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"Why me?" Aria found herself asking, as an incredibly worried expression made its way onto her face. Why did she, of all people, have to dance with Malfoy? She believed that she would rather fight off spiders or eat slugs than do this of all unholy things.

"Well, he is hardly going to go with Hermione now, is he, Aria?" Harry asked her, his voice thick with sarcasm.

Aria glanced down towards her shoes until she heard the familiar voices of her favourite twins in all of Hogwarts.

"What's going on?" they asked.

"Fred, George! You're here!" Ron called out excitedly. He moved over and looked as though he was going to bring his brothers into a hug. Then he paused, a little awkwardly.

Fred squeezed one of Ron's cheeks, while George squeezed the other.

"Of course, we're here," Fred said.

"Did you really think we were going to miss our younger brother's final year of Hogwarts?" George asked.

"Also, you know, there's a war. So, we are here. Got to admire George, though. He managed to get us here without completely crashing the car into the Whomping Willow," Fred said.

George gave a slight shake of his head then.

"It was one time! And Ron did the same!" George protested.

Fred glanced between the two of them with a raised eyebrow.

"You two share one brain cell and I'm fairly sure that Ron is the one carrying it at the moment," Fred said.

Aria shook her head then.

"Disagree, Honey?" Fred asked her, as playful humour flickered in his eyes.

"Yes. Ronald has completely lost the plot! First, he tells me that there's going to be a wizarding ball and the next thing he says is that I should go with Malfoy! I'm assuming you want me to collect enemy intel or something along those lines?" Aria asked Ron, with an expression of frustration.

George and Fred went to rest their arms on Aria's shoulders, then.

"Well, maybe he has a good point," George said.

Fred's head inclined in agreement with that.

"Yeah. I mean, as much as I would love to dress up in a dress and dance with Malfoy, I doubt that's going to happen any time soon," he said.

George turned to Fred and gave a slight shake of his head in a mixture of amusement and disbelief.

"It's perfect because it's unexpected! And if McGonagall is organising this ball then you already know that Malfoy is going to be there. He has to do everything that she says. He disappointed daddy, so now he is here. I don't think he really has anywhere else to go. If I was him, I would be completely sick of my family by now, too. I just wish that he would see he is on the wrong side, at this point," George said.

Fred nodded again.

Aria couldn't believe that the twins had sided with Ron in this! She supposed that family sticked together, though. At least, it did most of the time. Her expression fell for a fleeting moment, as she thought about her older brother Ethan and how their last meeting with each other had gone.

"Hey, I respect you, Aria. You're a clever girl and if anyone is going to get through to the platinum-headed prick, then it's going to be you. You're an intelligent person. That's why we keep you around. That's why you're one of our greatest friends," Fred said, with a kindhearted shine to his warm brown eyes.

Aria considered, for a moment, that it may have been too optimistic for her to have thought that she would make it through the next few months managing to avoid Malfoy. That wasn't ever going to happen for as long as her crazy yet endearing friends were around. Although she really didn't want to go to the stupid ball with Malfoy, in fact, it was the last thing that she wanted to do, she knew that she really didn't want to disappoint her friends. She knew that they relied on her and if there was anything Aria was against then it was upsetting people or diminishing their faith in her.

"Fine," she said, which led Fred to pulling her into a tight hug.

After he had drawn back from the hug, he grinned from ear to ear.

"Incredible! Amazing! I knew we could count on you!" he said excitedly. "Now, according to a conversation that I eavesdropped on earlier. Don't look at me like that. It's how I get all of my information. According to said conversation, the ball is going to take place in a couple of days," Fred said. "All we need to do, George, is learn how to dance. I mean, the Yule Ball was good but we can do better. We just have to distract the Slytherins as much as we can, so Hermione, Ron and Harry can pick up any new information necessary for taking down the big bad bald guy," Fred said.

Aria scoffed at his use of the term 'bald guy' but she could hardly argue against it. A better term, she considered, would be The-Man-Who-Became-Noseless.

"Oh, great. The Weasleys are back. I wondered when you would all return to Hogwarts," Malfoy said with an ice-like tone. Harry considered that it was very similar to the one that Lucius often used. Harry felt tempted to shudder at the thought of Malfoy becoming anything like his father. Deep down, he had always hoped that he would change.

"Good to see you again, Malfoy," Fred said.

"Or not," George chimed in.

"Haven't quite decided that yet," they said in unison.

Malfoy rolled his eyes and their cold stony colour soon crossed paths with the warm honey colour of Aria's.

"Malfoy. There's going to be a ball," George said, "Aria was just saying that she would love to go with you!" he added, which led to him receiving a hefty elbow in the ribs. "Probably deserved that," he said.



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