delphi & buni

two best friends who enjoy writing fanfiction (maybe a little too much)

[unrealisticallybffs]

★ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴜʀ ᴄᴏʀɴᴇʀ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴᴛᴇʀɴᴇᴛ ★

hello! delphi and buni here! we write fanfics for several fandoms such as harry potter, bsd, jjk and moriarty the patriot. make sure to follow this account for updates on our joint works <3

our masterlist Currently active: BEFORE THE BLOOD ─ a harry potter fanfiction.

our individual accounts:

@iheart-nana @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LXV. Too Soon To Tell You I Love You

“god, i’’m jumping in the deep end, it’s more fun to swim in, heard the risk is drowning, but i’m going to take it”

♪ risk by gracie abrams

Harry’s Perspective

“I thought you said you’d figured it out!” scolded Hermione.

“Yeah, well, I just had to fine-tune it a little!” I exasperated, feeling inexplicably torn on whether I should be more worried about the look of Ophelia’s face when she opened the bathroom door, or the fact that I had to hold my breath underwater for an hour. Both these individual crisis were fighting for first place in my mind.

Ron, meanwhile, was very close to dying of laughter. It was only a question of time before Madam Pince came and kicked us out of the library.

“Nice collarbones!” Ron wheezed. I ran a hand through my hair, feeling a strong urge to stick my head in the sand and never take it out.

“Please, Ron, focus!” Hermione said, masking a laugh, which came out as a strangled cough-adjaecent sound.

“Both of you are no help.”

We had spent about four hours in the library, and yet, no luck. Every solution to letting humans breathe underwater involved a complex transfiguration, which was sixth-year level— definitely not something we could pull off overnight.

“So, it’s a minor complication,” Hermione tried to reassure me.

“Minor complication?” I repeated in disbelief, “When was the last time you held your breath underwater for an hour, Hermione?”

She sighed.

Several hours elapsed, and yet my chances for survival seemed bleak. As night fell upon the castle, we were just about to retreat to the common room— feeling quite defeated— McGonagall came and whisked away Hermione for god knows what, and Ron and I were left alone to carry the books— as heavy as boulders, till Gryffindor tower.

She didn’t show up until late in the night, and I thought it quite rude of her to abandon me in my time of need. Around ten, Ron had fallen into a deep sleep on the couch. I felt sorry that he was staying awake to help me with this lost cause of a task. I urged him to go upstairs, and it turned out he needed very little persuasion, and practically sprinted up the stairs.

To make matters worse, Fred and George had apparently spoken to Myrtle.

“Woah, there he is!” exclaimed Fred.

“Movin’ a bit fast, aren’t ya?” laughed George manically, “Might want to slow down, leave something to the imagination, if you know what I mean?”

“When did Myrtle even speak to the two of you?” I sighed, slamming the book in front of me shut.

“We were testing some pranks for Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes in that old abandoned bathroom,” explained George.

“She’s having a field day, you know,” snickered Fred, “Her storytelling skills are quite impressive.”

“Yeah, except when she can’t finish her sentences because she can’t stop laughing.”

“Can’t blame her though!”

They high-fived.

On any other day I would’ve found this amusing. Today, however…

“Has she spoken to you since?” asked Fred.

“No, haven’t seen her…” I mumbled.

“Avoiding you, is she?” chuckled George, “I hear she ran screaming after—”

“She did not run screaming!” I snapped, sounding sharper than I meant.

“Sorry, mate…” said George, “Myrtle must’ve gotten it wrong, then.”

“Yeah, we were just jokin’ around, mate,” said Fred.

Great, now I had the Weasley twins feeling sorry for me.

“Good luck for tomorrow,” they said in unison.

“Rest up—”

“— seems like you need it!”

And so, they disappeared up the staircase.

After a while, Neville appeared, and for a second I wondered if he was here to make fun of me too

“Hey, Neville, here to give me a hard time, too?”

“What?” he sounded flustered, “Oh! No, heard about Ophelia, though. Don’t worry, people will stop talking soon enough. I don’t think she’ll hold it over you, though. Ophelia’s nice… kind to everyone— even me.”

“… Thanks,” I never thought Neville Longbottom would be the one to console me.

He tilted his head, peering at the book I was reading.

“You know,” he began, sitting down on a divan opposite me, “If you want to learn about plants, you should check Goshawk’s guide to herbology.”

“I’m not really interested in plants,” I spoke as gently as I could, “Unless there’s a… I dunno… a… Tibetan… turnip that’ll let me breathe, underwater for an hour, then, that’d be swell.”

“Well, I dunno about a turnip,” he said thoughtfully, “But you could always use gillyweed!”

★

The gillyweed, however genius it had been, had one major flaw. Where was I going to get it? Neville said the only option was to get it from Snape’s potions cabinet. He was too much of a wuss to steal from anyone— much less, Snape. I was already on thin ice with Snape, especially after the whole incident with Moody, the egg and the map. Around midnight, I decided to retire to bed, thinking that rest would give me some sudden epiphany.

How wrong I was.

I dreamed all night— nightmares. I saw the deformed faces of merepeople, who sang, An hour long you’ll have to look, and to recover what we took, but past an hour— the prospect’s black, too long, it’s gone, it won’t come back.” Their voices grew more and more distorted, stretching out ‘it won’t come back,’ until I felt myself falling deeper and deeper into the lake, and woke up gasping for air.

I saw Hagrid’s dissapointed face, telling me how much he wanted me to win. Faces of all the people I was afraid to let down— Ophelia, Ron, Hermione. The mermaid on the stained glass window in the prefect’s bathroom was laughing at me hysterically as I struggled to swim in the lake, poking me with my own Firebolt, “Ouch— stop that hurts!”

The pain felt strangely real.

“Stop poking me!”

“Dobby must wake Harry Potter, sir! Wake up!”

“Dobby?”

I got up with a start, ramming my face into Dobby, who fell about two feet backwards.

“Dobby is okay!” he squeaked from the floor.

“Sorry about that,” I said, rubbing my eyes. The curtains were still drawn in the four-poster bedroom, and I couldn’t quite tell what time it was.

“Harry Potter must hurry! The second task starts in ten minutes!”

“Ten minutes!”

I reached for my watch by the bedside table, and as Dobby said, it was twenty past nine. It felt as though a huge boulder had been dropped into my stomach.

“It’s too late!” I exclaimed, feeling a cold sweat dampening my hair, “I- I’m not going to make it! I don’t know how to—”

“Harry Potter will make it!” Dobby insisted, puffing his chest out and reaching for something inside the pocket of Ron’s sweater that he was wearing. He triumphantly pulled out something slimy that looked like greenish-gray rats tails.

“Is that—”

“Gillyweed!”

“Dobby, how did you—”

“Never mind, sir!” he squeaked urgently, “Harry Potter must eat this just before he goes into the lake! Dobby knows Harry Potter is not knowing how— so Dobby is helping Harry Potter, sir!”

“Wait, a second how did you know—”

“Harry Potter must hurry!” he insisted, “Good luck, sir!”

And then, with a snap of his fingers, he vanished.

★

“Place your bets, place your bets!”

“Coming through!”

I almost knocked Fred and George to the ground, “Sorry ‘bout that!”

“Mate, aren’t yous t you supposed to be over there?” Fred gestured to the stands. The same ones that were set up for the first task were now lined up against the lake.

“Yeah, I thought you were already up there!”

“Go!”

“I’m going, jeez—”

I was met with disapproving glances from McGonnagall.

“Honestly, Potter, can’t you be on time for anything!”

I took a quick glance around. Dumbledore shot me an encouraging smile. Percy was glaring angrily at me, and Bagman gave a subtle nod of approval. Madam Maxime and Karkaroff, however, were less than happy to see me. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they thought I wasn’t going to turn up. Ron waved to me from one of the seats above, and Hermione seemed to be missing.

But no matter how hard I searched, the one face I was looking for seemed to be gone from the stands. My heart sank a little. Out of all the people who supported me, I thought at least—

“Oh, for goodness sake, do you ever think about anything but Miss Sinclair!” snapped McGonagall disapprovingly.

I felt my face go crimson.

She motioned for me to go stand by the lake, in line next to Diggory.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Bagman looking at me with a sympathetic look on his face, “Harry, know what you’re doing? Because if you don’t, I can—”

“Thanks, but I’ve got it under control,” I said, although the knot in my stomach said otherwise. His constant offer to help me was starting to feel slightly creepy.

“Alright, then,” he said, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze and then disappearing up into the stands.

“Harry!” called out Neville from behind me, “What’s that in your— Is that—”

“Shh!” I hissed, “I don’t know where Dobby got it!”

“Dobby? Who’s Dobby?”

“I’ll tell you some other time! Thanks for your help, Neville, honest!”

“Anytime!” he smiled.

The chatter surrounding me on all sides was more than a little oppressive. At the Yule Ball, I had Ophelia, who was excellent at bringing me back to Earth, making me feel whole again. But today, everything felt as though it was closing in on me.

Bagman’s voice boomed, “Now that all our champions are ready, they will have one hour to recover what has been stolen from them. On the count of three. One… two… three!”

I fumbled, taking the gillyweed out of my pocket and stuffing it into my mouth.

The icy water in the lake stung my skin as I awkwardly waddled into the water. I tried not to think about the laughter echoing in the stands, but in trying to do so I couldn’t help but be hyper-aware of it. I struggled to even lower myself into the water, feeling a strong reluctance to do so, given the freezing temperature of the water. However, once the gillyweed began working, I felt a shooting pain near my jaw. I had gills.

I dove into the water, and all of a sudden, it no longer felt cold and uncomfortable. Rather, it felt refreshing. I looked down at my feet, and noticed that they had become webbed. Silver fishes zoomed past me, looking like flecks of light in the water. In the distance I could make out the faint figure of a group of merepeople, and decided to swim in their direction.

Time was a very strange thing in the lake. I must’ve been swimming for only a little while, but it felt like at least twenty minutes. The lake had clusters of little houses made from coral and rocks, almost like a village for the merepeople.ost like a village for the merepeople. Past the village was green, slimy seaweed for as long as I could see. I was glad that I hadn’t seen any sign of the giant squid.

I couldn’t see the sign of any stolen items of mine, and decided to keep swimming ahead. As I was trying to move, I found that something had caught a hold of my leg. Looking down, I realized it was a grindylow, and I remembered that Professor Lupin had taught us about them last year.

It’s horned head was peeking out of the weed, like a little demon. It barred his pointed fangs at me and attempted to pull me down. By the time I struggled to use my wand with my webbed hand, two more gryindylows came out of the weed and began tugging at my clothes.

“Releashio!”

Instead of words, only bubbles formed, and instead of sparks, my wand shooted boiling water at the grindylows. It seemed to do the trick, though. The water made red patches on their green skin and they recoiled, letting go of my ankle. I swam away as quickly as I could, and I could almost swear I heard them growling angrily.

After about ten or fifteen more minutes of swimming, I heard the merepeople’s song,

“An hour long you’ll have to look,

To recover what we took,

Your time’s half gone, so tarry not,

Lest what you seek here seems to rot…”

“Rot?” I thought, “What—”

I hadn’t the faintest idea what they could have possibly taken from me, but I never thought it’d be Ophelia. Her body floated, completely still in the water, her ankle tied to a rock near the floor of the lake. Alongside her was Hermione, Cho Chang, and a little girl with flowy silvery hair, resembling Fleur. I immediately, rushed to Ophelia, examining her face, that looked almost serene, eyes closed with no expression at all. Her skin was green and pale, almost lifeless, and the panic took over me immediately. My fear of losing her was far greater than my common sense, and my entire body felt as though it was under some sort of attack.

The merepeople stood with staffs at the side, watching intently, permanently scowling. I cursed myself for leaving the knife that Sirius got me for Christmas in my dorm. I must’ve been more unprepared than any other of the champions. It was clear from their calm, composed demeanor at the stands that they had figured out what to do much earlier than the night before the task.

I took a stone from the bottom of the lake and began hacking at the rope shakily. It was a long time before I had freed her. I then began freeing Hermione, but the merepeople rushed to me, pointing their staffs to my neck, “Only one.”

“But she’s my friend too!” I tried to say, but only bubbles came out of my mouth.

I backed away from Hermione, and I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw the head of a shark, but once it came closer, I realised from the maroon shorts it was Krum, who had transfigured into a shark. He untied Hermione using a dagger, and swam away. Soon, Cedric came and untied Cho as well. But no one seemed to be coming for Fleur’s sister for a long time. I could hear the faint echo of Bagman’s voice above the water.

I lunged for the last rope tied to the rock, holding Ophelia tight with one hand, while the merepeople poked at me with their staffs. Suddenly the dream I’d had felt less like a nightmare and more like a premonition.

Swimming all the way back up with two people who weren’t able to hold up themselves proved to be quite the challenge. Moreover, I was extremely worried that if I didn’t make it in time, both of them wouldn’t be able to breathe. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a dozen merepeople closing in, shouting at me to leave the other hostage. How could I just leave her to rot in the lake?

I was running out of time. My webbed hands and feet had now returned to normal, and I was having trouble breathing. I tightened my grip around the hostages and swam with all my might. Every muscle in my body was burning with pain, and I suddenly became aware of the places the merepeople poked me with their staffs, which stung like mad.

The shouts of the crowd outside were growing louder and louder now, until, finally— just when I thought I wouldn’t make it, my head was above the water.

I had the horrible fear that Ophelia and the little girl might’ve died, but to my great relief, they opened their eyes, and the crowd howled with applause. I immediately threw my arms around Ophelia, who seemed quite taken aback by it,

“I thought you—” my breath hitched, “I thought you died! And when I didn’t see you in the stands—”

Her laugh sounded like a breath of life in my ears. One thing was painfully clear to me now; that if I had to drown a million times to save her, I would do it without a single shred of doubt. And maybe that thought would have scared me in the past, it didn’t anymore.

buni's notes: i know i said hiatus two chapters ago but i managed to write a bit more lolol see u in a few weeks!

delphi's notes: cant wait for the next few chapter mueheehe

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: coming soon

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LXIV. Ticking Bomb

“oh, ophelia, you’ve been on my mind, girl since the flood, oh, ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love”

♪ ophelia by the lumineers

Harry’s Perspective

It seemed that I had learnt no lessons on urgency since the first Triwizard Task, since I now found myself in the same soup as before. Only, this time, I had a hunch that Professor Moody wouldn’t be much inclined to share his wisdom. I almost began wishing I’d taken Bagman’s offer to help with the egg. I may have convinced Hermione that I’d ‘just about figured it out’, but fooling Hermione didn’t mean I had any clue as to what the stupid egg was supposed to mean. On the rare occasion that I did try to open it, all it did was scream. That’s what I would be doing the night before the task, because, at this rate, I doubt I’d have figured it out by then.

A week before the task, I had completely lost my appetite. However, as I lifelessly dragged myself out of the Great Hall after dinner, I practically rammed into Cedric Diggory, who was the last person I thought would become my only hope at surviving the second task.

“Hey, Harry, how you doing?” he asked cheerily.

“Brilliant,” I answered, though I doubt he picked up on my sarcasm.

“I realized that I didn’t really thank you for helping me with the first task,” he started.

“Oh,” I said, “You don’t need to thank me, it was only fair. You were the only one who didn’t know.”

“S

“Still. I feel like I owe you one,” he insisted, “Any luck with your egg?”

“None at all,” I told him quietly, looking around to make sure Hermione hadn’t overheard me.

“Here’s a little piece of advice— take a bath, okay?”

“What?” this was turning out to be even less helpful than I thought it would be.

“Take a bath… er, just mull things over in the hot water,” he explained rather vaguely, “I’ll tell you what, use the prefects bathroom on the fifth floor— you know, the one next to the statue of Boris the Bewildered. The password’s ‘pine fresh.’”

“Er—”

“Gotta go! Need to say goodnight, you know how it is… Bye!” he grinned and hurried down the stairs behind Cho Chang.

It had been unbelievably strange advice. I spent about four days trying to figure out what exactly Cedric meant by telling me to bathe with the egg. It was also, however, my only clue. So, days before the second task, I decided to try out my luck. Since it was a Sunday, most people would retreat to their dorms for a nap, or they would go outside. Very few people would be roaming the halls, which was the perfect opening for me to sneak away to the prefect’s bathroom. I headed there with my invisibility cloak, Marauders’ Map and egg.

It turned out to be a great challenge to climb the stairs while carrying the egg, looking at the map, and stay hidden at the same time. At last, I made it to the statue of Boris the Bewildered, who was a lost-looking wizard. Leaning close to the door of the bathroom, I muttered, “Pine fresh,” just as Cedric had instructed.

The door creaked open and I scurried into the bathroom, and I couldn’t help but think it would be worth becoming a prefect just to use this bathroom.bathroom,

It was lit by a huge glass chandelier in the center of the ceiling, which held about a hundred candles, and the whole bathroom was made of white marble, including the huge, empty swimming-pool-sized bathtub in the middle. At the edge of the pool, there were a dozen taps, each adorned with a different colored jewel on its handle. Long, linen curtains hung from the windows, and at one end of the pool was a diving board. There was a shelf with towels stacked on it, and one of the windows had stained-glass tiles, featuring a picture of mermaid with blonde mermaid that was fast asleep on a rock with her hair over her face that fluttered every time she snored.

My footsteps echoed against the walls as I walked. It still seemed to me as if this was Cedric’s idea of a practical joke. I couldn’t see how on earth any of this could help me with the egg clue. Nevertheless, I tried turning on a few of the faucets, each of which had a different kind of bubble bath. While it filled up, I retrieved one of the fluffy towels from the shelf. The bubble bath was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. One had pink bubble water, another with blue bubbles the size of footballs, and another shot out purple clouds of perfume that hovered over the water. The pool filled up pretty quickly, especially considering its size, and I set my invisibility cloak, egg, map and clothes at the edge.

It was not until I stepped into the pool that I realized how deep it really was, and my head a pool that I realized how deep it really was, and my head was barely floating above the water. Enjoyable though it was to soak in the hot, foamy water, no stroke or brilliance or sudden epiphany came to me. Still I reached for the egg and opened it, but was greeted by the usual shrill wailing. I shut it quickly, hoping that Filch or Snape hadn’t caught wind of the fact that I was once again, breaking the rules.

“Not a very bright one, are you?”

The voice startled me so badly that I swallowed a number of bubbles when I gasped. It was none other than Moaning Myrtle, sitting calmly on one of the taps.

“M-Myrtle!” I coughed, feeling violated, “I’m not wearing anything!”

“I closed my eyes when you got in,” she blinked innocently.

“Do you just sit there and spy on the prefects when they take baths?”

“Sometimes,” she answered with a sheepish, creepy sort of grin, “But I’ve never come out to speak too someone before.

“I guess I should be honored.”

A voice sounded from outside, growing louder, and as the person drew closer I realized it was Ophelia, “Harry? Are you—”

It was a splendid time for me to realize I’d left the door slightly ajar. Ophelia stood in the doorway, her face looking as though it was frozen in time. Her eyes darted between my face, the egg in my hands and the pile of my clothes on the floor. My face felt as though I were standing two inches from the sun.

“Oh,” was all she could say.

“Err—”

“I’m so sorry, I thought— Ron said— I got a letter from Moony,” her face was beet-red, and her voice shaky and flustered, “The door was open so I thought—”

“No! It’s my fault, I should’ve locked it or some—”

“No, it’s my fault, I didn’t announce myself—”

“It’s fine!” I said, my voice sounding unnaturally high.

“Umm… so… nice collarbones— WHY AM I STILL TALKING” she ran a hand through her hair, her face turning redder. My stupid heart was doing somersaults inside my chest, “Bye!”

She bolted away, her footsteps echoing in the empty hallway until they faded away. Myrtle, meanwhile was giggling hysterically,

“‘Nice collarbones’” she wheezed, “I wonder if it’s possible to die a second time— OF LAUGHTER—” She broke out in another fit of laughter. I groaned, burying my head under the water. Out of all the embarrassing things that’d happened to me over the years, this was by far the worst.

Suddenly my hand that was covering the top of the egg slipped, opening and it opened. I braced myself for the loud wailing, but it never came, instead, there was a chorus of eerie voices singing what seemed to be my instructions for the second task. ask:

“Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you’re searching ponder this,

We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,

An hour long you’ll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour— the prospect’s black,

Too long, it’s gone, it won’t come back.”

I raised my head above the water, after shutting the egg, and shook my hair out of my face, “We cannot sing above the ground— that’s about the merepeople! And they’ve taken what I sorely miss… wonder what that could be—”

“Very clever, aren’t you?” cooed Myrtle, who seemed to have recovered just fine from her previous fit of laughter, “It was hours before Cedric got it. All the bubbles were almost gone.”

That was my cue to leave.

★

I still hadn’t recovered from the embarrassment when I walked out of the prefect’s bathroom, making sure to close the door behind me this time. I checked the map to see if the coast was still clear. The floating dots belonging to Fli. The floating dots belonging to Filch and Mrs Norris were a safe distance away, tucked in their office. No one else seemed to be out and about, except Peeves, who was bouncing around in the trophy room, wreaking havoc as per usual. However, my eyes flickered down to Snape’s office, where the floating dot read not Snape’s name, but Bartemis Crouch.

I blinked.

Mr Crouch was supposedly too ill to work or go to the Yule Ball. So what was he doing at Hogwarts on a random afternoon rummaging through Snape’s potions cabinet? I followed his name on the banner, his little footsteps pacing in the study, stopping every few seconds. The rational part of me told me to go back to Gryffindor tower to figure out how on earth I was going to hold my breath underwater for an hour.

But alas, my curiosity got the better of me, and I began making my way down the staircase to see what Crouch was up to. I tried my best to be as quiet as possible, but the portraits seemed to be extremely attentive of every sound I made— the creaking of the floorboards underneath my feet, the rustle of my robes, and the sound of the egg wobbling in my hands. Halfway, I had forgotten all about staying hidden, and as I hurried down the stairs, my feet fell through the trick step Neville always forgot to jump over. The egg in my hands being damp from the bath did not help at all, and in a rather ungraceful attempt at retrieving it, the map slipped from my hand. The golden egg made a thunderous sound as it tumbled to the bottom of the staircase, and then, to top it all off, burst open and so began the wailing.

My right leg was still stuck in the step, and I heard a pair of footsteps draw closer.

“PEEVES!”

The voice unmistakably belonged to Filch, who was approaching with hurried footsteps, “What’s all this racket—”

He stopped in his tracks, staring at the egg. Hesitantly, he bent forward and shut it. I thought, this was it. He would check behind the tapestry for Peeves, but there would be no Peeves. But if he were to come up the stairs, then he would see the map, with my name floating on it, and I would be done for.

“This! This belongs to a triwizard champion!” he exclaimed gleefully, “PEEVES! You’ve been stealing!”

“What are you screeching about?!” came Snape’s irritated voice from behind Filch, who turned around with great excitement.

“Professor! It’s Peeves—”

“Yes, I believe that fact has been emphasized enough.”

“—he’s been stealing from a Triwizard champion! He threw this egg down the stairs! He will be caught, and then the Headmaster will finally have sufficient reason to throw him out—”

“But Peeves couldn’t have gotten into my office!”

“The egg was in your office, Professor?”

“No!” shouted Snape, annoyed, “I heard wailing—”

“That was the egg.”

“When I passed my office, the door was ajar, and the torches were lit. Someone’s been searching it!”

“Sir, Peeves—”

“Oh, shut up about Peeves,” he snapped, “My office can be unlocked by no other than a wizard! Peeves couldn’t have possibly broken in!” He looked around, right through me, and behind the tapestry, “Filch, I want you to come and help me search—”

Clunk, clunk.

Mad-Eye Moody was limping down the hall, towards Snape and Filch, “Having a little tea party, are we?”

“Professor Snape and I heard noises, sir,” explained Filch with great enthusiasm, “Peeves, throwing things around as usual, and then Professor Snape reckons someone broke into his office—”

“Shut up!” hissed Snape.

“Someone broke into your office, you say?”

“It is not of any importance—”

“I believe it is of great importance.”

Moody’s magical eye swirled around, scanning the surroundings, and then landed on me. I felt as though a brick had fallen into my stomach. Moody’s eye could see through Invisibility Cloak. I thought I was surely a goner, but Moody simply turned back to Snape unbelievably calmy.

“Who’d want to break into your office, Severus?” asked Moody, his normal eye looking right at me for a split second, and I could have sworn he winked at me.

“A student, I daresay,” answered Snape, scowling, “It’s happened before, of course. Students mixing illicit mixtures without permission…”

“Reckon they were after potion ingredients, eh? Not hiding anything else in your office, are you?”

Moody stared at Snape for a very long time before he answered.

“You are well aware that I’m hiding nothing,” said Snape softly, the slightest hint of fear laced in his seemingly composed tone, “Especially since you’ve searched my office pretty thoroughly— and multiple times, might I add.”

“Auror privileges, you see,” smirked Moody, “Professor Dumbledore told me to keep an eye out—”

“Dumbledore trusts me,” said Snape in a quiet, dangerous sort of voice.

“Well, he is a trustworthy person, isn’t he?” said Moody, “But you and I both know there are spots that never do come off, no matter how hard you try, eh?”

To reasons I was unaware of, Snape grabbed his left sleeve and tugged it down very hard.

“Off you go now, Snape.”

“You’ve no right to tell me where to go!”

“You’ve dropped something, by the way.”

My heart sank as Snape reached for the map. Raising my hands above my head under the cloak, I mouthed to Moody, “It’s mine!”

“Accio Parchment!” To my relief, the map zoomed into Moody’s hands, “My mistake, I must have dropped it earlier.”

Just as Moody was beginning to walk away, Snape’s face twisted into what was by far the most foul-lookigooking scowl I’d ever seen, “STOP! That piece of parchment belongs to Potter! This is Potter’s egg! Potter is here right now in his invisibility cloak!”

He began reaching out, hoping to find me lurking around.

“There’s nothing there!” snapped Moody, who was turning out to be an even more terrific liar than I’d imagined, “But I’ll make sure to mention to Professor Dumbledore how quickly your mind jumped to Potter…”

Snape was left muttering indignantly, and Filch very reluctantly let go of the egg as Moody ushered them away. Once he was sure no one was around, he said quietly, “Close call, Potter.”

“Yeah— er, thanks, Professor,” I said, pulling off the invisibility cloak.

He limped over to the bottom step of the staircase, and I hoped that he would be helping me out soon, because I’d lost all sensation in my leg about five minutes ago.

He was looking at the Marauders’ Map with great fascination, “Say, Potter, what’s this piece of parchment?”

“It’s a… eh, it’s a map— sorry, sir, could you please maybe help me—”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

He took a hold of my arms and pulled me up so that my leg was out of the trick step and I climbed up to the next step.

“So, about this map,” he continued, “What were you saying?”

“Only that it’s a map of Hogwarts,” I answered, praying that he wouldn’t ask where I got it from. He continued to stare at the map with a sort of fire in his eyes.

“You wouldn’t have possibly seen who broke into Professor Snape’s study in this, did you?” he asked, cocking a brow.

“Er— yes,” I replied hesitantly, “It was Mr Crouch.”

“Mr Crouch?” he asked thoughtfully, “That… is very interesting, indeed,” I could tell the information meant something to him, “This map is, perhaps, exactly what I need. Would you mind if I were to borrow it for a while, Potter?”

“Not at all,” I felt that I owed it to him after he’d stuck up for me in front of Snape like that.

Just as he was walking away, I found myself calling out to him, “Professor… why do you reckon Mr Crouch wanted to break into Professor Snape’s office? D’you… D’you think it’s got something to do with everything that’s been going on right now?”

He turned around very slowly, both his magical eye as well as normal eye studying me curiously.

“What is it you’re implying, Potter?”

“I mean, with all the disappearances, Bertha Jorkins and such…” I said doubtfully, “Maybe Mr Crouch thinks there’s something going on…”

There was a very long pause before Moody spoke again.

“D’ you ever think about becoming an Auror, Potter?”

That caught me off guard.

“What?” I exclaimed, “An Auror?”

“Yes,” he said, cracking a grin, “You’re awfully sharp, Potter. Best keep your wits about you.”

As the sound of Moody’s wooden leg clunking grew softer, I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of dark forces were at work in the wizarding world for there to be so many unusual occurrences in one year. But then again, having a normal year at Hogwarts had been unheard of, and I wasn’t exactly counting on this one to break the streak.

buni's notes: you have no idea how long i've been waiting to use this lyric

delphi's notes: if myrtle had a stand-up show i would 100% go

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: LXV. Too Soon To Tell You I Love You

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[sunwornink]

here is your daily reminder to COMMENT ON THE AO3 FICS YOU READ! it goes such a long way, especially if it’s a multi-chapter work and you can only leave kudos once. ANYTHING is an acceptable comment—emojis, keyboard smash, screaming, in-depth analysis! i promise you, the writers want it ALL

[unrealisticallybffs]

LXIII. Best Friends And Other Strangers

“It feels so scary, getting old”

♪ ribs by lorde

Audrey’s Perspective

I had spent the majority of the day avoiding Draco Malfoy.

Which, considering we attended the same school, lived in the same castle, and had somehow managed to become the subject of public fascination overnight, was proving significantly more difficult than I would have liked.

It was not that I thought I owed him anything; that was precisely the problem.

He had helped me at the Ball because the situation had become inconvenient, because my lie had dragged him into something he had not technically agreed to, and because, despite his endless insistence that he was an unbearable person who cared about absolutely nothing, he had apparently decided that watching me freeze to death outside was somehow more irritating than simply continuing on with his evening.

That did not mean anything.

It certainly did not mean I wanted to continue carrying around his cloak like some absurd symbol of a moment that everyone else had already interpreted incorrectly.

The entire castle had already decided we were something we were not.

The last thing I needed was for anyone to see me walking around with Malfoy’s cloak draped over my shoulders like some dramatic confession of affection.

Especially not after Rita Skeeter’s article.

Especially not after I had spent months insisting that Draco Malfoy was the last person in this castle I would willingly associate myself with.

Which meant there was only one logical solution.

Return the cloak.

Quietly; Without anyone seeing.

Unfortunately, this school was not designed for quiet, efficient, or unnoticed actions.

The castle seemed determined to make every corridor a gathering place for gossip.

Every staircase had someone lingering on it.

Every corner had students talking loudly enough that they were clearly hoping someone would overhear.

And every time I spotted a flash of platinum blonde hair somewhere in the distance, my immediate instinct was to turn around and walk the other way.

Which, admittedly, was not helping.

By noon, I had still not found him.

By 1:00 pm I had convinced myself it was a sign from the universe that returning the cloak was unnecessary.

By 2:00 pm, I had changed my mind again and decided that keeping it was worse.

By half past two it was break and I had stationed myself in a quiet corridor near the unused classrooms with the cloak folded neatly over my arm, waiting.

Waiting was perhaps generous.

I was hiding.

There was no point pretending otherwise.

I had chosen a corridor that most students rarely used, tucked away from the noise of the main halls. The old stone walls were colder here, the silence only occasionally broken by distant footsteps echoing through the castle.

It was perfect.

Almost.

The only flaw in my plan was that I had absolutely no idea how long I intended to stand there.

Because apparently my strategy had been:

Find Malfoy.

Return his cloak.

Avoid speaking to Malfoy.

A flawless plan.

Except I wasn’t even sure if he graced this part of the castle with his presence.

I adjusted the cloak in my arms, staring down at the dark fabric.

It was ridiculous how much attention I was giving a piece of clothing.

It was just a cloak; no matter how warm or expensive.

The fact that I had spent the morning thinking about how to return it without being seen was entirely unrelated.

Obviously.

The sound of footsteps finally echoed down the corridor.

I stepped out from the corner of the corridor,hoping it was finally him and immediately spotted the blonde a few feet away.

“Malfoy.”

The single word was enough to make him stop dead in his tracks. For the briefest moment, genuine surprise crossed his face, as though finding me waiting in one of the quieter parts of the castle ranked somewhere between unlikely and mildly concerning. It vanished almost immediately, replaced by the familiar expression of carefully cultivated indifference he seemed to wear as naturally as his school robes.

“Rosier,” he replied, his tone carrying the faintest hint of suspicion.

His gaze drifted almost instinctively to the neatly folded cloak resting over my arm. Recognition flickered across his face before disappearing just as quickly.

“My cloak,” he observed.

“Your cloak,” I confirmed.

A brief silence settled between us. I had fully intended to hand it back and leave before either of us had to endure unnecessary conversation.

Unfortunately, the universe appeared determined to make even that simple task difficult.

Before I could say anything else, voices echoed from somewhere beyond the corner.

“…I’m telling you, Skeeter practically confirmed it…”

“…They’ve got to be together…”

Every muscle in my body tensed.

No.

Absolutely not.

Draco’s brows drew together slightly as he followed my gaze toward the approaching voices.

“What are you—”

He never finished the question.

Before common sense had the opportunity to object, I crossed the distance between us in three quick strides, caught hold of his wrist, and yanked him sideways toward the nearest broom cupboard.

He had just enough time to look thoroughly offended before I pulled him through the doorway after me. The door swung shut with a dull thud behind us, plunging the tiny cupboard into dimness just as the footsteps passed outside.

Neither of us moved.

The cupboard was far smaller than it had looked from the outside. Brooms leaned precariously against one wall, their worn bristles brushing against my shoulder, while shelves lined with dusty bottles and tarnished buckets occupied most of the remaining space. There was barely enough room for one person to stand comfortably.

Two was ambitious unless they were glued together.

I had just begun to wonder how long we would have to remain there when voices echoed into the corridor outside.

“They came this way, didn’t they?”

“I’m telling you, I heard something.”

Several pairs of footsteps slowed to a halt almost directly outside the cupboard.

I closed my eyes.

Was this the end?

“Maybe it’s Potter and Sinclair again,” one boy whispered conspiratorially.

A girl snorted.

“Don’t be ridiculous. They’ve already been caught once.”

There was a brief silence.

Then, quite without warning, the handle of a mop slipped against the stone floor.

The sharp clack echoed through the cupboard.

I winced.

Outside, the conversation stopped.

“…Did you hear that?”

My eyes widened.

“I told you I heard something,” another voice insisted.

“They’re definitely in there.”

I didn’t dare breathe.

Someone took a step closer.

The floorboards creaked faintly outside the door.

“Oh, Merlin,” another student laughed. “Leave them alone.”

“But what if it is Potter and Sinclair?”

A chorus of muffled laughter followed.

“They’d have to be completely mental to hide in a broom cupboard after Skeeter’s article.”

Another voice chimed in, sounding far too amused.

“Maybe it isn’t Potter.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe it’s Malfoy and Rosier.”

For one horrifying second, absolute silence followed.

Then the entire group burst into laughter.

“As if.”

“Those two?”

“They spend half their time insulting each other.”

“I’d sooner believe Filch was secretly dating Professor McGonagall.”

More laughter echoed down the corridor.

“Come on,” someone said eventually. “We’re going to be late.”

Their footsteps gradually retreated, their conversation drifting farther away until it dissolved into the familiar murmur of the castle.

The corner of Malfoy’s mouth twitched. For a moment, I thought he might actually have the sense to let it go.

I was wrong.

A quiet laugh escaped him before he seemed to realise he’d started, and within seconds he was openly amused.

“‘Rosier and Malfoy discovered hiding together in a broom cupboard—’”

“Oh, do shut up.”

“—following the scandalous display at the Yule Ball—”

“I said shut up you prat.”

“—sources claim the pair disappeared for nearly—”

“Malfoy.”

“—ten minu—”

“Merlin, you’re insufferable.”

Before he could continue, I shoved the neatly folded cloak into his chest with considerably more force than was strictly necessary.

“Take your stupid cloak,” I snapped, shoving it into his hands harder than necessary.

I yanked the cupboard door open before he could say another word.

“Rosier—”

“No.”

I stepped straight into the corridor, fully intending to march away with what little dignity I had left.

Instead, I found myself face-to-face with…Colin Creevey?

He froze.

I froze.

Draco appeared in the doorway behind me for once, looking like he had no immediate response prepared.

Colin’s eyes darted between us.

“…Oh.”

My stomach dropped.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I said almost instantly.

“Right!” Colin squeaked, looking thoroughly flustered. “Course not!”

He hastily lifted the new wizarding camera hanging around his neck.

“I was just trying to get a picture of the corridor, the light looked nice—and you two sort of… walked into the shot.”

To my mounting horror—Flash.

The camera erupted in brilliant white light almost blinding me.

Colin winced.

“Sorry!”

Colin looked like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.

“I swear I wasn’t trying to—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted, mostly because watching him panic was becoming uncomfortable.

It wasn’t his fault.

Unfortunately, that did not make the situation any less disastrous.

Colin glanced between us again, then quickly lowered the camera.

“I’ll destroy the photo if you want!” He mumbled, before scuttling away.

“That would be ideal,” Draco muttered.

I decided, for the sake of my remaining patience, that ignoring him was the wisest course of action.

“Brilliant,” I said immediately, stepping away.

“Lovely. Everyone is alive, no one has died of embarrassment, and I am going back to my common room.”

The corridor suddenly felt much larger than it had a moment ago, which was unfortunate because I was determined to cross it as quickly as possible without looking like I was fleeing the scene of a crime.

Which, admittedly, was exactly what I was doing.

I had made it several steps before something small moved across the stone floor in front of me.

I paused momentarily to see a beetle crawled lazily across the corridor, completely unconcerned with the chaos it had interrupted.

For one brief second, my brain supplied the very unhelpful possibility that after everything that had happened today, even the insects of Hogwarts had decided to involve themselves.

“Seriously?” I muttered.

The beetle continued on its way.

Behind me, Malfoy appeared, unfortunately heading in the same direction.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re staring at a bug.”

“I’m aware.”

“Why?”

“Because apparently even the wildlife here enjoys making me uncomfortable.”

Draco looked down at the beetle, then back at me.

“It’s an insect.”

“Thank you, Malfoy. Your observational skills remain breathtaking.”

I turned sharply.

“Right. You go that way.”

“Are you honestly bossing me around?”

“You heard me.”

For once, he didn’t immediately argue.

Instead, he glanced down the corridor, then back at me.

“You’re aware that avoiding someone this dramatically usually makes people more suspicious.”

“I am aware.”

“And yet you’re doing it anyway.”

“Yes.”

“That seems slightly irrational.”

The worst part was that he wasn’t even wrong.

Which was incredibly inconvenient.

So I turned away before he could continue and walked off, because apparently spending my afternoon hiding in cupboards and arguing with Malfoy had somehow become a perfectly reasonable use of my time.

“Merlin’s sagging—”

★

“What did you do?”

“Well, hello to you too,” I said to Ophelia, who apparently, had made it her personal mission to interrogate me the second I stepped into the common room.

“Don’t play dumb, I know that look.”

“What look?!” I sounded a lot more defensive than I’d like to admit.

“That guilty look you have when you’ve done something you regret,” she squinted her eyes at me, “You become all quiet and broody.”

“There’s no look,” I said softly, hoping I’d convince her.

“You’re making that face right now,” she accused, “And you’re being all evasive.”

“I am not being evasive!”

I was being evasive.

“You so are. Look at your eye twitching.”

“You’re just making stuff up.”

“And you’re hiding something.”

“If anything, I should be asking you are hiding, considering that you disappeared somewhere with Harry right after dinner,” I countered, hoping it would stir the conversation away from dangerous territory.

“Ugh,” she squirmed, “I can’t believe that all because of one stupid article I’ve become the Hogwarts whore. He got a letter from Si— Padfoot asking about the next Hogsmeade weekend so we were trying to figure out how to persuade him not to come. That’s all.”

I sank into an armchair. It seemed like there was no getting out of this.

“And besides, I already know what you’ve been up to,” she said, and to my horror, pulled out a photograph from her satchel.

“Harry found Colin Creevy attempting to burn this — or rather the whole dorm down and would you believe what he finds?”

She handed me the half charred photo that; despite it’s state, perfectly captured what had transpired a couple of hours ago.

“You have some serious explaining to do.” She concluded, her tone unmistakably demanding.

“There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

“I’d love to hear it.”

“There was… his… cloak,” I said, in utter disbelief that I had wound up in such a situation, “He lent it to me at the Yule Ball—”

“Wait a minute, he lent you his cloak?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It was freezing,” I sighed, “Don’t expect me to figure out the inner workings of his… twisted mind. I swear he bugs me.”

“And yet I’m holding a picture of the two of you coming out of a broom cupboard looking extremely flustered.”

“I was returning his cloak— I was sick of having it lying around. And we heard some people talking about Skeeter’s article and I panicked and—”

“No.”

“I did,” I admitted regrettably, “I was temporarily possessed, and I’m hoping it was a one-time thing.”

Ophelia went very quiet, and then sat down on an ottoman next to me. She rested her chin on the palm of her hand, furrowed her brows, shook her head, then looked up at me and said, “Why didn’t— Are we okay?”

“What?” I wish I didn’t know what she meant.

“I don’t know, it feels like… we’re growing apart. I mean,” she stood up and began pacing, “We used to talk about this stuff. We used to talk about everything. What happened?”

I didn’t quite know how to answer. It almost felt like she wasn’t expecting an answer either. It was just a thought that lingered in the air, thick with its intensity. I wondered perhaps the both of us were thinking the same thing. That we were growing up, and maybe that meant that the distance between us would go on increasing. It was a possibility I wanted to desperately rule out. Ophelia was one of the only people in my life that never let me down. I hoped desperately that the universe would let me have that one good person, because without that, I think I’d crumble a lot faster than anyone would expect.

Ophelia was still watching me.

Eventually, she flopped into the chair beside me.

“If something ever goes wrong again,” she said slowly, “you’d tell me, right?”

The question wasn’t casual.

I opened my mouth. Closed it again.

I smiled slowly.

“Of course,” I said. “You’d be the first person I’d tell.”

That seemed to satisfy her—at least for now.

She exhaled, like she was letting go of something she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“Good,” she said. “Because I’d hate to find out things about you from someone else.”

I laughed at that a little too quickly for my liking.

“That would be terrible.”

As I shifted my attention to the the flames danced in the fireplace, there was a beat of silence where neither of us moved;

like we were both deciding to believe it.

delphi's notes: wow this is one rollercoaster of a chapter

buni's notes: short hiatus for a few weeks because im going on vacation and the rate at which we're publishing is faster than the rate at which we're writing lolol i'll try to be back as soon as possible <3

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: coming soon!

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LXII. The Warmth Of The Cabin

“games, changes and fears, when will they go from here? when will they stop?"

♪ i try by macy gracy

Ophelia’s Perspective

Christmas break passed without much further uproar, although people hadn’t yet chatted the contents of Rita Skeeter’s heinous article out of their systems yet. Its influence had become so far-reaching that it resulted in a humiliating interaction with Professor Flitwick that made me want to crawl into a deep, deep hole in the ground for the rest of my life. Poor Flitwick, innocent soul that he was, pulled me aside one day after breakfast and implored to me the importance of decency and maintenance of decorum. I, then, went on to explain— in my flustered state, that the article was a terrible exaggeration of what actually took place. I was able to move past it only because of the certainty that Flitwick was smart enough to believe the word of his student rather than a reporter notorious for destroying reputations.

Hagrid refused to see anybody, to my dismay. It was upsetting to see such a kind soul being shot down by someone as nasty as Rita Skeeter. Audrey, Luna and I had been to his hut many times, and yet we were unsuccessful in freeing Hagrid of his self-imposed captivity. We only hoped that he would turn up to class on Monday.

Our hopes, however were instantly diminished when instead of Hagrid, an elderly witch with short, gray hair stood by Hagrid’s hut, “Hurry up now, the bell rang five minutes ago.”

“Who’re you?” Harry asked crudely.

“My name is Professor Grubby-Plank,” she answered, ignoring his tone.

“Where’s Hagrid?” I asked worriedly. A horrible fear crept into my mind that the controversy had driven him to quit.

“He is temporarily indisposed,” she replied briskly, “Enough of your questions now, this way please.”

“You don’t think he’s—” Ron began, but I cut him off.

“No,” I said firmly, “Hagrid would never do that to us.”

Everyone remained quiet as Professor Grubby-Plank led us past the padlock where the Beauxbatons horses shivered in the snow, towards a tree at the edge of the forest where a beautiful unicorn was tethered. The majestic creature shone so brightly that the snow looked dull and gray in comparison.

“Oh! It’s so beautiful!” exclaimed Lavender Brown, “They’re supposed to be incredibly difficult to catch!”

“Boys stand back! They prefer a woman’s touch, unicorns,” she barked, “Girls to the front, now, easy…”

To my great dismay, petting the unicorn did little to lift my spirits. Professor Grubby-Plank gave an excellent lesson, telling us all sorts of interesting facts about unicorns, but I found that my heart simply wasn’t in it. All the while, I was painfully aware of Hagrid’s absence. How he would have loved to show us the unicorns! Even as Professor Grubby-Plank told me the unicorn had taken a liking to me, all I could think of was that Hagrid would have applauded me for it with that proud grin on his face. Unicorns or otherwise, Hogwarts wasn’t the same without Hagrid.

“I just wish he’d talk to us,” I said to Audrey at dinner, “Surely, he doesn’t think we’d care that he’s half-giant!”

“He’d better turn up soon,” Audrey said, sounding slightly distracted, “He’s not even showing up for meals.”

“I know! It’s devastating,” I said, “At least Malfoy’s been quiet for a while. I gave him an earful the other day, you know. I don’t know why he hates Hagrid. Reckon he’ll keep his mouth shut for a while.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes widening with intrigue, “What’d you say to him?”

“You seem awfully invested whenever he’s a part of the discussion,” I noted.

“Now you’re just making stuff up.”

“The truth hurts.”

“That’s hardly the truth.”

At this junction, Fleur interjected, muttered something in French, and so Audrey was engaged in some or the other discussion with her. It was getting harder to ignore the rift forming between us once more, and this time I wondered if things would ever go back to the way they used to be.

★

A Hogsmeade weekend had been announced, but with Hagird refusing to leave his hut, nothing seemed too exciting to me anymore. Harry, Hermione, Ron, Audrey and Luna made our way together out of the castle on Saturday. Harry seemed to notice my expression of dismay and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry too much,” he said quietly, “Maybe we’ll run into him at Hogsmeade. Then we can convince him to come back.”

If it had been anyone else, I would’ve responded with plenty of skepticism, but seeing the hopeful glint in his green eyes, I let myself believe him, cracking a real smile for the first time in days.

“Thanks for saying that,” I said, “I miss him.”

“Me too. We all do.”

“I can’t believe you’re going,” Hermione said to Harry in her stern-teacher voice, “I thought you might want to take advantage of the common room being quiet. You really need to get started on figuring out that egg.”

“I reckon I’ve got a pretty good idea on what it is,” said Harry, licking his lips and staring at the ground. I knew immediately that he was lying. I bit back a laugh.

“Have you really?” she exclaimed, looking impressed, “Well done.”

Harry’s face had guilt plastered all over it. I waited until Hermione was out of earshot and then said, “You haven’t got the foggiest clue, about the egg, have you?”

Harry’s jaw fell agape, “How—”

“I know you well enough to know when you’re lying.”

“Well,” he smiled sheepishly, “I’ve still got five weeks to figure it out, which is plenty. And if we see Hagrid, we might be able to convince him to come back.”

My lips stretched into a smile. No matter what he did, he always had to sweetest intentions.

As we made our way out of the castle, we spotted Viktor Krum walk onto the deck of the Durmstrang ship. Even though he looked quite skinny, he must have been a lot tougher than he seemed, because climbed up to the side of the ship and then jumped right into the lake.

“He’s mad! It’s freezing cold!” Harry exclaimed.

“It’s a lot colder where he’s from,” stated Hermione, like she was putting in extra effort to sound cautious in front of Ron.

“There’s still the giant squid,” Ron piped in, sounding hopeful rather than concerned. Hermione caught on and furrowed her brows.

“He’s actually really nice,” said Hermione defensively, “Not at all like you’d expect, being from Durmstrang. He likes it much better here, he says.

Ron went quiet. He hadn’t mentioned Krum since the ugliness at the Ball, and I just hoped his hostility would diminish eventually. Hermione seemed to be really fond of him.

“The other day I found the head of his Viktor Krum figurine under my bed,” whispered Harry to me.

“Yikes,” I exclaimed, “Leave it up to Ron to hold a massive grudge.”

★

The Hogsmeade trip did little to calm everyone’s nerves, for even the quaint town had been poisoned with the same chaos that plagued the castle. Goblins lurked around the village, apparently searching for Mr Crouch, who was supposedly ill and had stopped going to work. When we entered Madam Rosmerta’s, Harry was immediately ambushed by Mr Bagman, who looked more grave than he ever did.

“What’d he want?” asked Ron once Harry came back.

“He offered to help me with the egg.”

“He shouldn’t be doing that,” reprimanded Hermione, “What’s the point of having impartial judges when they offer to help one of the champions.”

“You didn’t accept it, did you?” Audrey asked with suspicion.

“No,” he replied, “It didn’t feel right,”

“Plus, you’ve figured it out, haven’t you?” asked Hermione earnestly.

“Er… yeah,” said Harry doubtfully, “Nearly,”

“Liar.” I whispered, stifling a laugh.

“Shh, she’ll hear you,” he smiled, taking hold of my hand under the table.

The warmth swelling in my heart froze the second the door opened and in walked none other than Rita Skeeter. She was wearing banana-yellow robes today, her unnaturally long fingernails painted a bright pink. Harry let go of my hand slowly, glaring daggers as she made her way through the crowd, ordered, and sat down at a table alongside her photographer. She was talking rapidly, looking extremely satisfied about something,

“Didn’t seem very keen to talk to us, did they? I wonder why… It’s all rubbish, the lies they sold me. I don’t believe a single word… sightseeing! What humbug! It’s all got excellent potential, of course. I’m sure we can dig up something about jolly old Bagman easily enough…”

Everyone at our table was glaring furiously at her. Before anyone could stop him, Harry got up and shouted, “Trying to ruin someone else’s life?!”

“This can only end well,” Audrey said cynically.

Nearly everyone in the establishment turned to stare. Rita Skeeter, meanwhile, looked rather pleased, “Harry! How lovely, why don’t you join me—”

“I wouldn’t come near you with a ten-foot broomstick,” he sounded furious, “You had no right to talk about Hagrid in that way! No right! So what if you carry that ugly handbag and quick notes quill?! These are real people whose lives you’re trampling over! Don’t you see that?!”

“I think everyone deserves a right to know the truth about—”

“Bullshit!” I intervened, “You don’t give a damn about the truth. Hagrid’s not dangerous. Manipulating the facts and creating a narrative that sells papers isn’t truth! If you care about the truth, ask the people in this room. How many people here think that Hagrid is violent and dangerous?”

No one dared speak up, but simply shook their heads silently. Madam Rosmerta seemed completely unaware of the fact that the mug into which she was pouring mead was overflowing.

“See!” said Harry, “Who care’s if Hagrid’s part giant?!”

“He’s the gentlest person I know!” I exclaimed.

Our outburst had little effect on Skeeter, and she simply grinned coaxingly, “How about the two of you tell me about the Hagrid you know? The man behind the muscles? The reason behind this unliekly friendship may be that he served as a father figure for two sad orphans.”

I nearly began a second wing, but Hermione had just about had enough,

“You horrible woman,” she said through gritted teeth, “How dare you? You’d do anything for a story! Even Ludo Bagman—”

“Sit down, silly girl. I know secrets about Ludo Bagman that would make your skin crawl. Not that it needs it…” she snickered to herself.

“Come on,” said Audrey, ushering us outside with a newfound sense of urgency. She practically pushed us out of the place, the zooming sound of Skeeter’s quick notes quill quieting as the door slammed shut behind us.

“Where are we going?!” I asked as she did not stop outside Madam Rosmerta’s, but kept walking.

“Hagrid’s!”

She eventually broke into a run, the rest of us following suit. We ran all the way up the road, past the gates and through the ground to Hagrid’s cabin. Her knuckles rapped urgently on the wooden door, “Hagrid, for the last time, we don’t care that your mother was a giantess! Open the door!”

The curtains were still drawn and we could hear Fang barking inside, his nails scratching against the door.

“Hagrid! I know you’re in there, I swear to Merlin open the door before I knock it d—”

The door opened.

“Thank—” Audrey’s voice faded away, for it wasn’t Hagrid who opened the door, but Professor Dumbledore.

“A very good afternoon to you all,” he smiled pleasantly, looking downright delighted.

“We— uh, we… we wanted to visit Hagrid,” said Audrey quietly looking red with embarrassment.

“I believe that message has been conveyed, rather passionately— no, don’t apologize, come in, please.”

We sheepishly entered the hut, closing the door behind us. Fang launched himself onto Harry, barking madly and trying to lick his face. Hagrid was in a right state worse than we last saw him, to say the least. His eyes were red and swollen, and his hair had become even more disheveled, now looking like n, and his hair had become even more disheveled, now looking like a wig of tangled wire. He was sitting at the table with two large mugs of tea.

“Hi Hagrid,” I said quietly. I’d never seen him look so… deflated.

“‘Lo,” he said hoarsely.

“More tea, perhaps,” Dumbledore drew out his wand, twirled it, and in a second a tea tray appeared in mid-air along with a plate of cakes. It floated down to the table and everyone sat down a little awkwardly.

“Hagrid, did you happen to hear what Miss Rosier was shouting?” asked Dumbledore. Audrey tried, and failed to appear unbothered.

“Harry, Ron, Hermione, Miss Sinclair and Miss Rosier still seem to want to know you, judging by their enthusiastic pursuit to speak with you.”

“Of course we still want to know you!” exlcaimed Harry, “You can’t possibly think we care about what that Skeeter cow—” his eyes panned to Dumbledore and he said quietly, “Sorry, Professor.”

“I have temporarily gone deaf and haven’t any idea what you just said, Harry,” smiled Dumbledore, twiddling his thumbs and staring at the ceiling.

“Right…” said Harry, his face reddening, “I just meant, Hagrid how could you think we’d care what that woman wrote about you?”

Tears began streaming down Hagrid’s face into his tangled beard. I felt my heart shatter a little.

“This is awful, Hagrid, you can’t let her get to you!” I said, “She’s been writing awful things about so many people. It’s all rubbish.”

“This is living proof of what I’ve been telling you, Hagrid,” implored Dumbledore, “I have shown you letters from countless parents who remember you from their own days at Hogwarts and will not stand for it if you are sacked—”

“Not all of ‘em!” sniffled Hagrid, “Not all ‘em want me ter stay!”

“Really, Hagrid, if you’re aiming for universal popularity, you’re going to be holed up in this cabin for a very long time,” said Dumbledore, “Not a week has passed since I became Headmaster that I don’t get letters from parents who are dissatisfied with how I run the school. I can’t possibly hide in my office until they all suddenly develop a positive opinion about me!”

“Yeh’re not half-giant!” cried Hagrid, blowing his nose into a large handkerchief.

“None of that matters!” I insisted, “You’re still our Hagrid!”

“Please come back and teach, Hagrid, we miss you,”” pleaded Herminded Hermione.

“I refuse to accept your resignation, Hagrid,” Dumbledore stood up, “I expect to see you back at work on Monday. See you in the Great Hall for breakfast at eight thirty. Good day to you all.”

He only stopped to scratch Fang’s ears, and then left the cabin. More tears leaked down Hagrid’s face, and it took a great deal of consoling to get him to calm down.

“Can’t believe you were going to resign!” scoffed Audrey, “What a load of rubbish! That Skeeter woman’s got nothing better to do, no doubt.”

“Yeh’re right, ‘o ‘course,” he sniffled, “I’ve been stupid… Me dad woulda been ashamed of the way I been behaving! I never did show yer pictures of my ol’ dad, did I?”

Sitting around Hagrid’s table, drinking tea while looking at pictures of Hagrid and his dad and laughing at stories from his childhood gave me a much needed reminder that the Wishing Well wasn’t my only home. A part of home would always be here, at Hogwarts, with my best friends.

buni's notes: how to teleport into this scene no borax no glue

delphi's notes: rare happy moment omg

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: today

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LXI. Running Wild

❛ you know i’m such a fool for you, you’ve got me wrapped around your finger❜

♪ linger by the cranberries

❛ you know i’m such a fool for you,

you’ve got me wrapped around your finger❜

♪ linger

by the cranberries

Harry’s Perspective

The warmth of Ophelia’s hand in mine was my only source of warmth on that cold morning as we made our way to the dungeons for detention. The events of last night were as fresh as ever in my mind; I was certain that I would remember them with the same clarity even several years later. Each time I looked at Ophelia, I was transported back to that deserted hallway, without a single worry on my mind. She had a way of quieting all the chaos in my mind. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have made it through the opening dance without a nervous breakdown.

We walked in comfortable silence, and ever so often she would catch me staring and we would burst into laughter. It was so unfair that whether she was dressed up for a Ball or she was wearing everyday clothes, she managed to look so radiant. Today in particular, she was glowing in a different sort of way, and I’d like to think I had a hand in it.

“Is this it?” she asked, stopping in front of one of the Potions classroom. I shrugged, knocking at the door.

“Come in.” came Snape’s stone-cold voice.

I reluctantly let go of her hand as she pushed open the door. Snape was standing in front of the potions cabinet with his signature sneer plastered on his face. I bit back a sigh as I realized that he was about to make this as grueling as possible.

“The both of you are to complete scrubbing all the caldrons in that pile over there,” he pointed to the humongous pile of dirty pewter caldrons in one corner of the classroom, “No magic, of course.”

“No magic?!” I protested, “That’s going to take forever!”

“Well, Potter, you should have thought of that before you chose to defile the school halls. Begin.”

Ophelia and I shared a look of despair. Seeing that there was no getting out of this, she gave me a sympathetic smile and we got to work.

Scrubbing cauldrons, as we realized, was nasty work, as they had all sorts of disgusting things stuck to the pewter. I, for one, thought it was best not to inquire what they were, feeling afraid of finding out. At one instance, while reaching for the bucket of water, our hands brushed, and the both of us immediately attempted to suppress chuckles.

Snape, who had been arranging some potion ingredients, turned to observe us as we tried, and failed to go back to work with straight faces. He scoffed, annoyed, “Insufferable. Potter, move to the opposite side of the room this instant. Absolutely devoid of shame…”

Even then, it was an impossible task to keep my eyes off Ophelia, and I was glad to see it was the same for her. No matter how hard we tried to avoid it (honestly, we weren’t trying too hard to avoid it), our eyes would meet and we would inevitably begin to grin uncontrollably.

This seemed to be the tipping point for poor old Snape.

“ENOUGH!” he bellowed, “Out of my sight, both of you! OUT, I SAID!”

We didn’t have to be told twice, scurrying out the door as fast as we could, Snape’s voice echoing hollowly in the distance, “Bloody hormonal teenagers!”

We sprinted away, hand in hand, all the way up the marble staircase and out onto the grounds near Hagrid’s. At one point, we were both out of breath and rolled onto the snow, not thinking much of it. In hindsight, it turned out to be a terrible idea, for it was a lot colder than it looked. With great difficulty, we recovered from the momentary attack of frostbite.

“Who knew he would let us go that easily?” laughed Ophelia.

“Well, I can’t imagine it must be easy for that slimeball to get a date,” I retorted, recalling the insults from the Marauder’s Map and grinning, “He’s just a bitter old bully.”

“Definitely,” she smiled, then looking at Hagrid’s window, her smile dropped, “We should visit him. Hope he’s not too upset.”

I knocked on his door, “Hagrid! It’s us!”

Silence. Not a single noise in the hut.

“Hagrid, open the door! It’s only us, Harry and Ophelia!” she called out.

No one answered. I wondered if he wasn’t home. Then, a bark sounded— Fang.

“I don’t get it,” Ophelia grimaced, “Why won’t he talk to us—

The sound of footsteps and an all-too familiar chatter tore our attention away. It was Malfoy and his minions, and— surprise, surprise— they were all looking at the Daily Prophet and snickering away.

“The oaf’s going to get the sack any day now,” Malfoy was saying haughtily, “Don’t reckon even Dumbledore can weasel his way out of this one.”

Crabbe and Goyle laughed and nodded, perfectly on cue, like clowns in a circus.

When they saw us listening, it seemed to incite them further.

“Ah, Potter and Sinclair!” he sneered, “Here to see your giant friend! Can’t say there’s much hope for him now… pity.”

“Shut your trap, Malfoy,” I cursed myself for not being able to come up with a better retort.

“Why are you out here anyways?” asked Ophelia, “Don’t you have better things to do? Plot another innocent person’s demise or whatever it is you snakes have going on in the dungeons?”

I bit back a proud grin. Ophelia was typically very composed and soft-spoken, but one of her best qualities was her protectiveness over her loved ones.

“He can’t exactly be called a person, now, can he?” said Malfoy, “Can’t help but hog the limelight, can you, Potter? For all the wrong reasons, as well, no doubt. Dragging Sinclair down with you as well this time. Although, there’s not much further down you can drag her, I suppose, with that upbringing…”

Her jaw clenched, hands turning into fists at her side. She looked like she would’ve very well punched him, but took a deep breath and held back.

“Can’t seem to stay out of it yourself, can you?” she snapped sharply, “Too bad Audrey would rather jump off a cliff rather than be a part of any bright future with you.”

That seemed to quiet him, but only momentarily,

“I don’t see why it’s my fault a simple helpful gesture is being blown out of proportion by people who are starved for entertainment.”

“Can’t stand it when your own hypocrisy comes back to bite you in the ass, can you?”

Malfoy muttered something indignantly and turned to walk away, defeated.

I turned to Ophelia, unable to hide my grin.

“What?” she asked, a tinge of red dusted across her face.

“Nothing, you’re brilliant,” I took her hand and pulled her closer.

“He bugs me,” she said, placing a hand on my shoulder and smiling.

His words replayed in my mind—“Can’t help but hog the limelight, can you, Potter? For all the wrong reasons, as well, no doubt. Dragging Sinclair down with you as well this time.” She traced her fingers over the crease between my brows.

“What’s on your mind?”

I was almost tempted to say ‘nothing’ but the look of concern on her face made it impossible to lie.

“I– Do… Do you think…” I faltered, “Do you think I’m dragging you down?”

“That,” she said, “Is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard today. And I’m saying that after a conversation with Malfoy, so that’s really something.”

I chuckled— a hollow, empty sound.

“But seriously, you can’t let him get you like that,” she caressed my face with her thumb, leaving traces of her incomparable warmth on my cold skin, “I couldn’t care less about what people are saying about me. You have no idea how happy I am that I get to be your girlfriend. Screw what other people say.”

“Not as happy as I am.”

buni's notes: writing harry/ophelia content and being single is not for the weak.

delphi's notes: this is too sweet pls send help

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: saturday, july 11th

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LX. Bad For Business

❛ dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid, tendrils tucked into a woven braid growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all❜

♪ but daddy i love him by taylor swift

Vivienne’s Perspective

On Boxing Day, I awoke to see the entire castle covered in a thick blanket of snow. Breakfast was a relatively slow affair— a lot of people hadn’t even made it to breakfast, presumably tired after a long night of dancing (among other things). I’d heard a rather unsavoury rumor from Pansy Parkinson that Professor Snape was on chaperone duty, going around the castle preventing teenage pregnancies.

“Gross,” I’d commented with a scowl.

The Yule Ball had turned out to be every bit as glamorous as it was made out to be. The Great Hall had been transformed into a ballroom, with sparkling silver frost covering the walls, and mistletoe and ivy crossing the enchanted ceiling. I’d gone with some boy from Durmstang whose name I’d already forgotten by morning. I was initially the slightest bit disappointed that I would be unable to attend such a historical event, but a sliver of hope appeared when this boy very eagerly asked me to go with him. Where was the harm? And so I went.

A part of me almost wished I’d turned him down. As most boys, he seemed to be without a single functioning brain cell. The language barrier made it further impossible to have an intelligent conversation with him. So instead of having the night of a lifetime, I’d danced without even bothering with a fake smile, all the while staring over his shoulder at the other couples, who seemed to be actively mocking me by having a better time.

One in particular had held my attention for most of the evening; Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom. There was something different about them— perhaps it was their complete disregard for what others were saying about them, or perhaps it was the way her eyes shone in the candlelight or the way her crimson hair fell on her face when she laughed at something Neville said. Didn’t realize he was such a comedian. Nevertheless, after a long night of staring and sighing, I’d slipped away without attracting too much attention.

For most of the night, my mother had been occupied with monitoring Audrey with a gaze as sharp as an eagle’s, and the rest of her time taken up with talking to a number of important persons, one of whom included Rita Skeeter, which could only end well. When it came to me, she simply appreciated my choice of robes (a lilac ballgown I’d picked out), and jewellery, and then proceeded to disappear into the crowd. To those who hadn’t the pleasure of knowing my mother, it might’ve seemed cold, but it was wise to note that when it came to my mother, her brevity signified content.

I had been peacefully eating my toast when I received an over-enthusiastic nudge in my ribs from Pansy.

“Ow! What’s that for?”

“Have you read the paper today?” she asked, grinning devilishly.

I took the paper from her hand at once, and read the title,

“A night to remember, but perhaps only for some,” I read, frowning, “Don’t tell me it’s written by—”

By Rita Skeeter, it read in tiny letters below the title. I let out a sigh and continued reading.

Last night Hogwarts hosted the legendary Yule Ball, a glamorous and prestigious affair. Being an age-old tradition of the Triwizard Tournament, many believe it was not handled with the right kind of elegance. The four champions opened the dance— the first instance of discrepancy, considering that traditionally, there are supposed to be only three champions.

Later in the night, we exclusively reveal that Hogwarts champion Harry Potter, the same who is widely reputed to have defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, was caught by a Hogwarts Professor along with his date, Ophelia Sinclair in a rather compromising position in one of the castle halls late at night. It really makes us think about the values we are teaching children, and appropriate upbringing, which some do not possess the privilege of having.

Unsurprisingly, this was not the only instance of indecency in the castle that evening, and Professor Severus Snape was reportedly absent for most of the Ball making sure no accidents took place on the Hogwarts grounds.

Furthermore, One couple, seemed entirely unconcerned with the eyes of the room. Miss Audrey Rosier—daughter of the distinguished Bulgarian diplomatic attaché Evangeline Rosier; was observed in a rather intimate dance with fellow Slytherin Draco Malfoy.

The young pair appeared remarkably comfortable in one another’s company, so much so that they scarcely noticed this reporter’s camera until the flash interrupted what looked to be an intensely private conversation. Readers may judge the accompanying photograph for themselves.

Below this was a picture attached of Audrey and Malfoy, his arm wrapped far too tightly around her waist to be accidental. The picture moved fluidly, both of them apparently engaged in a conversion that made them unaware of everything around them, until the flash startled them, their heads snapping towards the photographer.

“What in Merlin’s name?” I hissed, getting up and sprinting off to the Ravenclaw table, ignoring Pansy imploring me to finish the article.

“Oh good, you’re all here,” I said, seeing Harry Potter along with his two friends. Audrey seemed to be nowhere in sight so I assumed she’d slept in.

Ophelia seemed blissfully unaware of the situation as well.

I thrust the paper into her hands, “You’re famous,” I said, “You should… skim through it. For good measure.”

As she peered over the article, Ophelia’s eyes becoming the size of potatoes as she reached the bit about her and Harry, “In a rather compromising position?!” she whispered, sounding appalled (and rightfully so), “What’s this bullshit, nothing happened—”

Harry looked as though his soul left his body.

That was when the whispering started. Heads turned and fingers pointed. As I looked toward the doors of the Great Hall, I finally understood why.

Audrey had arrived.

She looked thoroughly disheveled, as though she’d rolled straight out of bed without stopping to brush her hair.

Her eyebrows arched sharply as she surveyed the room with the irritated suspicion of an annoyed cat — a look she wore so often it was almost comforting. Then her gaze landed on me at the Ravenclaw table, and her confusion deepened.

“Well,” she muttered sleepily, “look what the cat dragged in.”

I smirked. “I could say the same about you.”

Reaching beside me, I picked up the morning paper and slid it toward her across the table. “Here,” I said lightly, unable to hide the edge of mischief in my voice. “Something to brighten your mood.”

She took the paper from my hand and began to read.

“In a rather compromising position?!”

“This is what you were doing after you disappeared?”

“I—”

“I suggest you read ahead before making any more comments.” I added before another catfight broke out.

Her expression stayed perfectly unfazed at first.

Until she reached the part about herself.

“We speculate whether young Malfoy is included in this bright future?!” she read aloud, mortified.

“Well, it’s not like you were alone either!” countered Ophelia.

“Yeah, what’s with that?” I asked, “I thought you were going alone?”

“I was, but how do you think mother would react if I said that?” she snapped, massaging her temples. Her eyes landed on the button of the page.

“There’s a PICTURE?!” Audrey exclaimed far too loudly. Several heads turned to stare, and then the whispers broke out.

“What are you clowns looking at?” I snapped, “Go find something better to do!”

“Be glad there’s no picture of me,” Ophelia sighed, her head in her hands, “Show me that for a second.”

“Why you would want to relive the embarrassment is beyond me,” Audrey said dryly before she handed the paper to Ophelia.

Ophelia’s eyes ghosted over the words, and then she absentmindedly flipped to the next page.

“Hold on,” she said, eyes widening, “There’s something about Hagrid… Dumbledore’s Giant Secret?”

She went on reading, and then whispered, “Hagrid’s half giant? How come he never told us?”

“What?!” Ron exclaimed, taking the paper, “I heard Hagrid talking about this with Madame Maxime yesterday! I didn’t think anyone else was listening… What, does this woman just hide in bushes to listen to people’s private conversations?”

“What, like you were?” countered Hermione. That seemed to shut him up.

“With Madame Maxime? Why?” Harry asked, recovering from his state of shock.

“Birds of a feather,” Ron muttered.

“They’ve described him as bloodthirsty and ferocious!” Ophelia cried, “That’s bullshit, he’s the most gentle person I know!”

“It’s just bigotry, isn’t it?” Hermione commented, “It’s like with werewolves and elves. She shouldn’t be writing any of this, it’s practically defamation! Not to mention a complete invasion of privacy.”

Roger Davies, who was getting up to leave, stopped when he spotted Audrey, and commented with a ridiculous grin, “Didn’t know you were into blondes, Rosier!”

“Defamation,” she muttered, getting up angrily, “Isn’t that right…”

“It’s not so bad,” I said, taking her seat, “Malfoy’s an alright guy.”

“You’re kidding,” Ophelia’s eyebrows shot up, “He’s a jerk! He’s fed Rita Skeeter all sorts of lies about Hagrid too! I’d pick Davies over him any day.”

Harry’s immediate grunt of jealousy was almost comical, and I almost chuckled.

“You just don’t know him,” I said quietly.

“You fancy him or something?” Ron said, gobbling up a mouthful of apple pie.

Without even realizing it, my eyes wandered to the Gryffindor table, where Ginny Weasley was seated next to none other than Neville Longbottom, both of them giggling about something, happy as clams.

“No,” I said quickly, looking away, “It’s not like that.”

As Harry and Ophelia were both getting up, presumably to go somewhere together, Hermione stopped them,

“And where exactly do you two think you’re going?”

“Detention,” replied Ophelia mournfully, “With Snape.”

“No prizes for guessing what for,” added Harry, and they were off.

The rest of the day passed without much incident.

Classes resumed as normal, though “normal” was perhaps the wrong word when nearly everyone in the castle seemed to be carrying a copy of the Daily Prophet. Everywhere I went, somebody was still dissecting Rita Skeeter’s latest masterpiece. By lunch, there were at least four different versions of what had happened between Potter and Sinclair, each more ridiculous than the last.

By the time I finished Transfiguration and made my way back toward the dungeons, I was thoroughly sick of hearing about it.

Naturally, the moment I stepped into the Slytherin common room, I found a crowd gathered around the fireplace.

At the centre of it sat Draco Malfoy.

I immediately considered leaving.

“Look who’s here,” Pansy Parkinson announced from her perch on the arm of a sofa.

Several heads turned.

Theodore Nott was holding a copy of the newspaper.

That was all I needed to know.

“No,” I said at once.

“You don’t even know what we’re talking about,” Theodore replied.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then stay.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Rosier’s own blood,” Pansy said, patting the empty seat beside her. “You’re practically a primary source.”

A groan escaped Draco.

“Oh, brilliant. Exactly what this conversation needed.”

I took a seat anyway.

The common room was unusually lively. A group of fourth-years occupied a nearby table, passing around another copy of the paper. Millicent Bulstrode was loudly insisting that Rita Skeeter ought to be banned from Hogwarts grounds entirely, while Daphne Greengrass observed everything from behind her book with mild interest.

Theodore cleared his throat dramatically.

“‘What a handsome pair they are.’”

Draco reached across the table and attempted to snatch the newspaper away.

Theodore lifted it out of reach.

“Give me that.”

“No.”

“Give me the bloody paper you prat.”

Pansy was already laughing.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” she said cheerfully. “I thought it was rather sweet.”

“It wasn’t sweet.”

“The photograph was.”

“The photograph was taken without permission.”

“Still sweet.”

Draco looked like he regretted attending the Yule Ball altogether.

Personally, I couldn’t blame him.

“Has he been like this all day?” I asked.

“Pretty much,” Blaise replied lazily from his chair.

“I have not.”

“You’ve complained about Skeeter seventeen times.”

“Because she’s insufferable.”

“Eighteen,” Blaise corrected.

Draco shot him a glare.

Blaise looked entirely unbothered.

Theodore resumed reading.

“According to an exclusive interview with Evangeline Rosier—”

“Oh, Merlin help us,” I muttered.

“reports that she envisions a bright future for her eldest daughter—”

“Here comes the best part,” Pansy said, grinning.

“—and we speculate whether the young Malfoy is included in this bright future.”

The room erupted into laughter.

Even Daphne smiled faintly.

Draco buried his face in his hands.

“I hate every single one of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Pansy said brightly. “You’re just dramatic.”

“Same thing,” Theodore added.

“I hate Skeeter.”

“That we believe,” Blaise said.

The newspaper was folded, unfolded, and stolen back again as the argument continued, the article passed around like a cursed object none of them could resist.

“If it makes you feel any better,” I said eventually,

“Audrey looked homicidal at breakfast.”

Draco looked up.

“She did?”

The question came too quickly.

I glanced at him.

“Not that it’s surprising,” I added lightly. “She nearly threw the paper across the Great Hall.”

Draco nodded once, a little too fast.

“Sounds about right.”

“Honestly,” Daphne said, not looking up from her book, “if Skeeter wrote about me, I’d hex her.”

“That was Audrey’s first suggestion.”

“Reasonable.”

“Her second involved something considerably less legal.”

“Also reasonable.”

Theodore looked impressed.

Pansy leaned back against the sofa arm, clearly delighted with herself.

“This is the most entertaining thing that’s happened all week.”

“You have a low standard for entertainment,” Draco muttered.

“And yet,” she said, smiling sweetly, “you’re still here.”

The conversation eventually drifted—the next task, homework, and various post-Ball disasters; but the article never quite left the centre of attention. It kept reappearing, like it refused to be ignored.

Eventually, I noticed Draco had placed it back on the table.

Unfolded.

Not thrown into the fire.

Just… left there.

I glanced at it once more before looking away.

By tomorrow, there would be something new for everyone to talk about.

Hopefully this time, it wouldn’t involve my sister.

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: II. The Wrong Compartment

delphi's notes: exclusive look into the slytherin common room, turns out they love to gossip as much as the rest of em

buni's notes: new pov unlocked letsgo

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LIX. Of Whispered Truths And Yuletide

❛ oh, don’t you dare look back just keep your eyes on me ❜

♪ shut up and dance by walk the moon

Ophelia’s Perspective

I was already late to the ball.

And yet here I was, in the lavatory, staring blankly at my reflection in the mirror.

The dress Juniper and I had picked out was of a silvery, powder-blue silk with two bows tied at my shoulders in black shimmery ribbons. I ran my hands over the fabric— it was then that I realized how clammy my hands were. When I’d left my dorm room, I’d been ecstatic, but a sudden epiphany had dawned on me.

Going to the Yule Ball with Harry suddenly looked like a very important milestone— because it was. Such an event felt like a defining moment in our lives. The kind I would look back on ten years down the line and reminisce. A million fears entered my mind; What if I’d chosen the wrong dress? Was it too simple? Did I look too made-up? What if he changes his mind about me? What if he thinks he made the wrong choice? Since when was I someone who obsessed over these things?

“You know,” Myrtle’s voice startled me, snapping me out of my thoughts, “I wouldn’t waste a single second worrying if I looked like that.”

“I didn’t see you there, Myrtle,” I remarked, placing a hand on my chest in a futile attempt to calm my racing heart.

“Harry’s a lucky guy to get to dance with you tonight.”

“How did you—”

“Word gets around among the Hogwarts ghosts, you know,” she chirped, floating down to my side so that I could see our reflections side-by-side.

“If you ever feel ugly, you should think about how you look next to moaning, moping, Myrtle,” she said, scorning at her face.

“You’re pretty too,” I protested. I could tell she didn’t believe me, but it was the truth.

“You don’t have to say that,” she laughed bashfully, “Now run along. Every second he spends not seeing you in that dress is time poorly spent.”

“Wow, Myrtle, I didn’t realize you were so—”

“Wise beyond my years?” she finished for me with a flourish, “Well I have been here for fifty years.”

“Thanks, Myrtle.”

“Anytime,” she said cheerfully, “Have fun! But not too much fun~”

Who knew what I needed was a pep talk from Moaning Myrtle?

★

“Miss Sinclair! There you are!” cried Professor McGonnagall, “A little punctuality would be appreciated!”

The Hall had been covered in a silver frost that seemed to sparkle, and hundreds of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossed the starry night sky. The house tables had been replaced by about a hundred smaller, lantern-lit ones that seated about a dozen people.

“Sorry,” I piped, scanning the room for Harry. He stood just behind McGonagall with his back turned. When I spoke, he turned to look at me, and I saw his eyes light up. A small gasp escaped his mouth, his eyes fixed on me. I felt my face turn fifteen different shades of red and McGonagall looked like she was suppressing a smile.

“Now, it is customary for the champions to be the first ones to dance. I hope—”

“What?!” asked Harry, sounding panicked, “I don’t—”

“Oh surely I told you that, Potter,” she said, but her expression changed when she saw the confusion on his face. “Well, you know now. Come along this way, both of you.”

“First dance? I don’t know how to dance!” exclaimed Harry as I dragged him after McGonagall, “I don’t dance, I’ve never danced in my life!”

“It’s going to be alright,” I assured him, although he didn’t seem to think so.

“Yes, Potter, listen to Miss Sinclair.”

As we stood at the entrance of the Hall waiting for the cue to start, my eyes fell upon Hermione, who looked so different from the Hermione I was used to seeing as she lugged twenty or so books in her satchel. She wore a periwinkle blue dress made of some kind of floaty fabric that looked extremely flattering on her. Her hair was sleek and shiny, twisted up in a neat knot. There was a change in the way she stood too as she smiled nervously, hand in hand with—

“Viktor Krum!” I said to Harry in attempt to distract him, “Look! His date’s Hermione! She looks incredible…”

She noticed the two of us and waved, smiling nervously. I waved back, mouthing, ‘You look great!’ to which she mouthed back a quick ‘Thank you’

“Huh?” he said, “Oh, yeah, sure. Ophelia, I can’t do this— I can’t dance in front of all these people, I’ve never—”

I took a hold of both his hands, “Harry,” I spoke softly, “Listen. Just stop panicking and listen, okay. Forget about all these people. Forget about Krum and McGonagall and all the others. Just focus on me, okay? Can you do that?”

He took a deep breath in, “Okay, I’ll… I’ll do that.”

“Good,” I smiled.

Professor McGonagall announced our names and then we were to make our way to the dance floor to begin the ball.

I noticed Audrey in the crowd, who managed to spare me a discreet wave, and the sharp-eyed woman next to her dressed in deep maroon robes could only be her mother, whom I briefly met at the World Cup. Not a woman I would like to cross. But it seems that I already had, without even knowing it. A lot of purebloods outwardly expressed their disapproval for our ‘lifestyle’ as they referred to it. In truth they were just short of calling my aunt a slur. I tried not to let it get to me, but when it was my best friend’s mother, it got more than a little complicated.

As we made our way to the middle of the dance floor, I took Harry’s hand in mine, and as I intertwined our fingers, all the fears in my mind quietened at once.

Just as the music started, Harry’s hand found my waist, and the other holding my hand. The contact still made my stomach flutter. I placed a hand on his shoulder and we began moving in a steady rhythm. I saw Harry’s eyebrows furrow as he looked at the crowd.

“Hey,” I said quietly so only he could hear me, “Eyes on me, Golden Boy.”

A small chuckle escaped his lips. His eyes met mine, softening instantly. My heartbeat quickened as I noticed the tenderness in his eyes. It almost scared me. No one had ever looked at me that way before. Like they’re afraid if they let go I might disappear. I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. But what I did know was that I felt that way about him too. And maybe for now, it was enough.

I felt his posture relax as we continued to move across the dance floor. I thought we were doing a pretty decent job, when—

“Ow.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s alright,” I smiled, “I’ll step on your foot when you aren’t expecting it so that we’ll be even.”

“Sounds good,” he laughed. I was just thankful he was no longer aware of all the eyes on us. Or maybe he was, and he didn’t care about them anymore.

After a few seconds of silence, the question escaped my lips before I had the chance to stop myself, “Are you… Harry, are you my boyfriend?”

He looked flustered, to say the least, his cheeks reddening, “I— w-what?”

“I mean, like, suppose we run into Juniper,” I said, “When I introduce you to her do I say ‘This is Harry, my boyfriend’ ?”

“I— don’t— um…”

“I’ve been thinking about it… that… that kiss in the courtyard,” I admitted, feeling giddy saying it aloud.

“Me too,” he confessed with a soft smile, “It was a great kiss.”

“Yes, it was,” my smile only grew wider, “I’m hoping it wasn’t just a one time thing.”

“I feel the same way,” he whispered, like it was too delicate to say aloud, “Do you want me to be your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” I whispered back, “More than anything. Do you want me to be your girlfriend?”

“Yes,” he answered, “More than anything.”

“I’m warming up to this whole dance thing,” I said, unable to contain my grin.

And then—

“Ow!” he exclaimed, already laughing.

“Revenge is sweet, isn’t it?”

★

Once the dance was over, and Harry and I were forced to come out of our little bubble, the entire Yule Ball affair looked a lot less glamourous. I was unable to catch a hold of Audrey, who was off dancing with some Beauxbatons boy— the work of her mother, no doubt. I suspect she hadn’t told her mother that she didn’t have a date, and had turned down Draco Malfoy. I couldn’t imagine the expression on her face when she realizes it— that is, if she does. Audrey was doing a great job fooling her mother, which I dissected from the fact that there had been no outbursts.

Ron was having a full-blown crisis due to his extremely old-fashioned dress robes. Parvati Patil— his date, was less-than-thrilled upon seeing his robes, to say the least. I believe her exact words were, “Don’t you look… dashing.”

To top it all off, he was extremely bitter about the fact that Hermione was there with Krum. Even more so because she refused to tell either him or Harry. He spent most of the ball skulking in a corner, watching Hermione and Krum with a frown plastered on his face. It was clear as day to me that he fancied her, but was too proud to tell her so. I was tempted to meddle and set them up, but seeing the expression on Ron’s face made me think it was better to stay out of it rather than get caught in the crossfire.

He was also not happy about the fact that Neville had asked his sister to the dance, and the two of them were also subject to his spiteful looks. I, however, happened to think they made a cute couple, and were the only ones on the dance floor who knew how to dance.

I had been sitting with Harry at the same table as Ron, and our conversation was quite enjoyable. In spite of that, Ron’s misery continued to dampen our spirits just when we had started to enjoy ourselves. Parvati had been whisked away by her sister Padma, and he didn’t seem to mind, especially since he was far too focused on Hermione and Krum to care.

Hermione came to us for a quick chat, and she seemed to be having the best time among all of us, “Hey! Viktor’s just gone to get us drinks!”

“Viktor!” Ron repeated mockingly, “Not asking you to call him Vicky is he?”

“What’s up with you?!” she asked, looking hurt.

“Nothing!” he sounded like a spoiled ten-year-old, “Except that you’re out there dancing with him, when you’re supposed to be supporting Hogwarts! It’s basically treason!”

“Treason?!” Hermione was appalled, as she should be, “This entire event is about magical co-operation! Besides, aren’t you the one who wanted his autograph when he arrived?! Honestly!”

“He’s obviously using you to get information about Harry!” argued Ron. Hermione scoffed.

“For your information, he hasn’t asked me once about Harry! And I don’t need you worrying about me! I can take care of myself just fine!”

“Doubt it,” mumbled Ron, crossing his arms, “He’s way too old!”

“So, that’s what you think?!” she cried, her eyes welling up.

“Yeah, that’s what I think.”

“Well you know the solution, then don’t you?!”

“What exactly is that?”

“Next time there’s a ball, pluck up the courage and ask me before somebody else does!” she yelled at him. People were now stopping to stare. “And not as a last resort!”

Something in Ron seemed to shift, “T-thats— I— That’s completely off the point!”

“Don’t you get it?!” she said angrily, “Congratulations on ruining a really great night for me! I hope you’re satisfied!”

She then stormed off towards the exit, her sobs echoing behind her. I shot Ron a dirty look, “She’s right, you know. You’ve no right to yell at her like that!”

“Oh, not you too,” he grunted, “Harry you agree with me right?”

“I… She’s got a right to be upset, after all those things you said to her,” said Harry reluctantly.

“Of course you would side with Ophelia,” Ron frowned, getting up and storming off into the crowd.

The air around us felt heavy with the aftermath of their argument.

“Hey,” began Harry, standing up, “Should we— Let’s get out of here?”

I paused, looking at the hand he was holding out, motioning for me to take hold of it. I then looked up at that smile on his face, and before I knew it, I was letting him lead us out of the Hall with our hands interlaced.

★

The hallways were completely deserted, our laughter echoing off the walls as we ran aimlessly, not really caring where we went as long as we were together. The view from one of the archways on the ground floor made me stop in my tracks.

“I’ve been dreaming of a white Christmas…” I hummed, to which Harry chuckled softly.

I held my hand out, giggling at the ticklish sensation of snowflakes melting on my palm. The snow was coming down in gentle flurries, almost like a whisper; almost like it was meant only for us. Harry gave a light tug at my hand, and when I turned away from the snow to look at him, the look of admiration in his eyes made my face feel unbelievably hot despite the temperature.

“Have I told you how wonderful you look tonight?” he asked.

“No,” I replied, and I was a little bitter about it if I was being completely honest, “You haven’t, actually.”

“Well, you do,” he said, lowering his voice, “You look… beautiful’s not enough to describe it…”

“You clean up nicely yourself,” I chuckled, biting my lip.

He let go of my hands, finding my waist, and resting his hands there, and my back hit the stone column with a soft thud. He leaned in closer, and I felt his breath warm against my face, our foreheads touching now.

“I— You— This,” he stammered, red-faced, “This feels like a dream…”

I laughed softly, feeling my heart swell because of how adorable he was. I brought my hands up to cradle his face and pressed my lips softly onto his. Fireworks seemed to go off in my stomach. That same exhilarating feeling returned to me, making it feel like nothing was impossible with my lips on his.

He pulled me closer, warmth erupting between us like a campfire on a cold night. His lips felt unbelievably soft against mine, and I felt as though I was floating. Like this, I no longer had to think. All the awkward ramblings and stolen glances didn’t matter any more. This was something entirely other-wordly; Magic in its purest form.

My hands reached up to lightly tug at his hair, and a soft gasp escaped his lips between kisses. I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Still feels like a dream, Golden Boy?”

“If you keep calling me that, soon I’m not going to be able to leave you alone for a single second,” he confessed breathlessly, as my stomach fluttered wildly.

He pressed his lips onto mine again, both of us smiling through the kiss. He pulled away slightly, planting a number of soft kisses on my jaw, and—

“How very incriminating.”

Harry and I nearly didn’t register the sharp voice before we pulled away hastily. I could practically hear the sneer in his voice. We turned to face him.

“Professor Snape!” I exclaimed nervously, running a hand through my hair in desperate attempt to appear tidy.

“We were just—” Harry began, but was cut off.

“Spare me the half-baked lie you were just about to sell to me,” he snapped, “Have you two no shame? You, Potter, having an abundance of discrepancies in your record, still have the audacity to act with such… vulgarity. And you, Miss Siclair, I expected a little maintenance of dignity from you! But you, like many others, have gone down the path of letting yourself be swept away by Potter’s pathological need for attention.”

“Professor, we—”

“Save it, Miss Sinclair,” he growled, “Detention, both of you. Tomorrow, scrubbing cauldrons with me after dinner. Or perhaps you will be scrubbing this hallway, considering that you decided to defile it on this fine evening.”

I pursed my lips, risking a glance at Harry, only to see that he was suppressing a laugh.

“We’re very sorry, Professor,” I said quickly.

“Be off, now! Insolent fools…”

We scurried as fast as we could go in those dress robes, and just when we were sure Snape was out of earshot, Harry piped in a mocking voice—

“Have you two no shame?!”

Laughter filled the halls, providing some much-needed warmth on that fine evening, as Snape called it.

buni's notes: snape is me when i see couples

delphi's notes: pay attention this chapter onwards

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: sunday, 5th july

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LVIII. Lies Of Convenience (II)

❛ this ain’t for the best my reputation’s never been worse, so❜

♪ delicate by taylor swift

Audrey’s Perspective

He moved far too swiftly for someone allegedly helping me.

The second Draco pulled me onto the dance floor, I understood with perfect clarity that my social life was over.

Wonderful.

Absolutely wonderful.

Because now, instead of being the girl who arrived alone to the Yule Ball like some tragic Victorian heroine, I was apparently the girl who had lied about arriving alone only to dramatically reveal Draco Malfoy halfway through the evening like some magician’s grand reveal.

I could practically feel the collective speculation spreading through the room already.

Oh, so that’s why Rosier kept acting strange.

Don’t they hate each other?

Was this planned?

Was it really so hard for a guillotine to appear and kill me on the spot?

Malfoy, meanwhile, looked entirely unaffected by the collective confusion radiating through the ballroom as he practically glided through the crowd.

“You’re clobbering my feet,” he complained.

“I’m being publicly humiliated, you toerag.”

“You say that like it’s unusual for Hogwarts.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

I stared at him incredulously. “Because now everyone thinks I lied.”

“You did lie.”

“Its not that simple.”

The music shifted into a slower rhythm as he guided me through the first turn.

I stepped on his shoe yet again.

Draco inhaled sharply through his nose.

“Right,” he muttered. “Forgot about this part.”

“You say that like I deceived you.”

“You omitted details.”

“I explicitly told you I couldn’t dance.”

“I assumed you meant bad.” He steadied me before I lost balance entirely.

“Not catastrophic.”

Heat crawled up my neck as my eyes locked with Ophelia while she drifted past with Harry. She looked genuinely horrified.

Honestly, I couldn’t even blame her.

From her perspective, I’d spent weeks insisting I wanted absolutely nothing to do with dates only to mysteriously end up dancing with the person I allegedly ‘rejected’ like I’d suffered a head injury on the way downstairs.

As if Ophelia’s visible horror wasn’t humiliating enough, Fleur and Davies swept past moments later in the middle of their own turn.

Both of them looked far too amused for my liking.

Fleur’s expression carried the unmistakable elegance of I told you so, Davies, meanwhile, looked outright smug.

His grin widened slightly the moment our eyes met,the look on his face suggesting he thought I’d been lying anyway.

“You’re tensing up again,” Malfoy murmured as he guided me through another turn.

I stared at him incredulously.

“No shit, Malfoy, I’m panicking.”

His expression barely changed. “You spend far too much time thinking about other people.”

“That is easy for you to say.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. You always look like you couldn’t care less what anyone thinks.”

“That’s because most people are idiots.”

I rolled my eyes, but he continued before I could reply.

“Forget they exist.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The room,” he said simply.

“Stop looking at everyone else. Stop trying to guess what they’re thinking.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, it isn’t.”

The orchestra swelled softly around us while candlelight shimmered across the ballroom floor. Draco’s hand remained steady at my waist as he guided me through another slow turn.

“Just dance,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to perform for them.”

I stared at him suspiciously. “That sounded strangely insightful.”

“Don’t make me regret it.”

Despite myself, something in my chest loosened slightly.

And annoyingly enough—dancing became easier almost immediately.

Which, frankly, felt insulting.

But the longer I tried to focus on anything except the crowd, the more the ballroom blurred into something almost manageable. The music stopped feeling like it was being performed at me and started feeling like something I could actually move with.

Almost.

I still stepped on his foot again.

Draco exhaled sharply. “That was intentional at this point.”

“Maybe it was.” I muttered repressing a chuckle.

A sudden flash of white light burst somewhere to our left.

I flinched instinctively.

Draco’s hand tightened at my waist for half a second as both of us turned toward the edge of the ballroom.

A man holding a large wizarding camera froze mid-step, the flash bulb still smoking faintly.

The moment he realized we were looking directly at him, he straightened far too quickly.

“Apologies!” he called over the music.

“Trying to get photographs of the champions.”

I frowned automatically.

That made absolutely no sense considering none of the champions were anywhere near us.

The photographer, meanwhile, looked deeply committed to pretending it made perfect sense.

My mother had seen us by now courtesy of the loud, bright flash, and she seemed fairly pleased. She was animatedly chatting with a woman who looked far too interested for my liking. The woman’s emerald-green robes glittered in perfect harmony with her bejeweled spectacles.

The photographer had already disappeared somewhere into the crowd, moving suspiciously fast for someone allegedly taking innocent ballroom photographs.

I narrowed my eyes slightly after him.

“That man was lying.”

“Probably,” Draco said easily.

“You say that like it’s normal.”

“Oh please,” He guided me through another turn without looking remotely concerned.

“Half the castle survives entirely on lies of convenience.”

“That is an alarming statement.”

“And yet accurate.”

I hated how much space that freed up in my head.

We moved in silence after that until;

“You’re quieter,” Draco said after a moment.

“I’m concentrating.”

“You’re not glaring at anyone.”

“I can still start again if you’d prefer.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

That made me glance up at him sharply.

His expression didn’t change, but his hand at my waist adjusted slightly, guiding me through the next turn with more care than before, like he’d noticed I was finally keeping up.

We moved in silence for a few beats.

Then, out of nowhere—

“You picked something simple.”

His eyes flicked briefly down toward my collarbone.

The sapphire pendant caught the candlelight as I turned, a small, steady glint against all the excessive glitter of the ballroom.

“The jewellery,” he added casually, like it meant nothing at all. “It’s… surprisingly simple.”

I frowned slightly, instinctively touching it.

I glanced down at it again. “It’s not exactly dramatic enough for you, I suppose.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he guided me through another turn—clean, controlled, like he was reasserting the rhythm he’d lost for a second.

When he finally spoke again, his tone was lighter. Almost dismissive.

“Just that I wouldn’t have expected you to wear something so… simple.”

I rolled my eyes. “You already said that.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to keep repeating it?”

“Possibly.”

“That’s weird.”

★

The orchestra finally wound down into its last sweeping note, the sound dissolving into applause and the soft scrape of chairs as the musicians took their break.

And I could’ve kissed the silence.

“Thank Merlin,” I muttered under my breath, letting the final turn settle us back into stillness.

“You look pleased.”

“I am,” I said immediately. “I get to stop pretending I know what my feet are doing.”

“You did fine.”

I gave him a flat look. “That’s not true, but I appreciate the attempt at charity.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then his expression shifted.

Not offended exactly.

Instead it was deeply, dramatically inconvenienced.

“You’re unbelievable,” he said.

I blinked. “What?”

“You asked me to help you,” he continued, voice sharpening slightly.

“I spend the entire dance physically preventing you from injuring yourself and other people, and your conclusion is that you ‘don’t know what your feet are doing’?”

I stared at him.

“…That’s what you’re upset about?”

“Obviously.”

I made a sound that was half laugh, half disbelief.

“For once, Malfoy, it wasn’t an insult to you.”

“It was adjacent to me.”

I shook my head slightly, still fighting the urge to laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re clumsy,” he shot back immediately.

“Excuse you—”

“—and stubborn,” he continued, undeterred. “And you refuse to listen until you’ve already stepped on someone.”

“I only stepped on you like five times.”

“That is five times too many.”

That did it.

I was suddenly reminded that this was, in fact, Draco Malfoy I was talking to—the same insolent, infuriatingly self-important boy I’d known for years.

He was already straightening, jaw set like I’d personally challenged his ability to function.

“I was perfectly competent,” he said again.

“Yes,” I replied, with the careful tone of someone speaking to a very fragile ego, “you were perfectly competent.”

His eyes narrowed immediately. “That pause was unnecessary.”

“I was being thorough.”

“You were being condescending.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I don’t need your approval,” he cut in.

“Good,” I said lightly. “Because you’re not getting it.”

That earned me a sharp look, but he didn’t argue further. Which, for him, practically counted as restraint.

Around us, the ballroom was shifting again—music swelling back to life, couples drifting onto the floor, the break ending as quickly as it had begun.

Perfect.

Escape window.

I exhaled, already turning my attention elsewhere. Somewhere—anywhere—I could find Ophelia, or Fleur, or literally anyone who didn’t involve this conversation continuing.

“Right,” I said, stepping back slightly. “I’m going to go—”

Except I didn’t move properly.

Because something held me back.

I paused, looking down. Then slowly up at him.

For half a second, neither of us moved.

Then his expression shifted—subtle, immediate irritation, like he’d just realised the universe had set him up.

“…Don’t,” he said flatly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“It was habitual,” he added, like that solved everything.

“Habitual,” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“From all the times you voluntarily hold hands with people you openly despise?”

He finally released my hand and stalked off into the crowd.

Shoulders rigid, expression set, disappearing between shifting robes and spinning skirts like the ballroom had simply swallowed him whole.

I decided it was better to hide, since there was a very real chance of running into my mother again.

Or Ophelia.

Or worse—both at once, armed with questions.

So I slipped away from the dance floor, weaving between trailing robes and floating laughter until I found a reasonable refuge behind one of the enormous Christmas trees.

I exhaled, pressing lightly against the cool wall behind it, letting the noise of the ballroom soften just enough to stop feeling like it was inside my skull.

My gaze drifted automatically back out over the hall.

And that was when I saw her.

Vivienne.

Near the buffet table, except she wasn’t doing what she was supposed to be doing. Her Durmstrang date stood beside her looking vaguely conversationally stranded, while Vivienne made no effort whatsoever to disguise the fact she was ignoring him.

Which, honestly, was normal enough.

What wasn’t normal was her stare. It was far too intense to be accidental.

I followed her line of sight and immediately wished I hadn’t.

Ginny Weasley?

Vivienne was watching her like she’d missed a step in a conversation that hadn’t even started yet—something sharp and focused and completely unlike the casual indifference she usually wore like armour.

Ginny, for her part, looked entirely unaware, laughing at something Neville had said, crimson hair catching the candlelight as she shifted.

Oh?

My brain, unfortunately, did what it always did under pressure: it supplied possibilities without being asked.

Blackmail? No.

Rivalry? Maybe.

Secret feud that I had somehow missed despite living in the same castle? Entirely plausible.

Or worse—some elaborate Durmstrang strategy involving emotional espionage, which honestly wouldn’t even surprise me anymore.

That was until I suddenly realised what that expression was.

Oh boy.

I chuckled to myself.

Ophelia was going to love this.

Which brought me to the question of where she was.

Though, at this point, finding her felt like a problem for future me. Present me had more immediate concerns—like the fact I was rapidly becoming under prepared for anything involving air below ‘mildly tolerable.’

So I gave up on searching and decided to head back to my dorm.

★

It sounded simple in my head.

It was not.

The moment I stepped outside, I was greeted by a wall of cold so sharp it felt personally offended by my existence.

Right.

Christmas meant snow.

Lots of it.

And unfortunately, I was dressed like I was attending an indoor summer tragedy instead of attempting a trek to the Ravenclaw Tower in what could generously be described as arctic punishment.

A sleeveless dress.

Brilliant.

Absolutely inspired.

Courtesy of my mother, who clearly believed fashion and frostbite were mutually exclusive concerns.

I pulled my arms in tightly as if that would help.

It did not.

The corridor ahead was already dusted in white, the cold seeping in through the stone like it had every intention of staying permanently. My breath fogged instantly in front of me.

“Oh, wonderful,” I muttered. “This is how it ends.”

I started walking anyway.

Because apparently survival instinct and pride were now sharing custody of my decision-making.

Each step felt slower than the last, the cold biting deeper with every passing second. The castle was quieter out here—no music, no laughter, just the faint echo of distant celebration behind walls that suddenly felt a lot less inviting.

I knew I shouldn’t have left my wand back in my room.

I glanced down at my sleeves again.

Or rather, my lack of sleeves.

“Hypothermia is not a dignified way to go,” I told myself firmly, because apparently I’d started narrating my own demise.

The corridor stretched on.

I wondered vaguely how far I’d make it before my body decided it had had enough of this nonsense and simply stopped cooperating out of spite.

My teeth were starting to chatter.

And that was when I realized something extremely important:

I was absolutely not making it to Ravenclaw Tower.

The frost didn’t ease.

If anything, it got sharper, as if the castle had noticed I was still moving and decided to escalate the situation out of principle.

My steps slowed.

My fingers were starting to lose the argument with sensation.

My breath came out in short, white bursts that disappeared too quickly to be reassuring.

Then I heard a sound behind me.

Footsteps?

Steady and Unhurried.

I turned my head slightly, squinting through the falling snow.

“…No,” I said out loud, because my brain had already recognized the shape of the problem before I had.

Malfoy appeared around the bend of the corridor behind me.

He stopped a few feet away and looked at me.

Then at the snow.

Then back at me.

“…Are you trying to inconvenience every system of logic tonight,” he asked,

“or is that accidental?”

“Greetings fellow traveller.” I offered teeth chattering.

I shifted my weight, instantly regretting it as the cold bit deeper.

“Stop staring at me like that, I was just going back to my dorm.”

“In this?”

I shrugged.

“…You’re unbelievable,” he said again.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me—” I started as I attempted to move again.

Then, abruptly, he stepped forward.

I immediately tensed. “Don’t start—”

“You’re shaking,” he cut in.

“I’m fine.”

“Oh shut it will you.”

Before I could argue, he reached out, grabbed my wrist again, and this time didn’t bother pretending it was optional.

His hand was surprisingly warm.

Or maybe I was just cold.

“Seriously,” I said weakly, “I have it under control.”

He sighed, pulling his cloak off.

I stiffened. “Absolutely not.”

“You’re going to freeze.” I pointed out.

“Unlike you I have pockets. And a wand.”

“That’s not reassuring—”

He stepped closer before I could finish, draping the cloak over my shoulders.

His movements were fast and efficient like he was furious at how necessary this was.

Then he stepped back.

The warmth settled in.

Unfairly quickly.

Then his eyes flicked over me again, taking in the sleeveless dress like it was calling him names.

“Do you have a death wish?” he asked again, quieter this time.

“No,” I said. “I have a mother with poor planning skills and opinions.”

I pulled the cloak tighter.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Snow drifted lazily through the corridor.

That was, until I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“What exactly is wrong with you?”

His brow furrowed.

“What?”

“You spent the entire evening acting irritated.”

“I was irritated.”

“You stormed off.”

“I walked away.”

“And then you conveniently appeared behind me in a raging blizzard 5 minutes later .”

His expression darkened.

“You’re making that sound dramatic.”

“Its freezing, why would anyone be out here?”

“That sounds like poor planning on your part.”

I stared at him dumbfounded.

“See, that.”

“What?”

“You do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like you’re annoyed when you’re clearly not.”

His expression went blank.

“I am annoyed.”

“Not about this.”

A pause.

The snow drifted between us.

“You’re very confident for someone who was freezing a couple minutes ago.”

“And you’re very defensive for someone who supposedly doesn’t care.”

“I don’t care.”

“Right.”

The way he said nothing after that was almost an answer.

I looked down at the cloak around my shoulders.

Then back at him.

“You know, most people who dislike someone don’t usually lend them their cloak.”

“Most people are idiots.”

“That is not a response.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

I sighed.

His gaze dropped briefly to the cloak.

Then immediately away.

“Merlin, Rosier.”

“What now?”

“For a Ravenclaw, you’re awfully stupid.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

For a second, he looked like he might actually answer.

Instead, he just looked away.

“You make everything unnecessarily difficult.”

I studied him for a moment.

“Funny.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “What?”

“You always seem to have a reason ready for everything.”

“Because there usually is one.”

“Maybe.” I glanced down at the cloak around my shoulders. “But sometimes I think you just prefer having an excuse.”

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then his face went blank again.

“Leave.”

I tilted my head.

“You know, for someone who feigns nonchalance, you’re remarkably easy to read.”

“Oh please,” he began as he moved past me;

“If you understood me, Rosier,” he continued quietly, “I’d have to start worrying.”

delphi's notes: finally, my ship's getting some action

buni's notes: big slay

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: today

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LVII. Lies Of Convenience (I)

❛ Cause the sun’s engaged to the sky, And my best friend’s found a new guy ❜

♪ falling behind by laufey

cw: LONG chapter. u might want to sit down. grab a snack, perhaps.

Audrey’s Perspective

Christmas arrived at Hogwarts with all the subtlety of a peacock draped in diamonds.

The castle glittered obnoxiously beneath enchanted frost, every banister drowning in silver garlands and everlasting icicles that refused to melt no matter how aggressively students slammed into them on their way to breakfast. Somewhere below, a suit of armour had once again begun murdering God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs in a tone so catastrophic that I was beginning to suspect Peeves had tampered with it personally.

And in the middle of all this festive horror—

My mother arrived.

I spotted her the second the great oak doors opened.

Evangeline Rosier swept into Hogwarts beside the Bulgarian Minister for Magic like she owned the castle itself, dark emerald robes trailing elegantly behind her while professors hurried forward to greet them. Students immediately began whispering.

Of course they did.

My mother attracted attention the same way thunderstorms attracted lightning.

The Bulgarian delegates followed closely behind, speaking amongst themselves in low voices while Igor Karkaroff hovered nearby with the oily enthusiasm of a man desperate to remain politically relevant.

Mother, meanwhile, looked entirely at home. Which was ironic considering how much she had complained about sending me to this school to begin with.

“Audrey,” Fleur murmured beside me at the Ravenclaw table, “your maman looks terrifying.”

“She is terrifying.”

“No,” Fleur corrected thoughtfully while watching my mother shake hands with Professor Dumbledore, “I mean professionally terrifying.”

That was unfortunately accurate.

I had apologised to Fleur for lashing out the other day and, to my surprise, she’d waved it off immediately, insisting it “was not that deep” and that there were far worse things to worry about in life.

As the Bulgarian representative within the International Confederation of Wizards, my mother had spent years mastering the art of making powerful men feel simultaneously charmed and inferior. She could dismantle someone socially with a single glance and still smile while doing it.

And now she was here.

As though sensing my stare, Mother’s eyes swept across the Hall.

The instant they landed on me, something cold settled heavily in my stomach.

There was no warmth in her expression.

Only assessment.

Approval once she noticed my posture.

Disapproval when she noticed I hadn’t touched breakfast.

Then she looked away.

Conversation resumed around me almost immediately, but my appetite had vanished completely.

By the time breakfast ended, I already felt seventeen years old and seven years old simultaneously, which was a uniquely miserable experience only Evangeline Rosier had ever managed to inspire in me.

“You are pale,” she remarked later that afternoon as we walked through the corridor outside the Great Hall.

No hello.

No it’s nice to see you.

“I attend school in Scotland,” I replied.

Mother ignored this.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“I’ve been stressed.”

“That is not an excuse to look fragile.”

Her voice remained smooth and elegant and entirely detached, the way one might comment on weather damage to an estate property.

Students moved carefully around us as we walked. Even professors seemed vaguely wary of standing too close to her for extended periods of time.

“At least your dormitory arrangement improved,” she continued. “The French girl is acceptable. A champion in the Tournament too. Most lovely.”

I blinked. “Fleur?”

“Yes. Intelligent. Well-spoken. Proper posture.” Mother glanced at me briefly. “Better influence than that Sinclair girl. Then again, I suppose the wrong sort of upbringing influences a child.”

Something in me snapped so quickly it almost startled me.

“Don’t.”

Mother’s heels clicked once against the stone floor before she slowed slightly.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t do that.”

My voice came out sharper now, stripped entirely of the careful politeness I usually forced around her.

Around us, students drifted through the corridor toward dinner, laughter echoing faintly somewhere near the staircases. None of them looked directly at us.

They never did when my mother was involved.

Mother regarded me coolly. “I made a simple observation.”

“No, you insulted my friend.”

“She is reckless, vulgar at times, and displays astonishingly little self-control—”

“She’s kind. Much more than you’ll ever be.”

The words escaped immediately. Fierce enough that even she paused.

I swallowed hard, suddenly aware of how fast my heartbeat had become.

“She’s honest,” I continued. “She says what she means. She doesn’t spend every conversation trying to dissect people like political strategy.”

Mother’s expression chilled by several degrees.

“You are being emotional.”

“And you are being cruel.”

I stared ahead at the floating candles overhead, jaw tightening.

There it was again—that awful sensation I always got around her. Like I was constantly being measured against some invisible standard no one had bothered explaining to me.

“I assume your dress robes are suitable for tonight,” she continued.

“They are robes, Mother, not diplomatic armour.”

“They serve the same purpose if worn correctly.”

I nearly laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because it was such an aggressively Evangeline Rosier thing to say that it bordered on parody.

Mother adjusted one dark green sleeve elegantly before continuing down the corridor as though we hadn’t just been seconds away from openly arguing beside a suit of armour.

“You will attend with Draco Malfoy, I assume.”

There it was.

We continued down the corridor in silence for several moments, students parting around us instinctively as though my mother carried some invisible field of authority that physically repelled people.

“You received my Howler,” she said at last.

Not a question.

I stared straight ahead. “Yes. The entire school did, actually. Very efficient delivery system.”

Mother ignored the sarcasm effortlessly.

“I trust you have not made this unnecessarily difficult for Draco,” she said at last.

My stomach tightened instantly.

Ah.

So she still thought I was attending with him.

Interesting.

Technically, I could have corrected her.

Realistically, I valued my remaining hours of peace.

“I think Draco Malfoy survives hardship remarkably well,” I replied carefully.

Mother’s gaze flickered toward me briefly.

“You joke,” she said coolly, “but the Malfoys are extending your family considerable respect.”

Right.

Because apparently arranging your seventeen-year-old son’s future like a Ministry merger counted as respect in pureblood society.

“I still can’t believe you sent me a Howler over it,” I muttered.

“You ignored my letters.”

“Most people would interpret silence as a sign someone doesn’t wish to discuss something.”

“And most people accomplish very little.”

Naturally.

We continued walking.

Students visibly moved out of Mother’s path before she even reached them. It was honestly a little impressive. She didn’t even need to threaten people. The aura alone handled it.

“You’re very calm about all this,” I said suddenly.

Mother looked ahead. “Should I be hysterical?”

“You arranged my future without asking me.”

“I introduced an opportunity.”

“You act like I’m a liability.”

“Audrey,” Mother said patiently, “you are attending a school event with a respectable boy, not signing a blood oath beneath the Ministry.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“In many ways, it is.”

“No,” I said quietly. “It’s simple for you.”

“You think I enjoy these conversations?”

I blinked.

The question startled me enough that I looked at her properly.

For one brief moment, she looked tired.

Then it vanished.

“I think,” she said smoothly, “that one day you will understand why women like us cannot afford carelessness.”

Women like us.

Again.

As though girlhood itself came attached to terms and conditions.

For a second neither of us spoke.

Then Mother reached forward suddenly, adjusting the collar of my robes with elegant fingers.

The gesture looked affectionate.

It wasn’t.

“You will attend the Ball,” she said softly, “and you will remember who you are.”

A Rosier.

The family name settled around my throat like a necklace pulled too tight.

I excused myself before the conversation could continue any further under the pretext of needing to “prepare for the evening,” which Mother accepted with the sort of gracious nod usually reserved for political adjournments.

In reality, I simply needed to escape before I said something catastrophic.

★

I figured no one would find me in the library.

No one except Roger Davies, of course.

Unfortunately, he possessed the deeply irritating habit of locating me everywhere.

I had barely settled myself into a secluded corner near the back shelves with an unnecessarily large Herbology book open before me when a familiar voice interrupted the blissful silence.

“So this is where you disappear to.”

I looked up slowly.

Davies stood at the end of the aisle in partially undone dress robes, dark hair still slightly damp as though he’d rushed down from showering. Unlike most boys preparing for tonight, he looked more amused than nervous.

“I don’t know where Fleur is, if that’s why you’re here,” I said flatly, not looking up from my book.

“I’m not looking for Fleur,” he replied far too cheerfully.

Against my better judgement, I glanced up.

Davies had already decided he was staying.

To my dismay, he dropped into the seat beside me like the concept of personal space was purely theoretical and leaned back as though he owned the library.

“So,” he said casually, “who are we hiding from?”

I hesitated half a second too long.

Then, because apparently my ability to make wise decisions had taken the evening off—

“My mother.”

“Ah,” he said immediately, like that explained the entire state of world affairs. “The Bulgarian representative?”

“Yes.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah… she seems intense.”

Then, without thinking, he added, “I think you inherited her glare.”

I looked at him slowly.

“Excuse me?”

“Not in a bad way,” he clarified quickly, lifting his hands slightly as though that would somehow save him. “Just… same energy. Like you’re constantly deciding whether someone deserves to continue speaking.”

“That is not a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant to be an insult either.”

“Relax,” he said. “I’m just observing.”

“I don’t need to be observed.”

“Everyone here is observed,” he replied lightly. “It’s Hogwarts. Social humiliation is practically extracurricular.”

Despite myself, a quiet huff of laughter escaped me before I could stop it.

Davies noticed immediately and looked unbearably pleased with himself.

“And for the record,” he added, leaning one elbow against the table, “your mother genuinely is terrifying.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“What are the others?”

I considered him briefly.

“Controlling. Politically dangerous. Emotionally repressed. Capable of ending careers with eye contact alone.”

Davies grinned. “Warm and fuzzy, then.”

“Deeply.”

He tilted his head slightly. “So you’re actually hiding from her?”

“Not hiding,” I corrected at once. “Strategically avoiding confrontation.”

“That’s hiding.”

“It’s diplomacy.”

“That’s also hiding.”

I glared at him.

He looked entirely too delighted by this.

Then, softer now, less teasing—

“Is it the Ball thing?”

My jaw tightened almost immediately. “Yes.”

A brief silence settled between us.

The library around us remained hushed except for the occasional turning page somewhere in the distance.

Then Davies asked quietly, “Are you still going alone?”

I blinked at him in genuine alarm.

How did he—?

My expression must have betrayed everything because he laughed under his breath.

“You’re not the only person capable of sneaking around Hogwarts at night, Rosier.”

Before I could respond, he continued casually, “Don’t worry. I’m not telling anyone. Not even your terrifying mother.”

“How noble of you.”

“I know, really selfless stuff.”

I rolled my eyes, but something in my chest eased anyway.

Davies stood, smoothing the sleeves of his robes.

“You’ll survive tonight,” he said lightly. “I’m sure you have a plan.”

For some reason, that affected me more than it should have.

Then he flashed me one last crooked grin.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pretend I understand formal dancing.”

And just like that, he disappeared down the aisle.

Eventually, as the winter sun began sinking behind the castle towers, I dragged myself toward the Ravenclaw common room, trying to look like someone who had merely spent a peaceful afternoon reading instead of quietly spiralling in the library.

After that interaction, everything felt unbearable—like even breathing too loudly might give me away. I already knew my mother had probably sent robes for me, Merlin knew what else, and the thought alone made the evening feel heavy before it had even begun.

By the time I reached the entrance, the bronze knocker loomed above me. Its voice rang out with familiar, infuriating calm:

“I’m not a burden, though I may feel vast—

Without me, nothing is meant to last.

What am I?”

I exhaled sharply, already too tired for philosophical harassment.

“Responsibility,” I muttered.

The door swung open immediately.

I was instantly hit by a tornado.

Or rather—Ophelia.

In contrast to me, she was already fully dressed, cheeks flushed either from excitement or blush; I genuinely couldn’t tell which. She seized my arm the second I entered and dragged me inside while firing questions at alarming speed about where I’d been and why I wasn’t ready yet.

Her cheerful energy was almost disorienting, but it loosened something tight in my chest all the same. I promised I’d explain later.

Thankfully, she didn’t press.

Ever since Harry had finally stopped being a coward and asked her to the Ball, she’d transformed into something resembling an enchanted Valentine card: bright, sparkling, and impossible to ignore.

As questionable as I found her taste in boys, I was happy for her.

Fleur and Charlotte appeared shortly afterwards, both already dressed, which only made me feel even more underprepared standing there in my uniform.

Fleur glanced at me with immediate concern.

“Two house-elves ’ave been struggling with a very large parcel for you,” she informed me delicately. “Zey left it on your bed.”

I already knew what it was without asking. I wondered how mad Hermione would be if she found out my mother was using elf labour to her absolute advantage.

Fleur’s expression softened almost imperceptibly, as though she understood more than she intended to say aloud.

“I am afraid I will need to leave early,” she added. “As a Champion, zere are obligations.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“I’ll go with you later,” Ophelia said quickly.

Then she hesitated.

A blush crept slowly across her face as she glanced away.

“Actually… I also have to leave early,” she admitted apologetically. “Champion’s date.”

The words settled awkwardly between us.

Of course.

I forced a small smile. “I’ll survive the walk downstairs alone, Ophelia. It’s only several hundred judgmental strangers.”

She winced. “Audrey—”

“I’m joking.”

Mostly.

After they left, the dormitory suddenly felt much quieter.

I slipped back into my room with reluctant resignation, closing the door behind me as though that might somehow delay whatever waited on the bed.

It didn’t.

The parcel had already been unpacked by the house-elves—carefully, almost reverently. Laid across the bed was a collection so immaculate it looked less like clothing and more like something displayed behind enchanted glass.

The dress robes caught the light immediately.

Silver that definitely wasn’t ordinary. The fabric carried the faintest blue undertone, shifting subtly whenever it moved, like moonlight across water. Sleek lines curved elegantly through the tailoring, every seam precise enough to feel intentional. It was the sort of garment designed for women who entered rooms expecting to be watched. So much for going unnoticed.

Beside it sat matching shoes: delicate, elegant, and undoubtedly impossible to run in. A velvet box rested nearby containing jewellery that shimmered softly in the candlelight.

For a long moment, I simply stood there staring at it all.

Then I reached for the robes carefully.

The fabric felt expensive in the deeply unsettling way that immediately corrected your posture without permission.

“I see she’s still committed to dramatic presentation,” I murmured under my breath.

I got dressed eventually, though the process felt less like preparing for a school dance and more like being assembled for ceremonial display.

The robes fit perfectly, naturally. My mother considered tailoring inaccuracies a personal insult.

The silver fabric fell elegantly around me, catching the candlelight whenever I moved, the faint blue undertones making it look almost liquid beneath the dormitory lamps. The sleeves draped softly at my wrists, and the fitted bodice sat with the kind of effortless precision that reminded me exactly how much money had gone into creating it.

It was beautiful.

I hated that it was beautiful.

The jewellery, however, remained untouched on the bed.

An entire collection of diamonds and enchanted pearls glittered accusingly from the velvet box, elaborate enough to make me look less like a Hogwarts student and more like someone about to negotiate a trade alliance.

Absolutely not.

Instead, I reached for the silver necklace I always wore.

The chain rested cool against my skin as I fastened it carefully around my neck, the small pendant settling neatly against my collarbone. Once it was on, something in my chest loosened slightly.

There.

The robes might have been chosen by my mother, but at least one piece of me still belonged to myself.

And honestly, the necklace looked better with the outfit anyway. The sapphire suited the cool tones of the fabric far more naturally than the aggressively aristocratic gemstone catastrophe currently sparkling on my bed.

“It suits you.”

I startled at the sound of Charlotte’s voice, having nearly forgotten she was still in the Common Room. Turning sharply, I found her leaning against the doorway with the faintest hint of amusement in her expression.

“Thanks,” I replied, smoothing an unnecessary crease from my sleeve before gesturing awkwardly toward the door. “Ready?”

The corridors beyond buzzed with distant laughter and music, and by the time we reached the entrance to the Great Hall, my nerves had wound themselves so tightly that even breathing felt deliberate.

★

The Hall itself was magnificent.

Hundreds of enchanted candles floated overhead like captured stars, their golden light spilling across long silken banners draped in the colours of the Houses. Crystal goblets glittered upon the tables, and the polished floor reflected the chandeliers so perfectly that it looked as though we were walking across light itself. Somewhere, a violin ensemble played a slow, elegant melody that swelled beneath the murmur of conversation.

For one fragile moment, I thought I might actually enjoy the evening.

If I ignored the lingering stares.

If I pretended not to notice the whispering clusters of students watching from the corners of the room, their eyes following me with thinly veiled curiosity and judgement. I kept my chin lifted anyway, determined not to let them see how uncomfortable I truly was.

The illusion shattered the moment I saw my mother gliding toward me through the crowd.

She wore a deep maroon gown that clung elegantly to her figure, the fabric catching the candlelight with every graceful step she took. Gold embroidery curled along the sleeves and neckline like delicate flames, subtle enough to remain tasteful yet impossible to ignore. Her dark hair had been swept back from her face in soft waves, exposing the sharp elegance of her features.

As she drew closer, I suddenly understood—why my father remained hopelessly in love with her after all these years.

That was until she began to speak.

“Mais pourquoi tu n’as pas mis les bijoux ? Ça aurait été tellement joli !”(Translation: Why didn’t you wear the jewelry it would have looked so pretty!)

Her gaze swept over me before narrowing slightly, as though she had just noticed something amiss.

“Where is Draco?”

I froze for half a second, suddenly aware of the predicament I had walked myself into. Charlotte had vanished the moment we entered the hall, and thanks to the lie I’d delivered so convincingly, my mother was now searching for the very date I had secretly rejected.

“He’s running late,” I answered a little too quickly, forcing my voice into something resembling calm. I could only hope he was nowhere nearby.

“How disgraceful,” she scoffed. “One would think Lucius and Narcissa would have taught him punctuality, if nothing else.”

I had hoped she would leave me alone after that, but instead she swept me away to meet the Bulgarian Minister and several Durmstrang students whom she believed were “worth knowing.”

Mother moved through the crowd with effortless confidence, introducing me as though I were some prized extension of herself rather than a person desperate to disappear into the background. The conversations blurred together — polished smiles, heavy accents, formal bows, and endless remarks about the Tournament. I answered politely where I could, though my attention kept drifting elsewhere.

Eventually, the arrival of the champions was announced, and a hush rippled through the hall. The enchanted ceiling shimmered with soft golden light while the orchestra lifted their instruments in perfect unison. A slow, elegant waltz filled the room, rich and sweeping enough to command everyone’s attention at once.

Apparently, the champions were expected to open the ball themselves with the first dance.

The crowd parted almost immediately, eager to watch. Silk robes rustled against the floor, chandeliers glittered overhead, and every eye seemed fixed upon the center of the hall. Standing stiffly at Mother’s side, I searched the room until I finally spotted Ophelia among the gathering students.

I lifted a hand in a discreet wave.

She looked every bit as nervous as Harry did beside her — shoulders tense, expression carefully composed despite the anxiety written plainly in her eyes. Still, when she noticed me, she offered a small wave in return. The gesture was brief, almost uncertain, but enough to make the knot in my chest loosen for a moment.

Then the dance began.

The champions moved awkwardly at first beneath the weight of so many watching eyes, though the orchestra carried them onward with graceful insistence. For a few fleeting minutes, the evening almost seemed beautiful. Laughter echoed around the hall, couples drifted onto the floor after the champions finished their opening turn, and conversation swelled warmly once more.

And then, somehow, everything began to go wrong.

As the music ramped up and my so-called date was nowhere in sight, Mother insisted I begin the dance with one of Beauxbatons’ boys who was apparently a distant relative but seemed to be looking far too fondly at me. Grimacing, I took his hand and let him lead me toward the dance floor.

I desperately tried to make small talk, muttering that my date should have been there by now and that there was no need for any obligation, but he either didn’t hear me or chose not to. Just as the next round was about to begin, I said more firmly,

“I really don’t think this is necessary. My date is probably here.”

He gave me a knowing look. “I don’t think you have a date. You lied to your mother, didn’t you?”

I was practically ready to leave my arm behind if it meant I could get away when I felt a hand settle on my shoulder.

“I think she made it very clear that she has a date.”

I whipped around, startled to find myself face-to-face with the last person I had expected to see.

Draco Malfoy had arrived at last.

Relief hit me first — before irritation quickly followed behind it.

The Beauxbatons boy looked between us uncertainly. “I was under the impression she was alone.”

Draco’s pale eyes flicked toward me, cool and unreadable.

“Funny,” he drawled. “I was under the impression she didn’t want a date at all.”

Heat rushed to my face.

The boy awkwardly released my hand at once, muttering something apologetic before retreating into the crowd, clearly eager to escape whatever this was becoming.

The second he disappeared, I rounded on Draco. “You’re late.”

“And you’re a liar, apparently.”

I blinked, unsure how to respond.

He tilted his head slightly, studying me with infuriating calm.

“Your mother said you were waiting for me, apparently I’m your date?” His gaze sharpened faintly.

My stomach twisted unpleasantly.

“Well,” I muttered, looking anywhere but at him, “maybe I was.”

A humorless laugh escaped him. “Right. Of course.”

For a moment neither of us spoke while the music swelled around us and couples swept across the dance floor.

He let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Well, I suppose we should make the lie convincing.”

He offered me a hand, gesturing toward the dance floor with practiced ease.

“Why would you help me out?” I asked.

“You’re not the only one expected to keep up appearances.”

I still hesitated. “I can’t dance.”

“You’re joking,” he said, brows lifting in disbelief. “Whatever happened to those mandatory childhood lessons? Did your parents not force you into them too?”

“I think it’s been long established that I don’t listen to my parents.”

For a moment, he looked like he was reconsidering every choice that had led him here. Then, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the crowd.

“We’ll figure it out.”

delphi's notes: story arc so goated it got divided into two parts

buni's notes: OMG its THE chapter

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: saturday, july 4th

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LVI. A Moron's Guide To Romance

❛ you’re so gorgeous, i can’t say anything to your face, ‘cause look at your face ❜

♪ gorgeous by taylor swift

Harry’s Perspective

I was behaving like a complete moron—no, a coward. And to be clear, cowardly and moronic behaviour has been a consistent trait of mine since I came to Hogwarts, and I have humiliated myself in front of large crowds on multiple occasions. But the one time I need to gather my courage and ask Ophelia to the Ball, my brain completely shuts down.

I mean, “What do you think of the elves?” I sounded like a complete basketcase!

And so I sat at breakfast, picking at my food, wracking my brains to find some perfect, creative way to ask her out. In my eyes, Ophelia is the one person who always says the right thing, and sees me for who I really am. If there was anyone who deserved a grand gesture, it was her.

However, looking at the way I was moving— evasively, every time an opportunity presented itself, it would be a miracle if I even managed to get the words out, much less plan a big moment.

“Mate,” Ron nudged me, “Have you asked her yet or not?”

“Ugh,” I groaned as my fork hit the plate with a clatter, “Every time she’s in front of me, I just— I just freeze. My mind goes blank. I can’t even form the words. It’s no use. If I don’t ask her soon, she’s going to hate me forever.”

“And you’ll have given her a good reason too,” Ginny piped in, sounding annoyingly cheerful.

I looked over to the Ravenclaw table, where Ophelia was now sitting next to Audrey, and was explaining something to her with great enthusiasm. It was nice to see that they were getting along, and I almost smiled; But that was before she met my gaze, and instead of smiling or waving as she normally did, she stared for a second and looked away immediately, I buried my face in my hands, “I’m screwed.”

“See, this is what happens when your heart is involved,” Ron said, “It all comes out in moron.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Hey Ron,” Fred called out, “Can we borrow Pigwidgeon?”

“Why?” Ron asked suspiciously.

“Because we want to take him to the ball,” answered George.

“We want to deliver a letter, you prat,” finished Fred, “Where is he?”

“He’s off delivering a letter,” Ron informed them.

“We’ll just have to use a school owl, then,” remarked George, “Better get a move on.”

“Who do you two keep writing to anyway?” Ron asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Keep your nose out of it, will ya? It might be a bit much for your pea brain to comprehend,” said Fred, “So, you two got dates to the ball yet?”

I let out a long sigh, “That, I can’t even talk about.”

“Why are you so worried, aren’t you and Ophelia basically together?” questioned George.

“Basically, we haven’t actually discussed what we are,” I confessed, cursing at my past self for not clearing it up, “So, now, we’re not really friends, not really dating, but something in between. It’s killing me. Every time she’s in front of me I just stumble over my words and say things like ‘What do you think of the elves?’ It’s pathetic.”

“You’re insane. So many guys would kill to be in your position. I mean, what are the odds of a girl you like liking you back? I’d say slim. You’re one lucky chap, Harry, don’t blow it,” advised George.

“What about you, Ron?” Fred asked him.

“Nope.”

“Well you better hurry up, mate, or all the good ones will already have dates,” said Fred.

“Who’re you going with, then?” challenged Ron, sounding as though he knew surely that Fred was lying.

“Angelina,” replied Fred promptly.

“And does Angelina know about this?” Ginny asked, snickering behind a napkin.

“Hasn’t anyone told you not to butt in when the adults are talking?” said George.

“You’re not funny at all,” Ginny deadpanned.

“I think Peeves would disagree,” Fred countered.

“I’ll ask you again— does Angelina know she’s going with you?”

“Good point,” said Fred. He then called out, “Oi, Angelina!”

“What?” she replied, looking as though she was trying to appear annoyed.

“Want to come to the ball with me?”

Alicia Spinnet, who had been talking to her began to giggle furiously. Angelina failed to suppress a grin, “Fine. I’ll go to the ball with you.” And she carried on chatting, the smile never leaving her face.

“Piece of cake,” boasted Fred. He and George got up and began walking towards the door, but not before patting me on the back and saying, “Come on mate, go get her.”

If only it were that easy.

★

I made up my mind to try and ask Ophelia after Care Of Magical Creatures. It was her favourite class, which I knew because of the way her eyes lit up every time she talked about magical creatures. However, today’s lesson turned out to be extremely boring. It was the last lesson of the semester, and we spent it preparing a fresh selection of food to tempt the skrewts with. I suppose it was a relief that Hagrid had given up on trying to tame the blasted creatures.

But Blast-Ended-Skrewts were the last thing on my mind, and my leg shook like an earthquake the whole time as I sat next to Ophelia. She was evidently freezing me out, and I didn’t exactly blame her. From her point of view, it looked like I led her on— all because I couldn’t muster the courage to ask her out.

No one was really interested in the lesson, and most of the people were talking excitedly about the Ball, which made the silence between Ophelia and I extra awkward. Thankfully, halfway through the lecture Hagrid came to tell us about his interview with Rita Skeeter, which incited even more anxiety in me.

“She didn’ seem very interested in magical creatures to tell yer the truth,” said Hagrid obliviously, “She only wanted ter talk ‘bout you, Harry! So, I told ‘er I’ve been friends with you ever since I picked you up from the Durselys. She was asking me if yer ever gave me any trouble, and I said not at all! Didn’ seem happy at that. Yer’d think she wanted me ter say yer were horrible!”

“Of course she did,” Audrey commented, careful to focus on shelling the salamander eggs.

“She can’t keep writing about how you’re a tragic little hero, can she?” Hermione said scornfully, “It’ll get redundant. She needs a new angle. The little snake.”

“Yeah, she was hoping you’d say Harry’s a mad delinquent and can’t stop himself from getting into trouble!” Ron added rather helpfully.

“But he’s not!” said Hagrid innocently.

“If she wanted to get some dirt on me, she should’ve interviewed Snape,” I said, knowing that Hagrid was one of the sweetest people ever, and he always saw the best in people. “Snape would have no trouble talking shit about me any day. ‘Potter has been crossing lines ever since he got into this school…’ Once you get him started, it’s nearly impossible to find the off switch.”

“Said that, did ‘e?” asked Hagrid while Ron and Hermione laughed, “Well, yeh might ‘ave broken a few rules, Harry, but yer all right, really, aren’t ya?”

“Cheers, Hagrid,” I grinned, glad that someone was on my side. The Potter Stinks badges had reduced significantly, but didn’t seem to be going out of fashion any time soon.

“Anyhow, enuf of ‘er,” Hagrid said enthusiastically, “Have y’all got dates for the ball?”

Audrey snorted, sending one of the salamander eggs rolling off the table and hitting the floor with a splatter. Ophelia simply grunted, slicing the dragon liver with a kind of aggressiveness that was frightening.

I cleared my throat, “Er… not… not yet…”

“Me either,” sighed Ron.

Hermione was being very tight-lipped about it.

“I think it’s stupid,” Audrey chimed in helpfully, “Not to mention completely archaic. Let people go alone. Who cares? It’s so… nauseating.”

Hagrid seemed to notice I had something on my mind, and pulled me aside, “What’s the matter, ‘arry?” he asked, “Trouble in paradise?”

“Sort of,” I answered, “I want to ask her… but I just… I just blank every time she’s in front of me. It’s stupid, I know—”

“Nonsense!” he exclaimed in a hushed voice, “It’s ‘cause yeh like ‘er! Chin up, Harry! You’ll find the righ’ moment.”

“Thanks, Hagrid,” I smiled, hoping that he was right.

On our way back to the castle, I attempted to approach her.

“Ophelia?”

“Hmmm?” she looked at me with those big brown eyes through her lashes. Oh no… My heart was doing the somersault thing again.

“Oh, um… uhhh,” I mumbled stupidly, “So, you know… about the… Ball?”

“Oh, no, I hadn’t heard,” she said with a sarcastic smile.

I chuckled, trying to cover up the rapid pounding of my heartbeat. A beat of silence passed. Then another. Then—

“I’m going to be late,” she said.

“What?”

“For Divination.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, as she went up a moving staircase, leaving me feeling more moronic than ever. I was starting to think that tackling another dragon was more doable than asking a girl I liked to go out with me.

★

Next in my list of epic fails was after dinner, outside the Great Hall.

“Hey, Ophelia,” I began.

She turned to look at me, looking impossibly perfect. What was I to do?

“What?” she said a bit sharply.

“Oh, umm…” I stuttered, “Well, I was wondering… if… if you… if you’ve… heard that the Weird Sisters are going to perform at the Ball?”

“Yes,” she answered, trying to mask her disappointment, “Juniper’s a fan.”

“Sounds fun,” I muttered, “I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” she answered with a forced smile.

Another perfectly good opportunity gone.

★

I entered the common room feeling as defeated as ever. At this rate it felt like Ophelia would be better off going to the Ball with someone who actually had the guts to say the words and ask her out. Ron, however, somehow seemed to be in a worse fix than me. I found him looking as pale as a ghost, sitting between Ginny and Hermione.

“What’s wrong with him?” I questioned.

“He just asked Fleur Delacour to the ball,” Ginny informed, looking at Ron with her eyebrows furrowed, “Idiot…”

“I don’t know what made me do it,” he said with despair, “She’s not an ordinary girl, I’m telling you! I just saw her… and the words just slipped out!”

“He sort of screamed at her, actually,” Hermione said, trying to suppress a laugh, “Scared her, too. She was with Audrey and Ron just… asked her.”

“She’s part Veela— Fleur is,” I told him, “Her grandmother was one. What’d she say when you asked her?”

“She was very nice about it, actually,” Ginny recounted.

“Said she’s going with Roger Davies,” Ron answered sadly.

“Roger Davies… I always thought he fancied Audrey,” Hermione pondered.

“Really? I never noticed…” I remarked.

“You boys don’t see anything, do you?” Ginny sneered.

“He’s too busy staring at Audrey’s best friend to pay attention to anything else,” Hermione told Ginny. Then, turning to me, she asked, “Have you asked her yet or not?”

I sighed, falling back onto the couch dramatically, “I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m a coward.”

“Damn right, you are,” Ginny said, which was incredibly useful .

“Honestly, if you don’t ask her soon she’ll go with someone else,” Hermione pressed.

“You think I don’t know that?!”

“Wait a second,” Ron seemed to be having some sort of epiphany, “Hermione, you’re a girl! You can go with me!”

“How nice of you to notice,” she scoffed, “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“Just because it’s taken you four years to realize it doesn’t mean no one else has!” and with that she got up and stormed away. Ginny moved to follow her, looking rather disgusted.

“Ginny, wait!” Ron called out, “She’s not really going with someone else, is it?”

“She is.”

“Who?!”

“It’s none of your business, is it?!”

★

Sleep was impossible. Visions flashed in my mind. Ophelia dancing at the ball with some Beauxbatons boy. It was infuriating— even though it was all in my head. Why was I being such an idiot? At some point, the closed-ness of the four-poster bedroom started to feel suffocating, and I decided to go out for a bit and clear my head.

The hallways were so quiet and peaceful at night— unlike all the noise in my brain. I spent a good fifteen minutes roaming aimlessly when I reached the pathway to Hagrid’s hut. A little down the path, I spotted none other than Ophelia sitting on the grass, hugging her knees, staring at the starry night sky.

It felt like providence. A divine sign from the heavens. I made my way to her, not really having a plan this time, only knowing that I wanted to be next to her.

“Hello, stranger,” she said through a playful smile, before even looking at me, “I heard your footsteps.”

“Hi…” I had only just realized how cold it really was when I sat down on the grass next to her, “How are you not freezing?”

“I am,” she laughed, “But it feels kind of nice.”

I laughed, finding it to be just another of her odd-yet-adorable traits. That comfortable silence had returned, and I much preferred it to the awkwardness from earlier that day.

“It’s nights like these when I think of my parents the most,” Ophelia said out of the blue, keeping her eyes fixed on the sky, “My mom was keen on Astronomy. Juniper showed me some of the star charts she used to draw.”

“It must be so nice to have Juniper tell you all these stories about your parents,” I sighed.

“I bet Sirius can tell you a bunch about James and Lily,” she told me, “Remus too. Juniper was also friends with them. I can ask her to get in touch with you.”

“Really?” I asked. She turned to me, nodding. “Thanks, that’d be amazing.”

After a few minutes, I asked, “So, have you been checking up on Professor Lupin?”

“Yeah, I have,” she replied, “He’s having trouble finding a job, so I asked him if he wanted to work at Juniper’s store. It took a lot of convincing to get him to take it— you know how Remus is, but I could tell he really needed the money, and I finally got him to cave.” She gave a proud smile, and I couldn’t help but grin too.

“Remus?” I repeated teasingly, “You two seem to be getting closer.”

“Yeah, he’s the sweetest person,” she said, “It’s nice to have someone to talk to and check up on. He definitely feels like a kindred spirit.”

I watched her intently as he stared at the stars, her lips tugging at a smile as the chilly winter air blew through her hair. I’d never seen her look so content. It was beautiful.

“So pretty,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” I breathed, unable to tear my eyes away from her.

She turned to me, breath catching for a second before her face softened into a smile. My hand subconsciously moved to intertwine with hers on the damp grass.

After a few seconds of quiet, she asked, “Are you ever going to ask me out?”

I felt my face heat up, and I stuttered out something incomprehensible.

“Hmmm?”

“I have… I have thought of asking you out several times,” I said, very aware of how red my face must have been, “But you’re so… perfect and I like you so much that whenever I see you I can’t think clearly anymore.”

“You… like me?” she asked. I scoffed. She had to be kidding…

“Of course I like you!” I exclaimed, “Why would I kiss you if I didn’t?”

“Well…” I noticed the pink dusted across her cheeks, “For the record, I like you so much that you don’t even have to ask me out. My answer is yes. Yes, I’ll go to the ball with you. The answer will always be yes.”

buni's notes: theyre so cute im starting to hate them

delphi's notes: harry needs to lock in

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: today

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LV. Everlasting Icicles And Never-Ending Feuds

❛ i don’t give a damn ‘bout my reputation livin’ in the past, it’s a new generation❜

♪ bad reputaton by joan jett and the blackhearts

Audrey’s Perspective

Christmas at Hogwarts was turning out to be a nauseating affair this year, and yes, believe it or not, more nauseating than usual. First there was this— ridiculous wasn’t a strong enough word to describe it— Yule Ball nonsense that they were bringing back from some age-old archives of Triwizarding Traditions that would have been better off staying buried.

The entire school, or I should say schools, was absolutely mad with excitement for the occasion, and it seemed that only I saw it for what it was, which was nothing more than an elaborate mating ritual, designed to propagate the idea that a woman’s life is incomplete without the presence of a mediocre man whose surname she would one day adopt. Or perhaps I was simply projecting.

I still hadn’t written back to my mother, and her letter lay pressed against the pages of my Arithmancy textbook. I had no plans of answering it in the near foreseeable future. The thought that this was my mother’s idea of a practical joke had occurred to me, but I eliminated the possibility when I remembered that my mother wasn’t exactly accustomed to browsing through Zonko’s, arm in arm with the Weasley twins. She probably despised the Weasley’s, just like the rest of the pureblood families.

Anyhow, when the Christmas decorations went up, they were more elaborate than I’d ever seen, bordering on the obnoxious as they all screamed ‘Look at me!’ Everlasting icicles hung from the banisters of the marble staircases, and the Great Hall had its usual twelve Christmas trees (which still felt excessive and unnecessary according to me). Except, this time, they had doubled the number of ornaments, which ranged from luminous holly berries to live, hooting, golden owls. To conclude the madness, the suits of armour had been bewitched to sing carols every time someone would pass by them, and I had made it a point to walk as far from them as possible, because if I heard another poorly memorized rendition of ‘Deck the Halls’ I was afraid blood might start pouring out of my ears out of sheer protest.

As the other students tripped over their words and scrambled to ‘score’ dates for the Ball, most of my time was spent reading in the library next to Fleur, while she pretended to browse the shelves while keeping a close eye on whoever was watching her (which was usually a whole crowd of people).

“It iz verry important to let zem know you are available but do not make yourself too accessible,” she would tell me, “Zese boys they love to chase you, comprende?”

I strongly felt that she could have used that shrewd calculative nature into doing something more productive, but it was unlike Fleur to pay any heed to that. However fruitless the pursuit seemed to me, one day Roger Davies did come and ask her out in his usual effortlessly charming fashion, and so I could go back to studying in the common room, where I had the privilege of not hearing two seventeen-year-olds doing unspeakable things in the restricted section. Winter time meant the Hogwarts couples had become twice as annoying, and keeping my gaze fixed on my shoes was the best way to avoid scorning at their flushed faces.

Ophelia was surprisingly seen spending most of her time alone, and to my dismay, we barely spoke when our paths did cross. I assumed she would be stuck to Harry’s side since they kissed but I suppose it was my fault for putting my faith in the communication skills of two lovestruck fourteen-year-olds.

I was enjoying my immunity to the mad pursuit of dates, when one day at breakfast, a ghastly wake up call arrived in the form of a letter from my mother. Ophelia looked too busy staring at the Gryffindor table longingly and picking at her food to notice the color draining from my face as the family owl approached me carrying what seemed to be a scarlet envelope.

My knife and fork hit the plate with a clatter as I shot up from my seat, attempting to grab the envelope and run away. Ophelia finally looked my way shooting me a judgemental stare which, I didn’t have time to deal with right at this moment.

I was well aware what this was, given the fact that Ron had received one of these in our second year. To think my mother was this desperate to talk to me, both amused and disgusted me at the same time.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t swift enough to preserve my dignity. I was only halfway across the Ravenclaw table; still too far from the exit as the Howler ripped open. The paper curved to form lips and the heartfelt words my mother wanted to share with me spilled out loud enough for the whole hall to hear.

Audrey Rosier,

Do not think that your ignorance has gone unnoticed. I am not surprised at your unwillingness to carry out the task at hand, but rather at your inability to follow simple instructions. I recall making it quite clear that affection or anything of the sort was unnecessary. I hardly think there is a scarcity of eligible bachelors at Hogwarts, and yet there has been no response from you. It would be prudent to note that my patience is running low, and that it would be unwise to test it any further.

I expect the teachers have informed you about the Yule Ball, which will be taking place on Christmas Day. It is the perfect opportunity for you to attend with a respectable suitor and uphold the honour of the Rosier family. I will be in attendance as well, along with the Bulgarian representative in the International Confederation of Wizards. I shall be staying at Hogwarts until the second task is complete, and so we shall be seeing much more of each other. I look forward to spending some quality time with you upon my arrival. We have many things to discuss, after all.

“Great,” I muttered, still attempting to drag the letter out of the hall,

“Just what I needed. Quality time with maman chérie.”

More inquisitive stares followed my struggle across the hall. The howler boomed on;

Seeing your lack of effort, your father and I have spoken to one of the families we thought would be suitable for you to marry into. They have a son in your year, which will make things quite convenient. Our families have come to an agreement that the two of you will be a good match. They have spoken to their son, and he is willing to cooperate. I am now asking you to do the same. I once again implore you that this is not a suggestion, and it is imperative that you comply. He will be asking you to the Ball, so keep an eye out for Draco Malfoy. You know him well enough, the Malfoy’s were with us at the World Cup.

“WHAT?!” I screeched, grabbing the paper like it had just cursed my bloodline (Then again—). Any remaining conversations that might’ve been ongoing in the Great Hall came to a screeching halt as every human, maybe even ghost, head turned to look at me. Even the teachers looked taken aback— especially Professor Flitwick, who looked absolutely mortified.

“Miss Rosier! Please maintain some decorum!” he reprimanded.

Muttering an apology, I crumpled the cruel piece of parchment in my fist so tightly that the edges bit into my palm. My face burned with humiliation as whispers erupted across the Hall like a swarm of agitated bees. Of course they were staring. Why wouldn’t they? Nothing entertained Hogwarts students more than public ruin before nine in the morning.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”(“What’s going on?” ) Fleur asked, sauntering over. Her silver brows knit together as she took in my expression.

“You look like you have just witnessed a murder.”

Words seemed to fail me. Of all the people, of all the purebloods in Hogwarts, my parents had chosen the singular douchebag that was Draco Malfoy to be my prospective husband. Such a rotten fate must have been bestowed upon very few people as unfortunate as me. To top it all off, she was coming personally to make sure that I was behaving according to their plans.

Fleur’s eyes flickered from my face to the mangled remains of the Howler in my hand.

“A Howler?” she guessed immediately, sounding far more intrigued than sympathetic.

I let out a humourless laugh.

“Unfortunately.”

“From your maman?”

“Unfortunately.”

“And?” Fleur pressed, lowering her voice slightly as curious students nearby attempted and failed not to eavesdrop. “What terrible crime have you committed zis time?”

I stared at her blankly for a moment before thrusting the parchment into her hands.

“Read it yourself.”

Fleur unfolded the crumpled paper delicately, smoothing out the wrinkles with elegant fingers. Her expression shifted gradually as her eyes skimmed over the surviving portions of the letter.

First curiosity.

Then disbelief.

“Draco Malfoy?”

Several heads nearby perked up instantly at the name.

I snatched the parchment back before she could announce the rest to the entire school a second time.

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Apparently my parents have decided that chaining me to the Malfoy bloodline would somehow improve the family legacy.”

Fleur blinked once.

Then, to my absolute outrage, she burst into laughter.

Bright, musical, completely unrestrained laughter that echoed through the Entrance Hall while I stood there contemplating homicide.

“You think this is funny?” I hissed.

“I am sorry,” Fleur gasped, very obviously not sorry in the slightest. “But you and Draco Malfoy—”

“There is no me and Draco Malfoy.”

“Your maman seems to disagree.”

I groaned and dragged a hand down my face.

Around us, the whispers had only grown louder.

“Did she say Malfoy?”

“Merlin, imagine those two together—”

“I thought Parkinson fancied him—”

Fleur’s grin only widened.

“Oh no,” she said, recovering slightly. “Zis iz too good.”

“It is a tragedy.”

“It iz entertaining.”

“You’re a terrible person.”

“Perhaps,” Fleur admitted shamelessly, still grinning. “But who exactly iz Draco Malfoy?”

I stared at her.

“You’ve seen him before.”

“I do not pay attention to every pale English boy in zis castle,” she replied dismissively. “Which one iz he?”

Unfortunately, there was no escaping this.

With all the dignity of a condemned prisoner approaching execution, I lifted my hand and pointed toward the Slytherin table.

“There.”

Draco was seated halfway down the table beside Crabbe and Goyle, dressed in perfectly neat black robes as though he hadn’t just become the source of my public humiliation. Pansy Parkinson was speaking animatedly beside him, though he seemed only half-listening.

Because he was already looking at me.

My stomach dropped violently.

For one horrible moment, the noise of the Great Hall seemed to dissolve entirely.

His grey eyes widened slightly in realization the instant he noticed Fleur staring between us. A faint flush crept up the tips of his ears, almost hidden beneath his pale hair. He looked away quickly, but not before I caught the unmistakable flicker of discomfort crossing his face.

Beside me, Fleur went very still.

Then slowly, very slowly, she turned back toward me with an expression of utter disbelief.

“Oh,” she said.

I already hated that tone.

“Oh?” I repeated warily.

Fleur’s lips twitched.

“Your parents arranged for you to marry zat boy?”

“Yes.”

“That is an alarming response.”

Fleur didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she looked back toward the Slytherin table again, studying Draco with narrowed eyes as though reassessing an unexpectedly complicated equation.

There was a brief silence.

Then Fleur’s brows lifted slightly.

“Well,” she admitted carefully, “your maman could have done worse.”

I stared at her in betrayal.

“You cannot possibly be serious.”

“I am serious,” Fleur replied with far too much composure. “He iz rich, respectable, pureblood, reasonably attractive—”

“Reasonably?”

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, glancing back toward Draco again. “In a very cold sort of way. Like an expensive decorative knife.”

“That may be the worst description of a human being I have ever heard.”

“But not inaccurate.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Which irritated me even more.

Fleur continued, entirely undeterred by my glare.

“And he already knows how to behave in society. Most pureblood boys your age act like starving dogs whenever a pretty girl speaks to zem.”

“That is not exactly a glowing recommendation.”

“No, but it iz practical.” Her lips twitched faintly. “Your mother is thinking politically.”

“My mother is thinking psychotically.”

“Same thing for many pureblood families, no?”

I hated how casually correct she sounded.

With immense reluctance, my eyes drifted toward the Slytherin table again.

Draco sat stiffly while Pansy whispered something sharply into his ear. He looked profoundly uncomfortable with the attention surrounding him, though he still carried himself with that polished composure that seemed ingrained from birth.

And annoyingly—horrifyingly, I understood exactly what Fleur meant.

Draco was many things; Arrogant, insufferable and dramatic beyond reason.

But he did fit perfectly into the sort of future my parents envisioned.

Which somehow made the situation worse rather than better.

Beside me, Fleur noticed my expression changing.

A slow smile spread across her face.

“Don’t.”

“You are thinking about it.”

“I am absolutely not.”

“You are,” Fleur sang lightly. “You are imagining yourself marrying Draco Malfoy.”

“I would rather ingest poison.”

Fleur raised a brow. “Yes?”

I shook my head slowly, like I couldn’t decide whether to be offended or impressed.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“You are not doing that,” I said, voice flattening. “You are not softening this into some sensible, political, ‘your-mother-might-have-a-point’ situation.”

“I did not say—”

“You absolutely did,” I cut in. “You basically looked at him, nodded, and went hm yes, acceptable breeding arrangement.”

Before Fleur could open her mouth to argue any further, I heard a voice tearing through the crowd of eavesdropping students, “Excuse me, coming through!” came Ophelia’s voice, “Ugh, move your asses! Honestly! Do none of you have anything better to do?”

I couldn’t be any more glad to hear her voice, and for a moment it seemed the time we had spent barely speaking to each other vanished into thin air.

“Hey Fleur, sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak to Audrey,” she said hurriedly, already pulling me away.

“But ve vere speaking—”

“I don’t care!”

She dragged me by my arm up the stairs and into an empty classroom and closed the door behind her. I let out a long sigh of relief, unclenching the fist in which I held the crumpled howler.

“You should wear armour and carry a sword when you do that.”

She chuckled, “You’re welcome.”

“I can’t believe her,” I groaned, “You know, my mother’s done said questionable things before, but this one— this one takes the cake!”

“Show me that letter,” she picked up the crumpled letter from the ground and began reading.

“Why do you care?” I asked before I could stop myself. Sometimes I really wish I had a time-turner so I could unsay all the moronic things I’ve blurted out before thinking.

She blinked, looking a bit taken aback. Then, after a few seconds of silence—

“Of course I care,” she said softly, “I’ll always care.”

As she began reading, her eyebrows shot up, “No response? You mean there’s been another vaguely threatening letter like this?”

“Yeah,” I said, recalling the first letter with far too much clarity, “I never thought I’d be saying this, but I liked the old one much better. At least it didn’t involve publicly humiliating me before noon.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked with furrowed brows.

“You were too busy mooning over Harry to pay any attention to my problems,” I intended to be a joking remark, but was surprised at how hurt I sounded.

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t been avoiding me since the summer,” she accused. I scoffed.

“When did I—”

“You barely wrote like two letters!” she pointed out, “And when I asked you why you muttered something about Paris.”

“Ah yes, Paris,” I recalled. Now that I was thinking about it, it didn’t make any sense that I hadn’t told Ophelia about any of it. Maybe my Mother’s brainwashing was finally getting to me.

“Paris was yet another feather in the ‘vaguely threatening’ category,” I explained briefly, “It was less of a vacation and more of a this is going to be your future and we don’t really care if you like it or not kind of a thing.”

“That sounds… intense.”

“It was.”

She turned her attention back to the letter, and by the time she reached the end of it, it seemed like her eyes would pop out of their sockets.

“So let me get this straight,” she began, “She wants you to go to the Yule Ball with Malfoy, and eventually…”

“Marry him,” I finished, feeling a sense of dread.

She raised her hands into the air in defeat and the letter fell to the floor once more. She began pacing back and forth in the classroom, biting her lip hard with her eyebrows scrunched in concentration.

“Does she have an appetite for practical jokes?” she tried,

“If she did, she would have starved by now,” I answered dryly, “There’s no reasoning my way out of this. And to top it all off she’ll be here in the flesh to witness it.”

“Great,” she snarked, “Now what will we do?”

“Nothing,” I sighed, “It’s my battle to fight. Thanks for swooping in and saving me earlier. The whole ‘knight in shining armour’ bit works for you— unless of course you start singing out-of-tune carols. Then I might begin to resent you a little.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” she smiled— the first real one she’d given me in far too long, “What are friends for?”

★

That night I discovered why Ophelia was so prone to sneaking out in the middle of the night. The castle was so much more quieter in the nighttime after everyone was tucked soundly in their beds. With no judgemental stares from nosy students and no gossip being whispered into ears at every turning, it was not as suffocating to roam the halls. Another bonus was that you could hardly see the over-the-top Christmas decor in the candlelight.

What I didn’t understand, however, was how she managed to stay calm amidst the constant fear of getting caught. Ever rustle of a leaf, every gust of wind seemed suspicious. But I felt that my senses had been heightened since the howler from my mother.

I found that my footsteps seemed to take me towards the astronomy tower. I’d always been curious as to how it might appear at nighttime. I was surprised to find the door unlocked. I made my way up the ladder and to the landing where our classes usually took place— completely deserted, from which I could see the moon shining high in the night sky, flanked with a number of stars surrounding it. I always thought the moon was such an impressive thing, standing out brightly amongst billions of stars that appeared alike.

The sky might have ruled the day, but by nightfall, the moon commanded attention like she was entitled to it. And perhaps she was. How I would kill to have such certainty in life.

I began going over the events of today— each more unexpected than the next. First, the howler, then Fleur’s lack of apprehension to Malfoy, and then having a pleasant conversation with Ophelia.

If someone were to ask me which one I expected the least, it would be the conversation with Ophelia. Over the past few weeks, the fear that our friendship had been damaged for good had clouded my mind. And it terrified me more than I’d care to admit.

“It really does all come crashing down on you on a random day,” I muttered into the quiet of the night.

What I really wasn’t expecting was that a reply would come out of the shadows,

“I really didn’t take you for the rule-breaking sort.”

I hated how fast I recognized the voice.

I turned away from the railing, only to see Draco Malfoy walking in my direction with unbelievable poise. I cleared my throat— mostly to suppress the sound of my racing heartbeat.

“You aren’t exactly the stay-out-past-curfew kind of guy either,” I countered.

“Oh yeah?” he took a step closer and leaned only slightly closer, “What kind of guy am I then?”

For the first few seconds, my mind went completely blank, only focusing on the proximity of my face to his. When I came to my senses I took a step back from him and countered,

“The kind of guy who lets someone else be humiliated publicly instead of helping them out even though he’s partially responsible for said humiliation.”

In my four years of attending Hogwarts, I’d never seen Draco Malfoy look dumfounded. He scoffed.

“That wordsmith thing is really working for you, huh?”

“Why, thank you,” I shrugged.

“It isn’t my fault that your chosen mode of entertainment is pushing your mother’s buttons,” he said smugly.

“It’s the other way around, actually,” I informed him, “If I had a galleon for every time my mother pushed my buttons I would be as rich and snobbish as you.”

“You are rich,” he seemed to be more amused by the insult than offended, “So you’re already halfway there.”

“I’m not snobbish, though. Not yet, anyways,” I cocked an eyebrow, “I doubt I’d ever be half as snobbish as you.”

“I appreciate the honesty.”

“Anytime.”

A moment of silence. We both turned to stare at the sky. Then—

“You come here often?”

“No,” I replied. I didn’t know why I was even talking to him.

“Aha!” he exclaimed. I jumped slightly.

“What d’ you mean ‘aha!’?” I asked in confusion.

“I was right,” he said proudly, “You aren’t the rule-breaking sort.”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

“So, Rosier,” he began. I could already tell it was the beginning of a very profound oration. He, however, decided to confuse me further,

“I suppose we should just get it over with yes? Do as they tell us to?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea of what you’re insinuating,” I said with a pang of annoyance. My brain had suddenly remembered that I was speaking to Draco Malfoy, and the in-built anti-snob reflex had just kicked in.

“I suppose what I’m doing is asking you to the ball,” he stated plainly, “I’ve found that it’s better to comply with what my parents ask of me to avoid any—”

“Wait,” I interjected, “You’re asking me to the ball?”

“Yes…?”

“The Yule Ball?”

“Is there any other ball going on that I haven’t heard of?”

I threw my hands up in the air in disbelief, “I can’t believe that you think that I would want to go anywhere with you ever. Much less to a ball which I find quite honestly ridiculous and completely antiquated.”

“Isn’t this what they want us to—”

“I don’t know why you think you know me so well, Malfoy, but you don’t,” I snapped, “If you think I’m the kind of girl who just goes along with whatever plan my parents have laid out for me then you’re wrong about me.”

“Let’s not make it any harder than it—”

“And I don’t know why you think I would go to the ball with you in a million years when you didn’t use a single shred of imagination while asking me out!”

delphi's notes: i'd kms if i was in audrey's place lwk

buni's notes: i need to start writing normal-length chapters (i never will)

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: sunday, 28th june

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LIV. Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace

❛ and you were too afraid to tell her what you want ❜

♪how you get the girl by taylor swift

Ophelia’s Perspective

“May I have your attention for a moment please?” squeaked Professor Flitwick’s voice. It was nearly the end of Charms class, and everyone was packed and ready to scurry away for lunch the second the bell rang.

I placed my satchel on the desk in front of me, resting my elbows on it as I leaned forward, eager to know what announcement Professor Flitwick would be making.

“Oh Christmas Day, Hogwarts will be hosting the Yule Ball— a tradition of the Triwizard Tournament,” he told us. A number of oohs and aahs broke out among the students, and I didn’t have to look at Audrey to know that she was rolling her eyes at the over-dramatized reactions of those around us.

“It is a splendid opportunity to socialize with our foreign guests, so I encourage you all to— how shall I put it— loosen up, I suppose, being the appropriate term. I trust that every student from my house will uphold the dignity of Ravenclaw house and maintain proper decorum. The ball is only for fourth-years and above, but you may invite a younger student if you wish. Of course, bringing a date is customary, but do not underestimate the perquisite of solitude. It is my wish that each and every one of you will enjoy yourselves! Run along now, off you go. Class dismissed!”

Excited chatter broke out as the bell sounded and students began pouring out of the class. Everyone was engaged in eager talk of dress robes, dates and speculation as to who would ask who out. Everyone around me but Audrey, who sighed and remarked, “How very archaic of them. Leave it up to Hogwarts to take any opportunity to bring back some outdated tradition.”

“I wonder if they’ll have pudding,” Luna mused, smiling to herself, “They usually have pudding at these things— festive Christmas pudding. Or maybe some fruitcake would be nice.”

“I think it’s nice,” I decided.

“Of course you do,” Audrey said wryly, “You have a date.”

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” I flushed, “We don’t know that yet.”

Since that kiss in the rain, I had realised that Harry and I never spoke about what it meant for us. Was he my boyfriend now? We’d gotten so caught up in the moment that now we were something far from friends, but not anything else either. We were just two people who spent far too much time stealing glances at each other to be friends.

“The chickens have hatched,” Audrey proclaimed, “They’re running wildly across the field and you better catch them before they slide down the cliff.”

★

Halfway through lunch, Hermione hijacked Audrey, Luna and I for ‘S.P.E.W work’ for which Harry and Ron also tagged along. Ron had been christened treasurer— and he was a whiny one at that; Especially considering that the job only consisted of safeguarding the box of S.P.E.W pins Hermione made (since we hadn’t any funds yet). We made our way down the marble staircase outside the Great Hall, a section of the castle I’d never explored, simply because I never knew where it led. Hermione seemed to know, which I deduced from the way she was practically sprinting down the steps, everyone else struggling to keep up.

“Where’d she learn how to run like that?!” Ron panted.

I half expected us to end up somewhere in the dungeons, but instead, we ended up in a brightly lit corridor decorated with a number of colourful paintings— mainly of food. Hermione led us to the picture of a giant pear and— there was no other way to describe this— tickled the pear. It was by far the strangest thing I’d ever seen. The pear began chuckling, and then turned into a large green door handle.

“Oh wait, Hermione, I know what this is,” Ron groaned with a sort of existential dread in his voice, “Don’t tell me you’re going to convince all the elves to ask for wages and give up their jobs. What is this the House Elf Liberation Front? We can’t just barge into the—”

His voice trailed off as she opened the door to the kitchens, revealing a Hall, as huge as the Great Hall, with tall ceilings and piles and piles of pots and pans, complete with a brick fireplace at the end.

“— kitchens,” Ron finished, staring at the scene in awe. About fifty or so house elves scurried around holding mounds of food, working hard to make sure us students would get our meals on time.

“I’m not here to talk the elves into asking for wages— not yet at least,” Hermione said cheerily, “I promise it’s going to be worth it, there’s something I want you to see—”

Just then, a little figure came hurling towards Harry and threw his little arms around his midriff, sending him stumbling backwards, “Harry Potter sir! Harry Potter!”

“Dobby?” Harry asked in awe as he got a good look at the elf when he pulled away. He was by far the strangest elf I’d ever seen. Atop his head was a tea cosy that was supposedly a hat, and on it he had pinned about a hundred badges. He wore a tie patterned with horseshoes over his bare chest and what looked like children’s soccer shorts and odd socks— one was plain black and the other was covered in pink and orange stripes.

“Dobby, what are you doing here?” Harry asked, amazed.

“Dobby has come to work at Hogwarts!” Dobby informed excitedly, “Professor Dumbledore has given Dobby and Winky jobs, sir!”

“Winky?” Hermione asked, “Winky is here too?”

The image of the devastated house elf being abandoned by her master at the World Cup came into my mind at an instant. Dobby led us through the crowd of bowing elves and to the fireplace, in front of which Winky sat hunched on a stool, staring with despair into the flames. She had taken a slightly different approach than Dobby, and wore a blouse and skirt with a matching hat, however her blouse had soup stains and her skirt had a burn mark on it. My eyebrows furrowed, feeling tenderness for the state she seemed to be in.

“Hello, Winky,” Hermione spoke softly, but Winky’s lips quivered and she burst into tears, “Oh no! Winky, please don’t cry…” But it was no use. Winky wailed louder, covering her face with her tiny hands.

Dobby, however, was completely oblivious to her anguish and smiled, “Would you like some tea?”

“Sure!” Ron said before any of us could stop him, and about a dozen elves stumbled around and approached us with silver trays and Dobby handed each of us the teas.

“Thanks, Dobby,” I said, chuckling even though I was a bit confused at his demeanor. I hadn’t met a lot of house elves, but by simply observing him among so many house elves, Dobby seemed to be quite the oddball.

“How long have you been here, Dobby?” Harry asked.

“Only a week, sir!” Dobby informed him, “It is very difficult for Dobby to find job, sir! Dobby has been travelling two years looking for jobs sir! But wizards are not wanting that, as Dobby is asking for wages and wearing clothes now! When I is visiting Winky she is being freed too! So—”

Winky flung herself onto the stone floor and wailed louder than ever. Audrey tried to approach her, but was taken aback by the amount of power in that little voice and felt it best to back away. Hermione knelt to the ground and tried to comfort her, but nothing she said seemed to be getting through to Winky as she continued to sob.

“So, we is looking for jobs together!” Dobby shouted shrilly over Winky’s crying, “Professor Dumbledore is very kind to take us in. And so Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby gets a Galleon a week and one day off a month!”

Hermione frowned, “That’s not very much!”

Dobby shuddered, “Professor is offering me ten Galleons a week and weekends off, but Dobby could not accept it! Dobby likes freedom, but he is not wanting too much. Dobby likes work better!”

“And how much is Professor Dumbledore paying you, Winky?” the moment these words slipped out of Hermione’s mouth, Winky sat up, staring at her with her big, brown glassy eyes that were now swollen.

“W-winky is not t-t-taking wages yet,” she heaved through sobs, “Winky is n-not sunk so l-low as that! Winky is p-p-properly ashamed of being freed!”

“Ashamed?” Hermione repeated in shock, “Mr Crouch is the one who should be ashamed—”

“You is not speaking of my master in that way!” Winky sounded very offended indeed, “Mr Crouch is a good wizard!”

“Winky forgets that she is not tied to Mr Crouch anymore,” Dobby explained, “She is having trouble adjusting!”

“Can’t a house elf speak their minds about their masters?” Hermione asked.

“No, no,” Dobby looked suddenly very grave, “Tis a part of a house elf’s enslavement, miss. We keeps their secrets and we uphold the family’s honour. We must never speak ill of them— but Professor Dumbledore does not insist upon this! He says… he says…” his voice reduced to a whisper, “That we may call him a barmy old codger if we wish!”

He gave a shrug, and my attempts not to laugh were soiled the moment I saw the expression on Harry’s face a snort escaped my lips.

“But Dobby does not wish to!” Dobby clarified after he had composed himself, “Dobby likes Professor Dumbledore very much, and is happy to keep his secrets.”

“So, following that logic,” I started, “You can say whatever you want about your old masters?”

“Yes,” Dobby said hesitantly, “I could tell you, miss, that Dobby’s old masters were bad, dark wizards!”

Dobby gave a shudder, and looked as though he was trying very hard to control himself before he ran the brick wall and began banging his head against the wall, “Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby—” Harry ran to his side at once and pulled him away.

“Thank you, Harry Potter, thank you,” he said breathlessly.

“You just need a little bit of practice, that’s all,” Harry assured him with a smile that made my heart feel oddly warm and fuzzy.

“Practice!” Winky exclaimed, looking appalled, “Dobby should be ashamed, talking of his masters in that way!”

“They is not my masters any more, Winky!” Dobby said firmly, “Dobby does not care what they think of him anymore!”

“Poor Mr Crouch, all alone without Winky!” Winky said, her voice quivering, “What is he doing without Winky’s help! My family is looking after the Crouches for generations! What would they think if they knows that Winky is being freed?! Oh, the shame!” And she sobbed loudly into her skirt.

“Mr Crouch is just fine without your help, Winky! Honestly! He’s a grown man!” Hermione said, frowning, “We’ve seen him, you—”

“You see Mr Crouch?” Winky asked, looking up with those big, glassy, eyes full of hope, “Here in Hogwarts?”

“Yes, he and Mr Bagman are judges in the Triwizard Tournament,” said Hermione.

“Mr Bagman comes too?” asked Winky, looking upset again, “Mr Bagman is a very bad wizard indeed! My master is not liking him! Oh, my poor master! What is he doing without Winky!” She dissolved into tears once more.

It took a great deal of convincing to drag Ron out of there, who kept stuffing the pastries that the elves offered us into his pockets— despite Hermione’s attempts to refuse them. By the time we began walking back to class, he had already eaten half of them, and so concluded our little interview.

“Hey,” said Harry, moving away from Ron to walk next to me. He slowed down (and so did I) so that we were now walking a few paces behind everyone.

“Hi,” I said, smiling way too hard. But then again, he was too.

“I, uh, I… I wanted to— I wanted to, uh, ask… you something,” he muttered, fidgeting with his thumbs, and for a moment I thought that maybe he was going to address the elephant in the room— which was the new energy between us since the kiss in the rain.

But instead, he said, “What… um… what did you think of the… um, elves?”

“Oh,” I said, unable to hide my disappointment, “Oh, you know… it’s sad. I feel sorry for Winky, especially. I can’t imagine having to live with all that guilt. Dobby seems to be getting on well, though. I suspect he’s always been a bit of an oddball…”

“Uh, yeah,” Harry agreed half-heartedly, “He’s always been weird. Almost killed me multiple times while trying to save my life.”

I tried to laugh, but the sound died in my throat.

“Which way are you?” I asked when we approached the Great Hall.

“This way,” he pointed to the right staircase.

“Oh, well, I’m the other way,” I said, pursing my lips, “Divination.”

“Potions.”

“Oh.”

“So…” he said, “See you later?”

“Sure.”

And that was that.

buni's notes: the last scene was painful to write.

delphi's notes: harry you coward

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: today

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LIII. Things You Just Can't Hide

❛ your lips, my lips  apocalypse ❜

♪apocalypse by cigarettes after sex 

Harry’s Perspective

In the last four or so hours, my life had taken a number of unexpected turns— much to my delight. It was a welcome change after the hell I’d gone through since Halloween. First, I’d battled a dragon— a Hungarian Horntail, to be specific, and I’d come out alive, with no significant damage apart from a slight gash on my shoulder— which Madam Pomfrey took care of with ease. Next, Ron had begun speaking to me again. It took a deadly, fire-breathing, flying creature to make him see that I hadn’t put my name in the Goblet. He was a little dense, but he was still my best friend.

The Gryffindor common room was ablaze with excitement, and my adrenaline was at an all time high. But out of all these people, one face occupied my thoughts and worries. The same face sitting in one corner of the party with a permanent frown plastered on her face.

I couldn’t understand why she was upset. Was it the storm? But as I made my way to her when the crowd dispersed, I realized she seemed to be angry at me. And so began the wild goose chase through the halls of the castle, and then came the screaming match in the courtyard while the roar of the rain went on in the sky.

And then, I’d done something absolutely unimaginable. There she was, yelling about how worried she was about me and the dragons and the gash on my shoulder; All the while looking unbelievably perfect even though she was soaked to the bone in the rain. And while she stood there, screaming at me, so close to tearing up— or maybe that was just the rain— it seemed to stir something in me; A fire that, perhaps, had always been there, deep in my heart, waiting to be lit. And then I kissed her.

It was everything I’d imagined and more. All of a sudden, there was this inexplicable clarity, as if everything that’d ever happened to me had led up to this moment.  Every stolen glance, every fleeting touch, and every time I pretended I didn’t feel what I felt for her felt worth the wait.

And then I pulled away, feeling as though I’d done something completely moronic. I’d just kissed her. Without asking, purely based on instinct. Her look of confusion had me stuttering out an apology, fearing that I’d ruined the course of our friendship forever.

But then, something so unbelievable occurred that I can hardly believe it wasn’t just in my head. Ophelia had grabbed the collar of my shirt and kissed me. The kiss almost felt feverish, every inch of my skin blazing to be closer to her. It was real and sure, and with the storm raging above us and our faces warm against each other, I thought— we’d always find our way back to each other.

★

The walk back to Gryffindor tower felt like an absolute fever dream. I was drunk on pure happiness. This day couldn’t possibly get any better. I could still feel her lips on mine, her hands in my hair. It was carved into my brain forever, so that when one day I grew old and unable to remember anything, I would still recall the way Ophelia had kissed me for the first time.

“Balderdash,” I said quietly to the Fat Lady, who was dozing off. Louder, I said, “Balderdash!”

She awoke with a start, and then the door swung open, “Pipe down, will you!” she hissed, but there was nothing in the world that could bring my spirits down.

When I came to the common room, I was surprised to find Fred and George still clearing the mess. They looked up, stared for a few seconds at my clothes dripping with rainwater, at my face— and then their faces erupted in smirks. My hand instinctively reached up to my mouth, my thumb brushing over my lips. I looked down at my hand, spotting a bit of lipstick on it. My face must have turned fifteen different shades of red, because the Weasley twins were starting to look like two identical Cheshire Cats.

“Shut up.”

“We haven't even said anything—”

“—yet!”

I heaved a deep sigh, making my way to the stairs.

“Someone’s gotten lucky tonight!” came Fred’s voice from the common room. 

I couldn’t stop smiling.

When I got to my bedroom, Ron was already asleep. I tried, to the best of my abilities, to dry myself while making minimal noise. I stared out the window— the storm had ceased now— all the while replaying the kiss in my mind over and over again.

I climbed into bed, still grinning like a damn fool. Just as my head touched my pillow, a thought popped into my head— I should write to Sirius about the dragons (among other things). And so I grabbed the nearest sheet of parchment and quill and ink, and made a mental note to post it first thing the next morning.

Dear Padfoot

I’m writing this to tell you that I managed to get through the first task mostly unscathed. They needed us to retrieve a golden egg from a dragon— which I knew about before since Hagrid showed them to me. I used my broom (thank you again for the Firebolt, it quite literally saved my life), which was a suggestion from Moody. I’m starting to like him, even though he’s slightly unusual. 

Anyhow, there was a big party in the Gryffindor common room— the Weasley twins nicked tons of food from the kitchens and people from other houses also came down to celebrate. It’s nice that people are starting to hate me a little less. I’ve been seeing fewer ‘Potter Stinks’ badges, which is a relief.

There was also something else that happened— nothing to worry about. It’s actually good news (haven’t had much of that in recent weeks until now). Actually I don’t even know if it’s appropriate to tell you this, but I thought you’d like to know. I sort of… kissed Ophelia.

She was mad at me about something— blimey, I can’t even remember what it was anymore, and it was raining, and she was yelling at me. I don’ t know what came over me, I just kissed her. I guess I couldn’ t resist any longer. And the surprising thing is… she didn’t seem to hate it either.

Sorry if this is weird, I just really want to tell someone and Ron was asleep when I got back. That’s all.

Yours,

Harry

★

The next morning I awoke with sunlight streaming through the stained glass window in the four poster bedroom. The storm clouds had cleared, and the memory of the kiss from last night was still fresh in my mind. My lips immediately stretched into a wide grin at the thought of it. Today was going to be a good day.

It seemed like Ron had already gone for breakfast, and as far as I knew there was no one else—

“Erm, Harry?” came Neville’s meek voice from the door, “Is everything alright?”

—No one else apart from a very confused Neville Longbottom, that is.

“Yeah, yeah why do you ask?” I replied, rolling out of bed, trying hard not to smile.

“Nothing… you’re just smiling early in the morning, so…”

“Well, it's a beautiful day.”

“If you say so.”

★

“You seem chipper,” Hermione said to me at breakfast, cocking an eyebrow.

I hadn’t realized I was humming cheerily while eating toast.

“Oh,” my face felt as though it was on fire, “Well, it’s— it’s a nice day out. No rain… all sunshine…” I trailed off, pathetically. My eyes wandered over to the Ravenclaw table, and there she was, practically glowing— as she always did, but there was something different about her. She looked happier, somehow, and I hoped that it was my doing. She was talking gleefully with Charlotte, who was more animated than I’d ever seen her.

Our eyes met, and I instantly felt my heartbeat quicken. She smiled at me— that radiant, beautiful smile— and I waved back clumsily.

“You owe me ten galleons,” came George’s voice.

“Dammnit,” Fred swore.

“It’s about time,” Hermione said pensively, not looking up from her oats.

“I haven’t even told you anything yet!” I cried, wondering whether it had been this obvious to everyone around me.

“What are we talking about?” Ron asked obliviously, his mouth full of food.

“We’re just teasing Harry,” Hermione laughed.

“If you must know,” I started bashfully, “I sort of… kissed her… last night… after the party.”

“That’s fifteen galleons!” George exclaimed, while Fred groaned.

“Where?” asked Fred as he handed over the money to George.

“In the courtyard,” I answered, furrowing my brows, “But why does that matter?”

“Such innocent children,” George sighed.

“Don’t listen to them, Harry,” Hermione rolled her eyes, “I think it’s great. You two’ve liked each other for ages.”

“Congrats, mate!” Ron said, patting me on my back.

“I’m never betting on your love life again,” said Fred, sighing deeply for the hole burnt into his wallet.

★

To my delight, we had Care of Magical Creatures first thing in the morning. It seemed fated on such a pleasant morning as this, and not even Blast-Ended Skrewts could dim my spirits. There was a slight chill in the air as winter approached, but my face continued to feel warm. As we got to Hagrid’s hut, I spotted Ophelia standing in a cluster of Ravenclaws.

“Hey,” I said breathlessly, placing a hand on her shoulder. When she turned around, she was already smiling.

“Hi,” she said, the smile never leaving her face, “So… how’d you sleep last night?”

“Alright,” my lips stretched into a shameless grin, “You?”

“Me too,” she reached for my hand, “Me too…”

Just then, Hagrid’s door creaked open and we sprung apart, “Gather ‘round, gather ‘round!”

“Hey, Ophelia, where’s Audrey?” Hermione asked, Ophelia’s expression darkened every so slightly, as though trying not to look too obvious.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Are the two of you in some sort of fight?”

“Not that I know of.”

Hermione knew better than to pry. I, however, made a mental note to ask her about it after the class.

Turns out the task for this particular lesson was to find out whether or not the Skrewts hibernated. There were only about ten of them left, as a result of their fervent attempts to kill one another. Hagrid had brought out wooden boxes lined with pillows for the horrid creatures, who grew more sinister and morbid-looking as the days went by. It so happened that the Skrewts did not appreciate being crammed into the tiny boxes, and they began to unleash themselves all over Hagrid’s garden. Most of the students— like Malfoy and his minions, barricaded themselves into Hagrid’s hut.

Hermione, Ron, Ophelia, Audrey— who had appeared from the shadows as she often did— and I stayed to help Hagrid gather them. We scurried after them on the field, trying our best to keep a safe distance from them. All nine had been jammed into one of the boxes (carried by Hagrid, of course), and one ran wildly across the pumpkins.

At this eventful juncture, a snide voice fell upon our ears, “Well! This does look like fun…”

The voice belonged to none other than Rita Skeeter, and I hardly had to turn around to know it. Crimson lipped, with that desire for seeking scandal glimmering in her eye, she walked towards Hagrid with her crocodile-skin bag in one hand and quick notes quill in another.

“Oh no,” Hermione remarked.

“Isn’t that—” Ophelia began.

“The nosiest bitch in all of England, yeah,” Audrey finished for her in her usual dry fashion.

“Someone should warn Hagrid…” Ron pointed out. But it was already too late. We later found that Hagrid, unassuming and warm-hearted as he was, had already agreed to an interview with her, which could only end well.

As we headed to the Great Hall for lunch, I caught up with Ophelia, who was walking a few paces behind the others. 

“Hey,” I said, smiling.

“Hi, that was some lesson, huh? God, I hope Hagrid’s going to be okay,” she spoke, “Just as long as he didn’t import them illegally— never mind.”

“Knowing Hagrid, I wouldn’t put it past him,” I said, to which she chuckled slightly, looking down. I began quietly, “Hey I wanted to ask you something…”

“Yeah?” she said half-heartedly.

“Is everything alright with you and Audrey?”

She paused for a minute before speaking, “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be—” she looked up, staring at my face for a few seconds, then shaking her head, “Actually, I feel like… I feel like we’re drifting apart. She didn’t write much over the summer, and I don’t know… she seems distant. It’s not the same as it used to be.”

“I’m sure you two will figure it out,” I said with a sureness in my voice I didn’t quite understand myself.

“I hope so,” she smiled— a real one this time, showing that adorable little gap between her teeth, and I felt my heart swell with warmth, “How much does it suck that I can’t lie to you? I just looked at your face and I just— I just felt all my defenses crumble.”

Best believe I beamed all the way through lunch.

buni's notes: i love them sm its not funny anymore

delphi's notes: valid crashout

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: saturday, 26th june

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LII. Only Threw This Party For You

❛ and you kiss me in a way that's gonna screw me up forever ❜

♪ suburban legends by taylor swift

Ophelia’s Perspective

I was angry. Possibly angrier than I’d ever been in my life at anyone, ever. The cause of this anger was none other than the star of the fucking evening, Harry Potter. 

Not only had he battled a bloody dragon, but he’d picked a broomstick as his great strategy. Each time I watched him narrowly escape the Hungarian Horntail’s jaws, I felt my heart physically stop for a moment. In the end, he managed to retrieve the golden egg, but not before earning a gash on his shoulder from the dragon as a little parting gift. 

Once this blasphemy was over, I’d overheard a conversation between him, Ron and Hermione:

“Harry, I’ve gotta say, whoever put your name in the Goblet is trying to do you in!” Ron exclaimed, “It can’t possibly have been you…”

“Caught on, have you?” Harry said coldly, “Took you long enough.”

“Stop it both of you!” Hermione intervened.

“Seriously, Harry, you were probably the best! Krum didn’t even think of flying!” said Ron.

“I had a little help,” Harry cracked a smile, “Hagrid warned me earlier…”

I didn’t even bother waiting for the scores.

My anger didn’t spell from jealousy or spite. It came from a place of intense worry and care. What if he’d been a little slower, or if the dragon had been a little faster? What if he’d suffered a more grave injury? The truth was that I was so scared of losing him, and yet he kept getting himself into these impossibly dangerous situations. Would it kill him to just stay out of harm’s way for once?

And did our friendship mean so little to him that he didn’t bother notifying me about the fire-breathing beasts he would be up against? I’d asked him about it, and he told me he had it all under control. A big. Fat. Lie. He’d told Hermione. He’d even told Ron, who he wasn’t speaking to, before he told me.

Anyhow, I was livid. And I was more than content to stay in bed and sulk for the rest of the evening, but Charlotte insisted on popping in to catch the party going on in Gryffindor tower.

“Zere is no way I am letting you sit ‘ere and mope all night,” she insisted, practically dragging me out of bed, “I zon’t see ze problem. Zat boy is willing to lay ze moon at your feet. Let’s go.”

And so I ended up in the Gryffindor common room, which was ablaze with celebration. The cheering never seemed to cease. Food had been nicked from the kitchens (by none other than the infamous Weasley twins, I assumed) and there was a great mob gathered round the star himself, who was basking in glory.

Fine, I was at his party. But I wouldn’t let myself enjoy it. Not when he’d put his life at risk for what? An egg? I wasn’t having it.

I didn’t smile once. Not even when Colin Creevy referred to me as Harry’s girl. Not even when I saw Harry’s face, beaming with pride, looking as though he was bathed in sunlight. I still didn’t smile. Even though I really, really wanted to. 

The party only got wilder as the night darkened outside the stained-glass windows. A part of me wished that one of the teachers would come and shut everyone down. It would have been so satisfying to see the smiles wiped off all their faces. Let Harry know how I felt when the Horntail lunged for his neck.

But none of that happened. At some point, Dean had lifted Harry up on his shoulders, and I could see him clearly now from my designated corner. He hadn’t looked at me once all night. I scoffed to myself.

He was not holding the egg over his head, and called out enthusiastically, “Who wants me to open it?” A loud roar of approval.

“You want me to open it?!”

An even louder roar. I felt my eardrums crying out for help.

“Okay, I’ll open it!”

As he twisted the egg open, a deafening, shrill sound rippled through the room and everyone hastened to cover their years— as if that did anything. It just seemed to piss me off even more. I despised the ruckus. 

He closed the egg with great difficulty, and got off Dean’s shoulders. It took some effort for the party to go back to how it was before, which was a relief to me. When the crowd around Harry began to disperse, his eyes seemed to find mine at last. 

Now you remember I exist.

As our eyes met from across the room, I felt my scrunched brows relax for the first time all evening. But I soon realized my blunder. I wasn’t going to give in so soon. The frown returned to my face, and I watched him navigate through the sea of people towards me. I got up from my chair, turned away from him, and began walking out of the room. In all the hubbub, I could hear Charlotte’s voice calling out to me faintly, but I simply feigned ignorance.

Parties had never really been my scene anyways. Especially right now, I didn’t quite feel emotionally equipped to deal with anybody.

Once I climbed out of the portrait hole, I began walking with such determination that I could feel the judgemental glances from the portraits. A little further down one of the moving staircases, I heard another set of footsteps behind me. A part of me wanted to slow down, to stop, to kiss his stupid face and inform him of what a terrific idiot he’d been. 

But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I broke into a run.

The footsteps quickened too, but I didn’t stop. I only ran faster. It wasn’t too hard, since the halls of the castle were completely empty, with the entire school celebrating. 

I’d run till the courtyard when he called out to me, “Ophelia! Ophelia, wait, please!” he said shakily.

I felt my walls crumble as he said my name. My racing feet slowed to a brisk jog, without me even realizing it. I heard his footsteps quicken as he was now running next to me. I couldn’t hold back anymore. I stopped, feeling the fatigue in my limbs.

I hadn’t realized how hard it was raining outside until I was standing under the grey clouds in the courtyard with the freezing water cascading down my shoulders. I turned to face him at last. It was the first time I was really seeing him that night. 

I hated how annoyingly perfect he still looked with his hair wet, his round, green eyes glistening with a kind of desperation that caught me off guard.

“What’s wrong?” he yelled over the storm, “I feel like you’ve been avoiding me all night!”

“You really don’t know?” I muttered, but my words were drowned out by the thunder. It was one of the many things I hated about thunderstorms.

“I can’t hear you!”

“YOU REALLY DON’T KNOW?!” I bellowed, all the anger I’d built up spilling out, “I HAVE BEEN WORRIED SICK ABOUT YOU. YOU WERE ABOUT TO BATTLE A FUCKING DRAGON ON A BROOMSTICK AND YOU DIDN’T THINK I’D WANT TO KNOW?!”

He blinked, looking a little scared.

I took a deep breath and continued, “Every time that Horntail lunged for you, I thought my heart would stop beating!” I felt the tears burning my eyes mix with the rainwater, “I was so scared that I would lose you for good—”

I clasped a hand over my mouth. Oh dear. I’d already spilled out too much.

“Wait,” he shook his head in disbelief, “You’re mad because you thought— because you thought I would… die? Because of that Horntail… Is that— Did I get that right?”

“Yes! And I’m mad because you—”

Before I could finish my sentence, I felt his lips crash into mine. At once, I felt all the noise in my head go completely silent. It was replaced by a quiet, warm buzz, that made it feel like a fire had been lit in the middle of that thunderstorm. Every inch of my body was burning.

And when he pulled away breathlessly at last, the noise returned. 

I opened my mouth to say something, but words seemed inadequate to describe what I was feeling, “I— uh, you— what… I—”

“I’m sorry,” he said hastily, “I shouldn’t have—”

“What?!” I scoffed, “You’re sorry?”

“Yeah, I mean,” he said, “I should have… asked first—”

My jaw fell open before I could stop it. He was apologizing… because he didn’t…  ask before kissing me…

I felt as though I’d lost all control of myself as I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him in for another kiss; This time, it felt more real. Less like a fever dream. It was fervent, messy, the rainwater mixing with the faint taste of treacle tart that lingered in his mouth. His hands found my waist, so unthinkingly, so naturally, as though they were always meant to be there. This was how it was always meant to be. No more stolen glances, avoiding it when things started feeling too risky. This, I thought, was the beginning of something real.

And rainstorms, that I’d grown to associate with that agonizing night of losing my parents, would now always remind me of this night, when the course of our friendship had been changed for good.

★

“Let me walk you back,” Harry pleaded, hands still not letting go of my waist. I let out a hearty chuckle, my fingers still intertwined in his hair. We were now standing in one of the enclaves inside the castle, dripping in rainwater.

“You should go and dry up,” I urged, “You’re going to get sick!”

“I don’t care about getting sick if it means I get to be with you a little longer,” he said, and my heart did a somersault. How is he real?

I buried my red face in his neck. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening. He’d kissed me. He’d just grabbed my face and kissed me. I must be dreaming.

“Shut up,” I muttered, letting go of him reluctantly, “I’ll see you at breakfast then?”

“Alright,” he pouted, then after pulling me in for another kiss, he slowly let go, “Good night.”

I couldn’t contain my lips from stretching into a stupid grin, “Good night.”

I spent the entire walk to Ravenclaw tower replaying the kiss over and over in my head. A moment I’d been dreaming about had actually happened. The rain somehow made it feel a hundred times more romantic. It was a strange paradox to me, because all my life I’d never associated the rain with something this profoundly euphoric. 

I reached the bronze knocker, and the voice asked—

“What is the moment where the eyes close so that the heart can see?”

I smiled. The castle seemed to be aware of the shift between Harry and I tonight. Perhaps that was more magical than any spell could be.

“A kiss,” I answered, and the knob turned and the door opened with a creak. 

When I got to my room at last, everyone else was already asleep. Everyone but Audrey. I saw her sitting with her back to the door, facing the stained window. She seemed to be watching the raindrops racing across the glass. She seemed as alert as always, and turned to face me. Her eyebrows shot up when she saw me soaked to the bone. I was unable to hide my smile.

“Harry, he—”

“I can tell,” she interjected. I could hardly decipher what she was thinking or feeling from that blank, somber expression on her face. My smile dropped slightly.

“Oh,” I breathed, “How—?”

“Your lipstick.”

“Right.”

It seemed that there was no point in going into details with her. Though her lack of enthusiasm was disheartening, I was determined not to let it ruin such a special moment. I chose to focus on that rush of adrenaline that was still surging through my body instead, ignoring the cold sting of Audrey’s emotionless voice in the back of my head.

After I’d changed into some dry clothes and climbed into bed, I remembered somebody who I could talk to. I took out a piece of parchment and quill and ink and began writing.

Dear Moony,

Hope you’re doing well. Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I’m not sure if you’re reading the Prophet right now, but things have been a bit hectic here.

The first task got over tonight, and the champions had to retrieve a golden egg from a dragon. A bit ironic, considering that they’re trying to make it safer. Everything that’s been happening seems to contradict that so-called promise.

Anyways, the real reason I’m writing this is because I really want to tell this to someone, but I don’t know who. So, I’ll just say it— I had my first kiss tonight.

It feels so surreal to say it (or write it, in this case). I was mad at Harry about something— Merlin, I can’t even remember what it was anymore, and I was yelling at him— something about being reckless and he just kissed me! I don’t know what to say, it felt like something out of Pride and Prejudice— the rain too.

And then, he pulls away and starts apologizing! Because he didn’t ask me before kissing me! It’s so like Harry… I thought it was so endearing. And then I couldn’t help but kiss him again. Everything played out so perfectly, it feels like I’m dreaming.

Blimey, I don’t even know if I should be talking to you about all this, but I seem to be drifting apart from Audrey, and Juniper is too dramatic about these things, so that means you’re all I’ve got right now.

Once again, I hope you’re doing well. If you’re still struggling to get a job, maybe I could ask Juniper if you can help out at the store? Let me know. Write back soon!

Yours truly, Ophelia

buni's notes: it only took them about a million years to get to this point

delphi's notes: party4u is such a good song i love charli

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: today

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi

[unrealisticallybffs]

LI. And Then The Dragons Came

❛ (it's astronomy) we're two worlds apart ❜

♪astronomy  by conan gray 

Audrey’s Perspective

If there was one thing more unsettling than imminent danger, it was the Ministry packaging it as entertainment.

They dressed it up, of course; Tradition, honor, international unity. Words that sounded lovely enough until you were standing in a freezing arena, watching a dragon uncoil like a living nightmare while a crowd applauded.

I should have known better than to expect anything less.

The morning of the first task arrived with a kind of brittle tension that clung to everything. Even the castle seemed quieter, as if it, too, was holding its breath. By the time we were herded toward the stands, the excitement had reached an almost feverish pitch.

Students whispered theories in low, conspiratorial tones, as if predicting catastrophe required a degree of academic discretion. Others were far less subtle—openly placing bets on who was most likely to lose a limb first, as though this were some particularly grim sporting event rather than a school-sanctioned hazard.

Naturally, Fred Weasley and George Weasley had taken it upon themselves to elevate the situation from questionable to entrepreneurial.

They moved through the stands with the ease of seasoned businessmen, collecting coins, adjusting odds, and occasionally offering commentary that was equal parts insightful and deeply unhelpful.

“Five Galleons says Diggory keeps all his limbs—but only just”

“—generous, that. I’m giving him a seventy percent survival rate, personally—”

They spoke over each other in that perfectly synchronized way of theirs, as if they’d rehearsed it.

I’d wished Fleur good luck before we’d been separated—though good luck felt painfully insufficient when the problem at hand involved a dragon.

We’d spent most of the previous night whispering back and forth in our dorm, throwing around ideas that ranged from clever to completely unhinged. Spells, distractions, evasive strategies—anything that didn’t end with her being flambéed in front of a live audience. It had felt almost absurd at times, the two of us hunched over possibilities like we were revising for an exam instead of preparing for something that could very realistically go wrong.

Sleep hadn’t exactly fit into that equation.

Fleur had barely rested, and I couldn’t blame her for it—not when every time things went quiet, the reality of what she’d be facing seemed to press in a little harder. Unfortunately, the downside of sharing a room with someone on the verge of battling a fire-breathing death sentence was that I hadn’t slept either.

Not that my thoughts had been particularly cooperative anyway.

By the time we had reached the stands, the exhaustion had settled somewhere behind my eyes, dull and persistent. Everything felt slightly too sharp and too distant all at once.

Across the arena, the Gryffindor section was louder than the rest, predictably so—and it didn’t take long to spot Ophelia.

She’d shifted completely over to their side now, wedged between Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, her attention fixed firmly on the entrance where Harry would appear.

I looked away before I could linger on it too long.

“Zey vill be fine, you know,” Ophelia’s roommate Charlotte said from beside me, her accent softer than usual, though no less certain.

I hadn’t even noticed when she’d sat down.

She leaned forward slightly, eyes trained on the arena with sharp focus. Unlike the others around us, there was no thrill in her expression—only calculation.

“Fleur, she is, how you say—formidable,” Charlotte continued, folding her arms.

 “Zese dragons, zey are dangerous, yes, but zey are not unbeatable.”

“That’s a generous assessment,” I muttered.

Charlotte huffed lightly. “You Engliz, you love to dramatize.”

Despite myself, I let out a quiet breath that might have been the beginning of a laugh.

Her gaze flicked, just briefly, toward the Gryffindor stands—toward Ophelia, before returning to the arena.

“Funny,” she added, almost absently, “you worry for Fleur like zat… but not for your friend over zere.”

The words weren’t sharp. If anything, they were observational, almost curious.

Nevertheless, they felt like a personal attack.

“She’s not the one facing a dragon,” I said, a little too quickly.

Charlotte hummed, unconvinced, but didn’t press.

“She will not panic,” she went on after a moment, as if she’d decided to let it rest. “Zat is ze difference. Others—” she gestured vaguely toward the arena, “—zey vill try to fight ze dragon. Fleur? She vill outthink it.”

Merlin, I hoped she was right.

Charlotte nudged my arm, her voice dropping just enough to cut through the noise around us.

“And besides,” she added, almost conspiratorially, “she has you worrying for her. Zat must count for something, no?”

As the announcements began, her words lingered longer than they should have. 

It was then that I found myself wondering—if she had really been talking only about Fleur at that moment.

The gates creaked open with a long, protesting groan diverting my mind. 

Ludo Bagman’s voice boomed throughout the stadium.

Cedric Diggory.

A wave of cheers erupted from the stands, louder than anything that had come before. I could hear the Hufflepuffs distinctly, their excitement almost infectious, even now.

“Ah,” Charlotte murmured beside me, “ze handsome one.”

Cedric stepped out, wand already in hand, his posture straight but edged with tension. 

The dragon was revealed moments later.

A Swedish Short-Snout—sleek, silvery-blue, its scales almost gleaming despite the overcast sky. It let out a low, rumbling snarl, smoke curling from its nostrils as it shifted protectively over its clutch.

And there it was.

The golden egg.

All you had to do was retrieve it.

So simple in theory.

Charlotte leaned forward slightly. “Dis one is… less aggressive zan ze others,” she said. “But still—”

“Still a dragon,” I finished quietly.

The whistle blew.

Cedric didn’t hesitate. He raised his wand and cast a transfiguration spell.

A rock on the ground transformed into a dog, which immediately began barking loudly, darting toward the dragon.

The Short-Snout’s head snapped toward it, distracted, just as Cedric had intended.

“Smart,” I muttered.

Cedric moved quickly while the dragon was distracted, circling wide, keeping low to the ground. The Short-Snout snapped at the barking dog again, giving him just enough space.

He didn’t waste it.

A burst of movement—careful, precise—and Cedric darted in, his hand closing around the golden egg.

The stands erupted.

Relief, applause, noise flooding the arena all at once as Cedric backed away, singed but upright, clutching the egg like proof that survival and success could, in fact, overlap.

“One down,” Charlotte said quietly.

“Three to go” I finished for her.

Viktor Krum was called next.

The reaction shifted instantly—louder, sharper, more fractured than Cedric’s had been. Krum stepped out without ceremony, wand already in hand, posture rigid with focus.

The Ironbelly loomed ahead of him.

It barely moved. Just watched.

Krum didn’t hesitate. A single sharp spell cracked through the air, striking the dragon hard enough to make it rear back.

A moment later, he had the egg. 

The dragon was dragged back into position, chains scraping across stone.

My gaze drifted—absent, almost habitual—toward the Slytherin stands.

Leaning back like he owned the space, expression set in that familiar half-bored, half-critical way he wore everything was Malfoy. His eyes followed Krum for a moment… then flicked up finding mine.

Something unreadable passed over his expression; gone almost immediately. 

I was quick to divert my gaze as Fleur's name boomed through the stadium.

Fleur raised her wand.

The dragon moved first.

Fire burst outward—Fleur dodged sharply, robes snapping as she twisted out of the way. Gasps rippled through the stands, but she didn’t hesitate.

A spell cut through the air—sharp, focused. The dragon faltered, just for a second.

“Allez, vas-y,” Charlotte murmured. (translation: come on)

Fleur pressed forward, weaving another spell—this one softer, disorienting. The dragon’s movements stuttered, head dipping as if the world itself had gone slightly out of focus.

As she moved in, the dragon snapped back violently. Fire roared across the arena.

Fleur shielded too late. The blast caught her, throwing her backward. 

She hit the ground; hard.

For a split second, everything seemed to stop—the crowd, the commentary, even the dragon itself as the flames dissipated into thick, curling smoke.

Then the noise came crashing back.

A collective gasp rippled through the stands, followed by a swell of frantic shouting. Somewhere to my left, someone stood up too quickly, knocking into the row in front of them. I didn’t register who.

I was already on my feet.

“She’s fine,” Charlotte said quickly, though I hadn’t realized I’d moved.

Her hand caught my sleeve, “Look.” 

She had pushed herself up onto one arm, coughing, her hair disheveled, robes scorched along one sleeve. For a moment, she stayed there, steadying herself—reorienting.

Charlotte exhaled softly beside me. “You see?”

I did.

Fleur rose to her feet.

The dragon shifted again, restless now, smoke still slipping from its jaws. Whatever spell Fleur had used earlier hadn’t fully held but it had done something. The creature’s movements weren’t as precise anymore, its focus slightly disoriented.

Fleur didn’t hesitate.

The moment the dragon’s head dipped just enough, something in her sharpened into pure instinctive adrenaline.

She sprinted, elegance down the drain. As she closed the final distance in a burst of speed, she dropped low as she reached the nest, one hand bracing against the ground and the other seizing the egg.

Cheering erupted through the stands as yet another champion emerged triumphant. 

The stands soon quietened, as the students realised who the final champion was. 

“Harry Potter”

Ludo Bagman’s voice echoed through the Quidditch pitch as Harry stumbled onto the pitch, flustered and clearly overwhelmed by the lack of cheering. The only source of sound was from the Gryffindor stands where Ophelia and Hermione were clapping furiously. 

As the Hungarian Horntail was unleashed onto the pitch,  I truly felt sorry for the boy. The beast was horrendous, a giant lizard with spikes adorning every inch of its body; its scales gleaming in the sun. Its eyes narrowed onto him like he’d just cursed its whole bloodline before it lunged at him. 

The interaction was excruciating to watch. Thankfully, I was relieved from my pain soon enough; as apparently, he was both foolish and brave enough to summon his broomstick and flew right off the pitch.

Collective gasps rose from the crowd. Ophelia was on her feet now, looking like she’d stolen Moaning Myrtle’s foundation. She was whispering frantically; shaking a harrowed Ron as she pointed to the direction Harry had taken off in. 

It all seemed too absurd. 

Everyone seemed to anxiously be waiting for him to return, that is if he made it back in one piece. I, for one, found it to be right on schedule. From where I was sitting the gasps of horror looked comedic at best. What else were they expecting after asking a fourteen-year-old to get past a dragon? And when that fourteen-year-old had a special bond with disaster, Merlin knows where it would lead him. 

“Iz ‘e suppozed to do zat?” asked Charlotte, “Go off the pitch?”

“Since when has he done what he’s supposed to do?”

It seemed to be a long wait before Harry would come back. Without me even realizing, my gaze flickered to the stands with a sea of green robes lined the seats. It wasn’t difficult to spot him, silver hair that could practically blind someone and the world’s most judgemental stare set him apart. Then, his eyes shifted, somehow finding mine. He cocked an eyebrow. I tore my eyes away, not wanting to decipher what it could’ve meant. It was, possibly, nothing. But what were the odds that it wasn’t? I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to know yet. 

After what felt like a lifetime, a thunderous roar erupted as Harry zoomed back into view, and I swore I could feel the ground shake under my feet. He was speeding towards the ground with the Horntail inches behind him, and then, taking his hands off the Firebolt, seized the golden egg. The roar of the crowd was deafening. Ophelia, meanwhile, looked like she was about to cry.

“Look at that!” exclaimed Bagman, grinning, “Our youngest champion is quickest to get the egg! This will certainly shorten the odds on Mr Potter, now, won’t it?!”

I, for one, was quite intrigued by Ophelia’s reaction. It was strange, considering Ophelia. I expected her to be elated, ecstatic. Instead, she looked upset. In the back of my mind, a rather dark thought loomed over my head— If I were to ask her what the matter was, would she even tell me?

delphi's notes: the triwizard tournament finally begins!

buni's notes: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (cant wait for the next chapter muehehe)

TABLE OF CONTENTS next chapter: sunday, 21st june

@buni-is-typing @the-one-and-only-delphi