I have no concept of time… It's a problem in trying to upload fics at a good rate. I have been reading a lot and have a really good idea for a Pansy/Luna fic… Two more chapters after this of Xylophone feelings.

Bloody Ball

Hermione pondered the futility of relationships as Krum twirled her around on the floor. You try so hard to make him like you, and then all he does is stare at you slack-jawed. The only guy staring at me will be leaving in a few months. The girl with the red hair is with Neville. Must not hate on Neville. It's not his fault Ginny likes him. Oh Merlin yes it is. And where is Luna? Where is the girl with the muggle songs? Where is the girl you seems to understand me in the most simple way—not in the way that Viktor understood me enough to like me enough to ask me to the dance or in the way that Ginny understood me enough to comfort me enough the other night, but in a way that told me she understood humans even though not all people let her get close enough to them so that she could understand them.

"Her-minny something is troubling you?"

"Is that a question," she snapped at him, yanking her hands away from him as the band finished another song.

"I am sorry. What is the matter?"

"We're gonna slow things down a bit now," the band announced from the stage they had taken over at the beginning of the ball in a semblance of childish teenage rebellion.

Hermione swallowed in an attempt to hide the frown that threatened to break free from her lips. Viktor slid his arm around her and pulled her so close that she had to rest her head on his shoulder to avoid a cranial collision. The song started out instrumentally, accented with the sound of Viktor's breath in Hermione's ear. "What are you thinking about, Her-minny?"

She sighed. Ron and Harry were seated at a table, not relaxing, more like avoiding death by boredom. "Is it them?" Viktor craned his neck to look at the table where sat the three Gryffindors and the awkward Ravenclaw who just came along to be with her sister whose side she rarely ever left whenever possible.

Hermione whispered, "How did you know?"

"She were, how do you saying, ogling them?"

"I think looking would be a better word." She smiled—the first real smile from whole of the entire night. The Englishwoman nestled her head into the hollow of Viktor's neck, a most beautiful neck that smelled like an exotic cologne that was becoming increasingly popular with the British boys as they observed the effect the Durmstrang boys had on the Hogwarts girls.

"But it is not just them. It is other people too."

He's sounding more and more like Luna every minute. Next he's going to ask about the house elves with actual interest.

"How did you know?"

"If it were only them, you would keep staring at them, but because it is also other people, you have looked away to see them all at once in your mind for it is impossible to see them all at once in this room."

She exhaled into his neck, her lips brushing his skin as she lost consciousness of what her face was doing anymore what with the confusion of faking a smile here and there and laughing at any bad jokes that he told her. Hermione felt his lips on the nape of her neck where her curls swayed along with the music.

"It is alright to be…troubled, yes?"

"Yes, troubled."

Viktor pressed his lips to her skin again. She pulled away to look him in the eyes as the song ended. "Thank you for asking me to this ball, Viktor."

"It was my pleasure." He kissed her hand as she excused herself to take the seat that Parvati had just vacated. Harry greeted her in the normal way, if not a bit more tired-sounding than usual, but Ron lashed out at her with his words. His robes were falling off of his muscular frame even as he sat motionless in the chair.

He shot words at her, slamming her choice of date and accusing her of scandalous things that she only dreamed of when she was deep in sleep and no control over what images her brain conjured up. With one last reminder to call Viktor by his given name, she stormed off.

A young couple explored each other at the bottom of the stairs as Hermione ran up them despite the pain in her feet from her heels.

"Oh, hello, Hermione Granger."

"Luna?"

Cliffhanger Thank you so much to everyone who is following this story. It means so much to me.