Chapter Text
Chapter I: Done Deal
The storm that was the Yule Ball had been building steadily for days.
Well, he supposed it was more accurate to say that it’d been simmering in the background of his school year ever since he realized that the dress robes Mum had packed for him had to mean that they’d actually have to wear them at some point. He’d been noticing a lot more before-class snogs than he had last year, hearing a lot more whispers of So-and-So going to Madam Puddifoots with Such-and-Such, but it had all finally clicked into place when Professor McGonagall sat them down and explained the whole thing to them.
The pair ups had only become more obvious since then, and considerably more frequent. You could barely walk five steps into the Great Hall for breakfast before tripping over some poor sod making goo goo eyes at some not-so-lucky lady.
Thus far, Ron was doing his level best to let it all roll over him like it didn’t even matter.
And that’s because, when he stopped to think about it, he realized that it really didn’t. It was just some silly little thing that the higher ups at the Ministry must’ve thought would look good to the Prophet. Ron himself had no interest in dancing, and even less interest in the idea of having to stick his neck out and actually ask a girl to go to the ball with him. Best case scenario, the girl said yes, and now he had to put on his terrible ancient dress robes and be bored all night, or worse… try to actually dance. He had three left feet when it came to that sorta thing, and he had little doubt that he’d make a complete fool of himself.
And worst case scenario… the girl said no, and he looked like even more of a fool in front of everyone.
Not that he was scared, mind you! He could do it. He could do it no problem.
He just wasn’t too interested in it, is all.
(Why did the bloke have to be the one to ask the girl anyway? Chivalry? It was 1994 for crying out loud, an era of equality was upon them! )
Shoving a rather scrumptious eclair into his mouth with a snort at his own wit, Ron glanced aside at his best friend.
Harry was absentmindedly swirling his spoon around in his barely-touched cornflakes, his green eyes flicking across the Great Hall to the Ravenclaw table every now and again.
Ron was reasonably sure that Harry fancied someone over there, but he’d just never been one to pry into that sort of thing. Of course, he was curious, considering how rarely they tended to consort with Ravenclaw. Looking a bit more closely, he could plainly see that there were a few pretty girls their year, and definitely several in the years ahead, but Ron hadn’t the slightest inkling which of them it could be.
For a moment, Ron wanted to ask, but then Harry was sighing and dropping his fork, and Ron figured that it was probably a bad time.
Harry was the one who was actually going to have to dance in front of the whole school. Ron could spend the night in the common room if he wanted (and he’d been strongly considering it), but Harry didn’t have much of a choice.
‘Price of fame,’ a mean little voice in his head whispered, which he squashed before it could keep talking.
Sighing again, whatever it was that had been on Harry’s mind finally gave him a moment to breathe. “Where’s Hermione?” Harry asked after he caught his breath. “I didn’t see her when we got to breakfast.”
“Probably off in the library,” Ron grumbled with a shrug. “Trying to find a book on how to arm house elves for rebellion, I expect.” S.P.E.W. had caused her nothing but consternation. He had no idea why she was even trying it, and he’d told her as much more than a few times, which had predictably caused an argument between them each of those times. Harry kept well out of those, but Ron was sure Harry was as bored of hearing them as he was at this point. Spearing a banger with his fork, Ron snickered. “That, or she’s trying to hide from suitors.”
Harry gave him a somewhat disapproving look, but the flare of curiosity in his eyes won out. “Has she been asked, you think?”
The thought of someone asking Hermione to the ball was strangely discomforting, and it was all Ron could do to force a laugh. “Her? No way. Besides, she’d tell us wouldn’t she?”
Harry didn’t look quite so sure as his eyes returned to the Ravenclaw table. Again, the opportunity to get Harry to spill his guts presented itself, but Ron resisted. He still felt guilty about how… things had been back before the first task, and he really wasn’t in any mood to open a new rift between the two of them.
Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t prod a bit.
“How about you? How many are you at now?”
Harry slumped over the table, barely avoiding making a mess of his robes. “Just the three,” he said with a tone that was somewhere between amusement, horror, and regret. “That second year, the third year, and the tall one.”
Ron couldn’t exactly blame Harry for turning down that second year. It’d be more than a little awkward to turn up at the ball with a twelve year old on your arm, especially since he was pretty sure neither the twins nor Malfoy would ever let anyone hear the end of it.
But the other two? A third year wasn’t so bad a gap. It took a good amount of courage to ask a champion to the ball, and she hadn’t been ugly either. Ron wouldn’t have begrudged Harry for taking her up on her offer, at least after a purely cursory period of jeering on his part.
And that third girl, the tall fifth year Ravenclaw, she’d been downright pretty! He’d have accepted her offer in a heartbeat.
Though, that was much easier for Ron to say, considering how Harry’s growth spurt had been lagging behind Ron’s own.
Could he be regretting turning her down? Getting an older date was certainly harder than getting a younger one, and would’ve made Harry look much more… impressive when standing alongside the older champions.
Attempting to follow Harry’s gaze, Ron quickly figured this couldn’t have been the case. That tall Ravenclaw girl was on the clear opposite side of the table from where Harry was looking, and if the dirty looks she was sending their way were any indication, she wouldn’t have let Harry take her to the ball now if he begged on his hands and knees.
No, there had to be some other girl over there that Harry was fancying. That was the only reason Ron could see for Harry to have turned down all of those girls.
Staring into the gaggle of Ravenclaw girls eating their breakfast, Ron scanned across the likeliest suspects. Could it be Lisa Turpin? She wasn’t too bad to look at… and she always had her nose in a book, so she probably wasn’t an idiot. But… ehh, she was a little plain. Harry would definitely set his sights a little higher than that.
Sue Li? She was a smidge prettier, but really rather quiet. Ron wasn’t sure either of the two of them had ever even spoken a word to her. The girl was an enigma, but maybe that’s what Harry wanted? Another mystery to solve?
‘Maybe Mandy Brocklehurst?’ Just then, the strawberry blonde girl took a rather unflattering looking sip from her glass of pumpkin juice, and so Ron tossed that option aside.
Perhaps he was going about it all wrong, maybe it was actually one of the Hufflepuffs that Harry was staring at, and Ron just wasn’t following his gaze correctly. But that seemed more than a little odd to Ron, considering the fact that they’d been even more antagonistic toward Harry than he had been. Though they’d cooled somewhat since the end of the first task (as that third year Hufflepuff so aptly demonstrated), it still struck Ron as unlikely.
Still, there were a few there that Ron could conceive of Harry fancying, especially Hannah Abbot with her long blonde hair (that almost made him think of Fleur’s silver-gold locks if he squinted his eyes) and Susan Bones with her hu–
“–Ron!” Harry’s voice cut through Ron’s investigations like a hot knife through butter. Harry was giving him a bit of an annoyed look, so he must have been talking for a bit before he realized Ron wasn’t listening. “You in there?”
“Sorry,” Ron attempted to say, before he swallowed his food with a wince and repeated himself, “ Sorry . What was it you were sayin’ mate?”
Harry made a noise and looked like he was having serious second thoughts about filling Ron in on whatever it was. Sighing again, he decided to take pity on him. “I was asking if anyone had asked you.”
Ron couldn’t help the snort that escaped him. He gestured vaguely at himself. “You seriously think someone asked me?”
Harry shrugged nonchalantly, his eyes swimming with an emotion Ron couldn’t read. “You never know. I’ve seen girls look at you before.”
Ron promptly choked on his pumpkin juice, coughing as he thumped his chest in a laborious attempt to dislodge the usually tasty liquid from the wrong pipe. “Yeah, right,” he sputtered as he finally caught his breath. “Probably checking if I’ve got any food stuck to my face.”
He wasn’t even a George or Fred, let alone a Charlie or Bill. Harry must’ve been seeing things.
Harry stared for a long moment, then shrugged again. “Well, what’re your plans then? You asking someone?” Harry asked.
Ron already had his recently cleared mouth full of another eclair that definitely wouldn’t improve his chances at getting a date, so Harry was left hanging long enough for him to roll his eyes in annoyance. Finally, Ron had swallowed enough to speak. “Well, it hasn’t not crossed my mind,” he said, mostly intelligibly.
He would be lying if he said anything else. Every time he chanced across Fleur Delacour in the halls, it took all of his willpower not to throw himself at her feet begging for a chance to breathe the same air as her. But there was no way she hadn’t already been asked. She was too gorgeous not to have been! He had no chance with her in any case; she could have pretty much any bloke she wanted, and probably a good chunk of the girls too.
Of course.. he could always take Hermione if it came to it.
Shaking that thought from his mind, he turned the question around on Harry. “What about you then? You’re the one who needs to snag a date.”
Harry gave himself away by immediately glancing back toward the other tables and then back to his bowl of now-soggy cornflakes, a light blush creeping up his face. “I… I might have a bit of an idea.”
Ron looked around for eavesdroppers, but Dean and Seamus were sitting a good few feet away and no one else was close enough to make anything out. So, leaning in closer to Harry, he whispered, “C’mon mate, you can tell me. I’ve seen you looking over to them Ravenclaws. It’s one of ‘em, isn’t it?”
Harry gaped at him, clearly having thought he was more surreptitious than he really was. “I– well– don’t tell anyone, alright?” Harry mumbled after making a check for eavesdroppers of his own. As soon as Ron had nodded his solemn promise, Harry was talking, as if he’d been waiting for the opportunity to tell someone at long last. “It’s Cho. Cho Chang.”
Thinking of all the pretty girls whose names he knew in Ravenclaw, it didn’t take more than a second for the right face to come to mind. Ron smirked. “Oooh. Their seeker?”
Nodding, Harry continued breathlessly. “I’ve been trying to ask her, but every time I see her, she’s got a horde of girls all around. How am I supposed to ask in front of all that?”
Ron snickered in commiseration. “You’ve fought a dragon haven’t you? What’s a load of girls next to that!”
“I’d much rather face the Horntail again,” Harry said completely seriously. “At least I know I can fly away from the dragon, and I won’t be passing it in the halls on the way to Charms the next day if it says no.”
Ron barked a laugh and that, and then promptly stuffed his mouth with some perfectly fried bacon (he sent his best wishes to the house elf cooks). As he chewed, the thought of Harry and Cho as a pair swirled in his mind. When had Harry first taken an interest in her, he wondered. She was very pretty; Ron couldn’t blame Harry for liking her.
That said… there had to be plenty of boys thinking the exact same things as Harry about the Ravenclaw seeker.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, because Harry was suddenly looking rather worried. “What’s the matter?” he asked, though it was more like an accusation.
Ron grimaced now, most of his good humor leaving him as quickly as it’d come. “Hate to break it to you mate, but I think she’s probably already been asked.” He lowered his voice again. “A girl that pretty? No way she doesn’t have a line of blokes after her a mile long.” Cho Chang could probably have her pick of sixth and seventh years even. What was a fourth year to that, even if he was a champion? Adopting a sad smile, he placed his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Not that you shouldn’t give it a try, I just reckon you should be thinking of some backup plans, in case it doesn’t go the way you like.”
Harry’s face fell even more, but he nodded in understanding nonetheless. “Yeah… You’re probably right. I– I should’ve asked her first thing.” He sighed again, and this time the sigh was coming from the depths of his soul. Turning away from Ron, he stared into his cornflakes like a man at the gallows. “Who else could I even ask?”
“Definitely not any of those girls you turned down,” Ron said with a smirk, eliciting a dry laugh from Harry.
Stretching his arms behind his head, Ron gave the thought a serious ponder. Harry was Harry. Harry Potter. Even if he wasn’t a champion he’d have had no problem finding a date to the ball, and the spectacular way he’d completed the first task had wowed everyone but the most determined of Slytherins. Now that he wasn’t getting quite so much scorn… Ron was sure he could have just about any girl their year he wanted that wasn’t already spoken for. And maybe a few of those too. Sure, most of the Slytherin girls were probably out (apart from Tracey Davis, who he knew had at least one friend in Hufflepuff), but Ron doubted Harry would look there first anyway.
As much as he wanted to say ‘ Only near anyone our year,’ he kept that sarcastic remark to himself. He knew Harry hated being reminded of just how much his fame impressed people, even if it worked to his benefit.
“Well, I think you’ve got plenty of options,” he said unhelpfully. “Just a matter of… who catches your eye, I s’pose.”
As Harry mulled it over, a thought struck Ron like a bolt of lightning, and he nearly dropped his not-quite empty glass. “Hey! You could always take Ginny, couldn’t you?”
Harry’s eyes widened considerably, and glanced down the Gryffindor table and back. “I– Really?” He asked, half confused and half surprised. “You’d be okay with that?”
Ron scoffed. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’d rather her go with my best mate than some troll who just wants to squeeze her into a broom closet for a snog.” Briefly, he imagined her going to the ball with Goyle, and the thought of it made him shudder. “And besides, third years can’t even go to the ball if they don’t get taken by someone older, so I’m sure she’d say yes! Even if she didn’t– well– y’know .”
The two of them shared an uncomfortable look. Ginny’s infatuation with Harry wasn’t something they’d ever been comfortable talking about, even when it was just the two of them. Fred and George might poke fun every now and again, but between Harry and Ron it was something of a rather large blast-ended skrewt in the room.
Ginny had become less obvious about it all since her first year, but Ron knew she wouldn’t give up so easily. She’d definitely let Harry take her to the Yule Ball.
“Just a backup though, eh?” Ron added, with a playful elbow into Harry’s side. “Still have to try your luck with Cho, don’t you?”
That just made Harry look even more apprehensive. “Easier said than done,” he grumbled, as he scooped up a spoonful of cornflakes, and then let them drop back into the bowl morosely.
Harry really didn’t know how good he had it, did he? Sometimes it made Ron want to scream. To have it all and not even make use of it.
“Fine,” Ron countered, crossing his arms. “Let’s make a deal then.”
“Deal?” Harry asked, his curiosity sufficiently roused. “What sort of deal?”
Ron forced a grin. “The sort of deal that says by this time tomorrow, we’ve both got dates to the Yule Ball, no matter what.” He studiously ignored the way the thought of doing it made him want to vomit, and focused on getting his best friend out there. If Harry asked Cho today, he might have a chance. If he kept stalling, his chances dwindled.
If Ron making a fool of himself would help Harry, he was willing to do it just this once.
(He was not feeling at all guilty over his month of misplaced jealousy, thank you very much.)
What little color that was in Harry’s face drained away, but after a brief moment of hesitation, he nodded. “Yeah. All right.”
And just like that, the deal was set. Harry would have to pry Cho Chang from her friends and ask her the big question, and Ron would have to find some unfortunate girl to throw himself at. Only one of if he was lucky, and more if he wasn’t.
Suddenly, he didn’t feel quite so much like eating anymore. The bacon that was left on his plate didn’t look as tasty as it had before. Glancing at his watch, he saw that they only had another minute or so before the bell that called them to their next class rang.
Never mind that he didn’t have the slightest idea of what girls he had even a ghost of a chance with.
As he stared sadly at his uneaten bacon, feeling more and more anxious with each passing second, something that Harry had said earlier floated to the surface of his mind.
Feigning nonchalance, Ron picked some earwax out of his ear. “So. About those girls you saw looking at me.” He coughed. “Remember who any of ‘em were?”
By Harry’s sly smirk, it was obvious he wasn’t fooled. “So you believe me now?” Harry leaned closer, and flicked his chin toward the tables opposite them. Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he continued, “I don’t know her name, but she’s over there at the end of the Ravenclaw table. One of Ginny’s friends– third year too, I think.”
One of Ginny’s friends? Ron scarcely paid any attention to who his sister spent her free time with, and he barely knew the Ravenclaws in his own year, let alone those a year below him. Scanning down the length of the table, he looked for any face that seemed halfway familiar… but it was just a blur of faces he'd only ever seen while passing them in the halls on the way to or from the Great Hall.
“ All the way at the end,” Harry added, nudging Ron in the side, “by herself.”
Ron finally looked to the far edge of the Ravenclaw table, and for the briefest of instants, he thought he was looking at the back of Fleur Delacour (which he knew well). But the illusion shattered as quickly as it had formed. This girl’s hair was much longer, and of a somehow even paler blonde. This girl was smaller too, and petite, when he knew that Fleur was tall and shapely. She was sitting far away from anyone else, to the point that Ron knew it had to be intentional.
Some vague recollection stirred. She was familiar, but without seeing her face, Ron couldn’t quite put a name to the hair.
He was squinting to try to make out more of her when the bell rang, and the Great Hall became a flurry of robes and clattering silverware as students shot up from the benches. Ron hastily scooped up his book bag as he stood up, accidentally bumping into Harry as he did the same.
“Careful!” Harry exclaimed without any real venom.
Ron didn’t bother offering an apology. His attention had quickly swung back to the Ravenclaw table, to the girl that Harry said had looked at him.
She was rising from her seat now too, and as she turned, Ron caught the side of her face just before she was obscured by a passing herd of students. By the time they were gone, so was she.
He tried to follow her in the mass of fluttering robes, but he couldn’t. And he didn’t need to. He knew damn well who it was that Harry had seen looking at him.
‘ Loony Lovegood!’
"Is that her name?” Harry asked quizzically as he narrowly dodged a rushing first year Hufflepuff.
Ron didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until he registered Harry’s question a full two seconds later. “Yeah– wait– no,” He shook his head. “Her name’s Luna– Luna Lovegood; her family doesn’t live so far from the Burrow. She used to come over and play with Ginny, and–” He chuckled, bemused. “–she’s– a bit– uh… off .”
Harry only smirked. “A deal’s a deal. This time tomorrow.”
Ron snorted as they exited the Great Hall. A deal was, in fact, a deal.
But as they made their way to their next class, meeting up with Hermione (whose arms were predictably full of books) along the way, there was a nagging question lurking in the back of Ron’s mind. A question he couldn’t quite shake, even as he took a seat in Transfiguration.
Had Loony always been that cute?