Infinite Magic (Male Reader x Harry Potter)

The Yule Ball

The common room looked strange, full of people wearing different colors instead of the usual mass of black.  Ava was waiting for me by the portrait hole.  I grinned and hurried over to her.  She was wearing a light blue dress, with emerald earrings and a ruby necklace.  Her hair, which usually hung freely down past her shoulders, was braided and wrapped in a bun.  She looked amazing.  She eyed my robes, a smirk on her face.

Ava: You look handsome.  But the robes are a little over the top, don't you think?

YN: I wanted to look my best, but next to you I might as well be wearing Hagrid's furry suit.  You look gorgeous, Aves.

Ava blushed, giggling, and I grinned as we locked arms.  Harry came over to us with Parvati.  Suguru and Ron joined us a moment later.

Parvati: Ron, Padma's going to meet you in the entrance hall.

YN: Hana said she'd meet you there too, Suguru.

He nodded.

Ron: Right.  Where's Hermione?

Parvati shrugged.

Ava: Shall we go down then?

The entrance hall was packed with students too, all milling around waiting for eight o'clock, when the doors to the Great Hall would be thrown open.  Those people who were meeting partners from different Houses were edging through the crowd trying to find one another.  Suguru gave me a fist bump and went off to find Hana.  Parvati found her sister, Padma, and led her over to Harry and Ron.

Padma: Hi.

She didn't look too enthusiastic about having Ron as a partner.  Her dark eyes lingered on the frayed neck and sleeves of his dress robes as she looked him up and down.  Ava, who hadn't noticed the crappy job he'd done trimming the dress, followed Padma's eyes.  She started giggling and had to turn away.  I grinned.

Ron: Hi.  Oh no...

He bent his knees slightly to hide behind Harry, because Fleur Delacour was passing, accompanied by the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, Roger Davies.  She smiled at me as I nodded back.  When they had disappeared, Ron stood straight again and stared over the heads of the crowd.

Ron: Where is Hermione?

A group of Slytherins came up the steps from their dungeon common room.  Malfoy was in front.  He was wearing dress robes of black velvet with a high collar, which in my opinion made him look like a vicar.  Pansy Parkinson in very frilly robes of pale pink was clutching Malfoy's arm.  Crabbe and Goyle were both wearing green.  They resembled moss colored boulders, and neither of them, I was pleased to see, had managed to find a partner.  The oak front doors opened, and everyone turned to look as the Durmstrang students entered with Professor Karkaroff.  Krum was at the front of the party, accompanied by a pretty girl in blue robes who I didn't know.  Over their heads we saw that an area of lawn right in front of the castle had been transformed into a sort of grotto full of fairy lights, meaning hundreds of actual living fairies were sitting in the rosebushes that had been conjured there, and fluttering over the statues of what seemed to be Santa Claus and his reindeer.  Then Professor McGonagall's voice called out.

McGonagall: Champions over here, please!

Parvati readjusted her bangles, beaming.  We said goodbye to Ron, and Harry, Parvati, Ava, and I went over to my godmother, who was wearing dress robes of red tartan and had arranged a rather ugly wreath of thistles around the brim of her hat.  She beamed at Ava and I and told the champions to wait on one side of the doors while everyone else went inside.  We were to enter the Great Hall in procession when the rest of the students had sat down.  Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies stationed themselves nearest the doors.  Davies looked so stunned by his good fortune in having Fleur for a partner that he could hardly take his eyes off her.  Cedric and Cho were close to Harry too.  He looked away from them, probably so he wouldn't have to talk to them.  Then my eyes fell on the girl next to Krum.  My eyes widened.  I did know this girl.  It was Hermione.  But she didn't look like Hermione at all.  Ava gasped as she too noticed Hermione.  She had done something with her hair.  It was no longer bushy but sleek and shiny, and twisted up into an elegant knot at the back of her head.  She was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle blue material, and she was holding herself differently, somehow... or maybe it was merely the absence of the twenty or so books she usually had slung over her back.  She was also smiling rather nervously, but the reduction in the size of her front teeth was more noticeable than ever.  I couldn't understand how I hadn't spotted her before.  I turned to Harry, who was staring at her with his jaw dropped.