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Mia Potter, curled up with a pillow on her bed in the Gryffindor dorm, was stubbornly holding tears. At the foot of her bed sat her best friend, Hermione Granger, always there for her in the hardest moments.
“I’m tired of all the expectations, you know? First the Dursleys expect me to be normal, then the wizarding world expects me to be great, and I’m neither normal nor great. No — I know what you’ll say,” she stopped Hermione who smiled apologetically. “I get it. I’m not a freak, I’m a great witch. It’s just… People look at me and don’t think Mia, they see this child hero who is going to save the day again. And I haven’t asked for any of this. Not losing my parents, not facing Voldemort again and again, not being a Hogwarts champion. And now what, they expect me to show up at the ball with some handsome prat at my arm, and act all girly? I’m not a girly girl!”
“I know you aren’t,” Hermione said. “Neither am I, for that matter.”
“You…” Mia snorted. “At least you wear skirts. The number of people who asked me for the ball is ridiculous. You know who asked me today?” She jumped off the bed and threw the pillow across the room. “Berty Vane!”
“But he’s in seventh year,” Hermione gasped.
“Exactly!” Mia started pacing. “People went crazy, I tell you. No guy as much as looked at me in that manner in all three years. The most ridiculous? Between a seventh bloody year and Colin Creevey, I don’t have anyone I could actually go to the ball with!”
“Don’t you… don’t you fancy anyone?” Hermione asked, whispered almost. They haven’t talked about that. All sorts of things, but not that.
Mia stopped pacing and shook her head. “No, not really. I’m not much into this kind of thing, I guess. Or maybe I just never had time to stop and ogle some bloke. Let alone date. I’ve got you and Ron and I’m more than happy with that.”
“You could go with Ron,” Hermione suggested, her expression complicated.
Mia barked out a laugh. “Ron? He called me bro yesterday!” She narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Do you fancy him?”
“No,” Hermione said, but her cheeks turned pink. “He’s probably thinking I’m just another bro of his, anyway.”
“He’s a fathead if he doesn’t see you’re… Well… You’re prettier than me,” Mia ended clumsily.
Hermione shook her head. “You’re pretty, Mia. Maybe you’re not a girly girl but who cares. I don’t care, that’s for sure.”
Mia’s knees felt funny, and she had to sit down next to Hermione. She looked at their hands — so close but not touching. They held hands hundreds of times, but for the first time Mia imagined holding Hermione’s hand in a dance.
Who cared about blokes, anyway.
Mia cleared her throat. “You know… I don’t think there’s anything in the rules saying a girl can’t go to the ball with a girl.”
“There isn’t,” Hermione said, a flicker of understanding in her eyes.
Quickly, not giving herself time to second-guess, Mia extended her hand and asked, “Will you go to the ball with me?”
Hermione placed her hand in Mia’s very carefully, tenderly even, and smiled. “I think it’s a great idea, actually.” She had a very pretty smile, and it lit up her deep brown eyes in a way Mia had never noticed before. They were sitting like that, hand in hand, even when Lavender and Parvati burst in, giggling, unaware of the secret agreement.
***
It was the very next day, on their way to the Great Hall for breakfast, that Ron finally found his last braincell. He stopped in his tracks, Mia and Hermione bumping into him.
“Mia, I just realised… You’re a girl!”
“Took you three years,” Mia smirked.
“No, I mean… We could go together, couldn’t we? I’d rather you go with me than with that seventh year, you know.”
“Thanks for caring, but I’ve got a date.”
“You what?!” Ron’s eyes bulged out. “Who?”
“It’s a secret,” Mia said, eyeing Hermione who was smiling a bit smugly. “You’ll see at the ball.”
“Fine,” Ron grumbled. “Happy for you, though. As long as he’s not a seventh year.” He looked almost relieved. “Right, then… Hermione?”
“What, Ron?” she asked sweetly.
“Well, you’re a girl, too… Could we…?”
“Sorry to disappoint,” now her smile was edging on cruel, “but I’m going with someone else, actually.”
“What?!” Ron looked positively gobsmacked. “But how — I mean, both of you — neither of you had a partner yesterday!”
“What a wonderful coincidence,” Hermione said. “You can imagine my partner of choice is also a secret.”
“Oh, you can keep your secrets just fine, I don’t care!” Ron shouted and stormed off. Mia and Hermione exchanged guilty looks.
“I have a bad feeling,” Mia said.
“I just hope he doesn’t go and ask, I don’t know, Fleur Delacour,” Hermione sighed.
As it turned out, Ron did just that.
After experiencing public humiliation of that scale, going to the ball alone would hit much harder. Mia felt bad for Ron, and however slow in the matters of romance (who she was to judge, anyway), he was her friend.
She didn’t know anyone who could go with Ron, that was the problem. Maybe Lavender or Parvati could, but Mia wasn’t going to ask them on his behalf — they held a grudge against her since her sudden rise in popularity amongst the boys of Hogwarts. Other girls Mia talked to were either Quidditch team members, all of them older and probably already taken, or Ron’s sister Ginny. The latter had to have some friends in her year who wouldn’t think twice before accepting an invitation, Mia only hoped Ginny herself had a date.
That evening, Mia approached Ginny in the common room. “Hey Gin,” she said, taking a seat across from the girl.
Ginny narrowed her eyes. “You want something.”
“I do,” Mia admitted. “But first, do you have a date for the ball?”
Ginny shook her head sadly. Dang, there went Mia’s hopes. It looked like she was doomed to play a matchmaker for the Weasleys.
“Okay,” Mia said, thinking hard. “Do you know Neville Longbottom? He’s very nice actually,” she hastened to add as Ginny grimaced.
“Why don’t you take him to the ball yourself, then?”
Neville did, in fact, ask her for the ball not half an hour earlier, and had it happened the previous day, maybe Mia would even accept, but now she had to decline for the reason she told Ginny, “Because I’m already going with someone else.”
“Oh?” Ginny seemed fairly excited. “Do I know them?”
“You do,” Mia smirked, “but that’s a secret.”
“Don’t tell me it’s my brother,” Ginny threw her hands in the air.
“It’s not. Actually, that’s what I was going to ask you about. Do you happen to know anyone who could go with Ron? He’ll be unbearable if he’s the only one of us three who doesn’t have a partner.”
“So Hermione goes with someone, too,” Ginny said thoughtfully. “I hate to help my useless brother, but… Do you know Luna Lovegood?”
“That weird girl who sits with you sometimes?”
“She’s alright, just a bit different. Her family lives next to the Burrow. Maybe she’ll want to go with Ron.”
Mia thought privately that she would be more concerned about Ron not wanting to go with someone whose eyes were that protuberant, after his complaints about noses and ears and pimples. But he wasn’t in the position to choose, frankly speaking.
“Thanks Gin,” Mia said sincerely, “let us know what she says. Think about Neville, will you?”
“If I go with him, that’s a butterbeer on you.”
“Deal.”
***
Finally, the day of the ball arrived. Hermione withdrew to Ginny’s dorm, them doing each other’s hair, while Mia was perfectly fine with only applying a comb (a lot of effort, by her standards). She sat in the common room in her bottle green robes that were a bit too frilly for her taste but not offensively so. At quarter past seven, Neville joined her, looking very pale. Then Ron appeared, his robes somehow much more resembling a dress than Mia’s. It would suit Luna Lovegood’s weirdness, Mia hoped.
“That’s a Gryffindor, then,“ Ron said, plopping down between Mia and Neville. “And he’s making you wait. What a dandy, huh?”
“Aren’t you supposed to meet your date in the entrance hall?” Mia asked.
“Yeah, but it’s only half past seven.”
“And who’s making a lady wait,” Neville muttered.
Ron opened his mouth to counter him but froze, his eyes fixed on the stairs to the girls’ dorms. Two girls stepped into the common room. The one with fiery red hair wore fuchsia and lilac dress robes, not unlike Ron’s maroon ones but devoid of any traces of lace. The other one, in floaty periwinkle robes, with her hair in an elegant updo, seemed a beautiful stranger for a moment — yet Mia knew her better than anyone else.
As if in a dream, she got up from her seat. Hermione, for of course it was Hermione, approached her with a shy smile. “Ready to make an impression?”
“Like never before,” Mia replied.
“I don’t get it,” Ron said, looking between Mia and Hermione. “Where’s the dude?”
“Oh, come on,” Ginny rolled her eyes, “how can you be so dense?” She grabbed Neville by the arm and headed to the portrait hole. “Don’t make Luna wait!”
“Let’s go.” Mia took Hermione’s hand and followed Ginny, Ron trailing behind in bafflement. Mia was dreading the moment all eyes would land on her, the moment she was supposed to act a certain way, but Hermione’s hand was warm in hers and that was what mattered the most.
The entrance hall was packed with students dressed up in all shades imaginable. It was all blurry for Mia, but Ginny waved animatedly at someone, and a blonde girl floated across the hall — Luna Lovegood, her canary yellow robes a bright spot even in the colourful sea of people. Mia noticed she was wearing radish-shaped earrings.
“Hi Ron,” she said detachedly, “I like your robes, it’s a very romantic choice.” Ron made a weird sound which Luna ignored. She looked at Mia and Hermione. “Nice of you to go together. People are usually stopped by the Wrackspurts.”
“Wait, what?” Ron said, his eyes competing with Luna’s.
“The Wrackspurts, they’re invisible and…”
“No, not that. How do you mean together?”
“It’s rude to interrupt,” Luna said, while Mia silently raised her and Hermione’s joined hands.
“But… But… You’re both girls! It’s, it’s cheating!”
“Rotten luck, being beaten by a girl, huh?” Ginny teased. Neville by her side looked like he wished to be anywhere else, even in Snape’s office.
“Beaten, what? It’s not that! I, I don’t have a crush on Hermione, if that’s what you’re saying!”
“Who said anything about Hermione?” Ginny winked. Ron went completely red which was clashing badly with his robes, and Mia silently sympathised with Luna upon whose head she brought this disaster.
“Looks like you’ve got loads of Wrackspurts,” Luna said melodically, staring at Ron. “Don’t worry, it’s curable.”
Thankfully, at that moment professor McGonagall announced that the champions and their partners were to gather on one side of the doors. Mia gave a half-hearted wave to Ron, Luna, Ginny and Neville while Hermione beamed at them a bit scarily, and they departed. The looks and whispers of people coming to the realization that Mia and Hermione weren’t just holding hands as girls do were unsettling but somehow pleasing.
If Mia was expected to show up at the ball and dance, she was doing it in the most unexpected way, and she was totally going to enjoy the night.