Agents at Hogwarts

Chapter 12

"For your third and final task," announced Dumbledore to the crowd gathered in the Quidditch field, "you will race through the maze and try to win the golden goblet. The competitor with the most points gets a ten minute head start. Grant Ward, you're in the lead. You may enter the maze."

Grant nodded and turned towards the crowd. He mock saluted at Skye and FitzSimmons and plunged into the maze as the three held their breath.

"Pietro Maximoff, you're in second. You may enter the maze," Dumbledore announced after ten minutes.

Pietro nodded, and with a look of determination in his face, ran into the maze.

"Gabrielle Delacour, you're in third. You may enter now."

She smiled at the old wizard and took off running towards the tall shrubbery.

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Grant ran past a few rows of shrubbery before finally deciding to turn. He stood for a moment and tried to remember any spells that could lead him towards the center, but he came up empty handed. He silently cursed his luck and continued on through the maze.

"I didn't even want to do this in the first place," he muttered to himself, "the only reason I did this is because my friends asked me to."

He jumped slightly when something grabbed onto his leg. He looked down and noticed that the shrub had started to grab onto him. He cast a spell at it and it quickly let go of him.

He raced through the maze of shrubbery and all of the sudden crashed into Gabrielle Delacour.

"Stupefy!" she yelled at him without looking. As soon as she realized that he was another contestant and not a trick of the maze she ran over to him, "oh! I'm so sorry!"

He grunted and sat up, "no it's fine."

"I thought you were a trick of the maze."

"That's ok," he stood up and started walking away, "good luck."

She smiled as he walked out of view and waved at him before carrying on her way.

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Grant saw a shiny glint out of the corner of his eye and ran closer to it to see what it was. It was the goblet! He ran to it and picked it up. As soon as he touched it, the maze disappeared and the entire Quidditch field was staring at the three contestants. When they noticed that someone had gotten to the cup, everyone cheered loudly and Dumbledore announced the points.

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"You won!" cheered Skye as she ran towards Grant and threw her arms around him. He picked her up and spun her around, "apparently, yeah."

"We're all so happy for you! I think this calls for butterbeer!" Skye smiled at him.

"Hey Ward!" a voice from behind him called.

Ward whipped his head around and was greeted with the sight of Pietro Maximoff. He held out his hand and Ward shook it, "congratulations."

"Thanks, good game."

Gabrielle was next. She came up to award and kissed him in the cheek, "congratulations, and I'm sorry for what happened in the maze earlier."

He smiled, "don't worry about it."

She smiled and walked off and Wad turned back to Skye.

"She seems friendly," Skye said, trying not to sound jealous.

"No need to be jealous," Ward teased her.

"I'm not," she lied.

"Ok," he smiled as Fitz and Simmons walked over to him and tackled him in hugs.

Trip walked up behind Skye and whispered in her ear. Her eyes grew wide, "but what if I don't want to anymore?"

"Too bad. A deal's a deal."

She sighed and cursed at Trip. She walked over to Ward, "hey, can we talk? Privately?"

"Sure," he said with a slight smile. Fitz and Simmons smiled and winked at her and her blush deepened.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Well..." she took a deep breath, "the next trip to Hogsmeade is coming up soon. I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?"

"Just the two of us?"

She nervously nodded, "uh, yeah."

"That sounds great."

She let out the breath she was holding and grinned at him, "oh thank goodness, I thought you were going to say no."

He looked at her oddly and smiled, "even after I already asked you to the dance, you thought that I didn't like you?"

"Well it wasn't that," she quickly added, twiddling her thumbs together and looking down at the ground, "I was just kind of nervous asking you out..."

"So," Ward said with a smirk on his face, "how'd Trip rope you into asking me?"

Her smile faded, "you knew?"

Ha laughed, "he told me that you might have something to say to me when this was over."

Skye glared in Trip's direction, "um we had a deal that if you won, I would finally ask you out."

"So you're doing this because of a bet?" he raised an eyebrow.

"No!" she stammered, "I really do like you. I was just always too scared to tell you. Trip was hoping that this would push me to do it."

"Skye, I'm just teasing," he smiled warmly at her.

He slowly moved closer and locked eyes with her. She felt her heart practically jump out of her chest and held her breath as she saw what Ward was about to do.

He slowly leaned closer, letting her back away if she wanted to. She sent him a small smile and that was all he needed to finally connect their lips together.

She smiled against his lips and wrapped her arms around his neck while his arms wrapped around her waist.

"Finally!"

Thy broke apart and looked at Trip who was grinning at them.

"I thought that was never going to happen. The tension all year was unbearable!"

Skye blushed and his her face in the crook of Ward's neck.

Trip winked at them and rushed off to go tell FitzSimmons what had happened.

"I would love to go out with you, Skye."

"Oh good," she teased him, "for a second there I thought you didn't like me."

He laughed and lowered his lips to hers once again.