Finally, it was the thirtieth of October, and even though tomorrow was the actual date of the Halloween Ball, everyone was excitedly talking about it everywhere you turned. Everywhere. And it was really starting to give Draco a headache.
Somehow, he and Hermione had managed to finish the decorations for the dance without any Voldemort attacks. And, luckily, Ginny was going to be just fine, though she was still in the hospital wing recovering from shock. But, for the most part, it was actually pretty quiet at Hogwarts. Well, except for the constant talk about the dance...
"Oh my God, this is gonna be so much fun! I love dances," Draco heard Lavender Brown say to Parvati Patil as he sat behind them in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Elaine was late, so everyone was talking as they waited for her arrival.
"What's wrong, Draco?" Samantha asked.
"I'm sick of hearing everyone talk about the dance," Draco mumbled. Samantha grinned.
"Oh my God, I'm going with this, like, really hot guy and..." Samantha said in the most fake voice Draco had ever heard in his life.
"I'm not listening..." Draco said, tuning out her voice and basically everyone else’s.
Samantha went to talk to Brianna as Draco sat with his head down on his desk. He was still moping about the forced breakup of he and Hermione, and he noticed Hermione was doing the exact same thing.
Just then, Elaine entered the classroom, carrying in yet another strange looking creature. This one, however, was a water creature; it was sitting in a class tank filled with water, and it looked like a mutated baby shark or something like that.
"Class, settle down, please! It's time to begin the lesson," she shouted over the talking students.
"What on Earth is that thing?" Harry asked suddenly, staring at it like everyone else was.
It had to be the strangest creature on the planet. It was a disgusting green color, and it had teeth of all sizes jutting out from its diagonally shaped mouth. Its fins were two different sizes, and it looked like it was angry at all of them.
Elaine smiled at them. "This is a Karpion. I know it looks very strange... does anyone know why, by the way?" Once again, Hermione's hand was the first to shoot up into the air.
"Yes?" she said, nodding at Hermione.
"Well, the Karpion's body is designed like this for the ability to be able to swim in all directions at once to avoid its attackers," Hermione replied matter-of-factly. Draco loved hearing her speak...
"That is correct. Five points for Gryffindor. Now, what we're going to do today is read from our books about the Karpion, and your assignment for next week will be an essay on the Karpion. Understood?" Elaine asked. The class nodded, though none of them looked too happy about getting homework the day before the dance.
"Excellent. Now, get to work!" Everyone quickly pulled out some parchment and their quills, trying to get as much as they could get done before the dance.
* * *
Soon the day was over, and Draco walked back to his common room feeling exhausted. Why had the teachers given them so much homework the day before the dance, anyway? It made no sense to him, or anyone else.
He sat down on his usual chair and pulled out his books. He could at least get some work done before tomorrow.
* * *
Finally, it was the day of the Halloween Ball. And, Draco had to admit, he was pretty excited about going, though he didn't show it. He was going with Brianna, since Samantha was already going with a Slytherin sixth year named Matt Weston, and Brianna was much easier to talk to than Samantha anyway, so he was happy with it.
Draco got up, making sure he was quiet since Hermione was still sleeping, and went downstairs to eat breakfast. There were no classes in honor of the dance, so most students were sleeping in, but for the few who always woke up early, there was already breakfast downstairs.
Surprisingly, there were a lot of people there. Samantha and Brianna being two of them.
"Draco! Hey, come sit down," Brianna said. Samantha seemed to be indulged in a conversation with Matt Weston, who was actually pretty good- looking as Samantha had said the previous day as a joke, with his golden brown, I-know-I'm hot, hair and chocolate brown eyes.
"Hey, how's it going?" Draco asked as he sat down and began eating.
"Eh, it's okay, you try listening to these two talk," Brianna replied, looking over at Samantha and Matt, who seemed to be hitting it off really well.
Draco chuckled. "Sounds like fun. Really." Brianna rolled her eyes as she dug her fork into a huge pile of eggs.
"Oh yeah, thanks for taking me to the dance tonight..." Brianna mumbled through her mouth full of eggs.
"You're welcome. I didn't have anyone to go with anyway... it's not that big of a deal," he replied casually.
* * *
The day went surprisingly fast, seeing as everyone was excited for the dance. For most of the day, the students had hung out with each other on the Hogwarts grounds, or just stayed in the common rooms and did nothing all day.
Four hours before the dance was supposed to start, Samantha and Brianna stood up from the shaded area they were sitting on outside.
"Where are you going?" Matt asked. He'd started hanging around them all day, and Draco had to admit, he was a great person to hang out with. And, now Draco didn't have to listen to Samantha and Brianna's girl talk all day.
"We're going to go get ready for the dance," Brianna said.
"Already?" the two boys said in unison.
"Yeah, we have to look good, you know," Samantha said, winking at them both.
"I'll never understand girls..." Matt said, sighing.
"You and me both, buddy," Draco agreed.
The two boys decided to go back inside, since it was getting rather cold outside. Draco led Matt to the Great Hall to show him the decorations he and Hermione had done for the dance.
"Wow," Matt said as he looked around.
It was pretty impressive. Orange and black streamers hung around the doorways, one table was decorated with a black tablecloth and a talking punch bowl, and ghosts flew around everywhere. The lanterns in the room were lit by orange and black fairies, and there was now a stage at the front of the room, where, instead of a band, they'd gotten some wizard disc jockey to play the music for them.
"This is awesome," Matt continued as the two boys walked around.
"Yeah, and it took a really long time to finish," Draco replied.
* * *
After Draco and Matt had circled the Great Hall several times, they decided to go back to the Slytherin common room to wait for Samantha and Brianna. Draco hadn't been to the Slytherin common room in what seemed like ages, so it would be nice to go back for a little bit.
Draco and Matt talked for a long time, basically to get to know each other since they'd never really talked before. Besides, Samantha and Brianna were taking forever, so they could really do whatever it was they wanted to.
But when Samantha and Brianna finally were done, the two boys couldn't keep their eyes off of them.
"Hey, you guys," Samantha said as she and Brianna walked down the stairs.
"Hey,- whoa," Draco and Matt said together.
Brianna was wearing a satin, sapphire-blue dress that went just past her knees and had fancy Indian beading on the top of it with strappy silver heels. Her hair was done in a fancy bun, and her makeup was subtle but still extremely nice. Samantha was wearing a velvet, ruby-red spaghetti strap dress that went just above her knees and strappy black heels, which were similar to Brianna's shoes. Her hair was done in fancy ringlets, and her makeup looked just like Brianna's, just with slightly different colors.
The two boys were speechless for about five minutes as they stared at their dates. All they'd really done was put on a nice shirt and pants, done their hair nicely, and sat around and waited for the two girls. And here it had taken Samantha and Brianna four freaking hours to do all of this.
"So... what do you guys think?" Samantha said, spinning around to reveal that the back of her dress was very low-cut.
"R-really nice," Matt stammered, staring at the two.
"Y-yeah. Both of you," Draco said, still staring at both of them.
The two girls giggled. "Boys... such little perverts... well, let's go then!" Samantha said, taking Matt's hand as the four walked out of the Slytherin common room.