The Slytherin turned to Fleur, only looking a little bit like he thought she might eat him alive. "I'm not single," he warned her, and she laughed.
"I am not looking for a boyfriend," she assured. "Just a dance partner. May I?" She got to her feet, and Cassius did the same. Fleur manhandled him into dance hold, looking contemplative. She had to tilt her head up a little bit to look him in the eye, and after a beat, she gave a decisive nod. "You will do quite nicely." Fleur released him, stepping back with a disarming smile. "Would you go to the ball wiz me?"
"I— absolutely, yeah," Cassius agreed, nodding. "I… what colour are you wearing? Do I need to change my dress robes?"
"I will meet you tomorrow after breakfast and we shall compare," Fleur said. "If that is acceptable?"
"Works for me. I've got to go — I was trying to persuade Cedric to help me with a… thing. I'll see you both later?"
They bid him goodbye and Cassius left, still looking vaguely bewildered by the turn of events. Fleur threw an arm around Harry's neck, kissing him on the cheek.
"You are a lifesaver, 'Arry!" she declared in delight. "I 'ad assumed a boy wiz a face like zat would already 'ave a date."
"Cassius is full of surprises," Harry agreed, making a mental note to interrogate the boy about his mysterious paramour at the earliest opportunity. "Glad I could help, Fleur."
All four champions now had dates to the ball. At least, he assumed so — Viktor had yet to tell them who he was going with, but he insisted he had it covered. Harry had a pretty good idea what that meant.
It was certainly going to be an interesting night.
When the four Triwizard champions had agreed to a friendly little seeker's match before Christmas, they had decided to keep it low-key, just between them.
So, naturally, the entire castle found out.
Harry walked with his Firebolt over his shoulder, wearing his Gryffindor quidditch team robes, down a gap that had parted in the huge crowd of people on the Hogwarts lawn. He met with Cedric, Fleur and Viktor in the middle, as well as another Durmstrang student called Boris. Boris had a whistle around his neck, and was holding a small metal box. "So much for keeping this quiet, eh?" Harry remarked, and the other three grinned sheepishly.
"I may haff mentioned it a couple of times," Viktor admitted.
"I told Cho, and a few friends."
"Ze Beauxbatons students asked, and I could not lie to zem."
Harry laughed. "That's alright. That lot over there are my fault," he confessed, pointing to a cluster of Hogwarts students with the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team and Neville at the very front. "It's more fun with an audience, anyway." He hadn't expected an audience of quite this caliber, but he could handle it. It was just… practically half the population of Hogwarts, plus all the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students. Watching him face off against an internationally acclaimed seeker.
No big deal.
Across the crowd, stood in a group of Slytherins and Durmstrang students, Harry saw Draco. The blond was sneering, but when he caught Harry's eye, his expression softened for the barest of seconds. It was enough to give Harry the boost of confidence he needed. He could do this. "Okay," Boris declared firmly, his voice magically louder to be heard over the crowd. "Here are the rules. All four seekers will begin on their brooms with both feet on the ground and eyes closed. I will release the snitch, count fifteen seconds, and then blow my whistle. Only then can the seekers take off." His Russian-accented English filled the air as the spectators went hushed, practically vibrating with excitement. "There will be fifteen rounds, and whoever has the most points at the end wins. If it is a tie, we will have a tiebreaker round between those seekers. Usual match rules apply. Seekers, are we clear?"
All four of them nodded. Boris grinned. "May I have a volunteer each from Hogwarts and Beauxbatons?" One of Fleur's friends, a girl called Adrienne, stepped forward with Angelina Johnson beside her. Boris held out the box, flicking it open to reveal a shining golden snitch. "Ladies, please inspect the snitch and assure our audience that Durmstrang is playing fairly."
Both girls checked the snitch over with keen eyes and wands, and eventually stepped back, handing it to Boris. "It's clean," Angelina confirmed. "Professional standard, not tampered with that I can see."
"C'est bon. We are good to play," Adrienne agreed, grinning. They stepped back to join their friends in the crowd. "Seekers, take your places."
Harry stood between Cedric and Fleur, with Viktor on Cedric's other side. He grinned at them, adrenaline coursing through his body. This was going to be epic.
"Eyes closed please!" Harry squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his pulse in his ears, keeping his breathing steady as Boris announced he was releasing the snitch. The crowd was near-silent, listening to him count down. It was nothing like the seeker's match Harry had against Charlie in the summer. He thought their audience might be more invested in this than in the Triwizard tasks themselves.
"Three…two…one…" The whistle blew and Harry took off, shooting high up into the sky and immediately looking around for any glimpse of gold. The other three seekers did the same, swooping in fast loops around their makeshift pitch. Harry didn't bother trying to tail any of them; when there were three potential opponents, it wasn't worth putting all his eggs in one basket. He'd never played seeker against more than one person before, and he was intrigued to see how it would end up.
He ducked beneath Fleur, who was flying in the opposite direction as him. All thought of the audience had gone right out of his mind, his only focus the snitch.
All of a sudden, he saw Cedric change course abruptly. Harry automatically went after him, not willing to take the chance that it was a fake-out — he'd made the right choice, seeing a tiny flash of gold up ahead. He leaned in flat on his broom, willing it to go faster, corkscrewing under Cedric to get the upper hand. Above him, Viktor appeared, and Fleur wasn't far behind him. The snitch veered sharply to the left, and there was almost a four-seeker pile-up as they all changed course to follow it. Harry inched forward, feeling other people close in around him, but he was almost there… his hand closed around cool metal.
"First point goes to Harry Potter of Hogwarts!"
•
🚀New updates on my Ko-fi!🚀
Support me and read the novel, now available in PDF, with the advanced chapters.
•
https://ko-fi.com/cmrowling