"The Yule Ball will take place on Christmas Eve night and is open to 4th years and above, in honor of the Triwizard Tournament contestants," Headmaster Hiruzen said to the students gathered at the Great Hall. "Our honorary champions should especially make sure they find a date for the event." He looked pointedly at Lee sitting at the Slytherin's table.
Lee blushed, sinking low in his seat. The Great Hall erupted in giggles, smirking at him and the other two champions - Gaara and Karui. Suigetsu nudged Lee hard in the ribs as he cackled. Lee couldn't help but glance at Sakura over at the Gryffindor table. Their eyes caught for a brief second before his darted away.
In order to instruct the students on proper dance form for the ball, Professor Tsunade hosted a seminar for each of the Houses, 4th years and above, as well as for the exchange students and their champions. During the Slytherin seminar, Tsunade offered her hand to Lee and quirked a smile, saying, "Come be my partner for a moment, Lee. Since the champions will have the first dance I thought it best to pick you for this demonstration." The Slytherins giggled amongst themselves as Lee stiffly followed Tsunade's lead.
No one had expected Lee would be chosen by the Goblet of Fire as Hogwarts' champion. Before he had set the wizarding world's eyes on him, he was just a strange Slytherin 6th year. The weird almost-squib that once liked to peer pressure pure-bloods and half-bloods to challenges to prove his mettle. The wizard students laughed at for failing almost every practical application of magic that used a wand.
But even with his apparent weaknesses, Lee was still not deterred from putting his name into the Goblet of Fire. He had something to prove to the wizarding world - that he could be a powerful wizard even with his limitations. He knew now that this ambition of his, that he had to accomplish no matter what, was what landed him in Slytherin, despite others' bafflement.
And he had proved all naysayers and doubters wrong by completing the first challenge in November with flying colors, leaving his opponents from the other schools scrambling in the dust.
But now he had a sudden new challenge presented to him. He had to ask someone out to the Yule Ball.
"Why don't you ask Miss Haruno?" Sir Guy suggested after Quidditch practice, after the rest of Lee's Slytherin team had filed out. "She's a nice girl and you two get along well."
Of course Lee's mind had already immediately went to Sakura, the very moment the ball was announced. He had a crush on her since his 2nd year, ever since he first laid eyes on her.
"I…" Lee's mouth hung open, unsure of how to reply, heat prickling at his cheeks.
Guy beamed and threw his arm around Lee's neck in a tight side-hug. "Oh, the trials and tribulations of youth! You can do it, Lee!"
But Lee couldn't ask her to the Yule Ball. When he had gained the confidence (perhaps, too much of it) to approach her for the first time in his 3rd year, she was horrified at his sudden request to become his girlfriend, and every other attempt of his to gain her affections. But after their harrowing shared encounter in the Forbidden Forest that year, he had stopped bringing up his feelings for her all together, and they were actually able to become good friends after that.
Things were bad between them when he brought up his feelings for her. Things were good when he didn't.
Since Lee and Karin's last class of the day on Mondays ended next to each other, the two Slytherins always walked together to their bi-weekly prefect meeting.
Karin would get mad at him if he dared call her his friend, but he secretly liked to think of her as such. Karin didn't seem to have too many friends of her own considering how guarded and prickly she was, but she somehow always ended up with some excuse to talk to Lee. Lee likened her to a grumpy cat, one that would glare at you from its corner and pretend it was mere coincidence that it always ended up spending time in the same room as you.
That day Lee waited an extra five minutes outside of Karin's Potions class for her. The other 5th year students had long filed out, but Karin was nowhere in sight. He peered in the classroom and saw Professor Anko and Karin talking within, the two debating over the final grade on one of Karin's assignments.
After those five minutes, Karin finally strode out of the classroom, not waiting up for Lee as she said, "Come on, you know how the Head Girl gets testy if any prefects show up late."
Lee caught up to her with a slight jog.
As they hurried to the meeting, Lee and Karin spoke about their day, Karin in particular complaining about the unfair grade Professor Anko had given her, before the topic shifted to Quidditch.
"With Kabuto finally gone next year, you'll make Seeker," Karin said, matter-of-fact. "You should have been given the role years ago, but what the team captain says goes, and Kabuto is nothing but greedy."
Kabuto was the Slytherin team's captain, and had been one of the youngest captains ever, having been assigned the role in just his 3rd year. He had retained the star Seeker position all of those years, despite others' attempts at try-outs to claim the role. Lee's mastery of a broomstick was unrivaled, but not enough to convince Kabuto to relinquish the Seeker role, even when some students were clamoring for Lee to take it after that famous match two years ago where Lee had caught the Snitch as just a Chaser while Kabuto was distracted fending off a Bludger.
Lee grinned. "That is my hope! I want everyone to watch me and see just how capable I am."
With no warning, Karin suddenly clung to his arm, letting out a loud, shrill laugh. "You're sooo funny, Lee!" she drawled as she smiled up at him with this lovesick expression - like the one she would wear for Sasuke when she thought no one was looking, but exaggerated tenfold. Lee was so bewildered that he just froze as he stared at her.
A pack of scowling girls passed by them then, giving Karin the stink eye.
The very next second Karin had released him and returned a respectable distance away, expression back to a reserved neutral. She adjusted her glasses wordlessly.
Lee squeaked out an incomprehensible questioning sound. "K-Karin! I do not…"
"Keep walking. They were moving in to intercept us, eyeing you like prey," Karin said.
"W-What do you mean?"
"You're the Hogwarts champion," Karin huffed, as though it was obvious. "Girls that never gave a single damn about you before are going to want the title of the champion's date to the ball."
"Oh. I see," he said, brow wrinkling in confusion.
So this was the reason why some girls he had barely ever spoken to were suddenly smiling at him and greeting him unprompted after the Yule Ball was announced. He had noticed the same happening with the other two champions too.
This sudden change was... odd. He had never had girls try and approach him like that. He had been called ugly plenty of times before. That his haircut was lame, that his eyes were too freakishly round, and that his eyebrows were too thick. He tried to not let it bother him too much. It was only thanks to Sakura that most of that bullying stopped; after they became friends she targeted anyone that dared talk trash about him with a harsh intensity and wrath that would scare off even the bravest Gryffindor.
"Don't get the wrong idea and think I was doing it for you. I just didn't want them to make us late to the meeting." Karin then added, "Just for your information, the girls that start treating you differently out of nowhere just want to use you for some quick fame."
"Thank you, Karin," he smiled appreciatively at her.
He guessed this did mean that his options for the Yule Ball were expanded, but he really didn't want to ask someone random, let alone someone who didn't actually like him.
At least Sakura was still treating him like she had before, even with his newfound fame. Except she did fret over him more. The Triwizard Tournament was dangerous, after all, and it wasn't too uncommon for champions to die during them in years past.
But not that it mattered, since he couldn't ask Sakura to the ball anyway.
"Hey, guys! What's up?" Sakura came up from behind them, matching their pace at Lee's side. Lee jumped a little, breaking out of his thoughts.
"Sakura!" Lee greeted. "You are almost late to the meeting too?"
"Oh, I left class early to help a student to the hospital wing. One girl cursed another and made all her hair fall out. But Madam Shizune should be able to help her grow it back at least." Sakura sighed hopelessly.
"I hope you've thought up some more ideas for the pre-Yule Ball House events," Karin said to Sakura. "The other Gryffindor prefects are frankly clueless and they're dragging down the rest of our planning."
Sakura groaned in agreement. "Don't remind me." The older Gryffindor prefects liked to fool around in the prefect meetings, and the Head Girl put up with it since she was dating one of them.
The three of them thankfully made it to the meeting on time, narrowly avoiding a scolding by the Head Girl. The meeting went as normal, but Lee noticed Sakura kept on glancing between him and Karin with this odd expression he couldn't quite place.
The Head Boy of last year had begun the tradition of pairing up prefects during their past-curfew patrols of the Hogwarts hallways after a fresh 5th year Ravenclaw prefect was badly injured in the dungeons last year and no one knew about it or where they had gone missing to until half way through the next day. The only requirement for pairs was that 5th year prefects were required to pair up with an older prefect so they could be taught the ropes and to keep the younger prefect safe.
Sometimes Lee and Sakura would pair up together when their curfew schedules lined up, but it had been awhile since that last happened.
Because their schedules currently matched up, Lee and Karin often paired together. Lee had helped teach her the role as a new 5th year prefect, but she was such a fast learner and natural authority figure that Lee often felt like the younger of the two.
That night they were on patrol duty through the third floor, passing by the silent suits of armor lining the hallways, moonlight glinting off the shining steel.
"Sakura is so beautiful and kind and smart and she is a wonderful friend," Lee lamented with a blush at his cheeks. "I want to ask her, but would that make her comfortable? Could it ruin our friendship? Karin, what should I do?!"
"If you don't calm down you'll attract the ghosts."
"Sorry."
"You better ask her before someone else does. Otherwise you're going to be sulking about it and I'll be stuck as witness to it on these damn patrols."
"But she does not like me in that way!" Lee insisted. "She did not like it when I shared my feelings before…"
"Ask her as a friend then. Tons of students will be going as just friends just to get in. It's normal."
"But..." The implications.
Karin sighed. "Just ask her and be done with it so I don't have to listen to your driveling."
Lee pouted, thinking it over. He still wasn't sure about it. It was still a potential risk to his friendship to even ask, with the history of his feelings for her.
"Are you going to ask Sasuke?" Lee asked.
Karin looked shocked and appalled that he would dare to say such a thing to her. She pushed her glasses up her nose. "Th-That's ridiculous! Why would I even… Of course not!"
"You can do it, Karin!" he grinned at her with a supportive thumbs up.
"Shut it!"
But when she turned her head away from him, Lee saw the corner of a hidden, mischievous smile as she clutched her hands over her heart.
There was a sudden echoing moan in the hallway. The two of them froze, then shifted closer to each other as they whipped out their wands.
"A ghost?!" Lee exclaimed.
Karin shushed him, and with a "Lumos!" the tip of her wand glowed.
Lee followed suit, but while Karin's light was bright and steady, Lee's was dim and flickering like an old bulb about to go out.
The two followed giggling sounds to the library. However, when they entered the noises suddenly stopped, leaving nothing but the dead silence of the night. Karin narrowed her eyes. Lee knew the look - Karin had caught the scent of a troublemaking, curfew-violating student.
"Come out!" Karin called. "We know you're hiding here!"
Lee added, "You are in violation of curfew!"
There was no response. Lee and Karin split, combing through the aisles to flush out their troublemaker.
A girl suddenly burst out of one of the nooks near Karin, charging towards the exit. Karin immediately reacted with a point of her wand and shouted, "Colloshoo!" The girl's shoes stuck fast to the ground, tripping her to the floor with a loud thud. Karin strode up to the girl before she could wiggle out of her shoes, roughly grabbing her by the arm.
Then another student dashed out of the aisles - a boy - this time near Lee. He too fled towards the exit, in the opening the captured girl had given him.
Lee attempted the same Stickfast Hex, but it just made the boy stumble before he continued running through the sticky smack of his feet. Lee sighed, slipped his wand in his belt, and then sprinted after him. Lee caught him by the back of his robes in a few seconds flat, right at the entrance of the library. (Sakura had once told Lee he would easily make 'track', which was a muggle sport of sorts.)
When Karin and Lee had gathered the two 6th years together - a Gryffindor and Ravenclaw - they could plainly see the dark hickies on their necks. Yet another couple sneaking past curfew to make out.
Despite them being a whole year older than her, Karin looked down at them past her nose like the very model of a disapproving professor. "Runners get an extra two weeks of detention."
"And a deduction of 50 points from each of your Houses," Lee firmly added. Lee's heart did go out to them; they were just two young lovers in the prime of their lives. But Lee was supposed to be a responsible prefect, after all.
"What? That's so much!" the Ravenclaw boy protested.
"You Slytherins will do whatever slimy thing you can to win!" the Gryffindor girl growled.
"This is within the normal point deduction range for sneaking around past curfew," Lee responded. "And I did not include fleeing from prefects in that point deduction."
Karin put a hand on her hip. "He's being merciful to you ungrateful lot. But go on; keep on protesting and I will tell the Heads of your Houses that not only have you been violating curfew and fled punishment, but that you two were also busy violating public decency rules all over the library. Perhaps I should suggest to your House Heads a ban on visiting Hogsmeade for the rest of the year too? Or a ban from the only-once-every-five-years Yule Ball?"
The two students wisely shut their mouths.
After escorting the two students back to their individual dorms, with a written note to report to the detention hall the next day to start their three weeks of detention, Lee and Karin resumed their patrol.
Karin was right. The Yule Ball was only once every five years. Some students were unlucky enough to never have the chance to attend if the timing didn't line up right with their schooling years. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and this wasn't a time for regrets.
He was going to ask Sakura. As a friend.
The Yule Ball was just a few weeks away. It was firmly December now, and the high ceilings and open cloisters did little to keep out the cold of the Hogwarts castle. The grounds were covered in snow and all of the students bundled up between classes.
Lee waited for Sakura outside of her Transfiguration class at the end of the day. When the 5th year students filed out his eyes combed the crowd for her shock of pink hair. He spotted her at the same time she saw him. Her eyes lit up and he grinned in greeting as she approached him. The two began their walk to the Middle Courtyard to meet with Tenten to study for Divination, catching up on each other's day along the way. The two were bundled in their winter cloaks, their Gryffindor red and Slytherin green scarves trailing behind them with their hands shoved deep in their pockets.
When they arrived at the Middle Courtyard, Tenten had yet to show up, but it would probably take her a few minutes from the long walk she had to make. As they waited, Sakura wandered from the sheltered cloister out to the open courtyard, feet crunching the snow. Lee followed her.
Someone had built a snow-wizard in the courtyard, and a few 1st and 2nd years were off in one corner playing in the snow.
Lee gazed at Sakura when her attention was elsewhere, watching the young kids trying to build a tiny snow fort out of too little snow. A light flurry of snow clung to her pink hair, and already her cheeks and tips of her ears had gone rosy from the cold.
She was beautiful. But he had always thought so, from the very moment he first laid eyes on her.
Lee had been wondering when was the right time to ask her, let alone how to ask her. Students who wanted to ask someone they liked romantically would make some sort of grand gesture out of it, with a crowd and perhaps a gift, but Lee wasn't quite sure how to ask someone as a friend. He had thought of it so many times already - when they were studying together in the library, after their last prefect meeting, or the night they were on curfew patrol together, or after Dueling Club, or the few times they found a quiet moment in an empty hallway or nook after class to talk. But it was hard to find time alone with her that wasn't overshadowed by some other school activity, so it never felt like the right time to ask.
Cross-House friendships were just generally difficult to maintain, especially during the colder months. Hogwarts didn't offer a general common room for all of the Houses to use. ("This is a place of academia and learning, not a social club," Professor Ibiki would say.) The yearly House Cup competition didn't help either, which cast other Houses with an inherent sense of rivalry that tainted some potential friendships. ("You're fraternizing with the enemy," some Slytherins would sneer at Lee, especially when he was seen with Sakura.) Like any student, Lee did want his House to win, but he didn't see how spending time with Sakura interfered with that at all.
But even with all those difficulties, and the inherent bad blood between their two Houses, Lee and Sakura had made sure to keep up the effort throughout the years.
But he was running out of time to ask her, and the topic never naturally came up between them for some reason.
"Huh, is that Tenten?" Sakura said, gesturing to the cloister entrance behind them.
Lee turned around to look.
Lee let out a yelp of surprise as a wet snowball hit him squarely in the back of the head. When he whipped around only Sakura stood there, her red mittens crusted in snow as evidence of her crime. He was alarmed and confused, until her grin and the glint in her eye clued him in. It was a challenge.
Lee grinned back.
And Slytherins always intend to win.
Lee jolted to the ground to sweep up his own hasty snowball with his bare hands before she could react. The moment he moved she sprinted away, but he was too fast, and she let out a scream as the snowball squarely hit the back of her neck.
"Ah! It went down my back!" Sakura screeched, scrunching her neck to her shoulders as she tried to shake out the snow from inside her robes.
"Sorry!" he called.
She recovered quickly as she ducked behind the snow-wizard and lobbed another snowball right at him, hitting him square in the chest. The two of them chased after one another, laughing, and throwing snow at each other.
At one point Sakura took cover behind the courtyard's tree and Lee made a perilous charge forward as bewitched snowballs flew out from behind the tree and pelted him as she taunted him. When he got close enough he threw his snowball at the cluster of tree branches above her, and the thick dusting of snow that fell off the branches caused her to let out a surprised squeal. The bewitched snowballs stopped, giving Lee an opening to veer around the tree trunk to face her.
Sakura stiffly sat on the ground, her face scrunched up in shocked displeasure at the thick dusting of snow covering her.
Lee knelt beside her and began dusting her shoulders off. "Sorry, Sakura! Was that too much?"
She snatched the root of his scarf and tugged him closer, holding him securely in place. Lee stiffened in surprise (and tried to ignore how it stirred something in him). And she plopped a crumbly snowball right on his head.
"Got you," she giggled.
"Y-Yes! You did get me!" Lee stammered out, face going red hot.
It felt like his head was spinning from the sudden closeness to her, at the way she paused to gaze at him with a certain indiscernible tenderness. She finally released his scarf after a few more agonizingly wonderful seconds and he suddenly remembered how to breathe.
"Hey, Sakura," Sasuke called out. "Don't go telling the Slytherins our team strategies for next term now, you hear?"
"Hey, I'm not telling him anything!" Sakura retorted, whipping a snowball at her team captain.
Sasuke was across the courtyard near the cloister, but that distance didn't matter to Sakura. Thanks to her mean hook from wielding a Beater bat, her snowball flew across the entire courtyard. Sasuke moved his head aside, the snow splattering on the column behind him. He chuckled, then kept strolling by with his hands in his pockets.
The distraction gave Lee enough time to regain his composure when Sakura's attention returned to him. The two ended their game there; Lee offered his hand to help her up, and the two huddled together by one of the cloister entrances to wait for Tenten and to escape some of the cold.
"Brrr," Sakura laughed.
They helped dust each other off from the snow, from their windswept hair, to their shoulders, to their backs. There was a particularly stubborn chunk of icy snow in one of Sakura's locks and Lee excused himself to timidly remove it with his fingers, trying not to think too hard about any intimacy in the gesture.
At the end of it, Sakura said, "Here, let me get your scarf." And she grabbed the ends of his crooked, loosened scarf, stepped into his space, and with deliberate care tied it neat and snug around his neck. He swallowed nervously at this blissful torture, especially when she looked up at him through her lashes in the way that she did when he thanked her, as he tried not to think about how he would be more than okay having her tug him by the scarf again.
Sakura then slipped off her soggy mittens and blew heat on her cold hands and rubbed them together. Seeing this, Lee pulled out his unused Slytherin green mittens out of his pocket and offered them to her.
"Thanks," she said, and she slipped on his large mits over her small hands. She sighed in contentment, relishing their dry warmth. "What scandal, a Gryffindor wearing a Slytherin's gloves," Sakura jested, making fun at the unwarranted concern or disdain they had received in the past from their fellow Housemates.
Lee snickered. "Yes, what a betrayal to your House!"
"Lee is just so conniving and dastardly, just like all those sneaky Slytherins are! I just couldn't help myself!" She playfully nudged him with a wink. "And it wouldn't be the first time. Or the last."
Sakura was usually more serious, but she had been a lot more playful and teasing with him since the latter half of last year. Lee liked it, because it gave him warm fuzzies in his chest when she honed her focus on him like that, like she was giving him some sort of special attention that seemed somehow different than the normal. She would smile more at him too, and when she spoke to him she had this particular affectionate lilt to her voice that never failed to set his heart aflutter. Sometimes he swore he could get drunk off of the attention she gave him.
Lee thought about asking her then - if she wanted to go to the Yule Ball as friends. But with Tenten incoming, he decided it still wasn't the right time.
Signaled by the crunch of snow, a tall, brown haired boy beelined to them. It took Lee a moment to remember who he was. Morio, the timid 7th year Hufflepuff. Last year, in their Care of Magical Beasts elective class, one of the beasts had snapped at Morio's arm and tore open a bloody wound. While Professor Iruka restrained the animal, Sakura had immediately gone to his aid, using healing spells to close the wound as she soothed his panicked cries, and personally brought him to the hospital wing.
"Hello, Morio," Sakura said, smiling at him.
"H-Hello, Sakura," Morio stammered. "I've been looking all over for you." He glanced at Lee then, giving him that brief, appraising look that Lee recognized other Houses sometimes did to assess a Slytherin. Lee caught sight of a red rose peeking out the bottom of his cloak's sleeve. "Do you, uh... have a moment to speak with me? Alone?"
"Sure," Sakura said, then glanced at Lee. "Mind giving us a moment?"
Lee thankfully didn't think Sakura saw, but Morio noticed how Lee had bristled. Morio puffed out his chest then, a competitive glint shining in his eye, recognizing Lee as a rival. Lee reigned himself back, realizing he had, without thinking, slightly shifted his shoulder between Morio and Sakura.
"Of course, Sakura!" Lee answered. "I will wait for you at the end of the courtyard." And he tore himself away from the two to stand far enough to grant them a moment's privacy.
That didn't stop him from watching and straining his ears to listen though.
Morio stepped closer to Sakura and bashfully offered her the rose, which glinted gold with the shift of the light. Lee couldn't really hear them from here or see Morio's face, but Sakura took the rose and smiled at Morio as they spoke. She then looked down at it in her hands with a contemplative expression, brow furrowed.
A pit of dread formed in Lee's stomach. He was too late. Karin was right. Someone else would ask her first if he was too slow on the draw. And he knew he had no right to be jealous about it.
Morio then fled, practically running with how fast he was striding away. When Morio brushed past him, Lee took this as his cue to rejoin Sakura. Lee approached her with conflicted dread swirling in his stomach. She was leaned against the wall, twirling the transfigured rose in her hands, shifting it from red to gold, with an expression he couldn't quite place.
"Did he ask you to the ball?" Lee said tentatively, leaning against the wall beside her.
"Yeah. He did," Sakura said. "He ran off before I could answer him though. Said I could think about it. Think he got too nervous."
"So... do you know what your answer is going to be?" Lee swallowed.
Sakura sniffed the rose then. "Morio is nice," she sighed. "But I don't know…"
"Is there… someone in particular you want to go with?" The Gryffindor heartthrob, Sasuke, perhaps. Or the Hufflepuff that was growing rapidly in popularity - Naruto.
Her cheeks pinkened, but perhaps it was just from the biting cold. "I suppose." Her eyes darted away from his. "It would be nice to go. And only couples get in."
So she did have her sights set on someone. If that were the case, then she wouldn't want to go with someone she only saw as a friend. Lee swallowed the lump in his throat. Lee always knew she had her own crushes, so this came to no surprise. He could stand aside for the sake of her feelings.
"Have you asked anyone yet?" Sakura added, looking back at him with interest.
"No, I have not," Lee said, trying to hold a smile.
"Professor Hiruzen made it sound like it's not optional for champions, since the ball is in your honor and all..."
"Hey, Lee!" a gaggle of Slytherin girls drawled as they passed by, a certain flirty purr to their voices as they giggled. "Great job last game," one of them said, and the others agreed in unison.
"Thank you," Lee awkwardly waved to be polite.
Thankfully they didn't accost him and kept walking, because Karin wasn't here to save him this time. Sakura gave them a withering look veiled behind a smile that made them walk a little faster.
"What about Karin?" Sakura implored. "You two spend a lot of time together on patrol... And you're both Slytherins too." The corner of her mouth twitched.
Lee blinked in surprise. "N-No! Karin and I are just friends. Plus she has her eye on someone else for the ball."
"Oh. Then is there… someone?" Her gaze lowered, picking at the ends of her scarf with sudden interest.
Lee's face burned. "Y-Yes! There is someone I wanted to ask." Not that he could ask her now.
"Ah." Sakura's brow pinched slightly, and he thought she looked a little sad. Her mouth opened in a question, but Tenten called out to them then from the cloister, her blue scarf trailing behind her as she approached them.
Lee and Karin crossed paths in the break period between their Wednesday morning classes. Students were eagerly talking about the upcoming ball, and Lee had even witnessed a staged ball proposal in his first class of the day. Professor Ibiki was not amused.
"Karin, did you find someone to go with?"
Karin bit back a smile, but a blush still crept up her cheeks. "That's none of your business." She eyed him then, picking up on his melancholy. "You still seriously haven't asked her or anyone?" Karin said, raising a judgemental eyebrow. "What kind of champion are you if you can't even ask a girl to the ball? There's only a little over two weeks left."
Lee frowned deeply. "I cannot ask her. Her heart is set on someone else."
"You fool," Karin said, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "The clock is ticking; most people have already asked by now if they were going to, so she probably has no one else that wants to ask her, not even this person she might have her heart set on."
"But Morio asked her the other day, and Sakura deserves the chance to give him her honest answer without me getting in the way."
"Wait, she didn't give him an answer?"
"No. He told her she could think about it, and she was planning on telling him her answer in their class today - next period."
"So he asked her and she wasn't enthusiastic enough to leap in his arms with a resounding 'yes'. Morio sounds like a last pick option for her. And aren't you better friends with her than him?"
Lee nodded.
Karin scoffed. "You're unbelievable. What kind of Slytherin are you letting some squishy 'Puff beat you by passively watching it happen?" A mischievous glint then appeared in her eye. "If I were you, I would have already stolen Sakura out from under him."
"I need to find Sakura," Lee said suddenly.
Lee took off down the hall, leaving Karin behind, scarf whipping behind him. Sakura would have just gotten out of Magic History on the other side of the school. And her next class was Muggle Studies, which she shared with Morio. Lee flew by Haku, one of the 6th year Hufflepuff prefects. Haku was about to open his mouth to definitely shout 'no running', but shut it when he recognized Lee, his brow twisting in confusion.
Lee had to ask her. He didn't have a magicked rose or a staged audience like some of the other students; he could only offer himself and their friendship.
She had been acting a bit glum since their conversation last week, right after Tenten showed up. She had been dodgy as to the reason, but he realized why now. While he couldn't be the man she was pining for to ask her out, maybe if she said yes to his proposal the two of them could still have a good time as friends. She would get to go to the ball just like she wanted, and that way she didn't have to be as sad. She could still say no to him if she really wanted to, he wouldn't mind. He just would be damned if he didn't give her the option to pick him over Morio.
He just had to get to her before Morio did.
Lee's foot slid over some sleet that was tracked in the halls, but he miraculously kept his balance, and when he rounded a corner he leapt over a 1st year crouched on the floor picking up loose papers. Lee weaved around the other students as they looked on with curiosity. Just around the next corner now, and he would arrive at Sakura's class and hopefully beat her there.
When he took the next turn, he spotted her pink hair in the crowded halls, and skidded to a stop in front of her. She let out a surprised gasp.
"Lee?! What are you doing over here? What's wrong?"
Lee gasped momentarily for breath, bowing his head as he supported his hands on his knees. "Sakura!" he said, shooting upright with determination. "I have something to say! It is something I wanted to say to you yesterday - no, for weeks - no, the moment our eyes met in the Great Hall when it was announced. I was not brave enough then. I am now." Sakura watched him, confused, with bated breath. Students had stopped to watch; practically the whole hallway heard. His face heated, and he braced himself, but with utter conviction he declared, "Would you go to the Yule Ball with me?"
The widest smile split across Sakura's face. "Yes! Yes. I will!" A joyful laugh erupted out of Sakura as she suddenly hugged him. Lee stumbled from the force of her hug, and once his feet found steady ground he hugged her back just as tightly.
His heart was soaring. She said yes! He couldn't believe it!
When they parted they grinned bashfully at each other. Lee was smiling so hard it hurt.
Sakura's warm expression then turned to split concern. "What about your Charms class?" she said as students filed into Muggle Studies behind her. (Morio spared a dejected glance in her direction on the way in.)
Lee's mouth dropped open. He had totally forgotten.
In order to make it to class in time he had to go back to the other side of the castle. If he was late, he could get docked points from Slytherin, which would be unbecoming of a prefect. And he only had a few minutes left to get there in time.
Sakura saw the look of dread on his face. "Go! Hurry!" Sakura ushered him.
"Right! Excuse me!"
Lee turned around and sprinted back down the hall.
"Lee!" Sakura shouted after him. "Meet me after classes today?"
Lee whipped his head back to shout, "Yes! Count on it!"
He couldn't help but smile the entire way back. But even a few docked points couldn't break this high he was feeling.