The corridor outside the Great Hall shimmered with fairy-light. Laughter spilled up from the marble staircase, a tide of perfume and color; emerald robes brushed against silver sconces, voices tumbled over one another, and the scent of winter roses hung thick in the air.
A knot of Slytherins came up from the dungeon corridor—Draco gleaming in black velvet, Pansy fluttering pink lace beside him, Theo and Tracey a step behind, Crabbe and Goyle lumbering in moss-green. Alden walked with them until the crowd thinned and Professor McGonagall's tartan silhouette appeared by the doors.
"Champions over here, please," she called, brisk as a bell.
Draco shot Alden a grin, half-drowned in nerves. "Good luck, mate. Don't freeze the floor."Theo added, "Try not to make the rest of us look completely useless."Alden's mouth curved. "No promises."
They peeled away down the stairs, swallowed by music and chatter. Silence followed like snowfall.
Daphne lingered beside him—pale silk against black. The bracelet he'd given her glimmered at her wrist: two silver serpents coiling opposite directions around a small emerald bead, their tails meeting like clasped hands. When she moved, the light ran through the metal like breath.
McGonagall's voice faded toward the doors, corralling the other champions. For a moment, it was only the two of them in the antechamber, the door cracked open to reveal the Great Hall beyond—silver frost on the walls, lanterns like captive stars, the muffled hum of hundreds waiting.
Daphne brushed her thumb over the bracelet. "They're beautiful," she said softly."They're stubborn," Alden answered. "They refuse to separate, even when twisted apart. Appropriate metaphor, apparently."Her smile tugged wider. "You do realize that's the most sentimental thing you've ever said aloud?"He made a low sound—half laugh, half sigh. "Don't spread it around. I have a reputation to maintain."
A beat of quiet. Beyond the door, the Weird Sisters tuned a single chord that trembled through the floor.
She tilted her head toward the sound. "Nervous?"" I faced a dragon," he said, "and I think I'd rather do that again."Daphne's laugh was bright and quiet. "You'll be fine. Just don't overthink it.""That's like asking the ocean not to reflect the moon."
Her eyes caught his—ice and warmth in the same look. "Then let it reflect, Alden. That's what people will see tonight."
He exhaled through a smile, then hesitated. "You know, it isn't too late to bail. You could go with someone else—Theo would leap at the chance. I still have that potion I've been perfecting. Five days of dreamless sleep. No dance floor, no gossip columns, no—"
"No, you," she interrupted gently. "And that would be unacceptable."
He blinked, almost amused by the certainty in her tone. "Unacceptable?""There's nowhere else I'd rather be," she said, fingers finding the edge of his sleeve. "And no one else I'd rather be with tonight."
Something eased in him then—the perpetual stillness around his expression softened, like frost under sunlight. "You're certain? They'll talk, " she said.""They always talk," she said. "Let them. If they see a myth, that's their blindness. I see Alden."
He looked at her properly—really looked—and for a heartbeat the noise of the castle fell away. The lanterns painted her hair in strands of gold and snow; the emerald on her wrist winked like a heartbeat caught in metal.
"You should be warned," he murmured. "I have no rhythm whatsoever.""That's fine," Daphne said, looping her arm through his. "I do. And you follow instructions unnervingly well."
Alden allowed himself a small, honest smile. "Only yours."
McGonagall's tartan voice echoed from the doorway again—"Champions, this way!"—and the spell broke. Together they stepped toward the light spilling from the Great Hall, her arm still hooked in his, the silver serpents at her wrist glinting like a promise between them.
Harry stood among the other champions, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as Professor McGonagall arranged them by the doors. The air hummed with nerves and perfume; robes whispered like waves. Hermione was beside him, flushed and radiant in periwinkle-blue, still talking about the Second Task and the riddle in the golden egg.
"…if it's the lake, then the sound distortion makes sense," she was saying, her voice low but quick, "I tried a charm that—"
Harry barely heard her. His attention had been caught by a movement near the entrance.
Alden Dreyse and Daphne Greengrass had just stepped out of the shadowed corridor and into the lantern-light.
For a moment, even the background chatter faltered.
Alden's dress robes were black, but not ordinary black cloth that caught the light in currents of silver, faint traceries running like veins through the fabric. The cut was austere, almost old-fashioned, his collar clasped with an onyx pin shaped like a serpent's eye. Beside him, Daphne was a contrast in poise and color—her gown dark green fading to black at the hem, shoulders bare, her skin pale as moonlight on marble. Around her wrist, something shimmered: a bracelet of two silver serpents coiling around an emerald bead.
Together, they looked carved from the same thought.
A few students passing toward the Great Hall slowed to stare."Merlin, they even look like villains," someone whispered."Dark Lord and Ice Queen," another said, too loud. Harry saw Alden's head turn slightly—just enough to mark that he'd heard—but Daphne's gaze snapped first. She met the offenders with one cool, perfect glance, the kind that froze laughter in the throat. The whisperers ducked away immediately.
Then she turned back to Alden, smiling—softly, like none of it mattered—and said something that made him laugh, low and brief, a sound that didn't quite fit the myth people had built around him.
"Harry?" Hermione asked quietly. "What are you looking at?"
He nodded toward them.
Hermione followed his line of sight, then exhaled through a small, knowing smile. "They make quite the picture, don't they?"
Harry didn't answer right away. There was something magnetic about them—the way they stood just apart from everyone else, not aloof, but contained. Alden carried silence like armor; Daphne wore hers like silk. Together, they looked untouchable, yet oddly at peace.
"They're saying he's the next You-Know-Who," Harry muttered under his breath. "And she's… what do they call her? The Ice Princess of Slytherin?"
Hermione frowned slightly. "People always need names for what they don't understand."
"Yeah," Harry said. "I just—"He stopped. He'd been about to compare himself—to think about how both of them were spectacles, stories people whispered about in corridors. But the thought died as quickly as it came. Alden wasn't anything like him. Harry's fame had been thrust on him; Alden wore his reputation like he'd forged it himself, deliberate, measured, and immovable.
He envied that composure, maybe. But not the loneliness behind it.
"Do you think he's… dangerous?" Harry asked quietly. Hermione's eyes stayed on them. "I think he's complicated. Maybe too much for Hogwarts to decide which box to put him in."
Alden turned then, as if sensing their attention. His gaze swept the crowd and briefly met Harry's. It wasn't hostile—just steady, unreadable, the look of someone aware of his own myth and tired of it. Then he turned back to Daphne as she said something else, and that same look softened entirely.
Hermione noticed the change too. "See?" she whispered. "Not dark. Just… seen."
Professor McGonagall's voice cut through the low murmur: "Champions—ready yourselves, please!"
The line tightened. Fleur and Roger Davies stepped forward first, Fleur's scent of silver blossoms drifting behind her. Krum and Hermione followed; she gave Harry a quick, encouraging look over her shoulder. Parvati squeezed Harry's hand, all sparkle and nerves.
Behind them, Alden offered Daphne his arm. She took it without hesitation. The silver serpents around her wrist caught the lantern light as their fingers brushed.
Harry glanced back once more as they began to move toward the open doors. They didn't look like a Dark Lord and an Ice Princess anymore. Just two people, steady against the noise.
And for some reason, that was harder to look away from.
The oak doors swung open on a breath of cold air and silver light. A thousand candles floated above the Great Hall, their flames mirrored in frost along the walls. Garlands of ivy and mistletoe looped across a ceiling, charmed to resemble a sky of slow-turning stars. The long house tables had vanished; in their place spread a hundred smaller ones glowing under glass lanterns. Beyond the far doors, fairies shimmered through rosebushes, their wings throwing patterns of color across the snow.
The hum of voices died as Professor McGonagall stepped aside and called, clear and sharp, "Champions and partners, if you please."
Fleur Delacour glided forward first, silver and blue catching the light like a wave cresting. Roger Davies followed, dazed and grinning, half a step behind her. Krum and Hermione came next; his heavy stride was awkward beside her new grace. A few gasps rippled through the crowd—Hermione's transformation still a fresh shock.
Then came Harry and Parvati. She beamed, bracelets chiming softly; Harry concentrated on not tripping over his robes, feeling hundreds of eyes on his back.
And finally, the room seemed to draw in a breath.
Alden and Daphne appeared in the doorway.
He wore black robes lined in silver that caught each flicker of candlelight, the fabric moving like shadow given shape. She was beside him in dark green that deepened to black, bare shoulders glinting faintly with powder-fine frost. Around her wrist, the twin serpents of her bracelet coiled, the tiny emerald between them pulsing once, like a heartbeat.
For a heartbeat, the hall fell silent. Even the fairies beyond the glass seemed to hover.
Then a low murmur spread, threads of awe and unease tangled together.
"Look at them…""Dark Lord and his queen…""…she's actually smiling…"
Alden heard it—Harry could see the minute shift of his shoulders—but he didn't slow. Daphne's hand tightened lightly around his arm, chin lifting in calm defiance. Her eyes swept the nearest cluster of whispering students; one glacial stare cut the noise to nothing .When she turned back to Alden, the frost in her expression melted into quiet amusement, and he bent his head slightly, murmuring something that made her laugh under her breath.
Together they moved down the center of the hall, deliberate and unhurried. The light seemed to follow them, reflecting in the silver of his robe seams, catching in the green of hers. The space between them and the watching crowd was heavy with fascination—the kind that tilts toward fear.
Harry, standing with the other champions near the judges' table, felt it too. The air around Alden seemed to bend: not darkness exactly, but intensity, like gravity made visible. Yet Daphne, beside him, anchored it, softened it, turned the impression of danger into something human.
When they reached the front, Dumbledore rose with that small, twinkling smile that somehow steadied the room. "Champions," he said, voice carrying warm and clear, "our guests of honor."
Applause broke loose—first hesitant, then swelling until the hall shook with it. Even those who had whispered joined in, drawn along by the sheer spectacle.
Alden inclined his head to the head table; Daphne mirrored him, the serpents at her wrist flashing once in the light. They took their seats among the other champions, the noise gradually settling into a softer murmur of admiration and curiosity.
Harry glanced sideways as he sat down. Alden was speaking quietly to Daphne again, something small that made her eyes brighten and her lips curve. The contrast struck him: the boy who had faced a dragon without flinching, now leaning close so his partner could hear him over the applause.
The champions and their partners took their places at the long, crescent table nearest the dais, its surface gleaming like polished gold. Candles floated low above the plates, reflections quivering in the cutlery. Through the shimmer of heat, the judges sat in an uneven row—Dumbledore serene, Karkaroff watchful, Madame Maxime regal, Bagman already pink with cheer, Percy Weasley beside him, visibly delighted with himself.
Alden drew out Daphne's chair before taking his own. The motion was effortless, practiced. Around them, the murmur of the Great Hall slowly built again: glass clinking, whispers rippling, the soft scrape of robes.
Menus lay before each guest, embossed in silver script. Daphne glanced over hers with faint amusement." No waiters," she murmured. Alden arched a brow. "Efficiency." He scanned his own, then spoke clearly to the plate. "Seared venison with redcurrant glaze."The dish appeared in an instant, steam curling upward. The scent was clean and sharp.
Daphne's smile widened; she mirrored his tone—"Poached salmon, lemon and thyme"—and her meal arrived just as neatly. "You realize, most people would still be looking for the cutler, " he said.I trust Hogwarts to manage the basics," he said. "Besides, you're supposed to lead by example."
Further down the table, Fleur had already begun comparing the decor to Beauxbatons' crystalline halls. Roger Davies nodded helplessly, hanging on every word. Opposite them, Hermione was patiently correcting Krum's pronunciation of her name."Her-my-oh-nee.""Herm-own-ninny," came the rumbling reply, earning a soft laugh from her.
Daphne's attention lingered there briefly. "They seem… genuine."Alden's gaze followed hers. "In their own dialect, yes."" Perhaps that's all it takes," she said lightly, breaking a piece of bread with precise fingers.
Percy launched into an explanation of his new position to no one in particular. Bagman clapped along with his own laughter. Dumbledore and Karkaroff fenced politely with words—castle secrets and chamber pots, mutual courtesy drawn thin as parchment.
Through it all, Alden and Daphne ate with quiet precision: posture straight, movements small, every gesture measured without seeming stiff. The rhythm between them was unspoken—passing a dish before asked, a glance in lieu of speech. It wasn't affectation; it was the old etiquette of people raised to carry their names like emblems.
When Fleur's voice lifted again—"At ze Palace of Beauxbatons we 'ave ice sculptures that do not melt…"—Daphne looked faintly amused."Remind me," Alden said under his breath, "to commission melting ones next year."Her eyes glimmered. "You'd do it just to annoy her.""Undoubtedly."She hid her laugh behind a sip of wine, shoulders trembling.
At one point, Pavlina, a Beauxbatons girl seated beside Daphne, leaned in, all polite curiosity. "Your gown is exquisite—English silk?"Daphne turned with a small smile. "Family work. My mother insists on traditional tailoring. It spares me the trouble of trend.""You wear it beautifully," Pavlina said."Thank you," Daphne replied, tone gracious but distant, and then, as Pavlina looked away, she nudged Alden beneath the table. "Trendless, apparently."He murmured back, "Immune, I'd say."
The meal unfolded in courses, each appearing with a flicker of gold light. Conversation rose and fell in waves, sometimes warm, sometimes brittle. Alden listened more than he spoke, the kind of silence that made others choose their words carefully. Daphne, when she did speak, met each question with unhurried clarity. Together, they balanced the space between them and the rest of the table: courteous but self-contained, part of the celebration without ever being absorbed by it.
When the last plates cleared themselves, and goblets refilled for the final toast, the hall began to dim. Candles withdrew upward; the floor of the Great Hall gleamed like a sheet of glass. At the far end, the raised stage unfolded from the wall with a rustle of magic—drums, guitars, a lute, even bagpipes sliding into place.
The Weird Sisters strode onto the platform to a roar of applause. Alden glanced at Daphne; she tilted her head toward the floo,r now clearing of tables.
"Ready?" she asked quietly. He smiled—barely, but it was there. "As I'll ever be."
The lights deepened to silver. Somewhere beyond the hush, the first chord struck—a low, mournful note that trembled through the frost.
The floor cleared in a slow, shimmering sweep as tables drifted to the walls. Silver light pooled across the polished stone, catching on frost and fairy wings. At the far end, the Weird Sisters struck the first low note — a hum that rippled through glass and bone.
McGonagall's voice rang over the expectant hush."Champions, if you please."
Alden rose, chair gliding soundlessly behind him. He turned to Daphne and offered his hand. She took it without hesitation, fingers light but certain. The silver serpents around her wrist caught the lantern glow, their emerald bead flashing once — a tiny, living pulse.
They descended the steps together, black and green and silver moving like one unbroken thread. Fleur and Roger had already taken the center, glitter and motion; Krum and Hermione were a more hesitant pair, his shoulders too square, her smile nervous but real. Harry and Parvati turned nearby, awkward but bright, laughter chasing their missteps.
Then Alden and Daphne stepped into the ring of light.
The hall hushed again, almost reverent.
The first notes deepened into a waltz. Alden placed one hand against the small of Daphne's back; she set hers against his shoulder. The world contracted to the rhythm between them — three slow steps, turn, another. Her gown swept like midnight water; his cloak breathed with each motion. They moved as though the floor itself had been waiting for them.
"Not bad for someone who wanted to sleep through the evening," she murmured, her voice low enough that only he could hear. He looked down, the faintest curve at his mouth. "I'm reconsidering my potion.""Oh?""Clearly, the antidote is conversation."Daphne's laugh — soft, real — brushed his collar. "And here I thought you'd say me."Alden's reply came a second too late. "I assumed that was implied."
Her eyes lifted, catching his. For a heartbeat, he forgot the music, the crowd, the ice-bright hall — everything. The light caught her hair like spun bronze; the emerald of her bracelet mirrored her eyes. She wasn't the Ice Princess in that moment — she was warmth stitched into shadow. He realized, faintly amused, that she looked exactly how he imagined peace would look if it ever dared show its face.
Around them, whispers rippled.
"Look at them…""Dark Lord and Ice Princess — fitting, isn't it?""A dark romance, that one."
None of it touched them. They danced as if the room were empty, as if the whole castle had been built for this one slow orbit. Each turn drew them closer until her breath brushed his neck and the world smelled faintly of winter and jasmine.
At the Slytherin table, Theo watched over the rim of his goblet. The band's slow rhythm pulsed through the floor, matching the ache behind his thoughts. He remembered the first train ride — Alden sitting silent by the window, eyes on the storm. He'd been different even then: precise where others were loud, calm where others cracked. Rumors had grown around him like ivy around a tower. Dark Lord. Prodigy. Monster. Theo had long stopped correcting them. Some walls couldn't be torn down; you had to light a candle inside instead.
And now, watching Alden smile — an actual smile, unguarded and fleeting — Theo felt something settle. He leaned toward Draco. "Would you look at that," he said quietly, tone halfway between awe and affection. "They're bloody perfect, aren't they?" Draco followed his gaze, smirk softening. "He looks almost human." "Almost?"Draco shrugged, eyes on the dance. "Maybe she's the part that makes him so."
Blaise, lounging back in his chair, raised an eyebrow. "If this is what Slytherin elegance looks like, the rest of us might as well go home."Tracey grinned. "Jealousy doesn't suit you."Pansy huffed, arms folded. "Oh, please. They're showing off."Theo smiled faintly. "No, Pansy. They're not even aware we exist."
Across the hall, Gryffindors whispered among themselves."Honestly, it's almost poetic — the dark one and his queen.""Terrifying, if you ask me."Yet even those voices dimmed, because there was something magnetic about the stillness between Alden and Daphne — the way silence itself seemed to bend around them.
The song swelled toward its close. Alden guided her through the final turn, her gown fanning out in a whirl of green and shadow. Their hands met once more; they bowed together, perfectly in sync.
For a second, no one clapped — breath caught, attention held. Then applause rolled through the Great Hall, thunderous and warm. The spell broke.
Alden looked down at Daphne, expression lighter than it had been all year." Wasn't terrible," he said quietly."Tragic," she returned, smiling. "We may have to do it again."He laughed — low, genuine — and the sound seemed to surprise even him.
From the corner, Theo watched that moment — the myth stripped bare for just a heartbeat — and thought, Maybe tonight, someone finally sees him.
The Weird Sisters' instruments began to shift into a livelier tune. The champions stepped aside as the crowd poured onto the dance floor, the noise swelling again. But at the heart of it all, the echo of that waltz lingered — two figures moving together as if the rest of the world had fallen away.