Everything Changes // Fred Weasley

chapter 16: the yule ball

December 25th, 1994

The night had finally come. Exams were over and the entire castle was buzzing with excitement for the ball. Jules had been asked out by Kendric Riggs like she had expected, even though he had only managed to ask her a few days before the ball. I was relieved though; her persistent complaining every night about not having a date was getting on my nerves. She still decided to wear her heels, but she chose much shorter ones than she had originally planned. Even with the shorter heels, she still stood at about 6'4, which was a good four inches taller than her date. She said it didn't bother her, but the way she stared at her shoes before putting them on made me think that she was contemplating even wearing them at all.

Anna had a simple light blue dress that her mum had worn to her Yule Ball when she had attended Hogwarts. It looked absolutely gorgeous on her.

It was nice to be able to just see Anna again and not be her.

I did not enjoy that particular experience of my time here at Hogwarts.

Anna had been asked by a Durmstrang boy months ago, and they were officially dating as of last week, so she was very excited for the ball to show off her new boy.

Once all of us were officially ready for the ball (or in my case, sitting in my dormer listening to the music blasting downstairs), Anna pulled out the camera that her parents had gotten her for Christmas and started having us pose for her so that we would have memories of that night. Naomi and I sat in the dormer; my legs draped over hers. While we were laughing over how ridiculous we must look, Anna snapped the picture without telling us.

"Hey!" Naomi yelled at the sight of the flash. The picture printed out of the camera and Anna started shaking it with a smile on her face. "I wanted to capture the real moment, not some fake, posed one. I think you'll like this one much better." She handed us the developed picture, which was not a picture at all. It was a video of Naomi and I laughing in the dormer, pure happiness on both of our faces.

"It's perfect Anna!" Naomi said, pulling her into a big hug, "Please take some more!"

We took so many pictures that night, I was worried that Anna would run out of film, but she never seemed to care every time she placed a new cartridge in the camera. I could tell that Jules was over all of the pictures as she was standing near the door with her arms crossed over her chest.

"We should head to the common room." She said, slightly tapping her foot on the ground "Our dates are waiting."

"She's right." Naomi said, running to the bathroom to make sure she still looked nice. She had nothing to worry about though, George was so in love with her that she could show up in a potato sack and he would still think she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

Anna handed me the stack of photos we had taken and shoved her camera into her purse.

"I wish you could come!" She said, looking at me with pity.

"I'll be okay, I've already had enough fun tonight, too much more and I'll probably explode."

She gave me a look that showed that she knew that I was lying, but she left the conversation at that and headed out the door with Jules following behind her.

"Don't have too much fun tonight." I teased as Naomi reapplied her lipstick for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

"Don't worry, I won't do anything you wouldn't do." She winked at me as she left the dorm, once again leaving me all alone.

I walked over to the dormer and sat down, flipping through all of the pictures that we had taken that night. There were a few with all four of us, since Anna had enchanted the camera to take photos on its own, but Jules never really seemed to be enjoying the pictures, so those ones weren't my favorites. The best ones were the ones with just me and Naomi. We never really had any pictures of the two of us together like that except for ones from when we were little and were still forced to dress the same. These new pictures you could see the difference in the two of us easily. I found the first picture that we took and hid it under my pillow. Naomi could have her pick from all the other ones, but that one was mine and I was going to be keeping it forever.