"I see them- I see Aleksi! Marie, Ana come with me," Mila demanded, as she hopped off the side wall looking over the grand entrance where students milled about below. I felt Marie release a deep breath before letting go of my arm and walking toward the stairwell that Mila had just raced down, her yellow gown jetting after her. Ana waited for Marie before the pair of them stepped on down together, the colored dresses meshing as they moved in unison. I joined Ginny and Hermione by the side wall to watch our friends meet their dates, all of whom were surprisingly dressed.

The Durmstrang boys were all in red uniforms, that made every one of them, even the disgusting ones, look put together.

"You've got to love a guy in uniform," I muttered loud enough for Ginny to snicker next to me. I spotted Rosalie and Jacqueline as a matched pair already by the front entrance talking to my brother and his band of friends. As expected, my brother and his friend, Adrian Pucey, were the only boys of the group, surrounded by five others girls from different Hogwarts houses. Some of whom I knew, but most of them I was clueless on.

"There's Neville. I should go," Ginny declared, before stepping off her perch.

"Keep your chin up when you walk. It'll help your posture on the stairs." Ginny merely rolled her eyes at the idea but Hermione and I watched with glee as she did in fact walk down with her head held high to join Neville watching sheepishly below.

"I assume that was a rule Beauxbatons taught you?" Hermione asked, nodding to Ginny's figure disappearing in the crowd with Neville, dressed surprisingly to the nines, scurrying after her.

"Posture 101," I joked, gaining a laugh from Hermione, before she wilted off into nervous tapping as we continued to watch the crowd for out dates. I watched with humor as Harry entered the room with one of the Patil twins, (I couldn't tell which one), on his arm and the other sister on Ron's.

"Oh merlin, what's Ron wearing?" I gagged, before Hermione could find them.

"It used to be worse. Ruffles were once part of the ensemble," she explained before nodding to a doorway that led to the dungeons.

"I found Malfoy, if you care to look." I gave her a quick glance to see if she meant something by this fact before looking over and catching him in his dress robes of black with a white collar. Pansy Parkinson was on his arm in frilly pink robes too light for her complexion. Twiddle dee and dumb waddled on behind them in matching green robes that seemed almost too generically Slytherin to not be coincidental.

"Not that I am surprised," I mused, eyeing the group, "but I would have thought to expect more from them."

"In what way?" Hermione questioned curiously, as an eager grin slowly appeared on her lips. I shrugged, toying at a smile.

"Oh I don't know. Maybe a ferret tie would have looked a bit more dashing on Draco. Or Crabbe and Goyle could have tried to hold hands instead of go stag. Gay rights are all the rage right now." My humor only rose by the minute until Hermione caught sight of Viktor entering the room and stood up stiff.

"Calm down," I cooed, as I tried to bite down the annoyance trailing in me at being the last one waiting for my date. We were less than five minutes before 8 when the ball was to begin and I wanted to take part in as many of the dances as possible. I couldn't do that if Jasper wasn't here.

"I know, I know," She repeated before walking toward the stairs. "It's just nerves. It'll be fine. He's nice," She reassured more to herself than to me.

I stopped her before she could reach the stairs and placed my hands gently on her shoulders and readjusted them, releasing the tension. "Shoulders back, chin up," I said as I walked around her while she corrected herself appropriately. "And don't forget to smile," I said more as a joke but Hermione took it to heart and gave me a mixed expression of nerves and excitement. I gave her a thumbs up before stepping back from the stairwell to let her pass.

The moment she left my side, that hint of annoyance bloomed into full out anger. Where was Jasper? I would never have pegged him to be late to anything. What if he was ditching? I took another glance from the side wall and decided that maybe he could be standing underneath the wall passing. I could just be missing him.

Following my own advice, I took a slow breath, dropped my shoulders and rose my chin a fraction before starting toward the stairs. My gaze was angled toward the group of students milling under the archway in search of my date. No Jasper.

Abruptly I stopped in the middle of the stairs, radiating annoyance as I looked around the room. I wanted my Cinderella moment, was that too much to ask for? Why did he have to ruin it by not showing up?

But unknown to Ava, she was having a Cinderella moment, to an extent.

She had managed to walk down that half flight of stairs spewing a rage that only the passions of a teenage girl could possess and that would to most, illustrate a rather ugly, spoiled air. But to Ava, it made her look regal and was so magnetic to the eyes of others that within the first few steps of her entrance she had managed to catch the attention of Nott, entering with a girl nowhere in comparison to Ava. Suffice it to say, Ava's entrance made Nott internally curse himself for being too forward at the library and missing his chance to have her on his arm. Even if his motives were anything but moral.

Across the hall, Blaise almost bumped into a few clueless Durmstrang students after catching sight of our darling Ava Fountaine. A moment of awe followed by one of revoltion at his first reaction occurred almost simultaneously. He had never taken an interest in the American before. He had always thought of her to be too much trouble for her worth. Even if that "worth" had made him lose his cool for a moment there.

Fleur, who moments before was telling her very handsome but dull date, Rodger Davies, how terrible the decorations at Hogwarts were, caught sight of Ava as she abruptly stopped in the middle of the stairs. Fleur had experienced moments like the one Ava was currently having (though unaware of) before. Having the eyes of admirers on oneself when your mind is elsewhere may seem like a dream to some but Fleur secretly despised it. Especially when she was upset or stressed as Ava seemed to be on the stairs. For this reason, Fleur for a moment in time looked at the girl with compassion while her date continued to mindlessly ogle at her, as if in disbelief that he had snatched Fleur as a date.

Fleur was beginning to question that exact same thing.

Aleksi, who was trying his best to understand the fast chatter his date was spewing out of her glittering mouth was momentarily caught off guard by the sight of Ava on the stairwell. How could he have thought that he could have such a girl on his arm if even the likes of Viktor Krum couldn't? (Granted, Aleksi had yet to see who Krum had on his arm, but we shall let this slide just once.) Aleksi was only further struck when he made eye contact with the furious blonde, as she went about to look at her friends mingling. None of them seemed to notice her looking. That is, none did until Aleksi took a step back to follow Ava's changing gaze, causing him to step on his date's dress hem.

The sound of ripping fabric quickly dispersed any fantasy Aleksi had been in.

Draco wasn't the first of his party to catch sight of Ava. In fact, he was doing everything he could to avoid the chance of catching sight of her. His gaze was quick to look away from any girl that even partially resembled the blonde, making him act a bit odd. Pansy didn't seem to mind, as she was over the moon the moment Draco asked her out and wasn't going to let anything ruin her mood. Suffice it to say the fourth year Slytherins spent many nights listening to Pansy brag about her luck.

But her high came crashing down the moment she caught sight of Ava in a far more elegant gown of lilac that did in fact work well with her golden complexion. Pansy seethed for a moment at having found Ava here at all. Obviously, she wasn't a fourth year so shouldn't she be acting miserable in that putrid carriage of hers? Unless there was a date?

If it hadn't been for Pansy's rather stupid decision to direct her date and the boys behind her to Ava's presence on the stairs ("Would you look at that. Ava Fountaine ditched by her own date! That should show her-"), chances are Draco may not have noticed Ava. At least, not at that moment in time. (We all know Draco's plan of avoiding Ava at a Ball was farthest from foolproof.)

Unlike Aleksi, who up to this point had never seen Ava dressed to the nines before, Draco had witnessed many times Ava surpassing expectations and looking as she did now. Stunning. Her rage only enunciated her features that made her look so like her mother. Her familiar blue eyes had that spark of self-defiance as she scanned the sea of people until they finally caught sight of him looking.

And no, unlike Aleksi, Draco had enough composure to stand his ground and look back up at her.

Pansy was not pleased.

Merlin, he must find the sight of me absolutely hilarious, I thought as I caught sight of those steel grey eyes looking my way. What was I to do but stare back. Maybe I could put all my mortification into my gaze and scare him off. That was better than running back up the stairs.

But I was saved from such an action when I heard my named called. Turning my gaze toward the bottom of the stairwell I spotted Jasper, awkwardly waiting for me in dress robes of dark blue. At least he followed my cue on what to wear.

Biting back my annoyance, I graced him with a smile as I made my way down the last of the stairs, stopping a step above him.

"I thought you weren't going to make it," I said truthfully. I watched as Jasper docked his head for a moment before looking back to me apologetically.

"I'm sorry. Really. If you can believe it, I stained my jacket with chocolate from this morning. It took a bit to get out. See-" he gestured to a spot on his coat that looked a vaguely darker in the light. But only barely.

"Can you forgive me?" He asked with a hint of a joke in his expression as he extended his arm. I gave him a side look before taking his arm and descending the rest of the way with him.

"You look brilliant, by the way. I see you kept the corsage," he added in quick succession, as if trying to lighten me up. I thanked him before returning the compliment with little thought.

Just then, McGonagall appeared in navy blue dress robes that sparkled with constellations moving in the folds of her dress. She roused the students around her, calling for the champions to come to her while Professor Sprout and Professor Trelawney opened the doors to the great hall.

As students flooded into the great hall, I walked Jasper to my group of friends waiting to get into the ball. Mila and Ana were no where to be found and Aleksi was beat red, glancing from the floor to me and Jasper ever so often.

"I'll explain later," Marie said under her breath to my questionable stare before we followed her into the room. Jasper tightened his hold on my arm and gave me a reassuring smile.

I wanted to be angry at Jasper for giving me such a flakey excuse to being late, but I bit it down again as I reminded myself that this was just the beginning of the night. I still had the rest of Yule Ball to look forward to and I wasn't going to have such a small detail of my night ruin everything else.

So, with that thought, I gave Jasper a smile back and together we walked into the Great Hall. 

-

Hello there!

Did I seriously just write an entire chapter on the opening of the Yule ball? Yes because Cinderella entrances are a most and take a lot of time to write. Haven't any of you ever wanted that Cinderella entrance? I sure have. Maybe not as extreme as the one written above, but still... gotta love the attention when you're feeling like a million bucks. 

Because this chapter is just the beginning of the Yule Ball, I'm not going to be mean to you all. Rather I will be updating the next portion of the Yule Ball tomorrow so that you can remember all the details. It's going to be good. Promise.

With Love,

-WG-