Strange Ties--Percy Jackson/Harry Potter

Chapter Nine

And she had just kissed him.

She wasn't sure how long the silence lasted—only that he was the one who broke it. He stood there in front of Valerie with those intimidating sea green eyes and dark hair, staring down from who knows how many inches above six feet.

Its okay. Its fine. Totally fine. She was just going to pretend nothing happened, nod at him politely, and run her way out of here. Yes, solid plan.

"Did you...Did you just kiss me? He sounded puzzled and maybe a little bit out of breath. His lips were full and plump and... god. Kissed. There was simply no way Valerie could get away with this.

Still, it was worth a try.

"Nope."

Surprisingly it worked.

"Ah. Okay, then." Percy nodded and turned around, looking vaguely disoriented. He took a couple of steps down the hallway, reached the potion's classroom door—maybe where he'd been headed in the first place.

Valerie was starting to believe that this might actually work when he halted and turned back with a skeptical expression.

"Are you sure?"

Dammit.

"I—" She buried her face in her hands. "It's not the way it looks, okay i... okay" she repeated slightly panicking. Just slightly.

"What's going on here?" His voice was deep and low and sounded a lot like he was on his way to getting mad. Like maybe he was already mad. There was simply no way to explain this. Any normal person would have found Valerie's situation odd, but Percy Jackson, who was obviously not a feature of humanity, could never understand. She let her hands fall to her sides and took a deep breath.

"I... listen, I don't mean to be rude, but this is really none of your business."

He stared at her for a moment, and then he nodded. "Yes. Of course. I'll just ignore the fact that you assaulted me."

Valerie exhaled in relief. "Yeah that would be great since—Wait. What? Assault? I didn't 'assault' you."

"You did kiss me"

"But not really"

"Without my consent"

"I asked if I could kiss you!"

"And then you did without waiting for my response"

"What? You said yes"

"Excuse me?"

She frowned. "I asked if I could kiss you, and you said yes"

"No. You asked if you could kiss me, and I said huh."

"Okay listen, I'm really sorry it was a weird situation. Can we just forget that this happened?"

He studied her for a long moment, his angular face serious and something else, something that she couldn't quite decipher because she was too busy noticing all over again how damn towering and broad he was. Just massive. I mean everyone knows he's drop-dead attractive but no one had the balls to actually come up and talk to him. She knew that he was tall of course because she had seen him walking around the hallway or from the really few times, he came to class but they've never been this close. Except a second ago when she kissed him.

"Are you mental?" He sounded almost concerned.

"What? No. No, I'm not."

"Because" he continued calmly "kissing a stranger in the corridors might be a sign you are."

"I'm not."

"The kiss. Explain."

Valerie bit into her lower lip. She had truly screwed herself over. She had to tell him, now. "Ellie Green." She looked around to make sure Ellie was really gone. "The girl who was passing by. She's a Hufflepuff, blond hair, green eyes."

Percy gave no indication of knowing who Ellie was.

"Ellie has..." Valerie pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear. This was where the story became embarrassing. Complicated, and a little dramatic. "I was seeing this guy Aaron Brown from the Gryffindor house he has like curly hair and... anyway, we went out a couple of times, and then I brought him to Ellie's birthday party, and they just hit it off and—" Valerie shut her eyes. Which was probably a bad idea, because now she could see it painted on her lids, how her best friend and her date had bantered in that common rooms, as if they'd known each other their whole lives; the never- exhausted topics of conversation, the laughter, and then, at the end of the night Aaron kissing Ellie... It had been painfully clear who he was interested in.

"Long story short, after Aaron ended things with me he asked Ellie out. And she said yes but she wanted to make sure I was okay with it first and I told her it was fine but she didn't believe me, so I just lied and told her I was already seeing someone and she thought I was lying so I just grabbed you and... I'm so sorry."

"Ah." But his expression was totally unreadable.

"I just needed her to belief that I was seeing someone."

He nodded. "So you kissed the first person you saw in the hallway."

Valerie winced. "When you put it like that, perhaps it wasn't my best moment."

"Perhaps"

"But it wasn't my worse either! I'm pretty sure Ellie saw us." She shook her head. "Listen I am so, so sorry about the kiss."

Suddenly, the enormity of what she had just done fully dawned on her. She had just kissed a random guy, a guy who's related to the most evil man in the world. She'd basically attacked him in front of everyone, and now he was staring at her in that odd, pensive way, so large and focused and close to her and... shit. All of a sudden the entire situation was just too much.

"Okay I'm going to leave now okay? Thank you, and I'm so, so, so sorry" Valerie spun around on her shoes and ran away down the hallway.