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?
As he resumed his walk towards the Great Hall, he thought about older students whom he had seen dating each other. He didn't make a habit of studying them, but sometimes they were hard to ignore.
For the most part, "dates" at Hogwarts seemed to consist of finding a secluded spot in an alcove or in the shade of a tree in order to snog for a bit until a teacher or prefect (or Peeves) found you. As fun as snogging Padma sounded, Harry doubted that that was all she would want out of a first date.
For that matter, he didn't even know if Padma would be up for snogging him at all on their first date. Somehow she didn't seem to be that type of girl.
Some days in the warmer months couples could be seen sitting on the grassy lawns watching the world go by together. Did that constitute a proper date?
Harry wondered if he ought to work on an attempt to increase the number of Hogsmeade trips per year. Seriously, so long as they all did their homework, what was wrong with the students being allowed to wander down to the village on any Saturday of the year? They all needed to regularly top up their school supplies after all, as well as buy treats for pets amongst other things. It seemed strange that they could only do that on three set days in the year, and the rest of the time they had to settle for ordering their supplies through owl post, which was rather inefficient as it took so long.
He must have entered the Great Hall without realising, for he was suddenly pulled unpleasantly from his train of thought by a shout.
"Potter!"
.....
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