A/N: I do not own anything Harry Potter. I feel like I owe you guys after last week's shorter chapter. Thanks to all who have been reading and reviewing this story and adding me to your Favorites/Alerts. I hope you enjoy. Happy reading! XO

Chapter 27

"Wait, did you just say Harry asked you to the Ball?" Annie asked, coming out from under her four-poster bed. She pushed the hair out of her eyes and looked over at Parvati and Lavender who were sitting on their beds in deep discussion of the upcoming Yule Ball.

Parvati turned around and smiled. "He did, right after Ron came in the common room all freaked out about Fleur Delacour tonight."

Annie laid down on her bed and started munching on the Cockroach Clusters she had bought on the last weekend's Hogsmeade trip.

"Oh," she said biting the head off of one. "So Lavender, are you going with Ron then?"

"No, Seamus asked me," she answered with an air of being in love.

"I see," Annie said nodding. "I like Seamus, he's a nice bloke."

The bathroom door creaked open and Hermione came out towel drying her hair. She took one look at Annie who was sprawled across her bed, with Crookshanks lying across her stomach, shook her head.

"Annie, don't you think you've had enough sugar for today?" she asked pulling her pajamas out of her trunk. "You've been sucking on Sugar Quills all day."

Annie rolled her eyes. "But, Hermione, I love sugar, almost as much as I love Quidditch and Firewhiskey."

Hermione walked over and held out her hand. "Hand them over."

Annie sighed and placed the pack in her best friend's hand as Lavender and Parvati looked on stunned. Hermione walked over to her trunk and threw the candy in and slammed it shut.

"You'll get these back tomorrow," she said smiling at her now grumpy friend.

"I can't believe you just gave up your candy like that, Annie," Lavender said with her mouth open slightly aghast. "Usually Hermione has to wrestle it out of your hands."

"Hermione is making me cut down," she said rolling on to her stomach causing Crookshanks to jump onto the floor. "Not cool. I feel all mellow. Is this what normal people feel like?" Annie said turning her head to look at Hermione.

"Taking away your sugar isn't going to hurt you. It's going to help you, trust me. My parents are dentists," Hermione said rolling her eyes.

"Oh yeah, I forgot your parents were some type of muggle healers," Annie said. She reached back and grabbed her pillow and placed her head face-down on it. "This is the worst feeling in the world."

"Stop being so dramatic."

Annie picked her head up and frowned. "You know Remus tried this last year with disastrous results." She put her head back down and buried her face in the pillow again and fell asleep.

Annie tumbled out of her bed on Christmas morning and walked quietly over to Hermione's bed. She leapt onto the bed and started jumping up and down.

"Good morning!" Annie sang as Hermione sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. "The grounds are covered in snow, there's a Ball tonight, there are carols to be sung and it's Christmas!" Annie took one final jump and landed on the ground and walked over to her presents.

She picked up a box and shook it before tearing off the brightly colored paper. She pulled out a card that said "To: Annie Love, Hermione" and pulled out a scarlet and gold hand-knit blanket.

"Hermione, I love it!" she exclaimed wrapping it around herself and beaming over at her. Hermione had also gotten out of her bed and was also unwrapping her presents.

"It's kind of a two-way gift," she said smiling. "Now when you fall asleep the wrong way on your bed, I don't have to levitate you to get your blankets. But you're welcome!"

Annie continued unwrapping her presents and setting them aside on her bed. She had received her annual sweater made by Mrs. Weasley, something she looked forward to every year, which was blue with a large letter "A" on the front. Annie laughed at the design knowing full well she had done it to match her twin sons'. She also received a book called Grimm's Fairy Tales from Remus, a big box of candy from Ron, a Gwenog Jones jersey from Harry, and tickets for the Weird Sisters concert that summer from Lily and James.

Annie placed all of her presents on her bed and picked up a thin rectangular package with a card on top. Annie opened the card and read:

Dear Annie,

I ran into an old friend of mine the other day who owed me a little favor. I hope you love this. Happy Christmas!

Love,

Lydia

Annie opened the package curiously and found a picture frame inside. She turned the frame over and screamed in delight, hugging it to her chest.

"What on earth has made you that happy?" Hermione said looking up from a book that was open on her lap.

Annie turned the frame around showing the picture of Connolly clad in his Irish Green Quidditch robes holding his broom and beaming up at her. Along the bottom of the picture he had written a message just for her.

Annie,

I heard you were a pretty good player. Keep faith in your dreams and hopefully we'll be playing against each other when you join the Harpies.

Connolly

Hermione read the message and squealed. "He sent you that?"

"No, Lydia did!" Annie said excitedly placing the picture on her bedside table. "I love this chick. She and dad better be together forever."

Hermione shook her head and went back to reading her book while Annie picked up her last present from Sirius. She took the card off of the long box and opened it up. A picture of Bandit wearing a Father Christmas hat fell out along with a letter.

Dear Annie,

Well, I wish we were spending Christmas together but there's always next year. This present is supposed to make up twelve years of my absence during Christmas and birthdays and I really hope you enjoy it. It doesn't even come out in stores until June.

Love,

Dad

Annie unwrapped the long box and took out the broom that was packaged inside. She rolled the broom around in her hands and ran her finger up the ash handle to where it said Firebolt 3000 written in gold along the side. She admired the broom in a silent awe. Her Nimbus was good but this was the Firebolt 3000.

"I'm breaking up with George," she said suddenly. Hermione, who was putting her own presents away, dropped what she was holding and looked over at her best friend stunned.

"What? Why? I thought you love him!"

"I'm breaking up with him and I'm going to marry this right away," Annie said holding her broom to her chest.

"You scared me for a second," Hermione said shaking her head. "Ready to go downstairs?"

Annie stood up and placed her broom gingerly down on her bed. "Yeah, almost, I just have to get dressed." Annie pulled out a pair of jeans from her trunk and pulled them and her new sweater on. Annie reached into her trunk again, pulled out her present for George and followed Hermione down into the common room. The boys were sitting by the fire talking and laughing with each other as the girls made their way over. Annie sat down on George's lap and kissed him on the cheek.

"Happy Christmas, darling!" she said placing the present in his hands. "Open it! Open it! Open it!"

George laughed and started to tear the paper away from the box. George lifted the card out of the box and read it aloud.

"'Dear Georgie, Just wanted to say that you light up my life like a Dr. Filibuster's Firework. Happy Christmas! Love, Annie.'" He kissed her on the cheek and pulled the box of fireworks out of the box. "I love them. Thank you! Hang on, what's this?"

Annie took the box of fireworks as George pulled out a picture frame. Inside the frame was a picture of George carrying Annie piggy-back out by the lake each laughing at some long-forgotten joke. George looked at the picture and smiled up at Annie and the two shared a long passionate kiss. When they broke apart, George reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, long box that was crudely wrapped and handed it to Annie.

Annie took the box and giggled. "Wrapped this yourself, did you?"

"Hey, I helped," said Fred proudly looking between the two.

"And I'm sure you did a very good job," Annie said ripping the paper off of the box. She took the lid off the box and gasped. Inside was a gold bracelet with the letters "WWW" in the center. "'WWW?' As in 'Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?'" she asked looking up at him smiling.

"Yup," he said taking the bracelet out of the box as Annie held out her wrist for him to put it on her. "First and only of its kind just for you."

Annie pecked him on the cheek again and admired the bracelet in the firelight. "I love it! Thank you!" She slipped off of his lap and held out her hand for George to take. "Anybody else as hungry as I am?"

Everyone else stood up and followed them out the portrait hole and down to the Great Hall. They walked into the Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table and watched as the teachers bustled around decorating the for the night's Yule Ball. After they witnessed Professor McGonagall telling off a second year who had stayed for the holidays for getting in the way, they ate quickly and hurried out of the Great Hall. The kids walked back up to Gryffindor Tower where they put on more sweaters and jackets and scarves and ran outside to play in the snow.

"Hey, Fred! Head's up!" Annie shouted as she threw a snowball in in his direction. He ducked out of the way just in time and chucked one at her. Annie ducked and the snowball went sailing into Ron's face.

"Ow!" he said clutching his eye. Annie gasped and ran over.

"Ron, are you okay?" she said trying to remove his hand so she could get a look.

"I don't know. Are you?" He picked up handful of snow, tore off her hat and smashed it all over her head.

She screamed as the cold snow made its way down her back. "You suck!" Annie jumped on his back and they fell to the ground wrestling.

The boys and Annie continued their snowball fight while Hermione sat on the stairs with her blue-flame jar and a book. A couple hours before the Ball was to start, Hermione shut her book and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked as he turned around after throwing a snowball at Annie's face.

"I'm going to get ready. Annie, are you coming?" she asked.

Annie lobbed a dozen snowballs with her wand over the wall of her fort and peeked up to answer her best friend.

"But Hermione, the dance isn't for another three hours!" she said. "We have plenty of time to get ready."

"No, we won't have enough time if you keep fooling around," Hermione chastised.

"Hey, Freddie! What do girls do to get ready?" George yelled over to her twin.

"No idea, Georgie," he replied sending a snowball in Ron's direction. "Hey Annie, what do girls to do to get ready for dances and things?"

"I have no idea," Annie said getting up off the ground and walking over to Hermione. "I guess I should go find out."

The boys laughed and continued their snowball fight without her. Ron made one last attempt to find out who Hermione was going to the Ball with as the girls walked away and into the castle. They walked all the way up to Gryffindor Tower chatting excitedly about the Ball. When they walked into girl's dormitory, they found Lavender and Parvati bustling about the room searching for every bit of make-up they owned. Annie walked over to her bed and picked up her presents and moved them on top of her trunk, taking extra care with her broom. Once the bed was cleared, she jumped on top and watched as the other three girls fretted about the room.

"Annie, you could be doing something productive," Hermione said pulling her dress robes out of the wardrobe and placing them on her bed.

"It's too early to do anything. Lavender's already claimed the shower and I really only need like a half-hour to do anything," Annie responded picking up the book that Remus had gotten her and started flicking through the pages.

Hermione sighed. "So I take it you're just going to sit there and observe and do your research for Fred and George's question?" she asked.

Parvati dropped her make-up bag and looked over at Annie.

"What question did they ask?" she asked looking slightly scared.

Annie laughed at her expression. "They want to know what girls do to get ready for dances."

"Oh, I thought it was something bad," she said turning to her wardrobe and pulling out two sets of dress robes and holding them up. "Annie, which color do you thing Harry would like better, the pink or the purple?"

Annie looked between the two and shrugged. "I have no idea. Neither, I guess."

Parvati's jaw dropped as she also looked between the two and whimpered. Hermione crossed the room and put a hand on Parvati's shoulder.

"Don't listen to her. She and Harry are like brother and sister and they don't really discuss what Harry wants in a girl," she explained as Parvati smiled. "Whichever one you choose I'm sure it'll look great on you,"

"Thanks, Hermione," Parvati said placing the pink ones on her bed.

After all the girls had showered and were busying themselves with their hair and make-up, Annie finally got the bathroom to herself. Ten minutes later Annie walked out of the bathroom shaking her head like a dog and making her way over to the wardrobe she shared with Hermione. She pulled the bright orange robes out and threw them on her bed. Annie grabbed her wand from her bedside table and cast a hair-drying charm on her hair. She pulled the robes over her head and started to run a brush through her hair.

"Damn, I look good," she said admiring her reflection in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe.

"Yes, we all know how much you love yourself," Hermione said applying Sleekeazy's Hair Potion to her bushy hair.

Annie clasped her new bracelet back around her wrist and also put on her Quaffle necklace. She ran her hands through her hair and walked over to the door.

"Well, I'm going to go meet George," she said waving to the girls. "See you ladies later."