A Scoundrel's Staycation Ch. 40 (Harry Potter)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Harry goes on a date~

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After a long moment of considering Lavender’s words, Harry shoots her a reassuring smile.

“Thanks for telling me this, Lavender. I promise nobody will learn that I heard it from you.”

The blonde witch looks relieved at that for a moment… before biting her lower lip.

“A-And will you help? Either of them?”

Sighing, Harry nods.

“I’ll go on the date with Padma… and yes, if you want to arrange things with Parvati, I’d be willing to meet up for that as well. Now that I know what it is both of them actually need from me, I don’t have to worry so much about hurt feelings.”

Lavender’s eyes widen and then she beams at him.

“You’re a good man, Lord Hallows.”

Snorting derisively, Harry shakes his head.

“That, my dear, is very much still up for debate.”

They don’t talk much longer after that. Lavender has everything she needs to write the article he’s tasked her with writing about him. The Daily Prophet’s expose on Lord Harry Hallows will be much more down to Earth and seemingly grounded in reality compared to the Quibbler’s article. Funny that, given Luna definitely got more of the actual truth from him than Lavender did.

Still, better for it to be this way. And with Lavender’s interview over and done, the whole mess with Penny Clearwater was officially and finally cleaned up. Harry would have to drop by the Ministry at some point to pay her a visit and let her know.

For the time being though, he focuses on more critical matters. First and foremost is Padma. She’d sent him a letter asking if he was still interested in going on a date with her after the Wizengamot Meeting. All official and what not. But to be fair, it wasn’t like she could just call up his Floo or anything like that, that would have been ‘gauche’.

Regardless, he starts by responding to that letter and sending off his assurances that he does indeed still intend to go on a date. He also asks what she had in mind, curious where they would end up. A museum perhaps? An art gallery? A library?

Maybe he’s stereotyping Padma Patil a little bit too much because of her Ravenclaw leanings… because when the answer comes back within the hour delivered by owl, Harry is surprised by what she actually has in mind. Apparently, she wants to take him to a Quidditch Match of all things.

That catches him off guard for more than one reason, truth be told. Not only does it seem a little out of character for her, but also… he’s surprised that Magical Britain even still has Quidditch Matches going on. With the death of all those wizards, how are they even fielding teams?

Well, as it turns out… they’re not. Or at least, they’re not fielding many teams at this point. However, there are in fact two teams left in all of Magical Britain. A league of over a dozen Quidditch Teams has been reduced to a single pair.

One of them, Harry could have anticipated. The Holyhead Harpies had been all-female since their founding back in 1203 after all so it made sense that they were still around now. But the last thing Harry was expecting was for the Chudley Cannons of all teams to still be around as well, having adapted and scooped up all of the remaining female players that the Holyhead Harpies hadn’t.

More than that… the Captain of the Chudley Cannons in this universe was none other than Ginny Weasley, the last surviving child of the otherwise decimated Weasley Family.

Harry admittedly did all of this research after sending back confirmation to Padma that he would love to attend the Quidditch Match with her. The more he looked into the state of Magical Britain’s ‘Quidditch League’, the more baffled he was. After all, in his original world and most others that were similar, Ginny had joined the Holyhead Harpies. Why she would now be with the Chudley Cannons instead was a bit baffling and had Harry curious to see what this universe’s Ginny might be like.

Regardless, after confirming a time that they would meet up with Padma, Harry turns his attention towards other matters. Namely, continuing the collection of magical blood for Tracey Davis and her mystery mistress. In the end, Tracey had gotten back to him after consulting with her superior and told him they did in fact want to take what he’d collected as he collected it, so they could ensure the storage of the magical blood was up to their standards.

A lesser man might have been insulted by the insinuation, but Harry wasn’t all that bothered. It allowed him to get an early idea of who exactly was behind Tracey, after all. And wouldn’t you know it… after giving Tracey the first shipment of blood along with the hidden magical tracker, he’d quickly been able to put a name to her mysterious employer.

Greengrass. That was where the blood inevitably wound up. Held within the Greengrass Estate, where it would seem that Daphne Greengrass, Lady of House Greengrass, was storing it for whatever ritual she was planning to do.

That led Harry to consider the letter that he’d received from the Lady Greengrass after the Wizengamot Meeting a bit more carefully. It wasn’t anything overtly special, just a nondescript invitation to eventually visit her at her manor. But in the end, he’d decided to send a noncommittal reply to her for the time being. While he didn’t consider her particularly adversarial like say, Narcissa Malfoy, he also didn’t know if Daphne could really be trusted.

She probably wasn’t as dangerous to him as the likes of Lady Zabini though. Now that was a woman Harry expected would try to suck him dry and leave him for dead. He’d respond to her invitation when he was looking for a particularly interesting evening, he figured.

Either way, he wiles the time away successfully, eventually reaching the evening of the Quidditch Match between the Harpies and the Cannons. Meeting a nervous Padma Patil outside of the stadium, Harry is a bit more observant now, smiling slightly as she bites her lower lip and hurries over the moment she lays eyes on him.

“L-Lord Hallows… thank you for coming. This means a lot to me.”

He knew that… more than even she could know, he knew that. Of course, now that they’re here and he has a second to think about it, the location of his and Padma’s date makes a lot more sense. She needed something loud, an event with lots of people in attendance, so that news of her ‘date’ could potentially make it all the way back to India and get her parents off her back.

And given Harry was literally the only wizard in attendance and already drawing eyes from all of the witches heading into the stadium, Padma was almost certainly going to get her wish.

Chuckling good naturedly, Harry inclines his head and offers the dusky skinned witch his arm.

“Of course. I’m happy to help, Miss Patil. You were of great use to me back at the Ministry, after all.”

Left unsaid is that he’s pleased to be of ‘great use to her’ right back. Padma nevertheless flushes, looking guilty for a second. She’s probably thinking about how she’s ‘using’ him, but Harry honestly doesn’t mind all that much. As she loops her arm in his and they make their way into the stadium, he just grins. Regardless of Padma’s sexual preferences, tonight would probably be quite fun.

Their seats are nothing to laugh or scoff at, though it does put Harry among a crowd of female fans, all of whom are sneaking glances at him constantly. Parts of the stadium are fully roped off in order to push the audience closer together, because obviously Magical Britain no longer has the population to fill a full Quidditch Stadium.

Still, for all that the signs of what they’re going through are everywhere… once the two teams take the field and things get underway, everyone seems happy to turn their brains off and just enjoy the sports match for what it is… pure entertainment.

Harry, meanwhile, finds his eyes drawn to the teams themselves. Even while the game is starting, he’s more focused on the players rather than the plays. On one side he sees the Holyhead Harpies. Like most other universes, they’re still led by Gwenog Jones as their Captain at this point in time. She’s a few years off from retiring and still more years from becoming the team’s manager.

On the other side though are the Chudley Cannons… led by Ginny Weasley as their Captain. Her appearance takes Harry back. She looks much more… striking than he’s used to. Her face is drawn, her eyes are sharp, and Harry is reminded more of the girl who invented numerous hexes during her Hogwarts Years than he was anticipating. This is a Ginny Weasley who has suffered and lost much. This is a Ginny who’s entire family is gone.

… Is that why she’s with the Cannons? Ron had always loved that team. He adored them so much that he’d even tried out for them after Hogwarts at one point, though he wasn’t good enough to go professional and ultimately wasn’t taken on. Still, had Ginny… taken up her brother’s cause? Had she specifically joined the Chudley Cannons in Ron Weasley’s memory?

While Harry is considering this, the game almost immediately becomes rather heated. And to his mild surprise, extremely close as well. It’s not the stomp that he’s anticipating it to be… but to be fair, he should have known it wouldn’t be like that. This isn’t any Chudley Cannons he’s ever seen before, after all.

The Chudley Cannons were notoriously bad and infamous for having been so for over a century. In the distant past they’d won the League Cup twenty-one times, but the last of those wins were in 1892 and ever since they’d been… well, terrible.

However, that terrible version of the Cannons was predicated on there being an entirely league of Quidditch Teams that were better than them. To say nothing of the wizards who would have populated both the Cannons and those other teams.

With the British Quidditch League reduced to nothing more than two teams, the only witches playing Quidditch at this point were the cream of the crop, the best of the best. And so… as strange as it might seem to Harry, as bizarre as it might feel… the Chudley Cannons are actually good in this universe.

 As the scores on both sides begin to build, with the Harpies scoring first but the Cannons getting their own back right after and it continuing on from there, Harry leans over to Padma, curious despite himself.

“How exactly are the Cannons viewed these days in Britain? I must admit, I didn’t get a chance to look up their win record before this match.”

He’d been too caught up in finding out about the state of Quidditch as a whole and the fact that Ginny Weasley was the Cannons’ Captain, truth be told.

Padma blanches a bit, her eyes darting between him and the field.

“A-Ah… w-well… that is… um…”

It dawns on Harry then that she doesn’t know. Hah, she’d really just picked Quidditch because it would be the loudest event she could take him on a date to, hadn’t she? His original impression of Padma was correct; she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t incredibly important for her to show her parents she’d ‘found someone’ and didn’t need to come home.

Of course, now her house of cards is crumbling down around her. Harry hadn’t meant to call her out, but he doesn’t quite know how to backtrack and save her from herself.

Fortunately, he doesn’t need to. Before she can answer, both of them are caught off guard by a sudden golden flicker right in front of them. Blinking, Harry looks over… and lets out a chuckle as he sees the Golden Snitch hovering there. Padma gapes at it, while some of the other onlookers nearby notice and begin murmuring to themselves.

Harry looks on at the playful little orb in amusement. Did the magic in the Snitch somehow sense his past as a Seeker? Was it trying to play with him? Either way, he’s not so foolish as to try and snatch it from the air or anything like that. That would be grounds for seeing him kicked out of the stadium for one thing. And for two…

“Look out!”

Padma’s words are appreciated but a little late. Harry had already seen what she was trying to warn him about, after all. Within moments of the Snitch stopping in front of him, its been noticed by one of the playing teams’ Seekers. Specifically a certain red head.

Ginny Weasley has angled her broom and is coming right at him at truly incredibly speeds, her eyes narrowed and focused entirely on the Snitch to the detriment of everything else. At this rate she’ll ram into him and then the stands if nothing else changes.

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pC1YKJaGrrnRvzaU2zJJB8UlMR_g13Ao1pGLV5zcYZc/edit?tab=t.0