Gilderoy had been rivals with Ludovic since their first year in everything, especially girls and Quidditch. But now in their seventh year, their rivalry was at it's worst and nothing good could come of it. Now, the only thing they seemed to be fighting over was a girl, her name was Elizabeth or Lizzie as everyone called her. Well, Lizzie had caught the attention of these boys at the beginning of seventh year and from that moment on the two boys would do anything to get her to spend time with them. It was a little sad.

The two boys wanted her to be their date to the Halloween Ball but she wouldn't give them an answer so they had to go to extreme measures to get rid of the competition, even though it didn't work for either boy. They had spent weeks before the ball trying to do something to the other in order to get them to back off, it didn't work.

So, as a last resort, Gilderoy had taken Ludo's broom and hid it. He wouldn't tell him until he said he would back off. Then Ludo decided that in retaliation for stealing his broom he gave all Gilderoy's fangirls a photo of him changing. That was the last straw for both of them.
They decided then if she wasn't going to pick then they had to decide on one thing to do and whoever won that would take Lizzie to the Halloween Ball. So they asked her to meet them by the Black Lake.

"What am I doing here? I have better things to do." Lizzie told them, a little peeved they had her out here but kind of curious to what they were up to.

"Well, seeing as you won't choose between us, we decided we will swim to a certain point in the lake and back. Whoever wins takes you to the ball." Gilderoy told her, hoping she would not be opposed to the idea.

"Hmm.. I like the idea. Off you go then, I'll watch." She said winking at both of them.

Quickly both boys stripped their clothes off leaving their swim shorts on until Lizzie said "Why don't you swim naked? Make it more fun."

"Okay then. If Gilderoy isn't too scared." Ludo said as he teased Gilderoy.

"Let's do it."

Stripping their shorts off and heading into the water, they waited until they heard Lizzie tell them to go. After hearing that, they started swimming and Gidleroy was in the lead. That was until Ludo had caught up to him, getting ahead of him. Soon, they would be reaching the point and have to turn round so Gilderoy knew he would have to act fast and get ahead because he really didn't want Ludo to win, he might rub it in his face. Swimming as hard as he could, he got ahead of Ludo slightly.

Ludo know if Gilderoy won, he wouldn't hear the end of it and that was something he couldn't handle. Trying to get ahead was going to be more difficult as he saw Gilderoy turn round, ready to swim back. Then Gilderoy passed him as he was coming up to the point and he turned, swimming back and hoping to get ahead of Gilderoy again.

It was coming to a close, Gilderoy was close to the edge of the lake and Ludo was still behind but suddenly Gilderoy lost his balance and tried desperatley not to drown. Ludo saw him trying to regain his balance and could see Lizzie cheering, hoping he won but he couldn't not help Gilderoy so he swam to him and helped him get his balance then they both swam to the edge, getting out at the same time.

"That was a waste of my time. Neither of you won." Lizzie said clearly pissed off.

"Is that all you can say? Gilderoy nearly drowned." Ludo couldn't believe the way she was acting.

"Well, he's fine and he was close to the edge."

"That doesn't make a difference." Ludo checked to see if Gilderoy was okay but he kept saying he was fine.

"I'm fine but it still isn't nice that you don't care if I got hurt or not." If this was the way Lizzie was being then Gilderoy didn't want to go with her to the ball. "I have decided that I don't want to go to the ball with you, Lizzie."

"Fine, Ludo can take me instead."

"Actually I don't want to either. You'll just have to find someone who's desperate enough to take you. Bye now."

Lizzie glared at both of them before storming off back to the castle.

"We never should have let her get between our friendship or anything else for that matter." Ludo told Gilderoy as he helped him up.

"Maybe.. but it was fun, our rivalry I mean."

"I agree about that."

Walking up to the castle, they two boys knew that even though they weren't proper friends and still rivals. They would never let their rivalry ever be about one girl again and instead focus it on Quidditch because they only had the one year left. They had to make the year count.