Chapter 3 - Dinner and a Show

Harry was full of a nervous energy as the time ticked away toward the start of dinner.

Ginny returned after about ten minutes and dragged Ron bodily from the common room, and Fred, George and Angelina made their excuses, leaving Harry and Hermione alone by the fire.

"What did George say to you, when he came down?" Harry asked, breaking the silence.

Hermione flushed again. "Nothing, just a joke."

Harry scoffed, the lie pathetic. "Come on Hermione, you turned the colour of the blasting end of one of the skrewts."

Hermione stared at him for a long second, her colour continuing to rise. Eventually she burst, "All right, all right. He said 'hello, miss' in Bulgarian."

Harry stared at her confused until it hit him.

"Bloody hell, Hermione."

"Please don't tell anyone."

Harry drew fingers across his lips as if zipping them shut. "No problem, but you need to tell me."

She huffed but looked relieved. "All right, all right. He asked me last week, in the library."

"Last week?" Harry said, surprised. "And you managed to keep it quiet for this long?"

"Yes, he asked me to. He's quite shy, you know." She said. "He said he's been spending so much time in the library just plucking up courage to talk to me all this time."

"He's a bit… old, isn't he? He's in the final year at Durmstrang, isn't he?" Harry asked, thinking over how odd it would be, her being with someone like Krum who was, after all, an internationally-renowned quidditch player.

"Well, I thought that to start with. But he's as young as he can be in his year at school – his birthday is the thirtieth of August – and I'm as old as I can be to be in mine, more or less. There are only two years and eleven months between us, really." She said, looking sheepish, but defiant.

Harry made an affirmative noise. "As long as you're happy with it, I guess. Probably best to keep it quiet for now – especially from Ron, you know what he's like."

"Yes, the very image of maturity. It's no wonder women prefer older men, honestly."

"Speak for yourself." Harry said, slightly put-out.

She sat there, glaring at him. "Well, that's me. What about you? That absolute cow Pansy Parkinson?"

He shifted in his chair. "Well, honestly I was feeling desperate. Cho told me she's going Ced-dick and it threw me off a bit. I almost asked this girl from Ginny's year, but bottled it, ran into the toilets and told myself off."

She smiled. "I do that all the time! Sorry, carry on." She said hastily at his disapproving look.

"Well I came out, went in random directions until I ran into Pansy and Draco having a row and it… kind of slipped out, really. I didn't think she would say yes, but she did. Probably to piss off Draco more than anything. We're meeting after dinner to discuss what we're going to wear."

Hermione blew out a breath. "Well Harry, no one could ever accuse you of being boring. I must say though, I was hoping you'd ask Ginny."

Harry banged his head against the back of his chair. "Why do people keep saying that?! If everyone wanted me to ask her, why didn't anyone tell me, or talk to me, or… anything!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Because Harry, she liked you for ages and has basically given up now, and everyone assumed you weren't interested in her at all."

"She's my best mate's little sister! It's… never really even occurred to me. She's great, but…" He trailed off, the memory of the smell of her coming back to him – the fire, the hot sweetness.

"And she's a woman in her own right, Harry. Wittle Ronnykins will just have to deal with whatever she does in the future, won't he? But in any case, this is all beside the point now, isn't it?"

He rubbed his eyes. "Yes."

"And you're about to blow the school up. I don't think there are any Gryffindor-Slytherin couples – there are some keeping it quiet, no doubt, but you two will be going to the Ball together."

"Yes." He repeated.

"Well there's nothing for it, let's go down to dinner."

"Okay."

"Better to rip the plaster off than do it- "

"I said yes, Hermione." Harry said, standing and pulling her up from the little sofa. He rolled his shoulders and rubbed his face. "Let's go."

The Great Hall was becoming increasingly over-decorated and was almost full by the time they arrived.

Harry paused at the entrance, peeking through the door. Almost the whole of the staff were present, the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students scattered throughout the benches. There was Angelina, Fred, George – there was no sign of Ron at – and at the other side of the huge room he made out Malfoy with Crabbe, Goyle, Tracey Davis and a couple of other Slytherins. He looked mutinous.

Pansy was sat a little aside with Daphne Greengrass and three others, she was flushed, talking animatedly and was clearly excited. Even at more than a hundred feet, Harry could see the cool, ferocious energy in her.

He licked his dry lips as Hermione put a hand on his shoulder.

"Come on." She said.

He nodded and walked into the hall, heading straight for where Fred and George were causing some kind of uproar. Along the way, he stole a glance over at Pansy who met his eyes. She winked, he nodded and smiled then felt a flush creep up his neck.

Sitting next to George, he started loading his plate, but ate sparingly, his stomach tight.

After a few minutes, washing down a mouthful of something garlicky and rich, he looked up and saw Ginny arriving.

"Alright?" He asked, wiping his mouth. "You've been gone a while."

She rolled her eyes. "Sorting out my big brothers love-life."

Harry laughed. "He's shit."

"He's shit." She said at exactly the same time, laughing and flicking her hair off her shoulder.

Harry smiled and took another drink. "Who have you got him with?"

As an answer, Ginny pointed toward the front doors.

Ron was walking in next to a Ravenclaw with dirty-blonde hair that fell to her waist in long, lazy waves and enormous blue eyes. She was grinning a huge, overjoyed smile. Ron seemed less excited, but was smiling nonetheless as he turned to her, said something and… shook her hand like they'd just agreed a serious business deal. Then they separated and she went toward the Ravenclaw table as Ron headed over to Harry and the others.

"Who's that?" Harry asked Ginny.

"That's Luna Lovegood, in my year. She's a little odd, but when you get to know her she's amazing. I think she's a genius, you know. Not a loud, shouty genius like you, Hermione, but in a quiet way." Ginny said, matter-of-factly.

Harry glanced at Hermione who looked about as torn between pride and offence as anyone he had ever seen and grinned.

"Sorted?" Ginny asked Ron as he slid onto the bench next to her.

He nodded. "She's… interesting."

"Yeah, I know, I love her to bits." Ginny said. "I was just explaining that she's really smart, probably the best in our year, except maybe Seb Okara in Slytherin, but he's a bit of a bellend to be honest. Pretty, isn't she?"

Ron, his mouth already full of beef wellington, nodded, swallowed and nodded again. "Yeah, she looks kind of like a doll. Thanks Ginny." He said the last two words much quieter than those before them.

Ginny, Harry and Hermione all stared at Ron, dumbstruck for a few seconds.

"What?" Ron asked before shovelling more food into his mouth.

They all remained politely quiet, resuming their dinner.

Harry didn't have an appetite for dessert and contented himself with a few orange segments while everyone else demolished custard tarts, pies and gateaux.

Surprisingly, Fred and Angelina seemed to be getting on extremely well, just a few hours after agreeing to go to the ball together.

As Harry played idly with his orange peel, he noticed Fred was feeding her drops of custard dripped from a spoon onto her outstretched tongue. When the spoon was empty, she put her arm around his neck and pulled him in for a long, face-eating kind of kiss.

Ron made an exaggerated, disgusted kind of face, miming vomiting into his dessert bowl and Ginny laughed.

"You're just jealous." Hermione said, sniffily, but couldn't hide her astonishment at such a display.

At that, George – who was curiously much better groomed than they were used to - rolled his eyes, stood and left the table, making a poor attempt at moving quietly and avoiding notice.

"Off already, fidanzato?" Ginny asked as he stalked away.

Harry noticed George shoot Ginny a reproachful, angry glance and mime strangling her before turning and leaving the hall.

Leaning in closer to Hermione, he whispered. "Fidon-what?"

Hermione threw him a you'll see soon enough kind of look.

Ginny threw a thin curl of chocolate at him, getting his attention. "Don't want to spoil the surprise." She mouthed.

Over the next half hour the noise and population of the Great Hall started to diminish, with singletons, couples and groups drifting away leaving the regular apocalypse of food scraps and discarded cutlery. Fred and Angelina then Hermione were the first to leave their bench.

After Dumbledore and the heads of houses rose and left, the departures increased until Harry and Ginny prompted Ron to go take a walk with Luna Lovegood, which he did, looking awkward.

Then Harry, who had been sat with his back to the majority of the room, finally managed to turn around. Pansy was stood near the entrance, chatting to Blaise Zabini, the extremely handsome boy that had transferred in from Ilvermorny – a wizarding school in America – the previous year.

As he watched, Pansy shook her head and said something, then patted Zabini on the arm in a comforting kind of way and he left the hall. Then she looked at Harry like she knew he had been watching her, and a mischievous smile spread across her face. She crooked a finger at him and nodded her head, indicating that she wanted him to join her by the door.

He took a deep, nervous breath, stood and started toward her.

Weirdly, as he walked, he felt the nerves evaporate off him. His stride became longer, looser and more confident. The noise of the hall faded from his attention and he felt inextricably drawn to her, this pale, mysterious girl. There was nothing in the world in that moment, not the Tri-Wizard, not OWLs, not Voldemort, not Ginny.

He came to a halt less than a foot from her and nodded, surprised that the motion seemed almost more like a bow.

"Hi." He said, pleased to find no hesitance or nerves in his voice.

"I thought you were going to keep me waiting all night." She said softly, looking up through her eyelashes at him.

"Sorry, I was kind of nervous, if I'm honest."

"You were nervous?" She laughed, filled with incredulity running her thumb over the serpent badge on her robes, then lifted her hand toward him.

He looked from her to her hand and back to her. There was challenge in her eyes, her pale hand asking the question: Do you dare?

Images flashed across his mind of stories he used to read as a child: knights in armour rescuing princesses from dragon-guarded towers – and he understood. "You sure?" he asked, little more than a whisper.

She shrugged. "It's already out, it'll be all over the school by lunch tomorrow."

Nodding and without another word, he took her hand in his and kissed it very gently. Her skin was cool, full of the scent of some light, refined flowers and the contact made his lips tingle. He saw her take a small, almost imperceptible breath and bite her lower lip.

There was a clatter of cutlery in the hall. They turned together and saw more than a hundred pairs of eyes staring at them, most of the onlookers with mouths-agape in astonishment.

"A gentleman." She said, turning back to him, her eyes bright.

He turned to her and nodded slowly. Eager but cautious, he turned and walked through the doors then held out his own hand to her, terrified she wouldn't take it but thrilled that she might.

This time she paused, eyes wide, looking from his hand to his eyes and back again. They didn't stray those extra few centimetres up to his scar like everyone else's did. She joined him, closing the distance and her cool fingers slid into his, their thumbs crossed. They left the hall together and the room erupted into fevered conversation, but neither of them heard it.