WORD COUNT: [1569]
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Draco was yet to apologise and Lorraine was yet to stop her blood from boiling at the thought of the stupid boy. In fact, she didn't blame him for not apologising yet. He knew her better than she thought--there was no way she'd let him get within ten feet of her before hexing him so much he'd wish he never knew her. She had spent her days surrounded by the golden trio instead, which was a welcome distraction from the audacious Slytherin boy. Cedric was spending a lot of time with Cho and she didn't want to intrude, so she only kept to the three Gryffindors, which she didn't mind. It meant she got closer to them and closer was good.
"Why do they have to travel in packs?" Harry asked Ron and Lorraine, although his question was mostly directed at the girl.
"Packs? We're not animals, you idiot," she laughed.
"H-How are you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?"
"H-Harry," she began, "I don't know what you think we are...but all you need to do is ask to get one of us alone. It's as simple as that. And we don't bite...well, most of us."
Harry stopped in front of a group of Ravenclaws that also had the girl that he was interested in. He stared at them all with an awkward smile before he gave up and hurried away before he embarrassed himself any more. Lorraine followed behind with a snicker.
"Blimey, Harry. You've slayed dragons. If you can't get a date, who can?" Ron asked the boy.
"I think I'd take the dragon right now." The boy who lived looked at a trio of Beauxbatons girls, who all turned away in disgust.
"Excuse me?" the Durmstrang boy who had winked at Lorraine all those weeks ago asked as he walked up to Lorraine, Ron, and Harry. Lorraine stared at him with wide eyes, hoping and praying to whatever God there was that he wasn't about to ask what she was thinking.
"Y-Yes?" she stuttered, noticing that his hands were behind his back. At her question, he revealed a single white rose and gave her a wide grin.
"I was hoping that you'd go to the Yule Ball with me?"
Harry and Ron both looked at each other in complete shock at the bravery of the Durmstrang boy to ask a girl out in front of friends. Lorraine, on the other hand, was completely baffled. She didn't know the boy's name and she was confident that he didn't yet know hers, yet he was asking her to the Ball as if they knew each other. How...unpredictable.
"I...I'm...what...I don't even...your-" she stammered, only to get cut off by the rose being put into her mouth. The boy winked at her.
"I'll let you think on it." With that, he had miraculously left. Lorraine turned to Ron and Harry with the rose still in her mouth, in complete disarray. She was on the verge of mental collapse, in fact. What on earth had that boy just done?
"What on Earth..." Ron broke the silence, bursting into laughter as Harry did so. She spat out the flower.
"I..." she began, "I can't believe that boy."
***
"This is mad," Ron sighed. "At this rate, we'll be the only ones in our year without dates."
Lorraine looked up from her work and glared at the boy on her left. He had been blabbering on about the Yule Ball for the entire lesson and she was just about so sick of it that she was about to ask him to be her partner right then and there. And of course, he had chosen Snape's class to be loose-lipped.
Speaking of the professor, he came up from behind Ron and pushed his head back towards the work he was supposed to be doing. She looked at the work that he had done, only to see that not even half was complete.
"Well, us and Neville," Ron muttered to Harry.
"Yeah, but, then again, he can take himself," Harry joked. Lorraine scoffed as the boys both laughed at their insults about the poor Longbottom boy.
"It might interest you to know that Neville's already got someone," Hermione whispered harshly, in the hopes to stop the boy's slander. Ron let out a deep sigh.
"Now I'm really depressed," he muttered before his brother, Fred, passed him a note. "Get a move on or all the good ones will have gone," he read out quietly, handing the note back to his brother. "Who are you going with then?"
Fred threw a scrunched-up ball of paper at a sixth-year called Angelina, who turned to look at him in frustration. "Oi, Angelina?" he asked quietly.
"What?" she mouthed, looking at him pointedly.
"Do you wanna go to the ball with me?" the boy asked, using hand motions to further get his point across to her. Angelina smiled excitedly.
"To the ball? Yeah, all right."
Fred looked at his brother and winked, which Lorraine found highly amusing.
"Must be popular with the girls then, huh, Weasleys?" she asked the twins, to which they both nodded with wide grins.
"Must be popular with the men then, huh, Winters?" Fred replied in just the same tone.
"Heard about your encounter with Oscar and heard Malfoy blabbering on about asking you to the ball," George elaborated with an even wider grin. Lorraine nearly gagged at the thought of two of the boys that she didn't want to be mentioned at all.
"Malfoy's got zero chances with me. I already made up my mind about who I want to go to the ball with," she replied contently. The twins, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all looked at her curiously.
"Who?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. "It better not be the rose guy."
"The rose guy's name is Oscar, apparently. But it doesn't matter because it's not him. You'll just have to find out who I want to go with."
Ron whined quietly but didn't argue with her and only turned to Hermione. "Oi, Hermione. You're a girl," he said.
"Very well-spotted," Hermione answered bluntly.
"Come with one of us?" he asked her, mimicking the action of dancing only to be whacked with a book by Snape. Harry, who was laughing, was also whacked.
"Come on. It's one thing for a bloke to show up alone. For a girl, it's just sad," Ron continued, to which Lorraine whacked him on the back of his head.
"Oh, fuck you, Weasley," she snapped quietly.
"I won't be going alone, because, believe it or not, someone's asked me!" Hermione spat, standing up and handing in her book to Snape before heading back to the table and grabbing her things. "And I said yes!"
"Bloody hell," Ron muttered, looking at Lorraine warily. "She's lying, right? You girls tell each other everything, right? You must know?"
"As if I'd tell your ignorant ass anything, Ron," she seethed, going back to her work without another word.
"Look, we've just gotta grit our teeth and do it," Ron explained to Harry. "Tonight, when we get back to the common room, we'll both have partners. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Harry said before Snape grabbed both their hands and forced them down so that they looked at their work.
***
Later in the day, Lorraine had received a delicately wrapped parcel from her mother that she decided she'd open in her common room where there was privacy. Who knew what would be in that box? For all she knew, it could be a person's head.
"Hi, Dalnim," Lorraine greeted softly as she entered her dorm room, which was currently empty as all her roommates were outside doing God knows what. Dalnim meowed repeatedly, very clearly communicating her excitement with her owner as the girl sat beside her on the bed. She ran her fingers through the cat's fur gently, smiling at the sound of Dalnim purring contently. With that, she began to open her parcel, which took longer than she thought.
Her mother was great at wrapping presents, but she was just a little too good at doing so.
"Oh, wow..." Lorraine whispered, delicately taking out a stunning black dress with plenty of shimmery gold accents. She stood and held it against her chest, taking note that it reached her ankles and that it was shoulderless. It was far too beautiful for her to pull off--there was no way her mother thought that she could wear something that appeared to be crafted by some omnipotent.
For once her mother got her a gift that she liked.
Lorraine delicately put the dress back in the box it came in and shut the lid. She knew she didn't have to try the dress on for her mother always got everything tailored for her. It was the only perk of being rich. Everything else was a disgusting luxury she wished she didn't have.
She would give up her family and their wealth in a blink if she could have the freedom and joy she so desired. Her joy was nothing but something she didn't deserve. It was decided the moment she had been forced into a family of death eaters.
She would've rathered them leave her on the side of the road instead of raising her. She would've rather died than have to betray the people who considered her a friend. The closer she got to Harry and his friends, the worse she felt.
When she had to pick between Harry and Voldemort, could she make that decision?
Could she live with the repercussions?