The Yule Ball
Christmas morning came and, as usual, Harry was reminded of how much he enjoyed this morning, as it was a true reminder of how Hogwarts had saved his life since the Dursley’s. Only, this morning that reminder came a little later, as instead of awaking peacefully, Harry awoke to a familiar pair of tennis ball-like goggling eyes.
“Dobby!” Harry had recoiled in an instant from freight at the sight of the house-elf, almost knocking him off the bed as a result. “Don’t do that!”
The reason the elf had found it necessary to wake his savior up with such a start had proven itself to be because he intended to give him his Christmas present; a pair of socks. Though it couldn’t be considered a pair, as they were two very different socks, one green with Snitches and one red with brooms, but a sweet gift nonetheless. Not that he’d show it around his friends, however.
As usual, the Dursley’s sent him basically trash, this year a single tissue which in his opinion had to have been the worst gift yet, but his other presents were much more satisfactory.
Hermione’s gift was of course a book, this one called Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland. Ron, a large bag of Dungbombs, Sirius, a penknife with attachments to unlock any lock and undo any knot, and Hagrid, a vast box of sweets with all of Harry’s favorites. And of course there was Mrs. Weasley’s usual sweater, green as usual, but this one had the picture of a large Ironbelly on it, which she must’ve known about no doubt due to Ron. Or Rita Skeeter. Though Harry greatly hoped it was the former.
Just when he thought he was done opening gifts, however, Ron, with his mouth full of chocolate already, pointed out a small black box tied together with a green ribbon. “What’s that? Do you have any other friends I don’t know about?” Harry shook his head, un-tying the ribbon and popping open the box, which was full of tissue paper and had a note on top. “It’s from Malfoy.”
Neville, Seamus, and Dean, who were chatting together about their gifts, all looked over in interest as Ron blurted, “Malfoy?!”
As confused as them, Harry pulled apart the tissue paper and felt a smile start to grow on his face as he saw what was inside. It was a small badge, emerald green in color, with silver writing across it reading, ‘I’ll come back for you.’ Harry tapped it, and as expected the words morphed, turning gold and now saying just one simple word, with far too much meaning.
“Friend.” Harry read aloud, and Ron frowned. “Huh?” “That’s… what it says…” He turned it to show Ron, who raised one eyebrow skeptically. “What’s he playing at?” Harry shook his head, looking back at the badge and then at the tag with Draco’s name on it and frowned. “I dunno…”
But nevertheless, he walked down into the common room with the pin on his chest, thankful nobody noticed and questioned it.
Once they had gone down to the Great Hall for lunch, Harry, Ron, and Hermione met up with Draco at the Gryffindor table, who was fiddling with one of his gifts, a box of chocolates, and staring at a larger package laid across the table.
“What’s that?” Harry asked as he sat himself down beside him, Ron and Hermione sitting on the other side as the redhead immediately pulled out his wizard’s chess board for an early game. “A broom.” The blonde answered, lifting up the wrapping paper at the end, which read, “Firebolt.” in gold letters across the end of the wood. Harry raised an eyebrow at him in surprise. He had always assumed that Draco could easily buy a Firebolt, but had chosen not to just to be different from his enemy.
“Having a change of heart?” Draco shrugged, eyes falling onto the badge pinned to the boy's robes. “Well I figured there was no harm in it. We are… friends, right?” Harry nodded. “Yeah, s’pose so.”
After watching a rather exciting game of chess between Ron and Hermione in which it seemed Ron had quite clearly let his opponent win, the group left with Fred and George to go out on the grounds and fly, as Draco was quite eager to test out his new broom, the eagerness overpowering his distaste for being around so many Weasley’s.
Outside, the snow was smooth and almost too perfect to walk on, making it even better for the snowball fight that the twins quickly initiated before Draco could so much as mount his new broom. Though that clearly became a mistake as the blonde easily proved himself to be too much of a match on the speedy thing as he took the high ground throughout the battle, eventually being forced to the ground by one too many well aimed snowballs once everyone decided to gang up on him. After that the round and subsequent rounds to come became 1-4, with no chance of survival for the poor Slytherin.
Hermione had rolled her eyes at the boys’ antics and chosen to stay out of the game, however, instead opening up a book on the history of civil rights in the Wizarding World that Ron had given her and seeming quite content with reading it while laughing at them. But at five o’clock, when Draco had been absolutely plummeted to the ground with snow and was sure to have frostbite, Hermione stood and said she was headed upstairs to get ready for the ball.
“What, you need three hours?” Ron immediately whipped around, confused, as George took the opportunity to aim the snowball he’d made for Draco’s face at Ron instead. “WHO’RE YOU GOING WITH?” He yelled, ignoring the snow as Hermione turned and ran away, simply waving and disappearing up the stone steps into the castle, ignoring him.
After that the boys decided it was time to wrap up the game, as they’d probably kill Draco if they kept hitting him with snow, but, to their great surprise, when he stood and began to brush himself off, he was grinning brighter than they’d ever seen the bully grin before. A Christmas miracle, Fred had called it, before the group too made their way up the stairs.
Back at the Gryffindor dormitories, Harry, Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville all changed into their dress robes, not saying a word to each other, just changing silently and examining themselves in the mirrors, feeling more and more awkward with each second that ticked by.
“Why your robes aren’t that bad Harry!” Dean exclaimed as Harry turned to the others after half past seven. He was wearing red with gold trimming, and would have been fine if not for an absurd looking hat with a pom pom and bell sitting on his head. “The green really brings out your eyes.” Seamus agreed, and then they all turned to Ron, who was still staring at himself in the mirror, scowling.
There was nothing that could be done for him. No getting around the fact that his robes looked more like a dress than anything else. Even though he tried to tear the lace, to fold the collar, to button it up, nothing worked. Now the edges were just frayed and still he wasn’t content. Seeing no solution in sight Ron gave in and said, “Let’s go” to the boys, and they made their way downstairs.
“I still can’t work out how you got the best-looking girl in the year, Ron,” Muttered Dean as they stepped out into the common room and surveyed the crowd filled with a variety of colors belonging to both male and female. Parvati was waiting for Ron right at the bottom of the steps, looking admittedly very pretty in robes of shocking pink with gold bangles and her hair down in a neat and sleek braid, but when she saw him, her dark eyes went wide as her face contorted into a very unappealing expression.
“You--erm--you look great.” He said awkwardly, and Parvati seemed to snap out of some horrified daze as she nodded, forcing a tight lipped smile. “Yes! Thank you…” Ron nodded firmly and stiffly. “Right.” He looked around, brows creased. “Where’s Hermione?” Parvati shrugged, then raised her elbow and Ron blinked once at it, then at her, then seemed to register what she was asking as she raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Oh right! Yeah, okay.” They linked arms and were off, Seamus running into the crowd to find Lavender while Dean and Harry headed out of the common room together, needing to meet their out-of-house partners at the entrance hall instead.
The entrance hall, which was utterly packed with students milling around every which way, waiting for eight o’clock. Various people were still filling up the stairs, and Harry could spot Draco attempting to squeeze through the crowd, not a tint of red on his once frozen cheeks, his hair combed over meticulously, and adjusting the high collar on his velvet black robes, which made him look almost like a vicar. Though Harry would never say that… to his face.
“Hi!” Harry jumped suddenly, turning and doing a double take as it seemed Tess had suddenly popped beside him out of nowhere, dressed in a white pantsuit with gold embroidery and a golden cape draped over her shoulders, which hung to her butt and layed over her arms like wings. Her hair, usually tied back in a loose bun or ponytail, was now free, the curls bouncing on her shoulders and falling down to her butt as well. He’d never noticed how long her hair was, but now couldn’t ignore it, as it hung like a curtain on her head. She smiled, and repeated, “Hello? Harry?”
He jolted out of his momentary stunment abruptly and smiled, dazedly too. “Hi…” She blushed, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and giggling.
Draco came to stand beside him then, arm linked with a pretty girl too, this one with reddish blonde hair that had been curled in a wavy way, wearing dress robes that were open somewhat like a cape to reveal a v-neck navy dress with glittery embroidery at the skirt, the robe made of the same navy but velvet like Draco’s robes, while the dress was satin. Ron arrived too, standing with Parvati, who smiled just out of politeness at the other two girls, who waved back.
Suddenly, Ron jumped and flung himself behind Harry, dropping Parvati’s arm abruptly to hide behind his friend's back, while she gaped at him in surprise and horror, Draco looked around in confusion, then promptly caught sight of what Ron had seen and laughed.
“It’s her!” “Clearly, Weasley.” “Who?” “It seems your friend has found his long lost love, Harry.” Draco cleared up, nodding to the doors of the Great Hall, where Fleur Delacour passed by, wearing silver-gray satin robes that shined with each step, and looking spectacular while doing it. Beside her, Harry recognized the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, Roger Davies, holding her hand and smiling at her beauty with a dazed look in his eyes. They soon disappeared into a crowd of Beauxbatons kids, and Ron sighed, stepping back to Parvati and raising an eyebrow at her appalled face as if to say, ‘What?’
“Where is Hermione?” He turned to look out at the crowd around them, eyes squinted. Draco shrugged, looking away and widening his eyes and paling just as Ron had when he spotted a group of quite familiar looking Slytherins ascending the steps from the dungeon, Pansy Parkinson leading them with her chin high in frilly robes of pale pink, arm tight around her partner, Daphne Greengrass, who wore her own frilly robes of green.
He rolled his eyes as they cast him a glare, but nodded when he spotted Crabbe and Goyle climbing up behind them, whispering something to Marietta and leading her over to them.
Meanwhile, Ron leaned over to Harry and whispered in his own ear, “I almost feel bad for her.” “Who?” Harry asked, jumping as he turned away from where he had been longingly watching Cho giggle with Cedric. “Hermione. Come on, Harry, she doesn't have a date! She’s probably just up in her room crying, that’s all.” Beside him, Parvati opened her mouth to speak, raising a finger, but Ron quickly shushed her, continuing to scan the crowd, to which the poor girl frowned and folded her arms grumpily.
“Champions over here, please!” Harry suddenly jumped once more, turning to crane his neck around for McGonagall’s voice as Tess tugged on his arm lightly, and nodding when he found her, giving her the go ahead to start leading him away as he turned and waved away to Ron, who gave him a weak thumbs up, still focused on finding Hermione, while Parvati, bless her soul, actually shouted, “Good luck!”
The two arrived at the circle of Champions just as Draco and Marietta did, and once McGonagall had seen that they were all there, she spoke, wearing dress robes of red tartan and, notably, still having her hair done up in a tight bun. “Now, you all will wait on one side of the doors as everyone else goes inside. Then, enter the Great Hall in a lineup of points so Viktor, Harry, first. Draco, next. And then so on.
Viktor and a very pretty dark skinned girl in stunning blue robes that Harry didn’t recognize stepped up to the doors while everyone else fell behind, Tess starting to bounce on the balls of her feet (or heels) beside Harry. “This is exciting!” She said, smiling up at him. He nodded, forcing a smile back weakly. He did not feel the same in the slightest; if anything, he felt ready to puke, and was sure his robes were as green as his face now.
To try to ignore the impending embarrassment, Harry instead fixated his green eyes on the back of the pretty girl's head in front of him, only to notice something quite… disturbing. He knew the back of that head, he’d seen it countless times in class and outside of it from four years of knowing the girl it belonged to, and despite the rest of her being quite unrecognizable, the back of someone's head can certainly not change.
This, by some way or another, was Hermione Granger, and it didn’t look like her one bit. The hair he was looking at was no longer bushy, but brushed through to the point where it was sleek and straight, twisted up into a bun on the back of her head that didn’t have a single hair out of place. And her robes were truly stunning--floaty cloth made of some periwinkle-blue color, that almost seemed to sparkle. And she was holding herself differently somehow, he couldn’t help but note, as she turned her head and smiled at him, waving a hand and looking truly happy. Without the stress of work or the weight of a bag of heavy books slung over her back, she looked free and like… well, not to be a Ronald Weasley, but like a girl. A very pretty girl, at that.
“Hi, Harry! Hi, Tess!” She said, still grinning in a way that showed off her slightly larger front teeth but not that that made her look any less stunning. If anything it just added to the wonder that someone with ‘buck teeth’ could look this beautiful.
Tossing his head back Harry looked at the line up behind him to see any similar traces of the shock he was feeling, and sure enough, Draco was standing dumbfounded with his jaw hanging to the floor, for once in his life seeming unable to find any sort of sassy retort or even insult for the smart muggleborn.
Soon, however, everyone had seemingly gotten settled into the Hall, seated and ready for the Ball to start, which meant leaving the safety of the Entrance Hall was now inevitable, and the dancing would soon begin.
All too soon Viktor and Hermione had stepped through the doors, but Harry could at least take solace in the fact that the crowd of people around him clearly cared more about watching his friend’s shocking change in appearance then any of the other Champions and their partners as they walked in a formal line up to a large round table where the judges were all seated. As they came to the head of the Hall and turned to face the crowd Harry noticed once more the grand diversity of colors of robes, quite different from the usual black, the beauty of the Hall’s decorations, and the fact that there was a terrifying open space on the floor begging for dancers.
He searched the crowd for familiar faces briefly and could spot Ron and Parvati seated together at one of the tables with Seamus and Lavender, Dean and Susan, Parvati’s twin sister Padma and her date Zacharias Smith, and a couple others Harry didn’t know. They all, like many of the others who knew her, were gawking at Hermione, whispering amongst themselves in a way that made Harry feel strangely defensive of his friend.
He seemed to show it, as Tess lightly tugged on his sleeve to make him look at her, asking, “What’s wrong?” He shook his head, picking a blank spot of wall to scowl at instead. “Nothing.”
The Champions then turned to take their seats, and everyone scramble while Harry looked around, feeling quite dumb, and spotted non-other than Percy Weasley sitting not too far away, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses and staring at the boy pointedly, as if demanding he sit in the empty chair he began to pull out.
Now it was Harry’s turn to tug on Tess as she began to go over to Fleur, and nod to the seat. She frowned but nodded, and the two sat down beside the red head, who was notably in brand-new dress robes and looking particularly smug--more so than usual. Which was never a good thing.
“I’ve been promoted.” Percy said or, rather, announced, in a tone that surpassed the previous supreme smugness in a way Harry never could have imagined. The boy nodded but Tess leaned over, smiling at him and saying, “Congratulations!” He smiled back and Harry immediately slumped, knowing that feeding the ambitious monster that was the Weasley middle child only makes it worse.
“Thank you. I’m now Mr. Crouch’s personal assistant, and I’m here representing him.” Tess’s smile grew. “That sounds--” “Why didn’t he come?” Harry cut her off, getting straight to the point in a way that made Percy’s eyes, which had been on Tess in the admiration way of someone who just met the first person to ever give them a sincere compliment in their life--which was probably true--widened and fell on Harry in what should have been a glare. Percy was clearly not that good at glaring, however.
“I’m afraid to say Mr. Crouch isn’t well, Harry, not well at all. Hasn’t been right since the World Cup. Hardly surprising--overwork. He’s not as young as he was--though still quite brilliant, of course, the mind remains as great as it ever was. But the World Cup was a fiasco for the whole Ministry, and then, Mr. Crouch suffered a huge personal shock with the misbehavior of that house-elf of his, Blinky, or whatever she was called. Naturally, he dismissed her immediately afterward, but--well, as I say, he’s getting on, he needs looking after, and I think he’s found a definite drop in his home comforts since she left. And then we had the tournament to arrange, and the aftermath of the Cup to deal with--that revolting Skeeter woman buzzing around--no, poor man, he’s having a well earned, quiet Christmas. I’m just glad he knew he had someone he could rely upon to take his place.”
Harry yawned halfway through the speech and looked over at Tess whose eyes were rapidly widening with each word, getting the full force of how much Percy’s rants can be sometimes and being appropriately overwhelmed, clearly.
“Oh… You uh… You really like your Boss, huh?” She asked, to which Percy looked at her with a, ‘Have you met me?’ face before realizing that no, she had not, and nodding instead, giving her another ‘wow you are actually being nice to me’ smile and leaning over the table to get a better look at her, Harry leaning back and feeling quite uncomfortable. “Yes, I do. He is quite a brilliant man, you know. Tell me, what was your name again?”
She dropped her head a bit, a curl falling in front of her eyes flirtatiously as she smiled. “Tess Whitlock.” Percy nodded, holding out his hand. “Percival Weasley.” She shook it.
In between them, Harry felt as if he might puke.
“Harry, would you…” Instantly he stood up and walked around to the other side of Tess’s chair as she shifted into his, and he sat down then, sighing in relief as he picked up the menu in front of him and decided it was time to eat and forget about the weirdness happening beside him. He then realized he didn’t know what he was doing--there were no waiters. How were you supposed to order?
Dumbledore, however, looked carefully down at his own menu, then said very clearly to his plate, “Pork chops!” And pork chops proceeded to pop out of thin air onto his golden plate, leading the rest of the table to place their own orders too. Harry practically shouted, “Pork chops!” as well, not really wanting to risk anything different, and then looked around at the rest of the table, as if surveying his Champion's choice of dates.
Really he was just trying to distract himself from his own date flirting with his best friend’s brother and this seemed like a good distraction.
Beside him sat Fernando and a golden blonde haired girl in pretty green robes Harry recognized as Beatrice Haywood, and then there was of course Cedric and Cho, and Draco and Marietta. But then he saw that Anya and Hugo had seemingly gone together, and was reminded of them holding hands in the tent, followed by Viktor and Hermione, who were engaged in deep conversation, the first time he’d ever seen Viktor talk even a few words. Now he was speaking in not just sentences, but incredibly enthusiastically too.
“Well, we have a castle also, not as big as this, nor as comfortable, I am thinking,” Harry could hear him saying to Hermione now, who was smiling and nodding with each word. “We have just four floors, and the fires are lit only for magical purposes. But we have grounds larger even than these--though in winter, we have very little daylight, so we are not enjoying them. But in summer we are flying every day, over the lakes and the mountains--” Harry looked over as Karkaroff cut the boy off, and observed that the other Champions and their dates were talking seriously too, even Draco and Marietta, who seemed to be even teasing each other while discussing their Ministry parents. But Harry was alone as his own date talked her tongue off to Percy beside him.
He knew they had gone as friend’s, but it didn’t make the sting any better.
“Only this morning, for instance,” Harry suddenly turned his head back to Dumbledore as he realized everyone was now paying close attention to him and thought he should too, “I took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished.”
He caught Draco and Harry’s eyes briefly and the two grinned awkwardly as he gave them a wink, then pointedly stared back down at their plates and continued eating.
Now Harry could either choose to listen to Fleur criticizing his school or Percy and Tess' conversation. Or, even better, Draco and Marietta having an argument about some Potions thing they were learning or something.
It all mixed together to him in a confusing blur of; "At the Palace of Beauxbatons, we have ice sculptures all around the dining chamber at Christmas." And "I'm quite sure the directions said to cut, not crush.” And “I personally find brains to be far better use in the world than just humor?” “Finally! Someone with, well… a brain.”
If this went on for much longer, Harry was sure he would lurch up what little dinner he’d eaten. So he looked around as if for some kind of savior from this situation, and spotted Hagrid sitting at another staff table, dressed in a hideous brown suit while looking up at the table he sat at with an entrancement so big that he nearly spilled his goblet contents on his lap. He waved at someone at the table and--looking around--he spotted Madame Maxime return it, and felt his lips mouthing, “What the fuck…” without meaning to.
Now he could hear across the table that the conversation between Hermione and Krum had turned to her trying to teach him to say her name right, as he kept saying “Hermy-own.” It wasn’t going well, however, as now he could only say, “Herm-own-ninny.”
“Close enough.” Hermione said, shrugging and winking over at Harry. Draco raised a hand to Marietta to stop their conversation and leaned over to her, raising his other hand forward but she glared at him as if to say, ‘Don’t you dare.’ At the very least it made Harry smile, which was a lot for him in his state.
Finally, however, it seemed his torture had ended as Dumbledore stood up from his table and asking all the students to do the same before, with a wave of his hands, he swept the table back against the walls and cleared the floor for…
Oh. It was time to dance. Maybe this wasn’t an end to his torture after all.
Sure enough, all too soon Tess had turned around and grabbed Harry’s hand, now not only practically, but basically dragging him onto the empty floor as the Weird Sisters began to line up on a stage at the head of the Great Hall and ready their instruments. “Come on, Harry! It’s time to dance!”
Harry couldn’t help tripping over his robes as he struggled to ready himself in the middle of the dance floor, already sweating from the amount of wide eyes goggling at him. He caught Draco’s gray, passive ones a few feet away and he gave a sly wink, before beginning to waltz with Marietta. Soon, Tess was pushing Harry along the floor as well.
It took a few beats and paces into the song for Harry to get a hang of it, but once he’d closed his eyes, he imagined he was back in the snow, Draco in his arms instead of Tess, gradually leading them through a magical dance, smoothly sliding his feet like a swan on a lake. And, like magic, when he opened his eyes, he saw he was doing the same now, and Tess was laughing, but not at him, with him.
He grinned back, hands slipping down to her waist briefly to lift her in the air before setting her down and twirling her in a circle, and, even when the time he was required to dance ended, he stay there, gliding across the floor, not even caring as Percy swept Tess away from him and instead turning to find another girl he didn’t know in his arms, and another still, and even occasionally a handsome boy, but he never spent long enough dancing to focus on the person he held. He was enjoying himself, miraculously, and each and every one of the people who fell to him on the dance floor appeared, at least to him, as the same pale, pointed face blonde.
Songs changed, and Harry adapted his smooth dance to each one, still imagining he was somewhere else, with someone else, and not minding the hundreds of people surrounding him one bit. But, eventually, his feet started to get sore and, once he’d seen his partner was still quite content with Percy--because he was nothing if not polite and wouldn’t just leave her on the dance floor--he stumbled out of the crowd of dancing kids and flopped down in a seat beside Ron, who, unlike him, looked absolutely miserable.
“How’s it going?” The happy champion asked as he struggled to catch his breath, leaning back and opening a bottle of butterbear. But his friend wouldn’t answer, as he was glaring at Hermione and Krum, still on the dance floor, looking absolutely thrilled to be there, maybe even more than Harry had.
“Where’s Parvati?” Harry asked, glancing around the table before taking a swig of the bottle then offering it to Ron. The red head waved a hand, sighing. “With some Beauxbatons chap or something. I don’t care. Where’s your’s?” He obviously was referring to Tess and Harry winced before gesturing to where the girl was being lifted and spun in the air by Percy, the two looking far too happy, and Ron went green.
“Ewww…” He groaned, before putting a finger to his mouth and fake gagging, then grabbing the bottle out of Harry’s hand and gulping it down. Harry watched him with a blank stare for a moment before taking the bottle back and spotting Cedric spinning Cho around as she giggled, blushing and looking as beautiful as ever with her handsome boyfriend. He glared and took a swig himself, now finishing the whole bottle and tossing it back on the table.
Once the song had ended the boys spotted Hermione and Draco laughing--yes, laughing. Together!--and headed over to them, waving away their partners as they left to the food table.
“Hi.” Said Harry as the two came, Hermione sitting beside Ron while Draco sat beside Harry. Ron never said anything, simply staring straight ahead with his arms crossed.
“It’s hot, isn’t it?” Asked Hermione as she fanned herself with her hand, indeed looking quite pink but Harry doubted it had anything to do with the heat. “Viktor and Marietta are off to get drinks.” Ron jolted forward, scowling at his friend. “Viktor?” He practically shouted. “Hasn’t he asked you to call him Vicky yet?” Hermione raised an eyebrow, eyes wide. “What’s up with--”
“You should come and join the fun.” Draco said, bumping Harry in the shoulder--clearly trying to break the tense mood--and picking up the empty bottle, tipping it back into his open mouth before frowning as he realized it was empty and throwing it back just as Harry had a moment ago. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself out there a few minutes ago. Why so glum?”
Harry shrugged, giving a little ‘humph’ sound and crossing his arms as he glared at Cho and Credric. Draco followed his gaze in an instant and smirked. “Don’t feel bad. Once you win the Tournament she’ll go to you in an instant.” He said as Hermione leaned over to glare at him.
“Malfoy! Don’t say things like that, if Cho likes Cedric then well…” She glanced worriedly at Harry, who sank even lower into his chair. “That’s her choice.”
“Wow, Granger. Very encouraging.” Hermione continued to glare at the blonde as he caught sight of Marietta and ‘Vicky’ now making their way over to them and stood, holding out his arm. “Should we be hitting the dance floor now?” The brunette rolled her eyes and said, “I guess we shall, since these boys clearly don’t know how to have a good time.”
“Have a good time?” Ron yelled once more, looking as if he’d jump from his seat at any moment. “Have a good time?! Hermione, you are not ‘having a good time’, you’re fraternizing with the enemy, that’s what you’re doing!”
Hermione’s mouth fell open, and even Draco looked appalled, his arm dropping to his side. “The enemy?!” They both blurted. “Don’t be so stupid!” Hermione gasped, shaking her head and pinched her forehead with two fingers. “Honestly… Who was the one all excited when they saw him arrive? Who was the one who wanted his autograph? Who’s got a model of him up in their dormitory?!”
“A model?” Draco snorted, cupping a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughs as Ron couldn’t resist anymore, now springing from his seat and screaming in the blonde’s face, “You stay out of this!”
“Ronald.”
“I s’pose he asked you to come with him on one of his little library stalkings?”
“Ron.”
“How romantic. Has he tried to snog you yet? He’s three years older than you, at least, I wouldn’t be surprised…”
“RON!” Hermione now sprung up from her own seat, slapping Ron in the arm and glaring at him, now most certainly red not from blush but anger. “He said he had been trying to ask me for days, but couldn’t pluck up the courage yet. He’s not a selfish arse. Not like some people--”
Ron was in such a rage, he didn’t even seem to acknowledge the clear insult, instead cutting her off to yell, “He’s Karkaroff’s student, Hermione! He’s just trying to get closer to Harry. Get inside information on him, and when he’s alone, maybe even jinx him--”
“He hasn’t mentioned Harry once!”
“Then he’s hoping you’ll help him find out what his egg means!” Ron scoffed, shaking his head. “I bet you’ve even been putting your heads together during those cozy little library sessions--”
Hermione looked as if she might slap Ron at any second, and all three boys, even Ron himself, fully believed she would, as the only time she’d looked this angry was right before slapping Malfoy last year.
“Ronald… This whole Tournament is about getting to know foreign wizards and making friends with them!” She instead said hotly, speaking through clenched teeth. At this time Viktor and Marietta had returned, the strawberry blonde looking between the arguing teens in confusion while Viktor furrowed his brow in his usual surly manner.
“What’s going on, Draco?” Marietta asked, stepping beside him and grabbing his arm. He shook his head, eyes still shocked and glued to the argument like a child to a television screen as Ron glared up at the confused Viktor and reached forward to grab his butterbear.
“How’s this for friendship?!” He growled, then tossed it in his face, causing Draco and Harry’s jaws to hit the floor, Marietta to scream, and Hermione to gasp, stumbling backwards before immediately whipping out her wand and muttering an incantation to lift off the liquid. Before she could finish, however, Ron had grabbed the second drink out of Viktor’s hand and thrown it at her face too, grinning like a proud maniac and grabbing the empty bottle on the table and smashing it to the floor.
“Happy Christmas!” He shouted, before stumping away through the crowd of students who had only been sneaking glances before, but were now gawking at the group. Meanwhile Harry sprung up and tried to help Viktor and Hermione get dry along with Draco and Marietta. Viktor kept asking if she was alright, if the drink had gotten in her eyes, and waving them off, while Hermione was crying with her head in her hands, so it was making things quite difficult, however.
Eventually Percy and Tess ran over and Percy began casting charms to cleanse their faces and clothes of the sticky liquid before drying them off with air coming out of his wand, apologizing for his younger brother's actions all the while.
Finally the two were clean and Hermione fell into Viktor’s arms, and he helped sit her down at the table as she sobbed, Harry standing awkwardly with Tess, Draco, and Marietta–Percy having left to find and berate Ron.
“We’re going to stay with her,” Tess said, nodding an affirmative to Marietta before turning to look at the two boys and raising an eyebrow. “If that’s okay with you Harry? You should go enjoy the night.” Harry shook his head, staring at Hermione with a solemn expression, and Marietta rolled her eyes. “Draco, make sure he enjoys the night, will you?” The blonde smirked and nodded, grabbing onto Harry’s arm and already pulling him into the dancing. “Of course! C’mon, Potter!”
Before Harry could think about protesting, Draco had dragged him onto the dance floor, and was now jutting out some dance moves he was sure was going to give him nightmares but, if nothing else, was starting to make him laugh, which hafter Ron’s outburst he had thought he never would be able to again. Less than a minute later this blonde was proving him wrong. But a smile wasn’t enough. Slytherin’s were nothing if not persistent, and Malfoy was no exception, now waving his hand to get Harry to start dancing as well.
“I don’t dance, Draco.”
“That’s a lie. C’mon, Harry, you just did a few minutes ago! What, you’re shy now? Scared of these moves?” Draco demonstrated his ‘moves’ by spinning and snapping his fingers at Harry, clicking his tongue. Now the boy threw his head back and burst into laughter, rocking back and forth and clutching his stomach as Draco continued to slide across the floor in a circle around him, dancing like a madman and making Harry laugh like one too.
“Draco seriously you need to stop!” The blonde grabbed Harry by the arm and spun him around to face him, now swinging their arms this way and that and grinning widely. “Not until you dance for me. C’mon, Potter, still scared are you?” Harry frowned, lowering his face and wiggling his eyebrows a little testily. “No, I just think you’d be scared of my moves.”
And with that he took a step back and started to bop his legs, then placed his hands out in the air, flipping them over before placing them across each other on his chest, then to the back of his head and finally he placed them on his hips, and spun his backside in a circle before clapping his hands together at last and doing it all again.
Meanwhile Draco looked genuinely terrified, mouth agape, stepping back and glancing around at the crowd like he was pleading for them to let him out of the crowd and away from Harry’s disturbing dance. What he was met with in those hundreds of faces, however, were the faces of his roommates--his fellow Slytherins, laughing at him and pointing and jeering, a couple mocking Harry’s dancing.
That’s when Draco screwed his mouth shut, eyes narrowed upon Crabbe and Goyle, his former best friends as they mocked him along with everyone else, and raised both his hands, causing the entire lineup of Slytherins to gasp, stumbling back as if they’d been slapped as the Malfoy boy began to bob his knees to the same beat as Harry, turning his hands along with him. Harry’s green eyes began to widen as he saw his friend’s dancing and, his grin widening, they turned back to back to face the crowd that was now all staring, dancing as if they weren’t even there.
Up at the staff table, the boys could see the teachers had all fled back to stare in horror and amazement at the two, depending on the teacher.
But they weren’t alone for long, because soon Hermione had stumbled up beside the two, grinning like mad despite the streaks of mascara running down her cheeks, and jutting her hands out in time with them.
“The macarena Harry?” She laughed, a great sight for a girl who had been sobbing less than ten minutes ago. “Great choice!” Draco turned and glared at her, eyes wide. “What in the name of Merlin--”
“It’s a muggle dance!” He jumped in fear as Seamus suddenly jumped in, dragging the shy Creevey brothers in with him, grinning like mad. “Man, I've waited four years to do this! C’mon boys!” And he started to dance the most enthusiastically out of all of them, while Hermione and Harry laughed along and Draco felt like screaming.
“This is like… a nightmare…” He whispered to himself before flinching as Viktor came up beside him, desperately trying to match Hermione’s dancing. “Don’t worry.” He said, frowning at everyone around him. “I am very uncomfortable as well. But Hermy-own-ninny is enjoying it, right? So I will stay.” Draco creased his brows up at the boy, before turning and walking a few paces around the floor to start dancing beside Harry, who turned and smirked at him, winking.
He smiled back, feeling his heart skip a beat, and nodded. “Right…” Though Viktor was now focused on Hermione and surely couldn’t hear him, Draco still spoke to him as he realized that yes, he would dance, because Harry wanted to.
He hardly noticed as seemingly the entire population of muggleborns at Hogwarts jumped in to dance, and even some Half-Bloods and Pure-Bloods once they’d trusted themselves to be able to replicate the dancing; and that was a very un--Malfoy like thing to not notice, but he was so consumed in the boy he was watching, he hadn’t a clue that the dance had actually caught on quite nicely, and no one but his worthless former friends were mocking him now, and even they were shrinking back and leaving the Ball early.
The only ones, apart from them, seeming to not be getting in on the fun were Percy and Ron, engaged in a shouting match in a corner, before Ron stormed off to bed early and Tess dragged the older redhead into the circle of Macarena dancing teens. The dance continued for what felt like hours, but was more like half that, before people resumed normal dancing, but with even more energy; the Weird Sisters seemed to have gotten hyped up by the strange Muggle dancing as they made their final song at midnight the biggest one.
And after that, the dancing was over. The candles lit back to the normal, orange-yellow glow that accompanied everybody at Feasts, and the kids began to disperse out into the entrance hall, headed for bed. And, Harry was quite happy to notice, Draco looked the happiest he’d ever seen him, even happier than this morning’s snowfight.
“See you in the morning, Harry!” He called as he waved off Marietta with one hand and Harry with the other, before turning to head down the steps to the dungeons while rubbing his hands to his cheeks, where lipstick from a kiss on the cheek his partner had given him still remained. Harry rolled his eyes, laughing, then went bug eyed as he glanced down to see Hermione with her arms wrapped around Viktor, looking ready to--
“Oi!” The two jerked away from each other, Hermione raising her head to Harry so he could see how her face had gone a bright tomato red. “Get a bush!” He called before waving a hand at the lovebirds and jogging the rest of the way up the steps to the Gryffindor Common Room, realizing that, despite what he’d imagined, with all his new found friends by his side, this night had gone over very nicely.
“Hey--Harry!” He stopped suddenly at the top step, forgetting all of the joy of the night in a second as he slowly turned around to face Cedric’s finely chiseled face as he jogged up the steps, Cho waiting down below him with her hands folded together, staring pointedly at the floor--no doubt to avoid Harry’s gaze. Harry wanted to avoid hers too, but he also didn’t want to look at Cedric. But he had to, as the boy simply continued to talk to him.
“Yeah?” He asked coldly and Cedric glanced around, as if worried someone might hear what he wanted to say, before leaning forward. “Listen…” Cedric lowered his voice to a whisper only Harry could hear. “I owe you one for telling me about the dragons. You know that golden egg? Does yours wail when you open it?” Harry licked his lips, glancing around. “Yeah.” He said and Cedric nodded, “Yeah well er--”
“It’s merpeople.” Harry finished for him, crossing his arms. “I figured that out already.” Best to lie and say he did, right? He’d give Draco the credit, probably, but that would make Cedric think he was cheating, as they weren’t technically a ‘team’ anymore… right? “It’s merpeople singing.”
“Yeah but… Do you know what they're singing?” Harry frowned, slowly shaking his head, and Cedric swallowed, glancing around once more, as if making his mind up about something, before saying, “Take a bath, okay?”
“What?”
“Take a bath, and--er--take the egg with you, and--er--just mull things over in the hot water. It’ll help you think… Trust me.” Harry stared at him, blinking once, twice, and then remembering all those books on merpeople. Worthless information then that now made so much sense to him now. It was all a part of Draco’s initial realization that merpeople were singing in the egg, but they had never thought to--
“You can only hear the song underwater…” Harry said slowly, nodding his head and starting to get a grin of hope on his face. “So you have to open it underwater…” He looked up at Cedric, who smirked but faked a confused shrug, beginning to back away down the steps.
“Thank you!” Harry called, and Cedric waved a hand. “No problem! We’re even now, alright?” Harry nodded, beginning to back up the stairs as well. “Alright.”
Hermione must have taken a shortcut back to the Gryffindor Common Room--probably fell through one of the Marauder's secret passageways while snogging Viktor--because in the time it had taken for Harry to talk to Cedric, she was back in the same spot she had been days before, ten feet apart from Ron, mouth wide open with insults in shout form along with his, both scarlet in the face now.
“Well, if you don’t like it, you know what the solution is, don’t you?” Bellowed Hermione, looking somewhat like herself again with the makeup having washed away from tears, her face screwed up in its usual anger, and her hair falling from its elegant bun in ringlets.
“Oh yeah?” Ron, with no restraint as usual, yelled back, fists so tight at his sides Harry was sure his nails were making his palms bleed. “What’s that?!”
“Next time there’s a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!” Ron stumbled back, as if hit by the force of a train by those words, while Hermine pushed him aside effortlessly to storm up the girls’ staircase to bed, leaving Ron and Harry alone, looking across the room at each other with very different faces.
“Well,” He sputtered, looking thunderstruck, “Well--that just proves--completely missed the point--” Harry refused to say a word, instead turning on his own heel to head up the stairs to his own bed, leaving Ron alone as he collapsed onto the couch in front of the dying fire. He had missed the boy dearly when they had gotten into their fight, and wouldn’t lose him again for anything, but it was times like these where he found it remarkable just how right Hermione could be in regards to Ronald Weasley. No, though he refused to say it, he believed quite thoroughly that she had gotten to the point much better than him.