On the evening of the twenty-third of December Ginny sat alone in the Gryffindor common room, catching up on her homework. After she'd been sitting there for an hour, working her way through a long list of hexes for Professor Moody and describing their effects in detail, she heard somebody sit down across from her.
"Hi Ginny," she heard, and when she looked up she saw the thoughtful face of Hermione looking at her.
"Oh, hi, Hermione," Ginny said, setting her quill down on the wooden desk.
"Is everything alright?" Hermione asked in a concerned tone of voice. "You seem to have been rather down in the dumps over the last couple of weeks."
Ginny sighed. "I just hoped Harry would have asked me to the Yule Ball by now. It's the day after tomorrow and he'll almost certainly already have a date. I heard a rumour about him asking Cho Chang, and she probably said yes." Hermione understood.
"You know, Ginny," she said. "I actually don't know what Harry's doing in terms of having a date, but if you don't find somebody else to take you, you won't get to go. You're only in the third year. Has nobody asked you?"
"Yeah, that Michael Corner from Ravenclaw asked me last week," Ginny said. "I turned him down though, I wasn't really interested."
"That's the problem, Ginny," Hermione pointed out. "You're openly infatuated with Harry to the point of rejecting people because they're not him, and you still can't look him in the face for longer than about a second. If you were to relax a bit around him, be yourself, he might show more interest. I've seen you when he's not around, you're a fun person, you just need to show Harry that you are."
"You may have a point," Ginny said. "What would you say the best thing to do now would be?"
"Well, if I were you I'd try to find a date for the Yule Ball," Hermione said. "It definitely wouldn't hurt for Harry to see you all done up. Also, if you were to go out with somebody else, it wouldn't exactly be sending Harry the message of 'I am a stalker', if you see my point."
Ginny laughed. "I see it. You know, you're actually making me slightly regret turning Michael down. He's no Harry, obviously, but he's not exactly unpleasant to look at." Hermione giggled, something which Ginny doubted many people had seen. Well, Hermione was allowed to be in a giggly mood, she'd been invited to the Yule Ball by a world-famous Quidditch player.
"That's the spirit!" Hermione said, grinning at Ginny.
At that moment, the portrait to the common room swung open and Neville Longbottom walked in, clutching Trevor the toad. He looked around the room, waved at the girls and walked over to them.
"Hermione," he said, sitting down at the table. "Seeing as the Yule Ball is the day after tomorrow, would you like to go with me? As friends, of course," he clarified, smiling at her.
"I'm sorry Neville, I've actually already agreed to go with somebody else," Hermione responded, winking at Ginny.
"That's okay, I understand," Neville said. Hermione started nodding at Ginny and making frantic arm gestures behind Neville's back.
Ginny caught on. "Neville, if you need somebody to go with I'd be glad to accompany you, as a friend." Hermione gave her a thumbs up.
"Really, you will?" Neville asked, sounding genuinely happy. "Thanks Ginny! Well, I have to go and feed Trevor now, so I'll see you at the Ball, yeah?" Ginny nodded.
"See you then!" she said, as he stood up and walked over to the spiral staircase, before disappearing around the corner.
"Great!" exclaimed Hermione. "Obviously, you don't have to make Neville your boyfriend or anything, but if opportunities to go to Balls come up, take them!"
"Thank you, Hermione," Ginny said, packing up her parchment. "On the subject of advice, do you mind helping me with this Defence Against the Dark Arts work Moody set our class? I don't really understand the difference between Stupefy and Petrificus Totalus."
"Certainly," said Hermione, as she too pored over the seemingly endless list.
It was going to be a long night, Ginny thought. At least Hermione knows what she's talking about.
Author's notes: I don't think anything in this contradicts the canon, but I apologise for any minor discrepancies that may occur (for example the precise date - I was guessing, I actually think this probably would have happened a couple of days earlier) but I couldn't cross-reference with the book as I seem to have misplaced it (HOW I am not sure as the thing's basically the size of my house) but I have done my best. I hope you enjoyed this. :)