"Wait," Harry started, bringing the attention of the two girls onto himself. He was staring at Astoria with a look of masked shock. "Are you saying this is the first time you've ever left your home?"
"I don't know," Astoria's nose scrunched up cutely as she struggled to remember an instance where she might have left Greengrass Manor. "I think I might have left the house when I was younger, and sometimes I play outside in the back near the gardens, but I don't really remember going anywhere outside our house's boundaries."
Harry took a slow, shuddering breath as he thought through her words and his mind led him to the obvious conclusion that she had never been anywhere public since their mother's death.
It was a difficult pill for someone like him to swallow. Harry had always been fiercely independent ever since he turned five, the year after he had learned to recreate his accidental magic and used it to better his own life. He could not imagine not being allowed out of the house for any reason.
It made him that much more disgusted by Nathaniel Greengrass' actions towards his daughters. Harry would freely admit that he could be callous to others, but those were to people he did not know, strangers in every sense of the word, and even than he would not harm them without due cause. He didn't want to know what kind of person you would have to be to treat your own flesh and blood the way the Head of the House of Greengrass treated his daughters.
"Harry?"
Warmth encased his hand and a shiver of a different kind traveled down his spine. Harry looked down to see his hand being held by another, much more feminine one. Traveling up the light blue fabric, Harry eventually found himself meeting the slightly concerned eyes of Daphne Greengrass.
"Yes?" he asked, taking in a deep breath to control his hormonal impulses. Harry really hoped he would get a handle on those soon or they were going to become a serious problem.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Harry said, squeezing her hand once before letting go. He wanted to hold onto it, but felt it would be in his best interest not to do so. Less chance of him causing an embarrassing scene that way. He could already feel his body responding to just that simple touch. "I was just thinking about something."
Daphne did not look too convinced, but seemed to realize he was not going to tell her about whatever was bothering him and decided to let it go.
"Alright. We're running a bit late," Harry began as he started walking. "Our friends should already be waiting for us near the entrance to Diagon Alley so we'd best be on our way."
"Is he always like this?" asked Astoria as she and Daphne walked to catch up with Harry. They quickly caught pace with him and Daphne made sure to walk on his left, close enough that she could easily reach out and grab his hand if she wanted to, but far enough that they were not touching.
"Not always," Daphne told her sister quietly. "Just on occasion."
"Huh," Astoria leaned forward to peer around her sister so she could look at Harry. He was walking towards the exit in the back, ignoring the ruckus the people sitting around the tables were making. She leaned back a second later. "Weird."
"I can here everything you two said just now."
Astoria and Daphne jerked their heads back in surprise. They looked at Harry to see him giving them a mildly amused look.
"Just thought you should know that," he added.
XoX
"Daphne! Harry!"
It was no surprise to anyone that the first person to greet the trio was Tracey. The girl was the most excitable out of their group of friends. Only Hannah could match the brunette Slytherin in sheer enthusiasm, and she was much more polite than the other girl.
Like his experience with Daphne, Harry noticed that Tracey was really quite cute. Her brunette locks of hair framed a pixyish face with a small button nose and lightly glossed pink lips. He could not see anything thanks to those blasted robes, but as he knew that girls entered puberty before boys, he could imagine she was also developing like Lisa and Daphne.
Damn. This really was going to be a problem.
While the other seven members of Harry's and Daphne's group of friends standing outside near the entrance to Diagon Alley turned their heads to look at the three walking out from the Leaky Cauldron along with their chaperones for the day, Tracey quickly began making her way over to them. There was a large grin on her face, and it looked like she was about to give either Harry or Daphne or both of them the largest hug of their lives.
Then she noticed Astoria.
.
.
.
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