Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and am making no money from this.
Harry
Our second Quidditch game is very soon, against Slytherin. Ron and I have been working on a plan, and it's starting to come together. Ok, it's slow to do it, but we're better than at the start of the season. We're going over the results of our practices in the common room now.
"I think we've got a good chance," Ron announces. "I snuck out to the pitch to watch Slytherin practice, and let me tell you, they're a bloody mess."
"Oh?" I ask.
"Yeah, no team work at all; they're all ball hogs, running into each other and stuff. I'm not sure if they even have a captain, they all just start yelling and cursing at each other all the time, no one in charge."
"So you figure we can take them?"
"Yeah, I like our chances."
"Guess losing to Ravenclaw wasn't so terrible after all," I comment.
"Yeah, well it still wasn't fun."
"It could have been a lot worse. Cho didn't have her team run up the score, kept it friendly so I could help coach and stuff during the game."
"Oh yeah, she's all heart."
"So you're still mad eh."
"Of course I'm still mad," Ron yells at me. "She almost killed my sister."
"She says she was in control."
"Oh bollocks. Seriously, Harry, there's just no way that was true. You really are going to look me in the eye and tell me you believe she was 100% in control of every bit of that flame, all the tentacles or whatever nonsense she made?"
"She said she had overall control of the fire. Enough to not have it hit Ginny."
"Overall control? Yeah, that'd have been a lot of comfort if my sister was burnt to death."
"Oh come on, you're being ridiculous, Ron."
"Right, big tentacles of magic flame don't burn you to death; they just give you a nice sun tan," Ron mocks.
"A lot of magic we use is dangerous."
"Dangerous stuff we cast at targets on the wall, not people. And don't even try and tell me she was in control, I saw her. That girl was about a second from collapsing, and Merlin knows what would have happened then. If she says she was in control then she's lying to you, mate."
"Now you think Cho is lying to me?" I ask.
"I don't know, maybe she believes it. Then she's lying to herself. Point is, the girl's a liar."
"Come on, give me a break already, Ron."
"No; this isn't some prank or a mean trick, not stuff like Malfoy or Parkinson do. This could have killed someone."
"Malfoy tried to kill Hermione and Parkinson. Twice for Hermione, in fact."
"Yeah, fine, ok, so like what he did before this year and the crap Parkinson pulls."
"Look, what do you want from me here?" I demand.
"Dump her. I get she's pretty and a Quidditch player and stuff, but she's dangerous. You can find someone else, trust me. I know it's tough and all, but it's just not worth it."
"Not worth it?"
"Harry, she's going to hurt someone. She's more and more into fighting and combat and stuff. You can't tell me you haven't seen it."
"Ron, she didn't start that fight. Ginny did."
"Yeah, fine, Gin shouldn't have done what she did, but she wasn't the one that made it dangerous."
"You're serious? You want me to dump her? What, next time I see her instead of asking her to the Yule Ball I dump her?"
"Bloody hell, tell me you don't plan to go with her to that?" Ron's close to yelling again.
"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
"So life just goes on like nothing happened? She's stupidly irresponsible, almost torches my sister and nothing happens? Are you serious?"
"What, I should not ask her, like some sort of punishment or something?"
"I think you should get away from the girl; she's mental. But if you won't do it then at least something to make sure that Cho knows what she did wasn't ok would be nice."
"Ron, I'm her boyfriend, not her father. Teaching her what's ok and what's not isn't my job."
"Obviously her father did a right poor job of it," Ron snaps.
"Fine, I'll think about it. I promise. Can we focus on the game plan now please?"
Ron isn't thrilled to not get his way, but he agrees. The game's important, after all. And the planning's worth it; by the time the game comes around our team's in pretty good shape. We aren't going to make a serious run at the cup or anything, but our team's learned to fly together, gotten a sense of who should be where and how to play as a team.
Slytherin, on the other hand, is every bit as bad as Ron said they'd be. Thuggish, amateur fliers, and no one in charge, they're a mess. The real Slytherin team gets away with a lot of fouls because they know how to hide it; this team though, they get called on every foul, and the penalty shots really are adding up. No one's going to accuse us of being the top team this year, don't get me wrong, but we're good enough to win this game at least.
Cho
Harry asked me to the Yule Ball. Technically. All right, he did ask me, but it was in such a weak way, basically "Oh by the way, you want to go to the ball, Cho?" And on the day before the Yule Ball too. For most girls, the timing would be a problem. Preparing for this sort of thing takes time after all, finding a dress, having it altered and so on. Harry and I have been together for long enough that I expected he'd ask so I was ready for the ball in advance. It's more the manner in which Harry asked me that irks.
It felt almost like an afterthought, something left until the last minute or that he was unsure of. Thinking about it, it felt like that because that's almost certainly exactly what it was: something he was unsure of. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, or something a cliché crazy girlfriend would say. Oh, my boyfriend doesn't love me, he neglects me, he spent six minutes and thirteen seconds yesterday without me. I wish it was just hysterics like that.
Before the Gryffindor - Ravenclaw Quidditch game it was obvious that Ron was holding a grudge over the altercation his sister and I had at the DA meeting. I had hoped that after the game that animosity may find an end. What a foolish, naive girl I was.
The grudge or anti-Cho agenda or whatever one wishes to call it may be less overt, but it's absolutely still present. What's more, Harry's choice of how to invite me to the Yule Ball shows it's working. You'd think the fact that Ginny started that fight, shot me in the back to start it might be a factor, what with Gryffindor's propensity for honor and fair play, but apparently Gryffindor has a very selective memory when it involves one of their own.
Still, a date is a date and I make sure to look my best for it. A black dress, very aggressive neck line, high hem line, I think one of the Muggle girls in my house called it a little black dress. A term that has some sort of unique meaning for Muggles apparently. I picked it because I looked good in it, tight in all the right places, large amounts of my legs and cleavage shown off, it completely fits with my dress to impress mantra I've used this year.
Based on the look on Harry's face when I come down the stairs into the Entry Hall, this outfit works exactly how I hoped it would.
"Cho, you look great," he greets me.
"Thank you. You look very good as well." It's true, Harry looks extremely handsome in his dress robes. Ron, who's with Harry looks a bit less so. But then, given his history with dress robes, that's par for the course for him at these sorts of things. "So we're just waiting for Ron's date then?"
"Um no, I'm here alone actually."
I'm not entirely sure what to say to that. A part of me is worried whatever I come up with will be cynical, snarky and something that will be completely unhelpful. I'm fairly certain I'm expected to say something, however. I'm very glad that instead Pansy and Hermione show up.
It's no surprise the two are here together; they're one of the highest profile couples in the castle (Harry and I are the other.) Last year Hermione had to resort to a grand scheme to get to spend the evening with Pansy. Tonight they get to have their date without any sort of machinations or pretense.
Within a few minutes of the Ball starting I find myself jealous of Pansy and Hermione. The two look to be having a dream date, dancing and smiling. I wish I could claim the same. Harry and I have only shared two dances, and both were short and awkward. It seems that while Harry's body may be with me, his heart is at best divided. The looks from Ron Weasley when we get back to the table are not even the tiniest bit subtle.
He said he was here alone, but I rather think that is a lie; Ron Weasley is here as Harry's date every bit as much as I am. Not to claim that Harry is going out with Ron or involved romantically or anything of the sort, but Harry's loyalties are clearly divided, and he's either unwilling or unable to make a choice. What am I saying, it's Harry; he's trying to please everyone and find some magical happy ending despite the odds and obvious insurmountable challenges.
I'm very conflicted about that. Part of me admires this sort of thing in Harry, the fact he can completely ignore odds like this. Not only ignore them in his beliefs and actions, but sometimes get results that defy all odds. On the other hand, right at this moment that trait of trying to please everyone and get a perfect outcome is infuriating beyond belief. Yes, Ron Weasley is Harry's friend, probably his best friend, and friends spend time together and whatnot, but this is the Yule Ball, one of only two balls per year (the other is the Last Hurrah at the end of the year) and a ball is an occasion that calls for a girlfriend, not a best friend. There are boundaries here, and Ron obviously knows that and is violating them and Harry is letting him.
More and more, during the awkward silences at the table, the dirty looks and the wasted minutes that threaten to stretch into hours I wonder if maybe I wouldn't enjoy fighting with another Weasley. My martial arts skills aren't perfect, but they've come along, and in a dress with so high a hem line I could move just fine. And even if I lost, surely it would be better than this. It would be direct, to the point and quick, everything this evening is not.
"This looks like an unhappy scene," Fleur announces herself as she walks over. She's in a small blue dress, similar in shade to the fetishized version of her schoolgirl uniform she usually wears. Though now that I think of it, everything she wears can be described as small, both in tightness and in terms of coverage. "It's a party, you should be smiling, no?"
"I know, we're having fun, it's just…." Harry starts.
"Ron doesn't have a date so Harry is splitting his time between him and I," I finish for Harry.
"Ah, pity that. It's hard when a friend needs you like that. If it would help I can take Cho off your hands," Fleur offers.
"Excuse me?" I ask.
"What are you talking about?" Harry wants to know.
"You can't do two things at once. So be with Ron and I'll take care of Cho. I'm here alone, so I can dance with her. That way no one is left alone and unhappy. Everyone wins, no?"
"Um, I'm not exactly sure about that," Harry tries to answer.
"No, it's fine, really." I'm sure it's the wrong answer, that it's petty and small and whatnot, but I can't bring myself to care. This night has been miserable and I'm taking the first at least somewhat socially acceptable exit.
So I quickly leave Ron and Harry's table to dance with Fleur, who as it turns out is quite capable at it. Dancing with a girl is a rather different experience than with a boy, particularly given how Fleur seems to have a particular fondness for keeping herself close to me, pressed up against me in fact.
Fleur has no shortage of curves, which she seems to delight in having my hands find. The sensation of my chest pressing against and rubbing against Fleur's is a particularly odd one; I'm not quite sure how to describe it. She seems to find it a sort of game, one she delights in. I don't know that I'd go so far as to say my opinion of this makeshift game is one of delight, but it somehow isn't entirely unpleasant either.
"So was Ron there to try and break you and Harry up or was that an unhappy coincidence?" Fleur asks.
'I'm not sure. The talk around the castle is that he isn't the best with girls. Though he hasn't let that incident at the DA go either," I answer. "Either way, I appreciate this, saving me, as it were."
"Maybe I didn't save you? Maybe I just wanted to dance with the prettiest girl in Hogwarts?"
When Fleur helped me back to Ravenclaw Tower after the fight at the DA I thought she might have been checking me out, so to speak. It seems I was correct, given her flirting now. It could be she's genuinely interested in me, but to try and pick me up as it were, right in front of Harry on a date? That seems unlikely in the extreme. No, this must be a game of some sort to Fleur. Very well, I enjoy games, I can play too. After all, the original plans for the evening are a write off, so if everything is off script why not make it an interesting script?
"So is this normal for you, picking up girls who already have dates to a Ball, or am I somehow special?" I ask, smiling at Fleur.
"On no, you are most definitely special." Fleur returns my smile.
"Ah, so not just pity on a girl trapped in a horrible date?"
"Can't it be both?"
"I suppose." Pity is hardly a thing to enjoy receiving, but then I'm in a poor position to complain. All right, technically my position is pressed up against a Veela, but still.
But then, why should I complain? The tender affections of the Weasley family have gotten truly tiresome, so why should I feel bad about a reprieve? Ron Weasley obviously intended to ruin this night, weaseled his way into it like some second date for Harry, so why should I feel bad about this?
On some level there's a part of me that hopes Harry feels a little bit bad about this night too. Not that I want to be vindictive or have him emotionally crushed, but to feel something, to think that maybe what he did is not all right? That somehow his current plan of trying to please everyone, to respect the opinion of Ron and honor his commitment to the Weasley family as well as maintaining a relationship with me is not working? That someone has to be told no? It's a word Harry hates using, but he has to learn. Sometimes life is a zero-sum game, a lesson Harry seems loathed to grasp.
At this point I'm not sure I even care if it's me he tells no, that his first loyalty is not to me, that I will never come first with him. It's not what someone wants to hear in a relationship, but at this point I find it preferable to this purgatory.
"Speechless, are we?" Fleur interrupts my internal monologue.
"Oh, sorry, just a bit lost in my thoughts. It happens to me sometimes. Truth be told, probably more than sometimes; with some regularity in fact."
"What were you thinking about?"
"Nothing in particular; relationship matters."
"Care to talk about it?" Fleur asks.
The question actually gives me pause. I don't have anyone to normally discuss relationship issues with, at least in terms of friends I discuss such things with. Of course the most obvious suspect to discuss one's relationship is the person you are in said relationship with. That, however is a problem for Harry and I. We don't communicate well, he's reluctant to talk about that sort of thing, and I've been no better.
"You're doing it again," Fleur interrupts my internal monologue.
"Sorry. I tend to have long internal monologues. It saves people from having to listen if I externalize them."
"Why don't people want to listen to them?"
"You really want to hear me ramble on about my interpersonal issues?"
"If it's what you want to speak about, then why not?"
"Why? What's so interesting about my issues?" Is she just curious about gossip? Protective of Harry? Some sort of interest in me?
"No particular interest. They matter to you though, no? And the fact you're obsessing over them at a dance means you have no one else to talk to about them."
"What is there to say?" I answer Fleur's question with one of my own. "You've been here watching us; you know what's going on. Ginny Weasley obviously has a problem with me this year, and since that fight her brother does as well. Not that my relationship with Harry needed their help."
"Needed their help? What do you mean?"
"It's just that…" I pause a bit uncharacteristically searching for words. "Harry's and my relationship has been somewhat awkward, I suppose you could call it. We don't communicate so well, or rather, enough I suppose you could say. Perhaps both are accurate. We don't speak in any real way often. Oh, we talk, of course, you've seen it, but it's superficial. For whatever reason, we just don't seem to know how to actually talk."
"So what, your dates are nothing but small talk?"
"In essence. There's a number of topics that are awkward for us to discuss, you see. My parents, his future career, to name only two. So with several large topics off the table, that's a problem. Also, Harry, particularly at first, found talking to me awkward. I was his first girlfriend and there was a time when he found it difficult to talk to me, for fear of saying the wrong thing. And I'm not blameless either, I've seen the problem and done nothing about it."
"You don't want to fix it? That seems like a bad way for a girlfriend to be, no?"
"Harsh, but not untrue. It is a bad way to be. The worst part is, I'm not sure why I haven't done something. I suppose talk to Harry more? But I don't have the first idea what to talk to him about."
"You make it sound like talking to your boyfriend is a job, not something you enjoy. That's not good for a relationship," Fleur points out.
Fleur's right, of course. It's painfully obvious when I lay it out like I did. But then, could I even talk to Harry if I wanted to? He seems to always have his bodyguard/boyfriend Ron Weasley with him, which makes meaningful conversation all but impossible.
No, that's a lie; I could find a way if I really wanted to. I just for whatever reason don't want to deal with the issue. I haven't before, and I don't now; I let the matter drop and Fleur thankfully takes the hint and we spend the rest of the night blissfully relationship problem free.
Fleur and I never make it back to Harry and Ron's table. Even at the end of the Ball rather than looking for them Fleur walks me up to Ravenclaw Tower.
"Thank you for a pleasant evening," I say to Fleur.
"Yes, it was lovely," she agrees. I expect to part ways then and there, I go into the dormitory and Fleur back to her apartment, but that isn't what happens. Instead Fleur wraps her arms around me, pulling me close and kisses me. The kiss is pure passion, nothing remotely platonic about it. What's more, it's a very good kiss. But then, this is Fleur Delacour, it would be somehow fundamentally wrong if she weren't a wonderful kisser.
Hermione
I'm searching the castle. It's not what I want to be doing on the last day here at the school before winter break, but circumstances have left me no choice. I hear the sound of high heels on the stone floor coming from behind me. There's only three people in the castle who regularly wear them, two to fit their exhibitionist images (both of whom I am looking for), and the third is my girlfriend, who wears them to fit with her look that often strays closer to what a Muggle business executive would wear than a schoolgirl.
"Where you off to?" Pansy asks me. All right, not one of the girls I'm looking for.
"Is it that hard to guess? I'm looking for Fleur and Cho."
"Oh, you want to lecture them about last night eh?"
Pansy is right, this is about the Yule Ball last night. Or rather, what happened afterwards. Fleur and Cho left the ball together and then apparently had a make out session just outside Ravenclaw Tower, which of course people saw and within a few hours was all anyone in the castle could talk about.
"I'm not sure I'd call it a lecture, but I think it's fair to ask them just what they were thinking," I answer my girlfriend.
"Oh yeah, because Fleur's going to just sit and let you bitch at her after the way you've treated her all year." I haven't made any secret of my dislike for Fleur's mission to spy on us (or keep us safe as she puts it, though it's all mere semantics to me.)
"So what, I just ignore Fleur and what she's done to Harry?"
"That or just give the girl what she wants. She's asked about how we got together, right? So tell her." Pansy isn't deterred by my skeptical look. "What's she going to do, go to the old man and tell him? So what? He already knows the bad part, the crap with the Imperius curse, so why the hell not?"
"I suppose, but it's just, it's personal, and having her here asking questions is an invasion of that. You understand, don't you?"
"I get it, yeah, but it's not like she's a stranger; she's hung around us for half a year now. So why not give her the benefit of the doubt and treat her like a friend? Besides, you obviously want to get in the middle of all that relationship crap, you're stalking the halls looking for Fleur and Cho, so throw Fleur a bone and indulge your meddling fantasies."
I can always count on Pansy to encourage me to meddle. Usually it's just for amusement. Of course this time it's for a good reason, so I may have no choice but to listen to the sexy little devil on my shoulder. After all, she is right, I am determined to get involved in this. I don't particularly like opening up to people like Pansy suggests, especially to lead with it, but it seems to be the price of admission. I just don't see Fleur talking to me about this any other way.
I'm not sure what Fleur and Cho are doing or thinking, but it can blow up twenty different ways that are all bad. I don't know how Harry will take it for one, for another Ron and possibly Ginny will no doubt use this to try and drive a wedge between Harry and Cho, and the last thing I want is some nonsense where my friends are in two camps and everyone has to pick sides.
It takes a little while, but eventually Pansy and I do find one of the girls we're looking for. We come across Fleur walking in a corridor. "Oh, Fleur, good, I was hoping to run into you," I get her attention.
Fleur looks at me, making only a halfhearted effort to hide the annoyance on her face. I'm sure she knows why I'm here and no doubt expects an interrogation or lecture. Of course she's right. Pansy is too; it's obvious this won't go well unless I change how Fleur and I deal with each other. It's not what I was hoping to do, but I suck it up and do it; I tell Fleur about how Pansy and I got together, the Imperius curse, the early awkward parts of our relationship and how we fell in love.
Fleur listens to it all, being patient and quiet until I finish. "Thank you for telling me that. So I take it you want to know about last night then?" Good, that worked.
"Yes. I know that Ron had no date for the ball and so was with Harry and Cho, and he has made it clear he is no fan of hers, but how do things go from there to what happened outside Ravenclaw Tower?"
"I saw Cho there and it wasn't hard to guess what the situation was, so I asked her to dance. That whole thing was ridiculous; no girl should be trapped in something like that. At first I was only going to stay with her for one song, but we had fun, I teased her with some flirting, she played along and we had a good time. One song became the entire evening, and before we knew it the ball was over, so being the polite girl I am, I walked Cho home. We stopped at the entrance to her dormitory, said goodbye and then… I don't know.
"You don't know?"
"Well obviously we kissed, I know that. I didn't plan to do it or anything like that. Somehow it just happened. Instinct I suppose? An urge I acted on? Whatever it was, it was a mistake."
"A mistake? Not exactly what most people would call a make out session with Cho," Pansy points out.
"You're not helping, dear," I reply.
"Yes, it was a mistake," Fleur continues. "However good the kiss was, I should never have done that. She is with Harry, and he's my friend, doing that was a betrayal. I wasn't thinking and now I don't know what to do. Friends don't do that to friends. Harry deserves better than that."
"Maybe you shouldn't have meddled in the first place."
"Not sure you're the one to pull a line like that off," Pansy smirks at me.
"This isn't the same thing at all," I insist.
"How is it not? Because it's Potter instead of Draco? So what?"
"Malfoy is a prat who didn't deserve you. Harry isn't like that; he's just trying to do what he can to make everyone happy, to not have to choose between people and decide which friends he keeps."
"And he's screwing people in the process. You think Cho's happy? The idiot weasel isn't either, he's just an asshole lately. Potter needs to grow a pair, not do this find a way for everyone to win shit."
"That's not who Harry is. He's an optimist who thinks he can find a way to do that, to make it so no one gets hurt."
"That's crap and you know it. You figured out a long time ago the world doesn't have a happy ending for everyone in it, Hermione."
"Maybe so," I agree. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop Harry from trying, or hoping that somehow it will work out."
"It won't; it already hasn't. If Potters' crap was working Fleur wouldn't have picked Cho up so easily and we wouldn't be here."
"I did not 'pick Cho up' as you say," Fleur insists. "All I did was spend a pleasant evening with her."
"A pleasant evening that ended in a public make out session, a kiss that rivals what I did with Hermione in the Great Hall for fame and infamy," Pansy taunts.
"And I regret that. Cho is lovely but she's Harry's and I should have respected that. I should have known where things could wind up and not even started down that path."
"If you say so. I still say you shouldn't get pissed about people walking through a door you left open though."
I'm not sure if having Pansy here is helpful or not. I probably wonder that because her argument has a certain logic to it I wish it didn't. At least Fleur doesn't plan to make any sort of trouble concerning Cho though. I just hope the Weasley family is willing to let this go as well.
Author's Notes:
Work is pretty nuts lately, schedule really isn't leaving me much free time at all, and what free time I have seems to get eaten by fixing things around the house. So sorry if updates are slow, it's become unavoidable.
thanks to that-fan for his help with editing and making a sort of boring scene much less so (I won't say which, hopefully they all are good now.) Also thanks to everyone who reviews. I appreciate it.