"You did what?" Harry exclaimed, looking up from his book on the 12 languages of leprechauns.

"I asked Hermione to the Yule Ball," Neville said, not looking up from writing his Divination essay.

When had this happened? Harry knew there would be a ball—Professor McGonagall had mentioned it, and told him in no uncertain terms that he had to find a dance partner—and that was a task he didn't much care for, so he'd busied himself with another task: Trying to figure out the egg.

As soon as Harry had told Hermione about Remus' suggestion, she had implored him to start researching as it could take weeks to work it all out.

He could imagine how the conversation would have gone if Ron had still been the one sitting with them. "Oh, come on, Hermione," he'd say, building a house with a deck of playing cards or rifling through some Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. "Harry's got plenty of time! Stop hassling him and give him a break for once!" And with Ron's support for his procrastination techniques, Harry would let the egg sit in his trunk, mostly forgotten except for the pit in his stomach whenever he thought of the second task.

But Neville was not Ron, and he was just as anxious as Hermione about the outcome of the second task. They'd looked at Harry fretfully, expectantly, stressing how imperative it was that he take this seriously, and Harry had felt guilty for making his best friends worry, and had settled down to research every chance he got.

And then McGonagall had mentioned that rubbish ball, and suddenly, researching the archaic languages of magical creatures and beings hadn't seemed so bad. Sure, he had noticed the increase of whisperings and gigglings and talk of the ball, but he thought it was still that—talk. He didn't realize anyone was doing something about it yet.

Apparently, he'd thrown himself into the second task so well that his friends thought he was not at all worried about the Yule Ball because here everyone was pairing up and he hadn't even thought about a date at all.

"When did you ask her?" Harry asked. How could he possibly have missed this?

"Yesterday," Neville answered. "But she's already got a date."

"Who's she going with?" Harry asked, panicking more.

"No idea," Neville said. "She didn't say."

"So, we just have to find dates," Harry said nodding.

"Well, after Hermione said no, I asked Ginny, and she said yes."

"Has everyone got a date already?" Harry asked fretfully, looking around the common room. People didn't seem to be more coupled up than usual.

"No," Neville replied, giving Harry a reassuring smile. "Most people don't. There's still plenty of time. End of term and Christmas are still ages away."

Harry shook his head, feeling a little incredulous. He didn't know the first thing about asking a girl on a date. And Neville—who sometimes seemed to be afraid of his own shadow—had somehow gathered up the courage to ask not one, but two girls to the Yule Ball—while Harry couldn't even bring himself to say "hi" to Cho Chang.

But he had to figure out a way to do it. Professor McGonagall had made it clear that he needed a dance partner. And besides, how stupid would he look with Viktor Krum and Cedric Diggory—probably with gorgeous girls beside them—dancing in front of everyone, while he pranced around, dancing with air, pretending there was a girl hiding under his invisibility cloak?

No, he had to get a date.

Harry glanced at Neville, and resolution hardened in Harry's gut: If Neville could do this, then so could he.

Well, that was an unmitigated disaster, Harry thought, as he flopped down on a sofa beside Neville and Hermione in the common room.

"What happened?" Hermione asked, looking up from her book, eyeing him carefully.

"I don't want to talk about it," Harry gritted out.

She gave him a look.

"I tried to ask a girl to the ball."

"Cho said no?" She looked scandalized.

Harry turned to look at her flabbergasted. "I never told you about Cho," he said.

Hermione eyed him. "You never had to," she said. "I do know a thing or two about you, Harry."

"Oh."

"So what happened?" Neville asked.

"Well, she didn't say no," Harry said. "She didn't say anything because Cedric Diggory was already asking her."

He'd been walking back from class when he spotted Cho Chang up the corridor. He'd run to catch up to her, only to turn the corner and spot her chatting with Diggory. He couldn't hear them, but Harry had watched them standing together; he was unable to move or look away. Whereas Harry was only a smidge taller than Cho, Cedric had half a foot on her. Whereas Harry had uncontrollable hair that stuck out everywhere, Cedric's was always in perfect condition. Whereas Harry couldn't get past stammering out "Er" in front of her, Cedric was saying something that made her laugh.

Cedric smiled at her—it was a bit blinding in Harry's opinion, too much like Gilderoy Lockhart's—and, to Harry's chagrin, Cedric tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

And then they'd parted, Cedric giving her a little wave, and he'd called out, "I can't wait for the ball!" And she'd turned red.

What had he been thinking: Why would a pretty, popular, athletic fifth year like Cho want to go out with a scrawny, tongue-tied fourth year like Harry, when she could have a bloke like Cedric Diggory?

"It's her loss," Hermione said sympathetically, pulling Harry out of his reverie.

"I'm sure it'll go better next time," Neville said, trying to cheer him up.

But Harry didn't want there to be a next time. He didn't want to go to this rubbish ball at all.

Though his friends couldn't understand that at all. Hermione and Ginny had had their heads together at lunch, eyes shining, whispering happily. He never would've thought it, but Hermione seemed really excited about the ball. And while Neville hadn't reached her level of enthusiasm, even he thought it would be fun.

But they didn't have to get up in front of everyone and make a fool of themselves dancing.

"You could always ask Parvati or Lavender," Hermione suggested.

Harry considered that. He'd always liked them well enough, but ever since Professor McGonagall made the announcement about the Yule Ball they had taken to giggling and whispering whenever he was around.

Divination, in particular, was especially dreadful seeing as how Professor Trelawney alternated between predicting his untimely death—for the 12th time this year, mind you, so at this rate the only thing that would be untimely about his death was that it had taken so long to get here—and gazing into her crystal ball predicting which girl he'd be dancing with at the ball. And then, as if on cue, Lavender and Parvati giggled.

He had the sneaking suspicion that what they'd be looking for is a date with a Hogwarts Champion—and that didn't sit right with him.

"I don't know," he said.

"Well, someone will turn up," Neville said cheerfully. "Hannah's going with Ernie—she said so in Herbology—but you could always ask Susan."

"Lisa Turpin could be fun, too," Hermione suggested. "She mentioned to me in Arithmancy that she didn't have a date yet."

"Who are you going with anyway?" Harry asked.

To his surprise, Hermione blushed. He sat up a bit straighter.

"Promise you won't laugh," she said. They nodded.

"Viktor Krum."

Well, that he hadn't expected. Hermione was watching him, an anxious look on her face.

"You're not mad, are you Harry?" she asked. "I know he's your competition and everything—"

"I'm not mad," he told her. A bit surprised, maybe. He couldn't picture Hermione and Krum having anything to talk about. But then, what did he know about girls?

"Oh, good," she said, looking relieved. "He asked me in the library, and I sort of said yes without thinking, and—"

She shut up quickly. Harry glanced around and saw Ron at a nearby table supposedly playing wizard chess, but Harry had played against him enough times—and watched him play against other people enough times—to know he seemed to be concentrating a bit too hard for a game with Seamus. Harry caught Hermione's eye.

"He'll only make fun if he knows," she whispered.

"What are you planning to do at the actual ball? Borrow my invisibility cloak? I think he—and everyone—will find out eventually," Harry countered.

She blushed. "Well, at least I won't have to deal with everyone's opinions until then."

Given everything he'd gone through in November, he couldn't exactly argue with that.

The next day another horrible thought struck Harry. He was reading up on animal languages—like parseltongue, but for owls, lizards, bears and the like—while Hermione and Neville were finishing up Transfiguration essays, when Hermione made what she clearly thought was an innocuous statement.

"My parents love ballroom dancing— they go once a month and they've taught me some," she said.

Harry had been under the delusion that everyone was as unprepared for dancing as he was—but what if he was the only one?

"Do you know how to dance?" he asked Neville, feeling a bit frantic.

"No," he replied, frowning. "I hope Ginny doesn't mind me stepping on her toes."

"I can put a cushioning charm on her shoes," Hermione offered.

"Thanks!"

"Do you think other people know how to dance?" Harry asked.

"Probably not," Neville said. "Do muggles send their kids for dancing lessons?"

Harry and Hermione shook their heads.

"Well, it's not like magic parents all send their kids to some refinement school or something before Hogwarts either," he said. "Most of us spend our childhoods trying not to accidentally blow up anything and getting tutored in maths."

"Right," Harry said, nodding, feeling the panic recede a little bit.

"Honestly, Harry, most dancing is just shuffling around a bit really slowly," Hermione said, giving him an encouraging smile. "You'll be fine."

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "The champions are supposed to open the ball. Everyone will be watching."

Hermione looked sympathetic, but Neville was looking at him blankly.

"So?" he asked.

Harry had visions of himself tripping over his dress robes and somehow managing to topple all of the other champions and their dates in one go.

Neville could, apparently, read some of Harry's thoughts in his expression. "I trip, fall and get hung up on the chandelier by pixies on a fairly regular basis," he said. "As long as you laugh with them, it's never so bad."

And, somehow, Neville being so calm was making Harry calmer.

"Besides," Neville said. "What's the worst they can do? Start wearing some Potter Stinks badges and taunting you in the corridors?"

Apparently, Neville could be as logical as Hermione.

"And if you're really still worried about it," Hermione said thoughtfully, trailing off as she glanced around as if she were looking for someone. She clearly saw what she was looking for because she nodded definitively and said, "Harry, follow me."

She led him to the boys dormitory, found a suitable song on Seamus' wireless radio and turned around to face Harry. He felt himself flushing as he realized her intention.

"Look, you just place your hands here, and move around in a square," she said, taking one of his hands in hers and placing the other firmly at her waist, before putting her remaining hand on his shoulder. "Then you just move around in a box like this, in time to the music." She started to move to indicate what he should do.

Harry felt a little dizzy as they circled around, and felt his face getting even hotter. He'd never touched Hermione—or any girl for that matter—this intimately before, and between that, and his embarrassment at not knowing how to dance, he felt his hand growing clammy in hers, and hoped she didn't notice. He gripped her waist a little more tightly, trying to gain back control of his reactions.

"Er—isn't the bloke supposed to lead?" he asked, looking down at his feet.

"Well, yes," Hermione admitted, "but this is just to show you how it goes. Once you get used to it then you should lead. Here, try it."

They stopped as Hermione waited for Harry to take the first step. He listened for the right moment in the song, and then watched his feet as he began to shuffle them around, Hermione moving more gracefully than he'd ever seen her—certainly, more gracefully than him.

"Don't look at your feet, Harry," Hermione corrected, removing her hand from his shoulder for a second to tip up his chin so he was looking at her. "It'll just mess you up. You're supposed to look at your partner's face."

But Harry and Hermione were roughly the same height, and looking at her face meant looking directly into her eyes. He didn't know what to do: Should he blink? Was blinking too much weird? He wasn't blinking at all and it felt like that was the exact wrong thing to be doing.

"You're a good dancer," she smiled.

He blinked.

"You're sure?" he asked tentatively. "You're not just…"

"I'm sure," she said firmly.

"It'll be different with dress robes on."

"If you can fly on a broom in robes, you can dance in a box in them," she said teasingly.

"And if I do trip and fall on my face in front of everyone?"

She looked thoughtful. "Then I'll trip Viktor and everyone will be talking about him."

He laughed, feeling a release of tension, and twirled her around more enthusiastically. He felt less stiff, loosening his grip on her hand and waist, settling into the dance a bit. He grinned at her and she grinned back. This dancing thing wasn't half bad.

Just as he was getting the hang of it, just as she'd shifted a bit closer to him so that their bodies were almost brushing against each other—the way he supposed you were actually supposed to dance, not so far apart a person could fit between you—just as Harry felt the steps coming more naturally to him, moving in almost perfect synchronicity with her, the door burst open.

"Don't worry, I left it right on my bed," Ron called out.

As Harry turned Hermione in his arms, Ron and Seamus entered the dorm. Ron took in Harry's hand on Hermione's waist, her hand on his shoulder, their smiles, and scowled and stalked out. Seamus grinned widely, looking between them and his wireless radio, and Harry knew instantly that he had surmised exactly what was happening and that Harry Potter, Hogwarts Champion and Boy Who Lived, barely knew how to dance.

"You could probably just try Tarantallegra if you're that worried about it," Seamus teased, grabbing Ron's chess set off his bed and shutting the door quickly, before the pillow Harry threw at him could hit its target.

By the end of the week, Harry still didn't have a date. He'd been asked by a few girls—including some first and second years, to his horror—but he couldn't bring himself to say yes to someone who only wanted to go with him for his fame.

But, as Neville kept reminding him, there was still plenty of time before classes ended, so he just had to go ahead and ask someone.

He sighed. He was sitting in the common room with Neville, and they were both flicking through books on magical languages. Harry looked at Hermione's empty seat—she'd been working with them for hours, but had taken a break when Ginny had come over, begging for her help with something. They were now across the common room, puzzling over pink dress robes. Ginny looked miserable, and Hermione was gesturing animatedly, the same determined look on her face that she always got when she was coming up with solutions for someone's—usually Harry's—problems.

Harry stretched his arms and returned to reading, skimming through two more chapters.

"If only Hogwarts had recordings of magical languages," Neville murmured, flipping through a book on goblins. "This'd be much easier."

But Harry wasn't paying attention.

"Neville," he whispered excitedly, shaking Neville's arm. "Neville!"

Neville looked up from his reading to see that Harry was staring down at a page in his book, a wide smile on Harry's face.

"What is it?"

Harry read aloud from the book: "Not much is known about the language of banshees, as their piercing cries are fatal to anyone who hears them. However, it's likely that if banshees have a language, it's not unlike that of the merpeople, which is known for sounding like the screeching howls of a mortally wounded animal. In fact, the Ministry of Magic has fielded dozens of incorrect reports of banshees from wizards who merely heard two merpeople discussing the weather."

"That's got to be it right?" Harry asked, grinning. "Not the banshees—if no one's ever heard them, how could they put it in an egg—but merpeople?"

"Yeah!" Neville whispered, so thrilled he almost knocked over his pumpkin juice, but Harry's seeker-quick reflexes caught it. "What else does it say?"

"Nothing," he said. "It's a book about banshees. But now we know where to look."

Harry looked up, searching for the corner where Hermione and Ginny had been. He couldn't wait to tell Hermione, to see how pleased she'd be that he'd figured it out. But, to his disappointment, she wasn't there. He looked around the room: Where could they have gone?

Harry didn't get a chance to tell Hermione about the merpeople because she didn't come down for dinner that night, though Ginny assured him and Neville that Hermione had grabbed a sandwich from the kitchens, and was merely spending a bit of time helping Ginny out with a project and practicing fixing her hair for the ball. Harry thought the first reason was a bit more believable than the second where Hermione was concerned, but as he'd learned this week, Hermione was a girl and he didn't know a whole lot about them.

So he was sitting in the Great Hall with Ginny and Neville, who was talking animatedly about his greenhouse back home. For her part, Ginny seemed to be interested.

It had been a relief this summer when Ginny had finally overcome her inability to speak around Harry. Her face still usually burned as red as her hair anytime she spoke directly to him—even if it was just to ask him to pass the potatoes—but she could at least carry on regular conversations with other people when he was around. It was a whole lot better than previous years when the best she'd been able to do was a squeak and a runner for the door when she saw him, something that always made him uncomfortable and had him nervously patting his hair down to cover his scar.

His mind still kept going back to the ball though. Hermione had made him feel much better about the whole dancing thing—no matter the teasing he'd had to endure from Seamus and Dean for it since—but there was still the matter of the date. He twirled his potatoes nervously, glancing around the room, as if by some miracle the perfect girl would suddenly appear in front of him.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Neville asked.

"What? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about the ball."

"You'll find a date," Neville said. "Why don't you ask Katie?"

"Katie has a date," Ginny said.

"There's still always Parvati and Lavender," Neville suggested.

"Lavender's going with Seamus but Parvati is still free," Ginny reported.

But this time it was Harry who shot that down. The other day, Neville had forgotten some of his notes in History of Magic, and Harry had offered to grab them so Neville wouldn't be late to Muggle Studies. When he got to the classroom, Binns was gone, but he overheard Parvati making a cruel joke about how the only date Hermione Granger could get for the Yule Ball was a book. Harry wasn't feeling particularly fond of her at the moment.

"Okay, we've just got to think of someone," Neville said. "What are your parameters?"

Harry looked at Neville blankly.

"What would you like in a date?"

"I dunno… a girl."

Neville grinned. "Well, yes, I gathered that. But is there anything specific about her, or will any girl do?"

Harry couldn't believe it. Neville was teasing him. It was lighthearted and affectionate—the sort of teasing that occurred between friends—but in all the years Harry had known Neville, he'd never really seemed comfortable enough to make jokes about anyone but himself.

Harry couldn't help but smile at this change in him, and thought seriously about his question. Given all the giggling and whispering around him lately, he assumed it wouldn't matter if he brought Fleur Delacour, Lisa Turpin or Moaning Myrtle—people would find something to gossip about. So all he really wanted was—

"Someone who doesn't care that I'm in the tournament," Harry blurted. "Someone who doesn't care that I'm famous at all."

Neville nodded, but Ginny looked down, her face on fire. Harry realized too late that he'd embarrassed her. He hadn't been trying to call her out specifically, had forgotten that she might take offense to that, but he still felt a pang of guilt, wishing they could rewind the last 30 seconds.

Neville looked around the Great Hall and seemed to realize the same thing Harry had: that it was an impossible task.

"Well," Ginny said timidly, her face still bright red, "if all you want is someone who won't care about you being famous…"

"Yeah?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Well, there's this girl in my Transfiguration class," Ginny said, looking at the potatoes and not Harry. "But… she's a bit weird. She seems nice and all—I've never heard her say a mean word about anyone—and she's always got her head in the clouds, so I doubt she cares what the Daily Prophet says about anything. But, she is, well, strange."

Strange Harry could handle. He was desperate for a date and the idea of going with someone who wouldn't spend the whole time staring at his scar made the whole dance seem more palatable.

"When can I meet her?"