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Potter! Weasley! Will you pay attention?”
Professor McGonagall’s irritated voice cracked like a whip
through the Transfiguration class on Thursday, and Harry and Ron
both jumped and looked up.
It was the end of the lesson; they had finished their work; the
guinea fowl they had been changing into guinea pigs had been shut
away in a large cage on Professor McGonagall’s desk (Neville’s still
had feathers); they had copied down their homework from the
blackboard (“Describe, with examples, the ways in which Transforming
Spells must be adapted when performing Cross-Species Switches”).
The bell was due to ring at any moment, and Harry and Ron, who
had been having a sword fight with a couple of Fred and George’s
fake wands at the back of the class, looked up, Ron holding a tin
parrot and Harry, a rubber haddock.
“Now that Potter and Weasley have been kind enough to act
their age,” said Professor McGonagall, with an angry look at the
pair of them as the head of Harry’s haddock drooped and fell
silently to the floor — Ron’s parrot’s beak had severed it moments
before — “I have something to say to you all.
“The Yule Ball is approaching — a traditional part of the Triwizard
Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialize with our
foreign guests. Now, the ball will be open only to fourth years and
above — although you may invite a younger student if you
wish —”
Lavender Brown let out a shrill giggle. Parvati Patil nudged her
hard in the ribs, her face working furiously as she too fought not to
giggle. They both looked around at Harry. Professor McGonagall
ignored them, which Harry thought was distinctly unfair, as she
had just told off him and Ron.
“Dress robes will be worn,” Professor McGonagall continued,
“and the ball will start at eight o’clock on Christmas Day, finishing
at midnight in the Great Hall. Now then —”
Professor McGonagall stared deliberately around the class.
“The Yule Ball is of course a chance for us all to — er — let our
hair down,” she said, in a disapproving voice.
Lavender giggled harder than ever, with her hand pressed hard
against her mouth to stifle the sound. Harry could see what was
funny this time: Professor McGonagall, with her hair in a tight
bun, looked as though she had never let her hair down in any sense.
“But that does NOT mean,” Professor McGonagall went on,
“that we will be relaxing the standards of behavior we expect from
Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor
student embarrasses the school in any way.”
The bell rang, and there was the usual scuffle of activity as everyone
packed their bags and swung them onto their shoulders.
Professor McGonagall called above the noise, “Potter — a word,
if you please.”
Assuming this had something to do with his headless rubber
haddock, Harry proceeded gloomily to the teacher’s desk. Professor
McGonagall waited until the rest of the class had gone, and then
said, “Potter, the champions and their partners —”
“What partners?” said Harry.
Professor McGonagall looked suspiciously at him, as though she
thought he was trying to be funny.
“Your partners for the Yule Ball, Potter,” she said coldly. “Your
dance partners.”
Harry’s insides seemed to curl up and shrivel.
“Dance partners?” He felt himself going red. “I don’t dance,” he
said quickly.
“Oh yes, you do,” said Professor McGonagall irritably. “That’s
what I’m telling you. Traditionally, the champions and their partners
open the ball.”
Harry had a sudden mental image of himself in a top hat and
tails, accompanied by a girl in the sort of frilly dress Aunt Petunia
always wore to Uncle Vernon’s work parties.
“I’m not dancing,” he said.
“It is traditional,” said Professor McGonagall firmly. “You are a
Hogwarts champion, and you will do what is expected of you as a
representative of the school. So make sure you get yourself a partner,
Potter.”
“But — I don’t —”
“You heard me, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall in a very
final sort of way.
A week ago, Harry would have said finding a partner for a dance
would be a cinch compared to taking on a Hungarian Horntail.
But now that he had done the latter, and was facing the prospect of
asking a girl to the ball, he thought he’d rather have another round
with the dragon.
Harry had never known so many people to put their names
down to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas; he always did, of course,
because the alternative was usually going back to Privet Drive, but
he had always been very much in the minority before now. This
year, however, everyone in the fourth year and above seemed to be
staying, and they all seemed to Harry to be obsessed with the coming
ball — or at least all the girls were, and it was amazing how
many girls Hogwarts suddenly seemed to hold; he had never quite
noticed that before. Girls giggling and whispering in the corridors,
girls shrieking with laughter as boys passed them, girls excitedly
comparing notes on what they were going to wear on Christmas
night. . . .
“Why do they have to move in packs?” Harry asked Ron as a
dozen or so girls walked past them, sniggering and staring at Harry.
“How’re you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?”
“Lasso one?” Ron suggested. “Got any idea who you’re going to
try?”
Harry didn’t answer. He knew perfectly well whom he’d like to
ask, but working up the nerve was something else. . . . Cho was a
year older than he was; she was very pretty; she was a very good
Quidditch player, and she was also very popular.
Ron seemed to know what was going on inside Harry’s head.
“Listen, you’re not going to have any trouble. You’re a champion.
You’ve just beaten a Hungarian Horntail. I bet they’ll be
queuing up to go with you.”
In tribute to their recently repaired friendship, Ron had kept the
bitterness in his voice to a bare minimum. Moreover, to Harry’s
amazement, he turned out to be quite right.
A curly-haired third-year Hufflepuff girl to whom Harry had
never spoken in his life asked him to go to the ball with her the very
next day. Harry was so taken aback he said no before he’d even
stopped to consider the matter. The girl walked off looking rather
hurt, and Harry had to endure Dean’s, Seamus’s, and Ron’s taunts
about her all through History of Magic. The following day, two
more girls asked him, a second year and (to his horror) a fifth year
who looked as though she might knock him out if he refused.
“She was quite good-looking,” said Ron fairly, after he’d stopped
laughing.
“She was a foot taller than me,” said Harry, still unnerved.
“Imagine what I’d look like trying to dance with her.”
Hermione’s words about Krum kept coming back to him. “They
only like him because he’s famous!” Harry doubted very much if
any of the girls who had asked to be his partner so far would have
wanted to go to the ball with him if he hadn’t been a school champion.
Then he wondered if this would bother him if Cho asked
him.
On the whole, Harry had to admit that even with the embarrassing
prospect of opening the ball before him, life had definitely
improved since he had got through the first task. He wasn’t attracting
nearly as much unpleasantness in the corridors anymore, which
he suspected had a lot to do with Cedric — he had an idea Cedric
might have told the Hufflepuffs to leave Harry alone, in gratitude
for Harry’s tip-off about the dragons. There seemed to be fewer
Support Cedric Diggory! badges around too. Draco Malfoy, of
course, was still quoting Rita Skeeter’s article to him at every possible
opportunity, but he was getting fewer and fewer laughs out of
it — and just to heighten Harry’s feeling of well-being, no story
about Hagrid had appeared in the Daily Prophet.
“She didn’ seem very int’rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh
the truth,” Hagrid said, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione asked
him how his interview with Rita Skeeter had gone during the last
Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the term. To their very great
relief, Hagrid had given up on direct contact with the skrewts now,
and they were merely sheltering behind his cabin today, sitting at a
trestle table and preparing a fresh selection of food with which to
tempt the skrewts.
“She jus’ wanted me ter talk about you, Harry,” Hagrid continued
in a low voice. “Well, I told her we’d been friends since I went
ter fetch yeh from the Dursleys. ‘Never had to tell him off in four
years?’ she said. ‘Never played you up in lessons, has he?’ I told her
no, an’ she didn’ seem happy at all. Yeh’d think she wanted me to
say yeh were horrible, Harry.”
“ ’Course she did,” said Harry, throwing lumps of dragon liver
into a large metal bowl and picking up his knife to cut some more.
“She can’t keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it’ll get
boring.”
“She wants a new angle, Hagrid,” said Ron wisely as he shelled
salamander eggs. “You were supposed to say Harry’s a mad delinquent!”
“But he’s not!” said Hagrid, looking genuinely shocked.
“She should’ve interviewed Snape,” said Harry grimly. “He’d
give her the goods on me any day. ‘Potter has been crossing lines ever
since he first arrived at this school. . . .’ ”
“Said that, did he?” said Hagrid, while Ron and Hermione
laughed. “Well, yeh might’ve bent a few rules, Harry, bu’ yeh’re all
righ’ really, aren’ you?”
“Cheers, Hagrid,” said Harry, grinning.
“You coming to this ball thing on Christmas Day, Hagrid?” said
Ron.
“Though’ I might look in on it, yeah,” said Hagrid gruffly.
“Should be a good do, I reckon. You’ll be openin’ the dancin’, won’
yeh, Harry? Who’re you takin’?”
“No one, yet,” said Harry, feeling himself going red again. Hagrid
didn’t pursue the subject.
The last week of term became increasingly boisterous as it progressed.
Rumors about the Yule Ball were flying everywhere,
though Harry didn’t believe half of them — for instance, that
Dumbledore had bought eight hundred barrels of mulled mead
from Madam Rosmerta. It seemed to be fact, however, that he had
booked the Weird Sisters. Exactly who or what the Weird Sisters
were Harry didn’t know, never having had access to a wizard’s wireless,
but he deduced from the wild excitement of those who had
grown up listening to the WWN (Wizarding Wireless Network)
that they were a very famous musical group.
Some of the teachers, like little Professor Flitwick, gave up trying
to teach them much when their minds were so clearly elsewhere; he
allowed them to play games in his lesson on Wednesday, and spent
most of it talking to Harry about the perfect Summoning Charm
Harry had used during the first task of the Triwizard Tournament.
Other teachers were not so generous. Nothing would ever deflect
Professor Binns, for example, from plowing on through his notes
on goblin rebellions — as Binns hadn’t let his own death stand in
the way of continuing to teach, they supposed a small thing like
Christmas wasn’t going to put him off. It was amazing how he
could make even bloody and vicious goblin riots sound as boring as
Percy’s cauldron-bottom report. Professors McGonagall and Moody
kept them working until the very last second of their classes too,
and Snape, of course, would no sooner let them play games in class
than adopt Harry. Staring nastily around at them all, he informed
them that he would be testing them on poison antidotes during the
last lesson of the term.
“Evil, he is,” Ron said bitterly that night in the Gryffindor common
room. “Springing a test on us on the last day. Ruining the last
bit of term with a whole load of studying.”
“Mmm . . . you’re not exactly straining yourself, though, are
you?” said Hermione, looking at him over the top of her Potions
notes. Ron was busy building a card castle out of his Exploding
Snap pack — a much more interesting pastime than with Muggle
cards, because of the chance that the whole thing would blow up at
any second.
“It’s Christmas, Hermione,” said Harry lazily; he was rereading
Flying with the Cannons for the tenth time in an armchair near the
fire.
Hermione looked severely over at him too. “I’d have thought
you’d be doing something constructive, Harry, even if you don’t
want to learn your antidotes!”