I would like to apologize in advance for this chapter. It wasn't originally supposed to be part of the story, but I sat down one night and wrote it out. It is the product of too much caffeine and nowhere near enough sleep. It contains blatent disregard for the characters, a really bad sense of humor, and no cats. I swear, I don't know why I'm bothering to post it, though it'll be a good laugh before the next few chapters.
The rewrite of chapter two is up as well, please, please, tell me what you think!

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"An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five-year-old boy." ~ Carl Van Vechten

"So who did you dance with?" Lavender leant forward eagerly, waiting for a reply. Lavender, Kerri, Ginny, Hermione, and Parvati all sat in the middle of their Gryffindor room. They had been happily reminiscing over the previous night's events, trying to figure out who had been who.

"Well, I know I danced with Harry once, there weren't any other golden snitches," Ginny ticked them off on her fingers. "Some guy dressed as a vampire, and a real cute teddy bear."

Kerri snatched a handful of popcorn and munched thoughtfully. "Vampire . . . hmm . . . Lots of those . . ."

"I'll bet that the teddy was Neville!" Pavarti giggled.

"Naw, I saw him before the ball, he was a Devil's Snare." commented Hermione. "Got himself tangled up with the third-year dressed as the giant squid."

"Anyone dance with Ron? He was the owl, remember?"

"I think I did," Lavender frowned. "Don't rightly remember. Was he white or tawny?"

"Hey!" The other girls looked at Ginny, who was smiling wickedly. "Here's an idea. Let's try to figure out who the teachers were. I'd bet a galleon that McGonagall was a cat."

"And I'd bet that Umbridge was a toad." Hermione added with the faintest of sour looks. "Maybe Flitwick was the bear Ginny danced with."

"Eww!" Ginny threw a Bertie Botts Bean at Hermione, who cleanly ducked. "The professors are simply ancient! I don't even want to consider it!"

"Really? Not all of them. I seem to remember someone who had a absolutely head-over-heels crush on Lupin when he taught. Which reminds me . ." Hermione turned to Kerri with a distinctly familiar, and unnerving, look in her eye. "So, who was that guy that you spent the whole night hanging around?"

Kerri developed a look that faintly resembled that of a cornered rabbit. "I have no recollection of what you are talking about."

"Oh reeeally . ."

Oh dear, thought Kerri nervously, this does not bode well.

"You only danced with one guy for the entire night?" Kerri was practically pounced on by the other girls. "Did you know who he was?"

"Was he cute?"

"What costume was he wearing?"

"What costume were you wearing?"

"I'm not-" Kerri began, slightly pink, but Hermione interrupted.

She was that snow maiden, the one who was dancing with the Phantom during the last song." Blank looks. "Oh for-! The guy who looked like a vampire except for the white half-mask. Don't you people see musicals?" She turned back to Kerri, who was by now approaching strawberry red, and continued. "She followed him around for most of the night, and once she got him talking they were inseparable. And," she raised her eyebrows, "If I remember correctly, he couldn't keep his hands off her either."

"Hermione Granger, you are an absolute sadist." Kerri hissed, mortified, "And you have a penchant for embellishment. You know perfectly well that it wasn't like that."

Hermione only grinned and helped herself to more popcorn. "Then why are you blushing so badly?"

"I am not! Well maybe a little," she amended hastily when the other girls began to giggle, "It's just that, when I saw him, he just looked so sad that I couldn't help talking to him. It took me a while to build up my courage, so I just tailed him for a bit first. And I have no idea who he was."

"What was he like?" asked Ginny curiously. "Maybe we can figure it out."

The others agreed with this idea wholeheartedly, so after a bit of coercing, they got Kerri to talk. "Well, he was about a head and a bit taller than me," she began, hesitantly, "Pale skin, dark hair and eyes, really nice hands . . . You know, delicate and strong at the same time, but cold." She paused, thinking, "In fact, the rest of his skin was cold too-stop laughing! I only touched his cheek."

"Really?" Lavender looked as though she was about to burst. "Which-?"

"What do you-? Oh." Pause for furious blushing. "The one on his face, you nit! Anyway, he was older than a fifth-year, at least. He knew the song we danced to, he hummed along for a while and he had a pretty good voice. His speaking voice was nice too, once he'd calmed down. I really shocked him, tapping him on the shoulder when I did. He seemed sort of unsure of himself at first. And he was sad. He talked about only feeling welcome at Hogwarts, and warned me about pushing people away." Another pause. "I wish that I knew who he was. He sounded so alone."

A long stretch of silence followed her description.

"You know," Parvati finally said, "I have absolutely no idea who that is."

"Join the club," said Kerri, distantly, "We can have t-shirts and everything."

Hermione looked up from her butterbeer and suddenly announced, "Way too much time around Snape. Sarcasm is now your second language."

Still staring off into the distance, Kerri answered, "I told you not to say stuff like that." She snapped back to the present. "Really. Don't make me hurt you."

Too late. Hermione managed to recount the entire conversation they had had the previous night in the time it took Kerri to fling a pillow at her. The younger girl ducked and added a few speculations of her own before the bowl of popcorn followed. This she snagged out of the air and began to eat out of, smiling peacefully at Kerri's reddened face. "Y'know, I bet we could fry eggs on your cheeks at this point. At any rate, can't have you moping over some unknown guy."

Kerri's blush receded as she stared at Hermione. "You mean that that whole thing you just put me through was to take my mind off of whomever-he-was?"

"Bingo."

"Evil child."

"Thank yew verrah much."

"Ginny, kill her for me, will you? She's making my life miserable."

The redhead smiled and cracked her knuckles, causing the other girls to wince. "Hmmm. Stress relief."

One vicious pillow fight later, the girls had made a truce and returned to the food, picking popcorn out of their hair. However, once the feathers had been magically retuned to the pillows, they noticed a difference in the room. Kerri had completely vanished.

"She must have snuck out in the middle of the fight." mused Lavender, "A midnight rendezvous, perhaps? She was certainly a bit high-strung tonight."

Hermione stared thoughtfully at the spot Kerri had been sitting. "Sarcasm, mood swings, and now a tendency to sneak around without being noticed?" she muttered to herself, "Way, way too much time around Snape."