Disclaimer: Not one tiny shred of the basic plot/characters/etc. is mine. OK? Are you happy now?
(Note: Bits in italics are dreams, *asterisks are thoughts* and #hashes are song lyrics, singing, etc.#)
Note: I was wrong in the last chapter when I said that this one would be the day before the ball. I meant the hours before the ball. Sorry! :P
Another note to a SAD person: "Ok. This is so gay that it's not even funny. What the hell is with al the Authors notes in the WHOLE STORY? This should be in humor, not Romance/angst. It's just sad." You do realize that Disclaimers are fundamental, and that you contradicted yourself? (See highlighted text.) Question: do you even KNOW what you are typing?! Please read over your review next time, just to avoid similar humiliation.
One word for you: duh.
Now… on with the story! Thank you to all other reviewers! I love you all! (Except another flamer, called 'Smart', ironically enough. All he wrote was 'Your story is pure shit' about 16 times. Oh, yes, so clever. I bow down to you. NOT.)
Chapter 15: The Ball Looms
It was three o'clock. Lessons had ended, and the Gryffindor common room was buzzing. Hermione was in the center of it all, sucking the enthusiasm in. She was in two minds whether to change her dress colour. "Pink or blue, pink or blue, pink or blue… maybe I should go with green… yes, green," she finally decided, altering it with a flick of her wand. Then she proceeded to do her makeup. Ron stood awkwardly by her in a simple maroon top and jeans. He was constantly reassuring Hermione: "Yes, it's lovely. No, I'd say that eye shadow. I – I need to brush my teeth…" he charged off.
Harry sat in his dorm, and listening to all the hype downstairs, he was feeling a little bit out of it. Neville was sitting on his bed too. Neither of them felt like getting ready yet. Still, they had 4 hours to go.
"Neville?" Harry begun.
"Yeah?"
"You know what we're planning to do tonight?"
"Yeah."
"Could you run it by me again?"
"Yeah. We go get McGonagall, take her to her own office and try to get her back by making her remember. Failing that, we kill her."
"Hey, I didn't agree to that!" Harry spun round.
"Just checking you were listening."
"OK. We should really get ready."
"Yeah."
They dressed in silence, facing away from each other. Neville wore a cream top that did NOTHING for him Trinny and Susannah emerging here…! and a pair of maroon cord trousers. Harry wore a green jumper Mrs. Weasley had sent him last Christmas (as a sort of reminder of his first Christmas at Hogwarts) and some black baggy trousers. Neville painstakingly gelled his hair, Harry just gave his a quick comb.
Ten minutes later they were ready. But no one else knew they were going together. Well, not necessarily 'going together', just… escorting each other. Much as he hated to admit it, Harry did not want to be known as gay as well as mad.
They sat in the common room, whiling away the time.
"So…"
"So…"
"Maybe we should… um…"
"No, we've got 3 hours 50 minutes left."
"Oh."
A pause.
"Hermione seems to be enjoying it all."
"Yeah."
A long pause.
"Nice weather."
"Neville – shut the hell up. We're about to go to our graduation ball, as a gay couple – well…" he corrected, seeing Neville's delighted face, "…we're going together anyway. Without dates. Girls, I mean. And we're about to try to get our head of house – who I recently 'fell in live with' and virtually killed – to remember something – which I have just realized won't work because SHE HAS NO BLOODY SOUL. SO DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT THE F***ING WEATHER ON THE MOST STRANGE AND STRESSFUL NIGHT OF MY LIFE."
Neville whimpered.
They sat, seething in silence. Harry was thinking about the impending ball, and what a horrible non-event it would be. Well, not a non-event as such, just a particularly crap one. He'd drink, dance a little bit, drink, sit in silence, drink, dance a little bit, drink… and so on.
Neville was on a high. He was on a date with his one true love. Because he was sure of that now. He fancied girls still – man, was Hermione hot in that green dress – but he was in love with Harry. Put it this way, he wouldn't kick either of them out of bed, but he'd be more reluctant to kick Harry off a cliff. Did that make sense? No? Well, he trusted Harry more than anyone in the world. He would gladly place his life in Harry's hands. This might have been partly due to Harry's life-saving reputation, but Neville thought it was mainly love.
Suddenly, a scream rode out from the common room. Harry and Neville charged down the stairs, where unfortunately Hermione had looked at her watch and realized there was only a minute to go before the opening of the ball.
"QUICK, RON! HURRY!" Ron sighed and followed her out of the portrait hole. Harry and Neville looked at each other. Neville sighed and led the way down the stairs, into the most strange, enlightening and – basically – odd nights of their entire lives.
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Reviews welcome – heehee!