Chapter 8: Yuletide Blues

Disclaimer is in the first chapter. R.R is at the bottom.

"I don't – well, I can't dance, really," Harry said, blinking confusedly up at Professor McGonagall. "Besides I'm not even meant to be here. Won't I be embarrassing?"

Professor McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose as if thinking that very thing. "Be as that may, Mr Potter, you're still going to the ball, and you will still be expected to open it with your partner. If I were you, I would get a date quick-smart. Off you go now, Potter."

"She wanted to talk about the Yule ball," Harry said slightly incredulously, before Hermione could ask. "It's imperative I bring a date, apparently, because we need to help open the ball. As if I didn't already have too many eyes on me. Who the hell am I meant to take with me to a ball? Everyone's going to think we're dating!"

"You could bring Hedwig," Ron sniggered.

"Ha-ha. I don't think she likes dancing, somehow," Harry rolled his eyes as Hermione smacked his shoulder with a spare roll of parchment. "This is ridiculous. Snuffles says Dad went stag to his fair share of parties before he started dating Mum, why can't I?"

"You're the boy who lived," Ron pointed out. "It should be easy for you to score a date."

Harry just grumbled to himself.

Hermione shook her head, unsure whether to be amused or exasperated. "Come on, we're going to be late if you two keep slowing down to talk like that. Worry about it later, Harry, you've got plenty of time until Yule."

"I'm really sorry," Harry said, attempting to mask his growing impatience, "But I really don't know you and I wouldn't go to the ball with someone I don't know…"

When she was gone, Ron raised his eyebrows and shot a sideways glance at Harry. "I thought you might end up having to go with that one."

"Some Gryffindor you are," Harry grumbled. "Just because she's twice my size… besides, I'm getting irritated. I've already been asked four times today, and I don't know any of these people! I don't even recognize half of them!"

"At least they don't seem to be running away from you," Ron pointed out. "I'm pretty sure some are running away from me. I haven't even asked anyone."

Harry grimaced. "Sorry, mate."

Ron shrugged. "I'll figure something out. I didn't even realise you could go stag and not get laughed at… though I suppose the dress robes…"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Just wear your Rionach ones. If anyone asks, you got them for Christmas."

Ron frowned.

Harry sighed. "Mate. Just wear the things. Yes, we spent some money on you. You'll live. Consider it payment for your work in the 'surprise', if you want. Whatever. Hey, Myrtle."

"Hello Harry," the ghost said in a voice somewhere between despondent and blank. "You look irritated. Did someone throw a book at you?"

"The metaphorical one, I guess," Harry grumbled, though he was slightly gratified that Myrtle looked more interested than sympathetic. "Apparently I'm meant to take a girl to the Yule Ball to open it – and everyone's going to think we're dating because of Rita Skeeter. The last article she wrote was full of tosh, but still, annoying."

"I mean," Ron piped up as Myrtle frowned, "It doesn't really have to be a girl. You could probably take a guy. Not that Rita would make that any better."

"Yeah, I think I like girls," Harry shook his head. "Definitely not happening, because I don't have a social death wish, even if it would throw everyone off. Besides, we're still acting the perfect trio. I was thinking of asking Cho, but that was before we had to dance. Besides, I think she has a thing for Diggory."

"She definitely does," Hermione's voice said from behind them. Myrtle waved as the bushy haired witch slipped into the bathroom. "She said yes just now."

"Bummer for you, mate," Ron said sympathetically.

Harry shrugged. "Rita would probably say I was chasing older women or something."

"I'd ask you to take me," Myrtle admitted mournfully, "But I hate dancing. Also, I don't think they'd let you – because I'm a ghost!" She sniffled, eyes welling up, and dived into the toilet.

Ron blinked. "She still likes you?"

"Open. I don't suppose a few years is a long time for her, by now," Harry said idly. "At this stage, I probably would take her, you know. Down the hatch, people."

He waited for his friends to jump down, before following. Since cleaning up, the slide and antechamber were slightly less mucky, but not by much; only really enough to prevent any splashing when they landed. "Close," he ordered, and there was a creaking noise as the Chamber obeyed. Together, they left the antechamber, walked down the passage, and slipped through the final door into the chamber proper. Ron trotted over to sit down at his chess set while Neville, who was already there, looked up from his work and smiled. "Alright, Harry, Ron, Hermione?"

"Harry's scared of girls now," Ron declared, as he shifted a rook to the right and moved a king forward.

Harry narrowed his eyes and glared. "Whereas girls are scared of Ron."

"Oh, shut up, you two," Hermione scolded, torn between exasperated and amused.

"Actually, it's not really the girls I'm scared of as Skeeter," Harry admitted. "She wasn't awful after the first task, but I've seen some of her other articles out of Ginny's magazine. She's vicious."

"You can't get out of it," Neville warned. "It's a tradition. Gran's being going on about it for ages, saying I have to represent our family properly. I took your sister, by the way, Ron. Hope you don't mind."

Ron grumbled. "Better you than – I dunno, Goyle or something. Do anything stupid and I'll rip your head off."

Harry sighed. "I just want us all to go and maybe have a bit of fun. I don't want the baggage of everyone thinking this is my future wife or something."

"Just go with a friend, then," Hermione said practically. "Or someone you can't possibly already be dating. Just keep away from the fangirls, for God's sake. Viktor asked me, for instance."

Ron choked. "Krum?"

"He's surprisingly good conversation for a Quidditch player," Hermione said, jotting down a few notes with her quill.

"When did this happen?" Ron demanded.

"Just before I got here. He noticed me in the library a while back and kept coming over to make small talk."

"Blimey, he's fast," Ron groused. "Makes the rest of us look awful."

Neville rolled his eyes.

Harry sighed, deciding he should look to alternative sources. "Dobby?"

There was a sharp crack and the former Malfoy elf appeared clutching a large, sticky wooden spoon and a half-empty packet of flour. "Yes, Harry Potter sir?"

"It's just – wait, what are – you know what, never mind. Dobby, can you tell us anything about the Yule Ball?"

"The Yule Ball is being a very important party," Dobby recited quickly. "It is being an important part of the Tournament. The champions is being opening the ball with their dates and the schools is mixing. This is being for international cooperation. The Yule Ball is taking place at Christmas, after the daring task and before the rescue task."

"Did they make him memorise that?" Neville hissed to Ron, who shrugged.

Hermione ignored them. "The what?" she asked sharply.

"The Yule Ball, Miss Hermy," Dobby frowned.

"No, I mean after that?" Hermione twisted her hands slightly. "You said rescue task?"

"Yes, Miss Hermy… is being very dangerous." Dobby nodded solemnly. "But Dobby will help Harry Potter!"

Harry let his head drop onto the table. "Aargh…"

Ron sighed and picked up a pawn, moving it forward onto the board. "Well, that makes things complicated."

"Is Mister Harry Potter sir being alright?" Dobby asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," Harry said half-heartedly. "Thank you, Dobby. You've been a great help. You can go back to – whatever you were doing."

"Thank you, sirs and miss! Dobby is helping making dinner!" Dobby chirped, before vanishing.

"If he's making dinner, why was his spoon covered in syrup?" Neville asked.

Harry groaned again, still using the table as a pillow. "Padfoot. I knew this was a bad idea…"

Dear Remus and Snuffles

I know I sent you a letter just two days ago, but I'm in a pickle.

The Yule Ball is coming up, and as much as I would love to show up stag, Professor MG. won't let me. Apparently, it's tradition to have the champions open the dance. And according to Dobby, the second task is a rescue task. I think this probably violates Health and Safety regulations, but whatever. It's pretty clear that whoever I bring, I will have to rescue. Considering the last task was dragons, this does not bode well for the person. I don't want to get a friend in danger. Then again, I don't want to go with some random girl. Plus, Rita is on the prowl and she's sure to make out that we're in the midst of some passionate romance. I'm seriously considering taking Hedwig. Or the squid. You know, the Gang squidnapped the squid recently, shouldn't be too hard for me to take it to the ball, apart from the bit when you need to get through the door.

Hermione is going with Krum, which is worrying, but she's probably the most capable of all of us.

Help.

Harry

P.S. Why are you eating pudding for dinner? That's not fair. And Hermione says it's not healthy. I don't get to eat pudding for dinner.

"Harry," Hermione said sharply, "Don't encourage them."

"I'm not!" Harry protested. "I'm stating a point!"

"The wolf and the Grim won't stop anyway," Luna, who had wandered down and was now testing a rather odd spell, commented.

"Immature," Hermione grumbled.

Harry sighed. "If I was in prison or doing whatever Moony was doing for the last 13 years, I'd be eating a lot of pudding too."

"That doesn't make it healthy," Hermione grumbled.

"Ron's survived so far," Harry pointed out, making Ron yelp an indignant "Oi!"

"I give up!" Hermione threw her hands up and walked off to watch Neville making a firework.

Harry chuckled to himself, before coaxing Hedwig over and tying the letter on. "Are you going to the ball, Luna?"

"Oh, no," Luna smiled. "I thought I'd use the peace to go thestral chasing. They like the night, you know, the quiet, the wind. And steak. They like steak too."

Harry blinked. "Okay, then. Have fun."

Luna smiled serenely. "I will."

"He's onto us!" Sirius said dramatically, falling onto the couch and sprawling as if dejected.

"Now will you let us eat vegetables?" Remus complained. "As good as pudding is…"

"Stop going on about the vegetables," Sirius whined back.

Remus rolled his eyes. "You know, I thought Harry might stay out of girl trouble until at least his fifth year. Halfway between his mum and his dad. I'm disappointed."

"To be fair, he's trying to stay out of it. Most of this is whining about not wanting to take a girl, for various reasons. Disappointing, really, seeing as he's in a much better position than any of us."

"You're a reprobate," Remus sighed.

"And you're a prude." Sirius sat up a little. "You know, whatever happens, they'll pick a friend of his. Dumbledore's not dumb enough to think he really cares about some random girl."

"Or guy."

"Yeah, pretty sure he's straight. Besides, Rita would be a nightmare if he came out now. Probably disrupt every single one of their plans… Ugh. I'm thinking. That's your job."

"So, are we going to write back?" Remus asked.

"Of course we are!" Sirius said jovially, jumping up. "Right after we finish dessert."

Remus growled and tackled Sirius quite soundly. "You're a first-class idiot, Black."

"Mm, and yet you love me."

"Not this argument again," Remus grumbled.

"You just hate losing," Sirius said smugly.

Dear Harry

If you bring a female friend of yours, they will end up as your hostage. If you bring a girl from your grade in general, it will be a random selection out of your friends, or the girl if you happen to focus heavily on her. Except Hermione, who is probably Krum's hostage, unless they can pinch someone from Bulgaria. Knowing Dumbledore, anything is possible. If you bring a guy, numerous heads will explode, but it will be quite messy to sort out. By messy, I mean that Black brought Dorcas Meadowes once and that still isn't sorted out properly, and she was a girl. Don't bring the squid. We helped the rat do that once. By we, I mean Snuffles. A bit obvious.

You'd better be eating alright, Harry. You need your health.

Love Remus and Snuffles

"I make one comment about food," Harry grumbled, "And Moony gets onto me."

"I thought he was more responsible than that. He can't just let Sirius eat what he wants," Hermione huffed.

"That's not really the point," Ron said weakly.

Harry sighed. "We're sneaking out again."

"Why?" Ron asked.

"Hermione's going with Krum, Nev's going with your sister, Luna's going thestral chasing, whatever those are. We need to buy flowers."

"Parvati won't shut up," Hermione grumbled to Harry as they stirred their potions. "She's been gushing about it all day."

"I'm glad she's pleased," Harry sighed, face still a little flushed, not that the fire beneath his cauldron was helping much. "This Ball is almost more trouble than it's worth."

"Who'd you ask, Ron?" Hermione whispered, shooting a furtive glance at Snape, who was talking to Malfoy.

"Katie," Ron replied, flushing slightly.

"Why?" Harry asked.

Ron shrugged. "She's pretty, and she likes Quidditch. When you find that, you grab on and don't let go."

"Honestly," Hermione huffed.

"By those standards," Harry murmured, shooting Ron a sly glance, "Looks like you'll end up being Neville's best man."

Ron spluttered incoherently as Hermione giggled.

A.N.

A shorter chapter, mostly because it's heavily dialogue-based. The next one will be longer. I have standards, you know.

Juggling politics, school, the Gang, and the godfather side-plot is surprisingly difficult. Oh well.

R.R

HorusRa: I actually had to work around that by putting in 'circumvent' rather than 'outright beat', 'resist', etc. It's actually a workaround based on a technicality, and it certainly doesn't work for everything. I didn't have the literary space to put it in this chapter. You'll see it pop up, but it's not as OP as it sounds. It's more a conditional, very tenous pass.

Jack [Comment 1]: Whoops. Good pickup. Gonna fix that.
Yes, I know it's a terrible name. Might go back and change it. It was the worst of all. In the original draft, they were all named after gods, but Spiderwebs is a fusion of two concepts I had, which popped out that... the characters changed, Harry especially (he was originally going to be darker, the second concept lightened him a lot). I ended up naming them after their patroni, either canonical or AU, since they didn't have Animagus forms yet, though I planned that later. I was thinking much more horsey than goatey for Harry, though, so maybe the Clydesdale will come through. Especially after the Abeforth problem. We don't mention the Abeforth problem. Funny, though. Ron could be a goat, if he wanted to be, because he eats everything.

Jack [Comment 2]: Hmm. Need to research more, I guess? Lesson learned. I suppose I could back-justify by saying that Hermione takes the 'picture' then reviews it like a maniac... Interesting, though. It would be good to bring in the problems with eidetic memory somewhere later, once the conflict ramps up a little. As for Rowena, she did end up a little Grievous-like, but at least she wasn't murder-rampaging around the countryside...