An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Forty-Five

A/N: Above is a picture of Alexa's dress for the Yule Ball 😄 of course she's wearing it with the necklace Cedric gave her, too. Also, just a quick reminder, we follow the books and not the movies for this story, and in the books everybody sits down and eats dinner in the Great Hall before the dancing begins.

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I think Myrah was expecting some superspy, clever disguise solution. In reality, I just conjured up a sling portal in a deserted passageway and we all headed up to the dorms that way.

Mystic Arts cheating for the win.

The six of us went down to Ginny's dorm and bathroom to get ready, since she was the only 3rd year Gryffindor girl still at Hogwarts. We had the entire space to ourselves.

Everybody got into their dresses, and then we took turns working on each other's hair and makeup. I wasn't the best at either of those things, so instead I assisted where I was needed and focused on DJing the perfect playlist of muggle music to get us ready for the ball. It took almost the entire three hours. We probably could've gone faster without the pausing to scream-sing into hair brushes, but my God was it more fun this way.

We headed down to the Common Room just as it was starting to get busy. Myrah, Angelina, and Alicia met up with the twins and Lee, and Ginny split off to go find Neville. Hermione decided to walk with the rest of us down to the entrance hall instead of waiting for Ron and Harry, and she helped us hide Myrah from anyone who would point her out as a Slytherin as we made our way out the portrait hole.

"Ugh, so many excited Gryffindors in one place," groaned Myrah once we were in the clear. "They're all so loud."

"WHAT, YOU MEAN LIKE THIS?" yelled Fred. Myrah elbowed him in the gut, and he just laughed.

I did my best to herd our group ahead of George and Angelina as we walked. Officially they were going as friends, but unofficially I saw her blush after he asked her and I saw his jaw hit the floor when she came down the stairs tonight. Angelina had done the same for me when Cedric and I were still dancing around each other, and now it was my turn to return the favor.

The entrance hall was just starting to fill up as our group made it down the stairs. I scanned the excited faces in the room, trying to pick out Cedric. Finally I found him at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me in awe.

"Alexa... you look... amazing!" he breathed, a massive smile appearing on his face as I came down the stairs to meet him.

"Thanks Ced. It's really this necklace I got for Christmas, it just brings out my best features."

Cedric grinned and shook his head, planting a kiss on my temple and wrapping an arm around my waist.

"What about us, Cedric?" asked Fred, coming over with Myrah and a massive grin on his face. "How do we look?"

"Oh, absolutely stunning," Cedric replied without missing a beat. Fred held up a hand to give him a high-five, and I smiled.

"Where are Jackson and Adrian?" I finally asked, looking around. I caught sight of Hermione as I scanned the hall. She'd broken off from our group to meet up with Viktor, who stared at her like she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen as she blushed. Seeing how cute and happy they both were made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

"There they are!" Alicia pointed to the corridor that lead to the potions class and Slytherin Common Room, where Jackson and Adrian were literally strutting towards us in matching dress robes.

"Hey, what're we waiting for?" asked Adrian, coming to a stop with Jackson once they reached our group.

"We were waiting on you slowpokes," said Lee.