"Protego!" I shouted as the silver jet of light came closer and closer. I closed my eyes and felt the spell hit my shield just in time. I sighed a little sigh of relief. "That was a bit strange Miss Granger. Your shield is strong and capable but you cast it a little too late."

"I have had some issues just yet. I was a tiny bit distracted." I admitted.

"Make sure you clear that mess up. You will need all of your focus in the coming semester." He warned and moved on. "What was that all about?" Ron asked as I took the seat behind him again. "Shush Ron, nothing serious. It's about the Draco thing."

"That makes it sound like you date him." Lavender said with an evil grin.

"Not helpful Lavender." I snapped at her.

"I know." She shrugged. "What is going on between you and Fred?" She asked, waggling her eyebrows at me. "Can you focus on class!" I whispered irritated.

"Not until you tell me every single detail of your love life!" She said, still cheerful.

"I will hex that grin of your face if you don't watch out!" I warned.

"Go ahead. I will find out myself if you don't tell me."

"Fine, I'll tell you if you survive class in case you promise to trust me and not stalk me."

"Deal!" Lavender said.

"Miss Brown. Can you please demonstrate your shield instead of talking. It distracts people."

"Sorry sir." Lavender said and walked to the cleared spot. He counted down and I saw her prepare. I have a lot of explaining to do after this. Professor Bleach cast the spell and Lavender blocked it. I saw she had trouble but she did fine. "Congratulations!" Everybody said and Lavender curtsied. Who would have thought her relationship with Ron would make her the most popular girl in Gryffindor? I know I wouldn't. They were the dream couple. He was the quidditch hero and she was the pretty blond to stand by his side. Perfect couple number two: Ginny and Harry. Harry is the captain of the team dating the hottest girl in Gryffindor. All the girls envy Ginny while all the guys envy Harry. I was the fifth wheel on the wagon. I don't think there is a possibility for perfect couple number three. Fred was popular in the old days but I am not pretty enough to make up the perfect picture. Fred didn't care though, he only cared about me. "Details, details!" Lavender said as she packed her bag, waking me from my thoughts. "Are you in a hurry?"

"I've got all the time in the world." Lavender said with a pretty little smile.

"I am going to the dance with Fred, end of story."

"That can't be all. When and where is he picking you up? Is he matching your outfit?"

"He doesn't even know what I'm wearing!" I said exasperated.

"Don't worry, I'll tell him."

"Stop try Lav, things are going fine without your help."

"That is it! I am going to kidnap you right now." She took my arm and dragged me to the common room, up the stairs and to our dorms. Lavender pushed me onto a chair and started rummaging in her suitcase. "Hair, eyes, face, heels and more." She murmured and when she walked up to me her hands were filled with beauty products. "I am going to use a lot of de-frizz, I think we should show the world how cute your curls are."

"Cute?" I asked disgusted.

"Cute, very cute even. You don't need a lot of make up, I think the basics will do. A bit of eyeliner, mascara and some rouge. I've got the perfect shoes and I have bought you the perfect necklace. It's my Christmas gift so open that one first tomorrow."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Right now? I am going to start with your hair. I've got some good stuff but it needs some time to take effect. I also needed to dig up my beauty products. Who knows how little time we have tomorrow." She shut up then and started putting some sort of oily liquid in my hair. I held still and let her do her thing, she would be happy about that. She back up and looked at me. "Now go to sleep, you can't have bags under your eyes tomorrow." I did as she said, arguing Lavender at times like these was completely useless.

I woke up the next morning and Lavender was watching me. "How much did you sleep?" I asked her, rubbing the last bits of sleep out of my eyes. "I slept as much as I needed to sleep. I've been sleeping ten hours the last few weeks so that I could be sure you opened my present first today."

"You are completely mental." I said and she shrugged happily. "Which one is yours?"

"The one with the pink ribbon."

"I might have known."

"You should have known." I ignored that and opened her gift. It was a necklace with earrings and a ring, all matching each other and the dress perfectly. "Thank you Lavender."

"Open Ron's gift next, it's the one with the blue ribbon." I opened said gift, it was a bracelet that matched Lavenders gifts. "We coordinated." Lavender said. "Actually, I coordinated Ron." She looked a little smug about that. We opened the rest of the gifts. There was a tiny little box from Fred. Lavender was looking over my shoulder as I tore the paper off. Inside, a little box with rose petals and a note inside it. 'The rest is for tonight.' I smiled. Typically Fred, wanting to see my face when I opened his present. "That is not fair. I am going to take vengeance." Lavender said. "How?" I asked, getting a little scared now. "I will make him fall over backwards by the looks of you. I will make you so beautiful he can't even remember his own name."

"Ok." I said, backing up a little. "Take a shower. You need to wash the stuff out so I can work on it." I did as she said and tried to delay. I knew I couldn't make it too long but I was lucky. Ron had chosen to send me an owl and Pig arrived when I was in the bathroom. I quickly read the note. 'Hermione, help me! Mom has found dress robes even worse than those of the Yule ball. Can you please fix me up some better looking ones? Yours in haste, Ron.' I looked around for a quill but found nothing. I took Lavenders lipstick and wrote a short note back. 'Save me from Lavender and I'll personally go to Hogsmead to buy you a new one. FYI I wrote this with lipstick because I had to lock myself in the bathroom to escape your fashion greedy girlfriend. Hermione.' I quickly gave the note to Pig and watched him fly off. In no time at all the note was back telling me he couldn't stop Lavender, even if he wanted to. I sighed and went out the bathroom to face my doom. Lavender was a bit grumpy because I had made her wait so long but she didn't even take the time to bug me about it. She started dressing my hair (two hours), after that she did make-up (three hours), next was the dress (Like I can't dress myself, only ten minutes), the jewels came after that (another hour, that girl is way to thorough, can take fifteen minutes to decide the bracelet should be on my left arm) and last were the shoes. It took her half an hour to decide that she was going to make me walk on high heels, another half hour to convince me I should walk on them and ten minutes to put them on exactly right. She polished my nails in a quarter (excluding the it took her to pick the color) and at long last I was done. I looked at myself in the mirror. "He won't know it's me."

"He will love it."

"He won't know it's me."

"He will, don't worry. You look absolutely gorgeous by the way."

"How much time do you have?"

"I'm nearly done." She said. She had managed to get her dress on, pick her jewels and shoes and polish her nails in a stunning hour. She was putting the finishing touches on her make-up now. "Why is it my looks took twenty times as long?"

"Because my looks were ready at the beginning of the school year. I knew I'd have to work on you today so I already planned my outfit out." She said with a little smile. "You prepare yourself way too good."

"I've known you longer than today." She said with a smug little smile. "The boy are expecting us by now. Let's blow them off their feet." I took a deep breath as she opened the door to the common room.

As soon as Ron saw Lavender his mouth fell open, when he saw me, his eyes started bulging out. "What did you do?" He asked Lavender with admiration. "I just improved her love." She said, starting a heavy kiss. Harry rolled his eyes and took a good look at me. "You look nice." He said, motioning to my outfit. "Thank you." I said, trying to hide a smile. "You look nice too." He glanced over my shoulder. "Seen Ginny?" He asked. "She should be here any moment." I said. "We'll see you downstairs." Lavender said to Harry and started dragging me towards the exit of the common room. "What?" I asked. "Fred is waiting downstairs you silly." She whispered in my ear. I walked along obediently then, wanting to see him. I saw Fred standing there, waiting, looking completely at ease. Lavender pushed me behind a wall. "Here is how we are going to do this. I am going down with Ron, telling Fred you will be there any moment. Ron will ask him how things are running at the joke shop after a while and that is when you come down."

"And why at that moment?"

"Because he needs to be able to fall silent. His mouth will hang open. Trust me." With that she walked away with Ron, who shot me an apologetic look. I heard her rambling a bit downstairs, Fred sounded irritated when Lavender told him nothing when he asked how I looked. I giggled. "So, how are things going with the shop?" Ron asked. I took a deep breath and stepped around the corner, walking down the stairs. "Business is good. The products are selling better than…" His mouth dropped open and he stared. He shook his head to gain his composure and I smiled at him. "Gorgeous." He said, offering his arm to me. I took it and winked at Lavender. She winked back and we entered the great hall. It was amazing. The entire floor was covered with snow that wouldn't melt, icicles hung from the ceiling and the trees were perfectly decorated. "It's beautiful." I stammered. "Yes you are." Fred said.

"Are you in a cheesy mood Mr. Weasley?"

"I'm as cheesy as I want to be. Which is even worse if you know I meant it." He got red and I blushed. "Why the red tie?" I asked him, staring at the floor.

"Lavender." He said.

"Makes perfect sense." I said and we both laughed. Dumbledore stepped up and started speaking. "Welcome students and visitors." He said, winking at Fred. "Tonight is a night unlike any other night. The day of giving and taking, of love and forgiveness, but above all a day to celebrate the union that is between us. We start out with a song for the lovers amongst us." He signaled to the dance floor and a soft sweet number started playing. Fred took me in his arms and we danced to the music. "You are without doubt the most magnificent person I've ever met." Fred whispered in my ear. "And you have to be the most cheesy." I teased.

"Come night, give me my Hermione and, when she shall die, take her and cut her out in little stars and she will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."

"Since when do you quote Shakespeare?"

"Since I am cheesy tonight and you are the most beautiful person I've ever seen."

"Lavender did that."

"You cannot make ugly things beautiful. You already were the fairest in my eyes before Lavender put her touch upon you."

"You speak strange."

"I am surprised with myself. I expected myself to be babbling but I'm holding my mind quite easily despite the desires that try to consume me." A evil little grin spread across my face and I moved closer to him. "What did Romeo say when he first saw Juliet?" I could feel Fred's breathing getting slightly less controlled. "Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear its sight. For I never saw true beauty 'til this night." He looked in my eyes as he said that. My heart started beating faster and my breath came out slightly uneven. "You really are a strange person." I said, trying to lift a little of the tension. He smiled and it got even worse. I hadn't noticed how close we were before and in our little conversation we had gotten even closer. I stared up into those eyes, his eyes and they did not hide his feelings. My heart raced as he moved closer and closer, the kiss we had both longed for all this time was about to happen. I closed my eyes, slowly moving closer, waiting for our lips to meet…