I was working away in the library. I had an absolute monster of a paper that I had to finish tonight for History of Magic. No matter how many revisions I made, it still needed work. Luckily, I was in a little nook in the corner of the library where no one would bother me. Everyone seemed to be so concerned with the festivities associated with the Triwizard tournament that quality of schoolwork seemed to be lacking. And all this Yule Ball buzz was infuriating. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to go to such a thing. Sounded like a waste of time to me.

"Boo!" Someone shouted. I jumped about three feet in the air and heard laughter coming from behind me.

"Fred! Don't do that to me! This is a library anyway. You aren't supposed to be yelling. There are people studying."

"Yeesh, sorry. You have to admit it was kind of funny. And besides, you're the only person here. So I'm not bothering anyone."

"Except for me."

"I'm bothering you? Wow, _, that's rough. That hurts."

"Just shut up and sit down," I said pulling out a chair for him to sit in. He followed my instructions and slumped down next to me.

"So, what are we working on here?"

"History of Magic essay."

"I thought you finished that a week ago!"

"Well I did, but I needed to revise it."

"Are you serious? That essay was perfectly good. Even Hermione thought it was brilliant."

"No, it wasn't good enough."

"_, stop," Fred said. He put his hand on mine to stop me from writing. "You need to take a break from school work. Teachers aren't even expecting assignments to be turned in with all the Triwizard stuff going on. Take advantage of it."

"I don't believe that," I said.

"Nope. You're done working for today. We're hanging out. Let's go, pack it up." I don't know why but I found myself listening to him, but I did as he requested.

"Atta girl. Come on let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

We walked around the castle and eventually we reached the Black Lake. It was beautiful at night and had froze over due to the winter weather.

"Wow, this is actually beautiful," I sighed. Fred smiled at me and said, "I'm glad you like it. Now here comes the good part." He handed me a pair of white ice skates and I realized what we were about to do.

"Oh no. Ohhhh no. Fred, this is not safe!"

"Come on _. Take a little risk. It's fun. Besides, would I let anything bad happen to you?" The look in his eyes told me he was being genuine. And I did trust him. I put the skates on and magically tied them up with my wand. Fred took my hand and we hobbled over to the lake. He stepped onto the ice first, and assured me it was frozen solid. Then he helped me on and we glided a little bit. I learned how to skate when I was a young child, but it had been ages since I'd been on the ice. It didn't take me long to figure out how to balance myself and soon enough I was gliding and actually enjoying myself. Fred was showing off by circling me and essentially mocking me, but it was all in good fun.

"_, come here!" he said, calling me over. I skated over to him and he said, "I want to try something."

He stood next to me, took one my hands and told me to try and skate backwards. I tried my best and for a minute, we probably looked really good. Professional almost. Then all of the sudden one of us lost our balance and both of us toppled over. Falling always hurts but this time it was less painful. We both erupted with laughter, the kind that's unexplainable. After several minutes both of us started to calm down. I noticed Fred was just looking at me with interest. Suddenly he put his icy hand under my chin and moved in to kiss me. It was the first time we'd kissed since the Hogsmeade excursion. I think Fred picked up on the fact that I didn't want to move into anything too fast.

"_, can I ask you something?" he stated, seriously.

"Sure, anything."

"Will you go to the Yule Ball with me?" I was a little stunned. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't planning on attending but now that I had a date, maybe it would actually be fun.

"I'd like that," I said simply. He smiled a silly grin and helped me up off the ice. We eventually finished skating and he walked me to the Ravenclaw tower. I hugged him goodbye and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. At that moment I was happy that I had stopped working on my paper and had a nice relaxing night.

I didn't expect myself to get so excited for the ball. The days leading up to it were so long and I just wanted the special day to arrive. I managed to find myself a simple, yet elegant dress for a decent price and after I got that, everything else kind of fell into place somehow ( yule_ball_with_fred_weasley/set?id=68859027). I fixed my hair one of the only ways I knew how: half up half down. But to make it a little nicer I curled my hair ever so slightly and went for a bit of the poof effect on the top. Fred arrived right on time to pick me up and he complimented me endlessly. Dressing up was more fun than I realized. It made me want to start dressing a little nicer on a daily basis.

We arrived to the actual ball and I was amazed at how beautiful everything was. A lot of people complimented me and it was definitely an ego boost. Fred's brother George seemed to be missing again, which I sensed was becoming a regular thing. We watched the champions process in and the dancing began soon after.

It was then that I had the realization that I didn't really know how to dance. It was too late though; Fred was already dragging me onto the dance floor. I can imagine the panicked look on my face was terrifying but Fred didn't seem too horrified.

"Something wrong?" he asked calmly.

"It's just, I don't really know how to dance."

"Sure you do. It's just like ice skating," he smiled. When he put it like that, it made sense. I kind of figured out how to move in time with the music and soon enough I loved dancing. Especially with Fred.