Wednesday, after dinner, Harry made his way to the room Dumbledore had provided for the Champions. There had been, finally, a formal announcement for the Ball, and Harry wanted some time alone. Already, it seemed, as if the sharks were hunting him. He thought he saw several girls looking at him with same look his cousin had when served a super-duper-triple-banana split with extra everything. He was very surprised to see the room occupied. Hermione was sitting at the table, several books opened in front of her, while she sat, chewing on the end of her quill. Fleur and Gabrielle were sitting in front of the fireplace. Fleur was sitting in one of the chairs, with Gabrielle sitting on the floor in front of her. Harry watched, fascinated as Fleur was braiding her sister's hair. Not wanting to disturb them he turned back toward the door.

"Come, sit," said Fleur.

Shrugging, Harry sat in the chair nearest to her.

"Sorry," said Harry.

"Why are you sorry?"

"For disturbing you."

"Non, you did not," replied Fleur. "I have not properly apologized."

"For what?"

"For...what did I say? 'Leetle boy, no?"

"Oh, don't worry about it, I've been called worse. I'm used to it. I've been meaning to ask...and you sort of answered, but why is Gabrielle here?"

Gabrielle stuck her tongue out at Harry.

"My parents are out of the country and my granmuzzer is not well. She is too old to care for my sister."

Gabrielle turned her head and stuck her tongue out at Fleur, who didn't notice, but Harry did.

"Oh, so you not only have to compete but you have to what...mind her?"

"Not completely. She still takes lessons. Beauxbaton also has a, what do you call it, primary school? She attends it, but it is only a day school."

"Oh, so, she wouldn't have anywhere to go, when not in class. So she's taking classes here?"

"Oui," said Gabrielle, "and, how do you say it, 'they stink'?"

Fleur said something, in French to her sister and for her part, Gabrielle bowed her head and looked properly abashed, except she was sticking her tongue out the whole time, which Fleur couldn't see.

Harry fought to keep from laughing.

"Who are you going to ask to the Ball?" blurted out the young girl, as soon as Fleur finished, both the tirade and the hair. "You can always ask me!" She added, bouncing to her feet. She ran off to the table where Hermione was working.

"Is she always so..."

"Forward? No," said Fleur. "She said that you are her big brozzer, now."

"Oh..." said Harry looking at Fleur, who was trying not to laugh.

Cedric and Cho entered, before anyone could say anything else. Viktor was a few seconds behind them. They sat on one of the sofas, while Viktor went over to the table with Hermione.

"Well, everyone's here does anyone want to practice dancing," asked Cho.

"Umm...sure," said Harry.

Hermione let out an excited gasp and an explosive "Yes!"

Cho was smiling. "I think Viktor just asked her to the Ball. Have you thought of anyone, Harry?"

"No, not really. Why?"

"No reason."

"Will you..."

"Hey, mate, think about something before you finish that," said Cedric, nearly laughing.

Harry's face grew red. "Oh, right...sorry."

Turning to Fleur, he noticed she was shaking her head.

"Sorry, but I have already been asked," she said.

"But the announcement was only made today."

"Don't worry about it, there's plenty of time," said Cedric, "I'm sure you'll find someone to ask."

"Right...if I don't I can always take Gabrielle. She's already offered."

Saturday morning, Harry made his way to the Quidditch Pitch. Viktor and Cedric were already there. After a few warm up exercises, Harry mounted his broom and flew up to meet the two in the air.

"I vas thinking, today we will do some drills. Then ve just have fun."

"Sounds good to me," said Harry. Cedric nodded.

Viktor led off, showing them some of the drills commonly used by the professional teams. After an hour, they started a game of 'follow the leader'. The rules were simple, the first one to drop out started the next round. Harry, by being the youngest started. He started slowly, then after a few minutes poured on the speed. He dived to the deck and re-enacted the bludger chase from his second year. Cedric dropped out when he missed a turn and plowed into the stands, in an eerie imitation of Draco. Viktor hung with Harry a few more minutes, until he called a halt, laughing. Looking down, Harry saw why Viktor was laughing. Cho and Cedric were sitting in the stands, obviously replaying the bludger chase, because they were very animated in their hand motions and Cho was heard saying, 'just like Malfoy, you idiot'.

"Grab your broom and get your arse in the air," yelled Harry, in a reasonable impression of Oliver Wood. Both Cedric and Cho jumped and grabbed their brooms. Fred and George, nearly fell off theirs as the were now in earshot. "Cedric, you are leader, so start."

Cedric took off, with now six following, as Ginny had joined the group in the air, too. Harry glanced over as she pulled up along side of him. She was smiling broadly.

Cho was the first to drop out as Cedric did a full loop into a barrel roll. Ginny was holding her own, especially as the twins were the next to drop out. That left Cedric, Harry, Ginny and Viktor, after about half an hour, Viktor called it, as all of them were keeping up with everything Cedric tried. Cho led off the next turn, that lasted for over an hour, until Hermione called up that it was lunch time.

"So where did you get the Nimbus," asked Harry, noticing Ginny's broom.

"Borrowed it from Fleur."

"You were good up there. Are you thinking of trying out?"

"Yeah, I want to play Chaser. But we won't need any until year after next, right?"

"Alicia and Angelina will be finished next year, so yeah, we'll need two then."

"Who's going to be captain next year?"

"Probably Angelina. I don't think Alicia wants it."

"That's good. Decide on who you are asking to the Ball, yet?"

Harry stopped and looked at Ginny. "What?"

"I asked," she said, starting to get a red face, "if you had decided on who you were asking to the Ball."

"I haven't decided yet."

"You'd better ask soon, then," she said, before heading off, a little more quickly than they had been walking.

Harry walked right passed the Great Hall and went the Champions room. Fleur, Celeste and Gabrielle were there, seated at the table eating.

"Bonjour," called out all three of them. Celeste added, "Join us? There is plenty."

There was bread, cheese, olives and some small pickles, pickled peppers, some sliced meats and a few other items that he couldn't identify, but looked good. He grabbed a plate and sat down. The three girls returned to their conversation, in French.

Harry muttered, under his breath, "I should have taken French instead of German..."

Celeste looked up and said, "Oui, you should 'ave. But you can fix it now."

"How? Those books Cho mentioned?"

"Take the Polyglot potion."

"What's that do?"

"It gives you a language."

"Why have I never heard of it before?"

"Because, it's a Seventh year potion," said Cedric, pulling up a chair next to Harry. "And if you are taking Runes, you can't take it until after your N.E.W.T.s."

"Why?"

"Because you can learn any language that way, including ones that are no longer actively spoken, which means any of the languages behind the Runes taught in class."

"Oh, I guess that's how Mr. Crouch knows so many languages, then."

"Probably. But there are downsides to it. You may learn the language and be able to read and write it, but unless you actively converse in it, your accent will be horrible."

"Oui, and that is why I 'aven't taken it," said Fleur. "I am taking Runes."

"Basically, that means I'm the only one who can take it?"

Cedric, Fleur and Celeste all nodded.

"There's also the fact that it can be a bit expensive. Especially for uncommon languages."

"Can anyone brew it or does it have to be bought? And if it can only be bought how many languages are there to choose from?"

"A couple of hundred and they range anywhere from two Galleons to over a hundred. To make it you need access to a Pensieve and some hard to find ingredients. It's not that hard to brew, but distilling the essence of the language is the hard part," said Cedric. "You can order them, one of the apothecaries will carry them."

"If I can get a hold of a Pensieve can someone show me how to make it?"

Viktor, Cho and Hermione entered the room. Harry noticed that Viktor and Hermione were walking side by side when they came in.

"What do you want someone to show you, Harry?" asked Hermione.

"How to make the Polyglot potion."

"You're lucky," she said, sighing, "you are the only one here who can take it, now. I have to wait until after..."

"N.E.W.T.s," said Harry, "Cedric was already whinging about it."

"Was not, I just mentioned that."

"Vell, if no-one else vill show you, I vill," said Viktor. "I vill even contribute a few languages. I speak Bulgarian, Russian and German."

"I speak French, Spanish, Italian and Latin," said Celeste.

"I can add Veela and Greek," added Fleur.

Cho said, "Welsh, Irish Gaelic, along with Mandarin."

"Welsh and Gaelic?"

She shrugged, "My father is Chinese, my mother is from Cardiff. Her father is from Dublin."

"Swedish," said Ginny. "I learned if from Luna's father, when I was eight. And my brothers have sent me essences for Romanian, Egyptian, Akkadian, Hebrew and a couple of others."

"Harry, you've got one, too," said Hermione, staring at Harry.

"No, not that."

"Vhat, it can't be that bad."

"Please!"

Everyone was staring at Harry. "Alright, I can give Parseltongue."

Everyone's eyes went wide.

"That would be...wow. Really?"

"Incroyable!"

"Give it away? That one would probably be worth a couple of thousand Galleons a dose!" said Cho.

"There's enough interest?"

"Yes!"

"Basically, the only speakers, in modern times have been You-know-who and some bloke who was Head Boy here in the '40s," said Cedric.

"Umm...that's the same person," said Harry.

"Yeah," added Ginny, " a real berk."

"Vell, that's surprising, I vould have thought he had gone to my school. Get the Pensieve and ve vill start as soon as ve can."

"How many languages can you do at one time?" asked Harry.

"As many as you want," replied Cedric, "you make the base potion and then add as many essences as you have. You have to wait a week before each time you take it, though. The base potion is fairly easy to brew."

"What needs to be done to prepare the essences?"

"You need to extract them. There's a spell that you use to grab all the language memories and then you pull them out and place them in a Pensieve. Then you duplicate the memories and add them to an alembic, that's got a second potion in it. This will distill the language down to an essence. One drop of that essence can be added to the base potion."

"How much essence do you get?"

"About a dram," said Hermione. The others nodded. "That can infuse a couple of gallons of the base potion. A dose is about 3 drams."

"So that's what a bit over 400 doses per gallon?"

"Yes," said Cho. "The essence lasts a long time and the potion, once infused lasts about a year."

Harry asked, "What about Ginny's essences? If we add them to the base potion, it won't last long enough to..."

"You're being silly," said Ginny. "You can always extract them and give them back, in a couple of years. Besides, I think the ones Bill sent are much more than a couple of drops. They are close to a full dram."

"Oh..."

"It takes about two years before you can extract an essence from a language you've learned this way," added Cho.

"Enough of all this. We'll work on it more, after the Ball. We've got dances to learn."

They spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening practicing the various dances.

The next morning, Harry tried to see Dumbledore, but he wasn't at breakfast. So, Harry spent most of the morning working on his assignments. He noticed that having the room with several older students around tended to be more conducive to studying, than either the common room or the library. In the room, you could talk without being thrown out and there weren't the distractions of the common room.

Harry tried again after lunch and Dumbledore told him to come to his office Monday evening.

After dinner, Monday, Harry made his way to the gargoyle, before he could start guessing a password, the statue moved aside and he hear, "Come in, Harry".

Harry entered the office, looking around. Nothing had changed since he was last in it, except Fawkes was not sitting on his perch.

"What brings you here, this evening?"

"I have a couple of questions."

"I see. None about the Tournament, as you remember, teachers and staff are not allowed to assist the Champions with the tasks."

"No, not specifically about a task, but a rather general one. I was puzzled, for a while, why you let us have that conference room..."

"That is something that should have been done, from the beginning. I'm sorry to say, but several people were against the idea and didn't want to open it. I did it anyway, as is my prerogative as headmaster of one of the schools involved."

"Oh, was it something done before?"

"Yes, most of the time, there was a room set aside for the use of those involved."

"That makes sense," said Harry. "My next question is more of a personal request. We were talking and somehow the Polyglot Potion was brought up. And I want to take it."

` "I suppose that would be fine. There is nothing in the rules preventing you, but you should know that by taking it you would not be allowed to sit your O.W.L. Or N.E.W.T. Exams for Runes."

"I know and since I'm not taking that class, I wasn't planning on it, anyway. But we need a Pensieve."

"I see, you are not planning on buying a ready-made version. Yes, I suppose we can arrange a time to produce some essences. I'm a bit curious, which languages are you extracting?"

"I don't remember all of them, but each of us is contributing at least one language."

"I was not aware you knew another language, Harry."

"I'm contributing Parseltongue."

"Intriguing. Yes, it should work. If you don't mind, I would like a dose of that when you have it completed. When will you be starting on this?"

"After the Ball. We are too busy with dance lessons, until then."

Dumbledore smiled, "I see. I was fascinated when I saw that first practice. I haven't seen dancing that fine, especially that tango, since I was at a conference in Rio, back in the 1960's. Several of us went out for a night of ballroom dancing and found ourselves actually entered in a dance contest. I never seem to have time, theses days to enjoy it, besides these old knees of mine aren't quite up to the task."

"Err...thank you, I suppose. We really appreciate not having to use a classroom anymore, we were starting to get gawkers," said Harry, breaking Dumbledore from his reminiscing.

"Yes, well. Provide me a complete list of the essences you are wanting to make and we can schedule a time to extract them. Are you going to need assistance with the process? Brewing the base potion?"

"No, Viktor and Fleur both are confident they can handle that. If not, Cedric and Hermione know enough about it to fill in any gaps. We are planning on brewing enough that everyone who wants will have a complete set of the essences, if not the potion itself, as some of us will be finished with school and eligible to take it, once the Tournament is finished."

"Well, then, get me the list and we will work out a time to do it. When I see the list I may be able to add a couple of my own."

"Thank you," said Harry.

"I'm proud to see this level of co-operation," said Dumbledore, once again smiling.

Tuesday morning...

Harry slowly made his way down the many flights of stairs, to the Great Hall, pondering Ginny's latest question. She had asked him, not only if he had asked anyone, 'for real' as she put it, to the Ball, but whether or not waiting was a good idea. Then she reminded him, that if all else failed, there was always Gabrielle's offer, before dashing off to join her roommates for breakfast. As he started down the final flight, someone ran into him, knocking him down. All Harry noticed was a shock of distinctive red hair disappearing around a corner. The faint sounds of laughter were coming from the bottom of the stairs.

Before Harry could stand, Ginny came running up the stairs, skidding to a halt when she saw Harry.

"Ron?" she asked.

"I guess so, all I saw was a red blur running off that way," he said, pointing down the hall. "So what did the git do now, ask Fleur to the ball?"

"Oui," said, Fleur, coming up the last few steps, to Harry's level. "He did not even finish asking, let alone wait for a response. How rude."

"Yeah, that's Ron alright," sighed Harry. Then looking at Fleur, he asked, "What would you have told him?"

"The same I tell everyone, that I am already spoken for. But what about you?," she asked, glancing at Ginny. Ginny was standing slightly behind Harry, with a hand on his shoulder.

"I...ummm...errrr..." stammered Harry, 'First Ginny, now Fleur...what is with them this morning?'

"No, I haven't...I was going to at breakfast, but," Harry looked at Ginny. She was now biting her lip, trying not to say anything. "I guess..." a glance at Fleur, who now had a slight smile on her face. Harry also noticed that Hermione, Viktor, Cho and Cedric had joined the crowd forming around him. Harry groaned and looked around, for an escape route. Seeing none he turned and looked at Ginny. "Ginny..." Gabrielle pushed to the front and stood there, staring at Harry. "will you go to the ball with me?"

"Très bon," exclaimed Gabrielle, clapping delightedly.