Someday, I will own something of great importance. This will not be Harry Potter, as it is already owned by J K Rowling.

Christmas Planning

The next morning, halfway through breakfast, the entire Gryffindor table erupted into applause. Word buzzed through the tables, and the clapping spread to Hufflepuff, and half of Ravenclaw. When Ryua finally heard what had happened, she added her own enthusiastic catcall to the din.

"So, Weasley finally asked the little mudblood?" Draco chuckled. "We've only been waiting for that since what, first year?"

Ron and Hermione looked rather like they'd enjoy to just melt down into the floor, especially when Dumbledore was noticed applauding politely. And then McGonagall glared at him until he stopped, but the embarrassment was already done.

Luckily for them, their first class was Defense, and Card completely ignored the occurrence. Ryua and Draco were set to teaching the more frustrated people how to move, while Card led the main class. One person in particular happened to be avoiding her, though, and she was determined to go bother him at first chance.

After class, Ryua meandered over to Harry; Ron and Hermione promptly left. "Hi Harry!" she said brightly.

"Ryua!" Harry said, almost yelping. "Uh… hi. Didn't see you there…"

"Well, of course you didn't, I didn't want you to notice me…" she chuckled. "Not when it's so easy to terrify you."

He grimaced slightly, his cheeks showing just a tinge of pink. "That's just cruel, you know."

"Hey, I'm a cruel chick." Ryua said, shrugging. "But you're trying to avoid me."

"No!" he protested quickly.

She sighed, looking at him. "You know, you lie terribly."

He looked uncomfortable; luckily for him, the rest of the class had left, and Card was back in his office, doing marking or something. "I just… I don't think it's a very good idea to ask you to this ball thing…"

Ryua was momentarily lost for words, and forcing herself from either cursing him, hitting him, or bursting into tears. Definitely not the last one. "Well, if that's the way you feel about it," she said coolly, turning and going out of the room without a backward glance.

Card came silently up behind him, said flatly, "You should have asked her."

He did yelp this time, spinning around to face him. "Why can't anyone make noise in this school? And I just don't want her getting killed or tortured over me, that's all… I thought you'd appreciate that, seeing as how you're supposed to guard her."

Card looked coolly down at him, his two or three inch difference looking incredibly more mature and imposing somehow. "Harry, it would be easier for me if you were a hermit who hated all human contact. But you're not. So, you'd better just enjoy yourself, and not piss off someone like Ryua. Do you really want her as an enemy? I wouldn't."

Harry somehow couldn't think of what to say to that. Taking that as having made his point, Card nodded. "She likes you, and doesn't care who knows it, Harry. Now that that's settled, you have one class to get up the nerve to ask her, she has Care of Magical Creatures right now."

"Card, even if I ask her, and assuming she doesn't kill me… or something equally undesirable… I still couldn't keep up with her, you know, to dance." Harry looked incredibly embarrassed by that admission.

"Well, that's because you avoided the only girl who could teach you, isn't it?" Card said, shaking his head slightly. "But you have a free period now, and so do I."

"…did you just memorize everyone's timetables?" Harry asked, blinking.

"Yes. Now. Your hand would start here, feet positioned so…" Card said, starting the less than enviable task of teaching Harry how to actually keep up with someone like Ryua.

-

"That bastard!" Ryua hissed, as she crossed the Hogwarts grounds towards Hagrid's hut. Neville paced silently beside her, looking slightly scared. She'd been venting for five minutes already.

Eventually, he managed to work up enough courage to say, somewhat shakily, "You know… I don't think he meant it to come out that way, Ryua." She glared at him, but didn't say anything or offer to kill him, so Neville continued. "I mean… he really likes you, he just doesn't want you to get in trouble with your family."

"The only family I have already knows," Ryua growled.

Neville rolled his eyes, getting braver now that she hadn't cursed him yet. "I'm talking about your father, Ryua, and you know it. And frankly, the whole Slytherin House too."

"I can handle Lucius," she said sullenly. "And my House."

"Still… try and see it from Harry's perspective?" Neville asked, inwardly sighing with relief that he was still alive.

Ryua was silent for a minute, before muttering, "I hate being so oversensitive…"

Luckily for her, the Care of Magical Creatures class was really an incredibly ridiculous amount of fun. Since Dumbledore had so suddenly come up with the idea of the ball, everyone had been pressed into preparations. Hagrid was selected to do the lighting, which in his language, meant fairies. So, he, Fang, Neville, and Ryua all went scouring through the forest, looking for the little flighty things.

They were dead easy to coax, once you found one. You just had to say how beautiful it was, and how much you'd love their brilliant light to grace the party they were planning. They didn't have much intelligence, but if they thought they would be admired, they'd show up. Hagrid had promised a bar of chocolate to the person who convinced more fairies to show up, although since nobody actually kept track, they all just ended up splitting the chocolate anyway.

So once Ryua finally made it back to the school for lunch, she was in a considerably better mood. One fairy in particular had decided it liked her, and was presently perched on top of her head, shedding sparkly fairy dust all down her hair and mumbling happy little fairy sounds to itself. Neville, sparkles having no place in his wardrobe, kept brushing patches of the stuff off his robes.

-

Harry finally made it down to the Great Hall ten minutes into lunch, because he'd needed a change of robes. He reminded himself to get a very light set of dress robes, if Ryua was going to work him half as hard as Card had. This was, of course, assuming she would agree to go with him, and not kill him. "Where you been, mate?" Ron asked. "You've been gone all spare!"

"Extra Defense lessons," Harry said absently, toying with the question of how to ask Ryua to the ball. "Ron, how do you go about asking a girl to go with you, when you're nervous as hell?"

"Blimey, mate," Ron said, shrugging. "I just asked her. It was easier than thinking about it, really."

"Really?"

"Yep… but in your case… I wouldn't maybe do it with her whole House sitting there…"

Harry sighed. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to shadow her? She's paranoid enough on her own, and you add her brother, and friends, and those two goons into the mix…"

"Her friends, and her brother, maybe even Crabbe and Goyle know already, Harry," Hermione said, matter-of-factly. "It won't be as bad as you think."

"Yeah, well you aren't the one asking her," Harry muttered, slowly eating lunch, although his stomach felt like anything but eating.

-

Ryua was just on her way to a free period in the library when Harry caught up to her from behind. Much to his relief, everyone else was in either Defense or Charms, depending on their year. He had two minutes to get down to his own Charms class, but Flitwick was pretty lenient. "Uh, Ryua?" he asked carefully, coming up beside her.

"Yes?" she sighed, trying to remind herself to be not furious with him.

He stifled a wince at her tone, and said it before he had a chance to change his mind about it. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you earlier, would you go with me? To the ball?"

She stopped, turning to look at him. After a moment of being lost for words, she said, "Really? You mean that?"

Harry grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, yeah I do. Please don't kill me?"

Ryua blinked, then grinned back. "Oh, I suppose I could restrain myself… really? You're ready to just be… open about this?"

"If you are," he said, shrugging. "They all already want me dead. I'm just worried about your life getting miserable."

"Harry, it could not possibly be more miserable than it is," Ryua said firmly, hoping that she wasn't lying through her teeth. "I'd rather be miserable, and not have to hide from you, then miserable and still pretend to hate you. Does that make sense?"

He laughed. "Yeah, it does…"

She leaned forward, kissing him lightly, and then smacked his shoulder lightly. "Now, you're going to be late for class, if you don't get going. I'll see you in whatever class we have together… let's wait for the ball, and really terrify everyone!" Ryua chuckled, somewhat evilly.

"Alright," Harry laughed, backing down the hallway. "Until then, we'll be normal?"

"Yes. Now get the hell out of my sight, Potter!" Ryua called after him, grinning madly. With a very happy feeling, Ryua went to go and study, or at least attempt to. She really doubted she'd be able to concentrate, somehow.