Disclaimer: Padma Patil, Terry Boot, Quidditch, etc- all invted by JK Rowling. Am not making money off this. Don't sue. Notes: Well, so what if it sucks. Terry/Padma. Sort of.

Padma wasn't a Quidditch girl, but she loved Quidditch players. Her father always told her that her eyesight would never allow her to see the Snitch; her mother would then add that she was too fragile to handle Bludgers. She was always to be a Prefect a?d Head Girl, and to be with intellicatuals. Parvati was to be with athletic and popular guys. That was the way it was meant to be, even if they never came right out and said it. But it was expected. Mrs. Patil had been so dissapointed when Padma had went to the Yule Ball with Ron Weasley, until in the begining of their fifth year Parvati had wrote home and told their parents that Ron had been made Prefect. Mrs. Patil was happy again, but it didn't change the fact that Ron had been rude to Padma the whole evening, long ago.

Despite all of that, or maybe because of it, Padma adored Quidditch players.

There was just something about them that she loved. They had an air about them... sort of knowing they were great, but not in a cocky way. Well, not usually.

But Terry was different. Maybe it was because he was the newest member on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, but he was still scrawny looking, still unsure of himself, still a bit awkwad. Padma loved that about him. She wasn't sure why, because she admired the beauty and gracefulness of Roger and Cho, so it was strange to her she'd admire the exact opposite in Terry.

She went up to him in her fifth year, right after she saw him talking to Hermione Granger. She waited until Hermione left.

"Did she approach you about the- you know, Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Padma asked.

"Yeah. You, too?"

Padma nodded. "Are you planning to go?"

"Well, I suppose. Michael asked me to go, I suppose Ginny convinced him... her brother, Ron, is Potter's best friend, so I s'pose because of that."

"Yeah..." Padma was suddenly unsure of what to say. "Well, it can't hurt to go. We don't have to join, or anything."

Padma paused, while Terry just nodded. Padma watched Terry scan the library, his mind clearly not on her any more.

"Do you know who else is going?" Padma asked, trying to make conversation. Since when was she so socially awkward?

"Well, Michael asked Anthony and I to come. I'm not sure who else."

"Yeah." Her mind scanned something else, anything else, to say. "And Ginny's going to be there, right? And probably Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley..."

"Well, yeah, they always go together."

"Yeah..." Padma said, and berated herself for being so stupid. "Um, how's Quidditch going?"

Terry's eyes lit up, and then his smile dropped. "Not so good. I need a lot more practise. There's no way we'll win this year."

"Well, I thought you were very good in practise."

"Thanks," Terry said. "Wait, you saw our practise?"

"Well, yeah," Padma tried not to blush.

"I didn't know you liked Quidditch that much. Maybe we could talk about it sometime."

Padma tried not to let her exicitment show. After all, just because this was what she wanted for over a year didn't mean she had to make it painfully obvious. So instead she said, "Yeah. Yeah, we could."