Part 1
Charles
"Potter! Weasley! Will you pay attention?” Professor McGonagall’s irritated voice cracked like a whip through the Transfiguration class on Thursday, and Charles and Ron both jumped and looked up.
It was the end of the lesson; they had finished their work; the guinea fowl they had been changing into guinea pigs had been shut away in a large cage on Professor McGonagall’s desk (Neville’s still had feathers); they had copied down their homework from the blackboard (“Describe, with examples, the ways in which Transforming Spells must be adapted when performing Cross-Species Switches”). The bell was due to ring at any moment, and Charles and Ron, who had been having a sword fight with a couple of the twins’ fake wands at the back of the class, looked up, Ron holding a tin parrot and Charles, a rubber haddock.
“Now that Potter and Weasley have been kind enough to act their age,” said Professor McGonagall, with an angry look at the pair of them as the head of Charles’ haddock drooped and fell silently to the floor — Ron’s parrot’s beak had severed it moments before — “I have something to say to you all.
“The Yule Ball is approaching — a traditional part of the Tri- wizard Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialize with our foreign guests. Now, the ball will be open only to fourth years and above — although you may invite a younger student if you wish —”
Lavender Brown let out a shrill giggle. Parvati Patil nudged her hard in the ribs, her face working furiously as she too fought not to giggle. They both looked around at Charles. Professor McGonagall ignored them, which Charles thought was distinctly unfair, as she had just told off him and Ron.
“Dress robes will be worn,” Professor McGonagall continued, “and the ball will start at eight o’clock on Christmas Day, finishing at midnight in the Great Hall. Now then —”
Professor McGonagall stared deliberately around the class.
“The Yule Ball is of course a chance for us all to — er — let our hair down,” she said, in a disapproving voice.
Lavender giggled harder than ever, with her hand pressed hard against her mouth to stifle the sound. Charles could see what was funny this time, and he smirked as well: Professor McGonagall, with her hair in a tight bun, looked as though she had never let her hair down in any sense.
“But that does NOT mean,” Professor McGonagall went on, “that we will be relaxing the standards of behavior we expect from Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor student embarrasses the school in any way. Now, we will be conducting a small dance here... everyone, grab a dance partner, please.”
“Dance partners?” Charles yelped. “What the bloody hell? I don’t know how to dance!”
Ron grumbled. “And do you think I do?”
“Well, who should we ask?”
“Hermione and Bianca, of course,” Ron said easily. “They’ll surely say-”
“Hermione’s already taken,” Bianca appeared behind them, startling them.
“Bloody hell, don’t do that!” Ron complained. Charles frowned, “She is?”
“Yeah, Dean,” Bianca jerked her head in the direction of Hermione and Dean who were, indeed, standing together, immersed in a conversation. Hermione was laughing at something Dean had said, who looked pleased with himself.
“I’ll dance with you, Charles,” Bianca suddenly offered. “I don’t wanna be with Seamus or something, and while Neville’s nice and all, he’ll probably step on my toes.”
Charles nodded gratefully. “Thanks, Bia.”
“Hey, what about me?” Ron asked.
Charles shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry, mate. You’ll have to ask someone else.”
Professor McGonagall called above the noise, “Potter — a word, if you please.”
Assuming this had something to do with his headless rubber haddock, Charles proceeded gloomily to the teacher’s desk, excusing himself for a minute from Bianca. Professor McGonagall waited until the rest of the class had gone, and then said, “Potter, traditionally the champions and their partners open the ball.”
Charles had a sudden mental image of himself in a top hat and tails, accompanied by a girl in a sort of silly frilly dress.
“I’m not dancing,” he insisted. “At least not in front of the whole school.”
“It is traditional,” said Professor McGonagall firmly. “You are a Hogwarts champion, and you will do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. So make sure you get yourself a partner, Potter.”
“But — I don’t —”
“You heard me, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall in a very final sort of way.
A week ago, Charles would have said finding a partner for a dance would be a cinch compared to taking on a Hungarian Horntail. But now that he had done the latter, and was facing the prospect of asking a girl to the ball, he thought he’d rather have another round with the dragon.
As he went back to where Bianca was standing, he looked around and saw Ron standing to the side with Parvati, both having their eyes on Dean and Hermione, who seemed to be having fun. Bianca asked, “What did she want?”
Charles sighed. “The Champions have to open the dance. Stupid tradition.”
Bianca smirked. “Aw, you don’t know how to dance?”
Charles rolled his eyes. “I assume you do?”
“Of course,” Bianca said breezily. “I’m a Joule, you see, and my mother’s quite stern about these things. I honestly enjoy dancing, though, so no pressure.”
Charles huffed. “Yeah, well, I don’t. Harry and Monty like dancing, but not me and Effie. We were offered lessons by Sirius alongside Lyra and Jéricho.”
“So, who’re you gonna ask?” Bianca had a strange gleam in her eye as she asked that, an emotion Charles couldn’t decipher. An image of Cho immediately entered Charles’ mind and he blushed. “Oh it’s, uh, a Ravenclaw...”
“Cho Chang?”
Charles was surprised. “How’d you know?”
Bianca shrugged. “You’re pretty obvious, mate. But go for it.”
“Well, who do you have in mind?” Charles challenged.
“Whoever asks me, I guess. I don’t really have a preference at the moment.”
“So, like, will you teach me to dance?” Charles asked a few minutes later, as they were swaying on the spot, not really dancing.
“Sure,” Bianca said. “I’ll set the time later, yeah? And tell Ron that he can join in if he wants to.”
Charles nodded happily.
Lyra
Never had Lyra known so many people to put their names down to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas; everyone in the fourth year and above seemed to be staying, and they all seemed to Lyra to be obsessed with the coming ball — or at least most of the girls were, giggling and whispering in the corridors, shrieking with laughter as boys passed them, excitedly comparing notes on what they were going to wear on Christmas night... Lyra was excited too, of course, but this was a bit too... girly for her.
“Why do they have to move in packs?” Draco mused in bafflement as a dozen or so girls walked past them, sniggering. “How’re you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?”
“Lasso one?” Blaise suggested. “Got any idea who you’re going to try?”
Draco didn’t answer that, and Lyra exchanged a smirk with Blaise and Daphne. They knew perfectly well whom he’d like to ask, but working up the nerve was something else... Especially since the girl was from an extremely poor blood-traitor family and had too many older brothers to count. Ginny was a year younger than them, exceptionally pretty, strong and cutting, a good flier, and popular.
Blaise sighed. “Listen, mate, you’re going to have to have some nerve. Besides, I bet she’ll say yes, it's obvious she likes you back.”
Lyra sighed. She'd had more than her share of boys coming up to her lately... A curly-haired third-year Hufflepuff to whom Lyra had never spoken in her life had asked her out the other day, and Lyra had not even stopped to consider the matter as she'd said no. Then two more had asked her out, (to her horror!) a second year and a fifth year, who'd she refused as well.
“He was quite good-looking,” Daphne said fairly, after she’d stopped laughing.
“He was a foot taller than me,” Lyra huffed, still unnerved. “And the other was more than a foot shorter... Imagine what I’d look like trying to dance with him!”
"Hey, Lyra," Blaise suddenly said as they were about to enter the Great Hall for dinner. "Mind if I have a word?"
"We'll save you seats," Daphne grinned, winking at Blaise. Lyra frowned but allowed Blaise to lead her to the side by the arm.
"Look, I'll just ask," Blaise said. "Would you wanna go to the ball with me?"
Lyra blinked, utterly surprised. "Wh-? How do you mean?"
"I was hoping for it to be a date," Blaise smiled, "But as friends is alright too, if you're not comfortable."
Lyra felt herself lightly blushing as she returned Blaise's smile. "It's a date, then."
"A date," Blaise agreed, and they shared a chuckle.
Charles
“She didn’ seem very int’rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth,” Hagrid said, when Charles, Ron, and Hermione asked him how his interview with Rita Skeeter had gone after lunch, before their last Care lesson of the term.
“She jus’ wanted me ter talk about you, Charles,” Hagrid continued in a low voice. “Well, I told her we’d been friends since I knew yer parents well at school. ‘Never had to tell him off in his four years at Hogwarts?’ she said. ‘Never played you up in lessons, has he? Or in general?’ I told her no, an’ she didn’ seem happy at all. Yeh’d think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Charles.”
“’Course she did,” Charles huffed. “She can’t keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it’ll get boring.”
“She wants a new angle, Hagrid,” said Ron wisely. “You were supposed to say Charles’ a mad delinquent!”
“But he’s not!” said Hagrid, looking genuinely shocked.
“She should’ve interviewed Snape,” said Charles grimly. “He’d give her the goods on me any day. ‘Potter has been crossing lines ever since he first arrived at this school...’”
“Said that, did he?” said Hagrid, while Ron and Hermione laughed. “Well, yeh might’ve bent a few rules, Charles, bu’ yeh’re all righ’ really, aren’ you?”
“Cheers, Hagrid,” Charles grinned.
“You coming to this ball thing on Christmas Day, Hagrid?” Ron asked.
“Though’ I might look in on it, yeah,” said Hagrid gruffly. “Should be a good do, I reckon. You’ll be openin’ the dancin’, won’ yeh, Charles? Who’re you takin’?”
“No one, yet,” Charles mumbled, feeling himself going red again. Hagrid didn’t pursue the subject.
The last week of term became increasingly boisterous as it progressed. Rumours about the Yule Ball were flying everywhere, though Charles didn’t believe half of them — for instance, that Dumbledore had bought eight hundred barrels of mulled mead from Madam Rosmerta. It seemed to be fact, however, that he had booked the Weird Sisters. Those who had grown up listening to the WWN (Wizarding Wireless Network) showed pure wild excitement.
Some of the teachers, like little Professor Flitwick, gave up trying to teach them much when their minds were so clearly elsewhere; he allowed them to play games in his lesson on Wednesday, and spent most of it talking to Charles about the perfect Summoning Charm he had used during the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. Other teachers were not so generous. Nothing would ever deflect Professor Binns, for example, from plowing on through his notes on goblin rebellions — as Binns hadn’t let his own death stand in the way of continuing to teach, they supposed a small thing like Christmas wasn’t going to put him off. It was amazing how he could make even bloody and vicious goblin riots sound as boring as Percy’s cauldron-bottom report. Professors McGonagall and Moody kept them working until the very last second of their classes too, and while Professor Vector and Sirius let them have fun sometimes, they did not skip teaching altogether. Snape, of course, would no sooner let them play games in class than adopt Charles. Staring nastily around at them all, he informed them that he would be testing them on poison antidotes during the last lesson of the term.
“Evil, he is,” Ron said bitterly that night in the Gryffindor common room. “Springing a test on us on the last day. Ruining the last bit of term with a whole load of studying.”
“Mmm... you’re not exactly straining yourself, though, are you?” said Hermione, looking at him over the top of her Potions notes. Ron was busy building a card castle out of his Exploding Snap pack — a much more interesting pastime than with Muggle cards, because of the chance that the whole thing would blow up at any second.
“It’s Christmas, Hermione,” Charles dismissed lazily; he was rereading Flying with the Cannons for the tenth time in an armchair near the fire.
Hermione looked severely over at him too. “I’d have thought you’d be doing something constructive, Charles, even if you don’t want to learn your antidotes!”
“Like what?” Charles asked as he watched Joey Jenkins of the Cannons belt a Bludger toward a Ballycastle Bats Chaser.
“That egg!” Hermione hissed.
“Come on, Hermione, I’ve got till February the twenty-fourth,” Charles said.
He had put the golden egg upstairs in his trunk and hadn’t opened it since the celebration party after the first task. There were still two and a half months to go until he needed to know what all the screechy wailing meant, after all.
“But it might take weeks to work it out!” said Hermione. “You’re going to look a real idiot if everyone else knows what the next task is and you don’t!”
“Leave him alone, Hermione, he’s earned a bit of a break,” said Ron, and he placed the last two cards on top of the castle and the whole lot blew up, singeing his eyebrows.
“Nice look, Ron... go well with your dress robes, that will.”
It was Fred and George. They sat down at the table with the trio as Ron felt how much damage had been done.
“Ron, can we borrow Pigwidgeon?” George asked.
“No, he’s off delivering a letter,” said Ron. “Why?”
“Because George wants to invite him to the ball,” Fred bit back sarcastically.
George rolled his eyes. “Because we want to send a letter, you stupid great prat,”
“Who d’you two keep writing to, eh?” Ron asked.
“Nose out, Ron, or I’ll burn that for you too,” said Fred, waving his wand threateningly. “So . . . you lot got dates for the ball yet?”
Ron shook his head. “Nope.”
“Well, you’d better hurry up, mate, or all the good ones will be gone,” said Fred.
“Who’re you going with, then?” Charles asked.
“Angelina,” said Fred promptly, without a trace of embarrassment.
“What?” said Ron, taken aback. “You’ve already asked her?”
“Good point,” said Fred. He turned his head and called across the common room, “Oi! Angelina!”
Angelina, who had been chatting with Alicia Spinnet near the fire, looked over at him.
“What?” she called back.
“Want to come to the ball with me?”
Angelina gave Fred an appraising sort of look. “All right, then,” she said, and she turned back to Alicia and carried on chatting with a bit of a grin on her face.
“Oh, and Alicia, wanna come with me?” George called out.
“Alright!” Alicia tossed George a grin and went back to talking with Angeline.
“There you go,” said Fred to Charles and Ron who sat in shock, “piece of cake.”
George got to his feet, yawning, and said, “We’d better use a school owl then, Fred, come on...”
They left. Ron stopped feeling his eyebrows and looked across the smoldering wreck of his card castle at Charles.
“We should get a move on, you know . . . ask someone. He’s right. We don’t want to end up with a pair of trolls.”
Hermione let out a sputter of indignation. “A pair of... what, excuse me?”
“Well — you know,” said Ron, shrugging. “I’d rather go alone than with — with Eloise Midgen, say.”
“Her acne’s loads better lately — and she’s really nice!”
“Her nose is off-center,” said Ron.
“Oh I see,” Hermione said, bristling. “So basically, you’re going to take the best-looking girl who’ll have you, even if she’s completely horrible?”
“Er — yeah, that sounds about right,” said Ron.
“I’m going to bed,” Hermione snapped, and she swept off towards the girls’ staircase without another word.
Harry
The Hogwarts staff, demonstrating a continued desire to impress the visitors from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, seemed determined to show the castle at its best this Christmas. When the decorations went up, Harry noticed that they were the most stunning he had yet seen inside the school. Everlasting icicles had been attached to the banisters of the marble staircase; the usual twelve Christmas trees in the Great Hall were bedecked with everything from luminous holly berries to real, hooting, golden owls, and the suits of armor had all been bewitched to sing carols whenever anyone passed them. It was quite something to hear “O Come, All Ye Faithful” sung by an empty helmet that only knew half the words. Several times, Filch had to extract Peeves from inside the armor, where he had taken to hiding, filling in the gaps in the songs with lyrics of his own invention, all of which were very rude.
Harry was going with Celeste, of course, having asked her the very same day the announcement had been made. Jéricho had given in and asked Tracey Davis out in resignation when he’d been forced continuously by the boys. Cedric was dating Cho Chang, and Adrian planned to go stag, while Sera kept insisting that she had a partner already but that he was a secret for now.
As Harry was on his way to Sirius’ office one evening with Jéricho for a cup of coffee, he ran into Charles, Ron, Hermione, and Bianca. “Hey, brother!” Harry grinned.
Charles smiled back. “Hi, Harry, what’s up?”
“Oh, it’s going well,” Harry said dismissively, feeling a bit awkward since Harry and Charles hadn’t talked properly in weeks, only greeting themselves casually in case they passed in the corridors, which didn’t happen very much. Harry didn’t know why; it just felt weird holding any sorts of conversations with his brother anymore. It was like they’d lost any connection they might have had.
“Who’re you taking to the ball?” Bianca asked Harry and Jéricho.
Harry smirked; he liked Bianca, she was quite cool. “My girlfriend Celeste, who else? And Ech’s taking Tracey Davis. What about you?”
Bianca shrugged. “Eh, I don’t have a partner yet.”
Jéricho’s eyes widened. “What? You’re the pretty transfer student, Bianca, it’s impossible no one asked you!”
“Oh they did,” Bianca assured them. “But most were strangers; I didn’t find the offers appealing, to be honest.”
Harry hummed. “That’s understandable... what about you three?”
“No partner,” Ron spoke gloomily for both himself and Charles.
“Dean,” Hermione grinned. Ron whipped his neck so quickly towards her that a loud noise emerged. Ron didn’t seem to care about that, though. His eyes popped out as he cried, “What?!”
Hermione gave him a look. “You heard me. Why, got a problem with that, Ronald?”
“I-You didn’t say anything!” Ron spluttered.
“Yeah, I didn’t know Dean asked you out, ‘Mione,” Charles said in surprise.
Hermione shrugged. “We don’t go announcing it, you know. Besides, Bianca knew; she was there when he approached me.”
Ron just kept staring at Hermione as though he’d never seen her before, and Bianca turned to Harry. “Hey, what about your friends? They got partners or what?”
“Adrian’s going stag,” Jéricho explained, “But Ced and Sera have partners. Don’t know about Sera’s, it’s a secret, but Cedric’s taking Cho Chang.”
It was Charles’ turn to whip his neck. “What?!”
Harry gave him a weird look. “Uh... Cedric’s taking Cho. What’s got you so jumpy?”
“I... nothing,” Charles cleared his throat. “Nothing, I... I should go... Arithmancy homework.”
“Me too,” Bianca chimed in. “Hermione, Ron, see you later, yeah?”
And with that, Bianca dragged away Charles, and Hermione and Ron went away in the opposite direction a bit strangely, leaving Harry and Jéricho standing frowning in the corridor.
Charles
"Charles, come on!" Bianca sighed as she sighed, locking the door of the spare classroom they'd just entered. Charles ignored her and went to slouch on the desk.
"Look," Bianca said gently. "There are other girls too."
"Yeah, but Cho's the one I wanted to ask and she's taken by my brother's best friend!" Charles snapped irritably.
Bianca came to sit with him. "I've been betrayed worse, you know... There was this boy in my school, last year... Jacob. I had this major crush on him, and he was a sort of friend of mine... I used to confide everything in my best friend then, Mary... and you know what she did? Asked him out the day she knew I'd planned to do the same. He accepted... and Mary acted like nothing was wrong, the bitch! I did the same, but... it was obvious we weren't best friends anymore. We kept up pretences but it was never the same, our bond... it was broken. And when I announced that I was leaving the country, she acted all sad and offered a whole day together, but I refused. It would've been simply painful. I didn't write to her again."
Charles was mortified. "That's awful!"
"It is," Bianca agreed. "But that doesn't mean I stopped liking boys or befriending people... I mean, I befriended you, didn't I?"
Coughing lightly, Charles blushed as she looked at him, straight in the eyes. They looked beautiful at that angle. "You're single, aren't you?" he blurted out, before wincing at himself.
Bianca chuckled. "Yeah, I don't want a pity date."
"Well, you'd be doing a pity date for me, actually," Charles said lightly. "I'm the one who just had his heart broken."
Bianca grinned. "It's a date, then."