"Bataskill! Potter! Will you pay attention?"
Professor McGonagall's irritated voice cracked like a whip through the Transfiguration class on Thursday, and Christina and Harry and Ron both jumped and looked up. It was the end of the lesson; they had finished their work; the guinea fowl they had been changing into guinea pigs had been shut away in a large cage on Professor McGonagall's desk (Neville's still had feathers); they had copied down their homework from the blackboard ("Describe, with examples, the ways in which Transforming Spells must be adapted when performing Cross-Species Switches"). The bell was due to ring at any moment, and Christina and Harry, who had been having a sword fight with a couple of Fred and George's fake wands at the back of the class, looked up, Harry holding a tin parrot and Christina, a rubber haddock.
"Now that Bataskill and Potter have been kind enough to act their age," said Professor McGonagall, with an angry look at the pair of them as the head of Christina's haddock drooped and fell silently to the floor — Harry's parrot's beak had severed it moments before —"I have something to say to you all.
"The Yule Ball is approaching — a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialize with our foreign guests. Now, the ball will be open only to fourth years and above — although you may invite a younger student if you wish —" Lavender Brown let out a shrill giggle. Parvati Patil nudged her hard in the ribs, her face working furiously as she too fought not to giggle. Professor McGonagall ignored them, which Christina thought was distinctly unfair, as she had just told off she and Harry.
"Dress robes will be worn," Professor McGonagall continued, "and the ball will start at eight o'clock on Christmas Day, finishing at midnight in the Great Hall. Now then —" Professor McGonagall stared deliberately around the class.
"The Yule Ball is of course a chance for us all to — er — let our hair down," she said, in a disapproving voice. Lavender giggled harder than ever, with her hand pressed hard against her mouth to stifle the sound. Christina could see what was funny this time: Professor McGonagall, with her hair in a tight bun, looked as though she had never let her hair down in any sense.
"But that does NOT mean," Professor McGonagall went on, "that we will be relaxing the standards of behavior we expect from Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor student embarrasses the school in any way." The bell rang, and there was the usual scuffle of activity as everyone packed their bags and swung them onto their shoulders. Professor McGonagall called above the noise,
"Potter, Bataskill — a word, if you please." Assuming this had something to do with his headless rubber haddock, Christina proceeded gloomily to the teacher's desk. Professor McGonagall waited until the rest of the class had gone, and then said, "Alright, the champions and their partners —"
"What partners?" said Harry. Professor McGonagall looked suspiciously at him, as though she thought he was trying to be funny. "Your partners for the Yule Ball, Potter," she said coldly. "Your dance partners." Harry's insides seemed to curl up and shrivel.
"Dance partners?" He felt himself going red. "I don't dance," he said quickly. Christina gave a small smile, Harry was never one with the ladies.
"Oh yes, you do," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "That's what I'm telling you. Traditionally, the champions and their partners open the ball."
"I'm not dancing," he said.
"Oh come on, Harry" said Christina.
"It is traditional," said Professor McGonagall firmly. "You are a Hogwarts champion, and you will do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. So make sure you get yourself a partner, Potter."
"But — I don't —"
"You heard me, Potter. And as for you Ms. Bataskill. I know you won't have difficultly finding a partner seeing as how you and Mr. Weasley act in the halls. . . but this is a respectable affair, no dung bombs or fake wands at the event, understand?" said Professor McGonagall in a very final sort of way. Christina laughed slightly and agreed.
The next few weeks Christina noticed that everyone all seemed to be obsessed with the coming ball — or at least all the girls were. Girls giggling and whispering in the corridors, girls shrieking with laughter as boys passed them, girls excitedly comparing notes on what they were going to wear on Christmas night. . . .
"Why do they have to move in packs?" Christina heard Harry ask Ron as a dozen or so girls walked past them, sniggering and staring at Harry.
"How're you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?"
"Lasso one?" Ron suggested. "Got any idea who you're going to try?" Harry didn't answer.
"Listen, you're not going to have any trouble. You're a champion. You've just beaten a Hungarian Horntail. I bet they'll be queuing up to go with you." Christina added.
Christina assumed she'd be going with Fred but everytime she brought it up he always joked saying "With you?! NO thanks" or something similar. She always thought he was joking but as the Ball loomed closer she was starting to get worried. Harry on the other hand was having no problem getting girls to like him, three girls had already asked him just two weeks after the announcement in Transfiguration.
"She was quite good-looking," said Ron fairly, after he'd stopped laughing. "She was a foot taller than me," said Harry, still unnerved. "Imagine what I'd look like trying to dance with her." Hermione's words about Krum kept popping up in her head. "They only like him because he's famous!"
To Christina's delight no story about Hagrid had appeared in the Daily Prophet over the coming weeks.
"She didn' seem very int'rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth," Hagrid said, when Christina, Harry, Ron, and Hermione asked him how his interview with Rita Skeeter had gone during the last Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the term. To their very great relief, Hagrid had given up on direct contact with the skrewts now, and they were merely sheltering behind his cabin today, sitting at a trestle table and preparing a fresh selection of food with which to tempt the skrewts.
"She jus' wanted me ter talk about you two," Hagrid said pointing to Christina and Harry.
"Well, I told her we'd been friends since I went ter fetch yeh from the Dursleys. 'Never had to tell him off in four years?' she said. 'Never played you up in lessons, has he?' I told her no, an' she didn' seem happy at all. Yeh'd think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Harry."
" 'Course she did," said Harry, throwing lumps of dragon liver into a large metal bowl and picking up his knife to cut some more. "She can't keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it'll get boring."
"She wants a new angle, Hagrid," said Ron wisely as he shelled salamander eggs. "You were supposed to say Harry's a mad delinquent!"
"But he's not!" said Hagrid, looking genuinely shocked.
"She should've interviewed Snape," said Christina grimly. "He'd give her the goods on us any day. 'Potter has been crossing lines ever since he first arrived at this school. . . .' "
"Said that, did he?" said Hagrid, while Ron and Hermione laughed. "Well, yeh might've bent a few rules, Harry, bu' yeh're all righ' really, aren' you?"
"Cheers, Hagrid," said Harry, grinning.
"You coming to this ball thing on Christmas Day, Hagrid?" said Ron. "Though' I might look in on it, yeah," said Hagrid gruffly. "Should be a good do, I reckon. You'll be openin' the dancin', won' yeh, Harry? Who're you takin'?"
"No one, yet," said Harry, feeling himself going red again as Christina nudged him. Hagrid didn't pursue the subject.
The last week of term became increasingly boisterous as it progressed. Rumors about the Yule Ball were flying everywhere, though Christina didn't believe half of them — for instance, that Dumbledore had bought eight hundred barrels of mulled mead from Madam Rosmerta. It seemed to be fact, however, that he had booked the Weird Sisters. Exactly who or what the Weird Sisters were Christina didn't know, never having had access to a wizard's wireless, but she deduced from the wild excitement of those who had grown up listening to the WWN (Wizarding Wireless Network) that they were a very famous musical group.
Some of the teachers, like little Professor Flitwick, gave up trying to teach them much when their minds were so clearly elsewhere; he allowed them to play games in his lesson on Wednesday, and spent most of it talking to Harry about the perfect Summoning Charm Harry had used during the first task of the Triwizard Tournament and the ensue of charms Christina had used. Other teachers were not so generous. Nothing would ever deflect Professor Binns, for example, from plowing on through his notes on goblin rebellions — as Binns hadn't let his own death stand in the way of continuing to teach, they supposed a small thing like Christmas wasn't going to put him off. It was amazing how he could make even bloody and vicious goblin riots sound as boring as Percy's cauldron-bottom report. Professors McGonagall and Moody kept them working until the very last second of their classes too, and Snape, of course, would no sooner let them play games in class than adopt Christina. Staring nastily around at them all, he informed them that he would be testing them on poison antidotes during the last lesson of the term.
"Evil, he is," Ron said bitterly that night in the Gryffindor common room. "Springing a test on us on the last day. Ruining the last bit of term with a whole load of studying."
"Mmm . . . you're not exactly straining yourself, though, are you?" said Hermione, looking at him over the top of her Potions notes. Ron was busy building a card castle out of his Exploding Snap pack — a much more interesting pastime than with Muggle cards, because of the chance that the whole thing would blow up at any second.
"It's Christmas, Hermione," said Harry lazily; he was rereading Flying with the Cannons for the tenth time in an armchair near the fire. Hermione looked severely over at him too.
"I'd have thought you'd be doing something constructive, Harry, even if you don't want to learn your antidotes!" Christina smiled at the commotion and suddenly George sat down next to her with a massive grin on his face.
"Hi George." Hermione, Ron, and Harry now watching them.
"I have a note for you" he extended a small bit of parchment and gave it to her. She opened it immediately, "I'm being murdered at home" she rolled her eyes and got up.
"What does it say?" Harry asked.
"Who's it from?" Ron joined in.
"From Fred of course! Have you ever seen Fred without George? Honestly you two..." Hermione said, still going over homework. Christina said goodbye and headed to the Room of Requirement where she and Fred spent most of their alone time. The only place in the castle where they could truly be alone. They referred to it as their temporary flat.
Christina paced back and forth for the room to appear and as she opened the door a massive flood of loud music and streamers came down at once. Her favorite American band The Strokes were playing and she laughed, closing the door behind her. The room was massive and covered head to toe in all sorts of lavish decoration and things Christina liked; mint ice-cream, small displays of fireworks, a picture of Malfoy that looked like a target. . . Just then, Fred covered her eyes from behind her
"Miss Christina Bataskill...will you go to the Yule Ball with me?" he whispered in her ear. But before Christina could say anything he spun her around so that she was facing him.
"Before you say yes or no, just know that a prize comes with a yes answer."
"That's better than this awesome party?!"
"Yes. Way better." Christina kissed him hard on the lips.
"Then, yes!" Fred smiled an evil smile and turned off the music.
"George and I stink bombed the potions room five minutes ago, which means that Snape will be locking himself in his office, which means we have a fifteen minute window of no one being in the potions room. . . and we all know the ultimate gift-"
"Is sex in the potions room. Oh my god, Fred!" she said, eyes widening, mouth agape.
"And! Since we don't want to die from the smell..." he pulled out these toffees and gave one to her. "These make you lose all sense of smell"
"Oh I wasn't even thinking about that, hell, let's go! Let's go now!" Fred smiled and took her hand as she de-materialized them both and went straight to the dungeons.
Christina and Fred had been trying to have sex in the potions room for a while now but never could find the perfect time to do it. Once, Christina monitored the room for an entire night and noticed that Snape leaves his office many times to go get something from the room, the was the perfect storm to help them achieve an odd fantasy of theirs. As a safety precaution Christina kept a watchful eye on Snape's office door and placed several bits of rock around the door, so that if someone went to open it she could detect it.
The feeling was wonderful. It was doing something so loving in such a place of hate with the imminent fear that someone could catch them...it truly was the ultimate gift. After they both finished, Fred took Christina's hand assuming they were going to go but Christina went to Snape's door.
"What're you doing!" Fred whispered. She shushed him and de-materialized just her head through the door to see what Snape was doing so quietly in his office. She saw him sitting on his chair looking down, almost sadly. She moved through the air and went up behind his head to see what he was working on and looked down and, if she could, would have screamed. She rushed back through the door and grabbed Fred, forcing him to see what she just saw as a somewhat invisible dust cloud. Once she knew he saw she rushed them both back up to the Room of Requirement.
Fred and Christina looked at each other, grabbed the other, and both yelled. They had witnessed Snape slowly and sadly, stroking his crotch while grading students papers. The most disgusting and depressing thing Christina had ever seen in her life.
"Why did you show me!" Fred said disgusted.
"I knew you'd never believe me! Oh man, oh my god, this is so sad."
"Did you see whose paper it was?" Fred asked and Christina didn't even think to look.
"Oh my god, oh my god, I didn't! Should we go back?"
"NO! Please, Christina, no. Please no. No." Christina laughed and sat down on the ground, Fred joined her and the looked up at the grey ceiling holding hands.
"I love you" Christina said quietly. Fred turned and wrapped his arms and legs around her.
"Me? No thanks."