Chronicles Of Arth: Prince Of Shadows - Chapter 230

Arth turned his head a little more. Fleur Delacour was criticizing the Hogwarts decorations to Roger Davies.

“Zis is nothing,” she said dismissively, looking around at the sparkling walls of the Great Hall. “At ze Palace of Beauxbatons, we ‘ave ice sculptures all around ze dining chamber at Chreestmas. Zey do not melt, of course . . . zey are like ‘uge statues of diamond, glittering around ze place. And ze food is seemply superb. And we ‘ave choirs of wood nymphs, ‘oo serenade us as we eat. We ‘ave none of zis ugly armor in ze ‘alls, and eef a poltergeist ever entaired into Beauxbatons, ‘e would be expelled like zat.” She slapped her hand onto the table impatiently.

Roger Davies was watching her talk with a very dazed look on his face, and he kept missing his mouth with his fork. Arth shook his head. Poor fool.

“Absolutely right,” he said quickly, slapping his own hand down on the table in imitation of Fleur. “Like that. Yeah.”

Arth looked around the Hall this time. Hagrid was sitting at one of the other staff tables; he was back in his horrible hairy brown suit and gazing up at the top table. Harry saw him give a small wave, and looking around, saw Madame Maxime return it, her opals glittering in the candlelight.

Hermione was now teaching Krum to say her name properly; he kept calling her “Hermy-own.”

“Her-my-oh-nee,” she said slowly and clearly. “Herm-own-ninny.”

“Close enough,” she said grinning before catching Arth’s eye and hurriedly looking away.

When all the food had been consumed, Dumbledore stood up and asked the students to do the same. Then, with a wave of his wand, all the tables zoomed back along the walls leaving the floor clear, and then he conjured a raised platform into existence along the right wall. A set of drums, several guitars, a lute, a cello, and some bagpipes were set upon it.

The “Weird Sisters now trooped up onto the stage to wildly enthusiastic applause; they were all extremely hairy and dressed in black robes that had been artfully ripped and torn.

They picked up their instruments, and Arth, who had been so interested in watching them that he had almost forgotten what was coming, suddenly realized that the lanterns on all the other tables had gone out, and that the other champions and their partners were standing up.

“Come on,” Scarlett whispered. “Shall we dance?”

Arth stared directly into Scarlett’s eyes and asked with a smile.

“Do you still remember how to dance?”

She replied with another smile.

“Of course I do, I learned it from you after all.”

“Then I expect you not to step on my shoes once. Or else, the dance is over.”

Seeing Scarlett’s face immediately pale, Arth couldn’t help but laugh.

“I was just teasing you, sorry.”

Scarlett wrinkles her face and puckered her lips in an attempt to make herself look furious, however, miserably failed and only served to feed Arth’s d.e.s.i.r.e to tease her more.

“I hate you.”

“I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

The Weird Sisters struck up a slow, mournful tune and Scarlett and Arth let the music carry them away. For now, at least, it wasn’t about Arth surviving the first task, going to a ball to dance, not relaxing himself before the second task. No, it was about him and her, dancing under the starry skies, like a couple blessed by the heavens.