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Hermione shook her head at Luna. "I get persuaded every single time they do one of these events and every single time I regret it. It's boring and I end up holding up the wall or talking about politics all night. I'd rather just stay home."
It was Halloween and that night Luna had helped the Ministry organize a masquerade ball. A Masquerade ball, which was supposed to be the event of the year according to wizarding news sources. An event that Hermione had every intention of missing.
"You go to work, then come home and do more work. When's the last time you went out at all?"
Hermione squinted at her, thinking. "Harry's birthday."
"See? It's been months, and you didn't even go out for your birthday."
"Well, it's my birthday so I should get to do whatever I want—so I stayed home like I wanted." Hermione was still pretty cheerful about that, not about spending her birthday alone at home. That had actually sucked, even though she had thought she would enjoy it. But in order to get Harry to agree, they had dueled. And she had won.
Harry tended to win the majority of the time. He was faster and his spells tended to hit harder. But sometimes she still managed to trip him up with a sneaky plan. Hermione was still gleefully thinking of the duel last month when Luna continued speaking.
"Life is more than working, Hermione."
"What? Fine. I'll try harder, but really Luna...this ball thing... and really a masquerade ball for Halloween? Boring. Alot of our friends won't be there either. You know Harry hates going out on Halloween, and Ron is out of the country with his family visiting Charlie."
"That's exactly why you should go. "
Hermione laughed. "What?"
"No one's going to be there. It's a masked ball. You can have some fun. Be someone else for a night. Maybe instead of smart hardworking Hermione for one night you're just a woman who wants to laugh and have fun?"
Hermione gave her a skeptical look. She liked being smart and hardworking Hermione.
"I'm serious. You are making yourself a caricature. Be someone else for a night. Sometimes pretending to be someone else can let us discover things about ourselves."
"That makes absolutely no sense."
"It makes perfect sense. So you'll go?"
Hermione shook her head again, but she was smiling. "You're not going to let up on this, are you?"
"No. And I've got a dress picked out and I've also learned some great disillusionments for hair and eye color! This is going to be so fun!" Luna clapped her hands, looking as if some complicated plotting was coming together.
