Author's Note: It seems my reviewers are deserting me. Three reviews? ::wipes away a tear:: Come on, guys, you can't get my hopes up then do this to me! Now, I expect lots of reviews from EVERYONE for this chapter, and I want 'em good and long.
Everyone read Tekvah Ariel's fic which I edited from chapter sixteen! No, really, I mean it. You guys have to read this. It's really good, and I'm ever so proud of beta-ing it. And make sure that (once it's posted) (under her penname) you all read our Fred/Angelina fic! She and I are very excited about co-writing this! It's sort of a spin off of Hermione Queen of Witches and Ron Rants by Arabella on the Sugarquill. (A must-read as well!!!)
Check out my favorite stories and authors! I know my great readers will love them; they're FANTASTIC!
This was a really fun chapter to write. Probably because it is now officially rather girly, but in this case, the story was just asking for it.
After pelting a last snowball at Fred — which hit him square in the ear — Tina followed Hermione up to the castle to get ready.
"What, you need three hours?" asked Ron (As a result, Tina heard the sound of a large snowball hitting the side of his head). "Who're you going with?" he hollered at the back of Hermione's head, but she and Tina simply waved and disappeared inside the castle.
Chortling at the thought of Ron's face when he saw Hermione and her date, the two girls reached the portrait hole.
"Fairy Lights," said Tina. The Fat Lady and her friend Violet were getting rather drunk, and she swung open with a giggle followed by an enormous hiccough.
"Okay," said Tina. "I'll go up and get the stuff ready and…you can wait for Ginny. She'll be here soon enough; it's not her fault George put that freezing charm on her and stuck her in a giant orange ice cube."
She hurried up the stairs into the dormitory. She wasn't alone. Parvati and Lavender appeared to have started getting ready about half an hour earlier; they were drying each other's hair with their wands.
"Hello, Tina," said Lavender cheerfully.
"Hey, what's up?" Tina replied, watching the 'wand-drying' with interest.
"Oh, this?" said Parvati airily, noticing the direction of Tina's gaze. "It's a useful little spell I managed to create. Took about two years, but it's useful. Dries hair within minutes. See, like this: Aquibo!" The lock of Lavender's chestnut brown hair she had been holding suddenly glowed as though there were millions of minute light bulbs within it. When the light vanished, her hair was dry.
"Sweet!" cried Tina. (Parvati and Lavender exchanged a raised eyebrow) "Mind if I use that later today?"
"No, no, feel free!"
At that moment, Hermione came up into the dormitory with Ginny right behind her.
"Oh, hello Hermione, hello Ginny," said Parvati, nodding her head at each of them. They returned the gesture. Tina heaved a sigh of relief. Hopefully, this could be one of the select times where they all got along.
"Hey, Gin," she said with a grin. Ginny's face was still rather orange, and her left hand wasn't moving much. "Just wondering, why don't you go to your dorm and wash your hair? Then we can all meet up in here and get ready." She added in an undertone, "Parvati's got a neat little hairdryer hidden in that stick of wood, you know."
The girls bathed quickly, too excited about the ball to take long (though Tina took the liberty to use a few special soaps). Then they put on their bathrobes and used Parvati's spell.
"How am I going to make my hair lie flat?" said Hermione dismally.
"Er…" Lavender, who had incredibly silky hair, was looking at Ginny, Tina, and Parvati as though hoping they might pull the answer out of a hat. However, Ginny came quite close.
"Oh!" she cried, suddenly realizing what Hermione had asked. "I have some of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion in my trunk, shall I go get it?"
Hermione nodded fervently, her hands pressing her bushy mane to her face.
"Relax," said Tina. "It'll be fine. And somehow, I have a feeling that V—" she cast a quick glance at Lavender and Parvati. "That your date won't care how your hair looks."
Parvati and Lavender looked incredibly interested at this point. Parvati seemed to be dying to say something, which came out within seconds, "Who are you going with Hermione?"
"A boy," she replied, suddenly becoming quite interested in some make-up on the table in front of her.
"No," said Lavender. "We mean who, as in a person?"
"Yeah, Harry said you were going with someone, you've got to tell us!"
"I — I can't," said Hermione finally. "Not that I don't trust you, but I don't know what you'd say. Besides, you'll find out soon enough."
"Oh, but we can't wait!" moaned Lavender.
"Guys, leave her alone," said Tina, grinning. "Trust me, there's enough pressure on her. And she's like a rock, she won't tell you who she's going with. Though —" she cast an oddly furtive look at Parvati and Lavender. "You may want to bring up who she isn't going with."
Parvati's mouth formed a perfect 'O'.
"Yes…" said Lavender. "I was wondering about that. Hermione, what's all this about you going with some stranger?"
"What about it?" she said shortly.
"Well…" Parvati's mouth broke into a sly smile, though at the same time she was shuffling her feet rather awkwardly. "We always thought you'd do something like this with…someone else."
"Who?" asked Hermione, throwing down the lipstick she had been twirling between her fingers.
"Just someone you know better —"
"Who?"
"Er…Ron Weasley." Said Lavender. She cringed as though waiting for the blow to fall.
"What?" cried Hermione. "Me and — and Ron? No, I…never…he's so…oh, tell them Tina I'm too angry…"
"Well," said Tina as though she was negotiating peace between nations. "They don't mean you two are perfect for each other, just that you'd…make a good couple."
Hermione scowled at her and muttered something that sounded like, "If I'm a hinkypunk."
Tina decided to show the other nation's view.
"Well, Parvati, Lavender, also you two need to understand that…Ron just doesn't get girls. I mean, no guys really do, but Ron's a bit too clueless. He can be sort of…insensitive, and shallow. More than Harry." Parvati looked slightly alarmed at that.
Ginny finally came through the door with the Hair Potion.
"Sorry I took so long," she said as she handed the bottle to Hermione. "Colin Creevey held me up in the common room. He wanted to know if there's a way to get his photos up on the walls with all the portraits. Honestly…"
They all changed into their dress robes then. Parvati was wearing pink robes which astonishingly enough went perfectly with her bangles. Lavender's robes were teal with bits of design in primrose, and Ginny's were a shade of green that did wonders for her brown eyes. Hermione's periwinkle blue robes made her look all the more elegant (or 'posh' as Tina put it, only to have the other four giggle). Tina felt quite excited about her robes, though. They were red, and had Indian designs embroidered onto them in gold and silver thread. Parvati had fawned over it for a little while, thinking it to have cost a fortune. Tina had waited a considerable amount of time before telling her that that was not the case.
Hermione seemed to have forgotten all mention of Ron as other four girls began to coat her hair with Sleekeazy's. Ginny refused to let her look in the mirror before they were finished, and Tina insisted on putting it up into an elegant bun atop her head.
"Okay," Tina said finally. She and her three fellow hair stylists were looking at Hermione's head with the utmost pride. "You can look."
Hermione took the mirror from Lavender (who looked slightly jealous of Hermione's silky bun, which was quite something) looking rather apprehensive, but when she saw her reflection she stifled a scream. "Oh!" she cried, and that was all she could do other than beam at the four of them.
Next was Tina's hair, which she decided she wanted to keep open. "It's always up," she complained. There's probably a permanent dent in it from the scrunchies, she thought to herself. Ginny and Parvati pulled it up on either side of her head with two ornamental bobby pins she gave them. "Ooh!" she said when she saw it. "I could've never done that myself."
Parvati insisted on her usual braid, but Ginny took the liberty of suggesting bits of gold added to it, which Tina gladly did. Parvati seemed rather shocked at the difference it made.
Lavender's hair took perhaps longest of all. Tina and Parvati braided the first three inches of the hair at the front of her face to her head, and then tied it, letting the rest blend in with her open hair.
"Just like they do in Mexico," said Tina proudly as Lavender gleefully patted her braids.
Ginny said she wanted her hair to be simple and casual, but at this Hermione, whose bun hadn't moved an inch, refused point-blank. "You're going to look fit for the queen's banquet," she said, and apparently that put an end to it. Parvati tied Ginny's flaming red hair into a half ponytail, and then Hermione tapped it with her wand so that there were little bits of what looked like glitter in it. She also brought out two small bunches of hair to frame Ginny's face.
"Nice one," said Tina, and they slapped a high-five, something Hermione usually refrained from consenting to do.
Tina and Parvati put themselves in charge of doing everyone's foundation and blush, while Lavender took up the lip liner and lipstick. Ginny proved herself quite handy with an eye pencil, and Hermione shocked everyone by picking the perfect eye shadow to go with each set of dress robes.
Parvati had a great assortment of jewelry that she let everyone choose from. Hermione took what appeared to be a bracelet of silver pearls, and Lavender a sparkling chain with a flower as its charm. Parvati herself chose a set of jingling golden bangles and a necklace to match, while Ginny chose a simple silver chain with a single pearl hanging off one end. Tina had her own jewelry: a necklace of gold with silver decoration and small garnets (fake ones, she reminded herself, but then again so was all their jewelry) hanging off of it. Her bangles were the same.
Finally, they were ready. Parvati kept fiddling with her bangles, as did Tina, and Ginny was chewing her fingernails (Lavender constantly flinched at the sight of this), and Hermione was nervously flattening out her robes as she bade them good-bye and left for the Durmstrang ship where she would meet Vik. Tina felt a little twang of glee and pride as this happened, making a mental note to be very close to Ron when Hermione came by so that she could see his face.
"All right, girls," said Parvati, as though they were about to go to war. "Let's go."
Then they climbed down the staircase and out the portrait hole to meet their partners.
A/N Too girly? Sorry, I couldn't help it! Like I said, it was really fun to write, though.
I've decided to only write the ball from Tina's POV. I may switch to Harry's throughout the chapter for those choice things I want him to notice, but I don't want to have to do that because it gets confusing.
Venus725- Glad you enjoyed the telling off, and I'm positively delighted that you were clutching your sides laughing. Dan Radcliffe is seriously too cute to be legal. I can't believe I never thought even the slightest thing about him before number three. Yes, the Yule Ball's in the next chapter, followed by none other than Malfoy! Plus, I've started Book five, so I'll be setting up for those scenes, including Sirius. I love him, too! I'm upset that he wasn't hott in the movies though. We all know he and Lupin should be. Somehow, I can't see Hermione with bulimia, but I'm sure you made it work!
xBlackMoon-y- Yep, Terry's about to be a bit more in the spotlight. I'm having fun fantasizing about him. Trust me, I look NOTHING like Uncle Vernon. In fact, I never really change color, but I had to show Tina's anger somehow. I don't know why books four and five just seemed to strike me as best, but they did. Everyone thinks I'm weird because PoA isn't my favorite, but GoF is best to me, followed ever so closely by OotP. Hospital Wing, eh? Excellent, must use that… Oh, I haven't been able to check your bio yet for what you did to Padfoot, but you can be rest assured I'll do that within twenty-four hours of posting this! Oh, I wish I'd thought to do more of Lupin in Book three, but I didn't. Stupid Proma! Argh, I guess I could try to work him into Book five, but I'm not sure how well I can. Fingers crossed!
Tekvah Ariel- Argh! I'm not infatuated with Harry! I mean, I am, but like I think I said before, I do see him as more of a friend. And since he is Tina's friend, she isn't infatuated with him.