* * * Starring * * *
Emma Watson
"Hermione Granger"
Evanna Lynch
"Luna Lovegood"
Can't Fight the Moonlight
"Events on Ice" Copyright © 2008
Episode Fourteen
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters appearing in the series of 'Harry Potter' films, created by author J.K. Rowling. Original characters are copyrighted to the original author (Rupert). This series is posted to Girls Loving Girls with full permission of the author. No copyright infringement is intended or implied.
Feedback: Every author in his or her own way makes it a point to ask for feedback when posting a story, well me I don't usually. But there are several reasons as to why a reader should consider taking the time to give it. The simple fact is that giving some form of feedback is truly the most important thing a reader can do after reading and enjoying a story. Hopefully in the process providing that author with at least one viable reason as to what you liked about the story. This small amount of time spent will no doubt inspire the author to write more and possibly at a quicker pace, knowing that they have a fan base who are waiting on their next works. So thanks for the feedback and please keep it comin.
Summary: None
Original Airdate: March 10, 2009 @ 9:00 p.m.
(following an ALL NEW 'Life as a (horny!) Teenage "Lesbian"')
Story Codes: no sex
Hermione and Luna entered the full arena. There were thousands of witches and wizards filling the stands. It was not quite like the world cup of quidditch, but it was an impressive sight none the less. Despite the warm temperature and the sunshine, there was an ice rink filled with performers. It could have been the opening ceremony for the Olympics if it wasn’t for the fact that all performers were animals of various kinds. Not people in costumes, real animals. Some looked like regular animals, whereas others clearly were magical.¨
“Hermione, Luna.” Someone called out.
While Luna was completely transfixed by the action on the ice, Hermione looked around to see who had been calling out. It turned out that it was none other than Minerva McGonagall. Hermione was not quite used to being on first name basis with her former teacher, but she did manage to wave. Hermione dragged Luna along through the stands and reached two empty seats next to the headmistress.
“Good day, pro.. uhm.. Minerva.” Hermione corrected herself.
“Good day, professor. Me and Hermione are girlfriends now. We are in love.” Luna proudly exclaimed.
Hermione blushed red, but she did like hearing the pride in Luna’s voice. Minerva seemed to be very relaxed at the moment and she offered a genuine smile in response to Luna’s remark.
“Yes, Ms. Lovegood. I have heard about it. Professor Potter informed me. I must say the two of you make a very cute couple.”
Hermione had not really thought Minerva would have any problem with it, but she was relieved none the less of her former professor’s approval.
“So, what is it we are watching here?” Hermione asked.
“It is an international group of entertainers called Wild Circus. They are quite famous from what I understand. There are some animagi and some highly intelligent magical creatures.” Minerva explained.
“They are very impressive.” Hermione said as a dog jumped up on the shoulders of a bear who in turn jumped up on the back of a relatively small dragon.
The show went on for a few more minutes before it came to a spectacular end as all the animals jumped into a free flowing hope and disappeared in thin air. The crowd cheered enthusiastically. Then suddenly the arena was filled with music, wonderfully soft and appealing music. Then out of nowhere Veelas appeared on the ice. Something like a hundred of them started to skate in complex patterns. They were all wearing very sparkling and very revealing dresses.
Last time she had seen Veelas, during the world cup of quidditch, Hermione hadn’t been very interested. She had merely been annoyed by the reaction of all the boys and men around her. This time however she couldn’t help but feel an attraction. This time Hermione saw their beauty and grace as they moved over the ice. This time she too felt the thrall the Veelas possessed. They had started to sing as well, soft unrecognisable words. Hermione fully understood it now. However, there was something holding her back from being completely overwhelmed. Hermione had to admit to herself that she felt a very strong desire for the beauties on the ice, but there was one desire that was much stronger. It was of course the desire and love she had for her girlfriend and now soul mate, Luna. Slowly Hermione turned her head away from the ice and instead looked at Luna.
“Yes, they are quite astonishing, but they are not you.” Luna said, turning her head away from the ice at the same time as Hermione.
“So, we could withstand the Veelas. That must be a good sign.” Hermione said.
“It certainly is. Only true love can withstand the charm of the Veelas. I must admit that I was very much in their thrall the last time I saw them, but now I have you.”
“You were at the world cup back in 94, weren’t you?” Hermione asked.
“Yes, I was. Of course that was before I had got to know you.”
“So, you… you know, you were attracted to them even back then?”
“Yes, very much so. I think I have mentioned to you that I have never really had any interest in boys.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t know that about myself before. That I could fall in love with someone like you. A witch I mean. Here I was going after Ron and Viktor and never knowing that I had other options and…”
“It is all that conventional thinking you’re doing.” Luna said and tried to look neutral.
She failed miserably however and couldn’t help but giggle. Hermione could have felt insulted, but how could she when Luna was so right. Conventional thinking might a good idea when it came to science, but it sure as hell wasn’t when it came to love. Conventional thinking was what had led her to thinking that she could spend the rest of her life with Ron.
“Well, better late than never.” Hermione summarized.
Luna nodded happily and gave Hermione a quick peck on the mouth.
Hermione turned back to the action on the ice. The Veelas were still very beautiful, so was their singing and their skating. However there was no feeling of enthrallment or complete surrender. It was merely a good show. With the confusion out of the way Hermione started to analyze what had just happened. She realized now that she did have an attraction to women in general. Of course she only had any real interest in one young women in particular, but the beauty of other women was not completely lost on her. It felt good, because it somehow validated what she felt for Luna. She really was a lesbian or at the very least bisexual. . She had felt an attraction to the Veelas, a real attraction, but she had quickly overcome that in favour of Luna. The Veelas’ act came to and end to the great disappointment of the male part of the crowd, but Hermione was happy to finally see the competition. After an extremely long and enthusiastic round of applauds a booming voice could be heard in the arena.
“Ladies and gentlemen that was our wonderful Veelas. I can certainly understand that you miss them, but I can promise you that they will come back and perform prior to the other tasks as well.”
“Why is he speaking in English?” Hermione whispered to Minerva.
“He’s not actually. This arena is fitted with an automatic translation system. I could speak to you in elvish and you would understand.”
“You speak elvish?”
“Yes, but that is a long story.” Minerva answered with a smile.
“It is time for our main event. The first task in the Second TriWizard Tournament in modern times. Without further ado, let’s welcome our contestants. First up is the champion of Durmstrang. Let’s hear it for Sergei Kazatonov.”
A tall, young man with brown hair appeared. He waved to the audience and gave them a shy smile. There were several huge screens floating in the air above the crowd so that the audience could see close-ups of what happened on the ice. He got applauds from everyone in the crowd, but it was especially enthusiastic from a clique of people dressed in all black.
“Our next contestant is the champion of Hogwarts. Let’s hear it for Orla Quirke.”
Luna was very quick to her feet as she started to scream and clap for Orla. Hermione quickly joined as did most people around them, all belonging to Hogwarts. The rest of the crowd clapped politely as Orla flashed a confident smile to the camera.
“And last, but not least. The champion for Beauxbatons Vanessa Lafayette”
The arena erupted in wildly enthusiastic cheering for the home favourite. She had dark blonde hair and was very petite. She was brimming with confidence and energy and could hardly stand still. The applauding lasted for a long time, but not quite as long as it had done for the Veelas.
“Now that we have introduced our contestants it is time to introduce the task. The ice our contestants are standing on is about one meter thick and solid. You can see two lines dividing the ice up in three equal parts. This is important because our contestants are going to use the ice on their part and they are going to have to be very skilled and very creative in doing so. To ensure that there is no cheating they will not be able to see each other at work.”
As he said this two walls rose up from the lines. The crowd could still see all the contestants, but they could no longer see each other.
“What you are going to do is to create life. You are to build an animal in any form or size out of the ice you have. It can look however you want it to look, but it is strongly suggested that it has the capability to fly or at the very least swim, because you’re going to need that in the second task. The winner will be decided by a jury and they will base their decision on skill and creativity. It is of course a very difficult thing to do, but you are the champions after all. You have three hours.”
With that a horn was heard and the competition was underway.
“Orla said something about the task being dangerous.” Hermione remarked.
“That is mere rumours. Due to the events in the last tournament this tournament will have a focus on safety.” Minerva said.
Hermione shuddered as she thought about all the bad things that had happened during the last tournament and she was quite relieved that there wouldn’t be any danger this year. As the task got underway all the contestants took different approaches. Vanessa started out by melting all the ice completely and forming the water to different kinds of creatures. It was a quick way to try different shapes, but it would leave her with freezing the water again in the end. Sergei made blocks out of the ice that he started to build with. After a while he had a basic outline and started to cut ice away so that the blocks started to approach the shape of a dragon. Orla however was off to a slow start. She tried different approaches, but all it achieved was that she made lots of snow.
As the task proceeded Luna kept going in what was basically a monologue about all kinds of possible creatures, both real and what even she acknowledged was imagined. Hermione merely made short interjections like “Interesting” and “yes, that might perhaps work”. With an hour left Sergei was working on the dragon, trying to make it look realistic. It still was still obvious that it was made out of blocks. Due to her approach of trying many different shapes Vanessa had decided on a very special creature. It had the body of a horse, front legs with sharp claws, the head of a lion except for a sharp beak, a very long tail with spikes in the end and finally huge, elaborate wings. Orla however wasn’t doing to good, she had pretty much wasted her time with trying things that didn’t really work. But then she got an idea. She started to work on a block of ice of only a few cubic meters.
“Of course a more conventional approach would be to work from the shape of a broom. Now some might claim that they do not qualify as a creature, but as far as I am concerned my broom does show many of the qualities of a creature. It can take orders, but it can have a temper on a bad day and decide to do something else. One day for instance Ginny tried to use it, but it wouldn’t start. I think it was offended that she screamed at it. She has somewhat of a temper of course.” Luna harangued.
It might seem like Hermione wasn’t listening since she didn’t give Luna much in response. However the opposite was true. Hermione listened intently; it was something about hearing Luna speak that was utterly compelling. The words just flowed out of the former Ravenclaw in a seemingly endless stream and they all gave Hermione insight into that wonderfully intriguing thing that was Luna’s mind. It didn’t matter to Luna whether Hermione said anything back; Luna seemed to know that Hermione was listening.
As the last hour went by it seemed like Orla had finally decided on what to do. She was working on a swan. She was far behind the other two, but thanks to the fact that the swan was so small she was working quickly. It was just big enough to allow a person to ride it and it did look quite realistic. As the task went into the last quarter Orla moved to the beak and made a few sharp teeth to finish things off. She had caught up to the other two, but with a considerably smaller creature. All three contestants used the last few minutes to bring life into the previously inanimate objects. The dragon roared mightily as it came alive, Vanessa’s creature let out a powerful sound like nothing else and Orla creature finally let out a rather feeble squeak as it came alive. Just as the final whistle blew the announcer revealed the result.
“The judges have watched you closely and they have reached a decision. In third place is the champion of Hogwarts for her Swan. Missed opportunity in using so little ice, but an acceptable result. In second place is the champion of Durmstrang. A well sculpted dragon of impressive size and looks, but lacking in creativity. And the first place is for the champion of Beauxbatons for her very creative and well sculpted creature.”
The majority of the crowd erupted in cheers for their home champion. The part of the arena filled with the supporters of Durmstrang was stoically quiet, while the disappointment was palatable among the supporters of Hogwarts. There was one exception however and that was Luna.
“I do like the swan the best. I am aware of the concept of bias, but I do prefer it to the other ones. I have always believed that there can be vast power in small objects. This was of course only the first task and the important thing is how those creatures behave in the second task. There might be several advantages to the smallness of the swan.”
“I hope you’re right.” Hermione answered.
“You don’t think I am.” Luna observed.
“No, but I do hope so.”
“I know you do.” Luna said and gave Hermione a quick kiss on her cheek.
Written by
Rupert
Tuesday Night on... "Taboo Tv" (SPRING 2009)
* * 8:00 * *
Life as a (horny!)
Teenage "Lesbian"
* * 9:00 * *
Can't Fight the Moonlight
* * 9:30 * *
The Blackmail Diaries
(Book One)