TRAINING WHEELS—
POTTER'S CRUSH.

005

The Goblet of Fire stood in the middle of an Age Line, its blue flame weaving in the air and daring anybody over the age of seventeen to come forth and put their name in it. Some students sat around on the benches waiting to see who was brave enough, including Amora and Hermione who sat with their homework on their laps, their heads down.

"You're a lifesaver, honestly," Amora mumbled, her quill scribbling furiously as she tried to get down the right ingredients for her Potions class. "I don't know where I'd be without you, Hermione."

"You and those two idiots over there," Hermione chuckled, nodding her head in the direction of Harry and Ron who stood gawking at the Goblet. "I don't quite understand why everybody's so fussed about Eternal Glory. As if there aren't other ways to be successful."

Leon snorted as he planted himself down behind them on the benches. "It's Eternal Glory, Hermione. Are you mad?"

Hermione rolled her chestnut eyes with a small smile. "Perhaps I am then."

Amora just finished writing in the last part of her notes when she heard familiar laughter, followed by the quick pitter patter of several pairs of feet. Her brown eyes flickered towards a group of older Hufflepuff boys, her cousin in the middle of them as they all patted his shoulder, pushing him closer and closer towards the Goblet.

"Go on, Cedric," one of them said, shoving him past the age line. "Put it in!"

Amora chewed on her bottom lip, an anxious frown on her face as she watched her older cousin hesitate for a second. Cedric glanced between his friends before he looked over at her, almost like he could feel her gaze on his back. The small brunette sent a nod in his direction, and it was all the confirmation he needed before he was placing his name into the Goblet of Fire.

Amora sighed but clapped along with everybody else, watching with amusement as Ron tried to wave at Cedric, a shy smile on his face.

"Lighten up, Amora," Leon leaned down to squeeze her shoulder. "Cedric's fine."

"Amora has every right to be concerned," Hermione interjected matter-of-factly. "The tournaments can be very dangerous, Leon."

The shortest girl looked like she had gone a few shades paler, causing her best friend to hiss Hermione's name and jerk his head in the direction of Amora. Hermione's eyes softened and she began to stammer, feeling bad.

"But that's if he even gets chosen, of course," she tried to remind Amora. "Boys and girls have been coming in and out of this room all day, Amora. Cedric may not even be chosen."

Amora remained quiet, her eyes drifting across the hall for a distraction. They landed on Draco sitting with his Slytherin friends on some of the benches, the group of them all laughing with one another. His ice hair stuck out like a sore thumb, which sometimes Amora was grateful for. If she saw him heading down the same hall as her and she didn't want to deal with his crude remarks that day, it was so easy to spot him and turn in the other direction.

Suddenly, boyish roars came from outside the room and in came Fred and George. The pair were laughing and waving something in their hands. When Amora squinted she assumed it was a potion, most likely the aging one she'd been talking about with Ron and Hermione a couple of days ago.

"Yes!" They cheered, followed by other students.

Even the Buckley girl forgot about the predicament her cousin may have stumbled into, a fond smile crossing her face as she watched the two identical twins prance around the room like some sort of school mascots. They high-fived everybody on their way towards Hermione, Amora, and Leon.

"Well, lads, we did it!" George exclaimed.

"Cooked it up just this morning," Fred added just as eagerly.

"It's not going to work," Hermione grinned in a sort of sing-song tone, shaking her head.

Fred and George both turned to her at this. "Oh yeah?" Fred hummed defensively. "And why's that, Granger?"

They both appeared on either side of the small group, Fred's face dangerously close to Amora's. She nearly gasped in shock, leaning back a little so Hermione could see him properly.

"You see this?" The young witch pointed to the circle around the Goblet of Fire. "This is an Age Line. Dumbledore drew it himself."

"So?"

Hermione scoffed. "So a genius like Dumbledore couldn't possibly be fooled by something pathetically dimwitted such as a potion."

"Ah, but that's why it's so brilliant," George interjected.

"'Cos it's so pathetically dim-witted!" Fred added, the two of them snickering to each other.

Amora sighed with a small smile as they stood up on the benches and started to shake the vials in their hands. She really did like the Weasley twins-- they were always so funny, even if their humour more often than not landed them in trouble. Amora also found Ron quite funny too, although he often made her laugh without even trying. He just seemed to have this natural dorkiness to him. Sometimes she wondered why Ron hadn't been sorted into Hufflepuff-- it seemed like he would have fit in well.

"Ready Fred?"

"Ready, George."

"Bottoms up," they both muttered at the same time before intertwining their arms and drinking their own aging potions.

"Oh dear..." Amora mumbled to herself, knowing that Hermione was most likely right, as always, and this couldn't end how the poor twins were hoping so desperately it would.

To be perfectly honest, the brunette couldn't quite imagine either of them taking part in the Triwizard Tournament anyway. From what her mother had told her before, it sounded terrifying, and she wasn't sure Fred or George were really up for it. That and she couldn't imagine one of them doing it and not the other. They were always together and most of the time Amora had to admit that she couldn't tell them apart.

There was a tense silence as the twins swallowed the liquid and waited a second before jumping into the circle. Cheers echoed throughout the room and Amora started to grin, sitting up eagerly as they pranced around the middle of the circle, flaunting their success and shooting Hermione a small look.

"Looks like it worked," Leon hummed.

Then, Fred and George lifted the slips with their names written on them and placed them in the Goblet of Fire. People cheered for them, however, the celebration was cut short when the blue flames began to shoot out the top, rapidly flying around the room and dodging gasping students until it hit the two of them and sent them flying through the air.

"Maybe not..." Leon whispered.

Horrified, the smile was wiped off of Amora's face as she stood up to see the twins barely recovering on the floor about twenty feet away. Everybody started to laugh as they sat up, revealing white hair and matching beards.

"You said..."

"You said!"

One jumped on top of the other and they began to roll around on the floor, tackling each other. Amora allowed a laugh to escape her lips as she bounded over to get to the front of the circle forming around them, standing right next to Harry and Ron who were also howling with laughter.

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" Everybody was chanting and clapping their hands together, eager to see some real action occur, however, it appeared as if the twins didn't even really want to hurt each other-- they were just throwing each other about and hissing words of anger.

Amora's hand muffled her own laughs as she looked around at all her classmates, finding them just as entertained as her. Then, her brown eyes landed on Draco who was sitting with his Slytherin gang across the room. He didn't look amused at all, in fact, he looked rather disgusted by the whole ordeal. Everybody knew how much Draco detested Hogwarts, mainly because they allowed Muggle-borns.

Draco caught her eye and sent her a sneering look that managed to wipe the smile off of Amora's face automatically. Her hands stopped clapping together and she felt somewhat stupid for participating, like she was childish or something.

People around her stopped cheering and laughing also, and that's when she noticed Viktor Krum marching his way through the large doors, a melancholy look upon his chiseled face. His eyes remained locked on the Goblet of Fire and he didn't acknowledge any of the British teenagers standing around watching him in a mixture of amazement and curiosity.

Hogwarts students backed away from the Goblet despite being nowhere near Viktor, as if letting him have his moment. It was a big deal that 'the Qudditch God' as Ron liked to call him was even in their school, let alone that one of them would be lucky, or perhaps unlucky, enough to go up against him in the Triwizard Tournaments.

D.M + A.B

"Mother!"

Professor Buckley turned swiftly at the call of her title, a small smile crossing her aging features when she noticed her daughter rushing through the crowds of students to get over to her. Amora's dark hair swished behind her as well as her dark robes, her beaming smile shining amongst all of the gloomy faces.

"Amora, I am on my way to teach a lesson. Can we not talk at dinner?" Professor Buckley questioned softly as she started to walk towards her classroom.

"I didn't want anything in particular, I just thought I would say 'hi',' Amora explained with a small shrug. "I have a free period now, so I'm heading to the Hufflepuff common room."

"Oh, that sounds fun," Professor Buckley spoke before noticing some second years messing around on the stairs, seemingly pretending to be dementors with their robes . "Boys, no."

"Sorry, Professor Buckley," Amora heard a weak chorus of replies back.

It was insane to Amora how different her mother's voice was to her teacher's voice. Sometimes she had to admit that it was embarrassing to have your mother work at the same school as you, but it did come in handy for times like these when she was starting to miss her cottage on the seaside.

Hogwarts was like her second home, however, nothing could beat lying in her bed, her duvet bunched all the way up to her neck and her ears straining to listen to the waves crash against the rocky shore of the beach she had grown up on. The scents of her candles at home always made her feel so comforted, especially when she propped them up all around her on her bedside table. She could read then until as late as she wanted, no roommates to snap at her to put the lights out.

Professor Buckley wasn't exactly a popular professor, either. Despite being a pure-blood herself, a lot of the pure-blooded students that held the same prejudiced ideas as their parents didn't think her subject was necessary at all. It left her mother the subject of some nasty words, but thankfully, a lot of the Hufflepuffs were more than kind to Professor Buckley, so she rarely had to hear it.

"How's Dad?" Amora asked. "I wrote to him the other day, but he hasn't written back yet."

"Oh, your father's a busy man, Amora," her mother said. "You know how he is. He barely likes to write, anyway."

Amora nodded a little. At this point she was used to hearing from her dad about three times a term, or getting information from her mother. She couldn't really bring herself to be all that bothered about it. As long as she knew he was fine then she didn't really feel the need to keep in touch so often.

"I should let you go," Amora sighed. "I have Potions homework to complete, anyway.

"Have fun," Professor Buckley absent-mindedly spoke as she turned a corner, leaving Amora stood in the middle of the bustling hallway by herself.

Suddenly, a body smacked into her from behind, sending her hurting forwards into another body. Draco turned immediately with a scowl written on his pale face when he felt the person trip into his back. From the height he'd expected maybe a second year, but he was still less than surprised to see Amora Buckley trying to regain her balance, and a sheepish looking Harry Potter grabbing her arms and apologising profusely.

"I'm so sorry!" Harry exclaimed, looking behind him and shooting daggers at Ron who was snickering behind his hand. "Ron thought it would be funny to shove me."

Amora smiled sweetly, shaking her head as Harry's hands smoothed down from her shoulders to her hands. He held them for a moment as Amora stood up straight. Her backs of her feet had come out of her polished school shoes much to her dismay and she tried to wedge them back in on the spot. She'd bought a new pair for the school year, and they still hadn't broken in properly yet.

"It's okay, Har--"

"Of course it's Potter and Buckley being idiotic in the halls," Draco snapped, folding his arms across his chest.

If there was one person that Draco seemed to dislike more than Amora, it was the Golden Trio-- particularly Harry. At first, Amora thought that Draco was angry with him for not wanting to be his friend, but as the years moved by, Draco's attacks seemed to grow more and more personal.

"Calm down, Malfoy." Harry noticed Draco's silver eyes burning into his hands which were still holding Amora's and he dropped them quickly, cursing himself when he felt his cheeks heat up. "It was my mistake."

"Harry, you speak Parseltongue, right? Could you tell Draco to piss off for me?" Amora hissed.

Harry had to try not to laugh. He rarely ever heard the petite brunette grow mad with anybody. She always carried a calming aura and a bright smile on her face, so it was strange to Harry to see his friend glaring at Draco as if he had just hit her or something.

He'd seen her angry on a couple of occasions before, but he never got used to it. The worst he'd ever seen her was when Draco had pushed him and Ron too far, and the Hufflepuff girl tackled him into the snow, shaking him by the collar of his uniform. Draco kept screaming for help, saying he couldn't push her off because she was a girl. Harry still chuckled to this day when he recalled it.

Draco's lip curled, disgusted with the way Amora had spoken to him. "Watch your tone," he growled, eyes growing darker. "Nobody talks to me like that."

He didn't wait around to hear Harry or Amora's replies. He marched down the hall towards the Slytherin common rooms, which were in the dungeons. The Hufflepuff common room was also down in the dungeons, but on nearly the other side of the school. Meanwhile, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor got the towers.

Amora was a little disheartened when she learnt this in her first year. Before she arrived at Hogwarts, she'd imagined she'd be at the top of some sort of tower and her bedroom would overlook some sort of large lake or something. Despite being at the best wizarding school in the world, she liked the view at her own home even better.

"I feel sorry for him sometimes," Amora admitted casually as his figure disappeared.

Harry went to automatically agree before he realised what she had said. The glasses clad boy shot her an incredulous look, his eyebrows pinching together in confusion. He thought Amora had hated Draco as much as he did.

"Did I just hear you right?" Harry questioned. "You feel sorry for Malfoy?"

"I don't know." Amora's cheeks heated up. "Call it Hufflepuff Hope or something, but I genuinely don't think anybody's a hundred percent bad. Not even Draco. There must be some reason he's like how he is."

Harry admired the way that she was able to feel sorry for somebody like Draco Malfoy. He was sure most people at Hogwarts hated his guts without a second thought, and despite Amora being one of his main targets, she still felt there was probably a part of him that was good.

"I guess," Harry muttered.

Amora visibly shuddered before she sent him a beaming grin. "Anyway," she adjusted the robes around her neck. "Tell Ron that I'll get him back at some point for that."

Harry grinned too. "Will do. Were you heading to your common room now?"

"Mhm," she hummed as they started to walk together, side by side. "You?"

"I was going to the library, actually... If- If you wanted to come along?"

Despite being The Chosen One, he seemed like the shyest boy in the entire school as he managed to stammer out his question. He nearly winced as soon as he said it, expecting automatic rejection from somebody as beautiful and sweet as Amora Buckley. He had to remind himself that he'd asked her to study, not to marry him-- if she said no, it wasn't the end of the world.

"Sure," she agreed, much to his delight. "Maybe you could help me with the Potions homework? Hermione tried going over it with me today, but I realised I was missing a few things. The twins distracted me with their little show."

Harry started to laugh, clapping his hands together as they changed directions to go to Hogwarts' library. "That was hilarious," he agreed.

And the pair wandered off towards the library, not noticing Draco Malfoy glaring at them from behind a pillar.

...

i made a gif of draco and amora and put it on the very first chapter if anybody's interested :))

dyiansobrien