Fic: Yule Romance (Fic Challenge #18)
Title: Yule Romance
Summary: The Yule Ball causes Dean to begin having new feelings for a certain Gryffindor.
Characters/Pairings: One-sided Dean/Ginny
Genre: Fluff
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: None
Medium: Fic
Word Count: 1751
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: Sure
If yes, your Tumblr username: Don't think I have one
Dean had never intended for it to happen. The night was supposed to be a well-deserved evening of fun and frivolity, a night of music and dancing with his friends, both old and new. Love was never supposed to enter the equation…
Like the other Gryffindor boys in his dorm, Dean had braved the gaggle of girls in the hallway a couple of weeks before the ball, had managed to ask Dominique, a Beauxbaton girl, to the Yule Ball with only the slightest stutter in his tone. To his amazement (though he hid it well) her response, accompanied by an orchestra of giggling from her friends, had been yes, and there had even been a slight tinge of pinkness in her pale cheeks as she said it.
“Didn’t know you liked ‘em French,” Seamus had teased when Dean had joined him in Charms class afterwards.
“Ah, shove off,” Dean replied, though he was beaming. It wasn’t so much that he liked Dominique - she was beautiful of course, and certainly a boy could do worse - just that time had been ticking down and of the remaining dateless girls she seemed the best bet on his part. The last thing he wanted was to end up dateless.
Preparing for the evening had been a joke-filled ordeal for him and his friends, with much discussion of the couples for the ball, from the envious (“"I still can't work out how you two got the two best-looking girls in the year.") to the skeptical (“There’s no way Crabbe and Goyle could have gotten dates! Even Moaning Myrtle wouldn’t give them the time of day!”) to the teasing (“So Seamus, have you and Lavender picked out your pet names for each other yet?”). It did not go unnoticed by Dean that Ron seemed slightly harsher on Neville than the others that evening. Then again, Neville was taking Ron’s only sister as his date, though Dean doubted there was much need for worry there. Neville hardly seemed like the wandering hands type, and there was no question that Ginny Weasley was more than capable of watching out for herself. Dean had witnessed this first-hand a couple of times in the hallways between classes when Ginny had run afoul of some Slytherins.
Dean stepped in front of the mirror, adjusting his dress robes, and as he looked himself up and down and singular feeling hit him: he felt absolutely ridiculous. His dress robes were standard (certainly not the embarrassment that Ron’s were), but he couldn’t help but think of himself as a child who was trying to play grownup by donning one of his father’s suits. Was it normal for fourteen-year-olds to get so dressed up just for a dance? Were balls a part of the normal lives of teenagers? Everything he had seen in the muggle world told him no, but he had learned long ago that the muggle world and the wizarding world had more than a few differences.
He jumped as a hand came down on his shoulder with a clap. “Come on, then, Dean. Don’t want to keep the ladies waiting,” his friend said with a wink.
Dean followed them form the dorm, feeling even more foolish as he descended the staircase. Did the others feel like a fraud the way he did? As though they had no business being as dressed up as this, as though they were still little children simply pretending to be older and more mature?
The common room was atwitter with excitement, busting at the seams with students, both those attending the ball and those who couldn’t but who still wanted to see what everyone was wearing. Dean nearly tripped over a first-year who was “oohing” and “aahing” over Katie Bell’s sapphire-colored robes. In an effort to not trample upon her he made a quick sidestep, only to slam into another form, though this one slightly taller.
“Oof!”
“Sorry,” Dean said, turning toward the sound. He began to say more, but the sound became stuck in his throat as he saw the girl in front of him.
“No worries, it’s mad in here,” Ginny said as she ran her hands down the front of her robes, smoothing them down.
Her robes were nothing glamourous; a combination of seafoam green and light pink with a collar that did little to dispel a childish demeanor. No doubt they had been purchased second hand just as Ron’s had been, or perhaps even borrowed from another girl (as Ginny would not have known when she came that year whether she would be invited to attend the Yule Ball). They fit her well enough, though they had not been made for her the way other dress robes clearly had been. Her red hair was pulled back - a rarity, Dean suddenly realized, as it usually hung around her face - and she certainly did not have the same trinkets and adornments to complement the robes.
Yet Dean was drawn to her in a way he never had been. Granted, he had never attempted to look at Ginny as anything other than his friend’s sister (which made her forbidden to him and any other wayward boys), but in that moment she seemed a different person, a person Dean wanted to know better. Perhaps, he realized, it was that she looked as though she felt as silly as he did in her get-up, and not only because it lacked the attraction of those dress robes surrounding her. She looked down her skirt with more than a little disdain.
“I can barely move without stepping on someone.” Ginny continued, oblivious to Dean’s sudden silence.
“Yeah,” Dean said lamely. He winced inwardly. Why couldn’t he have had a cooler response?
He wanted to say more, to strike up a meaningful conversation, but soon a nervous Neville was at their side, awkwardly proffering his arm which Ginny politely took, and off they went toward the portrait hole, leaving Dean standing there with his mouth slightly agape.
“C’mon,” Seamus beckoned with Lavender hanging tightly onto his arm, “your date is waiting!”
***
The Hogwarts staff had truly outdone themselves in decorating the Great Hall. It had never looked half as magnificent, even during the most recent Christmas breaks. The ceiling was decorated with ice crystal as snow gently fell; the edges of the hall were stuffed with dazzling Christmas trees, each one more beautifully adorned than the next; the wooden tables the students had grown so accustomed to had been replaced with smaller ones, each with stunning place settings.
Dominique tittered excitedly as she entered by Dean’s side, her robes of deep purple satin rippling like liquid as they walked. She was clearly impressed by the décor. “Not as beautiful as we ‘ave at Beauxbatons,” she insisted, “though still lovely.”
“Mm,” Dean hummed, barely listening. His eyes were on the red hair swishing back and forth a few paces on front of them. They remained on Ginny even as the Champions entered; he barely took note of Dominique gushing over Fleur or of Seamus and Lavender pointing at Hermione in disbelief.
Perhaps if things had been different he would have enjoyed that evening more. Certainly he would have been a better partner to his date. Perhaps if Neville hadn’t invited Ginny and she had not been down in the Common Room, dressed to the nines and wearing the same expression of discomfort that Dean had. Perhaps if he had not noticed her on his way out, had simply found his own date for the evening and had spent the ball focused on her alone. But as it was Dean could not stop his gaze from constantly finding Ginny.
As he and Dominique danced, he snuck peaks, grinning inwardly as he saw the look of pain on Ginny’s face with each misstep Neville took. She really was trying hard to be kind that evening, no matter what the cost.
“You seem distracted,” Dominque said at last. “Am I not pretty tonight?”
Dean turned to face her, saw that she was glaring at him suspiciously. “What? No…um…sorry, what was the question?”
“Ah, it is ‘opeless,” she said, pulling away. “I can see. It is that…that…Herminny, yes? The one Viktor Krum ‘as been courting?”
“Huh?”
Dominique just rolled her eyes and stormed off, leaving a semi-confused (though somewhat relieved) Dean in her wake. He could not pretend to feel too disappointed, though he then realized he still was not dancing with the girl he truly wanted to be.
A small commotion caught his attention, especially when he realized it was coming from Ginny’s direction.
“Watch where you’re going!” Draco snarled. “Got two left feet, do you, Longbottom?”
Before red-faced Neville could utter a syllable, Ginny had stepped between the two. She was small, but her look was withering. “You bumped into us,” she said. “Not surprising you have such poor sense of direction, though; I’ve seen you play Quidditch after all.”
Draco’s face grew a shade paler and his eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t you be off composing a love letter to Potter? What’s the matter, why didn’t he take you to the ball? Too good for you now that he’s a champion?”
“Where’d you get those dress robes?” Pansy added with a sneer. “They’re almost as hideous as your brother’s.”
“At least I don’t look like a stick of candy floss,” Ginny shot back with a jut of her chin, daring them to go on. “Though I suppose the hideous color distracts from your face.”
Draco stepped in toward her until they were almost toe-to-toe. He towered above her, but Ginny didn’t even blink.
“You were rude to me date, Weasley. Now apologize or things could get ugly.”
Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, they will get ugly.” And before Draco could even form another reply, Ginny had grabbed the skirt of her dress robes and hoisted them up. Her leg shot out, foot stomping hard upon his. Draco leapt back with a painful yelp, landing atop Pansy in the process. The two of them fell to the floor, sprawled out amidst the feet of dancing couples.
“Come on, Neville,” Ginny said, taking her date’s hand authoritatively, “let’s try dancing where there’s a bit more space.” With that, they disappeared into the crowd.
Dean’s heart was beating even more quickly now. He had never seen any girl take such a stand against Draco (though he had heard about the incident with Hermione the year before). For Ginny to stare up at him without a flinch…
“Wow,” he muttered under his breath, wishing more than anything that she had been there with him that night. It was the night that Dean Thomas fell hopelessly and utterly in love with Ginny Weasley.
ColleenClaw/58+5=63
Summary: The Yule Ball causes Dean to begin having new feelings for a certain Gryffindor.
Characters/Pairings: One-sided Dean/Ginny
Genre: Fluff
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: None
Medium: Fic
Word Count: 1751
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: Sure
If yes, your Tumblr username: Don't think I have one
Dean had never intended for it to happen. The night was supposed to be a well-deserved evening of fun and frivolity, a night of music and dancing with his friends, both old and new. Love was never supposed to enter the equation…
Like the other Gryffindor boys in his dorm, Dean had braved the gaggle of girls in the hallway a couple of weeks before the ball, had managed to ask Dominique, a Beauxbaton girl, to the Yule Ball with only the slightest stutter in his tone. To his amazement (though he hid it well) her response, accompanied by an orchestra of giggling from her friends, had been yes, and there had even been a slight tinge of pinkness in her pale cheeks as she said it.
“Didn’t know you liked ‘em French,” Seamus had teased when Dean had joined him in Charms class afterwards.
“Ah, shove off,” Dean replied, though he was beaming. It wasn’t so much that he liked Dominique - she was beautiful of course, and certainly a boy could do worse - just that time had been ticking down and of the remaining dateless girls she seemed the best bet on his part. The last thing he wanted was to end up dateless.
Preparing for the evening had been a joke-filled ordeal for him and his friends, with much discussion of the couples for the ball, from the envious (“"I still can't work out how you two got the two best-looking girls in the year.") to the skeptical (“There’s no way Crabbe and Goyle could have gotten dates! Even Moaning Myrtle wouldn’t give them the time of day!”) to the teasing (“So Seamus, have you and Lavender picked out your pet names for each other yet?”). It did not go unnoticed by Dean that Ron seemed slightly harsher on Neville than the others that evening. Then again, Neville was taking Ron’s only sister as his date, though Dean doubted there was much need for worry there. Neville hardly seemed like the wandering hands type, and there was no question that Ginny Weasley was more than capable of watching out for herself. Dean had witnessed this first-hand a couple of times in the hallways between classes when Ginny had run afoul of some Slytherins.
Dean stepped in front of the mirror, adjusting his dress robes, and as he looked himself up and down and singular feeling hit him: he felt absolutely ridiculous. His dress robes were standard (certainly not the embarrassment that Ron’s were), but he couldn’t help but think of himself as a child who was trying to play grownup by donning one of his father’s suits. Was it normal for fourteen-year-olds to get so dressed up just for a dance? Were balls a part of the normal lives of teenagers? Everything he had seen in the muggle world told him no, but he had learned long ago that the muggle world and the wizarding world had more than a few differences.
He jumped as a hand came down on his shoulder with a clap. “Come on, then, Dean. Don’t want to keep the ladies waiting,” his friend said with a wink.
Dean followed them form the dorm, feeling even more foolish as he descended the staircase. Did the others feel like a fraud the way he did? As though they had no business being as dressed up as this, as though they were still little children simply pretending to be older and more mature?
The common room was atwitter with excitement, busting at the seams with students, both those attending the ball and those who couldn’t but who still wanted to see what everyone was wearing. Dean nearly tripped over a first-year who was “oohing” and “aahing” over Katie Bell’s sapphire-colored robes. In an effort to not trample upon her he made a quick sidestep, only to slam into another form, though this one slightly taller.
“Oof!”
“Sorry,” Dean said, turning toward the sound. He began to say more, but the sound became stuck in his throat as he saw the girl in front of him.
“No worries, it’s mad in here,” Ginny said as she ran her hands down the front of her robes, smoothing them down.
Her robes were nothing glamourous; a combination of seafoam green and light pink with a collar that did little to dispel a childish demeanor. No doubt they had been purchased second hand just as Ron’s had been, or perhaps even borrowed from another girl (as Ginny would not have known when she came that year whether she would be invited to attend the Yule Ball). They fit her well enough, though they had not been made for her the way other dress robes clearly had been. Her red hair was pulled back - a rarity, Dean suddenly realized, as it usually hung around her face - and she certainly did not have the same trinkets and adornments to complement the robes.
Yet Dean was drawn to her in a way he never had been. Granted, he had never attempted to look at Ginny as anything other than his friend’s sister (which made her forbidden to him and any other wayward boys), but in that moment she seemed a different person, a person Dean wanted to know better. Perhaps, he realized, it was that she looked as though she felt as silly as he did in her get-up, and not only because it lacked the attraction of those dress robes surrounding her. She looked down her skirt with more than a little disdain.
“I can barely move without stepping on someone.” Ginny continued, oblivious to Dean’s sudden silence.
“Yeah,” Dean said lamely. He winced inwardly. Why couldn’t he have had a cooler response?
He wanted to say more, to strike up a meaningful conversation, but soon a nervous Neville was at their side, awkwardly proffering his arm which Ginny politely took, and off they went toward the portrait hole, leaving Dean standing there with his mouth slightly agape.
“C’mon,” Seamus beckoned with Lavender hanging tightly onto his arm, “your date is waiting!”
***
The Hogwarts staff had truly outdone themselves in decorating the Great Hall. It had never looked half as magnificent, even during the most recent Christmas breaks. The ceiling was decorated with ice crystal as snow gently fell; the edges of the hall were stuffed with dazzling Christmas trees, each one more beautifully adorned than the next; the wooden tables the students had grown so accustomed to had been replaced with smaller ones, each with stunning place settings.
Dominique tittered excitedly as she entered by Dean’s side, her robes of deep purple satin rippling like liquid as they walked. She was clearly impressed by the décor. “Not as beautiful as we ‘ave at Beauxbatons,” she insisted, “though still lovely.”
“Mm,” Dean hummed, barely listening. His eyes were on the red hair swishing back and forth a few paces on front of them. They remained on Ginny even as the Champions entered; he barely took note of Dominique gushing over Fleur or of Seamus and Lavender pointing at Hermione in disbelief.
Perhaps if things had been different he would have enjoyed that evening more. Certainly he would have been a better partner to his date. Perhaps if Neville hadn’t invited Ginny and she had not been down in the Common Room, dressed to the nines and wearing the same expression of discomfort that Dean had. Perhaps if he had not noticed her on his way out, had simply found his own date for the evening and had spent the ball focused on her alone. But as it was Dean could not stop his gaze from constantly finding Ginny.
As he and Dominique danced, he snuck peaks, grinning inwardly as he saw the look of pain on Ginny’s face with each misstep Neville took. She really was trying hard to be kind that evening, no matter what the cost.
“You seem distracted,” Dominque said at last. “Am I not pretty tonight?”
Dean turned to face her, saw that she was glaring at him suspiciously. “What? No…um…sorry, what was the question?”
“Ah, it is ‘opeless,” she said, pulling away. “I can see. It is that…that…Herminny, yes? The one Viktor Krum ‘as been courting?”
“Huh?”
Dominique just rolled her eyes and stormed off, leaving a semi-confused (though somewhat relieved) Dean in her wake. He could not pretend to feel too disappointed, though he then realized he still was not dancing with the girl he truly wanted to be.
A small commotion caught his attention, especially when he realized it was coming from Ginny’s direction.
“Watch where you’re going!” Draco snarled. “Got two left feet, do you, Longbottom?”
Before red-faced Neville could utter a syllable, Ginny had stepped between the two. She was small, but her look was withering. “You bumped into us,” she said. “Not surprising you have such poor sense of direction, though; I’ve seen you play Quidditch after all.”
Draco’s face grew a shade paler and his eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t you be off composing a love letter to Potter? What’s the matter, why didn’t he take you to the ball? Too good for you now that he’s a champion?”
“Where’d you get those dress robes?” Pansy added with a sneer. “They’re almost as hideous as your brother’s.”
“At least I don’t look like a stick of candy floss,” Ginny shot back with a jut of her chin, daring them to go on. “Though I suppose the hideous color distracts from your face.”
Draco stepped in toward her until they were almost toe-to-toe. He towered above her, but Ginny didn’t even blink.
“You were rude to me date, Weasley. Now apologize or things could get ugly.”
Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, they will get ugly.” And before Draco could even form another reply, Ginny had grabbed the skirt of her dress robes and hoisted them up. Her leg shot out, foot stomping hard upon his. Draco leapt back with a painful yelp, landing atop Pansy in the process. The two of them fell to the floor, sprawled out amidst the feet of dancing couples.
“Come on, Neville,” Ginny said, taking her date’s hand authoritatively, “let’s try dancing where there’s a bit more space.” With that, they disappeared into the crowd.
Dean’s heart was beating even more quickly now. He had never seen any girl take such a stand against Draco (though he had heard about the incident with Hermione the year before). For Ginny to stare up at him without a flinch…
“Wow,” he muttered under his breath, wishing more than anything that she had been there with him that night. It was the night that Dean Thomas fell hopelessly and utterly in love with Ginny Weasley.
ColleenClaw/58+5=63