Author's note: This story takes place at Harry's seventh year at Hogwarts. In a dramatic step away from canon, the wizarding war never took place, and Voldemort never returned. Harry is still the-boy-who-lived, but the main story events with Voldemort of "The Goblet of Fire" and onwards never took place. The Triwizard tournament has been won by Cedric Diggory. Ron and Hermione had their major fight over the Yule Ball. Ron did hook up with Lavender, but they broke up just before Dumbledore's natural death at the end of their sixth year. His friendship/relationship with Hermione has been simmering ever since, and though neither has had the courage to speak openly about their feelings, they are starting to draw closer together.

The Costumed Ball

A new year at Hogwarts was about to begin. New faces peered up at her as she rose from her seat, just as old faces had left. Cho Chang, a bright Ravenclaw had finished her seventh year, as had her much less talented friend Marietta. Colin Creevy had decided not to continue his career, after raking in a more than adequate six O. . Most of them were actually high marks: several E's and even an O. He had the same streak of independence the Weasley twins had possessed though, and wanted to open a photography shop.

The new faces were filled with wonder, as they ever had. For more than a decade she had been in charge of the sorting ceremony, guiding the youngsters into the great hall for their first time, calling their names in order, and guiding them to their respective tables. It pained her that she was no longer able to do so, but the speech she was going to deliver today would certainly make up for that loss. The exclusive use of the Headmaster's chamber was also a very welcome perk.

'For those who are new to Hogwarts's halls and corridors,' she said, the general murmur and hubbub in the Great Hall dying out after the first words, 'I bid you a heartfelt welcome. Hogwarts will be your home for the next few years, and I hope you will find what you seek within its magnificent walls. Be it friendship, knowledge, courage, or loyalty, Hogwarts is open for all.'

Now came the hardest part of her speech. She steeled her resolve, not allowing her emotions to seep through. 'Those of you who were with us last year will know that Hogwarts has recently endured a significant loss. Headmaster Dumbledore, an iconic figure for our school and perhaps one of its finest headmasters passed away at the respectable age of one-hundred-and-fifteen. As grief for our former headmaster slowly makes way for fond remembrance, I would like to propose a toast.'

As one, the students and staff raised their glasses. 'To headmaster Albus Dumbledore.'

Everyone but her sat down again. The hardest part was over. Now for the lighter part of her speech. She wondered how it would be received. 'The teachers and staff of Hogwarts felt that it would be considerate to host a small event in commemoration of our former headmaster.' Several of the students who had been talking amongst themselves turned their heads to her. Others exchanged quick glances. A break from tradition was always exciting to the students.

'Hogwarts will host a Costumed Ball on October 31st.' She paused, deliberately. More students exchanged glances, and several began to whisper amongst each other. She waited for them to fall quiet again. All eyes in the Great Hall were fixed on her. Absolute silence.

'Asking wizards to a fancy dress party should be the recipe for some spectacular costumes. Each of you shall design and create your own dress and mask. The object of the ball is to become unrecognizable to your fellow students. I am quite certain that an inventive and creative group of young individuals such as yourselves will have no trouble creating a good outfit for the day, including a mask.'

'The ball will be opened at seven 'o clock,' she continued, 'and will last until twelve 'o clock exactly. During that time, the staff will grade all students who enter, and will choose who amongst the boys and who amongst the girls has the best costume and mask. You will be graded on originality, quality, and effort.'

'During the ball there will be music, and there will be dancing. Boys can breathe easy; you will not need to enter in couples, so there is no need to ask a girl out for the ball.' She could not resist seeking out two of the eldest Gryffindor's. Their heated fight after the Yule ball was quickly becoming something of a legend at Hogwarts. She saw them exchange a brief glance. The girl looked at the boy in mild amusement, which turned into a shy smile when she met his confident stare. It emanated an unspoken implication that he would have asked her anyways. Barely two seats away from them, Potter and Ginny Weasley rolled their eyes.

'Entering the great hall in disguise,' she spoke, 'You will remain masked until such time that another masked student can positively identify you. Using an unmasking spell you shall be taught during charms, we shall see which students can remain unmasked the longest. The winner will be awarded one hundred house points for demonstrating excellent skill.'

This small detail caused an avalanche of discussion amongst the students. It took nearly five minutes for the hall to quiet down sufficiently for her to make the usual round of introductions of new staff members, and general notices.

'Let's dine!' she said, clapping her hands. Food appeared at all of the tables.

'Well spoken,' said professor Flitwick as she sat down again, 'I can already see some students's minds running overtime thinking of costume ideas.'

'I wonder who will surprise us most,' she replied, 'I'm quite sure more than one of them will be able to make themselves unrecognizable.'

Ronald Weasley was sitting in the common room, his heels resting comfortably on the table and his hands propped behind his head. He was lounging, and it infuriated her. Knowing full-well what admonishing his behaviour would accomplish (nothing), Hermione decided to change tactics.

'So, Ron,' she said, looking up from her Ancient Runes essay, 'Is your costume coming along nicely?'

Ron opened his eyes and looked at her. A slight smile played on his lips. 'I can't complain,' he said vaguely. Hermione had noticed that Ron spent even less time working on his costume as he had spent preparing for his N.E.W.T.s. Though his grades had been in a lift since fourth year (with the glaring exceptions of History of Magic and Divination), it had never seemed to Hermione that Ron had spent less time at school doing actual schoolwork.

'You still have not told us anything about it,' she said, hoping he would take the bite. He didn't.

'I plan to keep it that way. It would be a bit of a disappointment if I entered the Great Hall in a magnificent costume, only to be recognized by my costume itself.'

'But everyone has said something about their outfit. You don't have to be explicit. Just tell us something trivial or cryptic.'

Ron seemed to be mulling it over. Though the people around them seemed to be going on about their business, Hermione could tell everyone was listening in. Two fourth year Gryffindors were playing a game of wizarding chess, but neither had made a move in a while. Lavender (who's constant presence around Ron irritated Hermione to no end) had stopped talking with Parvati, and Harry's scribbling in his Defence notes had also come to an end. 'I guess I could tell you something. Something ridiculous.'

Hermione nodded, trying to keep her poker face in place.

Ron opened his mouth, but said nothing. Then, with a half-smile on his face, he closed his eyes and settled back into his chair.

'Y-You didn't say anything,' Hermione blurted out in frustration. She hated that Ron had not let anything go about his costume yet. She had made notes of every Gryffindor (and many of the other students she regularly spoke to), collecting anything about their costumes as possible. It was hard filtering out the lies from the truth.

'You're wrong,' Ron said, 'I did say something ridiculous.'

'No, you didn't!', she replied, a bit more furious than she had intended. The beginnings of a row were visible, even to her. She hated rowing with Ron. It had been fun once, an original dynamic between the two of them. She could easily tell the difference between actual rows (like the time when Crookshanks had been accused of Scabbers's murder, or right after the Yule Ball) and playful rowing about things neither of them really cared about. After a while though, somewhere at the start of their sixth year, Hermione had begun feeling rather miffed when they rowed.

Oddly enough, it had been a row between both of them that had caused Ron to break up with Lavender. Oh, how many times had she sworn that she was going to get over him during those horrible months? Not that it had mattered, she was only falling deeper and deeper in love with him. It had been four months at least until they had gotten back on speaking terms, and another two until Ron grudgingly admitted to be more than unhappy about his relationship with Lavender. He had described it was being in a relationship with the giant squid. In a rare private moment between him and her, Ron had admitted never having felt anything real for Lavender, and that he was sorry about hurting her feelings. She had come close to kissing him then, but he was still with Lavender, and she would not be the other woman, even if it felt the other way around to her.

'Are you going to tell me off for not studying, or what?' Ron asked irritably.

'Excuse me?' she said.

'That was the plan, right?' he continued, putting his feet on the ground and sitting up, 'Asking me about my costume, and then telling me off for not studying for my N.E.W.T.s enough?'

'What makes you think I was going to tell you off?' she replied hotly, knowing full well that he'd hit the nail on the head, 'It couldn't have just been friendly interest?'

'I know you better than that, Hermione.' Ron replied hotly, 'I saw your chastising looks right before you were suddenly interested in my costume. I heard you mutter and shake your head a minute earlier. Just because you spend all of your time studying, doesn't mean you get to take the fun out of other peoples's lives.'

'Take the fun out of other peoples's lives? Aren't you being a bit melodramatic?' she said fiercely, 'If you want to fail your N.E.W.T.s, that is your business, not mine.'

'Oh,' Ron said, getting up. His tall frame towered over her. 'So you assume I am going to fail? You assume I can't do things on my own, so you have to help me to keep me from failing? Well guess what, Hermione? I can do things on my own.'

His voice had been spiteful in the beginning, but it had ended with a heavy note of frustration. Hermione had learned to read Ron's emotions just as well as Ron had claimed to know her. His assumption that Hermione thought he was not going to pass his N.E.W.T.s stemmed from his long line of self-deprecation and lack of confidence. Ron was touchy about his abilities, which was why criticism fell hard on him, and compliments were met with unbridled enthusiasm. It was one of the reasons she had started to loath her arguments with him. She never intended to hurt him, but for some reason, Ron always found a way to make what she said into an attack at his person. All she wanted was to help him, why could he not see that?

Ron turned tail and stormed out of the portrait hole. It was after-hours, but as a prefect, Ron had the excuse of being on his rounds. She doubted if the teachers ever really bought his lie (rounds were scheduled and always involved both prefects of the same house), but they had never made a problem of it.

Ron had been out-of-bounds a lot lately. She had noticed it because she spent a more than healthy amount of time looking at him from behind her notes. Ron had been roaming the castle on and off almost the entire year. She had asked Harry for the Marauders Map to check up on him, but Harry had refused, claiming that Ron was a grown up, and could manage himself without her checking up on him. She more than suspected that Ron had instructed Harry about that line.

Sighing in frustration, she buried herself in her essay again. She would talk to him on their actual prefect rounds next Thursday. It had been the prefect rounds that had gotten them on speaking terms again last year. The regular long walks through the castle had thawed the icy stares and melted the steely resolve that had kept them at war for so long. They were still the highlights of her week, the three hours of (generally) uninterrupted private time between them allowing them to talk a little more freely than with Harry around.

Harry had been what had brought them together in their first year. Without him, she assumed Ron and her would have never been friends. Far from it. Ron had been insensitive and harsh to her up until the moment that troll tried to kill her. She assumed Ron would have started bullying her within a few months, had that never happened.

On the prefect rounds, Ron was different. Harry brought out different sides to Ron. Sides she had taken for granted until they had spent some time alone. The prefect rounds made her notice his kinder, softer side. He was gallant, for instance, opening doors for her, and holding the umbrella above her head, claiming it was too small for two and he didn't mind the rain. She was too pleased with it to suggest an enlargement charm. Ron was also freer. Harry brought out a side of Ron that was guarded. Having grown up in an environment filled with older brothers, Ron had learned to keep his thoughts to himself. He opened up slightly with just her around, though she doubted if he would ever be completely open to anybody. Ron would lapse into lengthy periods of silence, and then suddenly surprise her by telling her his opinion about something, or with a kind compliment he had not wanted to share with anyone else. He had even told her she had looked pretty one day, a few nights after he had broken up with Lavender. It still brought a little colour to her cheeks thinking about it.

'I'm going to bed,' she sighed, knowing she was not going to get any more work done this night, 'Good night everybody.' She picked up her stuff and walked up to the head girl chamber. Being head girl allowed her to have her own room (thankfully; she could no longer stand to be around Lavender too long any more) but really didn't mean much more than being a prefect. It was in rare occasions that she would be responsible for more than making an agenda for prefect meetings, or casting a deciding vote in case of a tie.

Ron left the common room and headed down to the third floor corridor. He had been visiting it often, and unlike what some people thought, had spent quite an amount of time on both his costume and his studies. He met none of the teachers on his way there, and though some of the portraits muttered angrily about a student out of bed, he paid them no mind. He opened the charms classroom at the end of the corridor, which held the Gryffindor costumes. Ron could see all of the small cubicles that had been erected to house the costumes of the students. The only cubicle he would be able to open was the third from right, at the fifth aisle; his own cubicle.

His costume was largely done. He had spent just a few minutes to gather the materials for his costume; those were common cloths and really not all that special. The magic he had used to complete his costume was a different story altogether. Ron had spent hours at the library (obviously after hours, he did not want any of his fellow students finding out about what he was looking up, especially not Hermione) looking up the required spellbooks. He had brought them with him to his cubicle, a stack of eighteen books, ranging from heavy tomes to thin instruction manuals. Some of the books were just studying material. Ron could focus on his N.E.W.T. preparations a lot easier out of the loud mess that was the Gryffindor common room. Hermione might think he was not studying, but he would show her.

On top of his charms spellbook, an archaic tome written in old English, lay his mask. It was his pride, the piece-de-resistance. It had started out as a simple paper pulp mask, but he had charmed it into something much more than that. It had taken some very advanced spellwork to make it do what it needed to do, but Ron had managed to complete it a few days ago. He was very tempted to try it on, but he didn't want to disturb the mask any more than was strictly necessary. He had transfigured it, fortified it, coloured it, expanded on it by adding details, and finally charmed it. Ron thought it was perfect now.

He looked at the rest of the outfit. He would have to sew up just a few more parts. The charmed mask would take care of most of the rest. Ron took out his wand and set the needle and thread to work as he took out his transfiguration homework. It was good that he had taken an hour of rest. He felt refreshed and ready to start working.