Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place seemed quiet to Ron without Harry and Hermione there. Cleaning, though he didn't do this as often as last summer since the house was almost completely hospitable anyway, was boring with only his mother and sister to help him, and the whole place had a dark and depressed feeling about it now that Sirius was dead. If this year was like last summer, Hermione would be arriving by now, but things were different. Hermione was visiting Krum in Bulgaria and wouldn't be here until much later in the summer. After Harry came, which would be in a few more weeks still, life would still be sad and tiresome since Harry would be feeling horrible about Sirius and would want to be alone with himself. So Ron lay alone and restless on his back, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom from his place on his bed with his feet on his pillow and his head where his feet should be.

With nothing to do but let his mind wander, Ron began to think about Hermione and the day he first saw her in the strange new light he always thought of her in nowadays.

The portrait to the common room swung open and Harry came in, dragging his feet and examining the floor. Personally, Ron was feeling very sick, but he looked up from Ginny, who was trying to sooth him, to see Harry walking in.

"What's up, Ron?" said Harry, joining him and Ginny and seeing the look of blind horror on Ron's face.

"Why did I do it?" Ron said wildly. "I don't know what made me do it!"

"What?" said Harry. Ron tried to find words to describe the feeling of horror inside him of what he had just done, but before he could do so, Ginny had begun to speak instead.

"He—er—just asked Fleur Delacour to go to the ball with him."

"You what?" said Harry.

"I don't know what made me do it!" Ron gasped again. "What was I playing at? There were people—all around—I've gone mad—everyone watching! I was just walking past her in the entrance hall—she was standing there talking to Diggory—and it sort of came over me—and I asked her!"

Ron moaned and put his face in his hands, continuing to tell Harry the whole story, and half-hiding his words with his hands so that they were barely distinguishable.

"She looked at me like I was a sea slug or something. Didn't even answer. And then—I dunno—I just sort of came to my senses and ran for it."

"She's part veela," said Harry. "You were right—her grandmother was one. It wasn't your fault, I bet you just walked past when she was turning on the old charm for Diggory and got a blast of it—but she was wasting her time. He's going with Cho Chang."

Ron looked up, feeling both surprised at this news and slightly less sick at the fact that Fleur was part veela.

"I asked her to go with me just now," said Harry dully in answer to Ron's questioning look, "and she told me."

Ginny had suddenly stopped smiling.

"This is mad," said Ron. "We're the only ones left who haven't got anyone—well, except Neville. Hey—guess who he asked? Hermione!"

"What?" said Harry.

"Yeah, I know!" said Ron, some of the color coming back into his face as he started to laugh. "He told me after Potions! Said she's always been really nice, helping him out with work and stuff—but she told him she was already going with someone. Ha! As if! She just didn't want to go with Neville … I mean, who would?"

"Don't!" said Ginny, annoyed. "Don't laugh—"

Just then Hermione climbed through the portrait hole.

"Why weren't you two at dinner?" she said, coming over to join them.

"Because—oh shut up laughing, you two—because they've both just been turned down by girls they asked to the ball!" said Ginny.

That shut Harry and Ron up.

"Thanks a bunch, Ginny," said Ron sourly. For some reason he didn't really want Hermione knowing about his encounter with Fleur.

"All the good-looking ones taken, Ron?" said Hermione loftily. "Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she? Well I'm sure you'll find someone somewhere who'll have you."

But Ron was not listening to a word Hermione was saying. He had suddenly begun to see her—everything about her—very clearly and in perfect detail: the way her hair fell around her face, how she could look angry and amused at the same time, and how he suddenly noticed her pretty teeth that were now so perfectly straight behind her smiling mouth. Before he could stop himself, he had said, almost in awe, "Hermione, Neville's right—you are a girl…."

"Oh well spotted," she said acidly.

"Well—you can come with one of us!" he continued, still not completely aware of what he was saying. Strangely enough, however, he was dimly attentive of the fact that he wanted to say "with me" but had actually said "with one of us."

"No, I can't," snapped Hermione.

"Oh come on," he said, impatiently now since she was obviously not catching on to the fact that he wanted her to go with him, "we need partners," there it was again, the "we" instead of the "I," "we're going to look really stupid if we haven't got any, everyone else has …"

"I can't come with you," said Hermione, now blushing, "because I'm already going with someone."

"No, you're not!" said Ron. Now he was mad—did she dislike him so much that she would say the same lie to him that she had said to Neville? Suddenly he felt very self-conscious. "You just said that to get rid of Neville!"

"Oh did I?" said Hermione, and her eyes flashed dangerously. "Just because it's taken you three years to notice, Ron, doesn't mean no one else has spotted I'm a girl!"

Ron stared at her. Then he grinned again. She was just being sour because he had never seen her like this before—she really did want to go with him.

"Okay, okay, we know you're a girl," he said. "That do? Will you come now?"

"I've already told you!" Hermione said very angrily. "I'm going with someone else!"

And she stormed off toward the girls' dormitories again.

"She's lying," said Ron flatly, watching her go.

"She's not," said Ginny quietly.

"Who is it then?" said Ron sharply, suddenly mad again.

"I'm not telling you, it's her business," said Ginny.

"Right," said Ron, feeling very put out, "this is getting stupid. Ginny you can go with Harry, and I'll just—"

"I can't," said Ginny, and she went scarlet too. "I'm going with—with Neville. He asked me when Hermione said no, and I thought … well … I'm not going to be able to go otherwise, I'm not in fourth year." She looked extremely miserable. "I think I'll go and have dinner," she said, and she got up and walked off to the portrait hole, her head bowed.

Ron goggled at Harry.

"What's gotten into them?" he demanded, furious that both his sister and Hermione had ditched him for someone else.