Roses and Riots | f. weasley

Chapter 27: The Ball

Fred beamed down at Emilia as she agreed to be his date to the ball, by some stroke of luck. He could hardly believe it as she stood smiling up at him, looking completely ethereal. He looked away then, worried he'd been staring. This was Emilia, what was wrong with him?

"Brilliant," Fred said in obvious delight, despite himself, and he tucked Emilia's hand in the crook of his elbow like a proper gentleman. 

He mentally thanked George for his meddling, though of course he wouldn't say it out loud in case his brother got the wrong impression, because obviously he and Emilia were going as friends, that's all. 

They walked into the Great Hall which was already filled with students in formalwear, and winter-themed decorations and snow-covered pine trees made the hall almost unrecognisable.

Emilia stared in awe at the decorations in the hall, and Fred looked at how the white lights made her dress glitter, and her eyes sparkled in amazement as she looked around.

"Wow, it's..."

"Beautiful," Fred said without thinking, not looking at the decorations at all.

Emilia smiled at him and he quickly averted his gaze, his ears going red under his hair, "it is, isn't it?"

"There you are! Get over here for pictures!" George yelled at them, waving his arms erratically.

Emilia and Fred shared a look and laughed, and then headed over to their friends to get their photographs taken. Emilia's heart was still pounding in her chest, and she couldn't quite believe how much things had changed in the space of five minutes, but she could barely contain her happiness as she dragged Fred by the hand to their waiting friends.

After taking pictures as a group, and then in their pairs, they all crowded around a table near the buffet and immediately grabbed plates of the sweet treats that were on offer as well as crystal glasses of punch.

"Mum is going to love this," Fred chuckled, looking down at the photographs.

Emilia looked at them too, both of them showed them grinning at the camera, and then looking at each other and laughing.

"You almost look decent in them," she said, taking one to put into her clutch.

Fred raised his eyebrows, "now, now, Emilia, I'll have you know that you have the fittest date in the room."

She grinned at him, "apart from you."

He laughed, and then Lee ran over having stolen a tray of profiteroles from the buffet table, and they all dug in.

After a short while of mingling and eating, an announcement was made for them to make way for the Champions and their partners.

The Champions had to perform a dance to officially launch the ball, as per tradition, and so the rest of the students cleared the dance floor and instead gathered around the perimeter of the white floor, which was enchanted to look like ice, to watch the dance. Emilia, for one, was looking forward to seeing Harry prancing around the dance floor, though she didn't have much confidence in him having any actual dancing skills.

Emilia stood between the twins in the front row of the crowd, and the orchestra began to play as the Champions began to file through the doors. Fleur Delacour from the Beauxbatons was first in with none other than Emilia's ex, Roger Davies, on her arm as her date.

"Prick," the twins muttered in unison as Roger walked past with Fleur.

Emilia shook her head fondly at them both, finding it hilarious that they were both still holding a grudge to the point that Roger didn't dare even look in her direction anymore. Well, that was probably both because of the twins, and due to the fact that she'd threatened to hex him herself.