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September 5, 1998
Saturday Afternoon
“Go on mate, go on!” Neville bumped Harry forward with his elbow, encouraging the shorter boy.
“Give me a moment—I’ll go before she leaves,” Harry snapped back.
Hannah snickered. “You said that at breakfast this morning, at dinner last night and lu-”
“I get it!” Harry bit out more angrily than he’d intended; it wasn’t due to Hannah’s words either, no, it was the crowd of boys that always seemed to be around his crush.
“You’re going to miss your chance and then you’ll be cross with yourself for the rest of the year,” Neville said, raising his hands when Harry turned to glare at him.
“Must you both offer your ‘assistance’ during every meal?” Harry’s question was rhetorical, not that it stopped Neville from answering helpfully.
“Just doing what Hermione and Ron would mate, can’t have you losing out on any wise counsel.”
Neville wasn’t entirely wrong, Harry admitted to himself.
Had Hermione and Ron returned for their eighth year rather than go searching Australia for her parents, they’d most definitely be doing the exact same thing that Hannah and Neville were—encouraging him to speak with his crush rather than watching her from afar with a longing glance.
What he didn’t understand was the mental block that seemed to be in his mind; he’d faced Voldemort for Merlin’s sake! Why was the idea of approaching a gir—Tracey, he self-corrected, somehow scarier?
Harry was shook from his mind when Hannah lightly tapped him on the arm.
"Well? Is that a yes?" she asked him, the exasperated look on her face offset by her amused eyes—she had evidently been talking to him while his mind had been wandering.
“Sorry, what was that?” Harry apologized for his lack of attention—he just couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the Slytherin girl that’d been his crush since right after that horrible kiss with Cho Chang.
Glancing at Neville with a soft smile before returning her look to him, Hannah answered in her ever so soft voice, “I was asking if you’d like for me and Susan to go over for you? Maybe we could set up a Hogsmeade date for the two of you, we all know how persuasive Susan can be, after all.”
Harry found himself nodding with Neville, though the latter boy had a far better reason to be considering it was Susan Bones who’d gotten him and Hannah together over the summer break of Hogwarts.
“No, no that’s fine, thank you.” Harry was sure to be polite in his declining of help, not wanting to say how it’d make him seem childish if he couldn’t get a date for himself.
“Are you sure?” Hannah followed up.
A nod from Harry was her response, followed by an exclamation from the Slytherin table that instantly had Harry on alert with his hand going for his wand out of instinct.
Looking over at the source of the sound — that being towards the end of the Slytherin table where his crush and her best friend usually sat — Harry could make out an enraged Daphne Greengrass icily glaring at a boy after having cast something at her robes. Whatever had happened, he’d missed it, but from the nearly laughing Tracey and the aforementioned angry Greengrass, it couldn’t have been anything too horrible.
At least until the boy who’d been getting scolded pulled out his wand and cast something at Daphne, the girl casting a shield charm so fast it was as if she’d been expecting it; those actions had Harry instantly on his feet with a stunning spell sent towards the unknown Ravenclaw boy while he moved swiftly to the two girls in green.
With his heart racing and adrenaline pumping throughout his body, Harry was prepared for a battle following his initial spell as had so often been the case. But fortunately for him and unfortunately for the Ravenclaw, it’d only taken one spell to incapacitate the scorned boy, leaving Harry standing beside Tracey with both her and Daphne looking at him suspiciously.
“Hi, er, Hello… Ha-Potter.”
“Potter.”
Tracey had greeted him first, followed by Daphne; the former appeared as nervous as he was while the latter was full of fire and still holding her wand.
“Hi,” Harry coughed, clearing his throat while trying to make his voice slightly deeper, “Hello Davis, Greengrass… hope you didn’t mind my getting involved.”
“It’d be too late if we did,” Daphne commented dryly causing Harry to wince.
“You were really fast.” Tracey blurted out immediately following her friend's crude remark.
Daphne hummed and narrowed her eyes at him, “Were you watching us too, Potter? Making sure the nefarious snakes aren’t up to anything?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and took a step back, averting his eyes sheepishly as he did so.
“No, no it’s nothing like that, I happened to be looking over here for… well, I wan—”
“Harry, I told you to wait for me!” Susan’s voice cut in as she sidled up to him with her wand out, arriving late to the fight — not that it’d been one.
Daphne glanced at the new entry, her eyes remaining as narrowed as they were. “Bones.”
Susan didn’t show even a quarter of the hostility or reservation, “Hi Daphne,” she glanced at the other girl, “Hi Tracey!”
Meekly and while brushing an errant strand of hair from her face, Tracey returned the greeting.
As soon as she’d done so, Susan gripped Harry’s arm and then Tracey’s before nodding to Daphne to follow her as she led the group out of the Great Hall and into an abandoned classroom only a few turns away.
Once they were inside said classroom, Daphne stood beside the door and motioned for Tracey to stan- wait why was Susan moving to stand next to Greengrass?
His question would be answered when Susan smiled at him, winked and promptly shut the door after both girls had made it out of the room, leaving him with Tracey.
Tracey’s immediate response to their seclusion and close proximity was to go red in the face while looking anywhere but at him.
“Uh, Hi, Harry.”
“Hi, Tracey… do yo-, I mean, Daph-” Harry stopped speaking to gather himself, his nerves taking control as he attempted to articulate that he’d like to take Tracey somewhere.
Before he could say another word, he heard a sigh from Tracey after having said her friend's name and the girl began rummaging through her satchel, speaking after a few seconds had passed.
“I hope you have your own i-i-ink, Potter .” She’d stumbled on the word prior to his name, making him think she was still nervous, but when she’d said his name any hint of nervousness was gone and replaced with a hissing that befitted her house.
Had he done something wrong without realizing it?
“My own ink for what?” He asked Tracey, stepping back when he saw the sad look on her face that she immediately attempted to cover up to only a limited degree of success.
“For the parchment - you want to date Daphne, don’t you?” Tracey answered him without making eye contact, he could hear the hurt in her voice.
He couldn’t respond to her, at least not initially, he was too inside his mind trying to think if her hurting was due to her having similar feelings as him.
Courage. He reminded himself.
He was a Gryffindor!
Finding his voice after a moment of hyping himself up, Harry answered Tracey’s question.
“No, I don’t want to date Daphne, I want to date you.”
Tracey snapped her attention to him, her eyes wide and searching as she took in the expression on his face.
Words followed up her look, spoken in a soft and wavering tone, “You’re here for me?”
That was the push Harry needed and in response to her words, he nodded resolutely.
“Yes.” He was here for her!
Tracey followed up his answer with a question that tore at his heart.
“Why?”
Harry was unsure of how to answer that, but he knew that it was a question that he couldn’t answer simply, for every passing moment without response was a moment that Tracey’s face fell.
“I like you,” He blurted out - startling Tracey before he continued, “I’ve liked you for a few years now, but I couldn’t do anything about it, not with everything happening. When I came back this year I wanted to ask you to Hogsmeade or anywhere really, but I wasn’t sure what you’d say.”
“You’ve barely spoken to me.” Tracey accused.
“I know… but haven’t you ever felt strongly towards something or someone that you’ve not spoken with or seen?” Harry wasn’t sure what he was trying to say and he wasn’t sure if she understood it any more than he did.
“This isn’t some sort of prank is it?” Tracey asked that while looking towards the door where Daphne had been with Susan.
“No! Not at all!” Harry was quick to assure the girl that this was anything but a way to hurt her feelings.
Tracey glanced at him and looked away, speaking again in that small tone of voice, the one that made him want to pull her into a hug and never let go.
“I’ve fancied you for a while too.”
Harry perked up at that, his earlier hopes that she’d felt the same about him renewed.
“Really?” he couldn’t help but question her.
Tracey turned her gaze back to him, her eyes meeting his as she shyly nodded.
“Oh,” Harry said in response to the look.
“Yeah.” Tracey returned.
“Hogsmeade then?” Harry blurted out in a similar manner as he’d done earlier, trying not to ruin the chance he was given by whatever being was looking out for his love life.
“Y-yeah, if you’re still sure you want me.” Tracey agreed to his date, her self-doubt making itself heard again.
“Of course I do!” Harry said again, catching the beautiful shy smile the girl gave off at his confirmation.
As soon as he’d said that, the door to the classroom burst open and in strode Daphne with Susan right behind her.
It was the latter girl who would speak when noticing the closeness between Harry and Tracey, only saying one word.
“Finally!”
Daphne nodded her head instead of saying anything, giving a coy look to Tracey that Harry managed to intercept.
Harry was a little slow on the uptake while Tracey was anything but.
“You set this up?” Tracey asked while looking between the two other girls.
“Yes, Susan came to me last night and we discussed at length the mutual fancying you both have towards one another along with the hopelessness of any action from either of you unless encouraged,” Daphne moved her attention from Tracey and over to Harry, “While I must express surprise that you like a Slytherin after hearing so many tales that say the opposite, I feel it only fitting to give you the obligatory warning after overhearing your planned Hogsmeade trip; hurt Tracey in any way and your life at Hogwarts will be made unimaginably difficult, boy-who-won be damned.”
“Daphne!” Tracey gasped out, a hand going to her mouth in an exclamation of her shock.
“Oh relax, if he likes you half as much as Susan says he does then there’s nothing to worry about, is there Potter?” Daphne smirked at the slight colouring of his cheeks as she awaited his answer.
“Nothing to worry about.” His voice was steady and his gaze unwavering in the face of Daphne, but his cheeks were no less red.
Susan clasped her hands together, “Splendid! I’m so excited to see you two together, you’ll make such a wonderful couple! Oh, I can only imag-”
Daphne slid a hand over Susan’s mouth, “Shush, I’ll hear nothing about future Potter spawn until well after they’re married.”
Harry went even redder if such a thing was possible while Tracey stammered unintelligibly and Susan laughed louder than he’d heard from her in a long while.
None of the embarrassment he felt at the moment would ruin the fact that he’d finally secured a date with Tracey Davis, his crush for years.
September 6, 1998
Sunday Morning
“You look fine Harry, now stop worrying and go meet up with Tracey before Daphne comes looking for you.” Susan was the one to say this as she made last-minute changes to his hair, the normally untamable mess looking far better than it normally did.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t want that Harry, by all accounts Daphne’s a right bit- proper witch.” Neville changed the wording he was going to use when Susan’s attention shifted from Harry to him.
Hannah laughed at her boyfriend’s screw up and seeing that Neville would look anywhere but at her, Susan turned back to Harry.
“Go on already or I’ll get started with the cursing before Daphne even finds you!”
That was the last bit of motivation Harry needed and thus, he set off towards the courtyard where he’d promised to meet his date.
A quick walk later and he found himself in a bustling crowd of students, all of whom had found themselves waiting for the carriages to Hogsmeade to arrive. All but Tracey, the girl being unseen by Harry causing his nerves to spike at the thought of her having thought better of their date.
“Hi, Harry…” Tracey’s shy voice greeted him from - where was she?
Not knowing if the girl was wearing an invisibility cloak or otherwise hidden, Harry looked towards the source of the sound and returned her greeting.
“Hi, Tracey?”
Movement from the sole tree in the direction he was looking at alerted him that the girl wasn’t hiding by any magical means, rather, she was using that sole tree as cover. He wasn’t sure why she’d be doing that when he’d seen her many times over.
“Carriages still haven’t arrived, huh?” she asked in a forcibly casual tone.
“Nope.” Harry answered, popping the ‘p’ in the word.
“So… what’re we doing today?” Tracey continued in her ‘casual’ tone while peeking out from behind the tree.
Harry tried walking around the cover she was using to see what had her so on edge, but wherever he’d move Tracey would counter so he couldn’t see anything more than her head. This carried on for all of ten seconds before Harry finally decided to speak, only he didn’t answer her question - he asked one of his own.
“Is everything alright?”
Tracey scoffed, “Pfft, yeah - why? Should it not be?”
“You’re hiding behind a tree.” Harry pointed out, addressing the elephant in the courtyard.
“Oh, this old thing?” One of Tracey’s hands made itself visible to Harry as she patted the aforementioned tree, “I’m admiring it.”
“Uhuh,” Harry said, not at all convinced that the girl wasn’t hiding anything.
“Fine,” Tracey huffed before fixing him with a solid imitation of Daphne’s infamous glare, “You have to promise you won’t laugh when you see me.”
It was an awkward thing to say on a first date, but it certainly spiked Harry’s curiosity.
“Of course I won’t laugh at you.”
Tracey took in a breath and stepped out from behind her cover, her arms coming up to hug herself.
Immediately Harry was aware of why the girl felt so embarrassed, Susan had let it slip earlier during his own preparation that Tracey rarely wore dresses, as the girl was far more comfortable in casual wear and yet here she stood in one of the most beautiful gowns he’d ever seen.
“Wow.”
Tracey blushed even harder than he’d thought possible, her lack of eye contact was followed up by her angelically soft voice, “Bad wow?”
Harry shook his head from side to side emphatically, “Not at all, you look… wow,” such was her beauty and the effort put forward that his teenage mind couldn’t put into words how beautiful she looked to his eyes.
“Really?” Tracey glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes - he could make out the hope and insecurity on her face.
Seeing those emotions and the vulnerability she was showing only made him double down on his efforts of finding the right words; what he said would have to do.
“Yeah… you have to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
Harry heard an ‘aww’ behind him when he’d said that and snapped his attention towards the source of it, seeing Hannah and Susan duck behind a corner while Daphne - who was lazily leaning against a nearby wall - simply waved to him with a smirk on her face.
Luckily for Harry and Tracey, the carriages chose that time to arrive; and so rather than choosing to act on their spies, Harry moved over to Tracey, holding out an arm for the girl to take.
“You’re really certain you want to take me instead of Daphne?” Tracey asked him that with a searching gaze - it was the third time that he could recall she’d asked him something along those lines and it bothered him to no end.
How could such a wonderfully nice and beautiful girl such as her think she wasn’t worth it?
Harry smiled, linked her arm with his and nodded once, “Yes.”
Tracey smiled and looked away, her face staying as red as ever as she gave her response by kissing his cheek.
That simple gesture from the girl was all Harry needed as he led her over to their carriage in anticipation of their lunch date.
“Harry, y-you reserved the entire section for us?!” Tracey asked in awe as she took in the vacant half of the very recently opened high-end restaurant that’d popped up in Hogsmeade.
“I- yeah… you don’t mind right?” He was second-guessing himself, taking the awe in her voice as something negative rather than positive.
“Yes, wait - no! Not at all! It’s just, nobody’s ever done this for me.” Tracey looked at him with genuine affection as a few tears escaped from the confines of her eyes.
Harry sighed in relief - it hadn’t gone disastrous, yet.
“I was worried for a second that you’d take it the wrong way, I just wanted privacy for the both of us.”
It was hard being the Boy-Who-Lived turned Boy-Who-Won when it came to doing anything public.
“No, no I totally get it, Harry! It must be really difficult being you after - well, you know.” Tracey trailed off and nervously looked away from him.
Harry took in a breath and put one of his hands over hers, the action immediately made her turn back to face him, which was exactly what he’d been hoping would happen.
“Are you as nervous as I am?” He asked her that in hopes of easing them both, but the Slytherin girl seemed to take it in the wrong context.
“I’m sorry, is it that obvious? I really like you Harry and I always s-screw up my words when I’m nervous or I just ramble and Daphne tells me that it gets really annoying - which I can understand, but It’s not something I think abou-” Tracey slapped one hand over her mouth and the other over her eyes as she turned red.
Harry held his hands up, “I wasn’t saying that for just you, I’m bloody nervous too - I’ve never been on a date quite like this… especially with a witch as beautiful as you.”
Tracey moved the fingers that had been covering her eyes so she could peek through them at the same time she completely dropped the one that’d been covering her mouth.
“You truly think I’m beautiful?”
Harry nodded and before they could continue, the waitress had come by their table to drop off their food; Harry had already taken it upon himself to order Tracey’s favourite food after Susan had gotten it for him from Daphne.
She seemed to notice that he’d gotten her favourite and looked at him incredulously, “You went through so much effort…”
“You’re worth it, I can’t have another bloke sweeping you off your feet before I at least had one date with you.” Harry meant those words too, as he’d seen far too many boys approach Tracey and knew eventually, one of them would be asking her for a date rather than her friend.
Tracey smiled shyly and leaned in towards him, “So, Harry… I, uh, I know this is still really early in the first date, but would you want to go on a second? And maybe a third?”
Had he made such a good impression on her?
“That’d be wicked,” Harry instantly replied - in hindsight, it probably would’ve been better to wait for a second or two so as to avoid appearing too eager.
“Great!” Tracey responded, just as fast as he’d done and wincing when she’d realized it.
“Awesome,” Harry said back, going in for a bite of the pasta he’d ordered while Tracey did the same with her meal.
That would be how a majority of the couple's meal would be spent; in awkward conversation while they tried avoiding any overly problematic topics. Tracey would also spend a great deal of her time with Harry looking away shyly or stammering, both quirks of hers immediately ingratiating themselves with Harry as he found her incredibly cute, not to mention stress-relieving considering how he felt the same as she clearly felt about him.
Once their meal was over and they’d eaten a shared dessert, (something Tracey recommended as she’d slowly built her courage up over the meal) Harry led them back to their private carriage and that was where they were currently sat in awkward silence, neither of the two teens able to think of a conversation starter as they glanced at one another until they made eye contact, causing them to look away until one of them would inevitably do so again.
“Harry, could you… could you answer something truthfully for me?” Tracey asked in her small voice, the one he’d come to associate with her when she was feeling insecure or otherwise vulnerable.
“Of course.” Was his firm response, the boy making eye contact with her until she looked away to ask what was on her mind.
“I really enjoyed this date with you, it’s the best one I’ve been on - the only one I’ve been on, but…” Tracey trailed off and took in a shaky breath, “Did Daphne talk to you and set this up? I won’t be mad if she manipulated this whole thing, it’s been brilliant really, I just want to know if I have a chance with you is all.”
Harry was stunned into silence - after everything that's happened she still has doubts about the authenticity of his feelings.
Slowly, he moved from his seat opposite of her within the carriage until he was right beside her and once he was there, he gently turned her to face him.
“Daphne didn’t set this up, neither did Susan or anyone else - I’m here for you because I want to be.”
Tracey had a tear go down her face and without warning, she lunged at him, smashing her lips to his in an attempt to convey all the emotions she was feeling.
For Harry, the emotionally charged kiss was eerily reminiscent of his first with Cho, only far nicer as the tears dried and the movement deepened while hands went exploring.
Slowly, and after roughly a minute of kissing, Tracey pulled back and looked deeply into his eyes.
“Would you be my boyfriend, Harry?”
He didn’t answer with words initially, instead, he answered by pulling the girl back into a kiss until they were both breathless for a second time.
“Yes.”