AMOR VINCIT OMNIA; GRANGER

V.

( a deathly tournament's first task and mysterious gloves )

THE START OF the new term was rather troublesome for Milo, seeing as there were a lot of dramatic announcements.

Firstly, there was the introduction of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Mad-Eye Moody. Who made a rather dramatic first impression, as if his presence alone wasn't special enough.

But then there was the second thing, which put the arrival of Professor Moody completely in the background; the announcement that the Triwizard Tournament was to be held in Hogwarts.

The arrival of the other two schools (Durmstrang and Beauxbatons) was just too much for Milo. He just wanted to eat and go to sleep, not watch them having their special moment as breathtakingly beautiful girls and boys walked across the great hall with butterflies underlining their acrobatic spectacle — though, Milo had to admit it was kind of impressive how flexible they all were, and he wondered how long they practiced for those two minutes of "fame".

Next came the students of Durmstrang, all of them looked like they could kill you with just their little finger, judging by their stoic expressions they probably also wanted to kill everyone in the Great Hall. The main spectacle of the Durmstrang school was Victor Krum – who apparently played at the Quidditch World Cup, not that Milo would have noticed him with how much attention he paid to the game – walking next to his principal.

Later it was decided that the students from Beauxbatons would sit at the Ravenclaw table and the students of Durmstrang would sit at the Slytherin table.

Many students complained that they would rather sit with the beautiful students from Beauxbatons, however Milo thought they were just average looking. Even if he at first was quite entranced by their blonde flowing hair and elegant movements, it just took him one glance into Hermione's direction to forget all about their beauty.

After all, the curly haired girl was the most beautiful person on earth.

Time passed by quickly for Milo, the small sandcorns fell down in the hourglass faster than they seemed and with every small sandcorn that fell, he wasted his time, not exchanging a single word with Hermione.

There were stolen glances across the halls, but they passed as soon as the other caught them looking for a bit too long.

Even when Milo spent time in the library, it was now too crowded by people to even catch a glance at the brown eyed girl, even worse, sitting at the same table as her has become almost impossible. It seemed that world famous quidditch player Viktor Krum has taken a liking to Milo's girl, always staring at her while she was studying and since his little fanclub (ok, no, the fanclub was anything but little) followed him wherever he went, as if they were glued to him, they stared at him, staring at Hermione, who really just wanted to be diligent and study as to not let her grades drop — and she also wanted to be able to see Milo, who was still unknown to her, oh, and there was also Harry whose first deadly task was getting closer day by day.

As we all know, time is ruthless and so, as the earth rotated along Hermione and Milo never had the chance to even sit near each other before the first task was just a day away.

Milo hated everything that had to do with large crowds, especially if those crowds were immature students who weren't aware of the danger of the spectacle they had gathered for.

As he walked along, Draco — the ugly ferret, as he liked calling Draco in his head, after what had happened with Professor Moody — Milo buried his hands in the pockets of his coat, the November air cooling them down and forcing him to already dress up warmly with a black thick scarf, seeing as he was not that good at handling the cold.