The rest of the day, Hermione gave Harry the cold shoulder, ignoring him in all of their classes together. This mystified Harry, as he had no idea what was up, and took a mental note to ask a girl about this, as they were most likely to know.
After their last class Harry and Ron walked towards to the Gryfinndor common room to drop their bags before dinner. The corridors were cold, and Harry had wrapped up in dragon skin gloves and a woollen maroon and gold hat. The lit torches along the bare brick walls created a mystical golden glow over the student's faces as the sun was setting in the distance.
Just as Harry and Ron walked in, Dumbledore stood up and began addressing the pupils, so they hurried to their seats. "Good evening students! I'm hoping you are all well on this fierce November night. I merely have one announcement before we all settle down to have our dinner. As I'm sure you are all aware it is approaching December, and in December Hogwart's has its most spectacular annual event, The Yule Ball. This event allows both students and professors to let their hair down so to speak, and celebrate the festive season. Students are generally expected to come with a partner from within the school, but unfortunately any students in first, second and third year can only attend if asked by an older student. The date of the ball will be the 14th of December, I am thoroughly looking forward to it and I hope you senior students are too. Now everybody, let's eat!" Dumbledore sat down at the top table and began eating his stew merrily.
"The Yule Ball, I'm so excited!" Declared Hermione.
"What's so great about it? All it means is another few weeks of misery as I try to work up the courage to ask someone to go with me, and eventually ending up going with my sister again!" Ron mumbled unenthusiastically to Harry, who nodded in agreement. The pair remembered the awful time they'd had last year trying to find partners before eventually Harry asked two girls for both himself and Ron to go with.
The hall was filled with an air of curiousity and excitement, the girls had less than a month to be asked to go with someone they liked and the boys had less than a month to ask someone they liked to go. The whole system seemed unnecessarily embarrassing.
As students filtered through the halls back to their dormitories, Harry could hear people still talking about the Ball and guessed that by tomorrow he'd be sick of the talk of it, and probably would no longer want to go, despite the fact it was rumoured that "The Hex" were coming to play (an immensely famous band within the wizarding world).
As Gryfinndor students sat up around the cosy fire chatting joyously together, Harry stared up at the roof in disbelief. He was having the strangest daydream; he was waltzing around the great hall with a dragon for a partner. This dragon was special, it was silvery in colour and had sheen over its skin, creating a glossy look, and it was beautiful. Harry felt exhilarated and was smiling continuously, yet he had the overwhelming feeling of plummeting in the pit of his stomach. The dragon let him go, he was falling from a great height and could not see the ground he just kept falling...
"Hellooooo...? Harry? Ron, should we go get the nurse he's been sitting like this for ten minutes now!"
"What's going on?" Harry looked up to see Ron and Hermione's faces peering back down at him.
"You fell of you're chair and have been lying smiling to yourself for about ten minutes! What were you thinking about" Hermione told him, with a tone of caution.
"Em... just dragons."
"Well maybe you should go work with my brother mate, if dragons make you so happy and ignorant to everything around you!" Ron laughed. Harry chuckled along with him, but inside wandered what that was all about. Why had he been dreaming about dragons? Hermione left to go up to bed, leaving Harry and Ron alone in the common room because they weren't tired at all. They wandered over to the fire to sit in there favourite chairs but discovered Josephine curled up in one of the chairs fast asleep. "How long's she been there?" Ron asked.
"Dunno, I never seen her till just now." The two sat up talking about classes, but when Ron made an incredibly funny joke about Snape and whether he was able to see through the grease running down his forehead into his eyes, the two erupted in laughter, and Josephine stirred.
She got up and started to walk towards the stairs, blatantly ignoring the boys, until Ron shouted, "Oi! What's all this? You not talking, usually we can't get you to shut up!" She screamed and got such a scare she fell backwards over a small table, onto the flat of the back. She then started laughing wildly at herself and her stupidity. Harry and Ron rushed over to see if she was ok.
"You stupid idiots! What a scare to give someone! I didn't even see you sitting there, oh my goodness." They all laughed and spoke for a while sitting on the ancient heavily patterned carpet before she announced she was going to bed.
She hadn't been upstairs for five minutes, when she came pounding back downstairs again, giving Harry and Ron quite a scare. "Did you see that flash? Must be thunder and lightning outside!"
"What you talking bout? There wasn't a flash!" Ron told her. But the three of them walked over to the window to take a look outside. The skies were clear, and the reflections of thousands of stars could be seen in the window, the moonlight cast eerie shadows over the forest and Hagrids hut. But there had definitely been no lightning as there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
Harry eyes glanced over the lake and the edge of the forest before he spotted it. A shadow standing in Hagrid's pumpkin patch looked about ten metres long the way the moon lit it from behind; Harry wondered what it could be. He hadn't noticed anything new being there that day in Care of Magical creatures, strange he thought. Then, the shadow moved, it must be alive whatever it is. He pointed this out to the others and Josephine pressed her face against the cold glace and Ron squinted to try and make out what this mystery shadow was. There was something lying on the ground to, it was huge like the body of some magical beast, Hagrid must have killed something that day and left it outside, which was very unlike Hagrid. Harry suddenly ran upstairs to his dorm, and came pounding back downstairs with his invisibility cloak in his hand, "I'm going to see what that is, you coming?"
They all went as fast as there legs could take them through the castles dark corridor's, hoping to get there before the shadowy creature had left, possibly back into the forbidden forest? They had run half way towards the castle doors before any of them realised that they were uncovered and could be seen. Harry swept the invisibility cloak loosely over them as they all ran furiously towards the door. It must have looked very strange to see the odd body part moving independently, very fast through the castle, as if floating in mid-air.
The freezing night air, hut there faces as if they had ran through a sheet of ice. Turning their noses scarlet and their cheeks crimson. They reached Hagrid's hut and stopped dead in their tracks – the beast looked up at them, but they couldn't see its face still. It raised its hand towards the group, who all took a few steps back. The invisibility cloak was still wrapped around them, tightly, how could this thing see them? They huddled together and moved sideways, hoping to make it to the front of Hagrid's, it became clear that the beast could see them as his hand followed them as they moved. "What is that thing?" Ron whispered.
"Just shut it! It might hear you!" Harry whispered anxiously.
They reached the wall of the hut and knelt down behind the stairs that led up towards Hagrid's door. Ron took the cloak off of them and they sat huddled together and thought about what they should do.
"What was it on the ground? Did you see? Oh my god! We're bloody stuck here until that thing leaves or comes and kills us!" Ron declared, in a hushed voice.
"I didn't really see it was a huge black lump on the ground, I think its another beast it's killed. It could be a gift or something for Hagrid, like one of his animal friends from the forest or something," Harry said hopefully.
"Well, I've heard of looking on the bloody bright side but I somehow doubt that's what it is!" Josephine said matter-of-factly.
THUD! The three jumped up, and saw the beast standing only a few metres away from them. Its arm moved up to the handrail and his fingers wrapped around the wooden pole, Harry noticed that it's hands looked just like a humans, but with its face still covered with its black robe he still couldn't see exactly what it was.
Suddenly its hand moved to its pocket where it pulled out a wand, he whispered and incantation before any of the students could move and hut Josephine with a spell, that forced her through the air and to land on her back about ten metres from Harry and Ron. Ron moved over to see if she was all right, her eyes were closed and she wasn't responding but she was still breathing at least. He looked over to Harry and shook his head as he raised Josephine's head onto his lap.
"What are you doing here?" Harry asked the thing.
The beast laughed and moved towards Harry and Harry moved backwards, away from it. "This makes it even better, you're friend is dead and the famous Harry Potter can't figure out what happened!"
"My friend is dead? Josephine's going to die! What did you do to her? You'll be locked up in Azkaban before dawn for using the Avada Kedavra curse. Dumbledore will know, as soon as I tell him anyway!"
"Harry don't be such a fool nobody knows who I am, so how will he be able to punish me?" The beast sniggered heartily. He began to walk off, but as he walked past Josephine being held in Ron's arms, he bent over the pair and laughed in Ron's face, Ron grabbed its leg and the beast fell. It stumbled to its feet and stood on his own robe and it came undone and tore off. It rapidly became clear that this beast wasn't a beast at all, but was a boy, a teenage boy who was wearing a Hogwart's school uniform. He ran off towards the castle, Harry run after him straight into the castle. Josephine began to stir and opened her eyes, Ron quickly explained what happened before Ron helped her to her feet and the walked round to the pumpkin patch. Ron moved towards the covered black mass and pulled back the giant rug that was covering it, whatever it was. The mass groaned and attempted to roll over before moaning in what seemed like extreme pain, it moved its extensive hand to its head and pulled its hair out of its face, Ron jumped back in shock. "Josephine, it's Hagrid! Josephine, over here!" Josephine walked over to Ron in a somewhat dazed manner, holding her head with her hands. When she saw Hagrid's face she collapsed to her knees and fell onto him, and sobbed into his shoulder, Ron had one hand on her arm just so that she knew he was there, but the frightened expression on his face didn't make her feel any better about the situation. "Well, at least we know he's alive" Ron said in an attempt to convince Josephine and himself everything was going to be ok.
Thoughts of Harry filled Josephine's head; she wondered if Harry had caught that boy Ron had told her about and if he was all right. It wasn't long before Dumbledore arrived and swiftly told the students to get to their bed and he would explain to the whole school the next day. Harry elucidated that he hadn't caught the student and that Dumbledore thought he knew why Hagrid had been attacked but the headmaster had been very secretive and vague. Ron and Harry went to their dormitories as Josephine fell asleep in the hospital wing after Madam Pomfrey gave her a strong sleeping draught.
A week or so later, Josephine met up with her old friends in the great hall at breakfast time, even though all her friends had given her numerous visits daily to tell her all the gossip and news, it was refreshing to see them in a non-surgical surrounding. The tickets for the Yule Ball were to be collected later on that day, and everyone was excited. The group talked furiously about what had been happening the whole day, and before they knew it, it was time to collect their tickets.
It was chaotic in the corridors after dinner in the great hall as all the senior students went to collect their tickets from the Room of Requirement. A room that is hidden until it is needed and then automatically equips itself with whatever that person needs. When Harry walked into it, it was decorated with posters advertising 'The Hex' and a long table at the end of the room was littered with papers as three teachers rustled through them hastily.
They seemed to be waiting forever as students talked loudly about there partners, the girl standing behind Josephine, talked ecstatically about her partner. It wasn't long before everyone in the room found out that she was getting tickets for her and her boyfriend, a boy in his seventh year, and it turned out hat she was only in her fifth. Harry and Josephine exchanged exasperated looks as the girl looked towards them as if to include them into the conversation. "You two going together?" She asked.
"Oh no, we're not, neither of us have partners for the ball." Harry explained embarrassingly.
"Oh right, sorry. Just thought you two were going out, nevermind. I'm going with Eric, you know him he's a year older than you? Eric Banakournakova?"
"Never heard of him sorry!" Harry replied.
"Oh I'm being so rude," the girl laughed and her two female friends laughed along with her. She gave an air of being a member of the social elite within the wizarding world, by the way she spoke, Harry thought she probably was within the ordinary muggle world too. "I'm Kacy, Kacy McBloom, you're Harry Potter and you are?" She said in a tone, which made it clear she was asking Josephine's name.
Harry looked at Josephine, and answered for her, "She's Josephine Morgan."
"Ok cool, its such a shame that you don't have a partner Josephine, girls can't really go themselves, it's great you are though" she added as an afterthought, but Josephine took it as a personal ploy to embarrass her.
Harry and Josephine merely turned around and carried on talking to Ron and Hermione. It seemed Hermione was the only one with a partner, some boy in her Ancient Runes class from Hufflepuff had asked her and she had said yes.
The next week saw winter really hit Hogwart's castle, the snow covered the trees and the lake turned to ice, the castle was bitterly cold and it meant the days passed faster, and Harry could hardly believe it when the the Yule Ball was only a few days away.