The stadium erupted in cheers that shook the stands to their foundations, Hufflepuff had done the seemingly impossible for any House, win the cup twice in less than three years.
Hufflepuffs sitting behind Felix kept hugging him, hoisting him and the team on their shoulders, if only Charles had been there. William and Alfred joined him dancing with him on the Quidditch Pitch's grass floor. Claudia, Emerick and the others danced along as well all the way back to the castle and the Great Hall where celebratory food fights begun, and the Professors turned a blind eye.
Butterbeer and candy from Honeydukes was passed along in great quantities,
"Natalie had to place Nate to protect Katya!" A seventh year Hufflepuff boy replayed the game in his own words. "If only Lisa had reacted better! But she didn't, allowing us to score two goals in under a minute!" People cheered and laughed. The Great Hall was full of Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, Gryffindors and other than Ariana and Uriel no other Slytherin was to be found anywhere.
Felix passed the silver cup with the snitch on top of it around for people to hold and kiss.
"You lot are praising the wrong team captain!" Natalie laughed on another seventh-year boy's shoulders. "These strategies were not mine, nor was the plan to constantly change them and confuse the fuck out of Lisa!"
"AYE!" The commentating boy yelled drunk with mirth. "Three cheers for our Captain!" The glass windows shook from the vibrations of the thundering cheering.
"Natalie, you are positively underselling yourself! You played like a demon possessed you!" Felix laughed high fiving her.
"What can I say, I wanted a second cup before I graduate and to wipe that smug, arrogant grin off of Lisa's face when she heard you'd not be playing", she shrugged laughing.
As the party carried on until the morning's wee hours it was no big shock to anyone that Hufflepuffs were like dazed chickens the day after and unable to concentrate on their classes. The games of the Quidditch cup and the final one in particular were discussed amongst the students for days after until the upcoming exams and year's Ball started to take over.
A week and a half after the end of the Quidditch cup Felix was reading in the library when Claudia sat next to him.
"Whatcha doing?" She whispered leaning her head against her right hand.
"Finishing going through sources and citations for my…our "Two Sister's Brother: A Historical Review of the entities known as the "Old Gods" and how their spells and deeds changed Muggle and Wizarding worlds Cultures and Lore alike". I just have to write it up now", Felix replied without lifting his head from his work.
"Was wondering who you are going to take to the Ball?"
"No one, going stag. I'm sure I'll find someone to dance with there…" Felix shrugged his shoulders. "You? Socrates?"
"We sorta broke up, but yeah I'll go with him to the Ball, it'd be horrible of me to drop him so late."
"I'm sorry to hear that", Felix lifted his eyes from the parchments below his head on the desk.
"It's okay, I sort of fancy someone else anyway, and I'm trying to figure out if he's with anyone or if he'd be interested, and if he fancies me as well or not…"
"Ask him
"Yeah, sort of what my mum told me. "Dear gods Claudia, I didn't raise a girl, I raised you to be an independent woman who doesn't shy from claiming what she wants. You like him? Ask him, tell him."" Claudia mimicked her mother's voice.
"Wise", Felix told her, his attention back to his essay's sources and citations.
"Yeah, but it could get awkward, very awkward…oh I don't know…" she sighed frustrated. "What would you do?"
"I don't know…sorry I really need to concentrate. Can we talk later? There's something I've been meaning to ask you as well for a while now."
"Oh yeah? What?" She raised an eyebrow wanting to get her mind off what was troubling her.
"Later."
"Cool, I'll see you later then", she left rapping her fingers against the bookcases much to Mr. Thorson's dismay and displeasure.
Felix finished what he was doing before going to the Muggle studies class. Just before dinner he found Claudia again in the corridor outside the Great Hall.
"Hey, what did you want to ask me earlier?" She asked eagerly.
"Oh, her…nothin'", Felix stuttered having lost his courage all of a sudden.
"Doesn't sound like nothing", she pressed him.
He looked at her indecisively for a few moments. "If you were friends with someone, would you risk it and ask them out?"
"Oh, I don't know….do you know if their…her feelings towards you match yours towards her?"
Felix snorted. "If I knew that, it'd be easy! She's shown some interest…I think, but I'm not sure and I've been ambivalent for weeks now."
"I guess that's a leap of faith you are going to have to take…or not", she shrugged.
"Yeah I guess so. How's your "thing" coming along?" Felix asked a little too eagerly.
"Same boat of uncertainty. He's shown some interest…I think, but I'm not sure either. And the Water Ball is only a week ago…"
"You like dancing", Felix stated.
"If I've someone to dance with."
"You know how to dance, and you like it, I'm sure you'll find someone to dance with."
"And you? I think you like it just as much."
"Depends on who I am dancing with, if they excite me and yet assuage my many insecurities…"
"I've not known you show many of them…"
"You said the correct word, shown. I've learned from a very young age not to, which is not to say I don't have many."
"Well I best be going to my Prefect rounds…if you've got nothing you want to ask me?"
"N-n nothing else…good night."
They both spent a week being irritable for no knowledge why.
On the day of the Ball, Felix decided to stay in his dorm and revise for the exams, avoid all the still-single-for-the-Ball girls who would pester him to select one of them, or even some boys as well.
When it was time to leave for the Great Hall, he wore his tuxedo and dress-robes and taking a look at the mirror he changed the tuxedo's colours to hues of blue and teal and left.
Arriving in the Great Hall he saw it decorated like the bottom of a coral sea, with the ceiling's enchantments changed to display light play caustics on the sea floor instead of the usual outside sky.
Tables had been placed on one side by the fireplace full of plates with food and beverages, a stage with a Wizarding band was where usually the Professors' table was and the rest of the room was empty so that people could dance and mingle.
Some Hufflepuffs would still shake his hand congratulating him for the game against Slytherin.
Uriel walked up to him hand in hand with Ariana. "Okay, I must admit I didn't see this coming", Felix chuckled at the blushing faces.
"We kinda hit it off a few weeks ago during a conversation about our mutual dislike and disdain of the Governors", Uriel was grinning ear to ear.
"What can I say? He's loving and gentle and makes me laugh", Ariana squeezed his hand.
"I'm glad for you two", Felix nodded scanning the room with his eyes.
"How come you are stag? Surely there'd be an army of girls wanting you to bring them to the Ball? I mean practically every girl year four and older would give an arm and a leg for that", she laughed.
"Yeaahhhh…which turns me off, honestly."
"I bet there's one who is different, you could ask her already, did you?", Uriel made eye contact intently.
"How…? No, I haven't yet."
"Well, she had a dance with the guy she came in with and now she's getting a glass of punch…take it from me, ask her and I don't think you'd be unpleasantly surprised."
"I have either vastly underestimated your skills of observation or they have improved a lot of late."
"A little of both. Having been with her last year, I easily and speedily came to the conclusion that I was not who she wanted. Did it not cause you any pause how two out of her three past boyfriends have been your close friends? Ask her out already", Ariana laughed at Uriel's exasperation.
"Well okay, then. I guess I've a ledge to leap off from…" He shook Uriel's hand and with a smile to Ariana he left for the food and beverages tables.
A Seventh year Ravenclaw boy was trying to chat her up, testing his luck.
"So yeah, that was funny!" He said in no shortage of self-confidence.
"If you say so…" she replied in an apathetic voice, uninterested in what he was telling her, clad in the same stunning dress she had worn in the Governors' Ball with the same styled-hair that took his breath away.
"May I have this dance?" Felix asked her offering his hand and looking deep in her eyes with his own, full of desire and want.
"Yes, please", she took his hand letting him walk her to the dance stage. The band was playing a slow tune letting people dance and sway to the rhythm.
"Déjà vu" Claudia did not break eye contact, their hearts thundering in their chests.
"Beautiful one", he made her instinctively bite her lower lip.
"There was, actually, something else I did want to ask you, I was just so afraid of your reaction or what it could, potentially, mean."
"Uhu…" she did not trust her own voice.
"But I've decided to listen to the advice of many, including you, who I trust their opinions", he brought his face closer to hers, slowly.
"Advice?"
"I'm taking a leap of faith, come what may…" they swallowed hard, almost deaf to the music as their heart beats boomed in their ears.
"And what sort of leap did you have in mind?" She asked in a coarse voice, eyes locked with his.
"Well, I thought I'd lean in and…" he paused just an inch away from her lips.
"Yes, and?"
"And kiss your breath away."
"Certainly took you long enough…" she said with a sly, goofy grin.
Felix lost no more time and rubbed his lips against hers before snogging her tongue, breath, and all. His hands gently caressing her cheeks as she wrapped her hands around his neck pulling him towards her, their tongues committing dance and pressure and the outside world dissolved around them, lost in each other's breaths.
Felix broke the kiss taking a deep look into her eyes before recommencing snogging again.
After a few tongue-dancing moments more he kissed her neck before whispering in her ear, only for her to hear. "I don't know how or when this happened, but I have come to the realization that I'm hopelessly and maddeningly head over heels in love with you, your spirit, personality, the way you walk, how your lips curve when you smile and how your eyes seem to sparkle when you read something that interests you, your intoxicating scent of fresh blossom mixed with Levander and just the very way you exist in space and time and the very thought of going one more day without you is more than my sanity can bear", she pulled his head back from her ear and neck attacking his lips with hers in earnest.
"Take me out of here, I can't stand the thought of another moment not being with you", she whispered in his ear with eyes full of lust threading her hand in his.