A/N: God, it's been ages. It's the worst kind of time for me to write because exams are in a week, but I watched Yuri on Ice and the episodes are coming out so slowly that I just had to find something else skating related to occupy my time. So this happened.

The Love of Ice

"Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley, competing in pair skating," Severus Snape intoned, eyes glancing up from the list and boring into Harry. "What would winning Hogwarts' Premium Scholarship mean to you?"

Ginny's hands clutched tighter at his arm, too tense to speak. Harry's mouth suddenly ran dry. A thousand thoughts flitted through his mind.

Sitting in front of him was – oh God – Severus Snape, practically a veteran in the ice skating world. His career had ended after a major leg injury but his legacy shone through his students – each brighter than the last. And then, separated by an empty seat from Snape was Minerva McGonagall, the prima ballerina who switched careers halfway in her twenties and took the ice skating world by storm.

"Mister Potter?" McGonagall said.

The question broke through the haze of his mind.

Harry flushed. "O-oh yes, it would mean the world to me. To us" – he glanced at Ginny – "I mean, there's no other way we can go to Hogwarts. The schooling fees alone … So, well, yes. It'd be great," he finished weakly.

Snape smiled at him, though Harry rather thought the curl of his lip looked more like a sneer. "Unfortunately, Mister Potter, we only give out ten scholarships annually, and none of them to charity cases."

"I-I know that, sir. We'll do our best …"

… he hoped.

Nothing short of their best performance could hope to land them the scholarship. And it did mean everything to him – the chance to finally, finally go to Hogwarts, to pursue his dreams, to prove to his parents he could do this.

The alternative was unthinkable.

McGonagall smiled. "That's the spirit. All the best, Mister Potter, Miss Weasley."

Harry flexed his fingers, smoothed back his hair – waxed for the occasion. His skin tingled with anxiety. The cold seeped into his bones. His legs felt like they would give way any moment, if not for the skates that hugged his ankles snuggly.

Harry flashed a smile at Ginny and she nodded.

Together, they stepped onto the rink.

The music started.

Harry let his legs slide over the ice in a smooth half-moon. He threw one arm up, so that the only thing still keeping tethered to Ginny was his left hand. He could feel the power of each muscle in his legs, dormant. Waiting.

The violins crescendoed.

Their bond broke.

And Harry was flying.

He weaved across the ice, light as a feather. The ice was alive beneath his feet. Singing to him. The music carried him. He skated like he was evading something under the ice, darting away but never straying too far.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny springing off the ice, her lithe body twisting once – twice – three times in a triple Lutz. The music hit a familiar note. He twisted around, a leg behind him to power his movements and caught Ginny just as her feet hit the ice to throw her up again.

As her leg went swinging over his shoulder, head dangling in front of his own, Harry propelled her into a flip. She landed like an angel and they went down flat in a death spiral.

Her body was almost parallel to the ice as Harry pivoted on the heel of his blade. Round and round in a circle. Harry felt stronger and stronger even as his arms grew weaker and weaker. A smile split across his face.

They were really doing it!

The music crashed down, and Harry let go of Ginny's hand, allowing her to drift away from him. A leaf in a gust of strong wind.

He had been looking forward to this part.

Pirouetting on the ice so that the tip of his blade pointed to Ginny again, Harry rushed at her figure. Head on. Ginny ran, skates leaving delicate, thin lines in the ice as she fled from him.

He mentally timed the music – three, two, one – felt the energy behind his leg, and flung himself up. He went sailing through the air, up in a triple axel that left him deliciously dizzy. Up, up – down.

His weight hit the ice wrong.

His fingers grappled at nothing for purchase. Harry managed to keep his arms still – thank God. He could only imagine what Snape would think if he started flailing like an eel. His entire body tilted forwards. Too much. No.

It couldn't be over like this. Time seemed to slow down.

Harry launched himself into the air a second time. Before his body could succumb completely to gravity. Before he had time to fall. Double toe loop. He hadn't gained enough height, but his rhythm was perfect.

He landed solidly on the ice, swung Ginny up into the air by her waist, lifting her over his head as he danced across the ice.

Warm fluttered through his chest as the music ended.

There.

They had done it. A feeling of triumph lapped at his heart. It was one of their best performances. No grievous mistakes, no mistimed jumps – he'd even pulled off the triple Axel!

If he was honest, he messed that one up half the time, even when they were just practicing. This was a minor miracle. Harry swept Ginny into a hug, laughing as they stepped off the rink. He was just so happy.

He had given his best. Ginny's best.

Fred and George and Ron would be so pleased that their little sister finally made it to Hogwarts. They mocked it, of course, calling it the 'rich people' school, but they knew how much it meant to her. To them.

Suddenly Harry couldn't wait to get back to the Burrow with Ginny.

It had been such a thrill that he was still short of breath. Panting. Feeling the pleasant heat in his cheeks and on his palms. The slight trembling of his muscles, both from exhaustion and from exhilaration.

God. It was as if the doors that swelled shut before him suddenly reappeared. Opened. And behind it was a whole new world –

"– That was poorly done."

All the air left him.

It felt as if Severus Snape had upped and done a beautiful quadruple Axel and landed on Harry's stomach. Hard. All the warmth drained out of his body.

He blinked.

"I'm sorry?"

Snape went on as if he hadn't even heard him. "Very poorly done. Your choreography – if it can even be called that – wasn't even a proper pair skating choreography. You may as well have been prancing by yourself. You ignored each other from the moment you started to the moment you finished."

Harry felt a trance-like numbness settle over his mind.

This couldn't be happening. This was one of their best performances. They couldn't possibly be refusing –

"Severus, please," McGonagall said.

When she turned around, her eyes softened. "You are both extremely talented. I thought you were good. Your passion was the highlight of your piece –"

"Passion is nothing without technique, and his technique was repulsive."

Harry's heart thudded painfully against his chest. He ground his skate blades into the floor to drown out the choked sound he almost let loose. Oh God – please don't let him have ruined Ginny's chances. He'd never forgive himself if he did.

"Severus, you're being too harsh. His jumps were impressive –"

"Impressively mediocre."

McGonagall narrowed her eyes.

"Oh please," Snape scoffed, as he shuffled the papers. "Don't act as if even our youngest students can't outskate the pair of them. Pair skating is about skating as one. They were like a split orange."

Harry let his gaze drop to his feet. He had been so absorbed in the music, so self-absorbed that he barely paid attention to Ginny until he absolutely had to. He should have looked at her more, done more with her …

With a sigh, McGonagall reached out and grabbed a pen. Even from where he was standing, Harry could see the red crosses written next to his and Ginny's names.

His chest might as well have been torn open.

"You were good, believe me," she said. "It's just that being good doesn't cut it at Hogwarts. You have to be exceptional. I'm sorry."

Harry knelt down and, with trembling hands, started taking off his skates.

"Wait."

A young man, who could not have been older than eighteen, strode towards them from the other side of the rink. Dark haired, smoothed ebony curls and blue eyes on a face that Harry could recognise even in his sleep.

His heart leapt into his throat.

Tom Riddle. The youngest five-time winner of the World Championships. What the hell was he doing here? Harry's gaze fell to the empty chair. Oh. Shit. He was the third judge.

When Tom Riddle met his eyes, all coldness like the ice itself – and Harry expected nothing less from someone who practically made his home in the ice – his mouth pulled up. "I agree with Severus. His pair skating was repulsive."

Snape smirked.

Harry's vision shuttered black for a split second. And he took a step back. This wasn't even disappointing anymore – this was downright bloody agony. To hear the testimony of how bad – how utterly repulsive – he was, and from Tom Riddle's lips.

"But I find myself captivated nonetheless."

Snape started.

Riddle tapped his thigh in thought. "The passion, the drive, the interaction. The kind of skating that spins a story." He smiled. A flash of sharp teeth. "It's something I haven't seen in a long time even in Olympic territory."

"Interaction with what?" Snape snarled. "He ignored her the whole time."

"With the ice," Tom said, without missing a beat. "It's beautiful."

This was it. Harry's brain had short-circuited and he had started hallucinating from the trauma. What was Tom Riddle … what was he saying?

"His skating is fascinating."

Snape looked extremely put off.
"No it wasn't."

"It was," Tom said, eyes landing on Harry again. "You want to know what ruined this performance? His partner. There was no chemistry between them."

Ginny looked like she had been slapped across the face. She turned the other way. Harry saw tears well up, and he wanted to go comfort her but found that he couldn't move.

"This is unbelievable," Snape breathed. "What are you saying?"

"Let him skate with me."

What?

What. The. Hell?

Harry didn't even see Riddle get up before the man was in his face, hand reaching out to grab his bicep. What. He reeled back.

"Hmm," Tom said. "You're weak. No wonder you struggled to lift her."

Harry's tongue flopped uselessly in his mouth.

"U-uh you want to skate with me?" His brain really had short-circuited this time. "I'm not going to do that!"

Tom arched an eyebrow. "I would reconsider if I were you. Do you want to go to Hogwarts or not?"

"We've never even been partners before!"

"I am aware of that."

"We have no choreography! No music, no idea how to synchronise with each other," Harry sputtered.

"Skate and I'll synchronise with you. Jump and I will catch you."

Harry quailed under the intensity of Tom's gaze. He had to hand it to the man – he had presence. No wonder the Olympic judges all adored him.

"And … if you miss?"

It wasn't a challenge as much as the fear blossoming across his chest. Every amateur skater knew it. Pair skating was a dangerous sport. Get too close to your partner's blades and you could have your calf sliced open. Jump and you better hope your partner catch you. The ice was unforgiving.

"Then you crash and possibly break your neck."

~ 0O0 ~

Each time his eyes became fixated on the intricate lines in the ice, as his second instinct, Tom would force him to look up. To make eye contact. To dance with him.

When the violins hit the high note, Harry buried himself in the music and launched himself into the air from a standstill. No longer bound by gravity, as he pirouetted through the air. Coldness and air against his face.

It should have been a triple Salchow.

It would have been a triple Salchow, but he never hit the ice. Tom caught him with one arm, lazily like a hawk snagging its prey, and raised Harry into a twist lift. The position was unfamiliar – more up Ginny's alley than Harry's – but he was not about to be daunted.

He rode on the last of the momentum to do a split before throwing himself into a series of rotations. Tom's arms followed perfectly, not a second behind. No wonder he won the bloody World Championships five consecutive times.

Tom thrust him up – and Harry went flying through the air. It was the highest he had ever been, higher than any jump he could reach from the ground. The timing was perfect, so he closed his eyes. Followed the natural twirl of his body reacting towards gravity. Fed on his adrenaline.

And landed on his right leg in his first, and absolutely perfect Quadruple Salchow.

Thrilled, Harry propelled himself forward across the eyes.

He didn't get very far before Tom was upon him and sweeping him up again by the waist.

By the fifth time he was stolen from the safety of the ice and hurled up into the air, Harry could feel sweat burst across his neck and palms in a way he had rarely had to put up with before. He was usually the one who tossed Ginny while she did the twists and turns and splits.

Now he found himself mercilessly thrown – again and again and again. Forced to spin and land again and again. The exertion was almost too much.

Yet being left without choreography and only the disquietingly dangerous glint in the world class skater's eyes meant Harry had to watch Tom's every move.

Harry had thought Tom Riddle, of all people, would know the danger of performing jumps and spirals without fully understanding the other skater. But Tom seemed to have no such reservations. Every time he threw Harry, it was violent and without warning.

Even two seconds of distraction could mean that Harry would face a head-on collision with the ice he loved so much and give himself a deadly concussion.

Scarily, he could feel his muscles cramping, and his chest stretched tight with not having enough oxygen. He just didn't think he had the energy to do another triple whatever jump.

But the music was far from ending, and when Harry tried to meet Tom's eyes, communicate that he was done, the skater ignored him.

The music picked up pace.

And Tom streamed towards him, skates gliding effortlessly over the ice like a swan. Legs straight and arms strong. There was no way Harry could keep up with that kind of stamina.

So he turned and fled.

The air whistled through his hair as he skated around the rink. It was at once terrifying and amazing how Tom managed to keep up with him without crashing into him. Predicting his next move, blocking it.

Forcing him to swerve and leap and duck under that pseudo-punch-grab that came out of nowhere. It was all about speed now, and the music was just hitting the crescendo before the end of the piece, so Harry's moves seemed oddly fitting.

Harry soared across the rink, in flight, a swan from a hawk.

His hair was wet and dripping into his eyes. He could not even blink them away anymore.

God, the music was finally ending.

Yet at the final note, Tom threw himself into a quadruple Axel – notoriously the most difficult manoeuvre in the ice skating world and from that position – and landed in front of Harry.

Harry froze.

The music stopped.

And his knees finally gave out.

With a dull thud, Harry ended up half-sitting, half-kneeling on the ice.

When he looked up, Tom Riddle had already divested his skates and joined the legendary panel of judges, looking still ever so composed and only the faintest of red on his cheek to suggest he had just performed a ten minute routine.

"I believe we are decided then?"

A/N: Fling me a review; I'd love to hear your thoughts on this or - ya know - Yuri on Ice 3