The days passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye it was the morning of December 20th.
The snow was happily falling, and it could only make the days of the students who could go play with her much better. Hogwarts Castle looked closed in one of those Christmas crystal balls that are held at home and rotated to make snow fall. As soon as you entered the great hall you could admire the beautiful decorations that had been set up for since few days, the school was really beautiful under Christmas.
The great hall was filled with students, and professor McGonagall stood behind the lectern before serving breakfast.
"Dear students, soon it will be Christmas, and many of you will want to go home for the holidays, but I would like to give you some news before you decide to leave. Heads, you have the floor." She said calling Harry and Hermione at the lectern.
The boy prepared himself to start the speech with a deep breath. "this year we decided to re-propose the traditional Christmas Hogwarts ball: the holly ball; which can be traced back to the founders' time. Seen the particularity of the general situation, we want to celebrate the victory of Voldemort, and pay homage to the fallen of our battle." *little sad moment.
"We also thought that after all that has happened, it would be appropriate to try to reconcile the houses by making them more united, perhaps. So instead of coming with someone from your same house and staying in your comfort zone, we would like you to come with someone from another; dare a bit and live a little adventure. So now all the girls will have to write on the piece of parchment that will appear to each of you their name, then we will make them disappear and reappear randomly in front of a boy. Because we won't to preserve the traditional boy-asks-the-girl thing for the ball. Obviously we will take into account the age and the house, do not worry, we will take care of everything."
A murmur rose in the room in the few seconds that separated Harry's departure from the lectern and the appearance of small pieces of parchment on to which everyone bent down to write. As soon as everyone had finished Harry and Hermione with a rapid movement of the wands, made the cards disappear for a second, and immediately afterwards they reappeared in front of a random boy.
A deafening and protesting murmur rose from the room. but it stopped as soon as Hermione got behind the lectern. "keep for yourself the controversy about who you have received, because they cannot change, we will collect them at the entrance of the party, and we will immediately notice who has cheated. The ball will be held on the evening of the Christmas eve at eight o'clock, put on the most beautiful clothes you have, because we have organized an amazing party!" and with this the school heads left the lectern, to go back at their table.
"What were you thinking?! have you gone crazy?! Maybe people would have liked to choose exactly who to go with to the ball! and if that someone is from the same house, then you ruined his plans! Plus everyone wanted to avoid going with the Slytherins. And besides, I have to go with Parkinson!" Ron exclaimed. "Pansy Parkinson!" he repeated as if he was worried about not being clear enough. "Tell me it's a nightmare." Ron sighed as breakfast appeared in front of them.
"I wouldn't mind that much going with a Slytherin. And what you said sounds a lot like racism, and racism has put people one against the other until the whole world fought." Hermione replied leaving Ron petrified.
In that same instant, the notes also appeared for Harry. "I've got Morgan! Not too bad at all!" Harry exclaimed returning to his breakfast.
Ginny was staring at the last pear on the table, two bowls on their left, but she didn't want to leave the conversation to reach it.
"I'm going with Hanna Abbot! funny, I would have asked her in any case. But maybe I would have retired at last minute... ." Neville said reaching for the last apple living Ginny silently cursing on everything that crossed her head.
"don't worry, I'm sure that every girl in Hogwarts would be excited to go to the ball with the great Neville Longbottom, you're a hero Neville for Merlin's sake!"
Meanwhile, at the Slytherin table...
"I've got Weaslette. Maybe she won't kill me." Blaise mumbled while Draco bleached reading the delicate and elegant writing on the piece of parchment.
"I've got Granger." Draco whispered with the voice of someone that just came back from the dead.
"if I didn't know you, I would say that you're... scared." Blaise commented taking a sip from his glass. "scared?! Me?! Don't say nonsense!" "hmh, if you say so." Blaise muttered. "suddenly Ginny looks much better, although she is already on the top." "Blaise, she's taken; or you wanna fight the chosen one?" "woa, bro, not in that sense, oh my, no!" "I warned you, don't mess up Zabini." "I see you trust me!"
"any advises for me? I have to dance a wall night with Granger, I mean, it isn't that easy." "I giving advice to you? You've dated almost all the girls in Hogwarts! They haven't secrets for you!" "yeah, I don't think Granger's like the other girls, she's difficult." Draco said with an hand behind his neck.
"oh, someone sounds in love." Blaise teased.
"please no! I could never! She is..." Blaise gestured him to continue, but he didn't.
"a mudblood?" tried Blaise even if he knew his friend wasn't meaning that.
Draco shook his head slowly. "just impossible." He sighted.
Draco's eyes were lost thinking about a way to survive what could happen at the ball. He certainly never expected to have to spend the whole evening of the ball with Hermione Granger.
That day many students decide to stay in Hogwarts for Christmas and a cloud of owls moves away from the castle to warn the parents; all the students of the last year wanted to stay, while the majority of first years would return home. The Hogwarts Express would leave the next day at eleven o'clock, so the castle had turned into a continuous hustle and bustle of people running around get Christmas gifts, gather school supplies, assignments, and arrange trunks before departure.
the heads of school and houses, plus the secret aides, took advantage of the situation to get undisturbed to the mirror of the fourth floor. "lupinotuum pectinem." They whispered one after the other sliding past the mirror.
In the room for the first ten minutes, all they did was talking about what they would do for Christmas.
"And you Blaise, stay at the ball, right?" Ginny asked.
"Yes sure. First I thought of going to the ball alone, because I had worked out a perfect plan: if I hadn't brought any girl to the ball officially, I could have danced with all of them. But this decree with the kind accordance of our heads, stopped me from do it." Blaise said in the voice of one who has just invented a new geometric theorem.
"I didn't expect nothing less, Blaise." Draco said to his friend, patting him on the shoulder.
"and now... Ginny, would you come to the ball with me?"
"Grateful that you are so happy to come with me, and not with the wall school." Ginny commented.
"Oh don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to go to the ball with you. You're one of the smartest girls I know, even on the quidditch pitch. So? would you like to come to the ball with me yes or not?" Blaise asked, holding out his hand to Ginny, like a true gentleman.
"I will be happy to come to the ball with you." Ginny replied. Blaise twirled her and Ginny mumbled: "romantic." loud enough for Harry to hear her. Then she went back talking to Hermione, Luna and Morgan.
"Ok, forget what I said, I take it back. Blaise, what's going on?! I didn't expect this from you." Draco commented to his friend who looked at him grimly. "actually, I could ask you the same thing, you know? I see you changed... for the better, obviously, a lot better." Malfoy blanched for a moment but his self-control allowed him to return immediately at his anyway pale natural color.
"Who knows if Annah is happy about getting me." Neville sighted with Harry and Ron. "Oh come on Neville, stop with this; I'm sure that after what you did at the battle, girls would compete to come to the ball with you!" Ron, who was just beside, reassured him. "I'm sure she'll be very happy, don't worry." Harry said next to Ron. "ok, I think I'm gonna ask her after the meeting." Neville said.
Harry approached Morgan from behind and grabbed her attention putting an hand on her shoulder making her turn around.
"Morgan, would you came to the ball with me?" he asked, just a bit shy.
"so it's you! I'll be glad to go with you, Harry." Morgan answered. As Harry went back to Ron and Neville she turn back to the group of girls near the wall.
"Luna, your partner has already asked you?" Hermione asked. "yea, he asked me just after breakfast; I'll go with Rolf Scamander, I don't know him personally, but he comes from a family of magizoologists, so we'll have a lot to talk about, I love animals." Luna said.
"And you Ron, who are you going with?" Neville asked innocently knowing he wouldn't go with Hermione.
"With Pansy..." he mumbled.
"oh, good luck." Commented Blaise.
"I went with her at the yule ball; I wouldn't actually say that it was bad, but she's quite heavy." Draco added with Ron sighing again.
"hope you'll have fun." Said Hermione coldly. "Thanks." Ron replied just as coldly.
"now let's go back to why we're here..."