At the top of the staircase stood Hermione, in periwinkle-blue robes, looking nothing short of stunning.
Harry's jaw dropped, as did most of the other guys' and half of the girls'. As Hermione gracefully descended the marble staircase (that was nowhere near as grand as the girl descending it), she smiled shyly at Harry, making Harry's look of shock and awe turn into a shy smile of his own.
Ron turned to Harry to comment yet again about wondering who she was going with, when he took in Harry's lost to the world look and finally put two and two together, realizing the truth. Staring back and forth between the two of them for a long second, Ron suddenly exploded.
"She's going with YOU!?" he screamed, causing everyone around them to turn and stare at him. "How could you betray me like that?! When you know I asked her out!"
Fortunately at that moment the twins arrived out of thin air, and firmly grasping Ron by each arm, dragged him away before he could say anything more that would permanently destroy his friendship with everyone forever, and possibly get him punched or slapped by either Harry or Hermione.
But Harry and Hermione weren't paying any attention to Ron at the moment, too engrossed in each other to care what insults their former friend was hurling at them.
"You look beautiful," said Harry in quiet amazement as Hermione walked down the last couple steps and joined him where he stood.
"Thanks," she replied shyly, blushing slightly as she looped her arm around his. Then looking over towards where the twins had drug Ron off to the side, she added with a nod in his direction, "I guess Ron finally figured out who I was going with."
"And seems less than pleased by it," replied Harry with a sigh.
But before either of them could say anything more about it, they heard Professor McGonagall call out loudly across the entrance hall, "Champions over here, please!", so they left Ron and his petty bitching behind, and hurried over to where their Head of House was standing next to the door leading into the Great Hall.
The Deputy Headmistress looked over at Harry to make sure he'd obeyed her order and brought himself a date to open the dance with, before staring speechless at the image of perfection on his arm. Then she recognized the girl and stared even harder — the bookworm had turned into a queen.
But as the three champions walked over with their dates and joined them, she remembered that she had a ball to open, and told them all to wait to the side so everyone else could go in before them. She then quickly opened the doors and ushered all the plebes inside, many of whom turned to stare a little longer in disbelief at Hermione as they passed by.
Sally-Anne and Lavender both gave her bright smiles as they passed by, glad their doormmate finally dressed up to show herself off for once. Ginny scowled in unflattering disbelief as she sulked in next to Neville, giving Harry a scathing glare as well. The Slytherin duo of Pansy and Draco gaped and failed to throw any insults respectively, which was about the closest thing to compliments that could ever be expected from Snakes. But Ron refused to even look in their direction, though the distinct scowl on his face was impossible to miss.
Once everyone was inside and seated, Professor McGonagall finally allowed the three champions, Harry, and their dates to enter. A sizable portion of the Great Hall applauded as they walked in, but there were also plenty of boos from the Slytherin table that Harry assumed were for himself, and more than a few catcalls, though Harry wasn't sure if these were more for Fleur or Hermione — it was kind of hard to tell who anything was for with them all walking in together.
Grateful to Hermione for taking the time over the past week and a half to teach him how to dance, even just for how it had built up his confidence in general without having had to dance in front of everyone yet, Harry confidently walked in with Hermione proudly walking next to arm in arm.
They had intentionally taken the last spot in the procession so the actual three champions and their dates could go in first, and it gave Harry a good opportunity to look at the crowd as they walked in without having everyone staring back at him, since everyone was paying most of their attention to Fleur in the lead and then the other two champions between her and him. And as he looked, he saw that Ron had taken a seat at the table closest to the top table where the judges were already seated and the champions were headed for, though whether out of an attempt to not to let Hermione any further out of his sight than he had to, or to be as near to the center of attention as he possibly could be, Harry didn't know. And despite having refused to even look in their direction as he passed by them in the entrance hall on his way into the Great Hall a few minutes earlier, Ron was now sitting there glaring at both him and Hermione with a look of such pure loathing that it seemed better suited for a Malfoy than someone who'd up until two months earlier claimed to be their best friend.
Finally nearing the table they were to eat at, Harry realized that Mr Crouch wasn't there with the rest of the judges. Instead, Ron's pompous arse older brother Percy was, occupying the seat he assumed was supposed to be Mr Crouch's. As he and Hermione got close enough to choose their seats, the redhead pulled out the empty chair next to him and gave Harry a very pointed look. Harry took the hint, and sat down on the complete opposite side of the table, having absolutely no desire to be nearer to a Weasley that didn't have an identical twin than he had to be.
Once they were settled, Hermione leaned over and whispered into Harry's ear, "I wonder why Mr Crouch isn't here, and Percy's taken his place."
"Doesn't Percy work for Crouch or something?" whispered Harry back.
"Yes — he works directly for Mr Crouch in the Department of International Magical Cooperation," answered Hermione. "But that only explains why he's here instead of someone else, not why anyone besides Mr Crouch is here in the first place."
Harry nodded, not really having anything to add to the discussion, and not really caring anyway. He really didn't give a rat's powdered dried spleen why Mr Crouch wasn't there, and certainly wasn't about to ask Percy about it and get his ear talked off all meal about cauldron bottoms for his efforts.
Fortunately at that moment he heard Dumbledore tell his plate "Pork chops", and realized they were supposed to order their meals by telling their plates what they wanted. Soon across the entire hall everyone was saying whatever they wanted off the menus at their plates, and food was appearing at their commands. For a long time conversation was at a minimum as everyone ate, not having had a Christmas tea that year and it being after eight o'clock by then.
On the other side of Hermione from Harry was Viktor Krum and his Durmstrang date, and as the meal began to wind down, Hermione struck up a conversation with them about Durmstrang, asking about how it was similar and different from Hogwarts, ever curious to learn something new (or at least from a new perspective, as she'd read numerous books about Durmstrang since she'd heard they were coming to visit for the tournament). So as she talked to them, Harry turned to his other side, and asked Fleur how Christmas at Beauxbatons was compared to Christmas at Hogwarts. She animatedly told him all about the decorations they had each year back at home, making Harry feel like Beauxbatons would be a wonderful place to spend Christmas as well, before highly complimenting Hogwarts and their Christmas decorations. In fact, the only complaint she had about Hogwarts was Peeves, the resident poltergeist. And Harry had to agree with her there — in the three and a half years he'd been in the castle, he'd never once seen or heard of a single redeeming factor about the spirit. A fact of which he told her, leading to them swapping their worst Peeves encounter stories with each other as they vented about the irritating ghost.
But eventually all the food across the Hall was consumed, and it was time for the opening dance. As the champions and their dates stood up, Harry stood up with them and held his hand out to Hermione.
Harry and Hermione had been dancing for over an hour when they decided to take a break and catch their breaths.
Grabbing a couple butterbeers, they walked outside into the rose garden to have a little peace and quiet from the crowded dance floor and Great Hall. The garden had been magically warmed to protect the overabundance of flowers and bushes that now decorated it from the harsh winter weather around them, and seemed to have been magically enlarged as well, as it was many times bigger than the courtyard they frequently hung out in during break between classes. And to set it all off, the twinkling of fairies made it look like they were surrounded by low-flying stars, setting a very romantic mood.
They wandered through the garden hand in hand, through the nice looking but not too expensive shrubbery, which had been placed at slightly different heights to get a two layer effect with a little path running down the middle. Pausing in front of the fountain when they eventually wandered upon it, they watched the moonlight sparkle off the errant droplets of water that cascaded through the air and landed on the surrounding foliage like liquid diamonds.
Looking over at Hermione, Harry reached out and brushed a stray hair out of her face, tucking it back behind her ear. As his finger brushed across her skin, Hermione felt herself shiver slightly, despite the warmth of the courtyard.
Without thinking, she leaned forwards and softly pressed her lips against his.
A second later, her brain caught up to what she was doing, and she pulled back. But only enough to look at him, waiting to gauge his reaction before she pulled back completely. When he appeared to just be more surprised than anything, and he didn't make any indication that he didn't want her kissing him, she brought her lips back to his with more purpose. This time she could feel his lips tentatively moving against hers, so she slid her hand up his back and eventually brought it to rest on his cheek.
"Sorry," she said softly when they finally broke apart to breathe again, her eyes dropping slightly, unable to look him in the eye. "I've wanted to do that for a while now."
Harry covered her hand with his pressing it up against his cheek, while his other hand gently lifted her chin up, forcing her to look at him again. But unable to think of any words to assure her that he didn't mind in the least, he settled for bringing his lips back down on hers and showing her.
"Don't be sorry," he said softly as they broke apart for the third time. "I take it this means you like me?"
"I wouldn't have accepted your invitation to the Yule Ball if I didn't," replied Hermione sincerely, leaning into his chest and nestling her head under his chin. Harry readily wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.
But after a while, Hermione asked quietly, "Why did you invite me? I mean, I know Professor McGonagall held you back after class that day to tell you about needing a date for the Ball, but then you just immediately asked me to go with you without seeing if anyone else was interested in going with you first. Why?"
Harry thought for a second of the best way to answer her question. He'd invited her because he'd seen her standing there in the hallway and it just clicked, but it was the reason why it'd clicked, and why he'd only become more convinced of the rightness of his in the moment decision as he thought over it later after asking her, that he knew she really wanted to know.
"Remember after the first task, when you warned me about Ron not being friends with me again? That made me begin thinking about who my true friends were — who would stand next to me no matter what happened. I began realizing, even if I didn't consciously realize it quite yet, that it didn't really matter what happened between me and Ron, because I already had someone. Someone who had never betrayed me in all the years I'd known her. And then when I saw you standing there in the corridor waiting on me to come out so you could walk down to the Great Hall with me for lunch, it all finally just clicked. And I saw that the one person who really mattered to me, who was always next to me even when I didn't want to admit it, was you."
"The Firebolt," Hermione said quietly to herself.
"Yes, the Firebolt," confirmed Harry, before continuing on. "So as soon as I realized that, I also realized that you were the one person I could actually enjoy going to this ball with. From the moment Professor McGonagall told me I had to have someone, I had been dreading it, having absolutely no interest in having a date. But seeing you, I realized maybe that wasn't quite so true, that maybe there was one person I would be privileged to have as my date to what otherwise was beginning to seem like quite the drudge. And so I immediately asked you, before anyone else could, knowing without a doubt that there was no one else in the castle I'd rather go with."
Hermione was silent for so long that Harry eventually took a step back and looked down at her worriedly, just to find tears trickling down her face.
"Sorry, I — that's just the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me," she choked out, reclosing the gap and burying her head in his chest.
Harry held her tight, both of them silent for quite a while, until a nagging in the back of Harry's mind finally had to be addressed. "Earlier, when you said you like me and kissed me — does that mean you'll be my girlfriend?"
Hermione nodded, before smiling up at him.
"But only if you'll be my boyfriend."