 socks," said Ron, who had gone slightly pink around the ears,
though he looked rather pleased all the same. "Wow, Harry -" He had just opened
Harry's present, a Chudley Cannon hat. "Cool!" He jammed it onto his head,
where it clashed horribly with his hair.
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Dobby now handed Harry a small package, which turned out to be - socks.
"Dobby is making them himself, sir!" the elf said happily. "He is buying the wool
out of his wages, sir!"
The left sock was bright red and had a pattern of broomsticks upon it; the right
sock was green with a pattern of Snitches.
"They're . . . they're really . . . well, thanks, Dobby," said Harry, and he pulled
them on, causing Dobby's eyes to leak with happiness again.
"Dobby must go now, sir, we is already making Christmas dinner in the kitchens!"
said Dobby, and he hurried out of the dormitory, waving good-bye to Ron and the
others as he passed.
Harry's other presents were much more satisfactory than Dobby's odd socks - with
the obvious exception of the Dursleys', which consisted of a single tissue, an alltime
low - Harry supposed they too were remember ing the Ton-Tongue Toffee.
Hermione had given Harry a book called Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland;
Ron, a bulging bag of Dungbombs; Sirius, a handy penknife with attachments to
unlock any lock and undo any knot; and Hagrid, a vast box of sweets including all
Harrys favorites: Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Drooble's
Best Blowing Gum, and Fizzing Whizbees. There was also, of course, Mrs.
Weasley's usual package, including a new sweater (green, with a picture of a
dragon on it - Harry supposed Charlie had told her all about the Horntail), and a
large quantity of homemade mince pies.
Harry and Ron met up with Hermione in the common room, and they went down
to breakfast together. They spent most of the morning in Gryffindor Tower, where
everyone was enjoying their presents, then returned to the Great Hall for a
magnificent lunch, which included at least a hundred turkeys and Christmas
puddings, and large piles of Cribbage's Wizarding Crackers.
They went out onto the grounds in the afternoon; the snow was untouched except
for the deep channels made by the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students on their
way up to the castle. Hermione chose to watch Harry and the Weasleys' snowball
fight rather than join in, and at five o'clock said she was going back upstairs to get
ready for the ball.
"What, you need three hours?" said Ron, looking at her incredulously and paying
for his lapse in concentration when a large snowball, thrown by George, hit him
hard on the side of the head. "Who're you going with?" he yelled after Hermione,
but she just waved and disappeared up the stone steps into the castle.
There was no Christmas tea today, as the ball included a feast, so at seven o'clock,
when it had become hard to aim properly, the others abandoned their snowball
fight and trooped back to the common room. The Fat Lady was sitting in her frame
with her friend Violet from downstairs, both of them extremely tipsy, empty boxes
of chocolate liqueurs littering the bottom other picture.
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"Lairy fights, that's the one!" she giggled when they gave the password, and she
swung forward to let them inside.
Harry, Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville changed into their dress robes up in their
dormitory, all of them looking very self-conscious, but none as much as Ron, who
surveyed himself in the long mirror in the corner with an appalled look on his face.
There was just no getting around the fact that his robes looked more like a dress
than anything else. In a desperate attempt to make them look more manly, he used
a Severing Charm on the ruff and cuffs. It worked fairly well; at least he was now
lace-free, although he hadn't done a very neat job, and the edges still looked
depressingly frayed as the boys set off downstairs.
"I still can't work out how you two got the best-looking girls in the year," muttered
Dean.
"Animal magnetism," said Ron gloomily, pulling stray threads out of his cuffs.
The common room looked strange, full of people wearing different colors instead
of the usual mass of black. Parvati was waiting for Harry at the foot of the stairs.
She looked very pretty indeed, in robes of shocking pink, with her long dark plait
braided with gold, and gold bracelets glimmering at her wrists. Harry was relieved
to see that she wasn't giggling.
"You - er - look nice," he said awkwardly.
"Thanks," she said. "Padma's going to meet you in the entrance hall," she added to
Ron.
"Right," said Ron, looking around. "Where's Hermione?"
Parvati shrugged. "Shall we go down then, Harry?"
"Okay," said Harry, wishing he could just stay in the common room. Fred winked
at Harry as he passed him on the way out of the portrait hole.
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. Parvati found her sister, Padma, and led her over
to Harry and Ron.
"Hi," said Padma, who was looking just as pretty as Parvati in robes of bright
turquoise. She didn't look too enthusiastic about having Ron as a partner, though;
her dark eyes lingered on the frayed neck and sleeves of his dress robes as she
looked him up and down.
"Hi," said Ron, not looking at her, but staring around at the crowd. "Oh no ..."
He bent his knees slightly to hide behind Harry, because Fleur Delacour was
passing, looking stunning in robes of silver-gray satin, and accompanied by the
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Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, Roger Davies. When they had disappeared, Ron
stood straight again and stared over the heads of the crowd.
"Where is Hermione?" he said again.
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 Harry's 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, Harry
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 Harry didn't know. Over their heads he
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 Father Christmas and his reindeer.
Then Professor McGonagall's voice called, "Champions over here, please!"
Parvati readjusted her bangles, beaming; she and Harry said, "See you in a minute"
to Ron and Padma and walked forward, the chattering crowd parting to let them
through. Professor McGonagall, who was wearing dress robes of red tartan and
had arranged a rather ugly wreath of thistles around the brim other hat, told them
to wait on one side of the doors while everyone else went inside; they 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 so he wouldn't have to talk to them. His eyes fell instead on the
girl next to Krum. His jaw dropped.
It was Hermione.
But she didn't look like Hermione at all. 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, it was true - but the reduction in the size
of her front teeth was more noticeable than ever; Harry couldn't understand how
he hadn't spotted it before.
"Hi, Harry!" she said. "Hi, Parvati!"
Parvati was gazing at Hermione in unflattering disbelief. She wasn't the only one
either; when the doors to the Great Hall opened, Krum's fan club from the library
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stalked past, throwing Hermione looks of deepest loathing. Pansy Parkinson gaped
at her as she walked by with Malfoy, and even he didn't seem to be able to find an
insult to throw at her. Ron, however, walked right past Hermione without looking
at her.
Once everyone else was settled in the Hall, Professor McGonagall told the
champions and their partners to get in line in pairs and to follow her. They did so,
and everyone in the Great Hall applauded as they entered and started walking up
toward a large round table at the top of the Hall, where the judges were sitting.
The walls of the Hall had all been covered in sparkling silver frost, with hundreds
of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossing the starry black ceiling. The House tables
had vanished; instead, there were about a hundred smaller, lantern-lit ones, each
seating about a dozen people.
Harry concentrated on not tripping over his feet. Parvati seemed to be enjoying
herself; she was beaming around at everybody, steering Harry so forcefully that he
felt as though he were a show dog she was putting through its paces. He caught
sight of Ron and Padma as he neared the top table. Ron was watching Hermione
pass with narrowed eyes. Padma was looking sulky.
Dumbledore smiled happily as the champions approached the top table, but
Karkaroff wore an expression remarkably like Ron'