𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 | 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿

Dance Preparations & Serious Complications

"Are you kidding me?" Charlie was taken aback, "Where do you get off making such demands?"

"I'm the Minister, Charles," Fenwick laughed bitterly, "typically, that means that whatever I say, goes."

"That is totally barbaric -"

"It's alright, Charlie," Hermione said softly, trying to calm the boy down, "I should probably go and find Ron anyway, so that we can watch Harry's performance. I'll see you later, okay?"

Before Charlie could even protest, the bushy haired girl had exited the tent; without saying another word and keeping her head down to avoid eye contact with the Minister.

"Very well," Fenwick said the second the girl had disappeared, "let's go hear your scores, shall we?"

Charlie shook his head in disbelief at his father before he walked out of the tent before him. Now that the Fireball had been taken away, Charlie could see where the five judges were sitting - right at the other end of the enclosure, in raised seats draped in gold.

"It's marks out of ten from each one," Fenwick said, and Charlie squinting up the field, saw the first judge - Madame Maxime - raise her wand in the air. A long silver ribbon of magic shot out of it, which twisted itself into a large figure eight.

"We can work with that," the Minister said as he joined his son's side; the crowd applauded. "I suppose she took marks off for your leg..."

Mr. Crouch came next. He shot a number nine into the air.

"Much better!" Fenwick yelled, thumping his son on the back in an attempt to perceive himself as a good father.

Next, his grandfather, Albus Dumbledore. He too put up a nine; not a ten, of course, that would be incredibly biased. The crowd was cheering harder than ever.

Ludo Bagman, however, put up a ten.

"Ten?" said Charlie in disbelief. "But... I got hurt... What's he playing at?"

Fenwick had smacked his son on the back of the head as a scolding technique, "Don't complain!"

And now Karkaroff raised his wand. He paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of his wand too - four.

"What?" The Minister bellowed furiously. "Four? You lousy, biased scum-bag! Just wait until I get ahold of him -"

"It's fine," Charlie muttered before returning to the tent as instructed by Madame Pomfrey once again; he couldn't care less about Karkaroff's score, he just wanted to get as far away from his father as possible.

At the end, once all of the champions had competed, Charlie and Harry were tied in first place with forty points, Krum barely came second with thirty-eight points, and Fleur was right behind them with thirty-seven points; it was still anyone's game.

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Returning to the Gryffindor common room that night was a sweet relief for Charlie after a whirlwind of emotions provoked earlier in the day.

They were in a huge celebratory mood after the results of the task had been revealed; the two young Gryffindor champions sat on the top of the leaderboard! Meaning, that as soon as Charlie and Harry stepped foot into the common room that evening, they were hoisted in the air, the cheers and screams of their fellow Gryffindors surrounding them.