Author's Notes: This is a challenge set down by my friend Angelina. Write a story where Harry gets dared to go out with Ginny.
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Ron nodded. "Now it'sh my turn." An evil grin slid across his face. "'Arry. Trufe or dare." Blue eyes challenged Harry to take the easy way out and pick Truth.
Harry rose to the challenge. "Dare." He said.
"I dare you to go out on a date with my sister Ginny."
Harry woke up the morning after that fateful game of Truth or Dare with a sense of trepidation. What on earth had he gotten himself in to?! At least Ron had the excuse of being shnockered!
Sighing, the green-eyed boy-hero got up and dressed in his uniform. There was a Hogsmeade weekend coming up; he might as well ask Ginny if she'd go with him.
It wasn't that he didn't like Ginny – he did. It was just he didn't particularly want to be pushed into a relationship he wasn't sure was going to work. He wasn't like Seamus or Dean, or even Ron. He couldn't have casual relationships. He was in it for the long haul, and if he and Ginny got together, someone might be hurt. He didn't want that.
However, it seemed there was nothing to be done but go on this date with Ginny and get it over with as quickly as possible. Maybe she’d say no. If she said no there was nothing he could do about it, and Ron would just have to give him a new dare or something. He certainly wasn’t going to force Ginny to go out with him. Nosiree.
Heart lighter, Harry thumped his way downstairs to meet his fate.
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Hermione waited impatiently for Ron to come down as she pretended to read a book. The fact that she hadn’t turned the page for an hour certainly didn’t escape her sometimes-friend Ginny’s notice.
“Something wrong, Herm?” the red-haired sixth-year asked.
“Hmm? Oh, no, Gin, nothing,” Hermione denied.
“Liar. You’re not very good at it. Tell me. I’m your friend, aren’t I?”
The hurt that Ginny managed to cram into a few words immediately had the soft-hearted brunette trying to placate her.
“Of course you are, Gin,” she said hurriedly. “It’s just...remember what happened last night?”
“You mean Ron coming downstairs and snogging you senseless before running back up to his dorm?” Ginny said slyly.
Hermione felt her cheeks heat up. “Yes,” she admitted. “I really want to find out what it was all about.”
“And if he’ll do it again, am I right?”
Hermione opened her mouth to respond, when footsteps indicated someone was coming down the stairs. She stared anxiously as long legs, a lean-developed torso, then tousled black hair and bright emerald eyes came into view. She slumped back in her seat with a disappointed sigh.
Ginny echoed the sigh, the tone one more of adoration than disappointment, though.
Hermione regarded her friend through narrowed hazel eyes. So Ginny wasn’t as over Harry as she’d led everyone to believe, hmmm?
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Harry took a deep breath, pacing backwards and forwards in front of the entrance to the Great Hall. Inside, at the Gryffindor Table, Ginny was eating her breakfast, never suspecting what was going to happen. "Oh god, I'm going to be sick," Harry muttered.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Potty Potter," a very familiar voice sneered.
"Oh, no, not you," the green-eyed Gryffindor moaned, turning around to face Draco Malfoy, who was flanked, as always, by his two goons. "Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse."
"Not happy to see us, Scarhead? I'm hurt," Malfoy mock-sniffed.
"What do you want?" Harry snapped.
"Always so quick to get to the point, Potter. I like that in a mortal enemy," Malfoy slung an arm over Harry's shoulders. "Let's step into my office, shall we?"
The blonde Slytherin and his two lunk-body-friends propelled a protesting Boy-Hero into the empty classroom across the hallway.
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"Lemme get this straight," Harry said an hour later, once again pacing back and forth. "You heard about Ron's dare, and you want to help me? Why?"
Malfoy steepled long, slender fingers on top of the teacher's desk that he was sitting behind. "Let's just say I have an interest in this particular liaison and leave it at that, shall we?" he said. "And do stop pacing, Potter, you're making me dizzy."
Harry whirled around. "Interest? What kind of an interest?" His green eyes narrowed. "What are you planning, Malfoy?"
Malfoy leant back in his chair. "Nothing, Potter, nothing," he soothed. "As for my interests, well, to be quite honest, which I rarely am, they're purely monetary."
"If you're rarely honest, why are you being so now?" Harry snarled. "What's in this for you?"
"My Slytherin friends and I have a little wager going on. Blaise seems to think the Weaslette's going to slap you in the face, I believe she's going to say yes and joyfully skip along on your arm." Malfoy rolled silver eyes towards the heavens. "Gryffindors, eugh. Blaise assumes the Weaslette will act like any self-respecting Slytherin girl would, but we both know better, don't we, Potter? She hasn't got the spine."
"Hey, Ginny's got plenty of spine," Harry retorted. "Why on earth am I even having this conversation with you? Merlin knows I should've cursed you and your friends, and gone to breakfast so I can get this entire fiasco over and done with!"
"Fiasco, nice word, I'm impressed," Malfoy smirked. "Frankly, Potter, I have no idea why you're listening to me either. But since you are...do you want my help or not?"
"If I say not?"
"Then I inform all the girls in the sixth and seventh years of this little wager and stand back and watch them rip you to pieces." Malfoy shrugged. "Standard procedure, really. Do we have a deal?"
Harry sighed. "Do I have a choice?"
"Not really, no. So sorry, Harry."
"Then yes, Malfoy, we have a deal," Harry spat, emphasising the 'Malfoy'.
"Excellent. Well, you'd best head on to breakfast to ask out your lady love."
Harry nodded once, then stormed out.
"I'm confused, Draco," Gregory Goyle said. "I thought we were gonna tell the Weasley chit and watch her snap."
Draco cracked his fingers, "All in good time, Gregory. We want to make sure she's well and truly enamoured first."