Chapter Text
Chapter III: A Practical Lesson
As Harry watched Ron leave the hall in a rush, he couldn’t help but feel like a bit of an idiot.
Why hadn’t he thought of using the map? He could’ve asked Cho ages ago! All he would have had to do was keep watch and wait for her to go off by herself!
It wasn’t really stalking, in his opinion. It’s not as if he would’ve lurked behind corners waiting for her to pass by, or watching her constantly from after, it was just a little name on a map! It hardly counted.
Besides, he wouldn’t have had to use the damn thing if girls weren’t always moving in packs. What was a lone wolf like him to do?
Harry looked aside to Hermione, who was still looking at Ron’s back.
Quickly, he jammed the Marauder’s Map into his pocket without deactivating it, figuring that it was charmed against any sort of wear and tear.
(One day he’d have to ask Sirius and Lupin about the particulars of the Map and how they got it working.)
Harry silently wished Ron luck. He knew that he wasn’t actually looking for Terry Boot, but it was all too obvious that he didn’t want Hermione to know the truth of it. Considering that he’d never told Hermione about his intent to ask Cho, it’d be hypocritical of him to take offense on Hermione’s behalf.
Besides, he didn’t even really know if that girl– Luna, wasn’t it?– fancied Ron anyway. All he’d really seen her do was look at Ron a few times when she parted ways with Ginny to go over to the Ravenclaw table.
What else could that mean?
He didn’t spend half his meals staring at Cho because he hated her.
And if asking out Cho didn’t go the way he wanted…
Well.
He looked down the Gryffindor table to where Ginny was chatting with Neville.
God. Could he really take Ginny to the Yule Ball?
She’d been so infatuated with him back in her first year, and he’d just about died every time it ever got brought up. The memory of those dwarves that Gilderoy Lockhart hired to deliver Valentine’s Day notes was seared into his brain. Specifically, the letter that Ginny had sent to him via their grubby little hands.
Even thinking about it made him feel awkward.
But then again… Ginny wasn’t the same little girl anymore.
She was a decent bit taller, she’d filled out (a little), and she was actually rather pretty. Most importantly, she’d stopped acting weirdly around him. Maybe she’d gotten over all of that? Maybe they could just go as a couple of friends?
Or maybe she was still enamored with him deep down, and was just trying to hide it. And maybe she’d want more after they went the Ball together.
…Would that be such a bad thing?
Wait. No. She was his best mate’s little sister! It would be too weird!
If he had to ask her to the Ball, it’d be just as friends. And he’d take special care to keep it that way–
–and somehow he’d missed that Hermione was staring at him. She had a very knowing smirk on her face.
“Harry,” she said innocently. “Why were you staring at Ginny?”
Harry’s mind went into overdrive, and the words were falling out of his mouth before he could think them through. “I wasn’t staring,” he said a little too quickly. “I was just–
“–Uh huh,” she said loudly, drawing out the words in the most smug tone possible, her smirk threatening to break into a full on grin the whole time. "Don’t worry Harry, I’ll keep your secret.”
Harry could feel his face flushing. “There is no secret,” he said, trying to sound very indignant.
Hermione only laughed, and went back to eating her neglected lunch. Harry followed suit, and studiously kept his eyes on his food. He thought he heard her say something that sounded suspiciously like “Boys,” under her breath, but he stamped down any reflexive retorts.
Harry could worry about Ginny later. First, he had to ask Cho. If Cho said yes, then there was no need to worry about Ginny! And if Cho said no, well, Ginny was probably a safe bet. Easy. No problems.
His date was as good as secured.
He just had to stop being a chicken and get it all over with.
Mercifully, the next time Hermione opened her mouth, it was to talk about SPEW again.
They ran into Ron on the way to Defense, and he looked like someone had just hexed his shoes to tap dance without his consent. His cheeks were slightly flushed, but he was clearly doing his best job at straightening out both his expression and his gait as they closed the distance in the corridor.
By the time they were face to face, he almost looked normal.
“Get your lucky quill back?” Harry asked, keeping up the story that Ron had most definitely concocted on the spot.
Ron’s eyes darted to Hermione, then back to Harry. “Uh, yeah.” He patted the side of his bookbag. “Test should be a cinch.”
“I certainly hope so,” Hermione replied, favoring them both with a very skeptical look. “I’m not sure I saw either of you study for it even once .”
Harry could only shrug as Ron fell into step alongside him (and opposite Hermione). Professor Moody might be… unorthodox, but Harry couldn’t say he hadn’t been learning a lot this year. He and Lupin were the two best Defense teachers he’d ever had at Hogwarts, and frankly, Harry hadn’t felt much need to study for this particular test.
An elbow hit him in the side, and when Harry turned, Ron mouthed ‘Talk later.’ Or something close to it, at any rate.
Harry nodded, before he turned to Hermione to ask her a question he knew she’d have a strong opinion on. “Think he’ll be hitting us with the Imperius again? I figure I can throw it off pretty easily myself.”
If there was a note of gloating in his tone, he really hadn’t meant it, but he couldn’t help but be proud at his aptitude in resisting the Imperius Curse.
“He better not,” Hermione said with a huff. “Most grown wizards can’t even resist it. Making it a part of our grade would be…” She thought about it for a moment, then threw her hands up in frustration. "Criminal!”
As they entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and found seats near the front, Harry was genuinely unsure if Professor Moody would put something like the Imperius Curse on a test. It seemed rather like the sort of thing he would do, but he supposed Hermione had a bit of a point.
Before he could even think about asking Ron what had happened after he left them at the Great Hall, the room was filling up with the rest of their anxious classmates, chattering and speculating about what horrors Professor Moody might visit upon them, or rushing into their seats to pull out their textbooks.
Hermione had multiple pieces of parchment splayed across her desk, and she was looking frantically from one piece to another in an a furious attempt at last minute studying. She was muttering, but Harry couldn’t make it out.
Neither he nor Ron had anything on their desks.
(Not even Ron’s supposedly lucky quill.)
The tension in the room had grown quite palpable by the time the final bell rang and Professor Moody hobbled into the room, his magical eye swiveling around rapidly. “Don’t bother with the textbooks,” he growled. Flicking his wand casually and wordlessly, the open textbooks slammed shut with a loud thump, causing several students to jump. “No parchment either.” He looked at Hermione, who acquiesced quickly.
Moody’s wooden foot clunked all the way to the front of the classroom, at which point Moody whirled around nearly as quickly as his magical eye did. He stared at them all for a long, silent moment.
“…When you’re in danger– when it’s truly life or death– none of the textbooks and notes in the world are going to save you. The knowledge in them is valuable, yes, but without a watchful eye–” he tapped his magical eye with his wand, “–and a quick hand–" he wriggled the fingers of his wand hand, “–it’s a fat lot of good that it’ll do you.”
His gaze swept the room. “Today’s test,” he continued slowly, “will be on practical application.” He started pacing back and forth, holding his wand behind his back. “I will curse you, and you will attempt the countercurses that you have spent months mastering. No questions or essays . Just you, your wand, and your wits.” Moody stopped his pacing, and his magical eye spun around to stare directly at Lavender Brown, who squeaked. “Brown, stay,” he commanded sharply, “and the rest of you, wait outside.”
Lavender Brown looked like she might faint.
The rest of them were all out of the classroom as quickly as they’d entered it, and Harry couldn’t help but be glad that he hadn’t bothered taking anything out. Something like this seemed way more Professor Moody’s style than an essay, and Harry definitely preferred this to having to spend an hour filling up a roll of parchment.
Outside in the hallway, many were sharing nervous glances, and wondering aloud exactly which spells they might be facing. Hermione was one of them, while Ron most certainly was not.
“He wouldn’t dare to put the Imperius Curse on a test, would he?” Hermione asked, clearly fixated on their earlier topic of discussion. “There’s no way, right?”
Ron laughed it all off. “Oh c’mon Hermione, when have you ever failed a test? You’re going to be fine! You paid attention didn’t you?”
Ron’s attempt at reassurance only seemed to work Hermione up even more, and she snapped back with, “That’s not the point! It’s about the principle of the thing!”
Harry smirked, but chose not to intercede. Ron was right, there was basically zero chance that Hermione would ever fail a test, let alone one in a class that she actually cared about (and she cared about all of them). Especially not now that she wasn’t using that time turner anymore to run herself completely ragged.
The bickering continued, and Harry contemplated taking a peek at the Marauder’s Map to see where Cho was. But for all that he’d been thinking about her, he didn’t really know what classes she took and when, so he probably wouldn’t have time to find her before Hermione caught him. Better to wait, he decided.
Harry spent the rest of Hermione and Ron’s pointless squabble watching Seamus and Dean engage in some sort of wrestling match. He cheered for Dean, but Seamus was getting the better of him when the door to the classroom blew open and a frazzled Lavender burst out with wide eyes.
Professor Moody was standing in the doorway behind her, and he gave her a hard look. Then, his eye swiveled around to point in a completely separate direction. “Greengrass!” He barked, without even turning to face her.
Any chatter was long gone as Daphne Greengrass parted from Tracey Davis and trudged up to Moody, looking rather less composed than she usually did.
As the door closed behind the Professor and his next victim, Tracey immediately began to whisper to Pansy Parkinson, who was standing beside Malfoy. Malfoy caught him staring, and made a particularly snotty face and pointed to his ‘Potter stinks’ badge in response, but otherwise kept to himself.
Harry grinned. Malfoy wouldn’t dream of causing him any real problems with Moody so close by.
“What is this order?” Hermione complained. “Is he picking randomly? Why not just use our last names?"
“Keep us on our toes?” said Ron.
"Yeah,” Harry agreed, “constant vigilance and all that, right?”
“Constant vigilance!” Seamus roared, before sucker punching Dean in the side and resuming their wrestling match.
While they waited for Greengrass to have her turn, Parvati and Hermione both attempted to get some information about Moody’s test out of Lavender, but she kept her lips sealed tight for a change.
If Moody had been going in order, then Harry might have been able to sneak off and ask Cho to the Ball if he managed to catch her on the Map, but as it was, he had to stand and wait like everyone else. He didn’t really feel comfortable taking the Map out with so many Slytherins nearby anyway.
Harry did his best to ignore the lingering worry that he might miss his chance and settled in. Leaning against the nearest wall, Harry alternated between sending dirty looks to Malfoy and taking bets with Ron over whether Dean or Seamus would come out on top in the end. Each time the door swung open, Moody’s voice was always the same, and the whole crowd of them would brace for the possibility that they were going to be next.
“Longbottom!”
“Goyle!”
“Patil!”
They were free to go once their turn had come and gone, but most stayed to wait with their friends, milling about in the corridor outside the classroom.
Twenty minutes later, Hermione’s turn came, and Harry realized he finally had his opportunity to talk to Ron without Hermione listening in.
Harry gestured in a way that he hoped was subtle for Ron to follow him slightly away from everyone else.
Ron, who had been staring at the wall with a strange look on his face, was evidently not as out of it as he seemed. He followed Harry without so much as a word.
As soon as they were out of earshot of anyone else, Harry pounced. “So, what happened? You and I both know you weren’t looking for Terry Boot.”
Ron grinned, a faint blush blooming on his heavily freckled cheeks. “I saw her. Up close.”
“Yeah?”
“And she was cute.” Ron’s blush was furious now. “We chatted a little bit and I made up a whole thing about looking for a room to practice in– and then–” He shrugged. ”–Then I asked her to the ball, and she said yes.”
"Really?” Harry asked, not quite believing it had gone that way.
“Really,” Ron confirmed. “It was pretty easy, honestly. I don’t know why I was so worked up over it.”
Harry tried to act like he wasn’t worried about asking Cho, and nodded his agreement. Though, there was one thing he was a little curious about, considering what Ron had told him beforehand.”
"So… was she weird?”
Ron looked more than a little put out, but his spirits rallied quickly. “Well, she mentioned a few things I’ve never heard of, and she was wearing a necklace made out of butterbeer caps… but she seemed all right! She was just in there studying for Ancient Runes.”
Butterbeer cap necklace? Definitely… interesting , but neither Harry nor Ron were especially fashionable, so maybe it was some trend they were unaware of? There were all kinds of things Dudley and his gang wore that never made much sense to him.
Ron was running a hand through his hair with a distant look on his face. “I ran into Fleur on the way up. I almost asked her instead, could you believe it? No idea what came over me.”
Harry suddenly realized that he’d never filled Ron in on what he’d seen and heard at the Weighing of the Wands, since they hadn’t been talking then.
“Oh yeah!” Harry exclaimed, “You were right; she’s a veela. Or, part veela or whatever. Said her grandmother was one.”
“That explains that,” Ron replied with a relieved chuckle. “Glad I wasn’t just going mad or something. I don’t think I’d have ever lived it down.” He gave Harry a meaningful look. “Better get a move on yourself, mate, clock’s ticking.”
Harry raised an eyebrow. “But we didn’t wager anything,” he said flatly.
Ron smiled wryly. “If I can do it, you can do it. No excuses.”
Whatever retort Harry might have had was held back by the sudden emergence of Hermione from the Defense classroom. Her bushy hair looked somehow even bushier than it normally did, but she didn’t have the look of shellshock that most of their other classmates had so far. They rejoined the crowd of waiting students to meet up with her, as Moody selected his next victim from among the Slytherins (he was going from one house to the other, it seemed).
“So what’s going on in there?” Ron asked immediately as the door closed behind the professor and Theodore Nott. “Not torturing us, is he?”
Hermione’s mouth became a thin line. “You’ll find out when it’s your turn, won’t you?” she said primly. “ Obviously he told us not to tell, Ron.”
Hermione was visibly less stressed now that she had completed her test, and given the fact that she tended to stress even about exams she ended up getting perfect scores on, Harry knew that Moody’s practical exam couldn’t be too bad.
They settled into a companionable silence. Hermione sat on the ground, her back to the wall, and withdrew some notes to look over. Ron went back to staring at the wall, and Harry was pretty sure he was thinking about the girl he’d asked out. A few Slytherins were playing a game of Exploding Snap, which Harry watched with a sort of detached interest.
Ron ended up being the one called after Nott.
“Good luck,” Harry said with a smirk. “Think you might’ve run through all your luck for today though.”
Ron shot Harry a mock scowl before marching into the Defense classroom. It slammed shut behind him.
Hermione was looking up at him curiously now, her brown eyes flicking between the door to Defense and back to Harry. She looked at Harry, and then looked very pointedly at the ground next to her.
Harry sat down beside Hermione.
“I’m not stupid you know,” she said quietly, keeping her eyes on the indecipherable (to Harry) notes in front of her.
“Hermione–”
She held up a hand to stop him, and he shut his mouth. “Ron doesn’t have a lucky quill,” Hermione continued. “We’ve been friends for three years now; I’d know about it if he did.” A pause. "Is this really all about the Yule Ball?”
“It is,” Harry said with a nod, before putting his hand over his heart. “On my life and magic.”
Hermione snorted, but she was smiling again. “That’s not a real thing Harry.”
“Well, it should be.” Harry countered, smiling too. Then, a thought occurred to him. “Do you have a date yet?”
Hermione blushed red, but managed to quickly shake it off. “Is it you asking, or Ron?”
“It’s me. Just curious, is all.”
Hermione was clearly wrestling with herself harder than Dean and Seamus had been wrestling with each other, so Harry made it a bit easier for her.
“I’m gonna ask Cho Chang, if that makes it more fair,” he said, finding it delightfully freeing to finally have both Hermione and Ron knowing his plans. “I've had a bit of a thing for her since last year,” he added even more quietly.
Hermione’s expression softened, and something like dawning comprehension swirled in her eyes.
The Slytherins’ game of Exploding Snap popped and crackled in the background, as Hermione finally found it in herself to reply. “Victor Krum,” she said.
Harry was confused at first. Why was she bringing up Durmstrang’s champion out of nowhere? And then it all clicked into place as Crabbe roared with triumph a few feet over. She was answering his question.
Hermione Granger had somehow snagged Victor Krum.
“Krum. Victor Krum,” he said, shocked. “The Quidditch star? Triwizard champion? That Victor Krum? Or is there some other I’ve missed?”
Hermione was beet red now, and the red was only getting redder. She nodded. “Yes, that one,” she confirmed quietly. “He asked me in the library as soon as they told us about the Ball. I was so stunned that I... I just had to say yes, I suppose.”
Harry, who had mercilessly shut down three different girls, couldn’t quite relate. Though it might’ve gone a bit different if it had been Fleur asking him.
“Wow,” Harry said breathlessly. “I guess that explains why he was spending so much time in the library, doesn’t it?” By the look on her face, he’d gotten it right in one. He laughed. “Looks like I’m the only one of us who doesn’t have a date now. Can’t let the two of you show me up, eh? I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
Her head jerked suddenly. “Really? Ron has a date ?” Her eyes widened comically. “ That’s what he was doing earlier wasn’t it? A-ha! I knew he was up to something!”
“Yes yes, Hermione, you’re always right, we know,” Harry said, rolling his eyes and patting her shoulder. “But I’m not gonna tell you who. Not my place to say.”
Hermione crossed her arms, but didn’t press him as much as it clearly pained her. “Well, don’t tell Ron about Victor, all right? If he wants to know, he can ask me himself.”
There was a curious note to her voice there, but Harry didn’t have time to ponder it before the door was thrown open, and Ron exited into the corridor looking a bit frazzled. His hair was disheveled, and there was a slight twitch to his left eye.
He rejoined them as if nothing had happened.
“How’d it go? Harry asked as Ron slumped down to the ground beside them.
“Brilliantly,” Ron said with a noticeable edge to his voice, his eye twitching at precisely the right moment.
For once, Hermione found it in herself to not chide him about his lack of studying, and she didn’t ask Ron about his date either.
Crabbe ended up going next, and so Nott took his place in the game of Exploding Snap. Malfoy laughed about something and then pointed in their direction, so Harry offered his best sneer in response.
Ron sent him two fingers.
When Harry’s turn finally came, the corridor was basically empty. Apart from Hermione and Ron, only Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis remained. Either he or Tracey were going to be the last one, and as it turned out, it was going to be Tracey.
“Potter!” Moody barked from the doorway, as Blaise Zabini stalked out of the classroom looking none the worse for wear.
Harry stood up quickly, finding that his head was rather sore from resting it against the wall for so long. “I’ll see you both at dinner,” he said to Hermione and Ron. “Don’t wait for me. I’m going to try to find… y’know, after.”
Since both of them now knew his little secret, they both acquiesced.
“See you, Harry.”
“Good luck, mate,” Ron said, yawning.
Harry walked into the Defense classroom with a somewhat diminished sense of confidence. He knew that he knew what Moody had taught them this year, but seeing so many exit the room looking the way they did couldn’t help but make him a bit nervous.
The classroom had been completely rearranged since they had first walked in at the beginning of the period. Desks were pushed up against the walls, leaving a wide clearing in the center of the classroom. Moody stood at the head of the classroom, his arms behind his back and his magical eye whirling around speedily.
Moody’s scarred face twisted into a grim smile.
“So, Potter,” he said conversationally, “think you’re ready for the Second Task?”
Harry blanched. “Uh… to be honest, Professor, I haven’t made much progress on the egg.” Truthfully he’d barely even thought about it since he’d given a try at opening it the night after the First Task. And with the Yule Ball on his mind, it had only become even less pressing of a concern for him. “But I still have until the end of February, don’t I?”
Moody grunted, his blue eye coming to a rest on Harry. “You do, but time has a nasty habit of moving more quickly than you’d like.” Moody’s wand appeared in his hand. “Especially when your life is in danger, eh, Potter?”
Harry swallowed thickly, and brandished his own wand. “I- yes, Professor.”
Both of Moody’s eyes were staring right at him, now, and Harry found that he didn’t like the feeling of it. One or the other, he could deal with, but he felt naked before both of them.
Moody continued to stare, and Harry wilted under his gaze.
Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Moody’s wand flew up to point at Harry, and a jet of blue light erupted from its point.
It had been cast wordlessly and Harry had no idea what spell it was at a glance, but his body sprang into motion and he was twisting out of its path on reflex.
Moody followed it up with a second spell of the same sort, and Harry had to throw himself to the side to avoid it. His heart was pounding as he scrambled to his feet with his wand held out before him.
A glint had come to Moody’s good eye, but he was still silent as a flash of scarlet light burst from his wand.
Harry knew this one, at least.
“Expelliarmus!” He shouted, and an identical scarlet jet flew from his own wand to collide with the one Moody had sent at him.
The spells met in the center of the classroom, and there was bright flash of light as they canceled each other out.
Before his eyes could even adjust, Harry heard another crackle from the other side of the room, and threw himself to the ground once again as a swirling purple spell passed harmlessly overhead.
Moody’s relentless assault continued, as he threw spell after spell at Harry. Few of them he could even recognize, let alone counter, and it was all he could do to avoid getting hit.
Harry knew this wasn’t even the worst Moody could do, but he could do little else but continue to keep moving, his brain barely having a moment to think between each dodged or canceled spell.
The few times he managed to throw out an attack of his own, Moody batted it aside as if it were nothing before resuming his never-ending barrage.
Harry didn’t know how long he spent dodging. It could’ve been minutes, or it even could’ve been hours.
But when the end came, he knew that he’d seen the spell before.
Red light slammed into him.
The world went dark.
-
When Harry came to, he was struck by just how sweaty he was. He felt completely drenched in it, and he hoped he could get to the showers sooner rather than later.
Moody loomed over him, but his wand was thankfully stashed away. His grotesque features looked even more grotesque as he smiled down at him. He extended a hand to Harry.
Harry took it gratefully, his head still spinning as the Defense teacher pulled him to his feet.
“Tell me, Potter, what is the greatest countercurse of all?” he asked, the smile twisting into something rather more like a smirk. “I think you had it, up until the end there.”
Despite the slowly dissipating brain fog, Harry managed a smile of his own. He knew this one well.
“Not getting hit in the first place.”
Moody’s magical eye whirled as he chuckled. “Spoken like a true survivor.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep it up and you just might make it out of this tournament in one piece.”
Harry nodded, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. Leftover adrenaline was still clouding his mind, and he still felt as though his professor might toss a spell at him at any second.
“Don’t forget about that egg of yours though, eh? The sooner you figure out the task, the sooner you can figure out how to tackle it.”
“I will, Professor,” he said, if only because he knew it’s what he wanted to hear. It wasn’t as if he had any particular choice in the matter anyway.
“Good lad,” Moody replied, clapping him on the shoulder even harder than the first time.
Moody led him out of the classroom, and when he exited out into the corridor, the only people left were the three Slytherins he’d seen just before he walked in. Hermione and Ron had indeed gone on without him.
Tracey didn’t even wait for Moody to say her name. She walked right up to him, her mouth set into a grim line.
“Good luck,” Harry said.
Tracey gave him a curious look, but didn’t reply as Moody ushered her into the classroom.
Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini were left standing alone in the corridor. Pansy offered him a very cursory sneer, but it didn’t seem like her heart was particularly into it. Blaise just stared at him impassively.
For a moment, Harry thought about asking them how Moody had tested them. Had he tested them all the same way? Or was this just a bit of special champion treatment?
Figuring that they wouldn’t give him an honest answer, he waved at them halfheartedly in a bid for some small amount of solidarity, and then took off down the hall.
He didn’t have a specific destination in mind. There was still plenty of time until dinner, so there was no real need to go straight to the Great Hall.
He was still jittery, and he still felt as if he was going to have to dodge a sudden attack at any moment. He felt downright paranoid after Professor Moody’s little practical exam. Was this what constant vigilance was really like?
God.
What was he going to do about the egg?
How was he supposed to think about that with the Yule Ball on his mind?
‘Better get a move on yourself, mate, clock’s ticking.’
Ron’s words echoed in his brain, and he was pretty sure a headache was coming on. Whether or not that was due to stress or how many times he’d had to throw himself to the ground to dodge Moody’s spells, Harry couldn’t say.
He had to find Cho, and he had to ask her. The sooner the better. He already felt like he’d faced a life or death struggle today, what was one more?
He was so frazzled that it took him another flight of stairs and half a corridor to remember that he’d left the Marauder’s Map on for this exact purpose.
Ducking to the side of a helpfully placed suit of armor (which was still polished shiny clean to impress the foreign students), Harry pulled the Map from his pocket.
Since he hadn’t managed to spontaneously learn Cho’s class schedule in the last hour, he had no choice but to check each of the main classes whose rooms he definitively knew the location of.
He started at the bottom, in the dungeons, but he didn’t see her name there among the crowd of students Snape was currently terrorizing. He made his way up the Map one floor at a time, stopping to check the library and hospital wing along the way (just in case).
Though he hoped to find her wandering the halls alone so that he could quickly hunt her down, he was disappointed when he finally found her in the Ravenclaw common room. She must have been let out from class early the same as he had.
Even if he did know how to get into their common room, he knew he didn’t have the guts to ask her there anyway.
Sighing, Harry tapped the Map with his wand and said, “Mischief managed,” before folding it up properly and putting it safely in an inner robe pocket.
The sound of footsteps at the end of the corridor made him tense up reflexively. He’d neglected to check the Map for Filch’s location, and he really wasn’t in the mood to explain to him that they’d been let out of class early.
(Filch rarely believed any excuses, even when they happened to be true.)
To his surprise and mild relief, it wasn’t Filch out looking for troublemakers at all. It was Cedric Diggory, walking beside some Hufflepuff seventh year boy.
Cedric seemed to notice him at about the same moment he had, and stopped almost immediately. He grinned, then said something to his companion and waved him off. His companion laughed, then went back down the hall the way they’d come from.
Cedric walked briskly toward Harry, and Harry realized he had little choice but to meet him halfway. Cedric wasn’t so bad a guy, and a bit of friendly conversation never hurt anyone, in any case.
“Hey, Harry,” Cedric greeted him with his characteristically warm smile. “Just finished up in Charms myself, how about you?”
"Defense for me,” Harry replied, and the way Cedric’s face twisted told him that he wasn’t the only one who’d had a fun time there. “That bad?”
“Moody’s brutal,” Cedric agreed with a shake of his head. “And believe me, I’ve seen six other Defense Against the Dark Arts professors.”
Harry couldn’t help being a bit jealous of Cedric. Tall, handsome, talented… The older champion had a magnetism about him that made him hard to hate, even in spite of his jealousy.
“Listen,” Cedric said, after a moment’s commiseration. “I really appreciate what you told me. About the dragons.” He chuckled again, more breathlessly this time. “I’d love to return the favor, but the egg’s got me stumped. I’ve opened the bloody thing a dozen times and still have no idea what our hint is supposed to be… but if I figure something out, I’ll make us even, all right?”
“Cedric, I didn’t-”
Cedric held up a hand, his expression deadly serious. “None of that, Harry. Fair is fair.” He smiled again, and the seriousness was gone. “Now, how about that Yule Ball, eh? Get yourself a date yet?”
Harry cringed internally, but did his best to keep a brave face. “Not yet,” he admitted, with hopefully a minimum of bashfulness, “still working on it.”
Cedric looked genuinely shocked. “ Really,” he said, the disbelief evident in his tone. “Still working on it. Harry Potter , The-Boy-Who-Lived and Triwizard Champion!” He shook his head. “There’s no way you don’t have girls falling at your feet, begging for a chance,” Cedric thumped him on the same shoulder that Moody had. “Get out there!”
Mortified, it was all Harry could do to turn the topic of conversation away from himself." “I– Well– How about you?” he asked lamely, the question coming out before he could stop it, “do you have a date yet?”
Cedric’s expression shifted slightly, the slightest of sly smiles curling his lips. “I do, actually,” he said, before he leaned in closer, and lowered his voice. “Cho Chang,” he whispered, “the Ravenclaw Seeker.”
Harry felt his stomach drop, and his eyes suddenly stung quite badly. Cedric kept talking, but Harry could barely seem to hear him. Disappointment, anger, jealousy, betrayal, self–pity, and a million other emotions swirled in his belly, and he rather felt like he wanted to be alone right now.
“–she wants to keep it quiet though,” Cedric continued, bringing an index finger up to his mouth and winking, “but good luck out there Harry, and we’ll see you there, yeah?”
Harry forced a smile. “Y–yeah. See you there.” He swallowed bile. “And– congratulations.”
Cedric beamed at him, and, seemingly (thankfully) oblivious to Harry’s distress, offered him one final pat on the shoulder.
Harry didn’t know how long he spent watching Cedric disappear down the corridor, and he didn’t know how long he stood there afterward. He wasn’t entirely sure when he started moving either, or if he’d known what his final destination was until he got there.
But as he took a seat in the still-empty Great Hall, fighting off the urge to cry, Harry did know a couple things.
Time was running out. He had to ask Ginny to the Ball as soon as he could, or else he might miss his chance entirely.
And, upon further thought, he realized that he didn’t particularly like Cedric Diggory.
Not.
One.
Bit.