Outsiders x Harry Potter --- For the soul

Year 2

Cherry Valance never expected to fall in love with a wizard. Especially not an English one, because British people are gross.

Because she was in second year, she got to take Care of Magical Creatures, but this time, more in-depth. Cherry, a proud muggle-born with a very muggle name, was fascinated by all the creatures in the class. And by the teacher.

Rubeus Hagrid, an eight-foot-tall half-giant, was big and burly, a total hunk. She asked her partner for the class, fellow Muggle-born Ponyboy Curtis, if he'd ever been in love.

"How should I know?" Ponyboy asked, sounding, as many adolescent boys do when faced with the subject of romance, disgusted. "Probably not with any girls. Just with, you know, dragons and things like that." His face pinkened a bit and he batted his lashes. "Or with boys."

"Yuck!" Cherry cried, sounding aghast. "You're really disgusting, you know that, Ponyboy?"

Something in her tone indicated that she was teasing, but Ponyboy felt it in his soul and walked off. Cherry, our token homophobe, didn't notice and kept thinking of her homework for that night: The backstory of Rubeus Hagrid.

She found all the information in ten minutes. The only thing she couldn't figure out was why he got expelled.

****

Later in the year, some big event happened and petrified some kids, including her fellow second-year, Johnny Cade. In Johnny's hand was a letter from Hagrid, addressed to "Cherri Valence." Hey, we never said he could spell her name right. Her last name wasn't guaranteed to stay the same, so he didn't bother with it.

Cherry ripped the letter with eager eyes and read:

Deer Cherri,
I think I'll get arested soon. Ya prolly will wonder y and I just wanna say that whatever it is: I didn't do it. I, a legal half-giant, would never do anything against the law. I know you like the law, Cherri, with your parents being cops. Or maybe you don't. If you don't, then I hate the law.
Luv,
Hagrid

Cherry practically swooned. Here was a man who loved the law because she did, even though her parents weren't cops. Hagrid probably didn't even know what "the cops" were, but he respected them because he thought she did.

What a guy.

Cherry rushed to go tell her only friend, Dallas Winston, that she had got herself a man. He bet he would get a man before she did, and she said he would never because guys can't date guys. For whatever reason, Dally seemed to like her less after that. But maybe he'd be proud of her.

"Hey, Dal!" She screamed in her twelve-year-old glory. "Guess what?"

"Huh?" Dally replied, sounding bored.

"I got a guy!" She exclaimed.

"Good for you," he replied, still hossing on some magic candy. Dally had a real sugar problem, but it was better than him getting problems with other things. "That all?"

"I won our bet, Dal," Cherry went on. Why can't this girl shut up? Dally wondered as she ranted on how they had made a bet, as though he had forgotten.

"I remember," Dally cut her off. She looked offended. "How could I forget? You said I couldn't get a guy."

"I know, that's why we made a bet. You can't get a guy, Dal. Guys get girls. But it's the same, I can't get a girl."

"Could to," Dally said. "I'm a man-catching machine, and you could get all the girls you wanted to. And yet you don't find falling in love with a grown man to be weird."

"It isn't," Cherry told him. "All it is it that he's a bit more mature than me, Dally. It doesn't mean that it's weird. He knows what he's doing."

"I see," Dally said, and he did see. "And guys dating guys isn't weird because that way, you don't get pregnant."

Cherry thought of it. "I guess," she said. "But I'm not going to get pregnant either."

"Of course not," Dally said with a smile. "You'll die before you even graduate."

And that was the day that Cherry Valance stopped being a homophobe. Also the day that Dally Winston learned that dating someone several---several---years older than you really wasn't so bad.

****

Cherry Valance was dead by the end of the year. Some story of suffocation or something. No one knows how. 😏

Author's Note:
Chapter is shorter because we don't care about the ship. Frankly, we were happy to get rid of Cherry. Now she won't appear in other chapters; whoo! Next one will be longer 😏