It was the night of the Yule Ball, and the Slytherins ascended the dungeon steps to gather in the Entrance Hall, where they waited for the doors of the Great Hall to open. Blaise and Wilby were both attempting to adjust the large bow at the back of Cyndee's ruffled navy blue dress.

"It should go like this," Wilby argued, fluffing the bow up and making it symmetrical.

"That defies physics," Blaise complained, but he let it be.

Cyndee was huffing, "If my bow has become spaghetti —"

"It's fine," Drew assured her. She felt a curl of hair slip over her ear and pushed it back. She'd done her hair up earlier, and now it spilled down the middle of her back in twisting coils.

Cyndee smiled at her, azure eyes sparkling under her gold-threaded blond hair. She nodded at Wilby, "Thank you, Wilby. Zabini, you did nothing."

Blaise held his head up, "If I'd known I'd be publicly slandered, I'd have never accepted your invitation."

She teasingly pulled at the sleeve of his expensive dress robes, "It's not slander if it's true —"

"Check your facts or you're as bad as that Skeeter woman."

"Take that back!"

"See, you don't want the truth —"

Amid their squabble, Wilby came to Drew's side and asked, "Do you think I look okay?"

Now it was unavoidable and he knew it, so Drew stared at his black suit. His tie had been black before, but he'd coloured it to a royal purple to go with her dress. She looked up past his mischievous grin and took in his wavy hair that actually waved in an organized way for the first time.

"You look pretty nice," she admitted, and he beamed.

She thought maybe he was done embarrassing her, but then he studied her up and down and said, "You're gorgeous."

"Today," she corrected, warming at the compliment, "but thanks."

"No," he insisted, "yes, you're especially gorgeous today, but I think you're gorgeous every day."

"Oh stop," she wailed.

He just smiled cheekily. The Entrance Hall was getting more than a little crowded, and Drew watched the other students. Her sister was coming down the stairs in her cobalt blue dress with her friends, and Drew waved to her.

Torch had for some reason agreed to go with Isabell, though he seemed more preoccupied with his glitter-dusted silver hair to pay much attention to her.

Drew couldn't help wanting to know what Eliza looked like, but before she could find her Wilby nudged her.

He had noticed with surprise that Xavier was standing near the front, and they made their way towards him, squeezing past a high-collared Malfoy and a frilly-pink Pansy.

"Xavier!" she exclaimed, taking in his white suit and styled hair. "The number of times I've seen you lying about in the same green T-shirt had me believe you owned two outfits. How wrong I was."

"It's not the same shirt" was his only defence.

"You do understand that dressing up doesn't mean you're allowed to just lie down on the dance floor and have a crisis, right?"

Xavier tugged at his cuff links, "Yes."

Wilby eyed him curiously, "Why did you come?"

"Prefects need to be here to stop inappropriate behaviour," the Head Boy grumbled. "I wasn't going to come anyway, but Quentin convinced me. He said I needed to 'have fun,' whatever that means."

He indeed said it like a foreign concept.

"I mean it's the first Yule Ball in centuries," Drew pointed out, "that's pretty special."

Xavier looked like he may have realized something. She wondered if he'd somehow actually listened to her, though it was doubtful. He turned away and checked his silver watch, possibly wondering if it was socially acceptable to leave the Ball before it'd even begun.

The oak front doors swung inwards, and everyone welcomed the Durmstrang students entering with Professor Karkaroff. Krum was at the front of the party, accompanied by —

Drew nearly dislocated Wilby's shoulder when she grabbed his arm. "Is that Granger? Tell me I have prosopagnosia and this is just a brain problem —"

"It's Hermione," he confirmed, staring at her with slight awe.

"No," she insisted, disbelieving. Since when was Hermione's hair not bushy? Since when did she have the confidence to carry herself like that in a periwinkle blue dress?

"Yes," Wilby countered, amused at her stubbornness.

The champions lined up at the doors to the Great Hall, and nobody else seemed to be able to stop themselves from gaping at Hermione either.

Malfoy couldn't even form words, and Pansy was furious.

* ° * ° *

The walls of the Great Hall had all been covered in sparkling silver frost, with hundreds of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossing the starry black ceiling. In place of the House tables were a hundred smaller, lantern-lit ones, each seating about a dozen people.

At the top table were the champions, Dumbledore, Madame Maxine, Ludo Bagman, Karkaroff, and for some reason Percy Weasley.

The four friends sat at their own table in the middle of the room. Small menus were propped up behind golden plates, and Drew picked one up and scanned it.

"I don't see any waiters," Wilby observed, and Drew saw that he was right.

For some wise guidance, they turned to Dumbledore, who said very clearly to his plate, "Pork chops!"

Drew gasped and ordered all of the desserts.

* ° * ° *

Soon enough Drew had stuffed herself, the champions had opened the Ball, and it was time to dance. She stood up from the chair and stretched. Blaise and Cyndee were both still acting like wine-tasters with the different beverages, but Drew gave her dress a brisk smooth and dangled a hand in front of Wilby's face, "Want to dance?"

"Er, as friends?" Wilby stammered.

"Ah, friend zoned," Cyndee muttered into her cup.

"No," Drew corrected, shooting her a glare, "as anything you want."

Wilby hesitantly took Drew's hand, cheeks colouring as he blushed. He also tripped on nothing, which she wasn't even surprised about.

The Weird Sisters' song was fast, so they did some kind of sped up version of whatever vague thing they'd learned from Snape's halfhearted dancing lessons.

Drew wasn't sure where she was supposed to look during all of it. It felt awkward to just stare at Wilby's eyes for the entirety of the songs, but it ended up being what she did.

She smiled at him a little, and he returned it with his own radiant one.

He was just so pure.

For a brief moment, Drew saw Eliza in the corner of her vision, dressed in a long-sleeved gown of ivory and grey and waltzing with a boy from Beauxbatons.

The sight of her nearly ruined her entire night, but Wilby quickly whirled her away, and now she understood why he'd been doing that so often.

Over his shoulder, Drew spotted a tall brown-haired boy peeking into the Great Hall. She let out a small laugh and pointed him out to Wilby. "Looks like we didn't need to bring Quentin. He came back himself."

They were nearly shoved to the side when Xavier went marching past them, face lit up like a star. "Took you long enough!"

Then her sister went spinning by, laughing joyously in her royal blue dress as she clumsily twirled with a fellow Ravenclaw.

Blaise and Cyndee were effortlessly stealing the show, though Cyndee swapped personalities twice and Blaise kept demanding that "his" Cyndee come back. This creeped out everyone around them, but neither of them really minded.

And Drew felt very very happy.

* ° * ° *

It was half-past eleven, and Wilby asked if she wanted to go outside. The Great Hall was getting old, so she agreed.

The lawn in front of the castle had been transformed. Rosebushes and statues of reindeer had been conjured over the lawn. Fairy lights twinkled, and Drew realized they were actual fairies hovering around.

There were a handful of students scattered about. Gracelyn giggled with a girl from Durmstrang on a carved bench, and José and Morfinus appeared to be filching coins from a crystal fountain.

The two boys rushed off when Drew and Wilby went to it, and sure enough, it was empty of anything to pilfer. Then Wilby found a Knut and dried it off with his wand.

He took her hand and dropped it in her palm, "A gift for the fairest."

Drew's heart fluttered at his words, and she examined the shiny wizard equivalent of a British penny. Not of much monetary value, but it was a sweet gesture and she pocketed it.

"Unfortunately," she lamented, "I can't find a Galleon for you, but if I did, pretend I said, 'gold for the one with a heart to match'."

He flushed, "Oh, okay. Th-thank you."

She was struck with an idea, and pointed up, "Hey, look."

He did, then frowned in confusion. "I don't see anything?"

She kissed Wilby on the cheek. "Invisible mistletoe," she grinned. "Thank you for the wonderful night."

Wilby seemed to melt. "You're welcome," he said weakly.

After a bit, Snape arrived to blast rosebushes apart, scattering red-faced students. He seemed to be in such a foul mood altogether that they and everyone else speedily retreated into the castle.

In the dungeons, the prefects were all loudly complaining about someone hogging the prefects' bathroom for hours, forcing them to use the one that belonged to 'commoners' like the rest of them.

"I swear," John was ranting as he counted stacks of gleaming coins, "this is the last time Xavier and Quent get first dibs on our bathroom!"

Drew called her cat back before she could knock over his piles of Knuts and Sickles, then turned to Wilby, "Wouldn't it be funny if we get made prefects next year?" She paused. "Wait, you'd have a good chance, actually."

"I think you do too." He managed to make it sound genuine even though it was ridiculous.

She snorted, "Right. I'm the one who starts so many fights and sledded on the stairs. I froze half the ground floor."

He nodded, "I remember seeing that."

"I saw you," she recalled. "I think you were the only one who wasn't scandalized or absolutely terrified."

Wilby said with obvious surprise: "I didn't think you noticed me."

"Well, I sort of knew you, so yes, of course I did."

"I was scared though, but for you. I didn't think you'd die, but I was worried."

She shrugged, "Sorry to have worried you three years ago."

He smirked, "Oh, believe me, you still worry me." He looked down and tried to undo his tie, but discovered he was having a lot of trouble.

Drew laughed, "Who did that for you? Blaise?"

Wilby tried to act offended, "Me, actually." She mimed eating popcorn as he succeeded in loosening it enough to pull it over his head, messing up his hair.

It made her laugh again. "I have no idea know how you managed to do that wrong."

Blaise and Cyndee arrived, and Cyndee beamed at them, "Did you two have a good time?"

"Yes, I had the best time," Drew answered. Wilby wasn't in a state to reply and seemed to be reeling from some sort of mistletoe-induced flashback.

Cyndee giggled, "Oh no, you broke him."

Wilby flopped backwards onto a sofa, "I'm going to be broken a long time, but in a good way."