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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood	By : DictionaryWrites Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3021 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and the characters therein belong to JK Rowling; I'm playing in the sandbox, as it were, whilst claiming no ownership and making no money.

Chapter List
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"You think you're ready?" Cedric asks the question quietly and almost delicately as he and Harry walk up towards the entrance hall together, having met near the entrance to the kitchens on the way up for breakfast. There are only three more days until the Third Task, as time has gone past so quickly, day after day, week after week. The sun is bright outside now, and the days are actually becoming truly warm and pleasant: all Harry can think about, ridiculously, is that he won't have to do any exams this year. Whether he and Cedric win, or whether they lose, both he and Cedric are getting an automatic waiver, an automatic pass.
"As ready as I will be," Harry says. They've not made any change to the arena outside, not added anything or taken anything way from the big colosseum, and yet it feels like there's more electricity of sorts added to the air whenever he goes outside and looks at it. Although he never sees anyone flitting around it, he feels like there's some change or other in it, ones that he cannot see, as if magic is being layered about the colosseum overnight for the Third Task. "What about you?"
"I feel sort of the same," Cedric says quietly, and he says, "I've been talking to Fleur a little bit. She's- Well, worried is kind of the wrong word, because I don't think she ever worries about anything, but... She seems to be kind of concerned. About- About the Death Eaters." Harry puts his hands in his pockets, frowning slightly and turning to glance at him.
"Death Eaters?" Harry repeats, tilting his head slightly quizzically and staring at Cedric for a few long moments. The past few weeks, there's been all but silence in the papers where the Death Eaters are concerned - all but silence where everything is concerned. Every single article printed has been lacking in the Prophet's usual sensationalism, and they haven't mentioned anything about Voldemort, Gilderoy Lockhart, or even Rita Seeketer. There have been a few criticisms of the Ministry's response to the Acromantula (or lack thereof), but to Harry's awareness, no one in Hogsmeade has been bothered by them yet.
"She says her grandmother sent her a letter. She has the Sight, apparently, and she says they're coming soon. She thinks it will be during the Third Task."
"The Veela grandmother?"
"No, the other one." Cedric seems uncomfortable with having brought up something to do with Divination, as he keeps shooting Harry sidelong glances and looking mildly guilty, but Harry is glad Cedric told him. "I think you should talk to her."
"Me?" Harry says, head snapping to the side. "Why me?"
"She likes you," Cedric says. He taps his fingers on his leg for a moment, and then he stops short: Harry stops with him, a corridor away from the entrance hall, and Cedric faces him properly, putting his hands on Harry's shoulders and examining him seriously. Harry looks up into the other boy's face, and Cedric seems to hesitate somewhat before he speaks quietly and gravely, and says, "I know that- I know that a lot of people tell you what to do, Harry. So many people do, and with You-Know-Who coming back, it's only going to get worse, but... Harry, you're a really good person, okay? And a lot of people trust you, not because you're the Boy-Who-Lived, but because you're a good person. Harry, because you're genuine and you're brave, and Harry, Fleur trusts you. I think that if you talk to her, she'll open up to you, and I think that you should talk to her. Not that you have to, of course, but- it's my advice that you do."
Cedric pulls his hands back from Harry's shoulders, looking almost embarrassed for a few moments, and then he leans back.
"I'll talk to her," Harry says.
"I don't want to tell you what to do," Cedric murmurs, and Harry shakes his head.
"You're not, Cedric. Thanks, for telling me that, for- for caring enough to give me advice." Cedric gives Harry a firm nod, and he walks off and towards the great hall. Harry is lacking in any appetite at all, and he lets the other boy go, waiting for a few moments in the entrance hall. He'd put on his robes and walked up for breakfast out of pure habit, and now the idea of even biting into a piece of toast is making his stomach turn.
"Come on, Potter," says a light and amused voice, and Blaise walks out of the great hall easily and with a natural grace, morning light shining on his cheekbones. "Let's go for a walk." Relief surges through Harry, and he grins at the other boy, giving an inclination of his head and walking alongside Blaise out into the courtyard and then down the hill. They synchronize their steps as they move down over the grass, not a drop of dew clinging to the blades and with daisies and buttercups sprouting about between the green shoots.
"I didn't want to go in for breakfast," Harry says quietly, and Blaise gives a slow, easy nod of his head. Rather than walking with Harry down towards the lake and the entrance to the Forbidden Forest, Blaise turns the two of them down towards the path to the Hogwarts gates, where a few trees dot either side of the gravel road, and near to the gates themselves is a private little copse of trees.
"It's alright," Blaise replies, giving a shrug of his shoulders. He and Harry walk in the very middle of the road, tracing the path taken by the coaches when they're brought up towards Hogwarts, and Harry leans slightly towards the other boy. Blaise glances at him, glances back towards the castle, and then he steps slightly away from Harry: despite the pleasant heat on the summer breeze, Harry feels abruptly cold. "Are you worried about the Third Task? I wouldn't be, were I you."
"Wouldn't you?" Harry asks, and Blaise gives the neatest nod of his aristocratic head.
"I feel that the two of you, you and Cedric, will come out of this as victors." Harry glances to Blaise, and he wonders why all of a sudden everyone is having feelings and impressions as to the future. If it had been one person, he might have accepted it, but like this it feels insincere, like everyone's so sure he's going to die they have nothing better to do than lie to him about it.
"Right," Harry says, a little bluntly. "If you say so." As they step under the umbrella of the trees in the little copse, Harry looks about; they enter a clearing with colourful flowers and mushrooms carpeting the ground, and Harry vaguely wonders why he hasn't seen this part of the grounds before. Blaise steps forwards and into the centre of the clearing, and then he looks back to Harry and gives a small, neat smile. "Did you want to talk about something?"
"No, not at all," Blaise replies, reaching out and taking old of Harry's robe front, drawing him closer and closer, until their noses nearly brush together, and Blaise is looking right through the lenses of Harry's glasses and into his eyes. "I merely wanted you." Blaise leans in to kiss Harry, and although Harry feels the warmth of Blaise's lips brush his, he doesn't kiss the other boy back. Blaise pulls back from Harry, an expression of utter puzzlement on his face, and Harry examines his features in quiet silence.
He thinks of how Blaise had looked back towards the castle when Harry had tried to lean against him, and how Blaise will show him affection only in front of Hermione, and in front of no one else. Blaise is tilting his head just slightly to the side, his hands fisted still in the front of Harry's robe, and Harry reaches up, pulling his hands gently away.
"What is it, pray?" Blaise queries, amusement replacing his puzzlement. "Surely you aren't so scared you're lacking in all libido?"
"I don't think this is a good idea," Harry says quietly. "Any of this. I'm going up to the castle." Blaise is staring at him, his mouth slightly open, his perfectly molded features for once betraying a complete expression: horror, befuddlement, anger...
"You cannot possibly mean-"
"I don't want to be like Elton John," Harry blurts out, and is surprised by the tension in his own voice, and the way his voice shakes.
"Who in Merlin's name is that?" Blaise demands, voice slightly high and sharp with anger. Harry opens his mouth and then closes it, unsure how to explain it, how to define himself immediately, and he decides not to. He staggers backwards, just slightly, and he hears Blaise say something but he doesn't really register what the words are: he turns on his heel, and as fast as he can he walks briskly up towards Hogwarts again. He doesn't want to turn into the castle, not right now, and not when Blaise might follow him, so he heads the other way, and when he approaches the Beauxbatons carriage parked in its place, he walks up toward its fine, wooden door and knocks upon the white-painted surface. He lingers on the pretty, brass steps, and when one of the great, black horses comes towards him, he stays completely still, letting it nudge him in the shoulder. He reaches out, delicately drawing the pads of his fingers over its wide, dark muzzle.
"He likes you," comes the voice of Coralie, and when Harry turns to meet her gaze, the horse snorts, blowing warm air against the side of Harry's neck and ruffling his hair. Coralie is dressed in a set of Muggle clothes, a loose, beige jumper worn over a pair of tight, tartan shorts, and over top of the ensemble she wears the outer piece of her Beauxbatons robe - somehow, the combination comes across as artful rather than ridiculous. "That is rare - he barely likes anybody. Come inside, Harry," Coralie steps back into the carriage, and then she neatly pushes the door closed. The carriage is huge as a castle on the inside, and before him Harry sees a great, marble staircase leading up into what would be the ceiling, and on each side of it are doors leading off into other corridors. "This way," Coralie murmurs, her accent thickly weighting down the words, and she leads Harry to the right and through to a brightly lit, classically decorated dining room.
Seated at a desk with a French magazine on the surface before her, with her left hand held out so she can wandlessly affect her nails to be painted a robin's egg blue, Fleur Delacour sits alone, her eyes flitting easily over the page. "This young man is here to see you, Fleur," Coralie says sweetly, and when Fleur turns to glance at him, Harry breathes in the slight cloud of her perfume on the air.
"Harry," she says softly, and then she smiles, softly. "You look sad." Harry thinks about Blaise in the copse down by the Hogwarts gate, alone in the midst of all those flowers. Coralie taps Harry on the shoulder in a friendly fashion, and then she walks away, her feet making barely any sound on the varnished boards of the dining room beneath her.
"Just a bit of drama," Harry says, shrugging his shoulders, and from the big dining table in the middle of the room, he takes a chair and sits down on it beside Fleur's desk, and she smiles at him, her face utterly radiant. "Cedric told me what your grandmother said." Fleur breathes in, her nostrils flaring slightly, and she neatly closes the glossy, animated magazine and pushes it neatly aside: on the cover, a wizard and witch in the most fashionable dress robes spin in an enchanted waltz.
"She did not tell a Prophecy like your lady here," Fleur murmurs, dropping the aspirates and taking up her drink from the side, taking a sip. "But she has visions, sometimes, of things... She saw their masks and their robes, Harry. She wrote me saying I ought be very careful in the Task - of course, I had to alert you three also."
"Are you scared?" Harry asks, and Fleur tilts her head to the side, examining Harry curiously.
"You know, Harry," Fleur says, her glossed lips twitching."It has been a very long time since anyone has thought to ask me that." The little brush drawing itself over her nails dusts itself off and settles in the bottle, and with a wave of her wand, she dries off the varnish on the painted nails, and then she stands, neatly. She looks like the kind of debutante Petunia would hold back her tuts for on the television. "Come: take some hot chocolate with me, and let us talk about it. You remind me of my sister, you know, Harry."
"But I'm prettier, right?" Fleur laughs, putting back her head, and when she looks at Harry and grins once more, she shows all of her lovely teeth.
"No, not so much. But she is eight, so you are about the same age." Harry snorts, and with her leading the way, he follows her into the kitchen.
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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood