On Thursday, after finishing the Charms lesson a little early, Professor Flitwick said, "I have an announcement to make."
"You're getting married?" Padma Patil asked.
"Your wife's having a baby?" Stephen Cornfoot asked.
Professor Flitwick chuckled and shook his head, "No. The Yule Ball is approaching—a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament. It's an opportunity for us to socialize with our foreign guests. However, the ball is open only to fourth years and above—although you may invite a younger student if you wish." Mandy giggled and Professor Flitwick continued, "Dress robes will be worn, and the ball with start at eight o'clock on Christmas Day, finishing at midnight in the Great Hall."
The bell rang and their gathered their items. Hailey was just leaving with Mandy and Michael when Professor Flitwick called above the excited chatter, "Potter—a word if you please."
Hailey wondered what she had done wrong, went to the teacher's desk. Professor Flitwick waited until the rest of the class had gone and then said, "Potter, the champions and their partners—"
"What partners?" interrupted Hailey and realized what she had done, "Sorry, Professor."
Professor Flitwick stated, "Your partner for the Yule Ball, Potter." He clarified, "your dance partner."
"Dance partner?" repeated Hailey, her face going red. "I don't dance."
"It's tradition that the champions and their partners open the ball," Professor Flitwick explained.
Hailey imagined wearing a sort of frilly dress that Aunt Petunia always wore to Uncle Vernon's work parties and for some reason, she pictured Michael wearing a top hat. "I'm not dancing," she stated.
"It is tradition," said Professor Flitwick firmly. "You just have to make sure you get yourself a partner, Potter."
"But—I don't—I don't know how to dance," Hailey admitted. Her aunt never bothered to show her how to dance.
"It doesn't matter," Flitwick replied, "You're a Hogwarts champion, so you're going to have to do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. Just make sure you get a partner."
"All right," Hailey said, wondering how hard it would be find a date to the ball.
It turned out to be very hard. She thought that finding a date to the ball would've been easier compared to taking on a dragon. However, she thought that she would have another round with the dragons than finding a date to the ball.
It seemed like everyone in the fourth year and above was staying behind at Hogwarts. She wasn't going back to Privet Drive and always seemed to be in the minority on that end, but it seemed like all the other girls were staying.
She wanted to ask Michael to the ball, even if he wanted to go as friends, but she couldn't seem to work up the nerve to ask him. It was kind of pathetic because her parents were in Gryffindor and here she was, can't muster up the courage to ask someone to the ball as a friend, even if Michael was her friend.
"Got any idea who you're going to try?" Ron asked Hailey.
Hailey did have an idea, but she still couldn't get up the nerve to ask Michael.
Ron seemed to think that Hailey was feeling anxious because she didn't know who to ask. He tried to cheer her up by saying, "Listen, you're not going to have any trouble. You're a champion. You've just beaten a Hungarian Horntail. I bet you, guys will be queuing up to go with you."
Hailey was glad that Ron kept the bitterness out of his voice.
The next day, after Ron said that, a third year Hufflepuff boy asked Hailey to go to the ball with him. Hailey was thrown off guard, so she said no before even considering it. He walked off, looking rather dejected and she felt guilty for being rather blunt with him.
The following days, two more boys asked her. One was a second year Slytherin and a fifth year Ravenclaw, who looked like he could knock another guy out, though he was two inches shorter than Hailey.
Ron and Mandy were laughing about the fifth year.
"I'll be honest, he was handsome," Mandy said.
Hailey was still a little unnerved. "He was two inches shorter than me. Imagine what I'd look like trying to dance with him."
"Imagine what it'd be like trying to snog him," Ron said, laughing.
Michael looked like he didn't like the thought.
Hailey couldn't help but think about Hermione's words about Krum's fangirls, "They only like because he's famous!" Hailey was sure that none of those guys who had asked her to be their date, would've wanted her to go with them if she hadn't been a school champion or if she wasn't the Girl-Who-Lived.
On the upside, she wasn't attracting unpleasantness in the corridors. She suspected that it had to do with Cedric, because she had an idea that Cedric might have told the Hufflepuffs to leave her alone, as a show of gratitude of Hailey telling him about the dragons. There seemed to be less Support Cedric Diggory! badges around too. Malfoy was still quoting Skeeter's article to Hailey at ever possible opportunity, but he was getting less and less laughs out of it. Hailey was feeling good about the lack of stories about Hagrid in the Daily Prophet, so Rita Skeeter must've been dejected because she couldn't find a way to make a sensational story out of Hagrid.
On the last Care of Magical Creatures lesson, they asked Hagrid about how his interview had gone.
"She didn' seem very int'rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth," Hagrid said.
To their relief, Hagrid had given up on direct contact with the skrewts now because they were sheltered behind his cabin that day. The class was sitting at a trestle table and preparing a fresh selection of food to tempt the skrewts.
"She jus' want me ter talk about you, Hailey," Hagrid continued explaining. "Well, I told her we'd been friends since I went ter fetch yeh from the Dursleys. 'Never had to tell her off in four years?' she said. 'Never played you up in lessons, has she?' I told her no, an' she didn' seem happy at all. Yeh'd think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Hailey."
"'Course she did," said Hailey, throwing lumps of dragon liver into a large metal bowl and picking up her knife to cut some more. "She can't keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it'll get boring."
"Or about how tragic our relationship is, since she can't get anything about it," Michael said bitterly, slicing a dragon liver.
"She wants a new angle, Hagrid," said Ron as he shelled salamander eggs. "You were supposed to say Hailey's a mad delinquent."
Hagrid looked shocked, "But she's not!"
"You know, " Mandy said, "If she interviewed Snape, she would've gotten a better scoop."
"He'd give her the goods on me any day." Hailey said and used a monotonous whisper, "'Potter has been crossing the lines ever since she first arrived at this school…'"
Mandy, Michael, Ron, and Hermione laughed at the impression.
"That was actually pretty good," Michael said, smiling.
Hailey felt pleased that she got a compliment out of him.
"Said that, did he?" asked Hagrid. "Well, yeh might've bent a few rules, Hailey, bu' yeh're all righ' really, aren' you?"
Hailey grinned, "Cheers, Hagrid."
"You coming to this ball thing on Christmas Day, Harid?" asked Ron.
"Though' I might look in on it, yeah," replied Hagrid. "Should be a good do, I reckon." Hagrid looked at Hailey, "You'll be openin' the dancin', won' yeh, Hailey? Who're you takin'?"
Hailey felt her face heat up as she glanced at Michael, "No one, yet." Thankfully Hagrid didn't pursue the subject.
As the last week of term progressed, everything seemed to become energetic. It seemed like wherever Hailey went, she heard rumours about the Yule Ball. It was rumoured that Dumbledore bought eight hundred of mulled mead from Madam Rosmerta. However, Hailey believed that Dumbledore booked the Weird Sisters. From a poster in Ginny's room, Hailey knew that it was a famous musical group.
Professor Flitwick gave up trying to teach them because it seemed like everyone was to busy thinking of other things, so he allowed them to play game in his lesson on Wednesday. He spent most of it talking to Hailey about the perfect Summoning Charm that she had used during the first task.
Nothing could deflect Professor Binns, not even his own death, so he plowed on through his notes on the goblin rebellion. Professor Moody and McGonagall kept them working until the last second. Snape, of course, would no sooner let them play games in class than he would elect Hailey has his only heir. Snape had stared nastily around at them before informing them that he would be testing them on poison antidotes during the last lesson of the term.
The Hogwarts staff seemed determined to impress the visitors from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, because they went all-out on decorating the castle for Christmas, because there was everlasting icicles attached to the banisters on the marble staircase. The twelve Christmas trees that were in the Great Hall were bedecked with everything from luminous holly berries to real, hooting golden owls. The suits of armour had been bewitches to sing carols whenever anyone passed them, which was kind of disconcerting to hear an empty helmet sing "O Come, All Ye Faithful", although they knew half the words. Peeves had taken to hiding in the suits of armour to fill in the gaps in the songs with rude lyrics, and Filch had to extract him from.
Hailey still couldn't ask Michael to the ball as a friend. She asked Neville if he had a date, but he said that he was going with Ginny, because Ginny asked him to go with her.
Ron and Hailey were getting nervous about it. Mandy said that they could always go together. Hailey was disgusted because Ron was her best friend.
On Friday morning, Ron, using a tone as if they were going to storm an impenetrable, said, "Hailey—we've just got to grit our teeth and do it. When we get to the Great Hall for dinner, we'll both have dates, agreed?"
"Yeah," Hailey said.
But every time she looked at Michael, she couldn't ask him. She even considered passing a piece of parchment asking Michael, but she didn't want Snape to think that they were cheating.
After the bell rang, she grabbed her bag and tried to figure out if she should just spring the question on Michael with Mandy there, or if they somehow ended up alone. Better to do it now then at the last minute and to get it over with.
She took a deep breath, looked at Michael, and said something that sounded like gibberish to her. Mandy and Michael both looked confused.
"What?" Michael asked.
Hailey took a deep again and said, "D'you want to the ball with me? As a friend?" She felt her face heat up. Mandy was looking so excited.
Michael face turned red. "I really would've gone with you, but that fifth year Hufflepuff, Aileen, annoyed me into submission, so I'm going with her."
That was embarrassing and kind of heartbreaking. Hailey winced at that, "Oh, okay. No problem."
"I was going to ask you to go with me as a friend, but then I thought about how that Skeeter woman would've loved to have that opportunity to write about us going together and I didn't want to cause you more trouble." Michael said. "I was in the library with Hermione, Terry, and Anthony when I got cornered by Aileen."
"Oh," Hailey said, "It's fine." Hailey frowned, "Does Terry have a date?"
Mandy went pink, "He's mine. What about Stephen Cornfoot?"
"He's going with Colton Taylor," Michael replied.
"When did that happen?" Mandy asked very surprised.
"I don't know," Michael said. "You can ask Ron."
"No," Hailey replied flatly. "He's my best friend."
"You can ask him to go as a friend," Mandy said. "Michael asked me and Hermione to go with him as a friend."
Hailey looked at Mandy and Michael. "What?"
"That was because of the whole Skeeter thing," Michael explained, a little too quickly. "Hermione apparently has a date and Mandy told me she'll think about it, then Terry asked her, so she dropped me. Then Aileen happened."
Aileen had a reputation of refusing to take no for an answer, and she looked like she could knock Millicent Bulstrode out with one well-placed kick. Aileen also had black hair and wore glasses.
Mandy was now confused, "Wait. Who's Hermione going to the ball with?"
"It's not my place to tell," Michael said.
Ron wasn't at the entrance of the Great Hall, but Hermione was.
"Did you hear what Ron did?" a older Hufflepuff told her friend. "I think he's in the Gryffindor common room hiding because he's ashamed."
At that, Hermione, Mandy, Michael, and Hailey headed to the Gryffindor common room.
Hermione gave the password and the Fat Lady opened the passage to let them in. In a distant corner, it looked like Ginny was comforting an ashen-faced Ron.
"What's up, Ron?" asked Hailey, walking over o them.
Ron looked up at Hailey, looking a little horrified. "Why did I do it? I don't know what made me do it!"
"What did you do?" Mandy asked.
"He—er—just asked Fleur Delacour to go to the ball with him," explained Ginny. She patted Ron's arm sympathetically.
"You what?" asked Hailey bewildered.
"Oh, god," Michael said, a little horrified.
"I don't know what made me do it!" Ron gasped. "What was I playing at? There were people—all around—I've gone mad—everyone watching! I was just walking past her in the entrance hall—she was standing there talking to Diggory—and it sort of came over me—and I asked her!" Ron moaned and put his face in his hands. "She looked at me like I was a sea slug or something. Didn' even answer. And then—I dunno—I just sort of came to my sense and ran for it!"
"She's part veela," Hailey explained, "Her grandmother was one. It wasn't your fault, I bet you just walked past when she was turning on the old charm for Diggory and you got a blast of it."
"This is mad," said Ron. "We're the only ones left who haven't got anyone—well, except Neville."
"Why don't you two just go with each other?" Ginny asked, sounding exasperated.
Ron looked at Ginny, "She's my best friend."
"All the good-looking ones taken, Ron?" asked Hermione loftily. "Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she? Well, I'm sure you'll find someone somewhere who'll have you."
The portrait opened and Malachi Lovelace walked in with a tall, light-brown skinned girl following behind. She was probably 5'11, and she was looking upset as she finished saying, "…bloody jerk!" She had an Irish accent. Hailey recognized her as the girl that was sitting with Malachi at the Three Broomsticks.
"I know, Ciara." Malachi said, sounding tired, like they had that conversation multiple times already.
"Now we both don't have dates!" Ciara exclaimed, "And I refuse to go with you! You're my friend! It would make that jerk believe that he was right all along!"
Ron and Hailey looked at each other. Hailey walked over to Malachi, feeling rather foolish. She looked up at Malachi, who was about a inch taller than her. "Malachi? Will you please go to the ball with me?"
Malachi looked thrown off guard, but he nodded, "Sure."
Ciara looked even more upset. Hailey looked back at Ron, "My best friend, Ron, doesn't have a date." She motioned to Ron.
Ciara looked over at Ron, who was looking embarrassed. Ciara responded, "Sure. Is he tall?"
"I suppose," Hailey responded. "We'll meet you two down in the entrance hall."
"Okay," Malachi responded.
Hailey was thinking that this ball was a lot more trouble than it was worth, but at least she and Ron weren't going alone or together.
