A/N This is for the Ever After challenge by Romi Lawliet. I hope I did okay :) PLEASE R&R!

Disclaimer: Though I wish it, Harry Potter will never belong to me.

The scrub brush made the worst sound as Ginny forced it to clean. She flicked her wand from side to side, making sure all areas of the floor were spotless. She would have silenced the brush, but she'd never been very good at that spell, so she didn't attempt it.

"Ginny!" a shrill voice called from upstairs. It was nasally and breathy, but Pansy didn't seem to care, or she would have asked Ginny to change it.

"What?" Ginny responded, giving up with the brush and sitting down on the couch, because Pansy and Millicent would just track up the floor when they came down anyway.

Pansy tried to glide down the stairs, but failed miserably when she tripped on the middle step. "You have to get to fixing that," Pansy said, and Ginny clenched her fists. She'd gotten to it yesterday, and last week, and the week before, but the other two girls were just so heavy, they broke the stair again and again.

"What did you want to ask me?" Ginny tried to control her breathing. This happened every day, and had been happening for three years, ever since her mother died in the Battle of Hogwarts. In an awful twist of events, her father's snake bite from Nagini had come back to haunt him, and he had died as well, leaving Ginny by herself. But that had been days after the Battle, so long ago. The closest relative willing to take her in had been Mrs. Parkinson, since her brothers hadn't heard the news until it was too late. Her location lost to the world, they hadn't come to rescue her. And since Millicent had nowhere to go, and was a close relative of Pansy, she'd come to stay with them, too.

Ginny was technically of age, but Mrs. Parkinson kept a close eye on her, and wouldn't let her leave the house. It wasn't really illegal, but how could she ever leave?

Pansy's mouth slid into a deep frown. She gestured to the skirt she was holding. "There's a huge stain on this thing," she said.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "How do you think it got there?"

"You sabotaged my only outfit for the ball! That's where the stain came from," Pansy said, her eyes narrowed.

"I've never touched that skirt," Ginny said. "You bought it yesterday."

"How would you know? That's a little suspicious."

"I carried the bags into the house," Ginny said, walking towards Pansy and grabbing the skirt from her. "But I'll wash this. Not like you can't do it yourself, though."

Pansy's jaw dropped. She ran back up the stairs. "Mum! Mum! Ginny's making fun of me!"

Ginny huffed, waved her wand, and cleaned the skirt. She sent it up to Pansy's room. Hopefully that Banshee wouldn't come down again until later, to leave for the ball. Oh, how Ginny wanted to go to the ball. It was in honor of Harry, and she hadn't been able to see him since the war. Not the happiest of memories.

Mrs. Parkinson came down in her own peculiar fashion, which was to levitate herself slightly off the ground so it looked like she was floating. To Ginny, it just looked like a gimmick. Which it was.

As Ginny opened her mouth to ask permission to go to the ball, Mrs. Parkinson fixed her with a horrible glare. Ginny knew she was only using Legiliimency, and looked away.

"Are you really considering going to the dance?" Mrs. Parkinson asked. She threw her head back and laughed. Ginny raised her eyebrows. Could that have been any more fake?

"Yes," she replied, throwing her shoulders back. "I think seeing Harry would be a good thing after not being around anyone for so long."

Mrs. Parkinson snorted. "Girls!" she called, turning back up the stairs. "Come down!" Immediately, the sound of disgruntled girls came from above, and Pansy and Millicent came down.

"What?" Millicent asked, tucking her wand away in her robe.

"What do you girls think? Should Ginny get to go to the ball to see her precious Harry again?" Mrs. Parkinson asked. Ginny could hardly believe her father had fallen for this frog. He'd always been opposed to people like this.

"Are you really asking us?" Pansy asked. "Or are you asking a rhetorical question?"

"You twit, she's asking us for real," Millicent said, punching Pansy in the arm. "You're such a daisy sometimes."

"Well, then, no, mother. Ginny made fun of me. She shouldn't get to go," Pansy said, smiling her little oily smile at her mom.

"She made fun of me, too," Millicent said.

"What? I haven't seen you-" Ginny started to say, but Mrs. Parkinson held up her hand.

"No, dear, you can't go," she said, turning to Ginny. "We're going to be late anyway, and you don't even have a dress. The house needs to be cleaned, too."

"It doesn't. I just finished," Ginny said. Mrs. Parkinson sighed loudly and made a huge twirly motion with her wand, which Ginny knew was entirely unnecessary. With a bang and a cloud of purple smoke, the floor was coated entirely with mud.

"Oh, I'm sorry, dearie," Mrs. Parkinson said, gasping and bringing her hand to her mouth like an innocent child. "I meant to make the walls sparkly. Oh, well. Guess you're going to have to stay here after all." She turned to the other girls and waved her wand at them. At once, they were perfectly dressed and made up. "Come, girls, or we'll be late."

And so they left, Pansy making a point to squeak her new shoes on the floor, sending pieces of mud flying to the walls. Ginny could feel her face heating up. She hadn't seen Harry forever, and who knew when there would be another opportunity to meet?

She had never been good with mass cleaning spells, but Ginny attempted one. It only made one spot clean. She huffed and stomped around the house. How was a nineteen-year-old girl supposed to sit around in a terribly boring house for hours, waiting for the terribly boring inhabitants to come back from a ball that she deserved to be at? It just wasn't fair.

Suddenly, a loud pop rang out in the room, and Hermione Granger appeared in an unusually poofy and pink outfit.

"Hermione!" Ginny said, and ran over to hug her friend. Hermione looked at her.

"What did Pansy do to you?" she asked.

"Not just Pansy. But they won't let me wear anything that looks better than them," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "And I can't even go the ball to see Harry."

"Oh, I know, don't worry," Hermione said. She waved her wand and the house instantly sparkled, it was so clean.

"Don't show off," Ginny said, but smiled.

"You can go to the ball, but make sure no one knows who you are," Hermione said. She waved her wand again, and Ginny's clothes changed to a long black dress, black high heels, and a black mask. "You're lucky it's a masquerade. Oh, wait, something's missing."

"How would you know anything about this?" Ginny asked. "You never liked show-offy clothes."

"Neither did you, and need I remind you who went to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum and who didn't?" she countered.

"Got me there," Ginny said.

"Oh, it's your hair. You can't just wear it down," Hermione said.

"Quite the fashion queen, aren't you?" Ginny asked.

"Shut up," Hermione said. "You'll thank me later." She flicked her wrist, and Ginny's hair pulled itself into a bun with two strands hanging on either side of her head, framing her face.

Ginny sighed. "I guess you aren't awful. Thanks."

"You're welcome! Just remember to be back by midnight, or Mrs. Parkinson will catch you," Hermione said.

"How would you know?"

"I have eyes everywhere," she said, smirked, and disappeared.

Well, Ginny thought, it's not every day you see Hermione in a pink dress.