Disclaimer: I do not own the ideas of, the characters of, or the title of Harry Potter. That is to say, that any characters appearing in any of the Harry Potter novels are not owned by me, as with any ideas that are expressed in any of the Harry Potter novels also not belonging to me. I also make absolutely no profit from this writing, in any way, the characters (with the exception of Blake and Clarissa) are in no way my original thought. I am poor. Please do not sue me.

Tears and Dance Steps

The Halloween feast made the great hall a loud place, with almost constant chatter between students about the ball that would be fallowing the feast. Of course a Halloween ball wasn't all the unusual. They needed something to keep the morale up with snow outside, making that a less enjoyable place for some students to be. Being cramped up, even in a big old castle like Hogwarts, wasn't usually good for students unless they had something to take their minds off of it. They often very quickly forgot about their studies and became interested in other things that could take their minds off of it.

Of course they had leaked the information about a week before when they had sent all of the students off to Hogsmeade, but seeing some of the decorations up that morning was still enough to make some of the students giddy with joy. One of those students was Hermione Granger. She had some big plans for this ball. She was going to march up to Harry and confess her feelings for him, and then ask him to dance with her. It was going to be romantic, and she had been playing the scene out in her mind over and over all morning. She let herself slip into a daydream state and visualize all of it again.

"Oh, Harry! I love you so much! Won't you dance with me?" She'd say.

Then he would smile and get up, taking her hand, "Hermione, I'm so glad that you finally asked. You see, I feel the same way. I've always felt that way for you. It would be an honor."

And then she had some vague image of them dancing together to the most beautiful love song. Then he'd escort her to the girl's dorm later, which seemed silly since it was all in the Gryffindor common room, but she didn't care because it was romantic. Then they'd kiss each other goodnight, and it would be such and amazing kiss that she'd have dreams about it all night, and then she'd wake up and everything would be flowery and new, and then…

"Well, if it isn't miss Granger, and her Gryffindor friends." It was the voice of Malfoy that cruelly tore Hermione out of her daydream and dropped her down harshly into the real world again.

Ron glared up at Draco, "Get stuffed Malfoy! I know this might be a hard realization for you to make, but you do find Gryffindors at the Gryffindor table."

"Oh really, Weasley? I wonder how you came across that piece of information. You certainly didn't buy it." Draco growled.

Harry continued eating slowly. He didn't like Malfoy, but he didn't want to get into a confrontation with him if he didn't need to. He had been told over and over again just to ignore Draco Malfoy, so now he was going to do just that. He wasn't even going to blink when Draco started insulting him. He was just going to continue eating and focus only on how good the food tasted.

"So, I suppose Granger doesn't have a date…unless she is dating you, Weasley." Draco looked up to see Ron blushing furiously, "I thought not. That's just typical of her, she just doesn't have the looks to-"

Blake slowly looked up at Draco, "Why don't you scat?" He smiled softly, "Unless you were over here to offer to be Hermione's date."

Draco's face contorted, "Me? Date that?"

Blake shrugged, "I just think it would have been funny to see her turn you down. I'll bet a lot of girls do."

Draco growled at Blake, "Why don't you keep making comments like that and we'll see what happens?"

Blake laughed softly and shook his head, "Oh no. Look out. He's going to have a tantrum and stomp off to his table. He might even cry." Draco pulled back a punch and threw his fist forward at Blake, who caught the punch in his palm expertly. Blake slowly stood up holding Draco's fist in his hand tightly, "Look. I hit you once, and really I didn't suffer that much for it. I'm open to pressing my luck." He let go of Draco's hand and watched as Draco stormed off to the Slytherin table.

Blake sighed and slowly sat down at his spot, everyone at the table with the exception of Harry looking right at him. It took Blake a moment to realize that he had all of this attention but when he did realize he just smiled softly and waved to everyone, "Try the corn. It's great." Harry tried desperately not to choke on what he was eating from laughing so hard.

☼

The ball was slow with eerily danceable music. The candles floated and glowed orange as the music floated over the great hall where they had been having their feast only about an hour earlier. Students danced slowly, some of them still entering the ball. Most of them wore something that looked more fashionable than what they would normally wear around the school. The students that weren't dancing were sitting around round tables, some drinking butterbeer, some just talking about random wizard things, like Quidditch.

No one was worried about classes, or that sort of school thing. No one really cared during a ball, because all of the teachers would know why you didn't do your homework, or why you seemed a little bit sleepy. That was the way with balls. No one ever worried and nothing bad ever happened to anyone the day after. There was nothing to even really worry about, except how you were dancing, and maybe how you looked.

Hermione was basically shaking with worry. She was so absolutely terrified, worried, and nervous that she looked completely normal. She had stopped to think about it for a moment and it made sense. She the being petrified with fear and shaking with nervousness had just countered each other out. Her body was most likely just so confused that it had just given up trying to express her feelings in the physical world and was just settling for the normal Hermione.

There wasn't anything for her to worry about. Harry was going to say that he felt the same way and then they were going to dance through the entire ball together. That was how she had envisioned it, and that was the way that it was going to be. She was never wrong, and that goodnight kiss had better be at the end, or she was going to wonder where the bloody hell it was! She had planned all of this perfectly and there was nothing that could possibly go wrong. She knew that she looked stunning and that everything about her was going to be absolutely perfect, and she knew that Harry was going to look dashing and absolutely perfect, and she knew that he was bloody well going to dance with her after he said that he loved her too.

She slowly started walking again. She knew what she was going to say. She knew what he was going to say. She knew what they were going to be doing for the rest of the night. She knew everything, and what she knew was law! Hermione Granger was never wrong about anything. She knew this, and so did everyone else. This was not a night for her to start being wrong. She just wouldn't stand for being wrong tonight! This was her night! Her and Harry's night and once she got everything started she was going to enjoy it! She just needed to find him first.

And just when she was thinking that, he was there. He was wearing a button up, red shirt, a pair of simple blue jeans, his school robes, and those glasses that he always wore. She had grown accustom to those glasses. She just couldn't imagine Harry without those glasses on his face, but it didn't matter, because she loved the glasses too. She loved everything about Harry, and when she admitted it to him, she was going to find out just how much he loved everything about her too. It needed to be like that, because that was what she knew it was going to be like. That was how she had planned it.

"Harry?" She spoke softly, stepping up to him.

Harry looked over to Hermione. She was wearing a nice blue dress. It was actually quite nice. He had only seen a few other girls who had gone all out and went with dresses rather than their usual clothes. It seemed a bit odd to have this girl right in front of him, all dressed up like Hermione was. He somehow knew however, that something incredibly bad was coming. He could sense it on the horizon, and while his scar didn't hurt, he was almost sure that it should have been stinging like it never had before.

Hermione smiled nervously, "Harry, I…I love you."

Harry stared at her. She had just said those three words. What was he supposed to do now? He knew that he should be reacting somehow to that, but he couldn't. He wasn't going to let emotions touch him, or it was going to overwhelm him. If he let someone like Hermione get close to him like she was trying to right now then he would lose her too. He would lose her just like he lose Sirius…He closed his eyes tightly. He didn't want to think about Sirius. Not here. He didn't want to hurt Hermione either. He slowly took a step back.

"Hermione…I…I don't..." He started. He didn't know what else to say so he just let the sentence hang in the air.

He didn't have his eyes open to see what her reaction was. He didn't want to see her begin to cry. He didn't want to see his best friend turn and run out of the dance while everyone around him turned and stared at him all shocked. He didn't want to know that he had been the one who had done that to Hermione. He didn't want to live knowing that he had broken someone's heart. He wanted to let everything inside of him swallow him up and then fall into utter darkness. Hermione would understand. She always understood. It might take her a while, but she'd understand why he couldn't be with her. Why Ron was such a better choice.

Hermione had started to cry, and she had turned and run out of the dance. It had all been a blur to her after he had sad 'I don't' It had all been completely meaningless. The dressing up, the panning, the practicing her dance steps, they had all been meaningless. She wasn't going to dazzle anyone. She wasn't going to dance with anyone. She wasn't going to kiss anyone good night. Instead, she was just going to sit her against this wall, and listen to the muffled music from the ball while she sobbed into her hands.

No one would see her. No one would care. She'd just drown herself in her tears and no one would even notice that she was gone. Harry didn't care. Who would care about her now? She had been turned down by the one person she had put all of her love into. She had wasted all of this effort and now she had nothing. She had less than nothing. She had given her heart to Harry, and he had broken it. Right in front of her, he had broken her heart and handed it back to her.

She felt a pair of hands on her shoulders. It didn't matter. It was probably just Ron, being his usual rock self. He was always there to cry to. Right now she didn't want him to be there. She didn't want anyone to be there. It was just an annoyance. Why wouldn't people just leave her alone? No instead Ron had to be Ron and try to save the day. She was broken, there was nothing left to save.

"Hey. Calm down. A pretty little thing like you shouldn't be crying." Blake's voice came through Hermione's tears.

It wasn't Ron. That almost made her want to cry more. Ron hadn't come to save her. No, she was left with this stranger to save her. That was the way of things. There was no way that this Blake guy understood what it was she was crying for. There was no way that he was going to be able to help her in any way. Nothing was going her way at all, so why would Ron show up and save her like she had hoped he would? He was supposed to be her rock, but no, he was too busy doing whatever it was he was doing.

Blake sighed and sat down in front of Hermione, "Why don't you tell me what went wrong? It is always better to tell someone."

Hermione sniffled softly and tried to wipe away the tears. Maybe talking to Blake would get rid of him. She really didn't want to talk to him about anything, so talking about this would probably get rid of him, "I thought I'd have a date, but he dumped me when I asked. Now I don't have a date or anything to do at this stupid dance!" She had clenched her fists near the end without realizing it.

Blake smirked softly, "So you're upset because this goof who can't see a beautiful girl in front of him turned you down? Bah, he can't know what he's doing."

Hermione closed her eyes tightly. No one was supposed to talk about Harry like that. He wasn't here to make a defense for himself Then again he had turned her down, so she wasn't sure that she was supposed to be making a defense for him. He had been a pretty hurtful person in the way that he had turned her down. And why had he turned her down? It wasn't like Cho Chang was ever going to take him back. He had put all of his hopes on one girl and when she had gone the other way he had been completely destroyed emotionally and unable to open up to anyone…sort of like how she had acted, and was acting now.

Blake slowly stood up and held his hand out for Hermione, "C'mon. We'll dance. It'd be an awful waste if you got all dressed up an flashy all for nothing."

Hermione looked up at him, completely shocked. This wasn't what she had expected. Blake was supposed to be a heartless insulter of people like Harry. He wasn't supposed to open up like this to her, and she wasn't supposed to be so invited by it. This was all completely wrong and she knew it in the very depth of her soul. This was in all ways wrong, but it felt like it would be so right to say yes. She wasn't sure what the consequences would have been. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. Hermione Granger was unsure.

And then, before she knew it she had taken his hand and nodded softly, "That would be lovely."