Harry Potter: Raised By Roses

Chapter Seventy: Back To Business

If there was one night that almost all of them never wanted to end, it was the night of the Yule Ball. They had all been so happy and nothing had even ruined their night since Cedric had stunned Creepy Stalker Girl. Not even the Gryffindor Harpy, Human Garbage Disposal, or Bleached Peacock tried to ruin their night. They were probably too scared of all the mystic souls in the room to try anything after seeing what Atem could do at the first task.

But that usually also meant that when the trio was ever on their own without the rest of their friends around, which does happen from time to time, one or more of them would appear and annoy them. But, they did not care about that at the moment since there was nothing but happiness for all three of them.

After Krinos had done his first two performances, he did one last one of Music of the Night from the Broadway musical Phantom of the Opera before he finally finished his songs and just wanted to have the rest of the night for his date with Cedric. Melody took over for the rest of the night by using her powers to create magical holograms of faceless musicians on the stage that performed for the rest of the ball. She got a lot of compliments for her "complicated spells" since they had no idea about her real magic.

Harry had hardly ever left the arms of his dates. If he was not slow dancing with Fred, he was doing some lively foxtrot with George. The three of them had been almost glued to his side for the entire ball, even sitting almost in each other's laps during dinner. Krinos had loved joking about how his sweet tooth hurt from how the three of them had been acting. All he got in return was the three of them sticking their tongues out at him. But even with Ginny's little temper tantrum before the ball, that did nothing to stop the three from looking like a fairy tale come to life the entire night.

The same could almost be said about Krinos and Cedric, but the two of them were more like that couple that did not need to talk to each other and remained by each other's side. They did not need to talk as they would share loving looks with each other every now and again. After Krinos had sung his second song while slow dancing with Cedric, they probably would have needed a crowbar to separate the two. Not that any of them tries since they all thought that it was about time that the two stopped dancing around each other and got together.

Melody and Blaise actually had a great time during the dance. It gave Melody time to learn more about Blaise since she had been curious about him since they saw how he and Daphne Greengrass had also not liked Professor Snape during the so-called dueling club that Lockheart the fraud tried to start. She learned a lot about him since he was more than happy to answer her questions. She learned that he wanted to be an Enchanter, wanting to create things like the Mirror of Erised and self-stirring cauldrons. She also learned that the Zabini family is always neutral in conflicts between the light and dark as well as always being allies with the Greengrass and Davis families.

All in all, they all had great times during the ball. And they certainly did not like that the ball ending would mean that there was going to be some more danger in the future. The second task to be exact.

Harry, Cedric, Viktor, and Atem all had that looming over their heads once the next day came and all of the fun and love of the ball slowly left them. They all still had the golden eggs that they collected from the dragons during the first task. They had all tried to open them before and they all got the same shrieking whenever they did. Melody was mainly affected given her music magic.

Currently, they were all standing or sitting in the main room of the Crystal Rose tree and staring at the eggs, praying for some type of answer to reveal itself to them at some point. It was so frustrating that many of them were ready to start banging their heads against the nearest wall.

"This is the reason why I hate that Megi stayed behind at Crystal Rose," Atem groaned. "She would have been so helpful right now."

"Wouldn't that be cheating," Hestia asked the Crystal Rose champion.