QUICK FIC: Everyone Wants Harry Part 20: Swarmed (Harry Potter)

Harry was not in any hurry to return to the 8th-year dorm. Why would he be? It was Saturday, he had nowhere to go, and he'd been sharing a bed with a naked Katie Bell. He'd passed a very pleasant morning and afternoon in Katie's quarters, and the good times continued when they finally got out of her bed and showered together. If it had been up to him, he would have been perfectly happy to remain in Katie's quarters until the weekend was over altogether. Sadly, though, she had a meeting to attend in the evening and some other things she had to do after that, so they'd parted after their shower (and a farewell kiss, with a bit of mutual groping for good measure.)

It didn’t take Harry long to notice that he was drawing even more attention than usual. That was saying something, especially this term. Life in Hogwarts as the ‘Man-Who-Won’ saw people, women in particular, staring, whispering, and giggling every time he walked down a corridor. But his trip from Katie’s private quarters to the 8th-year dorm felt like the Welcoming Feast all over again. On September 1st, it felt like nearly every 7th or 8th-year girl in the Great Hall had been eyeing him up like he was the feast as he sat at the Gryffindor table.

There weren’t as many people looking at him at once this time, it being a Saturday with the Hogwarts student body scattered throughout the castle. Nearly every witch he did pass watched him openly, though, and he saw several of them whisper to their friends while holding up a copy of the morning's Daily Prophet. Clearly, word was spreading throughout the castle about Harry standing to assume two seats in the Wizengamot after leaving Hogwarts, provided he was betrothed to two women by the end of the school year. That would explain both the giggling witches staring at him in groups and the boys he passed who shot him hostile or jealous looks.

A few called out to him or tried to ask him about the article on his way, but Harry evaded the groups and avoided answering any questions. He hadn't expected the news to come out when or how it had. Harry had thought he was going to be able to go about this in his own way and carefully consider how to approach the subject of getting betrothed to more than one woman when he settled on which two witches he wanted to pop the very unique question to. Instead, the Wizengamot session and the Prophet article on it had alerted everyone in the country to Harry's unusual situation, and he wasn't sure what to do about it yet. Better not to answer any questions until he decided how he was going to respond to the Prophet article.

Harry made it through the corridor and into the dorm room shared by all the students in his year who had chosen to return to Hogwarts for their ‘8th’ year. As soon as he made it into that residence reserved for their year group, though, he realized that he hadn’t avoided anything. He’d simply gone from the corridor, where there were rules to be followed and punishment that would have been meted out if anyone had made a blatant move on him, into the privacy of a dorm full of people who had been granted more independence and autonomy than any normal Hogwarts students.

There were at least a dozen students all sitting in the shared common room of the dorm, almost all of them girls. The moment that Harry’s head poked through the door, head after head turned toward him, and he saw a number of girls' eyes lock on him like they were seekers who had just spotted the Golden Snitch. Before Harry could do much more than blink, witches were rising from their couches, chairs, and seats around the table to rush toward him. He had to tamp down his instinct to draw his wand to defend himself. None of them wanted to hurt him, or at least he didn't think they did. Considering Pansy Parkinson was one of the witches who had stood up from a chair to approach him, he supposed he couldn't be sure.

“Everybody saw this morning’s Daily Prophet, Harry,” Lavender Brown said, hurrying to his side. “What a naughty wizard you were, keeping a secret like this from all of us!” She held his arm between hers, which had the obviously intentional side effect of squishing one of her big boobs against his body.

“Yeah, to think that Lav and I have been competing with each other when we could have been working together.” Parvati tsked and came to stand beside Lavender. “But we can make up for lost time now. You already know that Lav and I are great in bed on our own. Let’s not waste any time talking. Take us to bed.”

“Subtle, Patil,” a dark-haired girl in Slytherin green said, smirking. Harry vaguely recognized her as someone who hung around Pansy Parkinson, but he couldn’t put a name to her face. The face itself was pretty damn cute, though.

“Subtlety has never been a Gryffindor trait, Tracey," Pansy herself said loudly. She hadn't gotten up from her seat along the wall and was sitting with her arms crossed. Now that she had Harry's attention, she turned her head toward him and glared. "Neither has basic courtesy, which would explain why Potter refused to even acknowledge my request for a meeting." It took Harry a moment to remember that she'd slipped him a note after the nighttime Astronomy study, asking him to meet her in the Room of Requirement. Like his invitation to join Parvati in bed that night, the request written on a slip of parchment had gone unanswered in favor of shagging Professor Sinistra, and apparently Pansy was not pleased about being ignored. But why was she bringing it up now, of all times?

“Like anyone would want to meet with the likes of you, Parkinson,” Sue Li said, rolling her eyes. The pretty Chinese witch from Ravenclaw grabbed Harry’s free hand, the one not being held by Lavender, and batted her eyelashes up at him. “Harry has much better things he could be doing. Like finally getting to know me better.” She was right about him not knowing her very well. He hadn’t spoken to her much; now that he thought about it, he really hadn’t talked to the Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs in his year much at all, but that apparently wasn’t going to stop Sue Li from joining this swarm of witches going after the man who’d beaten Voldemort. “Mandy wants to get to know you, too, Harry. Why don’t we go back to your room?”

“Umm, Harry?” Susan Bones hadn’t been quick enough to reach him before the swarm of girls from various houses who had rushed him, but he could still hear her timid voice from behind the group. “Could we talk? You know, alone?” Harry had seen Susan blushing and looking at him a few times so far this term, but she’d never tried to approach him. Maybe quietly speaking up like this was as much courage as she could summon.

“You don't need her, Harry," Lavender said. "Susan's got nice boobs, sure, but nobody beats me." To prove her point, she pressed her chest against him even more obviously.

This was getting out of hand. Harry’s term had been ludicrous enough as it was, with one beautiful witch after another making passes at him. Ginny had been convinced over the summer that this was going to happen, but he doubted even she could have imagined a scene like this, with a large group of witches basically pouncing on him the moment he returned to the dorm. It was almost more than he knew what to do with, but he needed to do something. Some of these girls were staring to look annoyed with each other, and the last thing he needed was McGonagall having to be called to break them up and pull them away from him.

How does Harry escape from the swarm?