Revelatio

As They Conceal

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Running, if you

must know is

a kind of stillness.

- Anonymous

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Hermione was pretty upset. The reason being that it was time for Harry's first task. She had taught him the Summoning Charm and he had learnt well but now it just depended on his courage levels after seeing the fierce Hungarian Horntail.

Cedric, Fleur and Krum hadn't fared too well. In fact they had all ended up bruised and broken, even though they had battled the less furious dragons. She was nervous for her best friend.

Beside her, Ron (who was still a little sullen and angry at Harry for being selected), Fred and George were watching the tournament with great enthusiasm. Ginny was beside with worry herself. "GO HARRY! GO HARRY!", the entire Gryffindor House, with the exception of Ron, chanted from the stands. Eventually Ron joined in too.

She saw him raise his wand and then he must have done the Summoning Charm because the next thing she saw was his Firebolt racing towards him.

She watched him twist him this way and that, impossibly through the air as he dodged the furious Horntail. She was on the edge when the devious dragon had managed to injure him but in the end he had managed to take the egg and emerge victorious.

She was barely listening to Bagman's commentary when the crowd burst into loud cheers. Harry had performed the best of them all. She was relieved. After the initial moments of relief, she looked around in the mass of black tinged with red, green, blue and yellow, searching for a familiar sneer. But then realisation dawned upon her as she remembered their conversation from two days back. He had gone.

"Take care.", he had said. She still remembered, all very clearly. The roaring cheeriness of the crowd around her faded into faint background voices as she thought about that enigmatic person and felt that strange emptiness inside herself, again. She wondered what he was doing at the moment. A few moments later she would know about that.

She glanced at Ron beside her, who was now cheering a little for Harry and oddly, she felt nothing. Nothing at all. The boy, she thought, she used to like so much now seemed nothing more than a very close best friend. This nothingness had to happen eventually. She knew that. Ron's ignorance had caused her feelings to blossom, then shine and finally be extinguished. The blue of his eyes didn't tempt her any longer. Not anymore.

Instead she realised that she was heading out in a wholly new direction.

She was drawn towards the un-Malfoyish Malfoy. The Malfoy who had kissed her in the dark corridor, the Malfoy who had covered her with his robe when she had been shivering, the Malfoy who taught her ancient magic.

The Malfoy who had said that she was the most beautiful and hardest to get.

Maybe she felt a little spark of attraction towards him? No she didn't, did she? She was confused. Why is everything related to him so bloody confusing?, she thought.

The sky was stormy that day, as if planning an evil scheme, like a heavy thunderstorm. As they got up from the stands, she thought she saw the faint glimmer of a silvery swallow up in the grey sky. But she wasn't sure. Then Ginny spotted it too and pointed it out to her as it neared and finally landed, this time on her head. Not again. Silly Malfoy. Little did she know that in the lower stands, someone's old eyes were twinkling knowingly.