New fic: Table for One , Harry/Parvati, NC17
Title:Table for One
Wtitten for wizard_love
Prompt # 104: Character A has sworn off Valentine's Day as an idiotic, commercially driven holiday. When he/she goes out for a solitary dinner at a restaurant that night, he finds himself at a table next to that of Character B who's been stood up by her/his date. They end up leaving together... and maybe Valentine's Day has romance in store for the two of them anyway?
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Harry/Parvati
Rating: NC17
Summary Harry Potter has had a lifetime of unfortunate Valentines days, but this is shaping up to be the worst. Fortunately, an old friend might be just the thing to turn his luck around.
Word Count: 7918
Warnings/Content: Previous Harry/Ginny, current Ron/Hemione and Seamus/Lavender mentioned briefly. Strong sexual content.
Author's/Artist's notes: To the mods, thank you for your EXTREME patience, and to annafugazzi, you rock!
"Bugger, bugger, bugger," Harry Potter muttered into his drink. He was beginning to suspect he had just made the worst mistake of his life.
Well, perhaps not the worst--that had probably been in falling into Voldemort's trap at the Ministry eight years before--but that was another matter altogether. This had to do more with his growling stomach and rapidly increasing claustrophobia than real regret.
How had he forgotten it was bloody Valentine's Day?
Of course, it might have been a result of deliberately purging his mind of all previous Valentine's Days out of self-preservation. Harry knew he had a habit of lying in the dark, obsessively remembering his most embarrassing moments.
Stupid insomnia.
"Bugger," he muttered again, shaking his head.
He really was becoming one of the saddest sacks ever to have accidentally saved the world.
Really, he didn't have it so bad, when he thought about it. He could have been one of the poor sods in the plush booths lining the walls, or worse yet, the ones trying to shout above the din in the crowded dining area. They'd gotten into it on purpose, hadn't they?
But he couldn't feel sorry for them for too long. It was their fault that he was currently perched precariously on a lopsided barstool, squashed between two strangers, rather than having a comfortable meal with a lovely view of Diagonal Alley.
Take-away, of course, was the obvious answer to his dilemma, but he wasn't quite ready to give up on his impulsive idea of a night away from the house and --for once--not eating yet another tasteless meal in his cold basement kitchen, with only Kreacher shuffling around for company.
This was the third restaurant he'd tried, and the only one who'd held out any hope of him getting a table. But forty minutes later, he was already on his third drink and he was running out of patience.
"Bugger,"
A vaguely familiar, musical voice interrupted his pity party.
"You know, I haven't really got anything against swearing, but can't you come up with another one? A different one? 'Shit,' for example, is quite popular, I’m told, and somewhat appropriate, as it occasionally follows buggering. 'Balls' is beginning to catch on, I hear. 'Goddammit,' if you're feeling blasphemous. 'Fuck' is always a favorite. 'By My Troth,' if you're feeling Shakespearian. Or you could always say what my cousin says; 'Motherfucking, titty-sucking, two-balled bitch…' "
Harry, not sure whether to be appalled or amused, turned bleary eyes toward Parvati Patil, who winked at him.
Or was it Padma?
No, Padma hadn't seemed the type to matter-of-factly discuss swear words. Sort of uptight, that one. And anyway, you could usually tell by the eyes. Parvati's were prettier, Harry'd always thought so. Plus, Parvati generally smiled more, though her current smile didn't quite meet her eyes.
"Hey, Parvati," Harry said, adding "How are you?" as an afterthought.
"Hello, Harry," Parvati replied. "I'm having a marvelous time, thanks for asking. Can't you tell?"
Harry wasn't quite sure if she was serious, because he couldn't possibly imagine that anyone would enjoy being packed into a bar tighter than a can of tinned kipper, but Parvati had always been a lot more social than he. Perhaps she liked crowds.
"Couldn't you get a table?" she asked.
"They're trying," he said. "But I'm not very hopeful. They scolded me for not making a reservation."
"I would think that when you save the world, silly things like reservations don't matter."
Harry looked at her again, puzzled. While he'd certainly dealt with people who resentfully assumed that his fame made his life easier, he hadn't expected Parvati to be one of them. But then again, she'd always had an odd, sarcastic sense of humor, so perhaps she was teasing.
"Apparently not," he finally said.
"Well, I had a reservation, or at least I thought I did. But it was made by my date--who is, by all indications, a no-show."
No wonder she seems annoyed, he thought. "I'm sorry."
"You didn't have anything to do with it," she said, circling the top of her wineglass with a red lacquered fingertip. "Unless you arrested him?"
Harry couldn't help but smile. "Sorry," he said, "But I spent my day buried under parchment."
"Ah, well," she said. "It was a far-fetched excuse. My sister set me up with him, and her fix-ups tend to be sort of on the dull side. Not quite as dull as the ones my parents set me up with, mind, but generally far more concerned with what ancient wizards got up to than having a good time in the present."
"Perhaps there was a historical emergency?" he prompted.
"Well, I have trouble believing that anything that's been sitting in the ground for thousands of years is capable of creating a current emergency, but my wounded pride thanks you anyway."
Harry grinned. He'd had some fairly awful Valentine's Days in the past, but at least he'd never been stood up. Screamed at, yes. Wept upon, certainly. And then there was that time that a curse had rendered him temporarily impotent, but he tried to avoid thinking about that particular fiasco. "His loss," he finally added.
Parvati smiled wryly, "I appreciate that, Harry. Anyway, there's some good news for you in it."
"For me?" Harry asked, puzzled. He really hoped she hadn't taken his blurted attempt at chivalry as a pass.
"Well, this means that you are now only responsible for the seventh worst date of my life, as opposed to the sixth."
It took Harry a moment to get it, possibly because he had been quite happy to forget that the Yule Ball had ever happened, all things considered. And besides, at that age, he hadn't been quite prepared to call it a date. Which had been a big part of the problem, he thought, assailed by an embarrassing memory of his fourteen year-old-self, determined not to make a fool of himself on the dance floor again, and the fourteen year-old version of the woman now sitting beside him, bored out of her skull. He felt his cheeks heat up.
"Yeah," he said. "Suppose I deserve that."
Parvati shrugged away his not-quite apology.
"Anyway," he added "At least you actually had a date to stand you up tonight. I couldn't even get that much."
She turned back to look at him. "You? What happened to-?"
"We broke up," he said. "Last Valentines Day."
"Oh, that's awful," she said, smiling sympathetically. "But surely you've had plenty of dates since then-"
"I've tried," he interrupted. "Disasters, one and all. "This one's clingy, that one's completely mental, another one wanted to bring her mother along, one of them wanted me to come home and meet her strap-on."
"How tacky. No sex toys until after the third date at least, that's my policy," Parvati interrupted, winking slyly.
Harry let out a rather undignified giggle. "That's not even mentioning the ones who are looking to get famous, the ones who want me to endorse their business or causes, or the ones who tell me that I'm overrated, that I just got a lot of lucky breaks, and it was Neville who actually saved everybody. Or Malfoy. Or Snape."
"As if it were a contest, or something."
"Exactly!" he exclaimed. "I'm always getting told that I think too much of myself, that I'm milking it for all it's worth, doing everything I can to stay in the papers. As if anyone would like the Rita Skeeter dissecting their personal life. I just want them to ignore me. I always did."
"Well," she said. "I hate to break it to you, Harry, but eating alone on Valentines Day is probably not the best way to get ignored by the press."
Harry groaned. He hadn't even considered that. "Bugger," he muttered under his breath. "Would you like to share my table?" he asked hopefully.
Parvati seemed to consider for a moment, and shook her head. "And get my name in the papers? 'Who is the stunningly beautiful and fashionable mystery woman spotted canoodling with 'The Chosen One' at Diagon's most romantic restaurant on Valentines Day? Readers are dying to know.' I like you, Harry, but not that much."
She had a point, he had to admit. And there went his stomach again. He just wanted to eat, for heaven's sake.
"We could get out of here."
"And go where?"
Harry had been hoping she would have an idea. He thought about suggesting that they go back to his place with take-away, but he generally tried not to subject people to Kreacher unless they were particularly close friends and unlikely to be offended at his aged house-elf's insults.
"Hogsmeade?" he offered.
Parvati shook her head. "There's a storm up there. As I was getting dressed to go out, I got to hear Lavender whinging for twenty minutes about being stuck in the house in a blizzard with four kids on Valentines. I think she was hoping I'd cancel my date and babysit."
Harry laughed as she shuddered at the idea. He'd been suckered into doing the same often enough by Ron and Hermione to be entirely sympathetic. His stomach growled again, and the person on the other side of him pushed him further into Parvati. "Fancy a walk, then?" he asked. "We could wander around Picadilly or Covent Gardens or something, somewhere the Prophet wouldn't look for us?"
Parvati thought for a moment. "Yeah, that sounds all right. I can't breathe in here."
~*~*~
As it turned out, it wasn't any easier to find a Muggle restaurant to grab a bite to eat on Valentines, either. However, Harry found that with Parvati in tow, their lack of success became more of an adventure than an exercise in frustration. Each place they went into seemed to be doing more and more absurd things to attract the Valentines crowd, and the saccharine music, the over-the top decorations and the ridiculously named dinner-specials became a running joke.
After about an hour, however, they gave into the demands of their growling stomachs and grabbed a couple of paper-wrapped pasties and Styrofoam cups of tea from a street vendor. Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd had a more satisfying meal.
Once these were finished, it was decided that they were both entirely too sober, not to mention a bit cold and out of breath, so they stopped at the next pub they came to for a pint or two. This made the subsequent window shopping they did much more pleasant, and they repeated the experience twice more as they walked. The fourth place they went into had a live band, and though the singer had chosen a song far well out of her vocal range, the band itself was pretty good, and they got lucky, finding a couple of empty seats at the bar just as another couple were leaving.
They ordered up chips and beer, turning in their seats to watch the crowd at the bar, a habit they'd sort of settled into at the last place, discovering that people-watching was a guilty pleasure they both shared. She had commented about the fact that most of the people seemed to be making a great effort to sit up straight and keep their elbows off the table, which seemed to indicate that they weren't entirely comfortable with the formality of the restaurant. The expressions people made as they tried food outside their comfort zone was amusing, too.
This pub had the added benefit of watching people make fools of themselves on the dance floor, and Harry discovered that Parvati had a real knack for discovering the absurd. He hadn't laughed so much in a long time.
"Look at the one in yellow. For a minute there, I thought he was lifting his leg like that because he was getting ready to take a piss, but he seems to be pulling it behind him on purpose."
"Look at that one in the beige jumper. He looks like he thinks he's a rooster."
"Yeah, my uncle is fond of that particular move," she said, rolling her yes. "He calls it, 'Rock Star.' Of course, he may be on to something, because Auntie Sasmita thinks he's dead sexy."
Harry shook his head, trying to imagine his Uncle Vernon on the dance floor doing a dreadful imitation of Mick Jagger. He suspected Petunia would have fainted on the spot.
"And that one in red's practically humping his date's leg. How romantic."
Harry looked sideways at her. When she met his eyes they both burst out laughing.
"Well, she seems to be enjoying it, anyway," Parvati pointed out, elbowing him. "And at least I give him credit for trying, Mr. I'm-too-cool-for-dancing."
"I do so dance!" Harry protested. "You know perfectly well I do. How many weddings have we seen each other at in the last five years? I've danced at least twice at every one of them!"
"Precisely," she replied. "The bare minimum, and probably only because you knew if you didn't, you'd be sleeping on the sofa."
It was more true than Harry liked to admit. "Well, probably more that I knew that if I didn't, there would be a line of Harpies fanboys waiting to push me aside," he muttered.
Parvati laughed. "I'll never understand boys. You get the opportunity to hold your girl close, to get a good portion of the foreplay out of the way earlier, and you're too afraid of making a fool of yourself to have a good time. Dancing is supposed to be fun, or hadn't you heard?"
"Not for blokes," he protested.
"Not for English blokes," she corrected. "One of these days I'll have to bring you to an Indian wedding. You'll have so much fun, you'll completely forget you're supposed to hate dancing."
Harry shrugged. "I don't hate it. I'm just rubbish at it."
"No you're not," she said.
"Trust me, I am."
"Trust me, I've danced with you before. You're not bad, you're just--stiff."
Harry couldn't help it, his mind went to the worst possible place, and he found himself snorting with laughter.
Parvati smiled wryly and shook her head. "Boys," she muttered, adding, "What you need, Potter, is practice."
She hopped out of her seat, gesturing toward the dance floor with her a tilt of her head.
Harry knew that turning her down again, over ten years later, would be unforgivable, though he also knew that he wasn't much better at dancing than he had been at the Yule Ball.
For the second time in his life, he reluctantly followed her to the center of the dance floor, this time focusing on her swaying hips as she moved through the crowd. She'd changed a bit from the girl she'd been at fourteen, but then again, so had he. Whereas the last time, they were almost at eye level, he now found himself nearly a head taller than her. She turned on the spot when she reached the middle, looking up at him expectantly through thick, dark lashes. "My waist, Harry."
He couldn't help but let out an embarrassing giggle, remembering how reluctant he'd been to put a hand on her. Even now, he found himself oddly reluctant, if only because he suspected that what had so far been an enjoyable, impulsive pub crawl had the potential to get awkward in a hurry when crushed toes and accidental arse-groping were thrown into the mix. Biting the inside of his cheek, he reached out for her waist, stepping closer to her.
Fortunately for him, while his terpsichorean skills had, if anything, got worse over the years, Parvati had got even better, and with just a light touch of her hand on his shoulder, she managed to guide him into something resembling dancing. He did his best to imitate her movements, and as he did, she smiled in encouragement, stepping nimbly around his clumsy feet.
By the second song, he was beginning to enjoy himself. He even managed to spin her around a time or two without injuring either of them, (which was a definite improvement over the last time he'd danced, at Percy's wedding, when he managed to ruin both Ginny's horrid bridesmaid's dress and a spectacular six-tiered wedding cake).
Even more importantly, Parvati was clearly enjoying herself, with her cheeks flushed pink from exertion and her eyes bright with excitement. He wondered how things might have turned out if he hadn't been so opposed to dancing at the Yule Ball. Not that he'd fancied Parvati or anything at the time, but if he'd at least tried to be a decent date, they might have been on friendlier terms with her during Ron and Lavender's disastrous romance. He'd occasionally caught her mid eye-roll at some of their more embarrassing antics, and having someone to laugh about it with might have made it more bearable.
"Harry?"
Startled away from his memories, Harry looked down at Parvati, who had stood still and seemed to be looking up at him with a question in her eyes.
Harry noticed that the tempo of the music had slowed considerably, and Parvati appeared torn between going back to their seats and remaining on the dance floor.
"Oh, sorry," he said, meaning to apologise for his distraction.
Parvati shrugged and began to turn away, but Harry impulsively drew her back, pulling her close as he moved to the music. The number of dancers had increased considerably as the opportunity to slow dance had convinced a large group of the restaurant's patrons to abandon their reserve. The dance floor had become rather snug, if not a bit claustrophobic. Harry was torn between his impulse to shield his friend from the cloying, pressing crowd with his own body, and the embarrassed awareness he was struggling to ignore that she was very, very close indeed. He wasn't quite sure how to behave when he'd only ever been this close to a person for such a prolonged period of time when he'd been planning to kiss them.
And he certainly wasn't planning on kissing Parvati.
Not that he didn't find her attractive--as a matter of fact, he'd always thought her to be sort of uncomfortably beautiful to look at, especially once she'd grown up a bit and stopped wearing too much lip gloss and silly things like butterflies in her hair. And though he'd always written her and Lavender off as sort of giggly and shallow and annoying, their loyalty had never wavered when it really counted. Plus, when he actually took the time to talk to her, (something he'd been doing with more frequency as their mutual friends had one by one paired off) he found they got on fairly well.
But no, he wasn't planning on kissing her. Because she was Parvati, his first (worst) date, his former classmate and comrade in battle, and they'd established the boundaries of their friendship years ago,. He really wasn't sure he could switch gears and think of her...well, that way at this late date.
Though admittedly, there had been a time or two when he had thought of her 'that' way. In truth, there had been times when he'd thought all sorts of perverted, improbable things about nearly every female of his acquaintance.
He couldn't really help having had a filthy mind at the age of fifteen. Hell, who hadn't? And at least he grew out of it.
Eventually.
Mostly.
Well, there had been that one time after Seamus' wedding. He'd had to stand behind her for what seemed like hours, hadn't he? And she would have had to have worn the tightest maid-of-honor robes in history, drawing his eyes up involuntarily toward the arse to which they had clung so beautifully. The very same arse that was, perhaps, two inches beneath his hand at that very moment...
He most certainly did not want to kiss Parvati, his old friend. Not even when her hips were swaying seductively beneath his fingers, and own her fingers were skimming softly over his back and shoulder, now and then moving up to toy with the short hair at the back of his neck. Not even when that sweet-spicy scent that always clung to her surrounded him and the tiny electrically charged strands sticking up from the crown of her gorgeous dark curtain of hair tickled his chin. Not even when he felt the warm puff of her breath against his neck and it made every hair on his body stand on end.
But when she took a step closer, when he felt her breasts pressed against his midriff, when he felt her soft thigh moving between his legs, when he felt the curve of her belly bumping against his groin, he wondered why he was even bothering to fight it. He groaned and pulled her closer, letting his fingers dip lower on her skirt (god, what he wouldn't have given to be alone with her right now) and when her lips hovered over his over-sensitized neck, he could feel it all over his body every time she exhaled. Harry bent lower to let his lips brush against her cheek.
He'd never understood people who felt the need to snog out in public past adolecence--for one thing, in his case, it was a sure way to get an embarrassing photo in the paper--but at this point, kissing her was beginning to seem inevitable, and he was beginning to think that it might be worth it.
Parvati lifted her head to look him in the eye, (god, her eyes took a moment to recover from) and he realized that she was grinning slyly at him, that she was enjoying herself, that she knew exactly what she was doing to him, and he began to rethink the disadvantages of snogging in public. It was Valentines Day. People did all sorts of foolish things on Valentines Day, didn't they? He'd almost made up his mind to close the distance between their lips when she turned her head and whispered in his ear, "See, I told your dancing could be fun."
Harry chuckled and pulled her even closer. Parvati leaned her head on his shoulder. Damn, she smelled good. It occurred to him that it had been ages since he'd touched another person this way. He'd been working too hard, really, more depressed than he would have liked to admit by the unraveling of the future he had imagined for himself after the end of the war.
Once the song finished, another began, this one slow and sensual, but Harry had had enough of the crowd. Apparently Parvati was feeling the same way, for she pulled away from him and nodded in the affirmative when he gestured toward the door. He followed her back to the bar, where they gathered their things yet again. At the door, once more, they bundled up to face the weather--coats, hats, gloves, scarves--and Parvati was humming under her breath as she looped her scarf around her neck, taking her time, smiling mysteriously.
The cold air hit them in an icy blast as they opened the door. It occurred to Harry then that he had no idea where to go. Quite frankly, what he'd have liked most is to get Parvati to the nearest horizontal surface, but as he had thought over what had actually happened on the dance floor as opposed to what he hoped was happening, he found he really didn't have a reason to presume. He took her arm just as he'd done after the last club, walking in the direction they'd been going before.
Perhaps she leaned into him a bit more than before, but that could have been explained by the fact that the temperature had dropped considerably while they had been dancing. She certainly wasn't saying anything,
He was about to suggest they pick up more tea to sip as they walked when suddenly she tugged on his arm, pulling him a narrow space between two darkened buildings.
"Wha-" he began, his mind rapidly jumping from confused to surprised to alert to danger, because usually, when someone grabbed him like that, it was time to draw his wand.
But before he could even get his fingers on it, Parvati had pulled him down into a kiss, and her body was pressing him against the wall, and he suspected if he had actuallymanaged to reach his wand he probably would have dropped it in the snow.
He might have said something, but she hardly let him take a breath. Her lovely mouth was moving over his, barely brushing his top lip, the tip of her pointed tongue tracing the seam of his mouth, coaxing it open, drawing his lower lip between hers.
Groaning against her, Harry pulled her close, his hands moving down her body. She shivered against him as his hand managed to locate her arse through way too many layers of clothing. "God, Parvati," he muttered, desperate to feel more of her.
She'd begun to kiss her way along his jaw, her tongue darting out to taste his earlobe as he reached between the buttons of her coat, but his hand, bulky from the glove he was wearing, got stuck,
"D'you want to-"
"My place," she said, and before he could reply, he felt the familiar squeeze of Apparition, and he found himself standing in an unfamiliar alley, still clinging to Parvati, his glove still wedged into her coat.
He shook off the feeling of nausea that always overcame him a few seconds after Apparition. "I hate side-along."
Parvati smiled sweetly, disentangled his glove from her coat, and said, "I'll make it up to you, I promise."
She took him by the hand, leading him around the building, and Harry, still a bit stunned at this development, tried to catch his breath. He followed her into a modern building, with blandly elegant lobby and a shiny stainless steel-paneled lift, which they rode to the tenth floor. This certainly was nothing like what he might have pictured if he'd tried to imagine Parvati's flat--in fact, he hadn't seen a place less wizard-ish since he'd left Privet drive. Once inside, he took a look around as she went about setting her things down and lighting the fire. The far wall was almost entirely made of glass, with sliding doors leading to a balcony, beyond which the lights of the city twinkled invitingly.
"Nice," he said, his eyes scanning her furniture (far less fussy than he might have imagined, with long, clean lines and bold colours) and her art (a mix of traditional and modern, mostly of figures and faces) and the rather unusual number of candles scattered around the room (what was it with girls and candles, anyway)?
Parvati was moving around the room, shedding her outerwear as she went, stopping now and then to pick something up that was out of place, light a candle or two, and finally, turn on the wireless. Harry realized as she moved that she was still dancing, that she'd probably never stopped, and for a moment, he stood there, taking in the sight. God, how had he never noticed how ridiculously sexy she had become?
"How long have you lived here?"
"Not long," she said, opening up a cabinet and pulling out two wine glasses. Harry noticed she'd taken her boots off, and he found himself staring down at her skull-and-crossbone patterned socks in fascination as she continued. "I bought this place to celebrate qualifying as a Healer, so that would be--last July. My last place was a real shit-hole. Are you going to get comfortable, Harry, or are you planning on doing a runner?"
"Oh," he said, scrambling out of his coat and folding it carefully over the back of a nearby chair. He did the same with his scarf, laying his gloves on top of the small pile. After hesitating for a moment, he took his own shoes off, placing them next to the door. "I don't know why, but I thought you lived with your parents."
"No, that's Padma," she said. "She's the obedient one. I'm the whore."
Harry nearly swallowed his tongue at that, but when he looked over at her, he saw that she was winking. "They don't really-"
"No, they're not that bad," she assured him, pulling the cork from a bottle of wine with a graceful flourish. "I mean, they're really proud of the fact that I got in at St. Mungos, and, well, the war and all that, but-"
Harry waited for her to finish, but she filled both glasses before she continued. "Well, let's just say the war changed me a bit. More than a bit. I just figured that if I was old enough to nearly get killed fighting off Death Eaters, then I was old enough to decide what to do with the rest of my life. They kept trying to protect me, but when it came down to it, I was the only one who could protect myself, and all those silly rules they had were more about them and what they wanted than me and what I need. They can't understand why I haven't married a nice boy and given them three grandkids already."
"I'm sorry," he said.
Parvati shrugged, sitting down on the sofa and tucking her feet beneath her legs. "Not your fault, is it? Anyway, so I decided to move out. And they made a fuss and threatened to disown me, and I did it anyway, and they eventually came round."
Harry sat down next to her, uncertain how to respond. He couldn't exactly sympathise--he'd have loved to have had parents to disappoint, but he thought she must have been really brave to stand up to them. "Brilliant. You are, I mean, not the threats of disownment."
"Lavender and I got a little place above a shop in the Alley, and she spent the next few years doing everything humanly possible to make certain she was still attractive to the opposite sex even with her scars, and I worked like a demon and did my level best to live up to some of the names my parents called me and we had a absolute blast ."
"Did you?"
"Did we ever." Parvati winked, tipping her glass toward him. "And then Lavender opened her eyes and realized that Seamus had been pining after her for years and now she's off popping out babies. Me, I'm still working like a demon, and I'm a bit more picky about my company, but I've got a place I love, lots of friends, and, apart from the occasional bad date, I'm thinking I couldn't ask for a better life."
"I'd say," Harry agreed, thinking about his friends' (and their parents') well-meaning concern about the loneliness of his existence. What if he just…stopped caring what anyone else thought was missing from his life? Why was he hiding away at his godfather's house, unable to escape the burden of his painful past when everything around him reminded him of what he'd lost? It was only supposed to be temporary after he'd moved out of the flat he'd shared with Ginny. He could get a place anywhere he wanted. He could live in the country, in the city, by the shore--hell, he could live on a boat.
He was startled from his thoughts by the touch of Parvati's fingertip on his forearm. "You've gotten far too serious, Potter," she said.
Harry blinked. "I have, haven't I? I was just thinking that my house is about as cheerful as a tomb and I want to move."
"Right," she said, nodding her head, and adding, in a mock-serious tone. "Good plan. I approve. But I'm afraid you can't move in here. You'll leave the toilet seat up and piss all over the floor and I have it on very good authority that you snore dreadfully."
Harry grinned. "Lies! If you heard that from Seamus, tell him that he sounds like a rusty buzz saw."
"Yes, I noticed that in the Room of Requirement," Parvati said, smiling warmly in remembrance.
Harry sometimes envied his old friends the camaraderie they had experienced in the castle during the last few months of the war, remembering the crushing loneliness of the road, particularly once Ron had gone. And then he remembered the hell his friends had been forced to endure on at Hogwarts his behalf, and he inevitably felt his stomach twist in guilt.
"Stop that," Parvati said.
Harry looked up. "Stop what?"
"Whatever it is that’s got you frowning. You're no good to me frowning." Parvati's teasing smile was difficult to resist, and as she leaned closer, Harry closed his eyes in anticipation.
The brush of her lips on his was briefer than he might have liked, and he opened his eyes to discover that she'd already risen from the couch, apparently having taken his glass from his hand as she kissed him. She set it down on a nearby table, beginning to hum along with the music on the wireless.
She began to make her way toward the stairs at the other end of the room, swaying along with the music. Harry stared after her, watching open-mouthed as she released the tie on the side of her dress, opening it wide and letting it slide off her shoulders.
He scrambled to his feet, licking dry lips as she looked over her shoulder at him, her dark curtain of hair spilling down her back, her skin golden in the candlelight, all lush curves and black lace and confidence. She winked at him, then began to make her way up the stairs, hips swaying, every step she took utterly destroying his composure.
"Fucking gorgeous," he muttered under his breath, hurrying to catch up to her, finally reaching her near the top of the stairs. At the first touch of his hand, she turned back, one step above him, and as she kissed him, she reached for the hem of his jumper, sliding it up his torso and over his arms, helping sort out the glasses she'd knocked aside in the process. It was hard to focus on helping her much, not when her tits were threatening to burst out of her tiny lace bra, so close he could almost taste them. Parvati stood there watching him gape, grinning slyly as she reached behind to unhook the back, sliding the straps ever so slowly down from her shoulders.
She turned around and took a step up as she tossed it in his direction. "Be a good boy and lose the trousers, will you?" she called out over her shoulder.
Harry stumbled up the last few steps to her loft, finally kicking off his trousers at the top of the stairs. Parvati was already waiting on a dark red coverlet, smiling bemusedly at the look on his face, leaning on one arm, her hair draped artfully over her bare breasts, her body faintly lit by the single lamp in the room and the muted glow of the candles in the room below.
"Fucking gorgeous," he repeated, a bit louder this time, because she was and she bloody well knew it. And then he lunged, because he was pretty sure that if he didn't get his hands on her soon he was going to explode. He scrambled over the bed to where she lay and moved over her body, kissing her lips, her jaw, her neck, as she lay her head back on the pillow and lifted her arms to embrace him.
"You're not so bad yourself, Potter," she said, letting out a moan as he kissed a sensitive spot beneath her ear. "Of course, I fancied you back when you were a skinny, speccy little dork, too."
Harry stopped licking a path down the column of her throat to chuckle and protest, "You never fancied me."
"I fancied all of you at one point or another. It was seven very long years."
"Liar," Harry braced himself on an elbow and moved his hand over her breast, astonished by its softness (as was generally the case, and he was pretty much convinced that tits were his favorite thing to be touching in the universe) but in this case, more so because of the sound she made in response, the way her body arched beneath his touch. It seemed she was still moving to the beat of the music from the club, her hips undulating, her eyes hooded and sensual, her body lush and hot beneath his.
Her fingers had been tracing the length of his spine, and she dipped her fingertips beneath his pants, she raised her head off the pillow, fastening her mouth on his earlobe and sucking gently. Harry shivered, stretching out his neck to give her better access. She let her teeth graze the lines of his neck, and his hand tightened over her breasts, making her moan in response. She reached beneath his pants to grab onto his arse, and he lowered his body onto hers, his groin pressing between her legs as she raised her knees on either side of him.
"God," he gasped. "Tell me why we've never done this before?"
"Because you were dead set on having a family with lots of ginger babies," she said, giving his arse a proper squeeze before tightening her legs around him and rolling them both over. "And I've been a bit too distracted by that superhero suit you'd been wearing to notice how gorgeous you'd turned out. Plus, you don't dance."
"Danced tonight, didn't I?" Harry asked, grinning up at her as she arched her back and shook out her hair behind her , beginning to move her hips in slow circles. She was fucking spectacular, and he began to wonder if someone hadn't taken pity on him and slipped a bit of Felix Felicis in his drink that night.
"And look where it got you."
"I'll have to remember that," he said, reaching up to cover her breasts with both hands. She threw her head back as he moved his thumbs over her nipples in a circular pattern that matched the one she was making on his groin. He was hard as a rock now, and she was relentless, the lace of her knickers scratching against the cotton of his pants, the heat and friction torturous.
Parvati leaned forward, her hair falling toward him. She kissed him once more, tugging on his lower lip as she pulled away. Harry slid his hands down her body to span her arse, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, with her strong muscles moving under the softness as her hips bore down on his cock. Harry lifted his head from the pillow, desperate to taste her, to taste her lips, to taste her breath, which was beginning to come out in short puffs, to taste the thin sheen of sweat that was gathering on her forehead as her arousal had increased, taste her throat, where her pulse fluttered, to taste one dark nipple, to tease it into a peak as she threw her head back and moaned. She reached out, wrapping her arms around his head and burying his face between her breasts, removing his crooked glasses and tossing them aside.
Harry moaned against the abundance of soft, fragrant flesh, his hands kneading her bottom as she ground down hard. Her fingers were buried in his hair, her head was thrown back, the ends of her hair was tickling the backs of his hands.
When she finally released him, she pushed him back onto the pillow, still moving, a bit more blurry to Harry's eyes, perhaps, but he suspected he could still recognize a wicked gleam in her eyes as she crawled backwards down his body, her open hands sliding down his torso to tug down his pants. He swore under his breath as she tossed his pants aside, eyeing his cock and licking her lips. Once again, she slid her palms up his body, ankles to knees, knees to thighs, and she stopped at his upper thighs, bracing herself as she licked a path from his bollocks to the tip of his cock. Harry whimpered.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Parvati made another pass toward his cock, kissing the head, swirling her tongue around the tip, and then swallowing it nearly halfway down, causing Harry to buck up into her mouth with a groan. Her open palms were sliding up and down his thighs, widening his legs, her thumbs meeting up to toy with his bollocks as she took him into her mouth again, this time almost to the base. Harry bit back a shout, his hands going to her head, his fingers tangling in her hair and stroking her cheek. Once more, she bobbed her head, her fingers closing around his bollocks this time, and he bucked up, thrusting harder into her mouth, his fingers tightening in her hair. Parvati released him slowly, her mouth widening into a grin as he slipped out of her mouth.
"Not yet, you don't" she said, rising to her knees. She made a bit of a show of sliding her knickers down her hips, and Harry propped himself up on one elbow to enjoy the view, as she swayed and tugged, sitting on the edge of the bed as she pushed them down to the floor and then throwing them aside with a flourish. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she began climbing back up his body dipping down low so that her skin slid over his, taking extra time to allow his cock to distinguish the puff of air as her mouth moved over it, the pillowy softness of her breasts, the gentle curve of her belly, her silky thighs and finally the wiry hair that framed her cunt.
Harry finally remembered to exhale as she settled down on him, hot and wet but not entirely open. He slid his palms up her thighs, trembling beneath her as she moved in small, tight circles, occasionally giving his cock a taste of the hot, slick flesh of her inner cunt. Harry reached between her legs to feel it on his fingertips, to slide around in the wetness to find her more sensitive bits, to open her up further and watch her moan, her head thrown back, her breasts hovering above his eyes. She was grinding down on his flattened cock more fully now, covering his cock with her juices, her clit occasionally brushing against his questing fingers, an event which inevitably resulted in a delicious moan. He rather liked making her moan, he suspected.
When he withdrew his fingers, they glistened, and as Parvati watched, he brought them to his mouth and very slowly and deliberately licked them clean. "Sit on my face," he urged.
Parvati raised an eyebrow and moved to comply, crawling up his body until she was poised above him, gripping the headboard. Harry stretched his neck up, extending his tongue to get a taste of her. Parvati shivered in response, lowering herself further, hovering just above his face as he touched his tongue to her clit. She moaned, opening her legs wider above him, sinking even lower on his face. Harry slid his hand up her thighs to her arse, holding her steady above him, pulling her down when she pulled away, drawing his tongue back to front, drawing her clit between his lips and releasing it, stretching his tongue up inside her cunt as far as it would go. Parvati sobbed above him, her arousal soaking his face and dribbling down his chin. And when he plunged two fingers inside of her, she screamed.
Harry felt her cunt clenching around his fingers and as her tremors subsided, she rose back up to her knees Harry grinned smugly at her, and then found himself whimpering when she kissed him hard on the lips, lapping up her own juices. . She crawled slowly back down his body, finally stopping above his groin, where she hovered on her knees above him, taking his cock in hand. Harry, every nerve humming with anticipation, whimpered, and then screamed as she sank down on him in one smooth movement, surrounding him with hot, wet heat.
She was still dancing, he realized. Her hips were swaying, moving in circles, faster circles this time, taking his cock along with them. Harry was just happy to be along for the ride, watching her face as she lost herself in pleasure, in the music, and--as she opened her eyes and smiled down on him--in him. Faster and faster she moved, throwing her head back as he reached up and pinched at her nipples, her moans growing louder and louder as he bucked up into her, groaning hoarsely, crying out as the roaring in his ears grew louder, light finally exploding behind his eyes as he felt the familiar tightening in his balls, and she was clenching around him, milking his cock of every last spasm, finally collapsing in his arms.
~*~*~
"Bugger," Harry groaned, looking with dismay at his ruined glasses. They had to have been poking him in the arse for some time now, but it wasn't until his vision cleared that he'd realized they were the reason for his discomfort. Apparently, he'd sat on them. Or she had.
"You've really got to come up with something better," Parvati murmured sleepily.
"Wha-?" Harry began, but then shook his head, showing her the glasses. Parvati reached for the wand on her night table.
"Occulus Reparao."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome, Harry. I have to admit, you had me worried or a minute there. I was afraid you were making a request."
"A request?"
"Buggering. And I really didn't know if I had the energy for all those buckles. Besides, I thought we'd agreed we'd keep George in the toybox until the fourth date, at least."
"You've got a sex toy named George?"
"Well, it was a gift…"
"I don't want to hear about it," Harry said, shaking his head and laughing. "At least not until the fourth date."
"At least," Parvati added.
"At least. And make sure he understands that I plan to put him out of a job."
"Do you, now," Parvati said, smiling slyly. "Have I mentioned how well he works with others?"
"A real team player, is he?" Harry pulled Parvati into his arms, liking how she felt there.
"Definitely," she murmured, planting a light kiss on his chest.
"Well, I'm all for group efforts, but make sure he understands that contrary to popular opinion, I am not a bottom."
Parvati giggled. "I'll be sure to explain it to him. I suspect you two are going to become very good friends"
As Parvati's breathing slowed down and he felt her relax in his arms, Harry looked out at the lights of the city, filled with gratitude. After a lifetime of rubbish Valentines Days, Cupid--it appeared--had finally taken pity on him.
Wtitten for wizard_love
Prompt # 104: Character A has sworn off Valentine's Day as an idiotic, commercially driven holiday. When he/she goes out for a solitary dinner at a restaurant that night, he finds himself at a table next to that of Character B who's been stood up by her/his date. They end up leaving together... and maybe Valentine's Day has romance in store for the two of them anyway?
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Harry/Parvati
Rating: NC17
Summary Harry Potter has had a lifetime of unfortunate Valentines days, but this is shaping up to be the worst. Fortunately, an old friend might be just the thing to turn his luck around.
Word Count: 7918
Warnings/Content: Previous Harry/Ginny, current Ron/Hemione and Seamus/Lavender mentioned briefly. Strong sexual content.
Author's/Artist's notes: To the mods, thank you for your EXTREME patience, and to annafugazzi, you rock!
"Bugger, bugger, bugger," Harry Potter muttered into his drink. He was beginning to suspect he had just made the worst mistake of his life.
Well, perhaps not the worst--that had probably been in falling into Voldemort's trap at the Ministry eight years before--but that was another matter altogether. This had to do more with his growling stomach and rapidly increasing claustrophobia than real regret.
How had he forgotten it was bloody Valentine's Day?
Of course, it might have been a result of deliberately purging his mind of all previous Valentine's Days out of self-preservation. Harry knew he had a habit of lying in the dark, obsessively remembering his most embarrassing moments.
Stupid insomnia.
"Bugger," he muttered again, shaking his head.
He really was becoming one of the saddest sacks ever to have accidentally saved the world.
Really, he didn't have it so bad, when he thought about it. He could have been one of the poor sods in the plush booths lining the walls, or worse yet, the ones trying to shout above the din in the crowded dining area. They'd gotten into it on purpose, hadn't they?
But he couldn't feel sorry for them for too long. It was their fault that he was currently perched precariously on a lopsided barstool, squashed between two strangers, rather than having a comfortable meal with a lovely view of Diagonal Alley.
Take-away, of course, was the obvious answer to his dilemma, but he wasn't quite ready to give up on his impulsive idea of a night away from the house and --for once--not eating yet another tasteless meal in his cold basement kitchen, with only Kreacher shuffling around for company.
This was the third restaurant he'd tried, and the only one who'd held out any hope of him getting a table. But forty minutes later, he was already on his third drink and he was running out of patience.
"Bugger,"
A vaguely familiar, musical voice interrupted his pity party.
"You know, I haven't really got anything against swearing, but can't you come up with another one? A different one? 'Shit,' for example, is quite popular, I’m told, and somewhat appropriate, as it occasionally follows buggering. 'Balls' is beginning to catch on, I hear. 'Goddammit,' if you're feeling blasphemous. 'Fuck' is always a favorite. 'By My Troth,' if you're feeling Shakespearian. Or you could always say what my cousin says; 'Motherfucking, titty-sucking, two-balled bitch…' "
Harry, not sure whether to be appalled or amused, turned bleary eyes toward Parvati Patil, who winked at him.
Or was it Padma?
No, Padma hadn't seemed the type to matter-of-factly discuss swear words. Sort of uptight, that one. And anyway, you could usually tell by the eyes. Parvati's were prettier, Harry'd always thought so. Plus, Parvati generally smiled more, though her current smile didn't quite meet her eyes.
"Hey, Parvati," Harry said, adding "How are you?" as an afterthought.
"Hello, Harry," Parvati replied. "I'm having a marvelous time, thanks for asking. Can't you tell?"
Harry wasn't quite sure if she was serious, because he couldn't possibly imagine that anyone would enjoy being packed into a bar tighter than a can of tinned kipper, but Parvati had always been a lot more social than he. Perhaps she liked crowds.
"Couldn't you get a table?" she asked.
"They're trying," he said. "But I'm not very hopeful. They scolded me for not making a reservation."
"I would think that when you save the world, silly things like reservations don't matter."
Harry looked at her again, puzzled. While he'd certainly dealt with people who resentfully assumed that his fame made his life easier, he hadn't expected Parvati to be one of them. But then again, she'd always had an odd, sarcastic sense of humor, so perhaps she was teasing.
"Apparently not," he finally said.
"Well, I had a reservation, or at least I thought I did. But it was made by my date--who is, by all indications, a no-show."
No wonder she seems annoyed, he thought. "I'm sorry."
"You didn't have anything to do with it," she said, circling the top of her wineglass with a red lacquered fingertip. "Unless you arrested him?"
Harry couldn't help but smile. "Sorry," he said, "But I spent my day buried under parchment."
"Ah, well," she said. "It was a far-fetched excuse. My sister set me up with him, and her fix-ups tend to be sort of on the dull side. Not quite as dull as the ones my parents set me up with, mind, but generally far more concerned with what ancient wizards got up to than having a good time in the present."
"Perhaps there was a historical emergency?" he prompted.
"Well, I have trouble believing that anything that's been sitting in the ground for thousands of years is capable of creating a current emergency, but my wounded pride thanks you anyway."
Harry grinned. He'd had some fairly awful Valentine's Days in the past, but at least he'd never been stood up. Screamed at, yes. Wept upon, certainly. And then there was that time that a curse had rendered him temporarily impotent, but he tried to avoid thinking about that particular fiasco. "His loss," he finally added.
Parvati smiled wryly, "I appreciate that, Harry. Anyway, there's some good news for you in it."
"For me?" Harry asked, puzzled. He really hoped she hadn't taken his blurted attempt at chivalry as a pass.
"Well, this means that you are now only responsible for the seventh worst date of my life, as opposed to the sixth."
It took Harry a moment to get it, possibly because he had been quite happy to forget that the Yule Ball had ever happened, all things considered. And besides, at that age, he hadn't been quite prepared to call it a date. Which had been a big part of the problem, he thought, assailed by an embarrassing memory of his fourteen year-old-self, determined not to make a fool of himself on the dance floor again, and the fourteen year-old version of the woman now sitting beside him, bored out of her skull. He felt his cheeks heat up.
"Yeah," he said. "Suppose I deserve that."
Parvati shrugged away his not-quite apology.
"Anyway," he added "At least you actually had a date to stand you up tonight. I couldn't even get that much."
She turned back to look at him. "You? What happened to-?"
"We broke up," he said. "Last Valentines Day."
"Oh, that's awful," she said, smiling sympathetically. "But surely you've had plenty of dates since then-"
"I've tried," he interrupted. "Disasters, one and all. "This one's clingy, that one's completely mental, another one wanted to bring her mother along, one of them wanted me to come home and meet her strap-on."
"How tacky. No sex toys until after the third date at least, that's my policy," Parvati interrupted, winking slyly.
Harry let out a rather undignified giggle. "That's not even mentioning the ones who are looking to get famous, the ones who want me to endorse their business or causes, or the ones who tell me that I'm overrated, that I just got a lot of lucky breaks, and it was Neville who actually saved everybody. Or Malfoy. Or Snape."
"As if it were a contest, or something."
"Exactly!" he exclaimed. "I'm always getting told that I think too much of myself, that I'm milking it for all it's worth, doing everything I can to stay in the papers. As if anyone would like the Rita Skeeter dissecting their personal life. I just want them to ignore me. I always did."
"Well," she said. "I hate to break it to you, Harry, but eating alone on Valentines Day is probably not the best way to get ignored by the press."
Harry groaned. He hadn't even considered that. "Bugger," he muttered under his breath. "Would you like to share my table?" he asked hopefully.
Parvati seemed to consider for a moment, and shook her head. "And get my name in the papers? 'Who is the stunningly beautiful and fashionable mystery woman spotted canoodling with 'The Chosen One' at Diagon's most romantic restaurant on Valentines Day? Readers are dying to know.' I like you, Harry, but not that much."
She had a point, he had to admit. And there went his stomach again. He just wanted to eat, for heaven's sake.
"We could get out of here."
"And go where?"
Harry had been hoping she would have an idea. He thought about suggesting that they go back to his place with take-away, but he generally tried not to subject people to Kreacher unless they were particularly close friends and unlikely to be offended at his aged house-elf's insults.
"Hogsmeade?" he offered.
Parvati shook her head. "There's a storm up there. As I was getting dressed to go out, I got to hear Lavender whinging for twenty minutes about being stuck in the house in a blizzard with four kids on Valentines. I think she was hoping I'd cancel my date and babysit."
Harry laughed as she shuddered at the idea. He'd been suckered into doing the same often enough by Ron and Hermione to be entirely sympathetic. His stomach growled again, and the person on the other side of him pushed him further into Parvati. "Fancy a walk, then?" he asked. "We could wander around Picadilly or Covent Gardens or something, somewhere the Prophet wouldn't look for us?"
Parvati thought for a moment. "Yeah, that sounds all right. I can't breathe in here."
~*~*~
As it turned out, it wasn't any easier to find a Muggle restaurant to grab a bite to eat on Valentines, either. However, Harry found that with Parvati in tow, their lack of success became more of an adventure than an exercise in frustration. Each place they went into seemed to be doing more and more absurd things to attract the Valentines crowd, and the saccharine music, the over-the top decorations and the ridiculously named dinner-specials became a running joke.
After about an hour, however, they gave into the demands of their growling stomachs and grabbed a couple of paper-wrapped pasties and Styrofoam cups of tea from a street vendor. Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd had a more satisfying meal.
Once these were finished, it was decided that they were both entirely too sober, not to mention a bit cold and out of breath, so they stopped at the next pub they came to for a pint or two. This made the subsequent window shopping they did much more pleasant, and they repeated the experience twice more as they walked. The fourth place they went into had a live band, and though the singer had chosen a song far well out of her vocal range, the band itself was pretty good, and they got lucky, finding a couple of empty seats at the bar just as another couple were leaving.
They ordered up chips and beer, turning in their seats to watch the crowd at the bar, a habit they'd sort of settled into at the last place, discovering that people-watching was a guilty pleasure they both shared. She had commented about the fact that most of the people seemed to be making a great effort to sit up straight and keep their elbows off the table, which seemed to indicate that they weren't entirely comfortable with the formality of the restaurant. The expressions people made as they tried food outside their comfort zone was amusing, too.
This pub had the added benefit of watching people make fools of themselves on the dance floor, and Harry discovered that Parvati had a real knack for discovering the absurd. He hadn't laughed so much in a long time.
"Look at the one in yellow. For a minute there, I thought he was lifting his leg like that because he was getting ready to take a piss, but he seems to be pulling it behind him on purpose."
"Look at that one in the beige jumper. He looks like he thinks he's a rooster."
"Yeah, my uncle is fond of that particular move," she said, rolling her yes. "He calls it, 'Rock Star.' Of course, he may be on to something, because Auntie Sasmita thinks he's dead sexy."
Harry shook his head, trying to imagine his Uncle Vernon on the dance floor doing a dreadful imitation of Mick Jagger. He suspected Petunia would have fainted on the spot.
"And that one in red's practically humping his date's leg. How romantic."
Harry looked sideways at her. When she met his eyes they both burst out laughing.
"Well, she seems to be enjoying it, anyway," Parvati pointed out, elbowing him. "And at least I give him credit for trying, Mr. I'm-too-cool-for-dancing."
"I do so dance!" Harry protested. "You know perfectly well I do. How many weddings have we seen each other at in the last five years? I've danced at least twice at every one of them!"
"Precisely," she replied. "The bare minimum, and probably only because you knew if you didn't, you'd be sleeping on the sofa."
It was more true than Harry liked to admit. "Well, probably more that I knew that if I didn't, there would be a line of Harpies fanboys waiting to push me aside," he muttered.
Parvati laughed. "I'll never understand boys. You get the opportunity to hold your girl close, to get a good portion of the foreplay out of the way earlier, and you're too afraid of making a fool of yourself to have a good time. Dancing is supposed to be fun, or hadn't you heard?"
"Not for blokes," he protested.
"Not for English blokes," she corrected. "One of these days I'll have to bring you to an Indian wedding. You'll have so much fun, you'll completely forget you're supposed to hate dancing."
Harry shrugged. "I don't hate it. I'm just rubbish at it."
"No you're not," she said.
"Trust me, I am."
"Trust me, I've danced with you before. You're not bad, you're just--stiff."
Harry couldn't help it, his mind went to the worst possible place, and he found himself snorting with laughter.
Parvati smiled wryly and shook her head. "Boys," she muttered, adding, "What you need, Potter, is practice."
She hopped out of her seat, gesturing toward the dance floor with her a tilt of her head.
Harry knew that turning her down again, over ten years later, would be unforgivable, though he also knew that he wasn't much better at dancing than he had been at the Yule Ball.
For the second time in his life, he reluctantly followed her to the center of the dance floor, this time focusing on her swaying hips as she moved through the crowd. She'd changed a bit from the girl she'd been at fourteen, but then again, so had he. Whereas the last time, they were almost at eye level, he now found himself nearly a head taller than her. She turned on the spot when she reached the middle, looking up at him expectantly through thick, dark lashes. "My waist, Harry."
He couldn't help but let out an embarrassing giggle, remembering how reluctant he'd been to put a hand on her. Even now, he found himself oddly reluctant, if only because he suspected that what had so far been an enjoyable, impulsive pub crawl had the potential to get awkward in a hurry when crushed toes and accidental arse-groping were thrown into the mix. Biting the inside of his cheek, he reached out for her waist, stepping closer to her.
Fortunately for him, while his terpsichorean skills had, if anything, got worse over the years, Parvati had got even better, and with just a light touch of her hand on his shoulder, she managed to guide him into something resembling dancing. He did his best to imitate her movements, and as he did, she smiled in encouragement, stepping nimbly around his clumsy feet.
By the second song, he was beginning to enjoy himself. He even managed to spin her around a time or two without injuring either of them, (which was a definite improvement over the last time he'd danced, at Percy's wedding, when he managed to ruin both Ginny's horrid bridesmaid's dress and a spectacular six-tiered wedding cake).
Even more importantly, Parvati was clearly enjoying herself, with her cheeks flushed pink from exertion and her eyes bright with excitement. He wondered how things might have turned out if he hadn't been so opposed to dancing at the Yule Ball. Not that he'd fancied Parvati or anything at the time, but if he'd at least tried to be a decent date, they might have been on friendlier terms with her during Ron and Lavender's disastrous romance. He'd occasionally caught her mid eye-roll at some of their more embarrassing antics, and having someone to laugh about it with might have made it more bearable.
"Harry?"
Startled away from his memories, Harry looked down at Parvati, who had stood still and seemed to be looking up at him with a question in her eyes.
Harry noticed that the tempo of the music had slowed considerably, and Parvati appeared torn between going back to their seats and remaining on the dance floor.
"Oh, sorry," he said, meaning to apologise for his distraction.
Parvati shrugged and began to turn away, but Harry impulsively drew her back, pulling her close as he moved to the music. The number of dancers had increased considerably as the opportunity to slow dance had convinced a large group of the restaurant's patrons to abandon their reserve. The dance floor had become rather snug, if not a bit claustrophobic. Harry was torn between his impulse to shield his friend from the cloying, pressing crowd with his own body, and the embarrassed awareness he was struggling to ignore that she was very, very close indeed. He wasn't quite sure how to behave when he'd only ever been this close to a person for such a prolonged period of time when he'd been planning to kiss them.
And he certainly wasn't planning on kissing Parvati.
Not that he didn't find her attractive--as a matter of fact, he'd always thought her to be sort of uncomfortably beautiful to look at, especially once she'd grown up a bit and stopped wearing too much lip gloss and silly things like butterflies in her hair. And though he'd always written her and Lavender off as sort of giggly and shallow and annoying, their loyalty had never wavered when it really counted. Plus, when he actually took the time to talk to her, (something he'd been doing with more frequency as their mutual friends had one by one paired off) he found they got on fairly well.
But no, he wasn't planning on kissing her. Because she was Parvati, his first (worst) date, his former classmate and comrade in battle, and they'd established the boundaries of their friendship years ago,. He really wasn't sure he could switch gears and think of her...well, that way at this late date.
Though admittedly, there had been a time or two when he had thought of her 'that' way. In truth, there had been times when he'd thought all sorts of perverted, improbable things about nearly every female of his acquaintance.
He couldn't really help having had a filthy mind at the age of fifteen. Hell, who hadn't? And at least he grew out of it.
Eventually.
Mostly.
Well, there had been that one time after Seamus' wedding. He'd had to stand behind her for what seemed like hours, hadn't he? And she would have had to have worn the tightest maid-of-honor robes in history, drawing his eyes up involuntarily toward the arse to which they had clung so beautifully. The very same arse that was, perhaps, two inches beneath his hand at that very moment...
He most certainly did not want to kiss Parvati, his old friend. Not even when her hips were swaying seductively beneath his fingers, and own her fingers were skimming softly over his back and shoulder, now and then moving up to toy with the short hair at the back of his neck. Not even when that sweet-spicy scent that always clung to her surrounded him and the tiny electrically charged strands sticking up from the crown of her gorgeous dark curtain of hair tickled his chin. Not even when he felt the warm puff of her breath against his neck and it made every hair on his body stand on end.
But when she took a step closer, when he felt her breasts pressed against his midriff, when he felt her soft thigh moving between his legs, when he felt the curve of her belly bumping against his groin, he wondered why he was even bothering to fight it. He groaned and pulled her closer, letting his fingers dip lower on her skirt (god, what he wouldn't have given to be alone with her right now) and when her lips hovered over his over-sensitized neck, he could feel it all over his body every time she exhaled. Harry bent lower to let his lips brush against her cheek.
He'd never understood people who felt the need to snog out in public past adolecence--for one thing, in his case, it was a sure way to get an embarrassing photo in the paper--but at this point, kissing her was beginning to seem inevitable, and he was beginning to think that it might be worth it.
Parvati lifted her head to look him in the eye, (god, her eyes took a moment to recover from) and he realized that she was grinning slyly at him, that she was enjoying herself, that she knew exactly what she was doing to him, and he began to rethink the disadvantages of snogging in public. It was Valentines Day. People did all sorts of foolish things on Valentines Day, didn't they? He'd almost made up his mind to close the distance between their lips when she turned her head and whispered in his ear, "See, I told your dancing could be fun."
Harry chuckled and pulled her even closer. Parvati leaned her head on his shoulder. Damn, she smelled good. It occurred to him that it had been ages since he'd touched another person this way. He'd been working too hard, really, more depressed than he would have liked to admit by the unraveling of the future he had imagined for himself after the end of the war.
Once the song finished, another began, this one slow and sensual, but Harry had had enough of the crowd. Apparently Parvati was feeling the same way, for she pulled away from him and nodded in the affirmative when he gestured toward the door. He followed her back to the bar, where they gathered their things yet again. At the door, once more, they bundled up to face the weather--coats, hats, gloves, scarves--and Parvati was humming under her breath as she looped her scarf around her neck, taking her time, smiling mysteriously.
The cold air hit them in an icy blast as they opened the door. It occurred to Harry then that he had no idea where to go. Quite frankly, what he'd have liked most is to get Parvati to the nearest horizontal surface, but as he had thought over what had actually happened on the dance floor as opposed to what he hoped was happening, he found he really didn't have a reason to presume. He took her arm just as he'd done after the last club, walking in the direction they'd been going before.
Perhaps she leaned into him a bit more than before, but that could have been explained by the fact that the temperature had dropped considerably while they had been dancing. She certainly wasn't saying anything,
He was about to suggest they pick up more tea to sip as they walked when suddenly she tugged on his arm, pulling him a narrow space between two darkened buildings.
"Wha-" he began, his mind rapidly jumping from confused to surprised to alert to danger, because usually, when someone grabbed him like that, it was time to draw his wand.
But before he could even get his fingers on it, Parvati had pulled him down into a kiss, and her body was pressing him against the wall, and he suspected if he had actuallymanaged to reach his wand he probably would have dropped it in the snow.
He might have said something, but she hardly let him take a breath. Her lovely mouth was moving over his, barely brushing his top lip, the tip of her pointed tongue tracing the seam of his mouth, coaxing it open, drawing his lower lip between hers.
Groaning against her, Harry pulled her close, his hands moving down her body. She shivered against him as his hand managed to locate her arse through way too many layers of clothing. "God, Parvati," he muttered, desperate to feel more of her.
She'd begun to kiss her way along his jaw, her tongue darting out to taste his earlobe as he reached between the buttons of her coat, but his hand, bulky from the glove he was wearing, got stuck,
"D'you want to-"
"My place," she said, and before he could reply, he felt the familiar squeeze of Apparition, and he found himself standing in an unfamiliar alley, still clinging to Parvati, his glove still wedged into her coat.
He shook off the feeling of nausea that always overcame him a few seconds after Apparition. "I hate side-along."
Parvati smiled sweetly, disentangled his glove from her coat, and said, "I'll make it up to you, I promise."
She took him by the hand, leading him around the building, and Harry, still a bit stunned at this development, tried to catch his breath. He followed her into a modern building, with blandly elegant lobby and a shiny stainless steel-paneled lift, which they rode to the tenth floor. This certainly was nothing like what he might have pictured if he'd tried to imagine Parvati's flat--in fact, he hadn't seen a place less wizard-ish since he'd left Privet drive. Once inside, he took a look around as she went about setting her things down and lighting the fire. The far wall was almost entirely made of glass, with sliding doors leading to a balcony, beyond which the lights of the city twinkled invitingly.
"Nice," he said, his eyes scanning her furniture (far less fussy than he might have imagined, with long, clean lines and bold colours) and her art (a mix of traditional and modern, mostly of figures and faces) and the rather unusual number of candles scattered around the room (what was it with girls and candles, anyway)?
Parvati was moving around the room, shedding her outerwear as she went, stopping now and then to pick something up that was out of place, light a candle or two, and finally, turn on the wireless. Harry realized as she moved that she was still dancing, that she'd probably never stopped, and for a moment, he stood there, taking in the sight. God, how had he never noticed how ridiculously sexy she had become?
"How long have you lived here?"
"Not long," she said, opening up a cabinet and pulling out two wine glasses. Harry noticed she'd taken her boots off, and he found himself staring down at her skull-and-crossbone patterned socks in fascination as she continued. "I bought this place to celebrate qualifying as a Healer, so that would be--last July. My last place was a real shit-hole. Are you going to get comfortable, Harry, or are you planning on doing a runner?"
"Oh," he said, scrambling out of his coat and folding it carefully over the back of a nearby chair. He did the same with his scarf, laying his gloves on top of the small pile. After hesitating for a moment, he took his own shoes off, placing them next to the door. "I don't know why, but I thought you lived with your parents."
"No, that's Padma," she said. "She's the obedient one. I'm the whore."
Harry nearly swallowed his tongue at that, but when he looked over at her, he saw that she was winking. "They don't really-"
"No, they're not that bad," she assured him, pulling the cork from a bottle of wine with a graceful flourish. "I mean, they're really proud of the fact that I got in at St. Mungos, and, well, the war and all that, but-"
Harry waited for her to finish, but she filled both glasses before she continued. "Well, let's just say the war changed me a bit. More than a bit. I just figured that if I was old enough to nearly get killed fighting off Death Eaters, then I was old enough to decide what to do with the rest of my life. They kept trying to protect me, but when it came down to it, I was the only one who could protect myself, and all those silly rules they had were more about them and what they wanted than me and what I need. They can't understand why I haven't married a nice boy and given them three grandkids already."
"I'm sorry," he said.
Parvati shrugged, sitting down on the sofa and tucking her feet beneath her legs. "Not your fault, is it? Anyway, so I decided to move out. And they made a fuss and threatened to disown me, and I did it anyway, and they eventually came round."
Harry sat down next to her, uncertain how to respond. He couldn't exactly sympathise--he'd have loved to have had parents to disappoint, but he thought she must have been really brave to stand up to them. "Brilliant. You are, I mean, not the threats of disownment."
"Lavender and I got a little place above a shop in the Alley, and she spent the next few years doing everything humanly possible to make certain she was still attractive to the opposite sex even with her scars, and I worked like a demon and did my level best to live up to some of the names my parents called me and we had a absolute blast ."
"Did you?"
"Did we ever." Parvati winked, tipping her glass toward him. "And then Lavender opened her eyes and realized that Seamus had been pining after her for years and now she's off popping out babies. Me, I'm still working like a demon, and I'm a bit more picky about my company, but I've got a place I love, lots of friends, and, apart from the occasional bad date, I'm thinking I couldn't ask for a better life."
"I'd say," Harry agreed, thinking about his friends' (and their parents') well-meaning concern about the loneliness of his existence. What if he just…stopped caring what anyone else thought was missing from his life? Why was he hiding away at his godfather's house, unable to escape the burden of his painful past when everything around him reminded him of what he'd lost? It was only supposed to be temporary after he'd moved out of the flat he'd shared with Ginny. He could get a place anywhere he wanted. He could live in the country, in the city, by the shore--hell, he could live on a boat.
He was startled from his thoughts by the touch of Parvati's fingertip on his forearm. "You've gotten far too serious, Potter," she said.
Harry blinked. "I have, haven't I? I was just thinking that my house is about as cheerful as a tomb and I want to move."
"Right," she said, nodding her head, and adding, in a mock-serious tone. "Good plan. I approve. But I'm afraid you can't move in here. You'll leave the toilet seat up and piss all over the floor and I have it on very good authority that you snore dreadfully."
Harry grinned. "Lies! If you heard that from Seamus, tell him that he sounds like a rusty buzz saw."
"Yes, I noticed that in the Room of Requirement," Parvati said, smiling warmly in remembrance.
Harry sometimes envied his old friends the camaraderie they had experienced in the castle during the last few months of the war, remembering the crushing loneliness of the road, particularly once Ron had gone. And then he remembered the hell his friends had been forced to endure on at Hogwarts his behalf, and he inevitably felt his stomach twist in guilt.
"Stop that," Parvati said.
Harry looked up. "Stop what?"
"Whatever it is that’s got you frowning. You're no good to me frowning." Parvati's teasing smile was difficult to resist, and as she leaned closer, Harry closed his eyes in anticipation.
The brush of her lips on his was briefer than he might have liked, and he opened his eyes to discover that she'd already risen from the couch, apparently having taken his glass from his hand as she kissed him. She set it down on a nearby table, beginning to hum along with the music on the wireless.
She began to make her way toward the stairs at the other end of the room, swaying along with the music. Harry stared after her, watching open-mouthed as she released the tie on the side of her dress, opening it wide and letting it slide off her shoulders.
He scrambled to his feet, licking dry lips as she looked over her shoulder at him, her dark curtain of hair spilling down her back, her skin golden in the candlelight, all lush curves and black lace and confidence. She winked at him, then began to make her way up the stairs, hips swaying, every step she took utterly destroying his composure.
"Fucking gorgeous," he muttered under his breath, hurrying to catch up to her, finally reaching her near the top of the stairs. At the first touch of his hand, she turned back, one step above him, and as she kissed him, she reached for the hem of his jumper, sliding it up his torso and over his arms, helping sort out the glasses she'd knocked aside in the process. It was hard to focus on helping her much, not when her tits were threatening to burst out of her tiny lace bra, so close he could almost taste them. Parvati stood there watching him gape, grinning slyly as she reached behind to unhook the back, sliding the straps ever so slowly down from her shoulders.
She turned around and took a step up as she tossed it in his direction. "Be a good boy and lose the trousers, will you?" she called out over her shoulder.
Harry stumbled up the last few steps to her loft, finally kicking off his trousers at the top of the stairs. Parvati was already waiting on a dark red coverlet, smiling bemusedly at the look on his face, leaning on one arm, her hair draped artfully over her bare breasts, her body faintly lit by the single lamp in the room and the muted glow of the candles in the room below.
"Fucking gorgeous," he repeated, a bit louder this time, because she was and she bloody well knew it. And then he lunged, because he was pretty sure that if he didn't get his hands on her soon he was going to explode. He scrambled over the bed to where she lay and moved over her body, kissing her lips, her jaw, her neck, as she lay her head back on the pillow and lifted her arms to embrace him.
"You're not so bad yourself, Potter," she said, letting out a moan as he kissed a sensitive spot beneath her ear. "Of course, I fancied you back when you were a skinny, speccy little dork, too."
Harry stopped licking a path down the column of her throat to chuckle and protest, "You never fancied me."
"I fancied all of you at one point or another. It was seven very long years."
"Liar," Harry braced himself on an elbow and moved his hand over her breast, astonished by its softness (as was generally the case, and he was pretty much convinced that tits were his favorite thing to be touching in the universe) but in this case, more so because of the sound she made in response, the way her body arched beneath his touch. It seemed she was still moving to the beat of the music from the club, her hips undulating, her eyes hooded and sensual, her body lush and hot beneath his.
Her fingers had been tracing the length of his spine, and she dipped her fingertips beneath his pants, she raised her head off the pillow, fastening her mouth on his earlobe and sucking gently. Harry shivered, stretching out his neck to give her better access. She let her teeth graze the lines of his neck, and his hand tightened over her breasts, making her moan in response. She reached beneath his pants to grab onto his arse, and he lowered his body onto hers, his groin pressing between her legs as she raised her knees on either side of him.
"God," he gasped. "Tell me why we've never done this before?"
"Because you were dead set on having a family with lots of ginger babies," she said, giving his arse a proper squeeze before tightening her legs around him and rolling them both over. "And I've been a bit too distracted by that superhero suit you'd been wearing to notice how gorgeous you'd turned out. Plus, you don't dance."
"Danced tonight, didn't I?" Harry asked, grinning up at her as she arched her back and shook out her hair behind her , beginning to move her hips in slow circles. She was fucking spectacular, and he began to wonder if someone hadn't taken pity on him and slipped a bit of Felix Felicis in his drink that night.
"And look where it got you."
"I'll have to remember that," he said, reaching up to cover her breasts with both hands. She threw her head back as he moved his thumbs over her nipples in a circular pattern that matched the one she was making on his groin. He was hard as a rock now, and she was relentless, the lace of her knickers scratching against the cotton of his pants, the heat and friction torturous.
Parvati leaned forward, her hair falling toward him. She kissed him once more, tugging on his lower lip as she pulled away. Harry slid his hands down her body to span her arse, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, with her strong muscles moving under the softness as her hips bore down on his cock. Harry lifted his head from the pillow, desperate to taste her, to taste her lips, to taste her breath, which was beginning to come out in short puffs, to taste the thin sheen of sweat that was gathering on her forehead as her arousal had increased, taste her throat, where her pulse fluttered, to taste one dark nipple, to tease it into a peak as she threw her head back and moaned. She reached out, wrapping her arms around his head and burying his face between her breasts, removing his crooked glasses and tossing them aside.
Harry moaned against the abundance of soft, fragrant flesh, his hands kneading her bottom as she ground down hard. Her fingers were buried in his hair, her head was thrown back, the ends of her hair was tickling the backs of his hands.
When she finally released him, she pushed him back onto the pillow, still moving, a bit more blurry to Harry's eyes, perhaps, but he suspected he could still recognize a wicked gleam in her eyes as she crawled backwards down his body, her open hands sliding down his torso to tug down his pants. He swore under his breath as she tossed his pants aside, eyeing his cock and licking her lips. Once again, she slid her palms up his body, ankles to knees, knees to thighs, and she stopped at his upper thighs, bracing herself as she licked a path from his bollocks to the tip of his cock. Harry whimpered.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Parvati made another pass toward his cock, kissing the head, swirling her tongue around the tip, and then swallowing it nearly halfway down, causing Harry to buck up into her mouth with a groan. Her open palms were sliding up and down his thighs, widening his legs, her thumbs meeting up to toy with his bollocks as she took him into her mouth again, this time almost to the base. Harry bit back a shout, his hands going to her head, his fingers tangling in her hair and stroking her cheek. Once more, she bobbed her head, her fingers closing around his bollocks this time, and he bucked up, thrusting harder into her mouth, his fingers tightening in her hair. Parvati released him slowly, her mouth widening into a grin as he slipped out of her mouth.
"Not yet, you don't" she said, rising to her knees. She made a bit of a show of sliding her knickers down her hips, and Harry propped himself up on one elbow to enjoy the view, as she swayed and tugged, sitting on the edge of the bed as she pushed them down to the floor and then throwing them aside with a flourish. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she began climbing back up his body dipping down low so that her skin slid over his, taking extra time to allow his cock to distinguish the puff of air as her mouth moved over it, the pillowy softness of her breasts, the gentle curve of her belly, her silky thighs and finally the wiry hair that framed her cunt.
Harry finally remembered to exhale as she settled down on him, hot and wet but not entirely open. He slid his palms up her thighs, trembling beneath her as she moved in small, tight circles, occasionally giving his cock a taste of the hot, slick flesh of her inner cunt. Harry reached between her legs to feel it on his fingertips, to slide around in the wetness to find her more sensitive bits, to open her up further and watch her moan, her head thrown back, her breasts hovering above his eyes. She was grinding down on his flattened cock more fully now, covering his cock with her juices, her clit occasionally brushing against his questing fingers, an event which inevitably resulted in a delicious moan. He rather liked making her moan, he suspected.
When he withdrew his fingers, they glistened, and as Parvati watched, he brought them to his mouth and very slowly and deliberately licked them clean. "Sit on my face," he urged.
Parvati raised an eyebrow and moved to comply, crawling up his body until she was poised above him, gripping the headboard. Harry stretched his neck up, extending his tongue to get a taste of her. Parvati shivered in response, lowering herself further, hovering just above his face as he touched his tongue to her clit. She moaned, opening her legs wider above him, sinking even lower on his face. Harry slid his hand up her thighs to her arse, holding her steady above him, pulling her down when she pulled away, drawing his tongue back to front, drawing her clit between his lips and releasing it, stretching his tongue up inside her cunt as far as it would go. Parvati sobbed above him, her arousal soaking his face and dribbling down his chin. And when he plunged two fingers inside of her, she screamed.
Harry felt her cunt clenching around his fingers and as her tremors subsided, she rose back up to her knees Harry grinned smugly at her, and then found himself whimpering when she kissed him hard on the lips, lapping up her own juices. . She crawled slowly back down his body, finally stopping above his groin, where she hovered on her knees above him, taking his cock in hand. Harry, every nerve humming with anticipation, whimpered, and then screamed as she sank down on him in one smooth movement, surrounding him with hot, wet heat.
She was still dancing, he realized. Her hips were swaying, moving in circles, faster circles this time, taking his cock along with them. Harry was just happy to be along for the ride, watching her face as she lost herself in pleasure, in the music, and--as she opened her eyes and smiled down on him--in him. Faster and faster she moved, throwing her head back as he reached up and pinched at her nipples, her moans growing louder and louder as he bucked up into her, groaning hoarsely, crying out as the roaring in his ears grew louder, light finally exploding behind his eyes as he felt the familiar tightening in his balls, and she was clenching around him, milking his cock of every last spasm, finally collapsing in his arms.
~*~*~
"Bugger," Harry groaned, looking with dismay at his ruined glasses. They had to have been poking him in the arse for some time now, but it wasn't until his vision cleared that he'd realized they were the reason for his discomfort. Apparently, he'd sat on them. Or she had.
"You've really got to come up with something better," Parvati murmured sleepily.
"Wha-?" Harry began, but then shook his head, showing her the glasses. Parvati reached for the wand on her night table.
"Occulus Reparao."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome, Harry. I have to admit, you had me worried or a minute there. I was afraid you were making a request."
"A request?"
"Buggering. And I really didn't know if I had the energy for all those buckles. Besides, I thought we'd agreed we'd keep George in the toybox until the fourth date, at least."
"You've got a sex toy named George?"
"Well, it was a gift…"
"I don't want to hear about it," Harry said, shaking his head and laughing. "At least not until the fourth date."
"At least," Parvati added.
"At least. And make sure he understands that I plan to put him out of a job."
"Do you, now," Parvati said, smiling slyly. "Have I mentioned how well he works with others?"
"A real team player, is he?" Harry pulled Parvati into his arms, liking how she felt there.
"Definitely," she murmured, planting a light kiss on his chest.
"Well, I'm all for group efforts, but make sure he understands that contrary to popular opinion, I am not a bottom."
Parvati giggled. "I'll be sure to explain it to him. I suspect you two are going to become very good friends"
As Parvati's breathing slowed down and he felt her relax in his arms, Harry looked out at the lights of the city, filled with gratitude. After a lifetime of rubbish Valentines Days, Cupid--it appeared--had finally taken pity on him.