The first task had concluded safely, albeit in a slightly different manner than Mirabel's knowledge of the original timeline had suggested. But the tournament was far from over; next, the champions had to tackle the second task. Preparations needed to begin immediately, but before that, another event awaited, one that was causing considerable anxiety among the student body.
The Christmas Yule Ball.
This event, designed to foster inter-school friendship, required each attendee to select a partner of the opposite sex. As a result, the school was buzzing with a strange, feverish energy. For the adolescent boys and girls, the question of whether they could secure their desired partner was of the utmost importance.
"A ball… Mirabel, have you found a date yet?" Edith asked, nibbling on a sausage at the dinner table.
She wasn't the only one preoccupied with the topic. Ever since the ball was announced, the same conversation could be heard at tables all around them.
"Yes, Flint asked me, so I accepted. What about you?" Mirabel replied, sounding completely indifferent, before turning the question back on her.
Edith's shoulders slumped in disappointment, and she let out a small sigh. "No, not yet… Harry and Hermione are going together, and I'd hate to be the only one without a date."
"What? Isn't Granger supposed to go with Viktor Krum?"
"Well, apparently he asked her, but she chose to go with Harry instead. So Krum asked the youngest Weasley sister."
Mirabel frowned at Edith's words. The pairings had diverged significantly from her knowledge. Originally, Harry was supposed to go with Parvati, and Hermione with Krum. Ginny Weasley was supposed to ask Neville Longbottom. This jumbled outcome was likely another consequence of Ronald Weasley's absence, even if it was only for one year. Mirabel surmised that his absence had brought Harry and Hermione closer, making it easier for them to ask each other.
"Mirabel, do you know anyone good?"
"I can lend you Sydney if you'd like. He won't defy an order from me."
"…No, it's fine. It would just feel empty to be taken to a dance under orders."
Mirabel's younger brother, Sydney, was certainly handsome. Plenty of girls would love to go with him. But being taken out of obligation would just be pathetic. There was no joy in that. Edith explained as much and declined Mirabel's offer.
"Well, I'll just look for someone."
"Yes, that would be for the best."
There was still time before Christmas, so it wasn't time to panic yet. In the worst-case scenario, she could always resort to the final option: not attending the ball at all.
As they were thinking, that relentless man—Malfoy—interrupted their conversation.
"Hey, Beresford, have you found a date yet? Though with that nasty personality of yours, I doubt anyone's asked. If you're really desperate, I suppose I could take pity on you and reluctantly be your partner…"
"I already have one. You go and dance with that pug-faced girl."
"…"
Malfoy was visibly crestfallen and trudged back to his own table. As usual, her rejection was utterly merciless. Edith was starting to feel sorry for him.
In their subsequent classes, most students were too preoccupied with the ball to pay attention. Not that it made much of a difference in History of Magic, which was taught by the ghost Professor Binns; no one ever listened in that class anyway.
The restless days passed, and at last, Christmas day arrived.
When Edith woke up, a small mountain of presents sat at the foot of her bed, and a smile instinctively spread across her face. Even after four years, the thrill of waking up to presents addressed to her was still exhilarating. There were various accessories from the Reinagle family and an assortment of sweets from her Slytherin friends, including Daphne Greengrass. Harry had given her a hair ornament, and Hermione a necklace, likely for the ball.
Mirabel's gift was a golden statuette of a dragon. Apparently, Mirabel had crafted it herself using alchemy. Edith could only shake her head in amazement at her friend's seemingly endless talents.
(A three-headed dragon… I think I saw something like this in a Japanese movie.)
Edith set Mirabel's statuette aside and looked over at her friend's bed. There, she saw a literal mountain. It was an annual tradition for the massive pile of gifts from Mirabel's followers to form a huge mound. It was also an annual tradition for her to tie most of them to several dozen owls and send them to her family's storehouse without even checking the contents (an act that temporarily reduced the owlery's population by more than half). However, she always kept and opened the gifts from people other than her followers, like Edith and Marcus, which suggested she didn't dislike receiving them.
That evening, the long-awaited moment finally arrived. It was time for the ball.
The common room was already filled with students waiting, all of them dressed in colorful, formal attire so different from their usual uniforms. Edith wore a blue one-piece dress, an opal necklace sparkling at her chest. Unaccustomed to being so dressed up, she kept checking herself in the mirror to make sure she didn't look strange, a sight that might have been comical if everyone else hadn't been doing the same thing.
As Edith was performing her repeated checks in the mirror, the common room suddenly fell silent, and she froze. Wondering what had happened, she turned around and saw a creature so otherworldly it looked as if a princess had walked straight out of a storybook.
Mirabel's magnificent blonde hair, which usually fell to her waist, was elegantly tied up in a princess-style curl. A silver tiara sat on her head, and she was wearing a pure white princess dress. While she normally wore no makeup at all (the fact that she looked like that without makeup was monstrous, in Edith's opinion), today she had applied a light, subtle touch, further enhancing a beauty that, while still youthful, was already a kind of perfection. Her exposed shoulders and collarbones gave off a dangerous allure, and her elegant posture, so different from her usual demeanor, felt almost divine.
"Please go back to your picture book."
"What's that, all of a sudden?"
It was the first thing that came out of Edith's mouth. This was bad. With someone like her walking around, every other girl would be reduced to a mere backdrop. The only one who could possibly compete was Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons, but she wasn't a Slytherin, or even a Hogwarts student, so she didn't count.
"Well, I've learned one thing for sure: you should never be allowed to dress up."
"I have no need for such things in the first place."
That settled it. Her usual Hogwarts uniform was more than enough. This was truly a problem. She already exuded an inexplicable charm, and this outfit amplified it several times over. At this point, it was basically an Imperius Curse. An Unforgivable Curse was walking around wearing a dress. Perhaps the Cruciatus and Killing Curses were around somewhere, too. One thing was certain: from this day forward, 'the Walking Imperio' would be added to her list of nicknames.
"Whatever. Let's go downstairs, Reinagle."
"What? We're going together? I'll be completely overshadowed."
"Don't worry. In my presence, everyone is overshadowed."
The frustrating part was that, while it sounded like overconfidence, it was undeniably true. Edith sighed and followed Mirabel, keeping a slight distance. Walk beside her? No way. She refused to be a direct comparison.
When they reached the Great Hall, Marcus Flint seemed to have been waiting for Mirabel and came to greet them. But the moment he saw her, his face froze, and his entire body went rigid like a statue.
"Oh…"
"Hey, Flint?! Get a hold of yourself!"
"I have no regrets in my life… This Marcus shall return to the heavens without the aid of another…"
"Calm down, Flint! You can't return to the heavens!"
Edith shook Marcus, who had lost his senses and was muttering nonsense. He snapped back to reality with a gasp and looked around, seemingly unaware that he had lost his mind. He probably didn't even remember what he had been muttering.
"W-what was I…?"
"Flint, are you alright? I have no use for a man who can't even serve as a proper escort."
"I-I'm fine. No problem. Give me your best equipment."
This might be a lost cause, Edith thought as she scanned the hall for her own partner. He should have arrived by now. But what she saw instead was not her date, but a breathtakingly beautiful girl with flowing silver hair.
It was Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons.
She was walking toward Mirabel, and Mirabel toward her. They stopped in the middle of the hall and stared each other down in silence.
"Would you mind moving? 'Ogwarts student. I would like to pass."
"You move, Beauxbatons student. The only time I step aside is when there is filth in the road."
Sparks flew between them. This wasn't a metaphor. Their heightened magical power was generating actual sparks. For two individuals with absolute confidence in their own beauty, such a confrontation was inevitable upon meeting.
Fleur's gaze hardened, and she slowly raised a hand. In response, Mirabel cracked her knuckles and flashed a ferocious grin.
"Whoa, stop, stop! Don't fight in a place like this! You two, stop them!" Edith pleaded, turning to their partners.
"I no longer need the title of Fist King… This Marcus shall become the Demon King and…"
Marcus was already a lost cause. Mirabel alone had been enough to make him lose his senses, and the addition of Fleur had sent his consciousness into another dimension. He probably couldn't even understand what Mirabel and Fleur were saying anymore.
So, Edith looked to Fleur's partner, Roger Davies, for help, but he too was tripping, muttering incomprehensible words.
"The Sea of Oceanus was here… that roaring tide was Oceanus itself…"
"…"
He was useless, too. His reason had been hit with the Killing Curse. But Edith couldn't bring herself to blame him. Even she, a girl who was used to seeing Mirabel every day, could be charmed if she let her guard down. She couldn't possibly tell these two boys, born as they were, to resist.
"Alright, alright, you're in the way of other people! If you want to fight, do it later!"
Wouldn't it be better to just isolate these two beautiful girls in a separate dimension? With that rude thought, Edith forcefully stepped between them, breaking their standoff. She then grabbed Mirabel's arm and dragged her away.
"Wow, she actually got between them…"
"…What a woman."
Though all she did was stop a fight, for some reason, she was being met with looks of praise and respect from those around her. Feeling her face flush, she cursed Mirabel internally. Why did she have to suffer this embarrassment at what was supposed to be a fun party?
As if oblivious to Edith's feelings, Mirabel spoke to her in her usual tone. "By the way, Reinagle, who is your partner?"
"Theodore Nott."
After they had put enough distance between themselves and Fleur, Edith looked for her partner and saw a slim boy walking toward them. Among the Slytherin boys, he was a pretty good catch. Mirabel hummed in what seemed like approval, a smirk playing on her lips.
"You chose rather well."
"Yeah… well."
Hiding her blush, Edith answered curtly and quickly moved to a table. Many students were already seated, a confused atmosphere hanging over them. The reason was the empty golden plates set before them. Although there were menus, there were no waiters in sight, and no one seemed to know how to order.
"What is this… How are we supposed to order?"
"Hmm. They've certainly put some thought into this," Mirabel said with amusement, a contrast to Edith's frown. She looked at the menu. After a quick scan, she murmured, "Carpaccio."
Instantly, carpaccio appeared on her golden plate, and the other Slytherin students finally understood the novel ordering system.
"Wow… how do they do that? Um, Scotch egg… is that right?" Edith said hesitantly. As she read from the menu, a Scotch egg appeared before her. She let out a cry of admiration. "Oh, amazing… but Hermione is definitely going to complain about this system."
"Ah, speaking of which, I hear she's recently been trying to establish an organization called 'S.P.E.W.'"
"It's not 'spew,' it's 'Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare,' abbreviated as S.P.E.W."
"And its purpose is to improve the rights of house-elves, was it?"
Lately, Hermione had become almost obsessed with advancing the rights of house-elves. She was incredibly active, running around the different common rooms trying to recruit anyone and everyone, placing donation tins all over the castle, and cornering students in the corridors to give them long speeches. So far, however, her efforts had been fruitless, with most students ignoring her completely. The only members besides herself were Harry and Ron, who had been forced to join, and Edith.
"Granger is clever, but sometimes she can be a fool."
The advancement of house-elf rights… on paper, it sounded like a noble cause. But Hermione seemed to be championing it without a true understanding of house-elves. She needed to learn that the house-elves themselves had no desire for improved rights.
However, Mirabel wasn't entirely opposed to the idea. As a firm believer in meritocracy, she found it distasteful that highly capable house-elves were being bossed around by incompetent wizards. She had no intention of forcing a freedom upon them that they didn't want, but she did think they deserved to serve worthy masters. In that sense, Mirabel was halfway in agreement with Hermione's ideology.
"Oh, the dance is starting. Hey, that's… Hermione, right?"
The champions and their partners were the stars of the ball. As the music began, Harry, Fleur, Krum, and Diggory took to the floor, but Edith's eyes went wide when she saw one of the pairs: Harry and Hermione. Could anyone in the room blame Edith for a moment of thinking, Who is that?
"Yes, that is undoubtedly Granger. She always had the potential to be attractive. She simply never bothered to polish it until now."
Her usually bushy hair was now smooth and styled into an elegant chignon, and light makeup highlighted her features beautifully. The periwinkle-blue dress she wore suited her surprisingly well, and the absence of the usual mountain of books she carried made her look like a completely different person. The girl dancing with Harry was, without a doubt, beautiful. But it was a different kind of beauty from the unapproachable, almost inhuman beauty of Mirabel or Fleur. It was the beauty of a girl you could imagine walking beside you.
"Well, it's about time we had a dance ourselves. Let's go, Flint."
"R-R-Right!"
Mirabel stood up, and Marcus scrambled to follow her. Edith and Theodore followed suit, heading out onto the dance floor. They stepped in time to the music, enjoying the night's festivities.
A graceful ball just before the second task. This isn't so bad after all, Edith thought, even as she struggled with the unfamiliar steps.
If only, she wished, these happy school days could last forever—.
***
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[10 Advanced Chs] [14 Chapters/week]