On Christmas Eve the gang went outside after lunch to have their usual Christmas Eve snowball fight, with a little twist. Battle of the sexes hit Hogwarts out in those grounds as dates fought dates.

"Has anyone realised that we're going backwards?" Ron pointed out.

"It's crossed my mind." Draco snarled as a snowball hit his face.

"Their aims are way better than ours."

"Really, Dean? We hadn't noticed."

Suddenly one of the girls screamed and the boys jumped up from behind their barricade to see who was in trouble and if they could do anything to help. The snowballs hit them one after another, straight down the line.

"That was an inspired touch Hermione."

"Thank you. I told you boys were easy to beat. All you have to do is reach their chivalry. After all, no decent boy ever hits a girl. Plus they've got Harry and he has that hero complex. Put someone in 'trouble' and he has to help them."

"I have NOT got a hero complex!"

"Hate to break it to you but you really do."

Harry then did what can only be described as the stupidest thing he had ever done in his whole magical career; he ran out to challenge Hermione directly and it took him a minute to notice the flock of about fifty snowballs slowly circling above his head, not to mention the fact that all ten of the girls had a snowball in each hand. His face fell and his mind was trying to get him to scamper back to the safety of his barricade, but his body seemed frozen to the spot. It was one of those suspended in time moments. In that moment when his face fell he must have felt that the whole world was falling on his head. This was because the snowballs that were above him decided that they could do far more damage to him if they joined ranks. Whilst the front three rows pelted themselves at him the back rows meshed together to create one big snowball.

He was just wiping the snow out of his eyes as the last little one hit him in the side. He looked up at the girls and they all gave him the identical evil smile and then they threw their snowballs at him.

The other boys now decided that enough was enough and went out to rescue Harry.

They got to him and were helping him up. Unfortunately they forgot about the big one.

"Um, guys?" Pansy said pointing up.

All the boys closed their eyes as they remembered it and their heads drooped as they knew what was coming. As one they dropped to the floor covering their faces, braced for impact.

Hermione was the one in control of it and she let it drop. It was about a foot from them when it stopped. The girls, who were laughing in a huddle behind Hermione, failed to notice her stepping aside and they failed to see the snowball coming at them incredibly quickly. Well, they did see it, but only a second before it hit them.

They screamed and the boys, no doubt wondering why they weren't under a blanket of snow, looked up and saw their dates drenched in what was now a most mushy snowball.

They got back to their feet and all but Harry they rushed to help their partners up.

Harry sidled over to Hermione and gave her a very thankful look.

"Why'd you stop it?"

"I figured you'd suffered enough. It nearly hit you. I couldn't go through with it though. Not to you. Not after all you've been through in the last couple of minutes. Plus, it's you, y'know? I wouldn't be that mean to you."

"Though you could be that mean to your girlfriends."

"They're not you." Hermione put her arm around his shoulders. "I can't be mean to you, old boy." Then she shoved a handful of snow down the back of his shirt.

"Jesus Christ!" he yelled and began dancing around trying to dislodge it and get it to slide out of his shirt. Ron and Neville came to help him, both of them trying not to laugh, for his sake.

He saw the funny side of it, too, once they'd got it out.

Hermione just stood there laughing and then she saw that it was nearly five.

"Girls, come here so I can dry you off. You have a meeting now. Boys I'm going to have to leave you too, I'm afraid, but Flitwick wanted to see me."

"Does this mean we win?" Malfoy said as the girls walked back to the castle. Hermione heard him and turned to look at him.

"I didn't want to have to do this, but…"

She pointed her wand at him and mouthed something.

"This should show you who won!"

Poor Draco was wearing a dress suddenly.

"You bitch, Granger! Get me out of this immediately!"

"Take it off then." She shouted back.

"Miss Granger! Save your voice until tonight! You must stop shouting. Come with me, we need to prepare you for tonight."

"Professor Flitwick, I don't see why I should do this thing."

"You must do it because we cannot have such talent go to waste. I want the students to see you in all your glory. It's about time they saw the real Hermione Granger. Come on now. You have the dress?"

"It's in my dorm."

"Go put it on and wear your cloak over it. It's chilly in the halls. It wouldn't do for you to get a sore throat today."

Meekly Hermione followed him inside.

The other girls were getting ready in Myrtle's bathroom where they knew they wouldn't be disturbed.

"I can't believe Hermione did that to us!"

"Yes and I can't believe she hasn't even shown us her dress yet."

"She wants it to be a surprise."

"Like who your date is, Gin?"

"Exactly. We prefer to have a little bit of mystery to us. Come here Hannah and let me do your make up."

"I can't wait to see what our boys look like."

"I can't wait to see their faces when we walk down those stairs in our outfits."

"I've got Colin to go around taking pictures of us and the ball in general and he is under orders to get good pictures of us all and that we are all to have a printout of them." Ginny said looking pleased that she had though of it. "Now how am I doing your make up Angelina?"

"The same as Katie's please. We are to be identical. Well as identical as we can with our skin tones. Our dates will be identical and so shall we, just to surprise them."

"Fair enough."