Author's Note: I wasn't going to post this chapter, as it adds nothing to the story but a few hints and some character development, but I figured hey! It's Christmas: time for the Hogwarts Yule Ball. This chapter is completely gratuitous, but fun, and may be safely skipped over in favour of the following, more interesting one, wherein the narrative thread is taken up once more.

This chapter is dedicated to the snide person (who for their own safety shall remain anonymous) who pointed out that in Chapter 3 the "Leaky Cauldron" was the pub in Diagon Alley, while the "Hog's Head" was the pub in Hogsmeade. Rats. And just when I thought I was pulling something over on you, too. Congratulations, sir! You are, as Ron so aptly put it, a total geek.

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NINE

Ron threw himself at the seat across the lunch table. He was in a panic, his red hair standing up in spikes, and the whites showing all around his eyes. "Harry, you've got to help me, I've just done something awful."

"Wait." Harry finished chewing his bite of sandwich and swallowed, while holding up a hand for patience. "First, swear to me that your next sentence does not contain the names of any two professors who may or may not be sleeping with each other."

"It doesn't."

"Fire away."

"I took your advice."

"What advice?" He tried to remember any advice he'd ever given Ron, other than the one about not sneaking crib sheets to Trewlaney's class because she spotted them a day in advance. Then he remembered. "Hermione?"

"Yes." He looked like a fox with the hounds ready to burst into the lunch hall at any second. "I told her what you said I should tell her, and she said if I was so damn fond of her why didn't I invite her to the Yule Ball and I did and she said yes."

"Good for you, then."

Ron took two fistfuls of Harry's robe and lugged him brutally away from his lunch. "Not good for me! You've got to get me out of it! I just overheard Richard Parker saying how he was thinking of asking her, and I thought, 'Rich Parker, he's Head Boy, she'll drop me in a second.' What should I do? I've already asked what colour she's wearing and everything."

Harry's elbow was now planted firmly in a turkey sandwich, with mayonnaise soaking through his sleeve. He pried off Ron's clutching fingers, straightened his own uniform as best he could, and began cleaning himself up as Ron, dead-white, crumpled into a chair and sat there winded and wide-eyed, swaying ever so slightly and looking as if he'd been hit over the back of the head.

"Good grief, it's only a dance, Weasley. You've been to school dances before."

"Not with her I haven't. Besides . . . ." Ron trailed off, which was totally unlike Ron, whose mouth and brain had a direct link with no perceptible means of content editing. "Besides, I figured you were going to ask her, anyway."

Well, there was that card on the table.

"Ron, think about it. Hermione and me? A two-hour train ride twice a year with no way to escape Granger's yammering is like a season in hell. You can't honestly think I have any interest in her." As he said it, a very small knife twisted inside him. It wasn't as true as he would have liked it to be. "One date isn't going to kill either of you. It might actually drag Hermione away from her long unrequited love affair with the library."

"Are you sure? Because if you really want to ask her I'm sure I could back out. I'll go tell her now. Or you can tell her. Tell her I'm planning on having a bout of intestinal flu that night and I asked you to take her instead."

"Jesus." He shoved lunch out the way and put his head on the table. "I came to this school to learn to be a wizard, not an agony-aunt!"

This remark well past shrill enough to make Ravenclaws at the adjoining table speculate, loudly, on whether Potter had finally cracked under the stress.

"Are you going to finish that?"

Without looking, he shoved his plate at Ron. "You can eat around the elbow-print." His head came up again. "I am not taking Hermione to this dance. I have no intentions toward her, honourable or dishonourable or otherwise. I am sick of messing with other people's romantic lives and would much rather work on starting one of my own, so will you please just eat my lunch and go to the Ball and shut up about it, already?"

Ron picked up half the sandwich, reflecting on it the way Socrates might have contemplated the hemlock "Why did she have to get taller than me? I'm going to look like an idiot, us dancing with me resting my chin in her cleavage."

Harry firmly suppressed his smile, but one shrewd black eyebrow crooked above the edge of his glasses. "Some people would consider that a really good date, Ron."

"Don't you understand? It's Hermione. Hermione can't have cleavage. Hermione isn't even supposed to be a girl."

This was also quite loud. The Ravenclaws started jabbering again. The madness must be spreading; Weasley had it now.

"Well, I should hope she's a girl, if you're asking her out. I certainly won't dance with you."

"But . . . but you'll be there, right?" Ron looked up, trembling in terror. "I mean, if something unforeseen happens and I make an ass of myself . . . you'll be there, won't you Harry?"

It was times like this when Harry had the feeling that he and Ron had been separated at birth. He poured a glass of sparkling grape juice, slid it over to Ron, and smiled. "I'll be there. Even if I have to go stag."

Two hours later he got the same treatment, in reverse, from Hermione.

"Why the hell did you tell Ron Weasley to ask me to the Yule Ball?" She sat down at her desk and glared at Harry as if she'd like nothing more than to spare Voldemort the trouble of butchering Potter in some new and spectacular manner.

"I didn't."

"Well, he did, and I said yes, and now I have to go. Stupid school dances. Who comes up with these things, anyway? It's a waste of good tuition money, not to mention what I'll have to spend getting new dress robes since last year's are six inches too short and I look like a bloody stork in them."

"Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that. If you two end up dancing, could you . . . I don't know . . . could you maybe bend your knees a little?"

Oblivious to Harry, she raced on, words tripping over each other on their way out. High on her cheeks two tiny pink balls of colour burned. "Richard Parker asked me to the Ball not twenty minutes after I'd already said yes to Ron. Head Boy, and I had to turn him down. Harry Potter, this is your entire fault. As of this moment, we are no longer friends. As a matter of fact, I'm making it effective retroactively. We have never been friends."

Hermione bent her head to her knees and put her hands over her face. Harry stood over her, thumbs tucked into his pockets, a silly grin on his face.

"What colour are you wearing?" Harry asked at last.

Hermione grieved from behind her hands. "Wine-red."

* * *

It was Thursday, two days after the attack in the sub-cellar, one day before the Yule Ball, and the air outside tasted of snow. Bundled in his winter cloak and scarf, Harry wandered in from the courtyard to the First Hall stairs, wondering how he was supposed to get his priorities in order at a time like this. He needed a date for the Yule Ball. He was about to owe the brothers Weasley more money than he currently possessed. There was something off-beam with what Snape had told him the hallway, not to mention the conversation afterwards: inexplicable prattle about what had to come to him naturally, and a former student-- no, that doesn't cover too much ground; let's say, every wizard in England?--who'd gone undetected as a Death Eater. The first name that came to mind was Peter Pettigrew. It was a possibility, with only one flaw that Harry could see: there was no reason for Snape to be so foreboding about someone that Potter knew.

He passed down Second Hall, grunting a curt hullo to the portrait of eight merry maids a-Maying, and hunching his shoulders as they crowded the front edge of the frame to blow him kisses and wave their scarves as he hustled beneath. Beyond them lay the stairs going up to Third Hall and the professors' wing, which he intended to walk through as quickly as possible on his way to Fourth.

On with the list. Last year's dress robes were too small under the armpits. The new ones, arriving tonight by express owl, would probably be hideous. Ron would no doubt make Harry mental by tomorrow evening. And Voldemort was trying to kill him, which didn't trouble him nearly as much as it should have done since Voldemort had been trying to kill him since he was an infant and all the other problems had come about recently.

Climbing up to Third Hall and the back stairs to Gryffindor, trying to avoid the brothers Weasley in case they decided to rough him up about the bet (Fred and George were not above doing this, nor would they balk at hiring other people to do it for them), Harry paused, one hand on the stair rail, as a voice so sweet it sent shivers up his spine floated down the hall.

"The Christmas goose is in the pot . . . the Christmas psalms are read . . . I'll spend my day the lover's way . . . unwrapping all my gifts in bed . . . ." Quiet as a shadow, Evensong drifted past the mouth of the stairs, heading toward the teachers' lodgings. "The Yu-le log is on the fire . . . ."

Vertigo swept over him, as if he'd misjudged his step. Instinctively he grasped the rail while his free hand to his forehead, over the scar, and felt nothing. Not a scar-feeling. The feeling of the black spot, the memory of his mother's singing, distant now as the sound of snow outside.

"Pretty, don't you agree?" There was no warmth to the words. Snape had come up behind him without so much as disturbing the air. His hands were held behind his back, and a trace of fresh snow clung to the shoulders of his black wool cloak.

Harry nodded, fingers still pressed to his scar. "Makes me dizzy, though."

"Try pinching your nose and exhaling, hard. It helps." He reminded Harry of the black bishop in Ron's chess set. Or one of the ravens that lived on the lawn of the haunted chapel, and the way they tilted their heads when they spotted something edible or otherwise attractive. "Has your memory come back at all, Potter?"

"No, sir. It comes in bits and pieces."

"Neither has mine. I've told her I want the last effects of the Repellment removed as soon as possible. You might want to do the same."

"Is she safe?"

"She's as safe as her kind ever is. Which isn't saying much for them." He sounded as if he wished it were otherwise. His hawk's eyes followed the sound of her voice, even though she had long disappeared from view, as if he could perceive her passage through stone. "The Faerie are liars. It's a point of pride for them."

"You didn't trust her enough to let her do the Repellment to begin with, but you'll let her take off the effects."

"It wasn't a matter of not trusting. I know what she's capable of doing. It was a matter of my specifically denying her permission to perform a very intimate and unnerving form of healing."

"In the Muggle world, they call it 'invading your personal space', sir."

"For once, I actually agree with a Muggle." A low mutter came from the floor. "Damn, here it goes."

Both of them held very still as the stairs beneath them rumbled, then shifted to the left, leaving the top step hanging over a six storey drop to the ground floor. Snape growled and kicked the post. "I rather needed to get to my room."

Harry took advantage of the pause. "Sir, was the thing in the sub-cellar Peter Pettigrew?"

"If I said yes, would it make any difference?"

"Not really, sir. But the devil you know is better--"

Snape stopped him. "Spare me your platitudes. It wasn't Pettigrew. And I'll thank you to stop pressing the subject, as it really is none of your concern."

"Begging your pardon, sir. But since both you and Evensong seem to think I'm a deaf-mute, I'll remind you that I was standing on the hem of your robes while you were discussing the matter. I can put two and two together. Former student, and a Death Eater. Sounds like Pettigrew to me. Or would you rather I try to find out for myself? Just what is it I'm not supposed to know, so I can avoid it if I see it?"

"I think," said Snape, "you may be taking whatever information you've weaselled out of me a bit too lightly."

"The way she did, huh?"

The stairs began to grind their way back to meet Fourth Hall. When the top step became flush with the walkway, Snape started up again, pausing on the step above Potter to deliver a final, grim note.

"Whatever happens, I am still your professor. So mind what you say to me. Ten points from Gryffindor, Potter."

He brushed past him, up the stairs after Evensong.

"Happy Christmas to you, too," Harry murmured when Snape had gone. When he was certain the professor was far enough down the passage, he added viciously, "Prick."

* * *

He rapped a dozen times as fast and loud as he could on Hermione's door. India White opened up, said quickly, "She still says she's retroactively not your friend," and tried to shut it back. Fortunately Harry was carrying The Giant Guide to Wee Folks and dropped it on the sill in time to prevent the door closing. While India struggled to unwedge the tome, Harry leaned through the gap, spotted Hermione sitting on her bed, and tossed a box in her lap. "From Ron," he said, before India finally kicked the book out of the way. He missed getting his hand crushed by half a second.

He went back to Ron, who sat chewing his thumbnail in the Commons, and clicked his heels together before snapping a salute. "Corsage delivered."

Ron grinned. "Mission accomplished."

* * *

Harry came down the boys' stairs, dressed in simple black dress robes trimmed in tiny electric-green lizards. Ron and Hermione waited for him at the portal hole. Hermione's new robes were crushed crimson velvet, lush and thick, with gold Gryffindor lions around the hem. It was cut with a slight train that might have been an attempt by Madame Malkin to conceal Hermione's ankles. Ron looked uncomfortable, overdressed, and slightly over-washed, his white face shiny with soap. It might have been the light but he seemed to have scrubbed off some freckles. Next to Hermione's robes, his hair looked orange. Of all the boys in Hogwarts who clashed their girl's flowers with her robes, only Weasley could manage to clash with his whole date.

"Are you two kids ready?" Harry asked, jumping the last two steps. Now that he was on the main floor with them, Hermione was taller than Ron, a lot taller. The heavy vertical folds of her robes only accentuated it.

"I'm nearly a year older than you, Harry Potter," Hermione replied primly.

"Fine, then, you be chaperone. I'll be in my room."

Ron spoke through his teeth, as if his face was on too tight. "May we please go down, before I overheat in all this stupid velvet?"

"Nonsense. You look very nice, Ron," she said with all sincerity. Ron's robes plain velvet and a darker shade of red than Hermione's. It did nothing for his hair, but they matched, and Hermione was satisfied. Colour-coordination was an obsessive thing for girls. "So do you, Harry," she added generously, before frowning and reaching out to rub his collar. "Lizards?"

"I like lizards. What's that on your robes, then, circus elephants?"

Hermione fiddled with Ron's robes, brushing a touch of dust from his sleeve, then turned on Harry, trying to slick down his hair. Harry swatted her hands. "Do you want to go to a dance, or do you want to groom us?"

"Yes." She ran one arm under Ron's, the other under Harry's. "Are we ready, then?"

Hermione dragged them through the portal hole and down the passage. The boys got to like it once they managed to get in step. About halfway down the Fourth Hall stairs Hermione and Harry broke into singing "Hey Big Spender" at the top of their lungs, with Ron shamming the parts he didn't know.

Evensong and Sir Nicholas came up the passage, side by side, reminiscing as they approached the Great Hall. Her hood was still half over her face, and her hand draped lightly just above Sir Nicholas's diaphanous ruffled sleeve. Nick seemed particularly pompous about the whole affair, his chin held as high as he could manage without his head toppling over.

"Does this mean she's come to the Ball with Nearly Headless Nick instead of Snape?" whispered Harry. "Talk about bitter pills. Imagine getting thrown over for a dead guy."

"He's safe, at least," said Ron. "He's already dead."

When Sir Nicholas walked through the main doors, Evensong absentmindedly trailed after him. Hermione tugged Ron's sleeve. "She does this all the time. Forgets to be corporeal. Watch."

Evensong floated back through the door. She opened it, stepped through, then shut it behind her again. It was so absurd that the three of them started laughing, and things started to feel normal again.

"Which one of us gets to hold the door for the lady?" asked Harry.

"That would be you, third-wheel."

"She's your date. You're supposed to be chivalrous."

"I thought we agreed that you were my valet. You hold doors, shine shoes, deliver flowers, and do all-around lackey work."

While they stood there arguing, Hermione slipped her arm out of Ron's, crossed the hall, and held open the door. Grim but smiling, she beckoned them inside. The two boys obligingly linked arms and walked in together, with Hermione curtseying as they passed. Hermione wriggled her way between them once inside, and Harry took his place, trailing behind like a butler.

Inside, the Great Hall was extravagant, outshining the decorations from two years before. Among the floating candles sparkled crystal prisms in the shape of stars, revolving slowly, sending out winks of green and orange, red and blue. A small stage had been set up to one side of the head table--near Professor Luddivon, who wouldn't be bothered by the noise--and three pale men who made Evensong look positively tan by comparison were unloading cellos. Empty tables laid out in goldware and china waited in anticipation of the feast, but most overwhelming was the tree--a mountain fir that nearly brushed the expanse of starry sky above.

"Sprout grew it," Hermione said with pride as they gawked. She sounded as if she'd had a hand in it herself. "It's not really that big--she just put an Enlargement spell on it for the Ball. It's still alive, too. She's got it to root in the floor somehow."

"And the sky's not real, the candles are under a Levitation Charm, and the chap in the Father Christmas costume is actually Dumbledore," concluded Ron. "Can you just not dissect things for one night, Hermione?"

She turned pink. "It is lovely, though," she admitted, leaning her head on Ron's shoulder to admire the rainbow stars. Ron took a quick, surprised look from the round, dark head on his shoulder to Harry. Harry gave him a thumbs-up.

Lavender Brown waved. "How'd you get two dates, Hermione?" Admiration ensued, replete with shrill squeals over Hermione's fabulous dress versus Lavender's luxuriant red hair bound in a net of crystal beads, while their respective dates--and Harry--lined against the wall, waiting for the fever to pass.

Harry was watching the head table. The teachers had arrived well in advance to make the final preparations, and were only just settling down now, enjoying the milling hum on the floor. It was always amazed Harry to see how much of their professional personas they shed on occasions like these. McGonagall, alternating between stern and flustered and flattered as Professor Umlaut presented her with a gift . . . Dumbledore, who probably didn't intend to look as much like Father Christmas as he did in his bright scarlet robes and fur-trimmed cloak. Hagrid had not yet arrived, but there was a chance he was somewhere trying to sober up--he had been known to start celebrating a few hours before everyone else.

And at the end of the table, Snape. Wearing black, of course. Beside him, Evensong strove to shame him into having a good time.

"We were wrong." He focused Ron's attention on the two teachers. "Evensong's given up the ghost."

Hermione saw them and clucked her tongue. "As you've just reminded me, gentlemen, this is a dance. Let's not discuss business tonight."

"This is business?" said Harry, surprised.

"It wasn't our business until Harry 'Hardy Boy' Potter decided to make it our business."

"With Nancy Drew Granger at my side all the way."

Ron looked baffled. Hermione squeezed his shoulder. "Muggle stuff. I'll tell you about it later." Almost as an afterthought, she tucked her hand in his and led him away to talk to her roommate India, who was here with the very stunned looking young man she'd abducted from the house Quidditch team.

Fred and George turned up late. To add to the confusion, they had dressed identically and were escorting the Patel twins. Over the course of the evening Padma and Parvati were subjected to much swapping: both Weasleys cutting in each other's dances so many times the girls ended up rather dazed. By the end of the night not only would they not know which Weasley was taking them back to their dorm but would probably have forgotten which brother they started off with. Poor Padma; this was her second Ball with a Weasley, and it looked as if it might be her last.

Ron and Hermione had drawn off to a pair of chairs and were chatting amiably. At the head table, it looked as if Evensong were trying to persuade Snape to dance. Smiling, Harry started for a glass of punch.

Ron appeared out of nowhere and intercepted him. "Uh, I don't think you'd better do that, Potter. I just saw Fred slip something into the bowl."

He took a mug of warm butterbeer instead. There was definitely something floating in the peachy depths of the punch. "Ron, there's something pink on your neck. It almost matches Hermione's lipstick."

"It's a spot, okay? It's the same spot I've been complaining about all week, Potter, so don't start!"

Harry grinned. This must be what people meant when they talked about living vicariously. It wasn't half bad. "Have you asked her to dance yet?"

Ron rubbed his neck. "Um, no. Not yet. The floor's been rather crowded."

"Go on. One dance. This could be the last dance of your life at Hogwarts. You want to look back when you're Dumbledore's age and say you never got one clear shot to snog Granger on the dance floor?"

"Do you have to use the word snog?"

The music changed just then to a waltz. The floating candles dimmed. All the students groaned at the sudden onslaught of teacher-music; there was a general exodus from the centre of the room.

Harry clapped Ron on the back and spoke in his best pre-game Quidditch pep-talk voice. "That's a sign from heaven, mate. Go to."

He waited until he was certain Ron was at least headed in Hermione's general direction, then went back to watching. Only a few of the top forms were on the floor now, the cello's slow vibration tingling eerily down the back of Harry's neck. For a moment, the black spot threatened everything; blood rushed to his head. Quickly he took a vacated chair, cradling his head in his hands.

One look at the dance floor changed everything; the black feeling swept away like pages on the wind. Ron had finally asked her.

There they were, in each other's arms on the floor, revolving very slowly, Ron staring down into Hermione's face as if gazing on a total stranger. Harry's heart nearly burst. Good God, look at that. First time since they met on the Hogwarts Express those two aren't ripping each other to shreds. Who knew all it take was getting a dress on Hermione and threatening Ron's life to accomplish all that? Something was wrong though; why did Ron have to look down on Hermione?

When he realised what it was, it struck him as the funniest, most heartbreaking thing he'd ever seen. Foolish tears welled up. He blinked them away. Beneath the full folds of her heavy velvet skirt, noticeable only to one who was looking for it, Hermione Granger danced gracefully on half-bended knees.

A half-hour later, the punchbowl was swimming in tadpoles. The Patel twins looked very dizzy indeed. Evensong had given up trying to get Snape on the floor, and Harry allowed Hermione and Ron to wander off somewhere. With his chair leaned back against the wall, Harry pondered to himself the essential weirdness of his life. Born a wizard, raised by the most Muggly Muggles, possibly the most famous student in Hogwarts--and the best dance of his life was the one he had sat out.

"Jesus H. Christ on pancakes!" George suddenly shouted. "Hagrid's shaved his beard!"

Everybody turned in horror as the enormous Professor ducked slightly under the doorframe. He was dressed in his Christmas best, a midnight black robe covered in glittery stars, with his brown oilskin duster thrown over the top. Harry was on his feet, gaping along with all the students, half the faculty, and six of the twelve resident ghosts. Ever since he'd met Hagrid, half his face had been overgrown by a chest-length woolly black beard . . . and he'd finally shaved it off. After the shock wore off, he sat back down. What mandate of God himself could possible persuade Hagrid to the barber's?

In about three seconds the question was answered for everyone. Hagrid extended him arm, and a second, equally enormous creature dipped under the doorframe. Her skin was rich, glowing olive, oil-black hair skimmed back from her face and woven into some fabulous concoction on the nape of her neck. A blush set off her noble cheekbones as Hagrid proudly lead her to the head table.

A smile spread over Harry's face; he couldn't stop it. He mouthed the woman's name: Madame Maxime.

One of the Weasley twins started clapping, slowly, followed by his brother. The people around them soon caught up. By the time Hagrid and Maxime reached the head table even the teachers were on their feet applauding, some of the younger ones pounding their feet against the floor as well, and the thunder was deafening. A shout--it could only have been Ron--from the back of the Hall: "Yeah, Hagrid!"

This was the final straw. If Hagrid could find a woman, if Ron could . . . hell, if Snape could, then Harry obviously just wasn't trying hard enough.

* * *

Before they went to bed Ron cornered Harry in the Common Room. He pulled down the collar of his velvet robe and pointed. "See that? That, my friend, is lipstick."