A scattering of orange light from the rising sun bathed the crystal blue water of the nearby lake in its glow, the stout peaks of Jura mountain with its millions of years of limestone formation curtailed the biting wind from afar, creating a pleasant albeit slightly chilly atmosphere, the tittering of exotic birds amid their migratory cycle reverberated across the valley, having shed their nightly silence; A troubled Harry Potter, unfortunately, had too much in his mind to enjoy the small slice of heaven that the countryside French château had captured in the slope between two modest greenery filled peaks.
Wandering listlessly at the crack of dawn, the famous British wizard cut across the vague misty air, inhaling the moist clean oxygen with a hearty sigh. His tired green eyes took in the vineyards of the Delacours, a grimace forming on his face at the thought of the patriarch's fate the previous night.
Harry couldn't remember ever having such a restless night of sleep, tossing and turning on the soft bed of the guest room, his exhausted body simply refusing to surrender to the bliss of Morpheus.
He would probably be the first man in the entire history of humankind to not enjoy the aftermath of spending a night with two full-blooded veela goddesses.
But his actions during the night and the previous altercations with the Weasley matriarch rang alarm bells in his mind, a sense of impending disaster gripping his heart at the culmination of behavior on his part in both cases.
Growing up with the Dursleys, the few emotions his young impressionable mind had ruthlessly crushed in their infancy were pride and anger. Harry still remembered the shellacking that he got the first time he presented his report card, showing straight A's in all his subjects, a small smile of pride etched on his lips in the assurance that his relatives had to acknowledge his achievement.
The sound of leather hitting a thin child's skin with loud smacks disabused that notion pretty quickly.
The few times aunt Petunia bad-mouthed his parents in front of him in her drunk state were also the only times he had truly gotten angry at his relatives, small bursts of accidental magic following his outbursts at every instance—destroying a bulb, breaking a chair's leg or banishing the food plate.
Unfortunately, sitting inside his cupboard the same night, with a broken wrist and tears leaking from his eyes, Harry Potter quickly learned that the strange power that sometimes enabled him to do some super weird things; always deserted him in the face of his uncle Vernon's wraith.
And with that realization, the incredible psyche of a desperate child concocted the perfect defense mechanism — nonchalance instead of anger, disinterest instead of vehemence.
Harry winced, remembering the only time he took revenge for Dudley's mishap on his person…
Harry was honestly stumped at the sudden emergence of all the emotions that he had learned to corral to his will, roaring in defiance, filling him with thoughts of revenge and domination against the only three women he had been sexually involved with.
He could argue that his behavior against Ron's mother was a spur of the moment, inspired by the hidden cache of videos on Dudley's computer; but what about the innate joy that he felt at conquering a married woman, thoroughly dominating her inside her married abode where anyone named Weasley could have caught them in the act?
He flushed slightly, remembering the demeaning things he said and did, especially aimed at Molly's husband, who had welcomed an unloved orphan inside his home with open arms.
And last night…
The young wizard wondered what his one-year younger self at the end of the chamber of secrets fiasco would have done in the face of two amorous veelas, bound as if a criminal on gallows waiting to get mauled by their unrestrained passion.
Certainly not matching them thrust for thrust, the desire to dominate them, ruin them in front of one's significant other coursing through his transformed body, actions driven by instincts so foreign that he would have thought himself under the wretched imperious again; if he didn't know any better.
That was all him… or what had become the new him.
The overgrowth of the downward slope towards the sprawling lake brushed his naked shins, the pajama pants that the Delacour women provided for him, almost a foot shorter than his requirement, no doubt another ploy by the older veela to portray her son-in-law's inadequacy.
And wasn't that an immense shock, to realize that his smaller-than-average frame had grown so much throughout the holidays that even the tall veelas had to crane their neck to look into his eyes?
Being busy throughout the holiday in his animagus transformation and not paying any attention to his health, facing himself in the full-length mirror just half an hour ago had certainly been eye-opening for the young man.
No wonder Molly was drooling after seeing him naked. He himself was on the verge of doing the same.
Coupled with the muscles that he could feel corded to his bones and sinew, pointed to the single, glaring reason for his sudden physical and mental overhauling.
The boy-who-lived hurled some colorful words in the serene vicinity, not surprised that a magical process that dozens of previous magicians had undergone without any side effects had somehow brought some monumental changes in him.
Changes that would probably turn out catastrophic in the long run.
Harry dreaded facing Malfoy and his ilk not to mention that hook-nosed bastard. His recent volatile temper and thirst for vengeance would be hard-pressed to contain in the face of the Slytherin house's usual vitriol.
The discontent wizard kicked a small stone toward the large water body in front, grumbling audibly about the mess that his decision of becoming an animagus had created.
A loud throat clearing made him whirl around, the smiling visage of the mature veela greeted his sight.
Eyes wide as saucers, the British wizard dredged up his meager French-speaking skills,
"Bo…Bonjour! Mademoiselle?" Harry stuttered, the amused look sent his way increased his nervousness tenfold, completely derailing him from his thoughts.
"That was quite atrocious pronunciation, Mr. Potter." Harry Potter gaped at the almost perfect accent-less English that left the woman's mouth.
"You can speak English?"
Adrastia shook her head, a small smirk forming on her face.
"Mr. Potter, I spent decades traveling the entire world and meeting different people. I had to learn that inferior language for communication's sake, as you English had colonized half the world in the past."
"Hey! It's not an inferior language!" Harry fired back, his pride as an Englishman at stake, ignoring the other part purposefully.
"Yes, it is. Especially pitted against the language of love." Adrastia continued on before the young man could continue to argue, "French superiority aside, why are you wandering around the château, this early?"
Harry Potter shook his head, eyes shifting away from her inquisitive stare, mind still occupied by his recent beastly conundrum.
Rather than answering her question, the young man fired a question back in her direction, quite unnerved to have his solitary wanderings intruded on by the nosy woman.
"You knew!" Getting confidence at the small smile on the woman's face, Harry continued on. "You knew from the very start that I was an animagus. Didn't you? What gave it away?"
Adrastia giggled a bit, causing the young wizard to blush slightly at the musical sound.
"Harry, how much do you know about Hippogriffs? And I am not talking about their build and different body parts, though I think one part of their body is extremely impressive, but about their herd mentality and social structure? The way they live among themselves?
The emerald-eyed wizard gaped stupidly. All of his prior studies before attempting his transformation were based on the physiology of the beast; the young wizard never delved deep into the more intricate behavioral and social treatise that Hogwarts library provided him. The small things that he even knows about them came from Hagrid's knowledge that he shared at their disastrous first care of magical creature class.
"Umm, not much really," Harry said, rubbing his hand behind his head sheepishly, the action unintentionally had the effect of flexing his pecks and biceps, drawing the older woman's eyes to the exquisite male specimen in front of her.
Adrastia ogled the young male, not even attempting to hide her lecherous gaze. "Why are you bare-chested, anyway? Actually, don't answer that. I prefer it this way."
"That shirt on my bed tore the moment I tried it!" Harry shouted, his voice raising a bit at the indignation of wandering half-naked, absolutely sure that the woman in front of him had her hand in the convoluted mess.
The busty silvered-haired veela smothered a laugh at the wizard's indignation, "Sorry, sorry! I completely forgot that Jean's shirt would not fit your big hunky body. Please forgive me." And the older veela stuck her pouting lips outward, causing the young man to splutter helplessly.
Harry shifted on his feet, even the knowledge that the woman standing in front was as old as his grandmother didn't detract from her otherworldly beauty, her body still tight and lush enough to drive a young teenager mad with jealousy.
"Well, as I just said to my daughter and grand-daughters yesterday, it's almost impossible to get hold of a hippogriff outside of their natural habitat, especially a single young male grazing so far away from the only herd in the entirety of Britain—the odds of that were astronomical, and that was without taking into consideration of the formidable wards of the Hogwarts. Now the chance that you could have been a rogue hippogriff somehow escaping the airtight Swiss natural reserve's boundary was still more believable than a wizard masquerading as a magical beast if not for a couple of secret facts that I had been aware of about Hippogriffs."
"It doesn't matter how much a herd of hippogriffs swell, there always remains a single male stud, who usually mates with every ovulating female throughout the year—''
"Wait, what happen to the male foals?" Harry asked, the sexual profligacy of a male hippogriff not diminishing his earlier trepidation.
The older veela smirked in his direction, "my dear boy, usually only one in twenty foals turns out a male and they remain with the herd for the first couple of years, until they mature…sexually."
"And then?" Harry gulped, already having an inkling.
"Why the young stud challenges his father, of course. And if he could defeat and kill his own progenitor somehow—what do you think he does first?"
Harry shook his head, his previous world-view shattering in front of him about his animagus form's supposed nobleness.
Adrastia took a deep breath, elated by the way the young wizard seemed to hang on to her every word. "The young victorious hippogriff mates with every single mature female of the herd…starting with his mother."
Harry Potter choked up, the thought of mating with your own mother…
Disgusting.
"Is that why I am—" Harry faltered, but the hope that the clearly knowledgeable woman might have some solution to his recent issues forced him to carry on.
"Is that why I look like this now?" Harry turned around slightly as if the woman in front of him had not been undressing him with her eyes from the very moment she had set foot in the vicinity. "Not only that, I…I am feeling certain urges—urges that are not only immoral but also highly inappropriate."
"Oh! You mean to dominate women and degrade them, maybe even snatching them from their husbands?" Adrastia continued on, the still gaping looks of astonishment on the young man's face barely phased her. "That could be your other form influencing your mind, male hippogriffs absolutely detest any male of their kind, wanting all the females for themselves."
"And as for your physical changes, I'm not really sure. Magical animagus are extremely rare, not unprecedented of course but a couple in an entire millennium kind of rare. So any change in the host's physiology isn't documented at all by the scarce sample."
"So it could be my natural growth, a late puberty maybe?" Harry whispered, holding onto the tiny hope that at least one side of the coin is not completely tainted.
"What do you think?" Harry only grimaced at the veela's question, pretty sure of the reason himself.
"Can it change my temperament itself?" Harry continued at the beauty's encouragement. "I mean…change the way I think, increasing my negative thoughts, anger, envy, and all those things?"
For the first time in Harry's memory, the teasing smile of the older veela vanished and a hard look replaced the usual flinty glints. A wand manifested in the veela's hand, the polite askance to perform some magic casting a shadow over the beautiful face.
"May I?" Harry actually shuffled back at the question, the previous night's memories still fresh in his mind.
"Mr. Potter, we may have been acquainted in extreme circumstances, but let me assuage your fears, that no harm would be bestowed upon you by my end of wand. Honestly, there is only a handful of people in the whole wizarding France that can match or surpass my magical knowledge."
The return to the family name only made the young man more nervous. The honest admission of the woman's skill had the opposite effect of assuaging his fears, the survival instinct of the Potter heir kicking in, looking for an escape route from the vastly superior veela matriarch.
But whom can he even ask for help regarding his current problem?
Professor Dumbledore's name came to his mind that was immediately pushed aside, the old wizard's lackluster effort to free his godfather having soured his previous lofty admiration of the old warlock, so naturally all other Hogwarts professors were also out of contention by their association with the old wizard.
The only viable option for him remains his escaped convict of a godfather Sirius, but Harry had already picked his brains for every minute details regarding the animagus transformation. And the mundane animagus form of Sirius hardly made him an expert in his complicated case. Remus's loyalty to the headmaster also made him unsuitable for sharing this information with.
The expectant veela woman already knowing about his other form also gave him an added incentive to make sure that she didn't spread the news of his abilities around.
And she seemed very learned about hippogriffs for some reason that Harry didn't have any desire to dive into.
Harry Potter took a deep breath and nodded his head jerkily, palms sweating slightly to see the thin piece of stick pointing at his forehead.
'If there is even a slight chance of escaping this clusturefuck of situation.'
His eyes crossed at the rapidly waving wand before a searing pain at his infamous scar almost made him double over in pain, feeling as if something was trying to claw out of his forehead.
The pain stopped abruptly, the young wizard took loud gulps of air, a soft hand rubbing soothing circles over his naked back.
"What was that?" Harry gasped out, the pain slowly dying out. Harry Potter steadied himself back on his feet, not complaining about the hand that was gliding over his back-muscles.
"That, unfortunately, Harry was horrible news." Adrastia sighed tiredly, before striding a few feet ahead, "walk with me, love."
Harry Potter followed the silver-haired woman, the voluptuous form covered by a small blouse and skirt hardly registered in his eyes as the storm of dread was eating away all the happy thoughts that his mind currently possessed.
"Tell me Harry, what do you think about veelas? and be honest!"
Harry curbed his impulse to blurt out his initial thoughts (you all are raging sluts!), thinking about how to phrase his thoughts politely without insulting them.
"Well, you are otherworldly beautiful and, uhm… unrestrained?"
A loud snort reached Harry's ears, the following sentence made him almost trip in his steps.
"Is that a polite way of saying we are all cheating whores?"
"I didn't mean—"
"Well, it's not entirely false, is it?" Adrastia said, turning around and staring at his emerald eyes unflinchingly. "But the thing is—veelas are cursed, Harry. Cursed with a terrible power, Empathy."
"Our powerful allure is just the side effect of the continuous lustful thoughts that are directed toward us, a reflection of the lewd unrestricted passion that makes males basically feel their own perverted thoughts filtered through our magic."
"Oh! Like mental mastu—"
The older veela smirked unkindly. "Quite similar, actually. The continuous bombardment of all those lustful thoughts leaves deep scars on our minds, Harry. With time, a veela starts to change if she doesn't indulge in regular debauchery, becoming a shell of their regular vibrant self, living an unhappy, pathetic life just like my daughter used to live a few years ago."
"So a veela can never be monogamous?"
"Well, if you could isolate one on an Island with yourself, then maybe…" Adrastia shrugged, "But rest assured normal humans aren't gifted like yourself, satisfying two older veelas effortlessly. There's a reason that veela stay away from marriage; my daughter kind of picked this life to take revenge for my regular absence in her early childhood."
"But what has that got to do with my condition?" Harry asked.
"Our empathic powers are at their strongest when we are in the middle of sex, our partner's magic laid bare in front of our eyes like open books. Every flaw and taint of their character are ours for easy plucking at our leisure."
The beautiful veela spread her hands wide, "that was one of the main reasons, we knew straight away that a wizard was standing in front of us in the form of a hippogriff. It's just very hard to digest that someone had been able to turn themselves into a magical animal."
"Oh!" Harry's jaw drooped at the sheer possibilities such empathic abilities provide, though the cost seemed pretty steep.
"During sex, we realized that a very kind and brave young man was with us, who have overcome a lot of difficulties to remain pure at heart. Unfortunately, at the end of our session, when you released the magical blast, I picked up a taint of evil, completely separate from your human self or hippogriff self, slowly pushing its thoughts and desires, tainting the pure with absolute wrongness."
A horrible realization dawned on Harry, the words of the headmaster at the end of the chamber fiasco reverberating inside his mind.
"A tiny portion of an evil soul resides in your scar, tightly bound by ancient magics to lessen its influence on your mind. Unfortunately for you, your transformed beastly conscience isn't protected by any magic, enabling the evil to spread its corruption freely inside your psyche, fueling desires of domination, lust, and vengeance that are already present in the proud hippogriff's mind.
"It's Voldemort's soul." Harry ground out, his fury against the headmaster rising by the clear misguidance that he provided knowingly, a likely attempt to divert his attention from the truth.
"Well, I guess a mad British dark lord fits the bill to commit such heinous crimes." Adrastia grimaced.
"Of course that freak had to ruin my life somehow, as if it had not already done enough damage…" Harry's furious grumbling tugged the older veela's heartstrings.
"You should not lose hope, love." Harry stared at the beautiful eyes of the woman, his own had gathered moisture at his helplessness against his foe.
What?
"There are ways to exorcise evil spirits out of the human body. Voldemort obviously was not the first evil wizard to think of creating such evil abominations. I need to contact a few of my old friends and maybe even visit the Egyptian branch of Gringotts."
Harry stared at the murmuring woman's face in disbelief, having trouble associating this woman with the cruel woman of the previous night. "You would do that for me?"
"Of course!" Adrastia vehemently agrees, "You realize you can't transform into your hippogriff form at your whim, without an absolute emergency, don't you? If you change your form for mundane things like sex with women, regularly, or the evil piece could influence your beast self so much, it would not allow you to turn back into a human being again."
Harry gulped nervously at the thought of forever stuck being a hippogriff, driven by his baser desires and animal instincts.
"So of course, I am only helping myself by getting rid of that abomination from your head. Then I could tie you again and have my — "
Harry strode ahead of the now rambling veela, face flushing at the gradual increase in spewing of depravity from the silver-haired woman's mouth.
'Yeah! That's her, all right!'
Ron Weasley stared at his best friend from the corner of his eyes, talking to a blushing Hermione with sheer nonchalance. Twisting his face to the Hogwarts Express window, the youngest Weasley brooded at the rushing sites of green pastures and willows with the occasional streams and little bridges breaking the monotony.
"…You think?"
The sudden silence of the cabin attracted his attention; his friends' curious eyebrows at his absentmindedness burned his ears the same color as his hair.
"Sorry?"
"I just asked what do you think about Malfoy's earlier boastful visit?" the boy-who-lived shrugged his shoulders, "but it seemed you were too much into appreciating mother nature. Thinking about becoming a poet, Ronald?"
"Harry! Stop teasing Ron!" Hermione swatted at Harry's arms, and Ron could only hope that the way her hand lingered on his best mate's forearm was his hyperactive imagination.
Did Harry also…?
"Come on Hermione! You can't deny Ron had been odd for the last couple of days. Heck, I just saw him not touching the apple pudding even once last night." Harry Potter said, gesticulating in his direction with exaggerated hand motions, a teasing grin spreading across his face. "The world must be ending soon."
Ron bunched his fists at his side—the audacity of the bastard, making fun of him after what he had been doing for the last week.
"Won-Won!"
A loud shout from the now open compartment blasted the three occupants' eardrums, causing Ron's face to redden slightly at that silly nickname his girlfriend insisted on calling him.
The lanky youngest Weasley stood up hesitantly, a voluptuous blond girl colliding with his frame, almost knocking him back in his seat with force. Blushing bright red as his girlfriend's large breasts flattened against his chest, Ron shot a smug smirk toward his traitorous friend's direction at having the most beautiful girl in Gryffindor as his girlfriend and immediately blanched. The usually friendly smile of his normally timid friend seemed to have stilled in on his face, the freaky emerald eyes (not at all gorgeous, like every other girl in Hogwarts thought) glowing with a bright sheen, vision fixed at his girlfriend's toned stomach, the purple blouse having ridden well past her belly-button showing blemish less pale perfect skin—Ron's hold on his girlfriend tightened, making the blond to let out a pained squeal.
"Ron!"
Lavender Brown's shout diverted both the boys' focused stare, with Ron slowly stepping back and rubbing his hand in his hair in embarrassment.
The busty blond stared at her boyfriend accusingly, perfectly trimmed brows raised, "What was that, Ronald?"
"Sorry love, it's… it's just that I am seeing you after such a long time." Ron said, trying to cover his blunder with sappy sentimentality, knowing about his girlfriend's weakness for any romantic gesture.
And, sure enough, a bright smile bloomed on the self-proclaimed Gryffindor's queen bee, dragging the nervously shuffling youngest Weasley by the collar of his shirt and placing a wet smooch right at his lips.
Ronald Weasley let out a mental sigh at the averted disaster, trying to inhale his girlfriend's sweet-tasting fat lips when a throat clearing made the enamored couple break apart reluctantly.
"My my, Lavender, do every friend of yours get such an enthusiastic reception after summer hols? Then I would also like to be your friend." Harry Potter's husky voice made the blond blush slightly, turning around in her boyfriend's embrace to stare at the other occupants of the compartment whom she had completely ignored till now in her eagerness to greet her Won-Won.
"Sorry Harry, they are only for my handsome Ro—" The teasing tilt of the curvy blond died in her throat; Lavender Brown swallowed the thick wad of the saliva of her suddenly watering mouth, neck craning upward to see a muscular behemoth of a young man standing there, with the green shirt unbuttoned at the top giving a peaking view of mouth-watering pecks, the rolled up sleeves revealing a pair of huge veiny forearms, not to mention the way the jeans clung to long muscular thighs and legs (what's that fat tube running alongside the right thigh anyway?)—the young woman did a double take at the man's face to verify his identity.
No way that's Harry Potter!
Lavender Brown wriggled out of her boyfriend's tight embrace, the desire to touch the towering male specimen made her almost step forward before a disbelieving shout from the doorways somehow saved her relationship at the last second.
"Harry?"
Lavender grimaced; caught in the dilemma of whether to hug her best friend for interrupting her desire to satiate her curiosity and possibly ruin her relationship with her boyfriend or curse her for making her miss that opportunity to feel every inch of her boyfriend's best friend's bulging muscles.
Harry Potter had never felt more ashamed of himself than he felt then, arms splayed open in a demanding hug from his best mate's busty girlfriend. As much as Harry wanted to blame his other self for ogling the blond Gryffindor, he knew that some part of him always appreciated the eye candy, the most developed girl in their house featured in lots of his dreams. If Ron even got a hint of the contents of those dreams…
His recent descent into debauchery only supplied him with the abundance of courage that enabled him to propose that risqué offer to the Gryffindor beauty.
A small satisfied smile spread across the last Potter's face at the way the blond girl devoured him with her eyes, his eyes reaching for his best mate's. Harry grimaced at the thundering expression that shadowed the redhead's face, hesitating and feeling guilty of encroaching another Weasley male's partner. Just as he was about to think about backpedaling out of the awkward situation, a surprised exclamation pointed a way out.
"Harry!"
The boy-who-lived could barely hide his surprise at the exotic form of one half of the Patil twin, Parvati's appearance, cursing himself mentally for not paying attention to the gorgeous Indian witch earlier.
How fucking blind I had to be to miss so many beautiful creatures!
Voldemort couldn't stop at just ruining his childhood, could he? The bastard almost ruined his youth also with the constant attempts on his life with his harebrained plots.
Harry Potter fumed inside his mind, promising bloody vengeance to the ugly freak the next time they came across each other.
The Potter heir quickly pointed his complete attention to the surprised dusky witch, leaving his best friend to enjoy his time with the chesty blond…for now, at least.
Striding toward the door, Harry quickly dropped to his knees in front of Parvati, his eyes gave a cursory glance at the tall frame of the fit witch.
With the red and gold Gryffindor robes tailor-fitted to clung to her every curve, emphasizing an absolute smoking hot figure, not to mention the black silky tresses almost reaching her hips which Harry can imaging using as reins for some future purposes, his breath hitched at the beautiful face that stared back at him, honey brown eyes quirking slightly at his kneeling in front of her figure.
Damn…
Feeling tongue-tied at the exotic beauty, Harry blurted out the first thing he could remember from a long forgotten story.
"Princess Jasmine, please allow your humble servant, Aladdin, to tend to your every need." Harry almost patted his back at the blush that spread across the light brown skin of Parvati, though not everyone appreciated his attempt of flirtation.
Hermione Granger gnashed her teeth, jealousy flaring inside her heart as Harry had never floated such flattering compliments in her way, ever.
Well, there was also another fact.
"Honestly Harry! From when did you start reading fantasies in your free time?"
"Hermione I was always fascinated by Indian—"
"And that story is Arabic, not Indian."
Harry tried, he really tried to stop the flush that started from the root of his hair, unfortunately a small giggle from above of his kneeling form expedited the process.
Floundering for an answer, Harry finally strung together a few coherent words,
"Well, I guess they couldn't describe the beauty of an Indian princess, so they stuck to the Arabic one." Though his answer was directed at Hermione, he maintained steady eye contact with the blushing again Parvati.
Harry kissed the presented knuckle of the dainty hand before slowly rising on his feet, not letting go of the hand from his comfortable grip.
Harry Potter gave a challenging smirk at his female friend's way before nodding apologetically at Ron, his thumb now rubbing smooth circles on the small hand of the Indian witch.
"Lavender, I am taking Harry to our carriage, you wanna come?" Parvati asked before enthusiastically dragging a grinning Potter heir out of the carriage door.
"Anyone I know present there, Parvati?" Harry inquired, not in the mood to see some boy's ugly mug.
"Just me and Padma, nobody else." Harry's face split in a huge grin, teeth almost glinting like diamonds.
Fucking Jackpot…
Hermione quickly jumped out of her seat, not willing to let her Harry fornicate with a couple of stupid girls. She couldn't help but curse herself for not cornering Harry already at the Burrow when they would not be surrounded by drooling bitches, alas she had been sleeping like a baby for the last week or so; her plan to drag Harry into the dark of the night and interrogate him throughly at the broom shed of the Burrow failing because of her inability to get up at nighttime.
"Ron, I should also go to my carriage." Lavender's voice reached her ears.
"Lav, please—"
The Gryffindor bookworm almost sprinted out of the door, eyes searching for the Gryffindor duo. Seeing them a couple of carriages to her right, Hermione dashed across the corridor, unfortunately for her in her hurry, she collided with a male form almost knocking each other out.
"Fuck!"
"Ouch!"
Hermione glowered at the male before her expression smoothed to see the visage of her study group's friend Terry Boot.
"Sorry Terry, I was in a bit hurry."
Hermione craned her neck back, a grimace forming on her face at the increased distance between her and Harry.
"OK, I will see you later, Terry."
"No Wait!"
Hermione stooped at the shout, brows furrowing in consternation.
"Umm… did you have a pleasant holiday, Hermione?" The brown-haired boy asked timidly, eyes evading direct contact with the brunette.
Hermione barely stopped herself from cursing out loud, of all the things…
"And have you been able to solve that arithmenti…"
Hermione Granger took a deep breath, her level voice not conveying the sheer anger that boy's repeated interruption was causing her.
"Terry, I really don't have time for this now…"
"Willyougooutwithme?"
Even though the sentence was spoken in a rush, Hermione's genius-level intellect dissected the meaning quite easily.
A flush spread across the busty brunette's face, a few months ago the proposal from a cute boy would have made her day but now…
"Sorry Terry, I am not interested in dating now." Hermione said. The enamored boy, unfortunately, missed the hidden message of disinterest.
"Maybe a few months…"
Hermione cut his hopeful whisper, a vein throbbing in her forehead. The moron's untimely proposal had made her miss her mark completely, with both Harry and Parvati nowhere to be seen.
Hermione Granger glared at the nervous-looking young man who seemed to find his shoelaces more interesting than her face and sweetly replied,
"I am really sorry, Terry. You are just not my type." Hermione didn't feel a single ounce of remorse to see the heartbroken expression on the boy's face.
Serves the bastard right for messing up my plan with Harry.