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| THE YULE BALL |
"Fraternising with the
enemy!"
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"LORA, LORA, WAKE UP!" Hermione nudged her best friend on Christmas morning, also the day that the anticipated Yule Ball would be happening, Alora stirred in her bed but did not wake, this was a normal occurrence every morning. "Oh, Alora. It's Christmas!"
"What?" Alora rubbed her eyes tiredly, she was in a dream of winning the Quidditch World Cup and frankly wanted to get to the end of it, "no, I haven't collected the trophy yet.." she muttered, half-asleep.
"Wake up, let's go open presents!" Hermione nudged her one last time, "Parvati and Lavender just woke up, too, let's go!"
"What time were you up?" Alora yawned, she had finally mustered up some energy and sat up.
"I've been up for an hour,"
The girls finally got up and sat around like they'd usually do, they decided to carry on with the Secret Santa tradition they'd do every year. Alora got Lavender a set of golden bracelets, Lavender got Hermione and gave her a cute book, Parvati got Alora and gave her a butterfly hair decoration to match her own, and lastly Hermione got Parvati and gave her a perfume.
She also got other presents from that, which where just as thrilling -- a whole set of Muggle fairytales from Hermione, a box of sweets from Hagrid, a set of lilac bracelets and an attached letter from Sirius, Ron had gotten her something to do with hairstyles with an attached note saying that Ginny helped, a lilac ring from Harry, and more from her aunt, uncle, Aria, Cedric and Odette.
She had also received the usual awaited 'A' jumper from Mrs Weasley, which was in her usual purple colour.
Hermione and Alora met up with Harry and Ron in the common room, they thanked the girls for their presents and vice versa. They headed down to breakfast together and then spent the pleasant morning in Gryffindor Tower, where everyone was enjoying their presents, they then returned to the Great Hall for lunch which included at least a hundred turkeys and Christmas pudding with large piles of Cribbages Wizarding Crackers.
Alora still hadn't told anyone about her Yule Ball 'date', she knew how people like Ron who had a grudge against Cedric would react, so she decided for everyone to know when the ball had started.
In the afternoon, they headed out into the grounds; the snow was untouched except for the deep channels made by the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students on their way up to the castle. Alora and Hermione, although wanting to join in on the snowball fight, decided to stay out of it, and get ready.
"What, you need three hours?" said Ron, looking at the both of them with a frown on his face, he then shrugged when the two of them waved goodbye and headed away, "who're you both going with?" he called, but they didn't answer.
Alora decided to invite Odette and Aria to get ready, even if Aria wasn't going she didn't want to exclude her from something so eventful, they all spaced out in her common room, Parvati put Alora's black hair into a half-up-half-down style, decorated in a light silver glitter and the butterfly she'd gifted her earlier.
"Lora, your hair is so pretty." she said when she straightened it out, "let me get my mirror," she hurried over to the bathroom, and took out the large mirror she kept, "do you like it? I think it looks great, it will suit your makeup."
Alora's face immediately fell into a soft smile, it was possibly the most beautiful she'd ever seen her hair before, it was a little wavy, but it was in a sturdy shape, the glitter looked like her hair was a dusted constellation in space. "Thank you," she grinned.
Next, Lavender and Aria did her makeup for her, they placed a light lilac eyeshadow over her eyelids, a pink blush that dusted over her cheekbones, her lips were glossed over in Lavender's everlasting lip-gloss, they had given her mascara and light silver highlighter. She had silver earrings shaped like a bright star, that shone above all others. And, how could she forget her lion emblem?
"Take a look," Aria said to her sister when they were done, she looked at herself, and for a moment did a double take, growing up her aunt had always told her she was beautiful, many others had too, but, did she really believe them? No, because she knew that people saw her differently, they never saw her for herself. But her father, but now, at this moment, she finally saw. She finally saw herself.
"Oh, Lora, you're gorgeous!" Hermione beamed, but she didn't look like Hermione at all, her hair was back and straight, her periwinkle dress held her up differently, Alora never saw her best friend as ugly, and tonight the school wouldn't either.
Alora was the last of her friends to head over to the Entrance Hall, as she couldn't seem to find her other high heel, they offered to stay and help but it was almost eight o'clock and Alora didn't want her friends to miss something because of her.
"You guys go, I'll be there soon." she said, she and Aria spent the next few moments looking for the lilac high heel which they eventually found under her bed.
Out in the common room, was Harry, he was waiting at the foot of the stairs for Parvati but wanted to get a glimpse of Alora, as they got ready together and stayed in the same dorm, but when she came down, neither Hermione or Alora did with her.
"You -- er -- look nice," he said awkwardly.
"Thanks," Parvati said. "Padma's going to meet you in the Entrance Hall," she added to Ron.
"Right," Ron looked around. "Where's Hermione?"
Parvati shrugged. "Shall we go down, Harry?"
"Ok," said Harry, feeling rather awkward, he wished nothing more than to skip the night and stay in the common room, he looked around to Fred who gave him a small wink as he walked out of the portrait hole, he assumed that Alora and her date, which he still didn't know of, were already down there.
The Entrance Hall was packed with dressed up students too, when Harry arrived down, he searched subtly for his best friend which still was no where in sight, "Uh, Parvati, do you know where Alora is?"
"She lost something, she should be here in a minute."
Harry was searching the room, he wanted to get used to the atmosphere, maybe with a bonus of finding a unaccompanied boy who could be her possible date, he gave up however, after seeing quite a few without girls by their side.
"Woah," he heard Dean's voice, he was looking at the stairs, it was like the Hall had hushed into an unplanned silence, Harry turned to see what it was so jaw-dropping, and understood, it was Alora.
Her black hair was brushed out of her face, and looked like a grasp of the night sky filled with all the stars, the most beautiful and bright ones. Her hazel eyes shone with her lilac makeup, her cheeks were shimmering, her earrings fell to her sides like the perfect final touch, her dress fit her small figure beautifully, it fell to her ankles, which were being held up by her heels, on her neck was the lilac 'A' necklace, -- Harry's jaw dropped. He'd never laid his eyes on someone so beautiful.
"Bloody hell,"
"I want to be her date,"
"We know, Alexander, we know that."
Alora felt a little awkward walking down the stairs, as she felt like every eye was fixated on her, and frankly the only thing that was going through her mind was to not fall over. She looked over to Cedric who was waiting for her near Harry, who was staring at her like she was the only person on earth.
Alora walked over to Cedric, "You look great, Lora!" he smiled, she looked around, there were several girls looking at her irritably, and several guys looking at Cedric with a dirty look on their face, one of them was Harry. Alora gave him a wave, which he returned.
"Champions, over here, please!" Professor McGonagall said, calling over all the champions and their partners.
"Hi, Fleur, you look amazing." Alora complemented the girl, she looked great indeed, her golden hair was flowing perfectly with her silvery dress that fell to her feet, she was accompanied by Rodger Davies, the Ravenclaw captain.
"Ooh, Alora! You look beautiful!" Fleur smiled, "I see Cedric likes 'you? I don't blame 'im."
"Oh, no -- well yes, not like that, he's like my brother, we're here as friends." Alora smiled.
"I love zat," the blonde girl smiled.
All the champions were in a huddle, the astonishing doors to the Great Hall opened and all the other guests headed inside, all looking in awe as they did, Alora saw Harry in the corner of her eye, he seemed to be looking at her, and not looking away. She made eye contact with Hermione, who was with Viktor Krum, she gave an excited wave.
"Hi, Harry!" she said. "Hi, Alora!"
Professor McGonagall instructed the champions to get in a line with their partners by their side, Harry and Parvati stood right behind Alora and Cedric. When they walked in, Alora had to try not to trip over her own dress, as she was looking up in awe of the decorations.
She made a brief eye-contact with everyone as she walked by, she waved over to Odette who was with Zacharias Smith and Everette who was with another Hufflepuff girl. Ron was looking over at Hermione and Krum with narrowed eyes, Padma looked around sulkily and Alora wanted nothing more than to invite her to join Cedric and herself.
Dumbledore smiled happily as all the champions approached the top table. Alora saw that there were varying looks of jealousy around the room.
"I think Potter wanted to take you, Lora." Cedric whispered over to her.
"If he really did, he would've asked me." she shrugged.
Cedric laughed, he took a moment to take in the scenery of the place, the Great Hall looked like a winter wonderland, nothing like any of the students had ever seen before. "I imagined they'd go all out, but this is insane."
"It reminds me of the Nutcracker." Alora eyed the charmed snow.
"The what?"
"Muggle thing, Hermione gave it to me for Christmas."
"Oh, right," Cedric laughed, "i know next to nothing about Muggles, but I'd like to know more about them, and it seems like you know a lot more about them, than I do."
"That's the good thing about having a Muggle-born as your best friend, Mione teaches me about everything, because at the beginning of the year, I didn't even know what a fellytone was!" Alora smiled proudly.
"What's a fellytone?" Cedric asked, rather intruiged.
"Oh -- I did it again, not a fellytone, a telephone." Alora said, "you can talk to your friends, or anyone you like across the country or world, about anything! Isn't that so cool, imagine I was back at my aunt and uncle's, and you were at your house, we could still talk."
"Let's try talking on the telephone, during summer then." Cedric nodded.
When all the food had been consumed, Dumbledore stood up and asked all the students to do the same. Then, with a wave of his wand, the tables zoomed back against the walls, leaving the floor clear and creating space for the dance, he conjured a raised platform into light, along with several instruments.
The Weird Sisters now trooped up onto stage to a wildly siastic applause; they were all extremely hairy, and were dressed in robes that had been artfully ripped and torn. They picked up instruments, Alora and Cedric stood up along with the rest of the champions and their partners.
"Just don't step on my foot, Lora." Cedric warned her playfully when they made their way over to the now dancefloor.
"How about, I push you into the other students instead?"
"Much better,"
The dancing went well, Alora both didn't step on Cedric's feet or end up pushing him into a group of other students, they were both happy going with the other but kept stealing side glances at other people, Alora's eyeline was heading over to Harry and Parvati, whilst Cedric's was trailing across to Cho and her partner.
Soon, everyone else began to join in, including Neville and Ginny, who kept wincing every ten seconds because Neville kept stepping on her feet, Alora saw that Cho wasn't dancing, and that her partner was nowhere to be seen.
"Cedric -- stay here, I need to do something!" Alora said, and left the dancefloor, she started walking over to Cho, who looked sulky, unlike the happy airy look on her face when she arrived not too long ago.
"Hi," Alora said awkwardly, they'd never had a proper conversation.
"Hello, Alora." she gave a small smile.
"I was uh -- dancing, then saw that you didn't have a partner with you, and I wanted to ask if you were okay, because I don't want your night to be ruined because of a guy." she waffled.
"I'm okay, my partner is off somewhere, he kept looking at Charlotte Elrod from my year, they used to go out, and I'm pretty sure the only reason he asked me was as a last resort. Oh, look, there they are." Cho irritably pointed at the dancefloor.
"Cho, come and dance with me and Cedric." Alora said abruptly holding out her hand.
"I don't want to interrupt--"
"Come on," Alora laughed, she dragged Cho from her seat and took over to Cedric, "Cedric, Cho's partner is being a real arsehead, I need to go and find Hermione, you guys can dance, have fun."
Alora walked away, she looked back to find Cho and Cedric a little awkwardly laughing, she smiled to herself and headed over to Ron and Harry, who looked like they'd rather pitch themself off the Astronomy Tower than be in the room.
"Hi guys," Alora walked over, she sat in an empty seat and got a nod from Ron who was staring in Hermione's direction, and an awkward smile from Harry, "you two look like you're having fun."
"Yeah, so much fun." Ron huffed.
Hermione walked over, and sat in an empty chair. She was a bit pink from all the dancing.
"Hi, Mione." Alora smiled , she was happy that her best friend was having fun, Harry muttered a small 'Hi' but Ron stayed silent, Alora nudged him ever so slightly.
"It's hot, isn't it?" said Hermione, fanning herself with her hand. "Viktor's just gone to get some drinks."
Ron gave her a withering look, "Viktor?" he said. "Hasn't he asked you to call him Vicky yet?"
Hermione looked up at him in surprise, "What's up with you?"
"If you don't know," said Ron scathingly, "I'm not going to tell you." Hermione stared at him with furrowed brows, she looked over to Harry and Alora who both said something along the lines of 'Ron, what--?'
"He's from Durmstrang!" Ron spat. "He's competing against Harry! Against Hogwarts! You too Alora, going with his opponent -- you -- you're fraternising with the enemy, that's what you're doing!"
"Don't bring me into your hissy fit, Ron." Alora said, irritably crossing her arms over her chest. Hermione's mouth was wide open.
"Don't be so stupid!" she said after a moment. "The 'enemy'! Honestly -- who was the one who was all excited when they saw him arrive? Who was the one who wanted his autograph? Who's got a model of him up in their dormitory?"
Ron chose to ignore this. "I s'pose he asked you to come with him while you both were in the library?"
"Yes, he did," Hermione said, the pink patches on her cheeks shone more brightly. "So what?"
"What happened -- trying to get him to join spew, were you?"
"No, I wasn't! If you really want to know, he -- he said he'd been coming up to the library every day to try and talk to me, but he hadn't been able to pluck up the courage!"
Hermione said this very quickly, and blushed the same colour as Parvati's robes, Alora was getting mad at Ron, this was supposed to be her night, what was so hard for him to understand?
"Yeah, well -- that's his story." said Ron nastily.
"Lay off, Ron." Alora snapped.
"What's that supposed to mean, Ron?" Hermione continued.
"Obvious, isn't it? He's Karkaroff's student, isn't he? He knows who you hang around with...he's just trying to get closer to Harry -- get inside information on him -- or get near enough to jinx him--"
Hermione looked as though Ron had slapped her. When she spoke her voice quivered, she looked clearly angry. "For your information, he hasn't asked me one single thing about Harry, not one--"
Ron changed his tack speedily. "Then he's hoping you'll help him find out what his egg means! I suppose you've been putting your heads together during those cosy little library sessions--"
"I'd never help him work out that egg!" said Hermione, looking outraged at the red-haired boy. "Never. How could you say something like that -- I want Harry to win the Tournament. Harry knows that, don't you Harry?"
"You've got a funny way of showing it," sneered Ron.
"This whole Tournament's supposed to be about getting to know foreign wizards and making friends with them!" Hermione said shrilly.
"No, it isn't!" shouted Ron. "It's about winning!"
People were starting to stare at them.
"Ron," spoke Harry quietly, "I haven't got a problem with Hermione coming with Krum--"
Ron chose to ignore Harry too, "Why don't you go and find Vicky, he'll be wondering where you are," Ron said again.
"Don't call him Vicky!" Hermione jumped to her feet, and stormed off across the dance floor, disappearing into the crowd, Ron looked after her with a mixture of annoyance and satisfaction painted across his face.
"I don't know what you look so smug about, let her have one night to herself for once, will you?" Alora furrowed her brows, Ron turned to look at her.
"Why don't you go back to your partner, also one of Harry's competitors?"
Harry thought he was crossing the line a bit there, "Hey Ron, stop--"
"Ron, say one bad thing about Cedric I will throw that pumpkin juice in your face," Alora pointed over at the full goblet beside Padma who looked sulky, "Padma, come with me, I'll dance with you."
She grabbed the girls hand and dragged her back to the dance floor muttering a quick and short 'sorry' when she realise the anger fuelled inside her was making her drag Padma a little too aggressively.
Alora spent the night dancing with Padma, Cho and Cedric, they were eventually joined by Parvati, alongside Hermione and Krum. It was more fun, even if eventful than she could ever imagine, it's strange, how quickly you can bond with someone despite barley knowing them.
After they came to a mutual agreement that it was time to leave, they headed back into the Entrance Hall, barley anyone was out anymore, it was late, very late. Alora walked next to Cho and Cedric, unexpectedly Cedric called, "Hey -- Harry!"
"Yeah?" Harry said rather coldly, he looked at Alora and back at him, there was a pin of spite lingering in a deep abyss in his chest.
"Listen..." Cedric lowered his voice as Ron cleared from view, "I owe you one for telling me about the dragons. You know, that golden egg? Does yours wail when you open it?"
"Yeah,"
"Well...take a bath, ok?"
"What?" Harry questioned.
"Take a bath, and -- er -- take the egg with you, and -- er -- just mull things over in the hot water. It'll help you think...trust me."
Harry stared.
"Tell you what," Cedric said, "use the Prefects' bathroom. Fourth door to the left of that statue Boris the Bewildered on the fifth floor. Password's Pine-fresh. Gotta go...want to say goodnight--" he grinned.
"Goodnight, Harry." Alora smiled.
"Night, Lora." Harry smiled back, he felt a fluttering of butterflies swarm his stomach, and made his way up the stairs once more, Alora turned around and walked back to Cho and Cedric.
"I should go, this was really, very fun, thank you." Cho smiled.
"Cho, do you want to come back to my dorm, me and the girls were gonna talk, and have a bit of a sleepover, if you don't want to, that's okay, I was just wondering." Alora said.
"I'd love that, thank you, Alora." her eyes lit up.
"Cedric, do you want us to walk you back to your common room?" Alora said sarcastically, earning a laugh from the two, he nonetheless nodded, and let Cho and Alora walk back to Hufflepuff common room.
"Hey, Lora." he whispered over to his sister as they neared the common room, Alora nodded. "Thank you, truly, I wouldn't have had the night I did without you."
"That's what sisters are for," she nudged him, "we're here, now kiss her goodnight and I'll stand back and let you have your moment."
Cedric laughed, "Goodnight, Cho." he said giddily.
"Night, Cedric, tonight was great." she smiled, even though she was wearing light heels, she was still reasonably shorter than Cedric, she raised onto her tip-toes and planted a soft kiss on his cheek, making him go as red as Harry did the moment before the first task. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow," Cedric said whilst touching the side of his cheek, he turned around and ran into the common room.
"I think you broke him," Alora laughed.
"Thanks for letting me dance with you, and come back with you. You've been kinder to me than most of my friends really have," Cho gave the black haired girl a smile, they headed for Gryffindor tower, "I hope your friends are okay with it."
"They will be, don't worry, you've already met Parvati and Hermione, you'll love Lavender, she's so kind." Alora reassured her.
Alora and Cho went back to Gryffindor Tower, when arriving they had to wake up The Fat Lady and her friend Vi who seemed to be snoozing, it took a couple of attempts but they awoke them. They climbed into the common room, and found Ron and Hermione continuing their blazing argument from before, Harry stood awkwardly watching, he gave Alora 'the' nod when she saw them, only ten feet apart, each scarlet in the face.
"Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't you?" yelled Hermione; her hair was falling from it's elegant bun, her face was screwed up in anger.
"Oh, yeah?" Ron yelled back. "What's that?"
"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!"
Ron mouthed soundlessly like a goldfish out of water as Hermione turned on her heel and stormed up to the girls' dormitory. Ron turned to see Harry, Alora and Cho, who looked awfully confused.
"What happened?" Cho whispered into Alora's ear.
"I'll tell you upstairs, let's go." she grabbed the girls hand.
Alora and Cho walked in on a full dormitory, Hermione looked to be spilling what was happening with Parvati, and Lavender was brushing through Padma's now relaxed hair, they all turned to see Alora and smiled.
"I brought Cho with me,"
"Hi," Cho waved nervously.
"Hi, Cho!" Parvati patted on the bed, "you're going to have so much fun here, I love your hair by the way, did you do it yourself?" she was asking many questions at once, Cho gave a small laugh and nodded.
"Yeah, it took some time, but I was proud of it,"
"Let's get out of these dresses and have a pillow fight," Alora said, much to the agreement, they helped each other, by taking off each others makeup and brushing through one and others hair, as they told stories of how their night went.
The planned pillow fight was eventful, Alora wacked Hermione in the face with one when she snuck up behind her, for a moment she was worried, but burst into a fit of laughter when she saw that Hermione was doing that herself.
They all lay on the ground, unbeknownst to how they ended up there, painting each others nails from Lavender's stash of mood changing nail polish.
"Alexander Smith, what do you rate him out of ten?" Padma asked Hermione.
"Three,"
"HUH?" Lavender said, "have you seen him? He's very good-looking."
"He's also a creep, he asked me to the ball like five times, I was even advised to stay away from him by Cedric, apparently, according to him, I'm all he talks about." Alora said, shuddering at the thought.
"Yeah, I can see why you called him a three, Hermione. " Lavender said, "but, I don't blame him, you're very pretty, Alora."
"I could say the same thing about you,"
As the night drew further into the morning, the girls resorted from the floor to the beds, Padma stayed on her twins bed, and Cho stayed on Alora's, the next part of the night was about ghost stories, and perhaps the most strange topics that could come to their tired minds.
"Do you ever think about the fact that your favourite Quidditch player could be doing the strangest thing right now? Who knows, they could be trying on their two year old clothes that are two sizes too small for them right now." Alora muttered in-between a yawn at two in the morning.
"I think about that a lot, actually." Cho mumbled half-asleep.
The rest of the girls had fallen asleep, and soon Cho and Alora did too, their hair combed by the other and faces a few feet apart, a few hours ago these girls hadn't spoken a word to the other, and were merely Quidditch rivals, but now, it was like they'd been best friends their whole life.
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— WQEASLEYY
This is just the start of
Alora and Cho's friendship <3
Alora — matchmaker — Black 😉
Pleaseee comment for motivation purposes :)
Qotd: Which celebrity would you choose to be your best friend?
Me: I think that Jennifer Lawrence would be SUCH a good friend, she just seems so funny and down to earth!
I love you! See you next chapter<3