“I don’t care how many dignitaries will be there Ginny, you can’t make me go!”

This was the argument that had been plaguing the Gryffindor common room for the past hour or so, and it had all spawned out of the rather trite (in one bushy-haired girl’s opinion) tradition of the Yule Ball. Hermione was all for inter-school unity and all that, but she really didn’t fancy spending her Christmas stuck in a hall full of overly-hormonal teenagers who were being able to get a little too frisky for her liking. Unlike her friend she was no Triwizard Champion, so she had no moral obligations to attend.

“Bloody hell Hermione, you’re Head Girl. Do you think McGonagall really wants her chief mischief-maker breaker off duty for this? If you won’t come to try and negotiate S.P.E.W talks with the Minister, at least think of poor Minerva trying to contain a degree of order,” Ginny stated matter-of-factly as she sat down on an armchair, lazily playing with a Snitch (which also happened to be the clue to the second task being held in Durmstrang).

Hermione sighed and sat on the arm of Ginny’s chair, looking defeated, “I see your point. It’s just-“

“You’d like to spend it in the arms of a certain dear brother of mine who was too stubborn to come back this year?”

“Something like that,” she replied honestly. They sat in silence for a while, the only noise the slight humming of the Snitch’s wings, until Hermione turned to Ginny with what would have to be described as a conspiratorial grin on her face, “What about your date? Not too busy daydreaming about a certain glasses wearing hero, are we?” She said with a small giggle, jumping out of the way quickly enough to avoid her friend’s swat at her.

“How many times do I have to tell you that there’s nothing going on between Harry and me? Do I need to draw you a diagram?”

“No, but I’m sure accepting one of your invites to the Ball would help… oh, and if you stopped whispering his name in your sleep,” This time she wasn’t quite quick enough, and got a sharp slap to her arm.

“If it’ll stop you going on about him then fine, I’ll say yes to one of those blokes! Did you know Dennis Creevey asked me yesterday? Then there was Derrick Harris, he’s a 7th Year Hufflepuff, or that Beauxbatons bloke Freddie something… Jon Bateman, but he’s a Slytherin and has nasty breath. Polonius Verona from Ravenclaw? He’s alright, a bit too much of a swot for my liking, no offence of course…”

“I hate you sometimes, Ginny.”

“Oh. Why?”

“You’ve had how many guys ask you to the Ball? Five? Not a single boy has asked me.”

“Because that has nothing to do with the fact that you’re in the most high-profile relationship since Gwenog Jones and Myron Wagtail, does it? Everyone knows you’re with Ron, you silly woman!” Ginny said with a roll of her eyes, thankful to see that her friend had the humility to blush and nod.

“Tell you what, though. You should go with Polonius, he’s a right laugh if you get his sense of humour. Just as friends though, can’t have my brother breaking into the castle in a jealous rage, can we?”

“I’m going to need something to wear…” Hermione said uncertainly, but Ginny squealed with delight and hugged her friend. Now she knew that no matter which boy she took as her obligatory date, her best friend would be there to keep her from pulling her hair out from sheer boredom.

“Well if you hadn’t been so adamant about fighting this, we could’ve spent the last hour enjoying Hogsmeade! McGonagall won’t let us go out now, guess we’ll have to try the passageway and hope for the best!”

“You are ridiculously like your brother.”

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

“Except Percy?”

“Except Percy.”

**

An hour later the two were sitting in The Three Broomsticks with several shopping bags and a round of Butterbeer, despite Ginny insisting they try something stronger (‘Hermione, we’re of age! What is Minerva going to do, tell my mum?’). They were chatting quietly when they were approached by a boy about their age wearing his Durmstrang uniform. He looked fairly nervous but was smiling, and Ginny looked up at him curiously.

“Er, hello. Did you want these seats? Because my friend and I just came from outside and it’s bloody freezing so-“

“No, it’s nothing like that. Let me introduce myself. My name’s Bjorn,” He smiled at her awkwardly as she scrutinised him. He was tall, pretty much the same height as Ron, and had long dark hair tied into a ponytail. She couldn’t deny that he was cute, which was definitely a good thing considering she was pretty sure as to why he had come over, “I was just wondering… Uh… Ginny Weasley, did you want to sort of go to the-“

“She’d love to!” Hermione exclaimed, grinning.

“Hermione!”

“What? Were you going to say no?” Her friend quipped before sipping her Butterbeer in what she seemingly thought was a dignified manner. Spending all this time with my brother has made her like this, Ginny thought with disdain.

“No, but-“

“So it’s a yes?” Bjorn asked tentatively, confused at the two’s banter but happy nonetheless.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun.”

“Excellent! I could meet you near your common room at seven Christmas night, is that okay?”

“Perfect,” Ginny said with a grin that seemed to everyone as genuine and excited. Though the ball would be fun, and Bjorn seemed like a decent fellow (from what she’d seen and heard of him throughout the year) she just couldn’t shake something that seemed wrong. Then it hit her. He had blue eyes. Blue and sparkling, but they weren’t right. They weren’t green.

She could lie to Hermione all she liked, but lying to herself about Harry was proving much more difficult.

**

Christmas Day brought with it a fresh batch of snow which covered every inch of the school not covered in Anti-Slip Charms which was causing Peeves to push students along with a bright green tennis racquet at random intervals. He was thoroughly amusing both himself and several fifth-year boys when he was stopped in his tracks by Hermione with two words: Bloody Baron.

“For crying out loud Hermione, couldn’t you have waited a minute to tell him off? He was doing Romilda Vane next!” Ginny whined, wrapping her scarf around herself more firmly in a futile attempt to stay warm.

She had spent most of the day flying with her friends Jeremy and Blake, only to be pulled down to earth by Hermione who shrieked about only having three hours to get ready for the ball. The boys were perplexed to the point of amusement at the idea that it would take more than five minutes to get ready (ten if you showered, of course) but Ginny understood her friend’s need to prepare herself for the night. She was there the last time the perfectionist that usually focused on potion ingredients and perfect penmanship turned to lipstick, ball gowns and Sleekeazy's Hair Potion. It would be a massacre if Hermione tried to do it herself, so fortunately she had company in the form of Ginny Weasley.

Several tears and burnt fingers from a hair-drying spell gone awry and the two were ready for business. Ginny in her emerald green knee-length halter with curled hair and shoes that seemed too perilous to walk in, and Hermione with her bright red floor-length gown and her hair twisted up into an elegant knot above her head.

“We really should’ve thought out our colour coordination better… we look like Christmas ornaments!” Hermione cried in dismay, while Ginny laughed a little too loudly thanks to the bottle of wine they’d consumed while getting ready.

“We’re pretty sexy ornaments though! The blokes will be lining up for a-“

“Ginny, please don’t finish that sentence on the grounds of me having a boyfriend of the jealous variety who happens to be your big brother of the overprotective variety,” Hermione said with a grin, before giggling a little “who, by the way, happens to be the best friend of a man that falls under the ‘I’m in love with my best mate’s sister but I’m too thick to do anything about it’ category.” This earned her a playful shrug which caused the usually un-giggly duo to break out into a fit of laughter.

“Come on Red, we’ve got some hot dates waiting,”

“Red? Shouldn’t you be Red? I may be wearing a dress of the stuff, but you’re always going to be Red,”

“Not if I dye my hair!”

The two continued their half-insane bickering until they reached the portrait. Stepping out (with immense care in Ginny’s case) the two were face to face with Bjorn and Polonius, their dates for the evening. Both looked rather dapper in their robes, with Bjorn going for a dark blue to benefit his eyes, and Polonius sticking to a fairly practical dark grey.

“Wow,” was their unison response to seeing the two young women.

“I’m going to take that as a good thing, right?” Ginny asked with a mischievous smile.

“Yeah… you look stunning!” Bjorn said eagerly, hardly believing that he had managed to snag a Triwizard Champion as his date and she looked like that. Polonius and Hermione seemed to be having a much different conversation however, as they seemed very deep into something and had seemingly forgotten the other two were there.

“-While that’s all very well and good Hermione, it’s not just a matter of writing down the principles and hoping for the best. It’s a very precise art that takes years to-“

“Yes, yes, I know Arithmancy is difficult, I did study it for several years you know, but you comparing it to the complexity of Transfiguration is preposterous! Do you not comprehend the subtle differences that mean the difference between turning someone into a butterfly or a mountain lion?”

“Of course you would bring up the most obvious difficulty of the subject, but it comes nowhere near the hundreds of miniscule calculations involved in-“

“Hermione, Polonius, if the two of you want to stay here and fight this one out then be my guests… only there’s a ball I need to get to in order to start it all off with a big important waltz, remember?” Ginny said with a sigh. She had expected the two to click on some level, but this sort of arguing was not what she had in mind. Hermione merely nodded, her jaw set in such a way that Ginny knew Polonius had not finished defending his passion for numbers tonight.

Ginny grabbed Bjorn’s arm and they hurried down the staircases towards the Great Hall. If she’d been paying attention she would have noticed several people dressed in the dark robes of Aurors on every floor, but Weasleys were not known for their eye for detail.

“Miss Weasley, you are very nearly late!” Ginny turned and cringed at the site of the stern Headmistress glaring at her as they ran towards the doors of the Great Hall.

“Sorry Professor, I’m assuming you won’t believe me if I blame Hermione?”

“Definitely not,” Ginny noticed McGonagall’s mouth twitched into an almost-smile, but that was short-lived as the fear of dancing in front of a room full of people came crashing down. She saw the Beauxbatons champion Isabella fretting nervously, her arm still in a sling from the particularly nasty wound from the first task, which involved far too many dangerous creatures for Ginny’s liking. The lone male champion in Gregory stood tall in his fur-lined robes, but Ginny couldn’t help but notice his knees wobbling and she had to stifle a snort. Gregory had made no qualms about informing everyone that he was guaranteed to be champion seeing as he was against two mere females, which is why she enjoyed it so much when she beat him by ten points.

“Ready?” Bjorn whispered in her ear, his arm around her waist in a comforting manner, as she had gone pale and looked on the verge of a meltdown.

“I’m not a very good dancer, Bjorn,” She admitted reluctantly, remembering the way her toes bruised as a result of being Neville’s date four years ago.

“I’ll be leading, all you need to do is follow and look pretty… come on Ginny, take a chance on me,” he said with ease, his smile lighting up his pale features. She found herself smiling despite herself, determined to enjoy this dance with a man who didn’t make her feel like the world was ending and beginning all at once. She’d had enough of the heart wrenching pain of deep love… tonight she was going to dance, and be damned if she wasn’t going to think of Harry Potter even once more.

The doors to the Great Hall opened and Bjorn lead her to dance. As she was spinning her eyes focused on one thing only, and the sight nearly made her cry out. Standing in the corner was Harry damn Potter himself, his eyes focused firmly on her with his mouth in a tight line. As soon as the shock wore off Ginny found herself focusing instead on the movements she was making, determined not to let him get to her.

“Great sodding git,” She mumbled, as Bjorn chuckled at the silly English expression he didn’t quite understand.

**

“He’s still staring at you!” Hermione whispered fervently, her eyes darting from Ginny’s face to Harry’s.

It was true of course: while Ron and the other Aurors had mingled and done their patrolling as they were scheduled to do, Harry merely stood in the corner and watched Ginny. He watched Ginny as she danced with Bjorn for five consecutive songs, he watched when Bjorn was replaced by a sixth-year boy named Jeff who bragged to Ginny about his car, something she had no desire to know or care about in the slightest. Jeff had left and there had been Anton, and Juan, and Polonius, and finally Bjorn again. Ginny was the perfect picture of feeling young and free as she was swung around and twirled and all sorts of silly things. The smile had not left her face for a moment, yet inside she was falling apart. Of course she knew Harry’s eyes were on her, she knew because there was barely a moment when she wouldn’t sneak a glance at him. She was just much better at being subtle than him, a practice that had been a necessity with six brothers and a mother who never blamed her sweet, innocent daughter of putting chicken droppings in Percy’s bed.

“Who?” Ginny asked sweetly, taking a sip from her glass of fizzy purple concoction known as a Whizzing Banger.

“Harry! I’m sorry Ginny, were your hordes of men keeping you from looking around and noticing the contingency of Aurors in the room?”

“Yes Hermione, the fact that I’ve been having fun dancing means that I haven’t noticed you sitting on my brother’s lap,” Ginny said with a smirk, which earned a blush from both Hermione and the brother in question she was sitting on.

“Can’t you go over and talk to him, Gin? He’s been a bloody mopey prat every time we go out for a few drinks, and it’s all over you! I don’t know why, I mean I keep telling him there’s other fish in the sea that aren’t my sister, but usually he just punches me on the arm… just like you want to do to me right now, right?”

“Personally I was thinking a hex was in order, but my wand’s upstairs so I guess it’ll have to do,” Ginny mused as she thumped her brother’s arm. Ron gasped at the strength of his tiny sister, but felt like admitting that would only make her angrier or lose him some of his manhood because a girl hurt him. Fortunately a distraction in the form of Bjorn came along.

“Ginny, I was wondering if we could take a walk,” He asked timidly, obviously very aware that his date’s big brother was nearby, and he was an Auror. Ginny nodded and the two set off towards a courtyard which was still blissfully warm enough that Ginny wouldn’t freeze to death in only her dress and cloak. They sat on a bench and enjoyed the scenery of live fairies and ice sculptures of an odd assortment of creatures, which made sense since Hagrid had made them.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Ginny asked to break the tension that had seemingly sprung up.

“Nothing really… I just want to get to know you better. I think I really like you,” he said shyly and more to the ground than anything else. However boldness soon overtook him when he leant in, seemingly trying to kiss her. Ginny hesitated. It would be easy, just one kiss or more and she could try to make this work. There’d be no Voldemort or dark wizards determined to kill Bjorn (as far as she knew) and he was attractive and smelt nice and…

“I’m sorry Bjorn, I can’t,” She said finally, and she saw the look of rejection cross the young man’s face before turning into an obviously fake smile trying to hide his hurting.

“You’re a pretty amazing person, Ginny. When I first came here I expected the Hogwarts champion to be arrogant and pigheaded like that Potter kid, but-“

“I’m sorry, but what did you just say about Harry?” Ginny said, shocked.

“C’mon Ginny, everyone knows about Harry Potter. The guy got lucky a few times against You-Know-Who and suddenly he acts like he’s king of the world! My older sister’s friend Vanya came with Durmstrang last time, and he said he was cocky and rude, not to mention scrawny and very unimpressive. I know you were young at the time, but you were in the same house as him! Surely the two of you have met at least-“

“Going to burst your bubble here, Bjorn, but you’re being a bloody git about one of my best friends. I’m Ginny Weasley, remember? As in Ron Weasley… you know, Harry Potter’s best friend? Harry’s practically lived in my house for the past seven or so years and let me tell you something, you’d be hard-pressed to find a sweeter, kinder man. Sure he might be a noble git with a hero complex, but he’s my noble git… er, I mean…”

“So that was the man who was staring at you all night? Suppose in makes sense, only Harry Potter would be egotistical enough to stare at another man’s date all night as though expecting her to jump into bed with him,” Bjorn sneered.

“I don’t want to destroy the idea of inter-school unity, but if you say another word I’m going to hex you in a very awkward place,” a voice from the shadows interrupted, a voice Ginny would always recognise forever.

“Harry?” Ginny questioned seemingly to thin air, but soon Harry removed his cloak and revealed himself. Bjorn looked terrified, and he sprinted out of the courtyard as fast as his legs could carry him. Harry moved to sit next to Ginny on the bench, neither speaking for a moment, though the atmosphere was nowhere near as tense and awkward as it was with Bjorn.

“He was saying such awful, dreadful things Ginny,” Harry said as he finally turned to face her.

“I know! How dare he call you arrogant, or rude… you’re so far from the two it’s ridiculous!”

“I’m used to it. I just didn’t like the way he insulted you like that… or the way he was looking at you,” he growled, and Ginny felt her heart flutter at the thought of Harry Potter being jealous.

“We can either skirt around the subject or I can flat out say there’s one sure fire way to stop boys from looking at me like that, Harry,”

“Are you kidding? No matter what I do, you’ll always have boys staring. Look at yourself, you look absolutely amazing tonight. I don’t think… I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as beautiful as you,” Harry admitted quietly before blushing a furious shade of red. Ginny smirked at his discomfort, before deciding the boy had endured enough punishment for one night. Bridging the gap between them she leant in and softly touched her lips to his, a sweet sensation she had not felt in far too long sweeping through her.

“You’re too sweet. Thick, noble and a bit of a git… but sweet,” she concluded, watching him smile widely at her before jumping up and pulling her into the middle of the courtyard. At this point he held onto her waist and started swaying slowly, making her laugh at his antics, “Harry, what on earth are you doing?”

“We’re dancing, of course!”

“But we can barely hear the music!” She said, laughing, but obliging him as he spun her around. The two danced out there, spinning and twirling and laughing to the music only the two of them could hear or feel. It was carefree and wonderful, and Ginny knew that this was right. When she was old and grey, she wanted to remember the Yule Ball as the night her and Harry danced alone in the courtyard with the ice sculpture of a Manticore, their only audience the star-studded sky.

“We still have to talk, don’t we?” Harry asked timidly as they caught their breath.

“Oh yes. We’ll talk, and talk, and we’ll talk about how we talked. But I don’t want to think about it right now. Let’s just try being us for tonight,” Ginny said with a smile as the two sat cuddled together on a bench, staring up at the stars.

“Okay. But we’re worth it, you know? All you need to do is take a chance on me, I won’t make the mistake of letting you go,”

“Funny, Bjorn told me a similar thing tonight… I like it better when you say it. I’m glad you didn’t run off with Cho Chang or some other girl this year,” Ginny said honestly, which made Harry tighten his arm around her and kiss her forehead.

“Honestly Ginny, how could I resist you?”