Christmas at Hogwarts is always wonderful, and 1994 was no exception. Demelza, Amy, Magda, Luna and I spent the whole day together. We went to the Great Hall for a magnificent lunch, which included at least a hundred turkeys and Christmas puddings, and large piles of Cribbage's Wizarding Crackers. From one of those, I won a set of limited edition golden Gobstones, which I still own to this day. I might sell them soon though, they're worth hundreds of galleons apparently. I'm thinking of donating the money to a charity for impoverished magical families, seeing as Harry and I are more than well off enough as we are.

Anyway, after that, we went out on to the grounds, the snow was untouched except for the deep channels made by the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students on their way up to the castle. We spent a large amount of the afternoon having a big snowball fight with Harry, Ron, Hermione and the twins, and at 5pm, Hermione withdrew to go and get ready for the ball.

"What, you need three hours?" said Ron, looking at her incredulously and paying for his lapse in concentration when a large snowball, thrown by George, hit him hard on the side of the head. The rest of us girls were surprised too, we'd only been planning to get ready at about 6:30.

"Why do you need that long? All I have to do is put on those..." he trailed off in embarrassment at the thought of wearing his very cheap dress robes. Once Hermione had gone, he said "if she needs 3 hours to get ready, what's she gonna look like compared to me?"

At about quarter to seven, we were back in our dormitory, changing into our dresses. Mine felt wonderful to wear, finally I was in something that wasn't cheap and second hand. Even my favourite outfit, that I mentioned before, was mostly second hand, it was just my favourite because it looked and felt a bit nicer than all the rest of my clothes. We spent some time comparing our respective appearances, and debating who looked the best, though we all agreed that we looked better than we ever had in our lives up until that point, and that our partners should be blown away. Amy had a gorgeous purple silk dress that Ludo had bought from a high end shop next to Gringotts, though she was only half pleased by this as she felt it had added to the family debt caused by his gambling. Magda had a yellow and blue one, the Swedish colours.

"I'm quite patriotic" she said.

I met Harry in the common room, who still looked a bit uncomfortable about what was to come that night.

"Oh come on, stop worrying!" I told him "Remember, I'll take full control of the dancing, you just have to follow my lead and it'll be fine"

"We're the opening ceremony, the whole school will be watching. One wrong move and it could be the most embarrassing moment of our lives"

"Look, I've been practicing. I've got a plan, trust me, I've taken this seriously. I'll make sure nothing goes wrong"

Harry still didn't look totally convinced, but he nodded and we headed downstairs.

"Oh by the way, you look incredible" he said "not that you don't always, but especially so tonight"

"Glad you think so, I have tried my best. You do too"

Harry laughed

"Compared to you I might as well be a troll"

"Hey, don't shoot yourself down. If I thought that would I be your girlfriend?"

"No, I guess not" he conceded

The entrance hall was packed with students too, all milling around waiting for eight o'clock, when the doors to the Great Hall would be thrown open. Those people who were meeting partners from different Houses were edging through the crowd trying to find one another. It took a long time for Ron and Hermione to arrive, and they eventually did at 7:55, but when I saw Hermione, I fully understood why she had taken so long to prepare.

She didn't look like Hermione at all. She had done something with her hair; it was no longer bushy but sleek and shiny, and twisted up into an elegant knot at the back of her head. She was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle-blue material, and she was holding herself differently, somehow — or maybe it was merely the absence of the twenty or so books she usually had slung over her back. She was also smiling — rather nervously. I couldn't blame her, she'd gone to a hell of a lot of effort, so she was clearly hoping it would be worth it. Judging by the very smug look on Ron's face, (he seemingly no longer cared about the shit robes he was in) and the several other boys, including Harry, who were staring open mouthed in shock at her, it very clearly had been worth it in my eyes.

"I know, looks good, doesn't she?" Ron said as they walked up to us.

"Bloody hell, Hermione, I-well done" said Harry awkwardly.

He was spared any further difficulty by Professor McGonagall, who called ""Champions over here, please!" She was wearing dress robes of red tartan and had arranged a rather ugly wreath of thistles around the brim of her hat. The crowd parted for us, and we waited along with Krum, Cedric, Fleur and their partners on one side of the doors as everyone else went inside. We were to open proceedings once they were all sitting down. Cedric was with Cho Chang, who Harry had previously admitted to having had somewhat of a crush on before we'd gotten together, though he re-assured me that his love for me was completely genuine. He needn't have, because Cho was very attractive herself, so there was nothing wrong with Harry having liked her, and he'd more than proven that he was being legit with me.

Fleur was with Roger Davies, who looked so stunned by his good fortune in having her for a partner that he could hardly take his eyes off her. Krum was with a seventh year Slytherin, who looked nowhere near as good as Hermione did tonight, and he shot a look of jealousy at Ron as he passed by with Hermione. Fortunately for him, his partner didn't notice this, though Ron did, and that made him punch the air in cocky celebration. He'd actually beaten the best seeker in the world to something!

Once everyone else was settled in the Hall, Professor McGonagall told us to get in line in pairs and to follow her. We did so, and there was applause as we entered and started walking up toward a large round table at the top of the Hall, where the judges were sitting.