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The Great Hall had never felt so much like a circus. Hermione Granger, who prided herself on her ability to focus amidst chaos, found her concentration shattered by the spectacle unfolding before her.
Ron Weasley was attempting to ask Fleur Delacour to the Yule Ball.
It was, Hermione reflected, like watching a dog try to perform a sonnet. Painful, earnest, and doomed to fail.
He’d been hovering near the Beauxbatons table for a full ten minutes, a spot of colour high on each freckled cheek. His approach had consisted, so far, of standing stiffly, opening his mouth, and emitting a series of strangled noises.
“Erm,” Ron said, for the fifth time.
Fleur, who had been delicately eating a petit four, looked up with the patient, slightly pitying expression one might reserve for a small, damp creature that had wandered inside.
“Oui?” she said, her silvery voice a stark contrast to Ron’s wheeze.
Ron’s ears turned the colour of his hair. “Right. Well. The ball. Y’know. Dancing. And that.”
Fleur’s eyebrows, a perfect, arched blonde, rose a millimetre. “I am aware of ze ball, oui.”
From her spot a few yards away, Hermione closed her textbook with a decisive snap. This was beyond ridiculous. It was academically unsound. He was using a scatter-shot approach with no thesis, no supporting arguments, and a frankly disastrous conclusion in sight.
She marched over, grabbed Ron by the elbow, and pulled him a little way off.
“Ron,” she hissed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m talking to her!” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m about to ask her!”
“No, you’re not. You’re emitting the sounds a teakettle might make if it was having a crisis of confidence. Just tell her what you want to say. It’s not too difficult.”
Ron’s eyes, wild with a mixture of panic and indignation, fixed on her. “Oh, it’s not, is it? Well, if it’s so bloody easy, why don’t you try then?”
He gestured towards Fleur with a broad, sweeping arm, a challenge gleaming in his eyes. He was calling her bluff. He expected her to sputter, to lecture him on the nuances of social interaction, to retreat to her book with a huff.
Hermione drew herself up. A flicker of something ignited in her chest. It wasn’t just annoyance. It was the undeniable thrill of a direct challenge, the same one she felt when presented with a particularly complex Arithmancy problem. She hated being told she couldn’t do something.
“Fine,” she said, her voice cool and sharp. “I will.”
Ron’s triumphant smirk vanished, replaced by a look of utter horror. “Wait, Hermione, I didn’t—”
But she was already moving, her bushy hair bouncing with purpose. She’d made it three steps before a treacherous thought, slippery as a goldfish, darted through her mind: What am I doing?
She didn’t want to ask Fleur Delacour to the ball. She was going to go with Viktor Krum. A perfectly sensible arrangement with a famous, talented Quidditch player who, for some reason, found her interesting. That was the plan.
But Ron’s goading voice was in her ear, and more than that, she was suddenly, fiercely aware of Fleur Delacour. Not as a Veela, not as a champion, but as a girl with startlingly blue eyes who had just watched Ron Weasley implode in front of her for ten minutes and had not, Hermione noticed, once been unkind.
She stopped directly in front of Fleur. The other Beauxbatons girls nearby fell silent, their eyes wide with curiosity.
Fleur looked up. This close, her beauty was almost a physical force, a shimmer in the air. Hermione felt a flicker of the usual irrational irritation it sparked in her—the way it made other people, especially boys, turn into blithering idiots.
“Yes?” Fleur asked, her tone curious rather than haughty.
Hermione opened her mouth. Every rational thought fled. She couldn’t say, ‘My friend Ron would like to ask you to the ball but is linguistically incapacitated.’ That would be cruel. And she couldn’t just… ask for herself. That was insane. Right?
So, her mind, operating on a mixture of adrenaline, stubborn pride, and that strange, defiant clarity that came from being well and truly committed, decided to simply… state a fact.
“He was trying to ask you to the ball,” Hermione said, jerking her thumb towards Ron, who was now attempting to hide behind a pillar a quarter of his width. “He’s been working up to it for a week. He’s not usually that inarticulate. Well, he is, but not quite to that degree.”
Fleur’s lips twitched. A smile, a genuine one, was fighting for purchase on her perfectly composed face.
“I noticed,” she said, her accent softening the words. “’E was… very red.”
“Yes,” Hermione agreed. A small, unexpected smile of her own tugged at her mouth. “It was quite a spectacle.”
They shared a look. In that moment, Fleur Delacour wasn’t a beautiful, untouchable siren. She was just a girl, sharing a moment of mutual, exasperated amusement over the utter ridiculousness of teenage boys.
“So,” Hermione continued, her momentum building, “he dared me to do it. To ask you. He thought I’d be just as bad.”
“And you are not?” Fleur asked, her eyes glinting.
“I’m making complete sentences,” Hermione pointed out. “Which is more than he managed.”
Fleur let out a small, melodic laugh. It was nothing like the tinkling, artificial laugh Hermione had heard her use in the Entrance Hall. This one was warmer.
“’Oui,” she agreed. She tilted her head, her silvery hair cascading over one shoulder. “So. You are ‘ere because your friend dared you?”
Hermione opened her mouth to confirm, but the words that came out were different. The challenge from Ron, the look in Fleur’s eyes, the bizarre, electric current that seemed to be passing between them—it all coalesced into a moment of pure, Gryffindor recklessness.
“No,” she said, her voice steady. “I’m here because… I’m finding I don’t actually want to ask you for him.”
She took a breath. This was mad. This was certifiably, Minerva-McGonagall-would-have-her-committed mad.
“Would you like to go to the ball with me?”
The silence that followed was so profound Hermione could hear Ron’s choked gasp from behind the pillar.
Fleur stared at her. For a moment, Hermione saw a flicker of surprise in those deep blue eyes, followed by a rapid assessment that seemed to take in everything—the bushy hair, the slightly too-large front teeth, the determined set of her jaw, and the unexpected, unshakeable calm in her own expression.
Then, Fleur’s gaze softened. The Veela allure, which had been a faint hum in the air, vanished, replaced by something far more disarming: simple, direct interest.
Fleur considered her for another long moment. Then, a slow, breathtaking smile spread across her face. It was a smile that held a promise of intelligence, of challenge, of something that went far beyond a simple school dance.
“Alright,” Fleur said.
Hermione blinked. “Alright?”
“Oui. I will go to ze ball with you.”
A wave of heat rushed through Hermione. She hadn’t actually thought… she’d just… She’d done it. She’d asked Fleur Delacour, the woman who made grown wizards forget their own names, to the ball. And she’d said yes.
“Oh,” Hermione said, a little faintly. “Good. That’s… that’s settled then.”
She turned on her heel and walked, in a daze, back towards Ron. Her legs felt strangely disconnected from the rest of her.
Ron’s face was a masterpiece of conflicting emotions. Shock, betrayal, and a deep, profound awe were all wrestling for dominance.
“You…” he croaked.
“You said to try,” Hermione said, her voice coming out much higher than usual. A giddy, disbelieving laugh was bubbling in her chest.
“I meant… ask for me!” Ron hissed.
“Yes, well,” Hermione said, finally allowing herself a triumphant, if slightly manic, grin. “Perhaps you should have been more specific with your challenge. It’s all in the phrasing, Ron.”
She risked a glance back at the Beauxbatons table. Fleur was watching her, a single elegant eyebrow raised, a small, private smile still playing on her lips. When their eyes met, Fleur gave her a slow, deliberate wink.
Hermione turned back to Ron, her face suddenly very warm.
She had meant it as a lesson. A way to prove a point. A witty retort to a stupid dare.
But as she sat back down, Viktor Krum’s invitation for the ball suddenly felt like a problem to be solved, a loose end to be neatly tied off. Her gaze drifted, almost of its own accord, back to the silvery-haired girl across the hall.
Half exasperated at herself for getting into this absurd situation, and half amused at how spectacularly it had backfired—or, perhaps, succeeded—Hermione Granger realised she was, for the first time in her life, genuinely looking forward to a school dance.
The giddy, disbelieving bubble in Hermione’s chest had not yet popped. If anything, it was expanding, pressing against her ribs in a way that made her feel slightly lightheaded.
Ron, meanwhile, had collapsed into the chair beside her with the boneless despair of a man who had watched his ship sail not only without him, but with his supposed best friend at the helm.
“I can’t believe it,” he muttered, staring at the Beauxbatons (or rather, the Ravenclaws) table with the hollow expression of a mourner. “I spent a week. A week, Hermione. I rehearsed. I had a whole thing. I was going to say she had eyes like pools of—” He stopped, his ears going pink. “Well. It was good.”
“It was ‘eyes like pools of,’ Ron? That was your opening line?” Hermione asked, her voice still carrying that unfamiliar, breathless quality.
“It was a work in progress.” He slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. “And then you just… walked up and… and talked. Like a normal person. And she said yes.”
“I’m a normal person,” Hermione said, though the word felt wildly inadequate to describe whatever she had just done.
“You’re not,” Ron said miserably. “You’re Hermione. You can do anything. It’s infuriating.” He lifted his head, a flicker of his old indignation returning. “Hang on. You don’t even fancy her. You did that to win a bet.”
Hermione opened her mouth to agree—it had been a bet, a challenge, a moment of reckless pride—but the word lodged in her throat. She thought of Fleur’s wink. The way her smile had become genuine. The way the air between them had felt, for a few seconds, like the crackle before a thunderstorm.
“It was a matter of principle,” she said firmly, ignoring the heat creeping up her neck.
Ron was too deep in his own defeat to notice. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. “So what now? You just… go to the ball with Fleur Delacour? While I go alone? While I sit there and watch you, who doesn’t even like her, dance with the most beautiful girl in the—”
“I didn’t say I don’t like her,” Hermione interrupted, perhaps too quickly. She cleared her throat. “And you won’t be going alone. You’ll find someone.”
“Who?” Ron demanded, gesturing broadly at the half-empty Great Hall. “The ghosts? Nearly Headless Nick already has a date. I checked.”
Hermione was about to offer a tart suggestion about expanding his social circle beyond people who were literally dead, when a more pressing logistical concern surfaced from the chaos of her mind.
“Oh, no,” she said, her hand flying to her mouth.
Ron looked up, alarmed. “What?”
“Viktor.”
“Who’s Viktor?” Ron asked, his brow furrowing. Then, slowly, like the dawning of a particularly unwelcome sunrise, comprehension spread across his face. His jaw went slack. “Krum? Viktor Krum?”
“He asked me to the ball,” Hermione said, already mentally composing the letter she would send. It would have to be polite. Firm. Appreciative but unequivocal. She was good at letters. She was good at saying no. Usually. When her entire life wasn’t suddenly careening off the rails of sensible planning.
“Viktor Krum,” Ron repeated, his voice climbing several octaves. “The Seeker for Bulgaria. The greatest Quidditch player in the world. That Viktor Krum. Asked you. To the ball.”
“Yes, Ron, we’ve established who Viktor Krum is,” Hermione said, though she couldn’t entirely suppress a small, smug smile at his expression. It was, she admitted, rather satisfying to see him look so utterly poleaxed. “He’s very nice. A bit quiet. Excellent at Transfiguration theory, actually.”
Ron made a sound like a kettle that had been left on too long. “He’s—you—and you just—you asked Fleur Delacour when you already had a date with Viktor Krum?”
“I didn’t have a date. I had an invitation. There’s a distinction.” Hermione bit her lip. “I was going to write to him tonight. Let him down gently. It’s not ideal, but—”
“Not ideal?” Ron’s voice cracked. “Hermione, you have turned down Viktor Krum for Fleur Delacour. You have acquired the two most sought-after ball dates in the entire school. Do you understand what you’ve done?”
She understood that her heart was beating very fast. She understood that she had, apparently, become the sort of person who asked girls like Fleur Delacour to dances on a dare. She understood that she had absolutely no idea what she was going to wear.
But as she looked at Ron’s devastated, awestruck face, a different thought took shape. A mischievous, slightly unhinged thought that she suspected might be the lingering effect of whatever strange courage had possessed her at the Beauxbatons table.
“Ron,” she said slowly.
“What?”
“You said you wanted to go to the ball with someone.”
“I wanted to go with Fleur,” he corrected mournfully. “Not just anyone.”
“Yes, but…” Hermione leaned forward, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “You also said Viktor Krum is the greatest Quidditch player in the world.”
Ron’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Where are you going with this?”
“Well.” Hermione felt a grin spreading across her face, the same reckless grin that had seized her when Ron issued his challenge. “I have to go talk to Viktor anyway. To tell him about the change of plans. And you’re going to need a date.”
Ron stared at her. His brain, she could see, was turning this over with the speed of a particularly sluggish cauldron.
“No,” he said flatly.
“I’m not saying you have to,” Hermione said, though her tone suggested otherwise. “I’m simply observing that Viktor will now be without a partner for the ball. And you are without a partner for the ball. And you both have something in common.”
“What,” Ron said, his voice strangled, “could I possibly have in common with Viktor Krum?”
“Quidditch,” Hermione said simply. “You could talk to him about Quidditch for hours, Ron. You wouldn’t have to make awkward small talk. You wouldn’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not. You could just… be yourself, and he’d probably find it refreshing.”
Ron’s mouth opened and closed several times. His face cycled through approximately seventeen emotions in the span of three seconds—horror, intrigue, panic, a flicker of hope, more horror, and finally settling on something that looked remarkably like existential dread.
“You want me,” he said slowly, “to ask Viktor Krum. To the Yule Ball.”
“I’m not making you do anything,” Hermione said, though privately she was rather proud of the idea. “I’m merely pointing out that the option exists. I have to go see him anyway. You could come with me. Or you could stay here and continue to mourn Fleur Delacour, who is, I remind you, now going with someone else.”
Ron’s jaw tightened. His pride was visibly warring with his sense of self-preservation, and losing badly.
“He’s a celebrity,” Ron hissed. “I can’t just walk up to Viktor Krum and ask him to a dance.”
“I just walked up to Fleur Delacour and asked her to a dance,” Hermione said. “And she said yes.”
“That’s different. You’re you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re fearless and terrifying and you don’t care what people think!” Ron burst out. “I’m not any of those things! I’m the one who hides behind pillars and makes teakettle noises!”
Hermione softened, just a fraction. “You’re also the one who stood up to a mountain troll in first year. Who followed spiders into the Forbidden Forest. Who plays chess like a general and keeps Harry alive through sheer stubbornness.” She paused. “You’re braver than you think, Ron. You just need to stop putting people on pedestals.”
Ron stared at her. For a moment, something shifted in his expression—something that looked almost like belief.
Then it was gone, replaced by sheer panic.
“But he’s Viktor Krum,” Ron whispered.
“And you’re Ron Weasley,” Hermione said simply. “Which, for the record, is quite enough.”
She stood up, smoothing down her robes with more confidence than she felt.
“I’m going to go find him now,” she announced. “You can come, or you can stay. But if you stay, I’m telling Harry you spent the whole evening making teakettle noises at Fleur Delacour and got beaten by a girl.”
Ron shot to his feet so fast his chair nearly toppled over.
“That’s blackmail.”
“That’s motivation,” Hermione corrected, already walking towards the Great Hall doors. “Are you coming?”
She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to. She could hear Ron’s footsteps behind her, a frantic, uneven rhythm that suggested his legs were moving without his brain’s full consent.
As they stepped into the entrance hall, the late afternoon light slanting golden through the windows, Hermione felt a bubble of laughter rising in her chest. Twenty-four hours ago, she had expected the Yule Ball to be a mildly tedious obligation, something to endure before getting back to her books.
Now she was going with Fleur Delacour. And if her plan worked, Ron Weasley was about to ask Viktor Krum to be his date.
She had no idea what her life had become, but for once—just this once—she decided not to question it.
“One piece of advice,” she said as they walked.
“What?” Ron croaked.
“When you talk to him,” Hermione said, a genuine smile breaking across her face, “don’t mention his eyebrows. Apparently, he’s sensitive about it.”
Ron made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh or might have been a dying animal. Either way, Hermione took it as progress.
She had a feeling this was going to be a very interesting evening.
The walk down to the Durmstrang ship felt, to Ron, like a death march.
Hermione, by contrast, seemed utterly unconcerned. She walked with the same brisk, purposeful stride she used when marching to the library, her bushy hair bouncing behind her like a battle standard. Ron followed half a step behind, his legs operating on some kind of dreadful autopilot.
“I can’t do this,” he said for the seventh time.
“You can,” Hermione said without looking back.
“I’m going to throw up.”
“Try to aim for the lake. Less cleanup.”
Ron made an indignant squawk, but before he could formulate a proper protest, they had reached the shore. The Durmstrang ship loomed on the black water, its masts cutting sharp silhouettes against the fading sky. A single lantern swung from the bow, casting rippling light across the surface.
Hermione stopped. Ron nearly crashed into her.
“Right,” she said, turning to face him. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to talk to Viktor first. Privately. To let him down gently about the ball. While I’m doing that, you’re going to stand over there—” she pointed to a large rock near the water’s edge, “—and you’re going to breathe.”
“I know how to breathe,” Ron said weakly.
“Evidence suggests otherwise,” Hermione said, but there was a warmth in her voice that took the sting out of it. She reached out and, surprisingly, gave his arm a quick, firm squeeze. “Ron. It’s going to be fine. Whatever happens, you’ll survive. And honestly? Viktor’s a nice person. He’s not going to hex you for asking a question.”
Ron swallowed. “What if he says no?”
“Then you’re exactly where you are now. Nothing lost.” Hermione’s brown eyes met his, steady and certain. “But what if he says yes?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She turned and walked up the gangplank, her footsteps echoing on the dark wood. A moment later, a Durmstrang student appeared, exchanged a few words with her, and disappeared inside.
Ron stood alone on the shore, staring at the ship, and tried very hard not to hyperventilate.
Inside the ship’s cabin, Hermione found Viktor Krum sitting at a small desk, a book open in front of him. He looked up when she entered, and a rare, shy smile crossed his usually stoic features.
“Hermy-own-ninny,” he said, rising to his feet. He was taller than she remembered, or perhaps the low ceiling of the cabin made everything seem larger. “I vas not expecting you.”
“I know,” Hermione said. “I’m sorry to just show up. I needed to talk to you about something.”
Something flickered in his dark eyes—hope, perhaps, or nerves. “Is about the ball?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. She had prepared a speech on the walk down. Something kind. Something clear. Something that wouldn’t hurt more than necessary.
Then she looked at Viktor’s face—open, earnest, genuinely pleased to see her—and the speech abandoned her entirely.
“I can’t go with you,” she said, the words coming out simpler and more honest than she’d planned. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I didn’t mean to leave you without a date this close to the ball, and I feel absolutely terrible about it.”
Viktor’s expression shifted through several stages—surprise, disappointment, and then, surprisingly, a flicker of amusement.
“Is another boy?” he asked.
Hermione felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Not… exactly.”
Viktor’s eyebrows rose. “Ah,” he said, and there was a knowing quality to the word that made Hermione’s blush deepen. “A girl then.”
“How did you—” Hermione started, then stopped. Of course. Viktor was observant. "It's Fleur."
“She is… very beautiful,” Viktor said quietly. There was no bitterness in his voice, only a gentle resignation. “And very clever, I think. Even if she does not show it always.”
“She is,” Hermione agreed, and the admission felt strange and wonderful on her tongue.
Viktor nodded slowly. He looked down at his book—a thick volume in a language Hermione didn’t recognize—and traced the spine with one finger. “I am disappointed,” he said. “But I understand. You cannot choose vho your heart wants.”
Hermione opened her mouth to protest that her heart was not involved, that this was just a dare that had gotten wildly out of hand, but the words wouldn’t come. Because that wasn’t quite true, was it? There had been something. Something that had made her ask.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Viktor looked up and gave her a small, genuine smile. “Do not be. You have been honest. That is more than most.” He paused, something flickering across his face. “I vill find someone else. Or I vill go alone. It is not so bad.”
And that, Hermione thought, was her opening.
“Actually,” she said, and she could hear the echo of her earlier conversation with Ron in her voice, the same reckless confidence that had propelled her across the Great Hall, “I had an idea about that.”
Outside, Ron had progressed from hyperventilating to pacing.
He had worn a path in the frost along the shore, his shoes leaving dark prints in the white. The ship loomed before him, silent and intimidating, and he had worked himself up to such a state of nervous agitation that he barely noticed when Hermione reappeared at the top of the gangplank.
She gestured to him. A sharp, insistent wave.
Ron’s stomach dropped to somewhere around his knees.
He climbed the gangplank on legs that felt like overcooked spaghetti. The wood creaked under his weight, and the lantern light cast strange shadows across Hermione’s face. She looked… pleased. Smug, even.
“He’s agreed to talk to you,” she said in a low voice as he reached her.
“He—what—how did you even—”
“I told him I had a friend who was a massive Quidditch fan and would love to meet him,” Hermione said smoothly. “That part’s true, isn’t it?”
Ron gaped at her. “You told Viktor Krum I’m a fan?”
“You are a fan. You have a poster of him on your wall.”
“That’s—that’s different—”
“He’s waiting,” Hermione said, and before Ron could formulate a proper escape plan, she had taken him by the shoulders, turned him towards the cabin door, and given him a firm push.
Ron stumbled forward, across the threshold, into Viktor Krum’s personal quarters.
The cabin was smaller than he’d expected. Dark wood, a low ceiling, the faint smell of salt and something smoky. And there, rising from a chair by the window, was Viktor Krum himself.
He was not wearing his Quidditch robes. He was in simple dark clothing, his hair slightly disheveled, his face more lined than it appeared on the posters. He looked, Ron realised with a start, like a real person.
“You are Ronald Veasley,” Viktor said. His voice was deeper in person. Accented, but clear.
“Ron,” Ron heard himself say. “Everyone calls me Ron. Or—or Weasley. Mostly Weasley, actually. My brothers call me—never mind.”
Shut up, he screamed internally. Shut up shut up shut up.
But Viktor didn’t seem to find it strange. He nodded slowly, his dark eyes studying Ron with an intensity that made his skin prickle.
“Your friend Hermy-own-ninny,” Viktor said. “She is very brave.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, and despite everything, a rush of fondness cut through his panic. “She’s the bravest person I know. Doesn’t know when to quit. Walks into things like they’re nothing. It’s—” he shook his head, “—it’s a lot, sometimes. But she’s good. She’s the best of us.”
Something in Viktor’s expression shifted. Softened, perhaps. “She told me you are a Quidditch fan.”
Ron’s face went red. “She told you that, did she?”
“She said you know the Wronski Feint. That you have opinions about it.”
“I—well—everyone has opinions about the Wronski Feint,” Ron said, his voice climbing. “It’s a controversial move. The risk-reward ratio is completely skewed. I mean, you pulled it off in the ’94 final, obviously, but that was—that was you. Most players who try it end up as a smear on the pitch. My brother Charlie says—”
He stopped. He was rambling. He was rambling about Quidditch strategy to Viktor Krum, who probably knows more about flying than Ron ever would.
But Viktor was nodding. Actually nodding, his expression engaged rather than bored.
“Charlie is your brother?” he asked. “The one vho plays for Romania?”
“He—yeah. He’s a reserve, when he is not busy researching dragons. Doesn’t get much play time, but he says the training’s brutal. He sent me a signed Chudley Cannons poster last Christmas, which was nice, even though they’re rubbish, obviously. I support them anyway because someone has to, but it’s mostly just suffering.”
Ron was aware that he was still talking. He was also aware that he couldn’t seem to stop. It was like a dam had broken—all the Quidditch opinions he’d stored up over years of obsessive watching and reading and arguing with his brothers were pouring out of him, unstoppable and entirely unfiltered.
“—and the Irish National Team’s formation in the final was tactically brilliant, obviously, but I still think if Lynch hadn’t been concussed, the match would have gone completely differently. Not that I’m saying you didn’t deserve the win, you absolutely did, your control of the pitch was—”
“You know a lot,” Viktor said.
Ron’s mouth snapped shut. He braced himself for mockery. For the slow, condescending smile of a professional athlete humouring a fan.
Instead, Viktor leaned forward slightly, his expression genuinely curious.
“Vhat do you think,” he asked, “of the new Bulgarian formation? The one ve tried against Wales last spring?”
Ron blinked. “You mean the Diamondback?”
“Yes.”
“It’s rubbish,” Ron said, before his brain could catch up with his mouth. “Whoever designed it has never actually played a real match. You can’t stack the wings like that and expect to maintain coverage on the quaffle. It only worked against Wales because their Seeker was injured and they were playing defensive. Any half-decent team would tear it apart in twenty minutes.”
He stopped. He had just told Viktor Krum—Viktor Krum—that his national team’s formation was rubbish.
“I mean,” he added quickly, “that’s just my opinion. I’m sure there’s a logic to it that I’m missing. I’m just a fan, what do I know, really, I’ve never even been on a proper broom, my old Cleansweep is held together with Spellotape and hope, so—”
“No,” Viktor said, and there was something in his voice that made Ron stop. “You are right. I told them. They did not listen.”
Ron stared at him.
Viktor’s mouth quirked into something that might have been a smile. “You see the game. Not just the flying. The thinking behind it.” He leaned back in his chair, studying Ron with renewed interest. “Hermione said you are a strategist. That you play chess.”
“I—yeah. I play a bit.”
“She said you are good.”
Ron’s ears went pink. “She said that?”
“She said you are very good. That you see the board differently than others.” Viktor’s dark eyes held his. “Quidditch is also a board. Vith more pieces. And they move faster.”
Something passed between them in that moment—a recognition, perhaps, or the beginning of one. Ron was suddenly, acutely aware that he was standing in Viktor Krum’s cabin, having a conversation about Quidditch strategy, and that Viktor Krum was listening.
“I,” Ron said, and his voice came out steadier than he expected, “I could show you. What I mean. About the Diamondback. If you wanted. I’ve got some diagrams in my room. Stupid stuff, really, just ideas I had when I was bored—”
“I vould like to see them,” Viktor said.
Ron’s heart did something complicated in his chest. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” Viktor paused. “Perhaps at the ball? Ve could talk more there.”
The ball. Right. That was why he was here. That was the whole point.
Ron opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“The ball,” he said, and his voice cracked on the word. “Yeah. About that. I was wondering if—I mean, Hermione said you might be—that is, since she’s going with Fleur now, you might not have anyone to go with, and I don’t have anyone either, because I was going to ask Fleur but Hermione got there first, which was completely unfair, but also probably for the best because I couldn’t actually form words around her, and you seem like you’d be—I mean, we could—if you wanted to—”
He was spiralling. He could feel it, the familiar panic rising, the words tumbling out in a jumbled mess that was somehow worse than the teakettle noises he’d made earlier.
But Viktor didn’t look annoyed. He didn’t look confused. He looked, Ron realised with a jolt, almost amused. Not unkindly. Like he was watching something unfold that he found genuinely interesting.
“You are asking,” Viktor said slowly, “if I vould like to go to the ball with you?”
Ron’s brain short-circuited.
“Yes,” he said. “No. I mean—yes. That’s what I’m asking. If you want. You don’t have to. Obviously. I know you’re—you’re you, and I’m just—but Hermione said I should just say what I wanted, and I wanted to—I thought maybe we could—”
“Yes,” Viktor said.
Ron stopped mid-sentence. “What?”
“Yes,” Viktor repeated. He stood up from his chair, and Ron was suddenly aware that he was tall. Not absurdly tall, but taller than Ron, with the broad-shouldered build of someone who spent his life on a broom. “I vill go to the ball with you.”
Ron stared. His mouth was open. He was fairly sure he looked like a startled goldfish.
“But,” he managed, “you’re Viktor Krum.”
Viktor’s eyebrows drew together. “I know vho I am.”
“No, I mean—you’re famous. You’re the best Seeker in the world. You could go with anyone. Anyone.”
“I could,” Viktor agreed. He tilted his head, studying Ron with those intense dark eyes. “But I am choosing to go vith you.”
Ron’s knees felt weak. He thought, briefly, that he might actually faint.
“Why?” he asked, the word coming out strangled.
Viktor considered the question for a moment. “You told me my national team’s formation vas rubbish,” he said finally. “To my face. Vithout hesitating. You spoke to me like I vas a person, not a poster.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Ron said honestly. “I just forgot who you were for a second.”
Something crossed Viktor’s face—not quite a smile, but close. “That,” he said, “is vhy.”
Ron didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. He stood there in the middle of Viktor Krum’s cabin, the lantern light casting warm shadows across the walls, and felt something shift inside him. Something that felt a lot like hope.
“Right,” he said finally. “Okay. Good. That’s—good.”
Viktor nodded. “Good.”
They stood there for a moment, neither quite sure what came next. Then Viktor extended his hand—not to shake, exactly, but in offering.
Ron looked at it. Then at Viktor’s face. Then back at the hand.
He took it.
Viktor’s grip was firm, his palm calloused from years of gripping a broom. Ron’s hand felt small in his, but not insignificant. Not wrong.
“I vill see you at the ball,” Viktor said.
“Yeah,” Ron said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Light. “Yeah, you will.”
Hermione was waiting on the shore when Ron emerged from the ship.
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him—at his dazed expression, his pink ears, the way he kept looking back at the ship like he couldn’t quite believe it was still there—and raised an eyebrow.
“Well?” she asked.
Ron walked past her in a trance. He made it three full steps before he stopped, turned, and looked at her with an expression of profound bewilderment.
“I have a date,” he said. “With Viktor Krum. Viktor Krum asked me to the ball.”
“Wasn't it the other way around?” Hermione corrected, but she was grinning. “Though I suspect the distinction is academic at this point.”
“I have a date,” Ron repeated, as if saying it again might make it real. “With Viktor Krum.”
“Yes, Ron.”
“The Seeker for Bulgaria.”
“Yes.”
“The best Quidditch player in the world.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Ron was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face—wide and disbelieving and utterly delighted.
“I’m going to the ball with Viktor Krum,” he said, and there was wonder in his voice. “Wait until Harry hears about this. Wait until the twins hear about this.”
“I’m sure they’ll be very impressed,” Hermione said dryly.
Ron turned to her fully, and his expression shifted from wonder to something else. Something that looked almost like gratitude.
“You did this,” he said. “You made this happen.”
“I provided a nudge,” Hermione said. “You did the rest. You talked to him. You were yourself.”
“I told him his national team’s formation was rubbish.”
“And apparently, that was exactly what he needed to hear.” Hermione shook her head, still smiling. “I told you. You just need to stop putting people on pedestals.”
Ron huffed a laugh. “Yeah, well. Easy for you to say. You walked up to Fleur Delacour and asked her to a dance like it was a Potions essay.”
“It was a challenge,” Hermione said primly. “You dared me.”
“I dared you to ask her for me.”
“Semantics.”
They started walking back towards the castle, side by side, their footsteps crunching on the frost. The stars were coming out, scattered across the dark sky like flung diamonds, and the windows of Hogwarts glowed warm and golden in the distance.
“So,” Ron said after a moment, “you and Fleur.”
“Ron and Viktor,” Hermione countered.
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” Ron said, and there was no bitterness in his voice now, only a sort of wondering amusement. “The bloke who can’t talk to pretty girls and the girl who talks to them too well.”
Hermione laughed—bright and unexpectedly. “I suppose we are.”
They walked in comfortable silence for a moment. Then Ron cleared his throat.
“Hermione?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks,” he said, and the word was simple but genuine. “For making me come. For… believing I could.”
Hermione looked at him—her friend, who had followed her into danger more times than she could count, who made her laugh when she was too serious, who saw the board differently than anyone else—and felt something warm unfurl in her chest.
“Always,” she said simply.
They reached the castle doors, and Hermione paused, looking back at the lake. The Durmstrang ship was a dark shape on the water, its single lantern a steady point of light. Somewhere inside, Viktor Krum was probably wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
Somewhere in the Beauxbatons carriage, Fleur Delacour was probably doing the same.
Hermione smiled to herself.
The Yule Ball, she decided, was going to be very interesting indeed.
The announcement came three days before the ball, delivered by Professor McGonagall with the brisk efficiency of a general briefing troops before battle.
“Champions will open the dance,” she said, her tartan robes swishing as she paced before the small gathering in the Transfiguration classroom. “Mr. Diggory, you will lead with your partner. Miss Delacour, you and yours will follow. Then Mr. Krum, then Mr. Potter.”
Hermione, who had been invited to attend as Fleur’s “plus one” to these briefings, felt her stomach drop.
Beside her, Fleur’s expression remained serene, but her hand found Hermione’s under the table and squeezed once. Firm. Reassuring. As if dancing in front of the entire school was a minor inconvenience rather than a looming catastrophe.
It was not, however, the looming catastrophe occupying Hermione’s thoughts.
Her eyes drifted across the room to where Ron sat—or rather, slumped—next to Viktor. He had been invited to these briefings too, as Viktor’s date, and had spent the entire meeting alternating between looking like he might expire from happiness and looking like he might expire from terror.
Currently, he was experiencing the latter.
“The champions will perform a waltz,” McGonagall continued, either unaware or unconcerned that Ron Weasley was slowly turning the colour of curdled milk. “A simple, traditional waltz. I expect each of you to practice. The Yule Ball is a formal occasion—”
She continued, but Hermione had stopped listening. She was watching Ron’s face cycle through seven shades of panic, and she knew, with the terrible certainty of someone who had spent four years cleaning up his messes, that he had never danced a step in his life.
The briefing ended. Champions dispersed. Hermione caught Ron’s arm before he could flee.
“You don’t know how to dance,” she said.
It was not a question.
Ron’s ears went crimson. “I know how to dance,” he said, in the tone of a man whose entire family knew he was lying. “Mum taught us. A bit. When we were little. There was a lot of stepping on feet.”
“So you don’t know how to dance.”
“I know enough,” Ron hissed. “How hard can it be? You just… move your feet. In a square. Or a circle. Or whatever.”
Hermione closed her eyes. She counted to five. She opened them again.
“It’s a waltz, Ron. It has a specific rhythm. A specific step pattern. You can’t just ‘move your feet in a square.’”
“Watch me,” Ron said mulishly.
“I will have to,” Hermione said. “We all will. In front of the entire school. Including the Durmstrang headmaster, who, I remind you, personally selected Viktor as his champion and will be watching very closely to see who he’s dancing with.”
Ron’s bravado crumbled like a sandcastle in a tide. His shoulders sagged. His face went from crimson to a sort of ashen grey.
“I can’t,” he said quietly. “Hermione, I can’t. I’ll make a fool of myself. I’ll make a fool of him.” He glanced across the room to where Viktor was speaking with Karkaroff, his broad shoulders tense, his face carefully neutral. “He should have picked someone else. Someone who knows what they’re doing. Someone who isn’t—”
“Don’t,” Hermione said sharply. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
Ron’s mouth closed with a click.
Hermione took a breath. Her mind was already racing, cataloguing problems and solutions with the same ruthless efficiency she applied to exam preparation. Problem one: Ron couldn’t dance. Problem two: his dress robes were, to put it kindly, a disaster. She had seen them. They were maroon. They had lace. They looked like something his great-aunt Muriel had coughed up and then died of embarrassment.
Problem three: she herself was now facing a challenge she hadn’t anticipated. She knew how to dance—her parents had insisted on ballroom lessons when she was younger, and she had the muscle memory to prove it. But she had never danced with a girl before.
And problem four: Harry Potter, the fourth champion, was equally hopeless and would also need help, because if Ron was a disaster waiting to happen, Harry was a catastrophe already in motion.
She looked at Ron’s miserable face. She looked at Harry, who was hovering awkwardly by the door, pretending not to listen. She looked at the magical clock on the wall, which informed her they had exactly seventy-two hours until the ball.
“Right,” she said, and her voice had the ring of a general accepting a hopeless battle. “We’re going to need lessons.”
An hour later, Hermione had commandeered an empty classroom on the third floor, charmed the desks to the walls, and assembled her troops.
They were, she reflected, the most hopeless battalion she had ever commanded.
Ron stood in the corner, already sweating. Harry stood beside him, looking like a man who had just been told his N.E.W.T.s were tomorrow and he’d forgotten to study. And, because the universe had a sense of humour, Neville Longbottom had wandered in looking for a lost toad and had been immediately press-ganged into service.
“I don’t need to dance,” Neville said plaintively. “I’m not a champion.”
“You’re going to the ball,” Hermione said. “With Ginny. You will need to dance.”
Neville’s face went the colour of a ripe tomato. “I—Ginny—that’s not—we’re going as friends—”
“You will still need to dance,” Hermione said mercilessly. “Consider this a community service.”
She had dashed off a quick note to Fleur before leaving earlier—Emergency dance training. May be late for dinner. Don’t worry—and had sent it off with a school owl, hoping Fleur wouldn’t find the whole thing ridiculous. A response had arrived twenty minutes later, a single line in elegant, looping handwriting: I am looking forward to seeing you dance. – F
The note was currently folded in Hermione’s pocket, and she had absolutely no reason to keep checking that it was still there.
“Right,” she said, clapping her hands together with perhaps too much force. “The waltz. Basic step. It’s a three-count. One-two-three, one-two-three. Like a box, but not square. More of a… rotating rectangle.”
Three blank faces stared back at her.
“I’ll demonstrate,” Hermione said. She looked at her available partners. Ron, who looked like he might be sick. Harry, who looked like he might run. Neville, who had begun edging towards the door.
She grabbed Neville.
“You know the theory,” she said, positioning his hands—one on her waist, one holding hers—with brisk efficiency. “Your gran had you taking lessons, didn’t she? For the galas?”
Neville’s blush deepened, but he nodded. “She made me learn. I’m not very good.”
“You know the steps. That’s more than some people.” She shot a pointed look at Ron, who was pretending to be fascinated by the ceiling. “Ready? One-two-three, one-two-three.”
To Hermione’s relief, Neville was not terrible. Stiff, yes. Nervous, certainly. But he knew where his feet were supposed to go, and after a few circuits of the room, he began to relax, his grip loosening, his steps finding the rhythm.
“See?” Hermione said, stepping back. “It’s not magic. It’s just practice. Harry, your turn.”
Harry approached like a man walking to his own execution. He positioned his hands as Hermione directed, his palms sweaty, his shoulders hunched.
“Relax,” Hermione said. “You’re not facing a dragon.”
“I’d rather face a dragon,” Harry muttered.
“One-two-three,” Hermione counted, and pushed him into motion.
It was, she reflected, worse than she had feared. Harry had no natural rhythm. His feet seemed to operate independently of each other and of the music. He stepped on her toes three times in the first minute, apologised each time with increasing desperation, and finally stopped altogether, his face flushed with frustration.
“I can’t do it,” he said. “I’m hopeless.”
“You’re not hopeless,” Hermione said, though privately she was revising her estimate of the time this would take. “You’re overthinking. Dancing isn’t about thinking. It’s about feeling the rhythm and letting your body follow.”
“I don’t have a body,” Harry said miserably. “I have a collection of limbs that I’ve been barely controlling for fourteen years.”
Ron, who had been watching with the expression of a man who had just seen his own future, let out a strangled laugh. “That’s exactly what it feels like.”
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. She was, she realised, going to need backup.
She found Fleur an hour later, seated in the Beauxbatons carriage, a book open in her lap and a cup of tea cooling beside her. She looked up when Hermione entered, and her face shifted from serene to something softer. Something warmer.
“You look like you 'ave been wrestling with a troll,” Fleur observed.
“Worse,” Hermione said, collapsing into the chair opposite. “I’ve been teaching Ron Weasley to waltz.”
Fleur’s lips twitched. “Ze red one? Who made ze teakettle sounds?”
“The very same.” Hermione let her head fall back against the chair. “He has two left feet. Harry has two left feet and also apparently no connection between his brain and his limbs. Neville is passable, but he’s so nervous he keeps apologising to the furniture.”
“And you?” Fleur asked. “'Ow are your feet?”
Hermione looked down. Her toes were throbbing. “Bruised,” she admitted. “But that’s not the worst of it.”
She hesitated. This was the part she hadn’t been able to say in front of the boys. The part that had been niggling at her since McGonagall’s announcement.
“I know how to dance,” she said slowly. “My parents made me take lessons. I can waltz. I can foxtrot. I can tango, if absolutely necessary.”
“But?” Fleur prompted.
“But I’ve only ever danced with boys. As the follower.” Hermione met Fleur’s eyes. “I don’t know how to dance with a girl. I don’t know who leads, or how we decide, or if it even matters, but I don’t want to get it wrong. I don’t want to make you look bad.”
Fleur set her book aside. She regarded Hermione with those startling blue eyes, and for a moment, she said nothing.
Then she stood. She crossed the small space between them and extended her hand.
“Show me what you know,” she said. “We will figure out ze rest.”
Hermione looked at Fleur’s hand—elegant, pale, utterly steady—and felt something loosen in her chest. She took it.
Fleur’s grip was warm. Her skin was soft. Up close, she smelled like flowers and something else, something clean and cold, like the first snow of winter.
“You know ze steps,” Fleur said. “You know ze rhythm. Dancing with a girl is not so different. Ze body moves ze same. Ze music is ze same.” She placed Hermione’s hand on her waist, and Hermione’s breath caught. “Ze only question eez who leads.”
“I don’t know how to lead,” Hermione said.
“Then I will.” Fleur’s voice was calm, certain. Her other hand found Hermione’s, their fingers interlacing. “And when you are ready, you will take over. It eez a conversation, not a command. We listen to each other. We move together.”
She began to move, and Hermione followed.
It was different. She had expected it to be strange, awkward, a series of adjustments and apologies. But Fleur was a superb dancer—fluid, intuitive, her body communicating every shift of weight before it happened. She led with confidence but not force, her hand a gentle pressure against Hermione’s back, her steps clear and unhurried.
Hermione’s body remembered. The rhythm was the same. The motion was the same. And yet something was different, something she couldn’t name. The way Fleur’s hip brushed against hers. The way their bodies slotted together, two halves of a whole. The way Fleur’s breath was warm against her temple.
They moved around the small carriage, a slow, steady waltz, and Hermione felt something unknot in her chest. She stopped thinking. She stopped worrying. She just… moved.
When they finally stopped, Fleur’s hand was still on hers. Their faces were very close.
“You see?” Fleur said softly. “You know 'ow to dance.”
Hermione’s mouth was dry. “I had a good teacher.”
Fleur smiled. It was not the dazzling, Veela smile that made men walk into walls. It was something different. Something just for her.
“Now,” Fleur said, stepping back but keeping Hermione’s hand in hers, “we teach your friends.”
The next morning, Hermione launched Operation: Yule Ball.
Phase one was robes.
She had seen Ron’s dress robes exactly once, when his mother had sent them in a parcel the previous summer. The memory had haunted her ever since. They were maroon—a shade of maroon that seemed to actively repel light—with what appeared to be lace frills at the cuffs and collar. They looked, she had told him at the time, like something a Victorian ghost would wear to a funeral.
Ron had defended them then (but barely). He was not defending them now.
“They’re not that bad,” he said weakly, as Hermione marched him towards Hogsmeade. Harry walked on his other side, looking relieved to be included in something that wasn’t dancing.
“Ron,” Hermione said, “they have lace.”
“Lace is traditional.”
“Not for a fourteen-year-old boy. Not for anyone, really, except possibly elderly warlocks who have given up on life.” She pushed open the door of Gladrags Wizardwear, the bell jangling overhead. “We’re finding you something else.”
“I don’t have the money for something else,” Ron said, but there was hope in his voice.
“I’ve got it,” Hermione said, cutting off his protest with a wave of her hand. “Consider it an early birthday present.”
“My birthday was in March.”
“Then consider it a very late one.”
The shopkeeper, a tiny witch with spectacles perched on her nose, descended upon them with the enthusiasm of a woman who rarely saw customers. “Dress robes?” she asked, her eyes scanning the three of them with professional interest. “For the Yule Ball, I presume? We’ve got some lovely new arrivals. Very stylish. Very modern.”
She whisked them to a rack of robes in deep, rich colours—burgundy, forest green, navy blue. Hermione began flipping through them with the efficiency of a researcher conducting a literature review.
“Not too flashy,” she murmured. “Something classic. Something that says ‘I’m comfortable with myself but also I made an effort.’”
“I don’t want to say any of that,” Ron said. “I just want to not look like a idiot.”
“That’s what the robes are for,” Hermione said, pulling out a deep navy set. No lace. Clean lines. Simple silver buttons. “Try these.”
Ron disappeared into the changing room. Harry, who had been hovering awkwardly by the counter, was now being measured by the shopkeeper, who had declared him “a growing boy who needed something that wouldn’t make him look like he was drowning.”
“What about you?” Ron’s voice came from behind the curtain, muffled but curious. “What are you wearing?”
Hermione felt a flush creep up her neck. “I have something.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a dress.”
“What kind of dress?”
“A dress, Ron. The kind you wear to a ball.”
The curtain parted, and Ron stepped out.
Hermione’s retort died on her lips.
The navy robes fit him. Actually fit him—not the hand-me-down looseness he usually wore, but tailored, clean, the shoulders sitting properly, the trousers breaking just above his shoes. The silver buttons caught the light. The colour made his hair look redder, his eyes bluer, his freckles less like a scattering of mistakes and more like…
“Well?” Ron asked, and for once there was no self-deprecation in his voice. He was looking at himself in the mirror, and he looked… pleased.
“You look,” Hermione said, and she was surprised to find she meant it, “rather nice.”
Ron’s ears went pink. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She turned to the shopkeeper. “We’ll take these. And whatever Harry’s trying on.”
Harry emerged from his own changing room in dark charcoal robes, simple and well-fitted, and Hermione felt a small surge of satisfaction. They looked like themselves—only better. Polished. Ready.
As they paid—Hermione overruling Ron’s protests with a look that had been known to make prefects weep—she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair was escaping its ponytail again. There was ink on her fingers. She looked, she thought, like someone who had spent her morning organising emergency dance lessons and her afternoon wrangling two teenage boys into proper clothing.
She hoped Fleur would like her dress. She hoped she would remember the steps. She hoped, when the moment came, she would know who was supposed to lead.
“Hermione.” Ron’s voice broke through her thoughts. He was holding the bag with his new robes, and his expression had shifted from pleased to something more serious. “Thank you. For this. For… all of it.”
“You’re welcome,” she said.
“I’m still rubbish at dancing,” he added.
“That,” Hermione said, steering them towards the door, “is what tonight is for.”
Ron groaned. Harry groaned louder.
And Hermione, despite everything—the nerves, the uncertainty, the seventy-two hours that suddenly felt like seventy-two seconds—found herself smiling.
That evening, the empty classroom was transformed.
Hermione had spent the afternoon charming the floor to be less slippery, casting amplification charms on a wireless, and arranging for a series of practice partners. Fleur had agreed to come. Viktor had agreed to come. Neville had been bribed with the promise of help with his Potions essay.
And Ginny Weasley, who had heard about the operation through the inexplicable network of younger siblings who knew everything, had arrived with her arms crossed and her expression sceptical.
“You’re teaching my brother to dance,” she said to Hermione.
“Someone has to.”
“He’s hopeless.”
“I’m aware.”
Ginny’s scepticism shifted to something that might have been approval. “What do you need me to do?”
Hermione smiled. “Dance with Neville. He’s better than he thinks. He just needs someone to tell him that.”
Ginny glanced at Neville, who was already sweating through his practice robes, and something softened in her expression. “Fine. But if he steps on my feet, I’m hexing him.”
“That seems fair.”
The door opened, and Fleur entered.
She was not in her Beauxbatons uniform for once, but in simple practice clothes—dark trousers, a soft blue jumper that made her eyes look impossibly bright. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. She looked, Hermione thought, like something out of a painting.
Their eyes met across the room, and Fleur smiled.
“Ready?” she asked.
Hermione’s heart did something complicated. “Ready.”
Viktor arrived moments later, filling the doorway with his broad shoulders and quiet presence. He found Ron immediately—Ron, who was still holding his new robes in their bag like a talisman—and crossed the room to stand beside him.
“You have new robes,” Viktor observed.
Ron’s ears went pink. “Yeah. Hermione made me.”
“Good.” Viktor’s gaze was steady. “You vill look vell at the ball.”
Ron made a sound that might have been a thank you or might have been a small animal in distress. Viktor, unfazed, placed a hand on his shoulder.
“The dancing,” he said. “You are vorried.”
“Terrified,” Ron corrected.
Viktor nodded slowly. “I vill teach you. It is not so hard. You move, I move. Ve do it together.”
“What if I step on your feet?”
“Then my feet vill be stepped on.” Viktor’s mouth quirked. “I have had vorse. Quidditch training. Boots with spikes.”
Ron stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he laughed. It was a surprised laugh, as if he hadn’t expected it, and it transformed his face entirely.
“Right,” he said. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Hermione watched as Viktor positioned Ron’s hands—one on his shoulder, one in his grip—and began to move. Ron stumbled. Viktor steadied him. Ron stepped on Viktor’s foot. Viktor did not react except to say, “Again,” and start over.
Something warm unfurled in Hermione’s chest.
“You are staring,” Fleur said, appearing at Hermione's elbow.
“I'm supervising,” Hermione corrected.
“You are being sentimental.”
“I am not.”
Fleur laughed, and the sound was low and lovely. She took Hermione's hand, her fingers cool against Hermione's flushed skin. “Come. While zey stumble, we will practice. I want to see you try.”
Hermione positioned them automatically, her hand finding Fleur's waist, the other taking Fleur's hand. But something felt off. She was reaching up slightly, her chin tilting to meet Fleur's eyes.
“You're taller than me,” Hermione pointed.
“I know,” Fleur said, and there was warmth in her voice. “It eez not a problem. You do not need to be taller to lead. You only need to be sure.”
“But the traditional frame—”
“We are not a traditional couple.” Fleur's fingers tightened around Hermione's. “We do not 'ave to dance like one.”
Hermione considered this. She thought about the steps, the geometry of the dance, the way bodies moved through space.
“Okay,” she said. “Let me try.”
She moved.
It was awkward at first. Her steps were too large, her timing off, her grip too tight. Fleur followed anyway, adjusting, compensating, her body a constant, patient presence. And then, somewhere in the middle of the second song, something clicked.
Her feet found the pattern. She was leading and Fleur was following, and they were moving together, a single shape in the candlelight.
Fleur was watching her with an expression that made Hermione's stomach flip.
“You are thinking too much again,” Fleur said softly. “You have ze steps. Now you must feel them.”
“I am feeling them.”
“You are counting. I can see it.” Fleur's hand slid from Hermione's shoulder to the back of her neck, a light, grounding pressure. “Dancing is not an exam, ma chérie. Zere is no right or wrong. Zere is only ze movement.”
Hermione's breath caught at the endearment. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Listen.” Fleur's voice was barely a whisper. “Not to ze count. To me.”
Hermione closed her eyes. She let go of the numbers, the patterns, the anxious catalog of things that could go wrong. She focused instead on the points where they touched—Fleur's hand on her neck, her own hand on Fleur's waist, their fingers intertwined. She felt the subtle shifts of Fleur's weight, the small movements that preceded each step.
And suddenly, she understood.
She stopped leading.
For a moment, they were still. Then Fleur's hand pressed gently against her back, and Hermione followed. One step. Two. Three. Fleur led, her movements fluid and certain, and Hermione let herself be carried. It was different—easier, in some ways, to simply respond. But also more intimate, surrendering her direction to someone else's hands.
They moved across the floor, Fleur leading, Hermione following. Then, at the corner of the room, Fleur's hand loosened. A question.
Hermione answered.
She stepped into the lead, her hand firming on Fleur's waist, her weight shifting to set the direction. Fleur's eyes widened, just for a moment, and then she smiled—bright and surprised—and followed.
They danced like that. Lead and follow, follow and lead. Passing control between them like a conversation, a negotiation, a constant, shifting balance. Sometimes Fleur set the pace. Sometimes Hermione did. Sometimes they moved together so perfectly that neither could say who was guiding whom.
When the song ended, they were in the centre of the room. Ron and Viktor had stopped to watch. Harry and Parvati—who had arrived at some point—were frozen mid-step. Ginny and Neville were staring.
Fleur looked down at Hermione—her chin tilted slightly, her silver hair catching the candlelight—and her smile was small and warm.
“You see?” she said softly. “You know 'ow to dance.”
Hermione's heart was pounding. Her hand was still on Fleur's waist. Their faces were very close.
“We know how to dance,” she corrected.
Fleur's smile deepened. “Yes,” she said. “We do.”
From across the room, Ron's voice broke the spell.
“Blimey,” he said. “That was… actually impressive.”
“Ronald,” Viktor said, and there was something in his voice that might have been amusement, “do not make her angry. She is terrifying.”
“I know,” Ron said, and there was no fear in his voice—only affection, only pride. “She's Hermione.”
Hermione looked at her friends—Ron looking excited, Harry actually smiling for once, Neville and Ginny laughing together, Viktor's quiet steadiness, Fleur's hand warm in hers—and felt something settle in her chest.
“Again,” she said, and took Fleur's hand.
The music started. They danced. And somewhere in the middle of the song, without counting, without thinking, Hermione let Fleur take the lead, then took it back, and neither of them stumbled at all.
The night of the Yule Ball arrived with the kind of crystalline cold that made the castle seem carved from ice and starlight. Hermione had spent three hours getting ready—an unprecedented expenditure of time that had made even Lavender raise an eyebrow—and as she stood at the top of the marble staircase, waiting, she felt rather like she was about to take an exam she hadn't studied for.
Her dress was periwinkle blue, the colour of a winter sky at twilight. It was simpler than many of the gowns she had seen floating through the corridors that evening—no cascading ruffles, no enchanted sequins—but the silk caught the light when she moved, and the cut was elegant, the neckline sweeping, the waist cinched just so. Her hair, for once, had been tamed into an intricate twist that Ginny had spent forty-five minutes perfecting, with small curls escaping to frame her face. She hardly recognised herself.
"You look like a painting," Fleur had said when she arrived to escort her from the common room, and Hermione had been too flustered to respond with anything more intelligent than a squeak.
Now, standing at the top of the stairs, she understood why.
Fleur Delacour descending the marble staircase was a spectacle that seemed to stop time.
Her gown was silver—not grey, not white, but true, liquid silver that moved like water as she walked. It was cut to her tall, willowy frame, the bodice delicate with beadwork that caught every torch, every floating candle, every bit of starlight that filtered through the enchanted ceiling. Her hair, usually loose, was swept up in an elegant arrangement that left her long neck bare, and a thin circlet of silver rested on her brow, making her look less like a student and more like something out of a faerie tale.
The whispers started before she reached the bottom of the stairs. They always did, when Fleur entered a room. But this time, when Fleur reached Hermione and took her hand, the whispers changed.
Is that Granger?
With Delacour?
I thought she wasn't even going to come—
Look at Weasley. Look who he's with—
Hermione risked a glance behind her. Ron was descending the stairs with Viktor, and if Fleur's entrance had caused a stir, Ron's was causing something closer to cardiac arrest.
He looked, Hermione thought with a surge of pride, rather magnificent. The navy robes she had chosen fit him perfectly, the silver buttons gleaming against the dark fabric. His hair, usually a disaster, had been tamed by some combination of Viktor's firm hand and a charm that Hermione suspected Fleur had whispered to him when no one was looking. His ears were still pink—they were always pink—but he stood straight, his shoulders back, and when he caught Hermione's eye, he gave her a grin that was equal parts terror and exhilaration.
Viktor, beside him, was in traditional Durmstrang fur-trimmed robes, but he had forgone the usual blood-red for deep charcoal, and there was a silver pin on his collar that matched the buttons of Ron's jacket. Hermione wondered if that had been intentional. She suspected it had.
"Ready?" Fleur murmured, her breath warm against Hermione's ear.
"No," Hermione admitted.
Fleur's laugh was soft. "Good. Zat is when zings become interesting."
The Great Hall had been transformed.
Hermione had known it would be—she had watched the enchanted ceiling reflect snow for three days, had seen the evergreens being woven into garlands, had smelled the pine and cinnamon from the kitchens—but nothing had prepared her for this.
Frost coated every surface, glittering like crushed diamonds. Fairy lights hung in cascades from the ceiling, mingling with mistletoe and holly. The usual four long house tables had vanished, replaced by smaller, round tables draped in white and silver, each with a centrepiece of roses that shifted colour from blue to gold to pink. And at the far end, a raised platform had been constructed for the champions—gleaming dark wood, waiting.
The champions and their partners were to enter together, McGonagall had explained. They would be announced. They would open the dance. And then, after a suitable period of being watched by the entire school, they would be allowed to mingle with everyone else.
Hermione's stomach churned.
Fleur's hand tightened on hers. "Breathe."
"I am breathing."
"You are hyperventilating. It eez different."
Hermione forced herself to inhale slowly. It did not help.
They lined up in the order McGonagall had dictated. Cedric Diggory and his partner—a pretty Ravenclaw girl whose name Hermione couldn't remember—went first. Then Fleur and Hermione. Then Viktor and Ron. Then Harry and Parvati, who looked like they had both been hit with cheering charms and were desperately hoping they would last through the waltz.
The doors opened. The music swelled.
Cedric and his partner moved forward, and the crowd applauded. Hermione could see the flicker of candlelight on dozens of faces, could hear the murmur of voices, could feel the weight of a hundred eyes on her as she and Fleur stepped through the doors.
The whispers were louder now.
That's Hermione Granger—
With the Beauxbatons champion—
I thought she was Muggle-born—
What does it matter, she's with Delacour—
Fleur's hand was steady on Hermione's back. Her steps were unhurried, her head high. She walked like she belonged in every room she entered, and as they reached the centre of the floor, Hermione found herself straightening, lifting her chin, matching Fleur's pace.
They turned to face each other. The music shifted, the opening notes of the waltz rising through the hall.
"Ready?" Fleur asked again.
Hermione looked at her—at the silver dress, the circlet of starlight, the blue eyes that were watching her with something that looked like faith—and felt the nerves fall away.
"Ready," she said.
She stepped forward. Her hand found Fleur's waist. Fleur's hand found her shoulder. And they began to dance.
The first few bars were hers to lead, and she did it without thinking. Her body remembered the hours of practice, the rhythm, the weight shifts. She moved Fleur across the floor in a slow, sweeping turn, and Fleur followed as if they had been dancing together for years.
The crowd was watching. Hermione could feel them, a presence at the edges of her awareness, but she didn't look. She kept her eyes on Fleur, on the small smile playing at her lips, on the way her silver dress caught the light.
At the chorus, Fleur's hand pressed gently against her back. Hermione released the lead without hesitation, and suddenly Fleur was guiding her, her taller frame moving them both in a wider arc, her steps longer, her turns more dramatic. The crowd murmured—they had noticed the switch, the fluid exchange of control—and Hermione heard someone gasp.
She didn't care.
They passed the lead back and forth like a shared secret. Hermione would take them through a close, quiet sequence, their bodies nearly touching, their faces inches apart. Then Fleur would sweep them into a turn, her silver hair catching the light, her laugh low and private against Hermione's ear. They moved together like they had been doing this forever, like there had never been a question of who led or followed, only the music and the movement and each other.
When the song ended, they were in the centre of the floor, Hermione's hand on Fleur's waist, Fleur's hand on her shoulder, their foreheads almost touching. The applause was thunderous. Hermione barely heard it.
"See?" Fleur whispered. "You knew 'ow to dance."
Hermione laughed, breathless. "We knew how to dance."
Fleur's smile was incandescent.
The second song began, and the floor filled.
Hermione stepped back to catch her breath, and found herself immediately accosted by Lavender Brown, whose mouth was hanging open in a way that might have been comical if it weren't so pointed.
"Hermione," Lavender said, her voice climbing several octaves, "you danced. With Fleur Delacour. And you led."
"I did both," Hermione said mildly.
"But—but—you're a girl."
"Astute observation."
Lavender blinked. She looked like she was trying to process several incompatible pieces of information at once. "I thought you were going with Viktor Krum."
"How did you know—"
"She was," said a voice behind them, and Hermione turned to find Ron, who had somehow escaped Viktor for a moment and was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking more relaxed than she had ever seen him. "She turned him down. For Fleur."
Lavender's eyes went impossibly wider. "You turned down Viktor Krum?"
"To be fair," Ron said, with a grin that was entirely too smug, "he ended up with me, so it worked out for everyone."
Lavender made a sound like a tea kettle that had given up on life. She was looking at Ron now, and Hermione could see the moment she registered the navy robes, the silver buttons, the hair that wasn't sticking up, the way he stood like he had somewhere to be and wasn't apologising for it.
"Ronald Weasley," Lavender breathed, "you look fit."
Ron's ears went scarlet. "I—well—Hermione made me—"
"Ronald." Viktor had appeared at Ron's shoulder, his hand coming to rest on Ron's lower back with a possessiveness that made Lavender's eyebrows climb toward her hairline. "They are playing our song."
"Our song?" Ron's voice cracked. "We have a song?"
"Ve do now." Viktor's mouth quirked. "Come."
He guided Ron back toward the dance floor, and Ron went without protest, his face a complicated mix of embarrassment and delight. Hermione watched them go, something warm unfurling in her chest.
"They are together?" Lavender's voice had gone faint.
"It appears so."
"But—Viktor Krum—and Ron Weasley—"
"Yes, Lavender."
Lavender turned to Hermione with the expression of someone who had just realised the world was considerably stranger than she had previously assumed. "Is there anyone else in an unexpected pairing I should know about?"
Hermione looked across the hall. Harry and Parvati were dancing with the enthusiasm of two people who had been thoroughly drilled and were now discovering they actually enjoyed it. Neville and Ginny were near the refreshment table, Neville gesturing animatedly about something while Ginny laughed, her hand on his arm. Seamus was attempting to dance with Dean, which was going poorly but happily. Even Draco Malfoy, she noticed with some surprise, was standing very close to Daphne Greengrass, neither of them dancing, both of them pretending not to notice the other.
"I think," Hermione said slowly, "that everyone might be in an unexpected pairing tonight."
Lavender followed her gaze. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Well," she said finally, "I'm going to find Parvati's cousin. He's from India and he's gorgeous and if everyone else is pairing off unexpectedly, I refuse to be left out."
She swept off, leaving Hermione laughing.
She found Fleur by the rose bushes, a glass of punch in her hand, watching the dancers with an expression of serene contentment.
"Zey are all staring," Fleur observed as Hermione approached.
"They are," Hermione agreed, taking the glass from Fleur's hand and stealing a sip. "Does it bother you?"
Fleur considered the question. "No," she said finally. "Let them stare. Zey will get used to it."
"Will they?"
"Per'aps not." Fleur's eyes sparkled. "But zat is their problem, not ours."
Hermione leaned against the wall beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. "Ron looks happy."
Fleur glanced across the floor to where Viktor was patiently teaching Ron a different step—some Durmstrang dance, by the looks of it, involving more stomping than the waltz. Ron was laughing, his face flushed, as he attempted to follow Viktor's lead and mostly failing.
"'E does," Fleur agreed. "Your friend is braver than 'e knows."
"He's getting there," Hermione said softly.
They watched in comfortable silence for a moment. The fairy lights shifted from silver to gold, casting warm light across the dancers. Somewhere, a trio of veela cousins had begun singing, their voices low and sweet, and the music seemed to wrap around them like a spell.
"Hermione," Fleur said.
"Yes?"
"May I have zis dance?"
Hermione turned to look at her. Fleur was already holding out her hand, her expression open, unguarded. The silver dress, the circlet, the candlelight—she looked like something out of a dream.
"You already had the first dance," Hermione said, but she was already taking her hand.
"Zis is a different dance." Fleur pulled her toward the floor. "Zis one is just for us."
The music was slower now, a waltz that seemed to move at the pace of falling snow. Fleur took the lead this time, her hand firm on Hermione's back, her steps unhurried. They moved through the crowd like water through stones, finding their own space, their own rhythm.
Around them, people were still staring. Hermione could feel the weight of their gaze—the curiosity, the confusion, the occasional flash of something uglier. But she was too warm, too wrapped in the silver light of Fleur's presence, to care.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" Fleur asked, her lips close to Hermione's ear.
"Surprisingly," Hermione admitted, "yes."
"Surprisingly?"
"I wasn't expecting to. I don't usually enjoy parties. There's too much small talk. Too much standing around pretending to be interested in conversations that aren't about anything."
Fleur laughed. "And zis conversation? Eez it about something?"
Hermione considered. "This conversation," she said slowly, "is about you. And me. And whether I'm going to step on your feet."
"You 'ave not stepped on my feet all evening."
"Give it time."
Fleur's laugh was low and beautiful. She pulled Hermione closer, her hand sliding from Hermione's back to her waist, and Hermione let herself be drawn in, her cheek almost brushing Fleur's shoulder.
"I am glad," Fleur said quietly, "zat your friend dared you."
Hermione's heart stuttered. "Are you?"
"Oui." Fleur's voice was barely a whisper. "When you walked up to my table—not for yourself, but because he dared you—I thought: zis girl does not care what anyone thinks. She walked through a room full of people staring, just to prove a point to a boy."
Fleur's hand tightened on Hermione's waist. "I wanted to know someone like zat. I wanted to know you."
Hermione lifted her head, searching Fleur's face. "You wanted to know me?"
"I wanted to know everything about you." Fleur's blue eyes were steady, unafraid.
Hermione's face was very warm. "I didn't think it would work."
"You did not zink you would succeed?"
"I didn't think you'd say yes."
Fleur's hand tightened on her waist. "I said yes because you were brave," she said. "Smart. And funny." She paused, her eyes scanning Hermione's face with an intensity that stole the younger witch's breath. "What else was I supposed to do?"
The music swelled. The lights shifted to silver again, and for a moment, the whole world seemed to narrow to the space between them. Hermione's hand found Fleur's cheek without thinking, her fingers brushing against the soft skin, the elegant line of her jaw.
"Fleur," she said, and the name felt different now, heavier, more important.
"Oui?"
"May I kiss you?"
Fleur's smile was like sunrise. "I thought you would never ask."
Across the hall, Ron had finally managed to execute the Durmstrang stomp without falling over, and Viktor was looking at him with an expression that could only be described as besotted.
"You did it," Viktor said.
"I did it," Ron agreed, slightly winded. "Was that the whole dance?"
"That vas the first step."
Ron stared at him. "How many steps are there?"
"Seven."
"Oh, for—"
But he was laughing, and Viktor was laughing, and somewhere across the room, Harry was watching them with a smile that made Parvati elbow him and ask if he wanted to dance again, and Neville was telling Ginny about his grandmother's rose garden while Ginny pretended she wasn't holding his hand under the table, and Malfoy had stopped pretending he wasn't watching Daphne and was now very definitely not dancing with her, and Lavender had found Parvati's cousin and was introducing herself with a confidence that suggested she had already decided how the evening would end.
And in the centre of the floor, Hermione Granger kissed Fleur Delacour under a canopy of fairy lights and mistletoe, and the entire hall went very, very quiet, and then very, very loud.
"Finally," Ron said, loud enough to carry across the suddenly silent Great Hall, "someone kissed someone. I thought I was going to have to—"
Viktor kissed him.
Ron made a sound that might have been surprise or might have been delight, but either way, he kissed back.
The Great Hall erupted.
Hermione pulled back from Fleur, breathless, laughing. "I think we started something."
Fleur glanced around at the chaos—the applause, the wolf whistles, the sudden flurry of couples finding each other with a new kind of courage—and her smile was radiant.
"I zink," she said, "we started several things."
She kissed Hermione again, softer this time, and the fairy lights turned gold, and the music played on, and somewhere in the midst of it all, Hermione Granger decided that maybe—just maybe—parties were not so terrible after all.