Chapter 12 – Harry.

Harry awoke the next morning to find Ron still fast asleep. He shook him awake, as they only had ten minutes 'til Breakfast; the other boys had obviously thought it funny to leave them sleeping. As they were in a rush, Harry thought it better to leave the Padma Patil issue until later on, but they would need to talk about it.

They arrived at Breakfast only a couple of minutes late, and automatically tracked Hermione. She was sitting near the end of the table on her own, reading a book. Harry caught Ginny Weasley's eye, as she had seen him watching Hermione. Ginny gave him a sympathetic smile, and turned back to her friends. Harry and Ron made there way over to Hermione; Harry feeling bad and Ron feeling hungry, as he didn't know just what effect his asking Padma Patil out had had on the love of his life. Hermione looked up as they sat down, and gave Harry a small smile, but she could not look at Ron. Harry started a conversation with her about the Transfiguration book which she was reading, while Ron ate his bacon. Eventually the conversation faded out, and the three of them sat there whilst Hermione read her book with pursed lips, Harry drank his tea, and Ron ate helping after helping of bacon and eggs. This was so typical, thought Harry; Hermione angry because of Ron, Ron totally clueless, and Harry in the middle with a cup of tea.

Once Breakfast was over, Harry, Ron and Hermione started making their way towards the main staircase, when Padma Patil walked past, and flicked her long dark hair over her shoulder. She turned round and smiled at Ron, and he gave her a very embarrassed smile back, whilst his ears turned pink. Hermione pretended not to notice, but looked defiantly put out, and Harry sniggered to himself.

Potions in the morning dragged on forever, and, as it was Snape's class, Harry and Ron didn't get a proper chance to talk. It was so uneventful; Malfoy didn't even make any snide comments. He seemed to have calmed down lately.. No one quite knew why.

Lunch time found Harry and Ron sitting in the common room, doing the Potions homework which Snape had just set them. They were getting nowhere, and they both had a free afternoon, so just decided to leave it. Harry decided he was going to have to bring up the subject of Padma sometime, and Hermione seemed to have made herself scarce, so this was it.

"So, you and Padma, eh?" Harry raised his eyebrow at Ron, and sat back in his chair.

"Errr.. Yeah. So you heard?"

"Everyone heard, mate.. Everyone's talking about it."

"Really?" Ron looked embarrassed but also rather pleased that people were talking about him for once.

"Yeah. I was talking to Hermione about it yesterday..." Harry trailed off, and looked up at Ron, with a questioning expression on his face. Ron looked uncomfortable and shuffled in his seat;

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Right..."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Ron. This has bloody well gone on for long enough. What about Hermione?!" Harry sounded exasperated, and Ron gave him a sideways glance saying,

"Yeah, what about her?"

"Ron, why aren't you going out with her?"

"...What? Hermione's just a friend." Ron looked uncomfortable once again, and Harry couldn't be bothered to pursue it. Ron could make his own mistakes if he wanted to.

"Right. Whatever, just think about it." Harry had given up, but Ron just looked confused. So Harry changed the subject and they began talking about Quidditch, or something similar.

Harry concluded that Ron would come round eventually, and, in the mean time, Hermione would just have to live with it, however hard that might be for her. But he had other things to think about. For one, he needed to decide about Cho; he had been thinking a lot about the two of them, and could see that nothing was ever going to come of it. He was at her beck and call, yet he couldn't speak to her. He just couldn't do it. She had a strange sort of power over him, and he really didn't like that. He wanted to find a girl who understood him, one to whom he could talk, and Cho was certainly not the answer. But then there was a problem: Harry really did like those midnight meetings, and he was a teenage boy, who would surely become frustrated if he had no one to keep him occupied.

Time passed slowly but surely, and the Quidditch season had unveiled itself rather nicely; the final was to be between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and would be held in five weeks' time. This meant that Harry was spending rather a lot of time poring over magical boards, poking multi-coloured squiggles with his wand in a rather Wood-esque fashion. He had increased the amount of training sessions to four times a week. The rest of the team didn't seem to mind so much, but Harry could see that the work load, along with the Quidditch practises were taking their toll on Ginny and Colin Creevey, Ginny especially. It was obvious to anyone that she was tired; Harry would catch Ron just watching her anxiously in the Common Room, worrying about whether or not she was alright.

"All she ever does is work now.. I swear this isn't healthy. D'you think she's alright? I mean, she'd tell me if there were something wrong, wouldn't she?" Ron would say to the other two. Hermione would console him, and ensure him that Ginny was fine, and that she would tell him if something was up. Harry could see why Ron was worried; Ginny had dark circles under her eyes, and she always looked like she was thinking about other things, but whenever she was asked whether she was okay, she would always reply with an "Oh yeah, I'm fine", and then occupy herself with fiddling with her robe.

The trio had been rather bored for a week because not much had been going on, and were just sitting down to eat dinner on a Friday evening in February when Dumbledore stood up to make the evening's announcements.

"Students in all years are reminded, by Mr Filch, to keep away from the Forbidden Forest for their own safety." The Hogwarts students rolled their eyes at this message; they were reminded to keep away from The Forest at least three times a week, and had quite clearly got the message by now. Dumbledore then smiled and said:

"And, for our older students, we have arranged a treat; we know the stress of impending important exams can sometimes become somewhat unbearable, which is why there will be a ball for 5th, 6th and 7th years in exactly three weeks time." The hall fell silent at this... The students old enough to attend the ball were whispering excitedly to each other about outfits and the like, while the students in 4th year and below were fuming at being too young.

Harry turned round to Ron;

"Oh, well that's just great. Now we've got to ask people to go with us." Ron looked round at him and said,

"Well, you know, I'll just ask Padma again, because, like, she'll say yes and stuff, so..."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that, mate. You're sorted then, eh?"

"It would appear so. What about you?"

"Well... I dunno..."

"You could always ask that Cho girl." Ron didn't particularly like Cho, but he couldn't think of anyone else whom Harry could take to the ball.

"Yeah, I think I might, actually."

"Mmm, but you'd better get in there quick, I mean, I hear she's got quite a few admirers and so on."

"Yeah, we'll see." Harry caught sight of Cho across the hall, gossiping with her friends about the ball, no doubt. She really was very pretty, and Harry was pretty sure she'd say yes, so he'd have to get round to asking her soon. He turned back round to the table, just in time to hear Ron ask Hermione about with whom she thought she might go to the ball:

"So, Hermione, who're you thinking might ask you?" Hermione looked up, and scowled:

"Oh, I doubt anyone'll ask me, I probably won't even go. It'll be a waste of time, anyway." Hermione started to stand up, "Anyway, I've just got to nip to the library for a bit, so I'll see you two later." And, with that, she left, and, as she walked out, Harry saw her wipe her eye with her sleeve. He looked round at Ron, who was fiddling with the leftovers from his meal, and sighed. Ron mumbled something like "Oh, someone's bound to ask her", and poured himself more pumpkin juice.

Ginny

Ginny sat in the comfort of her dormitory gossiping with her room mates about the ball. It was all so sudden. Ginny supposed that the teachers had seen how stressed most of the students were becoming, and so decided to cheer them up a bit. The girls talked about who might ask them to the ball, about whom they'd i like /i to ask them to the ball, and about what they were going to wear. They all decided they'd wear dresses instead of normal dress robes, as some muggle dresses were simply spectacular.

Ginny thought about what she could wear. She was worried; all her friends could buy dresses for themselves easily, but the Weasleys simply didn't have the money. She sat there pondering it for a while, and then she thought of it. Yes, yes, she knew what she could wear; Molly had a beautiful dress which she'd loved as a girl, and couldn't bear to give away. She'd have to send Errol home to get it, which could take a while, so she decided to owl her mother the next day.

Right. Took me ages. Apologies. I've got a hellish amount of school work etc etc. I'll enjoy writing the next chapter, so it shouldn't take too long.

Thank you so much to anyone who reviewed. Please review again, or, if you haven't done so before, please do!

Miss I-love-adam-brody, I did try to make the chapter longer, I know what you mean; short chapters annoy me too, so I'm terribly sorry about that (and I am in love with Adam Brody too).

Thanks for reading,

Nine Alternatives.