Harry was forced to stay bed-ridden in the Hospital Wing for the next few days, despite his protests. Hermione, of course, brought him his homework assignments and was more than happy to teach him everything that he had missed in class. When he wasn't reading, doing assignments, or entertaining visitors, he carved his initials into the wooden bedpost with a needle that had been left by his bed after his first night there. He carved them where Madam Pomfrey couldn't see them. She knew she'd probably have a fit if she knew he had vandalized her workplace in such a way, but didn't really feel guilty about it. He was always given this bed and had visited the Hospital Wing probably more than any other Hogwarts student. It was practically his bed anyways.
Of course his absence from class had not gone unnoticed and the tale of Snape carrying him to through the halls had spread throughout the school. (He winced with embarrassment each time he was asked about it.) Everyone who didn't know the truth had been fed a story that Snape had come up with. They said that Harry had tried drinking the Bruise-Healing Potion to get rid of some bruises from Quidditch, but that Harry had a bad reaction to it since he hadn't made it right. Harry wasn't too fond of this rumor since he knew that his potion had been perfect, but it was better than the truth.
The only other person Harry allowed to know the truth was Eloise, since Neville wanted to tell her. Harry let him under the condition that he keep Eloise away from the infirmary for a few days after telling her so she could have time to calm down. He didn't feel like dealing with another hysterical person.
By the time she was allowed to come and see Harry, she had definitely calmed down. Her eyes were slightly red and puffy. When he promised he'd be out in a few days to continue with their tutoring, she did start crying slightly, but it wasn't a hysterical outburst, much to Harry's relief.
A bunch of others, including all the members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, came to see him. When they saw that he was looking fine, they laughed and lightly teased him for drinking anything Snape had told him to make.
There was always a slight look of suspicious worry in each pair of eyes that met his, because, if it was nothing serious, as Harry insisted, then why was he being kept in the Hospital Wing for so long? They always did their best to wipe away these thoughts, more content with the belief that Harry was fine than venturing into the frightening territory of wondering if maybe it was something more.
A week later, Harry walked into the Great Hall for breakfast to a bunch of excited chattering. As Harry walked to the Gryffindor table, he noticed that many of the girls were giggling and gossiping, while several of the guys looked sick. This included Ron.
On his way to the table, Cho Chang brushed by him.
"Hi Harry," she said with a flirtatious smile.
"Er…hey Cho."
"Remember, I'm single now." She waved by wiggling her fingers at him and walked off. Harry blanched at her words.
'Well, that was a little blunt. What was that all about?"
Many of the other girls in the Great Hall had also seemed to turn up the flirtation factor.
Harry slid into the seat beside Ron. "What's going on?"
"Another bloody dance. As if it wasn't stressful enough the first time!" he muttered.
"A dance?" he asked, glancing up at Cho who's friends were giggling and looking up at him. Cho herself was looking at Harry. When she caught his eye, she gave him a little wink that made Harry's eyebrows shoot up and her friends burst out in peels of giggles. He looked back to his friends.
"Yes a dance, Harry. Please tell me you're not going to mope around about it like Ron," Hermione pleaded.
"Maybe it won't be as bad this year. At least I don't have to dance in front of everyone," Harry said optimistically.
"Have you forgotten the little problem of asking the girl, Harry?" Ron asked exasperated.
"No, but I think I know who I'm going to ask this year," he said thoughtfully
"Oh really, Harry? Who?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"I'll tell you after I ask her," he said mysteriously.
"What about you, Ron, do you know who you want to ask?" Hermione asked casually, not quite meeting his eye. Harry could tell that she was trying to hide her anxiety about the subject.
Ron blushed and looked with interest at his goblet of pumpkin juice. "Nope, no idea. What about you, 'Mione? Who do you want to go with?" he asked, looking slowly up at her.
Hermione blushed as well, looking down at her plate. "Oh I don't know," she said, swirling some of the food around on her plate.
Harry couldn't help it; he burst out laughing. The two looked up at him curiously.
"What?" Ron asked.
"Nothing," he responded, still smiling. "You guys are just funny."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing," he said shaking his head.
"Well anyways, you two don't have to be nervous about this whole thing. Just ask somebody sooner rather than later. I'm sure there are plenty of girls who'd love to go with you and are just waiting for you to ask them," she said, looking pointedly at Ron.
Neville had seen this too and caught Harry's eye. They both burst out in another bout of laughter.
"What?" Ron asked in an irritated voice.
"Nothing," Neville and Harry said simultaneously.
A few days later, Harry went into the library to do some research while Hermione was tutoring Ron in potions. Cho Chang brushed by him as he entered, looking back at him over her shoulder with a flirtatious smile as she left. He was making his way toward the back when he saw Ginny Weasley looking almost tearful. She was staring at a book with her elbows on the table and her hands grabbing her hair in frustration. Harry walked over.
"Hey Ginny, is everything okay?" he asked softly.
Ginny's head shot up. She looked embarrassed.
"Yeah, I'm just having some trouble understanding some stuff for school," she sighed.
"I know how that is," Harry said smiling. "What's the subject?"
"Muggle Studies. I thought it would be easy and since my dad loves Muggle stuff so much I thought it would be fun to take. It's so hard though! I should have just taken Divination."
"How about some help? I mean, I did grow up like a Muggle, so maybe I'll be able to explain some of this stuff better than some textbook."
"Really?" she asked, sounding grateful.
"Of course."
"Okay, as long as…well, can you please not tell my family? I don't want them to know I'm having trouble with it."
Harry smiled reassuringly as he pulled up a chair. "Sure thing. I won't breathe a word about it under one condition."
"What's that?" she asked.
"Never let me hear the words 'I should have taken Divination' again."
Ginny laughed. "Okay."
Harry scooted his chair next to hers and looked down at the book. "So what are we learning about?"
"Television. In the book it says that it's a 'box that many Muggles have in their homes. It shows them picture shows of real or non-real things. The picture shows can be on regular programming or on videocassettes that are inserted into the television, with real people or moving drawings called cartoons,'" she read.
"Wow. That does make it confusing. Let's see if I can explain this better." Harry launched into an explanation of television, relating it to wizarding things to help Ginny get the idea. He told her it was sort of like wizarding pictures acting out plays, or the WWN news with a picture to go with it. He explained commercials and videotapes and the news. He told her about some of the movies that he had seen that summer at the Stensons to give her an idea of what they were about. It was more difficult to explain than he had thought, but fun to be explaining something so familiar to him, having grown up with Muggles.
As he did when tutoring Neville and Eloise, he felt a surge of pride when Ginny finally understood concepts, a look of comprehension dawning on her face. At the end of his explanation, she beamed at him joyfully.
"I finally understand this! Thank you so much, Harry!"
Harry flashed her a lop-sided grin. "No problem, I'm glad I can help. So what's next?"
They went through stoves, batteries, and CDs that day. Harry agreed to meet Ginny two times a week to tutor her, and whenever else she needed. He vowed to keep his mouth shut about it, to Ginny's great relief. She begged him to let her do something in return so he asked her to help him look up the topic he was researching but refused to request anything more.
Ginny left the library remembering exactly why this was the boy she adored.
"Hey Eloise, you look stressed. What's up?" Harry asked sliding down next to Eloise in the library.
"Oh it's nothing," she said in a tone that indicated that it was indeed something.
"It's not going to do any good to sit there and mope on your own. I'm a great person to mope with, you know," Harry said with a smile. Eloise sighed.
"Thanks, but I don't really want to talk about it," she said with a weak smile. Harry was pretty sure he knew what she was upset about. As hard as it was to ask a girl to a dance, the harder it must've been to wait to be asked, especially knowing you didn't get asked the previous year, as was Eloise's case. Harry winced once again at the memory of what Ron had said while trying to find dates to last year's ball.
"I'd rather go alone than with—with Eloise Midgen, say."
He knew Ron would never say that now, knowing Eloise through Harry, but Harry still wished he would have stood up for her last year.
"Aright, well, I was wondering if I could ask you something?"
"Sure Harry, you can ask me anything," she smiled.
"I was wondering if you'd like to go to the ball with me?"
Whatever Eloise was expecting him to ask, it was obviously not this. She stared at him like he had two heads.
"What?"
"Well as friends, of course. I wouldn't want to move into Roger Davies' spot," he said with a grin. "I just thought you'd be really fun to go with and I promise not to hide behind the punch bowl the entire time."
She continued to gawk at him. "Harry, don't be ridiculous! You have the chance to go with any girl here! Don't you understand? Practically every girl in school wants to go with you." Harry rolled his eyes at the exaggeration.
"Oh brother, Eloise. Even if that was true, which I know it's not, I wouldn't want to go with all those shallow, annoying girls who are so concerned with what they look like and what their reputation is. I mean, who needs to worry about screwing up a girl's image by being a bad date or something?"
"Harry, you'd be committing social suicide," she said absolutely seriously. Harry laughed.
"First of all, I don't care about all that. Second, you underestimate yourself, Eloise. Even if I did care about any of that, I'd still ask you," he assured her. "So do I get an answer or are you going to keep me waiting here in anticipation?"
"Harry, are you sure? I mean you can still change your mind and I won't care," she pressed, biting her bottom lip.
"Eloise, listen, I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't want to go with you. If you don't want to go with me you can say no, but I'd love to take you if you want to. I should warn you though that I…er…don't exactly know how to dance."
"And you're sure? Last chance…"
"As sure as I am that Filch needs a social life," he smirked. A huge smile broke out on Eloise's face.
"Oh Harry, thank you so much! Yes, I'd love to go with you! You're the best friend ever!" she exclaimed. Suddenly, her face calmed a bit as if a sudden thought had crossed her mind. "Wait, Harry, are you sure you'll be able to, all things considered?" she asked delicately. Harry frowned. He hadn't thought about that. With his permission, Neville had told Eloise about the cancer.
"Oh yeah. Tell you what; I'll be your reserve date. If Roger Davies comes knocking down your door, definitely go ahead. If by the dance you still don't have a date, and I feel fine, then we'll go, deal?" he bargained but Eloise shook her head.
"No, I'll just tell my future husband that he'll have to knock down my door some other time. If you don't feel up to the dance that night, we'll just scrounge up some graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows and we'll make S'mores in the fireplace and I'll tell you about the four children I've decided that Roger and I will have, sound good?" Harry smiled.
"Sounds great."
Ron had been a nervous wreck ever since the dance had been announce. He had been caught lost in thought and every time Hermione asked him a question he would turn beet red and start stuttering. Hermione was perplexed by Ron's behavior, but Harry knew exactly what was going on. For that reason, he pulled Hermione aside after dinner and said that he'd go talk to Ron to "see what's bothering him." She agreed shooting a concerned glance at Ron and went to the library.
"Hey Ron, let's take a walk," he said steering his friend outside. The two began walking.
"So, why'd you want to walk, Harry?" Ron asked.
"I think you know."
"Huh? I don't know what you're talking about," he answered indignantly, his blushing face giving him away.
"Well, then I'm sure you're totally relaxed about the whole dance thing then."
"That obvious, huh?" He grinned, embarrassed.
"Only because I know you too well. So what's on your mind?"
"Well, I…er…have somebody, maybe in mind of who I kind of could want to sort of ask…" he coughed out looking away.
"Hermione," Harry stated casually, motioning for Ron to continue. Ron's head spun to face Harry, mouth gaping and eyes wide.
"You know?!" Harry rolled his eyes.
"Of course I know, Ron. I see the way you two act around each other. I see you sneaking glances at her all the time, sometimes staring at her for ten minutes at a time!"
"I do not!" he cried. Harry looked him in the eye. "Okay, well maybe sometimes." He grinned sheepishly. The two continued walking.
"She sneaks glances at you too."
"Really?" he asked, spinning his head toward Harry in surprise.
"Yup. It's quite amusing to watch you two, I must say."
Ron paused nervously.
"So if I asked her to the dance, you think…"
"I KNOW she'd say yes."
"And it wouldn't be weird?"
"Now that, I can't guarantee, but I don't think that it would be a bad weird."
Ron smiled, "Thanks, Harry."
Harry grinned. "No problem, mate, just ask her before you have a nervous breakdown because she's beginning to think you're insane." He paused. "Well actually, she probably already knows you're insane so it's useless to try and hide that one," he said in mock seriousness with a hopeless shrug.
Ron laughed and promptly pushed him into the shallow part of the lake, soaking him from head to toe. Harry smirked evilly as he got up and waded his way onto shore.
"You know, Ron, you're a great friend. I think you deserve a nice big hug, what do you say?"
Ron took one look at the water dripping off Harry's robes and began backing away. "Don't even think about it," he warned. Harry grabbed up an empty pot near one of the green houses and dipped it in the lake. Ron began running as soon as he realized what Harry was doing, but he was no match for Harry's speed and soon had a pot of water dumped over his head.
After a brief water fight, the two walked back inside the castle, still dripping water. They were so occupied in laughing at each other's damp state, they almost ran into a group of girls right in front of them.
"Excuse me," Harry said not really looking up as he began to walk around them.
"Harry, wait."
Harry looked up. It was Cho Chang and her group of friends looking just as giggly as ever. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn that Cho was batting her eyelashes at him.
"Er…hey Cho."
She quickly glanced disapprovingly down at the puddle collecting at Harry's feet. Harry shifted uncomfortably. Why was Cho Chang talking to him, especially with her whole gang there to witness?
"So, Harry, my friends and I were just talking about the upcoming ball. You see, Roger Davies just asked me but I turned him down. I told him I was asking someone else."
"Oh really? Er, well, that's nice," he said lamely. Why was she telling him this?
"Don't you want to know who it is?"
Harry sneaked a glance at Ron who shrugged. "Sure." (Mad giggling from Cho's posse.)
"Why you, Harry! I'm asking you to go to the ball with me."
Harry was taken aback. Ron's jaw dropped to the floor.
"Why?" he blurted out, resulting in more giggling.
"Because I want to go with you, silly! Now what do you say?" she asked haughtily, flipping her hair back, waiting for a yes.
"I'm sorry, Cho. I'm already going with someone else, but thank you for asking."
The giggling abruptly stopped.
"What? Who?" she sputtered.
"Eloise Midgen," Harry said simply.
Cho's expression softened. "Oh, I see. Harry, you don't have to do that just because she asked you, in fact, I'm sure I can find her a date better suited for her."
It took a second for Harry to register this. He couldn't believe these cruel words were coming form the mouth of the girl he used to be infatuated with. He was insulted on Eloise's behalf. No wonder she had low self esteem.
"Actually, I asked her," he said firmly, his eyes glinting dangerously. "She was my first choice and I'm really happy to be going with her."
"But, you can't be serious!" she exclaimed unbelievingly.
"Sorry Cho, you'll have to find someone else," he said resolutely. "Come on, Ron." Ron was still standing with his face frozen in an expression of shock. Harry had to grab his arm and lead him away, leaving a group of gaping girls behind.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Ron turned to Harry.
"Cho Chang just asked you to the ball!"
"Yeah, I was there."
"And she's the most popular girl in school."
"I know."
"And you said no."
"I've already asked Eloise. Plus, I don't care that she's popular, she's so stuck up and arrogant."
"All right, but you've had a crush on her for how many years?"
"I had a crush on her. Past tense."
"Yeah, I noticed. What happened to the puddles of drool whenever she was around?" Ron asked. Harry laughed and lightly punched Ron's arm. "No, seriously though, it was so sudden."
"Yeah, well I guess I couldn't really look at her the same way after last year, with Cedric and all. Besides, the more I get to know her, the more I wonder why I liked her in the first place."
Ron nodded sympathetically. Harry hardly ever mentioned the Tri-wizard tournament. Ron knew it was a tough subject for his best friend. He slightly shook his head think about how much Harry had to go through.
"Well, you know, mate, I think you made the right choice. You'll have a lot more fun with Eloise. Cho would just be worried about breaking a nail or something."
The two laughed and walked off toward the dorm.