Hermione Granger stared out the window of the Gryffindor common room, seated in her usual chair. It was a fairly gloomy day, and she hadn't seen Harry or Ron all day. She hadn't seen much of Harry or Ron, in a while actually, she thought. She felt bad that she had had to tell both of them no when they'd asked her to go to the Yule Ball. She smiled to herself. Viktor Krum would make a rather nice date, though. After all, it was their fault neither of them had asked her sooner. She hadn't told them yet, but now, she thought, she would keep it secret until the night of the Ball. Ron would probably have a heart attack when he found out and she knew Harry wouldn't be any less astonished. She giggled, thinking how handsome Viktor was, and how she would try hard not to laugh at the looks on her friends' faces when they saw her. She sauntered over to the fireplace, and waved her wand in spell, making a small mirror appear. She looked at her extremely unmanageable, bushy hair and thought how nice it would be to have it different for once. She had bought some Sleek-EZ hair gel at the advice of Ginny Weasley with some of her savings. When they tested it out together, it had worked perfectly, and Hermione was astounded at how beautiful her hair could look, when taken care of properly. Seeing as her parents were dentists, they had never had time to teach her about that sort of thing. Ginny, however was an undiscovered genious with cosmetics, it seemed and when Hermione asked her how she knew so much, Ginny had blushingly admitted that she had become interested in it because of her intense crush on Harry. She wanted him to think she was pretty, at that time, but now her crush wasn't quite so intense, seeing as she was older and more mature now, and had long since discovered that he didn't share her passion. At that moment, interrupting all of Hermione's thought, Fred and George burst through the door chasing after a barely visible, whirring speck in the air. Startled, Hermione stood up to get a better look and found that the speck, was indeed Pigwidgeon, Ron's small, but extremely hyper owl. "Say, you think you could help us there, Hermione?" asked Fred, panting. "Yes, we're having a bit of trouble it seems," George added. Hermione thought of the temporary sleeping spell she knew and pointed her wand at the tiny owl and muttered "Dormira!" The owl went limp at once and fell into Fred's outstretched hands. "Gee, thanks Hermione," said George, bending over to catch his breath. "Ron got mad at the poor little bugger and threw something at and it started going nutters, flying all over the place." "Yeah," said Fred. "Nearly lost him, we did! Flew all around the school before he finally came back in here. Ron's really got to learn to control his temper. He would have been gone forever." "That sounds like Ron," said Hermione, disapprovingly. "Say, who's this date, we've been hearing about?" teased George. "Please, do tell us!" said Fred. Hermione just shook her head and smiled.