The Princess and the Jester
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. That is solely the privilege of JKR.
Ron was such an arse! This was to be one of the best nights of my life and he just had to go and ruin it. I spent hours getting ready: finding the perfect dress, curling my hair, applying just the right amount of make-up. Then deciding I hated all of it and starting again. It had taken me three tries, lots of magical hairspray, and some help from my bunkmates to make my final look perfect. But all that time had definitely been worth it. I felt like a princess.
Walking down the steps to meet Viktor was incredibly intimidating. I knew that no one at Hogwarts had ever seen me like this. Intelligence was much more important to me than style, so I used all of my time to study. But that didn't mean that I had never experimented with my looks. Every summer when I went home, my parents forced me to go to their annual staff retreat for their dentistry office. Because I wanted to give their coworkers a good impression of a normal teenage girl, I always made an effort to dress-up a little and work a bit harder on my looks. Since none of them know that I am a witch, this had never seemed out of the ordinary. The other girls my age, daughters of co-workers, were always happy to give me tips or to try out new styles on my crazy mane of hair. Now, it turns out, all that experimentation had finally paid off.
Viktor actually cracked a smile when I walked down the stairs, one of the few I had ever seen him give. At first I was so focused on him that I didn't notice the other students looking at me. Once I took his arm, I started to hear the whispers and see the darting glances, and in some cases, outright stares. At first, I thought I had horribly messed up my hair or make-up somehow in the walk down from the tower. But then I heard what people were saying. Nobody could believe that it was me. They didn't believe that plain Hermione Granger was the princess walking into the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum.
We started the ball with a waltz. Viktor and I were perfectly in sync, just as we had practiced. As we moved around the ballroom floor, I saw Harry and his partner struggling a bit. Harry especially appeared to be confused. While Viktor and I seemed to float across the floor like fairies, they stumbled around like trolls. But I paid them little attention as Viktor swung me high into the air. After another two hours or so of dancing, many of the professors and younger students had left, leaving only the older teenagers with the band that had been brought in. Our dancing continued, but this time with less complicated footwork and a lot more jumping. This was what I had imagined secondary school dances to be like in the muggle world: loud music, laughter, and crazy dancing. I may be at Hogwarts now, but that doesn't mean I never wondered what going through muggle school might have been like.
After a particularly upbeat song, Viktor saw that I needed to rest for a moment. He offered to get me a drink as I sat down next to Harry and Ron. They didn't seem to be having nearly as much as I was, and the Patil sisters looked bored out of their minds.
"Viktor has gone to get us drinks. Would you like to join us?" I asked. The Patils looked at me hopefully, probably hoping for a chance to escape whatever boredom Ron and Harry had cooked up, with the added bonus of getting to talk personally with an international Quidditch star.
"No, we don't want to join you and Viktor," Ron said mockingly.
"Why not? Aren't you thirsty?"
"He's just using you to mess with Harry," Ron snapped.
"Ron, I don't think…" Harry began to say, but he was quickly interrupted by his ginger friend.
" 'Course he is!" Came the indignant reply, followed by a glare directed at me. "Why else would he have asked Hermione to the Yule Ball?"
"Well next time," I almost yelled in this face, "Ask me earlier and not as a last resort!" I would have given anything to already have a drink in my hand. It would have immediately been thrown in his face. I had seen that in movies and had secretly always wanted to try it. Instead, I settled for storming out of the ballroom in a barely concealed run. In my blind haste to leave, I bumped into Viktor as he came back with our drinks, narrowly avoiding spilling the red punch onto my beautiful pink dress.
"Are you ok?" he asked, his voice thick with concern.
"Yes, but I am not feeling very well. I think I am going to turn in for the night."
"Are you sure? Would you like me to escort you back to your rooms?"
"Thank you, but I will be ok. I wouldn't want to ruin the ball for you to. Why don't you stay and dance some more? I am sure there are plenty of girls who would love to dance with the famous Viktor Krum."
He grimaced slightly and sighed at my words. "If you insist, then I will stay. Have a good night Hermione."
"Thank you," I managed to get out before I continued out of the ballroom.
I had made it out of the ballroom and halfway up the stairs before I collapsed. I sat in the shadows by the edge of the staircase and cried silently to myself. How could he have done that? How could Ron have ruined my perfect night in only a few minutes? And Harry had done nothing! My two best friends in the entire world had just betrayed me.
I lost track of time as I sat and cried, thinking about how my perfect night could have ruined. With my head burrowed in my arms, I didn't see someone come up behind me.
"Hermione? Are you alright?" I heard a deep voice ask as a hand lightly touched my shoulder. I turned my tear stained face toward the voice and saw Fred Weasley.
"Yes, of course," I lied as I attempted to discreetly wipe my nose and cheeks. "I would be much better if it weren't for your arse of a brother."
"Since you said brother, I know you don't mean me. I know you didn't talk to George tonight, so he's out. Percy is an arse, but I can't imagine that he did anything bad enough to make you cry. And you've never even met Bill or Charlie. And Ginny isn't really my 'brother'. So that just leaves Ron, who definitely falls under the category of arse."
I smiled faintly as he narrowed down his list of siblings. I nodded as he finally reached the most problematic. Fred simply shook his head and made sympathetic noises. "Well now, we can't have Ron upsetting the most beautiful girl at the Yule Ball tonight! I am making you a personal promise that Ron will be punished for his poor decisions. Since you often disapprove of mine and Georgie's methods, I will decline to tell you when his punishment will occur, but I guarantee that you will know it when you see it."
I laughed a little at that statement, but my small smile soon disappeared. I could tell Fred was disappointed that his joke had not made my frown disappear for more than a moment. He sat down next to me on the steps.
"Do you wanna tell me what happened?" Fred asked quietly, almost as if he regretted even asking. I considered telling him that it was nothing, but knew that he would never believe me. He had seen me face some awful things throughout the past three and a half years without crying, so he knew how upset I was at this moment.
"He accused me of betraying Harry," I began slowly. "He said that Viktor only asked me to go the Yule Ball with him to get an advantage over Harry in the Triwizard Tournament. But I would never do that! I would never hurt Harry or his chances of winning!" I continued in a whisper, trying not to sound ashamed, "I was just happy that someone asked me."
As I started to tear up again, Fred pulled me into his shoulder. That broke the dam and the tears began flowing again. "Shhh. It's ok. Let it out, sweetheart. Look, anyone who really knows you, knows that you would never betray Harry. Just look at how much you have helped him already this year. From what I hear, Harry and Ron wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for you." He starting rubbing my back as I kept crying into his shirt. "Just let it all out, Hermione."
He sat in silence as I let out the rest of my tears. The only sound was my ragged breathing. After about ten minutes, I began to calm down. I continued to lean on Fred, but my tears had stopped.
"Thank you," I said.
He smiled down at me. "You're thanking me? I should be thanking you! I've needed to wash this robe for a while now. Now all I have to do is let it dry!"
The loud sound of my laughter surprised both of us after so much quiet. Every time my laughter would start to fade, I would look at Fred and his soaked robe and start to laugh once more. This time when water started to leak from my eyes, they were happy tears.
"This is the only type of crying I want to see you doing from now on," Fred said sternly, a frown on his face. I just giggled.
Fred unfolded his long, gangly legs and stood up. "May I escort you back to your tower, my princess?" He asked as he extending his arm.
"Of course," I answered. "But is it appropriate for the court jester to accompany a princess?"
"But of course! Who is better equipped to fight off villains with their wit than the jester?"
As we began slowly climb the stairs, arm in arm, Fred looked at me.
"You know, that jester thing was pretty good. There may be hope for you yet in the comedy world."
We continued in amicable silence the rest of the way to the tower.
"Coming back late from the ball are we?" the Fat Lady exclaimed. "You might just be the last ones into the tower tonight! What on Earth have you two been doing?"
"Humbug," Fred said, deliberately ignoring the question the portrait posed. He helped me into the common room. We walked over to the staircases separating the boys and girls dorms, before turning to look at each other once more.
"Thanks for tonight," I said, "Thank you for everything."
"It was my pleasure. Good night, my beautiful princess."
"Good night my jester."