Happy Holidays, cynthia_black!
Title: Salvage Operation
Author: Somewun sekrit…
Fandom: Harry Potter
For: cynthia_black, one of whose requests was for "Harry/Parvati: romantic, with candlelight." Here's hoping this satisfies…
Rating: PG at best
Notes: This is set in GoF, and it helps explain, perhaps, why Parvati didn't spit on Harry every time she saw him for the rest of the series.
Salvage Operation
***
If I have to stay here one more minute, Harry thought in exasperation, my head's gonna explode.
The Yule Ball had just ended, the students had returned to their dorms, and one might have supposed that would be the signal for all the party-goers to collapse into their beds from exhaustion. One would have been quite wrong. Between Seamus and Dean digging at Neville for "all the dirt" on his date with Ginny, and Ron alternating between rants on Hermione's mental status and pleas for reassurance that he hadn't done anything wrong, the atmosphere in Harry's dorm was anything but peaceful. Harry wasn't even bothering to prepare for bed: getting under the covers would simply make it easier for the other boys to target comments in his direction. And even without that, Harry was being driven frantic.
Finally, he could take no more of it.
"Where ya goin', mate?" Ron asked, interrupted in mid-tirade by Harry slipping his shoes back onto his feet.
"Out," he replied in a curt tone that discouraged any response. Out -- just out. Out of the dorm, out of the common room, out of the tower. It had become too confining in Gryffindor all at once, and he needed to get as far afield as he could
Harry was tempted to dig his Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk -- but while Ron knew about that interesting artifact, Dean, Seamus and Neville did not, and Harry didn't want to spread the secret more than he had to. It was, however, easy enough to slip the Marauder's Map into his pocket without being noticed.
He was out through the portrait and in the corridors before he allowed himself to think about what a bad idea this might be. A belated check of the Map showed no one walking the corridors -- no professors, no prefects, not even Filch and Mrs. Norris. Probably all worn out from that miserable Yule Ball, Harry decided.
The Yule Ball…
Without conscious thought, Harry found his feet taking him back to the Great Hall, where the Yule Ball had been held. He paused at the doors for a moment, wondering what had prompted him to return here. The Yule Ball would hardly be one of the memories he'd use to call up his Patronus, after all.
Finally, he asked himself how far the Hogwarts house-elves had gotten in cleaning the Hall and removing the Yule decorations. With that as an excuse, he quietly opened the door and slipped inside.
He was mildly surprised to discover that nothing had been changed from when he'd left it. The sparkling silver frost still adorned the walls: in the light of the hundreds of floating candles, they glittered cold and mysterious. The garlands near the ceiling were still in place, though barely to be seen in the low light. Well, Hermione should be happy that the elves get a day off for Christmas, like everyone else, Harry thought. Maybe she'll ease up on SPEW when I tell her…
Soundlessly he wandered among the empty tables, gratefully letting the silence and solitude soak into him. It was a welcome change from the noise and tension through which he'd suffered all evening. Harry was halfway to the front of the Hall when he realized with a start that he wasn't alone. Someone else was still in the Hall.
Someone quietly crying.
It took several seconds before Harry could make out a figure seated at one of the tables, facing away from him. The soft candlelight made it hard to see who it was. Then the weeper leaned forward, pressing a handkerchief to her face, and Harry made out the back of a bright pink dress gown.
The smart thing for Harry to do at that moment would be to slip out of the Hall as silently as he'd slipped in, respecting the other person's wish for privacy, and letting them keep their dignity.
The Boy Who Lived might be famed for many qualities, but "doing the smart thing" had never been among them.
"Parvati?" he blurted.
The girl turned her head sharply. Like Harry, it took a moment for her to identify the newcomer. When she did, her face became a snarl. "What are you doing here?"
"I just came down for a little quiet," Harry said defensively. "And I… I heard you crying."
"Crying? Me? Not likely! I was just blowing my nose -- the cold air, and all." Parvati brought the hanky to her face again and sneezed into it unconvincingly. "See?"
The sound was not at all like the crying sound Harry had heard earlier, but he decided against challenging her statement. "So… I, um, didn't expect to find you down here…"
"Probably not. I'm surprised you gave me any thought at all." Parvati turned away from Harry and continued talking to the empty room. "Not that it mattered to me, mind you. I hope you had a good time tonight, because I had a wonderful time! All the Beauxbatons boys wanting to dance with me…"
"Well, um, good. That's… that's good."
Parvati spun her head to glare at him. "ARE YOU MAKING FUN OF ME!?"
Mute with shock, Harry could only shake his head.
Tears welled in Parvati's eyes, and she turned away from Harry again and began to weep once more into her handkerchief. Harry warily eyed her: crying girls had always disturbed him, left his stomach unsettled. He'd never known, and probably never would know, how to deal with a crying girl. But somehow, sneaking away and leaving her to cry alone didn't seem quite the thing.
Without saying anything, he approached the table where she sat. He paused, considered for a moment, then selected a chair that wasn't in her field of view, so she could ignore him if she chose -- yet close enough so she could talk to him, if she chose. Harry didn't reach out to touch her; he continued to say nothing; his total attitude was of passive receptivity.
It seemed to work. Parvati's tears slowed somewhat. She refused to look at him -- but she didn't order him away, either.
At length, her tears reduced to sniffles, Parvati finally raised her head. "That wasn't true, you know," she said very softly, still not looking at him.
Harry forced himself to wait.
"I had a miserable time tonight."
This seemed to call for some response. Harry searched for words that wouldn't provoke either anger or more tears. "You did get a lot of dances, though…"
"No thanks to you!" she spat. "My so-called 'date' -- the boy who asked me -- he couldn't be bothered to dance more than once with me! Oh, didn't that make me feel special!"
"Yeah, that was pretty bad," Harry conceded. "The boy who asked you was a real berk. Especially considering he waited until almost the last minute before he finally asked."
"AND considering that I got a date for his friend, too!"
"If it's any consolation, he was probably an even bigger berk." He waited a second, and added, "So it could have been worse."
She was glaring at him again. "That's supposed to be consolation?"
Well, at least she was looking at him. Harry ducked his head humbly. "No, I guess it isn't. Parvati… Parvati, I'm sorry."
She maintained the glare for another few seconds, before it crumbled around the edges. "Harry, why?! Why ask me to the dance and then not dance with me? Am I that ugly? Am I that boring? What did I ever do to you, that you'd want to humiliate me like that?"
It had never occurred to Harry to consider the Ball in that light. Now, he could see how Parvati -- and everyone else -- would look on his abandonment of her as a snub. And he realized now that many people -- Rita Skeeter, had she been here; certainly Malfoy and his cohorts -- would be gossiping about it for weeks, dissecting his actions and looking for clues. Had he cut her for some offense committed during dinner? Had he (or she) gotten a better offer from someone else? Or was it simply because he was Harry Potter, and this was only to be expected of an attention-seeking glory hound?
He didn't know. He only knew that, because of his actions, Parvati was hurting. And the first thing he needed to do was to try and make things right -- or at least better.
"You didn't do anything," Harry insisted. "It was all me. I… well, we've already agreed that I'm a berk, right? I didn't realize… Parvati, it was all me. My fault. And… and I'm sorry."
Parvati returned her attention to her hanky. "'Sorry', he says. Like that makes it all better." She sniffled. "We probably won't ever have another dance like this one…"
A penny dropped somewhere in Harry's head.
Squaring his shoulders, he stood from his chair and took three steps to stand before Parvati. In what he would later admit was an awful imitation of a Continental dance-master, he put one hand behind his back and extended the other, palm up, to Parvati.
He had to wait a moment before she would acknowledge the hand. When she did, she looked up at him with a tinge of scorn. "Hard to dance without music, Potter."
Harry promptly began to hum one of the slower dance tunes that had been played earlier in the evening. He managed a few bars, stopped, and canted his head slightly in inquiry… and invitation.
Parvati continued to regard him, her scowl slowly fading until her face was neutral. Slowly, almost as though her body were acting against her will, she placed her hand in his and allowed her to raise her from her seat.
At least this time, Harry knew where her hands -- and his hands -- should go.
He resumed humming the tune, and after six beats to set the tempo, they started waltzing across the floor. The gentle light of the floating candles were their only illumination as they danced, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence as Harry proved he could keep up with her.
Her features softened a bit as they danced. Parvati was watching him closely, looking for the least trace of mockery -- which, had she seen it, would have caused her to slap his face and storm out of the Hall at the very least. It took some time for her to convince herself that Harry was genuinely trying to make amends, in the only way immediately available.
"So why couldn't you dance with me like this?" she finally asked him. "You're much better now that you were during the opening dance -- why were you pretending you couldn't dance?"
"I wasn't pretending," he said, breaking off from humming but maintaining the tempo. "I guess… well, I guess I'm better now because it's just us."
His answer seemed to puzzle her. "That's silly," she finally said. "If you'd danced like this before, everyone would have known how well you dance! That's not something to hide!"
"You wanted people to see us dancing?"
"Yes! It could have been so beautiful! Us dancing without a care in the world, everyone watching and admiring…" Parvati closed her mouth abruptly, as though struck. Harry took it as a sign they were done talking, and took up a new melody to hum. Another waltz, of course -- it was the only dance step Harry knew.
Parvati spoke again in a voice of discovery. "You… you didn't want people watching," she said slowly. "You don't like it. You're dancing better now because people aren't watching." Harry nodded in confirmation, and she continued, "You really didn't put your name into the Goblet of Fire, did you? You really didn't want to be the center of attention?"
"That's what I've said all along, Parvati," Harry reminded her gently.
"While I thought being the center of attention was so wonderful, so…" She shook her head. "So we were working at cross purposes, then?"
Harry managed to shrug while dancing. "Let's say I didn't talk to you as much as I should have. It really was all my fault. And I am sorry."
They fell silent after that, but it was no longer a stilted, uncomfortable silence. It felt more like a thoughtful silence on Parvati's part. For Harry, the silence was what he'd sought when he'd fled Gryffindor Tower in the first place, and he welcomed it. The dancing continued, with no need for Harry to hum a melody: they'd fallen into a rhythm and kept to their steps nicely.
Indeed, not until Harry spotted a tiny head peek fearfully around one of the tables did he think about stopping. Leaning closer to Parvati's ear, he whispered, "Don't look now, but I think the house-elves are waiting for us to leave so they can clean the Hall."
"And Hermione would never let us hear the end of it, if we inconvenienced the house-elves," Parvati concurred with a roll of her eyes. They continued their waltz a few more steps, before slowing and halting in the center of the dance floor. Harry released Parvati and bowed awkwardly. She smiled for the first time since Harry had found her, and murmured thanks.
They made their way out of the Hall… Harry surreptitiously checking the Map to ensure their route back to the dorms was clear. There was a moment when Parvati stood there oddly, almost… expectantly. It took Harry a second to figure out what she might be waiting for. Then he offered her his arm. Her smile grew slightly as she accepted it, wrapping her hand around the crook of his elbow.
Nothing was said during their trek back to Gryffindor Tower: their linked arms gave the walk a sort of formality that precluded small talk. It gave Harry's mind a chance to think… and wonder. Parvati had obviously expected him to, well, escort her back to the dorms. What else did she expect of him? More to the point, what did she want of him?
Had this been an actual date - not a ritual of apology - Harry might have had an idea. Dates, from all he had heard, usually ended with a good-night kiss. But given how the Ball had turned out, he couldn't help but think it inappropriate now.
They arrived at the Fat Lady's portrait, and Parvati gave the password. They had to unlink their arms to enter the common room, but once there, they stood facing each other - Parvati, again, with that expectant stance. Harry hadn't a clue what to do, but he at least had a fair idea of what not to do.
"Um… so, then…" he managed to say, with a half-gesture towards the stairs to the boys' dorms, as if to say I'll just be going now.
"Erm, yes," Parvati replied. She shifted from one foot to the other - still with that air of expectation - but made no move towards the stairs to the girls' dorms.
Neither said anything for a moment. "Right, then," Harry said finally, more to break the standoff than anything else. "Um, I hope… I hope the evening ended better than, well, than either of us thought it would." The words came out fumbling, but they were sincere.
"Oh yes," she responded, "I have to admit, the ending wasn't half-bad." And still neither had made a move to leave.
Yeah, thought Harry, this isn't awkward much, is it…
It was time to take the initiative. Putting a hand over his heart, Harry gave Parvati a half-bow. "G'night, Parvati. Pleasant dreams. And… um…" Straightening, he smiled shyly and finished, "And thanks for giving me a second chance." With a nod, Harry turned to go to his own dorm.
"Ahem."
He looked back over his shoulder, a bit surprised, and made his smile turn rueful. "Boys who are berks don't earn good-night kisses from their dates."
Parvati matched his rueful smile with one of her own. Then she stepped closer to him and laid her hand on his arm. "On the other hand," she replied breathily, "boys who make up for being berks…"
And with that, Parvati gave him a soft kiss on the cheek.
She held his arm for a second longer before squeezing his arm in farewell. "Good night, Harry," she told him, and headed up the steps to her room. Something of their dance must still have been in Parvati's head - at any rate, her hips swayed as she walked away from him. Harry had never noticed that before. Her walk was suddenly, completely, totally fascinating; he watched her leave as though entranced.
I guess the good-night kiss was too much a part of the "fairy-tale ball", he reflected. She had to have something to remember from tonight. I hope I made things better, at least… I think so. I hope.
With a sigh, Harry trudged up the stairs. He still had to mediate between Ron and Hermione in the days to come; he still had to figure out whether Cedric's advice on the golden egg was worth trying; most of all, he had to keep his dormmates from prying too much into the details of his date. Much to do, so much to do.
But at least now, he could legitimately call his evening with Parvati a date. The notion made him feel good inside, for the first time in hours - and feeling all the better, knowing Parvati could do the same.
Author: Somewun sekrit…
Fandom: Harry Potter
For: cynthia_black, one of whose requests was for "Harry/Parvati: romantic, with candlelight." Here's hoping this satisfies…
Rating: PG at best
Notes: This is set in GoF, and it helps explain, perhaps, why Parvati didn't spit on Harry every time she saw him for the rest of the series.
Salvage Operation
***
If I have to stay here one more minute, Harry thought in exasperation, my head's gonna explode.
The Yule Ball had just ended, the students had returned to their dorms, and one might have supposed that would be the signal for all the party-goers to collapse into their beds from exhaustion. One would have been quite wrong. Between Seamus and Dean digging at Neville for "all the dirt" on his date with Ginny, and Ron alternating between rants on Hermione's mental status and pleas for reassurance that he hadn't done anything wrong, the atmosphere in Harry's dorm was anything but peaceful. Harry wasn't even bothering to prepare for bed: getting under the covers would simply make it easier for the other boys to target comments in his direction. And even without that, Harry was being driven frantic.
Finally, he could take no more of it.
"Where ya goin', mate?" Ron asked, interrupted in mid-tirade by Harry slipping his shoes back onto his feet.
"Out," he replied in a curt tone that discouraged any response. Out -- just out. Out of the dorm, out of the common room, out of the tower. It had become too confining in Gryffindor all at once, and he needed to get as far afield as he could
Harry was tempted to dig his Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk -- but while Ron knew about that interesting artifact, Dean, Seamus and Neville did not, and Harry didn't want to spread the secret more than he had to. It was, however, easy enough to slip the Marauder's Map into his pocket without being noticed.
He was out through the portrait and in the corridors before he allowed himself to think about what a bad idea this might be. A belated check of the Map showed no one walking the corridors -- no professors, no prefects, not even Filch and Mrs. Norris. Probably all worn out from that miserable Yule Ball, Harry decided.
The Yule Ball…
Without conscious thought, Harry found his feet taking him back to the Great Hall, where the Yule Ball had been held. He paused at the doors for a moment, wondering what had prompted him to return here. The Yule Ball would hardly be one of the memories he'd use to call up his Patronus, after all.
Finally, he asked himself how far the Hogwarts house-elves had gotten in cleaning the Hall and removing the Yule decorations. With that as an excuse, he quietly opened the door and slipped inside.
He was mildly surprised to discover that nothing had been changed from when he'd left it. The sparkling silver frost still adorned the walls: in the light of the hundreds of floating candles, they glittered cold and mysterious. The garlands near the ceiling were still in place, though barely to be seen in the low light. Well, Hermione should be happy that the elves get a day off for Christmas, like everyone else, Harry thought. Maybe she'll ease up on SPEW when I tell her…
Soundlessly he wandered among the empty tables, gratefully letting the silence and solitude soak into him. It was a welcome change from the noise and tension through which he'd suffered all evening. Harry was halfway to the front of the Hall when he realized with a start that he wasn't alone. Someone else was still in the Hall.
Someone quietly crying.
It took several seconds before Harry could make out a figure seated at one of the tables, facing away from him. The soft candlelight made it hard to see who it was. Then the weeper leaned forward, pressing a handkerchief to her face, and Harry made out the back of a bright pink dress gown.
The smart thing for Harry to do at that moment would be to slip out of the Hall as silently as he'd slipped in, respecting the other person's wish for privacy, and letting them keep their dignity.
The Boy Who Lived might be famed for many qualities, but "doing the smart thing" had never been among them.
"Parvati?" he blurted.
The girl turned her head sharply. Like Harry, it took a moment for her to identify the newcomer. When she did, her face became a snarl. "What are you doing here?"
"I just came down for a little quiet," Harry said defensively. "And I… I heard you crying."
"Crying? Me? Not likely! I was just blowing my nose -- the cold air, and all." Parvati brought the hanky to her face again and sneezed into it unconvincingly. "See?"
The sound was not at all like the crying sound Harry had heard earlier, but he decided against challenging her statement. "So… I, um, didn't expect to find you down here…"
"Probably not. I'm surprised you gave me any thought at all." Parvati turned away from Harry and continued talking to the empty room. "Not that it mattered to me, mind you. I hope you had a good time tonight, because I had a wonderful time! All the Beauxbatons boys wanting to dance with me…"
"Well, um, good. That's… that's good."
Parvati spun her head to glare at him. "ARE YOU MAKING FUN OF ME!?"
Mute with shock, Harry could only shake his head.
Tears welled in Parvati's eyes, and she turned away from Harry again and began to weep once more into her handkerchief. Harry warily eyed her: crying girls had always disturbed him, left his stomach unsettled. He'd never known, and probably never would know, how to deal with a crying girl. But somehow, sneaking away and leaving her to cry alone didn't seem quite the thing.
Without saying anything, he approached the table where she sat. He paused, considered for a moment, then selected a chair that wasn't in her field of view, so she could ignore him if she chose -- yet close enough so she could talk to him, if she chose. Harry didn't reach out to touch her; he continued to say nothing; his total attitude was of passive receptivity.
It seemed to work. Parvati's tears slowed somewhat. She refused to look at him -- but she didn't order him away, either.
At length, her tears reduced to sniffles, Parvati finally raised her head. "That wasn't true, you know," she said very softly, still not looking at him.
Harry forced himself to wait.
"I had a miserable time tonight."
This seemed to call for some response. Harry searched for words that wouldn't provoke either anger or more tears. "You did get a lot of dances, though…"
"No thanks to you!" she spat. "My so-called 'date' -- the boy who asked me -- he couldn't be bothered to dance more than once with me! Oh, didn't that make me feel special!"
"Yeah, that was pretty bad," Harry conceded. "The boy who asked you was a real berk. Especially considering he waited until almost the last minute before he finally asked."
"AND considering that I got a date for his friend, too!"
"If it's any consolation, he was probably an even bigger berk." He waited a second, and added, "So it could have been worse."
She was glaring at him again. "That's supposed to be consolation?"
Well, at least she was looking at him. Harry ducked his head humbly. "No, I guess it isn't. Parvati… Parvati, I'm sorry."
She maintained the glare for another few seconds, before it crumbled around the edges. "Harry, why?! Why ask me to the dance and then not dance with me? Am I that ugly? Am I that boring? What did I ever do to you, that you'd want to humiliate me like that?"
It had never occurred to Harry to consider the Ball in that light. Now, he could see how Parvati -- and everyone else -- would look on his abandonment of her as a snub. And he realized now that many people -- Rita Skeeter, had she been here; certainly Malfoy and his cohorts -- would be gossiping about it for weeks, dissecting his actions and looking for clues. Had he cut her for some offense committed during dinner? Had he (or she) gotten a better offer from someone else? Or was it simply because he was Harry Potter, and this was only to be expected of an attention-seeking glory hound?
He didn't know. He only knew that, because of his actions, Parvati was hurting. And the first thing he needed to do was to try and make things right -- or at least better.
"You didn't do anything," Harry insisted. "It was all me. I… well, we've already agreed that I'm a berk, right? I didn't realize… Parvati, it was all me. My fault. And… and I'm sorry."
Parvati returned her attention to her hanky. "'Sorry', he says. Like that makes it all better." She sniffled. "We probably won't ever have another dance like this one…"
A penny dropped somewhere in Harry's head.
Squaring his shoulders, he stood from his chair and took three steps to stand before Parvati. In what he would later admit was an awful imitation of a Continental dance-master, he put one hand behind his back and extended the other, palm up, to Parvati.
He had to wait a moment before she would acknowledge the hand. When she did, she looked up at him with a tinge of scorn. "Hard to dance without music, Potter."
Harry promptly began to hum one of the slower dance tunes that had been played earlier in the evening. He managed a few bars, stopped, and canted his head slightly in inquiry… and invitation.
Parvati continued to regard him, her scowl slowly fading until her face was neutral. Slowly, almost as though her body were acting against her will, she placed her hand in his and allowed her to raise her from her seat.
At least this time, Harry knew where her hands -- and his hands -- should go.
He resumed humming the tune, and after six beats to set the tempo, they started waltzing across the floor. The gentle light of the floating candles were their only illumination as they danced, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence as Harry proved he could keep up with her.
Her features softened a bit as they danced. Parvati was watching him closely, looking for the least trace of mockery -- which, had she seen it, would have caused her to slap his face and storm out of the Hall at the very least. It took some time for her to convince herself that Harry was genuinely trying to make amends, in the only way immediately available.
"So why couldn't you dance with me like this?" she finally asked him. "You're much better now that you were during the opening dance -- why were you pretending you couldn't dance?"
"I wasn't pretending," he said, breaking off from humming but maintaining the tempo. "I guess… well, I guess I'm better now because it's just us."
His answer seemed to puzzle her. "That's silly," she finally said. "If you'd danced like this before, everyone would have known how well you dance! That's not something to hide!"
"You wanted people to see us dancing?"
"Yes! It could have been so beautiful! Us dancing without a care in the world, everyone watching and admiring…" Parvati closed her mouth abruptly, as though struck. Harry took it as a sign they were done talking, and took up a new melody to hum. Another waltz, of course -- it was the only dance step Harry knew.
Parvati spoke again in a voice of discovery. "You… you didn't want people watching," she said slowly. "You don't like it. You're dancing better now because people aren't watching." Harry nodded in confirmation, and she continued, "You really didn't put your name into the Goblet of Fire, did you? You really didn't want to be the center of attention?"
"That's what I've said all along, Parvati," Harry reminded her gently.
"While I thought being the center of attention was so wonderful, so…" She shook her head. "So we were working at cross purposes, then?"
Harry managed to shrug while dancing. "Let's say I didn't talk to you as much as I should have. It really was all my fault. And I am sorry."
They fell silent after that, but it was no longer a stilted, uncomfortable silence. It felt more like a thoughtful silence on Parvati's part. For Harry, the silence was what he'd sought when he'd fled Gryffindor Tower in the first place, and he welcomed it. The dancing continued, with no need for Harry to hum a melody: they'd fallen into a rhythm and kept to their steps nicely.
Indeed, not until Harry spotted a tiny head peek fearfully around one of the tables did he think about stopping. Leaning closer to Parvati's ear, he whispered, "Don't look now, but I think the house-elves are waiting for us to leave so they can clean the Hall."
"And Hermione would never let us hear the end of it, if we inconvenienced the house-elves," Parvati concurred with a roll of her eyes. They continued their waltz a few more steps, before slowing and halting in the center of the dance floor. Harry released Parvati and bowed awkwardly. She smiled for the first time since Harry had found her, and murmured thanks.
They made their way out of the Hall… Harry surreptitiously checking the Map to ensure their route back to the dorms was clear. There was a moment when Parvati stood there oddly, almost… expectantly. It took Harry a second to figure out what she might be waiting for. Then he offered her his arm. Her smile grew slightly as she accepted it, wrapping her hand around the crook of his elbow.
Nothing was said during their trek back to Gryffindor Tower: their linked arms gave the walk a sort of formality that precluded small talk. It gave Harry's mind a chance to think… and wonder. Parvati had obviously expected him to, well, escort her back to the dorms. What else did she expect of him? More to the point, what did she want of him?
Had this been an actual date - not a ritual of apology - Harry might have had an idea. Dates, from all he had heard, usually ended with a good-night kiss. But given how the Ball had turned out, he couldn't help but think it inappropriate now.
They arrived at the Fat Lady's portrait, and Parvati gave the password. They had to unlink their arms to enter the common room, but once there, they stood facing each other - Parvati, again, with that expectant stance. Harry hadn't a clue what to do, but he at least had a fair idea of what not to do.
"Um… so, then…" he managed to say, with a half-gesture towards the stairs to the boys' dorms, as if to say I'll just be going now.
"Erm, yes," Parvati replied. She shifted from one foot to the other - still with that air of expectation - but made no move towards the stairs to the girls' dorms.
Neither said anything for a moment. "Right, then," Harry said finally, more to break the standoff than anything else. "Um, I hope… I hope the evening ended better than, well, than either of us thought it would." The words came out fumbling, but they were sincere.
"Oh yes," she responded, "I have to admit, the ending wasn't half-bad." And still neither had made a move to leave.
Yeah, thought Harry, this isn't awkward much, is it…
It was time to take the initiative. Putting a hand over his heart, Harry gave Parvati a half-bow. "G'night, Parvati. Pleasant dreams. And… um…" Straightening, he smiled shyly and finished, "And thanks for giving me a second chance." With a nod, Harry turned to go to his own dorm.
"Ahem."
He looked back over his shoulder, a bit surprised, and made his smile turn rueful. "Boys who are berks don't earn good-night kisses from their dates."
Parvati matched his rueful smile with one of her own. Then she stepped closer to him and laid her hand on his arm. "On the other hand," she replied breathily, "boys who make up for being berks…"
And with that, Parvati gave him a soft kiss on the cheek.
She held his arm for a second longer before squeezing his arm in farewell. "Good night, Harry," she told him, and headed up the steps to her room. Something of their dance must still have been in Parvati's head - at any rate, her hips swayed as she walked away from him. Harry had never noticed that before. Her walk was suddenly, completely, totally fascinating; he watched her leave as though entranced.
I guess the good-night kiss was too much a part of the "fairy-tale ball", he reflected. She had to have something to remember from tonight. I hope I made things better, at least… I think so. I hope.
With a sigh, Harry trudged up the stairs. He still had to mediate between Ron and Hermione in the days to come; he still had to figure out whether Cedric's advice on the golden egg was worth trying; most of all, he had to keep his dormmates from prying too much into the details of his date. Much to do, so much to do.
But at least now, he could legitimately call his evening with Parvati a date. The notion made him feel good inside, for the first time in hours - and feeling all the better, knowing Parvati could do the same.