Still nervous as all get-out, Benji had to say that he was pretty pleased with how this was going. Hadn't he just been thinking about Penny holding his hand? (Granted, that was because he was stressed that she would do so and then find that his hands were sweaty, but she didn't seem to notice that after all, thank Merlin.) Anyway, that had actually come true, much to his surprise. So... If that had actually happened, then maybe what he'd been thinking about doing after hand holding... Nooooononono. Not gonna go there!! This was enough for now. And it made him plenty happy, anyway. He really hadn't expected this. He hadn't really anticipated touching Penny at all, and now they were holding hands. He could feel that the tinge of color had spread to the tips of his ears. He wasn't much of a blusher, really. Only around Penny for some reason.

"Sure," he answered, smiling again. A walk sounded nice. (And he was honestly pretty glad Penny had not wanted to study Potions at the moment. Phew.)

After a few moments, he continued, "Crazy to think that with all the stuff going on here at Hogwarts, this kinda thing can still happen." He nudged her lightly with his elbow.

WAAAAIT had he said that out loud? And NUDGED her? NOOO that was supposed to be an inside-his-head-only thing. Whoops. What if she took that the wrong way? Was he being presumptuous? After all, they hadn't exactly defined anything. It's not like they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Oh no oh no oh no.

.....................And what if Penny just held hands with ALL her friends and Benji was just reading too much into it because he really, really wanted her to like him? Oh, Merlin. This was probably not anything. Maybe she just felt sorry for him. Or maybe she thought he would get lost if she didn't lead him because he was SUCH AN IDIOT. Maybe she was having some sort of medical emergency and was going to faint or something so she had grabbed onto him out of instinct? And now she couldn't let go because she didn't want to be rude?

So maybe Benji's comment was going to make her drop his hand immediately, tell him in no uncertain terms that she was NOT interested, and then go tell everyone how dumb he was for thinking that an angel like her who was obviously way out of his league she would ever want to date him.

To summarize: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!