Sorry about the delays in updatin; I'm trying to make this fanfic a cut or two above what I usually see; this combined with my desire to make the story long and detailed necessarily makes the editing process somewhat lengthy. Any beta readers are, of course, most welcome!
CHAPTER FOUR: THE FIRST TOURNAMENT
Despite how much Harry would have loved to reflect on the deeper implications (if there were any) of Cho's goodnight kiss, there was simply not enough time in the day to think of anything besides his Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. Just as Dumbledore had spelled out on the first day, every minute that wasn't spent practicing the techniques Quinn had taught them was occupied with learning complementary skills.
The first thing they did on Wednesday was learn how to make Vir Superior potions from Snape. The idea was to get a few minutes' burst of strength and speed—safely and temporarily—to escape a hairy situation. Unfortunately, Neville Longbottom's potion was more than a bit thick; when he drank it, he became several hundred times stronger and faster than normal and thus totally out of control. Unable to walk without zooming across the room or move his hands without smashing something to tiny bits, Neville blundered about the Potions seminar for nearly fifteen minutes (Snape yelling all the while) before the potion wore off. Snape, extraordinarily angry, could not dock points from Gryffindor (as the House competition was not yet officially on), but did send Neville to Mr. Filch as punishment. Harry shuddered as he considered what Neville's punishment might entail, but did not dwell on it for too long.
At breakfast, Ginny Weasley was nowhere to be seen; when she didn't show up for lunch, either, Harry was worried. Ron assured him that everything would be fine; Hermione looked far less convinced, but didn't say anything about it. When dinner rolled around, and still Ginny was not present, Ron finally admitted there might be problem and reluctantly left the table in search of his sister.
For a few moments there was an awkward silence between Harry and Hermione; for his part, Harry felt as if he had been hiding in a tiny shack, and Ron's departure had blown the roof off of the shack in the middle of a thunderstorm.
"Poor Ginny…" said Hermione, almost provocatively raising one of her eyebrows at Harry.
"Yeah, I…" Harry didn't know what he was going to say in response, and so just trailed off.
"You what?" asked Hermione. Harry laughed.
"I don't know. This is rather difficult."
"What is?"
"Trying to pretend this isn't totally embarrassing," Harry admitted, his cheeks flushing a bit. It was Hermione's turn to laugh.
"You brought it upon yourself."
"Evidently—I just don't see how."
"Oh, get off it."
"Get off what?"
"You know why she's acting like this."
"I imagine it's because of Cho, though I can't imagine why or what about her," Harry said with a shrug. Hermione looked directly into his eyes
"You know very well it's all the time you two have been spending together."
"All the time? What, both of the nights we've talked—the first two we've talked in our whole lives?"
"For several hours each time."
"Be that as it may—" Harry started, but Hermione cut him off.
"I'm just saying. People see things. And when people see things, they think things. And these things get passed on to other people, who are of course affected," said Hermione, looking at the table and moving her hands in circles as she spoke. She stopped, and finished her statement, "So it might be…wise… to consider the implications of your actions."
"Such as? I don't see why it's such a big deal. Honestly, don't people ever get sick of talking about me? I know I would," Harry said with a weak smile. Hermione sighed as though to say that she agreed, but did not speak. Harry took the opportunity to ask a question of Hermione.
"Do you notice—er—'things,' as you put it?"
"I… No. Yes. I don't know." Hermione said uncertainly. "I do find it intriguing, how you say there's nothing at all between you and Cho, even though you've spent the past two nights talking alone with her and last year you made no secret of your fancying her. Especially considering the, ah, lipstick on your cheek when you woke up this morning," Hermione added with a slight pause for emphasis, lightly scratching her right cheek as she spoke. Harry interjected:
"Oh, come on! You gave me a kiss on the cheek, when we got off of the train at the end of last term—what, does that mean there's something between us?" Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but Harry hadn't noticed and kept going.
"That kiss last night meant nothing," Harry said firmly. "Nothing…" he added without definition; he was less sure this was the case even as the words came out of his mouth. Hermione was spared having to respond by the arrival of Ron.
"Ah, she'll be fine. Just feeling bad about Harry and Cho, is all," Ron said as he sat down again.
"There's nothing to feel bad about," said Harry defensively. Ron looked at him for a moment.
"Whatever you say, Harry…" For a moment Harry considered arguing the point with Ron; but he had just tried that with Hermione, and was likely to have even less success trying to convince him.
Ginny was indeed feeling fine Thursday, or at least good enough to show her face at the Herbology seminar on wound treatment. However, between her mood and that of Professor Sprout (who was still extremely upset over the death of Cedric Diggory; she was the head of Hufflepuff, and Diggory—himself a Hufflepuff—had been her most illustrious charge) there was little sense of urgency or importance; both of them just moped around the room, going through the motions of learning or teaching (respectively) how to use Makoweed to quickly coagulate blood. Harry didn't know whether to be thankful for the momentary reprieve, or annoyed that he wasn't able to use this time in any way that would benefit his skills before the school-wide tournament the next day.
* * *
But Friday came soon enough, and all the pomp and circumstance of the tournament with it. There were giant mats rolled out across the Quidditch field—four of them, one for each year's students, divided into several smaller mats for the individual by magical gold-glowing tape. Harry saw Quinn talking eagerly to Hagrid; judging from the look on Hagrid's face, Hagrid was simultaneously scared and amused by whatever it was that Quinn was telling him. Soon, Quinn left Hagrid and spoke into the same magical amplifying device used to comment on Quidditch matches.
"Can you all hear me?" said Quinn to the crowd; enthusiastic cheering was the response.
"Good. All right. So you've learned a few tricks, these past few days. You know a little something, I'll admit—though of course anyone with some real training could whip you up and down this school. But that's not the point. You all aren't going to be testing your reflexes or your finesse out here today—you're going to be testing your endurance. The roughest, toughest, most unwilling-to-give-up one of you will prevail, I guarantee. Now, some ground rules. No hitting below the belt. Because of the large number of students, all matches except the championship will extend no longer than fifteen minutes in the absence of a withdrawal or a knockout. Finally, although the House contest isn't officially on, I've arranged with Dumbledore to give twenty points to the House of the champion—just to give you all a little extra incentive to win, besides fame and glory and honor and all that," Quinn said with a slightly sneering grin, eyeing Harry as he spoke. "Now get out there and kick some ass!" Cheering erupted from the student section again; the first tournament had begun.
* * *
Hermione was knocked out by Goyle in her second match with a bear of a punch to her head; Ron did a little better, making it all the way to the fifth years' division's quarter finals before losing by Snape's decision after fighting Malfoy for fifteen minutes. Ron considered asking for another person's decision (the match had been very close), but Harry had Draco on the ground after a relentless two-minute assault in the division finals, so he didn't say anything.
The fourth years' division lasted the same amount of time as the fifth years', with the exception of the division championship. Ginny Weasley, who was matched up against a vigorous Hufflepuff, had time to see Harry step off his mat in victory. She had been winning the fight, and seemed moments away from a victory; but seeing that she'd have to go against Harry in the school semifinals put the fire out of her belly, and she took a fall to end the match, to the extreme disappointment of her group of friends.
Harry, weary but not yet exhausted, took on the bloodied Hufflepuff in the fourth and fifth year championship. Although Harry's opponent had taken quite a beating from Ginny, he managed to put up a good fight; the battle raged back and forth, each hit more difficultly won than the last, for the full fifteen minutes. Professor McGonagall called the match in Harry's favor; it was close, but Harry had managed to keep a distinct advantage throughout. With decided enthusiasm he took a short break, got some words of encouragement from Ron and Hermione, and then set out for the mat around which the whole school was beginning to gather in anticipation of the final match. Harry was exhausted from the day's efforts but nonetheless very excited to have a chance to take the preemptive twenty points for Gryffindor.
His excitement crashed, burned, and died as soon as he saw his opponent walk up to the mat.
"Hello, Harry," said Lucille with a giggle. "Looks like it's just you and me left, huh?"
"I…you…she…WHAT?" Harry was beyond flabbergasted.
"What? You don't think a tiny little thing like me has what it takes?" Lucille smiled devilishly. "A Slytherin made that mistake, in the sixth year quarter finals. They say he should be getting out of the hospital in a few days." Harry's face went white.
"Joke, Harry."
"R-right…." Joke or not, Harry was still very nervous. Just then, Quinn walked up.
"Fraternizing with the enemy, you two?" Quinn snorted. "I want a good fight, here—this isn't the social hour. In just a few minutes, I'm going to blow the whistle, and you two are going to attack each other like starved wolves." Quinn started walking off the mat, but suddenly went and whispered something into Lucille's ear; she blushed and giggled some more.
As Quinn left to go attend to some other business, Harry had the strangest feelings he had ever felt. He suddenly couldn't help but notice the way the scarlet twilight sun made Lucille's lips glisten with sensuality, the way the rosy sky accented her creamy skin's natural color. She actually looked a lot like Hermione, now that Harry thought about it, except that Hermione wasn't sweaty and dirty from the day's activities. Lucille's shoulder-length brown hair was tousled in exactly the right places as to make Harry very unwilling to change it in any way, shape, or form. And as the light slowly faded, her beautifully proportioned face seemed ever more refined; he could have stood there admiring her for the rest of the night…except for the small matter of Quinn, who came back all too soon for Harry's tastes.
"Right, sorry about that. You two ready? This is it: the big match! And it's not over until one of you goes down," said Quinn, that odd, feverish glint in his eyes back again. He stepped back from the mat and said, "Let's get it on!" Lucille smiled sweetly at Harry, and then pounced.
She came in swinging, and it was all Harry could do to focus on not taking too many hits right off the bat. It was futile; Harry's attention was evenly divided between the amazingly pretty way Lucille's cheeks flushed as she beat him senseless and desperately trying to avoid being beaten senseless.
With each blow, Harry found himself more numbed to the pain and less unwilling to concentrate on her gorgeous hair flowing like a river of silk through the crisp air. Blow after blow after blow landed on his chest, as he struggled to fight against the sluggishness spreading through his veins. Finally, he had had too much; he collapsed, punch-drunk, to the floor. He just had time to hear a few words far off in the distance—
"What a pathetic excuse for a fight! Down in less than a minute? Ah well, I guess it's twenty points to Ravenclaw…"
—before he saw Ron and Hermione rushing to his side, and everything went black.
~End Chapter Four
Author's Note: Sorry about the short length of this chapter, but I think it ends at a nice thematic point. Originally this chapter was going to be about two and a half times the size it is now, to cover all the events of the day of the first tournament (which would have included the fruition of that nebulous reference I made last chapter to more than romance going on in the story). I've divided it in two, though. Next chapter will be the aftermath of the tournament—some major events in the love lives of the characters, and the introduction of the not-so-rosy side of this summer term at Hogwarts. 'Til then, please tell me what you think! I really do love getting feedback.