𝓟𝓪𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓭 𝓦𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓕𝓵𝔂𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓒𝓸𝓵𝓸𝓻𝓼?
synopsis: Harry confessed his undying love. Can you accept?
You and Harry had been rivals for three years by the time the Yule Ball was announced.
It began in second year, the first time you faced him across the Quidditch pitch. You were pure-blood, raised in a house where blood status was spoken of the way other families spoke of the weather, quietly, constantly, and with absolute certainty.
He was the Boy Who Lived: messy hair, second-hand robes, a scar the entire wizarding world treated like a badge of honour. You told yourself the sharp spike in your chest every time he outflew you was only competitive fury. You were very good at lying to yourself then.
Every match became a private war neither of you ever named. You learned the exact angle of his dives, the way he favoured his left when he was tired, the tiny hitch in his breathing right before he committed to a steep drop. He learned yours just as thoroughly. Spectators thought the two of you simply hated losing.
They never noticed how often your brooms nearly brushed in mid-air, how your eyes always found each other the second the Snitch appeared, how the rest of the pitch seemed to fall away until there was only the chase and the boy on the other side of it.
After every game you would land, chin high, expression cool, and offer him nothing more than a clipped nod if you had won or a thin, polite smile if you had lost. He would grin at you anyway, flushed, breathless, eyes bright, and something treacherous inside you would soften for half a second before you crushed it.
You never spoke much. You made certain of that. A distant “Well flown” in the corridors if forced. A raised eyebrow across the Great Hall when he tried to catch your eye. Rivalry was allowed. Anything warmer was not. Your family had made that clear long before you ever set foot on a broom. Pure-blood lines did not dilute themselves for scarred heroes with Mudblood mothers, no matter how brightly those heroes smiled.
By fourth year the tension had grown teeth. The Triwizard Tournament had arrived. Harry’s name had come out of the Goblet. The castle was full of noise and fear and forced celebration, and somewhere in the middle of it the Yule Ball was announced. Suddenly every corridor buzzed with who was asking whom. You told yourself you did not care. You told yourself you would attend with some perfectly suitable pure-blood boy from a family your parents would approve of, and that would be the end of it. Like Draco even though he’s a dick.
You were still lying to yourself.
One evening in early December the pitch was nearly empty after a brutal practice. The rest of the teams had gone inside. Harry stayed. So did you. You told yourself it was only because a proper Seeker always put her broom away correctly. You had always been proper. Better. Striving for perfection against Harry.
He landed a few feet from you. The sky was the colour of old bruises. His glasses were slightly fogged. He looked at you the way he had started looking at you all season, like you were the only fixed point left in a world that kept shifting under his feet. You could feel him staring.
He cleared his throat. Once. Twice. You turned around your hair falling from its updo. Then the words came out quiet and careful, as if he had been carrying them for a long time.
“Will you go to the Yule Ball with me?”
The question landed somewhere deep and soft and previously unreachable inside your chest. For a moment the entire pitch tilted.
You had known he might ask. Of course you had known. The lingering looks after matches. The way he always flew a fraction closer than necessary. The soft way he said your name when no one else was listening. You had known and you had still kept the rivalry alive, because rivalry was the only language you were allowed to speak with him. Feeling anything else was a betrayal of everything you had been raised to be.
Your throat closed. You stared at the trampled grass between your feet so you would not have to watch the hope living in his face.
The words came out smaller and more broken than you intended.
He took a step closer. “Why?”
You forced yourself to look up. Your eyes were already stinging. You hated that they were. You were supposed to be composed. Controlled. Above this kind of messy, ordinary heartbreak.
“I love you,” you said, and your voice cracked openly on the second word. You hated that too. “I do. I’ve felt it for longer than I can stand to admit. Every time we race for the Snitch I feel it. Every time you smile at me afterward like the whole world just became bearable again. Every time you look at me like I’m something worth staying for. But I can’t go with you. I can’t.”
You wrapped your arms around yourself, broom still clutched in one hand like a shield you no longer trusted.
“You’re not pure-blood. My family would never accept it. I was raised to know exactly where the lines are drawn, and you stand on the wrong side of every single one of them. No matter how brave you are. No matter how brilliantly you fly. No matter how much I-” You stopped, swallowing hard against the ache rising in your throat.
“It would disgrace everything I was taught to value. Centuries of careful breeding. Quiet expectations. The kind of future that was decided for me before I ever learned to hold a broom. Walking into that ballroom on your arm would be a public declaration that I had thrown it all away. And I can’t. Not even for you.”
Harry’s face had gone very still. The hope was dying in his eyes in real time, and watching it die felt like losing the Snitch on purpose and then having to live with the emptiness afterward.
You wanted to reach for him. You wanted to tell him the blood purity rules were cruel and stupid and that you would burn every pure-blood expectation to the ground if it meant you could dance with him under those enchanted snowflakes. You wanted, for one reckless, terrifying second, to be the kind of girl who chose love over lineage.
Instead you only stood there, eyes shining, voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t help. I know it’s cruel. I know I’ve been cruel for years, teasing the edges of this, letting the rivalry become something neither of us could walk away from, knowing full well I would never be allowed to cross the final line. But I can’t love you the way you deserve. Not out loud. Not in any way that counts. Not without destroying the only version of myself my family would still claim.”
“You’ve got a hear me out. I’ve loved you ever since I’ve known you. Please”
You managed a small, broken attempt at the old teasing smile you used to wear after matches, but it trembled and collapsed almost immediately.
“Go with someone else,” you said softly, the words tasting like defeat. “Someone suitable. Someone who can stand beside you without costing you more than you already have. And keep flying against me. It’s the only way I’m allowed to be near you. The only way I can keep looking at you without having to admit what it actually means.”
Then you turned, mounted your broom with the same precise, perfect grace you had been trained to use since childhood, and rose into the darkening sky before the tears could fall where he could see them.
You already knew he was still standing there on the empty pitch, watching you leave, and the knowledge hurt more than any loss, any near-miss, any Snitch that had ever slipped through your fingers.
It hurt because for the first time you understood that some refusals were worse than any defeat, and that the pure-blood girl who always put everything away properly had just carefully, deliberately, put away the only invitation she had ever truly wanted to accept.
worked on this for a couple days. Still doesn’t feel right 🥲 probably do more Draco smut next. Maybe tom riddle 😏
