Harry had just returned to the castle from a brutal Quidditch practice. He was soaked to the bone and so cold that he didn't even care that he was leaving muddy tracks throughout the castle. 'It was pointless,' he thought to himself as he trudged up the long staircases to Gryffindor Tower, 'completely pointless.' Due to the Triwizard Tournament, all Quidditch matches for the year had been cancelled. However, the Gryffindor team captain, Oliver Wood, had insisted that the returning members of the old team keep practicing. 'Won't have you lot falling out of shape over this year,' had been his exact words. This was Oliver Wood, so Harry should have guessed that this would include flying laps around the pitch in freezing rain after dinner.
When he finally reached Gryffindor Tower, he found the Fat Lady leaning against a marble pillar in her portrait, snoring softly. "Fairy lights," he said dully. The Fat Lady jolted awake, looked around, and saw Harry.
"You had to wake me up, did you?" Harry stared at her. "Oh, alright, then." The portrait swung forward and Harry climbed through the portrait hole.
The Gryffindor common room was empty except for a few people. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were sitting in the corner comparing notes, and Hermione and Ginny were on a couch by the fire finishing homework. Harry desperately wanted to sit down next to them, but Hermione wrinkled her nose disgustedly as he approached them, reminding Harry of his muddy, soggy state. She pointed to the stairs of the boys' dormitory, and Harry obeyed her unspoken command, plodding up the winding staircase.
After taking a long, hot shower, Harry flopped down onto his four-poster bed. As he lied there, his mind wandered to the Triwizard Tournament. After the First Task, Harry had expected the majority of the gossip being spread about him to stop, but it hadn't. If anything, it had gotten worse. Rita Skeeter had taken to interviewing as many spectators of the First Task as she could find, pestering all of them for their opinions about Harry's performance. To add to this, Snape seemed to be taking every possible opportunity to torment Harry over all the articles in the Daily Prophet and magazines like Witch Weekly. Harry had never expected Snape to be friendly to him, but it was becoming very difficult to ignore Snape's snide comments about how he must be enjoying so much publicity.
Harry had no doubt that after the Second Task, Rita Skeeter would have her hands full of all sorts of juicy news about Harry - it was much easier to interview students and teachers under the pretense of gathering information about the Triwizard Tournament. Harry could already picture the headline the day after the Second Task: Underage Triwizard Champion Forfeits Tournament After Failing to Complete Second Task. At this thought, a new wave of stress came over Harry. He still hadn't worked out the clue to the egg. He had told Hermione that he was almost done working it out, simply to stop her badgering, but he still could not discern anything more from the egg's wailing than when he had first opened it. His closest guess was Seamus Finnegan's comment that it sounded like the wail of a banshee. Harry didn't know much about banshees, but he assumed that it meant he would die, which offered little help.
His mind eventually wandered back to the common room, where Hermione was probably still doing homework with Ginny. He groaned as he remembered that he still had a Transfiguration essay to complete. Would it be worth it to simply not hand it in? Harry imagined what Hermione's reaction would be if he tried to explain why he had deliberately not done his homework. He slouched off his bed and made his way down to the common room.
When Harry arrived in the common room, Hermione was no longer sitting on the couch. Harry was disappointed, since he would have loved her advice on his essay, but he was grateful to have such a good seat by the fire. Harry sat down on the couch next to Ginny, who was staring at her copy of Magical Theory. Harry whipped out A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, in which he had stashed his notes and his essay. He pulled out a quill and scanned the section on Switching vertebrates to invertebrates. He found a few points that looked helpful, so he underlined them in his notes and wrote them down in his essay.
Harry worked for a few more minutes before he felt a pair of eyes watching him. He looked around and saw that Ginny had given up studying; she was now staring into the fire pensively. Harry felt awkward that he hadn't even said hello, and he thought it would be proper to make some form of conversation.
"Erm, hello Ginny," he said. 'Very suave, Harry. Very suave,' he thought to himself.
"Hi," Ginny said in a glum voice. She didn't say anything else, though. Annoyed at the silence, Harry tried again. "So, how's your year been going?"
"Oh, very well," Ginny said, "It's all been very exciting, with the… with the whole Tournament going on… and everything." Ginny's lips pursed, as if rebuking herself for bringing up the Tournament around Harry. "But, I mean, school's been going fine."
"Are you going home for Christmas?" Harry asked, casting around for some way to keep the conversation going.
"Oh, I think so," Ginny said mournfully, "It'll be lonely, though. Bill couldn't get away from work, and Charlie's still busy with transporting the dragons, so I guess it'll be just me, Percy, and Mum and Dad. Ron and the twins are staying," she added, "to go to the Ball."
This reminded Harry of another thing he had neglected to do. As a school champion, he had to bring a partner to the Yule Ball. Harry had become fairly popular with the girls at Hogwarts, but he was having difficulty finding someone he would like to go to the Ball with.
Ginny had gone back to staring at the fire. Harry could feel a lot of tension in the air, and he had a nagging feeling that he and Ginny were both thinking the same thing. Ginny did seem very put out that she wouldn't be staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. Hoping to phrase this the best that he could, Harry cleared his throat and said, "Well, if you wanted to, you could, well… it would be great if you, uh…" This was not going according to plan. Ginny was looking at Harry expectantly, waiting for him to finish his sentence. Harry swallowed. "Do you want to go to the Ball with me?" he asked.
Ginny's face lit up immediately. "Go to the Ball? Yeah, sure," she smiled, "That would be… that would be brilliant."
"Okay," said Harry, immensely relieved, "So, um, yeah. Alright."
"Alright," Ginny nodded at him, still grinning.
Feeling very pleased with himself, Harry turned back to his Transfiguration notes and resumed writing his essay.
Reviews are helpful, let me know if you want me to write a second chapter about the Ball.