Hey, thanks to all our reviewers. Here's the next chapter- our longest yet. Sorry for taking so long but the next few chapters are planned. :-)

We're starting to that disclaimer thing.

Disclaimer: We own none of these characters, all are owned by the fantastic J.K Rowling.

Hermione wiped her damp eyes and picked up the letter.

Dear Miss Granger and Mr Malfoy,

Because of the restlessness of the entire school after incident of the death eaters last night, I have decided that we all need a pick me up. Could both of you please meet me in my office at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning to discuss plans for a school dance. The password is 'Toffee Apple.'

It was signed by Professor Dumbledore. Hermione smiled. What a great idea. They hadn't had a dance since the Yule Ball. This would surely put the moods up in the castle…

The next morning at five to eleven Hermione excused herself from Charms and left for the Headmaster's office. When she got to the stone gargoyle she said the password and went up the stone staircase. When she knocked and entered the office she wasn't surprised to see Draco Malfoy already sitting in one of the chairs in front of Professor Dumbledore's desk, being careful to sit as far away from Malfoy as she could.

"Good Morning Miss Granger," Dumbledore said as she took a seat. "Now as you know everybody in the school is very uptight because of the attack a couple of nights ago. I think a great idea to lower the stress level would be to hold a school dance, as you know from my letter. What do you think?

"I think it's a great idea, Professor!" Hermione said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, sounds alright," Malfoy shrugged.

"Excellent," Dumbledore beamed. "Now I think the logical thing to do would be to hold the dance on Halloween, and maybe we could have two separate balls, one for the first years to fourth years, and one for the fifth years to seventh years?"

"Sounds good to me," Hermione said.

"Good. So I shall inform the rest of the school at dinner. You had better get back to your lessons. You may tell others about the ball, and also, don't forget you may ask others to the dance."

Once Hermione exited Dumbledore's office she ran down the corridor and up the stairs, because, as well as wanting to tell Ron and Harry about the dance, she wanted to get away from Malfoy.

As she was about to enter Flitwick's classroom, the bell rang and everyone came streaming out the door. She jumped to the side and grabbed Ron and Harry's shoulders as they passed.

"Guess what?" She beamed up at them. "We're going to have a dance on Halloween!"

"Cool," Harry said. Ron looked at him for a second, and Harry grinned and muttered something about having to be somewhere else before walking quickly down the hall with the other Gryffindors towards lunch.

"Uh, Hermione?" Ron asked a little nervously.

"Yes?" Hermione asked hopefully.

"Do you want to come to the dance with me," he asked apprehensively.

Hermione beamed. "Of course!" She said happily and hugged him happily. "Come on, let's go to lunch."

The rest of the day seemed to pass quickly, because in no time Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting down for dinner.

After Dumbledore told the school about the dance there was much applause and a few cheers. Hermione glanced over at the Slytherin table and saw Draco Malfoy watching her. As their eyes met he ran his tongue over his teeth. Hermione let out an involuntary shudder. She hadn't told anyone about what Malfoy had done the night before. Partly because, well, he hadn't really done anything. She didn't want to look like she was getting upset over nothing.

That didn't mean she wasn't scared, as every night she would now leave slightly early from dinner, telling her friends that she had work to do. She would then lock herself in her room, until the next morning when she would leave quickly.

The next few weeks passed in a wave of giggles, laughs, dares and anxiousness, as people asked others to the dance. Harry was once again bombarded with girls asking if he wanted to go to the dance. He had already asked Ginny, however, so he had a safe excuse. However Harry wasn't the only popular one, as Hermione found out one afternoon as she was studying in the library. In the short space of an hour she was asked by four different people if she'd go to the dance with them. First Seamus, then Dean, then Ernie McMillan from Hufflepuff, and a Ravenclaw who didn't even introduce himself! Finally she decided that she wasn't going to get any work done and went back to her dormitory, and on the way Neville asked her!

Not much more happened between Ron and Hermione. They shared a few more kisses, but they never really lasted long as they didn't exactly have anywhere private.

In mid October Ron and Hermione were walking to potions holding hands while chatting with Harry. They had left lunch early to make it to class on time, as they knew Snape would look for any excuse to take off points from Gryffindor. They leant against the wall outside the classroom, discussing what incredibly difficult potion Snape would pick for this lesson, when around the corner of the dungeon came Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

Malfoy took one look at Ron, whose arm was around Hermione's waist, resting on her stomach, and Hermione before turning back to his cronies and muttering. He turned back.

"Oh look what we've got here," he drawled. "The mudblood and the weasel. So does that mean if they breed they'll have a bunch of muddy little weasels?" Crabbe and Goyle laughed stupidly at Malfoy's lame joke.

Ron immediately moved his arm, his ears red. Hermione, annoyed, rolled her eyes. "Really witty, Malfoy," she said sarcastically. "That has to be a new number One."

"I'd watch it if I were you Granger," Malfoy sneered. "Or something might just happen, if you know what I mean," he said, a small, evil, smile on his face.

Hermione froze.

"What are you talking about," Harry spat at him. The bell rang.

"Oh don't worry Potter," Malfoy drawled and glided into Snape's classroom.

"Forget it Hermione, ignore him, he's just… you know… saying stuff" Ron huffed, not easing Hermione's anxiety.

They spent the lesson thinking up different ways of killing Malfoy, and drawing them in detail on a scrap bit of parchment. Unfortunately Snape saw this and quickly gave them all a detention and took twenty points away from Gryffindor.

Hermione bid them goodbye at dinner and later Ron and Harry made their way up to their common room. They gave the password to the Fat Lady, and walked up the stairs to their dormitory. When they were nearly at the door Harry put a hand up, motioning Ron to stop. He had a look on his face as if he was trying to hear something. Ron listened too, and heard a faint thumping noise, and something that sounded like… moans? Harry and Ron inched towards the door and were joined by Dean behind them, who was also looking at the door with curiosity. Harry reached out his hand and slowly turned the knob. As he slowly pushed the door open he heard a girl scream and scrambling noises. He quickly threw the door op.

"Damn it Seamus!" Ron yelled covering his eyes with his hand.

"Oh you idiot!" Harry also yelled turning around.

"Put some clothes on!" Dean also shouted, looking disgusted.

Seamus was standing by his bed, hastily pulling a pillow in front of his privates.

Lavender Brown was standing at the foot of the bed as well, and had twirled the curtains of Seamus's four poster bed around her body, so she looked like she was wearing a toga. Her blonde hair was messy and makeup very smeared. Both of them were looking very embarrassed. Dean, who was the only one still facing them, noticed their discarded clothes lying in between them.

"You guys are back early," Seamus gabbled. Lavender shot him an annoyed glance.

"I'm leaving," she announced. "Seamus, pass me your robe."

"Thankyou," she said as he obliged and swapped the curtains for the robe so that no one could see anything. She grabbed her clothes and stalked out of the room.

"Lavender!" Harry called. She turned around, he was smirking. "You left this," he said, holding up a lacy black bra. She quickly stalked back and snatched it out of his hand, before going down the stairs as quickly as she could.

Dean whistled. "How did you get her mate?" he asked, looking impressed.

Seamus didn't answer. Instead he picked up his clothes, and still holding his pillow, clambered on his bead and shut the curtains quickly. There was silence.

Later that night, when everyone was in bed no one talked. Harry broke the silence.

"So… was she good?"

Dean and Ron burst out laughing, Neville was confused.

"What?" He asked.

"Ask Seamus," Ron chortled.

To everyone's surprise Seamus started going into vivid detail. Too much detail for everyone else.

"Okay, you can stop now!" Ron said loudly.

"Aw, but Ron, you should've seen the size of them," Seamus sighed contentedly.

So what do you think? We know the dance theme is a bit overused now-a-days but we just had to use it!

Mkanda.