Harry and Hermione had managed to make it back to the common room without too many people seeing them. At the portrait hole Hermione stopped Harry.
"Wait! I have an idea. Why don't we get them back for pranking us?"
"What did you have in mind?" Harry looked eagerly interested.
"Well, since we're still in the costumes and considering what they wrote on the door, we could act like we really are the heirs back then and somehow we were turned into them."
"I have a better idea. You act like you enjoyed it and that we are now an item. It would seriously confuse your friends and annoy your girlfriend if she helped do this to us."
Hermione thought for a moment.
Eventually she said: "…Good plan."
"Ok, come on then…show time." Harry slipped his arm around her waist and she looped her arm around his neck. They gave the password and entered.
Since it was late there weren't a lot of people there. Fred and George were still up and playing exploding snap by the fire. Ron and Draco were playing wizard chess on one of the tables nearby. Ginny, Alicia, Katie and Pansy were braiding each others hair on the sofa. Also Colin Creevey was slumped in an armchair looking very sleepy with his camera dangling from his hand. Clearly they had kept him up waiting for them to come back.
Everyone glanced up at Harry and Hermione when they entered. Then they all simultaneously did a double take and their mouths dropped open. Harry grinned at them and Hermione nestled into his shoulder trying to hide her giggles. Pansy looked like she was going to blow her top, she was so angry. Draco tore his eyes away from Harry and Hermione to look pityingly at her. His eyes met Ginny's halfway and their eyes widened. They then realised that they both knew about the lovers, and what would happen to them now. Everyone looked miserable because their plan had bounced back into their faces.
"Can I come up to your dorm Harry? I need a big strong man like you to get me out of this corset." Hermione said smiling sweetly and provocatively to Harry, who grinned at her and led her to the stairs.
Once in the room they closed the door, broke away and burst out laughing as quietly as they could so they wouldn't wake Dean, Seamus and Neville.
"Did you see their faces?" Harry hissed at her.
"Quick unstrap me. Then I can go and shock them even more."
"What will you do?" Harry asked as he undid the laces of the dress and then the corset beneath it.
"What say we go to the Yule Ball together and wear these clothes? There we act totally in love and freak them out completely. I'll go down and ask if we can keep them." Said Hermione holding the dress and corset up to her chest over her shift and petticoat. She caught Harry checking her out and shot him a piercing glare. Sheepishly he gave her a peck on the cheek before hurrying to his bed as she left the dorm.
"Hey guys." She said as she re entered the common room where the rapid talk immediately ceased. They had undoubtedly been discussing the prank and how it could have gone wrong.
"We were wondering if we could borrow these clothes for the Yule Ball in a few weeks? You see, Harry asked me to go with him and I said I would. It would be nice to be matching for the ball." Hermione flashed that sweet, shy smile again.
Alicia nodded and Hermione hurried up the stairs to her dorm. As soon as she was gone Pansy let out a roar of frustration and when Ron shot her a surprised look she marched over to him and upended the chess board onto him. Draco got up and restrained her.
"Sh, it's all right."
"No it isn't Draco! How could she?" she protested fighting against him.
"Come on, we better get back to our common room. Good night guys." Draco said annoyingly calmly steering her out.
"I think they aren't being serious. I don't think this is real somehow." Ron said thoughtfully re setting the board. "Maybe they're pranking us, cos' we pranked them."
"I don't think so. They wouldn't." Ginny said uncertainly.
"You just wish it was you in his place, right Ron?" Fred said, emerging from his crouched position where he and George had taken cover from the explosion of the cards.
"Let's keep a close watch on them, talk to them about it. Maybe they'll let something slip and reveal that they are acting." Said Alicia thoughtfully.
But they did not let anything slip. Hermione and Harry kept up the lovey dovey act convincingly well for the next few weeks. One day Hermione kept flashing a diamond ring on her engagement finger and their friends caught the pair pouring over a copy of Witch's Weddings.
The girls kept pranking the boys and Harry didn't tell them that he knew Hermione was one of the perpetrators. Somehow the boys missed the fact that when their shoes were filled with bubotubber pus and their feet swelled up, Harry's weren't. They really were exceedingly dim.