"It's only a dance! The way you two are acting you'd think it was the end of the world," Hermione lectured as Harry and Ron followed her down the stairs to the Great Hall for breakfast. "You seem more worried about this than you were about a dragon, Harry, honestly!"

"The ruddy dragon wasn't making me take dancing lessons," muttered Harry.

"Professor McGonagall just wants Hogwarts to be well represented, and it's never hurt a single man to know how to dance."

"I'll bet loads of blokes have died on dance floors, rather," Ron interjected.

"They haven't," Hermione answered, "Don't be so dramatic!"

"Then I'll be the first to have done by the time Malfoy sees how stupid I look when I dance," Harry added, ducking to one side as Cho Chang rushed by, his neck twisting to watch her go. "Besides, the lessons aren't even the worst part..."

Hermione's eyes followed Harry's to Cho's retreating back. "And what is the worst part, Harry?"

Harry snapped back to focusing on Hermione. "Having to have a date."

Hermione raised a brow, "What's so awful about a date?"'she asked.

"Getting one!" Ron said.

Harry nodded.

"It isn't that hard to do," Hermione said, "You just look someone in the eye - like this -" she paused suddenly and Ron nearly walked into her. He looked at her, startled, and Hermione stared into Ron's face. "And you ask them: Will you go to the Yule Ball with me?"

Ron stared back at her for several beats.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

Ron blinked, then said, "Yeah but 'Mione - that's easy enough to say when you don't mean it but when you actually want the person to go with you it isn't so easy! It's the rejection bit that's hard!"

Hermione stared a moment longer, then muttered, "Yes, I suppose I wouldn't know what that's like," she said.

Harry glanced between Ron and Hermione, but she turned and started walking again. At the top of the stairs to the Hall, Crookshanks appeared, darting out from behind a suit of armor, weaving between Harry's legs lovingly, and jumping up into Hermione's arms, purring loudly. Ron jumped in surprise at the cat's sudden appearance of the orange ball of fur, and Harry reached over to tickle the old beast behind his ear. Ever since finding out the cat had once belonged to his parents, he'd felt a connection to the manky old thing. Crookshanks rubbed his head against Harry's palm.

"It really is harder when you're the one doing the asking," Ron continued as they started down the stairs. "Us blokes have it rather hard."

Hermione snorted and looked over her shoulder as she walked, "Well maybe if you weren't so thick, Ronald, then --"

"Hemryown!"

She was interrupted by the sound of her name being called in a very distinct Bulgarian accent. She turned about to see Viktor at the foot of the staircase.

Ron scowled, "What's he want?"

"Probably to go and study," Hermione replied.

"Study, right."

Harry elbowed Ron, but Hermione was already headed down the steps ahead of them, Crookshanks jumping from her arms to the flagstone floor and out the door to the grounds, sliding between the legs of the Beauxbatons students coming in the door.

"Relax Ron, it isn't as though anything is going on with Krum, she said --"

Ron's attention caught on Fleur Delacor in the doorway. "You should ask her to the Ball."

"Hermione?" Harry asked cluelessly.

"No. Not Hermione. Why would I ask Hermione?" Ron asked, and before Harry could even form a reply, he was on again. "If Hermione can go out with Krum - " he said the name like it was foul, a swear word, "- then why couldn't one of us go with Fleur? You should ask her, Harry. She wouldn't say no to you. "

"I was rather thinking of asking someone else," Harry murmured, looking over his shoulder.

Ron wasn't listening, though, walking on toward the cloud of Beauxbaton students, following as they made their way through the doors of the Great Hall and on to the Ravenclaw table. Harry caught Ron's shoulders at the last moment before he walked right into Roger Davies as he queued for a place at the Ravenclaw table. Harry steered Ron around Davies and off to the Gryffindor table where they belonged.

Roger Davies was frustrated. He sighed heavily through his nose, pressing his way between clusters of overexcited people flocking about after Fleur Delacor. "Come on you lot, let her be will you? Some of us need to actually sit down and eat at this table... and you. You're not even a Ravenclaw," he snapped at one boy who stood precariously on the bench seat with a camera clutched in his fists. "Go back to your own house's table."

The boy frowned but scurried off to Gryffindor.

Roger rolled his eyes and shoved his way onto the bench, sliding between a Beauxbaton girl that was talking in speedy French to a Beauxbaton boy on one side, and Henry Wu on the other. He snagged a couple bangers with his fork and ladled a serving of egg onto his platter beside them when he felt a tap at his shoulder.

Henry Wu was squinting up at him through his glasses, the bright light from the sun casting through the windows in his eyes, "You're friends with Diggory, aren't you?"

"Cedric? Yes?" Roger asked, confused. "What about him?"

"Is he seeing Cho Chang?" Henry asked.

Roger shrugged, "Not that I know of, but I don't know for sure." He couldn't remember Cedric ever saying anything about Cho but they hadn't talked much since Trelawney had started predicting their deaths. Roger frowned at his own poor friendship skills - he was worried about Cedric, not angry with him. It was funny, Roger thought, how sometimes those feelings both manifested in similar ways.

Henry bristled.

A flash and a click over Roger's shoulder had him turning 'round to look and saw the Gryffindor boy he had shooed away leaning over to snap a photo of Fleur. "Oi, thought I told you to go back to Gryffindor?" Roger asked, pointing.

"Don't even bother. Zey do this all of ze time," said the girl to Roger's left. "Ze flocking around." She sounded as annoyed as Roger felt. "She eez a beautiful girl but really! Have zey never seen one before?" She rolled her eyes.

Roger shook his head.

"She is part veela," Henry Wu said from Roger's right. "Veela have magically alluring qualities that attract others - biologically. Once, it was a way for their type to draw prey. Like siren song or banshee shrieks. But for the eyes."

"Eet eez obnoxious," the Beauxbatons girl complained, "Zare eez no rezzon to act like zat."

"Beside the veela bit, she's also a Champion!" Henry pointed out. "Adding to the allure."

"Any of us could have been champions, zat is why we have been brought here for ze Goblet to decide!"

"Perhaps the Goblet was persuaded by the veela charm too," Henry suggested. "She's dead last after all. So she isn't that good."

Roger turned with furrowed brow to look at Henry. "She probably did the best actual fighting in the task, other than Potter's brilliance with the broomstick. She did excellently..."

"The scores say otherwise," Henry shrugged.

"The judges were incredibly biased!" Roger said, shaking his head, "Don't be stupid."

He was still speaking when his eyes met Fleur's across the table. They were bright blue and wide with emotion. She'd heard the entire thing - Henry's judgement and all. Roger started to open his mouth to say something, but Fleur slid out from the bench and hurried out the door of the Great Hall, leaving her adoring fans behind.

Hermione stared very hard at the book on her lap, her mouth twisted with frustration, trying not to relive the moment on the staircase. What had she been thinking? Asking Ron to the Yule Ball! She sighed sharply through her nose in frustrated annoyance.

Viktor looked up from the book opened on the desk in front of him. "What does this mean?" he asked.

Hermione glanced at the book, "What does what mean?"

"This," Viktor replied, and he imitated the little snuff sound she had made.

Hermione was surprised how accurate the imitation was - not to mention that he had noticed the sound enough to ask to begin with. Neither Harry nor Ron ever seemed to notice the little sounds she made.

"Are you upset with something?" Viktor asked, probing.

Hermione considered how to reply to him, and was just about to answer when he added, "Is it with me that you are upset, Hermyown?"

"No, no - certainly not with you, Viktor!" she said quickly. "Of all the people in the world, you're probably the one I am the least upset with."

Viktor smiled, "I am least upset with you as well, Hermyown." He waited a moment and when she didn't answer his question, he asked, "Who is this then who has upset you?"

Hermione said carefully, "Do you ever feel as though you're invisible?"

"Most of the time I am wishing to be invisible," Viktor replied.

Hermione frowned.

"But perhaps this is why you know me. To make it so we see each other the right amount."

She ran a finger over the book, stroking the page. "Most of the time, I don't care if I'm invisible... most of the time."

"But not today?"

Hermione replied, "I sort of asked a boy to the Yule Ball, but he misunderstood. He said no."

Krum said, "I am sorry."

Hermione shook her head. "It was silly of me to ask. He probably didn't want to go with me anyway."

"If it is of any console," Viktor murmured, "I won't be taking who I want to the Ball either."

Hermione hung her head.

Viktor stared at her. She looked so very sad, the heaviness of her demeanor made his heart hurt, too. He wished to yell at this boy who made her sad, to tell him not to take it for granted how easy his love life could be if he only took one look at Hermione and really saw her. That boy did not have to worry about the hinderances and judgement and hatred Krum did. He didn't have a horridly overbearing father. He was free to love whoever he wanted. And he had a great girl wanting him.

Viktor would give anything to go to the Ball with Aleksander.

He realized he'd been staring at Hermuonw for all that time he's been thinking.

"Hermyown?" he asked.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Will you go to the Yule Ball with me?"

Hermione's eyes widened. "Me?"

Viktor nodded solemnly.

"But you're - you're -" she paused. "What about -?" Her eyes went to Aleksander, who sat across the library.

Viktor said, "I only mean as friends, Hermyown."

Hermione hesitated.

"I have to go," Viktor reasoned, "As a champion, it is tradition." He shrugged, "I cannot go with --" he nodded toward Aleksander. "I merely am thinking that perhaps we go as the friends and we are having a better time together than we would have alone, apart. But if you wish not to do this --" he started, but Hermione interrupted him.

"Yes."

Roger Davies was on his way across the grounds to the Green Houses for Herbology when he saw Fleur Delacor standing and looking out over the lake. He paused, the others in his class streaming around him as they passed by him.

She looked like she was crying.

He glanced toward the green houses, then made his choice, breaking away from the stream of people. His heart thudded as he worried - was he being like everyone else? Disrespecting her privacy, not letting her have a moment without someone clambering around her?

He was just going to check on her, he promised himself, just see if she was alright. Then it was straight off to the green houses with him. He'd leave her alone the moment he knew she was okay.

The snow crunching under his feet as he approached made her look up. The tears on her face were crystalizing in the cold. She looked horrified at first when she'd raised her chin but, seeing Roger, her face softened, and she said, "Ouf! It is you."

"Are you okay?" Roger asked.

Fleur used her palm to wipe the shimmering lines from her cheeks. "Eez eet so épouvantable if I cry?"

Roger shook his head. Then slowly, struggling to recall the words, he said, "Tu as... le droit... de pleurer."

Fleur's eyes lit in surprise. The sentence was simple, a bit broken, and he'd struggled to speak it, but it was the first attempt any of the Hogwarts students had made to speak French to her.

"Tu parles français?"

"Not very well, I am afraid," Roger answered. She looked disappointed, and he quickly added, "J'apprendrai. Si tu m'apprends."

It was the most Ravenclaw thing he'd ever done, learning to ask to be taught something in multiple languages. But when his family had gone on a tour through several countries when he was younger, the summer before he had started at Hogwarts, he'd wanted to learn everything there was to know. "I will learn if you will teach me" was the phrase he had used most from each language they'd encountered, soaking up everything he could possibly glean from every place they had gone. His parents had whispered that he was such a Ravenclaw the whole holiday, and were not surprised when he was sorted that autumn. The Sorting Hat had even mentioned the phrase - though the Hat had used the Greek version ("tha mátho an me didáxeis") when he had pointed it out.

Fleur smiled brightly, her eyes glistening. "What is your name?"

"Je m'appelle Roger Davies," he said.

Fleur's smile became even brighter if that was possible, and she stepped forward, extending her hand to him (daintily, knuckles up), which he took gently in his hand. "Je suis Fleur."

Roger kissed her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers as he bowed forward. Like a gentleman.