"How am I doing?" Harry whispered to Daphne as the pair and the other champions continued dancing.
"Very good," Daphne answered honestly as she smiled at him. "as one of your teacher's I'm very pleased with how you've been doing today."
"I live to impress." Harry smiled as the two continued dancing for a bit more, eventually though the first dance ended with the crowd cheering for the champions. The champions and their dates gave everyone a short bow before everyone else was allowed to join in. While Harry kept to Daphne for most of the evening, the pair did dance with others. Harry had managed to dance with Fleur and Angela before he ended up dancing with Tracey, while he was doing that Daphne was dancing with Tracey's date, apparently Theodore Nott had taken the position.
"You and Theo, huh?" Harry asked as the pair danced together. "How did that end up happening? If you don't mind me asking." He added.
"Well...we both needed a date to go," Tracey said with a small shrug. "and we agreed to go as friends." She added.
"Really?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, for some reason he seemed rather nervous about the idea of asking me out." Tracey added with a small frown, not that she wanted Theo to ask her out but the boy had been quite pale during their conversation.
"Right, well...if he doesn't be a good date then be sure to tell me, I'm sure I can give him a good scare." Harry whispered with a grin.
"Hey, no threatening my date." She said in a mock angry tone.
"Yes Mistress, Harry will be a good boy." Harry said in a rather passable imitation of a house elf.
"You had better." Tracey chuckled, enjoying how good it felt to dance and talk with Harry.
"Harry," Daphne said as the two continued dancing late into the ball, a few students had already left but for the most part it looked like it could still go on for a few more hours. "do you want to go and take a walk?" She asked, her cheeks were slightly red as she did so.
"A walk outside with the beautiful Daphne Greengrass?" Harry asked with a smile, "How could I possibly refuse?" he said, causing a smile to appear on Daphne's face.
"Prat." She said in an amused voice before the two walked off the dance floor, they began walking out of the hall, only to stop when they saw Roman and Ginny together.
"What are you two doing here?" Harry asked the two third years that were clearly here together on a date. "I thought you guys were too young to come here unless you were with an older student." He said, his voice was showed signs of curiosity but no signs of judgment.
"Ah, Roman found a great loophole." Ginny grinned, standing with an arm looped around Roman's.
"It was an obvious one." Roman shrugged, though he did blush slightly.
"Still a brilliant one though." Ginny argued before turning to Harry and Daphne. "We're actually technically on dates with two other people." Ginny said before she pointed behind them to a pair of fourth year Ravenclaws in Harry's year that were dancing together.
"Yeah," Roman nodded. "I made them a deal, if they took me and Ginny to the ball then I would do their homework for a week."
"So in exchange for coming here with Miss Weasley, you'll be doing a week's worth of homework for a couple of people in the year above you?" Daphne asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not quite." Roman grinned. "I made a bet with a couple of Ravenclaws in my year and I won."
"Let me guess, those two Ravenclaws are now going to be doing the homework that you were supposed to do, am I right?" Harry asked.
"Pretty much." Ginny nodded. Harry stared at Roman for several seconds before he smirked and held out a hand, allowing Roman to give him a high five.
"Nicely done," Harry said in an approving voice. "what?" He asked when Ginny gave him an odd look. "I can appreciate when a good plan comes together. Now if both you'll excuse me, I'm off to take the queen of the ball out for a night-time walk." Harry said, gesturing to Daphne.
"Oh, I am royalty now?" Daphne asked in an amused voice. "I suppose that would make you the king."
"If I must be." Harry said in a voice full of false suffering before he nodded to the two third year students before he and Daphne walked out.
"Hmm, this is quite nice." Harry admitted as he and Daphne were walking outside. Clearly a lot of effort had been put in to making Hogwarts look as beautiful and 'Christmas-y' as possible. The shape of the hedges had been changed to look more festive, there were several different decorations all along the castle walls, snow was everywhere, making the place look like a winter wonderland.
"Indeed," Daphne agreed, looking around and seemingly taking in every detail. "though it is a bit cold." She added with a wry smile.
"Could I interest the beautiful young lady in a warming charm?" Harry asked in a gentlemanly voice with a smirk.
"Yes, you can, my good sir." Daphne said, playing along. Harry took his wand out of his holster and cast a slight warming charm on her, being careful not to warm her up too much. "Oh, that feels good." Daphne hummed while Harry cast one on himself.
"Yeah, well I..." Harry paused when the two turned a corner and nearly bumped into Karkaroff who had managed to stop before he crashed into the pair of Slytherin's. The man looked like he had just been jolted out of deep thought and stared at the two of them, he was about to sneer at the two but stopped when he saw Harry Potter. 'I already have one very dangerous wizard to worry about, two if you count Albus Dumbledore as well, probably should do my best to not make it three.' Karkaroff thought to himself.
The Durmstrang headmaster gave them both a stiff nod before he quickly walked past them.
"I wonder what that was about." Daphne whispered to Harry once Karkaroff was far enough away.
"You're not the only one." Harry said with a small frown, he and Daphne walked forwards, unfortunately they had only taken a few steps when their path was once again blocked. This time by none other than Hogwarts's most currently hated teacher, Professor Snape.
"Potter, what are you doing here?" Professor Snape all but demanded to know, sneering down at Harry, looking as if he had not even noticed Daphne was with him.
"I am simply having a walk with my date, sir." Harry said, doing his best to keep the irritation out of his voice. If Professor Snape detected it then he didn't say anything.
"Well...be sure to...behave yourself." Professor Snape drawled before he walked past them.
"Prick." Harry said under his breath once Snape was gone.
"Are you okay?" Daphne asked as they continued walking together.
"I am fine," Harry said with a small sigh. "I'm just a little bit tired of Professor Snape's obsession with continuing his grudge against my father. Honestly if he's that desperate to continue a grudge with a dead man then he should make a grave next to my father's and take a head first dive into it. Sorry if I am ranting but I just feel like one day I'm likely just going to snap at him."
"Well...be sure to tell me when, I'll try and book front row seats." Daphne said in a slightly jokey tone, hoping to lighten the mood, Harry let out an amused snort which showed that she had somewhat succeeded. Eventually the two found a nice bench where they could sit in peace, Harry cleaned the snow off of it with a wave of his wand before he and Daphne sat down. Once they were sat down Daphne leaned into Harry who wrapped his arm around her. "Hmm, this is nice." Daphne said with her head resting again his shoulder while his hand rested on her waist.
"You'll hear no disagreement from me." Harry hummed.
"Harry," Daphne said in a quiet voice. "tell me something about yourself."
"Like what?" Harry asked.
"Well, what's your favourite food?" Daphne asked.
"That would probably be a coin flip between a good burger and a good pizza." Harry answered. "Tonks got me addicted to them." He added with a grin. "Perhaps over the summer I can get you addicted to them."
"You mean come over to the muggle world?" Daphne asked as she moved her head off of him and back enough to look at him.
"If you want." Harry confirmed with a nod.
"Are you asking me out on a muggle date?" Daphne asked, a smile on her face.
"Like I said, if you want." Harry responded, his emerald green eyes locking onto beautifully blue eyes. Harry wasn't entirely sure which one of them closed the distance, perhaps it was both of them, but soon he felt her breath on her lips as she felt his on her. There was a small pause from Daphne, Harry thought for a moment that she would pull back, but he was proven wrong when she leaned forwards. The world stilled, their lips connected and they kissed.
When the two pulled away it was only briefly because a second later the two reconnected with what started as a kiss but slowly descended into full blown snogging. Daphne's arms had wrapped around Harry's neck while Harry had placed one of his hands on the small of her back while his other hand was placed on the back of her head, both hands did what they were instructed to do by Harry's brain, and that was pull Daphne closer. The two continued for a while, and likely would have continued for longer if not for the fact that they were human and unfortunately needed a certain amount of oxygen.
"Wow," Daphne breathed once they were done. "that was amazing."
"And there goes my ego, shooting into the sky." Harry said with a smirk before he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Daphne, would you like to be my girlfriend?" Harry asked before he waited for her answer, though judging the way her blue eyes were twinkling - needless to say she made twinkling blue eyes look much better than Dumbledore ever could - he already knew the answer.
The next day the school rumour mill was shot into overdrive, the reason for that being once again connected to Harry. He had walked into the great hall for breakfast, Thor on his shoulder with Jet wrapped around his right arm, thought the thing that surprisingly stood out the most - which kind of said something about the Hogwarts students - was the fact that he had walked into the hall while holding hands with Daphne Greengrass. Those in the hall instantly began wondering if the 'King of Slytherin house' had finally chosen someone who could be his queen, those questions were pretty much answered when Harry and Daphne shared a brief kiss before sitting down together, causing the students to start passionately whispering to each other.
"Well...you two still know how to make an entrance." Draco said in a dry yet amused voice.
"It's an art form, Draco." Harry said as if he was a wise teacher trying to pass on some important wisdom.
"So when did this happen?" Blaise asked curiously.
"Sometime last night," Daphne answered, leaning her shoulder against Harry. Thor's eyes lit up at the sight of her beautiful blonde hair and began playing with it. "what about you, Blaise?" Daphne asked. "Are we going to hear about how you 'conquered the mighty veela'?" She asked with a smirk, one that got bigger when Blaise blushed slightly.
"I did not conquer anything." Blaise said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh yeah, that's right." Tracey said as if she had just remembered something. "If I recall correctly at the end of your date she just gave you a kiss on the cheek and sent you on your way." She said in a teasing voice.
"It was a passionate kiss!" Blaise argued.
"Yeah," Theo agreed, which caused Blaise to smile at him, or at least it did before he continued. "a passionate kiss on your cheek."
"Screw you, Nott." Blaise glared at him.
"I'd rather screw Delacour," Nott shrugged. "and you know that you want to as well, shame you never got around to it." Theo added with a small smirk.
"Right, now I'm just going to do it just to prove you wrong." Blaise said, still glaring at Theo.
"I look forward to laughing when you fail." Theo shrugged.
"So," Jet spoke as he looked between Harry and Daphne. "are you two going to mate now?" He asked.
A.N: Hi guys, sorry this chapter is so short, I will try and make the next one longer.
I've also come into a bit of luck in that I've got a job, yeah, I'm now working in a bread making factory, yeah, had my first day at work today, I will likely be working there for a great amount of time unless I get myself fired. I'll be working at least four days a week so my writing time will be reduced, I will still try to upload every one or two days but no promises.
Also the vote for my next story is still up on pat-reon. A few people have asked me why I am not putting on this site instead, and here are my answers:
Number the 1: On every story I have I've got at least a few hundred followers and I can't control how many will or will not vote and it's possible I could get overwhelmed with reviews (not likely, but possible). While on pat-reon I have a much smaler amount that I can easily look through.
Number the 2 : The pat-reon website actually allows me to set up an actual poll that will automatically work out how many people are voting and what they've chosen, for example option 1 has 34% of votes while option two had 3% of votes. That makes things a lot easier for me.
Number the 3 : It's my way of rewarding my patrons until I'm able to set up other rewards for them.
Also it's kind of unneccesary but I do have to say that I don't own Harry Potter or anything like that. Also for those who want to complain about me having a pat-reon account: I'm not 'demanding' people give me money on pat-reon for the stories I write. I'm giving the people the option to 'dontate' money to me. In exchange I give them things such as votes on what stories I do next and early viewings of chapters that I'll put here. Any content I have I will put on here (and possibly other fanfic website sin the future), I am not blocking anyone from reading it. Also stop complaining, I'm not demanding payment, if you don't want to give money then don't give money, it's as simple as that.
For those interested in the vote, the HP/Avatar crossover is currently in first place followed by girl-who-lived story in second place and Harry is a werewolf story in third place. If you want to help change that or keep it as it is then feel free to become a patron, just go on the website and search up JB21Q to find me.
Thanks for reading, feel free to leave a review.