Disclaimer: Jo Rowling and you know it.
Dedication: To everybody. I swear this is the last of them!
The Trouble with Talking
"Yellow sandals are so wrong." Harry ducked behind his tower of books and hoped to look invisible. It didn't work. Lavendar Brown shoved his books off the table and leaned in until they were nose to nose. "Don't you think so, Harry?" she asked sweetly. Behind her, Hermione looked murderous.
"Um," Harry said thoughtfully.
"Oh, really!" Parvati Patil snapped when Harry didn't speak further. "It's monkey see, monkey do," she planted her hands on her hips and glared. "If Hermione wears those shoes to the dance then so will Ginny and they clash horribly with Ginny's hair."
Harry smiled as sweetly as he, "I don't care what Ginny wears, she'll be beautiful no matter what." He hoped that would satisfy them. Lavendar and Parvati were Gryffindors but Harry still wasn't certain which planet they were from originally.
"See?" Hermione folded her arms and cocked an eyebrow the other girls. "It doesn't matter to the boys what we're wearing."
Parvati glared, "That's not it," she huffed "it's just that Harry is either too sweet or too dense to behave like the other boys. Ron will care."
"I'm not arguing. Ginny and I are going in similar colors by choice and I'll wear the yellow if I choose too."
"Yellow what?" Ron asked hopping off the dorm steps and into the common room.
Lavendar was nearly in hysterics. "Shoes! Yellow sandals. For the Ball! And Ginny is going to go in like colors!"
Ron rubbed his temple and looked from Lavendar, to Parvati, to Harry, then to Hermione. "I like yellow," he offered. "So does Ginny, for that matter."
"It clashes!" Parvati hissed. "It clashes with Ginny's hair and Hermione's eyes. They're terrible."
"Uh," Harry could only call the look that Ron aimed at Hermione 'pleading'.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "For heaven's sake!" she snapped. "They're shoes. They hardly matter."
"You say that now," Lavendar seethed. "But you wait until you see them at the Ball!"
"Ron's already seen them," Hermione sighed. "I was wearing them when we met up at Gringotts this summer."
This seemed to interest Ron. "You were? You want to wear those shoes to the dance; the ones that are the same color as Lemon Sherbet Balls?" Hermione's cheeks flushed and she dipped her head slightly. Ron smiled, his ears going red. "Oh. Those were really nice."
"Honestly!"
Harry hid again, sorry he'd ever opened his mouth. Ever.