beautiful - harry potter

chapter 7

Thalia gripped her letter tightly as she heard the last words of an exchange between Cho Chang, a 6th year Ravenclaw, and Harry. "I'm sorry, Harry. I really would've liked to go with you," Cho confessed in her thick accent.

Cho walked off and Thalia scowled at the older girl while passing her. Everything seemed to be pissing off Thalia today because everything was going wrong. Her dress was getting delayed so if she didn't like it, she wouldn't have time to return it and Draco just rejected her and she still didn't have a date.

Thalia walked into the Owlery to see Harry sending a letter out. She tried to ignore him as she tied her letter to her owl's leg but she kept glancing over at Harry, who was purposely sending out his letter slowly. 

Harry wanted to start a conversation with her and he'd been wanting to ask her to the Yule Ball for a while but she was always with Slytherins. Now, the one time she wasn't with anyone else, Thalia just happened to hear Harry pathetically ask out Cho Chang. There was no use in even trying, there was no possible recovery from that.

"So, you and Cho Chang, huh?" Thalia asked, still tying the letter with a thin string. Her green eyes met Harry's, which were much colder than they used to seem. They weren't full of the same light and they didn't have the same twinkle, and Thalia didn't know why.

Harry knew why he must've looked at her differently though. He believed that he loved her when he was younger but now, when he looked at the pretty girl, he only saw the girl who'd bet on him. He now believed that what he thought he had for Thalia wasn't love, just a stupid school crush.

"I don't see why you care," Harry scoffed. Thalia looked back down, averting his gaze, and she opened her owl's cage even more. 

"I don't," she lied. Thalia took a few steps back and the sleek black owl flew into the air the same time that Harry released his snowy white owl. They were exact opposites but the two owls seemed to fly in the same direction.

"Do you have a date to the ball?" Thalia asked, genuinely wanting to know. She didn't want Harry going with someone else but she still refused to fancy him. 

"No," he said, shaking his head. "All the girls seem to travel in packs."

"Well, I don't have one either," the brunette added. 

He wanted to ask Thalia to the Yule Ball because part of him still wanted to spend a night with the girl he once fancied but he didn't want to cave in, not when he'd seen a part of her that he didn't like. 

Harry raised his eyebrows with a blank face, looking as uninterested as ever."Good luck with that, Forthing," Harry said as he walked out of the Owlery. 

Thalia didn't have anything else to do but she let him go ahead, so they didn't have to interact any more than they had to.

-----

Despite not finding a date in time, Thalia got ready and did her makeup and curled her hair. She was determined to have a good night, whether she had a date or not.

The brunette wore a baby blue gown that was long-sleeved, with pale blue rose embroidery on the top half and her silky long hair was in a half-up half-down hairstyle, making her look more elegant than she already was.

She stood behind Hermione Granger, who was nervously looking over the corner to see if her date was there yet. Hermione wore a pretty pink dress that was shorter than Thalia's and her hair was in a bun with a few loose curls. She looked beautiful.

"You're Hermione Granger, right?" Thalia asked. Her other friends had gone ahead with their dates but Thalia didn't have one so she found it a bit harder to go into the hall by herself. "You're friends with Harry Potter."