Origami // Draco Malfoy

Chapter 18: Waltz Partners

Cho sat next to me with her arms crossed and scoffed loudly at the sight of something happening at the Hufflepuff table. A group of girls had gathered around Cedric who was showing off the burn mark on the right side of his face, a result of the first task of the tournament where a Swedish Short-Snout spewed fire at him. Madam Pomfrey had treated the nasty wound with orange paste which had made it significantly less discernible though you could still see the remnants of the third-degree burns on his cheek. Cho looked away in disgust at having to see her crush being worshipped by so many girls. But Cedric noticed, got out of his seat, walked over to our table, and sat down next to Cho. She blushed and let out a small giggle when he planted a small peck on her cheek.

The Weasley twins walked past us and spoke to Cedric, "Great job yesterday, Diggory! Looks like you have a little souvenir to remember it by," Fred said, pointing at Cedric's mark.

"Makes me look rather tough, don't you think?" Cedric turned to Cho who in turn immediately agreed.

"You should have won," she said, "Distracting the dragon with a dog was genius!"

George gasped in realisation, "Oh! That reminds me, Dani! Here's your prize money!"

George reached into the pocket of his robe and handed me 10 sickles, twice the amount I had given him when placing my bet on Krum yesterday.

"Ah! You left so quickly yesterday, I thought you pulled a Bagman on me!" I joked.

George brought his hand to his heart and looked at me with a hurt expression. "We would never!" He cried, but then immediately started to chuckle.

"Wait...Who won?" Michael Corner interrupted from across the table. His dark black hair covered his eyes so you couldn't really tell who he was asking the question to.

"Potter and Krum!" Luna answered. She had been pretty quiet all morning. Perhaps it was even the first time she talked at all today.

"Both?" Michael responded.

"They tied! Though Harry was obviously much better!" Padma uttered.

"I mean, the dragon did cause a whole chunk of a tower to collapse..." I stated, remembering the damages that had been done to the castle by the Hungarian Horntail.

"That's not Harry's fault!" Padma argued.

Padma strongly believed Harry deserved to have won the first task. In fact, Padma seemed to have taken quite a liking to Harry ever since he got chosen as champion.

"Gossiping about me, are we?" A voice behind me suddenly said.

"Ah! If it isn't Harry the Dragon Slayer!" Fred yelled excitedly.

I turned around to see Harry standing behind me, the golden egg he had captured yesterday clutched underneath his arm. Padma seemed to get rather shy at seeing the boy standing so close to her.

"Figured out how to use that thing yet?" George asked both Harry and Cedric.

"Not yet. But I'm sure I'll think of something," Cedric responded confidently. Harry seemed less sure of himself though and kept quiet.

He took a seat next to Padma, much to her amusement. We all kept talking for a bit until it was nearly time for our first class of the day: History of Magic, definitely not the first class you want to be having on a Friday. I was already feeling dead tired after a full week of homework and the stress of the first task. That in combination with Professor Binn's emotionless, monotone voice would put me to sleep not even five minutes into his lecture.