Hermione was thrilled to finally have a date to the Yule Ball. She had not dared to tell Harry and Ron who had asked her; she was not sure why, but she felt the need to keep it a secret until the ball. Ron had practically bullied her to tell him, but she refused.

The only person she had told was Ginny, she needed help choosing a dress and preparing her hair, she was not very good at deciding those types of things. Ginny was thrilled for Hermione, and had admitted to her that she was going with Neville, which surprised Hermione. As their discussion had progressed, they had decided to go shopping together because neither of them had something to wear.

Hermione was very excited to go shopping with Ginny; as she and Ginny walked to the Village, they could not stop giggling which was a nice break from her worried thoughts about the second task. She was still unable to understand the clue in the golden egg, and therefore did not know what to expect. As if reading her mind, Ginny asked her about the Second Task.

"Have you been able to decipher the clue from the golden egg yet?"

"No, it simply screams each time I open it, and magic doesn't seem to work on it," Hermione's face darkened as she admitted this.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought this up today, and I don't doubt you are worrying about this enough on your own."

"No worries," replied Hermione as she put on a fake smile.

"So what kind of dress are you looking for?"

"I honestly have no idea, I don't want anything that is too tight, but apart from that, I don't have the slightest clue. Do you know what kind of dress you want?"

"I am not sure, I want something light colored is all I am sure of."

As they arrived at the store, the sales person greeted them warmly and showed them their selection of dresses. Hermione was startled at the massive amount of dresses they had and did not know where to begin. However, soon Hermione found herself with half a dozen dresses that she was tempted by and saw that Ginny was in the same predicament.

Hermione felt as though they must have tried on hundreds of dresses. Each dress was beautiful but was either too big or too small or just did not fit right. Hermione was tempted to give up for the day, until she tried on this light purple dress.

"Hermione, you look absolutely stunning in that dress," said Ginny.

Hermione could help but smile and twirled in her dress. The dress itself was a light shade of purple. It was sleeveless, and the straps on her shoulders looked like a piece of fabric that had been rolled up, and the fabric looked as though it had been stretched across her chest (however, it was not see through). It actually gave Hermione ab it of cleavage. The dress went in at her waist and then went straight down to her feet, with some extra material for a small train. The material almost looked see through, but it wasn't which made Hermione feel comfortable.

"I think this is the dress that I am going to get," said Hermione. "Have you found on you liked? The light pink one you had tried on that resembled a blouse tucked into a skirt looked beautiful on you."

"Yes, I agree, the more I thought about it, the more I loved that dress. Oh, Hermione, I am so glad you are getting this dress, you look absolutely exquisite."

"Thank you," she answered. She could feel her cheeks turning pink.

Both girls bought their dresses and discussed what they would do for hair and makeup on their way back to Hogwarts. Hermione was extremely happy she had found such a beautiful dress and was looking forward to seeing Cedric's reaction when he saw her.