Love at First Sight (Harry Potter)

Yule Ball pt.2

|ALEXANDRIA WEASLEY'S P.O.V.|

Christmas morning brought with it a flurry of white, fresh snow. It covered the grounds, soft and gentle. Us girls however, tucked up in our dormitory with the roaring heater, did not feel so much as a chill when we awoke.

As soon as I had opened my eyes, I was met with the sight of Hermione in her bed beside mine. She was sat upright already, stretching her arms with her eyes squinted shut. I looked along her bedsheets until I'd found her trunk at the bed's foot, which was piled high with presents.

I jolted upwards, smoothing down my messy hair with my hands. On my other side, Parvati and Lavender were already awake; huddled together on the latter's bed, and each ripping off the wrappings from separate parcels.

"Merry Christmas," came Hermione's voice, tired and yawning, as I shuffled towards the pile of presents at the end of my bed. I heard her throwing aside her own night covers.

I had been gifted a numerous amount of presents, all of different shapes and colours. I remember calling a simple greeting back at Hermione as I began to ruthlessly tuck into the parcel that I recognized as being from my mother. True to her nature, inside was a knitted sweater: green in colour with a little white cat on its chest.

"Amara!" I called out through a whistle, looking up and around the dormitory. My white cat (Amara) was the spitting image of the cat my mother had knitted. I often did not often see much of Amara, however, for she was most usually out and about the castle grounds with Hermione's cat named Crookshanks. "Amara!"

She did not come.

"I saw them leaving last night when I got up to use the loo," said Hermione with a click of her tongue, speaking of Amara and Crookshanks. "They've probably gone to terrorise the suits of armour in the North Tower again."

I rolled my eyes, folding up the sweater and putting it down beside me when I noticed something shiny at the bottom of the package. In place of the usual assortment of homemade fudge, which my mother would always send alongside an annual sweater, was a shoe.

I gasped, rather dramatically, as I reached inside the package and pulled them out. The shoes were silver in colour and sparkling from the shiner that she must have scrubbed them with. They had short kitten heels at their bottoms. I held them up, showing them to Hermione.

"Wow," she said. "Very beautiful."

I was also given some Honeydukes sweets from Hagrid — as was Hermione —, a frilly quill from Ron, and a Muggle parchment-flipper from Hermione – she corrected me, it is called a notebook.

After we had finished opening our presents and gotten dressed, we went down to the common room wearing comfortable loungewear. The common room was already bustling with activity as we stepped off of the girls' stairs; students of all ages were collected in groups, talking animatedly. We heard the many calls of "Merry Christmas!" passing amongst the room as we made our way to the couch, where Ron was sitting with Harry.

"Merry Christmas, boys!" said Hermione cheerfully as she rounded the couch to stand in front of them. They both smiled at her, wishing her a Merry Christmas.

"Hey! Nice sweater!" I said with a smile, pointing at Harry. We all wore the sweaters that my mother had knitted for us, as we did every Christmas. This year, Harry's was made of the same shade of green wool that mine was — although, instead of a cat, his had a dragon on the chest.

He glanced down at his sweater, nodding. "Merry Christmas, Ria."

Breakfast in the Great Hall was a true testimony to just how excited everyone in the castle was for the Yule Ball. Students, teachers and staff alike were talking about it. We heard nothing other than conversation about dress robes, shoes, and dates.