Anger Management

 

A/N: It has always been my belief that OotP should be named ‘Harry Potter and the Anger Management Problems’, for reasons apparent to those who have read it. For equally obvious reasons, I’m certain that Ginny faces the same anger controlling problems (see: Ginny storming out of room in Grimmauld Place, Ginny snapping at Harry, Ginny and her amazingly strong hexes, according to Gred and Forge).

What should happen if those two were forced together?

Explosive mixture ahead. Proceed carefully. Dragon skin attire recommended.

 

~*~

“It’s all your fault!”

“My fault? My fault?”

A rabbit ran away scared, a wild bush shuddered and a nearby fairy stopped at its place and fluttered its glittery wings at the sound of something it had never heard before in the depths of the Forbidden Forest: human bickering.

“Of course it’s your fault! Did I look at you and say ‘Scoop, I’m not in the mood, you brat’?”

“I never ever said that!”

“Your glare implied it.”

“My glare wasn’t implying anything! It was just a blank, tired moment!”

“Yes, yes, it’s always like that, isn’t it? The big, macho hero is too tired of his mundane followers. You prat!”

“I was tired because I had just finished with quidditch practice! And hadn’t slept in two days!”

“Oh stop whining, you toddler. It’s not as if I overreacted.”

“You stood up in the Great Hall and glared at me.”

“So?”

“And then you started yelling at me.”

“So?”

“And you threw pumpkin juice all over my robes. Pumpkin juice. I ask you.”

“And what did you do, oh monster of subtlety, right in front of McGonagall?”

“Well…”

“I thought as much.”

“Stop fuming! I did nothing that could possibly grant us both detentions.”

“And I suppose McGonagall didn’t get that memo. It’s in the rulebook.”

“It can’t be in the rulebook! Come on! Thou shalt not yell at the Great Hall?”

“I was not talking about the yelling. I’m talking about your standing up, and grabbing me, and kissing me senseless! Idiot.”

“Stop fuming. Gods!” Silence. “I kissed you senseless?”

“That’s what we generally call it when you lose your senses.”

“You liked it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You loved it! I knew it!”

“You’re obviously waaaay off your broomstick. Idiot.”

The two – only – humans of the Forbidden Forest stopped at a tiny clearing.

“Clearly an idiot… Stop doing this ridiculous victory dance, you scrawny midget lacking natural sex appeal!”

“I… I don’t have sex appeal?”

“Okay Potter, the best thing you can do right now is close your eyes and think of some place where there is endless void. Your brain cavity, per se.”

“Huh?”

“You’re hyperventilating.”

“It’s not my fault. It must be the pumpkin juice. Maybe its elements have brainwave addling properties.”

“For brainwaves to be addled, it is necessary that a brain is in existence. Obviously, this is not the case. Duh!”

“Duh. You just said duh.”

“Err…”

“Oh, in the name of all things magical and holy. It’s not the pumpkin juice that has maddening properties.”

“Potter, your observations are of paramount importance to the wizarding community, but I think there’s something you ought to know…”

“It’s this Forest! It’s evil! It’s full of bad, bad vibes!”

“It’s official. I’m paying off my past life’s heavily burdened karma. Had to have been at least Hitler to deserve this. Or a desperately lustful Mary Sue. Harry, breathe. And, by the way, there’s something you ought to know.”

“It’s not safe for us to be here unprotected. We should build a hut from these twigs. We should make a fence from titanium alloy, or better yet, a moat filled with nitro-glycerine!”

“Harry…”

“We should put wards all around the moat, splinching anything that comes closer than twelve feet.”

“Harry!”

“Don’t Harry me, Miss Queen of Fights and Everything Nice! We have to take cover! We could be in mortal danger right now!”

“You’ve just cut to the chase. Harry…”

“And why in Hades’ Cerberus are you looking at me like that? Is there something on me?”

“More like behind you and will be on you in a nanosecond!”

“What are talking abou-!”

“I’m talking about the Lethifold you’re currently staring at! You self absorbed stuck up moron!”

“This… this is a Lethifold!”

“Give the man a cookie.”

“That would present somewhat of a problem.”

“The cookie?”

“No, the fact that this creature is darker than Tom Riddle is!”

“Then why are you staring at it! Vanquish it! I’m right behind you, however not reassuring this may sound.”

“I’ve never vanquished a Lethifold before, I might do it wrong!”

“It’s the Patronus Charm! You mastered that four years ago! Now kill the smarmy Gladrags model before I disembowel you with a quill and make a papaya based fruit salad out of your lower intestines; and don’t think I won’t do it Harry, if I may call you Harry, you creepy abductor of the Boy Who Lived to Teach Us Defence. You’re, hands down, the best in this charm!”

“Are you finished with the pep talk? The Lethifold is climbing on me and is trying to bite me.”

“Expecto Patronum!”

Silence.

“Amazing… your Patronus ate it… As in, devoured its whole…”

“Pretty impressive, huh?”

“Your Patronus is a duck!”

“Yes, well, semantics… Ron’s is a furry- are you laughing?”

Splutter of laughter in the dark.

“You are laughing.”

“I am soooo going to slip that to Skeeter, dear Miss Weasley… a duck…”

“You… you…”

“Scratch that. I’m soooo magnifying this in blazing letters all over the Great Hall!”

“You dishonest prat!”

SLAP!

“Ouch. Hurts, hurts, and will never stop hurting.”

“I think it’s quite clear to you now why I threw the pumpkin juice, is it not?”

“Of course it is. I understand.”

“You do.”

“Oh yes. I can see so much clearer now…”

“… said the contacts to the specs.”

“It all makes sense.”

“Rather like a two hundred years old Chinese philosopher with mineral water running through his veins, I suppose.”

“You want me to kiss you.”

“As opposed to- what?”

“You were lying. You really did like it.”

“I resent that! I never lie!”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“You wouldn’t dare do such a thing without my full written consent, you–”

Silence. And a few moans.

“Whoops. I slipped on the twig and fell on your lips.”

“What an unfortunate mistake.”

“Yes, I suppose it was…”

“Why, look at that! Another twig! And another one!”

“You wouldn’t–”

“Whoops.”

 

~*~

 

A/N again: Many thanks to my adorable beta, Alexa, who had one too many problems with the attachments, and without whose support I wouldn’t have participated in this contest.

Many thanks should also go to J.K. Rowling, but I’m still holding a grudge for Sirius.

At last I posted a story online. Be gentle. Or not.

 

Elena Twilight