Ginny was in the Ravenclaw common room and everyone was cheering her and celebrating her winning the first task. Preston and his groupies were sitting in the corner, looking sour at the whole event. But everyone else was having fun.

Ginny was a little lightheaded from all the attention on her. She was used to people having curious interest in her. Wondering about her memories or what had happened with Lupin, the thestrals… But after a few weeks people had calmed down a bit and just ignored her again, her being more of a witness to things that had happened rather than a person of interest herself.

But now people were interested in her as a celebrity. Asking what kinds of things she liked, talking up how well she had done on the first talk, bad mouthing Eric and the other champions… It was so different to what she was used to.

“Open it!” Jack suddenly said, “Open the egg, Ginny!”

“Yeah, open it!”

“Open it!”

The crowd joined in and suddenly Ginny was in the center of the group with everyone in a circle staring at her. Ginny raised the golden egg and clicked the button on the top. The metallic egg clicked and the enchantment inside shifted. The outside of the egg folded outwards like the petals of a golden flower with the base remained in Ginny’s hands. There was a tube filled with orange fluid bubbling along the center of the egg.

“SSSSSHHHHHHHHHRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!” The egg wailed in a piercing tone causing everyone to swear and hold their ears.

“Turn it off, turn it off!”

Ginny fumbled with the egg and pressed the button multiple times. The enchantment and metal flaps kept folding in and out as she pressed the button over and over to try to get it to stop.

Jack ran forward. “Get off, Stop!” He shouted through the demented wails coming from the egg. Ginny stopped as Jack grabbed her hands. He pressed the button one more time and the egg flaps closed. Jack let out a sigh of relief and everyone took their hands off of their ears. Ginny started to feel herself flush and her neck to grow hot. Jack looked at her in confusion.

“What?”

He looked down and saw that he was still holding her hands.

“Oh! Sorry,” Jack said suddenly becoming flustered, ”Uhm, sorry didn’t mean to grab you. That’s uhm. Er, the egg? I should give you the egg.”

He stooped over and picked it up and handed it over to Ginny who was blinking.

“Uhm, uh. Thanks, Jack. That’s…”

“Alright everyone!” Preston suddenly said standing up, “Party’s over! Everyone back to bed. It’s already past curfew.”

There were some rebellious mutterings, even from the girl Ravenclaw Prefect, but after a few seconds people started going to bed.

“Uhm, night Jack,” Ginny said while adjusting her grip on the egg.

“Night, Ginny. See you tomorrow.”

Ginny went to bed, carefully placing the golden egg onto the floor next to her. As she lay there in bed, she felt her hands tingling a little. Jack probably didn’t even mean anything by it anyway…

— — —

It was the first week of December, but luckily Hogwarts had some weather controlling wards so the chill never grew too terrible. It was spotty, with whole weeks sometimes that it would fail before it would be repaired again. But when it worked, it worked to keep it from snowing and the air on the grounds chilled but not freezing.

Luckily all three of them had worked hard on learning some heating spells that they could cast on themselves. So while the water of the great lake was still ice cold, it only felt a little chilled as they swam, the charms keeping them comfortable.

Ginny had been trying to figure out the clue of the Golden egg for weeks now and felt no closer than before. She had even spent an hour or two just sitting in an abandoned classroom and listening to the egg scream. But it didn’t mean anything to her, it just gave her a headache.

Nothing was hidden over its whole surface or even the inside of it. She had scoured the whole thing with her eyes and magic sense and could tell that there weren’t any more hidden layers or compartments. It really was just the orange tube of liquid that made the screaming sounds and the enchantment that opened and closed the golden egg. There was also a sound canceling enchantment along the interior of the golden egg’s flaps. Yeah, apparently that little tube of fluid was shrieking and squealing constantly and it was only the golden egg’s enchantments that was stopping them from hearing it.

“Maybe you have to play with it? To calm down the angry orange fluid?” Alexa had supplied four days ago. Jack and Ginny had been skeptical, but after a few minutes of defending herself from their teasing, Alexa slowly turned them around to the idea. It wasn’t like Ginny had any other big ideas on how to solve the puzzle.

So, over the last three days Ginny had been bringing the golden egg around with her and cradling it like it was a baby. It was a little bulky for class, but she still went through with it. She felt stupid, but until she could come up with a better idea of what to do she decided that she should at least give it a try.

It was the morning and they had all taken off their Hogwarts robes and were in their bathing suits.

“You should try to swim with it,” Alexa joked, “Maybe it’ll like the water.”

Ginny stared down at the thing before hefting it and starting to walk into the lake. She yelped as soon as she took a single step into the water and dropped the golden egg with a splash.

“Agh! Cold, cold!”

She had forgotten to cast the heating charm on herself. Ginny ran back to her clothes and picked up her wand and cast the charm on herself as her feet felt ice cold from touching the water for even a couple of seconds.

“Oh no! The poor egg is drowning!” Jack said, “We’ve got to save it or you’ll never get its approval!”

Jack and Alexa quickly cast their heating charms and then ran with Ginny towards the edge of the water where the egg sat submerged and glittering gold.

Ginny scooped it up and experimentally dipped her feet in the water again. Slightly chilly, but not ice cold anymore. Ah, this was the best charm she’d ever learned…

The three of them went in the water, Ginny still carrying the egg. She suddenly felt movement in the water, all of them submerged up to their belly buttons now.

Ginny turned to see Alexa holding the golden egg, having just swiped it out from between Ginny’s arms.

“Oh nooooo,” Alexa said in a high pitched voice as she wiggled the golden egg from side to side on top of the water., “Save me, Ginny! I’m Droooowwwwwwnnnnnninnnnnnnnnngggg.”

Alexa waved the egg from side to side and slowly submerged it as she spoke.

When it was fully submerged Alexa pressed the button on the top of it.

“Ginny, I’m drowning! Aaaaahhhhhh, Glub glub glub,” Alexa said as she waved the egg around underwater and its golden petals unfolded as she pressed the button on its top.

“I’ll save you, Ms. Egg!” Ginny said as she waded through the water towards Alexa who was giggling and walking away through the water to escape, “You’ll be out of the foul clutches of the evil thief Alexa!”

Alexa stopped her escape after a few seconds and suddenly looked down confused. “Hey, shouldn’t this guy be screaming his little lungs out? I thought it would be more dramatic than this.”

Ginny caught up to Alexa and stood next to her in the water. A few seconds later Jack joined them and they all stared at the golden egg with the orange cylinder of fluid exposed. There was a faint humming that sounded from the egg, but Alexa was right. Something was strange.

Alexa raised the golden egg out of the water and as soon as the smallest bit of the orange tube was exposed to the air it started screaming and wailing again. Alexa quickly lowered it back into the water again.

“Huh. He likes water I guess,” she said.

“Let’s dive in, maybe it sounds different now that it’s covered in water,” Jack said.

Without waiting, Alexa dived forward to fully splash into the water with Ginny and Jack following after her a few seconds later.

As soon as Ginny’s head dipped underneath the water, she heard a beautiful voice of a woman singing. Her voice reverberated through the water as Ginny listened, entranced to the voice, holding her breath. She didn’t even fully listen to the words until the woman sang a second time in her melodious voice.

“Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you're searching, ponder this:

We've taken what you'll sorely miss,

An hour long you'll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour — the prospect's black,

Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.”

Ginny’s lungs finally started to burn and she stood up, the water now up to her chest where they stood. A second later Alexa and Jack emerged from the lake in a spray of water too.

“Wow, who do you think that was? Do you think we’ll be able to meet whoever sang that?” Alexa asked excitedly.

“I guess the egg really does like the water,” Jack said, “Can we listen to her again? I’ve never heard anyone sing like that, not even the big time people on the radio.”

“Yeah, let’s listen again!” Ginny said, “Ms. Egg can survive under there for a little longer.”

“Yeah, Ms. Egg!” Alexa said excitedly, “Just a few more minutes, she can hold her breath for a little longer.”

They all dived back under the water again and listened to the beautiful voice again, not even listening to the riddle that she kept singing over and over again.

They ran out of breath again and surfaced.

“Here, let me try something,” Ginny said, “Just let me get my wand first. Just stay right here.”

She waded back to shore as she was Alexa and Jack duck under the water again. She emerged from the water dripping and carefully reached out to pluck her wand from her robes so she wouldn’t get them wet. She remembered that bubble head charm that Olivia had taught her over the summer. She had fun with it in the beginning of the year to impress Jack and Alexa, but hadn’t used it much since the novelty of it past the first week or two wore off.

Ginny cast the charm on herself and sensed the spherical spell snap into place over her head. It looked exactly like a bubble. Everything was warped and slightly wobbly in her vision as she moved back to the lake. She aimed carefully with her wand when Alexa and Jack emerged from the water again. With a quick cast she shot a bolt of the charm towards Alexa and nailed her between the shoulders before hitting Jack next.

Both of them stiffened as the bubble head charm washed over them before relaxing when it formed the bubbles of air around their heads. Ginny tossed her wand back on top of her robes and returned to the water.

The three of them ducked under the water again and each of them had little bubbles of air around their heads that were kept nice and fresh by the bubble head charm.

Ginny listened, but all she heard was the same buzzing hum as before as if listening to it from the surface. Oh well…

They all went to the surface again.

“Man, that stinks,” Alexa said in disappointment, “I guess we’ve listened to it enough for now. I’ll just…”

Alexa raised the golden egg and it slightly breached the surface and started wailing again.

“Ah! Oh, she likes the water,” Alexa said as she quickly submerged it again, “It’s like my little brother throwing a tantrum when he doesn’t get sweets.”

She pressed the button and closed it up again and carefully lifted it out of the water again. It didn’t make a noise this time.

“What do you think the riddle meant?” Jack asked as they walked to the shore, “I got part of it, but what do you think is the thing that the water people would be taking? Mermaids? Mermen? I thought I heard of someone talking about half fish people living in the great lake.”

“I don’t know,” Ginny said thoughtfully as they walked out of the water and onto the shore. Ginny accepted the golden egg from Alexa and carefully put it down next to her robes, “It could be anything really. Are they going to steal the golden eggs somehow? They’re made of gold, they must be pretty valuable I’d assume.”

“Maybe,” Jack allowed, “That doesn’t feel right though. Why have you steal the egg from the dragon just to have you go retrieve it again from someone else? Seems repetitive.”

“Still, that makes the most sense to me,” Ginny said.

Jack and Ginny debated on what the riddle could be for a few minutes, until Ginny suddenly noticed that Alexa hadn’t joined them. Ginny broke off the conversation to see Alexa staring at the two of them with the strangest look on her face.

“Alexa?” Ginny asked, “Are you okay? What do you think?”

Alexa shook her head, “Yeah, fine. I dunno. You guys said most of it already. I’m just the dumb Gryffindor over here…”

“You’re not dumb!” Ginny said, “We’d have never figured out the riddle without you trying to drown poor Ms. Egg first! And you’re nearly as good at classes as we are. It's not like any of us are first in class even if we're all doing pretty well for our grades.”

“Yeah, and you solve Amvatroz’s riddles by yourself every time,” Jack added, “You’re basically an honorary Ravenclaw by now despite Preston always being such a sourpuss about it.”

“Amvatroz always makes the riddles easy for me because he thinks Gryffindors are all dumb…” Alexa muttered.

“That’s not true,” Ginny said firmly, causing Alexa to look up in surprise, “He was in the beginning, but haven’t you noticed how he doesn’t call you ‘Gryffindor’ anymore? He considers you an honorary Ravenclaw too. He doesn’t bother learning the names of people who aren’t in Ravenclaw house, but he knows yours and likes you more than most people.”

Alexa perked up and smiled slightly, “Right. He did tell me that last month. Is that really true for the names? He only remembers the Ravenclaws?”

“That’s what he told me,” Ginny said, “Really. I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. Plus we could still be friends if you were dumb as a rock.”

“Yeah, we’re war buddies,” Jack said to support Ginny’s statement, “Houses don’t matter, remember? It’s just a ploy from the teachers to distract us from Binns’ horrible classes. You told us that.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Huh. I did,” Alexa said as if only just remembering, “I don’t know, I’m not bullied anymore or anything. Eric’s always his creepy self going around bothering people, but he leaves me alone mostly. Fred and George stop the older years from being bullies. I’ve got some friends in Gryffindor. But sometimes I wish that I’d just been sorted into Ravenclaw. It would make things so much easier.”

“We should go hang out in the Gryffindor common room for once,” Ginny decided.

“Huh? What?” Alexa said, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, you’ve been coming to us every time, right? Going up to Ravenclaw tower after giving us that first tour of your common room. We should go to you sometimes. Make it more even.”

“Well, I don’t know…” Alexa hedged.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Jack said, “Maybe we won’t have to deal with Preston glowering all the time at us when we see him.”

“Well, I’m… Okay. Thanks, guys. Let’s ah… Let’s go swim,” Alexa said awkwardly before turning and fleeing into the water and starting to swim in the lake with her head down.

Ginny and Jack shared a look, “Time for laps,” Jack said, “Alexa’s orders.”

They went in the water and both swam after Alexa to catch up.

— — —

To Ginny and apparently also Alexa’s surprise, spending some time in the Gryffindor common room as a group didn’t cause some massive incident. A few people wandered over to try to ask Ginny questions about the first task, but Fred and George quickly shooed them off when they started becoming annoying.

Eric spotted them, but just ignored the three of them and moved onwards without talking to them. He was still upset about the second article that Rita had written. This one praised Ginny even more while framing Eric as some villain getting served his comeuppance after failing at the first task. Something probably even more true than the woman even knew.

Not that Ginny was anywhere near getting her unspecified revenge on Eric for Harry at the moment. Eric was up to hundreds of magic tendrils while Ginny was still barely even pushing thirty maximum despite all her training in Teregatt.

Eric had been in Teregatt for one hundred and twenty earth years roughly. With the uncertain passage of time in Teregatt, who knew how much time he had spent there subjectively. Balthazar seemed to think that Teregatt usually averaged out with much less time passing on Earth than did there when Ginny had asked him to guess. So even if it was only double on average… She thought it was probably more than that based on her slow cycle reaching a time dilation factor into the thousands or even more without her knowing.

But one hundred and twenty earth years of training could be a thousand years or more of training at his magic for Eric.

But Balthazar told her that she was talented at this kind of telekinetic magic, so she was sure that in a few years she might be able to match Eric at least. And learn other things too once Balthazar proclaimed her ready for it. He’d come into Teregatt to do a check on her magical abilities after Azkaban was fully warded, so Ginny hoped that it would be then based on her improvements in her abilities so far.

Moral of the story was, she had to be patient and not fight Eric until she was ready. He still didn’t know that she was training in Teregatt and what had really happened with Harry. So long as it stayed that way he shouldn’t feel threatened by Ginny until she’d already trained enough to defend herself from him. Him avoiding her was probably the best outcome actually at the moment, even if it had Ginny worrying slightly about what he might be planning.

Alexa seemed to have her spirits raised by them visiting her at the Gryffindor common room as a show of support. Things were going well, Ginny hadn’t even realized that Alexa had even felt that way before. Ginny never thought of Alexa as less intelligent because she was in Gryffindor, and she was sure Jack didn’t either.

— — —

“Ms. Weasley? Can you stay behind for a moment?” Flitwick said. She gathered her books and waited as the charms classroom emptied, leaving her alone with the half-goblin teacher.

“Ms. Weasley,” Flitwick said, “Have you prepared for yourself for the Yule ball just before christmas break?”

“The Yule ball?” Ginny asked, “Isn’t that only for fourth years and older?”

“And the triwizarding champions,” Flitwick said, “Including you. And your date, whoever that may be.”

“Date? What do you mean?” Ginny asked.

“It’s tradition that triwizarding champions are accompanied by a partner for the first dance. Their dance starts off the whole event by tradition. We’ll put you in the lessons with the older years along with whoever you pick. They’ll be practicing the traditional dances for the next month or so after classes, as will you.”

“I have to pick a boy to go to the big dance with me? We’ll dance together in front of the whole school?” Ginny squeaked, her stress suddenly skyrocketing. Oh no!

“Yes, just for the single dance and then you can flee to the snack tables if you want to,” Flitwick said with some amusement as he saw her begin to panic and fidget in place.

“Well, that’s all,” Flitwick said, “Try to find someone within the next week or two. We want to give you some time to practice your steps with them before you do it at the main event.”

“Yes! Uhm, er… boys.” Ginny said intelligently before picking up her school bag and fleeing the room as quickly as she could. Jack was standing just outside in the hallway waiting for her.

“What was that about?” He asked casually.

“Nothing! I’m fine, let’s… we’ll be late for our next class, let’s go!” Ginny flailed and quickly began walking off before Jack could respond. He followed after her a few seconds later and jogged to catch up. She kept sneaking glances at Jack as classes went onwards and could barely focus on the teachers.

Finally classes were over, and Ginny and Jack were alone in the hallways walking back to the common room. Ginny looked over at Jack who was shooting her suspicious looks.

“Hey, Jack!” Ginny said suddenly and he turned to look at her.

He kept staring at her as she tried to make her lips make the words, but the stupid things just wouldn’t do it.

“Yeah, Ginny?” He eventually asked.

“What did you think about the potion’s homework?” She let out in one long burst of words without taking a breath.

“Huh? Uh, I don’t know. It was a pain looking up the interactions of the properties with the Newt’s tongue…”

Ginny relaxed slightly as the conversation moved onwards to less stressful topics.

— — —

It was the next morning, and they had just finished their run around the castle and had taken sips of the muscle healing potion. They were all walking back up to the castle.

Alexa and Jack were talking to each other, but Ginny was hardly paying attention to them, too busy siking herself up to reveal the news, “I’ve got to go to the Yule ball before christmas and I’ve got to find a date and dance with them in front of everybody!”

She suddenly burst out, completely interrupting whatever it was that Alexa was saying to Jack. The two of them stared at her in shock for a few moments.

“Is that what Flitwick wanted to talk to you about yesterday?” Jack asked, “Isn’t it only fourth years and up going?”

“And triwizarding champions,” Ginny said, “Ahhh. I’ve been practically pulling out my hair worrying about it ever since he told me.”

“Who are you going to ask?” Alexa asked, “It’s in a month right? How long do you have?”

Ginny glanced at Jack and opened her mouth before closing it again, “Two weeks,” She said, “He said I should try to find somebody in the next week or two so we could practice together for the traditional dances.”

“You… Any idea of who you’re going to ask?” Jack asked cautiously.

“No, not yet.”

— — —

Jack and Ginny were walking back to their common room after spending some time hanging out with Alexa at the Gryffindor common room. It had been five days and Ginny and Jack were dancing around eggshells with each other. It was probably just because Ginny was acting so weird, all of Jack’s nervous looks at her must have just been him making sure that she was okay…

Suddenly Ginny stopped walking in the empty hallway and decided. She had done so many things, and this was what was causing her to spiral into a panic! No way! She’d just ask him and get it over with. He’d say no, and she could just know that he just wanted to be friends.

Jack stopped walking and looked at her.

“JackwouldyouliketogototheYuleballwithme?” Ginny said all at once.

“What?”

“The Yule ball?” Ginny repeated, “Do you want to go with me? As a… as my date? To the dance? It’s okay if you don’t want to, it’s just…”

“Yes!” Jack said hurriedly, “Let’s go! I mean I’m terrible at dancing, but I… I do like you. If you’re not just asking because we’re friends?”

Ginny froze, her heart pounding in her chest, “You do? You like me?” Ginny asked, “You want to go as my date?”

“Yeah. So do you, uh. Like me too?” Jack asked shyly.

“Yes. I was so worried, I thought you would say no…”

They stared at each other for a bit silently.

“We should probably be getting back, it’s getting late…” Ginny said to break the tension.

“Yep.”

— — —

Ginny stood there in her best dress next to Jack as they waited outside of the great hall that had been transformed for the big dance. Alexa had been withdrawn recently, and no matter what Ginny did she couldn’t get her to tell her why. She had thought that when she and Jack had joined her in the Gryffindor common room that they had fixed whatever was going on. But now things were just getting worse with her.

The dance practice for the last few weeks had been so awkward with the older Ravenclaws. Ginny and Jack had to hold hands the whole time while they danced! It made both of them blush and made everyone else tease them. So awkward…

But the day was here for the big ball and they had both practiced. They should be able to get through the first dance without embarrassing themselves.

Ginny was surprised to see that Victor Krum had come to the ball with Hermione Granger, who looked much prettier than she usually did. She was wearing a pink dress and had her hair pinned up, and looking like a spell had been cast over her so the light always was the most flattering to her.

Fleur Delaceur was with a Hogwarts boy unfamiliar to Ginny. Fleur looked vaguely annoyed while the boy near her looked just happy to be near her as they all waited for the doors in front of them to open in a few minutes. Everyone else was already waiting inside, having filed into the great hall for the last hour and a half.

“Where is that boy?” McGonagall said with a frustrated huff, “He should have been here ten minutes ago!”

“I’m here McGarden,” Eric’s voice suddenly said from down the hallway, “Just in the nick of time too. I had some trouble tracking down my date here. Seems she was too excited to come and left early. We completely passed each other on our way to find one another.”

Ginny turned and froze when she saw the blonde haired girl standing next to the smirking Eric. The boy was staring straight at Ginny as a single magic tendril formed and reached out from his shoulder to hover a few inches away from Luna’s head. The girl flinched, but after a quick glance at Eric schooled her expression into a flatter mask, even if she did a rather poor job of it.

“Your date seems rather happy to be here, Eric,” Fleur mocked, “I have seen happier people at funerals.”

Eric kept grinning as a second magic tendril spun out of his back and hovered around Luna’s back, causing her to stand straighter and her eyes to widen slightly.

“Yes, you’re doing much better Fleur,” Eric replied in a sly tone, “Do let me know if you need a handkerchief to clean that groupy’s slobber off of you at the end of the night.”

“Why you!”

“Settle down, both of you!” McGonagall cut in, “Eric, I swear another word from you and I’ll have you cleaning the toilets of the castle with your tongue for the next week. Ms. Delaceur, don’t let him provoke you.”

“Sure thing, McGenter,” Eric said and settled down while still staring at Ginny. He spun off another magic tendril and hovered it over Luna’s back. Ginny saw a bead of sweat run down Luna’s forehead, the normally absent and dreamy girl looking nervous.

McGonagall’s eyes twitched and she turned back to the main doors to the great hall and ignored Eric.

Ginny began to unfurl her own magic tendrils around her to get him to back off. Eric tilted his head slightly and his smile grew a little wider as he unfurled the magic tendrils of his own. Luna stared between the two of them with wide eyes as the clouds of magic tendrils waved around the both of them.

All of a sudden Eric withdrew all the tendrils into himself in an instant. He put an arm around Luna and grinned at Ginny.

“Hey, no hard feelings Ginny. Luna here has told me a lot about you helping her over the summer. We just… clicked and she just had to go with me to the Yule ball. Isn’t that right, Luna?”

“Yes… That’s right…” Luna said before trailing off while looking like she was crawling out of her skin.

Eric released her and took a step away and Luna relaxed slightly. “Great, so let’s get our first dance in and then you two can catch up, right?” He said, “I’m sure she’ll want to catch up with our number one champion. Better than me even, the papers say so.”

“Yes!” Luna said, “Ginny and I will catch up after the first dance.”

“Just calm down, Eric,” Hermione suddenly said, “Dancing is your whole thing isn’t it? Why are you ruining it by being all snippy with Ginny about the tournament?”

Eric’s face flashed with a series of expressions, surprise chief among them as he processed Hermione’s statement.

“Fine, Hermione,” He grumbled, “Just for you.”

Hermione nodded in apparent satisfaction and went back to stand over by Victor Krum.

Everyone remained silent with McGonagall in front of the doors to the great hall.

“All right, here it is,” McGonagall said, “Everyone line up. Ginny, you first. Eric next, we’ll go by height so everyone can see you and the older ones aren’t blocking you two…”

Ginny stood in front of the closed doors with her arm linked with Jack’s, her heart beating wildly. She felt Eric spinning up a magic tendril and sent it darting towards her suddenly. She flinched slightly and turned around to glare at him. But he just shrugged, his arms linked with an uncomfortable Luna’s. Unrepentant.

Ginny turned back around and tried to ignore him as he invisibly poked and tried to prod her. Her first dance with Jack would go great, no matter what Eric had to say about it! He wouldn’t do anything while Dumbledore was right there watching. Probably.

The doors opened to the great hall, and hundreds of faces were suddenly looking at Ginny and Jack. At McGonagall’s prompting, she walked forward with Jack, the other three pairs of champions following closely behind. The crowd had parted, forming a little corridor for them to walk through to reach the dance floor. It reminded Ginny of Harry’s funeral in Teregatt, the Guard standing on either side of her silently as they approached the pit for Harry’s fake body…

They stepped onto the dance floor and walked into a square formation with a pair evenly spaced. Eric had stopped his taunting with his magic tendrils and seemed to be ignoring her for now that they were actually on the dance floor.

“Our Triwizarding Champions, everyone!” Dumbledore said loudly from a stage set up across the room, “And without further ado… let us begin the first dance.”

Soft music began to play and Jack put one hand around her waist while grabbing the other outstretched one like they had practiced in their classes. They started moving through the steps they had practiced. They stared into each other’s eyes for a second before Ginny blushed and looked away as they continued. They continued and Ginny looked into Jack’s eyes again. This time he was the one who looked away. The cycle continued as they danced, the whole thing feeling way different than any of the practice ones had. Ginny barely even noticed the crowd or even Eric, totally focused on the steps and making sure she didn’t mess anything up and on Jack.

Eventually the music faded away and they stopped dancing. The music picked up, becoming more active.

“The first dance, everyone! Ah, to see the beauty of young love for our champions,” Dumbledore said wryly, “Now let us join them! Let the festivities begin.”

Ginny realized that she was still holding Jack's hands and released him and took a step back as more and more couples went onto the dance floor.

“You want to dance again?” Jack asked, looking slightly disappointed.

She glanced around and saw that now that there were more people dancing no one seemed to be paying attention to them anymore.

“Yeah, let’s go again.”

So they kept dancing.

Eventually they got tired and made their way to the snack table to get some food and drinks. Eric was doing some crazy intense dance all by himself on the dance floor, Luna nowhere in sight near him. Ginny let out a little hidden sigh of relief. Hopefully she was okay after whatever Eric had done to convince her to go with him to the dance.

The two of them sat down and started to snack and chat a bit, Ginny feeling light and in a good mood that things were going so well. Neither of them had tripped and looked like idiots in front of the whole school!

She frowned as she saw Eric approaching their table, with Luna standing ramrod straight next to him. With so many people and their magic in the room, Ginny was having trouble sensing things with her magic sense so she couldn’t tell if Eric had any of his magic tendrils out.

Jack saw Eric a second later.

“Still don’t know why you hate him so much,” Jack whispered to her, “He’s a jerk sure. But you really hate him, Ginny.”

“You don’t know him like I do,” Ginny whispered back.

“Ah, we do know each other so very well, don’t we, Ginny?” Eric said as he approached, appearing to hear her despite her whispering directly into Jack’s ear.

“Thought I’d drop off Luna here into your care,” Eric said, “Thanks for the first dance, Luna. See you around, you weren’t half bad given the… circumstances.”

Luna quickly sat down next to Ginny.

“Anyways, toodles!” Eric said with a jaunty little wave, “I’ve got some dancing to get back to. And find Draco, I haven’t checked on him in a while. I wonder who he brought to the dance? I wonder how much insulting her would provoke him? Hmmmm…”

He turned around and returned to walk back towards the dance floor without giving them a second glance.

Ginny inspected Luna all over.

“Luna? Are you okay? Did he do anything to you?”

“No, that was rather frightening,” Luna said, “I was creating some… what we practiced over the summer in the hallways. I’ve just figured out how to make two at a time and really control them well you know… He was passing by and noticed. He showed… how much better at it he was compared to me, and said… Well, I’m fine. He just wanted somebody to dance with for the ball. Didn’t even know that we knew each other until he started asking me questions about the thing I did. It’s kind of rather sad, isn’t it, that he had to force me to go with him rather than having somebody he actually likes.”

“You’re really okay? He didn’t hurt you?”

“No, Ginny. I’m fine,” Luna said dreamily, her stress visibly sliding away as Eric didn’t return to drag her onto the dance floor, “Now I think it’s about time for me to go. Daddy always said that it isn’t safe to wander about after dark, and the sun is about to set.”

“Er, okay. Bye Luna. Sorry that Eric did that to you.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Luna said, “Goodbye, Ginny, Jack. See you later…”

Ginny noticed that Preston was sulking at a table across the way, glaring at Ginny. She scrunched up her face and stuck her tongue out at him briefly. He scoffed, but looked away and stopped glaring at her. Ginny looked back to Luna, but the blonde haired girl had already stood and was gone, melting into the crowd of partygoers at the ball.

“I didn’t know that you knew Luna Lovegood,” Jack said, “Where did you meet her?”

“Our parents are friends apparently. Mom brought me over to their house over the summer. I thought I told you in one of my letters. Didn’t I?” Ginny said, briefly distracted trying to find Luna in the crowd before giving up and turning back to Jack.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jack said, “I think I would have remembered that.”

“Okay. You want to go dance some more?”

“Let’s.”

— — —

At the end of the night, the two of them were back in the Ravenclaw common room holding hands as they went. Ginny hesitated for a moment before giving Jack a big hug, which he returned for a minute or two. They just stood like that for a while hugging each other for a while.

“We should probably go to bed,” Ginny said even while they still stood there hugging. Jack released her.

“Yep. Yes, makes sense. So, ah. See you tomorrow, Ginny?”

“See you, Jack.”

Ginny went to bed and as she drifted off to sleep she felt light and content on how things had gone.

Jack really liked her.

Jack liked her.

Jack.