That would require an act of God," Draco said calmly, leaning against the door's frame.

"You're going to think God is acting if you make one more crappy remark to me this year, Malfoy," Ron said threateningly. "Don't think I enjoy working with you, will you?"

"Oh, I'm trembling with fear," Draco answered sarcastically.

"Why can't we just go up to the school while they search?" Harry asked reasonably.

"Because they want the teachers to take us," Hermione answered, "and as I just TOLD you, they are going to be busy."

The Hogwarts Express shuddered into the station, and the students began to sort themselves into two groups, under the direction of the prefects. The older students got themselves together more quickly, and watched with amusement as Anthony Goldstein, and Padma Patil argued with a couple of very frightened first years.

Harry, sitting on his trunk, watched with interest. "Were we ever that small?"

"No, but you were certainly that stupid," Malfoy drawled. "Still are, in fact."

"Shut up, Malfoy," Ginny fired back loyally.

"YOU are still that small, I see," Draco answered, looking pointedly at Ginny's blouse. "Are you always going to be the little girl?"

"Let's talk about something else," Ron said hastily, as he sat down on his trunk. "Something everyone can discuss."

"Let's talk about O.W.L. results," Hermione said brightly. Everyone else groaned.

"That is not something everyone else can discuss," Luna Lovegood said calmly, as she sat down on her own trunk between Harry and Susan Bones, and began to examine a strand of her long, lanky hair, which had slipped out of its bun.

"Quidditch, then," Ron said brightly.

"Not interested," Hermione answered, giving him a scathing look.

"Sex," Draco offered. "Especially kinky sex. I don't know anyone that's not interested in sex."

Everyone HAD looked up at that.

"Draco, if you tell anybody..." Pansy started to say, then hastily shut her mouth.

"Kinky sex? How do you know everyone's interested in that?" Harry snapped. "Some of us have some standards, you know, or not that you'd know."

Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown began to giggle uncontrollably.

"We can discuss who we think is going to go out with who this year," Luna remarked dreamily. "That would be a perfectly legitimate question."

"No one is going to ask you out," Draco said, looking at her in a bored way. "You are a total freak, even by Wizarding standards."

Luna ignored him, but Harry snapped. "Leave her alone, Malfoy. She was smart enough to help land your father in Azkaban."

"Ooooh," Draco crowed, "The truth is coming out at last! I can't believe it! I can't wait! Has your little adventure made you bosom buddies?"

"Harry is not going out with Luna," Hermione answered in a superior voice. "He tells me everything, and he hasn't said anything about that."

Harry turned on her. "I do NOT tell you everything. If I did, I would have told you how none of the house elves would clean Gryffindor any more because of your stupid hats, and now Dobby is stuck with all of the work!"

Hermione looked horrified, but before she could speak, Luna did.

"I would go out with Harry if he asked me, because he's the most interesting person I know."

"How do you know, you bug-eyed hag?" Ginny said sharply. "You just met him last year, and you wouldn't have met him at all if it hadn't been for me. I'm the first witch his age Harry met, you know. If anyone goes out with him, I should go out with him. At least I get positive descriptions!"

"You're probably the first witch my age I SAW," Harry replied, irritated, "but I didn't meet you until almost a year later. The first time I saw you we didn't say one word to each other, and anyway, every time I go out with a good-looking girl, it sucks. Besides, I thought you were going out with Dean Thomas now."

"Who the hell told you that?" Dean said, suddenly snapping to attention on the other side of the platform, where he had been scribbling in one of his art books.

"She did," Harry and Ron answered in stereo, pointing at Ginny.

"Oh, Ron, I just said that to wind you up," Ginny replied exasperated.

"You said what?" Dean shouted, dropping his quill. "Oh, nice of you to throw my name around like that! No wonder Ron wouldn't talk to me at King's Cross. He thought he was doing his brotherly duty by butting into your love life again."

"He should pay attention to his own love life, or lack of it" Ginny grumbled. "Honestly, Ron, when are you going to ask Hermione out?"

"Who said I wanted to ask Hermione out?" Ron wanted to know.

"Oh, thank you so much," Hermione started to say, but Ginny interrupted her.

"Let's see, you're jealous of anyone else who asks her out, you'd fail at school without her, you spend all of your holidays together, and you bought her perfume for Christmas. Yes, I think you want to ask her out. Why don't you get on with it? It's inevitable."

"That perfume was from him? Lavender looked at Ron in horror. "God, that stuff smelled like a dead niffler. Parvati and I threw it out."

Hermione looked at her and grinned. "Is that where it went? Thanks a lot. I should have done it, but I didn't have the nerve."

"See!" Ginny shouted. "See! She didn't want to hurt his feelings. She's always thinking about his feelings. She loves him!"

"Get serious," Dean said in a bored voice, watching Professor Flitwick, Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall walk toward the train, with worried expressions on their faces. "They fight all the time. I'm so sick of them bickering I could scream."

"My parents fought like that for six years, said Harry honestly. "Then in their seventh year they started going out. At least Hermione hasn't told Ron she'd rather date the giant squid yet. That's got to be worth something. Besides, they promised me that they were going to try not to fight so much, and it is getting a bit better. I don't think bickering means you can't go out, anyway."

"That's not bickering they're doing, that's sexual tension," Draco interjected. "A sure sign! By the way, how long after your mother left school were you born, Potter?"

Harry looked horrified. "Shut up about my mother, Malfoy!"

"I will, if you'll come with me to get a couple of dozen butterbeers for everyone. I'm thirsty." Draco looked over at the small concession stand longingly.

"And why should I buy a couple of dozen butterbeers with you?" Harry still looked angry.

"Because you and I are the only ones around here with any money, you moron!" Draco got up, and Harry hesitated for a moment, then followed him.

Lavender watched them go with a thoughtful expression on her face. "Talk about bickering. If I didn't know better, I'd think those two had something going on...It's that love/hate thing, you know?"

"Harry is not gay!" Colin Creevey piped up.

"Yeah, you'd know wouldn't you?" Pansy Parkinson replied in a bored voice. "You've had a crush on him almost as long as the Weaslette. While we're on that subject, another Weasley was the one person Harry couldn't live without, if I'm remembering correctly."

Ron looked horrified, and several students snickered, but Pansy didn't pay attention. She continued, "Besides, Draco is still with me. I was made for Draco. Everyone knows that. It's so obvious that you're blind if you can't see that my sole purpose in life is to be Draco's love interest. "

Draco came back just then with Harry, the two of them juggling a box of butterbeers. He heard Pansy's last comment.

"Don't get too confident, Sweetheart. I'm not the monogamous kind. If a girl's a Pureblood, I'm interested."

Pansy looked furious, but Hermione looked pleased. "Thank God! I'm safe!"

"Oh, I don't know," Pansy snapped back sarcastically. "Rules are made to be broken, and you two do have a lot in common, now that I think about it. You both make divine badges. Your 'Potter stinks' badges were a little better than her S.P.E.W. ones, though, Draco. When you told her to keep that big, bushy head of hers down, how far down did you want her to put it?"

Ron spewed butterbeer all down his shirtfront, and Neville Longbottom started to pound him on the back.

Luna dropped her hair and looked up. "Now we're finally getting to the kinky sex?" she asked hopefully.

Everyone ignored her, as usual.

"I thought Hermione was going out with Harry," Susan Bones said, puzzled. "It said so in Witch Weekly. That's why I never tried to ask him out, even when I knew what it felt like to be Harry."

"How does it feel?" Luna whispered, very interested.

"Incredibly weird. You don't want to know, believe me," Susan whispered back.

"I'm getting tired of telling people that Hermione is not my girlfriend," Harry said, exasperated. He looked over at Draco. "How many times have I said that now? Do you know?"

Draco shrugged. "I don't keep track, Potter. Someone around here probably does, but it sure as hell isn't me."

Pansy smirked at Draco, and continued on. "Or maybe you should go out with Ginny instead of me, if all you want is a Pureblood. They do say opposites attract."

"Ooooh," Parvati moaned appreciatively. "That would be so Romeo and Juliet!"

"I don't know," Lavender said regretfully. "Jane Austen didn't write Romeo and Juliet. Aren't we doing Jane Austen?"

"Who the hell knows?" shrugged Seamus.

Once Ron had his breath back, he pushed Neville away and glared at him. "You were the first guy in Gryffindor to ask out Hermione. Aren't you still sorry Krum beat you to her?"

"I do like Hermione," Neville answered calmly, "but I promised my gran I wouldn't get serious about any girl until I was out of school. I have to figure out what I'm going to do when I'm in charge of the manor."

Draco pointed his butterbeer bottle at Ginny. "Then there's the man for you, Weasley. Wouldn't you like to go live in Longbottom Manor, instead of that hovel you're in? It would have to be a step up for you, even if it did mean getting stuck with a nobody like Longbottom."

In spite of the lack of kinky sex talk, Luna had continued watching the other students like a spectator at a tennis match. "Ginny doesn't think Neville is nobody. She told us so, when we were coming to school last year. I think personally that they'd be a lovely couple."

Ginny turned on her furiously. "And you said you would have gone to the Yule Ball with RON! You're always watching him. Why don't you go out with him?"

"Luna watches everyone!" Ron yelped. "It's creepy. Sorry, Loony, but it is. Besides, we've known each other since we were nine, and she and her father moved into the neighborhood. If we had anything in common, I think I'd know by now Besides, I wish she'd quit calling me Ronald. It reminds me of Mum. It totally spoils the mood, if I have ever managed to get in the mood with her, which by the way I haven't."

"She likes Quidditch," Neville said trying to think of something Luna and Ron had in common. Neville was just glad to have the conversation off of him. "She even cheers for Gryffindor, when you're not playing Ravenclaw that is."

"That's another reason she should go out with Harry," Parvati said, in a bored voice. "Every time she wears that stupid lion hat, he smiles. I'm so sick of hearing it I'd like to boil her in Silencing Solution, but HE smiles!"

"I laughed out loud when I first saw the stupid thing!" Lavender said rudely, "but a Silencing Solution might not be such a bad idea."

"Luna believed in me when you two didn't," Harry said grumpily. "Don't even think about messing with her. If people do this year, I'm going to hex them. I have to keep up with my saving-people thing!"

"I can take care of myself," Luna said simply, rummaging in her bag for the latest issue of the Quibbler. She opened it, and pretended to ignore the hurt look Harry gave her, but behind her magazine, she was smiling slightly.

"Still, Longbottom needs someone to take care of him," Draco said conversationally. "He can't tie his shoes without help. In spite of the fact that he stood up to the golden trio, won Gryffindor the house cup that year, jumped Crabbe and Goyle, and went to the Department of Mysteries, he's still a total coward and a loser, you know. Why don't you take out the Loony, Longbottom?"

"I can't," Neville said, shrugging. "I don't know why, but I can't. For some reason, that would be against the rules."

The students all looked up anxiously at the sky for a moment, as if they were expecting an anchor to drop down on them.

Lavender then looked across at Harry. "That reminds me. I heard you and Cho Chang are through for good, too. Where is she anyway?"

"I don't know," Harry said honestly. "I don't think we'll see her much this year. "You know she and I were never going to be happy, so it's better that it ended early."

Lavender nodded. "Well, Seamus and I are still going out. Aren't we Seamus?"

"I guess so. No one ever told me otherwise." He looked over at the train. "It looks like they're done. Here comes Hagrid."

Sure enough, Hagrid appeared, calling for the first years, and the student heard the sound of the carriages coming up the road. They began to line up to go up to the school. Luna rolled up her magazine, and stuffed it in her bag. She stood up next to Harry.

"Luna," he whispered, "do you really want to go out with me?"

She shrugged. "I've heard anything's possible."

Ron looked sheepishly at Hermione. "I didn't really mean to say that I didn't want to ask you out."

She stared at him, openmouthed. "So you DO want to ask me out?"

"Who knows? But I'll think about it," he said blushing to the tips of his ears.

Draco threw his butterbeer bottle into the nearest bin, and looked back at Pansy, then at Ginny, who quickly looked away, toward Neville Longbottom. Draco grinned. This was going to be a very interesting year...very interesting indeed. Now if he could just figure out who the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was going to be!