Chapter 175: Yuletide End, Possibility

Quinn walked to the Great hall alone without Fleur. The Veela was tired from the hectic party and decided to retire for the night. Quinn wanted to escort her back to the Beauxbatons carriages, but they came across Headmistress Maxime — a very angry Olympe Maxime.

She swept through corridors like an angry hippogriff, and when she saw them, Maxime sent Quinn away, stating that she'd take Fleur from there onwards. Neither Quinn nor Fleur wanted to argue with the angry half-giantess, so they obliged and separated, with Quinn returning to Great hall.

"Why am I returning," he sighed, "I should've retired for the night. Today's sleep is going to be a good and deep one." He was a right type of tired — the type where he would slip into sleep the second he hit the bed top.

He entered the snow-white Christmas-decorated hall. The vibe of the ball had changed since he exited; in the middle of the hall, on the dance floor, a few couples slow danced to the relaxed and romantic music of the Weird Sisters while others sat in groups, chatting with each other, laughing and mingling with each other — making cherished memories of a wonderful night.

He saw Eddie & Tracey and Marcus & Luna still dancing, so he sat down at the table waiting for them to end so that he could return with them to the Ravenclaw common room.

Quinn stared down at the floor, saw sparkling confetti spread across the floor, and decided to pass some time. His learning from the Nordic Viking book he got from Denmark popped into his mind, and he called upon a bit of his magic. He blew softly towards the floor, and with magic wind magic backing up his breath, the confetti on an entire section of floor in front of him floated away, gliding across the floor.

"Quinn." The call of his name broke him out of his little pass-time. Quinn turned to come to face with a pair of striking crystal blue eyes. "Daphne, I didn't see you there. How are you? Enjoying yourself at the ball?"

Daphne stared at Quinn while giving a glance towards the now confetti-free floor. ".. . .I am," she said before looking around, "where is Delacour?"

"Fleur was tired, so she decided to retire for the night," said Quinn, "what about you? What're you doing alone here? Where is Krum?"

Daphne ran an errant hand through her silky straight blonde looks. "His friends came and took him away. I think they had firewhiskey with them." Which meant that they probably went to a secluded area to sneak some drinks.

"You didn't join them?"

"I don't drink, and it was only boys."

"There's always a first time for everything, though I would suggest that you go with something lighter than firewhiskey — I saw a label once, and oh boy, the spirit content scared me a little."

"No, thank you," denied Daphne firmly, "I don't want to go drinking right now.. .. you sound like you've got experience with drinking."

Quinn ruffled the back of his head and sighed with a chuckle mixed in. "No, I haven't drunk any liquor — technically, I haven't." He had ingested quite a lot of questionable stuff that he brewed while experimenting with potions; some of them had alcoholic content. "I don't like the feeling of being drunk — everything is a little too loose, a bit too light — that's a little uncomfortable to me."

He gazed at Daphne and asked, "Is Krum returning?"

"I don't know, he didn't have to reply.. .. with his friends, pulling — dragging him along."

"I see, well then," he got up and offered his hand to Daphne, "may I have one last dance?"

Daphne quite readily took the offered hand and let Quinn lead her to the dance floor, where the song was still slow, and the ambiance was soothingly romantic.

"I'm glad that Krum went away, you know," said Quinn as they started to dance.

Daphne's heart skipped a beat. ".. . .What do you mean?"

"Well, you and he were together all evening, so I didn't have the chance to ask you to dance; it would've been a pity if I didn't get a chance to dance with you. Not to mention how pretty you look today; it reminds me of the time we first danced together."

Daphne reminisced about Quinn and her first dance at the Christmas ball a few years back — at that time, the boy dancing with her was just an annoying yet interesting boy.

She looked up and gazed at the smiling face of Quinn. "That was a rememberable ball and dance."

"Of course, it was," she saw him grin, "I was there with you, and I'm highly entertaining to hang around, ask anyone."

"Yes, you are," she agreed with a smile of her own.

Quinn's eyes widened a fraction at the smile on Daphne's face. He had made her plenty of times; small smiles were what he was used to seeing on Daphne's face — not broad, unrestrained smiles on the neutral-faced Daphne. For a moment, it took his breath away — he couldn't take his eyes off her and even slowed down a bit just to admire the sight in front of him.

Daphne didn't notice Quinn's change and continued to gaze at him.

To anyone who was seeing them, the pair were looking into each other's eyes with no care of what was happening around them.

And someone was indeed watching them. Victor Krum had finally been able to evade his schoolmates and friends' attempts to get him to drink with them and leave them behind to return to the hall back to his date.

Upon searching for Daphne, he found him dancing with another guy, which he was okay with — a girl like Daphne was bound to have many friends (his opinion). And the guy she was dancing with was also familiar to him — Quinn West, the organizer of the quidditch tournament and the person who had made his time at Hogwarts much more enjoyable; as such, his impression of Quinn was a great one despite some unusual things like having an office at school.

If that was it, he would have walked onto the dance floor and informed Daphne that he was back and asked her one last dance before escorting her back (it was getting late).

Krum liked Daphne a lot — she wasn't like others and didn't act differently towards him because of his popularity and treated him like he was just another guy. It was a desirable quality that a lot of people in Krum's position sought after in their friends and close ones. That's why he asked her out to be his date at the ball.

But as he now watched them, he noticed the smile on Daphne's face — he had been acquainted with Daphne for a few months now but not once in that time had she showed him such a beautiful smile. It made him not go and watch them from the side.

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He then saw Quinn lean down towards Daphne. 'Is he going to kiss her,' he thought. But it didn't happen, and instead, Krum watched Quinn whisper something into Daphne's ears. Daphne turned and saw him (Krum) before glancing back at Quinn, who was walking backward while giving her an exaggerated bow as he wished Daphne a Merry Yuletide.

Krum saw Daphne fix her dress before walking towards.

"Ah," escaped him.

The smile on her face was gone.

.. .

When the Weird Sisters finished playing at midnight, everyone gave them a last, loud round of applause and started to wend their way into the entrance hall. Many people were expressing the wish that the ball could have gone on longer, but Quinn was perfectly happy to be going to bed; he had overdone it, and now the soles of his feet were hurting.

Out in the entrance hall, Quinn, Marcus, and Luna saw Eddie saying good night to Tracey before she went back to the dungeons. She gave him a sweet smile before walking away with Daphne in tow.

Eddie joined Quinn and others with a silly smile on his face. "Sorry for the wait. Let's go."

"You should've walked her back to the Slytherin common room," said Quinn.

Marcus nodded, "Yeah, you missed a chance."

Luna looked at Quinn and Marcus before giving repeated nods to Eddie.

"Eh?" Eddie looked back, but Tracey was already out of the entrance hall, "should I go now? But Daphne's with her."

"It's too late; forget it," said Marcus, "look, Quinn just yawned in public; that doesn't happen a lot. Come on, let's go; everybody is tired."

"Damn, you saw that, huh," said Quinn stretching his hands up before wrapping his arm around Luna's shoulder, "how was your day today, Luna?"

A tired Luna leaned against Quinn. "It was fun. Dancing is fun — especially with more people."

"Yes, it is," smiled Quinn.

Christmas was over, and with it, the Yule Ball.

- (Scene Break) -

Everybody got up late on Boxing Day. The Gryffindor common room was much quieter than it had been lately, many yawns punctuating the lazy conversations. Hermione's hair were back to somewhere between bushy and wavy again; she confessed to Harry that she had used liberal amounts of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion on it for the ball, "but it's way too much bother to do every day," she said matter-of-factly, scratching a purring Crookshanks behind the ears.

It was time now to think of the homework they had neglected during the first week of the holidays. Everybody seemed to be feeling relatively flat now that Christmas was over — everybody except Harry, that is, who was starting (once again) to feel slightly nervous.

The trouble was that February the twenty-fourth looked a lot closer from this side of Christmas, and he still hadn't done anything about working out the clue inside the golden egg.

Therefore, he started taking the egg out of his trunk every time he went up to the dormitory, opened it, and listened intently, hoping that this time it would make some sense. He strained to think what the sound reminded him of, apart from thirty musical saws, but he had never heard anything else like it. He closed the egg, shook it vigorously, and opened it again to see if the sound had changed, but it hadn't. He tried asking the egg questions, shouting over all the wailing, but nothing happened. He even threw the egg across the room — though he hadn't really expected that to help.

And so the first day of the new term arrived, and Harry set off to lessons, weighed down with books, parchment, and quills as usual, but also with the lurking worry of the egg heavy in his stomach, as though he were carrying that around with him too.

"Hey — Harry!" It was Cedric Diggory. Harry could see Cho waiting for him in the entrance hall below.

"Yeah?" said Harry, internally comparing Cho to Hermione and concluding that Hermione was better.

Cedric looked as though he didn't want to say whatever it was in front of Ron, who shrugged, looking bad-tempered, and continued to climb the stairs.

"Listen. . ." Cedric lowered his voice as Ron disappeared. "I owe you one for telling me about the dragons. You know that golden egg? Does yours wail when you open it?"

As much as Harry's competitiveness wanted to beat Cedric, he couldn't keep the news about dragons to himself and relayed it to the Hufflepuff seeker as he didn't wish Cedric to die. Harry was sure if Hagrid hadn't told him about the dragons, he would've died on the day of the first task.

"Yeah," said Harry; all his egg did was wail.

"Well. .. take a bath, okay?"

"What?"

"Take a bath, and — er — take the egg with you, and — er — just mull

things over in hot water. It'll help you think.. .. Trust me."

Harry stared at him.

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"Tell you what," Cedric said, "use the prefects' bathroom. Fourth door to the left of that statue of Boris the Bewildered on the fifth floor. Password's 'ripe red apples.' Gotta go. .. see you around —"

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He grinned at Harry again and hurried back down the stairs to Cho.

Harry walked back to Gryffindor Tower alone. That had been bizarre advice. Why would a bath help him to work out what the wailing egg meant? Was Cedric pulling his leg? Was he trying to make Harry look like a fool?

After thinking for a while, he decided to first take this strange advice to Hermione and Ivy — his "think tank" would know what to do.

.. .

As Harry had no idea how long a bath he would need to work out the secret of the golden egg, he decided to do it at night, when Harry would be able to take as much time as he wanted. Seeing that Cedric had suggested using the Prefects' bathroom, he took him on the offer.

"Um, I can do this on my own; you don't have to come with me," he said, looking at his two companions.

"You've been too lax for so long," said his twin sister, Ivy, "we can't risk you wasting more time."

"Uh-huh, we will find the egg's secret tonight," said Hermione in agreement.

Ron had been deemed too loud for him to accompany to this late-night excursion (and he was sleepy). They had been caught out of bed and out of bounds by Filch, the caretaker in the middle of the night once before, and had no desire to repeat the experience.

"B-But, it's the Boy-Prefect's bathroom," he sent a weak rebuke, "you two are girls."

"Not a problem, it's after curfew," Ivy shot down him and raised an old parchment, the fabled Marauder's Map, "and we already checked, there's no one in the bath."

When they reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, a lost-looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands, Harry located the right door, leaned close to it, and muttered the password, "red ripe apples," just as Cedric had told him.

The door creaked open. The trio slipped inside and bolted the door behind them.

His immediate reaction was that it would be worth becoming a prefect just to be able to use this bathroom. It was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor.

About a hundred golden taps stood all around the pool's edges, each with a differently colored jewel set into its handle. There was also a diving board. Long white linen curtains hung at the windows; a large pile of fluffy white towels sat in a corner, and a single golden-framed painting was on the wall. It featured a blonde mermaid who was fast asleep on a rock, her lengthy hair over her face. It fluttered every time she snored.

"Who's there?!"

The sudden voice followed by a loud splash of water — it was as if someone had dumped a lot of water from a height.

The trio turned to stone and stiffly turned towards the source of the voice. But the trio couldn't see the person as it was January — the peak of winter; due to that, the pool was filled with hot water; as a result, the bathroom was filled with dense white mist, limiting their vision.

Then abruptly, the mist parted from over the pool, revealing the person.

Ivy's instantly recognized the person despite his hair went and down with most of his torso covered in colorful foam and multi-colored bubbles of varying sizes — some were even as big as footballs.

"Quinn!" she exclaimed.

In front of them, sitting near an edge of the pool, sat Quinn West, submerged, staring at them as if they had just done something punishable by law.

"What are you three doing here?" he asked, hiding a sigh behind his words.

"What are *you* doing here?" asked Harry, calming his beating heart down.

"We're on the fifth floor — the floor with the Ravenclaw common room entrance and my office. This is the Prefects Bathroom," said Quinn before pointing at himself, "I'm a Prefect—" he pointed at them, "—you three aren't."

"But, it's after curfew," supplied Hermione.

"Yeah, so?"

The three realized who they were talking to — this guy didn't understand the concept of curfew.

"Again, why are you here," asked Quinn, pushing them for an answer. Quinn was surprised when he heard the echoing footsteps as, at that time, he had around half the pool water suspended into the air.

"We're here to solve the egg," said Harry.

"Ah, so you finally found how the egg works, huh. Aren't you guys a little too late, though?"

The three Gryffindors saw Quinn get up, and instantly, Hermione and Ivy flushed a deep red. Quinn was topless with only a towel around his waist. Harry didn't show any change as he had seen similar sights after every intense quidditch game or practice.

"We don't know how it works," said Ivy, pushing the blush down. "we just know that it has something to do with water."

"That's good enough, I guess," said Quinn, walking behind a changing screen to get some clothes; his relaxation time was over, "what do you think you need to do for the egg to start working?"

Harry, Ivy, and Hermione looked at each other and nodded. They stripped out of their clothing down to their bathing suits. They stepped into the pool. It was so deep that their feet barely touched the bottom.

Harry stretched out his arms, lifted the egg in his wet hands, and opened it. The wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls, but it sounded just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so with all the echoes. He snapped it shut again, worried that the sound would attract Filch, wondering whether that hadn't been Cedric's plan.

"Try put it into the water," suggested Hermione while swimming in the pool.

"Oh!" The three heard Quinn's voice from behind the screen, and when he didn't continue, they knew that Hermione had struck gold.

"Go on, then. .. open it under the water!" nudged Ivy.

Harry put the egg inside water and opened it with a wince in his eyes.. .. this time, it didn't wail. They could hear gurgling sounds coming out of the water with popping bubbles on the surface.

It took Harry a moment to realize, but the answer struck like a lightning strike. "I need to put my head as well."

Harry took a great breath and slid under the surface — and now, sitting on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, he heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to him from the open egg in his hands:

"Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you're searching, ponder this:

We've taken what you'll sorely miss,

An hour-long you'll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour — the prospect's black,

Too late, it's gone; it won't come back."

Harry let himself float back upward and broke the bubbly surface, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

"So?" asked Ivy.

"Yeah. .. 'Come seek us where our voices sound. . .' and if I need persuading. .. hang on, I need to listen again.. . ."

He sank back beneath the water, and this time, Hermione and Ivy joined them. It took three more underwater renditions of the egg's song before Harry had it memorized (Ivy and Hermione were done in two dips).

"I've got to go and look for people who can't use their voices above the ground.. . ." he said slowly. "Er. .. who could that be."

"Slow, aren't you?" They looked up and saw Quinn — he had dressed up and was now smiling down at them from outside the pool. "But well, you're on the right path — a pity that you didn't come to me — a lost opportunity for me, but oh well, I look forward to seeing you at the second task."

Harry and Ivy furrowed his brows as, in the end, before he left, Quinn gave a fleeting glance to Hermione — a glance that didn't seem a normal glance.

"What was that?" asked Harry.

Ivy shook her head. "I don't know."

.. .

Outside the bath, Quinn stopped for a second as a thought struck his mind. He stood on the spot for a while as his mind churned with a single view.

"Wait, does it mean.. . that I could become a hostage?. .. No, right?. . ."

That thought plagued him all night.

Quinn West - MC - Is he clueless, or does he understand?

Daphne Greengrass - Hostage candidate - From what people say, her smile is gorgeous.

Victor Krum - Champion - Ah, he understands that he was working towards a dead end.

Golden Sub-Trio - A diverse group - Out on the night expedition.

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