"Things would be so much easier if she were a boy," thought Sirius. "If it was Harry instead of Harriet I could get him a Firebolt. What do girls like?" Sirius is terrible at giving gifts to girls…on second thought, maybe he's the best girly gift-giver in the whole world?

NOTE: Due to the awful editing restrictions currently in place in FF (namely, not allowing me to space the lines, thereby making the fic actually readable) recommended reading format is 3/4.

Would She Like Pink..?

Harriet Iris Potter read the note a few times, just to be sure. Then she wordlessly passed it to Hermione, who took it distractedly while she was turning the pages of her huge library book. Breakfast continued quietly as Harriet mulled over the contents of her note, slowly finished her toast, and patiently waited for Hermione to finish the chapter of the book. After a few moments, she heard her friend call her name and turned to the side to meet a rather concerned expression.

"Harriet, this sounds suspicious!" Hermione waved the note in the air as though to punctuate the seriousness of her statement. Harriet nodded.

"Well, I thought so," she said. "I mean, 'My thirteen-year apology awaits you on the Quidditch Pitch'? What on earth does that mean?"

Hermione shrugged noiselessly, one hand still gently waving the note. "If anything, it's probably some kind of prank," she said. "I'd show a teacher."

"And what would that solve?" countered Harriet. "An escort? Sooner or later I've got to go to the Quidditch pitch – I have practice there after breakfast. Actually, you know what –" She finished her toast in one massive bite and stood. "I'm going there now."

Hermione sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, shutting her book and stowing it in her rucksack. "Fine," she said. "But I'm going with you. Naturally."

"Naturally."

~{WSLP}~

The Quidditch pitch seemed awfully crowded – and mostly female – by the time Harriet and Hermione had arrived. The whole crowd was making soft noises and exclaiming adoration in high-pitched voices at something beyond her vision. Curious, she pushed her way through the crowd of cooing girls and annoyed Quidditch players to find something completely unexpected.

A horse. There was a horse tethered to one of the Quidditch hoops.

No, not just any horse – a grey-silver Granian with wings that fluttered a little under the attention of the girls in the crowd. But that wasn't the most unusual thing, oh no – what really caught Harriet's eye was the big sign around the Granian's neck, which was also duplicated on a rather large sign next the horse –

PROPERTY OF HARRIET IRIS POTTER.

DO NOT TOUCH.

"Harriet!"

Harriet jumped a mile when she heard her name being shrieked by – oh, it was Lavender Brown, who was wearing an absolutely manic look on her face.

"Oh, Harriet – darling!" Her voice was so sweet it would cause diabetics to look worried and start searching for their insulin. "OH! You never told us you had a PONY!"

This was the cue for dozens of other girls to rush forward in exclamations and complements and pleas to ride the pretty horse, oh please. They swarmed forward all at once, swamping her with shrieks and insane expressions of joy in their eyes.

"A Granian – oh, Harriet –"

"Could I –"

"I want to pet the pretty –"

"Pony! It's a pony!"

"Horse, actually," Padma Patil's calm voice was a sweet elixir to the rapid crowd. Slowly the crowd lessened until Harriet finally had enough air to breathe safely. She saw Padma and Hermione examining the horse carefully from various angles. Lavender Brown flounced over, her lips pursed together, and did her own examination.

"Ooh, Harriet, you lucky thing!" she giggled. "It's purebred! And a breeding female! With the right handling, you'll have a whole bunch of Granian babies!"

Much cooing followed the mentioning of baby horses.

"It's got wings," said Harriet, a little dumbly. A snort from her left drew her to the figure of Pansy Parkinson, whose cheeks were tinged with the faintest red.

"Knowing you, Potter, you've probably never even seen a flying horse before. Typical of trash like you."

"Ignore her, Harry," said Hermione, her voice muffled as she chewed on a fingernail and examined both signs. "She's not the one with the flying horse. Assuming it's even safe to ride."

Lavender looked scandalised; a look that was shared amongst many in the crowd.

"Of course it's safe to ride!" she exclaimed. "It's a purebred Granian!"

"They're the fastest kind of flying horse breed there is," supplied Padma walking the circumference of the horse. Harriet perked up.

"The fastest, eh..?"

"Don't get any ideas just yet, Harry," Hermione's voice too on its familiar bossy lilt. "We have no idea where this horse came from – it could be cursed, or –"

A horrified gasp arose from the onlookers; the mere idea of such a beautiful creature being subjected to a terrible curse caused many looks of panic and anger to pass through the girls. Several of them broke off from the crowd, running in the direction of the castle and yelling to their friends that they would get some professors to check to horse.

"How do you even ride it?" asked Harriet curiously, approaching the horse very carefully. It snorted at her, its eyes bright; it seemed friendly and in a brief moment Harriet decided that she quite liked the animal. She only hoped it wasn't actually cursed. "I mean, where would the legs go? I've never even ridden a normal horse before…"

"Oh, I can show you that!" offered Lavender eagerly.

"I know of several books regarding care and management of Granian horses," said Padma quietly. Her twin looked at the horse longingly and with no small amount of jealousy, though she remained silent. Harriet smiled, suddenly shy.

"Thank you," she said to both girls. "That would be very helpful –"

"Ms. Potter! What are – oh my, it seems as though those girls were correct…what a magnificent –" Professor McGonagall, brought directly from the breakfast table by six separate female students, caught herself before she got carried away admiring the horse. "Ahem. Would you care to explain the situation, Ms. Potter?"

Harriet told her about the note she had received during breakfast, and when asked by Professor McGonagall to produce the note she did so. The gathering of girls waited on baited breath on what their Transfiguration professor would say about the fate of the horse. Said Professor seemed a little in awe of the elegant creature before her; her lips twitched upwards just the tiniest bit and she said in a very calm voice.

"Luckily for you, Ms. Potter, that Granians are magical horses with a bloodline that dates back before Wizardkind. They are kindred of unicorns –" Massive waves of longing sighs erupted from behind her. "– and as such are almost completely invulnerable to malicious spellcasting. That is, however, assuming that this is a real Granian."

"Professor?" cried out Lavender Brown in anguish.

"She means that this could quite simply be a normal, non-magical horse, charmed to look like a Granian so as to tempt Harriet into riding it and therefore succumb to the pre-cast curse." Padma Patil explained without inflection. Hermione coughed, a little perturbed. Professor McGonagall smiled.

"Indeed yes, Ms. Patil. One point for Ravenclaw. Fortunately, the solution to this is conundrum is simple."

"Granians never eat conjured food!" exclaimed Hermione quickly. "So all we have to do –"

"– is conjure some food!" squealed Lavender. Excitement fled through the ranks of schoolgirls like lit gunpowder, only to fizzle out just as quickly once they realised that none of them knew how to conjure food. Luckily, there was a Transfiguration Professor present to conjure a handful of sugar cubes and offer them to the Granian. Breath was tightly held within each body as they waited to see it the horse would eat it.

Its ears pricked. Its nose sniffed in enquiry. Slowly it approached the sugar cube-laden hand…before giving an almighty snort of derision and turning its head away. The overjoyed cheer that followed startled it and it stepped backwards, its long mane swinging. Unthinkingly, Harriet put out her hand to its neck. Her heart stopped once her hand felt the soft, warm hair beneath it; the strong muscles and the delicate power…it turned its head back and she caught herself staring into its eye, large and chocolaty, intelligent…

"Hey, now, it's okay," she soothed, her heart melting and opening up to the gorgeous beast – that was hers, all hers! She smiled, petting her pony – er, horse – and whispering soothing words as its ears flicked and the head nuzzled her shoulder. She raised her chin and spoke softly directly into its ear.

"Don't worry," she whispered. "I won't call you Sugar cube."

And with a background of excited yelling and cooing, Harriet and her flying horse laughed silently.

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location…

…Sirius Black was shitting himself.

"MERLIN. I'm such an idiot! This would have been so much easier if she were a boy! I could've just gotten her a Firebolt – boys love Quidditch! What do girls like? What do I know about what girls – about what she likes?"

His furious pacing and nerve-wrecked soliloquising was interrupted as a terrible realisation came to mind and he groaned the groan of a man who has endured walking a thousand miles barefoot across thorns and now, having passed through the thorns, finds himself facing another barefoot thousand miles walking across white-hot needles. The sum of his troubles came to this:

"I forgot to get a saddle!"

And thus the night was spent by Sirius Black in utter anguish, sleep only overtaking him when his body demanded precedence over worry, and even then his dreams were punctuated with sentences like,

"…would she like pink..?"

But the answer would have to wait awhile.