Two Big Events
Chapter Text
Thanks for all the reviews.
HP-BTVS-HP-BTVS
The next big event that came about was the Yule Ball. Harry was unsure as to whether he wanted to go or not. He still was not used to large crowds, but Xander told him he had to go because he was part of the family and Xander was the owner of the school.
"Sorry, kiddo, it's kind of mandatory," Xander said as they were sitting in the living room of the 'house'. Everybody else was somewhere else for the time being.
"But that means I have to have a date and I have to dance," said Harry, a look of dawning horror on his face. That was the last thing he wanted to do.
"You mean to tell me you don't know how to dance?" said Xander, remembering some of the first dances he had as a teenager. He remembered many nights at the Bronze, where he just kind of flailed around until he learned how to dance. Cordelia was the one who taught him. She would not be seen with his horrible dancing when they dated.
"That's right," said Harry. "That's something you've never taught me how to do." He pointed an accusing finger at his father.
"Joyce!" called Xander desperately into the air. She would know what to do. She had two daughters.
Joyce appeared next to Xander and said, "You rang."
"You're still not Lurch," said Xander. Then he pointed to Harry and said, "It seems Harry doesn't know how to dance, and I'm sure there's many other boys that don't know how to either."
"Drat. There are probably many girls who don't know how to either. We're going to have to have a class," she said, dreading the fact that there were probably over 100 children that didn't know how to dance.
"Who do you think you're going to need to help you?" he asked, hoping she wasn't going to ask him because he didn't know how to dance that well at all. Cordelia may have taught him, but he didn't know enough to teach.
"Well, I don't know. It's a ball, so I think I'll ask Sally. Maybe Spike," she said, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
"Spike? I don't see Spike knowing how to slow dance," Xander said, incredulously.
"You'd be surprised how well he can dance," said Joyce, thwapping him on the chest. "You seem to forget he was a proper gentleman in his day."
"It's so hard to remember that with the way he acts now," said Xander, defending himself.
Harry nodded his head in agreement. He sometimes forgets that Spike was a gentleman at one point in time, too.
"I'll go ask him now," said Joyce. With that, she went and knocked on the basement door, leaving Xander and Harry to talk among themselves.
"Wot," called Spike as he came to the door.
"I was wondering if I could talk to you about helping me teach the children how to dance," she asked when he opened the door.
"Don't rightly see myself teaching the little buggers how to dance," said Spike. "Besides, I thought we were keeping me here, mostly a secret. Something about not starting fan clubs," he said, leaning against the door jam.
"Yeah, that had lasted all of two weeks if I remember. You already have a fan club, don't you recall," she snarked.
"Come on, Joyce, don't make me teach the little rugrats," he begged. He didn't wanna add fuel to the fire with the so-called fan club. It was bad enough that they tried to sneak out at night just to catch a glimpse of him.
"You don't have to if you don't want to, but I know you know how to dance," she said, laying a hand on his arm.
"I'd rather not," he said, giving her one of his crooked smiles.
"Okay, I'll go ask Sally, but if he doesn't help me, I really would appreciate it if you would," she said, giving him one of her mom smiles.
"Let me think about it," he said. And with that he closed the door.
She just shook her head at the closed door and went to find Sal. She felt him in his quarters, so winked away to the door and knocked on it. When he opened the doors, she said, "Hi, Sally. I have a favor to ask you."
"Oh, and what can I do for you this evening, Mum?" he said, leading her into his rooms.
"I have to teach a lot of the children how to dance and I was wondering if you could be my partner," she inquired, taking a seat in one of her favorite chairs. She was a constant visitor to his suites.
Unlike the 'house' which was very modern, these rooms harkened back to the olden days. They have bulky furniture and were very dark. Done in browns, grays, and greens. It was lit mostly by candlelight, even though there was electricity in the room. The whole thing was set up like a medieval den. Which made the TV that was perched on the table very much out of place.
"I would love nothing better than to dance the night away with you, Mum," he said without a moment's hesitation.
"Thank you so much, Sal. You're probably a lifesaver," she said, reaching over and kissing him on the cheek. They sat and conversed the rest of the night about how they were going to arrange dance lessons with the children. They were probably going to rope Minerva and Rick into helping as well. That would give them enough people to teach the children how to dance. At least well enough to make it through one night of merry making.
A few days later, they were in a classroom with a bunch of students that were very nervous learning how to dance for the big ball. It didn't turn out nearly as bad as everybody thought it was going to. Hermione was even there, even though she knew how to dance. But she was there to support Harry and be his partner.
"Harry, who are you going to take to the dance?" she asked. She seemed a bit nervous to be asking him and he didn't know why.
"Haven't really thought of that yet," he said, looking at her queerly.
"Well, we could go together," she said, watching his face to see what his answer would be.
"What, like a date?" he asked, completely floored that she would make that suggestion. He never thought of Hermione in a romantic way. She was always his most staunch supporter. He guessed he always slotted her into his best friend category. Putting her anywhere else would jeopardize their friendship.
"If you want it to be," she said. Pinkness dusted her cheeks. She kept them moving around the dance floor so their conversation wouldn't be overheard.
"I'm not sure if I think about you that way, Hermione. Not to be rude or anything, but I think of you as a sister," he bumbled out. He really didn't wanna hurt her feelings, but he didn't want to lie to her either. He kept his voice low so nobody could overhear him talking.
"I understand," said Hermione, giving him a small smile. Her cheeks were bright red now.
"It's not that I don't like you, Hermione. I like you very much. You're one of my best friends," he said, trying to explain it without hurting her feelings. His cheeks were bright red now too.
"Well, I always liked you, Harry. You're one of my best friends too. I just want to make sure that you have a date for that night and you're comfortable with it," she said, trying to cover up any embarrassment of romantic feelings.
"But asking you to the ball is like asking Luna," he said, still trying to explain away why asking her would make him uncomfortable.
"I understand," said Hermione, nodding her head, the redness in her cheeks had gone down to just pinkness again.
"Are you upset with me?" he asked, really hoping he had not jeopardized their friendship.
"Maybe a little bit," she admitted not looking him in the eye.
"Who do you think you're going to go with, if you don't go with me?" he asked, trying to change the subject without totally changing it.
"I am unsure," she said, still moving them around the room in a pattern that she hoped would stop people from listening to them.
"I think Viktor's been looking in your direction quite a bit," he said, trying to catch her eye again. He wanted to see if they were still friends.
"Has he really?" she said, quite surprised. She looked him straight in the face.
"He really has," Harry said, relaxing a bit now that their camaraderie was back.
"Oh."
And with that, the two continued dancing, Hermione in a bit of shock and Harry glad that he had taken her mind off of his refusal of her going with him to the dance. He made it a mission to find out if Viktor was going to ask Hermione to the dance.
It was an easy mission to accomplish. All he had to do was tell Viktor that he wasn't interested in Hermione that way, and that cleared the way for the Quidditch star. By the end of the day, Hermione had a date. She rushed to Harry's arms and thanked him for being so thoughtful.
In the end, Harry asked Susan Bones to the dance. He figured if Xander was going to take Amelia Bones, he might as well ask Susan. She said yes and they had color coordinated their robes and Dress.
It made for an uncomfortable evening in the beginning, but soon enough he loosened up and had quite the conversation with her. He was just glad that he was not one of the champions and didn't have to lead the dance or sit up in front of everybody making a fool of himself.
The champions looked very nice in their splendid gown and robes. They opened the ball with flair. Fleur's dress was beautiful, long and silver that flowed around her. Though her date was kind of lackluster. It seemed she had to dig to find somebody who didn't drool over her quite as much as everybody else. Even though he still drooled all over her.
Both Viktor and Cedric cut quite nice figures too. Their dates were both beautiful, though not quite as beautiful as Fleur. Hermione looked wonderful. Harry was almost upset that he turned her down for the date, but in the end, he still looked on her as a sister. Even though she was looking very pretty in her periwinkle dress.
The ball went off without a hitch and everybody had a really good time, except for perhaps Ron Weasley. He seemed to be having a horrible time. His robes were atrocious, and his date, one of the Patil twins, was very upset with him for not dancing. He didn't take the lessons with everybody else.
"I had a great time, Susan," he said when he walked her to her dorm.
"I did too", she said when they stopped. She looked really nice in her pale green dress. It matched his dark green robes rather well. She had her red hair up in a tasteful bun. There were emerald earrings in her ears. And a matching necklace on her neck.
"I wanna thank you very much for coming with me," he said, taking a hold of her hand and kissing her knuckles as a gentleman would do.
"I want to thank you very much for asking me," she said, giggling at the gesture.
"This is kind of awkward," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I've never had a date before and I've never had to drop one off. I don't know what to do." He didn't want the date to end, but he knew it had to.
"I think you're supposed to kiss me," she said. This is her first date too, but she had read a lot of romance novels.
"Okay," he said and reached over and smacked her on the lips.
"That was kind of awkward," she said, grimacing at the embarrassing kiss.
"Sorry," he said, rubbing the back of his neck again in a nervous gesture. "I've never kissed anybody before."
"Here, let me show you how," she said, and she stepped up to him and kissed him softly on the lips, and let it linger there for a while.
And he was in heaven for quite a few seconds.
"There, now that's how you kiss somebody," she said, hoping she got it right, for it was her first kiss too. She was just going off of what she read. But it felt right.
"Thank you very much," he said, a dreamy quality to his voice.
"Don't you find it weird, dating me when your father is dating my aunt?" she asked, trying to prolong the date as much as possible.
"Maybe a little bit," he said. "But I like your aunt. She's a lot better than my aunt is, that's for sure," he said also trying to stick around a while longer.
"You'll have to tell me about your aunt one day," she said, eager to learn as much about him as she could. There still was so much she didn't know. There was so much nobody knew. He was such a quiet boy.
"I'd rather be shot of my aunt, thank you very much. Let's not talk about unpleasant things right now. I'm escorting you to your door, my lady," he said, taking her hand and leading her to the barrels that led to the Hufflepuff dorm.
"You have to leave now. It's a secret how to get into the dorms," she said, a teasing smile on her lips.
"Is it really? Well, I'll be buggered. I guess I'll leave you here." He picked her hand up, kissed her on the knuckles, and turned to leave.
"I really did have a good time, Harry," she said, making him stop and turn around to look at her.
"I did too, Susan. We'll have to do it again sometime," Harry said, giving her a winning smile.
"Goodnight then."
"Goodnight." And with that, he went back to the 'house'.
"So, kiddo, did you have a good time?" asked Xander when he came into the house. He could see the distracted look and knew what that meant.
"Yeah," the teen said dreamily, remembering the kiss at the end.
"Remember the talk we had?" said Xander, reminding him of the talk they had about sex.
"I remember," said Harry, getting upset that they were bringing him down from his high. "Geez, it was just one kiss."
"Oh, look who got lucky," said Spike, leering at the kid.
"Oh, bugger off," said Harry as he stomped up the stairs to his room. There he got ready for bed, remembering his first kiss. And he went to bed dreaming of girls. And probably for the first time had pleasant dreams of nothing but girls, girls and girls.
Hpbtvshpbtvs
Time for the second task came around. This time the contenders were forbidden to use winking or phasing. The Officials wanted some entertainment for the masses. How they were supposed to do that when all the audience had to do was sit and stare at a body of water for an hour, nobody knew. But there it was.
Even though the three contestants were Animagi, that didn't help them at all with the next task because none of their forms knew how to swim. Two of them were avian and the other was a large bull-like figure. While Viktor could probably swim out in his bull figure, the other two would have to fly out. That and they were unregistered, so they didn't want to give away that they were magical Animagi.
"When do you zink we should register our forms?" Fleur asked Xander. They were sitting in the living room of the 'house'. Even though they weren't being taught anything new, they still showed up every day after classes to talk about the tournament.
"Honestly, I don't think you should," he answered with a casual shrug of his shoulders. If it were him, he would never register. He's never going to register his Conri. That and if he ever gets caught, well, he will just probably eat the person who caught him.
"You think ve should be dishonest vith our government?" asked Krum as he did some stretches in the middle of the living room. He did his best thinking while he was exercising.
"Do you want to be experimented on?" asked the yellow-eyed man, with no small amount of sarcasm.
"You really think they would experiment on us?" asked Cedric, skepticism in his tone. His father worked for the government, and he didn't think that his father would do that.
"You're the first magical Animagi in decades, if not centuries. Yes, I think they would experiment on you," Xander said with a great deal of conviction. He had seen governments experiment on things that were not human. Spike was a primary example of that.
"Well, at the very least they would ask you questions," said Joyce, trying to diffuse the situation and not get the three teenagers into a panic. She didn't think the government would do that to them, but then again, she knew what happened to Spike too. Even though it was after her death, Spike had told her in one of their many talks.
The Initiative was something no one wanted to think about happening here. If they got ahold of magicals, then all hell would break loose.
"I can handle being asked questions," said Cedric, drooping his shoulders in relief.
"But then you would have to tell them you were under vows and then they'd start experimenting," said Xander, not backing down from this one bit. He wasn't going to coddle these kids.
"You really don't trust governments do you," said Viktor, stopping his exercise and looking at the other man.
"No, I really don't," said Xander. "But you're adults and I can't really tell you what to do. I'm just telling you what I suggest," he said, waving his hand in their direction.
"I will take you at your word," said Fleur, though her tone was thoughtful. There was always rumor about the French government cutting open Veelas. There was never any proof, but there was always one or two Veelas missing.
And the three of them went back to figuring out what they were going to do for the second task. Which was the following day. They each were debating on whether to register or not.
Hpbtvshpbtvs
The next morning came and the three of them decided that they were just going to swim out with Gillyweed, but they were going to swim out together. They still didn't know what was going to be taken and put at the bottom of the lake. So, they were going to stick together and come up as one.
The audience gathered in the bleachers. There was a warming charm on the seats, but that only kept their bottoms warm, the upper body was still cold. The judge's booth was completely encased in a warming charm. Couldn't have those old men, and one woman, getting cold. Luna was lucky, she got to sit with the judges.
The three champions were standing in front of the lake dressed in swimming costumes, having many, many layers of warming charms on them, getting ready to jump into the lake. Xander provided them with the Gillyweed.
Cedric had gotten the idea from Dobby, of all people. Who had overheard it from Neville. Who had been talking about it with Harry. When Cedric had overheard it from Dobby, he had asked Xander. Xander was more than happy to provide it for him.
"Alright, contestants, on my mark, jump into the water and go find your most treasured item," said Bagman in an amplified voice. Then he let off a bang from his wand.
The three contestants swallowed their Gillyweed and jumped into the water. They swam for all they were worth towards the middle of the lake, fighting off Grindylows and the playful Giant Squid. It took them the better part of a half an hour to reach the Mermaid Village, but find it they did. At the bottom of the lake were the three hostages tied to statues.
There was Gabrielle Delacour for Fleur, Cho Chang for Cedric, and Hermione Granger for Viktor.
As one, they cut them loose. And as one, they swam back to the starting line. As one they exited the water just as the Gillyweed was wearing off.
"We have a three-way tie!" bellowed Bagman, causing the crowd to go wild.
"Ve have yet to give out the scores," said Karkaroff, making the crowd boo at him.
"You can see zat zey all came out of ze water at ze same time," said Madame Maxime, waving her large hands at the three champions that were getting blankets thrown around them by Madame Pomfrey.
"Oh, but did they go in at the same time?" said Dumbledore with a twinkle in his eye.
"You saw zat zey did. Zey went in at ze same time, zey came out at ze same time. Zey used the same mezod of transportation. I do not see why zis is not a zree-way tie," said Madame Maxime, making grand gestures at each statement punctuating her words.
"We will still have to judge them individually," said Crouch, growling at everybody.
"You're all being morons. Madame Maxime is right. They did the exact same thing at the exact same time," said Xander, laughing in all their faces. "They did it on purpose, just to see if you guys were being biased. If you judge them differently, then they'll know that you are."
"Now see here," said Crouch, getting red in the face with anger. "You can't talk to us like this."
"But I'm just telling you like I see it," said Xander, waving him away as if he were gnat. "And as I see it, if you judge these guys differently than you are being biased and this is not a fair contest."
"We will judge them individually," said Crouch firmly. Then he threw up a silencing charm, and the five judges got to the business of judging the individual champions.
And judge them individually they did. In the end the scores fell one point apart. With Viktor coming in 3rd, Fleur came in 2nd, Cedric came in 1st. Only Madame Maxime gave a solid 10 to each of the individuals.
Since everybody had heard the conversation that had gone on between the judges and Xander, the crowd booed wildly. Everybody knew that they were now biased, including the contestants. This pissed them all off. They now knew that the contest was rigged, but they also knew that the third task would be different. It didn't matter about the scores of the first two because the third one was a race.
It was a tradition. How the race was set up was different each time, but it was a race in the end. Even if they went in at different times, the first would wait for the others to catch up. They would finish it together.
Hpbtvshpbtvs
The next day was a Hogsmeade weekend and Harry decided to treat the contestants to lunch, for a job well done on the second task. They went to the Three Broomsticks. They were going to meet their dates there. But it was just the four of them for the time being. They were sitting at the booth when Madam Rosmerta came up to them.
"Just you lot for now?" she asked, coming to their booth.
"We're expecting others," Cedric said, smiling at the well-loved woman.
"All right, luvs. Here's your menus," she said, handing one to Harry.
It was just then that they realized that there were never menus given at the Three Broomsticks that Harry felt a tugging at his navel. And with that he disappeared.