Chapter Twelve
Three weeks later
"You look really good," Parvati said encouragingly.
"It's a really cute costume," Lavender added.
Hermione gazed at her reflection in the mirror with dismay. It was Halloween, and Hermione was already committed to writing an extra paper for Transfiguration. She had no time to organize a costume for the dance, let alone make one. Therefore, she had let the cheerful volunteers, Parvati and Lavender take care of it.
Big mistake.
She was now clad in a skimpy, wispy fairy costume, complete with wings and a halo of flowers. Her hair was down except for two tiny braids, wrapped around her head with flowers woven into them. Lavender had enchanted the whole ensemble to shimmer and sparkle. She tugged self-consciously at the flimsy material of the skirt, trying to bring the hem down to a decent level.
"Careful!" Parvati reprimanded. "You'll tear the wisps!"
Damned wisps, Hermione thought feverishly. "I can't wear this!" she protested. "The rules specifically stated that you couldn't wear anything revealing, and if this isn't revealing, I don't know what is!"
Parvati laughed. "But it's so cute!" she said. "Besides, what teacher in his right mind is going to ask you to change out of that?"
Hermione sighed and looked in the mirror again. It was a nice costume. And she did look terrific in it. But still…
"Hold still," Lavender ordered, purposefully whipping out a compact of gold eyeshadow and brushing it over Hermione's eyelids and cheekbones. "There! Now you're ready. Now wait here while Parvati and I change."
Hermione sighed and fell onto the bed, feeling the "wispy" edges of the dress float down gently beside her legs. Next Halloween, she vowed. I am taking care of my own costume or not going to the dance at all!
"Ta-da!"
Hermione looked up, and her jaw dropped. Here, standing in front of her, were two strangely clad girls who looked as though they had jumped right out of the sixties-club sets of Austin Powers. Tiny, brightly-coloured dresses, very odd hair, massive shoes, and large round sunglasses. She laughed.
"What- what planet are you supposed to be from?" Hermione gasped between giggles.
Lavender laughed and fluffed her hair. "Phsycadellic, no? This ought to strike a familiar chord with a few of the teachers!"
Parvati giggled. "I can just picture McGonagall, thirty-five years ago, partying away, martini in hand." She peered at her face in a flower-shaped mirror and applied a layer of Barbie-pink lipstick to her mouth. It looked atrocious, but it went with the costume.
"Who are you going with?" Hermione asked breathlessly, her sides sore from laughing.
"Dean and Seamus," Lavender answered. "They're dressed as Austin Powers and Dr, Evil. I shudder to think of what Seamus is wearing- he's Powers."
"Or not wearing," Parvati chipped in. She shuddered.
Hermione giggled along with them, and shook her head. She stood up, and sighed dismally as she tugged again on the hem of her skirt. "Don't you have something I could wear over this thing?" she demanded. "A cloak or something?"
Lavender sighed dramatically, and produced a long, floor length bronze cloak, made of the same type of fabric as the dress. Hermione snatched it and pulled it on. "Thank you," she said, then grinned at the disappointed expressions on her friends' faces. "Oh, smile, will you?" she chided. "I might take it off later. Let's go see how the boys are doing."
The trio went down the stair slowly, for Parvati and Lavender's sake, as they were wearing platform shoes. Dean and Seamus were both at the bottom already, sitting on one of the couches, absorbing compliments for their interesting costumes. Hermione scanned the room for Ron. Where was he?
"Look, Hermi," Parvati giggled, pointing. "There's Ron. What's wrong with him?"
Hermione followed her friend's gaze, and saw Ron sitting on the stairs to the boys' dormitory. He was wearing a long, dark red cloak with the hood pulled up, and a sour expression on his face. She raised an eyebrow, and walked over to see what was the matter.
Ron looked up, and grinned when he saw her. "Where's your costume?" he asked teasingly. "Someone has no spirit."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I made the mistake of letting Lavender and Parvati take care of my costume." She jerked her head over to where the pair were flirting with a group of seventh year boys. "And I'm not taking this off." She tightened the cloak protectively around her shoulders and sat down next to him. "And where's yours?"
Ron sighed animatedly. "I, like you, let my friends organize my costume. Something that has taught me a valuable lesson. And I'm not taking mine off, either."
Hermione grinned. "Oh, surely it can't be that bad," she protested.
Ron looked up at her and rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes it can." He scanned her cloak, and then his own. "Tell you what," he said finally. "You take yours off, and I'll take mine off."
They were interrupted by a loud half-disgusted giggle from a sugar-high second year who was coming up the stairs. Frowned. "Let me rephrase that," he said, kicking the kid back down the stair absently. "You first."
Hermione sighed and stood up. This is so Titanic, she thought as she fiddled with the ties of her cloak. She finally let it slip over her shoulders, feeling the wings unfurl between her shoulder blades. With a defiant expression on her face, she turned and faced Ron.
He gaped at her. Hermione winced and reefed again at the hem of the dress. Why is it so damned short? She fidgeted uncomfortably, grinding the ball of her foot into the carpet of the stair. "Going to say anything?" she asked finally.
Ron shook his head violently. "Sorry," he said. "My God- you look amazing." He looked her up and down. "Pixie, are you?"
She shifted. "Er- fairy, apparently. Are you going to show me yours or what?"
Ron rolled his eyes. He pulled back the hood of his cloak, revealing that his hair had been spiked and shaped into two horns on either side of his head. Hermione raised an eyebrow and he smiled wryly at her. "It gets worse," he said, and pulled off the cloak.
It was Hermione's turn to gape. Ron was wearing red leather pants and an orange tank top with a black mesh shirt over top. The whole effect made him look like a glowing ember, and gave him an image that Lavender would have described as "naughty". "The devil?" she squeaked.
Ron rolled his eyes and blew air out of the side of his mouth. "Like I said, this is the last time I let Dean organize my costume. I feel like a transvestite."
Hermione blinked a couple of times to clear her head. "Well, at least our costumes go together. Sort of." It was true, the colours of Hermione's costume complimented Ron's perfectly, whether pixies usually associated with demons or not. She offered a hand to Ron and pulled him out of his seat. They walked down the stairs and joined the group of students leaving for the Great Hall.
The decorations for the dance were fantastic. Pumpkins, scarecrows and other harvest décor lined the walls, and there was food everywhere. Pumpkin juice in massive punch bowls, pumpkin pie, deep-fried bat wings (a.k.a. blue corn tortilla chips) and cookies of all shapes and sizes, stacked high on tables around the edges of the dance floor. People in all sorts of costumes- from angels to zebras- stood around, waiting for the dancing to start.
Hermione smiled as she felt Ron take her hand and guide her over onto the dance floor. "Look," he said to her over the music. "They hired a deejay." A man dressed in a vampire outfit was standing on a raised platform at one end of the room, surrounded by artistically flashing lights. Hermione didn't recognize the song they were playing- it was a wizard one, and she didn't listen to WWN. She liked it, though.
"Are you going to dance with me or what?" she asked, giving Ron's hand a tug.
He grinned back at her. "I don't dance," he said firmly.
"Oh, don't be a spoilsport," Hermione said, laughing. "You danced at the last ball. You can't have gotten any worse!" She gave his arm another good wrench, and pulled him onto the dance floor.
Maybe Ron was lying. Or maybe he didn't know how good he was. But it was clear to Hermione that Ron was quite capable of dancing. The music pounded in her ears as he spun her, and she shrieked and hauled at her skirt again, as the turn pulled it up again. I'm going to kill Lavender, she thought passionately.
She laughed again as Ron swung her around, putting her down again in one of the little door recesses that led to the kitchens. "Ron!" she chided. "You told me you couldn't dance!"
He grinned evilly at her, leaning in and tracing the flowers in her hair with his fingers. "I lied," he said matter-of-factly. "Mum taught me how."
"To dance or to lie-" Hermione started, but Ron cut her off by putting a hand over her mouth.
"Pixie," he whispered, leaning even closer. "Shut up." And he took his hand away and kissed her vehemently.
Hermione smiled inwardly as she snaked her arms around Ron's neck, letting him hold her tightly. She shivered as his mouth moved over hers, his hands running up and down her back. The now-familiar sensation of knowing what he was thinking washed over her, and she surrendered and let Ron pull her even closer.
He pulled away for a moment, his breath ragged, before returning to her. He left her lips and kissed her eyelid, her cheek, her ear, then trailed down to her neck. Hermione quaked in his grip, relying on his arms to hold her up. She thought she would fall over if he let go. He came back to her mouth and kissed her until she was out of breath.
"Hey, get a room, guys," came a voice from beside them. "You're starting to melt the decorations." Dean Thomas, a.k.a. Dr. Evil, with Parvati Patil hanging around his neck like a bow tie, was leaning against the wall, grinning evilly.
Ron let go of Hermione quickly and jumped away from her. She felt a slight blush creep into her cheeks as Parvati winked at her.
"Don't say you weren't doing anything," Parvati warned them. "'Cause we'll never believe a word of it. Say, is that Celtic music playing?"
And it was. Hermione wondered if there was always such an extensive selection played at wizarding balls.
"We were just about to go and try to find an empty room or something," Dean said. "Lavender has this new game she found, and she wants to try it. Care to join us?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow, but Ron just grinned and took her hand as they followed their friends through the crowds of people in the Great Hall, stopping momentarily to collect Lavender.
"What about Seamus?" Lavender protested as they tried to steer her away. "We can't forget him!"
"Where is he?" Dean asked. Lavender pointed to a clearing were Seamus, in full Austin Powers regalia, was dancing in a fashion that almost put Michael Flatley to shame.
"That's Seamus?" Parvati squeaked. "I didn't know he could 'Riverdance'."
Lavender grinned. "His dad taught him how. After all, his whole family is Irish."
Dean waded in and grabbed his friend by the arm. "Break it up, Lord of the Dance," he mocked. "Come on, we're going to go play with that book of Lav's"
The five of them managed to get Seamus away from his audience and into the hallway. They all flopped against the wall and slid to the floor, while Lavender rummaged trough her purse, looking for the book they were going to play with.
"So, Satan," Parvati called to Ron. "Got a little devilish this evening, did we?" Ron glared at her, then inspected his fingernails like they were the most interesting things in the world. Parvati laughed and turned her attention to Lavender, who had finally managed to find her book.
"If," she read. "Questions for the Game of Life. By Evelyn McFarlane and James Saywell. Who want's to go first?"
Confused, everybody stared at her. She giggled. "Fine then. I'll go first. Seamus-" She closed her eyes, opened the book, and pointed, then opened her eyes and read, "If you could steal one thing in the world, other than money, without getting caught, what would you take?"
Seamus looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, "A pair of top-box tickets to the next Quidditch world cup. Now what?"
Lavender passed him the book. "Ask someone else, silly."
"All right," said Seamus. He flipped through the book. "Parvati: If you could have a dinner party inviting any four people from history, who would you invite, and where would the party take place?"
And so, on they went, learning interesting and trivial facts about each other that they would probably forget by the end of the week, until Ron's turn came for about the ninth time.
"Dean," he began. "If you could- wait," he stopped short. "Where did you say you found this book, Lavender?"
She shrugged. "In the Muggle section of the school library. Why?"
Ron looked back at the book with rasied eyebrows. "I'm not sure this ought to be in contact with younger kids. Look at this."
She took the book and started to read the question. "If you could have- oh, dear. I see your point." She put the book back in her bag and stood up. "Let's go back to the dance."
When they got back through the doors, they were immediately pounced upon by Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore. They both sported extremely grim expressions.
"Damn," said Seamus. "Busted." Dean elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up, but neither of the teachers seemed to notice their antics. They were both focused on Ron. He removed his arm from around Hermione's shoulders quickly, taking a step away from her.
"Weasley," said McGonagall sternly, taking Ron's arm. "We need to speak with you. Without the other students." And with that, Ron was led away, a puzzled expresion on his face.
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