Chapter 46

Harry cursed himself when he awoke the next morning. Weary from the previous day's events, he had stumbled through his quarters and to his bedroom where he fell asleep on top of his bed without giving a thought to doing even the briefest of check of the rooms for any unsavoury spell work.

Madam Bones would be so disappointed in him!

Before he could even think of taking a shower, Harry whipped out his wand and cast every detection spell he knew over every object and in every nook and cranny his new rooms held. Fortunately the spells turned up nothing, so it seemed that Dolores Umbridge had been able to arrange for the House Elves to set up these rooms for Harry without Dumbledore getting wind of it. If he had, it was likely that everything from the pillows on the bed to the toilet seat would be enchanted with some kind of monitoring spell.

After having a quick shower and getting dressed, Harry fed Hedwig a few owl treats before picking up his schoolbag and heading towards the door. As he walked, he opened the front compartment of his bag to check that he had a full stock of quills, ink and parchment.

It turned out that he had plenty of each in supply, as well as all of the text books for his chosen subjects. However, also contained within that compartment was something altogether unexpected.

Four wands.

It seemed that, as well as forgetting to check his quarters for spells, he had also forgotten to give Draco and his cronies their wands back the night before.

Well, a night without their wands should probably cause them all to respect what a privilege it was to have them in the first place (note: should!) Whether they did or did not, Snape was guaranteed to be on the war path at breakfast.

Deciding to deal with that problem when it reared its greasy head, Harry zipped up his bag and then opened the door to exit his rooms. The suit of armour beyond stepped aside in order to allow him to pass out into the corridor and then resumed its spot in front of the door.

For the briefest second Harry felt a mild surge of panic. He knew that he had set the password to get into his quarters the night before, but for a brief moment he could not remember what he had chosen it to be.

Then it came to him: Liberation.

As he began walking along the corridor, he repeated the word many times over in his head in order to make sure that he remembered it.

Unfortunately he was so engrossed in this that he literally walked into someone. Fortunately the other person was quite a bit smaller than him, so he was not knocked over. For the girl he had walked into, however, it was a different matter. Only the fact that she had two fellow students behind her stopped her from toppling over backwards and landing flat on her back on the cold stone floor.

"Hey, sorry about that." said Harry as the two girls pushed the other back onto her feet.

"S'okay!" the first girl squeaked in embarrassment.

Harry noticed immediately that they were each wearing the ties and badges of Ravenclaw House, and all three appeared to be first years.

"So, where are you headed?" he asked, hoping to be helpful.

"To breakfast," muttered one of the girls.

"But we got lost." said the third.

"Well, the bad news is that you are going in completely the wrong direction," said Harry "but the good news is that I am heading to breakfast as well, so why don't you follow me?"

All three girls nodded and followed him as he set off towards the Great Hall.

"So how come you didn't go down to breakfast with some of the other students?" Harry asked in an effort to make conversation as they walked along.

"We were following some second years, but stopped to look at a portrait of children flying kites in a field," explained one of the girls "when we turned to carry on the second years were gone."

Harry thought about that for a moment, and could not recall ever seeing a portrait of children flying kites, but then again he had never had any cause to go near Ravenclaw Tower, so any portraits located near there were not ones he would have come across.

Then again, it had also been some time since he had bothered to study any of the portraits in the castle. The one they had described could well have been a new one, and he had just never noticed it.

"Well don't worry," he said "Most people get lost at some point during their first few weeks here. But before you know it, you'll be able to make your way down to the Great Hall or to your classrooms with your eyes closed."

"Is there a spell for that?" asked one of the girls, eagerly.

"Um…" said Harry thoughtfully "No, not that I know of."

"Oh, there you three are!" exclaimed a voice from behind them.

Harry and the girls turned around to see Padma Patil hurrying towards them.

"Hey, Padma," said Harry "What brings you here?"

"I was looking for these three," replied Padma "All the other first years arrived with some of the second years. When these three didn't turn up I decided to go looking for them."

Harry turned to the three girls and asked "See that? She came looking for you. That's someone you can trust right there, so never be afraid to talk to her, okay?"

All three girls nodded.

"For that matter," Harry continued "you can always come and talk to me."

"Okay," squeaked one of the girls, whilst the other two looked too embarrassed to do anything more than nod with their eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

Padma rolled her eyes at their behaviour and said "Come on, let's go."

As they walked Padma asked of Harry "So, any plans to sit at the Ravenclaw table this morning?"

"Actually I was planning on sitting with the Hufflepuffs for breakfast and Ravenclaws for lunch," answered Harry "but if you really wanted me to I suppose that I could switch up the order of things."

"No," said Padma "lunch will be fine. I'll save you a seat. But does this mean that you'll be having dinner with the Slytherins?"

"Looks that way…" said Harry before trailing off unsurely.

"I'll arrange for the coffin to be delivered tomorrow morning," said Padma "Do you like yew or are you a mahogany person?"

"I'd prefer a pine if you can get it," replied Harry, keeping up the joke "I rather like the smell, and it is a much more eco-friendly option."

"Noted. Seriously though, how do you plan on surviving sitting with the Slytherins?"

"Well, hopefully I can sit next to Tracey Davis or one of the Greengrass sisters, so at least one side of me should be safe. From then on the plan is to keep my wand in my hand and touch nothing."

"Sounds like a reasonable idea," replied Padma. She was silent for a few moments, apparently lost in thought. Then she asked "So if you do survive dinner with the Slytherins, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out later?"

Harry paused at that. He looked to the girls and said "If you go down that staircase, the Great Hall is on your right."

All three hurried off down the stairs.

Harry turned to Padma and asked "Do you mean like a date or something?"

"If you want," she replied, sounding suddenly unsure of herself.

"I'd like that," said Harry, and was rewarded with a bright smile.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. What did you have in mind?"

Her lips moved slightly as she tried to find an answer, but finally wincing and replying "You know what? I concentrated so hard on working up the courage to ask you on a date that I didn't stop to think up something for us to actually do on the date."

Harry chuckled and said "Well, I guess Hogsmeade is out of the question. Tell you what, I'm the guy here. You did the asking, so let me plan what we do."

A smile formed on her face as she replied "Okay. Let me know at lunch."

"Sure thing," said Harry as she turned and walked down the remaining flight of stairs.

Just before she disappeared into the Great Hall she glanced back at him over her shoulder and smiled before disappearing from view.

Harry remained standing at the top of the stairs, a smile of his own on his face.

He had a date!

Not only that, he had a date with a witch who was considered by many of his classmates to be one of the prettiest girls in their year.

Not only that, she was kind, thoughtful and intelligent person to boot! It didn't get much better than that.

'Suck on that everyone who ever thought I might be gay!' he thought as he finally began to make his way down the stairs.

The timing of the date was set for after dinner, so all he had to do now was plan what they were actually going to do on their date.

He stopped walking.

'Holy hell, I have to plan a date!' he thought in a panic. He didn't have the first clue how to do that.

Alright, he wasn't completely clueless. He knew that the basic formula for a date with a girl was dinner and either a movie or dancing. But that was in the Muggle world. He was at Hogwarts. They didn't show movies at Hogwarts. Opportunities to go dancing at Hogwarts were very few and far between. And unless you felt like sneaking into the kitchens to pay a visit to the House Elves, dinner at Hogwarts was only available in the Great Hall.

His mind whirled about as thoughts raced through his head at a million miles an hour. Aside from a stroll through Hogsmeade Village when the staff allowed it, what could possibly constitute a date for two students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

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