Hello all! I apologize endlessly for the horrible delay, but I got hooked on an amazing book series and just couldn't stop! I read the first 4 books in 3 days! I KNOW I'M SUCH A LOSER! lol. But, I hope you all enjoy this chapter--I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. :)
Without further delay, here is Yuletide Bliss
ENJOY!
"Happy Christmas!" Arra awoke to a bushy haired girl jumping on her bed on Christmas morning.
"Whasgoinon?" Arra slurred, rubbing her eyes as she said up.
"It's Christmas!" Hermione said.
"You seem awfully excited." Arra said, examining the pile of presents at the foot of her bed. "Could a certain date for the ball have anything to do with that?"
"Shut up and open your presents." Hermione mumbled with a smile.
Arra laughed and began to unwrap the gifts. From Hermione, she got a talking day planner, as Hermione was always on Arra about her careless nature. From Ron, a Chudley Cannons t-shirt. Since Arra's favorite team was the Holyhead Harpies, her and Ron often got each other the other's favorite Quidditch team memorabilia as a joke. Next, she opened her gift from Draco--an emerald necklace lined in silver. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw it, but she quickly put in her jewelry box, as she didn't want Harry or anyone else to think that there was a 'special reason' Draco would have gotten it for her.
After she had finished all the presents on top of the pile, there was one last one in a rather large box on the bottom. Curiously, she took off the top and read the card:
Happy Christmas Arra!
I really miss you back here at the house. It's quite lonely with just me and Kreacher. But I entertain myself sometimes by making him wear a tutu or something. I'm glad that you and Harry finally made up--I didn't want to have to get mad at him for hurting my little girl and be one of those responsible parent type people. We both know that I'm no good at that. But I don't really think I could have killed Harry anyways--I think Lily and James might not be too happy about their best friend killing their son. But if he ever turns into an idiot again, we can just ask Dumbledore to loan us back that Hungarian Horntail.
So I hope your Christmas is wonderful and you have a great time at the Ball, which is why your Christmas present is what it is. Back in my school days, we had a formal party for the graduating 7th years and your mother wore this to it. Don't feel obligated to use it if you've already got an outfit together, but I hope you enjoy it either way.
Happy Christmas, Love!
Dad
Arra laughed at her father's letter and set it on her nightstand. She then walked back over to the box and carefully pulled out it's contents.
"Oh my God," She breathed as she got a good look at it. It was an elegant strapless emerald green dress that ran all the way to the floor. The torso was tight, tying up the back like a corset, but at the waistline, it fanned out like a princess dress, but not too far that it would get in the way.
"Bloody hell! Where did you get that?!" Lavender said when she noticed Arra holding it up, admiring it.
"My dad sent it to me. It used to be my mum's." She explained, and soon Lavender, Hermione and Parvati were all oohing and ahhing at the gorgeous dress.
"Will you wear it tonight?" Parvati asked.
Arra nodded, "Yes. Definitely. I had just a simple black gown I was going to wear, but this is much better." She smiled and the other girls agreed.
"We'd better get down to breakfast, Arra. Ron and Harry will be waiting for us." Arra nodded her head and carefully placed the dress on her bed so it wouldn't be wrinkled. Standing up, a thought occurred to her--she hadn't received a present from Harry. It's not like she was completely obsessed with receiving gifts, but it was a bit odd. Her eyes then fell on her jewelry box, where the necklace Draco had given her was sitting safely. It was then she noticed that the necklace would go perfectly with her dress. If she wore it tonight, Harry wouldn't know that it was from Draco since they never talk to one another. And Draco would know that she appreciated his gift as well. Right?
She shrugged it off and followed Hermione out of the dormitory. Walking down the stairs, she saw people exchanging gifts in the common room and shouting "Happy Christmas!" to everyone in sight. She walked slowly to admire the decorations hung gracefully about the walls, and Hermione walked ahead, beginning a conversation with Ron about who she was attending the ball with.
"Happy Christmas." A voice said from behind Arra, and she turned around to meet a dozen red roses being offered to her.
Taking the roses, she saw their holder. "Happy Christmas to you too, Mr. Potter." She said kindly, sniffing the wonderful roses scent.
He smiled down at her, "Fancy some breakfast?" He asked, holding out his arm like a true gentleman.
She took hold of his arm with her own, "Why, yes, I do." And together they walked down to the Great Hall.
"Thanks." Arra said suddenly as they were walking.
He looked at her. "For what?"
She gestured to the roses, "These. They're beautiful." She grinned, "And for asking me to the ball. I know we're going to have a great time tonight."
Harry beamed, "You're welcome. I'm glad you like them. I really couldn't think of what to get you for a gift, and then I remembered that you said roses were your favorite flower. So I figured that they would be a good start for your present."
Arra stopped walking. "A start?"
Harry nodded with a smile, "You don't get the rest until tonight. Which you're also welcome for, because I'm positive we'll have a good time."
Arra took his arm again and resumed walking, "Oh, well now I'm extra excited."
"You should be." He smirked and Arra returned the look flirtatiously.
They ate their breakfast with Ron and Hermione and some other Gryffindors, all the while having a great time. Later, they decided that they would have some fun, and went outside to begin a snowball fight.
"All right!" Ron shouted in order to get everyone's attention, as they had gathered quite a large group of people to play. "Let's separate into two teams, I'll be captain. Who wants to be the other?"
"I will!" Fred said quickly, shouting over George's claim for the high ranking spot. "But I get to pick first."
Ron scowled, "Why do you get to pick first?"
"Because I'm older and better looking." He flashed him a dazzling smile. "George!" He said, picking his first teammate.
"Harry." Ron said, and Harry went to stand by Ron's side.
"Arra." Fred and George said in unison for their next pick.
Arra glared jokingly at Ron and Harry, and punched one of her fists into her other open palm. "Your going down."
"No fair! Arra throws better than half the blokes in Hogwarts!" Ron protested.
Fred and George shrugged together, "Not our problem."
"And besides," Arra said, "You have the 'boy who lived' on your side. That's got to count for something." Ron gave her a scowl. "But then again, he won't be living for very much longer once I'm done with him." Arra smirked at Harry, who returned the look.
Ron rolled his eyes at them, "You two make me sick. All right, I pick Seamus."
"We get Dean."
"Ginny."
It went on like that until…
"I can't believe I'm the last one left!" Hermione said after everyone else had been placed on their teams.
"Oh come on, Hermione! You get to be on my team!" Arra said with excitement, as if it were the greatest thing ever.
Hermione trudged over to them, "I thought I'd at least be picked before Colin Creevey." Hermione muttered.
Arra nodded sympathetically, and looked over at Colin on Ron's team. She suspected that he would be too busy looking at Harry to notice when she would send a snowball hurtling to his face.
She was right.
Colin was Arra's first victim as the war began. She quickly dove behind a snow bank to avoid the mass of fire that was coming to her. She formed a few snowballs, sneakily peered around the side in order to look for her next target. Exactly across from her was Harry, hiding behind his own fort, and they had now locked eyes. They both immediately grabbed a snowball and started throwing like mad at each other.
In an act of bravery, she made a dash to a rather large rock, that was much closer to Harry, so she could hit him easier. Harry noticed her daring act, and made more ammo in case she came closer. Arra did the same, and swiftly turned around to attack. But instead found a snowball colliding with her face.
She brushed the snow off her furious face to find Harry in hysterics, almost falling over from all the laughter. She grabbed all the ready-made snowballs at her feet and got up to attack Harry. He stopped laughing long enough to see her running towards him, and he searched frantically for one of his own snowballs--there were none. So he got up and began to run away from the fight.
"Come back here, Potter!" Arra yelled, chasing after him, towards the forest, pelting snowballs the whole way.
"Ouch! Stop it, Arra! I'm sorry I hit your face!" He said between laughs, before finally tripping and falling down into the snow.
Arra took the opportunity to go down next to him and playfully hit him. "I'll teach you to throw things at me!" She laughed.
Suddenly, Harry, who was lying on the ground with Arra kneeling next to him, tackled her into the ground, so he now had the upper hand.
"What was that about teaching me?" Harry said sarcastically, as he pinned her to the ground.
She was shocked at her loss of the fight, "Fine. You win."
Harry beamed, "Good."
Arra looked up at him, and saw that he had sort of a nervous smile. She bit her lip, not wanting to spoil the moment. They stared at each other for what felt like hours, before Harry slowly began to bend his face down towards her. When Arra didn't protest, he continued.
Arra's heart sped up to an alarming pace, and she gracefully closed her eyes. She could feel Harry's face just inches away from hers now. And second now, their lips would meet in an explosion of passion that they had both been waiting for for a long time.
"Arra!"
Her eyes flew open and Harry's head instinctively jerked back as they both heard the voice.
"Arra!" Hermione's voice shouted again, searching for her best friend.
Arra sighed, and Harry helped her to her feet.
"There you are!" Hermione said, finally finding them. "Come on, we'd best start getting ready."
"Yeah, sure." Arra said to her before turning back to Harry. "I'll see you later, I guess." She gave him a mischievous smile and bit her lip before following Hermione back to the castle.
Finally reaching the common room, Arra entered to find Hermione staring at herself in the mirror. Lavender and Parvati had likely snuck out to Hogsmeade to pick up some last minute things. "Hermione?" She said slowly.
"What do I do about my hair?" She asked with an exasperated voice.
"Relax. We have three hours to get ready," she glanced at the clock. "We'll get it looking perfect for Viktor." Arra said in a cute little voice, as if she was a mother, sending her daughter on her very first date.
Hermione smiled, "Stop it! This isn't a real date. He just happens to be the only guy who asked me to the ball."
Arra frowned, "I believe you're forgetting a certain redhead who asked you as well."
Hermione waved her off, "He doesn't count. He only asked me because he didn't have any other options."
Arra nodded, "True."
"Who is he going with, again?" Hermione asked.
"Parvati." After a lot of begging from Harry, Arra finally agreed to help find Ron a date. However, it wasn't too hard when she came up to the common room to find Parvati crying over the fact that Cormac McLaggen had turned her down, and Arra offered her Ron. Reluctantly, she agreed.
"I still can't believe you helped him." Hermione said, shuffling through the closet and pulling out her dress.
Arra shrugged, "He was beginning to annoy me with all his sullenness. And I knew that if he didn't have a date, he would just follow Harry and me around all night, and I'd end up being a shared date." She flipped through a copy of Witch Fashion Weekly for ideas of what to do with Hermione's hair.
Hermione nodded in agreement before changing the subject, "So out of interest, what does Malfoy think of you going with Harry?"
Arra stopped flipping and looked up at her, "I don't know. Why?"
"Well it's pretty obvious that he's totally bonkers for you. And it's no secret that you have some sort of feelings for him."
"Yeah, but I like Harry more." Arra defended.
"But don't you think he'll be a little upset when he sees you with Harry? I mean, you know Malfoy hates all of us, except you of course, so don't you think he might be jealous or something?"
"He'll just have to deal with it. I'm not his babysitter, and I don't do things just to make him happy. The same goes for Harry."
"Okay, but if I were you, I would be careful about what I say to them. You don't things to get to dramatic or tense between those two guys." Hermione warned.
Arra sighed, dropping the subject, "What do you think about this hairstyle for you?" She pointed to a curly up-do.
She nodded, "Yeah, I like that one. You think you can do it?"
"Please, Hermione," Arra said conceitedly, "I may not be able to make teacups transfigure into pineapples, but I can certainly do this." And she began her masterpiece.
After two hours of fighting and yelling at Hermione's hair, Arra finally was able to make it look almost exactly like the picture. Even with magic, Hermione's hair definitely had a mind of it's own.
"Oh my God, I hope Viktor recognizes me. I look so different!" Hermione said after Arra applied some finishing touches to her makeup.
Arra scoffed, "You make it sound like I turned you into a Russian circus act hiding from the ministry as a hobo or something."
"More like French circus act hiding out from the ministry as a hobo." Hermione smiled and Arra gave her a scowl.
Arra glanced at the clock--7:00. Her already natural curls wouldn't take long at all to fix, and she hardly ever wore very much makeup, so she figured that she had quite a bit of time to relax for a while before 8:00 when the ball began. She walked over to her bed, glancing out the window at the darkening sky, the stars were already out. She flopped onto her bed and sighed happily--today had been complete and utter bliss so far. The roses from Harry, the snowball fight with Harry, the kiss they almost shared; it seemed as if things were finally going right for them. She turned her head to look at the roses he gave her, beaming from happiness.
She was suddenly jolted from her pleasant state by a knock at the window. Confused, she got up and walked over to it, and was certainly shocked to see what it was.
"What the bloody hell are you doing?" She asked, but couldn't help from letting a smile cross her face.
"Square dancing," Harry said sarcastically from his floating position on his Firebolt broomstick outside her window.
"I'm sorry, were we going for a western theme tonight? Should I wear my cowboy boots to the ball tonight?" She matched his tone.
He rolled his eyes, and gracefully swerved his broom around so that the back was facing her window. "Get on."
Arra stared, "What?"
"Get. On." Harry pressed again, giving her a smile.
"Is this the part where you take me into the forest and kill me or something?" She crossed her arms over her chest.
He shrugged, "You'll only know if you get on."
Arra stared at him incredulously. Then, in true Arra style, she threw caution to the wind and clambered on behind Harry. "I'll be back later, Hermione!" She said over her shoulder.
Tightly securing her arms around Harry's middle she said, "You better not knock me off this broom, Potter."
He smirked and Arra felt her face flush, "Then you better hold on tight." And he took off at lightning speed into the starry night sky.
Hope you all enjoyed it! I know it was kind of short, but I was kind of having trouble thinking of extra filler scenes, which usually just piss me off in stories, lol. So anyways, REVIEW! In return, you shall get a valentine from me and candy! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!